- Speaker #0
Welcome to True Crime, Authors and Extraordinary People, the podcast where we bring two passions together. The show that gives new meaning to the old adage, truth is stranger than fiction. And reminding you that there is an extraordinary person in all of us. Here is your host, David McClam. What's going on everybody and welcome to another episode of True Crime, Authors and Extraordinary People. Of course, I'm your man, David McClam. If you guys haven't already. Make sure you follow us on all of our social media. One link to a link tree gets you every place you need to go pertaining to the show. All right. As always, as you heard coming in, if you or you know someone who is in trouble and you feel like hurting yourself, please dial 988. You can call or text that. Nothing is worth your life. And if no one has told you this today, let me be the first to say I do need you here and I care. All right, so if you're looking at your calendars, you know it is once again time for another author, and I have a great one for you today. Let me tell you who our guest is. He is the award-winning author of the best-selling inspirational book, The Legacy Letters. Through his innovative literacy efforts to inspire kids to read, he has created the love I love to read and first-ever book sightings through his KarooTube video series. He is also the creator of National Thank You Letter Day. and the world's largest thank you letter receiving a Guinness World Record for the project. As an educational thought leader, he continues in his personal passion to teach people of all ages about personal and global legacy issues. He is a literacy advocate, inspirational thought leader, and author of the legacy letters, His Wife, His Children, His Final Gift. Please welcome author Karu Papritz. Did I say that right?
- Speaker #1
You got it. All right. Good enough. Good enough, Dan.
- Speaker #0
we're rolling in thank you for having me on your show thank you karu it is my honor and pleasure to have you here i guess the first question i ask all my guests is this is there anything else that we should know about karu that we didn't cover in the interview or cover that introduction no that was pretty that was pretty fulsome uh
- Speaker #1
i think we'll discover the rest of it throughout the interview but that was a heck of a lead up i don't know i've got a now i've got to match it shoot
- Speaker #0
So I guess my first question is, I've never talked to him before. What is it like to hold a Guinness World Record?
- Speaker #1
It's funny. It's a it's a heady thing. And then, you know, you sort of bring it out in casual. Well, you don't bring it out in casual conversation, but someone will ask, you know, oh, what did you do this world's giant letter? And then you bring it out and you got a Guinness World Record for that. And I still think it's. I sort of pinched myself from time to time because it's a real world record. You know, I wasn't bobbling tiddlywinks on the end of my nose while running down a country road for a mile and got the Guinness record for that. But it's a gigantic piece of thing on the planet. And so I think in that respect, the record itself is equal to. the large letter that we created. So it's pretty cool.
- Speaker #0
Now, a lot of your work is writing for children. And a lot of people don't do that or think that that's very important anymore. Can you tell us what the importance of reading and writing for youth is?
- Speaker #1
Oh my gosh, yeah. It's everything. I think for those of us that just, that love books and were raised around books and understanding that it's, and probably most importantly, David, is the love of reading. I think, especially nowadays, it's more, you know, we can pontificate, well, we got to get our kids to read. I go, yeah, but you got to walk your talk. You got to read in front of your kids. You got to read to your kids. You got to have some books in the house. I mean, does reading count on a Kindle? Yeah, maybe. Yes, no. But it's the physical book itself. And that's the extraordinary part about books. They're literally the first social media, they're the first Kindle. I mean, this is how people carry around knowledge in this compact thing and people can hold it in their hands. It's very human-sized and it's very accessible in that way. And to access the knowledge in them and the curiosity it creates and the imagination it brings about, it's extraordinary. So I don't just write for kids, I write for adults too, but in the process, I try to get. kids excited about it. And I've come up with some, what I think are some unique ways to sort of trick kids into getting excited about reading.
- Speaker #0
Well, the first thing I'll say is my wife would love you because the fact that she's all into no change. So when you had to get rid of CD decks in the car, she had to fit in books. I have like 14 racks of books around here. And at one point I said, I read so many books. I really need to go digital. She goes, no, it's all about the hardbound books, the soft covers, not going to get it. So she keeps buying me these books.
- Speaker #1
Good. I can't wait to meet your wife.
- Speaker #0
I'm like, I read so many books. I got to have these accessible. But she would love you for that. I do agree with you when it comes to literacy for the youth. I try to make it every summer in my house that we take at least a month where we turn every screen off and we do nothing but read for so many hours a day. Oh,
- Speaker #1
nice. I like to hear that.
- Speaker #0
So this is one reason why I started this podcast, too, because there's a lot of people like yourself who are authors that maybe some people never heard of. And there's so many great books out there. You know, if you use your imagination with books, you can go almost anywhere that you want. And I've always really loved to read. And so that's why I've kind of made a business out of it. So I'm glad that you do that.
- Speaker #1
I like what you're doing. I like your thoughts. I'm going to pass this on too. This is great.
- Speaker #0
So just to give the audience a little bit of a taste, you know, the legacy letters, you know, if you read a little bit about the book, it says rediscover private letters from a dying father to his children and his wife uncover a passionate and powerful guidebook to life. Basically, you know, talks about a lot about memories and legacies and things of that nature. What inspired you to write this book?
- Speaker #1
Oh, this is sort of a fun story. Well, first of all, I had an early midlife crisis. And as I like to say, if you're going to have a crisis, have it early. Have a midlife crisis, have it early in your life. That's a running joke. But I ended up in film school, went to UCLA, got out, got into the film world. I worked on pretty much everything. I worked on... low budget horrors and features and commercials and MTV music videos. And, you know, it's, it's, it's at a really interesting time in the industry, sort of a transition time. But I began to see this interesting writing on the wall. I, um, I began to see people that were making a lot of money that were very unhappy. And I thought, well, this, this industry is supposed to be about fun and dreams and all this. And, and it was, um, there was a fast paced part of the life, you know, the bright. lights up Hollywood and whatnot. And I, and the more and more I looked into it, the more the underbelly of it just began to sort of like, wow, do I want to end up here in 20 or 30 years? And so I started driving around the West. I did it. You know how the Aborigines do a walkabout? Well, I did a driveabout and I would take these long drives. And my, my friends at the time thought I was sort of loopy and like, what are you doing? I said, I don't know. I'm just, I got, I gotta... So I'm looking for something. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm just going to drive myself to it. Well, gosh, what I ended up doing was I ended up in a small town along the border in Arizona. I call it a three-bar town because that's how you measure bars in the West or measure towns in the West by how many bars they have. So this was a pretty small town with three bars. And I ended up going back to my roots. My grandfolks had a small ranch growing up. And I ended up cowboying on a very desolate ranch. You could not see a light to see your life. I mean, it was just that desolate. And what was interesting in that desolation, this became almost a Walden Pond time of my life. Wasn't looking for it in that respect, but I picked up the pen again. I had written before and published before. And this idea started coming around. It grew and grew and grew. And I wrote more and more. And I wrote literally the first 100 pages by hand. It just felt like it needed to be written that way. And David, what was funny was I decided I wasn't going to read the book until I wrote the first 100 pages. I just wanted to see how. And I sat down and again in this quietude all by myself. And I poured myself a little glass of whiskey. And I read the first 100 pages. And I said, oh, I hate this thing. This is the worst writing. I just wanted to burn the thing right there. And I'm glad I didn't because I kept going with it because I knew there was the kernel of something there. And sure as heck there was. And we came to see the light years later.
- Speaker #0
Well, it is definitely an extraordinary book. You touched on a lot of things in that book that makes me, just as a father, think of things to do. I used to always think that my wife was... was crazy for this because she took so much time. So I'm going to ask you this question because when I told her that this was a question I was going to ask you, one of your publicists said I should ask. My wife was like, see, someone else agrees. So she likes to write. She sells things on Etsy and places like that. And every time she sells something, she also takes the time to sit down and write that person a nice handwritten thank you note. And so in your opinion, what is the importance of handwritten thank you letters and notes?
- Speaker #1
Oh, gosh. I really want to meet your wife now. I'm going to find her Etsy site. Oh, gosh. You know, before I get around to that. There's this cool thing that I've been doing with our local schools. I came up with this idea called Project Gratitude, which is basically getting kids involved in local, regional, international sort of community services. You know, not just services, but ways to help people out in other communities. So, for example, during the hurricanes we would have, we would have the kids gather up supplies and clothing and whatnot. And we would have them attach handwritten letters to the supplies, to the clothes, to the teddy bears, to the books, to whatever we were sending. And we've done this a number of times. And so it tells the kids you're communicating with this. We did this super cool thing with Cuba. I did this first ever book signing in Cuba when they first opened up. And we got books from kids in three different states. And the kids all brought books. books together and they wrote letters in the books and the kids at the school in Cuba were just blown away. They tried to send letters back. It was much more difficult, but the idea of communicating through letters. So here's again, the cool, cool thing about Henry letters and letters in general. So one of the secret mysterious things I found in the writing of the book and the writing of a letter is that when you sit down and write on a piece of paper, and put your time into that paper and put the ink in there, you are literally giving the gift of your time to someone else. And if we consider that one of the most valuable gifts we can give anybody, the time in our lives to somebody else, you are doing that in a letter. And when they receive it, not only are they receiving a letter of gratitude, which is a wonderful thought right there, they're receiving the gift of the time you've given them. And they understand that they're holding that time in their hands. So I think it's... Not only is it powerful receiving the thank you letter, the very act of taking time to make that people understand that so different from a text, so different from an email. And who's going to save that at the end of the day, right? You'll save that letter, but are you going to save a text? Yeah, some people do, but it's not the same.
- Speaker #0
So let's go a little bit deeper into that just for the young people here, because as you know. You and I would probably be in the same era. We grew up a lot differently than the kids grow up now. Everything is fast paced. You got to have it now. Everything is technology. So do you feel like if I was to send you a letter, but I typed it on my computer, but I signed it at the end, that's a lot less personable to you that you feel than if I was to sit down, take my time, actually write it out on some paper?
- Speaker #1
Well, I think that's, I think. I think that's legit. Yeah, because I think it shows, you know, it shows the time you took to do it. And I've done that many times too. I think the humanness of the essence of who you are that you put into a letter, even if it's chicken scratch, is very, very powerful. You know, I think people hold on to that because, wow, this person actually took that time. I know we don't have handwriting as much as possible. I try to promote that. I still think it's absolutely worthwhile to do that. But with per your point, I would, I would welcome that. So if you want to send me a thank you letter, I would welcome it.
- Speaker #0
Well, I totally agree with that. And I say that because I've been a huge professional wrestling fan for years and I always felt cheap in when you buy something from a, from a superstar. And you can tell that the signature was just something they wrote once. And then whoever their assistant is, just stamps that with electronics. In WrestleMania 21, several years ago, John Cena was the world champion. And for a lot of people who don't know this, I'm going to spill this now. Everyone, they sold a thing called a mat plaque. And what that was, was there was a picture of him holding his title. It was signed by him. And then there was a piece of the ring mat attached to that plaque. One thing I want everybody to know is these are not computer generated signatures. They are locked or sent into a room where they do nothing but sign about five to eight hours a day. And every one of those signatures was John's. I've actually compared it between mine and someone else that had one. Because as you know, we can sign the same. But after you get tired or whatever, it doesn't look the same. You can tell it's the same person. But I can see some differences. So I do agree. To me, I felt, even though I bought it from the site, I felt extra special to know that John took the time to sit in the room and do nothing but get writers cramped because he actually personally signed my matplot. So I do agree with that.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, isn't that in a world where we're just, where we seem to be sanding down the edges of authenticity? Right. We're just trying to do everything. The sameness of everything, even though we've got all these these, again, social media outlets, all these ways to make things over the top and and crazy and all that. What we're looking for is this this connection between people. And I think you just said it right. You looked at that. That was from his hand to you. I mean, that's that's the closest. I mean, unless you meet him in person and he actually signs it in front of you. And that means something to you. I agree. I totally agree.
- Speaker #0
So go back to the legacy letters. How many or how much of the stories in that book are yours? Do you have any in there that's personal?
- Speaker #1
Well, so I'll let your readers know a couple things. First of all, I'll just give you a very quick overview, and you explained it nicely, but basically the legacy letters is a series of fictional letters written by this father to his children he'd never loved to see, and these letters become their practical, moral, and spiritual guidebook for the rest of their lives. They never met their father. These letters were written a long time ago. We don't know when. The whole setup is that they're very private. The children grew up with these letters and wanted to give 40 of the over 200 letters he left behind. They want to give this to the world. And so it actually, the next book is coming out, The Legacy Letters Complete, and that's all 200 letters. But in this way, it's a Tuesdays with Maury size, for those of you that remember that book. And so it's easily accessible. So in the writing of the book, I wrote all the letters out of sequence, which was interesting. Now, again, when we talk about the book, what are these letters about? They're everything from how to buy a used car, how to fall in love, how to be married, how to ride a horse, how to be outside, the beauty of reading, you know, teachers. It goes on and on. This man wanted to leave behind the legacy of his thinking and how to live life in the most passionate way possible. And it's also a love story because he and his wife separated under these circumstances that we're not quite certain about. But in the very first letter in the book, she says, you know what, we had an extraordinary relationship. We brought it to a close and then we brought it back together again through these letters. So in the writing of this book, David, what was extraordinary for me was when I was at the ranch, this was a very difficult time, and it was a very revealing, naked time, as I almost like to call it. And people have responded to that revelation, that authenticity, that looking into one's soul, essentially. And I'll tell you some stories here in a moment about book signings. And the way that people have reacted to this, because at a certain point, I left behind being an author. I became a messenger to my own book and the stories that people brought to me as they revealed themselves in the reading of the book. I was blown away. And even to this day, people will come to me and say that they'll just open up their deepest secrets because I did the same or the person did the same in the book. So I'm not. I know it's a roundabout way of answering your question, but it's extraordinary in that it's a raw shock test, in essence, of people's lives and what they've encountered.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I don't give a lot away. I try to play vague because I want people to go out and buy the book and read it. So that's why I'm talking about it. But as a father, the book kind of made me think, right? It's like, should I start writing some of these letters? What if, you know, as parents now, we try to explain to our kids, well, it was like this 20 years ago. So after reading your book, I'm like, what if I actually sat down and actually wrote a letter to my son, Jacob, who's 14, he's really into video games, explaining exactly how video games really was back then. Well, he cherished that and take that with him. And I think from your book, yeah, maybe we should do that. Now, do you think there's a damning side of that? The reason I ask that is because of this. When watching this show, I think it's called Black Cake, where the mom ends up dying. but leaves these series of tapes for the lawyer to give to her kids. In these series of tapes, which is pretty much the same as her letter just written on the tape, she drops a lot of bombshells they didn't know. They have a secret sister. A lot of things happen. Do you think that we should be dropping those kind of things in letters?
- Speaker #1
That's interesting. I mean, yeah. Wow. What a great question. I've never been asked. That's a first. Should we, I guess if we're, if we're coming to the point where we want to be honest and the way we lived our lives and, and, and we don't want to pull those punches. Yeah, that's interesting. But I think we all have. parts of our life that we don't share with anybody. We share just with ourselves or with the universe. And those are decisions you have to make. I mean, I think the idea of passing on that information, like your letter to your son, I think that'd be extraordinary. Now, how would he receive it right now? Eh, you know, yeah. All right. Thanks, dad. But if it's waiting there for him, when he's older, maybe he's 23 or 24, or maybe when he first has his kid, boy, that's the eye-opener there. Or like Mark Twain said, when I was 17 or 18, I couldn't believe how little my dad knew. And when I turned 22, I couldn't believe how much he had grown up. I think that's the extraordinary thing too, is that we see how our kids grow up and begin to understand that we're people too and that we have things to We're not just parents anymore that we've really lived these interesting lives. So yes, please do that for your son, no matter what. And then those other, those other things that you consider important. I think that's where it's at, right? I mean, whether it be from sports or being polite or how to treat women or how to fix a used car. I mean, whatever it is that lights you up in life and that you want to pass on to your son or your love of reading, just say, Hey, Jacob. I just want you to know, and you know all the books we have around here, this is how much I love reading, or how much I love your mom. And that's, wow, to read that and to have that in your hand is not only a historical document, but a document of, I don't want to say confessional, but it's more, yeah, in a way it is, isn't it? And they get to hold that forever. Wow, he wrote it down. So it's real. It just wasn't he walked his talk. He put it on paper. It's there forever.
- Speaker #0
So going around these letters, you came up with National Thank You Letter Day. Can you tell us how you came up with that?
- Speaker #1
Oh, this is fun. Okay, so I'm reading from, yeah, I got to show you guys. If you're watching this, if you don't see it, you can look online. There's the book right there. Okay, the legacy letters. All right. So I'm sitting in front of this handwriting class at our local elementary school where I get to do all these wonderful things. Continental Elementary. They're just such a great school. And... I'm reading from one of the letters and it says, how to say please and thank you. So I'm writing on the chalkboard and I'm doing this. And the kids are, you know, they're writing. And I could just tell they're like, oh, God, I'm losing him. Because, of course, this is the most exciting thing in the world, how to teach handwriting. And so my little brain goes, you know what? And I turned to them and I said, what do you guys think about creating? the world's largest handwritten thank you letter. And we're going to make it the size of a football field. They're like, oh, Mr. Paparazzi,
- Speaker #0
that's the greatest idea. Whoa.
- Speaker #1
You know, they're all like, yeah. And I just said, yeah, it's the greatest idea. And I thought, oh,
- Speaker #0
crap.
- Speaker #1
Oh, no. Now we have to do it because I said it. And they expect me to do it right there on the, you know. Oh, my gosh. So we did it. So we did it. Um, and in the making of it, which took 30 rolls of butcher paper that we taped together, um, it took, I think over 50 pizzas, hundreds of cookies, you know, there's all this stuff you have to, to, uh, to get the kids going to make and weeks on end, it does, you know, I didn't know how to make this thing. We just sort of came up with it. And then the actual writing of the letter. Um, I decided, well, wait, I don't want this to be one and done. Why don't we create this National Thank You Letter Day? So we put it in the middle of November, the month of thanks, November 14th. I think we're in our eighth year now. And the letter is the size of a high school basketball gym. If you go to nationalthankyouletterday.com, you can see it right there. It's super cool. And we had all the kids sign it. We have 600 signatures. We have the community was involved. But the running joke is, well, what do you do with the world's largest handwritten thank you letter? You have to send it. Right? I mean, what else do you do with the letter? So we created the world's largest envelope, the world's largest stamp. The next year, we had, and we tried for the Guinness with the handwritten. They, on a technicality, they didn't immediately accept it. So we went with the envelope stamp. And that whole process is amazing, how to do a Guinness record. You have to have all sorts of professionals. You have to videotape. I mean, the thing is unreal. And so we did it. To fold it up, it's like a 25-foot long. three foot high paper burrito. It took 20 people, kids to carry it. We had to take the doors off the gym. We had to stuff it in the back of the mail truck and the postmaster stamped it. It's an official letter, took it down to our sister's school, open it up. So it was delivered. And, and for that, we received the Guinness book of world records and actually got on the Kelly Clarkson show. And we were able to get the good word out. But one of the cool, cool things was the postmaster purchased 600 prepaid postcards in which the kids sent letters to their parents or whoever they wanted to thank. And we received one from our son. And to paraphrase, it said, you know, dear mama, papa, thank you for my family. You're the best. I wish this card was longer so I could tell you more, but thank you so much. I love you. And I was just blown away. I have it to my, it's right next to my bed, you know, and I just, I love that. And there was, all that work came down to that one little square piece of paper, and it meant the world to me. And that's what a thank you letter does.
- Speaker #0
So after all of that, you get the Guinness World Record. How did the kids feel when you let them know that, hey, we've got a Guinness World Record for this letter here?
- Speaker #1
Oh, they were stoked. Are you kidding? It's so fun. And I got to tell you, in our little town, I was. One time I was walking down the local grocery store aisle, and this kid was, he had a couple of kids and their mom, and, hey, there's the big letter guy. There's Mr. Big Letter Guy. And I thought, wow, how cool is that? Mr. Big Letter Guy. I tell you, I can take that one to the grave. So they loved it. And some of the videos show how excited they are. And yeah, and... Still to this day, kids will run into me. Oh my gosh, that was one of the coolest things we ever did.
- Speaker #0
Wow, that's something that they would definitely never forget. That's awesome. I've never heard, you know, until I met you and started reading. I'm like, hey, I didn't even know this existed. And I did go look into it. I'm like, yeah, this is pretty big. I don't know how they came up with that. That's good. So congratulations to you and the children. I'm glad that you had that common bond with them, that you guys got that done.
- Speaker #1
Thank you, David. I really appreciate that. And yeah, thank you. I mean, there it is, the act of saying thanks and then showing up in a letter. Hey, and real quick, that letter was so funny on how to write it. So I tried to use my inner fourth grader, fifth grader to write it. I thought, oh, I'm a writer, I can do it. So I wrote out this letter. And again, like writing the legacy letters. And I read it and I said, oh. This sounds like a man who's an author trying to write a letter like he's a fourth grader. Down the pipes. So then I asked the kids, I said, okay, guys, I need some help in writing this. I want you to write what you're thankful for and just write it out on pieces of paper and I'll collect it. And that is the sum total of what's in the letter. And it comes across even the grammar and the syntax. You can tell it was written by kids. So again, Check out nationalthankyouletterday.com. You'll see the actual letter and you can read it. It's really fun.
- Speaker #0
So I'm sure they go there, they'll see this, but I'm going to ask anyways, where do you store a letter that big?
- Speaker #1
It's called the National Thank You Letter Day Storage Unit. It's a big flipping package, you know, and I've got it wrapped up in a special thing that keeps it dry and all this, and it folds up.
- Speaker #0
but it's a it's it's a it's a monster that'll be a sight to see so everybody please make sure you go check that out we will put that uh in the show notes as well so you guys can go over and and view this letter because it is definitely incredible.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. And, and when, when that time rolls around, you know, check us out. Cause we're gonna, we, we try to do things on a national level. We want to get kids excited about writing thank you letters. And then, you know, we had one year where we had all the kids write to our people in our community. We had not only our first responders, but we had people write to our, our garbage collectors, our clerks at the stores, our doctors. Doctors are, you know, they would write a letter and we actually had them come up and pick up the letters. So it was a really wonderful way of getting the community involved and thanking the community for the things that they would do. So, again, let's let's figure out how we can get our kids to write these very simple letters and it doesn't have to be complicated.
- Speaker #0
You never know what that does in somebody's life, you know, from the lowest worker to the highest. I'm in this thing where I thank everybody. Right. I mean, I go through McDonald's. And when the person gives you my food, I say, thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you for the awesome job that you do. And I mean that because you don't have to have a million dollar job all the time to be to thank somebody. Every piece of life fits in somewhere. If you don't have the people to work at McDonald's, then you don't have any fast food. So I don't think any job is menial. I think every job is as equally important as the next, no matter how much money you make. And I think we should show more gratitude back to people.
- Speaker #1
I totally agree. New York. Yep. 100%. And if we can get our kids to do that, and again, in the guise of a simple letter, wouldn't that be something? You're going through the checkout, standing there at McDonald's, and you hand someone a letter and says, thank you for giving me that. I mean, wow, would that not make your day? Talk about paying it forward.
- Speaker #0
So with all of that, let's go to this next question here. How do you feel that we can live a legacy life?
- Speaker #1
Well, let's sort of break down the idea of legacy, right? The idea of legacy is so much about what it usually pertains to what we're leaving behind. And so it's usually at the end of the day, at the end of life, at whatever the case is. And one of the epiphanies that I had was, well, wait a second. Why are we waiting to sum it all up? Why don't we, and I'm a big fan of walk your talk, you know, why don't we make our legacy what it is right at that moment? You know, the person that you want to be is the person you should be showing to the world. Again, especially with our kids, which is so important that we're walking the talk for our kids and showing them right there. So that I call a living legacy as opposed to legacy, which is I love the word legacy. But a living legacy is one that you're actually, you know, you're showing the world. This is what I these are the values. I uphold these, then this is the way that I want to be true to myself and true to other people.
- Speaker #0
I think that's important because Michael Jackson wrote a song called History. And it's about legacy, but in that song he says, every day creates a history. And he wanted people to know, like you just said, don't wait to the end. Everything you do now is a history. It should be recorded so that people behind you, that come from behind you, knows what happened to you and how it goes. So I'm really big into that, too. For Christmas, I gave my family, I said, I'm not giving you guys tangible things this year. This year we're doing experiences. Pick whatever experience you want to do with me and I'll get it done. Because the fact that in the end, all we have is memories. So I may buy you a PS5, but that could break tomorrow. But when I'm not here anymore, you can look back and say, you know what? I went here with dad. This is my Christmas gift that year. And it means a lot. So I really do. I'm starting to hone into these kind of things the older I become now.
- Speaker #1
Isn't that interesting? There's the operative phrase, the older we become, the more we realize that these material things are just that. They break. They go away. They whatever. But these memories you build. And, you know, it's an interesting part of the book, David. And maybe you can speak to it, too, because I don't know how much of it you read. But memory is so powerful to... how we process legacy. And what I mean by that, there's an extraordinary letter in the book. And literally this man has memories that of his interaction with his kids, he's never going to have. He created memories out of whole cloth of something that didn't exist. And it was one of the most moving letters to write, sort of stumbled upon it. And it's like, I will never have this with you, but if I did, this is what it would look like. So what were your thoughts? Did the memory part really come through in the book for you?
- Speaker #0
It did. And most importantly, because we've had some people recently in our family and friends that have suffered from Alzheimer's and other memory loss situations. And I started thinking, I'm like, man, you know, because my wife's like, man, I remember when this person did this and we did all of these things, but now they don't remember anything. And I was like, wouldn't it have been great? Now, just after reading your book, like, wouldn't it have been great if they would have wrote all this stuff down? Because now the things that they want to convey to you, they can't anymore. But these are things they would want you to know. So that hit me extremely hard and got me thinking of what if one day I did lose. All my memories, maybe I start now writing them all down. So when I don't remember them, you can come and say, well, remember we went to Knott's Berry Farm on this day and we did this, that, and other thing. Get into a simple car crash. Now, you don't have to be old to do this. A lot of people think, oh, that's an old person. No, if you simply get into a car crash, God forbid, and you hit your head the right way, you have amnesia. And sometimes your memories never, ever come back or you just get a snippet of that. So that did hit me extremely hard. And I hope the other readers. it does to make them think that, you know, our memory is not guaranteed to us anymore. Maybe we separate these.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. You know, I just had an idea. Here's like the national thank you letter, but it's not. But, you know, one of the biggest barriers to writing something down is the blank page syndrome, what I call the blank. You know, you see that white page. Oh, my God. Or yeah, I just I don't write, you know, everyone's all I said, oh, no, don't worry about that. Just. Tell us, tell what you need to say, right? And not only is it the blank page syndrome, it's, well, that sounds like a lot of work and all these things. But what if you were to do it once a month, once, let's make it even easier. Every other month, the first day of the month, you just put down 20 minutes. I'm going to spend writing this one thing. And you come up with six topics, right? For the year. That's it. And you write them down. That's so dual. The bar is so low to do that. And what I like about these type of ideas is that generally you'll do more than 20 minutes, right? You set it so low that you can't not, you won't fail. And you'll actually start to write these things down. And I think what it does is it's sort of like, it starts to pull at the yarn and, oh my gosh, there's more and more and more and more and more. And then you become enamored of the idea and it becomes habit. So I think it's an interesting idea to play with.
- Speaker #0
So we talk a lot here about gratitude, which is what all this is around. What do you think is the link between gratitude and mental health?
- Speaker #1
Oh, gosh, a ton. It's really fascinating reading the studies on this. For example, the act of doing something with gratitude with somebody else, it increases your happiness. by 15 to 20%. These are studies. And it decreases your depression by about 30%. And I was like, wow, this is the fountain of youth right here. Just conceiving of acts of gratitude. And one of the interesting things, the catchphrase is practicing gratitude. I go, eh. I like to do gratitude, right? And so it's literally finding ways throughout the day. Like, for example, here at the end of the day, I'll say a sort of a quick prayer to myself. It's not even a prayer. It's almost like a little meditation question. Like, hey, did you do a good job today? Were you a good person? Did you do something to help the world, to help whatever the case is? It doesn't have to be huge. And at the end, they say, well, no, yeah, okay, well, maybe we need to do that tomorrow. Start again anew. And I try to teach kids about this. You know, it's like, hey, did you do something really nice today? Yeah, yeah, I did. I said hello to somebody. I said, no, no, no, you know, whatever the case is, I helped someone across the street, whatever the act may be. And so I think that's the doing of it and reminding ourselves that it's important to do. So the link between gratitude and mental health is just huge. And you feel better. Who doesn't feel better when you smile at somebody or say good morning. That is an act of gratitude. And it's a conscious act. You don't have to say it. But if you go out of your way to say it, there it is. There's the human connection. There's the thank you letter being received. It's what we want as human beings. We want to connect. And in that connection, people receive it and it uplifts people. Gosh, if we're all doing that, we're uplifting. everybody. And I'm a glass half full guy. I always like to say glass half empty begins to evaporate. A glass half full starts to fill up. So. I don't know. That's my little twist on it.
- Speaker #0
Well, I think it also goes to everybody wants to feel important and appreciated. And I think that's the one reason why the company I work for retains so many people. And you can tell that it's genuine because they thank us all the time. They do little things to make sure that we're the most important. And they always tell us, hey, without you, we don't have any company. We don't have a company. Thank you. And I've worked a lot of jobs in my life. and This is the one company that I'm like, man, even after all the thousand points they have, when I first, when I signed up for this company seven years ago, my name was on this big board. I'm like, welcome to all of the new, you know, employees. I'm like, wow, they really care about who I am. No one ever really cares in the corporate world.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Look at the power of a simple thank you and please. I mean, it can't be understated. I know we just say, oh, thank you. It's important. No, it is vital. It's like. this incredible oil that just makes people move better together and with each other and the whole framework of humanity. I mean, it comes down to, that's, to me, one of the bedrocks of civilization is this kindness and gratitude. And when we see people, and I loathe to say this, but in this day and age, when we're trying to find so many, so much. anger and differences combined together, it doesn't make people feel good. Well, what's the opposite of that? The opposite is kindness and gratitude and these things that we do for each other. And that speaks volumes to why it still works. And it is a timeless value. It's a timeless trait. And as you said yourself, just to be acknowledged, oh my gosh, by a major, a worldwide company, and they say your name and they say, thank you. Oh. Gosh, I think I'm going to start working for her.
- Speaker #0
So all that said, you wrote a fabulous book. I've really been enjoying it. Can you tell us in the audience why you feel people should go out and read the legacy letters?
- Speaker #1
Well, first of all, you've come up with some really good questions that make me... That's your job. Why someone should read the legacy letters. I don't think I've ever been asked that either. So we got two first in this interview. I think if you are looking to, if you, this is so funny, because it's, you want it, I don't want a simple, I don't want a pat answer like, oh, this is a great book. You're going to love it, you know? And you're going to walk away and have a hundred copies. No, you know what? Wait a second. I will, let me tell you a story. This will, I think this will help you understand why people have gravitated toward the book. And so I was at a book signing. I've done a lovely number of them around the U.S. and around the world. It's a great privilege to be able to sign books. And this was at Barnes & Noble. It was a beautiful day. Hardly anybody was in there, but there was this mother and son. And the son was on his phone and he was a teenager and whatnot. So as you can imagine, probably I'm not one of those quiet authors that sits there and wait for people to come up so I can say. I literally track people down in the store. I wave to them. I say, hey, you want to come over here? And they're like, oh, my God. All right, come over here. I'm not a scary author. Come over here and I'll tell you a little bit. And she sheepishly walks over and her son follows. And she says, okay, what's your book about? And I explained to her what it was about. And she goes, oh, that's interesting. And I said, oh, let me pull the interesting knife out of my back. Oh, yeah, right, interesting. So I said, I'm going to do something that's never been done in the history of publishing. I am going to guarantee this book. Ooh. She just like, guarantee this book? What do you mean guarantee this book? I said, I guarantee if you pick up this book and read one page, you will turn to the next page and the next page and the next page. I says, if you don't turn to the next page, I'll give you your money back. And she goes, okay. And I'm like, sure, I'll do it. So she picks up the book and she starts reading. And I turned to the kid and I said, you too. And he was like, I didn't think he'd do it. So he did the same. He picked up the book. So she picks up the book. Turns the page, turns another page, sets it down. And she says, I'll take two. My jaw dropped. Oh, okay, great. So she went off to pay for them to come back. And I turned to the kid and I said. Hey, and he was still reading. I said, hey, I got to interrupt you, but I don't get it. I said, you know, I appreciate you reading the book and all that, but I didn't think you'd continue to read it. And he turns to me, looks me in the eye and says, I don't have a father. I wish the guy in this book were my dad.
- Speaker #0
Wow.
- Speaker #1
And that's that moment. I quit being the author. I quit being the silly guy. I quit being all those things. And ever since then, I have done this thing where I've actually said to people, pick up this book, turn to any page in the book. And more often than not, you're going to find something that will move you. I had, there's a, there's a letter in this book called the art of work and working. And so I did this thing. I said, turn to any page in the book. and And he does, and he starts reading and he goes, look, I'll take four copies. I go, why? What letter were you? He says, the art of work, work and working. I said, what the heck? Why that one? It's such a, you know, down to earth, but I mean, it's just about working. He says, I believe in working hard. I believe in doing the best you can. And these are the words right here. And I just got a raise and I just, my company or whoever's boss had acknowledged him. And he said, this is extraordinary. I've had people absolutely. coming on a book signing or something. We're doing this and people are reading that one page. And she goes, what are you doing? And I said, here, read this book, open a page. And she burst into tears. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on? She says, oh, this page is about the love of this and this and this. And she says, my father just passed away. And these are the words he said in the book, in your book. I just, and so it goes on and on and on. So I think this book. extraordinarily enough, has something for everybody and it brings them into themselves. It brings them into other people and really it re-inspires us as to the important things in life and living life to the fullest. And I hope that answers your question.
- Speaker #0
Well, I'll give you another one. I don't know if you've been asked this one. To piggyback off of that, what do you hope or want readers to take away from the legacy letters.
- Speaker #1
I would love if they were able, like you, to start thinking about, hey, maybe it's important I write these things down for my own legacy to my kin, to my offspring, to whomever, as a way of saying these are the things that are, not were important, are important in life to me. And I think it's a, it's a. reaffirming of these values that we have in our life, these things that are important to, whether it be values or just things that we love to do or things that we want to share. I think it's a way of creating a small but important history that people can hold. At the end of the day, you know, you don't go gently into that good night because you've got something here that says, hey, I've got a written record of... the way I walked my talk. And I think that's powerful. And it doesn't have to be a book. It doesn't have to be extraordinary. It just has to be something other than this flash through life and all of a sudden you're done. Or like you said, you lose your memory and then what do you have? You have people holding onto memories of you and the memories they have, but what about what you wanted to say? How powerful is that? So I think if there's one takeaway in the book, it's just, Yeah, if we could literally. have people sit down and be able to write their own letters or something that holds onto that memory. And then people can say, guys, yeah, he was that type of guy.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I think that's awesome. Um, I do want to go back just a smidge because I want to back you up on something in case everybody's wondering, like I was earlier, uh, when we started, you was talking about the importance of, uh, hardback books, you know, you say Kindle's okay, but it's all about the page. Uh, I can tell you guys firsthand, that's true. So when Arden, who's your publicist, Great guy. He wrote out to me. He's like, yeah, you know, and I contacted him and said, yeah, Kuru would love to come on the show. And I was like, yeah, can I get a copy of the book? You can send it to me digitally if you want. That'd be easier. And Arden comes back and he simply says, Kuru does not do digital books. We'll send you a copy.
- Speaker #1
That's so cool.
- Speaker #0
So I wanted to point out that you don't have a digital copy of this book. You didn't make this up for the show. Right from in writing, I have it still from art. And he says, yeah, Carew doesn't do digital copies.
- Speaker #1
That is all. That's great. I love that. And was it signed?
- Speaker #0
It was, yes. It was signed and I have, I think, a bookmark in it. It was very well done.
- Speaker #1
Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that. I will definitely take that with me. I love that. And there it is. That's how much I believe in the importance of receiving. I mean, how did you feel when you got a physical book?
- Speaker #0
You know, even though I do love digital copies, I do collect books from my authors. So from all the ones I was willing to, I have a whole collection of books that's been signed from authors that I've interviewed. And I look at those, I'm like, yeah, this is much more tangible to me. It feels great because like you, we've said throughout this interview. The author sat down and took time to write me a note or wrote in the book or just to simply sign it. It means that they cared about the interview that I did with them. That's how I feel.
- Speaker #1
Well, I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's that give and take, isn't it? That's what we talk about. That's the human connection right there. I mean, the fact that you're putting this amount of time out for us, for the writers in the world and for the true crime people and whatnot. But that's the... That's what we want. We want to be not only acknowledged, but we want to have great connection. And on this interview, I have felt that. This has been just extraordinary.
- Speaker #0
Well, thank you, Karou. So in closing, can you tell us what's new or what's going to be coming down the pipe from us for Karou Papritz?
- Speaker #1
Oh, golly. Well, let's, as one of the kids said, well, what do you do, Mr. Papritz, after you get a Guinness World Record for the world's largest salmon letter and all this? And I said, And I said, I don't know. And he says, well, what about the world's largest mailbox? And I thought, well, wait a second. That's a thought, you know. Oh, we've got the Legacy Letters Complete coming out hopefully this next year. Again, it is finished. I just want to wrap up some more stuff with this book. I love doing these interviews talking about legacy. And so I'll definitely continue in that vein. And, and, um, One thing I thought would be really fun here, as this is not only a talking interview, but all about if I read a small passage from the book. That'd be great. Would that work for you? Absolutely. I've got some earmarked here, but here's one on... So there's a letter in the book called, Your Pappy's Love of Books and All Appearances of the Mother Tongue. And so he talks about, I am doomed to read books. If you haven't already figured it out, your paw can't leave well enough alone. Having to have my own last word on books. And he goes, now he calls them little ones because he doesn't know their name. Okay. Why read little ones? To think and to learn about who, what, and why we are. Books are written by map makers who endlessly illuminate. chart and create the mind maps and soul maps and heart maps that we so need to help make sense of ourselves and our world. These explorers exist for one delectable prize and purpose, to define the beauty of contrarieties, to show us that we are not alone in our differences of how we ponder, savor, and believe, how we profess and love and die. Somehow, in as many ways as these map makers individually perceived planets. and earthworms, volcanoes and seashells, glaciers and dandelions, they eventually bring us to ourselves. Our individuality chooses to take the journey. Our imagination chooses how we interpret these maps and all these maps leading us to the pirate's treasure. And that treasure is ourselves.
- Speaker #0
Wow. Now, see, if I hadn't read the book, I'd be running out just after that passage.
- Speaker #1
That's great,
- Speaker #0
man. Well, Karu, I want to thank you for coming on the show today. It has really been enlightening. I felt I learned a lot from your book, but I learned a lot more from actually meeting you today. It has been very, very, very great time. Anytime you want to come back, you know how to get a hold of me. You're always welcome if you want.
- Speaker #1
Oh, thank you, David. I really appreciate it. I will definitely do that. This has been a lovely, lovely interview. and those questions that you asked. really put me on the spot in a great way. And I'm glad I didn't have them before. Then I would have given Pat answers and sounded really like I knew what I was talking.
- Speaker #0
Well, thank you, man. I appreciate it. And again, you're always welcome to come back and thank you for coming on the show.
- Speaker #1
Thank you, David. Sure. Appreciate it.
- Speaker #0
All right, guys, you heard it yourself. That was the incredible Karub Papritz. You can get a copy of the legacy letters, his wife, his children, his final gift at Amazon. anywhere where books are sold. You can also learn more about Carew at his website, thelegacyletters.com, as well as my own, because his profile will be attached to this episode. And the links there will also be in the show notes and on that website. So please make sure you do go buy a copy of the book as well as check him out. Also, all the other links that we talked about today, referring to the largest thank you letter will also be in the show notes. So all the information will be there for you. Once again, thank you for joining us today. I know you have many choices in True Crime and Interview Podcast. I am grateful for that for the last two and a half years, you have chosen me. And remember, you have been listening to the... only three-faceted podcast of its kind. And always remember, be good to yourself and each other. And as always, stay humble. An act of kindness can make someone's day. A little love and compassion can go a long way. And remember that there is an extraordinary person in all of us. I'll catch you guys on the next one.
- Speaker #2
Don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe. Join us on social media. One link to the link tree has it all. Feel free to drop us a line at truecrimeandauthors at gmail.com. Cover art and logo designed by Arslan. Sound mixing and editing by David McClam. Intro script by Sophie Wild and David McClam. Theme music, Legendary by New Alchemist. Introduction and ending credits by Jackie Voice. See you next time on True Crime Authors. extraordinary people
