May 19, 2025 • 38 mins
8:05PM: Jonathan Gulliver - MassDOT Highway Administrator on the Newton-Weston Bridge Replacement Project Weekend Closures for Bridge Work.
8:15PM: Jairam Eswara, MD - Chair of Urology at Tufts Medical Center on former President Biden's prostate cancer diagnosis.
8:30PM: Dave Wattles Black Bear & Furbearer Biologist for Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife on how Massachusetts moves to nearly double black bear hunting to curb population surge.
8:45PM: Annie Guest – Author, Attorney and Mental Health Therapist on how to renovate your family home without breaking the bank!
8:15PM: Jairam Eswara, MD - Chair of Urology at Tufts Medical Center on former President Biden's prostate cancer diagnosis.
8:30PM: Dave Wattles Black Bear & Furbearer Biologist for Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife on how Massachusetts moves to nearly double black bear hunting to curb population surge.
8:45PM: Annie Guest – Author, Attorney and Mental Health Therapist on how to renovate your family home without breaking the bank!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's nice eyes, Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm telling you easy Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Thank you very much, Madison. I wan to wish all
of you a very happy moon Day. I like to
put that vowel in between the oh with the N
on Monday and basically it's Monday anyway. Welcome. We started
another week. You know they had TGI Friday. Well this
isn't Friday. This is Monday. Good evening, everybody. Welcome on,
(00:27):
and my name's Dan Ray, im the host of the program.
We are wrapping up, getting pretty close to wrapping up
year eighteen here on Nightside. Thank you so much for
being loyal listeners. If you happen to be finding us
tonight for the first time, that's okay. Welcome aboard, better
late than ever, simple as that. Rob Brooks is back
(00:48):
in the control room. My name is Dan Ray of
the aforementioned Nightside with Dan Ray, and we're going to
give you four really interesting interviews this hour. We're going
to talk about subjects that are both in the news
and out of the news, and we will start off
with a big subject for those of us here in
eastern Massachusetts. It is the Newton Weston Bridge replacement project.
(01:12):
Weekend closures for bridge work, and that certainly I hope
gets your attention. With us is Jonathan Gulliver. He is
the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Highway Administrator. Jonathan has been
with us before. Jonathan, welcome back. I think, how are
you tonight?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Great, Dan, thank you for having me on our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I'm very familiar with that location and you guys have
been doing a lot of work out there, but it's
going to be really a lot of work the weekend
of May thirtieth to June second, not Memorial Day weekend,
but the weekend after. So let's talk about it. You
and I know where it is, but it is the
(01:54):
it's really where the mass pipe kind of crosses one
twenty eight intersect with one twenty eight. For anyone who
is unfamiliar with the area we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Correct, that's exactly right. So this is the Turnpike one
to twenty eight interchange. It's you know, this is an
area that if you've been a regular driver, you've seen
a lot of construction going on. This is one of
our biggest active construction jobs. It's just under four hundred million,
and we are doing a full replacement of all the
structures in that interchange, they're all original, they've all needed
(02:25):
a lot of work. This project has been going on
for a couple of years now, but it's really if
you've been again a regular commuter, you're seeing over the
last six months or so a lot going on. All
that prep work that we've been doing is resulting in
some of those new bridges being built and some really
new infrastructure coming out of the ground, and we're quickly
approaching this stage again. First first part of it is
(02:48):
right after the weekend after Memorial Day weekend, where we're
going to be demolishing what's the train tunnel, which is
the kind of the first structure to the west of
the project where the Commuter rail cross at Commuter Rail
and the Amtrak train cross across the turnpike from the
north side to the south side. So we need to
(03:10):
replace that train tunnel as part of this project, and
it's going to be a pretty impactful couple of weekends
that we have scheduled for this YEW.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So the first closure is May thirtieth to June second
again the weekend after Memorial Day. Memorial Day is early
this year. And then the second one, which we can
talk about later on in June. Is going to run
from June twentieth to June twenty third, So just a
couple of help people better understand this. The structures that
(03:38):
you are changing, how long had they been serving the public?
Are we talking about seventy years or so?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, they are original to the turnpike and so yeah,
that's somewhere around sixty five seventy years now old. And
the you know, basically what we're doing here, this is
this for any you've heard us talk about this kind
of construction before. This is accelerated bridge construction. And what
we will be doing exactly is we're going to be
(04:07):
directing all the traffic onto one barrel of the turnpike.
In this case, we're going to be pushing all the
traffic over the westbound side. We're reducing it down to
two lanes, one in each direction, and then we're going
to be going in and demolishing the eastbound side of
the turnpike for that portion of it over the train tunnel,
completely demolishing it, getting that old concrete out of there,
(04:29):
bringing in brand new, pre prefabricated concrete pieces, dropping them
into place, and then doing a closure poor with some
special kind of high strength concrete, letting that set, and
then reopening the whole thing by Monday morning. So it's
a very rapid construction technique. We've used this in a
lot of different places over the last decade now, very
(04:51):
very effective. A lot of time and planning goes into
doing a movement like this, like one of these short
term very intense pain for people who need to use
that that portion of the roadway over the weekend, But
the long term is that we get open very very quickly.
Again that you have these really high intense impacts, and
then it's back back in a full service by Monday morning.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Just to put it again in perspective for people, how
many personnel are going to be on the ground throughout
that weekend, Mass Highway or or subcontractors. How big a
project We know how big it is financially four hundred
million dollars, but we have a couple of hundred people
working there that weekend.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
They wouldn't quite be a couple hundred, but it's it's
in over one hundred people, and that's between mass DOT
staff and the contractors staff, and it's all different trades.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You know you're gonna have you're gonna have.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
The demolition contractor coming in and out, so that it's
basically at any given time you're gonna have somewhere between
seventy five and one hundred people is the expectation. But
there's a lot of different people, a bunch of different
trades over that course of the weekend that are there.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So people will cycle in, do their thing, and get out,
so you could eventually at the end of the way,
we can have a couple of one hundred people who may
have participated in some form of fashion. That's what I
was asking. So here's here's my question. I know the
best advice will be from nine pm on May thirtieth
to five am on June second, avoid this area at
(06:17):
all cost, at all costs, which of course won't happen
because a lot of people aren't going to hear us tonight.
If you have to use that area of our western
suburbs one twenty eight Master and Pike in some form
of fashion, there are ways to get around that, okay,
which are going to probably be slow. I get that.
(06:39):
I mean I can get from one twenty eight to
the Pike to buy and head into Boston by getting
off at Route sixteen going past Newton Wellesley Hospital drop
down to the pike. You know, halfway between one twenty
eight and Newton Corner there were workarounds. There are ways
to work around, and obviously if you have ways, hopefully
(07:00):
this is going to be up on ways's boards for everyone.
But yeah, if you do have to go there, let's
assume some way someone has to go there. How big
a delay are they looking at realistically?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So these are never easy to predict. The so even
on weekends, the turnpike is one of our busiest roads.
During weekdays, it's one hundred thousand vehicles a day. During
weekends it drops off, but you're still talking about seventy
seventy five thousand vehicles, So it gets very, very heavily traveled.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
What we're asking people is, if you don't need to
be in that area, find another alternate route.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Don't don't be around there.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
We don't If you have just a discretionary trip to
be out and about, don't go check out the construction.
Watch for it on the news. If you have to
go through, there's a couple of different ways. If you're
going to be in traffic, it's it could get. If
that whole seventy five thousand people that usually travel that
roadway on the weekend come, you could be in for
two or three hour delay. If they don't, it gets
(08:03):
a lot more manageable. It gets back to delayed, but
not not as far as not as.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Long a word to the why should be sufficient. Stay
away from media, stay.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Away if you can. There's going now.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
The train is also going to be impacted, but there
are shuttle buses in places. They have alternative routes that
they're using, so we'll be running full service, but it
will be on buses, not on the train. That's a
you know, so if you have to take public transportation,
you'll be available to you. It'll be slower than usual.
We're asking you to please leave an extra you know,
give yourself a lot of extra time to get around.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Though, Jonathan, I appreciate you taking the time. And if
if if you want to come back next week, some
night late next week, I don't know even if you
want to come back the thirty first, or I should
know it's not the thirty first, to be like the
twenty ninth or whatever. It would be more than happy
(08:59):
to have to come back because what will happen, is
people will will they'll listen to us tonight and they'll
say wrong with us. I'm going to avoid that at
all costs. I think they said the fourth of July. Yeah,
you know. So if you want to make a return
appearance on this one, Jonathan, I think it's big enough.
I think it's important enough. We'd love to have you back, Okay,
just like i'd.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Be happy to and and Dan. One of these days
I'm going to come on with great traffic news. Today
is not that day, avelot That's.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Okay, that's okay. Most days it is great traffic news
because people most days, if they're smart, they kind of
work around some of the bottlenecks. But that's okay, Jonathan Gulliver,
you are a great representative of mass Dot Highway administration.
Let me tell you do a great job. You're great communicator.
Thank you, my friend. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Thank you, Dan, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Have a good night, you bet you. All right, we
get back. We're going to talk about President Biden's diagnosis
of prostate cancer. We're going to talk with a doctor
chief of urology at the Tofts Medical Center. Coming back
on night Side and we'll kind of lay it out
there and it's it's something that everybody should be thinking
about for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray, Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, I think by now most of us have heard
the very sad news that former President Joe Biden has
been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. We
of course have a lot of questions in our minds,
and I'm sure that all of you have questions in
your minds what this all means. And joining us now
is doctor j Aswara. He is the chair of the
(10:32):
urology department at Toughts Medical Center. Doctor y Suarre, thank
you very much for joining.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Us hey day, Thanks so much for having me so.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Prostate cancer is not a real form of cancer. One
in eight Americans if the American men, if they live
long enough, will be diagnosed. Are you surprised at the
level of this prostate cancer? I mean, you would assume
that President Biden would have had the best medical care
and treatment in the world at the White House or
(11:02):
you know, at whatever medical facility he wanted to go to.
My understanding is that on what they call the gleas
and scale from zero to ten, he is a nine,
which means it's a highly aggressive and also a form
of prostate cancer that already has probably metastasized.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, Dan. You know, it puts them
in kind of the minority of patients who are diagnosed
with prostaate cancer. So roughly five to seven or eight
percent of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer will
have metastases at the time of presentation. So you know,
like you said, it's uncommon, and you know, his prostay
(11:47):
cancer was sort of diagnosed the most common way by
a physical exam, which includes a rectal exam. So when
men are screened for prostate cancer, it typically involves two things,
getting a blood test, a PSA test, and doing a
rectal exam to feel for any nodules. And it sounds
from the news reports as though this or this was
picked up by by rectal exam.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, I picked that up. Here's my question. Wouldn't they
done a PSA on him a year ago? He had
apparently his last physical a year what's a little over
a year ago in February of twenty twenty four. P
SA are part of every physical that I've ever been
subjected to.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, you know, this is what's tricky about the p
s A test is that there's no there's no hard
and fast cut off, and so it's hard to know
exactly what PSA levels he was dealing with frior to
this diagnosis, but it can it can sort of lead
people astray. Some people will have really aggressive forms of
(12:49):
prosat cancer and have relatively low PSAs, And.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So what is real important? Yeah, doctor, what's a relatively
low PSA? My understanding from the medical from the my
doctor is that they want to make sure it's under five.
And you know, if all of a sudden it jumps
up to ten or twelve, alarm bells go off.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Oh, you're absolutely right, And I think, what's you know,
what most people use is a PSA cut.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Off of four.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
In my practice, I use an age a just to
cut off, and so for men less than fifty, I
use it. I like a PSA two and a half
or less men fifty to sixty, I like to see
it three and a half or less sixty one to seventy.
I like to see it four and a half and
over seventy, I like to see it less than six
and a half. So I use sort of an age
(13:39):
adjust to cut off, but they're kind of varying thresholds
that people use. But you point to an important an
important fact about the PSA test is that it doesn't
really tell us whether you have prostate cancer or not.
It just helps us to figure out whom we should
screen more closely.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, So coming back to this, I mean, we've seen
the pictures that the president former president released tonight. Other
than the PSA tests, which again a part of a
blood test. If I'm am, I correct.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
On that, that's absolutely correct.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Right, or a digital examination for someone his age. I've
heard that a lot of times they stop testing people
over the age of eighty because the theory is that
if you get to eighty and you're in pretty good health,
and it appeared he was physically in pretty good health,
(14:39):
that many there's a point of view in the medical
community that, well, there'll be another cause of death, that
you won't die from prostate cancer. But now I'm thinking
to myself, maybe that's just a bad philosophy. Is that
something that now, in this particular case, eighty two year
(15:00):
old guy who all of a sudden goes from apparently
no one had noticed anything to a nine on the
gleas and scale. Is that is this going to make
us change, men change and doctors change how they how
they screen.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
You know, it's a great question, and I think what
many of us do is we sort of look at
the patient in front of us, and it's kind of
a shared decision between the patient and the doctor. And
I'd say, you know, from my standpoint, if if I
suspect that a patient's going to live longer than ten years,
then I think it's very reasonable to continue to screen
for prostate cancer regardless of how old he is. So
(15:38):
a gentleman who's fit and you know, in his eighties,
I would continue to screen. Similarly, you know, if you
have patients who are unwell, you know, have a lot
of other illnesses, but they're you know, seventy years, so
I might counsel them that screening for prostate cancer may
not make a lot of sense. They might succumb to
other illnesses.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Tell you, people don't realize the decision that doctors, that
doctors are faced with. Do you think that this is
going to change the protocol that most doctors use. Is
this one of those you know, you know instances, those
medical instances that is going to be almost an earthquake
(16:22):
like impact across the country. I know that, you know,
the digital exam is not something that most men look
forward to. It's it's not a fun procedure. It's quick,
but it's not a fun procedure. But now I think
a lot of men are going to probably say, okay, doc,
do your thing.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Yeah, I kind of agree with you. So I think
I think patients are going to be a lot more
curious about prostate cancer, talking to their primary care of
doctors about prostate cancer, seeing other specialists to talk about it.
And I think that, you know, we we should be
employing these techniques that we've known are effective for a
(17:03):
long time, including doing a digital rectal exam, including checking
the p s A, and some of that stuff has
fallen by the wayside in some realms of the medical
community for urologists and medical oncologists and radiational oncologists. We
still believe firmly that these are really useful tools for us,
and so I completely agree. I'm you know, we're already
(17:23):
getting an increasing number of calls for for appointments for
prostate cancer patient to be screened for prostate.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Cancer because of this news.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
So I do think this could this could change things.
And you know, it's unfortunate that it took this event
to UH to trigger this response, but I'm glad that
people are starting to pay attention to this because this
is the number two cancer killer among men in the US.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Doctor one last question, is there any other sign that
men should be aware of? You know, you know UH,
in terms of urination, you've got to go more often
than you thought that and you have a change in that.
Is there any other sign that could be indicative of
a prostate problem, an early warning sign, if you will.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Yeah, this is a really critical point, Dan. I'm glad
you brought it up, because a lot of guys think that,
you know what, my stream's flowing down. I don't feel
like I'm emptying as well. You know, is it possible
to have prostate cancer? And the truth is, prostate cancer
is almost always asymptomatic. People don't typically have symptoms from
proday cancer until it's widely spread, which is pretty uncommon.
(18:30):
And so when people start to have urinary symptoms, that's
almost always due to normal, non cancerous growth of their prostate.
That doesn't mean that they shouldn't come in and get checked.
We absolutely should be screening those folks. But just to
allay some fears out there that if you're having difficulty
with yourination that's almost always due to normal prosta prostate
(18:51):
growth and not prostate cancer.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well that's health factor. I'm sure there's some people who
you know, you know, went to the head Alfanirago listening
to us and are saying thank you. Okay, look, I
really appreciate uh, you're you're great. You must be a
great doctor because you've explained it so well. I just
want to say thank you very much, doctor Jay as
(19:15):
the Cheap, the chair of urology at Toughts Medical Center.
Obviously you're a great doctor, but you're a great communicator.
I just on a very sensitive subject. You did a
fabulous job tonight.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Thanks doctors, Well, I really appreciate appreciate it. Dan, thanks
so much for the opportunity and uh, and have a
great night.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Thank you and we'll get you back at some point too.
This is when we should do periodically because.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
You know, happy to be with you any time.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, when the story fades from the headlines, people won't
be thinking about this, and that's when when we got
to keep it in the forefront of some people's minds.
We'll talk again. Have a great, great early summer and
enjoy the weekend and the rest of the week is
supposed to be a little chilly, but enjoy whatever. This
is what we call spring in New England. Thank you,
thanks so much. All right, thank you very much. As
(19:58):
doctor Vesuara, thank you very very much. When we get back,
we're going to talk about black bear hunting. Now, I
gotta tell you I'm a big Second Amendment KaiA, and
I believe in the right of bears to have arms.
Let's make this even this sounds tough of the bears.
We're gonna talk with Dave Wattles, the black bear and
(20:21):
fur bearer biologist at the Massachusett Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
The good news for the bears is that their population
is growing, is growing better than the population here in America.
But the bad news is that they're gonna cull the
call the cull the bears a little bit. We'll get
to all of that with Dave Wattles right after the break.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
It's nice Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Well, Massachusetts has a problem. We have a lot of
black bears here in Massachusetts and they're coming east with
us as Dave wattles Black Bear and for a Bear,
A biologist at Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Dave Wattles,
I'm sure this is necessary, but I feel sympathy for
the bears here. I mean, they're sitting ducks as it were.
(21:12):
How are you tonight? Good?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I'm doing great. As I said, I'm a big believer
in the rights of bears to have arms, but only
choking when I say that, how many of these beers
are going to bite the dust. It doesn't begin this
year or next year.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So we currently have a bear hunting season in Massachusetts,
and what this would be doing would be to increase
the length of the season. We don't anticipate that it
would happen until next year. It's the proposed regulation has
been approved by the Fisheries and Wildlife Board and they
voted to move it forward for promulgation. But that can
(21:52):
take some amount of time, so probably the earliest it
would go into effect would be the fall of twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I'm just curious. I'm not a hunter, to be really
honest with you, how tough is it to hunt black
bear in Massachusett I guess we're about five thousand of them,
is the figure that I think is quoted.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yep, that's correct, and it's pretty hard. So we sell
twelve thousand, twelve thousand, five hundred bear black bear permits
hunting permits. Anyone who wants to hunt a bear has
to purchase a bear permit. But we've only been taking
around two hundred and fifty to two hundred and seventy
five bears per year, so we don't take an enormous
amount of bears from our population. And the reason that
(22:32):
this is necessary, this regulatory change, the numbers that we're
taking aren't sufficient to stabilize the growth of our population.
Our bear population is growing rapidly. It's expanding into eastern Massachusetts.
So all these bears that we've seen over the past
couple of years that are wandering through some portions of
southeast northeast Massachusetts inside four ninety five are bears that
(22:56):
are dispersing out of our established range, and that's the
precursor to bears becoming fully established in the four ninety
five quarter, which is what we're.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I think I read some materials today from you folks.
Even though the bears are going to suffer the consequences.
So some bears are going to suffer the consequences. It's
really the fault of people here in Massachusetts who are
leaving food out unattended, who are leaving you know, bird
seeds out at night. Correct, I mean, we're we're bringing
(23:26):
we're bringing it on ourselves onto the bears.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, I mean, so it's kind of two things. It's
so that the people putting out bird feeders, in providing
food to bears around their homes is what drives the
conflict with bears. But even you know, if we could
really clean up our acts and get people to remove
their bird feeders, get them to use electric fencing to
protect their livestock, we'd still have conflict with bears. So
(23:54):
there is a need to control the growth of the population.
We've seen. An other place is in the country where
bears have become established in highly developed areas like Connecticut,
New Jersey, Florida, where there's restrictions on hunting, and they
see very serious levels of conflict, bears breaking into homes
(24:14):
to try to find food, people being mauled by bears,
and these are things that we aren't experiencing now, and
we want to try to prevent from happening in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And that doesn't even mention the problem in Chicago with
the bears.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I'm not sure we can help with that any done too,
they've been it's been pretty bad for a long time.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, I got it. Okay, you got a
sense of humor. I like that. Look, here's my question.
I know people who have hunted deer, but I don't
know I've ever known a bear hunter. I mean deer.
You sit quietly and the deer will eventually stumble by
and take your shot. How do they hunt bear? Are
(24:55):
they a difficult praise? Does that complicate the the situation
you're facing because of the difficulty of actually hunting that
particular animal? Are they pretty cagy?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
It's in reality, it's the same type of hunting someone
goes out in the woods. You're basically waiting for that
animal to come by, in this case a bear. But
you're also dealing with very different population levels for deer
and bear. So deer exists on the landscape at much
much higher densities, and so the chances of a deer
(25:28):
coming by happen much more often than bears. So you
know your success rate for deer hunters is much higher
than it is for bear hunters. Part of this regulatory
proposal is so that we have bear hunting at times
where we have deer hunters out in the woods, because
that's a time when we have lots of hunters and
(25:48):
we need to take advantage of those deer hunters to
take some bear off the landscape as well.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And is it a different type of AMMO that will
take down a bear than a deer? I'm assuming that
has to be a bigger You want to make sure
that the beer is taken care of if you just
don't want to, as they say, don't wove the bear right.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
No, there are restrictions as to what people are allowed
to utilize in our current hunting season, and those would
be extended to the same hunting season. Yes, to exactly that,
to make sure that you know, these animals that are
being taken are being done with something that actually has
the power to kill them.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, I mean, you're not gonna be shooting a bear
with the.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Twenty two I assume exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I understand. And is there any other state in America
who has dealt with a similar problem and dealt with
it effectively? Are you following a pattern or a practice
that's been successful somewhere else, or is this really the
first time in Massachusetts?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Go ahead, go ahead, No, you know, our bear hunting seasons,
you know, you start off by saying there's a problem.
Growth in the recovery of our bear population was something
that we actually planned. Hunting seasons were set very restrictively
to allow for the growth and recovery of our population
because our bear population had been driven back to just
(27:14):
a tiny number of bears in the northern Berkshires, and
so we allowed that population to grow and slowly hunting
seasons were increased over time as the population grew. We've
just now reached a point where, you know, the hunting
isn't enough to stabilize the population, and that's what we're
trying to achieve. The hunting season that we would be
implementing would be similar in length to what there is
(27:36):
in Vermont, New Hampshire in other states to in order
to try to achieve this.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
All right, well, Dave, very much appreciate you taking the
time to talk with us tonight. Again. I got to
tell you I'm still rooting for the bears because it
just seems so unfair, But anyway, thanks very much. Maybe
some night, if you're interested, we might come on and
do an hour and talk to some of my listeners
(28:04):
and maybe some hunters about this. If you'd be willing
to do that, I think it might be instructive if
we could get some phone callers. We have to do that,
like the nine of the ten o'clock hour. If you
if you might be gained for that, as it would,
as it would, we could we could spread the word
a second time.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Okay, okay, we can see if we said that.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
All right, thanks very much. Dave Wattles, black Bear and
fur Bear are biologists at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries
and Wildlife. Dave Wattles, thank you very much. When we
get back here, we're going to talk about a very
interesting dilemma that a lot of people have faced. And
I'm going to talk with a guest. Her name is
Guest any guest. She's an author, attorney and a mental
(28:43):
health therapist about renovating her family homestead, if you will,
her parents' home, to recharge her own life. And if
this didn't break the bank, we'll be talking with eighty
guests on the other side of the break. By the way,
remind you the new and improved iHeart app is available.
Just go to your app store, pull down the iHeart app.
(29:04):
You can make WBZ your first preset, which would be
a great idea because that way will only be a
figuretip away from you wherever you are in this great
wide world of ours, because you can hear US three
sixty five twenty four seven anywhere in the world on
the iHeart app, so we encourage you to do that.
My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside. We'll be right
back with my next guest, aptly named any Guest, an author,
(29:29):
an attorney, and mental health therapist.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ, Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
My next guest is aptly named Your name is any Guest.
She's an author, an attorney, and a mental health therapist,
and she has written a book, Design for Your Mind,
How a family caregiver and mental health therapist renovated her
home to recharge her life and didn't break the bank.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Annie.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I read a lot of your book today. I normally
don't have an opportunity to, but I did, and it's
kind of an amazing book. And I just want to
get to the to the core of it here, because
we only have about nine minutes for each of these segments.
I wish I had more time. You grew up in
a home, and then we're living next to your parents
(30:17):
as they got on in years. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes? Okay, that's correct.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And then, as often happens in every family, sadly, mom
and dad aged and the home in which they lived
pretty much stayed the same. And then eventually, despite all
of the efforts of you and your siblings to help
them transition here, they both passed and the home I'm
(30:45):
calling it the family homestead. Is that a fear characterization?
Speaker 5 (30:50):
Well, the family, the entire family had never lived in
this home. My parents moved into it close to their retirement.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Okay, so your parents home, and were you living next
door in order to be of assistance to them or
were it just a happy coincidence that they found the
home next to you. I mean, there must have been
something that put you in that in that proximity, right.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
It's the former. I moved there with the prospect of
being there in their old age.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Okay, So now they leave the home to you. And
this is what I want to hear from you, because
you know the story, and my audience doesn't it. I
certainly don't. You were able to save part of it,
to renovate part of it, and you did it, you know, tastefully.
(31:47):
And that's the book designed for your mind, how a
family caregiver and mental health therapist renovated her home to
recharge your life. So this then became your home. Tell
us you know a little bit of the approach, of
the different approach that you had. Obviously, you move in
and then there must have been a lot of memories there.
Your parents, their entire lives probably were tied up in
(32:09):
that home.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Yes, yes, and much of our lives. But Dan, before
I could even move into the home, my sister and
I had to clean it out of these years of
accumulated things that my parents, of course couldn't purge as
they got older because they were losing their physical ability
to do that. Neither of them was a hoarder, so
(32:33):
it took quite a while before we were able to
wade through all those things and get the auctioneer out
and after the appraisal and distribute these things among the siblings.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
So you said, I just want to make sure I
heard you right. Andy, You said, neither were a hoarder.
But obviously they had accumulated, and all of us do.
We accumulate things and we don't think of what's going
to happen to those things when we pass on. And
my wife is always reminding me of that. To be
honest with you, I'm not going to let her see
(33:07):
this book. But go ahead, tell us what. I'm not
a holder either, but I'm a sentimental sentimentalist. There are
things that you hold on to well you know, okay,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
And particularly if you've loved to collect things, it see
a lot of things as material that you can use
for writing, you do tend to accumulated. But hoarding is
a whole different thinking.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Oh oh absolutely, there are people who you know, you
can't get in the house because there's newspapers piled everywhere
in old television sets. I get that, Oh trust me. Hey,
the other day I took upart an old grill myself
physically and took it to the dump. Oh so you know,
I'm I'm once it's done, it's done, so so so
tell us about. We only got about three or four
(33:56):
minutes left here, so I want to just give the
microphone to you. And tell us that's what people will
learn from your book. This would be the best way
to end the interview.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Yes, I did not approach this redesign with the object
of tearing down walls or eradicating traces of my parents
or building a new house, which actually made the process
far more economical.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
I wanted to address what the house was and figure
out what it needed from me. That meant that I
would walk into a room and see some immutable characteristics,
say the black marble shower in the guest bathroom, and
(34:48):
rather than try to play against it, I would enhance
that by turning it into using European features like a
black and white floor with a classic pattern. Very smart,
but it also was saved me a lot of money. Also,
when when I was making the big expenses that I
(35:11):
couldn't avoid, I would choose classic patterns or classic designs
that I wouldn't grow tired of in a few years.
And if I wanted to go bold and quirky, I
would do it with something that it was less expensive,
that I could move around as my tastes evolved, like
(35:31):
accent pillows.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
So how long have you lived by?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
You in this home that you inherited. So it's been
it's been done. It it's wasn't done just yesterday.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
No, it took about two years to pull this off, Okay,
and and it'll never be completely finished, but that's part
of the fun of it.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Good for you. And then I got to ask you
this the home that you lived in next door as
has another family member moved in or have you sold
that or are you keeping that a renting? And I'm
just kind of curious.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Well, because I'm looking towards my prospects of aging in
place and my old age whenever that comes, I would
like to have that house and could shape some that
somebody could move in and help care for the property,
(36:33):
or maybe even me. But having seen my parents go
through this process and having seen what it takes to
clean after house, Yeah, I really am always looking towards
the prospects of extending my healthy life and what I
(36:54):
can do to spare the person who comes after me
the burden of some of some of these transitional burdens.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Well, let me just say this, that's a great gift
that you have left for your family. The book is
designed for your mind how a family caregiver and mental
health therapist, renovated her home to recharge your life and
didn't break the bank. My guest, any guest, Annie have
been a great guest. I thank you very much for
your time. She's an author and attorney and mental health expert.
(37:25):
I assume this book is available Amazon all sorts of different.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Places, Amazon, barnsondoplebookshop dot org, and my website and Dan,
thank you for having me and thank you for reading
the book.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, my pleasure was it was fun. I'm going to
go back and finish it, but I'm not going to
tell my wife. Thanks Annie, have a great nine what's
your website any guest dot com? Or what's the website.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
Annie guest Designed for your mind dot com?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Perfect? Any guest design for your mind dot com? Thank
you so much. We'll talk again. Bye bye, have a
great Thank you. Okay, nine o'clock awaits or we're going
to talk about a piece of legislation that I think
the Massachusetts legislature should adopt. It's called the Halo Act.
I will explain coming up on nightside
It's nice eyes, Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm telling you easy Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Thank you very much, Madison. I wan to wish all
of you a very happy moon Day. I like to
put that vowel in between the oh with the N
on Monday and basically it's Monday anyway. Welcome. We started
another week. You know they had TGI Friday. Well this
isn't Friday. This is Monday. Good evening, everybody. Welcome on,
(00:27):
and my name's Dan Ray, im the host of the program.
We are wrapping up, getting pretty close to wrapping up
year eighteen here on Nightside. Thank you so much for
being loyal listeners. If you happen to be finding us
tonight for the first time, that's okay. Welcome aboard, better
late than ever, simple as that. Rob Brooks is back
(00:48):
in the control room. My name is Dan Ray of
the aforementioned Nightside with Dan Ray, and we're going to
give you four really interesting interviews this hour. We're going
to talk about subjects that are both in the news
and out of the news, and we will start off
with a big subject for those of us here in
eastern Massachusetts. It is the Newton Weston Bridge replacement project.
(01:12):
Weekend closures for bridge work, and that certainly I hope
gets your attention. With us is Jonathan Gulliver. He is
the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Highway Administrator. Jonathan has been
with us before. Jonathan, welcome back. I think, how are
you tonight?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Great, Dan, thank you for having me on our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I'm very familiar with that location and you guys have
been doing a lot of work out there, but it's
going to be really a lot of work the weekend
of May thirtieth to June second, not Memorial Day weekend,
but the weekend after. So let's talk about it. You
and I know where it is, but it is the
(01:54):
it's really where the mass pipe kind of crosses one
twenty eight intersect with one twenty eight. For anyone who
is unfamiliar with the area we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Correct, that's exactly right. So this is the Turnpike one
to twenty eight interchange. It's you know, this is an
area that if you've been a regular driver, you've seen
a lot of construction going on. This is one of
our biggest active construction jobs. It's just under four hundred million,
and we are doing a full replacement of all the
structures in that interchange, they're all original, they've all needed
(02:25):
a lot of work. This project has been going on
for a couple of years now, but it's really if
you've been again a regular commuter, you're seeing over the
last six months or so a lot going on. All
that prep work that we've been doing is resulting in
some of those new bridges being built and some really
new infrastructure coming out of the ground, and we're quickly
approaching this stage again. First first part of it is
(02:48):
right after the weekend after Memorial Day weekend, where we're
going to be demolishing what's the train tunnel, which is
the kind of the first structure to the west of
the project where the Commuter rail cross at Commuter Rail
and the Amtrak train cross across the turnpike from the
north side to the south side. So we need to
(03:10):
replace that train tunnel as part of this project, and
it's going to be a pretty impactful couple of weekends
that we have scheduled for this YEW.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So the first closure is May thirtieth to June second
again the weekend after Memorial Day. Memorial Day is early
this year. And then the second one, which we can
talk about later on in June. Is going to run
from June twentieth to June twenty third, So just a
couple of help people better understand this. The structures that
(03:38):
you are changing, how long had they been serving the public?
Are we talking about seventy years or so?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, they are original to the turnpike and so yeah,
that's somewhere around sixty five seventy years now old. And
the you know, basically what we're doing here, this is
this for any you've heard us talk about this kind
of construction before. This is accelerated bridge construction. And what
we will be doing exactly is we're going to be
(04:07):
directing all the traffic onto one barrel of the turnpike.
In this case, we're going to be pushing all the
traffic over the westbound side. We're reducing it down to
two lanes, one in each direction, and then we're going
to be going in and demolishing the eastbound side of
the turnpike for that portion of it over the train tunnel,
completely demolishing it, getting that old concrete out of there,
(04:29):
bringing in brand new, pre prefabricated concrete pieces, dropping them
into place, and then doing a closure poor with some
special kind of high strength concrete, letting that set, and
then reopening the whole thing by Monday morning. So it's
a very rapid construction technique. We've used this in a
lot of different places over the last decade now, very
(04:51):
very effective. A lot of time and planning goes into
doing a movement like this, like one of these short
term very intense pain for people who need to use
that that portion of the roadway over the weekend, But
the long term is that we get open very very quickly.
Again that you have these really high intense impacts, and
then it's back back in a full service by Monday morning.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Just to put it again in perspective for people, how
many personnel are going to be on the ground throughout
that weekend, Mass Highway or or subcontractors. How big a
project We know how big it is financially four hundred
million dollars, but we have a couple of hundred people
working there that weekend.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
They wouldn't quite be a couple hundred, but it's it's
in over one hundred people, and that's between mass DOT
staff and the contractors staff, and it's all different trades.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You know you're gonna have you're gonna have.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
The demolition contractor coming in and out, so that it's
basically at any given time you're gonna have somewhere between
seventy five and one hundred people is the expectation. But
there's a lot of different people, a bunch of different
trades over that course of the weekend that are there.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So people will cycle in, do their thing, and get out,
so you could eventually at the end of the way,
we can have a couple of one hundred people who may
have participated in some form of fashion. That's what I
was asking. So here's here's my question. I know the
best advice will be from nine pm on May thirtieth
to five am on June second, avoid this area at
(06:17):
all cost, at all costs, which of course won't happen
because a lot of people aren't going to hear us tonight.
If you have to use that area of our western
suburbs one twenty eight Master and Pike in some form
of fashion, there are ways to get around that, okay,
which are going to probably be slow. I get that.
(06:39):
I mean I can get from one twenty eight to
the Pike to buy and head into Boston by getting
off at Route sixteen going past Newton Wellesley Hospital drop
down to the pike. You know, halfway between one twenty
eight and Newton Corner there were workarounds. There are ways
to work around, and obviously if you have ways, hopefully
(07:00):
this is going to be up on ways's boards for everyone.
But yeah, if you do have to go there, let's
assume some way someone has to go there. How big
a delay are they looking at realistically?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So these are never easy to predict. The so even
on weekends, the turnpike is one of our busiest roads.
During weekdays, it's one hundred thousand vehicles a day. During
weekends it drops off, but you're still talking about seventy
seventy five thousand vehicles, So it gets very, very heavily traveled.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
What we're asking people is, if you don't need to
be in that area, find another alternate route.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Don't don't be around there.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
We don't If you have just a discretionary trip to
be out and about, don't go check out the construction.
Watch for it on the news. If you have to
go through, there's a couple of different ways. If you're
going to be in traffic, it's it could get. If
that whole seventy five thousand people that usually travel that
roadway on the weekend come, you could be in for
two or three hour delay. If they don't, it gets
(08:03):
a lot more manageable. It gets back to delayed, but
not not as far as not as.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Long a word to the why should be sufficient. Stay
away from media, stay.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Away if you can. There's going now.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
The train is also going to be impacted, but there
are shuttle buses in places. They have alternative routes that
they're using, so we'll be running full service, but it
will be on buses, not on the train. That's a
you know, so if you have to take public transportation,
you'll be available to you. It'll be slower than usual.
We're asking you to please leave an extra you know,
give yourself a lot of extra time to get around.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Though, Jonathan, I appreciate you taking the time. And if
if if you want to come back next week, some
night late next week, I don't know even if you
want to come back the thirty first, or I should
know it's not the thirty first, to be like the
twenty ninth or whatever. It would be more than happy
(08:59):
to have to come back because what will happen, is
people will will they'll listen to us tonight and they'll
say wrong with us. I'm going to avoid that at
all costs. I think they said the fourth of July. Yeah,
you know. So if you want to make a return
appearance on this one, Jonathan, I think it's big enough.
I think it's important enough. We'd love to have you back, Okay,
just like i'd.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Be happy to and and Dan. One of these days
I'm going to come on with great traffic news. Today
is not that day, avelot That's.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Okay, that's okay. Most days it is great traffic news
because people most days, if they're smart, they kind of
work around some of the bottlenecks. But that's okay, Jonathan Gulliver,
you are a great representative of mass Dot Highway administration.
Let me tell you do a great job. You're great communicator.
Thank you, my friend. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Thank you, Dan, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Have a good night, you bet you. All right, we
get back. We're going to talk about President Biden's diagnosis
of prostate cancer. We're going to talk with a doctor
chief of urology at the Tofts Medical Center. Coming back
on night Side and we'll kind of lay it out
there and it's it's something that everybody should be thinking
about for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray, Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, I think by now most of us have heard
the very sad news that former President Joe Biden has
been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. We
of course have a lot of questions in our minds,
and I'm sure that all of you have questions in
your minds what this all means. And joining us now
is doctor j Aswara. He is the chair of the
(10:32):
urology department at Toughts Medical Center. Doctor y Suarre, thank
you very much for joining.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Us hey day, Thanks so much for having me so.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Prostate cancer is not a real form of cancer. One
in eight Americans if the American men, if they live
long enough, will be diagnosed. Are you surprised at the
level of this prostate cancer? I mean, you would assume
that President Biden would have had the best medical care
and treatment in the world at the White House or
(11:02):
you know, at whatever medical facility he wanted to go to.
My understanding is that on what they call the gleas
and scale from zero to ten, he is a nine,
which means it's a highly aggressive and also a form
of prostate cancer that already has probably metastasized.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, Dan. You know, it puts them
in kind of the minority of patients who are diagnosed
with prostaate cancer. So roughly five to seven or eight
percent of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer will
have metastases at the time of presentation. So you know,
like you said, it's uncommon, and you know, his prostay
(11:47):
cancer was sort of diagnosed the most common way by
a physical exam, which includes a rectal exam. So when
men are screened for prostate cancer, it typically involves two things,
getting a blood test, a PSA test, and doing a
rectal exam to feel for any nodules. And it sounds
from the news reports as though this or this was
picked up by by rectal exam.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, I picked that up. Here's my question. Wouldn't they
done a PSA on him a year ago? He had
apparently his last physical a year what's a little over
a year ago in February of twenty twenty four. P
SA are part of every physical that I've ever been
subjected to.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, you know, this is what's tricky about the p
s A test is that there's no there's no hard
and fast cut off, and so it's hard to know
exactly what PSA levels he was dealing with frior to
this diagnosis, but it can it can sort of lead
people astray. Some people will have really aggressive forms of
(12:49):
prosat cancer and have relatively low PSAs, And.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So what is real important? Yeah, doctor, what's a relatively
low PSA? My understanding from the medical from the my
doctor is that they want to make sure it's under five.
And you know, if all of a sudden it jumps
up to ten or twelve, alarm bells go off.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Oh, you're absolutely right, And I think, what's you know,
what most people use is a PSA cut.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Off of four.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
In my practice, I use an age a just to
cut off, and so for men less than fifty, I
use it. I like a PSA two and a half
or less men fifty to sixty, I like to see
it three and a half or less sixty one to seventy.
I like to see it four and a half and
over seventy, I like to see it less than six
and a half. So I use sort of an age
(13:39):
adjust to cut off, but they're kind of varying thresholds
that people use. But you point to an important an
important fact about the PSA test is that it doesn't
really tell us whether you have prostate cancer or not.
It just helps us to figure out whom we should
screen more closely.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, So coming back to this, I mean, we've seen
the pictures that the president former president released tonight. Other
than the PSA tests, which again a part of a
blood test. If I'm am, I correct.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
On that, that's absolutely correct.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Right, or a digital examination for someone his age. I've
heard that a lot of times they stop testing people
over the age of eighty because the theory is that
if you get to eighty and you're in pretty good health,
and it appeared he was physically in pretty good health,
(14:39):
that many there's a point of view in the medical
community that, well, there'll be another cause of death, that
you won't die from prostate cancer. But now I'm thinking
to myself, maybe that's just a bad philosophy. Is that
something that now, in this particular case, eighty two year
(15:00):
old guy who all of a sudden goes from apparently
no one had noticed anything to a nine on the
gleas and scale. Is that is this going to make
us change, men change and doctors change how they how
they screen.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
You know, it's a great question, and I think what
many of us do is we sort of look at
the patient in front of us, and it's kind of
a shared decision between the patient and the doctor. And
I'd say, you know, from my standpoint, if if I
suspect that a patient's going to live longer than ten years,
then I think it's very reasonable to continue to screen
for prostate cancer regardless of how old he is. So
(15:38):
a gentleman who's fit and you know, in his eighties,
I would continue to screen. Similarly, you know, if you
have patients who are unwell, you know, have a lot
of other illnesses, but they're you know, seventy years, so
I might counsel them that screening for prostate cancer may
not make a lot of sense. They might succumb to
other illnesses.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Tell you, people don't realize the decision that doctors, that
doctors are faced with. Do you think that this is
going to change the protocol that most doctors use. Is
this one of those you know, you know instances, those
medical instances that is going to be almost an earthquake
(16:22):
like impact across the country. I know that, you know,
the digital exam is not something that most men look
forward to. It's it's not a fun procedure. It's quick,
but it's not a fun procedure. But now I think
a lot of men are going to probably say, okay, doc,
do your thing.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Yeah, I kind of agree with you. So I think
I think patients are going to be a lot more
curious about prostate cancer, talking to their primary care of
doctors about prostate cancer, seeing other specialists to talk about it.
And I think that, you know, we we should be
employing these techniques that we've known are effective for a
(17:03):
long time, including doing a digital rectal exam, including checking
the p s A, and some of that stuff has
fallen by the wayside in some realms of the medical
community for urologists and medical oncologists and radiational oncologists. We
still believe firmly that these are really useful tools for us,
and so I completely agree. I'm you know, we're already
(17:23):
getting an increasing number of calls for for appointments for
prostate cancer patient to be screened for prostate.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Cancer because of this news.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
So I do think this could this could change things.
And you know, it's unfortunate that it took this event
to UH to trigger this response, but I'm glad that
people are starting to pay attention to this because this
is the number two cancer killer among men in the US.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Doctor one last question, is there any other sign that
men should be aware of? You know, you know UH,
in terms of urination, you've got to go more often
than you thought that and you have a change in that.
Is there any other sign that could be indicative of
a prostate problem, an early warning sign, if you will.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Yeah, this is a really critical point, Dan. I'm glad
you brought it up, because a lot of guys think that,
you know what, my stream's flowing down. I don't feel
like I'm emptying as well. You know, is it possible
to have prostate cancer? And the truth is, prostate cancer
is almost always asymptomatic. People don't typically have symptoms from
proday cancer until it's widely spread, which is pretty uncommon.
(18:30):
And so when people start to have urinary symptoms, that's
almost always due to normal, non cancerous growth of their prostate.
That doesn't mean that they shouldn't come in and get checked.
We absolutely should be screening those folks. But just to
allay some fears out there that if you're having difficulty
with yourination that's almost always due to normal prosta prostate
(18:51):
growth and not prostate cancer.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well that's health factor. I'm sure there's some people who
you know, you know, went to the head Alfanirago listening
to us and are saying thank you. Okay, look, I
really appreciate uh, you're you're great. You must be a
great doctor because you've explained it so well. I just
want to say thank you very much, doctor Jay as
(19:15):
the Cheap, the chair of urology at Toughts Medical Center.
Obviously you're a great doctor, but you're a great communicator.
I just on a very sensitive subject. You did a
fabulous job tonight.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Thanks doctors, Well, I really appreciate appreciate it. Dan, thanks
so much for the opportunity and uh, and have a
great night.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Thank you and we'll get you back at some point too.
This is when we should do periodically because.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
You know, happy to be with you any time.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, when the story fades from the headlines, people won't
be thinking about this, and that's when when we got
to keep it in the forefront of some people's minds.
We'll talk again. Have a great, great early summer and
enjoy the weekend and the rest of the week is
supposed to be a little chilly, but enjoy whatever. This
is what we call spring in New England. Thank you,
thanks so much. All right, thank you very much. As
(19:58):
doctor Vesuara, thank you very very much. When we get back,
we're going to talk about black bear hunting. Now, I
gotta tell you I'm a big Second Amendment KaiA, and
I believe in the right of bears to have arms.
Let's make this even this sounds tough of the bears.
We're gonna talk with Dave Wattles, the black bear and
(20:21):
fur bearer biologist at the Massachusett Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
The good news for the bears is that their population
is growing, is growing better than the population here in America.
But the bad news is that they're gonna cull the
call the cull the bears a little bit. We'll get
to all of that with Dave Wattles right after the break.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
It's nice Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Well, Massachusetts has a problem. We have a lot of
black bears here in Massachusetts and they're coming east with
us as Dave wattles Black Bear and for a Bear,
A biologist at Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Dave Wattles,
I'm sure this is necessary, but I feel sympathy for
the bears here. I mean, they're sitting ducks as it were.
(21:12):
How are you tonight? Good?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I'm doing great. As I said, I'm a big believer
in the rights of bears to have arms, but only
choking when I say that, how many of these beers
are going to bite the dust. It doesn't begin this
year or next year.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So we currently have a bear hunting season in Massachusetts,
and what this would be doing would be to increase
the length of the season. We don't anticipate that it
would happen until next year. It's the proposed regulation has
been approved by the Fisheries and Wildlife Board and they
voted to move it forward for promulgation. But that can
(21:52):
take some amount of time, so probably the earliest it
would go into effect would be the fall of twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I'm just curious. I'm not a hunter, to be really
honest with you, how tough is it to hunt black
bear in Massachusett I guess we're about five thousand of them,
is the figure that I think is quoted.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yep, that's correct, and it's pretty hard. So we sell
twelve thousand, twelve thousand, five hundred bear black bear permits
hunting permits. Anyone who wants to hunt a bear has
to purchase a bear permit. But we've only been taking
around two hundred and fifty to two hundred and seventy
five bears per year, so we don't take an enormous
amount of bears from our population. And the reason that
(22:32):
this is necessary, this regulatory change, the numbers that we're
taking aren't sufficient to stabilize the growth of our population.
Our bear population is growing rapidly. It's expanding into eastern Massachusetts.
So all these bears that we've seen over the past
couple of years that are wandering through some portions of
southeast northeast Massachusetts inside four ninety five are bears that
(22:56):
are dispersing out of our established range, and that's the
precursor to bears becoming fully established in the four ninety
five quarter, which is what we're.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I think I read some materials today from you folks.
Even though the bears are going to suffer the consequences.
So some bears are going to suffer the consequences. It's
really the fault of people here in Massachusetts who are
leaving food out unattended, who are leaving you know, bird
seeds out at night. Correct, I mean, we're we're bringing
(23:26):
we're bringing it on ourselves onto the bears.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, I mean, so it's kind of two things. It's
so that the people putting out bird feeders, in providing
food to bears around their homes is what drives the
conflict with bears. But even you know, if we could
really clean up our acts and get people to remove
their bird feeders, get them to use electric fencing to
protect their livestock, we'd still have conflict with bears. So
(23:54):
there is a need to control the growth of the population.
We've seen. An other place is in the country where
bears have become established in highly developed areas like Connecticut,
New Jersey, Florida, where there's restrictions on hunting, and they
see very serious levels of conflict, bears breaking into homes
(24:14):
to try to find food, people being mauled by bears,
and these are things that we aren't experiencing now, and
we want to try to prevent from happening in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And that doesn't even mention the problem in Chicago with
the bears.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I'm not sure we can help with that any done too,
they've been it's been pretty bad for a long time.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, I got it. Okay, you got a
sense of humor. I like that. Look, here's my question.
I know people who have hunted deer, but I don't
know I've ever known a bear hunter. I mean deer.
You sit quietly and the deer will eventually stumble by
and take your shot. How do they hunt bear? Are
(24:55):
they a difficult praise? Does that complicate the the situation
you're facing because of the difficulty of actually hunting that
particular animal? Are they pretty cagy?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
It's in reality, it's the same type of hunting someone
goes out in the woods. You're basically waiting for that
animal to come by, in this case a bear. But
you're also dealing with very different population levels for deer
and bear. So deer exists on the landscape at much
much higher densities, and so the chances of a deer
(25:28):
coming by happen much more often than bears. So you
know your success rate for deer hunters is much higher
than it is for bear hunters. Part of this regulatory
proposal is so that we have bear hunting at times
where we have deer hunters out in the woods, because
that's a time when we have lots of hunters and
(25:48):
we need to take advantage of those deer hunters to
take some bear off the landscape as well.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And is it a different type of AMMO that will
take down a bear than a deer? I'm assuming that
has to be a bigger You want to make sure
that the beer is taken care of if you just
don't want to, as they say, don't wove the bear right.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
No, there are restrictions as to what people are allowed
to utilize in our current hunting season, and those would
be extended to the same hunting season. Yes, to exactly that,
to make sure that you know, these animals that are
being taken are being done with something that actually has
the power to kill them.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, I mean, you're not gonna be shooting a bear
with the.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Twenty two I assume exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I understand. And is there any other state in America
who has dealt with a similar problem and dealt with
it effectively? Are you following a pattern or a practice
that's been successful somewhere else, or is this really the
first time in Massachusetts?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Go ahead, go ahead, No, you know, our bear hunting seasons,
you know, you start off by saying there's a problem.
Growth in the recovery of our bear population was something
that we actually planned. Hunting seasons were set very restrictively
to allow for the growth and recovery of our population
because our bear population had been driven back to just
(27:14):
a tiny number of bears in the northern Berkshires, and
so we allowed that population to grow and slowly hunting
seasons were increased over time as the population grew. We've
just now reached a point where, you know, the hunting
isn't enough to stabilize the population, and that's what we're
trying to achieve. The hunting season that we would be
implementing would be similar in length to what there is
(27:36):
in Vermont, New Hampshire in other states to in order
to try to achieve this.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
All right, well, Dave, very much appreciate you taking the
time to talk with us tonight. Again. I got to
tell you I'm still rooting for the bears because it
just seems so unfair, But anyway, thanks very much. Maybe
some night, if you're interested, we might come on and
do an hour and talk to some of my listeners
(28:04):
and maybe some hunters about this. If you'd be willing
to do that, I think it might be instructive if
we could get some phone callers. We have to do that,
like the nine of the ten o'clock hour. If you
if you might be gained for that, as it would,
as it would, we could we could spread the word
a second time.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Okay, okay, we can see if we said that.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
All right, thanks very much. Dave Wattles, black Bear and
fur Bear are biologists at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries
and Wildlife. Dave Wattles, thank you very much. When we
get back here, we're going to talk about a very
interesting dilemma that a lot of people have faced. And
I'm going to talk with a guest. Her name is
Guest any guest. She's an author, attorney and a mental
(28:43):
health therapist about renovating her family homestead, if you will,
her parents' home, to recharge her own life. And if
this didn't break the bank, we'll be talking with eighty
guests on the other side of the break. By the way,
remind you the new and improved iHeart app is available.
Just go to your app store, pull down the iHeart app.
(29:04):
You can make WBZ your first preset, which would be
a great idea because that way will only be a
figuretip away from you wherever you are in this great
wide world of ours, because you can hear US three
sixty five twenty four seven anywhere in the world on
the iHeart app, so we encourage you to do that.
My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside. We'll be right
back with my next guest, aptly named any Guest, an author,
(29:29):
an attorney, and mental health therapist.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ, Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
My next guest is aptly named Your name is any Guest.
She's an author, an attorney, and a mental health therapist,
and she has written a book, Design for Your Mind,
How a family caregiver and mental health therapist renovated her
home to recharge her life and didn't break the bank.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Annie.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I read a lot of your book today. I normally
don't have an opportunity to, but I did, and it's
kind of an amazing book. And I just want to
get to the to the core of it here, because
we only have about nine minutes for each of these segments.
I wish I had more time. You grew up in
a home, and then we're living next to your parents
(30:17):
as they got on in years. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes? Okay, that's correct.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And then, as often happens in every family, sadly, mom
and dad aged and the home in which they lived
pretty much stayed the same. And then eventually, despite all
of the efforts of you and your siblings to help
them transition here, they both passed and the home I'm
(30:45):
calling it the family homestead. Is that a fear characterization?
Speaker 5 (30:50):
Well, the family, the entire family had never lived in
this home. My parents moved into it close to their retirement.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Okay, so your parents home, and were you living next
door in order to be of assistance to them or
were it just a happy coincidence that they found the
home next to you. I mean, there must have been
something that put you in that in that proximity, right.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
It's the former. I moved there with the prospect of
being there in their old age.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Okay, So now they leave the home to you. And
this is what I want to hear from you, because
you know the story, and my audience doesn't it. I
certainly don't. You were able to save part of it,
to renovate part of it, and you did it, you know, tastefully.
(31:47):
And that's the book designed for your mind, how a
family caregiver and mental health therapist renovated her home to
recharge your life. So this then became your home. Tell
us you know a little bit of the approach, of
the different approach that you had. Obviously, you move in
and then there must have been a lot of memories there.
Your parents, their entire lives probably were tied up in
(32:09):
that home.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Yes, yes, and much of our lives. But Dan, before
I could even move into the home, my sister and
I had to clean it out of these years of
accumulated things that my parents, of course couldn't purge as
they got older because they were losing their physical ability
to do that. Neither of them was a hoarder, so
(32:33):
it took quite a while before we were able to
wade through all those things and get the auctioneer out
and after the appraisal and distribute these things among the siblings.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
So you said, I just want to make sure I
heard you right. Andy, You said, neither were a hoarder.
But obviously they had accumulated, and all of us do.
We accumulate things and we don't think of what's going
to happen to those things when we pass on. And
my wife is always reminding me of that. To be
honest with you, I'm not going to let her see
(33:07):
this book. But go ahead, tell us what. I'm not
a holder either, but I'm a sentimental sentimentalist. There are
things that you hold on to well you know, okay,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
And particularly if you've loved to collect things, it see
a lot of things as material that you can use
for writing, you do tend to accumulated. But hoarding is
a whole different thinking.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Oh oh absolutely, there are people who you know, you
can't get in the house because there's newspapers piled everywhere
in old television sets. I get that, Oh trust me. Hey,
the other day I took upart an old grill myself
physically and took it to the dump. Oh so you know,
I'm I'm once it's done, it's done, so so so
tell us about. We only got about three or four
(33:56):
minutes left here, so I want to just give the
microphone to you. And tell us that's what people will
learn from your book. This would be the best way
to end the interview.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Yes, I did not approach this redesign with the object
of tearing down walls or eradicating traces of my parents
or building a new house, which actually made the process
far more economical.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
I wanted to address what the house was and figure
out what it needed from me. That meant that I
would walk into a room and see some immutable characteristics,
say the black marble shower in the guest bathroom, and
(34:48):
rather than try to play against it, I would enhance
that by turning it into using European features like a
black and white floor with a classic pattern. Very smart,
but it also was saved me a lot of money. Also,
when when I was making the big expenses that I
(35:11):
couldn't avoid, I would choose classic patterns or classic designs
that I wouldn't grow tired of in a few years.
And if I wanted to go bold and quirky, I
would do it with something that it was less expensive,
that I could move around as my tastes evolved, like
(35:31):
accent pillows.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
So how long have you lived by?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
You in this home that you inherited. So it's been
it's been done. It it's wasn't done just yesterday.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
No, it took about two years to pull this off, Okay,
and and it'll never be completely finished, but that's part
of the fun of it.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Good for you. And then I got to ask you
this the home that you lived in next door as
has another family member moved in or have you sold
that or are you keeping that a renting? And I'm
just kind of curious.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Well, because I'm looking towards my prospects of aging in
place and my old age whenever that comes, I would
like to have that house and could shape some that
somebody could move in and help care for the property,
(36:33):
or maybe even me. But having seen my parents go
through this process and having seen what it takes to
clean after house, Yeah, I really am always looking towards
the prospects of extending my healthy life and what I
(36:54):
can do to spare the person who comes after me
the burden of some of some of these transitional burdens.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Well, let me just say this, that's a great gift
that you have left for your family. The book is
designed for your mind how a family caregiver and mental
health therapist, renovated her home to recharge your life and
didn't break the bank. My guest, any guest, Annie have
been a great guest. I thank you very much for
your time. She's an author and attorney and mental health expert.
(37:25):
I assume this book is available Amazon all sorts of different.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Places, Amazon, barnsondoplebookshop dot org, and my website and Dan,
thank you for having me and thank you for reading
the book.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, my pleasure was it was fun. I'm going to
go back and finish it, but I'm not going to
tell my wife. Thanks Annie, have a great nine what's
your website any guest dot com? Or what's the website.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
Annie guest Designed for your mind dot com?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Perfect? Any guest design for your mind dot com? Thank
you so much. We'll talk again. Bye bye, have a
great Thank you. Okay, nine o'clock awaits or we're going
to talk about a piece of legislation that I think
the Massachusetts legislature should adopt. It's called the Halo Act.
I will explain coming up on nightside
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