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Donate at plannedparenthood.org/slash defend. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday morning. december seventh, nineteen forty one. Called A Date Which Will Live in Infamy by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt after Japan's surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor.
That attack 84 years ago today brought the United States into World War II. and changed the course of history. With the passage of time those with living memories of December seventh are few and far between but this morning David Martin introduces us to a family for whom echoes of some dark secrets reverberate to this day. From the time they walked out to kill Christine Kuhn kept the documents she uncovered about her not-to-be-believed family of spies in a basement closet. Did your grandfather know about the plans to attack Pearl Harbor?
I think he probably had an idea. Ahead on Sunday morning, he would put a lantern in the dormer window of his home. The Nazi spies who infiltrated Hawaii. to help the Japanese plan their attack. Since his breakout role as a shy prep school student in Dead Poets Society, actor Ethan Hawke has matured into a Hollywood stalwart.
taking on some of the most interesting and challenging roles. He'll be talking with Tracy Smith. The head has nothing to do with The madness of love. Ethan Hawk's latest and some say greatest role might be playing someone miserable, but off-screen, he's a happy man. Did you make a conscious decision at some point to say, I can't control a lot of this as an actor, so I'm going to control my attitude?
A thousand percent. It's all we control is our point of view. When people pass you, they say, training day. On the bright side with Ethan Hawk, coming up on Sunday morning. The holiday season has arrived, which of course means that it's time for Technoclaus to come down our chimney with a sack full of gadgets to recommend.
Anthony Mason this morning examines the life and times of Elvis Presley's legendary and controversial manager. Colonel Tom Parker. Faith Saley visits with best selling author Jan Caron, the woman behind those warm and cosy Mitford novels. Plus a story from Steve Hartman. And more.
on this first Sunday of December, and we'll be back after this. Um Today marks 84 years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a date that will truly live in infamy. not just for the United States, but also, David Martin tells us, for a family. that's lived with the darkest of secrets. I stopped and started so many times because, you know, I was having trouble.
Um Accepting what I was learning. Christine Cueen and her husband Mark kept what they were learning hidden in a basement closet. until she finally decided to write a book about her family of spies. My grandfather was the only person tried and convicted for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A not to be believed saga which her father tried to shield her from.
He wouldn't talk about his past. He always really skirted the issue. and her Aunt Ruth warned her to stay away from. She said, You have a good life. Don't ruin it with the past.
But the past landed on her doorstep in nineteen ninety four.
So, a letter comes out of the blue. Kind of turns your life upside down when you think. Your life was one way, and you find out it wasn't the truth. A Hollywood screenwriter had come across the Kewan name in Histories of Pearl Harbor. and wanted to know if she was related to the family of Nazis who had spied for the Japanese.
I called my dad and I was like, hey, dad, I got this letter, talked to him about it, and he was like, Oh no, that's not our family. They must be thinking about someone else. 10 or 15 minutes later, he called me back and uh He was sobbing. In 39 is when they really, really started researching the family. Christine spent the next 30 years documenting the story her father told her.
Beginning with her grandfather Otto and his family in Hitler's Germany. The whole family. just was transformed by the Promises that were being told by Hitler and the Nazi party. Her uncle Leopold was a stormtrooper. proudly wearing the swastika in his wedding photo.
Aunt Ruth, the woman who had told Christine to leave the past alone, was sleeping with Hitler's Minister of Propaganda. Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels's is one of the most infamous names in history. Your aunt Ruth was his mistress? Yeah, she was.
She met him when she was only 19. It didn't last. Its soft, provocative climate helped. And in 1935, Goebbels shipped the family a half a world away to Hawaii. to spy on Pearl Harbor for the Japanese.
Pearl Harbor, the vital Navy base which gives the U.S. fleet command of the Mid-Pacific. Oh. The grandfather lived large, throwing parties that made the society columns. He would invite naval officers to come in and enjoy the party while he was trying to glean information about troop numbers and information like that.
He took pictures of American airplanes lined up wingtip to wing tip, just asking to be bombed. while Aunt Ruth played the Femme Fatale. She was young and beautiful. She would be wined and dined by the Navy officials and she would talk with them and silently glean information about when the boats were in and Otto and then would just walk into the Japanese consulate with the satchel and give them everything he had collected. In 1939, FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover ordered an investigation to determine whether the Kuhns are in fact espionage agents. Did your grandfather know about the plans to attack Pearl Harbor? They were asking him to create the signal system to communicate to Japanese subs off the coast of Hawaii. I think, you know, he probably had an idea. What kind of signal system did they have?
He would put a lantern in the dormer window of his home between 9 and 10, and that would mean battlecruisers had left the harbor. Every tourist knows Diamond Head and Waikiki, but now beaches are studded with pillboxes. and big harbor guns. War was coming. But for her father Eberhard, now a gangly teenager, life in Hawaii was an endless summer.
My father and his younger brother Hans were just, you know, normal kids enjoying life on a beautiful island. I think it was kind of like paradise for them. Until December 7th, 1941. On December 8th, in the middle of the night, there was a banging on the door. the FBI came in and arrested the whole family.
Her father was held at a place called Sand Island, while her grandfather was hauled before a secret military tribunal. This is the trial transcript. She found the transcript in the National Archives. Upon secret written ballot, all of the members present at the time the vote was taken concurring, Sentence the accused to be shot to death with musketry. Yeah.
The firing squad. That death sentence went all the way to President Franklin Roosevelt before it was commuted to fifty years at hard labor. But after only four years her grandfather was released, and ordered deported to Germany. An act of leniency J. Edgar Hoover found astounding.
Christine's father was released from Sand Island and turned his back on the family. He ended up writing a letter and saying, Germany is not my home. I'm an American. I'm staying here. And he refused to return to the family.
I don't know that I could have done that at 15. When he turned eighteen he joined the army and fought on Okinawa. The last great battle of the war that had begun at Pearl Harbor. He never found out why his father spied for the Japanese. He actually asked his dad.
Did you do this? And why did you do it? And Otto never answered him. And so my dad got up and he walked out. And he never saw his father again.
It was all so long ago, but the memory of Pearl Harbor is forever. In the Arizona Memorial over the battleship sunk on december seventh, an indelible part of the American landscape. which Christine could not bring herself to visit.
So I didn't think I deserved to be there. Right. Because my family had been involved. That was ten years ago. I don't think I carry that same shame.
that I was carrying back then. Her father, who wanted to shield her from the shame, finally showed her the way to escape it. My father made the decision to walk away from his family. He was a true American, and I'm a result of him and his decisions. not my grandfather.
decisions. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here, wishing you a very happy half-off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price.
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Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile.com. My name is Percy Jackson. Getting in trouble is like breathing for me.
The hit series returns to Disney Plus and Hulu. The danger the camp is under is greater than you can possibly imagine. For the key to our survival, three of you must quest... to the sea of monsters. Let's go do the impossible.
What is it? Percy Jackson and the Olympians. New season 2 episode premiere December 10th on Disney Plus and Hulu. Learn more at DisneyPlus.com/slash what's on.
Well what about you, Mr. Presley? Are you ready to fly? Yes, sir.
Alright. Ready to fly. That's Tom Hanks in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, portraying Colonel Tom Parker, a key figure in Elvis Presley's meteoric success. But as Anthony Mason tells us, the legendary manager's legacy is complicated. I came to Memphis all the time, and I Graceland has been like a second home to author Peter Geralnik.
You'd come in here to do research after the tourists left. It was a long day. Working out behind Elvis's Memphis mansion in the office of his father, Vernon Presley.
So, did you go through all these filing cabinets? Yeah. Goralnick's written the definitive two-volume biography of the king, and now the story of Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' legendary manager. Did what you find surprise you? It totally surprised me.
I don't be cruel Gerelnik's new book, The Colonel and the King, is the story of a partnership that rocked popular culture and how Parker's marketing savvy and enduring loyalty. Help the king get his crown. I mean, did he kind of create the template for being a manager of a musician? And it wasn't original to him, it wasn't brand new, but he carried it, I think, to a far greater extent than anyone had before. We're going to do a song for you, we got on sign record, it goes something like this.
20-year-old Elvis Presley was playing the Louisiana Hayride. That's all right with you. When Parker first caught his act in 1955. Uh It took no more than a few days after seeing him for the first time that he booked Elvis when nobody else was willing to book him. Parker, who was then handling Hank Snow, quickly put Elvis in the show.
Here it is. Hank Snow. Extra added Elvis Presley. Yeah. This is Colonel Scrapbook.
This is Colonel Scrapbook? Yeah, very Colonel kept. Scrapbooks of everything he ever did. This is an ad in Cashbox in December of 1955. The most talked about new personality in the last 10 years of recorded music.
And that's a picture that Colonel had taken in Tampa, which is a variant of that, I think. Became the cover of Elvis's first album. Yeah. I wanna go out. Elvis would sell more than 12 million records in 1956.
The Colonel negotiated his recording contracts, his movie deals, and oversaw all his marketing. As he would write, I don't just sit here and smoke cigars hoping for something to happen. There is so much love. in some of his early letters to Elvis, and in one he says, You know, you are just like me. You are sensitive, you are easily hurt, but only those we love can hurt us.
Elvis would write back, I love you like a father. Colonel Tom Parker wasn't actually a colonel. He also wasn't American. He was in fact a a stowaway from Holland. He was.
Andreas van Kuyck arrived here in 1926, barely speaking English. the sixteen year old soon invented an origin story. Once he declared himself to be Tom Parker, Born in West Virginia. His identity was never questioned for over 50 years. The only person who may have known it was Elvis Presley.
the honorary title Colonel would be bestowed on him by Louisiana's governor. It became his first name, Colonel. I mean, that was how I signed all of his letters. Before Elvis, Parker made a star out of Eddie Arnold, booking him as the first Hillbilly act in Vegas. He had all the smarts of a of a con man, but he wasn't.
Actor George Hamilton befriended the Colonel in his early days in Hollywood. He knew how to make the other person want whatever he was selling. Yeah. Why was he so driven, do you think? emotional stuff from his childhood.
I feel like he he had some horrible damage done. He didn't like his father. Parker would become notorious for taking a 50% cut of some of Elvis's later deals.
Now, I sat with him one day and I said, Is it right to get a half of everything? Yeah. And he said, Well, you know, 50% of something is. better than 100% or nothing. And I said, well, you mean your half or his?
He said, well, if he didn't have my half, he wouldn't have his. And I got it. I got it. the Colonel offered Hamilton an opportunity in Vegas. He said, and by the way, I was got to take two weeks off at the Hilton.
And um I booked you in. I said, I can't do that show. I said, that doesn't make any sense, Colonel. He said George, want fifty thousand a week? I said, yes, he said, it's two weeks.
He said, for that you can do anything, can't you? I said, yes, sir. He can't go. In 1973, after Elvis bad-mouthed hotel owner Conrad Hilton on stage in Vegas, Parker confronted him backstage. Essentially Helvis and Colonel fired each other.
Uh The split didn't last long. Neither Colonel nor Elvis could. imagine a world without the other. They simply didn't have the ability to walk away. That's the only letter.
But Parker began to worry about the instability of his artist. How did the kernel react? to Elvis's increasing drug use. I think he was at a loss. I think there was an element of denial, but he was well aware of what was going on.
Nobody could miss what was going on. In Vegas Colonel developed his own addiction. George Hamilton saw it first hand. He used to get me to go gambling with him. God.
And he would go all in on like on, I mean, big money. I saw. Close to a million dollars lost at the table. Really? Yes.
They were caught in a trap, as Elva saying. I mean, neither one of them could confront the other one. With his problems. You describe them as being locked in a relationship of mutual denial. Yeah, I think that's true.
I agree with myself. Geralnik calls it the twin tragedies of their story. The family and friends of Elvis Presley today paid their last respects to the rock and roll idol while thousands of his fans maintained their vigil outside his Memphis estate. We have two of them. And when Elvis died.
Colonel's reaction, he went into shock. I'll never stop trying to keep his name alive, Parker said. He would die in nineteen ninety seven. This is what the desk we worked at. Yeah.
While Geralnik was doing research at Graceland, He was told the office telephone was disconnected. And so one night we were working quite late and it was 10 o'clock at night. And all of a sudden, The phone rang. And so, you know, you'll have to tell me, was this Elvis? Was this Vernon?
Maybe it was Colonel. Although Colonel really had another, and we stared at it, should we answer, should we not answer? Who knows what would have happened if we'd answered? But we did not answer. We just listened to it ring until it finally stopped ringing.
He wanted the idea that there was. One of those three on the other end of the line.
Well, and you want to preserve the mystery. Yeah. No, sir! What's the number? No sir.
It's been another volatile week for U.S. relations with the South American nation of Venezuela. Correspondent Lilia Luciano has this dispatch from neighboring Colombia. Uh The Caribbean Sea is the lifeblood of fishing communities here in Santa Marta, Colombia. where fishermen have been casting their nets for centuries.
One fisherman who is fearful of showing his face tells us in Spanish things have changed. And suddenly there's a monster coming from the ocean.
Some fishermen here say their way of life has been under attack. Since the Trump administration launched its counter-narcotics offensive, Operation Southern Spear. Since September, U. S. forces have carried out at least twenty two strikes against suspected drug vessels off the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of South America, killing at least eighty seven people.
The fear, Fisherman Pedro Daniels says, is that the owner of the world decides to give an order and bomb one of us. The second of those strikes on September 15th killed Colombian national Alejandro Carranza. You remember the last time he went out fishing? He never came back. Carranza's father and niece learned of Alejandro's death more than a month later when Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on social media that, in his words, the US had murdered him.
They said it was him, but there's no proof or even a body. Nobody knows if it's him. You don't know if it had cocainas. We spoke with the President of Colombia six weeks ago. He decried the American attacks, saying they were a violation of international law.
We wouldn't go against the boaters. We don't kill them, we capture them, he told us. President Petro says his administration has seized thousands of tons of cocaine in recent years. On Wednesday, we flew with the Colombian Navy to a military base in the town of Coveñas, where they showed us 4.5 tons of cocaine they seized the night before. This video provided by the Colombian Navy shows the interception and seizure nearly 80 miles offshore.
This is the biggest. Go fast, load it. that were interdicted by the Colombian Navy in the Caribbean coast. Rear Admiral Carlos Aramas commands Colombia's naval forces in the Caribbean. He says Colombia and the US have collaborated for decades to intercept so-called go-fast drug trafficking boats, seize the drugs, and prosecute the suspects.
Have you seen an impact in the amount of boats that you're seeing or you're surveilling off of the Caribbean or the Pacific? No, I didn't. Especially because this event shows us that they are still going out. They are not stopping. They are not stopping.
Neither are the boat strikes. On Thursday, the U.S. military announced this attack on an alleged drug trafficking vessel, killing four. We've only just begun striking Narco boats. and putting narco-terrorists At the bottom of the ocean.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hexeth's remarks came during a tense week in Washington. He faced new questions about a September 2nd boat strike where survivors were targeted and killed in a follow-up strike. I did not personally see survivors, but I stand because the thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire or smoke, you can't see anything, you got digital, this is called the fog of war. As Congress debates the legality of the strike, President Trump is standing by his administration's approach and suggested the military is preparing to shift its tactics.
I think you're going to find that this is war. that these people were killing our people by the millions actually. And very soon we're going to start doing it on land too. The Pentagon says its actions in the Caribbean and Pacific are lawful under both U.S. and international law, but many legal experts have raised concerns.
There's every reason to believe that the U.S. military has been conducting illegal strikes. in this matter. It's a very serious thing. because we are not at war.
And we're not allowed to do these kinds of killings. Michael Waldman is president of the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute at New York University's School of Law. It would be just as illegal for the U.S. Army to see somebody on the streets in the United States and say, oh, I think they're a drug dealer, and blow them up. The Trump administration has designated these groups as narco-terrorists.
Does that provide any legal protection? The laws governing terrorism are laws that were passed by Congress. They deal with things like al-Qaeda, with armed groups trying to overthrow a government or make a military attack on the United States. Drug gangs can be terrible, can be a threat, but that doesn't make them terrorists under the law. Fishermen along Colombia's Caribbean coast make a similar argument about drug trafficking and due process.
He says laws exist in the world, so when somebody makes a mistake, they pay under the law. Justice determines how. Steve Hartman this morning has the tale of one very curious cat. At this Lowe's in Richmond, Virginia, manager Mike Saida has always had a favorite employee. She wasn't quite as friendly in the very beginning.
Uh but after a little while she found her way Into a lot of people's hearts, I guess you could say. Cats can do that. and for nearly a decade this former stray, named Francine, was a constant presence in the garden department. She became a local celebrity. until, one day, a few months ago, when Francine vanished.
Wayne Schneider was Francine's primary caretaker. I just had a gut feeling that she was gone. He figured Francine must have wandered onto a freight truck. one bound for this massive Lowe's distribution center in North Carolina. If so, She could have been anywhere here.
Hiding in the piles of pallets or tucked in the rows of trucks. Maybe they opened a trailer. And she got out. We would never find her. But Wayne says he had to try.
So. He solicited the help of warehouse managers Preston Bullock and And Taylor Takinet. As long as they had fight in them, we had fight in us to help support. Our mission's to solve problems, and that's exactly what we took it as. We've got a missing family member out here, so we're going to jump on top of it.
Really pulled out all the stops. tried to lure Francine with fancy feast. brought in a thermal drone to fly over the facility. Even got a high-end 360-degree camera. But still.
No luck. Until This image Grainy. but clearly Francine. And once they knew where she was, They got her. It was just, I could have cried, I'll be honest.
I was so overjoyed. Tears were just coming down my face. that we had found her. Mike and Wayne loaded her up and drove her home immediately. Then rolled out the blue carpet.
for their star employees' triumphant return. It feels good. To see her back. where she belongs, Today, Francine is back to her old routine. prowling the store and posing for customers.
proof that the heart of any workplace is the purr Senel. In headaches and in worry. Vaguely life leaks away. In time we'll have his fancy. tomorrow or today.
Something like that. Of all actor Ethan Hawke's memorable roles, his performances in the before film trilogy may be his most beloved. But it's a tough call. And as Tracy Smith tells us, his latest role Just might be his best. Nearly a hundred years ago, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart helped put the great in the Great American Songbook with songs like My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp, and Blue Moon.
Oh you saw me standing alone. But by the early 40s, Hart's heavy drinking made him an unreliable partner, so Rogers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein and their first production. The landmark musical, Oklahoma, opened at the St. James Theater on March 31st, 1943. It was an immediate hit.
And that night there was a big party a few doors down at Sardi's, that legendary Broadway watering hole, with its walls hung with the caricatures of famous faces. Come on, closer! Lorenz Hart showed up at Sardi's that night. I want 10 copies of that. Great.
Write me a check. And what happened next is now a movie. Would you get me a shot? In Blue Moon, Ethan Hawk is Lorenz Hart drowning his sorrows with Bobby Canavale tending bar. Oh, and would you get me a shot of club soda?
I'll... Drink one and Admire the other. For the film, they recreated Sardis on a soundstage, but we met Ethan Hawk at the real thing. Looking at these portraits, is this something that you dreamed of, dream of? I was definitely the type of young person that would walk in and think, when am I going to get my painting up there?
I'm not above that. I'm a little heartbroken that I don't have one up yet. Perhaps your time will come. My time's coming. I have hope.
I'm not done yet. I don't need a pair of. And this performance is proof. And I don't need a psychiatrist either. The real Lorenz Hart was less than five feet tall, so director and frequent collaborator Richard Linkletter used camera tricks to make the 5'9 Ethan look short.
I'm on the wagon, Dick. I'm serious. I've been drinking ginger ale all night.
Well, except for this second, because this second we have to celebrate this is the greatest musical ever. Hawk also shaved the top of his head to make a real combo, and he learned a mountain of dialogue. Shoot this, huh? Did you count how many lines you had? I wouldn't have done that to myself.
It's definitely the most text I've ever had in a movie. I remember calling my wife after the first day. I think I had more lines than I had in the previous five films. Wow. Say the first thing that pops into your head, even if it's total gibberish.
A sweaty tooth madman. Good God, boy, there's a poet in you after all. It was a challenge for an actor whose face usually says it all. This 20-tooth madman. In the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, Ethan Hawk played a student, and he says he learned a lot from his co-star Robin Williams.
All the time he's mumbling. What's he mumbling? Mumbling truth. Truth, like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. Forget them, forget them.
There's a scene where he's talking about how to grade poetry and he has all the kids rip it out. Make a clean tear, I want nothing left of it. I didn't realize how much I was being taught. And how that sustained me through negative criticism. It's like there's not any rules about being a great actor.
Drop dead, so you don't like it. Suck an egg. You don't know what great acting is any more than I do. When you're in a movie like that, so young, does it set you up or does it? Set you up.
It's a great question because it's Possibly both. If you let it be the high watermark of your life, it will be. You know, if you put too much on that. You don't want anything at 18 to be the high watermark of your life.
So this is the lyceum. This is where it all started for me. Between movies, Hawk made his Broadway debut with, he says, a lot more confidence than skill. That's the weird thing about being young. I had no business.
being confident at anything. I was a total moron. And I walked in here. Like I was. You know.
John Barrymore. Thank you. His performance in Chekhov's The Seagull was described as promising, but it was clear that his best work was ahead of him. You want to go to jail, you want to go home? You want to go home?
Yeah, let me go home, Jake. Hawk got the first of four Oscar nominations for his role in the 2001 film Training Day opposite Denzel, Washington. His performance still resonates. You don't deserve this. When my son was about six, Levon, He said to me.
Dead. What's training day? I said, oh, it's a movie I did a few years ago. And he's and I said, why? He said, because every time we walk down the street, when people pass you, they say, training day.
Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh no. It's crazy. But after training day, there was a time when Hawk says he passed on more parts than he took, and the offers started drying up.
Hey Gina. I feel really difficult. No. And I go Gina. When you're young, you think it's everybody.
You don't realize that this is a young person's game. in those kinds of Job offers are uh there's a shelf life on that. When did that hit? You know, around the same time grey starts appearing in your beard, you know. Your pants are too tight.
They are too tight. Mr. Raybon, yeah, just one second, I'm talking. They're ready for you. Seems the gray in the beard works for him now as a hard-nosed investigative reporter in the critically acclaimed FX series The Lowdown.
Dress code. I'm chronically unemployed, always broke, but let's just say that I am obsessed with the truth. In the series, you never know what's around the next corner. What do you guys think? Just as in real life.
As we were wrapping up at Sardis, owner Max Klemovicius suddenly showed up with a surprise for Ethan. Ethan, I would like you permission to make you part of our collection. I'd be so honored. That would be so incredible. Uh Oh my god, when did you have that on?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Wow. I love it. He was a bit stunned, and to be honest, so were we. But after Ethan Hawk's career on screen and stage, it wasn't all that surprising.
Wow, it finally happened, huh? Got my fortune at Sardis. I've arrived. Things are looking up in this life. The head has nothing to do with The madness of love.
And now, with his latest film in mind, there's talk of more accolades to come.
Now there's Oscar buzz around Blue Moon. Do you tune that out? How do you handle that? There's the obvious other part of you that goes like, hey, I've dedicated my life. to this job and this is seen.
And um I would be dishonest if I didn't say that like that'd be amazing. This is so corny, but it just flashed through my head. I was like 11 or something high. I said to my mother, I said, What's going to happen? With my life, what's gonna happen?
Yeah. And she and I remember it so vividly in the kitchen like Doris Day. When I was just a little girl. You know, it goes into quesarasara. You know, and you have to have a little quesarasara.
I don't take any of it for granted. That's, I guess, the right answer. Any little bit of it. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew.
I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain.
Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. If you used Babel, you would. Babel's conversation-based techniques teach you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babel is like having a private tutor in your pocket.
Start speaking with Babel today. Get up to 55% off your Babel subscription right now at babel.com/slash Spotify. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify. Rules and restrictions may apply. For all of us seeking escape from the divisiveness of modern life, Faith Saly offers us this literary refuge.
Oh, you're the little sister. I am the little sister. You're pretty as a picture in that thing, you're right. For one weekend only, hundreds of devoted readers gathered in Hudson, North Carolina to celebrate Mitford, a fictional place with a real sense of community. If this is the last book, thank you for Mitford.
And I hope it's not. I've loved your book since I was thirteen. Yeah. Jan Caron, the 88-year-old author behind Mitford, has written 15 books about the make-believe mountain village. How would you describe the town of Mitford?
The town of Medford is a place my readers can go and not be afraid. It's the place of refuge. It's where they can go. Huh. Get a deep breath.
The humanity of Karen's characters has found a faithful following that's perennially put her novels on the bestseller list. For some people, you're not a household name like other best-selling authors. Right, right. Why do you think that is? I don't give you much of a ride.
I just give you sort of a float. Yeah. A lot of people tell me that my books put them to sleep. And I consider that a huge compliment. It's entertaining.
Her books are entertaining. Super fans Phyllis Farringer, Nellie McMasters, and Joellen Moore are Mitford Mavens and say the books are more than page turners. We are in such a uncertain Period, we're in such turmoil that it's just a nice, pleasant. place. And it's not divisive.
This is just Love your neighbor. Know the people who live around you. Do you think that places like Mitford really exist in America today? Oh, sure. I do, where there's a community of faith and people caring about each other.
And I see it. Jan Karen was raised by her grandmother Fanny in Hudson and attended elementary school here. Almost eight decades later, she converted the site to the Midford Museum. This is my first grade classroom. And this is my wonderful first grade teacher.
I couldn't wait to get to school. She credits Nan Downs with encouraging her creativity. By age 10, Karen says she knew she wanted to be a writer. I stood in front of this very mirror and I said, I'm going to be an author. How did you know?
I just knew. I love to read and so I wanted to give other people what I received from reading, which was that whole other world. At fourteen Karen found herself wanting to escape her world, so she got married, dropped out of school, and gave birth to her daughter Candice a year later. She was divorced at eighteen. A lot of it was really hard.
Because I became a single mom. and had to raise her by myself when I myself had hardly been raised. She worked a series of jobs, including T V producer. She was later fired, and says that was her turning point. It brought me to my knees.
I'd never been on my knees. I was forty-two. I just went down. I don't know what to pray for. I'm just here and I need help.
And just change me. She became a successful advertising executive, but says she felt called to write more than ads, so she quit her job and began weaving her faith into her short stories. She published her work for free in a local newspaper, eventually turning those tales into her first Mitford novel in 1994. I think that when people think about your books and your work, They often think comforting, they think maybe clean, Christian. I'm grateful for my Christian readers.
Very grateful. But I write for a secular audience. God poured his love into me. And you can't say, well, I just can't talk about that in my books. Her latest work is all about presence, aging, and connection.
Karen says it was one of the most challenging things she's ever written. You once said you would never write another Mitford book. What happened? Yes, in 2008 I began a short story set during Christmas and I couldn't make it go anywhere.
So it sat unfinished for more than a decade. In 2021, her daughter Candice died of cancer. she was moved to write through her grief. My Beloved is the finished book. She dedicates the story to her daughter.
She was. the sunshine of my life. Yeah. Do you ever talk to her while you're sitting here writing? All the time.
And I know this sounds corny, but it's true for me. Right here. She'll say, I hear you, Mom. It's okay, mom. Everything's going to be all right.
How did losing Candace change your life? I'm less judgmental. Hmm. I'm a little easier even on myself, and I've always been really hard on myself. I know That we don't have forever anymore, which is a theme in this book.
So, what can we do with this time?
something better than what we're doing. Or even just something more fun. We don't have to be noble all the time. Jan Karen invites us to look for community and neighborly love. to find our own kind of Mitford.
If you will just get in your car and drive out into America, I'm telling you, I can guarantee, I promise you, that it is out there. You have to look for it. It's not going to come to you and sit on your doorstep. You've got to go out and get it. And it's there for the taking.
Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. If you're an HVAC technician and a call comes in, Granger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product, fast and hassle-free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Granger's easy-to-use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along.
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