Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Tuesday, February 4th, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Mail, off here.
In part two today, we're going to talk to Aaron Hess, Branch Executive Director of the
South of County YMCA, looking forward to talking to Aaron a little bit later.
Right now, some of my favorite people to talk to, some of our favorite people to have
on the show.
We got our friends from this store, Point Boss, Mike Kittner, Tom Bremner with us.
Guys, how you doing?
That was great.
Great.
Good morning to James and everybody in WFHRland.
I'm very excited to talk with you guys.
We're talking history and we're talking about one of the, I think, more fun events that
you guys do and they're all great, what you guys host over there.
This one's so unique and I don't know anything like this in the area.
It's a really fun event.
We're going to talk about Wake Lee's Winter Feast today.
We were just looking at some old tickets in 2015 and of course that I think it was at
the Knights of Columbus at that time.
It was $15 today.
It's only $20 and look at, you know, 10 years, you know, what the price of increase of
everything.
So a $20 meal with all you can eat with a buffet that never stops.
It's literally Tom would you say 24 feet long, 24 foot long buffet there that, and we
even like to encourage people if we got some left, take it home with you because we
can't use it again.
So we pass it on to the people that participate in attend the event.
So it's a great event.
Probably we've been going almost 40 years.
This is probably 38, 37 years old, I think 89, I was trying to look it up and I was
trying to say yeah.
You know, started at the Beer and Community Hall of course, which is long gone and then
went to Knights of Columbus in the reiteration.
Now we go to the Nicosah Community Center, which great facility and it's been a
kind of nice, you know, kind of movement across different places that we've went and
everybody's been exceptionally kind to us and helped us out in those different venues
that we were at over the years.
For those that aren't familiar with the event, let's let them know what this awesome event
is all about.
It's about food and music and fellowship and basically it's for us, you know, realistically
hopefully it's a fundraiser because a lot of time and effort goes into this and we're
working there from Friday morning till Saturday night late, so two days in a row.
And of course, all the prep time in Tom and I and the committee has met at least twice.
He's met a couple times with some of the people intimately involved with it a couple
times.
And so it's basically wild game and domestic food and all the trimmings with music done
in Ann Pollock and a friend of their Steve will play bass and he's going to, the three
of them, we're going to be there and play music before and a little bit during the
little bit after we got lots of raffle baskets, we got silent auction items, you know, lots
of good things.
And a lot of the things are from the site, kind of one of the highlight, one of the silent
auction items.
Johan, one of our workers down there consistently for many, many years does carving with
bowls and everything like that and turning of bowls and so he makes them out of the trees
on the site.
And it's kind of unique in a sense and then people can go home with those at a reasonable
price.
So we look forward to people coming on and joining us on February 15th at Nekusa Community
Center.
Like so much of what we do over there at this torque point boss, it's a celebration of
the past while planning for the future and having a better future.
And to the point of the fundraising aspect of this, you're not only going to have a great
meal, be entertained by some great music and maybe get yourself one of these raffle
prizes or something, but know that whatever you're spending, you're putting back into
the community and helping keep a history alive over there at a historic point boss.
And not just for us, but for the younger people out there that are going to grow up in
this area and be able to take some pride in this work and maybe even setting a standard
for those young people when they take over these jobs from us and everything.
And we, James talking about younger people, we have the Wittenberg 4-H group help us
and usually about 10 or 12 young folks and their parents and they come out and wait tables
and take things off the tables and help out cleaning up and everything like that.
And there's a young group that has been involved with us probably for 15 years now, Wittenberg
4-H and shout out to Peggy Westine and her group for all their help for all these years.
And they come out willing and the girls, especially like dressing up and we have a lot of
extra costumes at our site.
And so we bring those along and the girls like dressing up on them and that's kind of a
fun night for them.
We will have, we should say, also a little bit of dancing afterwards.
We had a request for it.
We did it for years and years and then kind of fell out of, we didn't have a caller
or guess it was a mean problem, but we're going to have one evening just about wrapped
up.
We're going to have at least a broom dance and a Virginia reel and a waltz or something
like that.
That will be called and be enjoyable for those that want to stick on and enjoy some of
the dancing and the festivities.
What will the meals consist of?
What kind of food are we talking about here, Tom?
Well, it's a variety and we try to make it different each year.
We'll start out at four o'clock with just some snacks, some hot apple cider, that sort
of get together, you know, meet your new friend you haven't met yet.
Exactly.
We're going to do, we start out with vegetables with corn.
I don't know how to say, a corn casserole, that's what we're going to call it.
That's good.
One of the members is making it and we're assured that it's excellent, so we're going
to do that.
Stood tomato's sauerkraut, Mr. Wakeley himself makes sauerkraut at the site in the fall.
It works in the crackle, all fall and we serve it here.
Yeah, and then also those tomatoes, Tom talked about stewed tomato from our garden at the
site.
Yep, yep, yep.
They've been really, really good about that stuff.
We're also doing something different this year kind of, but I think it's sort of Eastern
European, but it's sort of a cooked cabbage and noodles kind of casserole too.
We're trying to do different stuff each year, and it's hard to come up with, oh, I had
that last year, no, we're trying to do this different homemade baked beans with beans
growing again in the garden, not all of them, because the crop wasn't quite that good.
But there's at least, I helped a shot come, so I kind of know a little bit about it.
I think there's at least about a gallon of our own bean.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So that's right.
In a dried form, so that makes probably two, three gallons.
Yeah, I know.
So we're going to win real well of those.
This year, just to be really different, we're doing shepherd's pie, and we're doing it
with lamb, which is very, very traditional.
We were gifted a lamb, a good sized, anything under a year, is a lamb, so it's a good sized
animal.
Tom can tell you about the wrestling match him and Mark had with the lamb.
Oh, yeah, that was it.
They're not cut lead domestic animal.
Yeah, they don't like this idea of going with you.
No, no, it's a book by its cover with those things, you know, they would but you, but we
prevail.
Right.
But we're going to do the shepherd's pie.
We've done hunter's pie off and on for years, which is the venison or whatever.
This is the real honest goodness one.
We're doing venison cabbage rolls, which has been a hit for a long time.
We're doing raccoon ragu, which is a tomato noodle and shredded raccoon raccoon is much
like pork.
When you eat it, it's, it's, it's, if you had to say, well, it's not chicken, that's
for sure.
Sure.
Well, that's what it tastes like.
We're also doing a roasted raccoon with apples and onions, much like you would a roast
pork.
That's good.
That is good.
That's, that's going to be a dandy.
We're doing one that we've done several times is beaver with mushroom and wild rice kind
of a casserole again, really that that's a good savory dish.
And then this year, brand new for the very first time, we're going to have squirtle.
Huh.
We've done rabbit and other muskrat in, in, we do it kind of like ala king, you know,
over a biscuit kind of thing, which is very traditional.
And but this year, we were, one of the members has an uncle who loves the squirtle, and
we were the beneficiary of, I don't know how many exactly.
He told me just yesterday when I talked to him, I got a couple more, he said, so we'll,
we'll see how that goes, but there's going to be a bunch.
By the way, two U.S. presidents, their favorite food was squirtle.
Huh.
Chester A. Arthur and William Henry Harrison, both.
Wow.
I was reading an article in something about the favorite food of each of the 40, whatever
number of presidents there are, which, what was their favorite and two of them said squirtle
was theirs.
So I'm going, yep, that's good.
That's, that's interesting.
That's the story.
Yeah.
Nice.
Nice.
Um, then we're going to get into the more, the, the, the, uh, domestic stuff.
We're going to do our dressing, again, like we always did.
We're doing roasted potatoes with onions and peppers.
Um, you're already doing mashed on the, on the, uh, the shepherd's pie, so we're going
to do a roasted, which I like better anyway, uh, but we're going to have gravy.
You got to have gravy on your, on your dressing.
Yeah.
Uh, we're doing ham and roast chicken, as we always have.
And then we're going to do a carving station with lego lamb.
Mm.
Mm.
That's a good idea.
And our chef is going to, he says, I, I, I know a lot of cook it.
He says, I'll get it to the, you don't cook it well done.
Just get you kind of, um, I'm with them.
I, I, I won't eat and lamb a couple times in my life, so I'm really looking forward
to this.
Oh, yeah.
It's good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's good.
We had a, uh, a sample.
Mm.
That one of the meetings, uh, took a small portion and cooked it up, you know, oh, we had
a little Greek town where, near us, where we used to live and everything.
And, uh, they, they, they, it's a big meat, uh, with that culture and stuff, said a lot
of growing up.
Oh, yeah.
Good stuff.
And we're going to do coleslaw cranberry relish rolls, pickles, applesauce, you know, all
that stuff that you need to make it all gold.
Yeah.
And then we're doing bread pudding and cranberry cake for dessert.
Both with butter saw, with the hot butter sauce.
And if that don't fill you up, yeah, we, I don't know what will, if it doesn't, uh, especially
for that price, uh, you are not going to find a better deal, a better meal, uh, for
that price.
It's more unique meal.
Um, it's, it's a, especially for people that may have not heard us talk, have this conversation
over the years when this event comes up and everything you might be hearing that list,
the time just gave us.
And thank you for that time.
Uh, I'm like, well, that's, I'm not going to find that a call verse.
I'm not going to find that anywhere.
I mean, that's a big part of this event, Mike, is offering people these unique meals
that you couldn't get just anywhere else.
Well, the only time James, before you'd ever get this, it would be at some roll location
where they had a, you know, fishing game club or something that had a wild game feed.
But those are rare and rare nowadays.
And I know there used to be one at Babcock years ago.
Maybe it's still going.
I don't know.
But, uh, it's one of those things that we kind of specialize in because basically the
people that we represent back from the Waiklip period were eating most of these same foods.
They were, you know, when we talk about trapping beavers or something like that, they didn't
waste that meat.
There's no way they wasted that meat.
They were making use of that meat besides selling the hides or whatever for use for hats
or whatever.
So, uh, we're basically replicating what the Waiklis would have done.
That's why we call it, you know, Waiklis winter feast.
Mm-hmm.
Because this is based on, this really is, uh, the winter midwinter parties they used to
have.
Right.
I thought this, I always find this really interesting, this part of it.
Yeah, they used to have cattillians where they invited people usually in February, you
know, after the January thought they were getting a little cabin fever, whatever you
want to call it and they wanted to get out of the house and have a good time so they'd
have some music, some dancing and that sort of thing.
They'd have a big feed and some people would stay overnight, of course, in the end and
the other people would go home that night.
But they'd stay overnight and then they'd give them a big breakfast on top of it.
No, folks, we're not giving you a breakfast because we got to be out of there by about
10 o'clock.
Yeah.
So, uh, overnight.
And after as many hours as we spent there, we almost feel like, uh, that's our second
home, after a while, but, but, uh, we're trying to replicate as close as we can to what
the Wacleys actually, uh, had going in their time and period because we see newspaper articles
about the cattillians they had in February and all this and the beauty of it too is, now
we've got James and especially the last four or five years, we got Wacley relatives coming
back and joining us, some from Minnesota, some from Utah, you know, different places they're
coming from and they come every year to join us and take part in this and, and celebrate
their ancestors.
We are talking with Mike in time from this Torque Point Basso about Wacleys Winter Feast
coming up Saturday, February 15th, four o'clock, gathering five, four, fifty will be the dinner
and this is taking place at the beautiful Nacusa Community Center.
Uh, and guys, you've mentioned this a little bit here and there, but I wanted to take a
beat to just, uh, thank the people that have volunteered, the people have volunteered
and meets for this, uh, a big thank you to the community and all the people that have
helped out.
Yeah, especially volunteers to prepare this meal, a lot of people that we only see maybe
once or twice a year, I mean, they're not regular volunteers all the time.
There's many of those, of course, but there's some people that just come to help out once
or twice a year and that's usually one of the events that they come and help out at.
There's hundreds of hours.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The planning for the next one begins as we're doing pots and pans at this one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We talk about, uh, what went really well, what didn't go so well and how can we change
it and what, of course, we're always listening to feedback from the audience there to find out
what they thought really, they really liked this or didn't or whatever and so we always
try to massage it a bit from year to year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was, there, the, the number of people that we get to come in, I, I've been calling
like you see, some of the ones that we see, not, not every week, like some, although
some of them, I mean, we have a work group that meets every Monday and most of those people
will be there.
Yeah.
And they're there to work every, almost every Monday of the year.
I would say well over 40 weeks a year, they're there.
And we've been picking rocks lately, James and, and Don and, Don Matthews and myself.
And then we've had help with, you know, with having them carted over by the tractor
or something.
But Don and I've been personally picking them and I woke up the other day and I felt
like a little bit like Fred Finstone and Marty Rubble, I think, and holy calm, went back
in time even further than the way I guess.
Well, and you guys help not only keep history alive and give us a perspective and reminders
of these things and pride we can take in this.
And historical accuracy is becoming more and more important to community communities and
people out there.
And you guys are better than just about anybody at this and doing that.
So much so that your prices are even in the past.
As far as the charging, you brought this up before about where it went from 10 to 20 now.
15 to 20.
15 to 20.
Yes.
And, you know, it's been that way for 10 years that, you know, that will not 10 years
at 20.
But it was 15 up till probably about about seven or eight years ago that it went to 20.
But, you know, at the gate or at the door, it's 25, just we have to up charge and then Tom
always, I always go to Tom and I say, Tom, we got six more people.
Can we do it now?
And after Wally said, don't do that to me.
Can't put any more water.
We can't put any more water in the soup.
Don't do loads and fishes.
I mean, I can't do that.
We have bought my bakery.
It speaks to the popularity of the event.
But also to the going above and beyond, like you guys do over there, keeping things affordable
for families so that they kind of tend these events.
They can be a part of them is a key part of what you do over there.
It's always appreciated.
And I always like to bring a note to that.
That's done.
And we got to keep the lights on.
We want to keep this great organization going and everything.
At the same time, we want it to be accessible for people and I really admire that.
Yeah.
We always, you know, James, as we've talked about in past for our different events, certainly
not all those that are off site, but on site, we always try to keep that children's
admission down to like $2 or something.
We want to make it so it's family friendly.
You can bring your whole family if you got six kids.
You're not going to cost you a fortune or anything like that.
And then of course, we encourage during the regular part of the time of the year to
get a family membership because then you can come for the whole year for the price of
the membership.
So, but of course, the Winter Feast is off site and doesn't count on it.
This is one thing that doesn't count, but other than that, you come to two events where
the family, you're way ahead.
Well, and you know, to parents out there, especially, you know, my mom would have loved this back
in the day.
My mom, my sister and I were complained about having meatloaf every Thursday or something
like that.
So, you're going to try some different stuff, you're going to have some different things
to it.
And that, the conversation of that, the meeting of people, Tom, you brought this up earlier
about running into people when they were early on and stuff, seeing people maybe haven't
seen in a while or making new friends or anything.
We have less and less opportunities for that in our society.
We need events like this.
Well, and I think James, especially since COVID, we have a tendency to be more isolated.
And of course, that's part of the problem with the depression and everything else that's
going on in society today.
This is a time to come out and celebrate.
I think one year during COVID, we didn't do the winter feast, but otherwise, in that,
we did every time we took a little break there.
But it's time to come out and meet your neighbors.
The beauty of this event also as James is that at least 50% of those people are almost
every year.
Now, there is new people come in and that's very, very important.
But I can guarantee, if you sit down at a table, you'll be fast friends in a short time.
Mike, if people want to get tickets for this event, where can they get them?
We've got them at family, natural foods, beavers, a dime store, and Nikusa, and also a daily
drug.
And we'll have them there probably up until about two or three hours before the evening.
So, come in or if you can't pick up tickets, call and have them reserved for you and we'll
hold them at the door for you.
We've done that too, also for many people.
We're going to be at the winter market, at the Moravian Church on Saturday from nine
to one.
So, if you want to stop down and check out the winter market, we'll have tickets there
too.
Yeah.
Come on down.
That was kind of a new venue for us and Tom kind of came up to.
And surprising.
I've been pleasantly surprised.
I've went to the winter market a few times, but they got a nice turnout and a lot of
regulars and a lot of new people and some great vendors down there.
Yeah.
So, it's not your chicken.
Yeah.
So, if you want to go out this weekend, pick up your tickets for the Stork Point Bosses
Wakely Winter Feast coming up Saturday, February 15th, 4 o'clock gathering, 4'50 dinner
will kick off over at the Nikusa Community Center at 4'16 Crestview Lane in Nikusa.
Keep in mind as well, everybody, they're always looking for good volunteers and people that
want to be a part of the great nonprofit, the great organization and the things they're
doing over there at the Stork Point Boss.
You can find out more by going to their website, historicpointboss.com, historicpointboss.com.
Be sure to follow them on social media as well and share their posts on your page.
You may never know who might see them that wouldn't otherwise.
Yeah.
Guys, thanks so much for being here today.
Thanks, James.
WFHR.
Appreciate the time.
Again, check them out online at historicpointboss.com.
We will take a quick time out.
We'll come back and have some more Midday Magazine for you here at 97.5 FM, 13.20 AM,
WFHR, locally grown radio.
