The Mango Times

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! A train platform in Bath, England is not where you expect a midlife pep talk to hit, but that’s exactly what happens. Between rolling luggage and incoming rain, I ask the listeners “Where are you traveling next?” You’ll also hear the behind-the-scenes truth of running an interview podcast: sometimes the feed goes quiet because the pipeline runs out. So we’re turnin...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Sherry McIntyre on Reinvention and Retirement. A single vote can erase a program overnight, even if it shaped a whole community for decades. That’s what happened to Sherry McIntyre, a Modesto, California teacher who spent 25 years teaching a World Religions class that was required for graduation in public school, a “first and only” experiment in religious literacy...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! He didn’t just switch jobs, he switched directions. One day Tyrean Lewis is teaching PE and mentoring kids in St. Louis. A few turns later he’s managing teams, trying to “do the responsible thing,” and still feeling that internal pull that says, this isn’t it. Then food becomes the wake-up call. After a year of eating vegan and chasing healthier options, Tyrean sta...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Most people say they want more community. Will and Paula DeBoard actually built it...one shelf at a time...by opening Bookish Modesto , an independent bookstore in Modesto, California, at a time when most people think bookstores are disappearing. During this interview, I kept coming back to the same idea: books don’t just sell stories. They create an environment wh...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! This bonus episode of The Mango Times Podcast comes from an interview I recently had with Kevin Delaney. During the interview, he asked about the origin of The Mango Times. I kept it simple and pulled that audio to make a simple episode for my listeners. This bonus drop is the raw origin story, pulled straight from a conversation and left unpolished on purpose. Fro...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! A 2,200-mile canoe trip sounds like the wild part, until you hear what Dave Conway walked away from to get on the water. After nearly 40 years in the same role at the same church, Dave hits the midlife moment a lot of people quietly fear: the life you built no longer fits, and staying comfortable starts to feel like losing yourself. What follows is not a tidy “rein...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Kevin Delaney on Living Life Intentionally He was once given 24 hours to live. Eighteen years later, Kevin Delaney is still using that moment as fuel, not fear and his story will make you rethink what “prime” really means in midlife. Kevin and I go back to the Bay Area in the 1980s, long before he chased rock-and-roll dreams, worked in nonprofit ministry, and event...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Some dreams don’t explode into your life—they sneak in, click by click, until you realize they’ve become part of who you are. On this episode, I sit down with artisan pipe carver Kraig Sederquist to explore the exact moment a hobby stops being “harmless” and starts shaping your identity.  From a first lumpy pipe in 2012 to a disciplined, detail-driven craft built o...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Sometimes the door you’d never choose is the one that finally opens. Today I sit down with marriage and family therapist Chris Oneth to unpack a gritty pivot: from high school dropout to beloved history teacher… to therapist after a career-ending reset. The move into therapy came with both fear and strange confirmation. An old wedding announcement resurfaced where...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! What if the second half of life could be louder, braver, and more generous than the first? We sit down with longtime friend and educator Pete Swanberg to trace a path from elementary classrooms and adapted PE to founding an international special needs sports collective that brings inclusion to life through play.  This is a story about living in crescendo ...choosin...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! If resilience had a passport, it would look a lot like Dr. Erica Conway’s . In this episode, we sit with a dentist, mother of three, breast cancer survivor, and unapologetic advocate to explore how midlife can become a launchpad for meaningful adventure . From trekking Peru’s Salcantay Pass at 15,300 feet to the blisters of the Camino de Santiago, Erica shows how a...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! The itch isn’t a meltdown. It’s a message. We kick off Season 6 of The Mango Times by naming the midlife feeling many of us carry but rarely say out loud. Therapist and fellow motocycler Chris Oneth joins me to unpack what people casually call a “midlife crisis”—where it comes from, why it shows up, and why it might be less about blowing things up and more about wa...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Happy New Year and Welcome to Season 6 of The Mango Times Podcast.  This year’s theme is Adventure at Midlife — the journey of waking up, rethinking life, laughing more, exploring deeper, and discovering that the second half might be the best half.  Join Fletch for conversations, stories, road notes, porch wisdom, and a few surprises, including new interviews and f...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! It’s the final Mango Bite — and the final show of the season. As a little gift for your Christmas week, I reached back out to all of the guests from 2025 (plus a few new A.I. friends) and brought everyone together for a reunion reading of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Also… happy 95th birthday to PopPop. 🎄 ⸻ Guest Information Everyone is a guest on this episod...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! For the month of December, The Mango Times podcast is taking a breather while I gear up for Season 6. In the meantime, I’m sharing weekly Mango Bites — small, meaningful moments pulled from the early days of the show. So… what if the draw isn’t the nicotine, but the quiet? In this focused Mango Bite, I revisit pipe smoking as a deliberate ritual, not a race to the...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! For the month of December, The Mango Times podcast is taking a breather while I gear up for Season 6. In the meantime, I’m sharing weekly Mango Bites — small, meaningful moments pulled from the early days of the show. For the second week, this Mango Bite comes from Episode 13 where I sat down with my favorite guest, my wife Kendra.  We revisit a powerful conversati...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! For the month of December, The Mango Times podcast is taking a breather while I gear up for Season 6. In the meantime, I’m sharing weekly Mango Bites — small, meaningful moments pulled from the early days of the show. This first Mango Bite comes from way back in Season 1, Episode 4 — a conversation with my friend James Estes about taking on a 100-day creative chall...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! It all started in Hoopa, California. A tiny motel, a dial-up connection, and a young guy who thought it might be fun to write down a few stories from his life on the Trinity River. That set off a 30-year chain reaction: a monthly family update grew into a website, a blog with running bits, and eventually a podcast that found an audience by telling the truth with a...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! The spark came back. After years of stop‑start attempts, grief, and a creative blackout, we rebuilt a season anchored in adventure—small, daily acts of courage and a few big ones too. From a solo motorcycle ride to Montana to quiet porch conversations with Pop, this year was about sticking with the craft, telling better stories, and letting a community shape the mi...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Did you ever wish you were a little braver, a little sillier, and a lot more present?  On this episode, Fletch is joined in the studio by Isaac Gross and Tara Rico from ModPlayers Improv for a conversation about adventure, creativity, and the fine art of being silly. Together they talk about saying yes, and, taking risks, creating characters, and finding freedom in...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! What if a book could be the nudge that gets you on a motorcycle, into a canoe, or across the ice? Join Fletch on the porch as he sits down with Pop to grab their TOP 5 FAVORITE dog-eared adventure books. These are the stories that make you want to lace up your boots or shove off from shore. These aren’t just stories of survival. They’re roadmaps for grit, leadershi...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Could you walk for 12 hours straight with no phone, no music, and no distractions? That's exactly what I'm planning to do this Sunday, October 5th, 2025 to celebrate my 57th birthday, and I'm inviting you along for the journey – metaphorically speaking. After listening to an interview with Colin O'Brady on The Next Big Idea Podcast , I was capti...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! Have you ever wondered if a childhood dream could still shape your life decades later? My journey began at age seven, sitting in a beanbag chair with a book about a teenager who sailed around the world alone. That story planted seeds of adventure that would eventually lead me to a motorcycle, thousands of miles of open road, and remarkably, to the front porch of th...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! In this episode, Fletch takes you along on his solo motorcycle ride to Montana — the first leg of The Second Half Ride . From Modesto through mountain passes and high desert to Big Sky country, this ride was more than miles; it was a search for clarity, adventure, and what it means to step into the second half of life. Buckle up (or helmet on) for stories from the...

Send Fletch a Voicemail or Text! How do you turn a life of big adventure into lasting impact? In this episode, I talk with my longtime friend Tom Slater , who’s climbed rocks with routes that bear his name, surfed all over California, skated with style, and then turned his attention toward building things — for others . Tom shares his journey from physical adventure to community creation: from co-...