AM Show Hr 1 | Texas Laws, Vietnam Myths & Fredericksburg Legends

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time. Lock and load.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
The Michael Derry Show is on the air.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's Jack Nicholson. I hear hunting season has begun. Whoop-dee-doo.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
All the boys can get in their costumes and shoot
at the little birdies.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
A real man would hand those birds a gun and
even the game.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Good morning, Michael. Why is Nicholson always in a cranky mood?
Let's all take time to salute the beginning of hunting season.
Dove is my second favorite breast, especially wrapped in bacon
and on a propane grill.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Like Zoid Scoob, it's the beginning of hunting season. Yeah,
I'm going hunting for Scooby snacks. Good morning, Michael. It's
Hannibal Lecter. Any advice where I can find a hunting
license for a human asking for a friend? Good morning,
Michael Berry. How you doing? Is it all ready tomorrow morning?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Good morning, Texas. Listen to the czar.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Good morning, Texas. At home or in your car.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Good morning, Texas. Ramone is on his knee. And we're
happy to be here to talk about everything.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Hey, good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
We're not wearing pants.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Good morning, Texas. Good morning, Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Wake up. It's all set.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Let's pick our damn attacks. A lumberjack told.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Me he'd chopped down exactly 56,742 trees.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I asked, how do you know that?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
September 1st, yesterday, is the date that a number of
new laws took effect in Texas. You remember, we have

(02:19):
our elections during even-numbered years. That's why we're about to
have elections. This is 26 in November. I keep a log,
is what he said. In November, we'll have elections for
every state rep. And four, it ends up being about
half of the state senators. They serve six-year terms just

(02:42):
like our U.S.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Senators do.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
There are 31 senators, and I forget how many are up,
but I'll tell you by the end of the show.
So every state rep of the 150 is up. We
have 31 state senators, presently 18 Republicans, 12 Democrats, and
one state senate seat is vacant at present. And then
the governor is up every four years, as is the

(03:05):
lieutenant governor. Both Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott are up.
And then we have some statewide officials that are up,
our attorney general. Obviously, the attorney general won the Senate primary,
so he's running for the U.S.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Senate as the Republican nominee.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Mays Middleton, state senator, won the primary to be the
attorney general nominee on the Republican side, and on and on. So,
The legislature, which writes the laws, will be in session
during the spring of the odd-numbered year. So they will

(03:44):
go into session based on who wins in November. They
will go into session in the spring for 150 days
every two years, so biennially. And sometimes that will be
a little longer if the governor calls a special session.
The laws that are passed go into effect on a
delay period. to give people time to prepare for them.

(04:06):
So here are some of those laws that went into
effect yesterday. House Bill 2963. If your phone or your
tablet breaks, the manufacturer now has to make the parts,
the tools, and the repair manuals available to you and
to the independent repair shop down the street. There's no

(04:27):
more sorry, only the mothership can fix that. It doesn't
cover your car, your fridge, your Xbox, or medical devices,
but your iPhone, yeah, covers that.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Number two, solar salesmen.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
If you were scammed by a door-to-door or telemarketer, who
answers these things, selling you solar crap, if you've had
one of the guys knock on your door at dinnertime
and this is for you, solar companies and their salespeople
now have to Their salesmen now have to register with
the state, carry insurance, use licensed contractors, and pull permits.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
And here's the big one.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
You get five days to cancel a solar purchase or
a lease.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
No penalty. Walk away. It's like a lemon law.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
And the reason is when Mamaw gets scammed by a
solar salesman and her son finds out three days later,
they can cancel that immediately. You remember when there was
the big tax?

Speaker 1 (05:25):
I remember it.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
I remember a former employee told me, hey, I can
get solar panels for you free.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Oh, who's donating?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, the way it works is the tax benefits make
it free.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
That's a bad system. Why are we doing that? The
only time I think solar actually.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Is worth anything, at least at this point, is when
you get a little light to light your walkway and
you don't have power out there already, and then each
one has the little solar cell on it and you
stick it in the ground, useful. Number three, gold and
silver are legal tender in Texas.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Uh-oh, Kenny Duncan Jr. is going to have a run
on the place at U.S. Coins.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
House Bill 1056, qualifying gold and silver are now recognized
as money in the state of Texas. It's voluntary, nobody
has to take it, but the state is building a
debit card style system tied to the Texas bullion depository.
That part is slated for May of next year, so
it'll take a minute. And that's Texas doing Texas stuff.

(06:33):
Makes for a great story nationally. Manufactured homes, Senate Bill 785.
Cities can no longer flat out ban new manufactured homes
from their city limits, which is a big deal for
the affordable housing crowd that actually want affordable housing.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
It's also a big deal for property rights. It's going
to be interesting to see how this plays out.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Volunteer firefighters, House Bill 5424. Departments are now allowed to
pay volunteers up to 20% of what a full-time firefighter makes.
And may I say it's about time. The point is
that we have people available to deploy, to fight fires

(07:19):
and run ambulance service.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
And why shouldn't they be paid if the city wants
to pay them in.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
The first place? Next is for parents of special education.
School funding for special ed is no longer a head count.
It's now tied to how much support each individual child
actually needs. with tougher reporting so the money goes where
it's supposed to go that's that's the idea a few
more that are in the stack pieces of the big

(07:46):
school finance bill uh phase in the one that's replacing
star house bill 8 uh house bill 20 1240 expands
which counties count as border counties and there are Provisions
on veterinarians, DFPS oversight, court procedures, rooftop solar outside ERCOT,

(08:08):
and property tax arbitrators.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
So bottom line, you can fix your own phone.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Take five days before you sign with the solar guy
or after you sign with the solar guy.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
And if you want to pay in gold, knock yourself out.
Go get it from Kenny Duncan at U.S. Coins. The
Michael Berry Show.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Some of you will remember that during the summer, I
asked Ramon, well, I watched the John Williams movie. My
wife found a public showing of the movie, and it
was a screening with one of the women that he
works closely with because she's a star cellist or some instrument,

(08:51):
and my wife thought it would be good for us
to go. And as often happens, I said, nah, I
don't want to go, and I was grumpy about it,
and I loved it. And so I talked about it
the next day on the air, and I told Ramon,
you need to watch it. And so yesterday, my wife said,
has Ramon watched the John Williams movie?

Speaker 1 (09:08):
No, he hasn't.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
What is it on, Ramon? Is it Apple or Disney Plus?
But do you have to have Disney Plus if you
have Prime? I think if you have Prime, you get
Disney Plus. I'm not positive on that. You probably have
Disney Plus because of the kids, right?

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
I just have.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Netflix and Prime. And do you know that they're showing
Ted Lasso now on Prime? Yeah, which is an interesting
thing because I think they were artificially crimping the water
hose for distribution of Ted Lasso when it was Apple only.
So you can now watch it on Prime, the newest season.

(09:52):
You can watch it on Prime, and it tells you
it's an Apple TV.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Production. And the way I'm.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Looking at that, because you have to buy it. So
my guess is Apple gets the money for it, and
Prime gets the Chesapeake bumping, chest beating, hey, you don't
need Apple.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
You can come here. We have everything.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Because it's to their advantage that they be the portal
through which you get everything.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
But anyway, John Williams composed the score of Star Wars
and Jaws and all sorts of other things, which is
just amazing.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
It is a wonderful, wonderful film if you haven't seen
it yet. It looks like.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
My people in the Golden Triangle got hit yet again.
Houston largely managing to avoid the worst of the flooding,
but they did get hit pretty darn hard in Beaumont especially.
I can't find my notes on it, but I recall

(10:59):
what it said. I remember that when you're hearing what
the numbers for Entergy are, you know you're in southeast Texas.
And I remember Beaumont, Kuntz, those areas were hit. Orange
hit not quite as bad, but they were hit. And
Lord knows, Orange doesn't need to be hit again. Starting
in about 2007, they had a run of it. My

(11:22):
poor mom and dad were just getting hit one after
the other after the other.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
They had argued with me I'd wanted to install a
generator for years, and they would never let me. And
after one of the storms, they finally let me. And
that's how I knew that they were beaten down because
they finally relented and said, yes, you can put a
generator in.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
And then my dad obsessed over it, which is my dad.
He's a very anxious person when it comes to machinery.
He was a maintenance worker. So machinery needs to be
checked every day.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
He used to drive my mom crazy because they built
a pool after all of us had gone, at least
so the grandkids have a pool. And my mom would
go nuts because some of you have a mom-dad relationship
with your elderly parents because he would be out there
every day. He would test the salinity in the water.
And then he would test the machines. And he'd turn
them off and turn them back on. And she'd go, Norman,

(12:11):
leave the thing alone and let it do what it does. Well,
when he got his generator, he'd call me and say, hey,
is the so-and-so supposed to be at this level? Dad,
I pay for the generator. I don't run the generator.
That's above my pay grade. And I had a moment
where I said, do you want me to put you
in touch with the generator company? And my wife was

(12:34):
across the room and her eyes got saucer big and
she does the slit in your throat thing.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
And I said, you know what? I'm going to have
to look that up. I hang up and she says,
why would you do that?

Speaker 2 (12:45):
He's going to wear them out and he's going to
get out there and he's going to break the thing. Anyway,
you know, they drive us crazy until they're gone and
then we miss them like crazy.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
It's just how it works.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
But Orange and the Golden Triangle, we have a show
sponsor there. It's Brad Childs, nicest guy in the world.
They've been there forever. They're on 16th Street. It's 3714
North 16th Street. You've probably seen the Ace Hardware. If
you're driving on I-10 headed east... You drive through Beaumont, Viter,

(13:18):
then there's a little space, and then you'll see MLK,
which you're at the edge of the city of Houston,
just really before you're getting into Orange, and then you'll
keep coming, and then you'll see 16th Street, which is
the big street in Orange, and when you see 16th,
on the right, you'll see Modica Tires, or Modica Brothers,

(13:40):
Modica Tires, which has been there forever, and on the left,
over to the left, you will see child's lumber. On
the right, you'll see a Chick-fil-A and a Starbucks. And
my mom was so excited. We got us a Chick-fil-A
and a Starbucks in orange. But anyway, that's where he is.
I know a lot of folks are going to be

(14:00):
in a golden triangle are going to be out buying supplies, uh,
because you're beginning to repair and restock after the, um,
After the storm last night. So I hope everybody's okay,
and I hope you get your power back, and I
hope pets and family and elderly and kids are all well.

(14:21):
I called Child's Building Supply during the break just to
tell Brad Childs we were thinking about him. And when
the lady picked up, I said, what time do you
all open this morning? She said, sir, we've been open
since 730. We have a lot going on today. I said, yes, ma'am,
of course you do. And, of course, you are there
to take care of it. So if you're in Orange, 409-886-4600.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
409-886-4600.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Ramon, you know, I don't remember anybody's number. I could
not dial you right now. I could not dial you
right now because you're just Ramon in my phone. But
I can dial Ms. Martin, who was my high school
debate coach. I could dial my grandmother, who's been gone
since 1993. I can dial her home anyway. She never

(15:05):
owned a cell phone.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
It's funny.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
I could dial my parents' home that was my number
when I was a kid, but not my parents' number
that they had to change when Quantilex and all the
guys started harassing them when I refused to vote for reparations.
I don't remember that number because I was already gone.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Isn't that weird? It's funny. They had to change their number.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Because in 2003, when I voted against reparations, I don't
know that it was Quantilex.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
I shouldn't say that.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Somebody, some group of people started harassing them and calling them,
and it upset them terribly. There was somebody outside behind
a tree. And my parents live out in the country,
so you can imagine this was very, very stressful. So
the local police dispatched somebody out there. We changed the
phone number. We moved on down the road. But it

(15:58):
was a pretty big deal. Speaking of Ace Hardware, Ace
Hardwares are individually owned. There are 34 of them, acehardwaretexas.com,
that support our show. And they have more barbecue pits
and cookers than you can imagine because I know you're
thinking about that for this weekend. I would appreciate you
supporting our sponsors at acehardwaretexas.com.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
There's one near you wherever you are, even in orange.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
That song is called For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
If you ask.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
100 people who recognize the song what the song.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Is about, you'll get a few who say, I have
no idea.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
But I'll bet you over 90 would say, oh, it's
about Vietnam. Because every documentary you've watched about Vietnam, they
roll helicopter footage, and here comes that guitar.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Two notes, ding, ding, and.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
You know exactly where you are. You're in a rice
paddy in 1968. Except that song is not about Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Here's what it is about. Los Angeles, 1966.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Sunset Strip, November of 1966. There was a nightclub at
Sunset and Crescent Heights called Pandora's Box. The kids love it.
The neighbors hate it. Typical urban setup. Traffic, noise, kids everywhere.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
I say kids everywhere.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
My 19 and 20-year-old are still kids to me. We're
talking about the youth, as it were. The business owners
were complaining. Homeowners were complaining. The kids don't vote yet.
Young people aren't voting yet at this point. So Los
Angeles County does what government does.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
They pass an.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Ordinance, a 10 o'clock curfew, anti-loitering, and they send in
the cops.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
This won't take long.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
And by the way, the part that nobody tells you,
the county wanted that real estate. They had plans for
the strip. So the strip that you know of is
the plans that they executed. But let me not get
ahead of myself. They wanted a financial district and office towers.
So the county government used a curfew ordinance, 10 o'clock,

(18:40):
to clear American citizens off a public street because somebody
else had plans for land. When have we ever heard
of that before? November 12th, 1966. A thousand kids show
up outside Pandora's box.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
The Popo move in. It gets ugly.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
And in that crowd that night is Jack Nicholson and
Peter Fonda. Peter Fonda gets handcuffed. Of course, this was
before either one of them was Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda.
But not long before. Not long before at all. But
more importantly, Stephen Steeles is there. Yeah, of Crosby, Steeles,

(19:27):
and Nash, or if you like to put Neil Young
on there, you can. Stephen Steeles is there, and he
sees it, and he writes a poem that he puts
to music, or as we would call it, a song.
They bulldozed Pandora's Box the next year, so the kids
lost to County One because the government always wins.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Now here's the part. I love about this story.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Everybody spent 60 years turning that song into Vietnam. I
thought that song was about Vietnam up until relatively recently
because it's such a perfect song. And I don't know
if they lack creativity or it's so well branded. Every movie,
commercial or documentary puts that song in there. And there's

(20:17):
one shot that you see that starts. It's the serviceman
from the back. And you can feel how thick the
air is. He's got a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
You've seen this shot a thousand times. For 60 years,
they've made that song about Vietnam. And Stephen Stills, who

(20:39):
wrote it, has spent 60 years telling people it is
not about Vietnam. He had to come out and say
it again, he's done it before, in 2006 because people
decided it was about Kent State. Where the students got
out of hand, the National Guard shot them. He said

(21:00):
that song is three and a half years older than
Kent State. It can't be about Kent State. Neil Young
wrote the Kent State song, It's Called Ohio. But you
might say, well, does it even matter? It's a good song, Michael.
What does it matter if they... It does matter. Because

(21:22):
the song that you've been told is about a war
is about a curfew, a nightclub, a parking problem. And
I would argue we have periods of war And they're awful.
And we send men off to experience them and some
don't come home. But when we're not at war, and

(21:45):
also when we are at war, there are things like
this going on on our very streets. The other thing
that happens every other day, every single day, that happened
in this city is happening in Harris County right now.
A government making rules To target people who are doing

(22:09):
nothing wrong because they want the land, because they want
the money, because someone is putting them up to.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
It.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
60 years later, everybody still hears the helicopters.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Stop. Hey, what's that sound? It's a bulldozer. Actually, it's
a bulldozer. I don't know that that song could have
changed anything. I'm well aware.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
That Stephen Stills' perspective on a lot of things is
different than mine. I will tell you that my opinion
of Vietnam has changed in the course of my 55 years.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Hooray, America. Wave the flag. Love your country. Support your servicemen.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Got a lot more complicated for me. Support your servicemen
Did we support our servicemen? We sent them in to
a horrible civil war with rules of engagement that either
made them sitting ducks or war criminals. They came home

(23:26):
to being treated terribly. Ask a Vietnam veteran. I'm sure
there are exceptions to the rule I'm stating, but ask
a Vietnam veteran. What they think when they got their
head shaved, put through the ringer, and sent over to
this crazy place about their service. I don't think that's

(23:49):
supporting our troops at all.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Quite the opposite.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Can we come into your house and scoop up your
kids and shave their head and yell at them and
put them through some grueling physical exercises and send them
somewhere to be shot at in a war you have
no chance of winning? But don't worry, I'll stand back
and cheer for them. That's not respect. I wouldn't want
that done to my kids nor yours. It took me

(24:19):
a lot of my 55 years to come to the
conclusion that some of the jingoism was for a bad
cause and bad people who got rich or powerful for
all the wrong reasons and the good people end up
with war wounds or dead.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
On this day in 1945, Fleet Admiral Chester W.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Nimitz signed the instrument of surrender with Japan that ended
World War II.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Nimitz was born in 1885.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
The descendant of German pioneer settlers of.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Fredericksburg.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Of course you knew that. And if you didn't, you should.
There's a wonderful museum in his honor there. He was
named commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet shortly after Japan's 1941
attack on Pearl Harbor and later commander-in-chief of Pacific Ocean
areas as well. With authority over the entire Pacific theater

(25:34):
except for General Douglas MacArthur's southwest Pacific sector and the
inactive southeast, Nimitz coordinated the offensive that brought the Japanese
to unconditional surrender. He signed the peace treaty aboard the
battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Nimitz later spent two years
as commander-in-chief.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Of the U.S.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Fleet and also served as a roving ambassador for the
United Nations and chairman of the Presidential Commission on Internal Security.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
And Individual Rights. He died in 1966.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
In 1964, a local citizens group established the Fleet Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz Memorial Naval Museum in the old Nimitz
Hotel in Fredericksburg, Texas. The project evolved into the National
Museum of the Pacific War. What a wonderful tribute, not

(26:32):
just to Nimitz, but to all of our grandfathers who
served in the Pacific Theater. I told you the story
recently when Phil Garner was posthumously inducted into the Astros
Hall of Fame just a few weeks ago, that I
met his father at the RCC on December 7th of 2013.

(26:53):
We had just been open a couple of months and
I come up with this harebrained scheme that we're going
to honor World War II veterans, and it being December 7th, which,
of course, a day which will live in infamy, set
off World War II. And so I said I would
like to invite our World War II veterans to come

(27:14):
out and be honored and wear anything that you wore,
whether it's a cap. A lot of folks will still
wear their caps, whether it's a cap or anything else
that you have. And if you didn't serve in World
War II but you are of that generation, we'll also
call it Grandparents' Day. So come out and let us
honor you. How long has it been since you've been out?

(27:35):
And folks my age, bring mom and dad out with you.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
So what was that, 70 years at that point after
World War II? And we had more than 10. I
think we had 12 World War II veterans. And one
was this little fellow who comes up, and he's stuffed
into his– That light tan uniform, some of you will
know what that's called.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
But, you know, there were bulges in the belly and
the thighs and all that because he's a lot older now.
And he handed me a book that he had written
about it, and he said, you know my son. And,
of course, it was Phil Garner. It was Phil Garner's dad.
So I called Phil Garner on the way home, and
I said, you didn't tell me your dad's a World
War II veteran.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
He said, oh, you met him, I guess. I said, yes.
And he said, well, he's a big fan of yours.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
So the book was about the Pacific fleet and all
that had occurred there. If you have not been to
Fredericksburg and you live in Texas, I should make a
list of the 10 things you ought to do. Now,
I can already hear a number of people.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
It ain't what it used to be. Too many people
moving there. Too many people moving. Got too expensive. Nobody
likes it no more. The old Yogi Berra. Nobody goes
there anymore. It's too busy. Yeah, it is changing.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
It is.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Some for the good, some for the bad. Sure, it's
not the sleepy little town it always was, but it's beautiful.
And the things that made Fredericksburg great are largely, in effect,
still there. It's a wonderful town, and there's some wonderful history,
and it's a unique part of Texas. And while you're there,

(29:11):
our show sponsors that started over on I-10 years ago,
Little Bitty Boot Store, I went over and visited them,
and one day they let me know that they've bought
a space on Heights Boulevard.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
And they're going to open up there, okay.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
And then they keep opening the little, they keep buying
the little shops next to them, a bead shop and
a weirdo shop and a psychedelic shop and whatever else,
because it is Heights Boulevard.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
And this old building that probably would have been.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
A boot store 100 years ago, they end up taking
up almost the entirety of it and buying the building.
And now everybody, Cal McNair takes the Texans over to
get them, if you remember when C.J. Stroud had his
boots made, took him to Republic Boot Company. They made
all the cheerleaders' boots, those red sparkly boots, they made

(29:58):
all of those. Anyway, So Chris Conrad is a Texas
history buff, and he finds a little property in Johnson
City that is a castle. There's a winery attached, and
they have fallen on hard times. And he buys that
and restores the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
And it's the neatest, coolest thing. You can stay at
the hotel. They have events there. It's a castle.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
It's a big castle. I mean, if you remember the
castle they walk up on in, was it Life of Brian?

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Where is it? Which is the Knights that Go Knee, Ramone?
Is it the Holy Grail where they.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Come up and they're looking down on them from the
side of the walls of the castle? Remember they go
galloping up on their stick? There's that scene right there?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
So it looks like that. It looks like that castle.
It's a really, really cool thing.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's hard to get people out of their norm of
remember that it's there, but people I've sent who actually
go and see it are blown away. Of course, you
can get custom boots made there. You can sample wine.
You can drink wine. You can buy wine. You can
stay there. It's really cool. We've had a number of
listeners who I did not realize who I knew as

(31:23):
working men in the greater Houston area, who retired, and
they and their wives are enjoying, you know, central Texas
in Johnson City, which is where this is, and the
surrounding area, Fredericksburg area. They're all pretty close to all
of that, and they're absolutely loving it. You know who
lives out there now? He doesn't like to be called

(31:44):
Asphalt Andy, but that was a great name. His wife
didn't like that name. But when I came up with
Asphalt Andy, I said, this might not be Mattress Mac,
but this is it, man. You're going to get every
asphalt contract. And he came back because the head of
his crew was named Pete. And he said, and what,
are you going to send Pothole Pete out?

Speaker 1 (32:06):
I said, oh, write that down.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
His wife thought it was horrible. I thought it was fantastic. Anyway,
I think they sold the company, and he lives out there.
He's not even 50 years old. You know, when people
sell the company and retire at that age, they either
within a year are back working or 10 years later,
when they're not as young and surprised as they used

(32:29):
to be, they wake up and go, wait a second.
That was too young to retire. I shouldn't have done that.
And now you go looking for stuff and you're like,
what is AI? Wait, the phone's not attached to the
wall anymore because the world has changed on that.