Nicole Loren January 30, 2013 EN-111-17 Writing for Research A.

Pampuro

Response 1

This past Tuesday, we listened to a podcast from Radiolab in class. It was titled Contagious Ideas. To summarize the main ideas, the origin of the high-five and the cowboy hat were discussed. It was important to hear the many stories about how the high-five originated because I believe that one person should not only learn to trust one source of credible information, but rather be more exposed to various sources. Abumrad and Krulwich were trying to argue which story had more worth to be given credit for. Throughout the podcast, four stories were argued to prove which story would be the most accurate. The first story was about a man named Lamont Jr. who claims that the high-five originated from his father, Lamont Sr., who served in the Vietnam War in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, in a unit called The Five. The members of The Five would meet at his house when Lamont Jr. was a young child, and would greet each other with their five fingers slapped amongst each other yelling out, Five. The second story told was quite emotional. Glenn Burke, a self-proclaimed homosexual, was a baseball player who played for the Dodgers before he passed on. Burke had his moment of glory as being the inventor of the high-

five as well. The third story took place in the sport of basketball, when basketball players Derek Smith and Wiley Brown shared their first high-five on the basketball court. Finally, Kathy Gregory claims that the high-five originated from volleyball during the 1960s, before all three events occurred. As the discussion transitioned on, it led to how the cowboy hat originated. Just like the high-five, the cowboy hat had many theories about how it came about. It was said that the son of a hat maker, named J.B. Stinson, designed the well-known cowboy hat. Then it was later on believed that the cowboys had come up with the idea. Finally, a science writer, Jonnie Hughes, author of On the Origin of Teepees, claims that the hat endured the different changes of weather, thus creating the cowboy hat. Earlier in the podcast, Lamont confessed that the story was a prank and not true. It was important that this detail was pointed out because it shows that no story can be proven true until imperial facts can evidently prove its existence. During the podcast, Abumrad and Krulwich gave live interviews of the people involved in the credibility of the high-five and cowboy hat. The podcast seemed to be very thorough without much information being neglected. Overall, it was an interesting podcast to listen to. I enjoyed the discussion, and the background music made it sound quite pleasant to the ear. The combination of the different tone of voices also got me well interested into the podcast. The podcast was definitely something different, but I look forward to listening to more in the near future.