July 25, 2025 • 25 mins
Tracy talks about current events and how they relate to the show and education. She and Holly also talk about the people who work in national parks and historical sites.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. We talked, we talked about, we
didn't talk about. We just had our unearthed episodes, our
(00:22):
most recent installment of them. Yeah, this week for the
whole week, starting off with so many updates. An update
that I didn't put in there but would technically be
an update is that last time on on Earth we
talked about Remeisa Osturk, who is the graduate student at
Tufts who had been snatched off the street by playing
(00:46):
clothes officers. Yeah. She was released on May ninth. She
had been in custody for about six weeks. A judge
found that she was neither a flight risk nor a threat,
and also that the government had provided zero evidence for
its baseless claim that she supported Hamas. Again, the only
(01:09):
thing that was actually cited in her being taken into
custody was an op ed that she co authored in
the school newspaper that was criticizing the Toughs administration's response
to a resolution that was passed by the student Senate
that was about Israel and Palestine. Right there, was never
(01:29):
anything to suggest that she was a threat in any way.
There are various immigration proceedings that are still going on.
Some of them there's three different states. There's stuff happening
in Boston right now. So in terms of like the
emigration hearing that's still ongoing, what the government basically did
(01:50):
was they canceled her student visa and didn't tell her
about it, and then arrested her. So that is to
sort of an update on that. I found. I was
watching somebody like basically live blog the hearing that was
happening on May ninth. I was on vacation. I was
eating my lunch at Laughing Seed, which is was a
(02:14):
vegetarian restaurant in Asheville that very sadly announced that it
was closing right after I got back, and I had
kind of gushed at the server about how excited I
was to be there because it is like it was,
you know, one of my very favorite restaurants when I
lived in Ashville and when I was in college. And
(02:36):
when the server came to give me the check, I
had just seen the part about her being released on
her own recognaissance and I was crying and I wanted
to say to the server. I'm not crying about the restaurant.
The announcement had not happened that the restaurant was closing.
(02:57):
Otherwise I might have also been crying about the restaurant.
But I got that news while I was on vacation.
I was very emotional about it. Something else that I
think people might be wondering why we didn't talk about
at the beginning of part one we were talking about
things that are still happening that are affecting the show
is the Supreme Court's decision lifting a lower courts injunction
(03:21):
allowing the big cuts at the Department of Education. The
thing is that is not directly related to our show,
but I think a lot of people think that it
is related to our show because they think the Department
of Education has something to do with history curricula and
(03:41):
other curricula around the country. Right, it does not dismantling
the Department of Education is not going to quote return
curricula to the states. Curricula is always it's already handled
by the states. Yeah. If anything, one state, that being Texas,
has an influence on all the other states because Texas
(04:02):
buys so many textbooks that textbook publishers cater to them
align their stuff with Texas curricula, which means Texas is
who is setting a lot of the thing, not the
federal government dismantling the Department of Education is also not
going to repeal No Child Left Behind. No Child Left
(04:22):
Behind was repealed in twenty fifteen, too late, up late.
None of this has anything to do with history curricula.
It doesn't have to do with other curricula. What the
Department of Education is actually responsible for is stuff like
providing funding to school systems that don't have a lot
of money, providing support for disabled students so that they
can have the free, appropriate public education that they are
(04:44):
legally entitled to. A lot of stuff related to protecting
students civil rights, like investigating claims that students have been
discriminated against because of their age, or their race, or
their sex or a disability. That is the Department of Education.
The departm of Education also administers the federal Student Loan program.
None of that has to do with educational curricula that
(05:06):
was already being handled by the states. So that is
why I did not talk about it. And part one.
The other thing is the news about the Supreme Court
decision related to that happened as I was finishing. I
heard that at like five pm as I was doing
the final read through of the episode outline, and I
(05:27):
was like, I cannot have another thing right now. Also,
just to continue on that for a minute, the signs
at the national parks, like the American Historical Association statement said,
there were already plenty of ways to give feedback on
(05:47):
the parks. This is basically inviting people to make the
worst faith interpretations of what they see at historical sites
and then have those complaints review by people who are
very eager to interpret something like slavery's legacy can still
be felt today as you are a bad person who
should feel bad something that we have seen again and
(06:11):
our and our listener mail from folks who sort of
hear something very different from what we said on the podcast.
We very recently got an email from someone who said
they were not going to listen to the show anymore
because they said we said that the government was shutting
down all libraries and universities and that, and that the
government was telling everyone who wasn't a white male to
(06:34):
leave the country. Like we didn't say anything even vaguely
like either no, not even no, like some of those
words existed. Although I will say this, I'm not going
to say that. Just know in my heart I have
just had a very non magnanimous and unkind read. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:55):
like it is just a very established pattern of behavior
that they there are people who go to museums and
historical sites and see things that are accurately depicted about
atrocities that happened at a site in the past, or
slavery or sexism or whatever, and then take that in
(07:17):
a weird personally defensive direction, yes, and turn it into
something that is not what that said at all, and
then file complaints about it and try to get people
fired and dos people and et cetera. So I don't
I don't like the science No. One two. And I
(07:41):
will say, one of the reasons this really hits my heart,
aside from its just existence being built on like the
invitation of these bad reads, is that we have been,
you know, fortunate enough to do shows at museums and
national parks and talk to people who work in those
kinds of spaces, and they are all I mean, I
(08:04):
don't think we have run into anybody who was not
working so hard to make sure people understand the nuanced
nature of history and how you can't really appreciate any
of the good parts if you're not also acknowledging the
bad parts, and how that push and play has worked historically.
(08:25):
And so it just feels like all at once slapping
all of those wonderful people in the face, and it
makes me very irate. Yeah, I was trying to make
a mental list. We've done live shows at Adam's National
Historical Park. Huh Gettysburg? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Should.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I can't remember if that's a site or a monument
or like exactly what it says. The designation is Women's
Rights National Historic Site. Yeah, I'm saying all these do
memory that, So I might be getting it wrong in
terms of like whether it's a historical park or a
national park or a historical site or whatever. Were there
any others that were like National park related? Oh girl,
(09:06):
my memory should not be I should not be questioned
in this way. Those are the ones that I'm remembering
in this moment. And like Holly just said, every single
person that we worked with in all of these places
cares about their job, cares about being accurate, cares about
having a thorough and respectful look back at what happened
(09:28):
in this place. None of them are like, I don't know,
like like there was nobody that we have interacted with
in any of these shows that has been either just
like phoning it in or trying to make weird commentary
in order to make white people feel bad like that. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not a thing, but also not a
(09:50):
national park. But I remember when we were at Royal
House and slave Quarters, oh yeah, and interviewing the people
there in one of the docents, talking about a child
asking her a question about one of the enslavers whose
portrait is on the wall who looked like her and
having that moment of revelation, and this person trying so
(10:11):
hard to very carefully craft a response that was clear
and truthful and fair without breaking this child down. And
I'm like, they're working so hard already to do this
in a way that is meaningful. Er. Yeah, like we
said in our previous installment of Unearthed, this is not
(10:33):
even a tenth of everything that's going on, just the
parts that are like directly related to our show and
our words. Yeah, unrelated to any of these things. I
vote that we bring back inconsistent spelling. I mean, we
(10:57):
kind of have. We just haven't accepted it yet, right, Yeah. Yeah,
I am saying this as a person who, for my
job was a copy editor. For my job was the
person who like created the style manual and maintained it
for the website that we worked for. And a person
who I would say in my younger years as a
(11:19):
less mature person corrected other random people as though it
were my job. But none of that was useful. The
spelling of pamphlet that we read off in the pamphlet
about cheese was one of the most delightful things. Uh,
And you know, a person who is able to read, which,
(11:43):
to be fair, there are a lot of people who
struggle with literacy, but like I think, a person who
is able to read is gonna know that pamfl Yt
spells pamphlet. And it delighted me so much to see
that spelling, and I would just like that have more
of that in my life.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I also had this hilarious personal thought about the cheese pamphlet. Okay,
because I know I've told you before and I'm pretty
confident we have talked about it on the show before
that when I was a kid, I used to write
pamphlets and leave them around. No, I think you did
leave them around my house in an effort to educate
(12:25):
my family. Yeah, I was a delightful child, shaking my head. No, well,
I just said that I was correcting other people's grammar
like it was my job. So I was real concerned
that those backwards people I lived with were really not
connecting enough with the history of the moon. And I
would write these pamphlets all the time about any given subject,
like I would go I would be like this week foxes,
(12:48):
and I would look up everything I knew about foxes
and write pamphlets. And so part of me was like,
I almost wish we could find out that this cheese
pamphlet was not the scholarly work that it has been
interpreted as, but was It's just some like nerdy dork
of a child. It was like, I love cheese, so funny.
I did not read this whole book. I think it
(13:10):
was one hundred and twelve pages long, if I remember correctly,
And as much as I would have loved to have
read one hundred and twelve pages about cheese, I had
work to do and I was already running behind. But
one of the things that I read that was sort
of announcing that this work had been digitized, said, the
parts of it are really gross, and I kind of
(13:31):
want to, in a day when I am not quite
so on deadline, go back and find out what the
gross parts were of the Cheese book. It sounds great.
I can imagine some things that they could have been,
and some of them might be things that might not
phase me at all. So I'm curious. Yeah, like you know, Rennet, Rennet,
the various micro organisms that you got to have in
(13:52):
the in the works, you know, the mold. Yeah, that's
part of the deal. There are things about cheese that
people find squeamish making that I'm like, No, that's where
cheese comes from. Cheese is milk that has been spoiled
in a controlled way, right, and it's delicious. I love
it too. I love cheese. I really liked our adult
(14:15):
discussion of the Bayou tapestry, h mostly because it once
again brings to mind the tapestry made by the spiders
of Tarantulon six over Futurama. There's an episode of Futurama
where's Zat Brannigan and the Earth Military Art have invaded
(14:41):
tarantul On six and as they are invading this planet
that has made no aggressive moves towards humans. The spiders
that live there are actually spinning this tapestry as everything
is playing out, and it ends up in a museum.
But it makes me it's it's joke about the Byo tapestry,
(15:01):
and I think about it every time the bio tapestry
comes up in our work, except there are no penises
on that one. To the best of my knowledge, I
don't know if it still exists, but there used to be,
you know, a thing that you could go to online
and it was like a bio tapestry generator, and you
could pick little elements from the tapestry, which is really embroidery,
(15:26):
and you could like put in words in the sort
of font that it uses, and you can make your
own little images things. And very early in our time
on the podcast, you and I were struggling because we
were getting a lot of negative feedback to put it generously,
(15:48):
and someone made us one of these that I can't
quote because it had had a squear word in it,
but it was basically saying Tracy and Holly say QUI
complaining using various Bydy tapestry pieces and and the font
and it was very charming, and I loved it, and
(16:10):
I would periodically go over there and make myself little
pictures to amuse myself. And then at some point it
wasn't working anymore. And I have not thought of that,
and for years until just now me either, But now
you remind me of how because that was a non
delightful time in our careers. I had written in my
(16:30):
big honkin date book, which I have talked about many
times because I always love to keep multiple calendars, like
I had gone forward like six months and picked a
date six months from the day that I was writing
it that said, if it still sucks, it's okay to
quit now, okay, And like I had given it six
months of like this is what I think I can handle,
And by that time I was like, oh h, everything's fine,
(16:51):
it's fine, fine, we'll just keep going before Yeah, okay,
out here. It is more than ten years later, So
many more than ten years later, Tracy, Like, we're on
what third twelve years twelve? I think it was twenty
thirteen when you and I joined. Oh yeah, I did
my first episode in twenty twelve. Yeah, yeah, you were
(17:12):
prepping because I was going to be on a vacation
and I was joining after I got back from the vacation. Yes,
and I was filling in for DUBLINO while she was out.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So yeah, long time, we've been doing this shit more
than six months. It's fine. Yeah, we made it through
that first period. I had another period that I was struggling,
not because of this podcast. Before my job became only
this podcast, there was a period of years where I
was basically doing multiple jobs and that part got really
(17:46):
hard before I realized I needed to say that I
needed to only have one job. Yeah, And I had
a calendar on my wall, and I had some of
those little circle stickers and different colors that you can
get an office supply stores, and I was basically marking
the calendar, like the really bad days. I was marking
on the calendar so I could actually see, like how
(18:08):
often is the day really bad? Because sometimes when you
have a couple or three really bad days in a row,
it feels like you have been in a bad time forever.
And it just helped me see, okay, like is it
that my job is awful every day? Or is that
I'm having one hard day every week and it feels
like it's perpetual, and that helps me just keep things
(18:30):
in perspective and also helps me realize, yes, it is
time for me to talk to my managers about only
having one job now, which helped a lot of things. Yeah,
I seem to never quite get to only one job. Yeah.
(18:50):
Every time I think I have something else pops up
and it's like something up. Yeah, that's a new thing's happened.
You also host an entire additional show in addition to
the one do and then occasional other shows. Yeah, and
just you know, other stuff as it comes. My additional
thing now is being a shop steward in the iHeart
(19:13):
Podcast Union, which just to be clear, you are not
part of because you are classified as in management because
of these other things that you also do. Right, That
is not it is not a whole additional job, and
it is something that I am happy to do.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
So anyway, I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Know if I have anything else to say about Unearthed,
except as I expressed to you, I had a hard
time getting through this one not because of the unearthedness.
Whenever I say that, I think people get a little
worried that there might not be unearthed anymore. Because it's
a lot of people's very favorite episodes. This is the
first thing that I worked on after taking a couple
(19:59):
of weeks off off to do some family related stuff,
and the combination of needing to get back into this
type of work rather than the work I was doing
at my parents' home that was a process. And then
also the times that we were living in continued to
be what they are while I was working on it,
and it just meant that by the time that I
(20:20):
was getting to the end of it, I was like,
we have got to get this thing done because we
are recording it in the morning. Yeah, you did the
Holly Frii method, although you did not email it to
me at two am, which I often do to you. No,
so only a handful of people might know what this
is about. Last night was the night that an episode
of Game Changer was coming out that folks had been
(20:44):
strongly suggested to watch as close as possible after its airing.
So I had a seven pm Eastern time deadline, and
I stopped working at like six point thirty and eight
dumplings that my husband have made that are made by
a local company. My husband had cooked them, and then
we watched Game Changer. So yeah, I am I'm gonna
(21:07):
say a controversial thing. Okay, I don't even know how
to word this. I feel like, in some ways I'm
not really saying what I'm about to say, okay, because
it sounds like I'm like some sort of labor monster.
But in some ways, I feel like vacations should be illegal.
Not really, I want to take time off, but there
needs to be like an on ramp period when you
(21:27):
come back, because oh, yeah, I can't switch again. Like
when people tell me like, oh, I'm back from vacation,
I'm refreshed, I'm ready for work. I'm like, what is that?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Like?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I have never Like when I was in school, I
kept trying to like make the case that we shouldn't
have spring break, we should just end the school year
a week earlier, because that last month or whatever you
come back from spring break felt torturous to me, Like
I could not get my brain to play nice. It
was so hard to focus. And I have that when
(21:56):
I come back from vacation, because I'm like, this is joy,
this is how we all should be living all the time. Yeah,
and then which is I mean, I'm very lucky to
have the job I have. Please, you know, don't don't
anyone think that I'm I'm saying otherwise, But I just
like I wish there were a magical way where we
could not have a struggle bus to get back into
(22:18):
work when we come back from vacation. Yeah. Well I
have for sure had vacations where I did come back
like refreshed and re energize. How does that work? Never
in my life? Never in my life. Yeah, in a
couple of times. This is like it's been that when
I when the vacation happened, like I really needed a break,
(22:40):
and I also needed some time to sort of think about, Okay,
what is valuable to me? What is valuable to me
at work? How do I make sure that my time
at work feels like something that is valuable to me,
which I understand is something that a lot of people
like don't necessarily have at their jobs. And so there
have been times that I have taken a vacation and
(23:03):
when I left for vacation, I was feeling tired and stuck.
And when I came back, I was like, Okay, I
have renewed my love and enjoyment of what I do.
This recent time off was not that at all, because
I was I went from doing the work that we
do of this at this job to doing caregiving work
(23:24):
and domestic work at my parents' house. So it was
like I went from one kind of work to a
different kind of work, and then I came back to
the type of work that I more often do and
kind of floundered. I was like, wait, how does my life?
And I also got a brand new computer that I
arrived like immediately before I took two peaks off, and
that threw a whole other wrench into the works. Yeah,
(23:47):
I don't. I never come back feeling like refreshed and renewed.
I come back and I'm like, you lost your rhythm.
I have to figure this out all over again. Yeah
I do. I think that's it. I don't. There's no
soul for it. I'm fine, like I've obviously pieced together
you know enough other brain waves that my missing ones are. Okay,
(24:08):
that's another very subtle Futurama reference, by the way, But yeah,
it's always a struggle for me. Yeah, I can't. I
and to the point where it has gotten easier for
me to continue to work on vacation than to completely
separate the two, which I know is not great either,
but like it's like you got to keep your hand
(24:29):
in or I will literally sit down when I get
back and go how do books work? Like I don't
even know how to do anything anymore. It's very weird. Anyway,
I don't really think vacation should be illegal. I think
vacation should be more all the time. I think we
should live Jetson's style, where everyone works three hours a day,
two days a week. That'd be great. Yeah, it's not
(24:52):
realistic right now, but I wish we lived in a
society that valued rest more.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Than it does.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, that's how I feel. Yeah. Anyway, if you'd like
to send us a note about this or any other
podcasts where history podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. We'll be
back tomorrow with a Saturday classic. We will have something
brand new on Funday. Stuff you Missed in History Class
(25:21):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. We talked, we talked about, we
didn't talk about. We just had our unearthed episodes, our
(00:22):
most recent installment of them. Yeah, this week for the
whole week, starting off with so many updates. An update
that I didn't put in there but would technically be
an update is that last time on on Earth we
talked about Remeisa Osturk, who is the graduate student at
Tufts who had been snatched off the street by playing
(00:46):
clothes officers. Yeah. She was released on May ninth. She
had been in custody for about six weeks. A judge
found that she was neither a flight risk nor a threat,
and also that the government had provided zero evidence for
its baseless claim that she supported Hamas. Again, the only
(01:09):
thing that was actually cited in her being taken into
custody was an op ed that she co authored in
the school newspaper that was criticizing the Toughs administration's response
to a resolution that was passed by the student Senate
that was about Israel and Palestine. Right there, was never
(01:29):
anything to suggest that she was a threat in any way.
There are various immigration proceedings that are still going on.
Some of them there's three different states. There's stuff happening
in Boston right now. So in terms of like the
emigration hearing that's still ongoing, what the government basically did
(01:50):
was they canceled her student visa and didn't tell her
about it, and then arrested her. So that is to
sort of an update on that. I found. I was
watching somebody like basically live blog the hearing that was
happening on May ninth. I was on vacation. I was
eating my lunch at Laughing Seed, which is was a
(02:14):
vegetarian restaurant in Asheville that very sadly announced that it
was closing right after I got back, and I had
kind of gushed at the server about how excited I
was to be there because it is like it was,
you know, one of my very favorite restaurants when I
lived in Ashville and when I was in college. And
(02:36):
when the server came to give me the check, I
had just seen the part about her being released on
her own recognaissance and I was crying and I wanted
to say to the server. I'm not crying about the restaurant.
The announcement had not happened that the restaurant was closing.
(02:57):
Otherwise I might have also been crying about the restaurant.
But I got that news while I was on vacation.
I was very emotional about it. Something else that I
think people might be wondering why we didn't talk about
at the beginning of part one we were talking about
things that are still happening that are affecting the show
is the Supreme Court's decision lifting a lower courts injunction
(03:21):
allowing the big cuts at the Department of Education. The
thing is that is not directly related to our show,
but I think a lot of people think that it
is related to our show because they think the Department
of Education has something to do with history curricula and
(03:41):
other curricula around the country. Right, it does not dismantling
the Department of Education is not going to quote return
curricula to the states. Curricula is always it's already handled
by the states. Yeah. If anything, one state, that being Texas,
has an influence on all the other states because Texas
(04:02):
buys so many textbooks that textbook publishers cater to them
align their stuff with Texas curricula, which means Texas is
who is setting a lot of the thing, not the
federal government dismantling the Department of Education is also not
going to repeal No Child Left Behind. No Child Left
(04:22):
Behind was repealed in twenty fifteen, too late, up late.
None of this has anything to do with history curricula.
It doesn't have to do with other curricula. What the
Department of Education is actually responsible for is stuff like
providing funding to school systems that don't have a lot
of money, providing support for disabled students so that they
can have the free, appropriate public education that they are
(04:44):
legally entitled to. A lot of stuff related to protecting
students civil rights, like investigating claims that students have been
discriminated against because of their age, or their race, or
their sex or a disability. That is the Department of Education.
The departm of Education also administers the federal Student Loan program.
None of that has to do with educational curricula that
(05:06):
was already being handled by the states. So that is
why I did not talk about it. And part one.
The other thing is the news about the Supreme Court
decision related to that happened as I was finishing. I
heard that at like five pm as I was doing
the final read through of the episode outline, and I
(05:27):
was like, I cannot have another thing right now. Also,
just to continue on that for a minute, the signs
at the national parks, like the American Historical Association statement said,
there were already plenty of ways to give feedback on
(05:47):
the parks. This is basically inviting people to make the
worst faith interpretations of what they see at historical sites
and then have those complaints review by people who are
very eager to interpret something like slavery's legacy can still
be felt today as you are a bad person who
should feel bad something that we have seen again and
(06:11):
our and our listener mail from folks who sort of
hear something very different from what we said on the podcast.
We very recently got an email from someone who said
they were not going to listen to the show anymore
because they said we said that the government was shutting
down all libraries and universities and that, and that the
government was telling everyone who wasn't a white male to
(06:34):
leave the country. Like we didn't say anything even vaguely
like either no, not even no, like some of those
words existed. Although I will say this, I'm not going
to say that. Just know in my heart I have
just had a very non magnanimous and unkind read. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:55):
like it is just a very established pattern of behavior
that they there are people who go to museums and
historical sites and see things that are accurately depicted about
atrocities that happened at a site in the past, or
slavery or sexism or whatever, and then take that in
(07:17):
a weird personally defensive direction, yes, and turn it into
something that is not what that said at all, and
then file complaints about it and try to get people
fired and dos people and et cetera. So I don't
I don't like the science No. One two. And I
(07:41):
will say, one of the reasons this really hits my heart,
aside from its just existence being built on like the
invitation of these bad reads, is that we have been,
you know, fortunate enough to do shows at museums and
national parks and talk to people who work in those
kinds of spaces, and they are all I mean, I
(08:04):
don't think we have run into anybody who was not
working so hard to make sure people understand the nuanced
nature of history and how you can't really appreciate any
of the good parts if you're not also acknowledging the
bad parts, and how that push and play has worked historically.
(08:25):
And so it just feels like all at once slapping
all of those wonderful people in the face, and it
makes me very irate. Yeah, I was trying to make
a mental list. We've done live shows at Adam's National
Historical Park. Huh Gettysburg? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Should.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I can't remember if that's a site or a monument
or like exactly what it says. The designation is Women's
Rights National Historic Site. Yeah, I'm saying all these do
memory that, So I might be getting it wrong in
terms of like whether it's a historical park or a
national park or a historical site or whatever. Were there
any others that were like National park related? Oh girl,
(09:06):
my memory should not be I should not be questioned
in this way. Those are the ones that I'm remembering
in this moment. And like Holly just said, every single
person that we worked with in all of these places
cares about their job, cares about being accurate, cares about
having a thorough and respectful look back at what happened
(09:28):
in this place. None of them are like, I don't know,
like like there was nobody that we have interacted with
in any of these shows that has been either just
like phoning it in or trying to make weird commentary
in order to make white people feel bad like that. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not a thing, but also not a
(09:50):
national park. But I remember when we were at Royal
House and slave Quarters, oh yeah, and interviewing the people
there in one of the docents, talking about a child
asking her a question about one of the enslavers whose
portrait is on the wall who looked like her and
having that moment of revelation, and this person trying so
(10:11):
hard to very carefully craft a response that was clear
and truthful and fair without breaking this child down. And
I'm like, they're working so hard already to do this
in a way that is meaningful. Er. Yeah, like we
said in our previous installment of Unearthed, this is not
(10:33):
even a tenth of everything that's going on, just the
parts that are like directly related to our show and
our words. Yeah, unrelated to any of these things. I
vote that we bring back inconsistent spelling. I mean, we
(10:57):
kind of have. We just haven't accepted it yet, right, Yeah. Yeah,
I am saying this as a person who, for my
job was a copy editor. For my job was the
person who like created the style manual and maintained it
for the website that we worked for. And a person
who I would say in my younger years as a
(11:19):
less mature person corrected other random people as though it
were my job. But none of that was useful. The
spelling of pamphlet that we read off in the pamphlet
about cheese was one of the most delightful things. Uh,
And you know, a person who is able to read, which,
(11:43):
to be fair, there are a lot of people who
struggle with literacy, but like I think, a person who
is able to read is gonna know that pamfl Yt
spells pamphlet. And it delighted me so much to see
that spelling, and I would just like that have more
of that in my life.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I also had this hilarious personal thought about the cheese pamphlet. Okay,
because I know I've told you before and I'm pretty
confident we have talked about it on the show before
that when I was a kid, I used to write
pamphlets and leave them around. No, I think you did
leave them around my house in an effort to educate
(12:25):
my family. Yeah, I was a delightful child, shaking my head. No, well,
I just said that I was correcting other people's grammar
like it was my job. So I was real concerned
that those backwards people I lived with were really not
connecting enough with the history of the moon. And I
would write these pamphlets all the time about any given subject,
like I would go I would be like this week foxes,
(12:48):
and I would look up everything I knew about foxes
and write pamphlets. And so part of me was like,
I almost wish we could find out that this cheese
pamphlet was not the scholarly work that it has been
interpreted as, but was It's just some like nerdy dork
of a child. It was like, I love cheese, so funny.
I did not read this whole book. I think it
(13:10):
was one hundred and twelve pages long, if I remember correctly,
And as much as I would have loved to have
read one hundred and twelve pages about cheese, I had
work to do and I was already running behind. But
one of the things that I read that was sort
of announcing that this work had been digitized, said, the
parts of it are really gross, and I kind of
(13:31):
want to, in a day when I am not quite
so on deadline, go back and find out what the
gross parts were of the Cheese book. It sounds great.
I can imagine some things that they could have been,
and some of them might be things that might not
phase me at all. So I'm curious. Yeah, like you know, Rennet, Rennet,
the various micro organisms that you got to have in
(13:52):
the in the works, you know, the mold. Yeah, that's
part of the deal. There are things about cheese that
people find squeamish making that I'm like, No, that's where
cheese comes from. Cheese is milk that has been spoiled
in a controlled way, right, and it's delicious. I love
it too. I love cheese. I really liked our adult
(14:15):
discussion of the Bayou tapestry, h mostly because it once
again brings to mind the tapestry made by the spiders
of Tarantulon six over Futurama. There's an episode of Futurama
where's Zat Brannigan and the Earth Military Art have invaded
(14:41):
tarantul On six and as they are invading this planet
that has made no aggressive moves towards humans. The spiders
that live there are actually spinning this tapestry as everything
is playing out, and it ends up in a museum.
But it makes me it's it's joke about the Byo tapestry,
(15:01):
and I think about it every time the bio tapestry
comes up in our work, except there are no penises
on that one. To the best of my knowledge, I
don't know if it still exists, but there used to be,
you know, a thing that you could go to online
and it was like a bio tapestry generator, and you
could pick little elements from the tapestry, which is really embroidery,
(15:26):
and you could like put in words in the sort
of font that it uses, and you can make your
own little images things. And very early in our time
on the podcast, you and I were struggling because we
were getting a lot of negative feedback to put it generously,
(15:48):
and someone made us one of these that I can't
quote because it had had a squear word in it,
but it was basically saying Tracy and Holly say QUI
complaining using various Bydy tapestry pieces and and the font
and it was very charming, and I loved it, and
(16:10):
I would periodically go over there and make myself little
pictures to amuse myself. And then at some point it
wasn't working anymore. And I have not thought of that,
and for years until just now me either, But now
you remind me of how because that was a non
delightful time in our careers. I had written in my
(16:30):
big honkin date book, which I have talked about many
times because I always love to keep multiple calendars, like
I had gone forward like six months and picked a
date six months from the day that I was writing
it that said, if it still sucks, it's okay to
quit now, okay, And like I had given it six
months of like this is what I think I can handle,
And by that time I was like, oh h, everything's fine,
(16:51):
it's fine, fine, we'll just keep going before Yeah, okay,
out here. It is more than ten years later, So
many more than ten years later, Tracy, Like, we're on
what third twelve years twelve? I think it was twenty
thirteen when you and I joined. Oh yeah, I did
my first episode in twenty twelve. Yeah, yeah, you were
(17:12):
prepping because I was going to be on a vacation
and I was joining after I got back from the vacation. Yes,
and I was filling in for DUBLINO while she was out.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So yeah, long time, we've been doing this shit more
than six months. It's fine. Yeah, we made it through
that first period. I had another period that I was struggling,
not because of this podcast. Before my job became only
this podcast, there was a period of years where I
was basically doing multiple jobs and that part got really
(17:46):
hard before I realized I needed to say that I
needed to only have one job. Yeah, And I had
a calendar on my wall, and I had some of
those little circle stickers and different colors that you can
get an office supply stores, and I was basically marking
the calendar, like the really bad days. I was marking
on the calendar so I could actually see, like how
(18:08):
often is the day really bad? Because sometimes when you
have a couple or three really bad days in a row,
it feels like you have been in a bad time forever.
And it just helped me see, okay, like is it
that my job is awful every day? Or is that
I'm having one hard day every week and it feels
like it's perpetual, and that helps me just keep things
(18:30):
in perspective and also helps me realize, yes, it is
time for me to talk to my managers about only
having one job now, which helped a lot of things. Yeah,
I seem to never quite get to only one job. Yeah.
(18:50):
Every time I think I have something else pops up
and it's like something up. Yeah, that's a new thing's happened.
You also host an entire additional show in addition to
the one do and then occasional other shows. Yeah, and
just you know, other stuff as it comes. My additional
thing now is being a shop steward in the iHeart
(19:13):
Podcast Union, which just to be clear, you are not
part of because you are classified as in management because
of these other things that you also do. Right, That
is not it is not a whole additional job, and
it is something that I am happy to do.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
So anyway, I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Know if I have anything else to say about Unearthed,
except as I expressed to you, I had a hard
time getting through this one not because of the unearthedness.
Whenever I say that, I think people get a little
worried that there might not be unearthed anymore. Because it's
a lot of people's very favorite episodes. This is the
first thing that I worked on after taking a couple
(19:59):
of weeks off off to do some family related stuff,
and the combination of needing to get back into this
type of work rather than the work I was doing
at my parents' home that was a process. And then
also the times that we were living in continued to
be what they are while I was working on it,
and it just meant that by the time that I
(20:20):
was getting to the end of it, I was like,
we have got to get this thing done because we
are recording it in the morning. Yeah, you did the
Holly Frii method, although you did not email it to
me at two am, which I often do to you. No,
so only a handful of people might know what this
is about. Last night was the night that an episode
of Game Changer was coming out that folks had been
(20:44):
strongly suggested to watch as close as possible after its airing.
So I had a seven pm Eastern time deadline, and
I stopped working at like six point thirty and eight
dumplings that my husband have made that are made by
a local company. My husband had cooked them, and then
we watched Game Changer. So yeah, I am I'm gonna
(21:07):
say a controversial thing. Okay, I don't even know how
to word this. I feel like, in some ways I'm
not really saying what I'm about to say, okay, because
it sounds like I'm like some sort of labor monster.
But in some ways, I feel like vacations should be illegal.
Not really, I want to take time off, but there
needs to be like an on ramp period when you
(21:27):
come back, because oh, yeah, I can't switch again. Like
when people tell me like, oh, I'm back from vacation,
I'm refreshed, I'm ready for work. I'm like, what is that?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Like?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I have never Like when I was in school, I
kept trying to like make the case that we shouldn't
have spring break, we should just end the school year
a week earlier, because that last month or whatever you
come back from spring break felt torturous to me, Like
I could not get my brain to play nice. It
was so hard to focus. And I have that when
(21:56):
I come back from vacation, because I'm like, this is joy,
this is how we all should be living all the time. Yeah,
and then which is I mean, I'm very lucky to
have the job I have. Please, you know, don't don't
anyone think that I'm I'm saying otherwise, But I just
like I wish there were a magical way where we
could not have a struggle bus to get back into
(22:18):
work when we come back from vacation. Yeah. Well I
have for sure had vacations where I did come back
like refreshed and re energize. How does that work? Never
in my life? Never in my life. Yeah, in a
couple of times. This is like it's been that when
I when the vacation happened, like I really needed a break,
(22:40):
and I also needed some time to sort of think about, Okay,
what is valuable to me? What is valuable to me
at work? How do I make sure that my time
at work feels like something that is valuable to me,
which I understand is something that a lot of people
like don't necessarily have at their jobs. And so there
have been times that I have taken a vacation and
(23:03):
when I left for vacation, I was feeling tired and stuck.
And when I came back, I was like, Okay, I
have renewed my love and enjoyment of what I do.
This recent time off was not that at all, because
I was I went from doing the work that we
do of this at this job to doing caregiving work
(23:24):
and domestic work at my parents' house. So it was
like I went from one kind of work to a
different kind of work, and then I came back to
the type of work that I more often do and
kind of floundered. I was like, wait, how does my life?
And I also got a brand new computer that I
arrived like immediately before I took two peaks off, and
that threw a whole other wrench into the works. Yeah,
(23:47):
I don't. I never come back feeling like refreshed and renewed.
I come back and I'm like, you lost your rhythm.
I have to figure this out all over again. Yeah
I do. I think that's it. I don't. There's no
soul for it. I'm fine, like I've obviously pieced together
you know enough other brain waves that my missing ones are. Okay,
(24:08):
that's another very subtle Futurama reference, by the way, But yeah,
it's always a struggle for me. Yeah, I can't. I
and to the point where it has gotten easier for
me to continue to work on vacation than to completely
separate the two, which I know is not great either,
but like it's like you got to keep your hand
(24:29):
in or I will literally sit down when I get
back and go how do books work? Like I don't
even know how to do anything anymore. It's very weird. Anyway,
I don't really think vacation should be illegal. I think
vacation should be more all the time. I think we
should live Jetson's style, where everyone works three hours a day,
two days a week. That'd be great. Yeah, it's not
(24:52):
realistic right now, but I wish we lived in a
society that valued rest more.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Than it does.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, that's how I feel. Yeah. Anyway, if you'd like
to send us a note about this or any other
podcasts where history podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. We'll be
back tomorrow with a Saturday classic. We will have something
brand new on Funday. Stuff you Missed in History Class
(25:21):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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