Deep Dive Pod 32 Mixing Bowl Pick'em

A fan requested we pick Gen X related topics out of a bowl and discuss off the top of our heads to see just how smart we are........ the answer turned out to be what you would expect....... not very.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

But I actually uttered that phrase at E.T. I'm not crying, you're crying. We was at the very end of it, and I was not prepared for for that. I was not prepared to cry in public at such a young age and then have somebody call me out on it because I had I didn't have the capabilities to discuss what I was feeling. What was it? They were out of popcorn or what? Alright, here we are, boys. What a fine spread we have tonight.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Yeah, John. Thanks for the delicious tin fish.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

Erin, Lukefish. Yeah. Sardines. The finest sardines. John has a sardine for us tonight.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

It's uh probably wouldn't find it in the dive bar, but no, this would be uh an elevated dive bar experience. But um I went to a very unique restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal last week, and it was a tinned fish restaurant, so it was all tinned, canned seafood. They're famous for sardines there, of course, but they had some other things as well. But so you order, they'll unfurl it on a plate with some fresh herbs, serve it to you that way, or you can, of course, purchase and take it to go. So uh this is some sardines and olive oil and lemon that I added the fresh herbs for you. So a little bit upscale in the diet bar. So with love for fortune.

SPEAKER_05 1:18

Is a tin fish restaurant considered high-end or low-end? Well, I will tell you.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, they're very proud of them there for sure. And it's you'll see it as an appetizer on menus at high-end restaurants. Uh sardines, tin to sardines and stuff. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

If I think we've talked about this maybe there's a new-ish place in uh Iowa City called Plated Table. And Plated Table is uh like almost like a farm to table vibe. I think they're open three nights a week and then they do some catering. But one of their things is tin fish. Like my daughter, she's all about it. Right. And we go there on it's kind of a little bit of a special occasion place. We go there for like someone's birthday, and yeah, we get we get sardines out of a out of a tin. Yeah. Go ahead. And I was just gonna say, they're kind of going for a European like I think they have Portuguese wines and some newer Spanish wines and some not the like historic vintage stuff from France, but just like almost uh craft label. Um and so it's yeah, it's a good vibe. But yeah, I mean isn't like in the United States, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Would you like Vienna sausages?

SPEAKER_03 2:27

It's funny because I like some spam. Yeah, for sure. And you see that in restaurants sometimes too, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

It's funny because I look at high V uh just when I got back to kind of cross-reference, and of course it's canned sardines, smoked oysters, yeah, King Oscar, very kind of low-end looking stuff. But in Europe, it's definitely a thing. Like the markets, some of the famous food markets in Europe, almost all of them have a tinned fish proprietor that's selling just canned slash tenned seafood. So yeah. So there you go. There's a little snack for you to try. And uh pairs well with a good dive bar beer. It does. Regardless of how elevated it is.

SPEAKER_05 3:02

So I think one of the most famous uh canned fish is the Strasan Strasin Roman Strossentroman. Which is like uh it's a canned fish. It doesn't sound great. And they they uh it's fermented herring, is what it is. Okay, I'm into that. And uh on the outside of the can it suggests that you don't open it inside. Oh yeah. Yeah, because it'll permeate the it'll make the whole entire inside smell like even after the can of fish is gone, it'll still smell like it. So all right. So I'm gonna try some of this sardine. This is you've always uh hear sardine pizzas. Oh yeah. From Sardinia. Let's try it.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Sardinia.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Let's see what you think.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

Yeah. It's good on the crustini, it's got a nice combo there. It's a good salty. Yeah, about it.

SPEAKER_05 3:59

Yeah. Well, John, thank you so much for bringing this up. I feel like I have gotten on a plane and traveled across the uh continent.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, there you go. Mix it up from our beer nuts and cheese and sausage your normal offering while we're potting.

SPEAKER_05 4:13

So all right. So let's talk about last weekend. We had Kevin and Burt in. Um a lot of people said it was our best show. I have to tend to agree. I felt like as I listened to it, we just had to like stay out of the dude's way. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

I mean, he had he had a lot to he's a storyteller.

SPEAKER_05 4:29

Yeah, he had a lot of great stories, and we just kind of had to let him tell him.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

So I wish we had more time with him, but I mean, like the quality uh the content we got and the short amount of time we had, he did three three tons. I listened to it just this afternoon when I was mowing the lawn, and it was like I didn't want it the episode to end. It was great. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

And the music came out great. We we were not didn't do anything special to prepare to record music live, so I'm glad it worked out great and our audio was set up properly for it because it was perfect.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

It matched up, you know, some of the other guests we've had as well. I mean, obviously we've had Dave Zolo, who's well-known local musician, so they have that common thread. I'm sure they've done festivals and events together. And uh, you know, I didn't, I learned about Kevin, the the football side of it, you know. Yes, you know, I think I might have heard that his brother played here. Like I I kind of remember hearing that, but that he played himself and they had pretty high-level aspirations, and then how he took his drive and discipline that came from being athletic. You know, I remember I was just as I was listening to Dave, he was talking about, you know, competition in awards. I think he's up for some awards, and like I I wanted to not like the guy because I I almost have this athlete attitude where you you don't want to be friendly with your competition, you want to hate them because it just makes you perform better. He's like, I can't be like that with my musician colleagues. He he and Keb Moe have a lot in common.

SPEAKER_05 5:46

Um Keb Mo, both of them have released uh children's albums. Oh, okay. So I mean they both of those dudes have a lot in common. I'd like to see uh a collaborative work out of the two of them. I don't know if that'll ever happen, but uh those dudes are almost cut from the same cloth as well as far as being awesome dudes.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

So super talented.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Oh, so maybe we uh like I think what we could would be fun to do. I don't know. What episode are we on now? Uh is this 31? Is it that many? Yeah, so maybe like at 50 or something, right? We bring back and do a live mic. We might have to get some more mics or figure out how to share them, but like get reprise some of our better guests, get Kevin on here with half with Dave Solo, with Doug. Now we might I think in that case, maybe we don't need mics for ourselves because we could just introduce a topic and then step away.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Craig Sirmac and talk about the van they can all take to get there. That we you know we're overdue to revisit that. We may have gotten more emails and requests for additional vehicle content from Craig Sirmac than any other episode we've done. So that's another one we need to do.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

He's got more where that came from, as we all know. No doubt about it. No doubt about it.

SPEAKER_05 6:52

Yeah. So thank you, Kevin. Yeah, well, as he left, this was not on Mike, but he said, Hey, give me a call when you guys start talking about NFL. So he wanted to talk about the NFL. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Well, yeah, and we, you know, Hap has talked about bringing back another player or two. Maybe we uh get Kevin involved there too and yeah, do a crossover episode. So great stuff. Great, great guest, great episode.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

Yeah, good guy, good show. Did you guys watch the Derby? I did not watch the Derby. I didn't either. I I just I just saw clips this morning. So but that's definitely drinking holiday. Yes, yeah. I was thinking of that. I mean, I actually heard a piece on the radio, I think was on NPR an NPR segment about people who move down to Kentucky, and like Derby Day isn't, you know, it's I think it's almost like a month or it's like derby week. Like things go on in schools. They're talking about how even in elementary schools that like they have different competitions and the kids dress up in derby themed outfits and so forth. And this gal was saying, you know, like I'm I'm not from Kentucky, I'm from you know, she's from the East Coast or something. She's like, but we love it, they get into it. It's like it's a whole deal. Yeah. And then you have the bourbon play. I mean, there's a lot to like there.

SPEAKER_05 7:57

I think I heard 18 of the 19 horses had lineage to secretariat. Seriously. Yeah. I don't know. At this point, like what is considered lineage. I mean, if you're like within one or two generations, three or four generations, but uh that was an interesting.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Or woman-trained horse, uh, which is kind of cool. Yeah, yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_05 8:21

Yeah, I didn't catch it live. All right, boys. So this week we're gonna do a I don't know what to call it, a Mishma now. We're gonna do a free will. Free hodgepodge. Smartest board. We have um Menagerie. John's wife has uh picked topics out for us that are I think Gen X.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

I believe so. It's a mystery basket. Well, and I yeah, we're gonna draw one at a time out and have a little conversation about whatever's on the card. We're gonna trust Becky on this.

SPEAKER_05 8:51

So John said that he had a couple of people say do a show where we have no preparation. Which is which is like not too difficult. That's basically all of them for me. Because Ray, you do so much lifting and I just show up and so we're gonna do a little uh we're just gonna draw it out of a bowl and see what questions Becky has for us and see if we can answer them.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

So the first I think they're just topics for discussion, so not necessarily a prose, but let's just see what we got. All right.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

So the first topic, interestingly enough, is the newspaper. Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. So I actually worked for a newspaper for a little bit. Um, the Centerville Daily Oijan. I was a photographer. One of my stories was I rescued a guy, I consider it rescue. Um, he crashed his airplane in the middle of Lake Rathbun. Okay. And so I went out to take photos of it. I think that night I was taking pictures of Pam Tillis, who's Okay. Yeah. The daughter of uh who's the country singer? Mel Tillis. Mel Tillis. Yeah. So I was taking pictures of her. She was performing. Is there a backstory to this? Or what exactly? Kind of pictures of the thing. I guess I should have led with that. So then I go out to take uh to cover this news story about this guy who crashed his plane in the middle of Lake Rathbun. And uh I was following the crazy thing about Centerville is one of our pumper trucks had a hole in the bottom of it so you could follow the fire trucks because there was water on the ground. It was a week, yeah. And uh that bodes well when you get fire. They don't have to go long for a fire. So we were going down uh this road and it was all dusty and stuff, and this guy was like walking down the road, and I thought he was gonna tell me to turn around. I thought he was like, Hey, listen, it's a one-lane road, there's a lot of fire trucks. So I slowed down, rolled my window down, and he goes, Where's everybody going? And so there's a guy who crashed his plane in the middle of the lake. He goes, I know, I was flying it. Yes. Oh, really? And he goes, Can you take me somewhere so I can call my wife? And I said, Whoa. All right. So he hops in and I did an interview with him as we were driving because there's no cell phones or anything at the time. So uh and so we this is back when you could say stop the presses. Yeah, yeah. And so I called my boss and I said, Hey, listen, I've got the guy that crashed his plane. I've got his story, and I've got a picture and I've got everything. And he goes, All right. And he actually stopped the presses, and we and the story was there in the morning. Waited for you to get there. Yeah, when people opened their daily IWeGian in the morning, there was the story. So that was kind of uh one time. Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore. I mean, you the the presses are like two and a half hours away. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Mostly people have it digitally, but well, I yeah, and taking this back to Gen X type stuff with newspapers. I mean, do you get a newspaper at your house anymore? I do not take a delivered paper. No, but as a kid, did you film the paper and read the paper? I mean, yeah, for sure. You know, I think the obviously the cartoons and the comic strips I think were popular, Sunday comics were huge. But the sports section and the box scores, I think that's the biggest thing I think of. Like as a kid, I remember scouring the box scores of all the games. I think I knew more about what was going on in games back then than I do now, and there's highlights on TV every night. Right, you had too much of it.

SPEAKER_05 12:15

And then after free agency, you'd always check in on where your dude went, wherever he got traded to. Um, but yeah, the box scores were really great. Yeah, it single-handedly kept the family circus cartoon alive because if I had to if I had to like buy a family circus book, I wouldn't have done that. But it's since it was free in the newspaper.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, for sure. Did you have uh favorite cartoons in the the newspaper cartoons? You mean as a like as a youth? Yeah, as a youth.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

I mean, yeah, I'm trying to think what the what the uh what the timeline on it was because later I like I was a doomsbury guy, but that was that was much later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Um well Bloom County, I think, had a huge, I mean obviously had a huge Iowa City tie. Yeah. That was one of the top comic strips, you know, for a number of years. But then I always think of Garfield as like coming up. Yeah, Garfield, yeah, true.

SPEAKER_05 13:07

Garfield was mine just because of my affection for lasagna. Yeah. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Right. Garfield was a it was a phenomenon, Garfield.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

I think so. It challenged peanuts as like the top header on the thing. That was a big thing, the pecking order of the Sunday cartoons.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

And people had like stuffed animals and Garfield and everything. Like all the gear that was super branded. How about the Big Peach for the Des Moines Register? Oh, yes. Yes. That was you wanted to see your name. Well, if you want, you wanted to see your name in the Big Peach.

SPEAKER_05 13:38

Yeah. I mean, how many people our age with the state high school basketball, tournament wrestling, volleyball, you know, had their picture in the Big Peach. And that was that was cool, man. That was absolutely cool. John, what was the Big Peach?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yeah. So for our listeners that aren't familiar, the Des Moines Register Sunday edition sports section was printed on peach or light orange colored paper. So it's called the Big Peach. And I think originally the whole sport section was Peach, but then it kind of pared down to the front page, it was Peach, and then the headline Peach. And then they let that tradition go away, I'm pretty sure, altogether, which is just a travesty because it was that was a national thing. Like it was famous. People knew the big peach, no matter where you went.

SPEAKER_05 14:16

So interestingly enough, the big peach also had real estate, and the big peach also had business movements. Like if somebody was named like a vice president or moved up in them. Yeah. And so what it did was it stood out in the Sunday paper. So if you open up the Sunday paper, you could pull that out, and that was where a lot of the money went. So business is the principal, and everybody uh paid the Des Moines Register to run those those things about the people that were promoted. So you would pull out the peach section of the Des Moines Register, and that's also where a lot of your ads and a lot of the money was made.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

So I'll tell you another thing in the paper that it was always fun, was the classified. Oh yeah. I mean, that was your Facebook marketplace. That was you know your Snapchat, all that stuff was the classified ads back in the day. Look for look for a job. Everything was in there. I mean, it was fun just to read some of the crazy in the paper. Posts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

It was well, there's even bits, like wasn't it wasn't it Letterman that used to do a bit around real things that were said in in I forget what it was called, but today in the poor I don't know, it's some some some journalism thing, but it was so good.

SPEAKER_05 15:27

I have a buddy that's been in the newspaper business, I think his family has been in it for like six generations, which is you know, I think predates the civil war. But yeah, and he said one of the pieces of unspoken truth is that small town papers are doing all right. They do okay. Yeah. And the reason for that is they still have pictures of kids. Kids, yeah. Kids in 4 H showing animals, kids, you know, they have the team photos of little league and softball. Yep, and they have local coverage, yeah. And people still want to buy the paper, they still want to cut out their grandkids and put it in a scrapbook or put it in whatever. And the other chunk of that that is interesting, that the state of Iowa has it in their law that each municipality, if they have meetings, they have to have it published publicly. So if the Board of Supervisors or the you know um city council, yeah, yeah. So if they have a meeting, they have to publish the minutes of the meeting and how everything was voted upon, and the city and county have to pay for that. Yeah, so like if they ever come in and say, hey, listen, this can be posted pub uh digitally, yeah, then some of these newspapers might hurt. Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Oh, they're still out there. All right, do we cover your black and white and red all over? All right, John, I'll let you pick this one up. All right, I get to pick another topic. Okay. Fast food from our childhood.

SPEAKER_05 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 16:57

I mean, I can what fast food did you have growing up in Washington?

SPEAKER_03 17:01

We had a Hardy's. That was, I think, the main, I think that's the only place to get a burger, and then um CafC. We're the kind of the two eventually late, late in the game, we got a subway. But oh, there's a Pizza Hut. There's a Pizza Hut on the four lanes. Yeah, yeah. So Hardy's Pizza Hut. It wasn't until very much later that would that a McDonald's came, but I really think those were we had an A and W. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So that was pretty solid. It was on the end of the four lanes. I don't know when that thing closed, but it was like a drive-up route. We had that too, yeah. The cold mug. So that was that was a treat. We did not, my parents were not really go out, eat out much at all, even even fast food. Then for some reason later, like in my high school years, we used to get for some reason we always got chicken on after church. We'd go get chicken and go home and watch NFL football. That became a thing. But we didn't go to Hardy's very often. It was kind of now.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

What was your go-to at Hardy's? Did you go with the burger at Hardy's or did you I think so? Just a regular hamburger. Okay. Yeah. I feel like Hardy's was like a roast beef move. They used to have a big roast beef. They did have roast beef. They still have big roast beef. Okay. Yeah. And they had a great chicken sandwich back in the day.

SPEAKER_05 18:12

They did. Mm-hmm. You know, and Hardy's is still plain broiled. Okay. Yeah. So they had something called the Big Twin. Like all of their stuff was different. And it it was regionally different. Now it's even more regionally different because on this side of the Rockies, it's Hardy's. On the other side of Denver, it's Carl's Jr. Oh, okay. And that's the same franchise, same same darn thing. Same everything except it's Carls Jr. Okay. But yeah, we had a Hardee's growing up and we had a KFC, and we had an AW. Okay. Yeah, there we go. I will tell you, AW had a good thing. The burgers were good. The mama burger, papa burger, baby burger.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Yeah, you could get the drinks the same way. Fries were good, shakes were good.

SPEAKER_05 18:58

You could get root beer like mixed in. So instead of putting milk into your root beer or into your shake, you'd have root beer put into your shake. My favorite thing to do, or my parents did, was you could buy a gallon, half gallon, or a quart of root beer and take home with you. Yes. And so you would roll up, they had your your car, you would park in one of the things.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Literally roll your window and roll your window down, and they had that clap, that thing that the menu had three different sheets, so it was contained.

SPEAKER_05 19:29

So you'd look out your window of your car, and then it you could slide three physical menu things. Oh, yeah. When you're ready, you pushed a button, they came out, took your order, or some places took it from the car. You would just like talk into a microphone and then they would bring the food out to you. And it was still at a time where the windows were durable enough that you could set 40 pounds of food and glass root beer outside of your window.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

For sure. So you guys didn't have the opportunity to have multiple choices for fast food at lunch, like in high school, it sounds like, right? We no, my we had a club when I went to school, we were a closed campus. We had an open campus, but we we did not have a lot of fast food. Did you experience like the Wendy's buffet? Remember when Wendy's for a while had like a salad bar and a chili bar and baked potatoes? Yes, they went all in on like in dine-in experience. They had like sunroom built out to the side. That was a huge thing.

SPEAKER_05 20:26

Um the guy from Wendy's, Dave Thomas Thomas, came, I think, from McDonald's. Okay. And he had a totally different idea, kind of like this family-focused idea of what to offer for fast food. Things that could be fast food, but were also healthy. Yeah. To this day, Wendy still has regionally sourced beef, which gets them into a little bit of a bind sometimes. Like I think a lot of McDonald's beef comes from Australia, New Zealand. It comes frozen. I think at one time, and maybe still is, Dave Thomas had all of the beef sourced within two or three hours of wherever it's served. Yeah. Which, you know, in Iowa, there's there's some beef issues with the processing here. I mean, it's kind of an expensive endeavor to have you know mass processed beef.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Well, and that's the fresh beef at Wendy's he that's why I mean the chili is he they wanted to use beef before it went bad, and they were committed not frozen, and so we added the chili to use the baby. That became a huge thing. Right.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

So once once you have raw beef, it only it has a it's on a clock. It's like a 48 hour clock. Yeah. But once you cook it and prepare it, then the clock extends out. Right. So if whatever beef you have is not fried or cooked, or whatever that they do, I can't I think they're a fried facility, but if it's not made into chili or something else, they can't serve it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

So well, we've talked about it uh on a previous episode, I think, on the food advertising this came up or beer advertising, but the Long John Silvers was a fast food place and really craft. An experience back in that was kind of the glory era of fast food, the 70s and 80s, you know, and that was one of the leaders of the pack where that was a dine-in experience.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Yeah, we had you talked about they had beer mugs and stuff. I experienced it not so much as a dine-in. Yeah. My my grandparents would would often get it. Um so when we were near seeing them in Cedar Rapids, they had like their fish and chips.

SPEAKER_05 22:24

The tomwa was the closest one for us, yeah. Yeah. And it was a big deal. If you had like an eye appointment or a dental appointment in a toma. You got a long john. Yeah, you figured you're going to Long John's afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Now, did you guys get into the Monopoly game at McDonald's? Or again, were you not frequent enough flyers to like that time of year? No, the Monopoly.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

The one thing I was going to mention having to do with like collecting is I remember that our hardies had they were glass, they they put sodas in it, you know, they put whatever diapeps you're going to cover or whatever. But it was I think they put like like a cap on it if you went through the drive-thru or whatever. But it was a it was a glass colored thing. It was a whole it was the Looney Tunes characters. Like I have a set in my bar, like my parents, and we worked hard, like as we wanted to make sure we got all the Yosemite Sam and Buck Money.

SPEAKER_05 23:09

So Hardee's was like they beat McDonald's to that. Okay. They had the Looney Tunes. Yeah. Hardy's also had uh Muppets Take Manhattan. Oh, didn't they? They had the Smurfs. Yeah. I mean, and I I just always think like, how would you like to be a manager of uh like a Hardy's and like, all right, here's 68 cases of glassware, don't break it for the next two months.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Don't break it.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

What was the um Stephanie got a drink? Last night we went into the wild culture com kombucha place, which I never I didn't really even know to bring it back to bars and dive bars.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

I guess it's in the John inform me, you inform me. It's the it was in the spot. It's on the location of TOX. And they had a really good drink program. I had a strong old fashioned and Stephanie ordered something that was like uh what was it called? It was I think it had gin.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

It was a gin base.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

And it had yeah. Anyway, they served it in this glass 80. It looked like it was from the 80s, it was painted on what was Disney. Was it Disney? Okay, okay. I thought it was some kind of food spot.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

No, I think it was Disney's uh random Disney stuff because it had like the Fantasia hat and oh that's right. You were talking about Fantasia.

SPEAKER_05 24:24

So what are you getting there? Tell me a little bit. So it's kombucha, but it are you getting an old regular old fashion or are you getting like it is, it's a cocktail bar.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

It was yeah, it that's what I didn't understand. Have you have you not you haven't experienced it? It was my first time in there, but just going by, I thought all you could get was kombucha there. That's what I that that's what I thought it was. But they put kombucha in some of their you know, they mix in with some of their beverages.

SPEAKER_05 24:49

I'm not against kombucha, but it's uh if I saw that on a sign, I'm like, Skip it. Yeah, I'll just take the shot and kombucha on the side, I guess. I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

All right, Brad, take a shot in the basket.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

So okay. We didn't have anything more on fast food. This is drive-in theater. Drive-in slash theater.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Oh, drive-in slash theaters.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

They still exist. I mean they do. I saw the original Star Wars at a drive-in in Dallas.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Yeah. Yep, there's one up in Door County. I've uh fallen asleep at a couple of times.

SPEAKER_05 25:21

There's one in Makokata that's still going, and I would suggest you do it, like especially if um as the days get longer, take a bunch of people, still get, you know. I remember us bringing like our own popcorn, oh yeah, our own pop and everything else. Yeah, I will rehash or remind everybody that's listened to before that the first time I saw Porkies, I was like seven years old and it was playing at a driving theater up in Des Moines. Like we sat there and watched it for I don't know how long that light was, but it's forever is the best part. No, you were just you didn't pay to see it, you were just driving by. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a great. But yeah, driving theaters were uh you know, even at Makoka to this day, it's an event. There's people that are eating, people playing frisbee, people, you know, they a lot of them had putt-putt golf courses, some of them had petting zoos. Um, it was a real scene. But in the Midwest, it was unless you had it tied to something else, you had six or seven months windows.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

That was right about it.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Right. Yeah, short window for it.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

But following on the slash theater part of that, theaters in general were an entirely different experience. The like the Ingler was one movie theater. Right. You know, and later in its life it got split into, you know, one and two. But the original theater of that size and scope with a balcony and they all had a cool glow-in-the-dark clock, and it was quite an experience going to the theater.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

If you haven't been, I'm sure Ray, I think you have, but my hometown, Washington Iowa, the state theater is the longest continuously running theater in the world. Right. And they renovated it, and it's and it's just exactly as you described. It's got a balcony, it's got the it had the plush seats, it had they were pretty it was nice and spaced out, but it had this it was almost like you could see someone performing on a stage, and that's probably how it started, right? We're traveling theater or something, but it was it was an elegant thing, an elegant spot comparative like well, they used to run like dollar matinees in the summer during weekdays, like old westerns and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

We would literally get a crew, take the bus down there, and we'd play hide and seek for like all afternoon. You'd go in. That's how big the theaters were, right? And there were spiral staircases up to the balcony. Yeah, you could get a good game of hide-and-seek or tag going, and I'm sure that the theater employees hated us, but you would do that at the Angler, you're saying, or you wouldn't have to be.

SPEAKER_05 27:57

Could you imagine seeing a movie with that many people? I mean, a lot of those theaters now they hold award shows or concerts and stuff, and then but you know, that's the whole magic of a theater is sitting next to somebody that gets scared at the same time you do, or somebody that falls in love at the same time you do. Um, it's kind of a group thing, but doing that with 1200 to 1500 people is just crazy. Yeah. Multiple places you could congregate.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

The one I remember just distinctly was E.T. uh, because it was such a phenomenon. It was at the Astro Theater in downtown Iowa City, and every episode of it, you know, no matter when you went for like three weeks, it was packed.

SPEAKER_05 28:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Just packed. It was crazy to think that many people for one show.

SPEAKER_05 28:37

I don't know where the phrase, I'm not crying, you're crying. Did that come from Major or League of Our Own, or I can't remember where that came from. I'm not sure. But I actually uttered that phrase at E.T. I'm not crying, you're crying. That was at the very end of it, and I was not prepared for for that. I was not prepared to cry in public at such a young age, and then have somebody call me out on it because I had I didn't have the capabilities to discuss what I was feeling.

SPEAKER_04 29:04

What was it? They were out of popcorn or what?

SPEAKER_05 29:09

This wasn't in the theater, but like we had to watch old Yeller at one of our we had to read old yeller, and then on the last day we like watched the movie, and like oh it was so embarrassing when they turned that light on. Because like, yeah, man, that was terrible to do it. It was and we all knew it was at least the people that read the book knew it was coming. So yeah, if you had skimmed right, had to be emotional in front of your classmates. All right. So the next topic that Beck has picked out for us is school lunch. Oh, there you go. Right on. A lot of ways you can go with school lunch conversation.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Sure. I ate I mean off the top. Hot lunch, cold lunch kids were they're absolutely 100% hot. I think I brought my lunch to school maybe twice in my I like I ate the school on on site program. That was our deal. Okay. We were hot lunchers.

SPEAKER_05 30:00

Yeah, we were hot lunch.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

That was a mix and match. You know, I guess I was too, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, so we would do both so hot lunch. Yeah. I feel like they're pretty similar programs, no matter what you went to school in Iowa.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yeah, they would publish, they would publish what was gonna be, you know, available.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Well, what was the go-to hot lunch? Your favorite.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Oh, what was my favorite? Um I don't know if it was my favorite, but I certainly remember the like the rib sandwich that was just like a stamped thing with the shame. That was good. Pizza I like pizza burgers. Square pizza Oh, pizza burger. I was a pizza burger guy. The square yeah, the big long square pizza. So that was a special day.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

So in reference to the square pizza, one of my buddies, his mom was lunch later. She was a lunch lady. And hoagies and grinders. Same. Hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders. So she was a lunch lady, and uh much long after we had graduated high school, I said, Who was the food service where you guys got the pizzas from? And she said they made the pizzas. Yeah. I and I did not believe her because they were so consistent. Yeah. That had to have been like a Cisco or a Schwann's or something.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

It was super basic though, right? Like it was just like one ingredient, it was like cheese and like a little bit of hamburger or something. Like they were just very, very minimalist. But I like I mean they were great.

SPEAKER_05 31:22

Yeah. Yeah. So but the recipe is out there. If you want to do just Google, you know, school pizza, it's all out there and it's exactly what you would expect. So the other thing that's kind of interesting, that's regional. Did you guys always have cinnamon rolls served with chili? Yeah. Yes. Yes. That's not an everywhere thing. That is an Iowa thing. Is it? Yeah. I mean, if you talk to people from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, they did nights of house or two rolls.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

Whoever came up with that, I I I praise them.

SPEAKER_05 31:54

Right. No, I mean, it's it's really kind of odd. And you don't find that stuff out until like your freshman year in college and you're sitting there drinking, and you know, it's like three o'clock in the morning. So you know what I'd go for? It's just then rolling chili right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Like, what are you talking about? Yeah, how about mac and cheese and little smokies? Did you guys have a chance? Those were good. Yeah, those were good.

SPEAKER_05 32:14

We uh did a lot of mac and cheese and fish sticks. That was kind of our thing, too. Yeah, fish sticks, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Now, for the cold lunch program, you didn't do it, Brad, but right, lunch box, we got a lunch box, a brown bag. I mean, that was a big thing too. Yeah, what was your first lunchbox? The very first lunchbox I had was NFL. Okay, all the helmets of the NFL.

SPEAKER_05 32:34

Yeah. Mine was Space Odyssey 2010, which we've already we've been we're past that, and we're still not on Mars.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Well, you had to have some Star Wars lunchboxes in your day, did you not?

SPEAKER_05 32:47

I had, yeah, I had the Star Wars, I had the white Star Wars lunchbox with the uh uh R2D2. Yeah. We didn't always get a lunchbox every year, which was a little bit of a I had the full Lee Mary Major's Fall Guy lunchbox.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Okay, I had a Batman and Robin, an old school Batman and Robin one. There was a Davy Crockett lunchbox. Do you remember the Davy? I mean, if you don't if you don't remember it, give that a Google search. I mean, he's gonna go into town with the butt end of a rifle.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Um you know, some indigenous people. I mean, it's the kind it's unbelievable that it was a lunchbox that you would take to school. Nothing really goes with the peanut butter and jelly when you're 10 years old, like something like that. But yeah. Did Davy Crockett die at the Alamo?

SPEAKER_05 33:29

I can't remember where he ended up going, but I think it was the Alamo. I feel like it was the Alamo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

So maybe hand in the end he got what he got. But but I also had a uh good kind of a craft your own lunchbox. I remember my mom got me one year, so it was like a blank slate, and you could put stickers all, you know, yeah, which was kind of like a trapper keeper for lunch, right? You could do your own thing with it. That was pretty popular. But any more uh lunchbox for you, Everbrian? I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

I I for some reason I remember maybe someone having a welcome back cotter lunchbox.

SPEAKER_05 33:59

Wasn't that the perk of being a high uh school administrator's free lunches for the kids? I would write that into my job description.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

I no, I don't think that was no. But I what I was gonna say. I was gonna say, I remember someone having a um Dukes of Hazard one. Was there with our fan Dukes of Hazard? Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:17

You would have like men's theme or boys' themes and girls' themes Dukes of Hazard for sure. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:21

But no, we were for some reason didn't do hot lunch, which I can't think of. It would have been like just take it in a brown paper bag. Right. You know.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Spartan style.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Yeah. I was just gonna say for us hot lunchers, I don't know if you guys had this, but this is in elementary school, they would let the table go that clean their plates. So there was a whole like you can go to recess first. Sure. If you if you clean your plate or whatever. And so there was this whole um, you know, shtick around like if you didn't want to eat your peas or whatever it was, the usually the vegetable or something, something like that, that you would put it in your milk carton. Kids would scoop it in their milk carton. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Did you look longingly at the kids that had like juice boxes, Star Crunches, and all these things that were? All the stuff from they brought from home. Yeah. Yeah. Name brand, like ho ho's, oh yeah, you know, twinkies. Yeah. You know. Real Snickers coming out of someone's brown bag. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Instead of the high yeah, you're bartering for another half of a cinnamon roll from somebody.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

You'd want yeah, you'd want the brownies. The brownies were pretty good. But it was always uh I don't know if they did this in in your school, but they would always have a one of the servers would walk around when one the lunch ladies would have like this little tub and it would just have um cut in triang triangular sandwiches. It'd be like a you know, butter sandwich or a butter and jam sandwich. And you could ask for you could ask for a sandwich, and that was like the thing to do to supplement your meal was to have so that they for some reason they were so coveted.

SPEAKER_05 35:47

Well, actually in Centerville, the same thing. You can get a like a jam sandwich or a peanut butter, and it came in a cellophane wrapper. Yes. And then I could have taken it home with them and had it at night, you know, or after school. So that was kind of a they they came from a wrapper. Okay. So they you just didn't get it and put it on your plate, you couldn't have taken it with you. You could pocket that thing. So you know, I said one of the things you discover your freshman year in college when you're all drunk. This was brought up one night and it floored me so much I got sober. Did you guys have, when you're in first through maybe even sixth grade, milk breaks in the morning? So especially like first through third, like when your teacher would read you a story. Did you guys have milk? So they would get the milk count, they would say white or chocolate. Somebody would write down. Yes. They would go down to the gym or the milk, and they would bring the crate crate, yeah, and then you would drink milk while the teacher read. All right. Yes. They didn't do that in Illinois, they didn't do that in Missouri, they didn't do it in Nebraska. Us and Wisconsin didn't. Interesting. Yeah. So we in Wisconsin had milk breaks, and the rest of the world didn't have that. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

And I you're right. White and chocolate. Did you guys go for the chocolate? I for some reason I just I just stayed white.

SPEAKER_05 37:00

Oh, I went chocolate every time, dude. Are you kidding? I think you have done that.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

I don't think I went for chocolate very often. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 37:09

God wouldn't want me to have chocolate. I don't know. Too much pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

No idea.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

What a square. Jeez.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Really quick speaking of the milk and stuff in Unique to Iowa. Did you guys have like one day a year where it was like the school nurse or someone brought in the little red tabs that were like to determine if you had plaque on your teeth?

SPEAKER_03 37:27

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

And that was quite the exercise, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:30

You put that thing in and then you could look around and just determine who had the grossest mouth in the class.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Yes. It was kind of shaming you, wasn't it? Yeah, of course it was shaming you.

SPEAKER_05 37:41

And there was like no write-off, right? It was basically University of Iowa dental school sending a tray full of stuff down in the nurse. Like, all right, I guess that's what we're doing. Publicly shamed. Yeah. And then after that, if it was red enough, then you were given uh fluoride plaque rinse that you that you would have to go over to the rinse your mouth out. There were like six kids out of the 22 that had to rinse their mouth out.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Don't rinse your mouth and get a scoliosis check. All right.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Who's that thing that reminds me of like when there were um lice outbreaks too for some reason? Oh my god, yes. Like when it was a big deal, uh, because you gotta put your head down. And I don't what were they were they spraying something on you? Like did they like spritz you with the colour? I don't know if we get sprayed, but like I think you would have people like going through your hair.

SPEAKER_05 38:30

Yeah, the nurse would go through your hair if you had it in your like and so our the way our fourth, fifth, and sixth grade was we had hooks in the back of the room and we had place for our bags, so all of our stuff got hung in the back of the room. But if there was a lice outbreak, then everything got moved to your desk. Like your coat got put on the back of your desk, your bag was under your feet, they kind of like separated, and then there was kind of like this I don't trust anybody who had the lice because they would not say who had the lights. It really didn't matter because it was so it spread so fast. It'd be better to know, but yeah, it didn't matter, and then that seemed like nobody could go spend a night at anybody's house. Or if somebody did have like and like we all shared everything, we all had the same batting helmet, we all had the same catcher's helmet, we all had the we wore each other's coats, sledding. We you know it wasn't it didn't matter who it wasn't a cleanliness thing. We were all just wore everything, there wasn't much of anything. So anyway, all right. Should we move on to the next?

SPEAKER_01 39:33

You want to draw it, right? Um here you go, Brad. Brad's gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

The bus.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

The bus.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

I'm assuming this means the school bus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Yeah, probably. It could be the school bus.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

Did you take bus?

SPEAKER_05 39:47

Yeah, I mean, we it depended on where you were in school. They had most of the K3 schools centrally located, but the four, five, and six, you had a bus. Okay. So yeah, you were you were a bus to school all the time growing up? Uh no, I was bus um grades uh four and six. Fifth grade, I think sixth grade I was in Tumwa Butt.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Brad, were you a bus kid at all?

SPEAKER_03 40:09

No, I wasn't. I biked or walked to school.

SPEAKER_05 40:12

Our town was small enough that you could get to the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

So yeah, and I wasn't a bus kid, but it was always interesting doing the bus for a field trip, you know. There it seemed like the the bus kids were right at home. They like knew the program. Yeah, where to start how the windows worked, and yeah, all the things, right? And it's you know, it was a foreign concept. If you rode the bus once a year to the field trip, you really didn't know the lay of the land as well.

SPEAKER_05 40:36

And football, you know, when you first start the season first started, it was hot as hell in that bus. Like you couldn't have enough windows down on the way up, and then as the season went along, it got colder and colder. So then at the last you know, two or three games, it would be frozen on the inside because you'd have so much humidity coming off you, and so much you couldn't see out the bus. They'd have like six fans on the front window, and and it was just the same bus that kids would have taken that morning to school. There was no difference.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Take the yellow bus like for varsity football and stuff, or did you guys get charter buses for that?

SPEAKER_05 41:11

No, so we had yellow buses all the time. The only time we had the only time we had a charter bus was like one time we went to the the dome to play Kia Cook. Like two of the most southern-tiered places went to the UNI to play in a dome.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

But now, did you guys take pads? Like, was that packed separately like for a varsity game? Did you travel with like your uniform pants and stuff on, or how did that work? Oh, we didn't. Yeah, I think we did. Yeah, we were taking the bus like in middle school for football. Right, and you couldn't sit two in a seat with shoulder weight. We had to take them off.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

I think you put your your football pants on and you know you'd have everything but your pads and jersey. That's how we went down, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:49

That's kind of something that the Iowa City School system's going through right now because there is a budget crunch, right? There's been some miscalculation. And we are in a spot now where there's just not enough schools that are our size, so we have to go to Des Moines. You know, we have to travel two and a half hours to play four schools. Right. Um there's Waterloo School and there's a couple in Davenport, but it was anytime that was over an hour or maybe an hour and a half, they would get charter buses. And now our kids are going to have to be in regular school buses. Oh, you know, I'm not my kid doesn't play anymore, but that was a big issue for him. I'm like, dude, this is don't let that get in your head. That it's it's doable. I know it's doable because we did it. I mean, yeah. And even the the yellow school buses now have like air ride and stuff. I mean, that's all different. That's a totally different thing. Yes. John, I want to bring up, I want to evoke your dad's name. I remember one time. So your dad was a school bus driver. He was, yeah. And one time we went downtown and we hit, I think it was for um one of the clubs, like when you guys on the fr Fridays when you would meet. Oh, yeah, yeah, the huddle clubs, yeah. And something was going on, and we ran into about oh, maybe four or five kids that were maybe in high school or just out of high school, and they all knew your dad, and they all had wonderful things to say. And they were very loving with your dad.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Yeah, he loved driving school bus and he would do those charters for like baseball and softball and those sports. Yeah, he uh he he loved his time with the bus and he loved his City High and Liberty Lightning athletics. So he drove as many of those as he could. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 43:25

Well, they it was uh it was really nice to see that what kind of connections he made with kids and over the years.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

So it's a lot of time spent. I mean, for the kids that go out in the country, uh did he do the country route too, or was it mainly like his uh his routes were mostly in I was seeing school just in town, yeah. But even just the amount of time you spend with those kids throughout the year, right? When they're not I don't know, you're seeing them in a very different way, yeah, right, than the teachers do. And you know, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:50

A lot of those guys, end your day, that was a good thing. Your dad included, and a lot of those other people, like when they drove a sports team somewhere, they had to have all that stuff. Written down ahead of time. There was no GPS. Like if they went into Devonport or someplace like that, they would know exactly what entry to go into.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Yes. And I remember Dad talking about the cross the railroad crossings was a huge deal. Um state law that you have to stop at Alban when you're traveling out of town. You don't have you know the reminders of where and there was no GPS. That was a big deal. Like could impact your travel time quite a bit if you got into a city with a bunch of train tracks.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

Right.

SPEAKER_05 44:28

Absolutely. I will say something that's universal about every single person that starts driving a school bus is they all have Stanley coffee thermoses. Yeah. Because I don't know how many times, like after a game, baseball track or football, sure. You would come on and the buses smell like coffee. You know, those guys, those men and women would like run off caffeine because they're driving at 11 o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

My dad told one funny train track story. They took a bunch of kids on a field trip to the Threshers Grounds down in Florida. Heck yeah. And that is a like crisscross of train tracks for those steam engines. It's all private property. Right. None of the school bus drivers really knew if it was okay to drive across.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

So they were like dancing. There were like six school buses with flashing lights on to like 20 sets of train. They didn't really know if they could race. Right. The the troubles of being a confusion.

SPEAKER_05 45:23

So so let me put this out here. Do you think that you could be a bus driver, Brad?

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Um no. John? No, no, my patience would not allow for that. I could barely stand my kids in the back of the car with no headphones on. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

I think it would be tough.

SPEAKER_05 45:39

We it's a totally different story when you're on a rag ride bus, but when you're on a regular bus, there's just not and I know why they try to rule with an iron fist because if just a couple kids start getting out of hand and then the rest of the bus falls apart. Totally. I just don't think I can do it now.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

I wouldn't want to drag a ro drive a rag rib scene though. No, I wouldn't either. Might be worse. It might be worse.

SPEAKER_05 46:04

All right, John, you're next. Go ahead and pick out uh our next topic. All right.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

The next topic is pool days. Oh summer pool days.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

So many.

SPEAKER_05 46:15

Was there a pool in Washington? And obviously there's a pool in John. So what was where was your pool?

SPEAKER_01 46:21

I mean, you we did had two, but the primary pool for us was Mercer Park because we're on the east side of town. Outdoor, indoor pool. It was an outdoor pool. In its day, it was uh yeah. Well, it's kind of currently the parking lot for the people familiar with Mercer. That was a big pool. Because it's an indoor pool now. It is, it's an aquatic center, rec center situation now over on the east side of town. But back in its day, it was just a large outdoor pool.

SPEAKER_05 46:42

How far away from your house was it?

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Um, ten minutes by bike. Bikeable, yeah. Yeah, it was a bikeable deal. That was a bike.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

Brad. Yes, big big pool goer. Um, in fact, I got the summer pass. We lived a block away from Sunset Park, and it was about a block within Sunset Park. I I was two blocks from the pool. Right. So it was that was my parents, you know. I had a I think it was a punch ticket to pay or something like that. It's good because you had like day swims and night swims, and I would often do them both. I'd go and be there for I don't know how many hours. Like we would be there often, the Dunland brothers would roll up in our car in our on our uh bikes, and like they'd be open to chop. Right. And we'd stay there until they threw us out. Right. And I mean, exhaust like being in the hot sun, right? And like swimming and stuff like I just remember my appetite was always so huge, but like we would be gone for I don't know what it was. Come home, eat, right, and then they're gonna open up the night swim. I'm gonna be there. So lots of time. All right. Yeah. A lot of time at the at the pool in some.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

Did you do swim lessons at the pool?

SPEAKER_03 47:42

No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Did you ever do swim lessons?

SPEAKER_05 47:45

Are you talking about taking them or giving them? Taking them. I gave them. Yeah, I took them and gave them.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

But like originally was at it, that felt like the earliest in the morning thing ever, and it felt like the pool was so cold. You know why that felt like that? Because it was. Because it was. But that was uh that was a brutal pool memory, though, is having to get up way early. This is there and get that cold water.

SPEAKER_05 48:07

I'm going to have to try to figure out a way to not like roll over the top of both of you because I was not only originally a pool rat, and that's what we called it the uh the um 11 o'clock to uh 9 p.m. guy, but then I became a lifeguard. Okay, and then I became a WSI instructor. Right. Yeah. And so I went from being in the pool as long as I could to having to be in the pool longer than I wanted. So it was even when I was in college, I still taught lessons and I still lifeguarded. I lifeguarded all the way through college. I once you got that WSI instructor, that was 21 bucks every time you walked out on the deck.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

I was a certified lifeguard. I took all the classes. I never actually lifeguarded, but I am so disappointed this day. I've never had to use a pair of jeans to make a whole that was a Boy Scout thing, but yeah, it was also a life, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:00

Yeah, no, that was also a life. BSA lifeguard? Yeah, so when I was a lifeguard, the f I think you had to be a lifeguard, you had to swim three quarters of a mile in one thing. Yeah, they'd picked it out, and then if you were a WSI instructor, I think it was a mile and a quarter that you had to swim. And I did that all in one summer, and that was the best that I shape I was ever in. Yeah. But going back to the the morning swim lessons, you know, when you're a kid in high school, you know, staying out until whatever your parents would let you stay out to, and then waking up at 5 45 to teach six o'clock swim lessons. Yeah. Those poor kids didn't want to be there, and you didn't want to be there. I still remember this kid named Randy. And we had you know, usually the levels I taught were oh, like the first like three stations. So like I couldn't stand up at all. I was cold. So in order to be warm, I had to be underground, but I was at where those kids could still touch the bottom. Yeah, you know, and I remember this Randy King. I'm so cold and I don't want to be here.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

I said, Neither do I, Randy. Join the club, brother.

SPEAKER_05 50:16

And then once that kicked in, man, it every hour hour I was there, I was like a semi-driver. Every hour I was there, I was making cash, and we would do the late nights, and then from 9 to 11, we would do a pool parties where you had to have four lifeguards there, two to sit and two to two off the chair. Yeah, and then you know, those were big cash too. So it's that people would pay to have pool parties. Yeah. And um, yeah, so I would be there until like midnight sometime.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

So a couple things, I assume the pool was the social hub in the summer for kids at Washington, or was it not so much that way?

SPEAKER_03 50:53

Um Yeah, there were there were a lot of there were regulars, like there was a there's a group of kids who who were there all the time. But yes, it was it was a pretty popular place to hang out.

SPEAKER_05 51:03

Yeah, it was a social spot not only for people that were swimming, but for people that were in cars. I mean the cars would accumulate in the parking lots and people would sit out.

SPEAKER_03 51:11

There's a little basketball court right outside that too, and tennis courts too. So there would sometimes be like pickup basketball going on while others were in the yeah. How was the pool concession situation in Washington? I don't remember very well. Really?

SPEAKER_01 51:25

I mean, they definitely had something, but I we didn't bomb pops and stuff like that was not a thing that like I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 51:33

I don't remember. All of our candy bar or a bag of chips. It was like really simple.

SPEAKER_05 51:39

All of our stuff when there was nothing prepared, there wasn't a popcorn or anything like that. Not everything, nothing plugged in. It was all like uh wrapped candies. Wrapped candies and stuff like that, candy bars and stuff like that. We did have somebody that oversaw, like a a kid that would oversee the snack shack, but the lifeguards would have to take one pole out of the day at the snack shack. And there is absolutely nothing like having a kid roll up in a wet sock, you know, and like empty out like five bucks and like 12 bucks and you know, a scattered amount of change, like what can I buy with this?

SPEAKER_06 52:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:16

You buy a lot, dude. Yeah, yeah. And then the you know, you'd always say, Hey, you know what? You could buy a Snickers bar and you could also buy me a Mountain Dew. So then, yeah, some of the pool rats would like tip you a Mountain Dew if they were feeling big. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Was there anything more refreshing than that mandatory shower before you went to the pool deck? Oh Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 52:36

So that's actually important. I mean, our pool was big enough that it wasn't as important, but it was still there's enough communicable diseases. But one summer we had a pooper. Oh and we had somebody that would regularly poop in the shower room. Oh, I thought you were saying in the pool. Uh no, they would poop in the shower room, and that had to been that had to be taken care of just like it was uh hazmat. It was, man. It was a two-person job. We had to clear it out, somebody had to clean the poop. We had to get like this uh shock chlorinated system and just blast. Right, yeah, and they did it on the regular like a couple times a week, you know. So it got to the point where we'd have to like have people go through the locker room. It was a dude, it was a kid, it was one of the kids. I assume it was a kid, not a dad, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_05 53:28

But yeah, that that showering all your impantego off, I guess. I don't know what the shower was about, but yeah, but anyway, no, it was great, and you had a great tan.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

And uh I was a little surprised you were able to do pool night like night session because didn't you have baseball? That's what we never did the night session because we always had baseball in the summer.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

I definitely had baseball, but I but now it didn't in fact bull time. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:53

We had coaches that wouldn't let us swim on game day. Yeah. Oh yeah. That makes sense, I think. A little bit. I don't know if it does, but it they did. They were like, nope, we're not gonna if if we're focused on the championship, nobody's swimming, not on game day. You can go after enough time to swim afterward. There are certain things that make your legs tired. Pool's one of them. I guess I will tell you one of my fondest rem memories. Um, I never had to save anybody. Uh but one of my fondest memories is we had a person, so we had always had an adult, and most of the time it was a college kid that would, you know, apply for the job like in sometime in April, you know. So and the city was responsible for filling it up and making sure all the chloration works and everything. So all they had to do was come in and manage the lifeguards. So anyway, we had a um I think her name was Kristen who oversaw the pool that year. And she had to take a day. She was in college, we were in high school. She had to take a day, and so at the very high level, it was decided that we were going to have a manager, yeah, somebody that was gonna call all the shots, and there was all the best lifeguards, it was all the most responsible lifeguards. It was the cream of the crop lifeguards that were gonna take responsible on this day. The bay watch of Centerville. The Bay Watch of Center Valley.

SPEAKER_03 55:07

The creme day.

SPEAKER_05 55:10

It was a board short, it was definitely OP season every day. Yeah, the OP was big then. Hell yeah. So the pool opened up at 11. Yeah, so it opened up at 11, and everything was going swimmingly. Everybody thought it was a great decision. And at one o'clock, this grown woman on the deck chose to breastfeed on the deck, okay, and there was a complaint. And um, it was by another adult, and action had to be taken. We had to do something, and we really didn't have the facilities about it. Right. Like, what to do? This was definitely somebody that had a lot more you know capability, somebody that had taken a couple college classes.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

I'm gonna monitor this with my binoculars.

SPEAKER_04 56:01

Which one is it?

SPEAKER_05 56:02

Oh, yes. So anyway. So anyway, she had two kids, and the the problem was she wasn't breastfeeding a baby, she was breastfeeding like a four-year-old. Oh you're gonna say a lifeguard. She was breastfeeding my buddy Jason. Legend. Yeah. So anyway, we so somebody called their parent. And like, what do we do? And like, uh, this is you probably need to call Sharon. Yeah. Sharon up at the courthouse. That's the drama lifeguarding.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

Well, were the Dunlap boys? Well, you this that was a big thing in the the day. If your parents bought you Speedo or board shorts, were the Dunlap boys all yeah, I'm sure you're Speedo people.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

I don't remember no, we weren't. I thought you were board shorts.

SPEAKER_05 57:01

Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, the other thing that was really great about our pool was we had two speakers outside of our pool, which we would tell people when their parents were there. We told you know, all the kids to get out of the pool because it was adults swim. You know, there was lightning in the area. Pool check, everybody out of the side, everybody out of the pool, not at the side, everybody out of the pool and on at the side. Um, but the other thing we would do, we had a stereo receiver in there. I want to say it was something nice, like a Marance or a Carver or something like that. Pioneer. And we had one of those microphones that you'd have to push down, like you would have like at a high school to do the announcements. It was just like that. Except you would clamp it down with like a hair clamp, and then you would lay it in front of the speaker, and then the music would broadcast over the top of the pool. So that's how we broadcasted our music. Was the same microphone that you would tell Lindsay Stevens that her parents were here to pick her up, was also broadcasting Led Zeppelin. Yeah. But the the uh the pool, man, that was the best place in the world for music.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

Oh, that's the the there are songs to this day that you know when I hear them, I just I just it just takes me there. Um so yeah, the the pool was really the soundtrack of summer for me. There's so many uh tunes out there that I just remember. Right. And that that era, you know, just that that music at the time, but like what was on the city.

SPEAKER_05 58:23

And they had DJs, you kind of got in relationships with the DJs, the on-air personality. It wasn't some computer in some closet somewhere spending, you know, top it was actually somebody on a microphone like talking about what it's like in Des Moines and their KGGO or the state fair was coming up, or there was a huge concert, you know.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

Yeah, so did you take your own radio to the pool or did they play music for you off their air radio? They played it.

SPEAKER_03 58:46

They didn't play it, yeah. Okay, yeah. I think it was just a hookup, you know, it was like a hookup in the uh you know. Yeah. I don't know. Like what what brings you back, Brad? What are some of your summer songs? Oh man. Um yeah, I've got a bunch of these on my uh my playlist that I listen to when I'm mowing the lawn usually. Um so a lot of Fleetwood Mac. Uh what for for whatever reason. There's a lot of uh Fleetwood. There was uh Ario Speedwagon, yeah, Journey.

SPEAKER_05 59:15

Super Gen X right there, man.

SPEAKER_03 59:17

Um yeah, I'm trying to think of something else. Eddie Money? Yeah, take me home right now. When I when I hear when I hear an Eddie Money song, I think of the pool. Jake's band, Centerfold.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

Now, did your pool did you is that like all the way through high school, what timestamp did you guys do the pool?

SPEAKER_03 59:33

And did you have a beach lake situation when you got older, or was it all the closest thing folks from Washington did was went over to Lake Darling in Brighton, Iowa. There was a there was a little sand beach. It was like a little no, not a real you know what you would consider a real beach, but you could you could do outdoor and some people did, but it was much more typical to uh to do it, I guess, just to go to the city pool.

SPEAKER_05 59:55

But we we had a huge lake, Lake Rathbin, and like a lot of dudes actually had boats. They didn't have cars, but they had boats. Oh and they had Rathbun had like three big beaches, and there would people come from everywhere, Tumwa, Albion, Centerville, and you know, they would come from along and there would be huge boats, and people would, you know, have beach parties. So it was kind of crazy. I mean, that really I know I in the past I said, you know, our kids dated kids from other schools here in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids area, and I don't know how they found out, but that was the one time that you would date somebody from another community is meeting them at Lake Rathbin on one of the huge beaches. Yeah, there you go. So and there was the sound systems were great.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:41

Well, I was gonna say, yeah, when you think to me, when I think music summertime, it's like when we're 16, you got the driver's license, then everyone in the area went to the reservoir to the beach. Yeah, okay. And that's where the soundtrack I don't remember music at the municipal pools being broadcast, but okay. That's where the soundtrack of summer was. And that's to your point where the kids from West High and Sol and outside schools, you'd cross-pollinate with them. There was no social media, no cell phones, none of that. So you only saw them like at the res.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:09

So we'll I tell you what, we're we run up against this little issue with um Spotify and YouTube where we can't play music uh directly on here because they want royalties, but uh we'll put together a playlist and share with everybody the playlist, and maybe we'll play some of these here as we we go along and make it easy so we can um to edit it out later. But John John, what are some of your songs of summer?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:33

Um so ACDC Shook Me All Night Long was kind of an anthem uh that I just associate with driving to the reservoir, load the cooler, get the boys in the car, head out. That song, uh Sweet Emotion, Arosmith. That was popular. Yeah, you know, we were really big into ZZ Top. I think the Afterburner, I'm not sure what time of year that came out. That's very summer. Yeah, legs, and that was super popular. And a couple of the other ZZ Tops as well. And then anything Mellon Camp. Yeah, we did. I I kind of associate Cherry Bomb as a summer song, but Small Town and all the others were, of course, anthems of our childhood too.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:10

We need to have at some point, we need to do a show totally on the year 1984, because that is the Z top. That is like it's I think it's MTV was speaking. Yeah, yeah. Van Halen. 1984 was the absolute premier year for music and the whole deal. So much stuff going on with with the Olympics and every I mean it was just the best year ever, but the iconic year of the 80s. How about you, Ray? All right, so you know, I I did listen to a lot of music at the swimming pool. A little bit odd, but we listened to the beach boys. There was never a time that our family didn't listen to beach boys. My dad always had an eight-track or a cassette or some way to play music in our car, and so um, like fun, fun, fun, which was summer, you know, all summer long. Um, but yeah, he had the best of the Beach Boys in there. Um, I like the Billy Heidel song Hot in the City. Yeah, that was from like 1982. It's a great song. In 85, the Outfield had a song called Your Love. Oh, yeah. And this is right in the sweet spot of like when Pioneer started getting like great sound systems in cars. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And that entire summer, you that's that song would be blaring out uh stereo that Jess is on a vacation, you know, totally. Um those are kind of like and then sentimentally, I love Bob Seeker's night moves. That just even right now, that takes me back to you know, before we had devices and other things to occupy us, to be able to just sit by yourself out by a lake or a reservoir or something like that, and just be with yourself. That was so awesome. And to hear that song and think, you know, what he's singing about is me right now. You know, and now I'm 54 years old and I listen to that song and I can go back right to where I was when I was.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

Bob Seeger's songs are all just a good story, yeah. And they're all they seem like relatable stories or they connect on some level. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:12

Yeah, he did a good job of capturing the moment of your youth. For sure. So uh okay, so the the two other songs that you guys would never have heard of, but mean a lot to me is um there's a song Nick Drake sang called Pink Moon, and we've actually been experiencing it for the past two nights. Okay. The night before last and the night before that, yeah, was when it's a full moon and it comes in low on the horizon, and the the moon is like a champagne pink. Yeah, and it's just a nice like a harvest moon kind of a thing. Yeah, and it's great to listen when this you know everything's quiet, there's no activity to date, everything's cooled off. I like Pink Moon, that makes me think of summer. And then James Taylor's song James Taylor sang a song called Summer's Here, and that's special because that was in my house, especially during the summer when we didn't have AC, so all the windows were open, and we wouldn't have the TV on, and my parents would have like super minimal lighting on. Like during the winter, they'd have like three or four lamps on. But during the summer we would just have one thing on, and there would be James Taylor, like Paul Simon, really kind of quiet mood music. Yeah. But that James Taylor song, Summer's Here, yeah, when the first day it was like 74 degrees after a really terrible cold winter, and my mom or dad would play that, you know, like, all right, summer's here. Yeah. It's time to like wear the shorts and enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

Brad, Rapper's Delight.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:39

Did you I remember Rapper's Delight. Yeah, they play that at the Washington pool. Uh, I don't recall that. Probably. I don't recall that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:48

Doug shouted from across the way.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

Shut that off. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

That R rated music.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:53

All right, boys. Did you get all your systems? Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:56

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:57

All right, everybody. Uh we'll put up um Spotify playlist of our summer songs. Becky, thank you for making this uh quick pick Gen X relatable thing. That's really good topics here. Thanks everybody for tuning in. Thanks for liking and following us. Kevin, thanks again for being on, man. Hopefully we'll have you on a couple more times.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

But uh if you have not, go back and find Kevin Burr and the one before with Hap and Mike A. Those are two really quality storytelling sessions that are worth going back and if you haven't hit them up.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:29

Yep. All right, everybody. Thanks a lot. We'll talk to you next time. Bye boy. Nice.