I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago. Join me as I share how the genre

began, their social impact, and why these stories endure. Listen wherever you get your podcast.

WB.EZ is supported by Chicago Humanities, presenting its spring festival on April 27th in Lakeview

with historians Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder,

Jonathan Blitzer on Immigration,

University of Chicago Professor Agnes Collard on Socrates,

and documentaries Unblocked Englewood by Chicago's Tanika Lewis Johnson,

and Beyond Closure on the 2013 Chicago Public School closures.

Tickets and more conversations on arts, culture, and current affairs at Chicago Humanities.org.

As a blacksmith in Birmingham, Alabama, Nerdet doesn't seem like a show that should be one of my favorites.

But due to an accident where WBEZ got programmed into my Alexa box and I couldn't

help but listen to it as I was working, I got drawn into this show and I can't believe it, but I

just love it. All the conversations that I, of course, never would have been privy to before,

all the book suggestions. I mean, I'm going to miss you,

Greta, everybody else. Hopefully, just a temporary goodbye for now. I'll look for you out there.

It's been a pleasure.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdat. I'm Greta Johnson. We did it. We made it to another weekend,

or at least kind of the middle of the week as this episode is coming out on a Tuesday.

As y'all probably know, we are calling this the goodbye for now episode of NERD. It is our last

...