It's night with Dan Ray.
I'm tell you easy.
I'll thank you again for the kind intro. Two hours down, two hours to go. By the way. Tomorrow, I'm gonna have doctor David Nathan on, probably the most knowledgeable person in the United States in regards to diabetes. So that'll be on eight to nine, nine o'clock. I'll have Beer Dave on, a regular guest that I've used over the past decade plus, and he'll be telling you what's new with your favorite logger, dB Cooper. She'll be on from
ten to eleven. And she's a voice actress and she went out to Hollywood and made a major name for herself and she does all kinds of things voice work on game shows and commercials, et cetera. And speaking of speech, Dennis Becker, who was a teacher of mine way back in high school. He has a company called the Speech Improvement Company. He'll be on and give you some pointers how to put a better foot forward when you communicate
with somebody, specially first impressions. So that'll be my lineup tomorrow. Because I'm here tomorrow night filling in for Nightside Dan Ray. I will not be at the midway restaurant where I normally can be found six to seven thirty on Tuesdays, but I'll be there next week and now tonight for two hours. A gentleman who I have used twice as nice as the old saying goes, because I use him to talk baseball and I use him to talk about
the National Park system. He used to be a member, He was a race at one point, retired better every now and then, he still dips his toe into the National park waters here in Boston and beyond. Please welcome. Yes, I know his full name is Richard Duranto, but we just call him Dixie. How are you, Dixie?
Hello Morgan, Hello Gray, Hello Nancy?
And do you know Gray was asleep on the table and he was using a com rex for a pillow. He had his head on the com rex. Yeah, getting a quick forty winks.
Another forty winks.
Yes, that's right, Cat. So tell people what you're going to be doing tonight.
Well, we hope to be talking about National parks. We don't know what condition they're going to be in when we're done talking. But if you would like to go to a National park, you have a story about going to a National park? Call in and we'll talk about it. Or if you're planning to go, we can talk about that too. If you need some help, need a couple of hints here of the off the wall hints for a trip, call in.
And you can get specific. There are and I'm going to say the word approximately so you won't yell at me. Four hundred and twenty three with four hundred and twenty three national parks within the United States.
Well, now I can tell you for sure because I think I sent you something but it might not have gotten there, but I have. There are now four hundred and thirty three.
Oh so I only miss by ten.
Only ten. That's not bad, Okay.
Not bad. And if you want to call in, Dixie has been easily two thirds of these parks.
No, no, only half, only half, only half. They keep making new ones and I just can't get to them all. Okay, I used to be two thirds, but now now I'm half.
Well, major parks you've.
Been to, Yes, I've been to two thirds of the major ones.
And if you want to ask, because you have a trip planned, you're going to the Grand Canyon, You're going to the Yon Yellowstone, he can give you the heads up. Low down on those parks, And what was the first national park? Because I know it was Teddy Roosevelt who decided this area should be a national park. I so decree it.
Well, you're you're mixing up your information, Okay, the verse. The very first national park was Yellowstone in eighteen seventy two, Ulysses S. Grant. Okay, okay, So what you're thinking of is the first national monument nineteen oh six, nineteen oh six, Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Okay, Close Encounters of a Third kind from that movie, Yes, yes, and the visitation to that park spike for two years after that movie came out.
And you've been there, oh a couple times, and you've been to the tippy top.
Oh no, no, no, uh, that's that's quite a it's not even a hike, it's a climb.
So no, And they of fudged, they fudged that. They made it seem large enough that these giant flying saucers there was room for them up top there.
Well, there's a little bit of room. The sauces were were looked to be much bigger than the top, but the top is pretty big, Okay.
And because of that movie, a lot of people went to the area just to see what it.
Was like as well they should. It was the first national monument that's different from a National park in terminology, by size, and by some other things also. But Teddy Roosevelt is the president who decided that the places in the United States that didn't quite come up to the standards of being a national park, say Mount Rainier and Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, they should also be recognized and brought into the fold, so to speak.
Okay, and is Mount McKinley a National park?
Denali? Denali? Is Mount McKinley in Alaska, College Beak in North.
Yeah, Tas Peak.
Where Dallas Peak in North America?
Okay?
And uh, it was Mount McKinley at the beginning, but was Renameddanali a long time ago.
Because I hear that now President Trump wants to put its name back the way it was.
Sure, naturally.
Now now I heard the tone in your voice.
It wouldn't surprise me a bit.
I heard the tone in your voice now. Now, yeah, So what national parks do we have around here?
Well, we have probably we have a good dozen in the Boston area. Uh, Sagas Iron Works, Longfellow House in Cambridge, John F. Kennedy birthplace in Brooklines, frederickstad in Brookline. We have a lot Lowell National Park up in Lowell. We've got a lot, all right, and.
Tease this. I know there are a handful of national parks that have revamped themselves to make it more attractive for tourists to go there. Tell people, but don't give give names. Just tease people of some of those locations that we'll discuss more after the break.
I'm not quite sure what you're meaning, but several parks in the last ten or fifteen years that I went to a long time ago that were called national monuments way back when are now officially national parks, which means their area has increased and their amount of protection has also increased for various reasons.
Then we'll talk about yeah when you come back. Okay, fine, all right, anyone who wants to join our conversation six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty. That'll get you through tonight's side. Dan is my producer tonight, not Dan Ray, but my producer. Dan is here instead of Rob Brooks, and he'll treat you quite nicely on the phone. Time in temperature ten fifteen nineteen degrees.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside.
Studios on WBZ News Radio. My name Morgan White Junior. I am filling in for Dan for the rest of this evening until midnight, and as well, I'll be here tomorrow night. I already told you the guests will be joined me tomorrow night. Maybe I'll repeat that list a little bit later on. And Wednesday is when Dan comes back, and believe me, he'll have many talking points. Obviously, this
is a busy week for conversation and talk shows. I've got Dixie with me now, who used to work for the National Park Service, and you were telling me the difference between a National park and what.
Well, there are maybe ten or twelve different designations for places in the National Park Service that are parks. Of course, the Big Ones, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, they're all National parks period and there is sixty three of those. But there are now three hundred and seventy other types of parks, National historic sites, national historic parks, national battlefields, national lake shore, La la la la, lot goes on and.
On, totally free.
We learned that today, Yes, that's right, four point thirty three as of today. Uh, so you know where you are. There's a different a little different name for it, but it's still no matter how small it is. And there's the smallest one is one building in in Philadelphia. The staty is Koshusco House. And that's like one house. And that's it.
And why why is that of note?
Because General Krstusco was man it was it was a very good ally of ours in the Revolutionary War, provided much help for George Washington and he lived He lived there for a year or so. Uh. And it is the one building, as I said, is a national park. But it's just one house. That's the smallest one.
And if he ever came back to life, he would he would have still there.
Okay, we're saving his bid for him.
All right, let's take a phone call. So Chris on the Cape, Welcome to night Side.
Hello Chris, Yes hi, I just wanted to since I'm from the Cape, I noted a rather glaring omission in terms of Cape Cod National National Parks. And let's not forget about the Cape Cod National Seashore. Who can't forget about the years or sixty four years old and that is one of the hugest draws of any national park in New England, I would guess. But I'd also like you to comment on the famed Supreme Court Justice Wilderness Officiando William O. Douglas and what influence he may have
had on creating new parks. And with that, I'll just hang up, But I I couldn't sit by idly and allow our Cape Cod National Seashore to be on.
No, wait a minute, Hold on a second, don't hang up, don't hang up. Have you lived on the cape all your life?
Not yet.
Up until this point, then yes, to this point. And my father was actually very instrumental and work very hard as a selectman in Provincetown in creating the National Seashore, and you with Tip O'Neil and Governors, Sergeant and of course jfk and and other dignitaries. But it was a very very hard fought battle back in late fifties early sixties to overcome the fierce yes concerns of the real estate interests.
So well, I would like I would like you to tell the listening audience what might have happened and if the Cape Cod National Seashore did not exist.
Oh, it would be. It would not be what we'd have a bunch of Trump towers out there. Let's put it that way.
Because.
It would be a whole different character in space when you answer the rotary, and when you answer the rotary in Orleans, virtually everything on the Atlantic side of Route six from East Ham to the Provincetown is covered by National Seashore restrictions. And thank goodness, I mean the province lands, it's majestic, the sand dunes, all the rest. It would be nothing. It wouldn't have the attraction that has been inspired since and will continue.
So does that answer answer your question?
Yes, And he has said my piece without me saying a word. As for William O. Douglass. As for William O. Douglass, I really don't have any idea of what his contributions were. I'm sorry to say, but I don't. I know a lot of other people who contributed to a lot of things, but I don't know what he did well.
He wrote some he used to take his off time in going to Yosemity or to the Great Wilderness that remained so in large part because of the influence of the National Park creations. And I don't know without national parks, we'd have a lot of developed space or just ballow space.
Yes, we would. Are you sure you're not getting him mixed up with John Muir?
No, no, I'm not, okay.
Who's John?
John Muir was a relatively large person in the development or the undevelopment of western places that eventually turned into national parks. He was a very good friend of Stephen Mather, who was the first director of the National Park Service in nineteen sixteen, and they contrived to save millions of acres of land for national parks.
Was Stephen Mather a direct descendant of Cotton Mather?
Not directly, No, okay, because I know that name hysterically. Yes, yep.
Well, Chris, thank you for calling in.
You're most welcome. Keep up the interesting guests. It was very uh and I'll continue to list.
I appreciate that.
I truly thank you very much. Thank you for calling.
Right right nice because, as Chris said, I work hard on getting the guests on that I that I get. For an example, Dixie, I've known for over twenty years, and I bring.
Away a minute that's forty years.
Excuse me, I'm sorry.
Nineteen eighty and next the year I began radio nineteen.
That's right, all right, Well, I apologize for slighting you twenty years. But for an example, tonight I had Jacob wycoff Arm from Tandula from eight to nine.
Yeah, that was good. I'm a weather person too, so.
Yeah, and I know a lot of people are. We just had a weather event within the past twenty four hours.
No kidding. I woke up to that this morning at the shovel two hours.
Ah Well, having Jacob on was well timed, and having you on on the day that America gets a new president is again well timed because you have a number of things planned to talk about presidents whose interaction with America gave us national parks and plus not minus plus things about national parks.
Well, the other coincidence tonight's Martin Luther King Day, of course, yes, and the National Park Service runs his home in Atlanta.
And wasn't it free today of all entry fees and whatnot? Because I'm sure it was Martin Luther King Day?
Yeah, sure, yeah.
So back to my original point. Every show I do, whether it's The Morgan Show of filling in for Dan Rey, I put a lot into acquiring guests that have something to offer to the listening audience out there.
You know, one of these days, one of these days, you're going to have to have Donna Helper, Andrew Fielding and Me being a three person panel on your show.
But there wouldn't be enough microphones to spread around to all three an hour or so. What I once had the honor of doing one hour or two hours of radio with these individuals Lavelle Diet, Larry Glick by phone, because we're talking about subjects related to Larry ken Meyer. Who else? Jordan Rich And I'm trying to think there was another name in there, And believe me, I was a busy ringmaster that way.
That's a hell of a lineup.
It was a heck of a lineup, for sure, But I did it. That's why they pay me the big WBZ.
Bucks, huge Denaro.
Way.
By the way, if one of your guests tomorrow doesn't hook on, I'm available because tomorrow is the Hall of Fame induction announcement.
All right, then I'll keep that in mind. And I've got to wave goodbye to you. You're on hold. I'm not going anywhere, but I've got to move for ABC and ABC is literally ten seconds away time and temperature here ten thirty and nineteen degrees.
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Dan, We'll be back on Wednesday, eight sharp, I promise you. I'm Morgan White Junior filling in. I'm here for the rest of this evening and tomorrow's show Tuesday from eight until midnight. Right now, Dixie's here. Former park ranger Richard Durando, And you've told the story about how you became a ranger, but I want to take you back further. What was it, Dixie?
Because every time I have you on, you speak so passionately about the park services and what they offer and what anyone who travels for a vacation to a park should expect. And your passion is sincere. I know you, So tell me what first made this so important to you as a person.
Well, the first time I was thinking about this this afternoon for no particular reason, and of course knowing that I was going to be on tonight, and I was thinking about the very first two parks that I ever went to, and why two of them, and two of them and they have no relationship to one another. The first park I think I'm pretty sure about This first National park that I ever went to was the Ulysses S.
Grant Memorial in New York on Riverside Drive. It was in nineteen seventy two, three four, something like that, maybe two. A friend of a friend of mine from college lived there, probably about eight blocks away, and a couple of friends, and we went down to visit him, and the monument
was right there. At that time, the monument was closed and was in terrible condition, graffiti all over it, broken boards, everything, because it was nineteen seventy two or three, and no one really cared, and so that was so of course it's one of the smallest parks there is. The second park I ever went to was in nineteen seventy three when I accompanied my next door neighbor from childhood and his wife out to Arizona and we went to Grand Canyon.
So I went from the smallest to one of the biggest and grandest in the course of a year, and that really set me off. I've always been a geography fan, always been fascinated by it, and by the time I was out of college and able to do some traveling. Of course, didn't have a lot of money, but we just started to go to parks in nineteen seventy four. It was an explosion because I went on an eight week trip by car with three other people, a friend
of mine and his wife and Maryland. I think our first our first date, was an eight week trip and we crossed we crossed Canada on the Queen's Highway and then came down the West coast. And one of the things that happened was Nixon resigned when we were at Disneyland, Okay, And we went to Yosemite and Mount Rainier and Grand
Canyon and all over the place. But that was that was in a crash course in national parks for certain eight weeks on the road, National park after National Park after National Park.
Well, I bet you didn't see any graffiti on the walls of the Grand Canyon.
Well, I wasn't in a position for that.
No, Okay, well you met that.
I'm sure there is some somewhere, but I didn't see any of them, or the other times I've been back.
I would think it would be very difficult to go up on the face of one of those walls and write Kilroy was here.
Well, you can never You can't depend on people to be intelligent. That's why people fall off the Grand Canyon sides because they get too close for a picture.
Well that's different.
Oh is that different?
Uh, you're trying to get a picture in the and the person snapping the shots, Oh, take a couple of steps back.
No, No, sometimes they're taking a selfie.
Okay, we'll find I'm not going to speak to them, but to deface a national treasure like the Grand Canyon, if you fall, you deserve it.
Well people, Yeah, well people do it every day in different places. But they do it every day, and they're going to do it a lot more because the National Parks are not going to get a lot of money in the next four years, and so there are going to be fewer park rangers. They're going to be fewer people there to handle the crowds, and the National Parks
will continue to go downhill. There are already twenty five twenty five billion dollars in reverse for repairs and rehab work and new things to be built, and it's just going to get bigger.
I'll guarantee that you don't think President Trump is going to address that with all his make America Great Again speech that we heard today.
The America it's not the America, He's going to make great again. There are at least seven National Park little units historical sites, mostly in New York City. I will guarantee you he's never walked into one.
You're probably right, although we can't be sure.
No, I'm sure because none of them, none of them had his name on it, so he wouldn't walk into it.
I was about to say, if this publicity involved, he's been there with cameras.
So the backlog of work is going to get higher, and that's not good for anyone. Just remember, everybody out there in listening land, the National Park Service is the most loved government agency there is. At least probably ninety percent of the people in the United States love their national parks and that is why having them go into ruin is not a good idea.
What can people listening do? Give me three steps that anybody listening right now who cares about the national parks a park parks plural, tell me three things they can.
Do well if you if you live near a well even a state park, I'll just talk about national parks. If you live near one, then go and ask them if they need any help, if you can donate money, I mean, that's always good. There is a National Park Foundation, a National Park and Conservation Association. There are two or three major national agencies organizations that help national parks. Find out what they are online and join up there. I don't think there's a feed of There isn't a feed
to joint because I belong to all of them. But if you have the money to donate, even if it's two dollars, but your name will be listed on and you'll be a member of the populace that wants national parks to be preserved and saved and helped out at any time.
So volunteerism one, yes, the donation two and what's the third?
Uh, just talk visit them because visitation always looks good. Go to them and bring people with you. These I think the last couple of years have set records three hundred million people to go to national parks over over the course of a year after the pandemic was over.
That's a statement.
It's not like no one goes. Too many people go actually, but you know that's the way it is when you when you have a great thing, people come to.
It all right. Because of today being inauguration day, other than Teddy Roosevelt, give me some other assists good publicity by the man living at sixteen after Pennsylvania Avenue. Give me two or three examples of that.
Okay, I cheated. I figured this question might come up today considering everything that's going on. So I looked up all of the national parks that have something to do with a president, and there are at least a dozen at least a dozen birthplaces, places where they lived. Stuff like that. I didn't even count connected national parks, like the call the Teddy Roosevelt National Park out in North
Dakota is connected with his name. He did go out there once, but it's not really it's not really his, like his home in Sagamore Hill, New York.
Okay.
But there's a Franklin Delano Roosevelt House in Hyde Park, New York, Martin van Buren House in along the Hudson River in New York. I'm blanking out in the name right now. But you know, there's Abraham Lincoln has I think three places in the National Park Service, so Herbert Hoover National Historic Site.
Back up to Lincoln. Are these places in Illinois or Kentucky because he was born in Kentucky, but most of his fame came to activity in Illinois.
Yes, the birthplace in Kentucky is there. I have not been to that, but two years ago I was at the Lincoln Homestead in Springfield, Illinois, which is really interesting to be at. It's a whole neighborhood that the Park Service has managed to help survive. And it's like a not a recreation because all the buildings there are real. But Lincoln's house is there and you can tour it.
Okay. And who were you saying when I interrupted to you about Lincoln.
Herbert Hoover National Historics. That's another one off the wall. Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter's House of the National Historic Site.
And we all heard about Jimmy Carter a lot because of his passing a couple of weeks ago, age one hundred. He lived to be one hundred.
Yes he did.
Yes, And.
Just for just for the sake of mentioning it, President Biden wrote wrote into existence the Francis Perkins National Monument in Maine in December. That was last month, one of the last things he did. That's one of the one of the new that's certainly the newest of the four hundred and thirty three parts.
Wasn't she like the one descending vote to go to war for World War two?
Francis Persa, I don't know about that, but I don't think so. Well, that's okay, Okay. Then she was the first woman in the cabinet of anybody of any president, Thanklin Delano Roosevelt's cabinet. She was a Secretary of Labor and made sure that social Security got funded and went through and that other social justice items made it through Congress. So they finally, after all these years, finally decided they would give her a national monument her house in Newcastle, Maine.
So if you're driving up Route one from here to say a Katie A National Park, you can stop right in because it's right along the way.
So I thank her for the fact that I get a Social Security check once a month.
You and me both because where old is dirt, Yes we are.
If you had us together, it's like counting the rings of a tree in California, Redwood Tritory. Yes, well, I've got a call, but I'm not going to take it because I'm too close to another ABC update. Okay, I've got about ninety seconds not to kill, but ninety seconds before that update comes into everybody's radio and Florence and Groveland. After that break, you'll get a chance to speak with Dixie, So she's on hold. Anybody else who wants to join
this conversation about national parks. Dixie and I are going to keep this conversation going till midnight six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty eight, eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty. And I'm Morgan and I'm gonna mention again my guest tomorrow, doctor David Nathan, about diabetes. Beer gave about beerb Cooper, a well known voice actress, and Dennis Becker. So that's what I've got planned for tomorrow, filling in for Dan Ray. And I'm just going to tell you something you all
should know. The time and the temperature. It's ten forty nine in nineteen degrees his ABC News.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nice Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Let's go to Groveland, Massachusetts and speak with Florence Florence. Good evening. Thank you for taking the time to call gree.
Ning Morgan Grey, Good Evening. Dixie. Would Monte Killo be considered a national pot?
A lot of people do that. But it is not it is it is not. It's it's owned and operated privately by something to do with Jefferson and everything else, So it is not it is run like a national park. It certainly has all the aspects of being a national park, but it is in fact not a national park.
Yeah, because I was there years ago. I'm just wondering, you know, it wasn't sure.
Yeah, A lot of places like that have have private historical groups that are very protective of their turf and they want to keep it as they want to keep it, and therefore they don't point it out to the federal government to protect. They don't need they don't need the money. They have their they have their own sources of funds.
Yeah, because it's sitting on a pretty good choice piece of land. Oh, yes, absolutely, Yeah, yeah, as I remember, But I was just curious about that. I have visited Arcadia.
Park. I think that was something name, yeah, said bar Harbor.
Yeah. I'm mostly a museum person. I love museums, you know, I'm fascinated with those.
But I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that Arcadia has a small museum about the park itself.
Yeah. Yeah, I went to a small museum many years ago and it's gone now. Was the Mollis Museum up in worn in New Hampshire, and I heard that it was gone. There was the fire, I believe.
Florence Morse as in Samuel Morse.
Yes, yeah, yeah. And they had behind the MEU team they had this pretty good sized trout pond where the visitors could go out there and they could throw peanuts to the water into the water. The trout would jump up with them.
Uh.
It's kind of fascinating, you know.
All right, And Florence, I hate to do it to you, but I've got a news hit coming, so I have to wave good night.
Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to check on Monticell. But thank you very much, thank you for your call.
Florence.
Good night, good night.
We've got another hour you and I. So I'm about to sew it back today in time and temperature ten fifty eight nineteen degrees