 Hi. Welcome to Bridge Side Books. Welcome to Xtempo Storytelling. We were trying to figure out earlier this evening how many times we've hosted Xtempo. And I'm thinking, if I'm counting correctly, this is our 13th evening. I know. So which is really kind of cool. So welcome. Everybody probably knows this already, but let me just reiterate. Stow Street Cafe is open. And they will stay open now through the intermission. So feel free to grab snacks and drinks and whatnot. And then there is a bathroom in the cafe. And also behind us, this is employees only, but we'll let you go on in there this evening. So you're fine. Also, our register is open, so feel free. And yeah, just don't do that, though. And we're just looking forward to another great evening of Xtempo Storytelling. I'm going to turn it on over to Lovejoy for all of the do's and don'ts of storytelling. So welcome. And let's have a great night. OK. Thanks, Hayata. Welcome, everybody. Everybody knows. Should I even do this? Are there newcomers here? Couple newcomers. I'll try an abbreviated version. Yes, I should do it. All right. So Xtempo is short for the word Xtemporaneous, which means carefully prepared but delivered without notes or text. If all goes according to plan, I should be the only person on stage with a piece of paper in my hand. Stories told at Xtempo are also true, original. From the storyteller's own life, told from first person perspective, and lasting five to seven and a half minutes. Storytellers, we've got, I was going to say, three new ones. But I think I have a couple folks that aren't here yet. But we do have some brand new storytellers to Xtempo out there. Your name is drawn at random. It's not open mic night. There are format and time constraints that you have to follow. I know you've read the rules because I sent them to you. One storyteller at a time on stage, please no stand-up routines or crowd work, no lectures, no promoting other events, goods or services. Your time at the mic is only for the telling of your story. Everything you say at the mic counts against your time. So the first word out of your mouth at the mic should be the first word of your story. Keep your voice up. Speak directly into the mic at all times. If I were telling a story, is my volume OK for everybody out there? It's good. OK, so storytellers, you can see how close I am to the mic. So that's what you need to do, too. You can hold it in your hand, but don't drop it down to your waist because we won't be able to hear you. OK, audience, please turn your cell phones off. No buzz, no ring, no glow. Please don't interrupt, storyteller. But you certainly can't tell somebody if they need to speak louder. That is OK. It's the only reason we're here. We want to hear them. So if you can't hear them, it is OK to call out louder, please. Definitely let your organic audience reaction fly. Storytellers really thrive on that. They like to know that you're right there with them. So laugh, clap, cheer, cry. It's all good. This year, we have a kinder, gentler extempo, which is no longer juried by a volunteer panel of three. All that juring was ever meant to be was an artifice to get people to practice. And after 10 years of doing this, I think you guys, Juring has outlived its utility. So my new instruction for the evening is twofold. If you like one or two or three people's stories the most tonight, I think you should go up to them and tell them in person. Some stories still will be pushed to rebroadcast on the internet, radio, video. So share with me either in person on the break or after the event or over email which stories you like the most and which ones you would like to hear rebroadcast. What does live on as an artifice designed to continue to induce Storytellers to practice is the timekeeping. When the Storyteller speaks their first word, I am going to raise a green flag. The green flag will be posted from the very start to the five-minute mark. At the five-minute mark, I'm going to raise the checkered flag and post it. And the checkered flag is up from the five-minute mark to seven minutes and 30 seconds. And that is the mark that you want to hit. So anywhere in that range, if you look down and you see the checkered flag up, you're good. You can wrap it up. As another reminder, while the checkered flag is posted at the seven-minute mark, you'll hear bells, jingle bells. It's an auditory reminder. If you're telling your story, you've got to finish up within the next 30 seconds. If you're still talking after seven minutes, 30 seconds, you are in big trouble with me. I'm going to raise a red flag. I'm not going to cut you off. You certainly can finish your story within reason. But please don't hold this hostage up here. And please observe and respect the time constraints. Don't abuse the format. What you will notice if you do that is it kind of wrecks the tenor of the evening. Stories are being recorded. If you don't want your story recorded, please tell me in advance. Otherwise, no, it's being done by default. Your story can end up on the internet at xtempovt.com. It can end up on the radio, 91.1 WGDR Plainfield, 91.7 WGDH Hardwick. It can end up on Orca media channels, 15, 16, 17, I think, or is it 14, 15, 16? 15, 16, 17, I think. We have, did Moroni make it? Did Dan make it? OK, so we're missing two. So let's just say that we have eight storytellers. So we're going to do four stories. We will take intermission, and then we'll hear four more. I'm going to check my recording equipment and take one more minute to turn off personal electronic devices. That would be good. And we'll get started. Sound good? OK, here we go. Storytellers, I'm going to draw your name at random. If you ever get drawn first or last, you're exempt from that spot. But nobody in the lineup has gone first or last, so it's anybody's game here tonight. So we thank you in advance for falling on your sword early. Comma. Bill Drew. So I stood there, completely motionless, stuck to the floor in Perkins House, which is a dormitory at Bennington College. We had just dropped off our youngest daughter, Lindsay, about two months ago. And I'm paralyzed. I can't move, and I can't say a thing. There's a tidal wave approaching, a tidal wave of emotion, and I need to find a way to get out of there. And so the best I can come up with in that moment is goodbye and good luck, which is pretty lame. In a moment like that, that is all I can think of, goodbye and good luck. I mean, perfect strangers are more emotive and emotional than that. People you've just met, goodbye and good luck. But that's all I can come up with, because I was so worried about this tidal wave that's just bearing down on me. Now, my wife is next to me, and she's more courageous than I am, so she put together a few sentences with a little more meaning. Not much, or certainly more compared to mine. But we both know that we have to get out of there. This tidal wave is almost upon us. So we look at each other, we grab our hands, and we start crying, and we're trembling, and we're shaking. And we make a beeline for the door, and we get outside. And we get in the car, and we're going to head back home if you're dropping our daughter off at college. And I don't know if this is just me or if this is a human condition, but all I want to do when I get in the car is I want to play a playlist of really sad songs. What is it about people that when you're sad, all you want to do is make yourself more sad? It's like when you have a half pint of Ben and Jerry's in the freezer, and you take it out, and you take a few scoops, and you're like, I should probably stop. And we never stop. And it makes us feel like crap. And then we throw it away, and we feel horrific. And we know what we're doing to ourselves, and yet we do it. So anyway, I turn on VPR instead, and there's a story about bees. Bee theft and pollinating and almond trees in California. I'm like, if I could just focus on the bees, it might take my mind off this wave that's following our car and our way back home. We get back home, and I walk in the house, and our house is so empty. Now it's not empty of things. It's empty of energy. Because now both of our girls, our only kids, are gone out of the house. And it's like someone showed up, we were gone, put a giant shop vac on the front door, and sucked all the life out of the house. I mean, all the life and energy that was part of that house for 18, 19 years is just gone all of a sudden. And you could feel it. You could feel the emptiness. Now my daughter, Lindsay, was nice enough to call us from Bangtan and FaceTime us the first couple of weeks. And she's doing fine. I am doing the opposite of fine. All I can think about was that missed opportunity. And the hallway, I should have said something. There's so much I wanted to tell her how proud I was of her, how much I believed in her, how much I loved her. But I didn't do any of that. It was a tremendous missed opportunity. A couple of days later, my wife and I are trying to figure out what to do, which is a hot topic when you have an empty nest. There's a lot of empty space and time to fill up. So thank god for Netflix and Hulu. I don't know what we did before Netflix and Hulu to fill in the time, but we're going to watch the end of season three of Stranger Things. We had a couple episodes to go. And the last episode of season three, I am a basket case. I'm just bawling and losing it. And I'm just a blubbering fool. And I don't know if my wife can see me. I don't care. I just can't help myself. And so a couple of days after that, Lindsay calls and says, oh, I forgot a pair of sneakers. Can you send them down to Bennington? Yeah, sure. So I tracked down these sneakers a couple of days later, these old Nike's. And I find a shoe box with some tissue paper. And just as I'm about to pack up that box, I grab a note card. I'm going to write Lindsay a note. And this is what the note said. Dear Lindsay, I know you're getting older, growing, changing, and I just don't like to see the change. If I could, I'd want to turn back the clock. I want things to go back to the way they were. But I know that's naive of me. That's not how life works. Life just keeps moving forward. We can't stop it. There's nothing we can do about it. So go ahead, Lindsay. Live your life. There's nothing I can do to stop you. You're going to make mistakes. Learn from them. And life is going to do some bad things to you. I can guarantee that. And you're going to hurt. You are definitely going to hurt. But that's OK. When you hurt, embrace the hurt. The hurt means that you're alive. The hurt means that you're out of the cave. Lindsay, you probably recognize these words. I completely lifted them from the end of the last episode of Stranger Things. I can't apologize enough. I didn't have the courage to tell you how I felt that day. And I feel so bad. I wanted to tell you how much I love you and how proud I am of you and how much I believe in you. And all I could do is plagiarize these lines from Stranger Things. And I guess that's going to have to do Love Dad. So I shipped that off. And now I don't know if anyone's ever told you. When your kids leave, some people say that's the end of a chapter. I'm calling bullshit on that because it is not the end of a chapter. It is the end of a book, a big, long, beautifully bound, hardcover book that you've just written together. It is not one chapter. And that book is over. That book is done. We've done what we can to raise our kids. It's over. Put the book up on the shelf. Celebrate that you wrote one together. Go grab it from time to time. Read the good passages. But man, it is not a chapter. It is a book. The opportunity is for our kids to go on and write the next edition. My only hope as a parent is that maybe, just maybe, she'll find a place for me in those stories. Because up until then, I was a lead character in the story. But I've got to be honest, I'm going to play a bit part. I'm a role player now. So my hope is that she can find a place for me in the story she's going to life. So Lindsay, go live your life. Make it incredible. Be amazing, a life worth living, a life worth writing about. But just do your dear old dad a favor. Don't forget the story that you and I wrote together. It was a pretty good one. Thanks. All right, thank you, Bill, Drew. So we have a little display table of storytellers, picks that are adjacent to the register out there. And Bill has chosen tonight how music works by David Byrne. Anything you can tell us about that? Why should we read that book? Right on, there you go. And hiata, that is available for purchase. Yes, OK. Not all of them are. We've got some backwarded titles and things like that. But that one you can get. Thank you, Bill. All right, second tonight, Megan Price. For July 4th, a long time ago, my hometown, Fairhaven, Vermont, used to have a big parade. And everybody came to it. There were only three channels on TV, and they were all black and white. So it was a big deal to have a parade. And my family had a horse. And the horse was named Rusty. And Rusty was a strange creature that my father picked up somewhere because that's what he did. He just brought home stuff. And Rusty came home because they got too big and fat for the pony, or so the pony said. And Rusty was bigger. And I was bigger. And they thought we'd match. And it had red hair. Rusty did. And I had red hair. And so we sort of matched together. But it was clear that there was a fat kid riding that horse. And Rusty was called Rusty by my brother. But we found that it was a very prescient thought. Because Rusty, after a few weeks, went lame. We tried everything to get Rusty's sound, but he wasn't interested in it, quite frankly. And my brother said, you know, I've had it with that horse. You try to ride him, and he's da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Come on. And he sort of, his knee would give out, and his nose would touch the ground, and go, Rusty. And if people saw you, they'd go, there goes the fat price kid on the lame horse. I don't know. I mean, somebody should give somebody a ride and give that horse a break. But we noticed my brother and I, when you turn the horse around, he was suddenly Gene Kelly. You turn the horse around, it was like singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain because he was going to the barn. He's going to the barn. He's going to hay and grain. He's happy again. And my father said, my father said, he's a trick horse. And we said, and we don't know what the trick is. But the other kids that were calling us fat and stupid and get off the horse are gone now. And they didn't get to see the horse being cured. And it's kind of embarrassing to know that he's Gene Kelly, but they're gone. So we kept riding Rusty, but he would do other funny things, like he'd sidle into every tree or telephone pole trying to scrape you off. Just kind of da-da-da-da-da. And you go, ah! And you get all these stickers in your leg from every tree and bush. You go, Rusty, dammit. And he just da-da-da-da-da-dumble. I'm really lame. Oh, yeah, right. And as soon as he hit the barn, he was cured. So I figured, well, I got to make use of this horse. And he could be fun because he had no personality. And he was fairly reliable and just dragged along. So I'd go in the woods with him and ride alone and all this and that and make up that I was some explorer. But this day, I was going to ride him in the parade because I figured he could at least walk. He could walk and made me not fall down. And he would look, OK, and I'd clean him up and I'd clean up the saddle and we'd go. So Carnarvon Street down into the park in Fairhaven. The park is a big oval and it's gorgeous. And there's a big wooden fence around it and it's divided into quadrants with a fountain in the middle. And I ride down there early and I get set up and Rusty just da-da-da-da-dumble standing there and the band show up and they start... And I'm going, Rusty, do you like that noise? I forgot how much parades. I like parades, but I don't like crowds and I don't like loud sounds. So this might not have been the best plan. But I'm looking at Rusty and Rusty's OK. And I'm going, OK, well, there's no way to get out now because there's just thousands of people in traffic and cars. So the band starts da-da-da-da-da-dumble. That's really loud and it looked down at Rusty. Rusty, you OK Rusty? Rusty, all right? And he's in his ears around and I go, OK, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dumble. It was the boom that did it, apparently. Rusty took off like the 4th of July rocket that I'd been looking for but not beneath me. Rusty, Rusty just whoop, ho, and he just whoo-mo. And he launched. And this is a fascinating fact about quarter horses, which I only learned later. Quarter horses are called quarter horses because in a quarter of a mile, they're the fastest horse on the planet. They can beat secretariat in a quarter of a mile. That's why they're a quarter horse. You should never buy your child a quarter horse. But my dad did. And I went whoo-mo. I mean, I'm not a jockey. And he's lunging. He leapt over and between some kids, hung a right, and then dashed into the park where there are hundreds of people just having a day out with their children and talking. Oh, Mary, I haven't seen you in years. Oh, there's Edna. Oh, and I'm going, get out of the way. Get out of the way. I'm screaming, get out of the way. And I should have been yelling, the red coats are coming. The red coats are coming. Or something keeping with the day and the flavor of the event. But instead, I'm just like, holy Jesus Mary, Rusty, fall down. It's now time to fall down. Please, God, fall down. But he is fluid. He's just going. He has been cured. And he somehow knows where the barn is. And he lunges, and we're headed for the fence. And I'm going, oh my god, he's going for the fence. We haven't jumped as much as a mud puddle. Not even leaves. If I see a leaf, I go, oh, we've got to go around. He could slide and fall. And he's headed for the fence. And I'm like, holy god, please, Rusty, fall down. And then my father won't kill me. Maybe I'll make it home alive. And I want to hurt anybody. And I'm pulling on both reins. And he is not stopping. And I pull. And he's going. And I said, Jesus Mary and Joseph, I went to Catholic school, oh my god, please. And he leaps. And I'm going, I can't. And I try to remember everything. And my heels hit two parked cars. And he launches between them. He launches. I hit the rear view mirrors on both cars. And he lands. And he dodges. And now he's in the middle of Route 22A in Fair Haven. And we're in front of a part time, you know, half a day cop who just volunteered to be a nice guy. And this cop goes, in the universal sign of I'm about to die, holy god, I'm being killed by a fat kid on a red moose. Nobody expects to die that way in Fair Haven or anywhere else, especially on the nice 4th of July. And this horse, all the cars stop. Holy god. And because the cops, ah! And the horse goes, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Like a Gobi Desert Sidewinder in the National Geographic Special. It was a thing of beauty. I made it home. I looked at Rusty. I saw him there. And I said, Rusty, I slid off like a dead piece of spaghetti three days old. And I looked at the horse. And he's just standing there. Everything's good. Everything's good. And I hit the ground. And I look. And I see his knee, that we'd been bandaging and calling the vet and fixing for years, trying to get him sound. And I thought, oh my god, the entire family and the vet has been hoodwinked by this goddamn horse. Thank you. All right, Megan Price. Thank you. There she is. All right, if you like Megan's story, maybe you will like Megan's book pick. This is a personal favorite of mine, Call of the Wild by Jack London. Love it. I love it. And that's backordered, correct? Yes. Yeah. Tell me why you would recommend that folks read that. All right, there you have it. All right, Megan Price. Thank you. Dina Frankel. It was 104 scorching degrees where I'm standing, looking down and across the Rio Grande at Mexico on the other side of the river. There were two red canoes on the beach over there. And kind of up in the trees, there was a beat up like a light blue Ford F-150, kind of partially hidden. The door to the truck is open, and it's blasting Mexican radio for everyone in miles around here. I can't see anybody over there, but even though it is brutal heat where I am, it looks like a little oasis down there. People, I think, are up in the trees where I can't see them. This is this stubby finger of land that I'm standing on that's part of the United States, and it sticks out into Mexico in Big Bend National Park in Texas. Basically, if I look around 270 degrees, what I'm seeing is Mexico. It's as if I was in Mexico, but I'm standing in the United States. So I go along the path, and I come to a place where there is a boulder on the side of the path with a flat top on it, and it's like a little table. And there are wares set out on the table. There are these little toys that are made of wire and beads. They're like scorpions and roadrunners and some suaro cactus. And leaning against the rock, there are some hand-carved wooden walking sticks. Next to the rock, there is a two-liter soda bottle that has some sand weighted in the bottom of it. And someone has written with a sharpie on the bottle, arts and crafts from Bokeas, Mexico suggested donations $6. So I look at these little things, and I think, wow, this would be a cute little souvenir to take home. But the park service tells you when you come into the park that it's illegal to buy these things from the unlicensed vendors who sell these little toys in the park. But I kind of think about it, and I figure they are not going to arrest me for smuggling a foreign chila monster into the United States. So I dig in my pocket, and I have three singles. I roll up the singles, and I stick them in the bottle. And actually, I take a scorpion. I put it in my pack, and I walk on. A little ways up, I see this small group of burros, wild burros, who are wading across the river. They're up to their bellies in the Rio Grande. And basically, they go back and forth. They graze on both sides of the river. I don't know whether they're American burros or Mexican burros. I kind of doubt whether they know whether they are gringos or vatos. They probably don't have passports. But they just go wherever the grass is greener. A man comes up behind me, a white man who's probably about my age. And he tells me that he's traveling the same way that I am, that we're both traveling, driving solo around the United States. And he has come there because he wants to see Mexico. He doesn't want to go to Mexico. He just wants to see Mexico. And he believes that the wall is going to get built, and he won't be able to see it anymore if he doesn't come now. And I am drinking my water bottle when he says this to me, and I laugh so hard the water comes out my nose. But then I realize that the guy is serious. And so I explain to him a little bit more articulately than blowing water out my nose why I think that this is kind of a ridiculous thing. And he says, no, no, this guy, this president, is very persistent. He's going to get this done. And I just look around, and I say, all you have to do is look at this terrain to see how ridiculous it is to think you're going to build anything here. On the way out of the park, I get stopped. That's not what you think. At a roadblock, it's an immigration checkpoint. I actually ran into many of these as I drove around the country. And so I'm sitting there in line. I'm like fifth in line, and I'm just agonizing. What am I going to do when I get up there and they ask me for my identification? Am I going to be civilly disobedient and refuse to do this? I'm a citizen. I shouldn't have to show my ID. But they don't ask me for it. I'm just too white. So this is in April. I drove 13,000 miles around the United States in my Prius, around all of the border states of the US. And the main reason that I went was because I wanted to get out of my insular New England view of the immigration debate and to experience firsthand what it was like on other borders. And I got that, but I also got real sadness about the inhumanity of borders and the human fiction of borders. And I was completely clear that they diminish the people on both sides. Thank you. Dina Frankle, thank you for that one. Dina is recommending. It's on the shelf of storytellers picks. Inland by Thea O'Brit. What can you tell us about that one? Why would we want to read it? It's like a window into a very lovely world, another culture in the Balkans, and by a very beautiful writer. It's just a special book. Great. And in stock, correct? Yes, you can buy that one. OK, good. Next up, David Bain. Sometimes life tells you exactly what you need to do. I went to school in Portland, Oregon, for example. And I really wanted to see the coast. I'd never seen the coast. I'd heard a lot about it. And so on a Saturday, I did a little shoplifting. I got out there in the Sunday morning. I get there, and here I am. It's exquisite day. It's beautiful. And I'm standing there, and this guy pulls up. And he's got a TR6, bright orange. He puts me in the car and he, oh, first of all, he says, well, do you want to put your stuff in back? And I said, no, no, no. I keep my kit with me. He says, that's fine, whatever you want. So I hop in, and he says, I got a tank of gas. I got nothing else to do. I'll drive you half the tank and let you out. And then you can go on your way. And now a half a tank of gas. In 1970s on a Sunday, that's a pretty precious thing. So I jumped right in, and we got to be the best friends. I talked him up. He talked me up. Half a tank. He says, OK, this is it. I said, OK, thank you. And he's one of my best friends. I love him dearly, but I've never seen him again. I would never recognize him. Another example. Here I am. I'm trying to make a crossing. I'm going from Portland. I'm trying to get to New Hampshire. I get a good ride. I end up in outside of Denver. And it's kind of piddling. I get a roll ride, a little ride, a little ride. I'm not really going anywhere. And I'm standing there. And it's getting a little mid-morning, that kind of thing. I see this car comes up. This car comes up, goes across, goes into the cafe across, across from the ramp where I'm standing. And then it turns around, comes back out. And it comes up and stops right next to me. And this woman hops out. And she looks like Barbie. She's got her hair all piled up. She's got this little black crepe capri pants on, these tiny little shoes. She gets out. She says, put your, put your pack in the back. I said, oh no, no, I keep my kit with me. She says, okay, whatever, suit yourself. So we get in the car and I'm thinking to myself, you know, I'm 20. I'm pretty buff. This room is a little old. This could be the stuff of legends. This could be what I've been waiting to tell all my friends about. So I get in the car and we're rolling down the ramp. And there down at the bottom of the ramp is all these plumice dusters. They're all lined up alongside the I-80 there. And I look around and I'm sitting in a plumice duster. And so she turns to me and she says, I'm going a long ways. And I'll give you a ride as long as you keep me amused. I said, okay, I'll do what I can. And so as we're riding along, it turns out that she used to be married and she was married to a guy who delivered cars. He had one of these great big trucks that makes a hell of a lot of rack, blah, blah, blah, going down the road. But they got divorced. But she knew the car delivery business by now. And of course, he gets to keep the truck. That goes without saying it. She knew the car delivery business. So she says to herself, I can figure this out. I can take care of myself. So what she was doing is she was taking reconditioned cars from a place right outside of Denver. And in this particular case, she was delivering to Ohio. So she'd round up a bunch of drivers, put them in the cars and then they'd drive down the road. And of course, she had a little daughter. So she raised this daughter on the passenger side of the car. And the daughter grows up. And of course, the daughter then becomes one of her drivers, but that will keep it in the family. And the driver and the social opportunities are somewhat limited. So the daughter falls in love with another driver. And of course, unfortunately, two lovers can't be in the same car at the same time, but that's the way it goes. So we're driving down the road. And the reason she was stopped and did this little thing at the exit is she was looking for another driver. But she wasn't worried. She said, that driver, I trust him. He's a good guy. And so we stopped at every single exit. We would go off, we'd go around the cafe, we'd come back and then we'd get back on the highway. And so it's getting kind of late. And we hadn't even gotten out of Colorado yet. And I'm thinking that I'm like, OK, just ride with this. She finds the driver, which is great, just like she said. The car is fine. Everybody's fine. Everybody's happy. She takes us all to this cafe. And she says, OK, we're going to have dinner now. And she gets this great big table. All the drivers are sitting around the table. And she's sitting at the head of the table, of course. And there's this guy sitting next to her. And he's stroking her. And he keeps stroking her. And she pays no attention whatsoever. But you know that if he stopped stroking her, she would know. And so we have this dinner. Everybody's there, the daughter, the boyfriend, all this kind of stuff. We get outside. And she's got this pocketbook that's big enough to hold a baby. She pops it open. She says, how's everybody doing? Does everybody need anything? Do you need something? And I look down at that pocketbook and there's all these bottles in there, these little pill bottles. And she starts handing out little white pills to all these people. And I go, OK, well, I'm not touching any of that shit. That's not for me. So we get back in the car. And by now, and so we ended up driving all night. And the next morning, I was like, you know, I've been with this woman for 24 hours. I got a crick in my neck trying to keep her driving. Because that's all I need to do is just keep her driving. And so we're driving down the road. And I could tell, well, she's a little tired of me. I'm getting a little tired of her. And she says, by the way, I think I'm going to leave you out in Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska. And I said, and if you know the geography of Nebraska at all, you know that Lincoln isn't Omaha. Omaha is just a little bit further. And I said, well, that's OK. I'm tired of this whole situation. So she leaves me out on the side of the road. And that's it. That's all I need to tell you. And it worked out just fine. All right, it worked out just fine for David Bain. Thank you, sir. David is recommending a book called The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. What can you tell us about that one? Great, OK. Did Dan or Moroney ever make it? No. OK, so we are going to go to Intermission. You can grab food and beverage next door at Stowe Street Cafe. Get everything you want for the second half of the show, because yes, you can bring food and drink into the bookstore for the second half. And they're going to close after Intermission. Get everything you want now. The register is open. Please browse and buy books. We'll see you back 50. All right, let's come back to our seats, please. Here we go with the second half. No, OK. Hayata is giving me the universal symbol for. Is are there any upcoming bridge side events that we should mention briefly? What's the next thing that happens here? For children. For little guys, story time, tomorrow morning, what time? 10.30, right here. Come on back. Yeah, good. Oh, OK. If anybody stepped outside to, yeah, more? Come up. We want to hear. Come on. We actually do have quite a few upcoming events. So of course, tomorrow at 10.30 AM, story time, it's going to be rockin'. I think we have Play Doh as well, so yeah. You don't want to miss this. It's going to be amazing. It might be edible. I'm fairly certain it is edible, because they're like two. But next week we have Michael Snyder and Woods Wise. And he is the commissioner, Vermont commissioner, on, I think, recreation parks, recreation. Yes, thank you. And so Michael will be here next week. That's going to be a really cool book. And then we have several things coming up in November. The one in particular I wanted to mention that I'm excited about, it's, Jane, what's the name of that book? The Wilhelm. China in another time. Thank you, I'm going to remember. So that is actually, that is going to be a really fantastic evening. It's Wednesday, Thursday, November 20th. What's going on? No, that's the 20th. The 20th. Oh. All right, don't mind us. It's going to be a really great event. This can's a wine next door. Trust us, check it out. It's going to be great. And no, so it is, so Doug Wilhelm is actually going to be present, yep, he is presenting the story. And it is on the life of Claire Lintelak. And it is taken from all of her journals and hours of recordings that she did on her life. She lived in, she was born in, I think, 1898 or 1899 in China and lived her entire life up until 1950 in China. And then ultimately ended up relocating and living in Stowe throughout the rest of her life. So her first 50 years of her life was spent in China and her experiences of seeing this country kind of go through all these changes. So it's phenomenal. And many of us are, of course, familiar with the Lintelak Foundation, which she founded. So it's going to be a really great night. So I'm very excited to have the book be presented here. So we're the first bookstore. They did a big production, I think, a couple of weeks ago when it was launched. But we were actually the first bookstore that they will be presenting the book at. So it's exciting. Yeah. So if I can figure out the date, make sure you put it on your cat sometime in November. Make sure you put it on your calendar. So anyway, I'm going to turn it on over to Lovejoy. All right. Thank you, Hayata. If anybody stepped outside to check a cell phone, let's silence those again. Penultimate call for Dan or for Moroni. Nobody made it. OK, their names are going to get drawn eventually. Let's see. Kicking off the first half, Peter burns. One warm, sunny September afternoon, I set off on a bike ride from Flynn Avenue in Burlington. I had with me to eat a bagel, some figs, and some pretzels. But I didn't bring along any apples, because at that time of the year, September, it's usually pretty easy to find apples on a tree or by the side of the road. Now, when I'm riding for the day, I try to head into the wind when I'm leaving and then have the wind at my back on my return. And as luck would have it, the wind that day was from the south, so I headed south on Shelburne Road. One of the ironies of the bike lane on Shelburne Road is that it starts right after you really need it. In the interchange of 189, for those of you who are familiar with that area, it's crazy riding a bicycle, but there's no bike lane. So you either have to go on the sidewalk or have to ride between two lanes of traffic, which is a little hairy. So I set off south, and I was riding on the sidewalk. And I saw in front of me a plastic bag, a shopping bag. And in the bag, there was a bottle of blue energy drink, two apples, and three cans of cat food. Now, at that point, I had to decide what I was going to take with me, if anything. I hadn't expected to find apples so soon. I was thinking they would be somewhere in a rural area, but there were two apples there. And the one, two, and three form kind of a triangle, if you think of it, in terms of numbers and shape. And I want to just back off a second and say that every day we go through our lives, often consumed with the mundane things that we have to deal with, the people we meet, the things we have to do. But we're also always moving through mythical and symbolic realms. That's inevitable. You'll see these things in your life if you look for them. And a bike ride is a good time to be more aware of this mythical quality, because you're a little bit apart from your everyday concerns. So I knew that whatever I chose to bring with me would be the symbols, or at least part of the symbolic tale of the ride. But there were also practical considerations. I don't like blue energy drink, so I left that behind. And though I do have a cat named Pascal, and this is a bookstore, so I will say I haven't read Pascal's pensée yet, but it is loaded on my audible. So I'll eventually read it after I finish reading or listening to the Bible. And that takes about 84 hours. So about six hours in. So it'll be a little while. Anyway, although I love my cat Pascal, I didn't want to haul three cans of cat food on a six-hour bike ride. So I left those things behind so that somebody else could pick them up for their symbolic journey, whatever that might be for the day. So I went down Shelburne Road to Shelburne, and I went from Shelburne to Mount Filo on Mount Filo Road. And I got to Mount Filo State Park, and I'm lucky enough to be old enough. I can get a free pass. So any of you who are over 62, free pass $2, any state park. It's a great deal. So even if you don't like this story, you have learned something important today if you're older than 62. Yes, my first applause of the story. Pretty exciting. So I kept on going, and I went to the parking lot because I wanted to eat something and drink something. And use the porta-potties. Eating, drinking, and peeing are the holy trinity of bike riding. If you can find a place to do those things, you're in good shape. So I ate some figs and drank some water, and I headed towards the porta-potties. There were three of them. And as I was heading towards them, two women came up. So we had a little bit of a shuffle who's going into which porta-pottie. And as you will in those rural situations where people are just out having fun, we talked, which I wouldn't ordinarily do, just talk to a stranger. But one of the women said, my greatest fear is that something will come up in the porta-pottie and attack my tender parts. I like that phrase, tender parts. And I said, well, I can understand that fear, but I think it's probably unlikely. So I went into the middle one, and this woman with the phobia went into the right one. And the other woman went into the one on the left. And she let out a scream. And she jumped out, and she said, there's a snake in there. And I thought, oh, come on, you're joking. This is that silly. And she said, no, really, there's a snake in there. So I said, well, listen, I will go into that one, because I'm not really bothered by snakes, and you take the middle one. And she seemed to agree. I went into the porta-pottie, and it was a little garter snake. It slithered off the porta-pottie and out through a little hole. It was no big deal. But instead of going to use the free vacant and safe porta-pottie, she started talking to me through the door as I was taking care of business there. She said, is it still in there? Are you OK? And when I came out, she said to me, you have just fulfilled my, I have just realized my greatest fear, and I will never go in a porta-pottie ever again. So she was leaving and walking away. And she said to her friend, the reason he wasn't scared is because his snake is bigger than the snake in the porta-pottie. And I said to myself, what snake? And then I realized to what she had been referring. Thank you. All right, Peter Burns. Thank you for that one. And Peter, your book pick helps explain a lot to me about your stories. Peter has chosen Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. Raise your hand if you have read that. Oh, my goodness, and me. Oh, no. Oh, look behind you. Why? Why? Why, gals, you're a big fan, a Joyce fan? OK, for the people minus the five of us that raised our hands, I'm going to tell you something about Finnegan's Wake. And then I will let Peter tell you why he recommends it. The last word of the entire book is the. So that should explain to you how easy it is to read. Peter, why are you recommending it to us? It also makes an excellent doorstop. And it is for sale. It's up there. OK, right, it's true. And Hiata, available for purchase? Yes, she gives it thumbs up. So for masochists only, you can buy it. Samara Anderson. So I still remember the smell of rubber and new machinery. But not just any machinery, John Deere. The kind that you could fix with all the tools in your toolbox, which was one of the requirements my father had for all of our vehicles. Another requirement that he had was a social, moral, and ethical requirement. He told me about the Ford Pinto. Ford refused to put this piece in the gas tank that would prevent it from exploding upon rear impact. And I've since added Volkswagen to the list of banned vehicles. Now, even though our family's 1976 Plymouth Fury complied with both of these requirements, it liked to bend the rules. And I too, from a very small age, liked to bend the rules. So we had kind of a toxic, co-dependent relationship at times. So I was seven years old. I'm in the back of the fury. I was in the back right corner. My father had loaded all the kids in the fury to go swimming at Long Lake. And I'm in the back corner, just disappearing, like most middle children. And I decided that I wanted to be seen. And so I did something that had never been done in the fury before. I decided to use the seatbelt. Now, back then, the seatbelt was this painful band that went across your lap. And so I started digging in the bench seat, looking for two ends. And I found two ends that seemed to go together. And when I put them together, the sound of the click was deafening. Everyone in the car turned and looked at me. My dad said, what was that noise? And I said, it's me. I'm using my seatbelt. I want to be safe. And everyone started laughing. Are you kidding me? We never use the seatbelt. What are you, stupid? And I was strong in my conviction. I felt very safe and secure in the seatbelt until we got to the lake. My dad parked. Everyone got out, but I was trapped. The seatbelt button wouldn't release. So I tried pushing on it. I was pushing on it. It wouldn't release. And everyone left. My dad came back. He tried to open it. It wouldn't open. And so he looked at me and said, Samara, you know we aren't supposed to use the seatbelt. So you got yourself into this mess. You're going to have to get yourself out of it. I'll crack the windows. And we'll meet you down at the lake. So I'm back there furiously trying to get the button to work. And I was pushing and pushing and pushing. It would not open. And the fury was hot as a furnace. And I was like, I'm going to die in this thing. And then I stopped moving. And I just paused. And I realized I've got the answer right in front of me. I'm wearing my swimsuit. I'm thin. I'm just going to sneak out of it. So I started to slither out of it and get smaller and smaller. And it kept sucking back, pulling me into the seat. And finally I got out of it. And it just went, and it disappeared in the seat. It was never seen again. Now the fury also liked to break the speed limit. And why not? I mean, it was a 195 horsepower V8 318 double carburetor engine. Now if I had more time, I'd regale you with stories of speeds of over 110 miles an hour passing my father's friend while a tire exploded. But I'd rather tell you stories of how the fury broke laws and saved lives doing it. So fast forward to the late 80s. I'm a teenager now, driving the fury. So me, my friends, and our Aquanet hair helmets could barely fit in the fury. It's a winter's night in Minnesota. It's after a church youth group activity. And I'm driving back roads that I'm not familiar with. It was blizzard conditions. So it was a wide out, high winds, pure ice. The fury never had snow tires. And at this point in the trip, I was at the top of a mountain. And in Minnesota, we called it a mountain everywhere else. It was just a small hill. And we were just starting to descend from this mountain. And as I'm driving down the mountain, I start to see in the front of me what looked like a sign that said T. And on the other side of the T, it looked like the road just ended. And it looked like just a drop off. And so I had two choices. I could either try and make the corner break and try and avoid slipping off the edge or just avoid the risk altogether. And because I'm Norwegian, I chose avoidance. So I just avoided the risk. And I drove full speed without breaking right into the ditch to the right. And ditches were very deep then. But it would have been a lot more dramatic if the snow hadn't been pushed all the way over and filled the ditch. So now it was basically like driving into a big bowl of sugar. So I just drove into it and then plowed headfirst into it. So the front of the fury was pointing down into the snow. And the back of the fury was off the ground. And we were suspended in midair. None of the tires were touching. But we were all completely safe. We were all safe. The fury was completely safe. And we dug ourselves out. And we found a local farmer who happily warmed up his tractor and pulled us out. And we just continued on our way, just like a normal Minnesota night. But now when I smell, and actually to go back, I later learned that at the end of that tea was actually a 50-foot drop-off into a big grove of trees. So that's what we actually avoided that night. So now when I smell really hot, black dashboards and musty upholstery, it reminds me of the lessons the fury taught me. Things that are supposed to keep you safe actually could really harm you. And breaking the law sometimes can save your life. I also realized that vehicles don't just serve a singular, sterile purpose. They actually are an experience. And my family and my friends, we laughed. We cried. We were scared out of our minds. We thought we were going to die. Then we were saved. We made mistakes. We learned lessons. But I learned that every path that we went down had a purpose. And I also learned that hell hath no fury, like a fury scorned. Thank you. Samara Anderson. Thank you, my friend. Samara recommends, and it is on the shelf of storytellers picks, where the crawdads sing by Delia Owens. Raise your hand if you've read that. A lot of folks. A lot of folks. I don't know that one, so tell me about it. It's beautiful. I actually bought it on my birthday here. And if you like to kill a mockingbird, you will love this story. It's a story of growing up, of being young, of surviving, of love, of justice. It's awesome. It's incredible. I couldn't put it down. So Susanna, you have to keep going. Because she says she slowed down and stopped reading it. But I said, 75% of the way through, you won't stop. You'll just, it's really good. Great. Oh, good recommendation. OK. Keeping good company with Harper Lee. That's no small praise. Good. OK. OK, last call for Dan Dolan. OK. Oh, last call for Moroni Minter. No. OK. That means penultimate. We will hear from Maggie Mae Anderson. So I'm 44, which means I am staring straight down the barrel of middle age, right? With any luck, I have as many years in front of me as I have behind me. And a lot of the things I've been grappling with, I think a lot of people would chalk up to middle age. But to be completely sincere, I feel like these questions and these wanderings have been with me most of my life. But when you're at middle age, I think they kind of flash more like a neon light. And things like, what exactly is the point? And what am I doing with my life? And is anything that I'm doing actually of value? And sometimes I kind of struggle with, I've never been super successful. I don't make a ton of money. I don't own a house. I've never been married. I don't really have a 401k. And I just find myself sometimes grappling with this idea of, like, wait a second. Is my life more of a burden on the earth? Or is it any kind of a gift? And that stuff can keep me awake at night sometimes. But then something happened this year, actually about six weeks before my 44th birthday that started to switch my perspective a bit. So right here in town on May 5th, I set out on my daily bike ride. And I crashed. And I crashed hard. I regained consciousness on the side of the road. And I pushed myself up out of a puddle of blood. And I'm not joking. I mean, it was a small puddle, but it was a puddle nonetheless. And as I gathered my bike out of the road and my helmet off and my water bottle and my broken sunglasses, I looked around and realized I didn't know where I was. I didn't recognize anything. And I got my phone and the screen, oh my god, it felt like darts to my eyes. And when I tried to scroll, I thought it was going to puke. And it was then that I realized I only have two phone numbers memorized. I mean, whose number do you have memorized anymore? My dad, who lives in Connecticut. And my ex, who, thank god, we were on good terms. So I call my ex and leave a frantic voicemail stating just that. I've crashed my bike. There's blood everywhere. I don't know where I am. You've got to confine me. Apparently, he still hasn't saved. So now, whoops, luckily, before he could call back, a very lovely couple pulled up alongside me. The wife immediately called 911. And the husband, much to my luck, had just recently finished first aid in CPR. And he was all about taking the utmost care of me until the ambulance came. At the hospital, my ex and my stepdaughter met me. And the hospital, to me, is this blurry memory that feels like we're maybe there for half an hour. I remember being pushed in for X-rays. I remember being told I needed a CAT scan. I remember, at one point, a doctor actually leaned over me and said, focus on your ankles and your feet. They're the only place that aren't embedded with gravel. Yeah, I remember the staples in my head. And I remember my stepdaughter leaning into me and touching the part of my arm that didn't have gravel in it ever so lovingly. We were actually there for seven hours. And then my ex and my stepdaughter brought me home that night. And my stepdaughter, who at this point was 12, grabs my phone and says, who do I text? Who do you want me to call? And I don't even remember giving her the list. But the next morning is what I like to refer to as the girlfriend brigade descended on my house. And Victoria was the first one to show up. And even though the hospital made sure that I had no broken bones and that my brain wasn't bleeding, I was actually still dirty. I still had gravel in me. And Victoria painstakingly washed all the gravel out. And shortly thereafter, Gamar and Mariah and Hattie and Kim showed up. And while I lay on a mattress on my bedroom floor because I was not well enough to climb the ladder up to my sleeping loft, these women took care, took charge, and just organized things. So all my clients, like my massage therapist and yoga teacher, everything got canceled. She's incapacitated. That first month, I never woke up in my apartment alone. And someone put me to bed every night. Yeah. And I couldn't drive, right? There was no driving. And they essentially created their own bus service for me. And I was driven to every doctor's appointment and every alternative healer appointment. People were getting me back and forth. I ended up with two black eyes and a jaw so bruised and swollen I couldn't chew for two and a half weeks. And soup just arrived on my doorstep, groceries came. I swear to God, people came from every county in the state. I was given tinctures for my skin, salves for my bruises. I was given arnica. I mean, the stuff was coming that I didn't even know what it was. One of my dear friends sent a housekeeper. And then another, which was such a good gift. And a woman who's been coming to my yoga, who honestly I don't know all that wonderfully well, gave me a check for $1,000. Yeah. And when I balked and was like, I don't know when I can pay this back. She said, I'm not asking you to pay it back. It's a gift. And my accident was almost six months ago. And I'm still being covered with gifts. And I recently got this wonderful magazine. And there was a quote in the back that said by Robert Baralt that says, what little money I have, that is my wealth. The things I have for which I will take no money, that is my treasure. And there have been a couple of big gifts from this experience. Like, I knew I had amazing friends. I knew I had support of family. But life gets busy. And we get distracted. And we kind of take things for granted. And I cannot, how much I treasure and adore my friends and my family is even more alive for me now. But even more so, and this might actually be the cure to cancer, is knowing that I'm treasured. And that has so changed my perspective. And at one point, when I was still super concussed. And I have to say, I called the girl from Brigade. But there were a couple of amazing men that were taking care of me as well. I got a new boyfriend out of the deal. But at one point, one of my guy friends was sitting on the corner of my bed, and ever so softly touching my ever bruised face. And I said to him, I'm the most successful person I know. And he thought it was a concussion talking and said, let me try to help you find the word that you mean. And I said, no, no. I'm the most successful person I know. And again, he pushed back. He was like, no, I don't think that's what you mean. And I said, no, you are rubbing my head on a random work day. I win. I am successful. And truly, I do believe that I am the most successful person in the world. I'm very thankful that Bike Accident changed my life in so many amazingly positive ways. Thank you. Maggie May Anderson, there she is. Yes. OK, Maggie May recommends a book up. So two-thirds of the people on the list chose fiction. And this is Maggie, you're in the third that chose nonfiction. I believe self-compassion by Kristin Neff. What can you tell us about it? Why should we buy this and read it? Well, first of all, totally Google her and watch some of her little YouTube videos. She's amazing. She's a self-compassion researcher out of Austin. Last name is spelled N-E-Double-F, as in Frank. And it's just one of those self-help books that is not super cheesy. And really, the idea of self-compassion versus self-esteem is, I never really thought of it. The difference to me has been really huge. And just a really supportive, therapeutic book that isn't like cheesy. I'm describing it. Hey, good recommendation. Yes. OK, last story of the night. This has to be Ms. Annie here. It is Annie Mama. Christina Vuskovich was my best friend in college. They say opposites attract. Well, her entire family was brilliant. Her mother was a physicist. She worked for the university doing research. Christina herself was a double major, mathematics, and computer science, 4.0 average, member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest, most prestigious honor society in the country. Whereas I am from Eastern Europe, her whole family. I, on the other hand, white bread remonder, an English major, and a member of the campus science fiction and fantasy club. And yet, as different as we were, we thought so much alike we could finish each other's sentences. Sometimes we didn't even need to talk. We could just give each other a nod and a look, and we kind of knew. And I think because of our vast differences and backgrounds combined with this kind of mind meld, that we managed to get ourselves into way more trouble than most of our other friends. We were out in Greenwich Village one night in Manhattan, and we decided that we wanted to stop someplace and get a beer. So we found this place. We walked in. It was a combination bar and pizza joint. So when you walked in, this is kind of important. There was this long, narrow rectangle of a room, black and white tile floor, very common in Manhattan. A long, beautiful wooden bar, mirror where the bar was. All the way at the end was a door into the kitchen. That's where they made the pizzas. And then next to that was an opening in the wall with three little steps going up into a raised area with booths for seating. But if you didn't want to sit at the bar, you could turn to your left. And there was this other narrow room. It was a little glassed-in solarium. It faced the sidewalk. And from that room, also, there was a little half wall, three steps going up into the booth area. We didn't want pizza. We didn't want to sit at the bar. So we went out into the glassed solarium. We sat down a little two-person table, directly opposite from the stairs. So we had a nice view of the booths as well. Ordered our beers, started drinking. And no sooner have we gotten settled than behind us in the front door coming in was two quintessential Jay-Z couples who had come through the tunnel that night to have a good time in town. I mean, if you had called central casting and said, please send these people, this is what you would have gotten. The men had slicked back hair, big white muscle t-shirts. One of them I swear to God had a pack of cigarettes tucked up in the sleeve, tight black jeans, black shoes. The women, enormous bottle-blonde hair. And they had obviously gone shopping together and picked out these matchy-match dresses. They were the exact same cut. But one of them was black and white polka dots. And the other one was black and white stripes. And their stockings were also alternatingly matched. And I could tell that they were best friends because the one in the striped dress had the hair bow that came with the dress from her friend. She was wearing the polka dot dress in her hair. And the one in the other dress had her friend's bow in her hair. So they do not come into the salar. And they go all the way back and up the other stairs. And they seat themselves in a booth and sit down to have pizza. And we're just, you know, we notice it, Christina and I. And we don't say anything because we don't have to. We go, yeah. And we keep on drinking and talking. And then all of a sudden, ding dong, dong. And we look and a penny has ricocheted off of the glass and landed on the floor next to our table. So Christina picks it up and sets it on the table. We don't say anything. We just keep on talking and drinking and ding dong, dong. Little while later, another penny, ding dong, dong. And this happens over and over again. Finally, we have a stack about an inch high of pennies. And we have figured out we've looked over and it's the joysie couples, you know. And they're sitting in the booth and they're looking around. And every time someone's not looking, they're pitching pennies at other patrons in the restaurant. We don't say anything. And then after a while, we hear chonking, chonking. And we look and they've clearly run out of pennies because now they're pitching ice chips from their drinks. Eventually they get up to leave. Instead of going all the way back around and out through the bar, they come towards us to come down the stairs and go out through the solarium. And as the women are walking towards the stairs, I just look at Christina and I say, you ready? And Christina says, yeah. And as they begin to extend the steps, we count down back and forth. Three, two, one. And we take our beer stands and go, whoosh, up their dresses. This was not my finer moment. And they eruft into a screaming rage and they're covered. And then the beer is dripping off their giant eyelashes and they're looking around and then they start looking around for revenge. They've been splashed on. They need to throw something back. And the only thing within reach is a little bussing station up against the half wall. And it has things on it that you would expect in a pizza joint. It's got containers of cheese and hot red pepper flakes and oregano and Tabasco. So one of them scoops up a couple of the containers and she's gonna dump it on me. And she goes, chica, chica, chica. And she's even angry. She starts trying to get the lid off madly. And the other one grabs the Tabasco because that's spicy. And she goes, and my friend and I are just howling with laughter. Tears are coming out of her eyes. We're sagging on the table as they shower us with flakes of pizza toppings. And I turn my head and I look and these two big guys are walking up behind them. And as I see them I think, oh, this is how I die. And miraculously, miracle of miracles. They walk down the stairs and they take their big, muscly arms and they wrap them around these screaming, wild women. And they hustle them past us and out the door kicking and clawing. The door's slam shut behind them. And the restaurant is suddenly very quiet. And Christina and I look at each other and we look at the spilled beer on the floor and we think, oh. And just as we're wondering what to do, the waiter comes around the corner from the bar and he's got his tray up like this and he marches up to our table and we're thinking, oh God, he's gonna kick us out. And he says, the bartender noticed that you spilled your drinks. And before we can even say, well, pick it up. He swings his tray down and he said, he told me to tell you, these are on the house. And the entire restaurant starts applauding. And he sets them down and he turns to go back to the bar and he stops in the doorway and he whirls around and he says, oh. They also stuck their gum to the menus. He leaves. Thank you. Annie Molo, thank you, my friend. Annie chooses stories of your life and others by Ted Chang. What can you tell us about that? The title alone is appropriate. Yes, yes, very good. I feel like storytelling. Ted Chang is an amazing author. He's a beautiful, lyrical writer. It's a book of short stories. They are speculative slash sci-fi, of course. And although the settings are unusual or alien or fantastical, the emotions of the characters are completely real and earthy and you can really connect with what's going on with the human beings. Got it. It's a wonderful book. Okay, sci-fi fans out there. Short story, a book of short stories, great. The storytelling portion of the evening is over. I'm gonna tell you about some upcoming events. These are the next ones in order. Coming up Saturday, November 9th at 7.30 in Berry at Buena, we have Jazziochi, which is exactly what it sounds like across between jazz and karaoke. You get to sing the standards of jazz, songs out of the proverbial Great American Songbook, backed by a live jazz band. That's the hitch in that. It's not a backing track on a laser desk. It's a live jazz band. That is, again, Saturday, November 9th, 7.30 at Buena and Berry. The event after that takes place the weekend before Thanksgiving, November 23rd at the Old Labor Hall in Berry. We are talking about Worst Song Ever. So Jazziochi on the 9th, these are good songs. Worst song ever on the 23rd? Less so, let's just say. Worst song ever, Come Bear Witness to a series of dumpster fires set by hot garbage. Cover a bad song for a good cause. If you wanna know more about that one, please see the Old Labor Hall's website and Facebook for all details. Please tell a story of your own at the next event. It's also the last event of the year and the last event for a little while as X Tempo goes on hiatus. We will be in Montpelier at Ravel Rouser. Here's where you listen up. A, on a Sunday. In the 10 years that I've been doing this, we've never had a Sunday event. So on a Sunday. And B, 4 p.m. in the afternoon. Whoa, whoa, hiatic and we dim the lights for that, whoa. That event is December 1st. And to all the little old ladies out there, some as young as me who have complained for a decade running. Why don't you start this event earlier? You're welcome. Sunday, December 1st at Ravel Rouser at 4 p.m. Once again, you are welcome. The sign up sheet is behind me. A couple spots left for that one, please. Last instruction of the evening. Go up to your favorite storyteller from this evening and let them know what you liked about their story and we will see you next month for Jazzy Okie and Worst Song Ever. And in December, December 1 for X Tempo. Thanks you guys, goodnight.