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Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Gritlow, powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News.
along
with our friends John and Gordy here here Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2 and you can hear John and Gordy over there in Madison Studio A1 weekdays from six to eight on our station Madison and then again I think every hour on the hour or something like that across the Civic Media Radio Network.
What's the current afternoon shift?
Two to five.
Two to five.
The last time we checked, yeah.
Yes, well, careful.
Don't look at your inbox.
It might have been.
It might have been.
Now, Kristen,
this is the John and Gordy studio.
As well as A1,
A2, or whatever you say
there.
Yep.
Yep.
Let's just go to the John and Gordy studio.
That makes perfect sense.
The John and Gordy station is what it is.
It's becoming that.
Yes, very much so.
Coming up in half an hour, we'll be talking to Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride.
He's got a new book out about a tumultuous 2020, his first year.
in office and everything that was happening in Tosa during that troubled time.
Jane McNair joins us before the hour is up as well.
And along the way, you can join us at 855-75 Civic, 855-7524842.
Our question of the day, is Cyber Monday still a thing?
Is it still buying stuff online, especially on Cyber Monday?
We'll talk to John about his online buying habits in just a bit.
But first, we got to get to the snow, which I actually haven't said much.
about here because I mean, we are on the edge of it.
So we got about four inches here.
So, you know, had to get the snowblower out.
I had not checked it out ahead of time.
So it took
It took many rounds, even with an electric start, because it had, you know, the old gas in there and the oil and everything.
And eventually it banged like, you know, the old Model T's, the jalapes where you had to crank the engine literally with a crank and then it would bang and sputter.
And that's exactly what would happen.
But it did finally work.
But that was just the four inches here.
Madison, did I see right 12 inches there?
Yes.
12.4 inches, I believe in this area.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
How'd you do with that?
I think the worst place was Fort Atkinson.
I think they might have had a little bit more, but I had to do it in two ships basically after Friday.
They had to go out there on Saturday, do half of it.
And then of course the other half came and dumped.
Saturday night, and then, uh, Sunday morning was a disaster.
Uh, I was pushing snow.
I wasn't blowing snow.
And you were in a little trouble with
your snowblower.
And that's the problem.
I, I have a snowblower that doesn't blow snow anymore.
It just pushes
it.
So you just have a big, heavy shovel.
Yes.
Absolutely.
And it's just crazy.
It really is.
I've had it.
You know, the thing is, I have been, you know, waiting year after year after year for dry snow again.
We're not getting dry snow anymore.
That's it.
It's all wet snow from now on.
So I've got to get a different snow blower that can handle that kind of stuff.
I took some calls on that and somebody appealed to what I really prefer and that is battery operated devices now.
Yes.
Instead of the gasoline.
And somebody suggested an ego.
That's a brand ego.
And I have a ego one more.
So
All you have to do is get one of those.
They said it worked wonders.
It lasted.
They get two batteries with that.
And the battery should be, it should be about an 80 volt.
So keep in mind the battery, the better it is, the more power you have, the longer it lasts.
I didn't think a battery operated snowblower would work.
I'll be honest.
That's a lot of power.
I mean, that's, I mean, you really need power
and for a long period of time.
Well, without a doubt, I mean, you got these electric cars now, battery powered, and yet they're going zero to 60, you know, faster than they ever have before.
So, I mean, you can do it and you would know being the EV owner that you are.
I
am, yes.
By the way, does this mean that that
big massive, you know, Bucky's size charging station that you got for your garage.
Will you be using that for your snowblower next?
Can the rest of the neighborhood come plug into this thing?
Wow, that'd be kind of cool.
But no, okay, doesn't work like that.
I could
be wrong.
But I mean, the stories make it sound like it's another three mile island in the waiting, you know, just inside that garage.
This, this thing that you've put in.
Well, some of our listeners were offering you some other advice with your current snowblower, like put some Pam or
Chris, go on your
snowblower blade or WD-40.
Quote the inside of the snowblower container so snow wouldn't stick to it.
Right.
But I think try that.
No, I haven't tried.
I've never tried that.
But, you know, I've had it with this snowblower.
I'm done.
You're ready to buy another one.
I am so done with this thing.
Oh,
God.
Ours was definitely wet and heavy to move it.
Although I have to say, although you have to go a little bit slower as a result, it is a nice alternative to when it's really light and fluffy.
And I know you can move the, you know,
the spout either way and everything, but it just feels like you never get it quite right to avoid getting a face full of snow.
You know,
it catches the wind just so and nails you, at least with the wet heavy stuff, just like plop, just goes over there and gets out of your way.
Yeah, you're
right.
You never know what we're going to get at any given point here.
And there was a range of snowfalls all around the state.
Now we get the cold weather because, you know, people mostly would be today like
Oh, it's December.
It's December.
I can't believe December snuck up on us, which is impossible because it's the same day every year.
But today, today is very December-like.
We've had some below zero temperatures in the state.
I can't remember a time when we had snow this early, maybe three or four years.
I could be wrong on that, but I truly think we normally get our first snowfall about April or May.
No, it's not that
late.
Oh
no.
It does get all over and again we get such a range.
I mean look the next several days look very cold here all across Wisconsin but and I haven't looked at the long range forecast but I'm just saying that in years past it would not be out of the ordinary that between now and Christmas you know that there is some kind of a warm-up and then you get all the hey is it going to be a brown Christmas kind of stories because I mean newsrooms live for this kind of stuff so sure it could happen.
You know,
it
could.
It could.
How was your Thanksgiving weekend?
I'm pretty uneventful for me.
I just went over to my sister's house who doesn't live all that far away from me 20, 30 minutes.
And but that's where we gathered the family and checked in on everybody.
But no fighting broke out, no discussions of
politics.
Our producer had a very interesting event happened to him over the Thanksgiving.
Oh, Dom, you can get on Mike here and tell us.
Oh, this is
this is Dom, John and Gordy's producer.
Yes.
Yes.
How's it going guys?
Wow.
This is I'm honored.
I'm honored
here.
Don't be too honored.
They didn't think you were worthy of a camera.
So, I mean, we can't see you like we can.
So, you got there.
Oh, hey, look at this.
How's it going everybody?
I thought here I thought Parker maybe had sabotaged it.
There's only one producer allowed on camera here.
That camera has been wigging out lately.
So, maybe I was trying to.
Things could happen.
So, Dom, what happened?
Yeah.
So basically I was going from Chicago to West Bend, Wisconsin, about two and a half hours on the expressway.
I think it was Saturday morning.
So when it was, you know, hitting snow pretty good, it was already about five, six inches in.
And I was driving and I did a complete 360 on the expressway.
And I ran right into a barrier.
Oh,
yeah.
And my, my wheel was completely destroyed.
I had to
put on a spare, and it was a whole thing.
But I was Tokyo drifting on the freeway.
It was crazy.
Tell them how fast you were
going.
How fast were you going, Dom?
60.
65.
Congratulations.
You've lost all the sympathy I was about to give you.
Yeah, 360.
That was, and again, I'm sorry that you went through this.
That was really dumb, Dom.
That was just, I
mean.
I know I've been told from my parents, John and Gordy, and now Pat too.
No, no, no.
The dumb thing, no, the dumb thing was that you, you told the truth.
Yeah.
You tell people, oh, I was doing 15.
I was being so careful.
I knew, nice of you to confess like this.
I mean, gosh, you're right up there with Kristi Noem and B-Tech stuff.
Let's confess to our crimes in public and consequences be damned.
But you did.
So is there going to be like, do you have to go to a body shop now?
I do.
Yes.
This whole, this whole week's just.
trying to fix up my back bumper and make sure everything's good with my car now because I don't really know what's going to go on this next week with it, but
I
need new tires.
I need new tires for sure.
Okay.
To get to the station then, you know, properly, I mean, are we working out a ride share right now with Parker?
Should we just do this now?
Parker, are you charging a certain fee as an Uber for him?
Hey, if you can pay me, I'll get you.
If
you can pay
me.
How did you get to the station this morning?
I still
drove.
Like it still can
drive.
Oh, it's
OK.
It just
pretty beat up.
It looks bad.
I don't know if you guys noticed, but Dom used a Fast and Furious reference to Tokyo drift.
Yeah, that's right.
He did.
I
mean.
This is not unexpected for him.
Guys, our question of the day is whether Cyber Monday is still a thing.
And then we just kind of get into shopping habits, people who are really early,
people
who are really late.
Are you just kind of right in the middle with everybody else here?
Or will you get online today?
Because there are still some kind of mega deals.
I'm done.
I did all my shopping.
That was it.
I spontaneous bought a pair of AI glasses.
Yes, but
that's for yourself, right?
Well, yeah, but you know, yeah, what
about your shopping
for the rest of the family item?
Oh,
yes.
You know, no, it is the season for me.
It's gifts from me, from me to me.
What do these things do?
That's what
you do.
That's what
you
do.
What are these
glasses supposed to do?
Well, they're I wanted to test them out on the show.
They are AI glasses.
The microphone is just under the ear so the headphones can actually supply the audio.
And if people had a question during our phone calls or something like
that they could get an answer.
I could give them an answer immediately.
You could see with my glasses it projects the AI information on my lens.
Okay, yeah, which
which as we've learned may or may not be true.
But I mean, just again, what's the old line?
You can get things fast or cheap or good, but not all three of them at
all
three.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anyway, I bought them and then I changed my mind.
And I canceled the order within 24 hours.
You had to do that if you're getting prescription glasses, which I did.
And oh my gosh, they
were prescription
ones.
Yeah.
Yes.
You
just sign over a
I mean, that's, that's not a blue light special at
all.
It
was last week's page.
So, so anyway, yeah, and I canceled it, but they all of a sudden sent me another email that said, your glasses are on the way.
Oh, well, wait a minute here.
You know, I've got proof.
I've got email proof that I did what I had to do within 24 hours to cancel my order.
We'll see.
You know, it's not that big a penalty, but I, I don't know.
Okay, I have second thoughts about believing the AI that is on my glasses, as you have mentioned, can only believe some of it.
You got to fact check most
Gordy getting back to the essence of the question.
Oh, other other
people.
Yeah.
Are you are you underway with your your own shopping?
No, I always wait till the last minute.
I don't do any Cyber Monday.
I don't do any of this crazy Black Friday stuff.
I wait until until
you have to pay the most money.
That's
great plan.
Now, well, I don't have a whole lot of people to shop for.
So I just, you know, I go, you know, maybe the day before, you know, a couple of days before Christmas, you know, the shelves are mostly empty.
So it makes it a lot easier to choose.
There's not a lot you can find a quick trip.
Yeah, I don't worry about
it.
Tony writes on YouTube if they cancel and they send it, I think you get it for free.
No, Tony, I don't think it works that way.
I think there's an extradition involved at that point for theft.
But all right, so we will follow the saga of John's AI glasses and whether they're free or not in the coming days here.
Listen to John and Gordy weekdays statewide across the Civic Media radio network.
And of course, Mornings, Honor Station and Madison.
Thank you guys very much.
Have a good start to the week.
Thanks, Pat.
Thanks, Pat.
Thanks to you.
All right.
Still ahead, we are going to be talking to Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge and Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride and Jane McNair, all ahead.
Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Crichtlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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.
Welcome back.
We are coming up on 823 here on this Monday morning, December 1st.
Nice to have you along.
And I'm joined by Eau Claire City Council President and candidate for Congress Emily Berge as well, because very early this morning Emily made an announcement.
which, you know, when I tell you that and I don't tell you anything else, it could have gone one of two ways, dealing with either the congressional race or her duties as city council president.
It turns out it is the latter of those, Emily.
You are not running for a new term as city council president, right?
That's
correct.
After eight years, it's time to step up to Congress.
Okay.
And that is to focus on your congressional campaign.
Correct.
Yep.
Okay.
Well, at this point in the third congressional district, there will be a Democratic primary at this point with Emily Berge and Rebecca Cook.
And so Emily, I was looking back at the.
past couple of elections since Ron Kynes' retirement.
And as we know in 2022, Brad Paff emerged from that primary with about 40% of the vote over Rebecca Cook, Deb McGrath, and Mark Newman.
And then two years ago, there was a primary as well.
That one.
involved Rebecca Cook getting 50% of the vote, Katrina Shanklin about 42% and Eric Wilson 8%.
Now in this one, of course, Rebecca Cook is running again.
Laura Benjamin had been a candidate but then dropped out of the race.
So at this point, it is again going to be a contested Democratic primary.
Now, what's going to make the difference this time, Emily, with you running in this primary and taking on Rebecca Cook who is now in her third try?
for this race.
How's this primary going to be different and lead to something other than Derek Van Orden winning a third term?
Right,
which is the ultimate goal is to beat Derek Van Orden, which is why I'm running.
I think the big difference is I have just a lot of ground support in district support.
I've earned the support of the mayor of La Crosse, earned the endorsement of the mayor of Stevens Point, plus people know me well here in Eau Claire, so earn a lot of local officials here in Eau Claire too.
And then plus just that grassroots energy that I bring.
I have a ton of volunteers this early out of the election.
People are asking me every day when they can door knock or canvas, which I have to say I've been in elections a lot.
I've been volunteering for the last eight years or so and I haven't heard that energy so much before.
So I think I have a real
Yeah, ground support energy, which I do think things are different now at the national level, too, that we haven't seen the last two primary races or general races.
People are fired up this year as I'm traveling through the 19 counties in red districts, red counties.
Like there are full houses and people are protesting every week.
They have plans to keep going all year, all winter long.
Again, we haven't seen that.
I haven't seen that energy since 2016.
So again, it's like, I'm really tapping into the energy riding with the people just because that's what's gonna how we're gonna win in August and then how we're gonna win in November is just like bringing the people along or I'm just like lockstep with the people too.
Emily Berge is with us.
She is a candidate for Congress and city council president in Eau Claire, a role that you will not be running for reelection.
So how will that work then that the city council president spot that is a separate race from the rest of the city council members, right?
Correct.
Yep.
So every, we all have three year terms.
There's one city council president.
There's five at large seats and five district seats.
And then every year those elections are up.
So this past April, the at large seats were up.
next April the city council president my position will be up and then it'll be district seats will be up and so I'm elected we don't have a mayor here in Eau Claire as people know but I'm elected or the city council president is elected like the mayor at no at large election so yeah
so tell us about how you're going to look back in your years as city council president
well I
We've gone through a lot as a city, as a nation through the last eight years.
I ran for office in 2018 after the election of Donald Trump because I felt like I had to do something.
I wanted to be the change I wanted to see.
I did not like the leadership of Donald Trump, what he was portraying way back then.
So I ran knowing that I could bring something different with my background, being a counselor, being a mom, a local person.
So that's why I stepped up way back then.
And then since then there's been, you know, turbulent times with politics, but also there's COVID, you know, serving on the city council through the pandemic of two years, sort of on the board of health during that time too, through welcoming refugees, you know, standing up to the magic extremists when they came after our community with hateful and racist rhetoric.
I stood up against that.
And then just with the closing of the hospitals too with Sacred Heart and St.
Joe's up in Chippewa.
So our
Our community has faced real challenges and it's really, I hope, because I've strived to really stand up and really serve the people and be protective of our community.
I'm a very protective person, whether it's my kids, my clients, my community constituents.
So I hope people saw that, that I'm not scared to stand up to racist.
I'm not scared to stand up to people that say terrible things about refugees.
I'm not scared to stand up against mega extremists.
of the people that, you know, refuse to, that's a, you know, threatened our lives during COVID, you know, elected officials.
So I hope people see that and I'm really proud of that leadership.
And that's what I look back and I see those times, but I also see good times too, you know, Eau Claire has seen tremendous growth.
You know, we've grown, we've grown, you know, in 2020, the last census or our census was 69,421.
Now it is
74,039 people.
So we have grown thousands of people in just the last five years, which is amazing for the state of Wisconsin, because actually the state of Wisconsin is losing people and is slated to lose 200,000 over the next 20, 30 years.
However, Eau Claire is slated to grow, continue to grow.
And I'm proud of that growth.
And I think a lot of that has to be we've really the city council is really focused on positive growth, smart growth.
Housing is huge.
The more I've been on city council and local
government.
I think housing is really the economic drive that cities need.
Well, and you definitely have had practice standing up to racists, and we're actually talking to our next guest, Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride, about that as well.
And so Emily Berge stepping down from the city council president role, focusing on that run for Congress.
And Emily joins us on that first morning of her announcement.
Emily, thank you so much for your time.
Good luck to you.
Nice touch base.
Thank you so
much.
Have a great day.
And as mentioned, we'll be talking to Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride, who also has a new book out about his turbulent first year in office.
That's coming up after this on the Civic Media Radio Network.
30 seconds until we're back.
Welcome back.
We've got Dennis McRide, the mayor of Wauwatosa, standing by to talk about his new book out about the insanity that was the year 2020 and what a first year mayor took away from lessons.
Our question of the day has been, is Cyber Monday still a thing for you?
And Craig notes on Facebook, Cyber Monday is only for electronics, nothing else.
Black Friday is one day only.
The Friday after Thanksgiving, they seem to forget this every single year.
I don't think they forget it.
It's a very intentional thing.
I mean, President's Day sales that seem to go on for the entire month.
You know, your Labor Day specials, again, they last a month.
Whatever kind of a retail hook is out there, they're going to take advantage of it.
But I want to know if it's still special for any of you on Cyber Monday.
Also, a lot of thanks to folks who have already
entered our grown-up gift list text-to-win contest.
Now it's not going on right now.
We did it during our 7 a.m.
hour, and we're gonna do it again in the 9 a.m.
hour with Matt Nair on air, Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, different keyword, so stick around.
That'll be your next chance to text in and win, but I wanted to thank Jeff and Clegg Horne for sending in a keyword to us.
We got a few others along the way from Cassandra in New London, from Tom and Hartford, John and Oshkosh.
Rosemary and Aliva and Beth and Appleton and Patty and Eau Claire thanks to you and all the others that we see coming through that texted in during the 7 a.m.
Hour again be sure to look for your next chance to win at 9 then 11 and then 1 3 5 and 7 p.m.
To enter our grown-up gift list text to win contest a daily prize of $200 cash and some great grand prizes as well details at civicmedia.us Alright Dennis McBride was with us a little bit earlier to wish happy birthday to
Dr. Kristen Lierly, and now he joins us now as a guest to talk all about the book that he put together, A City on the Edge, about his time as a brand new mayor in Wauwatosa in 2020.
I know people want to kind of forget about 2020.
You cannot.
That pandemic and all the unrest is going to be part of American history.
And we had to very much live it at the time, especially Dennis as mayor at the time.
Dennis, good morning, thank you for being here today.
Thank you, it's good to be back.
Your point about forgetting 2020 shows the peril in doing that.
Again, the old expression is, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.
And that's actually one of the main themes of my book.
If you go into the last two chapters, I talk a lot about how the events of 2020 still affect us and are still with us in a way.
So we can we can chat about that but oh
absolutely I mean it is to me that you know the the term you hear is memory hole that we've we've memory hold the pandemic when I mean just this morning I saw a commercial for Paxilovid and it was kind of giving the same old you know the drug interactions can include blah blah blah and I said to share my wife I said
You know, instead of the usual drug commercial, the announcer should say something like, hey, I know you all want to forget, but a million Americans died of this, and it's still out there, and it's still killing people.
You gotta take it seriously.
And yet, if we go back and look at 2020, I mean, one of the fights you and others had to have was to listen to science.
Exactly.
In the book, I go back as well to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 to 1920.
And I talk about how science was more or less prepared for that, but human nature was not.
And then we started acting exactly the same way 100 years later when COVID-19 came in.
And now we're doing it again.
We have a federal government that is backing away from science and coming up with goofy theories about how vaccines don't work.
Vaccines got us through the pandemic.
We solved that, and now we're backtracking on that.
And now we have measles outbreaks everywhere.
We're heading back into the insanity that we suffered from in 2020.
Oh, no doubt about that.
Dennis McBride is our guest.
I've gotten ahead of myself because you were, this all happened and we haven't gotten yet to George Floyd and the police protests and all that, but this all happens Dennis as you're the newly elected mayor of Wauwatosa.
So why don't we get back to the very beginning before any of this happened.
You thought about running for mayor and ran.
It's a half tongue and cheek question to ask with this kind of hindsight, but why?
Why'd you decide at the time?
Well, everybody asked me the same question.
They say, well, when you filed your papers in December of 2019, you probably couldn't have figured out that 2020 was going to be what it was.
And of course not.
Nobody could have anticipated that.
I make the point in literally the first paragraph.
2020 is a year we will always remember.
It's one of those significant years of history that will go down forever.
I was an alderman for 10 years.
I was a US government attorney for over 25 years.
I have served at all levels of government, both as a volunteer and as an elected official.
This is in my genes, it's in my makeup.
I was determined to serve my hometown and I just happened to arrive in the middle of a global pandemic and then other things happened.
We had 98 days and nights of
racial protests in Wauwatosa, 40 nights at my house.
We had a mass shooting at the state's busiest shopping mall.
And we were a significant place in the 2020 presidential election, curiously.
So the way I sold the book was to say Wauwatosa was a microcosm of everything that was happening in America in 2020.
It truly was and for folks who weren't you know in around Tosa or the Milwaukee area at the time You know, what was it again?
It's a microcosm things were happening all over but but why specifically in Tosa and and even including you know weeks of protests at your house What is it that was remind people of what was happening in 2020 closer to home?
Well, we had a police officer
who ironically was black.
He had shot and killed three men of color in the five years leading up to my mayoral tenure.
Two and a half months before I became mayor was his last shooting.
And nothing happened until George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.
And then, of course, nationally and internationally, protests broke out.
But in Wauwatosa, because of that police officer, his name was Joseph Mensa.
We had 98 days and nights of protests here.
We also, as I said, 40 days and nights at my house, and that was on the misguided notion that the mayor could fire a police officer under state law.
Only the police and fire commission can hire fire and discipline police officers.
I had no role in that.
And yet I had people outside my house day after day after day.
To what degree did that anger and I've spoken a lot about that incredibly justifiable anger But as you know for a lot of people that anger crossed a line when it when it turned into you know riots and and fires and and things like that Or even on a smaller scale the misunderstanding that a mayor can hire and fire police officers So again as you look back at it, I mean you can't change history but
What kind of notes would there be for the future when it comes to people that feel very strongly, very angry about something like unjustifiable police violence and they want to do something about it?
Well, I served for 24 years at the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
I represented people who are the victims of job discrimination based on race and sex and religion and age and disability.
I loved and breathed that.
And yet I got no credit for that in 2021.
I was trying to remind people that we have a legal system.
And you need to work through the law.
You can't go out and do what people did in Kenosha, which is burn down eight blocks of the city.
And then we had an Illinois teenager come into Kenosha and kill two Black Lives Matter protesters.
Five weeks after that happened in Kenosha, I declared a curfew in Wailatosa for five nights because we were worried about the same
things happening here.
And I got condemned by many people for that, but we ended up with $16,000 worth of broken windows.
No Black Lives Matter protesters were killed, and we didn't have any blocks burning down in Wauwatosa.
What I've told people is in times of crisis, you need a North Star.
And the two North Stars I looked for were one, my conscience.
I quoted Abraham Lincoln.
We move forward with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.
That's your conscience.
And then the other North Star, of course, always has to be the law.
I've been a lawyer for over 40 years.
I worked for a federal judge.
I've taken eight oaths of office of various kinds to support and defend and uphold the constitutions of the state and the United States.
We'll follow that and give people due process.
But a lot of people didn't want to give Joseph Menzah due process.
They didn't want to follow the law.
They just wanted to feel what they felt.
And I get that.
But it was my job to make sure that the people in Wauwatosa and the property in Wauwatosa were safe, but also people who come into Wauwatosa to the state's busiest medical center, to the state's busiest shopping mall, to colleges and universities, were all taken care of.
Dennis McBride, Mayor of Wauwatosa joins us.
The book is called A City on the Edge, Pandemic Protest and Polarization.
It's published by Indiana University Press.
Get there at iupress.org.
So in closing, Dennis, you ran for reelection and you're serving your second term as mayor.
So I'll ask you that question again.
Why?
I
had unfinished business.
Wauwatosa is
a wonderful mini metropolis in the center of the Milwaukee metropolitan area.
We still have great things to do.
Frankly, I also wanted vindication and I got it.
I won reelection by 17 and a half points.
I do want to make this point.
This book, as you mentioned, isn't just about Wauwatosa.
It's about Seattle and Minneapolis and Portland and all the other places where things happened in 2020.
The publisher didn't want just Wauwatosa.
He was attracted, they were attracted by Wotosa as a microcosm, but it's a much bigger story.
It's the story of America and 2020 and beyond, even to this day.
So I hope people will read it and reflect on it.
Well, and to that end, I mean, certainly something we preach here a lot on the show.
And I feel like I've got somebody in the choir loft here with me.
And that is the value of running for local office at any given level.
I mean, today is the today or tomorrow's first day nomination papers can be taken out for some local offices.
So I'm guessing you're not about to say, Hey, it worked for me, but none of the rest of you should run for local office.
We probably need people more than ever.
I was talking to an alderman yesterday about him running for reelection and I said, you know, Mike, everybody ought to, I really believe this, everybody ought to run for office at least once.
It's really an important experience in our democracy.
Getting to meet the voters, going door to door in the snow, finding out what people really want and what they think and what they need, that's really important.
And it all happens at the beginning at the part of government closest to home, which is local government.
Pat McBride, who we also visited with earlier, and he had the book, The Luckiest Boy in the World, and you two are brothers.
Twin brothers.
Twin brothers.
And so to what degree is there any friendly competition here now on book sales?
Because his book was pretty terrific.
I read that one cover to cover.
So you got any family bet going on this one?
Well, I was the co-author of his book.
So.
There you go.
So you already get half, you're already a head start.
I'm competing with myself.
Dennis McBride, thank you so much.
It was a pleasure talking to you.
Again, a city on the edge, pandemic protest and polarization.
See it at Indiana University Press, iupress.org or wherever you get your books.
Dennis, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Happy holidays to you.
Thanks to you and happy holidays to you and everyone else.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
It's a real pleasure to get to talk to him about the value of running for local office and serving there.
Jane McNair is on the way, two more weeks of McNair on air before her retirement.
So we'll find out what she and Greg Bach are planning for this week.
And then we've got, we're fully loaded with guests for the week here, including Congressman Mark Bocan coming up on Thursday.
And of course you can follow what I do at Up North News by heading over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and subscribing to our newsletter there as well.
I'm Pac Rightlow, this is the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Okay, Matt Nair is with us now to talk about Matt Nair on air.
We're into the two weeks heading in down the runway for the landing before she gets on another real plane and jets off to God knows where,
right?
God
knows where, that's right.
Yep.
I have to ask from a retirement standpoint, have you, because of course, Sherry and I are now talking about this, so there's a million questions.
Did you like right away map out like for the first year, we're going to travel to this, we're going to do this, we're going to do that?
Or is it more of the, um, we're going to nap a lot and then we'll just figure out what we're doing from there.
How much planning did you do?
I wish I were that organized.
It's, it's more of, yeah, we'll see what happens.
Um, yeah, I seriously do not have anything plotted out or planned or I just might goof around.
for
the
rest of my life
until I dropped dead.
I'm not sure.
Nothing wrong with
that.
No.
Yeah.
I don't I'm not expecting the great American novel to come out of me.
No.
No.
Yeah.
Actually what I'm probably going to spend time doing at least for the first couple of months is my husband and I are trying to downsize and get rid of things.
That is always the first job I
hear
from people.
We've been in our house for 24 years.
There we have so much stuff.
I don't even know.
I think people come in at night and leave things.
I don't know where it came from.
It's like.
What is that?
Is that yours?
I don't
even recognize
that.
I was
saying we did that we did that just yesterday.
Our Christmas ornaments you know they used to be in one box and then two boxes and now it's like three boxes and like another half box.
Yeah and they're all just kind of thrown in there and this year because we had nothing else going on and it was snowing like crazy.
I just finally laid them all out while Sherry was working on making peanut butter balls and other other things and I finally said
come over here and she didn't know I should come around the corner I'm like welcome to the museum of ornaments
and
I did kind of organize them like like these are the ones I know I always use
These are the ones that are kind of like to just to, you know, fill things out,
which
we don't need to do anymore after all these years, right?
And then there's these.
And we both at different times said, I've never seen this ornament in my life.
Where
did this come from?
Was it a work gift, you know, one of those white elephant swaps, whatever.
Secret Santa or something?
Yeah.
And I mean, a couple of them were just, I mean, they were, they were butt ugly.
know where they came from.
And not the ones that I know were handmade by our kids when they were little.
Those are precious.
Those are precious until the moment we realized that if my mom said, hey, I have this thing you made for me in second grade, I know what I'd say.
I'd go, oh, that's nice.
You kept it.
Throw it away.
Throw
it out.
It's time.
Mom says.
It's time.
And so we might have gone ahead and done that because we already know what they would say about it.
Well, yes, exactly
because let's face
it.
There's a reason they hadn't been put on the tree all these years It may have been made with love, but it was not made to hang in the Louvre
That is so funny that you say that but I I think that's a very specific thing about
favorite ornaments that go on first.
Yes.
And then the lesser secondary ornaments for
Phil.
Well, I was from the get go.
I was one of those that loved the Hallmark dated ornaments.
And so
for the first, what 15 years or so, you've got first Christmas together.
Baby's first Christmas, there was a Disney World one for our first Disney trip.
All of them with the date on it.
And then there finally came some year, I don't remember exactly when, where we're just like, none of these look good.
We're
not
getting any of these.
I don't even like this anymore.
I don't even like this anymore.
So we still have the first year's ones, and I always put those up first.
You know, it's always very kind of sentimental.
And it's like, all right, what other crap do we got to throw up here?
And we eventually get it all done.
But
yeah, the other thing you mentioned that Sherry did some baking that was what I did on Saturday.
That was my excuse to focus on sugar.
I can't go outside.
So essentially I'm just going to use butter and sugar all day.
And that's essentially what I did.
Love it.
That's
great strategy.
I love that.
I
really, it could be for life as well.
You know, there's just times
when butter and
sugar.
need to have a butter and sugar day, you know, if it
comes out as
cookies or cake or whatever, you know, but it starts with butter and sugar.
All good things stem
from that.
I keep hearing that there are going to be like surprises here for the last two weeks of your radio show, but I'm sure you know one or two things you can tell us about coming up this week.
I do know one or two things.
As you mentioned, they have some surprises scheduled for me.
I love surprises.
Uh, we do have, uh, Aaron Correno is going to be joining us this coming Thursday.
Aaron and I go back a really, really long way when he first, when he first started in radio, he was an intern for me.
Oh, wow.
And, uh, and the morning show that I had at the time.
Now he's like one of the big bosses for Civic Media.
He is.
Now he's part of our management team.
So Aaron and I go back a long way.
I'm sure he's going to talk all the bad stories about how I treated him when he was young.
When he was a young intern and I abused him and probably made him wash my car, I don't know what I
did to him.
Well, look, we're both now at a point where we kind of look back at some point and go, we kind of winced and go, oh, maybe I didn't handle that as graciously as I could have.
Oh, I look back at some things.
I was actually able to apologize to a woman.
that I have been wanting to apologize to for about 20 years.
And
I ran into Elizabeth Kay at the mix and I ran into her at the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association event award ceremony last spring.
And I said, I owe you like a 20 year apology.
And we had a lovely conversation.
I'm telling you, that is one of the best things that you can do is apologize to someone.
Yeah, it's a gift.
If they are gracious enough to forgive you, it is a huge gift.
I did about a year or so ago finally get to do that with a photographer, the one who I dragged along as we got Shanghai kidnapped on a riverboat with Al Gore and missed an entire day's news because they did not let us off at the next stop as they promised.
Oh no.
We didn't get along well to begin with.
That only made things worse and I
finally got to make that apology.
So that is a very, that's a point very well taken, Jane.
It is.
Thankfully for me, I have nobody else to apologize
to.
It's
just that one thing, right?
Just the one guy over the course of your life.
You did well.
Oh yeah,
yeah, not buying that for a minute.
Jane McNair on After The News.
Thank you, Jane.
Thank you, gentlemen.
See you later.
All
right.
See you later.
And thank you, Parker.
Thanks to all of you for joining us.
I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News, part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy news network.
We'll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early, 6 a.m.
here up north.
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