This past Friday my son, Matt, and I did the final episode of our podcast. I guess I shouldn’t say “final” because you never know.
We started the show two years ago, June 1, 2021. The show was actually Matt’s idea.
I had been in Virginia Beach providing daycare for my grandson Liam. If you haven’t heard that story, when it was time for my daughter, Sarah, to go back to work she wasn’t comfortable with leaving her 6-month old with a stranger. That’s when I said, “I could do it.” We talked about it and decided to go for it. The plan was I would move to Virginia Beach for six months and then Liam would go to day care. That was January 2020. Needless to say the world changed in March of 2020. When the six month mark came the daycares were not accepting any new children. My six month stay turned into a year-and-a-half. I saw my wife, Priscilla, about every five weeks or so but when May of 2021 came I was ready to come home. Liam was in daycare and I moved back to Massachusetts.
Matt was thinking I might need something to do after being busy with Liam every day so he developed a way to get me back behind the microphone with a daily show on YouTube. We spent the month of May developing some show ideas, buying equipment and all the other prep work that went into the show. On June 1, 2021 we went live. The show went through some adjustments those first few months and then we set into a routine and things were going well. It was great to reconnect with many of my radio listeners.
We did a daily show that first year from 8 to 9 a.m. It got a little busy at times especially when we traveled to Virginia to visit the kids. We set the show up in Sarah’s dining room once and also the guest bedroom. As the first year anniversary rolled around we decided to make a change and move to a weekly show. Matt had gotten busier writing, producing and recording music and the daily show kept him busy until about noon every day and then he would be tired as he tried to start his other job with his music.
We continued with the show on Friday mornings for year number two. I’m not going to lie, we had a lot of fun. Every show started with an outline of stories and games but we never really knew where things would go. If something came up that was better than what we had planned we just went with it.
After the first of the year I think we were both wondering where we were going to go with this. The popularity of some of the features required more of Matt’s time with editing and posting on all the social media. We were seeing pretty good numbers on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube but to keep up with that you have to be consistent. As spring approached we realized that we really didn’t have the time we felt was needed to do it right. Matt has been increasingly busy with his music as he writes, records, produces and performs so we both decided that it was time to end the show. We decided to hang in there until the second anniversary and then call it. We both realized we couldn’t just wait until that last Friday and announce, “That’s all! We’re done!” We announced the decision at the beginning of May and I have to tell you, that was not an easy segment. We knew we would be disappointing some but we had to do what seems right for us. I got a little choked up giving my final thoughts the other day and Matt surprised me with his thoughts. We made sure the other didn’t know what we were going to say so it would be a surprise.
Here’s the farewell announcement if you missed it and a montage Matt made that kind of sums up what we did every week.
So what’s next? Matt continues to write, record and perform his music. He has his first record out and another release is planned for later this month.
As for me? As I’ve mentioned, I’m doing some work for Norton Media now covering high school sports and I continue to cover sports for New Bedford Cable Network. My dream job was to be a Major League Baseball broadcaster so at least this gives me a little taste of sports play-by-play. I also want to commit to my writing more.
If you remember, I used to do a weekly blog called “Woof Wednesday.” It was a look at the world through the eyes of our Beagle, Oscar. A friend once commented, “You should make these into a book” and I’ve been working on that for a couple years. I now have no excuse as to why it can’t be finished. I also have a few other things in mind.
One nice surprise recently was an email from a former colleague. This blew my mind when I read it and sometimes I forgot how the show on YouTube went worldwide. Back in the mid seventies I worked weekends at WNBH. I went in Saturday night at midnight and relieved Christine Sweet who did the 6pm to midnight shift. Christine later left and moved to Minnesota where she worked for the Minnesota PBS network. We kept in touch off and on over the years and I didn’t know she had discovered the new show. In her email she made a very good point. She said, “Well, I can understand if it’s time to sunset the show and move on to other things (although no reason the sun can’t rise again).” This is true.
I’m not sure if the show will return but I do want to thank everyone who took time to tune in either live or recorded. Please know I appreciate every one of you. And thanks to the internet I guess it’ll be on YouTube for awhile, maybe forever!
Please continue to follow the socials and, if you haven’t done so yet, check out Hunter Braley music to keep up-to-date with Matt.
Until next time, as Matt would say, “Peace!”
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