Short: Poe Toaster

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, exciting news. I'm really really stoked about this.
On March seventh, at noon Pacific Standard time. Team Sideways
is going to host an a m A on the
Unresolved Mysteries subreddit on Reddit. Pretty exciting. Yeah yeah, so
the mods will post an announcement a week prior, so
if you can't join us at that time, at that date,

(00:22):
you can post your questions there. Um, please don't email
us questions will lose them and forget them. Let's try
and contain this just to Reddit. But we're super excited
and uh yeah, so if you can join us. Sorry,
just in case somebody you know, five years from now
was listening to this episode not two thousand seventeen. This

(00:45):
is not true yourself two thousand seventeen. Sorry, okay, a
mystery short stories of things we simply don't know the
answers to, Hey, guys, things Side with podcast is Devin,

(01:11):
joined as per usual by Steve Joe. That's the team
Jeems Sideways, as we've been calling ourselves as of late.
Welcome to another short episode, bonus bonus if you will.
Not so long ago, we talked about the somehow still
mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe. If you haven't listened

(01:33):
to it already, go listen to it. I'll wait. Okay,
I think they've listened to Welcome Back Today. We're going
to talk about another somehow still mystery surrounding Poe. Uh,
and that is the Poe toaster. Is that like the
one that I have in my house? Because I've never
seen the Poe brand of toaster. I'm really trying hard.

(01:57):
It's not working. The Poe Toaster is the name the
media has given to somebody who's probably a man, and
actually probably at least two men, maybe three, who for
at least I'm going to say more than fifty years,
maybe more like seventy five. It's hard to tell. It's conflicting.

(02:17):
Some people say it started in nineteen thirties. Yeah, on
the eve of pose birthday, which is January nineteen, had
a tradition most curious to post curious to post speak
it up starting sometime maybe in the nineteen thirties, as
Joe said, or maybe the nineteen forties, but definitely by
the centennial of post birth in ninety nine. A shadowy

(02:41):
figure dressed in all black with a wide brim hat
and a white scarf carrying a silver tipped cane, would
pour himself a glass of Martel Konnac and raise a
toast in pose memory Martell French pricey French bucks a bottle. No,
I think it's more than that. Yeah, the lore is

(03:03):
that it's a really nice whiskey. I are, and I'll
be honest with you. I did not go look it up,
so I can't tell you for sure. But that important anyway,
do you think about it? Yeah, the figure placed three
roses in quote a distinctive pattern. Although what that pattern is,
I'm not sure. There are no pictures of it. And
I think I saw a picture somewhere when I was

(03:25):
doing this, but I can't remember. I didn't see anything
pretty particularly. Probably what you saw was the picture of
the faux Yeah, the impostor toasters. What on his Yeah,
on his actual grave? That happened. And again, well you know,

(03:46):
and this is not his actual grave, No, this was
on the marker of his original burial spot. He the
po toaster would then place the unfinished bottle of kognac
on the marker of poser original grave, as just said,
and then could quote vanish into the night. Um and
people people did start to take notice of this and
would gather to view and sometimes try to detain the

(04:08):
toaster and kind of take part in this odd tradition. Well,
you do think they were detaining because they wanted to say, hey, buddy,
who are you? What's going on? It was one year
that they did try to detain him, and it was
I think it seems that the group just thought they
would figure out who this person was, because nobody knows
who this person was eluded their grasp. He did. Did

(04:33):
you vanish into thin air? Yesof of smoke, it sounds like. Yeah.
In the nineteen nineties, the toaster began to leave notes.
At first, it was just kind of simple, almost like
love letters that you know, things like Edgar, I haven't
forgotten you, Just kind of lovely little sentiments to Edgar

(04:58):
Allan Poe. In n ninety three, the note that was
left said the torch will be passed, and observers claimed
that the toaster looked much younger, although you can never
see his face, so I have to assume that it
was a change in body language. Perhaps. Yeah, obviously an

(05:18):
old man is going to move a lot differently than
a young man. Yeah. The notes since then have touched
on sports in more recent years. In two thousand and one,
it referenced an NFL playoff game the Baltimore Ravens and
I can't remember what the other team was, Yeah, and
pushed by the way reading this story, I'd never I'd
never put two and two together on the Ravens. I

(05:38):
didn't know that they were named after posts pose poem, Yeah,
which is kind of awesome. It is super In two
thousand four, the note that was left kind of referenced
some current events that apparently the Toaster was not super
happy about, specifically France's refusal to join the war in Iraq.

(06:00):
And it seemed like since the there was that switch
in where it became the younger person passing of the torch,
if you will, And the notes left prior to nineteen
nine had been kind of reverent and loving, and then
the new Toaster, which was quote a son, It said

(06:21):
in one of the notes that it was a son
and I don't know what you want for me, decided
that I guess they decided that the attention that they
got as the Toaster was going to be a good
platform to just gonna be crazy, yeah, a little bit.
In fact, the at that time curator of the Poe
House and Museum was so dismayed with one of the

(06:44):
notes that was left sometime between two thousand five and
two thousand and eight. He never specified when, which exact year. Uh,
he just said, oh no, there was no note left
this year. He just lied and so he this was
this was something that didn't quite good. So he told
the public. No, no, no, it was left to sear.
Is that correct? Yes, so this guy, but he never

(07:05):
kept it. But he must have passed up at some
point that he did it right, that he didn't that
he actually got a note and then lied about he did.
He was kind of the guy who would validate that
it was the real toaster because there was a specific
hand signal I guess that the toaster did every year
that only this guy knew about. That validated this person

(07:27):
as the original toaster. It seemed like the new toaster,
the post the millennial toaster, if you will. What wasn't
really doing it for a love of ed Garland Poe,
but morequest his death father's death bed request or something
his father and in two thousand ten, in fact, it

(07:49):
seems that the tradition did in fact end. In fairness,
it seems kind of a logical conclusion that two thousand
nine would have been the last year two the toaster
did not show up. Poe died in eighteen nine, so
it would have been his It's been a hundred and

(08:09):
fifty years after sixty. No, never mind, it doesn't make sense. Yeah,
it's all based around the year of his death. Yeah,
not his birth. I think did I say his birth earlier?
You guys, I'm really good at messing stories. No, it's
his death. Sorry, I just think that they're probably better times.

(08:33):
But hey, I guess since they were toasting to his
death birth death. Since they were toasting to his death,
sure they could have vented it whenever on the round
times number? Really good? Yea. Since this tradition has been
so mysterious and pretty well documented, the act itself has
become someone of an event. As I kind of mentioned earlier,

(08:57):
onlookers start to gather to view this event, mostly mostly
with respect. People kind of just wanted to watch the
toaster do his thing and let him be. However, in
two thousands six, a group of onlookers decided, as we mentioned,
that they would solve the mystery of who the toaster
was and tried to apprehend the toaster, but he managed
to escape. Didn't they have guns? Thankfully? Thankfully. I'm glad

(09:23):
honestly that they didn't apprehend. I think it's probably better
left a mystery. Well, that probably explains why this guy decided,
you just quite in this traditions crazies cheesing me every year. Yeah,
that's that is a good reason there. It might just
be that you get sick of the whole thing. Yeah,
also possible if there wasn't a deep connection for him,

(09:45):
it was his father's thing. Yeah, maybe the case. There
are a few theories out there about this story and
the identity of the toaster. It seems that you remember,
if you listen to the story, which I hope you did,
you will remember that Poe may not have actually been
so much of a drinker. So apparently it wasn't at all.

(10:07):
Maybe it's hard to you know, I don't think we
ever landed on. But so there's somewhat of a disconnect
between Poe and Kognak. Right, he wouldn't really necessarily be toasted.
But apparently in some of the notes it alludes to
the Kognak being a familial tradition of the toaster more
than a tradition based around poe. Oh okay, well that

(10:30):
would explain. That's better than Hey, you were drunk, I'm
gonna have a drink to you. In two thousand and seven,
a man by the name of Sam pro poor Pora
Porpora Porpora, who had been a historian at the Baltimore
Westminster Church Church, claimed that he had invented the toaster

(10:53):
in the nineteen sixties as a publicity stint. It doesn't
make sense to me for a lot of reasons. He
said that he had created the stunt to quote, reinvigorate
the church and congregation. I'm not totally sure how that work.
The other huge problem with this is that there are

(11:14):
actual documentations of the toaster much prior to the nineteen sixties.
There you can find newspaper clippings from nineteen nine and
the early nineteen fifties that document the toaster. So uh,
Sam said, oh, well, yeah, I just told everybody that
it started in nineteen but that obviously doesn't work because

(11:35):
there are actual newspaper clippings from that time, so it
did actually start that early at least. Yeah, he's jumping
on a coattails. I even understand how this reinvigorates the congregation. Yeah,
I don't know either. He never officially redacted his statement,
however retracted. Yeah, he didn't black it out. He never

(11:55):
retracted his statement. Sorry. But just prior to his death,
he apparently did admit that he had not been the
one making the annual visits, but that somebody had taken
his idea, but he didn't know who it was. I
don't know that before he ever told anybody about you know,
twenty years before he ever told me about it, they
were like, I know this man, if you going to

(12:15):
have an idea to reinvigorate the church and congregation, and
I will just do that for him. Not only mine
probed him, but he did it for twenty years in
the past. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. So there's also some
speculation that Jeff Jerome, who is the aforementioned prior curator
of the Poem House and Museum, which, as a side note,

(12:36):
if you were interested in going to that, good luck,
because it's been close to the public since two thousand twelve,
people thought that maybe he was the toaster makes sense.
He has vehemently denied that. I'm given to believe him,
but there are some little bits of hink nous as
we were talking about. He was the one who would

(12:56):
view it every year. And if the toaster didn't do
us in hand gesture, he was like, oh, that's not
the toaster, it's not the real one. So obviously he
had if he was not the toaster, then he at
least had some communication with the toaster, and he was
the one who would go. Everybody would just leave the
bottle of kognac and notes and flowers there, and he
would be the one to go to retrieve those things.

(13:18):
So he was the one taking the notes, and he
was the one who would collect the bottles and clean
off the grave. So okay, okay, here's the thing is
that this hand gesture we're inferring, or at least a
lot of the articles inferring that the hand gesture was

(13:41):
made at Jerome, but not necessary. No. I guess for me,
it could have just been a certain way that he toasted, right,
It could have been a certain way that he placed
the flowers. Yeah, I think the way he toast for
the way he did, I think that's fine. But I
do also think that for you to be the person

(14:01):
who is in charge of clearly loves po history a
lot who's in charge of a museum, who also just
happens to be the only person who can say, oh, yeah,
that's the Poe toaster. It's a little suspicious. It's a
little suspicious. But at the same time, he was in
the crowds. People saw him in the crowd That's not
like there was There was that one one year when

(14:23):
they hid him the catacombs of the church to wait
for the Poe toaster to come, as he and several
other people waiting down there, and they they he was there.
He was there. He was there in the catacombs and
the toaster games, so he must he may well have known,
actually the identity of the toaster. I almost wonder if
it's just because he's he watched the toaster from Afar,

(14:44):
by the way, saying the toaster over and over, such
a weird thing. But he may have watched the toaster
from Afar for a number of years and realized the
same thing was happening every time, and that's all it was.
I I don't think that we have to infer that
there was a familiarity between them other than that. Yeah,

(15:08):
in two thousand eleven, for impostor immediately dubbed phoetasters. Photoasters
is so much better. Phoetasters were identified by Jerome for
many reasons. There were four of them. They were not secretive,
they didn't try and creep, they just walked in broad view.

(15:31):
They didn't have do the little signal or whatever that
Jerome said. And then this event actually sparked some debate
because there are a lot of people who are onlookers
or lovers of Poe or whatever, who said this tradition
should be continued even if it's not by the original
family of the po toasters. Since two thousand nine was

(15:53):
the last year that the official toaster showed up, and
this has held true since then, the official toaster has
never come back. Some people say this tradition is so good,
we should just keep doing it, even if it's by imposters.
I am of the other camp. I think that that
was a wonderful tradition that some people had out of
a deep love and respect for a girl and Po

(16:15):
and it should just remain that way. And if you
love ed girl and Po and you live in Baltimore
and you want to do something to remember him, come
up with your own tradition, you know, Yeah, I think
just doing something over just to maintain the tradition without
the reason behind. I think that. I think they clearly

(16:39):
had a reason for that ritual, and it meant something
personal to them. The placement of the flowers meant something
personal to them, probably the cognac, but even the brand.
It was the same brand every year. That meant something
to them, and it can't ever mean that to anybody else.
So if I don't think that there's a point in
continuing that tradition just for traditions sake, but yeah, think

(17:00):
you can do something else. You can show up with
a bottle of cheap wine and toast him and leave that,
I mean, and pass out after one glass because you're
so wasted. Yeah that's excellent. Yeah, So now it's time
to solve the mystery. What happened to the toaster? Why
did he stop? Well, Baltimore, as it happens, has one
of the highest murder rates in the country. So yeah,

(17:22):
if the toaster was unplugged, oh yeah, yeah, I'm yeah,
please do Yeah, the toaster got taken too the good
will anyways, that's it there. We I don't think we'll
ever know who the identity of the toaster was. But
I thought this would be a nice little short to
accompany the mysterious death of Edgar and Poe. It's a

(17:45):
little little nugget of a mystery. Yeah, by the way,
did die too young? Too young? Forty years old? Yeah,
it's sad. Yeah, So if you are the Toaster, if
if you're Poe, you can send us an email Thinking
Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. You can listen to

(18:05):
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You can leave us a comment there as well. You
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(18:27):
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(18:49):
phone covers, I think a mug even Yeah, because I
love coffee. Because Steve is a weirdo. There's a link
on our website to find that stuff too. That having
been said, does We're gonna go ahead and get out
of here, everybody. Bye guys, Cheers everyone,