CONNECTING PODCAST

SHADOWS WITH WINGS: THE MOTHMAN MYSTERY

• Patrick Mathews, Kathy Mathews

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Patrick and Kathy explore the eerie legend of Mothman, a winged cryptid with glowing red eyes first sighted in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. They discuss its possible role in disasters, from the Silver Bridge collapse to reports of similar sightings before Chernobyl. Is Mothman a warning or a cause? The debate unfolds as they share theories, historical accounts, and whether they’d flee or try to communicate with the mysterious figure.

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In this episode, we're going to be diving into one of my favorite cryptid legends, Mothman.

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Shadows

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dance where the truth resides. We're chasing whispers from the other side. Connecting is a journey.

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Yay, connecting podcast.

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And today, Kathy, we're doing something a little bit different. What would that be? Well, we're going to talk about differently. People ask us all about the afterlife and spirits, but let's talk a little bit of fun things about also legends and

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myths and legends

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right exactly right so this

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episode will be about me

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we are oh you are definitely a legend

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not for the right reasons

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or a myth because i don't believe you No, we're actually talking about The Mothman. Ooh.

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That's a story that'll take flight.

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Oh, okay. I can see how this is going to go. I'm here all week, folks. Tip your waitress. But do you have to be? That's the question. Tip your waitress. Now listen, The Mothman. It's like I say, it's a crazy, it's a creepy Kathy winged creature with glowing red eyes and different sightings that take place and it really makes for a good kind of a good story or a myth

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or is

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it or like say is it now listen uh if i recall it's uh it's like a folklore thing and i think it dates back someplace in around 1960s and so yeah people know nothing people say that it still is seen today

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that's really creepy

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yes so we're going to kind of break that down a little bit and talk about it and give our own opinions about it as well

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Well, where did it start? Where did it come from?

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I think it, if I remember, it was Point Pleasant, West Virginia. That's a small town. Nothing really unusual about it. But people started seeing it and they described it, like I said, it's like a tall winged creature. It has humanoid Right. Right. an abandoned TNT factory, some kind of like dynamite factory or something. Right, yeah,

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very explosive.

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I

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wouldn't want to be driving past that. They must have been really bored to drive past a dynamite factory.

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And so I think they saw it and they freaked out and then they basically hit the gas and they sped. But the thing is, as they ran off, The creature took flight and followed them and kept up with the speed they were driving down this road.

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Well, let me tell you something. I would lock the doors and I'd push the gas as fast as it would go if that thing was flying with me.

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You know what? I hear you, but I don't know if I believe you. I think you would tailgate it and try to follow it.

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I gave the logical answer. Actually, what I would have done is gotten out of the car and either try to communicate with it, feed it. I'd probably try to

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give it to it. Let me cook for you. Don't say you'd run away. Are you kidding me? Yeah, you try to... Are you hungry? Are you hungry? Mr. Mothman, are you hungry? But I think, like I say, over the years since then, there's been lots of different reports about people seeing it all. So that's pretty cool. Well,

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I think really the whole town, it's built up a legend that a lot of people there have seen it, whether it was from the 60s or not. They've seen it, you know, even back then. Yes. They put it together. If I remember correctly, in around 67, they had a big suspension bridge. That's

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right, yes. West Virginia and Ohio. There was some kind of bridge.

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And it connected the two states, and it collapsed. And it killed a lot of people. It killed dozens of people, which was sad, bless their hearts. And then people started saying they saw the Mothman right before the bridge fell. So they kind of blamed the Mothman for it. But then some people said, well, wait a minute. Maybe it was telling you it was going to fall.

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So with different negative things that have taken place there in this town, the Mothman, if I recall, can be seen sometimes. And so they're connecting it. Is this Mothman foreshadowing something? What's taking place? Or is he causing it?

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Right. Because, believe it or not, the same kind of creature was seen in Ukraine years ago when they

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had the Chernobyl explosion. I remember hearing about

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that. And they said a similar creature was seen right before that happened. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, you know, that's one of the theories. Is it... Is it trying to tell you that something's about to happen or is it causing it?

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Right. So I guess, like I said, there's really, I don't think there's been, no one's ever caught one, right? No. I don't think there's really any hard evidence, but no footage or anything. And

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just to be honest with people, if I saw it and I, you know, I would not catch it. I would feed it, tell

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it to be happy. Right. And go on your merry way. But I think there's been enough people, like I said, there's no hard evidence, but there's There's been a lot of eyewitnesses. And so, again, people are kind of connecting the dots. You know, there might be some truth to this.

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Well, yeah, because a lot, like I say, this is through decades. This is not just a one-time thing that some people saw it. Literally decades. And people, although they don't have clear photos of it and things like that, reputable people in the town have seen it.

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Right. So it's either... People are all going crazy. Mass hallucination. Are they saying exactly what is it? Like a real flesh and blood creature? Or is it like a spirit?

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There's theories to what it should be. Or could be. I apologize. The cryptid theory, which means it's just an unidentified species. Like a giant bat or an owl. That people are mistaking. Because there's species all the time that we don't recognize.

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Yeah, we've seen some big owls.

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Right. And well, let me tell you something. You brought this. I just saw this on YouTube the other day. Poor cat. And it was, I said, what creature is right in front of this poor little cat? And I think it was an owl, some kind of owl that was defensive. And it literally bloated itself up. And it was huge. And I did not recognize it as an owl. I said, what

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the heck is that? What the hell is going on here? Another can get big. Is the cat okay?

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I don't know. Let's

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pretend it is. The cat ran away. Let's just say that. Normally when animals

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do have that protective thing, they don't attack. They use all the puffing to scare things off. So I'm sure the cat was okay. But... They even have sandhill cranes, which have red eyes and have a huge wingspan. So some people say it could be something like that. Things that we don't see

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every day. But is there a lot of cranes in West Virginia? Who knows? Or around, you know, other places that have seen this. It might be

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construction cranes, but I don't know about the sandhill crane. Okay. But now then there's the paranormal theory where people think the Mothman may be interdimensional. Meaning it can exist on one

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plane. Like another plane and it just crisscrosses planes.

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And that would explain why maybe it shows up right before an event, a tragic event, because it's coming through on this plane to tell us that it's happening.

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But could it be even with wings? And it could be maybe a guardian angel of some sort. And actually people might, you know, it's in the dark and all of a sudden they see a figure with wings. And all of a sudden, you know, it could be like a scary thing because you're not familiar with it. But could it be an angel like forewarning something's about to take place?

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Yeah, I guess. Yeah. If you take the positive. You know, the positive theory to it that it's trying not to hurt anybody, but just trying to warn us.

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It could be. You never know. And

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then, of course, some people think it's a government conspiracy

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because it's like

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a top military experiment where they didn't tell anybody. Because if you think about it, the people saw it first at an old factory with dynamite. And they were thinking, like, maybe it's radiation. Oh,

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like it's some other type of... Like there really wasn't

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dynamite there. There was other... Like something kind of government thing that they were trying to cover up.

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And they did something with radiation or chemicals or something, and they created this creature.

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Right. Okay. So, you know, needless to say, whatever theory that you believe, there's always... truth to legends because there's a grain of truth. So people have seen something that's not identified. So it's interesting to see if somebody will come up with like a super clear picture or something.

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Well, I'm saying you go on YouTube and things like that and you can see, you know, people who, eyewitnesses and things like that. There's been a lot of different documentaries about this and people saying, so that's kind of cool to hear, like you mentioned YouTube, so...

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Now, let me ask you this. If you were driving late at night, and there was nothing but trees and woods and things like that, and then your headlight catches a tall figure on the roadside, And then you kind of pull up to it. And all of a sudden, is that somebody who needs help? And then something spreads its wings and looks at you with red eyes. What do you do?

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I would say, I'm not at work right now, so I cannot communicate with you. I'm on my merry way to wherever I'm going for them to make an appointment to make a connection with me.

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I'm not at work right now. Leave me

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alone. Right, exactly. I've said that a few times. Yeah, you have. You actually have.

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But you know... Our niece and her family, we told them the legend of this one time, and they actually stopped in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Right. And there is a statue there of the Mothman. I think I remember that.

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Yeah, that's true. Right. If I recall, there's a statue, a big giant statue. They celebrate it. And there's actually celebrations that they place yearly, I think.

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Right. And so they were there with

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the statue. It's something to see.

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Although they didn't see the Mothman. They said an eerie feeling did

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come over the town. You know what? Let's talk about this. Because one time, if I recall, this is at a place, I think it's West Virginia and near Ohio. Right. And there was that one time, Kathy, we were doing an event. Right. And we decided to drive for some crazy reason. A road trip. Road trip to Ohio.

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We love Ohio. Don't get us wrong. Yeah, we do love Ohio. But not so much the road

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trip. The road trip. But going through this, but it happened to be we were in the, you know, gosh, it was probably around midnight or maybe 1 a.m. But we were actually around that time. That area. That area. We didn't go into the town of Point Pleasant. Is that where it is? Yeah, Point Pleasant. But we were very close to it. But do you recall the eerie thing was there was an accident- Oh, I'll never forget it. In the middle of the road. In the middle of the road, of course. It was an accident. They had stopped traffic. But they had stopped traffic. So we were just waiting around. We were with our friend Gina. And we were waiting around. And- Obviously, because we didn't know exactly what was taking place. You could just see the emergency lights flashing. But it was in the distance. But if you recall, Kathy, while we were sitting there, all of a sudden we saw this very white male.

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Right.

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Very pale.

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And oddly pale. Oddly pale.

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Looked wet.

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Yes, he did. And

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he walked toward us in the car. And we all stopped talking. And his face, but he had this smile on his face.

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That's so eerie. It was so eerie that he did that.

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Right. And then he walked right past us. And then... He disappeared. He

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disappeared. He didn't go into the car behind us. He just disappeared. But he walked away from the event, whatever the event was. The accident. The accident, which we found out was an accident.

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It was an accident. And then we said, okay, that was... We

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all got chills.

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We said, that must have been a spirit because that was just... Sometimes you can just tell when...

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Especially you.

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I didn't try to communicate with him. Again, that was off work. They were off

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work, but

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no, we were tired. I think if I recall, then we looked it up and we saw there was some fatality. There was a fatal accident. Yeah. And

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we didn't see the picture, but it was a man that had passed away.

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We should have looked in the sky. You know what? We might have seen the Mothman. Well, let me tell you, but

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that area, it was very creepy. And we were

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seeing that when we were driving around. That's not the only thing. It's not just the visuals. It's the energy. The energy of it. Certain places you can go. you can feel the energy. And that definitely was.

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And we'll never forget

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it. So yeah, it just popped in my mind. So yeah, we were around that very much. We were all talking and we

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just dead stopped talking. And the guy just looked at us and we're like.

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But it was a look in his face, if I recall. And there's a smile. It was almost like the movie. I think there's a movie like Smile or something like that. Oh, is there? Yeah, and it's like a creepy smile. It

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was a creepy smile.

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And he was beyond pale. And

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wet.

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And wet. For no reason. Anyway.

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But we had a good time in Ohio. We did an event

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there. But besides that, yeah, we had a

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great time. We had

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a great time in Ohio. But anyway, back to the Mothman. And that just, again, it shows you that, especially any listeners out there, if you guys have gone there, had experiences, whether you're in that area or just yourself, where you might have thought, Hmm, could that have been a mothman I saw in the sky or in a tree or right beside, you know, on a road or something? You know, let us know. Make sure to write us, too, because we'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about it as well. And

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if you think about it, it's, you know, it's... Everybody takes it as a bad thing, like it's a monster, but you never know. There's species that we

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don't know about. That's right. And you know what? We'll be talking about those different things, too, because, again, we're trying this out to see if you guys are interested in hearing our viewpoints and experiences with things like this as well.

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Right. And you have to take the other side of this, that he may be a forecaster of bad things to come and that he's trying to give a warning.

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Right. Because, again, when it's an unknown or something scary you don't recognize, people do have a tendency to put a negative to it. Right. where it actually could be something more positive that's actually taking place.

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Exactly. So if you see a mothman, don't freak out.

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Well, you know what? No. You do what you want to do. Because we don't know if it's good or bad. We have no idea. Good or

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bad, you know I'd go right up to it. It makes no difference to me.

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Oh, you're right. I can see you seeing the mothman and saying, oh, he looks hungry. He looks a little

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hungry. Let me find out what he eats.

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Let me make up some business. He

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would love my biscuits, actually.

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Many people do. Here in the spirit, but that's a whole different story. But anyway, let us know what you guys think about the Mothman. Or if you have some other type of, let's say, myths or legends you guys want to hear us talk about, we would be more than happy to.

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We do. This is fun. And there's a million myths and legends out there. And we hope to investigate a lot of them alongside everybody. So make sure you leave your comments and likes. That's right. hearing from everybody and uh This has been awesome.

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So yeah, real quick talk though. I'm trying to think if there's anything else to say that we haven't said about the Mothman. I can't think of

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anything. I think people need to ponder what we've talked about. But if you have seen something strange, let us know because we'd like to hear

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about it. Because you know what? There are strange things out there.

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There are more strange things than people realize.

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All right. So that concludes this episode of Connecting Podcast. Awesome. I

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can't wait to talk about something fun like this again this has been all great and make sure that you leave comments about what you'd like to hear or if you've experienced something from the other side

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and Kathy I know there's a line I'm supposed to say at the end uh stay

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stay

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curious keep curious and keep connecting I believe that's his line I know I don't have it written right in front of me what am I supposed to say Alina keep being curious and keep connecting is that what it is it's something like that so

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that's

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it make sure that you do we'll just make it up as we go along each week, each episode, I should say. It'll be a

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new line every

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week. Why not? So, okay. Until next time, guys.

People on this episode

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Kathy Mathews

Co-host
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Patrick Mathews

Co-host