Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany Traveler, Kipp Matalucci
Check out the full episode here:
Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany Traveler, Kipp Matalucci
A German language teacher has traveled all over the world including: Germany,
Austria, trance, Switzerland, The Soviet Union, Canada, Tallinn, Soviet Georgia,
Crimea, England, Ukraine, Cuba, Norway, Argentina, and Peru!
Kipp got the privilege as an American during the Cold War to travel to East
Germany, Soviet Union, and has even been to Cuba. He graduated from Penns Grove
High School in Penns Grove, NJ. The same high school that Bruce Willis graduated
from, but 4 years later.
When Kipp got to take a trip to Germany with a high school german teacher, he
figured out that he wanted to do something with languages. On that trip, he got
to spend an afternoon in East Berlin which was a life changing experience for
him.
He went on to spend 34 years teaching German at Gateway Regional High School in
Woodbury Heights, NJ. He also spent 8 years there teaching students Russian
during the the height of the Gorbachev years in the Soviet Union. Which worked
out great for him because he got to take a year off from teaching while on
sabbatical from his teaching duties. Kipp spent that year in the Soviet Union
studying Russian language, and even found himself working for NBC translating
for The Reagan-Gorbachev Cold War Summit.
Kipp was fortunate enough while over in the Soviet Union to get invited to a
party hosted by Tom Brokaw, getting to hang out with many other celebrity
reporters during that time.
Fear of the unknown isn’t something that Kipp lets bother him. He feels that if
he did, he would have never gone or done anything in his life. I think it is
really important for all of my dreamers to take on fear of the unknown head on.
Buy Noel Coward’s Why Do The Wrong People Travel?
Episode 39
Transcription
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this is the dreamers podcast where
dreamers shared their stories to inspire
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you
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now join host Joe Pardo as he interviews
a dreamer who’s living their dreams
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ok
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yeah
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welcome to the dreamers podcast I’m your
host Joe Pardo and today I’m
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interviewing Kip matter looky who is
living his dream through travel language
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study and theater
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welcome to the show clip I’m going to be
here it’s very nice job
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well thank you i appreciate you coming
out to the studio well we could start by
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giving some background by yourself
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ok i’m from Penn Square New Jersey race
in Penns Grove and graduated from very
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high in 1969 a pen scrolls claim to fame
is that Bruce Willis also graduated from
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rehi he was he’s four years younger than
I am so I can’t say that I know really
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hung out with them too often anyway
that’s so we’re graduating high school
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and then I went to wake forest
university north west salem with
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carolina and got a degree in German in
1973 and fell in love with languages
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when I took a trip to germany in 1967
with my high school teacher from of them
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with languages and travel and I was
pretty sure when I got back from Germany
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that summer of 67 that I wanted to do
something with languages and it turned
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out that teaching would be the thing
that I would do spent 34 years teaching
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a gateway Regional High School German I