Pod 36 Fathers Day 2026

Gen X dads are the generation that found themselves standing right in the middle of two very different worlds. They were raised by Boomer dads who could fix almost anything, who kept a coffee can full of random screws and bolts in the garage, read paper maps, and wrote down their own directions before a family vacation. These were the dads who believed a little trial and error, a toolbox, and a stubborn refusal to ask for help could solve most problems. Gen X absorbed those lessons — learning how to change a tire, build things, troubleshoot problems, and figure things out because there wasn’t always a YouTube video or an app to do it for them.

But when Gen X became dads, they were handed a very different parenting playbook. They grew up with independence and “go outside until the streetlights come on,” yet they were expected to raise kids in a world of constant connection, safety concerns, and technology. Their Gen Z kids might use turn-by-turn GPS instead of reading a map, search a tutorial instead of digging through a toolbox, and replace something rather than repair it. Gen X dads became the bridge between generations — teaching their kids how to navigate a world that they themselves were still learning to navigate, while quietly wondering how they went from being the latchkey kids of the 80s to the parents trying to set screen-time limits in the digital age.

#fathersday #dads #genx #boomer #genz

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I did I I think I got my mechanical abilities from my father. And the the ironic part is his dad was a welder. Yeah. His dad had tool had a awesome tool set and knew what to do, welded things together. And my dad not so much. If if there was something that needed fixed around the house. I think John the only tool your dad had was his son. Right. That was the main tool. The dullest tool.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Alright, here we are, boys. Father's Flanagan, Father's Saducci. Raymond. How's the go going? Very well. Here we are again.

unknown 0:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Back at it in the original studio. Back at it. Boy, that was uh kind of fun hearing Jan and her uh her talking to us. Man, that was that was great. Yeah. Hey, if you're just listening to us for the first time after uh listening to Jan, welcome. This is a deep dive podcast. You're here with Brad. This is Brad.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yeah, I'm Brad. John.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Brad's the baritone. Tab Tab Batterson. Tab Batterson.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

That's right. And and sorry to disappoint anyone who is tuning in after having listened to the Jan, because I think that's like maybe untopable. Right. Such a great episode. She was such a great, great guest. And uh now it's just us three knuckleheads back at doing what we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

So if um yeah, so if you are new to the show, Brad, what shows would you recommend somebody listen to?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Favorites of mine. I mean, we've done what is it now? This is 36. And they're they all have different flavors, but my my personal favorites have been with guests. And so my top four would be the Jan episode, which we just had, which many people probably heard. Kevin B. F. Burt. I mean, Kevin Burt, local music, local musician, did three songs, one original to the pod. Yeah, yeah. David Zolo, also local musician, friend of mine for a long time, legendary guy with a really cool backstory, loved his loved his pod. And then we had a couple really solid ones from Hap with Hap Peterson telling stories about the 85 Hawks and bringing in guests from his team. And those are those are some of my favorites. I love the Alberhasky. I mean, we've had so many great guests.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

So John, who would you recommend? What shows would you recommend if somebody's new to the show? All the guest ones I think have been great. Uh, you did mention Doug Alberhasky, Iowa City History, that was great. Craig Sermac uh did childhood famous cars of 70s and 80s, and we are gonna have him again, spoiler alert, soon, because we had so many requests for additional content. But outside of the guest shows, um, I like uh I think episode two when we did beer advertising, and we got a lot of engagement on that. And then some of the ones where we've kind of put ourselves through the ring are pickled meats, yeah. We tortured ourselves with some shots. Yeah. Um, so I think some of those are kind of were entertaining to record, and some people thought they were entertaining to listen to us punish ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, death by pickled meat, those numbers are up. Those are I don't know where they're not. I don't know who was what what uh vortex we got pulled into, but somebody out there, somebody loves death by eggs.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

And Brad and I worked on that jar of pickled eggs for probably three or four months. You know, and Ray would not touch them, but they were fine. They kept just fine. They got better with time, I thought.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Um they were just coming into their own.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

What happened? The sun at some tailgates, they sat in the fridge in the rain. They were good. It was like a fish tank.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

It started to get kind of that film on it and darkened up.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

John, what did you end up doing? Did you dump them into the reflective pond out in Washington, D.C.? Is that what it's reflected? Yeah, exactly. They were the right color, right? All right, boys. Well, since we are last together, I think you guys did a little bike riding. Hey, we're 30 days out today from Rag Bray. Is that what it is? 30 days. All right. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. I think we'll probably have something Ragbury related between now and then, too. For sure. So tell me about your bike ride this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, we lost some heavy miles this weekend. We uh Brad and I, if you listen to the show, you know we tend to do always do a Saturday morning, early morning spin around Iowa City with a breakfast stop. Uh we had a group ride that celebrated a birthday this last weekend. So Brad and I did our huge in the morning and then shuttled up to Solon and met a larger group and rode up to Cedar Rapids and stopped at some dive bars along the way up there, made it to Lilbo. Uh had a nice conversation with Jeff and some of his famous little beers and a great time.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Gotta get there. Little Bo's a great dive bar. Yeah, man, such a great dive bar.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

It is, and we got some positive feedback from him about maybe being on the pie. He was receptive. We had heard that he was gonna be anti-anything multimedia, but he seems somewhat receptive. So maybe we'll be able to sit down with Jeff. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

I would be if he would be open to that, I'd be open to that. But if he's not open to it, I don't want any part of it. Well, I'd don't even be better if you're not going to be able to force anything.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Yeah, right. Yeah, he definitely seemed warm to it. I think it'd be great, Joe.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, it'd be fantastic. The history of that place, the history of his family in Czech Village in that area is really amazing. So it'd be fun to sit down with him.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

For our long-term P1 listeners, uh Little Bow is the place that uh John told the Ponsetta story from. So that's that's where that bar is.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Absolutely. I was just gonna say, chatting with a friend, talking about the Dave Zolo episode, Dave uh has a song on one of his I'm trying to remember the name of the the album it's off, but it's called Parnell. And and I shared with you that a friend of mine said, if you haven't been there, and I have have you guys been to Parnell to the Bolivar? Apparently there is an epic dive in Parnell, which I think we need to prioritize getting to.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

I don't know if you've taken the time to look yet, but Ragbry goes through Kimbleton. Or no, that goes through Elkhorn. Okay. Which is I guess only three miles away from off-route. We're going to Luggers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Mandatory off-route. I did I I knew the only thing that I knew for sure about Ragbry was it goes through Dunlap, Iowa. Right. So I'm going to try and see if I can get like a Dunlap sanitation coveralls or you know, Dunlap City Council signage or something. But yeah, okay. Kimbleton, we gotta go to Luggers and we gotta pay a visit to uh to that legendary spot that Jan talked so much about.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I like it. I'm in. All right, with last weekend behind us, we're gonna take a look at this weekend coming up. This coming weekend's Father's Day. It is indeed. And uh we all three are fathers, so this week's show, we're gonna talk about Father's Day and how we celebrate. Um, but to look back on Father's Day, Father's Day is actually pretty recent. It was observed since in 1972. That in comparison with the first Mother's Day, which was in 1908, when Anna Jarvis uh petitioned to have a day created in which mothers who usually carry the burden of the family workload were recognized and for their thankless work. So it's just been pretty recently that fathers have been acknowledged as almost 60 years after Mother's Day was established. So Father's Day is this weekend. Do you guys have any plans?

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Yeah, yeah, nothing uh nothing too big with the girls and I. Well, it's supposed to, but I'm and I'm not a weather as we've established. I'm not a weather prognosticator. But I'm told by my wife who is, yeah, I suggested a bike ride, like breakfast and a bike ride on Sunday, which uh we did last year, I think. Yeah. And uh the girls were all into it, but it sounds like it could rain. So we'll see. We might do uh a breakfast and bike ride. If if it's too rainy, we'll we'll just do the breakfast and then maybe a little barbecue. And then I'm gonna go down and see my dad in Washington. Yeah. I'm gonna take him some wig and pen. Uh he's a flying tomato fan. Yeah. So I'm gonna deliver a flying tomato and hang out with Doug. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah. My dad's uh coming up and uh we're gonna go to baseball tomorrow night. And then Saturday, I think we're gonna go catch a colonel's game and then go home. Baseball weekend. I think both of my boys will be in town on Sunday, and I'm sure they have really great plans for me. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Hot dog in the stands with your dad.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

That's standard, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah. Fantastic. I don't know if I went to my first baseball game with him. But I will tell you the the funnest thing that I ever did with my dad in my early memories of sports related is he took me to the Harlem Globetrotters. Oh, yeah. Over it is at uh Evans Junior High School in Atumwa, Iowa. Oh, okay. Fantastic. And like he got me real close to the floor. He got me where they came out, you know. And I've always done that with my kids. I've always put my kids in the best position to meet Ian Hap, you know, to get Ian Hap's autographers. So that's one lesson that my dad taught me was you know, if you're gonna go to this thing, if you're gonna invest the time in it, yeah, make sure it's special for your kids.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

So very cool. I it talking about like sporting events, and that was what we did. We didn't really take you know big trips or vacations in the summertime. Our thing was go to a major league market, right? So we go to Chicago and see the Cubs, or we go to Kansas City, whatever it is. And to your point, get there early, probably sit in the cheap seats and then move try to move down if you can. But we were all about uh getting there for batting practice. Oh yeah. So we'd position our, you know, we'd get there, the stadium would open, right? And we'd be we'd be right there. And get go into the stands, and three Dunlap boys would run around with their gloves, trying to catch every home run that gets, you know, that gets hit. And so that was our thing. And then we we stayed, we were there when they opened it, we we did BP, and then after the game, if we had a ball or we had a memorabilia, we would wait until the game finished, we'd figure out where the team came out and we'd stand there and try and get autographs. So like we we milked that, right? Like we were there for how many hours with a baseball game, right? You know, with batting practice, and then when they have it, they're turning the lights off and we're still in the so yeah, good times. And my dad was all about like the cheap seats, but then see if you can upgrade and move down the down to the third baseline or behind home plate or something.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

John, did you guys have a vacation as a family growing up? You know, very much the same way. We would road trip around and go to baseball games, um, St. Louis, Milwaukee. So that was that was a big part of it. And then but my first sporting events with my dad, we lived in Dallas, and um the Texas Rangers baseball park back in the day used to be called the frying pan because there was no shade. You did not go early for batting practice. In fact, they famously played almost every home game at night because they had to, and so we you would show up after the sun was setting because it was so hot. But yeah, distinctly remembering we sat in the cheap seats. Me and the kids would go to the top of the bleachers and watch the uh roller coasters at Six Flags over Texas, probably drove our parents nuts, and we weren't paying as close attention as we should to the game. But I will say then also we were obviously huge football fans. Yeah, and living in Dallas, we had a family friend who was plugged into the high school football scene there and had access to Dallas Cowboys practices. So we would get to go watch the Cowboys back in the day when they practiced like at a grass field. Yeah, it was kind of out in the open, but we would get to go watch the Cowboys practice, which is always a huge deal, and that's where we would get autographs and all that stuff. So yeah, those are fun memories.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Same deal on um the Chicago Bears. They used to they used to practice in where what college was it? It was just over in what's it called? Platteville or Platville. We'd drive up to Plattville. Oh, sure. And we'd try to get you know, Walter Payton's autograph and Willie Halt, and and we'd stand around, and they'd do it. Like you had pretty good access to them. But like, yeah, that was a cheap way to get up close and personal. Oh, for sure. That and the Amana VIP when the Amana VIP was going.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Once we moved to Iowa and did that, that was and now our parents would we they would just drop us off at the VIP and we'd spend all day running around the course, probably causing mayhem.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Explain the VIP, just in case people don't remember the Amana VIP in in in Iowa City.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Well, I mean, it's a world-class golf tournament. I mean, you'd bring everybody a hoop. Pro am and um so for six days you would have Chi Chi Rodriguez, I mean, you would have like Willie May.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, you'd have all these baseball legends, the cast of hee hawk. Right. Country music star. Right. Klinger from Matt, like the potpourri of our kind of B plus list celebrities.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

I wonder why Klinger wants Vicks Vapo rubbing for the middle of August.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Gerald Ford, there was always a secret service because Gerald Ford would play. Yeah, and it would start like the night or two nights before at Dwayne Banks Field with a softball game. Yeah. And they'd bring in that softball team, the king and his court, and they would play the celebrities. Yeah. And then the VIP would go for a couple, two, three days at Think Bine, and it was really something else. It was quite the event. And good uh autograph seeking for kids our age back then.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, yeah. Good times. So I think dads, the responsibilities of dads like on vacation are kind of interesting. The that whole dynamic has shifted. I will tell you, uh when I grew up, both my grandpa and my dad were world-class trunk packers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was Tetris all the way. My dad could fit two cars worth of stuff into one trunk, man. He was amazing. Now that's that's kind of my wife. She that's her gig, man. She and she's good at it, and you learn, yeah, you know what to hill to die on, and that's not the one for me.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

I thought you were going to, because I do remember vacations were like this combination of you were doing fun things and you were getting out and you were like going to McDonald's, like, you know, getting fast food and stuff and things that we weren't you know didn't have locally, so there was that that adventure. But the drive could get really harrowing, right? Because you had three boys in the back and we're arguing with each other and we're doing this and that, and dad's trying to drive in like city traffic.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

You know, and this is you know, navigating your way and getting on and off on ramps in Chicago or Kansas City or wherever you might be, would be the time. Sometimes I would see my A, both my my parents get super chippy with one another. Right. Yeah. You know, because someone's trying to read the map but not giving the feedback fast enough at all.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, just so everybody here understands, this is coming from a Gen X perspective. We didn't have turn by 10 turn GPS. You're like your parents would sit down, probably your dad, yeah, and he would have like four maps. He'd have to go to AAA and say, like, I need the Illinois map, I need the Indiana map, I need the Kentucky map, I need the Tennessee map, and then he would basically do all of the work that GPS does now.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Like 15 miles, look for and in the event of construction or something unforeseen, like there was no right. There's no there was no point. I will say though, I thought what where you were going to was like supernavigator and like would never ask for directions. My dad did not subscribe to the you know, I think there were macho dads who were like, you know, a true man would never stop and ask my dad the first the minute we're lost, he'd roll over. He'd have no problem walking up and trying to. I'm the same. I like I've I've adopted that's one that's one lesson. Like, don't be don't be um ridiculously macho. Just like figure out where you're going and get there.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

My dad um would not. And my dad would he would sit everything down and you know, on a piece of paper, and then once my mom screwed up, things would get chippy. Now, if she if she would miss it, he my dad's nickname for her was Satchagoia, the person who navigated Lewis and Clark West. That's what it called it.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Well, I will tell one navigation story about my dad. So I said we lived in Dallas when we were younger, we moved to Iowa, and then after several years, we went back down to visit family and friends. And we were driving at night kind of through downtown Dallas, and on the lane divider markers, they have the little plastic like bumps in the road there. Yeah, yeah. Um, which I I just observed I hadn't seen it before. So I said something to my dad, I'm like, well, why do they have these bumps on the road? He's like, Well, they don't have to snowplow here or anything, so they put these as the lane dividers, and he's in the reflectors, so uh they reflect yellow one way and red the other way. So if some idiot's going the wrong way on the street, all the lights will flash at them red. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. Aren't all the lights flashing red at us, Dad? He's like, When did they make this a one way? He's putting the station wagon around in downtown Dallas and it's perfect. Yeah, it was curving. Well, these are all red.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

You read the wrong way, dude.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

It is exact words where in case some idiots going the wrong way.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Here we are like Griswold flying down the wherever you're going, at least in with in our crew, you would kind of get to where you're going because usually that was the major metro area. Everyone's a little frazzled, you're a little exhausted, you're everyone's a little bit on edge. Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

You know, and whenever you went to like a family member's house that you hadn't been before, like Kansas City or someplace like that, and the first thing they ask you when you get out of the vehicle is like, How is your drive? And there was that cold silence between your mom and dad. Because they were like, Well, we're getting a divorce when we get home. That's how the that's how the drive was, Rod. We're getting a divorce. I hope you're happy. Yeah. Or how'd you come? How'd you come in? Right. You did a ring 35 and then you should be flooring.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Did your dads cook? Did you guys No. When when something was uh when my mom wasn't available and dad was in charge, we were gonna have breakfast, whether that was for lunch, dinner, or breakfast. Right. And that and our breakfast, we didn't I'm not talking about like scrambled eggs. Yeah. I'm talking about you know Wheaties. We were doing cold cereal, toast, ice cream. Those are pop my dad can make cereal, toast, ice cream, and popcorn if if by you know if my mom goes first, I don't know how he's gonna I don't know how he's gonna look after himself.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Sustain himself, yeah. My dad's not a bad cook, but the only problem with my dad is it has to be in a cast iron Dutch oven. It has to be in a cast iron frying pan. Yeah, my dad is an old he's a scout, right? He still scouts. And so, like if you're gonna be able to do it. Did he do it in the front yard over a fire like an open fire? That was yeah, it would like mom would be out of town for three or four days to continue in medical education, and my dad's like, All right, boys, this is what I got planned beef and noodles, and we're gonna have an adventure. But the one time he did, I still remember this, uh, he was gonna make like three or four meals that were good meals inside the house. And one of them is he wanted to show us how to make uh buttermilk fried chicken. All right. And so it was the best, you know, so you soak the chicken for however long and then you make it just like regular fried chicken. And it was the first night mom was gone and got the oil too hot, and I guess left. I mean, we were not in the kitchen, but anyway, got distracted just there were flames involved in this, but there was black smoke and a lot of it. And so my dad it went from my dad making buttermilk fried chicken to like, how are we gonna get this kitchen back to the way it was in three days? I mean, cabinets need to be painted, a ceiling needed to be painted. There was, you know, navigation going on. Yeah, that like we had like fans for like four or five days. My I still remember like pots and pans banging around like three o'clock in the morning because my dad was step one, wipe everything down. Yeah, you know, and then there then did you guys pull it off? No, we didn't eat that meal, and there was no time to eat the other meals. I mean, it was just basically it was like we redid the kitchen while mom was gone.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

But but I well, I guess what I'm getting at is when she gets back, did you do a good enough cover up? No, it's smelled like fresh paint.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

No, it was all clean you know, it was mostly clean, and you know, the last meal I think we did have something, but you know, it was it was a deal, man. It was we had really high ceilings. I think we had like 10 we had lived in an old house, we had like 10 foot or 12 foot ceilings, so there was you know ladders involved. And my dad's intentions were great, but it was execution wasn't always there, all right.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, well, my dad was uh he was a cook. Breakfast for sure. Um, we almost every Sunday my dad would make scratch biscuits and gravy in East Texas. And he made his uh gravy with bacon and green onion. Interesting. Yeah, it was very unique, but super good. Um, and then he also was huge on the barbecue, of course. Yeah, my barbecue chicken and ribs was like standard summer fare that my dad would always cook, and then he always did Christmas Eve dinner, so he would do like standing rib roast and all that. Never touched the Thanksgiving or the Christmas Day, but that was dad's thing was Christmas Eve and standing rib roast. So that was nice. So he was cooking, maybe limited in the menu, but executed it well.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

John, you do a lot of the cooking in your house, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I do, yeah. I've tried to copy some of that.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

I was gonna say, do you do the the biscuits and gravy? You know what?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

I have tried to I've tried to do it with the bacon and green onion and I just never quite pulled off like dad's, so I've kind of reverted to sausage gravy. The other thing my dad did, I guess he did participate in Thanksgiving because he made a huge thing of stuffing, like from so you'd get the bread like days in advance, yeah, get it stale, sage, fresh sage, eggs. Love it. Again, I've tried to copy it a few times and I have have not been able to quite replicate it. So I've told my sister, if you want to try to take it on, go ahead. Otherwise I'm gonna cheat on the stuffing now.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

So I think that's that's one area that dads have definitely kind of their expectations of cooking, yeah, or or not expectations, but their their participation is much greater than our dads were. And I think that there's a lot of dads, like I do, I would say probably 95% of all the cooking in our house. I do almost all the shopping in our house. And so, um, and a lot of the food prep, and like when the kids want something special, they you know, when they hit when it's their birthday is always kind of flattering when they choose something that I cook and not like wig and pin or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

That's awesome. I would I would not fall into that stat. Like at the at our place, I can do a few things. My domain is probably the grill. I don't I'm not like a great, but that's that's a place I'm comfortable. So like in the summertime and that's where dads' lives were for a long time. And I'm kind of that guy. Like I can do I can do some breakfast things, some simple ones, and I've I've done a few pastas and stuff, but I Stephanie is very much the the king of the you know, the queen of the kitchen, and I and I will maybe try to sue Chef a little bit, but I I don't do much of the show. Like that that part I feel like I'm more of a nineteen fifties dad than uh most contemporary men who cook and cook well.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

I just I'm definitely the first generation that has men's handwriting in the family recipe book. All the rest of it have been my mom, my grandma, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

So yeah, I've always enjoyed. Cooking and and doing the shopping stuff, but I also logged a couple years as a single dad, so you know I kind of got thrown into the fire there. So I know what it's like to get something on the stove when they go do laundry and all that stuff. Kids settled down for homework and yeah, I had to juggle kind of a few hats there for a little while. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

When we were first married, my wife thought it would be nice to co-cook, which it wasn't bad. The only problem is if we'd make beef stroganoff, I'm using sour cream and she's using light sour cream. Oh, yeah. And uh the battle for now, okay. Her cholesterol and everything's like a thousand times better than mine is.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Well, co-cooking and work in the kitchen together is a little bit like riding a tan a bicycle. Right. Do you remember there was a show called Dinner in a Movie? It was like on TBS or TNT, Paul Gilmartin. Right. It'd be a movie and they'd make a meal. So way back in the day, we thought this will be kind of a fun Friday night thing. Let's cue up dinner in the movie and just follow the recipe and do it our you know, yeah. And then ended up having a couple years as a single dad. Right. So much for that recipe. Yeah, I was not very tolerant of light sour cream.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing that um I think that dads have gotten better at changing diapers, right? Yeah. So I was when I was a kid, my parents still used cloth diapers. Oh yeah. Which, you know, when you use cloth diapers, it you could get into an absolute hazmat scene, right? And the modern diaper is a lot more uh controlled and keeping things in place, and um so I think dads are like a lot more. I mean, still I think there's probably some dads that have like a gag reflex, but the kids gotta get changed. You guys were it was all hands on deck when or did you guys Yeah, I wouldn't say that I was a lion chair, but I definitely participated in it, um, for sure. Yeah. I remember some we went down to Florida. I still remember like going into a you know, because Walt Disney, they really do accommodate their people. I went into a men's restroom and they had one of those koala changing tables, like, goddamn right. You know, I didn't tell my wife about it, you know. But like day two or three, I like, oh hey yeah, there's a changing table in there, I can take care of my oldest. There was this virus called rotavirus. And any parent that's listening here, Gen X parent, probably experienced this, at least with one of their kids. But Brad, if you want to get a bite to eat non-bacon. Right, yeah. Especially if they have cheese grits over there. You know, I'll be back. But this thing, man, so I got up with our kids at night, and I just kind of a light sleeper, and so I'd always get up with them. And this particular night, my oldest was screaming, screaming, screaming. He's screaming like he was hurt. And so I wake up, and his room is two doors down from ours, and when I wake up, the first thing I realized, other than him screaming, is my first sense is my nose. I smelt something, and something was like, something pooped in my nose. Something pooped in my nose. Something moved up my nose, right? And maybe my mouth. And so I like get up and I go into the room, and he is really unhappy. He's really unhappy. And maybe he's had a night terror, but I could not get past the pungent smell. And I turned on the light, and there was diarrhea all the way up the wall to where the ceiling and the wall met in the corner and then on the ceiling. Yeah, that's this rotavirus produced explosive diarrhea that had the consistency of mustard seeds and kind of look like it. Yeah, and I can't tell you what the smell is, but I can go to it right in my head right now.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yeah. So just for our listeners, can we get into a little bit more detail about this? If do you have a photo of it or anything?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yeah, are we talking like a brown mustard? Oh, French yellow. A yellow.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Not a grapeful palm.

unknown 26:15

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

And I just thought, oh, Jesus, okay. Because the cues looking at me like, dude, this I'm not feeling good at all. And I can see that in his eyes. And so then I just kind of looked at all this on the wall and on the ceiling and on his crib and everything. I was like, okay. So I went back and told my wife, like, hey, you're gonna have to get up. She goes, Why? I said, because one of us, or it was the first night my kid ever had a shower because we couldn't put it, we couldn't bathe him. Yeah, we couldn't put him in a tub like we normally did eat, like we had to rinse him off and then give him a bath. Yeah, and I just remember sitting there at 3:30 in the morning with Clorox water, wiping, you know, up by my ceiling, thinking, my dad would have never done this. Yeah, he just would have this would have been a mob job somehow. When I called uh we had this call a nurse line, and I called her up and said, Hey, listen, my kid, my kid's upset he has explosive diarrhea, and she goes, Does it smell really bad? And I said, Yeah, it does. And she goes, Yeah, it's rotavirus. And I said, What I do? And she goes like uh just have a lot of clean clothes, keep keep him hydrated. I think I can't remember, I think at that time all they could have was you know, formula. I don't think they wanted to have anything, but they gave us the green light to give them pediolite. It was like kind of the first time he ever had anything that wasn't milk based. But yeah, I just thought my dad never would have. Right. Yep. This would have been a mom job.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Take outside, hose you down with a garden hose, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Right. Never would have gotten that out of the cloth diapers. No, this would have just been destroyed.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

This would have been for ceremonial a ceremonial rotavirus fire, like something honey.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

I think we're just gonna have to move. Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Some sort of pyre thing.

unknown 28:04

Yikes.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Never had the explosive. I I did an it's Stephanie.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

I thought you did on Monday Rack Bride. Well, I had explosive.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Oh, you're talking kids, not our kids, yeah. I had the explosive. I've never experienced it, never had to clean it up. Um, I would say that Stephanie was definitely lead in charge of you know, everything managing the girls. She was a very, very on it mom, but every now and then, you know, I was kind of left in charge. I can't remember if Steph was shopping or gone or was doing something with one of the one of the girls, but I had I don't remember if it was Natalie, to be honest with you, but there was a diaper changing situation, and I got what I called the the fatherhood um trifecta. Yeah. You know, I got the the christening, I got I got pooped on, right? Ped on and puked on. Right. And the puke was like, I don't know why. I think I had her over my head or something, and then she like threw up, and it's just like and I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

You're doing everything with her that Steph would have said, don't shake her up like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

She just ate.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Why did you pick something?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

I mean, yeah, she's peeing and pooping. Putting her over your head was a smart move. I'll explain that.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

I don't know. I can't remember the order it was in either. Where is this coming from? Get a bird's eye view of this. Get underneath. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I still remember this. This wasn't my kid, but this is my story. We were at the Iowa State Fair, and there was this dad that had his kid up on his shoulders, and it was, you know, a bazillion degrees. It was state fair hot, and the guy walked past us twice and he smelled like poop. Like the dad didn't like stepped in something, and then like he walked past us and it just browned down his back. And I thought, oh, that poor dude. I hope he got like a decent Father's Day card this year. Uh oh. And he had no idea. I'm sure he just thought it was sweat. And like, I'm sure when he met up with his family, hey, you know, you got Dylan's poop down your back.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

You don't get that so-barn smell often in the f at the fair. No.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Golly, it's still really hanging.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

I'm sure it happens to mom, but it's moms, but I just don't ever see that. Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

We just make a bigger deal of it.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

That's right. So I brought um, for those of you that uh heard what a bear does in the wood, that episode we talked about Debukestar and how it's still brewed. It's brewed by Potosi. So I brought uh a couple Debukestars and it's for you guys. Because at one time you guys, I think you said when you did a college visit, that's what you had was Debut Stars, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:31

I I remember a college party uh at Central College and someone brought in a I thought it was a case of bottles of Debukstar. I don't know. It probably was, yeah. I don't think I've ever seen the red can. It's kind of a cool retro can. Yeah. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

So what are your thoughts, Brad?

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I mean, it's I haven't coughed it yet.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

I'm gonna let it settle in a minute. While that's happening, one I was telling you about when I visited Loris College, they treated us to be a star. But um, I was listening to Satellite Radio this weekend, Casey Kaysem, 70s countdown, I think from 1978. Yeah. The 32nd song on the countdown was the theme song for Laverne and Shirley.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Oh, really? A couple things.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

One, I mean, in the day, theme songs to TV shows were like song songs that would chart. Right. Um, and then of course, it you know, they talked a little bit in the lead-in to it about Schlitz and the brewery and the whole thing being filmed, which we talked about that long ago. But yeah, a charted song. The lead in Laverne.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Like the theme song for Taxi was a charted song for a long time. I mean, it was just like somebody whistling. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I brought, boys, was a gift from our friends uh Jay and Cassie Strunk. Uh Jay travels quite a bit. Once you get into South Dakota, uh-huh, North Dakota, and all the other Dakotas, they have individual tang servings. So Jay sent along some packets of tang so we could have some tang bombs. Oh, fantastic. Traveling tang. Right. I like that. It's pre-packaged. Thank you, Jay. Look at this. Zero zero sugar. Yeah, because he knows about it. Go to my waistline, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

So yeah, it could be a game changer on Ragbri. Right at this. Yeah, just emergency tang.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

You can put this in your wallet, I bet.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

I know. So as long as Jay keeps traveling, we have a source, as long as he travels west.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

I mean, in an emergency, you wouldn't even need to like you wouldn't need to necessarily mix. You could rip the top off this. In case of emergency, just like pour the Jaeger right there. What was the what was the candy that was a powder in the tore off no no, it was like it was just it was like gelatin like, and you you tore the top and then you just dump the sugar, sugary candy in it. Do you guys remember you know what I'm talking about? We used to buy them, they're like in a little almost like cardboard rack. Oh, yeah, yeah, like swizzle stick.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

It was like a straw with a thing on the top.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

So what you could and then you just rip the thing off and you just pour it directly in your mouth. So you do that with this tank, this dispenser here, which looks somewhat similar to that. Rip it off, take your Jaeger, right? Right. Maybe a drinking fountain. Right. So you could just get a little drinking fountain, a little bit of this, and Jaeger. And you don't even know need any like thing to put it in.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

It sounds like it's built for work.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Yeah, I could take this to the office. I'm gonna keep one of these in my desk.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Don't you think that little cardboard straw started out with like some executive like, all right, so what we're gonna do is have the kids cut off both ends and they're gonna dump the powder into their water and stir it up with a straw and then drink it like Kool-Aid. And then they've got like a research group and like a bunch of kids that cut off the ends of it and just like down the Kool-Aid sugary Kool-Aid, and like, or they could do that too. Yeah, they could just like they could just eat the the sugar.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

I thought you were going another direction with like a like a Wall Street executive. And what if I had one of these and I put some kind of powder in it? Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

I was thinking store in a line, like, hey, this could be a candy delivery system. I like this.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

What if we just put fruit flavors in it? Cocaine will go from Bogota. Uh we could repackage this with tang in it at swimming pools. Wouldn't that be very nice?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yeah, this is great. This is good for travel. I was thinking how uncomfortable you were smuggling that tang into the Czech Republic last year. This would have been nice to have it right. Well, easier to explain anyway when you get when you get pulled aside.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Exactly. This is fantastic. So Jane Cassie sent that to us. All right, so let's get back to our talk here. Did any of you guys have dads as coaches? I did.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yep. My dad coached what he'd coach uh soccer and baseball all the way through. Coached every little league team and every youth soccer team I played on. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah. You know, I think at one time, like with my dad when he was a kid, all my grandpa had to be was a provider, a protector. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was it. Maybe, you know, that was kind of what was expected of a dad. Our dads, i if you were a provider and a protector, and then you coached, you were a little bit more. Like if you spent time with the kids on Sunday mornings, you were a little bit more. But my dad, when I was in a certain age, he where he worked, he couldn't take a lot of time, but he did coach my brother. And my dad was a pretty good coach. I was I was always impressed with watching my dad coach. I my dad coached too.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

My my dad was a coach. He played baseball, and then when he came to when he came to town, he was the head baseball coach for many years in in Washington, and then when I got old enough, and that that coach just didn't go away, that competitor just didn't go away. So he where where I was gonna go. So he was an intense coach with me. He had super high expectations and like the the whole winter before my first season of little league, we lived in this big old house with an unfinished basement, not high ceilings down there, and there was like a support pole kind of in the middle of this room, but it was long enough that he could step off. I don't even remember what little league distance is from the mound of the plane, but anyway, he would step it off and he would go down there and crouch, and he he would call balls and strikes, and I'd throw like three, four innings a night for months leading up to Little League, so that when I went out and had my debut, I had the arm over the head, high kick, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

It looked like you'd been to the radio before. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

And and so he was really intense and you know, really expected me to perform well because he'd put a he poured a lot of time into it, which was which is fair play. But what I thought you where I thought you were gonna go, he's a he was a good coach. And I remember my teammates, he would be he would lavish praise on them. He would like pick them up when they were down, he would build their confidence. And like, you know, you go out to get infield, and he's hitting like perfect bounce right up, you know. And he's like just hitting line drives at my ankles, right? And they're like, what get there, stay down on the ball, right? It was the it was one of those things where we had a we had teams that were good, we had a lot of fun, but for me, it was like Brad. If you're gonna bleed, go bleed the nugget hockey goalie out there getting peppered with the biggest. The coaching never stopped. But I mean I I say that looking back on it, you know, it it was it was good for me. Uh I I was gonna say the maybe I told this story before. I didn't talk back to my dad, that wasn't a thing. You you showed respect and you kind of dealt with things, but and he would get super intense, especially when it came to athletics. And so he had a bag of uh pinkered baseballs in a in a in the sack in the back of his trunk and the and the ball gloves. And so anytime we were anywhere and there was a there was a field, so we we spent a lot of time in Cedar Rapids, and I remember he'd be like, Well, we're gonna go have batting practice. It wasn't like hey dad, will you take me? We're gonna go hit, so we're gonna go hit for a while. All right. So what he would do is he would put me up instead of at the plate, I'd go all the way back to right in front of the backstop, right? The chain link backstop, and he would get up closer so he could get more on it and throw harder. Right. And he's like, get around on the ball, you know, get move the bat earlier. And he's he's giving me all this feedback. And we didn't have the L like because he used to pitch to me when I was in in high school too. He'd throw me batting practice before batting practice, and he would get in the cage and he had the L. But back then, he didn't have anything to protect him, and he throws me this fastball, and I absolutely tag it right into his groin, and he goes down like this is after I've been berated for I don't know and I hit him right in the nose. Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

He's like, Okay, pick up the balls, we're done. Like we're done. We're done. Did you like say get the glove down? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

We definitely intense coaching.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

John, did you coach any of your kids? I did. Yeah. So I you know, and my dad was not the super intense coach, he was maybe a little ahead of his time in that regard. Um, he wasn't, I don't have recollections of him being extra hard on me or anything like that, you know. And for the most part, it was just all around good experience and fun teams and stuff like that. So uh yeah, and of course that motivated me to want to coach my kids, and I I hope we had the same the same balance with it, right? Yeah, kind of the the life lesson part of it and the learning to be a competitive group and teamwork and all that stuff. So we tried to strike that same balance. Um of course youth sports has changed immensely. We've talked about that in other episodes, so yeah, it's always hard to strike that. But but yeah, no, I I coached uh all three of my daughters all the way through travel softball until they got up to high school and got beyond my reach as a coach.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

That's awesome that you did that and that you kept it, you know. I I I talked, I think it was it was helpful for me, right, to have a to have high expectations and live up to him. And it wasn't just like my dad, I think, would say he just didn't know how to turn off the con to this day. He's very competitive. That's just like how he's wired, and so he's Yeah, Ray, wait till you get to this Fourth of July party and see him hovering over that grill. I think that's a thing. Like he plays still plays golf and he's he cares about a score and he wants to compete and he wants to win, he wants to do well, he wants to get better. And that's a good thing, right? To work hard at something, to hold yourself to a high standard and all those things. But when it comes to parenting, that's where I found sometimes the feedback that I got was pretty rich. Because it as intense as he was as a baseball coach, he was an even more intense dad when terms of like discipline and schoolwork and all the things. And um, I said to myself, I'm gonna I'm gonna be a little bit more of a bad I'm not gonna be that overly enthusiastic coach. I'm not gonna be like overcoaching my kids, or I shouldn't even say overcoaching, but like it's getting super, super important.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

That's super critical, like of yeah, of excellence. Just let your kids play a kid sport, have a good time.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Let the coach do the coach things, I'm here to support you. And so I was always fairly um hands off, didn't didn't coach the girls in anything. And maybe maybe should have, maybe I regret that a little bit. But I didn't want to have that dynamic be too heavy, right? It was more like I'm here to support you, cheer you on, did you play hard? Did you have fun? Were you a good teammate? Those were the things. But then when it came to like discipline around the house, I I really had a couple of times when I don't even remember what the situation was, but I was taking a hard line on some discipline situation with one of the girls, and he's like, hey, hey, you don't need to don't get all and I'm like champ, back off a little bit uh excuse me. I mean, can I you you know you're talking here?

SPEAKER_01 41:31

How was your dad with the weather? Did your dad uh pay attention to the weather?

SPEAKER_02 41:35

No, not nearly as much as not not I mean he paid attention to it, but did you did your dad does your dad know how many days out for Rag Briat is all the time?

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Oh no. No, no, hey, uh this is a serious question. Was your dad handy with tools?

SPEAKER_02 41:49

No, no, no. If there was something to be done, I did I I think I got my mechanical abilities from my father. And the the ironic part is his dad was a welder. Yeah, his dad had tool had an awesome tool set and knew what to do, welded things together. Like and my dad not so much. If there was something that needed fixed around the house, I think John. The only tool your dad had was his son. Right. I remember to whip him into shape.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

I was the main tool, the dullest tool in the house. I still remember one time when I was we were I was pretty young. I was probably still in my late 20s, maybe early 30s. My dad was helping with me with the project, and he goes, You know what you need is a sheet metal screw. Do you do you have a sheet metal screw? Like, boy, I don't know. And he goes, Do you have a bucket of screws? Like, not since college. Bucket of screws. But anyway, so I realized like in my early 30s, like I didn't have a bucket of screws. Like my dad, my dad probably had a bucket of screws when he was in his mid-20s. Like, yeah, he could have like you know had a screw for anything.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Did you know what a sheet metal screw looked like? Could you have picked one out?

SPEAKER_01 43:01

No, I couldn't. Even back then, or you know, I was like, so now I do because I've got a big bucket of screws. I've got several buckets of screws now. I wasn't going to be caught flat footed again. Next time my dad asked for a bucket of screws, I was gonna have wood screws, metal screws, I was gonna have it's all in there. He's digging the bucket.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Right. I love it. My dad tells me the story about he must have been in college at home for the summer or something, and he he was I don't know if he was working with his dad, but his dad says, go get me the crescent wrench. And my dad wasn't sure what the crest he's and my dad's like uh he picks up the wrong wrench. No. And my grand's like, you go to college and you think you're getting all this education, you know what a goddamn crescent wrench is. So I've always known, because my dad told me that lesson, I've always known what a crescent wrench is. And I've got like three of them. I don't I only use them to put my bike rack on in the hitch of my car. That's the one thing I use it for, but it's a crescent wrench.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Growing up, my dad only had maybe seven, you know, vacations a day, maybe seven. And so he would use holidays to work on the car, like if the brakes needed to change or exhaust system needed to change. So we'd celebrate Christmas. We'd have a little bit of Christmas lunch, and then my dad would put on overalls and we didn't have a garage or anything. And so he'd like lay out in the front in our driveway, like putting on an exhaust system, you know. And I dad, I am so sorry. I know you listened to our show, and I apologize. There's been there were times where you like I was supposed to hold a flashlight and like I would never hold it in the right space, or he'd be underneath, and I'd like lean forward to look and see where he was, and I'd drop a wrench on his head, you know. It would just like ding you'd hear tumbling down the tumbling down the engine and I can hit him in the head. Oh god, I'm so I felt so bad for my dad, man. I was such a terrible son with things like that. But aren't there t-shirts that say something like, You can't scare me? I used to hand my dad flash flight for my dad. Yeah, no, my dad, man, he he can fix anything. And he, I mean, he really can. He's like, you know what we need to do is it's your o-rings. It's you know, we've got to replace those. And it's not that hard. We just gotta take off the top of this engine. And then once we get to that, do you have a do you have an engine hoist? I just got like a three buckets. No, I got it behind my crystal.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Did you have uh thinking about assembling things? When I moved to college, my roommate thankfully had the loft. We we did lofts, right? So you had the small room, and you you put the loft up so you can put a couch under it or something. Luckily, my roommate and his his parents they were farm, you know, used from Crisbold and they were farm people and they had the tools and stuff, and I didn't have to do it. And so um but dads who knew what they were doing came in with tool bells and cantilevering it.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

It became like a drawbridge for a castle.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

So fast forward to Natalie's freshman year, we had one thing we we ordered. We ordered the uh the futon, right? And so we get this futon and you have to put it the thing together.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Restful sleep of the Orient futon.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

I'm like, okay, it's a school-issued futon, it shouldn't be a big deal. People do this all the time, and I show up Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

I could you have enough like disinfectant for a school-issued futon.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

No, it was new. It was new. Like I thought I'm pretty sure it came out of a box. But the somehow you could order it through the dorm. All all I know is I there's this piece of cardboard with shrink wrapped. It's a hex, you know, it's a hex wrench, it's about this long, right? And then like 75 bolts and washers, different length screws, and like a a a wrench that looks like came in a friggin' you know, cracker jack box. And I'm like, okay. I was just like, you gotta kid me. We got her done, but there was some there were some expletives. I can imagine. And uh my buddy, I posted a picture of that, and my buddy Andy says to me, What a rookie mo. You always bring your tool set to my Monday. Come on, champ.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

I tell you what, their meatballs are great, but their furniture just absolutely blows as a dad, I have more time to drink beer than my dad did. I mean, my dad, I it seemed like my dad had so much so many more like dad responsibilities. Because things just weren't as reliable, cars weren't as reliable, lawnmowers weren't as reliable. It's always seemed like my dad was always doing something to the furnace or I mean all the things that my dad had to do to keep the plates spinning at our house, the operation at our house, like I don't have to worry about any of that stuff. So yeah, I get a podcast with you dudes every once in a while. I get to sit out in my you know patio and drink with my buddy Jay. And yeah, um, so it's I think that uh I will say this when we did go out, my dad would bring a cooler of beer and or we would see things that my dad wouldn't normally have. And to see my dad have a an entire cooler of beer was really big deal. Big deal, yeah. He just didn't have a cooler of beer and the ice and the every everything that went along with that that, you know, when he and his buddies had a couple beers.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

We didn't my dad we didn't have beer in the house, he was he was not a drinker, so I didn't I never experienced I didn't have the sneak of beer from dad's fridge or anything like that. Um closest thing to it would be my his dad, my my grandpa Dunlap was he didn't I don't even remember if he he actually kept beer at the house, but he had a tradition of like whistle blew, you know, Fred Flintstow down the dinosaur. You know, at the end of the work day, I think he had a tradition to go to his local and kind of hang out with a beer or two for a while and hang out with his cronies and have a couple of beer. So he had a local, he had and they didn't live too far from him at the Starlight, which I know John, you know. Very well. Which he was very much a regular there. Even into like up to the time that he retired, he would, you know, take his nap in the afternoon, and then he would get up and get to the starlight when happy hour started, and he'd order himself a draft beer, and he'd sit there and nurse that thing until Happy Hour is about to close, and then he would order an I I I think they were 75 cent draw. So he'd get a 75 cent draw, sit there and chew the fat until ten minutes before they were gonna shut it down. He'd order his like when he'd have two beers and like sit there and tell lies with his buddies, you know, and uh so that was the closest thing to like me being exposed to on the Dunlim side at least. My my Uncle Dean, he he uh he used to like his uh C C and sevens. And then on my mother's side from Ireland, they were more I don't remember my grandpa uh Owens they they definitely went out for dinner and so forth, but they were more at home. They had a bar at home and they were more like they pour themselves a stiff drink, you know, like a whiskey or a scotch or something in the afternoon, but like before dinner. But I never got I never snuck into that.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

John, what was your uh your dad have a beer too every once in a while on weekends?

SPEAKER_00 50:11

He did. He wasn't um we didn't have a huge stash of beer at the house on the regular, but yeah, he there was always maybe a six pack or something that would be on hand. What'd your dad drink? He was a courses guy. Um I think I mentioned that once before kind of from Texas, the the banquet. Right. Um and then Miller Miller Light, which you know, in the 70s or whatever it was, yeah, early 80s was so popular. So those are the two I kind of remember my dad drinking. You know, my dad he did a like some of those classic 70s things. They put my mom and dad both play on a bowling league. You know, so I remember as a little rug rat running around the bowling alley while you know they were keggling it and you know, just killing some beers. And then um, my dad played on the Joe's place softball team for a couple of years. Oh wow, yeah, yeah. And so I remember getting drunk around like small town Iowa, like on weeknights in the summer, you know. And I'd like to have one of those t-shirts now. Oh my yeah. Because back then there was like a I don't think it was an A and a B team, right? Like the first year my dad was on the B team, which was the red, white, and blue Joe's plays, right? But then like year two, he was in the black and gold, like bumped us. That was like a big deal, you know, going to watch these softball games. Yeah, so yeah, and that would be the closest thing I think to dive bar life. My dad did would be like Joe's plays on with the softball crew. Well, I think we we talked about first beers or whatever you had with your dad, and that my dad was pretty strict disciplinarian too, nothing like Brad's dad, but like he was not a you know, would not have supported drinking as a kid. But when we were the first time I had beer was at um County Stadium in Milwaukee at a brewer's game. And you know, dad, when we went to games there, we we get a brat and always let us have a sip of the beer with the brat, you know. So I remember me and my cousin, you know, that was a big deal. We thought we got like a half a beer, we probably each got like two little sips to go with a brat, but right. Yeah, it was a good communion.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

My my first beer with my dad, I was actually legal, and I was legal by a ways. I think my I'd been 21 for maybe five or six months, and there's a place called the Sportsman's Lounge in Centerville. And it was a dive, it was a house. It was still good. No, I don't think so. But I mean at one time it was somebody's house, and basically what they did was knock down non-supporting walls and put up a pool table, and you know, it was it became a bar. But um, we went there for lunch and we both ordered beers, and we're halfway through our meal, and I was like, I think this is our first beer together. And he goes, Yeah, it is. And then he he toasted me, so we had some beer together. But I do remember my my first beer with my dad, so that was kind of a cool moment, but it was act totally accidental.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

I I might have told John this story. I I'm not sure, but like my dad didn't drink, but you know, he he's like, Look, when you when you go to college, just keep your nose clean and don't get don't get in trouble. But obviously, I know you're in college and you're you're gonna probably have access to beers and so forth. So when I finally turned 21, he came to Pella and my buddy Brent Manor, who went on the check ride with this, right? Brent and I had um this place, I don't think it's still going. It was called the Depot, right across from Pella Windows, and that was like a like kind of a towny bar, but there were some college kids that went there. We got to know the locals really well, and we had been there and we were already very well served. And my dad says, Hey, I'll take you boy, I'll take you boys out for pizza. So he takes us to the local Pella Pizza Hut, which was like a treat because Pella didn't have a lot of like we didn't, we just fast food. I ate on campus, right? I just ate the whatever. So he's taking us to Pizza Hut, we're not gonna turn that down, and then he's like, Hey, and he thinks he's gonna he's gonna rile us up. He's like, We're gonna get these, I wanna get these boys, I want to buy these boys beer. And so he bought us a pitcher of beer, and we're looking at each other like we're both already, right? We've already had a couple pictures of beer, and it shows up and we're like, Okay, thank you. Thanks, and we're not gonna turn it down, right? Struggled through it, and it was the first beers I my dad bought me was like the last beer I needed. You feeling all right, Brad?

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Yes, just give me the job.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

Nope. It's good. All right, it is time for the speed run. Boys, this week the game is called Who Is Your Daddy? Or if you used apostrophes, it'd be Who's Your Daddy? This week I've taken 10 famous TV dads and have written a brief description that might help you guess who they are. After each dad, both of you will write down the TV dad's name. Partial credit will be given to you for just the TV show. All right. These will all be Gen X television shows. So they're gonna be dads from the I guess reruns would be the 50s, 60s, and 70s. All right, let's see. So you would know them from after school on WGN or TBS. So the first dad. This homespun single dad played a mean guitar and only dated women that didn't mind a little firm pat down, and possibly some cop-issued handcuff play at the end of the night. Which dad is this? He's a homespun single dad that played a mean guitar, and he had access to cop handcuffs.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Jack Sue.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

This three-time widower found time to raise his three sons while still running his sprawling empire. It was almost like he had to keep acquiring more land to bury more wives. What father had a sprawling empire? Three-time widower that had three sons. You ready, Brad?

unknown 55:39

No.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

I mean, I don't I don't know. These are tough, dude. I'm not gonna lie, but they're gonna be easy when you hear who they are. Okay. The the this classic TV father always appeared calm, wise, and understanding for his TV family. But it was later insinuated by a comedian that he had absolutely zero patience for the certain furry semi-aquatic rodent that lived in his house. What father seemed to be cool and reserved, but had he was always a little bit rough on the semi-aquatic rodent. I'm whipping. I know that's why I do these, Brad. That's why I prepare for the show because I love to see you squirm. All right. Here we go. Your next one, Brad.

SPEAKER_03 56:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

This working class dad ruled his living room kingdom from his favorite chair. He shared his opinions loudly with anybody who would listen and kept his wife emotionally fenced in by calling her dingbat. Okay. All right. Well, I got one. You picked one up. All right, John, you ready? Yeah. This dad acted as the family project manager, organizing a ten person house with just two bathrooms, and he became the first TV dad to appear in the same bed as his TV wife. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

I've got a hunch.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Okay. Ready, John? Yep. Now this TV dad. So if you thought organizing a nine-person house was big, this TV dad was responsible for feeding a household of eleven, including his dad, Zebulon. His dad's name was Zebulon. He had seven kids, man. Don't you imagine at some point they were like, hey dude, come on, you're not gonna have another kid. That's his dad's name was Zebulon. Alright, next one. This rugged father built homes. He farmed, he hunted, and he made many a women and some men dreamily imagine what it might be like to have this TV dad do a little rail splitting on their homestead. So what rugged hunky father who was good with his hands captivated a mostly women audience. Alright. This entrepreneur, a professional complainer, constantly threatened to leave everything behind and go visit his late wife, Elizabeth. So what TV dad was a world-class complainer and always threatened to leave the mortal earth and go live with his late wife, Elizabeth. Alright, here we go. This tubby dad had a steady blue-collar job, and he still chose to wear a necktie every day. He and his wife chose one of the most stripper sounding names for their daughter of all TV daughter history. This tubby dad had a steady blue-collar job, yet he still chose to wear a necktie every day. He and his wife chose one of the most stripper sounding names for their daughter in all TV daughter history.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

You locked in, John? I guess. I don't know. Right. You guys are gonna have fun with these. Okay. This hardware store owner was the neighborhood dad to everyone. He guided his own kids. He gave wisdom to their friends. He even gave advice to grown men. This guy was the resource of knowledge for half the town. But he had one major flaw. He forgot that he had a third kid. That's right. After season two, he never talked about his oldest kid again. Even the last show of the last episode, he said, and I quote, I'm glad our two kids are married and happy. Who was this perfect father that forgot about his oldest child?

SPEAKER_02 59:32

I'm just yeah. It's hard, isn't it? What I would hope is that maybe the answers, if I got some of the dads right, which not in the right slot, I'll get partial credit.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

I'll give you partial credit for some of those. Alright, so first question this homespun single dad played a mean guitar and only dated women that didn't mind a little firm pat down and possibly a little cop-issued handcuff play at the end of the night. John, got a guess? I went with Andy Griffith. Brad? Barney Miller. Andy Taylor. Yeah, Andy Griffith. Yeah. John, give yourself one. Okay. This tretime widower found time to raise three sons while still running a sprawling empire. It was almost like he kept acquiring more land to bury more wives. Brad? J.R. Ewing. Close. Really, actually, really close. John. Oh, I only had a TV show. My three sons. No. No, no. It was Ben Cartwright, Ponderosa. Okay. Haas. Partial for J.R. Um No. No. I'll tell you what. Well, if you get close, I'll give you partial. But that was yeah. This classic TV father always appeared calm, wise, and understanding with his TV family, but it was later insinuated by a comedian that he had absolutely zero patience for a certain furry, semi-aquatic rodent living in his house. John? Ward, I think you're a little hard on the beaver last night. Right. Oh, that that that that was Bill Cosby. But I'll tell you what. Of all of these lists, you know, and I kind of like, and I'm not gonna, you know, I kind of like scoured it a little bit. I did a little, but Bill Cosby shows up on a couple lists, but the the lists were finalized back in like the early 2000s. Okay. Yeah. All right. So good effort. This father would slip Mickeys into a desk in your job pudding pops. Right. Hey fat Almer. Okay. Uh this working class dad ruled his living room kingdom from his favorite chair. He shared his opinions loudly with anyone who'd listen and kept his wife emotionally fenced in by calling her ding bat, Brad. Archie Bunker. Right. Same. Yeah. If you're ever in Washington, DC at the Smithsonian, you can see Archie Bunker's chair.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

Right next to Oscar's garbage can.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

Alright, this dad was the family project manager, organized nine-person house with just two bathrooms, and became the first TV dad to appear in the same bed as his TV wife. John. Herman Monster. Good guess. But no. Uh Mr. Brady. Mike Brady, that's right. This TV dad was responsible for feeding a household of 11, including his dad, Zebulon. And the guy had seven kids, John. The Waltons. Yeah, that's exactly who it is. John Walton. John Walton's dad was Zebulon Walton. Zeb and Esther Walton. Alright. Seven kids, man. You gotta stop. That's a lot. This rugged. No guess for you there, or no?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

I had um I had Uncle Jesse for that. Uncle Jesse. Not a bad guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

He was an uncle. He didn't even have any kids of his own as those rotten Duke Boys who were his nephews. This rugged father built homes, farmed, hunted, and made many women. Some men dreamily imagine what it might be like to have this TV dad do a little rail splitting on their homestead. Brad. Tool time, Tim. No, not bad. Not bad. John. I went little house on the prairie. Charles Ingalls you half credit, yeah. This entrepreneur and professional complainer consistently threatened to leave everything behind and go visit his late wife, Elizabeth. John. Sanford and Sons. Fred Sanford, Brad.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

The professor on Gilligan's Island.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

Yeah. I love it. You know, well, I'll tell you what, that dude did have some kids. They just didn't address it in the show. Alright, this tubby dad had a steady blue-collar job who chose to wear a necktie every day. He and his wife chose one of the most stripper-sounding names for their daughter in all TV daughter history. Who was this person?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

I went with Homer Simpson. Close, not bad. Fred Flintstone.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:35

Fred Flintstone wore a blue tie every single day, and he didn't wear pants, and his daughter was named Pebbles. I mean, what were you gonna call her? But I'll tell you who had the most not well, there was Bam Bam, too, wasn't it? Bam Bam is also a very porn name. I'll tell you who had the absolute filthiest name of all of the animated characters was Lucy Van Pelt. I mean, what a what a absolutely filthy name that is. I wanted I want to use Pelt, but I can't just say Pelt. Call her Van Pelt. Yeah, all right, that's a good idea. All right. Uh this hardware store owner was the neighborhood dad. Everyone came in to advise for he guided his kids, he gave wisdom to their friends, he even helped grown men. He had one major flaw. He forgot he had an older child after season two. He just never talked about that kid again. Even in the last show, he addressed the fact that he was happy that his two children were married and happy. Who was this scoundrel that was so knowledgeable, so kind, but did not address his first child that you met in season one? Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Cuttingham, yes. Yeah, they had yeah, so they had an older brother, and then I don't know what happened, but they didn't test well, so they just like wrote him out. And um yeah, who was it wasn't Frank Marshall, it was maybe it was Frank Marshall. Penny Marshall was part of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:03

Yeah, her dad was the director, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

Yeah, yeah. And so they just like after the first season, like hey, this big brother doesn't fit well. They kind of packed him up to college and they never talked about him again.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

Yeah, so every season there were two classic episodes. One where Fonzie was hiding somewhere and saved Richie from taking a beating. Yeah, that was like every season they rolled that out at least once. And then the other one was the annual when the Cunninghams went to the hardware convention and they'd come home with the big screws on their head. Right. That was always a fun episode. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

Don't remember those.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

You don't remember Mrs. Cunningham with a big screw on her head?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:38

It's great. I don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

Right. Man, that was my dad had like three really big cans of Mrs. Cuttinghams in his crush. All right. Do you dads have it all out of your systems? Yeah, that that we're gonna end on that. Yeah, I'm sorry, everybody. We tried hard this week. I mean, we really tried. I mean, we became prepared and everything, but kinda. Thank you for joining us this week. Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. You can find us on our Facebook group and our new Facebook page at Deep Dive Podcast. You can also download and subscribe to our show. Thank you for all your brand new subscribers. We promise we'll get better. We got stuff coming up here. And uh we want to thank you for joining our show. You can communicate with us at deepdivepod2025 at gmail.com. All right, until next time. Bye bye.