7-9-2017

Our CBS Sunday morning podcast is sponsored by Edward Jones. College tours with your oldest daughter. Updating the kitchen to the appropriate decade.

Retiring on the coast. Life is full of moments that matter, and Edward Jones helps you make the most of them. That's why every Edward Jones financial advisor works with you to build personalized strategies for now and down the road. So when your next moment arrives, big or small, you're ready for it. Life is for living.

Let's partner for all of it. Learn more at edwardjones.com. Good morning.

I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday Morning. This past Tuesday marked more than the birth of our country. It also marked the bicentennial of a bold venture that cleared the way west. What our forefathers built is a public works monument that's been celebrated ever since in words, art, even in song. Richard Schlesinger reports our cover story. The Erie Canal just turned 200 years old.

It changed the face and the shape of the nation, and it's the subject of that song. Fifteen years on the Erie Canal, she's a good old... Everybody who I told I was doing this story immediately started singing that song. It's beloved. But inaccurate. Inaccurate.

Later on Sunday morning, 15 miles and more on the Erie Canal. Bellissima. It's not just the Italian word for beautiful. It's also the name of the sparkling wine Christie Brinkley really, really wants you to try.

Mark Phillips has paid her a visit. I was watching an old Bellini movie. Nobody has to teach Christie Brinkley how to sell something. You can't even say Bellissima without... Bellissima, you know, just... Without wanting a drink. Christie has good reason to be enthusiastic about this Italian Prosecco wine. She liked it so much. All natural.

She bought the company, or part of it. Being bubbly about bubbly coming up on Sunday morning. You can count on plenty of fast and furious action at the sporting event our Luke Burbank will be taking us to.

PJ Ball is just your average everyday 12-year-old, with one exception. Okay, let's have a race. Okay. I can't believe I just said that to you.

Okay, I'll let you do it twice. This is not even going to be close. I know. Yeah, it's not. He's a world-class athlete in a sport you probably haven't heard of.

It's called sport stacking and will take you to its Super Bowl ahead on Sunday morning. We take note this morning of singer-songwriter Jack Antonoff, a composer of hits who's never forgotten where he came from. After all, as Tracy Smith will be showing us, it hasn't been that long since he left.

Jack Antonoff has three Grammys, a very famous girlfriend, and writing credits on some of the most popular songs in music today. And until fairly recently, he lived at home with his mom and dad. You didn't leave until you were? I'm 29.

And at that point, I mean, I had, like, had number one records at that point. We'll help you get to know Jack later on Sunday morning. Moraga surveys the field of manscaping. Martha Teichner talks books and baking with mystery writer Louise Penny. Faith Salie turns up the heat on the political put-down Snowflake and more. Ahead, Westward Ho. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more.

Play it at play.it. The way West became a lot easier for Americans, thanks to a canal they started to build 200 years ago this past Tuesday. So much easier that people are still singing its praises. Our Sunday morning cover story is reported by Richard Schlesinger. Even though the Erie Canal quite literally helped shape this nation, this is what so many people think of first when the canal comes up in conversation. I've got an old mule and her name is Sal. 15 years on the Erie Canal. But except for the fact that mules did indeed drag boats along the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo. Even singer and historian Dave Ruck will tell you the song actually has very little to do with it. Is there any evidence that it was ever actually sung on the Erie Canal except for situations like this? Turns out it's a 20th century song. It's actually written by a professional songwriter who was from, of all places, Massachusetts. So this man Thomas S. Allen, he comes to Rochester, New York around 1910, sees the canal for the first time, hears the phrase low bridge, low bridge, everybody down low.

And he ends up composing the song. It's the only canal song he wrote. So he wasn't a canalman? Not only was he not a canalman, but no one ever sang the song on the, at least on the 19th century canal. The canal, which turned 200 years old last Tuesday, was championed by a man who was as stubborn as a mule.

DeWitt Clinton, mayor of New York City, who became governor of the state. He spent 10 years fighting to sell this project to a deeply skeptical public. It was hard. It was not an easy sell. These landowners that are listed. Brad Utter is an historian at the New York State Museum. Presidents Jefferson and Madison refused to help fund the canal, so Clinton had to raise the seven million dollars needed to build it. Some people thought it was a great idea, but, but not with my money. You're a little crazy because you're trying to go through swamps and virgin forest and there's no labor, there's no machinery to do that kind of thing.

This is all new. It was a gargantuan undertaking for a nation just 41 years old. The canal would be dug by hand, every inch of it, for 363 miles.

It would be 40 feet wide and four feet deep. 83 locks would have to be built. But Clinton kept at it, financed the project with some state money and by selling bonds, and construction began July 4th, 1817. It was completed in just eight years.

On time, in advance, and under budget. Really? Yes. If only. Yeah.

If only we could do that. It's many miles to Buffalo, oh that low bridge. A trip that could have taken six weeks before the canal now took less than one week and cost one-tenth of an overland trip. So as soon as it opened, the canal was overwhelmed with traffic and it paid for itself with tolls in just 10 years.

Over 100 years old. John McKee operates the locks in Lockport, New York. Sometimes there was a day or two wait just to get through the locks. Boats would be packed up on both sides of the banks right here. And of course while they were lined up waiting to go through, they would spend their time and money in town here and that to add it to the population here in Lockport. Population grew in towns all along the canal. Rochester, New York Mayor Lovely Warren traces the beginnings of her city to the canal. The Erie Canal was the foundation of Rochester.

It was the foundation of our industry and we were a flour mill city and that's the way that Rochester first started to build itself up. Population started to grow once the Erie Canal came into fruition. But the canal also accelerated the western expansion of the nation. People and commerce were able to reach and develop what would become the American Midwest. A region that was isolated and landlocked was now connected via the canal and the Hudson River down to New York City and the world. Within a year or two there were already calls of hey let's make it bigger.

And they did. By 1862 the canal was almost twice as wide and twice as deep. People and goods and ideas flowed 24 hours a day in both directions. The impact that the internet has had on our culture and our society is very similar to the impact that the canal had.

Sharing ideas, making things faster. The canal was used to bring slaves to freedom and part of the Underground Railroad. Frederick Douglass would bring slaves here and actually lead them to freedom. The canal was a very important part of the nation. The first women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, a canal town. And Joseph Smith started the Mormon religion in Palmyra along the shores of the canal. But the progress and prosperity was not shared by all. The canal was dug right through traditional Native American land displacing many who lived there to make way for the commerce that grew steadily for decades until the next great advance, railroads.

The iron horse was there. The railroad was there to compete and the canal was more efficient. You could pull more with less energy and it's cheaper but the railroad was fast. The railroad took passenger traffic first leaving the canal boats to haul mostly freight. But by the 1950s most of the freight traffic was gone too. Today most of the boats John McKee puts through the locks are pleasure craft.

The gates are opened by motors that are a century old. McKee and most everyone who works on the canal system feels the history of what in its early days was derided as Clinton's ditch. Josh Pagan keeps digging today to keep the canal deep enough. I realized that I worked at a museum that stretched from the Hudson River to the Niagara River in Buffalo and connected us to Lake Ontario. The value of the canal cannot be measured anymore in tons of freight or numbers of passengers that it moves. But it is hard not to be moved by the canal itself and the achievement two centuries ago of just getting it dug.

What it represents I think is American ingenuity and American spirit and so the fact that we still have this canal here today, I think it should be celebrated as long as we can keep it here. So as you go through life make this your goal, watch the donut not the pole. Next how the donut got its name.

When you walk the streets you'll have no cares if you walk the lines and not the squares as you go through life make this your goal watch the donut not the pole. And now a page from our Sunday morning almanac July 9th 1872 145 years ago today the day John F Blondell of the state of Maine won a patent for his spring-loaded donut cutter. A much neater way of trimming the dough and punching out that hole. It ought to be noted that it was 19th century sea captain Hanson Gregory who is widely credited with having created the hole which replaced the nut, often a walnut, that was traditionally found in the center of the dough which of course explains the name donut. Anyway over the years the donut has earned a special place in American hearts as well as stomachs.

The Salvation Army served countless donuts to American troops during the first world war and donut handouts helped sustain an army of unemployed Americans during the Great Depression. Come on come on sit down. Donut dexterity even played a role in the Oscar-winning 1934 film It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Say where'd you learn to dunk in finishing school? Oh now don't you start telling me I shouldn't dunk.

Of course you shouldn't you don't know how to do it. Dunking's an art. Don't let it soak so long. A dip and frock into your mouth. You gotta hang that too long or you'll get soft and fall off.

It's all a matter of timing. Donuts today come in a wide variety of shapes and colors and flavors and textures. Still the one kind of donut no one has been able to invent is one that's truly low calorie and low fat. Deep fried by definition that may be the hardest nut of all to crack.

How do these champions stack up? Find out just ahead. This is one way to use a cup. Luke Burbank shows us another. You do like do Pokemon or any of that kind of stuff? PJ Ball is a gifted athlete. He's just 12 years old but his talent hasn't gone unnoticed. He's been interviewed on national tv. His instagram page is a hit and he's got more hardware to dangle around his neck than Mr. T. But you won't find PJ on the football field or the baseball diamond.

You'll find him right here standing behind a table and a stack of cups. A stack he can put up and take down with such alarming speed that we feel the need to assure you this clip has not been sped up. Welcome to the world of sport stacking. The goal is to stack the cups in specific formations and take them down as fast as humanly possible without knocking them over. Yeah okay so uh can i start with either side does it doesn't matter where i start i have to make the three pyramids and break the three pyramids down.

Yeah but you actually can't touch two stacks at the same time and you can't start in the middle. Okay okay okay got it so yeah one go. We heard about it on youtube. Natasha Ball is PJ's mom. So PJ watched it on youtube said i want to try these and i was like oh my goodness this is so cool. You asked your parents for some cups?

Yeah and i i got it for christmas. Were you using some other kind of stuff before you got the official stuff? Um yeah i was using just like the little bathroom spit cups and they were horrible. And then what was it like when you got the real cups?

It was amazing i was like wow i i didn't know that cups could actually were worth this good. The sport started at a California boys and girls club back in 1981 where kids were stacking dixie cups for fun. Within a decade though the sport had formalized spreading to schools in 37 states.

It was even featured on the tonight show in 1990. Okay you're doing that really fast. Today more than 8 million kids participate in sport stacking all over the country. By the end of the lesson your phys ed teachers love it because it's that rare sport that anyone can play.

Ready set go. Even those who may not be as athletically inclined. Well this is um our RV. For PJ and his family the sport has been life-changing. In fact sport stacking has sort of become a family business. Yeah we have the RV we go into schools we go into churches we go into community groups.

This is a pretty big change in your life as a family. PJ's parents sold their house in Florida and now travel the country teaching the sport while PJ competes in various tournaments. Some of the same tournaments Jordan Green of Highlands Ranch Colorado is training for. I think it was like 2012 nationals and they all of a sudden started giving awards to girls and i started like getting awards so i was like wow i can do this. And she has. In fact she got so good at stacking that she quit playing soccer baseball and football to pursue this sport full time.

Now she's the fastest female stacker in Colorado and it's not just about the trophies. Studies have shown that it helps with like math reading science like all your like almost focus in school so that has helped me a lot like be able to get better grades because i can focus and do well and understand a little bit more. You want to be a sign language interpreter?

Yeah i really like that idea because it's um i get to use my hands still and you move my fingers so. Like most sport stackers Jordan and PJ keep track of their competitors and their teammates via youtube and social media but it's when they all converge in one place that the cups really start to fly. The junior olympics in Houston. Yes this is a junior olympic sport. Was a chance for sport stackers of every age and size from around the world to see just how fast they could go. Are you going to be okay if you guys don't manage to win? Um yeah um like we just know that we tried our best and that's pretty much all that matters.

Okay good luck out there. And it gave them a chance to prove to any doubters out there that stacking isn't just a quirky hobby but a real sport. One that belongs in the same sentence as soccer or swimming.

I've heard of some people that they've gotten bullied for it just because they'll say like oh that's not a sport or that's really dumb but my friends have been super supportive. They all are like wow that's so cool when's your next tournament or how'd you do? In Houston both PJ and Jordan won more medals to add to their collections with Jordan setting a massive personal best along the way. In just a couple of years Jordan will be off to college but that doesn't mean an end to her stacking interests. How long do you think you're going to do this? Um probably forever there's a saying that's like in the community once a stacker always a stacker.

Meanwhile PJ sees a possible expiration date on his stacking career. Do you think you're going to keep doing this for a long time? Um probably until I'm about maybe 16 or 17 and then I'll probably be into college and I'll have some other stuff like and like a job or maybe a wife or something so.

Yeah I'm married and wives really cut into cup stacking time. Still to come, hitman Jack Antonoff at home with mom. I really want a grandbaby someday. I do.

I would be very disappointed but you know. And later. Turn to the side. Manscaping the cutting edge.

Very good one more. Welcome to play it a new podcast network featuring radio and tv personalities talking business sports tech entertainment and more play it at play.it. Who are you? Doris Miller.

Hi Doris Miller. What'd you think of my show? I thought it was a little loud in places and I could have done without some of the explicit lyrics. Other than that I thought it was wonderful. I enjoyed it. I like you Doris.

Why thank you. It's Sunday morning on CBS and here again is Jane Pauley. There are plenty of reasons to take note of singer-songwriter Jack Antonoff. His role in the 2015 movie Hello My Name Is Doris with Sally Field among them. And lest you say Jack who? Tracey Smith is here to provide his backstory. You may not think you know Jack Antonoff.

But you probably do. Tonight we are young. For instance you might recognize this song We Are Young which he co-wrote with his former band Fun. When Sara Bareilles wrote her breakout hit Brave she had help from Jack. Taylor Swift. And when Taylor Swift won album of the year in 2015 her co-writer Jack Antonoff was one of the first people she thanked. He actually knew the way to the Grammy podium.

This was his third. The secret he says is making music he likes and letting the rest take care of itself. You have to believe that people don't want what you think they're going to like.

You know they want what you like. And once you started doing that? Once you start doing that you actually start connecting with people.

And now that connection is undeniable. For the people lined up outside New York's Webster Hall on a recent night his sold-out show was worth a long wait in the pouring rain. Jack Antonoff is the lead singer songwriter and soul of the indie rock group Bleachers and a guy who still can't quite believe he's made it. What's it like to go from nobody watching to sell out shows? It's not easy because even like right now I always have this feeling like are they going to come and they'll be like but it's sold out.

I say to myself when I say yeah but what if there's this freak thing where half the audience has like an emergency and then the room is thin. But like nearly every place he plays now it was packed wall to wall. Born in 1984 Jack Antonoff grew up in the northern New Jersey suburbs with sisters Rachel and Sarah. He fell in love with music as a kid and with a few friends formed a band. The first show I ever played was 12, 16, 98.

The reminders of his early gigs are still written on the closet door of his childhood bedroom. So the first time I ever got paid to play was one 1899 fire hall in Bordentown, New Jersey. Played first in the building, got paid $20. We got paid $20, the whole band.

The whole band. Music became an escape. For most of his early life Jack watched his younger sister Sarah battle brain cancer and when he told his parents Rick and Shira he wanted to tour with his band they didn't stand in his way. I mean there was much of the time that I was deeply involved taking care of a sick kid but you also just gain perspective on what's really important. So when Jack was a senior and said I got my first record deal and I really want to go out on the road I don't want to go to college and we went go. Jack was only 18 when Sarah died but you can still hear his anguish in his work like Everybody Lost Somebody from his just released new album. Everybody lost somebody something there's this weight of loss and we keep going and that's what is incredible about human beings is the choice to keep going. You chose to keep going.

Yeah I did and that's not something I feel bad about. Everybody has this sack they're carrying some are heavier some are lighter but no one doesn't have it and if you think someone doesn't have it they have a bigger one than you imagined. It's not all darkness. Don't Take The Money was inspired by the love of Jack's life. In the video he's an imaginary groom at an imaginary wedding. It was filmed at the real Los Angeles home he shares with his real-life girlfriend actor and director Lena Dunham. You might recognize her as the star of HBO's hit comedy Girls.

But I think that I may be the voice of my generation or at least a voice of a generation. And action. On this day she was Jack's director. How does Jack take direction? I will say that Jack is his own man and that he it's not none of my previous directing accolades are meaningful in this situation. We have jokingly been calling him the hit man that's what we've been calling this piece.

Yeah. Because he is. A lot of women love to work with him because he's one of the few guys in the entertainment industry who comes in with no agenda no sleaze and he's there to just make art and I think people feel that and they feel safe with him and so I'm very proud to be able to call someone like that my partner. In fact he's become a sort of musical Midas. His recent collaboration with singer-songwriter Lorde helped cement him as one of the most sought-after producers in the business. But he's never too big to come home.

When a triple Grammy winner gets a splinter there's no one better than mom to pull it out. Believe it or not until fairly recently Jack lived here full-time. I think that's why it was also very hard to leave this house. You didn't leave until you were?

29 and at that point I mean I had like had number one records at that point. His boyhood bedroom a sanctuary where he wrote many of his songs is nearly intact except that now he's yanked most of it out of his parents house and reassembled it piece by piece in a trailer to take with him on tour. But if you come in this is literally my room. This is the exact carpet these are my drawers like that is so cool this is what was in my drawers and this is where you would initially write songs yeah I'd write and record in your forever this is like all my stuff like that's my underwear drawer it's all here even taking the underwear drawer well the hope the concept was nothing changes.

His fans may have heard about Jack Antonoff's inner sanctum now they can stand in it. God this is weird. For the record mom was fine with all this she just has one small request. The only thing I've ever said and this is the truth Jack is I really want a grandbaby someday I do I would be very disappointed but you know that's it Jack but has do have you ever felt that in any other no no can we cut that can we do that don't cut that I would really like a girl no please it's really bad no leave all of it. Kidding aside mom is understandably proud. Jack Antonoff has found a way to turn personal pain into something awfully close to joy.

If you're lucky enough to find anything in life that gives you five seconds let alone an hour of um relief from life you should try to do it forever. Ahead we get letters. We get letters. To the mailbag now comedian Jim Gaffigan's recent commentary on massage which he called decadent and weird provoked a number of responses not least from Dolly Wallace the president of the American Massage Therapy Association. AMTA and its members understand good-natured humor she writes but call on the media and public figures to not allow their comments to denigrate the massage therapy profession which she says is focused on health and wellness. Among the individual therapists who wrote was Mary Mel who suggested a starkly different form of therapy for Jim to quote her he should be horse-whimped. Rachel Kate Kopp disagrees she writes I've been a professional massage therapist for 15 years and I thought it was funny.

Simmer down people it's called comedy. Moving on our viewer Shara Miller sent us this photo of the Sunday morning sun her father Stu painted on his backyard fence. My mom and him just love watching your show every Sunday morning she writes. They usually DVR it and then show us their favorite parts from the week. Good point you can always DVR our show if you can't actually watch it in real time which seems to be the right time to mention that whenever we run out of time for our regular features such as our Sunday morning calendar you can always find them and extras of all kinds on our website. Finally we thank our viewer who pointed out that it was 20 years ago this past Tuesday July 4th that we lost Sunday morning's founding anchor Charles Keralt.

Neither we on this side of the camera or you on yours would be where we are right now without him and if something on our show either rubs you the wrong way or tickles your fancy write us the old-fashioned way or send us an email and we'll be right back. Ready here we go one two and three ahead looking sharp plenty of guys are interested in looking sharp but not all will go to the lengths the very short lengths morocca found some men are willing to go. Men as the dog days of summer drag on it may be time to start thinking about shedding some of that extra hair. Manscaping as it's called is no longer just for the 40 year old virgin. Oh god you're a manscape architect.

Pretty much that's what I am. Stella Barba an esthetician with the Barba skin clinic in Miami says men are increasingly coming to her for laser body hair removal. It's either back hair you know the unibrow and ear hair. And we're talking removal of hair everywhere. Once they get that comfort level with you they are moving down to the buttocks.

Okay they're going yes down way below downtown yes that's what they're doing. Marcel Martinez came to Stella for help with his back hair. Can you flip over for a second I want to see your back. Now it's bare back there. Today he's here for maintenance work on his neck and chest. My laser is ready to go and it's relatively painless right Marcel? It's not true Marcel. Okay so we're actually going to start here on the neck and I'm just going to do a little bit here.

Ready here we go one two and three. The laser zaps the hair and the follicles underneath. After a few treatments most of it will never grow back.

You're doing great fantastic. Is it hurting at all? It hurts. Does it sting? Definitely does it stinks.

She's been kind today. And do you feel cleaner? Yes. But not everyone is sold on the smooth look. Okay how hairy are you? Pretty hairy. Another button. One more.

Just go for it. You have a hairy husband. Yes I do. Would you like him to remove his body hair?

No. I mean you need like big clippers for that. What do you think of the trend of all these men getting man-scarred? What do you think of the trend of all these men getting man-scaped?

Well I think it's pretty much unsustainable. I mean how much do you want to pretty much it's bad enough you have to shave every so many days. I mean to do your whole body for how long forever? Our obsession with body hair is nothing new. Cavemen were said to have removed body hair for hygiene. For the ancient Egyptians hairlessness conferred class and status. The Greeks on the other hand viewed hairiness as a sign of masculinity.

And back and forth it's gone for every Burt Reynolds a Brad Pitt. I've got a lot of nice scented candles that I've been given as house warming gifts. Right. Is that the same kind of wax that you're using?

Definitely not. Our wax here is a hundred percent natural beeswax. Danielle Zanfredino waxes enthusiastic about the benefits of hair removal.

She's a waxing specialist at New York City's European Wax Center. The guys that are coming in are they mostly coming in of their own volition or is it significant others that are saying listen you got to get rid of that? A little bit of both I've definitely seen some male guests come in here because maybe their wife or fiance has told them to come try it out. Case in point our very own follicle fall guy Joe Dooley. Have you always had a lot of chest hair? Well I'm half Italian. You don't have back hair though which seems to be the big issue.

Well I'm only half Italian. First we surveyed Joe's frontal thread count. Okay yeah and he's got these things he's like nipples. Yeah they're almost like locks of hair.

Yeah it's it's nice not so much. And then it was time to stop yapping and start ripping. Wax on. It looks like it looks like grape jelly. And it feels like hot fudge. Wax off. Turn to the side. My women are tough as nails I can tell you that.

We are. It's amazing. I have to say if you walked out of here now it would look terrible. It would look like you're wearing a hair bra.

A few more tears and Joe was stripped clean. It looks like a new me and I actually feel younger. Younger more confident cleaner.

I'll say younger and cleaner. Yes. What do you think your wife will say when she sees you?

She's probably going to say why did you do it and I'm going to say for you honey and then we'll embrace and then we'll see what happens from there. We're done right? I had court of dreams. Welcome to play it a new podcast network featuring radio and tv personalities talking business sports tech entertainment and more play it at play.it. An Iowa farmer with a love for a faraway sport has built himself a backyard court of dreams. With Steve Hartman we pay a visit. For as long as he can remember Mark Kuhn has been riding a tractor at the family farm in Charles City Iowa which is why as a kid whenever Mark wanted to see beyond the soybeans he'd go to his grandpa's house where the old man would take him on exotic adventures. He introduced me to his short waiver you know and he took me all places all over the world.

Labor chases the back plays a beautiful backhand on the line. Including England where one day they stumbled on a BBC broadcast of the championship's Wimbledon. For Mark it was instantly game set match. What did you like about it? Well the accent was neat.

The accent? Yes and and we quickly got into the way the score we didn't understand it why did it go to 15 and then 30 and then 40 you know and love. It was the beginning of what became a lifelong obsession with Wimbledon. Of course a lot of people like Wimbledon and grass court tennis but what makes Mark outstanding in this field is what is now outstanding in his field. What was formerly a cattle feedlot is now the all Iowa lawn tennis club a replica of Wimbledon center court. It took Mark a year and a half to build it then he learned to maintain it during an internship with the Wimbledon ground staff and that's all he wanted just to grow and groom the grass which is why Mark was as surprised as anyone. When after he built it they came from around the world they came to play on his court of dreams.

These kids are from Iowa and Minnesota here to compete in an invitational tournament and that's umpire Baron Wittett also from Minnesota. And when I found that there's a place in the middle of Iowa in a cornfield it's like get in the car you know so it came down as fast as I could. What happens when you build it and they do come?

Well they'll come from anywhere and everywhere and they'll come at all times of the night. Does it make you wish you hadn't built it? Never no.

Mark lets people play for free with a reservation and so far tennis fans from 42 states and six countries have made the pilgrimage to this tennis heaven here amongst the Iowa cornfields. There you go in the middle way to be. What would your grandpa think if he saw that? Oh he'd be very he'd be very pleased I know he would.

How could he not be and certainly if there are shortwave radios in heaven you know he's listening. Still to come Christy Brinkley in a word sparkly and later president snowflake don't ask a snowflake the word is snowflake It's Sunday morning on CBS and here again is Jane Pauley. Uptown Girl was a big hit for Billy Joel and soon-to-be bride Christy Brinkley back in 1983. Fast forward to today we find her front and center as a cheerleader for Bellissima a sparkling wine and a very hands-on cheerleader as Mark Phillips discovered.

Oh I'm involved here it's my new workout. No one will ever accuse Christy Brinkley of a lack of enthusiasm. Lately she's been even more motivated. You can't even say Bellissima without Bellissima you know just without wanting a drink. Bellissima is her very own wine label a range of Prosecco the Italian fizz that's about the hottest thing in the liquor business right now.

U.S. sales are up about a third each year lately. You are tasting nature not chemicals and Christy Brinkley and her partners think they found a way to break through the market clutter. Her.

Of all the places I pictured you the loading dock wasn't one of them I gotta I have to say. Believe me I'm involved in every aspect of this. More than four decades into a modeling career Christy Brinkley never met a camera lens she didn't like and that didn't like her back.

Point one at her and this sort of thing happens. Cheers. Yes. Prosecco. Long the pre-dinner tipple in Italy is being marketed in the U.S. as a kind of champagne without the pretensions and without the price tag. More bubbles for the buck. Were you a Prosecco girl before you got involved in the Prosecco business?

Oh yeah I've had my fair share. In the Veneto region of Italy about an hour north of Venice where anything that calls itself Prosecco has to come from they can't make enough of the stuff. It's really happening right now everybody wants Prosecco. If you're going to get into the wine business this is the place and this is where Christy has come. Can you tell a decent bunch of grapes from any other bunch of grapes?

Well all our Bellissima grapes are gorgeous. She's not only found a wine she likes Christy Brinkley seems to have found the fountain of youth. Oh yes. She's 63 years old now I'll say that again she's 63 years old going on 23 by the look of her. You know I have been around a long time. It has been 38 years since she became the nation's pin-up girl appearing on three consecutive Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue covers from 1979 to 81.

The only time anybody's ever done that. I ended up loving this career and I love the fact that every day is different and you know no two days are alike. And her life has been like a timeline of the boomer generation if a little more glamorous. Not everybody has a pop star husband and whose music video you can more or less play yourself.

I have a theme song you know wherever I go it's so funny because I walked into the U.S. Open with my son and the second we sit down uptown girl starts and I said oh my gosh what a coincidence and he goes my mom I don't think it's a coincidence look up and we're on the jumbotron. Billy Joel was one of four husbands and four divorces. Two good two bad she says.

There were three children along the way. It's been a life of mostly highs and some significant lows from her family's beginnings in Michigan to surfer girl California to an art student's life in Paris where she was discovered in a post office the legend goes. I never really wanted to be a model that was never a dream of mine and I was a little embarrassed but I needed the money but my friends you know were kind of like oh it's so bourgeois you do you know do this I can you do this you know and I was like well I can afford to take us all to Greece where you know they're like okay not bad. Whenever she's been counted out she's always seemed to bounce back. Never with a higher or perhaps more unlikely rebound than when she was asked to play Roxy Heart in the long-running musical Chicago. The reviews like her marriages were mixed but it jump-started her career once again.

I never felt like I retired. I always get a little bit insulted when I read former model and I'm like former what do they think I've been doing all this time I'm still here I haven't gone anywhere. This is authentic skincare. Christy has used her fame in product promotion before true results. There's the skincare line with a nice stretch and the gym line ah total gym and in keeping with the always look your best theme her fans may be pleased to know the new Prosecco range is organic and includes a sugar-free option. It's zero sugar it's zero carbs this is safe for for people with diabetes for people on a diet. What the world needs diet Prosecco.

Diet Prosecco. And if anybody thinks Christy Brinkley's new line is a way of toasting the end of her career toast again. If like people are hoping to get a bottle of my Prosecco like pop that cork and say yay she's retired that's not going to happen right away. You might be a snowflake if you drive. Coming up this is the it's insult that's caused a blizzard on the political landscape.

Snowflakes in July. It's the political put down of the moment. Snowflake.

And to its fans Faith Saylee has one word of advice. Chill. Even though it's the middle of summer there's an awful lot of talk about snowflakes. This is the it's insult that's caused a blizzard on the political landscape.

If you somehow haven't heard it here's a taste. These protesters are typical snowflake millennials. Now he's president snowflake okay. Everything he said oh they're not snowflakes they're snowflakes snowflakes. Now he's president snowflake okay.

Everything he said oh they're mean to me and they don't like. If you want to know how the president is doing in his first hundred days don't ask a snowflake. The dig in its current youth stems from the 90s book and movie Fight Club in which the narrator informs his listeners you are not special you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. Some started calling today's youth generation snowflake bemoaning their perceived hypersensitivity and then snowflake became a word weapon to express a broad kind of anti-intellectualism aimed at campuses and communities where cultural sensitivity is a must. Cut to the 2016 election when snowflake emerges as the knee-jerk conservative jibe to shut down political opponents especially during debates around tolerance. More recently some liberals have taken up the snowball fight by calling out the current president for being a thin-skinned self-perceived victim.

His ego is so fragile he's such a snowflake. Now seems a good time to melt this trend by saying I'm a snowflake and so are you. Your children are snowflakes and so are mine and those who protest the loudest about not being snowflakes I can see your six-fold ice crystals from here because every person empirically is unique and special and flawed and we are all at times fragile. Snow flakery is simply being human which makes it a pretty flaky insult. Look a bunch of snowflakes creates a storm a white blanket that covers things so you can't get to what's underneath. So to those on the right and the left enough with snowflake it's not a cool insult. You're fragile and melty no you're fragile and melty is really just another way of saying I know you are but what am I.

It's fitting that an insult largely aimed at youth has made children of those who use it. Snowflake reminds us how much we need climate change in politics. Up next. So what people would do is they would plant a cluster of three pine trees. Louise Penny takes us to the village of three pines. The loyalty of her millions of readers speaks volumes about the appeal of Louise Penny's mystery novels. Martha Teichner traveled to Penny's hometown to see for herself.

Number 40 and there's a coupon there for some chocolate. There should be a name for fans of Louise Penny's murder mysteries. The L pack or the penny posse maybe.

There we go got it. To say they come from far and wide in large numbers to attend her book event is no exaggeration. They've come all the way to the Canadian town of Knowlton in the eastern townships of Quebec where Penny lives and her books are set.

Many of you have come a great distance with me so I am thrilled to meet each and every one of you. Thank you. It's as if her readers want to immerse themselves in the setting of her books which are as much about the backstories of her murders why people kill as who done it. Penny has published 12. They now routinely debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list or close to it.

Her next Glass Houses comes out next month. My books are about many many things probably least of all murder. They're about life. They're about choices and taking responsibility for what you do but really I think at their heart they're about love and friendship.

And food. Her characters all eat exceptionally well in the made-up village of Three Pines which Penny tongue-in-cheek informs readers can't be found on any map although her publisher has conveniently had one drawn. Three Pines is meant to be a refuge a sanctuary found by people who were lost. The name has historical significance. Legend has it during the American Revolution the trees were a signpost for loyalists to the British crown fleeing north to Canada to safety. So what people would do is they would plant a cluster of Three Pine trees as a signal to these people that they were safe and that's how I got the name for the village. Her detective is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.

If I got lucky enough that the books were published and became a series I didn't want to grow weary of my main character so I decided I would create a man I would marry. But before Penny herself managed to find Three Pines and all its inhabitants she too was lost. I was drinking more and more and more the phone never rang the doorbell never sounded. She had it made or so it seemed.

From the age of 21 she was a reporter and then an anchor for CBC Radio the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. But she was also a secret drunk. At 35 she walked into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and changed her life. I left that meeting never having to drink again. It was unbelievable. You did not need to drink anymore.

No I didn't. The urge to drink the need to drink disappeared. Not long afterward she met and married Dr. Michael Whitehead a noted pediatric hematologist more than 20 years her senior who told her that he would support her if she quit her job to write. For five years she tried to write the great historical novel but then then I looked on the bedside table. Very well represented there were crime novels.

It was one of those moments where I just thought oh maybe that's what I should write. That first book was called Still Life. Quebec is a character a very real character in the books.

There is a very keen sense of place. With each new book Penny's following has grown. Her fans seeking a piece of her fictional and real worlds.

The line between them often blurry. Oh I can hear that they're nice and crispy. Readers are convinced Kelly Shanahan's Bakery is the bakery in the books. People come in absolutely expecting that Louise Penny is here somewhere. And on this particular day a Louise Penny sighting does indeed occur.

The local bookstore has become a stand-in for Myrna's new and used bookstore in the novels. We usually have at least three groups a day not counting the bus tours and things. Bus tours? Really?

We've started getting bus tours now. Owner Danny McCauley. They're really looking for a connection to Louise. The books have touched them. They've touched the books. They've touched the books personally.

They've been healed by the books. And Penny has been extraordinarily open about her own life. Each month for her website she writes what reads like an intimate letter to a close friend. It was here in 2014 that she disclosed her beloved husband Michael had been diagnosed with dementia.

And then last fall that he had died. So many others have been down this road before Michael and me that there's comfort in that. When fans show up for book signings it's not just about the books. I love her books but I love the individual. She's become part of the family. Louise Penny has never laid eyes on most of these people before.

But they are not strangers. After all she showed them the way to Three Pines. The sanctuary where she has now gone to find herself once more in her sadness. The writing became a harbor.

The writing became a harbor. It became solace. It became a world I could control.

Oddly enough all the decisions I had made 12 years ago about a place that I would like to live in and people I would choose as friends turned out to be my saving grace. I'm Jane Pauley. Please join us here again next Sunday morning. Hi podcast peeps. It's me Drew Barrymore.

Oh my goodness. I want to tell you about my new show. It's the Drew's News podcast. And in each episode me and a weekly guest are going to cover all the quirky, fun, inspiring and informative stories that exist out in the world because well I need it.

And maybe you do too. From the newest interior design trend Barbie Corps to the right and wrong way to wash your armpits. Also we're going to get into things that you just kind of won't believe and we're not able to do in daytime television. So if you're kind of won't believe and we're not able to do in daytime television so watch out. Listen to Drew's News wherever you get your podcasts. It's your good news on the go.