An Army of Normal Folks - When A Whole City Blinked Their Lights

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

For Shop Talk, Real Heroes author Larry Reed tells us the epic story of Warsaw's underground radio station during the Soviet occupation of Poland. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everybody, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks. Welcome into the shop. Shop talk number 44. Welcome in, Alex. Welcome in, Bill. How are you? No, I'm the shopkeeper. I'm welcoming you in.

You don't welcome me into my own shop. Do you ever do this with a flight where they say, have a great flight, and you say, you too? It's like you're not going anywhere. You're on this too. You're right here with us. It's like you're not going anywhere. You're on this too. You're right here with us. That's a good point. You've never done that to the person at the gate when they say have a good flight and

you say you too. No, I choose to be friendlier and not near as a smart aleck as you apparently because I do that on accident. That's the point. Oh, you do it accidentally. Yeah. Well, that just makes you goofy. All right, everybody.

Shop talk number 44 real heroes Author Larry Reed who is the inspiration behind? The army of normal dead folks episodes that many of you have heard Well, Larry came up with an idea for a live person. We're gonna do a shop talk about it So an army of normal dead folks inspires a live person shop talk I think that actually I almost put something in there But I guess they're gonna say it what is persons almost dead, but they're still alive Well, everybody's almost dead every day. We're not a day closer to death there, but that's not a very inspirational, but they're closer

I know they're like 85 90 or something, but I cannot believe you said that I don't person you're hideous Alright shop talk number 44 right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. There's a type of soil in Mississippi called Yazoo clay. It's thick, burnt orange, and it's got a reputation. It's terrible, terrible dirt. Yazoo Clay eats everything, so things that get buried there tend to stay buried until they're not. In 2012, construction crews at Mississippi's biggest hospital made a shocking discovery. Seven thousand bodies out there or more. All former patients of the old state asylum, and nobody knew they were there. It was my family's mystery.

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or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Amartinez. The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore las noticias when important world changing events are happening. That is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories so you can keep up without feeling stressed out. Listen Up First from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mark Seale. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Canole. The five

families did not want us to shoot that picture. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli. The five families did not want us to shoot that picture. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli is based on my co-host, Mark's best-selling book of the same title. And on this show, we call upon his years of research to help unpack the story behind the godfather's birth from start to finish. This is really the first interview I've done in bed. Ha ha ha ha.

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Yes, that was a real horse's head. Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. I'm Maria Fernanda Diaz. My podcast, When You're Invisible, is my love letter to the working-class people and immigrants who shaped my life. I get to talk to a lot of people who form the backbone of our society but who have never been interviewed before. Season two is all about community, organizing, and being

underestimated. All the greatest changes have happened when a couple of people said, this sucks, let's do something about it. I can't have more than $2,000 in my bank account or else I can't get disability benefits. They won't let you succeed. I know we get paid to serve you guys, but be respectful. We're made out of the same things, bone, body, blood. It's rare to have black male teachers.

Sometimes I am the lesson and I'm also the testament. Listen to When You're Invisible as part of the MyCultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, everybody. Shop Talk number 44. Real heroes author Larry Reed. We've been doing an army of normal folks episode with him. Dead folks.

What? Dead folks. Yeah, we've been doing an army of normal dead folks episodes with stuff from his book and it's actually been really interesting to me but he has a short story about some alive folks that we also want to tell barely alive what barely alive okay that's enough i mean this poor if this person hears this i mean we're losing listeners right now all right uh he has a short story about a barely alive person. I can't believe I'm saying that, that he was tell. So we're doing it for a shop talk. The story is called Blinking Lights.

And here you go. We've talked about a little bit of different stories regarding the Soviet Union and its collapse. But I'm told there's a story about blinking lights that matters. Yes, it's one of my favorites. This goes back to my first visit to Poland in 1986. How many times you been? Oh, probably nine or 10 now.

Wow. But my first. I've been twice, both on business, but it's actually a beautiful place. Yes it is, I love it. I love the Polish people and Polish food too. I love bigos. It's my favorite Polish dish. It's also known as hunter's stew and it has usually three different kinds of meats like venison and sausage and maybe it'll be for lamb or something. Something like that and then a base of sauerkraut and so it's kind of it's a stew

like that, and then a base of sauerkraut. And so it's kind of a stew and very savory, and I get it every time I go to Poland. Blink in lights. Yes. This story I first learned of in 1986 when I visited Poland undercover as a freelance journalist. My purpose in being in the country, and this is three years before the communists were there, I was there visiting illegally with people who were active in this underground resistance movement, spent every night in a different home belonging to someone involved in some way in the resistance to the communist dictatorship. You read to me stories of these people, one to be like them, it sounds like. Yeah, exactly.

Well, I'm just so inspired by them, I thought I want to do something in person to help tell their story. One evening during that trip in 86, my escorts told me, we have a very special couple that we want you to meet tonight. Very clandestine thing. We had to flip a switch in a dark alleyway which turned on a light in this apartment so they knew that we were the ones they were waiting for. Well, the people were Zbigniew and Sofia Romashevsky. I'd never heard of them before, didn't know anything about them. They had run underground radio, an illegal radio for solidarity during martial law,

until they were traced, arrested, and she was given three years in prison, he was given four. And there in 1986, I was in their apartment not long after either of them had been released. And they were active again with the underground, not doing underground radio, doing other things, but still resisting the communists. And I asked them many questions about what was it like to run an underground radio? I mean, think of it, it's illegal. You can't advertise. How do you know if anybody's listening? And it was that question that produced an answer that I've told to audiences all over

the world in the years since. I asked, how did you know if people were listening? And Sophia answered this way. She said, well, we wondered that ourselves. We can only broadcast eight or 10 minutes at a time. And then we had to tear down the radio, take it someplace else, set it up again. If we broadcast any longer than that, we could be traced, which they ultimately were interested. So she said one night while we were broadcasting, we said to people, if

you're listening to this radio and you believe in freedom for Poland, please blink your lights, call your friends who are of the same view and asked them to do the same. And then she said, we went to the window and for hours all of Warsaw was blinking. Wow. Well, I was arrested at the end of that trip and thrown out. The government had gotten wind of what I was doing. I was not allowed back into Poland for the next three years, not until the communists were kicked out. Senator Steve Sims of Idaho sent a letter every month to the Polish Embassy in Washington

demanding the release of my materials and an apology for the way I was treated. But when the communists were kicked out, of course, I went back and been back many times and friends of mine who were active in that resistance later were members of Parliament. And I'm so happy to say that in November of 2023, a year ago, I was given the highest honor that Poland bestows upon a foreigner. No kidding. All the grand cross of the order of merit of the Republic of Poland. And in his statement, President Duda cited my work with the underground in 1986. And at the reception, following the ceremony where he gave me this award,

was Sofia Romachevsky. No. Now 85. She's a senior advisor to the current president of Poland and it turned out one of the people who petitioned for the president to give me this very coveted award. So we were able to talk at some length and I visited her the next day in her apartment. 85, senior advisor to the president and a hero to everybody in Poland. Larry, it seems like you don't just write about real heroes,

maybe you are one. Well, I don't know. Anytime anybody says that, I'm tempted to do what Nikki Winton did every time someone called him one, and that is to say I just did what I could do. That is a fantastic story, Larry. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you going through these with us and sharing them with us. And anybody listening to me today, find real heroes,

inspiring true stories of courage, character, and conviction by Lawrence W. Reed. You will love the stories. You will get yourself very valuable history lessons. But maybe most importantly, I think maybe you might get inspired to get involved yourself and join this army of normal folks who Larry so aptly teaches us of this book has been going on since the 1800s and probably before. And we need to be reminded it's always been the average person doing extraordinary things that inspire us and change the world. And this book, Real Heroes, is chock full of those stories.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. Blinking lights. If you didn't hear that and get a quick chill up your spine, I guess you weren't listening. But that's the power of an army of normal folks. of an army of normal folks. He said for hours Warsaw blinked because some normal people who were fighting for freedom for themselves and their countrymen who were resisting the Soviet Union's control and rule over Poland, uh, spent eight or nine minutes a night with an underground radio to encourage people to continue to resist, to continue to believe in freedom. And in an effort to make sure people were listening, asked normal folks to blink their

lights and Warsaw blinked for hours. Could America blink for hours? If we had millions of people that understood that our call to be part of the Army of Normal Folks, to serve, to better our fellow man, to better our country. Certainly, we're not under the rule of Soviet occupation, but we're occupied by something else that does threaten our republic, which is ap pulling away at the fibers of what defines us as human beings based on all the narratives we happen to encourage people to fight the occupation of the Soviets, to believe in their freedom and to stand in solidarity, and one night Warsaw blinked for hours from the millions of people saying they agreed and they were

joining that fight. I just hope we can blink our lights. I hope we can blink our lights and create millions of normal folks across this country that see the occupation of our hearts and minds, the apathetic occupation in our hearts and minds about the need for service, community involvement, building relationships with people who don't necessarily look, think, vote, or act like you, and that the unbelievable opportunity we have to change the narrative of our current culture. So, Shop Talk number 44, It's our call to you to like the folks in the 80s did in Warsaw.

Let's blink our lights. We think Alex. Yeah, and none of us are at risk of going to prison here for doing that. That's true. That's true. I mean, we at least we have the you know, that's a great point. We have the freedom to act if we'll just do it. These people were locked in their basement hiding from Soviet police to enact some good we've got the freedom to do it just gonna get off our rears and

get after it let's go baby let's blink our lights that's shop talk number 44 appreciate you join us we will we'll see you next week and we hope you will subscribe to the podcast. Join it at... Join the army. Join the army at normalfolks.us. Rate and review it. Call your friends, wake your neighbors, tell them about us. Blink your lights.

Blink your lights and you can write me anytime at bill at normalfox.us and I'll respond and if you've got any really good ideas for Shop Talks, email them to us. If we think we have something to add, we'll take them up. Shop Talk number 44. Everybody, letoo Clay keeps secrets. Seven thousand bodies out there or more. A forgotten asylum cemetery. It was my family's mystery. Shame, guilt, propriety, something keeps it all buried deep. Until it's not. I'm Larisen Campbell and this is Under Yazoo Clay. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple

Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Amartinez. The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore las noticias when important world-changing events are happening. That is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories so you can keep up without feeling stressed out. Listen up first from NPR on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Bob Pitman, Chairman and CEO of iHeart Media. I'm excited to introduce a brand new season of my podcast,

Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. I'm having conversations with some folks across a wide range of industries to hear how they reach the top of their fields and the lessons they learned along the way that everyone can use. I'll be joined by innovative leaders like chairman and CEO of Elf Beauty, Tarang Amin. Legendary singer-songwriter and philanthropist, Jewel. Being a rock star is very fun,

but helping people is way more fun. And Damian Maldonado, CEO of American Financing. I figured out the formula, I just have to work hard, then that's magic. Join me as we uncover innovations in data and analytics, the math, and the ever important creative spark, the magic. Listen to Math and Magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the ever-important creative spark, the magic. Listen to math and magic on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mark Seale. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. The five families did not want us to shoot that picture. This podcast is based on my co-host, Mark Seale's best-selling book of the same title. Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli features

new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Cobola, Robert Evans, James Kahn, Talia Shire, and many others. Yes, that was a real horse's head. Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Canole on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.