Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Thanks to call a European Adventure. I quite think of
Speaker 2: it as that it was a good time. We had
Speaker 2: a lot of fun with a lot of nightside listeners
Speaker 2: in Rome and on the Amalfi Coast, and I wish
Speaker 2: you had been able to be there with us, Nicole.
Speaker 2: It was we had a lot of fun, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: My name is Dan Ray. But I am very happy
Speaker 2: to be back in the big chair here on WBZ
Speaker 2: from eight until midnight as the host of Nightside. Rob
Speaker 2: Brooks is back in the control room with an assistant
Speaker 2: and a young new technician whose first name is Dan.
Speaker 2: We won't you know, we're not gonna give any a
Speaker 2: lot of information, but when you're calling tonight, you're going
Speaker 2: to be talking to Rob or to Dan, and I
Speaker 2: will talk about our trip to Rome, but I think
Speaker 2: i'll do that at beginning at nine o'clock because we
Speaker 2: have four really interesting guests lined up for you tonight
Speaker 2: during the eight o'clock hour. I must thank all the
Speaker 2: folks who filled in for me last week. I know
Speaker 2: that Mullgan White carried the ball most nights, but Ben
Speaker 2: Parker was here one night, and Gary Tangway was here
Speaker 2: one night. I was off a total of seven nights,
Speaker 2: which is for me a really long time away from
Speaker 2: the microphone. But we had a lot of fun, and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that. We saw so much in a
Speaker 2: relatively brief period of time. I'll get to all of
Speaker 2: that at nine o'clock. Many of my fellow travelers nightside
Speaker 2: travelers who wanted to know when are we going to
Speaker 2: talk about it? So we'll talk about it at nine o'clock.
Speaker 2: But first we're going to talk about a deaf football
Speaker 2: team and their quest for glory with an author correspondent
Speaker 2: for The New York Times, Thomas Fuller. The name of
Speaker 2: the book is The Boys of Riverside. I assume we're
Speaker 2: talking about Riverside, California. Tom full how are you tonight?
Speaker 3: I'm good, Dan. Yes, indeed, Riverside, California, just east of
Speaker 3: Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm told, a pretty beautiful part of the world
Speaker 2: outside of LA And so there was a school there
Speaker 2: for students who was it they had no hearing or
Speaker 2: they had limited.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there are two deaf schools in California, one
Speaker 3: in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the other in Riverside,
Speaker 3: which is you know, Riverside used to be just Orange
Speaker 3: Groves and uh, you know, quite bucolic. Now it's like
Speaker 3: Amazon warehouses and you know where everything that comes in
Speaker 3: from China ends up in a warehouse. So it's a
Speaker 3: it's not the not the most beautiful neighborhood. But in
Speaker 3: the middle of it there's this great school, California School
Speaker 3: for the Deaf for Riverside, and they got about one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty kids and they had a football program
Speaker 3: that for well seven decades, uh, didn't go anywhere. They
Speaker 3: never made it to the playoffs. And then a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago something happened and they just started pummeling
Speaker 3: their opponents and and that's that's where I went down.
Speaker 3: I said, I got to write about this.
Speaker 2: By the way, there's a school in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: I think it's called Gardett, which is also a school
Speaker 2: for deaf students.
Speaker 3: We have Perkins Galadet for the.
Speaker 2: Blind here in Boston, so these schools do exist. Okay, Look,
Speaker 2: football is a game which everybody has to move at
Speaker 2: the same time. You can't be offside. You have to
Speaker 2: for the most part be able to you're prompted by
Speaker 2: the calls that the quarterback makes, not only in the huddle,
Speaker 2: but up on the line of scrimmage. How does a
Speaker 2: group of eleven football players, none of whom can hear,
Speaker 2: How did they function well as a football team, as
Speaker 2: these young men obviously did.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: You've got a lot of stuff there, and I liked
Speaker 3: that you mentioned the huddle because there's a story about that.
Speaker 4: But let me.
Speaker 3: Start with how they function really well. The players here,
Speaker 3: with their eyes, they see the field much more comprehensibly.
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, there's studies that if you're profoundly deaf
Speaker 3: from birth, and this makes sense, that your site becomes
Speaker 3: more acute. This team that I followed, the Cubs, they're
Speaker 3: known as they never jumped off sides. I think I
Speaker 3: saw it twice because they were so focused on the
Speaker 3: ball and they had incredible peripheral vision. That study that
Speaker 3: I referenced, there have been a few of them.
Speaker 4: You know, when you go to the.
Speaker 3: DMV and you know, look, they say, okay, let's test
Speaker 3: your eyesight, and they have the flashing lights in there
Speaker 3: and you're supposed to press the button when you see it.
Speaker 3: Deaf people do better at those tests, and then you
Speaker 3: know here makes.
Speaker 2: A lot of sense, makes a lot of sense. Obviously,
Speaker 2: over time, the human body, the human condition, tries to
Speaker 2: make up for areas where they may be in a vulnerability,
Speaker 2: just the ability to survive. If you're you know, five
Speaker 2: hundred years ago, we're right out in the wilderness and
Speaker 2: you couldn't hear. You were probably a lot more observant.
Speaker 3: When you think about it, the brain changes. And so
Speaker 3: I'll tell you the story about the huddle since you
Speaker 3: mentioned it, So where to come from. It came from
Speaker 3: Galadet that you mentioned. Two death teams were playing in
Speaker 3: the eighteen nineties and they were you know, they're all deaths.
Speaker 3: So they were signing to each other. Well, and so
Speaker 3: the quarterback for Galadet said, we got to do something
Speaker 3: about this. They're reading our plays here, gather together, back
Speaker 3: to the defense and I'll give you the play that
Speaker 3: was where the huddle was born. It did exists before
Speaker 3: that happened. And so now Galadet, if you go watch
Speaker 3: one of their games, you get some merch that says
Speaker 3: home of the Huddles.
Speaker 2: Wow, boy, that's fabulous. You know, it's interesting. There was
Speaker 2: a guy who was who played Major League Baseball Curtis Pride,
Speaker 2: who a few years ago pretty good player for the
Speaker 2: Tigers amongst other teams, actually played for the Red Sox
Speaker 2: for a little while. Young ballplayer who also was deaf
Speaker 2: since birth. And yet that's right.
Speaker 3: Derek Coleman, who was the fullback on the Seahawks, also deaf.
Speaker 3: So there had been deaf athletes. Benny Fuller, who was
Speaker 3: a college basketball player. And it's tough if you're deaf
Speaker 3: on a hearing team. That's what I saw with these kids.
Speaker 3: They had played, they were great athletes, they had played
Speaker 3: in Pop Warner leagues, but it was really tough communicating
Speaker 3: with you all the hearing players. Sure, So then they
Speaker 3: all got together, all the deaf players got together and
Speaker 3: it was just glue. It was beautiful. It was a
Speaker 3: brotherhood of all deaf people. And they used sign language.
Speaker 3: They didn't have to. The coach didn't have to, you know,
Speaker 3: the quarterback didn't have to run over the sidelines, get
Speaker 3: to play from the coach, run back in. So it's
Speaker 3: all sign language. They just looked over, they saw the
Speaker 3: sign and they you know, and that was it. Off
Speaker 3: to the next play, super fast, super efficient.
Speaker 2: So so this was the twenty twenty one season that
Speaker 2: I think you chronicle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the twenty twenty one season was the first.
Speaker 3: So I stayed with them for the entire twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two season. Okay, but the twenty twenty one season was
Speaker 3: where they started to turn on the jets, and I
Speaker 3: actually wrote a story for the New York Times that
Speaker 3: kind of that led to this book project, and so
Speaker 3: then I spent the entire season with them. I had
Speaker 3: deaf roommates, you know, stood on the sidelines, So the
Speaker 3: whole season, went to all the games and just this
Speaker 3: is great, just chronicled you know, this world that and
Speaker 3: this amazing quest that they had, you know, for the
Speaker 3: first time, well for the first time in California history.
Speaker 2: Well we're not going to spoil the ending here, but
Speaker 2: the name of the book is The Boys of Riverside,
Speaker 2: a Deaf football team and a Quest for Glory by
Speaker 2: Tom Fuller. Thomas Fuller, available obviously Amazon and all of that.
Speaker 2: It was published, I guess by Penguin Random House, which
Speaker 2: is a big publisher. Just a last question, since you
Speaker 2: chronicled the end of the twenty twenty twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: season and all of the twenty twenty two season. We
Speaker 2: won't ask you how the story ends because we want
Speaker 2: people to buy the book. But I'm just wondering, did
Speaker 2: any of these players go on to college and end
Speaker 2: up actually playing college football?
Speaker 5: But per chance or no, they did.
Speaker 3: They did the actually playing at Galadet Right now, the
Speaker 3: quarterback who's won really the star of the team. He's
Speaker 3: playing it alled debt uh, and so is his wide receivers.
Speaker 3: So they did go on and and I think they're
Speaker 3: doing pretty well there.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great, that's that's a great story for people
Speaker 2: to overcome these limitations that you know, people, all of
Speaker 2: us are born with limitations. I know that most of
Speaker 2: us have more limitations than than abilities. But for them
Speaker 2: to turn a limitation into an ability, it has to
Speaker 2: be a really inspiring story.
Speaker 3: And edge how long?
Speaker 2: How long has this coach been working there? I'm assuming
Speaker 2: that this coach probably is a long time coach. I
Speaker 2: have not read the book. I'm looking forward to reading it.
Speaker 2: Has the coach been there a long time? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, the coach is you know, entirely deaf as well
Speaker 3: all the entire coaching staff and all the players. And
Speaker 3: the coach is a terrific athlete who grew up in Stockton, California,
Speaker 3: and he had the same frustrations that the players had.
Speaker 3: He was playing on hearing teams and the communication wasn't working.
Speaker 3: So for him that two of his kids were on
Speaker 3: the team, and for him this was just the fulfillment
Speaker 3: of a lifetime that he could finally get, you know,
Speaker 3: an all deaf team and they could show that deafness,
Speaker 3: as you said, is actually an edge on the football field.
Speaker 2: So two of his sons also inherited the I guess
Speaker 2: the gene that did didn't allow them to. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that that was a something that could be passed generationally.
Speaker 2: I thought it was sort.
Speaker 3: Of a yeah, kenby genetic absolutely well.
Speaker 2: I never realized there was a genetic aspect. I just
Speaker 2: thought that that was, you know, the so called luck
Speaker 2: of the draw. Tom Fuller, I really enjoyed it. Keep
Speaker 2: us posted and I'm looking forward to your next book.
Speaker 2: What are you working on now?
Speaker 3: Just back to the grind. You know, I cover wildfires
Speaker 3: in California, I cover breaking news. I read about Gaza
Speaker 3: once in a while, so it's you know, this was
Speaker 3: a nice respite. This was great, you know, I never
Speaker 3: I didn't talk about politics with anyone on the team.
Speaker 3: I have no idea if the Democrats or Republicans. But
Speaker 3: now I'm back to the real world.
Speaker 2: That's great. That that is absolutely great. Look, Tom Fuller,
Speaker 2: I appreciated your time, and it sounds like a wonderful book,
Speaker 2: and I hope that our listeners head to a bookstore
Speaker 2: near there. I'll go to Amazon dot com, whatever is easier,
Speaker 2: But it sounds like an inspirational book. Particularly if you
Speaker 2: have a son or daughter in high school who's participating
Speaker 2: in sports. This this might really explain to them that
Speaker 2: the bad day on the gridiron, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of obstacles that other people are able to overcome.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Tom, Thank you, Dan, talk to you soon. Well,
Speaker 2: we came back on and talk about the world's best
Speaker 2: bull riders coming back to New Hampshire. No, I know
Speaker 2: it's going to be a little while this December, but
Speaker 2: we're going to talk with a professional bull ride to
Speaker 2: Senior Vice President Robert Simpson, and you can maybe put
Speaker 2: this on your calendar. Back on Nightside, my name's Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: Back here after a week and a half away in Italy.
Speaker 2: With's a really great group of Nightside listeners. I wish
Speaker 2: all of you could could have been on the trip
Speaker 2: with us. We really had a lot of fun and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that maybe right after the nine o'clock news,
Speaker 2: but for now, we still have three more guests coming up,
Speaker 2: starting off about talk about the world's best bull riders.
Speaker 2: My name is Dan Ray. This is Nightside and w BZ,
Speaker 2: Boston's news radio station ten thirty and your am dial
Speaker 2: coming back right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: There's a few things I've never done in my life. Actually,
Speaker 2: there's many things I've never done in my life. One
Speaker 2: of them is to ride a bull. However, the world's
Speaker 2: Best bull Riders are coming back to Manchester, New Hampshire
Speaker 2: for the fifth consecutive season with PBR Leash the Beast
Speaker 2: at SNU Arena a few days before Christmas December twentieth
Speaker 2: and twenty first, So we're still a few months away.
Speaker 2: You got to go September, October, November into December, but
Speaker 2: we have with us the Professional bull Riders Senior vice
Speaker 2: president Robert Simpson. Rob I gotta ask you in order
Speaker 2: to become the senior vice president of this fine organization.
Speaker 2: Did you have to ride a bull?
Speaker 5: I did not good for you.
Speaker 6: But you know that's quite the little intro and we
Speaker 6: could probably take care of that if he wanted to,
Speaker 6: you know, come on, come on up to Manchester.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no. I very much appreciate that,
Speaker 2: but I gotta tell you I do not want to
Speaker 2: get in. I gotta tell you I watched bull riders.
Speaker 2: It's the longest eight seconds in sports.
Speaker 6: From it, sure.
Speaker 2: Is give us a quick for those who are on.
Speaker 2: Everybody knows bull riding. But if you stay on for
Speaker 2: eight seconds, does it no matter what form you have
Speaker 2: or is it just the duration of time?
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, yeah, it matters what form you have. So
Speaker 6: you know the eight seconds to your point is I mean,
Speaker 6: it's it's forever on the back of the bull. And
Speaker 6: so you know there's a you know, we have a
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 4: Everybody that rides the bull gets scored.
Speaker 6: So that's where the style points on how well you
Speaker 6: control the bull, how hard the bull bucks, you know,
Speaker 6: all of the factors that go in to the ride.
Speaker 6: So from the moment the shoot opens to when the
Speaker 6: eight second clock goes off, you know, during that duration
Speaker 6: you know, we have four judges that are scoring the ride.
Speaker 6: So they give half of the points to the bull
Speaker 6: and half of the points.
Speaker 4: To the rider.
Speaker 6: And so if the bull is inferior, they're going to
Speaker 6: score less. If the bull is just you know, a monster,
Speaker 6: they're going to score more. And then if the rider
Speaker 6: is kind of hanging off the side, then you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, and not control.
Speaker 2: But but it makes that is where I would be
Speaker 2: for like two seconds.
Speaker 6: He's not going to get any you know, many points either,
Speaker 6: you know. So the riders got to show control of
Speaker 6: the bull and then also the bulls got a buck hard,
Speaker 6: you know, and so those two things coming together, that's
Speaker 6: when good things happen, and guys, you know, they won't
Speaker 6: have been What what.
Speaker 2: Is the career expectancy of bull riders? You know, I
Speaker 2: know that, you know, I think it's NFL players about
Speaker 2: four and a half years. Major League Baseball players maybe
Speaker 2: on an average a little bit more than that. But
Speaker 2: there are some players in the major leagues who can
Speaker 2: last twenty twenty one years. Nolan Ryan, Ran, Cal Ripken,
Speaker 2: Roger Clemens. What is the average career link for a
Speaker 2: professional bull rider?
Speaker 6: On an average, probably ten to twelve years.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, not bad. And and just like baseball, right,
Speaker 6: we've had some some riders that you know, have ridden
Speaker 6: bulls well past their forties, you know, competitively, you know,
Speaker 6: and still in the hunt and and so forth. But
Speaker 6: to your point, they're the exception to the rule. You know,
Speaker 6: there's you know, by the time the bull rider kind
Speaker 6: of enters, you know, say twenty twenty years old, you know,
Speaker 6: then say, you know, once they hit thirty, you know,
Speaker 6: they're probably on the backside of their career. And you know,
Speaker 6: if it's a couple of years, if it's three or four,
Speaker 6: so yeah, you know, on average, probably about twelve years.
Speaker 2: Let's carry let's carry the sports metaphor hell a little bit,
Speaker 2: because this is obviously a sport. When does your season start?
Speaker 2: When does your season end?
Speaker 6: Season starts the first in November, and we kick off
Speaker 6: in Tucson, Arizona, and then Manchester that we're talking about
Speaker 6: is the fourth event of the new season. And so
Speaker 6: by the time that December twenty and twenty first rolls
Speaker 6: around in New Hampshire, it'll be event number four. And
Speaker 6: then once the New year, roles were in Madison Square
Speaker 6: Garden over the first weekend of January, so we go
Speaker 6: all the way till May. And so in mid we
Speaker 6: have the World Finals in Texas and that's season, so
Speaker 6: pretty much November to May.
Speaker 2: Well that that's a that's a full full season. And
Speaker 2: your bull riders. How many bull riders do you? I mean,
Speaker 2: is it is it the same group of men and
Speaker 2: or women? I don't know whether we have the women
Speaker 2: riders as well, or is it mixing match where some
Speaker 2: people are on you.
Speaker 6: Yes, it's it's all male. And this is yeah, what
Speaker 6: we're talking to the event that we're talking about coming
Speaker 6: to Manchester is I mean, it's the best of the best.
Speaker 6: It's the NFL. It's Major League Baseball for bull riding.
Speaker 6: You know, we have different levels, Dan, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. So this is this is the major leagues
Speaker 6: right here. And so what we do is we have
Speaker 6: about thirty five forty guys that we kind of you know,
Speaker 6: take to these events and so we you know, much
Speaker 6: like golf, there's a standings and so they're all competing
Speaker 6: as individuals and.
Speaker 3: So if they ride, they get paid.
Speaker 6: If they don't, they don't, you know, much like golf.
Speaker 2: And you know, so you don't make the cut in golf,
Speaker 2: you go home on Friday after.
Speaker 6: All that money to travel and yeah, all that good stuff.
Speaker 6: So but yeah, so it's it's all male. Now there
Speaker 6: are female leagues of course, but we don't we don't
Speaker 6: deal with that. But yeah, this is the so.
Speaker 2: So this is this is up in Manchester. Everybody knows
Speaker 2: where the s N s n h U arena is
Speaker 2: tickets available? How do they? How do they get tickets?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 6: It is ways just PBR dot com, you know, it's
Speaker 6: uh got, yeah, we got. We've got a link there
Speaker 6: that will direct them. Or they can go to the
Speaker 6: venue website, you know for a n q U and
Speaker 6: then you know, always get them, you know, on the ticket.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure what the ticket platform there is at
Speaker 6: that at that venue.
Speaker 2: Well that's so they if they go to the PBR
Speaker 2: dot com, which I assume is professional bull Riding Professionals.
Speaker 6: Not not the beer, not the beer.
Speaker 2: B b R dot com and hey little early Christmas
Speaker 2: pres you never know, it sounds like a great family event.
Speaker 2: Something a little bit different here in England. We don't
Speaker 2: have a lot of bull riding in New England. But hey,
Speaker 2: it's available on December twentieth and twenty. First, I don't
Speaker 2: have that calendar in front of me. I'm assuming that's
Speaker 2: a Friday and Saturday, or am I wrong?
Speaker 4: That is?
Speaker 6: That is it's a Friday Saturday right before Christmas to
Speaker 6: your point, and yeah, it's a great family show. Yeah
Speaker 6: it's if it is. You know, if you've never been Dan,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying with your listeners, man, I mean,
Speaker 6: once you go, you're hooked. I mean so that we've
Speaker 6: that's why we're back, you know for the fifth year
Speaker 6: in New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: I mean, people, you just had a good turnout the
Speaker 2: last four years, and you know we'll have you back
Speaker 2: a little closer to the date, maybe sometime in November
Speaker 2: just in case people let it slide off that calendar.
Speaker 2: But people want to get good takes great December twenty twenty. First, Robert,
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the conversation. I learned a lot about a
Speaker 2: sport that I frankly don't know a whole heck of
Speaker 2: a lot about. But I certainly do admire the people
Speaker 2: who participate in and get up on that bowl, that's
Speaker 2: for sure. Again. Robert Simpson, the PBR Professional bull Riders
Speaker 2: PBR dot com we get back. We're going to celebrate
Speaker 2: a birthday. Smoky the Bear turns eighty and I found
Speaker 2: out there actually was an actual Smoky the Bear. We
Speaker 2: will get to all of that right after the news
Speaker 2: break here at the bottom of the.
Speaker 1: Hour Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know who the most famous person in
Speaker 2: the world is. Maybe it's the President of the United States,
Speaker 2: maybe it's the Pope. I don't know. Maybe it's who
Speaker 2: who I dare say, Vladimir Putin. But just in terms
Speaker 2: of fame, I don't think there's anybody that I know
Speaker 2: of who has not heard of Smoking the Bear. And
Speaker 2: Smoky turns eighty years of age. Is it tomorrow that
Speaker 2: we reached this milestone with me? As straight you see Denisitch.
Speaker 2: She's the vice president Group campaign director at the AD Council.
Speaker 2: Tracy tell us, what is it tomorrow? The day of
Speaker 2: Smokey's birthday.
Speaker 7: Smokey's eightieth birthday was Friday, August night, but we're celebrating
Speaker 7: all year. He's turned eighty, but he'll be eighty for
Speaker 7: the whole year.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Obviously, we think Smokey the bear and only
Speaker 2: you can Prevent forest Fires, one of the most successful
Speaker 2: ad campaigns in the history of the world. But I
Speaker 2: was interested to find out that there really was a
Speaker 2: Smoky the bear, a little bear cub.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's right. So Smokey has become really, in so
Speaker 7: many ways, such an impactful you know, really had such
Speaker 7: an impact on the environmental protection in our country. And
Speaker 7: he's also really become a part of culture. And I
Speaker 7: think the living symbol of Smokey is a great example
Speaker 7: of that and one that we all really love. The
Speaker 7: ad campaign started in the forties. Smokey Bear was first
Speaker 7: featured on a poster with his now iconic tagline on
Speaker 7: that you can prevent forest fires, asking Americans to take
Speaker 7: care and recognize their personal responsibility in preventing wildfires. And
Speaker 7: then following that in the fifties, firefighters fighting a fire
Speaker 7: in New Mexico found a little baby bear injured by
Speaker 7: the fire, and they saved him. They named him Smokey.
Speaker 7: They nursed him back to health, and upon his recovery
Speaker 7: he spent He was flown to the zoo, the National
Speaker 7: Zoo in Washington, d C. Where he lived for the
Speaker 7: rest of his life and when he moved there. He
Speaker 7: became so popular so quickly that fans were writing him
Speaker 7: so much fan mail that he actually had to get
Speaker 7: his own zip code. So papropos to your introduction, Smokey
Speaker 7: Bear and the presidents are the only Americans who have
Speaker 7: their own zip code. And you can still write to
Speaker 7: Smokey at Kyoto is his zip code. And but of
Speaker 7: course we also now connect with his fans and his
Speaker 7: you know friends on social media accounts, and we really
Speaker 7: have wonderful ways of connecting with Americans and you know,
Speaker 7: ensuring that they have his message and his tips to
Speaker 7: help prevent wildfire.
Speaker 2: Now, this is a is a time of year when,
Speaker 2: particularly in the West, we see a lot of forest fires.
Speaker 2: There's that big fire in California, which, as I understand
Speaker 2: that actually was started by some guy who lit hit
Speaker 2: a car on fire. I think it was his mother's
Speaker 2: car and he rolled it into the woods. And the
Speaker 2: amount of damage that is done by these fires, obviously
Speaker 2: you know that was intentionally set. But on an average year,
Speaker 2: how much acreage do we lose in this country to
Speaker 2: forest fires? It has to be a huge number.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there's some of us do exist. I don't have
Speaker 7: I don't know the exact number, but I can say
Speaker 7: that nine and ten wildfires are started by humans, many
Speaker 7: of them accidental. And I think, you know, of course,
Speaker 7: our hearts go out to the to the communities that
Speaker 7: are impacted by these fires, and to the you know,
Speaker 7: appreciation to the men and women who are fighting those fires.
Speaker 7: And I think what's so empowering and special about Smoky's
Speaker 7: message is that he really gives us all everyone across
Speaker 7: the country something that we can do, a part that
Speaker 7: we can play in preventing those fires from happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the messages that have come out. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you don't throw a lit cigarette into the woods, you
Speaker 2: don't leave a campfire without really dousing that campfire. Obviously,
Speaker 2: all of those things are just so important. How was
Speaker 2: Smoky the beer to this day still on the air, meaning,
Speaker 2: in other words, does the AD Council is this literally
Speaker 2: a PSA or they w in which people can support
Speaker 2: this advertising. I'm confused by that. I looked for an
Speaker 2: answer and I couldn't find it.
Speaker 7: Well, yes, since nineteen forty four we've had our partnership
Speaker 7: with the It's between the AD Council of the National
Speaker 7: Association of State foresters in the United States Forest Service
Speaker 7: as well as our ad agency partner FCB, have been
Speaker 7: developing PSAs. So for eighty years now, we've been bringing
Speaker 7: PSA messaging to Americans across the country through whatever the
Speaker 7: most relevant and you know, prevalent advertising space is at
Speaker 7: any time, working with industry partners to get that into
Speaker 7: people's homes and across the country. But Smokey has also
Speaker 7: really become a cultural icon, right. He's been featured on
Speaker 7: postage stamps, people into outer space, You've let presidents, he
Speaker 7: makes appearances at baseball games and forests and parks across
Speaker 7: the country, and he has social media accounts. And I
Speaker 7: think we really, you know, are always looking for ways
Speaker 7: to ensure that Americans recognize that Smokey's message is still
Speaker 7: the same and it is important now more than ever.
Speaker 7: This isn't a message just for the fifties, just for
Speaker 7: you know, nineteen forty four when we first put this
Speaker 7: out there, but this is you know, really relevant and
Speaker 7: important now more than ever.
Speaker 2: Well, it's great, it's a great It's been a great
Speaker 2: ad campaign for eighty years, the longest running you know
Speaker 2: public I guess i'll call it a cubic Service Campaign.
Speaker 2: We know that there are forest fires where we have
Speaker 2: no idea how many forest fires or fires in wooded
Speaker 2: areas have been prevented because someone in the back of
Speaker 2: their head remembered the AD and the phrase only you
Speaker 2: can prevent forest fires. And maybe they did extinguish a
Speaker 2: campsite effectively. Maybe they chose not to flip that cigarette
Speaker 2: into the into the woods. So I appreciate you joining
Speaker 2: us today and give us a little bit of a
Speaker 2: history about Smokey the Bear. Tracy Sandwich, a Vice president
Speaker 2: Group Campaign director of the AD Council, Thanks so much
Speaker 2: joining us.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me. Happy birthday, Smoky.
Speaker 2: Okay, happy birthday, Smoky the Bear. All right, when we
Speaker 2: get back, we're going to talk about a very serious
Speaker 2: subject that rears its ugly head, if you will, at
Speaker 2: this time of year. Uh, and that is anxiety for
Speaker 2: some kids as they go back to school. We'll be
Speaker 2: talking with a mental health expert, doctor Vince Callahan, right
Speaker 2: after this quick break here on a Monday night edition.
Speaker 2: First night back in a while. It's nice to be here.
Speaker 2: I missed all of you. Loved Italy, loved Rome, loved
Speaker 2: the Mouthy Coast. But there's no place like home. We'll
Speaker 2: be back right after this quick break.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World,
Speaker 1: Nice Night Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: You know, school is actually believe or not resumed in
Speaker 2: some places around the country already, which I think is crazy. However,
Speaker 2: here in New England, kids to get back to school
Speaker 2: sometime after a labor Day. And I remember as a
Speaker 2: kid long time ago, back in the last century, leaving
Speaker 2: summer and seeing Labor Day in the rearview mirror. It
Speaker 2: didn't cause anxiety, but I hated to see summer end.
Speaker 2: And we're going to talk about kids who have not
Speaker 2: only probably enjoy the freedom of summer, but a little
Speaker 2: bit anxious about getting back to school. Little butterflies, jitters,
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it, call it with us.
Speaker 2: As doctor Vince Callahan, mental health expert, Doctor Callahan, Welcome
Speaker 2: to Nightside, Nightside. What percentage of kids in America deal
Speaker 2: with some form of stress or anxiety when those school
Speaker 2: bells ring.
Speaker 4: The research that I've done the last fourteen years shows
Speaker 4: me about seventy five percent of kids in a classroom
Speaker 4: deal with some form of stress. So at the very
Speaker 4: least you're looking at twenty five to thirty percent are
Speaker 4: going to deal with anxiety.
Speaker 2: Wow, so one out of four your students deal with anxiety?
Speaker 2: Is that a No, You've done this for a while.
Speaker 2: But are there any studies going back to the time
Speaker 2: of the fifties and sixties when some of us were
Speaker 2: in school, in elementary and grammar schools.
Speaker 5: I'm sure there are.
Speaker 4: I haven't I haven't found them, but I'm sure they're
Speaker 4: out there. Yeah, when we were kids. Because I'm sixty two,
Speaker 4: so it sounds like we're almost you know, I got
Speaker 4: a few years.
Speaker 2: On you, But go ahead, I'm on the wrong side
Speaker 2: of fifty. I'll just give it you that.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, we hated to see summer end, but we
Speaker 4: were excited about school. Now kids are worried about do
Speaker 4: I have the right shoes, do I have the right outshit?
Speaker 4: Do I have the coolest backpack? I don't measure up
Speaker 4: to other people, And there's such pressure on these kids
Speaker 4: to perform early that their whole self esteem is in
Speaker 4: the toilet.
Speaker 2: Now Why why is there pressure on kids in terms
Speaker 2: of outfits and stuff like that. I mean, I would
Speaker 2: think that the concern would be is who's my new teacher?
Speaker 2: Who are my classmates. I would assume that would be
Speaker 2: what most kids would be thinking about, not whether or not,
Speaker 2: you know, they were properly attired. Are we school?
Speaker 4: It depends on the age group when you get when
Speaker 4: you're looking at elementary school kids, you're exactly right, they
Speaker 4: are who's my teacher going to be? Who are my friends?
Speaker 4: Will they like me? Will they accept me? When you
Speaker 4: get in middle school kids, you're looking at will I
Speaker 4: fit in? Do I have the right stuff? Do I
Speaker 4: have the latest and coolest stuff? You know, is my hair? Okay?
Speaker 4: And then high school it's like, how can I get
Speaker 4: out of your kind of thing? But yeah, it just
Speaker 4: depends on the age group. But yeah, kids go through
Speaker 4: this where their biggest thing they're feeling is is kind
Speaker 4: of out of controlla a little bit. I mean, the
Speaker 4: two greatest needs any child has the safety and security?
Speaker 2: And what about if I make what about if I
Speaker 2: make the argument to you doctor that it's absolutely normal
Speaker 2: to have some anxiety. It's absolutely normal to be a
Speaker 2: little apprehensive. Look if you and I started a new
Speaker 2: job tomorrow, even though it is a job that we
Speaker 2: might have done for twenty or twenty five years, you
Speaker 2: get a little bit of the butterflies. Any athlete will
Speaker 2: tell you I get butterflies before every show? Am I prep? Right? Is?
Speaker 2: Have I left anything to chance? Isn't this part of
Speaker 2: just preparing to function in the real world? This is
Speaker 2: just normal? Or no.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna agree with you one hundred percent that
Speaker 4: anything new for a moment, you're gonna have anxiety. But
Speaker 4: there's really two kinds of this anxiety that we're looking
Speaker 4: at with kids. One is the normal situational I'm going
Speaker 4: into a new situation. How will I do and how
Speaker 4: will I cope? And that should course correct within about
Speaker 4: thirty days or less. But then you get the anxiety
Speaker 4: that's fear based. That is this whole what if there's
Speaker 4: intrusive thoughts I don't measure up, I can't do it,
Speaker 4: and it doesn't ever course correct. And now you're getting
Speaker 4: into generalized anxiety disorder even in little kids. And so
Speaker 4: I'm still going to hold my twenty five percent number
Speaker 4: or in that second category, which is unfortunate.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what can what can parents do if they
Speaker 2: think their son or daughter at whatever age you know,
Speaker 2: going into kid in kindergarten, elementary, whatever, what can they
Speaker 2: do to help the child get through. This.
Speaker 4: First thing is routine, and like you were talking about
Speaker 4: up north, you guys have a little bit more time.
Speaker 4: So the greatest thing parents can do prior to starting
Speaker 4: school is to go in and get the house routines
Speaker 4: in order, bedtime at a certain time, waking up at
Speaker 4: a certain time even though school hasn't started yet, getting
Speaker 4: them familiar with their teachers and what they're going to
Speaker 4: be doing. Kind of let mom and dad go on
Speaker 4: the web and look for what what you know, first
Speaker 4: grader go through to study wise and school wise. Because
Speaker 4: of the things that kids get apprehensive about is will
Speaker 4: I be able to learn? And what is it that
Speaker 4: I'm going to learn? So the biggest thing is routine
Speaker 4: and get a schedule going. Second thing is attachment or
Speaker 4: talk to the kids. I like to teach my parents
Speaker 4: I work with, don't ask leading questions. To go in
Speaker 4: and start with a leading statement, which is, you know,
Speaker 4: I know that you might be feeling apprehensive or a
Speaker 4: little bit anxious about going to school when I felt
Speaker 4: that way too, But and then you let them start
Speaker 4: talking to you and do leading statements instead of leading questions,
Speaker 4: because we know that when you ask the kid a question.
Speaker 4: He shutdown, says, no, it's fine, nothing nothing.
Speaker 2: You know what, what I found was helpful. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if I took both of my children a
Speaker 2: little at that time, little boy and little girl, when
Speaker 2: they were entering kindergarten. I took them to the school. Yeah,
Speaker 2: week or so ahead of time, when the teachers were
Speaker 2: prepping the school and all of that, and walked in
Speaker 2: and introduced them, figured out who the teacher was. So
Speaker 2: did this to take the edge off good idea, A
Speaker 2: bad idea?
Speaker 4: You a great idea, You're a great dad. That was
Speaker 4: the perfect thing to do, because that that settles that.
Speaker 4: Remember my opening statement, kids need safety and security. So
Speaker 4: if I take if I as a parent, take away
Speaker 4: the what if I've created safety and security?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like I like to tell this story. I've
Speaker 2: told it before. I remember my son was older and
Speaker 2: when he actually had to get on the school bus
Speaker 2: to to to go to kindergarten, as he you know,
Speaker 2: struggled to get up the first couple of steps of
Speaker 2: those school buses, which seemed to me kind of ridiculous
Speaker 2: they are so high for little kids. I sort of
Speaker 2: gave him a little bit of a boost and I said, uh, subconsciously,
Speaker 2: so he probably didn't hear it, but hopefully maybe I said,
Speaker 2: welcome to the treadmill of life.
Speaker 5: There you go, there you go, and then you go home,
Speaker 5: and then as a parent, you go home and you
Speaker 5: choose red or white. I did w I'm sorry, Oh
Speaker 5: you mean, yeah, choose red or white.
Speaker 4: You've made it to the summer, so take your favorite
Speaker 4: red or white and sit down to put your feet
Speaker 4: up and got through the summer.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a little early in the morning, you know,
Speaker 2: even though it's somewhere, it's after five. I did you
Speaker 2: go there? How could folks get in touch with the
Speaker 2: Dtor Vince Callahan if a, are you available to chatter
Speaker 2: or to us?
Speaker 4: The actually my website is doctor Vincecallahan dot com. And
Speaker 4: this is the reason that I actually just finished a
Speaker 4: digital book called The Family Handbook. It's a free download.
Speaker 4: They can get that. It's one hundred and one basic
Speaker 4: discussion questions and things and topics about the family. But
Speaker 4: they can reach me at doctor Vincecallahan dot com. There's
Speaker 4: a contact me little thing to spill out and give
Speaker 4: me your name and phone number and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: And I'm definitely love to talk to people.
Speaker 2: So it's all one more. Dr Vince v I NCEE
Speaker 2: C A L l A h A N traditional spelling
Speaker 2: off Callahan dot com. Yep, yep, thank you, joy this
Speaker 2: very much. We'll have you back. Thank you. If you'd
Speaker 2: love to come back. You're good guest.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. I'd love to thank you.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome, Doctor Vince Callahan. Okay, and we come back.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about tonight about really three things.
Speaker 2: The Stewart health crisis that's a huge story. We haven't
Speaker 2: really touched that yet. An article in the Boston Globe
Speaker 2: by Brian McGrory about the bike lane on Boylston Street,
Speaker 2: and also talking about can you steal someone else's idea
Speaker 2: as a presidential candidate. And we'll also talk about the
Speaker 2: trip to Italy to Roam and the Mouthfee Coast that
Speaker 2: I took the last nine days, ten days along with
Speaker 2: a bunch of night side listeners, and we'll talk about
Speaker 2: it coming back right after the nine o'clock news here
Speaker 2: on a Monday night. It's August the twelfth,