Something You Should Know - Why Little Things Really Matter In Relationships & Cool and Weird Stories About Cemeteries

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, how much Halloween candy do you think gets thrown away every year? You'll be amazed. Then, how little things make or break a relationship, like saying thank you, being appreciative, and tell your partner how they can shine for you. Tell them what you do want them to do, rather than what you don't want them to do. People have a much easier time hearing a positive need.

Starting point is 00:01:01 Also, why people are not watching and judging you the way you think. And the fascinating world of graveyards and cemeteries. There's so much you don't know. For instance, there's even a secondary market for graves. So people who have a site that's near Marilyn Monroe can sell their site, in one case for millions of dollars, on, I think it was on eBay. All this today on Something You Should Know. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no.

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Starting point is 00:02:03 Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. As it turns out, some 172 million Americans will celebrate Halloween this year, and 95% of those people will buy candy, with each person spending about $27.55 on average. Now here is a surprising statistic. I mean, this really surprised me. Every year, Americans throw away about $400 million worth of uneaten candy from trick-or-treating. That's a lot of wasted candy. One solution to that would be to stop giving away candy to kids that they don't like in the first place. Now, interestingly, there are regional differences in terms of what candies kids like in the U.S.,

Starting point is 00:03:04 but here are the top 10 candies overall in the United States, and if you stick to these, chances are not so much will go to waste. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Skittles, M&M's, Starburst, Hot Tamales, sour patch kids, Hershey's Kisses, Snickers, Tootsie Pops, and candy corn. Buy those candies and kids are a lot less likely to throw them away. And I'll put that list of candies, the top ten list of candies, in the show notes. And that is something you should know. For as long as there have been couples in love, there has been conflict in love, which often leads to more conflict, which leads to more problems in the relationship.

Starting point is 00:04:03 And anyone who's been in a relationship knows that's pretty much inevitable. And for many years, psychologist John Gottman and his wife Julie have been helping people and have really become recognized as true experts when it comes to dealing with conflict in relationships. John and Julie are founders of the Gottman Institute, and they have a new best-selling book out that just zoomed up the Amazon charts the moment it was released. It's called The Love Prescription, Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy. And Julie Gottman is here to discuss how we can all deal better with conflict in our relationships. Hey, Julie, welcome. Thanks for being here. Hi, Mike. Thanks for inviting me.

Starting point is 00:04:40 Sure. So as you look at this, what is it about couples? What is it that typically goes wrong where things knows how to manage conflict in a way that works successfully and maintains calmness and a gentle tone while people are talking about a problem they have. What happens instead is criticism, is contempt, defensiveness, and all of those cause much more hostility, pain, misunderstanding, especially during conflict. their relationship by expressing appreciation or thanks or asking each other big questions so they can stay in touch with who their partner is. Those are some of the issues. So if a couple really wanted to make an effort, like what's the thing that kickstarts, biggest bang for your buck in trying to turn a relationship around that's in trouble?

Starting point is 00:06:07 Small things often can make a big difference in the long run. And by small things, what I mean is recognizing when your partner is making a bid for your attention or your interest or perhaps a deeper need they may have. And learning that turning towards your partner, which means responding in a positive way to your partner, rather than either totally ignoring them or turning against them by responding with hostility will make a huge difference, huge difference in the relationship. We found in our research in a lab that looked like an apartment where couples were videotaped for 12 hours at a time, we found that the partners who turned towards each other by responding positively to their partner's bids for connection succeeded in the relationship. And the folks that turned towards each other who were successful did so 86% of the time. Six years later, they were successful in their relationship. The folks who

Starting point is 00:07:27 did not, who turned away or ignored their partner or turned against their partner with hostility if their partner asked them to do something, those folks only turned towards each other positively 33 percent of the time. And that's strongly predicted couples breaking up. So let me explain how easy this is. If I say to John, wow, look at that beautiful bird. That is so cool. As I'm looking out the window, John can either say, wow, that is a cool bird. Now, how long did that take? About two seconds? Or he can totally ignore me. Or he can say, stop interrupting me. I'm trying to read. So that little, wow, that is beautiful, is all it takes to begin to change the relationship in a positive direction if they're practiced fairly consistently. Talk about the importance of empathy in a relationship.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Empathy means naming what you think is the other person's feelings and then adding some validation, which sounds like, wow, no wonder you're feeling so angry. I get it. Or, man, that would really make me anxious too. I get it. I understand. So you're actually going a little bit deeper and you're not, not, not solving the problem for your partner. A lot of people make the mistake of jumping in first thing and saying, have you thought about doing X or Y or Z? And typically what that ends up doing is cutting off the speaking partner from actually really talking about where they're living inside, which is, you know is the emotional world they're having

Starting point is 00:09:27 related to the stress, what they're really feeling. They're just immediately getting shoved into problem solving, and they're not ready for that yet. And then if your partner asks, what do you think I ought to do? Then that's the time to maybe offer up solutions. One of your suggestions seems so small, and that is to say thank you. Why is that? What does that do? What's the magic that maybe isn't so obvious to doing that? We have seen that people who really notice what their partner is doing right in the relationship have a much more

Starting point is 00:10:09 successful relationship than those who don't notice what their partner is doing right. Let me give you an example that comes from the research. A pair of researchers named Robinson and Price did a study where they put independent observers into couples' homes. And they noticed that the couples who had a successful relationship years later noticed about 98% of what their partner was doing right and as judged by the observer who was watching the couple. However, in homes where the couple was distressed and didn't end up staying together, the partners only noticed 50 percent of what the other person was doing right. So it makes a huge difference, first of all, to be aware, to look for what your partner is doing right. And that's a habit of mind you have to form rather than just looking for what your partner is doing wrong. And then secondly,

Starting point is 00:11:21 when we hear thank you, we feel appreciated. And because we feel appreciated, which is kind of a warm, loving feeling, we want to do more to get that appreciation. So what that means is you're creating a cycle in which you do something right. Your partner says thank you and appreciates it. You want to do it more. You do more that is right. You hear more thank yous and so on. So you're creating a really positive culture within the home that feels great for both of you.

Starting point is 00:12:04 Which is great advice, but I think the problem a lot of people in couples have is remembering to keep looking for the positive, to keep those positive glasses on and see what they do positively rather than find all the things they do wrong. Mike, you're absolutely right. You know, this culture that we live in in this country is a very critical culture. Criticism is used all the time when kids are parented.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Criticism is used in school all the way from kindergarten up through college. And criticism is used at work, you know, constructive criticism. So what that teaches us and what we internalize is always to pay attention to what we ourselves are doing wrong and what everybody else is doing wrong. And it's a struggle to break that habit. But I think if you really work at it, you practice, huh, interesting. In the kitchen today, my husband made the coffee. He makes it every day. And so you can say, thank you. Thank you for making the coffee. He makes it every day. And so you can say, thank you. Thank you for making the

Starting point is 00:13:28 coffee. I've been saying that to John for the last 35 years. But do you have to remember, oh, I really need to remember to thank him for the coffee because that really helps our relationship? Or does it become more part of just the kind of organic flow of conversation? I think at first it almost feels a little phony because it's not your natural way of interacting. So yeah, you do have to force it a little bit because it's not something you're used to. But after a time, if you continue to practice it and you're also receiving it from your partner so you know how good it feels, you want to do it more and it becomes much more of a habit. So it's really developing a new habit of mind we're talking about.

Starting point is 00:14:19 We're talking about how the little things make such a big difference in relationships, and I'm speaking with Julie Gottman. The name of her book is The Love Prescription, Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful, as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks,

Starting point is 00:14:51 and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Starting point is 00:15:12 Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences,

Starting point is 00:15:44 career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Julie, it's interesting how we all know we don't like to be criticized, and yet we have no problem criticizing our partner because we do.

Starting point is 00:16:25 Right. And we want things to be perfect. And sometimes, especially early in marriage or relationship, we want to make our partners a clone of us. So we tell them all the things they're doing wrong because it's not who we are, which is a big mistake, actually, because if your partner is a clone of you, you're going to get bored very fast. as a separate person with their own unique personality traits, lifestyle preferences, and notice how they enrich the relationship with their different points of view or the different ways they handle situations. You say a date night is really important. Why? I mean, we've all heard that. Oh, you should have a date night with your spouse because that's your time and it's so easy to forget another over the course of a week.

Starting point is 00:17:46 And dual career couples only talk to each other 35 minutes a week. Isn't that incredible? And most of those conversations were a checklist. Have you called the plumber? Did you attend the teacher conference? You know, they're just a big checklist. So what happens after a while is your life becomes drudgery and your relationship is part of that. nobody else, just the two of you catching up with each other, talking about how the week went, what were the highlights, what were the lowlights, you know, really making more emotional connection with one another without constantly being interrupted by the to-do list and that keeping up with one another is the opportunity for people to keep knowing each other as the partners are each changing over the

Starting point is 00:18:55 course of time so you stay you know in tune with one another you know what your partner is feeling about different aspects of their life and your life together. And you can also talk sometimes about dreams you may have for the future or ways that your lives could be improved now. Lots of stuff to talk about. You just have to make the time for it. I have to ask you, do you and John ever fight? Or is it always these very nice flowing conversations where we just trying to support each other? Or do you ever scream at each other and go, no, damn it, no? Of course, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:19:42 We are all in the same soup. You know, one thing I like to tell people is that, you know, John and I are not gurus. We're not absolute experts. We make mistakes all the time. As a matter of fact, in every couple workshop that we've done over the last 25 years, we always process a recent fight that we've had in front of the audience, just directly in front of the audience, so they can understand how to process a past regrettable incident. And we're never at a lack for those incidents. Well, sure, of course we have them. We're human beings, just like all of us. Talk about the need for asking for what you need, because I think people don't really get that or know how to do that in a way that they think will work. Yes.

Starting point is 00:20:42 There is a formula for doing that. So what is the best way to say what you need? Here's how. And we got this from the 3,000 couples that we studied in our labs. We didn't invent this. This is what the successful couples do. They start with, I feel some emotion. I'm angry, for example. I'm nervous. I'm anxious. I'm angry, for example. I'm nervous.

Starting point is 00:21:07 I'm anxious. I'm upset or I'm stressed. Then about what? What is the situation? They describe the situation neutrally without blame or criticism. So that's going to sound like I'm worried that the bills haven't been paid yet. So it's not you haven't paid the bills, you know, pointing your finger at them, but the bills haven't been paid. There's a new dent in the car, the kitchen is a mess. You just describe the situation that you're upset about. Then, last step, you state your positive need. And what I mean by

Starting point is 00:21:56 positive need is tell your partner how they can shine for you. Tell them what you do want them to do rather than what you resent or don't want them to do. People have a much easier time hearing a positive need than a resentment, which is going to end up feeling like criticism. But in the moment, it's so hard to remember to say it that way. Sure. Of course, Mike. Criticism is always the first thing that comes to our mind. You're so lazy, you never clean up the kitchen, etc. So again, it's practice. This stuff is just practice.

Starting point is 00:22:47 Well, I think the big message here, and you said it right at the beginning, that it's these little things that really matter. And I think they matter, people have heard that it's the little things that count, but it's bigger than I think people even realize. That is true. Those little things compose either the beauty or the disaster of a relationship. One of the small things that you talk about that I think is really interesting, and I think people have a sense of, is the power and the importance of touch. Touch is something that is so, so deeply needed by people that if you take infants and you deprive them of touch, they have a much higher chance of actually dying. There was an experiment,

Starting point is 00:23:50 or not an experiment, an observation done in an orphanage compared to another one. And in one orphanage, the babies were touched and held and rocked. In the other orphanage, they weren't. Both of them fed the babies, kept them dry, and so on. But there was a much higher sickness and death rate in the babies who were not touched. And we do not outgrow the need for touch. We need cuddling, we need affection, we need sex too. But that other kind of touch, just the warmth, releases oxytocin, which is the hormone of bonding in our bodies. So if you hug somebody for 20 seconds, you're getting a big dose of this wonderful bonding hormone moving through your body, making you feel better and warmer. There's a woman named Tiffany Field who did research in Florida on touch for, gosh, probably 30 years. And she found that affectionate touch reduces depression, reduces anxiety, creates more bonding, of course, creates more joy in a relationship.

Starting point is 00:25:15 So why not? Well, even though most of us have heard about how the little things make a difference. But it's good to be reminded of it, especially by someone like you who really studies this, because it's so easy to forget to do the little things because, you know, you're busy, you got a lot to do, and it's good to like refocus back on that. So I appreciate you spending the time. I've been speaking with Julie Gottman. She is a psychologist, and she and her husband, John Gottman, are founders of the Gottman Institute. And they're authors of the new bestselling book, The Love Prescription, Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection and Joy. And there's a link to that book in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:25:57 Thank you, Julie. Thank you so much, Mike. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.

Starting point is 00:26:38 That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Starting point is 00:27:49 There is something about Halloween and cemeteries. They seem to go hand in hand. Cemeteries are often thought of as spooky places. They can also be some very beautiful places. But what all cemeteries have in common is a lot of dead people. And in many ways, cemeteries are very interesting places for a lot of spooky and non-spooky reasons. Here to discuss this is Greg Melville. He's an outdoor journalist and former editor at Men's Journal and Sports Afield magazines.

Starting point is 00:28:23 And he's author of a book called Over My Dead Body, Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries. Hi, Greg, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. So first of all, what makes a cemetery a cemetery? Because we have other terms, seemingly older terms like graveyard or burial ground. How is that different than a cemetery? That's a great question. And actually, so it is an old term, but it's one that generally wasn't used anywhere, really. In the United States, cemeteries were basically called graveyards and burial grounds until the early 1800s. And that's when that first untethered cemetery that became the first city park, Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when it was created. And its

Starting point is 00:29:12 creator had a hard time selling people on the idea of a cemetery, not only the neighbors for where it was going to be built, but then customers to be buried there. So he wanted to create this fancy name for it. And so instead of calling it a graveyard or a burial ground, he called it a cemetery and marketed it as a cemetery, as this new place. And the word and name caught on from there. So are cemeteries cemeteries? They've always been kind of the way they are in America, and that's just cemeteries? The cemeteries in America today are actually very different, or at least the burial customs today are very different than they were 100 years ago or 200 years ago. And we do kind of have this all-American style and format to how we remember and memorialize and bury the dead. So how have the customs and traditions of burying the dead basically,

Starting point is 00:30:10 how have they changed over time? Well, there are 144,000 cemeteries in America, roughly, and each one has its own styles or layout or design or story. But really, so this idea that every person gets a grave and every person gets a gravestone, kind of every person gets a trophy in the afterlife, that's really only about 150 years old. Prior to that, cemeteries were largely repositories for the dead where there were only a few stones that would stand up from

Starting point is 00:30:46 the ground with a lot of bodies inside them. And then today, actually, cremation has overtaken burials as far as how people want their, I guess, eternal remains to be disposed. And why is that? Why have so many people decided to be cremated rather than buried? I'll bet you that that number is a lot higher than it was just, what, probably 10, 20 years ago. Yeah, it is. And the number of cremations is growing rapidly. And cemeteries in some ways are kind of dying. They're looking for ways to survive. And I have to say that cemeteries in some ways are kind of dying. They're looking for ways to survive. And I have to say that cemeteries do kind of get a bum rap. And I understand that because of all the dead people in them. But there are these amazing places of history and culture and everything. I think the reason why

Starting point is 00:31:37 that cremation is overtaking, part of it is obviously the environmental side but then part of it is also that we found other ways to kind of memorialize ourselves facebook for instance can carry a lot more data on our lives and provide this kind of digital immortality that's very different from just the data that is stored on a gravestone well what what i interesting, well, a couple of things. A lot of cemeteries, when you go there during the day, I mean, they're beautiful. They're like parks. They're like gorgeous, the flowers and the trees and all that. It takes on a much spookier kind of image at night. But cemeteries are like a place to go and a place to go to visit the graves of loved ones.

Starting point is 00:32:27 And yet, many people will say, well, I know they're not really here, but there's something about visiting their grave that people like to do, which I suspect is a relatively recent thing or no? It is. It really, and that's kind of an American thing too, that there is this eternal resting place. In a lot of places, like even over in Europe, you'll find some of the great cemeteries there that because they've run out of room, it's almost like a temporary space. And then the bones can be removed later on so that the space can be used for someone else.

Starting point is 00:33:07 But in America, we have this kind of idea of individuality in life and in death that really permeates cemeteries. Where did the idea that cemeteries are spooky? I mean, obviously there's dead people buried there, but it's connected to Halloween and it's like spirits and goblins and ghosts. How did that happen? Take, for instance, the burial hill where the pilgrims buried their dead. The gravestones were very ominous and spooky and gothic and scary. And it has skulls on them. And even the writing, if you go to Plymouth, Massachusetts, and you see them, it says like, here lieth. It looks very, very Shakespearean because it was actually created around the time of Shakespeare. That's really kind of the oldest existing European cemetery in the United States.

Starting point is 00:34:07 And if you look, the roots of the spookiness go straight to there and the gravestones there. And I've probably been carried on ever since. When you go to Europe, you go to England, you'll see graves on a lot of church grounds. Old churches have graves around the church. And now we have standalone cemeteries where there's no church involved. It's just a place where people are buried. Where in America, when did in America did that idea of a standalone cemetery start? Well, the very first kind of big standalone cemetery in the United States was Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass. And it became the first city park in the country because at that time, nature was seen as something to be conquered and not conserved.

Starting point is 00:34:57 But people needed a place to go outside of Boston in order to – they were looking for a place to kind of have a picnic and recreate. And so the cemetery became basically the second leading tourist attraction in the country besides Niagara Falls. And people from all over the world came to visit it, royalties, celebrities, and it was just this amazing place. And then it was supplanted, It was replaced as this huge tourist attraction by another cemetery in Brooklyn called Greenwood, which then opened up and became kind of this, the country's first public art museum. Because at that time, there were no art museums and the sculptures that were created and placed atop the graves there were like a sight not seen anywhere in the world so when people are buried we hear the term six feet under is that is that about right are people buried six feet below the surface i always thought they were because horror movies always told me that it was six feet under and and lore always told me and then before my senior year of college i worked in the cemetery in my hometown in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Starting point is 00:36:08 And I learned that is not the case necessarily. It's generally between four and five feet in most places because six feet is really deep and takes a long time to dig, even if you have machinery to do it. Graves can collapse if they're that deep. It was really something that probably started during a plague in London centuries ago that they specified burials had to be six feet deep in order to protect people from the health hazards of plague and also to protect from grave robbers and animals from digging up the graves. But generally in the United States, no, it is not six feet. It's more like four or five feet.

Starting point is 00:36:54 In the history of cemeteries, are there ones that really stand out as being, I don't know, transformational or really important cemeteries? There's a cemetery in Los Angeles that was basically the first theme park in America. And the layout was used to basically by Walt Disney to create Disneyland. And Walt Disney was later buried in the cemetery. It's called Forest Lawn Memorial Park. But then also, most importantly, you have the national cemeteries, Gettysburg and Arlington, which caused a dramatic shift in i don't think i get how a cemetery can be a theme park and how disneyland was kind of patterned after it and walt disney is then buried there again put that all together for me a theme park is is a park where people go to that is based around a specific theme so knott's Berry Farm is considered kind of the first theme park. Disneyland is a theme park as opposed to an amusement park. And really they were, they both

Starting point is 00:38:13 popped up after Forest Lawn. Forest Lawn basically looks like a country club. It's on the side of a mountain and it's all grassy with all of the headstones placed down. There are no trash cans or anything like that that you can see. They're all concealed to look like logs. There are speakers that pipe music throughout the cemetery. And it's like it has art. And also it has chapels where there are weddings, including Ronald Reagan was married in one in 1940. And they look like they're out of Cinderella. And so this became the number one tourist attraction in California for close to four decades, only to be replaced by Disneyland itself in the early 1950s. It just seems like an odd idea to me to make a cemetery be so not in cemetery-like. And really what the creator of that cemetery was trying to do was sell this idea of security in eternal rest. And really that would be surrounded with themes of patriotism and God and eternal life. And he wanted it to be a place where many people would come to visit,

Starting point is 00:39:49 even if they had no one there, even today, or no loved one there. Even today, about a million people a year come just to visit the sites of Forest Lawn. He changed every attitude towards cemeteries at that time. And then also the layout of cemeteries, because many follow that same kind of open green country club space look. Even the name Forest Lawn Memorial Park is to draw people's attention away from death when they go there for buying a grave, but then also to visit. It's supposed to be a place of life, like I said, kind of a country club looking place. And so he very much tried to de-emphasize death, even though there are tens of thousands of people buried there.

Starting point is 00:40:37 So you say the Civil War changed the way we view death in many ways, or the way we do death in many ways in the US. So talk about that. At the time of the Civil War, a good death in the United States was considered a death where you died at home in what was called the death room at that time, which later was changed to the living room, because it sounds better, frankly. But you were surrounded by your friends and family, and the dying person would utter their last words, which would be recorded, and then friends and family would take that person in generally a pine box, carry them to the churchyard or the yard of the house of worship, and bury them. And that was considered the good death that was part of leading someone to salvation. But during the Civil War, there were a lot of people who

Starting point is 00:41:29 didn't necessarily, it was not a good death, right, on those battlefields. So Lincoln had to create or redefine the good death. And he does that in the Gettysburg Address when he is dedicating the Gettysburg National Cemetery there by talking about the people who consecrate the ground just by being there. And so, it changed this idea of the good death and made it so that it wasn't necessarily something that was in the home, which then kind of brought about the rise of funeral homes after that. And the Civil War itself brought about the rise of embalming because Lincoln wanted soldiers to be able to get transported back to their families still preserved.

Starting point is 00:42:17 And so at that time, embalming was a very rare method that was just used in Europe and in some places in the United States to preserve bodies for medical schools. It then became widespread. I want to talk about tombstones, because that's like a whole business in and of itself. And tombstones can get very elaborate. And where did that all begin? Really, the use of tombstones became popular with the creation of the Church of England when it broke off from the Catholic Church and at that time

Starting point is 00:42:51 people could usually pay indulgences in order to ensure that they could get into heaven but the indulgences disappeared it was one of the reasons for the creation of the Church of England. So, well-to-do people at that time, they needed other ways to grease the skids for getting into heaven. And one of them was to create these ostentatious gravestones that would extol their virtues to generations to come so that people could see their worthiness and the reason why they should be saved. Now, certainly in the movies and around Halloween, you hear the stories of grave

Starting point is 00:43:36 robbing. Was that really a big problem at some point? And if so, when and why? And talk about that. Sure. If you go back to the 1700s and 1800s in the United States, urban cemeteries were rife with grave robbing. There's this story about John Hancock, one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence, who when he was buried in Boston's Granary Burial Ground, within a day, his grave was dug up and the rings were stolen from his fingers. And really, also during the early 19th century, medical students were known in a lot of cities to steal graves because there were not enough cadavers to go around as medical schools suddenly proliferated. And so there were clubs like at Harvard University where two people would go out at night and they would go to a cemetery

Starting point is 00:44:31 and one would stand lookout and the other one would dig up a body and they would bring it back to the medical school so that they could use as cadavers for dissecting. That was one of the reasons why the cemeteries became untethered from the churchyards and were placed on the outskirts of towns starting in the mid-1800s because there were so many bodies there and they were such rich targets in the middle of cities that they expanded outwards. How else have cemeteries impacted America, American history over the years? Really, cemeteries were the first cultural battleground in the Cold War. So those cemeteries that so many of us have visited in Europe, in Normandy,

Starting point is 00:45:26 and other places where the battlefields were those were designed specifically with the intent of battling communism to serve as symbols of american might and frankly about christianity and how that prevails or should prevail over communism and atheism and when you look at those cemeteries and how they're laid out and the symbolism of religion mixed with kind of the might of American soldiers and earnestness is really pretty remarkable. And the intent that went behind that because they understood that these were symbols that would last for generations and generations and would be forever implanted into the countryside in some of these countries in Europe and stand as American soil. One thing I've always found

Starting point is 00:46:19 interesting, and I kind of get it, but it's still a little weird to me, is how a lot of people are attracted to celebrity graves. And they visit them. They make trips to visit the graves of famous people. Right. And there's even a secondary market for graves. say, a site that's near Marilyn Monroe can sell their site for, in one case, for millions of dollars on, I think it was on eBay. And so, yeah, even the idea of being buried in proximity to a star is really something that's sought after. Well, listening to you, it's really amazing how cemeteries have played such an interesting role in American history and American culture. And it's particularly interesting to hear it around Halloween. I've been speaking with Greg Melville, and the name of his book is Over My Dead Body, Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries. And if you'd like to read it, there

Starting point is 00:47:23 is a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you for being here, Greg. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Social scientists call it the imaginary spotlight. It's when you're doing something and you think everyone's watching you and judging you. For example, if you're at a gym and you're working out on a

Starting point is 00:47:45 fitness machine, you can start to think that other people are watching how you're doing it. But guess what? They're not. Just as you're not watching them, they're not watching you. The fact is that people think about us and judge us a lot less than we think, because most people are thinking about themselves and their own activities. In other words, other people are just not that into you. This is according to David Allen, who's author of a book called I Can't Believe I Just Did That. And he says it's important to realize this because we often avoid taking a risk for fear of what other people will think. But you should probably just go ahead and do it anyway,

Starting point is 00:48:27 because no one really cares. They're all too wrapped up in their own lives. And that is something you should know. You could help us by spreading the word about this podcast and telling other people about it and getting them to listen. Just one person. It would be a great way for you to support this podcast. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:48:51 Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church

Starting point is 00:49:17 for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook.

Starting point is 00:49:36 Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. wherever you get your podcasts. episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type.

Starting point is 00:50:32 With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.

Something You Should Know - Why Little Things Really Matter In Relationships & Cool and Weird Stories About Cemeteries

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