November 11, 2025 • 29 mins
Michael Berry honors military veterans, shares a powerful story of healing, reflects on friendship and loss, and dives into the Toy Hall of Fame and Jeopardy! nostalgia. A heartfelt mix of patriotism, pop culture, and personal insight.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The Michael Dairy Show is on the air.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Heroes everyone, Heroes by the million men who abandon home
and vocations that they may be ready to defend democracy
if necessary. Sturdy of body, firm and spirit, seamen, marine
soldiers and flyers.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Well, this is my bed level for the fare and
you place to dwells Danny in the lone street that.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I've all took, burn and ring of fires, m and
make it through the night.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Down, let you down before love came down.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Color color cross clors Chick on thet mis double bustick
lip Us.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Says, I'm mister.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Road can't touch this, you can't test When do the
chucky got the chip skinner shin deep trucking like to
(01:34):
do the man together.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
On the road again.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I just can't wait to get on the road again.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Why my love is making music with my friend. I'll
be waiting to get off road again.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I have a my morning, have a rid, I'll be the.
Speaker 7 (01:59):
US.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
I'm gonna wait out of here, say the jumper to
the thiefs.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Miss Tennessee Wische. Of course, those were all United States
military veterans in this being veterans day we honor them.
(02:35):
Speaking of lost treasures of Houston, Maggie Tanga doll Rites.
Molly's Pub in clear Lake burned to the ground yesterday.
It's been there for at least twenty five years, maybe more.
It was an institution around here. There's something that just
rattles me about seeing a legendary location burn. There's there
(03:05):
is something that watching that is just almost have to
turn away. It's it's unpleasant. Chris, you're on the Michael
Berry Show. What say you, hey, Michael morning?
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Yes, a while I was just calling in because y'all
were I heard that song balloted at a Green Berey,
so I got me to call in Star Green Berey.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So fantastic. All right, what years were you in service?
Speaker 6 (03:32):
From nineteen eighty eight to twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's a long years. That's a long time, that's a career.
So how old were you in eighty eight when you
went in?
Speaker 6 (03:45):
Twenty or nineteen? Just yeah, no, but I just turned twenty.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 6 (03:52):
Well? I grew up in Friendswood, and I was kind
of a late bloomer because I got held back a
couple of times up being a runaway, and then I
just joined the army and kind of found my family
there and went from there.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Did you ever reconcile with your family?
Speaker 6 (04:12):
No? I did not. They're horrible, so I yeah, no,
I do not want to reassult him. But but that's okay,
it's a blessing. You know. I got my family. I
my wife. We were in high school together right here
in Friendswood. We've been together thirty seven years.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So so you live in the community from which you left,
and you never bump into any of the old family.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
My mother passed away and I moved into her house,
and no, there's nobody left from the family that I
have anything to do with. Yeah, it's all.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Gone interesting And what do you do now?
Speaker 6 (04:55):
Well, I don't do anything right now. Whenever I got
out and eighteen, I couldn't hardly walk. So I spent
like the past six six and a half years getting
all these surgeries. I got the full use of my
right leg back last May. So now I'm just hitting
(05:15):
the gym getting in shape, and I go for my
eyebo gain treatment in December, and then I should be
hopefully fully functional and be able to be a productive
person again.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Tell me about that, Marcus wasn't what I'm gonna do yet. Yeah,
Marcus was the first person I knew to do that,
and he had told me about it. Then when Marcus
told me how intense it is, then I thought, I mean,
because I'm not even a lightweight compared to him, I'm
a super featherweight compared to him. And for him to
talk about the hell that it is, but to be
(05:51):
glad that he did it interested me, intrigued me, but
also had had a little bit of a fear factor
to a whole lot of fear factor to it. Although
he want his wife to do it, and she's going
to do it, how did you arrange that? I'm assuming
you're having it done in Mexico?
Speaker 6 (06:06):
Well, yes, yeah, I am. Well, I mean so like
in twenty twenty, they had had me on I think
I was on thirteen different pills and I was overweight
and suicidal and all that, and then they just quit
it cold turkey because COVID shut down the clinics and
they wouldn't let me get my refill. So I had
(06:29):
to go cold turkey off of all of that stuff.
And for seven weeks I just stayed in my room
and like stuck my bomb or something, and it was.
It was horrible. So then I started getting into other
alternative modalities for treatment with retreats and biofeedback and different
(06:49):
things that were more holistic. And I'm on no pain meds.
I'm on no nothing at all except for little blood
pressure medicine. And then I put in for this thing
called Vets Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, which was Rob Capone's
thing with the whole IBA gang, and I put in
(07:12):
for it and they gave me the grant and here
I am. So the past six weeks. They really do
a lot of coaching and you have to think of
IBA gain as something that's going to go in and
fix you, and it kind of does that. So it's
a very very unique and scary kind of thing to do.
(07:34):
But I'm going to have been through worse.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
So we had him on the show for about a
two hour discussion and it was rather thorough, and what
I appreciated was he doesn't candy coade it like a
this just like a bad LSD trip or he described
it in the realm of you know, this nightmarish dream
(07:58):
that you're going to have. But most people say, I'll
go through just about anything to be healed from this,
this horrible addiction. Chris. I will pray for you tonight,
my friend. I wish you the best of love. Thank
you for your call, and thank you for your service.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
As I've just put that on the Michael Barris.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Michael Varry Show. The new twenty five class inducted into
the National Toy Hall of Fame has been announced, and
it's a doozy. You've got Battleship, You've got slime that
came a little later than me, so I can't appreciate
that one way or another. And trivial pursuit which I
(08:45):
guess they call trivia pursuit finalists that didn't make it
this year, Catan. I'm assuming I'm pronouncing that right, sat
in Connect four. Cornhole? How does cornhole not make it?
Cornhole is such a perfect if you want to call
it a toy, because you know now they've got cornhole
(09:07):
that you can break down and move around. All you
need is the little bags. I mean. Cornhole is like
a hacky sack. I mean you can do it anywhere
and everybody enjoys Cornhole. Ferby Scooter, snow Spirograph, Star Wars, Lightsaber.
How are you not going to put that in there.
(09:27):
Tickle me Elmo wow. NBC News notes the modern Battleship
board game was made by Milton Bradley, inspired by paper
and pencil game. It debuted almost fifty years ago and
has sold over one hundred million copies. I assumed it
was older than that. Fifty years ago is nineteen seventy five.
In nineteen seventy nine, it was one of the first
(09:48):
board games to be computerized, and now there are countless
electronic versions to this day. Battleship has long been a
household name in the board game world. Those Battleship spots, man,
those were good. You got one, all right? This is
nineteen what eighty six? Okay, nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
Battleship precints Famous sinkings September ninth, nineteen eighty five. Lake
Commander Robbie Grant fires the shot that sinks his brothers destroyed.
This glorious moment is remembered as the last time Robbie
was allowed in Michael's room December twenty second, nineteen eighty
five playing electronic Battleship.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I don't know Howard Burns.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
Junior programs are devastating in town Dad says, say my
battles him and history is made battleship and electronic battleship
from Hilton Bradley.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It's a hit. That was a game right there, now,
that was a game also going in as trivia pursuit.
This is a commercial from nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Would my esteemed colleague kindly repeat the question, glam a senator.
Speaker 8 (10:46):
What time does wee Willie Winky run through the town?
Trivial pursuit. It's more than a game. It's a national obsession.
It's here, big Bird, it's there, it's everywhere. Fun keeps coming.
Trivial pursuit because every American is entitled to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of trivia from the Sol Show and writer.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So yesterday after the morning show, Alex came in. Some
of you, if you were an RCC regular, you will
remember Alex. He was the director of hydration. He was
the head bartender, and between he and Uncle Jerry, they
coordinated all the par levels and drinks and staffing and
(11:30):
everything else for the bar. And when we closed the RCC,
I didn't want to lose Alex. He's just too valuable
to us and he's just too good a dude, and
so we hired him. He started he had a pressure
washing business, which is what he was doing when he
started at the RCC. So he started his pressure washing
business back up, and we hired him a few days
(11:52):
of the week to handle stuff for us, and so
he does. He maintains the studio, he maintained some properties
for me, and every Tuesday and Thursday night he comes
to the house and we have dinner together as a family.
He's part of our family. So if for some reason
he's not there, Crockett will say, where's Alex because it's
just weird, right, George loves Alex. Everybody loves Alex. Just
(12:14):
just great. His wife's my chiropractor, Jody, and they met
at the RCC where she was a server. There were
seven couples that met and married out of the RCC.
Isn't that crazy? Pretty cool actually anyway, So every Tuesday
and Thursday night, after dinner, Alex and I retire to
the back and we play Jeopardy. And my wife laughs,
she calls it our date night. So that's our big things.
(12:35):
We play Jeopardy every Tuesday and Thursday night. We do
not miss It's a big deal for us. To miss,
and we talk about Jeopardy constantly, and we're such dorks
about it that we've gone back. We watched the old
Alex Trebek episodes we watch. We've watched every one of
Ken Jenning's episodes from the first one through the moment
(12:56):
he loses, which you don't think he's going to lose
till the very end because of the way that game
played out. But I won't go too deep in the
woods on the weeds on that one. And then we
watched Ken Jennings first episode he hosted, when he guest
hosted the other hosts. You know, they were hosting between
a lot of people in Jeopardy didn't want Ken Jennings.
So we absolutely nerd out overeard Jeopardy. We noticed when
they changed the studio, when they change the size of
(13:18):
the screens on the studio, it's like our little nerdy thing.
So Alex comes in yesterday at eleven when the show
is over, and he I don't know if he's been
in my studio three times in the five years we've
been here, so and it's always if he comes in,
it's something. You know, there's a water line that's busted.
You know, what do you want me to do or
(13:38):
there's something big that's happened. So he comes in and
I can't see him, just his face over the computer
screens that have around me. And he comes strolling in
and he still calls me mister Barry, and he says,
mister Barry, happy birthday. And I thought, oh, no this,
but but what's happened? Something's wrong. And he gets around
(14:00):
the screen and he hands me a package and it
was a present. Mom, Yeah, see, he bought me a present.
I didn't even get fried chicken. So he brings my
present and I open it up and it's the Ken
Jennings book Brainiac, and it's inside the curious, competitive and
(14:22):
compulsive world of Trivia and anyway, so of course I
start reading it, you know, thirty minutes later, once we
had finished what we need to get done at that moment,
I start reading it. And he declares nineteen eighty four
the greatest year of trivia because that's the year Trivial
Pursuit came out, and that's the year that Alex Trebek
(14:42):
began hosting Jeopardy. How about that eighty four great year
for trivia. This weekend, I got a call from my
friend Larry Hoffman. Some of you will remember Larry from
the RCC. Owns a company called TriTech Engineering, Surveying and
(15:06):
white Curly Hair clear glasses, Larger than life personality. He
was a show sponsor for a while, but I knew
him for years before he was a show sponsor. They
have an engineering firm and a surveying firm and been
around a long time. A lot of people around town
knew Larry. Great, great guy, sixty seven years old. And
(15:27):
I sat with him at his house on Saturday. Let's see,
we had to go to we had to go to
a dinner or something Saturday, I don't remember what it was,
but I sat with him for about two hours. I
had a cigar, he had a couple of cigarettes. We
talked about life and silly goofy things. And Larry had
done a lot for me over the years. So when
(15:48):
he moved into this house, he it was his bachelor
pad because he's just gone through a divorce. And so
I got him. I got him one of these things
at Marcus Trail got me onto, which is these Japanese toilets,
these total toilets, and it's an all in one. You
walk up, it's ridiculous. Ron White has a whole comedy
sketch about it that he'll never live anywhere that he
(16:10):
doesn't have one of these. And you walk up to
it and it was it opens and you sit down,
and I got it because I had told Marcus the
trail about Ramone's hemorrhoid. What was his name, I can't
remember that, of his hemorrhoid, but Ramona had a hemorrhoid,
and it was it was a big deal because he'd
be wincing on the other side of the glass every day,
(16:32):
and I would take a photo of his genes at
the end of every show because of blood had puddled
underneath there. And so the hemorrhoids were big in our
life at the time, and I don't want to get
a hemorrhoid. So I'm reading about this and the thing
that you know, anything, you're talking about a very very
(16:52):
thin lining right there and a very delicate part of
your body. And so one of the things that it
was suggested was that you use water and not toilet paper,
which is basically a wood product. And so I got
one of these. And now Marcus and Night his birthday
party Friday Night, we're talking about how can somebody not
(17:13):
own one of these. Uh, they're the They're the greatest
thing ever. And anyway, so when he moved in, I said,
all right, I'm going to get you this toilet. And
so I had two of those toilet toilets installed. So
every time I would come over, he would take me
to show me these toilets that I bought for him.
And I say, Larry, I know I bought them for you,
(17:33):
but you've shown me five times. I just went, you know,
I appreciate it, and I use them. Okay, I don't
need you to prove to me you use them their toilets.
I'm assuming you use them. Anyway. So yesterday afternoon I
called and talked to him because I'm trying to arrange
transportation on a trip I was going on and he
owns a plane and so I was going to see
if I could if I could lease his plane for
a trip, and he said yeah, he had to coordinate.
He has a partner in it. So they coordinated and
(17:55):
he was calling me back, Hey, I got the deal done.
We're good. All is well. Yesterday afternoon I get a
call during the last break that Larry passed away last
night at only sixty seven at his farm mount in Belleville.
He had a place here in a farm mountain, not Belleville,
New Olm. And I don't know why I say that,
other than to say that life is just so very precious,
(18:20):
and I try. I think my brother's sudden death brought
this on more than anything else, at least with my mother,
we had a we had a week, and so we
had I had some time, especially at the beginning of
that week when she said I don't want any more treatment.
It was an advanced LAS and she said, I don't
want any more treatment. I know how that ends. I don't.
(18:42):
She'd had a really really rough day, and so that
night at the hospital, my wife and I sat up
and we basically said everything we needed to say so
there would be no risk that something went unsaid. You know,
we talked through what we've meant to each other, and
it was It was really really special, and it's a
(19:02):
blessing to get to do that. In Larry's case, I
am grateful that he and I had the kind of
relationship which is what I have with most of my
male friends, where we joke around a lot, we kid
each other about our greatest weaknesses and give each other
(19:24):
a lot of grief, but we also very openly tell
each other that we love each other and how much
we mean to each other, and so I don't have
any regrets in that way, but I do share, as
I often do because to the extent that I'm feeling something,
you feel something, and that is just to be very
grateful for the opportunity to have people in your life
(19:46):
who love you, who you love, who you do anything
in the world for, and they would do anything in
the world for you, and that you have the opportunity
to express to that person what they mean to you,
because as in this case, you just don't know. For Larry,
he apparently he was grumbling that he just didn't feel
(20:13):
good and he laid down on the couch to take
a little nap. Larry had gone through a divorce within
the last year that had been several years into making
and we've been kind of going through this together and
it had made him somewhat cynical till it was done,
because it's, like he said, you feel like you failed.
And a lot of people have gone through divorces. When
you feel like you failed, you you've let everybody down.
(20:34):
You did something that when same thing with a business
when you close a business. I saw a picture posted
of bakery down in Galveston and it was supposedly a
really really nice but little Annie's or something. Can you
look at up Ramon. There was a bakery that closed
this weekend in Galveston, and a site that I followed
(20:57):
called Galveston Low or Gallaston Eats or something like that
reported it. So my guess is that patty Cakes. Yeah,
patty Cakes. How can you not be a nice place?
Nice bakery named Patty Cakes, right, Patty Cake's Bakery? And
I meant to post on Facebook about it, and I didn't,
but I was thinking to myself, you know when I
(21:19):
see something like that, they didn't go into it with
a purpose of closing. They went into it with this
thing outliving them. And you know, you had these hopes
and dreams, and you give thought to everything. You know,
what what are we going to put on the restrooms
for the men and the women? What's our little take,
what's our little version of you know, the men's and
women's game that people play. And what colors are we
(21:41):
going to put and what art are we going to put?
And where are the chairs going to be? And you know.
Then you hire people, and then some people don't work out,
and some people turn out to be great and you
didn't think. And then some people become blessings in your
life who walk in the door and you're like, how
did I that's Alex for us, How in the world
did I live without you? And and you just have
these experiences, but at some point it just doesn't work
(22:03):
out and your close shop. And that's how Larry felt
about divorce in this happening. So I feel like the
last few years, I feel a sense of accomplishment that
at least I was able to be one of the
people going through that with him, very very close to
his sister and to his adult son Lance, who was
(22:23):
one who called me who runs the business for them now?
But that's just your occasional reminder hug the ones around you,
because we're not promised to get to say goodbye. The
Michael Barry Show, it's funny how to use the modern
(22:44):
day kind of psychology, touchy Philly language, but I get
where it comes from. It's funny how your love language
with people changes over a period of time. My dad
will get lonely even though he's being fussed over all day.
(23:04):
Every day he'll get lonely, and so my wife fusses
over him to such an extent it is hilarious. And
you know, her dad passed years ago, several years ago,
and she's just always been very good to him, and
so he will call randomly, which she's always afraid, you
(23:28):
know there's a problem, just rush up there, and it's
never a problem. It is that he's out of cheerios.
So she will go rushing up there, and there will
only be after the box he's on, there will only
be two other industrial sized boxes. And that's his idea
of out of cheerios, because there should be five boxes,
(23:49):
and he's out of milk, which means the milk that
is open, there's only one milk after that, which means
he's out of milk, because you know, he's not going
to wait till he's out out. And the funny thing
is she's right, and she says, you know, this has
really given me such a window into you, how you
obsess over being out of something before we're actually out
(24:12):
of it. And I guess I never realized I did that,
but I do.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
I'm not a cost co guy, Ramon and chad Ar,
but when I buy things, or when I ask her
to bout things, I will say, you know, can you
get shampoo? And she'll say, let me check. I think
you have a shampoo and an extra. Yeah. I like
to have about five extras and I like to I
don't shave very often, but I like to have enough
(24:40):
razors for a year. And so if I use my
razors for a week, if for some reason I shave,
now I have less than a year, so I have
to replenish. But actually I wouldn't need to replenish for
a year. It's funny. Two things about that. It's funny
how we learn things from our parents, or we absorb
things from our parents that become part of who we are.
(25:03):
And they think that, you know, we think we're so
unique because we have these quirks and habits and and
and ticks and whatever you want to call them, but
actually we got them from someone else without even realizing it.
And the second one is the ways that we learn
to communicate our our our love. What is the uh
(25:28):
not arrows love? Agape love you're you're non sexual, your
love for for someone other than than your wife or
or husband, but the love you have for other people
and it's interesting because I can tell my dad relisihos that, uh,
you know, like yesterday when I'm headed up to see him,
(25:50):
I now call and say, hey, is there anything I
need to check for with Dad that that you want
to you want an update on because she's you know,
she's running this sh And she said, no, I just
this morning I put milk and cheerios and blah blah
blah whatever all those things were. And so last night
(26:11):
at nine o'clock, I went to bed right after the show.
I mean I went straight to bed. That's what a
boring birthday boy, I am. I went straight to bed.
I was exhausted. Now I'd stayed up the night before,
way too late. But anyway, so he calls her at
nine oh five, nine oh five pm, just before he
goes to bed, and he says, non data, Yeah, Dad's
(26:32):
gorm I'm out a deodorant. As she said, okay, do
I need to bring you some tonight? Now? No, I
can wait till tomorrow. So this morning she sends me
a message. He has the deodorant he uses now, and
he has one extra deodorant, so I mean he probably
(26:55):
only has a month's worth. The deodorant. So at nine
oh five pm, that's what he called about. But when
you think about it, the real point of that call
is I want to talk to you, and I'm lonely
and I don't know how to do that, so I
will call and ask for that. So his concierge doctor,
(27:16):
I'm a big fan of the concier system, since we
started him on a concierg doctor a New Davis. She'll
send us a text just kind of an update on him.
And she said that he had text or he had
called her one night nine o'clock and he said, you know,
you wanted me to eat those little Snickers bars because
when his sugar gets low and he needs a quick spike,
we used to do orange juice, but now it's a
(27:38):
Snickers bar because somebody else had to administer the orange
juice and he can quickly get a Snickers bar and
if his blood sugar drops down to say sixty, and
it's starting to get into danger zone, and he said
he was out of Snickers bars. So she personally his doctor.
This is the point of a concierge. She goes by
there the next day and she brings a pack of
the Snickers bars. And she puts them in a bowl
(28:01):
in the bowl he's got out right when you walk in.
And she said, mister Norman, why are you keeping the
snickers bars over here? If you need them, let's put
them closer to you. And he said, well, when the
nurses come in, they like to get a snickers bar.
And she said, well, mister Norman, they're not supposed to
(28:21):
take something out of your room without your permission. He said, well,
I tell them why o't to have a Snickers bar?
So I think what he's doing best we can tell
is he's telling the nurses come in and visit anytime
and get yourself a Snickers bar. And I'm thinking this
is Pied Piper type behavior. You know, the little things
(28:43):
you do when your world shrinks down into this little
bitty space, tiny little things like this start to take
on a whole new relevance. To every one of you
veterans who served our country, Thank you from the bottom
of my heart or your service. You know it's not
always positive, but you've done it, and somebody had to
(29:04):
do it, and the rest of us didn't do it,
and you did. God bless you, and for every one
of you who is hurting Camp Hope is there and
ready to help you. Eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD.
It won't cost you a Pinion's right here in Houston.
Another veteran will help you. They've been there, they've been
through what you've been through. And to every one of
you who's done anything to help Camp Hope. Like Federal
(29:24):
American Grill today, ten percent of all proceeds go there,
to Gringoes, to so many of you, to Dottie Miius,
for so many of you who contribute, donate, volunteer at
Camp Hope. God bless you, just God bless you.
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The Michael Dairy Show is on the air.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Heroes everyone, Heroes by the million men who abandon home
and vocations that they may be ready to defend democracy
if necessary. Sturdy of body, firm and spirit, seamen, marine
soldiers and flyers.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Well, this is my bed level for the fare and
you place to dwells Danny in the lone street that.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I've all took, burn and ring of fires, m and
make it through the night.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Down, let you down before love came down.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Color color cross clors Chick on thet mis double bustick
lip Us.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Says, I'm mister.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Road can't touch this, you can't test When do the
chucky got the chip skinner shin deep trucking like to
(01:34):
do the man together.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
On the road again.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I just can't wait to get on the road again.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Why my love is making music with my friend. I'll
be waiting to get off road again.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I have a my morning, have a rid, I'll be the.
Speaker 7 (01:59):
US.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
I'm gonna wait out of here, say the jumper to
the thiefs.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Miss Tennessee Wische. Of course, those were all United States
military veterans in this being veterans day we honor them.
(02:35):
Speaking of lost treasures of Houston, Maggie Tanga doll Rites.
Molly's Pub in clear Lake burned to the ground yesterday.
It's been there for at least twenty five years, maybe more.
It was an institution around here. There's something that just
rattles me about seeing a legendary location burn. There's there
(03:05):
is something that watching that is just almost have to
turn away. It's it's unpleasant. Chris, you're on the Michael
Berry Show. What say you, hey, Michael morning?
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Yes, a while I was just calling in because y'all
were I heard that song balloted at a Green Berey,
so I got me to call in Star Green Berey.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So fantastic. All right, what years were you in service?
Speaker 6 (03:32):
From nineteen eighty eight to twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's a long years. That's a long time, that's a career.
So how old were you in eighty eight when you
went in?
Speaker 6 (03:45):
Twenty or nineteen? Just yeah, no, but I just turned twenty.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 6 (03:52):
Well? I grew up in Friendswood, and I was kind
of a late bloomer because I got held back a
couple of times up being a runaway, and then I
just joined the army and kind of found my family
there and went from there.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Did you ever reconcile with your family?
Speaker 6 (04:12):
No? I did not. They're horrible, so I yeah, no,
I do not want to reassult him. But but that's okay,
it's a blessing. You know. I got my family. I
my wife. We were in high school together right here
in Friendswood. We've been together thirty seven years.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So so you live in the community from which you left,
and you never bump into any of the old family.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
My mother passed away and I moved into her house,
and no, there's nobody left from the family that I
have anything to do with. Yeah, it's all.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Gone interesting And what do you do now?
Speaker 6 (04:55):
Well, I don't do anything right now. Whenever I got
out and eighteen, I couldn't hardly walk. So I spent
like the past six six and a half years getting
all these surgeries. I got the full use of my
right leg back last May. So now I'm just hitting
(05:15):
the gym getting in shape, and I go for my
eyebo gain treatment in December, and then I should be
hopefully fully functional and be able to be a productive
person again.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Tell me about that, Marcus wasn't what I'm gonna do yet. Yeah,
Marcus was the first person I knew to do that,
and he had told me about it. Then when Marcus
told me how intense it is, then I thought, I mean,
because I'm not even a lightweight compared to him, I'm
a super featherweight compared to him. And for him to
talk about the hell that it is, but to be
(05:51):
glad that he did it interested me, intrigued me, but
also had had a little bit of a fear factor
to a whole lot of fear factor to it. Although
he want his wife to do it, and she's going
to do it, how did you arrange that? I'm assuming
you're having it done in Mexico?
Speaker 6 (06:06):
Well, yes, yeah, I am. Well, I mean so like
in twenty twenty, they had had me on I think
I was on thirteen different pills and I was overweight
and suicidal and all that, and then they just quit
it cold turkey because COVID shut down the clinics and
they wouldn't let me get my refill. So I had
(06:29):
to go cold turkey off of all of that stuff.
And for seven weeks I just stayed in my room
and like stuck my bomb or something, and it was.
It was horrible. So then I started getting into other
alternative modalities for treatment with retreats and biofeedback and different
(06:49):
things that were more holistic. And I'm on no pain meds.
I'm on no nothing at all except for little blood
pressure medicine. And then I put in for this thing
called Vets Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, which was Rob Capone's
thing with the whole IBA gang, and I put in
(07:12):
for it and they gave me the grant and here
I am. So the past six weeks. They really do
a lot of coaching and you have to think of
IBA gain as something that's going to go in and
fix you, and it kind of does that. So it's
a very very unique and scary kind of thing to do.
(07:34):
But I'm going to have been through worse.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
So we had him on the show for about a
two hour discussion and it was rather thorough, and what
I appreciated was he doesn't candy coade it like a
this just like a bad LSD trip or he described
it in the realm of you know, this nightmarish dream
(07:58):
that you're going to have. But most people say, I'll
go through just about anything to be healed from this,
this horrible addiction. Chris. I will pray for you tonight,
my friend. I wish you the best of love. Thank
you for your call, and thank you for your service.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
As I've just put that on the Michael Barris.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Michael Varry Show. The new twenty five class inducted into
the National Toy Hall of Fame has been announced, and
it's a doozy. You've got Battleship, You've got slime that
came a little later than me, so I can't appreciate
that one way or another. And trivial pursuit which I
(08:45):
guess they call trivia pursuit finalists that didn't make it
this year, Catan. I'm assuming I'm pronouncing that right, sat
in Connect four. Cornhole? How does cornhole not make it?
Cornhole is such a perfect if you want to call
it a toy, because you know now they've got cornhole
(09:07):
that you can break down and move around. All you
need is the little bags. I mean. Cornhole is like
a hacky sack. I mean you can do it anywhere
and everybody enjoys Cornhole. Ferby Scooter, snow Spirograph, Star Wars, Lightsaber.
How are you not going to put that in there.
(09:27):
Tickle me Elmo wow. NBC News notes the modern Battleship
board game was made by Milton Bradley, inspired by paper
and pencil game. It debuted almost fifty years ago and
has sold over one hundred million copies. I assumed it
was older than that. Fifty years ago is nineteen seventy five.
In nineteen seventy nine, it was one of the first
(09:48):
board games to be computerized, and now there are countless
electronic versions to this day. Battleship has long been a
household name in the board game world. Those Battleship spots, man,
those were good. You got one, all right? This is
nineteen what eighty six? Okay, nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
Battleship precints Famous sinkings September ninth, nineteen eighty five. Lake
Commander Robbie Grant fires the shot that sinks his brothers destroyed.
This glorious moment is remembered as the last time Robbie
was allowed in Michael's room December twenty second, nineteen eighty
five playing electronic Battleship.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I don't know Howard Burns.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
Junior programs are devastating in town Dad says, say my
battles him and history is made battleship and electronic battleship
from Hilton Bradley.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It's a hit. That was a game right there, now,
that was a game also going in as trivia pursuit.
This is a commercial from nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Would my esteemed colleague kindly repeat the question, glam a senator.
Speaker 8 (10:46):
What time does wee Willie Winky run through the town?
Trivial pursuit. It's more than a game. It's a national obsession.
It's here, big Bird, it's there, it's everywhere. Fun keeps coming.
Trivial pursuit because every American is entitled to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of trivia from the Sol Show and writer.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So yesterday after the morning show, Alex came in. Some
of you, if you were an RCC regular, you will
remember Alex. He was the director of hydration. He was
the head bartender, and between he and Uncle Jerry, they
coordinated all the par levels and drinks and staffing and
(11:30):
everything else for the bar. And when we closed the RCC,
I didn't want to lose Alex. He's just too valuable
to us and he's just too good a dude, and
so we hired him. He started he had a pressure
washing business, which is what he was doing when he
started at the RCC. So he started his pressure washing
business back up, and we hired him a few days
(11:52):
of the week to handle stuff for us, and so
he does. He maintains the studio, he maintained some properties
for me, and every Tuesday and Thursday night he comes
to the house and we have dinner together as a family.
He's part of our family. So if for some reason
he's not there, Crockett will say, where's Alex because it's
just weird, right, George loves Alex. Everybody loves Alex. Just
(12:14):
just great. His wife's my chiropractor, Jody, and they met
at the RCC where she was a server. There were
seven couples that met and married out of the RCC.
Isn't that crazy? Pretty cool actually anyway, So every Tuesday
and Thursday night, after dinner, Alex and I retire to
the back and we play Jeopardy. And my wife laughs,
she calls it our date night. So that's our big things.
(12:35):
We play Jeopardy every Tuesday and Thursday night. We do
not miss It's a big deal for us. To miss,
and we talk about Jeopardy constantly, and we're such dorks
about it that we've gone back. We watched the old
Alex Trebek episodes we watch. We've watched every one of
Ken Jenning's episodes from the first one through the moment
(12:56):
he loses, which you don't think he's going to lose
till the very end because of the way that game
played out. But I won't go too deep in the
woods on the weeds on that one. And then we
watched Ken Jennings first episode he hosted, when he guest
hosted the other hosts. You know, they were hosting between
a lot of people in Jeopardy didn't want Ken Jennings.
So we absolutely nerd out overeard Jeopardy. We noticed when
they changed the studio, when they change the size of
(13:18):
the screens on the studio, it's like our little nerdy thing.
So Alex comes in yesterday at eleven when the show
is over, and he I don't know if he's been
in my studio three times in the five years we've
been here, so and it's always if he comes in,
it's something. You know, there's a water line that's busted.
You know, what do you want me to do or
(13:38):
there's something big that's happened. So he comes in and
I can't see him, just his face over the computer
screens that have around me. And he comes strolling in
and he still calls me mister Barry, and he says,
mister Barry, happy birthday. And I thought, oh, no this,
but but what's happened? Something's wrong. And he gets around
(14:00):
the screen and he hands me a package and it
was a present. Mom, Yeah, see, he bought me a present.
I didn't even get fried chicken. So he brings my
present and I open it up and it's the Ken
Jennings book Brainiac, and it's inside the curious, competitive and
(14:22):
compulsive world of Trivia and anyway, so of course I
start reading it, you know, thirty minutes later, once we
had finished what we need to get done at that moment,
I start reading it. And he declares nineteen eighty four
the greatest year of trivia because that's the year Trivial
Pursuit came out, and that's the year that Alex Trebek
(14:42):
began hosting Jeopardy. How about that eighty four great year
for trivia. This weekend, I got a call from my
friend Larry Hoffman. Some of you will remember Larry from
the RCC. Owns a company called TriTech Engineering, Surveying and
(15:06):
white Curly Hair clear glasses, Larger than life personality. He
was a show sponsor for a while, but I knew
him for years before he was a show sponsor. They
have an engineering firm and a surveying firm and been
around a long time. A lot of people around town
knew Larry. Great, great guy, sixty seven years old. And
(15:27):
I sat with him at his house on Saturday. Let's see,
we had to go to we had to go to
a dinner or something Saturday, I don't remember what it was,
but I sat with him for about two hours. I
had a cigar, he had a couple of cigarettes. We
talked about life and silly goofy things. And Larry had
done a lot for me over the years. So when
(15:48):
he moved into this house, he it was his bachelor
pad because he's just gone through a divorce. And so
I got him. I got him one of these things
at Marcus Trail got me onto, which is these Japanese toilets,
these total toilets, and it's an all in one. You
walk up, it's ridiculous. Ron White has a whole comedy
sketch about it that he'll never live anywhere that he
(16:10):
doesn't have one of these. And you walk up to
it and it was it opens and you sit down,
and I got it because I had told Marcus the
trail about Ramone's hemorrhoid. What was his name, I can't
remember that, of his hemorrhoid, but Ramona had a hemorrhoid,
and it was it was a big deal because he'd
be wincing on the other side of the glass every day,
(16:32):
and I would take a photo of his genes at
the end of every show because of blood had puddled
underneath there. And so the hemorrhoids were big in our
life at the time, and I don't want to get
a hemorrhoid. So I'm reading about this and the thing
that you know, anything, you're talking about a very very
(16:52):
thin lining right there and a very delicate part of
your body. And so one of the things that it
was suggested was that you use water and not toilet paper,
which is basically a wood product. And so I got
one of these. And now Marcus and Night his birthday
party Friday Night, we're talking about how can somebody not
(17:13):
own one of these. Uh, they're the They're the greatest
thing ever. And anyway, so when he moved in, I said,
all right, I'm going to get you this toilet. And
so I had two of those toilet toilets installed. So
every time I would come over, he would take me
to show me these toilets that I bought for him.
And I say, Larry, I know I bought them for you,
(17:33):
but you've shown me five times. I just went, you know,
I appreciate it, and I use them. Okay, I don't
need you to prove to me you use them their toilets.
I'm assuming you use them. Anyway. So yesterday afternoon I
called and talked to him because I'm trying to arrange
transportation on a trip I was going on and he
owns a plane and so I was going to see
if I could if I could lease his plane for
a trip, and he said yeah, he had to coordinate.
He has a partner in it. So they coordinated and
(17:55):
he was calling me back, Hey, I got the deal done.
We're good. All is well. Yesterday afternoon I get a
call during the last break that Larry passed away last
night at only sixty seven at his farm mount in Belleville.
He had a place here in a farm mountain, not Belleville,
New Olm. And I don't know why I say that,
other than to say that life is just so very precious,
(18:20):
and I try. I think my brother's sudden death brought
this on more than anything else, at least with my mother,
we had a we had a week, and so we
had I had some time, especially at the beginning of
that week when she said I don't want any more treatment.
It was an advanced LAS and she said, I don't
want any more treatment. I know how that ends. I don't.
(18:42):
She'd had a really really rough day, and so that
night at the hospital, my wife and I sat up
and we basically said everything we needed to say so
there would be no risk that something went unsaid. You know,
we talked through what we've meant to each other, and
it was It was really really special, and it's a
(19:02):
blessing to get to do that. In Larry's case, I
am grateful that he and I had the kind of
relationship which is what I have with most of my
male friends, where we joke around a lot, we kid
each other about our greatest weaknesses and give each other
(19:24):
a lot of grief, but we also very openly tell
each other that we love each other and how much
we mean to each other, and so I don't have
any regrets in that way, but I do share, as
I often do because to the extent that I'm feeling something,
you feel something, and that is just to be very
grateful for the opportunity to have people in your life
(19:46):
who love you, who you love, who you do anything
in the world for, and they would do anything in
the world for you, and that you have the opportunity
to express to that person what they mean to you,
because as in this case, you just don't know. For Larry,
he apparently he was grumbling that he just didn't feel
(20:13):
good and he laid down on the couch to take
a little nap. Larry had gone through a divorce within
the last year that had been several years into making
and we've been kind of going through this together and
it had made him somewhat cynical till it was done,
because it's, like he said, you feel like you failed.
And a lot of people have gone through divorces. When
you feel like you failed, you you've let everybody down.
(20:34):
You did something that when same thing with a business
when you close a business. I saw a picture posted
of bakery down in Galveston and it was supposedly a
really really nice but little Annie's or something. Can you
look at up Ramon. There was a bakery that closed
this weekend in Galveston, and a site that I followed
(20:57):
called Galveston Low or Gallaston Eats or something like that
reported it. So my guess is that patty Cakes. Yeah,
patty Cakes. How can you not be a nice place?
Nice bakery named Patty Cakes, right, Patty Cake's Bakery? And
I meant to post on Facebook about it, and I didn't,
but I was thinking to myself, you know when I
(21:19):
see something like that, they didn't go into it with
a purpose of closing. They went into it with this
thing outliving them. And you know, you had these hopes
and dreams, and you give thought to everything. You know,
what what are we going to put on the restrooms
for the men and the women? What's our little take,
what's our little version of you know, the men's and
women's game that people play. And what colors are we
(21:41):
going to put and what art are we going to put?
And where are the chairs going to be? And you know.
Then you hire people, and then some people don't work out,
and some people turn out to be great and you
didn't think. And then some people become blessings in your
life who walk in the door and you're like, how
did I that's Alex for us, How in the world
did I live without you? And and you just have
these experiences, but at some point it just doesn't work
(22:03):
out and your close shop. And that's how Larry felt
about divorce in this happening. So I feel like the
last few years, I feel a sense of accomplishment that
at least I was able to be one of the
people going through that with him, very very close to
his sister and to his adult son Lance, who was
(22:23):
one who called me who runs the business for them now?
But that's just your occasional reminder hug the ones around you,
because we're not promised to get to say goodbye. The
Michael Barry Show, it's funny how to use the modern
(22:44):
day kind of psychology, touchy Philly language, but I get
where it comes from. It's funny how your love language
with people changes over a period of time. My dad
will get lonely even though he's being fussed over all day.
(23:04):
Every day he'll get lonely, and so my wife fusses
over him to such an extent it is hilarious. And
you know, her dad passed years ago, several years ago,
and she's just always been very good to him, and
so he will call randomly, which she's always afraid, you
(23:28):
know there's a problem, just rush up there, and it's
never a problem. It is that he's out of cheerios.
So she will go rushing up there, and there will
only be after the box he's on, there will only
be two other industrial sized boxes. And that's his idea
of out of cheerios, because there should be five boxes,
(23:49):
and he's out of milk, which means the milk that
is open, there's only one milk after that, which means
he's out of milk, because you know, he's not going
to wait till he's out out. And the funny thing
is she's right, and she says, you know, this has
really given me such a window into you, how you
obsess over being out of something before we're actually out
(24:12):
of it. And I guess I never realized I did that,
but I do.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
I'm not a cost co guy, Ramon and chad Ar,
but when I buy things, or when I ask her
to bout things, I will say, you know, can you
get shampoo? And she'll say, let me check. I think
you have a shampoo and an extra. Yeah. I like
to have about five extras and I like to I
don't shave very often, but I like to have enough
(24:40):
razors for a year. And so if I use my
razors for a week, if for some reason I shave,
now I have less than a year, so I have
to replenish. But actually I wouldn't need to replenish for
a year. It's funny. Two things about that. It's funny
how we learn things from our parents, or we absorb
things from our parents that become part of who we are.
(25:03):
And they think that, you know, we think we're so
unique because we have these quirks and habits and and
and ticks and whatever you want to call them, but
actually we got them from someone else without even realizing it.
And the second one is the ways that we learn
to communicate our our our love. What is the uh
(25:28):
not arrows love? Agape love you're you're non sexual, your
love for for someone other than than your wife or
or husband, but the love you have for other people
and it's interesting because I can tell my dad relisihos that, uh,
you know, like yesterday when I'm headed up to see him,
(25:50):
I now call and say, hey, is there anything I
need to check for with Dad that that you want
to you want an update on because she's you know,
she's running this sh And she said, no, I just
this morning I put milk and cheerios and blah blah
blah whatever all those things were. And so last night
(26:11):
at nine o'clock, I went to bed right after the show.
I mean I went straight to bed. That's what a
boring birthday boy, I am. I went straight to bed.
I was exhausted. Now I'd stayed up the night before,
way too late. But anyway, so he calls her at
nine oh five, nine oh five pm, just before he
goes to bed, and he says, non data, Yeah, Dad's
(26:32):
gorm I'm out a deodorant. As she said, okay, do
I need to bring you some tonight? Now? No, I
can wait till tomorrow. So this morning she sends me
a message. He has the deodorant he uses now, and
he has one extra deodorant, so I mean he probably
(26:55):
only has a month's worth. The deodorant. So at nine
oh five pm, that's what he called about. But when
you think about it, the real point of that call
is I want to talk to you, and I'm lonely
and I don't know how to do that, so I
will call and ask for that. So his concierge doctor,
(27:16):
I'm a big fan of the concier system, since we
started him on a concierg doctor a New Davis. She'll
send us a text just kind of an update on him.
And she said that he had text or he had
called her one night nine o'clock and he said, you know,
you wanted me to eat those little Snickers bars because
when his sugar gets low and he needs a quick spike,
we used to do orange juice, but now it's a
(27:38):
Snickers bar because somebody else had to administer the orange
juice and he can quickly get a Snickers bar and
if his blood sugar drops down to say sixty, and
it's starting to get into danger zone, and he said
he was out of Snickers bars. So she personally his doctor.
This is the point of a concierge. She goes by
there the next day and she brings a pack of
the Snickers bars. And she puts them in a bowl
(28:01):
in the bowl he's got out right when you walk in.
And she said, mister Norman, why are you keeping the
snickers bars over here? If you need them, let's put
them closer to you. And he said, well, when the
nurses come in, they like to get a snickers bar.
And she said, well, mister Norman, they're not supposed to
(28:21):
take something out of your room without your permission. He said, well,
I tell them why o't to have a Snickers bar?
So I think what he's doing best we can tell
is he's telling the nurses come in and visit anytime
and get yourself a Snickers bar. And I'm thinking this
is Pied Piper type behavior. You know, the little things
(28:43):
you do when your world shrinks down into this little
bitty space, tiny little things like this start to take
on a whole new relevance. To every one of you
veterans who served our country, Thank you from the bottom
of my heart or your service. You know it's not
always positive, but you've done it, and somebody had to
(29:04):
do it, and the rest of us didn't do it,
and you did. God bless you, and for every one
of you who is hurting Camp Hope is there and
ready to help you. Eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD.
It won't cost you a Pinion's right here in Houston.
Another veteran will help you. They've been there, they've been
through what you've been through. And to every one of
you who's done anything to help Camp Hope. Like Federal
(29:24):
American Grill today, ten percent of all proceeds go there,
to Gringoes, to so many of you, to Dottie Miius,
for so many of you who contribute, donate, volunteer at
Camp Hope. God bless you, just God bless you.
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