Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-11-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Morning news starts out and we catch up with rock and roll hall of famer DION, a new memoir out ROCK AND ROLL PHILOSOPHER. Other news, Pebble in your shoe Tuesday, Prov Nurse tells me the ONA screwed over the Medford nurses.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clauser Drilling.com. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on southern Oregon's home for conservative talk. Mornings on KMED at 99.3 KBXG. Call Bill at 770-5633 at 770-KMED. Here's Bill Meyer. Good morning. It is great to have you here. 11 minutes after 6. Join in for Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday at 770-5633. 770-KMED. My email is bill at BillMyersShow.com. The Facebook.com slash Bill Meyer Show feed is up in case you like to watch. A lot of people seem to like to do that.

And of course streamed on KMED.com, heard on 1063 in Jackson County, 1067 in Jackson, South Jackson County, and 99.3 and 1059 in Grants Pass in Josephine County. Appreciate you listening one way or the other. We've got a lot of interesting stuff going on this morning, and we're going to have a little look back at 630 or so. Dion, the legendary Dion, of course, he is Dion on the Belmonts, you know, this guy. A lot of people forget just how huge and what a transitionary force that Dion was between the Big Ben era and the rock and roll era and millions of singles sold back in the late 50s early 60s you know the wanderer and teenager in love and run around Sue things like that and

I remember listening to to a lot of this when I was a little kid because I've listened to my mom's records and that was an artist of her heart and then he ended up kind of growing up over time I, he was just a teenager when he was, you know, a rock and roll star at that time. He's 85 and still working. 85 years old. It's just, it just astounds me. And from the interviews I was looking at, watching before, over the last couple of days before I got a chance to talk to him at 6.30, still pretty sharp. And he has a memoir, The Rock and Roll Philosopher, which is out there, which is quite an interesting kind of like storytelling going on.

He was always really big into the storytelling. And I first really heard of Dion in the late 60s when I was still a pretty young boy at that point when Abraham, Martin, and John came out. You know, the song about Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and of course, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And that's when I heard more about it. That was more of his maturing phase. And then he really got into a lot of blues, got into heroin, unfortunately, too, from the sounds of it.

I don't have to ask him about that. And then ended up, well, ended up getting out of that through a prayer and faith, apparently. And I'll have a little talk with him. I was reading about that in the book, and we'll talk with him for a few minutes. And it's not very often to get a chance to talk to a rock and roll Hall of Fame member and like I said a lot of people just may have forgotten over the years especially in our short attention span culture these days just how massive back in the days when you know early days of broadcast radio and everything just how huge groups like that were and how they moved the needles and the tens of thousands of screaming teenagers at the big concerts that they would have in the day.

In fact, I was looking in the book and there was, what was it, the Winter Rock and Roll Tour? I think that's the name of it though, but Dion ended up performing at some of the same shows that the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly was performing on before they ended up dying. I guess they died in that plane crash, as we know back in the day, the day the music died. And of course Dion was not part of the tour at that point when they were in New York it was. Really interesting stories and so we hope to get a bend his ear for a couple of minutes at 6 30 or so. Okay so we have that coming up. Great story that was profiled in the Rogue Valley Times. There's just so much miserable news

and drama and you wake up in the morning, in my job, and sometimes it's like, could you just wake up and have everything working okay? Could you just wake up in the morning and look through the news and, hey, things are good? Well, there was one of those days in which things went bad and then it went good, really good. It was last Thursday. Buffy Pollock writes this story, and it's well worth checking this out today about Ted Schatz. He's a contractor, was pulling a load of concrete down I-5

one o'clock Thursday afternoon. This was last week. And then he was suffering a heart attack. Didn't know it at that time, but he had the widow maker type of heart attack in which the main artery, which is sending blood to the left side of the heart becomes completely blocked and he had no idea that he was going to be lying in the middle of the freeway and what happened there just seemed to be a whole bunch of first responders that just happened to be on the freeway at that time behind him and he said by the time it was on the freeway at that time, behind him. And he said, by the time I was on the freeway, it was too late to get off.

So he was on the viaduct. I couldn't really pull over. So I went as far as I could trying to keep going. And behind shots, talent resident and registered nurse Michelle McGregor noticed the brake lights flashing and the semi slowing down. And McGregor owns the Senior Care Agency Advanced Care Life Services. She was headed to work a few hours later than her usual 9 a.m. And you think about some of the synchronicity that some of the ways that some people get

saved some days. And I think that this ended up being one of those kind of stories. And she said, I thought, oh, wow, maybe someone was hit, there was a hazard in the road. So his truck was stopped and angled and kind of blocking everything. And so the Gregor and two men who had stopped to try to help to try shots driver door, which was locked, and then they got through the cab through the passenger side, he was unresponsive. And so they knew he was in trouble because he was turning gray. And so they got him out, and over the next six, seven minutes, McGregor ended up, along with a lot of other people, ended up saving Shaw's life.

And McGregor crediting the number of Good Samaritans who stopped to help, including an Asante nurse practitioner, Kelly Dale, another unidentified doctor, got out of his car, came up there and was helping out. There was a critical care unit nurse and caregiver, Melissa Mowry. Many people who stopped had trauma bags with life-saving equipment in their personal vehicles and they all kind of jumped in the situation. And then on top of that, you had Jackson County Fire District 5 Division Chief Aaron Bustard was near, and he got there at the crucial five-minute

mark to give him a shock from the defib that he kept in his rig. Amazing story. And so, what could have been just a tragic day, contractor Ted Schatz lives today to Hallmore Concrete. I just love stories like that. And it was a lot of other people that ended up all getting together and showing how good people are. And with all the bad news you have these days. I'm sorry about that. It kind of tears me up a little bit, but I love that kind of a story.

I just do. Anyway, a little postscript of this, and I'm hoping to maybe get them on the show and get the people involved in this sometime, maybe McGregor and Schatz here, that after Schatz Rescue, they're planning to buy defibrillators for company vehicles. They want to fundraise to buy defibs for local law enforcement vehicles. And additional info is going to be posted to her company's page. I think that's just wonderful news. I mean having some of those portable defibs so that you don't have to be the pro just be able to put

it on someone and kachunk and off they go. Saving a number of lives here. I think that's great. Good story. Good story. Just loving that kind of story. This is the Bill Meyer Show. I wish we'd have more stories like that. I know it's Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday, but you can bring it back to reality if you want. And then we have a lot of other stories here too coming up. Let me tell you who else we have on the way here. Christine Menendez is a Bitcoin expert. Now there is now a, well at least according to an executive order, Trump administration is going for a strategic,

not a Bitcoin reserve, a strategic cryptocurrency reserve. Cryptocurrency reserve. And I'm kind of not getting this. I'll be the first to admit I don't really get this because I'm looking at the price of Bitcoin. The other week was $109,000 and now it's like 69, it's below 70,000 right now. And normally when I think of strategic reserves, I think of things which are going to be of

value and importance no matter what. Like gold is an example of an item that it's the one monetary substance that every country in the entire world agrees upon because of its long history. I'm not sure about a strategic reserve of what to me look like speculative assets that can go from $109,000 to $69,000 in a matter of a few days. I don't know. But of course, if I had been wiser maybe early on and bought bitcoin when it was 15 cents, you know, maybe I'd be saying, hey, let's have it as a strategic

reserve too. I don't know. But so we'll talk with her about it. She's a bitcoin expert and was one of the early adopters to this. And we'll talk about the executive order and all that other stuff. We'll also catch up on some local state politics where it's headed here with former Josephine County Commissioner and former state Senator Herman Baerchiger. We always have good talk. And we have current Jackson County, rather, pardon me, I still have a little bit of that, a little bit of an allergy, something going on with me this morning. But anyway, Colleen Roberts, Jackson County Commissioner Colleen Roberts is here back from D.C.

A lot of interesting stuff going on there with all the various counties. How are they going to be dealing with the next few years of the United States government, especially looking to trim spending and other things? So we'll talk with her about that and a whole bunch more, along with your calls on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday, 770-5633. And this is the Bill Meyers Show. It's amazing. What's right under your floor can impact your whole house. Musty smells, wall cracks, uneven floors, doors and windows that stick. These could all be your home sending you warning signs that there's a problem. But one simple call can be the answer

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What's a good thing? What isn't a good thing? It can be hard to distinguish. My frustration this year in my gardening was with the birds. That's why I'm talking about birds. All the stuff that they did, starting with the first crop of peas. And I mean, it has just been constant and yet they did some good things. Talk about it with the Rogue Gardener, Saturdays 10 to noon, Sunday morning on Core at nine on KMED, sponsored by Grange Co-op. Hi, I'm Lisa with Pacific Survey Supply and I'm on KMED.

23 minutes after, six pebble in your shoe Tuesday and a little bit of open phone time. 770-563-3770 KMED. three three seven seven zero k may kinda snuck up on you but we have a continuing resolution which is up by and i guess it looks like it's going to be possibly voted on today in other words it's uh... keeping the spending as it is lot of conservatives of course are upset about this because uh... why don't i know that know the one one is the Kentucky.

The Kentucky representative is not real happy about this. He looks like he's the one that's going to be joining Hikim Jeffries and voting against it. But the way it's being presented out there is that we have to keep the spending sort of locked in there and there will be some cuts in there, but for the most part you have to keep sort of the status quo because otherwise on the 14th the government shuts down its own money again you know it's that's that same sort of thing this kabuki theater and we knew we were coming up with this with this march deadline and what are the democrats doing putting ads out that are, you know, saying, hey, call Cliff Bents and talk about how cowardly he is.

And then he needs to put the money back into Medicaid and all the rest of this stuff. Well, hey, listen, Medicaid, which is the Oregon health plan, grew tons, grew tons. They expanded that insanely over COVID time. It's not affordable, Can't do it all. You have to keep the neediest on the Oregon Health Plan. At some point, people are going to have to start trying to take care of themselves a little bit more, especially if you're working, these kind of

things. So, Cliff Benz and others are having to trim this up because there's no choice. And I've talked about this for a this up because there's no choice and I've talked about this for a long time there is no choice but to find some ways to trim spending there is no two trillion dollar pile of magic waste that can just be cut with nobody being hurt everyone's gonna have to take some pain on this one but anyway Democrats are for the further for first time, at least in a long time, they want a shutdown because they know that no matter what, Republicans always get blamed for shutdowns. It's just astounding to me, but it's true.

It is the way it is. And so I guess at this point, you hold your nose and you pass the continuing resolution. You pass the CR and keep it going through September and you work on it between now and then get a better Budget deal as time goes on. I know it feels a little bit like the Lucy Holding the football and taking it away from Charlie Brown again, Charlie Brown being the conservatives But they made it in that hat. I don't think they have any choice at this point in time

They're not going to get a real real budget done in the next few days. Just saying Pebble in your shoe Tuesday Dave. You got a pebble. Go ahead. Let's hear it. Yeah, I have a pebble and I have something good I'll talk about afterwards. Okay, great. My pebble in my shoe is the auto pin with Joe Biden. It sounds like anybody could have used the auto pin because Biden was a vegetable. He wasn't all there. Yeah, he was not an entirely functional president. I will agree with you on that. So I guess, do you think anything will come of this though?

Because every time we have scandals like this, you never seem to see a perp walk or anything walked back. You notice that? Well, it's because nobody will do anything about it. There's 10 powers that can do anything. We'll see if Bondi does anything about it. I don't think she will. But the good thing is I turned 65 in June and I got my Medicare card that starts in June and so I called up to Social Security the local office here and to find out if I had to get some kind of advantage pin and because California I was on you know state

Medi-Cal. Which is like the Oregon health plan. Kind of like that same thing. It's kind of like the Oregon health plan, except they call it Medi-Cal. It's covering the stuff that Medicare doesn't cover. Okay, well that's some good news. You know, as long as the money keeps coming in, right? Right. Okay, that's the only caveat. Dave, I just have a suggestion for you and anybody else. Stay healthy, okay? Alright, just stay healthy. I'm praying for you on that, alright?

628, appreciate the call. We'll catch up on a quick news. Dion, Dion of the Belmonts, I'll look back to this with this rock and roll hall of famer. We'll talk with him for a few minutes coming up too and then more of your quals. When it comes right down to it, when we buy things, we want the best products at the best prices and the best service. Of course, sellers always try to tell you that they're the best. Hughes Lumber has been selling lumber products for over 40 years in the Rogue Valley.

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a full service cafe offering breakfast, lunch and specialty coffees. You'll be wowed one bite at a time. From the KMED News Center, here's what's going on. It's beginning to look like Oregon's wildfire hazard map is dead. Speaking at a joint town hall with Republican Senator Noah Robinson, Ashland Democratic Senator Jeff Goldin told the crowd he could say with a very high level of confidence that we are repealing the wildfire hazard map entirely. Further stating that the second go of a risk map when you still walk the properties just don't make sense. Robinson announced he's introduced a bill to eliminate the

map in its entirety. Oregon Congresswomen Andrea Salinas and Janelle Bynum sent a letter to the acting commissioner of the IRS expressing concern over plans to close IRS offices in Salem and Bend. They claim the offices provide valuable help to people. They're asking the agency to reconsider the decision. Oregon State Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to increase the legal minimum age for marriage from 17 to 18. Legislators claim marriage shields a child rapist from charges. The bipartisan bill moves to the House. Bill London, KMED. If you're searching for a property with a well, don't make a decision without a well Bill London, yield and functionality. Visit ciscupump.com.

News Talk 1063, KMED. You're waking up at the Bill Meyers show. 631, it's not every day we get to talk to a legend is what I was trying to say. We're going to bring the legend on now. The legendary Dion, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. Millions of records sold and really the bridge between the big band era and the the big rock and roll era here too. Dion and the Belmonts. Dion, it's a pleasure having you on. Welcome to the show, sir. Well, it's a joy to be with you.

Indeed it is. Nice to have me. You know, I gotta tell you, I have great memories of you too, because back when I was a kid, I was given, now I know I'm a few years younger than you, just a little bit, but I would always listen to my mom's 45s,

and then for my ninth birthday birthday I was given like a Dick Clark 20 years of rock and roll had run around Sue on it. I played that album to death. My mother's name middle name was Sue and so I said okay yeah and so I just played that to death got to know all of your other hits too Abraham Martin and John and everything kind of in the later period gets to Abraham, Martin, and John and everything kind of in the later period. And it's you're still doing it and you're still vibrant in doing it. What is your secret, you think, at this point? You know, I don't know. I feel like I'm under the spout where the glory comes out.

You know, I was telling them I'm under the wellspring of creativity. All I know is I'm very grateful. I've been clean and sober for 57 years, so I think that has something to do with it. And I was doing an interview with Dave Marsh up at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He said, Deion, you're the only guy from the fifties who's still creative and relevant. And I argued with him and lost. And I came home and I told my wife I said, do you know what Dave Marsh said? Who's Dave Marsh?

I said, he's the great, you know, Rolling Stone writer in the, in the, in the, in its peak era. I said, he said this and she said, well, what are you going to do about it? He was just making a statement. She turned it into a dare. I wrote 40 of the best songs I've ever written in the last five years. I made these three blues albums and they all went to number one on the blues charts. I was delighted with that.

I had a lot of friends join me like Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton and Peter Frampton. In fact, Clapton wrote the forward to your book here, you know, the Rock and Roll Philosopher book, which is great. I mean, how many people get that here, Dion? It shows your... I know. He's been a great friend. He's just a great guy.

He's a giver, you know, and we're good friends. We have a great guy. He's a giver. And we're good friends. We have a lot in common. A lot in common. We love the blues. And I started out with Jimmy Reed and he knows we've got the same roots. Hey, Dion, I wanted to ask you about the very early time when you're with the Belmonts, you joined the Belmonts. Now, essentially, the Belmont area, from what I understand, was like the Italian ghetto.

So was the rock and roll singing and the writing the way out for you? Was that it? Well, I put these three guys together and we called ourselves the Dion and the Belmonts. But you know, at that time in the 50s, we didn't have instruments. I got a guitar because I wanted to transmit

some of the feeling that I got from these records I was hearing as a kid. I heard Jimmy Reid and Hank Williams and I wanted my friends to enjoy something. I wanted to transmit it. And yeah, it was fun making music right on the street. It was like homemade music. We could bang on cardboard boxes and beer bottles and do harmony. And we'd make up sounds, like the sounds behind Runaround Sue and The Wanderer. We thought we were a horn section. You know, we'd go down to the Apollo and we'd hear the band, you know, playing like da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. And we, I'd come home and the guys would do that. Da da da da da da da da da da da da

da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da You know, who would make sounds and make... So it was like early rock and roll street music. Yeah, do WAP, you know, that really, that basis of it. Hey, you know, about those eras, you know, so many artists got ripped off by record companies in the early days of rock and roll. And I'm wondering how you were treated.

I remember you even complained that you, you know, weren't given writing credit for The Wanderer, right? Well, let me put it this way. I believe, I don't know if I've ever had an honest manager. I don't think so. I don't know. I have great taste in people. I tell you, I've had wonderful people around me all my life and that's maybe one of the reasons why I'm still here,

relevant, creative, and doing well, and healthy. But I've had managers, what could I tell you? Thank God I know about forgiveness, I could be free and not walk around with resentments and stories and have to complain all my life, but I'm doing well. So I don't think, there's a lot of these guys in the business, you know how it is.

So I do believe you a lot. You know, there's horror stories all over the place. Like it started with Jimmy Rogers who sang Honeycomb. It was real bad. And Billy Joel got ripped off, and Paul Simon, and Leonard Cohen, and Randy Newman, and Tony Orlando. Someone took everything. Some of these people you trust, you know, you have to just be very, very attentive and be present and make sure, you know... Yeah, you always had to be, well, hiring good people, right? You had talked about being clean and sober for some 57 years, but heroin was a big part

for a while. And I'm kind of curious, did the heroin come from hanging out with the blues artists? That was a big part of the culture there for a while. Just curious. Not really. No? It started, you know, when I was young, I started, I don't know, I just couldn't handle my emotions. It came into my neighborhood.

I didn't know any blues artists or anything. Okay. In fact, the only blues artist I knew was Willie Green, who was a janitor of one of the tenement buildings, and he had overcome all that stuff and was trying to help me. But it just grabbed me as a kid. It's progressive, and you dab in it, and it just grabs you and it takes you down slowly. It's not pretty. And by the grace of God, I got out of it.

In fact, it was really faith that pulled you out, wasn't it? That got you there? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I said it one night, somebody told me, you need a power grader. You know, a sick mind can't cure a sick mind. They said, you better ask for help, a power grader than yourself. I got on my knees, I said a prayer when I got up, I was changed and I haven't had a drug or a drink since. So there you go. All right. And still going strong. The legendary rock and roll hall of famer,

Dion, and he has a great book out. It's a wonderful read, great storytelling from many people influenced by Dion and people that Dion was influenced by too. It's called the Rock and Roll Philosopher. I'll put the information up on KMED.com and look forward to hearing more from you. Still going. Thank you Dion. Great having you on the show. Stay well Bill, thanks. Thank you very much. 639 at KMED and 993 KBXG. When the IRS comes knocking, the news can be shocking. Thank you very much. 639 at KMED and 993 KBXG. When you're hiring, have you ever felt like you're missing out on meeting great candidates?

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and in the aftermath of recent stepped-up Russian attacks on Ukraine. The House will vote today on a stopgap funding bill to avert a looming partial government shutdown. The money bill will keep federal agencies going through September. President Trump's advice to Republicans stand united in their support of the bill. Amid legal action over the arrest, the president says the detention of a pro-Hamas campus organizer is just the start. The day after recession fears sparked a big sell-off on Wall Street this morning. Stot futures have been higher so far. The Dow futures are up 89 points. NASDAQ futures ahead 59.

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541-941-3736, CCB number 250730. You're hearing the Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. 642-770-5633. Great having you here this morning. I always kind of wonder when you're going to talk to someone that you've never had a chance to talk to before like, you know, Dion. Is it going to work okay? Fortunately, he seemed to be pretty cool with it. Pretty cool. And I'm glad to hear that it was early on that he got over the drug addiction. I don't know, maybe it's just something about that, you know, living in the artist's world, right? Just seems to be the way it is. This is the way you end up dealing with it. But it's kind of a take no prisoners sort of guy.

And I would imagine, though, that having been married to the same woman for 61 years has been a help, a real rock in his life. Anyway, we can talk about anything which happens to to be on your mind. I ended up having a conversation with a Providence nurse who I'm going to have to leave their name out. But I wanted to share something that this nurse told me here in just a little bit and delve into the agreement. Now that the Providence nurses have been back to work for a few days, the smoke has cleared, you know, everybody's written the contracts. I want to share with you some thoughts from a nurse that is not real happy about what

happened. In fact, the nurse is trying to get the union decertified. And I have to keep their name out of this because otherwise they'll be attacked over, you know, other union members may peck them to death. But I'll share that with you here in the next few minutes. 643, let me go back to the phones. It is Pebble in your Shoe Tuesday. Hi, good morning.

Who's this? Good morning, Bill. This is Ann. How are you? I'm fine, Ann. How are you, horse lady? I'm just fine. After listening to Dion, I'm of the same age group as he is.

I'm about three years younger than he is. And you know, something I never hear mentioned is a DJ in Los Angeles. His name was Wolfman Jack. And if you have time, look into him. He used to have a late night program and I lived up in Northern California and so I didn't get LA very often but Once in a great while the atmosphere was correct and I could get him and I used to listen to him now Were you listening to him on LA or was it a Mexican station? I thought he was on the on a border station is how he was coming. I know where he was on

I know every once in a while because he had a very distinctive voice oh yeah and every and every once in a while I'd pick him up but I never I never hear him mentioned anymore and he was a pretty popular DJ yeah he's he's been gone for quite a few years here oh yeah and gosh I remember now my introduction to Wolfman Jack was I think the American Graffiti movie because of course he starred you know in that or he played a part in American Graffiti back in the day you know the early you know the early George Lucas film remember that? I remember I remember because the the the thing where the the chain pulled the rear axle out of the car... Out of the police car, wasn't it?

Yeah. It was done down in Petaluma, which was close to me. It was only about 40 miles away. You know, Anne, since you lived back in the day, that bridge between maybe the harder rocking era and the big band era that late 50s early 60s Kind of thing that was that was your era there. Do you think music meant more back in those days? Than it does perhaps now music was very very popular and

music actually Music was so popular because there was no TV and there was no FM. There was only AM radio. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. And I had a feeling that was part of it. It's not like today where you can just do a few clicks of the mouse and then you bring

up somebody on Spotify or YouTube music, those sort of things, and you just get it. It used to be, I remember that finding the song that I liked in the record store was such a big deal because you couldn't always, it wasn't guaranteed that you'd find it, you know, for one thing. And it was not cheap. You know, for a little kid, you know, buying a single at, you know, 99 cents or something, that 99 cents came pretty hard in those days. Well, money was money in those days. It was pretty interesting.

It was an interesting time to be a kid. And I think because the music was harder to get and less easily distributed, we appreciated it more than I think people can now. I don't know. And spend a lot of time on the radio. Yeah, absolutely. That was it. That was the linchpin. Thanks for the call, Ann. Great hearing from you. Let me go to the next line here. It's Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday, but we can talk about anything on your mind. Hi,

good morning. Who's this? Hey, this is Tony. Hey, Tony. What's going on with you? Hey, Bill. I'm doing good. Hey, Pebble in My Shoe has been in there for quite some time. It's when we have these government shutdowns, the government employees, they go home, do whatever they do, but once it's over with, they get paid. This is if they had never left. Yeah, it's just an extra paid vacation if that happens that way. That gets pretty irritating, doesn't it? Because what's the point of having a government shutdown? Or what's the point of them even complaining about a government shutdown? Oh, you're keeping needed services away from us if nobody gets hurt in the end. This would seem like this would be right up Prince Ali to say, hey man, you're not getting

paid. Stick around and we'll pay you. If you're going to go home, you're not getting paid. Well, it would be better at this point if there would not be a shutdown because, given the way things are right now, Republicans are always blamed for the shutdown one way or the other, even though the only way it would happen this time is if Democrats voted against the CR. That's it. That's the only way it happens. Okay. All right, Tony. Hey, good hearing from you. All righty. Thanks again. All right. Hey, that's it. That's the only way it happens. Okay? Yep. All right, Tony. Hey, good hearing from you. All righty? Thanks again.

All right. Hey, thanks, Bill. 1247-770-5633. This is The Bill Meyer Show. TV or cable TV, call me today to see how I can save you money. Plus, I'll lower your internet and cell phone bills. And those offers in the mail from Dish, you can go through NoWiresNow for those. Call me at 541-680-5875. Call Cherise like I did or visit their showroom off Biddle Road in Metford. NoWiresNow.com. Restrictions apply. Call for details.

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Show the coupon at the pharmacy and start saving. SingleCare works at pharmacies nationwide and is completely free to use, whether you have insurance or not. So the next time you fill a prescription, check single care to make sure you're getting the best price. Take control of your prescription costs. Go to singlecare.com or download the free app today. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. On Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday, we can discuss whatever tends to be irritating you a bit. I saved a nurse's pebble from the other week.

And for some reason, you know, sometimes you'll get a phone call and you take some notes from people. And you just don't manage to get to the topic because other things are coming in. People call and want to talk about different things. But I wanted to make sure you heard what one Providence nurse was talking about. And you know that everyone signed the contracts, everyone's back to work, I guess all is forgiven and things are moving forward. Well, there is more than one nurse who is actually really upset with the Oregon Nurses Association. And I wanted to share with you what this, and I'm going to keep their name out of

this, this anonymous nurse had to say. And if there's anybody else perhaps in the medical world that might be able to back up this nurse's story. I'd be happy to hear from you on this one. But the bottom line is that according to this anonymous nurse, in her opinion, the Oregon Nurses Association, the Union, ended up using the Medford workers at the Medford Providence Hospital as leverage. And that the Medford employees actually ended up getting screwed over by this agreement as contrasted with the other hospitals, the other number 7 hospitals in the Providence system. And the way she reported it to me,

said our contract had ended March 31st, this was of last year, and we had been offered a tentative agreement for May. And remember, we talked about that last year, you know, and how there was, you know, quite a big, a bit of money that had been offered, et cetera, et cetera, it looked like pretty good, but it ended up being rejected.

And she says, of course, you know, we realize you can't get everything that you want, but what she says the Oregon Nurses Association did was holding Medford hostage because of combining them in with the other seven hospitals. And that Medford could have had a much better deal. A much better deal had the unionized workers down here not gone with the Oregon Nurses Association's plan to tie their agreement to the other seven hospitals.

And the way she talked about it is that the Union served itself. The Union served itself rather than serving the Union membership. This is the claim. And this nurse who I ended up speaking with, you know, the anonymous nurse, said that they're getting together with the Right to Work Foundation, you know, the the Mark Mix people that I talked to yesterday, and they have a foundation in there, and they would like to try to work at decertifying the Union for Providence Medford. Now, I don't know if they're going to be successful at this, but she laid it out for me that the Medford workers who remember had a plan offered to them back

in May, but then the union was saying, well, no, combine in the way. This is just the way it's been related to me. What I'm dealing with is hearsay for you. What she's saying. They've been offered a 10-event agreement for May, but then the nurses association says, hey, let's get you in here along with the other seven hospitals. So we had Medford workers working some 46 days without pay, and she said they had to request funds every week, maybe from the union, you might get maybe $500 a week.

Many of them got a second job. Many of them borrowed against retirement plans in order to keep the lights on while they were out on strike. And then afterwards, after the contract had been signed, Medford only got a 75% retroactive pay increase. And so the union membership, when they were, ended up doing all the math, they figured out that they were $9,000 down from where they would have accepted the earlier agreement back in May of last year. But that the union needed Medford as part of being tied to all of the other ones. So Medford ended up taking most of the pain of the Providence walkout and got less

retroactive pain because all the other hospitals were working at better contracts and their contracts ended up expiring later because remember Medford's contracts expired in March of 2024. So I find that really interesting. And I don't know if there are any other nurses in the system that could concur, or if they agree or disagree with what this anonymous Providence nurse is all up to.

And I asked her, I said, is everything okay? Is the work culture all right? Because there's a part of me that wondered how this was going to go. Because here it is, you're talking about how evil Providence is. And she agreed with me though when I said one of the biggest challenges that we're still looking at here is that Providence still loses money on providing medical care. And a lot of people still don't get that. As remember, the Oregon Nurses Association would send me propaganda all the time.

And by the way, I'm not saying that Providence is clean and the nurses are bad. I'm not saying that at all. You know, everybody has a different point of view. I would go on here and I would say that Providence loses money providing medical care. And then people would say, no, you're telling an untruth, Bill. No, no, it's true. The only thing which keeps Providence able to stay open and provide care, it's not from the money coming in from Oregon Health Plan or people who are on Medicare or other private insurance because there is so much charity care, so much free care, so

much reduced cost care that gets provided these days, so much medical care that you can't collect or else insurance is saying, well, we don't care if your procedure costs $500, you're getting $350, that's it, take it or leave it, you know, kind of thing. That is the way this world is functioning right now. That the only thing that paid the bills, that pays the bills and kept the lights on there is the fact that Providence has this multi-billion dollar investment fund. So in other words, they have this investment fund which throws off interest income and investment income and that ends up filling in the gaps in the money there.

So that way that they're able to stay in the black instead of being in the red. But just providing medical care right now for Providence right now, they lose money. They lose money on every patient that walks in there from the sounds of it. Now it is getting better. It is getting better. But the nurse had been to that, oh yeah, yeah, we know that reimbursements are low and we're not going to get everything that we want. But I do find it interesting that there is some buyer's remorse to what is going on, what happened over at Providence-Medford, and that some of the Medford nurses realizing that, hey, we were had and essentially we were taking the pain so that nurses over at the other seven

Providence hospitals who were not in negotiation and had later renewing contracts than what Medford did, that Medford employees kind of got screwed for nine, 10 grand apiece when they actually ended up doing the math. And then also looking back to people who, once again, were borrowing against retirement, getting a second job while they were in that strike period.

So I find that interesting because there wasn't a lot of this talk back during the strike because everyone's just kind of lining up. But now that the smoke has cleared, there might be a possibility that Oregon Nurses Association may be decertified, because they're thinking now that the Oregon Nurses Association served the Oregon Nurses Association rather than serving the Oregon Nurses. I find that really interesting because that is not an uncommon experience for many unions. That's why private sector unions have been having a tough time there for a while. Now that may be changing.

There's talk that there is a balance of power shift going on between labor and industry right now. And then getting back over to the labor side, especially with demographics, reducing the number of workers available. But anyway, I just wanted to kind of bring you in the room with what a Providence nurse was telling me and actively involving and looking at decertifying the union for Medford. So stay tuned. That could be a really interesting wrinkle in future labor negotiations here in southern Oregon. So, Shade before 7 o'clockclock KMED and KMED HD1 equal point method KBXG grants pass. Cryptocurrency! Reserve currency? Really?

It sounds like nonsense to me but I'll talk to a crypto expert about this coming up in a few after the hand of the update in town hall news and a bunch more. When it comes to your home call on stone. Spring is a wonderful and beautiful time of the year. Your air conditioning system will soon be coming out of hibernation to keep you cool in the upcoming warm months. Manufacturers like