August 21, 2024 • 38 mins
We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
Phil Bannatyne, Cambridge Brewing Company’s owner announces the brewery will close in December.
Teralyn Pilgrim - Author of "No Scrap Left Behind: My Life Without Food Waste" shares clever ways to waste less food, save money and live more sustainably.
Michael Poliakoff - President & Chief Executive Officer of American Council of Trustees and Alumni - ACTA Launches National Commission on American History and Civic Education.
Marc Bolduc – Retiree & former student, Guitar Manufacturer inspires younger generation with guitar manufacturing.
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!
Phil Bannatyne, Cambridge Brewing Company’s owner announces the brewery will close in December.
Teralyn Pilgrim - Author of "No Scrap Left Behind: My Life Without Food Waste" shares clever ways to waste less food, save money and live more sustainably.
Michael Poliakoff - President & Chief Executive Officer of American Council of Trustees and Alumni - ACTA Launches National Commission on American History and Civic Education.
Marc Bolduc – Retiree & former student, Guitar Manufacturer inspires younger generation with guitar manufacturing.
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Boston Radio, Madison. Thank you very much, boy. We have
lots to talk about tonight, Lots happening in the news
and lots happening on Nightside. My name is Dan Ray.
I'm the host of Nightside. This is a midweek edition
Wednesday Night. We're every Monday through Friday night from eight
until midnight on WBZ ten thirty and their AM dial
in Boston. Apparently there's going to be another big development
(00:29):
in the twenty twenty four presidential race. On Friday. We
will talk about a statement a decision that were led
to believe Robert F. Kennedy Junior has made. We'll talk
about that tonight. We're also going to talk in the
nine o'clock hour, just to change the pace a little
bit about some Boston restaurants which are now allowing, maybe
(00:54):
even encouraging people to bring their dogs with them to
sit outside outside dining here in Boston. Some restaurants are
dog friendly. Big article in the Globe today that caught
my eye, and we'll talk about that. We also have
a Globe article Tomorrow Night Tomorrow coming out tomorrow, which
we just saw, in which the Globe will disclose that
(01:16):
four United States Senators from New England, including Elizabeth Warren,
Maggie Hassen, Jean Shaheen, and Angus King, their ancestors owned slaves. Yes,
we'll talk about that. There were no other members of
the congressional delegation in New England whose ancestors owned slaves,
(01:40):
but we'll get to all of that. An incredible story
about the Globe, and again I continue to commend them
for doing some really great journalism lately. But we're going
to start off with a story out of Cambridge. Joining
me as our first guest tonight is the owner of
Cambridge Brewing Company, Phil Bonatime. Phil, give me the correct
(02:04):
pronunciation on the last name in case I missed that.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Dan, you got real close. It's Banatime, ben Atime.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Okay, that's great. I wasn't sure. So you folks have
been in operation here for a long time. I think
it's thirty five years.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Correct, that's correct, nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Okay, and it's Look, everybody, whether you happen to like
beer or not, loves the idea of local brewing companies.
But the Globe, again citing the Globe here over the weekend,
reported that this brew pub in Kendall Square is going
to close in December. So that is not a happy
(02:48):
story for us. What's going on? First of all, Phil.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Well, it's not necessarily a not happy story. I mean
it's it's been a thirty five year run. We've had
an incredible time of success. It's been very rewarding for
me and.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
For all involved.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And I'm getting up there, Dan and at a time,
you know, at some point you got to say, well,
maybe this is enough. Maybe we set out to do
what we set out to do and we accomplished it.
So I'm feeling really proud about what we've done and
all the you know, the good times we've had there,
and all the people that have come through there and
(03:31):
been trained as brewers and chefs and what have you,
and the legacy that we're leaving. Well, and maybe let's
let me.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Just first of all say I do understand that a
job well done and accomplished in a career is something
you celebrate. However, I would love to know how did
you get started? What happened? Did you wake up someday
what we're doing Previously, little kids don't grow up to
say I'm going to become a brewer, I guess unless
they follow baseball and live in Milwaukee. Maybe, but that's
(04:02):
a different type of brewer that we're talking about here.
How did you become a brewer?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, it started. I was out in the Bay Area
living in the early eighties and brewing beer in my kitchen,
having traveled in Europe and seeing what good beer could be,
and then coming back to the States and they being,
you know, basically what we had were yellow physy industrial loggers,
and there's so much more out there. So it's like, okay, well,
(04:31):
let me learn how to make beer in my kitchen.
And then I was in as I said, in California,
and they changed the laws out there in the early
eighties that allowed you to produce beer and sell it
on site. Previously, these things were strictly separated into what
we call the three tier system. So there's the producer
and the wholesaler and the retailer. So now restaurants are
(04:55):
tap rooms or what have you could make beer and
sell it direct to the public. And I thought, wait, great,
So I went to the University of California and I
took some some brewing classes, and I drove back to
Cambridge to open a brew pub.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Now, when you say you drove back to Cambridge, originally
you a Bostonian, a Cambridge guy who was out there?
Are you at here southern Connecticut? Close enough? That's close enough,
I thought, So, what what are you going to do?
I mean, you're going to relax for a few days,
I hope maybe even a few weeks. What's next on
(05:30):
Phil's agenda?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
No, that's kind of you to ask, you know. I
I'm not pressuring myself a whole lot to figure that out.
I have some hobbies. I play a lot of tennis.
I look forward to that. Beyond that, I don't know.
I'm going to take it easy for a while, and
I am kind of a restless guy. I'm gonna I'm
(05:52):
going to try to find something meaningful, try to give
back in some way. Uh, you know, maybe maybe in
the foods or food pantry or Yeah, I don't know.
I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Did you think of selling the brewery? I'm sure that
must have crossed your mind.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, he asked a great question, and sure, but to
sell in that question is did you think of selling it?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Well?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
The it really is us. It's myself, My brew master,
Will Myers has been with me for thirty two years.
My chef David Drew's been with me for sixteen. My
GM Laura Peters has been with me for eighteen years.
I mean, that's the it, and that's not for sale.
I mean, these folks want to go on to new
(06:42):
opportunities and new challenges, and I just sort of feel
like we've done what we set out to do and
it's a good time to move on to other things.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I love your integrity, man, I really do feel that's
an amazing statement you just made. But folks can still
come by the Cambridge Brewing Company anytime. I guess not
between now and December twentieth. December twentieth, this last call.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I sure hope that they do. I mean, there's it's
been an important place to a lot of people, and
I hope they come by and share them memory and
a pint and a smile and we'll we do. We
still have four months to go.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That's fabulous, Phil give you guys are in Kendall Square.
I want to give the specific address in case someone's
driving around tonight they put that address in the GPS,
either for tonight or for some time this weekend.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, it's one Kendall Square, which is a development the
corner of Hampshire and Broadway in Kendall Square and Cambridge.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's great. Well, look, thanks, thanks for what you've done,
and thanks for being with us tonight. And I've never
met you before. First time we talked your class act
really mean.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
That, a buddy.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I appreciate that, and thank you for drawn some attention
to what we've done and the fact that we're still
going to be there for a little while.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Four more months, four more months, Thanks so much. Phil
really enjoyed the conversations. Well, that's interesting. Now we're gonna
go from beer a brewing. We're gonna go to some
clever ways to waste less food, save money, and live
(08:29):
more sustainably. This is something you need to listen to
and I need to listen to as well, although I
tend to just buy what I need and uh, and
I think that's what all of us should do. But
we're going to talk with a very interesting author whose
name is Carolyn Pilgrim. We'll be right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now, back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nice Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
My guest is tarre Lynn Pilgrim. She's an author written
a book, No Scrap Left Behind, My Life Without Food
Waste look something we all should aspire to a resourceful,
budget conscious consumers and can also pocket an average of
thirteen hundred dollars a year by doing this one simple thing.
Waste less food sounds simple. First of all, welcome Tara Lynn.
(09:24):
How are you?
Speaker 5 (09:26):
I'm doing great?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Sure, now, it sounds really simple, three words waste less food.
But how do you do that? You have to have
some discipline. You have to make sure you eat or
your family eats what you buy, and you don't leave
it in the refrigerator, you know, and have to throw
it out as it's gone bad, or you don't put
out food that people don't need. How do you do this?
(09:47):
How do you waste less food realistically?
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Well, you know, it takes a lot of discipline at first.
And I when I first started doing this, I said
I was going to do it for a year. I
was going to get my food why send to zero?
And I was going to write a book and tell
people how to do it. But by the time I
figured out how to do it, and I had like
wasting getting to zero was a challenge, but getting to
the point where I had drastically changed my life just
(10:14):
got to be a lifestyle, you know, and and it
wasn't so hard. Now, I will say, the most important thing,
if I had to pick one thing to tell your
viewers is not to buy too much food, because it
doesn't matter how much you learn about, you know, up
cycling and refrigeration and storage. If things are going bad
faster than you can eat it, there's really not a
lot you can do. So that right there makes a
(10:37):
big difference.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Type Also, like, what if I could ask what type
of foods? Look, I assume it's it's primarily vegetables. Maybe
I'm wrong, but I'm assuming it's primarily vegetables that people
have in that crisper and all of a sudden they realized, oh,
it's been there too long. What type of food do
people unintentionally weigh? So I'm not talking about the person
(11:01):
who has to buy you know, you know, seven pounds
of shrimp for a little get together with a few neighbors,
and you realize that only half of a pound of
shrimp was eaten and you don't know what they do
with it. You put in the refrigerator. In three days later,
you throw it out. I'm talking about what is the
type of food that the average person wastes unintentionally?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
Well Refaed recently released a study saying that people who
don't eat their leftovers waste four times as much food. Now,
you would think a person who says, you know, I'm
not getting leftovers, I'll make less food. But it just
it doesn't seem to work that way. So things that
you've already cooked. Now, I will say, one of the
things I struggle with the most is like the produce
(11:46):
that you can't really cook into something else, you know,
like romaine, lettuce or grapes. But you know, we do
think of produce. But also meat has a very important
time stamp on it, you know, like you really have
to get that in the freezer or eat it up
before before it gets you sick. But really, if people
(12:07):
were to focus just on their leftovers, that would make
a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Hey, what I do, and I do this maybe once
a month or a couple of times a month. I
like burgers on the grill. Okay, I know that's not
the greatest food for you, but I will get a
pound of burger, and I will before I put in
the refrigerator. I will make my hamburg patties, wrap them
(12:31):
up in aluminum, put them in the freezer, and when
there's a night that I want to have something that
I like, and quick fire up that grill and I
got dinner and nothing gets wasted. Great, just as opposed
to putting the brown beef in the refrigerator and letting
(12:52):
it sit there for a couple of days or a
couple of weeks. I just think again a little bit
of discipline, and also just you know, all of us
should know what do we like to eat. I just
think that there's so much of that. I'm huge on
fruit in the morning on my cereals, strawberries, blueberries, bananas,
(13:15):
whatever whatever is in style, but I don't buy too much.
And because I don't, it's wasting. It is truly wasting money.
Maybe I'm too money conscious on it, but I'm serious.
The side benefit is that my refrigerator is always full
of the stuff that you go through quickly, like milk
and orange juice. I'm a pretty good eater. And I
(13:37):
got my fruit there and got my cookies in the pantry,
and I'm a happy camper.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Yeah No, And I think also paying attention to how
much you're going to eat and planning ahead. Like, I
think something you said it was really smart. It's how
you individually wrap your hamburger patties. Yeah, you know what
I mean, Like, you don't just put them all in
the freezer. You know that you're not going to eat
them all, you know, you know you're going to have
to pull out a couple at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, And most nights I'm eating alone because of my job.
I have a family and all that, but I'm on
a hear from eight to midnight and I want to
eat at five o'clock. Nobody else wants to eat at
five o'clock. That's fine with me. So is it possible?
Now you're the author, have you gotten to the point
(14:24):
where during the course of a month, there's no food
that you waste, There's no food that you throw away.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
So when I when I was doing this, I had
a toughware container in the freezer that would hold about
like six cups of water, and my goal would be
to not like to keep a month's worth of waste
inside that container. And there were some months where I
would like like shove it in to make it thick.
(14:51):
So it's like I've got to keep this in for
a month. But as I got better at it, it
got lower and lower. And the month that I wasted
the lease, it was only way full and it weighed
two pounds. And I had two little kids at the time.
I was a toddler and a four year old and
a husband and me, and that was it for the
entire month.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
That's pretty good. That is fifty good. So so you
not only wrote the book, but you live the life. Now.
How long has the book been around? And it is
this something that people could buy and use as as
a guide.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
You know, it's funny you say that because I just
got my copy in the mail yesterday and I've been
waiting for my copy because I want to use it
in my kitchen.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Sometimes it's just out now.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah maybe not.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Well, it's available for pre sale and it will start
going out for deliverying in September seventeenth.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
No scrap left behind, life with my Life without food waste.
How long have you been doing this? That's my other question.
Is there something that took a period of time for
you to to get accustomed to before you wrote the book.
I'm sure you didn't write this book two months ago.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Oh well, I would have been able to go through
this whole thing a lot faster if I had had,
if someone had written this book for me. But you know,
I started in twenty seventeen. There was a lot less
awareness about food waste at the time, and I was
really kind of scrambling a lot because I had to
learn all of this stuff on my own. For example,
(16:31):
you really got to clean out and organize your whole
kitchen beforehand, and I didn't do that u till I
was like eight months in. So it wasn't until I
hit the one year mark, so from twenty seventeen to
twenty eighteen that I felt like I finally had it,
figure it out, and it went to my husband. I
was like, can we do this another year, because like,
it took me this long to learn it, now I
want to do it.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
And so those were like the two years that I
really focused heavily on this, and then I wrote it
and got it published and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Now it's out and nobody went to bed hungry in
your family. I mean, that's the point. You had everything
you needed, and I'm serious, it's like you were disciplined
and all of that. What kicked it off in your
mind that's my last question. There must have been some
moment in time when you said, you know what, we'll
waste it too much food, or you must have read
something or seen something.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
What was it. I?
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Yes, I read something. It was an article about starving kids.
I mean, I've always felt guilty every time I throw
out food. And I had read somewhere many years ago
that the average family wastes enough to feed an additional
family member. So yeah, I know. So I would always
think about, like this kid that could be alive because
(17:44):
of me, but instead of wasting my food. And I
was reading this specific article that said that in some country, okay,
I think it was Nigeria, there are villages that had
lost all their toddlers to hunger. And I had tollers
at the time, and it just destroyed me because I
was just imagining, like what my life would be like
(18:06):
and all my friends and all my family if all
the toddlers were gone.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's a great story, great motivation, And yeah, I hope
people get the book No Scrap Left Behind My Life
Without Food Waste by Terarylyn Pilgrim. It's available. You can
order it Amazon wherever you get your books. That's for sure. Terrell,
and I enjoyed this conversation a whole lot. Thank you
very much for having joined us.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
You're welcome. When we get back, we're going to talk
about American history and civic education. There is now a
National Commission on American History and Civic Education. And I
would say it's about time. We'll be back on Nightside
right after the news. At the bottom of the ear.
My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside on WBZ ten
(18:55):
thirty and your AM radio dial. If for some reason
ever traveling or trouble getting us on the radio ten
thirty and the AM dial, and we have a big,
powerful signal, you always go to the iHeartRadio app and
you can listen to us anywhere in the country. The
other night, last Friday night, my producer Marita was driving
in Pennsylvania to a family event with her husband and daughter.
(19:18):
She was listening to us in Pennsylvania, and she told
me today that the busy signal boomed into Pennsylvania. But
I know that anyway, we'll be back on Nightside, more
conversation right after this.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
It's Nightside with Ray, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
All right, I think all of you who listened to
Nightside over the years know that I have for a
long time bemoaned the d emphasis on history, but even
more so on civics in high schools in our neck
of the woods and across America. There is a new
National Commission on American History and Civic Education that is
(20:00):
founded by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni with
me is the head of that organization. He's the president
and chief executive officer of ACTA again, the American Council
of Trustees and Alumni. Michael Polakoff, I hope I got
that right, Polyokov. Michael, give me a good pronunciation, so
(20:22):
I don't mess it up a.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
Third time, Polyakoff, But I'm not great to be on.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
The show with Polyakoff. Michael, great to be with you.
We probably have a lot of mutual friends. I recently
had the chancellor of Vanderbilt University on the program, and
we often have folks from higher education. Uh, and I
think this is an incredibly positive development. Tell us a
(20:49):
little bit about what the American Council of Trustees and Alumni,
what that organization actually is, and tell us about the
National Commission and what it intends to accomplish.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Sure, Dan, I'm glad you're speaking to Chancellor Deermeyer as well.
We need more college leadership like that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
He's a University Chicago guy, heart and soul, a though
he was educated in other institutions, he certainly follows the
code that the University of Chicago has invested in so
many people.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
A rule of law, freedom of speech. These things are
the lifeblood of a strong campus and of a free society. Yes,
we were founded in nineteen ninety five and we took
it as our mission to strengthen academic standards, freedom of speech,
and intellectual diversity on campus, and accountability for costs and
(21:43):
spending practices. And it's our focus on ensuring that the
rising generation of Americans understand what it is to be
a citizen, what the obligations are, our institutions, and how
we got them that has led us to put this
wonderful commission of education leaders scholars together. I think Dan,
(22:07):
you and I are very much on the same page.
An ignorant citizen is a disempowered citizen, the kind of
person who's not going to have recourse to the rule
of law but to destructiveness. And we've been seeing entirely
too much of that to our detriment and to the
peril of our future. And we want to make our
(22:30):
gift for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our
country a much much better educated group of young Americans.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I have a question, and you know, when you talk
about intellectual diversity, that's the only sort of diversity that
the folks who run universities and colleges across this country
and have run them for the last thirty or so years,
have not been interested in fostering. I'm very familiar with
the with the faculty at several great universities here in
(23:02):
the Boston area, and I know many of them personally,
and I know some of my friends on both the
right and the left. But the presence of folks who
are just inculcated with a progressive philosophy dominate college faculties
across this country. And how did we ever get to
that point of such imbalance within the university, which is
(23:26):
supposed to be a petridish of ideas for students and
faculty alike.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Yes, indeed, the hiring practice is so broken that it
simply reinforces the echo chamber. Harvard, for example, did a
survey of its faculty, ninety seven percent reported that they
were liberal or very liberal. I'm not making a value
judgment about their politics, but what kind of discourse goes
(23:54):
on on that campus. And I think the cause a
line between that kind of echo chamber and the inability
of Harvard to really think through the sorts of policies
that ought to govern on campus is self evident.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah. Again, we've heard a lot the last few years
about you know, diversity, equity inclusion, which is fine, okay,
your student body should come from different backgrounds and from
different areas geographically, if you draw from different areas, but
there's no interest in giving students who come to campus
(24:34):
perhaps not with a set of values or ideas or philosophy,
but if you only expose them to professors of one
point of view, you're not I don't think providing a
balanced education whatsoever. And there's also quotes on many college
campuses these days. They want to get to every want
(24:57):
to get rid of everything, whether it's you know, historic history,
you know how how the country in which they were
born came to be. They want to get rid of Shakespeare,
they want to get rid of Western thought. There's there's
there's a war on on traditional culture on many university campuses,
and we see what happened this last year, particularly in
(25:21):
the wake of the brutal attack on Israel on October seventh,
and the fallout from that which is now resultant in
the resignation of the president of Harvard, the president m I.
T the president of the University of Pennsylvania. It's it
was a long time coming, wasn't it.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
There's something that we can count on that when we've
got people who don't understand the American story, and that's
not a story that's without laws and without failings, but
when they don't understand the principles and the promise of America,
(26:03):
they will take it lightly. There's a survey done by
the World World Value Survey showed that barely thirty percent
of Americans born before or born since nineteen eighty think
it essential to live in a country that's governed democratically.
And even more frightening you probably saw the polls, less
(26:25):
than fifty percent of the young people say that if
America were invaded by Russia that they would stay and
fight as opposed to flee. Well, this is the failing
of education and what we want to do at ACTA
is to make sure that our college grads have a
strong foundation in understanding the documents, the key points in
(26:50):
our history, and are able to be engaged intelligent citizens
in our society. We were born in this country. It's
in our dna in debate and discourse and forming that
more perfect union through openness and arguing with one another.
And these are the things that are precisely lacking on
(27:14):
so many college campuses. And one way to get at
this is to go back and understand what our birthright is.
I'm not for a moment saying that we shouldn't be
critical of the places where we've had flaws. God men
dine every flaw. But to take such a dismissive attitude
and ignorance is appalling and it's malfeasance on the part
(27:38):
of college governance not to do something about it.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Well, I wish you the best. By the way, I misspoke,
the MIT president, Sally Cornbolloth, has not resigned. It was
the Columbia University president who resigned a few days ago.
So Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard have all lost presidents
in the fallout the political faull that begin last fall
(28:03):
with a brutal attack by Hamas on the Israeli settlers
on our cover seventh. How can folks get more information
Michael about this effort. There has to be an easy
website that folks can go to. I have a lot
of people I know who are going to want to
get this information because the launch of this organization is
(28:24):
not going to be highlighted on any of the main
evening newscast ABC, NBC or CBS. Trust me on that.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
I am afraid that patriotism is something that has been
so badly scorned. Patriotism is not blind chauvinism. Patriotism means
we have a basic, basic obligation to make our country
better all the time, continuous improvement. Anyone can go to
(28:52):
www dot go acta, Goo acta dot org and write
off homepage. There's information about the new commission and we'll
be working on this right away. Its success that we
want to give to this country that we love so much.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, thank you, Michael for what you do. And it's
simply go actor so it's gooacta dot org. Michael Roikoff,
thank you so much for what you do. I'll have
you back somenight for a longer conversation and maybe we'll
incorporate during a full hour phone calls from listeners. I
don't know if you listen to WBZ, but you can
(29:31):
flip me on any night ten thirty on the AM
dial Monday through Friday night. And I think you will
enjoy what you will hear on this program.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I know I will.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Dan, thank you for the opportunity to be with you.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
It's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
We'll have you back. Thanks so much. When we get back,
we're going to talk about a really inspirational story. A
man who's a cancer survivor. It's a retyree, but he
inspires younger people to manufacture guitarists at a local community college.
(30:04):
We'll have that story. It's fascinating story with Mark Bulldock,
the retire informer student himself coming back on Nightside right
after this.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World,
Light Side Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Now, I'm not a music expert, and I certainly would
never try to build a musical instrument, but I'm delighted
to be joined by Quinn Sigamund Community College. Well, he
was a student and I believe now a graduate and
he helps students. He's had a long and winding path.
(30:40):
Let me put it like that. I think there was
a song about long and winding paths. So we'll use
that as a segue and introduced you to Mark Buldock. Hey, Mark,
welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 6 (30:51):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (30:51):
Hi Dan, I'm great, I'm great. How are you? Thanks
for having me, My pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Now you have had a what we would call a
non traditional acad career. As I understand that you, uh, you,
you now work at Quinsigamund Community College and you're the
manager of a program. To tell us what you're doing now,
and then we'll go back and we'll we'll begin at
the beginning.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Sure, sure, So about two years ago, I was looking
for something to do to further my education. I love
technology and I like going to work. Retirement wasn't especially
after COVID. I was really stuck in a place of oh,
(31:38):
I don't know, I just I didn't like retirement. I
felt isolated.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
What did you What did you retire from? Mark? If
I could ask, what, what was your career?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
I was, Yeah, I was. I was in information technology.
I got involved with computers.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
That's a good field. Mark, that's a heck of a
good field. Yeah. So did you go to school?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Did you go to school? Did you go to school for.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
That or I did? I did. I went to clock
University for Back then, it was called the Microsoft Certified
Engineering Systems Engineer Program, and that is right after that's
that's right after Windows three dot one, before any type
(32:24):
of networking wow, uh Windows NT that was the Yeah,
of course back ages. So I had it on the
ground level. And I at that time I had been
with the same company for eighteen years, and computers were
starting to become part of with their products. So I
(32:46):
eventually I took a buyout and I started my own company.
And then I landed a job with one of my clients,
and I was there until I got sick. For almost
almost seventeen years.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
You were dealing with cancer, as I understand it correct.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yeah. I was diagnosed with first with prostate cancer stage three,
and when I went to get a second opinion looking
at it, I was only fifty three, so I was
looking at all the different possible solutions or treatments. They
wanted to do surgery right away, but I wanted to
(33:25):
take a look at some of the others, and I
stumbled across an experimental surgery called the highly Focused Intensive Ultrasound.
It was not FDA approved and experimental at the time,
but I was. I thought it was my best option
and I was willing to roll the dice. And as
I was going down the path, they discovered I had
(33:47):
colon cancer too, a much more complicated case of there.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But I don't want to dwell on that because obviously
that is now in your rearview mirror. Thank god, you
drive that and.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Then you decide my career short.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, cut your career short short, no doubt about that.
But then you've gone on to this other career where
you now work at Quinsigamund Community College, which is a
great school in Worcester, very familiar with it, and you
teach kids how to make how to produce.
Speaker 7 (34:25):
Guitars correct or actually and whatever their project of choices.
I've worked with a number of students there on. This
machine is a CNC machine. They have several different flavors
of CNC, which is the programming language that sends us
(34:46):
instructions to either a laser or a mill or a
lais or a router or A spindle is which is
the machine I use the most, and that is primarily
for wood. The other machines are for a variety of
other materials, from stainless steel to aluminum.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Brass and the like. But so the machine that I
went to school for, I went actually I started that
when I was saying, I bought a kit guitar let
me back teddle a minute, uh so to build because
I was stuck at home for six months and I
either worked or built models, and I bought I bought
(35:26):
a guitar kit and assembled that and I said, Wow,
this is fun. And when I was looking for something
to do, I had this idea from the get go
to try to help other people that are sick. I
stole that from the who they had put together awards
for teens with cancer that had like all the recording
(35:50):
gear and all the instruments and we only have a.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
We only have a minute left. So the bottom line
is you now are working with students at quinsigamund correct.
You know, I'm not sure if you're working as a
volunteer or hopefully you're working as a as another path
in your career, and you're teaching these kids how to
make musical instruments and other things, how to how to
(36:14):
musical instruments.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Wow, whatever their idea is, we work together on that.
And yes, I'm an employee right now, part time employee.
I work with another gentleman there.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
I know you're not technically, I.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Know that technically, I don't think you're a professor, but
I'll tell you. But however, you are, in point of fact,
doing the work of a professor at a school. Seriously,
they should be calling your professor. It's as simple as that.
This is an inspiring story. Mark and I run out
of time, unfortunately, and we could probably talk a lot longer,
(36:50):
but uh, congratulations on fighting the good fight at beating
cancer and bouncing back. Your resilience and your passion are amazing.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot to me. Dan.
I have to say, I feel like I was always optimistic.
I always look toward the future, no matter what the
what was, I was looking against them. And I'm grateful
to be here. I'm grateful for the opportunities that I've
been presented.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And those students are pretty I'm sure pretty grateful to
have you on campus.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Oh it's fun, have a good time.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
With it.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Mark, thank you so much. Okay, you know I appreciate this. This,
this will be posted. Your students can listen to this.
They can go to Nightside and Demand and they can
listen to this entire interview. It'll be posted tomorrow in
podcast form at Nightside on Demand dot com. So I
hope you hope they enjoyed as much as I have.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Thanks Mark, Okay, Dan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Talk to you soon we get back. We're going to
talk about a story in the Globe today which caught
my eye. I'm a dog lover, as I think you know,
and I think people should be able to bring their
dogs to outdoor restaurants in Austin, and we'll explain the
whole story. And later on we're going to get to
a big change in the presidential race and it's not
happening in Chicago. I will explain. Robert F. Kennedy Junior
(38:10):
may be endorsing Donald Trump before week's end.
It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Boston Radio, Madison. Thank you very much, boy. We have
lots to talk about tonight, Lots happening in the news
and lots happening on Nightside. My name is Dan Ray.
I'm the host of Nightside. This is a midweek edition
Wednesday Night. We're every Monday through Friday night from eight
until midnight on WBZ ten thirty and their AM dial
in Boston. Apparently there's going to be another big development
(00:29):
in the twenty twenty four presidential race. On Friday. We
will talk about a statement a decision that were led
to believe Robert F. Kennedy Junior has made. We'll talk
about that tonight. We're also going to talk in the
nine o'clock hour, just to change the pace a little
bit about some Boston restaurants which are now allowing, maybe
(00:54):
even encouraging people to bring their dogs with them to
sit outside outside dining here in Boston. Some restaurants are
dog friendly. Big article in the Globe today that caught
my eye, and we'll talk about that. We also have
a Globe article Tomorrow Night Tomorrow coming out tomorrow, which
we just saw, in which the Globe will disclose that
(01:16):
four United States Senators from New England, including Elizabeth Warren,
Maggie Hassen, Jean Shaheen, and Angus King, their ancestors owned slaves. Yes,
we'll talk about that. There were no other members of
the congressional delegation in New England whose ancestors owned slaves,
(01:40):
but we'll get to all of that. An incredible story
about the Globe, and again I continue to commend them
for doing some really great journalism lately. But we're going
to start off with a story out of Cambridge. Joining
me as our first guest tonight is the owner of
Cambridge Brewing Company, Phil Bonatime. Phil, give me the correct
(02:04):
pronunciation on the last name in case I missed that.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Dan, you got real close. It's Banatime, ben Atime.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Okay, that's great. I wasn't sure. So you folks have
been in operation here for a long time. I think
it's thirty five years.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Correct, that's correct, nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Okay, and it's Look, everybody, whether you happen to like
beer or not, loves the idea of local brewing companies.
But the Globe, again citing the Globe here over the weekend,
reported that this brew pub in Kendall Square is going
to close in December. So that is not a happy
(02:48):
story for us. What's going on? First of all, Phil.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Well, it's not necessarily a not happy story. I mean
it's it's been a thirty five year run. We've had
an incredible time of success. It's been very rewarding for
me and.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
For all involved.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And I'm getting up there, Dan and at a time,
you know, at some point you got to say, well,
maybe this is enough. Maybe we set out to do
what we set out to do and we accomplished it.
So I'm feeling really proud about what we've done and
all the you know, the good times we've had there,
and all the people that have come through there and
(03:31):
been trained as brewers and chefs and what have you,
and the legacy that we're leaving. Well, and maybe let's
let me.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Just first of all say I do understand that a
job well done and accomplished in a career is something
you celebrate. However, I would love to know how did
you get started? What happened? Did you wake up someday
what we're doing Previously, little kids don't grow up to
say I'm going to become a brewer, I guess unless
they follow baseball and live in Milwaukee. Maybe, but that's
(04:02):
a different type of brewer that we're talking about here.
How did you become a brewer?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, it started. I was out in the Bay Area
living in the early eighties and brewing beer in my kitchen,
having traveled in Europe and seeing what good beer could be,
and then coming back to the States and they being,
you know, basically what we had were yellow physy industrial loggers,
and there's so much more out there. So it's like, okay, well,
(04:31):
let me learn how to make beer in my kitchen.
And then I was in as I said, in California,
and they changed the laws out there in the early
eighties that allowed you to produce beer and sell it
on site. Previously, these things were strictly separated into what
we call the three tier system. So there's the producer
and the wholesaler and the retailer. So now restaurants are
(04:55):
tap rooms or what have you could make beer and
sell it direct to the public. And I thought, wait, great,
So I went to the University of California and I
took some some brewing classes, and I drove back to
Cambridge to open a brew pub.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Now, when you say you drove back to Cambridge, originally
you a Bostonian, a Cambridge guy who was out there?
Are you at here southern Connecticut? Close enough? That's close enough,
I thought, So, what what are you going to do?
I mean, you're going to relax for a few days,
I hope maybe even a few weeks. What's next on
(05:30):
Phil's agenda?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
No, that's kind of you to ask, you know. I
I'm not pressuring myself a whole lot to figure that out.
I have some hobbies. I play a lot of tennis.
I look forward to that. Beyond that, I don't know.
I'm going to take it easy for a while, and
I am kind of a restless guy. I'm gonna I'm
(05:52):
going to try to find something meaningful, try to give
back in some way. Uh, you know, maybe maybe in
the foods or food pantry or Yeah, I don't know.
I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Did you think of selling the brewery? I'm sure that
must have crossed your mind.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, he asked a great question, and sure, but to
sell in that question is did you think of selling it?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Well?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
The it really is us. It's myself, My brew master,
Will Myers has been with me for thirty two years.
My chef David Drew's been with me for sixteen. My
GM Laura Peters has been with me for eighteen years.
I mean, that's the it, and that's not for sale.
I mean, these folks want to go on to new
(06:42):
opportunities and new challenges, and I just sort of feel
like we've done what we set out to do and
it's a good time to move on to other things.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I love your integrity, man, I really do feel that's
an amazing statement you just made. But folks can still
come by the Cambridge Brewing Company anytime. I guess not
between now and December twentieth. December twentieth, this last call.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I sure hope that they do. I mean, there's it's
been an important place to a lot of people, and
I hope they come by and share them memory and
a pint and a smile and we'll we do. We
still have four months to go.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That's fabulous, Phil give you guys are in Kendall Square.
I want to give the specific address in case someone's
driving around tonight they put that address in the GPS,
either for tonight or for some time this weekend.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, it's one Kendall Square, which is a development the
corner of Hampshire and Broadway in Kendall Square and Cambridge.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's great. Well, look, thanks, thanks for what you've done,
and thanks for being with us tonight. And I've never
met you before. First time we talked your class act
really mean.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
That, a buddy.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I appreciate that, and thank you for drawn some attention
to what we've done and the fact that we're still
going to be there for a little while.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Four more months, four more months, Thanks so much. Phil
really enjoyed the conversations. Well, that's interesting. Now we're gonna
go from beer a brewing. We're gonna go to some
clever ways to waste less food, save money, and live
(08:29):
more sustainably. This is something you need to listen to
and I need to listen to as well, although I
tend to just buy what I need and uh, and
I think that's what all of us should do. But
we're going to talk with a very interesting author whose
name is Carolyn Pilgrim. We'll be right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now, back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nice Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
My guest is tarre Lynn Pilgrim. She's an author written
a book, No Scrap Left Behind, My Life Without Food
Waste look something we all should aspire to a resourceful,
budget conscious consumers and can also pocket an average of
thirteen hundred dollars a year by doing this one simple thing.
Waste less food sounds simple. First of all, welcome Tara Lynn.
(09:24):
How are you?
Speaker 5 (09:26):
I'm doing great?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Sure, now, it sounds really simple, three words waste less food.
But how do you do that? You have to have
some discipline. You have to make sure you eat or
your family eats what you buy, and you don't leave
it in the refrigerator, you know, and have to throw
it out as it's gone bad, or you don't put
out food that people don't need. How do you do this?
(09:47):
How do you waste less food realistically?
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Well, you know, it takes a lot of discipline at first.
And I when I first started doing this, I said
I was going to do it for a year. I
was going to get my food why send to zero?
And I was going to write a book and tell
people how to do it. But by the time I
figured out how to do it, and I had like
wasting getting to zero was a challenge, but getting to
the point where I had drastically changed my life just
(10:14):
got to be a lifestyle, you know, and and it
wasn't so hard. Now, I will say, the most important thing,
if I had to pick one thing to tell your
viewers is not to buy too much food, because it
doesn't matter how much you learn about, you know, up
cycling and refrigeration and storage. If things are going bad
faster than you can eat it, there's really not a
lot you can do. So that right there makes a
(10:37):
big difference.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Type Also, like, what if I could ask what type
of foods? Look, I assume it's it's primarily vegetables. Maybe
I'm wrong, but I'm assuming it's primarily vegetables that people
have in that crisper and all of a sudden they realized, oh,
it's been there too long. What type of food do
people unintentionally weigh? So I'm not talking about the person
(11:01):
who has to buy you know, you know, seven pounds
of shrimp for a little get together with a few neighbors,
and you realize that only half of a pound of
shrimp was eaten and you don't know what they do
with it. You put in the refrigerator. In three days later,
you throw it out. I'm talking about what is the
type of food that the average person wastes unintentionally?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
Well Refaed recently released a study saying that people who
don't eat their leftovers waste four times as much food. Now,
you would think a person who says, you know, I'm
not getting leftovers, I'll make less food. But it just
it doesn't seem to work that way. So things that
you've already cooked. Now, I will say, one of the
things I struggle with the most is like the produce
(11:46):
that you can't really cook into something else, you know,
like romaine, lettuce or grapes. But you know, we do
think of produce. But also meat has a very important
time stamp on it, you know, like you really have
to get that in the freezer or eat it up
before before it gets you sick. But really, if people
(12:07):
were to focus just on their leftovers, that would make
a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Hey, what I do, and I do this maybe once
a month or a couple of times a month. I
like burgers on the grill. Okay, I know that's not
the greatest food for you, but I will get a
pound of burger, and I will before I put in
the refrigerator. I will make my hamburg patties, wrap them
(12:31):
up in aluminum, put them in the freezer, and when
there's a night that I want to have something that
I like, and quick fire up that grill and I
got dinner and nothing gets wasted. Great, just as opposed
to putting the brown beef in the refrigerator and letting
(12:52):
it sit there for a couple of days or a
couple of weeks. I just think again a little bit
of discipline, and also just you know, all of us
should know what do we like to eat. I just
think that there's so much of that. I'm huge on
fruit in the morning on my cereals, strawberries, blueberries, bananas,
(13:15):
whatever whatever is in style, but I don't buy too much.
And because I don't, it's wasting. It is truly wasting money.
Maybe I'm too money conscious on it, but I'm serious.
The side benefit is that my refrigerator is always full
of the stuff that you go through quickly, like milk
and orange juice. I'm a pretty good eater. And I
(13:37):
got my fruit there and got my cookies in the pantry,
and I'm a happy camper.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Yeah No, And I think also paying attention to how
much you're going to eat and planning ahead. Like, I
think something you said it was really smart. It's how
you individually wrap your hamburger patties. Yeah, you know what
I mean, Like, you don't just put them all in
the freezer. You know that you're not going to eat
them all, you know, you know you're going to have
to pull out a couple at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, And most nights I'm eating alone because of my job.
I have a family and all that, but I'm on
a hear from eight to midnight and I want to
eat at five o'clock. Nobody else wants to eat at
five o'clock. That's fine with me. So is it possible?
Now you're the author, have you gotten to the point
(14:24):
where during the course of a month, there's no food
that you waste, There's no food that you throw away.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
So when I when I was doing this, I had
a toughware container in the freezer that would hold about
like six cups of water, and my goal would be
to not like to keep a month's worth of waste
inside that container. And there were some months where I
would like like shove it in to make it thick.
(14:51):
So it's like I've got to keep this in for
a month. But as I got better at it, it
got lower and lower. And the month that I wasted
the lease, it was only way full and it weighed
two pounds. And I had two little kids at the time.
I was a toddler and a four year old and
a husband and me, and that was it for the
entire month.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
That's pretty good. That is fifty good. So so you
not only wrote the book, but you live the life. Now.
How long has the book been around? And it is
this something that people could buy and use as as
a guide.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
You know, it's funny you say that because I just
got my copy in the mail yesterday and I've been
waiting for my copy because I want to use it
in my kitchen.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Sometimes it's just out now.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah maybe not.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Well, it's available for pre sale and it will start
going out for deliverying in September seventeenth.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
No scrap left behind, life with my Life without food waste.
How long have you been doing this? That's my other question.
Is there something that took a period of time for
you to to get accustomed to before you wrote the book.
I'm sure you didn't write this book two months ago.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Oh well, I would have been able to go through
this whole thing a lot faster if I had had,
if someone had written this book for me. But you know,
I started in twenty seventeen. There was a lot less
awareness about food waste at the time, and I was
really kind of scrambling a lot because I had to
learn all of this stuff on my own. For example,
(16:31):
you really got to clean out and organize your whole
kitchen beforehand, and I didn't do that u till I
was like eight months in. So it wasn't until I
hit the one year mark, so from twenty seventeen to
twenty eighteen that I felt like I finally had it,
figure it out, and it went to my husband. I
was like, can we do this another year, because like,
it took me this long to learn it, now I
want to do it.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
And so those were like the two years that I
really focused heavily on this, and then I wrote it
and got it published and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Now it's out and nobody went to bed hungry in
your family. I mean, that's the point. You had everything
you needed, and I'm serious, it's like you were disciplined
and all of that. What kicked it off in your
mind that's my last question. There must have been some
moment in time when you said, you know what, we'll
waste it too much food, or you must have read
something or seen something.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
What was it. I?
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Yes, I read something. It was an article about starving kids.
I mean, I've always felt guilty every time I throw
out food. And I had read somewhere many years ago
that the average family wastes enough to feed an additional
family member. So yeah, I know. So I would always
think about, like this kid that could be alive because
(17:44):
of me, but instead of wasting my food. And I
was reading this specific article that said that in some country, okay,
I think it was Nigeria, there are villages that had
lost all their toddlers to hunger. And I had tollers
at the time, and it just destroyed me because I
was just imagining, like what my life would be like
(18:06):
and all my friends and all my family if all
the toddlers were gone.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's a great story, great motivation, And yeah, I hope
people get the book No Scrap Left Behind My Life
Without Food Waste by Terarylyn Pilgrim. It's available. You can
order it Amazon wherever you get your books. That's for sure. Terrell,
and I enjoyed this conversation a whole lot. Thank you
very much for having joined us.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
You're welcome. When we get back, we're going to talk
about American history and civic education. There is now a
National Commission on American History and Civic Education. And I
would say it's about time. We'll be back on Nightside
right after the news. At the bottom of the ear.
My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside on WBZ ten
(18:55):
thirty and your AM radio dial. If for some reason
ever traveling or trouble getting us on the radio ten
thirty and the AM dial, and we have a big,
powerful signal, you always go to the iHeartRadio app and
you can listen to us anywhere in the country. The
other night, last Friday night, my producer Marita was driving
in Pennsylvania to a family event with her husband and daughter.
(19:18):
She was listening to us in Pennsylvania, and she told
me today that the busy signal boomed into Pennsylvania. But
I know that anyway, we'll be back on Nightside, more
conversation right after this.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
It's Nightside with Ray, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
All right, I think all of you who listened to
Nightside over the years know that I have for a
long time bemoaned the d emphasis on history, but even
more so on civics in high schools in our neck
of the woods and across America. There is a new
National Commission on American History and Civic Education that is
(20:00):
founded by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni with
me is the head of that organization. He's the president
and chief executive officer of ACTA again, the American Council
of Trustees and Alumni. Michael Polakoff, I hope I got
that right, Polyokov. Michael, give me a good pronunciation, so
(20:22):
I don't mess it up a.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
Third time, Polyakoff, But I'm not great to be on.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
The show with Polyakoff. Michael, great to be with you.
We probably have a lot of mutual friends. I recently
had the chancellor of Vanderbilt University on the program, and
we often have folks from higher education. Uh, and I
think this is an incredibly positive development. Tell us a
(20:49):
little bit about what the American Council of Trustees and Alumni,
what that organization actually is, and tell us about the
National Commission and what it intends to accomplish.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Sure, Dan, I'm glad you're speaking to Chancellor Deermeyer as well.
We need more college leadership like that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
He's a University Chicago guy, heart and soul, a though
he was educated in other institutions, he certainly follows the
code that the University of Chicago has invested in so
many people.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
A rule of law, freedom of speech. These things are
the lifeblood of a strong campus and of a free society. Yes,
we were founded in nineteen ninety five and we took
it as our mission to strengthen academic standards, freedom of speech,
and intellectual diversity on campus, and accountability for costs and
(21:43):
spending practices. And it's our focus on ensuring that the
rising generation of Americans understand what it is to be
a citizen, what the obligations are, our institutions, and how
we got them that has led us to put this
wonderful commission of education leaders scholars together. I think Dan,
(22:07):
you and I are very much on the same page.
An ignorant citizen is a disempowered citizen, the kind of
person who's not going to have recourse to the rule
of law but to destructiveness. And we've been seeing entirely
too much of that to our detriment and to the
peril of our future. And we want to make our
(22:30):
gift for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our
country a much much better educated group of young Americans.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I have a question, and you know, when you talk
about intellectual diversity, that's the only sort of diversity that
the folks who run universities and colleges across this country
and have run them for the last thirty or so years,
have not been interested in fostering. I'm very familiar with
the with the faculty at several great universities here in
(23:02):
the Boston area, and I know many of them personally,
and I know some of my friends on both the
right and the left. But the presence of folks who
are just inculcated with a progressive philosophy dominate college faculties
across this country. And how did we ever get to
that point of such imbalance within the university, which is
(23:26):
supposed to be a petridish of ideas for students and
faculty alike.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Yes, indeed, the hiring practice is so broken that it
simply reinforces the echo chamber. Harvard, for example, did a
survey of its faculty, ninety seven percent reported that they
were liberal or very liberal. I'm not making a value
judgment about their politics, but what kind of discourse goes
(23:54):
on on that campus. And I think the cause a
line between that kind of echo chamber and the inability
of Harvard to really think through the sorts of policies
that ought to govern on campus is self evident.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah. Again, we've heard a lot the last few years
about you know, diversity, equity inclusion, which is fine, okay,
your student body should come from different backgrounds and from
different areas geographically, if you draw from different areas, but
there's no interest in giving students who come to campus
(24:34):
perhaps not with a set of values or ideas or philosophy,
but if you only expose them to professors of one
point of view, you're not I don't think providing a
balanced education whatsoever. And there's also quotes on many college
campuses these days. They want to get to every want
(24:57):
to get rid of everything, whether it's you know, historic history,
you know how how the country in which they were
born came to be. They want to get rid of Shakespeare,
they want to get rid of Western thought. There's there's
there's a war on on traditional culture on many university campuses,
and we see what happened this last year, particularly in
(25:21):
the wake of the brutal attack on Israel on October seventh,
and the fallout from that which is now resultant in
the resignation of the president of Harvard, the president m I.
T the president of the University of Pennsylvania. It's it
was a long time coming, wasn't it.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
There's something that we can count on that when we've
got people who don't understand the American story, and that's
not a story that's without laws and without failings, but
when they don't understand the principles and the promise of America,
(26:03):
they will take it lightly. There's a survey done by
the World World Value Survey showed that barely thirty percent
of Americans born before or born since nineteen eighty think
it essential to live in a country that's governed democratically.
And even more frightening you probably saw the polls, less
(26:25):
than fifty percent of the young people say that if
America were invaded by Russia that they would stay and
fight as opposed to flee. Well, this is the failing
of education and what we want to do at ACTA
is to make sure that our college grads have a
strong foundation in understanding the documents, the key points in
(26:50):
our history, and are able to be engaged intelligent citizens
in our society. We were born in this country. It's
in our dna in debate and discourse and forming that
more perfect union through openness and arguing with one another.
And these are the things that are precisely lacking on
(27:14):
so many college campuses. And one way to get at
this is to go back and understand what our birthright is.
I'm not for a moment saying that we shouldn't be
critical of the places where we've had flaws. God men
dine every flaw. But to take such a dismissive attitude
and ignorance is appalling and it's malfeasance on the part
(27:38):
of college governance not to do something about it.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Well, I wish you the best. By the way, I misspoke,
the MIT president, Sally Cornbolloth, has not resigned. It was
the Columbia University president who resigned a few days ago.
So Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard have all lost presidents
in the fallout the political faull that begin last fall
(28:03):
with a brutal attack by Hamas on the Israeli settlers
on our cover seventh. How can folks get more information
Michael about this effort. There has to be an easy
website that folks can go to. I have a lot
of people I know who are going to want to
get this information because the launch of this organization is
(28:24):
not going to be highlighted on any of the main
evening newscast ABC, NBC or CBS. Trust me on that.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
I am afraid that patriotism is something that has been
so badly scorned. Patriotism is not blind chauvinism. Patriotism means
we have a basic, basic obligation to make our country
better all the time, continuous improvement. Anyone can go to
(28:52):
www dot go acta, Goo acta dot org and write
off homepage. There's information about the new commission and we'll
be working on this right away. Its success that we
want to give to this country that we love so much.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, thank you, Michael for what you do. And it's
simply go actor so it's gooacta dot org. Michael Roikoff,
thank you so much for what you do. I'll have
you back somenight for a longer conversation and maybe we'll
incorporate during a full hour phone calls from listeners. I
don't know if you listen to WBZ, but you can
(29:31):
flip me on any night ten thirty on the AM
dial Monday through Friday night. And I think you will
enjoy what you will hear on this program.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I know I will.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Dan, thank you for the opportunity to be with you.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
It's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
We'll have you back. Thanks so much. When we get back,
we're going to talk about a really inspirational story. A
man who's a cancer survivor. It's a retyree, but he
inspires younger people to manufacture guitarists at a local community college.
(30:04):
We'll have that story. It's fascinating story with Mark Bulldock,
the retire informer student himself coming back on Nightside right
after this.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World,
Light Side Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Now, I'm not a music expert, and I certainly would
never try to build a musical instrument, but I'm delighted
to be joined by Quinn Sigamund Community College. Well, he
was a student and I believe now a graduate and
he helps students. He's had a long and winding path.
(30:40):
Let me put it like that. I think there was
a song about long and winding paths. So we'll use
that as a segue and introduced you to Mark Buldock. Hey, Mark,
welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 6 (30:51):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (30:51):
Hi Dan, I'm great, I'm great. How are you? Thanks
for having me, My pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Now you have had a what we would call a
non traditional acad career. As I understand that you, uh, you,
you now work at Quinsigamund Community College and you're the
manager of a program. To tell us what you're doing now,
and then we'll go back and we'll we'll begin at
the beginning.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Sure, sure, So about two years ago, I was looking
for something to do to further my education. I love
technology and I like going to work. Retirement wasn't especially
after COVID. I was really stuck in a place of oh,
(31:38):
I don't know, I just I didn't like retirement. I
felt isolated.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
What did you What did you retire from? Mark? If
I could ask, what, what was your career?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
I was, Yeah, I was. I was in information technology.
I got involved with computers.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
That's a good field. Mark, that's a heck of a
good field. Yeah. So did you go to school?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Did you go to school? Did you go to school for.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
That or I did? I did. I went to clock
University for Back then, it was called the Microsoft Certified
Engineering Systems Engineer Program, and that is right after that's
that's right after Windows three dot one, before any type
(32:24):
of networking wow, uh Windows NT that was the Yeah,
of course back ages. So I had it on the
ground level. And I at that time I had been
with the same company for eighteen years, and computers were
starting to become part of with their products. So I
(32:46):
eventually I took a buyout and I started my own company.
And then I landed a job with one of my clients,
and I was there until I got sick. For almost
almost seventeen years.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
You were dealing with cancer, as I understand it correct.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yeah. I was diagnosed with first with prostate cancer stage three,
and when I went to get a second opinion looking
at it, I was only fifty three, so I was
looking at all the different possible solutions or treatments. They
wanted to do surgery right away, but I wanted to
(33:25):
take a look at some of the others, and I
stumbled across an experimental surgery called the highly Focused Intensive Ultrasound.
It was not FDA approved and experimental at the time,
but I was. I thought it was my best option
and I was willing to roll the dice. And as
I was going down the path, they discovered I had
(33:47):
colon cancer too, a much more complicated case of there.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But I don't want to dwell on that because obviously
that is now in your rearview mirror. Thank god, you
drive that and.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Then you decide my career short.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, cut your career short short, no doubt about that.
But then you've gone on to this other career where
you now work at Quinsigamund Community College, which is a
great school in Worcester, very familiar with it, and you
teach kids how to make how to produce.
Speaker 7 (34:25):
Guitars correct or actually and whatever their project of choices.
I've worked with a number of students there on. This
machine is a CNC machine. They have several different flavors
of CNC, which is the programming language that sends us
(34:46):
instructions to either a laser or a mill or a
lais or a router or A spindle is which is
the machine I use the most, and that is primarily
for wood. The other machines are for a variety of
other materials, from stainless steel to aluminum.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Brass and the like. But so the machine that I
went to school for, I went actually I started that
when I was saying, I bought a kit guitar let
me back teddle a minute, uh so to build because
I was stuck at home for six months and I
either worked or built models, and I bought I bought
(35:26):
a guitar kit and assembled that and I said, Wow,
this is fun. And when I was looking for something
to do, I had this idea from the get go
to try to help other people that are sick. I
stole that from the who they had put together awards
for teens with cancer that had like all the recording
(35:50):
gear and all the instruments and we only have a.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
We only have a minute left. So the bottom line
is you now are working with students at quinsigamund correct.
You know, I'm not sure if you're working as a
volunteer or hopefully you're working as a as another path
in your career, and you're teaching these kids how to
make musical instruments and other things, how to how to
(36:14):
musical instruments.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Wow, whatever their idea is, we work together on that.
And yes, I'm an employee right now, part time employee.
I work with another gentleman there.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
I know you're not technically, I.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Know that technically, I don't think you're a professor, but
I'll tell you. But however, you are, in point of fact,
doing the work of a professor at a school. Seriously,
they should be calling your professor. It's as simple as that.
This is an inspiring story. Mark and I run out
of time, unfortunately, and we could probably talk a lot longer,
(36:50):
but uh, congratulations on fighting the good fight at beating
cancer and bouncing back. Your resilience and your passion are amazing.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot to me. Dan.
I have to say, I feel like I was always optimistic.
I always look toward the future, no matter what the
what was, I was looking against them. And I'm grateful
to be here. I'm grateful for the opportunities that I've
been presented.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And those students are pretty I'm sure pretty grateful to
have you on campus.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Oh it's fun, have a good time.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
With it.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Mark, thank you so much. Okay, you know I appreciate this. This,
this will be posted. Your students can listen to this.
They can go to Nightside and Demand and they can
listen to this entire interview. It'll be posted tomorrow in
podcast form at Nightside on Demand dot com. So I
hope you hope they enjoyed as much as I have.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Thanks Mark, Okay, Dan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Talk to you soon we get back. We're going to
talk about a story in the Globe today which caught
my eye. I'm a dog lover, as I think you know,
and I think people should be able to bring their
dogs to outdoor restaurants in Austin, and we'll explain the
whole story. And later on we're going to get to
a big change in the presidential race and it's not
happening in Chicago. I will explain. Robert F. Kennedy Junior
(38:10):
may be endorsing Donald Trump before week's end.
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