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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Crite Low powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Crite Low.
Hey, good morning.
It is 8.06.
Nice to have you here back up north on this Monday morning, September 22nd.
Parker Olson producing things in Madison Studio A2.
Brittany Merlo was standing by with the forecast.
John and Gordy are going to join us from Madison A1 in just a sec here as well, but we are marking the
The final hours of summer here the autumnal equinox hits during the one o'clock hour this afternoon and so we've been asking what is what's so great about falling wisconsin
I'm sorry, I need to say that differently.
What's so great about fall in Wisconsin?
I want you to tell us.
Do you have a favorite place where you go to see the best color leaves?
Is there a particular October fest that you like to go to?
I think La Crosse's is coming up this weekend if I'm not mistaken.
So what makes Wisconsin so great in the fall?
Head over to the Up North News Facebook or YouTube pages or the Civic Media Facebook or YouTube pages or use the Civic Media app and either text us or leave a voice note to let us know all about
your favorite things to do in Wisconsin during the fall.
Uh, so speaking of said equinox and the, uh, the climate and the weather and all that, that science stuff, Brittany Merleau is here.
And, um, is this what the equinox is that the day where we're supposed to like stand an egg up and see if it balances and nonsense
like
that?
I think so.
I've never done it.
Have you never heard of that?
I've heard of it.
I've never done it.
Have
you?
where, yeah, because right when the sun's over the equator and the earth is like perfectly balanced and you can actually stand an egg up and it won't wobble like a weevil.
Yeah, nobody believes that.
I'm gonna try it.
I'm gonna try it today.
Okay, now,
now we have
some of the dude during the one
o'clock hour
today, right?
Yeah, 119, here we go.
You did not lie when you said this could be kind of an icky unpredictable spotty system sitting over the state for the weekend and
Yeah, true to form.
So when do we get this out of here?
Yeah, it's a mess.
We've got dense fog that built in.
It's still lingering in places and it could stick around till about noon in some spots.
So foggy out there.
It is dreary.
You've got scattered sprinkles up north, more heavier rain down south.
We've got a front draped from the cross to Sheboygan right now and actually some strong to severe storms are hitting in towards Baribu Portage.
and also into Montello as well.
And those are continuing in towards Wapan and over East.
So as that moves through the state today, I still think that storms are gonna be sparking along that front.
So expect from La Crosse to Sheboygan, seeing more continuous rain.
And then it does ramp up as we go into early this evening and tonight as that front starts to slide south, it is gonna sweep towards Madison, Milwaukee area.
and continue to linger there through tomorrow.
I think up north we're going to stay dry tomorrow.
Those scattered showers and rain stay way far south.
You do have a chance in the southern parts to get a few sprinkles still into Wednesday while the rest of the state dries out, warms up, sun comes back.
We're actually going to be in the low to mid 70s for a good chunk of this week.
But by the time we get to the weekend, it is going to be bright.
beautiful and near 80 degrees once again.
So that is good temperatures and sunlight for the fall colors to be changing.
And of course, we want the drier weather after such a wet weekend.
Yeah, absolutely.
See, Robin Tigerton says that he took pictures of the sunset with fog building in the background for the final summer sunset of 2025.
Looking forward to seeing that.
And he mentions that Apple Fest will be in Tigerton this Saturday.
So that we're getting to that time of year now where you've got
all
your apple fests and things like that.
Where else did I see?
I haven't looked at the full list yet, but I know in Bayfield, they have an apple pie and dessert contest this weekend.
And then in Pittsville, they have the splash of red cranberry tours.
So we got all kinds of great fall weekend things to do yet here.
There's so much stuff.
Always the events, you know, and the farmers market before they close.
And even if you can get off roading on the trails to see the fall colors in a different light, so gorgeous.
Yes.
All right.
And Tony says there's loads of fog in Ashland here today.
So,
you
know, again, just, yeah, if that's the case, you know, drive safe and get this burned out and have some nicer weather.
Thank you, Brittany.
Appreciate it.
All right.
Remember, you can sign up for our newsletter at UpNorthNews, UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Click subscribe in the top banner.
And there is a new daily newsletter from Civic Media.
You can find it over on your, what do they call that thing, the substack there.
Yeah, civicmediatoday.substack.com again, civicmediatoday.substack.
.com.
Listen to me sounding like an old codger.
It's just I'm just getting set to talk to people of my kind.
That would be John and Gordy from UMBX and Madison who joined us as well.
You can hear them in the Madison area, six to eight or on the Civic Media app.
Gentlemen, how are you?
Good morning.
We're pretty good.
We only work two hours.
You work three.
Well, it's, it's the, there's a time change up here.
We have to, we have to work three hours to get as much done as you guys get done in two.
Well, thank you.
I'll use that.
Yeah.
It was, it was that or I was going to credit your agent for great contract negotiating, but whatever, however it works, it works and it allows me to get to spend some time with you, which is really nice.
There's
a son.
There's a there's a lot to say about some of these, shall we say, elections, basically.
I mean,
yeah, I think I was up in volume one for for Chippewa Valley Radio.
And I thought I had a few more votes than I did.
But once I counted me and my mom and the daughters kind of forgot.
So, you know, I get three votes, which is which is nice.
So over the weekend, I wanted to ask in
in Madison now.
And this goes back, you know, there was a pretty good 30 year run there for for Badger football.
I mean, if you go back to, you know, when when Barry Alvarez first came on the scene, you know, there were some dark times, then things got better.
It's a pretty good run.
Shall we say football karma for the Badgers is?
Stop me if you've heard this pun before, a little fickle.
I would say a lot of
I mean, it's, what's it like to be in the shadow of camp Randall when it's just not as guaranteed good as it used to feel down there?
Badger fans, especially, I mean, the big Badger fans, the alumni, more difficult for them at this point, followed them for years.
Yeah, I'm sure it's very, very frustrating for them.
The kids don't know the history.
They don't care.
They go to the game, just have fun.
They get spoiled.
Just a big party.
Yeah, exactly.
Hey, speaking of party as I was trying to look at what was happening down there.
I believe over the weekend was the Willy Street Fair.
Yes.
Okay.
Willie Street, that's, that's Williamson.
That's the full name of the street, right?
But the
Okay.
Got it.
And I'm not saying you guys like go every year, but that that's a pretty that's not a small little craft fair.
That's kind of a big deal.
It's
very eclectic describes Willie Street very well.
Yes,
know,
You know, I mean, talking late 60s, early 70s, it's changed over the years.
There's still that element.
There's a feel over there.
There's a lot of very independent shops.
Not very many, any franchise places or anything like that.
It still kept its charm.
You know, one thing I noticed over the summer is that because the students are in this college town, there are a lot of seniors out there.
And I'm thinking, boy, look at all these seniors.
What will happen to all the businesses downtown when they're gone, you know, and well, they're replaced by.
students.
Yes.
Now I don't see any seniors.
I only see your students.
We went down downtown here over the weekend to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
And it was a lot of fun.
But you know, very young and encouraging to say the least,
that that is good, though, when you when you see that you don't see the signs of a of a city or a town that's getting old, you know, right, because you don't see the young adults coming in there.
So that part is refreshing.
So if you don't have the Badger team doing well and if the Packers are going to break your heart as they did yesterday,
alternative of going to the movies, which I believe is what Gordy did over the weekend.
Yeah, I went to see Spinal Tap 2 and the end continues.
And I got to say, I really, I thought it was really funny.
really good.
And I enjoyed it.
You know, it might not have the charm of the first movie.
Because that was really groundbreaking, kind of a mockumentary, you know, groundbreaking hit.
But you know, now all the guys are older.
And it was all about getting old.
And we got to do one more show, you know, just go out on the high note.
And that was
It was, it was, it had, it was funny from beginning to end.
It's
I'm going to guess Bob.
Dylan was not one of them.
Bob
Alpine Valley the other day.
And once
like, like his concert in Eau Claire several weeks back, basically just kind of sits off in the corner of the stage and the stage is bathed in red.
You can barely see him.
He just kind of, he doesn't talk.
He just kind of sings the songs and then goes away.
Oh, is
Yep.
I
Yeah.
So I so I did a movie yesterday as well.
Oh, really?
Sherry put it very, very well.
I thought she's like, look, the brewers are still still doing well.
I can't get into the pack or stuff.
It's nice out.
I don't want to sit for three hours and watch a football game.
Plus, we could see it because like, they were they were driving were like, Okay, they're gonna run out the clock.
It's gonna be great.
There's a movie that's starting.
Let's go.
It was called a big, bold, beautiful journey.
Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie.
I heard it.
I'd never seen the previews the commercials nothing went into it completely blind Sherry had seen it wanted to see it and You know, I'm not against you know rom-coms.
That's fine And this was more of a fantasy one again.
I don't want to do spoilers So if I just say there's some time travel in it.
Oh,
Yeah.
And I, it's very, it's a kind of thing that you'd see more in like a film festival art thing, but it was, it was very well done.
I don't have any bad words to say about it.
The story I'm telling about it deals with being in seats with the reclining chairs now.
I hope you've been in some of those with the little power recliner.
That's nice.
But
it means
the legs go up and then the legs go down with the push of a button.
Unlike the old theater seats where you always knew what was underneath.
Well, at one point I heard a noise.
And I realized that I dropped my readers because I'm of that age now.
And I'm like, oh, the readers fell between the seats.
Well, I'll get it after the movie.
And so I put the seat all the way out, push the button, I get on my hands and knees.
And you realize that with the recliners there now,
they don't clean under the seats the way that it was good when it was just the seats.
Are you guys familiar with the term primordial soup?
Yeah, those from which all life evolved.
Yeah,
I
mean, it was such a collection of dried Coca Cola and bits of candy and petrified popcorn and somewhere just out of reach.
I could see the readers, but it would have involved getting into that.
Ooh, yes.
So I'm in the market for some new readers.
If you're, uh, you've got a place down there, but,
I just left them there at that point.
I'm just get you can get readers for like, you know, the buck and a quarter at Walgreens.
It seems okay.
We're talking to a John and Gordy about ways you can entertain yourself like a movie.
Just watch where you drop your stuff.
And we'll continue on on this Monday morning live from Lake Wissota.
I'm Pat right.
Well, this is the Civic Media radio network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
We're on the program, kind of our usual Tuesday pastel of guests, Hans Bright and Moser Bielong.
I believe Sheila Everhardt as well from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.
We will have Cam Stephenson live from Capitol Hill, from Courier Newsroom.
We will also have Dan Schaefer from the Recombobulation area, talking about
Wisconsin politics.
But as far as Cam Stevenson goes, now he's got a daily newsletter called Below the Beltway.
You can get it through couriernewsroom.com or beltway.news for daily dispatches from the nation's capital via Courier Newsroom's own.
And Cam Stevenson will be joining us tomorrow morning on the program.
This morning on the program, we are continue to be joined by John and Gordy from WMDX down in Madison.
And before the break, we were talking about Johnny at the movies.
And, you know, giving, giving more of a real live movie review.
Like you said, I don't know who the, I don't know directors, I don't know who the gaffer was or the best boy, you know, it's either you liked it or you don't like it, which sounds like, like John's movie reviews.
Yeah, it was just a
Beautiful journey.
Yeah,
as well.
which I know she's got good reviews for that.
as well.
Yes.
So so I say not because I'm not as familiar with those movies, I could see where people would go into there and go, wait a minute, I can't I can't take you seriously because you're DC, you know, your movie character.
and everything things
know, I had
and tomato
It was just a
Well, they
it was
Yeah, I mean, come on, people etiquette.
It's it's about etiquette on the text line from Jim and Brookfield glad to hear Gordy enjoyed spinal tap to my sister and I laughed from beginning to end with great cameos.
So there you go.
Well, one
Greg Marcus appeared in a trailer, you know, just before the movie start.
And he was with spinal tap.
He did this bit with spinal tap comedians.
And they kept taking shots at him and he was trying
to respond to it.
And it's very entertaining.
He did he did two versions of that.
I didn't see the second version, but I'd be interested in seeing that just before the movie.
If I could just editorialize on one thing about the movies.
And look, I know that with every movie, the previews are somewhat tailored to the audience.
The previews that they were showing yesterday before this romcom.
I forget if there were three or four of them.
But every one of them was like,
just people being awful or doing awful things to each other like there's that that new horror flick about the football player.
There's another horror flick about these mass murders and somebody who survives a mass murder and and something else and I finally there were only a couple of us in the theater but I
I think my expletive might have been a little a little loud.
Just like,
have something happy, please?
everybody making a happy movie right now?
And apparently,
Because I like it.
I like what I do in everything, but I like to take a break.
And so Saturday, we went to one of our favorite watering holes.
And when we got there, because we're kind of blue plate special people now at our age, there wasn't anybody else in the place we knew was going to get busier later on.
But it was just and just us and the owner who was sitting at a bar stool trying to have a piece of pizza.
And he has never like any good bartender.
He's never I've never heard him talk about politics ever.
But as soon as you saw that it was only us, I'm just expecting to get a break.
I've got a beer.
I'm right.
I got to tell you something.
And he's off to the races.
And I'm like, all right, I'm back in work mode.
Here we go.
Let's go politics.
And we did.
And I had no idea, you know, what angle he was going to come from.
And the same went for for another fellow that came up at a different bar.
Apparently, I go to a lot of bars and came up and again, introduced himself.
And again, he asked me about something about politics.
And you know, you know, when you don't know them,
You have no idea which way this thing's going to go.
Right.
And I'm sure you get it not just about politics, but just about the show like, Hey, you're those guys, aren't you?
And then you're about to go, Okay, here it comes.
Here we go.
We start
Backward slowly comes with the territory.
And then they go, Oh, I really like what you do.
I really like what you stand for or whatever.
And then suddenly it's a whole different conversation like, Hey, what's your name and everything else?
Right.
And, you know, that's, that's the nice part of it.
But did it
for you?
the bartender?
Yes.
Oh, yes, it did.
Yeah.
Well, it worked out in the sense that, you know, his frustrations are my frustrations.
Okay, good.
With politics.
I wasn't really able to escape the politics.
And I realized that we in in in the year 2025 still do not have the right response to how you're doing.
Because I know you asked to ask people how you doing is like, right, you know, you just toward the whole world.
So we need to I think we need a better question to ask like, you know, how's your health or anything like that.
So we're not just asking about the state of the world, you know, or how are you surviving?
How are you surviving might work or just walk up to somebody and go say something funny.
Make me laugh, whatever case may be.
We need that.
And that's why people put you on the radio.
John Gordy, you can hear him on WMDX in Madison or through the Civic Media app or here on Mondays to, you know, to help the grouchy old political guy feel better for at least a little while.
Thank you guys.
Thanks so much.
Have a great start to the week.
All right, let's pause here.
We'll continue live from the lake.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We are getting near the end of the regular season for the Milwaukee Brewers, but thankfully there will be some post-season action as well.
But as for the regular season, well, there's a three game series starting in San Diego tonight, then tomorrow night, Wednesday afternoon, a day off on Thursday, then a home stand against the Cincinnati Reds Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then that does it for the regular season.
Tonight's game against San Diego, the pregame coverage begins at 8 0 5.
on several civic media stations head over to the website to learn more and while you're there check out again the details on the go for the green and gold text to win contest which we'll be doing in the seven o'clock hour
throughout this week and next week, where again, with that Civic Media app, you're going to text in a keyword and that'll get you entered for a big grand prize tickets to see Green Bay versus Minnesota.
It's a Green Bay home game and you can get more details on the go for the green and gold contest from Jane and Greg, part of Matt Nair on air coming up next here on the Civic Media radio network.
The fall session of the legislature is getting going.
We talked to State Senator Keldoroys an hour ago She's candidate for governor and we talked about the package of education bills put forward by Democrats the package of education bills put forward by Republicans there's not a lot of common ground there and Unfortunately, it seems that even when there is a hint at common ground on something there usually are some kinds of
strings attached.
And that appears to be the case with a different package of bills that Republicans are saying they'll introduce this week to deal with our elections, specifically absentee ballot drop boxes.
Now keep in mind that absentee ballot drop boxes were used for years in Wisconsin with no issues.
and with the support from both parties.
Republicans really liked it because in rural areas, places with older populations, it was a matter of convenience.
Democrats liked them in urban areas.
Again, people who might have had busy schedules or young families, again, they could drop off their ballots as securely as when you drop your mail off in the mailbox, all right?
They're fine, they work.
When Donald Trump knew he was going to lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and the documentation is there months before the election, he started laying the groundwork toward trying to steal the election, or at least to circumvent it or to cast doubt on its integrity.
And one of the things that he flailed at was absentee ballot drop boxes.
And then in the wake, for reasons I can only
Log as quote a cult of personality unquote Suddenly so many Republicans didn't like absentee drop absentee ballot drop boxes either and there were court challenges and there were conservative Justices who said yes these things that it's like we just discovered them and they're bad and we have to get rid of them Well, thanks to voters in Wisconsin the state Supreme Court was put into progressive hands and Progressive Justices looked at that and said what are we talking about here?
They work, they're fine, let them be.
Let's turn to another matter, and then I'll bring the two together.
And that is the processing of absentee ballots.
Again, they're put into these envelopes.
If you've ever filled one out, you know that you have to sign it, you have to get a witness to sign it, you have to put the address on there.
Again, the ballot is sealed.
You just know that there is an absentee ballot in there and you either use the ballot drop box or you mail it in or you bring it back in person or you fill it out in person at your local clerk's office.
And then it goes into a box, goes into a locked box in place until election day.
When they're opened up, you have to check the addresses.
You have to check to make sure the signatures are there and they're valid.
And then you can open up the envelope.
You can pull the ballot out and then you can process them.
Well, there's a lot of places because they're big cities and there's only so much time and so many people and so many ballot counting machines.
In these larger cities, you have election results that don't come in until late at night.
There's a way around that and that would be to allow the absentee ballot envelopes to be checked the day before.
Make sure that they're good, toss out the ones that aren't.
And that way, right away on election day, you can then just open them up, open up all the good ones, and then you can run the ballots through the machine.
That makes sense too, right?
Right.
So Republicans are now saying they're willing to go along with this.
Well, that's nice of them.
I mean, for the past couple of election cycles, we've known, Republicans and Democrats alike, that processing the absentee ballot envelopes the day before would be a good thing.
And yet Republicans in the legislature have fought against that, have not supported it for only one reason, and it has nothing to do with security.
It enables some of them to continue the talking point, basically the conspiracy theory that, well, if the ballots are taking so long to count and the results are coming in in the middle of the night, there must be something shady going on in bad old Milwaukee.
or Madison or Green Bay or Racine or Kenosha there must be something that we can't trust there.
But they won't of course pass the bill that would allow the processing of the absentee ballot envelopes so that you wouldn't have that talking point.
Well now we come to Republicans saying that this week here comes a new package of election bills and it would allow for Monday processing of the absentee ballots.
Well thank goodness and it would allow you know for
widespread use of absentee ballot drop boxes.
Well, yeah, there should be.
But of course, here come the strings.
And there are definitely strings attached to this, as explained yesterday on up front by Republican Representative Scott Krug, who is vice chair of the Assembly Elections Committee.
And he said on the program, I think it's fair to say that some of these things, you know, Republicans might not like them and Democrats might not like some of the things.
Well, I don't know.
There's definitely things for most people to not like in terms of the strings that are attached, because we're now suddenly treating absentee ballot drop boxes like their Fort Knox, just waiting to be robbed.
or something.
Because in return for Republicans supporting the Monday processing of absentee ballot envelopes, the bills include security changes for the drop boxes, including 24-hour video surveillance that must be live-streamed on a municipality's website.
So in other words, these cash-strapped local governments, whether it's a little township or a big city that's already having a tough time meeting expenses because of cuts by the state legislature, would now have to put 24-hour video cameras on the dropboxes and then reconfigure your websites to live stream a picture of a dropbox.
Which, I'm sorry, it's all your...
begging for people to just go to these dropboxes and put on a little theater presentation because they know they're having an audience there.
It serves no other role whatsoever, but wait, there's more.
The ballots, according to this bill, would also need to be transferred from the dropbox to a storage facility only under the constant supervision of a law enforcement officer.
That's how little respect they have for law enforcement.
I mean, you've already got police departments and sheriff's departments that they too are cash trapped.
They too have better things to do.
And yet the Republicans in the legislature would require that there be an officer or more to go to these drop boxes when these ballots are picked up.
So let me ask you this.
Are you aware of any mailboxes out there?
that are live streamed, that have 24-hour video surveillance, and that they're on the US Postal Service website?
No, because it doesn't happen.
You know why?
Because mailboxes are secure, and if you fiddle around with them, if you try to commit some kind of mail fraud or theft, that's a crime.
You'll be charged with a crime.
The same goes for absentee ballot drop boxes right now.
If you monkey around with them,
it's a crime.
And who's going to take the risk of that to affect what the the 10 ballots that might be inside that box?
But we're going to add a law enforcement officer that's got to be there like you're transferring gold bars.
These are the strings that are attached in order to get Monday processing of absentee ballot envelopes.
Why?
Why can't we just have a clean bill?
Why can't we ever just have a clean bill, an up or down vote?
Are you OK with Monday processing of absentee ballots?
If you're not, say so.
Say you want to continue the conspiracy theory about late night ballot counting.
But don't tie these strings.
And then, of course, when they get voted down because they're ridiculous.
They then get the talking point of, oh, the Democrats, they voted no on it.
The Democrats voted no on election security.
Yeah, they voted no on armed guards.
I mean, why didn't you just ask for an armored car to be there to carry the ballots in as well?
Maybe a full police motorcade.
But always the strings and always the talking point rather than just doing what is best and most most efficient for our elections And so my hope is and my expectation is that if these bills actually make it to the floor and frankly in the committee process as well The Democrats will put up amendments that would strip out the ridiculousness
Maybe even find some other kind of middle ground, whatever it may be, whether it's strengthening the penalties that already exist for monkeying with absentee ballot drop boxes or something else.
But get us to the point where we can do the Monday processing.
Have some more respect for your local clerks.
Have some more respect for your local law enforcement.
And stop making them engage in all of this performative politics.
so that you can continue talking points rather than having elections that just do what they already do here.
They are safe, they are fair, they are efficient, and in the ways that they could be made better, just make them better and stop screwing around with them.
Oh, but speaking of screws, how's that for a transition?
The headline from the New York Times, Trump's tariffs are damaging America's biggest foreign source.
screws.
Taiwan has long been a top provider of screws to the United States, but the factories are struggling to survive because of Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Most people know Taiwan as making all the semiconductors and other electronics.
It's a lot of intricate work, but then there's that
Everyday essential almost invisible component of everyday objects writes the New York Times screws But Taiwan screw makers are wondering how their businesses will survive over the next few months and To what degree will China gain ground in the meantime because again, it's not like this is going to be creating American jobs We're not opening up some kind of new markets for American screw makers.
Okay.
These are tiny things that are
best made overseas, more cost effectively.
But now they won't be, along with everything else that is more expensive.
Now think of the things that require lots and lots of screws.
At Courier Newsroom, we've had a video series for a time.
I'm not sure if the person still does or not, but this would be a perfect episode for it.
Talking about the things that you don't normally see in politics, but are working against you, the ways that you're being nickled and dimed,
Instead, the name of the series is, You're Probably Getting Screwed.
And in this case, it is quite literal.
So again, a story in the New York Times, one of the many ways that a made up trade war is hurting rather than helping our economy.
Some final news and notes from Lake Wissota and a preview of Matt Nair on air with Jane Matt Nair coming up in just a bit.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
All right, Jane Mattenair is here.
Mattenair on air coming up next across the Civic Media radio network.
And Jane's gone through some stuff.
We
are literally going through things.
Literally going through things,
which we're going to get to in just a minute.
But first, we've got to talk about what's coming up because you got candidates today.
We do.
We are going to be talking to Joanne, Jocasta Samaripa, who is an older person in the city of Milwaukee, and she is running.
for a secretary of state.
So Joe Casta is gonna be joining us after the 9.30 news.
And then in hour number two, she's been a guest many times on our show, a former daycare provider in Northern Wisconsin.
Karine Hendrickson is gonna be joining us.
She of course had to close her childcare facility after
struggling
for so many years trying to hang on.
And now she's running for office.
And I am thrilled to talk to her about this.
She's had some pretty interesting things she shared with us when she's talked to some of our lawmakers and their opinion, let's say, on who should be providing childcare and what they should be paid for.
Yes.
I think they did everything but say little lady.
Yes.
Oh, sweetie, if you just stay home and take care of all your neighbor's kids, we wouldn't have this problem.
Uh huh.
Yep.
We first we first noticed green when she testified before a congressional committee.
And she said it was a somewhat spur of the moment thing when she was going to be in DC, somebody knew about it, said, you know, hey, come talk to this committee about it.
And it was, it was so heartfelt and said so well.
And she'd become a, you know, basically the leading advocate for childcare in Wisconsin over these past couple of years,
yes,
that
I'm not surprised your frustration would lead her to this point to run for a seat in the state Senate because you get so tired of watching this legislature just ignore big problems.
Well, and I can't imagine the frustration when you do actually get faced, you know, the rare opportunity when you do get to sit down face to face with some of these lawmakers, and they essentially just listen and nod and go, yeah, bye, see ya.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, you do that enough times.
It's like, yeah, I think maybe I could do a better job.
And she is hoping to do that with Howard Markline, the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, although there will be a primary.
She is one of three Democrats running in the Senate, 17th Senate District, and she'll be talking to Jane about that just over an hour from now.
But as far as going through some stuff,
Because Jane and I are both thinking about, you know, at some point, we're going to have to clean out our respective residences, which downsize a little bit, downsize a little or at least lighten the load when when apparently you get enough silver upstairs.
And what there's a critical mass and enough gray hair triggers the neurons that say, we got to get rid of some of the
stuff.
That's what you're doing right now.
Yep, that's where we are right now.
So that's what I did over the weekend.
And I'm proud.
This is just an indication of how old we are.
But we still have a big cabinet full of CDs.
Yep, which we haven't played.
I play CDs every Christmas as background music, you know, and they rotate on the CD player and things.
But other than that, I haven't listened to any of these CDs in probably 15, 20 years.
And
so I yes.
So I went through those and why I'm hanging on to still probably a hundred of them is a is a question that will last through throughout time.
But yeah.
you're not going to believe this.
So we've got we've got the CDs, we got DVDs.
But we did finally get rid of the VHS tapes.
I mean, we just don't and we and I got rid of the cassette tapes.
You know, there's a handful of them for that might have new stories from back in the day or whatever, but the music ones and I used to have a whole bunch of blank ones.
And they went away.
The 11 year old grandson
last time he came to visit, was asking if we had any because cassette recorders were what they were like teaching the kids to, it was like some kind of OG way to do something with technology and recording yourself.
I think it's like a step before you can teach, here's how a computer operates.
Here's the technology that got us there.
And he thought for sure I'd have some cassettes to give him to take back to school and I didn't have any.
Oh, rats.
It's like, let's make a deal, you know, and Monty Hall would come over or and go, or Wayne Brady does it today.
I'll give you so much if you've got, you know, a cassette tape in your purse in
your purse,
right?
Have a cassette tape.
Oh, that's a shame.
I have some old air checks he can have.
No, those those are going in a museum someplace.
Oh, yeah, they're
like the rest of us, you know.
Yes, exactly.
Just museum pieces.
And so yeah, I'm getting close to that stage now.
And have you are you familiar with, you know, there's all these different declutter, you know, people.
Oh,
and Joy Condo and whatever.
Yes, yes, I don't do that.
No.
And one of them, one of them has a theory called touch it once.
In other words, if you get
like say, here's here's a piece of mail.
And I have not opened it yet.
And it's sitting over here.
And at some point, I'm going to move it over here.
And at some point, I'm going, you know, I'll get to that pilot, I'm going to move it over here.
Yes.
And the theory is if you've touched it, deal with it, get it out of the way.
I'm not very good at that.
But it does set up the name of what I'm going to be doing with my stuff when it's time when it's time to go through there.
I've got something called touch it one more time.
Because there are things down there, again, dating back to childhood and college and early career.
And they're like a little comforting thing to have around.
Like, oh, look at this, honey.
This is when we were dating.
Here's
the
first card you got me.
We don't need that anymore.
So we've
been together a long time
honey.
Yep.
Yep.
We're gonna touch this.
We're gonna touch this record one more time or my Boy Scout handbook.
Why do I still have my Boy Scout handbook?
I don't know.
Because you remembered all of it anyway, Pat.
You don't
need
to that
handbook.
It's
part of your life.
It's part of the technology like a cassette recorder.
That's
how useful
it is.
So yeah, I've said as I we get closer to that phase, it's like, touch it one more time.
Say yep, I will miss it and
Get it out of there and don't make your daughters or anybody else have to do that for you.
Otherwise, they're just going to put it all in a dumpster and light it on fire.
Seriously, I'm just glad to know that I'm not the only one who does that with paperwork.
I have at least four piles before it even makes it into my office.
And then then it gets divided into more piles, which is the shred pile and the file pile.
And then I don't even know what I'm going to do with this pile.
So many piles.
So many piles.
Many a time I've just said my to do list just says the pile
and I know what I
mean.
go take the pile down.
Thank you, Jane.
Have a great show.
You too.
You will hear Jane coming up from nine to 11 weekdays along with Greg Bach for Matt and air on air.
I'm back right now.
Thanks for starting your Monday here with us.
We'll see you bright, early Tuesday morning six a.m.
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