Episodes
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Ever wondered how a spontaneous elopement on a secluded island could lead to a heartwarming road trip? Join us as Domenica and I share our journey from Denver to Bozeman, starting with the story of blending our families and meeting my son. Traveling through the scenic landscapes of Wyoming, we marvel at the hay fields, cattle, and oil derricks that define the region. Our stop in the charming town of Sheridan becomes a culinary delight at the Cowboy Cafe, where Domenica, with her rich background as a home economics teacher, brings unique insights on the art of meat cuts to the table.
Feel the weight of history as we visit the iconic Battle of Little Bighorn site, where the markers commemorating Custer's cavalry and Native American soldiers evoke a mix of emotions. Discover the intriguing story of Giovanni Martini, the last man to see Custer alive. Our adventure in Bozeman includes a heartfelt family reunion and a memorable meal at the Chop House, setting the tone for our exploration of the Museum of the Rockies. Venturing into Yellowstone National Park, we aim to catch the majestic Old Faithful geyser and reminisce about past stays at the historic Old Faithful Inn. Our Yellowstone journey is sprinkled with geothermal wonders, architectural marvels, and a hilarious encounter with a fiddle player that you won't want to miss. Join us for a tale brimming with scenic beauty, flavorful food, and touching family moments.Support the show
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Ever wondered how a love story unfolds when two hearts come together in the most unexpected places? Dominica and I invite you to join us as we recount the whimsical tale of our unique island wedding and the quirky tradition we've embraced of celebrating each month of marriage as if it were a year. Our latest escapade? A leap from sunny Orlando to the grandeur of Denver to visit my son, Josh. Picture this: a grand airport reunion, replete with a chauffeur-driven black car, a dozen red roses, and Josh's dazzling entrance. It's a heartwarming and hilarious saga of family introductions, new beginnings, and a sprinkle of unexpected twists.
But we don't stop there! Our journey takes you through the breathtaking wonders of Colorado—from indulging in various root beers to a nostalgic nod to Disney's Carousel of Progress. Feel the thrill with us as we reach the summit of Mount Blue Sky, where we stood in awe at 14,600 feet, and delight in the sight of mountain goats. Relive the excitement of our historic Georgetown Loop Railroad ride and reminisce about a memorable ski trip as we drive over Loveland Pass. Buckle up for more laughter and love as we gear up for our next adventure from Denver to Bozeman, Montana. This episode is packed with cherished memories and thrilling adventures you won't want to miss!Support the show
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Can a simple drive to the airport spark a lifetime of love and unforgettable memories? Join us as we welcome my extraordinary wife, Dominica, to Larry's Sorta Fun Stories, where we share the serendipitous journey that led to our whirlwind romance. From her nostalgic 2023 trip back to her Italian hometown to the thoughtful gestures that transformed our friendship, this episode is packed with heartwarming moments and personal anecdotes. Listen as we recount our romantic wedding on MSC's private island, complete with artificial peonies and the delightful reactions from our families.
In a nostalgic twist, we then travel to Grove City, Pennsylvania, where the beauty of Dogwoods lining my driveway stirs cherished memories. With stories of family warmth and personal reflections, this chapter adds another layer to our narrative tapestry. Tune in to celebrate these heartfelt experiences and stay with us for more delightful tales in future episodes of Larry's Sorta Fun Stories.Support the show
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I was on my way to Denver to see my son. I had decided to fly because he lives to far away to drive by myself.
Delta Flight 995: Atlanta to Denver is a three and half hour flight. I had just found Gate D10 In Atlanta after taking the underground train from Gate A31. I looked at my printed boarding pass and it said First Class 1C. This didn’t seem like the seat number I had booked in Comfort Plus. Maybe saving my Delta points on my credit card had paid off.
It was time to board the plane. I jumped from the crowded seating area as the horde of eager passengers were wanting to get on the plane. The gate agent announced First Class passengers to board. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking there had been a mistake somewhere and I was going to be shuffled back to my Comfort Plus seat that I had originally booked.
Seat 1C. Row one. It was the first row. The first seat on this Airbus A320 aircraft. As I walked onto the plane I was still expecting to be moved further back in the plane. No, I was in the first row of First Class and my seat was on the isle.
Ok, I had received an email requesting what I wanted to eat a week before travel, but I thought Delta was really going all out for its Comfort Plus passengers. A flight attendant approached with an arm full of white linen towels. She motioned for me to pull my tray table up out of the seat pocket on the side of my seat. The 1C seat is in front against the bulkhead and does not have a pull-down-tray. These trays are beside you neatly folded into the armrest that holds your bottle of water that was waiting for me.
I got my tray table set up and the flight attendant covers the tray with one of those pristine white towels. I had chosen a meal of beef tips, mixed vegetables, salad, and dessert. Could this really be happening?
This had to be a dream. I really enjoyed it. I was going to see my son and I was sitting in First Class.
On the first leg of the flight from Orlando there were several movie options for me, and I chose a very funny movie with crusty old Robert De Niro called About My Father. It was about a father and son relationship. And I was going to be with my son. I related to much of the movie, but the plane landed in Atlanta before I could finish the movie.
But, now I am sitting in First Class section of Flight 995 from Atlanta to Denver, and I was able finish watching the movie About My Father. So, I had about two more hours in the flight, and I pursued the selection of movies. Not many titles were of my liking, but I chose a movie I had seen before. It starred Tom Hanks. The movie was
A Man Called Otto.A reviewer said the movie was a heartwarming story about love, loss, and life. The main character Otto, played by Tom Hanks, had loss his wife six months prior and he wanted to end his life to join his wife.
In the movie, I wasn’t identifying with wanting to end my life, I was identifying with the major flashbacks of how he met his wife and what their relationship had been. I was openly crying with big tears running down my cheeks. It was a love story that I wanted to be a part of.
The movie was just half over, and I had to use the restroom. Being in seat 1C, I was just a few steps away, so I paused the movie.
As I got up, I looked at the flight attendant who was sitting on her jump seat. She had noticed that I was watching A Man Called Otto and, she said, “I had the same reaction when I saw that movie a couple of days ago.” She had watched it on one of her deadhead flights.
With six steps I got to the bathroom and could hardly squeeze into the space. If you have ever fantasized of
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Here I was traveling again. I’m not on an exotic cruise or an adventure in Antarctica, no I was on another road trip to my home town of Chillicothe, Illinois. I was averaging thirty five miles per gallon and thirty semi-trucks per mile.
Chillicothe is a small town just outside of Peoria, Illinois on the Illinois River. It has two railroad lines. One is the old Rocket Island Line with a spur-track from Peoria to Chicago. The second is the main line for the Santa Fe which is now the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway.
Before Amtrak took over the railroad passenger business, there used to be great passenger service on Santa Fe Railroad. You could get on a train in the morning and go shopping in Chicago for the day and then come home the same evening on another Santa Fe train.When I was younger in the summer time, entertainment in the evening was for families to get in their car and head to the train station. The excitement was watching the trains come in, it was fun fantasizing what it would be like to get on one of those luxury trains and head west.
The Santa Fe Railroad Depot used to be a wonderful place to see many celebrities like Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and some remember seeing Walt Disney coming from Chicago heading to Hollywood on The Super Chief. There were other famous trains like The El Capitan, The Chief, and The Grand Canyon. Great classic trains of that era all came though Chillicothe every evening of train watching.
Several of my friend’s parents either worked for the Santa Fe or they commuted to East Peoria and worked at Great Yellow Father: Caterpillar Tractor Company.
There was a big event taking place in the small town that I grew up in. The weekend of September 22 and 23rd 2023 was Homecoming for the High School.I graduated, yes, I did graduate from Chillicothe Township High School, but now they constructed a new high school building, and moved it out into the country, renaming it Illinois Valley Central High, known as called IVC.
I would not be attending many of the homecoming festivities, the real reason I am traveling is attend to my Class of 1963 small reunion. There was a meal at one of the new bistros in town on Friday night after the annual homecoming parade and Saturday night we met at the old Grecian Gardens where we had full blown reunion twenty years ago.
The reason for the smaller reunion was not many of us are left and I am not sure how many had said they would try to attend.
We were a class of one hundred students in 1963. I would have to say, everybody knew each other. Bob Cusac was the son of the grade school principal, Larry Mills was an all-star pitcher on the baseball team, JoAnn Viloa was Miss Teen for Illinois as a senior, and Kathy Shepard always had at hard time adjusting her reeds on her oboe. We weren’t all the best of friends, but we knew each other. And our parents knew each other as well, keeping us in line as we grew up.
I hung around the band because the band was one hundred players strong from all the four grades in the school. We prided ourselves on the band’s performance every time we were in a parade or on the football field.
My baritone saxophone was too heavy to march with and it didn’t really help the sound of the marching band so; I took up the bass drum.
Amazing thing, band director Marlin McCutchen discovered new wooden mallets that would make a better thump on the bass drum. I really got into keeping the beat and my thumping went through two different bass drum heads. Yes, I broke the bass drum twice. I loved marching onto the football field every year in high sch
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So, I have lived in the Clermont, Florida area since 1998.
(I know I live in Trilogy or is it Cascades of Groveland, but I still say I live in Clermont. Old habits never die.)But before that I lived in Melbourne, Florida for two years and I worked in Cocoa, Florida from 1982 – 1984. Then my wife Meg, my son Josh and I moved to the Chicago area for fourteen years awaiting my final call to come back to Florida in 1998.
I know too many dates. On with the story!
Has a number ever saved you money?
Well, this story saved me some money when I needed it.When I first moved to Florida in 1982, I was freshly married to my bride Meg. She stayed in Lincoln, Nebraska to finish her college work. I drove the used Honda Civic which we called the Blue Bomber from Lincoln, Nebraska to Cocoa Beach, Florida. I was to take a new job at the National Christian Network which was called NCN based in Cocoa, Florida and set up the house.
Now I have to tell you about the National Christian Network. It was a great place to work. Television production was at its finest with all the very latest expensive production equipment. It was located in an old bowling alley on King Street in Cocoa, Florida.
I have to borrow this from Wikipedia, “The NCN was founded by Ray A. Kassis in 1975, and he was a great character. (I had never seen a guy on the phone being hounded by bill collectors and smiling as he was being harassed. It seemed that Mr. Kassis owed a lot of money for this satellite transponder to RCA and they were always threating to pull him off of the transponder and his answer was, pull me off and I have no way of making the payments) He just smiled when he was saying it.
The network was the fourth satellite-fed Christian network to be launched, and was a competitor to the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the PTL Satellite Network, and the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Now here is the unique thing about NCN. NCN shared the same satellite transponder with the Playboy channel.”
It was Christian programing from 6 am – 6 pm and then the Playboy Channel took control of the satellite for the next 12 hours.
As the story was told to me by Ray Kassis, he had fought for another satellite transponder and lost his bid several years earlier to a guy in Georgia named Ted Turner. Allegedly President Jimmy Carter favored Turner, a Georgia native as well, and the transponder was awarded to Turner, and he created CNN.
So Kassis had to settle on this RCA Satcom 1 satellite and be the fourth Christian Network and find other avenues of revenue to support NCN besides sharing a transponder with Playboy.
One of the ways of producing additional revenue was the production side of the operation and that is where I came in.
I was introduced to two very famous individuals while managing and directing the production work.
One was Al Gannaway. He was a film director, producer, and screenwriter. In the 1950s he had filmed a television series call Stars of the Grand Ole Opry. The unique thing was he had filmed it in color way before color television was fully developed. So, Mr. Gannaway had the film transferred to video tape to preserve the quality of the programs. At NCN we edited new shows just by rearranging the artist in a different order. You my have seen one of those news shows. (Someime I do with one of my shows called From Stateside.)
The sec
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Rose Secretan completes her story about being an entertainer in Buffalo, NY.
Doc was the owner of the venue and a close friend.
Check out Zee Michaelson Travel to make your travel dreams come true.
And for 24/7 music and entertainment, it's Collage Travel Radio.Support the show
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Thanks for sharing with me, this year and I will have more fun stories next year.
Check out Larry's Sorta Fun Stories for more episodes.
And Great music on Collage Travel Radio. You can now hear Collage Travel Radio on Alexa and Goggle Play.Support the show
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Robert Stuber came into the studio and shared a Christmas Story about harvesting a Christmas tree with a tradition that stared in 1982. You might be a redneck if ... enjoy.
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Larry reminisces about getting his hair cut my his barber in his small town that he grew up in. Chillicothe, Illinois.
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Rose has another story to tell about her days singing in clubs around the Niagara Falls area in the early eighties.
She is writing a book and with each chapter she includes a recipe. This story has a recipe from DeCamillo's Bakery.
Rustic Pizza
DiCamillo’s Bakery
2 lb. Italian bread dough
2 12 oz. jars roasted sweet peppers
3 8oz. Packages frozen Spinach
1 can pitted black olives drained
1 jar green salad olives drained ¼ lb. thin sliced capicola ham
¼ lb. Parmesan, grated
¼ lb. Romano, grated
¼ lb. shredded fontinella cheese
1 small chopped green onion
1 clove garlic-chop
2 T. olive oil (I use more)
1 egg, beaten-mix with 1 T. water
Sesame seeds
Defrost spinach, drain well, mix with some olive oil. Puree in processor with garlic and onion, some salt, pepper. Drain peppers, place in small bowl with 1 T. olive oil. Roll out one pound of dough very thinly on lightly floured surface. Place dough in bottom of greased 8 in. spring form pan so that bottom and sides are covered with an overhanging lip of dough. Cover bottom of pan with a layer of capicola. Layer roasted peppers on top of ham. Sprinkle with Romano and parmesan. Spread part of spinach mixture on top of cheese. Make certain you are using about ½ of mix. Save rest for other layer. Put in a layer of fontanelle. Then green and black olives. Repeat layers. Roll other dough until thin. Top the pizza with this. Cut excess dough. Make a braid (I made a bow--cause I did not have enough dough) Use egg wash to top pizza. Sprinkle sesame seeds over top. Slit top for steam. 400 degrees. Until browned. Remove from spring form pan. You can stick back into oven with rest of egg wash if you like to brown sides. (If you do this, cover top with foil)Support the show
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I have a friend on Facebook that I have known for forty-three years. Another of the young talent that I recruited and gave a job in radio back in Lincoln, Nebraska when he was fresh out of college. He has been drafting great essays on Facebook about his ordeal with his wife who is stuck in Ukraine. She is Ukrainian. It seems Jim and his wife have been trying to legally get her out of the country. Only the United States is demanding a lot of paper work, but her paper work has been lost or destroyed because of the Russians are bombing the country
You will also hear the chilling story of how he went from Disk Jockey to radio station management, foreign correspondent, to living in Russia and landed up living in Ukraine.Support the show
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I’m 14 years old and it’s Saturday just about noon time and my dad’s car needed washing.
Of course, the reason I wanted to wash the car was because I could turn the car radio on and listen as I was washing the car. It wasn’t the music I wanted to hear. It was Paul Harvey, News and Commentary at noon time. My mind was focusing on being behind the microphone and communicating the day’s events that happened in my life just like Paul Harvey.
Senior year in high school, Speech Class was my favorite class. The assignment was to create a radio commercial and then perform it on a microphone in a closet that the speech teacher had created to emulate a radio broadcast booth. My Paul Harvey influence was in full gear. I created a commercial for my father’s dry-cleaning business. Of course, the copy started with “Page two.” It was to be a 60 second commercial. I nailed it. Perfect timing. Paul Harvey would have been proud. Thank you, Paul Harvey.
After high school and a couple tries at college, I still wanted to be in the broadcast business, I had become a TV director when I discovered that my reading skills were not what the program directors wanted. But after spending two years at the local tv station in Lincoln, Nebraska the radio bug was still in me. There was a chance I could create a radio station with a format that would stimulate the young and growing Christian music enthusiasts of the 1970s. KBHL-FM 95.3 Lincoln, Nebraska went on the air io March 6th, 1975, fulfilling that vision.
For my lunch break, I would go to the parking lot of Toco Bell in Lincoln, Nebraska. I spend a lot of my noon times there. I had learned to love Taco Bell’s tocos and the important thing was I was away from the office. I could be alone in my car and listen to the Paul Harvey’s, News and Commentary on another local radio station.
After finishing my meal of tacos and hearing Paul Harvey’s sign off INSERT “Paul Harvey – good day!” It was time to get back to the office on north 48th street in the old library building that was the broadcast studio for KBHL. I had an appointment to meet with a young enthusiastic guy from the University of Nebraska. He wanted to get into radio. His enthusiasm was so infectious that I hired him. The interview turned out to be very good for both of us.
My influencer was Paul Harvey who had inspired millions of radio listeners. He motivated me to look for and give opportunities to dedicated people.
The interview was with Tracy Johnson who loved radio like I did. He went on to understand the radio audiences in Kansas City, Jacksonville, and San Diego and was named Best Programmer in American by Radio Ink magazine.
Today, Tracy Johnson has inspired hundreds of stations and thousands of personalities in all radio formats worldwide. If it hadn’t been for this teenager being enamored by Paul Harvey, I would have never met a true leader of today’s broadcast industry. Tracy did a great job for KBHL and I’m glad that I was able to give him a step into his broadcast career.
Each month I anticipate a webinar from Tracy Johnson, who continues to inspire radio personalities around the world. I have been in and around this business of broadcasting for over 60 years and I am still learning. Thanks Tracy.
And as Paul Harvey would end his signature afternoon broadcast,
INSERT
‘And now you know, the rest of the story.
Collage Travel Radio streaming on the internet 24/7. Music you can sing to ...Support the show
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Chillicothe, Illinois. 2:16 AM – Tuesday Morning 1962
I was sleeping in my bed in the back bedroom and heard the sound of wooden front door open. It was so quiet at that time at night. You knew when the door opened and when it closed. It had that certain memorable sound. It was my father dragging in . . . sneaking in from his Monday night rehearsal with the Orpheus Club in Peoria. The Orpheus Club was a group of all male singers, and the most notable member was United States Congressman Bob Michel of Peoria. Illinois.
Of course, if you believe a rehearsal lasted so late in the morning you got to be kidding! My mother didn’t believe it either. She had put up with it too long as it was, and she had had enough. It was time to confront my father. They had been sleeping in separate beds and she was ready to meet him head on.
“Where have you been? I know practice certainly didn’t last this long!” my mother cried out in anger, “What’s her name?” Big silence!
I don’t remember all the words that were spoken or shouted, but I do remember finally my father was very combative. They argued throughout the house and finally ended up in front of my bedroom door. From my bed I heard my father shout out, “I will kill you!” That ended it.
My mother backed off and somehow, they stayed married for over fifty years. Years later, I got married and moved away and to his day I remember hearing those awful words laying in my bed.
Bed Number Two
Wheaton, Illinois. 3:16 AM - 1988
My wife, Meg, and I were sleeping on the waterbed that she had hauled from Laramie, Wyoming to Lincoln, Nebraska. After we got married, we carted it to Melbourne, Florida and then up to Wheaton, Illinois. The bed was cozy with the temperature set right. Our marriage was cozy. Both of us were divorced when we met. But that didn’t stop us from getting married and looking forward to a peaceful life together.
One of the reasons why I liked Meg was, she was unattached to her family. She had disowned her sister and three other siblings, her mother and father had divorced when she was very young, and they were not a part of her life. Thus, no family conflicts to disturb our marriage, or so I thought.
After Meg’s mother divorced her father, Ruth and young Meg had moved to California. Meg’s mother had a mental breakdown and was institutionalized and treated with electric shock treatments. Meg was sent to an orphanage. As she recalled, she was a captive of the State of California imprisoned with bars on the windows. Meg’s escape came here her aunt and uncle in Michigan took her in thus … her cousins became her siblings and family.
Back to Wheaton, Illinois at 3:16 AM and the phone on the bedside table is ringing. I raised up from the comfort of the waterbed.
Groggy, I answered it. “This is Larry.”
I certainly didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the phone. I was the manager of the TV Production Department at WCFC-TV 38 in Chicago, and I had no idea why someone would have a problem at this hour of the day.
The voice on the phone said: “Hello, I am so and so, with the CBSA the Canadian Border Services Agency and do you know a Ruth McCourtney?”
By this time, Meg was slowly rising to ask who it was.
I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said someone from Canada was calling about Ruth her mother
.He went on to say that Ruth had boarded an airplane in California an
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It all started last Christmas when my sister came to visit for the holiday.
My sister is an avid reader. Every time she comes to visit, she will bring several books with her to read. Last Christmas she brought a couple of John Grisham’s books. And I got hooked when she introduced me to Ford County. It was his first book of short stories.
In the 1990s, I had read most of his earlier books, but I had not read much of his work since that time but reading Ford County spurred me on to read more.
The book contained short stories reveling around a mythical county in the Mississippi Ford County. This county was where his first book story A Time To Kill took place. The short story that caught my attention was Fetching Raymond. A story about a poor aging mother and her two sons who had to borrow a pickup truck to drive to Parchman prison for a final meeting with her third son. Raymond was on death row. Grisham’s description of the journey to the prison was so full of color and feeling, I thought I was riding with them. And the narrative of the Raymond’s final hour to live before his execution in the electric chair was riveting.
Grisham was a small-town lawyer, and it took him three years to write his first book A Time To Kill in 1991. It was also rejected by twenty-eight publishers. This book did not immediately gain success. His second book, The Firm exploded to popular acclaim, and he discovered that if he could write a book a year, he would become a popular author. Today, it is reported that his books have sold over sixty million copies making him one of the most successful authors of my time. At this time ten of his works have been adapted for the silver screen.
He attributes his success to two things. One his pacing can be slow or breakneck and second his theme revolve around the little guy takes on the big corporate conspiracy.
What comes to my attention as I read his books, he addresses social issues: wrongful execution regarding the death penalty, racism, the homeless, health care, insurance companies, sleazy advertising, pharmaceutical companies, and big coal.
In the 2016 The Whistler and a follow-up book written in 2021 The Judge’s List, he deals with corrupted judges. Utilizing the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct as his starting point with a female leading character.
But what got me was his insight to the homeless on the streets of Washington DC in his 1998 book The Street Lawyer. He writes of main charter holding a small child in his arms at a makeshift shelter on a cold night and the next day learns that the child along with his mother and other children were found frozen to death because they were homeless and had to sleep in a car and the car’s exhaust asphyxiated them.
In Gray Mountain written in 2014 he addresses the plight of coal miners in the mountains in Virginia. Miners who are stricken with Black Lung Disease and have little or no recourse fighting the massive coal companies for better health care.
The Racketeer written in 2012 starts with a prisoner who is a lawyer that has been railroaded into prison but has evidence of a murder if he would be released.
While reading his books I am remember reading books I read in high school. Books by Sinclair Lewis who was called a muckraker. He had a social conscience about the plight of the less fortunate and struggle of immigrants at the turn of the century in the early 1900s.
In The Jungle 1906 Lewis wrote about the horrific living and working conditions of immigrants in the hog butchering plant in Chicago.
In Babbitt Lewis traced a satirical novel in 1922 about the emptiness of middle-class life and the soci
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Larry received a letter well over 16 years ago and he read it to music. He didn't even remember recording it. A friend of a friend sent to him the other day and thought you would enjoy hearing it as well. It's about the small town in Illinois that Larry grew up in.
Chillicothe, Illinois.
Just a little note, this podcast is sponsored by Collage Travel Radio dot com. Travel insights and tips are share beside hit music of the 60s, 70s right up today. Collage Travel Radio 24/7 streaming on the internet at Collage Travel Radio dot com and Zee Michaelson Travel.Support the show
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Since this is Larry’s Sorta Fun Stories I like to share with you some of what happened in my life and today I am going to introduce to you an old friend from my younger days. Gene Grover wrote a book called Growing UP in a Small Town in Illinois. I did an interview with Gene several years ago for Zmax Radio … let’s join this interview. Chillicothe, Illinois.
Now I want to interject here, that Gene’s mother was actually my fourth-grade teacher. It seemed that there were three new fourth grade teachers that year. My mother started teaching again that year. My mother had taught in a one room school house before she got married but had to quit teaching back them because she was married. Another friend Bob his mother was also started teaching fourth grade as well. So, the school system had to make sure that our mothers were not teaching us, so I got Gene’s mother. So not only did I know Gene and his brother, but I knew his mother who was the real pioneer.
Just a little note, this podcast is sponsored by Collage Travel Radio dot com. Travel insights and tips are share beside hit music of the 60s, 70s right up today. Collage Travel Radio 24/7 streaming on the internet at Collage Travel Radio dot com.Support the show
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A friend of mine actually heard one of the earlier episodes of Larry’s Sorta Fun Stories and she contacted me. It’s Dorothea (Johnson) Jensen
Dorothea Jensen is proud to be one of a very few people who has boarded a pirate ship and attacked a dragon-powered Viking vessel manned by real, horn-wearing Vikings. She is also the author terrific books about the American Revolution.
Dorothea was born in Boston, but she grew up in Chillicothe, Illinois.
And this is where our stories meet. Doretha or DeeDee and I go back to our high school days in Central Illinois. She and I were in the same high school speech class.
Dorothea had heard one of earlier episodes and she emailed me and said:
“ …. You have such a great reading voice! And to think it all started in The Old Fox’s Closet.”Well we talked about the FOX and the Closet.
The Riddle of Penncroft FarmTizzy, the Christmas Shelf ElfBlizzy, the Worrywart ElfA Buss from Lafayette
Dorothea also shared about her time in the Peace Corp and how she got stated writing about the American Revaluation and her interest in Lafayette.
Check out her Most Popular BooksA Buss From Lafayette Teacher's Guide.
Contact her at Dorotheajensen.com
A reminder… check out Collage Travel Radio … it’s music and positive information about traveling today. It’s a there 24/7 Collage Travel Radio dot com.Support the show
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I had just started working at WMBD-TV in Peoria as a part-time Floor Director in early 1965. I was scheduled Sunday night, but I couldn’t stay away from the station weekdays as well. Television production had got into my blood. I was hanging out at the station and skipping Dr. Smyth’s English 102 class in the afternoons at Bradley University. Thus, I still don’t know ‘to’ from t o o. After graduating from high school, I labored for a year at Caterpillar Tractor Company before enrolling at Bradley University in Peoria, because factory life was not for me. I was learning television production.
One Friday as I skipped class again, I discovered a lot of activity in the TV studio, and I was asked to help out. It seems the sales department of the TV station had sold a contest package to a local supermarket Ben Schwartz Food Mart. Founded by Asher Schwartz in the downtown area of Peoria in 1933, and it had grown with several locations in the Peoria market. The stores had been turned over to his son Ben and that is where the name came from.
The marketing package the sales department had sold Ben was a package to get more people to come into their locations and they could register to win a brand-new motorcycle. The winner was going to be announced ‘live’ on the TV station at 10:30 this Friday evening.
The promotion had been a great success. Thousands of names were registered, and all of the entry blanks were delivered to the studio on Friday morning and dumped into a child’s blowup swimming pool that was staged in front of the motorcycle that was to be given away.
As I said, I was asked to help out. It seems the sales department had just received a frantic phone call from Ben Schwartz just a little after the noon news had gone off the air.
Ben Schwartz had discovered that his devious teenage son, Kerry Schwartz had taken several of the entry pads to write his name and stuffed them into the entry boxes at various store. However, employees and family members of Ben Schwartz Food Mart were not eligible to win in this contest.
We at the station were looking at a sea of names in the swimming pool that practically filled to the brim. So, I along with several other staff members were engaged to go through the sea of names trying to get to the bottom to see if we could find any of the entry blanks that Kerry had inappropriately placed into entry boxes at different stores.
Now how do you eat an elephant? You eat it one bite at a time and that was what we were doing. There were seven of us around the edge of the plastic kiddie pool on our knees looking at as many entries we could see to verify that Kerry’s name was not one of them.
As I said, this panic started a little after the noon news had gone off the air. Ben Schwartz was aware of what it would have looked like if his son’s name was going to be drawn on a ‘live’ TV drawing. The sales department was hovering about because their client was not happy. We actually got to see the station manager come up to the studio.
The station manager with his Florsheim Wing Tip shoes squeaked when he was walked down the highly polished hall on the first floor by the sales offi
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