I grew up in the Eastern Time Zone.
I now live in the Pacific Time Zone.
And what's weird living out there,
when anybody from the Eastern Time Zone
leaves a voice message,
they always feel they have to compute the time difference.
I'm always getting messages,
hey Brian, it's four o'clock my time.
That's one o'clock your time.
Ooh.
I know what time it is where I am.
I have a friend who does that all the time.
He recently left this message,
Brian, do me a favor, call me back.
I'm going to be out for about 20 minutes my time.
That's up.
Just call me back.
When I was a kid,
it was weird learning about time zones,
learning that there were 24 around the world.
I looked at a globe and saw all the lines
met at the top,
and I thought, what time is it up there?
Could you put your hand on the pole and walk around?
One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock,
five o'clock, six o'clock.
WRJN.
Rev up!
Rev up!
Rev up!
Rev up!
Rev up!
Rev up!
All right, it's 708 at WRJN.
Today, Jimissier and Charles G and Fort Hay are back,
bringing you those great baby boomer memories for us
and growing up and recene as they do once a month here
on WRJN.
And their programs have been held at the Golden Rhondel
and elsewhere.
And now we're going to talk about scooping the loop.
These are great 60s and 50s memories.
They're great decades to grow up.
And you know what, though?
I'm thinking back.
It wasn't the greatest time to grow up.
Everybody had their problems,
but you look back and you don't remember the bad times.
Remember the good times.
And that's what we're going to do right now.
Remember the good times, scooping the loop.
We're going to hear all about that.
And we found out something very interesting today.
Scooping the loop is not necessarily from recene
because our research department here at Civic Media found out
they scooped the loop in Iowa as well.
So maybe it's a midwestern thing.
Carol, Carol and Jim are here.
Let's go with it.
This is good stuff.
Well, thank you, Don.
Yes, we all went scooping back into 50s and 60s.
And if you were younger and age,
that's something you would remember
because it was always a fun thing to do,
usually on a Friday or Saturday night.
And it meant summer, Jim.
Yes.
Summer was scooping the loop.
Yep.
And it was downtown.
And downtown, I mean, that was, of course,
the destination for one thing.
Everyone was there.
We had the stores.
We had pool.
We had bowling.
We had even doctors' offices.
And we had the dance clubs.
So, of course, you had to scoop downtown.
And our research department has found out
other important facts of, too,
why it was downtown that we will touch on later.
But what Jim and I are drawing on, too,
is a program that we did do at the Golden Rondell
a few years back about all the entertainment
we did have downtown in the 50s and 60s.
And we called that program a blast from the past.
And really, when you think a blast,
that was scooping the loop
because think of those horns, Jim.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
Everything was fine.
So, yeah, it's where Black Brother Jack
it's where he went all his,
yeah.
What a white t-shirt, Sprawling.
A little devil heads on your antenna
on the car or anything.
Well, we didn't know about Fonzie yet, did we?
But no.
He wasn't in existence yet.
Every city had a Fonzie.
Yeah.
Well, we were really so innocent
as we groan over this.
Wouldn't you say, I mean, we were innocent?
It was just innocent fun as what it was.
We opened the loop was taking your car
and just driving in a loop through downtown
over and over and over.
Wasting gas, but it's 25 cents a gallon.
That's right.
We cared.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
Well, we uncovered a few facts about scooping.
Of course, it was held downtown.
And like Carol said, that's where all the action was.
People were all over the sidewalks.
I mean, we had the theaters downtown.
We had all those big stores, zones,
and pennies and everything.
So people were everywhere.
And that's what scooping was all about.
To see and be seen.
Usually we went scooping on a Friday night
and sometimes Saturday nights, but mostly on Friday.
I mean, Friday nights people got out of work
or maybe school or whatever.
They just wanted to do something fun.
So Racines Main Street, of course,
was ideal because it had two lanes in each direction.
And that was perfect for racing from a red light.
When it turned green, that's the first thing we would do.
And it was mostly a summer activity.
But, you know, it extended to the spring
and to the fall as well.
And it usually lasted until twilight.
And this was mostly a guy's thing.
But there were women who drove cars as well.
I think Carol knows somebody.
Well, looking at Jim's postings,
on retro recene at Facebook site,
and others, when Jim on Sunday
posted about scooping the loop
and that we would be on Don's program this morning,
there were an awful lot of comments from Gales.
Oh, yes.
Now, they didn't necessarily say they were the drivers.
But it made me say they sure knew what was going on.
We Gales were part of scooping the loop.
And I took it for granted.
That's more more were drivers than we realized.
But when Jim and I did the program at the Golden Rondeo
and it's been the case with another couple of programs,
we introduced on stage who we call our comedy team.
And the comedy team happens to be Marsha Khanat
and Joe Pavkovich.
Like they took us to the outdoor
and how we acted as teens at the outdoor.
And they took us at the Rondeo scooping the loop.
And Marsha was quite hysterical
because she was a driver.
And she explained to the audience how she learned
to drive stick shift while scooping the loop.
That was a feat.
And she also told us how her mother
drove the car for herself and her girlfriend sometimes.
Now, what mothers were scooping the loop for their teens?
That was quite the mother.
Yeah.
For our Golden Rondeo program, we did a little research
and we uncovered some of these facts here, the route.
I'm going to give Don this map here.
But we're going to explain a little bit on the route.
We would usually start just for an example.
We'd start by maybe the post office or hotel recene
and proceed north.
Now, we counted 11 different stoplights.
And we'll get into that later because that was perfect for racing.
We would proceed north, pass the Venetian and Rialto Theatre
to be a lot of people walking that block.
And of course, we'd go past pennies, idols.
And then, of course, we'd see our friends at the Ivan Hole.
You have to honk and wave at them.
And then you turn left on State Street
and you want to get back on Main Street right away
because that's where all the action was.
That's where all your friends were.
Wisconsin, you get back on Main Street and then proceed south.
And then, of course, you'd see your friends at the Nitty Gritty
and drive past the dime stores and then Monument Square.
And then some of us would go hang a right on Sixth Street
to Wisconsin and get back on Main Street
by turning left on seventh.
Others would just keep on going south on Main Street
and turn left on seventh and get back on Main Street
by the old hotel recene.
And Carolyn, I actually tried scooping
and it took us exactly five minutes.
So it wasn't that long of a procedure
but it sure was a heck of a lot of fun.
Well, when we did that, Jim, few years back.
When we found out it was five minutes, I know I was astounded.
Well, it felt like an hour when you did it back then.
Well, it left such a great memory.
That in retrospect, you think it was a much bigger time
out of our lives.
It was just five minutes to make a round.
Yeah, but you did it over and over and over and over and over.
That's right.
By the way, do you have mufflers on your cars?
No, we're going to get to that.
Oh, the mufflers are okay.
Yeah, yeah.
30 miles an hour, of course, was the accepted speed limit.
Of course, when you get to a red light in a light turn green,
then it was a little bit more than 30 miles an hour.
You asked a guy next to you, hey, you want to run?
And here we were, as you pointed out,
with two lanes going in each direction downtown.
It's perfect, as you said, for racing.
But I noticed, again, on retro recene,
just posting lately watching Jim and others,
there is the most fantastic picture of downtown recene
showing beautiful color,
a view of the stores, but the cars,
the beautiful cars in the middle, each going.
And it's just a perfect scene.
So if you want to look at that picture and get it for yourself,
it's retro recene.
Yeah, and there's a number of other sites out there.
We're scooping the loop.
We have Carolyn Jim this morning here at WRJN.
And I like the way they're talking about these cars and everything.
Jim couldn't get his lights off in the car this morning.
And he's talking about scooping the loop.
All right.
We're coming up here.
Local news in town, but since it's a WRJN.
All right.
We're scooping the loop.
Jan and Dean, a little old lady from Pasadena at WRJN,
local news in town, but since this morning,
Carol G. and Porte and Jim DeCera here,
we're talking about growing up in downtown,
not growing up in downtown,
but growing up in recene and scooping the loop.
And we talked about the route from like we're the post offices,
all the way up the state street and around,
and around, and around,
burning gas at 25 cents a gallon,
annoying the people in the neighborhood with loud cars,
the rock is screaming,
the poodle scurs, the saddles shoes,
and Jim DeCera in his black leather hills and toes jacket.
Well, when I think of being downtown
and why we were scooping downtown,
where all the action was,
I think of those hot summer nights,
really hot summer nights,
and standing outside, not scooping,
standing outside with girlfriends,
outside of the Nitty Gritty or the Ivan Home.
What's a Nitty Gritty?
What was that?
The Nitty Gritty was a dance club,
and I should say, Jim, do you remember
was it a dollar to get in?
I think it was a dollar.
Yeah.
No, that's just north of Fourth Street.
That's where the main street bakery is right now.
Oh, okay.
I see.
We had to know that stuff.
Well, this is important because there didn't seem
to be any fire codes in operation.
I mean...
Well, they probably weren't.
You just ignored them.
Yeah.
But we were ignored.
Yeah.
I mean, it was shoulder to shoulder.
No air conditioning, of course.
No.
And when we were getting ready for Golden Rondell,
the program held there about scooping.
Yeah.
And summer in the city.
We went down to the main street bakery
and measured that bakery.
It's a nice bakery.
It is tiny.
It is tiny.
And I don't know how many people we had in there.
It was wall to wall people.
It was wall to wall.
It was wall to wall.
Yeah.
It seemed so big back then, didn't it?
Yeah.
We knew we were crowded, but yeah,
we couldn't believe now how tiny it was.
And then the Ivan Home across the street.
Yeah.
And there had been a few other venues.
And there had been wide answers.
The wide answers.
Yeah.
But to line up at the nitty-gritty,
I can just see and feel those hot summer nights
with all the noise from the band,
but the cars.
And waving.
And waving.
And waving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And hawk.
Yeah.
And yet it was so innocent.
Mm-hmm.
But where were the police?
I mean, they let us do that.
Why weren't they locking us up?
They let us do that.
If you're right, they were probably fire laws
on how many people you can put in these buildings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe it wasn't as crowded as you remember it to be.
Mm-hmm.
You think so?
No.
You remember, okay.
It was packed.
Good point, but it was pretty jammed and hot.
Right.
But our antics, Jim, on top of it.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
The one I remember the best was peeling out
from a red light.
Maybe drag racing the guy next to you.
Like I said before,
if you're by the red light,
you'd ask the guy next to you,
hey, you want to run?
And most likely, he would say, yeah.
And then the fun starts.
Then the screeching tires.
And of course, we had the horns blasting away.
The radios were blaring.
That's the best part.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
Loud engines, of course.
Shifting gears.
A lot of us were even hanging out of the open windows,
you know, calling the friends.
No seatbelts.
No seatbelts at all.
No, no, no, no.
Yeah.
But there were so many of your friends walking down Main Street,
no matter where you were by the theaters, by the dance places,
the dime stores.
You knew half the people down there.
And the fun was just a yell at them.
And say, hey, you know, like I said, the fun was to see and be seen.
And that's going to look at what's cooking.
That's right.
Humber, humber, humber.
Oh, you know, speaking of the radios blaring,
yeah, are two favorite stations.
Yes.
W-O-K-Y.
Yep.
Dick Bihondi.
Dick Bihondi.
That was 92 on your radio dial.
92.
A-M dial, right?
And then Bob Barry.
At 89.
It was 89, wasn't it?
No, he'd bummed that it was an L.
A Bob Barry was on W-O-K-Y-Y-Y-T.
Yeah.
W-O-K-Y was Bob Barry.
Oh.
Yeah.
W-O-K-Y was Dick Bihondi.
Oh, okay.
I remember those wrong.
W-O-K-Y was Dick Bihondi.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
It was also W-C-F-L, which was a rock station back in Chicago.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah.
So, we heard those stations with the great songs.
And Bob Barry's still right.
I hit him on the air with me.
You're not too long ago.
Yes, you did.
Yes, you did.
He still sounds great.
He sounds like Bob Barry.
Oh, yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
And James, the one I owed him.
Yeah.
I will have him back again when I finish reading his book.
He's going to come back on the air with us.
Yeah.
Good, good.
Oh, jeez, yeah.
And then, of course, we had the reverberators.
Sure, some of you guys will remember them.
It was kind of like an echo.
And that would simulate the stereo.
It created a slight delay between the speakers.
And it added to the radio sound.
That was really, you know, a neat thing to have.
So, it was kind of like a vibration sound.
Yeah, a little bit.
Yeah.
When you're a reverberator, you kind of vibration.
Yeah.
Like an echo type thing.
And the police were very tolerant.
Unless you were going, you know, 60 miles an hour down Main Street,
I think they pretty much leave you alone.
Did you ever see it?
Well, the statute of limitations is up now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you ever see anyone picked up?
No.
No.
I've never seen anybody pulled over there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, cars, they were all important, no matter what kind of car you had.
And cars in that decade were in those decades were so important.
There were songs.
So many songs about cars.
And we're going to get to those in just a moment.
Okay.
We're waiting with baited breath.
We got a quick news break here.
I've got Carol, Jim Fortay and Jim Messier here.
We're talking about scope in the loop in downtown Racine.
What year are we talking about here?
Late mid to late 50s and 60s and early 70s.
Okay.
Yeah.
Decade of scooping the loop.
Couple.
All right.
We're coming up with Jim and Carol and just a moment, local news and timeless hits too.
And right now we've got some news straight ahead for you at WRJN.
We're scooping the loop with Carol and Jim this morning.
Carol, Jim and Jim Messier scooping the loop back in the 50s, 60s, early 70s, downtown Racine.
Taking your car, stealing your parents car and just driving over and over and over through downtown.
And when you do this on the weekend or was it Friday nights, usually Saturday nights as well?
We're going to break on week nights then I guess.
Of course.
Yeah.
We were studying very hard.
Starting working.
You were at the library.
Yeah.
Right.
I can imagine you're studying very hard.
Okay.
So we're talking about thinking now we're getting to the cars that you guys drove.
Well, if you were fortunate to have some of these cars that you just played here, Don.
The Mustang, Cobras, GTOs, Corvettes.
I mean, you were king of the road.
Yeah, Corvette.
Yeah, a lot of money.
Of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But a lot of us just had, you know, just like you said, the parents car or whatever.
It wasn't always muscle cars.
There were even Volkswagen's, station wagons, old wrecks, you know, anything just to get scooped in.
And a lot of us didn't even feel embarrassed if you drove on the family car.
You just had to get out there and go scooping and see all your friends.
And the, the, the scenes of these cars, Jim.
I mean, the colors.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
Red, aqua.
Yellow, every color you could think of.
And the chrome.
Yep.
Yep.
White wall tires.
Of course.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, when I, when I met my husband at 17, he had a 57 Chevy red.
Mm-hmm.
So I married him.
Yeah.
I, I think it figured into it.
Yes.
Yes.
But, you know, I'm not knowing about its classic style, that got sold probably for nothing.
Oh, yeah.
I used to drive a red 54 Chevy convertible back in the mid to late 60s.
And that was my pride and joy.
And in 1969 or 1970, I sold that for $100.
Oh, biggest mistake I ever made.
But we were very, you know, we like to soup up our cars.
And of course, we waxed and polished them all the time before we went scooping.
So, so people would notice your car.
I think some girlfriends would sit in the guy's driveway, just watching him wash it, wax it.
Oh, sure.
So what you guys wear when you're doing this?
Well, I'm, I'm going to get for gals.
I was going to get to them.
Okay, we're going to get to them.
I know.
I'm rushing.
I'm rushing.
No, we going to the nitty gritty or the.
I don't know.
Getting, getting to the nitty gritty or.
I mean, we put a lot of thought into what our outfits were going to be.
And, well, being hot summer nights, shorts, kind of shoes.
But we had the downtown stores.
But I got myself thinking on the north side, I would walk up to zayers.
And that was, you know, now I'm a little sad about how we put the downtown eventually out of business.
But zayers.
And you could just look at these racks all by yourself and pick out something for the night.
And churn style was on the other side of town.
Yeah.
By girls, we also had to pay a lot of attention to our hair.
Oh.
Because we had the flip, the bubble.
We had a lot of hairspray.
We maybe had rollers in the night before.
You know, so we, we were ready or trying to be ready for a great night.
Oh, maybe seeing our guy come into the nitty gritty then.
Oh, yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
But the guys wanted to be cool.
I guess the girls did too.
And I remembered guys were scooping a loop of looking for chicks.
That's how I used to be.
A lot of times you'd ask a girl if she wants to go for a ride.
And in many cases, she would say, yeah.
But I think what we used to remember the most was just waving at your friends and calling them by name.
And it was just a wonderful time to be with your cars and being downtown with all your friends,
all being in one location, having fun.
Well, to be a little more realistic, too, to throw that in, the cost of all this.
Yes.
Now, on the retro recene site, I was reading some of the comments about ways to get gas.
If you weren't going to pay for it, even though it was just $0.25 a gallon.
Yeah.
Siphoning gas?
Yes.
Siphoning your gas.
Yeah.
Did you ever do that?
Oh, jeez.
Now, I had to do it with my lawn mower sometimes.
I didn't have a gas.
I go to my father's car and you took a hose in there.
Yeah.
And you got to suck it up.
Yeah.
And get it off your mouth while you get a mouth full of gasoline.
Yeah.
And it happened a few times.
Oh, yeah.
And then you put it in.
But sometimes you get the gasoline in your mouth.
And then you get the taste out for all the oil and it's stuck in your mouth there.
Just don't smoke after that.
Oh, jeep.
But I tell you not, weren't there a couple of gas stations downtown?
Oh, yeah.
You don't have a gas station downtown.
There were two gas stations downtown, both a standard station.
One on the north end, one on the south end.
One was just before the main street bridge on the east side as you're heading north.
And the other one was just across from, well, at that time it was the library.
But now it's the museum.
There was a standard station there too.
Really?
A gas station right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, both standard stations.
So you had no problems with getting gas.
Easily just pull into one of those stations and fill up.
And you take a collection with all of your friends, everybody chips in a nickel and die.
Yeah.
Call up that nickel.
Every nickel costs.
Now it's giving you credit card.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, and I think, again, mentioning retro received that Facebook site.
There is a picture just in the last day or two about one of those gas stations.
And the person who posted it said right now, the police building is on that.
So that's seventh.
Oh, okay.
It's a nice picture of the standard gas station.
A beautiful picture.
Yeah.
Did you see that one?
Yeah.
I think it was the owner was honeycutter something.
Yes, yes, honey.
It's standard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh.
We did have an evening plan though.
Hmm.
Okay.
Well, I explained how we gals, you know, maybe we were in high school, had a summer job.
But we were definitely planning our moves for the night.
How we were going to look.
And maybe we would go down with girlfriends.
But maybe hoping to get a ride home from somebody.
We were waiting for this special guy.
And I did learn that believe it or not, a person, my friend, the other day, Connie Ayello told
me that one of her relatives, Diane Ayello, married someone.
Meeting him, scooping the loop.
Oh.
So this is Diane and Ken Thunhorst, who I still need to call and find out about this.
Does he think they're still married?
64 years and still married.
And they met scooping the loop.
They met scooping the loop.
All right.
We're talking to Jim and Carol this morning.
We're scooping the loop.
Memories of downtown.
We're seeing in the 50s, 60s, early 70s.
Keep it right here for local news and timeless.
It's in more talk with Jim and Carol coming up at the moment at WRGN.
All right.
Jim and Carol here, we're talking about scooping the loop.
Memories of downtown.
We're seeing growing up as a rowdy teenager.
By the way, how old were you people when you were doing this stuff?
16, 17, 18, 19.
You were able to drive a car at 16?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
It was constant.
Didn't know what mistakes they were making back then.
16 years old, you can drive a car, huh?
Yeah.
And you got your temps at 15.
Whoa.
Wait, why was he at 17 if you took the driver's head?
Oh.
If you didn't take the driver's head, it was 18.
But while we were listening to the news here and talking to Don, we learned and we do feel
sorry for you, Don.
Don's growing up on the East Coast.
They did not scoop the loop.
No.
No scooping the loop.
Don.
No.
No.
There was no loop to scoop.
We didn't have a loop.
We had a downtown area, but it wasn't really you.
Because you usually chime in with things that you did, but you've been quiet about that.
Wow.
So you did not scoop?
No.
No scooping the loop on the Long Island Expressway and the Southern State Parkway.
Oh.
No, there was no scooping anything.
Oh.
Well, the evening itself then to kind of put this together.
Some guys are gals scooped and just maybe ended up at a drive-in like in W.
Sometimes the scooping ended, parked somewhere downtown, went into the nitty-gritty, the Ivenhole.
So sometimes we certainly met.
So that was the evening, just scooping or meeting like we hope that guys and gals meeting.
Well, from a guy's standpoint, the ultimate final destination, of course, would be trying
to get a girl.
Maybe you just picked up over to the point.
And I think everybody who grew up in the 50s and 60s knows what the point is.
Don, I don't know if you do or not.
That's wind point watching the submarine races over there.
No.
Yeah, but why else?
Yes.
Everybody went to the point.
And people always ask us, well, why did scooping eventually die away?
A lot of reasons.
Because you get old.
Well, yeah.
That's true.
That's true.
We came to our senses in some respects.
Yeah.
That's right.
I guess we figured downtown was changing.
Downtown was changing.
People were there.
Right.
The theater is closed.
Back in the late 60s, early 70s.
A lot of the big department stores closed.
Yeah.
Maybe the dime stores, some of them closed too.
So people weren't walking around anymore.
It wasn't fun anymore.
Yeah.
It still was fun to take your car downtown.
But you just couldn't see anybody that you would want to yell to and wave to.
Big Friday nights at change.
Yeah.
And that was half the fun.
Seeing people.
People are home watching TV.
And that was true too.
And streaming movies on Friday night.
Right.
Yeah.
There's more things to do than they were back then.
Yeah.
But even in the 70s, it was ending.
It was ending.
Yes, it was.
Yeah.
But now you still scoop the loop.
Oh.
Tell us about that.
Well, on one of the recent first Fridays, my sister, Kathy, has a friend, John, who has
a 55 Chevy.
And we decided to scoop the loop earlier this year.
And there were one or two other cars actually scooping older cars.
And it was just like, you know, it was all of a sudden 60 years ago.
Here we were again scooping the loop in an old car.
Like time just stood still.
And it was just so much fun and memories.
All that was missing was the other cars, of course, and the crowds there.
But we still had a lot of.
With your catalytic converters and your air conditioning in the car.
Yeah.
And your seat belts and the harnesses.
Right.
And your headlights that must be on.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But the vibrant downtown that used to be back in the 50s and 60s was changing.
And that affected, of course, scooping the loop eventually just caught up with that.
But I see the downtown is coming back again.
So maybe, maybe scooping will come back someday.
It wouldn't that be great.
Nine of $3.50 again.
Yeah.
Maybe some of the classic car clubs have done this or contemplated too.
Well, I tell you what, when you see the 4th of July parade and the classic cars come down the street.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In your mind, you can imagine it happening downtown.
Sure.
Bring all these cars from the 50s and 60s down.
Yeah.
Through the parade round.
Oh, yeah.
But I think that'd be great to get into your 57 Chevy again and rev up that engine
and peel out from the stop stop and go light and hitting orange barrel.
Yeah.
Turn the radio up and scoop the loop in a one more time.
Yeah.
That'd be a lot of fun.
Well, you know, this is like a twilight zone episode.
I so called kick the can where everybody's remembering back.
And then they all of a sudden at the end they became kids, literal kids again.
Oh, yeah.
Except the one person who was fighting them the whole time and said stop living in the past.
Yeah.
He remained an old man.
Yes.
All the other children.
All the other adults became children again.
And they were living their life.
I cried when I see that episode.
Well, you know what?
But it's so wonderful is like on the radio.
But Retro was seen mentioning it again.
These are memories that we each hold.
But they're shared memories.
All we have to do is mention a phrase to our friends or people from our era.
And it's on automatic sharing.
Mm-hmm.
Our roots in recene.
They're shared memories.
Are what in recene?
Shared memories.
No.
Roots or ruts.
We're going to be this guy.
Is it roots?
Roots.
Roots.
And rough and rough.
We've been working on that.
Now, next time, Jim.
And thank you, Don, for letting us come back today and in the next month.
Love it.
We're going swimming next time.
Oh, is this the one with the pool by the park pool?
Yeah.
You know, Anthony did that.
We went over there.
Oh.
And I, of course, I didn't grow up here.
My wife grew up in the area.
But it's so sad.
You know, we spoke to a friend of ours.
A very good friend who used to go to the pool.
And the old day in W, the building is still there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's not, you know, it's abandoned.
It was a church or something.
I church owns it.
I get a church group.
But I think the building I saw was abandoned.
Yes.
Yeah.
She was saying, well, we used to go from the pool, walk over to the NW.
Yes.
The pool is gone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The area is still there.
I mean, they grew like a garden, not a garden, but like a greenhouse is there now, where
the school is.
And I know, you know, I went back to my old, I have a high school Facebook page.
We had like 970 people graduating in our class, 4,000 in the high school.
High school is gone.
The building is still there, but it's not a high school anymore.
They use it for something else.
My middle school is gone.
That's just abandoned.
They just, it's just closed down.
There's nothing there.
Yeah.
I mean, just and you see these pictures of your old schools and they don't exist anymore.
Mm-hmm.
Very eerie and sad.
Yeah.
Well, again, the high school building is used, but it's not a high school.
That's cool.
They thought of use for it.
But, you know, what?
The people in my hometown grew older.
And the kids, you know, when I grew up, there were young families.
And the young families got older and there was no use for all these high schools anymore.
Yeah.
So they have one high school now and they have one middle school and they have a couple of grammar schools.
Mm-hmm.
Is it elementary school or grammar school?
What do you guys say?
Elementary school.
Elementary school.
My name was going grammar school.
Well, we keep in mind that life is just great today.
Mm-hmm.
We're not saying that the past was perfect, but we sure love the memories.
I know you do.
Yeah.
We have a lot of social media.
You know, we have some small daily Indians running around.
Cr kendz.
Truple in Maem.
Ah.
So next month, get your swimsuits on.
We're going to all swim out the island at the Old Park pool.
And we'll bring a little rubber pool in here.
So you guys can splash a little bit in the studio.
Well, thank you guys.
I love and you guys come in and I appreciate you doing, this is the audio version of a visual presentation.
Is when you do it at the GoldenIndel.
There's screen, there's pointers, there's everything going on and it's a big crowd there.
It's always sold out.
And you do how many shows at a time?
Five.
Five shows and it's sold out every time.
Yeah.
My mother used to go to this.
I remember her.
She used to go and of course she didn't grow up here, but just watching other people.
They'd brought back her memories.
One last thing.
We stepped something on our apartment building in the Bronx called Tar Beach.
And you got to see it.
I can show you a picture when we get off the air.
You know, the roof of these apartment buildings are tar.
They tar the roof.
And in the summer you bring beach chairs up there, you bring a little rubber pool or whatever.
And you sit up on the roof with your kids and it's called Tar Beach because we're going to call you're in the Bronx.
Yeah.
And so my mother used to bring us up there on the roof with a little baby pool and she used to bring the chair up.
No elevators.
You had to walk the steps up to the roof and all the people in the building were up there was like a beach.
They called it Tar Beach in the Bronx.
Oh.
Hey, thank you guys.
Jim Bassett, Carol, Gianforte.
Thank you guys for coming in.
Hey, it's local news and time of the sits at WRJN right now.
Got some news for you.
