Tapping the Keg at the St. Louis Park Train Trestle

Lady Gaga, Keg Parties, and Park Bench Perspectives

From their park bench, Mike Hammer and Carlos Figueroa catch up about Mike attending a  Lady Gaga concert and joking about painkillers for his bad knee, then give a shout-out to classmate Ron Barry’s “BarryFin Day” podcast. They discuss building a listener community around their shared hometown of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and begin reminiscing about favorite local places and teen hangouts: Park National and Carlson fields near the water tower, the Cedar Lake Road train trestle keg parties and police run-ins, Meadowbrook and Cedar Lake “Bareass Beach,” Knollwood Mall, Burger King across Highway 12, Brookview Golf Course, Coast to Coast Hardware, Cooper/Cooper Cameo theaters, and learning to drive at the Honeywell lot. They invite listeners to be guests, tease future St. Louis Park history topics, plug FootPainAuthority.com, and note Carlos’s novel “The Ghost of Lake Ossis” and  baseball-law newsletter.

00:00 Park Bench Intro
00:25 Catching Up
01:02 Lady Gaga Night
02:10 Show Highlights
03:03 Bad Knee Remedies
03:52 BarryFineDay Podcast Shoutout
05:18 Hometown Favorites Setup
05:39 Little League Landmarks
06:53 Train Trestle Keggers
08:01 Keg Party Economics
10:30 Basement Parties And Cops
13:04 Meadowbrook And Beach Spots
14:02 Next House Party Tease
14:11 Running From The Cops
14:41 Why We Do Dumb Stuff
15:06 Prefrontal Cortex Myth
16:25 Staying Curious As Adults
18:04 Talking Yourself In Or Out
19:11 Risk Calculations And Law School
21:08 Norwood Mall Memories
22:19 Golden Valley Adventures
22:44 Golf Courses And Marty
23:59 Coast To Coast Hardware
25:56 Cooper Theater And Honeywell
27:17 Inviting Friends On The Show
27:51 Next Episode Tease
28:24 Projects And Sign Off

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2246264

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:25

How are you doing, Mike Hammer? I am wonderful Carlos Figueroa.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

What's up with you? Uh not much. Just happy to be back on the bench with you. It's been a few days. It's been a few days. And yes, it's a good perspective here on the bench. Is it? And uh and how have you what kind of day are you having?

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Well, this morning I'm having a good day last night. You I don't know if you'll guess where I was. It is not unbelievable, but I it was interesting. It was turned out to be really cool. But where were you? Well, I was I was um someplace where there's a lot of people and a lot of lights and a lot of flashing and a lot of and there's somebody in town that's very big.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

I you know what? I guess was it was Springsteen in town? No, um other side of the playing field. Uh now I'm trying to think, like on opposite, uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Opposite of a boy.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

I don't know which women were in town that that that are big. I do not know. You're gonna have to just tell me.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

She uh she has a couple names that let's just tell me. Well, let's just say it's the initial LG.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

Uh Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga. I went to Lady Gaga last night. Do you know that she was married to the dude that's on Chicago Fire?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

She's now engaged to a guy from Minneapolis. No, she's not. Truth, she said it last night in her show. Really? Is it you? Are you dating Lady Gaga?

SPEAKER_04 1:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I got my staking Gaga. So we go, me and my gal brings me there. Like, she's excited. I'm like, let's go. And we get tickets last minute. And we were sitting close when she came out to do the middle of the arena, you know, down the long corridor. Yeah, we were it was it was quite the theatrical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

I would imagine. Were there a lot of wardrobe changes? A lot of little monsters there. Little monsters, that's what they call you guys, huh?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Well, yeah. You're now a little monster. I would say a lot of the costumes, which for some of the people probably weren't costumes, they're just everyday guards. Yeah. I was half the fun was watching the scenery.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Was there any like because, you know, I mean, to me, she's probably top ten Super Bowl halftimes because she did that whole rappel down from the from way up top for her Super Bowl thing, right? That was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

She put on a hell of a show. I was, I know there's a lot of new songs, so she's I guess supposedly one dropped yesterday and she was singing it. But uh, I was uh it was I was entertained even with my bad knee and all.

SPEAKER_04 3:09

With your bad knee and all. So, um, you know, are you still taking uh pharmaceuticals for your bad knee or are you having to like uh rough it out?

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I am a brave person, but I lean in towards painkillers. You know what? Better living through chemistry, right? Yes. I um uh why put yourself through pain when you don't have to? Exactly. Because we do that enough mentally, we don't need to do it physically. Yeah. And um all the overabusers got rid of the good ones, so we're stuck with weak ones, but we're good. Alright. How about you? How how you been, what you've been up to since the bench, um, besides talking about new benches. You know what?

SPEAKER_04 3:46

I I you know I've been having uh a day. You might even say it's been a fine day. It's been a fine day. Um I've had a berry fine day.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

You had a berry fine, so that sounds familiar to a podcast of a classmate of ours that we've listened to.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

Absolutely. Uh, we're talking about the uh berry fine podcast, uh No Spaces. If you're looking for it on your podcast apps, uh our uh fellow classmate class of 84, Ron Berry podcast, and uh I have to tell you, be careful listening to it because they'll get you to spend money on that uh Barmeister. He he sold me on it, so it's uh it's a good podcast. We're adding them to our pod roll. If you go to our uh webpage, you'll see a list of uh podcasts we recommend, and uh, you know, so help out a fellow uh St. Louis Park uh graduate and uh give it a listen. So this is our shout-out. We do some shout-outs, right? Absolutely. We uh we really are enjoying all of the comments and things that we're receiving from people. We really want to build the community because we around a shared love of our hometown, St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Yeah, yeah, that's where it started, and we will obviously touch on other things that uh that stems from our venture out of there, but the history of being from there, how it's playing into what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Uh today we're gonna talk about some of our favorite places in St. Louis Park. Uh, you know, some of the places as our world expanded as little kids that we ventured out from our little corner of St. Louis Park and uh areas that were special to us and and and and uh give us good memories.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

I know, yeah, good memory. I don't like for us, obviously, with the chit-chatting about baseball little league field.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Yep. And then we say that when we say the little league field, you know, we gotta remember Park National Little League Field. We we've been way to uh North St. Louis Park centric. We've heard from folks, we will talk about there were multiple little league fields in St. Louis Park, so yes, but the one that was closest to us was Park National and across the street was the Bay Ruth Field. Carlson Field.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Carlson Field, right by the water tower. That well, it's again DBS people tried to climb up there. Yeah. Um were you one of those people? Did you ever try to climb the water tower? No, because by the time we kind of got there, the to get to the first rail of the stairs going up was quite high.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

And you'd had to bring a big ladder, and that seemed like a lot of work.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

A lot of work, okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

I just we could climb the other one a little bit easier. Okay. Didn't need to climb that one. So I'm gonna stick to our area of town. Uh is that probably why we haven't talked about the because we're as this podcast is growing, it's kind of like us growing up, so we haven't got to the rest of St. Louis Park as much.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

We're as we're expanding out. But I am gonna my my next one I want to raise is in our neighborhood. I was there a lot. I ran from the police a lot there, and it was the train trestle over off of Cedar Lake Road where we would have keg parties back in the 80s. Yes. And uh, if police lights were visible, you would take the tap off the keg, rode the keg into the woods and run, and then come back a half hour later, find the keg, tap it, and resume the party. And hopefully you held on to your cup. Well, exactly. That was that was the key, because that red solo cup was very meaningful to us at that era.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Did they even make those cups red back then? Because all I know they were that they're plastic key almost clear through looking. I want to say they were red, but maybe not. Oh, that came later? Well, that if you we had to go to the the more affluent parts of town. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

You're right now. I'm thinking they were a lot, they were clear, right? They were the clear and they were the less good plastic.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Cloudy, cloudy, clear looking. Yes, less good. They get crack easy.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

So you're right now, you're right. That's the you know, because we would just get them at like the liquor store, and those were the old cheapo ones that we would get.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

You would get them with the keg because you had to have them, and back then every penny counted, so you're going cheap. It it's you know, you weren't going high-end, right? There were no napkins at the keg parties. How much was a keg glass in your memory? Two dollars. Did it ever change? Never, not in my memory. I don't know if it now it's probably like 15 bucks a glass, but it just seemed like it was one buck, nope, two bucks. I do remember some people like flirted with three, and you're like going, eh? People got two bucks for a keg glass. Yeah. And and then whatever, if they wanted to go eat something afterwards.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

So and if you were throwing a party, you needed to have you need you wanted to have plenty of women at the party, not just because it encourages men to show up, but the belief was that women will not eat their two or will not drink their two dollars worth of beer. That if you just have guys, you'll run out of beer a lot sooner. I don't know how accurate that is. I've met a lot of uh beer drinkers that can put me to shame. You know, I would not want to challenge Pam to a beer drinking contest because she would uh kick my ass as she's called me a lightweight more than once in my life, but uh that was the theory. You wanted to have that ratio for your party.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Well, yeah, the the they don't usually drink as much. Um I mean we'll just go with their the just by just yeah, just the physicality out. But I would say this when you're done, and I picked up many um keg glasses from our party. Yeah, you see a lot more lipstick on the ones that are half full laying around than the ones that are half full not laying around. So they don't drink them all or finish them all, and I get it.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Well, you know, we uh you know we we learned at at the altar of Kenny Kegger, and uh you know that was sacrilege to waste beer, so that was not something that I would do because that was sacrilegious.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah, that's that's alcohol abuse. But and I remember too the there's certain people who love to be the keg master hold the tap and then look at people like what are you doing here?

SPEAKER_04 9:48

And if they didn't sometimes they did this cuttiness, they'd make you wait and give it to anybody else, and you're like going, I just and I and I don't want to pick on him, and I should not have used his nickname, but but Kenny was one of those guys, because you always had those guys that would be by the keg.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah, by the keg.

SPEAKER_04 10:05

They would be by the keg, because that's why I'm here and that's where I'm gonna be. But let's expand out from and talk about real quick funny.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

A lot of those kegs were in tinier my house, it was a lot of times it was in the laundry room. Yeah, absolutely. So to get in the laundry room was a skinny hallway, yeah, yeah. And then you had to stick your hand over with your cup, kind of like trying to get uh your microphone in for an interview or something, and then hope it got filled at least half or two-thirds, and then go back and then stand there and put it back in.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

How many, how many basements in St. Louis Park do you think you were in at some kind of a party? Oh I'm thinking maybe a couple hundreds in St. Louis Park? I'd say a few dozen, but it was the same. I didn't think there were hundreds that were throwing to parties. Wow. You're more social than I am.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

I mean, a lot of it was, I mean, there's a number at my house.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

No, I more than once I've had the the march everybody out of the basement scene when the police show up, and I was fortunate that nobody ever took names or tickets or anything like that. It was just like party's over, kids. Gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

It was interesting because eventually my neighbor would always call, and the police would come. Sometimes there's a little story about we'll bring it up another time. RS R I P could bring her up, she wouldn't be embarrassed, but my mother at the party would but whatever. So another one was they came and it was like the third call. They're like, okay, here's the deal. And they come up to me and they're negotiating with me, like, we got an offer for you, and I'm 16, 17 at the time, going, let's tear your best officer out. I have zero leverage. I don't know why they're being nice. It's kind of like they're like, we don't really want to deal with this. So we're gonna make it as easy as possible. We'll give you 15 minutes and get everybody who wants to stay at the party in the basement. Everybody else will kick out. And I'm like going, that's not a bad deal. Not a bad deal. It's kind of getting late. It's hard to tell everybody to go home.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Yeah, but that and also then that forces you to like be like, okay, who are your top friends? Who made the cops? And who was passed out, so you couldn't get them to leave.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yeah, exactly. Got them all in the house, and the cops looked at me, I'm like, proceed. And they went, and the only thing they said, they okay now, we don't want any more people in the front yard, backyard, whatever, up and down. Here's the deal. And they just they would just know that they're going. I don't know. They don't know they're going to their cars and driving, but we're gonna come by in the morning. If we see a goddamn keg glass anywhere up and down the block, you're in trouble. You get up early, you clean this neighborhood, and we're good. And I'm like, did you? Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

No, no, no, no, no. Wait a minute. Let's back up. You got up early?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

I cleaned it that night.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

Okay, okay. Alright, that makes more sense, my friend. Yeah, that makes more sense. Uh got any spots?

SPEAKER_02 13:02

So the truss that was fun with the kids, yeah. And over by Meadowbrook, there was a spot.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Yeah, there was. There was actually another place we'd have kegs is over by Meadowbrook. We would climb that fence, I think. Or could we sleep?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

There was a time you had to climb it and then you had to walk along a golf course. It depends on which area you came from, which side you can't, where you park. Because it was always like, where you're gonna park, you don't want the cops to know too much that you're there. I like when you'd go to Bayerass Beach or whatever, uh Cedar Lake.

SPEAKER_04 13:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

It was a neighborhood that too many people went at once, or like there's something going on down there.

SPEAKER_04 13:31

Which was I recall, I mean, I recall going there that it was a long walk through woods. Yes, because you did not want to do the direct access, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

So you have to walk through it, and then you'd come up, and then all of a sudden that you wouldn't see it because when the cops did come to the beach, they didn't have a light show. They were they were coming incognito. And also they get to the beach and they put on their their flashlights, turn them on, look. And if you were partaking of what bear ass playing beach meant, you're like, all right, perverts turn those off, we'll get out of here. Let's go.

SPEAKER_04 14:03

When we were seniors, I want to say, we went to a house party somewhere, it was not in Salem's Park, but it was near the lakes. And I remember this for two reasons. One, my cousin Manny was there, so this was for older people. And number two, the police came and we ran. And we ran and we ran and we were like in a park, and there was like, you know, we were like lower behind some trees, and then the you know, see the cops' floodlights, and I'm like going, why did we run? Why did he? I don't understand why we're running. I mean, there's 150 people. I mean, why are they gonna grab us? I mean, I don't, you know, and so as but that's what we did. We felt that we were the dro droids they were looking for? Apparently, I don't once again, I you know, I'm you know, I'll fully admit that a lot of times I'm a dumbass adult, but I was really a dumbass teenager. I did shit where like I have no idea why I did what I did.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Well, the frontal lobe, they say in boys. Yes, and they say we grew up with the fight or flight tip twitch, and that's in Brandon from day one. You don't know at certain age.

SPEAKER_04 15:03

You're right, you're right. Your lower brain stem takes over. What are they they will they had. I'm gonna go cliff clavin on you.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

The old saying was that your prefrontal cortex isn't developed until 25.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

The reality is that that study, they only had they they they looked at fMRI, like date that pictures of brains. Yeah. But they stopped the study at 19 and they said, okay, based on how much it goes down each year, we think it'll be done by 25. In modern times, the studies actually show that it's not fully, it keeps growing until about 30, 31, 32. So you got a lot of people our age doing dumb shit. Uh you know what? I I still once in a while partake in dumb shit. I, you know, yes, I will uh it's uh you get to be a certain age and you start to wonder, okay, is that me having a bad day? Is that my mental decline, or is that an after-effect of things I might have uh imbibed the day before?

SPEAKER_02 16:04

It's different than going in with an open mind, but it's kind of saying what's the downside? Yeah, kind of like last night going in with an open mind. I went there and I was pleasantly floored with the with the the performance there. Yeah and it was fun. So we stop at an older age doing dumb things without going, let's play this out for a second.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

Well, what's the old saying is that do you do people stop playing because they grow old, or do they grow old because they stopped playing? And this really reminds me of what uh you had been talking about with respect to one of our favorite shows, Ted Lassa. Wow and the old get curious. You went in to Lady Gaga with the attitude of, I'm gonna be curious what this route rather than oh, what are these stupid kids to do? What did they make drag me to? And that that attitude change resulted in you having fun.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Well I was dancing, you know. I was stood up most of the show, sorry and all, it was great. But I bet you your knee is hurting uh bad today. It's a little tired. It doesn't really get hurting, it just gets tired out, and uh, and I don't blow away so because I don't want to talk about old people stuff. But no, you um the curiosity of of work sometimes. I don't know necessarily if I can do it, but let's give it a world, see what happens. Worst case scenarios, we'll find someone else to do it. But uh the the I the growing old is a like don't let the old in your house. Yeah, don't I used to say this when I was younger, but quit telling me you're tired because you know you when you keep saying you're tired, guess what you are? Yeah, you're freaking tired. Just say, you know, I'm a little tuckered, say something else, but don't let yourself could you let yourself off the hook and not do fun things and like last night I could have easily said, got a bad day, I got this and that, I'm not going. And so I'm like, nope, let's go down and see she's like, tickets were outrageous, the price quival. I'm like, let's let's at least get in the area and then decide, you know.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

I find it fascinating that you have those conversations with yourself because I consider you and me to be on the opposite uh spectrums of social. And so I have that conversation in my brain for everything. Oh, you know what? I really need some uh I really need some dishwashing detergent. I should stop at the store. You know what? I could just order all my groceries online and not have to deal with any other human beings. Let's do it that way.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Do you kind of equate this to you have to talk yourself into things more? Yes. Or I have to talk myself out of doing dumb stuff still at times going. Well, but you're labeling it as dumb, even though you're trying something different, right? Calm down. Okay, yeah, it's not as I've it's sort of like you want to go do this? Yep. Kind of like Forrest Gump. Is that your default? Your default is yes. Yep. Kind of like the Forrest Gump when he just runs out his front steps and just starts running. Sometimes I kind of like forest gumping in here. I'm just running.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

In a lot of ways, I was like a 40-year-old man when we were kids. Because, you know, I mean, I, you know, just like I talked about that new amphitheater in Shakapee, which looks cool and they got a great axe, but I'm like, eh, I need to know about the traffic situation. What's the parking situation like? Like, boy, how late do the show start? Like, how late am I gonna have to be driving back? And it's like going, I would make those same kind of calculations at 10 and 12. Which you paid me what I thought was a back-handed compliment once, but truly in retrospect, it's a good comp uh compliment where you said, Carlos, if I ever win the lottery, I'm gonna hire you. I'm gonna hire you to be around and make sure I don't do really stupid stuff. And I'm kill myself. I'm like, okay, you're kind of calling me a killjoy, but no, I'm really gonna be a kill death, not kill joy. But, you know, as we were talking, a lot of the stories about where things were maybe a little bit more out of hand oftentimes involved you and other friends and not me.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Oh, let's just say from the history of kind of what you would partake in and wouldn't, um there was a there was a band of I don't want to say followers because we all kind of followed the same thing, but there was a certain band. You at a very a younger age became more of a this could go sideways in a hurry. So, gentlemen, tell me the stories later.

unknown 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Well, here's we're not gonna go through here's the thing is like I had that, I was built that way, and then I go to law school, and law school teaches you basically to look for landmines everywhere. So it's kind of like now I'm like, oh, I got that thought process, my initial thought process. So I actually need to I need to get myself to get curious more to try the things.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

And I'll say this not to pick on that because you're an only child, and that's wonderful. But sometimes when you have siblings, you kind of go that my parents have a few of us to deal with, they can't focus on punishing me fully for this. They'll just go like and maybe one of my siblings will do something stupider. And uh, but uh it uh uh places we didn't get very places.

SPEAKER_04 21:18

So I was I'll throw out their No Wood Mall, which really changed for us. I mean, it was, you know, when I was we were little kids, I mean there was Park Noel school was there, and it was all an outdoor kind of strip mall thing, and then Montgomery, you know, they tore down that school, Montgomery Wards came in. Remember?

SPEAKER_02 21:39

The carousel, you put a corner in. Yeah, yeah, it would be right outside the grocery store. The half time didn't work. Yeah. But as a kid, you're like, Mom, mom, I don't want to get it, and then you get in it, and like in a minute later, you're like, This is dumb. Yeah, but I'll I'll be back next time we're here.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

So I I don't remember that at Noah. I remember that at Shopper City that we talked about. No, that no one too.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

It was um I don't know if it was by the grocery store or the hardware. store or whatever. I just remember that because before, you know, it was an open, it was an open mall.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

And it was always seemed like I don't know. It was. I'm actually gonna I'm gonna incorporate a piece of Golden Valley kind of for my next one that was a good spot.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Which what was what I was just gonna think about how would you know because I was just thinking about back in oh back in our neighborhood. I don't know if we talked about once but when we go over when Burger King came. Yes. That was a big deal to cross highway gets yeah we were we were playing Froger. We were playing 12 like no pedestrian bridge there was nothing because we were like 12. Yeah 11 12 and uh that's something I remember going we snuck over to Burger King nobody knows we ate and we slipped back.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

But that's Golden Valley I was gonna throw out Golden Valley a place that I'd hung out a lot with your uh uh little brother Marty which is Brookview Golf course golf course I you know uh hit a few uh buckets of balls there in my time and uh played the nine there numerous times and so that was kind of my very first exposure to golf was uh was uh the par three there at Brookview Brookview was a big one Meadowbrook was a big Theater worth um seemed like Brookview was always a little bit busier yeah I think those car dealerships the salesman would always just I just I didn't like theater worth because it just was like boring long and boring yeah it just sounds Theodore now uh what was the one over in a Dinah that we played at uh is that Braymar Braymar was a par three it was fun there was one way down a par three down highway seven and one it was on seven and one on one there was a driving lane was that a big nine there was a big nine we played once I can't remember where it was Marty liked his golf he uh he did he was very good I I wish I could have pushed him harder just after his accident to kind of drive around the country and playing all these little mini tours and see what happens see what happens see how how good he could be he never gave himself the chance other places you'd like the you know one of my places and this is in my neighborhood and I don't maybe I've mentioned it maybe I haven't but coast to coast hardware store right on Cedar Lake Road in Louisiana by Schneider's right next right next to Schneider's drugs but I remember as a kid going in there with my dad and my dad would say here's the problem and I can't remember the name of the gentleman behind the counter but he'd say okay Carlos and he'd walk you back and he'd point to the exact thing you needed and he'd tell you how to fix everything. I mean you know this was before YouTube uh before you know uh Home Depot we had the guy behind the counter at at Coast to Coast and he could pretty much get us to be able to fix just about anything. And as I remember it the aisles were thin because they wanted to get as many aisles and there was they were the shelves were high and the floor was wooden yeah and there would be and he'd find the box third row but they did everything they did paint they did small engine lawnmower they did screens they were like the every person and actually not to sound like old guy the world was better but I feel sad that progress has killed little places like that and yes you know what I'm sure that we're paying a lot less at Home Depot or Menards for the things but we're losing out on that expertise.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Now people can say yes but now you've got a million YouTube channels but there's just still something about having a local guy who knows you yes and no on the prices because you could go there and buy if you only needed two screws you could buy two screws that's true that's true that's true. But now you go into the big spot store you gotta buy a box of them and then you sit there like oh what the hell am I gonna do with these screws but yeah it coast to coast was fun. Miracle Mile. Miracle Mile we got when we got wheels because that was a little bit too far to go to I remember um yeah I don't think I ever biked that way. No. Remember when we walked back from St.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

Louis uh from Cedar Manor for a long walk oh yeah two miles even biking there yeah that was a long walk okay one place we did we we did bring it up one thing but back to the locations was the movie theater Cooper Movie Theater and the the the the what was the small one called uh uh Shallard Park well no the the when they put the second theater on there it was uh oh I yeah I can't remember the cameo Cooper Cameo I think it was the cameo Cooper Cameo but Honeywell yes Honeywell Honeywell I learned how to drive a stick in the Honeywell parking lot as I think many many many people did people went through and they drove and parked and learned and then right down the Cedar Lake Road or um Hampshire where prestige Lake and Mercury was right behind them was a little swamp in that little field area where we'd ride dirt bikes and go karts uh and then further a little further down was that field where we would play football with Nelson and Kenny.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Yes so Billy Boswell always had go-karts and he had that one like a little Corvette and I God bless him and his dad but within an hour of being there with three or four friends yeah it was trashed what you break something's breaking because somebody went off the rails or broke this or broke that and we're pushing them back but that was fun.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

Alright so we will definitely pick up uh more places in St. Louis Park we didn't get very far did we we did you know what we we what we're we got there was pretty good so let me uh let me throw this out there to folks that listen we really want to start having uh guests on uh or uh friends of St. Louis Park on uh to not gonna try to use the word guests but friends friends of the park bench uh we'd love to have you on to talk about what part of St. Louis Park you grew up in when did you go to the high school who were your favorite teachers so uh leave us a comment we're gonna be reaching out to several of you and uh hopefully we can uh expand out uh and learn more about St. Louis Park kind of before us after us and in all around the city did we talk about how it became named St.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Louis Park and that's a question for people to kind of chime in on did you know there was a downtown St. Louis Park I did not I did not either I found this out and it's do we want to leave that as a tease for our next episode it's not what you'd think it was but then you'd think of it you go oh makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 28:10

Alright well I look forward to hearing that we'll start out our next uh our next episode with the story of St. Louis Park and the battle line of France Avenue whoa wow wow now I almost want to see the movie so my camera what what do you have going on in your world? Just to say we're trying to save everybody's souls one step at a time foot paint authority get your uh feet feeling great footpaintauthority.com and you tell me what you got so you know I my goal is by next Friday to have a completed my first novel The Ghost of Lake Osakis and have it turned in for publishing so my hope is that I'm able to give folks a sales link early in May but that is what I'm working on. I'm working on kind of the the nuts and bolts of trying to make the book uh be as good as it can but I will let folks know when that's available.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Yeah because uh like I said I've had more people bring up to me about your baseball article.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

Yeah I've the antitrust it it and I reread it a couple times because I spend my time wisely yeah you know it's actually it's actually fascinating and if people want to read more about that I've got a uh a couple things going on there I've got the ballpark barrister yeah uh which is a uh a regular newsletter I do on my LinkedIn as well as uh on my Substack it's a section of my Substack uh systems under pressure right so I just talk a lot about baseball and and how um how the law impacts the game so plenty twins are above 500 awesome Mike Hammer I know you and I are gonna keep talking the rest of the day but I think the the listeners have other things to do so I think it's time to get up off the bench and uh Carlos and Hammer out watching the world spinning slow another day strange after glow from the comfort of this wooden feet for tired