The Gale Hill Radio Hour

Emotional Well-Being in 6 Minutes

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 10:00:00 -0500

As the world spins with endless streams of input, this short excerpt from my recent interview with Jondi Whitis, a master trainer in EFT, offers what I hope is a soothing salve for chronic anxiety. Here, Jondi gives us a gentle reminder that we are in control of ourselves — what we're thinking and what we choose to do about what upsets us. And also that we can be healing agents for ourselves and others. How empowering is that?

This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to The Gale Hill Radio Hour!

The show is available in Apple and Google Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast directories. Also on Substack and YouTube; Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Emotional Well-Being with Jondi Whitis

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 11:00:00 -0500

Jondi Whitis' calling is helping others feel better fast. She's a master trainer in EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques, otherwise known as “tapping.” In this episode, Jondi talks about what we can do to alleviate chronic anxiety. So many of us are feeling anxious these days because it seems that everything is coming at us all at once and all the time.

To get off that merry-go-round, you need tools that you can access at any time. Jondi says it doesn't matter whether you choose tapping or some other modality. Just find a practitioner you feel safe with, someone who can help you find the truth in what's bothering you. With the right technique for you, you'll have the power to help yourself — and others.

To learn more about Jondi and her work, please visit her website. Also, you could listen to a previous Gale Hill Radio episode that focuses more on tapping. It's episode 27, titled "EFT Trainer Jondi Whitis on Tapping for Emotional Freedom."

Music Greats We Lost in 2023 with Sheldon Zoldan, Part 2

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 08:00:00 -0500

This is the second of two episodes with Song of the Day creator Sheldon Zoldan, who wrote tributes to musical titans who passed away in 2023. The tributes and featured songs are in chronological order according to the date of each person's passing, and the numbering picks up where Part 1 left off. In the audio, the tributes are separated by original music by sound engineer and musician Mike Villegas. You'll find links to the YouTube videos in the chapters.

21. Astrud Gilberto, June 5 "Girl From Ipanema"
22. Tony Bennett, July 21 "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"
23. Roger Sprung, July 22 "One Morning in May"
24. Randy Meisner, July 26 "Take It to the Limit"
25. Sinead O’Connor, July 26 "Nothing Compares 2 U"
26. David LaFlamme, Aug. 6 "White Bird"
27. DJ Casper, Aug. 7 "Cha Cha Slide"
28. Sixto Rodriguez, Aug. 8 "Sugar Man"
29. Robbie Robertson, Aug. 9 "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
30. Ray Hildebrand, Aug. 18 "Hey Paula"
31. Bob Feldman, Aug. 26 "I Want Candy"
32. Jimmy Buffett, Sept. 1 "Margaritaville"
33. Steve Harwell, Sept. 4 "All Star"
34. Gary Wright, Sept. 4 "Dream Weaver"
35. Charlie Robison, Sept. 10 "New Year's Day"
36. Katherine Anderson-Schafner, Sept, 20 "Please Mr. Postman"
37. Terry Kirkman, Sept, 23 "Cherish"
38. Dwight Twilley, Oct. 18 "I'm on Fire"
39. Rudolph Isley, Oct. 11 "It's Your Thing"
40. Jean Knight, Nov. 22 "Mr. Big Stuff"
41. Shane MacGowan, Nov. 30 "Fairytale of New York"
42. Denny Laine, Dec. 5 "Mull of Kintyre"
43. Laura Lynch, Dec. 22 "Pink Toenails"
44. Tommy Smothers, Dec. 26 "Yo-Yo Man"

To receive Sheldon's Song of the Day emails, send a message to shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line ADD ME TO SOTD.

Music Greats We Lost in 2023 with Sheldon Zoldan, Part 1

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 09:00:00 -0500

Sheldon Zoldan is the creator of the Song of the Day project, daily music-related stories and yearly tributes to musical titans who passed away. In this episode, we present the first 20 of music greats who left us in 2023, beginning with Jeff Beck.

Most of the links go to YouTube videos, while the others take you to some of Sheldon's once-a-week posts on the website of WGCU, the NPR station in southwest Florida where he lives.

Here is a list of the tributes and featured songs in this episode. They're in chronological order according to the date of each person's passing. In the audio, the tributes are separated by original music created by sound engineer and musician Mike Villegas.

1. Jeff Beck, Jan. 10 "Beck's Bolero"
2. Lisa Marie Presley, Jan. 12 "Lights Out"
3. Robbie Bachman, Jan. 12, and Tim Bachman, April 28 "Roll On Down the Highway"
4. David Crosby, Jan. 18 "Déjà Vu"
5. Barrett Strong Jan 28 "Money (That's What I Want)"
6. Burt Bacharach, Feb. 8 "Walk On By"
7. David Jolicoeur, Feb. 12 "Me Myself and I"
8. Huey “Piano” Smith, Feb. 13 "Rockin' Pneumonia and Boogie Woogie Flu"
9. Wayne Shorter, March 2 "Footprints"
10. Gary Rosington, March 5 "What's Your Name"
11. Jim Gordon, March 13 "Layla"
12. Bobby Caldwell, March 14 "What You Won't Do for Love"
13. Clarence “Fuzzy” Haskins, March 17 "I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing, Everyone Got A Thing"
14. April Stevens, April 17 "Deep Purple"
15. Harry Belafonte, April 25 "Day-O"
16. Gordon Lightfoot, May 1 "If You Could Read My Mind"
17. Pete Brown, May 19 "Sunshine of Your Love"
18. Ed Ames, May 21 "Rag Mop"
19. Tina Turner, May 24 "Nutbush City Limits"
20. Cynthia Weil, June 1 "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"

Sheldon sends his Song of the Day stories to an email list of subscribers. To get on the list, all you have to do is email shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line ADD ME TO SOTD.

A Wish for a Bright New Year

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 10:00:00 -0500

As the calendar flips to a fresh page, I'm sharing a wish from a dear friend for a light-filled new year filled with goodness and wonderful possibilities.

Discover the Glow of "The Light"

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 14:00:00 -0500

'Tis the Season for an illuminating storybook, and here's one I definitely recommend: "The Light," a tale compassionately told by Scarlett Lam and vibrantly illustrated by Mindy Lee.

Published in November 2023, this board book has the potential to be an enduring favorite among kids and all of us who are kids at heart.

You can order a copy at readthelight.com.

Healing Your Bodies — All of Them!

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 16:00:00 -0500

Sandra Tjoa teaches Qi Gong and Tai Chi, ancient practices that helped her reclaim her health and have now become an integral part of her daily life. In this episode, she explains how these practices may benefit you.

Chi, also spelled Qi, is life force energy. This energy travels in pathways in the body, but it can become stagnant or stuck due to unresolved emotions. The practices of Tai Chi and Qi Gong focus on the body's energy pathways, helping us loosen stuck energy and open us up to more flow.

Sandra explains all this way better than I do, but at least that's a start. In this episode, she emphasizes the power of the body to heal, and she offers tips for starting your day and decreasing stress. You'll also learn that we actually have five bodies: our physical body, of course, and our mental, emotional, spiritual, and energetic or energy bodies. As Sandra explains, paying attention to the health of the energy body also will support our other bodies, which have energetic aspects as well.

Before she began practicing Qi Gong and Tai Chi, she was not in good shape. As she tells it, she was depressed, sleep deprived, haggard. Now, she's the picture of strength and good health, as you can see from her photo. For the complete story about her health turnaround, please visit her website.

A resident of Nelson, British Columbia, where she lives with her family, Sandra teaches Qi Gong and Tai Chi classes online, where she also conducts month-long healing programs. You can learn more on her site and find her on YouTube, as well as on Facebook and Instagram.

Hunger and Personal Power

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:00:00 -0500

Best-selling author Tony Robbins wrote about hunger in his latest newsletter on LinkedIn, and he included his own childhood experience with food insecurity. He also shared a decision he made long ago to take action to help solve this worldwide problem. His post is a powerful piece of writing that ended up inspiring a meditation with a message, which I talk about in this episode.

You can follow this link to Robbins' newsletter to learn the outcome of his decision and much more. I recommend it highly.

For more thoughts about inner power, please go to Gale Hill Radio's "The Force is With Us," episode 72 .

Love Notes to Ireland

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 17:00:00 -0500

With all the great dining and sightseeing that we did in Ireland this year, the enjoyable encounters we had with locals may have left the biggest impression on us. At least, that's what we talk about most. So in this episode, I'm sharing a few of them with you. Also, I've put pertinent links in the chapter markers, just in case you'll want them when you plan your next trip to the Emerald Isle. If you go in 2024, maybe we'll see you there.

The Force is With Us

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 09:00:00 -0500

For those of us who feel adrift in these seemingly crazy times, here's a daily routine that can get us back on course. This routine serves as a regular reminder to tap into our inner wisdom, and it's incredibly easy and quick to do both first thing in the morning and whenever we feel stressed or off-balance during the day.

I learned it from my friend Ashley. I'm truly grateful to her for sharing it with me.

Hope you get something useful out of this episode, which is the latest in my Everyday Exuberance series.

To listen to the other shows in the series, please go to A Happiness Exercise (episode 24), Move Forward with Confidence (32), A Cheerful Start to Your Day (33), Be Our Authentic Selves (36), Focus on Light, Not the Dark (38) and Healthy Conducting (48).

More Far-Out Tales with the Haunted's Bibiana Krall and Veronica Cline Barton

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 15:00:00 -0500

This is the second part of a fascinating interview with Bibiana Krall and Veronica Cline Barton, the authors of a collaborative project called The Haunted Series. In the previous Gale Hill Radio Hour episode, appropriately titled "Scary Stuff," we shared details about these award-winning books filled with psychological suspense.

In this episode, we turn to other aspects of Bibiana and Veronica's creative output. You'll hear how Veronica published her first book, a cozy mystery, in 2018 and now has eight books in the series with another one underway. She also has two other books, the Hygge & Bisous Holiday Mysteries series, whose main character is Rikkhe St. Claire.

Then you'll hear about Bibiana's Irish Phantom Series, which is gothic and mythological, before delving into a disturbing future with Aether, her series about "the digital world, about artificial intelligence, about a world that has basically left its humanity behind and is so controlled by technology that it loses its way."

Here are links to their sites: Bibiana's and Veronica's.

Finally, writers and would-be writers can learn a lot about writing, collaborating and publishing from these master storytellers. Hope you enjoy their insights.

Scary Stuff with Bibiana Krall and Veronica Cline Barton

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 08:00:00 -0400

In this episode, venture into the worlds of Bibiana Krall and Veronica Cline Barton, prolific writers on their own and collaborators on the award-winning Haunted Series consisting, so far, of four books each with six spine-tingling tales set around the globe.

Stretch your imagination with these riveting short stories filled with psychological suspense in the styles of Alfred Hitchcock and Daphne du Maurier. No gore, though a lot of paranormal scariness and some madcap elements as well.

Here, you'll learn about the latest book in the series, "Shadow Reflection" (published in September 2023), along with "Wicked Mist," "Tangled Webs" and "Hearth Fires." These tales will take you far and wide, from Big Sur to Mount Kilimanjaro.

To learn more about Bibiana and Veronica and where to purchase these works, please visit their sites. I bought my books on Amazon.

Sockwell for Happy Sheep (and Feet)

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 10:00:00 -0400

This is Kate Jones, here to talk about a brand of socks with style and function.

Recently, I came across Sockwell's Essential Comfort line at Dave’s Boot Shop in Petoskey, Michigan. The key component of these socks is merino wool that comes from free-grazing sheep raised in the U.S. In other words, as the packaging notes, the wool comes from "happy sheep."

I bought a pair of non-cushion socks with an attractive “Big Bloom” flower design, which lives up to the company’s stated intent to bring “fresh modern styling to every sock we make.” The socks are super comfortable too.

Visit sockwellusa.com to find out about all the Sockwell lines and also the company's commitment to wellness, sustainability and ethically raised sheep .

If you’re going to Petoskey and want to check out Dave’s Boot Shop, you can find the address and phone number by visiting the store hours page on the website. Sockwell socks weren't on Dave's site when I visited it, but the store doesn't list its entire inventory online.

This is the third in an occasional series that I call GHR Recommends. It's a service of The Gale Hill Radio Hour. The first episode in the series is Ep 62 about my favorite granola; the second is Ep 69 about a stylish and beautifully made robe. As always, no payment or goods are exchanged for these recommendations.

Martinique® Banana Leaf Sleepwear

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 21:00:00 -0400

This is the second installment of my occasional series, GHR Recommends. It's a service of The Gale Hill Radio Hour. In this episode, I talk about Martinique® Banana Leaf sleepwear produced by Sant and Abel in partnership with CW Stockwell.

I have personal experience with this line thanks to a beautifully crafted summer robe that my husband gave to me as a birthday gift in May. I love the pattern, which is bright, colorful and also vaguely familiar.

There's a reason that it looks familiar. CW Stockwell is known for its iconic Martinique® Banana Leaf pattern, created in 1942 and still one of the most recognizable wallpaper designs ever produced.

Judging from the fine fabric and details of my robe, Sant and Abel + CW Stockwell has created a line of meticulously made clothing that will last a long time. I think that's a very good thing.

For more information, please go online to Sant and Abel or CW Stockwell.

To hear the first installment of this series, which is about granola, please go to Gale Hill Radio's episode 62.

One last note: No money or goods were exchanged for this or any GHR Recommends segment. I just recommend what I like.

My husband, Bernie Jones, shot the accompanying photo on Gale Hill, where we live.

Music Sparks a Magical Project About Love and the Unexplainable

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 12:00:00 -0400

Venice, flashbacks from another lifetime, the impossible becoming possible. And love and friendship. That's what this episode is all about.

At the heart of it is "Venetian Rhapsody," a novel with a soundtrack about a grand love from another time that reignites in the wondrous City of Canals.

The collaboration behind this project is as magical as the story itself. Suffice to say that its award-winning creators are friends who live on different continents, and they've produced something truly special.

In this episode, you will meet author Tonya Penrose and classical musician David Bazo, who talk about the inspiration for this project, what they've learned from their transcontinental friendship, and so much more. Clearly, it's been a growth experience for both of them, and a fun, satisfying one at that.

As we mention in the episode, the book and the album don't come packaged together because the creators live in two different countries. However, you can order the book and album wherever you buy books and music.

I read the Kindle version of Tonya's novel, which also is available on Amazon, and I purchased David's album on Apple Music.

Another really good way to purchase both is to go to the creators' sites. Visit Tonya's website or go directly to David's store page on his site. For the latter, just scroll down a bit and you'll see the links. The album also is available to download from all the streaming services.

Please enjoy the results of this remarkable collaboration.

Our Michigan Herd

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 09:00:00 -0400

A food and wine extravaganza in Northern Michigan becomes so much more when every friend matters, and everyone's story counts.

Learn more in this short episode inspired by Jackie Stevenson's book, "Someday We'll Live Like Horses: Authentic Presence in Leadership and Life."

The accompanying photo by Zane DeLong shows two members of the Pebble Ledge Ranch Herd, which Jackie writes about in her book. Many thanks to Jackie for giving us a tour of the ranch where she lives with her husband, Herb, along with six horses and four dogs.

Text Messages from the Cat

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Chauncey, the friendly and free-spirited feline that showed up on our porch a little over a year ago, loves exploring his self-proclaimed territory. My husband put an AirTag on his collar to track his whereabouts, and Chauncey does trot home when he's called. He's just not a homebody kind of cat.

When we're away on vacation, Aunt Debbie takes care of him. In this episode, I share some of his antics in Chauncey's "own" words. Hope you enjoy hearing about them, and please check the chapter markers for pictures and captions.

From Pasture to Podium: How Horse Wisdom Can Help Leaders Create a Better World

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0400

What can politicians, parents and other leaders learn from horses? Turns out, a lot!

For starters: the lessons include how to listen without judgment and respect differing opinions. And there's much more in this short episode with Jackie Stevenson, who provides leadership training sessions — with horses — at the ranch where she lives with her husband, Herb, four dogs, and six equine members of the Pebble Ledge Ranch herd.

Each training session has a human facilitator, in addition to Jackie, who guides the trainees in relating to the herd. One of the best facilitators, Jackie says, is Kathy Telban, who has spent a lot of time both in business and with horses, and is now running for city council in her community.

In this episode, Jackie makes it clear that the qualities that Kathy brings to her role as a facilitator are the same qualities that she will bring to public service.

Jackie also talks about politicians in general, and how some horse sense might help them better serve their constituencies.

To learn more about Jackie's leadership programs or to purchase her book, "Someday We'll Live Like Horses: Authentic Presence in Leadership and Life," please visit the Spirit of Leadership website, where you also can purchase a deck of very cool Horse Spirit Wisdom cards. Jackie's book is available on Amazon as well.

To learn more about Kathy Telban, please visit her campaign website.

What We Can Learn from Horses, with Jackie Stevenson

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Please join me in being captivated by Jackie Stevenson, founder and CEO of Spirit of Leadership LLC, as she eloquently describes what can be learned from the planet's oldest living mammals. I'm sure you'll notice my enthusiastic exclamations and appreciative murmurings throughout this short episode.

If you have 10 minutes to spare, you'll learn important lessons about trust and respect, appreciation, cooperation and more.

My son and I spent three hours with Jackie one summer day. It was fun and enlightening. Thank you, Jackie, and many thanks to the Pebble Ledge Ranch herd: Majestic, Lucky, Raven, Tikka, Reggie and Toby!

By the way, in 2018, Jackie published a book about members of the herd and the work that they do. Titled "Someday We'll Live Like Horses: Authentic Presence in Leadership and Life," it's available on the Spirit of Leadership website and on Amazon. Jackie also has a beautiful deck of Horse Spirit Wisdom cards, also available on her site.

GHR Recommends Witzi's Raw Granola

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Hello, Kate Jones here, bringing you the first of an occasional series called GHR Recommends. The idea is to use my platform to highlight something that’s exceptional in one way or another, and no money or goods are ever exchanged. I just recommend what I think may be worth your while.

I'm starting off with one of my absolutely favorite products, Witzi's Raw Granola, and for this launch, I'm presenting a short interview with Amy Witzigreuter, founder and owner of the company, to give you a figurative taste of the granola that's become a staple in my pantry.

Amy is the creator of all the granola recipes in the line, and if you want to hear more of her compelling story, please go to Gale Hill Radio's episode 59, titled Raw Magic: Witzi's Granola.

The accompanying photo was taken by my husband, Bernie Jones. It shows my usual breakfast: Witzi's Lemon Raspberry granola on yogurt. On that particular morning, I added blueberries and strawberries .

"Question Thinking" with Kathy Telban

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0400

In Kathy Telban's decades-long career working to improve outcomes at corporate and nonprofit organizations, she observed a tendency among team members not to ask questions. That intrigued her enough to do some research, which led her to Marilee Adams, PhD, a pioneer in inquiry-based coaching, leadership and organizational effectiveness.

Dr. Adams coined the phrase Question Thinking, which Kathy talks about in this episode. Kathy took a course with her and highly recommends Dr. Adams' book, "Change Your Questions, Change Your Life," now in its fourth edition.

Asking the right questions, of others and yourself, will help you avoid assumptions and instead get to the truth of the matter at hand. "Assumptions are very invisible" Kathy says. "We think everything we think might be a fact." That is not necessarily true, which means you may not be getting a clear picture of a given situation.

Based on Kathy's work with Question Thinking and the expertise she developed over her 40-year career in business, she made the decision to run for City Council in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, where she lives.

In this episode, hear about why she's running for public office for the first time; pick up practical strategies that could dramatically change how you ask questions and make decisions; and, finally, get a glimpse into a topic that's close to Kathy's heart: Leadership and Horses. I think that's a future podcast in the making!

The Craft of Canning a Good Cocktail

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0400

One recent evening, my husband and I poured a North Shore Pomegranate Martini into two glasses, each garnished with a slice of orange and a sprig of lettuce leaf basil. We enjoyed the martinis very much. Flavorful and not overly sweet, they were a perfect happy hour refresher. And here's what's remarkable about them: All that deliciousness comes from a can.

Alison and Steven Cravens are marketing majors and the masterminds behind this new line of North Shore Crafted Cocktails. There are two full cocktails in each can, and the ingredients are what sold me: Fresh juice with zero preservatives and premium spirits. The cocktails also are gluten free and 12% by volume.

What began as a pandemic-inspired project is now a full-fledged Ohio-based business selling two flavors with more to come. For now, they're sold in Northeast Ohio and breaking into the Columbus market, and Alison and Steven have big plans to branch out into other states.

Their cocktails are based on those served at their family's restaurant, Lager & Vine in Hudson, Ohio, and their parents, Katie and Cliff, have been with them all the way in this endeavor.

In this episode, you can learn more about the young marketers' entrepreneurial journey, which is as intriguing as the cocktails themselves.

Also, here are some related links to their website, the family restaurant, and to their Aug. 2 appearance on the New Day Cleveland morning show on Fox 8.

Raw Magic: Witzi's Granola

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Amy Witzigreuter's youngest child was only seven days old when she and her husband learned that their little boy would require a liver transplant before he turned one, and a kidney transplant sometime after that.

With his gastrointestinal issues, it soon became clear that he was unable to tolerate many foods, so Amy rose to the challenge of preparing food that he actually could eat and that the rest of the family would enjoy. It took a lot of trial and error and many failures, but Amy kept at it, ultimately creating favorite recipes that were hits with her immediate family and friends and relatives as well.

The biggest hit of all was her granola, a unique and healthful blend of organic nuts, seeds and fruits. Amy uses the same basic recipe today in her line of Witzi's Raw Granola, which is 100 percent plant-based and free of gluten, grain, dairy, corn, sugar alcohols, or added oils. The nuts are presoaked and dehydrated slowly at low temperatures instead of baked in hot ovens.

She launched the business in 2018 with the mission of providing job skills training to students with autism. In this episode, hear about the lessons Amy learned on the way to becoming an entrepreneur, including perseverance and empathy, and the importance of trusting yourself.

Her Cleveland, Ohio-based business has grown a lot in its five years of existence. To order one or more of Witzi's seven flavors, visit the company online. Right now, the granola also is available in 60 stores in Northeast Ohio and Columbus.

Stinky Feet, Bad Behavior and Political Shenanigans

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 11:00:00 -0400

A hopscotch grid on the sidewalk prompted this super short commentary regarding bad behavior in general and Ohio's Issue 1 in particular. A neighbor child's blunt — and completely charming — declaration served as a necessary balm during the tense time before and on the day of the special election.

The accompanying photo is an actual shot of the child's message. I enhanced it in red for readability.

Making History with Bentley Boyd, Part 2

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0400

In this excerpt from a longer interview with cartoonist and historian Bentley Boyd, he talks about how he came up with his Choice Comix concept in which he does his best to replicate the vibrancy of the history that's made every single day. "I really have always wanted to put the reader in the middle," he says, "because today we are living history and we don’t know how tomorrow’s going to turn out."

You can order Bentley’s books from his website, chestercomix.com , on Amazon, or digital versions on his app, available for iPhone and iPad.

Please share this brief episode with fellow history buffs and anyone who wants to learn U.S. history in a fun and painless way.

Making History with Bentley Boyd, Part 1

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0400

This is an excerpt from a longer interview with cartoonist and historian Bentley Boyd, creator of Chester Comix. In his comic book series, he tells stories from U.S. history with the help of his narrator, a Chesapeake Bay blue crab named Chester.

In this segment, Bentley talks about how the world has changed since he first began drawing Chester for the newspaper where he worked. That was 1999, long before he started doing books. Today, his work is more important than ever.

You can order Bentley’s books from his website, chestercomix.com , on Amazon, or digital versions on his app, available for iPhone and iPad.

Please share this brief episode with fellow history buffs and anyone who wants to learn U.S. history in a fun and painless way.

History, Comix and a Higher Purpose with Bentley Boyd and Chester the Crab

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 12:00:00 -0400

History, art and a Chesapeake Bay blue crab come together to create engaging stories about the people and events that shaped the United States into what it is today.

Cartoonist and historian Bentley Boyd created his character Chester the crab as a way to explain Earth Day to readers of the daily newspaper in Williamsburg, Va. Chester evolved into the narrator of stories geared toward fifth-graders to help them learn U.S. history to meet state requirements. From there, Bentley spun him off into Chester Comix, now celebrating its 20th year with 36 books and counting.

Bentley combines knowledge, skill and humor to tell tales from U.S. history in a way that's both fun and educational for audiences from fifth grade to adulthood.

To learn more, especially why it's important for Americans to know the history of their country, please listen to the episode and check out Bentley's website.

I purchased four of his printed books on Amazon and a digital book on his app, which is available for iPhones and iPad. The app has an amazing privacy policy — there are no ads and Bentley does not share users' personal information.

Please share this episode with anyone who wants to learn more about U.S. history in a fun and painless way.

Age, Politics and Professionalism with Madeline Lepidi-Carino

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 14:00:00 -0400

In this short segment, Madeline Lepidi-Carino offers her perspectives on age and professionalism in politics.

Madeline, who's running for public office for the very first time, has a wealth of experience in the fields of mental health, juvenile law and mediation. She also stands firm in her strong belief in the power of collaboration and civility in resolving differences. Active listening and maturity play important parts as well.

I applaud all those who work hard to serve the public good.

Gale Hill Radio: Embracing the Everyday and the Extraordinary

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 18:00:00 -0400

The Gale Hill Radio Hour is a show for those of us who live enthusiastically, with optimism, curiosity and humor, while also taking time to ponder life's big questions.

To learn more, please listen to the trailer. It's short!

A Mountain Girl's Climb to Success, Part 2

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 08:00:00 -0400

Have you ever found yourself in uncharted territory, faced with a challenge so mammoth, you had no idea where to start? That's where Marilyn Moss Rockefeller was when tasked with saving a company she knew virtually nothing about.

In this episode, the second of two excerpts from a longer interview with the author of “Mountain Girl: From Barefoot to Boardroom," Marilyn describes how she saved her first husband's company and also talks about the importance of trust, tolerance and empathy in the workplace.

Hers is a story of resilience and the power of human connection. In the first excerpt, in case you missed it, Marilyn tells about acquiring her can-do attitude and learning to live by her values. Both contributed immeasurably to her success in business and in life.

You can purchase a copy of "Mountain Girl" directly from the publisher, Islandport Press in Yarmouth, Maine. It's eminently readable and also available on Amazon, Kindle and from your local bookstore. You can listen to my full interview with Marilyn in episode 51 of The Gale Hill Radio Hour.

Please share this episode with others who believe in rising to a challenge while learning, growing and living by one's values.

A Mountain Girl's Climb to Success, Part 1

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 22:00:00 -0400

Marilyn Moss Rockefeller was born at the end of the Depression in West Virginia, where there was still a great deal of poverty. Yet she was raised with a wealth of values that made her a businesswoman who built her success on integrity and resilience.

In this excerpt from a longer interview, the author of "Mountain Girl: From Barefoot to Boardroom" talks about her childhood and how her dad and grandparents instilled in her the wherewithal to be a success in life.

Marilyn's father was a Seabee in the Navy, and he taught his daughter the can-do attitude he'd learned in the service; her grandparents modeled their values of sharing with others and respecting everyone.

You can purchase a copy of "Mountain Girl" directly from the publisher, Islandport Press in Yarmouth, Maine. It's eminently readable and also available on Amazon, Kindle and from your local bookstore.

Hope you enjoy this segment of Marilyn's inspiring story. If you'd like to hear more, please check out the second excerpt about Marilyn saving a failing business.

Please share this episode with others who believe in rising to a challenge while learning, growing and living by one's values.

A Riveting Ride from Mountain Girl to the Peaks of Success in Business and Life

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 14:00:00 -0400

In her absorbing memoir, “Mountain Girl: From Barefoot to Boardroom,” Marilyn Moss Rockefeller offers a compelling testament to the power of resilience and reinvention. The book, which came out in late 2022, tells a story of a series of unexpected events that transformed her from a pigtailed girl in the mountains of West Virginia to the head of a multimillion-dollar manufacturing company in Maine.

Marilyn overcame one challenge after another by relying on her own values as well as the "can-do" mentality instilled by her father, who passed away unexpectedly when she was young.

On her way to business success, she had two children and became an accomplished weaver. She also learned the secret to baking baguettes from none other than Julia Child; became an advocate for those bearing the brunt of domestic violence and discrimination; and, from her very first flying lesson, discovered within her a passion for piloting a plane.

"Mountain Girl" is Marilyn's second book. She also wrote “Bill Moss: Fabric Artist & Designer,” which is about her first husband and the business he created that she ultimately took over with no experience running a company. She turned it around from a money-loser to a multimillion-dollar enterprise recognized as a role model in Maine as a successful, socially responsible business.

You can purchase a copy of "Mountain Girl" directly from the publisher, Islandport Press in Yarmouth, Maine. It's also available on Amazon, Kindle and from your local bookstore.

Hope you enjoy Marilyn's inspiring story. Please share this episode with others who believe in rising to a challenge while learning, growing and living by one's values.

Politics and Respect, Madeline's Way

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Madeline Lepidi-Carino, a retired lawyer, is running for elected office for the very first time. After a long career in mental health, juvenile law and mediation, she's now aiming to restore civil discourse in city government.

Madeline has lived in Hudson, Ohio, for 47 years and has paid attention to city government throughout the decades. Recently, she says, she's witnessed a decline in civility, similar to what's happened on the national level.

She wants to restore the ability to talk things out, and she considers her age to be an asset in her quest for Hudson's Ward 2 City Council seat. "During my years of experience, I've learned how to connect with people, to really listen to them and to respect their views, even if their views differ from mine," she says. "And that's why I'm running for office."

Two of her core beliefs are listening respectfully to others and working collaboratively for the common good. A once fiery Italian who has learned and grown from past mistakes that she freely discusses, Madeline is feisty and rarin' to go to work on her fellow residents' behalf.

I'm your host, and I also live in Hudson's Ward 2. I appreciate the characteristics and skills that Madeline could bring to council, and I applaud the courage it takes to put oneself out there. Please share this episode with others who believe in kindness, community and collaboration.

Cat Story: Chauncey Gardener

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 08:00:00 -0400

Cat owners know that you don't really "own" a cat, so I'll just say that this episode is about the cat that lives with us. In this show, you'll hear how he came to be called Chauncey, a little about his neighborly ways, and his preferred way of being held.

He's a character. Hope you enjoy hearing about him.

For fairly obvious reasons, I mention Peter Sellers' brilliant film Being There, which came out in 1979, a year before Sellers' death. Here are links to the trailer on YouTube and to his bio.

Please share with the other people in your life who have known cats and enjoyed them. You may also want to check out "The Cat That Wouldn't Purr" (episode 23), which is about a squinty-eyed charmer named Talker.

Healthy Conducting

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Here is another installment of my occasional series, Everyday Exuberance. This one is about an efficient little exercise that I’ve been doing at home for a long time.

Basically, I conduct without the benefit of an orchestra!

In this episode, I explain why and offer a few tips about conducting. I'd love to hear what you think.

By the way, I came across this article as I was doing a little more research about conducting for good health:

This is sixth episode in The Gale Hill Radio Hour's exuberance series. To hear the others, please go to A Happiness Exercise (episode 24), Moving Forward with Grace (32), A Cheerful Start to Your Day (33), Be Our Authentic Selves (36), and Focus on Light, Not Darkness (38).

Please share these tips with anyone you know you might be interested.

A Russian Adoption in Brief

Wed, 31 May 2023 09:00:00 -0400

David Schunk is the creator and host of the podcast Voice of Adoptees, in which he speaks with a range of individuals who tell their stories about being adoptees, adoptive parents, adoption advocates and professionals, and birth family members.

In this excerpt from my recent interview with Dave, he shared his own story about being adopted when he was 2, and what it was like to travel back to Russia as a young adult with his adoptive parents.

To hear the entire interview, please go to episode 46 titled "A Russian Adoption with Podcaster David Schunk."

If you or anyone you know has an adoption story to share, please contact Dave by visiting his website.

A Russian Adoption with Podcaster David Schunk

Tue, 23 May 2023 12:00:00 -0400

David Schunk is the creator and host of Voice of Adoptees, a podcast that aims to empower and connect adopted people around the world.

In his show, he speaks with a range of individuals, from adoptees and adoptive parents, to adoption advocates and professionals, and birth families.

Not all adoption stories are alike, he says, and everyone has "the right to share their perspective of their distinct adoption journey." To that end, Dave provides a platform where they can feel comfortable doing so.

In my interview with Dave, he shared his own story about being adopted when he was 2, and what it was like to travel back to Russia as a young adult with his adoptive parents.

He also talked about why it's important for adoptees to connect with one another, and how committed he feels about giving back and helping others who were adopted.

Dave definitely wants to hear other people's stories about adoption, so please share this episode with anyone you know who might be interested. You can reach him by visiting his website.

Voice of Adoptees is available wherever you listen to podcasts. The episodes referenced in this show are "Navigating Identity: An Adopted Russian's Story in Oregon" and "Rediscovering Smolensk: a journey of self-discovery," which features Dave's mom, Dr. Cheryl Schunk.

To learn a bit more about Dave, you can check out this essay.

"Little Chicken" and Other Childhood Memories

Tue, 16 May 2023 19:00:00 -0400

In this short episode of The Gale Hill Radio Hour, you'll hear about the nicknames that my brother and I were affectionately called by our mom.

One of the names has to do with Warner Bros.' first Academy Award, which the studio won for an animated short that broke the streak of four consecutive wins in that category by Hanna Barbera/MGM’s “Tom and Jerry” cartoons.

In addition to my personal nickname story, I'm inviting listeners to share their own stories of their nicknames from childhood.

Please contact me through my new Substack account, https://jonesk.substack.com/,
which I created as a way to provide extra content and connect with listeners. I’d love to hear from you.

Glowing Testimonials for the Imagination Library

Wed, 10 May 2023 09:00:00 -0400

In 2015, Vivian Bosch brought Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to Cortland, New York, where she lives, and she's received great feedback from parents who sing the program's praises.

As a follow-up to Vivian's original Gale Hill Radio Hour interview, here are several testimonials, a few of which have been edited for brevity.

Also, you can read all of the feedback in their entirety by visiting my new Substack account.

By reading or listening to these testimonials, I'm sure that you will feel a deep appreciation for the Imagination Library. Kudos to the Dolly Parton Foundation for this terrific program.

To learn more, please visit imaginationlibrary.com or Cortland Free Library's website.

Here's the link to the parents' feedback on Substack.

To hear Vivian's entire interview, please go to Imagination Library with Volunteer Vivian Bosch (episode 43).

The Imagination Library with Volunteer Vivian Bosch

Wed, 03 May 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Eight years ago, Vivian Bosch brought the Imagination Library to Cortland, New York, where she lives. This is a volunteer position for Vivian, who couldn't be happier about her community's receptiveness to this remarkable program, which mails free books to children from birth to when they turn five years old.

The stories Vivian hears from parents still bring tears to her eyes because reading to young children is so important, she says. And there's research to back up that claim.

In this episode, you'll learn why Dolly Parton started the Imagination Library in 1995 and how the program has grown by leaps and bounds ever since. You'll hear about the steps Vivian took to bring the Imagination Library to her area and why the entire endeavor has been so meaningful to her. And she offers advice for people who don't have access to the program and want to bring it to their own communities.

To learn more, please visit imaginationlibrary.com or Cortland Free Library's website.

This show is also posted on Substack. Please feel free to comment.

Inspired by Nature with Artist Meaghan Milner Reed

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Meaghan Milner Reed is an accomplished artist who makes visually delightful works inspired by the natural world.

These works also have a deeper purpose. Meaghan's colorful depictions of plant life and butterflies are meant to feel alive and hopeful. And she wants them to offer a "literal common ground" for people to connect and build relationships with one another.

This short episode with Meaghan includes a brief segment from an interview from a couple of years ago. In it, she offers insight into how she came to create uplifting art.

For Meaghan, it all began in grad school. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from Kent State University. You can check out her artwork online by visiting meaghanmilnerreed.com.

Also, if you happen to be in Northeast Ohio anytime soon, you can visit the Cleveland Botanical Garden’s second-floor Perennial Gallery to see her current installation, which concludes June 10, 2023.

Many thanks to Jonathan the Producer for his work as audio engineer on the original interview with Meaghan, and to Mike Villegas, owner of Area 67 Recording Studio , who did the audio engineering on this episode.

In Brief with The History School's Elise Fillpot, PhD

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 11:00:00 -0400

This is an excerpt from a 39-minute interview with Dr. Elise Fillpot, who developed an online series of courses based on her highly researched project "Bringing History Home."

The courses are focused toward children and their parents, and all have to do with social justice. Each one is a robust course of study. For example, Ancient Africa through Reconstruction has 77 lessons, including three providing Parent Instructor Preparation, along with a resources section.

There are videos, maps and other visuals, and links to outside resources including, for instance, a link to the Bill of Rights in Simple Language, which takes you to the site of the American Civil Liberties Union:

https://www.aclu-de.org/en/know-your-rights/bill-rights-simple-language

Another course, on Resisting Jim Crow, has a link to an explanation of those laws:

https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/what.htm

The History School also teaches U.S. Immigration History; Indigenous Resistance to Genocide in the United States; U.S. Industrialization History; and U.S Environmental History.

In this brief segment, Elise answers my question about the importance of learning history.

To hear the entire interview, please go to The History School with Dr. Elise Fillpot (episode 40 of The Gale Hill Radio Hour). Also, please visit The History School to check it out for yourself.

The History School with Dr. Elise Fillpot

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 20:00:00 -0400

The History School is a fresh approach to teaching children about the lessons of the past.

Elise Fillpot, PhD, developed the online series of courses based on her highly researched project "Bringing History Home," which she coordinated in Iowa schools from 2001 to almost 2013. The courses focus on social justice and are geared toward ages 7 through 12, though just about anyone can learn and benefit from them.

Elise's father inspired her commitment to social justice at an early age. The son of a sharecropper in West Texas, he was born in 1933 in what could be called the epicenter of the Dust Bowl, Elise says. "His experiences growing up influenced his own commitment to justice and fairness in the world," she explains. And, as a young Baptist minister in Fort Worth, he brought community members together to integrate his church.

Why study history? As Elise says, understanding the past provides ways to figure out how to deal with the present. Her goal is to inspire children to become "citizens of the world" who will feel a sense of responsibility to make it better.

Visit The History School to check it out for yourself.

Scalar Light™ Researcher Tom Paladino on Health and Healing

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:00:00 -0400

Inventor and researcher Tom Paladino wants to heal the world with custom-made instruments built around quantum energy.

If you think that sounds like quite an undertaking, you're likely not alone.

Tom's research, modeled on that of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Galen Hieronymus, has become his life's calling. He's been at it 50 years.

Based in Florida, he administers light energy remotely via photographs to people all over the world. In this way, he says, he is able to disassemble pathogens and build antioxidants. No sessions are done in person.

Tom invites you to try his Scalar Light™ program for 15 days for free. You can visit his website to learn more.

And a quick shoutout to Deanna Radulescu, the host of Label Free Podcast, for introducing me to Tom.

Focus on Light, Not Darkness

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 18:00:00 -0400

This short episode, part of an occasional series on living exuberantly, offers a potentially powerful way to shift our focus from worry and anxiety to calm and comfort.

To listen to the other exuberance-related shows in this series, please go to:
A Happiness Exercise (episode 24), Moving Forward with Grace (32), A Cheerful Start to Your Day (33) and Be Our Authentic Selves (36).

Golden Boomers Blog #9

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Rose Duignan researches and writes Golden Boomers, a blog about group living. She knows the subject well, having lived for five years in a cooperative household in Berkeley, Calif.

Recently, Rose was the featured guest in Gale Hill Radio Hour's Group Living with Golden Boomers (episode 34).

This follow-up episode focuses on Rose's latest blog to date. In it, she writes about her interview with Joan Abrahamson, Founder and President of The Jefferson Institute, a think tank that tackles societal issues including the huge and complex issue of how the U.S.A. deals with elders.

In the blog, Ms. Abrahamson shares her views about the limited choices that senior citizens in America have about how and where they can live and thrive in their later years. The blog is well worth reading. You can reach it here.

For Rose, a cooperative household is an excellent choice for many reasons. In this episode, an excerpt from the original show offers a brief explanation of group living for anyone unfamiliar with the concept.

The full show is available wherever you access podcasts. And you can find all of Rose's blogs here.

Be Our Authentic Selves

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0400

This short essay about two Dollys is part of my occasional series, Everyday Exuberance.

In this episode, I recall reading a first-person piece written by Dolly Parton for Allure magazine. In the article, Parton fondly remembered her friend and mentor, Chet Atkins, even though she did not take his advice many years ago at the start of her performing career. No matter, Parton is a great success doing things her way, and that's an excellent lesson in being true to oneself.

I also mention the important lessons I learned from another Dolly, my mom, who maintained her quirky sense of humor and kindness toward others no matter what life threw at her.

Great lessons indeed.

To listen to the other exuberance-related episodes in this series, please go to A Happiness Exercise (episode 24), Moving Forward with Grace (32) and A Cheerful Start to Your Day (33).

A Quick Follow-up on a Nomad Adventure

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0500

Veteran food writer Leslie Kelly's road-trip adventures with her husband, John Nelson, were featured in "Leslie Kelly, Freelance Food Writer and Nomad" (episode 31). After the interview, Leslie followed up by writing a column about what prompted them to hit the road nearly five years ago, and how they're faring now.

You can find Leslie's short and charming piece on The Spokesman-Review website, which houses all of Leslie and John's "Going Mobile" articles.

Leslie and John also write for other publications including Forbes online and the L.A. Times.

Group Living with Golden Boomers

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Rose Duignan, who retired from the visual effects industry working for George Lucas, researches and writes Golden Boomers, a blog about group living.

Rose lives with three other women, one of whom is her sister, in Berkeley, Calif. And she extols the virtues of this type of living situation. Not only is it a "financial lightening of the load," she says, it's also psychologically and emotionally healthier than living alone. Did you know, she asks, that loneliness is worse for your health than smoking?

Anyway, Rose says that she and her housemates are setting a trend, and she wants to tell the world about it.

Learn more about group living from her blog and also from "My House, Our House: Living Far Better for Far Less in a Cooperative Household," a book she highly recommends.

Toward the end of the show, Rose talks about her amazing career. The first project she worked on at Industrial Light & Magic was Star Wars, and then she went on to The Wrath of Khan and Return of the Jedi. She also collaborated on a book that was published about the company in 1996.

To keep up with Rose's twice-a-month blog postings, you can sign up to receive email notifications. It's easy: just scroll down to the end of one of her blogs (here's a link to #8) and fill out the short form.

A Cheerful Start to Your Day

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 09:00:00 -0500

How about starting your day on a high note? One way of doing that is by singing, saying or thinking the opening lines of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah."

To get inspired, you can listen to Louis Armstrong's version from his 1968 album, “Disney Songs the Satchmo Way.”

I ran across the notion of the therapeutic qualities of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" in one of Dr. Paul Bizjak's "Friday Findings" emails. If you're interested in receiving the Northeast Ohio chiropractor's wellness tips and thoughts, you can go to his website to sign up.

This episode is the third in my occasional series, Everyday Exuberance. The others are A Happiness Exercise (episode 24) and Moving Forward with Grace (32).

Moving Forward with Grace

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 09:00:00 -0500

This quick story is the second in my occasional series, Everyday Exuberance. If you'd like to check out the first in the series, please go to A Happiness Exercise (episode 24).

Today's show is about posture, figureheads on ships, and a powerful stance. I hope it puts you in the mood to throw back your shoulders and move confidently and serenely through life.

Leslie Kelly, Freelance Food Writer and Nomad

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 09:00:00 -0500

For a lot of years, I worked with Leslie Kelly and her husband, John Nelson, in the features department of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. We had a great boss and a good time there, but eventually all three of us went on to other jobs in different locales.

Leslie and John's adventures included newspapers — The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal and The Seattle Post Intelligencer (known as the Seattle PI) — as well as dream jobs at Microsoft Corporation and Allrecipes.com.

Read about one of Leslie's career highlights during her time at Allrecipes.com.

Since 2018, they've been on an adventure of a different sort, traveling around in their 23-foot Thor Gemini mobile home, writing articles and meeting a wide range of fun and interesting people. This adventurous pursuit has had plenty of high points that included camping in a fancy RV park in New Orleans' French Quarter and the memorable experience of attending the Luck Reunion on Willie Nelson's land in Texas, where they also stayed.

They've had their challenges as well, most notably dealing with mechanical problems (their RV apparently wasn't built for daily wear and tear) and the closeness of living in a space that Leslie describes as "about the size of some people's walk-in closet."

Read John's story about their RV travels in the Los Angeles Times.

In this episode, Leslie covers several aspects of their journey including the "life-affirming human connections" they've made on the road. For example, she had a delightful time interviewing world-famous drag queen Trixie Mattel and her partner David Silver, co-proprietors of a Palm Springs motel that's been rehabbed in 16 shades of pink.

Leslie's story about the Trixie Motel is on Forbes.com, where she's been a contributor of food and travel stories since the beginning of the Kelly-Nelson RV journey.

The couple also has a Going Mobile column, which appears Fridays in The Spokesman-Review auto section and is available on the paper's website.

Leslie enjoys hearing from readers and welcomes their own road warrior stories and travel tips. She can be reached by visiting the S-R's Going Mobile page or either of her two Instagram accounts: ourgrandtour and lesliedines58. Her email address is leslie.dines@gmail.com.

With an upcoming swing through Nevada, Leslie and John are particularly interested in what to see and do there. And, of course, any food recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Music Greats We Lost in 2022 with Sheldon Zoldan, Part 2

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 12:00:00 -0500

Sheldon Zoldan, the researcher and writer behind Song of the Day since he debuted the project in 2020, did something different at the end of last year by turning his daily Song of the Day write-ups into a series of tributes to musical greats who died during the year.

In this episode, Sheldon reads 23 of those tributes. He read 20 others in Part 1.

There's a musical interlude preceding each tribute. The song is "You and Me" by Mike Villegas, a talented musician and audio engineer who made the final edits on this episode. "You and Me" is available on Spotify.

Here are the artists, songwriters and producers we're covering in this episode:

Andy Fletcher, Depeche Mode, “Enjoy the Silence”
Judith Durham, the Seekers, “Georgy Girl”
Lamont Dozier, “Two Hearts”
Olivia Newton-John, “Physical” tribute on WGCU.org
Luke Bell, “Sometimes”
Mabel John, “Your Good Thing”
Ramsey Lewis, the Ramsey Lewis Trio, “In Crowd”
Coolio, “Gangsta’s Paradise”
Mary McCaslin, “Prairie in the Sky”
Loretta Lynn, “Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” on WGCU.org
Lenny Lipton, “Puff the Magic Dragon”
Angela Lansbury, “Beauty and the Beast”
The Simon Sisters, Lucy and Joanna (sisters of Carly), “Winking Blinking & Nod”
Patrick Haggerty, “Lavender Country”
Aaron Carter, “I Want Candy”
Jeff Cook, Alabama, “No Bad Days”
Irene Cara, “Flashdance (What a Feeling)”
Jerry Lee Lewis, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”
Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, “You Make Loving Fun” on WGCU.org
Dino Danelli , the Young Rascals, “Good Lovin’”
Thom Bell, the Sound of Philadelphia, “La La Means I Love You”
Ian Tyson, “Four Strong Winds”
Anita Pointer, the Pointer Sisters, “I’m So Excited”

WGCU, the National Public Radio station in Southwest Florida, recorded an hour-long special with Sheldon about quite a few of these notables from the music industry. Also, visit the WGCU website to hear the Song of the Day every Friday.

To receive Sheldon's Song of the Day emails, contact him at shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line "Put me on the Song of the Day list."

Many thanks to Christian Porrello at the PodPopuli studio in Hudson, Ohio, for recording this episode; to Tom Kijauskas and Mike Villegas for doing the audio edits and also to Mike for letting us use his music for the interludes; and, of course, to Sheldon for reading all those tributes!

Music Greats We Lost in 2022 with Sheldon Zoldan, Part 1

Wed, 28 Dec 2022 18:00:00 -0500

Sheldon Zoldan, the researcher and writer behind Song of the Day since he debuted the project in 2020, did something different at the end of last year by turning his daily Song of the Day write-ups into a series of tributes.

Throughout December 2022, Sheldon devoted his daily Songs to musical greats who died during the year.

In this episode, Sheldon narrates 20 of those tributes. He reads the other 23 in Part 2.

There's a musical interlude preceding each tribute. The song is "You and Me" by Mike Villegas, a multitalented musician and audio engineer who also did the final edits on this episode. "You and Me" is available on Spotify.

Here are the artists, songwriters and producers we're covering in this episode:

Marilyn Bergman, “The Way We Were”

Ronnie Specter, the Ronettes, “Be My Baby”

Meatloaf, “Bat Out of Hell”

Betty Davis, “They Say I’m Different”

Ian McDonald, King Crimson; Foreigner, “Court of the Crimson King”

Gary Brooker, Procol Harum, “Whiter Shade of Pale”

Tom Parker, the Wanted, “Glad You Came”

C.W. McCall, “Convoy”

Roland White, the Kentucky Colonels, “Ya’ll Come/Orange Blossom Special”

Bobby Rydell, “Wild One”

Judy Henske, “High-Flying Bird”

Naomi Judd, the Judds, “Mama He’s Crazy”

Mickey Gilley, “I Overlooked an Orchid”

Vangelis, “Chariots of Fire”

Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters, “Cold Day in the Sun”

Alan White, Yes, “Our Song”

Ronnie Hawkins, “Mary Lou”

Jim Seals, Seals and Crofts, “Summer Breeze”

Julee Cruise, “Falling,” theme song of “Twin Peaks”

Tom Springfield, the Springfields, “Island

Sheldon emails the daily version of Song of the Day to an ever-growing list of music lovers. To receive it, email him at shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line "Put me on the Song of the Day list."

Many thanks to Tom Kijauskas and Mike Villegas for doing the audio edits and also to Mike for allowing us to use his music for the interludes; and, of course, to Sheldon for writing and narrating all these tributes!

Please go to the chapters for links to YouTube videos of the featured songs.

Dashielmusic.com

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 14:00:00 -0500

Since this interview took place, Dashiel Rowland has done a lot. He settled into his place in Brooklyn, where he moved in September 2022; turned 25 the following month, on Oct. 24; put his demo album, "Cordelia," on SoundCloud; and released his latest single, "Earth is Burning." He also added to his merchandise line, which he creates himself.

In this episode, you'll get to know this talented multi-instrumentalist artist, songwriter, producer, and aspiring film and television composer.

Along with SoundCloud, Dashiel's music is available on Apple and Spotify. Check out his website to learn more.

At the end of the interview, Dashiel shares two of his songs: The first is the lyrical “2006” from “Cordelia,” his demo album, and the second is his recently released single “Earth is Burning.” Please note that "Earth is Burning" has language that might be offensive to some.

The Forever Dog

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 15:00:00 -0500

The New York Times bestseller "The Forever Dog" has fans all over the world. Published in 14 countries, the book serves as an eminently readable and accessible guide for dog owners who want to make important choices to help their dogs thrive.

In this episode, veterinarian and wellness advocate Dr. Karen Shaw Becker — who co-authored the book with Rodney Habib, the founder of Planet Paws — notes that dogs are dying younger of more degenerative diseases than ever before. Yet she assures pet parents that they have the power to take easy steps that can prevent this from happening to their beloved canines. "There are scientifically proven strategies that can help reduce the likelihood of dogs having to go through an early degenerative process," she says. You'll find a wealth of strategies in this book, along with secrets of the world's oldest dogs; the importance that a twice-daily "sniffari" has for your pooch; and so much more.

You can find "The Forever Dog" on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

EFT Trainer Jondi Whitis on Tapping for Emotional Freedom

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 12:00:00 -0500

Jondi Whitis is a Master Trainer in EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and is commonly referred to as “Tapping.”

Jondi’s calling is helping others feel better fast and, in this episode, she talks about how these techniques work and what they can be used for.

In simple terms, EFT is an easily learned way to release emotional overwhelm, limiting beliefs and even physical pain. Plus, it's a drug-free method of working with the mind-body connection and can be used for self-help, peer-to-peer care and, in practiced hands, therapeutic care.

It also can help you develop new ways to overcome old problems, and experience life in happier, more productive ways.

Jondi is the co-author, with Deborah D. Miller, PhD, of the Compassion in Action handbook “Emotional First-Aid for Children: How to Quickly Help in Times of Trouble.” She also has published two “handy-dandy” guides about EFT. Her books are accessible, well written and nicely designed.

Please visit Jondi's website for more about her books and EFT. You may reach her directly by emailing jondi@eft4results.com.

Emotional Freedom Sound Bite

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 12:00:00 -0500

Jondi Whitis is a Master Trainer in EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and is commonly referred to as “Tapping.” In simple terms, EFT is an easily learned way to release emotional overwhelm, limiting beliefs and even physical pain.

Jondi’s calling is helping others feel better fast and, in this short episode, she talks a bit about how these techniques work. She goes into further depth in the full episode Ep 27, titled EFT Trainer Jondi Whitis on Tapping for Emotional Freedom.

Please visit Jondi's website for more information. You may reach her directly by emailing jondi@eft4results.com.

The Power of Art

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 20:00:00 -0400

Cameron Cabot believes that arts and culture have the power to shape a better world. In this episode, he explains what he means by that.

He also talks about his career trajectory, which had its earliest beginnings when he was a little kid.

Cameron is an arts educator committed to advocacy and community engagement with the arts. An active performing and recording artist, composer, director, producer, and arts manager/strategist, Cameron holds a BA in Arts Management & Entrepreneurship with minors in Applied Music and Spanish from Baldwin Wallace University, and a Master of Arts in Theatre Arts – Arts Administration from The University of Akron.

He's the Public Relations and Marketing Manager for the Baldwin Wallace Men’s Chorus, and is on the faculty at Walsh Jesuit High School, where he directs choirs and theatre, and teaches business leadership.

Cameron owns a multidiscipline, project-based production company called The Curio Cabinet Network, LLC (through which he produces “Cam-e-grams,” original songs commissioned for various occasions), maintains an active schedule as a freelance vocalist, entertainer and consultant, and liturgical musician/cantor, regionally and nationally, and serves on the Board of Directors of Akron’s Center for Applied Theatre and Active Culture.

For more about Cameron, visit his website, Facebook or LinkedIn.

The Power of Art Sound Bite

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 20:00:00 -0400

Cameron Cabot, an arts educator committed to advocacy and community engagement, believes that arts and culture have the power to shape a better world. In this short episode, he explains what he means by that.

He's also an active performing and recording artist, composer, director, producer, and arts manager/strategist.

In the full Episode 26, the conversation with Cameron continues. Topics include his career trajectory, which had its earliest beginnings when he was a little kid.

For more about Cameron, visit his website, Facebook or LinkedIn.

A Happiness Exercise

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 16:00:00 -0400

This short essay is the first in an occasional series about living exuberantly. I call it Everyday Exuberance.

Here, I talk about bouncing back from disappointment with a little exercise that I call GLEE. (The letters stand for Gratitude, Love, Exuberance and Exuberant Good Health.)

Quick note: To really get back to a happier frame of mind, do three repetitions of this exercise.

A Few Minutes with Author Jack Torry

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 14:00:00 -0400

Jack Torry is the author of "The Last One Out," the biography of Yates McDaniel, World War II's most daring reporter. McDaniel, who worked for the Associated Press, covered more of the Asian war than anyone else and was world-renowned at the height of his career.

This short show is a snippet from a longer interview with Jack. To hear the full conversation, along with a second one with writer Joy York, please go to The Writing Life - A Daring Reporter & A Gutsy Reinvention.

The Cat That Wouldn't Purr

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 18:00:00 -0400

A squinty-eyed cat named Talker lived with John Perry and his wife, Mary, for 12 or 13 years. He was, as John fondly recalls, "a great guy to have around the house."

The story of this special cat lives on in the charming book "The Cat That Wouldn't Purr," co-written by John and his good friend, H. Page Stephens, and illustrated by Chuck Ayers, former longtime editorial cartoonist for The Akron Beacon Journal. (If you're a comics page reader, you might recognize Ayers as the artist on the nationally syndicated strip Crankshaft, which debuted in newspapers in 1987.)

"The Cat That Wouldn't Purr" is a softcover that was beautifully designed by Ben Small of Live Publishing, which published the book in 2014. From the start, all proceeds have gone to animal welfare organizations in Portage County, Ohio.

A limited number of copies are left from the first run, but there may be subsequent printings. You can support animal welfare and get one of the remaining books by donating to Talker's Fund on the Portage Foundation's website. When you get to the main page, click on Donors and then on Funding Priority Areas. Scroll down to Animal Welfare, and you'll find Talker's Fund.

PorchRokr 2022 Sound Bite

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 11:00:00 -0400

Music and art lovers who happen to be in Akron, Ohio, on Aug. 20 have the grand opportunity to attend the city's biggest party of the year: The Highland Square PorchRokr Music and Art Festival.

The event runs from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Headliners The Beyonders start playing at 8.

For more information, visit Facebook or go to porchrokr.org, which takes you to the Highland Square website. Once there, click on PorchRokr.

This short is a follow-up to episode 19 of The Gale Hill Radio Hour featuring PorchRokr co-creator Karen Starr.

A Memoir of Abuse

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 11:00:00 -0400

Linda Lee Blakemore is the author of “Entrenched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go,” in which she shares her awakening to the ways that child abuse affected her life as an adult and how she found a path toward healing.

Published in 2022, "Entrenched" is Linda's second book. Her first is “Kids Helping Kids (Break the Silence of Sexual Abuse),” which was published in 2003 long before she was fully healed enough to write the story of her own life. In "Kids Helping Kids," children tell their true stories to help other children.

In addition to writing both books to help others, Linda is a speaker and an advocate for those who have experienced abuse. To learn more, please visit her website.

Her books are available on her site as well as on Amazon and elsewhere where books are sold. They're also in library collections.

In this interview, Linda mentions another book that proved instrumental to her healing. Here's the Amazon link: The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, 20th Anniversary Edition by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.

Sheridan, WY: Hometown of Miss Wyoming 2021-22

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 16:00:00 -0400

On May 22, 2022, during a visit to Sheridan, Wyoming, host Kate Jones and her husband had the grand opportunity to see the Eatons' Ranch Horse Drive, which takes place every spring. They — and a crowd of some 200 other spectators — enjoyed close-up views of the horses as they clip-clopped down a city street right in front of the historic hotel where the Joneses were staying.

In this episode, you'll hear about both the horse drive and the Sheridan Inn, which opened in 1893 with the help of investor and occasional resident "Buffalo Bill" Cody of Wild West Show fame. Both topics are pertinent to today's interview with Mikkayla DeBolt, who was the reigning Miss Wyoming when Kate met her on the front lawn of the hotel the morning of the horse drive.

Mikkayla talks about how she became Miss Wyoming, how she handled competition (turns out she loved it) and what she learned during her year-long reign, among other topics. She passed along the Miss Wyoming crown to her successor, Hazel Homer Wambeam, on June 25, 2022, at the Wyo Theater in downtown Sheridan. Now that she's no longer the current representative of her home state, Mikkayla reflects on her next adventures including, perhaps, a future run for office.

A Smile on a Summer's Day

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:00:00 -0400

A thought from the first day of summer 2022 that has to do with connection and bluebirds.

Akron, Ohio's Giant Holiday and Much More

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 16:00:00 -0400

Akron creative Karen Starr is passionate about her community, and she and a legion of friends and collaborators do a lot to make the city better and more fun.

In this live edition of The Gale Hill Radio Hour, Karen talks about a host of great projects, starting with the gorgeous coffee-table book If This Wallpaper Could Talk, which she produced with her photographer friend Shane Wynn. As its title suggests, it's all about wallpaper, specifically Akron wallpaper.

An interior designer, Karen has an affinity for wallpaper, though she's well aware that not everyone shares that feeling. She also has a deep appreciation for January Paint & Wallpaper, which has been in business since 1956 and is where, as a kid, Karen accompanied her mom on shopping (or just browsing) trips.

In this interview, Karen also talks about her own business, Hazel Tree Interiors, celebrating its 12th anniversary in 2022. Whenever feasible, the Hazel Tree team members incorporate the work of local artists and makers into their interior design projects.

Speaking of projects, Karen co-created two big ones:

The 2022 Highland Square annual PorchRokr Music and Art Festival marks the 10th anniversary of Akron's "giant holiday" party, transforming the porches of one of Akron's most eclectic neighborhoods into one-day art studios and concert venues. Thousands of locals and out-of-towners rock out to diverse musicians and artists who use both residences and business establishments as their personal stages. The festival rotates each year among four sections of Highland Square to encourage spontaneous interaction among all its neighbors. PorchRokr 2022 takes place Saturday, August 20.

Also in 2022, Karen and her co-creators are marking the 10th anniversary of Free Akron Outdoor Movies with a showing of Labyrinth on September 10 on the lawn of Glendale Cemetery, where the event has always been held.

Finally, and this is also fun, Karen sings with Roxxymoron, an eight-piece rock/pop cover band with horns, tight vocals, and a song list spanning generations. It was voted "Best Local Band" by Akron Life Magazine. During the interview, Kate asks Karen whether she has a favorite song to sing. Listen to find out what it is.

This episode was one of many live podcasts recorded in spring 2022 at Comida, a chef-owned restaurant in Hudson, Ohio's First & Main shopping and dining district. Called Podapalooza, it was presented by PodPopuli of Hudson.

Reflections on Home, Nature, and Maya Lin's Confluence Project Landscapes

Tue, 10 May 2022 18:00:00 -0400

An interview with Ann Batchelor Hursey, a poet and writer of prose, and the author of "Field Notes to Maya Lin's Confluence Project Landscapes."

The Confluence Project commemorates the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's journey along the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington, especially the role of the Columbia River tribes who welcomed and assisted the explorers in their travels.

Poems and haiku are sprinkled throughout this interview, illuminating the various topics of conversation. Here's where you can find one of the poems in the episode:

6:52 — "How It All Began" by Ann Batchelor Hursey

There are many more, offering insight and reflection.

For more about Ann and her work, visit her website.

For more on the Confluence Project, go to confluenceproject.org.

And for more about Maya Lin, visit her site.

Welcome to the Mess Lab, Excerpt 3

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 18:00:00 -0400

This is the third of four clips from Episode 16 featuring Zane DeLong, YouTube creator of “Welcome to the Mess Lab.” In this excerpt, he covers the movie “House.” He also talks about great walls of cinema and the appeal of Brigitte Nielsen.

You can get to "Welcome to the Mess Lab" here. You also can check out Zane's Twitter feed, where he goes by the handle @_noone_specific.

Welcome to the Mess Lab, Excerpt 4

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 15:00:00 -0400

This is the last of four clips from Episode 16 featuring Zane DeLong, artist, filmmaker, IT professional, and YouTube creator of “Welcome to the Mess Lab.” In this excerpt, he talks about two of his music videos and the 3-D face he created using Blender. He also gives a shout-out to his alma mater, Ohio University.

You can get to "Welcome to the Mess Lab" here. You also can check out Zane's Twitter feed, where he goes by the handle @_noone_specific and where you'll see a sampling of his artwork, particularly the digital face he sculpted using the free program Blender.

Welcome to the Mess Lab, Excerpt 1

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 15:00:00 -0400

This is the first of four clips from Episode 16, featuring Zane DeLong, artist, filmmaker, IT professional, and YouTube creator of "Welcome to the Mess Lab." In this excerpt, host Kate Jones asks Zane, who also describes himself as a film essayist, to describe his channel.

You can get to "Welcome to the Mess Lab" here. You also can check out Zane's Twitter feed, where he goes by the handle @_noone_specific.

Welcome to the Mess Lab, Excerpt 2

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 15:00:00 -0400

This is the second of four clips from Episode 16 featuring Zane DeLong, YouTube creator of “Welcome to the Mess Lab.” In this excerpt, Zane offers brief insights into a few favorite films and talks about the groundbreaking filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles.

You can get to "Welcome to the Mess Lab" here. You also can check out Zane's Twitter feed, where he goes by the handle @_noone_specific.

Homage to Ancestry and Clay

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Karen Koblitz is a Los Angeles-based artist and Associate Professor Emerita from University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art & Design.

Over her long and illustrious career, Karen's ceramic works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and around the world. She has works in the permanent collections of several museums, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Check out Orvieto Red Rooster Lunette on the Renwick Gallery site and, on the LACMA site, see these two works: a decorative ceramic plate and Still Life with Pitcher and Hedge Apple.

In this wide-ranging interview recorded in early spring 2022, Karen talks about her beginnings as an artist, as well as her love for both working in clay and for teaching; her Czech family roots, including family members lost in the Holocaust; her involvement in the restoration of a Czech synagogue in the Southern Bohemian town of Pacov, where her great-great-grandparents were married in 1860; a documentary about that restoration project; her participation, in 2002, in Art in Embassies, a U.S. Department of State program (see her profile on the Art in Embassies website); and her recently discovered passion for knitting.

There are two additional pieces of information of note:

Around the 23-minute mark, Karen talks about a book, The White Road, which chronicles the history of porcelain. The name of the author is Edmund de Waal.

Toward the end of the episode, around 49:30, Karen talks about the Czech Torah scrolls. The Westminster Synagogue in London oversees the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust.

Hope you enjoy the episode with this amazing artist. To hear specific topics, please check out the chapters.

Welcome to the Mess Lab with Zane DeLong

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 14:00:00 -0400

Artist and IT professional Zane DeLong, the creator of Welcome to the Mess Lab on YouTube, devotes most of his channel to presenting articulate commentary on movies that, as he puts it, have something to say.

In this episode, he talks about several films, including 1984's "Surf II," which is on one hand trying to be a goofy "Airplane!" style comedy and, on the other hand, a rather disturbing portrayal of the anxieties of its characters. The comedy doesn't really work, but the film is interesting nonetheless, Zane says. And several of its actors — Eddie Deezen, Eric Stoltz, Linda Kerridge, Cleavon Little, Terry Kiser and Ruth Buzzi — are recognizable because they were in bigger and better-known shows.

Zane's movie commentaries, which tend to be pretty involved, generally take him a long time to produce, so he experimented with giving viewers shorter "impressions" of more movies. In his first of these short-form commentaries, he covers "The Story of a Three Day Pass" and "Watermelon Man," both by Melvin Van Peebles, as well as "Hanging Garden," "Lucky Chan-Sil," and "Are you in the House Alone?"

Finally, check out his episodes covering “House,” "Domino" and a compilation of films that he presented under the intriguing title “Great Walls of Cinema.” And there's one music video in the mix. Zane shot it in a beautiful cemetery in Columbus, Ohio, for his friend's band, Discount Tents. Quite serene.

You can get to Welcome to the Mess Lab here. You also can check out Zane's Twitter feed, where he goes by the handle @_noone_specific and where you'll see a sampling of his artwork, particularly the digital face he sculpted using the free program Blender.

This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to The Gale Hill Radio Hour!

Awe in Ohio: Abolitionists, America's First Black Professional Football Player & More

Sat, 05 Mar 2022 12:00:00 -0500

In the first segment, Frank Satullo, the creator of ohiotraveler.com, talks about five fascinating places to visit around the state. Each inspires awe in its own way.

The first is the John Rankin House in Ripley. A National Historic Landmark on the Ohio River near Cincinnati, this was the home of Presbyterian minister John Rankin and his large family. The Rankins are said to have been among Ohio's first and most active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad.

The next stop on this Ohio tour is a man-made wonder called the Temple of Tolerance. Jim Bowsher created this amazing rock garden in a residential neighborhood in Wapakoneta, also the hometown of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

Another Ohio rock garden worth seeing is in Springfield. The Hartman Rock Garden consists of more than 50 structures ranging from a castle and capitol building to Noah's ark, all created between 1932 and 1944 by Ben Hartman, who died in 1944. Today, the site is owned and maintained by the Friends of the Hartman Rock Garden.

Anyone who's a fan of Bob Evans sausages might want to head to Rio Grande to check out the Homestead, the farmhouse where Bob and his wife, Jewell, reared their six children. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, the Homestead was once a stagecoach stop and inn. Later, the Evans family opened The Sausage Shop in their front yard, which became the first Bob Evans restaurant and is still open today.

Finally, the Ernest Warther Museum and Gardens in Dover celebrates the ingenuity and artistic ability of master carver Ernest "Mooney" Warther, who hand-sculpted more than 60 works on the premises. The Ernest Warther Museum and Gardens, which opened in 1936, is owned and operated by third- and fourth-generation family members.

The second segment of the show features Marty Starkey, director of the Wayne County Convention and Visitors Bureau, talking about Charles Follis, America's first Black professional football player.

Follis was a great athlete and a well-regarded young man. In 1898, he became the captain of the first Wooster High School football team. He led the team to two undefeated seasons and earned the nickname “The Black Cyclone.” There's an Ohio Historical Marker at the school recognizing his athletic skills.

He went on to be the star player on the Shelby Blues, a professional team in Shelby, Ohio. His ability and character impressed his teammate Branch Rickey who, decades later, signed Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the race barrier and bringing an end to segregation in professional baseball.

Visitors can learn more about Follis by following The Black Cyclone Trail, a driving tour that winds through Ohio’s Wayne and Richland Counties.

Follis' story also is featured in “The Black Cyclone,” a play written and produced by Jim and Amy K. Stoner.

To read an article about Charles Follis that Frank Satullo wrote for the Wayne Convention and Visitors Bureau, visit ohiotraveler.com.

Your Song of the Day (Delivered Daily or Weekly) & "Wild Symphony"

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 17:00:00 -0500

Retired newspaperman Sheldon Zoldan found himself with time on his hands during the pandemic lock-down in 2020, so he did what a lot of us do: He scrolled the internet, particularly music videos on YouTube.

That mindless pastime became a passion project requiring research, creativity and discipline. Every day, Sheldon publishes an article featuring a Song of the Day. He uses different criteria for choosing his subjects. Sometimes he focuses on the day itself, perhaps it's a holiday or the day that a particular event occurred. A lot of times, his article is about a musical milestone or something that was going on in the life of a singer or musician. And other times, Sheldon just comes up with another kind of intriguing story that fits with a song. He posts his Songs of the Day on Facebook and sends them out by email to everyone who's asked to be on his list.

A former editor for the Fort Myers News-Press, Sheldon has now moved from print to broadcast. To be specific, he's on WGCU, his local NPR station in Southwest Florida, doing a weekly audio version of his Song of the Day feature. It streams at 8:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. every Friday on wgcu.org. The rest of the time, the WGCU version is available on the website; you can search for Sheldon Zoldan by name or follow this direct link: https://news.wgcu.org/sheldon-zoldan

If you want a daily hit of Sheldon's well-researched Song of the Day articles delivered to your inbox, send an email to shzoldan@comcast.net, and he'll put you on the aforementioned list.

In this episode, you'll hear about a few of his Songs of the Day, including the one he did on "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. Despite all her incredible talent and success, she led a difficult life and passed away at the relatively young age of 48.

Speaking of Whitney Houston, you may want to revisit her stirring rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" in this YouTube video. It has nothing to do with this podcast, but wow, what a voice she had.

Right after his interview, Sheldon reads two of his articles. The first is about Del Shannon's "Runaway" and the second concerns the Tremeloes' "Here Comes My Baby." They're well worth your time.

Closing out this episode of The Gale Hill Radio Hour is another music-related subject: "Wild Symphony," a children's picture book written by Dan "The Da Vinci Code" Brown and illustrated with whimsical drawings by Susan Batori. What makes this book so musical is the free app that accompanies the text and drawings. All of the music is composed by Brown, who is donating all U.S. royalties due to him to support music education for children worldwide, through the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.

In the back of his book, he writes, “Long before I wrote stories … I wrote music.” And he dedicated "Wild Symphony" to his mom, who, he says, “shared her love of music with me from the day I was born.”

The book and the music are really worth checking out.

Expression by Design with Mike Forfia

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:00:00 -0500

New York City-based Mike Forfia is a musician, a teacher and career adviser, and a design thinker. While seemingly very different, these jobs have one thing in common: they all fascinate him in one way or another. Besides that, as a bass player, "The role I'm usually playing is to make sure everyone around me has what they need," he says. In all his various roles, he supports others, and enjoys doing it.

In this interview, he talks about the many aspects of his career, including his performing life and previous gigs on cruise ships and in the South Pacific; his current job as music director at Citylight Church in Astoria, Queens; and the work he did while pursuing his master's degree in jazz and contemporary media at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y.

At the end of the episode, you'll hear “When The Blues Leave” and “Beautiful Love" from the album “Mike Forfia: Live with Friends 2017.”

For more, visit https://www.mikeforfia.com/.

The Pleasures of Little Books & Feeling Grateful

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 09:00:00 -0500

Kicking off this episode, Kate Jones interviews bookstore owner Kate Schlademan, who's also a city councilwoman and, during the summer, an avid golfer.

The main topic of conversation is their shared fondness for beautifully written and well-designed small books, although they also discuss influential books, including Run for Something, which proved helpful to Schlademan as a first-timer to politics.

The beautiful little books mentioned in this interview include Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library, an enchanting collection of four pocket-sized versions of classic children's books by the Caldecott Medal winner.

For food lovers, there are two delightfully written and illustrated cheese books: The New Rules of Cheese: A Freewheeling & Informative Guide by Anne Saxelby and Cheese, Illustrated, written by Rory Stamp and illustrated by Holly Exley.

Schlademan owns The Learned Owl in Hudson, Ohio. Her store presents in-person book signings outdoors in the summer, and she also recommends the Hudson Library's excellent virtual author events.

In the second segment, Jones talks about Gratitude, a lovely and moving little book of essays that renowned British neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote during the last two years of his life. Jones follows up on the theme of gratitude in the closing segment.

One last note:
In the first segment, Jones mentioned that she recently interviewed a guest who meditates every day with her husband. The guest's name is Susan Terkel, who is featured in the second segment of "Ep 10 - The Fine Arts of Collage & Making Connections."

The Writing Life - A Daring Reporter & A Gutsy Reinvention

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 17:00:00 -0500

This episode opens with Jack Torry, author of "The Last One Out," a new book chronicling the life of Yates McDaniel, a daring reporter in World War II.

McDaniel was a foreign war correspondent for the Associated Press who took enormous risks to provide newspapers with accurate and riveting firsthand coverage of the war. He's considered the equal of legendary World War II correspondents Theodore White of Time Magazine, George Weller of The Chicago Daily News, Cecil Brown of CBS Radio, and Ernie Pyle of Scripps-Howard. The Associated Press boasted that during the war, McDaniel was the first “to arrive and last to leave.”

As a war correspondent, McDaniel was known all over the world. Yet when he died in Florida in 1983, "few outside his family paid much attention," Jack says. "At age 76, he seemed like just another white-haired retiree whose final years passed with little notice amid so many other senior citizens in Florida. The only hint of his fame came in a brief obituary buried on the inside pages of The New York Times."

In this interview, Jack talks about McDaniel's reluctance to write his memoirs or tell spellbinding stories, which is why he was forgotten by 1983 and why his name is rarely mentioned in the pantheon of war correspondents. In his book, Jack tells those spellbinding stories for him.

Published by Schiffer Military Publishing, "The Last One Out" is Jack's third book. He's a former Washington bureau chief for The Columbus Dispatch and Dayton Daily News, where he covered politics, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. A journalism graduate of The Ohio State University, he's also the author of “Endless Summers: The Fall and Rise of the Cleveland Indians” (now the Cleveland Guardians) and “Henderson’s Light: Drinking, Driving and a Deadly Encounter.”

Kate and Jack have known each other since their Ohio State days, and they've kept in touch over the years. Jack lives in Leesburg, Va., with his wife, Saundra Torry, a former reporter for The Washington Post and a retired editorial writer for USA Today.

This episode also includes a short segment about reinventing oneself. In it, Kate interviews another longtime friend, Joy York, who embarked on her own reinvention and eventually realized her dream of becoming a writer. Like Jack in the previous interview, Joy is a published author.

Joy enjoyed a long and satisfying career in retail management, but she knew that the time had come to prioritize other parts of her life. So she took a big leap to spend more time at home with her family, do community service and pursue other interests including fulfilling her goal of becoming a published author.

Joy is the author of "Genuine Deceit: A Suspense Novel," her first adult fiction book, and the young adult novel "The Bloody Shoe Affair." You can learn more about these books on Joy's website.

The Fine Arts of Collage & Making Connections

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 15:00:00 -0500

In this episode, host Kate Jones has the pleasure of having conversations with two creative women about work and life.

In the first segment, Gretchen Bierbaum talks about her "light-bulb moment" that led to her becoming a collage artist. She went on to study Islamic art in Iran, became an art educator and administrator, and has enjoyed doing bicentennial and other commissions, including a painting that hangs in the dining room of one of the Sea Wolf nuclear submarines.

Gretchen is the founder and president of the National Collage Society, the first organization in the United States devoted to collage, which at the time of the group's founding in 1982 was a misunderstood art.

Gretchen's book, Collage in All Dimensions, published in 2005, traces the history of collage as a fine art. Although collage existed in many craft forms prior to the 20th century, it was not until 1912 that Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were the first historically significant artists to glue collage pieces into paintings. The art form has evolved ever since.

Collage in All Dimensions is available from the bookstore on the National Collage Society's website, where you also can see the winners of the annual exhibitions.

In the second segment, writer-creator, puzzle addict and enthusiastic connector Susan Terkel talks about having a natural curiosity about people and their stories. And she has a marvelous way of finding commonalities with strangers, usually within 30 seconds of meeting them.

Kate saw this play out not too long ago at PodPopuli, a studio in Hudson, Ohio, just before Susan's recording session. Then, a couple of weeks later, Kate had her own Susan Terkel moment at another studio 19 miles away in Akron.

When an engineer who lives and works in Akron heard that Kate's from Hudson, he said, "I know a famous author there. Susan Terkel." Turns out he lived in Hudson for a while himself and hung out with one of Susan and her husband Larry's two sons.

Small world, isn't it? Susan comes to this realization on a very regular basis and, yet, every single time she's surprised and delighted. It's magical, she says, and she never takes that magic for granted.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Susan covers a lot of topics including:

- Being a worrier (she's a Jewish mother, after all)
- Comparing life to a puzzle
- Meditating every day
- Writing (plus advice for would-be writers)
- Knitting, sewing and "upcyling"
- Making friends with people of all ages

She also mentions one of her favorite books, The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel ben Izzy, and shares her own secrets to a successful marriage and life.

Mental Health, Resilience & Versatility

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 15:00:00 -0500

In November 2017, Justin Alan Hayes voluntarily checked himself into a hospital's psych ward after years of dealing unsuccessfully with anxiety and other issues. That decision put him on the path where he is today.

Since 2017, he's been teaching marketing at the college level as well as serving as a career coach to his students. Along those lines, he wrote a guide to help young people prepare to enter the workforce or, if they already have a job, move up to a better one.

Justin also has written a deeply personal book about recovering from mental illness, and he started a nonprofit that aims to help others on their road to recovery. Besides all that, he has two podcasts. You can find out more on his websites: The House of You and Voices for Voices.

In my second segment, Katie Andrews talks about resilience, a trait that she began developing when she was a senior in high school. It has served her well ever since. Here, Katie offers advice on how to respond when life doesn't go our way. Katie's interview begins 29 minutes into the episode.

Closing out today's episode at the 34-minute mark, Tony Teshara, Director of Sales for the technical staffing and software development firm Handle, talks about being fearless in his career and bouncing back from adversity.

Posterity Podcasts & a Passion for Public Service

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 17:00:00 -0500

Christina Forward, co-owner and Director of Operations at the recording studio PodPopuli, talks about Posterity Podcasts which, she explains, are basically audio books for seniors or others who want to create lasting gifts of stories, messages and life lessons to pass on to friends and family members.

Christina, who has a bachelor of science in accounting and most recently worked in investment banking, left the business world to go into podcasting. She loves her job and is especially passionate about the posterity project that she leads. You'll learn why it means so much to her and more in this episode.

For more information, visit posteritypodcasts.com.

Closing out this episode, Kate interviews Nicole Kowalski, whose parents set a great example for her and her six siblings. Even with a large family, Nicole's parents made time to help others, whether it was her mom singing at funerals with the volunteer choir at their church, or her dad stepping up to help people move.

Nicole learned early on that it's important to be of service, and that has motivated her to make a positive impact on her community by doing such things as volunteering, teaching and becoming an elected official on her local City Council.

Learn more in this segment, including the traits that Nicole considers to be essential for good leaders. Nicole's interview begins at 34 minutes, 18 seconds.

Cleaning House with Lottie & Mike

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:00:00 -0500

Two neat freaks — in a good way! — share their experiences, insights and stories. One is a professional and the other just can't help himself. Listen and learn with Lottie Washington, owner of Key's Blessed Hands, and Mike Villegas, producer, owner and mix engineer at Area 67 Recording.

To reach Lottie, visit Key's Blessed Hands on Facebook or email Lottie at keysblessedhands@gmail.com.

For information on Mike's studio, visit https://www.area67music.com/ or Facebook.

Vegans in the Rust Belt & '92 Days'

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Belt Publishing released "Rust Belt Vegan Kitchen: Recipes, Resources, and Stories," edited by Meredith Pangrace, on Dec. 2, 2021. It's a proudly unpretentious collection of delicious-sounding recipes, from pierogi to paprikash, chitterlings to chimichurri.

Meredith, an artist and graphic designer, is the creative director at Belt. She's also a musician who sings, plays the accordion and is a founding member of the band Maura Rogers & The Bellows.

"Rust Belt Vegan Kitchen" represents the diversity of the Rust Belt region, and includes vegan versions of Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, Detroit-style Coney Dogs, old-world standards, and so much more.

The contributing home cooks and professional chefs offer stories about their recipes, including family history and personal narratives explaining how they created and adapted the dishes. The book also includes resources on how to stock a vegan pantry, guides to useful equipment, and basic how-to’s for “veganizing” staples.

The cookbook is dedicated to "the warm kitchen memories that unite us all." As Meredith says, "I’d like to think this book is for everyone. If you’re not familiar with food of the Rust Belt, you’ll discover Cincinnati Chili and Cleveland Polish Boys. If you’re not vegan, you’ll learn how simple it is to bake a cake without eggs or milk. If you’re new to plant-based cooking, I hope this book will present it in a more accessible, less challenging light."

For more information or to buy a copy, visit rustbeltvegankitchen.com or beltpublishing.com. Also check out Rust Belt Vegan Kitchen on Instagram.

Visit the Belt Publishing website to learn more about this worker-owned, independent press founded in 2013 in Cleveland as a platform for new and influential voices.

Keep listening after the end of Meredith's segment to hear "92 Days" from Maura Rogers & The Bellows' album "Always." The song starts at 37:15. To learn or hear more, check out the band on Facebook and YouTube.

Navigating Life's Challenges, Lessons from Dolly, and "Smile"

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 18:00:00 -0500

An opportunity to travel internationally with a friend fell into Berenice Kleiman's lap, but before she even left the States, she took a literal fall at the Newark Airport. Rather than having that mishap ruin her vacation before it truly began, Berenice turned it into an opportunity to make new friends.

There's a certain alchemy in the way Berenice deals with life's challenges. She employs her natural curiosity and communication gifts to connect with others, often helping them with their own challenges.

She did this more than two decades ago when her husband, Herb, had a massive stroke. Two books came out of that terrible experience: One Stroke, Two Survivors: The Incredible Journey of Berenice and Herb Kleiman and Lessons Learned: Stroke Recovery From a Caregiver's Perspective. Both of Berenice's stroke books are available to download for free on http://www.onestroketwosurvivors.com/.

When Herb passed away in April 2020, Berenice wrote another book, this time to help newly widowed seniors navigate this next phase of their lives. Widowhood 101: Next Steps is available on Amazon. As she explains it, the handbook is her way of "trying to share what I had to learn the hard way, and figuring out what comes next."

Speaking of figuring things out, Berenice wants her next project to involve harnessing the talents of senior citizens. As she explains, "This is an unmet need: to value our seniors and what they have to offer."

She welcomes ideas. You can send an email to bek@onestroketwosurvivors.com.

Starting at 34 minutes, 36 seconds, you can listen to the first iteration of a short essay, "Lessons from Dolly." It was initially prompted by an article in Allure magazine, in which Dolly Parton fondly remembers her friend and mentor, Chet Atkins, even though Dolly didn't take his advice many years ago when she was just starting out in her performing career. No matter, she's a great success doing things her way, and that is a good lesson in being authentic to oneself.

The essay is also about another Dolly, who maintained her quirky sense of humor and her kindness toward others no matter what life threw at her. Great lessons indeed!

Rounding out this episode is a song titled “Smile,” recorded by Akron, Ohio-based artists Aaron Hymes of Entertaining Angels, Flames O’God and Marjorie Tyson at Area 67 Recording Studio. Enjoy.

Addendum, May 2023:
I've rewritten and recorded "Lessons from Dolly" more times than I care to admit. It's personal, and I kept wanting to do it justice! The latest version is "Be Our Authentic Selves" (episode 36). I included it as one of my occasional series of short, exuberance-related shows.

Cryptocurrency & a Musical Coda

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 16:00:00 -0500

In this episode, Mike Villegas — musician, owner of Area 67 Recording in Akron, Ohio, and former accountant — offers a primer on cryptocurrency. He explains crypto's importance and why this form of currency is not going away. In fact, he maintains, it's our financial safety net.

"People need to get educated on crypto," Mike says, noting that a site called Coinbase is a good place to start because it offers short tutorials on different currencies.

For information on Mike's studio, visit https://www.area67music.com/ or Facebook.

After all the information that Mike shared about crypto, it was time to sit back and take in some music. So check out an instrumental piece that Mike wrote titled "You and Me." It comes in after the musical interlude, around 46 minutes and 40 seconds.

An addendum, May 2023:
The crypto world has changed a lot since Mike and I recorded this show, and I can't say that I truly understand much more of it now than I did then! Still, as a crypto newbie, I appreciated Mike's patient explanations.

Please share this episode with anyone who would appreciate a Crypto snapshot from late 2021.

Beautiful Art: Photography & Life's Ephemera

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 16:00:00 -0500

In the first segment of this episode of The Gale Hill Radio Hour, Kate interviews photographer Inga Smith, who was 8 years old when she and her family walked out the door of their home in Augsburg, Germany, and boarded a train in the dark of night. They would end up in America, but Inga didn't know that at the time. Nor did she know, until much later, how fortunate her family was to get out of Germany when they did. They left in December 1939. Her father was Jewish.

Now 89 and happily settled in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, Inga tells captivating stories — about coming to America and her travels back to Germany as an adult, and through her photography, which became a huge part of her life starting at age 10. She has been to every European country, to Russia twice, China, Tibet, every Caribbean island and all 50 states, and of course she chronicles her travels with her camera.

You can see a sampling of Inga's photos in the fall 2021 issue of the online magazine Reveries & Relevance.

The second segment, which begins at 36 minutes, 45 seconds, stays on the theme of artful living. Kate interviews artist Theresa Wells Stifel, proprietor of Stifel & Capra, an online shop that sells art and vintage accessories, jewelry and home items. The name of the business is a nod to It's a Wonderful Life director Frank Capra. Theresa's tagline is "art & ornament for your wonderful life," which speaks to her twofold mission: to assist other artists in selling their beautiful work and to help her customers lead wonderful lives by selling them delightful things.

Theresa also loves creating custom pieces with items that hold meaning for her customers. She can be reached via her website.

Curiosity, Faith & Weddings on Zoom

Sat, 13 Nov 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Adrian S. McNeal is an elder of The Word of God Community Church in Canton, Ohio. He's also a husband, father and nationally recognized fiber internet salesman whose passion for history stretches back to childhood. In eighth grade, for example, he borrowed Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf from the local library and read the entire book. “I didn’t know any other African American eighth-graders who were reading that,” he says with a chuckle.

In the first segment of today's Gale Hill Radio Hour, Adrian covers many topics, including the fact that history initially sparked his interest in Christianity and how, in time, his faith became stronger.

Closing out the episode is an interview with Caroline Creidenberg, CEO of Wedfuly, which became the expert in virtual weddings during the pandemic. Caroline's segment begins at 33 minutes and 45 seconds.

When Caroline founded the Denver-based company in June 2017, her goal was to help ease the expense and stress of a traditional wedding, but it wasn't easy bucking expectations set by the wedding industry. All that changed in March 2020 as the country shut down and bridal events were canceled right and left. That's when Wedfuly really came into its own, collaborating with Zoom to give couples the leeway, along with expert tech support, to have a wedding their way. And Caroline and her company have garnered plenty of press and attention, including a Nov. 5, 2021 appearance on ABC's "Shark Tank."

Education alert: By the end of Caroline's segment, you'll know what "micro hybrid" means when it comes to weddings.

For more information, visit https://www.wedfuly.com/.

Please share this episode with anyone who's interested in faith and/or marriage ceremonies.

Podcasting, GLEE, and an Author's Provocative Question

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 13:00:00 -0500

Welcome to the debut of The Gale Hill Radio Hour, a podcast with interviews, feature stories and commentary.

I'm your host Kate Jones, beginning appropriately enough with a segment on podcasting. In this first episode, I talk with Mike Villegas, who was an early adopter of this form of entertainment and information.

Then I segue into a brief segment about how I learned to bounce back from adversity with GLEE. (What's GLEE? It takes only about three minutes to find out.)

Wrapping up the episode is an interview with Nicole Draffen, author of Hyphened-Nation: Don't Check the Box. In her book, Nicole poses the question "Why does the United States hyphenate its citizens by ethnicity before nationality?"

The California native contends that hyphenation diminishes people's standing as Americans. Sounds heavy, but her slim volume is anything but.

Nicole writes in an engaging, conversational style while presenting ideas that are meant to make readers think and perhaps even take action.

A grassroots social movement has come out of the book. To learn more, visit the Hyphened-Nation website or Facebook page. Hyphened-Nation is available on Amazon in print, Kindle, and Audible.

To learn about Mike Villegas' studio, Area 67 Recording, visit https://www.area67music.com/ or Facebook.

Addendum, May 2023:
My vision for The Gale Hill Radio Hour has evolved from a podcast with a magazine-like format into an eclectic array of conversations and shorts that range in length from 2 or 3 minutes to just over an hour.

The new format offers a lot of flexibility, which I love. Over time, I've also rerecorded some segments, including the one mentioned above on GLEE. The latest version is called "A Happiness Exercise" (episode 24), and it's one of my occasional series on living exuberantly.