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Do you remember when you were young, and going through your teenage years? Didn’t time seem to go by a lot more slowly back then?
All those years, waiting, and looking forward to that one big day when you’re finally out on your own. Now that was something to be excited about, right? You’d have your own car, your own place, you could come and go whenever, you could stay up as late as want, it would be like heaven on earth! Of course, now that we’re past that stage in life, we know that being out on your own and responsible for yourself is not always the paradise and freedom that we might have anticipated.
My guest today, Terri, was right at that breakthrough stage. Leaving home for the first time, being on her own, even moving hundreds of miles away – it was all very exciting.
But then as soon as she moved in to her new place – the very first day she was there, actually – she found out that the real world can bring with it some unexpected and horrific things. It was a day she’ll never forget.
If you like the show, please consider becoming a supporter. That not only tells me you enjoy the podcast, it also means you can get access to all the other bonus episodes that are only available to patrons. There are different levels of support and all the details are at WhatWasThatLike.com/support.
Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
Do you remember when you were young, and going through your teenage years? Didn’t time seem to go by a lot more slowly back then?
All those years, waiting, and looking forward to that one big day when you’re finally out on your own. Now that was something to be excited about, right? You’d have your own car, your own place, you could come and go whenever, you could stay up as late as want, it would be like heaven on earth! Of course, now that we’re past that stage in life, we know that being out on your own and responsible for yourself is not always the paradise and freedom that we might have anticipated.
My guest today, Terri, was right at that breakthrough stage. Leaving home for the first time, being on her own, even moving hundreds of miles away – it was all very exciting.
But then as soon as she moved in to her new place – the very first day she was there, actually – she found out that the real world can bring with it some unexpected and horrific things. It was a day she’ll never forget, and she told me all about it.
Hang around after the conversation and I’ll tell you about another podcast I recently discovered. And if you enjoy What Was That Like, please consider becoming a supporter. That not only tells me you love the podcast, it also means you can get access to all the other bonus episodes that are only available to patrons. There are different levels of support and all the details are at WhatWasThatLike.com/support.
And now, here’s Terri.
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Scott
What was your age when this happened?
Terri
I was 20 years old.
Scott
At 20 years old, that’s pretty young for something this crazy. I guess crazy is not the only word to describe it, I suppose. Where were you at in life when this happened? You just graduated high school, right?
Terri
Correct. I graduated high school and grew up in– Well, I didn’t totally grow up in a small town. My dad was in the Air Force. So, we lived in a couple of large cities in Arizona and Florida. Then, when he retired from the service, we moved back to his hometown, Henniker, New Hampshire. It’s a small little town of about 1,500 people. I graduated with a class of 22 kids. I mean, that tells you how small it was. We had kind of a crazy household. My parents had 6 kids in 7 years and 4 months’ time. This was from February 1958 until the twins were born in June of 1965. My brother and I were in the middle. So, I was sort of lost. I didn’t have a lot of direction after high school. I did well in school but I just didn’t have the guidance from my family to keep moving, I think, with so many kids. My parents worked full time. So, I just was sort of searching for myself and I just wanted to get out of the little town that I lived in.
Scott
When you describe the little town, I kind of picture a Norman Rockwell painting.
Terri
It sort of is.
Scott
Actually, wasn’t he from New Hampshire?
Terri
I think he was, yeah, it was a town in Western Massachusetts.
Scott
So, you got out of New Hampshire. What did you do?
Terri
I just decided, “Oh, I’m going to gain my independence. I’m just going to take off and leave” and everyone was like, “You’re crazy. You can’t just do that. You don’t have a job. Where are you going to go?” I said, “Well, I have a brother who lives outside of New Orleans. He lived in Slidell. I can go down there and I can just start my whole life. I’m 20 years old. I’m the king of the world”. When you’re that young, I guess nothing really bothers you or you don’t really think about it. So, I decided to go. I hopped in my car and I drove down by myself. I even stopped at the World’s Fair on the way through Tennessee – which was hilarious. Then, I got to my brother’s. I didn’t have a job or anything. I stayed there for a few weeks until I found a job in New Orleans. So, that was the first step. I found a job at a hot dog factory, of all things.
Scott
A hot dog factory?
Terri
A hot dog factory. Before you say it, it was the cleanest place I’ve ever worked in my life. It was ridiculously clean. I worked in a lab. I got a job. I don’t know how I got it. I got a job in this hot dog factory, in the lab. Then, I had to move to New Orleans. I had to find an apartment and move there so that I’d be closer because my brother lived about an hour away from the city. So, that’s where it all began.
Scott
So you found an apartment. What was this place like?
Terri
It was off of Magazine Street. It was called Philip Street. It was in a decent neighborhood. It wasn’t anything alarming. I mean, I wasn’t that well versed in the city at that time. I don’t know if they would be called row houses or shotgun houses but those houses were close together. You had to park on the street, walk up a couple of steps, and then there was the outside area like a porch, but I didn’t really hang out there. The apartment had, like, 1 big room that had a kitchenette. Then, behind that was a bathroom. So, where you slept was a loft. It was basically 1 big room.
Scott
So that was what you’d call a studio apartment…
Terri
Studio. Yeah.
Scott
So, this wasn’t like a big apartment building? This was more like a house…
Terri
It was, yes. It was a house.
Scott
When you talked about that front porch, how far was that from the street?
Terri
It was probably about 8 feet or something like that. It was pretty close to the sidewalk.
Scott
So, you were right there?
Terri
Right there. Yeah, exactly. Right there.
Scott
Okay. Can you just tell us what happened that day when you moved in? Just take us through what happened.
Terri
Sure. It was an August day. It was super hot. I just remember that it was super hot. Basically, I had everything I owned fit into my car, so to speak. It wasn’t difficult to unpack everything. I got there at about mid-afternoon. I parked my car. I brought everything in and unloaded everything. Once everything was done, I decided I would just sit down from it and take a break. Before I did that, I had made sure that the front door was open so that the screen door would allow air to come in because it was so stifling hot. If you’ve ever been to New Orleans, it’s just really humid. So, I decided to sit down. I’d only been there for maybe 2 hours max. As I sat down, I was looking out the front door where the screen was. I saw an older gentleman walking – I just noticed that and everything. It was not a big deal. I was still sitting there. This was before we had cell phones to, like, scroll through or anything. I don’t think I even had a book back then. So, I was just sitting there and, probably, drinking a glass of water. Then, I heard a noise. I looked straight out and I heard a noise. I saw this guy running really fast. So, I was like, “Wow. That’s really weird, right?” He was just like running or bolting.
Scott
That guy was not the old man that you just saw?
Terri
No. That’s why I thought it was weird because I saw this old man walking. Then, maybe about 20 seconds later, another guy was running at full speed. I was sitting next to a window – so picture it next to a window. I pulled the curtain back. I looked out the window to the side and I saw this man being hit and assaulted. So, my first instinct was to run out the front door. As I did, I saw the person that was running – the younger person – grabbing the guy’s watch and running away. So, all I saw was his side profile. Then, I saw him running off in the distance very fast. The other guy was laying down there with blood. I mean, he was just on the sidewalk. He was moaning at that time.
Scott
This was the man you saw carrying the bag?
Terri
Exactly. It was the older man. So, I freaked out because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even have a phone. I didn’t even have a phone hooked up yet, so I couldn’t even call the police. I ran over to him and he was still moaning. I started to run to all the neighbors’ doors. I was banging on their doors and no one was answering. By the time I had moved in, it was maybe, like, 4 or 5 o’clock or something like that in the afternoon. So, I finally bang on a door – I looked inside – of this family that was sitting down for dinner. They were at the table. I just started crying. I was screaming, “There’s a guy that’s hurt! Call somebody! Call the police!” They immediately jumped up and called the police and – I’m assuming – the ambulance. I just ran back over to the gentleman who was still moaning and I didn’t really know what to do. Do I move him? What do I do? I mean, it was just something I had never seen before. I mean, it was crazy.
Scott
Was he conscious?
Terri
No, I don’t think he was really conscious. He was moaning. I don’t think he was aware of his surroundings at all. He was pretty out of it. Then, maybe 3 minutes later, the police arrived. That’s where it was just really sad. The police officer knelt down beside him. He reached his hand under his head and said, “There’s a baseball-sized lump on the back of his head”. Then, looked over and said, “This guy was hit with this”. It was a baseball bat with, like, nail sticking out of it. I just couldn’t even believe it. I couldn’t believe that this was all happening to me. I had just been there for 2 hours. I mean, it was just crazy.
Scott
Before this, you had not even seen the bat?
Terri
No, I did not. I didn’t even notice the bat. I was just focused on him. When the police said, “Look. These are like 3-inch nails sticking out”. I was just really focused on him. I think I was somewhat shocked. I don’t know. I mean, just from where I came from, I’d never seen anything like this either.
Scott
That’s what I’m thinking. A small-town girl comes to the big city on the first day and sees something like this. It’s like, “Wow. Is this what life is like here?”
Terri
Like, “What did I get myself into?” It was just surreal. That’s all I can say. Then, it got worse. The next thing that happened was an older woman came walking up, sort of, simultaneously as the ambulance showed up. Then, about 30 feet from where he was laying, she just let out a scream, “That’s my husband!” That was awful. I guess she had walked behind him. I don’t know if she had a few more errands to run but he was ahead of her by probably 5-6 minutes. That was just super sad. She just didn’t know what to do. She was just, “This is my husband!” That was really hard to take right then.
Scott
Did you talk to her at all?
Terri
She actually handed me her groceries. It had some beer and other items. She said, “Take these. Just take these.” I didn’t know why but obviously– So I just took them and I sat them down. Then, she was with him and stayed with him. When the ambulance came, she stayed with him and went with him to the hospital or went with the police to the hospital – it was one or the other. She didn’t stay around, obviously.
Scott
Was she a neighbor there near you? Did you know how far she lived?
Terri
Apparently, yeah. She lived just down the street. She was walking home from the local store – probably a mom-and-pop store. They were just walking home. So, it was just like an average day. It was just, like, 5 o’clock in the afternoon in broad daylight.
Scott
When did you find out that he did not survive?
Terri
After this all happened, I sat on the steps to my place. By then, all of the neighbors were coming out. They were walking around talking and everything. As I was sitting there, an unmarked Sedan pulled up and just parked right in the street. These 2 gentlemen got out and they were dressed in suits. They walked right over to the stoop and looked at me. I was assuming, maybe, they thought that I would be the “person who knows” just because everyone was, sort of, directing all their questions towards me – all the neighbors and everything. I don’t know. They asked who was there and who saw the crime. Everyone pointed at me and said, “She did”.
Scott
So, you were likely the only witness?
Terri
I was the only witness. I was basically the sole witness. No one saw it because, afterwards, I was screaming and running around trying to get help. No one was even responding or around, so I was definitely the only witness. So, they put me in their car. They were like, “We’re the homicide detectives. This guy just died.” I was like, “Is this real? Wow.” I didn’t even know what to think. There I was – this 20-year-old – sitting in the back of the car on my first day describing what happened when a guy got murdered on the sidewalk in front of my place. They asked me a lot of questions and I answered them to the best of my knowledge. The thing was, I couldn’t really describe– I could describe that he was, like, average height and average weight. I could describe exactly what he was wearing. To this day, I can see him running away in his navy blue shorts with a white sleeveless T-shirt – almost like an undershirt. He was just darting away but I didn’t really– I mean, he ran so fast. It wasn’t like I got a really good look at him. So, I let them know that I couldn’t definitively identify this person because I saw him running so fast except for a little side when he was grabbing the watch, I mostly just saw him leaving. So he was taking off.
Scott
Well, when you saw this happen, it’s not like you were trying to think, “Okay, I need to see what he looks like.” Your brain was still processing what was even going on.
Terri
Right. Did the guy fall? I didn’t really know even what was going on at the time when I saw him pulling the watch off – that’s when I knew that it was really bad. I found out afterwards, from the wife – somehow, she must have said it when she dropped off the grocery – but he only had $2 on him. Now, I thought to myself, “He got killed for $2? Well, what amount of money do you really need to get killed for?” I mean, there’s just $2 in his wallet.
Scott
So, you were able to tell the detectives what you saw which, unfortunately, probably didn’t give them a lot to go on.
Terri
Right. It didn’t give them a lot to go on. Unfortunately, it was exactly what I saw. So, they took down all that information. Then, they handed me their card. They said, “If you think of anything else, call us but no matter what, don’t talk to the press.” I said, “Yeah, that’s fine. Absolutely. I’m not going to talk to the press about this.” So, I didn’t. I went back up onto the stoop. People were still hanging out and talking.
Scott
Yeah. This seems like the kind of thing that after it’s all done, that the people that live around you– this is a weird way to meet your new neighbors, I guess. It’s something that everyone needed to talk about because it was so big.
Terri
Right, I think that they felt like their area had really been invaded. They needed to sort out with their own selves. What exactly happened to me could have been any of them that just witnessed that, so I think it was really quite shocking for them, especially when it happened at the time of the day like dinnertime. We were there for quite a while because more people were coming home from work. So, there were more people gathering and it stayed late at that time. It was summer in August, so it stayed late.
Scott
The sun didn’t set until later.
Terri
Right. It wasn’t, like, nighttime and everyone was gonna go in. So, we kept talking. Then, a news truck pulled up, actually. The person that was in the passenger seat of the news van said, “What happened here?” and I didn’t say anything. They said, “Does anyone have to say anything?” and I just said, “No comment.” I don’t know if somebody said, “She’s the one” because there were a lot of people around. When they looked at me, I just said, “I have no comment” because I just remembered what the detective said. He said, “Don’t say anything to the press” and I was gonna do what he said. At 20 years old – I’m gonna do what they say – I was already scared, so I didn’t do anything.
Scott
So, they got nothing out of you. Somehow they pieced together what had happened.
Terri
Yeah. I don’t know how because I didn’t talk to them but there were other people who were lingering around. Maybe somebody said something to them because we were all talking about what did happen. They were aware that the person got mugged and that person died. They knew a few of the details just because I was just talking about it to them as neighbors, and not to the press. I guess what anybody would do if they were in that situation was just gather around and talk about it.
Scott
Sure. You had to talk it out, absolutely.
Terri
Right.
Scott
I know at times when I’ve had something like this – not exactly like this – that caused an adrenaline surge, I’ve had trouble getting to sleep that night. How did you sleep?
Terri
Awful. It was so bad. I tried to sleep but every time the AC came on, I just bolted up. I think my doors were not just locked, but I put the chair in front of the door. It just freaked me out. Yeah, I did not sleep well at all that night. I just couldn’t wait for daylight to come back up. But, again, that brought on a whole new set of issues.
Scott
Right. So, what happened the next morning?
Terri
So, I got up the next morning and thought to myself, “I just want to see what happened here.” I just wanted to know if this was a big deal and if this happens often. I walked up to the local store and grabbed the newspaper. I walked back and I sat there. I opened it up and I read about what had happened. When it got to the part where they gave out my address and basically inferred that I was able to identify the assailant, I was really upset. I literally couldn’t believe it. They had my address in there. It was just sort of referring that I knew who had done this and could describe who had done this.
Scott
That’s incredible.
Terri
Yeah, it was.
Scott
When something like that happens today – even the address of the crime, even if there were no witnesses – they don’t put the actual address of the house like “The 1,400 block of Magazine Street” or something like that. Back then, I guess, personal identity and personal information weren’t at the forefront of everybody’s mind like it is today. So, you saw your address in the newspaper identifying you as the person who could identify the killer.
Terri
Yeah. They even put the “person that died”’s address on there. I also thought that was a little bit strange. Anyway, I felt like I was in a real bind. Then, maybe, 10 minutes after I opened up the newspaper and read that, along came my landlord. I had only been there for 1 day. He came, smiled, and went, “So how was your first day?” I just bursted out crying and said, “Oh my gosh. You don’t know what happened!” He went, “What?” I showed him the newspaper. I said, “This happened on my first day. Somebody got killed right here on the sidewalk right in front of our place and I saw it!” He was just, “Whoa. No way!” I just looked at him and I said, “Look. I’m leaving. I have to leave. I had no place to go but I’ll just pack up my car. I have to leave. I can’t stay here. They gave out my address.” He was understanding to a point. He didn’t even give me back my security deposit even though I was only there for 1 day. He took the entire security deposit from me. I don’t know. I just thought, in the end, that was kind of a rough twist on top of everything to me. So at that point, I wasn’t really sure what I was gonna do but I knew I was gonna leave. First, I called my brother who lived in Slidell and I said, “Look, this is what happened” and his first words were, “Do you think it might be time for you to go back home?”
Scott
Back home meaning back north?
Terri
I remember thinking that I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to be a failure. I already felt like I was a failure. When I left high school, I didn’t go to college and everything. I just felt like if I went back right now I’d be just a failure again. So, I just said, “No, I can’t.”
Scott
Going from a little town to a big city, you figured that there were going to be trials and obstacles to overcome and stuff like that but, boy, this had to be more of a test than you ever expected.
Terri
Exactly, yeah. What a test. Well, my cousin was gonna go to Tulane Law School. So, he said, “Maybe you can move in with her” because she had driven down with her boyfriend – I think he could have been her fiance at the time. They’re married now. So, I got a hold of her and we decided we would get a place together and we’d move in. So I did. I couldn’t believe there was an out. I was able to stay just for the ironic twist that she actually happened to be going to law school at Tulane. So, we ended up getting a really small place together. We thought it was a decent neighborhood which was St. Charles Avenue.
Scott
So, that’s how you got out of there.
Terri
That’s how I got out of there. I packed up all my stuff again. It only took me a little bit because I didn’t have very much stuff. I put everything in the car and met up with her. We looked for a place and then we moved in. That was an interesting place as well.
Scott
Was the attacker ever caught? Do you know?
Terri
I had never found that information. I tried to research that recently but, no, I don’t believe so. Another thing is, I always thought of this as an old man but I realized he was only 56 years old. This is a man who was married with 10 grandchildren at 56 years old. I guess when you’re 20, everybody seems to be a lot older than you are. I’m 58 right now, so I’m thinking, “Wow, he was young.”
Scott
That’s not old.
Terri
Yeah. He was younger than me when he was killed for no reason. It’s very sad.
Scott
Yeah. It gives you stuff to think about for the big picture. So you moved out. Then, you had a couple of other things that happened in that New Orleans area that were also not all that pleasant. What was that?
Terri
It went pretty well for a while. I had a job. I liked my job. I did pretty well with it and I learned a lot. I worked with some really cool people. Then, it came to Mardi Gras, which I thought was great. I lived right on St. Charles Ave. I had parades coming by our house every day. I thought it was great. It was really quite fun to be there during Mardi Gras. If you’ve ever done it, it’s just something that you’ll never forget. It’s just crazy. It’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s super pretty with all the costumes and everything. So, we had gone through about 10 days of parades. It was the night before that Tuesday. My cousin and my cousin’s boyfriend/fiance had come down from New Hampshire. All of us and maybe about 3 or 4 other people were headed downtown. We probably took the trolley to get there. We were walking down Canal Street. We hadn’t gone to where the main festivities were yet but we were walking out Canal Street. Somehow, I got ahead of them by about 50 feet, maybe even a little bit more – I don’t know. I guess I was anxious. I was just kind of doing my own thing. I was also a fast walker. They were a group of people and they were all couples, so I just sort of walked ahead of them.
When I went to cross one of the crosswalks, I was groped by a group of people. They were groping everybody that was walking through and I just kept walking through. I was groped, whatever. All of a sudden, the police started running after the people who were doing this. There was a gang of about 6 to 8 people that were doing this. They were just groping everybody who was walking across. Because you’re squeezed in so tight that you’re kind of helpless– if you did that, you could get away with it because where are you going to turn? You can’t do anything but walk across the street. So, they started running. They were knocking people out of the way because they were running from the police. This one huge guy took his hand, put it behind my neck, and punched me right in the side of the head. It just knocked me right to the ground. It was just crazy, but I wasn’t the only one. As soon as the cops ran past and the crowd kind of moved out, there were like 4 or 5 people just laying there in the street going, “What just happened?”
Scott
Did your friends see that happen to you?
Terri
No, they didn’t because they were further behind. I think what happened was when they saw the group – the police and the crowd kind of dispersed like that – they just moved on and went to Pat O’Brien or whatever, so I completely lost them. I could not find them. I got up and walked around trying to find them. I couldn’t find them. I went to Pat O’Brien’s. I looked for them there. They actually let me in. I couldn’t believe it because there was a line of about 100 people. Pat O’Brien slipped me in to go look and see if I could find them. I was probably teary-eyed or I just looked like I actually really did lose them. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I ended up taking a taxi back to our apartment. I got inside. A couple of hours later, they came back and I was like “Look what happened to me.” They couldn’t believe that that had happened. The way they were walking right behind me and didn’t see all that happened– they said, “Well, maybe you shouldn’t walk ahead of us next time” and stuff like that. They kind of put a little bit of blame on me for losing them. I do get that but I don’t believe that I should have been knocked out over the head.
Scott
I guess it’s weird at Mardi Gras. It’s like no matter what happens, nobody’s really all that surprised.
Terri
Right. That’s why you can basically run around naked during Mardi Gras and no one’s gonna do anything. They just want to prevent violence and the police were on that. They did see what had happened. They saw what they were doing to people walking across the street. So, that was the second thing that happened.
Scott
Then, there was even a third thing…
Terri
There was a third thing. Somebody had hit my car, so I had no transportation for a while. I basically used the trolley all the time from that point on – that was for about 5 weeks or something – until I could find a new one. I was taking the trolley home one night. It was dark out this time. I was just sitting on the trolley. My stop came up and I got off. Then, this other guy got up – this kind of a scrawny person. I didn’t have any fear. By then, I was pretty aware of my surroundings.
Scott
You kind of saw this guy and thought, “Okay. If something happens, I can take him,” right?
Terri
Yeah. I just didn’t really think much of him. I guess that’s because he just got off the trolley. I went my way. It’s kind of hard to describe but our apartment was like a small apartment building. It had an open-air corridor that you would go through to get to your apartment. However, if you were driving, you would drive around. The parking lot had different places where you could drive in. Then, you parked your car and it had, maybe, about 10 cars parked there. So, we had our own private parking spot. But I walked this time – I wasn’t driving. I just walked from the trolley straight through to my apartment. I didn’t really pay attention to where he was going. I went to put my key in the door and I heard a noise. I turned around and this guy was behind a car. When he saw me or noticed I was looking around, he ducked down. So, he was hiding in the parking lot watching me. To me, this was actually so scary. Have you ever seen a movie when the person can’t get their key in the door?
Scott
Like every slasher movie ever made?
Terri
Yes. I was shaking so badly. I tried to get the key in the door but my hand was shaking so much because I knew he was maybe 20 feet away from me, watching. I finally opened the door. I slammed the door. I put on the deadbolt. I remember – when I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror – my face was ghost white. It was just solid white. I was so afraid. It was so scary. Then, I realized my cousin hadn’t returned from class yet. Oh my gosh. Now, I was really scared because we had a guy hiding in the parking lot. She hadn’t returned. We didn’t have cell phones back then to warn people. I was not going to go outside and wait for her, obviously. Maybe 20-30 later, she came walking in. She opened up the door with the key and came in. I remember I just slammed the door behind her and I said, “Do you know what time it is?! Do you know what’s happening out there?!” She looked at me like, “What’s going on?” Then, I had to explain it to her. I felt like, in a way, it was sort of comic relief. Even though it wasn’t really funny, the way that I treated her that night was just like a mom.
Scott
Of course, by that time the guy was long gone. He didn’t know somebody else was going to come home, right?
Terri
Of course. I was just paranoid for her and I really cared for her. We’re still super close. So, that was the third thing. Basically, I say three strikes and you’re out. That was pretty much what I said to myself. I said, “Maybe it’s time for me to venture back.”
Scott
Overall, you had been there for 11 months. You gave it the old college try.
Terri
I think I gave it the old college try. Yeah. I was gone for 11 months and then I ventured back home. I had moved a couple of times since I ventured back home. I moved to Tucson for a while. After my husband and I got married, we lived in New Orleans. For the most part, I spent 26 of the 30 years I’d been married living in Henniker – the small little town that I wanted to run away from. I embraced it and raised our children there, and loved it. Sometimes, I think you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.
Scott
That’s very true. Yeah. We raised our kids in Maine, even though we’re in Florida now. There’s something about that New England-type atmosphere that’s just nice.
Terri
I agree. It was just a nice place to raise our children. They grew up skiing at the local ski area right up the road and had great schools. They did really well. So, we have a child with autism and we could not have lived in a better town than this. They have supported our son so much. We could not have done it without their support. So many friends, so many people just always look out for him, who want to help out and do things for him. So, they were great.
Scott
Do you miss anything about the excitement of big city life?
Terri
Not really. We ended up leaving Henniker for our son. We moved to Concord which is just 20 minutes away, just so that our son can walk around everywhere because he doesn’t drive. He can walk to the banks. He can walk to the stores. He can walk to restaurants. So, we did that. So, we’re in a little bit bigger of a place now. I work for a news station. So, I kind of get all the excitement in the 8 hours at work that I need.
Scott
Yeah. You kind of hear all the excitement and experience it vicariously rather than out your front door.
Terri
I think vicariously is definitely the key word there. I think, at a distance, yes, definitely. I don’t really miss it. The people were cool. It’s a great city. The architecture is stunning. My husband and I went back there for our honeymoon for, like, 4 days. We were gonna bring our son and daughter a couple of years ago. That got canceled out but we plan on bringing them someday. So, I think it’s a beautiful city. I don’t think it was really the city. I think it was just really bad luck and just being in the wrong place, I guess.
Scott
Yeah. Of course. A lot of people live there and love it. They hadn’t experienced what you had either on your first day there.
Terri
Yeah. It’s pretty cool. I did stick it out for 11 months. Now that I think about it, I could have just gone crying home.
Scott
Well, that’s a great story. I’m glad you made it through anyway. It’s great to hear that you’re enjoying life back in New Hampshire.
Terri
I do. Thank you very much, and thanks for letting me be on the podcast to tell this story.
Scott
Hey, just a couple more things before we head out the door –
Would you like to get emails from me? I send one out every time I release a new episode, but there’s other stuff in there that you might find interesting. I’ve recently come across a couple of absolutely amazing documentaries, and I talked about those in the email. If I post an image on Instagram and it goes crazy, I might include that image in the email. Just cool, crazy stuff that strikes me as interesting – that email is where I’ll tell you about it. You can sign up at WhatWasThatLike.com/email.
And check this out – I recently discovered a podcast that I’m pretty sure you’re gonna love. I don’t know how I hadn’t heard of it before. It’s called The Trail Went Cold. It’s in the True Crime category, and the host Robin Warder lays out the details of UNSOLVED cases. So to play out today’s episode, I’ll have Robin tell you about it, and I’ll see you right back here in two weeks.
(Trail Went Cold promo)
Robin Warder
Hello, everyone. This is Robin Warder, host of the true-crime podcast, “The Trail Went Cold”. If you grew up watching the classic television show “Unsolved Mysteries”, then this is the podcast for you. Each week, I profile a new unsolved murder or missing persons case and share all the baffling details. Afterwards, I provide my own personal analysis and theories about what might have happened. This is a show for true crime buffs who are fascinated by cold cases and love to discuss them and pick them apart in an attempt to figure out the truth. So be sure to check out our podcast to learn about some truly bizarre unsolved mysteries where the trail went cold.