Coffee with Gordy: Episode 122 Gordy Young

Gordy Young and Kathryn Lake host Coffee with Gordy. The show originates from Madison, Wisconsin every weekday at 8am Central Time. (Watch the sausage being made LIVE on Gordy's Facebook page!) Gordy and Kathryn take a look at headlines of the day, local weather with fake AI entity voice Luna Cintafante and odd stories you may not hear about anywhere else. https://www.boffocoffee.com

 #coffeewithgordy, #gordyyoung, #kathrynlake, #boffocoffee, #johnpeterson,  #johnandgordy, #lunacentifante https://www.boffocoffee.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello everybody. It is Wednesday, June 24th, 2026. I'm Gordy Young. This is Coffee with Gordy. Hey now.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

It's time to have a cup of jokes you can sit with nice and slow. Don't grab your coffee cup. Let's take a coffee break. It's time for goodness sake.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

It's coffee with Gordy. All right. We are off and running. Rise in time. Shake a leg up and Adam. Top of the morning to you. It's time for another edition of Coffee with Gordy. And joining me this morning is Catherine Lake. Good morning, Catherine. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:49

What's my theme song? I say nothing until I get my theme song. What the ever loving hell?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Oh, hang on. Oh no, no. Okay. Oh, that's official.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Okay. Okay. I had to put something on my shoulders. It is actually chilly this morning.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

It is. It's rainy. It's overcast. And uh boy, the rain was really uh coming down a little while ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

It looks like it's let up a little bit, but uh good thing I watered yesterday because that was an important moment for my garden.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Well, your garden seems to be doing just fine, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Yeah, yeah. What else have I got to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

All the flowers are blooming, everything's looking good. Let's check out the official Madison, Wisconsin forecast with our fake AI generated news and weather person uh entity. Uh, good morning, Luna. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Good morning.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

I'm okay. This is annoying.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

I am the most annoying AI ever. I can't why what can you give her governance? Don't let me interrupt you. Just do what I ask.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah. Um, Luna, go ahead with that Madison, Wisconsin forecast for today. What's it gonna be like?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

All right, here we go. In Madison today, we've got overcast skies, some lingering showers, and it's a bit cool. We're looking at a high around 68 degrees tonight. We'll dip down to about 55. So maybe keep that sweater handy.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Okay. And uh, Catherine, do you have any questions for Luna this morning? Anything you'd like to know?

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Not okay, all right. Luna, thank you so much, and uh, we'll talk to you sometime in the future. Okay. Uh Luna is speechless. Okay, good deal. All right, we've got uh a bunch of headlines here to go through. Uh and uh I will read the headlines and uh Catherine, you will decide what story we will talk about first, okay? That's how this works. All right, here we go. Do you want to talk about two million bees that have escaped into a Texas neighborhood? How about uh a 12-year, a 1200-year-old oak tree, a famous tree, has died? They think. Or attitude has a lot to do with how you age, or a pickleball fight that turned really ugly. Um, okay, which of those would you like to uh explore this morning, Catherine?

SPEAKER_03 3:58

How about those bees? I'd like to hear about the bees because we're killing them all. We're we're we're doing our best to remove them from the earth. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

All right, let's start up the teletype machine. Go to the newsroom. Two million bees, two million bees. Residents of a Texas neighborhood were warned to remain indoors when a semi-truck overturned and released an estimated two million bees into the roadway. The truck was hauling 50,000 pounds of bees.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

That's not even possible. Yeah, 50,000 pounds. I would think 50,000 bees would be enough. 50,000 pounds. Does that include their boxes?

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Well, I don't know. Doesn't say I assume they were in boxes. The driver was not injured. Well, that's important, but the area was soon swarming with escaped bees. Local beekeepers were summoned to the scene. Can you imagine getting a call? We need all the beekeepers in Texas to come here.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Collect them out of the sky somehow.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Yeah, low local beekeepers were summoned to the scene to round up the bees and transport them to a local honey farm. Authorities urge nearby residents to remain in their homes while the bees were rounded up. How do they do that? How do they how can they know? Oh, we got all of them. Is somebody taking the inventory?

SPEAKER_03 5:25

I mean, 50 that's why I'm saying bees here for 50,000 bees, not 50,000 pounds.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Two million bees. Two million it is two million. Wow, okay. All right, well, I hope you know I wish them the best of luck. Okay, we have the remaining stories. A 1200-year-old oak tree may have died, uh, or a pickleball fight.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

No, I want to hear about the tree.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Okay, this is a very famous tree, a massive ancient oak tree linked to the legend of Robin Hood.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

It's in LA, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 6:00

No, isn't it may have been to death? This is a 1200-year-old major oak in the Sherwood Forest. It's in near London somewhere. Yeah, it's believed to have died after it didn't sprout leaves this spring. Visitors over the past two centuries have viewed the tree's gnarled limbs and sprawling canopy in Nottingham, compressed the soil. They have so many visitors, it compressed the soil, making it difficult for the rain to reach its roots. According to the conservation group, the forest had been under threat for years. The tree had been rumored to die in the past, only to have the group confirm that it was still alive. So it's it's done this before, apparently. That but this spring it didn't grow any leaves. The tree's failure to produce leaves this year is heartbreaking for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Uh, so they're looking at a picture of it. I don't know if I'm frozen on your screen. I'm looking at a picture of it, it is propped up. They have um tripods underneath its giant, beautiful limbs. My goodness. Yeah, so what they what are they gonna do? Because, as you know, I live outside a conservancy, and I was asking um lots of very smart friends what's the difference between a forest and a conservancy, and I think it is you don't touch in a conservancy, you don't touch, you don't take it out to burn, and you don't cut, of course, and you don't dump, you just leave it. It's conserved, you know, whatever falls down, we need it to stay there because it's feeding the soil and it's conserving. This place, Sherwood Forest. First of all, it's a fantasy. Um what? No, I think it's real. Of course, I think it's real. Um, I think, oh gosh, look at the picture of it when it was alive. Oh, it was huge and beautiful. Um, I think they're gonna share lettuce.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Can you share that picture maybe?

SPEAKER_03 8:03

I don't know. Let me see if I can present.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Right click on it, or maybe yeah, I don't know. What am I telling you? I don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

And PDF share screen. Watch this.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Let's see.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Major oak. Here it is. So there's the oak.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

I'm not seeing it.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

You're not seeing it. Oh, there it is.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Now I see it. Let me put it on stage here. Let's see. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Um, so there's one alive.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

But they already have it propped up. But that was probably last year, recent years. That's 2024. Yeah, that's two years ago. So it was it was struggling, and they were putting things underneath. It's beautiful old branches. Now it looks like this. No leaves.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

1200 years old. 1200 years old.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Good gosh, let the poor guy go. But the question is, do they let it go by just walking away or do they take it down? I suspect they walk away. They walk away. You don't take it down, first of all, because just leave it. What if? What if? Yeah, what if it rallies?

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Well, I'm wondering how if they knew that the soil was compressed and it wasn't getting the water to the roots, why didn't they put a fence around it and you know open up the soil uh and water it?

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Um that's interesting. I've seen on on TikTok or whatever social media trying to get me to buy things for my pine tree. I have three pine trees side by side in um yeah, I'll stop screening in uh in my yard, and one of them looks a little brownish. And I said to myself, should I be doing something to help that tree do as well as the two siblings next to it? Um so I that you know, and I live next door to an arborist, so I will be asking him this question. But our trees, they do, I mean, goodness gracious, of course, we need to take care of them like regular plants in some way.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

So that area next to you, behind your house that's this conservancy, uh, they do they do tend it, don't they? To they sure do because we clear the paths. Um, I mean, they don't they they have to do some maintenance to the air.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Absolutely. I hear chainsaws in there every spring. This year, um, we lost a tree. We lost a lot of trees, as usual, but they lost one right down across the path, and it was probably a two-foot parameter. I mean, you you gotta go around that. You can't, well, unless you're young and able, you can get over it. Jump over it. But they yeah, they chop it and set it aside. And I think they would be put out if I went in there and gathered firewood.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I think you would be arrested and hauled up to the hooscow. Yeah, okay. We have two stories left here, Catherine. Um a pickleball fight gone wrong.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Yeah, let's go there.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Okay, you don't care about the attitude of old people.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Didn't say that. I just want to go pickleball next.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Okay, don't put words in my mouth, Gordy. Back to the newsroom. Okay, you're a little chippy this morning.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yeah, I am. I'm chippy.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Have you not had your coffee? Your bafocoffee.com. By the way, bafocoffee.com, a proud sponsor of coffee with Gordy. Okay, all right, pickleball fights. I'm trying to see. Oh, this is in Florida. Oh, this'll be good.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

Oh, all the best stories come out of Florida.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Yeah, yeah. During a post-game dispute between pickleball players, a Florida woman. A post this is after the game's over.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

After they've had their beers, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

A Florida woman repeatedly struck a male victim in the head with her paddle or pickleball paddle, leaving him bloodied and with an injury to his face, according to investigators who have charged the alleged assailant with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Did you know your pickleball paddle could be a deadly weapon? Well, I guess the crap out of somebody, it could be deadly. Uh, the May 31st incident occurred on the pickleball courts at St. Augustine, a city about 40 miles from Jacksonville, resulted in the filing of a felony case against uh a woman named Michelle Bannister. She's guess this. She's a 47-year-old nurse. She's a nurse. Well, according to court records, Catherine, during one doubles game on that uh Sunday, a dispute arose between players about the retrieval of the ball. They were fighting, but the ball's over on your why don't you get the ball? Oh, you get the ball, you're closer to whatever. Um, you have to so they were fighting about the retrieval of the ball. Come upon completion of the match. Um, this guy that was, I don't know, on the other side, went to speak with the defendant's son regarding critique of his playing style. Police say that during the course of that confrontation, um Bannister, this nurse, interjected herself. That's what it says here, uh, into the argument. She's she stuck her nose in somebody else's business and then struck the victim in the head several times with the pickleball paddle, leaving injuries to his face that caused several cuts and a large amount of blood.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

Well, anything on your head bleeds a lot. We know heads heads bleed.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

See, I thought pickleball was just a fun little, you know, like ping pong, only a little bigger, right? Let's have a fun pickleball. I want to play pickleball. I've never played it. There I in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. There's supposedly a really great pickleball facility. I don't know where it is, but I want to find it and I want to play a set.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

I bought a set during the pandemic.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

You bought pickleball paddles?

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Yep, four of them.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Let's go we'll go play today sometime.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Today, not so much. Show your little bird feeder. Today is not a pickleball day, unless you want to do it in my garage.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Well, unless maybe they have an indoor facility there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Oh, oh, maybe at the gym that my kid has joined.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Possibly.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Um, what's that what's that place called? It's that place that's really cheap. They've just figured out how to you you do where they where you go to work out. You've been there with them.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Oh, um, can't remember the name of it now.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Yeah, but they're everywhere and they're really inexpensive.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Plan Planet Fitness. No, it's it's not in there. I've checked that place out.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

I think that they don't have it there because they're so inexpensive. They are about get in, get your workout, get out.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Hang on a second. Let me uh see what I can do here to adjust this camera and do this. Uh, there's some ducks out there. Oh, it's just going off screen.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

There's a whole bunch of ducks this morning uh swampy area at the uh um is it filling with water or is it just swamp? It can't fill with water. Sycamore Park cannot fill with water.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

It can actually it's draining. If you if you look to the uh left of the screen, you can see the water filling into it. Yeah, okay. See my curtain.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

You're getting a little pond. That's kind of neat.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Yeah, it fills up quite rapidly if there's a few downpours. You know, if it downpours for a while, it uh does that's nice, it does fill up. And there are ducks in there and geese and chip.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Now, do they come out and spray like they do in the forest for mosquitoes?

SPEAKER_02 15:54

No, I've never seen that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Let's get rid of that fascinating stuff.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Everybody needs to be. I know.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

I'm so oh my god. I'm boring you.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Okay, no, no, it's just I'm boring us. Pickleball, okay. Pickleball. Well, what's but you know, here's what I'm gonna say about the pickleball story. It's good exercise. It's a story, it's a good it's good exercise. I was not gonna say that. I was gonna say that you want to talk about that because it's not talking about flipping Donald Trump and everything that's going on largely, right? Let's talk about things that are going on small. Now, you chose Texas and Florida. Let's let's talk about what's going on in Wisconsin, maybe. But but you know, it's it's the world is just upside down and it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

It is exhausting, and you've you've hit upon a main point for me doing this podcast. I feel like there are so many stories that are not being covered. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

I'll take a sip while you cut.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

But there's so many, there's so many stories out there that don't get covered because Donald Trump demands the spotlight all the time. Good news or bad news. That's his theory, his operating theory. I don't care if it's true or false, I'm just gonna say crazy stuff, and that will keep attracting people to me, me, me, me. Saturation, yeah, and keep the keep the spotlight off of other stories that are important or interesting or funny or whatever else.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

He just likes the attention without getting too, yeah. Without getting too into the weeds, yeah. I look at my 16-year-old, and I'm an old mom. I'm not I didn't get my hands around her beautiful little body until she was 45. So I'm extra old. When she looks at me, she sees death around the corner, right? I don't feel that way, I don't feel that way at all. But when you're 80, like Donald Trump, which you know isn't that far away when you really look at the perspective, but but it is, and let's be honest, he seems to be kind of ill. So his decision is. Yeah, I don't wanna I don't wanna say anything out of turn or too much, but the fact is he looks ill, so he's that much closer to his exit, right? I think about my exit, he must be constantly thinking about his. Although my dad at 93 said more than once, I don't feel that old pointing at other people looking just like him, you know, because of course if your brain isn't going, right, then you don't feel like you're out at death's door. But and maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Catherine, you have led us accidentally into our next story, and here it is the attitudes of old people. This is from Yale, a large uh study by the Yale School of Public Health. Uh just released recently. A new study by scientists at Yale suggests that older individuals can and do improve in all the senses of that word over time. But here's the analysis: the result of the study, um, which was a decade-long study, a key data point was that the individual's mindset toward aging plays a major part in their success. If they believed aging was a process of decline, they declined. If they believed the aging was a process of refinement, they improved. Yale School of Public Health found that nearly half of adults aged 65 and older showed measurable improvement in cognitive function, physical function, or both over time. If they believed that, you know what, yeah, I'm getting old, but there's some things that are a little better.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

I'm thinking, you know, it might, I'm getting smarter because I'm here longer. There's the reverence for age that, for instance, not just, but Japan has been known for, and I think probably China too. You take the old people, you bring them into your flipping home, yeah, you help them get old, and you let them influence your children, you create homes where there's a multi-generational influence, and those older people being revered and respected and and sought after for their advice. You saw this when you were my age.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

So if our if our culture valued age better, we would age better.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

And wisdom, uh, what do they say? Wisdom is uh process of knowledge and experience uh put together, something like that. Anyway, yeah, uh, one more finding from this study many people equate aging with an inevitable and continuous loss of physical and cognitive cognitive abilities. But what they found in this study is that improvement in later life is not rare, it's actually common, and it should be included in our understanding of the aging process. But you bring up a great point. This is you know, Japan is the perfect example of you know, that's the way we should be thinking about it, but we don't think about it like that in the good old USA.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

No, we think about what what retirement age can we get you to get to so we can spend less money on you, you can stop it. Get you off, yeah, right, yeah, and get you off the stage, yeah, yeah. You know, and that's what my dad was trying to say. I think I don't feel that old, right? But he was shelved.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Well, I think I mean I yeah, I mean, I'm in my 70s now, but I don't feel I don't I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling like, but I don't I I don't feel much different than when I was 50-ish. I or even in my 40s, I don't know. My yes, my body has slowed down and it's gotten, you know, I've got error codes going.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Error codes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

You know, I had a minor stroke and I had some heart fib, and you know, my hearing is shot. Uh, but hey, I feel great. It's all about your attitude, right? Okay, well, let's leave on that happy note.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Uh okay, I'm gone.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

All right, we're done for the day. Go back to bed. It's raining.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Back to bed. My daughter's waiting for me there. I'm absolutely crawling back into bed.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

All right. Well, Catherine, thank you. You have a good day. And uh, folks, check out Bafokoffee.com. If you'd like to help support the show, please follow us, share us, and like us on your Facebook and wherever else you're seeing this. And uh, we'll talk to you tomorrow, bright and early, eight a.m. Central Time.com.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

It's