All right, we look forward to this every year. And it's coming. It's almost too. We need
a theme from jaws. It's Greek fast coming to the Comisi's church. And that's right there
on Kim is in a green day road almost at the corner of highway 20 close to it. And is
there real time? So I've been you and I have been talking for over 20 years, at least
over 20 years to get a long time. Yeah. You stayed young, energetic. I got old. You're
the one with the full head. I got old and fat. But I brought up an old picture. You
say it's about 20 years ago. I think so. Yeah. That was I look so good. And now I'm old
and fat like you said, you're not old. In fact, anyway, when we first met, your son was
just a little toddler just just recently born. Yeah, tell me he's 24 years old and running
Washington DC and the nation's cab. Whoa. Yeah. Out of that. I don't know why I expected.
Well, yeah, he's getting into high school now. I could possibly be. But that's the way
I think. All right, Greek fast is coming up. We actually I was telling you stories before
what we want to talk about. But how we all the friends get together, which day you
going to stay? Am I going? Which day? And what's it? Savonaki? Is that my son?
Anarchy. Yeah. Flaming cheese. That's the first thing we run to every time there's somebody
with a pan making it. And I just love that. And then you've got the chickens on the like
300 chickens on a spit turn spit turning around and the desserts. All right. So before we
talk about this Greek fest, when did it all start? A little history of Greek fest in
routine. Yeah. Yeah. Don't this is our 60th. Now 60 years, 12 since 2012. We've been
voted the best church festival. I saw that. Yeah. But all started at Island Park 60 years
ago. Now that was maybe, you know, I was four years old then. So I don't remember the
first one, but I remember going to Island Park. And it was more of a church, you know,
festival fun, you know, just get together picnic. And it's blossomed into this large three
day fast that a lot of planning and a lot of just, you know, all of the aromas and flavors
of Greece coming to the area. Like you said, the chickens on the spit. So yeah, it's been
many, many years in in Racine here. Okay. Now for people know, it's coming up Friday,
Saturday and Sunday. You do have rides. And by the way, I'm looking at the forecast for
Saturday and Sunday and Friday. Perfect. It's going to be in the 70s on Saturday, the
80s on Sunday, but just nice weather. And that's the big thing about the festivals. You
can plan all you want to, but if it rains and it's windy, I know it all goes down the
drain. I was chair for the festival several years. And the biggest worry I had was the
weather. And when it rained, I would just get crushed. And there's nothing you can do
about it. All the praying in the world, because there's somebody praying for rain. So
you're actually going to get too. So you're praying for the rain. Somebody's praying against
the rain. And God says, well, you know what? The flowers needed. They win. We'll just
rain. But this year, it looks pretty good. So I'm glad for that. Now there are rides.
Yes. It's like a carnival and the food. Now there's a, what's it indoors? That indoors
you have a, you have four meals in there, right? We have indoors. You can sit and eat.
And we have the pastry there. We have a marketplace, the Agurai, as we call it. It's a marketplace.
You can buy different things from Greece. We do the church tours inside the cooking demonstrations
are inside. So we do have in our hall things. And of course, the tours in the proper, the
church proper. Well, we get the meals and on the indoor. But we like to send them to the
10th because you get the music entertainment going the whole time. And it's just the atmosphere
of people coming and going. Plenty of parking on the grass. What does that lawn look like
after? It gets pretty worn down. Somebody's mad. The guy who cuts the lawn says, it's beautiful.
Then you come in. What happened? What happened to this place? It's free to get in. Right.
There's no, there's no admission charge or anything. Yeah. I mean, you have the prices are
very reasonable. You got the Kamisi dancers. It's, you know what that's like? It's like Jackie
Gleason Orchestra is Kamisi dancers. They named them after the church. Now this is real Greek dancing.
Authentic Greek dancing. Our youth group is the dance truth. They got the uniforms. They wear
a costume. The authentic folk costume. And it's folk dancing, lying dancing. It's a lot of fun.
Afterwards, we try to get, you know, our people there to join in. So it's, it's fun.
You got that. What's that instrument? The bazooki. The bazooki. That's it. It doesn't go.
Get that kind of back to it. Yeah. Well, that's really good. I'm going to ask you something else.
I just want to buy my head here for a second. Talk about some of the foods that are there. Like
Saganaki, which is flaming cheese, right? It's like a square of cheese. In the off season,
we go to the dynasty restaurant to get it, the Greek restaurant down there. It's not as good as yours,
but, you know, well, it's you have authentic outdoor fire. That's right. Yeah. The flambéing of it,
I think invites everybody to come and see and watch and enjoy it. It's very flavorful. You know,
the local mothers, those honey balls are always a big attraction. Yeah. You get this little paper cup
and with honey with these little, what's the balls made out of? It's a dough. It's like a dough.
And they drown it in honey. All the honey balls. I forgot about that. Yeah. And that's, we always
get those too. Yeah. And my wife says to me, well, you know, you already had one serving. I don't
know. They're great. All it's only once a year. They're kind of like a donut ball, but they're
with a special syrup that we make. And we do make that syrup ourselves with local honey and
clove and cinnamon and orange and lemon. And it just turns out to, and that's what we use on the
Baklava too. Now, I will say that the ladies have made a chocolate Baklava this year. My father used
to get Baklava all the time. He loved that. Yeah. Now, I'll tell you how I get local honey.
I was at one of the market place things of Monument Square one year and we found a guy whose
his daughter has a bees and she gets the honey and it's local honey from her scene. She jars it
and he sells it with her. So why we bought some and then there was a phone number on the jar when
we ran out so I called him and he said, well, I'm on three mile road and he told me where he was
located. And he said, pull into the driveway. I'll see you all come out until it was like a drug
deal. He came out. He came out with a jar. I rolled out the window, handed in the cash. He gave
me the jar and he went back there. I mean, it just looked like a drug deal going back. But here's
the problem. I bought it for my wife for Christmas. A big giant jar of it. And we have a camera on the
on the door. So when I open the door, the camera filmed me holding the jar honey. Oh,
she knew. Oh, I said, that's kind of sneaky. Yeah. Next year, I'm going to hide everything when I
come on and walking backwards in a brown bag or something. Walking backwards. You can't see it.
But the local honey is good for you because it's got not antibodies. I forget what it's
got in. It's something like that where you just local. Yeah, local everything and it's good for
your body to have the local honey. And that's good. You're going to use look. Yeah. Yeah.
Use my dealer. Yeah. There's a local guy that over at metals. He usually donates like
five or six gallons of it. Yeah. We used to go up the Cedarburg, not Cedarburg.
Somewhere up there and there was a guy too. He started local honey. But this dealer I have is
well, we use it a lot. We use it on our pastries and whatnot. And we're going to have Greek beer
too, Don. No, I never tasted beer in my life. So I would know that if Greek and regular,
but tell people what the difference is. Well, I don't know. There's not much of a difference.
It's just good to have a good, you know, a full body. We swap the great name on it.
And that's it. Yeah. Yeah. So here's you were ever in Greece. Yes. Okay. I was there once.
And I'll tell you my story about going to Greece. I was going to Israel, but we had to do a stop
over in Athens in Greece. So this is after like 16 hours or whatever of flying. I'm exhausted.
I'm all by myself on the plane. And we land. And the plane is empty to begin with because
this just was for some reason. A lot of people on there. And so we land to drop off a few people.
And as we're there watching out the window, and I see this red little private plane coming,
goes, tries to land at a Jeep with machine guns comes out onto the runway. And the plane just takes
off again. And I say, huh. What am I doing mixed up with this? I wonder who that was. Yeah. And then
we took away. I wish I would have been. I was a young guy. I was in my early 20s. I wish I'd
been smart enough to watch this land. You could have seen all the Greek ruins. And I didn't do that.
It was 1975. And I just I didn't do that. You can see them from the. I know. I don't know.
Maybe I had the wrong side of the plane. But I was so tired after 16 hours. I just want to get
to where I was going already. I was bored. I was no one to talk to. You know, for 16 hours, even,
you know, when the steward and the stewardesses came by, I said, hi, we were busy. You're busy.
There's six people on the floor busy. Can you be? You could have given us dinner, read us a bedtime
story. So they sent to me when you go there. It's going to be two naps, two movies and three meals.
That's how long the trip is. I said a prop plane down or what? It was a big jet. But on a Friday
night going to Israel, nobody flies. It was the right. So they, but they have a scheduled flight. So
I got on it. And that was that. Oh, let's go over some of the what's going on here. Stay by day.
Friday, if you go on the 27th, this Friday, you open up at 5 p.m. Yeah. 5 p.m. Right after work,
that's good. You've got Greek music by alpha. Alpha tunes. Alpha tunes. Yeah. They're good. Great
Greek DJs. And that's till seven o'clock. And then the Camisi dancers at seven. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, that's nice. Now on Saturday, another beautiful day, you open up early at noon. Yes.
So no breakfast there. It's going to be only lunch and dinner. Yeah. Greek music by alpha tunes.
Again, you get a church tour. What's involved in that? Just seeing is it a big church on the
inside. I was never in there. Yeah. Well, our priest, Father John Ketchum leads the tour.
And he shows and talks about the history and iconography of our parish.
He also displays some of the items used in in our church services, the vestments that are worn.
So it's, he kind of goes into and explains a little bit about our service too. So if there's
anybody interested in that aspect, and we get a lot of people going through there, it's an
interesting little tour that he gives. Now, Greek is one of the ancient languages from the
beginning of time. Right. That's why that even the original, the original Hebrew books are in
Greek and it's just, you know, Hebrew and Greek. So it goes back way, way, way. Are your services
in Greek or are they in English? Well, it's both languages. Okay. Most of it's English, but you
know, if we recite the Lord's Prayer, we'll do it in Greek and English. Okay. So some of the prayers
and some of the hymns Greek and then, of course, the English language as well. Not too many languages
in front of Greek, though. That really goes out to the beginning of time. It's, it's long. Yeah,
it's been out there a long time. Okay. You're keeping it in front of everybody. That's good.
Trying to. Yeah. All right. Then you got a cooking demonstration. I might want to
at this year because we like cooking all of a sudden. The older I get, the more I like to see
cooking demonstrations. So my wife can learn how to cook these meals because other than breakfast,
I'm not a good cook. I'm just not. Doesn't turn out well. But she is an excellent cook.
Yeah, we do the demos. We have someone come up from Chicago. He's great. He shows how easy some
of this stuff is, you know, some of this stuff is can be really easy and other. It's like, I
don't even want to try, you know, layering philodosis, kind of a trick in itself. Now Sunday, a lot of
people go after their church services, wherever they go to church. And you open up noon again,
you have the music, you have the dancers, the tours, the raffle. I never won. But I buy the ticket
because it's going to a good cause. So I just buy it. And if you don't think you're going to win,
then you're not disappointed. If you put all your eggs in one bag, I got to win. Then you know,
and then you disappointed. What's the price? Do you know? Yeah. The first prize is $1,500.
Second prize is a three day stay at the Great Wolf. Yeah. And then third prize is $500.
It's two dollars a ticket three for five. So it's what did you say first prize was a
$1,500. Wow. $1,500 worth of investment. Yeah. When did you win the announced the winners?
Yeah. That we announced at 6 p.m. on Friday. You don't have to be great to win. No, you don't
have to be present to win either. Okay. And finally, you do, you know, credit cards, ATMs are there.
Yep. And here's something you don't see much anymore. You do accept cash. Yeah. Yeah.
I said that to somebody the other day, because the parking meters at Festival Hall are now by
app. Oh, yeah. And I was talking to the mayor about this yesterday when the mayor was in here.
And they're working on some other ways so you can still use coins and stuff and to get in.
Well, Dan, I use the joke where I would say we accept Greek credit cards and then people would
say, well, what is that? And then I'd show them like a $20 bill and say, well, it's got a picture of
a dead president on it. So you do your comedy routine win. I don't see it on the schedule.
When do you think that just when you take the main stage in this whole thing? Oh, I see Saturday night.
On the improv and the improv stage, Tom Savas is going to be there. Okay. That looks good. Okay.
So now you can go if people want to see the schedule, you can go online. How did I get this? I
just got it this morning. Yeah. This is this is on our website. And you had to be careful.
Greek Fest Racine because a lot of cities around the country have Greek Fest. They do. So you
got to put Racine Wisconsin in there. It's www.kemi6k I M I S S S I S dot org. It's a Greek
Fest Racine. Yeah. You search that and you'll come right up. Well, make sure you put Racine on
there because I did this morning. I guess St. Louis and I say, well, we'll hold it here.
Turn right at the arch. What arch? What'd you bring with you?
Well, these pastries is just we make our own pastries. All of this stuff is made right at the church.
We got like 30, 40 people come in and we've got a piece of Baklava with the chocolate on it.
That's new. They're trying and then a regular piece of Baklava, the powdered sugar. That's a Greek
wedding cookie. It's called a Coulombiaves, which is just kind of a nice cookie. And then look
at the Melamo Carina that's got the honey in it. And it's got that extra flavor with the nuts
on top. And then the two little cookies here are kind of like just a little sugar cookie
called a Coulombia. And that's good for dipping in coffee. We usually make those around
the holidays. So it's all there. And now since we mentioned it, I have to put it out for the
staff before I could just take it on home with me, but I'm not going to do it. We're going to
let the staff. I pull Greek fest on this. Who know where it's coming from. I'm always good to talk
to you. I can talk to each other for over 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and I see you
down at the, we were talking earlier about the recene concert band or a festival park this year.
And a festival park for the first time. Always good talk and come in and say hello to you. And
Mark Eichner is going to be here on Monday, the conductor. And we're talking about what's coming
up this year for the band. Yeah. And they always have the great show planned. And every Sunday night,
they're free. Well, you said, you know, we're talking about Steve earlier, 24 years old working
out of state. We used to take them there when they were children and little kids and just love
the venue there. Are you from here originally? Yes. Yeah. Well, you're local, you know. Well,
yeah. Well, I thank you very much for coming in. And I'll probably see you on Sunday. Well,
thank you. And all of your listeners. We look forward to a wonderful Greek fest this year. And
I hope to see you again. And over the next 20 years. I told them they used to hang a banner.
This is 20 some of the years ago over the walk span on Ohio. It was a thing said Greek fest with
the dates on it. And some kids went up there and cut the R routes. It's a geek fest. And
always think of geek fest. Yeah. Because they took the R out of the band and they cut it out.
That's funny. Anyway, so it's always good to see you, my friend. You too. When they said you were
coming. And I said, Oh, great. Yeah. I love to see you. Okay. Let's quick review here.
Greek fest Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That's this Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Each day they,
like, well, on Friday, they'll open up at five, but Saturday and Sunday noon until you can't stand
anymore carnival rides for the kids. You have games. You have everything there. It's like a regular
carnival for people like me. It's the food. Sock and hockey. I love that stuff. That flaming
cheese. Yeah. And I like you see it made right there. Oh, they have fun doing it too. You can tell.
And it gets too hot going side. It's air conditioned. Right. Right. And you can see you can eat
in there. The full meals are served. And it's really nice. Thank you, my friend. Thank you,
Don. Tom Savos from Greek fest. Love it. It's this weekend. I'll be out there on Sunday,
eating all the food. So don't use it all when we out there.
