Red, White and Boom! #25 Fireworks stories from the past!

 This Towne Rocks is ready to light up your 4th of July weekend! 

Join Curt Towne, Freddie Oca, and Mike Cella as they celebrate Independence Day with a nostalgic trip back to simpler times. Enjoy their stories of memorable fireworks stories and reminisce about those classic summertime part-time jobs. As usual the guys will have plenty of laughs along the way.

 This Towne Rocks #25 Friday: 12:00 PM & 5:00 PM

 Encore Broadcasts: Saturday & Sunday at 7:00 PM

 Listen your way:

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 Take us along on your holiday getaway with Apple CarPlay

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:06

I don't need no stinking timer. Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Uh thanks for joining us here on This Town Rocks. Show number 25, and we've got uh the cast of characters in place.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

The head character. Kurt Town.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hey, what's happening?

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Hey, Kurt. How are you doing, Kurt?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Good. How are you? Good. Good to see you as always.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Good to see you too. And his little buddy. Mixed Master J.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Buddy Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Greetings everyone.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

And we're gonna just use his first name because we don't want anybody to cast dispersions on him sitting in on this program. But Ethan, turns with us, there he is. All right.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Protecting the uh guilty. Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

He's taking notes and uh watching what the mixed master's doing so that uh it's locked, you can't get out, Ethan.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

That's right. Back here.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

Kurt Mike's Mike's good at keeping us in line, but John's trying to keep keep us in the sandbox.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Come on, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

We're throwing sand outside the sandbox.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Well, we hope that everybody had a great uh 4th of July, safe 4th of July, and uh we're now into the dog days of summer, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

It is definitely dog days of summer.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

And I'll tell you how I know this, because it is national sidewalk egg frying day.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Freddie's favorite topic, national day.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Well, we we did uh I met you at the at the front door of the building as you guys came in today, and we were remarking how hot it was, and I thought, well, that's very appropriate. Sidewalk egg frying day. It's get those eggs out, start frying them up.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

When I was a bachelor, I only had one pan, and I kind of came in useful, you know, the summer days of you know cooking on the sidewalk. It could come, it could come in handy, but thankfully my wife has made me a non-bachelor, so I don't have to worry about that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

You don't cook on the sidewalk anymore. How about the hood of the car?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Hey man, I'll I'll go for it. It's it's so hot.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

I was cutting the grass last night at eight o'clock. Yeah, oh yeah. It was too hot, yeah. Yeah. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

We're in the middle of summer, so we'll talk a little bit about summer and maybe some good memories that summer evokes for us. Just talk about it. But as always, we've got uh one Freddie Oka with the Dad Jokes of the Day. Dad jokes of the day.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

All right, ready to go? He's gonna get the gong on me. Yep. All right. All right. Uh when is a door not a door? I don't know. When it's a jar.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Man, I got the boo. I like that. That was good.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

The mixed master gave you the womp womp right out of the gate.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Isn't it tough crowds?

SPEAKER_02 2:53

That's because I've heard it way too many times before.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I've never heard it before. Oh, really? I've never heard it before. I never heard that before.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

You're just talking about in general in general, right? Yeah, that could be it. All right. Yeah, that is. Yes, Freddy. Go on.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

What do you call a belt made of watches? I'm not sure. A waste of time.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Ethan, what do you think? Was that a good one?

SPEAKER_05 3:16

That was a pretty good one.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Ethan liked it. Passes the intern test. All right.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Very good.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

All right. If you have a bladder infection, uh, you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I don't know. John wasn't here last week. I think I played both of them at the same time because I couldn't decide. He's in there. 50-50. All right, we got one more. All right. What's red and bad for your teeth? What's red and bad for your teeth? Now I'm feeling like Ed McMahon.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

We just need the little hat on it. It'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

A brick. A brick. All right. There's some liberal grading there. I think he uh he did he rounded it on a curve. Well, anyway, um I'm a C student, so I'm gonna take it. All right, we've got more for you, unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be as the case may be, but uh we've got lots of things coming up. How about foods that uh your grandparents never saw that we eat now and we take for granted? That'll be coming up. Uh also summer always always brings back great memories, right? Of uh different things that you do, people you see, you know, so we'll uh try to evoke some of those memories for you. And uh we get more stuff too. We we'll hold some of that uh coming up, but uh it's uh the uh Kurt Town extravaganza which we call this town rocks. Spell that Kurt Extravaganza.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Extravaganza? EX agaanza.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Well, I thought he was gonna go E G G. Can you say it in a sentence?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Man, that that that's extravaganza.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

All right, and this is uh this is your town rocks. I your town rocks, this town rocks. This town rocks, and it all comes back to you here on uh clay radio coming up after this. Hey, and welcome back to This Town Rocks here on Clay Radio. Mike Sella with Kurt Town, Freddie Oka, the mixed master, John Arts. We got Ethan the intern. Everybody is here. Everybody wants to be here because we have air conditioning, of course, to be outside. So hey, it's a program that you can hear on Fridays at noon and nine p.m. Again, Saturdays and Sundays at 7 p.m. And it's called This Town Rocks. And uh we've been doing it now for uh 25 episodes here in uh 2026, and before that, I think it was like 42 last year.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

What's the anniversary date over this?

unknown 5:47

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Oh, we went we went by that. It was uh February, I think. February anniversary, guys. Yeah, happy anniversary. Now we gotta go out to eat. Freddie didn't bring us anything.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I don't know what's up with that. Oh, but uh so Freddie.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

So hopefully you'll enjoy it. Tell your friends, make sure that uh they're plugged into the way that you can listen to Clay Radio. You can do it uh by uh clay radio.com, you can uh do it on the uh the app, you can do it with Alexa, you can do it uh with CarPlay. Laptop so uh I can do it with my phone. That's it. We've got all kinds of ways. So tell folks uh that they can join in on the fun, and uh we would appreciate that. And uh in terms of our our two guys here, we got stuff going on in the month of July and August. So uh Kurt, you're you're gonna be down in uh Palatka. Correct. And in Putnam County, Arts and Alliance of Putnam, and uh you're gonna be doing a uh solo show.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Solo and that's gonna be acoustic, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:46

With some tales of the West Side and Tales of the West Side?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Uh my career has gone solo You're talking West Side. No, I'm talking West Side, man. This is awesome. Are you kidding me? No, this is great. No, I'm doing some uh you know acoustic uh stuff and singing and playing songs and telling tales from the West Side and just having a good time, and it's gonna be really cool because uh I get to you know interact more. So when I'm when I'm performing you know at big venues, I can't I it's I'm kind of just shuffled in and shuffled out, you know. And and so this is uh really you know a great way to get to sit and and talk with people and be you know more accessible. I know that sounds crazy, but it's uh you know it's just the way it is. Yeah, a little more intimate. Yeah, more intimate. And and so it's gonna be I I look forward to it. I love people, I love meeting people. So they've got a um you can go on uh online on their stuff, which Mike has, and um and you can uh RSVP tickets and and all that. It'll be great. It's it's a really good deal. Uh worked it out with them to where it's fifteen dollars a ticket or two for twenty, because it was really important for me, you know, that people could enjoy it. So you know, I kept saying, Can we can we work this out a little bit better? You know, and they and they were very wonderful to do that, very accommodating. So I'm looking forward to it. It's a really cool theater. It's right across from Angels, which is the oldest uh oldest diner in the country in the world, whatever in Florida for sure. And so Truly and I go there whenever we get an opportunity, and and uh it's just it's really cool, and I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you can make it.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

All right, August 14th is the date. It's uh in Palatka at the uh I think it's pronounced Larimer Theater. I'll go with that. All right, Arts and Alliance of Putnam. Uh look them up online and uh make sure you know that the uh the date is the the 14th, 6 30, doors open, 7 o'clock, little meet and greet, 7 30. Kurt hits the stage. I hit the stage, hopefully upright. AC is free.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

AC is free, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

And hopefully the stage doesn't hit back. That's right. That's all you can hope for. And uh Freddie, uh, you are with uh Bearded Vinyl, of course, as uh part of the the deal there, and uh you uh have a uh record show coming up uh pretty much uh this weekend.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

Yeah, July 11th, it'll be at the Ramada Inn on uh San Jose, the comedy zone area. Uh so Terry puts on a good show there, that's the Jacksonville uh vinyl and uh CD show that he does uh I think four times a year. It's probably the it's the biggest show in Jacksonville. So that's awesome. Um there's probably 40 vendors there. It's pretty big. So that's one of the bigger events that we have in Jacksonville, and then you have a little pop-ups that go around, but that one's the the main one for what we have in Jacksonville.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So any chance of you doing some stand-up comedy or some dad jokes? Well, I mean, you never know. It could evolve into that. Hey, we'll get you a little karaoke machine, it'll be awesome. Comedy zones right there. That's what I'm saying. You know? Yeah, I'll pay for that. All right. I'll take it. I got a bunch of ones, Freddie.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

We're just we're not fuzzy. Anybody throws money at us where there's we're there. Take it. I'll take it. Good deal. All right, well, uh, best of luck with uh both those events, uh gentlemen. And uh I did mention that it's the uh National Sidewalk Egg Frying Day. And Freddie often uh wants to know well, he he he's looking for a logical explanation as to why somebody would do the you know the egg frying, or in some cases it's also National Invisible Day. All right. I know I could send them over the top at some point. I want to get the names of these people that create invisible. And and and here I've got it. I've got an answer for you. I've got well, it's not a specific person, but National Invisible Day is uh sponsored by Spirit Halloween shops. Okay. All right, and they've they've uh worked this thing out so you can be invisible and throw party and all there's a whole thing that goes with it.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

No wonder party city went debunked.

unknown 10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

And the Sidewalk Egg Frying Day, sponsored uh in part by Coleman, Weber, Kroger, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Lowe's, McDonald's, IHOP they might have done the $2,000 sponsorship.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

Yeah, they might have run for the big one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So so how what are we gonna sponsor, Freddie?

SPEAKER_03 11:07

Dollar Days.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Dollar Days.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Yeah, don't look nowadays well, yesterday happened to be National Complimentary Mirror Day. What? So if we saw some people spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the mirror, then they were just going along with the day.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Let me tell you what you look fantastic. Let me tell you what kind of time they have.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

They haven't had a lot of time to think about this stuff. They're not doing anything. I know we're looking in the mirror.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

You know what? You know what? Let's do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

National Mirror Day.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

That's what I'm saying. Man.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

I got one more important which it's driving up the alley here for our group. It's National American Redneck Day.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Oh no. Where's the want wan? There you go. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

Um I'll keep my comments to myself on this one. Shameful.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

But anyway. So there you go. That's our national observances for the day. Okay. We have a few dad jokes, got a few national observances.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

You know, we're just a stupid stroke away from Middleburg, man. No offense, all you Middlebergians. I'm just saying, God bless you.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

I did write one more down, which I think also fits very well for this time of uh year. It's the National Uh Air Conditioning Appreciation Day. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Well, I tell you, when we were kids, man, we would go to the mall and we would go to the library. Why? Because they had air conditioning. Am I correct on that, sir?

SPEAKER_04 12:43

They did. It was That's right. Did you go to the Willow Branch? Of course.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

So downstairs, I was real cold. Yeah. And haunted. Uh-huh. Just like just like Ghostbusters.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Also reminds me that uh on on the front of the Murray Hill Theater sign, it had a big thing that said air conditioning.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Oh yeah, that's true. That's true. Gotta have it. Gotta have it. Well, you know, when you were, you know, kids back then, you know, most most houses didn't have air conditioning. You know, it's we're in Florida, but most houses, heck, my parents' car didn't even have air conditioning. We had the 255. You had the two windows, the two little windows on the side that blew in at 55. That's a 255. And when you would go never heard that. Oh, yeah, when you would when you would go underneath the tree canopies, you know, for quite some time, man, it was like air conditioning, it was like a 10 or 15 degree drop. We were a party on. Woo-hoo!

SPEAKER_04 13:35

Yeah. I was dating this girl and I was helping her dad do something. So we get the grandier key that he had, and he's all right, let's get the AC on. And he proceeds to unroll the windows.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

And I was like, Can we take my car? My dad used to say terrible.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

I like that dad.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

My dad used to say uh when we had it with that, he said, our uh we had AC in our car powered by Armstrong. Use your arm to crank down the windows.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

I remember I was driving to Tampa and I had a uh I think it was a little Ford car, Ford Escort or something, and the AC went out and I got off the next exit trying to find a car dealership. I was trading that sucker in immediately.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Wow! I was dead serious.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

I traded in right there. Oh wow it's a man of action there. I was so mad.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

That's a long drive to be without no AC. Yeah. Dude, you should have been on some of those early tours with me with no AC, no food, no nothing. Problem solved. I'm not going.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Well, growing up in the north, the northeast, nobody had air conditioning. It wasn't a big deal because we didn't really need it. So very seldom would you come across a car that had like air conditioning.

SPEAKER_04 14:47

Yeah. Yeah. You didn't need it. My cousin in uh he lives in uh San Francisco, he said they never turned the AC on.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

I'm like, that's unheard of.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

I mean the house I mean I mean we really literally we turn on the heat a a week, maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

But in the house you grew up, did you have the window units or AC like a central on heating?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

No, when when I was about ten, I guess we moved into a house that had central heat and air and we had AC un window units. So we did we did have a we did have a window AC unit, one window AC unit, yes. But um it was only turned on in extreme measures because you know it was so expensive.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

It was, but we I think we had three bedrooms. Every single one I had to have it. No, we didn't have none of that.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

We had one unit.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

One unit.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Because uh most of the time you didn't need it. We'd hit the occasional heat heat spell, and you'd have to, you know, and that was always somewhere where everybody could, you know, take advantage of it. So the bedrooms never got it. It was like in the family room or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

I s I saw uh it was a HOA thing, someone posted on Facebook, and they live in one of those subdivisions where it's kind of swanky. Well, the garage had a window and they put an AC in in there, and they're like, What in the world? That looks trashy. And I'm like, dude, leave that guy alone. Leave that guy alone. He has an AC unit in his garage. What's the big deal? It's hot. Must have been hot and he must have needed to cool it off. You know, I mean, reporting that guy is ridiculous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

No, I agree. Well, you know, my my dad was one of the first in our neighborhood to have a remote control TV, too. Oh. Yeah, me.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

You can send me out to the antenna. Don't over right there. Over right there. Don't move. Don't move. Get the 10 poil. Oh move, it's about to make a touchdown.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

I mean, I did I did love when we put the windows down in the car, you know, because then you can put your arm out and then you make it fly. Oh, yeah. You go up and down and around and then you can like, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Kids these days.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

Did you ever tie a string to a like a G.I. Joe and hang them out in the window? No. We did that all the time. G.I. Joe abuse.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

G.I. Joe abuse, man. You can't lose G.I. Joe. Heck yeah. We can't lose G.I. Joe.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

All right. Well, speaking of losing G.I. Joe, we just lost our first segment. We've got to move on. We lost listeners too. Well, that goes for the general purposes. But this is this town rocks. Yeah. Here on Clay Radio, we appreciate you tuning in, and we've got the full gang here. We come back, we'll talk a little bit about some foods, also some great memories that Summer evokes. We started to talk a little bit about air conditioning and that kind of stuff. More for you here on Clay Radio after this. And bringing you right back to the 70s, a little uh Foxy Brown and Pam Greer. And did we ever tell you here on the show that we miss talking to Pam by that much? That much. Just that much.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

But yet one day.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

One day we we hold out hope that's right. The queen of this town rocks.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

So close yet, so far.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

I still do Google searches every couple weeks to see if she's gonna be around.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it a point. We've got to send her some of these episodes. She'll be like, I don't know about now.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

She might be we might be hearing from her lawyers. But we still send send great wishes to her and uh great wishes to you for uh making it through the 4th of July holiday weekend and continuing to join us in the last summer. That goes goes for saying. Come on. But uh Kurt Towns here, Freddie Oak is here, Mike Sell is here, John Arnt's intern Ethan, he's here. His name is being withheld uh protecting his uh his innocence at this point in time. But you know, we talked a little bit about uh air conditioning and some of the memories that that brought back, and of course, uh summer is sort of a well, especially up in the northeast because you you didn't like winter. I wasn't a big skier or you know snow guy, so uh winter summer was the time that uh all your memories were created, you whether it's swimming, boating, whatever the case may be. We talked about it before. Kurt, give us a a thought on uh you know a good memory of summertime?

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Summertime or anytime. You know, did you ever go to Strickland's? Come on, man.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

I sure did. I miss that place.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

I knew, I knew, but I was just checking. I knew you were cool. So I loved Strickland's. I absolutely loved Strickland's, and being the adventurous, crazy person that I was, and still to a degree am, um I would get on the highest platform and not just jump from it, but I got on top of the rail and dove headfirst down like a crazy person. Because cannonballs were fun for a bit, and then it was just like, come on, let's go. And uh so I used to do that, and uh, you know, the slides, and when I was real little, I lost my stormtrooper. And I spent years looking at that same thing looking for that stormtrooper because it was a real you know, it was one of their first ones. And uh anyway, but I I absolutely love it. I actually have a soundtrack on my Spotify, you know how you can have your own personal library, and it says Strickland's no joke. So I have a Strickland's playlist of songs that I used to you know, because they you would have the jukebox there, and you you know, you put your quarter in or whatever, and you could hear songs, and then of course we had boom boxes everywhere, and it was great. It was fantastic. You could camp there, you could do all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

Strickland's and they had the Kingsley Lake, but yeah, I if you didn't know what it was, you could go to this park, uh this park. I called it a park, but yeah, they had like these docks, it's probably two, three hundred yards out, right? And sure it's like a rectangle, right? And then they had the slides and they had the these piers, or not piers, I guess what do you call them, diving platforms. Yeah, that's right. Just jump off those, and they were there's no way there the the there's no way that would fly these days. But you could literally go in there, a whole car, five bucks. That's right. And so you could be there all day long, and they had like a little game room and tacos and family oriented, very family oriented, and your parents would drop you off, or you go with your buddies when you're in high school, which we did a lot. Yeah, we did. But for five bucks, yeah, you can't beat it. And then I don't know if you ever brought girls there, but you know, under the docks were where all the fun stuff happened.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Hey man! All I know is that uh, you know, I was a good boy. Yeah, okay. Hey, I'm just saying. National under Strickland's dock day. Yeah. But you know, you used to rent those tubes, you know, you could rent the those big giant tire tubes, and and uh man, it was it was a lot of fun. And then they had that fence underneath so you could if they were at Kingsley Lake, they couldn't go they couldn't sneak over.

SPEAKER_04 21:23

The only difference between Kingsley and Strickland's was I think Kingsley allowed alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Yeah, but but Strickland's was awesome. Yeah, it was I went to Kingsley a few times and that was cool. I hated seeing either of them go, you know, because I really loved it. And then, you know, they had teenagers, you know, that worked there selling sodas and hot dogs and I guarantee you if they opened that back up, it would be flooded with people. Well, you know, I was very w truly and I were very fortunate. We we got to take Shelton when he was little. Promised unfortunately she was a baby, she didn't get to check it out. But but Shelton got to go and I got to experience that with him, which is a really big deal to me. And uh and and so it was awesome. Um he didn't lose no stormtrooper though. I made sure of that. But it was great, great memories, summertime memories, and like I said, I have that playlist and there's on Facebook there's actually a uh uh a like a group of a Strickland's friends of Strickland's group or something like that. Really cool, man. They send these pictures out, you know, I'll see some of those pictures and it's great. Great camp landing.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

We that mean pretty much all of Lee High School my my three years dad was there. If you were if you were somewhere, you're gonna be there during the summertime. Absolutely. All your classmates or they were you know piling 17 people in a a Ford Escort.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

So so not growing up in the area, what happened to Strickland's? I mean, did the marketplace just out of pace it?

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Unfortunately, the owner passed away, and not to be a bummer, but you know, the the property was worth a lot of money. So the government doing what the government does, it just it made them decide, you know, they had to sell it to pay the taxes. Yeah, they got the estate taxes. Yeah, and that really stinks, you know, because the family wanted to carry it on, but the the value of the property had so much that that they had to, you know, they look when you charge 17 kids five dollars to get in, you're not gonna be able to pay the the tax of the worth of the of the property. So that's what happened. And uh so with that being said, we all share a lot of great memories. We'd come in from the west side of Jacksonville, make that long trek into Clay County. Well, the other thing, it was safe too. It was safe, yes.

SPEAKER_04 23:36

It was safe. A safe place. Yeah. I mean your parents dropping you off. That was that tell you, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

So they watched out from the world now. Yeah, they watched out for you, you know, and and uh yeah, you you you didn't have too many gators around, you know, but occasional gator. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Talking two-legged or four-legged gators.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Well, whatever it takes. But you didn't have that often, you know. You you did have it a little bit here or there, but they didn't mess with you. I mean, that's Florida. That's just Florida. Yeah. You know, but um, but G.I. Jane was uh the movie was a lot was filmed there, Camp Blanding. And uh so it had you know, it had a lot of really cool stuff. It was it was a great memory. I have a soundtrack, like I said, you know, and and I'll I I was listening to it this morning, listen to the soundtrack, brings back great memories. I love it. Love it. Freddie, but what about you? You kicked in with Strickland's anything else?

SPEAKER_04 24:30

Mine's a little different. Uh so I I play baseball shoot since I was in third grade. Yeah. Uh but baseball. When you when you love something so much, you're like, that's all you that's all that mattered to me when I was a kid. And that's all that mattered to me up until college. But uh so in third grade I played and I was not the best player at the time, but I was working hard and that's all I cared about. It's all I did every day. Doom doo go out and play baseball, go out and throw the baseball. And so my first year I I struggled because I didn't get start until about midway through the first season. And then I started, I was at Murray Hill the first year. Then I went to Lake Shore the next year, and I started hitting the ball. And so I was like, oh, okay. So the first tournament we played, they had me bat in second or third, and we were against this other team that we played against Murray Hill. They were like rivalries. And uh I remember being in the in the uh batters uh the on-deck circle, and we were losing by two runs, or no, we lose by two, yeah, two runs, and the bases reloaded, and it was two outs, and my buddy's pitching against me. He was with the A's and I was with the Tigers. And I remember my tooth falling out, and I handed it to my mom while I was in the hole. And this is like I like when you're this is all that matters to you, and it's the whole world to you, like you wanna you wanna do good, and it's like it's the end of the world if you don't do good. Right. So I hadn't got any hits that game, and I and I got up there, and I remember he put put him right down the heart, and I put it down the right field line, hit a triple. Oh right, Freddy. I remember that the reason I remember that is because after that I was hooked. I was like, okay, well, this is what I'm gonna do. And that that's where I went from third grade on to playing a little bit of college baseball. And uh, I had number 13, the only jersey they had left, because I missed the jersey tryouts, uh, the jersey try-on days, whatever. So I had a 3X pair of pants.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Sounds like my Cub Scout.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

And an extra large uh number 13 jersey.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Oh my god. And my dad had a hem.

SPEAKER_04 26:18

And uh I just remember that. So 13 stayed with me for my whole career, and then uh I just think it's cool. Like, you know, you want to be the hero because I was kind of a dork. I was kind of I got made fun of because just I was just a nerd. But then aren't we all? Yeah, I mean, but you start off like low confidence, and then once that hit, I was like, man, I got it now. And after that, I was just there was no stopping after that, playing baseball. I just loved it. So that was a big, big, you know, deciding factor in my baseball career. You know, I love school. I remember it to this day, it was on the second field to the left of Lakeshore, right field line, triple. Yeah, we won the game. I played at Lake Shore too.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

I loved Lake Shore. I loved it. I think Lakeshore's in uh in Cedar Hills. What's that? Vance Ants played there. Yeah, yeah, everybody. Tim T Bow played there. Tim T Bow played there. I mean, that was the neighborhood thing. That's what you did. So yeah, I mean, uh a bunch of Skinner guys played there, and and 38 guys played there, and you know, we just grew up there.

SPEAKER_04 27:12

Like things as things as kids that are important to you this remain with you if it's important to you and you love something so much, it just I'll never forget it. I know it's that's not even the biggest part of my baseball career, but that was the start of it.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

No, that's beautiful, man. I love it. I think it's great. Matter of fact, I want to continue talking about some more summertime fun.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Yeah. One of the uh memories that I have uh is at Lake Quasipog in Connecticut. It was uh, of course, named after the Indian tribe, but it was very similar to Strickland's. They had the uh you know the big docks and the big slides and uh the picnic rounds, and of course, uh at the end of uh each year, the school year, the Cub Scouts would have a uh picnic and uh you know at the Lake Quasipog. And they had a few rides like the wild mouse and that kind of stuff. But my memory is uh, and those were different days, so we didn't have soda all the time, but they did serve soda at the picnic on those days.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

And I love grape soda, and I would drink grape soda till I got sick because there was no guidelines. Every time you looked, I was over there at the coolers treating myself to a grape knee high as the radar inventory. Oh, knee high.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Now we might talk about be honest. Uh you weren't drinking soda, you were drinking pop, weren't you?

SPEAKER_03 28:28

No, no, we never called it pop. Really? It was soda, yeah. That was further north if you went into Connecticut, like Massachusetts, Rhode Island. That was pop.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Everything here is coke.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

This was soda.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Everything's well, I'm I was born in Michigan and up there it was called Pop. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:44

No, we never never had pop. Always soda. You guys are talking about movies. I mean uh summertime. What's what's one movie that just you know you call it like the summertime?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Well, I tell you, I I tell you what, we'll we'll we'll bring when we get back and we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

Yeah, we're out of time. We'll do that next. We'll also talk a little bit about uh some foods which uh weren't around when grandma and grandpa were growing up. We'll explain what that's all about coming up next. Hey, you're listening to This Town Rocks here on Clay Radio, and we uh thank you for uh taking some time to spend with us. Hopefully uh you're enjoying the uh reminiscing here today and the laughs. We've got more for you coming up, so don't go away. We're back after this and that is the theme song for This Town Rocks. And of course, that's the name of the program here on Clay Radio. So glad to have you with us. Uh Mike Sella here. We got Kurt Town. Hey hey, you got Freddie Oka. Hola, Mixmaster Jay. Greetings, and of course, Ethan the intern. That's right. Oh, he's silent at this point. We haven't even a microphone. You've got to earn your microphone, too. Gotta earn it, man. All right. But uh thanks for uh joining us. It is a program you hear on Clay Radio each Friday, uh, one at noon and then again at nine o'clock, those plays. And then, of course, there's encores on Saturday at seven and Sunday at seven. Number of different ways that you can listen to the radio station. So uh we do appreciate the if you would spread the word. Spread the word. Spread it like butter. And uh, of course, we're talking a little bit about uh summer and reminiscing about summer since we've crossed over the threshold. Usually, you know, it's Memorial Day, sort of like the unofficial start. July 4th is definitely it's here. It's hot. And then you move past that, and it's like uh Freddie's already looking for August 11th, which is when Clay County goes back to school. 42 days. Who's counting? I need an avid calendar for school. And of course, uh more great programming is available at all times uh here on Clay Radio, so uh make sure you check your uh local listings for that. And you can do that at ClayRadio.com. Also can look for all kinds of activities and events uh on uh the uh website as well. And uh the folks on What's Happening will be telling you a little bit more about that on uh Wednesday at uh noon and 5 p.m. and then on Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. So keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

You want to sing the song, don't you, Kurt?

SPEAKER_03 30:58

I do, Kurt wants to sing. Let me get Raj for you. Rerun. Pop and lock.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

It's going on in the head.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

I know, yeah. It is. All right. So we left you. You know, just acknowledge it and move on. Condescending. Keep moving on. Uh if you're gonna run a timer on me, I'm gonna keep to the timer, right? So uh we did tease a little bit that uh we were gonna talk about uh summer movies or movies that you remembered. I mean you had a baseball memory that popped up out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

So well basically what it was was like you know to to kind of piggyback on on Freddie's. So I also played Lakeshore baseball and I played Cedar Hills, but Lakeshore, I'll never forget, I was on the Dodgers, and and and it was the bad news bears of the entire league. And so we decided, well, we we really are terrible. Like we had one good player, like he was really good. I felt bad for him, but we like we were terrible. So I'm like, hey, let's own this, right? Of course, that would be my thing. So I'm like, you know what? We're not only the worst that there is in here by far, but we should own it. We should live by example, right? So you know I started calling us the fun bunch. We were so bad, actually, that our coach quit. That's a fact. It happened. And so, yeah, he quit right in the middle of a game. He just said, That's it, you guys, I'm out. And that's being nice. So, anyway, I decided, you know what, we're gonna call us the fun bunch. And so we just referred to ourselves as the fun bunch, and we had a blast. I mean, it was like the Harlem Globetrotters of Lakeshore Baseball. It was great. It was fun, man. That was a great memory. We lost, we won, we won one game by default by complete sheer accident, but it was awesome. And we had us a blast. Good.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Well, after you're done playing, after you're done playing ball, what movies did you uh remember seeing during the summer?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Freddie, Freddie's got I have to think about it.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

All right. The summer movies. Yeah, the the summer movie that I watch it all the time, but the Sandlot is the epitome of a summertime movie to me. You got baseball, you got July 4th, you got Ray Charles, and you got Wendy Peppercorn uh doing CPR on Squints, and then he gets a kisser at the battle. Do you see that movie? Uh I don't know. So let me just tell you So there's this kid Squints, and he's in love with this lifeguard. Okay. And so he's always gonna ask her out, and then he's telling the boys, Yeah, yeah, you always say that every year. Well, he acts like he's drowning in the pool. And she's the lifeguard. So they pull him out of the pool, she Wendy gets him out of the pool, and so she starts completing, she starts uh doing the CPR on him. Well, he's closing his eyes and like, oh yeah, he looks really bad. So none of the boys are in on it. He's the only one that knows he looks really bad, he looks he looks blue, da da da. And the third time she goes down to to put air into his chest, he grabs the back of his her head and starts kissing her.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

And so, and everybody's like, Oh, oh my god, and then she kicks him out and they're all running because that was the greatest thing ever! What was that? Sandlot. Sandlot, yes.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

It's one of the greatest 80s, right? When was that? Yeah, it came out in the 90s. It was that late? Okay. Yeah, so I saw Oh, you know what I'm thinking about? Um I'm thinking Stand by Me. Stand by Me. Oh, that's another great one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:18

Uh so I watched a video of these kids. They were actually at a pool and they were watching the movie The Sandlot, and their reaction was price of like, oh my god, you kissed the girl on the video.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

So it's pretty funny. That is cool.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah, you need to see that, man. I do need to see it. I mean, for me, you know, it's like I'm not really a big movie guy, but I remember all the older kids like making a really big deal out of Greece when it came out. And that was in the summertime. And they were like, you know, like every girl was singing Greece. Every single girl, which I thought that was pretty cool. You know, so that I think it that was a good summer movie. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna summer eleven? Summer eleven.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

I'm gonna cut I'm gonna throw a couple of uh older uh uh uh movies 1973 Jaws.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Oh that's yeah, that's 1973? Yeah, that's a classic. Oh my god. That's a great match. Oh, I have to I have to I have to expand on that, ex Harvey, whatever you want to say. Expound. Expound on that. Extra extravaganza. But um, okay, so little Kurt was I I I can't sleep. I still I have insomnia all the time. I struggle with sleep. But my parents took us to the Fox Drive-in because Lil Kurt's supposed to be asleep. And Jaws was playing. Now I it may have been rerun time or whatever. I don't know, to be honest with you. But all I know is I was never gonna take a bubble bath again because all I heard was duh.

SPEAKER_04 35:44

What about the song? They were singing when they're the the Jaws starts attacking the boat, and he goes, Show me the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Oh, I don't remember any of that. I was little, man. I still can't watch, I still can't watch it. I go to Universal, I'm like, I ain't going to no daggone jaws.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

It's a great movie. Yeah, it is. And and believe it or not, that same summer, 1973, American Graffiti.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

I mean, you talk about some blockbusters in the day, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:09

So that's a summer movie?

SPEAKER_04 36:11

Okay, well, I think Independence Day is also a summer movie. That was a good movie. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I get creeped out with the Jaws when he starts telling the story about the Indianapolis. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

That story is so Man, you guys are really into movies. I can't remember. Star Wars. I love Star Wars.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Well, when you're when you're a kid and and you see this movie, and then you know, mom brings you to the beach the next day. Well, all I know is that I'm not going in that water.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Don't forget mom made the bubble bath. I'm like, ain't having it. No way.

SPEAKER_04 36:41

I told Kurt about this at Jack's Beach. They had the big pool party there, and they played it at night, and they played the jaws while you were in the pool. Oh, no kidding. At the beach.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Well, at least it was in a pool.

SPEAKER_04 36:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:50

Still, it's cool. That's that's pretty cool. And uh uh Caddyshack also was uh I love that movie, Caddyshack.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

And did you see that?

SPEAKER_03 36:59

Did you see the restaurant just closed? That's the Caddyshack restaurant. Yeah. 25 years and they pulled the pluck.

SPEAKER_04 37:06

That was a good concept, but I think it was too early.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Oh man, it was great.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Well, they need more of Bill Murray, I think, somehow involved in uh you know personally being there or what have you. I think that would have helped a little bit. But uh all restaurants are having a hard time at this point.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

It also didn't help that the uh World Golf Hall of Fame's pulling out of there eventually.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

IMAX too pulled out. Yeah. So uh they were trying to attract people on their own. So all right, so we got a couple of minutes left. Here's the latest, greatest information on what's happening with your foods, okay? First of all, uh we're adding protein to everything. So now you have Pop Tarts with protein. What? You have Oreos with protein.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Are you kidding me? No.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

You've got uh pretzels. Pretzels. Pretzels are adding protein. How do you get protein in the pretzels? Well, it's all with uh they mix in uh chickpeas and other stuff.

SPEAKER_04 37:57

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

And they that's how they get the but uh you know what what I thought was the the sort of the really the height of of uh just craziness with food is uh the um Oreos now are uh sugar free or sugar zero and they've got added protein.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

What? I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

And that's an Oreo. I'm okay with that. So like what do you do? Something's wrong with that. Mother Nature's been fooled somehow. I'm okay I'm okay with the sugar-free stuff because I can't eat that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

That's right, yeah. I okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

But um uh Starbucks is now offering a uh protein-filled coffee that has as much caffeine as two quarter pounders.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Well, you know what's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 38:35

You mean protein. Protein, yeah. You know what's crazy. I mean caffeine. Protein, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

So like uh they'll they'll you go to a restaurant and you order something and you're like, what kind of protein would you like with that? And I'm like, what? What kind of protein do I want with that? They're like, yeah, but what what what protein is would you like to select today? I'm like, chicken.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Yeah, they refer to it as protein. Chipotle does that, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:58

I would like chicken.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

And one one other good thing, cereal's now starting to be uh sold with protein. So no longer can they tell you not to have those lucky charms because it'll have proteins.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

You can't have lucky charms, but you can have you can have, you know, the the uh healthy O's or something, man.

SPEAKER_04 39:18

They got something called probiotics in sodas now? Yeah. Have you seen those?

SPEAKER_03 39:22

They help your stomach offset the uh the dangerous effects of sodas. So what were the what were the foods that Oh oh grandma and grandpa didn't have okay, I'll I'll read them down. We don't have a lot of time. Uh baby carrots. Invented in 1986.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

How do you isn't it you just grab a carrot early? No, they actually sh shaved them down.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

A premium carrot. They shaved them down and turned them into bite-sized nuggets.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

Didn't have it. Because they were smart. Cup of noodles. Never had the cup to make the noodles that uh came about in uh actually 1971.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Isn't that raw main noodles?

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Yeah. How about this one? You guys will know this. Chicken nuggets.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Not around until 1983 and make nuggets.

SPEAKER_04 40:03

I got something for you. So I don't understand why they call it boneless wings. It doesn't make it, it's a chicken nugget, right? It's a chicken strip, right?

SPEAKER_05 40:10

What is it?

SPEAKER_04 40:12

Why do they call it boneless wings? Because it's not a wing. And all they did is cut chicken nugget.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Well, all I know is they ran out of buffalo wings. They're like, we got boneless wings.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

I'm like, you mean you got chicken nuggets?

SPEAKER_01 40:20

We had to go with chicken because all the all the buffaloes were out of wings. I don't understand that terminology.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Here's another one for you. Cool whip.

SPEAKER_05 40:28

What?

SPEAKER_03 40:29

What 1966. So, you know, grandma, grandpa grew up as a kid and didn't have the cool whip. What about uncrustables?

SPEAKER_01 40:36

What is that? That's a uh you never seen those? I don't know what the sandwich. Oh, without the crust.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Right, they cut the crust off, but they also fill it.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

We would do that with a knife. You cut the crust. Here's the thing.

SPEAKER_04 40:49

When I'm coaching, they have these they have these boxes of encrustables and they're frozen. And by the time you get to eat it a year later, I mean an hour later, it's a sandwich, and you can eat it right there without having to pack a lunch and throw it in the in the cooler in the cooler.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Also, microwave popcorn didn't come around until 1980.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Or Rabinbacher didn't do that.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

Oh, he had it, but it wasn't microwaveable.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

And the last one, which uh all the guys and gals and everybody that came over to uh, you know, uh celebrate the World Cup. Ranch dressing.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

What?

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Ranch dressing wasn't around until uh the late fifties.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Oh my god, we have people going back to their own countries taking ranch dressing and getting in trouble. You can't take that much, sir. But I got a gallon of ranch dressing, I gotta get it back to Europe.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Do you know I don't blame you? It was actually discovered and invented on a ranch. So that's where the name came for for ranch dressing. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Oh, do tell. Just tell him.

SPEAKER_04 41:46

How did you cook popcorn when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Well, they had the little the little metal thing that came up and popped and then you had to pour oil in there and you had to pour kernels, right? Well, I don't know. How do you think?

SPEAKER_03 41:56

No, they that's if you did it in a pot, but yeah, they did have a uh Jiffy pot. Oh, you're talking about the one that was my favorite.

SPEAKER_04 42:04

They still sell those too, by the way. What? I haven't seen those.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Yeah, I saw them at Walmart the other day.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Well, you know, microwaveable popcorn's not good for you. That's what I hear, but I'm still gonna eat it. You're a rebel.

SPEAKER_03 42:17

I just got to.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

He's a rebel.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

That's Freddie sticking up for uh what's right, what's natural? Microwaveable popcorn. That's right. You've got to drop them something, man. All right, gentlemen. Well, that's uh that's uh been a fun uh hour. We appreciate you. Oh my god, spending some time with us. No, we we have to do that. Song of the day.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

American girl.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

American Girl and Freddie? I forgot it's James Brown. James Brown. She's the one. She's the one. All right, so look for those uh during the breaks. Yeah. During the break, make sure you look forward. Kurt, thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. Freddie, good job. Thank you. Thanks. By the way, Freddie uh with a Sam Cook shirt on.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

The king of some shirt. Shout out to my parents. That's right. And we thank uh Johnny Mixmaster for uh coming back from vacation just to do the show. He'll be going back out on uh tour uh right after this. That's right. We're coaching Ethan the intern. We'll be seeing more of Ethan, we hope, as uh we move along.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

He's the unknown comic.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

There he is. That was unknown to me. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Yeah, see? You can tell by the bag on his head, the eyes cut out.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

This is Mike Sell. We appreciate it. Uh make sure you're with us at noon and 9 p.m. on Friday, 7 o'clock on Saturday and Sunday, and it's called This Town Rocks show number 25. And uh please look for it on the podcast uh channel as well. All right, we'll see you again next time, right here on Clay Radio.