Square Burgers, Round Regrets, And One Very Crowded Gym

Ever felt out of place in a gym built for someone else’s goals? We open with a candid check-in and a plan to test-drive a large, crowded facility, using that moment to explore how fitness spaces shape motivation, identity, and what “works” as our bodies and priorities change. That honest uncertainty becomes a throughline for everything that follows: curiosity, doubt, and the quiet work of choosing what fits.

We shift to the renewed search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and break down the details with fresh eyes: Ocean Infinity’s “no find, no fee” contract, the 55-day intermittent window, and why a new 5,800-square-mile zone matters after a decade of unanswered questions. The real story here is human—families seeking closure, the limits of technology against vast ocean topography, and the stubborn hope that evidence still waits below. It’s a sober look at how complex investigations evolve, why debris patterns influence search maps, and what success would mean after eleven years of grief and speculation.

From there, the spotlight turns surprisingly personal: the story behind Wendy’s name and the pressure it placed on Wendy Thomas Morse. We unpack the branding genius of a recognizable face and the unintended weight of living as a mascot. Dave Thomas’s late-in-life apology adds a poignant layer, reminding us that legacy marketing isn’t only about logos and taglines; it’s about people navigating expectations and identity in public view. Then we examine research on aging and recovery, reflecting on the idea that around age 75 our bodies rebound more slowly from illness and injury. We talk functional fitness, practical training choices, and why adapting workouts matters more than chasing numbers on a barbell.

We close with a holiday moment that ties it all together: a child’s beloved walnut-shell ornament, long lost but never forgotten. That memory becomes an invitation to share the small objects that hold our biggest stories. Subscribe for more thoughtful, curious mornings, leave a review if this resonated, and tell us: which ornament carries your history—and why?

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Morning Check-In And New Gym
• 2:04 MH370 Search Plans Explained
• 4:29 Will They Find The Plane
• 6:32 Wendy’s Name And Brand Pressure
• 10:50 Aging, Recovery, And Skepticism

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:30

Well, hello and good morning. Happy Wednesday. Uh I have a long day ahead of me. Did not sleep well last night, but you don't care about that. Let's move on. I did go buy a gym close to my house yesterday to check it out, and I have a week's past to go in and try it out. So I'll be doing that this afternoon. I don't know that I'm gonna like it. It's a large gym, two floors. Lots of people were there yesterday at four, and I'm usually going, well, it was about 4.35 maybe. No, it was about 4.30. And I typically go about 3.30. You know, it's when I get started. And there were a lot of people there. I'm like, well, do you guys not have other jobs? You know, whatever. It's just there's a lot of people there. I don't know that I'm gonna like it. Because I like to do different things. I don't sit there in front of a mirror and lift dumbbells. I mean, I'll do some arm work, but and I, you know, I'm 58 years old going on 59, and I don't lift a lot of heavyweights anymore. So I don't want to take up space that somebody else, you know, is designated. Whatever. I'm getting down in the weeds here. Let's move on, shall we? I have three stories on X. I'm gonna go check out the gym. We'll see how it goes. Um I try to get my mindset right and get off of the negativity. Alright, the first thing we have up is uh the deep sea search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is to resume 11 years after the jet vanished. Now I did not read this story, so I really don't know what it's about. We're gonna find out together. Hopefully it's not a bust. Malaysia's Transport Ministry said Wednesday that the deep sea hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will resume December 30th, renewing hopes of finally locating the jet that vanished without a trace more than a decade ago. Do you think they'll find it? I don't know. I doubt it. I mean eleven years. The Boeing 77 the Boeing 777 plane disappeared from radar shortly after takeoff on March 8, 2014. I remember this well. Well, not real well, but you know, I remember it carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia's capital to Beijing. So what this is all right. We know what happened. Let's see, but let's scroll down and see if we can find why. The Transport Ministry said in a statement that U.S. based marine robotics from Ocean Infinity will search intermittently from December 30th for a total of 55 days in targeted areas believed to have the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft. Did they not do this already? The latest development underscores the government of Malaysia's commitment to providing closure to the families affected by this tragedy. Malaysia's government gave the green light in March for a no find, no fee contract with Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new oh 5,800 square mile site in the ocean. So they're searching at a new spot. Ocean Infinity will be paid seventy million dollars only if the wreckage is discovered. Aha! The search was halted in April due to bad weather. An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the East African coast and Indian Oceans. Well, we'll see. Maybe we'll have an update on that, but it's not going to start and or resume until December 30th. So we shall see. Alright, moving on to the next one. Uh Wendy's founder regretted naming Burger Company after his daughter, and here is why. I wonder why. Now I'm hungry for Wendy's. Now I want French fries and a frosty. Just like Wendy's burger, she thought she'd be treated like a square. Having a multinational food corporation named after you might sound like anyone's dream. However, Wendy Thomas Morse felt that being the face of her father's burger franchise was so awkward that she kept her mascot status a secret from others. I don't think that would be hard to do. I mean, you know, so I mean, there were times I didn't want people to know because I didn't want them to have assumptions, the sixty-four-year-old fast food scion told people. I guess my assumption was that they wouldn't think I was cool or hip or whatever at the time. Are you embarrassed of your daughter? Morse was eight years old when her father, Dave Thomas, decided to name Wendy's after her. Could you and what else would he call it? He wanted a character because he worked previously for the colonel at Kentucky Fried Chicken and knew how much that persona mattered, she recalled per Food and Wine magazine. He said, Wendy, pull your hair up in pigtails. So I did. He got his camera and took pictures of me and my sister and said, Yep, it's going to be Wendy's old-fashioned hamburgers. The hamburger magnet opened his flagship restaurant in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio, which became a resounding success, prompting him to build in other branches and around the nation. By 1978, the burger monger, uh famous for its square meat patties and frosty drinks, had opened 1,000 outlets. But why is you but why are you uh regretting it? I guess we already talked about it. Um the meat uh the rise provided uncomfortable more for Morse, who, despite being very proud of her fame, rarely disclosed her celebrity status. I would never, if I met a new people, I would never tell them who I was, she admitted. It's usually someone else that says it says it, and then it gets awkward and then it gets all better. And while she eventually came to appreciate being the face of the franchise, her father Dave came to regret the decision and even apologized to her ten years before his death in 2002, probably ten years before my dad passed, he talked about my name and namesake, and he just goes, I'm really sorry I did that to you, Morse recalled. To hear your father say, probably should have just named it Dave's and that would have been a lot easier was a lot. However, she admitted that it was nice to hear that her dad emphasized, empathized, uh empathized with her over the pressure and the responsibility of being the namesake. Nobody knew who you were when they met you. I promise you, because you really don't look anything like the Wendy's character cartoon character. Come on. Whatever. Moving on. All right, I picked this one just for this headline because I'm getting up there and I wanted to learn about this. The age our bodies reach a tipping point and stop being able to bounce back easily. Huh. I need to find out when this is. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but they won't heal as easily past a certain age. I wonder what that is. And of course, this is New York Post. Maybe they will quote some doctors. I don't know. New research has found the point of no return when we no longer recover as well from illness or injury, no matter how strong or healthy you may feel. According to researchers at Dalhousie University, I'm probably not pronouncing that right, in Canada. Well, there you go. It's Canada, so don't believe anything I'm about to say from this article. What because they they like to euthanize people. Once we hit around the age of 75, the body can't recover as well as it once did from adverse events. Researchers measured the health of nearly 13,000 people with an average of age of 67 based on more than 30 attributes, including chronic diseases, cardiovascular conditions, and how well they performed activities. They use the frailty index, a tool that measures how many deficits a person has, which generally states the well-known fact that it has as a person's age increases, their functional capacity decreases. Using it at that's why I like to do CrossFit workout, it's functional fitness. Using it as a measure and building a new mathematical model of human aging, researchers looked at changes in two key health areas adverse health events like illness or injury and recovery time. In the index, if the index increased, it meant a participant was experiencing more health setbacks and not recovering as well. Unsurprisingly, recovery time and health setbacks both increase with age. Well, this is no duh. Of course, when you get old, you're not gonna bounce back as quickly. Did we really need a study and research about this? We knew this already. Sounds like somebody's just milking the government for some money. And then whatever. I'm not even gonna finish this because it's stupid. We need to have the question of the day. Okay, I want to do a Christmas related question. I will try my best to do Christmas related questions all the way up until Christmas. We shall see, because there's a lot of days left. That's a lot of questions to come up with around Christmas. But this morning I have a question for you. We I don't have any sentimental ornaments, Christmas ornaments growing up. I did as a kid. I used to have, you know, my mother had some and I did as a kid. I remember, I remember having one that I loved so much. It was a wall, it was a half of a walnut, and it had some fit, you know, like a some cotton in there, but it had like a little button with a face drawn on it, and then a little blanket over it, like a gingham blanket over it. And it was supposed to be like the manger of the baby Jesus. I freaking loved that ornament. I don't know, and it was so simple and small and basic. I don't know if it was handmade, I don't know if my mother bought it. I don't remember anything about how how we came about to have it, but I remember as a child I loved it. That was my favorite one. I wish I had it today, but I don't. And I don't have any sentimental ornaments. Uh, you know, I just never have any with the kids. I didn't, I just didn't have any. Uh so when Trump won his second presidency uh this last year, I went out and got all red decorations for the tree. So my tree is like a MAGA tree. It's all red. Everything's red. Except for the tree. The tree's green. But everything's red decorations. So my question is to you do you have any sentimental Christmas ornaments that you still have with you today? Or what is your favorite ornament that you remember as a child? Okay, that's what I've got for you today. Gotta go. Thanks for listening. Bye.