Malcolm Gladwell

For our Guns series, about a guy living on an old plantation outside of Tuskegee.

Season 10, we went to Scottsboro, Alabama for an episode of our 1936 Olympic series.

And we just did the Alabama Murders, a seven-part series about crime and punishment and redemption set in a little town in northwestern Alabama.

Ben and I went twice.

Ben went a third time on his own.

No one loves Alabama.

more than I love Alabama.

So in the middle of COVID, I want to do a story about how dogs are much better at detecting COVID than even the most sophisticated molecular bioassay.

And I find out that one of the biggest COVID canine training centers is an hour's drive from Birmingham, way up in the hills.

Alabama.

Cute puppies.

Viral epidemics.

My feeling was that this might be the perfect revisionist history story.

Since we're talking about my parents, one of my fondest memories of being a kid is driving with my family somewhere and clearly getting hopelessly lost.

And my father announcing gleefully from the front seat, I'm following my nose.

I felt that my young producers deserved a similar experience.

In fairness to me and Jacob, Eloise had been sitting in the back seat, and she is by nature quiet as a church mouse, so it makes sense that we might assume that she was back there all the time, reading a book or something.

And it did not take that long for us to realize our mistake, maybe 10 miles max.

And in the frantic drive back, both Jacob and I felt really, really guilty.

Anyway, why am I telling you this story?