Category: Podcasts

This fourth episode tells the story of how Papa Len “escaped from life in New York city” and began his career as a sales representative for the Lightolier company. He packed up “what was soon to become a broken down Plymouth” and embarked on a Westward journey with Lea Burnbaum, an unmarried woman whom he had been courting for past two-and-a-half years. (Although “the tongues would be wagging” about this, Lea and Leonard silenced the rumor mill by tying the knot several years later.)

This episode vividly describes an encounter with anti-semitism, a theme to be revisited in later episodes. Papa Len also reminisces about a visit to Mt. Rushmore, which he later recalled fondly when watching the cinematic classic North by Northwest.

Also in this episode, Leonard talks about Grant Wood, both before and after the seminal American Gothic.

You’ll also hear how Papa Len made a career for himself selling lighting fixtures in the Midwest as part of the Rural Electrification Administration.

Download and listen to “Escape from New York.”

This third episode describes another historic flight of 1936. Papa Len tells the story of his first flight cover that traveled aboard this flight and how it would have been destroyed on the Hindenburg had the flight not been delayed and re-routed from Frankfurt to Amsterdam.

Download and listen to “The Shrinkage of Time.”

This episode takes you back to 1929 and the historic flight in which the Graf Zeppelin circumnavigated the globe. Papa Len sent a letter around the world on this flight and later had it autographed by Sir George Hubert Wilkins, a journalist and a passenger on the German dirigible.

Download and listen to “The Graf Zeppelin.”

This first episode features Papa Len telling a story of what you could get for a nickel in New York city in the early 20th century. It also explains how he got into stamp collecting, which became a lifelong passion.

Download and listen to “A Nickel Goes a Long Way.”