RTN Voices #1: The Life & Times of Rufus Allan Sevier (RTN April Fools Episode)
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2019
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode launched April 1, 2019. It's an April Fools trick, but we hope you enjoy it anyway!
Rufus Allan Sevier was born on December 7, 1916 in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. More than a century later Rufus is in incredible health and is one of the few people alive today who vividly remembers life before the Great Depression. His personal story, however, diverges in significant ways from the historical narrative most of us learned in history class, and provides new insights into American history that have thus far been hidden from view. In the first episode of our RTN Voices series, Bob & Ben speak with Rufus about his life and the ways that outside forces have worked to bury the stories that he has kept alive for a century.
RTN Voices is a series that documents the history of the United States through the unique stories of Americans who personally experienced the times and events that few of us today can remember. The conversations are unedited to reflect the lived experience. We hope that in documenting these voices, we can recover lost stories and alternative perspectives on our nation's past.
The Road to Now is a member of the Osiris Podcast Network.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Osir. |
| 0:01.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is the Road to Now Voices series, RTN Voices. |
| 0:16.9 | This is a new series that documents the history of the United States through the unique stories of Americans who personally experience the times and events that few of us today can remember. |
| 0:26.5 | These conversations are unedited to reflect the lived experience of those we speak with, and we hope that in documenting these voices we can recover the lost stories and alternative perspectives on our nation's past. |
| 0:37.6 | Our first guests for this series is Rufus Allen-Severe, who was born on December 7, 1916, |
| 0:43.4 | in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. As you'll hear, Rufus is in incredible health. He has a vivid |
| 0:48.5 | memory and has some very strong opinions about American politics and historic events that are a bit |
| 0:53.4 | unorthodox. |
| 0:59.4 | But as he warmed up to us, he began telling stories that neither Bob nor I had ever heard. |
| 1:04.0 | And as far as we can tell, aren't documented in any history books that we've reviewed. |
| 1:06.7 | We've only had about a week since we recorded this. |
| 1:07.9 | We've been busy. |
| 1:10.3 | But it's really quite fascinating. |
| 1:10.8 | For those of you who conduct research, whether historic or other types, please let us know if you've uncovered anything related to his stories, particularly what he says about government testing in the Appalachian region or his explanation for his remarkable health. |
| 1:25.4 | As you'll hear further along in the episode, these are nothing, |
| 1:28.9 | nothing that we'd ever heard before. And we think that based upon the few things he had that |
| 1:34.6 | documented this, it blew our minds. And honestly, like, we didn't expect to come across such an |
| 1:39.9 | interesting story. But given that this could change the way we understand the history of the |
| 1:44.8 | the Appalachian region and in some ways the country we think we should do what we can to find |
| 1:49.6 | out more so if you listen to this and anything sounds familiar let us know because |
| 1:54.5 | we want to follow up on this we'd like to say a special thanks to Rufus's great |
| 1:59.0 | granddaughter Vera Strickland who listens to our, and who contacted us and recommended that we speak with her grandfather. |
... |
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