No guests. More Random Chatter. Happy Easter!
And Welcome back to the Kindness Chronicles. This is our Easter, uh, uh, our Easter show. Happy Easter. Happy Easter. Oh, I forgot to say the part about giving the world a dose of the Minnesota nice that it desperately needs. And who are we? And we are You didn't announce us, uh, you don't do that anymore. We are, um, Steve Brown. Hi Steve. Hi. Kevin Gorg. Hello Kevin. Hello. And I am John Schweitz, the only person who's not a rock star out of this group. how are you guys? Good. Are you done shoveling? Yes, I'm, I'm, I'm done with a couple times. The small portion of winter that we had, uh, that was, that was enough. It's the end of March. I'm done. I'm putting all the stuff away. Yeah. If it snows, it snows. Yep. Could snow until May. Yep. Whatever. Well, happy, uh, Easter week. Yeah. It is good Friday. Yes, it is. It is. It is Friday and it's a great Friday. Well, and listen, it's a big weekend. Um, again, Easter, wouldn't you guys say, I don't know how you guys look at the calendar, but yeah, Thanksgiving and Christmas kind of up top, I would say Easter's probably what third line. Easter's a big one. Christmas is, you know, the, There's a lot of fanfare around Christmas. It's a lot of buildup. Easter doesn't have quite the, uh, it doesn't. Here's how I would describe it. We probably have 12 totes of Christmas decorations in our, uh, basement. Okay. That's how you gauge it by the, and maybe one tote of Easter. There you go. That tells it all right. Isn't real nice. No, you know what I mean? Not for a Catholic, right? Right. I mean, the whole point of Easter. You should have the Stations of the Cross in that tote and put them up every year. There should be, absolutely. Speaking of churches, I went to my cousin's son's baptism at this beautiful church in Stillwater. St. Mary's. You ever been to St. Mary's? I think I have, yeah. What a gorgeous church that is. It's kind of right, kinda up on the hill. Up on the hill, so there's St. Mike's and then there's St. I think I've been to a wedding there too. It's older and really nice. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. I don't know why I brought that up but, uh, I just wanted people to know that I was in church. You were in a church. Well done, John. Pray for me. Um, so we've been doing these, uh, these holiday shows And I just want to ask, uh, is there Easter traditions that you guys are involved in? KG, you go first. Well, we usually gather at my, uh, at my parents house and like you said, John, it's a little more low key. Um, like Thanksgiving, you're not worried about a big, long list of presents to get and making sure you strike the right chord here and there. Yeah, it's a lot less expensive, that's for sure. For sure. And you know, I, I love the hard boiled eggs. I do enjoy some good ham, some cheesy potatoes. So, I mean, no, it's, it's a, it's an enjoyable holiday. We know that there's a lot of meaning behind it. And you know, it's, it's just more laid back like Christmas. There's a set time, you know, there's a dinner time. And for Easter, we just, my folks just have kind of an open house all day coming. Come and go as you please. We're, you know, work on your schedule and yeah, it's, it's enjoyable. And usually the weather's nice. I don't think that's going to be the case this year, but, um, you know, again, it's, uh, I, I, it's probably third on the packing list for me. Thanksgiving for me is one. Um, I love Christmas too, but I mean, I love Turkey day, the football, the, the feedback and the movie, as we've talked about on this podcast before is second to none. But no, I, I, I enjoy Easter and, you know, grew up going to Catholic school, so I know about, um, the meaning behind it God, I would hope so. Well, yeah. We get it. I have a great Easter story from last year that's, I think, worth, worth sharing. Let's hear it. So Something about you not liking eggs. I didn't know you didn't like eggs. Oh, God. Hard boiled eggs. Ick. It's good. Oh, my God. Disgusting. Just the smell, the ugh. Can we What's your story? Oh, God. I'm gonna gag. What's your story? Um, so my wife is a Lutheran. I am a Catholic. I know it's a mixed marriage. And, uh, at a Catholic, education facility. So last year she said, you know, I think we should do Easter Vigil this year. And I was like, whoa, okay. Wow, and I hadn't done Easter Vigil in a long time and if you've ever gone to the Easter Vigil This is a Lutheran thing because I don't really even know what you mean by that just Easter Church. No Easter Vigil. What's the vigil? Oh, no Pray for him. I'm not a Lutheran. No, it's Catholic What is the I don't know that is that just church go to Matt go to Easter mass. It's it's the ceremony It's done Saturday night It's the long, extended, yeah, so, I've been there. So, you didn't know it was called Easter Vigil. I might have to cut those out. Somebody wants to go to this on purpose? So, listen. She had no idea what Easter Vigil was. She thought that Easter Vigil, Was just like a regular Easter mass, but it was, so we're about two hours into this thing. Keep in mind, we got stuff in the oven. This is on Saturday night before Easter last year. And about two hours into it, she looks at me and she goes, I think we're in over our head. And I go, what do you mean? The religious said, how long is this, this mass? And I said, it's Easter vigil. It's probably like three hours. Why wouldn't you tell me that? And I'm like, well, I thought that you knew that this was what Easter Vigil was. I didn't even know that. Apparently. I've been to some long masses, though. Tell me. So this is the one where they do all of the, the, the recitation. The Stations of the Cross, and yeah. No, they don't do the Stations of the Cross at this one, but they do the recitation. They do that on Good Friday. Oh, right. Yeah, that's a build up. Right. But the, they, they recite all of the saints and you know, this is the same blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Pray for us. You know that whole thing. Yes. And it goes on and on and on. And finally she looked at me and she said, how many saints are there? Yeah. So there's a whole bunch. Yeah. So she ended up sulking. I think she feigned like a cough. Oh, yeah. And she started to cough. And the only two people that survived were me and Riley. Me and Riley hung in there. You made up the whole thing. Almost the whole thing. So she left to get the food. She left. I'm concerned about the food. Yeah That's where her head was at but like her mother was there. Is this st. Jude's or where were you? This is st Jude's, okay Okay, that's that that makes sense because you're not that far really from your home And the weather was nice, you know, you could just walk across the street and walk home But yeah, that was a very funny easter easter vigil. So I said to her this year I go She's like when are we gonna go to church? And I said You Well, you know, Easter Vigil's always an option. And she said, yeah, I don't think we're going to do that again. Um, you said weather, so let me, let me tell you what my little thing with Easter is. Um, this is weird this year that it's so early. It is early. And it's still, you know, we're still feeling the remnants of winter and all that. Well, that's for sure. Um, I remember as a kid, it was, I always felt like Easter really was new life. Yeah. Spring beginning. And yeah, there was grass. There were, but yeah, we, and we, we always went to my grandma's, we always had ham or something really, you know, most people have ham, but we, we have unique things. One time my mom made chicken Kiev for everybody. Hell yeah. It's really, you know, I know buttery chicken, cut it open and butter comes out over the rice. It was really good, but it was always kind of sometimes elaborate, unique stuff, but. I just remember, um, it was, it was about renewal and about warm weather and, you know, stuff that it's the hope after this long, terrible winter or, you know, cold winter. So, you know, it's, it's kind of, I don't understand, actually, I think it does mean more to the Catholic religion to, to what it stands for than Christmas does as far as that goes. But as far as, well, it's a pretty big deal. It's a big deal. And, and think about it. All the regiment we have for Christmas, like Kevin was saying, like you, you kind of have your plan. It's the, uh, the family traditions are so, you know, so cut and, and planned and Easter is kind of like, the secondary, uh, holiday holiday to the Catholic or to, you know, to Christians, but yeah, I, uh, I like it It's less stressful. Yeah. Um, and it, you know, KG, you nailed it. have you ever had a good honey baked spiral ham? Yeah. From the honey baked store? No, not from the honey baked store. Oh, my God. I've heard about it. There's nothing better. There's been, yeah, there's been rumors of it. Nothing better. I wonder if it's too late to order one of those. So would you equate Kevin? This is for you. Thanksgiving. I share this with you. I love Thanksgiving. It's probably my favorite. Maybe it's because you know, Christmas is coming, but I love it. Cause there's no obligations. You just show up, you make some food. Everybody shares it and it's hanging out. I love it. Um, now compare that to Easter in that Easter. There's no real obligations except hanging out and eating. But what, what's the difference? Why is one better? Why do you think Thanksgiving is better? Well, it starts with football, got a full day of Thanksgiving football and our Thanksgiving tradition going back to when I was probably in junior high school and I've kept the thing going all the way through where we are now is after the football and the Thanksgiving day feast, you head to a Thanksgiving night movie. Oh, that, so that to me is the perfect trifecta. No kidding. You get the feedback, the football, it's always new movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's why Thanksgiving stands alone for me. Easter to me, um, was always higher. It was elevated to a higher level when there were sports tied to it. And you mentioned Easter's a little earlier this year, but normally you, you would get it in, you know, I think a lot of times in symphony with the masters, which is maybe one of the greatest sporting weekends of the year. So Easter Sunday would be master Sunday. And so going to church and coming home and watching. You know, Jim Nance and Butler Cabot. Mero won it that one year. That was, you know, on as we had our Easter feast. Um, one of the greatest hockey games in NHL history was Easter weekend 1987, where a game started on Saturday, which was Easter Eve, went into like five or six overtimes. It was game seven between the Capitals and the New York Islanders, and actually ended Easter morning, so that was pretty cool, too. Yeah, that must have been a later in the year Easter. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because the playoffs, I mean, the Wilds still have like 10 games left, don't they? Yeah, the season's gotten a little longer. It used to end right when April started. Now it ends more in the middle of April. And to your point, this is a much earlier edition of, uh, of Easter. It's weird, like we talked about in our most recent show, the weather we've kind of gone through here this week. It's bizarre. Like, you know, I mean, we're, we're going to be shoveling out here through Easter weekend. A lot of times by the time Easter rolls around, you know, spring has sprung around here. Yeah, the snow is going to melt and the trees are going to, you know, start blooming. Well, the worst thing is You know, as I've been out working my driveway diligently, the number of tree buds that are, it's just, it's, does that mean less leaves this year? Maybe that'll turn out. Yeah. I won't have to rake so many leaves this year. I just think it's just going to start a little earlier. Maybe. Well, I've already checked my, uh, lilac bushes. You know, I was thinking that those lilac bushes would be, you know, usually they. Pop around a memorial day. Well, if this is any indication before it got cold, is this nature talk? Yeah. It's nature talk. No, no kindness this episode, I guess we're going to get to it. Um, uh, if this is any indication, uh, when it was warmer, like in the fifties and sixties, a couple of weeks ago, I was starting to get like spring allergy stuff going on, meaning things are starting to bud or at least, you know, the air was changing and it went away after the, you know, dumping of snow we had, but. Well, I have to admit, uh, I have to share a story with you guys that, uh, while back we were talking about favorite movies and, uh, I failed to mention this on our last show, but I had the opportunity to watch the movie Nodding Hill. I had never seen Nodding Hill, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, and Lou Grant. I mean, Hugh Grant. That's a Luca, that's a great movie. Isn't one of your favorite movies? He loves it. Yeah. Top five for me, all time. I, um, as far as romantic comedies go, that's my all time favorite. It's good. Yeah, it's good. It was a four hour flight from Cabo to Minneapolis. It's, I played movie for sure. Yeah. Notting Hill. And then when Harry Met Sally, which is one of my favorite. Wow. That's a good combo. It was a great combo. That's a lot of romantic comedy though. There was a lot of romance and a lot of comedy, but here's the question that I have watching Notting Hill. You know how they always say the third act is when things just go awry and you know, things are tough and you need to have that so you have the tension. Why did he keep taking her back? I mean, she was here. Well, that's a good point. You know what? I mean, she was number one. She was a movie star. Number two, she was hot. I mean, she was, she was incredibly hot. Thank you, Bruce. Now this is guys, this is the kindest Chronicles and I'm the podcast. I got to tell you about my neighbor, Bruce. What's going on? Bruce just stopped by and I've got to go on shuttle and we get done here. Cause our stairs are covered in snow. I've done the driveway. Well, I've been pushing my luck. Every day Bruce shows up with little miniature milk bones for Fenway and Brooks And once at night and because there's snow He knocked on my window and handed me the milk bones for the boys, which again, this is the kindness chronicles I will get back to julia robert. But anyway, I gotta give a tip of the hat to neighbor bruce. Thanks Back to you and I mean, she's gorgeous. She's a movie star and he fell in love like He, he was bitten by the bug, the love bug, and even though she had some nasty moments in that movie, he knew deep inside she was lovely. And I love the closing scene. Like a lot of times, Movies have to spell it all out for you. But the camera pans in that park, the music comes on. And she's laying on the park bench all pregnant. She's preggo, they've got the book out, it's a Sunday picnic. It's been a while. And it clearly has worked out. And it's just, ah. It is. I wonder though, in the history of the world, if there's ever been a situation like that where a movie star shows up in your store and gives you the kiss, goes to your sister's birthday party. I mean, it was really, really far fetched. But I guess that's what made it lovely. I got a theory. But I think part of the charm of that movie is, she had always baited people in her world, and it had never worked out, and it hadn't been a great experience for her, and she sees, you know, And let's be honest, he's a good looking dude, and he's off the beaten path, and he's the exact opposite of everybody she's been with, and I think as the movie progresses, she starts to figure out that she'd be a whole hell of a lot happier If it wasn't just another, you know, power celebrity or movie star that she was with, it was just this little bookshop owner and they had great chemistry. The whoops a daisy scene is one of the all time great. I mean, that movie, I just loved it. It just struck a chord for me when I saw it. The soundtrack is spectacular. And, um, you know, Bill Withers, front and center, Steve, you're a music guy. I mean, Bill Withers, are you kidding me? Ain't no sunshine. That's as good as it gets. Did he, uh, is that the Hugh Grant movie where he quotes David Cassidy and says, I think I love you? That he kind of stutters through that? No. Oh, shoot. That must be for when he's in a funeral or something. Um, no, there's a, the, the, the great line in, in that is, I'm just a girl. Yes. Standing in front of a boy. Yes. Yep. Asking him to love me. Yeah. Is that, is that originally from that movie or is she quoting a different movie? I don't know. That's from that movie. That is from that movie. Because that's been repeated culturally in lots of things. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh yeah, that is a great movie. I like the roommate in that movie. Oh my god, was he something. I love that guy. Yeah, he was a trip. He's great. Oh, my theory. My theory is. Oh, we have a theory. Um, movie stars love each other. To play famous wealthy people and writers I think love to do that where they have to pretend like they're normal people and they like they have to hide their wealth or hide their fame I think this goes back to like Elvis movies did that like oh yeah all those kind of movies were like I think I think movie stars love to pretend like um they're not famous and like to play sorry they like to play in a movie that they're famous and they're trying to pretend like they're not oh yeah I don't know I don't I just, you know, I mean, for starters, it's very popular plan. our son, Ben professed his love for Julia Roberts and said, she's the, like the most, he watched that from Watson. Yeah. He's like, I mean, that does, does it get any better than that? Um, but she seems like a very lovely, a lovely person anyway. Sure. Sure. Well, she's an actor. I mean, I guess I'm cynical right now. I guess about about about that, but why I haven't seen a movie in a long time. Should we break this down? No, I'm just saying that it wasn't really a theory I had, but I get annoyed when they have the plots where their actors are to They're famous and they're trying to not act famous. Oh, I, yeah. Trying to not let people know they're famous. And then when Harry met Sally, Love it, love it. my wife and I, that's our movie, because we were kind of like that. We, we had dated for a while and then we became friends and actually it was my mother that we were working at Target together. Becky and I were in. My mom essentially said, why don't you two start dating? And we kind of looked at each other and go, Oh, give that a try. Yeah. And 35 years later, here we are. Wow. Yeah. Awesome. You just didn't, it's, you were just a guy standing in front of a girl asking her to just at least like me. Yeah. You didn't really know, you know, could you just sort of like it to, What do you say depends on the day, start a family or whatever. Let's just, you know, nobody all seems to be attracted to us. Maybe we should just, uh, Hits to this wagon. We'll just take this thing out on the road. Yeah. So once again, folks, this is another program where we really didn't have anything specific. We, we had some, uh, some people that were lined up to be on the program. You've got some people lined up in the future coming up. I don't want to tell a talk about it too much, but I got. Three really interesting guests that we'll try to line up later in April and in May, but I'm excited for everyone to hear kind of the stories and just stuff they're talking about. So there is a little more content, uh, related to our topic coming up rather than just catch up, but you know, we haven't, we've been off a little bit. So, you know, we had, uh, last week and then this week to kind of catch up a little bit. tomorrow at the, uh, Masonic Heritage Center, we're doing our test launch of Civility School, uh, from 10 until noon. Everybody is welcome to attend. we're going to be testing this program out, and I just want to, one of the stories that, uh, that we talk about is the story of this wrestler. Have I talked about the wrestler? There was a wrestler that, uh, so he was undefeated. He was the number one wrestler in the state and he was wrestling the number two wrestler in the state. And the kid that was the, the, the number one wrestler at that weight group is losing in this match eight to five. And the kid that was, uh, The number two wrestler was winning and he dislocated his elbow during the, the deal. Clearly was going to win. The, the, the kid that, that injured himself was on the road to a victory. Yeah. And the kid that was, uh, have I talked about this? No, I don't think he heard it though. So the kid that I haven't heard it. Yeah. So the kid that was losing, he could have just pinned this guy because this guy was. And what he decided to do is just lay there and let the kid with the, with the dislocated elbow win. And afterwards, the referee, they interview, you know, this turned into this viral story. Steve Hartman, who does all those wonderful stories on CBS, did a story about it. I encourage you to go on, on YouTube and look this up. The humility. The honor that this kid showed was just remarkable. And the ref said, you know, I've been ref and wrestling for years. And he said, I've witnessed a lot of amazing wrestlers do some amazing things. He said, this is number one with a bullet. Nothing will ever compare to that act of kindness that he showed to that kid that was injured. And, uh, yeah, just think about what he had to do. He's a trained athlete. In a competitive, incredibly competitive, incredibly close, close encounter with some close connection with somebody where you're leveraging every muscle you have to conquer that person. Yeah. So to be able to lift himself out of that thinking. And, and, and switch to consider someone, yeah, that's pretty, you know, I don't know how old were they, 17, 16, 17 years old. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah. And the kid, the kid that, that essentially forfeited, he said, you know, I was kind of afraid that I'd look kind of weak. And Steve Hartman, he goes, I don't know if I've ever witnessed more strength than what you, what you did. And what's that guy doing now? We got to talk to him. Steve Hartman. We should. No, not Steve Hartman, the kid. Oh. The wrestler. I don't know. We gotta track him down. We should track him down. Yeah, he'd be good to have on for sure. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, damn, we shouldn't have done that. You know a guy that I want to have on. And I don't know if I've ever talked about him. I don't know. His name is Will Galach. And Will was a kid who went to uh, Chisago Lakes High School. And our scholarship program once upon a time was very, very focused on High achieving academic achievers. So, kids with, mid 35, uh, ACT scores had to have a 4. 0 to get one of our scholarships. it was about 10 years ago. I got this application for this scholarship and it came with a couple of letters of recommendation and Will was a really good student. He was like a 29 ACT, 3. 8 GPA, three sport athlete, three sport captain. And this one letter of recommendation came from like his math teacher. And it said, you know, will is all these amazing things, but what makes will really special. Is that regardless of where you're at in the popularity spectrum, will makes you feel like you matter. And to me, I brought, I made copies of that letter of recommendation. I brought it home to my kids and you know, at the time my kids were like in ninth grade, sixth grade and third grade. And I said, I want you guys to be good academically. But this is what really matters. you want somebody to write a letter of recommendation like this. And we talk about building your personal brand. And, we actually kind of joke about the fact that, when you look at brands, you know, let's just do this real quick. When I tell you to think of a brand. What brands come to mind for you? Two guys. Target. Apple. Apple, Nike. Yeah, Lululemon. Yeah. And you know, the thing is, is that brands that come to mind immediately, of course you would bring something like that up, but the brands that come to mind to mind are really high achieving brands. And we talk about the fact that each person has a personal brand. And when you've got a strong personal brand, you can demand. Better things. You're going to get into the better schools. You're going to get better scholarships. You're going to have access to better, you know, this is usually boys come to this. You're going to have better dates, you're going to attract better girls, you know what I mean, as crass as that may sound. It really impresses upon these people that if you build your brand, it's actually going to help you. It's basically confidence, knowing who you are, knowing what you're about, and then confidence comes through. You know, you know, you have some context for who you are in relation to other people. Yeah, so it's, it's um, That's good. That's smart. If you guys are available on Saturday from 10 to noon, we'll feed you afterwards. We got a taco thing going on and stuff, but civility school, civility school. So that's, uh, this Saturday from 10 to noon, uh, be there be square. Cool. Yeah. KG, you got anything else for, uh, the happy Easter? You guys, uh, Saturday, I'm going to be in, uh, Wisconsin, Chippewa Falls. We're heading down to see Bill and Helen. Oh boy. And are you spending the night there? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think we're going to, we're going to, at some point, grab a bite to eat and watch the wild game. Cause that's another national televised game this weekend. So it's an afternoon game. We were going to get a bite to eat, uh, and come home that night because obviously we've got multiple Easter's on Sunday, one on her side, one on my side. So we're going to, we're going to divide and conquer. She, Chrissy is actually working Easter morning, which is bizarre. What? But in the med devices world, um, it, it doesn't matter. They have to stop it and do some stuff at the office, which is fine. So then we're going to head to Maple Grove and then to Burnsville and I hope this weather clears. Bottom line is, this weekend is going to provide a lot of driving. Yeah, it's going to be fine. It'll be fine. It'll be, it'll all be melted. You gotta, John's gotta get coloring his hard boiled eggs. Oh. Ick. I mean, seriously. Those, I would rather eat the ass out of a skunk than eat What about deviled eggs? Terrible. You ever had one? Yeah, no. If you had a good one? No, I don't want to talk about it. I'm with you, KG. Let's have some time. You ever watch the show Arrested Development? Love it. Remember, uh, egg, your Anne, the girlfriend of, George Michael. Yeah. She would take a hard boiled egg and then she would squeeze a mayonnaise packet into her mouth. Yeah. And she would squish it all up and she called it a mayo egg. Is that what grossed you out? A mayo egg. That's what grossed you out about it? About eggs? Just the whole idea of one of those disgusting eggs. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost caused divorce in our house. They're tasty. Yeah. Well, happy Easter. Happy hard boiled egg. I'm gonna go have a honey baked ham. There you go. Now you're cooking. And off we Go.