1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - The Sadie Hawkins Tradition - July 6th, 11:00am

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

The Sadie Hawkins Tradition - July 6th, 11:00amAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. This Monday, 11.11 in the city. Lincoln, America. D.P. Harrison, Arns. Boom. let's get it hopefully the fireworks

are done that finally ended finally legally they should be finally well just are we done yet you not a pyro maniac

type of guy there deep no really no I figured you be the guy doing like the bottle rockets no no no I am I am not I come from this so the the male presence in my life,

as was my uncle Melvin, my uncle Melvin. And he had an accident that I'll tell folks about. We can be a part of this thing. 4024-6-4-5-6-85, started having a text line. Come on in, hang out. Lots to talk about.

Live streams, Facebook, YouTube, X. Allo Channel 961, we'll check in on our dearly beloved Casey Royals as well to talk about that. Yeah, the Fourth of July thing for me, and I'm old school. I'm old, old, old school.

We were a sparkler and snakes family. All right. I'm not hitting on the snakes or sparklers. That was how simple it was. Was that I had my grandmother was a woman of God and

And she, there's just nonsense was not allowed in her space. And we met, we always got together at her house for July 4th. And her house was one block from my house. Literally the backyards touched. So we would run around the corner and then all the cousins would come in from various points. Baltimore, New Jersey, Richmond, etc. They'd come in. and we would all hang out at grandma's house she would my uncle melvinwood grill he was the grill master he was the king

or were you guys normally cooking up oh oh let me tell you that might be my favorite part of the forest let me tell you but because we are mid-atlantic folks we're mid-atlantic folks and we did crabs bushels and bushels of crab on July 4th. We also, the burgers and hot dogs were on point. Crabs on the 4th sound so good. Oh, yeah. I mean, big. I love some good seafood.

Big picnic tables out in the backyard. Yes. Covered with newspaper and plastic and crabs, hamb, hamb, hamb, hamb, hot dogs. My uncle John, my great uncle John, and my grandmother's basement basically had the coolest nightclub I'd ever seen.

And he was a lifelong bachelor. Player, player. Listen, this dude had the greatest sound system and you go to the basement and he had this record collection that was the size of the wall, this wall right here,

of every just cool, album 45 but we weren't a lot to touch it as kids we were that in no no no no uncle john finds you with fingerprints on this on his stuff because he had he had rags towel rags that he would use dust rags to keep his records clean oh so he was about that and he and he could tell he never put it back in the sleeve with fingerprints on it so he knew if somebody had been in his stuff right because he pulled one out and you're gonna well you darn kids been in my stuff Get out of here. And he was so cool.

He had the coolest dance. He was not a good dancer, but he had this one move that he did all the time. And this is the 70s. So it's disco and R&B. It's Temptations, Four Topps, Smokey Robinson. then he he migrated into parliament funkadelic. You got some Al Green on a on a July 4th.

You got some Barry White. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got some Barry White. Got some Teddy Pendergrass. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he did a move, Harrison. He was the first one that I understood because he would have friends, air quote, come to July 4th, right?

Because that was his day. Uh-huh. You know, because the basement, the backyard, but then it had its own separate interests. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me tell you.

He's got the ultimate. Oh. Oh, Uncle John. But he would, he played music, and he would stand by the, by the, by the turntables. And he would just, so you know how Jay, uh, Jay, uh, does the, the, the play it back, running back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With his hands, running back.

that was my uncle's dance 50 years ago. He would just stand there and he would just and then he would point a toe and then he would point the other toe, point the other toe, point the other toe. And then he would smile. And that was his, that was, and he danced that way

to every song. And it was the coolest. Like we could, as kids, we couldn't wait for Uncle John to get it going. Like, oh, the party just started. Uncle John led you. you know, like it was some earthwood and fire, maybe some Commodore's Brickhouse, right? And he, like, here we go.

Parties on. Like, it's official. Like, just right before it got dark, right before it got dark. Because then what that also meant was Uncle Melvin was done on the grill. And you had a mountain of food. A mountain of food that had been grilled to. to your order, to your specific preference, how do you want it? And he'd give it to you.

Uncle Mel will give it to you. And we're talking about 20 people, right? But he'd give everybody. Everybody ate exactly how you wanted it. What did you go for first? Burger, dog, crap. It was dog, it was dog, dog, burger, crap. That's a good meal right there.

Yeah. That's a great team, actually. That's a good starting for. Right. Like that's understanding. Dog, dog, slight break, burger. with chips and potato salad. Don't know why you didn't understand it was both potato.

Like, you know, I don't understand why we didn't know that you didn't understand that it was all, it's both potato. Mm-hmm. Right? Corner on the cob, off the grill, off the grill. Nice. Off the grill. And if, depending on some of them, right, depending on what family member was there, then you could half smoke, like half smokes.

Hats smokes were going to be a part of the deal, right? But that was later. That was the only thing that cousin Marvin got to grill was the half smokes, right? Later. But at that point, everybody else was playing. They're sitting at the two tables or three tables. The dining room table gone from food and feast. to gain time.

Uker. Spades. Spades. Spades. Spades. And no family member was safe. Oh, you were that family. Nobody was safe at the spades table. Listen,

you were going to find out every family secret at the spades table. Because it was that competitive. And they would slam the table. mom will come and she'd pop her head around there just like, you better respect my, my table. Right? But you can't play spades without slamming, you know, and the grade of your hand and the greater to play and the more talking, like, listen, the best trash talking I ever

heard was at the Spade Stable from the family. Because this is when you, this is why, you know, hey, and here's the problem. You need to talk to your wife about every secret came out during space every secret yeah ask Johnny about that see he got yeah yeah how about that? How about that? They're like a big boy? Is that a coming of age thing? Oh, you got to find out you found out everything about everything.

You found out who had a drinking problem, who had a money problem, you found out everything at the spades table. You found, like, and as kids, you didn't get to play at, at, on the, on the grown-ups table. You could play outside on like a little pop-up table. Right. Which you did, right? But not the same. Not the same as when, when the, when the, when the mom's dad's aunts and uncles got after it.

Got after it. Yeah. And you owe me $20. Like, like, did it never get physical? No. Okay. So that was respect. if it's just part of the game.

Well, here's the thing. The truth's the truth. You ain't got, hey, hey, hey, hey, ain't no lies told at the space table now. There's no lies told. But, hey, there's some secrets. There were some secrets. And you could never be offended by if somebody said the truth.

And there were some conversations. There are times with grandma come in and go, listen, y'all, that we have gone too deep. We still going to church tomorrow, right? we still going to church tomorrow. Now I know who I'm praying for. Right? Like you go through.

And then later, we would, you get the sparklers and the snakes. And the snakes were just those ash caps. Oh yeah. That you would light and they would grow into snakes. Yeah. Still banger today.

Right. And then, and like we still don't understand. Like, that's all we really needed. Like that was enough. and but the snakes because then you got creative right because then you'd stack them right if you can get a three stack of snakes oh you can grow something you can turn into something oh yeah we were big on the

snakes right then you get a design right and you could do a whole s of the caps and let the snake become a snake right did you ever do that you ever like line them up i think we were just the lame kid that's like we put one together then two together and it's like what if we just did the entire pack and created this monster right like it's just an ash it's just an ash mountain and then we get to the, you know, the more idiotic decisions, which led the close calls. Which, which was the thing. What about snaps? Well, this, this was a, well, we had cap guns.

Oh, yeah, the calf guns. Those were good times. So you'd like, yeah, which is weird. Where'd they go? I don't know. And quite frankly, I'm going to probably now stalk one. I kind of want one. Like, I'm just, I'm like, I'm probably going to snap because you, you have, but you, for

whatever reason, the family only had one cap. gun. Like no kids, like there were never several cousins that had a cap gun. Because then you point them in each other, like you didn't want to do that, like pointing at each other. So then what you do is you take the caps and it's that red like raffle ticket roll of caps. And you just roll them out. There's an ancient, ancient memory you brought back. Oh, I forgot about how fun that was. Right. Just the whole role and the bigger like you can tell how well your family was doing financially by the size of the roll of the caps. Oh, oh, my goodness gracious. Like it was, it was like, oh, we, we live in right now.

We are living right now because you got a whole thing. And then you had the one cousin who was a moron who decided to just take the roll and he would get like a brick. You'd get a brick. And he'd just smack the whole row. And you got like three or four smacks out of it. But then it was just a rock. Right. It was just a rock. And you just constantly. And you think about, yeah, it was pretty lame, but it was all we knew and it was the whole thing. So then fast forward to, I want to say I'm 12 years old and we're at my grandmom's house at her new house, which is again, where Uncle John's over there dancing, right? And a couple of things I recall specifically about it. And this is like a deep share that. So my.

My grandfather, who was also Melbourne, so I had an uncle Melvin, Jr., but my grandfather was Melvin Sr. And he was what we identify in the neighborhood as a red bone. He's light skin. He's very, my grandfather was almost white. He was pretty clear. And every year for July 4th and Christmas, we'd have, you know, you'd have a neighborhood, of course our house was kind of one of those neighborhood houses where people were welcome and then they

would come over and hang out with everybody and there would be these these two white ladies who would show up twice a year three times a year and they would just sit in the living room with with my grandmother and they would just talk and you know wow you know and you never like you know it's weird but you don't understand how weird it is or why it was weird until later and then it just kind of went right and And I want to say at 15 maybe, I just went, who are those white ladies? Come to our grandmother's house? Like, who's that? And then come to find out that they were, that my grandfather was mixed.

And those were his white sisters. Oh. Who would show up. Right. And I was like, and you thought they were outside. Oh, you want to talk about the top of your head pop it off, right? Top of your head pop it off. Like, we have white relatives.

attempts. And quite frankly, in a black neighborhood back then, it was a big deal for white folks to come through the neighborhood and post up. So they, and they were comfortable. I was going to say, they must be comfortable. Oh, they were comfortable. They were comfortable. They'd sit there. So, but one of these years, my uncle, who was a government worker, Army, the U.S. Army, and he was the most straightforward, intelligent, loving, human being. I remember he was the standard of discipline and character that we all need in our lives. And for not having a father in the house for a portion of my life, he was the male role model. More than my grandfather. My uncle was the role model. It took me to my first pro football game,

took me to my first pro baseball game. He was the guy, right? He took me bowling. He was the one to tell me, you know, don't bowl the way you see on TV, bowl the way that works. He goes, it's more important for you to bowl well than to look like you bowl well, which was the thing that I took and took a whole bunch of other sports. One year, he upgraded the fireworks,

and one of them blew up in his hand. And that was the end of all of that. Because my stepfather, who came in the following year of my life had a thumb blown off when he was in the army. And he was D.C. cop, but he did it with a missing thumb. And so that became kind of the family boundary that we're, we now have like the two most important men in my life have been victim to an explosion or shot.

been maimed right like why i didn't like guns in the first place right he's dc cop but i didn't like guns so if you can imagine all the things that go on with that um but those are the rules and you just went and he went to the hospital and it was a full-on thing right did you just go like it's humbling and and it stops like all the momentum that was built before that yeah was that no we just don't do that so ever since that day i was just i'm i'm not i'm not a fireworks guy that's fair i mean i mean me and nadee were talking about like the lincoln scanner for anyone who like it follows that they report it you know there's a lot of unfortunate things that happens every fourth uh and one more time shout out to all the e r workers yeah i got to say that every fourth of july because well everyone's

out there having a great time they have i'm pretty sure it's like they'll say it's one of the busiest nights of the year by far for them yeah yeah yeah careful yeah um it became um the simplest thing was just to not do it. And even when I had, uh, had my nightclubs, I didn't, we, we would, we had patios where technically in the space, there were other places that did it. I was like, well, we can see them from here. So I'm cool. Yeah, that also one of the favorite things about living in Lincoln is like, uh, free fireworks. Well, I've been spoiled because being in DC being in Arlington, Virginia kids, I mean, literally, I'm five minutes from Pentagon.

So we got fireworks. We got the nation's fireworks sitting on our back porch. Like we would just sit, I mean, that was part of the deal. Open skies, you pointed towards D.C. And you saw or you could go to, you know, any one of 10 places because all of the government workers and facilities had fireworks. So you could go to Iwojima, you could go to National Airport. you can go. Like there's a ton of places you can go and watch fireworks, all the different schools,

in other words. Otherwise. So I was kind of spoiled, right? Do you think that Fourth of July, everybody gets to watch the nation's fireworks, except for we were just sitting there. And then as you got older, you know, we would first ride our bikes down to the mall and watch fireworks. And then as we got old enough to have a car or we'd have our older cousin who would drive us down to D.C. And you would watch fireworks. You know, then you realize, okay, we would, we were only going to go to the edge of the bridge. We would go to the bridge that took you into D.C. But not crossing the bridge because you couldn't get back from all the traffic.

Right. You just go, okay, this is, you learn that early on. This is a nightmare. Why would I want to do this? And then you got old enough to ride the metro down that. which was the other thing, but then you realize, I don't want to do that either.

Because everybody, thousands of people on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, right.

I went through the New York stuff boys once and I was a nightmare. No, DC, I mean, normally I'd like the DC Metro, but on, on holidays.

New York, New York trains are better designed to get you all over the boroughs. Yeah, for sure. Better design. Absolutely. But because it's so widespread and all over the place, more people use it.

So there's always more chaos. Really mean. Oh, it just. I was a fish out of water and they could see it. I remember asking somebody. I was like, am I heading on? Oh, boy, the look I got. Well, one, because they don't talk to each other.

Oh. They don't talk to you. He was offended that I even asked. Yeah, they don't talk to each other. But there are also those you have to know who to ask because there are those. people who are there to help like they're there trying to be helpful for sure um get you on the right train dc it's color lines so you get the red line the green line blue line you have to kind of know kind of know the hubs right which is metro center in dc so if you ever go to dc uh the metro

center is the hub that takes you to everything any train from anywhere every color will ultimately end up at metro center if you get lost and you want to get back to where you are or get to anyway, red lines, etc. So it's all that thing. And it's always the things that you see like in movies that are shot in DC. I was going to say it was like when yeah, feel like I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big part of it. I mean, there are a lot of people that I mean, that's why not not having to drive in DC. You really don't have to. Not driving in New York because there's nowhere to park. Yeah. And parking costs more than apartments. So People ride the train.

Like that's just the thing. You ride a bike or do whatever you're going to do. So, yeah, the Fourth of July thing for me, it was about family. For a long time, it was about good music. I mean, D.C. always had some really cool Fourth of July music thing band. We had the Beach Boys one year. We had Paul Simon out and John. That's awesome.

Yeah, you would have some pretty. I guess that makes sense, though. Yeah, you're going to get superstars. Yeah, you always had a really cool concert, and you get spoiled and pampered and remember that, geez, not everybody has this. And not everybody wants it, quite frankly. True.

You do one thing you do miss is the natural light. Like, we did have that in the country. You have way less natural light, so the fireworks look even crazier up in the sky. Then once the smoke starts billowing, well, then it's the same as everything else. But those first few always are super pretty. Well, it is that smell.

Uh-huh. And then the sight lines in D.C. Because Arlington, where I lived was elevated. It was actually built on an Army fort, Fort Bernard. Oh, so you're just living in the smoke. So you're elevated, which was great for sightlines because if I, again, sitting on my back porch, I could see eight different fireworks going on. And it's kind of like the way it is here is that all I have to do is go to the rooftop.

in the haymarket and I can see all the fireworks in the city, you know, in the surrounding areas. So there is a bit to that. Salt Lake, they banned fireworks this year because they had too many fires. Yeah, they had fire. Oh, that's understandable though. Like if it's bad dry, fair enough. Yeah, they did a ban. Of course, you had some rebels who spent time in jail.

Yep, happens every year. You know, just listen, the rules apply. The rules are for we. for me or for the rules are for we. For the sake of like not allowing fires because it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly dry outside. People are stupid. People are stupid.

People are stupid and they don't pay attention. Everybody thinks they got to play it. Listen, my uncle was a very smart man. That firework didn't care. It didn't care. That explosive didn't care. I almost lit my entire tree line on fire.

Yep. Just by one simple thing. It went til to the side. I don't even think it was that dry. almost did damage. If it was dry, that tree line would not be there today. I did not. I do not want to tell other people what to do. I just make the choice that I'm not going to be a part of it. Pretty simple. So we'll go to break. I'm going to bring in Jake Sorensen, because I want to ask the question, Harrison and be a part of the conversation, text line to be

a part of the conversation of what the standard is. What the standard is for 2026 Nebraska football? What's acceptable and what's not? What are you accepting? And we're what do you not accept for 2026 Nebraska football? What is the standard? What are we working from? Right? We're going into a season and we go to Big Ten medias in three weeks, four weeks, yeah, three weeks now.

What are we eight Saturdays? What are we eight Saturdays from opening day? Yeah. Right? So I kind of want to get a grasp. Let's get the compass out. Let's set the GPS. What do you set in the GPS for Nebraska football, 2026?

We'll get your answers. back to 101.