Shows
Keeping Dad AliveArchives, Sibs, and TossRichard and Eunice left behind a 100 boxes’ worth of personal papers and family records. Margaret and her sister Kerry must dispose of it all.
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2022-12-1518 minKeeping Dad AliveRequiem for Impossible MatterRichard imagines life after death on an undiscovered planet in a far-flung galaxy where he can recreate his life with his beloved wife Eunice. Margaret has a message for listeners.
2021-12-2408 minKeeping Dad AliveMr. RichardRichard is in hospice and needs caregivers 24-hours-a-day. He marvels at all the attention. For his caregivers, it’s a vocation in the deepest sense of the word. Richard makes a case for more public support for caregiving.
2021-11-1631 min
Keeping Dad AliveBold Move to a New WorldRichard is about to embark on his final journey. He recounts an earlier voyage by train, boat, and plane with his young family to their new home in the Philippines. On a stopover in Japan, Richard attends a conference about his new vocation: the urban-industrial mission of the church.
2021-09-1533 minKeeping Dad AliveHellish JobsWhat does vocation mean to someone in a hellish job? The Ministers in-Industry-Program put seminarians to work in steel mills to teach them what the industrial system does to people. Richard applies what he knows about Calvin and labor organizing to the circumstances workers find themselves in today.
Music Credits: “Last Light” by Xylo-Ziko https://nultielrecords.blogspot.com/
2021-08-1121 minKeeping Dad AliveHenny and ErnestRichard, the son of a working class father and a mother with higher aspirations, found a way to honor them both through his vocation. Richard’s sister Erna helps memorialize their resilient lives.
Music Credits: “Phase 3” by Xylo-Ziko https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/ and "The Fred Waring Show," September 23, 1947.
2021-07-2314 minKeeping Dad AliveGood WillPeople popped up in Richard’s life along the way and gave him direction. Call this vocation, good will, or “breaking the spell”—it altered the course of his life. When Mrs. Masek, a neighbor in the tenement building where Richard lived, recommended Good Will Sunday School, little did Richard or his mother Henrietta know it would open up the world to him.
Music Credit: “Savanna” by Xylo-Ziko https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/
2021-06-2512 minKeeping Dad AliveCosmic TheologianAt the start of Season 2, Margaret asks "why do you talk so much about vocation?” Richard’s surprising answer spans time and space—from Luther’s understanding of Beruf that launched the Protestant Reformation to Richard’s current theological ideas about what holds the universe together.
For Richard, vocation asks, “What you can see that you gave your life to?” He reflects on his life’s calling to bring justice to working people, in the context of the history of the Presbyterian Church’s Social Gospel movement and his own working class roots. He offers a midrash on the theme of class...
2021-06-2118 minKeeping Dad AliveTrailer - Season 2 - VocationRichard talked a lot about vocation when his kids were young. The word stuck with Margaret. When she asked her dad about it, his answer took them on an unexpected journey. They decided to devote the entire podcast season to vocation.
2021-06-2001 min
Keeping Dad AliveEpisode 13 – Rhythm of the seasonsRichard’s been clocking his progress through the coronavirus pandemic by the seasons, hoping he would make it to this point. Now that he’s made it to Spring, it’s time to end Season 1 of this podcast and pause for reflection.
Music credit:
“Horrible” from the album Mela 2 by the Mela Ensemble. Used under the Creative Commons license Attribution-ShareAlike.
2021-04-1907 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 12 – Hitchhiking with BenRichard’s grandson Ben tries to interview him about cars, but the conversation soon goes off track. Richard ("Dede") shares tales of hitchhiking across the country in the 1940s and riding a jeepney in the Philippines, while Ben struggles to get the answers he was hoping for.
Richard (and Margaret) are initially confused by Ben’s line of questioning. But as the interview continues, Ben hones his listening and interviewing skills. He even learns about a black man named Joe Louis.
Ben quickly gets the hang of this business and pulls the threads of the conversation with his grandfather together.
Music...
2021-03-2612 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 11 – The money episodeMoney, money, money—Margaret and her sisters unpack the family dynamic around money, starting with the Hotel Eden luxury suite incident in Rome, 1968.
Money’s an emotional trigger for Richard and it rubbed off on his kids. His angst about money was established early—in his working class roots, the fragility of his family during the Depression, and his own struggles to earn enough money to pay for college.
Richard’s idea about what it means to “live within one’s means” is challenged when he marries into an upper middle-class family. Eunice and the kids adapt to Richard’s insistence on th...
2021-03-0916 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 10 – Live! from coleus earth stationRichard and his daughter Johanna co-host a radio show, broadcasting through plant signals. Adopting the monikers Diving for Pearls and Island Boy, Johanna and Richard discover the silver lining of our quarantine isolation and dependence on electronic communication.
In this podcast episode, Johanna—a visual, public, and performance artist—engages Richard in her fantasy about earth stations, in which the plants in our gardens or on our windowsills are little satellite dishes, sending signals across time and space. From Radio Free Whitney Street in Oakland, California, and Coleus Earth Station in the great city of Philadelphia, Diving for Pearls and Isla...
2021-02-0215 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 9 – Bird insurrectionRichard and his daughter Margaret investigate the bird insurrection, while humans attack the U.S. Capitol and President Trump is impeached for the second time.
Birds provide joy, humor, and solace in rough times, and it seems that they share the capacity for feelings with the human species. And boy, are there a lot of feelings swooping and fluttering around right now!
Margaret is struggling with a loss of faith in her fellow humans. She pulls an old recording from 2012 in which Richard describes his encounter with the American eagle, and Eunice, Margaret’s mother and Richard’s wife, joins him...
2021-01-1911 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 8 - PT to the rescue!Richard's physical therapist Jennifer has saved his life...more than once! Jennifer keeps an eye on Richard and, with training, persistence, and ingenuity, helps him keep it together.
Links:
On chronic conditions, self-management, and challenges in caring for people with chronic conditions:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/health_policy/adult_chronic_conditions.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/learnmorefeelbetter/programs/general.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5876976/
https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2010/01/chronic-care.html
https://www.giaging.org/documents/mcc_framework.pdf
On excess deaths during pandemic:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942...
2021-01-0812 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 7 - A fruity guyFruit brings Richard joy, especially papaya. But the fruit cup at Richard’s senior living residence leaves something to be desired. Richard must work on his son Scott—with deft negotiation and meticulous timing—to keep him in fruit.
The music in this podcast is Slow Strutt and Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions and Binasuan by Juan Silas Jr. and his Rondalla.
Links:
Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/null
2020-12-2310 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 6 – In One LifetimeRichard reflects on the connection between his life’s work and that of his daughter Erika, who is leading the Biden/Harris transition team for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Music Credits: The Crisper; Borough; Taoudella; An Unknown Visitor by Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/null
Links:
Richard Poethig’s writings: http://www.richardpoethig.com/index.html
Inclusive Recovery Insights newsletter, by Erika Poethig:
https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/research-action-lab/projects/inclusive-recovery-insights
Rising Star by David Garrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Star_(book)
2020-11-3010 minKeeping Dad AliveEpisode 5 - Lockdown bluesWhen Richard stops answering the phone and getting out of bed for Zoom meetings, daughter Kerry finds a new way to reach our dad.
Music credits: The music in this piece is “Black Clouds Gone Bad” by Sore & Steal and “Take to the Skies” by Forget the Whale. Used under the Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike.
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Sore__Steal/Many_Moons_A-Go-Go/Black_clouds_gone_bad
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Forget_the_Whale/Take_to_the_Skies
Links:
https://www.grandpad.net/
2020-11-2610 minKeeping Dad AliveCounting votes in PhiladelphiaRichard revels in living in Philadelphia - the historical heart of U.S. democracy and home of his son Scott - while waiting anxiously for the votes to be counted in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
Links:
Joe Biden's Penn graduation address, 2013: https://almanac.upenn.edu/archive/volumes/v59/n33/comm-biden.html
2020-11-1010 minKeeping Dad AliveKeep on rollin'Richard and his grandson Sam sing old favorites together and daughter Erika explores her father’s influence on Sam.
2020-10-3010 minKeeping Dad AliveOn pulsars, wavelengths, and beating heartsRichard and his daughter Johanna explore the physical, emotional, and spiritual planes of human existence while exercising on Zoom. Richard brings a poem to read aloud. The poem, titled “Star with a Secret,” is by American anthropologist and natural science writer Loren Eiseley.
Music credits: The music in this episode is the piece “Invention No. 1” by the composer and performer Chris Brown. Used with permission.
Links:
Chris Brown, composer and performer: https://cbmuse.com
Loren Eiseley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Eiseley
"Arecibo Observatory Telescope Collapses, Ending An Era Of World-Class Research," December 1, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/01/940767001/arecibo-observatory-telescope-collapses-ending-an-era-of-world-class-research
2020-10-2208 minKeeping Dad AliveInterferenceRecording the podcast presents hilarious challenges for Margaret and Richard.
Music Credits: The music is “Horrible” from the album Mela 2 by the Mela Ensemble. https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Mela/Mela_two
Links to Richard's websites:
http://www.onthesidewalksofnewyork.com/index.html
http://richardpoethig.com/index.html
2020-10-2206 minKeeping Dad AliveIntroducing the Keeping Dad Alive podcastSix months into the coronavirus pandemic, Margaret's 95-year-old dad Richard was cheerfully riding it out in his senior living residence. But things change. This podcast captures the voice of a father and his five children, as they cherish their time together on earth.
2020-10-2000 min