Bill Thompson – Page 6 – Now I've Heard Everything

Gail Sheehy’s Legacy: Redefining Second Adulthood for Women

May 14, 2025May 14, 2025Bill Thompson

Millions of Gen X and Baby Boomer women know something their mothers didn’t – or, at least, wouldn’t acknowledge.

And that is that women over 40 do not lose their sexual appetite. In fact, quite the contrary.

In 1976 Gail Sheehy wrote a powerful book that really redefined the stages of life we all go through. That book was called Passages, and it introduced us to the term “second adulthood.”

Thirty years later, in 2006, Sheehy showed us what one aspect of a second adulthood looks like for women. She called her book Sex And The Seasoned Woman.

Drawing on the same interviewing technique that made her famous, Sheehy uncovered the secret that was right there before our eyes the whole time: that older women still enjoy the same pleasures they enjoyed in their 20s.

But no, you won’t hear the word “cougar” anywhere in this interview.

So here now, from 2006, Gail Sheehy.

Gail Sheehy died in 2020. She was 83.

A Complicated Leader in a Tumultuous War: South Vietnam’s Nguyen Cao Ky

May 14, 2025Bill Thompson

April 30 is the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Effectively ending the Vietnam War and bringing a humiliating end to the American effort to prop up South Vietnam’s government.

An eyewitness to the events that day was a man who had also been a pivotal figure in trying to preserve South Vietnam, former Premier and former vice president Nguyen Cao Ky.

Ky Was head of South Vietnam’s Air Force but had
virtually no government experience when he was thrust into a leadership role in the mid-1960s.

Nguyen Cao Ky proved a complicated, controversial and flamboyant leader who frequently alienated his American allies.

In 2002 Ky wrote in Memoir, one of the only books detailing the war from the South Vietnamese perspective. He called the book Buddha’s Child, and that’s when I had the chance to spend a few minutes with him.

Nguyen Cao Ky died in 2010 at age 80.

Ben, Jerry & Chico: The Friendship Behind the Ice Cream

May 14, 2025Bill Thompson

A few years ago two guys started a small business in an abandoned gas station in Burlington, Vermont. And they built it into one of the world’s best-known and most successful businesses.

Their names were Ben and Jerry. They made ice cream. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?

One of their customers when it was still just a little business in Burlington was A guy who owned a bar in town. His name was Fred Lager, but everybody calls him Chico.

Fred, Ben, and Jerry became good friends, and in 1982 Fred Lager joined the young company as its general manager and CFO. It was in that role that he helped build Ben & Jerry’s, the brand.

In 1988 he became president and CEO.

And in 1994, Chico Lager wrote a book about the Ben & Jerry’s experience. He called it Ben & Jerry’s: The Inside Scoop. It was part memoir, part business how-to, and a lot of social responsibility.

So here now, from 1994, Fred “Chico” Lager.

The Man Behind Newport Jazz: A Conversation With eorge Wein

May 14, 2025Bill Thompson

In 1954 a young man from Boston took his passion for jazz and turned it into an American tradition.

1954 was the year 29-year-old George Wein organized the first Newport Jazz Festival, an achievement that launched a decades-long career of promoting – and helping shape – American jazz.

He later helped establish the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Newport Folk Festival.

His long career Wein met, worked with, and helped advance the careers of many of the most revered jazz artists of the 20th century.

And he introduced jazz to millions around the world.

In 2003 Wein – who was then 78 – wrote his memoir, called Myself Among Others. That’s when I had a few minutes with this music legend.

So here now, from 2003, George Wein.

George Wein died in 2021 at age 95.

The Timeless Quest to Understand Love: Diane Ackerma’s Masterpiece

May 14, 2025Bill Thompson

Women and men of all ages and all cultures and all backgrounds in all societies have tried for all time to define love.

… and to study and deconstruct and analyze love.

Great artists, writers, poets, musicians, playwrights, and authors have all had their say.

And in 1994, acclaimed author poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman had hers.

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She followed up her best-selling book A Natural History of The Senses with a book called A Natural History of Love.

But that was much more than just a literary effort, as Ackerman brought together science and religion and culture.

And what did she conclude? You’re about to hear it. So here now, from 1994, Diane Ackerman.

Diane Ackerman is 76 now. She lives in Ithaca, New York.

True Stories From A Living Legend: CBS’s Bob Schieffer

April 21, 2025Bill Thompson

From the JFK assassination to Vietnam to the Nixon White House, longtime CBS TV correspondent Bob Schieffer has covered it all.

During a broadcast career that has now spanned six decades Schieffer has helped write the book on modern electronic journalism.

Bob Schieffer started his career in his native Texas as a newspaper reporter – that’s how he found himself in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

And it was his newspaper that sent him to Vietnam – at his own request.

After joining CBS in 1969 Schieffer covered Congress, the State Department, the Pentagon, and ultimately the White House, winning virtually every major journalism award along the way.

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And Sunday morning TV viewers will remember him as the moderator of “Face the Nation,” a position he held for 24 years.

It was during his tenure on “Face the Nation” that Schieffer wrote a journalist’s memoir, a book he called This Just In.

So here now, from 2004, Bob Schieffer.

Bob Schieffer was named a “Living Legend“ by the Library of Congress in 2008. Today at age 88 Bob Schieffer is a fellow at Harvard.

Before the Miracles: What Jesus’ Daily Life Might Have Looked Like

April 18, 2025Bill Thompson

Most of what Christians know about Jesus comes straight from the Bible, as it should. That knowledge, however, is largely limited to the circumstances of his birth, which we celebrate at Christmas, his three-year ministry, and his death, which we Mark at Easter.

But what about all the years in between? How did people around him regard him when he was a carpenter? What was Jesus like as a child, or an adolescent?

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Former Catholic priest Joseph Girzone sought to flesh out some answers in his 1998 book called A Portrait of Jesus. Girzone was a writing veteran by this time, as author of the very popular “Joshua” series of books.

So here now, from 1998 Joseph Girzone.

Joseph Girzone died in 2015. He w3as 95.

Double Cross: The Book That Exposed Sam Giancana’s Role in U.S. History

April 16, 2025Bill Thompson

In the 1950s and ‘60s one of the most powerful organized crime bosses in America was Chicago’s Sam Giancana.

His crime career began when he joined a youth gang, and soon became a hit man and getaway driver under Al Capone.

By th e’50s Giancana had established himself at the top. And he enjoyed the perks of wealth and notoriety, frequently seen with celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe – and Joseph Kennedy.

It’s been widely reported that Kennedy came to Giancana to ask for his help in getting his son John F. Kennedy elected president in 1960.

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But after Kennedy won, his administration went hard after the mob, and Giancana took it personally.

All this time Sam’s little brother Chuck never got into the crime business himself. In fact he distanced himself from it. As did his son, also named Sam.

And in 1992, Sam Giancana wrote a book about his Infamous uncle (with help from his father, Chuck). He called the book Double Cross, and it was a book that brought a startling new perspective to some of the most important historical events of the late 20th century.

I met Sam Giancana when he was on a book tour. So here now, from 1992, Sam Giancana.

Mobster Sam Giancana was killed at his home in 1975 at the age of 67. The murder remains unsolved.

Erica Jong on Writing, Fame, and Feminism

April 14, 2025Bill Thompson

If you saw the bookshelf of a typical feminist in the early 1970s you probably saw The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer – and undoubtedly Fear of Flying by Erica Jong.

That 1973 book with its edgy exploration of female sexuality propelled the poet Jong to International fame overnight and launched what would be a decade-long literary career.

Erica Jong became an icon of the 1970s and ‘80s as she established herself as a literary and media personality.

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She was also a popular and successful writing teacher, and it was that aspect of her life that eventually led to her writing a memoir in 2006.

Her book was called Seducing the Demon and the conversation that she and I had about it was one of several we shared over the years.

So come along with us now as we learn something about Erica Jong and her life, and also something about writing. Here now, from 2006, Erica John.

Erica Jong recently celebrated her 83rd birthday. Fear of Flying has sold over 37 million copies worldwide.

Watergate whistleblower Mark Felt, aka “Deep Throat,” remembered by the co-author of his autobiograqphy

April 13, 2025Bill Thompson

It is notoriously difficult to keep a secret in Washington DC. But there was one political mystery that went unsolved for 30 years.

Until finally in 2005 a former top FBI official named Mark Felt revealed that he was the secret source dubbed “Deep Throat” who guided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post in uncovering the Watergate scandal.

Working with veteran attorney and former prosecutor John O’Connor, Felt published his memoir in 2006, a book called A G-man’s Life.

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Drawing on his notes, letters, and diaries over the years O’Connor helped Felt assemble a portrait of a man dedicated to law enforcement but conflicted about going outside regular channels with his Inside information.

Mark Felt was 93 when the book was published, and was unable to go on a book tour or do interviews, so his publisher sent John O’Connor in his place. That’s when I met John.

So here now, from 2006, Mark Felt’s co-author John O’Connor.

Mark Felt died two years after this interview, in 2008, at age 95.