Just Doin’ Cowboy Stuff (Hour 1)

Good morning, Wisconsin. Morning, world. It's a new day.

Time for the morning show here at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM WFHR. We are locally grown radio. Got your host James here.

Join by our head producer here at WFHR. Laura. Hi.

Laura's with us. Happy Navier with this Laura.

And best listeners and radio joy this as well. That's you.

Oh, it's awesome. Thanks for being here, you guys. It's Wednesday. It's a hump day. We're going to have some fun.

We got a lot of good things lined up for you. The Elcafe Birthday anniversary club is right around the corner.

Do some celebration. We have the percentage of American adults that are afraid of the dark.

Okay, sure.

We do that. It is spooky season after all.

It is. We got to get into that and speak. Are you afraid of the dark?

Nice. We got it. Somebody had to make the reference.

I had somebody. It's your generation. That's it. Yeah.

And speaking of spooky, Spookiest Cities report. The Spookiest Cities in the country.

We'll get into that a little bit. The 10 o'clock hour is going to be jam-packed.

We kick it off with Art Stevenson. Art's going to be joining us as representing the Pittsville area foundation for the arts.

Cash in hand is a Johnny Cash tribute band. We're going to talk about that with Art.

It's really exciting. And Laura and I love Art.

Yeah, we're just happy to talk to Art. We always love to see Art. He's good people.

Like we could have said, Art Stevenson is going to join us.

Like, and that's it. It's just that Art's going to join us.

Art doesn't need a reason to be here. We love him.

It's going to be fun. We also have some other entertainment news to go along with that.

We're going to talk a little Tim Curry, a little bit remember a R&B legend.

And I got something on K-POP demon hunters that I had to save for you.

Can't wait. Can't wait.

Only one I know that could reference it.

I have so many thoughts about that show. I don't care what it is.

Get into a couple of other things before we wrap up.

We've got a cozy songs for your fall playlist.

All right. That sounds cozy songs.

Cozy's excellent. It's a good word for music. I like it.

For fall. I like that. Yes. Yes. I like that.

Yeah. It's cozy season.

It is nationally national delivery driver week.

Oh. And that's where I want to kick things off.

Yeah. Thank you, delivery driver.

We begin right away with a gigantic shout out to all of our delivery drivers out there.

I include, I don't know if they include this, but I include our rigs out there, our semi-drivers.

Oh, sure.

I've mentioned many times on the air that my papa was a semi-driver for 50 years.

Yeah. Both of my grandfather's work.

And yeah, I think you've mentioned it. I don't know if you had, but I was trying to tee you up.

So nice. Yeah.

And of course, we know a couple of our listeners out there, including Kevin and some others, our driver.

Got out to Kevin. It's been a minute.

We appreciate you, Evan.

And I mean, when I was a kid, when you were a kid, whenever they've always been an important job,

I think it's safe to say it's never been more important.

No, absolutely.

And if anything, I think that a lot of people that may not have understood how a lot of the world works,

at least let's just look at America and how we transport things and everything.

Yeah.

How much the pandemic really brought that home.

Yeah.

Hey, you know, a lot of this stuff, this is how you get it.

Absolutely, but also your postal workers, man, that job is not easy, especially on a day like this.

It could be raining from minute to minute, and it changes.

Like these poor folks still have to be out there and deliver the mail.

Yeah, we greatly appreciate them.

Absolutely.

If you get to chance, I don't know about anybody else, since I was a little kid,

my Nana Papa, the old house they had, and I think it was in Addison or Glendale Heights,

they were really good friends with the postal worker there.

Yeah.

They're mail delivery guy.

Yeah, that was one thing my mom actually used to do.

She used to be a postal worker.

I didn't, I never thought about this until recently.

I saw the lady that drops off the mail in my folks house, and we always waived to each other and stuff.

She seems very sweet.

My Nana Papa would make an effort to do this.

Wherever they moved to be friends with the postal worker.

Yeah.

I thought that was interesting.

I always have too.

I don't know.

I feel like everyone should be friendly with their postal carrier, right?

Yeah, I hadn't thought much about this until just now, but I didn't know if that was like lost,

if it was old school, but I think that's a good thing.

If it's old school, it needs to come back, and it's unreasonably old school then.

Great.

It's naturally delivered dry for a week, and what better way to honor them than by talking about robots that would do their job,

that could do their job, or possibly do their job.

So that's where they wanted to go with this article, but I want to go with a little bit more of an appreciation.

Can we not?

Yeah.

Well, and honestly, the reason I'm even bringing it up is because it's not very likely.

No, it's not something.

No, the technology's just not there yet, guys.

They're just not smart enough.

And here's something else.

Don't sell humanity's brain power short.

You're 100% right.

It would not only be the technology not there yet, but here's something that I want us to keep in mind going forward

with tech.

All right.

Let's say it is.

Let's say it was accessible.

It was something.

Doesn't mean we have to use it.

No.

Just because we have these things doesn't mean that we have to use them.

Now, it may be in an extreme circumstance or something like that, like during a pandemic or something.

Sure.

And I could hear that, but I would also say, you know, if we build up a social safety net in such a way that it wouldn't be a big deal that robots take over an entire, you know,

genre of employment so that, you know, people can still survive despite losing that job and not having that job, that would be stellar.

Shout out to Pam Yankee in the farm report that we get to have for you over on 105 every day.

And she was touching on a little bit of this today with we're importing a heck of a lot more than we're exporting because of these tariffs right now and everything.

And that is adding on our delivery drivers and the tension of that.

There's a lot of tension right now in that industry.

And we know by now that pretty much in order to be in charge of a company, that means that you're looking to save money and make you and your board more money.

Right.

And you can only do so much.

And so they're going to look for windows like this, like it's a lot cheaper to pay a robot than it is a human being.

Right, because you're not paying a robot.

But if we don't stand for it and we don't, you know, it doesn't have to happen.

And that's where I come to on this because the idea of robots doing these jobs is very silly.

And I don't think it's very likely.

But there is this talk delivery robots getting more and more common because of the drones and some of that.

So we're talking about little ones here.

We're not talking about something that could drive away.

I'm sure like the Amazon prime drones that have been delivering things for a while or something.

These are still jobs that I want to see humans doing.

I don't think we can afford to necessarily lose that.

But at least it's talking about it on that level.

But a new poll found one in 11 Americans have seen a delivery robot and one in 11 don't want them.

I'm sorry, one in 11 are all that want them.

So 98% 99% of Americans don't want these delivery robots at any level.

Right, 10 out of 11 Americans are not a fan.

35% are opposed to the idea as well as of any type of delivery robot.

Sure.

That said, most people in 2025 would still rather get their food delivered by an actual person.

61% prefer humans over anything else.

Yeah, and honestly, just listen to us.

Man, come on.

I don't think that...

I don't think they care.

No, no, I agree.

Because they're always going to, the money's going to come first.

But again, I think this is one of those things where...

So let's say this company is using a drones.

Sure.

You don't use that company.

Right.

Like you just don't use that.

That's all you got to do.

Like you walk around.

Now, I understand again that there are some times where you can't avoid using a certain company or whatever.

But that's where hopefully other businesses pop up.

And they offer services that don't have a drone delivery or something.

I'm not trying to put robots out of work.

I don't mean to do that, but I also don't care.

They need to take a seat for a while.

I said it.

And that's why I can say it because I also don't care.

I'm not going to be hurting a robot's feelings right now.

No, no, I don't really care.

I did have in my head though.

Not even an AI chat, but don't get fooled.

Those are not real feelings.

Stop it.

I did have pop in my head the idea of a robot like meeting.

Like them trying to unionize.

I saw a YouTube video not too long ago where it was two chatbots talking to each other.

Like one was on an Amazon Kindle and the other was on like the desktop of a guy's computer or something.

And he was trying to guide the conversation.

And they just kept going in a loop about starting this conversation.

They never actually, that was all it was.

That's pretty good, actually.

It was incredible.

What was it we used to have like where we get a call that you didn't want or something.

You put it down and you put it by the phone.

Or by the TV.

I mean, it was something like that so that it was just talking to the TV.

That's basically what it was.

Like this person sat down with his Kindle turned on his chatbot and his computer turned on his chatbot.

And he posed to the situation to them.

I love this.

It was great.

That's where that's what we could be.

You should be using AI for.

It's just proving a point.

Proving a point.

Just entertain it.

Or yes, proving a point.

That's it.

That's really the end.

Like end of sentence.

That's all we really needed for.

Because AI can't do certain things.

They can't grow you the world's biggest pumpkin.

No, they cannot.

We got a California grower.

Only people can do that.

A California growers 2,346 pound pumpkin was dubbed the top gourd at the 2025 Safeway World

Championship pumpkin way off in half moon Bay, California.

I can't even imagine the size of that pumpkin based on that weight.

Is there a human near it for scale?

Yeah, that's.

Oh, my word.

When they show these, it would seem to cover these.

If a average sized adult human laid on the ground, it's about that wide.

It's like, it's like squarish in dimensions.

So like an average sized human lays.

And that cube is about how much ground space that pumpkin is taken up.

Pretty much.

Yeah, that is massive.

It's a really big pumpkin.

It looks fake.

It's probably what four feet tall.

Yeah, it doesn't look like it can be real.

That's the only reason it looks fake.

It's not.

But Santa Rosa, a man, Brandon Dawson, whose 2,465 pound pumpkin was the runner up in 2024's

way off, took the top spot this year.

I believe it's the same.

Can you give me that weight again?

Yeah, yeah.

That is 2,465 pounds.

Wow.

That's a lot of pumpkin pie.

That is a lot of pumpkin just in general.

I like it.

Well, I can think about us turning it into the pumpkin pie.

Oh, make the world's biggest pumpkin pie.

Out of the world's biggest pumpkin.

Did we just figure out the record we should break?

That's the record we should break.

The world's biggest pumpkin pie.

Well, I mean, we could accept that at Nikusa Giant Pumpkin Fest.

They'd drop that bad boy.

We don't get to make a tie out of it.

We'll tie it in together.

We'll tie it in.

We'll make them drop it on a very sanitary tarp.

We can catch all the pieces.

I'll be honest with you, tarp or no tarp.

I'll have it some of that.

Yeah, you go ahead.

The world's largest pumpkin pie was created by the new

Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers in a new Bremen Ohio on September 25th in 2010.

It weighed 3699 pounds.

Is it a diameter or 20 feet?

A 20 foot pie.

We can out do that.

Come on, Wisconsin.

You're going to let Ohio have that record.

What are we going to do?

Build it on a boat.

I don't care.

I just want to do it.

I don't care how we're doing.

That's for other people to figure out.

Or how I'm a creative.

I'm a creative.

I just want to do it.

I'm not the doer.

I'm the thinker.

Here's the idea.

I'm the dreamer of dreams.

Travis Gager, who won last year's contest with a 2471 pound pumpkin,

said the pumpkin he attempted to grow for this year's way off,

ended up splitting earlier in the season.

It's a bummer when that happens.

It's interesting you bring up our friends in Nekusa and their great

Giant Pumpkin Fest that they do every year.

We shout them out.

They do a great job with that every year.

Getting the chance to talk to that pumpkin growers that try to

compete for this.

Yeah.

I've learned a lot of the rules of this.

I did not know that there were so many rules.

I shouldn't say so many.

But there were a lot of rules.

Yeah.

I don't know a lot of the rules.

But I remember listening to the news bite that Mel did with Heather about it.

And oh my gosh, that was fascinating.

They can't cry.

They can't be cracked.

Yeah.

They keep an umbrella over it on super sunny days.

And they keep a heater going.

Oh my goodness.

These growers, like a lot of the, like pretty much all of our ag industry,

what you see is only, is literally the surface of the work that they put in

that these things.

They put a lot of time into that.

Yeah.

Thank a farmer and thank your package delivery driver.

The wayoff offers a, the wayoff offers a $30,000 bonus price

if the winner breaks the world record.

A free grinder achieved when he won the 2023 competition.

And now he's won it again.

So I can see $30,000.

It's a good reason to try to break a record.

Yeah.

That's a pretty good reason right there.

Yeah.

You can, you can find more at UPI.com of this one for you.

Everybody, we'll take a quick break.

Come back with the Elcafe birthday anniversary club.

It's Lauren James taking to three in the morning at WFHR.

Come on baby.

That's a good time roll.

Come on baby.

Let me through your soul.

Come on baby.

Welcome back everybody.

Morning show here at WFHR.

And it's time for the Elcafe birthday anniversary club.

I like that.

I like that.

Great bumper choices, Seth.

Nicely done with those.

I like those.

They're good friends.

Nice.

Three points for Laura made a shot.

All right.

We appreciate our friends at Elcafe.

Get on over there today.

Everybody and treat yourself.

They got a bit of a skillet over there that sounds really good.

Ooh.

Hot breaded pork tenderloin.

Ooh.

I love pork tenderloin.

That's good stuff.

Well, and you can never go wrong with a skillet.

Check it out everybody.

They got all of that.

And pie.

So much pie.

God, you got to try one of those pies.

Get on over there.

Let me live vicariously through you.

Get on over to Elcafe today.

Some pictures of your pies.

Please.

Please.

Yes, yes, please do.

Please do.

Pre-eaten.

Pre-eaten.

You know, I don't, I don't want to see it eat.

No, not just crumbs and crust on the plate.

That's just going to hurt my face.

You know what to do, everyone.

Get it to us, everybody, too.

And visit our friends to get that.

Get those pictures taken at 221 Market Avenue and Beautiful

Port Edwards.

Yeah.

And of course, we want more birthdays and

anniversaries.

Everybody.

We sure do.

You can email us info at wfhr.com direct messages on our

Facebook pages, whether it's WFHR or WIRI.

We'll get it.

Of course, call on up.

That's right.

715-424-2600.

We'll get me and James right here right now.

But if you'd rather talk to Pam, you can call 424-1300.

I wouldn't blame you.

I mean, either would I.

Talking to Pam is fun.

Well, live radio's scary.

Yes, it can be.

Yes, yes, as we find out.

We're weirdos.

Yes, we're just built for this and that's not necessarily a good thing.

Be thoughtful.

We encourage you to get us those birthdays and anniversaries.

Laura, I need a one or a two.

Two.

All right.

That gives us our qualifier.

So right up the gate, we want to wish happy 31st birthday to Mark and Jody Lubek.

Happy birthday to Mark and no anniversary.

Anniversary.

Did I say birthday?

I think you did.

I'm sorry.

Happy anniversary, Mark and Jody.

I was very confused by there were two names on a birthday.

Yeah, be weird to have a birthday.

Maybe they were twins.

Yeah, I don't know.

Mark and Jody, happy 31st anniversary.

Absolutely.

Congratulations.

You should have messed that up.

Mark and Jody have been nice enough to get us this anniversary every year.

I feel like we've been celebrating that.

Thank you for listening.

You guys rock.

Yeah.

Enjoy your day, guys.

Enjoy your day.

And our qualifiers celebrate in their 42nd anniversary.

Doug and Sue Burke.

Oh, happy anniversary.

Nice name.

The last year I was going to that's why I was distracted.

It's just a little bit different.

It's a little different.

They spoke a little bit.

We are not related.

I promise.

That's it.

The odds of that.

But how cool.

Congrats.

And happy anniversary.

Doug and Sue.

Enjoy your day.

We encourage you to brag to all your friends, family, strangers, and that you are our qualifier

for today.

Mm-hmm.

Taking a look at who you share your birthdays in anniversary is with.

Let's see.

Paul Walter Hauser is 39 good character actor.

He is stingray on Cobra Kai.

Mole man in the Fantastic Four.

New Fantastic Four movie.

He is the voice of embarrassment in Inside Out 2.

Yeah.

He did a really good job as Mole man in Fantastic Four.

Sure.

Fantastic Four was really good.

I believe it.

Kesha Cole is 44.

Oh, well.

Or Kesha Cole.

Kesha Cole.

R&B singer.

I haven't sent.

I believe that's her big hit.

Fellow R&B singer whose 10 years older, Genuine is 55.

Oh.

Pony.

Pony is the one.

That's the one.

That's the song, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And another singer celebrating a birthday that we also celebrated on 10555WiRi's Sunrise

show.

Kimberly Shopman from Little Big Town is 56.

Oh, cool.

A couple of big hits from them over there.

Yeah.

Let's see.

They're kind of a big deal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just a little big town though.

Dominic West is 56.

Good character actor.

You know him if you've seen him.

One of those faces.

Sure.

You know, you've seen him before.

Prince Charles in season five and six of the crown.

Oh, sure.

He's also in downtown Abby.

And I think for a lot of us, Detective Jimmy on the wire is where you know him a lot.

Good actor.

Good actor.

Strong actor.

Yeah.

He just don't.

Yeah.

It's very true.

I mean, that's such a feather in the cap.

Certain shows.

It is one of those shows.

Let's see.

A page Davis is 56.

Trading spaces.

Yeah.

Eric Benay is 59.

Art Beesinger.

He was married to Hella Berry for a while there.

He was.

He's got a couple of good songs from them back in the day.

Sarah Duchess of York is 66.

Let's see.

Sarah.

What was her last name?

Was it Ferguson?

Yes.

All right.

Fergie.

Fergie used to be married to Prince Andrew.

And then she's.

She's been in and out of the public eye.

She.

The way the tabloids are over there.

It's just really cruel.

Like, and that's us saying that.

Like ours are pretty negative and pretty bad.

Yeah.

But there's also kind of like this understanding here of like.

I know a lot of people, you know, watch TMZ and all those things.

I get that.

Right.

But there's also kind of this like understanding here that even if you watch that stuff,

you don't necessarily think very highly of the paparazzi and all that.

Oh, no.

They've got a different standard like out there where.

It's very different.

Like, it's almost a respected.

I say that very loosely but respected profession almost to a degree.

But in a different way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's weird.

It's different.

But hey.

All of it's nasty.

Yeah.

It's all gross though.

And I don't know a single thing about this lady.

Like the way that she's been treated.

Yeah.

I literally couldn't tell you like anything about her at all.

But I don't know who she is as a person.

Yeah.

But I know she don't deserve that.

I know what her face looks like.

I can see it in my head right now.

Oh, yeah.

So I remember her.

Legendary funny man, Larry Miller 72.

He was the dad in 10 things I hate about you.

He's been the dad in the billion things.

He's a go-to dad.

He was Dean Richmond and then Murphy's Nutty Professor.

He was in Boston legal for a while.

Again, one of the better character actors you've ever seen is Larry Miller.

Also, I believe Larry Miller was a standup comedian too.

I think for a little while.

Sure.

That makes sense.

Richard Carpenter from the Carpenter is 79.

Oh, okay.

Rainy Days and Mondays.

I love the Carpenter's.

Karen Carpenter is one of my favorite singers to have ever existed.

What are my favorite drummers?

You know what?

That's fair.

You can have that.

She's I love drummers that are getting to like you can tell that they're really into it.

Yeah, they're enjoying it.

Yeah.

Like when you got to see her playing like she's very...

No, when she was allowed to just be a drummer, it was so cool to watch her.

I think part of the reason why I like and still like Meg White so much is because of...

Their style was pretty similar actually now that you bring that up.

I've never really thought about it.

And I like...

I'm not a Carpenter's guy.

I don't have anything against them.

I have never really listened to a lot of their music.

But I love bands like that that I don't know how any era.

I don't know an era that they couldn't have been a hit.

That's the thing, right?

Right?

Like they were just so cool.

Like Karen was so much cooler than she knew.

Sucked.

Anyway, happy birthday.

Yeah.

Tony Roberts was celebrating people who were no longer with us.

Tony Roberts born on this day in 1949.

Donna's mother, a midge on that 70s show.

She was also Julie in Charlie's Angels.

Oh, I love her.

And she was Gina.

And a bond girl Stacy in A View to a Kill.

One of my favorite bond movies.

She was honestly great as Donna's mom.

Honestly, I loved that dynamic between Donna and her parents and her weird parents.

Like it was spectacular.

She was great.

Tito Jackson born on this day in 1953.

Of course, one of the members of the five Jackson's.

Yeah, one of those Jackson's.

And one of the songwriters for the Jackson's too.

I don't know if Tito ever really got the credit for that.

No, I think that's one of those things.

Most of the people in that family didn't get a lot of credit for what they did, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

Penny Marshall born on this day in 1943.

One of all of our favorite directors, favorite actors.

Obviously, Leverand de Fazio.

Yeah.

De Fazio, I believe it was the five.

I just love the way she used to say De Fazio.

De Fazio.

Yeah, that's right.

Oh God, it was good.

Leverand and Shirley.

That's it's one of the greatest shows of all time.

It really is.

It's one of the greatest intros of all time.

Yes, yes.

Like that, that the theme song and the intro that they filmed for that, it's perfect.

To Laura's point, it was like three, four, maybe even five years ago, but I had a student.

We were doing a sketch and she just out of nowhere, she thinks of something, grabs one of the other students.

This other girl pulls her up there.

She puts her arm around her.

They look at each other and they start doing the theme song.

Let me know.

They couldn't have been more than 18 or 19 these two and they started doing that.

Like that theme song is eternal.

It's great.

And if that, if that was the end of what we say about Penny Marshall, that'd be amazing.

That'd be great.

But it's not.

Nope, nope.

Went behind the director's chair and gave us one of the greatest baseball movies of all time with the League of the Roan.

She also really, and this is Tom Hanks saying this, Penny Marshall casting Tom Hanks in big.

Mm-hmm.

Set him up for Philadelphia.

No, it's set him up for a lot.

For all of these other things.

And I think some people forget from time to time, Tom Hanks was nominated for a best leading man for big.

Yeah.

He didn't win.

He didn't win that one.

But he was nominated for best actor for that role.

Yeah.

You know he got noticed.

And she doesn't get the credit for big.

That was the one.

You know?

There's a great movie.

People don't think about big like that.

They really don't.

It was a fun movie, but people don't think about it critically that way.

She brought Denzel and Whitney together in the print, the preacher's wife, great movie as well.

But I, all these movies are fantastic.

It's not a good movie, but as a kid, there were certain movies they'd play all the time.

Sure.

And it would be Goldberg's Jump of Jack Flash.

They would play all the time.

Yes.

And Penny Marshall directed that too.

Yes, she did it there.

Yes, she did.

Also Mario Pozo born in this day, 1920, author of The Godfather.

Uh-huh.

Cool.

One of the better books ever written about that.

Sure.

And it is a fiction tale though.

Mm-hmm.

It is fictional of The Godfather.

It is a novel.

You are watching any mob, movie, TV show, commercial, book, and-

It's not real life.

Don't pretend it is.

It's not real.

Trust me.

We wish everybody a happy birthday and anniversary out there.

Celebrate and keep getting your birthdays and anniversaries to us.

Everybody we want to celebrate with you and our great friends at El Café.

Visit them today.

Treat yourself.

They're over at 221 Market Avenue in beautiful Port Edwards.

And to take a news, sports, entertainment, and partner break.

And when we come back, what is the percentage of adults that are still afraid of the dark?

Ooh.

Coming up on The Morning Show.

Welcome back everybody.

Morning show here at WFHR.

Locally grown radio.

Laura and James hanging out with you.

Thanks for hanging out with us.

Yeah.

Got some good things coming up for you everybody.

Don't forget at the top of the 10 o'clock hour.

We're going to have Art Stevenson joining us.

Yeah, we are.

We're going to be hanging out with Art and talking about the cash in hand.

Johnny Cash tribute band.

That's going to be coming to town looking forward back.

Yeah.

Some childhood fears can feel a little silly looking back on them.

Sure.

You know, I think that that's part of being young.

Well, it's part of growing up.

Right, right.

And I think.

I mean, how many of us were terrified of bugs as kids and now we're only mildly scared of bugs as adults?

I've never, like there's, I've never been were insects have never bothered me.

I think it's part of growing up in the city and dealing with some city insect.

Sure.

You had a very different insect experience than I did as a child.

But when I first moved out here to, and I was living in Rome,

I, there was, there was like no houses near my Nana Papa's house,

but there was one way down.

And I, I got to be friends with one of the kids over there.

And I go over there to play one day.

And he, he were running around the house and he runs and he stops right away.

And he's like, oh, cool, walking stick.

And then he just keeps running.

And I'm, I don't know what he's talking about.

And so I look where he's looking.

And I don't see anything but a stick just hanging on the, like the side of the house.

And it's a bug.

And you have no idea.

Had no idea.

No idea what it was.

It's the first and last time an insect has ever freaked me out because then it started to move.

And I didn't know that they, I didn't know there were bugs like that.

That's right.

You didn't know it was coming.

You were.

Man, that was freaky.

Yeah.

That was weird.

That's the only time that's ever happened to me.

You're worried about.

But when it comes to phobias, I've been very honest on the air.

I had one for a very long time about driving.

Yeah.

I was in a number of accidents growing up.

Didn't get my license until later in life in part because of that.

But it is a phobia that I killed.

I destroyed.

And I like to bring that up because there are a lot of people out there dealing with phobias

that think that it can't be done.

Oh.

And there is no way in the world I should be driving with the things I went through and the stuff

that it did to me, the way it messed with me, the way that it can trigger me.

Yeah.

But I do it every day.

It's you.

And the don't think twice about it.

It can be done.

And when it comes to being afraid of the dark, it's one of those fears that I feel like nobody

deserved, nobody should have that fear.

That's fair.

I don't think anybody should have to have it.

But it also makes sense.

Completely.

And I'm not at all.

It's a perfectly reasonable, understandable fear.

Whether it's clowns, it's the dark, it's the basement, it's Kevin Koster, whatever it is

that you are allergic to, or you have a phobia of, it's understandable.

Sure.

It's also, I think, just it should be also noted just as much that it can be beaten.

And it's important for people to know that.

Yeah.

In a new survey, 29% of American adults admit that they are still afraid of the dark.

Okay.

29% of adults.

Yeah, that sounds right.

In fact, 24% say that they sleep with a night light on, 10% prefer to sleep with the lights

on.

And men are more likely to admit this than women.

Oh, well.

And I think there's a positive in that.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, guys, it's all right to admit you have like any fear.

We need to rewrite this narrative that when you own up to things, that is manly.

That is whatever you need to get to that point.

Vulnerability is masculine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Vulnerability is human.

And it's attractive no matter who you are.

On the flip side, 28% of people say that they love watching horror movies and love the dark.

And some people enjoy being scared.

So there could be some overlap between some of that as far as loving the dark and loving

God.

I prefer the dark because I get chronic migraines.

Yeah.

And so I usually am sitting in the dark, especially if I'm looking at a screen.

Men are more likely to love horror movies than women, 33% first, 24%.

That is not my experience.

That is also not my experience.

No, not mine at all.

I do very few guys that like even care about horror movies, but I've known a lot of women

that do.

A lot of women that do.

So, but men are more likely to admit to it.

Oh, sorry.

Men are more likely to love the horror movies than women.

But men are also more likely to admit to having nightmares from watching scary movies.

Sure.

So they're more likely to do that.

I wonder what the population of this survey is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel they're with a lot of these things.

Yes.

Right.

28% of people say that they are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night after

watching a horror movie.

22% say that they are more likely to have a worse sleep and 12% say that they are more likely

to sleep for fewer hours.

Yeah, that's all honestly.

Yeah.

Sure.

So, I don't know.

This is one of those ones where horror movies, they're lost on me.

See, I don't mind horror movies.

I just don't like gore.

Well, I...

And I prefer a horror movie that's actually just a comedy in a mask.

Sure.

I don't really care for actual horror movies too much.

I'm a little...

I'm a little surprised.

Horror movies have had a kind of rise in the last 10 years or so.

Yeah.

They've become more popular.

I blame millennials.

In part because of...

Well, certainly, that's part of it.

Yeah.

But also for production companies and everything, they tend to be cheaper.

Sure.

You don't need the star power, a lot of that.

And if you are fortunate enough, like, I don't know, that smile movie or some other ones.

Yeah.

If you do even somewhat well in the box office, you can get a sequel so you can make a chain

and you've got IP.

Well, and you get eyes on you as an actor.

You notice this right now with the it franchise.

They can't stop making it movies and TV shows.

No, they can't.

They got that IP.

It's popular.

It does well.

And they're just going to keep making them.

It's low-hanging fruit.

It's easy.

A lot of people like that.

But for me, I'm a little surprised by it just because it doesn't...

I don't see anything new.

I don't know the last new horror version or movie I saw.

Honestly, the only new horror movies I've ever seen are the ones that are comedies in a mask.

Yeah.

Everything else is just so standard.

It's gotten...

The industry to me has gotten very stale.

It's gotten very boring.

Have I not seen anything?

I did like...

I did like some of the Jordan Peel stuff because I felt like it was being in a different...

No, I agree.

...like a different way of scaring somebody or different way of existence.

It elevated the horror to a level of social, of like society.

And that is scary.

I grew up seeing plenty of horror movies.

But it was the suspense movies that always got me.

Like a horror movie ever made me look over my shoulder.

I don't like gore unless it's in a comedy.

But a suspense movie.

A hitch-cop movie or something like that?

Yeah.

A thriller even?

I feel like those do a better job of it.

Yeah.

I'm actually scaring you.

Yeah.

Well, and the other thing about horror, like are we counting ghost hunting movies and shows?

Oh, yeah, I don't know.

Is that horror or is that a documentary?

What is that?

Is it fiction?

I'm sorry, it's not fiction.

I'm just being funny.

Yeah, that's my job.

I guess it was.

But it's a great question.

It's a great question of like where that falls.

I wonder what their parameters are.

Shout out to Alia.

You also, you brought up another good point in here too, where I want to start knowing with

these surveys.

This is a big part of our show, doing surveys or some of these things.

I want to know where they're taking these surveys.

Are they done online?

So it's people from all over the world?

Or is it in Albuquerque?

Where are they doing these?

And who responded even?

Let's say they did it online, but they only got people aged 50 and up that responded.

That's skewed.

These surveys I feel like would be a lot more fun if we just had a little more data.

I want you to tell me what the population of your survey is.

That's all I want.

I do like that they usually include the number of people that they serve.

Which is huge.

That helps.

That does help.

That's something.

If you are somebody that is afraid of the darker or that, you feel free to call up and let

us know.

Or if you've conquered that fear or something, let us know.

We'd love to hear from you.

We'd love to hear from you about anything.

It really doesn't matter.

Call up and just join the conversation everybody.

We're looking forward to talking with you and we're looking forward to come back and getting

into what are the spookiest cities, spookiest cities in America.

We're getting into that coming up on the morning show.

Come back everyone.

Morning show here at WFHR, 975 FM, 1320 AM, we are locally grown radio, Laura and James

here.

We're going to take you to the top of the hour.

Art Stevenson, going to join us at the top of the 10 o'clock.

Yeah.

Talk about cash in hand.

Yeah, we will.

Johnny Cash, tribute band coming to Pitzville.

We'll talk about that in the Pitzville area foundation for the arts.

But right now with the state, we got a state report on the most ghostly sightings in America.

Which state has got the most ghostly sightings in America?

According to this latest survey, it is, got a survey says Wyoming.

Wyoming.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the last time we did a list similar to this, they said Nevada and so they're kind of

in the same direction, right?

The whole western thing.

The vinta.com did this report and everything and we tend to go through these lots of

year, you know, and stuff and especially when they have a spookiest cities report.

We're going to do this in October.

Some of the key takeaways.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Estez, Park, Colorado, and El Paso, Texas are some of these spookiest

cities in America.

I am shocked.

I didn't think of Gettysburg myself.

I know.

I've been there several times.

It was one of my favorite places to go when I lived in DC whenever we needed to just

get the heck out of the house.

What we did is we actually, they have a CD version of a tour of the grounds of Gettysburg.

And so I had very young kids at the time.

And so sometimes if I just needed to get the heck out of the house and go somewhere

where I didn't have to really bring my kids out of the car, I would go to Gettysburg

and I would pop that CD in and just take a guided tour.

There's certain places I feel like I have to go to.

That's one of them.

I have to do it.

It is a really interesting place.

Wyoming, North Dakota and Vermont are the spookiest states of 2025 based on ghost sightings

per 1,000 residents and haunted places per 1,000 residents.

So it's per capita.

That's interesting.

That's pretty interesting.

So Wyoming, North Dakota and Vermont.

It's almost like a ghost per capita count, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, I kind of like that.

That's a great phrasing.

That needs to be new phrasing.

Yeah.

They should have done better on that headline.

That's all over the map, too.

I mean, I know Wyoming, North Dakota and that too far apart, but you know, Vermont way over

on the other side and stuff, I would have expected more East Coast cities just again the

older.

Right.

But you've also got to think of the trauma, right?

Because that's how again.

That's the running theory on how ghosts happen, right?

You got to think about locations that have excess trauma and the East Coast and in the

West, it's going to be those spots.

Searches for ghost tours near me are up 128 percent from last year.

Fantastic.

Wow.

Get out there.

The top cities with the highest number of reported ghost sightings are El Paso, Texas

with 197.

Sure.

Austin, Texas with 115.

Okay.

And Corpus Christi, Texas with 105.

Get out there, Texas.

Texas sea and stuff.

Check out your ghosts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As Halloween draws near, Americans are once again turning their attention to haunted places,

ghost stories and paranormal adventures from Erie cities, a steeped in history to remote

towns.

All right.

So a lot of these areas that we're talking about here, getting a lot of traction right

now.

Sure.

And taking a look at this list.

So the top 10, I don't see anything Wisconsin, but I do see Indiana and Iowa at number nine

in Indiana at number 10.

Sure.

Where does Wisconsin ranks 18th?

Okay.

18th.

That's respectable.

Out of the most haunted states.

Yeah.

That's a respectable number.

Most ghost sightings, you know, that they're seeing it as 18th is respectable right between

Missouri and New Mexico.

You know what?

Yeah.

I'll take that.

So also kind of interesting to me, Alaska is at 13 on the list.

Yeah.

That sounds right.

I don't know why, but that's kind of interesting to me, I guess.

I would imagine, I would imagine Alaska is very haunted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I could see it.

I could see it.

I would imagine.

I just don't know enough about Alaska.

Sure.

That's fair.

You know, other than there's not a whole lot of people.

Okay.

And there's penguins.

Are there penguins in Alaska?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I need to research that.

I don't know penguin locations around the globe, James.

That's your category.

And if all the people that you know better, it should be me.

That's penguins.

Oh my gosh.

Just because it's cold, I'm just assuming that there are penguins.

That's not...

Yeah, I need to be better.

I need to be better.

I would like to apologize to all the penguins.

You've embarrassed the penguins.

Don't mean to do that.

I will waddle out of the room now.

Yes, you will, because your back hurts.

This is something, yeah.

This is something that...

It's cool to see the rise of this being brought back.

Sure.

And I think it's not surprising if you think about a lot of the context

of a lot of the subjects of things we've talked about over the last two years.

Sure.

And this probably even dates back to the pandemic.

But more and more, if people are going to do something, they want to experience.

Yeah.

They don't want to just go to something, just to go to something.

They want an experience.

They want to make a memory.

Yeah.

Ghost trails, ghost walks, ghost things like that.

I could see that being that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's...

It's another thing I blame millennials for.

It's an acquired taste.

Yeah.

But I get it.

The other thing we've been seeing a real rise of, and I don't know if I got the numbers

in or not the other day, but I meant to.

Corn mases and people going to corn mases.

Oh, sure.

So they're doing ball seasonal things more often.

People are getting out and enjoying their community more, James.

Is that what you're saying?

It's what they're saying.

Is that the pattern that we're seeing?

Yes.

Oh.

Are we building community, James?

Another thing to note in these is very affordable things that they're doing.

Oh, there are free things happening in this town every day.

It's cool to see.

I have not seen the data on it, but I'm hopeful that with all of these other things that hayrides are being brought back and stuff too.

How cool?

Why would we get rid of...

Why are hayrides?

They're not going...

We're always going to have hay.

We've got to.

Yeah.

It's just fun.

Like this time of year.

Yeah.

Like that.

You know, having a fire bird.

Well, pretty much everywhere that has a corn mase is also going to have a hayride.

Got it.

Yeah.

They're just gonna.

Yeah.

And both of those things are a great time.

It's cool to me that not only these things are still popular and everything, but we're seeing this rise in them, especially with younger people, especially with the younger generations.

I love this.

I love seeing people getting out into their community and doing stuff.

And it's so cool.

When it comes to all of these things that we're talking about here, if only there was a local nonprofit that did something very similar that encompassed all of these things.

And if only they joined us on the Rapids Report routinely.

James, is there one of those?

Well, you know, I guess, oh, you know what there is.

The historic point.

Wow.

Yeah.

I was leading up to this, everybody.

That's right.

You can head on over to the Wiggly House at historic point bass in Nekusa for their spirit walk, right?

Yep.

Yep.

Coming up Saturday, October 18th, and then the next weekend on the 25th from, they take groups at six o'clock and then again at 8.30.

But you want to get there a little before 8.30.

What a great time.

It is a spirit walk.

It's so cool.

It's educational fun.

It is living breathing history.

It is.

It is a museum that you can walk all around and feel and touch and smell.

They have volunteer actors coming to portray the spirits of former residents of the land in the area there.