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Welcome back to another episode.
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With us today is the author of A Cup of Tea on the Commode, Mark Stephen Poro.
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Mark is an award-winning designer, writer, director, and now a best-selling author, award,
or I'm sorry, best-selling author and award-winning author.
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He's written a lot of jokes, several screenplays, and one award-winning short film.
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So excited to have him on today.
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Mark, how you doing?
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Good.
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We're recording all the way from the south of France, so could be worse.
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sounds incredible.
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You were telling me a bit more before we started.
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And that's what we like to ask is tell us more about your journey.
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What were you doing before that kind of led you into where you're at today?
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Well, I was in my mid-50s living the carefree boucher life in Los Angeles, and I decided
to give that all up to become a first-time parent to a sharp tongue, guilt-tripping,
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guilty, or stubborn as all get-out lady who could barely remember my name, my mother.
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And it's unusual for a son to take on the 24-7 caregiving, but I jumped in with Gusto to
fill her last years with love, laughter, and joy.
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And, not perfect, but I came pretty damn close.
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And that's my story.
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Thank you.
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Good night.
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I want to know more because the book title itself leads to some curiosity and interest,
and it seems you've gotten some backlash from people, maybe just one, person about the
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title.
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But can you tell us more about that journey specifically and writing that book and
bringing that idea together?
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Well, the title of the book is A Cup of Tea on the Commode.
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And ~ while writing the book, I had another title in mind.
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But this kept coming up because this became one of our morning rituals.
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And ~ at this point, my mother could no longer walk.
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And it was a little dodgy getting here to and from the bathroom.
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we put a commode bedside.
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And sometimes Mother Nature took a little longer than was comfortable for either one of
us.
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my mother's favorite beverage was a cup of hot tea, skim milk, no sugar.
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And one day, kind of as a joke, I said, would you like a cup of tea while we're waiting?
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And she said, sure.
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And it became a hit.
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that ~ was added to our morning ritual, a cup of tea and the commode.
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was writing that kept coming up and I said, you know, it's kind of a catchy title.
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let's go with that.
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And it's proved to be ~
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Personally, I love it.
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Other people seem to be, gravitating towards this,
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this book and just this journey.
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as far as your journey, all of us kind of go through, you know, death in the family.
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not all of us get to experience what it's like to care for somebody else.
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that sort of commitment, that dedication, that's a 24 seven job.
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You kind of have to, give up other things.
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did you have to sacrifice a lot?
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to be able to dedicate your time to this.
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Yes, well, I lived in LA, and my mom was living in the house we all grew up in ~ in New
Jersey.
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And I didn't think of it as giving up.
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It was just something to do.
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We were kind of brought up this way.
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We learned to care for others and care certainly for each other in our family.
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have five siblings, and I was very close to both of my folks.
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this was just the right thing to do.
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there was no really second guessing.
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to be the single one without children.
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I got two other siblings who also don't have children, but I was willing to do it and I
had a great relationship with my mom and I felt she deserved better.
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I jumped in and there are some awkward moments in the beginning because again, I hadn't
been a parent before and by not being married, I didn't really understand unconditional
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love.
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that's one thing I had to kind of learn.
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I'm seeing my mother naked for the first time at 89 years old and that's kind of shocking
and stuff but I have an acting background and I didn't want my mother to feel
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uncomfortable with my uncomfortableness I took on the role as caregiver and said okay this
is the role I'm playing now I don't want my mom to feel guilty I don't want her feel bad
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that I'm taking this on I want to
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show her that I'm doing this out of love, and we're going to make the best of it.
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I actually did get her permission.
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I didn't jump in right away.
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She had, a near-death experience just a few days after her 89th birthday.
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She suffered from some depression throughout her life, and she kept it pretty well hidden.
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But as we get older, our filters seem to fade, and more and more it started emerging.
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And sometimes she wasn't a pleasant person to be around.
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Archie Bunker mother and now I totally forgot where I was going with this but Grumpy
grumpy grumpy.
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anyway, once she she actually did snap out of it But it was a number of weeks and I worked
with hospice and my younger sister and I hung out with hospice because we didn't know how
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long she was going to be with us whether it was going to be hours days or weeks
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And hospice was very generous teaching us.
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some of the tips and tricks, dealing with bed sores, changing the diaper, changing the
bedding with the help of a patient in bed.
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And that was great.
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I think my mother felt that her kids were there and we wanted her to stick around.
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And after a few weeks, she snapped out of it.
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And then I started thinking that I think I've got to play a bigger role.
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You know, I'm across the country and having a great time.
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And my one brother who lived locally took a lot of the responsibility
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responsibility on he was taking care of all the finances and doing the medications and
that kind of stuff and after she snapped out of it I stayed with her a few more weeks then
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I had go back to LA because I had a business to run out there and then I came back in
September and took over the caregiving deed again for a couple weeks and during that time
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I got her all dolled up.
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Her grandson was getting married and I got her all dolled up.
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I grew up with three sisters, so I knew how to do more than just put the toilet seat down.
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I...
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combed her hair, put it in a ponytail, put some makeup on her, and took care of her nails.
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And she really liked being pampered.
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And during that time, I asked her if she wanted me to come do this full time.
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And she smiled and said yes.
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And I said, but if I do this, two things.
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First of all, we're going to have fun.
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And second of all, I will now be in charge.
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And her smile completely disappeared.
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And then she puckered up for a kiss shortly after that.
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And I wasn't sure if it was a sign of surrender or one wishing me luck.
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She
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could be a tough cookie.
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And so I gave her a kiss and hoped for the best.
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And it worked out pretty well because both of my parents were pretty funny people in
humor.
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played a big role in my upbringing and in our family and luckily they passed that on to
all their kids and so we're all a bit nutty and humor is also a great stress reliever
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especially in a 24-7 job like this and one of my goals was to make her laugh at least once
a day and she ended up making me laugh quite a bit too so it worked out pretty well.
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That's an incredible story.
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And even for myself, having some employment experience back in home care and hospice.
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Yes, it's kind of humor has a weird way of showing up in those types of settings.
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But I think that's because there's a perception that, hospice end of life is just all
sadness, right?
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Funeral sadness.
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In reality, it's more we can have fun.
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There's a celebration of life there.
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There's things to enjoy.
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finding those little moments of the fun and the happiness, you have to almost search that
out.
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You you have to look for it.
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And you being more
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of a funny guy, you can more naturally find it.
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Not everyone can, crack wise like that.
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And you got to roll with it.
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One time, it was quite an ordeal to get her ready in the morning and also at night.
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I gave her a sponge bath in the morning and evening.
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And I get her all cleaned up and do the sponge bath.
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And I'm just about to secure the diaper.
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She starts peeing on me.
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Now, that's cute if you're a new parent with a baby.
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But when you're a 90-year-old mother and I'm going, Mom, why now?
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And she looks at me, she says,
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it's natural.
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And how can you be mad, right?
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She had little control over any bodily function at that point.
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I just said, okay, we just started all over again.
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And that's, just some of the stuff you got to do.
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if you approach it, I think with certainly an open mind, but also an open heart, it makes
it so much easier.
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Absolutely.
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What's interesting is something that we've heard from other, hospice patients, their
families, is they always hear about not wanting to be a burden on the family.
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They always, that is the number one priority that they mentioned.
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And it's weird to be in that role because now you have family who want to step in and step
up and sometimes they're not accepting or willing to take that help.
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Did you have some
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pushback with that?
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It sounds like, it came to a time you almost kind of naturally fell into it.
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And you kind of gave her that ultimatum.
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Yeah.
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No, she had no problem whatsoever.
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14 years earlier, I spent the last eight days with my dad, and he was desperate to hold on
to his last bit of dignity.
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again, a funny story with him is two days before he passed, he had heart disease.
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So he had an extra 40 pounds of water weight.
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This little man was like 165, and now he's over 200 pounds with this stuff.
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I get him over to the commode, and he finishes on the commode, but he wants to take care
of his
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his own business.
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my mother was kind of his caregiver for a number of weeks.
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And so she's standing at the ready with the toilet paper.
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And he looks over and says, give me two sheets.
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And she says, two sheets?
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Just two?
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He goes, I'm very accurate.
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And I almost dropped him.
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And all three of us burst out laughing.
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And it was just a lovely, lovely laugh that he was making light of the situation.
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With my mom, it was like, do it all.
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I'm not doing any of this stuff.
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the heck with dignity.
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I want to be pampered.
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So she had a little bit of the, I'm the queen.
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You're my little servant.
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And that's the way it's going to be.
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But again, I didn't want her to feel bad about any of it.
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I went in there.
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One of my mottos, and some people find it corny, but it gets me through a lot of my
adventures, is find the joy.
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So I looked for the joy and for the positive ~ part of it.
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And when any of those things would happen, either I'd make a joke about it or laugh or try
to make light of it in some way, because like you said, I didn't want her feeling guilty
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or this was any kind of a burden.
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This was the right thing to do.
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I wanted to make her sure that,
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loved her and I'm doing this out of love, not out of duty.
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Absolutely, an incredible story here.
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Mark, I wanted to ask for those who are like listening and watching the video here, where
can they find this book and connect with you online to find out more about the story?
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Well, if they Google a cup of tea and they come out, we're everywhere.
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I've built quite a platform around that.
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So the website is thecupofteaandthecommode.org.
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I have a YouTube channel with a lot of funny little videos, and of course that's Cup of
Tea on the Commode.
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We're on everything from TikTok to Facebook to Pinterest.
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I still call it Twitter.
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And ~ Blue Sky and all that stuff.
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And on Amazon, of course it's on Amazon in four formats.
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You have paperback, large print paperback,
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back ebook and the audio book recorded here in the south of France.
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And actually, I'm not sure when this is going to air, but we're having a Mother's Day sale
on I think at all platforms for the ebook at $4.99, which is great.
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But if they sign up for the newsletter on the website, they'll get the first three
chapters in a PDF form for free.
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if they sign up, then they can click where to get that from the welcome letter that I send
people.
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There's ways of certainly digging into the book.
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it's won a bunch of awards and the reactions I've gotten from a lot of readers, some I
know from my hometown, some I don't know that are also, my hometown seems to all be on
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Facebook, which is great.
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So they've been very supportive.
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But those notes and how this book has touched them has really been ~ lovely.
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my mom keeps teaching even from heaven.
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That is incredible.
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And we will have those links available down in the show notes and the description so
everyone can find that book and get connected with Mark Steven here.
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Mark, you're at an incredible place in life's journey, your accomplishments, what you're
doing.
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I wanted to kind of look forward, What do you think is, on the agenda?
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What's the next chapter for you?
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I mean, you're now, you moved from the US, you're now in beautiful France, you're enjoying
life out there.
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What's next after that?
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Well, I'm a good way through the next book, which is focusing more on my dad.
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So there'll be more humor and fun.
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my dad invented in 1963 half-popped popcorn.
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which became a thing, and we've had some copycats and some other people claiming they
invented it, but we brought it to market, or my brother and I, after my dad passed, to
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honor him.
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So for my mom, I honored her with the book.
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When my dad passed, my brother and I started a company, Grandpa Poe's Originals, to ~
share his snack with the world.
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And we brought...
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made it a national brand for a number of years.
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And it was the snack of the day on the Rachael Ray show.
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And it's called Grandpa Post Originals.
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It's no longer made.
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But I built a factory out in LA for it.
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And we had a nice run.
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And so the book will be about the last eight days with my dad, also about his snack
invention.
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then in 1995, I took him to the little village in Italy where his father came from.
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And nobody from our family had been there.
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100 years.
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And so I shot a documentary of that and that was just an amazing trip and also ended up
clearing the family name because there was some rumor about my great-grandfather and why
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he left Italy.
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But I have a picture of my dad knocking on his father's door.
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the house is still there.
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And my great grandfather was the mayor of this village back in the around 1880.
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And they knew everything about him.
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only 200 people left.
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Now it's less than 100.
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But in 1995, there's about 200 people there.
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And the town historian was also the entire police department.
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The policeman there was just on the tip of his tongue.
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Stories about my great grandfather, which was great.
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And so those three subjects will be ~ all in one book about my dad and that's hopefully
will come out in the next year or two.
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That has to be an incredible moment when something you believe about yourself and your
family to be true for so long that other people are kind of trying to disprove and then
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you're able to finally validate that and now you get to share these stories and learn from
that.
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That's incredible.
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never would have happened if we didn't go.
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Yeah,
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and it was two years before my dad passed and he said that was one of the highlights of
his life.
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And that might have been my first real caregiving journey because he was again, straddled
with the heart disease and we spent 18 or 16 days in Italy together, just the two of us.
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And it was fabulous.
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That is incredible.
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Mark, ~ I have a couple more questions.
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one specifically is, kind of just life's journey and business journey.
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There comes a point where we begin focusing more on legacy, what we're leaving behind,
what memories, what stories, what knowledge, is that something that has crossed your mind
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and how do you kind of view legacy?
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Well, I think so because I have a knack for recording family history.
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I think with my nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews, I'm like the guy who I
created this thing called memory books.
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And I first did it for my dad when he turned 75.
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He was a guy that needed nothing.
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And I didn't know I wanted to do something unique.
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I said, I'm going to give him 75 memories.
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Then I thought, how am I going to come up with that?
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Once I got rolling, started from my first memory, and I had to edit them down to 75.
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And that was such a hit with him and the rest of the family that the next one, I invited
my siblings to join in.
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And these things, from a typewritten list for my dad, evolved into these elaborate
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design books with sometimes distant cousins and aunts and uncles all chipping in memories
of the various people.
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Normally when they hit a ~ big birthday, 60, 80, and I did it for my two aunts when they
turned 80, my dad's siblings, and they were so touched by this.
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It was just great.
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And then when my nieces and nephews, we didn't have enough memories for them, but when
they got married, I did it as wedding gifts.
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and then got all kinds of people to chip in.
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their new spouses sometimes wish they could read those things before they got married
because there were some very revealing things, but they became a huge thing.
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that was a big deal.
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And then when we had family reunions,
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~ for a number of years as we all got older.
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My father and older brother would pick a place back east.
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And at that point, were like 22 of us, we'd all get together for a week.
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And as adults, that's very difficult to do, but we all really liked our family.
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And so we all made the effort to do that.
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And I usually wrote a poem to sum up the week.
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And all those, some of those things are actually on the website,
thecupofteaonthecommode.org.
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There's a section called bonus material.
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We mentioned certain things in the book and then I elaborate more on those in that
particular section.
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So some of those poems are there.
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PDFs of the actual, some of the memory books are there.
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The documentary of the Italy trip is in there.
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There's a whole lot of fun stuff.
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I think, and writing this book about my mom and now my dad, and also creating that snack
food company, I guess is all contributed to legacy.
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Since I don't have the children, I'm trying to get the memories out there.
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somehow somebody won't forget me.
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We'll see what happens.
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yeah, think as we get older, and certainly with the parents and that generation of the...
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The Depression era and the World War II veterans and that kind of stuff, we're losing all
those stories.
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And we're losing them fast.
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And I wish there's still some ~ holes in my family history that I haven't been able to
fill because those people are now gone.
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And I think that's a shame.
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I'm trying to do what I can before I leave this earth to answer people's questions if
they're interested.
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Sometimes it's tough to get family to be interested.
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is a book about your grandmother.
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Don't you want to read it?
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But someday they will.
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I think they will appreciate it.
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So if I'm not around by that time, that would be like, OK, fine.
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But that's OK.
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Mark, that's incredible.
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I love all these stories, the journey you've been on, just life itself.
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It's such a fun moment of these memories that we're putting together.
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Incredible time.
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Just a couple more minutes available left on the show, but wanted to open the floor.
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I don't know if you have a message you just want to share with our audience here, or just
kind of like a final note, but the time is yours if you would like it.
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Well, I'll tell you one thing that was an interesting revelation.
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the book was released on Mother's Day almost three years ago, actually.
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And I wanted to record the audio book, but I get really emotional when it comes to family.
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And I couldn't do it, even with stories that had nothing to do with emotion, baseball
story.
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I'm bawling.
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And so it took me about six months before I thought I could get it together.
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I built a studio here in my apartment here.
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recorded it.
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But having that break of six months really gave me a fresh perspective of the book.
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now I'm rereading the book.
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And it's quite interesting.
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the story sounds like I went back to rescue my mom, which in a sense I did.
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But upon reflection of looking back when I was doing the recording, I think mom actually
rescued me.
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And because I've done a lot I think, interesting things, adventurous things and good
things in life, nothing all that important, not having children and not being married and
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stuff like that.
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I think mom gave me this opportunity to do something really important and it changed my
life and changed me and made me a better man.
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And luckily I was smart enough to jump on it.
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So mom continues to teach.
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which is great.
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So thanks, Mom.
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I love it, Mark.
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Thank you so much.
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Really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your journey and these stories with
us.
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For all those interested, make sure you check out the links below so you can get
connected.
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And thank you again, Mark.
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Really appreciate it.
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Thanks Chris, my pleasure.
00:00:48,318 --> 00:00:50,090
Welcome back to another episode.
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With us today is the author of A Cup of Tea on the Commode, Mark Stephen Poro.
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00:00:54,266 --> 00:01:01,374
Mark is an award-winning designer, writer, director, and now a best-selling author, award,
or I'm sorry, best-selling author and award-winning author.
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00:01:01,374 --> 00:01:05,279
He's written a lot of jokes, several screenplays, and one award-winning short film.
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00:01:05,279 --> 00:01:06,651
So excited to have him on today.
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00:01:06,651 --> 00:01:07,972
Mark, how you doing?
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00:01:08,010 --> 00:01:08,470
Good.
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00:01:08,470 --> 00:01:12,803
We're recording all the way from the south of France, so could be worse.
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00:01:12,803 --> 00:01:13,546
sounds incredible.
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00:01:13,546 --> 00:01:15,620
You were telling me a bit more before we started.
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And that's what we like to ask is tell us more about your journey.
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What were you doing before that kind of led you into where you're at today?
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Well, I was in my mid-50s living the carefree boucher life in Los Angeles, and I decided
to give that all up to become a first-time parent to a sharp tongue, guilt-tripping,
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guilty, or stubborn as all get-out lady who could barely remember my name, my mother.
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And it's unusual for a son to take on the 24-7 caregiving, but I jumped in with Gusto to
fill her last years with love, laughter, and joy.
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And, not perfect, but I came pretty damn close.
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And that's my story.
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Thank you.
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Good night.
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00:01:55,845 --> 00:02:05,462
I want to know more because the book title itself leads to some curiosity and interest,
and it seems you've gotten some backlash from people, maybe just one, person about the
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title.
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But can you tell us more about that journey specifically and writing that book and
bringing that idea together?
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00:02:12,579 --> 00:02:16,194
Well, the title of the book is A Cup of Tea on the Commode.
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And ~ while writing the book, I had another title in mind.
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But this kept coming up because this became one of our morning rituals.
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And ~ at this point, my mother could no longer walk.
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And it was a little dodgy getting here to and from the bathroom.
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we put a commode bedside.
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And sometimes Mother Nature took a little longer than was comfortable for either one of
us.
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my mother's favorite beverage was a cup of hot tea, skim milk, no sugar.
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And one day, kind of as a joke, I said, would you like a cup of tea while we're waiting?
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And she said, sure.
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And it became a hit.
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that ~ was added to our morning ritual, a cup of tea and the commode.
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was writing that kept coming up and I said, you know, it's kind of a catchy title.
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let's go with that.
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And it's proved to be ~
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Personally, I love it.
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Other people seem to be, gravitating towards this,
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this book and just this journey.
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00:03:08,678 --> 00:03:13,303
as far as your journey, all of us kind of go through, you know, death in the family.
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00:03:13,303 --> 00:03:16,887
not all of us get to experience what it's like to care for somebody else.
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that sort of commitment, that dedication, that's a 24 seven job.
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You kind of have to, give up other things.
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00:03:24,303 --> 00:03:25,883
did you have to sacrifice a lot?
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00:03:25,883 --> 00:03:27,821
to be able to dedicate your time to this.
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Yes, well, I lived in LA, and my mom was living in the house we all grew up in ~ in New
Jersey.
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And I didn't think of it as giving up.
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It was just something to do.
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We were kind of brought up this way.
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We learned to care for others and care certainly for each other in our family.
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have five siblings, and I was very close to both of my folks.
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this was just the right thing to do.
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there was no really second guessing.
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to be the single one without children.
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I got two other siblings who also don't have children, but I was willing to do it and I
had a great relationship with my mom and I felt she deserved better.
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I jumped in and there are some awkward moments in the beginning because again, I hadn't
been a parent before and by not being married, I didn't really understand unconditional
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love.
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that's one thing I had to kind of learn.
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I'm seeing my mother naked for the first time at 89 years old and that's kind of shocking
and stuff but I have an acting background and I didn't want my mother to feel
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uncomfortable with my uncomfortableness I took on the role as caregiver and said okay this
is the role I'm playing now I don't want my mom to feel guilty I don't want her feel bad
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that I'm taking this on I want to
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show her that I'm doing this out of love, and we're going to make the best of it.
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I actually did get her permission.
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I didn't jump in right away.
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She had, a near-death experience just a few days after her 89th birthday.
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She suffered from some depression throughout her life, and she kept it pretty well hidden.
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But as we get older, our filters seem to fade, and more and more it started emerging.
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And sometimes she wasn't a pleasant person to be around.
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Archie Bunker mother and now I totally forgot where I was going with this but Grumpy
grumpy grumpy.
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00:05:14,795 --> 00:05:23,954
anyway, once she she actually did snap out of it But it was a number of weeks and I worked
with hospice and my younger sister and I hung out with hospice because we didn't know how
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long she was going to be with us whether it was going to be hours days or weeks
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And hospice was very generous teaching us.
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some of the tips and tricks, dealing with bed sores, changing the diaper, changing the
bedding with the help of a patient in bed.
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And that was great.
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I think my mother felt that her kids were there and we wanted her to stick around.
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And after a few weeks, she snapped out of it.
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And then I started thinking that I think I've got to play a bigger role.
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You know, I'm across the country and having a great time.
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And my one brother who lived locally took a lot of the responsibility
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responsibility on he was taking care of all the finances and doing the medications and
that kind of stuff and after she snapped out of it I stayed with her a few more weeks then
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I had go back to LA because I had a business to run out there and then I came back in
September and took over the caregiving deed again for a couple weeks and during that time
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I got her all dolled up.
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Her grandson was getting married and I got her all dolled up.
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00:06:26,513 --> 00:06:30,765
I grew up with three sisters, so I knew how to do more than just put the toilet seat down.
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I...
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combed her hair, put it in a ponytail, put some makeup on her, and took care of her nails.
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And she really liked being pampered.
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And during that time, I asked her if she wanted me to come do this full time.
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And she smiled and said yes.
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And I said, but if I do this, two things.
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First of all, we're going to have fun.
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And second of all, I will now be in charge.
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And her smile completely disappeared.
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And then she puckered up for a kiss shortly after that.
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And I wasn't sure if it was a sign of surrender or one wishing me luck.
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She
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could be a tough cookie.
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And so I gave her a kiss and hoped for the best.
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And it worked out pretty well because both of my parents were pretty funny people in
humor.
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played a big role in my upbringing and in our family and luckily they passed that on to
all their kids and so we're all a bit nutty and humor is also a great stress reliever
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especially in a 24-7 job like this and one of my goals was to make her laugh at least once
a day and she ended up making me laugh quite a bit too so it worked out pretty well.
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That's an incredible story.
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And even for myself, having some employment experience back in home care and hospice.
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Yes, it's kind of humor has a weird way of showing up in those types of settings.
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But I think that's because there's a perception that, hospice end of life is just all
sadness, right?
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Funeral sadness.
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In reality, it's more we can have fun.
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There's a celebration of life there.
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There's things to enjoy.
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finding those little moments of the fun and the happiness, you have to almost search that
out.
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You you have to look for it.
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And you being more
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of a funny guy, you can more naturally find it.
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Not everyone can, crack wise like that.
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And you got to roll with it.
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One time, it was quite an ordeal to get her ready in the morning and also at night.
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I gave her a sponge bath in the morning and evening.
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And I get her all cleaned up and do the sponge bath.
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And I'm just about to secure the diaper.
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She starts peeing on me.
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Now, that's cute if you're a new parent with a baby.
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But when you're a 90-year-old mother and I'm going, Mom, why now?
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And she looks at me, she says,
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it's natural.
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And how can you be mad, right?
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She had little control over any bodily function at that point.
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I just said, okay, we just started all over again.
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And that's, just some of the stuff you got to do.
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if you approach it, I think with certainly an open mind, but also an open heart, it makes
it so much easier.
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Absolutely.
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What's interesting is something that we've heard from other, hospice patients, their
families, is they always hear about not wanting to be a burden on the family.
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They always, that is the number one priority that they mentioned.
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And it's weird to be in that role because now you have family who want to step in and step
up and sometimes they're not accepting or willing to take that help.
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Did you have some
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pushback with that?
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It sounds like, it came to a time you almost kind of naturally fell into it.
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And you kind of gave her that ultimatum.
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Yeah.
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No, she had no problem whatsoever.
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14 years earlier, I spent the last eight days with my dad, and he was desperate to hold on
to his last bit of dignity.
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again, a funny story with him is two days before he passed, he had heart disease.
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So he had an extra 40 pounds of water weight.
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This little man was like 165, and now he's over 200 pounds with this stuff.
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I get him over to the commode, and he finishes on the commode, but he wants to take care
of his
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his own business.
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my mother was kind of his caregiver for a number of weeks.
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And so she's standing at the ready with the toilet paper.
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And he looks over and says, give me two sheets.
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And she says, two sheets?
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Just two?
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He goes, I'm very accurate.
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And I almost dropped him.
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And all three of us burst out laughing.
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And it was just a lovely, lovely laugh that he was making light of the situation.
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With my mom, it was like, do it all.
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I'm not doing any of this stuff.
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the heck with dignity.
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I want to be pampered.
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So she had a little bit of the, I'm the queen.
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You're my little servant.
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And that's the way it's going to be.
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But again, I didn't want her to feel bad about any of it.
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I went in there.
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One of my mottos, and some people find it corny, but it gets me through a lot of my
adventures, is find the joy.
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So I looked for the joy and for the positive ~ part of it.
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And when any of those things would happen, either I'd make a joke about it or laugh or try
to make light of it in some way, because like you said, I didn't want her feeling guilty
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or this was any kind of a burden.
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This was the right thing to do.
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I wanted to make her sure that,
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loved her and I'm doing this out of love, not out of duty.
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Absolutely, an incredible story here.
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Mark, I wanted to ask for those who are like listening and watching the video here, where
can they find this book and connect with you online to find out more about the story?
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Well, if they Google a cup of tea and they come out, we're everywhere.
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I've built quite a platform around that.
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So the website is thecupofteaandthecommode.org.
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I have a YouTube channel with a lot of funny little videos, and of course that's Cup of
Tea on the Commode.
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We're on everything from TikTok to Facebook to Pinterest.
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I still call it Twitter.
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And ~ Blue Sky and all that stuff.
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And on Amazon, of course it's on Amazon in four formats.
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You have paperback, large print paperback,
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back ebook and the audio book recorded here in the south of France.
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And actually, I'm not sure when this is going to air, but we're having a Mother's Day sale
on I think at all platforms for the ebook at $4.99, which is great.
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But if they sign up for the newsletter on the website, they'll get the first three
chapters in a PDF form for free.
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if they sign up, then they can click where to get that from the welcome letter that I send
people.
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There's ways of certainly digging into the book.
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it's won a bunch of awards and the reactions I've gotten from a lot of readers, some I
know from my hometown, some I don't know that are also, my hometown seems to all be on
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Facebook, which is great.
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So they've been very supportive.
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But those notes and how this book has touched them has really been ~ lovely.
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my mom keeps teaching even from heaven.
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That is incredible.
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And we will have those links available down in the show notes and the description so
everyone can find that book and get connected with Mark Steven here.
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Mark, you're at an incredible place in life's journey, your accomplishments, what you're
doing.
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I wanted to kind of look forward, What do you think is, on the agenda?
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What's the next chapter for you?
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I mean, you're now, you moved from the US, you're now in beautiful France, you're enjoying
life out there.
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What's next after that?
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Well, I'm a good way through the next book, which is focusing more on my dad.
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So there'll be more humor and fun.
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my dad invented in 1963 half-popped popcorn.
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which became a thing, and we've had some copycats and some other people claiming they
invented it, but we brought it to market, or my brother and I, after my dad passed, to
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honor him.
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So for my mom, I honored her with the book.
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When my dad passed, my brother and I started a company, Grandpa Poe's Originals, to ~
share his snack with the world.
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And we brought...
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made it a national brand for a number of years.
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And it was the snack of the day on the Rachael Ray show.
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And it's called Grandpa Post Originals.
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It's no longer made.
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But I built a factory out in LA for it.
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And we had a nice run.
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And so the book will be about the last eight days with my dad, also about his snack
invention.
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then in 1995, I took him to the little village in Italy where his father came from.
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And nobody from our family had been there.
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100 years.
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And so I shot a documentary of that and that was just an amazing trip and also ended up
clearing the family name because there was some rumor about my great-grandfather and why
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he left Italy.
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But I have a picture of my dad knocking on his father's door.
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the house is still there.
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And my great grandfather was the mayor of this village back in the around 1880.
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And they knew everything about him.
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only 200 people left.
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Now it's less than 100.
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But in 1995, there's about 200 people there.
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And the town historian was also the entire police department.
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The policeman there was just on the tip of his tongue.
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Stories about my great grandfather, which was great.
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And so those three subjects will be ~ all in one book about my dad and that's hopefully
will come out in the next year or two.
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That has to be an incredible moment when something you believe about yourself and your
family to be true for so long that other people are kind of trying to disprove and then
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you're able to finally validate that and now you get to share these stories and learn from
that.
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That's incredible.
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never would have happened if we didn't go.
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Yeah,
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and it was two years before my dad passed and he said that was one of the highlights of
his life.
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And that might have been my first real caregiving journey because he was again, straddled
with the heart disease and we spent 18 or 16 days in Italy together, just the two of us.
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And it was fabulous.
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That is incredible.
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Mark, ~ I have a couple more questions.
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one specifically is, kind of just life's journey and business journey.
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There comes a point where we begin focusing more on legacy, what we're leaving behind,
what memories, what stories, what knowledge, is that something that has crossed your mind
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and how do you kind of view legacy?
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Well, I think so because I have a knack for recording family history.
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I think with my nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews, I'm like the guy who I
created this thing called memory books.
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And I first did it for my dad when he turned 75.
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He was a guy that needed nothing.
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And I didn't know I wanted to do something unique.
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I said, I'm going to give him 75 memories.
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Then I thought, how am I going to come up with that?
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Once I got rolling, started from my first memory, and I had to edit them down to 75.
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And that was such a hit with him and the rest of the family that the next one, I invited
my siblings to join in.
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And these things, from a typewritten list for my dad, evolved into these elaborate
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design books with sometimes distant cousins and aunts and uncles all chipping in memories
of the various people.
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Normally when they hit a ~ big birthday, 60, 80, and I did it for my two aunts when they
turned 80, my dad's siblings, and they were so touched by this.
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It was just great.
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And then when my nieces and nephews, we didn't have enough memories for them, but when
they got married, I did it as wedding gifts.
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and then got all kinds of people to chip in.
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their new spouses sometimes wish they could read those things before they got married
because there were some very revealing things, but they became a huge thing.
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that was a big deal.
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And then when we had family reunions,
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~ for a number of years as we all got older.
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My father and older brother would pick a place back east.
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And at that point, were like 22 of us, we'd all get together for a week.
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And as adults, that's very difficult to do, but we all really liked our family.
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And so we all made the effort to do that.
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And I usually wrote a poem to sum up the week.
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And all those, some of those things are actually on the website,
thecupofteaonthecommode.org.
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There's a section called bonus material.
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We mentioned certain things in the book and then I elaborate more on those in that
particular section.
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So some of those poems are there.
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PDFs of the actual, some of the memory books are there.
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The documentary of the Italy trip is in there.
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There's a whole lot of fun stuff.
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I think, and writing this book about my mom and now my dad, and also creating that snack
food company, I guess is all contributed to legacy.
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Since I don't have the children, I'm trying to get the memories out there.
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somehow somebody won't forget me.
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We'll see what happens.
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yeah, think as we get older, and certainly with the parents and that generation of the...
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The Depression era and the World War II veterans and that kind of stuff, we're losing all
those stories.
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And we're losing them fast.
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And I wish there's still some ~ holes in my family history that I haven't been able to
fill because those people are now gone.
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And I think that's a shame.
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I'm trying to do what I can before I leave this earth to answer people's questions if
they're interested.
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Sometimes it's tough to get family to be interested.
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is a book about your grandmother.
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Don't you want to read it?
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But someday they will.
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I think they will appreciate it.
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So if I'm not around by that time, that would be like, OK, fine.
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But that's OK.
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Mark, that's incredible.
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I love all these stories, the journey you've been on, just life itself.
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It's such a fun moment of these memories that we're putting together.
295
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Incredible time.
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Just a couple more minutes available left on the show, but wanted to open the floor.
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I don't know if you have a message you just want to share with our audience here, or just
kind of like a final note, but the time is yours if you would like it.
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Well, I'll tell you one thing that was an interesting revelation.
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the book was released on Mother's Day almost three years ago, actually.
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And I wanted to record the audio book, but I get really emotional when it comes to family.
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And I couldn't do it, even with stories that had nothing to do with emotion, baseball
story.
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I'm bawling.
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And so it took me about six months before I thought I could get it together.
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I built a studio here in my apartment here.
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recorded it.
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But having that break of six months really gave me a fresh perspective of the book.
307
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now I'm rereading the book.
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And it's quite interesting.
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the story sounds like I went back to rescue my mom, which in a sense I did.
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But upon reflection of looking back when I was doing the recording, I think mom actually
rescued me.
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And because I've done a lot I think, interesting things, adventurous things and good
things in life, nothing all that important, not having children and not being married and
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stuff like that.
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I think mom gave me this opportunity to do something really important and it changed my
life and changed me and made me a better man.
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And luckily I was smart enough to jump on it.
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So mom continues to teach.
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which is great.
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So thanks, Mom.
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I love it, Mark.
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Thank you so much.
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Really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your journey and these stories with
us.
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For all those interested, make sure you check out the links below so you can get
connected.
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And thank you again, Mark.
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Really appreciate it.
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Thanks Chris, my pleasure.
