Speaker 1: The Lapse Man presents the Complete Hull Kogan, a real
Speaker 1: American story brought to you by Garage Beer.
Speaker 2: So we're here with the legendary Baron von Rashki Darren.
Speaker 2: We were at Mancini's last night in Saint Paul. I
Speaker 2: saw your picture up on the wall. Do you remember
Speaker 2: going to Mancinies after the matches at Saint Paul?
Speaker 3: You need to know that. I'll tell you all you
Speaker 3: need to know. We used to love to go to Mancini.
Speaker 4: You play us in the back room. You have cooked
Speaker 4: special meals for us, the wrestlers. I'mre the giant burn Ganya. Oh.
Speaker 4: My friends, yes, and my enemies.
Speaker 3: And it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: David A little anyway. I love that when Hulk came in,
Speaker 2: did did you see the Hulk that he would become.
Speaker 2: What do you remember about Holp working for vern.
Speaker 3: Hulk work working for Verne?
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 5: H It didn't seem like they got that got along
Speaker 5: too well. Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: He was too green. He was too green when I
Speaker 4: when I met him in.
Speaker 2: But uh he he uh.
Speaker 5: He was a big star and he it's too bad
Speaker 5: that he had bad habits.
Speaker 2: But when you say too green as a fan, I
Speaker 2: wonder what you mean. It's good on the mic, of course,
Speaker 2: what was it? How was he green back? Then?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's just uh the tindy of the matches, he.
Speaker 2: Yuh, don't let us get in the way of your business.
Speaker 7: You see me for a minute, who.
Speaker 8: We are waving up from?
Speaker 2: It looks like Barry Darso, looks like Barry Darso. Who
Speaker 2: the hell isn't it you're saying green? As far as
Speaker 2: timing of the matches, you mean, oh for sure? Yeah,
Speaker 2: where are we? Well, we're talking about Hulking you're talking
Speaker 2: about when you say green, what aspects of the game
Speaker 2: hadn't he picked up yet? If he ever did?
Speaker 6: Uh, we had all the important tools he needed to
Speaker 6: be a big success.
Speaker 2: And uh his uh work.
Speaker 6: In the ring worth it was adequate. But he just uh,
Speaker 6: I don't want to saying loratory, but uh oh of.
Speaker 2: Course not no, no, just your assessment. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: do you think Varne coached him up? Did you ever
Speaker 2: witness Verne trying to give help pointers? Could people talk
Speaker 2: about that? Or Greg?
Speaker 4: Wow, you learn that you learned something new about this thing?
Speaker 2: Yea our sport.
Speaker 6: Every time you go in the round every night, it's different,
Speaker 6: the crowd's different, the areas different, everything is different.
Speaker 4: For you have to adjust the things and adjustment. And
Speaker 4: it seems to.
Speaker 9: Me that.
Speaker 6: Hope had developed his own pattern, his own way, and
Speaker 6: he was very successful that that. I don't want to
Speaker 6: favor like that. Uh, there's always the same, the same match.
Speaker 6: He had the same match almost.
Speaker 2: The whole night. Sure, absolutely, did you witness him? Why
Speaker 2: did he butt heads with Verne so much? Did there?
Speaker 10: You know?
Speaker 2: I've heard Brad Ring and Greg, Jim Buzziell a bunch
Speaker 2: of guys talk about how they butted heads. Did they
Speaker 2: just have personalities that didn't match? What did that? What
Speaker 2: did you see? I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 2: a couple more for you, Baron. What do you think
Speaker 2: happened the A w A ultimately? I mean, obviously Vince
Speaker 2: went national and did vern not make the right adjustments?
Speaker 2: Was it over before it started? What's your perspective?
Speaker 11: It was what it was?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 12: I don't know. It was just like the business.
Speaker 5: They were.
Speaker 4: Going back and forth, and uh, pretty seen most of
Speaker 4: the w A I A w A have.
Speaker 5: Recruited into the wwwwwww.
Speaker 13: Anyone want to ask.
Speaker 14: Did you ever have dinner at Vern's house on Lake
Speaker 14: Minnetonka the Palace?
Speaker 2: Did you know making dinner well Fern's house on Lake Minatonka.
Speaker 2: Did you ever have the boys over for big dinners?
Speaker 15: No?
Speaker 4: Really, no, no, I never idea I did it?
Speaker 16: He did?
Speaker 2: He once? I was Yeah, he was barbecuing one time Barbice.
Speaker 4: We had some meetings there, but they so you do
Speaker 4: business there sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it wasn't for a meal. Last question for you, Benn,
Speaker 2: and part of my ignorance. Did you participate in The
Speaker 2: Wrestler nineteen seventy four with that asthma or the movie?
Speaker 2: Were you around that scene?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 4: No, yeah, they were too busy trying to get pressure rush.
Speaker 2: They got crusher, Dick bruiser Dustin rush rush Sure.
Speaker 4: A bruiser through the apartment door. They both wanted to
Speaker 4: be in.
Speaker 2: The room first. Why are you fighting to get into door?
Speaker 2: Mus a story I heard about that. You're a real gentleman.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for the time, all the best
Speaker 2: of you, Thanks for all what you did.
Speaker 1: A laps fan wrestling podcast.
Speaker 2: So we're here with the grappler Lendenton, who's extremely kind
Speaker 2: to give us some time Lenn. Recently and looking back
Speaker 2: at Hulk Cogan's career, we came upon nineteen eighty a
Speaker 2: Super numb show where he wrestled Andre's kind of right
Speaker 2: before the Shay Stadium match they had. We chatted a bit.
Speaker 2: You don't remember that exact show, but can you talk
Speaker 2: to us about any memories of Hogan in those earliest
Speaker 2: days when he first started working with Andrea before he
Speaker 2: became the superhero.
Speaker 8: Well, I remember, I remember when he was named was
Speaker 8: Sterling Golden Gillia and I was in Nashell, Tennessee. Him
Speaker 8: and David Schultz worked with me. It's some of my
Speaker 8: in a tag match and he he was so green.
Speaker 8: He dropped the elbow my ribs.
Speaker 3: And I came in and I remember going back because
Speaker 3: he's a rookie. I cheered his ass. I said, stupid,
Speaker 3: something like you who taught you how to work? He
Speaker 3: was green on I said, tell him learn how to work?
Speaker 17: You killed me?
Speaker 3: Do what are you doing? I I didn't mean, Ju'm sorry,
Speaker 3: you know, but I mean he was.
Speaker 8: Like, that's where it was the guys that were above you,
Speaker 8: that's how you learned, right. I mean I wouldn't cause
Speaker 8: you might want to fight, you say, listen, you gotta
Speaker 8: learned all the way and all like that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 8: but uh, he was cool with it. But then then
Speaker 8: after they all left Knoxville and I think that's when
Speaker 8: he went to New York or something with Yes, I.
Speaker 13: Don't remember that specific match and was super Dome.
Speaker 2: Yes, But I'm glad you mentioned Knoxville because we were
Speaker 2: trying to find people who remembered that era, because that
Speaker 2: was that was after Ron Fuller had sold Knoxville.
Speaker 3: That Barnett exactly, I went there.
Speaker 2: They were going to give me a big break, really,
Speaker 2: and so I.
Speaker 8: Went there and I was there about thirty four weeks
Speaker 8: and they're not doing nothing. I remember if his Ox
Speaker 8: Baker was there and I was riding with him almost
Speaker 8: every night, and I think I was there three months
Speaker 8: and maybe then I went to Calgary.
Speaker 3: From there, we're winning toys, right. I knew I could
Speaker 3: work on top.
Speaker 8: There to get a spot on the top, so I
Speaker 8: can finally get a spot back in the States on top.
Speaker 8: When I remember about Knoxville was as ox Baker goes, kid, listen,
Speaker 8: you you do great promos, You do good promos, but
Speaker 8: you need a tagline something.
Speaker 3: Remember, you buy.
Speaker 8: He's here, guys, and then we're going and we're riding
Speaker 8: here every night. This went on for like two or
Speaker 8: three weeks. Finally one day picks me up and he goes,
Speaker 8: beet in the car.
Speaker 3: I got it, I got it. He goes, this is it.
Speaker 13: They got a name for you.
Speaker 8: When you're the greatest wrestler in restling today, they don't
Speaker 8: call you a great wrestler.
Speaker 3: They call you the grappler. Beat me if you can't,
Speaker 3: and I've been using it ever since.
Speaker 2: But if you can't start, you gave me word for
Speaker 2: box did so.
Speaker 3: He was a great talk.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you got Oh. I'm so glad you
Speaker 2: mentioned Knoxville, because so Haulk was with Ron Fuller in
Speaker 2: seventy nine. He wrestled Andre there in Dothan, Alabama, and
Speaker 2: like March, then he wrestled Harley there in July and
Speaker 2: Dothan and a lot of people don't know anything about
Speaker 2: that territory because it wasn't It doesn't survive on video.
Speaker 2: Do you remember hearing at all about this green Hawk
Speaker 2: guy before he came into Knoxville.
Speaker 3: No, just when I was there, he was there, that
Speaker 3: was there. How this guy gigantic.
Speaker 17: He looks great.
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy looks like a million minute. He
Speaker 3: looks like a million dollars, but you don't know how
Speaker 3: to work it. And he did it.
Speaker 7: He did it.
Speaker 3: But I knew eventually he would get it because he
Speaker 3: lives athletic, you know so. But but yeah, everybody was
Speaker 3: looking like, yeah, the guy's gonna get it pushed soon
Speaker 3: or legs.
Speaker 4: Look at me?
Speaker 10: How what it was?
Speaker 14: It was so I.
Speaker 3: Got so big, so I everybody knew he was going
Speaker 3: to get a push. On the top of the reaching.
Speaker 2: He had that belt that had like the American flag
Speaker 2: colors on there. Do you remember what that was at
Speaker 2: the Southeastern heavyweight he wrestled.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my opinion was, yeah, see I was there and
Speaker 3: they just I was here supposed to give me a.
Speaker 17: Push, and you know it didn't work.
Speaker 3: I remember Tony Atlas was there give her guys like that.
Speaker 2: It seemed like a lot of the guys that were
Speaker 2: working for only in Georgia after Yeah, guys like that.
Speaker 3: And then I wasn't doing very young.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 13: I remember was Stuart Calgary from.
Speaker 2: Who was the boss of the territory then? Who who
Speaker 2: do you remember running that show and not slow.
Speaker 18: I'm sure.
Speaker 13: I think.
Speaker 2: It's very hard for us to was well, it's so fun.
Speaker 2: Barnett had taken over, was it? It wasn't Bob Bruke
Speaker 2: because he was Bob Bruke got drummed out of the
Speaker 2: territory after that because he had he had the fight
Speaker 2: with Ron Fuller and then dis later was there, h yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think he was booking up well, Fuller had
Speaker 2: given up Knoxville to Barnett, so Fuller had the war
Speaker 2: over Knoxville. Wouldn't know who he wasn't No, not written,
Speaker 2: not quite.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: Do you remember Hogan wrestling Andrea Knoxville. There's a match?
Speaker 2: Well here, I remember this and okay, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 3: I didn't watch the match, but I know that he's
Speaker 3: on the car, okay, okay, and I remember this is
Speaker 3: no ship. People don't believe this. Harley Races. Here is
Speaker 3: a big car, right, Okay, Harley Race is here? All
Speaker 3: these guys in there in the state. Was it Thanksgiving
Speaker 3: or somewhere now?
Speaker 2: Could have been.
Speaker 8: He was there in late seventy nine Thanksgiving show and
Speaker 8: and Hogan was going when I put my what do
Speaker 8: you call the pythons?
Speaker 19: On.
Speaker 3: Maybe nobody got jock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the people, like I said, like.
Speaker 3: Different guys, you mess around, right, yeah, And so Andre
Speaker 3: heard it. I was sitting right there and watching his
Speaker 3: Oh really that red bust you like Jim Regis. No,
Speaker 3: put it on me? No, I said, put it on
Speaker 3: me and shoot it, and he did.
Speaker 8: He did.
Speaker 3: He shot it and he didn't.
Speaker 18: Lock it like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he locked it like the script wa way way
Speaker 2: you can't. He's like yeah yeah, and Andre like buddy,
Speaker 2: right now, yeah.
Speaker 3: Brunning, your mouth was there?
Speaker 18: Was there?
Speaker 13: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Quite hell? Oh shit, shit. Andre got pissed. So he
Speaker 3: got tired of hear it. You talk about it, right,
Speaker 3: and he said.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's he thinking walking around.
Speaker 3: Saying he was just Andre had enough, bunny. So he
Speaker 3: got up and said all right.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because everyone talks about how there's tensions between Hulk and
Speaker 2: Andrea and like, you know, the WrestleMania three stuff, But
Speaker 2: to us, we go back and it's like Andre gave
Speaker 2: him a huge break in Alabama. He worked him before
Speaker 2: he could do anything in the room. So it seems
Speaker 2: like they're actually buddies. I don't know, but it sounds
Speaker 2: like you observed a little bit of tens.
Speaker 3: A little bit with his ego.
Speaker 13: He didn't like the Eagle and.
Speaker 10: What it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you remember Bill Watt's having a problem with Hulk.
Speaker 1: No One.
Speaker 2: It was just that one story from that Super Home
Speaker 2: show because Hulk says that Bill was trying to like
Speaker 2: put one over on him and make him lose to
Speaker 2: Wahoo and then lose to Andre. When Hulk is just
Speaker 2: on the ascent in New York.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't doubt will do that, Bill. I mean Bill,
Speaker 3: he was pretty the Bill was one hell of a mastermind.
Speaker 15: Was me.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he's got to draw money. I give
Speaker 3: a guy credit for that. Brother, He gave me my gimmick. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I didn't come there and go I want
Speaker 3: to wear a little bit, wear a mask. You just
Speaker 3: need a mask, guy, and you're gonna wear a load
Speaker 3: of blue. They're okay. That's the way I went down.
Speaker 2: Last question for you. Thank you for the time. It's
Speaker 2: very nice of you. What do you make of of Hulk?
Speaker 2: I mean we lost him last year. What he went
Speaker 2: on to become from when you remember that Green kid?
Speaker 2: You know the business so well.
Speaker 8: Dy Piper was a good friend of mine and he
Speaker 8: knew Holgan. You know he was a good guy. Guys
Speaker 8: that I know that knowing, Like when.
Speaker 11: You're no threat.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. When you're a threat to.
Speaker 8: The guy in the business, sometimes you get a different opinion.
Speaker 8: But if you're not a threat coming by one of
Speaker 8: the best guys you ever met, yeah, you know what
Speaker 8: I'm saying, Because if you threatened my job, like hey,
Speaker 8: this guy trying to take my place, you know, all
Speaker 8: of a sudden you may have some man and mossty
Speaker 8: or problem. But then like if if you're not a threat,
Speaker 8: you may be one of the boys you've met, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean. It was always nice to me.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't rhyme that much, but I was never a
Speaker 8: threat to Zob. I was like, hey, brother, I'm always
Speaker 8: making him look good. You know, how many time do
Speaker 8: you want to swim me?
Speaker 3: I don't care. I want to eat to pay day?
Speaker 9: Brother?
Speaker 11: Yeah fly.
Speaker 2: Thank you all the best of you, buddy. It was
Speaker 2: very nice to see you.
Speaker 1: The Last Fall Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 2: Damn Spivey The One and Only Waylen Mercy as well.
Speaker 2: One of the things we always wondered about is longtime fans.
Speaker 2: There's a point in eighty four, so when you were
Speaker 2: with vents at Hope was there, of course, and you
Speaker 2: you had the pair to look like you had the
Speaker 2: yellow trunks.
Speaker 1: What was it about.
Speaker 2: They're trying to like pass you off as like Hogan's
Speaker 2: brother or something.
Speaker 17: No, that's not And that was the biggest mistake that
Speaker 17: I ever made.
Speaker 2: Oh really do it?
Speaker 18: Oh?
Speaker 17: Yeah, I should went in with black hair, been more.
Speaker 20: Of the Brusier Brodie type where I could reward we're
Speaker 20: holding right, And uh, they got rid.
Speaker 3: Of me because I looked too much like him.
Speaker 2: Well I was going to say, that was your choice
Speaker 2: to come in with that look and ask you to
Speaker 2: look like that.
Speaker 17: Yeah, No, they didn't ask me anything. It was a
Speaker 17: stupid mistake on my part. Yeah, So I don't know
Speaker 17: why I did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah did they? Did they ask you to change your look?
Speaker 2: Or did they just say get lost?
Speaker 12: That's the get him a walking paper? Is that right?
Speaker 18: You know?
Speaker 17: When I first went in there, I was teamed up
Speaker 17: with Mike your time.
Speaker 2: Right and right.
Speaker 12: We had the red, white and blue deal going on.
Speaker 2: You know America had left right, Yeah, yeah, and so.
Speaker 20: And then you know I went as a single because
Speaker 20: Mike lab and for some stupid reason, I don't know why.
Speaker 17: I did someone said something.
Speaker 3: I mean, I would have done it.
Speaker 2: But I was hogan to work with your experience with
Speaker 2: him over.
Speaker 13: The years, I never worked with him.
Speaker 2: No, I meant in the same locker room. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I knew him with poor Rustling.
Speaker 2: He played in the rock and Roll back in Tampa
Speaker 2: show and I was.
Speaker 17: The bouncer at a lot of the clubs.
Speaker 2: The Imperial Room was that one of them?
Speaker 5: No theme of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the other place.
Speaker 20: Yeah, the Imperial Room is Tuesday night. That's where the
Speaker 20: wrestlers went because we wrestled. They ristled in Tampa, Yes, Tuesday,
Speaker 20: and the Imperial Room is like a country western bar.
Speaker 18: That right.
Speaker 2: So so what do you remember about Hoult from back then,
Speaker 2: because everyone has memories. Was he up on the stage
Speaker 2: playing or was it?
Speaker 17: Yeah, it was on the stage playing, and yeah they
Speaker 17: was a pretty good band they had.
Speaker 20: It's called Ruckus And you know that's right, any kind
Speaker 20: of put the relationship or anything with your snow side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's looking back at that time in Florida. You
Speaker 2: hear Matsuda was breaking guys in Hulk has his story
Speaker 2: about do you think that's some bullshit? The whole story
Speaker 2: about What do you think about that story?
Speaker 3: That's a story?
Speaker 9: Wow?
Speaker 20: You yeah, I can't because Max Sua ten years before
Speaker 20: I got into business, I went to Masuda and it
Speaker 20: was the worst football camp. And through I've been something
Speaker 20: through Georgia's football camps, a little if the Jets football
Speaker 20: camp for you know, Jacksonville Express, and it was harder
Speaker 20: than any of those camps.
Speaker 2: It was was he was he twisting and bending or
Speaker 2: was he just running in center the.
Speaker 20: Exercises, exercises, fine squad, it was I wouldn't he shaped
Speaker 20: for that at all?
Speaker 17: Now he killed me and I eventually didn't come back.
Speaker 2: Didn't come back. Oh yeah, you're one of the ones
Speaker 2: that didn't come to the last wrestling podcast. Pleasure to
Speaker 2: be here with Ken Anderson, former TNA champ, mister Anderson,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Thanks, thanks for the time.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: You were in TNA when Hogan a dishot came in.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of talk about that listed a
Speaker 2: dark side series on that whole TNA thing. What is
Speaker 2: your perspective on Hogan's influence good or bad at TNA?
Speaker 2: What did you observe so for me it.
Speaker 15: Was all positive, Like I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have
Speaker 15: been in TNA to begin with.
Speaker 13: Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, it's hard to say.
Speaker 15: I might probably would have eventually found my way there
Speaker 15: because I remember when I first left ww WE Booker
Speaker 15: t actually was the first person to reach out to
Speaker 15: me and he said, Hey, the water is fine over here.
Speaker 13: It's a great place. You should definitely.
Speaker 2: Consider coming over here.
Speaker 3: And then I did the Hogan Tour of Australia.
Speaker 15: It was one of the coolest tours that I've ever
Speaker 15: been a part of, and I got to know how
Speaker 15: and I got to know Eric, and we got to
Speaker 15: understand each other a little bit and have a good
Speaker 15: working relationship. So when they got into TNA, they were like, hey,
Speaker 15: this guy should have a place here too. So they
Speaker 15: really helped me get in the door at TNA and
Speaker 15: be in the position that I was in. You know,
Speaker 15: like I when I first started in TNA, I didn't
Speaker 15: have a great contract. It was a pretty I know,
Speaker 15: I went from making really really good money in w
Speaker 15: WS and making okay money, just okay money in TNA.
Speaker 15: But you know, because they gave me the ball so much,
Speaker 15: I was able to then have a pretty good lucrative
Speaker 15: career at TNA, and I was there for six years.
Speaker 2: That was a really nice run. You know, what was Holgan?
Speaker 2: How was he hands on with booking and telling talent
Speaker 2: what to do or did you just see him, you
Speaker 2: know in passing? What was look like backstage?
Speaker 21: Is his presence as far as I know, Like I,
Speaker 21: as far as I know, he didn't really have anything
Speaker 21: to do with with creative It was mostly Eric Fisher, Eric.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I was Eric working with with Mitch Musso and
Speaker 15: Ed Berraro when I first came there, So as far
Speaker 15: as I know, it was just the three of them,
Speaker 15: and Hope was just there and you know, he had
Speaker 15: creative control over the things that he was involved in,
Speaker 15: but other than that, and he was you know, he
Speaker 15: was cool backstage. It wasn't like he went into his
Speaker 15: dressing room and just stayed to himself. He would come
Speaker 15: out and mingle and have you know, eat catering with
Speaker 15: the boys and yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when they put the belt on Rob and then
Speaker 2: Rob's contract expired and he like they couldn't take it
Speaker 2: off of him. They had a byss kill him in
Speaker 2: the back. All that that was like a weird time.
Speaker 2: Do you remember there being like talk about like, what,
Speaker 2: where's the world title standing? It's bouncing around a lot,
Speaker 2: It's it's people aren't losing it in the ring.
Speaker 9: I have no neck.
Speaker 2: That was like thend that was like the mid midpoint
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 15: I don't even know that happened.
Speaker 13: Yeah it did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they showed Van dam backstages all boyd even that
Speaker 2: was the last year solve them until they reworked the
Speaker 2: deal of Maryland. Gosh, do you think all told that
Speaker 2: Hogan was accepted by the TNA fans now you would
Speaker 2: just come so you want one of those TNA guys
Speaker 2: that had the sense of the fan base as much.
Speaker 2: But it sounds like they're ejected. I don't know what
Speaker 2: did you what did you sense?
Speaker 13: I didn't feel that at all. No, really, I never
Speaker 13: felt that.
Speaker 15: In fact, I wasn't aware of the negative that until
Speaker 15: I just saw the the documentary. I just saw like
Speaker 15: the last episode. I didn't even realize it was a
Speaker 15: three party. I just saw the last the last episode,
Speaker 15: you know, I didn't really even know that it was
Speaker 15: like the whole thing man until just just now was
Speaker 15: news to me as far as I knew the crowd,
Speaker 15: you know, because it was relatively it was the same
Speaker 15: crowd week week to week, at least when we were
Speaker 15: at the Impact Zone in Orlando, and then we took
Speaker 15: it on the road briefly, which I didn't that was
Speaker 15: you know, I didn't at the time.
Speaker 3: I didn't knew it was a great idea because it
Speaker 3: was really expensive.
Speaker 15: You know, you gotta pay for everybody's hotel rooms and
Speaker 15: you gotta pay for flights and the truck itself to
Speaker 15: so move there and uh yeah, so wrap the building
Speaker 15: out and until rent. When you rent a big building
Speaker 15: out like that, that require you to have like you
Speaker 15: got to have an ambulance on hand, you gotta have
Speaker 15: a police officers play we're in security building stand, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 15: So it was a huge It was hugely expensive. I
Speaker 15: heard at some point that it was like two hundred
Speaker 15: and fifty thousand dollars a week. Wow, what they were
Speaker 15: spending just to do that, Just to How How was
Speaker 15: Dixon did?
Speaker 2: She was always cool to me.
Speaker 3: It always had a good working relationship.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I had a great working relationship with addiction.
Speaker 15: She was very very nice to me and I always
Speaker 15: got along with her and her husband, Sergio, Like we
Speaker 15: would go out to dinner from time.
Speaker 2: To time, the last Pan Wrestling podcast and here with
Speaker 2: John Nord. John, thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 2: You know, we're looking back at at learn in the
Speaker 2: AWA time, So working back at Hogan and him coming
Speaker 2: through what do you think Hogan figured out about himself
Speaker 2: and Awa, why did it work and sent him up
Speaker 2: for Vince to take to take him and then run
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 9: Wall the Holgan was a nice enough fellow where he
Speaker 9: knew he wasn't perfect with Burn and when he was
Speaker 9: on Johnny Carson, even when he was with Events.
Speaker 22: I mean, he knew that he was this big, you know,
Speaker 22: kind of dummy type guy, and Carson could kind of
Speaker 22: make him look like this big dumb guy with hundred in.
Speaker 11: Charms and all that, and Hogan wasn't like that. Holgan
Speaker 11: is a very articulate a guy, and this and that
Speaker 11: and the other.
Speaker 9: But what he learned about himself is uh uh, getting
Speaker 9: away I'll get away from Burn and figuring it out
Speaker 9: that now you're in a massive machine and now it's.
Speaker 11: Time for me to groom down.
Speaker 9: Get can make everything I do mean something like I'll
Speaker 9: take you by the and all that.
Speaker 19: Everybody thought he said that too many times. I thought
Speaker 19: he did too, but guess what he didn't because it worked.
Speaker 2: It worked. We've heard that brad Ring and some other
Speaker 2: guys who observed Vern dealing with Hope, they butt heads
Speaker 2: a lot. Verne would call people idiots and talk about
Speaker 2: Vern's like temperament because to us as fans, who just
Speaker 2: looked like he always had it to come together. But
Speaker 2: behind the scenes he could get on your case if
Speaker 2: he didn't like what you were doing.
Speaker 11: Oh, Vern was like. Vern was like, I got a story.
Speaker 9: Kevin Kelly is in there and Verne comes in the
Speaker 9: locker room and he goes, hey, hey, Burn, my name's
Speaker 9: Kevin Kelly, and Verne books at him.
Speaker 11: He goes, no, it is he. I mean that was
Speaker 11: just Vern and we laughed.
Speaker 9: If you think about it, it's really funny if you
Speaker 9: if you think about how it is because you got
Speaker 9: an old vern On. What a massive eagle he had, Yes, yes,
Speaker 9: But what I loved about Burn Now my father with
Speaker 9: Burn's best man and his best friend growing.
Speaker 11: Up in Robinston. What was his name, Joe Elson E?
Speaker 11: Ls M.
Speaker 9: They graduated forty three Robbinsdale. When I told Burn that
Speaker 9: Joe Elson was my father.
Speaker 11: In law when I was in brand's very first camp.
Speaker 19: He went, what are you talking about Joe Elson from
Speaker 19: He thought, maybe I'm talking about another guy.
Speaker 9: And so I literally could never get played, ever get
Speaker 9: I could do anything and I but burn.
Speaker 19: Wasn't can I missed the big day, I missed the
Speaker 19: big money.
Speaker 11: Hears, I had a few good paydays.
Speaker 2: And some of the guys over the years round that
Speaker 2: said Verne would take a percentage if he broke your
Speaker 2: way and stuff.
Speaker 23: No, you never do that, but he was doing that
Speaker 23: to certain guys, you know, guys that had no business
Speaker 23: being in there type thing.
Speaker 9: They were just too hard to look at and they're like, oh,
Speaker 9: that's not good for them. That guy don't look like
Speaker 9: you can knock.
Speaker 12: Over girls carrying a pana brown.
Speaker 2: Now, when when you talked about Vern, you know, being
Speaker 2: having kind of a hot hugging dude. But but you
Speaker 2: couldn't get fired. Did he Did you ever scream at you?
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a story about.
Speaker 17: No, he never did.
Speaker 9: But I seen him stream at plenty of guys. And
Speaker 9: of course you heard about Eddy Sharky shooting and in
Speaker 9: his office. But Vern would be like would come up
Speaker 9: to certain.
Speaker 11: Guys and like you hit him in the pehead and god,
Speaker 11: what's wrong with you?
Speaker 9: You go.
Speaker 13: Spot?
Speaker 23: Yeah, you're like, who did you ever beat? He would say, yeah,
Speaker 23: like like amateur, who did you ever beat? No, I
Speaker 23: didn't beat Kale standards. This is pro wrestling. And that
Speaker 23: was Burn's famous line was who did you ever beat?
Speaker 23: And Burn courts with two time national champion and also
Speaker 23: a war hero.
Speaker 9: So these guys were real guys, and I think and
Speaker 9: what I loved about Burn was he tried to keep
Speaker 9: it real as possible and tried to keep tried to
Speaker 9: keep real tough guys in there.
Speaker 3: But saying that he didn't.
Speaker 19: I mean, I see one job guy with fingers in
Speaker 19: at door of the arm and like that, one guy
Speaker 19: named Jim Mitchell.
Speaker 11: He had a hand like this, the current handed and
Speaker 11: always look at me angle and go, hey.
Speaker 3: Mitchal you want to go, that's what your thing looks like.
Speaker 7: It's just like that.
Speaker 3: Amazing and I would go a typical court handing.
Speaker 2: Last question for you, did you ever have a program
Speaker 2: with Hogan scheduled in WWF?
Speaker 3: Yes, I did, well.
Speaker 19: Brad Langans was talking, Uh was talking to then real regularly.
Speaker 13: Now this is in maybe yeah eighty eighty six, you're right.
Speaker 2: He wanted Brad do like a camp, like a wrest
Speaker 2: wrestling camp.
Speaker 17: He wanted world, Yes, you want to hauld Cogan wrestling camp.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And uh uh.
Speaker 9: Brad would always kind of brag about me because he's
Speaker 9: in my good buddy.
Speaker 11: Anyways, I talk to.
Speaker 12: Him every day.
Speaker 2: How's he doing.
Speaker 11: He's he's he's struggle man. Yeah, he's having an ankle.
Speaker 11: He had ankle surgery.
Speaker 9: He's had twenty nine survey goodness, real, twenty nine bullshit.
Speaker 9: But anyway, yet he mentioned and he and he he
Speaker 9: mentioned me to Holgan, and Hogan goes just exactly like this,
Speaker 9: he goes.
Speaker 17: He's my man, He's the one I got picked out
Speaker 17: right now, really, and I.
Speaker 11: Always looked at pro wrestling, I think as like a
Speaker 11: part time job. It's just parady.
Speaker 24: Yes, And I never got serious really about it.
Speaker 11: And I wish I would have, because if I would have,
Speaker 11: I would have. I know I would I had been
Speaker 11: able to have along with Wolgan. I want to kept
Speaker 11: training and I want to went back to the car lot.
Speaker 17: And all that.
Speaker 2: So by the time he came into Viking, there wasn't
Speaker 2: a program.
Speaker 11: There wasn't one to schedule.
Speaker 9: And I think I could have had one if they
Speaker 9: would have had it on the books, Like look at
Speaker 9: this when I came in as a VIK and I
Speaker 9: was big, My arms were big, and and I wasn't
Speaker 9: all wore out yet. But I think they still could
Speaker 9: have been But but they didn't because they were waiting
Speaker 9: to see if I was gonna go fuck it, I'm
Speaker 9: out of here, John, Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: The Man.
Speaker 25: Wrestling Podcast with Jack and jo a Lap Crown Wrestling podcast.
Speaker 13: You're going to go with Mickey Morley.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm making VICKI meet you. What's your story? You're
Speaker 2: a regular hero, You're a part of the Yeah, it
Speaker 2: looks like you brought a buck into O two. Yeah,
Speaker 2: couple of books here.
Speaker 18: I love it.
Speaker 2: So you then coming here forever.
Speaker 18: Since nineteen seventy seven. I met nickname seeing me back
Speaker 18: in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2: Yes, he team.
Speaker 18: I was working for his cousin on the east side
Speaker 18: of Saint Paul and Nick would come visit us every week.
Speaker 18: And a couple of years later I got over here,
Speaker 18: said whether Harry Bennett been waiting for me?
Speaker 26: Yeah?
Speaker 13: But Nick?
Speaker 18: No, Nick opened it would have been where that front
Speaker 18: door is up there at five point thirty one was seventh.
Speaker 13: Okay, the original bar would have been an old three
Speaker 13: two beer bar.
Speaker 18: In nineteen forty eight, he came home from the army
Speaker 18: and his folk staked him to the bar.
Speaker 13: He was sold beer and his mom made spaghetti and meatball.
Speaker 2: Right, So what about the wrestlers here, they were coming
Speaker 2: after the matches.
Speaker 13: It so yeah, it was really big, I would say
Speaker 13: from a box.
Speaker 18: Oh, nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine into the mid eighties,
Speaker 18: and basically for the for those first few years when
Speaker 18: they still have the Gentleman's Agreement, Dania just said the
Speaker 18: Midwest that man kept the East. Danya's guys would they'd
Speaker 18: have a big match on Sunday nights at the old
Speaker 18: Civic Sentar, it's where the Excel is now. Well, they'd
Speaker 18: have a big match about Sunday night. They'd come in
Speaker 18: about ten thirty eleven o'clock. After the match. Andre Giant
Speaker 18: would come in, right, he come in, Huck Hogan. I
Speaker 18: think I shook hands with the Giant once. He wasn't
Speaker 18: real friendly, but he'd he just shake your hand and
Speaker 18: or folk would folk would come.
Speaker 13: And talk to us.
Speaker 18: Yeah, he was well basically well then eventually when he
Speaker 18: went back to Vince there.
Speaker 13: About eighty three eighty four, he went back to Smakpan.
Speaker 18: Yeah, Vern was going to give him the title, and
Speaker 18: I think in eighty three, but he had a contract
Speaker 18: with New Japan.
Speaker 13: And what he wanted to do was six months with
Speaker 13: New Japan.
Speaker 18: Six months was a w a o Vern, but he
Speaker 18: do He'd be two months here, two months there to
Speaker 18: Burn said, no, I want you here all the time,
Speaker 18: and so Vern would, I guess I'm gonna drew. He
Speaker 18: went out to the ring. He think he was going
Speaker 18: to get the championship. Vern told Bobby Heenen to get
Speaker 18: this qualified. He gets the victory, but he doesn't get
Speaker 18: the title. Yes, Bobby heen and jumps in Backwinkle is
Speaker 18: lost by I's got him pinned. But if before the Camprol,
Speaker 18: it's this qualification, so there's no title, Ship said. Shortly
Speaker 18: after that, Huck went back to Vince somewhere eighty four.
Speaker 18: So after that then he was still come here. But
Speaker 18: then Vern Vince people would come in here when they
Speaker 18: were in town, and then Vern's people for You're.
Speaker 13: Battling for a few years there, but bit by bit.
Speaker 18: Vince kind of Vince kind of ran him out of business.
Speaker 18: It's like like Jimmy Brunzell, he was the hometown boy.
Speaker 18: He hired him away from here and then geegue Oakerland
Speaker 18: our announcer. Yeah, geene Oakerland was South Dakota and then
Speaker 18: here in.
Speaker 13: The Twin Cities he was. Then they hired him Jim Brunzell.
Speaker 13: Who else.
Speaker 18: Eventually yeah, Bobby Usia. Yeah, Al yeah, he was sitting right.
Speaker 18: He was here roughly about ten years ago. He came
Speaker 18: in one night for dinner and like John Means, he said,
Speaker 18: who's that guy?
Speaker 13: I reckon?
Speaker 18: He said, that's Al Drusha. He was Wally Carbo's assistant. Yes,
Speaker 18: you know, he was like the assistant promoter when Wally
Speaker 18: Carbo was the promoter. Well, he was in here about
Speaker 18: ten years ago and then over the next few years
Speaker 18: he'd come in every once in a while with his son.
Speaker 18: Last time I saw him was probably about four years ago.
Speaker 13: He was here.
Speaker 18: He was having a real hard time coming out of
Speaker 18: his chair. But as he walked with everybody, heh shaking
Speaker 18: his hand out we remember you with the age that
Speaker 18: we missed you.
Speaker 5: That right.
Speaker 18: He was just feeling so touched that everybody. Oh, We
Speaker 18: always loved it when you were on wrestling.
Speaker 2: I love that and hop about Rod Tongo.
Speaker 13: He was a KSTP radio.
Speaker 18: I never thought, you know, he was always the straight
Speaker 18: He was always like football and straight stuff and.
Speaker 12: Then the fixed stuff.
Speaker 18: But then it's the wrestling fixed stuff. When God needed,
Speaker 18: when Ghania needed somebody. After Gene Okerland left, Tron Guard
Speaker 18: was doing some of the stuff for Gania in the
Speaker 18: mid eighties.
Speaker 2: It was yeah, because he was always slid. He wears
Speaker 2: sunglasses indoors. Was he like high all the time? Or
Speaker 2: what Rod tong got?
Speaker 13: You're not thinking of Marty O'Neil, are you?
Speaker 2: I don't know Marty.
Speaker 12: Marty.
Speaker 18: Marty died back in nineteen eighty three. Marty was our
Speaker 18: announcer back in the fifty sixties and seventies. He lived
Speaker 18: at eleven eleven Randolph and me. Yeah, he oh, he
Speaker 18: was mister Saint Paul. He I never did it, but
Speaker 18: when I was a kid in my twenties, my friends
Speaker 18: lived in his neighborhood and he'd see him out having
Speaker 18: a beer, sit in his launch here sometimes on a
Speaker 18: summer day, and if you walk by and said, hey,
Speaker 18: Marty a nice guy, he'd sit and he'd talk to
Speaker 18: you for a few minutes and he's real nice. He
Speaker 18: was really a baseball announcer. Yes, nineteen forty two to
Speaker 18: nineteen fifty two, he did ten years with the Saint
Speaker 18: Paul Saints back when we.
Speaker 13: Were a farm team.
Speaker 18: And then.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I remember some of time. Yeah, it was way
Speaker 13: back in.
Speaker 18: They were giving him a ten year anniversary in fifty two,
Speaker 18: and I think the late he didn't get to the
Speaker 18: wrestlinguntil the late fifties. Late, But like he, they had
Speaker 18: an old announcer named Steve Cannon. He was a big
Speaker 18: game announcer CCO.
Speaker 13: But he died.
Speaker 18: He probably died about twenty oh nine, twenty eight. But
Speaker 18: in nineteen fifty Steve Tannon was a young booth announcer
Speaker 18: and Marty was the voice of the Saint Paul Saints.
Speaker 18: But back then they didn't have the bunny to send
Speaker 18: the announcer on the road trip. What he would do,
Speaker 18: he'd read the play by play off the ticker tape
Speaker 18: and he'd he had some sound effects and he'd broadcast
Speaker 18: it over the radio.
Speaker 2: Like he was really interesting. Andre would come in, what
Speaker 2: do you remember.
Speaker 18: When he was Oh god, no, he he go into
Speaker 18: the dining room, okay, and he back. Usually when he
Speaker 18: was here, the bar was in that middle area, but
Speaker 18: on this part he was a hereio. It was the
Speaker 18: middle area he'd passed to, but then he had it
Speaker 18: for the dining room.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 18: Well, in fact the roots we could only talk to
Speaker 18: Tim Shoots had Bartender dont the end. He remembers, Oh,
Speaker 18: you can tell the story better than I can. Basically,
Speaker 18: one night Andre was in Heu til four am. He
Speaker 18: had twenty six shots.
Speaker 13: Of booth twenty six with Lucini, had to get somebody
Speaker 13: to help wheel him into the car.
Speaker 18: They got him back to the hotel and they had
Speaker 18: to get some of the bust boys at the bill
Speaker 18: Boys to come and wheel them in.
Speaker 13: And there's two ladies of the evening waiting for him.
Speaker 18: And as they got him in, he fell into the
Speaker 18: bed and I guess Nick man set ladies.
Speaker 13: I don't think he's going to be any good for you.
Speaker 2: Great story, But if you had talked Kim.
Speaker 13: Peter that sorr he he knew Bobby.
Speaker 2: Heen personally, he's got a great story.
Speaker 18: I'll try to tell you the story. It's Lockwinkel and Stevens.
Speaker 18: If you remember Nick Barkinle Ray Stevens.
Speaker 13: Yeah, they were.
Speaker 18: You know, they had lost the tag team title. I
Speaker 18: can't remember this late seventies, early in that time period.
Speaker 18: They had lost it, but they were going to fight
Speaker 18: to get it back. I think they might have been
Speaker 18: going up against Brunzellen guy. Yeah, and Bobby Heena comes out,
Speaker 18: We've got a secret that's gonna win the championship. Well,
Speaker 18: the thing is, he told Tim how they were always
Speaker 18: trying to get Marty O'Neill to crack up on an interview,
Speaker 18: but they could never get Marty was always just serious. Well,
Speaker 18: they had this playboy full up and he figured on
Speaker 18: the interview Enan was going to show it to him
Speaker 18: and get him to crack up. We've got this secret
Speaker 18: plan Marty, and we're gonna win the championship.
Speaker 13: Well, and he opens it up.
Speaker 18: You can't see it, but he's showing to get the
Speaker 18: Marty and Marty said, if you can pull that plan off,
Speaker 18: I think you're gonna win the championship.
Speaker 13: But he just did a totally dead pad. He didn't
Speaker 13: even get him. But Tim can tell you the story
Speaker 13: better than what that's basically.
Speaker 12: Did you ever did vern ever come in?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 12: Yeah, tell me about vern What was he.
Speaker 18: Like as Custer is, you know, as a guy on
Speaker 18: the outside, he was real nice. But I think he
Speaker 18: if you work for him, he could be a tough boss.
Speaker 18: But if like me, he got the well. As the
Speaker 18: years were going on, and my friend Blitz, he was
Speaker 18: the guy who just he got to be a friend
Speaker 18: with Hogan, he got to be a friend. There was
Speaker 18: a commercial back in oh back in my early sixties,
Speaker 18: Burned Gania pushed Jerry Speed vitamin with this guy Joe's
Speaker 18: Weybeck and Marty O'Neal would be in there. When you're
Speaker 18: in your drug store tomorrow and the druggist tells you
Speaker 18: to try that, you say, uh ah, I want the
Speaker 18: real thing. I want Jerrospeed with burn Gania's picture and
Speaker 18: signature on the label. Well, Marty O'Neal's coming in from
Speaker 18: the parking lot and Blitz started.
Speaker 13: He Barrety knew who Blitz was for many years.
Speaker 18: Blitz was a local boys and he started yelling at
Speaker 18: the commercial and Marty said, God, this guy knows my
Speaker 18: commercial better.
Speaker 13: Than I do. And then we gave it and uh bird,
Speaker 13: we gave it.
Speaker 18: To Finally Blitz is sit the Brune, I got to
Speaker 18: give you this, and it's uh, ah, you want the
Speaker 18: real thing burned. And finally Verne got so used to it.
Speaker 18: Whenever he get out of his car to go into
Speaker 18: the back door into the auditorium, he'd see Blitz and
Speaker 18: the first thing you would do is ah. Then he'd
Speaker 18: give the commercials and everybody vernoud be sitting there. Ah,
Speaker 18: you want Jerry Speed with Verne got his pictures. This
Speaker 18: is the late seventies, early eighties, Horull And do you
Speaker 18: remember Reggie Lezowski's rusher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I's most famous athlete.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean they got a statue of him.
Speaker 12: They sure did.
Speaker 13: Well. I what the heck was the blitzer?
Speaker 2: He said, ha ha ha. Then it came up with
Speaker 2: the sau Speed.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 13: I'm trying to think of the crushers here. Now what
Speaker 13: did we call?
Speaker 18: I was born September ninth. It was a Tuesday night
Speaker 18: in eighteen fifty two.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's go to the beginning. Yeah, I'm a little kid.
Speaker 18: I remember back from the late fifties early sixties, Minneapolis
Speaker 18: always had their match on a Tuesday night, and then
Speaker 18: they'd come over the same carl on a Saturday night.
Speaker 18: But I went into the old newspapers nineteen fifty two
Speaker 18: and a half. Yea, she was there a match the night.
Speaker 18: I was sure enough, wow, And I can't remember Hard
Speaker 18: Boiled Haggard he was on the that but one of
Speaker 18: the up it was like the result it was for
Speaker 18: September ninth, nineteen fifty two, young Reggie Lizowski lost the
Speaker 18: bulldog Danny Plutches. Then a week later, young Reggie Lozowski
Speaker 18: lost to Ryan mcclarity. So if we caitched the Crusher
Speaker 18: coming out of the Minneapolis Auditorium one night, it's about
Speaker 18: nineteen eighty. Hey, Crusher, Crusher, September ninth, nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 18: you lost the bulldog Danny Plutches in fourteen minutes. Then
Speaker 18: he says, September sixteenth, you lost to Roy mcclarity in
Speaker 18: fifteen minutes.
Speaker 13: Why did you lose, Crusher? And he looks you must
Speaker 13: have done deep for that. But then Crusher, why did
Speaker 13: you lose? And he says, what do you want? I
Speaker 13: was only fourteen?
Speaker 18: Great story, And well, if you see where they signed
Speaker 18: the chairhouse this sad wall is there a lot of
Speaker 18: pictures back in oh back in nineteen eighty four, the
Speaker 18: bar was in that area and the wall wasn't there.
Speaker 18: There was like a platform with a big booth or
Speaker 18: a big cable, a big TV. And we were sitting
Speaker 18: about there before this bar was here. We were in
Speaker 18: that middle area and the pressure. It was the end
Speaker 18: of the nineteen forty eight or nineteen eighty four Olympink. Yeah,
Speaker 18: you just wrestled in downtown Saint Paul. And he came
Speaker 18: and stood right at our table and we all shook
Speaker 18: hands with him, and he watched the end of the
Speaker 18: credits for about ten minutes with us.
Speaker 4: That was pretty good.
Speaker 2: It's really good.
Speaker 24: Yeah.
Speaker 13: At the time, I'm in my early thirties, I'm sitting
Speaker 13: to my god.
Speaker 2: Remember when they shot the wrestler with that Asthna playing
Speaker 2: burn dives.
Speaker 13: Oh that was in seventy three. That was a spring
Speaker 13: Are you around for that?
Speaker 2: Seen the movie?
Speaker 18: Wo They found a lot of that in the local
Speaker 18: it's the Ray Wilkins Auditorium now, it's the older part
Speaker 18: of the Saint Paul Auditorium that it was bled in
Speaker 18: the thirties. Okay, fact that well, they had the Civic
Speaker 18: Center by seventy one, but that was our We still
Speaker 18: had a lot of the matches there in the early seventies,
Speaker 18: and uh, yeah, they filmed as was on a ring side.
Speaker 18: We were around that as a lot, and uh we
Speaker 18: saw where Ray Stevens coons off the top rope and
Speaker 18: kills jump and Joe's scapillow in the movie. They we
Speaker 18: sat there when they filmed that scene about six times
Speaker 18: where you jump off the scene. That's the particular scene.
Speaker 18: I think the scene the scene, Oh god, it's the
Speaker 18: Rhodes and Murdoch kept the fight with the local yeah,
Speaker 18: up in Maslas.
Speaker 13: And I didn't, I wasn't.
Speaker 18: I didn't see that, but I did see it in
Speaker 18: the movie. But then mel Jazz was an annun wrestling
Speaker 18: announcer in the movie. And uh and then maybe Klobasher
Speaker 18: Jim Klobascher's.
Speaker 13: Her dad, you know.
Speaker 18: He was newspaper man, Yes it was. And he used
Speaker 18: to call the aw a this burn got. He was
Speaker 18: the champion of the seven disc seven County Mosquito Control
Speaker 18: District and vern would come out and start yelling at him.
Speaker 18: We rustled a lot, but I think actually he was
Speaker 18: getting free publicity. He was cussing out Klobashar. But then
Speaker 18: Klobehar is in the movie. There he's the one guy that.
Speaker 2: Wrestlers were killed in the ring.
Speaker 18: Yeah, that was that's Amy Klobashar's dad. It's a named
Speaker 18: newspaper man in Minny.
Speaker 2: And you didn have a reputation of taking a lot
Speaker 2: of the wrestler's money.
Speaker 18: Well, one time, if you remember Larry Hennick, I think
Speaker 18: he kind of retired from the ring in the late
Speaker 18: eighties and he became like a business agent for a
Speaker 18: local teamsters union. And yeah, and in fact he alc River.
Speaker 18: He had a real estate company up in Elk River,
Speaker 18: Larry Hennick Realty. And but he was at the kelly In.
Speaker 18: It's it's the capital allowed now, but he used to
Speaker 18: be the kelly In on Race Street, right across from
Speaker 18: Minnesota Department of Transportation, right near the capitol.
Speaker 13: And he pop in sometimes after a business eating with
Speaker 13: the team shows. He's at the bar.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 18: One night I got the shake hands with him. He
Speaker 18: gave me an autograph picture. Wow, one night a guy
Speaker 18: from my office sitting at the shaking hands. Hey, Larry,
Speaker 18: what's room gun?
Speaker 13: You really like that? He tells at a paper like
Speaker 13: this paper.
Speaker 18: He pulls out paper and he goes like this, this
Speaker 18: is your part of the dollar. This is Burne's part
Speaker 18: of the dollar.
Speaker 13: He did that right at the bar.
Speaker 2: Well, it looks about would you say that's about ninety,
Speaker 2: that's about ten.
Speaker 18: Yeah, well then I don't know if you remember any Sharky.
Speaker 18: Any Sharky was a referee in a light heavyweight wrestler.
Speaker 2: He was the one that went in a shot at
Speaker 2: Burn's office.
Speaker 18: Yeah, yeah, and he he went. My friend went up
Speaker 18: to him one night after during the match. He said, Hey,
Speaker 18: is it true what Larry Hennick said about Ghanya? And
Speaker 18: he said, what are you saying he did that the shark?
Speaker 18: He said, exactly right.
Speaker 2: It's a double confirmation. Do you remember hearing that Sharky story?
Speaker 2: He said something to do with vern and his wife
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 18: I think he went out shooting at his farm. He
Speaker 18: had a farm out there, and Wiston handed from Goody.
Speaker 18: Sounds like he went off and he starts shooting at
Speaker 18: the barn.
Speaker 2: At the barn. I never got this barn.
Speaker 13: I never got to.
Speaker 18: I think he wanted had to pack up and go
Speaker 18: down and work for Kansas City or something for a while,
Speaker 18: and he didn't want to leave here.
Speaker 13: Kansas City.
Speaker 18: You know, he make money, but still it was kind
Speaker 18: of like a secondary circuit got to some of the guys,
Speaker 18: so he didn't want to do it, and then they
Speaker 18: were in a big feud. When I went to I
Speaker 18: made a sharky in seventy three. I worked out at
Speaker 18: his gym for buddy year. My friend Jed Carlson did
Speaker 18: about six months in Kansas City.
Speaker 12: He gave it.
Speaker 18: He never made it, but he gave it a shot.
Speaker 18: But he trained with Jesse Ventura. Yeah, Jesse came in.
Speaker 18: He was Jimmy Janos at the time before he became
Speaker 18: and I got to meet him at a match. He
Speaker 18: saw my friend Jed at the match one night before
Speaker 18: he went to Kansas City and I got to meet him.
Speaker 18: But then he went down to Kansas City. About three
Speaker 18: months later, Jed tells me, oh, he's now he's Jesse Ventura.
Speaker 18: And every about a year in Kansas City he goes
Speaker 18: up to Seattle and Portland and a few years later
Speaker 18: he comes brings him in. But I remember meeting him
Speaker 18: and shaking his hands way back.
Speaker 12: What did you what did you think about him being governed?
Speaker 18: Well, I got to kick out of it. I don't know,
Speaker 18: I don't know, I don't know what exactly. The I mean,
Speaker 18: things things run, Things just keep running.
Speaker 13: Whoever the governor is.
Speaker 18: The damnedest thing is he had one person, you know,
Speaker 18: like one house of the legislature was Republican, the other
Speaker 18: house was Democrat.
Speaker 13: I think there was one guy in.
Speaker 18: The whole legislature that supported him. But he wanted But
Speaker 18: the thing is, he wanted the light rail, and he said,
Speaker 18: well he wanted it, so he got it. Well, he
Speaker 18: had to sell both houses at the legislature, both of
Speaker 18: them had to vote it in for him to get
Speaker 18: the light rail.
Speaker 2: But that was only done with pulse that Vin stood
Speaker 2: with help.
Speaker 18: Well, you know, I think Hulk got pissed at Vern.
Speaker 18: I think a lot of those promotions like shorts and
Speaker 18: all these outside I had stuff they sold and stuff.
Speaker 18: I think Hulk wanted to take it into a new
Speaker 18: era in Oh god, I think he was out that way.
Speaker 9: I never.
Speaker 13: Never did meet her. Oh you know. The damnedest thing
Speaker 13: was it was, oh something.
Speaker 18: I when I read the late seventies, they got that
Speaker 18: all start wrestling hotline where you could call up and
Speaker 18: you know, they give you that both the news of
Speaker 18: what happened and what's going to happen next.
Speaker 13: Week or the matches for.
Speaker 22: The next week.
Speaker 18: Well, we were doing that, and then I used to
Speaker 18: go out to Wilson Library at the u M because
Speaker 18: newspapers would come in from big cities. And I had
Speaker 18: found that Houston newspaper published results, and I think I
Speaker 18: had one from San Francisco that published results. They were
Speaker 18: like two weeks late, but still I knew something about
Speaker 18: what was going on, and I could show it to
Speaker 18: my friend and he'd show some of it at the
Speaker 18: wrestlers outside, and sometimes they'd.
Speaker 13: Be, how the hell do you know that?
Speaker 18: Really?
Speaker 2: But it was where was it?
Speaker 18: One day I got them the Houston newspaper called a
Speaker 18: Houston Wrestling Hotline for your latest and sit there. Oh,
Speaker 18: if we've had it for a year, I should have
Speaker 18: known that other cities would happen. Sure enough, we called
Speaker 18: it long distance. Sure enough, my friend Blitz almost hit
Speaker 18: irvrana when he called it. Then we got on directory assistance.
Speaker 18: We had one for Houston, we had one for Kansas City,
Speaker 18: we had one for Saint Louis.
Speaker 13: We had one for Chicago. As much as Chicago was part.
Speaker 18: Of the AWA, they still had a different They ran
Speaker 18: different matches. Sometimes some of our guys were there, and
Speaker 18: some of the other guys were there, and they and
Speaker 18: but then Blitz could blow it at them when they
Speaker 18: came in here. But then, Gwitz, it's got It's nineteen
Speaker 18: seventy nine. He was calling all these every night after work,
Speaker 18: and his girlfriend was ready.
Speaker 13: To kill me. The phone bill came for one hundred
Speaker 13: and seventy five balls. Yeah, she you you taught him,
Speaker 13: and she started yelling at him.
Speaker 18: You're paying every day. Yeah, I'm never paying the foot,
Speaker 18: You're paying the floor. One hundred and seventy nine dollars
Speaker 18: in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Was all out of money, right right?
Speaker 2: And about of course from here? Did you know about
Speaker 2: him before?
Speaker 13: He was on wrestling Gee Up, Follow the Leader with
Speaker 13: Gene Leader. He was on the Look teen Leader.
Speaker 2: He went by Gene Leader, that's right.
Speaker 18: I think he was on shre w d g y
Speaker 18: I Play and then well, my boss, one of my bosses,
Speaker 18: Kurt Diileen, grew up in South Dakota.
Speaker 13: I think he's probably graduated to the high school the
Speaker 13: f fifteen nine or sixty there was South Dakota, Okay.
Speaker 13: Baron was from Omaha.
Speaker 2: Baron Gene Leader.
Speaker 18: I think he was hit a band in South Dakota
Speaker 18: where in Kirk. I knew him in high school, back
Speaker 18: in my night and sixties. No, Kurt my boss at
Speaker 18: No because I told him about Oh, I knew him.
Speaker 13: He was Gene Leader. He in a band.
Speaker 18: Yeah, and then by the mid sixties he was followed
Speaker 18: the leader with Gene Leader here.
Speaker 2: On remember him Gene Leader?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was he just spending spinning records? Was hedgy. He strikes
Speaker 2: me as someone that was always gene no matter where
Speaker 2: you meant. He was full gimmick all the time.
Speaker 18: Al Do RuSHA though, Alderrusha was like the television producer
Speaker 18: of Ballsta Wrestling.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 13: And then eventually Bill the System was Carbo's assistant.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 18: And he died suddenly in seventy three. And it's a
Speaker 18: few months later they made alder RuSHA part.
Speaker 13: Of the In first there was a picture. I don't
Speaker 13: have to show you the picture.
Speaker 18: It's from about nineteen seventy nine or eighty. It's ald
Speaker 18: Arusha with Wally Carbo and the Crusher.
Speaker 12: Oh, I love to see it.
Speaker 13: There's a picture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about what about Wally Carbo? He's such an
Speaker 2: interesting figure to me. We only see him an.
Speaker 18: Older talk about and all the old days of wrestling,
Speaker 18: you know, it's everything.
Speaker 2: He's sound like a weasel, like well, listen, I can't
Speaker 2: figure him out.
Speaker 18: He had to play the part, it sounded like. And
Speaker 18: a lot of times Verne was really tight with the money.
Speaker 18: And lots of times he he Kennis took the fall
Speaker 18: from Room because some of the guys would come back
Speaker 18: to the dressing room after the match and they were
Speaker 18: not making the money that they thought they were getting,
Speaker 18: and Run would look at the guys and.
Speaker 13: Pat can tell you the story better than I can.
Speaker 18: Boot.
Speaker 2: I've heard Craig tell it too.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so Carbo is someone who's doing tight with the money,
Speaker 2: and he said, go see Wally.
Speaker 13: Is that what I'm.
Speaker 18: Carbo was really the guy and he was really tight
Speaker 18: with the money. Yes, but then he the guys were complaining.
Speaker 18: Room said I'm going to talk to Wally, and Wally
Speaker 18: would somebody's got to take the heat, and so he
Speaker 18: kind of took found on his sword.
Speaker 13: For I remember being at Sharky's.
Speaker 18: Gym when I was still in college, were working out
Speaker 18: and some of the guys are start talking about time
Speaker 18: along Ganien. I think Sharky are one of those that huh,
Speaker 18: it's a partnership. But Brune says jump, and Wally says, how.
Speaker 2: Far That's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 18: Because what Wally Carbo what nineteen thirty four, nineteen thirty
Speaker 18: I think he graduated from Delasale High School nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 18: and about a year later he's downtown looking for a job.
Speaker 18: The Steicher brothers kill, yeah, they're down there, and snicker Steitcher.
Speaker 2: I always say Stecker, but yeah, yeah, and they.
Speaker 18: He's looking for a job. That harrim is an office boy,
Speaker 18: and apparently he really does a good job. He just
Speaker 18: messages runs Aaron's for him. Really doesn't good job at
Speaker 18: organizing the office.
Speaker 13: That they keep him on. I seen some pictures of
Speaker 13: him as an out.
Speaker 18: Referee around nineteen forty. And one of the brothers died
Speaker 18: in the mid forties, and the other brother made him
Speaker 18: a partner. Then the other brother wanted to retire in
Speaker 18: fifty five, and then Wally bought the one brother pulls
Speaker 18: the nephew okay, and he bought them out. He became
Speaker 18: he owned it, and then Vern became his partner around
Speaker 18: nineteen fifty nine or sixty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you remember vern't being the national celebrity of
Speaker 2: the Dumont Network. Do you remember watching him?
Speaker 13: That was I've heard of it, but that was in
Speaker 13: the early fifties. I was just a little kid.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I guess they're Red Bass Team popped up somewhere
Speaker 18: there again. Uh wrestled the champ and I guess Red
Speaker 18: Bass Team came on as a young guy.
Speaker 13: He was younger than Vern. He beep Vern on one
Speaker 13: of those matches, I guess, But I the thing was like,
Speaker 13: Vern was really good.
Speaker 18: But how by nineteen seventy, Vern was like forty five
Speaker 18: years older and Billy Robinson showed up in seventy one,
Speaker 18: and when they matched, they wrestled. If Vern had been
Speaker 18: the Veroin of ten years earlier, he could have matched
Speaker 18: Billy better, but by.
Speaker 13: That time Verne could not.
Speaker 18: A couple of times they tell me a couple of
Speaker 18: the matches they had out in Wisconsin. Bill Billy is
Speaker 18: just killing him with the holes, and Vern turns heel
Speaker 18: and starts sponging auging him insider, and they start to
Speaker 18: you know, Vern Brown, Yeah, but Billy Billy was to me,
Speaker 18: he was the best I ever saw. You know, Reggie
Speaker 18: Parks and Doug Gilbert are really well you know, but Billy, Yeah,
Speaker 18: tremendous and the one guy that could really counter him.
Speaker 2: What a what an amazing talent.
Speaker 13: Just you know, he didn't have the fleshy hole.
Speaker 18: But when Billy go at him with a hold, Hawkwinkle
Speaker 18: could counter could count.
Speaker 2: And why do you think Verne loved Backwinkle so much?
Speaker 13: He did the job.
Speaker 18: He never he never said that, and I guess he
Speaker 18: just did the job. And apparently he didn't, but he
Speaker 18: was told and he stayed touch.
Speaker 13: He stayed in touch with the guy.
Speaker 18: From Houston when he's from the n LAT year he
Speaker 18: was he was defending the a w A title in.
Speaker 13: Houston, in Houston, but I say aw got the world champion,
Speaker 13: but the a w A champion.
Speaker 3: But apparently he was.
Speaker 13: Oh how he.
Speaker 15: Ver?
Speaker 18: It sounds like Burn could lose his temper. And one
Speaker 18: time Blitz was talking to a guy that knew Nick
Speaker 18: pretty well. And this guy was doing some work and
Speaker 18: he Vern got yelled at him, and he talked to Blitz,
Speaker 18: talked to him, and Blitz said, Nick told him Vern
Speaker 18: blowing us up with everybody sometimes is the only two
Speaker 18: guys I know what he's ever blown up on is
Speaker 18: myself and Blackjack Lamza is that right?
Speaker 2: In fact him call people dumbass and yell him on ship.
Speaker 18: It sounds like when Pulk decided to break up and
Speaker 18: go back to back to the East Coast. Apparently they
Speaker 18: got into an argument in the office and Vern was
Speaker 18: going to show Hulk something about amateur wrestling. Well Hulk
Speaker 18: was too big and Vern was too and Halk just
Speaker 18: put him down and held him and apparently finally Vern
Speaker 18: was screaming to get up, and a couple of the wrestlers.
Speaker 2: Oh, come on, Hulk, really.
Speaker 18: I don't know if they I don't think they they cucked.
Speaker 18: You know, you proved your point. And shortly after that,
Speaker 18: Hulk was scheduled for a match here and.
Speaker 13: Uh, I think.
Speaker 18: Dude.
Speaker 13: A thunderstorm and Florida Hulk.
Speaker 18: Hogan's plane has been grounded, and here comes the Baron
Speaker 18: van Rashki, who was popular, but everybody wanted to see
Speaker 18: the Hulk, So everybody was pissed when the Baron came.
Speaker 2: And that wasn't even true. Hulk had already gone in
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 13: Yeah, they always give you some kind of a bullshit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we were waiting for him.
Speaker 13: To bring out Bolinsky.
Speaker 18: If you remember Bolinski because he was they won his
Speaker 18: bull Bolinski both we've always big here.
Speaker 13: Early in the mid seventies. His real name was Frank Shields.
Speaker 18: Only about five six five seventies, but he had a
Speaker 18: big thing barrel got Yeah. He teamed up with Prusher
Speaker 18: and Bruiser, so he was a truck driver. We'll come
Speaker 18: out with his court Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: Remember Rockinghall bs the Oh.
Speaker 13: Yeah, he went to jail. He was in the van.
Speaker 13: I guess he was out with the He tried to
Speaker 13: say I thought she.
Speaker 2: Was eighteen, but I think it's his daughter, for God's sake.
Speaker 18: So Jimmy Brunzell was here about ten years ago for
Speaker 18: three hours. He signed his book. Did you see his biography?
Speaker 5: I have?
Speaker 13: I have, Yeah, he was here.
Speaker 24: I got the leaf of him.
Speaker 13: He's here for about three hours.
Speaker 2: And super fan. Would you go on Christmas Night?
Speaker 13: Christmas?
Speaker 2: They used to have Christmas night shows at the Senate.
Speaker 13: Right, Oh yeah, I think they hit Turky Day. Yeah,
Speaker 13: and I think they did. I remember being.
Speaker 18: I could have been in a Christmas night and I
Speaker 18: remember being at one that was almost Christmas.
Speaker 2: Okay, hey, before we go, hen show us the pictures.
Speaker 18: Yeah, if you don't mind Meltzer. Have you ever heard
Speaker 18: of Meltzer? The guy from him he's from California because
Speaker 18: he's still doing his newsletter. Yes, my friend Blitz.
Speaker 2: Only online though you can't get the public.
Speaker 18: Well, my friend Steve Blitz used to be in contact
Speaker 18: with him, and Blitz died suddenly back in two thousand
Speaker 18: and one, and Blitz he did he'd give it to
Speaker 18: all the wrestlers when me Blitz, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 13: One time we're tell was that Rick Martel came in
Speaker 13: and Blitz is sitting there.
Speaker 18: Hey, Rick, last week you were in Toronto, Montreal and Detroit.
Speaker 18: Next week you're gonna be and Sue falls Ola Hall
Speaker 18: and and Martelle.
Speaker 13: Looks at the guy. He knows my schedule better than
Speaker 13: I do. A nineteen ninety.
Speaker 18: Nine Sure out in front of the Capitol. We had
Speaker 18: to taste of Minnesota back then. Sure, and Krusher or
Speaker 18: not mad Dog and his brother Paul the Butcher Vershan. Yes,
Speaker 18: we're there, and I got a picture with him and
Speaker 18: Butcher Vershan is sitting there kind of humming some songs
Speaker 18: in the background.
Speaker 13: I guess he loved the old Broadway musicals. Really, but
Speaker 13: I got a picture of him with me.
Speaker 18: But then I brought Blitz later and the next day
Speaker 18: Blitz comes back to mad Dog got a mad Dog
Speaker 18: and he goes on. Then he wrestled him in sixty
Speaker 18: three and he wrestled him and after half an hour,
Speaker 18: mad Dog says, this guy knows my career better.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it.
Speaker 26: I believe it, and Blitz Paul used to Hogan used
Speaker 26: to call Blitz hall, let's see the Maniac and he'd
Speaker 26: give him a couple of times.
Speaker 18: He'd call him up at the hotel and he'd be
Speaker 18: on there, it's blit, oh, Blotsy, how are you? And
Speaker 18: I'd be listening in and Hogan would be going on
Speaker 18: but see the Maniac.
Speaker 2: And uh uh.
Speaker 18: One night Hogan was supposed to come back to the
Speaker 18: hotel in Bloomington. V went somewhere else, but most of
Speaker 18: the soul who's got Jimmy Harder correct.
Speaker 3: He came in, he saw Bloody says, yeah, Al really
Speaker 3: likes you.
Speaker 9: Come on.
Speaker 13: He he got to have dinner with Jimmy Hart.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 13: So, Greg Army was in here about a year.
Speaker 18: Ago looking at pictures, and I introduced myself and who
Speaker 18: shook hands and talked for a while.
Speaker 2: That's person.
Speaker 18: And well, oh well the Baron. Baron was here last
Speaker 18: October when I got to see him. Wow, yeah, he's
Speaker 18: I think he's eighty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, freaking arty.
Speaker 13: He says that Johnson Kim Petteria comes in. But Kim's
Speaker 13: outing very good health.
Speaker 2: Yeah he had a health scare. Yeah, yeah, he's in.
Speaker 1: He's a LAPTNG wrestling podcast.
Speaker 2: Craig ganya here of the Ganda Dynasty. And I got
Speaker 2: to tell you right off the gate. We started our
Speaker 2: trip to Minneapolis going to Lake Minnetonka. We went to
Speaker 2: the house on Friday morning, yep. And what evocative place
Speaker 2: we wonder? Do you ever go back there? Is it
Speaker 2: a painful memory that it's there but not his.
Speaker 27: Well, it's it's pretty painful, is it.
Speaker 10: It put my mom and my dad in the grave?
Speaker 2: She said, yeah, they that's heavy.
Speaker 5: He had it.
Speaker 27: He had it all set up to develop it at
Speaker 27: three acre lots all the way down behind it. It
Speaker 27: was fifty two acres and eighteen hundred feet of lake
Speaker 27: show beautiful, and he had a barn and a sports
Speaker 27: yourself there and the two guys here in town of
Speaker 27: Jim Klobacher's a newspaper.
Speaker 2: Writer yep, Amy Klobacher's dad.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and Harvey McKay.
Speaker 27: They told my dad that he should have a party
Speaker 27: for the for the people in government from Minnesota. So
Speaker 27: my dad three party for him. My sister heard the
Speaker 27: two of them, Clobshire and.
Speaker 1: The other the other guy.
Speaker 2: I forgot to McKay, Mick.
Speaker 27: McKay, Harvey McKay saying nobody should have this much property.
Speaker 2: Nobody should have this much property. Where do they get
Speaker 2: off saying that?
Speaker 11: I don't understand.
Speaker 27: They said it, and they were jealous, and then three
Speaker 27: days later they came in and condemned the.
Speaker 2: Property, condemned it. Yeah, well, they negotiated with vern right,
Speaker 2: they paid him for it.
Speaker 13: Three years.
Speaker 27: He fought it and when he got out of it,
Speaker 27: there wasn't much left.
Speaker 2: Do you think your dad thought he would win that
Speaker 2: fight or was he just fighting to fight?
Speaker 7: Well, he was fighting a fight.
Speaker 10: He thought he could win it.
Speaker 27: I mean, it's an Indian burial grounds up on the hills,
Speaker 27: so yeah, you know, so he wasn't developing that part
Speaker 27: of it.
Speaker 10: They took it.
Speaker 2: They took it. We remember seeing the House and the
Speaker 2: Wrestler nineteen seventy four of the movie Yep. And there's
Speaker 2: a lot of scenes in there. Jae, my colleague here
Speaker 2: was wondering as we walked on the inside, like if
Speaker 2: we could remember, imagine what are those scenes took place?
Speaker 2: Did you have a question some of them?
Speaker 12: I mean, because we were fortunate to go in to
Speaker 12: the house.
Speaker 27: My house here, when you walked in there was a fireplace.
Speaker 10: Yes, and they got out about like this.
Speaker 27: Yeah, it was six feet he had us and we
Speaker 27: were training. We had to cut logs six feet long
Speaker 27: and he could walk in and put.
Speaker 2: Them into them, walk right into the That doesn't look
Speaker 2: like that right now they.
Speaker 12: Destroyed, did they?
Speaker 16: They still got like the It looked like it was
Speaker 16: a sitting area with a fireplace that looked like it
Speaker 16: had one of those kind of period not at the time,
Speaker 16: but the sunken floors where you could kind of sit
Speaker 16: around with the fireplace and stuff.
Speaker 12: Just based on that and said gorgeous.
Speaker 10: In the Lord and it was beautiful.
Speaker 27: But like I said, you know, but it was it
Speaker 27: was a bad deal for the whole family. We had
Speaker 27: a lot right next door to three acres.
Speaker 10: There were three acre.
Speaker 2: Lots on the lake, okay, and my wife at that time,
Speaker 2: our kids were.
Speaker 10: Just going to starting to school and would have been a.
Speaker 27: Long drive for him, and she wouldn't move off really,
Speaker 27: so we did. We had the plans set up there.
Speaker 27: Had the wet had started going, it might have made
Speaker 27: it a little more difficult for him. You know, eminent domain,
Speaker 27: they can do what they want.
Speaker 2: Well, when you first walk in, now they had the
Speaker 2: office and everything. But when you would have first walked in,
Speaker 2: when when your dad lived there and you lived there,
Speaker 2: what would you have seen?
Speaker 15: It?
Speaker 2: Was it a living walk in you.
Speaker 27: Look to the right, that's you could see that living
Speaker 27: room area and that was the big fireplace.
Speaker 2: Oh, I understand.
Speaker 27: Then he had a he had an office upstairs, and
Speaker 27: the bedrooms upstairs and bedan stacks steps.
Speaker 14: So wow, that's quite what about the wrestler the movie
Speaker 14: did about the movie? So I find the movie fascinating.
Speaker 14: I find the making of it absolutely fascinating. But the
Speaker 14: one guy, I mean, I know, he was a he
Speaker 14: was a vaudeville guy and kind of did a bunch
Speaker 14: of stuff in Ohio. The writer Eugene Gump, Do you
Speaker 14: have any recollection of him, like your dad working with
Speaker 14: him on creating.
Speaker 12: The script for the movie.
Speaker 14: You know, I know, remember that name, no worries it
Speaker 14: all Listen, that's the only movie you ever wrote. So
Speaker 14: I'm like, I'm just curious.
Speaker 10: Like remember the names.
Speaker 27: Uh, you know he had in there with him and
Speaker 27: sure you know ed him became really good buddy.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there were a lot of fun begin There.
Speaker 14: Was a there was a funny article years later in
Speaker 14: San Francisco where I think it was you and your
Speaker 14: dad and Hulk were all kind of They were You're
Speaker 14: in San Francisco and you get spotted with that assner
Speaker 14: in like at a newstand or something like that, and
Speaker 14: you're walking.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a great it's a great Yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 7: Ed was he was just a regular guy.
Speaker 10: He was really a good guy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The barn in Chanhassen where Casro and everyone got trained,
Speaker 2: is that gone?
Speaker 10: We all trained there?
Speaker 27: No, I don't know if it's still there because he
Speaker 27: sold that property in that but the other property, yeah,
Speaker 27: it was two stories. The upstairs was uh of the
Speaker 27: barn was it was an old barn. There was a haylost.
Speaker 27: They had no hand in it, and it had a
Speaker 27: ring set up and that's a big train. Windows there
Speaker 27: was no windows.
Speaker 7: There was windows, but no.
Speaker 27: Glass and then downstairs it's where the horses were, and
Speaker 27: then there there was a corral out there that they
Speaker 27: had that.
Speaker 10: All the manure was in.
Speaker 27: We convinced Rick Claire when we were training that the
Speaker 27: only way you're going to make it through this thing is,
Speaker 27: you know, at the end, we have to dive out
Speaker 27: that window and land in the manure.
Speaker 7: Flaire quit.
Speaker 2: His as got him back.
Speaker 27: I can't do it the last day, versts what what
Speaker 27: is wrong with you?
Speaker 10: Flaire?
Speaker 27: I can't do it.
Speaker 13: I can't do it.
Speaker 2: What do you mean you can't do it?
Speaker 27: You got all this great training, you're you're ready to go.
Speaker 27: I can't dive out that window. Dive out the window
Speaker 27: and they looked over us and then he went along
Speaker 27: with it. Well, you might have to ring.
Speaker 2: That's amazing with that crew of guys. You know, Verne
Speaker 2: had the arrangement where he got he broke you in
Speaker 2: and then he got a percentage. Some guys have talked about, yeah,
Speaker 2: I want what about that? You got ninety percent? Went right?
Speaker 2: He got nothing? Really nothing? Oh, I've heard that a
Speaker 2: few times. I don't know if I.
Speaker 27: Don't know, you get it. There's a lot of bullshit
Speaker 27: and professional you're not getting this, but that's true.
Speaker 7: And no, he never took any money from anybody.
Speaker 2: He didn't know.
Speaker 27: He trained one hundred and forty four wrestlers and maybe
Speaker 27: two percent then make it the main.
Speaker 12: Event of them.
Speaker 10: Yeah, nobody trained more than that.
Speaker 27: The other ones were Stu Hart and he trained a
Speaker 27: lot of people did and it was a tough camp.
Speaker 27: Burns was tough. We were six hours a day, six
Speaker 27: days a week, and we went from end of September until.
Speaker 7: March.
Speaker 2: Did Verne want you to have the belt the world
Speaker 2: title at any point?
Speaker 27: If you would, if I'd have had it.
Speaker 2: Well, I heard you say you didn't think it was
Speaker 2: like the best fit. No, why didn't he want you
Speaker 2: to have it?
Speaker 13: Did think you think that any ideas?
Speaker 27: No, No, I think because it was his son and
Speaker 27: people you know, oh you only got that, you know,
Speaker 27: because he's the son.
Speaker 7: But it didn't bother me.
Speaker 27: No, Jim and I were a good tag team and
Speaker 27: you know, uh, we had elevated pretty quick. He usually
Speaker 27: it took guys five to ten years to make it.
Speaker 27: But he came out of Urns camp.
Speaker 10: You were ready to go.
Speaker 2: He made sure last subject to ask you about, is
Speaker 2: this whole Cogan. He came in season on Toba. What
Speaker 2: did Vernon you do to Halk? I mean to get
Speaker 2: him for hawk Ship.
Speaker 27: We made Hulk Hogan. I was wrestling and Madison Square
Speaker 27: Garden and Hulk was on the cart. I don't know
Speaker 27: if it's Shafe Stadium. You're on that show Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 27: He came in the locker room after his match and
Speaker 27: he was almost in tears, and so, what's the matter,
Speaker 27: big man?
Speaker 10: I can't make it?
Speaker 1: And I said, you can't make it.
Speaker 2: He was working with Andre. He was a big time
Speaker 2: deal that when we met. When I was a well
Speaker 2: Shae Stadium he wrestled.
Speaker 27: Him, but he it wasn't Schaf Stadium. This was in
Speaker 27: Madison Square Garden and the match he had earlier or
Speaker 27: after me, and he came in and he.
Speaker 1: Said, I said, what's the matter.
Speaker 10: He said, I can't make it?
Speaker 27: And I said, well, don't you come to the a
Speaker 27: w A you learn how your teacher ken? Hey you
Speaker 27: think I said, well yeah, and I said, tell me
Speaker 27: born about it. So I told my dad about it
Speaker 27: and I said he's gonna call yet. About a month
Speaker 27: later and said, I haven't heard any from this guy
Speaker 27: who is he, I said, well, he's got big potential.
Speaker 27: And uh, finally three months later he came in and
Speaker 27: called and brought him in. And what they did They
Speaker 27: put him in six man tag team matches with Jim
Speaker 27: and I so.
Speaker 10: He could learn it.
Speaker 2: Jerry welled it and.
Speaker 27: We only would get him in the ring when it
Speaker 27: when he would.
Speaker 2: Look good, right, the right moment, Yeah, the right moment.
Speaker 2: Seemed like Jerry Blackwell did a lot for him too,
Speaker 2: going up for those slams in the beginning when he
Speaker 2: first turned baby because he came in as a hill
Speaker 2: Hogan did.
Speaker 27: Yeah, not really, not really once once he came once
Speaker 27: he my dad heard the people and how they accepted him, said.
Speaker 10: He was he was in the wrong role, wrong role.
Speaker 2: Well, it's great for him to notice that, because Vince
Speaker 2: Senior never turned a baby face. What do you think
Speaker 2: it was?
Speaker 27: He didn't know, you know, No, Vince never trained anybody.
Speaker 12: I see what you mean. You know, he didn't know
Speaker 12: how to handle talent.
Speaker 18: You know.
Speaker 27: Uh, if you ever watched the Madison Square Garden card,
Speaker 27: there was only a few really good guys. Maybe the
Speaker 27: last two matches were really talented guys. The work right
Speaker 27: from the from the opening match to the end.
Speaker 7: They were all good, top talent.
Speaker 2: Why why did hulcan your dad have that skirmish where
Speaker 2: they were like, what is what started about?
Speaker 12: Sish?
Speaker 27: No, Hogan didn't win the title in uh just before Christmas,
Speaker 27: and he was all pissed off about it. And April
Speaker 27: was a huge month for the AWA.
Speaker 10: So we're going to have a return match with me.
Speaker 2: Brock winkled.
Speaker 10: Then hope you might have won the title then, I see.
Speaker 27: But he wanted it so bad and Vince promised me
Speaker 27: and get it. And for Vince to succeed and get
Speaker 27: start getting the territories torn apart, he needed a guy
Speaker 27: like Colgan.
Speaker 2: Of course he did.
Speaker 27: Hogan left and once he left, they all started going.
Speaker 27: He hit the aw a harder than anybody because we
Speaker 27: had all the talent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, unbelievable. So the whole crux of it,
Speaker 2: that's the whole story there, boy. Sorry, last one, CBS,
Speaker 2: Andre Hogan, you said you were negotiating to have Andrea
Speaker 2: and Hogan on CBS at one point. Am I remembering
Speaker 2: that right?
Speaker 12: Or on?
Speaker 2: Do remember that? Okay?
Speaker 10: I never heard of that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, you thought at some point you thought you
Speaker 2: might be able to get helped back after he went
Speaker 2: to Vince Junior. No he long gone, No, he was
Speaker 2: long gone.
Speaker 27: Oh it was.
Speaker 10: It was done.
Speaker 2: Real pleasure, great, Thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 12: Pleasure so much.
Speaker 4: Send me a check right.
Speaker 2: Anyway, He's fan.
Speaker 25: Wrestling podcast with Jack and and jpso a La fan
Speaker 25: wrestling podcast.
Speaker 2: All right, folks, if you can believe it, we are
Speaker 2: on the hollowed grounds. Boss. When we pulled into that
Speaker 2: parking lot and saw the exterior memories of the wrestler nineteen, it.
Speaker 12: Was like we're watching the wrestler again.
Speaker 2: I could see Burne coming out and greeting us in
Speaker 2: a card again, you know.
Speaker 12: Come on in, come on in, Hey everybody, how are
Speaker 12: you doing?
Speaker 28: Lamb chopped up?
Speaker 12: That's right? Oh man, So we are here. Mary's got
Speaker 12: the grill going.
Speaker 2: We are so fortunate that that Zach from the three
Speaker 2: of US Park District deemed us worthy of a tour today.
Speaker 12: So we're going to not only.
Speaker 2: Just ogel at the outside of the building, we're going
Speaker 2: to see what it became and understand the history of
Speaker 2: how this became a public amenity and how that intersects
Speaker 2: with Verne Zach. Thank you so much.
Speaker 10: Yeah, my pleasure. Are glad to be a part of this.
Speaker 10: So welcome to the Ganha House.
Speaker 2: I'm your house. Well, you were telling us that, you know,
Speaker 2: you do a lot of historical talks, but very rarely
Speaker 2: do people want to talk a lot about vern Yes, what.
Speaker 28: Is the broad sweep of the public interest?
Speaker 29: What do you usually talk about about this site?
Speaker 10: Well, it's sort of a mix, right, So, I mean
Speaker 10: you guys know this like with wrestling, where sometimes you
Speaker 10: talk to people and you're like okay, and then wrestling
Speaker 10: and they're like okay, whatever.
Speaker 2: But Zach's a fan.
Speaker 12: I'm a fan.
Speaker 10: I'm wrestling.
Speaker 14: I used to be a tour guide in Madison Square
Speaker 14: Garden and I had to pick and choose kind of
Speaker 14: when you're talking about wrestling. If I knew there were
Speaker 14: fans in there, I would talk a little more about it.
Speaker 14: But then all at times it's like just skip it
Speaker 14: all together, no one cares.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so we're here.
Speaker 10: It's Lake Minataka Regional Park is the name of the
Speaker 10: park that we're in. And I do like guided hikes
Speaker 10: and stuff through the park. And we talked about, you know,
Speaker 10: thousands of years of history that are here in this park.
Speaker 10: That's a lot of that, and of course vern Ganya
Speaker 10: is about ten fifteen years or so of that history, right,
Speaker 10: And so I'll get to that point like at the
Speaker 10: end of the tour about bvern Gania a lot. And
Speaker 10: then a lot of people don't want to talk about
Speaker 10: the wrestling part of it, maybe so much, but it's
Speaker 10: definitely like a local interest because he's a local guy, right,
Speaker 10: And so like you get people that this this house
Speaker 10: has this kind of like kind of mystery and kind
Speaker 10: of shades of scandal to it and stuff too, and
Speaker 10: so there's a lot of people that want to know
Speaker 10: more about burn Gania story and more about the house.
Speaker 10: And then especially because it's it's a it's a public
Speaker 10: place that you can like rent for like a meeting
Speaker 10: or a party or something like that, but it's not
Speaker 10: necessarily like a public building anymore. So you know, yeah,
Speaker 10: ninety nine times out of one hundred, if somebody just
Speaker 10: comes because they're interested in vern Gania in the house
Speaker 10: and they come here, they can't just enter the house
Speaker 10: and walk around and take a look because it's like
Speaker 10: a reservable space. It's also office space for some of
Speaker 10: our car staff, and so it's not just a publicly
Speaker 10: accessive a building where you can walk in front door
Speaker 10: and it is kind of walk through. It used to
Speaker 10: be that way when the part first open, and it
Speaker 10: was a history museum talking about the history. So it opened,
Speaker 10: Uh wish you know this is I think nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: It was the nineties.
Speaker 10: Part of what we're talking about with the Gania story too,
Speaker 10: is it's like all of this was kind of slow
Speaker 10: process of this ongoing thing.
Speaker 2: But I did want to get before we start walking
Speaker 2: and talking, you're you're just general sweep of the history
Speaker 2: of the park before Vernon. What should we know about
Speaker 2: where we're standing and what it meant, you know, like
Speaker 2: you said, hundreds of years before he built the house.
Speaker 10: Yeah, So the park is actually a lot bigger than
Speaker 10: people think. It's over three hundred acres now, I think,
Speaker 10: but so vern owned I think eighty eighty acres of
Speaker 10: what is now the park of eighty acres of like
Speaker 10: I think it's I want to say it's three hundred and.
Speaker 2: Ninety two or something. Wow.
Speaker 10: But so he was one of the landowners, and then
Speaker 10: there were others like the break Myers and Ed Paul's
Speaker 10: owned a big chunk. He was the inventor of the
Speaker 10: order track.
Speaker 2: Actually that's why it's called loaded because part.
Speaker 10: Of the Yeah, he was from I want to say Chaska.
Speaker 12: So right here at the Chanta side, but that's crazy.
Speaker 2: So he is the other gentleman you mentioned.
Speaker 10: And then it was the break Myers were a family
Speaker 10: that lived just kind of northwest of where we are
Speaker 10: right now, and they had like a historic building on
Speaker 10: their property.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so this land, I mean, obviously Lake Minnetaka has
Speaker 10: thousands years of history. There are burial mounds that are
Speaker 10: here in the park from Native people for thousands of
Speaker 10: years ago there. Yeah, So the city of Mound is
Speaker 10: because there were so many the mound building cultures built
Speaker 10: them primarily around lakes and rivers, the places that we
Speaker 10: often lay are dead to rest today, the tribal well people.
Speaker 10: It's like it's more of an archaeological term for like
Speaker 10: mountain builders, that people who were building.
Speaker 2: Mountains, and you're saying, it's so they got bread done
Speaker 2: for years, just fought the sun. With the announcers being
Speaker 2: from Mound, yeah, Minnesota. And I never understood that because
Speaker 2: I thought he lived here and I don't even know
Speaker 2: what Mound was.
Speaker 10: That makes sense, Yeah, yeah, yeah, so they built burial
Speaker 10: mounds and other just kind of like effigy mounds and things,
Speaker 10: but like around lakes and rivers. So like Lake Minnetaka
Speaker 10: has been such an important place to Native people for
Speaker 10: thousands of years that if you look like a map
Speaker 10: of those burial mounds in Minnesota, there's like this big
Speaker 10: ring around Lake Minnetaka because there's tons of burial mounds
Speaker 10: around like Minettauka, including here in the park, and so
Speaker 10: that's where Mountain Gota states I think from that. But
Speaker 10: so there's also archaeological evidence of like Dakota era like
Speaker 10: camp sites here in the park that this was a
Speaker 10: place that Dakota people would move to seasonally, not necessarily
Speaker 10: maybe like right here in the park, but like like
Speaker 10: Benataka in general, including Chief Shock Pays Village which is
Speaker 10: now in the city of Shakpy, Minnesota. This was a
Speaker 10: place that they would come to do their maple sugaring
Speaker 10: in the spring. That they had like these big sugar
Speaker 10: maple trees here along the lake, and so they come
Speaker 10: here and tap the trees and make maple sugar. And
Speaker 10: so it's been kind of a cross through point for
Speaker 10: a long time.
Speaker 29: It has been a Tanka term for a tribe or
Speaker 29: where Tanka come from.
Speaker 12: This is where you go from to We're from New England.
Speaker 28: So we've had a ton of yah, you know, tribal
Speaker 28: names for town.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 10: This is one thing I was really excited about for
Speaker 10: this too. Is like so often I'm talking to like
Speaker 10: locals where they already know like if I place names
Speaker 10: like yeah, I know that, and so it's like, oh,
Speaker 10: this is gonna be fun because so Minnetonka is like
Speaker 10: a like a more like anglicized term for a Dakota word,
Speaker 10: which is like many a tomphill, which means like big water,
Speaker 10: grape water. It's the largest lake in the metro area
Speaker 10: I think, which is I don't I can give you
Speaker 10: the number. It's the ninth I think largest lake in Minnesota.
Speaker 10: So we have bigger ones out of it.
Speaker 2: And I was blown away. Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just pature more of a pondish kind of you know,
Speaker 2: like you can see all ends of it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: will take at the it's.
Speaker 14: Like weird shape, like yeah, right, it's it's it's pretty
Speaker 14: incredibly like laid out honestly, the way that it naturally is.
Speaker 10: It's wild formed by the glaciers like ten thousand years ago,
Speaker 10: as the glaciers melted and receded, and they kind of,
Speaker 10: you know, they when they advanced through the kind of
Speaker 10: carved the area flat a little bit, and then when
Speaker 10: they melted, they you know, dropped chunks of ice that
Speaker 10: created these depressions. And so there must have been like
Speaker 10: all these chunks of ice kind of here that kind
Speaker 10: of blow apart and created all these little connected bays.
Speaker 10: And some of them are like actually separate lakes that
Speaker 10: have been connected. Now dretch them out and kind of
Speaker 10: connect them because everyone.
Speaker 12: Wants to be on Lake Benettaka Yeah, yeah, including Yeah.
Speaker 10: So here it's like the southwest side of Lake Mantana,
Speaker 10: so in what we call it the upper Lake, and
Speaker 10: then we're actually looking out we can see the lake here. Yeah,
Speaker 10: so this is yeah, locked up over the up Let's
Speaker 10: see ken Zach figure out how to open this.
Speaker 28: We go, all right, Jack, Yeah, so a little.
Speaker 10: Uh so we're looking out here at the lake and
Speaker 10: then over this way we'd be smith Poun Bay it's called,
Speaker 10: and then up that way you get closer to like
Speaker 10: Priests Bay and there's Hearts Grabble Point. This is an island,
Speaker 10: right across over here called Crane Island, and there's three
Speaker 10: of us. Park District has an island that we own.
Speaker 10: It's a public park, while we Tasso Island is right
Speaker 10: over here. So we're on like the southwest side of
Speaker 10: Lake Minetaka and what's called the Upper Lake near smith Town.
Speaker 12: Bay, Okay.
Speaker 2: Would this have been to the degree you would know
Speaker 2: this like when Verne would step out on because we've
Speaker 2: seen pictures of him stepping out out of the lake.
Speaker 2: Like there's a scene in the rest of where he's
Speaker 2: actually bench pressing right what dantage point do you think
Speaker 2: that would be relative to the house if you could.
Speaker 7: I can't remember that exact scene. I remember it a
Speaker 7: little bit, but when.
Speaker 12: There I think it was. I think it was kind
Speaker 12: of where was the barn? Do you know where the
Speaker 12: barn was? Elsewhere?
Speaker 10: A couple of things he had, like there's like kind
Speaker 10: of I think maybe three uh, maybe I fell in
Speaker 10: misconceptions and like one of them is that like his
Speaker 10: training facility with the barn where like Rick Flair talks
Speaker 10: about the barn with the horse barn with the ring
Speaker 10: in it and it was cold and they would run
Speaker 10: around the lake.
Speaker 7: That was a different property, so he had there today, only.
Speaker 12: I feel like in the movie that like he's near
Speaker 12: another there is a.
Speaker 2: Barn on this property.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, so there is still well, right, But that
Speaker 10: makes it confusing because there there is still his horse
Speaker 10: barn here on this property because he had horses and
Speaker 10: a horse barn, but the main training facility that he
Speaker 10: had his wrestling camp at was at a different property.
Speaker 10: And that's like I mean, it's in Chanhassen on the
Speaker 10: edge of Eden Prairie, so it's.
Speaker 7: About maybe fifteen miles away.
Speaker 10: And so that that's something that those two get connected
Speaker 10: a lot where because there's so there's similar properties in
Speaker 10: many ways, and people through.
Speaker 2: You know, Minnesota and Iowa, how many barns look like
Speaker 2: that barn.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out that there's nothing distinct to our
Speaker 2: I having never been here, Yeah, it looks like a
Speaker 2: one of a kind barn.
Speaker 10: But everybody, yeah, especially like in Minnesota, you're like, that's
Speaker 10: that's every every person's. And I've tried, like I haven't
Speaker 10: researched that property like a lot, but I've tried.
Speaker 7: Like, oh is that barn still there?
Speaker 10: And you look around it's all a housing development now,
Speaker 10: and so none of it's left. And and those houses
Speaker 10: are all built in the nineties and that next to
Speaker 10: Burns story kind of with this property too.
Speaker 14: But the barn, I think I feel like in my
Speaker 14: mind that when we that scene, he's by the barn
Speaker 14: that's on the property. Yes, And so I don't know
Speaker 14: where I'm gonna say, wherever the barn is would be
Speaker 14: where kind.
Speaker 12: Of I imagine that scene takes place to that barn,
Speaker 12: the barn that was on the prop on this property property, Oh,
Speaker 12: that would be.
Speaker 10: It's kind of up by the swim pond. It's it's
Speaker 10: a walk up the hills. So we can go look
Speaker 10: at it later for sure. I don't know if you
Speaker 10: can see it might be a different barn.
Speaker 12: We'll look at it, Okay, I could be. I could
Speaker 12: be completely so.
Speaker 10: The one that here looks very much like like a
Speaker 10: horse stable, like it's it's purely like a horse barn
Speaker 10: rather than we're looking for.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I think so again, I could be. It could
Speaker 12: just be in my imagination for all I know.
Speaker 10: Here like whether he was living here or is this
Speaker 10: probably exactly? I bet he had it way more clear
Speaker 10: to have a good view of the lady and and
Speaker 10: you know, Mary was like a really great gardener and
Speaker 10: had all these gardens looking fantastic.
Speaker 12: Is that where the gardens that she had here or where.
Speaker 10: She had gone into here all and everything? And so
Speaker 10: we keep up like, you know, some of the guarding,
Speaker 10: not to the extent that Mary would have done it.
Speaker 12: But no, course not.
Speaker 2: Let's let's take it inside.
Speaker 29: Yeah, sure, any of using.
Speaker 10: Probably not.
Speaker 2: I'm that's fine.
Speaker 10: So yeah, we're here. We kind of came in like
Speaker 10: the front vegetable.
Speaker 29: Or would have been this front door.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and so it's the front door. Hardly ever gets
Speaker 10: used anymore because it's if everyone comes in the garage
Speaker 10: side doors and stuff. But so you can definitely sell it.
Speaker 10: It's been renovated quite a bit. This is not the
Speaker 10: way it looked when Vernon's here, as it became a
Speaker 10: public building for again for the museum at the beginning
Speaker 10: and then later. Now it's kind of like a wind
Speaker 10: foot facility, you know, so it's very much like a
Speaker 10: building now with this carpet I don't think would be
Speaker 10: something that Vernon Mary would have chosen on the walls,
Speaker 10: but yeah, you can still see a lot of the
Speaker 10: things that are originally like this. Seeing it'll walk through
Speaker 10: some of the other rooms to elevator has been added,
Speaker 10: so we had to make that the building more like
Speaker 10: eighty as possible. Sure, I think Vernon had like a
Speaker 10: lot of like steps and stuff built into the house
Speaker 10: where you can see what when we go into kind
Speaker 10: of like the like the living room, it's gonna feel
Speaker 10: like the ceiling is really close to you because I
Speaker 10: think it was like steps down like this conversation fit style.
Speaker 10: You know, Oh, I built into Seva conversation fit.
Speaker 29: I think this conversation fit.
Speaker 10: Ye.
Speaker 14: My wife's very into uh, like she loves mid century
Speaker 14: modern stuff, so that kind of stuff, Like she loves
Speaker 14: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 10: I've seen some pictures of what I think is the
Speaker 10: house when Vernon went here, Like there's some like outside pictures,
Speaker 10: but there's a few like pictures like Vernon his house
Speaker 10: and you look at it. A yeah, I'm trying to
Speaker 10: figure out. It's hard to even tell like what roomy.
Speaker 14: Is in right, yeah, but looks very good for well yeah,
Speaker 14: like even what like this second floor balcony was this original?
Speaker 12: Was this ad was original?
Speaker 8: Wow?
Speaker 2: Extra coming?
Speaker 12: Like I guess that's true.
Speaker 14: I mean, to the best of your knowledge, how how
Speaker 14: was this laid out like in terms of this is
Speaker 14: it's kind of a unique space as it is, I
Speaker 14: think is almost kind of the same.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 10: And so the basement had like I think a lot
Speaker 10: of the entertaining stuff, like a pop table, and he
Speaker 10: had like a den maybe where the bathrooms are.
Speaker 12: There, so you don't have the wet bar anymore that
Speaker 12: he used to have downstairs in the basement.
Speaker 10: I think I saw something in like the in the
Speaker 10: records where there was a back and forth over when
Speaker 10: the land transferred from vern to the Park district. And
Speaker 10: I think, you know, like when you sell the house,
Speaker 10: like all the things that are like built in are
Speaker 10: supposed to like come up with the house. Yeah, And
Speaker 10: then I think that there was like like a little
Speaker 10: bit of like negotiation over like him like trying to
Speaker 10: like take the bar out and stuff the value like
Speaker 10: that's technically supposed to stay. There's something about that that's true.
Speaker 14: And a lot of a lot of things where you know,
Speaker 14: like when you even sell Holt we when we sold
Speaker 14: our our our house in New Jersey, you know, we
Speaker 14: forgot to list we had installed a uh with the
Speaker 14: bed kind of bed that comes think of a Murphy bad,
Speaker 14: thank you. We had installed the Murphy bed and we
Speaker 14: forgot to list it as what things we wanted to take,
Speaker 14: so we had to leave it. We spend like a
Speaker 14: thousand dollars on this Murphy bed, and we were forced
Speaker 14: to keep it, like we're forced to leave it there
Speaker 14: to the people who were who we were selling to
Speaker 14: because we didn't know exactly exactly unless you claim it,
Speaker 14: so we moved it.
Speaker 10: This is just kind of like elevator and stuff over here,
Speaker 10: a kind of utilities. We go over here.
Speaker 28: Yeah, these are the restrooms ability over here.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think this is where the den was. There's
Speaker 10: a picture where he's like on the step of a den.
Speaker 10: I think there's like a step down into like a
Speaker 10: den a bathroom.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So again obviously these bathrooms are very different than what like,
Speaker 10: of course the Dunes would have had, but you know,
Speaker 10: installed this bathroom and then the garage is out through
Speaker 10: this door and then this kind of split bear we
Speaker 10: go off the stairs to.
Speaker 14: Oh my gosh, yes, was this I mean obviously not
Speaker 14: this exact like design here, but was this is this
Speaker 14: like the original staircase that would come up here or
Speaker 14: it's the location of it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so you can imagine this is like a nice
Speaker 10: den with an awesome view right in here.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and this is the this is the the wrap around.
Speaker 27: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So it's been like renovated, so it's not like all
Speaker 10: the original board stuff, right, it's a pretty original style
Speaker 10: to the guy. That's what they had here.
Speaker 12: That's wild, Anama, look at that.
Speaker 10: And you can see here so there's the it's a
Speaker 10: like a kind of a mock tutor building.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So you can see the brick work here, which I loved.
Speaker 10: It's it's called like fairy tale style.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 10: You look, it's like all this kind of moves it
Speaker 10: like the brickston't all line up. And it's got some
Speaker 10: fieldstone in it too. And again I don't I haven't
Speaker 10: seen anything about like the exact like architect they used
Speaker 10: or anything, but the guys had the home built especially
Speaker 10: like the way that they wanted it, right. And then
Speaker 10: you see then the stuck go over here on this side,
Speaker 10: and the kind of the mock tutor ryan beings over there.
Speaker 28: Thank you, I love you.
Speaker 12: That's just wild.
Speaker 10: And then as they made the changes, had to modernize
Speaker 10: the building and do accessibility and stuff. When they added
Speaker 10: the elevator, it's it's a brick, so it kind of matches.
Speaker 7: But I really wish they had done the same.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 12: Yeah, probably probably costs.
Speaker 7: Three times as much to pay a contractor to build this,
Speaker 7: so it's more.
Speaker 10: I mean, elevators are expensively going, so I get why
Speaker 10: they did it, But it's part of these like like
Speaker 10: just ruins it looking at the.
Speaker 2: It's good for us. It's good because it lets us.
Speaker 13: Know what period.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 14: It's funny in the in the book it's called it
Speaker 14: a two story house.
Speaker 12: That is all right house. It looks like there's a
Speaker 12: whole Yeah, there's three levels, the three levels, but like
Speaker 12: the book calls it a two story house.
Speaker 7: There was a burn book that came out, Yeah, just
Speaker 7: came out.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, I read like a little bit of it.
Speaker 2: Have a chapter about the house.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's how we're a lot of the curiosity comes from, honestly,
Speaker 2: is the work. Who did pulling in.
Speaker 12: All the other that was I mean every day.
Speaker 2: Exactly the rope probably where's the VG imagine would that's
Speaker 2: a beautiful day Mary lamps?
Speaker 12: Because there's a scene in while the boys over.
Speaker 14: Well, the boys over all right, the guys training coming
Speaker 14: well and uh and uh and and Brinzel said it.
Speaker 14: We interviewed, we read Jim Brinzell and he talked about
Speaker 14: like she made great lamb chops and it was that
Speaker 14: was a lamb chopsta. Yeah, Zach, what's your wrestling fan
Speaker 14: of history?
Speaker 19: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did you go to matches growing up.
Speaker 7: Or like, uh, not much?
Speaker 10: I mean my dad was a big wrestling fan, and
Speaker 10: so you know I grew up in like the Attitude era, right, Okay,
Speaker 10: So so watching I was always.
Speaker 7: Like a w w F guy.
Speaker 10: Watched some w CW, but I was a w w
Speaker 10: F guy and then been watching ever since. Had times
Speaker 10: where I kind of like watched it less or didn't
Speaker 10: see it in his mind.
Speaker 2: But but were you're aware as an attitude or a
Speaker 2: kid of Vern or was Vern like ancient history.
Speaker 10: Where yeah, my dad would talk about aw A like
Speaker 10: so like he went to aw A matches and would
Speaker 10: watch it on TV, so we like I knew, Yeah,
Speaker 10: a lot of the a w A wrestlers even though
Speaker 10: I never saw them.
Speaker 2: Didn't tell What did you tell you about Vern? What
Speaker 2: were you what was your pressure if anything?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 10: I think he just always looked up to him, and uh,
Speaker 10: there's that thing or so one thing. Again, I've learned
Speaker 10: a lot more about vern like more recently and than
Speaker 10: when I was a kid, of course and everything, but
Speaker 10: like one thing that I started to appreciate his man
Speaker 10: I'm looking like looking at his whole life was like man,
Speaker 10: Vern is like modern day folk hero in so many ways.
Speaker 10: And I think that wrestling fandom is especially true in
Speaker 10: that of like seeing Vernon's like this folk hero of
Speaker 10: this like man who went up against you know, the machine,
Speaker 10: right of like a John Henry story almost kind of right, And.
Speaker 2: It's it's interesting to us as fans, you know, who
Speaker 2: are for the West, to realize that generational peal that
Speaker 2: he had, Like vern was somebody like even if you
Speaker 2: thought wrestling was phony blooney, vern had a because of
Speaker 2: his legitimate amatereprenantiles, because of his his position in the community.
Speaker 2: Like they talk in the book about how he would
Speaker 2: have high level the high society at this thing for parties, right, yea,
Speaker 2: the most prominent politicians came to kiss the ring to
Speaker 2: some degree, and even though he was gonna a phony wrestler,
Speaker 2: he was taken way more seriously than most wrestlers.
Speaker 10: And giving back into like the local like actual like
Speaker 10: like wrestling programs at the high schools and stuff. He
Speaker 10: was always doing fundraisers and so I think just super
Speaker 10: active in the community, which helps with that rather than
Speaker 10: just people would always have famous guy TV you never
Speaker 10: seen or something.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I understand. He would always have the top
Speaker 2: high school wrestlers in the state actually come on the
Speaker 2: Pro Wrestling TV show to get interview these kids, these
Speaker 2: top collegiate kids. He was always so connected to that.
Speaker 2: Any Graham did the same thing down in Florida. But
Speaker 2: it was a way to make him be about more
Speaker 2: than just you know, fleecing people for fake fights. It
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, he was a guy that kept wrestling
Speaker 2: alive and vibrant of the who can probably head back
Speaker 2: in again, that's not another staircase, I must.
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's right exactly.
Speaker 10: So here's like a little kitchen that's been added like
Speaker 10: the dining room over here, and this is.
Speaker 13: A wow.
Speaker 12: Ho lord, this is yeah where.
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 12: The firefights always going, That's unelievable.
Speaker 29: It's in the wrestler every.
Speaker 12: Scene, there's a fireplace. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love the.
Speaker 10: Support games.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 12: This is definitely I mean almost looks like a like
Speaker 12: a like a Disneyland. Uh like facade. That's unbelievable.
Speaker 24: Just it's just.
Speaker 12: I know, right, it gives you that limited access.
Speaker 30: Yeah, it made it a movie trivia thing. Didn't read
Speaker 30: that movie by anybody. This was a dining room, Yeah,
Speaker 30: dining room. The table we still had the un brown
Speaker 30: yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: I use this room more than any others. Like I
Speaker 10: teach like a lot of summer camps here at the
Speaker 10: park and stuff, and so this is like our base
Speaker 10: for the summer camps. And so we do what I'm
Speaker 10: talking about, like the history of Crane Island and the
Speaker 10: history of the park. And then I'll always tell them
Speaker 10: a little bit about burning guy. Yeah that's you know,
Speaker 10: every summer camp you get like one kid that's like
Speaker 10: into wrestling.
Speaker 29: Who's your favorite?
Speaker 10: Yeah, the original closet, Yeah, I think this was for
Speaker 10: storing firewood, or at least designed to be that. So
Speaker 10: it's it's a gas fireplace. I don't I think maybe
Speaker 10: that was installed later. Yeah time.
Speaker 14: Yeah, he's going into the forest and getting wood himself,
Speaker 14: carrying back trees, carrying back look at that.
Speaker 12: Look at that. Oh my god, that's where you watch
Speaker 12: tape watch film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, because the story makes you think that
Speaker 2: it was essentially like torn down right from Afar. I
Speaker 2: honestly did not know until I wasn't confident until I
Speaker 2: made contact with you that this actually still stood let alone.
Speaker 12: Yeah, it looked on the outside exactly right.
Speaker 2: I was like, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna do
Speaker 2: a thing where we're standing where it was, but it's
Speaker 2: not going to.
Speaker 12: I actually really had no idea that it was still
Speaker 12: standing until you.
Speaker 14: Until we got here, I was like, I I I
Speaker 14: always in my mind and the times that we've talked
Speaker 14: about a w A and done shows on the a
Speaker 14: w A that it was completely demolished and that there
Speaker 14: was nothing here from it and whatever. Like I actually
Speaker 14: imagined this was the park, like the actual park was
Speaker 14: on the house, not that the building was here.
Speaker 12: So this is this is incredibly down.
Speaker 10: The hill and you're like, it's not going to be
Speaker 10: a house here. I don't know what you're time right
Speaker 10: right that I missed the boat ram.
Speaker 14: I'm like expectingly like a boat house and I'm not
Speaker 14: expecting the house.
Speaker 10: I'm looking feels really low and so again I think
Speaker 10: this is where you kind of stepped down in that kind.
Speaker 12: Of kind of right right with the fireplace for sure.
Speaker 10: Because even this is because of how low that like
Speaker 10: up off the ground right.
Speaker 14: Fer that raised there, Oh my yeah, and the windows
Speaker 14: to all of that. Yeah, totally, that makes total sense.
Speaker 14: I would have kept that when renoventing the place, just
Speaker 14: for the sake of it. That's such a cool I know.
Speaker 10: I've heard stories about like, oh and then it's lower
Speaker 10: it here because Verne had a ring installed in this.
Speaker 10: I was like, I don't think so, Like that's why
Speaker 10: he had the barn.
Speaker 14: Yeah place, Yeah, everyone had that. I mean especially it
Speaker 14: was early seventies. He made it so there's still the
Speaker 14: there's still the influence of the sixties. So of course
Speaker 14: that that that's sunken. Yeah, he wouldn't have a ring floor.
Speaker 14: He certainly, I wouldn't doubt to see. Imagine you imagine
Speaker 14: a couple of people like does he and taking somebody
Speaker 14: down fireplace, people are drinking around.
Speaker 12: I love it.
Speaker 10: He's the hope. They hosted so many parties here. Yeah,
Speaker 10: And I think it's a mix of like again those
Speaker 10: kind of more high society like we're we're hosting and
Speaker 10: Mary's making lamb chops and like those kind of things.
Speaker 10: But then also imagine they had plenty of late nights
Speaker 10: and stuff the wrestlers and used to get into So
Speaker 10: put your wrestlers in the room, you what they after
Speaker 10: a couple of drinks, they kind of rolled around on.
Speaker 12: This floor and a little bit, I am. I imagine
Speaker 12: the politicians are like, I could take you, I can
Speaker 12: take it. Let's go at it right now. There a
Speaker 12: couple of Brandy's in chief offended.
Speaker 28: I'm sure under the Giant walked around.
Speaker 12: In here, duck around.
Speaker 10: He does the Hogan impression that it's.
Speaker 14: Really you're still doing this after having listened.
Speaker 2: But Hogan himself, I mean, you know, Hogan says it's
Speaker 2: kind of it's kind of myth. But he says in
Speaker 2: his book that Verne wanted to set him up with
Speaker 2: one of his daughters. Yeah, and so I can imagine,
Speaker 2: you know, attempted courtships here. Alright, Terry, what's you come
Speaker 2: on in? Come one?
Speaker 12: Single? Very single? Yeah?
Speaker 10: Absolutely, So this is so this is all the space
Speaker 10: that kind of you can rent. So if you're gonna
Speaker 10: have like a meeting or so, you can reserve it
Speaker 10: on the website.
Speaker 2: Did you do a party for podcast listeners?
Speaker 12: We could yeah, absolutely, I don't.
Speaker 2: Think this is the last time we're going to see the.
Speaker 10: Home stay upstairs. So this is where we get into
Speaker 10: office space. And so this is still like an office
Speaker 10: building for the staff who worked here, kind of overseeing
Speaker 10: the swim pond. The playground.
Speaker 9: Version of the.
Speaker 10: Lights on the view of here is fantastic. So this
Speaker 10: is where we get into Now, what was.
Speaker 12: The bedroom on the floor, So this this was this
Speaker 12: was the bedroom.
Speaker 10: Yep, it's so just modern offices right now, like there
Speaker 10: over the lake.
Speaker 14: Well I imagine too that there was I mean, it
Speaker 14: looks like there was a balcony. So I wonder if
Speaker 14: they added on the step out.
Speaker 10: Here or this might have been actually something we at it.
Speaker 14: Yeah, so I mean this that's the same unless you
Speaker 14: guys added this to copy the design. But to me,
Speaker 14: this seems like there was a little place where he
Speaker 14: could step out. I mean, listen, if I was designing
Speaker 14: my own house on this property, that's what.
Speaker 12: I would do. I would have an adjacent balcony just
Speaker 12: for me.
Speaker 10: Here's where you drink your coffee. That's right. But wow,
Speaker 10: this original to the house.
Speaker 12: Oh got some look at that. That's absolutely originause.
Speaker 10: Oh question, So this was referred to as Verne's golden sing.
Speaker 12: Look at I mean, look at that. I mean that's incredible.
Speaker 12: And that's again it's not that same vintage.
Speaker 10: And then the walk in closet that I'm sure he
Speaker 10: said he had it built for Mary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, What do you know about Mary?
Speaker 25: Like?
Speaker 2: Is that she's someone you've.
Speaker 10: Ever research though not enough? No, I don't know too
Speaker 10: much about her. But she was local.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I should dig into that.
Speaker 25: I do.
Speaker 12: I do a lot of I do well.
Speaker 14: I do a lot of for for our show. I
Speaker 14: do a lot of ancestry work to dig up on people,
Speaker 14: especifically with Hogan. We did a lot of stuff. I
Speaker 14: found evidence of Hogan's family dating back to Italy and
Speaker 14: but we but this is we did our main A
Speaker 14: A W A journey before I started doing that, So
Speaker 14: I should I should do an.
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's right, there we go. I should do a
Speaker 12: I'll have to do a I'll do a vern Vern
Speaker 12: family tree. That'll be fun. But there's some stuff and that.
Speaker 28: That there's stuff you didn't know about it the family
Speaker 28: in that book.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Interesting, looks like like he was kind of a guiding voice,
Speaker 10: at least in the books.
Speaker 12: A little bit about'm srying to this would have been
Speaker 12: there on sweep into a thing.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think the elevator got out of there for
Speaker 10: the district that year, just kind of for this like
Speaker 10: park cluster.
Speaker 12: Here do we know, like do you know where?
Speaker 14: Because obviously there's there's these now, well these are original walls.
Speaker 14: That's okay, these are so these are like original walls.
Speaker 12: So this was a separate room. And this was a
Speaker 12: separate room. So I'm trying to just trying to figure.
Speaker 28: Booking office to me, right, I know, Yeah, it's a booking.
Speaker 2: Office right next to the bedroom.
Speaker 12: Hey, I listen, Hey, if.
Speaker 28: You've seen the rest of there's a lot of depictures
Speaker 28: of the office, which.
Speaker 10: Was in what hotel is that in Minneapolis? It's right
Speaker 10: on the lake planning on checking that out too.
Speaker 2: That was just residential. Yeah, that was a hotel.
Speaker 10: Okay, So I think we've seen whole is right, and
Speaker 10: then these are just little offices.
Speaker 12: Yeah, there's there a basement. I think that is the
Speaker 12: basement that made okay, So.
Speaker 10: I think if it ever talks about the basement, I
Speaker 10: think it's oh so.
Speaker 14: I see so okay, So I see what you just
Speaker 14: because you and you're saying, right, there was a staircase,
Speaker 14: right or something. You're talking about stairs and something before
Speaker 14: to the top here, because this see definitely seems like
Speaker 14: obviously the main level of the house this area.
Speaker 31: And so yeah, I don't know exactly how like to
Speaker 31: what I said, they use like this rug door or
Speaker 31: but I think it's kind of confusing in that.
Speaker 10: I think because too that there's you can see there's
Speaker 10: kind of a walk up here, so like this is
Speaker 10: it's kind of built into the hill a little bit here, right,
Speaker 10: So this is also.
Speaker 12: Right right or right.
Speaker 10: That this is probably a kind of any.
Speaker 28: Sense, let's get into vern making and losing the house.
Speaker 29: That's a fascinating part of history.
Speaker 2: To us, as far as the the initiative to make
Speaker 2: this into a public amenity, to grant it to some
Speaker 2: degree what he had it was a park, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: ors this like truly all of his dominion and you.
Speaker 14: Couldn't be But I was one of the things that
Speaker 14: I was really curious about because is the best of
Speaker 14: your knowledge of it, if you know it all, who
Speaker 14: do you buy this property from?
Speaker 10: Oh, that's a great question. I can't remember for this
Speaker 10: exact parcel. Who we bought that from because again we're
Speaker 10: talking about the that's kind of a misconception of like
Speaker 10: there's the whole park did not belong to Vern, and
Speaker 10: so that happens at times too where they think about
Speaker 10: this whole park, all this land belonged to Vern. He
Speaker 10: owned I think eighty acres right, and so that you
Speaker 10: guys passed, there's like a historic house just up the hill,
Speaker 10: and you see like the ruins of that house. And
Speaker 10: so this land was all originally purchased. Again has this
Speaker 10: Dakota history going back, you know, one hundreds thousands of years.
Speaker 10: And then once all the land was surveyed in the
Speaker 10: eighteen fifties to be sold to settlers, a man named
Speaker 10: Joseph Schmid bought up all this land and the ruins
Speaker 10: of the house that he built in eighteen seventy six.
Speaker 10: You're still at the top of the hill, and that's
Speaker 10: where I talk about more than anything probably in this park,
Speaker 10: is his time on the land and the house that
Speaker 10: he built there on the field stones and the farming
Speaker 10: that he was doing. And his brother Benedict lived across
Speaker 10: the road. So I talked a lot about the Schmids
Speaker 10: and their long time here on the park, and then
Speaker 10: the Schmids sold the land part of it to a
Speaker 10: man named Ezura of Pavity. He had they started they
Speaker 10: had a summer cottage just kind of outside of the
Speaker 10: park boundary over here, and then started buying up land
Speaker 10: from Schmid and had like a nice kind of summer
Speaker 10: community like that out here. And then a man named
Speaker 10: Albert Loring started buying up all these parcels and so
Speaker 10: he a lot of people know, like local people know
Speaker 10: the name Louring because there's a park in Minneapolis named
Speaker 10: Louring Park, and that's named after Albert's father, Charles Luring,
Speaker 10: who he was the first they were big and involved
Speaker 10: in Minneapolis business. But then he was also the first
Speaker 10: board president for the Minneapolis Park Board, so he was
Speaker 10: involved in establishing a lot of parks and things like that,
Speaker 10: and so there's a park in Minneapolis named after his father.
Speaker 10: But Albert Mooring started buying up all this land around
Speaker 10: nineteen oh four so to build what we called like
Speaker 10: a gentleman's farm, like this big country estate with this
Speaker 10: massive farm, to try and make this like perfect operation,
Speaker 10: have the most impressive cows and then blue ribbons all
Speaker 10: that kind of stuff, and so he started buying up
Speaker 10: hundreds of acres on this land that we are now
Speaker 10: and then even north of us in what is now
Speaker 10: this neighborhood to make what he called the wood End
Speaker 10: Dairy Farm. So almost all this land was a part
Speaker 10: of that wood End Dairy Farm, and the Schmid house
Speaker 10: that's over there that became kind of like a rental
Speaker 10: unit for some of his farm workers could move in there.
Speaker 10: And then he built this awesome house on the other
Speaker 10: what's just outside the park over there, and had this
Speaker 10: magnificent farm that we can still see signs of today.
Speaker 10: You can find like the really nice fence posts out
Speaker 10: of the woods and stuff like that. And so this
Speaker 10: was a part of that property that started to get
Speaker 10: parceled out as he passed that on to his daughter
Speaker 10: and son in law. They took over the farm and
Speaker 10: they got outside. They kind of left the dairy farming
Speaker 10: a little bit and went into more of like all
Speaker 10: kinds of things, turkeys, pigs, bullfrogs. For a while in
Speaker 10: one of the ponds they were doing some of that stuff,
Speaker 10: and then they really got into like sporting dogs, like
Speaker 10: training like you know, shooting dogs and hunting dogs, and
Speaker 10: had an own candel operation and stuff, and then they
Speaker 10: started selling off some of the stuff.
Speaker 2: So his daughter was.
Speaker 10: His wife and daughter were into gardening, so they always
Speaker 10: had really nice greenhouses and really nice planting. So part
Speaker 10: of what is now the park again that wasn't owned
Speaker 10: by Vernie, it was the parcel next to his, was
Speaker 10: then purchased by there's a big flower and nursery company
Speaker 10: here locally called Bachman's, and they bought it up as
Speaker 10: like a second location because it had all these fantastic
Speaker 10: greenhouses and so they were using it as a nursery location.
Speaker 28: So this was not like some of like Lakeside in
Speaker 28: the Tree like leisure.
Speaker 2: This was like commercial almost. I mean you had dairy
Speaker 2: farms working a little bit. Yeah, it looked like I'm sure,
Speaker 2: but it seemed like it was owned by It wasn't
Speaker 2: like owned by but it was private individuals who owned it.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like owned by the city or a state
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 10: Private ownership.
Speaker 12: Yeah, So that's kind kind of yeah.
Speaker 10: And so the organization I work for Three Rivers Park District,
Speaker 10: I guess maybe should have started with this, but we're
Speaker 10: a regional parks system and I think you guys maybe
Speaker 10: have this out East more, we're like what's called a
Speaker 10: special park district, and so we're not we're bigger than
Speaker 10: the county, but we're smaller than like a state level
Speaker 10: park district. So we're the only one like it in Minnesota. Really,
Speaker 10: we're technically what the state legislature calls a special park district,
Speaker 10: and so we operate twenty seven thousand acres of parks
Speaker 10: and trails, which is a lot of lands. So it's
Speaker 10: it's a lot, and it's a huge park system when
Speaker 10: you think of like a regional park. So we're outside.
Speaker 10: We're in Hennepin County right now, so we have a
Speaker 10: lot of parks in Hennepin County, but we also have
Speaker 10: parks in Carver County and Scott County, and we operate
Speaker 10: more parks for Scott County. Anyways, big park system, and
Speaker 10: so a lot of what I do is telling the
Speaker 10: history of that land and across all of our parks,
Speaker 10: doing history hikes, talking about what used to be here
Speaker 10: and how it became a park and all that stuff.
Speaker 10: So this is one of my favorite parks to do
Speaker 10: that at because there's a ton of history right here
Speaker 10: in Lake Minnetonka. We're now called three of us Park
Speaker 10: District because all of our land is ultimately within the
Speaker 10: watersheds of these three rivers, the Mississippi, the Minnesota, and
Speaker 10: the Crow River is the third one. And but before
Speaker 10: that we had a couple of different names. But you'll
Speaker 10: see it as like Hennepin Parks system yep. So that's
Speaker 10: sometimes people still say that. You don't hear it as
Speaker 10: often anymore, but especially if you're talking about again it
Speaker 10: shows up in the burn Gania stuff because we were
Speaker 10: Hennepen parks.
Speaker 12: When all of this it was worded, it was like the.
Speaker 10: Suburban had been yeah, parks something like that. We did
Speaker 10: a couple of name changes I think landed on three rivers,
Speaker 10: which is a little catch here.
Speaker 12: And so.
Speaker 10: Our organization started back in the fifties when there was
Speaker 10: this you know, post World War to suburbanization boom happening
Speaker 10: in the area, and there was a dream for it
Speaker 10: like fifty years before that, even to like, hey, we
Speaker 10: should have this larger park system outside of Minneapolis, outside
Speaker 10: of Saint Paul, where we're preserving some of this land
Speaker 10: that will be developed quickly. And so then after the
Speaker 10: suburbanization boom of the nineteen fifties, they formed the Special
Speaker 10: Park District to start buying up large park reserves and
Speaker 10: set aside that land. So they started with like looking
Speaker 10: at park reserves that were like thousands of acres. So
Speaker 10: I right across the road is Carver Park Reserve. That's
Speaker 10: all those ones where it's three seven hundred acres of
Speaker 10: land in one big park reserve. So they started buying
Speaker 10: up big things like that, and after they accomplished that,
Speaker 10: they started looking more at like regional parks, like areas
Speaker 10: where we're not serving or where there's smaller parts of
Speaker 10: land that might be more expensive like on a per
Speaker 10: acre basis, but we still want to have a park there.
Speaker 10: And so they started doing that. And then at some
Speaker 10: point when they're looking at the map and they're like
Speaker 10: looking at, hey, where do people in this area want
Speaker 10: to do recreation? And where are we serving? And Lake
Speaker 10: Minnetonka just had almost no public land on it. It's
Speaker 10: it's it's so much all.
Speaker 2: Public and vern had a little private slice that you
Speaker 2: had to just get them out of the lafe, so
Speaker 2: to speak, to connect.
Speaker 10: Them, no other way around completely, so it's it's almost
Speaker 10: all privately owned. There's a few like boat launches and
Speaker 10: stuff that cities operate. I mean, the lake itself is public, right,
Speaker 10: you can launch your ride and go around. It's not
Speaker 10: a private lake. But there's so much private ownership of
Speaker 10: these parcels that get smaller and smaller all around the lake.
Speaker 10: And of course the property value of all this is
Speaker 10: going up, and so they wanted to have some kind
Speaker 10: of a park, a public park on Lake Minetaka. And
Speaker 10: so this is where it gets kind of complicated to
Speaker 10: where there's like, okay, in the Twin Cities, we have
Speaker 10: the met Council, it's called so that shows up in
Speaker 10: the book as well. So it's like, man, it's already
Speaker 10: even explained. This is part of like the story gets
Speaker 10: like kind of condensed down to make it a good story.
Speaker 10: You start talking about like okay, let me like walk
Speaker 10: you through these regional government most people are like, okay,
Speaker 10: just the heel.
Speaker 12: I don't get.
Speaker 10: So you look at these regional parks or regional government things.
Speaker 10: So there's the State of Minnesota, and then there's this
Speaker 10: appointed board that's the Met Council, and they operate a
Speaker 10: lot of the regional parks, or at least provide guidance
Speaker 10: to the regional park agencies like US on like the
Speaker 10: types of like the region. The idea is to look
Speaker 10: at it is on a regional level of so they
Speaker 10: plan things like like water treatment and sewage and stuff
Speaker 10: like that as well as parks to make sure like
Speaker 10: it's working as a region. And so we work with
Speaker 10: them on planning new parks and things like that. So
Speaker 10: our park plans we have to have a master plan
Speaker 10: that goes to them and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 10: So there was a lot of different moving parts looking
Speaker 10: at we need to have a park on Lake Bennetaka
Speaker 10: in this area. So then you start looking at and
Speaker 10: this was beginning in like the early eighties maybe eighty
Speaker 10: one is when they first started looking at you needed
Speaker 10: to have something here. And then well, first then you
Speaker 10: start to look at water areas that aren't super developed
Speaker 10: because you don't want to buy, you know, twenty mansions
Speaker 10: and then demolish them to make a park that's a
Speaker 10: tiny little park. What you want big land that's not developed.
Speaker 10: And so this area was pretty undeveloped at that time
Speaker 10: again because it had been kept as a farm and
Speaker 10: most of the area west of us that was like
Speaker 10: that ed Paul's property was completely undeveloped, and so that
Speaker 10: stood out right away up like, he, here's where we
Speaker 10: could have a big park with frontage. Not just here,
Speaker 10: we're on Smithtown Bay right over here, but the park
Speaker 10: goes across the road over there and then has frontage
Speaker 10: on caled Halstead Bay, which is another bay over there,
Speaker 10: So we could have land on both of those bays.
Speaker 10: That's this contiguous park. It looked really good, and so
Speaker 10: then you start going through this long process of making offers.
Speaker 10: So they also had to, like, man, it's hard to explain.
Speaker 10: It's this like slow process of trying to like talk
Speaker 10: to landowners and make.
Speaker 2: An ardercause they have a right to be paid for
Speaker 2: the land. Yet there's also that that sort of leverage
Speaker 2: of the eminent name power.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and so most like the vast majority of park
Speaker 10: land that was acquired to become Crevers Park was from
Speaker 10: a willing seller where they say, hey, we're building a
Speaker 10: park in this area. We'd love to buy your farm
Speaker 10: and make it into a park. We're gonna pay, we'll
Speaker 10: have it to praise and pay you what it's worth.
Speaker 10: And then oh sure, let's get a lot. And the
Speaker 10: timing of it is kind of key to where at
Speaker 10: that time there were a lot of people that were
Speaker 10: leaving farming as operating a small farm became less and
Speaker 10: less viable, where they're like, oh am, I going to
Speaker 10: get out of this farm, and I don't have enough
Speaker 10: to buy on that makes a lot of sense. Coming
Speaker 10: to pay you what it's worth. This is my chance
Speaker 10: to get it. So exactly just started with.
Speaker 29: Every single one.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I thought, yes, but that's that makes a ton
Speaker 2: of sense, and that people were already looking for an
Speaker 2: exit plan.
Speaker 29: It's getting harder to make a big, big profit in farming.
Speaker 10: And so that's again we operate twenty seven thousand acres
Speaker 10: and this we're talking about eighty acres of that right now.
Speaker 10: So of course that isn't the story for her, Yeah, right,
Speaker 10: of course. And so then you look at these property owners, Hey,
Speaker 10: we're interested in making a park here. And so this
Speaker 10: is this long process of being in conversation because even
Speaker 10: before they're like making offers and stuff, they're doing community
Speaker 10: like town halls, like talking with me and you're like,
Speaker 10: do you want to park here? What would you want
Speaker 10: in the park? Things like that, and then you also
Speaker 10: have to talk to like the municipalities. You're talking to
Speaker 10: the city of Minnetrista and you're talking to the county,
Speaker 10: which is different than the parks, like the counterparks, they're separate.
Speaker 29: Everyone has to say.
Speaker 10: So you're talking through all of their standing in Minichesta, right, yeah,
Speaker 10: we're in Miniatrista, Minesola yea. And so the other thing
Speaker 10: again one of the misconceptions, I think that to tell
Speaker 10: a good story, it often is told as if like
Speaker 10: Verne just woke up one day and was having his
Speaker 10: coffee and then like some government suit came up and said,
Speaker 10: pack up your stuff, we're taking.
Speaker 12: The right in.
Speaker 10: It was this long, like years and years and years
Speaker 10: of conversations.
Speaker 29: With vern At first he seemed to be open to it.
Speaker 12: Yeah, right, he was open to it. And then but
Speaker 12: you know, I'll let you you tell it because I
Speaker 12: have a question.
Speaker 14: Well, I was just gonna say because it seemed like
Speaker 14: I I The part that really stood out to me
Speaker 14: is because we actually we read it, we recorded, we read.
Speaker 28: It, were getting brushed up.
Speaker 12: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 14: The part that really kind of was where that money
Speaker 14: for me is. Minitrista turned it down. But then the
Speaker 14: parks department, the three rivers kept pushing for it after
Speaker 14: it was turned down, and that to me then becomes like, oh,
Speaker 14: you're forcing this saw these people.
Speaker 12: But I don't know if that's correct or not, if
Speaker 12: that's how it happened.
Speaker 10: But a little bit when you look at so this
Speaker 10: is with there's an activity I did once where you
Speaker 10: looked at like, Okay, let's say you've got this one
Speaker 10: hundred acre piece of land that has been mostly undeveloped,
Speaker 10: say it's one house, and then the landowner is selling
Speaker 10: it to the city or whatever, and you go look at, okay, well,
Speaker 10: what are we going to do with this land? And
Speaker 10: we did an activity where there were almost been twenty
Speaker 10: of us in the room and everybody was giving like
Speaker 10: a different stakeholder card, right, and then you have to
Speaker 10: advocate for what you want to happen to that land.
Speaker 10: So you might get a card and say like you're
Speaker 10: you're like a you're a bird person, like you just
Speaker 10: want habitat for birds, and so I want a one
Speaker 10: hundred acre bird preserve. But then you have somebody else
Speaker 10: that they want a playground for the kids in neighborhood,
Speaker 10: so they want a playground, And then you have somebody
Speaker 10: else that's like, well, we need more housing in the area.
Speaker 10: We want to build housing. And then you have a
Speaker 10: common thing with like the city as of a government
Speaker 10: a lot of times is the tax ban, right, so
Speaker 10: like we want it to be build them all there,
Speaker 10: put more housing, like all these things they are going
Speaker 10: to pay into the task space because that's why I've
Speaker 10: ever wanted. And so you have all these kind of
Speaker 10: competing interests. And so I think that plays out in
Speaker 10: a way here too, where you have neighbors that are
Speaker 10: like living in this most of the wood End farm
Speaker 10: that we talked about had already been converted into housing development.
Speaker 10: So there's people living in a neighborhood over here, wood
Speaker 10: End Shores, I think it's called. And they didn't want
Speaker 10: a park right next to them because like, well, it's
Speaker 10: going to be loud, it's going to get there. Today's
Speaker 10: not a busy day because it's a rainy day, but
Speaker 10: like on a nice summer day, there's hundreds of people
Speaker 10: in this park, at the playground, at the swim pond
Speaker 10: at like and so they didn't want, you know, and
Speaker 10: then the boat launch getting really busy if people coming
Speaker 10: to lunch folks, So they didn't want all the noise
Speaker 10: in the traffic like a public park wouldrank. So that
Speaker 10: some of the neighbors opposed it because they didn't want
Speaker 10: this big regional park in the area. And then I
Speaker 10: think that the city again part of their thing is,
Speaker 10: you know, well, it's not in an area. It's right
Speaker 10: on the edge of Minatrista. So it's not like it's
Speaker 10: going to bring in a whole lot of business to
Speaker 10: like where the businesses are just to there's a.
Speaker 18: Ton of them.
Speaker 10: And then it's and you're talking about hundreds of acres.
Speaker 10: Then for the whole part that's not going to be
Speaker 10: paying into the tax base.
Speaker 14: The lakes in two counties, right, isn't is it like
Speaker 14: in two counties? I think it's all just within head
Speaker 14: Been County.
Speaker 2: Two.
Speaker 10: It's we're real close. So across the road when you
Speaker 10: guys came to don think Highway seven h on your
Speaker 10: right is Hennapa County on the leftist carb County right edge.
Speaker 12: Okay, So that's okay.
Speaker 10: So I think the city was against it for that reason,
Speaker 10: but composed other parks like maybe not here, but maybe
Speaker 10: you go to somewhere else, you know that works better
Speaker 10: for us. And so there's this long negotiation process, and
Speaker 10: then you have h there were people on that Crane
Speaker 10: Island that we talked about earlier, that's all private homes
Speaker 10: over there. They were kind of worried about, like, oh,
Speaker 10: are they going to come for our island next? And
Speaker 10: so they formed like a historic districts to protect their
Speaker 10: homes over there. And so there was I think a
Speaker 10: lot of just kind of you know, swirling kind of
Speaker 10: anxieties about what this was bringing and what it meant.
Speaker 10: And at the same time, you these property owners that
Speaker 10: are kind of waiting to see like, well, what is this,
Speaker 10: what does this mean for me? And so again there
Speaker 10: were a lot of conversations even before like really formal
Speaker 10: conversations began. Vern definitely knew that because beginning in the
Speaker 10: eighties they were already like talking about it on a
Speaker 10: state level, and they had to pass like a state
Speaker 10: law to appropriate money because the state is going to
Speaker 10: pay actually for to build the park, so it wouldn't
Speaker 10: just fall on the taxpayers of like the Hennepin Park
Speaker 10: System to pay for it all. And so there was
Speaker 10: a lot of this kind of swirling of how do
Speaker 10: we make it happen. The met councils involved, the states involved,
Speaker 10: the county park systems involved, and so Verne was in
Speaker 10: the know, like so even there's in our records, I was,
Speaker 10: you know, preparing for this little bit, and there's a
Speaker 10: great memo in there from these kind of like our
Speaker 10: land acquisition guy at the time. And so he had
Speaker 10: I guess a voicemail from Vern and then he replied
Speaker 10: to he called him back, and then he wrote a
Speaker 10: memo about his phone conversation with Verne and they and
Speaker 10: what they talked about, and he talked him through. You know,
Speaker 10: Vern said, well, you.
Speaker 3: Know, what do I do now?
Speaker 10: Like you guys have kind of identified this, like what
Speaker 10: do we do? Like what do you think my land
Speaker 10: is worth? And so you know, you know, the employee said,
Speaker 10: you know, like, well, yeah, I could give you a ballpark,
Speaker 10: but like you you do an appraisal for that. I
Speaker 10: can give you a ballpark if I think it's maybe
Speaker 10: worth this much. But he said, like if you're if
Speaker 10: you're not interested in kind of going through the whole
Speaker 10: process and seeing what it might mean right now at
Speaker 10: this point, if you if you want to sell it,
Speaker 10: if you've got a will e seller, you should just
Speaker 10: sell it right now if you want and then you
Speaker 10: wouldn't have to deal with any of this and kind
Speaker 10: of that was the intent of that. And then he
Speaker 10: was asking about you know, vern Ast, you know what
Speaker 10: did jer invasion get for?
Speaker 12: So sell it property to somebody else and then they
Speaker 12: deal with the parks.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, because at that point there wasn't like the
Speaker 10: negotiations hadn't really started, so like was to sell.
Speaker 2: His property an interested buyer.
Speaker 29: If there's an interested buyer, you should sell it.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah yeah, so yeah, so if you want to
Speaker 10: sell the land, you just go ahead and sell it
Speaker 10: for what you think it's worth.
Speaker 2: When you don't have to worry, you do you infer
Speaker 2: from that that there was actually interest in vern from
Speaker 2: vern to sell it to another private individual.
Speaker 10: I think that there was always some interest because even
Speaker 10: as the process went on then because again we're talking
Speaker 10: about there's like this home. We spent a lot of
Speaker 10: time just right here. But then you know, there's the
Speaker 10: rest of the land too. But he had already worked
Speaker 10: with the developer to have that parceled out and become
Speaker 10: a housing development. So he was working on that too.
Speaker 29: That because he was involved in real estate descendent yea
Speaker 29: estate development.
Speaker 28: Yeah, And so he was going to put a housing
Speaker 28: development out there.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so like there's that, there's the home. But like
Speaker 10: and again, so a lot of times it gets like
Speaker 10: the whole park was his estate, but really it was
Speaker 10: a part of that, and even a big part of that.
Speaker 10: He already kind of had some at some point had
Speaker 10: some kind of dreams of making that housing development and
Speaker 10: making money off of that.
Speaker 2: Do you think making any maybe public anxiety about a
Speaker 2: housing development added momentum to create a park so that
Speaker 2: that didn't turn into a big you know, called the
Speaker 2: set field. I don't know what when the film it
Speaker 2: so now okay, not.
Speaker 10: That I've seen, because again I think a lot of
Speaker 10: the neighbors would have preferred that over a park having to.
Speaker 2: Houses there, because I liked the context until talking to
Speaker 2: you that a lot of this was private and sort
Speaker 2: of felt extremely busy anyway that it was right, It
Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily this oasis that he had to himself.
Speaker 10: So then an early step, right is that at some points, okay,
Speaker 10: we're making a park, We've got like a plan for
Speaker 10: what it's going to be, this is these are the
Speaker 10: parcels we want, and then somebody would make an offer
Speaker 10: to burn it like, hey, we think your land is
Speaker 10: worth this much, will make an offer. And I think
Speaker 10: so Eric Bischoff wrote something about like this the house
Speaker 10: at one point that I thought like summed it up perfectly,
Speaker 10: and like that verne Ganya was a fighter, right, like
Speaker 10: he fought Vince McMann, he fought the WWF, and then
Speaker 10: when it came to this, he was going to fight
Speaker 10: the government. He's gonna fight the system, right and so
Speaker 10: like he again was kind of a willing seller at
Speaker 10: the beginning, but then more and more, like other property
Speaker 10: owners weren't, and there was this kind of within like
Speaker 10: the neighbors and the city kind of being against it.
Speaker 10: I think he kind of joined on to that. I
Speaker 10: think maybe Mary was more against selling than Burne was.
Speaker 10: And then so at some point he started like fighting
Speaker 10: it a little bit right or a lot right, and
Speaker 10: so he did not take the first offer where you
Speaker 10: can go to the process just as a willing seller
Speaker 10: and sell your land to the park district and then
Speaker 10: you do negotiations of when you're moving out and all that.
Speaker 14: So it's kind of kind of funny because he's going
Speaker 14: along too, like he starts to fight as the AWA.
Speaker 12: Starts to die.
Speaker 14: Yes, you know, and starts to fight, but it's it's
Speaker 14: almost now it's a pride thing in a way.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you're looking at like the mid eighties were already
Speaker 10: like WWF is poaching his top talent and then okay,
Speaker 10: well now they're coming you know they're coming from So
Speaker 10: I think that's part of it too, is like, no,
Speaker 10: we're going to fight like that is just his mentality, right, yes,
Speaker 10: And and so I'm not saying he he should have
Speaker 10: fought it, That's not what I'm gonna say. But like
Speaker 10: what I would say is, in the end, in hindsight,
Speaker 10: he would have come out much better if he had, right,
Speaker 10: because he was given a really good offer to begin with,
Speaker 10: turned it down and said, no, we're going to go
Speaker 10: through this process, we're going to have it appraised, and
Speaker 10: and so then it he was given another counter offer.
Speaker 10: I want to say it was like one point two
Speaker 10: five million dollars, which doesn't seem like an incredible amount today,
Speaker 10: but in short nineteenth and time six or whatever, it's
Speaker 10: a lot of money too. And I think it's I
Speaker 10: think it's worth more than I think it's he turned
Speaker 10: it down, and so he turned it down worth oh
Speaker 10: millions millions. I think he could like five six, like
Speaker 10: I think a million. Scenes so he wanted it to
Speaker 10: be worth so much more, which makes sense, right, a million.
Speaker 10: And so then there was like another counteroffer, and and
Speaker 10: then he was offered like four point twenty five. And
Speaker 10: and then it when you you have an appraised but
Speaker 10: like it's a third party like now, and by a
Speaker 10: sting in your selling house, like they don't make It's
Speaker 10: not like just some government guy walking in there and
Speaker 10: saying I think it's worth this is what I'm gonna
Speaker 10: give you to take here to leave it. It goes
Speaker 10: to this whole lengthy appraisal process, which again for a
Speaker 10: property like this, it was this there's booklets in our
Speaker 10: records just about the they have to document how they
Speaker 10: made the appraisal, how you look at uh the uh
Speaker 10: what's the word I want for it? Even the you
Speaker 10: know comparison properties and stuff, right, yeah, And so they
Speaker 10: kind of split the parcel into two things, looking at
Speaker 10: like the home site and then the other site, which
Speaker 10: again he had already had some kind of plans to
Speaker 10: develop so they could be developed, so looking at the
Speaker 10: cost for that, and then in the end, I think
Speaker 10: it appraised for like three and a half million, and
Speaker 10: so like he was given other offers way more than
Speaker 10: it was appraised at. And then okay, well now it's
Speaker 10: been appraised to this, and then he says, well, no,
Speaker 10: I think it's worth more than that. Okay, well then
Speaker 10: you have it appraised like you can. So he, as
Speaker 10: far as I've seen, he never had it appraised himself
Speaker 10: to like have an actual like documented No, it appraised
Speaker 10: that five million, So he did.
Speaker 28: He didn't like what they said.
Speaker 12: So yeah, right, you just.
Speaker 10: Say no, I think it's worth that's a game. Yeah,
Speaker 10: such yeah, And so then so you go, okay, well
Speaker 10: here's this offer. Will you offer you what it's appraised that?
Speaker 10: But no, I'm going to fight it. And so then
Speaker 10: that's where you start to go through that eminent domain
Speaker 10: where they had to pass the law. I think it
Speaker 10: was an eighty eight with the buck Bill, where they
Speaker 10: where the state passed a law to allow for all
Speaker 10: this to happen, where you could do an eminent domain
Speaker 10: if the seller is not willing to negotiate on the
Speaker 10: actual cost of the house or the property. And so
Speaker 10: then you go into the eminent domain.
Speaker 14: But I guess, I guess here this is where it
Speaker 14: gets again and I get confused. The sellers don't want
Speaker 14: to shell the town's already turned it down.
Speaker 12: Why why is the why is.
Speaker 14: Had upen parks still pushing for it if it's been
Speaker 14: turned down so many times?
Speaker 10: And that's that's a fantastic question. And so that really
Speaker 10: comes down to the importance of parks. And that's for sure,
Speaker 10: right And so Minnesota, and like the Minneapolis metro area
Speaker 10: in particular, is known for having this amazing park system
Speaker 10: that we all enjoy as residents of the metro area.
Speaker 10: But it's also also this draw you know, from across
Speaker 10: the country of people coming here and part of the
Speaker 10: things they oh, we want to go walk through the
Speaker 10: parks here, and as a regional parks thing too, where
Speaker 10: people are moving, you know, not just like your neighborhood park,
Speaker 10: but like walking down to my kid at the playground,
Speaker 10: but going to a regional park for the day to
Speaker 10: have this whole experience. And so it's about investing in
Speaker 10: that importance of parks, which this area wasn't really served
Speaker 10: Lake Minnetaka right where they'd been identified years and years
Speaker 10: before of we need to have this public land on
Speaker 10: Lake Minetaka's people can come out to the lake, experience,
Speaker 10: enjoy it, launch their boat, swim. At that time, they
Speaker 10: wanted to have a beach on the lake. It's this
Speaker 10: isn't a great place to have a beach. They built
Speaker 10: the swim pond up at the top of the hill.
Speaker 10: But so it was that that need for a park here.
Speaker 10: So that's where you get, you know, you go back
Speaker 10: to the stakeholder thing of I want this, I want this,
Speaker 10: and so you get you know, neighborhood or the neighbors
Speaker 10: maybe just don't want to park because they don't want
Speaker 10: the noise. They'd rather just have it be another neighborhood.
Speaker 10: And yeah, and the city wants something that pays into
Speaker 10: the tax space. But then you have all these people too.
Speaker 10: They're like, we need more boat launches on the lake.
Speaker 10: There's only a few boat launches and they get so
Speaker 10: busy in the summer that you're waiting forever to launch
Speaker 10: your boat and get on on the lake. And there's
Speaker 10: not enough playgrounds. We need more areas to go swimming
Speaker 10: because the beaches are all busy, and we need more
Speaker 10: land for wildlife habitat. Most of the park is undeveloped,
Speaker 10: so we're on kind of like the developed side, but
Speaker 10: when you cross the road it's mostly undeveloped in capitula.
Speaker 28: Collective desire of all these people to park here.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and so that's his desire.
Speaker 29: To say, I don't want to sell out problems.
Speaker 14: But again I'm just but it's not just him though,
Speaker 14: it's other people who own property. It's the town has
Speaker 14: turned it down the past, and it's like, so they
Speaker 14: don't have the final say there's enough people. The laws changed, right,
Speaker 14: politics take people here for the to try to influence
Speaker 14: maybe and maybe you can. It's just felt like a
Speaker 14: sneaky move to like then all of a sudden by
Speaker 14: you know, past this law, the park bill, to like
Speaker 14: just make it happen, which I know, I get that's
Speaker 14: what happens, but it just like it feels so oh yeah,
Speaker 14: I know it isn't I'm I get very yeah, you
Speaker 14: put somebody in the corner, and I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 13: It's sneaky.
Speaker 10: I don't know if I agree with it, because it
Speaker 10: was it was voted on in like in public discussion
Speaker 10: at the state legislature. It was open to a vote
Speaker 10: of all the state legislators who are elected by the people,
Speaker 10: and so like in a way that's the way government works.
Speaker 10: It's yeah, yeah, it's not like it was just like
Speaker 10: that happened.
Speaker 14: And then yeah, I mean I didn't mean to imply that,
Speaker 14: but it just was like it's like, okay, fine, you're
Speaker 14: not gonna do this, and we're gonna just make you
Speaker 14: do it by you know, by having this bill then.
Speaker 10: And so again you look at, okay, all the stakeholders
Speaker 10: involved in their peace sleep. And so then of course
Speaker 10: the Gutnians are one of those like what do they
Speaker 10: want on this right? And so you know, there's the
Speaker 10: AWA documentary where you know, Greg is talking about how
Speaker 10: it happened and obviously has some hard feelings about the
Speaker 10: way that it happened and not being able to continue
Speaker 10: living in this house and enjoying this land.
Speaker 2: And yeah, one hundred.
Speaker 10: Percent get them, absolutely. But then there's also like you
Speaker 10: come out here on a nice summer day and you
Speaker 10: see dozens of families out of the swim pond, kids
Speaker 10: taking swimming lessons, learning to swim in the swim pond.
Speaker 10: And you go a little bit farther down and there's
Speaker 10: the playgroundhere, kids running and screaming and having a good time,
Speaker 10: and you see people practicing disc golf, You see people
Speaker 10: having a great day on the lake because they're launching
Speaker 10: their boat, walking their dogs through here. Including the neighbors
Speaker 10: who were against the park before but aren't really It
Speaker 10: seems I've never talked to what is against the park
Speaker 10: now They ended up saying like, actually, it's really great
Speaker 10: to have here. And so you see all the people
Speaker 10: enjoying this park, and you see like, okay, well now
Speaker 10: I get it. And so.
Speaker 2: Which the park could have existed as we know it today,
Speaker 2: but he still lived here, Like why did he have
Speaker 2: to vacate this considering the building still stands.
Speaker 10: That should have been the negotiations where at some point,
Speaker 10: like even in that same memo, he had talked about
Speaker 10: a lot of times what's called like a life estate
Speaker 10: where they say like, okay, could you make it into
Speaker 10: a park, So you can do this a couple of
Speaker 10: different ways, but like if it's just like one piece,
Speaker 10: you could say. This happens a lot with like parcels
Speaker 10: that are right next to an existing park where the
Speaker 10: part district has said we want to eventually one day
Speaker 10: make that parcel a part of the bigger park, like
Speaker 10: add it to it, and then so that you can
Speaker 10: purchase it, but give the persons called the life estates,
Speaker 10: you live the rest of your life in that house.
Speaker 12: On that property.
Speaker 10: And then why did that happen.
Speaker 24: In the park?
Speaker 10: And w Vernon asked about that that could happen, and
Speaker 10: I don't know exactly the specifics of I think partly
Speaker 10: it's a negotiation thing where if you are making the
Speaker 10: whole process easier and stuff, you're more likely to get
Speaker 10: that thing that you want. But as soon as you're
Speaker 10: fighting it tooth and nail and everything, then so they
Speaker 10: could have made maybe the whole park and then Verne's
Speaker 10: house here as a life estate. Part of its difficult
Speaker 10: because like this is that's a steep hill over there,
Speaker 10: and it's like the one way to get down to here.
Speaker 10: So like I thought he wanted the boat launch going
Speaker 10: right past the cars. I don't know if he maybe
Speaker 10: would have said like over there or something, but this
Speaker 10: was the shore is a big part of it, and
Speaker 10: this is his house is basically all the shore that
Speaker 10: he owed right here, right, And so that's maybe part
Speaker 10: of it is just kind of the the details when
Speaker 10: you get into like what would it be like to
Speaker 10: have this one private home right here.
Speaker 14: That's also part of the thinking Mike, he's got eighty acres,
Speaker 14: he could give most of that and then keep his
Speaker 14: house and whatever.
Speaker 10: But and again I think it comes down to what
Speaker 10: he had been maybe more opened to negotiating early on
Speaker 10: that maybe would have been. There was also another thing
Speaker 10: about how I think with one of the counter offers,
Speaker 10: was like, hey, and if you take this offer or something,
Speaker 10: And maybe it was when they were getting into features
Speaker 10: of the house or something, but at some point it
Speaker 10: was like, if you do this for us, we're going
Speaker 10: to put up a plaque about during Ghanya in the house.
Speaker 10: He didn't do the thing, so we don't have a plaque.
Speaker 10: I really do want to put up a plaque.
Speaker 28: This is what we're kind of doing one right now.
Speaker 29: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 28: What we're saying this is almost like indicative about the
Speaker 28: need for a plant.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 29: I want to come here and learn about it.
Speaker 10: I've said before, I want to put a bronze statue
Speaker 10: of burnt up at the swim pod. Oh there would
Speaker 10: the picture?
Speaker 2: Him say, yeah, well right, you know the picture.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so that would be awesome. That's that's that's the
Speaker 10: thing I really want is a broad statue of urn
Speaker 10: up at the swim Pop and.
Speaker 2: A Plat dedicated absolutely the first books says that at
Speaker 2: one point he actually.
Speaker 12: Do was pain, right, That's what I was want to
Speaker 12: ask next to that, Yeah, and.
Speaker 10: It had seen that I don't know that that that
Speaker 10: number didn't seem right. He said, like twenty five thousand
Speaker 10: a month a month I had seen even like in
Speaker 10: the records, like like checks that.
Speaker 12: So it was rent.
Speaker 10: Part of it was so once the once the deal
Speaker 10: was getting finalized and this was going to become a
Speaker 10: park and the guy is needed to move out, the
Speaker 10: process was still really slow, and so that they were
Speaker 10: staying here and then kind of paying rent because the
Speaker 10: process was already done, but then allowed to stay for
Speaker 10: a while and pay rent. And that number didn't quite
Speaker 10: look right to me. But I'm not gonna like totally worry.
Speaker 28: Why would he have to pay rent to the.
Speaker 10: Because at that point he didn't own it anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 10: but like they were gonna be like, okay, we're kicking
Speaker 10: you out. It was like he could have moved maybe.
Speaker 10: But this is another thing I would talk about, is
Speaker 10: the relocation process. We'll talk about that too. But then
Speaker 10: the other there was also the outbuildings like the barn,
Speaker 10: and so he kept a lot of stuff in the
Speaker 10: barn longer than like he really was supposed to say,
Speaker 10: like renegotiated like, Okay, we'll let you keep your stuff
Speaker 10: in the barn. And I think that was stuff. So
Speaker 10: I think that stuff was he was by that time,
Speaker 10: we're getting out into the nineties, really at it right,
Speaker 10: because it again really drawn out, so that that memo
Speaker 10: I talked about, he's like, what do I do while
Speaker 10: you're looking at this land that was eighty six and
Speaker 10: then it doesn't make go apark until the ninety so
Speaker 10: it's it's it's this drawn out thing. And I think
Speaker 10: at that time he's maybe also going through his bankruptcy stuff.
Speaker 10: So I think his bankruptcy case is settled in the
Speaker 10: fall of ninety three, and that earlier that year they're
Speaker 10: negotiating like, hey, can I keep my stuff in the barn?
Speaker 10: And I think that's his tools of the trade as
Speaker 10: he's going through bankruptcy. That's like ring gear that's on tapes,
Speaker 10: its desk tapes.
Speaker 4: It tapes.
Speaker 7: I think the restoring all of that.
Speaker 10: Stuff for the shows fascinating and didn't have another place
Speaker 10: to put it. As he's still trying to get that.
Speaker 10: You know, I can't when did he start the sumo thing?
Speaker 10: Was that ninety three?
Speaker 2: Was that ninety one? Yeah, he's trying to do an
Speaker 2: American Sumo Federation, so he's knowing it.
Speaker 10: So you know, he's struggling to make his business work
Speaker 10: at the same time and trying to keep on this stuff.
Speaker 10: It doesn't have another place to store it. He's got
Speaker 10: like his dock still here where they said that you
Speaker 10: got to get your dock out, but that you didn't
Speaker 10: have another place to put it, so they said, okay,
Speaker 10: we'll let you keep your dock there. So there were
Speaker 10: still things like that where the negotiating these little pieces
Speaker 10: after he had already even moved out, and so the
Speaker 10: rent I think is part of that too. There was
Speaker 10: also another house on the property. It was like a
Speaker 10: caretaker's home really, and so I don't know all the
Speaker 10: details about it, but there was a guy living in there,
Speaker 10: maybe a small family, I can't remember, but it was
Speaker 10: a small home right by where the barn is, and
Speaker 10: they were paying rent to Vernon Mary and I think
Speaker 10: we're like a caretaker for the property and for the
Speaker 10: horses and stuff, and so they were living there, and
Speaker 10: then that was a part of the process too where there,
Speaker 10: So they were negotiating with him as well, but Vern
Speaker 10: was the owner of the property. They're negotiating with Vern,
Speaker 10: and Verne wanted him to be able to keep living there,
Speaker 10: and it just didn't really make sense because you'd be
Speaker 10: like right at the swim pond, that you'd be like
Speaker 10: rice there. And so they the part district ended up
Speaker 10: agreeing that like to that they could move the building.
Speaker 10: So Vern and this other man paid to have the
Speaker 10: building moved I think to Mounder or no, I think
Speaker 10: it was nearby, like in the area, and moved the building.
Speaker 10: But then they were ack the reason that the move ran,
Speaker 10: like so they were building the park where the thing
Speaker 10: was still there. It had to come negotiate like, hey,
Speaker 10: we're putting up fences, now you need to move the
Speaker 10: house before the fences go in, and so tick and burn.
Speaker 28: So it is four million at the end.
Speaker 10: He got I don't know if I've ever actually seen
Speaker 10: whatever the final number was, the book says.
Speaker 12: The book says four point two million, that's what he
Speaker 12: got out.
Speaker 10: What year do you think that would be? So I
Speaker 10: would bet that he moved out maybe like ninety I
Speaker 10: can't remember exactly, but again, so then we.
Speaker 2: Were speculating like part of the reason maybe he gives
Speaker 2: up the fight, so to speak, to give up is
Speaker 2: the wrong word, but you know whatever, maybe it's the
Speaker 2: right work is that the NWA is now clearly not
Speaker 2: going concern you know, he's probably thinking like, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: we got sitting on four million dollars.
Speaker 14: Starts to make more sense, especially because especially because he owes,
Speaker 14: like the book says, he owes a million and a
Speaker 14: half and legal fees and other things and stuff, and
Speaker 14: so it's like, just take this money, and I think
Speaker 14: that they I think they say thank like eventually, like
Speaker 14: after I'll paying everything, Like they only had like three
Speaker 14: hundred grand out of that four point two.
Speaker 10: So the other piece of this too is like at
Speaker 10: that point, the fights weren't even done because when an
Speaker 10: eminent domain case like that happens, there's also there's a
Speaker 10: whole legal system for what's called relocation, and so then
Speaker 10: the park district is liable for like, okay, Verona, Mary,
Speaker 10: here's your house that's worth this much. We're going to
Speaker 10: pay you this for it. And we also then and
Speaker 10: I say, I wasn't around. Of course, the park district
Speaker 10: then would help to relocate you to a similar property.
Speaker 10: So they go through this thing like with real estate brokerage.
Speaker 10: So they locate I think it was like five, maybe seven,
Speaker 10: maybe even more, of similar homes in a similar area,
Speaker 10: some of them just down the road, very similar homes,
Speaker 10: similar prices, and say, here are the ones that are
Speaker 10: available right now. You could buy one of these and
Speaker 10: move to that and it would be like kind of
Speaker 10: the same experience of living in this hall. So you're
Speaker 10: not so they even help with the relocation to find
Speaker 10: another place in the area. So they gave them several
Speaker 10: postings of similar homes and allowed them to go view them,
Speaker 10: and I guess they were like really picky. We're like, oh,
Speaker 10: it doesn't have like the same barrow that we had before.
Speaker 10: That's what they needed to be exactly the same because the.
Speaker 14: Custom hall, the custom home, you know, that's how do
Speaker 14: you replace a custom home.
Speaker 10: But so other homes that were similar that were still
Speaker 10: on the lake and so they could still have their
Speaker 10: boat in their dock, and so they look at that
Speaker 10: and none of them were just right. But then also
Speaker 10: there was this back and forth because there's also like
Speaker 10: a relocation fee where there's like a difference in like Okay,
Speaker 10: here's this other similar home, but it's an extra you know,
Speaker 10: fifty thousand dollars. Then there would be a relocation fee
Speaker 10: that would pay essentially the difference, so to buy that
Speaker 10: one that's similar but maybe just a little bit more expensive.
Speaker 10: And then then I think started really gaming the value
Speaker 10: to try to get the most value out of the
Speaker 10: house and trying to try and do again that this
Speaker 10: house was more value. You know, I think there was.
Speaker 10: So there was a lot of back and forth about that.
Speaker 12: I have phrased this house myself and I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 10: And so I think he said no to all the things.
Speaker 10: And then eventually I think it lived in like a
Speaker 10: town home and even Prairide and so like, so he
Speaker 10: was given like other homes that he could have moved
Speaker 10: into right then that were almost the same house, the
Speaker 10: same value.
Speaker 5: On the lake.
Speaker 10: So but again fighting tooth and nail and everything. So
Speaker 10: so again where I'm not I'm not saying that Verne
Speaker 10: shouldn't have fought like that. What I'm saying, what we
Speaker 10: know in hindsight is if he had just taken the
Speaker 10: very generous offer that he was given at the beginning,
Speaker 10: with the beginning, in the beginning, he would have come
Speaker 10: out much better than all the legal fees for all
Speaker 10: these fights.
Speaker 14: They it went to the state, he probably couldn't end
Speaker 14: up staying here, staying in the home. It couldn't have
Speaker 14: got well, they're saying to saying it was impossible because
Speaker 14: of this that what was it called.
Speaker 10: The life estate at least a possibility.
Speaker 11: So so that's where like.
Speaker 12: Again what we know, I don't negotiate with terrorists.
Speaker 2: And pressure black plot, I tole the this is wonderful, man.
Speaker 2: So so now we've got I can see it in
Speaker 2: ninety I can see it time period and you know
Speaker 2: the fight events he'd want selling the yeah, either a
Speaker 2: boring events.
Speaker 28: You know, he brought a suitcase again and he that's
Speaker 28: not that's nowhere near what.
Speaker 12: My company's worth.
Speaker 29: And then he ended up going.
Speaker 10: Bankrupt and even yeah, with through his bankruptcy. You know again,
Speaker 10: so when you go bankruptcy, were allowed to keep I
Speaker 10: think it's at the time, I don't know if it's changed,
Speaker 10: like seven thousand, five hundred dollars and tools of the trade.
Speaker 10: So that's again, if you're a plumber. You can keep
Speaker 10: your tools of the trades. Isn't this capsul be And
Speaker 10: so for him, he was arguing like, okay, well it's
Speaker 10: the ring, it's these desks, and again I think the things,
Speaker 10: all the things that were in the barn is separate
Speaker 10: through his bankruptcy proceedings, those all these things. And he's like, okay,
Speaker 10: and then the tapes, right.
Speaker 29: Like all these things that get my business, it takes
Speaker 29: to the show selling events anyway.
Speaker 10: Yeah, right, And so I guess I don't remember exactly
Speaker 10: how it was decided, but there was this back and
Speaker 10: forth where he said like, okay, all these things are
Speaker 10: worth less than seven thousand, five hundred dollars. And then
Speaker 10: the person going through like his bankruptcy estate, is like,
Speaker 10: I think these things are worth way more than see thousand,
Speaker 10: five hundred dollars. The tapes are working there, right, And
Speaker 10: so he was arguing, he was trying to again arguing
Speaker 10: that but no, no, this is all like this is
Speaker 10: worthless stuff. I wouldn't keep all this, but it's actually
Speaker 10: a valuable right, right. And so then I think the
Speaker 10: judge ended up deciding that like, okay, well we're going
Speaker 10: to allow the the executor of the estate to try
Speaker 10: and sell those things for what they're worth, and if
Speaker 10: it turns out to not be more than seven thousand,
Speaker 10: five hundred, then very can keep them. So I imagine
Speaker 10: it's sold or exactly how it happened.
Speaker 28: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 10: Maybe that's when Vince.
Speaker 29: Boston over tapes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was kind of hard to trace as far
Speaker 2: as if they passed intermediary between Verne and Vince. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's when the documentary came. That's that's how he was
Speaker 2: negotiating at the time. Vince, we'll give you the Hall
Speaker 2: of Fame. We'll do a documentary about how wonderful you
Speaker 2: are if you just give the tapes just because they
Speaker 2: put out a DVD about that and make money, and
Speaker 2: then later on the network gave those things a second
Speaker 2: life and that they were able to present. They didn't
Speaker 2: do an Aaba's case, which blows our mind. But like
Speaker 2: World Class, who doubts, you know, weekly television every year there,
Speaker 2: the whole library was there. They didn't buy it with
Speaker 2: that intention because there wasn't a network when they bought it.
Speaker 2: They just bought it to get the DVD release out,
Speaker 2: to claim ownership of whatever ways they could monetize it.
Speaker 2: They had like twenty four to seven and other outlets
Speaker 2: at the time they could use. But yeah, that takes
Speaker 2: us right to the day. So can we see the
Speaker 2: barn and stuff with the porn. It looks like it's
Speaker 2: calming down out there a little bit, alright, So I
Speaker 2: hate to put.
Speaker 29: You I'm gonna really rete.
Speaker 12: Amazing. There was still stuff in the barn. He left
Speaker 12: stuff in the barn still. It was like locked up
Speaker 12: and we'll walk over there.
Speaker 10: But it's it's like the maintenance shop, so like that's
Speaker 10: the offices for the it's and then so it's connected
Speaker 10: right across from the swim pond. So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 10: just getting.
Speaker 2: Mon use that.
Speaker 28: All right.
Speaker 2: We're now in the car with our friend Zach from
Speaker 2: Free Rivers Park District because we want to see the
Speaker 2: barn on the property. Now, this is not the barn
Speaker 2: where Verne would have trained Iron Chic and Rich Flair
Speaker 2: and Jimbernzell and Sergeant Slaughter. That's in Chanhassen that's been redeveloped.
Speaker 2: You can't even really go see it. But he did
Speaker 2: have a barn on property, as we talked about, which
Speaker 2: I think is the barn you'll see in the wrestler.
Speaker 2: And then Zach has told us it's also the barn
Speaker 2: where Vern would have kept a lot of quote tools
Speaker 2: of the trade. After this the sale happened to the property,
Speaker 2: but he kept things like you know, the wrestling ring,
Speaker 2: the a toba, perhaps a video library, a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff in that barn and that still stands. But because
Speaker 2: it's pouring rain, we didn't go on foot.
Speaker 12: We're gonna drive over there.
Speaker 2: So you're along for the ride, and right, Zach is
Speaker 2: kind enough to join us as well, placing a lot
Speaker 2: of trust in us that. But we made it here
Speaker 2: from Mason City.
Speaker 14: From Mason City. Didn't know if we're ever going to
Speaker 14: skape Mason City after for a while. But I don't
Speaker 14: know if you've been out.
Speaker 2: There, buddy, but it's uh, it's a place it's.
Speaker 7: Never been to Mason City. It's a place I loves.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so you'll see, Like so when this first opened,
Speaker 10: it was I said, a museum, and all that stuff
Speaker 10: has been taken out. I think it just didn't really
Speaker 10: work as like a visitor center, partly just because of
Speaker 10: like the parking. There's just nowhere to right put like
Speaker 10: a good parking down here, and then the boat launches
Speaker 10: over here on the right. And they wanted to put
Speaker 10: a beach down here too, but just the shore isn't
Speaker 10: really right here to have a beach, and again there
Speaker 10: isn't parking down your seat have to park at the
Speaker 10: top of the hill and walk all the way down
Speaker 10: to the beach that's here.
Speaker 7: So that's why they ended up putting the swim pond
Speaker 7: in what direction?
Speaker 12: Take a left, Take your left, Okay, thank you.
Speaker 2: The sweeping few I didn't expect, like maybe because it's
Speaker 2: raining and there's fog, but I can't see the other
Speaker 2: side of them.
Speaker 14: Yeah, it's because the fire. I guess you a little
Speaker 14: bit of that side. But it's it's all.
Speaker 2: I don't know why a pictures so much smaller.
Speaker 5: What do you call it?
Speaker 2: Horizon?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, the.
Speaker 12: Oh my god, whatever, it doesn't matter. I'm losing it.
Speaker 12: But like the it goes in in the bays, like
Speaker 12: their bays they're all, but there are a bunch of bays, like.
Speaker 2: It's all.
Speaker 10: On the other side.
Speaker 14: It's all these little again. It looks like the a
Speaker 14: W a bell. It looks like that belt all these
Speaker 14: bays and you know, maybe that was the inspiration.
Speaker 10: We figured that out. So then up here on the right,
Speaker 10: you'll see the ruins of that historic house. I was
Speaker 10: talking about that the first person that is Joseph Schmid. Yep,
Speaker 10: it'll be up here on the right, so or oh sorry,
Speaker 10: a little bit farther, yeah, yep.
Speaker 24: And then.
Speaker 7: So it's preserved as a like an archaeological.
Speaker 12: Architectures that come out here and look over there, Wow.
Speaker 2: Ancient Mayan like we're preserved.
Speaker 10: So we we're supposed to preserve it like in this state,
Speaker 10: we're not supposed to like rebuild it. So we're preserving
Speaker 10: it as a ruin. But we filled in the basement of.
Speaker 7: Stuff so you can walk around the.
Speaker 10: Foot What was that?
Speaker 12: What was that built?
Speaker 7: Eighteen seventy six.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 12: I didn't see that seriously looking for vern look looks seeking.
Speaker 10: And I've talked to people that had seen him out
Speaker 10: here after it became a park, that he would come
Speaker 10: out and walk the grounds and stuff and talk to
Speaker 10: him after it became a part.
Speaker 14: No kidding, So you come out trying to sneak back
Speaker 14: in the house, to try to sneak in, lock the door.
Speaker 7: Take a sink with him.
Speaker 12: I mean, I mean that to me is.
Speaker 14: I like, I think to my itself, like, wow, it's
Speaker 14: gonna be hard. You know, you built that house and
Speaker 14: it's still there. In a weird way, I would imagine,
Speaker 14: I would imagine that he would have wanted destroyed to
Speaker 14: like so that, you know, but now he's got, you know,
Speaker 14: other people in his house.
Speaker 2: Do you know if any consideration was ever given to
Speaker 2: that of leveling it.
Speaker 7: I don't think so.
Speaker 10: I think that the plan was always to use the
Speaker 10: building for some kind of public amenity, like okay, I understand.
Speaker 10: And so to our right here you can see there's
Speaker 10: a trail that'll go like under the road, and that
Speaker 10: goes to the bigger part of the park that is
Speaker 10: actually mostly undeveloped. So the area we're in is actually
Speaker 10: a small area of the entire park. Most of the
Speaker 10: park is over there, and a lot of people hardly
Speaker 10: ever see because it's just a couple of hiking trails
Speaker 10: and mostly undeveloped for wildlife habitat. And three of His
Speaker 10: uses what we call the eighty twenty rule that in
Speaker 10: general only twenty percent of our parks are developed for
Speaker 10: human use, and then eighty percent are left for wildlife habitat,
Speaker 10: oh natural space straight through here.
Speaker 2: We're actually really lucky it's so rainy because there's no
Speaker 2: one right we can we can roll slow and I
Speaker 2: feel like, I mean, I'm getting in anybody's way doing
Speaker 2: the silliness, you know, But it's wonderful.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: This is like we're gonna have so much more texture
Speaker 2: when we think about age. Oh, I know, I know,
Speaker 2: it's just it means so much more how swimming as
Speaker 2: far as like if a heavy rain, is the swim
Speaker 2: area off limits for a little while due.
Speaker 7: To like that, I think it's technically open.
Speaker 10: They've got I don't know if the lifeguards around their
Speaker 10: tower right now, but it's I know that they they've got.
Speaker 7: Staff scheduled for today. So it's always you guys want,
Speaker 7: I think swing through the concession standing get lunch. She
Speaker 7: can go get a hot dog or something. So here's
Speaker 7: the big playground here.
Speaker 10: It's sort of like nautical themes, like the steamboats on
Speaker 10: like Bannatonka. And then there's a picnic shelter back there,
Speaker 10: so that gets rented for a lot of.
Speaker 2: Like large groups have been here when Verne lived in
Speaker 2: the house Green.
Speaker 24: Uh.
Speaker 7: This actually we're kind of coming up to the road.
Speaker 10: Actually originally used to come through here, and uh, you
Speaker 10: got rerouted eventually, but so this was just kind of
Speaker 10: mostly undeveloped and I'd have like, hey, the pasture and stuff.
Speaker 10: So now so his horse barn is straight ahead. That's
Speaker 10: the horse bar right there. Ye, and so we might
Speaker 10: have to park in the lot. Let's see.
Speaker 7: If you guys pull in here.
Speaker 10: Okay, yeah, maintenance a lot. But I'm in my three
Speaker 10: years gear and they knew we were. So let's see
Speaker 10: if you can find a spot to pull up. There's
Speaker 10: kind of like parking spots right there. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Where do you see all the cars in their cars?
Speaker 24: It's awesome. So this was Verne's barn. You would have
Speaker 24: had to get in a car and drive over here.
Speaker 10: Probably is this the bar?
Speaker 14: And you were thinking no, don't well no, no, you're
Speaker 14: thinking of the I wonder if they if they if
Speaker 14: they shot it in different places and just cut it together.
Speaker 12: Was the other barn on the water? Was it near
Speaker 12: the water?
Speaker 7: It was near a lake, but not like right near lake.
Speaker 12: They might I bet I wonder if they did that,
Speaker 12: if they just treated it.
Speaker 7: So it's a maintenance shop today.
Speaker 10: So you can see there's this is where all the
Speaker 10: people who do the maintenance for not just this park,
Speaker 10: but some of the other parks nearby. But well, now
Speaker 10: that it's not in a shop and offices, this is
Speaker 10: also like the facilities for.
Speaker 7: The all this gear for maintaining the swim pods.
Speaker 12: This is where he would have kept the too, kept
Speaker 12: all the stuff.
Speaker 10: And then yeah, this is where I think that he
Speaker 10: had in the outbuilding out here where he had the
Speaker 10: tools of the trade that he was paying rent to
Speaker 10: keep his stuff in the bar.
Speaker 12: And it's it's the same size as it was yep.
Speaker 12: So okay, so it's a big it's a big space.
Speaker 2: What do you want to do?
Speaker 12: I mean, inside, is there any is it it's all
Speaker 12: renovated or is.
Speaker 7: It it's all renovated so it's not park.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I just want to see the outside to
Speaker 2: see if it was a vocative. Right, let's let's spare
Speaker 2: everybody and then get back to the house. But I
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 24: It's like a rolling tour.
Speaker 10: And then you want to when you get out of
Speaker 10: this gate, take them right, Okay, great, yeah, let us.
Speaker 24: Know where else we should go.
Speaker 2: Look at that.
Speaker 4: I mean that's he was here.
Speaker 12: You had horses came down and then he hid his
Speaker 12: shipping there.
Speaker 7: Yeah, pretty much, it's worthless stuff, very.
Speaker 12: Seven grand tops.
Speaker 10: And then kind of just straight in front of us
Speaker 10: through the woods there is where that caretaker's house was,
Speaker 10: and then that's been moved. And then if you kind
Speaker 10: of go around this corner here, we're a little below it.
Speaker 10: So it's hard to see, but we have this swim
Speaker 10: pond here and so it's got a sand bottom, but
Speaker 10: it's all chlorinated water.
Speaker 7: But so the water is from Lake Manataka up and chlorinated.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so it's like being at the beach, but it's
Speaker 10: chlorinated water, so it's without all the weeds and the
Speaker 10: fish smell and all that kind of stuff. And so
Speaker 10: it's incredibly popular for people that want to go to
Speaker 10: the beach. Kids, we should get so much.
Speaker 12: Would come tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Well this is the summer, but it's not hot enough.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we'd love to take a gip uh.
Speaker 10: And so this nice big flat spot here m Unders
Speaker 10: saying is this is where like the horse arena was
Speaker 10: the horse arena, so like so the horse barn was there,
Speaker 10: and this is where you go out and ride the fence.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's beautiful. I've never heard of is
Speaker 2: that a thing? A chlorinated water feature like that.
Speaker 7: We've got a couple of them through because I think
Speaker 7: they're becoming more popular.
Speaker 12: That I've never heard of that myself.
Speaker 10: It's just you get the benefits of the clarin into
Speaker 10: water without kind of you know, being on like the
Speaker 10: concrete pool setting and the way yep, you can go
Speaker 10: straight here. And so again we've kind of seen a
Speaker 10: small part of the park which again was mostly Burn's
Speaker 10: parcel here, but then north west of us was where
Speaker 10: like the break Virus had their property, so they they
Speaker 10: acquired the the creamery building from the Woodend Dairy Farm.
Speaker 10: Was this beautiful building where they would take the milk
Speaker 10: and cream and bottle it for shipping and stuff it.
Speaker 10: So it's this really awesome building that's been it was
Speaker 10: just so far gone that that was torn down maybe
Speaker 10: ten fifteen years ago and can't remember. But then most
Speaker 10: of the park is actually on the other side of
Speaker 10: that road.
Speaker 24: Uh.
Speaker 10: That again, the biggest part of that belongs to Ed Pauls.
Speaker 7: The adventure of the Nordic Track.
Speaker 12: That's a great piece of history. Does does Greg come
Speaker 12: by the house at all?
Speaker 7: I've never talked to him. I haven't seen him. I'd
Speaker 7: love to talk to Greg at some point.
Speaker 24: I know he's in he's in town at the convention
Speaker 24: at the US.
Speaker 2: They call it WUS.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I heard it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, there was a guy reached out to me from
Speaker 10: New Zealand that he's coming to town for SummerSlam and
Speaker 10: wanted to come and visit the house. Wow.
Speaker 14: Actually, the only asologize that at the point that we
Speaker 14: create these these incredible like you know, right, and.
Speaker 2: Then we get to go and discover if any it's anywhere,
Speaker 2: and get all excited with a little more a little.
Speaker 12: Bit, I would feeling that at some point I think that's.
Speaker 10: Great again where I you know, having seen the documentary
Speaker 10: and I couldn't I completely understand him having hard feelings
Speaker 10: of the course, but just being a wrestling band. And
Speaker 10: one thing again that I love doing about this job,
Speaker 10: particularly here, is just telling the history of the land,
Speaker 10: which in this park again it's it's the Schmids, and
Speaker 10: it's the the native people that have lived here for
Speaker 10: thousands of years, and it's Albert Waring in the Wooden
Speaker 10: Dairy Farm.
Speaker 7: But a chapter of this land story, of course, is
Speaker 7: for in Ghania and the Ghania family, and so I
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 2: Your interest in the statue.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so yeah, the swim pond. Have you imagine right
Speaker 10: there there with a plaque talking about him.
Speaker 2: We're on board, We're on board. They have a nice
Speaker 2: support Dan Gables statue at the Museum and Water that
Speaker 2: I think is right on the idea of what you're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 7: I mean, wrestlers make such great statues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, damn wasn't even a pro. So he wasn't even
Speaker 2: like this huge charismatic guy. I'm gonna go down to
Speaker 2: the boat launch. Is that drivable?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 24: Checkaftick on that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're keeping a plot there.
Speaker 12: Yeah, it's funny. We're just looking over here.
Speaker 10: We're thing.
Speaker 7: Don't look.
Speaker 12: Actually I was like, oh, maybe that's it. Maybe that's it.
Speaker 14: That's why he sat down the right right, So we're
Speaker 14: just like this. It was wild to think of this
Speaker 14: before the parking spaces and so this is all he
Speaker 14: would This is how he would have gotten down to
Speaker 14: his house.
Speaker 7: It's obviously been Was it paved?
Speaker 12: It was back then he would have been a paidro
Speaker 12: you know, I don't know.
Speaker 7: I imagine it was paved. Just be terrible for like
Speaker 7: a gravel driveway.
Speaker 2: So I imagine was there a deal where, like you know,
Speaker 2: snow plowing I was good looking next port handled collectively
Speaker 2: by the owners or.
Speaker 12: I don't know.
Speaker 10: I mean I think it was just his driveway so
Speaker 10: that he didn't really basically from when you enter the
Speaker 10: park all the way to hear was his driveway in
Speaker 10: a long driveway to get That's the other thing, is
Speaker 10: like it was really tucked.
Speaker 7: Back in here for being right on the lake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if basically once you pass his house you
Speaker 2: come to an end, it's not you don't continue to
Speaker 2: circle the lake.
Speaker 24: This is it.
Speaker 2: It terminates. What do you launched his boats roughly around here.
Speaker 7: I don't know if he used this, I don't he
Speaker 7: had I think a dot closer to his house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the life it really is. Yeah, we were
Speaker 2: talking tact about how you know, vern is kind of
Speaker 2: you could easily make like a biopic about him as
Speaker 2: like a tragic figure, but somebody who like just clung
Speaker 2: to a way of life that like had passed by
Speaker 2: and wasn't like you know what I mean, he wasn't
Speaker 2: really ready to see that. The house serves as an example,
Speaker 2: not just.
Speaker 12: A day he stopped evolving at one point.
Speaker 24: That he could force things to his idea of how
Speaker 24: it should be.
Speaker 2: Just a certain point in the world stopped reciprocating right right,
Speaker 2: because the world does.
Speaker 12: The world does at some point driving and this is
Speaker 12: what you see.
Speaker 2: Causes here some of the boys just pulled out.
Speaker 12: Oh, just tremendous.
Speaker 2: Well, Zach, we want to thank you so much for
Speaker 2: hosting us. This is more than we could have ever
Speaker 2: hoped for. You're an incredible host, and we thank the
Speaker 2: three Rivers Park District as well for deeming us worthy
Speaker 2: of a very bizarre visit. But I have the feeling,
Speaker 2: by the time we circulate this many more will be
Speaker 2: interesting something similar that is true physics.
Speaker 12: This might have some visits this weekend for people when we.
Speaker 10: Do get people that kind of just walk through or
Speaker 10: you know, the kind of passed through because like, oh,
Speaker 10: is this the Gania house, And so I imagine, yeah,
Speaker 10: this weekend of the traffic will pick.
Speaker 2: Up a little bit more and hopefully if you guys
Speaker 2: are hoping for that, you'll get it.
Speaker 10: So thanks for having me on.
Speaker 7: It's been a pleasure, appreciate it. Glad to share the story.
Speaker 2: Preceding plays a production of the labs Entertainment Group. Its
Speaker 2: content is intended for private use only.
Speaker 3: We want