The Don Rosen Show (Hour 1)

I have friends who like to tell me about their dreams.

You guys have friends like that?

Tell you about their dreams.

They're always so excited.

Right?

People always get so excited about their dream.

Everyone thinks theirs is the weirdest.

We're at the weirdest dream.

Come on, it was so weird.

Come on.

And it's always this boring story.

Right?

Like, oh, we were on this boat going down a river.

But it was a river of gravy.

How weird is that?

And we weren't using an ore.

It was a Q-tip.

How weird is that?

You're like, it isn't weird at all.

It's boring.

There's a reason you were asleep during this.

And those are not just listening to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

It's 6.08 here at WRJN.

I'm Don Rosen.

I want to thank the joining us here today.

We're looking for partly sunny day today.

Scattered Fluries.

Highs near 27.

Part of cloudy tonight.

Lowes around 15.

And tomorrow increasing cloudy this with a high-neared 27.

Let me our guest warm up a little bit this morning.

Pete Wasselchuk is here from Doris for Tots.

Good morning.

I thought you were going to be on the phone with us this morning.

And you're outside.

Okay.

Well, you're warmed up a little bit now.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the heat's pretty good in this building.

Pete is from Text Reynolds Toys for Tots every time this year, this time of year.

They think about children that parents maybe aren't doing that well.

Can't afford the toys that kids want.

And they are expensive these days.

And that's where you come in.

Thanks for joining us.

Pete, what microphone?

A little bit closer.

When you're everywhere, you have to say and wouldn't miss anything here.

Okay.

Let's get a little history on Toys for Tots.

First of all, a lot of people say it's Text Reynolds Toys for Tots.

Who's Text Reynolds?

Text Reynolds was a colonist for the Journal Times.

And the history of Toys for Tots starts in 1929 with the local Racine boycott.

Who were distributing food and toys to the needy families in the area.

And they needed some help.

And at about the same time, Text Reynolds and some other community folks were getting together

and forming a group called the Goodfellers.

And ultimately, the boy scouts needed some financial assistance.

And the Goodfellers started being their benefactor.

And pretty soon, the Goodfellers actually took over the program.

The Scouts got out of it.

And they kept financing that Toys for Tots program starting about 1930.

So we've been doing this a very long time.

Now, is it year round or just a Christmas time we do this?

Well, we have a group of volunteers that have come in and it's year round.

We appreciate new Toys.

But our job is to fix used Toys.

And that's what we do year round.

So, in fact, today, when I leave here, our first day of distribution begins today.

So we will pack today for about 100 families.

They will come in tomorrow and pick their stuff up.

And then Wednesday will pack for another 100 families.

And Thursday, they'll come and pick their stuff up.

And we'll do that again next week as well.

That's a lot of Toys.

It's a lot of Toys.

Well, we work year round and we've got a lot of dedicated, great volunteers.

And so...

Well, and Toys today, you're not cheap.

Right.

You know, I was reading this story about children now that put their wish list,

the Christmas wish list on a PowerPoint presentation.

They actually do it with the pictures and everything.

And the story about a girl who put a six-minute PowerPoint presentation together.

And her total was $2,500 in Toys.

Yeah, I believe that.

We give out each child gets...

It's called a main gift.

And it's a package.

It's quite large about a garbage big size.

And then they'll get a number of books, games, puzzles.

And then they'll get a family gift.

And they register.

We started registering early in October.

And they can pick out a bicycle, a dollhouse, kitchen set.

So...

Now, is this just for the Racine City, or is it the Racine County?

Racine County.

Racine County.

And we are not the Marine Corps Toys for Tots.

We do get confused.

We are Tex Reynolds Toys for Tots.

Tex Reynolds, the name, his name was added in 1973.

After he passed away and the president and the board of directors at the time,

incorporated and they incorporated as Tex Reynolds Toys for Tots.

So since 1973, we've been Tex Reynolds Toys for Tots.

Sounds like a full-time job.

It is.

How many people are going to work in for you then?

We have about 45 that come in routinely into the shop and probably in other 40 or so

that put puzzles together, knit, crochet, make blankets.

These new toys are used.

Used.

Used toys.

All used.

You know, and 95% used.

I think back to when my parents gave me a toy once and I loved it.

And you think today they were cardboard blocks.

Yes.

And they were just a...

You put it together.

It's...

You know, it looked like a brick.

It was three times the size.

It looked like a brick.

And you put cardboard into it to hold it together so it didn't collapse.

And there were 12 of them.

And my brother and I played with those year round.

We used to build walls and try to knock it down with a tennis ball.

Shoot it out.

See how many we could knock down at the time.

Red, green, and blue.

They were red and brown.

Yeah.

They were red and brown, giant cardboard bricks.

I don't think you'd go over today.

You never know, though.

There's a little girl who my wife teaches piano to.

And one of her toys is...

It's like a sheet of paper.

Well, little things in it, bubbles you press in.

I forget what they're called.

But she loves those things.

And all you do is press them in.

They flip it over.

You press them out.

It's a simple toy.

It's not that expensive.

Right.

You can keep...

I keep her busy.

I like Scrabble.

I'm one of those people.

I got to tell you about games real briefly.

My son, Stepson, gave us an old game.

He likes board games.

He gave us an old game called Rear Window.

Remember the movie with James Stewart, Rear Window,

Alfred Hitchcock?

I do.

Yeah.

It's based on that.

It took us...

I had to watch a YouTube video on how to play it.

I had to watch a YouTube video on somebody playing it.

And I'm still under pressure since you're out of play the game.

Do they give board games to kids today?

Yes, we do.

We give out...

We have a games department.

So we have a few guys that are...

We check all the parts and pieces.

So we have...

If you have a board game with missing pieces,

I suspect we probably have that part.

Really?

We have shells of pieces, parts of games.

Now I know where to go.

Go back.

Decades.

Well, that's great.

You know, my wife collected boxes and boxes of the McDonald's toys they used to give out.

And not this Halloween, but the Halloween before she just said,

Everybody comes to the door.

It's going to get candy.

And the McDonald's toy.

She collected the Happy Meals toys for years.

We have these boxes in there.

I'll be nice to throw those in there.

They're pretty cute.

We have boxes of...

You do?

McDonald's.

Everything we do.

So where do you keep this stuff located?

So at one time, before 1974,

we had been in a number of different places.

The Naval Reserve Training Center,

Horlick Building,

a number of other places, garages and basements.

And we consolidated...

We are now in the basement of City Hall Annex,

800 Center Street.

And we've been there since 1974.

So...

I got to tell you,

I can't imagine what it looks like down there where all these toys must be.

A wonderland for people to work down there.

It is.

It's really...

People are absolutely surprised when they come through.

And we give them a tour.

And we've got a large workshop.

We've got woodworkers,

painters,

electricians.

We've got bike mechanics.

We have two doll departments.

One is a baby doll department.

The other is a Barbie.

We have a Barbie department.

Whoa.

And the funny thing is,

I have seen stores.

They're like dog clinics.

You bring them a sick doll.

A doll with a missing piece.

They'll repair it.

And there are people that do that for a living.

Just repair dolls.

We have an amazing doll department.

Do you get all the heads laying there on a shelf?

That would spook me out.

For the Barbie dolls, for example,

we have ladies that work from home

and they have the patterns.

And they make all our clothes.

Make the clothes?

Okay.

And so, the crocheters and

ladies that they make Irish lace for our bed spreads

and our curtains for our doll houses.

So, yeah, there's quite an organization.

And that's going to be a hot toy this year.

Barbie dolls.

Yeah, we'll see.

I think we've got a lot of them.

Because, you know, the Barbie's out there.

I gave my daughter for Christmas.

She's in her 40s.

Now, once she was small,

I gave her the Christmas Barbies.

And they were packaged with a date on them.

And they were a one-shot deal.

After this year,

you will never see them again.

Each year was separate.

So, we gave them to her.

And I said,

you could play with these dolls if you want to.

However, if you leave them in their package,

just put them on the shelf for decoration.

Some day, they might be worth something.

And she did.

Except for once, she opened the other four or five

she left sealed and she's got them.

I recently checked eBay.

The worth about exactly what I paid for.

I didn't go up.

They didn't go up in value.

I thought they would.

It's interesting.

We just got a donation.

And Lady called and said she had about 40 Christmas Barbies.

And I told her,

I said, well, you better check and see

if some of them are worth some money.

And she did.

And out of that,

we've got 21 Barbie Christmas Barbies in the box.

Hold on a second.

Pete Wastelcheck is here.

He is from Text Reynolds Toys for Tots.

We're going to tell you how you can donate toys.

And if you're in need,

we'll tell you how you can get toys.

That's all coming up right here at WRJN Radio.

It's 6.19 on your Monday morning.

You're looking for party study sky today

with scattered flurries and a high-tier 27th.

It's clear in 21 right now.

And we're talking to Pete Wastelcheck,

who is president of Text Reynolds Toys for Tots.

I didn't realize how many toys you have,

but there's never enough,

because there's more people in need than there are toys.

If somebody wants it to donate toys,

how do they go about doing that?

They can donate to,

we have drop-off spots,

the fire stations,

east of the interstate,

Caledonia Mount Pleasant South Shore,

and the city of Racine,

or the red shed at Quartendix is a drop-off point.

Oh, OK. Quartendix hardware, OK.

Or they can bring it down to our shop.

The hours are a little jumbled right now with distribution,

but starting right away,

the first Tuesday and January will be open.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 8 to 11.30.

And they can drop-off toys there.

And again, this isn't just a Christmas thing.

You can drop them off in March.

You can drop them off in May.

Oh, absolutely.

Because you don't want that onslaught coming in in the end of November,

where all the toys had to be repaired, packaged, and so forth.

In fact, our busiest season is rummage sale season.

You know, what doesn't sell comes to us,

and we fix it.

Well, it's great that you fix these toys,

and you have the parts to do it.

Yeah.

You know, I was looking for a CD cleaner,

not to clean CDs, but CD player.

You know, you stick them into the player,

and it cleans the lasers on there.

I talk to people, and it looks like I came from the year 1922.

I mean, they're talking to me like CD player.

Right.

Is that something you keep in your house?

And pretty soon, DVDs and Blu-rays,

is that something you used to watch those when you were a kid?

Well, where are those things come from?

And that's what happens with toys.

I mean, you bring up some of these toys that I used to have as a kid.

And what cardboard blocks?

Well, your family, what were they living in a box in the street?

But that was the toy of the day.

I'll tell you about a toy I had, which you can never get away with today.

It was called the Yankee Doodle Missile Launcher.

And you can see it online.

If you can do an image of it, they have it.

I think Mattelor has bro made the toy.

And it was, they got to remember the year.

This was the early 60s.

So it was the day of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It was all these missile things going on in the world.

And it was, it was a thing that opened up with two plastic windows.

And a Missile Launcher came out with a plastic wind and shot it.

Could you imagine putting that out to the day people getting shot in the eye with this Missile Launcher?

And it was a sharp point at the end of these missiles.

And they really shot out across the room.

You can see how toys cycle in and cycle out.

G.I. Joe's, of course, we still get them.

But we do get, we get a lot of antique, very collectible toys.

Two that, you know, we have to, when we get them, we have to take a look at them and search and see what.

Because some of this stuff we get is, is actually quite valuable.

What do you, would you cash it and use the cash to buy something else?

Yeah, we do that.

We do that.

We do that.

Now people can make cash donations as well.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And because that, you, you ever go out and buy, buy toys?

Rarely.

Usually for the older kids, we don't get as much stuff.

But not this year.

We're well stocked for this year or so.

Good.

Computer games, are they too expensive to deal with?

We get them.

But we don't know what kind of systems they have at home.

So it's hard to, you know, we get left handed baseball gloves and we don't know who's getting it.

So, you know, what do you do?

They have those.

Well, they don't, we get plenty.

My daughter's left handed.

Well, there you go.

And we got her a pair of scissors, you know, left handed scissors.

And the school said, you can't bring your own scissors in.

She'll have to learn to use the right handed scissors.

And I said, we need to learn to use the lefty.

And she had to learn to use, because people don't realize if you're left handed

and you try to use right handed scissors, it kind of separates the two things.

It doesn't work right.

And we bought her all these left handed things.

They said, you better learn just the right handed world.

And she's got to learn to work with that.

So, what do they make donations if they want to do that?

Mail them in.

What do they do?

Mail them to text Reynolds Toys for Tots at 800 Center.

Yeah.

800 Center Street Racine.

53403.

That's 800 Center Street Racine.

Yeah.

53403.

This is...

And you say it started back in 1929, right, during the Depression.

Yeah.

Right.

And by the way, he said, good fellers.

Not good fellers.

Like the Martin Scorsese gangster movie.

It is good fellers.

Gee, I didn't know the good fellers.

Well, the mob was...

No, it's good fellers.

It's a little bit different than...

Whatever it spoke to you, it said, good fellers.

So how many people do you deliver into this year?

We should be in the...

Over 400 families.

I hope.

Wow.

We were...

In years past, it was higher than that.

Really?

Yeah.

COVID knocked us for a loop.

We were out of service for a year.

But we're coming back.

And so we're hoping for 800 and 150 kids.

That's great.

Yeah.

What are the...

Is there certain aids you started from babies to 10 years old?

Oh, that's good.

Those are good toy years.

Yeah.

We had...

Room right now.

It doesn't allow us to go...

We were higher in the past, but we had to kind of...

pair back a little bit.

Here's another toy I got once.

It was a real looking pistol, a handgun.

It was a cap pistol.

Yeah.

And you had a round disk of caps you put in there.

And I remember you were allowed to bring it to school for show and tell.

Think anything of it.

It was back in the 60s.

And the teacher fired it off in the classroom today.

Yeah.

We get them.

We get them.

You get guns, too.

Well, we get guns.

We get cap pistols.

You know, unopened with the cap sets right there.

And we don't give them out.

Yeah.

It looks so real.

Yeah.

We do get something that look really real.

Okay.

I'm going to take some of my favorite toys on as a kid.

Mr. Machine.

I don't know if I've ever heard of that.

You can look it up.

You can Google the image of it.

Mr. Machine is still there.

And it was.

It was like a little bit foot high.

And he would walk when you wound him up.

But he had in there like 300 gears.

And it was see through.

And the trick was take it apart.

Kids put it back together again.

And there's no instructions on it.

You just had to remember what you did.

And use logic and how to put it together.

And I remember I had this for several months.

I loved it.

I took it apart.

I couldn't get it back together again.

And there's no instructions to it.

So, you know, you took it apart.

And you never played with it again.

And that's what happened to Mr. Machine.

And it's funny how you remember your favorite toys.

You must have a favorite toy.

Hold on just a minute.

We're talking to Pete Wasseljuck from Toys for Tots.

I want you to give me some of your favorite toys

when you were a kid.

Okay.

Give you a chance to think about it.

You did have toys when you were a kid, right?

Sure.

Everybody had toys.

Some kind of toys when they were a kid.

And then I want to talk about how you qualify

to get toys for Tots.

How you qualify for it.

And we'll have to talk about that coming up in just a moment

with Pete.

Partly sunny today.

He scattered snow flurries with a high-tiered 27.

Partly cloudy tonight.

Lowes around 15.

It's the back two weeks ago with 63 degrees outside.

Increasing cloudy this tomorrow with a high-tiered 27.

Right now it's 21 degrees.

A clear sky at 629.

I'm Don Rosen.

You're at WRJN 1400A.

I'm 99.9 FM.

98.1 FM.

Here we go.

That song is written by Carol King.

And the big hit was by the charelles as you hear.

And I interviewed Carol King at this very station several years ago

as she was promoting an event.

And it's the only interview I've ever done in my life

where the person didn't want to do it.

And I had her on the phone and she says,

you know, I really don't want to do this interview.

I said, we're going on a 10 seconds, Carol.

And I got one word answers.

And I even tried to schmooze a little bit.

I said, you know, your tapestry album is a legendary album.

So many said, yeah.

Nothing I can do to get it to talk.

Now when I got it, when I brought it up,

I was like, you know,

I was like, you know,

you know, you know,

you know, you're tapestry album is a legendary album.

So many said, yeah.

Nothing I can do to get it to talk.

Now when I got it,

when I brought up the organization,

she was promoting.

She did it in about 30 seconds.

And she said,

thank you.

She goes, you're welcome.

You hear the phone clicking the background.

That was fast.

She was the only interview I've done in my life.

I don't think it was against me.

I just think she didn't want to do it.

So every time I hear her songs,

I think,

and she has a Broadway musical based on her life.

And she's doing real well still.

And she's winning Grammys and accolades.

And

that was my life.

Pete Wasselchuk is here.

He's the president of Tex Reynolds toys for tots.

You said there is the Marine Corps toys for tots,

but not to get them confused.

This one's local for Racine County.

Right.

So that's good.

Okay.

We talked about people donate toys.

How do people receive them for their families?

We begin registration.

They come in and register in person.

And registration starts the beginning of October.

And

registration will continue through this week.

And I think through the 5th of December,

that'll be the last registration day.

So if they'll be coming in,

once the people start coming and picking up their stuff,

which will be tomorrow,

the first 100 families will pick up tomorrow.

Then word really gets out and they'll start registering.

You know, there's an income,

the income limits on this.

Yeah, what we do is we take the federal poverty guidelines

and essentially multiply it by two.

So I mean, we, it's,

there certainly can be some income.

But in this day and age,

it's still their in need.

So I think everybody's in need.

And you mentioned COVID.

That kind of put everybody in check.

Yeah, it did.

It put a lot of people out of work.

It put a lot of businesses out of business.

People where people worked.

And also made change the way people work.

People work from home.

The companies realized,

well, we don't need that many employees anymore.

We can do without that.

And you know,

it's, there's some positions that,

you know, you have to still have.

But some of them they realize you don't have to.

And kids don't care about that.

You know, I was growing up.

I can never, ever remember any time in my life

growing up for my parents ever mentioned money.

I, I didn't know it at the time.

We lived in the Bronx.

And my dad bought our house on Long Island.

And he was a vet.

So he was like $10 down just to hold the house.

He had to go run to Brooklyn to get his $10 from his brother

to go put down on the house.

And kids, we didn't know this stuff.

We didn't know my, you know, my parents had money or not.

They turned out later in life to be very wealthy.

But when they started, you know, my parents, you know,

come Christmas time, you got your toys.

You know, I don't know what their situation was.

And it's good.

You, the kids shouldn't know what your situation is.

It's none of their business.

Yeah.

In the next two weeks, what makes it all worthwhile is to see these people.

And we'll, we'll assist them and we'll help them load their car.

Yeah.

Because they get a substantial package and bundle of stuff.

Excellent.

And, uh, but they'll be leaving with a tear in their eye.

And it's, that's rewarding.

You wrap them.

Now I'm going to cry right now.

Stop it.

Do you, uh, do you wrap them or people have to wrap their own?

They have to, they wrap their own.

Okay.

But I mean, everything is bagged and ready to go.

They just have to separate it.

So we, uh, and our, our gifts are based on, uh, so we have one to babies.

And then we have one to two year olds, three to four year olds, boys and girls,

up to, uh, nine and ten year olds.

So it's all packaged and labeled already.

So when we call it shopping one today,

we'll have a bunch in there and they'll, they'll grab a bag of items.

I bet you they're, I bet you they're appreciative too.

Yeah.

Actually, yeah, they've, all the recipients are appreciative and actually all the workers

just have a blast doing it.

I, yeah, I can imagine.

Uh, it's telling you briefly for the break, there was a toy.

And tell you how toys can change your life.

Forget about my, my, my cardboard bricks.

I didn't change my life.

It was fun, but they didn't change my life.

In 1962 or 63, I mean, what year was my parents bought me a Rempo Carabell radio.

And I'm going to show you a picture of it during the break.

And it was, um, it was a blue radio.

It wasn't so much a radio where you can play radio stations on it.

You can transmit on there to radios in the house.

And I soon learned that if I put it near the wire, the antenna wire right on my telephone

in the kitchen, this is before cell phones.

I mean, everybody had phones in their kitchen.

It went on the radio, it went on the wires to the phone system.

And so within like six or seven houses, they can hear me on their AM radio,

whatever I dialed it to.

And so now I had a radio station in my house.

And I learned how to expand that by putting the wire in the garage

what the terminal was.

Now you can hear me the whole block.

But their radio has had to be near their phones to hear it.

And I got an automatic reversing reel to reel recorder a couple of years later.

So I was able to broadcast 24 hours a day, just put eight hours of music on

and it played back and forth all day long.

And so now I had a 24 hour a day radio station.

I just had to change the little square nine volt battery in the Remco carabelle.

And I was on the air 24 hours a day.

And I turned my, we had the boiler room in the basement.

I said to my dad, can I make this my radio station?

He said, yes.

And so now I had everything in there.

Now I'm about 12 or 13 years old now.

Now I'm a little, and I've got oldest equipment in there.

I got a better transmitter from Lafayette Radio Electronics,

which is no longer in business.

And based on this one toy, I built a, this is my career, 51 years in radio.

But here's something, I lost track of the Remco carabelle, like toys.

If they get thrown out, they get old and your parents chuck them.

About five years ago, my son found the Remco carabelle mint condition

on eBay and bought it to me for Christmas.

I opened that box and I was like, it was like 1963 all over again.

Wow, look what I got.

And up until the week ago, because I had to redo the room at home,

I had it there and every morning I'd wake up and see that Remco carabelle

to remind me of where I started.

And it was in mint condition.

The box, not so much, but I didn't care about that.

So he said, does it work?

I said, I don't care if it works.

I just want to look at it.

And there it was.

And it's great when you get an old toy on eBay from your childhood.

And it doesn't, you don't want to play with it.

You're soon to look at it.

And that Remco carabelle started me in radio.

50, well, how many years ago when I was a little kid?

And there was still friends of mine who I stayed in contact with on Facebook

that occasionally bring up.

Remember the radio station you had in our neighborhood?

We used to listen, used to play our requests and everything.

That's a toy.

So you never know what toys do for kids.

You must have had some memorable toys.

Well, my first radio was a crystal radio with a 20 foot wire

that I attached to the neighbor's house.

So that was an 1899 turn of the century.

But that's mostly outdoor stuff, baseball stuff.

And I did have an erector set.

And we get, we still get quite a few erector sets.

Oh, erector sets.

Oh, yeah.

I never knew my brother got one.

And the motorized sets.

I got probably three of them sitting around by my workstation.

Do you remember the chemistry sets you used to get?

I had a chemistry set.

And what did you make stink bombs with it?

You had all these things you could have been doing with it.

Did you make the stink bombs?

I did.

Everybody made these stink bombs.

I don't know what the purpose of it was,

but we all did, we all these chemistry sets

and bringing up the Remko camera room.

Anything was sulfur.

Yeah.

You used to make these stinky things

and put them all over the house for people.

And your parents said, well, that's not what really had in mind.

Okay, this was the box.

Here it is, right here.

I'll show it to you.

And this is what mine looks like today.

Look at that.

Remko caravill radio.

It's in mint condition.

The box is kind of, you know, iffy.

But where he found that.

When I opened up that box and I said,

first of all, how did you know about it?

I may have mentioned the Remko caravill in passing.

But where did you find this?

He goes, you can find anything on eBay.

People who didn't go sell anything.

He wouldn't tell me what he paid for it.

I don't want to know.

But it was kind of nice.

You know, toys are great.

And the Toys for Tots campaign.

Now, this is Tex Reynolds Toys for Tots.

It's been going on since 1929 in different forms.

And you guys are on your own now.

You said, good fellers is no longer.

Yeah.

So you're on your own.

Well, our major benefactor is.

Yeah.

Is no longer with us.

Is that a big hit?

Substantial.

Yeah.

So we're searching new funding sources.

And, you know, times change.

You know, newspapers aren't what they used to be.

Right.

Right.

And it used to be, you know, when you grow it up,

the newspapers controlled everything.

You know, this radio station was owned by a newspaper.

And the newspaper was the big thing.

The radio used to work to sell newspapers.

And not quite like that anymore.

And people that find new sources of income.

Well, the good fellers had the empty stocking fund every Christmas season.

The envelope in the journal times would come out to everybody.

And, but that is no longer.

Yeah.

You get me all welled up here talking about all this stuff.

Well, these children and so forth.

What are the most, what's some of the most unusual stuff you, you got that you couldn't find replacement parts for.

It was just way out.

You can remember any, any toys?

Well, they are crook and manufacture anything wood.

So if it's a spindle missing off a tight chair or crib or something, you know, they can make that.

Some of the older modeled bicycles, you know, when the, you know, the fat tires.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some of those.

You mentioned finding your radio.

We have people that say, you know, we'll see it one of the old bikes come in.

And they say, you know, I had a bicycle just like that when I was little.

And so they'll, you know, make a donation.

And it's yours, you know.

So people find things that, you know, they're favorite toys back when.

And our volunteers, I should say.

And if they, they find something and make a donation and it's yours.

Let's, in case people are just tuning in, this is a text Reynolds toys for tasks.

You can make a donation.

Several locations.

You said, Cortondix Ace Hardware has a red shed in the parking lot.

Red shed, we can drop them off there.

800 Center Street in Racine, you can drop them off there.

Right.

What's up?

Who else?

Where else?

All the fire stations east of the interstate.

Oh, okay.

They're there.

They've been Racine County.

Racine County.

East of the interstate.

Racine County.

Yeah.

They've been wonderful for us.

Okay.

So anybody can drop off toys now if you want to be recipient for your children.

Again, the process is.

Come into our workshop.

Our registrations will continue this week.

And I think I believe it ends December 5th.

Bring in a birth certificate or a medical card or immunization card for your kids.

Just one.

You don't have to bring it all in.

And then we'll register you and you'll choose some from some of our family gifts,

which could be bicycles.

And we'll probably give out over 100 bicycles this year.

We have plenty in stock.

I can't believe all the toys you have.

I never imagined it was that many.

Yeah.

It's the warehouse.

It is.

It's a good portion of the basement at City Hall Annex.

So.

Well, that's terrific.

And again, donate year round is not just a Christmas thing.

They give me out of Christmas, but it's a year round thing.

And you don't want a big.

A lot of them coming in at the last second.

They're going to be for Christmas because it's very hard to get them together.

But you would like them year round.

After Christmas, maybe you could get a toy they didn't want.

That happens.

You know, kids aren't delicate about it, but they say,

Oh, thank you very much.

I don't want that.

Kill that.

Or adults would say, oh, that's nice.

And then just put it away and bring it out when the company comes again.

Thank you very much, Pete.

Now you are a welcome guest here year round.

Do you want to have a toy drive again?

And it's in the middle of the year.

It's under the summer.

You can contact me.

Pete was also Chuck president of Tex Reynolds Toys for Tots.

800 Center Street, or you can court in Dix A's Hardware.

Or you can drop off at any fire station east of the interstate in Racine County.

Thank you, Pete.

You're welcome.

It's WRJN651 on the Monday morning.

The sun is coming up 21 degrees.

Looked for partly sunny weather all day.

Today's scattered Flurry's eyes near 27.

Part of the cloudy tonight lows around 15.

Tomorrow increasing cloudy miss eyes near 27.

We really can't complain about the weather.

We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend yesterday.

A little snowy, but it was nothing really that horrible.

Again, 6.51 at WRJN 1400 AM 99.9 and 98.1 FM.

Now this is interesting.

We just got done talking with Pete.

I have a fact he'd still here.

Got a poll here.

19% of people said they would be grateful to receive a used gift for Christmas.

Now I'm not talking children anybody.

And the list of the top second handgifts include books, DVDs, CDs and jewelry.

I mean, jewelry is always welcome, but DVDs and CDs with me.

If it's something I like, I don't care if it's used.

I buy used stuff all the time.

If I like it, I like it.

I had something I was going to say about used gifts here for a second.

We had another poll on used gifts.

Oh, when people get a gift and there was a poll that said,

what would you do if somebody gave you a used gift?

Most people said they'd be gracious about it and just accept the gift and say,

thank you.

There are people that actually would say, I don't want this.

Could you imagine getting a gift and saying to somebody, I don't want this,

but they do it.

A poll also found the most common Christmas blunders this time of year,

leaving tags on gifts.

I was wearing my new winter coat here for a week.

Not realizing the tag was still on it.

I didn't notice it, but I didn't give it away.

It was mine.

Running out of wrapping paper on Christmas Eve,

that's when you start using the old paper bags from the supermarket or newspapers.

Not getting someone a gift when they got you a gift.

Now, here's something that happens all the time.

Real close to Christmas, maybe Christmas Eve, a neighbor who comes over,

they give you a gift and you didn't get them one.

So now, racing through your mind is, do I have anything in the house I don't need?

I can quickly say, we've got this for you.

And it happens where you, you know, somebody gives you a gift and you don't have one.

The best thing to say is say, thank you.

Send them a thank you card with a gift card in there or something.

And of course, waking up with a hangover on Christmas day, you don't want to do that.

The holidays, always a little extra pressure this time of year to tip people.

How do you tip them?

Well, if you have a housekeeper, they say the average tip is $50.

Baby sitters or daycare providers, $50.

Teachers, $25.

Usually in the form of a small gift, you don't want to give you a teacher cash.

Physical looks kind of suspicious all of a sudden.

Your son's got to see average in school and it shoots up to an A after the cash gift was given.

So you want to be very careful.

I'm giving cash to a teacher.

We used to always give the teacher perfume.

I remember when she used to open up her presence in the classroom.

She must have got 25 bottles of perfume and perfume is kind of a personal thing.

I mean, if you don't like the smell of it, you don't ever use it.

Landscaping or gardeners, $30.

I think the limit, I think by law, there are only a lot of $20 max.

I think that's it.

We usually get a gift card for a letter carrier.

Trash or recycling collector in average of $20.

When I was growing up in my town, I grew up in a mass of people in New York.

Our neighbor was, wasn't a postmaster, but he was like a supervisor.

And he didn't deliver mail except around Christmas time.

He delivered the mail and that was to get the gifts.

I still remember his name.

Mr. Mellow was his name.

And we always knew it.

He always came around to Christmas time and got the gifts.

46% of Americans believed the most stressful part of the holiday season.

You would think it would be buying gifts for people or wrapping gifts for people and stuff like that.

It's not.

It's the holiday parties and preparing food for people with different dietary needs.

Very more concerned about that than talking politics at the dinner table.

By the way, there were three things you can't discuss at the dinner table.

Politics, religion and the amount of Christmas music to be played on the radio.

People always had different feelings about that and speaking about Christmas music.

Time magazine searched copyrights to find out which Christmas songs have been recorded the most.

Have any guesses?

Which Christmas songs are been...

And these are copyrighted versions of the songs because anybody can put out a song.

The top three, and they're very religious.

They're not the Winter Wonderland type songs.

Have any guesses on that?

A little ton of Bethlehem.

No, but that's a good guess.

It's that type of music.

Number three was O Holy Night.

374 copyrighted recordings.

Joy to the world.

Give me number two, a 391.

Silent Night.

733 different copyrighted recordings of it.

Not just people who made a recording.

They have to be copyrighted.

Silent Night, which is probably one of the oldest Christmas songs I think,

goes back to what the 1600s or something.

That was way back there.

The majority of Americans admit they'd rather marry someone from New York.

They'd rather marry someone from money over love, hard to believe.

56% of people say that marrying someone who provides financial security is more important

than marrying someone because they're head over heels in love with them.

Well, I didn't have money when I got married, so it must have been love.

I can't help it.

Get that out of it.

So that's how I guess that.

Let's see if we got to squeezing one or two more here.

New Paul asked, what can you give the person who has everything?

Like Pete's got everything in life.

So what do you give somebody like that?

The top three were chocolate.

I'll let a gift baskets and gift guards.

That's kind of neat.

You know, the comedian once said about gift guards.

And a gift cards are nice to give to people.

He said, you give somebody a gift card to a store.