June 9, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Time time, time, Luck and load.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The Michael Verie Show is.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
On the air.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Most public pranks, most public pranks that are carried out
for the purpose of getting I don't mean you know
when you when you pull a prank on your buddy
at the office, or your kid or your spouse. But
when they're done in public, they're often, if not usually,
(00:53):
more problem than funny, especially when it's high school kids.
And it never ceases to amaze me the decision making
tree of most high school kids. How on earth did
(01:14):
they think that that was a good idea. Now I've
been lucky, and I don't take the credit for this.
I give it to my wife. I am far more
likely to do something stupid because I think it'll be
funny than my kids are. My kids have had adult
sensibilities since pretty early in their life, and frankly, so
(01:39):
did I when I was younger, and then as I
got older, I decided that I needed to live a
little so I don't live in fear that my kids
will do something stupid like that. Fortunately, now they have
some friends that I wouldn't be surprised. But they're good kids.
They just, you know, decision making with that in mind.
(02:02):
There was a great prank pulled by two silly high
school students that is absolutely unobjectionable. There's nobody that could
have a problem with it, and you have to at
least at least have a chuckle as a result. They
made a sign, a decent size sign that goes up.
(02:25):
Let's see, his kid's close to six feet tall, so
it's about six feet tall, and it says coming soon,
late twenty twenty five. And they put the ChB logo,
so at the top it's a big chib logo. Then
underneath it coming soon. Then underneath that late twenty twenty five.
(02:51):
There are two eighteen year old kids named Connor Wells
and Land and Soda Lac or Soda loc presuming probably
good Polish name out in Sealy. They made the sign
and then they planted it in an empty field near
their school. By eight point thirty the next morning, the sign,
(03:12):
with the near replica of the grocery chain's hyphenated red lettering,
had created a buzz on social media that took Wells
in Sodilac a little by surprise. Sotiac tells the Houston
Chronicle quote, we knew the backstory to the town wanting
an HB. We just wanted to do a senior prank
that wasn't destructive. We didn't realize it was going to
(03:34):
get this big. Well Sealy does not have an HB
from the Houston Chronicle quote, Rumors of the grocery chain
coming to Seely had been a source for hope and
disappointment to its residents for over fifteen years. According to
Wells's mother, Crystal Cuban, who was in on the ruse
from the beginning and had posted the photo of the
sign to her social media, users began sharing the post
(03:57):
immediately and commenting on the butter tortillas and other signature
HB favorites. It was crazy, she said. It got to
the point where people were calling the city to find
out if it was true. Bill Atkinson of Sealy's Economic
Development and Tourism office said city staff filled at a
barrage of calls that morning with residents asking about the
(04:17):
sign and when the news store was coming. The city
eventually tracked down the source of all the excitement and
saw how much attention it had generated. Quote from an
economic development standpoint, it's great, Atkinson said, it really got
the community reinvigorated by the idea of HB coming hib
didn't respond to a request for comment. For some users
(04:39):
on Facebook, it was too good to be true. What
you know, How are you in the PR department at
HB and you don't respond with a comment. First of all,
that is incredibly flattering. Secondly, it's funny, are you? This
(05:02):
is my problem with most people that are in the
PR business. They hide from anything that creates a real emotional,
intimate connection. They're afraid of it, which is why they're
(05:23):
not good at what they do. It's why you see
bad advertising, it's why you see bad event planning and
promotion because everything has to be dumbed down to the
least controversial, least fun thing imaginable. This is the best
(05:45):
PR HB could ever hope for. And it's funny, and
it's young people. When young people think you're cool, that's rare.
You're a grocery store. If this had been Bucki's Beaver,
Applan would have driven there and gotten in and put
(06:08):
himself in the sign with them, because he's got a
sense of humor, because he's a real human being. People
were excited, but ife you were saying it had to
be a prank because of the quick timeline. Wells said,
HGB owns at least ten acres of land and Sealy.
According to Atkinson, the idea that the grocery chain could
(06:29):
open a location there, he said, is not an unrealistic concept.
What most on social media could not see in the
Facebook poster from the street was the small print in
free hand on the bottom right hand corner of the
sign that read Senior's Class of twenty twenty five. You know,
those kids are awesome. I think that's just fantastic, and
(06:53):
it reminds me when I left Orange in eighty nine.
I had to get out of the little city. I
had to go to the big city. You know, it's
just a mac Davis song for those of you who remember.
I had to get out of there. And my brother
who stayed would tell me because we talked daily, and
he'd go, hey, we got Walmart coming, like, oh, well,
(07:17):
and then you know I got to move back Walmart.
I got a Walmart coming.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And then later it was hey, we got super Walmart coming,
which really just meant twenty four hours a day, but
it meant a bigger footprint and that was really really exciting.
We're getting bigger, and we're getting a I don't know,
it's Godfather's Pizza, or we're getting to this, or we're
getting to that. In small towns that don't have very
many national chains, you get really really I don't know
(07:46):
where people in Seeley shop for groceries. I don't know,
And I mean I would guess that there's a local,
family owned market that probably won't last to long after
an HGB does open, if in fact that happens, that
has maybe you know a butcher that's been there forever
(08:08):
and maybe they buy the local produce. But anyway, I
thought it was a great story, all in good fun.
So Connor Wells and Landing sotleact good on you.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'll be interested. So you kids are going to be.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Successful in life. This is Selvester Turner, the mayor, and
a human being.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Willa Michael Bettyshaw. In your mind. I show them to
you and you see them shine.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
The song was written in Johnny Cash's living room. Read
a biography on Johnny Cash, who, by the way, did
not go by Johnny Cash. He went by the name
John Cash to his friends and family. Johnny was kind
of the stage name anyway. On Wednesday Nights, he would
(09:01):
have artists and friends come over and they would work
through segments of songs and song ideas and refer you know, hey,
do you know so and so came out with a
new album, give that a listen. And he told the
story that Bob Dylan came with just the early parts
(09:23):
of that song and they kind of worked through it
at the at the Wednesday night session seven one three,
nine nine, nine, one thousand. Chris, you were on the
Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Let's say you, sir, what's up, big Mike? How you doing? Man?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Yes, sir, I'm from Sealy, and I gotta tell you, man,
those boys. First of all, my wife's a school teacher
there and she knows he's two young men. And then
just good all American kids. That prank was clean. There
was no damage. No, I mean it. It was a
(10:00):
perfect prank because not only did they just you know,
most pranks, senior pranks, they're designed to get the teachers
or the school or whatever. And then you had the
maintenance department pressure Washington buildings and crap like that. That's
not the right way to do it. There was no
damage if they got the entire community. So if there
was a Prank Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
They're on it. They're top. No one's ever going to
beat that so and no risk.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Of getting arrested, expelled, anybody heard, no expense to anybody else.
They've got the grin on their face in the photo
because both of them are standing next to the sign.
I'm sure you've seen it, and they've got this grin
that they are so proud of themselves, which is exactly
the grin I would have had as well. I absolutely
(10:50):
love it. I think these kids are fantastic. Jim, you're
on the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Go ahead, sir, Hey Michael, longtime listener, loved your show.
I'm also from Sealy. Uh, those kids did create job.
They were in our local paper last week. And you're right,
the grin is awesome and super prank. But you mentioned
(11:16):
in your last segment about the grocery store in Sealy,
Well there is one. It's called the Bill's Country Market. Yeah,
and I actually worked there. Okay, yeah, go ahead. I
worked there in high school for four years for the
Trumpets family and had more fun working there than I
did making money. But they've got a meat market and
(11:37):
next one meat market. And I'll send you an email
if you come through Sealy, Texas, I will have they
know me in the meat market and I'll have you
set up with the order of Texas strips doctored up
to anyone's liking and have them ready for you next
time you're going to Austin see your boy. Uh. They
(12:01):
make homemade fresh pork sausage every Thursday, and it's probably
I'm a concert, I'm a conserve meat. It's probably the
best pork sausage I've ever had. And uh people Crumpets
family that owns the store. They are great stewards of
the city of Sealy. So U K R A. M. P.
(12:28):
I t Z.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Crumpets, Okay, and and uh, so Bill's Supermarket. Several people
email me that that's where folks shop there.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, at Crumpets, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
That was my question. No, no, that was my question. Okay,
how long has that been there?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, oh, probably close to one hundred years. But at
Crumpets when he came back from World War Two, he
opened up the meat market for the family in the
grocery store, and uh, it's been excellently run for every Well,
it's been forty five years since I've been in high school.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So now, did you will?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
They've always given back the community.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I did everything else from A to Z in four years.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Though, what do you do now?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Every Saturday morning? Sir?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
What do you do now?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I'm a real estate appraiser for forty years?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Oh well, okay, you said, I'm sorry I interrupt you.
Every Saturday morning, what would y'all do at Bill's Supermarket?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
We'd be there. We'd be there at six. We had
a zamboni machine. We'd you know, clean the floors and
then we'd wax them every Saturday morning at six and
the store would open at seven.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Oh I love that.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I love that. And there's a cash here. There's a cashire.
Her name is Dorothy Browne. She's probably worked there for
over sixty years. She's ninety years old, and she looks
the same today she did when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And her name is what.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Dorothy Broom?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Okay, all right, do me a favor. I am. I
am driving Jim from Houston, and I am westbound and
I'm coming in to Seeley. Direct me with as specific
directions as you can with streets, roads and distances as
(14:26):
and and and landmarks on how to get there. Take
me there from from get me there from Katie.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
All right, I will, I will, I will do that
as an appraiser.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And I've got that ability. And it's right downtown in
the central Business district, so it's impossible not to find it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
But it's but like, okay, so I'm driving around in
west Where am I going to turn?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
You're going to exit thirty six more? Okay? All right,
there's a four way intersection at where the bank is
in downtown. The block before the bank, You're gonna turn
right and go one block and you'll run right into
the store. And there's a big directional sign there on thirty six.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
What is the street I'm gonna turn right on?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You're gonna turn right on. Don't get me the line.
I don't even remember. Oh, you're gonna take a right
on on Fourth Street.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
So I received a number of emails from people who said,
I didn't know the word as Celians, but that's the word.
I'm assuming that's that they weren't joking when they said that.
Who said Celians shop at Bill's Supermarket and someone else
said correct. Several people said, we don't need an h
(15:45):
GiB because we have a wally World, a Walmart and
We have a Mama Pop grocery store called Bill's. They
have an awesome meat market. If we need hib we
can go to Brenham or Columbus or Katie Keep Seely
a small town. Several people said they don't want an HIV.
But why do you think people are saying they do
(16:07):
want an HIV?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
What? What is? Well, Seeley's gonna grow so fast in
the next ten years. It's the population of the over
thirty pounds you can't shoots.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
It's the zamboney you side. You know, there's five million
love songs, and then there's songs about love songs, and
(16:50):
then there's the you know, Randy Travis song about love
songs and how this one was different because there's still
just love songs Protestations of love. And you think to yourself,
if you're a songwriter, I understand that's the most popular
(17:11):
because then you know, people when they're in love will
want to play your song. Well, you think of how
many other life experiences are out there that you could
write about. Who I can't speak for girls because they're
wired differently, and thank God for that. But what dude
(17:33):
hadn't wanted to drive the zamboni? I have a friend
named David Sapristein and his daughter married of Greek fellow.
I mean, he's American, but the family's Greek. And his
name is Tasso or Tasso's it's a very common Greek name. Apparently,
(17:57):
super nice guy. And he David invested in his company
which runs ice rinks around America. And so he was
telling us at dinner, my wife and I years ago
about his son's company. And they invested in ice rinks.
(18:22):
Who you never meet somebody who owns an ice rink?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Miss Virture, my seventh grade, seventh and eighth grade math
teacher who was really more famous for giving licks. She loved.
She loved to paddle errant young boys like me and
Ben Wernig and Craig Hobbs and Toby Schultz and Stephen
(18:45):
Bradley and Jimmy Barker. And famously you would choose which
paddle you were gonna get your whipping from, and she
she say, you can have a thunderbolt from a lightning stroke,
or maybe it was reverse. You would pick, and so
(19:08):
she you know you had done something wrong, and she
would call you up and she would put them out
on her desk and you would pick which one you
were about to get your butt whipped with, and with
both of them, it was a loser because she gave
the hardest licks at the school did misvirture and she
(19:31):
own she opened We had an old in orange Field.
We had an old roller ring, the old wooden roller ring,
you know, with with the tiny slat wood floors. And
she got out there in her coveralls and she she
got a lease on it for a little or nothing
(19:52):
because the building had been vacant for so long, and
she brought it back to life and it was open.
I don't know how long. It was not very long.
She threw a misspacked man in there, and maybe a
pac Man and a Galagher. That's really all I needed.
Maybe a couple pinball machines. And we were gonna We're
gonna have a roller rink in an Orangefield. And I
(20:18):
don't think there were enough people to keep the roller
rink going. But so I did know somebody owned a
roller rink, but I never know anybody I own it.
So I would tell David, I want to drive the Zamboni,
and he told Tassa Orangeosso, said yes, you can do it.
And I never followed through on driving the zamboni. I
(20:38):
suppose I still could, because far as I know, he
probably still owns it. But you think about how many
songs are there about the fact that I want to
drive a zamboni. So somehow Ramon knew that song we're
talking about. The guy called in and he drove the
zamboni at the at the grocery store every Saturday morning
when they would clean the floor. And I bet a
(21:01):
good number of men listening to the to the show.
Maybe women too, I just don't know, thought to themselves, Man,
I like to drive zamboni. I'd go work on Saturday
morning and just drive a zambone. It'd be fun, right,
But nobody writes songs like that except for one. So
maybe instead of trying to figure out another way to say,
(21:23):
you know, I want to hump you, or you know,
my heart flutters in your presence, or you're fine, maybe
a couple more songs about stuff like that that's not
being written about but needs to be written about because
it's important. Because everybody wants to drive the zamboni, right,
(21:44):
I mean, it seems reasonable to spend a little bit
of time on that. Is Melanie still on the line,
Ramone all right, Melanie, you're on the Michael Berry Show.
Go ahead, Dear.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Michael. My daughter her senior year. She graduated in twenty ten,
and they were trying to come up with the way
to get their senior prank off without getting in trouble.
So where we lived in Sioux Falls, they have a statue,
(22:19):
a naked statue of David in downtown Sioux Falls. So
they made a toga using the school colors and dressed
David up in a toga.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
How was that received?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
It was received rather well. Actually I didn't think it would,
you know, make the news or anything like that, but yeah,
you know, the local news crew was out there taking
pictures of you know, David dressed up in this orange
and black toga and nobody's been able to top it
(23:06):
since then. So I give her kudos, uh, because she's
the seamstress of her friend group, So they sent a
week gathering all the materials to sow there's toga together.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well, I mean, you got to give them some credit
for the effort, right, you know, thank you for the call, sweetheart.
I had some friends who I ran with. They were
very good friends of mine. Not going to say their
name at this point, for this particular thing. But they
went out mailbox bashing, and you know, there wasn't anything
(23:42):
to do in Orange, especially not out where we where
we lived here out in the country, and they went
along and they smashed mailboxes, and our mailbox was one
of the mailboxes that got smashed. And somehow they got caught,
I don't remember how. And so I come home from
school and they are sitting in the living room and
(24:05):
they're having to apologize to my parents and I'm having
to see my friends, and I feel horrible for them,
horrible because they were such good friends of mine, and
I mean, I wasn't mad at them, and it was
it was just it was it was a prank gone wrong.
And we still laugh about it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
To this day. Whoscar don'ts nips and dazers with without
the scooter.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Stick or one single whistling kiddy chaser.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Ramon told me during the break that he used to
go to the Houston Arrows games the ice hockey team,
and that during intermission, when the zamboni guy would come.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Out, he would.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
He would they would play that song because who really
didn't want to drive the zamboni If you're at an
event or you're just I mean, even if you're just
in the old days. When I came to Houston, my
wife and I would go to the Galleria and just
walk around at the galleria because it was cool. I
(25:11):
mean it was we didn't have anything like that, you know,
Park Dell Mall just didn't measure up. And we'd go
to the galleria and it was so super cool and
we would watch, you know, the ice skating, and eventually
we would rent the skates. Boy, if you if you
want to feel stupid and you've never ice skated, go
(25:37):
rent you some skates and get out there with your girl.
And then there's always some gay dude skating passed and
at the galleria that they that dude is there preparing
for some Scott Hammel competition he's got going on this weekend.
And he goes fluttering past you. And thank god he
(26:01):
doesn't look like the Marlboro Man or act like the
Marlboro Man, because you don't have to worry your girl's
gonna you know, he's gonna steal your girl because he
wants to be your girl. Like he's all, you know,
soft and fluttery. But it makes you look bad on
your skates because you know, you're just stomping around and stay,
(26:22):
you know, holding onto the rail as hard as you can.
I was a decent roller skater. My brother was a
superstar at it. He could skate backwards. I could never
skate backwards. I'm not sure it's a you know, really
important life skill when you get right down to it,
because other than doing a couple skate, there's really no
(26:43):
reason to skate backwards other than to just show off.
But there comes an age where you can't just hold
hands with the girl and couple skate with her both
of you facing forward. That just there an age where
you need to figure this thing out. And so I did. No,
(27:07):
I didn't learn to skate backwards. I would only ask
girls to couple skate if she could skate backwards. Yeah,
and I would hope nobody would notice. But you got
to figure people notice if you're a dude and you're
skating back you're skating with the girl during the couple skate,
and she's the one skating backwards. You gotta figure you're
(27:29):
not holding up your dude role and you can't skate backwards.
And so I don't know how many people knew that
I chose my couple skate partner based on a confirmed
sighting of her skating backwards. Maybe people looked like that, dude,
Dayton is skating with that girl because she can skate
(27:49):
backwards and he can't. I don't know how many people
that was the case, but that was the case. That
was my strategy, and frankly, I'm kind of proud of it.
I think that's a way that you know, is really
thinking ahead, because you know, when you're when you're eight
years old, you can you can do the you know,
hokey poke and you can you can skate uh in
(28:10):
circles holding her hand. Y'all are both looking forward. But
you get to be well into high school. When we
were still you know, the Brown's roller rink was the
place to go or spinning wheels. That was the two
You You need to be able to skate backwards, and
I couldn't. Anyway. You go to the roller rink, I
mean you go to the ice skating and you you
(28:32):
go get your skates and you look like a fool.
My kids. Actually, at one point we used to live
right next to uh the Gallery of and we lived
in these brownstones that were on Hidalgo. You entered you
entered off of Hidalgo. We lived directly behind the waterfall
(28:56):
at what used to be called trans It'll always be
transcoding me. Then it became William's Tower, and I don't
know what it is now, but we live directly behind there.
And so Michael and I and most of the time
my wife, this before Crock came home. We would walk
over in the evenings when I got off the air,
we would walk over and skate. And it didn't take long.
(29:23):
My kids are much more athletic than I am, and
it didn't take long till Michael t got to where
he could burn it up, and he loved to ice skate,
and so there I'd be grabbing on the You remember
that scene in Rocky Ramon, You remember the scene where
they go ice skating and he's terrible at it. Yeah,
(29:45):
well that's kind of you. Just you feel like such
a goof Velina, who is our polka dancer? Listener says
new residents in Sealy. We've been property shopping for three years.
Finally chose a house in Sealy, eighties construction just inside
(30:06):
the city limits. We hope Sealy can stay the quality town.
We fell in love with Bills is great. We want
to keep them in our new town. Ace Hardware is
great with knowledgeable help and stuff in stock. Our new
neighbors act like people acted forty years ago. Polka Dance
has still happened frequently with people calling from all the
(30:27):
neighbor neighboring towns together. We saved for fifteen years, wishing
to get away from the big city mentality that has
taken over a Leaf and Sugarland, HB and Columbus or
Katie are plenty close. In other words, they moved to
Sealy and they don't want Seely to change. And I
think that's what's going to happen. I mean, look at
(30:49):
the movement of people. These trends, they're ever occurring, but
I think you're going to see the massive growth. We've
got a show sponsor called Hawk Foreign Capital and they're
a private equity firm base based in downtown Houston, and
if you're an a credited investor, you can invest with them.
And what they do is they buy land in places
(31:11):
like Belleville Sea Lee because that's where people are heading
and there is a crime component and a school district component.
People don't want to be around democrats. That's why the
urban areas are all Democrats.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's not that everybody changed to being Democrats, it's that
Republicans moved out of urban areas. And then when the
Republicans move out, there's nobody to bring about change. So
you're left with Sylvester Turner and Sheila Jackson leed kind
of leadership, and so you're left with the worst of
black racial politics. And so you've got you've got black
activist types and you've got white liberal types. And that's
(31:50):
what you're seeing with Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. And
that's what has happened with all the major American cities,
in all the major urban areas municipalities across the country.
And that's why these protests happened there. So we can
win state governors' races, we can win the presidential elections,
(32:11):
but the cities are lost. They're just lost, and people
moved to the suburbs. The problem is the Democrats are
chasing people into the suburbs. So now people are moving
into areas, and a lot of times they didn't necessarily
want a true small town experience. They just wanted to
be safe, they didn't want crime, they didn't want bad
(32:32):
school districts. They didn't want those sorts of things. So
I think you're gonna see areas like Chapel Hill, Belleville, Sealy,
and it makes it look it makes the people in
those communities crazy because they moved out there to get
away from Houston, and the Houstons of the world are
coming out there. That's Waco, Sealy, all of them. That's
what's happening.
It's that time.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Time time, time, Luck and load.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The Michael Verie Show is.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
On the air.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Most public pranks, most public pranks that are carried out
for the purpose of getting I don't mean you know
when you when you pull a prank on your buddy
at the office, or your kid or your spouse. But
when they're done in public, they're often, if not usually,
(00:53):
more problem than funny, especially when it's high school kids.
And it never ceases to amaze me the decision making
tree of most high school kids. How on earth did
(01:14):
they think that that was a good idea. Now I've
been lucky, and I don't take the credit for this.
I give it to my wife. I am far more
likely to do something stupid because I think it'll be
funny than my kids are. My kids have had adult
sensibilities since pretty early in their life, and frankly, so
(01:39):
did I when I was younger, and then as I
got older, I decided that I needed to live a
little so I don't live in fear that my kids
will do something stupid like that. Fortunately, now they have
some friends that I wouldn't be surprised. But they're good kids.
They just, you know, decision making with that in mind.
(02:02):
There was a great prank pulled by two silly high
school students that is absolutely unobjectionable. There's nobody that could
have a problem with it, and you have to at
least at least have a chuckle as a result. They
made a sign, a decent size sign that goes up.
(02:25):
Let's see, his kid's close to six feet tall, so
it's about six feet tall, and it says coming soon,
late twenty twenty five. And they put the ChB logo,
so at the top it's a big chib logo. Then
underneath it coming soon. Then underneath that late twenty twenty five.
(02:51):
There are two eighteen year old kids named Connor Wells
and Land and Soda Lac or Soda loc presuming probably
good Polish name out in Sealy. They made the sign
and then they planted it in an empty field near
their school. By eight point thirty the next morning, the sign,
(03:12):
with the near replica of the grocery chain's hyphenated red lettering,
had created a buzz on social media that took Wells
in Sodilac a little by surprise. Sotiac tells the Houston
Chronicle quote, we knew the backstory to the town wanting
an HB. We just wanted to do a senior prank
that wasn't destructive. We didn't realize it was going to
(03:34):
get this big. Well Sealy does not have an HB
from the Houston Chronicle quote, Rumors of the grocery chain
coming to Seely had been a source for hope and
disappointment to its residents for over fifteen years. According to
Wells's mother, Crystal Cuban, who was in on the ruse
from the beginning and had posted the photo of the
sign to her social media, users began sharing the post
(03:57):
immediately and commenting on the butter tortillas and other signature
HB favorites. It was crazy, she said. It got to
the point where people were calling the city to find
out if it was true. Bill Atkinson of Sealy's Economic
Development and Tourism office said city staff filled at a
barrage of calls that morning with residents asking about the
(04:17):
sign and when the news store was coming. The city
eventually tracked down the source of all the excitement and
saw how much attention it had generated. Quote from an
economic development standpoint, it's great, Atkinson said, it really got
the community reinvigorated by the idea of HB coming hib
didn't respond to a request for comment. For some users
(04:39):
on Facebook, it was too good to be true. What
you know, How are you in the PR department at
HB and you don't respond with a comment. First of all,
that is incredibly flattering. Secondly, it's funny, are you? This
(05:02):
is my problem with most people that are in the
PR business. They hide from anything that creates a real emotional,
intimate connection. They're afraid of it, which is why they're
(05:23):
not good at what they do. It's why you see
bad advertising, it's why you see bad event planning and
promotion because everything has to be dumbed down to the
least controversial, least fun thing imaginable. This is the best
(05:45):
PR HB could ever hope for. And it's funny, and
it's young people. When young people think you're cool, that's rare.
You're a grocery store. If this had been Bucki's Beaver,
Applan would have driven there and gotten in and put
(06:08):
himself in the sign with them, because he's got a
sense of humor, because he's a real human being. People
were excited, but ife you were saying it had to
be a prank because of the quick timeline. Wells said,
HGB owns at least ten acres of land and Sealy.
According to Atkinson, the idea that the grocery chain could
(06:29):
open a location there, he said, is not an unrealistic concept.
What most on social media could not see in the
Facebook poster from the street was the small print in
free hand on the bottom right hand corner of the
sign that read Senior's Class of twenty twenty five. You know,
those kids are awesome. I think that's just fantastic, and
(06:53):
it reminds me when I left Orange in eighty nine.
I had to get out of the little city. I
had to go to the big city. You know, it's
just a mac Davis song for those of you who remember.
I had to get out of there. And my brother
who stayed would tell me because we talked daily, and
he'd go, hey, we got Walmart coming, like, oh, well,
(07:17):
and then you know I got to move back Walmart.
I got a Walmart coming.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And then later it was hey, we got super Walmart coming,
which really just meant twenty four hours a day, but
it meant a bigger footprint and that was really really exciting.
We're getting bigger, and we're getting a I don't know,
it's Godfather's Pizza, or we're getting to this, or we're
getting to that. In small towns that don't have very
many national chains, you get really really I don't know
(07:46):
where people in Seeley shop for groceries. I don't know,
And I mean I would guess that there's a local,
family owned market that probably won't last to long after
an HGB does open, if in fact that happens, that
has maybe you know a butcher that's been there forever
(08:08):
and maybe they buy the local produce. But anyway, I
thought it was a great story, all in good fun.
So Connor Wells and Landing sotleact good on you.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I'll be interested. So you kids are going to be.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Successful in life. This is Selvester Turner, the mayor, and
a human being.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Willa Michael Bettyshaw. In your mind. I show them to
you and you see them shine.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
The song was written in Johnny Cash's living room. Read
a biography on Johnny Cash, who, by the way, did
not go by Johnny Cash. He went by the name
John Cash to his friends and family. Johnny was kind
of the stage name anyway. On Wednesday Nights, he would
(09:01):
have artists and friends come over and they would work
through segments of songs and song ideas and refer you know, hey,
do you know so and so came out with a
new album, give that a listen. And he told the
story that Bob Dylan came with just the early parts
(09:23):
of that song and they kind of worked through it
at the at the Wednesday night session seven one three,
nine nine, nine, one thousand. Chris, you were on the
Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Let's say you, sir, what's up, big Mike? How you doing? Man?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Yes, sir, I'm from Sealy, and I gotta tell you, man,
those boys. First of all, my wife's a school teacher
there and she knows he's two young men. And then
just good all American kids. That prank was clean. There
was no damage. No, I mean it. It was a
(10:00):
perfect prank because not only did they just you know,
most pranks, senior pranks, they're designed to get the teachers
or the school or whatever. And then you had the
maintenance department pressure Washington buildings and crap like that. That's
not the right way to do it. There was no
damage if they got the entire community. So if there
was a Prank Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
They're on it. They're top. No one's ever going to
beat that so and no risk.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Of getting arrested, expelled, anybody heard, no expense to anybody else.
They've got the grin on their face in the photo
because both of them are standing next to the sign.
I'm sure you've seen it, and they've got this grin
that they are so proud of themselves, which is exactly
the grin I would have had as well. I absolutely
(10:50):
love it. I think these kids are fantastic. Jim, you're
on the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Go ahead, sir, Hey Michael, longtime listener, loved your show.
I'm also from Sealy. Uh, those kids did create job.
They were in our local paper last week. And you're right,
the grin is awesome and super prank. But you mentioned
(11:16):
in your last segment about the grocery store in Sealy,
Well there is one. It's called the Bill's Country Market. Yeah,
and I actually worked there. Okay, yeah, go ahead. I
worked there in high school for four years for the
Trumpets family and had more fun working there than I
did making money. But they've got a meat market and
(11:37):
next one meat market. And I'll send you an email
if you come through Sealy, Texas, I will have they
know me in the meat market and I'll have you
set up with the order of Texas strips doctored up
to anyone's liking and have them ready for you next
time you're going to Austin see your boy. Uh. They
(12:01):
make homemade fresh pork sausage every Thursday, and it's probably
I'm a concert, I'm a conserve meat. It's probably the
best pork sausage I've ever had. And uh people Crumpets
family that owns the store. They are great stewards of
the city of Sealy. So U K R A. M. P.
(12:28):
I t Z.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Crumpets, Okay, and and uh, so Bill's Supermarket. Several people
email me that that's where folks shop there.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, at Crumpets, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
That was my question. No, no, that was my question. Okay,
how long has that been there?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, oh, probably close to one hundred years. But at
Crumpets when he came back from World War Two, he
opened up the meat market for the family in the
grocery store, and uh, it's been excellently run for every Well,
it's been forty five years since I've been in high school.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So now, did you will?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
They've always given back the community.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I did everything else from A to Z in four years.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Though, what do you do now?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Every Saturday morning? Sir?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
What do you do now?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I'm a real estate appraiser for forty years?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Oh well, okay, you said, I'm sorry I interrupt you.
Every Saturday morning, what would y'all do at Bill's Supermarket?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
We'd be there. We'd be there at six. We had
a zamboni machine. We'd you know, clean the floors and
then we'd wax them every Saturday morning at six and
the store would open at seven.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Oh I love that.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I love that. And there's a cash here. There's a cashire.
Her name is Dorothy Browne. She's probably worked there for
over sixty years. She's ninety years old, and she looks
the same today she did when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And her name is what.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Dorothy Broom?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Okay, all right, do me a favor. I am. I
am driving Jim from Houston, and I am westbound and
I'm coming in to Seeley. Direct me with as specific
directions as you can with streets, roads and distances as
(14:26):
and and and landmarks on how to get there. Take
me there from from get me there from Katie.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
All right, I will, I will, I will do that
as an appraiser.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And I've got that ability. And it's right downtown in
the central Business district, so it's impossible not to find it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
But it's but like, okay, so I'm driving around in
west Where am I going to turn?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
You're going to exit thirty six more? Okay? All right,
there's a four way intersection at where the bank is
in downtown. The block before the bank, You're gonna turn
right and go one block and you'll run right into
the store. And there's a big directional sign there on thirty six.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
What is the street I'm gonna turn right on?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You're gonna turn right on. Don't get me the line.
I don't even remember. Oh, you're gonna take a right
on on Fourth Street.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
So I received a number of emails from people who said,
I didn't know the word as Celians, but that's the word.
I'm assuming that's that they weren't joking when they said that.
Who said Celians shop at Bill's Supermarket and someone else
said correct. Several people said, we don't need an h
(15:45):
GiB because we have a wally World, a Walmart and
We have a Mama Pop grocery store called Bill's. They
have an awesome meat market. If we need hib we
can go to Brenham or Columbus or Katie Keep Seely
a small town. Several people said they don't want an HIV.
But why do you think people are saying they do
(16:07):
want an HIV?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
What? What is? Well, Seeley's gonna grow so fast in
the next ten years. It's the population of the over
thirty pounds you can't shoots.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
It's the zamboney you side. You know, there's five million
love songs, and then there's songs about love songs, and
(16:50):
then there's the you know, Randy Travis song about love
songs and how this one was different because there's still
just love songs Protestations of love. And you think to yourself,
if you're a songwriter, I understand that's the most popular
(17:11):
because then you know, people when they're in love will
want to play your song. Well, you think of how
many other life experiences are out there that you could
write about. Who I can't speak for girls because they're
wired differently, and thank God for that. But what dude
(17:33):
hadn't wanted to drive the zamboni? I have a friend
named David Sapristein and his daughter married of Greek fellow.
I mean, he's American, but the family's Greek. And his
name is Tasso or Tasso's it's a very common Greek name. Apparently,
(17:57):
super nice guy. And he David invested in his company
which runs ice rinks around America. And so he was
telling us at dinner, my wife and I years ago
about his son's company. And they invested in ice rinks.
(18:22):
Who you never meet somebody who owns an ice rink?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Miss Virture, my seventh grade, seventh and eighth grade math
teacher who was really more famous for giving licks. She loved.
She loved to paddle errant young boys like me and
Ben Wernig and Craig Hobbs and Toby Schultz and Stephen
(18:45):
Bradley and Jimmy Barker. And famously you would choose which
paddle you were gonna get your whipping from, and she
she say, you can have a thunderbolt from a lightning stroke,
or maybe it was reverse. You would pick, and so
(19:08):
she you know you had done something wrong, and she
would call you up and she would put them out
on her desk and you would pick which one you
were about to get your butt whipped with, and with
both of them, it was a loser because she gave
the hardest licks at the school did misvirture and she
(19:31):
own she opened We had an old in orange Field.
We had an old roller ring, the old wooden roller ring,
you know, with with the tiny slat wood floors. And
she got out there in her coveralls and she she
got a lease on it for a little or nothing
(19:52):
because the building had been vacant for so long, and
she brought it back to life and it was open.
I don't know how long. It was not very long.
She threw a misspacked man in there, and maybe a
pac Man and a Galagher. That's really all I needed.
Maybe a couple pinball machines. And we were gonna We're
gonna have a roller rink in an Orangefield. And I
(20:18):
don't think there were enough people to keep the roller
rink going. But so I did know somebody owned a
roller rink, but I never know anybody I own it.
So I would tell David, I want to drive the Zamboni,
and he told Tassa Orangeosso, said yes, you can do it.
And I never followed through on driving the zamboni. I
(20:38):
suppose I still could, because far as I know, he
probably still owns it. But you think about how many
songs are there about the fact that I want to
drive a zamboni. So somehow Ramon knew that song we're
talking about. The guy called in and he drove the
zamboni at the at the grocery store every Saturday morning
when they would clean the floor. And I bet a
(21:01):
good number of men listening to the to the show.
Maybe women too, I just don't know, thought to themselves, Man,
I like to drive zamboni. I'd go work on Saturday
morning and just drive a zambone. It'd be fun, right,
But nobody writes songs like that except for one. So
maybe instead of trying to figure out another way to say,
(21:23):
you know, I want to hump you, or you know,
my heart flutters in your presence, or you're fine, maybe
a couple more songs about stuff like that that's not
being written about but needs to be written about because
it's important. Because everybody wants to drive the zamboni, right,
(21:44):
I mean, it seems reasonable to spend a little bit
of time on that. Is Melanie still on the line,
Ramone all right, Melanie, you're on the Michael Berry Show.
Go ahead, Dear.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Michael. My daughter her senior year. She graduated in twenty ten,
and they were trying to come up with the way
to get their senior prank off without getting in trouble.
So where we lived in Sioux Falls, they have a statue,
(22:19):
a naked statue of David in downtown Sioux Falls. So
they made a toga using the school colors and dressed
David up in a toga.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
How was that received?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
It was received rather well. Actually I didn't think it would,
you know, make the news or anything like that, but yeah,
you know, the local news crew was out there taking
pictures of you know, David dressed up in this orange
and black toga and nobody's been able to top it
(23:06):
since then. So I give her kudos, uh, because she's
the seamstress of her friend group, So they sent a
week gathering all the materials to sow there's toga together.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well, I mean, you got to give them some credit
for the effort, right, you know, thank you for the call, sweetheart.
I had some friends who I ran with. They were
very good friends of mine. Not going to say their
name at this point, for this particular thing. But they
went out mailbox bashing, and you know, there wasn't anything
(23:42):
to do in Orange, especially not out where we where
we lived here out in the country, and they went
along and they smashed mailboxes, and our mailbox was one
of the mailboxes that got smashed. And somehow they got caught,
I don't remember how. And so I come home from
school and they are sitting in the living room and
(24:05):
they're having to apologize to my parents and I'm having
to see my friends, and I feel horrible for them,
horrible because they were such good friends of mine, and
I mean, I wasn't mad at them, and it was
it was just it was it was a prank gone wrong.
And we still laugh about it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
To this day. Whoscar don'ts nips and dazers with without
the scooter.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Stick or one single whistling kiddy chaser.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Ramon told me during the break that he used to
go to the Houston Arrows games the ice hockey team,
and that during intermission, when the zamboni guy would come.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Out, he would.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
He would they would play that song because who really
didn't want to drive the zamboni If you're at an
event or you're just I mean, even if you're just
in the old days. When I came to Houston, my
wife and I would go to the Galleria and just
walk around at the galleria because it was cool. I
(25:11):
mean it was we didn't have anything like that, you know,
Park Dell Mall just didn't measure up. And we'd go
to the galleria and it was so super cool and
we would watch, you know, the ice skating, and eventually
we would rent the skates. Boy, if you if you
want to feel stupid and you've never ice skated, go
(25:37):
rent you some skates and get out there with your girl.
And then there's always some gay dude skating passed and
at the galleria that they that dude is there preparing
for some Scott Hammel competition he's got going on this weekend.
And he goes fluttering past you. And thank god he
(26:01):
doesn't look like the Marlboro Man or act like the
Marlboro Man, because you don't have to worry your girl's
gonna you know, he's gonna steal your girl because he
wants to be your girl. Like he's all, you know,
soft and fluttery. But it makes you look bad on
your skates because you know, you're just stomping around and stay,
(26:22):
you know, holding onto the rail as hard as you can.
I was a decent roller skater. My brother was a
superstar at it. He could skate backwards. I could never
skate backwards. I'm not sure it's a you know, really
important life skill when you get right down to it,
because other than doing a couple skate, there's really no
(26:43):
reason to skate backwards other than to just show off.
But there comes an age where you can't just hold
hands with the girl and couple skate with her both
of you facing forward. That just there an age where
you need to figure this thing out. And so I did. No,
(27:07):
I didn't learn to skate backwards. I would only ask
girls to couple skate if she could skate backwards. Yeah,
and I would hope nobody would notice. But you got
to figure people notice if you're a dude and you're
skating back you're skating with the girl during the couple skate,
and she's the one skating backwards. You gotta figure you're
(27:29):
not holding up your dude role and you can't skate backwards.
And so I don't know how many people knew that
I chose my couple skate partner based on a confirmed
sighting of her skating backwards. Maybe people looked like that, dude,
Dayton is skating with that girl because she can skate
(27:49):
backwards and he can't. I don't know how many people
that was the case, but that was the case. That
was my strategy, and frankly, I'm kind of proud of it.
I think that's a way that you know, is really
thinking ahead, because you know, when you're when you're eight
years old, you can you can do the you know,
hokey poke and you can you can skate uh in
(28:10):
circles holding her hand. Y'all are both looking forward. But
you get to be well into high school. When we
were still you know, the Brown's roller rink was the
place to go or spinning wheels. That was the two
You You need to be able to skate backwards, and
I couldn't. Anyway. You go to the roller rink, I
mean you go to the ice skating and you you
(28:32):
go get your skates and you look like a fool.
My kids. Actually, at one point we used to live
right next to uh the Gallery of and we lived
in these brownstones that were on Hidalgo. You entered you
entered off of Hidalgo. We lived directly behind the waterfall
(28:56):
at what used to be called trans It'll always be
transcoding me. Then it became William's Tower, and I don't
know what it is now, but we live directly behind there.
And so Michael and I and most of the time
my wife, this before Crock came home. We would walk
over in the evenings when I got off the air,
we would walk over and skate. And it didn't take long.
(29:23):
My kids are much more athletic than I am, and
it didn't take long till Michael t got to where
he could burn it up, and he loved to ice skate,
and so there I'd be grabbing on the You remember
that scene in Rocky Ramon, You remember the scene where
they go ice skating and he's terrible at it. Yeah,
(29:45):
well that's kind of you. Just you feel like such
a goof Velina, who is our polka dancer? Listener says
new residents in Sealy. We've been property shopping for three years.
Finally chose a house in Sealy, eighties construction just inside
(30:06):
the city limits. We hope Sealy can stay the quality town.
We fell in love with Bills is great. We want
to keep them in our new town. Ace Hardware is
great with knowledgeable help and stuff in stock. Our new
neighbors act like people acted forty years ago. Polka Dance
has still happened frequently with people calling from all the
(30:27):
neighbor neighboring towns together. We saved for fifteen years, wishing
to get away from the big city mentality that has
taken over a Leaf and Sugarland, HB and Columbus or
Katie are plenty close. In other words, they moved to
Sealy and they don't want Seely to change. And I
think that's what's going to happen. I mean, look at
(30:49):
the movement of people. These trends, they're ever occurring, but
I think you're going to see the massive growth. We've
got a show sponsor called Hawk Foreign Capital and they're
a private equity firm base based in downtown Houston, and
if you're an a credited investor, you can invest with them.
And what they do is they buy land in places
(31:11):
like Belleville Sea Lee because that's where people are heading
and there is a crime component and a school district component.
People don't want to be around democrats. That's why the
urban areas are all Democrats.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's not that everybody changed to being Democrats, it's that
Republicans moved out of urban areas. And then when the
Republicans move out, there's nobody to bring about change. So
you're left with Sylvester Turner and Sheila Jackson leed kind
of leadership, and so you're left with the worst of
black racial politics. And so you've got you've got black
activist types and you've got white liberal types. And that's
(31:50):
what you're seeing with Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. And
that's what has happened with all the major American cities,
in all the major urban areas municipalities across the country.
And that's why these protests happened there. So we can
win state governors' races, we can win the presidential elections,
(32:11):
but the cities are lost. They're just lost, and people
moved to the suburbs. The problem is the Democrats are
chasing people into the suburbs. So now people are moving
into areas, and a lot of times they didn't necessarily
want a true small town experience. They just wanted to
be safe, they didn't want crime, they didn't want bad
(32:32):
school districts. They didn't want those sorts of things. So
I think you're gonna see areas like Chapel Hill, Belleville, Sealy,
and it makes it look it makes the people in
those communities crazy because they moved out there to get
away from Houston, and the Houstons of the world are
coming out there. That's Waco, Sealy, all of them. That's
what's happening.
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