Episode 20: Strings, Selma and seeing the future

Let’s meet the baseball nut who sticks up for the guys behind the plate that every baseball fan loves to hate. 

Yes, we’re talking about umpires. 

In this episode of the Check It Out! podcast, host Ken Harvey talks to his friend Jason Becker, creator of the Umpire Inspire podcast. 

“In my book, he’s a genius, and he’s producing a fascinating podcast for the officials behind America’s favorite round-ball sport. That’s baseball, and those are umpires,” Harvey said in introducing Becker. “Fans and players often disagree with what the umpire says and what the umpire does, which can make it a lonely job even when there are two of them on the field.” 

Becker humanizes umpires. He explains why they love what they do, even when they don’t get paid to call balls and strikes and outs. They’re inspired to do it for the love of the game.  

Becker’s podcast invites listeners to come in and hear a captivating conversation with an enthusiastic umpire who may be from anywhere on the planet. 

“Baseball isn’t just American, it’s global, and these umpires consider their jobs to be a lot more than just calling balls and strikes,” Harvey said. 

Becker said baseball has been his passion “for practically my entire life.” He started playing when he was 5 and continues to play today in a senior adult league. 

“I've played since I was a kid, like a lot of people. Coached my boy all the way through Little League, and my girls for a couple years while they were playing,” he said. 

About eight years ago, he grabbed a mask and tried umpiring. 

“It was a need that I felt I could do some good with in our local Little League here in Mukilteo, and it turned out to be a really great fit,” Becker said. “Being out on a baseball field makes more sense to me than being just about anywhere else, so I've really enjoyed umpiring.” 

He takes it seriously. He umpires Little League baseball and softball around Washington and umpires high school baseball in Snohomish County.  

It took Becker a couple of years of umpiring before he could see the connection between his love for umpiring and his love for fascinating podcasts. 

“There’s a lot of folks out there for whom umpiring means an awful lot, and they put a lot of their heart and their time into it, and it’s often not paid. Little League is an all-volunteer organization, for instance,” Becker said. “I found that umpires were generally just a really great group of people to hang around with because of their giving spirit, their commitment to public service... how umpiring is a public service for many of the friends that I have in the umpiring community.” 

That’s when the “two worlds” came together in Becker’s mind, and the idea of the Umpire Inspire podcast was born. 

In late 2019, he decided it was time to make it happen. 

“Now’s the time,” Becker said. “We’re going to take a swing. Hopefully, I’ll connect. Maybe I’ll miss, but it’s going to be an interesting journey, and it has definitely been such a joy and such a privilege, as I have completed this first go-around, and I’m just on the doorstep of getting my own season two underway, so it’s been great.” 

The first episode of Umpire Inspire debuted on March 17, 2020, with minor league umpire Bobby Tassone, who works the Carolina League. Interviews with seven more umpires followed. 

Season 2 started on Aug. 11. Among Becker’s interviews so far are umpires who work in Venezuela and the Czech Republic, and two women who call the game. 

Some are professionals. Some are amateurs. They come in all shapes and sizes and range in age from 16 to 76. All have interesting stories to share. 

“You’ve had an opportunity to have some conversations with some remarkable guests already,” Harvey said.  

Harvey asked Becker when he, as a young player, first became aware of an umpire on the field. 

“I don’t think anybody has asked me that question before,” Becker said. “I’m not sure I do remember, if I’m being honest. As a kid, you’re out there, you’re doing what you do with your buddies, and you’re playing the game and you’re having fun. I can’t recall a time where I do remember the umpire, but it does put a point on what the best volunteer umpires, or paid umpires... one of their best characteristics is they’re doing it for the game.” 

Umpires don’t care who wins or loses the game, Becker explained.  

“We are what we call the third team on the field,” he said. “In every baseball and softball game, there are three teams: there’s the home team, there’s the away team, and there’s the third team, the umpires, who, just like the players, are out there giving their best effort and trying to make every call correct. They want to do their best job, just like the players do. And maybe it makes a point that I don’t remember my umpires when I was a kid, but it doesn’t change the fact that they were out there giving their time away from their families, away from their work lives, so that I could play ball. Without an umpire, it’s just a scrimmage.” 

Harvey recalled his time playing baseball as a youngster and coming to terms with the stranger behind the plate. 

“I think that probably any of us who have stood on the field and gone to the home plate and swung, at some point in our lifetime, whatever age, we start to recognize that an umpire has a significant amount of power, but also a significant amount of knowledge about the game, and maybe even more than my coach does,” Harvey said.  

He said he appreciated Becker’s ability to bring out the humanity and service that umpires bring to the sport and wanted to know, “At what point did you start to really recognize that about these umpires?” 

It took Becker a while behind the plate to see the other stories in his umpire colleagues. 

“My show is not about rules or field mechanics or instruction,” he said. “There are a thousand great websites and podcasts and sources that do a much better job with things like that than I do. My show is about the stories and the journeys and the heart of why we umpires do what we do. There is nothing an umpire loves more than to just get together with his or her partner after a game, share their experiences and their wins and their losses, and what they’ve learned; swap stories; tell tall tales; that is something that is common with every umpire at every level, all around the world.” 

Harvey asked for an example.  

“One of my favorite guests during this season one was Dale Scott,” Becker said. “He was a Major League umpire for 30-plus years until his retirement in 2017. There was so much good stuff there. He did point out ... if you went to your job every day not having any idea of what was going to happen that day, it might make you get up out of bed in the morning a little differently. It could light a little bit of a fire. That’s what it’s like every game for a baseball or a softball umpire. Some things are going to be consistent, but just about every game you see something and have to rule on something that you may never have seen before.” 

That got Becker to tell the story of his own personal umpire hero. 

“One thing that’s really interesting, Ken, is that a lot of the stories start exactly the same,” Becker said. “I’ve had the opportunity to speak with everyone from teenage youth umpires here in Snohomish County, all the way up to Major League Baseball umpires, and oftentimes, they have very similar stories. In fact, I was just re-listening the other day to one of my episodes, a conversation I had with a Major League umpire ... really, an umpire hero of mine named Tripp Gibson, who is one of many Major League umpires that live here in the Puget Sound area.  

“He was telling us about his first game. Coach gets a little fired up, and in his very first game ever as an umpire, he has to toss the coach. The way Tripp described it, he says, ‘Yeah, so the gentleman, Pat, who brought me out, he met me after the game and gave me my check for 25 bucks and said, “Well, good try, kid.” Tripp said, ‘Good try? That was awesome! I’m coming back tomorrow!’”  

While most players get to take a field break every half inning and between plate appearances, umpires never leave the field. 

“I would love for listeners of this show to maybe start thinking about umpires in a little different way,” Becker said. “The home team and the away team, they get to go in the dugout and relax every half inning. But the umpires stay out there every pitch, every inning, every game, and for the Major League guys, six to eight months in a row.” 

“That’s got to be really tough,” Harvey said. “Especially when the weather conditions aren’t prime for something like that.” 

Despite the difficult working conditions and tension that comes from making calls, umpires just want to do their job right and enhance the game, Becker said. 

“One thing that umpires like to hang their hat on is, if they can get through a game and nobody notices that they were even there, they had a pretty good game, right?” he said. “Because it’s not our job to get in the way. It’s not our game. We are there to serve. We’re there to go to work and enable and enhance that game that we’re working at, and if we get that done, it’s been a pretty good day at the office.” 

Part 2: Self-Help Shelf  

“This is Sarri Gilman with the Self-Help Shelf for Sno-Isle Libraries. The book I have for you today is ‘Eight Dates,’ by Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman. Oh yes, they’re married, and they once ran the famous Love Lab where they researched couples and communication. Together, they now have the Gottman Institute in Seattle, where they share years of research on how to make marriage work and what predicts divorce.  

“During COVID-19, not too many couples were having romantic dates, and your closeness and intimacy may feel like it was just lost in the pandemic, or maybe it was lost even before that. If you’re married or dating, ‘Eight Dates’ is for you. The book gives you a guide on things to think about before each date, and you literally make a plan to go on eight dates together, and each date, you’re given a different topic with a whole different set of questions to ask each other. You practice listening and learning about each other, and even if you’ve been together for decades, I think you’re going to get a lot out of this book, especially if you feel like your relationship needs attention and you wish you were closer.  

“Since we're in a pandemic, you’re going to need to bring a little bit of creativity to your dates with your partner. Maybe it’s a beach picnic or a date at home; it really doesn't matter where you are, because each date is a full discussion on a topic picked by the Gottmans, with a guide to support you.  

“I do recommend that you each read a copy of the book so that you have some of the background material to think about before your date, or you could even read out loud to each other to prepare for your date.  

“One of my favorite lines from the book is this one: ‘The goal of conflict is not to win or convince the other person that you’re right. In creating compromise, we have to understand each other’s core needs on the issues we are discussing, as well as each other’s areas of flexibility. The goal is not to become identical; the goal is to understand each other.’ 

“This book is also going to help you get a better understanding of each other's core needs. By going on the eight dates, you will have a much deeper understanding of each other, and you’re going to get tips that you can practice for each date, and my hope is that you just continue going on these deeper dive discussion dates in the future.  

“’Eight Dates,’ by Doctors John and Julie Gottman, is available digitally from the Sno-Isle Libraries. Take good care of you, and remember, some books are almost as good as therapy.”

In Episode 62 of Sno-Isle Libraries Check It Out podcast, co-hosts Ken Harvey and Tricia Lee talk to local author Stewart Tolnay and learn how he has used his study of American racial history to create interesting fiction and nonfiction. 

Tolnay is a Ph.D. professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Washington. His first fiction novel, “Less Than Righteous,” features a Black Vietnam War veteran, his white girlfriend and the struggles they face as an interracial couple in Everett in 1969. 

Tolnay is also the author or co-author of nonfiction works that include “The Bottom Rung: An African-American Family Life on Southern Farms”; “A Festival of Violence,” which analyzes Southern lynchings from 1882 to 1930; and “Lynched,” which studies the victims of Southern mob violence. 

Tolnay’s work resonated with Harvey, the Director of Communications for Sno-Isle Libraries. Harvey is Black. He grew up in Mississippi at the dawn of the civil rights movement when white supremacists killed Black people with near impunity. Lee, the Director of Inclusion, Equity and Development for Sno-Isle Libraries, wanted to know more about Tolnay’s work and research and how it dovetails with the library district’s goals and objectives. 

Tolnay said it took him years of his own academic work and encouragement from his wife before he could sit down and “write a novel.” 

“Actually, it had been brewing in my mind for years as I was doing my academic research and realized there are some really important stories, interesting stories here, that might take us into dark corners of the American past that many people aren't familiar with,” Tolnay said. “That’s what got me motivated to try my hand at fiction.” 

Harvey wanted to know which writing was harder: creative fiction or academic nonfiction? 

Academic writing is “kind of formulaic almost, a template of here’s the research question, here’s the evidence, here’s my interpretation of the evidence, here’s my conclusion,” Tolnay said. 

It’s nothing like writing fiction. 

“You start with a blank slate,” he said. “You have ideas about plot and characters in your head, but you somehow have to bring order to that chaos. I understand some authors begin with a very detailed outline of their novels. That didn’t work for me, so I had to kind of search and find my way along this story as I went from chapter to chapter.” 

Lee wanted to know how Tolnay translated “some very heavy topics” on racial violence into fiction. “Are there things that you found you couldn't express fully in nonfiction that you can express at a whole different level in fiction?” she asked. 

“The academics, especially those like me who typically do highly statistical, quantitative work can be sometimes accused of, ‘Well, you’re leaving the people out of this.’ We’re talking about patterns and trends and data, and where are the people? Where are the personal emotional experiences behind this?” Tolnay said. “That’s what writing ‘Less Than Righteous’ allowed me to do, is to take those conclusions that I had drawn from my nonfiction writing and research and bring it down to a personal level, to try to highlight it in a way that is really more accessible to most readers I think.” 

Tolnay knew he had to tread carefully as he wrote the novel. He’s white and privileged, and he didn’t want to be accused of cultural appropriation by telling a story of an oppressed social group. That happened to “American Dirt” author Jeanine Cummins earlier this year. 

“I will admit, I’d be a fool not to, that I don't know intimately the African American culture. I don’t know what it’s like to experience the fears, concerns and discrimination and prejudice of the African American population. That’s just a deficit,” he said. “But I spent 36 years trying to familiarize myself with the African American historical experience in my non-fiction books and my journal articles. I don’t know how else I could compensate for that deficit other than by what I’ve tried to do over the last 36 years.” 

“Less Than Righteous” also has stories of working-class whites based on his own family experience, and white supremacists that are not his experience.  

“I think it is acceptable to write about social groups to which you don’t belong, with two important caveats,” Tolnay said. “The first is that you recognize the potential risks and limitations of your work because of that deficit, and I do. The second would be that you’d make a serious, intense effort to educate yourself about the group’s experience, which I have.” 

Tolnay’s fictional story of the Booker family’s move from rural Georgia to the Pacific Northwest has historical roots in the second Great Migration of Black Americans from the South after World War II. Tolnay set the Bookers in Everett, where he was born and graduated from high school and community college during the height of the Vietnam War protests. 

“I wanted to include an experience from the Great Migration in the story, and so (Booker patriarch) Mose had to go somewhere from Oconee County, Georgia. And the most likely place for him to go, based on my own experience, was the Pacific Northwest,” Tolnay said. “You often hear that writers should write about what they know. I think that's very true of ‘Less Than Righteous’ with the setting in Everett. It’s also true with respect to the content of the story, and as (Lee) mentioned, this is a dark story. The disturbing scenes, many of them, are drawn from actual events.” 

While the South has struggled with racial equality for centuries, the Pacific Northwest isn't innocent, Tolnay said. 

“The original Oregon State Constitution written in 1851 actually prohibited ‘Blacks and mulattoes’ from moving into the state,” he said. “But it wasn't actually repealed until 1926. In 2002, when the words were removed from the Constitution of Oregon, 30 percent of Oregon voters chose to retain the language. We can try to sit on our high horse and be very judgmental about the ignorant, racist Southerners, but it’s important to look closer to home as well.” 

Tolnay has seen that kind of discrimination here. In 2014, he moved to a Shoreline neighborhood that was developed by William Boeing in the 1940s. In 2005, the homeowners’ association rejected an amendment to the original covenant that prevented “people of the non-Caucasian races and Jews” from living there. The racial restriction was removed in 2006 because it was unenforceable. 

“Now, that's not that all that uncommon,” Tolnay said. “There were racial restrictive covenants for many, many neighborhoods in Seattle and elsewhere. So, it’s something that strikes very close to home and something that I think it behooves Pacific Northwesterners to be aware of.” 

Lee concurred. 

“It doesn’t surprise me, and I think it is a nice reminder that these things, they’re still things today,” she said. “I think a lot of the things that we’re hearing today in the news and elsewhere, it’s a direct correlation to the history. It’s a deep wound that's a hard one to fill and a hard one for us to reconcile our history as a nation and the impacts it has long term on the communities that were targeted with these policies. We sometimes forget about that. Or it wasn’t in history books. I think it wasn’t until I went to college and spent some time in the African American studies department that I was like, ‘Whoa! There’s this whole history that we were never taught and didn't realize.’” 

Part 2: Self-Help Shelf 

“This is Sarri Gilman with the Self-Help Shelf for Sno-Isle Libraries. The book I have for you today is a children's book for ages 4-7 years old, “Amazing Grace” by Mary Hoffman and illustrated by Caroline Binch.  

“The illustrations in this book are timeless. And though the book was written more than 25 years ago, the words and pictures are completely relevant today as many of us are having conversations about racism. This is a book to bring your child into those conversations.  

“The book is about a girl named Grace who likes to dress up and play different parts from movie and book characters. Grace is in costumes on several of the pages, and your children are going to recognize many of these costumes.  

“She tries out for the school play and is told by another child that she can't play Peter Pan in the school play because she’s a girl and because she’s Black. I recommend this book for boys and girls and for children of all colors. I think all children will be challenged by the questions raised in this book, and it’ll allow for a really good conversation.  

“I love the illustrations in this book. They are large and they’re focused on Grace and her creativity. You can see Grace’s imagination and genius in these illustrations. Grace could be friends with any child.  

“ ‘Amazing Grace’ is available digitally from Sno-Isle Libraries. Take good care of you and remember: Some books are almost as good as therapy.”

Part 1: You Don’t Wanna Be a Rock-and-Roll Star 

Chris Ballew lived the rock-and-roll life. 

As frontman for the late, great Presidents of the United States of America, he wrote infectious, goofy, catchy hits about “Peaches” and a “Dune Buggy” when heavy grunge dominated Seattle’s FM radio waves. He toured all over the world. He played to packed arenas and stadiums. He even won a Grammy award. 

But that’s the old Chris Ballew. 

Today, Ballew is a genial, funny everyman who now can laugh about his discomfort with his “Presidents” fame. He’s still well-known and beloved in the Seattle music scene. He still makes infectious, goofy, catchy music that his fans love. 

And those are fans of Caspar Babypants. 

Yes, Chris Ballew has become a children’s musician. He loves it. Little kids love it. And the kids’ parents, who grew up listening to the Presidents of the Unites States of America, they love it, too. 

We told a friend about our Check It Out! podcast interview with Ballew. 

“Caspar Babypants, you mean the guy from The Presidents of the USA? COOL!!” 

Yes, Check It Out! podcast hosts Kurt Batdorf and Paul Pitkin found it very cool to talk about music and creativity with the one and only Caspar Babypants. 

When Ballew decided he’d had enough of rock-and-roll and hopped off the “pony that was (making) gold bricks,” it wasn’t a big musical leap for him to change things up. It’s easy to hear similarities between “Peaches” of 25 years ago and the current “Noodles and Butter,” or between “Dune Buggy” and “Butterfly Driving a Truck.”  

They’re all goofy and funny and infectious. And as Ballew says, “That’s just the sound I make, and I’ve been making that sound my whole life, really.” 

When the Presidents became a thing in Seattle music in the early 1990s, it was a matter of good timing, Ballew said. 

“The music scene at the time was ‘heavy,’ and not bad, but it just had a very visceral, kind of heavy, grungy vibe,” he said. “And I think people were really enjoying it, but they also wanted just some candy, you know, something really fun and bouncy.” 

The Presidents satisfied that craving at the right time. And now, Caspar Babypants satisfies Ballew’s innate “childlike” nature. 

“As Caspar Babypants, people ask me like, ‘How do you make this music for children?’ and I tell them, ‘I really don’t make it for children, I make it for myself, number one,’” Ballew said. “And I am just childlike. I live my life like a child. It happens to resonate with kids, but it’s really pleasing me. So, I think that’s how it kind of works. So, yeah. I was just pleasing myself, and it turned out to please a whole bunch of other people too.” 

The Presidents of the United States of America released three studio recordings, but Caspar Babypants has been much more prolific: 18 albums released between 2009 and 2019. 

Ballew has “thousands and thousands of little recordings” constantly running through his head as part of his creative process. He’ll play something for a few minutes and sing a little melody. 

“You never know what it might grow into,” he said. “So, I record it. In that sense, I’m always kind of allowing myself to just make a little mess, and not try to make sense of it. And then, maybe later, I’ll figure out what it is, after forgetting about the initial, sort of moment of creation. I’m constantly recording tiny little bits.” 

It means Ballew has a lot of material to draw from, and a lot of songs ready to go. His laptop is full of songs in various states of the recording process. 

“When it’s time to make a record, I listen to all of them, and I just cherry-pick the most developed, the clearest, the most successful 20, and make it into an album," he said. “I’m always working on a giant amount. And then, as a record comes due, I focus on the ones that just need the extra push, to kind of be perfect.” 

It also means some of Ballew’s songs don’t see the light of day for a long time. 

“I have this new song that I’m very excited about. I don’t think it will come out until 2022,” he said. “I’ve got three records almost ready for the next three years. It’s called ‘Live Like a Baby.’ And it's about how I, as an adult, just want to live like a baby.” 

Not with the downsides of being a baby though. 

“I mean, the freedom, and the way of experiencing the world as a purely energetic playpen. That's kind of my attitude,” Ballew said. 

He usually plays a three-string acoustic guitar as Caspar Babypants, similar to the stripped-down two-string bass he usually played with the Presidents. 

“It creates a really interesting sound,” Pitkin said. “It’s unusual, it makes its own sound.” 

Ballew said it makes him play guitar more like a bass player.  

“It sounds more rhythmic and chunky,” he said. “I kind of think about early Johnny Cash when I’m playing a lot.” 

The simpler, rhythmic sound is easier for Ballew to play by himself. 

“And kids respond to that,” he said. “They respond to the rhythm. And they want to get up, and dance, and move around.” 

That feeds his soul now, and Caspar Babypants has brought Ballew full circle. 

“When the President' started out, we were this goofy little band of dorks that were trying to rock. And in trying to rock, I think we endeared ourselves to our audience. They were like, ‘Oh, those poor little guys on stage. Look at them trying to play a Led Zeppelin song,’” Ballew said. 

“I love it, because I’m back to being a dorky little guy, trying to rock. Because I’m by myself, I think the empathetic reaction from the crowd is even more intense. If I ask for call and response, I definitely get it. Because I’m this tiny little guy on stage, trying to pull something off. And the crowd’s like, ‘Yes, we want to help.’” 

Part 2: Help with grief from the Self-Help Shelf 

If you’re dealing with grief, Sarri Gilman recommends “Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief” by David Kessler for the Self-Help Shelf. 

“David is considered one of the world's leading experts on grief,” Gilman said of Kessler. “He’s written several books on the subject. And this book, ‘Finding Meaning,’ is my favorite of his books.” 

In this book, Kessler focuses on the traumatic loss of a loved one. Losing loved ones is a journey through many feelings.  

“Traumatic grief has some layers of feelings that can be hard to navigate, because we may not have experienced them before,” Gilman said. “And traumatic grief is particularly hard to do alone. This book is truly a helpful companion. It feels like David is in the room with you, reviewing stories of traumatic grief, and how people have carried those losses.” 

Kessler’s words and pacing are careful and thoughtful, which makes it easily readable in the grieving process. He writes about his own traumatic grief sensitively, the same way he writes about other people’s traumatic losses. He talks about the feelings we carry when we’re grieving, and it is coupled with a trauma.  

“I think if you have experienced this kind of loss, you’re going to feel understood,” Gilman said. “You’ll realize that you are not alone.” 

During the coronavirus pandemic, you may feel even more loss and grief unrelated to a death.  

“Although this book was written to support people who experienced a death, I think it applies to many losses,” Gilman said.” Traumatic grief can also come up from other kinds of losses like a divorce where there was abuse, loss of a child to addiction. I think this book is actually going to be very helpful, if you have traumatic grief for other kinds of reasons.” 

It doesn't have to be a recent loss. Often with traumatic grief, it could take a few years to process feelings.  

“During COVID-19, other losses that you had previously may be brought to the surface,” Gilman said. “And you may be feeling the trauma and grief, all over again, because COVID-19 has brought up a lot of loss and grief.” 

If this is your experience, “Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief” will be very helpful. It’s available digitally from Sno-Isle Libraries. 

Rodney Clark helps deliver the future. 

As the vice president of the Microsoft Azure Worldwide Internet of Things and Mixed Reality Team, Clark and his crew work with more than 8,000 partners and clients to connect billions of everyday devices to the cloud. 

Sensors on stop lights, cash registers, automobiles, home appliances, exercise monitors, video doorbells. They all generate information and data that allows organizations to take action on that data and insights. 

“It’s a wave, it’s a reality,” Clark said. 

It’s no longer “the future.” 

“The job that I have and the privilege that I have is working with companies who want to participate in this new reality and new opportunity of building solutions that connect everyday devices and experiences to cloud and data,” Clark said. 

Microsoft calls it “edge to cloud,” and Clark said the company believes that cloud computing is “the here and now.” He acknowledges it’s a lot to process. 

As a real-world example, consider a Fitbit exercise monitor. 

“When I think of Fitbit, I think of personal cloud,” Clark told Check It Out! podcast host Ken Harvey, Director of Communications for Sno-Isle Libraries. “So I always ask the question, ‘How many personal clouds, Ken, do you have, or do you think you have?’ Do you think you have zero, or do you think you have 10?” 

Harvey thought he might have as many as 25 personal clouds. Clark said that’s probably right. 

He explained how personal clouds work, with Fitbit, SimpliSafe alarms and Ring video doorbells as examples. 

Fitbit tracks your steps, heartbeat, pulse and more, and stores that data in the cloud. It’s powerful information for your health provider, Clark said. The SimpliSafe alarm and Ring doorbell camera in his home send notifications directly to his smartphone, so he knows if his son is trying to get in the house because he forgot his key, or if it’s something bigger.  

“I can control my home from the other side of the state,” Clark said. 

SimpliSafe and Ring devices collect household and neighborhood data and images. The companies can share that data with consumers, potentially to improve neighborhood security.  

“All of those are just real practical examples of the Internet of Things at work,” Clark said. “We don’t realize it every single day but it is the reality that I mentioned.” 

During the interview, episode co-host Lynne Varner, Associate Vice Chancellor at WSU Everett, said she got a phone notification about her dogwalker’s location in her house. 

As a self-described technologist, Clark thinks constantly about the internet of things and the insights its data provides to numerous industries. 

“You name it, there’s an industry at play for the internet of things,” he said. 

Clark has been fascinated by the possibilities in scientific solutions since he was a student, but he’s no engineer. He worked for IBM for nine years in sales and marketing. He came to Microsoft 21 years ago so he could answer all of his “What if?” questions.  

"I saw an opportunity about six years ago for these devices that were embedded and fixed, and at the time we were building our cloud business,” Clark said. “I asked, ‘What if we were actually talking about cloud for those things that are traditionally fixed-purpose devices?’ It wasn’t the birth of our internet of things business. But it was for me the continuation of this fascination of technology.” 

“But it all started with you being curious and asking, ‘What if?’” Varner said. 

Clark agreed. 

Now he tells STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) students and young professionals to focus less on what they want to be when they grow up. It’s more important to be flexible. 

“You have to allow yourself to experience different things,” Clark said. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this podcast and I wouldn’t have the role that I have today.” 

Varner says WSU emphasizes that kind of flexibility with the use of interdisciplinary instruction and broad communication skills. 

“I tell our students to prepare yourself to be flexible and to be nimble,” Varner said. “What you get your degree in may not necessarily be what you work in.” 

That’s good advice for workers today and tomorrow, Harvey said. To remain relevant, they'll need to keep adapting to new jobs as emergent technologies alter the traditional workplace.  

In an increasingly digital workplace, Clark said, “you have to have some minimum level of digital competency in order to stay relevant.” 

It applies to all positions, all the way up to chief executive officer. 

“Because tomorrow’s CEOs are today’s technologists, it’s ever so important that we accelerate STEM programs, that we have our females, our students of color, even that mid-career person thinking about, ‘What impact do I want to make in the business?’” Clark said. “Not every person mid-career or every student has an ambition to be in C-suite, the point is to stay relevant and in the game.” 

Varner agreed.  

“We think every student needs to have comfort with technology, whether you’re going into retail, whether you plan to be a writer,” she said. “You need to be able to explain ideas that are technical in nature. You need to be able to communicate with software engineers, software designers. So, everyone has to have some capacity in STEM, no matter where you happen to end up in your career. We try to encourage our students that way.  

“Not everyone wants to major in engineering, but you do want to understand how engineers think and how to convey possibilities to them so they can actually create it for you.” 

If you’re anxious about the global coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19, you’re not alone.  

In this episode of Sno-Isle Libraries Check It Out! podcast, you’ll hear how a globe-trotting disaster-relief doctor loses sleep about the deadly virus that has upended our sense of “normal.” 

Dr. Dan Diamond is a clinical assistant professor at Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine after spending 33 years at the University of Washington School of Medicine in a similar role. In 1994, he and his wife, Debbie, founded CMRT, the nation’s first state-affiliated medical disaster response team, and it has sent them around the world. 

Former TEDxSeattle and TEDxRainier co-curator Phil Klein shared his interview with Diamond with Sno-Isle Libraries. 

“We thought it would be something really timely for the audience to listen to,” said Check It Out! podcast host Ken Harvey.  

Diamond and his team have been to natural disasters in Haiti, the Philippines and Mexico. They went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. Today, Dr. Diamond is using insights he gained there to cope with the uncertainties of coronavirus. 

“These are some weird days we're living in for sure,” Diamond said about the aftermath of coronavirus.  

"Katrina was crazy,” Diamond said. “The medical triage unit at the convention center was the wildest thing I've ever done, but this one's different. This one's overwhelming. When we deploy to disasters around the world, I know I can always come home and it's all good, but now there's nowhere to hide. This is a global pandemic that's affecting everybody on the planet, and it's important to remember that. We are not going through this alone. We're going through it with everybody.” 

And like almost everybody, Diamond said he feels the tension and worries and uncertainties that coronavirus has raised. 

“Let me just tell you a personal story,” he said. “Two weeks ago, probably three o'clock in the morning, I found myself sitting on the edge of my bed going, ‘What in the world am I going to do?’ Then I had this interesting conversation like, ‘Am I going to die? This isn't going to be good. This is horrible. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to mankind.’ Then I got into this conversation with myself of, ‘Diamond, jiminy. You're a disaster, doc. You need to buck up, be tougher.’” 

Before he could clear his head and get back to sleep, Diamond had to remind himself that he needed to take care of himself with three steps of self-compassion. 

“First is to realize that you're suffering or that you're afraid,” he said. “So, I sat there and I thought, ‘Wow, man. You are really struggling with this one, aren't you?’ I thought, ‘Yeah, yeah.’” 

The second thing is to show up with kindness.  

“So, I’m sitting there saying, ‘Well yeah, this is a tough one. I can understand why you’d be afraid,’” Diamond said. 

“Then the third thing is to realize that you're not alone, that we're going through this with lots of people. So, I sat there and I thought, ‘I wonder how many thousands of people are sitting here on the edge of their bed going, “What in the world am I going to do?”’ I thought, ‘We’re in this together. We’re going to get through this. It is scary, but I’m going to be kind to myself and go back to sleep.’” 

Taking a break from television news for a few days also helped him sleep better. 

“I decided to quit watching the news for three or four days and just focus on taking care of myself and getting my focus back in the right spot and being positive,” Diamond said. 

Still, as the uncertainty of coronavirus wears on everyone, Diamond said the anxiety weighs on him, too. He tries to remember the lesson he brought back from New Orleans in 2004, when so many people lost all everything. He noticed that some people coped better than others. 

“I came back from Katrina asking myself a question that changed my life and it's a great question for us to ponder,” he said. “That is, why is it that some of these people don't become victims?” 

Diamond said he vacillates between optimism that coronavirus can be tamed and pessimism that he could lose people close to him. 

“So, you kind of go back and forth, but realizing that we get to choose which direction we face,” he said. “When I came back from Katrina asking this question of why is it that some of these people don't become victims, what I found is that some of these people, even though they lost their homes, they lost their cars, they lost all their clothes … and some of them had lost their family members, and they still did not become victims.” 

The experience gave Diamond the idea to compare personal power and purpose in a quadrant. The vertical line contains powerful people and powerless people. The horizontal line for purpose shows takers and givers. 

“This is not four different types of people,” he said. “This model is not a tool so you can point at people. This is a model for taking a look inside on where you are.” 

Diamond admits he’ll slide into the powerless victim or bystander mode when he feels under pressure, but he knows he can make the most difference when he’s in the upper right quadrant, using his power to give help. 

“My goal is I want to live in that upper right quadrant to say, ‘I have the power to make a difference. It’s not about me and I don’t care who gets the credit,’” Diamond said. “That’s a fulfilling mindset. I continually ask myself two questions. Am I going to be powerful or powerless? Am I going to be a giver or a taker? How am I going to show up? Then pay attention to the internal conversation that's going on until I learn to recognize these differences that I use.” 

Coronavirus is making many people confront grief, whether they want to or not. Check It Out! contributor Sarri Gilman suggests “It’s OK That You’re Not OK” by Megan Devine for her Self-Help Shelf. 

“I've read lots of books on grief, but I highly recommend this book if you're only going to read one book on grief,” Gilman said.  

Devine talks about early grief, something that very few authors do.  

“Most authors do not write about that because people find it really hard to read a book in early grief, but she starts with early grief because that's where we all start with our grief and there's so much that you may have felt or may be feeling that goes unacknowledged,” Gilman said. 

In the midst of COVID-19, all of us have experienced losses, she said. 

“Many of you may be experiencing grief,” Gilman said. “This book is a great companion through some of our most difficult challenging feelings that we're all experiencing.” 

Claudia Samano Losado has many talents. 

Early-childhood educator. World traveler. Life coach. Recreation-center owner. Dance-movement instructor. 

But maybe most importantly, Losado is a fervent Oak Harbor Library supporter. 

“I think I’m very passionate about a lot of things, and one of my passions is to share with others and to take and give in the same way,” said Losado, a member of the library’s board. “Since I have had so much from the library I’ve wanted to give back to, and this is a very good way to give back, but not just that, to know more about the library.” 

What she gets from the Oak Harbor Library, she returns to the Oak Harbor community.  

“It’s a way of connecting the community and the people with the same interests, so I’m connecting businesses, connecting families, connecting families with little kids, connecting families with teenagers,” she said. “So we are all in the same boat and it’s awesome for me to be able to share one thing from another.” 

Losado grew up in Mexico City, where her future husband was visiting when they met and started dating. She has lived in the United States since 2002 and her husband’s military career sent them to California, Florida and Oak Harbor. She used the library in every community she lived in. 

“I’ve been involved in every single place with libraries. What the libraries offer to the community in each state is amazing. Not everybody everywhere has the opportunity to have a library that offers free books to check out, free programs, help for the parents, so many things,” she said. 

“When I moved to Washington state and I discovered this library system, I just fell in love. It’s the best experience I have had with libraries. The community needs to know. Because the community sometimes are not fully aware of everything the library can offer. It has been kind of like my job lately.” 

Losado makes it a point to spread the word about all the services and programs the Oak Harbor Library and Sno-Isle Libraries offers to its customers.  

“I think it’s important for us, for the leaders in the community, to spread the word of what things are happening, and good things are happening since I took advantage of that,” she said. “I want everybody to know what is happening at the library.” 

When Losado says “community,” she sees a big picture. It’s the people who use the Oak Harbor Library. It’s the customers in her In Motion recreation center. It’s the island’s Navy population. It’s the people who live in Oak Harbor and the surrounding North Whidbey Island area. They all connect. 

“I see it this way,” Losado said. “We have our own interests and our own little communities in Oak Harbor. We have a military community. We have people who go to the library every single Tuesday, every single Wednesday, and it’s the library community. My people, my families ... it’s a small family that knows In Motion, that advocates movement, advocates physical activities. I see that some stuff connects us, however we need more connection. We need more connection between us, between all these little communities, between military, library, In Motion and all the places that are of course part of this community.” 

Losado’s upbringing in Mexico, a year of study in Great Britain followed by time in Spain, plus her 18 years in the U.S. gives her an open mind about immigration issues and diversity. 

As a child, she said she always looked for and saw the similarities in people, not differences.  

Now she notices how many people focus on differences instead of similarities. She believes it complicates how we live as a society, “and how we express our interest as a community.” 

“I think since I moved to the United States, I recognize something that I didn’t know before,” Losado said. “I recognize that some people look at you in different ways, and some people see differences you didn’t even know you had.” 

While some have different opinions about diversity, Losado appreciates those who “take it as an amazing way to be in the same society, growing together.” 

America is a diverse, multicultural nation, she said, but it’s becoming less cross-cultural. That only magnifies the perceived differences. 

“I think diversity is (something) to celebrate,” she said. “If we all have a goal as a country, as a community, as a society, we need to embrace our similarities.” 

She tries to instill that message to her movement and art students with the motto, “Our differences will divide us more, our similarities will make us one.” 

“I also try to unite,” Losado said. “I try to give the message, it’s OK to be different, it’s OK to speak a second language, it’s OK to be in a multicultural family. It is OK. That will actually make us a better community, a better society, and it will unite us.” 

Chapter 1: Meet the writer who’s not fond of writing 

Nancy Leson loves books, she loves libraries, she loves to talk and she loves food. 

That makes the Edmonds resident an ideal guest for Sno-Isle Libraries Check It Out! podcast. 

Libraries figured large in Leson’s childhood in Philadelphia. Her family had little disposable income, so off to the library they went to borrow books and glean information from encyclopedias. These days, Leson says, the Friends of the Edmonds Library book sale is her favorite book event every year. 

Books and learning followed Leson into adulthood.  

She’d always wanted to own a set of Encyclopedia Brittanica, so she filled out a postcard to get more information. 

It was a particularly cold winter night in Anchorage, Alaska, when Leson heard a fateful knock on her apartment door.   

She opened the door and exclaimed, “Are you the encyclopedia salesman?” 

The man was flustered. “The guy looks and me and asks, ‘How did you know that?’” 

In his many years of sales calls, no one had ever asked if he was the encyclopedia salesman, he explained. 

“Damned if that night did I not buy, a poor nursing student in my 20s in Anchorage, Alaska, a set of Encyclopedia Brittanica, a gorgeous leather set, that this man came into my house and did nothing more than sell me a set of encyclopedias. I was a very brave young woman.” 

Leson still has those encyclopedias, and she mourned the day when Encyclopedia Brittanica announced it would stop printing them. 

“Now ask me when the last time I opened them was,” she said. 

Funny thing about Leson. Much as she loves words, she hates writing.  

She wanted to be a children’s librarian, then a writer, then tried nursing school, but ended up waiting tables. She finally got into writing courtesy of the University of Washington’s journalism program. But to earn her degree, she had to create “clips” by writing stories for local newspapers, and had to write about state government in Olympia. She resisted. 

“I had no interest in that at all,” she said. “I knew I wanted to be a features writer.” 

Leson finished her journalism degree, but was broke. She went back to waiting tables at an Italian restaurant (now called Nell’s) on Green Lake.  

“I knew every single one of the editors and publishers in town because they all used to eat in there, even Frank Blethen, my eventual boss,” Leson said. “I said, ‘One day, I’m gonna work for you.’ And I wasn’t lying.” 

Leson was still waiting tables a year later when she saw an ad in the back of the Seattle Weekly. They sought an unpaid intern in the food department. She applied. 

“I lied a little,” she said. “I said, ‘My mother always wanted me to be a doctor. Maybe now at least I can tell her I’m an intern. Hire me, I’m your girl!’ And they did. That was the first and last (writing) job I looked for.” 

She wrote a “gossip column-ish" called “As the Tables Turn” about her views of the Seattle restaurant scene, much of it based on her own waitressing experience. She earned $5 an hour. 

Sno-Isle Libraries podcast co-host Paul Pitkin wanted to know how Leson managed to write so much when she hates writing. 

“Writing is painful. I mean, I loved reporting. I loved going out. I loved interviewing people and finding out things. But I was the person who would sit down and write and could not do what they call – and you’ll excuse me – the ‘vomit draft,’ where you just throw it on out there and then you fix it later,” she said.  

“Until I got the lead on any story, I was writing, I couldn’t go on. And I fussed with it and fussed with it until I got it right. So it took me a long time to write. And as a result of that, I like to think that much of my work did not need much editing. And I was told that all along. It was good for my editors, but not so good for me.” 

Leson went on to edit the “Best Places” series for Sasquatch Books and was restaurant critic for the Seattle Weekly. That led to an offer from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as a freelance restaurant reviewer for a few months before the Seattle Times gave her a call: “Hey, could you come talk to us?”  

It was her dream job, but daily deadlines got in the way of a good time. 

“It’s real fun to write something if you have all the time in the world,” Leson said. “I always liken journalism and deadline writing to when you’re in high school or college and you have a paper due and you’re writing the paper, or you have a final and you're studying and studying. And then you write the paper and you get done, or you finish the final, and you're like, ‘Oh, oh, yay, thank god that’s over.’ And then you wake up the next day and – augh! – I’ve gotta do it again.” 

Leson made a connection at KPLU-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate that’s now known as KNKX. The station wanted her to write and produce a weekly, 3-minute essay about fun, cool things.  

She was at the “worst time” of her mother-work life, so she offered a compromise. 

“I could do it once a month for six months,” Leson said. “And they agreed.” 

Then the station paired Leson up with one of their on-air hosts, Dick Stein.  

“It was initially a show about him interviewing me,” Leson said. “But it became the show it is today, which is the two of us having an absolutely fabulous time talking about the thing we love to do most, which is cooking.” 

They call it Food for Thought. Leson and Stein have been chewing the fat since 2006 about food, cooking utensils, cookbooks, secret ingredients, restaurants, likes and dislikes, you name it. 

Now Food for Thought generally sticks to cooking and food themes. To get a sense of how Leson and Stein work together, listen to them recollect their earliest food memories from childhood. 

You’ll learn why Leson felt compelled to eat a stick of butter. Her revelation inspired Check It Out! podcast co-hosts Paul Pitkin, Justine Easley, Kurt Batdorf and Julie Thompson to share some of their childhood food memories. Some are more horrifying than others, but you’ll have to listen to find out. 

Chapter 2: Get acquainted with Sarri Gilman’s Self-Help Shelf 

We live in trying times and licensed mental health therapist Sarri Gilman wants to help. 

That’s even more important now that coronavirus precautions make face-to-face interactions with family and friends difficult at best. 

In this episode of the Check It Out! podcast, Gilman debuts her Self-Help Shelf segment. She is also posting self-help book recommendations on the Sno-Isle Libraries blog, BiblioFiles. 

“I want to call out the books that are literally as good as therapy,” Gilman said. “Books that really help. Books that really make a difference. And some of these (titles) you aren’t even going to find in the library in the self-help section, because some of these are for children and they’re going to be in the children’s section.” 

All of the titles Gilman recommends are available in digital formats at sno-isle.org.  

Gilman recommends titles that she believes will help children navigate through emotions, help adults navigate through feelings and difficult challenges, help couples, and help families and caregivers. 

“I think there’s a wide range of books to pick from, but I’d like to call out the best, the things that help the most.” 

Adult self-help books are all about learning, Gilman said. For children, she looks for writing that encourages emotional literacy. 

“There are books out there that can help us through every stage of life, through every age, through every feeling, every experience. They’re all out there,” Gilman said. “I’ll call out books that make a difference. Which of these books can help you now.” 

Gilman's recommended title for adults this week is “Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind“ by Kristin Neff. It will help you soothe yourself when you’re hurting, and bolster your morale when you’re feeling down. 

For children ages 9-11, Gilman recommends “The Nest” by Kenneth Oppel. The 12-year-old main character, Steve, worries about his young brother’s health problems. Through Steve, Oppel shows it’s possible to be both brave, afraid and faithful. It’s a great book for parents to read with their children, Gilman said. 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, some of Rich Frishman’s photographs could be novels. 

Frishman was a news photographer for The Daily Herald in Everett and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize before he left to pursue freelance work. 

He knows how to tell a story with a photograph, and he still sees and tells the stories of America through his camera lens. 

Frishman has criss-crossed the country to chronicle its beauty and everyday life in his collections, American Splendor and This Land, and the guarded secrets in Ghosts of Segregation. 

The difference between Frishman and the rest of us who think we take good pictures is how Frishman considers his subjects. 

He doesn’t just pull over on the side of the road when he sees something interesting, snap a picture and move on. Before Frishman leaves on a trip, he takes a deep dive online into the surrounding area for other photo opportunities. 

“I get on Google Maps, ultimately get in the Google car – not the auto-driving one, but the one you take on the internet – and I see what is there now in this location, and is it something that hearkens back,” he said. “And then that’ll lead me to something else.” 

Frishman was working on his Ghosts of Segregation photos when a planned trip to Houston led him to research sites in and around Jackson, Miss., about 440 miles northeast of Houston. 

“The Negro Motorist Green Book” helped him cross-check his hunches on historically significant sites and showed him many more. In Jackson he found the modest home where a white supremacist assassinated black civil rights activist Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Near Philadelphia, Miss., he found the remote site where Ku Klux Klan members killed young civil rights activists James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman on June 21, 1964. Their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam. 

“The Negro Motorist Green Book” was essentially a AAA guide for people of color, Frishman said. 

“Back In those dark days, it was what you had to use to be safe if you were black," he said. “Often I will use the term ‘colored,’ because in a lot of (white) communities it didn’t matter if you were African-American or Asian or Hispanic or Native American. Now it continues that way with Muslim, LGBTQ, maybe even Democrat. I have been in many places where I have felt like I was the outsider. It’s not a good feeling.” 

Frishman’s images in Ghosts of Segregation touched a nerve with Sno-lsle Libraries Communications Director Ken Harvey, who lived in Jackson, Miss., in the 1960s and early 1970s. 

“The work that (Frishman) had done on the Ghosts of Segregation and the images that he had selected really spoke to me, because in some way, they reawakened some memories of places and things that I had seen and experienced,” Harvey said. 

Harvey was taken by the power of the images and the power of the places in his own memories. 

“I often think of myself as an archaeologist, collecting data about our civilization because someday it’ll be past,” Frishman said. 

Frishman certainly collects a lot of data when he’s working. 

Each one of his pictures is composed of dozens or hundreds of individual images that he shoots over several hours or days, sometimes even longer. The multiple images allow him to capture far more detail and light variations than a single image could ever convey. 

Frishman assembles the digital images into one masterpiece. 

The results are astonishing. There's no pixelation, no blur, no sign that the picture is stitched together from multiple images. Even when the picture is up to 12 feet wide. The photographs are so good they hang in museums in Texas and Louisiana. 

Some of Frishman’s earlier work on American Splendor and This land does look like well­ composed snapshots of roadside attractions, such as funky motels in California and New Mexico on old Route 66, or the curious Big Fish Restaurant on U.S. 2 in Bena, Minn. 

“Yeah, I was more sanguine then. Those were fun, but I realized I lost a lot of the love for doing that when, and this is my own outlook, but I’m troubled by our politics,” Frishman said. “I’m troubled by the continuation of segregation, whether it’s the economic issues or the educational issues. So many different groups continue to live with the burden of being considered ‘the other.’ 

“That’s what I’m trying to eliminate. I want to spark a conversation with people I may never meet directly. These problems didn’t end with the passage of any of the Civil Rights Acts. It certainly didn’t end with the end of the Civil War or Reconstruction or the emptying of internment camps or the rescinding of the Chinese Exclusion Act. I mean, we just continue to lay this on everybody who is ‘the other.’ ” 

The motivation for equality comes from Frishman’s upbringing. While the Frishman family lived comfortably in Chicago’s predominantly white suburbs, his parents were “unabashed liberals” who wanted their three children to value social justice.  

“I was born in 1951,” Frishman said. “My parents made it a point to familiarize us with people who were struggling … It was the early era of the modern civil rights movement. That ingrained in all three of us kids a sense of responsibility.” 

Frishman credits his father for instilling his sense of curiosity and an appreciation of architecture.  

“He told us the stories of the people who made these places,” Frishman said.  

That continues to frame his photography. 

“I’m quite driven by our relationships as human beings,” Frishman said. “My fascination with these places I’m now photographing really gets back to the people who populated these places and experienced so much, and for Ghosts of Segregation, the suffering and courage and struggle that people endured. Those are the aspects that compel me to photograph these places.” 

David George Gordon admits he was a bookworm as a child. Is that why the prolific author loves insects, and loves to eat them?
Sno-Isle Libraries Check It Out! podcast hosts Ken Harvey, Jim Hills and Jessica Russell sat down with Gordon and chewed the fat about his reputation as “the bug chef.” And they graciously accepted the guest’s gifts, as polite hosts do.

Yes. Harvey, Hills and Russell ate bugs.
The Seattle-based author of “The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook” and 19 other titles covering slugs and snails, oyster history and Sasquatch research has appeared on many TV shows and headlined national festivals.

When Gordon visited Sno-Isle Libraries and laid out plates of edible bugs, the hosts were understandably skeptical. Gordon is used to tough crowds.

“In so many ways, this is the food of the future,” Gordon said about insects as ingredients or cuisine. “It’s really good for you. It’s easy to raise. It doesn’t require the gallons of water that go into raising a steak and so on. But our dislike of insects in our culture is so strong, even at insect festivals it’s hard to get people to eat this stuff.”

Harvey, Hills and Russell mostly overcame their cultural instincts.

They ate kosher, farm-reared locusts, “the official Bible food of John the Baptist,” Gordon said.

They ate seasoned chapulines, wild grasshoppers harvested from cornfields in Oaxaca, Mexico.

They ate the caterpillars of a sphynx moth, which lays its eggs on blue agave plants, which is where tequila starts.
The caterpillar is “the proverbial worm in the bottom of the tequila bottle,” Gordon explained.

And they ate protein-rich energy bars.

“If I didn’t tell you there were crickets in there, you would never know. You’d be eating the blueberries,” Gordon said. That’s because the crickets are dried and ground into flour, “so we’re not talking about a bunch of goo.”

Some of Gordon’s samples went down easier than others.

First, the locusts. The legs are removed but not the wings. Each locust is a couple of inches long, so it’s mostly abdomen and head and it looks dramatic. It looks exactly like a big bug.

Russell hedged.

“There’s something about the way they’re looking at me,” she said.

“Hold them by the wings, they’re great handles,” Gordon explained. “Eat the body.”

He said to expect the taste of Shredded Wheat cereal.

Hills was just as dubious as Russell.

“This is gonna be a one-bite thing,” he said before he audibly crunched one down.

While Russell and Hills were busy overcoming their nerves, Harvey had already eaten a locust.

“I’m taking the wings home to prove that I ate it,” he said. “I have a reputation as a very picky eater. It has a nice taste.”

“It tastes like the smell of freshly harvested hay,” Russell said.

Next, the chapulines. The three test subjects gave the crunchy critters enthusiastic thumbs up.

“Oh, I like that!” Hills said. “I could actually sit around and eat those.”

Russell and Harvey liked the caterpillar. Russell described a crispy, salty first blast on the tongue and a perfumy flavor that lingered pleasantly on her palate.

“My family will be shocked when they hear that this picky eater did that,” Harvey said.

But for Hills, the caterpillar was a bridge too far.

“Yeah, I couldn’t do that,” he said. “They look like the big version of the grubs you find in your yard.”

The good-natured Gordon wasn’t offended. He knows food that wiggles is not often on the menu.

“I didn’t want to eat the locusts,” Russell said. “I feel like they’re looking at me and I’m not quite OK with that. I grew up in Louisiana where we eat some really interesting, quirky things that are not eaten in other places that have become really normal to me.”

If you’re old enough to remember when Seattle television was limited to a handful of broadcast channels and you remember J.P. Patches, you’ve seen the work of Sharon Howard and Mike Rosen.

Howard got her start in broadcast TV in 1977 with KIRO-TV as a floor director for newscasts and “The J.P. Patches Show.” It was performed and broadcast live, six mornings a week.

Without any rehearsal to speak of.

“Well, everybody thinks that we had a script and it was planned, but our plans were to meet in the cafeteria 15 minutes before the show,” Howard said. “And we just played it by ear. Somebody would say, ‘Well, let’s do a “Star Wars” thing. I need an R2D2.’ As a floor director, I think, ‘Oh my god, what am I going to do?’ Well, I go and get the shop vac. That’s the kind of thinking it was.”

Rosen arrived in Seattle in the late 1970s and joined KIRO’s news unit as a photographer and Howard caught his eye. They worked together on a few promotional commercials before they started dating. 

Meanwhile, Howard moved to KOMO-TV to work on “Frontrunners,” the highly rated weekly show that profiled local high achievers. 

It was kind of a “golden era” for quality television, when the locally owned Seattle stations didn’t have to answer to remote corporate owners.

“My partner (Ken Morrison) and I used to say, ‘You know, this is the best of television that we’re going through right now,’” Howard said. “We were not told what to do, we did any story we wanted, we had complete freedom.”

Rosen concurred.

“Whatever the general manager would spend his weekend thinking about is usually what my assignment was,” Rosen said. “Once I spent an hour on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which he oddly had not crafted to fit into a 47-minute show with commercials.”

In 1980, Mount St. Helens started rumbling and was in the news every day for weeks. After the volcano’s first eruption, Rosen hopped into the KIRO News helicopter, Chopper 7, to report the damage around the mountain. The pilot had just cleared the new crater when Mount St. Helens erupted seconds later with a plume of steam and ash.

It was Chopper 7’s first live transmission of an eruption. Rosen knew he was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, but Howard was watching and she was scared. 

Howard and Rosen loved the freedom and creativity of working with wildlife and out in nature. And since he no longer worked at competitor KIRO, Howard convinced her boss at KOMO that if she hired Rosen, KOMO would only have to pay for one hotel room on remote assignments. 

“We got to go all over the world together,” Howard said. “But we did these documentaries on our own time” because they both still had their full-time jobs.

The shared passion for documenting wildlife kept them going, she said. 

They worked in very remote locations in Alaska and Africa. They had to pack in all of their supplies and equipment. And this was long before you could shoot a movie with little more than your smartphone and a couple of apps.

On a shoot in Rwanda to document silver back gorillas, Howard and Rosen had to hire 30 porters to carry their food, fuel, gear and supplies through brush so dense their feet never touched the ground. 

“At one point we looked at each other, because you can see the gorillas, and you can smell the gorillas,” Rosen said. “We decided we’re going to have to call this show ‘Butts of Nature,’ because that’s all we were getting.”

During a rest break, a silver-back gorilla broke through the brush.

“It walks right up to me, climbs on my lap and puts its head in the lens and sits there for four and a half minutes,” Rosen said. “All the things they tell you (not to do with gorillas) — never make eye contact, don’t get within 15 feet, certainly don’t touch them. And he’s sitting on top of me.”

He looked to Howard for guidance.

“When you look at your producer who is also your spouse, the first words out of her mouth should be, ‘Are you OK?’ but they weren’t,” Rosen said. “Instead they were, ‘Are you rolling?’”

“I’ve never heard the end of that, trust me,” Howard said.

Of course Rosen was rolling. He got incredible footage and Howard wrote an incredible story.

It’s not easy to write a script for an unscripted nature story, Howard said. She gets her best results “writing to the pictures, and a lot of writers don’t in television. They just write what they want and leave it to the poor editors to have to cover it.”

Rosen, more than any of the other photographers Howard worked with, always gave her more than she expected.

“Sometimes when you work with a photographer and you think you’ve communicated and he didn’t get what you wanted, then you have to rewrite,” Howard said. “But with Mike, and I’m not saying this just because he’s my spouse … I’ve always gotten more than I set out to get. So I have to rewrite it anyway because I’ve got better stuff than I thought I was going to have.”

That could explain how Howard and Rosen’s fruitful collaboration racked up 28 regional Emmy Awards and a national Peabody Award for their features, documentaries and filmmaking.