Trucker Thursday From Oshkosh

Coming to Northeast Wisconsin live from the Civic Media Studios and featuring TV and radio broadcast veteran John Minow along with the City of Green Bay's longest-serving mayor Jim Schmidt.

This is Minow and the Mayor.

And here are your hosts, John Minow and Jim Schmidt.

Good morning, everybody.

Hey, it's a beautiful Thursday out there in downtown Oshkosh.

It's nice.

There's no wind.

There's hardly anything.

I found something good in my coffee.

Have you ever done that where you stop at a gas station and you don't know what you're getting?

You know what I mean?

But they got one.

They got this little gas station I stopped at.

I don't even know where it was, where it was.

I just wonder when I come to Oshkosh.

But all you know is gas is $297.

So I'm going to.

That's good.

That's a good welcome.

So anyway.

Um, have you ever got all these different sweeteners, you know, the different flavors?

Yeah.

And I found one that I'd never had before.

It's delicious.

It's fantastic.

I think it's real good for you.

It is good for you.

Cheese Kurt Nick told me.

We were talking before we went on the air about getting advice, nutritional advice, advice from cheese curd, Nick.

I'm like kind of getting some financial advice from people that I have the tin cup.

Notice

cheese curd.

No, no, I did.

OK, well, what is it?

It was kind of a French vanilla, something, something.

OK.

Like, like not just coffee vanilla or something.

It's in its nutritional

caramel or something,

something.

Yeah.

But it's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to find it.

I don't know where it was.

Again, I'll just wander around Oshkosh, so I can stumble upon it again.

So anyway, but we love being downtown Oshkosh.

We are here on 98.3, 96.5 FM WSS, Civic Media app.

Of course, 97.9 FM WGBW, 38 in Green Bay, 37 in Ampton, 36 in Oshkosh, high in the upper 40s.

Although rain today, I don't care.

I'll take that, man.

Better every day, right?

Yeah, right?

We're gonna be 60.

It's almost like a staircase just climbing up.

Okay, gotta be honest with you.

Okay, so I saw all kinds of pictures last night and this morning on the stage.

Yeah, it looks good.

I thought it'd be bigger.

You know what, John, think about it.

Well, you see these pictures, so it makes like, I mean, it looks like there's nothing wrong.

It looks like a summer fest stage or something.

For some reason, y'all, when you see it on TV, it's that same thing.

That's exactly why they built it.

When you see it on TV, it seems.

But you know what I mean?

I was expecting it to be just this.

Right.

Yeah, it

is.

Wait, then just watch it on TV.

Yeah.

But it's

nice to see that.

I think that gets the mojo going in the community.

Well, that

doesn't.

I don't know what else will.

Right.

I mean, come on, it's time.

It's good or going.

And I think some phone calls last night about where should I park?

And so others people come in now.

I just.

Like I said to you last week, I just wasn't feeling it.

And I think now I am.

And even the stadium view, I talked to some friends of mine and the stadium view is, you know, our friends playing there.

There's a lot of people playing there, but the glam band's playing and you have to get, you just got to register.

You just go online and it's free, but you just put your name in there and how many tickets you want.

And they just don't do it from a capacity because I mean, the fire department's going to be out there.

How do they do that though?

I mean they don't count every single person.

No, but those guys are pretty good about iron stuff up Are they yeah for rallies and things they but really they've they've got to keep it safe And that's part of the deal is capacity.

So anyway, they There's a lot of cool stuff going on, but that parking is not gonna be cheap

that where

Just everywhere.

Yeah, just two people were talking.

Well, it's 100 bucks a day.

Pretty much.

Isn't it?

Is that standard?

Well, this guy was

thinking to get 140.

I'm like, we'll get 150 or 125.

140.

That sounds like, come

on.

But anyway, that's what he sounds like a weird.

I'm surprised.

I see people keep saying, well, I paid 60 bucks at the Bucks game the other night for parking.

You know what?

And how about the Badgers?

You know, the Badger football, that's more expensive than the Packer game sometimes.

So I don't know, would you pay 100 bucks?

I would

if you had four

people in the car.

Yeah.

So

I mean I would for a once-in-a-lifetime type thing, right?

Yeah, I would and I understand the gouging aspect of the whatever whatever I told you understand that yeah, you know and I will say this I know we're a little colloquial Green Bay and everything but in the towns where those people are coming from a lot of them Green Bay people would pay a lot more exactly you know I'm saying so I'm not defending the you know But I'm just saying when you go to the road and you go places.

Yeah, man

Bring the bring the card and it's only three days.

Exactly.

You know what I mean?

It's not one time is what it is So I think I think people are gonna go and have a lot of say your world is literally gonna be watching it's like, you know what if you don't want to pay it don't go You know what I mean?

It's kind of at that point.

It's like, okay.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm kind of past that and

that parking thing we talked about yesterday.

I just want to come clean on that because I was

Complain a

little bit.

Wait a minute.

You want to complain on that?

Well, no, I just I think

he said I want to complain on that.

Oh, I did come clean.

I do complain.

Why would you ever actually like that?

Of course he's going to complain.

Of all the things

we say in the show that's the one that shocked you.

We don't I like.

like Todd being right here.

He's right

here.

There's no glass.

Because we can hardly see you behind that glass.

I know.

I know.

I mean, once we see your face kind of

like pops

up and I'm not even joking.

It's

exactly like the Wizard of Oz where you

got the smoke in the screen and you

see that face once in a while.

I kind of like it that way though.

You guys and your little, it's like being at the zoo.

I can kind of watch the.

Speaking of which, you know what Twilight Zone episode was on the other night?

The one where the astronaut, he wakes up and he's in this living room.

Okay, and this girl comes in and she brings them food and everything and he's just hey when what's going on here?

I can't my door is locked.

Oh, don't worry about it.

It'll be okay Okay, where am I is this?

You know am I like Cape Canaveral or some?

Oh don't don't worry too much about it And then at the end they do the reveal where they open the curtains and he's on a different planet and he's the zoo

Oh,

yeah,

I'll pass me and

everybody's there looking at him and pointing at him and knocking on the window That's a great

Twilight Zone episode

Yeah.

No, I, John talked yesterday about the parking,

right?

Right.

Then the INS was doing, taking that up last night to raise the rates.

And I'm like, I don't, I think the locals shouldn't be penalized.

Right.

But the people with the monthly passes aren't.

Right.

Okay.

So I think

that's okay then.

Yeah.

And trust me, I'm the last person in the world.

Because we have monthly.

That would.

I'm the first person where we're looking at opportunity to rep the parking situation in Green Bay.

The very first.

I'll be on top of this.

And I'm not in this case.

Because again, it's a three-day thing.

Right.

You know, I do think it's terrible if some of those businesses have had to close for two weeks.

That two or three weeks, that's terrible, I think.

I think they need some kind of a stipulation or some kind of a

stipend.

We've talked about that.

Something.

Come on, Goodell.

You make 49 million a year.

Come on.

You can loosen up the purse strings a little bit for these people.

At least make

them whole.

Something.

Come

on.

Yeah.

by the way that that at least with the those of us with the monthly parking passes that stays the same

yeah

so that's cool

yeah anyway um had a thing of 289 at christ in green bay or christ christ christ

christ

yeah christ yeah

My favorite Twilight Zone is William Shatner on the airplane,

guy out on the wing.

That's so cheesy.

Have you ever seen that, Jim?

I don't think I've seen that.

Oh, my gosh.

It's so cheesy.

That one, because it's a weird little character, like this little green monster kind of thing

or something.

Yeah.

But it's always good seeing a young William Shatner.

Yeah.

And his overacting is right up there at the top.

Oh,

yeah.

It's almost like a caricature of himself.

If he went back, that's what he would do as a caricature.

Yeah.

But if there's a thing, I just want to say my favorite.

Maybe I've mentioned that is the library.

Yes.

Oh, Burgess Marathon.

It's mind boggling.

You see that the first time and you're a little kid when you see that the first time,

right?

Oh,

yeah.

And it's like, no.

Oh, when you're a little kid, right?

Other than your dad yelling from upstairs when you drop your marbles and he's on midnight shift.

Other than that, how did that go, by the way?

Not

great.

Not great.

Not great.

I remember my mom, Johnny, Johnny, don't play in the kitchen.

Pause, sleep.

It's on midnight shift.

OK.

Take your marbles into the living room.

Don't have anything.

OK.

Big Folger's coffee can.

Reach over to something.

Hold coffee can.

All the steelies, all the marbles.

That's all you hear from upstairs.

Hey!

So other than that sound, the other one was, when you're a kid, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

When that would just come on with a twilight song.

Man, that was, it still kind of gets me this day.

It

is.

It's a haunting that sound.

Yeah.

But man, he was a great writer.

And young though, kind of a little twisted, right?

And very, very serious post-traumatic stress from World War II went through really tough things fighting the Philippines.

Really?

Really tough things.

Yeah.

And that's why he did a lot of military type, type of themes with the whole different things.

But anyway, it's a hug your dog day.

Done.

Did you do it this morning?

Of

course.

He always says goodbye to me and then he goes back to bed.

I'm

surprised you're not wearing it.

He doesn't shed.

He doesn't shed.

Okay.

Work from home day.

Did you work from home?

Yeah.

Kinda.

I mean, I did during the COVID.

But you're also right.

I mean, you

do.

Yeah.

So it wasn't anything new for me.

Yeah.

And being in real estate, it's not like you're, I mean, these days in real estate, I guess everybody does.

I don't know if many people go to the offices anymore.

Maybe for a team meeting or whatever.

And then, you know, the ML, everything's on computer.

I mean, it's, you know.

I

just think that's hard.

I don't know.

I just, well, you got to be, you got to be disciplined, Jim.

Okay, John.

See, for me, because I do work from home a little bit and always did even before this job, it wasn't that I had to be disciplined.

I had to take the time to walk away to

have lunch or say okay I'm done for the day because you're there and so oh we need something real quick and then all of a sudden you're going back

like when you do get focused on something like that you're not distracted yeah you work like I was working this chapter of my book trying to finish it with Mike who came in the Vietnam veteran yeah just trying to get some things straight with whatever and I looked up and it was like 20 to 8 and I've been working that like since 230

And I worked like six hours, sometimes when you get so into something like that, and there isn't anything else, you know, no other distractions.

And then, and so then when I stopped, I couldn't turn my head because you know, that muscle in the back of my thing just gets crazy tight.

So you're right about that.

Sometimes there's no distractions.

I just kind of like,

you don't want your home to become your office.

Right.

That's because when I was done with that, you know, I want to do more than anything else.

Get the hell out of that room.

I know,

you know, and it's like I was stuck in that room.

And it's like, so I'm okay.

So that's where I did kind of a, I'm okay with getting up, taking a shower and getting out of the house.

Yeah.

It does help.

And I think calling people back to the office, I think there's a lot to be said for the camaraderie for.

Yes.

I

like the office environment.

Yeah.

And again,

I grew up in that.

So

yeah, I do too.

I'll be honest with you.

Siblings Day.

Shout

out to Don and Vicki, my sisters.

Nice.

Nice, nice, nice.

To my own with Carl Jimbill.

Coming up after the break.

More of Jim's

family.

I only got one or two I talk to anymore, so.

Whichever

ones are talking these days.

Go ahead, happy sibling

to

you.

The other ones that don't.

Leave it.

Today is Gulfers Day.

Yeah, I think people could get out today.

Yeah.

Smack it around a little bit.

Marine Morris is 35.

Is she a country singer?

Marin Morris.

Yeah, she

is.

Yep.

Okay.

Yep.

Did she do a really good song?

But this is my church.

Johnny Cash does the gospel.

Hank says the prayer or something.

And she, it's an amazing story if that's her.

Where she- It's called my church.

My church.

Yep.

Do you know the history of hope?

She basically did that and put it on YouTube.

And she was nobody.

Right.

And from that, she's...

a big time country star.

Just by posting it on YouTube.

I mean, that's what these young entertainers

keep those stories.

And the song is really about her church's music, right?

Johnny and Hank and all that kind of stuff.

So that's what that's all about.

Yes.

All right.

Well, we got set a quick break.

We're in downtown Oshkosh, and we love it here.

And we got a great lineup coming up here.

Tachylo International Youth Sailing of Oshkosh.

I'm getting into sailing this year.

Tachylo John Cramer about that.

I'm going to be out there.

Back up for this.

Roll on highway, roll on along, roll on daddy till you get back home.

Roll on family, roll on crew, roll on mama like I asked you to do.

Hey, welcome back.

Mine or the Mayor here coming your way at 97.9 FM, WGBW 98.3 and 96.5 FM.

WISS, of course, the Civic Media app along with the 1,100 and 1590 on the AM dials.

That's right.

Nice job.

Thank you.

Um, we're in downtown Oshkosh and we've got some great folks coming up.

The Brewers, I'll tell you what, man, they were playing again today at 135 here in WISS.

What did I say yesterday at the end of our show, Jim?

Do you remember?

Cause I don't know.

Are you serious?

The very last words.

I gave you some advice.

Oh yeah.

He told you to bet some money.

Oh, you did.

Final score?

No.

Brewer 17 Rockies two.

No, you didn't tell me that.

I would have remembered that.

But I told you to bet.

Yeah, he did tell me to bet on the brewers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He didn't say 17-2.

I would have bet that.

Why didn't he know it was going to be 17-2?

And I know it was going to be 17-2.

I would have told you that.

I know.

If he knew it was going to be 17-2, he wouldn't be sitting here because he'd be making money just doing that.

Right.

You didn't take my advice.

No, you said the brewers are going to win.

I did.

I said bet on it.

Yeah.

And I went out there to own it.

Did you bet on it?

Load it up.

What were the odds?

Huh?

I don't remember.

Did you didn't you did not bet it you didn't leave your apartment yesterday?

You don't know how I live my life So they did they win god I could have I could have limped into the casino betting did they win that big?

Yeah Wow told her gonna slaughter the Rockies Wow.

Yeah You know the odds could have you know, you know, well, okay, 10 dollars.

Can you wear 11 or something?

No, no, no.

Well, yes, and no, I don't know what they were but

Um, they might even be the same today.

It might have been like you bet a hundred to win 80.

You know how those things go.

But if you bet on the Rockies, it might have been 120.

You bet a hundred, you win 120.

Yeah, see that.

So, I mean, yeah, well, if you load up, you're still doing good.

Oh, I like how the we spent a gas going out there.

20 bucks.

Oh my gosh.

I don't know about whatever.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I'll go out.

I'll get back into that.

But I know we're gonna make a little bit more now.

Well, maybe you should bet more than you bet to make more than you make.

I'm saying there's a correlation there, Todd.

I don't know.

Todd, I only had general math.

But mathematically, he wants to make more, but he wants to bet less.

No, I want to bet $100 and make as much as I can.

That's what I want to do.

You can do that.

But if I can, the first thing you said, I think it was when you bet $100 and I could make $60, that's attractive.

20.

I don't know.

But I would do it, you know, I guess you're never gonna bet $100 to only win 20.

I'm like, don't do that.

To win 20?

You just said that.

No, no, 80.

It's usually like 180.

Like if you bet in the Rockies yesterday, there's a chance that you would have won like 180 if you bet $100.

You see what I'm saying?

But if you bet $100 on the Brewers, maybe the odds where you'd win $80.

Because they're the favorites.

They don't have point spreads in baseball.

You know, like in football and everything, it's seven point point spread.

With this, it's just straight odds with baseball.

Can we go talk to the guy at the window?

OK, I'm sure he's going to enjoy that conversation.

I want to be at least about money and win the most.

Give me those bets.

I only want those bets.

I only want those bets.

Coming up, we've got Steve Eliasson, International Youth Sailing of Oshkosh.

That is huge.

This guy is Oshkosh.

are a great, great couple.

They've been sailing, and they just want to share their talent.

So they started that here in Oshkosh, and they, of course, brought it to Green Bay.

And they take these young kids, and they introduce them to sailing, and not just sailing, and appreciation for the water, but they really lean into this whole stem.

They teach them the whole math, the skill of sailing, and appreciation for the water.

And it's amazing what they have

Grown this to be it's the largest thing.

I was gonna say well It's incredible that the largest school sailing program in North America.

It's incredible what they've done.

That's right here when nominee Park Beach What 16 20 years?

I don't know how they've been doing this, but it's it's it's relatively new It's not like you know 100 years or something.

You know, it's pretty cool though sailing I mean years ago.

It was the hoity-toity hoity-toity, you know, whatever whatever and It's really people more

How do I put this?

And I'm putting myself in this group.

More common people that have never experienced that.

You know, your dad, your grandpa did go to weekends.

Let's skipper the hoist there, Johnny.

You know, we didn't do those things.

But now people get that opportunity.

Yeah, it was all, you know, Martha's Vineyard, Ken Moran.

Right.

But now, I mean, now it's Ken Moran's.

It's so easy to do.

And it's not that he'll talk about it.

It's not that expensive either.

Right.

But they give people to have so many more opportunities now to experience something like that.

Which they never had before.

Windjammers is some smaller groups they can get into.

Yeah, it's very cool.

It's very popular too.

I don't.

Well, Johnnie Kramer wants me to come out with his group this summer.

I'm gonna do that.

I've never been on a sailboat.

Yeah, it's fun.

I still think we're the scariest things though.

It's a good friend of mine.

She used to, her family used to race across Lake Superior, like from Sault Ste.

Marie to Duluth.

Okay, yeah, I could be a little racing choppy and she worked the things and she talked about getting hit with I don't know if it's the boom I guess or whatever and knocked into the middle of Lake Superior Wow, you know what?

I would that's about If I could put it a list of ten things I never want to do yeah is get knocked into the middle of Lake Superior.

Yeah when that comes around.

Yeah, yeah Senator Cole's is a huge sailor.

We've been on his boat.

That's Yeah, that's that's a very relaxing

Just, yeah, sailing's awesome.

You know who else is?

You know who does the Detroit to Mackinaw every year?

Yeah.

Bob Seeger.

Really?

Yeah.

Does he?

Bob Seeger is huge.

Or is it Chicago to Mackinaw maybe even?

Not sure.

Yeah.

That's a race.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So that's what, isn't that something?

Bob Seeger has his own boat and he skippers it.

Remember what's his name?

Ted Turner used to do that and he'd be hammered in the press conference.

This drunk as hell.

It was crazy.

That is.

Pretty chill on those boats though.

I mean, it's but you gotta be pretty athletic to work those really big racer ones.

Those guys aren't.

Well, those guys, no, but I mean, yeah, the crew.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God, man.

Well, you know, another crew that you got to know what you're doing to not, you know, I mean, like, you know, the wins and I'll say another group that was really interesting.

So I was doing the thing for the old station and went below deck in the big big sales.

Yeah.

What do you call it?

The big sales ships, the big.

The experts are coming on John.

You want to hold this question?

No, no, no, the big ships thing.

Yeah used to come to Green Bay ship the tall ships That's what I'm trying to get ships.

Yeah, but I was watching those young crew people like do all their stuff Oh, yeah, like a bunch of spider monkeys.

Yeah, holy that is gonna crawl up those things.

So yeah, that's cool

And I asked him, I said, boy, you must be athletic and work out and everything.

Well, kind of, but gotta be honest, we're moving to a little slower day.

We're out till three this morning doing shots at Sardine can.

We found a little bar.

I mean, and this was at like 6 30 in the morning and they're climbing up these masks, which are look like they look like radio towers.

And they're like, yeah, man, we're all hungover.

And it's boom.

They're up doing this stuff.

They, um, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know what those guys.

Yeah.

That was they.

And they love Green Bay too.

Oh, coming in and.

You know, they close down the sardine can and they had an after party and they were climbing that mass.

They're awesome.

They're awesome cooks and chefs and they had dinner down there.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Sailing's a great, just very peaceful.

Yeah.

All right.

We're going to set a quick break.

We come back.

We will talk International Youth Sailing of Oshkosh with Steve.

When we come back, we're after this.

For WGBW and WISS News, I'm Lisa Hale.

It's Severe Weather Awareness Week in Wisconsin and today's the day for the statewide tornado drills.

Meteorologist Brittany Merlot tells us why it's important and what we should do.

Sirens will sound at 145 and 645.

And this is when you should pretend it's real.

Practice your plan and take shelter.

Go to the lowest level, most interior room, putting as many walls between you and the outside as possible.

Avoid windows and look for things that you can cover yourself with, like pillows or couch cushions.

The main threat is debris.

And it's a good time to pack an emergency backpack as well.

Fill it with a pair of shoes, water, change of clothes, meds, and more.

And let me tell you, muscle memory is best when a natural disaster occurs.

Practice the plan so it sticks.

The roof is raised.

The roof for the NFL Draft 2025 stage is now up as construction for the Draft Theater continues near Lambeau Field in Titletown.

Construction on the stage started in the final days of March with the closure of Oneida Street.

More road closures are coming on Saturday as preparations are made for the massive event, which is expected to bring over 250,000 people to Newisco April 24th through the 26th.

Oshkosh police arrested a 26-year-old Vondelack man Tuesday for charges related to human trafficking.

An undercover officer posed as a teenage girl through the victim's social media accounts where the officer learned that the suspect had previously engaged in sex acts with this victim.

The suspect faces charges of three counts of soliciting a child for prostitution and three counts of human trafficking of a child.

A search warrant was issued for the suspect's residence in Vondelack County where

numerous electronic devices were seized.

The suspect's name has not yet been released.

I'm Lisa Hale for WGBW and WISS News.

For news anytime, visit civicmedia.us.

Truckers out there.

I'll tell you what one.

I'm gonna say I'm three I want all the truckers listening to just lay in the heart.

Okay.

Give them time and ready.

Yep.

Sit back just a little bit.

And they want everybody to text in if they heard anybody do this.

Okay.

Ready?

Three, two, one, go.

We're downtown Oskar, downtown Oskar, downtown Oskar, right now in a nice morning, mostly cloudy, showers coming up high in the upper 40s.

We're at Stevie Elias in talk about the International Youth Sailing of Oskar, the largest school sailing program in North America.

Monomony Park Beach in Oshkosh.

And we were talking about this, Steve, coming in.

This is such a great thing.

Because, again, then you admit, you know, I mean, when I say hoity-toity, I just mean the kids that were grown up with their parents were into that sort of thing and probably had white-collar jobs and didn't work in an or improvement plant and, you know, stuff like that.

But now, kids like that have opportunities to get

involved with sailing, something that so many people probably never thought they'd be involved with.

And I love your cover photo here, Addison, age 11, chairman of the standup paddle boards.

I mean, this is cool.

I welcome.

Thank you, John.

Yeah, it is cool, right?

And I think you've put it right on the head.

Sailing has long suffered from this perception problem, right?

That it's elitist or there's wealth embedded in the activity.

Not at all the case, right?

And there are other things like downhill skiing is much the same.

But our goal at the launch in 2008, actually, a very accidental launching.

It just sort of happened organically and naturally.

But is it?

from my narrow view, the world would be a much better place if everybody sailed, right?

Kids would have a much better childhood if they had exposure to sailing, and other comparable things, of course, and not only sailing.

But to get out in the world, kind of stare down your fears, learn skills kind of quickly, and by the end of the day, like, I can do something, and I would always say to the kids, so what else can you do?

Cello?

Right.

Mathematics?

You tell me, right?

Fill in the blank.

I think that's awesome.

And it is one day.

I mean you can really, it's amazing what you can teach these kids in one day.

Absolutely, Jim.

And actually, most of our sessions, say, here in Oshkosh with all public school fourth graders, they're half-day segments, right?

So kids are learning rudimentary sailing in about 10 or 15 minutes, and then they have the rest of an hour, say, to kind of refine that.

No, very rudimentary sailing, right?

It's back and forth to a buoy in kind of one direction.

That's fine.

They turn the boat, they trim sail, but they made the boat go and they got back and they did it,

right?

And I just want to thank you for bringing that to Green Bay.

I mean, you started this in Oshkosh, you're your wife.

You love it, you want to share your talent and this is caught on and you brought it to Green Bay and engaged people that weren't exposed really to the water, much less sailing.

that's exactly a gem and you know it's funny thank you for that and I have to say that I I think of you know Green Bay leaders like you and others who saw a need and saw a great opportunity in Green Bay and just made it happen so I was so we were so delighted to connect with Green Bay leaders

and if I could jump into that somewhere talk about during the break here you brought it to some schools that 99.9% of time many of these kids would have had no exposure to this but you went to them and said hey we want you involved with this

Yes, which is cool.

I was talking about Green Bay East and some of these other schools we get kids involved.

That's exactly a John and we have, you know, number of schools, certainly in Oshkosh with, you know, higher poverty rates where sailing is a rare right.

But I and again, I have to credit the school district leadership in Oshkosh was at the absolute, from my view, at the forefront of boldness.

Let's just say where after a few years of kind of patchwork class here in a class there, we went district wide.

So you grew up in Oshkosh, you learned to sail.

That's pretty.

cool where that's where you get thousand kids that are it was a third fourth grade fourth and fifth

that it's moved a little bit over the years but now we're at fourth grade so it's about 600 700 kids at grade level that are exposed to school sailing mostly in the fall and

they have that experience of

Man, I mean doing the stuff, right?

Yeah, they're sailing.

Yeah,

our method.

We thought they're

not just going for a boat ride.

That's exactly it.

We start out generally with an adult skipper on board, and after a few minutes, the skipper sort of gets voted off the boat, and the kids continue on for the rest of the hour sailing for per boat, but fourth graders.

Wow.

Pretty cool.

What do you like to do?

I like to sail.

I mean, that just still has a...

A nice run to it.

I can go on and on about this.

There's so much good around it.

But one of the things that I really take the light in is that sailing gives you common ground in a much broader swath of the population.

than if not, right?

So, you know, people will run into people in Boston or in financial services circles or fill in the blank political circles, right?

Where if you have sailing, that's the great unifier, right?

People get passionate about financial services or politics, but not like sailing.

Yeah, right.

I imagine aviation is the same thing, right?

Where it runs deep in your blood.

But you could have

somebody a disadvantaged young person from one school versus somebody from another school who's got the every advantage and they're on the same team when they're in that boat.

That's exactly.

Yeah, John.

That's that's the beauty in it.

So with sailing, though, let's let's talk that, you know, the beauty is the prestige or whatever the level playing field of sailing.

Let's talk about the stem part of sailing.

And I think that maybe could get lost in that.

But there's a lot of engineering, the math.

I just talk a little bit about that, Steve.

Yeah, sure, Jim.

So of course, sailing is inherently a scientific endeavor, right?

That we're harnessing the wind, and we run through the science of sailing, either at a very elemental level with our fourth graders, or in the STEM focused segments, which we do with a limited number of classrooms.

We can do a deep dive into the science of sailing.

But we learn the commonalities, say, between aviation and sailing, that this foil shape produces lift, right?

That, believe it or not,

fourth-grade kids.

You lost us already.

A

little

bit.

Back it up here

a little bit.

Are we talking EAA or are we talking sail?

He's

making

the connection.

I'm juxtaposing, right?

But basically the idea is that a wing shape, a sail, is a wing turned vertically, right?

So you've got this foil shape and a pressure differential that allows either a plane to fly or both to sail into the wind.

Because we share with the fourth-grade kids, which directions can you sail?

And obviously they get the one that's with the wind easily, right?

But then we come back to say, do you know you can sail across the wind or into the wind?

And that's your friend's science allowing you to do

that.

I think that's got to be a little bit magical for them where it's like, I'm going to do this and this.

And all of a sudden, because of what I just did, harnessing this wind, we're sailing across the lake.

That's it, right?

That's cool.

Our number one comment, I always found this amazing from kids on the water or afterwards or in the thank you cards that come later, is not, I was scared or I got wet or I was frightened.

It's like, this was the best day of my life.

And it's like, that's great.

That's so cool.

That

is.

Steve Elias in international youth ceiling of Oshkosh.

And it's, again, this is small groups, right?

Four kids on account of Miranda.

How do you structure this?

Yeah.

So we typically will have like two classrooms.

So that's 40 to 50 kids and a half day session each, right?

So morning and afternoon session.

Kids come down during the school day, again, generally in the fall.

And so we'll break that, say, 45-student block into two groups.

One will do something off the water, like an art project related to the water.

And the other half will be on the water, learning to sail in a rudimentary way.

And halfway through that morning, we'll switch.

So it's about an hour 15 for each group of about 25 kids, four per boat, six, seven, eight.

nine, uh, hobby wave catamaran.

So four, four person, four kid boat, two adult boat, uh, but a very simple craft.

And so they're sailing, like I say, for about, you know, they learned to sail in about 10 or 15 minutes and they've got an hour then to kind of, to get kind of better at it with their friends.

Great.

I love it.

That's awesome.

They make friends and they just talk about this conference and

they're

conquering mother nature.

Right.

That's it.

Right.

And we're very lucky in Oshkosh to have, uh, Menominee Park and Miller's base.

So we have.

this beautiful big bay that's protected, right?

And so I'll speak for parents and teachers.

You get the sense that everybody's pretty comfortable with that as opposed to being out on the open water.

More secure, huh?

Exactly.

It's contained, but big enough to really do it.

And so

somebody gets the bite, the urge, they're like, oh my god, this is unbelievable.

What options are there then?

Because, you know,

Right,

that's exactly going

while you're you're moving to Martha's vineyard.

I mean, what is what's next?

Yeah, so I'll speak locally.

So thankfully we're in a part of the country that has some great sailing options, right?

Like in Oshkosh with the Oshkosh Yacht Club of course Fond du Lac Nina Green Bay wind jammers are plenty of yachts

shipwagon.

We also run summer programming, right?

Primarily again, like through our Oshkosh rec department.

And then we serve a number of communities like the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Fox Valley and say the Christine Ann Center over the years and like Father Cards, you know, housing, transitional housing.

So we like to target groups of, you know, populations that would otherwise not be on the water.

But there's really you reach out to Father Cards like place to be.

Yeah, really.

Yeah.

Last year was actually the first year, but we're looking forward to I mean, that's

awesome that you reach out to because those

People aren't sailors.

Generally the case, right?

And we're very lucky.

One of our board members and super volunteers is an MD here in town, who is director of an addiction recovery center.

So we'll bring those guys out.

Wow.

Those people out, those, you know, clients out in the water sailing.

That's awesome.

Got to text your question.

I am not a skinny guy.

Can I still sail, Brian?

The short answer is, yes.

Not on my ball, Brian.

We'd have to counter

balance.

I'm not a skinny guy either.

But yeah, no problem there at all.

And we have a number of craft.

Most of what we sail upon is a hobby catamaran, a really forgiving, excellent platform.

Are those the two things?

Yeah.

OK.

Yep.

And if I can point out two hulls, I guess I should say.

You put it perfectly.

OK.

Because we always share again.

kids like yeah yeah do you have to know how to tie these very specific knots and you have to know nomenclature for the boat well it's helpful right and if you sail you'll inherently pick it up but if you want to call it the thing or the stick okay

as

far as the knot Steve are you on those

two bananas there's a lot of calling things things on

their show

we don't know what the actual terminology

is them

things

that one

thing you know that one thing thing when it comes to not tying

And you see those boards of all the different amazing knots.

I can only tie bunny ears to tie my shoes.

Would that be a detriment in learning all the nautical knots?

I'd put it this way.

Certainly when you're sailing with your classmates for a day, you don't have to know a single knot.

In our summer program where you might have recurring sessions, it's helpful and we try to share a little bit of that kind of organically in the

process.

Just as you go,

huh?

Yeah, and I always tell our staff and our volunteers,

You know, there are three or four knots that are really helpful and they're not that hard.

So if you can get those down, you're covered for.

Could they teach me how to

tie shoes without bunny ears first?

You could use a square notch or a boleyn.

Guys used to laugh in the huddle in football when my shoes are coming tied.

And I'd be there in the huddle tying bunny ears three times my shoes.

True story.

I do not know how to do it.

We've got another text here.

If I come to your classes, could I wear the hat that Jim wore on his cruise?

Now

sadly,

I wasn't with him on the course, nor have I seen photos, but

I'm sure it's

fine.

He

tried, he actually couldn't find, try getting it on the internet, right?

Yeah,

you

did.

Remember the Captain Stubing

hat?

Yeah, that was, I tried to buy one.

That would've been cool to walk around there.

That would've been in your white shorts and knee-heist.