August 23, 2022 • 32 mins
In today's episode, we venture into the podcast vault to talk about some snuggly friends, many of the ridiculous variety. It's no secret that, until very recently, US Presidents were known as huge fans of pets -- and they didn't limit themselves to cats and dogs! Join Ben and Noel as they explore some of the strangest pets in presidential history, from warhorses and cows to bears, raccoons and much, much more.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, special announcement at the top of the week.
Today we are airing a classic episode. Uh, Noel, Max
and I were talking off air. We have a we
have a Presidential Pets episode coming out. It's part two.
So a while back Nowel, you'll remember we did Presidential
(00:22):
Pets Part one and uh, we really listened to it
and it's actually it's a lot of fun. It is
a lot of fun. And you know, we wouldn't usually
do this, but we figured if we're gonna do a
part two way way in the future. Um, from the
part one that you may or may not have heard already,
and we haven't released this one as a class, we
thought we'd um, you know, do ourselves a solid. It's
our birthday month. Things have been happening. Uh. And this
(00:45):
way you get part one followed by part two. So
here's part one. Ridiculous History is a production of I
Heart Radio. Of all the addresses in the fair United
(01:21):
States of America, perhaps the most prestigious is six Pennsylvania Avenue.
Welcome to the show. My name is Ben. Bears and
raccoons and alligators and stuffy old white men. Oh my
my name is Noel. And this is ridiculous history. And
we were just chatting off air with the uh, the
(01:41):
third member of our Triumvirts, a super producer, Casey Pegram,
about animals, right, about pets, about the government, and of
course about history because we've looked at some weird presidential
things before. We've mentioned some, um but when you would
you get down to the nitty gritty the legoons and peanuts. Oh,
(02:06):
those are the same thing, uh, the beans and nuts
of the of the situation. Presidents and presidential families or
like any other family, they're just like you or I.
Of course, yes, yeah, you know, they do people stuff.
They wear pants, put them on, you know, one leg
(02:28):
at a time, as they say, yeah, they brush their teeth.
They might have servants that put their pants on for
them in this case, that's that's different and I don't
have that right. Or they might have someone brushing their teeth.
They might have a machine that's been custom built to
put pants on them. But we're not talking about pants
machines today, are we been. No? No, we are talking
about something that is I would say, at the very
(02:50):
least equally fascinating. Yeah, we're talking about pets because you know,
in the interest of of appearing as as normal human beings,
and you know, and possibly because of anuine love of animals,
Presidents often traditionally have pets, although number forty five has
a shoot pets and has spoken against pets, saying they
(03:12):
were quote low class. But we're not here to talk
about that today. We're talking about the legacy of presidential pets,
particularly some kind of weird ones. Yes, first off, I
am baffled. That's new information to me. I can't believe. Really,
no pets. Huh, no pets. Wow, that's kind of unusual
historically because the other forty four presidents, the majority of
(03:36):
them did have some sort of well they were a
family member, did have some sort of animal companion and
familiar if you will. Yeah, so familiar if you will.
And when we say animal companion, of course, we mean
stuff like your typical dog. You know, they might have
a pooch, they might have a cat or something. But
(03:56):
that's not it, because you see, although the base similarity remains,
the fact is that when you hold the highest office
in the land, you and your family members get a
little more a leeway, you have a little more agency.
And so it turns out that there are quite a
few exotic pets the presidents have had in the past. Yeah,
(04:19):
did you know there's a thing called the Presidential Pet Museum,
Then yes, I would love to check that out. But
according to them, John Quincy Adams, who was the son
of John Adams and also, as it happens, the sixth
President of the United States, he was about to say,
ruled Coverned from eighteen eighty nine, and legend has it,
(04:42):
I don't know, maybe that's not a legend, but uh, allegedly,
let's say he had an alligator that he kept in
an unfinished room, the east room of what was then
called the President's House. That's not very creative. It wasn't
until Teddy Roosevelt changed the n and officially to the
White House in nineteen one. But this alligator apparently was
(05:05):
gifted to Adams by the French military officer and revolutionary
hero and uh and a important historical figure in the
play Hamilton's Marquis de Lafayette Um, who fought with the
US against the British forces during the American Revolution and
(05:27):
also lays down some sick bars in Hamilton. So the
story goes that he would keep he kept this gator
in a bathtub. Yeah, in this unfinished room and what
was then called the President's House, and his his presidential
prank was to surprise people by having this alligator got you. Oh,
(05:51):
there goes your leg. Ha ha. President. That's how he
ends every prank. He laughs and mentions he's president. There
are some people who would raise plot holes in this, right.
So Frank Masati, who is an ecologist and biologist at
the University of Florida, says, he points out that if
you had a large alligator in a bathtub in today's world,
(06:13):
that's the thing. The alligators started off small, and you know,
as it matured, it grew larger and larger. Uh. He
said that it would be cruelty to animals, but also
in that day and age, people didn't think about cruelty
to animals near the same way. Here's the thing, there's
kind of this cycle of I would say legends or
(06:35):
folklore about gators in the White House. Because there's also
another story that says, uh, the son of thirty first
President Herbert Hoover. A century later, in three his son
Alan Henry Hoover also allegedly had two gators. But the
problem is there aren't many primary sources. Right, this is
(06:58):
sort of lore. We don't even know the names of
these three alleged gaiters, right, Yeah, it's true. According to
the White House Historical Association's Evan Phifer, the whole thing
with Lafayette, it's it is has been passed around, but
they can't They haven't placed their hands on the actual
origin of this story or, like you said, any kind
(07:20):
of real primary documentation that is based, as Phifer says,
in reality. Joel Tree of the w h h A says, quote,
there's no verifiable documentary evidence of that story. I think
it's probably a legend, but it's it's a pretty interesting
legend just the same. And that's legend or no, not
(07:41):
the only weird exotic pet that traped through the White House, Right,
we have phantom gaiters, which is a cool phrase, and
I'm so happy that we got a chance to say
it on air. I'm gonna just milk that one more time.
Phantom gaiters, antom gators. But you are absolutely right, No,
they're I've been quite a few strange pets. One thing
(08:03):
that probably sticks out to a lot of people when
you hear it is Thomas Jefferson, the third President from
eighteen o one to eighteen o nine had a pair
of grizzly bears. Yeah, we're talking to super producer Casey
before the show, and he was reminded of a Paul F.
Tompkins bit talking about how wouldn't it be great if
we could just keep like something like a bear small forever?
(08:25):
And even though it was ravenous and wanted, you just
kind of pawt you like a cat attacking your hand. Um,
and you know that'd be pretty manageable. So Jefferson got
a pair of little grizzly bear cubs. I hope the
mom isn't around. That would be a blood bath. But
he got those as a gift from an explorer of
the American West. Yeah, Captain Zebulon Pike love that name.
(08:49):
So names were so much cooler. Our names are okay,
but Zebulon, so you should be followed with like the great, right,
Zebulon the Great and Terrible. The bears arrived around the
same time. Pike sent a letter in October of eighteen
o seven explaining he had found the male and female
(09:09):
cubs in the southern region of the Continental Divide, so
the mother was not around. Um. He recognized Pike that
is that the grizzly was a different species of bear
from those found in the East, and he said that
they are considered by the natives of that country as
the most ferocious animals on the continent. And he Jefferson
(09:30):
must have been aware of this because he would have
heard from Lewis and Clark about encounters with grizzlies, and
our buddy Evan Phifer over at the White House Historical
Association made a point that these bear cubs were a
smash sensation because people had never seen these before. This
was not something that was around. They did not have
(09:50):
them in zoos in the area. The zoos probably weren't
even a thing yet. This was this is very early
on in the existence of again the time the President's House,
so it was a big deal. People were excited to
see it. The bears lived in a little enclosure that
was on the lawn um and then eventually they were
moved to Philadelphia, right. Yeah, And people assume that because
(10:15):
they have been in continual contact with humans as cubs,
that they would maybe grow up to be gentle giants
and large and calm and more docile. Yeah, and that
was not the case. One of them eventually broke out
of its cage and terrorized the family of the man
who was taking care of them and had to be shot,
(10:37):
and then they the other one had to be put
down as well, because it turns out that one of
our continent's most ferocious apex predators is not the kind
of thing that you can just take home and hang
out with unless you could miniaturize them. Unless you could
miniaturize them. Yes, And speaking of smaller pets, I gotta
(10:59):
tell you, man, have you ever seen those those YouTube
videos of people who have a raccoon that just hangs
out with them? I have. I have a friend whose
parents kept several raccoons and kind of a glass enclosure
that was sort of built into the wall kind of,
and they take them out and they were pretty chill
and cuddly and kind of fun play with. I don't
(11:20):
remember if I did, but I definitely saw them handling them,
and it sort of acts sort of like a combination
between a monkey and a cat. That's a good description.
And Grace Coolidge, who was the wife of Calvin Coolidge,
President number thirty from nineteen to nineteen nine, did the
very same thing with a raccoon named Rebecca, Rebecca the raccoon.
(11:42):
My heart is melting. Uh. So the weird thing about
this raccoon and I don't want you know if you
dislike the Coolidge and administration, just understand this was a
very different time. Originally, Rebecca did not have a name
because she was traveling to the White House to be
part of the Thanksgiving menu. I'm sorry. They were going
(12:05):
to cook the raccoon and eat her come again, but
they fell in love with her, and so they said, oh,
we were going to eat you, but now we're gonna
name you Becky Thanksgiving miracle. Is that sort of like
giving clemency to the turkey? This feels a little bit
more organic. Yeah, it feels like she just charmed her
(12:26):
way into their heart. And uh. And the weirdest thing
about it is that they kind of spoiled her. They
had this little gold plated inscribed collar with Rebecca on it,
and they had a little cage for outside, and she
just hung out until it went rabid and they had
to put her down. I made that up. Oh my gosh,
(12:47):
I'm so glad you made that. I know, is that
last one with the bears was a bummer. We need
a little we need. We don't know what happened to
Rebecca the raccoon ultimately, but it does seem as though
she brought a lot of joy into the lives of
of of all that she encountered, um in the in
the White House, and thankfully she was not uh consumed
at the holiday table. She looks really happy in the pictures. Yeah,
(13:10):
yeah she does. And um, Grace Coolidge the dour looking,
but she really seems to to enjoy the company of
this raccoon. Um. Next we have we're sort of stepping
up the chain of Varmont's. I guess you could call
him right a badger. There we go a bag of badgers,
(13:31):
A bag of badgers. That's a deep cut for fans
of the show, just the one this time. And this
was one of Theodore Roosevelt's pets, And we gotta go
deep with Teddy Roosevelt, President number twenty six from nineteen
o nine. So many pets. This man had a menagerie
(13:52):
of animals that he brought with him to the White House.
And uh one of the famous ones was Josiah the badger,
who was off been toted around the White House grounds
by young Archie Son. But listen, I'm gonna laundry list
these because they're just too charming there. They give me
(14:13):
such joy. Josiah never bit faces, really, only he would
bite legs sometimes, So I'm just gonna laundry list these.
This comes from uh the National Park Service website, and
this is a list of the Roosevelt's family pets. They
included a small bear named Jonathan Edwards, a lizard named Bill,
(14:37):
guinea pigs named Admiral Dewey, Dr Johnson, Bishop Done, Fighting,
Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady, Maud the Pig, Posiah the Badger,
Eli Yale the blue Macaw, Baron Spreckel the Hen, a
one legged rooster, a hyena, a barn owl, Peter the Rabbit,
and of course, who could forget Algonquin the pony, oh
(14:59):
gon Quinn. What fond memories we have a lot of
times frolic at on the law and you and fighting
Bob Evans? Is that it fighting Bob Evans? Bob Evans,
and uh oh, I really like Baron Spreckel the Hen.
These names are fantastic. Yeah, And just speaking of fantastic names,
(15:19):
the President's son Archie was so fond of Algonquin that
his brothers Kermit and Quentin would bring the pony to
his room through the elevator in the in the White House.
But Algonquin, apparently according to the National Park Services, was
so captivated hypnotized even by his own reflection in the
(15:41):
elevator mirror, that it was really hard for him to
get out. Algonquin is very into himself, wasn't Teddy Roosevelt
kind of like yeah, like a like a naturalist and
environmental outdoors, you know, which really holds true. There's even
(16:02):
a story, uh from the National Parks that was again
where his son Quentin burst into an important meeting the
President was holding in the Oval Office to show him
four snakes that he had just gotten from a pet store. Uh.
And of course immediately all of the dignitaries in the
room just registered annoyance with this precocious young lad. But
(16:22):
when he plopped the snakes down to the table, they all, um,
you know, like getting up on your chair and squealing
when you see a mouse or something, that they definitely retreated.
One thing we should mention though about Roosevelt is much
more than just a casual environmentalist. He used his authority
constantly protect wildlife he created the United States Forest Service,
(16:44):
which established a hundred and fifty national forest, bird reserves,
game reserves, national parks, national monuments, and so on. Is
he the one that carried the big stick as a
rough rider? Yes, yeah, yeah he he rolled with DMX's crew. Yes,
it's uh, it's true. It's uh, you know you And
I like to include a couple of absolutely true, incredibly
(17:07):
not researched facts, and one of them is that H. D.
M X and Uh Teddy Roosevelt communicated across time and space.
They came up together. They came up together, but they
were no uh, there were no Woodrow Wilson because in
a way he had a huge collection of pets, but
they were all the same. Yeah. Woodrow Wilson was seemingly
(17:27):
a pretty generous president. He sacrificed some of the comforts,
maybe even of other presidents to kind of give back
to the war effort. He had more of an ascetic
life than some president exactly. And and part of this was,
I guess, partially to save on costs. Um. He had
a flock of sheep that he kept on the White
(17:49):
House lawn forty eight to be exact, um, and that
their main purpose was to cut the grass, and they
were sheared regularly and raised fifty two thousand dollars for
the Red Cross during an auction of that wool. And
it was really important to Woodrow Wilson and his wife
(18:11):
to set a good example, you know, for American families
in the show that you had to chip in to
help out with the war effort. And I think that's
pretty interesting. I think that's also commendable. It reminds me of,
you know, some of the other efforts we've seen by
administrations of the family members to encourage better nutrition, right
or to give to charities and in wartime. One interesting
(18:34):
fact about the United Kingdom in wartime, the Queen when
she got married had to use the same like ration
stamps to to buy the materials for address as everybody else. Uh.
And I think it's I think it speaks very highly
to the character. And also I was not familiar with
(18:54):
the idea of using livestock to mow the lawn, but
it makes sense. And you told me about talking about
that with Scott right with my buddy Scott Benjamin. It's
a true story. Here in Atlanta, you can't actually rent
goats for the purpose of lawn maintenance. And I'd like
to know if you have an experience renting goats for
(19:15):
lawn maintenance or other reasons in your neck of the
global woods. Uh. And you know, do you have goats?
Do you want to rent us one? We'll just hang
out with it in the office or sheep, but not
forty eight. We don't have room. Forty eight. Goats are
apparently pretty cantankerous. Yeah, yeah, they're definitely um dynamic personalities.
(19:36):
Sheep might be a little more sedate. But horses, ponies, right,
stallions of all shapes and sizes. We often forget in
seventeen that there was a time when the primary transport
of the United States was going to be on foot
or by horse, right on foot or on hoof, or
(19:56):
wheels pulled by hoofs. The White House, once upon a
time had a stable large enough for twenty five horses
and a living area for the staff the stable staff, right, yeah,
and and speaking of pitching in apparently the stables caught
on fire at four and Abraham Lincoln himself hoped too
and tried to help put out the blaze. Um And
(20:19):
for whatever reason, in the early nineteen hundreds, the stables
were dismantled, and Zachary Taylor actually um, which I believe
he had one of the shortest presidential terms. Um it
was sixteen months. I believe he died unexpectedly as the
twelfth president. But he he uh, he had himself a
war horse ben by the name of Old Whitey. That's
(20:42):
appropriate name for presidential horse. I wonder if it started
out with a different name or you know, you gotta
wonder how the horse felt when it was juvenile to
behaved old white Old Whitey, Yeah, Old Whitey. Yeah, Zachary
Taylor had Old Whitey. Old Whitey was, as Null said
in a war horse, which means a horse specifically trained
(21:04):
to function in battle and uh be combat ready, not
be distracted or as easily shook by loud noises like
cannon fire and such. Old Whitey and the phantom allegators.
That's the that's the bad children's book. But it's got
so much potential, a lot of legs. Um. But by
(21:24):
far to me, the cutest presidential pony belonged to John F.
Kennedy's daughter Caroline, and it was named Macaroni. You know,
like Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a bony.
Do you know the etymology of that? This kind of
(21:46):
side note, So, macarroni, at least in mid eighteenth century
England was a description of a fashionable dude, like almost
a hipster type who uh dressed a little bit foppishly
and uh had outlandishly flamboyant speech and affectations like a
(22:11):
Liberati type. You know, I feel like that's active. He
had those like lace frilly lace things on his wrists
and his collars and um, sort of like a French duke. Yeah,
and there we go. And it came about because young
men of means, of course traveled to Italy and they
developed a taste for macaroni the pasta, and it wasn't
(22:35):
very famous in England then, so then when they came
back they were said to belong to the macaroni club.
Here's an example I'm showing you of with the big
way total French duke. Yeah, and so of it. Uh.
And so when they stick a feather in their cap
and call it macaroni, it's like, oh, look, I have
a feather in my cap. Now I'm one of these
hip people. Which is so weird because for the longest
(22:57):
time that song made no sense to me. I I
just thought it was like absurdist kind of you know.
And yeah, I have derailed us, so not at all.
We learned about all kinds of silly stuff on this show,
and I love it. I object to the next pet
(23:18):
on this list. I'm just gonna say it categorically. I'm
not a fan of these animals. Possums not my favorite now.
I don't like their beady little pink eyes and the
way they glow in the dark, and they have so
many teeth, and they have a rat tail and that
irritating silent oh at the beginning of their names. What's
that about. Some people pronounce it, some people don't pronounce it.
(23:40):
It's just bedlam. There's no rhyme or reason to pronouncing
the name of this rodent. So yes, possums a divisive
more supial if ever there was such, yes, and and
and thank you for correcting that Bennet is a marsupial,
not a rodent. I still think it has a rat
tail anyway. Benjamin Harrison, uh go, Ben's in general. People
(24:03):
named Ben twenty three president from eighteen eighty nine to
eight three loved animals. This guy and while he was
in office, he had not one, but two pet possums.
One was named Mr Protection and the other was Mr Reciprocity,
which sounds like he's got this whole thing going on. Yeah,
(24:24):
it's it's weird. He doesn't sound like the most fun guy.
He doesn't. Uh So. The thing is interesting is that
the Harrison family loved Mr Protection, Mr Reciprocity, and apparently
they were good uh what we would call optics nowadays
for the American public, Like, he can't be all that bad.
(24:45):
Look at his possums, look at his trash rats. Yes, sorry,
any possum fans out there, but they give me the
ski v geevs. They're quite common where we live, they
really are. You'll see him scampering across the top of
a fence in the night, going to Applebee's, stinking up
(25:07):
the joint. But yes, out of out of all the
strange presidential pets, those are the only ones that I'm
kind of on the fence about. And this opened up
a a strange culture that I was unaware of. I
don't know if you knew a possum hole, if you will,
a possum hole, if you will. Yes, let's let's assume
that we do, and let's hope you do as well.
(25:29):
It turns out that lots of world leaders have had
lots of weird pets. Benito Mussolini had a lion bank,
and we talked about Pablo Escar and his hippos right
the drafts and other assorted exotic, large, unwieldy beasts. I
believe it was North Korean dictator Kim Jong Ill, not
(25:56):
his son Kim John. Yeah, it was Kim Jong Il
had this huge love of dogs, and later on his
son opened a dog zoo pavilion. So it's a zoo,
but just dogs, you know, would be a good rap name.
What's that Kim Jong Ill with two else? Two else?
How is that not a thing? Yet? That's a great idea. Probably,
(26:18):
that's a great idea. Uh. Fidel Castro had a cow
named ubre Blanca and Idio, I mean did have crocodiles
for real, but he fed them corpses of his enemies.
That's that's this's a functional pet right there. Yeah, it's
like those giant pigs in that silence of the Lamb's
movie Annibal or whatever the neath the bodies, yeah, or
(26:40):
in Deadwood too. Woo Woo and his pigs, you know,
I mean that that animal had a job that was
They're just like it wasn't just a charming thing like
Rebecca the raccoon exactly. But what about the what about
the other non exotic pet Snell? Yeah, it seems as
the time progressed, presidential pets have got progressively more vanilla.
(27:03):
The most popular and recognizable presidential buddy is is the
the dog, the loyal friend of man and woman, the nine. Yeah,
I mean dogs and people we go, we go way back,
and there's pretty compelling evidence, uh, that humans have impacted
(27:24):
the evolution of dogs. Yeah. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was
the thirty second president from nineteen thirty three to nineteen
had a pretty famous um companion by the name of Fala,
was a Scottish terrier and that famously attended his funeral.
Um is now remembered at the FDR Museum in Washington.
(27:50):
Oh Man, that's sad. Yeah, you know what it makes
me think of a Pixar movie, Well, a Disney property
for sure, though. Um. You know, Carrie Fisher to Sleep
played Princess Leiah and and did a great job in
her last role in the Last Jedi, which I really
enjoyed quite a lot. Um. She had a loving dog
(28:12):
that she took with her everywhere. Whenever she's on the
press circuit, she always had this little dog. And apparently, uh,
the dog attended a premiere or whenever it sees her
on TV, it kind of gets gets bummed out. And
I think the dog actually had a cameo in the
last Jedi. Really, well, that's that's amazing. That's a that's
a more heartwarming note there, I think so too. Moving
(28:35):
on back to presidents, we have Warren G. Harding, President
number twenty nine nine. UM. His dog's name was Laddie Boy,
and he gifted Laddie Boy a hand carved chair to
sit alongside him during meetings. It's good to be king,
you know. And when it comes to the type of
animals that are present in the White House, by far
(28:58):
As Lill said, they're going to be dogs. But I'm
I'm amazed with these names, you know, like this goat
named Old Whiskers. Taft had a cow named Pauline, last
cow to live at the White House so far. And
it seems that almost well, it seems that the vast
majority of presidents at least had a dog, doesn't it.
(29:18):
It does seem that way. And there's a great quote
that kind of sums all this up from Evan Piffer
from the White House Historical Association. UM, that sort of
gets to the heart of this with why this is
such a thing except for with our current president. UM,
pets humanize the White House and the presidency. Just like
so many Americans have pets, so do the presidents. It's
(29:41):
a link between the life of a president and the
life of millions of Americans. And I think that is
spot on and that is a good time for us
to end today because this is making me miss my
pets a little bit, you know, I want to go
take them out and hang out with him in going
walks and adventures. It reminds me. Also, folks, we'd like
(30:03):
to hear about what kind of exotic animal you would
keep as a pet no holds barred, you know, if
this is a wishes or horses type situation where the
animal would have all the you know, all the freedom
to move around that it wanted to and it wouldn't
be stuck in any position or cruelty. But if you
could like be friends with any any exotic animal, what
(30:28):
would it be why I would want a baby hippopotamus
that just stayed a baby forever. See, I would want
a tiger or a bear that that could talk to me,
and uh, you know, we would hang out and we
would go I don't know, we would go adventuring skiing. Maybe, yeah,
we get some tiger trail walking bear skis. We probably
(30:50):
start with just trail walking. Yeah, we'll have to ease
into like laser tag and stuff. You go. That sounds
like a friendship for the ages, Ben. Thanks Van, and
we want to hear your thoughts. So as you can tell,
we're very much fans of presidential trivia. And I think
the quote by Evan there nailed it the motivation for
these strange and unusual pets. Uh. We very much hope
(31:13):
you enjoyed this episode and we hope that you will
check us out, send us a review wherever you get
your podcasts. And you can also find Nolan I on Instagram, Facebook,
and that's the one's popular. It doesn't know how to
make money, apparently that's true. And and most importantly, hope
(31:35):
you're having a happy new Year. I feel like we
missed the boat on saying that happy New Year everyone. Yeah,
and I just want to mention to um. This show
is produced and edited by Casey Pegram and our theme
music is composed by the lovely Alex williams Um and
we record here in our studios at pomp City Market
(31:56):
in Atlanta, Georgia. And we also want to thank our
fellow researcher John Donovan, who wrote the article on the
history of strange Animals in the White House for house
Stuff Works. And most importantly, we want to thank you
for listening and hope that you'll join us next time
for another episode of Ridiculous History. For more podcasts for
(32:21):
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, special announcement at the top of the week.
Today we are airing a classic episode. Uh, Noel, Max
and I were talking off air. We have a we
have a Presidential Pets episode coming out. It's part two.
So a while back Nowel, you'll remember we did Presidential
(00:22):
Pets Part one and uh, we really listened to it
and it's actually it's a lot of fun. It is
a lot of fun. And you know, we wouldn't usually
do this, but we figured if we're gonna do a
part two way way in the future. Um, from the
part one that you may or may not have heard already,
and we haven't released this one as a class, we
thought we'd um, you know, do ourselves a solid. It's
our birthday month. Things have been happening. Uh. And this
(00:45):
way you get part one followed by part two. So
here's part one. Ridiculous History is a production of I
Heart Radio. Of all the addresses in the fair United
(01:21):
States of America, perhaps the most prestigious is six Pennsylvania Avenue.
Welcome to the show. My name is Ben. Bears and
raccoons and alligators and stuffy old white men. Oh my
my name is Noel. And this is ridiculous history. And
we were just chatting off air with the uh, the
(01:41):
third member of our Triumvirts, a super producer, Casey Pegram,
about animals, right, about pets, about the government, and of
course about history because we've looked at some weird presidential
things before. We've mentioned some, um but when you would
you get down to the nitty gritty the legoons and peanuts. Oh,
(02:06):
those are the same thing, uh, the beans and nuts
of the of the situation. Presidents and presidential families or
like any other family, they're just like you or I.
Of course, yes, yeah, you know, they do people stuff.
They wear pants, put them on, you know, one leg
(02:28):
at a time, as they say, yeah, they brush their teeth.
They might have servants that put their pants on for
them in this case, that's that's different and I don't
have that right. Or they might have someone brushing their teeth.
They might have a machine that's been custom built to
put pants on them. But we're not talking about pants
machines today, are we been. No? No, we are talking
about something that is I would say, at the very
(02:50):
least equally fascinating. Yeah, we're talking about pets because you know,
in the interest of of appearing as as normal human beings,
and you know, and possibly because of anuine love of animals,
Presidents often traditionally have pets, although number forty five has
a shoot pets and has spoken against pets, saying they
(03:12):
were quote low class. But we're not here to talk
about that today. We're talking about the legacy of presidential pets,
particularly some kind of weird ones. Yes, first off, I
am baffled. That's new information to me. I can't believe. Really,
no pets. Huh, no pets. Wow, that's kind of unusual
historically because the other forty four presidents, the majority of
(03:36):
them did have some sort of well they were a
family member, did have some sort of animal companion and
familiar if you will. Yeah, so familiar if you will.
And when we say animal companion, of course, we mean
stuff like your typical dog. You know, they might have
a pooch, they might have a cat or something. But
(03:56):
that's not it, because you see, although the base similarity remains,
the fact is that when you hold the highest office
in the land, you and your family members get a
little more a leeway, you have a little more agency.
And so it turns out that there are quite a
few exotic pets the presidents have had in the past. Yeah,
(04:19):
did you know there's a thing called the Presidential Pet Museum,
Then yes, I would love to check that out. But
according to them, John Quincy Adams, who was the son
of John Adams and also, as it happens, the sixth
President of the United States, he was about to say,
ruled Coverned from eighteen eighty nine, and legend has it,
(04:42):
I don't know, maybe that's not a legend, but uh, allegedly,
let's say he had an alligator that he kept in
an unfinished room, the east room of what was then
called the President's House. That's not very creative. It wasn't
until Teddy Roosevelt changed the n and officially to the
White House in nineteen one. But this alligator apparently was
(05:05):
gifted to Adams by the French military officer and revolutionary
hero and uh and a important historical figure in the
play Hamilton's Marquis de Lafayette Um, who fought with the
US against the British forces during the American Revolution and
(05:27):
also lays down some sick bars in Hamilton. So the
story goes that he would keep he kept this gator
in a bathtub. Yeah, in this unfinished room and what
was then called the President's House, and his his presidential
prank was to surprise people by having this alligator got you. Oh,
(05:51):
there goes your leg. Ha ha. President. That's how he
ends every prank. He laughs and mentions he's president. There
are some people who would raise plot holes in this, right.
So Frank Masati, who is an ecologist and biologist at
the University of Florida, says, he points out that if
you had a large alligator in a bathtub in today's world,
(06:13):
that's the thing. The alligators started off small, and you know,
as it matured, it grew larger and larger. Uh. He
said that it would be cruelty to animals, but also
in that day and age, people didn't think about cruelty
to animals near the same way. Here's the thing, there's
kind of this cycle of I would say legends or
(06:35):
folklore about gators in the White House. Because there's also
another story that says, uh, the son of thirty first
President Herbert Hoover. A century later, in three his son
Alan Henry Hoover also allegedly had two gators. But the
problem is there aren't many primary sources. Right, this is
(06:58):
sort of lore. We don't even know the names of
these three alleged gaiters, right, Yeah, it's true. According to
the White House Historical Association's Evan Phifer, the whole thing
with Lafayette, it's it is has been passed around, but
they can't They haven't placed their hands on the actual
origin of this story or, like you said, any kind
(07:20):
of real primary documentation that is based, as Phifer says,
in reality. Joel Tree of the w h h A says, quote,
there's no verifiable documentary evidence of that story. I think
it's probably a legend, but it's it's a pretty interesting
legend just the same. And that's legend or no, not
(07:41):
the only weird exotic pet that traped through the White House, Right,
we have phantom gaiters, which is a cool phrase, and
I'm so happy that we got a chance to say
it on air. I'm gonna just milk that one more time.
Phantom gaiters, antom gators. But you are absolutely right, No,
they're I've been quite a few strange pets. One thing
(08:03):
that probably sticks out to a lot of people when
you hear it is Thomas Jefferson, the third President from
eighteen o one to eighteen o nine had a pair
of grizzly bears. Yeah, we're talking to super producer Casey
before the show, and he was reminded of a Paul F.
Tompkins bit talking about how wouldn't it be great if
we could just keep like something like a bear small forever?
(08:25):
And even though it was ravenous and wanted, you just
kind of pawt you like a cat attacking your hand. Um,
and you know that'd be pretty manageable. So Jefferson got
a pair of little grizzly bear cubs. I hope the
mom isn't around. That would be a blood bath. But
he got those as a gift from an explorer of
the American West. Yeah, Captain Zebulon Pike love that name.
(08:49):
So names were so much cooler. Our names are okay,
but Zebulon, so you should be followed with like the great, right,
Zebulon the Great and Terrible. The bears arrived around the
same time. Pike sent a letter in October of eighteen
o seven explaining he had found the male and female
(09:09):
cubs in the southern region of the Continental Divide, so
the mother was not around. Um. He recognized Pike that
is that the grizzly was a different species of bear
from those found in the East, and he said that
they are considered by the natives of that country as
the most ferocious animals on the continent. And he Jefferson
(09:30):
must have been aware of this because he would have
heard from Lewis and Clark about encounters with grizzlies, and
our buddy Evan Phifer over at the White House Historical
Association made a point that these bear cubs were a
smash sensation because people had never seen these before. This
was not something that was around. They did not have
(09:50):
them in zoos in the area. The zoos probably weren't
even a thing yet. This was this is very early
on in the existence of again the time the President's House,
so it was a big deal. People were excited to
see it. The bears lived in a little enclosure that
was on the lawn um and then eventually they were
moved to Philadelphia, right. Yeah, And people assume that because
(10:15):
they have been in continual contact with humans as cubs,
that they would maybe grow up to be gentle giants
and large and calm and more docile. Yeah, and that
was not the case. One of them eventually broke out
of its cage and terrorized the family of the man
who was taking care of them and had to be shot,
(10:37):
and then they the other one had to be put
down as well, because it turns out that one of
our continent's most ferocious apex predators is not the kind
of thing that you can just take home and hang
out with unless you could miniaturize them. Unless you could
miniaturize them. Yes, And speaking of smaller pets, I gotta
(10:59):
tell you, man, have you ever seen those those YouTube
videos of people who have a raccoon that just hangs
out with them? I have. I have a friend whose
parents kept several raccoons and kind of a glass enclosure
that was sort of built into the wall kind of,
and they take them out and they were pretty chill
and cuddly and kind of fun play with. I don't
(11:20):
remember if I did, but I definitely saw them handling them,
and it sort of acts sort of like a combination
between a monkey and a cat. That's a good description.
And Grace Coolidge, who was the wife of Calvin Coolidge,
President number thirty from nineteen to nineteen nine, did the
very same thing with a raccoon named Rebecca, Rebecca the raccoon.
(11:42):
My heart is melting. Uh. So the weird thing about
this raccoon and I don't want you know if you
dislike the Coolidge and administration, just understand this was a
very different time. Originally, Rebecca did not have a name
because she was traveling to the White House to be
part of the Thanksgiving menu. I'm sorry. They were going
(12:05):
to cook the raccoon and eat her come again, but
they fell in love with her, and so they said, oh,
we were going to eat you, but now we're gonna
name you Becky Thanksgiving miracle. Is that sort of like
giving clemency to the turkey? This feels a little bit
more organic. Yeah, it feels like she just charmed her
(12:26):
way into their heart. And uh. And the weirdest thing
about it is that they kind of spoiled her. They
had this little gold plated inscribed collar with Rebecca on it,
and they had a little cage for outside, and she
just hung out until it went rabid and they had
to put her down. I made that up. Oh my gosh,
(12:47):
I'm so glad you made that. I know, is that
last one with the bears was a bummer. We need
a little we need. We don't know what happened to
Rebecca the raccoon ultimately, but it does seem as though
she brought a lot of joy into the lives of
of of all that she encountered, um in the in
the White House, and thankfully she was not uh consumed
at the holiday table. She looks really happy in the pictures. Yeah,
(13:10):
yeah she does. And um, Grace Coolidge the dour looking,
but she really seems to to enjoy the company of
this raccoon. Um. Next we have we're sort of stepping
up the chain of Varmont's. I guess you could call
him right a badger. There we go a bag of badgers,
(13:31):
A bag of badgers. That's a deep cut for fans
of the show, just the one this time. And this
was one of Theodore Roosevelt's pets, And we gotta go
deep with Teddy Roosevelt, President number twenty six from nineteen
o nine. So many pets. This man had a menagerie
(13:52):
of animals that he brought with him to the White House.
And uh one of the famous ones was Josiah the badger,
who was off been toted around the White House grounds
by young Archie Son. But listen, I'm gonna laundry list
these because they're just too charming there. They give me
(14:13):
such joy. Josiah never bit faces, really, only he would
bite legs sometimes, So I'm just gonna laundry list these.
This comes from uh the National Park Service website, and
this is a list of the Roosevelt's family pets. They
included a small bear named Jonathan Edwards, a lizard named Bill,
(14:37):
guinea pigs named Admiral Dewey, Dr Johnson, Bishop Done, Fighting,
Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady, Maud the Pig, Posiah the Badger,
Eli Yale the blue Macaw, Baron Spreckel the Hen, a
one legged rooster, a hyena, a barn owl, Peter the Rabbit,
and of course, who could forget Algonquin the pony, oh
(14:59):
gon Quinn. What fond memories we have a lot of
times frolic at on the law and you and fighting
Bob Evans? Is that it fighting Bob Evans? Bob Evans,
and uh oh, I really like Baron Spreckel the Hen.
These names are fantastic. Yeah, And just speaking of fantastic names,
(15:19):
the President's son Archie was so fond of Algonquin that
his brothers Kermit and Quentin would bring the pony to
his room through the elevator in the in the White House.
But Algonquin, apparently according to the National Park Services, was
so captivated hypnotized even by his own reflection in the
(15:41):
elevator mirror, that it was really hard for him to
get out. Algonquin is very into himself, wasn't Teddy Roosevelt
kind of like yeah, like a like a naturalist and
environmental outdoors, you know, which really holds true. There's even
(16:02):
a story, uh from the National Parks that was again
where his son Quentin burst into an important meeting the
President was holding in the Oval Office to show him
four snakes that he had just gotten from a pet store. Uh.
And of course immediately all of the dignitaries in the
room just registered annoyance with this precocious young lad. But
(16:22):
when he plopped the snakes down to the table, they all, um,
you know, like getting up on your chair and squealing
when you see a mouse or something, that they definitely retreated.
One thing we should mention though about Roosevelt is much
more than just a casual environmentalist. He used his authority
constantly protect wildlife he created the United States Forest Service,
(16:44):
which established a hundred and fifty national forest, bird reserves,
game reserves, national parks, national monuments, and so on. Is
he the one that carried the big stick as a
rough rider? Yes, yeah, yeah he he rolled with DMX's crew. Yes,
it's uh, it's true. It's uh, you know you And
I like to include a couple of absolutely true, incredibly
(17:07):
not researched facts, and one of them is that H. D.
M X and Uh Teddy Roosevelt communicated across time and space.
They came up together. They came up together, but they
were no uh, there were no Woodrow Wilson because in
a way he had a huge collection of pets, but
they were all the same. Yeah. Woodrow Wilson was seemingly
(17:27):
a pretty generous president. He sacrificed some of the comforts,
maybe even of other presidents to kind of give back
to the war effort. He had more of an ascetic
life than some president exactly. And and part of this was,
I guess, partially to save on costs. Um. He had
a flock of sheep that he kept on the White
(17:49):
House lawn forty eight to be exact, um, and that
their main purpose was to cut the grass, and they
were sheared regularly and raised fifty two thousand dollars for
the Red Cross during an auction of that wool. And
it was really important to Woodrow Wilson and his wife
(18:11):
to set a good example, you know, for American families
in the show that you had to chip in to
help out with the war effort. And I think that's
pretty interesting. I think that's also commendable. It reminds me of,
you know, some of the other efforts we've seen by
administrations of the family members to encourage better nutrition, right
or to give to charities and in wartime. One interesting
(18:34):
fact about the United Kingdom in wartime, the Queen when
she got married had to use the same like ration
stamps to to buy the materials for address as everybody else. Uh.
And I think it's I think it speaks very highly
to the character. And also I was not familiar with
(18:54):
the idea of using livestock to mow the lawn, but
it makes sense. And you told me about talking about
that with Scott right with my buddy Scott Benjamin. It's
a true story. Here in Atlanta, you can't actually rent
goats for the purpose of lawn maintenance. And I'd like
to know if you have an experience renting goats for
(19:15):
lawn maintenance or other reasons in your neck of the
global woods. Uh. And you know, do you have goats?
Do you want to rent us one? We'll just hang
out with it in the office or sheep, but not
forty eight. We don't have room. Forty eight. Goats are
apparently pretty cantankerous. Yeah, yeah, they're definitely um dynamic personalities.
(19:36):
Sheep might be a little more sedate. But horses, ponies, right,
stallions of all shapes and sizes. We often forget in
seventeen that there was a time when the primary transport
of the United States was going to be on foot
or by horse, right on foot or on hoof, or
(19:56):
wheels pulled by hoofs. The White House, once upon a
time had a stable large enough for twenty five horses
and a living area for the staff the stable staff, right, yeah,
and and speaking of pitching in apparently the stables caught
on fire at four and Abraham Lincoln himself hoped too
and tried to help put out the blaze. Um And
(20:19):
for whatever reason, in the early nineteen hundreds, the stables
were dismantled, and Zachary Taylor actually um, which I believe
he had one of the shortest presidential terms. Um it
was sixteen months. I believe he died unexpectedly as the
twelfth president. But he he uh, he had himself a
war horse ben by the name of Old Whitey. That's
(20:42):
appropriate name for presidential horse. I wonder if it started
out with a different name or you know, you gotta
wonder how the horse felt when it was juvenile to
behaved old white Old Whitey, Yeah, Old Whitey. Yeah, Zachary
Taylor had Old Whitey. Old Whitey was, as Null said
in a war horse, which means a horse specifically trained
(21:04):
to function in battle and uh be combat ready, not
be distracted or as easily shook by loud noises like
cannon fire and such. Old Whitey and the phantom allegators.
That's the that's the bad children's book. But it's got
so much potential, a lot of legs. Um. But by
(21:24):
far to me, the cutest presidential pony belonged to John F.
Kennedy's daughter Caroline, and it was named Macaroni. You know,
like Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a bony.
Do you know the etymology of that? This kind of
(21:46):
side note, So, macarroni, at least in mid eighteenth century
England was a description of a fashionable dude, like almost
a hipster type who uh dressed a little bit foppishly
and uh had outlandishly flamboyant speech and affectations like a
(22:11):
Liberati type. You know, I feel like that's active. He
had those like lace frilly lace things on his wrists
and his collars and um, sort of like a French duke. Yeah,
and there we go. And it came about because young
men of means, of course traveled to Italy and they
developed a taste for macaroni the pasta, and it wasn't
(22:35):
very famous in England then, so then when they came
back they were said to belong to the macaroni club.
Here's an example I'm showing you of with the big
way total French duke. Yeah, and so of it. Uh.
And so when they stick a feather in their cap
and call it macaroni, it's like, oh, look, I have
a feather in my cap. Now I'm one of these
hip people. Which is so weird because for the longest
(22:57):
time that song made no sense to me. I I
just thought it was like absurdist kind of you know.
And yeah, I have derailed us, so not at all.
We learned about all kinds of silly stuff on this show,
and I love it. I object to the next pet
(23:18):
on this list. I'm just gonna say it categorically. I'm
not a fan of these animals. Possums not my favorite now.
I don't like their beady little pink eyes and the
way they glow in the dark, and they have so
many teeth, and they have a rat tail and that
irritating silent oh at the beginning of their names. What's
that about. Some people pronounce it, some people don't pronounce it.
(23:40):
It's just bedlam. There's no rhyme or reason to pronouncing
the name of this rodent. So yes, possums a divisive
more supial if ever there was such, yes, and and
and thank you for correcting that Bennet is a marsupial,
not a rodent. I still think it has a rat
tail anyway. Benjamin Harrison, uh go, Ben's in general. People
(24:03):
named Ben twenty three president from eighteen eighty nine to
eight three loved animals. This guy and while he was
in office, he had not one, but two pet possums.
One was named Mr Protection and the other was Mr Reciprocity,
which sounds like he's got this whole thing going on. Yeah,
(24:24):
it's it's weird. He doesn't sound like the most fun guy.
He doesn't. Uh So. The thing is interesting is that
the Harrison family loved Mr Protection, Mr Reciprocity, and apparently
they were good uh what we would call optics nowadays
for the American public, Like, he can't be all that bad.
(24:45):
Look at his possums, look at his trash rats. Yes, sorry,
any possum fans out there, but they give me the
ski v geevs. They're quite common where we live, they
really are. You'll see him scampering across the top of
a fence in the night, going to Applebee's, stinking up
(25:07):
the joint. But yes, out of out of all the
strange presidential pets, those are the only ones that I'm
kind of on the fence about. And this opened up
a a strange culture that I was unaware of. I
don't know if you knew a possum hole, if you will,
a possum hole, if you will. Yes, let's let's assume
that we do, and let's hope you do as well.
(25:29):
It turns out that lots of world leaders have had
lots of weird pets. Benito Mussolini had a lion bank,
and we talked about Pablo Escar and his hippos right
the drafts and other assorted exotic, large, unwieldy beasts. I
believe it was North Korean dictator Kim Jong Ill, not
(25:56):
his son Kim John. Yeah, it was Kim Jong Il
had this huge love of dogs, and later on his
son opened a dog zoo pavilion. So it's a zoo,
but just dogs, you know, would be a good rap name.
What's that Kim Jong Ill with two else? Two else?
How is that not a thing? Yet? That's a great idea. Probably,
(26:18):
that's a great idea. Uh. Fidel Castro had a cow
named ubre Blanca and Idio, I mean did have crocodiles
for real, but he fed them corpses of his enemies.
That's that's this's a functional pet right there. Yeah, it's
like those giant pigs in that silence of the Lamb's
movie Annibal or whatever the neath the bodies, yeah, or
(26:40):
in Deadwood too. Woo Woo and his pigs, you know,
I mean that that animal had a job that was
They're just like it wasn't just a charming thing like
Rebecca the raccoon exactly. But what about the what about
the other non exotic pet Snell? Yeah, it seems as
the time progressed, presidential pets have got progressively more vanilla.
(27:03):
The most popular and recognizable presidential buddy is is the
the dog, the loyal friend of man and woman, the nine. Yeah,
I mean dogs and people we go, we go way back,
and there's pretty compelling evidence, uh, that humans have impacted
(27:24):
the evolution of dogs. Yeah. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was
the thirty second president from nineteen thirty three to nineteen
had a pretty famous um companion by the name of Fala,
was a Scottish terrier and that famously attended his funeral.
Um is now remembered at the FDR Museum in Washington.
(27:50):
Oh Man, that's sad. Yeah, you know what it makes
me think of a Pixar movie, Well, a Disney property
for sure, though. Um. You know, Carrie Fisher to Sleep
played Princess Leiah and and did a great job in
her last role in the Last Jedi, which I really
enjoyed quite a lot. Um. She had a loving dog
(28:12):
that she took with her everywhere. Whenever she's on the
press circuit, she always had this little dog. And apparently, uh,
the dog attended a premiere or whenever it sees her
on TV, it kind of gets gets bummed out. And
I think the dog actually had a cameo in the
last Jedi. Really, well, that's that's amazing. That's a that's
a more heartwarming note there, I think so too. Moving
(28:35):
on back to presidents, we have Warren G. Harding, President
number twenty nine nine. UM. His dog's name was Laddie Boy,
and he gifted Laddie Boy a hand carved chair to
sit alongside him during meetings. It's good to be king,
you know. And when it comes to the type of
animals that are present in the White House, by far
(28:58):
As Lill said, they're going to be dogs. But I'm
I'm amazed with these names, you know, like this goat
named Old Whiskers. Taft had a cow named Pauline, last
cow to live at the White House so far. And
it seems that almost well, it seems that the vast
majority of presidents at least had a dog, doesn't it.
(29:18):
It does seem that way. And there's a great quote
that kind of sums all this up from Evan Piffer
from the White House Historical Association. UM, that sort of
gets to the heart of this with why this is
such a thing except for with our current president. UM,
pets humanize the White House and the presidency. Just like
so many Americans have pets, so do the presidents. It's
(29:41):
a link between the life of a president and the
life of millions of Americans. And I think that is
spot on and that is a good time for us
to end today because this is making me miss my
pets a little bit, you know, I want to go
take them out and hang out with him in going
walks and adventures. It reminds me. Also, folks, we'd like
(30:03):
to hear about what kind of exotic animal you would
keep as a pet no holds barred, you know, if
this is a wishes or horses type situation where the
animal would have all the you know, all the freedom
to move around that it wanted to and it wouldn't
be stuck in any position or cruelty. But if you
could like be friends with any any exotic animal, what
(30:28):
would it be why I would want a baby hippopotamus
that just stayed a baby forever. See, I would want
a tiger or a bear that that could talk to me,
and uh, you know, we would hang out and we
would go I don't know, we would go adventuring skiing. Maybe, yeah,
we get some tiger trail walking bear skis. We probably
(30:50):
start with just trail walking. Yeah, we'll have to ease
into like laser tag and stuff. You go. That sounds
like a friendship for the ages, Ben. Thanks Van, and
we want to hear your thoughts. So as you can tell,
we're very much fans of presidential trivia. And I think
the quote by Evan there nailed it the motivation for
these strange and unusual pets. Uh. We very much hope
(31:13):
you enjoyed this episode and we hope that you will
check us out, send us a review wherever you get
your podcasts. And you can also find Nolan I on Instagram, Facebook,
and that's the one's popular. It doesn't know how to
make money, apparently that's true. And and most importantly, hope
(31:35):
you're having a happy new Year. I feel like we
missed the boat on saying that happy New Year everyone. Yeah,
and I just want to mention to um. This show
is produced and edited by Casey Pegram and our theme
music is composed by the lovely Alex williams Um and
we record here in our studios at pomp City Market
(31:56):
in Atlanta, Georgia. And we also want to thank our
fellow researcher John Donovan, who wrote the article on the
history of strange Animals in the White House for house
Stuff Works. And most importantly, we want to thank you
for listening and hope that you'll join us next time
for another episode of Ridiculous History. For more podcasts for
(32:21):
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Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!