Wednesday happy wiki tree challenge Wednesday. That should just be the name of Wednesdays now wiki tree challenge Wednesday How is everyone doing? We're all so excited for today We have our wrap-up for Sherry. We're gonna share a whole bunch of good stuff for her And I hope you're all excited to watch with us This has been a long week Probably the longest week of your life, maybe A lot of emails merge this person and do this and do that I'm like, oh people are working on things So before we get started we'll introduce everybody who is in the stream right now so Myself Sarah and then Julie who's in the corner. We're both wiki tree team members Uh, and then right next to me. We have Sherry who is our genealogy guest star of the week Next to Sherry. We have Mindy who is our overall wiki tree challenge coordinator And then we have Karen who is Sherry's team captain And then a one might pop in a little bit later She had an unforeseen visit surprise visit But we might she might pop in so That's that's who we are and for those of you who maybe are just Popping in because you saw it on twitter or facebook or maybe sherry mentioned to you and you have no idea what wiki tree is Julie will let us all know what wiki tree is and what we're about Wiki tree is well aside from where I spend most of my time It is a community. It's a community of genealogists and we all work together on a single family tree So unlike other sites where you go and you build your tree over here and I go and I build my tree over here Even if we have a common ancestor, we never talk to each other So on wiki tree since we're a single tree when we get to that common ancestor We not only talk to each other, but we can work together to share information and make it the best best profile that we can um We collaborate we grow an accurate single family tree and it connects all of us Which is a lot of fun and the best part Probably the best part. I don't know. Do you guys think that's the best part? It's free I think the best part is the community and the I 100% have free I think the free in the community you're kind of like No Because I think we wouldn't have the community without the free. I think right right like it's together So that is wiki tree It's great What is wiki tree? I'm like, I just told you I don't I'm still really not kidding So So that is wiki tree now we have our wiki tree challenge Which is our year-long event where each week we take on Where a team of wiki tree years takes on a genealogy guest star's tree It makes them more accurate and complete that is anywhere else For instance right now. We're working on sherry's tree. We usually have another guest star, but next week We have our special cleanathon, which we might talk about a little bit later But each for the most part each week we take on different genealogy guest star And this challenge is part of our year of accuracy and our goal is to improve our accuracy on wiki tree Make more connections and more friends. So that is wiki tree and the wiki tree challenge And if anybody has any questions throughout the chat about the challenge or for sherry for anybody just post in the chat and we'll answer it so And then Mindy will talk about our The how the points work and collaboration and all that good stuff I am here. I need to slide that sherry Let's go there we go And one of the one of the big things that we need with this type of a collaboration is Is we do need to keep track of which profile we're working on Now we have anywhere from 20 to 40 or 50 genealogy just just depending all volunteers On you know, how many people we have available that week? So when we're working on a profile We want to put that profile down after our name so that we two other people don't come in and start working on it Realize not realizing And then the other one of the other forms of communication we have is what you see on the right Now in the g2g we have a post every week. This is sherry's Where we go in and we put if we found a brick wall if we found something Interesting and we maybe just had a question That we post it in there and this is also shared with a guest after their week is up And this would be the biggest one discords are our live chat So this is what we have going on all throughout the week and being such a global community We have people from all over so there's always somebody in there talking You know and you can do anything from saying, you know help look at this record. I want to make sure it's right I need a second set of eyes, you know to um. Oh, I added a bunch of sources Does anybody want to write a narrative for it? I'm not good at the biographies Translations a little maybe just even cheering somebody on we use discord for a little everything so And we have our points And top contributors Now there's two different ways to get points during the challenge and that's not the only reason that we do the challenge But it always a little bit of you know Competition gets people going and keeps them motivated always helps a little bit So we have the big points which are the bounty points If you find a new parent and can prove it you get 10 points for each direct Ancestors nuclear family so only their siblings children's spouse You get one point automatically and those actually add up quite a bit some weeks just depending on how big the families are Our top five for this week. We're elizabeth finie Alice Thompson Lucy salvage odias maddie hardman and donna bowman With elizabeth finie, of course being our mbp. So she was our most valuable player. She had the highest amount of points this week And we'll take a brief look at all of the points we achieved this week And this was a little bit hard because you know, we're we're not just going for the brick walls We are going for accuracy and we found on our end with this We had a lot of things that we needed to fix So we actually had some people that maybe weren't on your tree But they were on the wiki tree branches and we needed to Get a couple of sets eyes on some of those and work them out So now what you see are created ancestors. There were a total of 76 direct Ancestors and their relatives so 13 of those were actually direct like a great grandparent third great grandparent the other 63 were those nuclear family members I was talking about and Bounty points there were 50 this week. So five brick walls. Congratulations to the people that did that And then edited this sharia is where we count How many profiles are edited just to let people know, you know When you're making do a fixing mistakes and doing corrections, maybe your other points aren't as high But this shows that they're still working really hard. So we had 715 unique profiles worked on During this one week And then during that time the total edits are every time you go in you add a source you fix a date You do something to the profile. That's an edit. That's what we at wiki tree call a contribution There were 2347 edits That counted during the week on top of that any additional we work work that we did For space pages or you know making sure the categories are right. None of that actually even counted But it was done because it improves the profiles And now on this this page to you know, a lot of people didn't actually accrue points for a lot of people did contribute in other ways To improve your tree. They probably edited existing profiles to improve them at its sources They made a free space page a whole bunch of different stuff. So like mendy was saying it's not just about the points We're looking for quality not quantity so We'll dive right in when Karen can probably take the take the way take the lead You know this smith family is one that we just saw this afternoon researchers, uh working on Collateral relatives, you know working on cousins of the smith saying Okay, I've merged, you know proposed two merges found that these folks are duplicate found the correct parents for this person and that was all on cousin lines, but One of our researchers pointed out this gravestone which which you've probably already seen but was just really charmed by this epitaph here that That that was carved into the stone yet tears are left in long regrets unceasing shall their tribute pay As soon the heart to throb forget as thy remembrance pass away Just a lovely sentiment Jumping on to um, of course your your paternal line the Hudson's Here is where I saw some very deliberate very considered research Where changes were not made to the tree so bounty points weren't Given out But you're very much invited to come collaborating on the Hudson's because we're seeing Some strong evidence that we've got Two Joaquin sons in the family that are actually the same person and that we don't think either of them Died in 1817 that that death date belongs to yet another Joaquin Who folks have said was uh his estate was sued by his children But when you read the court records, nope, it was his siblings that brought the suit against the widow So, uh, I hope you'll take a look at these earlier Hudson Generations with from hall to Joaquin and down here to Jacob and uh, think about alternate theories for For the parents and and take a look at the sources that are on that profile there Is that where we there's a lot of opportunity to come and look and say Maybe You know no great changes to the family, but just certain generations This person's not the father. They're actually young color Exactly Yeah and The Friarsons is definitely where we we saw some downies. We saw this couple William Harrison and Mary whose name might be epps Between ancestry and wiki tree. We saw them on four different lines Where William's son John married a king and Agnes Bradley and James married a Davis and then John married a Smith And I know at least one of these was disconnected and there was a big flurry of intense research On the Friarsons this week to try to Sort this out where we teamed You know long-time members with with newer members who are just going like gangbusters and the probate records Really helped them to sort this out, but there's there's more work that could be done Yeah, you know and sometimes you see I mean, uh, you know, you'll see like two brothers that marry into a family And marry two sisters or something a lot that that's common And fine, you know, and we all have some pedigree collapse But it was kind of frightening when we looked at first Because the mistakes were more on our end, you know, just that and it turns out it was just each were different children You know his daughter Agnes his son John and they each married into the king family, you know different families So it wasn't even like it was just one family marrying another But yeah, they they um caron was great about making sure somebody stayed several somebody stayed on that and research thoroughly And I said, you know, I popped in and took a look myself and then I flitted a lot from line to line and just checking up with what people were doing and I just backed away from the Friarsons That's gonna take some considered Yeah research, you know that seems like it's They're four of them. So like for Kate like the pedigree collapse. So they're in four different locations on the on the tree And this was a fun, uh bounty to award our first, I think where, uh birth and baptism records from England gained us, uh parents for Susanna Bonner, uh William, uh, her father was a master bookbinder a bookseller and a stationer. So very much involved print and paper and books uh, and he and uh, Susanna's mother had eight Children that are now all on wiki tree. Uh, and and so here's a new eighth great grandfather for you Thanks Yeah Right Do we find any kind of like since he was a bookbinder or just a mention of a book binding? Not really anything that he Yeah, and we were talking what um early 1700s So for something made of a cure it's to still be with us would be it's true I'm just wondering if they mentioned anything about any of the books that he bookbinded We'll have to go read the profile and find out eligible Oh We added many, uh collateral relatives on this early line, uh including Uh, Jubal's first wife, Bessie Medlin, who uh, we found that Bessie had, uh had Some autosomal dna connections with our members and that there's a y dna tester from the medlin line Who's a wiki tree member?  Let's see. Yeah. Um, nope There are some research notes on William Martin in this line, uh with some leads to possible parents for him, but uh You know that's always, uh challenge when when someone else has uh claimed the parents and our researchers are trying to you know be accurate and And say well, here's a lead, but we're not quite ready to to put it on the tree just yet And in the uh Robert's line, there were so many, um Phillips in the Like that name one is the patriot, right? Um, yeah DAR patriot. Yes, right Yeah, and lived till 91. That's amazing. Wow Yeah, he actually he actually died in the county that I live in right now I was like, wait a minute. I was looking at those notes earlier. I went wait a minute. That's that's where I am Oh, that's great.  Yeah, I know what happened to birchland. So birchland Campbell price was the one who Sherry mentioned last week. She said that that um, he just He took the uh had the $500 that his wife had saved and he was heading out to buy the property That they had planned and that was the last he was heard of Yes, um, and in fact like on the next page, I think we have the news clipping that It was a full what 10 years later after his disappearance that the courts decided We're gonna go ahead and um declare him dead. Uh that That the insurance policies can pay out That he's you know, clearly gone and that his will Needs to have the benefit of that life insurance. She really needed that money. Yeah I believe it to be without his income and to be a widow for that line. That's crazy I'd be my dog says hello Yeah And But We found this wasn't the end of the story Uh at all that That in fact, what have we got coming up on the next page that That who working through your dna, you know, sherry decided to um share Um the viewing of uh the dna matches of herself and her parents with emma are Resident dna expert and she found a half third cousin match who just Did also from Bertrand Campbell price But not a south carolina child A georgia Yes And that that just as um in 1932 when when he was finally declared dead in south carolina He was Nursing his fourth Child in georgia And you know, he he changed the spelling on his name, but he he kept the same occupation So once he got to georgia his occupation was the same as it had been Right More like bertrand, but you have to wonder did he change it or or um, you know, how much how much Writing of his name did he do? Uh, and south carolina. He was known as cam or camble. Yeah, he's camble a lot So he wasn't really camble anymore. He was really more of bert Yeah, there was a whole bunch of research on those So it's like he did he didn't create a new identity. He just um tweaked it He just Yeah And you could back then you couldn't you really could You should do that now, but back then Wow Oh, and that's right on that first census where he's in with daniel In 1870, uh, he's he's very much a bertrand there too. So maybe it's really more about Um, the cam camble versus bird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and so he and um, suzie emma suzie wells um Got together a much younger, um Gal and and had four more in And it's actually john's descendant. Who is the uh, the half third cousin? Wow That's exciting Mom's grandfather and she's watching this so mom Lived until 1946 sherry Wow four years after he walked away from south carolina Wow I I just wonder like if Like maybe if he told emma at some point or like if anybody in the I don't know like this what happened like Yeah, you could see that it would be easier it much easier socially to stay a widow, you know, even if We're informed That um, you had been left. Um, I mean that would have been a problem for insurance money for sure. Yeah Yeah On the way to the real to our lucy I mean I can't imagine that he knew suzie when he made his choice, you know I don't know right Thank you so much Yeah, so I'm you know, those cousins are are there, you know, I know that um, chris and other members That emma built out a big um family group, right that that um Was there a marriage? I mean, I'll tell you that the migraine parents certainly cross state lines to marriage It was quite common in in my tennessee family to just go to the next county and get married and not bother with the expense of a legal divorce right um So so who knows now chris is uh is is building a storyline for you but I mean the excitement of of the cousins, you know, and and uh and comparing notes on the on the two families of mr price Right Right and uh, you know way back in the line at people um Just finding, you know finding the birth certificate between vula and virtue. I'm just uh, just Prove out the price family and finding um, daniel price like, um, the 1870 census finding them together but going all the way back to Uh edmund, you know, he was a sergeant in the in the militia There during the war of 1812 um Like, you know, we have such a long military history In the family with folks serving in the revolution in 1812 of course in the civil war and Into the 20th century and beyond i'm here Yeah All the the children found in the um dory mathis couple there were um, you know, these are barbric walls, right? We have um um Two mathis grandmothers on on this part of the tree martha and marina and uh, um Possible parents were found for martha and some sources were added to her profile. Um, but again just um Not I saw a lot like different approaches with the two mathis women sometimes we think okay We've got these sources for martha. We've got some possible parents But we're not quite ready to attach them. Those are like me the glass half empty researchers And we have full researchers, you know on on marina. We'll go no, I think we know um These parents are but but then uh, you know, the rest of us pessimists going well I think we need to find some more sources to support Relationship we didn't find anything to support William's parents, um being alexander dory and sarah welden. So we did not make that connection Yeah, I guess we'll take the the um There's people that said well, they live next door to each other Right, right, we'd like to see a little bit more maker and it's hard because particularly in the south I find that it's just hard that the vital records You know Too far for autosomal dna and So we can we just have to put it out the theories that we have and and that's what I love about that The our free biography space that you can just You know put all the different theories and it's so it just narrates right on the tree The state of the research Yeah, thank you. Mm-hmm when we um We're looking at the mcmanus line. We we're looking at uh Charles the fourth great grandfather. Uh, he also a the revolutionary patriot from, uh, carolinas And and had uh 16 children married twice seven with rebecca and nine with sarah Wow So lots of mcmanus is out there. Yeah, he was a loving man But here you say mcmanus Oh, thank you mcmanus. Yeah, just just thought I'd tell you Oh, no, I'm glad you did because I I don't I'm not familiar with the family name really at all Yeah, thanks, you know, like you said we looked at that. Um military legacy um Uh, we we didn't go earlier than the revolution that was that's plain early enough for us to find soldiers records But taking that all the way into the 20th century. I know when we asked you how'd you get started in genealogy? You said well, you asked why is it grandma and frank instead of grandma and grandpa and and uh, um, you learned that frank sullivan was was um, you know, not not, um, mom's dad, but but mom's uh stepfather and uh And you learned that uh, oh tell me about your uh, grandmother's name. Um her first My grandmother's name is azalee Azalee, thank you because I I only want me to dorky. That's a name, isn't it? Yeah, it's lovely, uh And and so of course she was married first to gilbert and so we were looking at the world war two history on, um the next slide and how um On the next slide and Sorry Oh, there's the other children on the next next slide And then and then And then if sarah will go to the civil war slide or We just noticed and noted like you said that it was three roberts brothers that were lost And really all in 43 44 this was unfolding. I can't imagine You know being your your great great grandparents Or your great grandparents I mean the roberts then that that we had, you know a marine in, um uh Go m. I. A. and in sicily and Oh, no, he was he was national guardsman and uh with the south carolina Um Guard that was federalized into the army, you know, and then and then gilbert himself your grandfather killed the pacific and and uh wilbert his brother Um dying in hospital and looking I was just looking at his hospital records today And it was just that like half of 1944 he had only served Like he was only like his fourth quarter of service when he was in for um artillery fragments in may and then again and then again I've not seen his that record. Oh, yeah, they're on ancestry. Um, I just haven't seen them. What I saw was that Wilbert went into hospital in may of 44 and he Had served either 9 10 or 11 months. So he was coming up on his first anniversary The army when he had um shell fragments in his shoulder Um, and then he was back in the hospital in june and then died in hospital in The first of october. So he was the the third roberts and then um, Of course on the hudson side. I didn't find um the units that you know, your family probably knows better Where? He actually was a cook. He actually served as a cook. Oh that makes sense with his uh his specialty in butchering and and I loved how it said he was a meat cutter and and counselor for So when you wanted to know where you should you should be spending your frugal, um Talk to Ben and he'll set you set you straight Nobody rose to a staff sergeant. I saw which Was really something. Yeah Um So so quite uh a legacy Um and taking stories of course on the hudson side and the roberts side and then we saw uh and looked at you know, at least 10 um patriots It just joined the dar myself this year and on the easiest one But as far as the other nine, we'll see you know, uh Yeah, so so we enjoyed so many of us Were new to research in the carolinas and that was fun to see folks um from england just diving in and um and learning about uh Uh the research, you know and the records available there and how much the probate records really helped folks with brick walls and and putting the families together um And we might have to back up to the pictures because I don't think I know jim parsons and frank is positing that That ben might look a bit like Jim parsons, so we'll have to Uh, we'll have to compare See what we think but uh tell let uh, who wants to tell us about this final brick wall chart. I know I need to I will And when we start out, um All of those yellow spaces that you see are your available Uh brick wall ancestors So some of them are pretty close in some of them are you have your line done extensively in some places They're way out there You know, we always look at our branches on our tree in little sections And when you look at something like this, you can really see where the areas are that you're stuck You're really stuck And we did see that for as many hours as we put in researching this week There were some of them we hope to get through and we just couldn't knock them down Now what was different on your uh branches? Then what we've had with the other guests is once again, we had those areas that people had established You know and and we see it it happens wiki tree has evolved but people that uploaded jetcoms in 2013 2014 And we're like, oh we found this ancestor of sherry's we can just connect it to the tree It's already there and then you look at it and you're like, oh great now. I got to fix the five errors on it so start researching And yeah, so all of the like orangy spaces which are hard to see but you're gonna get a copy of this So you can look at it up close Those are profiles that were already on wiki tree But nobody got any points for anything until they took the time to stop and verify those people because we wanted to make sure That they were correct, you know, which is fine. Once again, it's our year of accuracy So we wanted everything to be accurate Yes, and then there were a few a few brick walls broken um a couple of them way out there, so So that was fun And I believe that is all of our Great, thank you so so much I'm so excited to dive in and and look at all the pages and see, you know What's been done and any hints can go forward and now just to find time to do my own tree would be Yeah, I know right we never work on our own trees You know and you already know this but one of the things that we learned as researchers I know I'm one of um, I haven't really researched in north carolina or south carolina until And I've had research in georgia Yeah They're extensive those wills those probate records saved us They're just amazing everybody gets a will it doesn't matter if you own a goat. That's it. You get a will I love to go to my two. Yeah nephews But the vital records are missing, you know, and I know a lot of that happened during the civil war A lot of the church records are missing too for the same court a lot of courthouse records For the same and that yeah, and that's what I saw is, you know, as you had burn counties Um, we have some of those here in kentucky, but it just seemed like where your family was there was a lot of them There were no vital records. So yeah, you know, if it weren't for something where we could find a mention of a marriage Or once again those probate records were just amazing My family doesn't leave wills. They tell my ancestors didn't write wills little branches of them But not most of them. Uh, love that love the north and south carolina wills those were great Well, I don't know how to thank you guys enough i'm just Just You got your mystery solved you get some new ancestors Oh, I'm wondering I'm wondering how other people in the line are going to feel about They have a record that says, you know, she testified that he went to buy land and Well, that's what she knew Exactly went to her experience Is that yeah So one good thing about that record though is it does tell who wasn't the father because there's been Two people claimed as as cams father And she said he went to see his uncle and so that you know crosses out one of those guys So But yeah, oh my goodness And somebody had mentioned the the irony of it, you know that he was running away from his wife and his kids Because that's what he was supposed to be doing was buying this home And then he just turned around and had well either a wife or a significant other And more kids in a home, so And you just you just feel so bad about the wife and the kids left at home wondering, you know What happened stories are going around. Oh, you know what there was a bad storm for this by a Hurricane around that time and there were people that were never identified. Maybe Yeah Or somebody sent her somebody sent her a letter. I mean, I've never seen it But I've heard that somebody sent her a letter about a train crash in georgia Oh, wow, they thought maybe he had died in but she said, oh This description really didn't match Right, isn't it interesting Maybe they were trying to drop a hint Maybe Oh Yeah, and and then what do we you know, where do you go from here, you know with Cousins who of course had a had a completely different experience And and knew him as their loving father and grandfather and great grandfather and are still I'm sure they have photos Oh And hopefully, you know, hopefully they're really receptive to that As far as you know, just communicating I I have one of those on my branches and he married three times and they didn't Another one of those too. So yeah And it the living cousins of the third wife aren't receptive to his best history. So unfortunately You know, I think we all have skeletons in our tree and you just got a little call out and embrace them Exactly, and if they didn't ever do anything like this, we would never find records and Maybe that's where the pictures of him will come from and you know, when you get into the 30s and 40s when when uh cameras became more accessible Families and and you had snapshots Right and it's too bad that Nobody that remembers seeing him is still alive that they could say oh my gosh That's him Right, but maybe the family resemblances you remember me enough Right. We have new guys cousins and and some good Mysteries and and things to consider on the Hudson line and Firesons to sort and you know Whenever you're ready for for a break with your own tree You've certainly got a a huge boost the huge jumps on so many different lines. Thanks. We got them together Thank you. Thank you. Oh This is fabulous. I'm so excited Everything I can't thank you doesn't even seem enough. It just doesn't even I think everybody that participated really just appreciate seeing your enthusiasm Well, if you know run out of gas the need to repeat Yeah No, just seeing all the flurry of activity Today and and folks saying all right. Well I guess it's time for the week to wind down, but it's so hard to Put the families away. So I'm so glad we have folks collaborating and interested who you know who would love to pick up the conversation Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the invitation and thanks for this Yeah, we appreciate you letting us work on your tree sherry I know we had a great time And it's it's a short week a short week But also a long week because you know, we do get a lot done But then it just goes by so fast. It was long for you probably waiting I tell you everybody Sisters Yeah, I just do did we have any questions or comments from the chat for sherry or any of us before we Probably depart for the evening. I think they're all talking about their their own stories like Like I Maybe a follow-up week with sherry near the end of the year Maybe a good idea to see how much more can still be added after sherry has a chance to review it all Like a where are they now? Where are they now? Recap see see what rabbit holes wiki tree years have gone down since the week of the I guess because I'm sure people have been working on the trees that they got attached to So Well, and I think it was ben molsworth was saying early on in this evening That it would be really terrific for us to see the connections between all of our guests Yeah, especially since we've built their trees out so far. It would be really great to kind of put Or you know a little later in the year. We'll put something together and see how everybody's connected I wonder if there's someone in the chat who is a fourth cousin of Sherry's I'm trying to remember if who that was No, sherry is sherry said her mom was watching So With that, you know, so we don't have another genealogy guest star coming We don't we're not kicking off anything because we have our annual cleanathon that's this weekend So while we're not so we don't we're not doing two things at once But it's still focused on our year of accuracy our cleanathon And you is it is the registration still open or did it close? Is it closed today? It closes at midnight eastern time tonight So if you want to register for the cleanathon, it's where we basically find different error suggestions in our tree and clean them up You know making it more accurate So that's this weekend 72 hours of non-stop fun. We have livecast every four hours julie a1 and i will not get any sleep Nope and um Fabulous I believe sue is related to paul No Fun and that right and uh, well paul is very closely related to carol ann legally, um, but but uh paul is um, his wife is the hudson cousin. Um, and and he's the one who has been looking at, uh, Joaquin and james and how they all fit together Yeah, yeah, because there's a lot of them with those names. So I know that that's a big hodgepodge of People just deciding which one was him and then jumping back to the next line. So And you know honestly sometimes it's good to have a theory up there so people can come along and say This is wrong and this is why That's what karen was saying about the biography able to have the research knows and putting the theory So then somebody else can come and see what we've done And then maybe they have something maybe they have some kind of special book where it's something All right Maybe they have a photo or something. I don't know Then they come in cousin bait Cousin bait, absolutely. It's all cousin bait. That's right. You are right So I mean this week was great. We I think we solved a pretty great mystery I was So Very cool We will unless there's any last remarks comments, we will wrap up. Thank you sherry so much Thank you karen for being the captain Thank you mendy and julian awin and I guess thank you myself and thank you Thank you Thank you me. Thank you Thank you everybody who's watching to all our wonderful wiki tree volunteers who were working on the tree And we look forward to seeing you over the weekend and next week where we'll kick off our next guest connie Nox, I believe correct She's fabulous. We will see you then. Goodbye everybody. Have a great


I actually asked for a little extra time at the beginning so I could make an announcement and it turns out that I have two. So this is for for those who don't know or have never been there, this is the reading room of the letter form archive. But we have some kind of exciting news. This is our new stacks. This is in another unit in the same building. We had to get another unit because of what's happening, as you will soon understand. And what you're looking at is 600 linear feet of shelving in one dense storage space, which is actually more than the entire existing archive. This is what arrived on Monday. And really the worst part of this whole thing, it's like I'm missing Christmas morning, because I got to see the boxes broken out of the crates and I got to open a few sample boxes, but I missed the unpacking. It's still going on. They won't be done. So here's a clue. If there's really anyone who still doesn't know about this. So you all probably know these books. The Tashin set history of type and typography. And these books have about 300 pieces. And it's a nice presentation. I mean they give each piece two or three spreads. So they go into a little bit of depth. But I will tell you in a minute how many there actually were in the collection. This was in April when Stephen came to help me appraise and organize and get ready for making a bid. And this is this week during the unpacking. It also happens to introduce you to our new executive director and Kate who's been with us for a year now. And in the background you can see some of the unpacked collection. So the first day, Tuesday, I was gone. But Jim Parkinson, as soon as he found out about this, he said, okay I want to volunteer to be there the first day that the boxes are open. So Jim and Kate on Tuesday unpacked 25 boxes of type specimens before 1850. So this is the Tolanar collection. That's the Tolanar in front of it. And there's a summary of what's in it. It's one of the largest aggregations of type specimens that's ever been brought together in private hands. Obviously there are institutions that have depoldings, but this is a pretty good addition to the LR4 archive. I've always wanted to do this. So actually I thought there was going to be one announcement, but we have a new thing, a new deal that was just done in the last week and it is this. So thank you. The details are there. So the extended program will start in January. It's pretty much a clone of the New York program in terms of curriculum. With one significant change, as Sumner has been working on the syllabus, as he goes through the historical stuff, whenever there's a reference or something that he's showing in slides or whatever that we have in the archive, the actual object will be brought and shown. So his syllabus now it's pretty much the same as New York, except that in each sort of subsection there's a list of objects that will be shared with the students. And similarly to New York, there's a lecture series that will be public workshops. We're starting this fall with that stuff to kind of ramp up. The deadline for portfolio submissions is November 16th and the extended program will start in January. It's one year. It's all evenings and weekends, so it works for people who have a job. And special thanks to Monotype. They have given us a very nice grant, which is going to fully outfit the new classroom. So the new unit will house the Tolanar collection and the Type of Cooper classroom. And we're calling it the Type Annex. And here's a preview of the web page, which should be live now. We don't have all the details. Some of the instructors are confirmed, Jim Parkinson, Sumner, of course, Jessica Hisch will probably have some of the same folks that teach in New York like John Downer and Ken Barber on a kind of a rotation. And also other Bay Area folks that have good things to say. So that's the end of my announcements. Let's move on to the actual presentation. Okay. So Ernst Schneidler was one of the greatest teachers, certainly of the 20th century, maybe ever based on the work of his students. And he was one of those teachers that didn't create clones of himself, but rather pushed people to experiment and develop their own styles. And so the work is really diverse. So this is a shelf of the stuff in the archive that this presentation is drawn from. On the left is Schneidler's own stuff. The four volume portfolio set is called Der Wassermann. And that's kind of Schneidler's masterwork. It's an extraordinary piece of business. And it's quite rare. Nobody knows exactly how many copies there are. But it was produced over a span of almost 20 years by Schneidler with the help of his students in the workshop of the Schuttgart School. And then the rest of what's on the shelf are examples of things by his students. So Walter Brudi, George Trump, Emory Reiner was probably the most prolific author of his students. There's about 10 books in the middle there by Emory Reiner. Rudolf Speyman, Copper, and it goes on. This is some of the type of ephemera that's included in the presentation. Basically the specimen booklets for typefaces designed by Schneidler and his students. So this is kind of prehistory. This is a piece by one of Schneidler's teachers. This is by Peter Barron's. It was done in 1900. It's a very early use of a grotesque for text. Actually, here you're seeing the title page, but the book is set in in sans serif throughout. And Barron's was an influential architect and also one of the first people to do corporate identity for the AEG company, which is kind of the German equivalent of RGE, big conglomerate, lots of divisions. And he created the first complete corporate identity. He was one of Schneidler's students, sorry, teachers. The other one was Fritz Helmuth M.K., and this is an example of his work from the early part of the century. M.K. was a lettering artist, also type designer, and Barron's actually did some type design as well. Okay, so here is an overview. And so the blue lines are his two teachers. The black, of course, is Schneidler. The dark gray are his direct students, and the light gray are students of his students. And this is, it's kind of random that this stuff is in the archive. I mean, I've loved this guy's work for a long time and been interested in his work and the work of his students in a kind of a general way. But there was no sort of conscious effort to collect this range of stuff. And when I started to discover that we had, some of these things we had, and I didn't even know that they were students, or students of students, figured that out through the research. And it's a pretty interesting bunch. The ones that are best known in this world are obviously the type designers and calligraphers and book designers. But a lot of its students became print makers or book artists, or in one case, one of the most famous children's book illustrators. So here is an early piece of Schneidler's work. This was book design and illustration from 1913. And I'm trying to see how sharp it is. Not his fully formed style and very decorative, which a number of his early book illustration commissions were. Okay, this is from Der Wassermann. And this begins a series of slides from Der Wassermann. Can you read it? Is it legible? Because it's a really good piece of text. It's actually the only sort of instructional text in Der Wassermann in English. And in fact, as far as I know, there's no German version of it. So it's kind of strange. It's definitely an outlier because most of the content is in German. And so I'm not going to read it, but I encourage you to read it. The slides that follow are a perfect example of what he's talking about. It's one eight page gathering from Der Wassermann, which contains 24 iterations on essentially business card design. And the, you know, the elements of variation that you see at the bottom, shape, size, degree of movement, direction of movement, degree of contrast, manner of interlocking are all demonstrated here. Now, I'm pretty sure you can't read this. I'm not sure that really matters. The text is the same. It's basically a business name and address, the kind of stuff that would be on a business card or maybe a letterhead. But 24 iterations of how you might arrange it. So this is typical of Schneider's work and also his pedagogy. He encouraged a lot of iteration and experimentation. And you see this as a recurring theme in his work and in the work of his students. So there's the end of that. Now we're continuing in Der Wassermann. This is from the first of the four portfolios, which is basically type setting and book design. And these are various examples from that from that first portfolio. This is one of maybe three or four slides coming up. That is basically a complex book spread. You've got shoulder verse numbering, you've got shoulder notes, you've got lots of stuff going on. These are complex bits of design, but exquisite control over texture and emphasis and just beautiful spreads. Another one, I think this is this is Bible text. There's another one. This one with the with the red and the blue and the black reminds me of some of the mid century stuff from the 60s. It's really kind of ahead of its time, I think. And the extra letting is a textural device, something that a lot of people used in mid-century modern design. And Zapp also was fond of that device. This is from the second portfolio, which is a Schrift and Treiben, basically calligraphy and lettering. And there's most of the work in Der Wassermann is Schneidler's, but some individual pieces have been identified as students work. So this one on the left is actually by Rudolf Speyman. And we know that because it was reproduced later in one of his books. But for the most part, this is Schneidler's own work. Here's an exemplar of a sort of a humanist slash rotunda. And it gives you a sense of the calligraphic skill in evidence here. All of Schneidler's students had to learn basically everything. They all had to learn how to set type. They all had to learn calligraphy. They all had to learn how to draw. And they were required to do illustration projects, even if they were essentially on a typography track and calligraphy, if they were an illustrator, it's basically kind of a foundational program of graphic arts. These are something that Schneidler coined the term Schriftblot, which is basically kind of text. I don't know. Somebody who speaks German can help me. It's basically sort of word picture in a way. And they're quite abstract. He did a number of them. And his students also did them. Often they're iterations of the same thing like a monogram or a brief bit of text repeated as here. This is a fun one. This is just basically a calligraphic exemplar, but such a beautiful spread. And then this is from I actually skipped the third portfolio, which is variations on the theme of Horus. It's the whole portfolio is variant layouts of an addition of Horus title pages and spreads and so forth. There's a lot more to see here. So I skipped that volume. It's really wonderful, but it's also kind of about minor variation. So now we're in the fourth portfolio, which is illustration and abstracts. And the thing on the left is poster. This is where you see some ad work, which was also part of the curriculum, combining illustration and typography. This is a really interesting thing. This is basically a sort of figure ground study with circular form. And it precedes this, which is playing with some of the same ideas for Mark. These are illustrations from one of his earlier illustrated books, not the same one that I showed at the beginning, but quite similar one from the same period. And it's more ad design. So der Wassermann was started in the late twenties or early thirties. And in the mid thirties, the existing sheets were packed away. He didn't consider it complete. And I think because of what was going on in Germany, maybe he felt it was wise to just kind of take it out of circulation. It was eventually released after the war. As four portfolios, he'd originally intended it to be five. Here's some abstract studies from that last portfolio. This is a really fun piece. This is actually an offering from a German periodical, the Archive de Bocoubert. And it's all about the Stuttgart School. This is the the opening spread with the title page. And this happens to be the only piece in the archive that that belonged to Schneider. That has his book played. Notice the 1927, which I think is pretty fabulous. And then this is what's in it. And this, there's a section at the beginning of this is about two spreads of German text, which I need to get translated, but it's pretty clear from the structure of it that it's kind of a pedagogical overview of the program. So I'm really looking forward to finding out what that says. The work itself is kind of typical of what's in der Wassermann, maybe extends it a little. And it's, it's also credited to the individual artists. So it's kind of cool because a lot of this is student work. And you know, there's a list in the back so you can tell exactly what Schneider's and what's what's student. This is not well known. It's apparently quite rare. Again, you see iteration on a mark. Okay, and this is the first of the type specimens of Schneider faces. This was done for Shelter and Gesheke in I think about 1920, maybe 1919, 1920. By this time, he had just gotten the job teaching at Stuttgart. He taught there from from around 1919 for 30 years until 1949 or so when he retired. And this face isn't well known. It's really kind of an interesting thing. It's sort of a kind of a sans serif. But it's it's not monoline. And it has a few kind of medieval alternate forms. But it prefigures things like Lydian, but then also Pascal and Optima. A little bit. And again, this is 1919. This is another of Schneider's faces. This was for the Weber type houndry in Stuttgart 1920s. It's a really interesting face. It's a beautiful, bold display face. And a quirky italic. This is probably his most famous face, which has many names. It's now known, probably mainly as Stempel Schneidler. In Germany, it was released as Schneidler medieval in UK and US. It was released as our text. And it's a beautiful face. This is legend, which was very popular for a while, especially in sort of suggesting, you know, what would probably in those days be called Oriental flavor, but it's a little bit reminiscent of Hebrew or Arabic in the edge pen forms. And so it was used for that kind of advertising quite a lot. This is a monograph on Schneider that was done about 10 years ago in Germany. It was a small addition. And didn't get very wide distribution. Unfortunately, it's very good. And has a lot of his working drawings for types and a lot of types that were never released. So these are two faces. These were actually released contrast and graphique. This one I think is uniparous. And it was cut by Bauer but never released until this monograph. Okay, so now we're moving on to the students. This is probably, well, in a way, his best known student. Certainly, Broody took over after Schneider retired at the Stuttgart school and taught for another 2025 years. So he sort of carried on the tradition. He also did some typeface design. But he was probably mainly known as a teacher. This is a book that he did, which is about 60 or 80 pages. And the entire thing is this EGB monograph. It's 60 or 80 pages of variations on one set of three letters. This is actually from a portfolio that Broody did with his students in the 50s. That's in the same format as Der Wassermann, but it's smaller. It's one portfolio and it's not even as big as the smallest of the Der Wassermann portfolios. But it's a similar idea. It's Broody's work as well as his students' work. It kind of shows the range of what was going on, carrying on the Schneider tradition into the 50s and 60s. So they're all from that portfolio. This is one of Broody's typefaces called Pan script. And then probably his best known face is Broody Medieval, which not many people know anymore, but Bertolt did well with it in the 50s. But this was kind of a recent discovery. So this is the first of a student, first work of a student of a student. This is Werner Pfeiffer was a student of Broody. After going to the Stuttgart School, he landed in New York in the late 50s. And he worked in advertising, but what he ended up doing mainly was teaching at Pratt and developing a kind of a book art practice, which continues to this day. He's exhibited as recently as a couple of years ago and he's still active. This book is quite remarkable. It's, the title Liebermobile suggests that there's something active about it. Basically, it's a series of folded sheets with circular and semicircular die cuts and layers of essentially collaged type, which you can set up, you can kind of stand it on a table and interleave the sections, or you can, you know, what's on the left is actually, I think the first view of it, which is through a die cut circle down through maybe two or three layers. And it just kind of goes on and on and you can, you can recombine it endlessly. And I think this is a really good example of, you know, Schneiderler's influence once removed, right? This is not something Schneiderler would have done, but it's clearly somebody who learned about letter forms and printing and space and figure ground and all the things that came out of the Schloedtgart School and Schneiderler's teaching. So this is a monograph about Georg Trum, the German type designer, also a Schneiderler student. This spread basically, you can't see the detail, but this is sort of a summary of his his oeuvre. And city is, was his first typeface, it was from the 30s for Behrtold and it was quite modernist and the specimen is really cool. We didn't have it when I was doing this presentation, but we do now. And it's, it prefigures some of his later work, but it's also kind of of the modernist moment. I like this better, I think it's more distinctive than Memphis and Rockwell and and Beaton, some of the others that came out around the same time. This is also from the monograph showing some of his work with Marx and graphic design. Once again, iteration, see it everywhere. And then this is a book catalog and a photo of Trump looking at I think a proof of Jaguar. And here are some of the first specimens of Trump's faces. So this is time script. Most of these are 50s and 60s and except for city, which was Behrtold, I think almost all of his faces are for Weber, which was Stuttgart Foundry. This is kind of a unique thing. It echoes some of the work that you'd see in Der Wassermann, but it's definitely a branching development. It's really sort of a monoline script in a way. It has a very calligraphic feel while being extremely legible and having a modern character because of monoline. Codex, which was his homage to Roman capitals, the imperial letter with his own flavor. That's the thing. I'm just actually realizing now I don't think any of Schneiderler's work or any of Schneiderler's students work in type design could be called a revival. There was always a twist. There was always something original. Delphin is a kind of an interesting thing. It goes back to the first italics in that it's an italic lowercase with a Roman uppercase. Of course, you know, when a Regi and and Grifo and so on cut the first italics, they didn't bother cutting punctuation in capitals and so they were used with Roman capitals. It's a pretty cool look. This was Trump's homage to that, but it couldn't be more different from a Regi, obviously. This is Jaguar script and then Trump medieval, which is probably his best known face and was really popular in the 60s and 70s for corporate work, for art monographs. It was one of Carl Zahn's favorite faces and too bad about the comb binding. It's kind of a cool, I mean it's actually a beautifully designed specimen, but why would they comb bind it? This is the same period when Temple started doing perfect bound ephemeral specimens that were, it's almost like padding compound. You look at it and it falls apart. I don't know what they were thinking. Some of it is that by now, even though they were producing the fonts in metal, the specimens were sometimes printed by offset. I think parts of this were printed by offset. Okay, moving on to Emre Reiner. This is a little book, a little oblong book about Jebig of initial letters and it's got three or four versions of each letter of the alphabet in some kind of context. This is from another book by Emre Reiner called Alphabets. By the way, in fact, this was co-offered with his wife, Hedwig, whose maiden name was Bauer and was, she was a Strangler student as well, so they work together on a number of things. She shares the credit with him on this book. That's from the alphabet book and I think maybe from the monogram book. There's a book of monograms as well. This one is called Lettering in Book Art and it's pretty much what it is. And now some of the Reiner types. So this is Reiner Black, Strativarius and Reiner Script. These were for Bauer and Amsterdam. Here's the inside of that script one. And then probably his best known face is Kravinas. These pieces are examples from a portfolio specimen.  So these are actually, you know, the size. This is one shot. So moving on to Rudolf Speyman, who was mainly a calligrapher. He did one typeface, but he did a lot of calligraphic book jackets, book titling, and in this case entire books. This is a little series of sort of religious texts that were entirely hand lettered. These are two little chapbooks about Rudolf Speyman's work and some examples from inside them. And this is his one typeface, which is called Gavotte for Klingsboro in the late 30s. Moving on to Albert Kopper. Kopper was, you know, he was a student of Schneidler. He not sure where he was from originally, but you know he went to school and stood guard obviously, but he landed in in Leipzig after the war. And it was in fact by choice. He was a communist, but he was a great book artist and teacher. And Leipzig has had a long tradition of excellence in in book design and the Leipzig Book Fair goes back like over 100 years. And even during the Cold War era, it was one of the bright spots behind the Iron Curtain in terms of book production and design and type generally. They had issues. There was only one foundry in East Germany. And they had limitations in terms of materials and so on, but they did really quite good work. And he was a very influential teacher. So these are examples of of his calligraphy from books. Actually this one, the one on the left is a woodcut. One on the right is lettering. This is obviously the end papers of one of his books. And he was a pretty prolific author too. He wrote I don't know six or eight books, including a really good biography of Gutenberg and a big instructional text on typography. So this woman, Hildegard Kerger, was a student of copper and taught after he did or I think with him and then after at the Leipzig school. This has always been one of my favorite calligraphy books. It was recommended to me early on and it has a very typographic sensibility. It's not artsy craftsy at all. It has wonderful basic instruction in figure-ground relationships and the geometry of letters and so on. But the best part of it is that Kerger's interpretations of the classical scripts are very clean and modern. So whereas a lot of calligraphy books, especially American and British ones, take chance recursive and make it look like it did in the Renaissance. What Kerger did is is to bring them into the 20th century and it's a it's a solid book of instruction in calligraphy but it also has a very modern sensibility and beautiful design. Okay this is a monograph on the work of Gerd Wunderlich who was another student of copper and also taught at the Leipzig school. His most famous typeface was called Maxima which is kind of in the the Helvetica universe realm. It was the the East German typo art version of that style. It's actually beautifully done and it has some unique characteristics. Nobody knows it because the typo art faces that were done in East Germany are virtually unknown now. Does anybody know if any of that stuff has been revived? Yeah? Okay. I like this face. It's quite good. There's another one of his faces and some of his book work. He did he did a lot of different things in his design practice, book design posters and he was also a very influential teacher. So this is a grouping of some of Wunderlich's book work and again I think you can see echoes of the Schneidler pedagogy but in a completely you know obviously he's moved on but the sensitivity to to figure in ground the flow of things the relationship of letters and the I don't know it just it seems to me to echo that pedagogy. Okay this is actually the work of I think this is the only one that we have in the collection which is student of a student of a student. So this is the work of a woman named Sabine Golde and she was a student of Kerger and Wunderlich. So that's once removed from Copper, once removed from Schneidler. So she's a student, a student of two students of a student of Schneidler and she's a graphic designer but she's also a book artist. This is an example of her book art and it's it's poems about clouds it's you can probably tell it's printed on I don't know what the stuff is called it's sort of like Tyvek it's a it's a long fiber substrate but it's super super light so this entire book weighs about an ounce and it's also translucent as you can see. These letters are individually rubber stamped for the entire edition which you know she only does like 10 or 20 of each so I guess it's okay and then there's some print you know the full text is interspersed. This is another of her pieces. Can you see the white on white on the cover on the left I don't know how clear that is. So this is actually four views composited the far left is the cover of the case next is the open case then the piece as you take it out of the wrapper and one spread and it's it's hand cut through the cardstock essentially and folded and then with vinyl letters applied by hand the white on white and this is another that's the entire piece so but it's reversible so it's it goes both ways. This is one of Schneider's direct students, Greece Haber and he was primarily known as a printmaker he did a lot of book illustration he wasn't very well known as a type typographer or graphic designer and he didn't do any typeface design but he did this one book in in the 50s called Poesia typographical and it's a beautiful thing this is a letterpress mostly wood type and black overprint so some of them I've never actually tried to count the passes but it's it's all black and it's all direct from letterpress so in some cases there's three or four passes. Okay why is the very hungry caterpillar in a Schneider presentation? Because Erik Karl was a student of Schneider. Erik had a really interesting trajectory he was actually born in Germany his parents brought him to the U.S. before the war and back to Germany before the war think about that for a minute so he was in Germany in Stuttgart during the war and he went to the Stuttgart school after the war and studied with Schneider for four years this is the book about Erik Karl's work and a photograph of Schneider from that period so late 40s during the time that that Karl was studying with him. These are some examples of Erik's student work from the Stuttgart school and this is the personal connection because these are books that I published of Erik Karl's in the 80s when I had a publishing company and the only reason you know he had he had published the very hungry caterpillar in the 60s and by the way the very hungry caterpillar is the best-selling children's picture book of all time the last I heard they were up over 40 million copies worldwide it's you know children's books translate easily so that's has an effect but it was just a remarkable that was his first book I mean but it's a perfect example of how he thinks and the concept all of his books have a unifying concept and a very strong idea behind them and so but the the interesting thing is that he was published at the time by Putnam and Harper's and all the major publishers why would he agree to be published by my little picture book studio because I knew who Schneidler was we bonded over Schneidler I helped find him a copy of Der Waffsemann and the other thing is that I promised to print his books with more care and better quality than he was getting and he was very sensitive to these things because he was a Schneidler student he knew what good printing was and what Putnam and Harper were giving him in the 80s was crap so anyway we did we published about 10 of his books this is a trade show sign that he did for us and the collage is sort of typical Eric Carl and and by the way the technique that he uses is really kind of fun he developed this pretty early on and it's been a consistent style through most of his children's illustration what he does is he takes plain white tissue paper and then prepares it splatters paints you know dry brush everything you can think of to apply color to plain tissue paper he creates these full sheets of patterns and colors and he has flat files in his studio with like 40 drawers each it's a spectrum flow right it's it's each is a color and so when he when he starts to do an illustration he basically you know sketch it out and then he goes to the drawers and he picks the colors and cuts the tissues that he's made and makes the collage so you know the PBS those are kind of cool letter forms but I want to point out that the picture book studio is hand cut from black paper this is a guy who knows letter forms you don't see it in his work generally uh but he was a schneidler student yeah thank you


It's a cold day in Pennsylvania in a cold winter in a warming world. Some days this winter most of Alaska has been hotter than Pennsylvania. Some days the North Pole was hotter and my colleagues working in Antarctica had warmer temperatures than we had here. The global warming is only about a degree so far and that's small enough that we do have record lows but it's enough to validate our scientific understanding which shows with high confidence that if we keep burning fossil fuels and releasing CO2 we face much larger climate changes than what has happened so far.   The snow we knew it was coming because we had a good weather forecast. We know when hurricanes or typhoons or tornadoes when floods and heat waves and cold snaps are coming because weather forecasts are good. They're not perfect but they give us information we can use. Weather is one roll of the dice. Climate is the average of a bunch of roles but otherwise they're often done by the same companies, the same government agencies, people in the same departments and universities, people trained in the same ways using similar the same tools and climate projections are skillful too. They don't tell you what to do but they do tell you what you can do and we have very high confidence that if we use the climate projections together with what we care about and where we want to go that we can make a brighter future. If we release the CO2 from all our fossil fuels to the air, burn before we learn, we face a terrible energy crisis in a world that's much harder to live in. If we use the scholarship, the knowledge of sustainable alternatives, we face a world that can affordably power everyone almost forever. Since our ancestors first started burning trees faster than they grew back, we have not been able to make a sustainable energy system and now we can. Speaking for the instructional team, we hope you've learned a lot from this course. We hope you've enjoyed what you learned and it is useful to you and we hope that you see the remarkably bright future that awaits all of us. Thanks for coming.


Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town, which is a little bit different from a lot of what we usually do, but same host, I'm James Milan, and I am going to be talking today on the cusp of April, which is a Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month, and I am talking to Todd Parris. Todd is a boxing instructor of Note in the Area who has been, in fact, working through a program called Rocksteady with Parkinson's patients for years and years, and we want to hear all about that experience. So that's why we're here today. Todd, first of all, thanks for joining us. I appreciate the invitation. Thanks. It's something, as I mentioned to you before we went on air, it's something that I've been curious about for a long time, and so really glad to have this opportunity to find out more. Let's start with just, let me ask you. I mentioned you've been doing Rocksteady for a number of years.  So I've been doing Rocksteady for a little over five years. I heard of it from, there was a piece on 60 Minutes that my fiance had seen and found it on YouTube and showed it to me, and I'm like, this is, it just fit with kind of where I wanted to take the type of training that I do. I came, it's, I came into boxing sort of accidentally. I originally, like all through college, I was, I did martial arts, considered myself a martial artist. Boxing was always of interest, but, you know, just the tough guys did boxing and I wasn't a tough guy. So just, I always kind of looked at boxing and admired it from afar. Then I had cancer, had a tumor in my leg, had it removed, kicking was just kind of not going to happen for a very, very long time. And I missed, I was doing tai chi yoga, but I missed that thing. So I decided I'd try boxing, I'd give it a shot, and I completely fell head over heels for it, loved every second of it, and bringing it back to the Rocksteady. All the people that I work with in Rocksteady, they have Parkinson's. We kind of, there's a kindred spirit in that we all came to boxing, never, ever thinking we would come to boxing. And just, you know, you get, one day you get this horrible bit of news and it changes everything. And so we all sort of have that shared experience. And I thought this is going to, this is what I want to do. This is just, just, I didn't know much about it, but knew that's what I wanted to do. So as soon as you kind of figured that out or that hit you, I imagine you need to then undergo, I assume, some kind of training or certification or something like that to work with a particular population such as Parkinson's sufferers. So what we did was, it was great because Alice, my fiance, got me the training as a Christmas gift. So I was trying to, I saw the piece and I'm like, I got to do this. And I tried signing up on everything sold out. Can't get it. It's like, really? So that it turned out that they got it for me. I was so excited. Went to the, so the training took place in Indianapolis. So, you know, flew out to, flew out there. It was a long weekend course. I think it was, memory serves me correct. It was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And it's an in-depth training where they have lack of a better terminology. There's like four levels for Parkinson's boxers. So you start off, the class you start off learning about everything there is to know about Parkinson that you can know being a boxing trader. So you have that sort of training and then you do a live session with people who are level one. So level one are folks that have Parkinson's, slight tremors, just symptoms that you wouldn't necessarily know that they had Parkinson's. Even know it, right, right. They know it. Those who are close to them know it. Other people they run across don't necessarily. Exactly. So as the training goes on, you work with the boxers and then you work within the classroom setting and then you work with other boxers, classroom setting. And the more in-depth the training went, the more intense the actual trainings would go. Like I've never had a lot of experience working with people in wheelchairs. So that was really interesting. Parts of it were terrifying, but it was really interesting at the same time. And then just that's sort of how that whole long weekend went. It was really, it was a great thing. But we did it face-to-face learning classroom style. Mm-hmm. And you were saying that when you first looked into it, the classes were sold out and making me think, okay, there's a bunch of people interested on the instructional end in getting this training and working with this population. Does that mean, how many folks were there for that weekend of training in Indianapolis? We had, our group was, I'll have to find, if I can find the graduation photo, like we had a big group, all the rock steady groups that you could see if you look on their website, the Rock Steady Boxing website. And I think they have their Facebook page and they'll have different graduation classes. And you can see in the beginning, fairly small, and then they get bigger and bigger. Then it's just like it spills over. We had, I'm terrible with numbers. I don't know exactly how many people were there, but it was a good size group. Mm-hmm. That's great. And yeah, I mean, I'm glad that you mentioned, because we should clarify that Rock Steady is a program that not only are you involved with, but as people might be able to tell since you went to Indianapolis for the training, this is a national program with a lot of branches all over the country. Yeah, they're everywhere, which is great. Like when I first got certified, they were in a lot of places, and now they're just, they're everywhere. And it's great. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, obviously, you know, those with Parkinson's are everywhere, so it's great that this program is finding its way, kind of wending out its tentacles out all over the country to get to, folks. Because I have to imagine that this is, you know, that, well, let me ask you, rather than me imagining, I'll ask you. Is there kind of science behind the idea that boxing is particularly a nice discipline or a good thing to take on for many Parkinson's, many of those with Parkinson's? Yeah, first, it's a great question. The big thing that I always get asked is how does boxing help with Parkinson's? So the way that it all began was there was a gentleman with Parkinson's and a friend of his said, you should try boxing. So he had met a trainer, a woman named Christy Rose Fulmer, who was actually a professional boxer at one point. And he was just doing it to get in shape. You know, he had Parkinson's, wanted some exercise. As he was doing the exercises, he started noticing some of the symptoms were going away. So his tremors got better, balance got better. Just so many, he could type again. There were so many different things that started to just improve for him. So one of the things which I always, when I meet with someone new in my first, I guess, my first selling point on how Rocksteady works is what one of the things that Parkinson's does is you get a stooped and everything sort of becomes T-rex like your arm shrink up. And that's just your movement. Just there's a shuffle and you're sort of everything is everything kind of gets contracted with boxing. So you've got someone like this boxing.  You want bigger movements. So the idea of going from, you know, small and tight into big motions, that is it's a therapy that helps with the symptom of that balance. If you, you know, any boxing trainer will tell you they never want their fighter in a position where that fight is going to fall down. Just it's a bad thing to happen with Parkinson's patients. You don't want them to fall down. So there's certain modalities of movement that we go over to help them with that. So a boxer, if they're in their stance, left foot forward, right foot back, moving to one's left, you use your forward foot. So that would be the left foot. I always tell my folks, if you're in the grocery store and you're reaching up for a box of cereal, you don't want to have your back foot crossed behind. That's going to that's just a recipe for falling. So it's all these movements. So if you see people in the grocery store moving around like they're fighting, it's probably because they took my class. Well, I think I mean, it's just a wonderful explanation. And I'm so happy that you chose to do this interview standing up. You were saying you're a fidgety person, but that does allow you to show us the movements that you're talking about. Really give us a sense of of what the correlation is between the things that Parkinson's, you know, those who suffer from Parkinson's are dealing with in their bodies and the things that you would naturally do as a boxing instructor and concentrate on stuff like balance, stuff like length, etc. That, you know, makes it very clear for me how this how there's a real symbiosis here. That's great. There's also there's, you know, there's so those are the two basic, the real easy kind of physical parts. There's also the intangibles about fighters overcome. And it's the same thing in our rock steady boxing classes, you know, hitting a bag or shadow box, you get tired and to just keep pushing through that tire net to overcome that obstacle helps not only with fighting or with fighters, but it also helps in your daily, especially with Parkinson's patients when you get to a certain point during the day where the medications start to wear off and you start to slow down. And it's just the ability to fight through those moments and to get to the other side of those. So we, you know, we practice that in the gym and that way they can practice that in their home or wherever they wind up there in the day. Yeah, excellent. I mean, showing again, not only is there kind of these are these physical just kind of congruencies and, you know, things that work, you know, particularly well on the physical level, but also you're saying, hey, boxers build themselves to be mentally tough as as as much as possible. And how can not not help anybody who's suffering from a debilitating condition of almost any sort, but certainly for Parkinson's folks, like you said, tiring throughout the day, being able to draw on that on that kind of that wellspring of mental fortitude that that, you know, you build up through through boxing and through, you know, frankly, through pain and and overcoming, like you said, again, crystal clear now that you mentioned it, but not necessarily as obvious before we start thinking about it and talking to an expert. I'm curious just to go back briefly not to the to that training weekend itself, necessarily in Indianapolis, but the fact that you mentioned that there were four different categories and you talked about or levels and talked about the most benign. How, you know, how serious are the issues of the folks and you mentioned working with people with wheelchair in wheelchairs?   If you saw them in the grocery store, you wouldn't know anywhere from those two people who I remember I had one gentleman who was in a wheelchair when he came in. He could get out of the chair, but it was incredibly unsafe and he would just kind of barrel around the gym. He can move by running, but he couldn't walk.  I'm trying to think of a way to kind of explain it, where it's not as simple as one is kind of confined to a wheelchair. It's not like you have a broken leg or you're paralyzed. It's you're able like you're able to do some things, but not other things. It's just not simple. So every I remember here in this, it was always a great expression. That you've dealt with someone. If you've dealt with one person with Parkinson's, you've dealt with one person with Parkinson's. They're all so different. So that was my most extreme case. He was in the wheelchair. He could do stuff in the chair, hated being in the chair, wanted to get out, but he could only run. So it was hard working on balance, keeping him by the bag and making sure he was safe and that the other people around him were also safe. So things, they just, there's such a wide range. And how, how does it work? I mean, as you mentioned, working with this guy in the classroom or in a gym, I should say, how, how does it work? Like, do you have to have a, you know, a real limit on how many people are in any class when you're working in a rock study class? Do you have to also, you know, try as best you can to have people who are approximately of the same level or is there, you know, is it very, very difficult to deal with the classroom in which you've got somebody at level one and somebody at level four? Tell us, talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah, it's, so what I do for, for my classes is I'll divide up level one and level two and level three and level four. So the level three and level, level four are, it's a little more tricky. I found in my experience, I've never had the cap, the class. It's hard, it's hard to get them to want to come to the class. So there's never a lot. The level one, two, there's always a lot of people who either they catch it early enough or they just, they're of a certain age as well. And they, they want to, they're ready to get some, to get the work. On the other side, it's just, it's harder to get motivated. So I never have to worry about the class size for that. I've had experience with, so they, you know, so it's level three, four, level one, two. Me, not either separate. Yes. So the three, the threes and fours are together. Right. Then ones and twos and together. I've, I've done classes where it's been everybody, you know, anyone from level one to level four. What I find difficult about those, the level one folks, it's hard to see the level four folks. It's kind of hard to see, is that an inevitable future for me? And so I also, my thing is I don't like forcing that upon someone. You know, I know that when I was having a radiation therapy and I see the chemo patients and it's just, you know, it's not a sharks and a jets kind of thing, but you know, everyone was sort of in their own little realm and it's just, it's hard. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think addressing that quite simply, in a lot of ways by dividing one and two and three and four seems, you know, potentially very effective in that way. Because obviously I think I'm, of course, just speculating here, but I would assume by the time if you do get to that it is a progression that you one begins with the first signs and an identification at level one. And, you know, yes, I assume over time for most Parkinson's patients that they end up, you know, getting worse in that way.  And by the same token levels one and two, I think you can really kind of keep them that way invigorated and hopefully postponing or, I mean, is there, again, is there much evidence of that, that, you know, people who begin work in boxing at level, you know, in their level one folks, that really there are definitely there are, there are some studies and some reports I find, you know, so which are great and those you can find on the Rocksteady website. They have all that sort of information for me. It's more anecdotal where I had a one of my fighters, a gentleman named John and, you know, nice guy had actually nice form, good, you know, but he was like in his 70s Parkinson's, but a level one, one and a half. I remember a few like after a couple of months, I was sitting at the front desk and John came up and he's like, you know, my hands don't shake as much. And I'm like, John, that's really great to hear. And he's like, yeah, and, and he's just talking to me. And I'm like, you have an accent. And he's like, yeah, I was, I came to this country and I was 17. I'm from Ireland. I never noticed before because I couldn't hear him. Because it's Parkinson's has a thing where it steals your voice away, you get very breathy. And so I've never, I never really heard him talk. And then all of a sudden he's talking freely. And it's just, and he had an accent for me.  He had more energy and he just was happy. And then outside looking in the whole, it was just, it really was a light bulb moment for me of like, okay, this works. Yeah, I could hear him. And just that just, you know, it was just Irish accents are always great. So it was just really, what a great, what a great illustration, like you said, of, of, of progress. Yeah. Because it was, it was a stealth kind of thing. As you said, for him, it was all about the hands. He could see that that's better. And yeah, etc. But for, for you, you had your own independent corroboration, things are going, well, I can hear this guy. Yeah, that was, that was, that was a really good point for me because it was kind of, it really just solidified like, okay, I'm on the right path. This is the right stuff. And this works. What, you know, you're, you're clearly a font of, of good stories about this and, you know, any number of other things I'm sure are around boxing. But can you share with us, you know, maybe one or two other anecdotes that are, you know, particularly funny, particularly moving things that just have stuck with you from, from working with those with Parkinson's over these last five years? There are, you know, it's so hard to single them out. Like that, that's one of my favorite stories. With the, with the pandemic, it's been, we've been removed. So some of the, the memory seemed fuzzy in terms of some of those face-to-face interactions currently online.  And I missed that, that interaction with the folks. Yeah, I gotta say, you know, we all, here we are, right? We're speaking to you in a way that we wouldn't usually if we, if we had alternatives and that we wouldn't, you know, we would have come to your gym and, you know, been right in that space. And so we're all good and tired of this world, as we know. But I have to imagine that particularly dealing in the field that you do something so visceral and physical and, and right, you know, where you need to be reading the cues right there in front of you, and then that particular population, I can't even imagine trying to migrate that over to the virtual world. It must have, it must be, you said it's fun. I'm sure you've had a positive attitude about it. It's challenging. Gotta be challenging, yeah. So, yeah, I, you know, what I'm sure you're keeping a lot of tabs on, on this, any idea what the prospects are for when you're going to be able to return to real world? We were, we were sort of back at the gym a few months ago before the second sort of shutdown. The plan right now is to go back on April 6th. But there's not a lot of folks that want to go back. So there's maybe about three people that want to go back to the gym and hit bags. Everybody else likes doing the Zoom sessions, wants to stay at home, which I totally get. I don't know how much of that will change now that everyone's getting vaccinated, because they're, you know, they're all bragging about their shots and, which is, it's quite annoying. But the, but everybody, you know, the three people that are really looking, what I do is I'll do the Zoom session from the gym, have the guys in the gym, have the folks at home, so I'm able to, it's, I can do it anywhere. So, but it looks like April 6th will start going back and everyone is welcome to come back that wants to come back. And for you, Todd, personally, I assume that you, that this is part of your, your, you know, professional and maybe even personal life at this point. You clearly are completely engaged and thoroughly committed and seems, sounds like devoted to those who you're working with.  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, it's, I, I just, I love it. You know, I fell head over heels in love with boxing when I, when I went to boxing. When I started to teach or coach, it was just, you know, the next evolution of my love affair. Um, this has been just another, another piece of it.  She has a beautiful voice and it's just something else you love about them. So for me with boxing, this is just another element of this great sport and movement that I fell in love with, it's another thing to yet hold on to in love. And I'm incredibly lucky that this will be something that I can do, you know, up until I'm in my 80s teaching and helping folks with Parkinson's fight Parkinson's. Um, and so I see this as just something I will always, always do and be a part of. Well, I am so glad, really. I was looking forward to this interview and, um, it has, it has been all that I hope good and more really wonderful insight, um, and great way to explain, uh, a lot of what is going on in the world of Rocksteady.  Um, and obviously you're doing great good for a number of people who deserve it and, um, you know, just carry on. Um, again, here on the cusp of, of April where people will hopefully be thinking a little bit more about this issue, um, and informing themselves, um, I think we've just created another piece, uh, for people to tune into, um, and really get some, some better understanding of, uh, of what these folks are up against and also what they've got going for them with people like you. Thank you so much. Again, thank you. We have been speaking, um, with Todd Parris, who is a boxing instructor for a number of years, but for the last five and way into the future, uh, working with, uh, those with Parkinson's through the program Rocksteady and clearly, uh, to great, um, to great advantage and benefit, uh, for those involved, including Todd himself. Um, this is James Milan. You've been watching talk of the town. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.