Yeah.
In bed tomorrow.
In 108.
Should I use the
door?
And I'm traveling on 16th Street this morning.
Couldn't wait to get on the air and say this and I go 30
miles an hour because the speed limit's 30, especially in
fog because no, people are they're he was so close to me.
I couldn't even see his headlights and that's not going to
speed me up.
So if you ever see my car in the road getting close to me
is not going to speed me up.
I'll tell you if anything, I lock in at 30 miles an hour.
So and then you're trying to pass me, of course, nobody
uses blinkers anymore.
That's old school blinkers, you know, my grand optional.
Yeah, my grandfather used blinkers.
I don't use blinkers.
I'm not like him, but they drive like maniacs and it's no
wonder you constantly hear police sirens out there in
ambulances because people don't know how to drive.
That is true, that is true.
But we didn't come to discuss my foggy drive in this morning.
It's aging, we're aging, but that's the topic for today.
And the older you get, I had a bid on this once, the older you
get, the more you complain about, the most minor insignificant
things, you do, you do, you know, this weekend, my, it was
obviously Mother's Day, and so my mother-in-law and I were
talking and we were talking about all the meds that I'm on
and she's on and my husband is on and you're just like, yeah,
we're getting to that point.
You know, that's the conversation.
You have that pill caddy now that's got like a balcony to
do the multitare, yeah, it's got three divisions morning,
noon, night, and then you have an accessory on top, extra
bill exactly, exactly.
I used to make fun of my parents, because I do all their
pills for them and I used to make fun of them and I said,
you taking six pills a day, I'm taking seven now, but that
includes, that includes vitamin.
Are you on the tumeric?
Yeah, I like when people, you take the centipril, what's
it, what milligram do you take of that?
Oh, you also take metropole and metoprolol.
Oh, yeah, do you have the 25 or 10?
You have the amiodarone.
I couldn't say that after I had congestive heart failure
back in 2019 and I couldn't say that med and I just like,
you got to take me off it.
I can't say it.
I have in my phone.
And I am off it now, so that's good.
Well, when I do in my phone, I have a list of all the
medications, because you know, when you go to the doctor
and say, what are you on?
Here's my phone.
I know, that's what I do too.
I do too.
When my mother was in the hospital, I put all her meds
in my phone and went, you know, because she went in a lot
toward the end.
And they said, uh, what I said, here's the phone.
They said, this is brilliant.
I don't know why most people don't.
They try to say that, um, let me see.
I don't remember what you're taking.
But that's brilliant.
Just keep it on your phone.
It is.
And until the next, here it is.
Here's what we're on.
Exactly, exactly times two.
I know, but that's why that's why we're seeing county I
is that it's not the only reason why.
But this, one of the things that we're seeing county
I is doing today, Mr. Rosen, today from 9 a.m.
to 1 p.m. at Fountain Hall, we're having a whole
entire expo called aging well.
I know.
And by the way, Mr. Rosen, that goes a long way with me,
that kind of respect.
Just so you know, you get extra, you get extra bonus points
for that kind of respect.
Yeah, so aging well.
And I guess at my mother, we were always at the doctors.
If the slightest thing, I thought I said, did you, did you sneeze?
No, I thought I heard it going to the doctor.
Yeah.
And that's, I learned that the minute something goes wrong,
you go to the doctor and I have friends of mine that didn't
and they let it go and go and go and eventually caught up with them
and then they can't do anything about it.
Right.
If you let it go too far.
But there are ways to take care of yourself and you don't have to go
to the doctor.
I just, I, my, about nine years ago, my wife said, you're drinking
four bottles of diet Pepsi a day and they were the, I'm, I know, it's a radio,
but this big, they weren't too small.
And she said, you know, that diet soda is just plain chemicals.
If there's no, there's nothing in it but chemicals look at it.
And I said, you're right.
And I went from drinking four bottles a day to nothing and nine years ago
was the last sip of soda of any kind ever took because she was right.
There's nothing good about soda.
Look at you looking at me like, no, no, no, no, I'm thinking of my old editor,
Mark Bailey, you didn't get about how many bottles of diet I'm going to get.
Mark Bailey, one of my editors, when I was at the, at patch and also at C9 newspapers,
he would incessantly drink diet coke.
In fact, we would tease him about how much diet coke he, he drank.
In fact, this is so morbid and I didn't play it on talking about this,
but this is just so serendipitous.
So at his funeral, he literally had his own eulogy because he knew he was dying of cancer.
And he, he had in his eulogy, he had a video of himself with diet coke.
Did he really?
He did, he did, he opened it up.
He said, you know, guys, I'm going to be gone soon.
And you're, if you're seeing this video, I'm gone, but I'm still drinking my diet coke.
I thought he was going to have a can for everybody there.
He probably did and I wasn't able to go to the funeral,
but I was, I was with his, his family about a week before,
because I knew I couldn't make it, but, but that video just stuck with me.
And so I still have a Mark Bailey voice of Lockwood, you know, go do it this way.
Not that way.
Are you, where are we at with this story with Lockwood?
And I just hear his voice all of the time.
He's kind of like the ghost of Mark Bailey.
And I just, yeah,
we'll talk about aging well, my wife and I, well, when I had my dogs,
I was walking every day and when my dogs passed, I had dogs since I'm a little kid.
I know it's continuous, right entire life.
And at two, three years ago, my last dog passed away and I figured, you know what?
I don't want to take a chance of the dog outliving me,
because I don't know what they're going to do with the dog, I think that's fair.
So now we rent a neighbor's dog.
He's got a pit bull and he comes over every Friday and I play with him and he goes home.
It really, you know, that's the, you know what?
One of the things, one of the, what they call a social determinant of health and I'll
talk about that later in a few minutes is, you know, how healthy you are is how social
you are, right?
That is one of the biggest things of, of having that support system, of having a purpose
of, of meaningful relationships.
That's actually one of the biggest things that you can do is to age well, you, you go out
and have fun.
And look at my own parents who just moved to Florida, you know, of how they're adjusting
to a new life in a new place and, and really finding meaningful, you know, purpose in life
and helping others and, and being okay and that's such a, it has such a huge impact on
your health.
I know that was Jerry Seinfeld, one of the comedians said, especially in New Yorkers, when
you hit a certain age, Bingo, it's like night of the living dead, they're walking down
on I-95 to Florida, like, like the walking dead, and they just, they migrate to Florida.
And it's funny, you say that because you know what, we're going to have it aging well,
Bingo.
But my parents said that too, they swore they would never leave New York their entire lives.
And one day they said, we bought a place in Florida, they're building it now.
What, when did that come from?
And eventually they moved back to New York didn't like it, they moved here to Racine.
But it's like, Florida's like a magnet to old people that want to move to Florida.
I know, I know, I know.
So anyway, aging well, so we're going to have, we actually have everything from spa
anodine nine, which is going to do some, like, they've got some massage, they've got a
little bit of, like, health and wellness.
We've got hearing, hearing tests, so you can find out whether or not your husband is
really listening to you or not.
But we also have really great, we have actually travel agent that is going to be there.
And we've, we've really been thoughtful and intentional about putting this expo together
that really brings the community together around healthy aging.
And I think that's really important, especially demographically in Racine County.
We have about, I want to say, 35% of our, of people over the age of 50 are, you know,
that's, that's the demographic is 30%.
So that's a pretty substantial piece of our community that needs to know a lot more
about how to age well, how to move better, how to, you know, get all of the good things
that you have in this body that we get to own and, and yeah, it's only least.
It's least, you know, get it forever.
Oh, yeah.
So people roam in and out.
Where is the aging?
Well, town hall.
Town hall right there in Highway 11.
Exactly.
Right now, right by a farm and fleet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Hold on a second.
Talk to Denise Lockwood, founder of Racine County, I, Denise Lockwood is here, founder
of Racine County.
I, let's talk about some other topics here.
We'll get back to aging well again, because people are coming in of that in the mornings.
And that's it.
Medicaid.
Talk about aging.
Yes.
Yes.
It's not just aging.
Made Medicaid is.
I know it helps.
It's right.
It helps.
It could be a younger person.
It's still used Medicaid.
It has to do with income.
Medicaid.
It does.
But I mean, it's also about ability too.
So Medicaid just kind of frame out the demographics of who's on Medicaid.
Who are we really talking about?
So Medicaid in Racine County looks like this.
We have about 20% of the almost 200,000 human beings that call Racine County home on Medicaid.
Half of those folks on Medicaid are children under the age of 18.
Okay.
The, about roughly about a fourth are people over the age of 65.
And then the rest of them are people who are either disabled or able bodied, but are
kind of more either they could be working poor or they could be not working.
So what's going on with Medicaid is like we're seeing quite a bit of activity at the federal,
the proposed federal budget.
And what that means is that there are definitely some pushback with regards to what it means
to be on Medicaid.
And so the, the, the, the edict from the president is that they, the, that Congress cut about
$880 billion with a B worth of, of funding from, not just Medicaid, but in discretionary
funding from that, from that part of the budget through health and human services.
And so one of the things that I do as a local reporter is what does that mean to us here?
So there are a couple of different things that are funded that I'm really paying attention
to Mr. Rosen.
What do you think those are?
You tell me, you pay, you pay attention to every detail.
And this is something I'm nerding out on and here's why.
So there's a thing called the social services block grant.
And I'm finishing up this story.
So you're going to get a little new news out of me today.
And when is this going to be published?
Probably either today or tomorrow, likely tomorrow because I'm doing the, the expo today.
Right.
So I'm finishing this up.
So social services block grant roughly brings in total about $2.1 million worth of funding
to Wresing County.
And what that pays for are things like transportation services for people who are elderly.
It might be a kinship care for somebody who has a developmental disability that has like
a family member that's taking care of them that needs respect care.
It might be foster care.
It might be the, you know, there's a lot of different things that go into this block
grant.
And one of the big criticisms of from the federal level is that it's kind of acted like
more of a slush fund.
And it's redundant and it doesn't really do anything, which is kind of furthest from
the truth.
So one of the things that I'm working on is really understanding the percentage of that,
that block grant to the total budget.
So I want to get really good balance and perspective because that's the nerdy person
I am on the news side.
I want things accurately portrayed.
So I'm not like totally upsetting the apple cart.
But I need to understand what this means, right?
So we're talking foster care.
We're talking child abuse protection.
We're talking meals on wheels.
And so a lot of this is very integrated into the community of how we operate, especially
if you're elderly, especially if you're somebody who has a developmental disability or mental
health issue.
These are the things that you rely on on a daily basis.
Now, people confuse Medicare and Medicaid.
Right.
Different things totally different.
Very.
You can be on social security and Medicaid at the same time.
And Medicare.
Okay.
So Medicare is an older thing.
Right.
You got to be over 62, I think, or 64.
Yes.
But you can also, if you're indigenous, which means you have no money.
So a lot of times what happens is people will spend down or dilute their assets to make
sure that they, they can get Medicaid so that they could go into like an assisted living
facility because they couldn't pay for it out of pocket.
So they kind of purposely sell their house or they might put it in a trust and then deed
it over to a family member or something along that line.
And then they go into assisted living basically to die.
And so yes, I know I saw that.
So the role of the I'm such a devy downer this morning, I'm sorry, well, you know,
it is a fact.
I really rate it at parties to these days.
It is effective.
You don't prepare for the end of your life, right?
The people behind are going to be left with all with all the problems, right?
Money, what to do, lawyers are involved.
And I'll tell you something off the air in a minute because it's personal, not personal
for me, a person with somebody else and I want to say that in radio.
But yeah, there's a, there could be a lot.
If you don't take care of the afterlife, you know, when you're gone, I mean, your children
are going to be left with a, with a bundle of problems, you see, we're just chasing
this morning.
You brought this.
I was, I was looking, but I'm not going to not tell, but we're going to talk about the
problem.
I was excited about that.
We got some joy.
We have some joy.
But we were, these are the things that as a journalist, and I get a lot of pushback,
which from the community about what brand they think I am.
And that's, you know, that's, this is what's happening folks.
Like, this is what's happening.
Let me, let me, let me, we're seeing County, I give you the website, we're seeing county
I dot com.
It's our.
Now, that's E y E.
Right.
Everybody say, we're seeing County letter I.
No, it's E Y E, like the eyeball, we're seeing County eye.
It's a great logo by the way.
Yeah.
We're seeing County I.
And it's constantly being updated because it's not like a newspaper that comes out in
the morning in the afternoon, it's constantly, when you get a story, it's updated, right?
And you got news, hounds all over town, right?
I'm working really hard.
I picture, I picture the guys walking around with that little press card in their hat,
you know, remember the old movies, they have a little press card hanging in there.
And here's something people don't realize, everybody has the power of the press.
It's given to you in the constitution, the first amendment, we all have power of the
press.
We'll talk about that later too.
Okay.
That's credentials because there's no such thing, nobody issues press credentials, unless
you're going to an event, then the event might issue them.
But everybody has the power of the press.
So you can always say, I'm a journalist because everybody has that power, not everybody's
good at it.
That's true.
But they have the power.
We're talking Denise, Denise Lockwood founder of Racine County, I, we have so much to
talk about.
We're going to review some of the things we talked about in the first hour because you
were just getting up and you may miss some of it.
So we'll talk about that.
Just before we go any further, so many fundraisers going out at Racine County, I, this is very
important.
You know, it's, this is horrible, I'm having, I'm trying to make sure I have the date
right because it's one of those things when you're 55, that happened to say, if you're
a baby, I know, hold on a second, hold on, I have a little tickle in my throat.
So, yeah.
So basically, we're having this thing called journalism love fest, right?
So we're going to, we're going to be doing some guest bartending at McCullough's pub.
It, let me just make sure I've got, okay, it's from, I just lost it, darn it.
So it's going to be for a journalist, just make it up.
No, no, no, that's bad.
Front upon in this establishment, 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 22nd at McCullough's pub.
And so, okay, so I wanted to do something a little different.
So one of the things that we're going to be doing is I'm going to be doing some storytelling,
but not news story telling.
I'm going to have the goat of all stories.
And you're going to have to come to the event to understand what that means.
But I'm going to be telling some, some farm stories, some how I got started stories, how
did Denise get into journalism stories.
But also, this is also a really great time for the community to, to like, what do you
like about journalism?
Because at the end of the day, I drink a water.
Yes, please.
I'm having one of those.
You want my bottle of water?
Yes.
Really?
No, I'm just a bottle of water.
That would be great.
I was going to drink this, but you can have.
Yes, thank you.
Sorry, I'm having one of those.
Go talk a little bit while I go unfraugged my throat here first.
One, two, three, four, five, no, we have a whole bunch of tapping.
I want to talk about prom coming up in a few minutes because we talked briefly about
that for a second.
Do you know?
Yes.
Sorry.
Sorry.
I'm like, now you own the bottle while I'm taking it back.
No, so the fundraiser, the reason why we're having a fundraiser because this is my news
website, Racine County Eye, I started it out back in 2013 with Heather Ossiambi.
And she is now my managing editor.
We are not a big news organization, but we are growing.
So we got a grant from report for America to hire an education reporter.
Half of that is funded by the grant, the rest, I need to come up with friends.
And so we want to focus on education because there's so much changing.
Not just from the federal level, but also just what is it that work is changing, right?
We've got Microsoft and we've got a lot of different things that mean different, like,
how you're educated and what you end up becoming is going to change.
And one of the things that I want our education reporter to do is really do some deep dives
on what is our workforce, what is the community need, things along that line.
And so if you are so inclined to think that that is important to you, I need you to come
to my fundraiser because at the end of the day, this is going to help us sustain local journalism
on a very profound level.
And I really want to make sure that we're doing that.
Gotta have independent journalism.
If you don't have it, you've got Russia.
Exactly.
And we're China, we're North Korea, and you don't want that.
So we're, McCullough's, we're now giving it up.
McCullough's pub.
And that's how the address is.
You know what?
Let me just.
I'm holding down, Mr.
Look at the glasses go to the tip of the nose.
3700 Meacham Road.
I'm sorry, JJ, for doing that because I'm just having, this is the last few, few months
has just been crazy.
And so like things are changing so much and we're, how we're doing the news is a little
different.
We're doing a lot more federal to, to local level kind of news because actually you've
got a lot of traditional news organizations that are getting defunded.
They're also NPR and PBS are, are being federally defunded.
You've got a lot of access issues at the national level and it's really important to understand
news from a local perspective because that's what hits you on a daily basis, right?
So you know, you're talking everything from road construction projects to how your
taxes are spent, things along that line.
So we want to make sure that that's, that's funded on a very consistent and strong basis
and that's one of the reasons why we're having a fundraiser.
But a student's getting to journalism today.
When I, back in the 90s, back in the day, back in, back in my day, I was at the Wisconsin
Broadcasters Association Journalism Day and I used to go to everything because I want
to know what's going on around me.
And there were a lot of young people there getting into journalism.
There were three young ladies in front of me who wanted to be into TV journalism and
all they were talking about is their makeup and their clothing.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I know.
And that is true.
That is so not me.
But it's television and that's what they were concerned about.
Right.
Anyway, but we had journalism people telling how to, you know, go after stories, how to
get a job.
Now that was back in the 90s when radio stations had a staff of news people.
Newspapers had a huge staff of news people.
But those days are gone.
So how does somebody get to journalism today, because you all want to be a journalist?
Well, how do you do that today when the newspapers have a skeleton staff, radio stations have
just one or two news people, TV stations don't have the kind of staff they used to have?
Well, and a lot of this has changed, right, especially with TikTok.
You have a lot more news influencers.
So.
Yeah, but that's not really news.
It is, but it's not.
I mean, I've been following some of them and some of them are really good, but it's
not a big unpacking of the story.
I'm a nerd when it comes to news, right?
So it's nothing for me to do a 1200 word story about what's going on with Medicaid, because
I think it's so important to, you know, people and what's going on with social security.
It's not an easy light read.
It's not what we call snackable and charitable, but, you know, so, so we need to, but how do
people get into that?
How do they start?
Do they have to do what I did to get in the radio, clean toilet balls, and that's how I
get in the radio?
Well, a lot of it begins it in high school, right?
You might have, you might have a school newspaper and news website, and you, you get in
through there.
You might be on the yearbook and you might be able to, like, you, a lot of it is through
English.
You, you have literate, lit classes and grammar.
You've got to learn grammar.
Yeah.
You've got to learn how to write and speak if you don't, you know, honestly, actually one
of the things that was really influential for me when I was growing up was speech and
debate team, right?
You know, just learning about, I don't want to be against you on a debate team.
I just have a feeling I'd be decimated.
I don't know.
I wasn't that good in debate.
I wasn't.
I wasn't that good.
Right.
No, I wasn't.
I wasn't that good in debate.
You know, the, I loved it.
I loved, I loved being able to understand things from different perspectives and to be
able to, to say the why.
I, um, we just had a dear friend of this radio station, Ron Richards passed away and
today's this memorial service.
And Tom Carco, who was, was our news director here for 30 years, working in the news
farm for 30 years, found an old article I wrote.
I did interviews for Renaissance News Magazine every month.
I have no recollection of doing it.
But there it was.
There's the page and there's the headline that I interviewed Ron.
And I'm so glad I did because I have information in there that I would have forgotten about.
It's all radio detailed information, the call letters and stuff I would have forgotten
about, but it's preserved because it was done in print.
Right.
And now we have it forever.
Well, and that's a big thing with in journalism, specifically for news websites is archival,
making sure your, your news website is archived.
You know, one of my hobbies was when I worked downtown Milwaukee, the library was directly
across the street.
It's seven that Wisconsin and he used to go there every day and pull out the on microfilm
the New York Times and read it from the 60s, from the 70s and he said, love reading it.
If I found a page I like it print, it was like 25 cents page or whatever it was at home,
I've got a thick stack of what I printed and I go through it occasionally because it's
something that interested me and it's a great resource.
Once it's in print, it can be saved forever.
Now we are saving our audios of we interviewed past employees of this radio station because
our hundredth anniversary is coming up in a little over a year.
And the library said they will archive it for us and we're talking to the Racine Heritage
Museum to archive it.
And the problem with archiving audio is if this was the 70s, I would have put it on a cassette.
If it was the 80s, 90s, I would have given you a CD.
Now it's a thumb drive.
For now.
Now actually it would be on that now it's the cloud.
You don't archive anything on a physical media anymore.
You stick it on the cloud, but what happens if that goes away?
See with print, at least you can save the paper, if you want it, but it disintegrates
though.
You didn't take a picture of it.
Yeah.
Well, they get a microfiche, even the microfiche, but even that, but at least you have it
with audio.
It's different.
You got to keep saving it in what the new medium is every time you change it.
So when I was talking to them, I said, I don't know how to save this.
They said, give it to us.
We will keep updating the medium for it.
We're talking to Denise Lockwood, founder of Racine County, I a new source here in Racine.
And you want to talk more about Medicaid?
Just a little bit, and then I'll, well, this is not going to be like watching paint drive,
but something to pay attention to, yes, yes.
And I think it's really important because two things, one is we're dealing with a federal
proposed budget.
So anything I'm about to say know that as a proposal, it's not codified in law yet.
But one of the things that I think is really interesting about this conversation around Medicaid
is how much people in Racine County are not willing to talk a lot about it.
And here's why this is a problem.
These are people who are sometimes government officials, sometimes they're nonprofits that
are very, very nervous about not putting a target on their back with the federal government.
And so one of the things that we've got a dynamic of is a retaliation type of mindset that
there's a concern that they might be retaliated against, especially since you've got a lot
of people that are trying to do things that are helping all people, right?
And a lot of that is based on a lot of the narrative from diversity, equity, inclusion.
But there's a lot of data around this work that is not something to be ignored.
I'm going to say that again, do not ignore this.
And here's why, because Medicaid, the Medicaid economy is substantial in this particular
area in general.
So when you think about hospital systems, Ascension's budget, 40% of it is Medicaid.
The county is about ready to break around, I think next week on a new substance abuse facility.
And 80% of that is supposed to be paid for by Medicaid.
Now here's the Denise journey on news nerd and why you need me to do this work, is that
when I'm doing these stories, I am very mindful of trying to make sure I've got things
in perspective of how much is that federal budget in relationship to the larger pot of
money that would pay for things.
And so that's a very, very tricky thing.
And I know it's boring.
And I know you don't want to hear it, but you cannot avoid it.
Because it will then, if this money goes away, there are going to be very difficult decisions
that will need to be had at the state level, at the county level, and your local level.
Think of it this way, the ambulance service, and we're seeing that is substantially paid
for by Medicaid.
And so I'm not trying to scare you, I'm trying to help you understand.
So these are the things, these are the questions that I am trying to ask and make sure that
you have all of the information and the work that we do at Racine County Eye.
So there you go.
If I was back in my 30s, late 20s, early 30s, and I heard, well, they cut back to Medicare.
I could care less because I'm in my 20s, but when you get up there in age, now we hear
Medicare cuts.
Medicaid.
Medicaid.
Well, no, but even Medicare cuts.
Yeah.
What, what, what, what, what, what are you talking about cuts, what, what do you change
you?
What are you doing?
Right.
But when you're younger, none of this means anything because you say, oh, this room,
we don't get this in effect, me, it can affect anybody, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security
cuts.
They affect everybody.
And if you don't do anything about it, when you're younger, when you get older, you're
going to say, why didn't anybody do anything about it?
Right.
And these are really important conversations because it also is the unraveling of social
contracts too, right?
So as communities, we have decided these are some of the things that are really important
to us.
And so when you have these conversations, we have to be mindful that do we want hospitals
to be sustainable?
Do we, what kind of footprint do we want them to have?
What do we, how often should that ambulance be coming for grandma or, you know, Tommy
who broke his hand, you know, climbing on a tree?
These are really important things.
And so we cannot ignore the, the amplification of, of some of these decisions.
And it's really important, I cannot under it, like stress this enough, really important.
Talk about prom, something.
Let's talk about later stuff.
Yes.
Now you said you had your prom in a cow barn.
Yeah.
Isn't that what you said?
No, no, no, I was misquoted.
So I grew up in Worcester, Ohio, which is the home of the Ohio Agricultural Research
and Development Center, fabulous place, like it is like a little farm girl's dream to
be able to go on there.
So they do, they do research and development, but that's where we had our prom was they
had this large, like, you know, conference center and hall and, and yes, there was a
cow, cow barn.
We did not go in there with our food, our beautiful food thing, pictures with LC.
You know, one of the things that they had in this barn was they, they did research, right?
So they did research on cows and they had a cow that had like a removable part that you
could see they're stomach.
Oh, please.
I know.
I know.
I know, I know.
We don't mind eating.
We don't want to know about it.
Sorry, sorry.
Yeah, Maya told you mine was like a million miles away from yours by the old world's
favorite planes, but they're having prom this weekend and they used to have it at festival
hall and you get well, they have it at their schools and stuff, but yet they had the after
prom and the pre prom whatever it was at festival hall and you able to watch the kids coming
into their tuxedo.
Is it just a beautiful girl's in these gowns?
I mean, everybody looks so formal and nice.
And, well, and it's such a coming of age of honoring that passage, that rate of passage
of being a teenager to an adult, right?
And so that is one of the things and so I'm on the board for Rotary.
In fact, I have a board meeting later this afternoon.
And so we have, so just so you guys know, the, I know you guys are thinking this, what
time does the motorcade start?
It's from six to nine and it may go later if we need to, but it's going to be.
The air it on my 24 channel 24 now, yes, let's, what's happening at the, at the county
fairgrounds and what's happening here in Racine at festival all?
So there's a separate event.
They're just, they're doing a dinner at festival hall.
There's, they're not the, the Racine prom is not putting that event on the, what's
happening at the fairgrounds, but the fairgrounds is where the, that's where the fun happens.
Right.
So they had every, what you got against the cows, man, I told you I grew up a million miles
from this.
They're very pretty animals, they have very pretty animals.
Yeah, no, there's a lot of fun things.
They have everything from like bounce house to, to, and you know, it's funny because this
is also the last hurrah that these kids get to be kids, right?
You know, they're, they're going to graduate some of them better find a job, go to college,
or they're going to start in the trades or apprenticeship programs.
And like this is their, their last, you know, they have everything from laser tag to,
to like the prom, they had a little nail show off your nail kind of thing and, and fingernails
and there's dancing and it's just a great time.
We, the, the rotary prom is a, a very special event.
Yeah.
I'm glad that we get to be part of it.
That sounds like fun.
We can play laser tag in mind.
We had a live band there.
Yep.
The half a life band.
We had a live band.
Okay.
We got a minute left here.
Let's talk about aging well today.
Right.
Take a sip of water.
I know.
We'll do that.
Take a sip.
Uh, aging well is happening at Fountain Hills, Fountain Hall, Fountain Hall, Fountain
Hall in Stern event on highway 11.
It's right next to the farm and fleet.
Yeah.
And then, so that's from 9 a.m. today to 1 p.m. and then we're having a fundraiser for
Racine County.
I, I might be, I might even do some poetry.
I've been playing around.
Oh, do we have no, no, no, it's fantastic and fun.
It's, you might hear some farm kid stories.
It's going to be a very eclectic night, let's put it this way, but, um, but we're going
to have that at McCullough's and that is, um, on the 22nd of May.
And that is going to be at McCullough's pub on 3700 Meacham Road, um, come hang out with
us.
Like, just enjoy our company and, um, it's called the journalism love fest and 2025.
It's just going to be a fun night of storytelling and I, I also indeed, I need my, my
tribe to, to be there because this is, this is not easy work, friends, it's not, it's
just not easy work, but thank you very much for coming in.
You should come in more often.
Let's just once every year.
All right.
Well, let's make that.
Okay.
All right.
Then he's Slackwood founder of Racine County, I at Racine County, IEY, dot com, Racine
County, I dot com.
Thanks for coming in.
