412: Coffee with Mom—Pimping Out Your Brothers for Halloween with Peggy Rowe

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A cup of coffee with my, with my mom.

I just love the fact that we're still learning new things all these years later.

You're never too late to learn.

You could be too late to learn, for sure.

I don't think you're ever too old to learn.

Let's say you're late.

Like I was late.

I'm 15 minutes late for this today, and I'm learning that that's a

character flaw.

Nobody to blame but me.

I overestimated my strength, and I underestimated the impact of 65 pounds walking around in high humidity, and you two have suffered the consequences.

I thought you were going to say in high heels.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God.

now that is something to worry about i'm trying to develop my calf muscles you're right

do you actually own high heels anymore i used to but i don't now

no my idea of a fancy shoe now is just a little black suede comfortable shoe sensible shoes with like a heel maybe three quarters of an inch or an inch.

Do they even call that a heel or is it like a wedge?

Well, it's a heel like it's not a soul, but it's the heel.

It's the back part of your shoe.

I just wonder, like, when does the heel begin and the soul stop if it's just one continuous sloping thing?

You know, the heel is the part beneath your heel, I would think.

Yeah, but if it's attached to the soul, I just wonder if it's just a, you know, an elevated soul as opposed to a standalone.

I'm only interested in this because, you know, i travel a lot and mary my business partner is with me a lot and we're the same age really and she wears these heels that i just don't see most women wearing they're very tall they're like four inches and i know

i don't understand they're real skinny and her toes are out

I don't know how she does it.

And she can walk for blocks.

Yeah, it's really amazing.

I mean, I think she's just on her toes.

I guess that's what women do.

You just learn to do this thing.

Some do anyway, but you never really seem to care too much about it.

Well, because I married a man who was my exact height, and so I didn't want to be looking down on him.

Lorded over him.

So

we were the same height for many years, but I think he might be losing a little bit in height.

You think he's shrinking?

A little bit.

Yes.

So

according to Chat GPT, the sole of your foot typically refers to the entire bottom part of your foot, especially the area that makes contact with the ground.

It includes the arch and the ball of the foot.

The heel of your foot, on the other hand, specifically refers to the back part of the foot where it connects to the ankle.

Do you think that translates to shoes, though?

The heel of a shoe would be the back.

I don't know.

I just, because I see these shoes, women's shoes, all of the time, and the sole immediately under the toe might be a quarter of an inch, but then the sole that continues under the heel might be two and a half inches.

And I think they call those wedges, but I don't know.

I don't think there's a part of your foot that's a wedge, but I do think there's a type of shoe that's a wedge, and I think it might be in reference to the shape of the sole and the incorporation of the heel or the heel stack into the sole itself, if that makes sense.

I sure

hope we're recording, Chuck, because this is so interesting.

Well, actually, yes, we are recording.

And I believe that the wedge is called the wedge because it has the shape of a wedge.

It's not necessarily where the heel is up and then the arch goes down and the toes are there, you know, but it's rather just an incline, like a little sliding board.

I learned a new term, mom.

I know you're hanging on every word of this, but it's called a heel stack.

And the heel stack

is, I believe, a reference to the different types of layered material that can be incorporated into a heel.

Like on my Wolverine boots, for instance, there's a heel stack.

And the bottom part of the heel stack is a kind of a, like a vibrum sole that's designed to grip the ground.

But then up from that is a chunk of wood.

And then on the other side of that is something that I think is a bit more cushioned.

Now, interestingly, the chunk of wood was pulled from a cask that held a type of bourbon called Pappy Van Winkle, which they sell for $3,000 a bottle.

So these Pappy Van Winkle guys partnered with the Wolverine guys, and we did this fundraiser for Microworks around a pair of boots that was...

differentiated by the fact that a little bit of wood in the heel stack came from this very rare bourbon thereby now allowing us to sell the boots for a lot of of money.

I think we raised $160,000, Chuck, on that one fundraiser, if I'm not mistaken.

That was a good one.

If you get in a pinch, you know, and you're really thirsty, you can always drink your heel.

I was thinking you're walking through the woods and you're dehydrated, just take off your boot and lick your heel.

And suck on the wooden part of the heel to get all those good electrolytes from the bourbon that might still be in there.

Yeah.

Now, interestingly, this fundraiser happened on Halloween four years ago.

See how I brought it back to to the subject at hand?

Yep.

Nice segue, Mike.

Thanks, Mom.

And this podcast, if I understand correctly from Chuck, is dropping on All Saints Eve, or is it actually on Halloween?

Halloween.

On Halloween, Thursday, October 31st.

Well, happy Halloween, Mom.

You know,

since my children have grown, Halloween really doesn't have too much impact impact on my life.

When I was teaching, of course, we observed Halloween.

And when you children were at home, we celebrated Halloween.

But since then,

until we moved into the home, and I'm telling you, these people really celebrate Halloween.

Last week, there was a Halloween karaoke party, and everybody dressed up.

And oh my golly, they were doing the Congo line all around the place

and just having the best time.

what were they dressed as?

Were they all in costume?

Oh, yeah, they were in costume.

And then on Friday evening,

we have jukebox Friday nights sometimes, and that's down in Erickson Hall, a very large venue.

And I think hundreds of people come.

They were dressed up.

There was a contest.

And there was dancing and there was music and people just love it.

And to walk down the hall,

well, pumpkins and spiders and witches and

chocolate on people's shelves just everywhere.

Yeah, people here really celebrate.

No, well, I haven't met everybody here.

No, people dressed up as witches.

Are you pronouncing that correctly?

It's a very celebratory

home, you know.

I mean, they celebrate every possible occasion.

And, Chuck, have you walked through Oak Crest before?

No, I have not.

I mean, there are thousands, right?

I mean, there are thousands of people live there and many hundreds apartments,

condos, whatever you call them.

But outside of every one is a kind of makeshift shrine.

Like there's a little bit of space in the common area that people decorate.

And they put family photos and they put carvings and little pieces of art.

And it's actually,

I get lost over there, partly because it's an intensely confusing place,

but also because you just forget where you're going because you're constantly looking at how people have decorated their little slice of hallway.

Don't they also put out, I think this came up in previous episodes where they'll put out things that they would like to give away or donate or, you know,

they do.

And tragically, mom, I think sometimes there's some confusion vis-à-vis that which is free

and that which people feel compelled to help themselves of.

I know.

People,

if they have extra candy or extra, I don't know, tasty cakes or any treats, they'll just put them out on their shelves.

But sometimes a friend might say, oh, well, Betty Jane loves these Reese's peanut butter cups.

I'm going to stick a few on her shelf so she can have them.

Well, somebody walking down the hall might think that they are for anybody.

take

her Reese's.

That was the single greatest score on Halloween for me when I got the Reese's peanut butter cups.

Oh, my goodness.

That was my favorite thing.

You know what?

I think they are still my favorite candy.

I love those.

And Kit Kats.

And really anything with chocolate.

Nuts.

I don't remember getting a Kit Kat when I was a kid.

Reese's were around.

I don't think Kit Kats were.

Maybe they were.

And you said earlier that

you said we celebrated.

Halloween.

I don't remember it as a celebration so much as a

in your house.

You know, it's funny.

When our children became of an age where they were interested in trick-or-treating, your father thought that was the worst.

Oh, my goodness, that was the worst tradition.

How dare we send our children out to beg for food at other people's doors?

And he didn't.

did not want you to go.

Well,

you had a friend who lived in a neighborhood nearby, only had four houses in our neighborhood.

They were all elderly, and the children would come back home with an apple,

pencil, an eraser, you know.

So

I would put them in our car, our station wagon, and drive them up to Mike's friend John's house.

And he and his mother and our children and I would go, we would follow them as they went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood because they live in a community of

what are those houses?

Townhouses.

It was

two row homes.

Yeah, two houses.

Duplexes.

Duplexes, yeah.

So really, it was easy, you know, and they were close together.

So you could fill a shopping bag in no time.

And we did.

Well, I lived in Holland Hills with my grandmother, you know, and those were all row homes together.

You could fill a pillowcase in just doing both sides of one street.

And I remember as a kid, I would wear a costume, just collect it full, and then I would go and change and put something else on and go back again for seconds and hit all the same.

Greedy little kid, you.

That was me.

Yeah.

I learned, but by the way, this is John Willard we're talking about, Chuck.

I just mentioned

because you know him, and it's off Kenwood Avenue down there around Linwood.

It was called Linover.

The neighborhood was called Linover.

Well, I remember with John trigger-treating, I don't know how old, but I was probably too old at this point.

About 28, I guess I was.

No, I was probably

13, you know, which is kind of getting on the cusp of it, I think.

You know, it's like, you know,

you know the score regarding Santa Claus.

You know the score.

I mean, this is for kids, and I just wanted the candy.

Well, you had two little brothers, and you pretended you were doing a charitable deed, taking your brothers around.

Right.

You were like pimping them on Halloween.

Jesus.

Pimping out my little brothers on Halloween for Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Scott and Phil were with me.

John was with me.

This neighborhood was so busy, Chuck, that there was a sidewalk, obviously, and then there were these other little sidewalks off the main sidewalk that led right to the the steps and right up to people's homes.

And so there were so many kids out, there were lines queuing up.

And so there was some kind of protocol, like you have to wait on the sidewalk before you walk up the little driveway.

And the poor people in the houses, they're just standing there at the door.

Like you're not even ringing the door.

You don't need to, right?

Because they're there.

Their doors open and they're just there with their, you know, and some people are really into it and really sweet.

But one of my earliest memories is of a guy standing there with like a mixing bowl full of like little individually wrapped mini Snickers, I think.

It was a pretty good score, and everybody knew he had them.

And the people in front of us were like 16 and I don't know, 15 or 16 years old and didn't appear to be, they made no effort.

You know, there was no costume.

And they were just like holding out the bag.

And I remember clear as day, this guy standing there on Alberta Avenue in a wife beater, hadn't shaved in a couple of days.

He's got this mixing bowl under one arm.

He's just hairy like a monkey.

And I just hear him saying, looking at these kids in front of me and going, ah, bullshit.

Bullshit.

Nothing for you.

It's like the soup Nazi.

It was a different time.

Well, at least you had your hand on your brother's shoulders.

Like you were off the bottom.

I actually did.

I was like, come on, guys, it's going to be fine.

You're dressed.

Phil was dressed like a hobo.

I don't know what Scott was dressed like.

He was Dracula every year.

He was Dracula.

He had a high black hat and a black cape.

And he

slung it across the front of him.

But we got to this old hairy guy in the wife's beater, and he like looks at it and goes, yeah, okay, okay.

He throws the candy in the bag, beat it next.

That was great.

Very transactional Halloween over there.

Well, and Jackie and I would follow you all just to make sure sure you didn't come to any bad end.

We tried to stay like a half a block away so nobody would know we were with you, the big guys.

I don't remember anyone ever coming to our house for Halloween.

I'm sure they must have.

No, but I don't remember.

We never did.

I don't remember it.

Never, never had anybody.

Well, Michael, we were at the

end of Trumpsville Road, and they had to go over a bridge, over a rushing stemmer's run stream, up a stone driveway with no street lights.

What kid in their right mind is going to go up there and trick-or-treat?

It would have been great because we would have scared the bejesus out of them.

We would have hid in the bushes out by the porch.

It would have been great.

But yeah, you're right.

We never had any trick-or-treaters.

I never had to buy candy.

On the other hand,

People told me, people who lived in neighborhoods like Lenover, and oh, I have a friend now who lives

up in Lovedon, northern Baltimore County she said she spent $150

last year on Halloween candy that's crazy

$150

well yeah that's going to get you like a bag and a half these days well the funny thing is when we came home with the loot guess who was first in line for his share John the guy who thought

your dad who thought that was a terrible thing to do oh he was right there picking out his favorite the favorites of course were the chocolate bars.

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It was one of the first arguments.

I remember winning with dad.

He said to me, he says, I just don't know how you can do it.

You just go out out there, you knock on a stranger's door, and you literally beg them for food.

You know, like, don't you have any self-don't you have any pride?

Don't you have any, have you no shame?

I mean, he was really like, my younger brothers didn't care, but I like, I felt like he was coming at me.

And I remember saying, well, dad, technically, you know, we're not begging people for food.

We're telling them, you will give us candy.

or we will vandalize your home.

He's threatening them.

That's what I said.

It's like, this is a negotiation.

It's not, oh, please give us food.

I'm like, dad, we're not desperate.

This is real simple.

You're going to give us some candy or we're going to damage your property.

Right.

And so it's, it's, it's just, it's really simple.

And he, and he actually kind of wavered.

He was like, ah, you know, you make a point.

But still, I'm not, I don't feel good about encouraging that either.

I'm like, well, you know.

Whatever.

And by the way, pass that candy bar over here.

Yeah, you're going to eat all that?

Oh, dear.

Chuck, did you have any hopes and dreams for this episode regarding Halloween?

I know you said

some like scary stories or something, but I don't know if we have any.

I mean, you know, you invoke John Willard.

I know there's a story that's very scary from

Antietam.

It wasn't scary.

It was weird.

Have we talked about it before?

On this?

It's tough to say.

We've done 400 and

you don't know this, Peggy?

It might come back to me if I hear it.

Was it a Boy Scout story?

Yes.

We were there for the weekend.

We were camping out.

It was very cold.

One evening, I guess it was a Saturday night.

Big campfire.

Everybody's around it, singing songs, telling stories.

Sorry,

just to interrupt for a second, it's on the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, which is notoriously one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

Truly the bloodiest day.

And we had a park ranger there telling us the whole story of it.

And there's tales of hauntings.

You know, there's battlefields in general all seem to have these stories around them.

But the stories around Antietam were

pretty well known.

Anyway, not much happened.

We all just kind of turned in and

went to bed.

And then a few hours later, John Willard was in my tent and we both lay there.

And John said, did you hear that

and I didn't know he was awake I was and I did hear it it was like cannon fire and

screaming

and I was surprised to hear John say did you hear that mom because you know John's deaf in one ear he doesn't hear much right and I was like yeah yeah wow I definitely hear that and it went on for the longest time to the point where

It sounded like somebody was playing the soundtrack of a battle in the distance.

You could hear, not quite distinct, but you could hear voices, you could hear screaming, you could hear what sounded like lots of people and cannon fire and what sounded like rifle fire and musket fire.

And it went on.

And the next morning, everybody talked about it.

Everybody heard it.

And I don't know what to make of it, Chuck.

And I don't know how far I leaned into it the first time I told you about it.

John and I were sufficiently freaked out.

We were quite sure that what we were hearing was

real and not some kind of recording.

But of course it could have been, I suppose.

I mean, it was 19,

when was that, mom, 77, I guess?

Michael, what did your leaders say or the people, the hosts who were the guides?

Did you talk to them about it?

No, they weren't there the next morning.

They just came by to talk to us around the campfire the night before.

Scout master heard it.

Assistant Scout Master heard it.

Most everybody who was there heard it.

Some people were badly freaked out.

I was intensely curious because I could absolutely hear it.

But you could stand outside the tent and as far as you could see, just nothing, just rolling fog and hills and chilly out.

But it was in the air.

It was both, it felt close and far away at the same time.

Very strange.

So I remember you telling me this story.

And of course, I knew John Willard as well.

So I went to John Willard and I and I said, you know, can you confirm this?

And he was like, yeah.

And he was a little freaked out by it.

He didn't really want to talk about it.

But he said, yeah, yeah, that did happen.

And I actually went back to that campsite, not with you, but with somebody else on the anniversary just to see if I could, if it would be replicated.

And it was not.

But it wasn't until years later that I was listening to, you know, talk radio.

Somebody was talking, they had on a specialist in this field.

And I just looked it up and they call it battlefield phenomena or ghostly echoes.

And you are not alone in hearing these things that lots of people report this echoes of gunfire.

spectral voices.

Many claim to hear faint voices or cries that seem to belong to soldiers, often described as calling for help or commands being shouted, creating an eerie atmosphere, historical reenactments.

Some sounds may be amplified during reenactments, but they are reports of hearing them even in the absence of events.

So it sounds like, you know, like an actual reenactment or an actual battle, but you're not alone.

Yeah.

I think the thing that my first thought was somebody somewhere is really, really having a go.

You know, they've got some like little tape recorder and they're holding up up maybe a megaphone or something and so they're just playing it in and out you know that's the most logical explanation but it didn't feel like it and it didn't sound like it in the moment mom you have anything to add sorry i don't mean to bogart your whole guest appearance here with these stories oh yes i am here

you are all of my skepticism in virtually every area has been inherited from you yes i'm sorry but i am a little skeptical i think somebody was playing the soundtrack.

And you all had just probably heard stories that day from your guide about, you know, the horrible atrocities, the, yeah, the death.

The terror of the battle.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think maybe that was on your mind.

You know, I mean, you were there for the experience, and this is part of the experience.

And if they were fooling you with a recording, that's fine.

But I don't think sounds from, you know, a couple hundred years ago are really coming back to haunt you at night.

I'm sorry.

But

yeah.

Well, I mean, technically, it only would have been about 110 years ago if it was 1970s.

So just saying, closer than you think.

Whatever.

I mean, people tell me stories, you know, and you don't like to tell them that

you believe that they believe it.

You don't want to call them a liar because it's not that.

We have a couple of relatives who were present for the death of the woman's mother.

No, her sister.

Okay, so a woman and her daughter were there at the bedside when her sister died, when the mother's mother's sister died.

And she said, Peggy, and she said her daughter's name, we'll call her Betty again.

Betty and I both saw Susan's soul rise up out of her body and just disappear up in the air.

If it was just me, I'd have thought it was my imagination, but Betty saw it too.

We both saw it.

And it was like a physical thing.

Her soul just moved up from her body well when they told me I said

really

well

okay

I'm glad you were there to experience that or something like that but

I think maybe they saw they thought they saw that but maybe they saw it I don't know I'm not going to tell them they were

They were lying, of course.

I would have to see it myself, I think,

in order to actually believe it.

Well, I like to think that along with your skepticism, I inherited, to a point anyway,

your manners.

And when somebody tells you a story that requires a suspension of disbelief or a measure of faith, then it's always interesting when skepticism and manners collide.

And really,

there's not much to do except nod and say, well, that's a great story.

Or I'm glad exactly as you've done.

But the thing is, man, there is a huge hunger.

And I never appreciated how hungry people were

for ghost stories.

I know how much I like it, and I know growing up with my friends, we always shared them.

And obviously, I'm aware that Halloween is a time when that happens.

And yes, I'm aware that many scary movies have been made for as long as movies have been made.

No, Spheratu, and some of the early,

some of the great works early on are rooted in the supernatural and stuff.

Dracula, Frankenstein's wonderful stories and such.

But it really wasn't until 20 years ago that we saw the paranormal craze explode on television.

And that has been something to see.

And that I've been involved in.

I narrated Ghost Hunters for 15 years.

I narrated Ghost Hunters International.

I narrated something called Ghost Lab.

And,

you know, if you're somewhat skeptical now, I can tell you some stories that would make you utterly skeptical of everything that goes bump in the night that you've ever thought you heard.

And that's a relatively new thing for me.

But, you know, times change, and so do ghost stories.

Oh my, you hear all kinds of stories.

I heard a story here, a man told me, and he's a really nice fella.

But he really believes that the moon, our moon, was put in place by aliens.

And he said, it's the truth, and it's documented.

I saw it on the history channel.

Gosh, maybe you were the narrator.

I don't know.

But, I mean, I couldn't help smiling a little bit.

And he said,

I know you probably don't believe it, but it's true.

It's documented.

And you know what?

They were the same aliens that visited the White House because he had read that too.

And he believes it in his soul.

And so I was not going to say, you know,

Sorry, but I don't believe it.

I know some people who have been to the moon.

Yeah.

I have it on first-hand authority.

It wasn't put there by aliens.

It was actually a part of the Earth.

And, you know, it was hit many, many, many millions of years ago and spun off.

And anyway, there's a fair amount of science to suggest that your friend might be mistaken.

But again, manners prohibit me from just piling on.

Oh, sure.

Plus, he's, what is he, like 120?

This man who told us he's a little younger than I am, I believe.

You know,

I'll tell you the story that got me growing up,

and it was really interesting the way it unfolded.

I'm going to write about this one day, but it's the place

that was on the cover of the Baltimore Sun magazine,

where I lived for the early part of my life, as you'll recall.

Gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I should write about this.

Loburn, right?

It's the house that dad and I moved into when we were married.

We had the second floor.

It was a big stone mansion built during the Civil War.

And there were slave quarters in the back.

And it had about six acres.

Most of it was wooded.

Big tower in the back.

Tasseled walls.

With four stories and turrets at the top.

It's on the, what do you call it, historic registry or something like that?

Yeah, it's in the historical record.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so we lived there for three years.

You were,

you were born there the following year after we moved in and spent the first two years of your life there.

And after we left, the house was sold.

And they did a whole story about the fact that this place is haunted and it was in the Baltimore Sun.

It was an interesting story, but people had reasons to believe that the place was haunted.

And I could poo-poo those reasons till the cows come home.

Yeah, but boy, put yourself in my place.

I find this, I think it was the Baltimore Sun magazine, the magazine that used to come in the newspaper.

And Chuck, this house is on the cover of it.

It looks like a castle.

And

the caption is something like, America's Most Haunted House, question mark, something like that.

And inside is an account of the current residents who live there and then the people who lived there before that.

They're both interviewed, and they talk about all of these strange

occurrences and noises and manifestations and on and on and on.

And at one point, one of the people who lived there said, it seemed to originate from

this top story over here in this area.

So I'm reading this magazine, which I found in my mom's house.

I take it over to my mom and she's like, oh yeah,

I held on to that.

And I said, how come?

And she said, because we used to live there.

And that was your bedroom.

That was the nursery, the room where you slept.

And somebody many years ago apparently died in that room.

And they think that his spirit is still there

because

their dog won't go into that room.

Our dog slept by your crib every night.

I mean, unless spirits come and go.

I mean, maybe they just came back.

I don't know.

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Well, I don't know how memories work.

I've always been interested in people's first memories because they say that everything that's ever happened to you, even pre-birth, is in your brain.

And what you're able to recall

is, in many cases, a reflection of

where you are in life right now.

A shrink told me this once years ago, not that I was seeing him, but just socially.

You didn't pay for that information, did you?

I didn't pay for it.

But he did say that, like, if I ask you right now what your earliest memory is, you can probably tell me.

And I said, well, if I think about it, yeah.

And I went on to describe a memory of, you remember the little grape barber we had in the backyard between the pasture and the house for a while there?

I remember one night.

The sun had gone down and I was outside and I was kicking a ball, either a basketball or a soccer ball, just around that that thing, just running and chasing this ball, running and kicking and chasing.

And I remember the sun had gone down and I could smell dinner.

You were cooking dinner and the kitchen window was open.

And there was a warm light coming out of that kitchen window.

And you were calling me for dinner.

And I was still running and kicking this ball.

For some reason, I was determined to.

to do this a fixed number of times.

And the shrink says, well, there you go.

That's your earliest memory.

Tell me about your life right now.

And I went on to describe this constant search for the next job.

You know, I was freelancing at the time and 30 blank squares every single month and this feeling that I just couldn't catch up, but this knowledge that, you know, I had a safety net.

I had some money saved, so I felt pretty good about that.

And he's like, well, see, that's what I mean.

Your mom and the open window, you know, that's your safety net, but you're still chasing.

You're still chasing this thing round and round and go.

You're looking for work.

You're chasing a thing and you're anxious because the sun has gone down and you think maybe you're running out of time and there's not a lot of certainty in your future.

A bunch of shrink stuff, blah, blah, blah.

The reason I mention it is because I was probably

six years old.

Why don't I remember anything before I was six years old?

That's crazy.

I have no recollection of living in the Lilburn house on College Avenue in Ellicott City.

I couldn't, for the life of me, remember anything prior to that.

Now, the shrink says, relax.

Later in life, you'll have memories of all sorts of things.

And you'll ask yourself, gosh, am I making that up?

Am I imagining that?

They said, probably not, because there are memories within your reach that are simply not at your disposal yet.

But that'll change as you get older.

What do you think about that?

I do have a memory of being in a crib.

I slept in a crib, and

I know exactly where that crib was in our middle bedroom.

And I had nightmares.

And

this one particular night, I could see

a green,

maybe a person, I don't know, a green being coming down toward my body from way up high.

And I was, what, maybe a couple, maybe two,

maybe less.

And I screamed.

And my mother ran into me and tripped and fell down the steps and broke her toe, just her toe.

Oh, geez.

Wow.

Well, apparently I did this a lot, screamed at night, and my mother always ran in and, you know, hugged me or whatever.

But on this one particular night, she did that.

And my aunt either was visiting us at the time, there were always relatives in our house, or came to visit afterwards.

And she said, You've got to stop that waking up at night and screaming for your mother.

Do you see what you did?

Now your mother has a broken toe, and she's

she can't run.

And I remember, oh my God, the guilt.

Maybe I was almost three in a crib too long, probably, but that's my earliest memory.

I don't remember, but I but seeing that pale green thing come down toward me at night just made me scream.

I don't think it was Halloween.

So, if the shrink were here, he'd probably say, well, then,

what's going on in your life right now that rhymes or somehow elevates feelings of fear and guilt?

What you got going on?

Well, there's this man, this man sleeping next to me who gets up like four and five times a night and goes to the bathroom.

Oh, I feel sorry for him, but I'm not scared of him.

Well, since it's Halloween, God, I hate to ask you to do this, but I need to understand what happened because this is a scary story for real, Chuck.

This one is going to have you right on the edge of your seat.

Okay.

What?

I don't have any scary stories.

Church.

A week or so ago.

Oh, You didn't go.

You stayed home and you Zoomed.

Do tell.

Our church offers a Zoom service on Sundays.

And

then

that service is recorded and put onto the Facebook site.

So your father had had a bad night.

He had had maybe three hours sleep.

And I was determined to let him sleep in the morning.

And we just skipped church.

And

he did.

He slept for a couple of hours longer.

And

so I put Zoom on, brought the laptop into the bedroom, put it on the bed, and just put Zoom on.

But I disabled the camera so they couldn't see me in my nightgown.

So there's a church, after all.

Yes.

Well,

I can't say all this, but I probably shouldn't say all this.

It's kind of personal.

Well, anyway, dad has been struggling with a certain medication.

It's a thyroid medication, because as you get older, your thyroid doesn't work as well as it once did.

So you need a supplement.

But that supplement can have side effects.

And so

let's just say that dad was

way too regular every day several times, and so the doctor put him on metamucil.

So, getting used to this medication is a matter of balancing the metamucil and the medication.

Well, we finally got it fixed.

We thought,

okay, so here's Zoom church on the bed,

dad coming out of the bathroom,

and he said, Ah,

stew again.

And I'm afraid I said something very unladylike.

It was an explicative or an expletive.

Uh-huh.

It wasn't a nice word.

I said, one syllable?

One syllable began with SH.

And I said, oh.

And dad said,

exactly.

A minute later, my phone rang.

and it was a friend from church who also had not gone to church because she

had COVID.

See where this is going.

She said, Peggy, you forgot to mute your

computer.

Your computer.

Oh, my God.

I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

So I quick muted my computer.

I didn't tell dad.

I didn't want to upset him.

You remembered the camera, but forgot

the microphone.

But not the microphone.

And we had been talking, but I guess this friend decided, well, maybe they couldn't understand everything.

I was, you know, it was just kind of a background noise, but oh.

So they're in the middle of a sermon, a homily, or whatever, and dad comes out and says, stew again,

and you say, oh, shit.

And he's

exactly.

Exactly.

And then they take the offatory.

And then, ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling

really ruined my day, I'll have you know.

So were you able to like get it out before they posted it on Facebook?

Oh, yeah.

I called this friend back,

and she called the church secretary

and said,

you have to kill that recording

of the service this Sunday.

You got to kill it right now.

She killed it.

But I'm afraid some people might have been listening before it, you know.

I was so embarrassed.

So we went back to church today.

We've been once since then, but we went back today.

And as I look around, I keep thinking, I wonder which of these people were at home on Zoom that day

also.

Stew again.

But if they were, they haven't told me.

That was nice.

That's a Halloween story.

Oh, yeah.

I'll never do that again.

Never.

More trick, less treat.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, that was just awful.

Hey, by the way, not to change the subject too abruptly, but I just went to your, I just went to the Amazon page.

Do you know you have like literally nothing but five-star reviews on all of your books?

Like there are 45-star reviews.

Yes.

Yes.

Oh, that's good.

Nothing but five-star reviews for your first one and your second one.

Your third one has like four and a half stars because a couple of people just couldn't get their head around the idea of you vacuuming naked.

They just...

It just broke them.

I don't even think they read the book, but they just didn't approve.

Or they did read the book and they realized that it was not pornography they were not erotica

right right too much vacuuming not enough nakedness they erased that last star and your latest currently has uh 69 reviews they're all five star

oh that's nice to hear It's getting some five-star reviews here at the home also.

It's funny.

There are a lot of stories in the book about people who live here at the home, our neighbors, other residents.

Gosh, they had the best stories.

I just couldn't not write them.

Some are humorous, some are not.

But then there are a lot of vignettes throughout the book where I've changed the people's names.

And people are coming up to me and saying, Peggy, am I on page 65 of your book?

Because I have to tell you, that sounds a lot like me.

Oh, that's hysterical.

How many many pseudonyms did you use versus real people?

You know what?

My editor said that I should make a chart so that I know just who is who from the names I've changed.

So I did make the chart.

I don't have it with me, but oh my goodness, maybe eight, but then maybe five stories, five chapters about real people.

Yeah, I'll tell you, there are stories everywhere.

I came across a woman the other day

and I noticed her because her name was Peggy.

And there aren't that many Peggies here.

I think there might just be three of us.

And I said, oh, look at this.

And I held up my lanyard.

I said, my name is Peggy too.

And she said,

but my last name, did you see my

last name is Lucky, L-U-C-K-Y.

And I said, wow, that's quite a name.

I said, well, tell me something.

Do you feel like you were lucky growing up?

You were a lucky person?

Because lucky was her maiden name,

Peggy Lucky.

I won't tell you her last name now.

She said, well, let me tell you this story.

I did sit down and take notes.

She was either eight or ten.

She said, my family went to the carnival.

Well, it was during the Depression, and we didn't have any money.

And this was such a treat for us.

We didn't have a car.

We couldn't even afford a car.

well at this carnival they were raffling off a car

and so

her father had enough money to buy a raffle ticket

so it was time for the raffle and the guy's up front holding this big bowl or basket or whatever and he said well Look, there's a little girl in the audience.

Honey, would you like to come up here and pick a number?

So Peggy said, well, I walked up on that stage and I pulled up my sleeve and I put my hand in.

Guess whose number I picked, she said.

I picked my father's number.

People found out.

Everybody booed.

She said, they booed us and booed us.

They thought it was fixed, but it wasn't fixed.

Well, she said that they enjoyed that car.

They took a vacation.

They had never been on a vacation.

They were poor.

They took a trip up to Pennsylvania.

Did you just laugh when you said they were poor?

That's so wrong.

Oh, well, they were poor.

That's better.

Oh, better, much better.

They were very poor.

Well, she said it just changed our lives.

And

yes, I was lucky.

I thought that was a good story.

That's a great story.

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Did anyone at the home, was anyone upset with how they were portrayed in the book?

If they were, they haven't told me yet.

But Chuck, you know me.

I'm a positive person and my stories were

pretty positive.

There are some sad things in the book, but those people gave me, you know, I interviewed them.

They told me their story.

They,

and without exception,

I went to each of these people in my book who have a whole chapter in there, and I read them my story word for word.

And when I finished, I said, Is there anything you would like for me to change?

Anything you're uncomfortable with, anything that's inaccurate?

Only one person said

I had come to her apartment

and only one person said, well,

you talk about my place as being disheveled.

Could we cut that out?

And I said, well, that's fair enough.

Sure.

I don't have to say that.

Is that the chapter called The Hoarder?

No, I didn't leave the word cluttered in.

I worked in cluttered, but no, she's not a hoarder.

There's a story about a man who lives here.

He's amazing.

When he was a child, oh, I just dropped my ear thing.

Should I pick it up?

Is it an earring?

Can you hear us?

I can hear us.

Do you still have one in your ear?

Well, is that enough?

Well, I don't see it.

She'll be back in a second.

If you're just joining us, we're mid-podcast, and my mom's airbuds have fallen out of her ear.

Only one of them.

Only one.

This would be a good time to talk about this book.

There it is right there.

Oh, no.

Not the home.

People are absolutely loving it.

It's It's available at Amazon and pretty much everywhere you buy books right now.

My mom's having a great time.

She just did a signing over there in the home.

People came from all over the place.

You know, again, right now, she's not writing her book or talking about her book.

She's looking for an airbud that just fell out of her ear and possibly down her shirt.

Mom, is it down your shirt?

I heard it hit the floor.

Did you?

It still could have gone all the way through.

I mean, really?

Peg, if you can still hear us, maybe

we just,

yeah, then why don't we just let it go and you can find it afterwards?

And

that's okay.

Kind of soldier on with just one.

Yeah.

Well, anyway,

this man, when he was a child

without missing a beat, love it.

Lived in Lithuania

with his parents and three siblings.

Well,

they were, his family was banished to Siberia,

and he spent part of his childhood in Siberia.

He has such wonderful stories about his life in Siberia.

It was,

I should look sad when I say this, it was horrible.

It really was a nightmare, and he was responsible for his parents' early death.

And he, of course, has never forgotten these stories, and he told them to me and it's just wonderful people are loving it

that's one of the stories where it was kind of hard to find the humor there wasn't there wasn't much humor there was some irony but there wasn't much humor oh god there are so many stories

people are stopping to tell me that they love the book.

I love to walk through the lobby and see people reading my book or walk past the

dining room and people sitting at the bar having a drink and reading my,

it's, yeah, it's a high.

I'm going to say two things in response to what I've just heard.

First of all, you mentioned the carnival.

Peggy Lucky goes to the carnival, pulls the winning number, and it happens to be her dad, who's the guy holding the bowl, essentially.

So the whole thing looks rigged.

Oh, wait a minute.

No, no, her father was in the audience.

He wasn't in charge of the, no, there was the people in the middle.

That's not as bad then.

It is.

It's still pretty bad.

It's still pretty sus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's not in my book.

Maybe in my next book.

Yeah.

But I just heard that story.

Peggy gets lucky.

Peggy gets lucky.

Well, we got lucky too as kids because my mom's dad.

Carl Noble, was really the state inspector.

You know, he was an electrician, an electrical contractor, and he wound up working for the state.

And among his duties was inspecting the rides on carnival midways.

So, yeah, we'd have these carnivals that would come to the neighborhood.

Some really club, like the Lions Club, would sponsor one, you know, over at Fullerton Park.

But he was also responsible for inspecting the midway at the state fair.

You know, the Timonium State Fair was a big deal.

You know, there's a big midway, and the amusement guy at the time was called Daegler.

I never really thought much about it, but if they're not happy,

the midway gets closed.

Like, my grandfather had a lot of power, and of course, he was utterly scrupulous and beyond, beyond, I mean, he was truly an un...

an uncorruptible man, you know, but

a situation like that wouldn't be uncommon for somebody to slip an inspector, a little something under the table to look the other way around, you know, some rides that maybe weren't up to code and so forth.

Nothing like that ever happened, but

all of the guys in charge of the Midway knew that he was in a position of power and they gave him bags not filled with money

but free passes.

And so when we went to the state fair, we would get like these books for free rides.

And, you know, looking back, I realize

we didn't grow with money or anything like that.

But boy, I felt rich on the Carnival Midway, thanks to your dad.

And just that

was the first time I ever felt like, wow, you know what?

I'm going to get a good table.

I'm going to get, you know, somebody somewhere is going to do something nice.

I just couldn't believe I had this inside track.

Well, I'll tell you about the irony of it.

The irony is that they had these fabulous rides.

And yeah, we had a book with ride tickets.

They didn't like the rides.

They didn't like the Ferris wheel.

They didn't like the merry-go-round.

They didn't like the wilt twirl twilt tilt a twirl.

Tilt a whirl.

Tilt a whirl.

The only thing you liked, do you remember?

I know I like the bumper cars.

Oh my gosh, the bumper cars.

Well, it got to the point where the guy in charge of the bumper cars would say, hmm, you just got off.

Somebody else has to have a turn.

Do you remember a thing called,

they called it the Roundup, but before that it was called the hell hole.

Oh, you just stand up and you're locked in and then you go.

Yes.

That was one of the first things I got on with that free ride.

And you're up against the wall and you're spinning and you spin faster and faster and faster and you're in a cage.

And then the cage falls away, and you're just pinned to the wall.

And then the whole thing, rather than spinning round like a merry-go-round, it tilts up on its side like 90 degrees.

So now you're inside of, like, imagine being in a tire that's just rolling down a hill, pinned to the inside of the tire.

That's what this thing is.

It's a torture device.

And the first time I got on,

somebody threw up.

Don't know who.

Didn't matter.

But when you throw

in centrifugal force, it just hovers in midair and everybody else just gets dragged through it, you know, very, very quickly.

Everybody's crawling off the ride, covered in somebody else's puke, and half of them are throwing up because they're so disgusted with it.

And it just turned into a

vomitorium.

So, yeah, bumper cars, much safer way to go.

Yeah, it was.

It was fun.

I also got one last thing I wanted to tell you.

Do you remember my old girlfriend, Katie?

Yeah.

Talk about lucky.

When we broke up.

Boy, she dodged a bullet, huh?

She was.

Yeah, she did.

Talk about lucky.

Yeah, she did.

Talk about luck.

She wanted to move to L.A.

to become a model and an actress.

And I just remember saying, Katie, you know, I mean, you're beautiful, but

the odds of you even getting an agent, it's so tough.

And there's so many beautiful women, and you're so smart.

You do all these other things.

Why do you even want to bother?

And she was like, This is what I want to do, and I think I'm going to do it.

So, anyway, go sell your stupid houses on your dumb real estate show down there in Baltimore.

I'm going to go to LA and get famous.

And I just thought, well, that's, you know, whatever.

She's out there for 24 hours.

And her favorite game show in the world is The Price is Right.

So the first thing she does is she goes to CBS Studios to get tickets to sit in the audience of the price is right

and she gets in.

There are a thousand people.

They got room for maybe a hundred, 150.

She gets in and she's sitting there and I think in the second round,

Katie Banner, come on down.

And she goes down and she plays the game.

I forget what it was, but she wins.

And She wins to the point where she's got enough to get called back for the showcase showdown.

She's been in L.A.

24 hours and she's on her favorite game show, winning, and then she gets in the showcase showdown.

And she not only wins, she wins both of them.

Her guess is within $100.

She wins like two cars, hot tubs,

skis.

I mean, like, it's all of this stuff.

And I remember just talking to her later that week.

She called, I just want to let you know, I got out here.

Okay.

I'm like, well, how's it going?

She was pretty great.

Got on the prices right, won both showcases.

And then she signed with an agent a week or two later and started showing up in catalogs.

Anyway.

And that's what she's doing.

Is she still working?

I guess not a lot of work for models in their 60s.

Well, she's not that old.

She was a bit younger than me.

But interestingly,

she got hooked up with a guy named Dagler and she works now on a Carnival Midway on the Hellhole.

And

basically, yeah,

she just brushes the vomit off of strangers now, every day.

But she says it's rewarding and

good fun.

She was a beautiful woman.

She still is.

Well, here we are.

Look at that.

Been talking for an hour.

Oh, have we, really?

Yeah.

I think we have.

I hope we said something fairly interesting.

I know I did.

What do you think, Chuck?

Oh, no.

I think there's a lot to get rid of.

Stew again.

I don't think anybody's going to get together.

I'm going to get rid of that.

Stew again, especially on Halloween.

Oh, is that a Reese's peanut butter cup?

No, we made you some stew.

Take it home.

Enjoy it.

No.

No, too far.

Too bothered.

Mom, I love you.

Congratulations on your book.

Everybody loves it.

People can pick up copies at micro.com mom's book.

Her previous books are available there as well.

Easy to get at Amazon too, or wherever you get your books.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you might even go ahead and sign up to live in a retirement community 10, 20 years before you're planning on it.

It's that much fun.

All right, honey.

All right.

This has been fun.

All right.

See you guys.

Take care.

I'm going to go get a bowl of beef stew and I'll talk to you guys next week.

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