The group diving for beer cans and baby doll heads

Summary

Post Reports: "The group diving for beer cans and baby doll heads"

Date: October 3, 2025
Host: Maggie Penman
Main Guests: Susan Bauer, Members of OLOG (Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage), Richard Huskey

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Episode Overview

This episode follows a group of women aged 65 to 85, known as "Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage" (OLOG), as they dive into Massachusetts ponds to clean up decades of trash. The episode is both an adventure story and an exploration of the psychological benefits of "flow," the immersive state of focus many divers experience. The reporting is optimistic and celebratory, focusing not only on community and environmental action, but also the happiness and fulfillment members gain from their unique hobby.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Introducing OLOG: An Unusual Environmental Crew

• OLOG’s Origin:
  • Susan Bauer, now 85, started OLOG after noticing trash while swimming in local ponds.
  • At first, she used trash as landmarks to orient herself underwater, before realizing she could remove it.
• Name & Identity:
  • The name "Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage" was coined by a friend as a joke, but stuck.
  • The group embraces their "old" identity:

    "We are old and we are against underwater garbage, and we do something about it." – Susan Bauer [04:02]

• Group Evolution:
  • What began with five members exploded to 21 after tryouts in 2023. OLOG now boasts 30 regular divers and a waitlist of 45.
  • The group's growth led to more formal organization, including "beach bosses" and scheduled dives.

2. The Mechanics of a Dive (07:02)

• Organization:
  • Each dive is meticulously planned for safety, including a designated "beach boss," equipment checks, and buddy systems.
  • Quote:

    "I boss everybody around, organize them, tell them when they can go into the water. They can't come out of the water until I check you out." – Mary Alice Moynihan, Beach Boss [05:20]

• Safety First:
  • Past incidents enforced strict safety protocols. One top swimmer was saved after a heart attack during a practice swim thanks to the vigilance of a kayaker. [06:27]

3. The Surprising Finds Underwater (07:44)

• Types of Trash:
  • Discoveries range from the mundane (beer cans, dog toys, golf balls) to the bizarre (baby doll heads, a blue toilet home to an eel, a private property sign in a vintage font).
  • Besides cleaning, the group invents imaginative backstories for the items they find, adding to the fun.
  • Quote:

    "A lot of baby doll heads. Something about little girls. They lose their baby doll heads." – Susan Bauer [08:06]

• Intergenerational Reflections:
  • Pond local Mike Kanata admits some trash might be his from his youth, jesting:

    "I'm probably guilty in my teens of placing some of it... Trying to set my place in heaven." – Mike Kanata [07:23]

4. Why It Matters: Flow and Well-Being (09:15)

• Psychological Inquiry:
  • Host Maggie Penman and Susan Bauer, a retired psychologist, delve into why the group’s work is so satisfying.
  • Susan describes the joy as "flow," a state of total immersion and freedom from everyday concerns.
  • Quote:

    "...you have no thought for your past. You have no thought for your future. You have no thought for your aches and pains. As William James said, you break free from the page of self..." – Susan Bauer [11:15]

• Scientific Insight:
  • Maggie introduces Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who coined "flow," and interviews UC Davis professor Richard Huskey on how flow is achieved:
    • Flow requires clear goals, immediate feedback, and a balance of challenge and skill.
    • Too easy or too hard, and flow doesn’t occur.
    • Quote:

      "One of them [the requirements] is the thing that you're doing should have really clear goals. Another should have really immediate feedback... So those two things need to be really high." – Richard Huskey [13:30]

• Cultivating Flow:
  • Huskey notes that flow can be cultivated with practice and applies to countless activities—from art to business to cleaning underwater ponds.
  • Encouragement to listeners: find what you enjoy and lean into mastery; flow is attainable for everyone.

5. The Broader Impact

• Community & Camaraderie:
  • The group’s efforts benefit their environment and foster meaningful friendships, adventure, and a sense of purpose.
• Mental and Emotional Health:
  • Regularly entering flow protects against anxiety and depression and builds resilience.
• Joy in Service:
  • For OLOG, physical labor and environmental activism become vehicles for happiness, engagement, and mental clarity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Oh thank God, an Adirondack chair, because I knew exactly where I was." – Susan Bauer, on using trash as underwater landmarks [02:54]
• "You should never call yourself old... [but] it has actually really set the tone. It's been a very good name because it surprises people and it's funny." – Susan Bauer [04:02]
• "You just boss." – Mary Alice Moynihan, on the 'beach boss' role [05:31]
• "Where did this garbage come from and how did it get in the pond?... It's an entire leash, but there's no dog." – Susan Bauer [08:36]
• "...the relief, the happiness to get rid of yourself for a short period of time and you see the world in a new way." – Susan Bauer [11:15]
• "Practice matters. Find something that you're either already good at or that you have a commitment to practicing at that can help you build up the skills necessarily to start finding flow." – Richard Huskey [14:46]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction to OLOG & their mission: 00:27 – 04:33
• How the group organizes and prepares for dives: 04:41 – 07:02
• Highlights from a typical dive (finds, teamwork, fun): 07:02 – 09:15
• Why they love it – The science of 'flow': 09:15 – 11:54
• Interview with Richard Huskey (explaining flow): 13:17 – 15:55
• Takeaways & closing reflections: 15:55 – 16:50

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Conclusion

This episode joyfully chronicles the adventure and deeper meaning behind a group of older women’s quirky brand of environmental action. With humor and heart, it highlights how scrubbing the bottom of a pond can uncover both literal and figurative treasures—trash, stories, companionship, and the invaluable psychological state of flow. The key takeaway? Finding happiness might just be about immersing oneself in purposeful, challenging, and enjoyable activities no matter how unconventional they may seem.

Transcript

[Constellation Announcer]

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[Susan Bauer]

We are really going to be zigzagging. It's a fairly shallow plateau. We can get three of us 1012ft apart.

[Maggie Penman]

Susan Bauer is holding court in a sandy parking lot across the street from a pond on Cape Cod.

[Susan Bauer]

The area's been cleaned up before, but we know that there is a construction site of crap and we have not found that yet. So that's what we're really after.

[Maggie Penman]

At 85 years old, she's tiny but strong. She's standing up straight and absolutely brimming over with energy. As she talks, she shifts her weight back and forth and gestures with her hands. A group of women are standing around her, listening intently, wearing bathing suits or wetsuits. Some of them have life vests on. There's an air of anticipation. And all of the women are between the ages of 65 and 85. They all have bright orange hats or T shirts on that say olog. It stands for Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage.

[Susan Bauer]

So this is John's Pond in Mashpee, and we are going to an area where we have cleaned it up before, but we know that there's more stuff there.

[Maggie Penman]

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Maggie penman. It's Friday, October 3rd. I'm a reporter for the Optimist, a section here at the Post where I write about the best of humanity, the things in the world that are going right. And today I'm bringing you to a cold, muddy pond in Massachusetts because we're going on a treasure hunt. This is not just a story about environmentalism or community or picking up trash. It's about why this activity, or something like it is also so good for your brain. Because as Susan explained to me, these women reach a mental state psychologists call flow while they're picking up trash. This is the state of concentration you get in when you're fully immersed in a task. You're just totally present. And we'll talk about why finding flow might just be the key to happiness. Susan Bauer started OLOG sort of by accident. She was retired and she had begun swimming in the ponds near her home. And she just started noticing the trash. At first it was almost comforting.

[Susan Bauer]

When I first started swimming in ponds, I was so afraid of snapping turtles, so totally turned off by the slimy tendrils of water lilies and the mud, the consistency of yogurt that came up through my toes and that I loved seeing the beer can, the cluster of golf balls, and, oh, thank God, an Adirondack chair, because I knew exactly where I was.

[Maggie Penman]

Basically, she was using the trash as landmarks to navigate this foreign underwater world.

[Susan Bauer]

But as the years went by, I didn't need the garbage as much. And that's really the tipping point where I don't need a cell phone, I don't need the bottom of a bikini and six dog toys.

[Maggie Penman]

So she started to pick this stuff up all the trash she could find underwater. At first she did it alone, and then she made friends come with her. About seven years ago, she and a couple friends were out in the water diving for garbage. And one of them said, ah, we're.

[Susan Bauer]

A bunch of old ladies against underwater garbage. And it stuck. We have had comments. You should never call yourself old. You should call yourself the Glitter litter Mermaids and, you know, like, no way. And it has actually really set the tone. It's been a very good name because it surprises people and it's funny. And we are. We are old and we are against underwater garbage, and we do something about it.

[Maggie Penman]

Since those early days, Olog has gotten a lot, lot bigger and more serious about their task, though not more serious about themselves.

[Susan Bauer]

Then in 2023, we had tryouts, and we went from a group of five to a group of 21 overnight. And it was like, oh, what do we do with these? We've got to have dives that are predicted, dives that have a calendar date and a time and a place. And we have to scout every pond that we clean up because you don't know whether it's a safe pond, whether it's got enough garbage.

[Maggie Penman]

Now they have a group of 30 women who regularly go on dives and another 45 women on the wait list. Each dive is organized. There's a quote unquote beach boss. What does a beach boss do?

[Susan Bauer]

I boss everybody around, organize them, tell them when they can go into the water. They can't come out of the water until I check you out. You just boss.

[Maggie Penman]

You just boss. That's Mary Alice Moynihan. She's today's beach boss. She organized all the gear, charged up the walkie talkies. She checked swimmers in and out of the water to make sure everyone is safe and accounted for. Then there's the dive leader today, it's Sarah Spangler.

[Susan Bauer]

So the pontoon boat is over there. That's where everybody's gonna start off. The direction that we're swimming is over.

[Maggie Penman]

To the right, there's two kayakers and five swimmers.

[Susan Bauer]

Remember that the kayakers are keeping your eye on the swimmers, and the swimmers are kind of once in a while keeping an eye on each other.

[Maggie Penman]

And the kayakers hold on to all the garbage they find. This all might seem like kind of a lot, but the rules exist for a reason. Earlier this summer, the divers were doing a safety training and practice swimming.

[Susan Bauer]

So everybody took off and we're swimming away, you know, as fast as we can and rip around this three quarter of a mile course. And what happened was that one of our absolute top three swimmers, triathlete, felt it was very difficult to breathe.

[Maggie Penman]

At first she thought it was just her mask. But the kayaker who was with her was worried it was something more. So she helped the swimmer get to shore.

[Susan Bauer]

She took herself to the errand, and within 15 minutes they said, yeah, you are having a heart attack right now.

[Maggie Penman]

On this particular day, the self proclaimed old ladies are going out on a pontoon boat. When they get to the part of the pond where they're looking for trash, they'll get out and swim or kayak. The boat driver is Mike Kanata. He's lived on this pond his whole life. So did you have any idea how much trash was in your pond?

[Susan Bauer]

No, although I'm probably guilty in my teens of placing some of it.

[Maggie Penman]

Well, you're sort of correcting the karmic balance by helping now.

[Susan Bauer]

Yeah, exactly. Trying to set my place in heaven. All right, hold on to your hat, ladies. We're gonna cover some ground. All right?

[Maggie Penman]

Not all of the trash they find is recent. Sometimes they find things that have been hidden in the mud for decades. Beer bottles dropped after ice fishing expeditions. Part of an old car, once a blue toilet that had become home to an eel. And baby doll heads. So many baby doll heads.

[Susan Bauer]

A lot of baby doll heads. Something about little girls. They lose their baby doll heads.

[Maggie Penman]

Today. There is a lot of bulky trash. A long coil, makeshift anchor, pieces of wood that probably came from that construction site. One single woman's sandal. An old private property sign in a vintage font. Part of the fun, they tell me, is making up backstories for all of the stuff they find.

[Susan Bauer]

It's an amazing thing to think about. Where did this garbage come from and how did it get in the pond? And it gets there, you know, dog leashes and where did the dog go? It's an entire leash, but there's no.

[Maggie Penman]

After about an hour of hunting, the women climb back onto the boat, soaking wet. And totally exhilarated. They pour some tea, huddle in towels, talk about the stuff they found and what it could mean. These women have obviously done so much for their community. But after the break, we'll talk about what cleaning up the trash has done for them.

[Susan Bauer]

I'm a retired psychologist and what has fascinated me why does diving for trash in a pond make people so happy?

[Maggie Penman]

We'll be right back.

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[Maggie Penman]

You've probably figured this out by now, but Susan Bauer is not your typical 85 year old retiree. Like for example, she will randomly quote the American philosopher William James in a casual conversation when I asked her why diving for trash in a cold muddy pond is so delightful that she has dozens of women over 65 or on a wait list just hoping for the chance to do it. This is what she said.

[Susan Bauer]

I think the answer is closest to the concept of flow. That's actually a technical term that means that you are immersed in a task. It could be rock climbing. It could be doing art. You are immersed in something so completely that you have no thought. You have no thought for your past. You have no thought for your future. You have no thought for your aches and pains. As William James said, you break free from the page of self and the relief, the happiness to get rid of yourself for a short period of time and you see the world in a new way.

[Maggie Penman]

I hear some version of this from all the women who participate. They don't all quote William James, but they all talk about the feeling of being underwater and feeling free. They're not thinking about what they're cooking for dinner. They're not worrying about their creaky joints or their grandkids. And I wanted to understand this a little bit better. So when I was back on dry land, I did a little bit of research. Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, the researcher who coined the term flow, believed it to be the key to happiness. He studied musicians and artists and heard from them that when they were doing their work, they totally lost themselves in it. It was like the art was just flowing effortlessly out of them. So much of our lives are spent worrying about the past or the future or feeling self conscious or anxious. And lots of research has shown that flow basically lets our brains take a break from that. And regularly experiencing flow can protect us from anxiety and depression and can make us more resilient. Okay, so flow is good for you, it's fulfilling, and it can help with your mental health. So how do we find it? Richard Huskey is a professor at UC Davis, and he's been thinking about this exact question.

[Richard Huskey]

Essentially, when we're talking about flow, people describe it commonly as being in the zone.

[Maggie Penman]

You can technically reach a state of flow doing anything. But there are a few requirements.

[Richard Huskey]

One of them is the thing that you're doing should have really clear goals. Another should have really immediate feedback. So you're getting constant reminders of how well you're doing at meeting those goals. And then it should require both a balance between the challenge of the task and your ability of the task. So those two things need to be really high, right? Like, I am an expert dishwasher, but it's a really low, challenging task, right? That's not a flow elicit experience. I'm not an ultra marathoner. The task is too difficult, My skills are too low. That's also not a flawless task.

[Maggie Penman]

Just a caveat here. I have not reached out to Richard's wife for comment on how good he is at dishwashing.

[Richard Huskey]

You know, I mean, my wife and I would argue about how it's best to load the dishwasher. I mean, obviously my approach is best.

[Maggie Penman]

Anyway. Richard's point here is it can't be something too hard. You'll just be struggling and frustrated. But it also can't be too easy because your mind will wander. It has to be the right balance. But flow is something you can cultivate. When Richard was younger, he was an avid snowboarder, and he found flow gliding down a mountain. But then he got hurt, which led him to finding flow another way.

[Richard Huskey]

I never found flow in yoga, and then I had to have knee surgery and I started up a yoga practice because I was trying to help rehab my knee and then finally like something clicked, right? So I say that because practice matters. Find something that you're either already good at or that you have a commitment to practicing at that can help you build up the skills necessarily to start finding flow.

[Maggie Penman]

So if you're interested in finding flow, Richard's advice is find something you like doing and want to do more of and then practice.

[Richard Huskey]

The cool thing about flow is there's no one thing that you have to do to achieve it. If you look at the research on flow, you see it covers business, people at work trying to close deals, mountain climbers, extreme sports enthusiasts, musicians, painters. The the earliest work on flow actually came out of these qualitative interviews with music composers. Csikszentyhalyi, who developed the idea, would hear them describe it as if the music was just flowing out of their hand.

[Maggie Penman]

For the old ladies against underwater garbage, that thing is diving for buried treasure, even if that treasure is a bunch of beer cans and baby doll heads. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. Today's show was produced by me and edited by Ted Muldoon, who also makes the show. Thank you to my editor, Allison Klein. If you love hearing stories from the Optimist, please let us know. You can leave us a review or send an email to podcastsoshpost.com and you'll be hearing more of these stories from me and my optimistic colleagues on the weekend. Our team includes Rena Flores, Alana Gordon, Ariel Plotnik, Renny Svirnofsky, Sabi Robinson, Emma Talkoff, Shawn Carter, Peter Bresnan, Thomas Lu, Laura Benshoff, Colby Ikwitz, Alahia Zadi, and Renita Jablonski. Our intern is Zoe Cummings. I'm Maggie Penman. Have a great week.

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