Support Your Local Independent Bookstore (Hour 2)

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Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breidler.

Good morning, welcome back to Up North News Radio, brought to you by Courier Newsroom, carried by our friends on the Civic Media Radio Network at 7.06 on this Monday morning, April 21st.

We'll be talking a little later this hour with author Laura Bird.

We'll be talking about National Independent Bookstore Day and the ways that you can support those independent bookstores in your community and the good things that they do, not just for the economy, but for the community at large.

Greg Bach is here from Radio Parks.

Alina Heller is here from Eau Claire, Up North News reporter.

Dr. Kristin Lierly joins us from Up Under Range to Iron Range there.

And meteorologist Brittany Merleau joins us from Up North to tell us more about this big old system of rain that just

sitting, spinning around us.

Looks like a little wintry mix in there in places as well, Brittany.

So how long does this sit around?

And then what?

And then what, right?

Oh gosh.

So this low pressure system is sitting right over Wausau right now and it has split the state in half.

If you're up north, you're feeling pretty chilly.

If you're down south, you're nice and mild.

Temperatures are at 32 degrees and superior.

They're at 60 degrees right now in Kenosha.

So 30 degree difference, wild.

We've got flurries and a winter remix flying north of Eau Claire, north of Wausau that'll continue for the next few hours.

You could pick up a trace, the wet slushy trace or so, but otherwise it's a windy day with the slow pressure system right here.

We've got winds up north, out of the northeast.

And if you're down south, they're out of the southeast.

They are sustained up to 25 miles per hour and they're gusting up to 40.

So still very, very windy.

throughout the day today.

High temperatures will be in the low to mid fifties, kind of sliding south and then peeking into the Fox Valley today, but up north we're going to be into those low to mid thirties and kind of hanging out into the forties for central Wisconsin today.

It will be mostly cloudy with some spots of sun later on as the sun sets.

We do have a cold night ahead of us and then more rain moves across the state tomorrow as another low pressure heads our way.

While we've got the draft going on in Green Bay, we've got all these scattered showers throughout the week before we clear things out for this weekend.

So a wild week ahead, go figure.

So a little, it might be a little wet to start at the draft, but maybe better near the end of it.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's what we're looking at.

All right.

Hey, before we get to Robin Tigerton, I want to say good morning to Jordan Anderson, who's writing in a good morning to everyone on Facebook.

I don't think Jordan's popped in during the show.

Hey,

Jordan.

Yeah, we

get notes from him every so often.

Nice to have you along there, Jordan.

Thank you.

Rob says good morning from Tigerton and it's cloudy, light rain, 39 degrees.

We picked up half an inch of rain overnight.

My thoughts and prayers on the passing of Pope Francis, he writes.

Also Saturday night, I got my advanced storm spotter certificate.

There are two categories of storm spotters, standard and advanced, and I got both of them.

Way to go, Rob.

Overachiever.

I spent Easter Sunday at my sister Debbie's house with her family.

My two grandnephews, Marshall and Winston, sat on my lap and listened to train videos on my phone.

He says tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree that we played in our last segment was a very

popular song during the times when his grandma layman passed away on May 1st, 1973.

But finally, he says, I hope my five favorite Monday morning people had an excellent Easter.

Thanks, Rob.

Thanks,

Rob.

I know.

So, Brittany, thank you so much for the update.

Appreciate it.

We'll talk to you a little later on.

All right.

Also, we're going to remind you that you can sign up for our daily newsletter at UpNorth News.

Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.

Click subscribe in the banner up at the top of the homepage there.

And you'll see the weekday edition that Christina Laurie puts together.

And today it gets into the notion that this is Earth Week and that Earth Day is here as well.

And, you know, the need to take care of things like our national parks and our public land.

Public lands are in more danger than ever.

with this new administration.

That's not just the land.

We didn't really even get into this last week that President Trump has opened up a broad swath of the Pacific Ocean near the US into commercial fishing.

Something that has species that should be protected and instead are going to be caught up in commercial nets and all of that.

So again, learn more about caring for our national parks and public lands in our newsletter.

This seems like a no-brainer.

Take care of public lands and public forests.

Take care of the oceans.

Would be another one.

Medical research.

Kristen.

Earth Day started here.

Gaylord Nelson.

Wisconsin is the home.

This is our thing.

Yes, and we should be embracing it.

Again, simple concept.

take care of the planet, leave it in better shape than you found it, or at least don't screw it up, you know, for the next generation.

But getting back to the medical research end of it, it's what Selena's sharing with us today, again, for all the people that you talk to, all the people that you hear from in this day and age, and again, to borrow from Mr. Bach and Ms.

Matt Nair, this shouldn't be a thing.

Here's what shouldn't be a thing.

We're cutting

cancer research.

Uh, where did, let's see, I believe, believe Tony had something along those lines.

There it is, uh, from YouTube.

I am so tired of these cancer patients mooching off everyone.

Sarcasm, you know.

It was something Dave Obi only said as a congressman, as he said, nobody had ever come up to him and said, Congressman, when are you gonna cut that cancer research?

It's such a waste.

Said nobody ever, Selena.

And yet that is exactly the thing people have to defend now.

Oh my goodness, that is what's happening.

The National Institutes of Health, the world's largest public funder of biomedical research, has suspended funding to a lot of trials.

And that's taking away research grants and stopping more than 100 of those clinical trials.

And it's damaged ongoing research to develop cures and things for cancer research, like we said.

Alzheimer's disease, ALS, diabetes, opioid abuse, genetic diseases, other rare diseases.

And this is funding that was approved by Congress.

And so it's just it's billions of dollars just being stopped, all of these things.

So who did you hear from?

And who are we going to hear from here and talking about the value of cancer research?

Teresa Creasy, she is from Aliva.

And she has a she's in stage four lung cancer, which has

or metastasized to her bones and in her brain.

And she has been gone through chemo and immunotherapies.

But in her brain, the cancer has continued to grow.

So she went to clinical trials for a couple of years instead.

And so she's worried about all of that stopping.

So this is Theresa.

And in that two years, it has kept me alive.

able to live my life with a much better quality of life than the chemo and immunotherapies.

It has decreased the metastases in my brain and kept the rest of my cancer stable for two years.

When I was diagnosed nearly three years ago, I was given two years to live.

Cancer research is real.

Clinical trials are real.

Cancer is one of the biggest killers of Americans out there.

If you drop the clinical trials and cancer research, and it's not just cancer research, it's medical research of every kind, diabetes, everything.

If you drop that, people are going to die.

What I see happening here is not just racial cleansing, but a cleansing of all people.

They don't want the sick and weak.

They don't want to have to deal with that.

They don't want to plead for that.

What was the context of that, Selena?

Where was she speaking?

So she was speaking at one of these events, like kind of a town hall.

OK.

And so that was she was one of the speakers who just kind of came to say her piece and what was on her mind.

And so she told her story.

I talked to her afterwards, too.

She said she feels now better now.

than she ever did after this clinical trial.

So hopefully she continues to do well.

It feels weird to call these things, you know, protests or demonstrations.

I guess alternative town halls would be another way, Kristen, to describe them, where people are coming together, not just in opposition to something or to a person, but to realize that they all stand together for the things that contribute to a healthy society, things you didn't think you'd have to defend.

We didn't think we'd have to defend.

you know free and fair elections.

I didn't think we'd have to defend cancer research but people are at least now standing up and speaking out for these things.

We saw this a couple weeks ago in Shawna where people were just sharing their concerns and then others in the audience were saying well wait I can connect you with this person or this organization to help solve your problem and we can work together and it's a really beautiful thing that we're starting to see but I want to go back to Teresa and I just really want to

Think about the words she was saying.

Think about how she's here and she's had all of this extra time.

with the people she loves who depend on her because of this research.

My mom died of brain cancer nearly 30 years ago and none of this was available.

There was no immunotherapy.

It was chemo and surgery and radiation.

And she didn't have a great outcome, but things have changed so much since then.

And it's because of this NIH funded research.

And those funds are not easy to get.

Believe me.

But we're taking all of this away and we're leaving all of these researchers in the lurch.

And as a result, people's lives are changed.

They're harmed.

Their families are suffering and their communities are suffering.

What I think of is Sherri's residency, her medical residency at the University of Minnesota.

And her very first rotation was GYN oncology.

And your first rotation, you know, when you start residency, it's, it's hell to begin with.

Now started on that one where women who look just like Kristen and Selena, these, these people are young and vibrant.

They are moms and they were getting cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, things like that.

And, and just dying.

And that was now.

30 years ago, just over 30 years ago, and Kristen, you can attest in 30 years, the difference in survival rates for those kinds of cancers has been, again, there's a ways to go, but the progress has just, you almost want to weep for those who didn't get to benefit from it.

And it's one thing to talk about it on this level, on this big macro level, but when it's actually happening to you and your family, and you're looking for answers, and you know that the answers are there, and now the rug is getting pulled out from underneath these families and these individuals, it's unconscionable.

Yeah.

Selina, thank you for that story.

Appreciate it very much.

You want to hang around and tell us about your Easter, or do you got to run off?

I can hang around.

All right.

Look, hey, look, Pat took hostages.

Kristen and Selena are going to talk about their Easter weekend.

We're going to get into a little bit of sports as well.

We'll talk about the brewers, how they did against the West Sacramento Athletics and the Bucks.

We don't want to talk about how they did opening their playoffs, but we got to and we'll do that right after this on Up North News Radio.

Live from Lake Waseda on the Civic Media Radio Network.

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Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Yes, weird Al is in the history books.

It was 44 years ago today That weird Al Yankevic made his TV debut playing the Queen parody another one rides the bus on the tomorrow show with Tom Snyder Who all here still remembers the tomorrow show with Tom Snyder yet?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay boomer anyway

Let it go

So there you go.

A weird out made it to today's history lesson.

Selena, what did you get to do over the Easter holiday?

Oh, had the, you know, family dinner, of course, with a ham and mashed potatoes and gravy.

I'm known for eating all of the mashed potatoes and gravy.

What

a reputation.

That's the thing.

We went to see the Easter Bunny at the mall last week.

And so this is our annual thing.

We go to get a picture with the Easter Bunny.

Last year, the Easter Bunny, after we got our picture taken, said, turns, you know, the Easter Bunny doesn't speak generally ever.

It's

a love of the mascots, you know, right, Kristen?

Yeah.

On our way there last week, Emery said,

remember when he talked last year and I was like, oh no, he did because when we were leaving, he said, are you Selena Heller?

Suddenly

you got real famous to Emery.

She's like, she's just my mom, but

wow.

The Easter Bunny knows your name.

Oh my gosh.

I'm just trying.

Of course, everybody moved to Selena Heller is going through swiping on these dating apps and up comes the Easter Bunny on her screen.

Like, I'm going to swipe that way on this guy.

That's not

where I went with that.

Me neither.

No, not at all.

But so she was waiting this time.

She was just like, is he going to say something?

Is he going to say something?

And he did, he didn't this year.

So he was still silent.

But she was really that she remembered that from last year.

And she was she's been thinking about that.

So that was kind of funny to listen to her on the way there.

I'm a little surprised that Emery wasn't like, hey, Easter Bunny.

Do you remember my mom, Selena

Heller?

I'm sure you do.

Well you know, Easter has evolved into like a second Christmas for a lot of people now because it's not just like chocolates and bunnies and jelly beans in your Easter basket.

You have like clothes and I don't know a

lot of

things.

Trust me, especially when you get grandkids too, it's like, okay, so the grandsons all got different kinds of t-shirts, like the one got a Minecraft t-shirt, you know, with Steve's lava chicken.

on it, of course.

And the other one is a gym rat.

So there was, you know, kind of a gym theme to it as well.

And then there's usually little toys.

The little ones who are here this weekend got little Easter Bunny squirt gun not squirking, but they shoot bubbles, you put bubble solution

in there.

And so, you know, little, little three year old Charlie, she's just running around shooting everybody with bubbles, all the little soap bubbles are everywhere.

So

bubble gun.

the big yes that's fun so and and there's even requests so in the store when she when we were at the store she wanted all this you know these things and I said well the Easter Bunny's coming so hold off so she's like in the store Easter Bunny

Can you bring me like, oh my heavens.

What did she say?

Say no, no, no.

Like the way your phone hears you and suddenly you start to see ads for all the things you were just talking about.

As we all know, Christmas, you write a letter to Santa, Easter, you yell in the middle of them all at the bunny.

Yes.

It's tradition.

That's exactly how these things

work.

Because my mom is Selena Heller.

That threw me for a loop also.

I didn't know what to

do with that.

Sherry still laughs about the time that I was in a department store with her.

This was right after we met first Christmas or maybe the second Christmas and we're going through Dayton's somewhere in the Twin Cities and there were like these advertisements to, you know, visit with our Talking Christmas Tree and tell the Christmas Tree what you want for Christmas or whatever.

Okay, whatever.

So we come down this escalator and there is just like...

a tree, just a tree right there, any old tree, a fake one.

And I, I go, Hey, are you the talking Christmas tree without missing a beat of voice from the tree?

Why?

Yes, I am.

I fell down.

I was so not expecting the treat is talk back to my sarcastic remark.

So to, yeah, to this day, she'll just be like, go see if that tree talks over there.

That might be the talking Christmas tree.

That's a whole thing in Eastern Wisconsin.

Bruce the spruce was

that I think

gimbals.

Oh yeah.

We would go visit with Bruce the Spruce, and there was a person in there who would have a conversation with you, which was delightful.

I think they have it in the Neville Museum now, so you can still go there during the holidays and chat with Bruce the Spruce.

Not kidding.

Greg's got nothing for this one.

I thought

that was normal.

Everybody had a Bruce the Spruce.

I think he's in the mall here.

I remember in London Square.

Okay, Kristen, are you a ham dinner person when you do the thing with the family or?

Yeah, we're gonna do it probably next weekend, but

yeah,

we do the whole thing and then we feast.

Everybody brings a dish.

It's like the meal is the big thing.

Yeah, no cherry did as well.

And then Lindsay buys candy.

because he loves that so

he's

18 now and he buys candy for everybody and he gets such pride in that and now we started buying candy for the neighbor kids that are little because I think there's that like little little child that lives inside of him that he needs to feed so he doorbell ditched our neighbors some candy over the weekend.

Did you see the the post kind of the comic it looked like a chocolate bar but it's wrapped in an Ikea wrapper and it says Ikea chocolate bunny flat packaging.

And you're supposed to assemble it yourself.

No.

Anyway, we did the ham dinner.

The kids got way more candy than they'd want.

I made hot beefs yesterday.

So we all ate good over the weekend.

And you're right, Celine.

It's such a difference from, it's almost Christmas-like, whereas, again, back in our day, it was, you know,

Mom hid a couple of hard-boiled eggs.

We didn't like hard-boiled eggs at the time.

We were just these picky eaters.

We just wanted our chocolate bunnies.

And it was like, nope, you couldn't get your chocolate bunny until after you ate one of your hard-boiled Easter eggs.

It

was

just so different now.

These kids, they have no idea how lucky they have it.

Okay, Boomer.

There you go.

That's just what we were.

Selena, thank you for that story.

Kristen for Bruce the Spruce.

I

didn't know where we were going here, and I'll tell you what.

High risk, high reward.

We got the reward this time around, you guys.

Kristen, have a great week.

Hey, can we see on Friday with the newly expanded show?

Mm-hmm.

And on Wednesday with Meggy Don.

We're starting a new segment.

It has to do with broads.

All right.

OK.

Big changes this week.

Thank you, Selena.

Have a great day.

We'll talk to you, Laura Bird, about Independent Bookstore Day.

Coming up right after this, you're up north.

Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high.

Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow.

I've got Laura Bird standing by right after we checked a little bit of sports here coming up on 735.

Reese Hoskins went three for five with a Homer for RBIs.

The Brewers had a franchise record nine stolen bases.

and pitcher Logan Henderson recorded nine strikeouts in his Major League debut as the Brewers jumped all over the Athletics 14-1 yesterday.

The Brewers finished the homestand four and two.

They're now on their season, their season long 10 game road trip.

So 11 days, 10 games, three cities.

The first of four in San Francisco starting tonight.

So you got West Coast Baseball for the next three nights.

If you're a night owl, coverage begins at 810 on Civic Media Stations in Hayward Park Falls.

We're seeing Kenosha, Oshkosh and Richland Center.

The Milwaukee Bucks were blown out

by the Pacers in game one of their playoff series in Indianapolis over the weekend.

Game two is tomorrow in Indy, where again, they'll try to get back on track.

For one game does not a series make.

Just ask the LA Lakers, who everybody's been predicting to win it all.

They got blown out by the lowly Minnesota Timberwolves in their first game on Saturday.

So we got a long way to go.

The hockey playoffs began over the weekend as well.

So what, just about two months of post-season in the NBA and the NHL to tell you all about.

All right, let's talk with Laura Bird, author and friend of the show here about Independent Bookstore Week is coming up this week or Independent Bookstore Day, I guess I should say.

And Laura joins us on the phone.

Laura, good morning.

How are you?

Hey Pat, I'm great.

How are you?

I'm great.

So nice to have you here.

And to give us some context about these independent bookstores and, you know, ways that we can support them.

They're not everywhere, of course.

I mean, we're we're in an age now where everything seems to become a chain.

And, you know, for the longest time, it felt like everything was a, you know, a borders or a Barnes and Noble or, you know, some other big retail shop.

So tell us a bit more about what let's start with what what exactly is an independent bookseller.

Well, they're so important and I'm so happy to be able to talk about them today.

So an independent bookstore is obviously independently owned and it's not part of a larger chain, such as Barnes & Noble, like you mentioned.

And most independent bookstores typically consist of just a single store, but some do have several locations.

Like if you've ever been to Barbara's books in Chicago, they have a shop at O'Hare Airport.

That's an example.

There's also Powell's out in Portland.

So for most of the 20th century, bookstores in the U.S.

were independent.

But then as suburban shopping malls became increasingly popular in the 60s, so too did those mall-based bookstore chains, like you mentioned, like Borders, Walden Books, and B Dalton.

Then in 94, a certain gigantic online retailer was formed.

And I don't even need to say their name.

We know who they are.

And if you remember, Pat, that online retailer only sold books for like the first four or five years in existence.

So by 99, they started adding in other product lines.

But by 2000, the number of indie bookstores had dropped in our country by 43%, if you can believe that.

So they were really impacted by that large online retailer, as were the big box stores that you mentioned.

And Walton Books, B Dalton, and Boarders were all closed for good by 2011.

It's pretty stark, I think.

But on a positive note, I think the fall of those larger retailers has left room for the return of more independent bookstores.

And I found a great statistic that said that the number of indie bookstores in the U.S.

has actually grown since 2009 by about 150%.

There are about 4,000 independent bookstores in the country now.

So that's kind of the history.

I would say that if you don't buy your books from a certain online retailer, that online retailer is going to be just fine.

But if you don't buy books from your local independent bookshop, they are not going to be fine.

So if the people can make...

very thoughtful choices about where they choose to buy their books.

Boy, you do, you did trigger some memories there as a kid who could not get enough out of books to go into B Dalton.

And then later, Walden Books.

I mean, that was like such a treat.

But then they grew into these behemoths.

All of them owned by Tom Hanks, and they put all the small stores, all of them owned by Meg Ryan out of business.

They made a movie out of it.

You've got mail.

And now things have shaken out since then.

So tell us a bit about why independent bookshops are so important, because it's not just any old small business.

It's not just an economic reason why they're so important.

Right, I'm so glad you asked me that question.

So I have my top six reasons why they're so important.

Number one, if you're an avid reader like me, you know that booksellers, like the real life human being people who work there, they are not an algorithm.

They know their stuff and their job is to connect you with the perfect book for you, not colonize the moon.

So they are great at like answering your questions.

they know their experts in their field, right?

So they know what's new, what's trending, but then they also know obscure titles and backlist books.

So you can like engage them in conversation about anything and they'll be able to help you, right?

And you don't get that from when you shop online.

Number two.

the ambience, right?

I want you to think of your favorite independent bookshop.

You walk in and there's like such a great atmosphere there, whether it's trendy or modern or cozy.

I think like scrolling through a website is not the same as walking through a darling little bookstore, sipping on a coffee, chatting with other customers, and most importantly picking up those titles that catch your eye, right?

I don't think there's a substitute for that.

Shall I continue to number three?

Absolutely,

he said unmuting his microphone.

Yes, by all means.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Thank you.

Okay, so number three, and this one is really important, and I don't think people think this through.

Your local bookstore curates its inventory to serve your own community.

And what I mean is like, if you're at a Barnes & Noble in Alaska, for example, it's going to look a lot the same as a Barnes & Noble in Wisconsin.

or in Florida.

I would say, you know, the displays and the books available are basically the same, but that's not the case at your local independent bookshop.

They actually curate their inventory to ensure that what they have is satisfying our needs.

So I think of Lake City Books, for example, in Madison, which is one of my favorite bookstores.

They have an incredible

Wisconsin author's table.

You can find so many books, including my own, on that table.

They also have great cookbooks specific to Wisconsin and the Midwest.

Another shop in Madison, which is my favorite, is Mystery to Me, and they carry Wisconsin hiking books.

So these

are

titles that you won't necessarily be able to find, you know, at other bookshops.

All right, let's talk the economy.

Number four, local independent bookshops.

support the local economy.

So I did some research and for every dollar spent at a small business in the U.S.

about 67 cents stays in the local community versus only about 45 cents when shopping at a big back store such as Barnes & Noble.

If you purchase through a large online retailer that returns basically zero dollars to the local economy.

I would also like to point out that large online retailers are not supporting like little Betsy's baseball team or contributing to the local fundraisers like your bookshop is.

So bookshops give back to our communities, our schools, our non-profits.

Speaking of community, number five, bookshops promote community engagement.

You know, they host events for authors and book clubs and storytime and they foster such a strong sense of place and belonging.

I think they're safe nurturing places to hang out with super cool people, right?

And last but not least, number six, by shopping at your local independent bookshop, you're helping the environment because in general, you're reducing your carbon footprint when you shop in store rather than having your books shipped to you.

So those are my six reasons.

And there are so many more.

I was going to say, I'm sure there's more, but that really did cover a lot of them.

So talk about Saturday, the last Saturday in April, being independent bookstore day, you know, how this got started and what kinds of things folks could expect.

Absolutely.

I'm so excited to talk about this.

So it's a national one day party held the last Saturday in April every year and it celebrates indie bookshops across the country in store and online if you can't get to one.

So this year, as you said, it's Saturday, April 26th and it's the 12th annual celebration with more than 1400 bookstores across all 50 states participating.

So there was a woman out in California.

She's a writer and an editor and she.

started it back in 2014.

And now it's coordinated.

I think she still has some oversight in it, but it's primarily coordinated through the ABA, which is the American Booksellers Association.

And the event is for booksellers who belong to the ABA and the Regional Independent Booksellers Association.

So in our case, Pat, Wisconsin falls under the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association.

Nine states, more than 300 shops are participating on Saturday.

There are so many fun things going on.

I mean, in preparation for this, this conversation with you, I think I had like 10 pages of notes of what bookstores were doing.

But in general, I would say, look them, look up your local independent bookshop if you live close to one, you know, on Facebook or go to their website and you can see specifically what they're doing.

I would say in general bookshops are offering freebies.

special deals, special events, treats, other fun things.

So if you need a gift for anyone in your life, or you want a gift for yourself, or there's a book you want to get your hands on, Saturday is the day to shop.

And what is this golden ticket Libro dot FM thing that you mentioned as well earlier?

Yes.

Okay, this is so cool.

So

I spoke to a lot of bookshops, and I would say most of them, if not all of them, are doing on Saturday what is known as the Golden Ticket Game, sponsored by Libro FM.

If you don't know what Libro FM is, I'm going to tell you.

So you can go to Libro FM to purchase your audiobooks if you like to listen to your books.

But what you can do is you use their store finder to link your sale to a preferred independent bookshop so that that bookshop shares in the profit from your order.

Libro FM is hosting this golden ticket game.

And this is so fun.

So participating bookstores are getting this golden ticket.

It's about nine by three inches.

So it's pretty noticeable, right?

It's very like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Do you remember that?

Like the golden tickets and the chocolate bars?

But in this case, the golden tickets are going to be hidden in a bookstore.

So there's going to be one ticket in each bookstore that's participating.

And if you find that golden ticket,

On Saturday, you win 12 audiobook credits from Libro FM.

So like you win like a year's supply of audiobooks.

No purchase is necessary.

Like how cool is that?

Yeah.

I was looking at the Libro.fm Facebook page.

They of course are playing this up as well.

And but before they start celebrating the independent bookstores, they were marking National Library Week and they have a post here that, you know, thanks to, you know, all of their members, they raised $55,000 in support of National Library Week.

So definitely a group that's dedicated toward, you know, celebrating reading and shops and libraries and more.

Absolutely.

And again, I love to see that community connection, right?

They're giving back.

They're supporting libraries.

I think that's so important.

They want to promote literacy.

They want to celebrate readers.

It's a win-win for everybody.

How would folks best go about learning about the independent booksellers that they may not know about?

But if not in their community, maybe in a nearby community, is there any particularly easy way to go about doing that?

Yeah, you know, I wish I was on camera right now because I would fold up to you.

I have the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association that I mentioned, M-I-B-A.

They, every year in celebration of Indie Bookshop Day, they put together this indie bookstore roadmap and it is so cool.

And I think if you went to their website, they could probably...

You could probably figure out where to get one if you don't live close to a shop.

Otherwise, your local shop will have them this week and on Saturday.

And it's a map of the Midwest region with all the states.

And there is a hand drawn illustration of each and every bookshop that's participating.

So you open

up this

map.

And it's gorgeous because you can like see visually where all the books

are.

I've got it right in front of me here, Laura.

Let me give the web address before we run out of time here.

It is midwestbooksellers.org, midwestbooksellers.org.

Laura, thank you for all the updates on this.

I really appreciate it.

Great to hear from you again.

Thanks, Pat.

It's great

to be back

with you.

Talk to you

soon.

You bet.

Take care now.

We'll wrap things up with Jane McNair after this.

You're up north.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Alright, five seconds or so.

Let us check it now with Jane McNair who along with Greg Bach has Matt Nair on air 10 to noon today and tomorrow Yes, and then that's it.

I mean not that they're going away.

It's just that that's it for 10 to noon Then it's a it's a 9 to 11 jam Thanks, following

the newly expanded Pat Kratlow

show.

Three hours of this

It's going to be great.

You're going to be great.

Whatever this is.

Thank you very much.

Well, I'm looking forward to it in, you know, much the same way you look forward to anything where you haven't completely done everything on your to-do list yet.

But I'm sure we'll get there.

We'll get there, right?

It's going to be

great.

You're

going to be

magnificent.

How was your Easter?

Easter was very nice.

Went over to my sisters and lots of food.

And we have a couple little ones, three year old and a four year old with the eggs and the plastic eggs and the searching for eggs in the rain.

And then we had the big art board.

And so we were spelling words, which was very exciting.

And yeah.

We didn't do the outdoor Easter egg hunt for the three-year-old and the six-year-old in part because we didn't want to put things out, you know, like the night or the evening before or the early morning because there's been a bear in the neighborhood.

Oh, that's

right.

And

we thought let's not, you know, attract even more attention to what we've got out there.

Yep.

So there was a lot of indoor hunting around, which was still, it's a lot of fun with the little ones, but I learned an important lesson with small children.

And that is, do you remember the game Kerplunk?

Yes.

The

one where you, with the tube and the marbles, you put all the sticks in, all the marbles are on top of the sticks and you pull the sticks out one by one.

Yep.

And then the marbles come out and you try not to get the marbles to come out anyway.

Sherry loved that as a kid.

And so she had a kerplunk here.

Our daughters, you know, were kind of plus minus on it when they were young.

I was plus minus on it.

Okay.

But she loved it.

It was her favorite as a kid.

We're with the two little ones and in our living room is one of these really deep pile, you know, shag rugs.

It's really soft.

It's really nice, but it's deep.

And she brings up the Kerplunk game and she sets it on this ottoman right there.

And of course, the two little ones, they go crazy.

They love that the marbles, they're dropping.

Oh, I bet.

And they're moving the marbles all over the place.

And next thing I know, half the marbles are gone because the carpet is so deep.

Swallowing them.

Swallowed them up.

Yeah, so we're like we're feeling around trying to find the marble Okay, there's one there's one, you know hours after they left I'd walk through I'd step on another Yeah, there's like

Lego residuals.

It was it was not quite Lego But still yeah, and then one time I stepped and like found another one and I reach in is like no

I pulled out a jelly bean.

I'm like, oh, this is not good if there's candy in this thing.

The months of discovery in your future.

We're going to have to lift it and shake it or something because somewhere in there still is a peg from a cribbage board.

Oh, man.

From a cribbage game one day.

So I don't know.

We might shake.

A house guest might fall out that we completely forgot about.

I don't know.

But it was nice to have the little ones there.

When you said you went to your sisters now, is this a trade-off thing where sometimes you're making and hosting?

We

don't host very often anymore, which is fine with me.

I love showing up and bringing a dish and passing the dish, and then I have no problem helping with the dishes and all of those things, but my sister primarily has kind of taken over the majority of the holidays.

And

that's always such a relief.

One of my sisters has laid dibs on one of the family gatherings and a sister-in-law has claimed dibs on another.

It's like, that's their holiday.

Nice.

to which we're like,

yeah.

Oh, no, I can't have Thanksgiving.

What am I ever going to do?

You know, and there are

just some people, I think, who really love the whole, they have the matchy, matchy plates and the special plates and the special, you know, table setting.

And yeah, I don't do any of those things.

So I'm not like the, oh, let's have it at Jane's.

Oh,

it's

going to be on paper plates, but I'll draw on them.

Yeah, that's what we've got to do.

Right exactly Yeah, we hit we we unofficially have Easter But and some we got a little bit of family, you know this past weekend But I guess we're just far enough away from our families that you know, it's you never get everybody under the roof So every year it's like I feel like they're pulling

Drawing straws like, okay, he's got to go

to Pam

Sherry's, he's got to drive to Chippewa Falls, but we got them in there.

And, you know, well, Alicia's right on YouTube saying, you know, hosting prep can be exhausting.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah, definitely.

And we refer to it as C&E, cleaning and entertaining, which often happens on Christmas and Easter.

And so we're just like, oh, it's C&E time again.

Well, we're off the hook for a little while.

Are you, uh...

You're looking forward to what you got coming up on the show this week and

your two different time slots.

Absolutely.

Mr. Global, Matt Randolph is going to be joining us today Mondays with Mr. Global.

He, of course, is an oil and gas industry expert, and he has enough facts and experience and firsthand knowledge to annoy everyone on all sides, which I find a unique and admirable quality.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

What would you look for anybody?

Absolutely.

And then we're going to talk to Bursity.

Colleen McCarthy from VersaVie.

Colleen McCarthy from VersaVie.

We're going to be talking to her today about organ donation and just how critically, critically important that is.

You want to have that little dot on your driver's license that you are an organ donor.

It's a really easy thing to do, and it makes such a difference.

Oh, OK.

All right.

And then, of course, on newscasts and other shows throughout the day, I'm sure we'll be more set about Pope Francis passing away.

Obviously, the big news of the day.

Yes.

We're always following breaking news around.

this place as well.

It's in the DNA.

So thank you.

You're

welcome.

Just a suggestion, Pat.

Toughen up those grandkids next year.

Leave the eggs outside with the bear.

See how they do on Easter morning.

Well, that just said,

I don't want the bear thinking, oh, look at this Cadbury cream egg.

It's got a creamy center.

It's a small child.

So we tried to try to avoid that.

Thank you.

You're a good.

I know I'm doing my best here.

Thank you.

Have a wonderful day and a great week.

Greg, thank you for everything.

See you in a couple hours on Matt and air on air.

So, and thanks to all of you for being part of Up North News Radio.

Again, today, tomorrow, six to eight a.m.

And then starting Wednesday, newly expanded time, six to nine a.m.

New name will come up with the new other gimmicks and, you know, more guests.

It'll be a lot of fun.

So hope you will stick around for that and the whole new lineup across the Civic Media Radio Network that starts with our show at six a.m.

Wednesday morning.

That'll do it for Monday.

Enjoy it.

We'll see you back here Tuesday morning, six a.m.

Here Up North.

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