Preserving Italian Heritage: A Deep Dive into the Lowellville Italian Festival and Beyond

Get ready to immerse yourself in the vibrant and fascinating world of Italian culture, as we take you on a journey to the Mount Carmel Club in Lowellville, Ohio. Back on the show for the third year running, Zach Harklerode and his crew will be your guides, sharing the rich traditions of the Lowellville Italian Festival and the meticulous planning behind the Italian Heritage Festival in Ohio. From the intriguing baby-doll dance to the brilliant fireworks, each detail paints a picture of a community dedicated to preserving their rich heritage.

We discuss the challenges of the past year and how the Mount Carmel Club, together with the local community, the state of Ohio, and the police force, banded together to ensure the continuity of these cherished celebrations. But there's more to this episode than just the festivals. We also shed some light on the upcoming documentary about the Italian Heritage Festival and Zach's exciting plans to host a live podcast from the festival. All in all, this episode is an intoxicating mix of culture, community, and the unyielding spirit of the Mount Carmel Club. Whether you have Italian roots or not, we promise this episode will leave you feeling a part of this vibrant cultural tapestry.

Stupid Should Hurt 
Link to my Merch store the Stupid Should Hurt Line!

Reaper Apparel
Reaper Apparel Co was built for those who refuse to die slowly! Reaper isn't just clothing it’s a lifestyle!

Subscribe for exclusive content: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1530455/support

Tactical Brotherhood
The Tactical Brotherhood is a movement to support America.

Dubby Energy
FROM GAMERS TO GYM JUNKIES TO ENTREPRENEURS, OUR PRODUCT IS FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO BE BETTER.

Shankitgolf
Our goal here at Shankitgolf is for everyone to have a great time on and off the golf course

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:18

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ride Home Rants podcast. This is, as always, your host, mike Bono. I got a great episode for us today. It is becoming an annual tradition for us to be doing this. I am so happy to have these guys back on here From the Mount Carmel Club in Lowville. We are going to be talking to Zach I'm going to butcher his last name, hardlicker, and his couple of his buddies. We're going to let them introduce themselves here. We're going to be talking all about the Lowville Italian Festival coming up here in July. So, zach, if you want to take it away, go ahead and introduce the guys that you got with you this time.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Yeah, cool, zach, harkel Road. It's kind of like a street name Bono for your street, harkel Road. I got my vice president, raymond Carlson, over here, and I got our recording secretary, michael Romeo, hanging out in the back with us as well.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Nothing like getting to talk to a bunch of pizons. I love these type of episodes for sure.

Speaker 2: 3:29

I have a better name than recording secretary.

Speaker 1: 3:31

That's what you're getting. That's what we're rolling with now. It's going to be rolling with it forever. We're recording. Secretary.

Speaker 3: 3:41

I'm getting a choice.

Speaker 1: 3:42

I didn't either The third year in a row, we've gotten to do this for you guys here for the festival, so talk a little bit about the history of the festival, zach, if you want to answer that, or whoever knows more about the festival, go ahead and tell us a little bit more about the festival for the new listeners out there.

Speaker 2: 4:02

Yeah. So I'll let Michael jump in here in a little bit because he's probably got the most festival experience out of the group. But as far as the history of it goes, the society is 120 years old this year The Social Club in the United States And every year we've been here we've had some version of the festival. So it's a real opportunity for the whole town to get together and for us to celebrate a little bit of our time heritage, a little bit of our, you know, mixed with a little bit of middle of nowhere Ohio lifestyle with, you know, just street fair. It's a real event. Like I said, it's been going on since about before being Michael you were around. Yeah, i mean so 1895 it started. But you know some of the historians have said that two years prior to that they were having like a gathering around 16th of July, you know, and it really kind of turned into okay, the Marcos Society was formed in 1895, and they would use the houses around here and they would do. You know the vendors were people cooking out of their kitchen. We see a lot of that when we go to Italy and stuff. And you know it turned into what we've always been known for our fireworks. I mean as far back as the early 1910s, they were shooting some sort of form of fireworks off. So the big thing was, a couple years in they started baby-dolting dance And honestly, if you haven't seen the baby-dolting dance, i can't explain it without you thinking it's terrifying.

Speaker 3: 5:38

So it is terrifying when you see it Like from the outside it is terrifying. It's a real serious thing because you we have to watch it every year to ward off the evil spirits. Yes, that makes any sense. Like it's, it's, it's not hey fireworks on a baby-doll. You know it's like, oh, that's cool, it's. We feel a certain way about it that it's our new year. We know when, yeah, when it's a new slate, new year. Everything that we did in the past is is gone, forgot about Let's, let's start it off right.

Speaker 1: 6:09

I mean, we're drunk at the time We started off with a hangover. That's the only way to start over is with a hangover. You know it's the only way to get all those demons out of you. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 6:26

There's a class at YSU that that this was the topic for the first two days professional ethics with Gabriel Palmer. He's talking about how do you separate tradition from man? He's like there's this baby-doll. My wife's arm catches on fire and people are cheering, not putting it out cheering. It's an honor to get burned by the baby-doll. We've all been burned. You have to get burned by the baby-doll.

Speaker 3: 6:48

Oh, man, everyone's been burned. But I mean that opens up a new thing where it's tough now because it's a different age than when what they used to do back in the day You know, father DeWish put it perfectly in a homily that he did maybe two years ago Like back in the day, mike, it was, i mean it still is but it started as a celebration of life. They came over on a boat. Our ancestors, our grandparents came over on a boat from Italy. The travel time, the rough seas, and they got to get here and they have jobs And the festival was a celebration of life the fireworks, a new year, a new start. So trying to keep that mentality alive in today's generation is really what we're just trying to do.

Speaker 1: 7:28

That's awesome. I say this every year. My schedule just hasn't been able to allow me to come to the festival is you know? I got to make it out to this festival And I'm hoping my schedule will allow it this year. I'm going to try to make it to see this baby-doll, because you guys keep talking about it and I have to see this baby-doll and these fireworks. It sounds phenomenal.

Speaker 3: 7:48

But yeah, I can see it. You can see all the evil spirits, You right now you got to ward them off All the evil spirits, they're all, they're everywhere.

Speaker 1: 7:59

The charms are only taking me so far. I got the Malook and the Italian bullhorn that never come off and they're just. It's not enough. Yeah, i'm sure, yeah, i'm sure everyone has that. You mentioned it, you know, and the tradition about it. And is that what really? what you're trying to bring out in the festival is just highlighting the traditions or is it just more of the celebration of the Italian culture?

Speaker 2: 8:30

So it's kind of both, because the festival is made up of two kind of completely separate things. Sometimes they overlap depending on the calendar, but basically it's July 16th, which is the feast day, the Our Lady of the Holy Mount Carmel Day. That's our celebration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, of the Virgin Mother of. You know, that's our religious, our Italian celebration of. It was really two and one. You know, this celebration It's always around that 16th, like that's our main focus. That's when all the membership you know we proceed to church as a group, you know we proceed through town and that's like the first main part of it. The festival falls typically around that. So, like this year, for example, the 16th is on a Sunday. So on Sunday, the 16th, that's when we're going to have our more traditional based celebration. You know we'll do the red wine, we'll wear our colors, we'll proceed to mass, we'll go through town And then following that is when we'll actually have the festival, which is more of the celebration of life. Everyone's here to have a good time. It's when family comes in from out of town. It's when, you know, at least in our community I would say, 90% of class reunions take place during the week of the festival, because people are going to be in town anyway. So there's going to be people celebrating 10 year, 15 year, 20 year 50 year class reunions during that time. So it's a good mix of both.

Speaker 1: 10:02

You know, we highlight the traditions but also we want to make sure that you know, even if you're not a member of the club, not a member of the community, not a not Italian, not Catholic there's.

Speaker 2: 10:12

You know, it's still a great time and it's still a good food, fireworks, band entertainment.

Speaker 3: 10:17

You know Mark Carmel band, another pillar, you know. You have the baby doll. You have the fireworks. You have church, the our scene that we marched through, processed through the village. But we also have the Mark Carmel band. That has been, you know, one of the three or four pillars that makes up the Mark Carmel Society. In this festival They play every night. You know old Italians who used to, everyone, used to play instruments back in the day, old old men, old women. You know Clarenette saxophone and they still keep on that tradition, you know to this day, which is, you know, like I said, another pillar of this. You know community in this club. You know it goes back to like. We've been lucky enough to go to Italy a lot and I have family there.

Speaker 2: 10:59

We have family Very simple, i mean ideal situation. We were able to go see the baby doll. Remember going over the first time.

Speaker 3: 11:08

Like in all the similarities, with the band like, oh my God, there's a band.

Speaker 2: 11:11

there's this And seeing how they cook out of houses. you know, we can tell you every vendor that is here There's, i mean, these vendors have been vendors for 20 years, 30 years on it, some of them. you know baruso sausage and the Chinese stand. So it's even on my house 50, 60 hundred years you know, you know they've been here baruso sausage started across the street. That's a huge sausage brand And they're here every year. And it's crazy because when we went to Italy, we got there and it was like wow, like the only thing we're missing. Here is the light screen, but it really brought me back and appreciating it more. The tradition, yes, but like bringing the community together. I mean I hope not a rough year. you know, it was a couple of crazy events.

Speaker 3: 11:57

So it's all together. Yeah, yeah, COVID too.

Speaker 1: 12:01

Yeah, that was going to bring me to my next point. You know the past two years we've done this show for you guys and you know the festivals happened through COVID. So what was that like for the festival itself Because I know it's a big gathering Nobody was allowed to gather, supposedly in all that fun stuff that happened with COVID. So what was that like trying to get through the standards?

Speaker 2: 12:24

Our board and stuff. they were on the board before me. They did such a good job of migrating it. I mean, obviously we weren't allowed to have a gathering, so you know, they came up with a plan that like, hey, we have to celebrate the 16th, like our, you know 16, 17 years, No matter what we weren't. We were told we weren't allowed to advertise it. If we posted it we were getting shut down. We all pitched in and did a baby doll. We weren't allowed to tell anybody about it, So we didn't have really a band We played.

Speaker 3: 12:51

I played a band. Yeah, bobby, you should have something to say. I came to your place, we didn't have a band.

Speaker 2: 12:57

We had a baby doll that was going to shoot fireworks. We weren't allowed to tell anybody. So what we were doing was we were like, oh yeah, we're having a cookout, come on over on the 16th, but we weren't telling anybody. We went to church, we did our stuff, we never told anybody, and then it just blew up like wildfire. We had a baby doll. That was unannounced And we continued that tradition. I mean, we still cooked food?

Speaker 3: 13:18

We still never did. We still had a kitchen with this famous, world-renowned bologna sandwiches.

Speaker 2: 13:23

But the board that we had these guys were on it without that, 2020 year could have killed this place And a lot of people that weren't on the board stepped up and we did some things. But what they did in 2020 set us up for the things we did here in the last couple of years And it's just beautiful.

Speaker 3: 13:41

It shows the love for this place And it was a resiliency too for the, just the traditions in general.

Speaker 2: 13:46

Yeah, we were one of the very lucky ones through COVID. Looking back on it, you know we were in the middle of it and we're like, hey, we got to cancel this tradition. I mean we had to cancel the four days we had the. You know the vendors couldn't come down But, like Mike said, we made it work. And, looking back on it, i say we were fortunate through it because you know we still could have something to keep it going. But also there's a lot of festivals and other places around here that don't do their stuff anymore. You know 2020 was a year where you know you lose. You know you lost the. You lost some organizations that just they stopped having their festival and now they couldn't bring it back. So we were lucky enough to have the support to be able to put something on and to host other events throughout the year. You know more virtual events, more just fundraiser type things to allow us to get through that year. And now, quite honestly, this will probably be, i mean, as far as vendors go, this is the most vendors we've ever had at our festival. It's probably going to be the most blocky teams we've had at a festival, the most mora teams we've had at a festival I don't want to call it the biggest because we only have so much space, but it has the potential to be our largest gathering so far And we're just grateful that we got through the last few years and we're at that.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Yeah, that's awesome because I know my hometown has. It's not like the Italian festival, they call it community days back home in West Virginia. But it's kind of like what you guys are doing big vendors, music, everybody, the entire town goes to it and it just brings everybody together and then they have their fireworks display at the end of it, given not off of a baby doll, which I'm going to highly start to recommend because it's a little small Italian town in West Virginia, so we need to bring that. But yeah, they didn't get to do their community days during COVID and it almost killed it. It almost brought that away. I'm 34 and I can't remember a time when there wasn't community days down in Fallons Bay and they're lucky enough to have it again this year And you know it's tough. I mean, covid really hurt a lot of things. I'm glad to see that you guys are pushing through that and you made it work and keeping the tradition and that. So like, how long does it take in advance to plan this festival for you guys?

Speaker 3: 16:15

Are you already working on next?

Speaker 1: 16:16

year, like what are we doing?

Speaker 2: 16:19

I can answer that for you. So the festival, it's subsequently at the same time it's the hardest event to plan and the easiest event. The reason I say that is it's a lot of the same stuff. You know, we start sending out our vendor letters and not so much applications, because they all come back every year It's more. So hey, here's your contract. We start sending those out the beginning part of the year And so I would say it's a. You could say it's a seven month planning period, but realistically it's a culmination of a hundred plus years of just having it down pat. You know, every year we got to make sure we get our permits correct, we got to make sure we get the fireworks done, we got to make sure we get the porta-potties and the ice and the road closed. And you know, we get our advertisements. You get our bachi planned. There's a lot that goes into it and it's daunting at times and I'm still now sitting here. I'm pretty sure we have it all planned out, but I keep having this feeling that there's one thing that I'm forgetting. But it's a pretty big lift. I mean it takes, i mean it really does take the whole membership, the village, the community. I mean it takes. You know, for example, we'll have the spaghetti dinner going. The spaghetti dinner is basically ran by our women's auxiliary. You know, we couldn't have our spaghetti dinner if it wasn't for them. We can't have the festival if it's not for the police force around here agreeing to work secured. We can't have the festival if the village doesn't agree to let us block off the road. We can't have anything if the state of Ohio doesn't give us a special liquor permit. I mean, there's a lot of things to do but it all does come together pretty good because we've been doing it for so long. And you know I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Dave Gagliano, who was our past president. He gets on my nerves an awful lot but he's been a pretty big help when it comes to you know, because he did it for four years. So he's been able to kind of guide like hey, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget. So next year should run a little smoother. But so far so good and we've got just about every box check that we need checked, so we're in good shape. It really was a week after the festival because, like the week, the immediate week after the festival, we don't want to talk about the festival, we don't want to be down here Like we're burned out, especially like our quarter. Then it was like 10 days later we were like so next year, we're sitting on the deck over here.

Speaker 3: 18:58

We're like next year we're going to do this and two years away, for 130.

Speaker 2: 19:02

And, like you know, it's always on our mind but you know it's, it's. We have a great group of people that are like our core group, that just step up when they need to. We can't have a blast together.

Speaker 3: 19:16

Oh, dude, i have so much fun down there doing it. I mean it's work, but at the same time, you know, we're just trying to keep our Italian heritage alive. You know, having a good time, it really does. You know, during the festival I always tried to take a trip like around the rise and like round the kiddie park, you know, and see the kids jump on the carousel. We're like, you know, like that was awesome. It's so rewarding to see my mom and have a good time and all the smiles watching court, you know it's some for me.

Speaker 2: 19:48

it's coming across the bridge and their kids are trying to run across the train tracks And it's like, why, why, why do we do it?

Speaker 3: 19:55

And then, the week leading up to the festival, calling off for it, taking vacation time, you know to come down here and slay away And you're like man, why do we do this every year? You? know within the festival comes and you see the kids and you see everyone having a good time celebrating life And you're like that's why it makes it all worth it.

Speaker 2: 20:13

It really does.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Not even close to being on the same spectrum. But you know that's how I feel with comedy. You know you have the preparation to getting leading up to shows and it's just like why the hell do I put myself through this every freaking week and every month doing these shows and putting this stuff together and new sets and trying to prepare for different venues and everything like that. But it's you see the laughter and you see the joy that that that brings people and that ties it all back together and makes it all worth it.

Speaker 3: 20:49

You got to keep reminding yourself that like this is why.

Speaker 1: 20:52

That's why that's why that smile over there, that little kid in the winter with a lot of water.

Speaker 3: 20:58

Yeah, we're after a freaking place.

Speaker 2: 21:00

God, you look back and see those guys in the back us that are like God. they keep moving from Italy. They put down the roots during, you know, went through the depression, all the years they went through and never stopped, Makes our yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Yeah, that's awesome, but one thing that I keep thinking of is this big firework display that ends the night off of the baby, like even forgetting the baby doll and everything like that. Like where, where did really the fireworks come from? Is that just the celebration part of it, or is there something along the lines with that big firework display?

Speaker 2: 21:36

They used to do it like there. You've got to think in those days there was no permits or anything, so they would go up on the hill at the end of our festival grounds and just shoot fireworks off. My breaks shattered like, yeah, like, like, like little firecrackers.

Speaker 3: 21:52

Yeah, i mean they did. Like when there was no regulations it is blew it up Car hordes going off like the grandpa Yeah but like that was the thing that they date.

Speaker 2: 22:03

Okay, there's a person that makes sauce and just personally make pizza and pasta and Chinese food. Well, now we're going to go shoot fireworks off and actually, what we said three or four years The baby doll came in three years, it was like two or three years after we started. They were dated. Fireworks. That was a thing. Fireworks have always been a part of it, and other than one year, during Spanish flu and obviously 2020, the Spanish flu and the coronavirus, there was only two years we didn't do fireworks. And you know, and it's crazy because it just shows the you know, think about the Great Depression Nobody had money. The war years, they were having fireworks and that's something that celebrating life, that's something like we're blessed to be part of it. And I told Raymond and Zach last year during the middle of the festival. We were sitting there last night burned out, like want to go home And I was like you remember, when we were kids and we'd see your grandparents or cousins or whoever running this, we'd run the festival.

Speaker 3: 23:00

Run the festival.

Speaker 2: 23:04

Sorry, sorry, we don't yell as much. The fireworks are definitely something that people, you know, at least in the community they really look forward to And even outside. You know we get a lot of people down here on Saturday just for the fireworks. Zambelli, they've been doing them I believe we were their first contract. They've been members And they've been members And they've been part of this club and we've been using them since we've been. You know, ever since they've been around, they've been doing fireworks for us And it shows to them too. So obviously in big corporations you know you have different corporations, do it. Zambelli has been owned by different, you know, family members. Now they're bought by another company. They still go out of their way to accommodate us because that's to be real. The fireworks display that we have and I'm not knocking anybody, don't get mad at Zambelli for me saying this Our fireworks display is second to none. I mean they do presidential shows and stuff We're doing. What we do here rivals any fireworks display in the whole area that I've ever seen.

Speaker 3: 24:12

There's never been an Italy was probably the only one that I ever seen.

Speaker 2: 24:14

But they were blowing things up in our face.

Speaker 3: 24:16

This one was down in Bovali.

Speaker 2: 24:18

Yeah, on the water, Zambelli. You know, I remember as a kid Mr Zambelli eating lunch here. So we do our procession and we have a dinner with cold cut sandwiches and stuff here And we're going to enjoy this life. He even come in. Here's a guy that's doing the president's fireworks play show at the White House. He's sitting over here eating with us, So it's wild. That's amazing, because he had One other thing I want to add Yeah, all these events that we have that Zach puts on and you know Raymond helps with, we all help with, but Zach put on, like his first event was the Derby Day and we were doing Chuck-o-luck. We're doing this thing and, you know, losing three, four bucks in Blackjack may seem like a you know little. My new thing I kept telling people thank you for donation that paid for a half of one of our bombs, half of one of our fireworks. I mean, the inflation is up right now. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:10

Support the check. Supporting that fireworks.

Speaker 1: 25:14

Yeah, that's awesome. You know I love to see the, the festivals like this. Now, have you guys been to any other festivals, to maybe Italian festivals that try to get ideas for your festival, or is you pretty much have your plans set in in stone?

Speaker 2: 25:28

I don't know how to say that.

Speaker 1: 25:31

I don't know how to say it without being here again.

Speaker 2: 25:33

But I mean we do go. We make the circuit we like to support. There's a lot of really great attire in this round. I mean downtown attire in fast, youngstown, mount Carmel, briar Hill, fast I'm sure I'm missing a couple, but they're all really really great festivals. But I would say, you know, i'll put it this way, there's a guy coming in from Italy this year. He's a professor over there. He's from the area originally but he's lived over there for the better part of two decades and his PhD studies basically focused on Italian communities outside of it, these, these folks who immigrated out of the country and settled in. He's coming down this year to shoot a documentary on our festival because he said that it's, you know, in his experience in Italy it's the most authentic to the culture and most resembles what they do over there. So we do our own thing and it's, you know, i think that I would say that people probably take a little bit of what we have to try and make it a little more authentic, and we definitely appreciate it. But there's definitely a reason why we're, you know, the documentary spoke is on our festival. It's, it really is. It really is the closest you're going to get to being over there.

Speaker 3: 26:46

The procession through the village going to church because, mike, at the end of the day, like it all really stems back to the feasts of our Lady of Mark Harman, july 16th every single year. The tradition behind that, marching the saint. That is older than this club, older than the traditions. I came on a boat with them, with with our ancestors, with you know, the entourperone who helped start this club, 130 years old that that saint is, you know. So it's just I mean that tradition similar to you know, when we go over to elite they do the exact same thing you know to a team, like, yeah, we watch the baby doll dance in in Zodiac.

Speaker 2: 27:28

In Zodiac, we watch the baby doll dance and, just like something we would do, they like their baby doll on fire. on the fire They're betting on how long the guy is going to stand in it before he gets to jump out, before he has to throw it on? Yeah, we don't burn actually they burn theirs to the ground and then rebuild it next year. You know like that'd be something like I bet you he's done in two minutes and we'd be growing money. We actually saw the baby on into dog when it was like, wow, let me call it the boom box.

Speaker 1: 28:00

And that's what it is Typical Italians betting on anything. that's, that's what. what, just at two minutes? give me five on two minutes. Yeah, it sounds like something would happen for sure. Yeah, give me two. And it's funny because, you know, my wife and I were two different. I'm full Italian. she's full Irish. We have an entire wall in our living room that is dedicated to the Italian and the Irish heritage and how we came over to America and all the struggles. There's an entire wall with pictures and everything like that and newspaper clippings and everything like that, and I hate to say there's more Italian than Irish. that's what it seems to be. And I tell her now, like you know, she's becoming Italian by association, but there's no way we're going to say that she's Irish. That's just, you know, seeing the traditions and everything like that, it's. it's something like I said, i need to be able to get there and I'm hoping I know we're recording this before, well before the, the festival even happens but I'm really hoping that I can make it out there to see this festival this year. I'm really going to do what I can.

Speaker 2: 29:21

What's holding you back? Are you just a clear schedule? Yeah, we'll take care of it.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Maybe I might actually need that to happen.

Speaker 3: 29:35

You were like wait a minute, isn't the guy?

Speaker 2: 29:36

that's from my podcast, walking into my work.

Speaker 3: 29:40

What are you doing out here? Who's your boss? The Amish? I work for the.

Speaker 1: 29:43

Amish. They should understand the tradition They should. It's mainly the comedy shows that I got a couple that might possibly come into fruition around that time, but nothing's set in stone yet.

Speaker 2: 30:00

So still working through the wonderful We'd love to have you, we'd see behind the scenes, like see what we do every day. We'd love to have you bring your podcast for the for the whole event. We put, like, stadium Wi-Fi throughout the whole thing so we can run our live streams for paachi show, the baby doll show, things that are going on. So if you're able to make it, get a hold of Zach, i'll make sure we hook you up.

Speaker 3: 30:22

Like as far as you know, from anything from the internet that I'll put you in a hotel.

Speaker 2: 30:26

You know we have a nice double tree that I represent, so come in.

Speaker 1: 30:30

That would be awesome. I've been talking with Johnny about this every year that we do this show. It's like you know what I want to do a live show at the festival. That's. That is something that I've been wanting to do since we started having you guys on and promoting this festival in that, and I want, i want to do it with the baby doll fire. That's what my thought process is do the live show but center it around the baby doll and the fireworks. But I can't just do one day. You know, i can't get the whole festival to end.

Speaker 2: 31:06

It's Friday and Saturday because you're getting the craziness of festival Friday on Friday and then the traditions like most low-vill people have parties on the Saturday for the fireworks. They can watch them for months. The people that come on Saturday are a whole different group than are there Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but experience the whole week is definitely amazing too. But Friday and Saturday, if you pulled off, come on down, we'd love to have you.

Speaker 1: 31:31

You know what I'm going to do everything in my power to get down there this year for sure and definitely see this and we'll make a live stream out of it.

Speaker 2: 31:44

We got a comedy club in Youngstown called Funny Farm. They redid it. If you're listening out there, hire him so he can be in town for your show and then be down here for our festival.

Speaker 1: 31:54

Thank you for that. I've been trying to get into the Funny Farm for a while now. Sure, you want to know.

Speaker 2: 32:01

I know the owners, get what's at my number, i'll get you in Funny Farm.

Speaker 1: 32:04

My man, that's what I did here. You might have seen we're down the right now.

Speaker 3: 32:12

No, we're serious though, but you know how to do electrical, get up on that pole and tie the trailer in.

Speaker 1: 32:22

Figure it out. But, guys, we are running down to the end of the episode here. Is there anything about the festival that we haven't talked about, that you want to get out there, and just anything about that, or even just a club in general for you guys?

Speaker 2: 32:39

I guess I'll start and just mainly want to make sure that we get the schedule out there and think that we discussed. This is probably going to come out after our spaghetti dinner, but our spaghetti dinner is going to be on July 9. So it's going to be a little bit earlier than usual this year. Normally the line's a little bit closer, but we're going to have our celebratory pre-festival spaghetti dinner July 9. Then we'll roll into our feast day. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Day is going to be July 16th. As always, on Sunday We'll have Mass at 11. And that rolls us into our festival. Wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday We started six o'clock every night. If you want to come down Wednesday, thursday I would say is probably our best show. It's a little bit more kid friendly. So anyone out there who wants to bring the kids down we got rides, we'll have games, we'll have. We got a lot of stuff for everyone to do. Bought to be going on every night. We'll have the Moira Tournament going on Friday night with our DNA, a very popular local band down here. The drummer actually dances the baby doll now. So Friday night will be a big night. That'll be the last night of the baby doll. We typically do that Wednesday, thursday, friday And then Saturday. We'll kick off, like I said, six o'clock And our fireworks show normally goes off sometime between 11.30 and midnight. So I just wanted to make sure we went through the schedule and you know, come on down And if you see me, my name's Zach. Ask anyone, they'll know who you're talking about. First, beer's on me. Everybody's coming at me. My little tip real quick enjoy the time with your family. You never know, it's been a crazy couple of weeks, but the family is it. Bring your family down here, enjoy it. Enjoy the moments with your family.

Speaker 1: 34:19

That that I don't know a better way to end the episode. Honestly, i'm actually kind of mad I got to do sponsorship reasons. But yeah, very well said, i love it when there's a good message like that to end the show. That's that really is how I love to end the show. I love it to help you guys out and promote the festival and all that and get the schedule out there and everything like that And the message like that is really I love it when the show ends like that and this hurts to do, but you know that's going to do it for this week's episode of the Ride Home Rans podcast. Be sure to peep all of the sponsors that you heard at the beginning of the episode. That is going to be Tactical Brotherhood. Part of every pro sheet goes to helping military veterans and everything like that. Use the promo code PATRIOT15, get yourself 15% off of your purchase And if you're a paper apparel, that promo code will be MikeBono gets you 10% off. We have two new sponsors. That is W Energy Energy drinks made for gamers, streamers, podcasters alike. No jitters. It has actually replaced my morning coffee and monster that I have in the morning and it is phenomenal. I don't have any crash or anything like that. Also, by far my favorite sponsor that we have, and that is Shankit Golf Golf apparel made for the everyday golfer Guys that aren't going to go out and shoot a six under but we might shoot a six over, but we're going to have the apparel to rock it on and off the course. Use the promo code MikeBono and get yourself 10% off of that as well. I want to thank the guys here at Mt Carmel Italian Club there Zach, mike and Ray. Thank you guys so much for coming on. This was a lot of fun. I love talking about this festival every year. As always, if you enjoyed the show, be a friend, tell a friend. If you didn't tell them anyways, they might like it just because you didn't. I'm going to do it for me and I will see y'all next week.