Music

Welcome back everyone to 1,001 Heroes, Legends, Histories and Mysteries podcast.

This is your host and storyteller, John Haggadorn, and before we begin this story, I have an announcement for you.

With this episode, we're celebrating our 1,000 and first episode for the 1,001 Stories Network, which are launched in January of 2015.

My idea at the time was to create a conglomerate of stories borrowed from four basic themes, heroes, legends, histories, and mysteries, and that idea just kept blossoming.

I've never run out of inspiration and ideas because there are so many great stories out there.

Each story to me is a treasure that I want to share with others.

I see it as a journey, an adventure, if you will, and researching a story to me at least is like an archaeological dig, hoping to find gems that will inform, entertain, and sometimes inspire.

Doing a story on readers of the Lost Ark for episode number 1,001 is a fitting tribute to the show, as we share something in common with the concept of the movie, the search for historical treasures.

From 1,001 Heroes and the search for historical treasures came the search for literary treasures.

1,001 Classic Short Stories and Tales, 1,001 Stories for the Road, and our other 1,001 shows that feature narration of some of the greatest stories which are now in the public domain, short and long.

And that has been and remains a very satisfying quest, and yet another way to share with those who enjoy great stories.

My appreciation for men and women writers of classic literature has grown tenfold these past few years, and few things are more exciting to me than being able to discover and share these stories from a wide variety of genres.

To me, you can get much more from a well-written story than you'll ever get from movies or TV.

Stories stimulate your thinking that makes you imagine they allow you to see things you'll never get out of a movie.

It's like walking the same path you've been driving for years. When you walk it, you're going to see all that you missed when you were racing by in a car.

When we read it, we're walking that path, and every word, every nuance, is a treasure waiting to be discovered.

I never could have imagined back in 2015 that this journey would be getting millions of downloads every year from listeners all around the world, and I'm humbly grateful for all of you who have stuck with me all these years.

I'm also grateful to my fifth-grade teacher for lighting a fire under me which opened my eyes to the wonder of books, and to my wife and kids for their patience and support throughout this journey into the new spoken media called podcasting.

There's an effort underway to grow podcasting into more of a visual medium, and I believe that will just become more TV.

What makes podcasting special is the sharing of spoken content and the bond that's created between the listener and the host.

It's a modern version of the world's oldest art, the art of storytelling, and may it live and flourish forever.

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