Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 07-15-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Morning news and Pebble in your shoe Tuesday, Shawn Levy has written a wonderful book CLINT, the first biography done about Clint Eastwood in 25 or so years, open phones follow.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at www.clouserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. It's a lot of minutes after six. Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. Join in. I appreciate you being here and sharing your concerns, as the case might be. Got a lot going on. Actually, it's not going to get too heavy to start with. At 6.30 I'm going to be talking with Sean Levy. He wrote a book that I've been really enjoying off and on the last couple of weeks. It's called Clint. Simply Clint. It's about Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood is certainly an American icon. I know that term gets overused a lot, you know, these days, but

It's really something. This is the first biography I think you know in a quarter of a century that anyone has written about Clint Eastwood and given that he just turned 95 good time to do it and he's still active though from the sounds of it for what I understand and he has been one of my favorite actors and filmmakers for a long, long time. Although I have to say probably my favorite work that he ever did was the outlaw Josie Wales, which is in the 1970s. And number two, a close number two to me, is Gran Torino. That one really had heart and affected me. And naturally, anytime the

spaghetti westerns come up, I'm always watching them. Dirty Harry comes up, yeah, I'll watch him again. Do you feel lucky, punk? But his road to stardom was actually quite interesting, really interesting. And not to give away too much, but going through this biography, which by the way is unauthorized. I don't know if anyone gets an authorized biography from Clint Eastwood these days, but because Clint Eastwood is kind of like the Hollywood honey badger. He doesn't care, right? Just whatever, whatever, that kind of thing. But just realizing and going back over the record, how bad of a actor that he was early on. Just how just, oh, it was just horrendous. His father was so upset with him. And I'm reading this,

I could just see, you know, this going on. Come on, go to school, go to college, and, you know, make something of yourself. You're just going to be a big loser if you move forward with this fantasy. But he never did well in school, not because he wasn't intelligent, but he was always off daydreaming. And he ended up taking that part and putting it to work for him. And now look, now look at mean, when you talk about American films, can you not mention Clint? We'll talk with Sean Levy about that here in just a few minutes. John Deaton is also going to be joining me after 7 o'clock, and he was a, I think he was a Republican candidate in Pennsylvania for Senate.

Yeah. No, Massachusetts. Massachusetts, U.S. Senate nominee John Deaton. And he wants to continue to explore and pick the scab on the Epstein file. But I'm getting more and more people that are saying, Bill, just let it go. It's like, okay, well, you want me to let it go, it's fine. But MAGA is not letting it go at this point. We'll have that coming up.

State Representative Dwayne Juncker is joining the program too this morning because he is going to be running for reelection. He's a glutton for punishment as I told him yesterday. But anyway, we'll get his take on things. I'd certainly like to find out what he thinks going to go on with a potential special session. Also, I'm hearing rumors and these are just rumors at this point that that State Senator Jeff Golden is not going to run for re-election. I can't confirm this, can't prove it, but this is what I'm hearing at this point. And I would be curious to see who might step up on the Republican side to run if that ended

up being an open seat, because you know what would end up happening. You'd have Pam Marsh that would step in and want to run for Jeff Goldin's seat. I would think that would be the obvious way that would end up working out. But could someone else? Maybe this is why State Representative Kim Wallin was kind of doing that moderation thing and coming out for Senator Linthicam's opponent for Attorney General. Remember that one? Yeah. Just saying. Could be that. But no, a Secretary of State. Pardon me, a Secretary of State is what that was. Tobias Reed.

I thought that was it. Maybe that's what's going on. Everyone's kind of like rearranging the chess pieces. We'll see. We'll talk with Dwayne about that, not necessarily Golden and Moore, but maybe I'll ask him. Maybe he's heard some rumors there, too. One could never tell. Okay. Let's see. Since it is Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday, I'll grab a call. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hey Bill, good morning. It's DePorbil Patrick and as usual, I got to talk fast. Hey Bill, good morning. It's DePauwable Patrick and as usual, I got to talk fast. But I always love to lip off when the experts are wrong. And I only heard this once years ago, but

who was that Hollywood mogul, that big mover and shaker when Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds first came to Hollywood together, he said, you guys can't act get out of here. I Haven't gotten to that part of the biography yet, but I forget that I know that there were stories like that In fact, there were several stories about that Clinton and Burt Reynolds in there And yeah, neither of them were considered particularly talented at the time, but they looked good. That was all that mattered. They failed. They're managers and they're big shots, so they failed to understand that things can

change. People can improve. Well, according to Sean Levy's book here that I've been reading, I've really been enjoying it too. And I've really enjoyed going to the early times, the stuff that I knew nothing about. Yeah, you know, I'd hear about all the girlfriend problems and things like that. He would be the first to admit that he was a lousy man to ever consider getting married. Just bad, not husband material, just not that kind of loyalty when it comes to a partnership. Good father, from the sounds of it. Kind of like

Trump in many ways in that respect, because Trump would be the first to say that he's a great father but not a particularly good husband, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah. Well, my only objection to your show right now is I'm having to build a new wing onto my library. Every book you come up with I have to buy, and they're stacking up over here. Well, I think you'd enjoy Clint, and like I said, this is not a big political book or current events, but it really is about reading about golden Hollywood history, the 1950s, 60s, and the building of a legend, really. And one can say his body of work is very impressive. You can't doubt him in that respect. Yeah, I think he made progress as time went on.

I'm sure not the only one who says that. You know what, one of the biggest complaints, and you'll laugh about this one, One of the biggest complaints of his acting trainers, or the people that are trying to train Clint Eastwood how to act, one of the biggest complaints when they would put him in roles, they said, he squinted too much. That's what he made the man with no name on in the spaghetti western. I mean, that squint, that squint, he could have practically trademarked that. I'm just laughing as I'm going through this one, but you're never going to go anywhere, kid. Not with that squint blinking your eyes too much. Other people like it. Exactly, exactly.

Great hearing from you. Take care, DP. 770-5633. Let me go to the next line here on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Good morning. Hi, who's this? Yeah, good morning Bill. This is Terry. Hey Terry, what's on your mind? Hey, maybe you've talked about this. I haven't got to listen in a couple days, but you see where Oregon's gonna start requiring like water permit accesses on small non-motorized floating devices? Yeah, just about anything that goes in the

water will have to have some kind of a permit. Yeah, like an inner tube or something. Yeah, they're talking about if you put inner tubes together. I just find this just absolutely ridiculous. And maybe you can ask Yonker about that. Yeah, I haven't really looked deeply. I haven't really looked deeply. Yeah, I haven't looked into it deeply, Terry.

I don't know, maybe this has to do with, well, you know how they always end up couching this. Well, we have to have the permit because there could be invasive species, you know, that are on the inner tube, that kind of thing, you have to have everything inspected. But you know this is just a big money grab. Oh, of course, of course. Yes, I just find it ridiculous. I think people are going to be upset about it. So, yeah. OK, I just wonder if you could ask Yonker about that. I certainly will, Terry. And I appreciate that.

And that's a pebble in your shoe then? Yes, absolutely, sir. Okay. Appreciate the call. All right. Thanks, Bill. 20 minutes after 6, 7705633. Big win for the Trump administration. Supreme Court ended up handing Trump a big, big, big win, granted the administration to... Now, this is a temporary pause, temporary pause on a federal judge's order in Massachusetts

that would require the Department of Education to put back and give them back, give back the jobs of nearly 1,400 employees who were fired earlier this year because they're trying to reduce and eliminate the workforce, essentially. Now the justices blocked the order issued in May that that judge had concluded that the Trump administration's true intentions is to effectively dismantle the department even though in his view it lacked the power to do so. Majority didn't provide any explanation or reasoning for why they did this. However, looking at the balance of harms, six justices who imposed the state must figure that the Trump administration is likely to win on the merits when the case makes it to court. So they're gonna keep slashing and burning. They're in the Department of Education. Department of

Education is not particularly been effective. All you have to do is look at the educational achievements here. Spends a lot of money, puts out a lot of grants. A lot of the grants that have been coming out has been about, you know, enforcing the Department of Wokeism, that kind of thing. And yeah, you know, they're right. This may be a situation where I doubt Congress would probably vote to eliminate the Department of Education. But if you were to turn the Department of Education into essentially a rump version of what it has been over the years in which there's still the Department of Education,

maybe you have a couple hundred people that are actually helping local school districts with with information and a few programs here to To help out the kids. Maybe that works. It's still the Department of Education It just is not the Department of Education echo echo echo echo echo with thousand upon thousands of of employees now the only problem though with just turning it down into a or turning it into a rump version of where it has been over the years is that the next president could inflate it and get it right back up to where it was before.

That's the downside but still we'll take the win. Not going to argue with that for sure. This is the Bill Meyers show, KMED, at 99.3 KBXG is where you're waking up. So you're a batteries plus go-to guy. But can you replace the battery in my smartphone? Yes. What about my employee's phones? Yep.

Can you power my business day to day? Yes. What about my delivery truck? Let me put it this way. If it needs a battery, we have it. Well, that's all you had to say. Batteries plus. And NewsWatch 12 KDRV.

Get your tickets today and be part of Rock History with Kansas. Hi, I'm Stephen with Stephen Westwell Roofing Inc. And I'm on KMED. By the way, tomorrow and Thursday, I'll give a pair of reserve tickets. Give you a shot at those for Kansas at the Jackson County Fair. Have a lot of fun.

It'll just be knowing you're Kansas. We'll make it simple. Well, it won't be multiple choice. They'll just have to know Kansas, that's all. Let me go to Bob, Bob's in Shady Cove. Hey Bob, pebble in your shoe. You went to the transfer station. What happened, huh?

Well, they're commingling everything again. The only thing they're separating out is cardboard and it looks like glass and maybe one other item but everything else is going into the same pot and I asked him, I says, is this going to help you? And he says, the state is telling us to do this. Huh. So the state is telling the transfer station to co-mingle all the recyclables. So did they tell you where

it goes from this point, you point, where it heads out? Because they would have to separate it out at some point, the metals from the plastics and everything else, right? Wouldn't they? Yeah. The gentleman that was there didn't know that piece of information. He just said the state told us to do it, and we're doing it. Oh, okay. So they've expanded what can go... Well, come to think of it though, we don't have anything but plastics and papers in the recycling bin these days, isn't that right, if I recall? Yeah, I want the glass, of course.

Oh, are they putting glass in some places in that too? I didn't know that. Well, the glass is still separated. I don't know. What would you suggest? What do you think would be a better policy if any? Or are you just making note of it, Bob? Just making note of it. Who knows what's going to happen? Yeah. You know what I've always thought of? What do you think about this? If you think I'm crazy, if you think I'm crazy, it's okay, right? I've often thought that we should instead of instead of trying to You know figure out how to recycle something because recycling most of what comes out of the other households right now is uneconomical But whatever happens if we get to the point where we really don't have more stuff

Wouldn't it be smart to have all the plastics buried someplace in one place where you know that all the plastics are in this pile underground and the other ones are in this pile underground and then we could mine them for plastics in a future apocalypse? What do you think about that? It's a great idea if it would work, I don't know. I appreciate the call, thanks for that.

We'll see you Bob. 27 minutes after six. Okay. Let's see what else is going on here. A longtime manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation said Cascade Range highways near Diamond and Crater Lake will become impassable for weeks and months at a time during winter, impacting school bus routes, commerce and tourism if all these planned cuts to ODOT go through. After lawmakers failed to pass a transportation package during the session, Governor Tito Kotec announces layoffs to hundreds.

Dan Metz, who manages ODOT's High Cascade region, said his last day would be July 31st. manages ODOT's high cascade region said his last day would be July 31st and he said that normally 15 employees in the summer between 20 and 22 in the winter for the high cascade under that cut. Under the cuts that number would drop to five in the winter. Okay under the cuts this is okay so they're cutting people. Is Oregon Department of Transportation determining what gets cut? Because it strikes me that if this is really what is going on, they're going to cut the stuff. Well, it's sort of like whatever the people like. If people like the snow being plowed off the

roads, that's what they'll get rid of. If they're going to... Oh, no, no, no, the bike lanes and the road diets, those will still go through, right? You know that's the case. No, no, no, we won't plow the roads, but there's still going to be budgeted an ODOT for the multimodal campaign fraud or multimodal transportation fraud type of a grift thing going on. I don't know. We'll see. Have to try to find a way to keep holding them accountable. 629 at KMED. Sean Levy, author of Clint, coming up. The threat of wildfire poses a growing risk to Oregonians.

Back to Oregon, the London KMED. This is News Talk 1063, KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Meyers show. Sean Levy joins me, and I know the term icon is overused. I'm talking about this, but when it comes to Clint Eastwood, man, it just doesn't get better than Clint. And Sean joins me right now, and he's written a book, Clint, the Man and the Movies. Sean, it's great to have you on, welcome.

Oh, it's great to be on the radio in Oregon. I'm a Portlander. Yeah, really? I'm in New York today. Yeah, yeah, I was the film critic of The Oregonian for 20 years. Okay, so you left because of the homeless crisis, right? No, no, I live in Portland now, I love it.

Okay, okay, well good. You're one of a few at least. Of course, maybe your neighborhood's okay, Sean. It could be all right. But I hear stories all the time. But let's... Yeah. You know, there's unpleasant things. But I love Oregon and I love Portland. Let's set that aside here for right now, though, because your book, I'm loving your book. I've been reading your book off and on the last couple of weeks and I'm still just kind of getting through the early part of Clint's life. This is an unauthorized biography. Was there a reason for that? I'm

just wondering if Clint just didn't care to talk to anybody these days. Yeah, I think that's it. Clint is 95 and he told his entire life story to an author in 1995. Thinking, well, that's a good summation. 65 years old. And since then, he's made, I don't know, 12 movies that we can all name. Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, American Sniper. He's just never stopped. Yeah. Is he still even doing it right now?

I haven't kept up with him recently, very recently. He released quite a good movie last year at age 94 called Juror Number Two, a courtroom thriller, which was a genre he hadn't done before. And he's said to be looking at scripts now. I'll tell you, so much for retirement, huh? Doesn't exist for someone like him. But So much for retirement, huh? Doesn't exist for someone like him. But the part that, as I'm going through your book here, Clint, is just, I'm laughing about, because how great he became later,

and how horrible he was in the early days of his career. And I mean, not just, just as a little bit, but I mean, seriously, bad, bad, like you never would have thought that he had a future in this, huh? How did you find out? No, it's true. He made a Western in 1957 or so called Ambush at Cimarron Pass and the movie was so low budget that they had to write a plot about the horses being stolen because they could only afford to rent

horses for one day and When Clint went to see it, he just slunk down in his seat. At the time he was digging swimming pools like with a shovel to make ends meet. And he was like, I'm leaving Los Angeles, I can't do this. And miracle of miracles, within two months he got a part on a TV series, Rawhide, and that really is where his career starts. Yeah, Rowdy, that part really seemed to get him on. And I've watched episodes of Rawhide.

It wasn't all that great, in my opinion. It's just kind of, well, it was sort of the standard 1950s American Western, but at least it kicked him upward, didn't it? Yeah, he made 200 plus episodes. I think he has more screen time as Rowdy Yates on Rawhide than in the rest of his career combined. You're 70 movies is still not 200 hours. It's remarkable. Yeah, when you think about it that way, I hadn't really considered the mathematics there, Sean. Sean Levy here, and it's a really great book, Clint the Man and the Movies movies I wanted to just touch in on have

you ever actually met him you know what kind of a man how would you describe him as because you know is he just a variation of a movie character here and then or is he just kind of an all-american original of some sort you know he's kind of taciturn he has a sense of humor he plays his cards close to the vest and by the way he's always been that way. As you know, he grew up during the Depression. The family moved around. He was always the new boy at school.

He was tall. He was shy. He got picked on. And I think that he gravitates toward movie characters that share those qualities. And as many of us do when we age, you become sort of who your aura is in your life, and his aura is on gigantic screens and known to the world. So even more so in his case. He does have a kind of testy side, but it doesn't come out sort of, you know, in an explosion. And he has a very foster

side toward his children. You know, he has eight children that are publicly acknowledged and known, and they're all around him. You know, they work with him or he supports them in their work, and they're photographed with him at family events and film premieres. So, he's a home guy. He's a family guy, but he's also a strong man. He's not someone who suffers fools. Yeah. Also, not necessarily good husband material.

He'd be the first to admit that. Yes. He's a better dad than he is a partner. He's had relationships and marriages that have ended sort of in contentious fashion. But he's kept true to his core values. And I have to say, in 2019, he had a movie, The Mule, which is a fantastic movie. And all eight of his kids were at the premiere. And it's the only photos I've ever seen of the whole family. But also his first wife,

mother of two of those kids, was at the premiere and is in the photos. And that tells me, you know, people can get along even when, you know, the details of the end of their relationship are sort of hair-raising. Yeah, I remember the noisy breakup of Sandra Locke back in the day, back when I was a younger man kind of paying attention to the tabloids. Do those two ever talk or is it pretty much done? No, no, no. That was the ugliest and most public and it ended in in a Palimone lawsuit and then a suit of fraud. And in both cases, Clint settled.

And he had nothing nice to say. He was disappointed in himself for the way things went. And yeah, it was a pretty ugly business. What do you think has probably most been misunderstood about Clint Eastwood's persona and his approach to moviemaking. Well, his approach to moviemaking, I think people think of moviemaking as this endless process of shoot and reshoot and take after take after take. Clint is a lifelong jazz fan and he hates stuff that feels over rehearsed. He likes spontaneity. So he films rehearsals and sometimes those

show up in the movie or first takes. There's a wonderful story about the Bridges of Madison County in which he co-stars with Meryl Streep and when she saw the final film she said to him, you kept all my mistakes in and he said yes but they were human mistakes and actors love that because they can really go for it on the first, second, maybe the third take. If he gets to a fourth take, he apologizes. I think that shows in the performances he gets. His love of jazz really influenced the filmmaking then because of improvisation.

That was it. One of the secret songs. Absolutely. And he works with the same people. So if you think of a jazz man like Miles Davis or Duke Ellington, they like to play with the same musicians because they have a vibe together and they don't have to ask what's going to come. They know. It's like a basketball team. They know where the guy likes to get the ball and shoot. How do you think he'd like to be remembered?

I think he'd like to be remembered as a good dad and as a filmmaker. I mean, he's making movies into his 90s. I think that's the single essential fact about him, that he makes movies. And he owns Pebble Beach Golf Course. If he wanted to retire, he could play on the world's most beautiful course every day of his life. And he doesn't want to retire. He wants to work. Sean, I think you did a great job on this and I'm enjoying it so much. I've always enjoyed Clint Eastwood movies. I think my second favorite is Grant Torino. I still like

outlaw Josie Wales from the vintage years at that point. There's just something about that that spoke to me for some reason. But there's always something new coming out of Clint, even at age 95. Just astounding. And it's a great book. Sean Levy. Oh, thank you. And it's Clint, the man in the movies. Thanks so much for being on. Thanks very much. 639. This is KMED in 99.3 KBXG. Getting ready for a summer road trip? Click on the travel report on KMED. Grow Pure Talk, a wireless company that actually stands for something.

This is the Bill Meyer Show on 1063 KMED. Got something on your mind? Give Bill a shout at 541-770-5633. 770 KMED. It's 19 before 7. I'm glad you're here. And we have disgruntled Jay on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. So Jay, you were to share a pebble.

What happened to you? You were in a park, I guess, and some guy rolls up on a bike. What happened then? Yeah, I was at a park. I won't say which one, but it was a big old dude about three times my size shows up. He's sweating, you know, already this time in the morning and he sits down on a bench. He's looking around. He's like, oh, I'm the only guy there. And I see the gears turning in his head. I'm like, all right.

So I popped the trunk, got out, got my gun, put it in my pocket through the passenger's window, got back in the car, adjusted it just right, and in about a minute and a half, he started packing his stuff up and left. On the way out, I gave him a bottle of water, though. I said, hey, you need some water? So he was strapped with his BB gun on his backpack. Yeah, he had a BB gun on his back. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

You know, can have a BB gun, but when you start staring at me, man, I've been like seven times somebody tried to murder me throughout my life. And there's nothing more I want to know about. So you're hanging out at the park and some big guy comes here and starts eyeing you and you feel threatened by that? Is that what I'm understanding here? Exactly what it was. Wow.

Because I was the target. I was the only one there and all he had to do was try to figure out some way to get me out of my car or just come up in my car and yank on the door handle or something like that. And so what, you start clearing your gun up or something? You got to be careful. I just put it on my seat, up with Carrie. You know, like, all right, if he wants to go. Well, I'm glad nothing occurred though. You have to be real careful that... I mean, not that I'm any expert on the law on this one, Jay, but it's one thing to be disgruntled, Jay,

but I hate to have you be incarcerated, Jay, getting in trouble for brandishing or doing something like that. No, I didn't brandish nothing. Okay. I didn't point at anybody or anything. I just let them know I had it. You know, I threw it through the window on my passenger seat. But yeah, it's better to be judged by 12 and cleared by six, for sure. I had that happen, I can't say it's a similar deal, but I was up at a campsite up off of Old Indian, Dead Indian Memorial Road a number of years ago. I was with my daughter, Sarah. I was camping with

my daughter, Sarah. She was like a three-year-old, I think pretty much still a toddler at that point. So we were camping up there and there was a guy who came in on a different campsite and you know the feeling when someone is a creep, right? You just know, you get that vibe and you know it's not good and I had just purchased a firearm, in fact that was one of the reasons why I purchased a firearm because I was going out camping and you know on the public lands and alone. And he came over and he was eyeing my daughter and the hair went up on the back of my neck at that time. And this was probably like I said 1996 something like that. And at that point I just had the, course, I was carrying the pistol on my belt too,

and I just let the jacket fall open a little bit, you know, so that way... Oh, man, that's a little scary. But it was interesting, the complete different way his vibe changed, because you just knew he was up to something wrong. He was looking for a victim. And then he ended up taking off about, oh, five, 10 minutes later. So he broke him. I often wonder, gee, what happened to that guy afterwards? So I kind of say where you're coming from. I really do. Hey, you know what I'm saying? If it got open carry, they see it, they know you got it. And it's a good deterrent you know

yeah couldn't be disgruntled jay i'm glad it worked out okay for you in the public park okay you be well 7705633 this is the bill meyers show it's open phones on pebble in your shoe tuesday this is insurance agent a hey he sells for the bill meyers Show is on. News Talk 1063 KMED. 648-770-5633 to join in on Pebbling Your Shoe Tuesday. Easy time to do this. We'll be a little guest intensive after that. By the way, George Sexton of KSWild is going to join me. And that'll be a little bit after 8 o'clock and he wants to talk about the big beautiful bill and what's going to be happening with forest policy here.

I'm looking forward to talking with George. I find George very passionate about his point of view when it comes to the environmentalist world. I don't agree with him necessarily, okay, but nor do I want to see forests just mowed down with no plan on replanting, etc. But no one's talking about doing things like this. But it is obvious that what is going on is the Trump administration is going to be pushing for more logging and for more timber harvesting out here on the lands. There are some people that are concerned about that. I'll be curious to see what George has to say because, you know, how upset can George be because he won? You know,

he and KS Wilde and all of the other enviros ended up winning because timber industry is a shadow of itself today. How upset can you be? But we'll see. We'll see about that. And that kind of reminds me though, and this brings me to a story though that shows how policy is so important when it comes to our forests and it even affects southern Oregon for sure. I was reading a story on the AP and it had to do with, well I'm going to share this, I shared the headline yesterday on Facebook, but the basic of it was that they had that wildfire that burned through a historic Grand Canyon Lodge, and it raged out of control.

It burned it up Monday, right? Burned up Monday. And the critics have been coming out saying that it had been allowed to burn for days before it blew up over the weekend. The fire blew up over the weekend, raising scrutiny over the National Park Service's decisions not to aggressively attack the fire right away. Well, you know what that is, right?

You know what that is when you hear about the National Park letting the cabins burn down, the lodges burn down, because they didn't aggressively attack the fire. burned down, the lodges burned down because they didn't aggressively attack the fire. Of course, you go back to the 1995 wildland fire policy manual and that section of it that we termed let it burn, which it allows you burning for land management purposes and every square inch of federal land has a burn plan on it. All of it. This is when the lightning strike happens and boom, the lightning strikes and then the fire boss draws the big box around it and lets it burn 40,000 acres, that sort of thing. They've been doing

this since 1995. It's almost like admitting that you can't hire enough Lomakotsy restorative or collaborative groups to go out there and do what needs to be done to replace what timber used to do, because the trees are going to keep growing no matter what, right? But the thing to keep in mind is that the 1995 let it burn policy, which is still on the books. This is something that Jackson County does not allow during fire season. Our county commission, spearheaded by Commissioner Roberts, she made this kind

of like a cost celeb. This was something she was working on here for a number of years. Ended up convincing the board at that time to issue a resolution and they passed a resolution stopping that program here in Jackson County. So there's no more of this the lightning strikes and then 50,000 acres later, okay we'll start fighting it now. You know that kind of thing. Because remember they would say well these lands need to burn to restore. Yeah and we need to breathe in the in the summertime too, you know as humans. So I just thought you would find that interesting. But yeah, most other places in this country

are still just letting it occur. But the Jackson County Commission ended up passing that resolution, and they used the coordinating power of our local government with the US Forest Service and the BLM. So they're not allowed to do this. And of course, some of the people get really upset then with the County Commission because they want to go out there and burn some watershed area to clean it out. And they want to do it in August, you know, when it

can get out of control very easily, that kind of thing. Plus, this is also supposedly tourism time, and you want to try to keep the smoke down. But anyway, I just thought that was an interesting story, kind of a teachable moment. And I'm looking at this from the APM going, oh yeah, yeah, we know what happened here. Hey, why weren't you fighting the fire? Because it was policy, okay? 653, it's Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. I'll go back to the phones. Hi, good morning.

Who's this? Hey Bill, it's Wild Salmon. Wild Salmon Steve. What's on your mind today, sir? Okay, a whole other subject, but what do you do with the federal government? Sure. You've heard of this thing called social security, right? Oh yeah, I've heard of that and pray and kind of thinking like, all right, will it be there? And I'm trying to think how long can I keep the plate spinning in my world before I take it? Yeah, well, I've been retired for 13, 14 years now. And, you know, my wife recently passed away in June 16th. Yes.

As a financial advisor, I, you know, you sit down and talk to lots of people about their finances and one of the things that came up was how screwed up social security can be. I always advise clients and friends to immediately contact social security if someone died because the last thing you want to do is get that screwed up. So I called the next day. I was sitting at the table in the morning just in shock and I was out of advice I had given other people. So I called Social Security, gave them my wife's Social Security number and said she

had passed away. And I was thinking that they would not issue her social security. It's direct deposit in my bank account. And of course on the 25th, sure enough, they gave me her social security check. It probably takes a while, I would imagine, for the left hand to talk to the right hand depositing the money? Well, you think, but okay. So I call Social Security and they said, no, that's okay because Social Security pays in arrears. She was alive in May and that check was for May, so don't worry about it. Oh, okay. All right. Well, that's better. Then I get this form from Social Security that I couldn't really completely understand.

So I fill it out and it said, take it to your local Social Security office. So I take it down there. And by the way, you have to make an appointment. And the earliest appointment you can get since September now, but you can walk in and if you're patient enough, you can talk to somebody. And I got in there and after two and a half hours, the guy says, oh, this form was only if Social Security screwed up, you're fine.

You know, they paid you. So that was last week. So yesterday, I get a paper in the mail from Social Security saying we overpaid you and we're gonna take the money out of your next check. Wait a minute. Okay, they just told you that everything was okay, they did the right thing, and now the... Yes.

Okay. So they, yeah. So now, and the guy emailed me the form, which was exactly the same form that I took down there last week, to say, you can file a complaint so that they can fix the screw-up that they did. So I don't know what's going to happen now. Steve, what are they using? Are they using Commodore 64 computers or Trash 80s from Radio Shack to run Social Security. What are they doing there, huh?

Well, maybe they're building a new building like the Fed is doing. I don't know, but they just certainly seem... Because I talk to people and they say, no, it's fine. And then I get this thing saying that you owe them, you know, 1500 bucks, so it's a fair amount of money. And it's just, it's just, when you're trying to deal with somebody passing away, you've got so many things you've got to do, you know, bank accounts and check credit cards and all. Oh yeah, there's all sorts of things. And you have the emotional tumult

that has been happening in your life. And I felt for you deeply these last few weeks here, Steve. Oh yeah, well, we had a memorial on Saturday and I don't know, all kinds of people showed up. It was very good. Our minister did a great job and it's kind of like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulder. So that's good. Let me ask you this then though. Now you so the one payment you got was for May, but isn't there also a survivor's benefit for social security or a burial or you know for like final expenses type thing? $240. Okay yeah that's what I thought.

But you have to claim it. Oh. So when I was down there and the guy told me that I was okay on the May payment that I got in June, he said, well, if you want to claim this survivor's benefit, you have to get an appointment and come back in and fill out the paperwork or something. So September 2nd is the first appointment that they could get for me to come back in and fill out this whatever to get $240. Well, God bless you Wild Salmon and thanks for sharing. That's a heck of a pebble in the shoe, okay? Oh, thank you Bill. All right, you take care. 658 and change at KMED. Speaking of which, there is another person that if you're about ready to go on to Medicare, and that would be talking to Lynn Barton over at Skypark Insurance. Skypark Insurance has been

another big sponsor of mine for a number of years. They end up taking care of numerous insurance lines. Steve Yancey, of course, is the guy who I first talked to, and he's ended up saving me money on all sorts of things including oh my goodness There's a you got a great deal on home insurance I'm paying a really cheap car insurance right now, especially for being an older driver with three vehicles Fortunately, the vehicles are older. So I guess I'm not going for a lot of collision I guess and things like that and what you do is you call Steve up at two six one five four four four two six one five four four four have Steve give you a quote and And what you do is you call Steve up at 261-5444-261-5444,

have Steve give you a quote, and I think you'll enjoy that experience. And if he can't help you out, maybe you already have a great deal, he'll let you know that too, and that's always good to know. Now, on the Medicare side of things and social security, like we're talking with Wild Sam and Steve about that,

Lynn Barton's number is 499-0958, and Lynn takes care of all of the Medicare Advantage and the various supplemental problems and the the questions about it. It's really complex. She makes it easy just like Steve does. Okay so a couple of numbers 261-5444 or 499-0958. Find out about Steve and Lynn at SkyparkINS.com.