Different Time, Different Dangers

you

That's our theme here a little bit today.

Jim is here, Carol Jean Fortier here, and we do our little chitchat once a month about things going on in the 50s, 60s, and we're seen not only in Racine, but everywhere, but in Racine, Dead Man's Curve is our show today.

And what are we talking about, guys?

Well, actually, we're talking about part four of things we did back in the 50s and 60s, which were considered relatively safe back then, but maybe not now.

And this is our final segment on this, so we're not gonna do it on the part five or whatever.

The new fall season starts in September.

Yes,

that's right.

Well, we covered a lot, though.

We covered a lot of these dangers and found out that we had a lot of innocent days where, goodness sakes, we were out there tanning on Lake Michigan beaches, not realizing what those UV arrays were doing for us.

Our playgrounds.

Jim, I guess you were a master of the teeter-totter where you would just jump off and leave the other person just falling into the dirt.

That was

fun.

Things like that.

The danger thing.

We survived.

You

used to get up, hold down with your hand and say, get

ready,

and let go.

And they were crashing to their, lost a tooth, scraped their arm, and went

home crying.

We were little diaries.

We were not entirely innocent in other words, in other words.

But now today, we're doing, as we were in later grade school,

And continuing on.

Yep.

You know, we did so much alone as kids back then.

I remember going to a friend's house just by yourself.

You would just yell out to mom, hey, I'm going to Tony's house.

And then you'd either walk or take your bike over there, get to the door.

Instead of ringing the bell or whatever, you would just simply yell, oh, Tony.

And he would do the same to me, of course.

And you know, we were pretty innocent.

as upper grade school kids back then.

But see, back then our parents pretty much assumed that our neighbors were the cleavers, you know, from the leave at the beaver.

They were just all American families and there was no such thing as, you know, neighbors you don't want to really meet anymore.

So

we accepted, we accepted those invitations.

Yeah.

For

hours, you could be over at someone's house.

That's exactly

right.

Come say trust.

My next neighbor was Billy Richard.

He was two years younger than me.

And he was being punished one day.

And he had to go to his bedroom, which was on the second floor of his house.

And we're downstairs yelling, hey, Billy.

And he comes to the window.

He said, oh, right out.

I said, you thought you can't come out.

He lowered himself.

hung by the way and dropped himself two stories and we go oh and we went

to

catch him and we all fell

he landed on us.

Oh my

goodness.

What

are you insane?

When we called for people we really called for that

guy.

He lives in Florida now.

I think

he's still

a little touched.

Is he still in his wheelchair?

He fell on us and his grandmother comes running at you back in your bedroom.

Not how are you?

No, how did you get out?

How did you

get

back in your bedroom?

Yeah.

Geez.

Oh.

Yeah, we were pretty innocent back then, weren't we, Carol?

Well, but it's amazing to us that we could be gone, Jim, like all day long alone.

We're talking about doing things alone.

Yes.

Without our parents' helicoptering.

Yep.

Around us.

And so, of course, that comes to mind.

We walked and we biked all over our neighborhoods and even at a

Maybe eight years old nine years old all around town Their mothers must have loved it because they ended up free for the day.

Oh,

yeah Just maybe

having lunch for us.

We probably showed up at lunch We probably we did show up at dinner But things that we did of course one of our destinations were our neighborhood playgrounds.

I mean we could go there and stay all morning all afternoon making those lanyards and

games with the park leader and all that.

But we also had places like the neighborhood grocery store.

Oh, jeez, if we had some pennies in our pockets, right to the neighborhood store.

Bikes would be outside, kids gathering for bubble gum.

And did you ever think someday pennies would be worthless and you couldn't use them anymore?

You think penny candy, truly gone.

And you can't even buy it.

They round it up now.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

I went to water

lanes in it.

I had some pennies, they said, well, you don't take pennies.

What?

But

Carol said.

Yeah.

Oh, and I was asking my husband once, he was talking about biking down the McKinley school hill.

Give him a probably 10, 11 years old or something.

That's suicide.

And I said, what were you doing over there?

Because he was living over by Regency Mall.

And he said, well, I was riding over to my grandma's at the zoo.

So all across town, no questions

asked.

If my

mother ever knew what I was riding on that bicycle, riding down these dirt hills in the back, we called it the pit.

It was a giant, and we went down, it was almost at a 45 degree angle going straight, then your bike would slip and you would roll.

If

my mother had an inkling to what I was doing, she'd take away

that

bike.

Oh, we never told him anything, Don, what we were really doing.

Why is your shoulder out of whack?

No, I dislocated

it.

We were saying, how does this fit into dangers?

Because a lot of these things were just good fun for us, would be considered dangerous to date.

But I do have to say now, being all that time on our own, we had alleys behind Carlisle Avenue where I lived.

And you could walk down those alleys and you could spot a nice pear tree.

And those boys would hop over picket fences and steal those pairs, you know.

I mean, so there were plenty of shenanigans going on too, where we were, you know, probably just a few close calls.

But Jim, I think in our discussions about this, you were, you were by the railroad tracks.

Oh

yeah, we'd ride our bikes downtown just west of the Main Street Bridge.

Used to be an old railroad yard there, and we'd just go down there.

and watch the trains go by and shuffle around, and it was just something to do, but the point is, we were pretty much gone all day on our bikes or walking someplace, you know.

We maybe sometimes come home for lunch if we got hungry, but other than that, we were pretty much gone all day.

Another thing we use by the way, you didn't put pennies on the tracks.

Did you of course we did Yeah, but not the north shore because that was by at 90 miles an hour.

You never got your money back.

Oh I

remember

putting a

penny on there and then when a train went by they used to get this flat penny Sure, you know forget the train just derailed and 65

people

were

killed.

I got the penny, yeah.

Nicola was better though down there.

Yeah, but a lot of times we would take the

bus downtown.

Where were the railroad tracks that you

are talking about.

Oh, near DeCoven, you know, the northwestern, the old northwestern.

But again, we wouldn't do it on the North Shoreline because that was a passenger commuter that went almost 90 miles an hour in.

Jim Messier, Carol G and Forteer here.

We're talking about, once again, the dangers, more dangers we had in the 50s and 60s growing up in Racine that we didn't know about.

So we found that Jim used to play chicken on the railroad tracks or something like that.

and Carol used to swipe pairs from a tree or something like that.

Let's continue

guys.

Another thing we did as kids was taking the bus downtown alone.

I remember I was probably seven or eight years old.

I'd put seven cents in the, you know, the thing there and away we go.

We'd go downtown, hit the dime stores or maybe meet friends that go to the Venetian or Rialto Theater.

For me, I'd spend the whole day downtown and it was

Perfect for me because the bus stop was just almost in front of our house.

Just one house away.

And all I had to remember was that I lived on the green line.

And there were six different colors, of course, six different lines.

Remember them, Carol?

Red, orange, white, yellow, blue, and green.

Did you ever could you have a claim to fame that you wrote every color eventually?

Probably not.

I never asked you that.

Yeah, yeah.

I

only wrote the red and the green in my

life.

Okay,

all right.

I didn't make it to all the colors.

But then what would you do downtown all day long?

Well, like I said, time stores or just hang out with friends.

And we were only probably eight years old.

See a movie at the Venetian.

A lot of times, I know I was talking to my friend Sheila Dermody Gamble on this, but she would take the bus downtown for religious education.

at St.

Rose or go to the YWCA.

I'd do that too for the YMCA.

Take the bus down there and have fun.

It

turns out we had the same orthodontist, Dr. Buckley.

We'd take the bus and head out to his office and then come right back.

All that, we were just doing it alone, and you know... Let's see teeth.

Let's see what we can do.

It didn't work.

I don't have

any.

It

didn't work.

It taught us responsibility.

So

what we're saying here again is we had this wonderful independence that I think when we're talking with people, they'll say, oh, we just could go all over Racine today, no.

So that's where the danger comes in.

That's where we had minor...

Worries back danger today that has been lost.

I think so and

then writing the bus I had the red line.

Yeah, just walked down to Carlyle and Elbert and if you missed it and once in a while You know you decide to go downtown at the last minute.

Mm-hmm, and you'd miss the bus.

Yeah, there was a schedule

Yeah, every half hour.

I think

you know the biggest

danger today is other teenagers with guns

Yeah, a little

difference.

Every day you turn on the news, somebody else threatened

somebody or shot somebody.

I was a teenager with a gun.

Yeah, absolutely.

Remember going to the beach alone?

Well, and that was another one where that ties into with being gone all day.

Now, I would walk from Carlisle all the way down High Street

in Junior

High, gathering with friends.

We had our transistor radios.

you know, listening.

But just the freedom.

When we were younger, too, I think, am I exaggerating?

But parents just were, what would you say, more trusting, more laid back.

And

we could kind of roam the sand.

Now today, the fears of somebody being kidnapped or whatever haunt us.

But we could roam that huge

beach.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

That's

right.

And then we also went with thinking of water.

We went to Washington Park pool.

Yep.

Yep.

We had that for a destination.

And then

jumping off that, that thing.

Yes.

Onto other people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Jumping off that diving platform.

Yeah.

And where you had everybody below and they're, look out.

Now we're all in missiles.

Yeah.

So that

was another great destination for all day long.

Yep.

And we took the bus there too.

We rode our bikes

and just left them outside.

And I think when we talked more about that.

I even, walking there, Marcia Connit, who's talked with us on panels, she would walk from the north side to Washington Park Pool.

Another thing we used to do was play games in the street.

We'll get to that.

Oh, tell us about games in the

street.

All right, well, we played football and baseball, you know, in the street, and when a car would come, one of the boys would say,

car!

And

then everybody would walk to the curb.

That's

right.

There was always one

lookout

car.

Yeah, let the car go by.

And then, of course, we'd continue again.

Did

you ever do that thing where you pretended to hold a rope?

No.

Remember that?

There were two guys, one guy on each side of the street.

You pretend to hold a rope and the car was coming by and they'd slow down.

You didn't have anything.

You just thought they pretended you were holding a rope and they'd slow down.

Or they'd say just walk away.

Oh, yeah.

Now, I think you told us.

recently done that your dad painted.

Right, he painted bases on the street.

Yeah, he took out his can of white paint and he painted bases all over the street.

Yeah.

And he made home plate in the wrong direction, but he made it for a reason so my brother can do play on the other side, do pitching practice.

So he did it.

But yeah, he came here with Canobate, just painted on the street.

Get

arrested nowadays.

But it was great because

we

all love we played every game with those bases.

Yeah, yeah.

What a guy.

Well, well, I'm thinking about alleys, but were you going to say something more about streets?

Well, just we'd stay out till probably till the street lights came

on and

then we went home.

But

you

know, with we never used helmets back then and we played the win.

You know, and but with today's crazy drivers, I don't think that'd be a good idea now.

You know, you just never know, it's going to be barreling

down

the street.

And

I, again, I think there was something real important to us on Carlisle and other streets.

We had alleys.

Yeah.

And it was like its own world.

Now, Carlisle was like a half a mile long at Boulevard.

So we

pretty much we're confined to our own one block of the alley.

But talk about being out there playing hopscotch, kickball, jumping rope in the alley and bikes.

It was great for whizzing by on bikes.

Plus another thing for us were we would talk about they live across the alley.

We live across the alley from each other.

That was a phrase.

And so across the alley from my house,

were houses that were much newer.

We were in old homes, and these homes were built right after the war.

No garages, no fences.

So for a whole block, practically, there were open, grassy yards.

Did you double-dare kids to do things?

That's our

next topic.

Well, we're coming to

that real soon.

You must be clairvoyant.

Are you

clairvoyant?

Well, I had a little something here, and this is something we're going

to lead into on the next topic.

My triple dog dare you!

Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat.

You're helping us along with our

script done.

Thank you so much.

Is that what we'd expect from you?

The double dog

dare.

Yeah,

that's right.

I

don't

think I ever dared anybody in my life to do anything.

Oh, well a double dare was much worse than a common dare, as you know.

Usually it was something to do with being in a dangerous situation like...

Something unsafe like crossing a railroad bridge or a railroad tracks or lighting a firecracker, you know in your hand Usually when somebody bragged about doing something Out of the ordinary you would say oh, yeah, well I double dare you to do that But yeah double dare was that was a very common phrase you guys didn't use the

double dog dare.

No We never heard of that one and

the triple dog dare.

Yeah

That's as high as you can get, huh?

Well, you were a little terror growing up, huh?

Oh, we all were.

Not me.

No, not you.

I'm a good kid.

But no, I think you said, Jared's usually came in, Doug dismissed, did you say?

When someone was a braggart.

Yeah, when somebody was

bragging, you know, excessively.

You

cut them right down the side.

Yeah, I double dare you to do

that.

Well, you guys had your whole hierarchy in the streets, right?

In the streets.

Wow.

Look at you today.

I didn't think you'd be such a bully in the street, daring people to

do

stuff.

Oh

my

God.

Now it was serious, a double dog dare.

What else was left but a triple dare you?

And finally, the coup de gras of all dares, the sinister triple dog dare.

I triple dog dare you.

Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat.

That was you.

That was Jim Messier.

I triple dog dare you.

That was you.

You still do that to your wife and stuff?

I double-dog dare you.

What did she do to you?

I triple-dog dare you.

Anyway, yeah, they don't use that.

They don't do that in the middle, do they?

No, I don't think

so.

Arguments

just end with a punch in the nose, and that's it.

I don't know.

I've never gotten into a fight in my life.

I've won time, but I've never gotten into a fight in my life.

Some guy challenged me, and it was over in two seconds when I pushed him.

But I've never gotten into a fight in my entire life.

You

must have been lucky.

Yeah.

You there?

That's fine.

I don't know.

I might have, but maybe over a girl or something.

I don't remember.

I can tell you, I never did.

Yeah.

You really?

We had a girl in our junior high, Teresa Whalen, and she was like a wild card.

She was always challenging girls to fight.

If you looked at her wrong, I'm going to catch you at the

school.

Everybody went on this neighbor's lawn across from the street because you see they weren't home.

They were working.

and she immediately tore the girl's shirt off.

That's the first thing she went for.

She grabbed the shirt and tore it off.

Now she had the advantage because the girl's

now quite an advantage.

And then she started

punching and just wailing on her.

Yeah, I got

a stage shot.

I

got a stage shot at Lincoln School in sixth grade and still walking home for lunch.

A new girl in our class, she would say to me, I'm going to beat you up.

And I'm very scared to walk home.

Never happened, but she would threaten me every lunch.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Yeah,

what did you do to tick her off?

I just existed

I breathe the same in the room I

can

see that I understand that

Yeah, I'm gonna

beat you up.

Yeah, I never had that over the only the quick story was Mickey strange was he was angry me for something I don't know what it was and he said

After school, we're gonna meet you right by the chain fence by the yeah basketball everybody gathered there and I stepped outside I saw him I was twice his height and I just ran up to him and I pushed him into the fence He started crying.

It was all over.

Oh,

I just I just did I want to hit him That was the only

fun mercy on him.

Well, he was a friend He just was stupid.

He had stupid things and we stayed we were friends afterwards, but he had just pushed him into the thing He couldn't catch his breath.

He didn't see a comment

and

then he cried

thinking about these dangers

We

can laugh at some, we can say it's more dangerous today, but we did live through the beat you up area.

And the daredevil area was good.

Today,

I'm gonna beat you up.

Today, it's

I'm gonna shoot

you.

Now

it's

more dangerous than ever.

I mean, maybe we could take a punch, but

you

know.

Well, another thing we survived, and this is kind of a sensitive topic, discipline at home.

Now we were talking about this Compared to today We did not know that the term a timeout We were not offered timeouts We were offered a spanking.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah,

if we were sassy or fighting with our Siblings too much No, yes, and hopefully no one that's listening had severe spankings that would be off

off limits here.

My parents never laid a hand on my brother.

I

never

in all our lives never touched us.

But the threat was there.

My brother and

I said, yeah, that's going to snap.

I don't know what to do because you two want to see blood.

You want to see blood?

And he never laid a hand on

that.

That's really wonderful.

I had two spankings in my life.

Just two.

Just two.

I remember it was a really bad afternoon.

We'd gone to the 4th of July parade.

So maybe I was four and came home and we three, my family, we were outside on our yard doing some yard work.

And I had the most beautiful balloon in the world that I'd gotten on the parade route.

And I let it go.

And that

unleashed in me, the biggest tantrum that you could ever imagine.

And I went into the house and I slammed the door as hard as I could.

And all of you, all of my dad gave me a spanking.

You did?

They never laid a hand on us, but the threat was there.

We never knew when it was going to happen, so we stayed in line because we were afraid when it does

come, it's

like Mount Vesuvius has got to

rough with that.

I had a threat that worked very well.

We had a hedge of lilac bushes outside, and I think I was around three, and I must have been a sassy, sassy kid because my mother got a branch from the lilac hedge, and she hung it over the kitchen sink, so I could view it

morning,

noon, and night.

If you're going to act up, just take a look.

That was the threat, which never had to be used, but that was my threat.

your parents threatened you, Jim?

No,

they

just acted.

Yeah, yeah.

My mom would say, just wait till your father comes home.

And I thought, well, good, because my dad was not the disciplinarian.

You guys got to do better.

You know, that was it.

He never spanked us at all.

I heard that

all the time.

What do your father gets home?

Yeah, yeah.

And I didn't know if he was going to do anything, depending on the day he had.

He

never did anything.

Another thing we used to do that was dangerous back then, and it still is now, although you can't do it anymore, was diving off the cliffs by the quarry.

That's pretty much off limits now.

I mean, a lot of kids would jump feet first.

A few dived off their head first.

You always ran the risk of being paralyzed because you could hit some submerged rocks there.

But it was very, very common practice for kids to do that.

How did they stop you from doing it today?

Fences?

Oh, the fences.

There's signs all over the place.

Oh, the signs.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, the signs.

They stop everything.

The signs.

You know, you will be shot if you get caught here, whatever.

Why would you jump off knowing it was that dangerous?

Why would you

do it?

It looked dangerous

back then.

But

you knew it was dangerous.

You knew it.

Well, the possibility existed that it might be dangerous, but as kids, you had all this, you know, you had no fear.

And everybody else

was

doing it, so you just followed along.

Maybe

that went into the dares too.

I'll dare you to jump off

that's right.

I doubled

I

Didn't have half the dangers you had here in the Midwest

Amazing we survived.

I mean, let's give ourselves a lot of credit.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah

Well then diving to we already mentioned but on a much lower level at the Washington Park pool

Your

life was if you were in the pool

and I

saw the videos of this stuff people just jump in even though

there

was a crowd of people below

and they look out.

Yeah,

that's right.

Here I come.

And I

can't believe the pool let them do they didn't like rope off a section where the swimmers can be and couldn't be.

They

just

let people jump off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you get some maybe some heavies that guy jumping on you and you'd have to go

home.

Well, amazing we survived.

What else did we do?

Well, now we have to see how we acted as teens and we can spend another four sessions on that, but we're going to abbreviate.

We're going to abbreviate now to end this series.

But we all know as teens, the shenanigans we pulled, knowing probably that we were doing something dangerous.

And yes, it was.

Now, for instance, the big area we're going to talk about is the dangerous

the dangers we had with the cars.

Now we were driving, but on a moderate level, just hiding in the trunk for the outdoor.

Now, we are not aware that we lost any lives due to expectation or anything in the trunk.

Came close, but

yeah.

And did you ever do that, Jim?

Oh,

jeez, yes.

Oh, my gosh, yeah.

We sure did.

Save a buck, you know?

Yeah,

that was important to save a dollar.

Yeah, once we had three guys in the trunk.

Uh-huh.

Three.

You couldn't just have one driver because it would

look

suspicious.

Yeah, you had at least two people in the

car.

Did you ever hear that the ticket takers were suspicious if the car was alone?

Yeah, that's right.

You guys thought of everything.

Yeah, sometimes they would follow you knowing that there's people

in the trunk and they would

just stand there and of course you couldn't give the high sign to the guys hiding in the trunk because you

were being

watched.

right yeah I need

to

suffer in there for who knows how long but yeah I'm sure a lot of us did it everybody yeah yeah well one time this was funny we had a couple guys hiding in the trunk only to discover

When we pulled in, it was buck night.

The whole car got in for a dollar.

So these guys in the truck were there for nothing.

At least you defeated some air every once in a while.

Wow.

You know, that's so true.

One person driving into a drive-in theater.

That would be

slightly suspicious.

Get security, please.

Get security.

This is a little very odd to us.

That's exactly right.

Very, very

strange.

And then what we did after that...

The big one.

The big one, yeah.

And a

lot of kids did this, or I should say young adults, driving to Kenosha County when you could get a beer when you were 18.

And some of the establishments were Shaky's Pizza.

The Brot Stop was very, very popular and common.

Another one was Earls, I remember, but they only had to be 18.

Because we're seeing County was 21.

That's exactly right.

Yes, and a good friend of mine who since passed away.

I'll just say his first name nibs He could issue you a fake ID if you wanted and his famous line was he'd go to a bunch of guys, you know standing someplace How many you guys are 18?

Of course a few would raise their hands next question How many of you want to be 18?

Of course every hand went up then and he

He could issue you a fake ID for a price.

I don't know if it was a dollar or whatever, but he was well known for issuing you a fake ID.

Never knew a guy to do that.

Oh my gosh, yeah.

He made a few.

I always thought the

Midwest was wholesome.

You went to the barn dance on Saturday night.

And

now I find out your fake ID.

You're jumping off cliffs and you're sneaking into driving movie theaters.

Jim and Carol are here this morning.

What did you just ask Jim before the break?

Well about nibs making at least one quit very quick off the press.

Yeah one guy had to have a fake ID for that evening and he asked nibs to put one together for him nibs said well I can't do it in a matter of hours it has to dry and everything and the guy said well I'll take a chance I have to go there tonight nibs said okay but it's it's gonna be on you so sure enough

The guy pulls out his fake ID, hands it to the guy, and it falls apart right in front of the bouncer.

Did he charge for him?

What's that?

Did Nibs charge him?

Oh, of course.

That's

how he went to Las

Vegas in later life.

He charged, but then he probably got his money back.

Was there a guaranteed refund if it didn't

work?

I love that line.

Anyone here, 18, or does everyone want to be 18?

Who wants

to be 18?

Yeah, that was

funny.

Funny one about cars in my neighborhood was somehow in just later years, I learned that this teenage guy with his buddies, I think really like age 14, they'll make it 15, right in our neighborhood at night, they would go over to this guy's house and push the car out of the garage.

the family went to bed early.

And wouldn't they go and get their beer because somebody looked older?

Oh,

and so I thought, wow, that was really something.

I knew that guy right in the neighborhood.

So years go by and I end up telling that to someone it was his sister.

And she never even knew that for a year or two, these guys had taken the family car right in the dead of night.

Whatever they wanted

to do.

So now we also

did our share of pulling things ourselves.

We call them, we talk pranks.

We talk about pranks.

And I happen to know, but I have promised that I would not say any names.

I will.

I'll say names

or whatever.

That a group of, I happen to go to Horlick.

So, but St.

Catherine's girls actually put dish detergent in our beautiful Racine reflecting pools.

So I don't know what kind of damage the disc detergent did.

What kind of, were you involved in the reflecting pool in Washington caper?

Were you

involved?

Yeah, that's right.

I think they learned here and they're out there now.

They're turning things green.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Anybody do dishes and as long as they had, you know, a place to

do them.

There were some restaurants right along

there.

Yeah, take a bath or something,

you know,

as long as it

was

available.

How about you,

Jim?

Well...

I wasn't involved in this one, but I know some people who were, every Halloween, they would go to the underpass on Durand Avenue there, right by the old case.

And at nighttime, again, for Halloween, they would drop this dummy down when a car was approaching and then quickly yank it up.

Of course, the guy thought he hit something.

You know, he got out and he was panicking, but there was nothing there.

And then they'd try it on the next person and whatever, but they asked me to do it once.

I said, Oh my gosh.

No, I would never be on your old cheese.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was a limit to what you would

do.

There was a limit.

There was a line.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, one one last thing because I guess time is escaping us here.

Years ago when I was writing stories freelance and free of charge for the Rossini Journal when they had stories in, I loved

Talking to some of my Horlick High School friends, they had worked at Zayers.

That was right across from Horlick, right in that big, huge shopping center.

Zayers was huge.

It had everything.

Well, I love talking to these girls, and we still talk about it.

They talk about it because one of them said, well, actually, Horlick High School ran Zayers because everybody had a job there.

And the pranks.

that they played at Sears.

And this is the worst one that my friends swear by.

One of the guys, a Horlick student who was in the crushing disposal area, he would entice new hires to get on this conveyor belt that was the end result was crushing the boxes.

My goodness.

He put them on the conveyor belt and stopped just in time.

Now that's at another level.

Whoa.

But anyway, don't put Horlick High School in charge of Zayers.

Don't ever do that again.

Wow.

Well, that's about it for our four months of dangers, Jim.

I think so.

I think the conveyor belt was the worst one.

That's what we say

the best.

Wow.

And

Sierra never knew who was doing this kind of stuff.

Horlick High School was running

it.

What do you mean they were running it?

There were so many students that had jobs there.

And then they continued on.

part-time after after high school as well.

There were marriages.

I just ran into a woman lately.

She said, oh, you know, you know, I married my husband because of Zayers.

And so, of course, he's in a

wheelchair because he fell into the trash

car after.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it was like a pandemonium, except the store did run well.

I was a customer at Zayers.

You would have never guessed things that were going on like with the conveyor belt, but they were.

Oh, I know

that

guy.

I guess he had the guys doing.

um, rating systems for the new female, their legs, because we get to wear dresses.

You know, it was, it was, should I say bedlam, pandemonium?

Maybe I

should have grown up in the Midwest.

I had

nothing.

My life was dull.

Fun here.

Man.

Cliffs and everything like that.

You know, for example, that

conveyor belt.

Yeah.

They got into the lawsuits that today could have against air for even pulling that stunt.

Yeah.

Letting

it,