
Welcome back.
97.9 FM, WGBW 98.3 and 96.5 FM, WSS, of course, the Civic Media app.
We are joined by Jeff Larson, Green Bay Sail and Paddle.
And you know, we always say some of our best conversations happen during the breaks.
Jeff just told us about a dream vacation a month in Italy you just got back from.
we celebrated and
everyone has Yeah, we had a great variety of big town
Venice and Rome and small going to a lot of the Hills cities in Tuscany especially was where we were centered.
It was just amazing food amazing wine Do the people speak English generally?
There are a lot of and we just encountered everyone was so gracious and and wonderful.
I mean, it was just beautiful.
Now
Yes,
not?
You definitely have to be aware, defensive.
Okay.
Pedestrians are almost as bad as the cars.
Really?
Because there's so many scooters and things going on, especially the big city.
If you're a pedestrian, you have to look and go.
You can't have any hesitation.
Okay.
And they'll stop.
But yeah, as I mentioned before, every driver, I think Italian driver believes they're Mario Andretti and they are going for it.
Really?
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
I would say very aggressive would be my.
I think that'd be a blast.
Me too.
It'd
I wouldn't want to get into it
No, no.
And then another thing we just had fun with is how many, you know, they talk with their hands.
Yeah.
And it's just like, when you start really zeroing in on that, it's like, it's a whole entertainment in and of itself.
That country
Okay, so my son, Dom, is huge into genealogy.
I mean, he has gone to the Czech Republic where his mom's family's from, and he's gone to those churches where they're built in 1500, then he can get on the computer and trace his family tree back to like the 1500s or 1600s, so it's all computerized.
You know what he can't do?
Trace our Italian family.
Cause it's like, nah, we didn't get to it yet.
We didn't, we didn't put it on the internet yet.
Come to the church and the such and such village and go there and get it.
So
Sure.
Well, we came into Florence.
We flew in and out of Florence.
We came in two days before tour started.
We did an 11-day tour with Rick Steves, who's on PBS.
Now, he personally wasn't there, was he?
No.
He had a guy that actually had his own business for 18 years and was with Rick Steves for 11.
So the guy was great.
I mean, that prestige is unbelievable.
He just knew everything.
cool.
David was his name.
David.
But yeah, so we did 11 days tour and then we did 17 days on our own.
So a nice mix.
driving.
I did five days of driving, which was plenty.
some of
Yeah, we did mountain roads with switchbacks.
It's the kind of stuff you see on tour de France where the bikers, you know, go off the end of the road and that's the end of them and, you know, stuff like that.
So it was, everything was beautiful.
Everything was enchanted.
Were you kind of
Yeah.
My wife would get on me because I'm going like I gotta find a pull-off I gotta either pick up or I would naturally start to pick up because I had one two then six and eight cars behind me and She's like just go your own pace.
I'm like it's so hard when they're pushing you, you know, yeah Do you
I think yeah, yeah, I'd have tapped
times It might have been a few other international right but other drivers, but they knew it wasn't local
Yeah.
Food was amazing.
Just everywhere we went.
One was just better than the next.
Yeah.
Outstanding wine local they all had their own things and they really push freshness and local Yeah, and a lot of it is because they don't have the transportation system and they don't have you know, and they take pride that it's Grown on their hill, you know, it's everyone thinks their olive oil and their wine is just the best and you taste it and you go like I agree But then you go to the next village and it's like no
They might be better.
No, maybe I'm just more hungry that day.
You know
I had a friend who from way back who was in the army over there, okay?
Was it in the army in Germany and Went to Italy on a little vacation type thing.
Hey, and he was that he got to be really good friends with this one little village, you know wine type place and everything like that and And they said and the guy asked his word you American or German and he says well, we're American, you know, he goes, oh, okay We'll give you this good wine.
He goes, oh, but I thought that expensive stuff there'd be this is no he says I'll tell you what he said we still hate the Germans
We still hate the krauts as we call them, so you know what we do?
We give them our cheapest wine, tell them it's their most expensive wine, and they don't know the difference.
They all talk about this great wine, and it's the cheapest stuff we have.
And Italian would spit it out, and we tell the Germans, oh, it's so great, and they believe us.
So, I mean,
there's probably a
like... They're going to get their history, though, for sure.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that's interesting, too.
The history is, we think of it as such an old country, and the Roman Empire and all that, but they're a country...
for less time than the United States.
Really?
Yeah, it was like in the 1860s, 1870s is when they became Italy.
it was 17 principalities.
And that's why Florence and Siena fought for thousands of years.
That's why every town is built on a...
on a hill.
Well, there, I'll tell you this, one thing Dom did find is there is a little bit of, I hate to say this, almost like inbreeding in my families where like second cousins or something, because they were so isolated, they're almost like, was no other place to go when they had a donkey or whatever, you know, way back.
And I mean, that's the way it was sometimes.
Yeah.
we've had it several times.
Yeah, we were at one place and two guys just walking around.
They're in costume.
They got instruments, guitars, and I said, oh, what's going on?
Are you done with a...
performance or heading to one.
Oh, no, we want to hear something and he starts playing.
You know, we're in a market.
This is a previous time to Italy.
And it was a Rick Steves moment.
We were in this little town and they had their market going on.
And I had just seen a show about that community.
And here's a guy with flowers at the flower market, the market, farmer's market type of thing.
And I knew that he had sang opera on the show and I went up to him and I had my camera.
on record and I said, you know, my wife and friend are here and they just love opera.
Could you do a number?
And he just broke into singing.
They're awesome.
You know?
It would be Tuscany, but I'd probably still move around between a couple of communities.
I loved Luca.
That was just...
Something else, isn't it?
And there's
You know that because that's such a paper Capital and you know Luca surrounded by the wall.
So you go, I mean, it's just the design of that community is I'm obviously back from when they were fighting but yeah, Luca is there's a few people in Green Bay and that
Yeah, Luca's beautiful.
Yeah, and we went
To an opera there too, which was just unbelievable.
I remember I was with a guy from the chamber and the guy's like We should look which we were tonight.
He goes, oh, you know a dark suit will be fine.
It's just like suit.
He had was like this brown twinkle Just
of
Much of it is yeah, pasta isn't the same as here.
No, why not the wheat is different
just tastier.
The ingredients are so much different.
Yeah, you can just, yeah, I had lasagna probably three or four times and every time it was different and every time it was great.
But just the, um, not that it's
so fresh.
We stayed two days at a ranch.
Oh, okay.
And they were, they were paid to
raise a particular type of cow cattle that was kind of an antique that was near extinction.
Okay.
So, and they do that with wheat.
There's certain types of wheat that are grown in certain areas.
So this is why you get some really significantly different tastes.
Well, that's, I mean,
Okay.
And it was completely different than the bag of pasta you would buy at So-and-So because like she would say, well, that's just filler.
The pasta over here is just something to have, and then the stuff you put on it.
But the Italians always used to want to make sure the pasta itself
was really good, would stand alone.
Florence is known for their meat steak, had a Florentine steak, you buy it by the kilogram, and you get like a 1.3 kilogram, which is shared.
It's like three inch thick with the bone in.
Okay.
It's been hanging.
Curing sure in the thing.
Yeah, till you order it and they slice it off Well, it's just amazing you go like well, I've eaten steak before This isn't the same thing.
that?
I'm not a big seafood eater.
My wife did.
We were one day on the beach, and most of it was inland, so we weren't in areas where that was a specialty.
every meal?
Yeah.
I probably drank more wine in a month than I had in the previous 10 years.
And how about the coffee bars and stuff?
right cappuccino oh yeah espresso you name it it's just better than it is here i don't know is it because we're i don't know you're in the littlest cafe and they got a special machine you know that's right the size of a Volkswagen but the people were nice generally everyone
except the drivers
Yeah.
Well, they didn't express it personally, but you could feel it.
None of this.
That's
there?
Yeah.
Well, my wife went to Bali and she just loved that.
We've been to Paris and to France multiple times and that's been a favorite.
But my wife even said, I think I might like Italy better than France.
I mean, you say the country, I understand that the United, but I mean, that's, they've got some old, old architecture and some beautiful things there.
But when you go look at some of these churches, you come here and you look at a basilica, it's like, oh my God, this is unbelievable.
There, the next couple steps, and you see another one, and another one, and another one, and it's amazing how they just keep ones more beautiful than the next,
the
the buildings.
And bigger, and yeah, I mean, we saw spots where Michelangelo was buried, not just where you worked, but yeah, the wealth, the...
Tell me a little bit about
I didn't see
No, this was out in the middle of Tuscany, and the last three miles was a gravel road, and it was a rough road.
We were up and down, and...
It was a barn.
The house that we stayed in had been a barn.
I
And they want it.
So they give you these homes or some for $100.
Now, I think there's a couple of things that you have to have.
One is you can't air and be in there.
You got to live there.
So that's going to be your home.
And I think you have to have some kind of, John would qualify, some Italian in you.
But
another thing they talk about, because I watched one of those shows where people go over and do that, and God bless the Italian heritage, but it's like somebody would go for a permit, and they'd say, hey, come back in two weeks, and then go back two weeks, or what do you want?
Well, we don't know about no permit.
Yes, we did.
You know what I mean?
It's like they're not really.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you don't want to try to do it at two o'clock three o'clock in the afternets and they close down a lot of shops even close
because you have your big lunch.
Well, we experienced tremendous weather.
It was 85 and then Rome it was 95 the three days we were there.
It was just hot But it's summer so
Yeah, we went to of mineral springs went and soaked in it.
That was I don't know maybe
five, six miles away.
It wasn't far.
Okay.
Little Hilltown was again only about eight miles away.
And then there's communities in every direction.
We drove probably a half hour went to a multi-pacino.
I can't pronounce any of these things.
But there was a garden that was the English type garden, kind of like our botanical garden here.
Just beautiful.
You know, the
at all?
Yeah, we could get far south.
okay,
Under $100 a night.
See, that's awesome, isn't it?
Did they
Tell you there was fruit trees.
We could go out and pick an apricot right off the tree and I've never been an apricot person.
I was like I can Take about three of these yeah, and eat them right now.
It's like when you're but you know when you have strawberries freshers Getting it from the store.
We did okay?
We did did you
yeah, that was a lifesaver
sure it was.
I'm sure it was.
It was we had a Jeep.
We had an American vehicle.
No neat.
I
ain't
recommend?
Yeah, that was online.
The Rick Steves tour to register for that.
The 17 days after that was that we went on our own.
We just went and said, oh, let's go in that city and this city.
And we, my wife did research.
I did research.
Sometimes we booked for the same city, but a different place.
Internal communication.
We survived it.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's very cool.
You did that.
Just once, I think.
How'd you like it?
It was okay.
Yeah, had the lemon, what is it?
Lemon chia.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's kind of the other.
Okay, one last question.
Paddle.
Okay.
I have to stay for a second segment.
Yeah, I do.
Absolutely do it.
Yeah, just great.
Be prepared to...
navigate plenty of cobblestones and plenty of stairs.
It's not this ADA compliant.
It's a lot, a lot of walking and it's steps and there's not escalators.
And I think that's fine.
I just, I was, I mean, I was fine with it.
I was just surprised.
It's like, wow, there's some people that were on our tour that couldn't go.
Also, the first floor is zero.
zero.
If you do have an elevator and they say you're on the third floor, you're really on the fourth floor because their first floor is zero and then it's one is on.
One floor up.
Hey two floors up.
But let's talk a little bit about what you guys do.
Green Bay sail and paddle.
And the number one thing that I'm so impressed with you guys is you take some young people who...
99% would never have a chance to get on the water and do the things that they get to do through your organization.
And I know you guys are knee-deep in that.
Could you talk a little bit about that?
Oh, happy to.
Yeah, we work with many nonprofits, and we work with kids, kiddos, children of all abilities.
So, you know, yesterday we had an autism group in.
Awesome.
From Conning Stars, and...
They were with us last year and they're gonna come back next Tuesday as well with a second group.
But sometimes that's more of a ride.
With other young children, we're doing more of a class teaching how to sail and some of the intricacies of putting the sails up.
We had two groups from Eisenhower that, again,
And we had an organization, a company in that area that sponsored that two groups.
And it was from, it came from a bus driver said, I'd love to give my kids something, an incentive that if they behave on the bus, we reward them at the end of the season.
And that's what grew out of that was coming sailing.
And
kids to that.
And you go up to
kids too, right?
Yep, yep.
Last year we had middle school, summer school through this Green Bay school system.
We didn't have anything this year.
I think they're funding they were unsure of.
But yeah, we have all age groups.
We have adult classes for kayaking and sailing.
We have a couples night, a family night sailing.
We have a regular youth group every Friday morning.
So that's a neat way because those kids come regularly.
So they're learning things and really getting the appreciation for the bay, the water and sailing.
You know, I mean, it just does.
I mean, from the air too, right?
It's like, wow, this is great looking laid out city and from the water and you can get that appreciation.
And that kayaking is, it's doing better in Green Bay.
We could do more of it, but you've got to get a lot of people coming in for that, right?
Yeah, we don't really do a whole lot on kayaking.
There's some other organizations that just been on here.
I mean, the Y
do that too.
Yeah.
You know, we're happy to do it.
We've had the kayaks in the pool like at Sible Hop.
for teaching a class again and getting some idea.
fundraising, are you not?
Yeah, that's a year round activity, and we've been...
quite successful this year.
A couple things have come out of that.
Certainly the nonprofit groups in that we try to get them as much as possible that we pay the way.
Sometimes they pay a hundred dollars out of what would be a thousand dollar type of fee.
We can get individual scholarships so any kid that wants to come we don't want to deny them.
It's all about accessibility, inclusivity, you know, and then it's safety and having fun once they get there.
that's different.
Yeah, not everyone gets it.
You know, we're ready to take you out there.
I know.
You don't have to know how to swim either.
Well, that would then equalifies.
We'll put a life jacket
PT
Yeah, nine years now, 2016.
It was formalized.
It was around in a...
in a formation before that, but it wasn't really the in two classes.
They were talking about it.
talked about it for years.
So yeah, we'll have our 10th anniversary next year.
And
If you guys take them out and got the full sales going and you got a, you know, the perfect type of wind or whatever, that's got to be such an exhilarating feeling for some of these kids who have never experienced anything like that.
I mean, I've done it just from doing stories on it for TV or whatever, those types of things.
But for these kids for that first experience of that sale just being full and taken, that's got to be something really special.
isn't it?
Yeah, you know, again, there's some apprehension for some people.
Sure.
Not knowing how to swim or never been on a boat.
And they sit fairly low in the water.
The bay is shallow enough that we have to take them off the beach.
So I got to walk into maybe knee or waist deep to get on the boat before it's deep enough that we can sail.
But yeah, it isn't necessarily just children, because adults too that haven't been in it when you get out there and you can get it
flying across the water, you know, when you get that wind filling the sail, that's just a wonderful experience.
and,
Earlier this year, we had a STEM camp.
We usually have that every summer.
It was a half day for the full week.
But yeah, there's segments we teach on buoyancy and the sail, actually with the sail, you can sail against the wind at an angle.
It's more like an airplane than most people realize on how the pressure works to get the boat moving forward.
So yeah, there's different elements and different segments of science that we talk about.
Did you
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I struggle with that.
and it's always interesting when we have classes that are more than one session You know we our intro class is one three-hour session, but like the kids in the narwhal youth group that come on
Friday mornings, you know, some of our eight, nine years old, and now they're old hands.
They get it there.
Let's get the boats.
Let's get the trailer, get them down on the beach.
They're rigging the sails up.
It's not necessary to give any instruction anymore.
They've been there two, three times.
Now they know it.
That's fantastic.
And these kids, they grasp it so fast.
That's always fun to
We have instructors that have started as students and then have come and volunteered because they're too young to work a job.
And then now they're junior instructors with us.
Well, boats can be a bottomless pit.
So you can spend as much money as you want.
But like the boat.
that we're on, Catamaran, you can probably find them used for $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000.
Okay.
If you're getting a large boat, they could be like yachts, you know, millions.
Yeah.
We have an instructor this year, two, three years out of college.
She's from New Zealand.
And she's sailing with us because her mother grew up in Green Bay.
Wow.
On Emily Street.
And her name is Emily.
Because her mother had such a good time in Green Bay.
Great experience, but living in New Zealand now.
in the bay.
You're talking about how shallow the bay is.
We have on a fairly regular basis.
And they talk about people don't realize if they're new to boating, how shallow some parts are when you're first leaving, you know, the Fox, you're getting into the bay and like the stumps that are just below, you know, all those kind of things that talked about story.
One of the old Packers was telling a story at a banker one time and he said they had a morning off of practice that had game the night before.
And the guy said, Hey, let's go fishing.
And it's like okay, how do we go fishing here?
You know so they rent all this stuff from up in I think was Dykesville and they go out and they're having some beers and like the Sunday afternoon some and the guys screwing around and the pat they lost the paddles and They're drifting and they're like oh my god.
Lombardi's gonna cut us.
He's gonna kill us He's gonna whatever and we can't guys I can't swim we can and the guys like
there.
The area we sail is three to five feet deep.
And then there's a sandbar here and there.
Yeah.
All of a sudden you're out a hundred yards and it's this deep.
And then all of a sudden it's six inches.
So it's
You got to know where you are.
Yeah, but
to, like I said, safety is our number one concern.
So what do
on?
What do you start with?
We're on hobby waves.
It's a catamaran, so it's very stable.
At the top of the sail, there's a floater.
So if you cap size, it isn't like some boats that you'll go totally upside down, you know, 180 degrees.
This will only take it to the side.
When we have them in a class, we teach them how to write from a cap size.
They're in the water and they learn how to do that.
I'll tell you the job.
I'll
tell you, I'll tell you something that, uh, of all the things where you say jobs you could never do will never do would never nice watching this thing about the elite coast guard.
rescue boats.
Out of 40,000 people in the Coast Guard, I think there's 110 of these guys.
That's so hard it is.
And they take these boats, these rescue boats up to the Columbia River, where it's the, yeah, so many different confluences of water coming in, the waves are just ridiculously crazy.
And it's at the point where those boats, even in training life times, they'll hit these things, if they get hit sideways, the attitude is, I always try to see these big swells coming in, take them on.
you know, head first, don't let them hit you on the side.
And with these boats, they train them, they go over sometimes completely over and up again.
It's mind boggling how great these boats are because they're, they're buoyant enough, but they train to go all the way over and then pop back up.
I mean, when, when you're really experienced, you know how to do that stuff.
Well, for any boating sailing too, you would head into the wave.
You'd want to cut it.
Yeah.
You went on it to hit sideways.
Right.
If you got big water.
Yeah, we do not.
And you got to go to Sheboygan, where they really have some of that get out on Michigan.
Well, I mean,
in the spring.
I mean,
that.
Don't
and go on out there and let it rip.
You can start with sailing with us and get the feel and then work up to that.
Jeff one
Yeah, well we certainly can use financial help but we'd like to just get them out on the water so they can experience it and help spread the word.
How do
you?
We can go to a GB sale.
SAIL.org, our website.
on the water,
Yeah, I think we have 15 groups this year.
Phenomenal.
CP Center, Bridge the Gap, Counting Stars.
Autism.
We all rise.
Thanks
That was fun.
That was good stuff.
Fun talk about Italy.
Fun talk about the Green Bay ceiling panel.
And I just, you know, if there were so many organizations around this area that really do so much for people that need a little bit of a helping hand, whatever way it is.
But what they do at that Green Bay, that's just so cool.
And there's some other kids that they bring on.
And we talked about kids, you know, civil hop and some kids that have some challenges.
But there's some kids that are lower economic that
it would never ever experience that from some of these schools.
And they get some scholarship money.
And like you said, you know, they may charge $100 for something that costs $1,000.
And that's okay.
It's okay to have a little skin in the game.
And to take those kids out sailing on Saturdays, I just, that's very cool stuff.
And, you know, it, depending on how much your, your, your sailboat costs, that's not the most, we talk about how expensive sports are.
I mean, you know, you look at
How expensive hunting has gotten with God put training dogs and all these crazy guns and you know, I'm not
kicking back and having a cocktail or something Oh, that seems like that'd be the most relaxing time and it's different from being on a powerboat to speedboat Not even close I would think that if some just do people rent those I think that would be the coolest thing that you could rent is take somebody out on a Sunday afternoon for two hours and Just sale and you can have have your little basket.
You can buy those cheese your wine
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