In 1955, the playground at Edison Elementary School, in Alameda, California, would have been a rollicking place. One of the moms just knew how to get a laugh, she always had the ladies rolling. She was the housewife from Ohio, the one with five kids. The one with the husband who wasn’t so great. It wouldn’t be too long before she was known for a little bit more.

The surprising story of how Phyllis Diller got her start.

We walk past dozens of houses, every day, and never realize that the people who have occupied them over the years were chock full of hopes, dreams, tragedies, dramas. That the people who occupy them, now and then, are each the center of their own human drama. But it's good to be reminded. And so this is the story of one house, as told through four mishaps, from the 1890s through the 1940s, with a reminder that every person, and every house, has context.

On April 2nd, 1962, John F. Kennedy wrote a short note to Bing Crosby. “Dear Bing,” it read. “You will never know how much I enjoyed my weekend at your ranch. I can truthfully say that my stay there was one of the most pleasant and restful that I have had for a long time.”

The note seems innocuous. That weekend was not. This is a little background behind the weekend that spawned a million rumors.

Everything comes to an end: the good doctor, the Adelphian club, and even the Spanish flu. But even when things are gone, sometimes they still leave a legacy behind, whether it’s trees, school art programs, or just a quiet space where a woman can get a little ironing done. Part Four of Four.

A doctor leaves the 1910s version of the Love Boat for an easier life, only to find himself enmeshed in a stressful new world of rabid dogs, crooked milk inspectors, clumsy lumberyard workers, and grumpy men who hate women in bathing suits. And that was before the pandemic arrived. Part Three of Four.

A familiar-sounding litany of people’s problems with mask wearing during a global pandemic. Grumpy citizens, poor mask habits, holiday crowds who don’t want to give up their fun, and leaders who can’t seem to agree on the correct path to recovery. We apparently haven’t changed too much in 100 years. Part Two of Four.

It was never meant to be a hospital. It was a women’s clubhouse, meant for lectures and concerts and civic meetings. But in 1918 it would become ground zero for the Spanish Flu. Part One of Four.

This is a place that used to be, that disappeared, and has now been built again, and built so thoroughly that only a missing tree would give you a hint that the building that stood here before experienced what can only be described as a catastrophe.

They called it a spite house. The only problem was the lack of spite. The story of how one man’s triumph of ingenuity became overshadowed by his neighbor’s demons.