The Texan Podcast - Special Edition - Texas Christmas Stories

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

This week on a special edition of The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses some Texas Christmas stories, including an ill-fated 1927 bank robbery by Santa in the town of Cisco, a look back at the Cowboys’ Christmas Ball in Anson, and some classic Texas Christmas music.

Well, happy Friday, folks, and Merry Christmas Eve. This is Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, and Isaiah Mitchell. We're doing a special Christmas podcast edition for this week's News Roundup. It's not a roundup at all. Well, it is a roundup, but it's not a news roundup. We're talking about fun Christmas stories that we published here at The Texan, three in particular. And we'll run through those today, talk about some fun Christmasy things afterwards and and call it a day right before we start can you tell us why this is your least favorite part of the year well i'd be lying to you i'd be overtly lying to you if if if i said

such things i am so excited this is christmas time my family's in fact they live in arizona i'm gonna go see my family soon we're planning to go snowshoeing while i'm home for christmas which sounds ridiculous being that it's Arizona, but there actually are mountains within 30 minutes of where my parents live. And we're going to go snowshoeing. I could not be more excited to be in the snow. And then my dad texted this morning and said, Hey,

by the way, they actually haven't gotten any like precipitation at all for a long time. So there might not be snow. So pray for a snowstorm or just, so you'll just be going hiking in that case. We might just go go hiking but we might still put the snowshoes on just for like the experience of it just for the sake of it that's not true you look like fools but it would it'd be it'd make for a good memory okay whatever you say okay, on that merry, merry topic, Daniel, let's talk about a story that is Christmas-y, but not really merry. It is.

I don't know. Yeah, it is. Okay. Well, please tell us why. Please tell us why it's merry, but, you know, or it's why it's merry. But we hear the text, and we do like to write Christmas-themed stories, as we've already mentioned. But you wrote this piece, was it two years ago that you wrote this yes yeah um and it had to do with an old bank robbery in a small town what happened during that robbery and what does it have to do with christmas

imagine it's 1927 because that's when this took place uh ma ferguson was governor oh my favorite we're actually talking about her earlier in the office and I don't think that you realized that I was being serious when I said she's involved in this story. Yeah, I did not realize. Yeah. She went on a pardoning spree. She pardoned over 4,000 people. One of the people that she pardoned was this dude

who had done some things that were kind of a little bit illegal, I guess, to put it bluntly. But his name's Marshall Ratliff. He robbed a bank. And so after he got pardoned, this is, you know, December, he's sitting around talking with his friends. He's like, hey, guys, like, you know, we could we can make some money. There's. There's a nice little bank in this town of Sisko. A small little town. But the First National Bank is there. You've got a good sizable population. People come into town, do their groceries, you know, farmer's market, go to the bank.

And so they thought, you know, why don't we get rich by robbing a bank? So he pulls together this crew of a few other criminals. You have two other ex-convicts, Henry Helms and Robert Hill. And then you also have a fourth guy who gets pulled into the mix. I believe he was the getaway driver. Louis Davis was his name. He was actually a little bit younger than the other fellows. But, you know, they're trying to figure out how they're going to rob this bank. And what's the best way to rob a bank in December other than to dress up as Santa Claus and give that as a distraction? Because you go into the bank, you can't just go in guns blazing. Obviously, the cops right down the road, right around the corner from the bank.

If people know that there's a robbery right away, the police will show up and then all chaos breaks loose. You've got to have some sort of disguise. You get a diversion. You dress up as Santa Claus. So Ratliff, being the mastermind of the operation, of course, he wants to be in the spotlight. So he's the one that dresses up as jolly old Saint Nick. This is a flawless plan already, I can tell. There's no way this goes wrong.

It could not go wrong i mean it's flawless i mean he got arrested once or maybe a few times i don't know he's got a rap so things happen but you know he's experienced now so yeah and so are the other ex-convicts the the getaway driver will you'll see what happens to him but um so you know they they plan this robbery they go in and it seems to be working flawlessly they go into the bank and uh ratliff is dressed up as santa claus he's getting all the attention people like oh look there's santa claus you know they're happy this is two days before christmas so you know everybody is in town you know going to the bank to you know whether it's getting out some money to get some Christmas gifts for the family or whatever. People are there. It's a busy, busy place. You have a little

girl and her mom. They see Santa Claus, wave at him. Then Santa Claus walks up to the bank teller and the bank teller is, you know, thinks this is fun. He's like, hey, Santa, how's it going? What can I do for you? Santa's not there to make a deposit. He's not there to get a loan to expand his toy shop or anything like that. He pulls out the gun, and his fellow workers in there, who are also now in the bank helping rob it, they also are there prepared to rob the bank. And everybody in the room at first thinks it's a joke. This is Santa Claus. Why would you rob a bank and you know everybody in the room at first thinks it's a joke you know this is santa claus why would you rob a bank and then they realize oh no he's actually being serious this is actually a bank robbery going down so that mom and a little girl who had been in there

seeing santa they managed to sneak out of the building right away now they do get noticed the bandits do fire a few shots they do not hit this person but they're able to go down to the road uh just a block around the corner to the police station tell the the police chief and the officer there what's going on that they need to do something there's a bank robbery happening right now so things start to go a little bit sideways from there. And once you have the cops involved, well, it wasn't going quite as smoothly as they had planned. Bullets start flying. Bullets start flying.

Yeah. So talk to us about that. Were they able to get away? How did this all wrap up? They were able to get away, most of them um for the most part but there was a big firefight in the alleyway right around the bank uh the officers and the bandits shot uh reportedly around over 200 rounds so you know the bank was covered with bolt holes after this you know the alleyway the cars and the in place. You have one person who's,

the bandit who's really involved in the firefight the most apparently was Helms. And he ended up shooting the two officers and they ended up dying. There were six other citizens who were either got injured in the way, whether they were bystanders or there were also some citizens who were armed that were helping the officers try and stop these bank robbers. So you have a lot of chaos, but they do get the money, and they do get out of the building. They get to the car where they're waiting to escape. Now, the problem is, as they were in the middle of this firefight, the car did get hit with some bullets, and so did the gas tank. And so it's running out of fuel.

They're not going to be able to get away too far. So they try and figure out what they're going to do to actually get further down the road. And they say, you know what, we need to get a different car. We need to ditch this, find something else. Oh, and I should mention that in the process of getting away, they also took two little girls hostage. So they've got two little girls hostage. What was the reasoning for that? Well, they didn't want to get shot.

There you go. So if you have a little girl in front of you, the officers, the citizens, are not going to be quite so quick to pull the trigger. So they get into the car with the girls, the money, the Santa suit, and they hightail it to the edge of town they find another family at the edge of town uh the harris family and they decided hey we're gonna hijack them they've got a car we'll fit in there so they get the family out um they get into

the car they get the um there's actually one of the robbers, Lewis Davis, who was the driver. He actually got injured in the escape. So he's actually not doing too well, but they get him into the new car. Do you know? I don't know. Okay. But he did end up dying from his wounds.

So, but they got him into the new car. They got the money into the new car and they're about to take off and they realized that the 14 year old who was driving the car, Woody Harris, actually took the keys out when they hijacked him, so they couldn't actually drive anywhere. So smart teenager right there, not-so-smart bandits. They get into the car.

They're like, well, what are we supposed to do? So they say, you know what, let's just go back to the old car, even though that's still beat up, and we're probably not going to be able to make it too far. So they get into the other car where the girls were and forget the money. Forget the money. They forget the other injured, their injured colleague. They just leave him there and they hightail it to the edge of town.

So now you're down to three bandits on the run. But they just left that guy. Yeah, they left him because he's injured. They are in a hurry because they're still in the run. But they just left that guy. Yeah, they left him because he's injured. They are in a hurry because they're still in the town. The police and all these citizens, they know that the bank robbers are getting away with hostages, two little girls, so they're like, well, we need to

do something about this. So they're in a little bit of a hurry. So they leave their colleague behind and hightail it to the edge of town. And then they're on the run for a few days. They do manage to actually to get out into some brush. They abandoned the car. They abandoned the Santa suit. They let go of the two little girls, let them go. And then they just, you know, hightail

it to the brush. So they're fugitives for a few days, during which time you've got some officers and some law enforcement on their trail trying to find them, these fugitives. You have one Texas Ranger, Cy Bradford, who is on the run. They get involved in another car chase after they stole someone else's car and took another hostage. They end up in another car chase with Cy Bradford, this Texas Ranger. They get to the edge of some woods, jump out of the car, and try making it on foot. Cy Bradford jumps out of his car, pulls out a double-barrel shotgun, fires a few rounds, and manages to injure all three of the bandits. Now Ratliff, who's the mastermind of the operation, he actually gets injured the most and like falls down and gets captured, arrested right there. The other two

bandits are still on the run from the officers and they keep on going for a few more days. And so they actually made it a week from when the robbery happened until the law finally caught up to them and they were also arrested. Wow. So talk to us about what happened after they were arrested. So this is where it's also a little bit interesting. Like I mentioned, Louis Davis, who's the driver in the car, the younger one, he actually died from his injuries in the robbery. And then you have the other bandits who are on the run. You have Helms, who was the one that was found to be killed who's the one that they found to kill the officers and so they sentenced him to death now he tried going

like pretending to be insane or maybe he actually did go insane i don't know but the jury didn't buy it and so he was sentenced to death and executed by electric chair you also have rat lift that would be a horrible way to go. Electric chair? Yeah. It would be very shocking. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. You disgust me.

I don't mean that. I don't mean it. I'll move a little bit. Wow. Then you have Ratliff, the mastermind of the operation, and he is also sentenced to death. So while he's sitting there waiting for his death sentence to go into effect, he also, like Helms, pretends to go insane. While he's in the courtroom, he just chants the same thing under his breath. Lord, have mercy on my soul. Lord, have mercy on my soul. Lord, have mercy on my soul.

Just trying to go crazy. He goes, pretends to be insane while he's in the jail, trying to manipulate his jailers into thinking that he's also insane and just, you know, going crazy in his cell. And it must have done something for the jailers to not think that he was going to be too harmful because Ratliff is actually able to get out and try and make an escape attempt. He actually manages to grab a gun and shoots one of the guys who's guarding him, a deputy sheriff at the jail.

And he manages to shoot this guy. Now, the jailer and his daughter, who live at the jail in an adjoining house or room or whatever, manage to actually stop him from escaping. They get him back locked up. But the sheriff or the deputy sheriff who he shot in the attempted escape actually dies. So when the crowd finds out or the community finds out that he's about to die, they look at this. They saw him shoot up the bank. There were the two police out that he's about to die, they look at this, they saw him shoot up the bank.

There were the two police officers that died, the girls that got taken hostage, the whole situation. They get so mad at him that you have a crowd of reportedly 1,000 people show up to the jail, and they're like, we need justice now, we need to do it our way. The jailer tries to persuade the crowd to just hold off, let the law do its job, but the crowd is unrelenting and manages to get Ratliff,

and they, you know, yank him out of his cell, strip him down behind a theater, and lynch him on a telephone pole out back. My gosh. Again, this is what I was talking about when I was saying this may not be the most merry of stories. This is particularly, there are a lot of gruesome portions of this entire story. This is the one I was probably referencing the most. And then reportedly they also left his body up in a furniture store on display for a few days,

and people came in just to see him wow so again merry christmas folks merry christmas but i i was not alone before they had netflix they went and saw the robbers carcasses i mean you got the coliseum like yeah people people have a desire to see violence the human nature i think um yes unfortunately but uh i i will stand by saying that this is a merry story because the story does not end there now there is the obviously some gruesome stuff that happens there you have the execution you have a lot of people dying it's it's it's a tragic story but every story has a low point right yes uh and even like

you know the best stories that we look up to like shakespeare like you look at the names of shakespeare the santa claus bank robbery to shakespeare i am please please we can't because even shakespeare couldn't come up with this please as enlighten us as to why, Daniel. I mean, it is that Shakespearean tragedy type ending with some of this stuff. Now, there is, however, something merry that comes from it, and it is a bit of a redemption story. Please, I beg you to tell us. Because you have, even though you have those robbers who tried going insane and tried going insane and, and, you know, did a bunch of bad stuff. You have the other robber, the other bandit who I have not talked about what happened to him yet, uh, because

he doesn't actually keep his name. Uh, so mentioned his name earlier, it was Robert Hill. That's what it was when he robbed the bank, uh, with his, with his colleagues. And he was also sentenced to a lifetime in prison. So it wasn't to the extent of, uh, putting him on the death sentence on, on death row. Uh, they didn't execute him by electric chair. That didn't happen. He was sentenced to a life in prison. Now he did try making a few attempts to escape jail, but eventually, uh, he was let out on parole. And they let him out on parole, and they let him change his name and have a new life. And so he completely turned his life around. And, you know, you didn't hear anything, anything more about him. He went and presumably lived out a peaceful life. And there's actually an article in 1977 by a paper out in Abilene that wrote about it. And this man, Robert Hill, actually became great friends with Woody Harris,

who is that teenager who let the bandits, or he pulled the key out of the car and didn't let the bandits take his family's car. So he became good friends with that Woody person and they have this friendship and, uh, Harris actually says, uh, of this man in the,

in the, in the Abilene article, he said, uh, that, that this man is a fine fellow. He's my friend. That's what he says says so you have a bit

of a redemption story there there you go which you know christmas has its lows christmas has its highs there is a chance for redemption wow merry christmas well daniel thank you i i feel better about the ending of that story now i really was not um looking forward to ending on such a gruesome note so thank you for circling back to something a little more merry. But what a story. Oh my gosh, the highs and lows of that story really had me going. I knew the whole thing and I still love listening to all the ups and downs. Brad, let's talk about a small town in Texas beginning a tradition 136 years ago that's become a cultural staple tell us about this so in 1885 the star hotel of anson texas began hosting an annual three-day christmas ball for the town's residents and

cowboys that sounds like my dream i would just like to say it sounds a three-day christmas ball with local texans sounds like my dream i okay yeah it does all right it truly does um that's a weird dream but all right teach their own so uh back in those days these things were pretty much the only socializing that um you know the average person in the area got other than either the saloon or the brothel. So, um, and it's also the only place that they got to, uh, meet the opposite sex. And so it was like a singles mixer. Yes. Yes. I suppose if you've seen, um, pride and prejudice, yeah, like that only in West Texas.

Um, but yeah, the, the tradition, uh, went on for five years and then it stopped in uh 1890 because the hotel burned down and um it ceased for about 40 years until it was revived in 1940 when the city of anson built a pioneer hall and that is where it's held to this day. Wow. That's awesome. Yes. So how did it become famous? Well, William Lawrence Chittenden, he was a former reporter from New York who moved out to Texas to become a rancher with his family.

He attended the ball in its first years, and he actually wrote a poem about it that was published in Anson's paper after the star hotel burned down and then it kind of it was republished in 1916 like a children's book uh but it kind of went under the radar swept under the rug they there wasn't much attention given to it until 100 years after the first ball country singer michael martin murphy adapted the poem into a song and it's it is on spotify i just listened to it so you can listen to that if you if you wish um i will also say that the killers who one of my favorite bands uh adapted the song it's a little they said it in nevada for some reason but it's basically the same the same thing that's so random that that would be

connected in that way that's really interesting what do you mean well just that there's this random christmas ball in texas and there's a bird and there becomes a poem that's written about it and then it becomes a song and then the killers adapt well yeah well i mean like most like most things that become staples in regular life they have weird organic ways of developing yeah and that is what makes them last the test of time uh rather than these manufactured nonsense pieces of content that people put out that you know you watch like those christmas prince movies that we mentioned in the last podcast that are just utter garbage um you know how many people in 100 years are going to be talking about those probably me if i still am alive wow okay well

if i'm the first person to live to be 120 whatever in the in the in this recent age i did yeah i did well i yeah i did how old am i i'm 26 yes i had to think about that regardless keep going brad i'm so sorry um but yeah we have the daniel wrote a piece i think this was published last year um oh yeah one thing i didn't mention was that um the the ball has been um carried out every year except for last year when they canceled it because of the pandemic but the poem itself is up on our article on the website so if you just search the cowboys christmas ball you'll find it and you can read about um one of the original cowboy christmas balls from jindan and uh it's kind of like a jumping into a time machine especially if you're into like language and how they talk and it's very yeah it's just

old writing absolutely prose is totally different so well thank you recommend it we love it well brad that's a fun story thank you for covering that for us isaiah we're going to talk to you now about uh a piece that was actually i believe written by brad originally right brad you wrote this piece it was classic texas christmas songs put you in the holiday spirit um but we delegated this to you as our resident music expert that's what i'm i'm coining you as right now yeah you're yeah you're so so you're so welcome but talk to us about what songs are on this list what did brad uh choose as worthy of this distinction he chose a few songs but may i say that this is an expertly written article it's hilarious and i don't even remember this is an expertly written article it's

hilarious and i don't even remember why is that it's just funny it's just funnily written um so you include some george straight in here i'm gonna go reread um asleep at the wheel ray benson and some others the songs themselves are top one is when it's christmas time in texas by george straight uh followed by big old texas christmas santa got lost in texas by jeff carson hot texas christmas day by sleep at the wheel the cowboy christmas ball you just mentioned that and uh my personal favorite that i haven't i haven't listened to any of these santa got busted by the border patrol but that was i remember listening to that one when i was doing this research. It was, have you ever heard My Dog's a Democrat? Yeah.

It's like that production level. Yeah, I see. And creativity level, but yeah. And it made the list. Of course. Well, let's fight. Just this hilarious bit of writing. Okay.

In Juarez, Mexico, Santa drops down a chimney and finds himself in a house owned by the local cartel. After some Christmas Eve delight, Santa departs for Texas, not only rosy-cheeked, but rosy-eyed as well. And then, poor old Santa, he gets stopped by the war truck. And then it continues from there. I thought, that's hilarious. Oh my gosh, Brad.

Yeah. That's the list. When it's Christmas time in Texas, big old Texas Christmas, Santa got lost in Texas, hot Texas Christmas Day, the cowboy Christmas ball, and Santa got busted by the border patrol. But the article itself is better than all of these. I think. All of these.

Yeah. Now, Isaiah, as our resident music expert, um, yeah, I say that not at all joking. You can play.

It should be a little bit joking. Yeah, no, not at all. Resident, like within the office, you are by far the most expert music person that was really well said by me i just want to pat myself on the back president music person it's true though

i mean yes by a long shot and by most people's definition he would be very fluent musically nobody else i know plays the nose flute no or however many instruments we've talked about this before but i say i play so instruments, I can't even remember. Like the vacuum hose. That's right. I forgot about that. And he loves when we talk about his skills musically. But being that you are of this distinction, what songs do you think are missing from the list? Well, Lightning Hopkins is a personal favorite of mine. He has a song just entitled Merry Christmas.

Anything by Lightning Hopkins is great. I recommend that one. I just love that there's someone named Lightning Hopkins. That's just entitled Merry Christmas. Anything by Lightning Hopkins is great. I recommend that one. I just love that there's someone named Lightning Hopkins. That's just a great name. It's either him or his cousin Albert Collins who's from Leona. He's from East Texas. Okay.

Merry Christmas by Lightning Hopkins. Always great stuff by Hopkins. Merry Christmas from the family. Cannot be left off any Texas Christmas song list. This is by Robert O'Keefe. It's kind of become a staple. And I mean, I don't know when he recorded it. I feel like the popularity of it has grown pretty quickly in recent years. And so it could be that when Brad wrote this, maybe it wasn't. I don't know. It's a really funny song, too. It's really funny, well-written, slice of life kind of song. Slice of life. That's so true. Yeah, that's the best way to put it.

Robert O'Keefe is a character in and of himself i've actually seen him live before he was wearing a um like a it was a paisley suit jacket that had a sheen to it like it was silk or something it was fascinating that's about right yeah fascinating well he jammed with my doctor as a kid oh my gosh well not as when i was a kid my doctor my my kid. Oh my gosh. Well, not as when I was a kid, my doctor, my, my kid dog. What's the word for your pediatrician? Yes. That guy. Yes.

He went to school with Robert O'Kane at A&M and he plays banjo and Robert O'Kane plays guitar and writes and everything. That's awesome. But yeah, I've actually never seen Robert O'Kane in person and I don't really have my thumb quite on the pulse of musical popularity, but so no, all forgiveness to, anyway, Brad's list is awesome. I don't want to criticize his list in the slightest. No, but there are always fun additions that can be missed on these lists. Yeah, but the characters of Merry Christmas from the family

are just people that we all know. Totally. Anything by Albert Collins, I mentioned him before. He just kind of had a frosty motif. His nickname was the Iceman and one of his albums was Frostbite. Like six or seven of his songs are ice or snow related. Speaking of Iceman, I just read a really cool article about George Girvin, the former San Antonio Spurs great.

His nickname was the Iceman, so that's just why it came up. His sister, Barbara, is a state rep. Wait, that's his sister? Yep. Barbara Griffin Hawkins? Yeah. I did not know that. Wow.

He visited the Capitol like three years ago or something. Three or four years ago. I can't remember when I even was in the legislature. But and came in, the legislators were all so excited that the Iceman was at the Capitol. It was really cool. The staff got to take pictures with them. And it's because his sister serves there. It's really cool.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Or who he was. Freddie King, maybe the biggest Texas favorite. He's got a song called Christmas Tears that my brother keeps playing nonstop at his house. And two bonuses that I've actually never listened to. Charlie Pride and the Reverend Horton. He both have Christmas albums, apparently.

I've never heard those. But when I was just looking at these earlier, I just went down a rabbit trail on Texas musical artists. And both those guys have Christmas albums. They're probably not the only ones I haven't mentioned. But I don't know. Check those out. I guess it tells what you think. I don't know. I haven't heard them.

And if you have any additions, tweet at us. Yeah. You know, tweet at any of us here. Um, yeah. Or tweet at the text of news, especially Hayden. Cause Hayden doesn't have a mic.

He doesn't. He's watching you, Leon. Well, Isaiah, thank you so much for covering that and for adding some of your own additions to that list. It's a fun, it's a fun thing.

I'm on board with all of them. And I think the Robert Earl Keene edition is my favorite. I've never heard that. So I definitely need to go listen to it. It's a classic. It really is fun thing. I'm on board with all of them, and I think the Robert Earl Keene edition is my favorite of those four. I've never heard that, so I definitely need to go listen to it. It's a classic. Really, it's fun. Yeah. It's like a really quirky, fun song.

Yeah, he's a great song. And Robert Earl Keene is a classic Texas country figure. Well, very cool, gentlemen. We are going to move on to talk about just a couple of fun Christmassy things before we leave, not that we haven't done so already at length on this podcast so far. But one thing to discuss that we haven't yet this Christmas season. And, you know, this is the last time I get to talk to you guys about such things for a long time.

So I'm just going to use this opportunity to talk about Christmas as much as possible. That's really what I'm trying to do. Yes. Best Christmas gift as a kid. What was, what was something you got as a kid that was just like the best or the worst? Best or worst.

Hey Hayden, we're going to give the mic to you now because you have sat so patiently, so politely without any sort of microphone or ability to chime in. I didn't make faces at anybody or anything. Oh, of course not. You actually were much more, uh, or yeah, much more tame than I thought you'd be. I thought you'd, I thought you'd cause a little bit more trouble. Well, I was the target of your ire yesterday for making sassy, um, hand gestures apparently. So I decided to be good today. I don't even remember even remember that's how that's how bad my memory

is no i don't even remember that i i honestly can't remember a bad christmas gift that i got um i know that we got bb guns one time that was a lot of fun your eye out i haven't shut my eye out and i don't wear glasses so I couldn't break my glasses either. I can't remember what year that was. Do you wear safety glasses when you shoot your BB gun? To tell you the truth at this moment I don't know where it is. I think it's at my parents house somewhere.

Is it a Red Ryder? It is a Red Ryder I believe. But that was fun when we did get BB guns and we were told that we're not allowed to shoot animals. I think I was 11. I'm trying to think of how, I believe. But that was fun when we did get BB guns and we were told that we're not allowed to shoot animals. I think I was 11. I'm trying to think of how old I was. 10 or 11. I can't remember.

That's so fun. BB guns are such a fun Christmas gift. As far as a worst Christmas gift, I am trying to think. I know how I have been threatened before with getting socks and underwear for Christmas if I didn't put out some good Christmas hints. I think at one point one of my parents or grandparents said, if you don't give me some

good hints for Christmas gifts to buy you, I'm going to give you underwear in front of the entire family or something like that. That's awesome. I don't know, Santa Claus socks or something, but I think that would have been funny as a gag gift. Totally. That's a fun stocking stuffer regardless. My family is pretty good at buying gifts, so I don't really have a good answer to the worst one. That's awesome.

I do remember the BB guns. Have I ever told you all the story of my brother accidentally shooting a crow with his BB gun and then crying once he did? Shooting what? A crow, like a raven. Oh, I thought you said shooting a girl. I'm like, what?

I would cry too if I shot somebody with a BB gun. No, there was a crow that was squawking in this tree. And my brother was aiming at pine cones. And I don't know if he actually was going for the... I don't know if he actually tried to shoot the raven or not. But regardless, he shot up into a tree. And a raven just fell from the tree splatted on the ground that's and he was very small he was you know he was out there supervised but um i forget how this worked but basically he was so sad and so guilt-ridden that he had shot this bird and the whole time you

know he'd been like man i'm a manly man i've got my gun i can go hunting with my bb gun and then he shoots a raven and it falls down and it's like you know writhing on the ground so sadly and he starts to cry it was so sweet has he has he ever eaten chicken since then yeah well yeah oh just period before then i mean period you could have told him try to make him feel better that's so chickens are birds so i mean violence against that one bird shouldn't be singled out he's you know if you eat meat there's something you're eating the bird that's dead birds aren't real so let's set the table with that first oh my gosh what are you talking about you don't know about this we're gonna going to skip it. Okay. Okay.

Daniel, any fun Christmas things? Yeah. It's all coming back now. We're going to skip it. Daniel. One time, our family likes to do stockings, of course, and we'd usually all get our stockings together, and my dad, my brother, and I, because my mom would be the one to stuff the stockings.

We'd open up our, our stockings all at the same time. And I do remember distinctly one Christmas I'm opening up my, my stocking, you know, I find some, some nice little stuff in there. And then there's just like,

you know, stuff that you just stuff stockings with like a toothbrush and some deodorant. I'm looking at my toothbrush, my deodorant. And then I look over to my brother and my dad and they're both getting candy bars. Oh my gosh. I'm like, there's no candy bar in here. And so I was legitimately shaken for like a few minutes. It's like, there's no candy bar in here. How old are you?

This is last year 10 oh okay or something i don't know i was hoping you were like 24 i mean i probably would would have been shook then too but i i was i was a little bit uh disheartened because i was like does my mom is my mom saying that i have like bad oral hygiene or something turns out she just forgot to put the candy bar in my stocking so there was candy for me but for a second you were very sad yes that's that's actually a really sad christmas story daniel you're asking for the worst that was that's the worst that's pretty scarring pretty scarring stuff bradley best or worst i think the best one we i got was i forget how old i was but my parents got us a ping pong table and we proceeded

to play nothing but do nothing but play ping pong for like three four days straight that's so awesome yeah um i love that childlike obsession with whatever is new yeah i love that i mean eventually we stopped using it now it's just like there's files that sit on it or other garbage that is down in the basement but uh for a while it was a lot of fun um i suppose the the worst gift was probably socks and underwear although now it's the best gift so you actually did get socks and underwear at one point yeah it wasn't like my only gift but it was part of it oh but like now it's nice that way i don't have to spend the money on it myself because you know it's pretty expensive and so uh yeah i'd say i'd probably say that i can't nothing else is coming to mind that

is glaringly terrible yeah that makes sense yeah except for like fruitcake that i got one time fruitcake did anybody here like fruitcake not really yeah those are the quintessential that's a brad word i can't believe i just used that word that that is like a classic uh bad uh christmas gift is socks and underwear and fruit cake yeah it it it fits the stereotype yeah certainly, certainly. Definitely. What about you, Isaiah? Anything on your list of bad or worse or best? I was really trying hard to think of a bad one and I can't really come up with anything right now. I, I get clothes,

everybody gets clothes, you know, and that's, that's probably going to rank lowest. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate it or enjoy opening. It's just like, you know, it's not the most fun. We also got a ping pong table. That was going to be my answer. That's probably going to rank lowest. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate it or enjoy it. It's just not the most fun. We also got a ping pong table.

That was going to be my answer. That's so fun. It's still under. Are you guys good at ping pong? I mean, not really. Well, I thought I was good until we went to the ping pong bar downtown. And then they have a club pro who just destroyed us. Okay.

Yeah. He's stationed there to play upstarts like you. He walks around and says, hey, you want me to play you guys? And like his job is to go around and basically show everyone there how terrible at ping pong they actually are. Dude, how do you get that gay? You're just destroying people at ping pong. First you have to get good at ping pong. Order of operations. Let's get it clear.

Yes. Okay. Okay. So ping pong table was your, was the one that came to mind. So to come up with a different one, my grandparents gave me a banjo one year that's awesome and during the remained uh one of my favorites um so yeah that's pretty high up there we got the bb guns too my little brother very nearly shot my he shot me right in the face no yes he did yeah oh my gosh because we were like just by the creek we shoot each other with

the airsoft guns which are meant to shoot other people with you know yeah and he complained that his wasn't accurate and he wanted to get the red rider baby gun i thought like well he's just a bad shot and so yeah go get it and so then i waited behind a tree for him and when he came back down the hill i heard him and i like spun around i was gonna shoot him and he just shot me like right on the bridge of my nose oh my gosh yeah isaiah that's scarring but boys will be boys that is an unbelievably texas young man story oh my gosh i had a little brother shot me in the face oh my gosh i had something very similar happen it wasn't with guns it was with model airplanes we were throwing into a hockey net my sister was mad at me and so mine bounced off and went off to the side and i went to grab it and then she just

throws she could throw really well she just whipped it at me and it drilled me right between the eyes that's rough yeah that is so rough i'd say mine uh best and worst all combined into one my parents when i was probably how old was i 10 goddess my siblings and i a little cocker spaniel puppy his name was riley best dog i just loved him um he's now passed on unfortunately but sweetest little guy and it was literally this we walked out into the living room and there was a cocker spaniel puppy with a santa hat on in front of our stockings like it was just the perfect little quintessential Christmas morning moment. And he was like so sweet and cuddly and sleepy at that point. You know, we got up early cause we wanted to see what's in our stockings

and there was just this puppy. So he was just cuddly and sweet. And as you know, puppies, as the day goes on, they get more and more rambunctious and they have sharp little puppy teeth. And me, if the oldest of the tailors was 10 years old the rest of them stretched down to five uh my siblings and i and so we were all very young and the idea of a of a little tiny shark a land shark running around our house terrified us so it went from oh my gosh mom and dad this is the best present ever we love riley he's the sweetest dog to oh my gosh this thing's going to eat us and we were standing on the couch screaming as the puppy tried just to come up and say hi because we were scared he was going to bite us and my parents almost had to return the puppy because we were

so scared of this tiny little cocker spaniel puppy and it went on for a few days until we realized it's just a puppy and if you just tell him no and hold his mouth and, you know, be a good dog owner, it'll all be fine. But as a child, when the dog goes so quickly from a little cuddly furry bean to something that wants to chop your finger off with its little teeth, just to play, it scares you. So my parents almost returned our precious dog, but it was the best. It was a great present. Well, gentlemen, Merry Christmas. Thank you for being so patient with me. Well, that's actually not true.

You were not patient with me as I wanted to celebrate Christmas early, wanted to talk about Christmas prior to December, but you were gracious. You were gracious once we hit December and we can go back to not talking about Christmas as much. We'll probably talk about Christmas. How was the families when we get back?

Christmas residue. Christmas residue. That's exactly right. But we won't. It won't be the main topic of conversation as much as much as it has been over the last month or two. So thank you for obliging. I appreciate all of you. Merry Christmas.

Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it. Well, folks, Merry Christmas. We hope you enjoy with your families this holiday season and we will catch you uh next week thank you all so much for listening if you've been enjoying our podcast it would be awesome if you would review us on itunes and if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show give us a shout on twitter tweet at the tean News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support

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