H.B. Fieldtrip #2-Rock Creek Cemetery

I've meant to visit the Rock Creek Cemetery near the Petworth neighborhood in Washington, D.C. since last year; over Memorial Day weekend, I made the trek with a friend. Rock Creek’s boast illustrious “residents” like author Upton Sinclair, and Alice Warfield Allen, mother of Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson. But I’d come to see Washington matriarch and podcast subject, Alice Roosevelt Longworth. She’s buried there beside her daughter Paulina Sturm. I was delighted to see that someone had left a flag and picture of Alice at her grave. It’s cool that despite dying over three decades ago, people continue to admire that sassy, old broad!

H.B.Fieldtrip #1-Old St. Mary's Church & Cemetery

This Memorial Day weekend, a friend and I trekked out to Rockville, Maryland to Old St. Mary's Church and Cemetery to see Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s grave. They share a headstone inscribed with the words, "So we beat on, boats against the current borne back ceaselessly into the past," the last sentence of The Great Gatsby.

People who've visited have left tons of mementos-flowers, coins (mostly pennies), copies of his books, and movie ticket stubs. But what I thought was most…bizarre, confusing, f-ed up, was that so many people left booze!

Episode #5: Margaret Thatcher, Part 1

Her nicknames include “Attila the Hen,” the “Grocer’s Daughter,” and the “Iron Lady”- but who was the real Margaret Thatcher? Tune-in to discover more about the unexpected rise of Britain’s first woman Prime Minister.

Episode #5: Margaret Thatcher, Part 1 (Show Notes)

Ding-dong! The Witch is Dead! It’s testimony to Margaret Thatcher’s questionable legacy that after she died, some opponents started a campaign to get this famous tune from “The Wizard of Oz” to #1 on the charts in her memory. But who was the person behind the evil, handbag-wielding caricature?

Born in Grantham, England, Margaret was taught early that she’d only achieve success by working hard and staying true to your convictions. Earning a scholarship to the Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, and later a place at Somerville College, Oxford Margaret’s education reaffirmed her desire to enter politics.