Dive Bar Delights and Driftless Dreams (Hour 1)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Peach Wabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who travels so he can pretend he's on the lam, Peach Wabba.

Welcome to Night

Light, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome, welcome.

I feel like I should welcome people back because we are coming off of a holiday weekend, but most people were already back.

I took an extra day, so I still have that holiday hangover.

You had a little vacation time in there.

I did.

I got some vacation time.

I'm not going anywhere extravagant this summer, so I thought, well, I'll take a couple days here.

And that was the voice, folks, by the way, of the amazingly talented Todd Michaels.

Todd, how are you?

How was your

vacation, by the way?

How was your fourth?

My fourth was okay.

I didn't do much.

We have a porch that overlooks a field in our little community, and I watched my 24-year-old son and his friends play wiffle like they were 12 years old, and I had a non-alcoholic beer and sat in the sun.

Did you

rock in your rocker and scream at the kids playing in your yard?

You know, this is interesting that you say that.

We had, okay, so we signed up for Brightspeed because where we live, Todd, spectrum has held, they've had a monopoly, and they just jacked it.

I

never heard of bright speed.

So for those of you who don't know, it's internet, right?

It's internet.

It's fiber optic as opposed to cable.

So this guy came through with his highfalutin segue, literally, he's riding around the neighborhood in a segue.

And it was like a lot cheaper.

So we signed up and then I thought, oh man, I might need a cable if I broadcast from home.

So I don't know if this was that great.

And then I wasn't getting the signal on my porch and I hadn't canceled Spectrum yet.

So I called Spectrum to cancel thinking they'd take the bait.

and offer me a sweetheart deal.

And they did.

They cut their own prices in half.

I said, all right, I'm with you.

But what got me off in this tangent was we've had this fiber optic cable on the lawn because they haven't come and buried it yet.

So my grass is like a foot tall.

We look like the idiots on the, you know.

in the hood.

Exactly.

What's going on at the Schwabba's house?

It's going out at the old Schwabba place.

Looks like they got some highfalutin long grass.

Anyway, it was good.

Yeah, it was good.

And I have to ask this though, and maybe you can relate.

Todd Michaels, by the way, I was just about to introduce you.

Oh, yeah.

You jumped in with a joke about me, which is fine.

Todd Michaels is producing the show, folks.

The K-man, Conrad, as you know him, the lovable producer.

Conrad will be back tomorrow, God willing.

And in the meantime, it's always fun when Todd Michael sits in and it's great to have him here tonight.

How are you doing, Todd?

I'm good.

Are you?

Yeah.

Fourth of July though, I got to tell you, I was the old guy.

How so?

Well, so I live in Oshkosh, right?

And they did this big thing this year that in the past, if you got, if the police came to your house because of, you know, fireworks and stuff, it was a warning, blah, blah, blah.

This year they decided they were going to nail you with a fine right away.

Really?

So I'm thinking, great.

Cause my dog doesn't like it, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

One 32 o'clock in the morning, Friday night into Saturday, they're still shooting stuff off in the city.

And it's just, it's rocking the whole house.

So I'm

the old guy going,

shut up out

there.

You know, I

literally at one point, you know, open my window and screamed at the neighbors about it.

So old man, Michael's in the

house.

Well, why do they do that though?

It's a, wrap it up at 11 o'clock or midnight.

I would say midnight, right?

That was

okay with that.

Right.

Two o'clock.

Come on.

I'm over fireworks.

I know I sound like a curmudgeon, but luckily we have a guy in our neighborhood who shoots him off.

So I have to walk literally 30 feet.

So I can't not watch that because everyone's down there and it was fun.

There were a lot of people visiting from out of town.

So I have to watch fireworks, but kind of done with it.

But that's not what this show is about, ladies and gentlemen.

Todd Michaels riding shotgun tonight.

Great to have you, buddy.

And we'll ask you this.

Why is it that I get my rest after a vacation?

Well, I had both kids home, their friends are, sometimes our basement turns into like, I don't know who's sleeping down there, but there's a ton of people.

And I stay up later, I don't get, like, I literally could not wait.

I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go to bed early tomorrow night.

It's gonna be great.

Now that I'm back to work and catch up on my sleep.

Isn't that insane?

That's like a backwards way of thinking.

But a lot of

people, when you take vacation, there's so much you want to get done, right?

Whether

it's stuff around the house or maybe you have a little fun, go do this, go do that.

And when the vacation wraps up, if you have a vacation, then you're so wound up by the end of it that you're looking forward to get back into the swing of things.

Exactly.

And I had to deal with some stuff over the break too.

We need a new roof.

Oh my.

We need to have our house stained.

We just put four grand into a 99 land cruiser that I love, that I'm never getting rid of.

So I spend four grand on it.

And that's like 20 grand worth of stuff.

Just over the 4th of July holiday.

To tow my way through the 4th of July.

Ah, it's just money, come on.

That's how you

celebrate America, spend money on stuff.

Exactly.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you had a 4th.

It is a great 4th.

It is great to be back live on the air.

Hope you enjoyed the shows we put together over the break.

Conrad worked very hard at that, putting them together.

I worked very hard talking, so he had something to put together.

But it was a group effort, and I hope you had a great fourth.

And it's great to be back on the radio, listening to us talk about the things that everybody should be talking about, movies, TV, comedy, music, theater, and anything fun happening in Wisconsin.

And we have a great lineup tonight.

Joining me at 635 will be author Tamara Dean.

She wrote a book called Shelter and Storm at Home in the Driftless.

The Driftless area of Wisconsin

I'm kind of enamored with.

It's so beautiful and so different and so cool and funky.

And, you know, reading about how the glaciers kind of passed over the area, I don't even want to paraphrase because I, but I read parts of her book and it's fascinating.

And she is someone who kind of, you ever see the movie Lost in America with Albert Brooks?

Yeah.

Yeah, they kind of drop out of society.

They liquidate everything.

went to Winnebago, their first stop is Las Vegas, and the wife gambles her nest egg away.

Brilliant, hilarious, and cringe-worthy.

Tamara and her husband, at least if the book is accurate, I assume it is because it's non-fiction, bought some land in the Driftless area and they were trying to make a human...

I'll have to ask Tamara about this, but it's a human running house.

Like everything, it's Adobe, they made the bricks out of mud, they're farming, all this stuff that I would never do in a million years, but I have the utmost admiration for someone who would do something like that, just because she was at a dot com.

Anyway, the book is great.

I'm very excited to talk to Tamara.

She has not been on the show before, so this'll be a nightlight first, talking about the book Shelter and Storm at home in Driftless.

Then at 720,

Our pal Chris Foran joins us.

Chris is an entertainment writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

And, you know, Chris comes on to talk about movies and TV.

And, you know, we talked about summer fest, music, all kinds of stuff.

He's a very informed guy, as you would expect an entertainment writer to be.

But he wrote this great article about the 50th anniversary of Miller Highlife and how it's, I'm sorry, Miller Light, which kind of saved the company.

and started the light beer trend.

And there was a lot of controversy around it at the time.

But Miller Light came up with this great ad campaign, as many of you probably remember, the taste great, less filling.

And Chris wrote a great piece that you can check out in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

He does great work there.

He'll be here at 720 to discuss that article and some movies.

And he's seen a lot of stuff.

I'm excited to talk movies with Chris.

So that'll be at 720.

In the meantime,

Todd and I will have all kinds of tomfoolery planned tonight on the show and I think we should get to our Todd you're the producer tonight, so I'm not gonna demand anything, but should we get to our question?

Well, let's do it.

Let's do it.

All

right.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

Yesterday was National Dive Bar Day.

What makes a bar a dive bar?

That is tonight's question, folks.

Yesterday, or in honor of yesterday's National Dive Bar Day, what makes a bar a dive bar?

And I have two quick answers.

The first thing that came to my head.

All right.

Stickiness.

Yep.

Yeah.

A girl dancing at the jukebox.

Those are my two.

Listen, I love dive bars.

I've been in so many dive bars over the year.

When I was in stand up or when I was living in LA, I had a place down the street.

Wisconsin has tons of great dive bars, but I'm very anxious to see what people come up with on this question.

Do you have a response for that?

Well, I'll say this.

In Oshkosh, there is, I think there were voted best dive bar in America.

Pete's Garage bars.

Yeah.

That is the place and it's got some of what you talked about.

It's got the stickiness.

It's got the furriness on the walls at the top where the air kind of is coagulated on the ceiling tiles and stuff like that.

But they've got over, so they've got the bar and then behind the bar is the actual grill where they make all the food,

right?

And each of the bartenders takes a turn grilling your food, making your breaded mushrooms or french fries or whatever they're making.

And there's a great neon sign above it that says that they're still cooking, okay?

But it uses expletives

in what it

says.

We're still blanking cooking or the grill

is still,

I've got a picture on my phone, I'll show you later.

All right.

Can we post it?

Probably.

No, probably

not.

I'd get fired.

Well, some expletives in signage, I think constitutes a dive bar.

I'll also say another one, the couple dancing when there is not a dance floor.

And no music

playing.

Music is in their hearts.

But they're just slow dancing with nothing going on.

They don't care that people could see them.

Maybe there is not music.

Maybe there is.

I don't know.

But those are great dive bar characteristics.

the peanuts in the bowl, where it's a wash with fecal matter, you know that, and popcorn, and you can go serve your own popcorn.

There's no, they're following no regulations whatsoever.

And nobody's

making them.

There's nobody from

the city or

the state walking in and going, ah, okay, you can't do that.

For some reason, you can get away with it.

People

that

walk into a dive bar know what to expect.

They're not gonna complain about that stuff.

That's what they want.

That's what you want.

Exactly.

You want filth in all different manners.

So, folks, be part of the show, please.

This is tonight's question.

Yesterday was National Dive Bar Day.

What makes a bar a...

dive bar.

And you could text us at 855-752-4842-855-75CIVIC.

You can let us know on the app if that's your choice of listening to Nightlight.

That's totally fine as well.

I believe most of our listeners are on the app, Todd, if I'm not mistaken.

If I remember the demographics.

And if you're watching on the stream, go ahead and let us know there too.

Be part of the show.

We'll read your text on the radio.

If I've been yacking that much.

You

have.

We're down to two minutes.

My God,

really.

You know what it

is.

It's the banter between host

and

producer.

It just

flows.

It does.

It's beautiful.

People love hearing us talk about it.

About screaming at people from our front lawn.

I would have paid money if you do that.

I think you can get these episodes, folks.

If you missed a witty banter or comment, you can always go to the website and check out the podcast as well.

I said something the other day.

I've complained before on this show about how you tip at the counter and then you take your food before you realize that you have to, you tip before you realize, oh, I got to wipe off my own table too.

Not only is no one waiting on me, I have to wipe off my table and then I'll bust my tray.

The restaurant should tip the customer.

I think that's where we're headed.

I will tell you at Pete's in the dive bar, if you're not paying attention when your food is up, because they don't bring it to you.

There's no waitresses

or

anything like that.

If they're screaming at you that your thing is done and you don't go get it, they will take a coaster and they'll whip it at you to try and hitch in the head.

That's why I like Pete's.

Can you imagine if I got hit by a coaster?

If Pete got hit by a coaster at Pete's, do you know what that would mean?

What's that?

I'd be rich.

Do you think so?

I would sue their assets.

Damn right I would.

I hope that coaster finds me.

Folks, Todd Michaels is sitting in for the kid Conrad Krieger tonight.

Conrad will be back tomorrow.

It is great to be back in the air talking to all of you.

And I hope you talk back.

Text, let us know what you're thinking throughout the course of the show.

I got some fun guests and a great question tonight.

When we come back.

I don't know.

I saw Jaws again, maybe we'll talk about that.

Did you?

Okay.

And I said Jurassic.

We'll do it all.

It's Peach Wabbit and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

that a vacation, or that a go-go song could get me that.

I'm feeling it now, man.

That was great.

I was trying to think of songs about dive bars couldn't come up with it any quick enough, but I thought you just came back from vacation, we'll play go-go's.

I think

a dive bar, remember back when I was doing stand-up, some of the old-timers, the old comedians that had like 20 years in, the stuff they would do in the bars or bathrooms shocked me.

And they

ran the gamut.

What happened?

Whether it was drugs or in there with someone else doing immoral things.

I don't, but it's, all those constitute being in a dive bar.

I'll tell you this, one time I had to go, how should I say this?

I

ate some kind of exotic food and I was sprinting around a neighborhood by Wigley Field trying to find a bathroom.

My buddy Rich Brown's in the car out leaning out going, he's having a baby.

And I can't find,

I go into this bar with a PAMPS blue ribbon sign out front that looked like it hadn't been changed in 30 years, sprint to the back of the bar.

Everybody knows what's happening,

right?

And I just went in the bathroom and I thought, I know I'm catching something in here right now, but I still don't care because you're that relieved when you make it to the turlet

in

that kind of a situation.

All right, got off on a bit of a trip.

That's it.

I went home and I took a shower.

I asked the doctor, what are my

chances of catching something

on a Chicago tavern toilet?

Stuffed off at a clinic on the way home to get tested.

You know what, I should have.

I was that convinced.

But those are dive bars, folks, and that's what we're talking about tonight.

So what is your definition?

What makes a bar a dive bar?

That is tonight's question.

Tamara Dean will be here talking about her book Shelter in Storm at Home in the Driftless in just a few minutes and then our pal Chris Foran from the Milwaukee Journal Central joins me at 720 to talk about Miller Lite.

That's another good topic for a dive bark

conversation.

Heck yeah.

Miller Lite's in a few of those places.

It's the 50th anniversary of Miller Lite and it kind of this was interesting to Todd.

I found this in the in Chris's article that four of the top five selling beers

nowadays are light beers.

I believe that.

I do too.

But back then, they were kind of considered diet beers and in a front to masculinity and all that kind of stuff and they marketed it brilliantly.

I mean, less filling tastes great with all these burly athletes.

It was beautiful.

Man, there was nothing better than Rodney Dangerfield, right?

Uker was in those commercials back then.

We need one pin, Rodney!

Those were great.

They had all of them.

Dick Butkus, John Madden.

I mean, it was, and one of my questions for Chris will be, do you think people knew this is a brilliant marketing campaign?

As a kid, I saw that and it was so catchy and it stayed with me and it launched Miller High Life.

It was

brilliant.

I remember being a kid going to the lake.

at summertime, right?

And we would recreate the Miller-like commercials out by the lake and somebody would have to play Rodney and somebody would have to play Bob Uker and all that kind of stuff.

That's how ingrained they are in my psyche.

That is like the sign of a great hat when it stays with you.

You're as a kid acting out parts of a beer commercial.

I'm sure mom and dad are really proud of me at that point.

Thank you, Pitt.

Paydirt.

On the stream, Lil' Herb says, a $3 tall boy, PBR.

Yeah, that's true.

But now that's trendy too.

Like, Papst is...

You know kind of a trendy beer.

Yeah, you could find that in an upscale place, too And then little earth says the hams motion light.

Oh hams is definitely a dive bar beer

I remember sitting my parents frequented bars quite often and there was one up in City Point, Wisconsin, which is kind of hunting land out west

And we'd go in, mom and dad would drink all night, and I would sit there and watch the Ham's beer motion lights.

You know what he's talking about, right?

Yeah,

oh, sure.

Yeah.

And you'd watch that thing go round and round, and you're like, how does that work?

Yeah.

I liked all those beer lights.

When I was a kid, at my grandparents' place in Three Lakes, Wisconsin, they had this Miller High Life.

Yep.

To this day, I think that's why when I drank beer, I drank Miller High Life because of this, like,

light that would go around, it would go up and down the M, and it was just a cool bar thing, and they had a bar in their basement.

I love all that kind of paraphernalia from Dive Bars, and I like Dive Bars.

Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids, he's in the 608, he says, located on the Titanic.

See, sometimes I do this, Tyler.

I don't remember what I was talking about with the

texture.

But what was it about the dive bar?

Is he talking about a bar in the Titanic?

Is that a dive bar

dive

to get to maybe maybe

that's a real serious alcoholic who's someone willing to.

I mean, we've all been there.

We've all been

there.

Tom from New Berlin.

He's in the 414 says, yes, a sticky mess, but hard boiled eggs and pickled hard boiled eggs.

Yeah, that's a dive bar.

I've never had one.

I've had conversations with people who haven't.

They say they're the best thing ever.

I don't know.

I don't, I've never had one.

A pickled

egg?

Yeah, have you?

I don't know if I've had a pickled, I've had a deviled egg, and as a kid I would eat them, but I realized at some point in my life, I hate these.

I'm never eating these again, and I don't, Conrad loves them.

He flips out.

He literally does a flip in that chair when I mention deviled

eggs.

I know what I get him for his birthday.

We'll trade deviled

eggs.

Get him a dozen.

Our pal Chris Casper from the 608 says, shake of the day.

Bardice, I think, right?

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I think that's what he's talking about.

Again, I've never played, but man, that's a sound.

Peter Dyson, a bar.

Yeah, definitely.

That's a great one.

Thank you, Chris.

Catherine from Sockville says, dollar bills attached to the ceiling.

That's a

great one.

How about a nice big pair of underpants too?

Dollar bills and a G string totally different bar.

I was thinking guys briefs.

That would

really make it a dive bar.

Jack from Miramax says, you know, it's a dive bar when there are 14 chopped Harleys back to the curb out front.

Well done, Jack.

He's in the four with four.

Thank you, buddy.

Tom from New Berlin says, oh, shake of the day.

Look at that.

So that is a Wisconsin thing.

You call that one, Todd.

Chris Casper and Tom from New Berlin are kindred spirits, I think.

It's the exact same wording in those texts, too.

Shake of the day.

That has to be a thing.

Chris Casper weighs in again and says, at least one bar stool is reserved for a specific person.

Yeah.

Is that a thing?

I think I think everybody's, you know, there's a bar that has like that corner stool or the one off.

Yeah.

Like the norm of that place, so to speak.

Chris also says sports betting.

Chris also says pull tabs.

I think Chris has been in his share of dive

bars.

I'm willing to accept

all these.

Get him

on the phone.

Tell us all about it, Chris.

We'll read the rest of Chris's text.

during this mini-series when we come back.

It's always tough for me to talk when I come back from vacation.

You're losing it already?

No, I just trip over my words, you know.

Luckily you're here.

All right, it's Peach Waba and Nightlight.

You got the Civic Media Radio Network.

six till nine.

That's

a good one.

We were just talking about that last week.

How much that song makes me think of summer.

It's fishwaba and nightlight.

Welcome back, folks.

I just love that song.

It's a great song.

I mean, that's a great album, right?

Is that on four or on sports?

I don't know, but was the song you

played when we went to break was

that Huey Lewis?

Yeah, I thought so couple days off vacation again Is that what it's called was called couple of days off

That's why you're the master producer you are is because you are able to find songs like that like instantly.

That's very impressive.

Todd.

Thank you Did that sound like I was not being sarcastic you understand

I understand brilliant.

It's

okay.

Okay

Folks it is great to have you with me on this Tuesday as I segue back into work after a few days off Conrad will be back tomorrow night I know you're all very concerned about the lovable producer, but he will if all goes as planned Conn's coming back, right?

Yeah, absolutely as

far as I know What if he's like

just finished his first day at a new gig and he's got a suit and tie in a briefcase and he just never even told

us first of all thinking of con in a suit in a briefcase

I Can't see it.

He's unless he could wear a hoodie and wear high tops

I don't think that's happening.

So I think Tamara is on StreamYard, but not by video.

I don't have her video yet, but I think she might be there.

Let's test it out.

Tamara, are you there?

I'm here, Pete.

Oh, fantastic.

You know what?

I'm just going to use my imagination as to what Tamara looks like.

And she looks spectacular, like an author who I understand used to do radio.

Folks, it is my pleasure to welcome to Nightlight the author

of the book Shelter and Storm at Home in the Driftless, Tamara Dean.

Tamara, how are you tonight?

I'm doing very well.

Thanks for having me, Pete.

Hey, this is great.

It's great to meet you and I really enjoyed.

I didn't make it all the way through your book, but I read several chapters and I just thought it was... I love talking to people that I know I would never do something like they did.

It's

very impressive.

But let's start with you, the person before we get to the author.

You grew up on a farm in Northern Michigan, is that right?

I didn't actually grow up on a farm.

My parents were farmers and came from farms, but I spent a lot of time on the farm that my mom grew up on in Northern Michigan.

And I was fishing and hiking and camping with them all through childhood.

And is that, was it the UP or like the upper part of the lower peninsula?

The northern part of the lower peninsula.

So big cherry orchards up there.

Yeah.

Oh, all of Michigan is beautiful.

It's a great state to drive through as well.

Um, but you, okay.

So give us a little, before we jump in, cause I've got a lot of, I have a lot of questions about your book, but also just what got you there and, and your experiences and what you, what you did.

So.

To make that make sense to the listener, give us a little background on Shelter and Storm and what inspired you to write it.

Sure.

Well, in 2004, my partner David and I decided we were indoors too much.

We wanted to be closer to nature.

And we also wanted to experiment with things like sustainable building and growing our own food and alternative energy.

We were just very curious.

So we looked around for a place to start over.

And once we saw the driftless area of Wisconsin, like a lot of people, we fell in love and we thought, this is the place for us to start over.

I mean, if you've ever been there in the southwestern corner of the state, it's just a magical landscape with these steep limestone bluffs and narrow river valleys and spring-fed streams.

So that's what we did.

We had lofty ambitions and we did fulfill many of them, but in some ways we got waylaid.

We learned a ton while we were out there and we also encountered so many

interesting mysteries and that's how I begin most of my essays in Shelter and Storm.

I like to grab the reader with some kind of mystery or question and then they follow along as I learn more about it and usually end up in a different place from where I'd imagined.

It's so great.

And you're right about the Driftless area.

I know I, when I used to, I used to stand up comedy back in the day and sometimes I would do a car tour where I'd end up going through Wisconsin and then Minnesota.

And I always loved going through mineral point.

They have this, yeah.

And then years later, I got to go to a film festival there.

They have this cute little opera house, but it almost feels like when you drive through the Driftless area, you're not really in Wisconsin.

It seems like it's its own kind of magical place.

And yeah.

And

it's a landscape unlike any other on the planet, in fact.

It's because nowhere else on Earth did glaciers miss an area for no obvious reason.

In other words, the driftless area is not higher than surrounding landscapes, and it isn't more porous.

It's just a series of coincidences that caused the glaciers to go around this area.

So it really, in the topography, it looks more like the Ozarks, I think.

You you describe that a little bit I think in the preface of the book Why did the glaciers miss that area or how did that happen?

Yeah, well the glaciers, you know, there could have been two dozen of them that missed this area So that's unusual but they came down south from the Hudson Bay area and they entered the Lake Michigan trough and it was easier to go south across that area what's now Lake Michigan and then as they hit the trough of Lake Superior It was so deep that after a while it, you know caused them to slow down and stop before they reached the driftless area

Wow, that's fascinating.

All right, before we jump more into your book, in terms of the Driftless area, what I also got from your book was there's a great sense of community of people that go there.

And a lot of people that were seeking, seemingly anyway, kind of the same thing you and your partner were seeking.

Is that what makes up that area by and large?

Yes, it's been a refuge for people for millennia.

I mean, Ho-Chunk Oral History talks about their ancestors migrating to the Driftless area when the glaciers pushed them southwest from what is now Green Bay.

And then, of course, the European homesteaders came in the late 1800s.

But more recently, a lot of homesteaders

go to that area because the topography is so unusual that it hasn't allowed those giant swaths of corn and soy, you know, thousands of acres that you see in Iowa or Illinois to come in.

And so it's really friendly to small farms.

And that's what a lot of people want to do.

And plus it's the headquarters of Organic Valley, which is the world's largest organic growers cooperative.

And that attracts a lot of people too.

It sounds like, and I'm gonna be honest here, Tamara, I'm just gonna come clean and I'm gonna say, I wish I was more like you.

I wish

I had

the resolve.

Well, I really admire people that do these kinds of things.

It's good for the earth, it's good for community, and it's good for your health.

How does a person earn enough, you kind of touch on this in the book, how does a person earn enough to feed themselves and their family on a small farm?

As you say, if they aren't growing so-called commodity crops, do you have to supplement your income somehow or can you do it all as a farmer?

Yes.

Well, I had great dreams of becoming a farmer and I researched it and I watched friends of mine contend with those floods that wiped them out and bankrupted them and I decided I couldn't do it.

I didn't have the risk tolerance and I didn't.

see how the bottom line could come out positive if you weren't growing commodity crops like corn and soy in our area, which are subsidized by the USDA through the Farm Bill.

But even commodity growers are usually depending on off-farm income.

So somebody in the family has another job.

It's very hard to make ends meet no matter what kind of farming you're doing.

And I have a whole new kind of respect for farmers after living out there.

Yeah, my guest is Tamara Dean.

She wrote the book Shelter and Storm at Home in the Driftless.

Tamara, where can people find the book?

Shelter and Storm is found anywhere you buy books, whether online or at your local bookstore.

And if you want to learn more about it, you can go to shelterandstorm.com.

And that's the publisher's site for the book.

Okay, perfect.

How okay, so there's a great line about farming you have in the book and Can you explain the passage where you say touching dirt was like taking antidepressants?

Yeah once summer while I was Gardening I had a huge garden and I thought well this is going to help me prepare to be a farmer Little did I know that farming and gardening are not that much alike?

But there was a research paper that came out that said there are natural antidepressants in the microbes in the soil.

So actually, whether you're digging in the dirt or eating the dirt on the vegetables that you pull out of the ground or graze on while you're out there, you're taking antidepressants.

But I also meant it in the sense of gardening being just such a fun, healthy, invigorating kind of pursuit.

What were you hoping to accomplish when you wrote this book?

It's a series of essays, but when you sat down to make this a book, what are you hoping people take away from it?

Yeah, I hope that it helps people.

approach nature with more curiosity and attentiveness and also if they feel so moved to really indulge that curiosity and get involved whether that's You know becoming a citizen scientist as I describe in a few of the essays in shelter and storm You know the citizen scientists who are testing waterways or looking for freshwater mussels are really doing a great service because our Department of National

resources just doesn't have the staff or funding to get out there and look in every stream for example and citizen scientists can make up the difference or whether they just want to plant their front yard full of native plants grasses and flowers to attract pollinators that's also helpful.

There are many ways to get engaged and I hope that readers not only find entertainment in my essays but also some you know inspiration.

Well, and knowledge too.

I mean, just for what I learned reading your book, the fact that you had to acquire all that knowledge first, and I think at some point in the book, you talk about working for it.com, which I assume was in a city.

So in your opinion, when people decide to turn to farming or a simpler way of life, is it because there's

Disgusted with modern day conveniences, the rat race is the world too much with us or why do people do it?

Well, you know, I think everybody has their own reasons, but I do think there's that Romanticism about going back to the land though that a lot of people have that we had we knew we were naive But I don't think we realized how naive we were when we set out and so that attracts a lot of people You know the idea of a simpler life and being closer to nature and also living on your own terms I have to say that when we move to the driftless area

at least in our township, there were no zoning laws.

So you could, you know, build something out of wine bottles or tires if you wanted to.

Nobody was gonna stop you.

And that attracted a lot of ingenious inventors and tinkerers and experimenters as well as artists because the cost of living there was, you know, less than it would be in a city too.

So, all right, you were a writer.

as I understand it before you were a farmer you're still a writer obviously you put out a book but what are are there any similarities?

Is there anything from writing that you could take to farming and vice versa?

Well right and I never did become a full-fledged farmer I certainly did grow a lot of our own food and I thought the

Similarities are numerous.

You know, in writing, there's a lot of patience involved.

You don't see the fruits of your labor for a long time.

There's also a meditative quality about turning the soil when you're weeding a garden or planting plants, seeds in the soil, as well as when you're putting words on a page.

I do think they're pretty similar.

My guest is Tamara Dean.

She wrote,

shelter and storm at home in the drift list.

It's available everywhere.

Definitely check it out.

We'll have a few more minutes with Tamara after this very short break.

I'm going to ask her if she's ever seen the movie Lost in America because it reminded me of Tamara.

And we'll talk a little bit about Woody Guthrie and how Woody Guthrie relates to her book.

It's a great book.

This is Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Welcome back.

I am Pete Schwab.

This is Night Light coming up at 7.20.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Entertainment writer Chris Foran will be here to discuss the 50th anniversary of Miller Light.

And we'll have some movie and TV discussion, as we so often do with Chris.

Our question of the night is, what makes a bar a dive bar?

We've had some great answers.

A couple dancing with no music or no dance floor, girl dancing at the jukebox, sticky seats.

Shake in the dice, all kinds of stuff.

Keep those answers coming, folks.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Right now, we have a few more minutes with my current guest.

She's the author of Shelter and Storm at Home in the Drift List.

Her name is Tamara Dean, making her first appearance here on Nightlight.

Tamara, can you tell me about Ty and, I hope I'm saying this right, LMA or LMI?

I think this is in your chapter actually titled Shelter and Storm.

They're Woody Guthrie characters.

And you draw a parallel between you and your partner and them.

Can you explain that a little bit?

Yeah.

Well, Woody Guthrie had this idea that a house of earth, which is the name of his novel, which was published posthumously.

So he knew better than to send it to his editors or publishers because he knew it wasn't going to get published in his lifetime.

But he had this idea that his

main characters, Taik and Elime, ought to be building their house of earth.

And this would represent, you know, the common people avoiding the banks.

And this was the time of the Depression when people were withstanding these terrible dust storms, and they needed some protection against the climate.

They also needed some protection against the banks at this time, which were undergoing upheaval.

And so

Woody Guthrie himself had actually tried building a house out of mud bricks.

He got this pamphlet from the USDA and I saw a copy of this pamphlet and it's just maddeningly vague.

I don't know how anybody would do it.

You know, you you mix the mucky muck.

It actually says that of clay and straw and by foot or hand.

But he didn't stick with it very long and I don't blame him.

It must have been frustrating.

He just had that ideal and we

You made a house out of compressed earth blocks, but we had a lot more technology behind us and people who had had experience with it, so it wasn't that challenging.

That fascinated me, that whole passage in the book about making bricks or earth blocks and what goes into them and making a home, an Adobe home, right, really?

Yeah, right.

And there were parallel walls of these bricks.

And in between was a gap of about six inches into which we poured perlite insulation.

So the home acted just as we had hoped it was really warm in the winter with only one fire in the morning in the fireplace and one fire

at night,

even in the middle of winter.

And it was cool in the in the summer.

What kind does do the mud walls affect your Wi-Fi signal?

I'm joking, but do you have?

What modern conveniences do you have to give up?

Did you have cell phones or Wi-Fi?

Oh, well, the cell phone service wasn't great.

I'll give you that.

But we had a great telecommunications company out there.

It's now called Vernon Communications.

And they had federal grants to bolster the rural broadband.

So in fact, we had excellent internet service.

out in the country.

That's huge.

Are you still living in that area in this house you built?

No, I'm not.

And it's really heartbreaking that we had to leave.

It's the subject of the 12th and final essay in Shelter

and

Storm, Slow Blues, which tracks my

Also my discovery of a rare blue glowing firefly called slow blues in the driftless area as well as my struggle with Lyme disease.

So one of the doctors in our area called our particular valley the Midwest epicenter for tick-borne illnesses and

I had Lyme disease multiple times and, you know, I brought in ticks with the kale that I picked from the garden and I just thought, oh, you know, our life there required so much energy for chopping wood and planting and harvesting and putting up food that I, with Lyme disease, I couldn't keep up with it all.

So we ended up choosing to leave.

Well, that is kind of tragic, but what an experience you had going through all of that.

I'm sure you wouldn't trade a minute of it.

No, absolutely.

I learned so much not just about practical things, but you know about bigger things too.

Yeah.

Have you seen the movie Lost in America with Albert Brooks?

Oh

Pete.

Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't ask.

I'm a terrible person to ask about movies.

I just haven't seen many, but now it's on my list.

So I'm gonna see it.

I really hope you get a chance to see it because it's about a guy and his wife.

He's an LA ad executive and she works in HR and they decide to drop out of society and

buy a Winnebago and drive across country and walk with Native Americans like they wanted to in college, like an easy rider.

And I'll just say this, their first stop is Las Vegas.

It sounds

really

great.

Yeah, they took a different turn than you.

I have one more question for you.

And by the way, this book was the perfect way to segue back into the real world after a weekend of doing nothing.

So I felt energized reading your book again today like I did last week.

But you have a great

passage on page 60 where you talk about the kikapoo switcheroo.

And it was kind of sad and maybe laugh all at once.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, people from the Driflus area will know what that means Kikapu is the main river in the area and it's called the Kikapu Valley, but the Kikapu switcheroo was the phenomenon of People switching partners

and

often it would happen that you know a couple would hire a builder or a contractor and the contractor or builder would end up with you know the wife or some other arrangement and you know it ends up

all coming out well.

Okay, well, that's interesting.

Probably something they didn't anticipate being paid for, stealing someone's spouse, but hey, whatever works.

And that's the kind of tomfoolery that happens in the driftless area.

Yeah, it can, it can, but you know, my partner and I managed to avoid all that.

That's so great.

I'm glad to hear that.

And I look forward to reading many more works from you.

So thank you so much for spending some time with us tonight.

Best of luck with the book and keep us posted, please.

Thank you, Pete.

It's been a great time.

You're very welcome.

This is Tamara Dean.

Check out her book Shelter and Storm at Home in the Driftless.

Just go on the interwebs, folks.

You can find it many places.

Tamara Dean, thank you very much.

Todd Michaels, working the board, sitting in for Conrad tonight.

Yes, sir.

Spinning the tunes.

There's no one slow dancing here tonight or at the jukebox.

It's a dive bar Tuesday night.

What constitutes?

What?

constitutes a dive bar.

What makes a bar a dive bar?

That's our question of the night.

We're coming back for act two after intermission.

Chris Foran joins me at 720.

It's Pete Schwab.

And Night Light, Civic Media Radio Network.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who does his own stunts,

Pete Chwaba.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

Tonight Light, hour number two, also known as Act Two.

of our little showbiz entertainment, current event, fun show.

Great to have you with me on this Tuesday night.

We have to, we gotta light it up tonight, folks, like the fireworks are still happening, which in Marinette, Wisconsin, by the way, they still are.

It's like fireworks month.

Yeah.

And it goes on forever.

But if you are just joining us, we had a lot of fun in hour one.

We talked about why it seems like after vacation is when you catch up on rest.

Some vacations can wear you down.

And I did.

I did so much socializing over the fourth of July weekend.

I can't believe it.

There was a local family that had all their kids together.

They had a big parade.

There were people just walking around and hanging out.

And that gets socializing could be exhausting.

So sometimes you got to go back to work to catch up on your rest, which is the case with me here tonight.

We talked to Tamara Dean, an author of the book, Shelter in Storm at Home in the Driftless, a really good book.

I didn't read the whole thing.

I got about...

about 40% through it, but it's a compilation of essays written by Tamara Dean about her life trying to find an easier farming life in the driftless area.

And apparently that's kind of a thing.

Could you ever do that, Todd?

I'm not sure.

I

would like to, right?

Yeah.

Like you said, reading it, you're like, gosh, that would be such a great life.

I wish I was more like that.

Yeah.

But then again, like she said, well, I got Lyme's disease and I

really couldn't

do it.

It's gotta be a really tiring thing.

Yeah.

You probably feel guilty just sitting at home binge watching something, which is half my life.

I bet it wouldn't happen.

I bet you would not binge watch anything.

In my mud brick home, you don't think I would do something like that?

I love you, Pete, but I have to tell you something.

I could not see you

living in

a mud hut house.

But it keeps the insulation in and the warmth of that.

He'd be out there trying to sweep the dirt floors, you know?

Oh, it would be awful.

Our question of the night is what makes a dive bar?

What makes a bar a dive bar?

We'll get to your text in just a minute.

We've got to play catch up a little bit with text, but what makes a bar a dive bar?

We heard some great answers.

Stickiness, a couple dancing without a dance floor and no music, a girl dancing at the jukebox, the sound of dice, or some other ones we heard, Todd, just...

Peanuts, peanut

butter,

disgusting, swearing in the signage.

Those people don't care.

Choppers backed up to the curb, you name it.

But keep those texts coming if you want to be part of the show.

855-752-4842-855-752-4842.

What I'm hearing you say, Todd, is there is no room for couch potatoes.

Potatoes, that's right.

To do their own farming or build

their

own adobe

house in the driftless area.

but that's okay.

You know what I just found out during the break?

What?

It really sucks when you think you're making progress and you're starting to look better and then you catch your reflection in a gelato store window and say, oh dear God out loud.

How you doing on that by the way?

On what?

Gelato?

Pretty well.

I

think we can all see that you're doing well with the gelato.

How are you doing with the diet and the healthy living?

Uh, well, obviously I took a little powder this weekend on it, but, uh, you know, well, I eat pretty well and I do fast, but sometimes I don't know.

I'm losing about a half a pound a week.

It's not bad though.

It's okay.

It's sustainable and I don't mind.

I am eating healthier one day and you reap all the other benefits.

It's not just about weight loss, I guess.

How, um, how long have you been at it and how close are you to your goal?

I will not live to see my goal, sadly.

Well, about eight weeks of pretty solid fasting.

When I started, I was 400 pounds and now I'm down to 250.

But I really like, and here's what I find out.

I'll ask you about this too, because I know you tried it.

When you do that, your brain is so sharp.

When you fast or when you do, you get rid of some of the gluten.

I can't believe how quickly I can...

Think.

No, but your brain does, I think, work faster.

I'm not sure that mine did.

I did sleep better, right?

Yeah, slept a lot better.

The gummies helped too.

But I do, in general, I have more energy.

Yeah.

And I'm still doing the fasting thing.

I'm a little

bit

looser on it.

And I'm down to my original goal weight, but I want to do some more.

But like the last three pounds have taken me a month and a half.

Yeah, that happens.

I think when you hit 40, you- 40

years old?

40 pounds?

What are

we talking about?

40 years old.

It takes longer.

It just takes longer and you can't lose faith.

You have to stick with it.

So anyway, there you go.

Folks at 720, Chris Foren from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will be joining me here at Nightlight to talk about the 50th anniversary of the creation of Miller Light.

We'll also talk some TV and movies, but I think this is great that you're here tonight, Todd, because as

You have this great side hustle as a paranormal investigator.

And I want to talk to you about the Miller Caves.

And you brought this up.

You said they're supposed to be haunted.

This is a great transition between now and Chris.

So I was just reading about them a little bit.

Young lovers haunt the Miller Caves.

I mean, I don't know specifically if that's what it is.

That's the lower bat.

based on everything going on there, right?

These caves were created underneath the streets around the Miller Brewery and all that kind of stuff.

Back in the day when there was no refrigeration, they had to keep the beer cold.

So I think until like 1906 or something like that, they were using these to store the beer.

And through the years and doing investigations, I would sporadically hear about the haunted Miller caves and all that kind of stuff.

Apparently it's a couple.

tragic lovers and they are found wandering the caves at various times.

Are they based on real tragic lovers, meaning they didn't know what they were doing sexually or was it a was this sort of a bad accident like a Romeo and Juliet type thing?

I don't know

the exact background of the couple themselves, but

I

can say that a couple of groups have investigated there.

The group that I was with tried to get and we were not able to schedule a time to get that done.

But if you ever get a chance to check out that location, even if you don't get to go down in the caves, there's so much history there at the brewery and stuff

like

that.

You've got to go just to check that out.

It's awesome.

I think you also mentioned, this is interesting too, when I was reading about the Miller caves in keeping beer cold, I thought, and I was kind of told this, that when beer gets warm and then gets cold again, that's what makes it skunk.

Yeah.

But Dave Hansen at Flix Brewhouse in Madison, who created the Nightlight Beer, hazed on radio for the Wisconsin Film Festival, told me that it has something to do with sunlight.

And that's why they keep it in darker bottles.

It's harder for the sunlight to get in, maybe?

I've heard that about

wine and stuff like that, too.

But isn't Miller Light in clear bottles?

It used to be, if it's not anymore.

Miller

Light

is in...

Dark bottles, right?

I thought it wasn't clear or

Miller high life is clear.

Okay, there you go

Champagne beer But speaking about ghosts and breweries in Milwaukee, I did get to investigate the paps brewery down there

Yeah, that's that story

that is Incredible because they literally when the place was shut down they literally came in and said we're done Everybody go home kind of thing and so when you go in

It's like going into an old ghost ship, like opening the door and seeing everything still

there.

You go to people's desks.

There's the phone.

There's their notepad with notes on it.

There's like family pictures on the wall.

There's a list of extensions for the people.

I mean, it was literally all like walking in the day after a play shutdown, but only, I think it shut down in like the 80s, I'm just guessing, but 80s or 90s.

It's like going back in time.

That is so crazy.

I guess in Chris's article, he talks about how when they closed the Papst Brewery down, they farmed it out.

So they still made Papst.

My uncle Pat Murphy, no relation to the brewers manager, it was a Schlitz salesman forever.

And so I grew up hearing about Schlitz forever.

I don't even know if they still make Schlitz, do they?

I'm

not sure,

but

I do

know, talk about skunky beer.

Schlitz, those were my dad's Schlitz, once in a while Papst.

Red, white, and blue.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Blats.

Blats.

Blats, yep.

And

his big one was old style.

He swore