Whenever a Friday the 13th falls in the spooky month of October there seems to be an extra bit of interest in superstition and magic. This year I was contacted by several journalists and radio show hosts. For example, I was quoted in the Omaha (Nebraska) World-Hearld in an article called “Inside the fear of the number 13 and Friday the 13th.”

One of the most interesting Friday the 13th newspaper articles this year was written by Philip Bump, a political columnist for the Washington Post. In a piece called, “Here’s how many previous Friday the 13ths you’ve managed to survive,” he both recycled a quote I contributed to an old National Geographic story and included a calculator that allows you to determine how many Fridays the 13th you’ve encountered in your life so far. I have survived 119 in my 66 years of living. Hopefully, I will get a chance to survive many more.

   The NBC Today Show website’s Friday the 13th offering was an article called “Do crystals actually possess healing powers? The answer is complicated.” My answer was a bit simpler: “No they don’t.” But I offered some thoughts about why people might feel better using crystals.

Finally, I did three radio interviews on Friday. I made a brief appearance on the Mitch Albom (of Tuesdays with Morrie fame) Show, for which there appears to be no audio available online. I also did an interview for the Mike Farwell Show in Waterloo, Ontario. You can listen to the segment by clicking here and then clicking on the 10:00 AM hour for the Friday the 13th show. The segment lasts about 20 minutes. Be sure to stay on after the host hangs up with me to hear callers talking about superstitions.

The third radio interview was for WTIP community radio in Grand Marais, Minnesota, and you can listen to the interview in its entirety below.

That’s about it for Friday the 13th, 2017. Next up, Halloween!

Until then, enjoy the rest of autumn.

SV