06- The invisible man — a Grumpy Old Bear – Grumpy Old Bears

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode of Grumpy Old Bears, again, we sadly do not have access to one of our co-hosts, Matt Cox (who is a podcaster for BrunchwiththeBrits.net as well as a part-time co-host for The 2030 Podcast. (by the way, the latter is also broadcast and published on the noagendastream.com). And the shows are now anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes in length, while the BrunchwiththeBrits.net show is a good 2 to 3 hours in length.

Now, we have been assured that Matt’s absence as a grumpy old bear is that his day-job is having him work excessively long periods of time each week. And although he is chalking up many hours of overtime, we acknowledge that he does need his rest and recuperation from what could be considered a job that is quite stressful at times. Thus, we hope that things will stabilize to a more normal schedule, so that he can once again join us — that is, we wish for him to get away for a while and get some R and R, even though financially, it is a benefit to him and his family.

Now in this episode, we attribute his absence as being “the invisible man” in almost all ways. He has not been able to be reached for comment or answer to the several emails and text messages that we have sent to him recently. Thus, we understand the stress that he is undergoing, and we shall leave him alone to his employment obligations until he notifies us that he is now ready, willing and able to resume being a co-host on both this show and the 2030podcast.com show.

As you know, we value his input and we definitely applaud his sense of humor that contrasts to Sgt. Fred as a cynic and to Mr. Bear as the grumpiest member of our podcast team.

Let us tell you a bit about Mr. Matt Cox, in case you are not aware:

Matt is visually impaired (i.e., blind);
Matt has been a world traveler — he joined the Peace Corps and traveled to support other peoples in the world (e.g., Morocco ) as well as other areas;
Matt has experience in being in the older Soviet Union (e.g., Moscow);
Matt earned a B.A. in his college career;
Matt is very knowledgeable and very able to do a job as a reservations lead agent in the travel and lodging industry on the phone;
Matt is very resourceful and very skilled at using computers with the JAWS software and some hardware to assist;
Matt is an avid podcaster with his own show, called Brunch with the Brits, which is about old-time British radio (BBC) shows, news, and information;
Matt is also one of the officers of his local Elks Lodge and has been very active in assisting the chaplain’s duties, including appearances in videos during the lock-down, where he “read” some of the Biblical passages;
Matt is technically competent with computer and podcasting skills.
Matt is a very knowledgeable about history and politics.

So at this time, we wish the best for Matt, a “grumpy old bear” in our own circles, who is now known as “the invisible man” due to his forced absence. We also hope that he can be successful in his day-job as well as his New Media production hopes — both for his podcasts and his research for old time radio (from Radio Out of the Past environments).

Now, for the grumpy old bears that remain in our show, we have a couple of items that may be of interest to our listeners:

There is an upcoming anniversary (on the 17th of September) since the 1944 airborne assault in Holland during the Allied Operation Market Garden (the largest paratrooper and glider assault in history). This story was immortalized in the motion picture A Bridge Too Far.
Since one of our co-hosts is Sgt. Fred, we honor the unit of the 82nd Airborne Division, since he served in that unit over 50 years ago, during the time of the Vietnam War, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The film described depicts the trials of the 82nd Airborne Division during the operation in Holland — especially the assault by the 82nd 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in taking the Nijmegen bridge on the Waal River. We respectfully honor the memory of the men of that unit for their sacrifices and hardship to complete the mission and take the bridge.

Although in this episode, the news materials and deconstruction information will be very brief, we plan to deliver more current events and how they would be discussed by the Grumpy Old Bears in the next episode and future episodes. Thus, we look forward to seeing you next time in episode 7, along with the licensed music intro and outro from michaelandmike.com.

Thank you for your attention.