The St Louis Park Experience: Posters, Postcards, and Parents

Posters, Pop Cans, and Park Bench Perspectives

Mike Hammer and Carlos Figueroa reminisce on a “park bench” about teen bedroom posters (Farrah Fawcett, Led Zeppelin, Lamborghini, Easy Rider), poster-shopping at places like the Fun Shop and Ridgedale, and trivia that Fernando Valenzuela’s poster surpassed Farrah’s in sales. They recall collecting RC Cola baseball-player cans by digging through Westwood Deli’s stock, confirm RC Cola still exists, and detour into a Vegas blackjack memory. The conversation shifts to beer and bar memorabilia, including distributor neons and personal wall art like a Rat Pack “Royal Flush” poster and a signed Ramones album. Carlos shares a 2003 story of receiving Bubba Gump souvenir glasses from Mike’s sons during a difficult period. They discuss St. Louis Park history (name from the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad; early downtown near Walker/Broadway and Wooddale), the value of the postal service, letters/telegrams, and reflect on parenting, especially Judy Hammer’s resilience and “showing up.”

00:00 Park Bench Intro
00:41 Cuban Family Story
01:24 Teen Posters Debate
02:43 Poster Shopping Memories
05:12 Iconic Posters Trivia
06:08 RC Cola Can Collecting
09:24 Vegas Drinking Detour
11:18 Beer Signs Bar Swag
16:01 Bubba Gump Glasses
19:23 Movie Posters Talk
21:44 Warriors Nostalgia
24:35 St Louis Park Origins
26:39 Elmwood Origins
27:59 Postal Service Debate
29:13 Stamps And Seniors
32:25 Postcards And Letters
34:44 Telegrams And Keepsakes
36:25 Yearbook Secrets
37:40 Judy Tough Love
42:27 Showing Up Parenting
46:26 Youth Sports Costs
50:41 Wrap Up And Plugs

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:32

How are you doing, Mike Hammer?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hello, Carlos Figgeron. I am well, and thank you for asking. How the heck are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

I'm doing really well. I'm thinking back to uh my youth. I'm gonna tell you a little story about my mom and dad, Carlos and Maria. Carlos, do you hear me?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Do you you don't do that when I do my best imitation?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Oh no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. When I tell the stories, Pam always says you have to do it in your mom's voice. And I do it for loving reasons, not when I'm sitting here with you on the bench.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

I feel like I just saw your mom at the door. Carlito, Michael is here to play with you. Got the baseball field.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

But yeah, so both my parents are from Cuba, so they had very thick accents. And um, we belong to the little Lutheran church on the corner, kind of very close to your house there on Cedar Lake Road in Hampton. And um my mom wouldn't they there was like a prayer group or stuff, and my mom was hosting, and I at the time was a 15-year-old boy, so my walls were covered in posters. And my mom said, No, I cannot have the ladies from the church sing those posters. And my mom's like, Maria, this is my house, and they don't like it. Well, see if he can close the door. And of course, the the things that my mom was concerned about was I, just like every red-blooded American male in the 1980s, had a picture of Farah Fawcett on the wall in a swimsuit, in a red swimsuit.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Red one piece with their knee kicked up, kind of chewing out of one of her fingers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

That smile that looked like that million dollar smile, the hair, the Farah hair. It was uh it was something else. But uh, so we thought we were made me think like what other posters did you have on the wall in the 70s and 80s? Did you have any wall art?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

The Farah one. I do know that I had the Led Zeppelin with the uh Zeppelin actually album cover crashing. You know what's funny? I do remember this. More than I remember my walls, because I guess I was like, I'd go to other people's houses look at their walls. Mine, I was like, my wall, but I want to look at it. But I remember going to like the fun shop, yes, and stores, even Zare's head, yes, where you would look for the posters on these big poster-sized metal things that were you'd flip them like you're going through a huge uh and let's let's take a moment real quick because you and I just assume things.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

We're we're you know, shout out to our friends, the Chastain family, uh Eric and Chuck. Uh they had the uh Chuck Sr. dude. They had the uh they had the fun shop, uh the Knollwood one, and uh it was a fun hangout. But yeah, they had posters and we'd go there or we'd go to Ridgedale and we'd we'd go through all the posters and you'd grab one, and then if you liked it, you you walked around with the tube. The tube, and you went home and you tried to find some masking tape. Yes. First of all, get it to be flat. That was easy, not a one-person job. And then level. And uh level. Were yours level? Mine weren't.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

I don't know what level meant back then. I didn't know that was a concept, but it was funny back then because you're like, now everybody has push thumb tax, push tax, whatever. Yeah, yeah. They come after you, you know, and tape. Yeah, back then you're like, these were things that they were a scarcity, but you just didn't go. It was a work of art. You didn't have the abundancy of, oh, I got too many rolls of tape laying around, or or all these damn tax, or whatever. You just like, where's the tax? Well, where do we put the tech? Where do we put them?

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Nobody knows. But uh one that I had, I had the black Lamborghini Kuntak. This was probably the late 80s. That was a big one I had. That was very popular, kind of, you know, the 80s was the consumption yuppie uh time, and you know, the the for me the Lamborghini was the symbol of success.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Happiness is who did you say you brought up before we started talking?

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Someone, a good friend of ours, Brian Madge, had what? Yeah, he had one, he had the ad for solo flex, and their tagline was a hard man is good to find. Is that true? I will tell you another one. I had the Zeppelin one, it wasn't crashing, but it was a black lights. So yeah, it was Funkadelic.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

I do remember having the smaller version, not the bigger one, but the Easy Rider. Yes. The classic one where they're on where they're on that. Remember Hardskis? Hard skis had a lot of posters. They were there, good marketing project, good for that. I think they gave them out. Obviously, if you were given I I have I have a trivia question for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Okay, everybody knows the iconic Ferra Fawcett red swimsuit. Um set the record for most selling posters. Interesting. Do you know what poster replaced it as the number one selling poster immediately after?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Is it is it would be a female on there?

SPEAKER_03 5:35

No, it would not. Uh John Travolta? No, it is not. It is somebody that plays one of our favorite games.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Baseball, in that era, would it be East Coast, West Coast team?

SPEAKER_03 5:49

West Coast.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Steve Garvey?

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Nope. Fernando Valenzuela. I was looking up in the middle of the year you know, I I can say this because I live in a glass house. You know, chubby Latino man became the number one selling uh uh poster, and uh yeah, that was fun. You know something else that I had decorating my room back then? Um God, I don't know if you remember this, but back in the 70s, the RC Cola company started putting like baseball players on the side of the cans. They were almost like baseball cards. Oval picture of them. Oval picture description at the bottom, yeah. Almost like a trading card. And we went crazy, we wanted to get them all. Oh, yeah. I remember every every every penny I could scrounge up was going to buy RC Cola, which I didn't really honestly taste like crap.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

But see, I I must have liked it because I bought so many that I then you could tell. They got your hook that way? You know when you're drinking an RC versus because they do that funny people now, the Pepsi Cola challenge, whatever. And I think I don't, but you know RC because it's just a little bit off.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Does RC Cola still exist? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

We have the uh handheld computers that act double as a communication device here.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Well, you're looking that up. I won't call you a Jamie. Jamie, look that up. Um so I remember, you know, we're at Elliott School. I think this, I don't know what, but it was you and I, and I remember uh uh uh somebody that was a year ahead of us in school, Mark Stoneking.

unknown 7:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

And we would head down to uh Westwood Delhi uh before our school at Elliott and and and dig through the cans because we're looking for pictures of ones, you know, kind of I guess the equivalent, you know, some 20, 30 years later was the Coca-Cola cans with names on them. You know, people would do the same thing, dig for them, but and Mark was in our hood, but back to when our neighborhoods were were huge.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah, he was on the east side of the LA neighborhood. He was on, he was on Kentucky, did you get Kentucky? No, he was on he was on Jersey. Jersey, yeah, yeah. Up the hill on Jersey. But we would meet over by Jersey Park kind of and we'd walk, yes, we would walk up there, and he always had a lug, his saxophone, yeah, and he'd put it in his uh newspaper. Newspaper carrier bag, yeah. And uh we'd go into Westwood Delhi because he he was into baseball as much as we were. That's a that connection. And then uh showed out to his dad, his dad Bradley, he was big into baseball too. So we uh we had fun doing that. That was and when you couldn't find a new one, yeah. But then you if you found three and you only had money for two, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Well, and of course, I you know I'm cheap. I'm I'm not thinking about resale value. I drink them, you know, because even though I thought it tasted like ass, I'm like, oh my paid for this, I'm gonna drink it. Uh but you start having a bunch of open popcans in your house, and that attracts uh uh fruit flies, so you had to remember to wash them out.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Does it seem like this? Okay, yes, RC Cola still exists. Royal Royal Crown Cola is still made and sold today, owned by Keurig Dr. Kurig owns Dr.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

Kurig owns it, huh? No, did RC stand for see I want to say it sounds for Royal Crown. It is Royal Crown. But it's not the good stuff that not crown royal. Oh, backward, yeah. Now I got it.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Well, there was everything was crown royal, and then when the big Stop Drinking came out, they came out with Can I tell your Crown Royal storm?

SPEAKER_03 9:21

Yeah. Are you sure? Oh yeah. Alright, so uh total tangent, but if you're if you're still listening to us at this point, you're used to this and maybe you even like them. But uh Pivot. Pivot! Pivot back, but 20 years ago, 20, it was early 2000s, Mike and I are in Vegas. We're staying at Bally's, kind of, you know, the old MGM that became Bally's, which is now the horseshoe. But we were staying at Bally's and we're playing blackjack, and we would play blackjack for extended periods of time, like four or five hours. But you're gonna Crown Royals like goes into Grands. Yes, Grand. Oh, that you know what? It wasn't Crown Royals, because sometimes you do cro Crown Royals, but you know what? You're right. My memory is bad. You were drinking Grand Marnier with a coffee backer.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Until the sun came up. You know what? It's funny, at three in the morning in Vegas, you get your drink lickety split. You do at eleven when you want to bloody marry playing cards, that's a $200.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Particularly when the when the waitress has got, I think, a little bit of a thing for you, because she'd walk by and she'd like you know, say another round, you know, and this and that, and I'd be like going, if you bring him another drink, you're carrying them to the room. And her response was okay. Oh boy. So uh sadly, uh, I don't believe you were in any condition to act upon that piece of information. A few of them. But I don't know why. So this is I'm gonna have to cut all this out because it makes no sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

No, no, but the the well, somewhere along the line it does. Do you know another thing with with posters?

SPEAKER_03 10:46

I know we're forgetting a few and I want to say Sean Cassidy was a big one for girls, and Andy Gibb, and well, they were the Tiger Beaton magazine would have a little fold-out posters, you know, Leif Garrett and Sean Cassidy and Scott Bayell, and okay, Carlos are coming way too smoothly off of your lips.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

So well, no, because you were girls' bedrooms. Thank you. Well, actually, it's a truth, but um uh a little bit of that. But another thing we had kind of it's posters, but remember the cool beer memorabilia? Oh, yeah. The RC called hams had the coolest and they were posters, they weren't neon signs back then. They were like the model signs of the river flowing through it, so it was really interesting. But the bear was real and it would spin. And my dad had a number of these, and I don't know what they're they're worth, whatever. That I know in my mind they're worth more to me, memories-wise, than because Oh, those whole old ham signs are worth a fortune. We put it into that, and it's funny how we shift our mood from how cool they were to fuck. I got ripped off because I didn't remember to hang on to it. And I could have made I could have monetized it, and I'm trying to go back to yeah, but the stories are priceless. Exactly. The money you get from selling those are well.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Let me ask you this. So, my mom's sister, Leonore, was uh married uh to her husband, Eduardo, um, and they owned a convenience store in Los Angeles in the 70s, 80s. And, you know, not being in the Georgia, you could sell liquor. Yeah. And uh he had the coolest stuff in his house that were like, you know, the the distributors gave him like marketing stuff that they would give to people that sold liquor. So he had like the cool Elvis bottle. And it was actually sad they had an earthquake there, and some of the stuff came off of his shelf. But he had the coolest thing. So the reason I bring it up is I'm curious, you were in the bar business for a while. Is there an equivalent? Did the distributors give you stuff or special?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Well, well, when I had my bars and um worked with them and whatever, we'd get the neons. Yeah. And the one we started when we opened the one in Stillwater and actually the one in Somerset. The big one at that time was the Northeast.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

The green one. Yeah. Remember when um we were done in the business and um they're coming and we were closing doors or whatever, whatever reason. That's for another story, maybe. But the sales rep for uh for Northeast came in day like right when he heard about it. I need that. I need that Nia.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Because that was one of the most popular.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

But I still got when I got a big Budweiser, it's back there. I point to this room that nobody can see.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

You know what? It it it the pointing is great on audio-only podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yep, it's a big one of the twins and a baseball glove, and it says Twin Stadium. It's a Budweiser one, then I have a Viking one. I didn't keep too many because it's kind of like A, they're hard to they're hard to move because the neon, those little bulbs. I've lost a few because I broke them. So I guess I lose them at three.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

I'm trying to think now, so like expanding worlds posters. I have I have shout out again to uh our friend Chuck Chastain, uh, who when he had the poker store uh was able to hook me up with uh quite a deal, which I think was free, on um the uh a poster that is the rat pack. So it's you know it's like drawings of of the rat pack sitting around, and it's a big one. Yeah, you've got one here. Royal flush. A Royal Flush, what was that? Elvis, Marilyn Monroe James Dean. James Dean, and I think that is uh almost looks like Christopher Walker, but it's gotta be it's gotta be Frank Sinatra. Yeah. So, anyways, and then the other poster I have, I mentioned it in one of our music episodes, is my signed Ramones liner. From the end of the century album signed by all members of the band. Those, you know, and then I have some paintings. My my grandmother uh you did some art, so I've got some of that on the wall. Did she paint them? She painted them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

I got like the one over there. That was my great grandma. We have a bunch of them upstairs that um my great grandma painted.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

And um so I am trying to convince Pam. We do the uh Pam uh is my gal and uh my better half. Um she's amazing, with the exception of maybe her taste in men. Uh she's pretty amazing. But uh she's lucky. I'm trying to convince her to do kind of one of those like Roosevelt community ed things. Yeah. They have like a Bob Ross night. And I'm like, come on, let's Bob Ross it, let's gummy it up, let's Bob Ross painting, and then let's put it right over the sofa, whatever we come up with. You know, we've done stuff like that before. We did like uh our arts and craft things where we had to make ocarenas. Do you know what ocarenas are? Yeah, we made ocarenas and we still have them to catch dust. Kind of like when we'd go on cruises and the kids were younger, we did the art project room.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

They do that for adults too.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Alright, I'm gonna just throw this in here because we're a little light on time, and I want to tell the story because it's a cute story and it involves your two sons. Alright. Uh, back in 2003. We always lose them. Back in the end of the year. Back in 2003, that my mother Maria refers to as the year I ruined Christmas. My uh my uh first wife and I got separated. She's doing great now. Everybody's doing fantastic, but it was a sad time. But I was in an apartment and I had nothing. I I had I had like literally an air mattress, and that's it. And I had dinner with you and your wife and your two sons. I don't think that George had been born yet, at Bubba Gump Shrimp Boat Company. But she was probably in a baby county. Okay, she's just baby. Okay. So we're at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Boat Company, and back then they used to let you keep the Bubba Gump Shrimp Boat Company pop glasses.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Remember when they used to ask the questions for the movie? I do not remember that. We always knew the answers, and we'd throw it back to them and ask questions. We watch that movie too much, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

So at the end of the evening, your boys say, We want Carlos to have these since he doesn't have any glasses. So the first two glasses in my first uh bachelor apartment were bubblegum shrimp boat companies uh that I can thank uh Ben and Brady Hammer for. So I will I will never forget that. That was one of the sweetest things anybody's ever done for me, and I'm very appreciative because honestly, I didn't have any cops.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

I like when he said Lieutenant Bann invested in some fruit company, said I'd never have to worry about money again. Yeah, yeah. He said, Well, that's nice. One less thing. All right, you know what?

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Tom Hanks is gonna sue you for doing such a great impression. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

You know, so when you have a van, conversion van with a high top and big TV. Yeah. As a driver, you hear a lot of movies you don't see. Well, I saw, but yeah, we'd replay a lot. Ricky Bobby was one that was Hakuna Matada. You can't tell, uh you can say, Wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

That's reverse here. How old were your kids when they were watching Ricky Baba?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

I was watching, walking right down this path where Forrest Gump was played a lot. That's why I know all the lines. If we knew all the lines, because that was uh if we're going someplace, it was a longer movie, and they could all agree on that because it was fun. It was um a lot of things happened. But some of that Will Farrell, Ricky Bobby, Anchorman, some of those just um the youngest seems to get exposed to the uh the PG 17 stuff a lot younger than the the oldest ones, too. But Ricky Bobby, trademark, Ricky Bobby, please Lord, let her be 18. No, never mind.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

I want to pray to a baby. I can pray to whatever Jesus I want to. Jesus is wearing a tuxedo shirt. Oh, is it uh his two sons were Texas and and and and Walker Walker and Texas Texas a Ranger and Walker, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

I think grandma's gonna tame us like a bunch of wild dogs.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Did you ever have a movie poster on your wall? I'm like trying. I like because we were looking at posters here uh doing research, and yes, we did do research before this show. I know that it's not showing on the tape, but Scarface is a big one. That's Scarface was huge. Wall Street was also big with a certain group of people. Jaws, oh you know what was you know what I would have had? Had movie movie posters really weren't in the uh fun shop or Spencer's racks when we were of the age of looking in them. Because I I would have for sure had a Smokey in the Bandit poster if that existed.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Chechin' Chong's Cheechin Chong's, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

The Godfather was an iconic one.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

I don't know that I had an appreciation for the godfather when I was in high school. Remember the the family guy when they're dying, the water's filling up in the chamber, they can't get out, and he goes, family guy, or he goes, Godfather, overrated. And they're all going, what? What are you talking about? It's iconic. It insists upon itself. What? Peter, uh saying, Peter, what are you? It's one of the classic movies. I don't like it. Didn't like it, and they're like going, what movie is that from? Uh that's from the Family Guy show where they're in the they're gonna drown.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

And he's like it reminds me of like the contrary thing, and I don't know why I'm making this connection. See, remember Reservoir Dogs in the very beginning, yeah, where uh Steve Buscemi's like, I don't tip. I don't tip. I don't tip, they don't really know well. They rely on that for their salary. That's between them and employer and I. I don't tip. And he goes, they oh, I gotta leave a tip? Okay, here's a tip, honey. Learn to fucking type.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Learn to fucking type. Yeah, we could get into the tipping escapades going on in the country right now, but we won't. The Jaws one.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Jaws is big.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

That was a huge poster where there is a I never saw Jaws in the theater. Did you? Let's go with it. It was a long time ago. I'm gonna say yes. Okay. I want to say yes, I did. I know I didn't see like The Godfather is a huge movie poster.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Um I'm gonna ask you to pivot. Okay. Because in our last episode, we left with a cliffhanger that we promised that we were gonna answer.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Which one? About how St. Louis Park got its name and where in St. Louis Park was downtown St. Louis Park. And I I want to insert it, but let's talk more posters here, but let's not leave people hanging.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Last one. Remember the Warriors, the show, the movie The Warriors Escape from Cyrus in the game?

SPEAKER_03 21:49

You and I, you we saw it at the Skyway Theater, and that was the that was that's one of my favorite movies of all time.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

And he's clinging the three Coke piles together. We walked out of there. Of going, we're tough in the we're wait, we're in Minneapolis. We're like 12. Let's get on the bus and get out of here.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Because do you remember? I don't I'm assuming they don't do it now, but there was a time when the you know NBA is is the king of intros, right? Yeah, you know, with the lights going out and the lasers and and what the wolves would play Golden State, they would play that with the bottles clinking. Whoa-yeah! Come out and play it, and you the clanking and then yeah, they would play that at Target Center uh when we play the Warriors, and I love that. Yeah, that was a good movie. Those uh they um be I've seen uh social media posts like of like well, probably in the last ten years, it must have been some big anniversary of that movie, and it was like all the same guys, you know, like like on the train on a New York subway train, you know, like you can see the difference of how they've aged. But that was a fun ass movie.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

When they when they would do the fight scene, they were really realistic. They you could tell they put some time into choreographing it, and then when well I can't remember the character, but he looks at the the the the what were they called? The Bronx Bomb or something, they all can't they know New York, yep. They carry the bats, yep, and then one guy goes, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna take that fucking battery and shove it up your ass and turn you into a popsicle. And pretty much did. And then he got then he got nailed. Yeah, oh my god, because he tried to rape the girl like with Undercover cop.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Yep. Yep. So what's funny about that is it it is actually a fun movie, it's got a great premise, yeah, but it also is kind of silly. Oh, yeah. Like New York Street Games have outfits beyond just the color.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

And they did this like in their life, because I do remember when I was in Europe during Carnival. Yeah. And then in Germany for it, and they dress silly, but they do that for that weekend, yeah. Where it's funny in Europe, their neighborhoods are we like St. Louis Park in our neighborhood, they're way into it. Their neighborhoods have had like songs, like loyalty songs to that, and they dress up, and I'd be we're on the train, yeah, and there's these thrown ass men singing these goofy songs they made up when they were young.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Well, I don't know if you've spent time with New Yorkers, but it's funny because you know, we talk about our podcast, but you'll see New Yorkers like, oh, you were PS62, I was too. And it's just like that's that connection. You know, and so you see, you get you've got a connection, and that's why you know we started this, is because we feel still, you know, I haven't lived in St. Louis Park in seven, eight years, and it's like, oh, and I still feel like it's part of me. It's it will always carry uh something in my heart. And so we love telling stories about our life, but the main character of all of our stories is St. Louis Park, Minnesota, because that's where all this happened.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah. And it's funny because uh, you know, Minneapolis and St. Paul have neighborhoods. The law the the Linden Hills, yeah, the you know the neighborhoods, but they talk about it, and you know that's kind of where they they grew up themselves, they're from St.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Paul or Minneapolis, but this neighborhood. And St.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Louis Park was kind of like the first extension of part of Minneapolis, but we they broke out on their own, and that's why I said the Battle of France Avenue because they were Minneapolis is pushing, but St. Louis Park kind of got established in the um 18, whatever, and they had their own post office. So it was a big when you had your own post office, you kind of put the flag in there going, we are we are here, and they the lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker, so Walker Arts Institute, which is yeah on the Minneapolis-St. Louis Park border.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

They um but it was it was the St. Louis Railroad, is the reason why it's a lot of St.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Louis Minneapolis. It was called the Minneapolis-St. Louis Railroad.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

And they didn't want to get it confused with St. Louis, Missouri. Yes. So that's why they think they're parking there. Gotcha. And um, but then the Lumber Baron, they put uh there was a a downtown St. Louis Park, which Where was it? A lot of suburbs don't really have a downtown, you think of the big cities, but it was over by um where would I say it was just when you look up on the map, it was Walker Avenue, which was at the time was called that's over by the high school, sort of the high school, but just south of the football field. What's over there now? Kind of like the old baseball field that was there.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Well they got they got those like little strip bare there's not that many of them left, but there's that like that if you take the side the the non-highway road that gets you from like park tavern to the high school, yeah. You know, there there's there's those like little strip mall like businesses that are right there, but there's not a whole lot else.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

No, it was the roads were called uh well reason one of the reasons they pushed back on letting Minneapolis take over St. Louis Park to be part of Minneapolis, because there was a good chance we would have been that part uh because they made a post office because they called the Elmwood from 87 to 18 1890, yeah. And that kind of would say, we got rights to this. Yeah. And um, so they they put the industrial downtown, uh, it was by Wooddale Avenue, and current day it was along Broadway. They called it Broadway, which is now called Walker Street, which is on the north side of Highway 7, over by where just when you pass over 36. Yeah. By their there's a restaurant there now. It's uh up it's been there for a while, but it's the yeah, but but that was considered the downtown.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Okay. All right, well, thanks for the history lesson.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

You got more there, or I want to uh as many people remember you talked, we can pivot back, but you talked about well no, I'm gonna pivot someplace completely different. Uh not the PV. What was the uh what was the other one I was talking about? Yeah, well, you gotta Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Um, we're good. So I got a question for you. And this is something I thought about writing about as we was driving here. Nothing to do with St. Louis Park. It's got something to do with something that's just like a bug up my ass about it. But there was a headline this week that said the Postal Service lost, I don't know, how many billion dollars, okay? How come nobody says, well, you know, the Marines last year lost a hundred million dollars, or you know, OSHA lost money. Like, why where is the expectation that this government service should make money? Like, where did that come from?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

And why can't they lose all of it right in front of our bench we're sitting on? Lose the money there. But you're right.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

Yeah, well, exactly, yeah, if they're gonna spend the money. But the thing is, it's like going if you are an older person, particularly if you don't live in a city, like the postal service is your freaking lifeline. Yeah, you know, it's not, and and you continue to cut and cut and cut, and it's it's you know, I'm not this is not political. This is just like I just am curious why did this particular function of government have an expectation attached to it? Like who who made that framing? Because it's like it makes it look like the post office, oh, it's losing money, losing money. I'm like, when yeah, but who said it was supposed to be a for-profit business?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Exactly. And the funny thing is, you know, you just steal it from a comedian, Nate Pergazzi, but he goes, you know, the rumblings is amongst the elder when stamps are going up, and Amy goes, You go someplace, you go to a senior place, and oh my god, it's a tuck, stamps are going up, oh boy, what are we gonna do? And you're like, and and Nate Pergazzi, he always plays dumb like, yeah, I didn't know what a stamp costs. He's like, like they're going up like a hundred dollars, and they're like, four cents. Four cents, and this is the talk of the whole place. Why would and I keep thinking every couple of years, just raise it a quarter and be done for a few years. But here's the thing think about it though. What's a stamp cost?

SPEAKER_03 29:47

60 cents now? I don't know. Any four out of the forever ones, you never know. 70, we'll say 75 cents. Think about that. Okay, we are sitting here in Woodbury, Minnesota, okay? Yeah, we're not in St. Louis Park right now, sorry. We are gonna record in St. Louis Park, though, and look for that real soon. But I am gonna take a piece of paper, I'm gonna write stuff on it, and for 75 cents, they will deliver it to someone 2,500 miles away.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

That's it. 75, I'd I can hand it to them, I give them 75 cents, and it will end up. That's amazing. That's now, yes, I know that there's email and I know there's there's electronics, but for a lot of folks, that's not part of their life, so can't we like have a postal service? Like, I mean, it's not that much money, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

I mean, it is the cost of a cruise missile. They they talk about okay, the baby boomers are getting into that age. Yeah, so that huge age group is that, and you know what ruffles are feathers in the in the coop, in the chicken coop? Two things. There's more than two things. But one is when they bitch about, when they fight over Social Security, yeah, which is never going away. Yeah. They can't, they're not gonna, but they know how to stir the elders up by saying, Oh my god, so what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? And then stamps is another one where they'll go, because But it's because it affects people's lives in a very central way, and it's something they look forward to, and it's funny because people always said, not always said, I don't know, people, maybe nobody said this, never mind, that when electronics, the the the World Wide Web and everything came out, that postal service would die out. Yeah. But people, I know my age and still, but then I look at my kids, even young ones, they still love going to the mailbox. Why? Because it's like a freaking surprise. It is, and half of it you're throwing away on the way because you're like, I don't want my gutters.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

And the thing is, it's like it's I mean, I can't tell you the last time I got a piece of mail that I wanted. It's been a bill or something. You know what I mean? It's not like I mean, I get plenty of stuff delivered to me, but I don't consider that the postal service. That's the Amazon ferry that delivers it to my house.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Every once in a while it's nice, and and every once in a while, my my aunt and uncle usually uh my pseudo-aunt Bonnie will send letters and you're like, oh, nice.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

But it's funny, most of his junk mail or food advertisements, and you're walking back from the post the bell, and mine's across the street because remember back in the day, like there were little holes in your front door, they put it in there, and your mail would fly across, or it was real close. But the um food ones, you're like thinking, I'm hungry. You're like, I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna go here, and then you get the coupon, yeah, and then you forget where you put them, yeah, and then you're like, I'm not that hungry.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

I I'm gonna encourage people because this is a lost art, send postcards when you travel. It means so much to people to get a postcard. It takes you two seconds, it's a shared memory, you're sharing part of your experience. Now, I mean, if you you're sending a postcard from Maplewood Mall, I mean, that may not be as exciting for them as if you send it from Paris or Texas or France, but did you have any mil?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

I mean, some of I know the the Chucker, yeah, Chastain would send it from the whatever he was stationed, I'd get them, you know, and it would be like three, four weeks after he sent it. He would send it. Uh, some other friends in the military would send some. And then my uncle, I remember when he was stationed and stuff, he would send them. I'd look back at them now because I was pretty young. But do you um do you get any from or do you remember any from people? Oh yeah, Cuba. Well oh Cuba.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

Yeah, Cuba. We would get let and now my grandmother, uh, my dad's mom, actually both of my grandmothers were writers.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

But you know, multi-page, you know, handwritten letters my my my grandmas would send, and it, you know, I have I still have boxes of those in my garage that I don't want to throw away, but I don't know what and you could tell either they wrote that out a number of times or they were good at it because there wasn't a lot of scribbling or back button, back button, redoing it. They formulated their thoughts, took their time, and then wrote it in cursive.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Yep, yep. Absolutely, yeah. No, it it it's amazing to me. I mean, it you know, considering how much backspacing and and and and blank screens I look at when I trade or write.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Well, it was it was so the mail, the US Postal Service when it came to Pony Express was social media. It was absolutely I had letters from my grandma, my mom's mom, yeah, and she had uh older brothers and sisters, which and um and we were reading this before my mom passed about a year ago, some of the letters that she'd get from her brothers that were in the service, yeah. And um, she'd get them written to either to my mom, or sometimes my mom was uh get them from her uncles, but to my grandma, and they'd be like, This the time you found something out, and this was from my grandma's brother Hank, and they had a brother, Art, and he said, I just ran into art, we were stationed. I heard grandma died a few months ago, a few months, and that's when they'd find out.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Like, did did you um were telegrams ever a thing you remember in your youth?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

No, but I remember when we were some places traveling, you'd go to uh like that, but Western Union.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Yeah, no, telegrams. We would say, because when a relative died, no, no, no, no, a relative would die, and that's how we would let them know in Cuba because the our family didn't have a phone, so we could call the neighbor, and then the neighbor would try to have them there at a certain time, but sometimes just to get the information out, you know, like grandpa die, you know, because you pay per letter or per word, so it was not a lot of detail in those in those telegrams. But I have I and I actually have that's you know, my my parents passed away in the last five years, and I still have much of their house in my garage and papers, and I remember seeing like telegrams and letters and kind of you know the the the paper trail of their lives.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

And it's hard to get rid of this stuff because I have my grandma's and then my mom's now.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

And do you feel like you thought and yes, you can dig it? You have kids. I got nobody to give it to. I know your kids probably don't want it, but at least they should. Oh, we'll take it. Your stuff too. But there's certain ones, and everybody kind of comes into this distill. I I will say there's a time where I'm like, let it from my great grandma. I don't like it. Now you're like, that's cool. So you hang on to it for the off chance that you might find it interesting or find it, but I find stuff from when we were young from things that are you even look back in your yearbook when people would sign your yearbook. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

And then I look at my mom's yearbook and the things people wrote dead kind of the same thing. Oh, you conquer the world and don't go to jail.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

Hey, also I got a I got a Carlos hack that this is a I like it. I feel like you inspired me by some of your things I've noticed. When I was a senior in high school, I bought two yearbooks so that the one that mom and dad saw did not have what people wrote in it. I feel like that was a smart move on my part. Because there's stuff in my yearbook I would not want disclosed. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

There is some stuff where I think my mom saw it all because we back to the point.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

Well, we were we actually would, yeah. I mean, we didn't exactly keep a lot of secrets from Judy.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Funny thing was, I gotta just tell this because when we had the party one time at my house and we told people, we started, we decided to have a party at like five in the afternoon. Next thing you know, there's 300 people there. And the cop showed up and said, Any adults here? And I forgot my mom was there because we thought she was going out of town for a weekend, yeah, and then she didn't. So she was Judy, she kind of went along with it, and she she was having fun, and it wasn't like getting bad at, but the cop said, any adult, we had to put her in her bedroom, yeah, in her closet, stay here, don't be here, and don't come out. And then um my brother, my brother would be there too. Now he's he was 12, yeah, and my mom, whatever. But uh, there was a family affair.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

There's something about that generation that to me is just Carlos's opinion, but they were so tough and badass. Like, I've spent many hours with your mom in hospital waiting rooms to see if her sons were gonna live or not. And um, yeah, she's just like, oh well, you know, I remember with Marty, she's like, Yeah, we did this with Mike. And I'm like, no, Judy, no, you've had more than your bad luck of dealing with your kids' issues, you know. You know, thankfully you survived, and uh I recalled the time, and we'll get into the details of Mike's motorcycle accident, but I remember you were in the hospital, and uh there was a young man from North Dakota, I think, who lost both his arms. Oh, yeah, and in like an combine accident, and he was in there at the same time, and you know, he was the star. You were like a nobody in that place.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

I went and chatted with him. Yeah, because I wanted his autograph.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

But he got a they got reattached. It was interesting. But yeah, that was uh And then I remember you saying to me, everybody keeps telling me how lucky I am.

SPEAKER_03 38:41

I don't feel lucky somebody can't.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

I remember the mother, and we'll just won't say that you're lucky you should go to the casino. I go, yes, because it translates. I think the casino god would say, You didn't die on your motorcycle when you should have. Yeah, let's give you money too. Can we sign you to a contract? Can we how about that? But I I I get the part what she meant was it was fortunate, it could have been worse. Somebody didn't want to walk in and go, look at you, you're all you're all bloody. Could have been worse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

Well, yeah. Yeah, but once again, I I you know, I mean, I I you know I loved your mother uh so many different reasons, but just she just had that attitude from that generation was like, okay, you know, no panicking, no freaking out. You just like, okay, well, you know what, I guess I deal with it, you know, and and and that's an attitude that uh boy, I try to take from my parents as much as I can, but I feel like I'm just not as big a badass as they were.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

I think she came from the in the 70s, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

No, but she was she was born in the 40s, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:42

She got divorced in the 70s when it wasn't the popular thing to do.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

Well, you're your mom, I mean, she's 77.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

They got they got divorced. So no, but what year was she? 41, she was born. 41, okay. So that's like to say Bob Dylan and her saying. She's exactly she's Pam's dad's age. Yep. So I think divorcing as a mom, yeah, not very well off. Well, basically, she went from house rom to like, oh, you're out, I gotta get a job, I gotta switch.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

She was she was she was uh one day at a time. I mean, it was, you know, she just was, you know, rather than but she had two sons and a daughter rather than two daughters.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

And I know I I kind of go with that how we just got I got that we'll figure it out thing because I know she tells me that me and Michelle we pushed for her to leave and to kick him out. Yeah, and I kind of remember that, but it's kind of like you didn't want to be that family that got divorced because it was a stigma to a certain extent. But after it happened, and the way she was inviting and everything, people wanted to come to our house. So we had a lot, it was kind of like community to to help me in.

SPEAKER_03 40:45

I I know that there were times when I was a kid that financially things were not great in my home, and I knew that, and I now know that was in a lot of homes, but I never it never occurred to me. I'm like it never occurred to me that somebody's family might be I just did not I was oblivious to it. Once again, my world was very small and I wasn't thinking about I was thinking about the baseball game or the keg party. I wasn't thinking about, you know, fine we you know we knew there were wealthy families, you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

But I did not feel poor, you know. No, I didn't feel when I tell there was friends with nice sort of houses bigger whatever, and it seemed like everybody wanted to hang come to my house more because I it just it was easy, it was there wasn't a lot of expectations, kind of like drop your ego at the door, come on in. And um with a lot of pretense. And I remember this, you know, people didn't get it, and I tell people like they're hard up that things are gonna happen. I remember having to help pay the mortgage at a teenage year. I mean, still in high school, going, I can give over some of my paycheck or live in the street. Yeah, just kids can do whatever. And it didn't seem like it was a hero thing to do, like, oh my god, it would and I didn't need anybody to feel sorry. It was just it was reality. She was courageous, got divorced, and then she had to get a job, support three kids, and we made it work. Yeah. And I don't know, it builds character.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

You know what? I mean, I I you know I got a lot of character. You know, I got uh you are a character, but uh, you know, I mean, I I I think that uh anybody that knows uh Judy and her three kids knows what a great job she did.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

So she was and one last thing, and we can sign off missile tell people. I I know you can't totally relate, but like to say I'm a great parent. You're like, you know, they've been parents for millions of thousands of years they've been parents, so you're not standing up by being a good parent for a great and so don't don't have to tell me that's between you and your kids, basically. Nobody needs to know it, but 90% of it's showing up. Yes, and I say this about my mom a lot when we talked about I always knew that my mom was gonna be there, and there was metaphorical, but also in in the the brown goldish recline or chair, if my friends came over, a lot of them knew barely would knock, would walk in, and you knew where Judy was sitting. Yeah, absolutely. And you go in and sit on the couch and talk to her, and Eliza, her gift was always being there.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

The thing is, it's like when I you know, I feel like you grew up in the house with your mom and I had it, where we knew there were certain things our parents were gonna be really pissed off about, but never not love us. No, right? You know what I mean? It's like there would be consequences, consequences, but it did not ever make me feel like I was in love.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

I had less of the consequences of worrying about being in trouble. Yeah, my burden was I never wanted to disappoint my mother. Yes, she really didn't ground me or do whatever because she's like, You're grounded. I'm like, sure, whatever that means. But I Never wanted to see that look of disappointment or let down her eyes. That was crushed. That's what kept me the toe of the line by not getting caught. No, not doing stupid stuff where I would make her.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Well, but that, but you know, that's a sign of respect, right? I mean, and that's because she was always there. And and you know, and you're right. I I you know, I can't relate, or I feel better, I can't speak towards how you build that in a home as a parent because I didn't have that experience, but that is a tribute to our parents, right? That that we're but that we're that we're that we are our behavior has a line that our parents helped set for us, you know?

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Like my mom, your parents were always there. Yes. I knew when I went knocking on your door, I knew who was coming to the door, and if it wasn't a work day, I know where your dad would be sitting with Mickey and Gamby. Yeah, watching the ballgame. So parents, I think, a little bit more so that they taught us to show up.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Yes. Show up. You don't have to be perfect, but showing up. I mean, I you know, I talk about it with my dad, and these are sports parents everywhere. I mean, you all know you got a kid that plays sports, you're gonna be traveling, you're gonna be going to tournaments, you're gonna be sitting around a lot, you know. I mean, I'm I'm sure that my dad had better things to do on a Saturday morning than to spend it uh driving a bunch of kids to Cottage Grove to play in a basketball tournament all day. I can guarantee you he had a lot better things to do, but he showed up.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

And I'll say this, he did and he didn't, because when I had the kids, and especially if all three of them had something going on that weekend, yeah. You had to pick and choose. Like, I don't like you that much this weekend, I'm gonna watch out. But and you'd send them a top. I had the advantage of being an only child, so and you'd send them, and I I remember back to my mom real quick on this. My friend, like your dad and others, understood her plight, yeah, so they kind of grabbed me like, we got 'em. We'll grab them, we'll take them. Yeah. It wasn't like a burden or anything. It was like, Mike's gotta go to the game, let's go. We got him. But I remember with when my final child was done in sports, it was almost like you were lost. I knew what I was doing based on their schedule. Well, you also had a community with the parents you built, right? Well, there's fun that, yeah, and each and each kid has a different parent group.

SPEAKER_04 46:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

And there's some that are more fun than there's some that the hockey world. Let's just say the hockey parents are a little bit more not in the bad word cult, but they they like to get away an hour or two away at a place where it's well, yes, as much about the kids' game as it's about the kids'.

SPEAKER_03 46:43

My understanding, and this is I'm I'm talking out of my ass here, but I've I've heard it from numerous people that that uh the kids get their separate room at hockey tournaments because the parents want their room for partying.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

There is there is that, or there's a community room, or the the the hockey mom will make sure they can get the the whatever the conference room as much as they could. Yeah and it didn't happen in basketball as much, which is interesting. Softball a little bit, but I think because, and this is why hockey parents are a little bit more off-kelture than the rest, we played basketball. What do you got to invest in for your kid to play basketball? Tennis shoes, yeah, a stringer back then when we wore tank tops, shorts, tube socks, go. Hockey's very expensive, so they would feel a financial commitment, and so they're like, I'm getting everything out of this.

SPEAKER_03 47:31

Let me ask you this, because we we played on the traveling team in basketball. I did six, what is it? Sixth, seventh, eighth, grade, ninth, ten, sixth, ninth, yeah. Yeah, till high school basketball took over. We didn't have a did we have to spend money? Like, I don't even know the size of the check that my parents had to write for me to play uh uh traveling from basketball.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Traveling basketball is let's just say if high school was 20 bucks to play, traveling basketball was like 45 or 50. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:57

See, because I you know, I I compare that now to I remember when our friend Chuck being at his house, I don't know, 20, 30 years ago, and he's like going, his son got selected to play on another traveling team. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. And he goes, No, that's another like 2800 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

It's you know, and it's not just hockey anymore, it's softball, basketball, it's it's all specialized. It's a it's very expensive. And it's funny too when my daughter, when she was young playing hockey, she was really good at it. And she played when they're young, girls play with boys and whatever, and people are like, Yeah, but you can get her scholarship. She keeps going, like, how about let's just be seven? Yeah, how about let her be seven and and we'll deal with college? That's like 18 years old, we'll do that. And I'm not trying to make hockey pay for her. I I'm fully prepared to be take part in her college education. And if by chance somehow that happens, good for that. But let's just, it's hockey, they're seven years old. Yeah, let's have fun.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

Well, that that's the thing, is like going, I you know, you spend I I I feel like in youth sports we always wanted to win, but it was about having fun. I mean it was not, I mean, it never felt like work to me.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

I we had dreams of making it pro because that did not pressure. But I did, I remember there's an article on the St. Louis Park Sailor. My dad, we'll talk about this one time. Dave Hammer ran for mayor. Yes, he did. And he had handwritten endorsements that we would go door to door with and they're like, if you can read this, yeah, good for you, vote for Dave Hammer. Uh they did an article on the family, and it said in there that Mike Hammer would like to be the next Fran Tarkin. And people like, I'm like, well, A, why wouldn't you? It's better than being.

SPEAKER_03 49:45

I remember your judge, your dad had the hookup at WCCO. Yeah, Ray Scott. Because I remember I remember you threw a no-hitter in Cub League ball, and Ray Scott talked about it on the news. And young Mike Hammer threw a no-hitter today. Now, I don't know if they they they you know you you walked eight and being four, but you threw a no-hitter.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

They did it in the Little League two. Because my dad worked for Northwestern Bell and I was right by WCCO, and they had to do a lot of phone stuff there. He knew a lot of Dave Moore, Ray Scott. And so, yes, a few times I remember I give my dad props on certain things. He'd make me watch the 10 o'clock news. Yeah. Didn't you hear it? Because I I saw it live. I'm like, oh wow. I went to a cumball, like five or six in Little League, a couple in Babe Ruth, threw one of college too. That was fun. Uh, but yeah, it it uh where did we get to this? How do we how did we get to the thing?

SPEAKER_03 50:38

How did we get to this? We were talking about parents and showing up. So I think that we have now recorded a jumbo episode here. And I don't even think I'm gonna break it apart. I'm gonna let those that will see that it is uh 55 minutes will download it, and those that don't will start with posters and end up with we started with posters and ended up with uh handwritten political endorsements running by candidates, and that'll be a form to go to.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

But as you like to say, yeah, uh, you know what? Actually, real quick, uh, how can people uh get a hold of my camera? Well, let's just go with this. If your feet are tired and sore or whatever, go to footpaintauthority.com. They're really, really inexpensive. Great insoles for your shoes, sandals, boots, whatever. And if you put the word bench in the promo code, you'll get a discount because you listen to our show and you pass it along to people.

SPEAKER_03 51:31

All right. And you, I'm gonna I'm gonna promote a couple of podcasts. One is my own. I've started one called the uh ballpark barrister. Can I be a guest? You certainly can. Uh so far I've just kind of thrown up some uh some AI-generated videos from my essays, but I hope to do it uh soon. And then I also want to uh recommend uh a podcast we talked about in our last episode by a classmate of ours, uh Ron Barry. Uh it's called A Berry Find Podcast. It's uh no spaces, a berry find podcast.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:02

Uh check it out. Support another uh podcaster from St. Louis Park. So with that Mike Hammer, I think it's time to get up off the bench. And Carlos and Hammer out.