To celebrate the fourth, Chris and I go full porch mode, eschewing the news of the day to focus instead on Worcester’s messy, turbulent, amazing relationship with the Fourth of July, a Purge-like affinity built into our DNA going back to the industrial revolution. We read from an entire chapter about the city’s July 4 celebrations a century ago in Roy Rosenzweig’s Eight Hours For What We Will, the best book ever written about this city. Because it’s pretty hard to find, having been out of print for decades, here’s a scan of the chapter in question, and a folder with the whole book in it, courtesy of the group of volunteers who made scans for the book club we did last year.

We also go over a 1900s story recently posted to Reddit about a Worcester guy who came to possess a revolutionary war mortar?

Then to bring it all home, the news from Wednesday of a guy lighting off dynamite.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend. Lots of laughs in this ep, very little serious or depressing talk. Chase the shaved and lubricated pig of your dreams. Oh here’s a look at the porch rig. It’s beautiful.

And some of you may notice I’m wearing an I Pick Up Worcester Litter Very Well shirt. An Instagram account you simply must be following if you aren’t already. They have a few cleanup events coming up!

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∿Intro music: “Roaming The Cosmic Winds” by Mystic Realm, Worcester-based dungeon synth project by Kevin Fitzgerald.

∿Outro music: Outdoor Cats summer theme. Will be up on the Bandcamp soon!

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