NightSide News Update

It's night Side, Dan Ray. I'm bas Boston News Radio.

Thank you very much. Erry Small. I am Dan Ray, and this is Nightside, and we are off to the races. We have four hours between now and midnight here every weeknight,

Thank you so much, Dan for having me doing great. We are firing in all cylinders here and Conquered.

It's a busy time, so excited.

Yes, how long have you been the executive director? Of the Concord Museum. I mean, I hope you haven't been just thrown into this job like the middle of last week. How long you've been up there.

Oh, I've been the director of the Conquered Museum for two and a half years. I've worked in museums now for twenty six years. So I'm ready for the crowds. And we like to think of this as you know, once in a generation opportunity. Every fifty years, you get to really kind of commemorate and celebrate this moment.

So yeah, most people think of most people think of generations in the context of a couple of decades, but this is truly this might be once at about two and a half generations in reality here so exactly. But we were just ranked the number one best small town museum by US today, which is perfect timing as a matter of fact. And you are going to have a free community day, I guess, on the big day itself,

Sure, we will be celebrating Patriots Day with Freed Mischional Day will be open from nine to five. We'll have all of our galleries open where people can see over two hundred revolutionary war objects firsthand. I witness objects including the famous uh polar veer lantern that was the signal

Well, then, aren't forgotten in all of this? Oh no, no, no, but the man played a kind of a key role in this. These events in those couple of days.

So are April nineteen seventeen, seventy five galleries all on our second floor, where there's, like I said, a couple of hundred of revolutionary war objects, tells the story of the minute Men in great detail from all the towns that gathered and conquered and battled through the battle through the battle road. We'll also that day be welcoming the Bilbrica Colonial minute Man, so we'll have a very family

That to me is probably one of the most interesting aspects of the day that I've read up on this day of activity. Is that the sort of day where those again they're portrayers, they're.

People, renactors, yeah.

Identities, Okay, are they accessible to people to you know, like other museums where they can be talked with And I'm not sure if they stay in there in their eighteenth century mode. They certainly would be in their eighteenth century Garb tell us about that, will people have a chance to interact with them, and will they interact as you know Joe Smith from twenty twenty five, who's or will they take on roles of individuals from that era.

Well, they definitely try to capture the spirit of the era, but they are there to be educators and to share living history, and they very much want to interact and be in conversation with visitors. So absolutely, I think they try to be very accessible and open, and the idea is to learn about what life was like in colonial times.

So if you go there, either as an individual or with a couple, or a family or an extended family, you'll really have some great opportunities to interact with history from two hundred and fifty years ago. That sounds to me like an amazing day.

Cool family activities and crafts for the day. Also going into school vacation week from April twenty first of the twenty seven, so after Saturday, we'll have a wonderful week of school of educational programs for families, and then we're gonna sort of the day will proceed. We'll have a wonderful forum that evening with Doris Karns Goodwin, the you know, really such a significant historian in our culture. And she'll be in conversation with Rosy Rios, the chair of America

Let's we've talked about it, We've given people a good sense of it. How what if we do this? What is the best way people can get to your website in sometime tomorrow or Friday, sit down and plan their interaction with you folks on Friday or Saturday. What's the website?

The website is Conquered Museum dot org, so definitely check out our website. We have a visit page. We also have a to fiftieth page as well, full of activities for the day and then also getting out here. We encourage people to take public transportation if they could take the train, and then they'll also be parking in areas around Conquered and then shuttle buses taking people into town

The only thing that I can say is thank goodness that the Minutemen on the night of the battle head horses and not bicycles through a lot of pons, and I hope there's some horses there too. Thanks so much, Lisa.

So much.

We look forward to celebration and a wonderful weekend. I really I'm envious of everyone who's going to have an opportunity to get out there. This is as close as I'm going to come to it. But just enjoy the heck out of the weekend because it'll be another fifty years before you, or perhaps the successor we'll oversee the three hundredth anniversary. Congratulations, Lisa, appreciate it so thank.

You so very much. I appreciate it.

All Right, we get back on to talk about an award winning documentary entitled Unspoken, Would You Hide Me? It's the story of seven Jewish siblings who survived the Holocaust with the help of German strangers. So this is going to be an emotional conversation, right after the break. My name is Dan Ray. It's about eight seventeen here on a Wednesday evening. We're going to get you all the way until midnight. Tonight's day with us. You're listening to

You're on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ, Boston's News Radio.

Would like to welcome Marcie Bracken She is the co founder of Pink Cheer Storytellers Magazine, but she's here to talk about a film called Unbroken, Would You Hide Me? So, first of all, Marcy, let's create and establish what is the relationship between the magazine that you co founded, Pink Chair Storytellers Magazine and this what looks to me like an incredible film, Unbroken, Would You Hide Me? A Holocaust documentary? Can you what's the relationship between the two?

Yeah? Well, first, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. Pink Chair Storytellers Magazine is a collection of women's stories, so all told by the women themselves,

Let's talk about the film. It is entitled Unbroken, Would You Hide Me? It's a Holocaust documentary. As I understand the story of seven Jewish siblings who somehow survived the Holocaust and with the help I guess of what we're called at the time, righteous gentiles German strangers, they were able to escape. They survived the Holocaust. Tell us about tell us a little bit about the film, and also, I know, so it's going to be available. I think I have a if I'm not mistaken, I have some

Okay, Yeah, So Beth Lane grew up. Her mother was adopted, and that was also that was something that was known through time. As Beth's mother aged, I guess she had a family member who passed away, and that family member was very open about their history, their past, and their story. And when that family member passed away, her mother decided that she was ready to go back to Germany, where she was born and where she was raised and revisit her story. So Beth's family took a large family vacation.

What was the year of the reunion? What was the year of the reunion?

The reunion was in I believe twenty and.

Fifteen, Okay, so everyone at that point had I believed had grown old because if they were children, you know in Germany, you know when Hitler was in power, Yeah, probably were well into the seventies or beyond when they went back.

Am I correct this absolutely?

Absolutely? So forty plus years later, this reunion happens. They all go back and it's a powerful moment and the children, the seven children, what had happened was is their mother was taken from them and brought to Auschwitz, and the seven children were told to stay together, which they did this couple, the Schmidts, went into town apparently, put all seven children in the back of their truck, drove them out to a suburban town, suburban farm area, and hid them in the laundry room for two years.

It almost sounds like that, you know, in some ways. Obviously not the same, but very similar to the experience that Anne Frank had, you know before, before she was discovered. I was a television reporter and reported from Auschwitz in nineteen eighty six, so I have a pretty good understanding of what they went through. It looks to me as if it's one brother and six sisters from the So it's amazing, and they stayed together. How did they get

So they eventually got out of Germany with their father, who they were still in contact with in some way. Their father instructed them to claim themselves as orphans, which was very difficult for them because they had been told

Well, what an amazing story. So they came to the United States and I guess grew up here. Were they able to maintain contact with one another? Or did they just go They did not say they separate ways?

Yeah, okay, well they went through ways.

Yeah.

This is such a beautiful film. It's good. It's going to be shown in Boston at the Pate or other in Hingham at Patriots Cinema on April twenty ninth, And I'm just checking my calendar to make sure April twenty ninth is a Tuesday.

Correct?

Is that the only showing here in greater Boston? Now?

Yes, that is the only showing in the Boston area right now. Beth has really granted us the honor of coming back to the Boston area to work with Pinkhare Storyteller's Magazine, to come full circle with us and do this viewing special for us. Well, I personally, let.

Me ask you this, if if there are other theaters that would be interested in showing the film, how could they contact you? Because I'm sure you could. You could potentially expedite that, Marcy, how could My guest is Marcy Bracken, the co founder of Pink Cheer Storytellers magazine. Is there a website that you could direct people to if you know they they were owned the theater and they wanted to show this, you know film.

Absolutely, so we are. Our website is Pink Chair Storytellers dot com. Very simple. My email dress is Marcie which is m A Rci at Pink Chair storytellers dot com. And also the Weber Family Arts Foundation that is the organization that's helping Beth get this film out, helping her to have made the film. But what's going to be special about this viewing is that Beth will be there on site at the movie and we will be doing a question and answer with her, okay after the viewing of the movie.

The April twenty ninth at the Hingham Theater. So yeah, that's the one place that you know you can go and see this wonderful story, a horrible set of circumstances, but a heartwarming story of seven siblings somehow stay together across some space and time. Just on believe, Marcy, I appreciate your time tonight. You're a wonderful guest.

Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.

You're welcome. Marcy Bracken talking about the new film Unspoken, Would you hide me when we get back? Going to talk about something a little more upbeat. I guess it's a thirteenth annual Down Home up Here Blues Grass Festival, Bluegrass Festival. I'm gonna be talking with Maxfield Anderson, who's a musician. Get you all the details for that right after the news at the bottom of the hour on Nightside.

You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z, Boston's news radio.

Want to welcome Maxfield Anderson, who is a musician. He's performing at the thirteenth annual Down Home up Here Bluegrass and Old Time Festival on Patriots Day weekend. That is a long title for an event. Maxwell, Welcome to Massachusetts. I'm assuming you're not native to the area. Maybe I'm wrong on that. Where you're from Maxfield?

Maxfield, Hey, it's it's great to be here. Thank you all for having me on. I am I've been living in Boston for the last decade or so. I actually grew up in Oklahoma, So yeah, not native to the.

Area, and you haven't got rid of the U all reference whereabouts in Oklahoma.

I grew up in Tulsa.

I know Tulsa pretty well. Yeah. I had a great friend of mine who was born in a little town outside of Tulsa called Big Cabin, Oklahoma.

I have I have been there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you're in Alta, you got to go to the Bob Dylan Archives and the Woody Guthrie Archives. They're right next door to one another downtown.

That is in what that's in Tulsa? Or is that in Big Cabin.

That's in Tulsa.

That's in Tulsa. And also Chelsea. We have Chelsea here in Massachusetts, but you've got a Chelsea in Oklahoma, the Chelsea Dragons, if I'm not mistaken. Buddy of mine played played baseball down there and when went onto the major leagues. But we'll save that for another time. Let's talk music. Let's talk music. So we got this thirteenth annual downholl Home up here Bluegrass Old Time Festival, and this is gonna be over at Club Passieme in Cambridge. Is that

It is a little different. Yeah, Still, you know, still getting that twangy music. Still here in the fiddles play.

Yeah.

The Down Home up Here Festival is a it's a really wonderful thing. Passing does it every single year. It's always that, you know, usually the third weekend in April, and it's a it's a great chance for people to hear the amazing live, local bluegrass and old time music

Now, Maxfield, you go by Max and Maxfield.

Well, professionally I go by Maxfield, but you can call me whatever you're comfortable with. Well, Max, what are your friends on the internet?

What do your friends call you? Max or Maxfield?

It just depends.

It depends they don't call you, it depends they call you Max Maxfield. Come on, no, okay, Well I'm gonna call you max. Okay, kid, that's quicker if you don't mind that. Great. So you're live it up here for ten years. Uh, and you're making a livelihood up here as a guy from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Uh as a musician. I assume am I correct on that? Yes? Yeah?

Yes, So everything I do is music related. I'm a sound engineer at passing, I teach as I perform excellent.

Well, you know we have a reputation up here in Massachusetts of not being the friendliest people in the world. I'm sure you've probably heard about that. I hope you've been welcomed with open arms. Is that true? You guys are all right, We're okay, all right, Okay, No.

No, I I I love it up here. I've been here for ten years. You know I would have I would have left sooner if you guys were mean.

So, no, you wouldn't. You wouldn't have stayed if we were mean. I'm with you on that. So what's your what? What is? What do you? What's the instrument or instruments that that that you play?

Yeah, so I am a I'm a multi instrumentalist. My main instrument is the mandolin. For any listeners who don't know what the mandolin is or are new to roots music. The mandolin is basically a tiny guitar and it has the same strings as a violin or a fiddle, and you play it like a guitar.

Is that an instrument that arrived here from Spain?

You know?

I believe Italy is where they originated in Spain?

You know they're both throwing countries in Europe, contail one from the other.

Match totally, totally, Yeah.

But wou tell you that that Wasn't you know that that's an instrument out of Europe? Okay, Spain, Italy? That's great? What else? What other instrument do you play?

So?

I played guitar, banjo, and fiddle, and I'll be playing I think all four of those. Yeah, I'll be playing all four of those on Sunday. Wow, that's not at the same time, of course, I'm not.

I'm not.

I get that. I get that. Yeah, I don'tally get that. I like your sense of humor. It's kind of similar to mine. So, uh, this is an annual event, thirteenth annual. You've been involved in some of these, I assume of the thirteenth. This is not your first rodeo right, I have been.

I think the first one I did was in twenty eighteen. I was playing with a bluegrass band called Pretty Sarah. I did it during the pandemic. That was it. That was an interesting year. Live everybody live streaming from home.

You know.

They kept it going. They just they renamed it down Home at Home.

Yep, Okay, that's good, that's right.

And every year.

Is it just one night max or is it every night of the weekend?

So it is Saturday and Sunday night from I believe like four to eleven pm both nights. You've got music, a new band every hour. And then Monday. Actually, this is something they started a couple of years ago. They open up the club. It's not a traditional show like you're used to seeing at club passing. They move all the tables to the side and they have folk leading

I'm looking at the schedule here. It looks like April nineteenth, which I believe is Saturday. If my calendar is correct, and it probably is. The first show starts at one o'clock. That's great. Yeah, three finger Banjo Workshop.

And yeah, so the first two shows that you see on that calendar there, the one thirty and the one and two thirty slots, those are both workshops. So shows will start at four. But before that we've got Dunger Workshop, Fiddle doughbro and it's like another banjo workshop.

Yeah, the claw hymn of banjo workshop. I think of a clawhammer as a tool. But that's okay, whatever you play. And so both days, the nineteenth and the twentieth, the show's four to ten. The nickets look pretty pretty reasonable here, I mean really reasonable. And then on Monday you got

Yeah, you get to decide yourself and you can vote at the end. Okay, he's a friend who's the enemy?

Okay? Uh, Mika, Joan and Lily and Chase, Noah Fowler, Cecilia and the Talking Hearts, as well as Trevor Trevan Nelson. Are those all local bands? By the way, I'm sure you know all of them. Are they all local people? Are you bringing them in from different places?

I believe that just about everybody on here is local or at least regional. I think Joanna maybe lives in New York, Noah maybe lives in Pennsylvania or Nashville. But otherwise everybody, everybody's from around here. Greg List, who's playing at six pm on Saturday, is a He is the Berkeley banjo professor. You actually might have seen him if you watch show The Last of Us as Dan Crooked still was just on the last episode and this week, and you can catch him at passing and.

I see the dumpster Debbie, who has the best name of everybody, Dumpster Debbie. At nine o'clock on Saturday, Maxfield, we'll get back to formalities now. I enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much. Always nice to meet someone from northeast Oklahoma. And I probably won't be there over this week and it's got a few other things to do, but I'm looking forward to seeing your player over at club. I have been to Club Passing before and so I'm sure i'll be back at some point. Thanks Max, appreciate

Absolutely so.

The website is passing dot org. That's passim dot org. And for those of you out there who can't make it or maybe you're not local, Club Passing live streams every single show that they do. So if you want to catch the festival or any other show and you're not in town, you can live stream all those shows on your computer.

So loves that. Yeah, sounds great. Thank you, Max. I appreciate it very We'll talk again, I hope sometimes. Thank you so much. And again I'm a little belated here, but welcome to Boston. Welcome to Boston and Cambridge. Okay, thanks Mackill.

I feel very welcome. Thank you.

All right, okay, will we get back. We're going to talk about the cicadas. No, that is not a blues band. They stop by about once every seventeen years and they make quite a racket. We will explain. The buzz is back coming back here on night Side in just a minute or two. Stay there, we'll be right back.

You're on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm w Boston's News Radio.

This one will be fun, everybody. The cicadas are coming back to Massachusetts. Here's what we know, and we're brewed fourteen will emerge. I have no idea what BREWD fourteen is, but I'll tell you who will know what it is. It's Natasha Wright, the technical director and etymologist at Brahmin Termite and Test Elimination. Natasha, welcome to Night Side. I need to know everything about these cicadas. I know a little bit about them, but.

You will tell you what I know.

Oh yeah, I'm sure we could. It would take two hours. Sounds to me like probably. Yeah. Tell us these little devils only come around what once every seventeen years or something.

So there's seven species of what we call periodical cicadas. They have very long life cycles. There's a thirteen year and seventeen years. It depends on what species. So we are blessed this year, so to have a seventeen year brood coming out. It's called brood fourteen. There are fifteen total that are recognized, and it reaches into Massachusetts just a little bit, so if you're in western Cape Cod you might get to see them this year.

Okay, So let's first of all, you know a lot about this. What do you mean when you say brood fourteen? That sounds to me like the name of a pope from the Middle Ages. Could you imagine this pope Brood the fourteenth?

Yes, absolutely, So how do.

You get brood fourteen? I guess none of us can become a member of brood fourteen.

Right, not unless we're a periodical cicada, I guess yeah.

Okay, So a.

Brood is like a large grouping. It can extend multiple states, and they all are They all develop at the same time, and they all emerge at the same time. So I don't know how they do it. They clearly have some kind of awesome biological clock. That's seventeen years later pretty much in the same months on the same day. Most of them are emerging together. That so they're synchronized emergence.

It does. So this this brood was hatched seventeen years ago, correct, r Okay, and it's been undergrod living off I guess roots of plants and trees. Yeah, they have.

They have like little beak like mouthparts and they stab into the roots of plants and they suck the juices out of them. And they exist in this immature stage for seventeen years, sucking on juices, just waiting for the right moment.

Okay, now did below earth? How far are they below? Are they like a mile below, a mile? Hundred yards? Oh?

No, a couple couple inches, maybe a couple of feet. It really depends on I guess what year of that development. But they're not very deep. Soil is pretty average.

So in theory, you could, in theory try to dig them up, right, you could? Could?

You could?

I don't know if anybody has, but you could.

Yeah, well, I give a strange mind. That's why I would think of something like that. So anyway, so these little little critters, can I call them critters technically? Is that an atmology? It's critters, okay, gritters that they have antennae.

By the way, they do, right, they do they do?

Okay, I've seen them before, And they kind of like these buggy eyes right.

Yes, they're they're kind of chunky, they're black. They have red demonic looking eyes, but they're not dangerous to humans. And they kind of have these neat orange accents on the wings.

Yeah, and they're not the most they're not as say, beautiful as a butterfly.

No, the front of their face almost looks like a cargrill if you look at it.

Yeah, okay, maybe a cargrill that had been in an accident. But anyway, so somehow, some way they emerge. And how long once they emerge. Now they've been in the making here for seventeen years. That's a heck of a gestation period they emerge, and how long they make a lot of noise. The males make a lot of noise, typical males. You know, empty barrel makes the greatest noise. Okay, they may a lot of noise. The ladies cicadas don't make a lot of noise, and they munch and crunch and

About a month or a month and a half, So really not that long. You spent most of your time as a juvenile, come out, make a bunch of racket mate lay eggs die very quickly.

Yeah, And so when they die, they don't have like funeral services, so the other little cicadas put them in graves. They're just dead on the ground. And one of the things that I understand, it's pretty dangerous for particularly you know, pets, particularly dogs to go out and think that they're found a buffet on the ground, you know, four to.

Six years necessarily dangerous. I guess that's maybe just gross, yeah.

Right right, But I'm saying if you my understanding is that that can cause quite a problem with dog with canine digestive systems without getting yeah, well expert here, So I've done I've done a little bit of work and that kind of caught my eye. So I just want to mention to people that have all.

Of the s articles that you could cook them.

Well, there is some there are some weird people out there who will cook anything. Trust me on that.

Okay, I'm told that they taste like chicken. Now that I'm not sure. I've tried everything.

Been somewhere when someone you'll be at a restaurant and they'll have rattle snak and they'll say, oh, why don't you try it? And you're gonna you and I would, probably being of above average intelligence, would say I'm not interested in any rattle sneak. And someone saying it tastes like chicken. Everything tastes like chicken, They try to because they want you to try it, you know. Anyway, I'm

Like clockwork, usually it's when the soil reaches sixty four degrees fahrenheit. It's a very particular temperature, which means the above ground temperatures are somewhere between seventy and eighty degrees fahrenheit for that soil to reach that temperature, followed by a nice rain, and that's when they come.

Out every year. There's in different parts of the country they will material I assume this is not the only place that you said that they're endemic to a bunch of areas, right, correct.

Brood fourteen is actually going to be emerging in twelve states. They're not all going to have heavy emergents, but twelve states, so each brood can be through many many states these things.

It's amazing you scientists that figured this thing out. But are there the dudes in other areas of the country? Number one? And what about other parts of the hemisphere or the world. Are these endemic only to the United States?

I believe Magisicata, which is the big genus of these things, is mainly North American. There's other groups and other parts of the world that have different cycles. I think I read about a four year and an eight year But for the most part, cicadas have very long developmental cycles.

Yeah, seventeen years, as it would do it for me. I don't want to see them any more often than seventeen years, to be early honest with you. I've seen videos on these and when you see the videos that documentaries, they can be pretty frightening. That's all about I know they're there. They're there. Are they invasive into people's homes or will they always just stay outside?

I've not known them to be a problem inside. I suppose that there's a million outside. Is there a possibility if you leave your door open one could get inside?

Right?

But otherwise it's not.

Like a horror movie, is what you're telling.

I think people imagine it being like a cicade apocalypse or something, but it's it's not going to be that bad. It's going to last about a month. You can deal with a hundred decibel screaming of males trying to lure females.

Well, I think I read. I actually did my homework on this, which you know because I'm interested in it. I guess one hundred decibels is like a hair dryer, right, So we're not talking about you're going to have to close your windows and put on ear muffs and huddle in the basement. I mean you'll hear them.

I the decibels too. I reader one hundred to one hundred and twenty decibels. It's about a fire alarm, so it can be a round of fire alarms, so if you're close to them, obviously the further away, the less intense.

It is, hopefully hopefully well. Look, I appreciate this, Natasha. That's really great. And if anybody wants to get in touch with you, how can they get in touch with with you? For more information.

Braman Pest dot com. You can contact us by email or phone and I can answer any questions you have.

Brayman br A m A n. Pest all one word dot com. Natasha, thank you very much. I enjoyed the conversation and I love your sense of humor. It's a little understated, but it's very nice. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

You're very welcome. All right, that takes care of the eight o'clock hour. We have three hours left to go. And on the other side, have you tried to get an appointment at the Massachusetts Registery of Motive Vehicles or I assume at any Registry of Motive Vehicles or Department of Motive Vehicles, whatever it's called in your community. The deadline, the real deadline, This is the real deadline for the real ID is really coming and it's coming at you quickly,