Normally Podcast: Ask Us Anything | How to Marry, Meal Prep, and Make It Through College

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Special Episode: Normally Podcast: Ask Us Anything | How to Marry, Meal Prep, and Make It Through College
Date: January 1, 2026
Hosts: Mary Kathryn Ham & Carol Markowitz

Episode Overview

In this vacation edition of "Normally," hosts Mary Kathryn Ham and Carol Markowitz respond to listener-submitted questions covering a fun mix of topics: favorite family meals and cooking hacks, navigating politics in relationships and friendships, succinct ways to avoid political debates, college choices, and a few Southern food and football debates. The tone is warm, candid, and humorous, with both hosts drawing on personal anecdotes and offering down-to-earth life advice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Meal Prep and Family Cooking

[03:05 – 07:17]

• Listeners believe the hosts are culinary experts; both admit to loving cooking but keeping it practical with kids.
• Family Favorite Meals:
  • Mary Kathryn shares she’s an “improver of frozen food” as the mother of four: “I’m not so much a cook as an improver of frozen food.” (Mary Kathryn, 03:36)
  • Her top crowd-pleasers are a simple Middle Eastern chicken shawarma (found on Instagram) and “egg roll in a bowl” (sautéed cabbage, ground beef, and peppers).
  • Carol’s go-to is a Korean-style roast with Asian spices but admits her picky eater prefers either “chicken nuggets or lobster.”
• Dealing with Picky Kids: Both empathize with the challenge, with Mary Kathryn saying, “She prefers bland kid food—until you put a very expensive steak in front of her.” (05:50)

The Pimento Cheese Recipe

[07:11 – 07:17]

• Mary Kathryn is reluctant to share her family’s South Georgia pimento cheese recipe, explaining it’s a five-generation secret belonging to her father’s side.
• “I should technically ask him before I put it out to everyone…It’s not complicated at all. People get too fancy…The main thing is we grate the cheese in two different sizes, so it changes the texture.” (Mary Kathryn, 06:29 - 07:03)

Biscuitville vs. Bojangles

[07:17 – 08:16]

• Regional biscuit chains prompt nostalgia; Mary Kathryn notes Biscuitville was rarely open when she needed it, whereas Bojangles was reliably available: “That’s really most of the game with fast food. It has to be reliable.” (Carol, 08:00)

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Politics and Relationships: When to Talk Values

[08:16 – 11:24]

• Listener Question: When should you bring up politics or worldview in dating?
• Carol’s View: “You should come on strong right away…It’s about what you think of them.” (08:42)
  • She advocates front-loading your values to avoid wasted time, especially from her experience as a conservative in Brooklyn.
• Mary Kathryn’s Experience: Grew up in a liberal town where “everyone knew I was the weirdo,” so she was always upfront.
  • She advises being clear about faith and values: “Don’t get in too deep and then find out some values are not aligned. You don’t have to be a jerk face about it, but you can make clear who you are.” (09:54)
• Quote: “I think you want to be pretty careful about what is worth the trade-off and what is not…that can be helpful for filtering for who you want.” (Mary Kathryn, 10:09 – 10:55)

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Avoiding Political Conflict with Friends & Acquaintances

[14:38 – 18:08]

Listener Dilemma:
A mother in a liberal area wants a script to avoid political debate while her son is deployed as an F-18 pilot.

• Mary Kathryn’s Advice:
  • Empathizes with the emotional sensitivity: “If you’re encountering someone who thinks that that’s nbd or worse, thinks it’s bad, that would very quickly lead to bad interactions…” (14:58)
  • Suggests finding a solid group who shares your values, online or in person, and gently steering conversations away from politics with others: “I’d just say, ‘I have a lot of anxiety about my son’s deployment, so let’s chat about barbecue or football.’” (17:24)
• Carol’s Take:
  • Draws boundaries: “There are some lines…If you want to bring down America, I just can’t be friends with you…There are some lines that I just don’t think we should be willing to cross.” (16:11 – 17:02)

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Live Events and Fan Questions

[18:09 – 19:05]

• Requests for a live tour in Dallas are met with enthusiasm: “If we are going on tour at some point, we will be starting with a Dallas Cowboys game.” (Carol, 18:09)
• Both hosts express fondness for Dallas and live events, promising that if it happens, they’ll bring their “Florida and Bojangle shirts in real life.” (Carol, 19:05)

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College Life & Advice

Choosing a College & Surviving Freshman Year

[19:19 – 23:53]

• Mary Kathryn’s College Choice:

  • Only applied to UGA: “So, fun story: I did not apply anywhere else.” (Mary Kathryn, 19:22)
  • Decision based on economics, school size, and journalism program.
  • “Graduated with no debt. Did not realize that basically made me a 22 year old millionaire compared to my peers.” (21:24)
  • Talks openly about homesickness, almost transferring to UNC, and finding her community via lacrosse team—an encouragement to students struggling their first semester.

• Carol’s College Experience:

  • Started college with boyfriend and best friend, which was isolating when they left. “Then the next year… I was all by myself in my sophomore year where everybody already had solidified groups of friends.” (22:51)

College Professors & Serendipity

[24:03 – 26:44]

• Favorite Professor Story:
  • Mary Kathryn reminisces about Conrad Fink, a “crusty, straight-talking Marine and newspaper editor” who was a mentor during her time at UGA.
  • “He was certainly a left of center guy, but such a 1985-1995 left of center guy that his way…would not have been welcomed by many Gen Z and Gen Alpha students.” (Mary Kathryn, 25:35)
  • Fink recommended her to a conservative op-ed job she didn’t get, a “sliding doors” career moment.

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Sports: Florida State & the SEC

[27:04 – 28:41]

• Should Florida State be in the SEC?
  • Mary Kathryn gently sidesteps taking sides due to friends who are alumni, but jokes, “The ever changing tides of who belongs to what conference is a sports story that does not interest me in the least. I get overwhelmed by it…” (27:11)
  • Mild jab at FSU for skipping post-season play after an undefeated season: “Anyway, you lost me there. It’s a moment where you have to rally.” (28:32)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On picky eaters:
  “We say that [my son] either is like a $90 dinner dish or a 90 cent. It’s either chicken nuggets or lobster for him.”
  – Carol Markowitz (04:56)

• On navigating early dating:
  “It’s not about them…it’s about what you think of them…Just get it out really early and see what happens.”
  – Carol Markowitz (08:42)

• On boundaries:
  “If you want to bring down America…I can’t be friends with you. There are some lines…If they are anti-military, they’re not for you.”
  – Carol Markowitz (16:11)

• On financial wisdom in college:
  “I graduated with no debt. Did not realize that basically made me a 22 year old millionaire compared to my peers.”
  – Mary Kathryn Ham (21:24)

• On college friendships:
  “I didn’t find my people until second semester. I played lacrosse with them…and loved my life there. But man, that first semester was tough.”
  – Mary Kathryn Ham (21:55)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

| Segment | Start Time | |------------------------------------------|------------| | Meal questions & picky eaters | 03:05 | | Pimento cheese recipe debate | 07:11 | | Biscuitville vs. Bojangles | 07:17 | | Discussing politics in dating | 08:16 | | Navigating values in friendships/marriage| 09:54 | | Avoiding political conflict (military mom)| 14:38 | | Live show hopes & Dallas talk | 18:09 | | College selection & transition tips | 19:19 | | Favorite professor Fink stories | 24:03 | | Florida State & SEC discussion | 27:04 |

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a refreshing blend of humor, candor, and practical advice on food, family, friendships, and life’s crossroads moments. Mary Kathryn and Carol share personal stories with self-deprecation and wisdom, making for a highly relatable and enjoyable listener Q&A. Their approach to hot-button topics is open yet principled, offering useful language and boundaries for listeners facing similar dilemmas.

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Transcript

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Wasn't that delicious? So good. Your bill, ladies. I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Don't be silly. You don't be silly.

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it.

[Carol Markowitz]

Rock, paper, scissors.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Shoot.

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Hey, guys. We are back on normally, the show with normal ish takes for when the news gets weird. This week, a special vacation week edition where you guys get to ask us whatever you want. I am Mary Kathryn Ham.

[Carol Markowitz]

And I'm Carol Markowitz. I'm so excited for this. I love hearing what our listeners kind of think of us.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah. Good, bad, and ugly.

[Carol Markowitz]

So we were saying this before we started rolling, but there are a lot of cooking questions. I feel like people think that we are capable in the kitchen.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

That's nice of them.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, it is nice of them. I look, I love to cook, actually. But yeah, I love to cook and I love that that comes across to be real. So, yeah, let's get into it. All right, Mary Kathryn, what's the meal most requested in your homes and what do you enjoy making for with your family for dinner?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Okay. So I would have to say, and I know this does not put me solidly in the Maha coalition is that oftentimes because I have four children, I am not so much a cook as an improver of frozen food. Like, that's really my. I'm like, oh, here's some frozen broccoli. But I put like a little bit of spice. Spice, Right. But there is a running list of things that I make that every single person in the house eats and enjoys. Because that's big.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's really big. I was trying to think of something like that, and I don't know that I have one. You know, we'll get. Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

There's only a couple for us. And one is this like, like Middle Eastern chicken shawarma that is chicken thighs in the oven. Very simple, really complicated spice combination, which is why it's wild that everyone eats it. Every single kid in the family. Dad likes it, I like it. So that's one. Found it on Instagram. Thanks, Instagram. Amazing. And then we had one the other day that was egg roll in a bowl, which is just sauteed cabbage, spices and ground beef. Sauteed. And like, you know, you dress it up a little bit. Sure. Like, everyone was eating it and I was like, am I hallucinating? You're eating peppers, cabbages, and beef. Okay.

[Carol Markowitz]

Amazing.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

In my family, I would have to parse something out for someone and it's super annoying. I think the thing I came up with is I make a roast, just a Korean style roast with like Asian spices and people in the family all eat it to varying degrees. My nine year is super complicated. We say that he either is like a $90 dinner dish or like a 90 cent. It's either chicken nuggets or lobster for him. There's really no in between. What regular people eat is not of interest to him at all. So he. A lot of the times will have the chicken nuggets or a corn dog as we have. The four of us have dinner without him.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

We have, we have one of those as well where she's like either very, you know, she eats what we put in front of her because that's basically required in our house for the most part to like try. You have to give it a try.

[Carol Markowitz]

Sure.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

But she's definitely prefers like very bland kid foods until you put a very expensive steak in front of her. Like, absolutely.

[Carol Markowitz]

Same here. Yeah. The nine year old is also all kinds of wagyu. Everything for sure. Oysters. But not like grilled chicken because that's crazy, you know?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

Mk, when will you share your pimento cheese recipe?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Oh, yeah. I know a lot of people think I'm gatekeeping on this. Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

Why are you gatekeeping?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I don't mean to gatekeep, but it is my father's family's recipe, so I should technically ask him before I put it out to everyone because it's sort of like a friend.

[Carol Markowitz]

You are gatekeeping.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I know. Well, I have to ask him first. That's all I'm saying. I think he would be like, yeah, that's fine. I just would run it by him. And I haven't done that. But it is a five generations old south Georgia recipe. And here's the thing, it's not complicated at all. It is that people get a little too fancy with the pimento cheese and they think they have to do a lot of things to it. You don't have to do a lot of things to it. The main thing that we do is that we grate the cheese in two different sizes so it changes the texture.

[Carol Markowitz]

Texture, right. Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

That is my only sauce.

[Carol Markowitz]

You send me that recipe right after.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

This and I will clear it with my dad. And then when I tell you guys, you're gonna be like, that's just very easy. Yep. But it's a crowd pleaser.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, for sure. Another food question. Biscuitville versus Bojangles.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Okay, here's the thing. Biscuitville. If you're not familiar with it, Carol, Which I'm not.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

It is another regional chain that serves biscuits. I had one like three and a Half blocks from my house growing up. And I swear that establishment was never open. Now this is possibly because it was only open for breakfast. And like all the, like, people who are productive and get up in the morning, go eat there, like construction workers would go have Biscuitville and then be off. But I found that in my teenager experience, which is mostly what I experienced around Biscuitvilles, they weren't open when I needed them to be open. Whereas Bojangles.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, you need a reliable. That's like, you know most of the game with fast food. It has to be reliable. You can't like.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

But really, really, really good grits, very good biscuits, solid food. Just. I was never able to land on a biscuit bill that was there when I needed it.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, and that's really the most important part. Look, switching from food to politics and dating. At what point in getting to know someone should politics or general philosophy be brought up? I know that it wouldn't work to be with someone that doesn't have matching values, but don't want to come on too strong right away. I'm just gonna say it. You should come on strong right away.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

It's probably a good filter. Yeah, yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

Just don't waste your time. It's really. It's not about them. It's not about what they think of you, it's about what you think of them. And I think you just get it out really early and see what happens. You know, I was a conservative in Brooklyn and that was an unpopular thing to be. So I would find a way to bring it up very early in conversations with new friends, with anybody, just because I didn't want to trick anybody into spending time with me. And if you don't like that, that's your problem.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah, I think that's. That's probably smart. I'm trying to think. I grew up in a very liberal town and everyone knew I was the weirdo. So it just, it was kind of out there. Yeah. There were so few conservatives that it was like, oh, well, she's the one who does the weird thing. She's the aberration. Right. But. And so everybody kind of knew it going in. However, in new situations, I do think it's harder now for people. So I'm very. I'm sympathetic to the idea that you're kind of dancing around it because I get being delicate. I've tried to maintain many a friendship with many liberals, mostly successfully over the years, and it does require a dance, but those are friendships. Right. So in a dating to marriage scenario, I Think you want to be pretty careful about what is worth the trade off and what is not. And you also don't want to get in too deep and then find out some values are not aligned that will go badly for you. You don't have to be a jerk face about it, but you can make clear who you are. Right?

[Carol Markowitz]

I fully agree. I actually A friend's daughter is a very traditional girl. She's in her early 20s and she's looking for someone to marry.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

And I said to her, I think you should put.

[Carol Markowitz]

Like looking to be a trad wife in your bio so that there's no, there's no mistake, there's no like, you know, confusion about who you want to be and what you want. And if you're not in the political world, terms like that, you know, might not mean anything to you, but it just, it signals what you're looking for.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I think I was in college and shortly after I was always very clear about my faith and that that was important to me. And, and honestly it was a very good jerk filter for sure, right? Because there are like, people do the calculation and they're like, is this not what I'm looking for? And if it's not what he's looking for, move along, move along. So I do think that can be helpful for filtering for who you want.

[Carol Markowitz]

We'll be right back on normally.

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[Jenna Kim Jones]

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Okay this says hi ladies. Love the podcast. My son just deployed on the USS Gerald 4. He is 27 years old, an F18 pilot. Woo. Thank you for his service and awesome this is his first deployment. I live in super liberal Loudoun County, Virginia. I am super sensitive about politics right now and don't want to have any political discussions with any libs. What can I say other than I don't discuss politics because I can't handle anyone else's opinions right now that are not pro military. Preferably a two to three sentence hack for this thanks. Yeah. Let me repeat thanks to your family and him for his service. Yeah. I can understand this being sensitive because you have a person who's in the line of duty at this moment and willing to put his life on the line for others. And so if you're encountering somebody who thinks that that's nbd or worse, thinks it's bad, that would very quickly lead to bad interactions and lost friendships. I think.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I would advise. I mean, one of the things that I do, because I live in a very liberal area, too, and I'm happy to have liberal friends, but not all of them are liberal. Right. Because sometimes you want to be connected with other folks. I think you got to have your solid group of gal friends, either online or in person, who do share those values, who you can have those conversations with so that you can skip it elsewhere. But, Carol, what is your take on a nice way to say.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, you know, I don't know about a nice way to say it, but I'll just echo what we said to. The dating thing is that you don't want anti military people in your life, in your life while your son is serving. That's, you know, crazy. I. Look, I have topics that I think are touchy. If you want to bring down America. I'm just, I can't be friends with you. Like, there are some lines, like, if we have differences on tax policy, fine. But if you're like, America shouldn't exist, I mean, I. We just, we can't be friends. So I see that. In the same place, I don't think you need to worry about what to say to them. I think you don't need those people. And if they are anti military, they're ultimately just not for you. Again, I'm big on cross ideological friendships, but there are lines, and there are some lines that I just don't think we should be willing to cross.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Also, you could sort of speak the language of. If you. If you wanted to head something off at the pass, and you're just like, you know, it may be somebody who's just like medium lib, but isn't being careful about the way they're gonna talk about this. And you can. Can you use therapy, speak on them and just be like, you know, I'm really. I have a lot of anxiety about my son's daughter, and I like turning that around. Yeah, I would just like to, you know, chat about barbecue or football. Like, that's. That would be. That would be my take. And if someone's just bent on discussing I actually don't love that kind of relationship. If you're really, really dedicated to discussing politics with me in a casual setting where we're doing other things, that's actually not a good relationship for me.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, that's right. That's exactly it. And that goes for conservatives, too. If we're like, oh, yeah, no, I mean both, you know. Yeah, both ways, for sure. But, yeah, I don't think you need to put up with people who are wishing ill to your child, really. I think that's pretty clear.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

Will you be going on tour at some point? Please come to Dallas. I'll just say that if we are going on tour at some point, we will be starting with a Dallas Cowboys game.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yes. How dare. I'm good with Dallas. I would love to come to Dallas, by the way. Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

Have you been to Dallas?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yes, but only few. Only a few times for too short a period of time. So I. I don't get to see a ton of it.

[Carol Markowitz]

I really like it. I love Dallas.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I don't mind seeing a Cowboys game as it is an American spectacle.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's right. It's America's team. You could say it.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I don't know about all that.

[Carol Markowitz]

MK is shaking her head in disgust.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Let's not go too far. But, you know, it is, you know, big and. Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Also, we have no plans. But also, I do love doing things live, and they are so fun audiences. So we would certainly consider it.

[Carol Markowitz]

And we'll wear the Florida and Bojangle shirts in real life that we have in the baby pictures. All right, mk, we all know you attended the University of Georgia. What college university was your second choice and why?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

So, fun story. I did not apply anywhere else. What?

[Carol Markowitz]

Are you serious?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Wow.

[Carol Markowitz]

She's like, I'm either going here or I'm not going to college.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

No, actually, it was just that my senioritis extended to applying to college, and I liked the University of Georgia. It had a decent journalism school. It had a decent football team. It had a lot of people, which was something I was looking for because I felt that at a small liberal arts school, I was maybe not going to find my pool that I clicked with. So I wanted big. I was comfortable with that. And part of it was economic, which was I knew I was probably going to end up at a state school in my family. I kept my grades up because knowing that my younger brothers were probably not going to get scholarships and I was trying to keep the overhead low for the whole family.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's so older Sibling.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

So I was always keeping those grades up and I had the goods to get into uga and I didn't have a lot of money to be applying a bunch of places that I wasn't going to end up being able to go. So there was part of me that for pride's sake, wanted to be like, I got into Georgetown, I got into Duke or whatever.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right, right.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

It was 60 to 75 bucks application. I know. Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

I was telling this to somebody recently. I'm like, you know how you kids apply to like 50 school? Like I applied to 4 and that was expensive. It was like a lot of money to do that. And so yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't looking to spend all that cash on applying to schools. That's crazy.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Same. And so, yeah, did I lose out on some of those bragging rights? Yes, I did. And I made the best decision, one of the best decisions of my life, which was to go to uga. They gave me some scholarships, which was great. I graduated with no debt. Did not realize that that basically made me a 22 year old millionaire compared to my peers.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

And I had a fantastic time. So there really wasn't a second choice. I did get homesick at one point in my first semester at school because everybody was like, aren't you scared to go somewhere where you don't have any friends? I was like, nah, because I don't think about before they happen. Yep.

[Carol Markowitz]

And then I got there and I.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Was like, oh, I don't have any friends. So I did apply for transfer to UNC at one point. I did not take it and I'm very glad that I didn't. Wow.

[Carol Markowitz]

Imagine if you were went to unc. I just can't picture it.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Neither can I. So it was Georgia all the way. Yeah. That first semester at school is very, very tough on folks. And I, I didn't find my people until second semester. I played lacrosse with them second semester I landed on that club team and found all my people and loved my life there. But man, that first, that first semester was tough.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, definitely. I had a kind of a flip side of that where my best friend and my high school boyfriend both came to college with me. Basically my best friend went to another school in Boston and my high school boyfriend went to school with me. That also wasn't great because I didn't meet a lot of people and I didn't try at all. And then the next year when both the boyfriend and the best friend decided not to come back to Boston, I was all by Myself in my sophomore year where everybody already had solidified groups of friends.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

It was tough.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's the hard way to do it. But I, you know, I feel like I didn't have any advice on how this is supposed to go and when you're supposed to meet friends and I don't know, I always say immigrant parents. They really did not know what they were sending me into.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

They just throw you into the deep end. Good luck.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah. No, I found the one thing that I did benefit from is that because I had no friends first semester and I was trying to keep my grades up, I had a very early morning job. I delivered papers. So I would get up at 3:30 or 4 every morning, seven days a week and deliver papers. And as a result my grades did stay up. And the other thing I did was work out and so I came home different than my peers.

[Carol Markowitz]

No, that was another, another way that, that first semester was definitely tough. That freshman 15.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Oof. Yeah. I went the other direction because I just went to the gym for like several hours a day.

[Carol Markowitz]

Smart.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Which is its own kind of issue, but. But yeah, that worked out for me.

[Carol Markowitz]

Somebody else asks, while at uga, did you take classes with Fink?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Oh, I did.

[Carol Markowitz]

And what's your best Fink story?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

So Fink is a. Conrad Fink was his name and he was a professor at the University of Georgia of newspaper journalism. And he was at one point the head guy at upi, which was the main competitor to the ap. So the Associated Press is like the go to wire now, but for a long time UPI was the, I think it's United Press International was the competitor to ap. So they were almost of equal size and scope back in the day. So he ran one of those and he was, I believe, a Vietnam vet, crusty old Marine guy turned newspaper editor. I would say like kind of.

[Carol Markowitz]

I love people like that, by the way. Those are my people.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Fantastic. Like had no. Would take no guff off of anyone. Had no hair on his head and eyebrows out to like four inches from his face. A. No. I think he passed away several years ago. We stayed in touch. He passed away several years ago and I had emailed him in between a little bit here and there. I don't know how he would have done in the current era of college students because he was a straight talker.

[Wells Fargo Advertiser]

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

And he was a, he was certainly a left of center guy, but he was such a 1985-1995 left of center guy that.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

His way of dealing in the world would not have been welcomed by many Gen Z and Gen Alpha students in particular.

[Carol Markowitz]

It sounds like that, right?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

But I loved him. He actually recommended me for a job that I didn't get one time, but it was very kind of him to think of me. By the way, this is a very sliding doors moment. He recommended me for the Augusta Georgia Newspapers op ed page as an assistant editor. But I was like 24 years old, and I probably wasn't really qualified for this. But the op ed page was. The editorial page was conservative, and there were so few of those and there were so few of me in the news business that he was like, how.

[Carol Markowitz]

Are you not the natural fit? Right?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

He was like, hey, this is Conrad. Do you think you want to try this out? And so I went and interviewed and it went pretty well, but I think I was just too young for what they were looking for. Didn't get that job, ended up coming to D.C. so the rest is history. But I always appreciated him thinking of me and knowing this could be a fit and that he wasn't condescending or a jerk about my politics. He just knew that I thought differently.

[Carol Markowitz]

Love it. All right, we're gonna wrap it up with one last question about college related stuff, and I'm gonna punt this to you because I really don't know what this means. Does Florida State belong in the sec? What's funny is when I read it, I was like, are they challenging whether Florida State is in the sec? And then I googled it.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Okay.

[Carol Markowitz]

I actually, be nice, be nice to my Florida, whatever it is.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

This is one of those things. I have to be nice because two of my really good friends went to Florida State, including Shannon Bram is a no. So I have to be kind about it. One, I will. I'll give a disappointing answer, which is that the ever changing tides of who belongs to what conference is a sports story that does not interest me in the least. I get overwhelmed by it because I'm trying to keep track of. Track of Big Ten, which is now Big 17, and everybody's alliance.

[Carol Markowitz]

I'm just gonna nod like I know what I'm talking. Like, oh, yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Here'S. Here's where Florida State lost me. And this is an. This is an action that was taken against the University of Georgia Bulldogs is that they basically checked out of the post season game when they had a perfect season and they didn't get awarded a birth to the playoffs. I know you're nodding still.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nodding and like drifting off. This is college football, right?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

They basically were like, you know what? I'm not even going to tell this story because I don't know if I'm getting the details right and it's boring you anyway. But they basically said like, not interested in this postseason game because we're too good for this.

[Jenna Kim Jones]

Wow.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

And a lot of people didn't play. Blah blah blah. Anyway, you lost me there. Like it's a. It's a moment where you just have to rally.

[Carol Markowitz]

Anyway, sure, yeah, I. You know, I'm going to just say I agree. They should have rallied.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

That season was 2023. It was the undefeated season.

[Carol Markowitz]

By the way, thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us@ normallythepodmail.com thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normally.

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

So good. Your bill ladies. I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I got this. I said the first don't be silly. You don't be silly.

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Okay. Rock, paper scissors for it.

[Carol Markowitz]

Rock, paper, scissors.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Shoot.

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[Mary Kathryn Ham]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.