The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 365: Coffee with Mom—A Coffee Klatch Christmas with Peggy Rowe

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Mike's mom discusses Christmases past and present, her decided lack of cooking skills, complaining vs. observing, vertigo-inducing carpet, the perils of drinking dehumidifier water, pratfalls, a Christmas mugging, and Mike singing The Grinch.

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And while you're there, pick up their free business guy, demystifying AI. It's filled with sort of, Super useful information, and again, it's free at netseweet.com. That's netseweet.com. A cup of coffee with my mom. Hi there. How you doing? I'm great. How are you doing?

Are you great? I'm greater than you are. How great thou art. Well, I don't have a stiff neck, but you do. I'm doing my exercises. I'm praying for a Christmas miracle. A little more mobility every day now. Oh, that's good. I'll tell you, physical therapy is almost a miracle.

It's helped dead. His isn't perfect, but every day it seems a little bit better. And, well, I hope you're better soon. Anyway, look, I promise Chuck, we wouldn't spend a lot of time talking about infirmaries, aches, pains, pilliatories, various disappointments, and so forth. He was very disappointed. I don't know if he told you, but our thanks. Thanksgiving episode wasn't very Thanksgiving-e.

So he asked if I could somehow control shape and otherwise guide the conversation into something Christmasy, hence the outfit. You knocked that out of the park for sure. Yeah, that's really very noticeable. And I like your hat, Chuck. Did you get a haircut, Chuck, or is it under the hat? Sure looks like it, doesn't it? Sure does. That's a no.

Here's Chuck two years ago. go, Mom. Oh, look at that. Short hair. Proper hair. Short hair and maybe 20 pounds lighter. Maybe. Oh, what happened? I mean, you put some weight on it. My hair grew and I ate a lot more. He grew 20 pounds of hair. Oh, Chuck, you know, this weight thing, it's constant. I mean, it's an everyday thing. I'm, you know, I'm doing another book and I'm doing a section now called Mealtime. And it's about the food here at the home, in general, meal time through the years and how I've reacted

to it and weight and so forth. And I'm telling you, it is really something you have to be conscious of every day. Yeah. It's probably the single biggest thing plaguing more Americans right now than anything. Every other advertisement is for some weight loss thing. what is it, O-Zempic now? Oh, yes. Everybody, I mean, it's crazy.

Everybody is on it. And I don't even think it's really a weight loss drug. No, it's for diabetes, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. But crazy. And the side effect is you don't want to eat as much, allegedly. I don't think that would be true for me.

You'd have to take a lot of it. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm just full of OZempic. There's our title. It's an OZempic Christmas. Ho! Ho! Ho!

No, I think it's OOOOOOOOOOZembic. I think isn't that their thing? I don't know. I think so. Ozozozo, O Zembic. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. I think there are three O'S.

Did I tell you about the food show that I pitched to the Food Network? But the concept for the show is called Eat Me. Okay? That's the title. And the idea is I go around the country and I find the descendants of people who had recipes in like the old Betty Crocker cookbooks, you know, the cookbooks from the 50s, right, with those awful like meatloaf casseroles

and all those gelatinous nightmares things, you know. And then, anyway, find the descendants of the people whose recipes these were and then cook the meal together and then sit down with their family and maybe the crew. I just have a nice conversation and eat these horrible dishes. Would you watch such a show? Probably not. I mean, really, who cares?

You know, if I were a little more domestic-related right now, I might. But, you know, those days are gone. I have a kitchen. I told somebody I didn't have a stove, and Dad said, yes, we do. It's that square thing in the corner with the clock on the top. And then I do remember cooking a pizza one day about a month ago. So we do have a stove. But as far as cooking is concerned, that's way in the past.

I don't even think about cooking anymore now that we live here. Well, I don't remember enough, but from what I'm told, you didn't know anything. Like when I was born, had you ever even cooked a meal when you married dad? Never. In fact, your grandmother wasn't crazy about Dad, and she tried to talk him out of marrying me, and she told him, I don't know my way around the kitchen, I've never cleaned the house. She said she can't even fix you an egg for breakfast, and I'm not sure about toast. And sadly, it's true.

My mother was a little bit on the controlling side, and the kitchen was her domain, and she was very happy to have my sister and me stay out of the kitchen. And that pleased me to no end because I was horsey. I had a barn with horses, and that was my life. And so it worked well. You know, it made her happy to have me out of the kitchen, and it certainly made me happy. So when I got married, oh, it was an eye-opener.

And we survived, but we didn't eat a very healthy lifestyle menu. What were your go-to meals? You mean when we were first married? Yes. What could you reliably prepare? I caught onto hamburgers pretty quickly and hot dogs. That's a good one. So we had those a lot.

I don't know. Maybe we had ham and cheese sandwiches a lot, I guess. But like I say, we did survive. No one's doubting you. I mean, here you are. But I've just, what were the conversation? like between you and dad, when you would serve him a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner after a long day at work or just, I don't know, hot dogs for breakfast or whatever. Was he tolerant, understanding, or encouraging you to maybe venture out to, you know.

Well, you know, Mike, when you're young, there are a lot of ways to satisfy your partner and food is just one of those ways. So we got along fine. It's a big one. Yeah, I finally figured it out in the kitchen. And by the time Mike was born, we were eating a pretty healthy diet. It was a lot of casseroles. It was an adventure, and Dad was in it with me from the beginning. And I remember the time I made oatmeal cookies for the first time.

I chipped a tooth. On an oatmeal cookie? Uh-huh. And so I threw them out the window onto the roof. The birds wouldn't even eat them. Your father said, oh, throw them out the window. The birds will eat them. because we sure can't.

And they were still there like three days later and the birds are flying all around the place. But I did finally catch on. And this Christmas, what's on the menu? What are you guys going to do? Oh, well, actually, we're invited to a friend's off campus for a Christmas dinner. We go there every year.

For here, they'll have a traditional dinner. I think the meals are great here. And most people agree with me. There are some people who like to complain, complain about everything. What is that? What is with people? I know who you're talking about. We certainly won't mention any names, but why?

Well, it's not just one person. I mean, there are several people. Dad and I ate in the cafe one night, and a couple joined us. I hope they're not listening. But, Mike, and Chuck, she complained about everything. And she affected me like a narcotic. I wanted to go to sleep, like one minute into her conversation. She complained about the paint on the wall.

It was drab. Well, it's a neutral shade. She complained about the pattern on the carpet in the common areas. Too busy. It was enough to give you vertigo, she said, just looking at the pattern. It was terrible. And then she complained about the furniture in the common area in the lounges.

She said it's all lacquered up. It's out of date. It's too heavy. It's ugly. Honestly. And then she started in on the food. And she only ate half of her dinner. She just chew a little bit and take it out and put it on the plate.

I said to Dad, if we have to eat with them again, I want to be sedated first. It was not pleasant. But, I mean, that's pretty rare to find people like that. Is it? See, I don't know. Are you familiar with the MicroWorks Sweat Pledge? Have you ever actually perused that thing? I have read it, word for word, some years ago when it first came out.

Are you familiar with Pledge 8? Remind me. Teller, Chuck. I hate the sound of whining, and I refuse to make it. Whining and complaining, these are sounds I will never make. Yep. I put that in there because... You have always complained about complaining.

You've always whined about whiners. It's one of the earliest lessons that I got from you. It's just... Well, it's not really a complaint. It's an observation. Yes, so too could that woman's comment about the floor and the paint, and that's an observation too, isn't it? The paint is drab and the carpet gives me vertigo.

I mean, if that's true, it's super interesting, but of course it's not true. But she's one of many, many, many, many people who somehow have been trained to enjoy it. I mean, no one would complain if it didn't bring them pleasure. It's a kind of gossip, right? That's true. I think it brings them attention also. I remember as a boy, you never said, don't complain or why are you complaining.

You would ask questions like, Michael, do you think that's attractive? I don't find that attractive. And I doubt that anyone would find that attractive. But walking around was a noodle in each nostril? Do you really find that attractive? Oh. No, no. No, the sound of complaining.

Oh, I don't recall you doing a lot of complaining, actually. None of our children did. They just, you all were appreciative. That's how I remember it. My God, really? That's the way you heard it. That's the way I choose to remember. it. Actually, Dad was very, very strict with that. He wouldn't tolerate it. I mean, if we griped about

something, you're cooking, for instance, you know, Phil was not always really enamored of everything that wound up on the plate. He was very picky. He was a very picky eater. Yeah, Dad hated that. Oh, speaking of your father, he's fine. You know, two weeks ago, he went to the hospital with vertigo. Oh, we weren't going to talk about health issues, but... Sorry, Chuck. This is not a Christmas story. but I am interested to know because that was scary. He said the table was spinning, so he grabbed it, but of course the table wasn't spinning. Oh, he was in the kitchen, and I was in the bedroom.

I think I was making the bed, and he said, Peg, come here. And then I heard a crash, and he had fallen against the table. He didn't hit the floor, but he hit the table and it moved. And he was just standing there like a statue when I got there, and I put my arms around his trunk, and we just stood there. that way a little bit until things cleared up. But, yeah, it happened first when he was in the swimming pool and he was doing laps. He said all of a sudden things started going around.

So, of course, you know your father. He doesn't like to stop in the middle of anything. So he finished his laps. And then he got out of the pool, took a shower, and then got nauseous, threw up. And I am so grateful. to live where we live because a friend said, oh, we need to pull the cord right now. His name was Mike and went over to the side

and pulled the white emergency cord and that fast security was there and an EMT. And they had dad in a wheelchair and they took his vitals and then pushed him right to the medical center. By then he was feeling better and he didn't want to go to the hospital. So they told us what to do. We went home and he was fine until the next morning called security again.

And they facilitated getting to the emergency board in the hospital. But he's okay. So he's fine. And you know what I think it was? The carpet in that front lobby. Yeah, it's the problem. It's the carpet. Everybody's there spinning around like a wildebeest with the turning sickness.

Boy, that's a terrible thing. Are you familiar with that, Mom? Oh, I remember saying it, saying a story about it. Well, I narrated something for National Geographic like 30 years ago, and I'll never forget. That's probably where I saw it. So horrible, Chuck. It's like these termites crawl up the nostrils of the wildebeest and burrow into their brain. Like, just chew their way into their head.

You can tell when they get it, because they just turn in circles until they drop dead. Right. Awful way to go. The turiose. Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas. Oh, ho. I wouldn't want to be a wildebeest.

It's never a good day to be a wildebeest. I'm telling you, if the lions aren't getting you, the tigers are, and if they're not getting you. The crocodiles, the hyenas, up your nose. Up the bugs, up your nose. And your brain. Friends, if you're a wildebeest or if you know one, don't leave the herd. That's the best advice I can give you. Oh, poor old wildebeest.

We're very blessed not to be wildebeest. Amen, sister. Yes, amen. So that's it for Vertigo. Oh, and I brought a show and tell. I don't have a red stocking for my head, but years ago, when I was not published yet, many years ago, I got very discouraged thinking that I would never, ever be published. I was going to give up writing, and I went off in different directions. And one of the things that I did was I took up knitting and crocheting and quilting. And for two years I didn't write. I was so depressed about not being able to be published. And so I took getting classes. And this is one of the things I made. I made stockings for the children.

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Pure talk. You remember a quilt you made for me? Yes, I do. I remember it very well. There's clearly a story there the way she said that. Well, I mean, it was something else. I called it the x-ray blanket because it was about as heavy as one. It was made out of all my old jeans. She took old jeans and she cut them into all these squares and they all got quilted together. And so it was basically blue, but almost every shade of blue that you've ever seen in a blue gene.

But I'm telling you this thing must have weighed 30 pounds. It was, I mean, if you picked it up, you'd swear it was wet, you know, it was just, just heavy. But I loved it because I used to live in the basement like a troll, like an animal in my parents' house. And it was always cold and damp and dark, cave-like. Wait a minute, we had a dehumidifier down there. There might have been a little bit of mold under this stairway. There was mold everywhere. We got rid of that. And the dehumidifier was always full, you know, because there was so much moisture in the air if you didn't empty it every 20, minutes you know it overflow you exaggerate Mike a little bit but twice a day we

emptied it I mean that's a lot you're talking gallons of water being pulled out of the air which by the way people are confused about that a lot they think that's like bottled water but it's distilled water you might want to fact check me on this Chuck but I'm pretty sure you can't survive by drinking water through a dehumidifier it doesn't do for your body what water is supposed to do because it is distilled. I wish I were smarter. I don't know exactly what the scientific difference is

between tap water or water that's stilled versus not distilled. According to... Mr. Google? Yes, the spruce air.com says dehumidifiers remove humidity from the air, but the water they collect is contaminated with bacteria, metals, and other impurities. and you cannot drink dehumidifier water. Is dehumidifier water the same as distilled water?

No, because I drank the dehumidified water. Yeah, I would pour it in a picture for him and he drank it during the night. That could explain a lot. I did not, Michael. I didn't say you served it to me. I would get up in the middle of the night and there was no bathroom down there, right, living like a troll in a cave in the dark, humidity. I'd get up and there

and there were nights where I was, I was thirsty and I would go over there to the dehumidifier and just pull the plastic tray out and just take a couple of swallows, you know, and I never thought about it, but I was drinking poison the whole time apparently. Poor Michael. You were a regular Harry Potter,

weren't you? Sounds like you're kind of complaining, Mike. That sort of sounds like it to me. No, no. I was observing. I was just remembering. I was trying to come up with a good Christmas memory for you and I thought about that unforgettable Christmas Eve when I drank a few palmfuls of dehumidified contaminated water. Michael, that bedroom had a window to the outside. Oh, yeah, it sure did.

Remember? Yeah, I snuck out of it many times. Could you get out of that window? I don't think so. Because it was down in a window well. If you had slithered through there, you would have had to climb up. It wasn't hard. I was very flexible in those days.

I got a girl in there one time. Remember? Dad tells that story. Oh, don't tell it, Michael. There is nothing Christmassy about that. Let me finish the story about your quilt. There was some real Christmassy elements to that story. You mean that she gave you a wonderful gift? A wonderful, a gift that kept on giving. Chuck, you know this person, by the way.

Do I? Oh, please don't say any names. Yeah, you know her. She was a very good friend of an old girl. friend of yours. Oh, team. Oh, yes. Okay.

Yes. That really? Yeah. Yeah. Did I tell you that that quilt had a blanket in between the two layers? That would explain it. It had the layer of denim and then it had a really pretty layer of fabric in the back, which was a sheet.

And then in the middle there was a blanket. That was what made it so heavy. But it kept you warm. Was it a wool blanket? I don't remember. No, it was washable. and you appreciated it so much that you took it with you when you moved into your own house. And then you kept on appreciating it so much that you left it in the basement of your old house when you sold it.

Never to be seen again. Well, I never told you this, but the buyer of that house wasn't all that enamored of the home itself, but they were crazy for the quilt. So I basically sold them the quilt through the house. in. Really, that makes me feel a lot better. It was a great quilt. It really was great.

I've seen other denim quilts, you know, but never the three layers. You made this thing like a club sandwich. Speaking of club sandwiches, do you guys want to talk about Christmas at all? Oh, sure. I thought I did. I showed you my stocking. Did you ever give these away as gifts? No.

I hung them by the fireplace and put stuff in them for the kids. I mean, Santa did. Santa did. I love the stockings. I was used to save the stockings for last. I know. Yeah. What's your first Christmas memory, Mike?

My first Christmas? The one I remember most was the one where we went back into the woods to get the Christmas tree. That looked like not really a Christmas tree. It just was a tree we cut down. It was enormous. and we jammed it into the corner of the living room. It was so big, the top bent over. But going back into the woods with the tractor and the cart and the sauls and the axes

and cutting this tree down and dragging it back and setting it up and then decorating it, you know. It was the anticipation of Christmas. That's what it was all about. And then you came home and we had hot chocolate and I had written a play. and I still have that here somewhere on little cassette. It was on a real to real player that dad brought home from the AV department at school. And you all acted out the play. I'll have to look that up.

See if I still have that. And you know, it's funny the way your mind works, but like I can still smell that tree. I still remember recording that play. But I also remember the Christmas carols that were playing. we had a TV, not TV, a radio that was sort of built into the wall. It was an intercom, basically. Yeah, but wasn't it also a radio?

I feel like you could go over to that thing. I don't remember it being radio, just an intercom, but, you know, I mean, it could pick up a radio sound from another room and broadcast it to the rooms. That's what it was. Right. So there's like a transistor radio in the kitchen, and it's playing Christmas carols, and the intercom is open. so the sound is coming in through the intercom. No dinner reservation. Oh, Jesus, but Dad's got a question.

Stand by. It's okay. Well, he's off to play pool. He's going to shoot some pool with friends. Nothing says Christmas, like going to the pool hall. Picking up a few bucks from some sucker. Oh, ho! This place is decorated beautifully, so to go down to the lobby,

the trees are extremely. You wouldn't believe it. It looks like it was professionally. They were all professionally done. The trees all over the place. Are they on the vertigo carpet? Blinking reindeer outside. It's really nice.

Would you say? What kind of reindeer? Blinking. They have lights all over them and they're blinking off and on. I thought you said freaking. A freaking reindeer. Freaking reindeer out. It's so fesives.

They're freaking blinking reindeer all over the place. They've all got vertigo from that carpet. From the carpets making all of them. You know what they got, Chuck? The reindeer, they got the turning sickness. It's a shame what's happened at the home. All the reindeer are blinking and turning in circles on account of a carpet that seems to be instilling vertigo

in all creatures great and small. Peg, what's your oldest Christmas memory, your first Christmas memory when you think about being a kid? Well, my father was in charge of getting the tree and setting it up in the living room. And my mother, who was, as I've said, a little bit on the domineering side, she, like, made all the rules, and she, yeah. Why bother being circumspect now?

You've written a book about your mother where you spell out this neuroses in a dozen or two chapters. I mean, yes, a little controlling. Fair enough. A little bit. So dad would put up the tree and anchor it to the wall, and it was beautiful and we had a Christmas garden, but my mother was in charge of decorating it.

And I'm telling you, she had a place for each one of those balls. And we finished it off with icicles. And God forbid anybody should put on two at a time. They were placed one at a time carefully over the branch and another one. I mean, there could be like five. thousand icicles in this package and one at a time and she could tell if there were two and i mean heaven help you if you took a handful and threw them on these are like the very thin strips of silver oh yeah whatever that's what you're talking about they were called icicles yeah yeah i love those

yeah i feel like they've fallen out of favor out of favor yeah i haven't seen one on a christmas tree in years. I'll tell you what they have here on the one down in this lobby is they have, I guess, cotton, raw cotton stuffed. I mean, it's decorated beautifully. And then they've stuck like raw cotton here and there and every, it's beautiful. It looks like snow. Do you remember my, this would have been like 1984. I came home and I said, I have seen a movie and you're going to love it. And we have to find it somehow. And it was a Christmas story. And we used to watch it. It was years before I ever talk to anybody you would see that movie. And now I don't know anybody who hasn't seen it.

God knows how many times. It's a classic for sure. We enjoy it. It's not just the lines and the characters. I think people of a certain age can really identify with it because some, well, maybe not the furnace in the basement and the smoke coming through the house. But going to see Santa Claus and getting the tree and, you know, you can. identify with the action.

I guarantee you, 99% of the people listening to this, assuming anyone is, are nodding their heads and thinking about that movie. And what's so weird, Mom, is that I guess you know you're getting old when a thing that you felt like you discovered that no one else had seen has now become a classic. It's funny how that happens. Yeah, it is. Did you guys have a lot of Christmas traditions? I mean, apart from putting up a tree, giving gifts, you know, we've always been... Church. I was going to say, church is the tradition that stands out in my mind.

And to this day, this Christmas Eve, John will be the liturgist at the Christmas Eve service, and he will read the scripture. Church has just been such a big part of our lives. The kids always went to Sunday school and they were confirmed, and they went to youth group. So, yeah, church is a big part of it. But then when they were all Boy Scouts, they started the tradition of the Scouts

doing the ushering, all of the ushering and reading the scriptures on Christmas Eve. And that was really popular because we had a big scout troop in the church. So our children would go to church with their scout uniform on Christmas Eve. They would take up the offering, they would show people to their seats or read the scripture.

It was just a big part, a big part of our Christmas. Light the candles. Exactly. And then we would come home and John would read the Christmas story from the Bible. So, yeah, that's all tradition. And then the boys would go to sleep in their scout uniforms and get up in the morning. And I have pictures of them opening their gifts in their scout uniforms. That's funny.

Yeah. That happened a lot? Oh, I don't know how many years that happened, but yeah, for some years. Yeah, probably a couple. I heard a Christmas story yesterday. Oh, yeah? No, you go ahead with yours, because yours is more Christmasy probably than mine. But the thing you glossed over that I thought you were really going to glom onto was the music.

I think music is such, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, Mom, but there was always music playing in the house. And as soon as we got anywhere near December, and it wasn't Christmas Carol. necessarily. It wasn't about all that. My mom would play Farais' Requiem and the big, meaty, classical pieces and the Westminster wire. Not on the piano. On the record. No. No. I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician. He had zero interest in running a food company, but he was annoyed that so much imported meat was being deceptively marketed and labeled as domestic and decided to fix the problem. The result was a company called Good Ranchers. It's a completely honest, totally transparent meat company that deals directly with American farms

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E-Ha! So we had dinner last night with, there are six of us on Fridays, and one of the girls told the story of her daughter, who is your age, and her son-in-law, went downtown into Baltimore City to a really nice restaurant club, and I'm not sure exactly where it was, but it's in a decent area.

And they had this really wonderful Christmas party through her office. And when they left, they decided to spend the night downtown because they lived down in Rockville and they had a hotel, so they had called an Uber, so they stepped out of the building

to wait for the Uber. While they're waiting for it, six young men, this is a Christmas story because they were having a Christmas party. That's the only thing that makes it a Christmas story. These six men... It's like diehard.

Wearing hoodies, walked up to them and her husband said they were walking right toward him I mean like they were practically on him he said step back and they beat him up I mean they hit him

knocked him to the ground cut his head and then they left she ran across the street and called the police right away took her cell phone out and they didn't rob them you know didn't take their cell phones or their wallets so the police came

and the guys were gone. And my friend said, they just were shocked about the attitude. Sorry, there's not much we can do. You don't know where they are. You can't identify them. We don't know who they are. We don't.

It happens all the time. You're lucky they didn't have a gun. That's my Christmas story. Isn't that terrible? And I'm telling you, it's terrible. I think about you and you stay down in the city His attitude was, you know, well, what's new? This happens all the time.

I guess they should have stayed in the building until the car pulled up. But you know what? You don't always think about that. So I just want you to be aware next time you're staying down in this city. This is a terrible. You might want to cut this out because it doesn't say a lot for Baltimore City, does it? No, it doesn't. It's not just Baltimore, though.

It's everywhere. Yeah, sadly. Well, crap, Mom. That reminds me of my favorite Christmas song. You want to hear it? Oh, sure, because I think you want to sing it. You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel. You're as cuddly as a cactus.

You're as charming as an eel. Mr. Grinch. You're a bad banana with a greasy black pill. That's what I say to those hooligans, grinches. Yeah. All right, Mom, we got to go. Any Christmas he thoughts you want to leave people with? Any way to possibly redeem that incredibly sad story you left us with about the mugging in Baltimore?

Well, he's okay. Thank God. The guy is okay. He had a concussion and he had headaches for a week, but now he's better. So, you know, could have been. much worse. You know, when things like that happen, people often hit their head on the pavement when they fall, and that's what gets them more than being punched. Yeah. That's, I mean, people have died from falling backwards and hitting their head. It's like, it's terrible.

Especially, yeah, falls are really disastrous. Isn't it interesting how disastrous and terrible falling down is, just as a practical statistical matter, the thing that ushers in. So, many, so much demise, as it were, but also just a daggone funny. That's the leading cause of death among the elderly. All right, now, you were going to go somewhere funny with this, but I didn't. Well, I know. I'm trying to tease something up to just to leave people with a little bit of hope, but there's something in the strange, the undeniable juxtaposition that falling down

is the leading cause of death among the elderly, but a great source of humor for the rest of us. as is hitting one's head. Just last night at the office, I was putting up more of the soundproofing stuff for next week. And I hit my head on one of those iron beams, and it made a t-l-ding sound. And Ashley, who was handing me the things, she laughed so hard for so long.

It was almost off-putting. It almost made me mad. It really rang your bell. rang everything. Oh, it rang good, yeah. Listen, years ago, when you did live in the basement, you would have your quartet over and you would rehearse. And I shouldn't say his name, I'll just call him Bob, who was much taller than everybody else. No one will know who that is.

There was a beam over your doorway. Every time he went into your... You could hear it all over the house. Yeah. Bang. And then it was always followed by... Three guys laughing their heads off. Yes.

Only three. Yeah. Bobby was like six, too, and Mike Price was like five, two. So Mike never hit anything. Bobby hit everything. We should wrap caution tape on that kid's head. He grew up to be a normal person, so it didn't seem to hurt him those hits on the head. He's a nice guy.

In fact, I'm going to see him tomorrow. His mother is in the chorus over here. and they're oh i just gave his identity away well at least i changed his name um and so i'll see him when he comes to see give him our best please yeah i will talk to him so long wow and i'm really going to look at his forehead to make sure it's there's no permanent indentations yeah yeah but falling down man there was a sequence on dirty jobs we just cut together once i was running through the snow after a guy and Doug had his camera on his shoulder and he

was trying to keep up with us and then there was somebody was shooting the whole thing wide so it's three of us running across the ice and the snow and Doug fell and I mean his feet went out from under him mom like they call it a Brody like in the old days it was just a classic

Pratt fall yeah except he's got a 35 pound camera on his shoulder but he like full planks he is in the air and he falls flat on his but the camera breaks. I mean, it's a bad-looking fall. And we all just collapsed in absolute laughter.

We didn't know if he'd broken his back. The camera was destroyed, but we just couldn't help ourselves. And in the edit, we took it and we repeated it with like Benny Hill music. And just played it again and again and again and again and again. And what in the world is that? What is it?

Maybe we laugh at falling because we know it's so deadly and we just need to somehow take some of the some of the fear out of it. There's a TV show. I don't remember what it's called, but every once in a while I'll like flip through and I'll see and they show all these people usually hitting themselves in their privates, men, you know, like a golf ball will come back and hit them or they fall off a diving board or they crash into a tree and everybody laughs and laughs. I can't find that. so funny. I never stay on that station. What is that show called? Where they show people. Well, America's Funniest Home Videos. Oh, that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the go-to.

When in doubt, some poor dad gets a line drive, hit back. You know, it's only a wiffle ball, but his kid really smacks it, and he goes down like a cheap card table, and people laugh and they laugh. Well, and, you know, people fall here all the time, but nobody laughs. No, it's not. It's not bad. That part's not funny. They pulled the cord. No, they just pulled the cord. You know, in the opera once, a guy fell off the stage right into the pit.

And, I mean, that was a horrible thing to see. But again, he was okay. But to see him there on the edge pinwheeling, like trying to get his balance, and then he just falls out of sight, and then you just hear a crash. And, like, you know, he fell into the brass section. So I was like,

you know, like, he's landing. on people, instruments, and chairs. And really, there's no reason not to assume he broke his neck and maybe killed somebody he landed on. But still, the immediate reaction was, there he went. Right into the pit. I'm laughing now. I shouldn't be. That's terrible. Poor guy. That could be you on a stage. God, Gellert tells this story. This is a funny one, too. I think it was during Romeo and Juliet, and there was a sword fight. And in the fight, I mean, these guys really got into it, and the sword got hooked around the handle of the other sword. And the guy, you know, I mean, they had blocked it all out.

They were rehearsing it. But somehow this sword went flying through the air. End over end. And it went into the pit. And it landed and stuck. Like, I mean, write it between two cellists. It's like stuck there, like the sword and the stone. You mean, in the floor?

In the floor. In the wooden floor, this sword, right? And it was a stage sword, so it wasn't really sharp, but it had a point. Sharp enough. It was sharp enough to stick on the floor. Well, the orchestra rebelled. I mean, this was just, I mean, that's a union situation, and people were very, there was so much outrage. They walked off.

They literally, during the intermission, they said, we're not coming back until we got some sort of, something has to happen to make the rest of this. I'm like, what do you mean? Nothing's going to happen. It happened. We'll deal with it later, but you have to finish the opera guys. For God's sakes, I remember the director's saying, put a net over the pit, you know?

But we're not going to get it up now. I mean, it's a little late. We're in the middle of his show. We're sorry it happened. But I remember the director saying, in the future, I assure you, we'll take whatever steps necessary to prevent any sort of flying object, especially those with the point on it,

from entering into the person or persons in the woodwind section or any other section. You know, write it up and I'll sign it. You're just like, kidding me. I mean, but to be fair, you're sitting there. You're playing your cello and suddenly a sword flies over your head and sticks in the ground behind you. Oh, God. Good times. There's so many funny stories like that.

You know, when I was growing up, I was in a Fourth of July parade with a bunch of horses who had never been in a parade before. And they put us right behind the marching band. Well, I'll tell you, the brass section made a salvo and this big white horse named Lady, and she had pom-poms. She had pom-poms on the top of her head, and Howard was riding her. well, the other horses just like reared up or bucked or spun around spewing manure and lady charged right into the band. I mean, instruments went all over the place and manure all over the, it was a terrible experience. And their feet got stepped on, but nobody got killed. So that was.

Nobody fell down. Nobody was impaled. It's the most wonderful time of the year. But the horses didn't finish the parade. We all bowed out and went down Kenwood Avenue. The brass section didn't finish the parade either. That they didn't. It's like that scene in animal house, Chuck, when the fan goes down the alley, right,

and they just march them straight into the brick wall. And their trompones are smashed into them. the wall is nowhere to go. Just keep marching and file up. What was that movie? Animal house. It was kind of a big deal back in 78. Yeah, I didn't see it.

We got to go, but you'll appreciate this. This is a great Christmas memory for you, Chuck. It was August. And I was over it. Jeff Wilson's house. And Jeff was my best friend in high school. Big dude. And mom and Chuck know him well,

but picture in your mind's eye a very, a very, very big senior. And he was washing his truck. Full beard He was walking big, not fat. Yeah. Not fat, fat, walkie. Big, like a strong man. Yep. Muscular

and hairy. And just, he looked like a full grown man. He was like at 18 years old, he looked like a 30 year old. He was just a monster. Sweet guy. But he had a collie. And the collie's name was lady. And we We're out washing his truck.

And this woman, probably 30, is walking up the street. And it's hot outside the way it is in Christmas, in Baltimore. In August. Jeff is wearing a pair of shorts and no shirt. So it's just this giant, hairy man washing his badass pickup truck. Remember that green truck, Chuck? It was a great truck. Loved it, yeah.

We're washing a truck, and his dogs curled up at our feet, and about 30 feet away, this woman was walking up the street. Attractive woman. And the dog runs over to the woman and starts sniffing her crotch, right? Like, and lady was relentless with this, because she got a snout, like nine inches long, and she's just all up in this woman's business. And the woman's trying to be nice, but she's so embarrassed because she's got a skirt on. and the dog's face I mean all the way up there

it's just I mean it is unseemly and Jeff goes Lady no lady no and the dog won't stop and I'm sitting there watching this

and we're watching the car and Jeff steps out in the street he's half naked he's huge he's got his beard and he says Lady damn it get over here and the woman runs over to it

she's like all flushed and she pushes the dog and she literally runs over to Jeff like, yes? Can I be of assistants? Didn't know the dog? Don't you want to tell us her name? No.

Oh God. That poor Jeff was so embarrassed and then we started laughing and we could not stop laughing. This attractive woman standing there in the middle of Wayburn Avenue with a collie about a yard of snout up the bad place. And me and Jeff.

Just laughing hysterically as this woman stands there waiting for instructions. Lady, get over here. Lady, damn it! Get over here. Joy to the world. World the Lord is. Well, that was a nice Christmas show. It's right up there with a, it's a wonderful life.

And it's a Christmas story. Oh, tell us about the mugging again. The mugging where your friend was beaten senseless by the men in ho ho. But he wasn't robbed and he wasn't shot. That he stole alive. Way to make lemonade, peg. Way to make lemonade. Merry Christmas, everybody.

We'll be back in 2024, probably, underlined probably. Probably. I don't know. We're going to have some announcements to make regarding the podcast at a later date. I just don't know what they are yet. Perfect. Merry Christmas, everybody. Love you, Mom.

I'll call you later. Love you guys too. Merry Christmas to everybody. Lady, get over here, damn it. There's no podcast without a sponsor. Thank them for paying the fray. Please don't fast forward through their commercials. Even the ones you hate.

Yes, my friends, especially this time of here, it would be exceedingly rude to fast forward through the commercials of our dear friends in Field of Greens and Prize picks, American Giant, aura frames, zip recruiter, Netsweet, manscaped. Fun to use and fun to say, manscaped. And of course, our buddies over at Diggs and Life Fact, they're still saving lives, and who knows, one of them might be. be yours. Anyhow, sure do appreciate you all. Merry Christmas.