Episode 37 Joe LeBlanc

Joe LeBlanc

A Blind Instrument-Maker 

📍Georgetown, Massachusetts

His Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576479357405 

Thoughts and Reflections

Since I've known Evan Anderson, he's always mentioned this incredibly interesting figure of Joe LeBlanc, his blind instrument-making friend. And after many years of not having a reason to visit, the day finally came. He was incredibly funny and welcoming. It is clear through his story and journey that he developed an optimistic and supportive attitude. 

Unrelated to Joe, I want to take a moment to talk about the work it takes to run this channel. Most of the work is the editing of the episodes. Some take a long time, especially if I need to take time to transcribe/translate subtitles, or if the interview went for too long and I need to figure out what to trim, or if I need to do more research on my subject and add b-roll, I feel like I need to add segments about the history etc., and the research about it. And all in all, it can take about 1.5 weeks. Which is a lot for a channel where I release episodes about once every 2 weeks, and this is just a hobby. 

However, for this episode, although being a 30+ minute episode, it was one of the fastest episodes to edit, because it had none of those things I described above. Joe was a great and natural conversationalist; there were no additional segments I needed to add, and in part due to his situation, he really had no younger photos or other presence online to add for B-roll. So, I was pretty much able to edit this whole episode in less than 2 days. 

The last thing to say is a recommendation for you to check out a talk Joe did in 2017, when he shares about his journey, with a focus on the mental health aspect, and he performs his song: https://youtu.be/Hifsa1wybQI?si=SuV1KMhMrChtORkc&t=493