WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Sidebar: A Grandma's 25th Birthday, a Not-So-Fun Fungus, and an Explosive Room Makeover

Episode Date: March 2, 2024

In this episode of Sidebar on Radio Free Hillsdale, Lauren Scott, Maddy Welsh, and guest host Logan Washburn discuss wacky news stories about a centenarian’s 25th birthday, a not-so-fun fungus, an explosive decor item, and more. Then Logan quizzes Lauren and Maddy to see if they can determine which of his three zany stories is a lie. 

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. This is Sidebar, the show where we bring you the news you probably won't find on the front page. I'm Lauren Scott. I'm Maddie Welsh. And I'm Emily Moneyhan. Just kidding. That's actually our guest host for the week, Logan Washburn. Hey, guys.

Today we'll be talking about a 100-year-old woman's 25th birthday, a not-so-fun fun fungi infestation. a bomb room decoration, and more. Then our guest host, Logan, will read us three stories, and we'll see if we can determine which one is fake. Now let's get into it. Our first story this week is about a great-grandmother celebrating her 25th birthday. This story is from UPI, and it says, A 100-year-old Oklahoma woman is celebrating her 25th birthday Thursday

after being born on Leap Day in 1924. Mary Forsyth was recognized by the centenarians of Oklahoma and the city of Sand Springs issued a proclamation marking her 100th birthday. But Forsyth has only had her February 29th birthday roll around every four years. She said non-leap years were an excuse to have birthday parties on multiple days. She's a mother of two, a grandmother of five, and a great-grandmother of 11. I'm really glad she has this outlook about being born on Leap Day. Because I feel like I would be a little sad if my birthday was on leap day because I would kind of feel like my birthday was non-existent.

But it's happy to see that she just took it as an opportunity to actually celebrate her birthday on multiple days. So I'm very happy for her. Exactly. It just means she's still young. Exactly. I actually, my sister has a friend who was born on leap day, so February 29th. and she asked him like, oh, so like, when do you celebrate your birthday when it's not a leap year? And he's like, I don't.

And I was like, that's crazy. Imagine just not celebrating your birthday. I mean, I guess the day doesn't really exist. But I feel like if I was born on a leap day, I would just celebrate February 1st. No, not February. It would be March 1st. I wonder how that works when you turn 21. If you were born on a leap day and you turn 21, I'm born.

on a non-leap year, when do they consider you 21? Do they consider you on February 28th or on March 1st? I kind of feel like they would have to do March 1st. I think that would make the most sense, but also that is such an interesting question. And I feel like there's probably a law about it. I feel like there would have to be. Enough people were born on leap day. They'd have to make a law about it.

But something to ponder, something to maybe look into and figure out. Wait, so she just had her 25th birthday. Does that mean that she has only been able to drink for four birthdays? Yeah, I guess that would make sense. Our next story is also coming from UPI about an angry raccoon sign. And we have a clip to play from KREM 2 News. A traffic sign near Audubon Park in Spokane has got some attention. Apparently, it got hacked. And it was supposed to be saying something about

traffic, but it said angry raccoons ahead. So the sign is getting a lot of laughs from drivers. The city, though, they weren't amused. Crews made their way out and they were able to correct it in just a few hours. But we learned it was because someone forgot to lock up the box when they left. So it wasn't very hard to get in there and change the message. I was going to say, how certain are we that there weren't angry records? You know, you never know. It's possible. Yeah. So yeah, pretty far. funny. The article talks about how the people who work for traffic control were just very thankful that this was a friendly prank and that there wasn't anything inappropriate on the sign.

Kind of makes me want to go look for unlocked road signs. I've never thought about that before, but that would be a pretty funny prank. For legal reasons, that is a joke. 100% a joke would never mess with road signs. I was just picturing drivers, driving down the road, and getting ambushed by a giant crowd of angry raccoons. I don't know why also.

Imagine if you stumble on this amazing treasure of an unlocked road sign that you can write whatever you want. What would you write, Logan? I don't know. I really. don't know, but they should be lucky that it was angry raccoons instead

of something else. This kind of reminds me of something that I did right after I graduated high school with my friends. It's a little crazy, but not that crazy. I think I'm okay to say it on air. Me and my friends took a traffic cone one time

and we went to the store and bought a bunch of pink, girly duct tape and glittery paint. And we took the traffic cone and we covered it in the duct tape and the paint and then we put it back and the traffic cone remained pink and girly that way for a couple of weeks that's funny that's creative it seems like a pretty harmless little prank yeah but we like had to put the traffic cone in our car temporarily

and like take it with us so we didn't steal it it it was just in our car temporarily and we put it We borrowed it. We borrowed it and we gave it a glow up. I bet the workers near the cone really appreciated it. It probably made their day. Yeah, it was by my friend's house. So even when I left for college, she would send me pictures of it from time to time being like,

it's still there. She's still going strong. Something funny about the story, I think, is that the last paragraph says, Workers at the nearby Little Garden Cafe said multiple customers had mentioned the sign. They said Audubon Park is infamous for its squirrel population, but they were not aware of any reports of raccoon-related incidents. It seems the sign was not true in any way.

Should it have said angry squirrels ahead? Maybe that could have been a little bit more believable. Well, we'll see if there are any updates on this next week. For the next story, we have not angry raccoons ahead, but nearly 200 escaped goats. Goats ahead. Nearly 200 escaped goats wandered a Texas neighborhood recently in Arlington, according to UPI. Nearly 200 of these goats brought to a Texas park to clear unwanted plants escaped from their fence and went wandering through nearby neighborhoods in Arlington. The Arlington Police Department said the goats were employed by the city to clear plants

like poison ivy and poison oak, but they eventually escaped their fence. The police responded after multiple calls from residents who reported a large number of goats wandering through their yards. The department also shared body cam footage, showing officers helping animal wranglers round up the hungry herd and return them to the natural area. This is the wording of the article. Animal wranglers. I didn't know that was a thing, but apparently it's a very needed job in cases like this. Well, I didn't know it was a thing where they were would actually bring in animals to clear out areas. But I think that's pretty genius.

They did this in Oregon, actually. In my neighborhood, there was a side of a hill covered in ivy. So the city put up some fences and brought in a herd of goats, and we'd see them there for a couple months, just eating the ivy. That's actually really cute and wholesome. It seems like two birds with one stone, you know? You get to clear the invasive stuff and the, you know, the live sock get some food, I guess. Yeah.

I love a quote in this article from the city's assistant director of Parks and Recreation. It says, I can't promise plants weren't eaten that weren't supposed to be eaten, but no goats were injured. And I consider that a win. I agree. The story includes a video of the body cam footage that was. taken and it's not really worth playing because it's just some guy like making commentary on it and it kind of goes on but it is quite funny and a very funny visual so would highly recommend looking at the story and watching that video absolutely yeah and i live near arlington when i go back

home and i can't imagine seeing a bunch of escaped goats like i am from texas and there are goats in certain places in the more rural areas but not really in arlington i usually expect to to see six flags there, not goats. Arlington is smack dab in the middle of Fort Worth and Dallas, which is itself a giant metroplex too. So it's kind of crazy to me that they're like smack dab in the middle of this huge city and they've got goats running around. Just kind of reminds you that it's their world too.

We're just living in it. I think we should introduce this practice in Hillsdale. I think it would be great. Wait, that would be so cute. Did they bring in little goats on campus to eat the weeds? Yeah. Well, we have a deer problem. So what we need to do is bring in bears to go after the deer.

Lions or something. Yeah, lions. No, okay, think about this. This would actually be a great move on Hillsdale's part because maybe they could not have to hire as many maintenance people. If they just had a herd of goats that would do some lawn work. So you want to get rid of jobs? I'm not saying we should. should fire people. I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is that maybe we wouldn't have to

hire more people if we just invested in some goats. But wouldn't the lions eat the goats when we bring them in? No, scratch the lions. No, we need the lions. We need the lions. The deer are invasive, Lauren. You know, the city actually had a program where they would hire people to perch up in the trees and shoot the deer. And apparently this was something they needed. Like with guns? When was this? I think it may have been bows and arrows. Wait, actually, no. We wrote a city news story about that. It was like you had to register for it and get approved. And then you could hunt them on either your land or I think someone else's land if they gave you approval or something like that. That was a more recent version of this. But apparently a

few years ago, again, this is hearsay just from what I've heard around. But apparently a couple years ago, this is what they did. And they would hire people to come in and they would perch in the trees in the town and hunt the deer. So maybe the lions would be maybe a more humane way of doing this. A little less risky. No. I do not endorse this. Maybe we go with the goats. You're listening to Sidebar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. And now it's time to play Emily's little game. However, Emily is not here because she had a job interview in Texas.

So filling in for her, as you may have noticed, is Logan Washburn. So Logan has been kind enough to prepare the game that Emily usually prepares, which consists of finding two true news stories and then making up one. And then it is the job of me and Maddie to find out which one is the lie. So, Logan, go ahead and tell us the first story. All right. For the first story, we have Winston Churchill's false teeth purchased at auction. False teeth that Winston Churchill wore as he made his We Shall Fight Them on the Beach's speech,

were purchased at auction for 17,000 pounds. What? What outlet is that from? Do you? Oh, I didn't take note of the outlets. Is this part of the game? Sure, you did it. I didn't for any of them, so...

You know, I didn't know that Churchill had false teeth. Or maybe he didn't. You know, everyone's like, George Washington this, George Washington not, including talk about his dentures. Why haven't I heard about Winston Churchill having fake teeth? Maybe it's because he actually didn't. I don't know. Why were being so aggressive to him so fast? Yeah, this is a...

There could be merit to this. You know, there's some concrete. details here that, you know, would be difficult to make up, especially in short notice. Can I say that I think Dr. Arn would purchase Winston Churchill's teeth if he could? Yeah, continue reading the story. Who bought it? Just kidding, you don't have to. Yeah. I don't think it said who bought the teeth, so it could be Dr. Arn. Sure. So for the second story, foul stench sweeping across city blamed on cattle ship. We Are in Hell, one resident wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Officials launched an investigation and inspected sewage facilities for leaks before the source of the smell was discovered. A ship docked in the harbor carrying 19,000 live cattle from Brazil to Iraq. We Are in Hell is an amazing opening quote. I agree. That's just so funny. There's part of me that thinks this maybe could be fake because it seems very on-brand for you to write a story about cattle. And then also it says X formerly known as Twitter.

Also seems like a little detail you would include. That's like standard now, though. That's like industry standard to write that. Yeah, it is. However, people still are a bad journalist and don't do it. I'll take that as a compliment. It is. For our listeners, Logan and Lauren are engaged.

So Lauren is really going to be good at psychoanalyzing him here. That's true. We'll see if she's good enough to figure this out. Oh, okay. If not, the wedding's off. That's a joke. You heard it here first. All right.

What's our third story? For the third story, City of Wead, California passes ordinance banning cannabis dispensaries. A Weed City Councilperson said they passed the measure to combat rising crime and homelessness, despite an expected loss of $125,000 annually in tourism revenue. Hmm.

This is funny. I feel like this one's real. Might be too funny. I just, I don't know, that is like some serious cosmic irony if this is true. I kind of hope it's true. So what are your thoughts? I don't know. I would say number two is the lie.

I think that's what my gut is telling me. There's a tendency that I want to say the Churchill one, but I think I'm just going to like full on say, I think, number two is the one that you made up. I think that the third one is the lie, because I think that I can imagine you having fun writing that. You know, like it sounds, it just sounds like it's made up. That's my guess.

Do you both have to come to a consensus or? No, we can have our own guess. Lauren, Maddie's right. What? Yeah. I just thought it was like too obvious. Like, how did you come up with that? I just thought about like kind of funny news stories.

I was like, wait, weed California is a place. Is it actually? Yeah, I drove through it once when I was like 13. Did you never? I didn't smoke weed there. Wow. Well, I feel like I don't even know who you are anymore. Let me tell you a secret, Lauren.

What? When I was doing the research for the show today, I read the one about the cattle. But I didn't tell you because... Okay, so Maddie cheated. Maddie's a cheetah. I just actually prepared for the show. So what about the Churchill one? Do you think that's journalistic integrity of you?

Moran, the point of this game is lying. Fair point. Yeah, what is the... What's with the Churchill one? Yeah, the Churchill one is true. Did Larry Arne buy the false teeth? I have no idea who it was. It was probably him. We should ask him next time we see him.

Yeah. For legal reasons, this is a joke. You are listening to Sidebar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. And this story is about an apartment with some bad feng shui. The headline says, roommates forced to flee 1650 a month apartment after mushrooms grow through their floorboards. The story says, cousins Alyssa Barton 32 and Laura Norbury, 24, were forced to flee their 1650 a month apartment after discovering massive mushrooms growing through their floor. The roommates claimed no mushrooms were visible when they moved into the UK property, but they soon saw the fungus growing behind their television with more sprouting up through the floorboards in the coming weeks.

There are some insane photos on this story and a video kind of zooming in on all the mushrooms. And it's just crazy to see. This is pretty crazy. I don't understand how the mushrooms got that big without them noticing. Like one day did they just decide, yeah, this is too crazy we're leaving? Because they're like the size of the palm of your hand, it looks like. Something interesting about mushrooms is that the part of the mushroom that you actually see is like the smallest part of it. it's like the tip of the iceberg.

Like the actual mushroom is a huge system that is like underground usually. So the, I don't know where like the roots of this is called the mycelium. I learned this in my biology class at Hillsdale College. I don't know where that was in this apartment for these huge mushrooms to be coming through. That means the mycelium was huge. Yeah, this is not a very fun story. especially considering the fact that in the article, the girls who live there said that it actually started to smell really bad. I would not want to be living in an apartment with mushrooms growing, especially if they smelled bad.

When I was a kid, I had a friend, like a family friend who had mushrooms growing in their bathroom, which was really fascinating to me as a child. Yeah. That's crazy. They're probably going to have mushrooms growing through the rest of the half of the half. soon. Our next story is coming from Fox News, and it is about a contractor who finds a World War II grenade hidden behind a wall while remodeling a bathroom in Seattle. The story reads, A contractor recently came across a historic discovery as he was renovating a client's bathroom in Seattle, Washington. He was ripping out a bathtub when he saw a grenade between the studs.

This is pretty scary. Later in the story, they did determine, like, they called the bomb squad out. I mean, they determined that the grenade was not live. But he didn't know that at first. So he was just assuming the worst at that point. I think it would be pretty easy. Maybe it wasn't. But it can be really easy to tell if it's, like, disarmed or not live.

Because my brother and I, we would go to an army surplus store in Portland. and they actually had grenades for sale. They were not live, and you could tell, because the bottom of it was drilled out and it was hollow. So my brother actually bought one, and for years he had it on the shelf in his room. So, you know, sometimes grenades aren't all that bad. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing, Logan.

You're welcome. You have been listening to Sidebar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. You can find previous episodes, of Sidebar online at sidebar.transistor.fm. Once again, you've been listening to Sidebar with your host, Lauren Scott, Maddie Welsh, and Emily Money Hun.

I mean, Logan Washburn.