Tell Me What Happened

Russ Klettke grew up in a small town in upstate New York. From an early age, Russ realized creative thinking was one key to success. An award winning writer, Russ learned a lesson in 6th grade by choosing to write an original essay over a conventional one. Russ tells the story and explains how it has made all the difference in his life.

Russ Klettke is a freelance journalist based in Chicago covering energy and the environment, as well as a business writer for hire by companies and not-for-profit organizations. His book on nutrition, 'A Guy's Gotta Eat,' was published in 2004 and was endorsed by the American Library Association.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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John Lee Dumas, known to his millions of listeners as "JLD," tells the story of being eight years old on a Colorado ski trip with his father and a number of older men. Young JLD, who's been admonished not to slow down the group, winds up assisting one of the older skiers. His reflection on the memory ends with what Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast listeners have come to know as one of John's "value bombs."

John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of the award winning podcast, Entrepreneurs On Fire. With over 100 million listens of his 3000+ episodes, JLD has turned Entrepreneurs On Fire into a media empire that generates over a million listens every month and 7-figures of NET annual revenue 8-years in a row. His first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the modern day version of Think and Grow Rich with a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. Learn more at UncommonSuccessBook.com

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

More Information about other quality publications from our sponsor can be found on Sidelineinkpublishing.com

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Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Alanna Bennett was Initially unaware of the difficult economic circumstances she and her mother faced each day. Over time, however, Alanna understood that most of her grade school classmates didn't participate in the free lunch program, nor did they avail themselves to the second hand shoes and clothing that school administrators offered her. Only after breaking her arm in a skateboard accident as a ten year old, did the living circumstances of Alanna's life slowly begin to change.

Alanna Bennett is a screenwriter and culture writer living in Los Angeles. She’s written movies and been in writers rooms, and her journalistic work can be found in BuzzFeed News, the New York Times, The Cut, Vulture, Teen Vogue, Eater, and more.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

More information about Susan Salidor can be found at her website Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

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To the chagrin of her seemingly devout Catholic grandmother, Molly Dunn's parents decided not to baptize their children. Family discord and many uncomfortable moments followed. Years later, while Molly was a teenager, her grandmother reveals that she (the grandmother) has not been to confession in 35 years. Molly is shocked to learn that her grandmother wasn't quite as Catholic as Molly had assumed.

Molly Dunn is a disabled writer and former student of mine. She has worked in the US Senate, earned a graduate degree from Oxford, and spent time in a Chicago psych ward. Her weekly podcast, Ketamine Insights, explores mental illness and psychedelic medicine from a patient's perspective.

Molly Dunn's sestina dedicated to her grandmother

Us, Together

The two of us were alone together

Twice in our lives, sick,

We each took a turn, we cared

For the other, we loved

Actively. To me, she was more than Grandma

And in death, I find that she is not gone.

Tomorrow they say she’ll be 12 years gone

And only today I realized that we were together

When I had scarlet fever, that it was Grandma

Who sat by my side. Confident, competent with the sick.

It was happenstance, my parents worked, but her love

Would mean the world for decades. Her care

Would be a hope, a prize, I cared

So much about her judgements, still ringing years after she’s gone.

She was so mean. But I knew. I knew about her love.

Because she’d nod at me, quickly, in approval. Because we’d been together

When I was sick.

I didn’t see until today that it had been Grandma.

When, after years, I came home and hugged my Grandma,

Felt how frail she had become, it took my breath. I cared

And I stayed with her then. I held her, sick,

Until, only months later, she was gone.

I would dream for years of us - back together

Healthy or sick, confident and competent in our love.

My memories of her taught me the thing about love.

How it travels not just distance but time. Grandma,

Who surely baptized me in secret, who, together

With so many of us, hid - through drink - our caring,

Our pain, our loneliness for each other. In a way, she was often gone.

In a way, we were both so sick

All along. The kind of sick

One lives with, despite love, because of love.

We thought she’d never die. Now, 12 years “gone,”

When I love, when I turn my Claudagh inward, I think of Grandma.

Me and her, we do nothing more than care.

That’s not an easy way to be. Thank God we’re in this together.

Molly Dunn

November 12, 2021

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Jeff Salidor recalls moving out of his parent's home at a young age, shortly after his mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Deciding to move back in with his parents four months later, Jeff has a short conversation with his father that he carries with him to this day.

Jeff Salidor is a Day Trader, Pattern Technician and former Restauranteur & Beverage Industry Importer. He is also a CBD Distributor and Wholesaler.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

More Information about other quality publications from our sponsor can be found on Sidelineinkpublishing.com

Those interested in recording and saving your laughter for free and forever go to Laughsaver.com

At the age of 19, Timothy (aka Tim) has an experience that he's convinced is his personal rom-com 'meet cute' event. His humorous attempt to ask out a college classmate that he believes fate has chosen for him is both poignant and instructive.

Timothy Bernard Felton is a comedian, improviser, actor, husband and dad. In his work, Tim likes to explore the entire range of emotions as a way of highlighting the humor contained in each. If he can’t laugh today about the thing he was crying about yesterday … then life may be just too dang hard. If you want to catch him live around Chicago, you can find and follow him @timothyfeltoncomedy on instagram.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

More Information about other quality publications from our sponsor can be found on Sidelineinkpublishing.com

Those interested in recording and saving your laughter for free and forever go to Laughsaver.com

Keyante Aytch, co-founder and President of Sunbend Solar, recalls a childhood shaped by the Power Rangers superhero television show. Together with grade school friends, Keyante studies and replicates the action heroes throughout his childhood. Later, he comes to believe that "Some of the best technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Keyante Aytch is motivated by his passion for environmental stewardship and is effortful in providing education on sustainable living practices in urban areas. Keyante has a background as a certified solar installation technician and has pioneered solar power stations in urban agricultural landscapes.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

More Information about other quality publications from our sponsor can be found on Sidelineinkpublishing.com

Those interested in recording and saving your laughter for free and forever go to Laughsaver.com

Mark Renz is lifelong educator, with 51 years of formal teaching and learning, both in Chicago's Catholic and Public schools. He is married with a wonderful wife and daughter. In this episode of "Tell Me What Happened, Mark recalls how his journey to become a history teacher began back in a Catholic elementary school as a consequence of a very influential lay teacher. Shout out to Marian Hesek, wherever she may be.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

More Information about other quality publications from our sponsor can be found on Sidelineinkpublishing.com

Those interested in recording and saving your laughter for free and forever go to Laughsaver.com

Thom Clark, peace activist and media specialist, recalls being motivated by his friend, Roland Radford, a military veteran, to try and stop the Vietnam War.

Thom Clark is a volunteer with the Investigative Project on Race and Equity. A former co-host of the weekly Live from the Heartland radio show on Loyola’s WLUW 88.7 FM, he’s also lectured on media and American Culture in UIC ‘s Corporate MBA program, working with cohorts of Chinese health professionals. He served on the steering committee of Network 49, an independent political organization of the 49th Ward in Chicago’s Far North Side Rogers Park neighborhood, where he and his family have resided for over 30 years.

For over 25 years, Thom was president & co-founder of the Community Media Workshop (now Public Narrative) where he helped journalists and hundreds of NGOs annually improve media coverage of Chicago’s neighborhoods. He also taught in the graduate journalism program at Columbia College Chicago.

Thom hosted a weekly Community Media & You CAN TV cable show for eight years and co-hosted the weekly WNUA radio show City Voices for 15 years. In addition to a comprehensive annual media guide to hundreds of outlets and thousands of journalists, under his direction the Workshop orchestrated major media campaigns around the 1996 Democratic Convention, Local School Councils, the 2013 NATO Summit and ethnic media. He co-authored three seminal reports for the Chicago Community Trust on The NEWnews: Journalism We Want & Need.

During his 40 years as an editor, photojournalist and social enterprise entrepreneur in Chicago’s nonprofit sector, Thom developed affordable housing for Voice of the People in Uptown; co-founded and directed the Chicago Rehab Network; served as editor of award-winning monthly, The Neighborhood Works published by the Center for Neighborhood Technology; co-authored a weekly photo column for The Chicago Reader; and worked as a newsletter editor and photojournalist, before co-founding the Workshop in 1989.

Thom was one of Business and Professional People’s “40 Who’ve Made a Difference;” he’s received the Chicago Headline Club’s Peter Lisagor Award; and he gained a Studs Terkel Community Media Award from the Workshop for his journalistic leadership.

On April 29, 1971, Thom & three colleagues poured blood on 500 draft board records in Evanston, Illinois, used in recruiting soldiers to fight in Vietnam. Later, The Four of Us, successfully defended themselves in federal court, gaining acquittals from a jury on three counts and later winning the fourth conspiracy count on appeal.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

Michelle L. Holleman has spent a great deal of her life deeply involved in her community. Currently a Highland Park City Councilwoman, Michelle traces her activism back to an experience she had as a first grader, when she became interested in the Girl Scouts and pleaded with her mother to form a Brownie troop. Despite limited time and means, as well as a lack of experience as a troop leader, Michelle's mother honored her daughter's request, and as a consequence, instilled in young Michelle a commitment to civic mindedness and the importance of volunteerism.

Michelle L. Holleman is a grassroots community organizer and volunteer currently serving her second term as an elected Councilman for the City of Highland Park. She has 30 years of experience in marketing communications, with a focus on storytelling, editing, and project management. She currently serves as the Director of Communications for the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund and previously worked as the associate director of marketing at Lake Forest College and began her career as a publications editor at the Graduate School at Northwestern University. Michelle earned her MSEd from Northwestern and has a BA in Speech Communication from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Married for 30 years to the love of her life, Tom Holleman, together they have three adult children who are their greatest source of pride and joy.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

More Information about other quality publications from our sponsor can be found on Sidelineinkpublishing.com

Those interested in recording and saving your laughter for free and forever go to Laughsaver.com