The Juice with Jeff #117

On this episode of the podcast, Meghan Malloy conducts/co-produces a fantastic and superb interview with me in person. This is Meghan's second time conducting the interview with me for these podcasts.

 

 

Basically, Meghan and I divided our two way conversation into three primary segments during the podcast recording session with LOTS of two way conversation:

 

 

1. Besides our introductions, the first 15 minutes of the show are devoted to talking about Greenwood Park, other central Iowa parks, various state parks in Iowa and the experiences I've had in those, our love for nature, the buildings that were created as part of the Works Progress Administration/Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930's. During this segment of the podcast, I shared with Meghan how three of the in person interviews for the podcast during 2022 have been recorded/produced at Greenwood Park.

 

 

2. Beginning at around the 16 minute mark: The next 30 minutes of the podcast recording session is devoted to talking about the history of various places related to Des Moines, other central Iowa communities and suburbs, two of the synagogues that were part of Des Moines' history and the people related to them. I also chat with Meghan about the 10 or so books I have from a company called Arcadia Publishing that talk about the history of various cities and towns in Iowa (including several books that I just ordered from this particular company). When I talk about two books I ordered that talk about small towns in northern Wisconsin, I spent five minutes talking a bit about the 7-1/2 summers I was part of the Camp Ramah in Wisconsin community. I approach this from both from a nature perspective and also in relation to how being at Ramah Wisconsin has helped changed my Jewish life significantly. And we also bring up the Iowa State Fair and the fun experiences we've had with that.

 

 

3. Starting at the 48 minute mark, we spend around 20 minutes talking about Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. I introduced this segment of the podcast by doing a "This American Life" style introduction with my Ira Glass voice impersonation. Meghan and I shared the experience that we had when we had our own Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. I even performed for Meghan two excepts from the Haftarah (Taken from the Book of Judges) that I did during my Bar Mitzvah weekend (back in August 1988), and during the final line of that excerpt I did my voice impersonation of Cantor Pinchas Spiro o.b.m. (he was the Cantor at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines between the early 1970's until his retirement in 1996).

 

 

4. During the last seven minutes of the podcast, we talk about a few more items and tidbits related to Des Moines history.

 

 

We recorded our podcast outdoors in the Sylvan Theatre area of Greenwood Park in Des Moines, IA on May 29, 2022. This episode of the podcast runs at 1 hour and 15 minutes long (75 minutes long). As is the case with all of "The Juice with Jeff" podcasts, funding for this podcast is provided by Realty With Ahart and RandomKid. Enjoy!!