FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Todd Stacy talked about bridge repairs and gang violence - Midday Mobile - Monday 9-23-2
"There will be no personal nor direct attacks on anyone, and I would ask that you please try to, um, keep down the loud cheering and the clapping. There will be no booing and no unruly behavior." With that? This is painful, and it will be for a long time. "Don't trust, baby! That's right! This man knows what's up!" Overall, these are a couple of high-stepping turkeys, and you know what to say about a high stepper? No stepper. Too high for a high stepper. "This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065." "Well, Sean's a tough guy. I mean, I think everybody knows that, you know, Sean, uh, he took some licks, he hangs in there." "Yeah, what's wrong with the deal we got? I mean, the deal we got drank pretty good, don't it? Did you hear what I said?" "So, this is a Bade Council, I had no doubt about them." "That doesn't suck." "If you don't like it, you're bad." "Last question. Were you high on drugs?" "Last question. Tits my ****." Alright, here we go. Hour number two of Midday Mobile on this Monday, glad to have you along, and, uh, somebody texted last hour, I appreciate those, and, uh, hopefully we've got some of those things answered. You know what? I'm gonna do this one last text because this will be a good segue, a pivot, into a conversation with my friend Todd Stacey from Alabama Daily News in Capitol Journal. Joshua says this, this puts it in perspective, this is, like, Joshua and I speak the same kind of language. He said, "Dolphin Street in I-65, an airport boulevard in I-65 bridges," so, you know, those two. Some of y'all might be on those right now. Those bridges may be the same bridges that my family and I used to go see empire strikes back in 1980. I think the city-state government should be saving up for two new bridges there. It's all about the infrastructure, and when stuff comes at the expiration date on them, I was bringing in Todd Stacey from Alabama Daily News in Capitol Journal to talk more about that. Yeah, we've got, you know, we've got that money, we've got the gas tax money to fix all that, right, man? Isn't that all we need? It's only, um, you know, it's, it's interesting because I do radio and other appearances throughout the state, and if there's one common complaint that every area of the state has, it is, uh, a lack of infrastructure, aging infrastructure, some need that has not been met, and, um, everybody kind of feels like they're unique and have unique needs, and that's true. They are all unique, um, but it is frustrating because there's only so much gas tax money to go around, and this is actually, this is after they raised it in 2019. You wonder if maybe they shouldn't have gone a little further, but that, that was actually kind of asking a lot of the legislature considering, you know, conservative state like this. We don't like to raise taxes. No. But I think everybody agrees. Most people agree. Like that's one of those taxes that's just necessary. It's, it's really more of a user fee, um, but it is frustrating. I know, um, you wish we could wave a magic wand and make the, the, the bayway happen, make the bridge happen, but it's going to be a while. Yeah. And there's two, I mean, there's probably more than two things, but, you know, you've got new infrastructure projects, right? The areas are growing, uh, more demand this way, that way east, west, north, south, whatever, we're going to need new roads, but then you still have to backfill, if I know how to use that word, but you have to backfill the things that are already there that are, they had a certain shelf life. And I don't know if we had a, just a boom of building things 30 or 40 years ago and they're all coming to the end of their usefulness or not. I mean, maybe they need to start putting, uh, used by a cell by, used by a date on these bridges or whatever. But it seems like a lot of these things are hitting at the same time. Yeah. Well, when just think about the interstates themselves, you know, a lot of those, uh, at least the construction of them happen in the 50s and 60s, um, so I, I, I just drew about 85 this weekend to Auburn and, um, I mean, they're replacing, they're having to go through a, uh, tedious process of replacing all of those bridges because they're, well, yeah, they're, they're not falling apart, but they're pretty close to it and they're really dangerous because they're so thin. We didn't build the same, you know, size lanes back then. So yeah, it's one after the other. And that's what a lot of rebuild Alabama is going toward is not necessarily expansions and things like that, but, you know, replacing old bridges and old roads that have been dangerous. Of course, expansion is a big part of it too. And slowly, but surely they're getting 65 done, but, uh, there's not a lot to go around when at the end of the day. All right. And yeah, and I'm sure this will be something you and I, a perennial that we'll discuss. I hope this next story isn't a perennial, but dammit, it seems like it around our state. This, there would, this is like a story out of Southern Lebanon or Northern Israel. This is like a story out of a day in, in Eastern Ukraine, 17 wounded, four killed in Birmingham. I was like wartime stat. It's pretty awful at the very least. It's something we hear about in Chicago and have the worst of it, but you know, yeah, four killed, um, 17 injured, there might be more injuries. We don't know. Of course, there was a second shooting in Birmingham over Sunday and police are still trying to figure out whether that might have been related. So I mean, they, they did not hesitate to call this basically gang related because they said it was a hit. It was a hit on somebody, but if a gang has a hit on the gang, isn't that gang related? That's right. I mean, that's, I'm just simple guy. I'm just right. Right. Right. It was a hit on somebody. You gotta fit. You gotta imagine that's two gangs one way or the other, but the fact that it took place in a crowded nightclub tells you that this, you know, what I infer from that is this gang wanted everybody to see it, wanted to strike terror and to not, not just kill that person, but kill others, hurt others and really scare, you know, everybody. That's a form of terrorism, right? Yep. That's, and so it is scary and it's really frustrating how this can happen in Alabama's largest city and not, you know, in some kind of bad part of town. This is five points. Everybody's been to five points and had fun there. Yeah. That's, that's what's really scary. Yeah. I was talking about it this morning. I was filming it on the morning show and said the number of times cause I worked in, uh, for I came back home. I worked in radio and Tuscaloosa in Birmingham and heck we had like, that's where you know, whatever band we were presenting, right? They'd be playing somewhere at five points. I did more promotes there at five points in Birmingham, like it's like lower dolphin around here, you know, it's a, and, and we had our own issue here. Uh, back, uh, New Year's ago, uh, with the shooting, but I think this is like, and the blame being it's, it's all about the gosh, the Glock switches. Okay. Well, it's also the people pulling the trigger that have a Glock switch. Well, I'm, I've tried to read up on this, but I don't think they've, uh, have they said whether or not a Glock switch was in use, that would, in the presser, they had said something about switches and so, you know, I don't know if they've, because I mean, I know that bill's coming up, um, and, and we can talk about, you know, whether, you know, that's probably a good bill, whatever, but I don't, I didn't get the feeling that a, a switch was used in this case. I think you'd have a lot more carnage. Well, they said by the, I guess it was the reverse engineered it in the story I heard, or maybe I watched the presser on WVRC today online, uh, it's something to the fact of, because the number of brass, the number of, uh, uh, you know, expended shells there that this could have only been done, you know, they were deconstructing it. Okay. Well, yeah, that's the case. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one thing, but you're right. I mean, I don't think, I don't think lack of an oct, lack of access to a Glock switch was going to stop a gang from carrying out a hit on another gang. Now I think lack of a Glock switch means there's less collateral damage and there's probably injury injury. No, I, I believe if you don't have somebody, you know, with, there's no way I mean, you can watch videos, there's no way to do that accurately. The second they start pulling fully automatic with such a light weapon, it's going to rise, usually rises up into the right, uh, they spray all these other people. But at the same time, the, somebody who's a hit man for a gang, they're not playing by the rules, you know, whether it be a question about, you know, uh, Mayor Woodfin talking about the, uh, constitutional carry, permitless carry or the switches or anything, um, these bad guys are still going to get this stuff, right? We got to, they got to get them and put them in jail and keep them there. Yeah. And interestingly, last legislative session, um, the legislature passed, you know, a bill that was intended to crack down on gun, on, on gang crime. You and I talked about it. Remember that. Yeah. And it was, you know, the Democrats had some problems with it. Certainly it passed pretty overwhelmingly, but, um, one thing the Attorney General told me is that he's not sure that local law enforcement really knows in every case what all new tools they have, like that law and, and maybe others to crack down. But look, you know, in Birmingham, I know that's, it's true there, it's certainly true here in the capital city. They don't have enough police officers. They don't have, they, they can't recruit enough to fill their ranks. It's a, it's a really a nationwide problem. But when there's not enough cops on the street, um, you're going to have things like this. I think that's where you start number one. And also, you know, empower our prosecutors to it with, with sentences and the things that really put the bad guys away. You know, we talk a lot about, you know, some of our sentencing laws can be kind of ridiculous when it comes to minor stuff. Just, you know, tick, ticky, tack, things like that. But if you, if you're violent, I mean, I, I want to see, you know, the kind of penalties that actually deter something like that, they got to be afraid of going away for the rest of their life. Yeah. And beyond that, just the law enforcement folks I talked to is this even more kind of a pragmatic idea. They said if we can, if we can put them in jail and if you're a prison and keep them there, they're not going to be doing this. I mean, a simple, you know, deduction. They're like these same people are doing a lot of the same things. If I can put that person in prison, they won't be doing this going forward. Exactly right. And they've got to be afraid of that. Clearly, they aren't. No, that's, that's the problem. This is, I mean, it's something that, and you're right, it's not like it's never happened. I'm not saying it's unprecedented, sadly, but it is, I mean, it's like something out of a movie with 17 people hit for dead in an entertainment district. Yeah. I think how quickly that could have been 15 dead or something like that. And then, and then we're, and then how we're going to ask people and how, and how that's the thing we talk about on my show, just knowing some people have gone through this. People just say, well, they were shot, but survived. People get shot in the stomach, they'll never be the same. People get bones broken that have to be spliced together and healed. There's all these things that happen. It's just the people got hit and people kind of pushed past it. Yeah. And again, I go back to, we need, there's a couple of ways, I'm not a law enforcement official, but I talk to a lot of them all the time. And here's what they say, we need more cops on the street, that's number one. We need, in some cases, better tools to actually, legal tools, meaning to go out and actually crack down on them and put them, you know, lock them up. We also need coordination. We talk a lot about this, coordination between the city, the county, the state and the feds. Programs in a political environment where you've got divided government, they don't always work all that well together. I think, in Birmingham, I think they do, or at least they can, everybody working together to try to crack down on this stuff, but if you, if you miss one, you know, leg out of that stool, it really is, it is not nearly as strong as it should be. So every, all the law enforcement prosecutors actually working together to solve a problem can, can work, it just doesn't happen all the time. And hopefully this is a wake up call in Birmingham. I would, I would hope so. Let's take it to Washington, from your, your savvy with the way that Washington works. You know, when Speaker Johnson passes this, it's not specifically a CR, whatever the actual term was for it, it's a, it's a CR in for a limited period of time. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. So it passes this. And I'm reading the story this morning. I was filling it on the morning show. I was reading the story and it says, you know, what Mike Johnson did and then said, uh, both Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer said the plan was great or something to that effect going ahead. You know, you, you know, you're going to be in trouble with your Republicans when, uh, the plan that's passed has, uh, thumbs up from Hakeem Jeffries, a minority leader and Schumer's majority leader in the Senate. I mean, that, that just didn't look good. Well, what, what choice does he have? I don't know. But I mean, that, and I don't know if they probably did that by design, but I mean, you know, if you're like Johnson, you do not want the Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer going bad. Good job. Well, that's the, then that's the tough part about being speaker, but you know, the alternative is shutting down the government, which is never fun, but it's really, really stupid in an election year. Yeah. And, um, so you know that it's a last week they, they tried to pass the, you know, Republican version of a, of a, you know, spending bill didn't even get Republican enough Republican votes to pass. And it failed. So that's, that's sometimes what he has to demonstrate it's with a speaker with, you know, a five or four or five seat majority that they can't do everything they want. They can't even get every, all of the Republicans on board with the same thing. So yeah, that's, that brings back some memories, Sean, to be honest with you, like, let's put our version on the floor that the one, the one that we think we want and it won't pass. It doesn't have a chance to pass. So you got to do something, but you know, the kick the can down the road to December. I think it's interesting that it's December though. And I think that is probably a conservative when it sort of depends on who wins the White House, but, um, they didn't delay it until March. They delayed it until December, meaning there's going to be a lame duck session of Congress where somebody's a president elect, we don't know who, we don't know who, you know, what, um, party is going to rule come January. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens in that January, I'm sorry, that December lame duck session, because I'm, you know, a lot, I'm guessing the Republicans and Democrats decisions are going to change a lot based on what happens in November. So that's, that's an interesting date. It is indeed. Tell folks they want to catch up on what we're talking about that comes out in the email daily and tell them about catching Capitol Journal. How do they do those two things? Absolutely. You're going to want to get on the list, the newsletter list that's free. Just go to aldailynews.com. That's the homepage. You can enter your name and your email right there on the homepage and you're on the list. And yes, Capitol Journal is Friday nights and Sundays on Alabama Public Television. Pleasure is always taught. I appreciate it. We'll talk again next week. All right. So I'll be good. All right. We'll do coming right back. More mid day mobile. This is mid day mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 106 five right up 124 FM Talk 106 five midday mobile check him with my man Ron at Mobile Bay coins and find jewelry get the week started this way now. How are the precious metals markets looking here on this Monday gold is down 34 cents from Friday clothes still $34 and 35 cents and gold is up $14 trading it $26 and $22,600 and I wish it was $22,628. So marks you're still doing pretty good. All right. You also when you we talked I guess it was on Friday, it's interesting how all these things are connected. You said platinum and palladium had a little bit of a bump last week and maybe related to the drop in interest rates. Yeah. And platinum are both also a good good question there Sean. Only a few bucks plating is up $14 on the day, but it's back over a thousand for a while they're playing this travel trading really strong about $2,500 and it dropped all way down. Same as platinum. They were both sitting at $950 for a long time, which kind of turned a lot of people off on the metals, but there was movement now and people are coming in and making making purchases of platinum and plating. So it's nice to see the metals on the move again. All right. Come get that education like you all gave me on precious metals and maybe check out what their options are, how they find you. Come by the shopper located at 2204 government street in midtown mobile. They can find us on the webamobilebaitcoins.com or give us a call to 51 725 1590. Hey, thank you Ron. You're welcome Sean. All right. There he goes Ron at Mobile Bay Coins and find jewelry. Get to some text here, how far back, a bunch of these from last hours conversation and hopefully we'll get more folks back here after a few months here to put these or six months maybe to put these changes in effect for mobile and the lights. And then we'll maybe ask them again because most of these are directed to Jennifer White with the traffic engineering department. It was interesting to me, one of my takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer was how much of this is hardware. I don't know this stuff, right? You're riding down the road and you're like, yeah, this is frustrating. Believe me, it's frustrating to watch some light, not cycle. There's no traffic on a north and south road and you're on a congested east and west. And for her to say, hey, here's what's happening is we have lights that are not communicating with each other because hardware is broken. And then she did tell me off air, like how supply chain, like the companies that make the stuff that goes in there, how far behind they are. You order it and instead of like it used to be weeks getting stuff. Now it's it's way more than weeks, it's months to get the stuff in. So I will say takeaway, all right, to our most recent conversation with Todd Stacy. He said Chicago, Daniel said Chicago's got the harshest laws and look at their murder rate. Gun laws don't matter to lawbreakers. True. And Daniel, I'm 100% with you on that because I've said that forever that the bad guy doesn't care. Yes, the old, we're going to make this a gun free zone. Well, the bad guy didn't give a give a flip if it's the gun free zone. They're already there to do break the law. So but talking to folks here, if they can get it's really not even it's once you apprehend them. It's not a deterrent. I mean, Todd says it's a deterrent and maybe he can argue that more with me or debate it, not argue, but debate it with me. I don't think it deters. I don't think it deters the bad guy. Bad guys can do bad guy stuff, but talking to folks that have knowledge in this and law enforcement, they've told me what does work though, is if they can get these charges like they go with the federal law because of the the switches, they can keep them in prison for longer and just keeping them in prison for longer. I mean, so it's the Annias law part two, right, where you keep that person awaiting trial. You don't have them get out on bail if they have these extenuating circumstances and then they don't commit another crime. So yeah, but to say that the, you know, the problem in Birmingham, which led to this melee, blood soaked melee is about, you know, don't know, uh, no concealed carry permit, you know, permitless carry and switches. It's not now you may be in the past. You could have somebody who would have been involved in this. You could have picked them up for something else and they can still be in prison, maybe, but as I don't think it's a disincentive. I don't think the gangster thinks, I'll tell you what, I want to do this thing, but I'm not going to use a Glock switch because I might get it. You know, they're going to kill people. They don't give a damn, but on the other side, what it does make sense to me is if you can get these people on something like that, the laws are changed, then you can keep them in prison longer before they get out and try to do something like that again. So danger, that's, you know, um, let's see, if our dog said I watched Clint Eastwood's hang him high, if they get to, uh, if they get to walk out to the gallows, you might actually have prevention. You think, maybe, I don't think any of the, I don't think any of the bad guys think they're going to get caught, right? I don't, I don't think they go into it thinking, oh, well, I'm going to get caught. All right, you get back to the text line right after the news and we'll be right back. Hey, mobile. This is midday mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM talk 106 five. They'll say hello, along with me to my buddy, David McCraery at LCM motor cars and what's inventory looking like on a Monday? Good, Sean. We got a great inventory right now. We got a ton of trucks. We got work trucks. We got trucks for guys that want to have a truck, but they want it to look like a car inside. We got anything you could imagine. And we've got plenty of SUV small and large and cars. Okay. Also, you have a great selection of financing and that's one of the key things y'all do at LCM. Yeah. Finances. Things don't always be good every time we talk down and hopefully it stays that way. All of our lenders are buying right now really deep and, you know, come see us, just need proof income. If you've had some credit problems, if you've got good credit, just come out, we really don't need anything. All right. Things that come see you. We're at highway 90 and plantation in Theodore. It's one mile south of ITN exit 15A. You can give us a call at 2513750068 or go to the website LCM motorcars.com. Hey, thanks, David. Talk to you Wednesday. All right. We'll do. There's David McCreary checking in from LCM motorcars checking on the text line too. And I got a couple of stories, so I want to get to it. Coming up, let me just tease this story. And I know she probably can get frustrated because she'll want to talk about this story on Wednesday. And we can, again, Erica Thomas is listening, but I knew this was coming. I knew, I knew this was coming when outdoor racquetball started to be pickleball started being so popular. There's a story about how this is affecting people, how Americans are suffering because of pickleball. Pickleball thing, enough with the pick, it's every other person I talk to, man, pickleball. I'm like, come on pickleball. It's outdoor racquetball. All right. Let's say a name texture here said, Sean, this is nothing new. I moved to Baldwin County in 2016. At that time, there were two or more killings or shootings a night in Jefferson County. I began calling it Little Mogadishu. That is the primary reason I moved here. All of my children raised in Birmingham live in other states by then also. Pat says, again, Glock switches are federally illegal. All they have to do is charge them federally and then boom, no parole. Right. That's what they've been working right with them. I know that representatives of MPD have been on with me and I think sheriff's department as well said exactly that. We look at the situation in Birmingham and Mayor Woodford saying things that shouldn't be a surprise. I think one of the clips we played this morning, if I find it, Dan had it, he's saying, people riding around at night with semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons looking to kill. Yes, that's the problem. They're looking to kill people. The people are looking to kill people. I don't know how we turn this around. Actually, I did. I'm part of the presser today and I don't know who the officer was in Birmingham PD. Be sure sounded like what my buddy John Young has said on this show so many times. He said, you know, we can't, and I'm paraphrated, we can't police our way out of this. Right. I mean, they can keep making arrests and putting these people behind bars and hopefully keeping them there. But you have a cultural problem. Something has to change. I mean, you can't make a law, you make a law that says you don't kill people. Guess what? That's been on the books for a long time. You have to have some kind of cultural, you have to have a renaissance of spirit and reality. You can't require that you can't make a law to require that. But where does this go? I'd be, where does it go? And here at home, I'm letting this morning, here we go. Another child, nine years old, nine year old child, inside their house, okay, inside the house doing what you're supposed to be doing, being inside your house. So we go ride by, tough guy, goes riding by, shooting into the house and left the nine year old injured, not nine years old. And not the only nine year old that's been shot here and 11 year olds and 14 year olds. Her child was in the house and the time had the story, it's been a couple of years ago, we talked about the other day, I think with Sheriff Perch, and talked about a lady who was in church on her knees praying and catches a bullet, I mean, what the hell is going on? And I don't see how it's going to, it keeps building because one shooting leads to another shooting leads to another shooting. It's Hatfield and McCoy's speaking, speaking of sheriffs to tomorrow, new Baldwin County Sheriff Lowery is going to be on with us starting at noon. So we'll have hopefully monthly in the same way we have Mobile County Sheriff Paul Bertrand will have Sheriff Lowery on with us as well every month. So Baldwin County folks, stay tuned tomorrow at noon, he'll be joining me. All right, back to the text line here, Tim says, the police have such a hard time because the government takes away all their tools, takes all the tools away from them where they can't crack down on gang violence. They don't even want to be able to use no knock warrants. Remember, we talked about that before Tim on the show, like, if you were tasked, and this was when the Canyon Brown report came out and like, I feel so much for folks in law enforcement that, you know, you're told, you'll better get this fixed. Okay, we're going to get it fixed, but you better not do these things and get it fixed. Like which one, which one is it, I mean, it's not like you're, it's not like you're dealing with a bunch of J walkers here, 17 shot, four killed spraying bullets. You're supposed to put kid gloves on to deal with those people. Texture says also have a real problem with gun free zones without providing adequate protection since I can no longer protect myself. That's the way the law is going to work, right? That's the way it's laid out. You enter a gun free zone, you, whoever you are, and I would agree on that, that if you enter a gun free zone, like say you go into government plasma, you go through a magnetometer. Like if you're telling me I cannot have my concealed carry weapon there, then it's now you're, I go in the airport. It's now your job to protect me, but you're saying that the, but you talk about gun free zones, law buying citizens will say, okay, well, that's a gun free zone. I'm going to got carry in there and I might, my protection is now on whatever agency is in charge there, the bad guys, bad guys don't think that way. I'll just hold on. Texture say, some people are saying, what do you mean about pickleball harming people? Oh, we'll get to it. We'll get to the dangers of pickleball here in a second. That says my guns must be defective. Only one has pointed at someone and it didn't even go off. Michael says it's a pity, but until the black community on mass begins to respect life from conception until natural death, they're always going to be the primary source of violence of the community. Well, Michael, it's specifically like John talks about and drew and I did it's black males 15 to 25 years old here. It may be different elsewhere. I'm talking about here that lead the gun, and you know who they're killing other black people. They'd always, it's maybe scratch my head because they've shown you're talking about that. Yeah, I'm bigoted. First of all, the day I worry about being bigoted is the day I die. This is not part of my fabric, but how is it bigoted to worried about keeping innocent black people that are getting shot in this alive? I don't get it. I'm not going to be scared to talk about that because that's what's happening. And their victims are overwhelmingly other black people who I want to have alive and not get shot. My name, Texas, says, come on, the Hatfields and McCoy's just feet was over a hog. Was way more important than what's happening in Chicago. I mean, you ever watched that didn't it was a mini series. I mean, I knew the story. I watched some mini series on it where they dramatized it and it was like, well, they shot one of us. We're going to go shoot two of them. Well, they shot two of them. We got to go shoot for that. I mean, just goes on on. All right. The pickleball story is obviously I've got people worried about the dangers of pickleball. So Eric Itamas has a story up. You can read the whole thing over at 1819 news.com headline is pickleball injuries on the rise as paddle sport grows in popularity. Now, paddle sports for me and hopefully we'll get the interview here in just a second or things you do like in kayaks and canoes, but Erica says that the popularity of, popularity of pickleball growing across the nation, injuries from pickleball are also on the rise with an estimated 8.9 million pickleball players in the US or in a cult. It says in Alabama, pickleball is popular among all age groups. Although those over 55, they kept the largest demographic of pickleball players. The game's growing in popularity in all regions of the state. You can find both indoor and outdoor pam, pam, pam, okay. So here we go. It says hundreds of players showing up to the Alabama open and it says the pickleball is not typically considered dangerous, but according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, pickleball injuries have increased 90 fold since 2020, 90 fold. You see, maybe they'll have like departments like us, the pickleball injury department. It does say most injuries are not life-threatening, let's hope, if you have a life-threatening injury, somebody threw the paddle at you or something, most injuries are not life-threatening and tend to be an individual's over 60 years of age. Although it does say a Jacksonville State University student was injured in August and had to get stitches in her head following a collision with another player's paddle. There you go. Typical injuries reported in Alabama do not require stitches. It says, "Common pickleball-related injuries include ankle strains, knee pain, hamstring injuries, and elbow pain." So the story is up. I knew this was coming with every jumps into the new fad here and now we got Alabamians getting hurt playing pickleball. So there you go, eight point nine million, there's eight point nine million pickleball players in the United States. I think there's like, well, it seems for me there's eight million of them in Alabama. Nice. Tim says, "I got a buddy that's an orthopedic surgeon. He loves the new pickleball. It's making him rich." There you go. It's a growth center. Be right back. This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FMTalk 1065. Like 148 FMTalk 1065 Midday Mobile on this Monday glad to have you here and check in on the world's longest canoe race in kayaks. Water race goes on in our own state. We'll do that in a second. Across the bay from me right now, it's my man Blaine Price at Parrish Tractor in Robert Stale. What's going on, Blaine? What are we looking at on the... You had the great deal on the L-Series tractors? Is that still ongoing? Yes, Sean. So we're still all from the package deals on the L-Series. So if you buy the tractor with a loader and buy it, it can be in to implement the bush hog, box blade, disc, set of pallet forks, you buy those two implements with that tractor. We're going to throw a 7x20 trailer in for free on the build to make it a package deal for you, all that qualifies for that zero interest financing through the motor right now. All right. What about the rental department? How's that looking? Good. Good. We're stocked up in our rental department right now. We've got plenty of man lifts, excavators, skid steers, tractors. So if you're looking to do a weekend project at the house or if you're a commercial contractor, we've got you covered on a little bit of everything there. Good stuff. Tell folks how to find you. We're right here in the middle of Robert Stale Highway 59 at Parrish Tractor, come by see us Monday through Friday 8-5 or Saturday 8-2-noon or give us a call at 251-947-0171. Thank you, Blaine. Thank you, Sean. All right. There goes Blaine from Parrish Tractor in Robert Stale a second ago. So I had the story there that my friend, Eric Katama, sat over at 1819 News saying pickle ball injuries on the rise as paddle sport grows in popularity. I know they're talking about the paddles for pickle ball. So I think y'all are still all in a cult with this pickle ball thing. But I said, to me, paddle sports involve paddling canoes and kayaks and it's good to check in with Greg Wingo from the great Alabama 650 to talk about what I think is a real paddle sport. Hey, Greg. How you doing? I'm doing good, man. So here it is. How many years have we been doing this now? We are on our sixth year of doing this race. Yeah. And crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. I might have butchered it, but I mean, the great Alabama 650 is, I mean, it's the longest, right? It's the longest canoe race. So it is the longest paddle race in the United States. And it is the longest paddle race in the world if you are doing it solo. Okay. So yeah, so it's really long race. Yeah, 650 miles all incorporated in the state of Alabama, which is cool because if y'all look at our state seal, it's got rivers all over it. Where did the folks start here? People have not heard us talk before. Where's the starting starting gate? So it starts up on wife's Lake up in Northeast Alabama, and it traverses down the Cusa River and the Alabama River, parts of the 10th saw in the mobile, and then it actually dumps out into Mobile Bay and they finish at Fort Morgan, which is by the way, you and I end up talking about this every year. The timing of this race, there's that tropical factor. This also in the mix. And thank goodness, it looks like these folks will be getting finished before we deal with stuff at the end of this week. If we're people tracking them out, there's usually somebody or some teams that are way out ahead and then there's like a peloton, right, there's a grouping of people. Where are they now? Yeah. So right now, we earlier this morning, we had the race leader come into Watamka. And then we've got, just like you said, we've kind of got a kind of front to middle pack of about six racers that are coming through Lake Mitchell and Lake Jordan. So they're not too far behind the leader. And so over the next several days, they will be going through places like Montgomery and Selma and Camden and then ultimately they'll be in the Bay. And the way the weather's looking, you know, as of this moment right now, is that most of the bad stuff will be east of us and we should be okay. And so yeah, if anybody wants to follow along, it's at al650.com and on Facebook, it's great Alabama 650 and there's tons of videos and photos and interviews. But on the website, they can see the tracking map where you can follow up to the minute where everyone is. You can go out on the waterway and cheer them on. Yeah, when it's so neat too, as we celebrate the 650 and these Alabama scenic river trail, is there sections of this, right? We've talked about before that are pretty, they're rapid moving water and then there's still moving water for long. And then there's, you know, maritime crossing that coming down the bay and crossing over, you know, from Bon Secour over to Fort Morgan. I mean, I don't know if any of the race, there might be, you know, none are as long, but some might be a white water kind of thing or some might be a flat water. Can I get it all here? Yeah. I mean, there's really not another race out there that combines so many different types of water into one race and that's part of the reason that we allow anyone to change out the different types of watercraft that they use during the races because some work better for different types of water. And so, you know, racers also coming into this race because it's a long distance race, meaning of them are not used to white water. It's a, you know, just a completely different discipline. And yet when they are just above Watumka, they're going through what, you know, at times can be class three, class four, rapids. And so it can, it can get pretty fun to watch them going through there when it's definitely not something that you see. Yeah, you mentioned that. So people know that they have these at portages in different places where they do check in and then they can swap out, I guess, the boat they're in and also, I guess, get supplied. Yes. So they have crew members that are meeting them on land at the different portages throughout and they can assist them in changing out their boats and carrying their boat from takeout to put in along the way. And they're really just there to be somebody to, you know, refuel them and make sure that their rates are sleep and is in as good a shape possible to, you know, get down the rivers as fast as they can. Now, the sleep thing, Greg, you and I've talked about this before. To me, this is the scary element. Like I love being in canoes and kayaks and the water park doesn't bother me, but some of these folks, I mean, you get, they're not sleeping very much or in the tandem teams, I guess somebody sleeps in somebody paddles. I mean, that's the thing that scares me. How many nights you go without sleeping? Yeah, there's definitely a pretty big sleep deprivation factor in this race and it's probably something that it might be the most important thing to train for and it's probably the thing that many people getting into this train the least for and so has the greatest potential to take them out of the race. You know, paddling itself is only just one factor in being successful in something like this. You know, many of them go for, you know, a couple of days in the beginning of the race before they actually sleep and oftentimes we're talking about anywhere from maybe 10 to 12 hours total sleep over the course of five and six days. So it's a very, very small amount for the ones that are trying to win overall or win their category and yeah, I'd say the ones that are most successful are the ones that spend time really getting used to not having to sleep very much. Thinking about the places people come from, because I do know a text yesterday, one degree of separation, I guess if I know the guy that knows the guy of an Alabama guy who's on, who's in the race this year, but where are people coming from? I mean, they're not all from in state. Now, we've got about six people total that are from the state and then we've got people from all over the country, Missouri, Oklahoma, Florida, Mississippi, Washington, D.C. We've got a couple of racers, ones representing Germany, one representing Denmark. So yeah, so we've got a pretty good mix of people that are coming all over and it's about 50/50 split with brand new racers and then racers that are returning for, you know, aware from their second time to all the way up to this sixth time. And yeah, before you can do this, y'all, because I dug into it and hopefully here before maybe before I turn 60, I'll be able to make this race, but you can't just, like last year you're not talked, I want to just sign up, but you have to go complete another race to show you can hack it, right? That's right. We have about 20 qualifying races around the world that we recognize as races that are really good fit for somebody that would want to do this race. So we require that racers within a five-year period go do one of these other races. And if they do that, then we feel confident that they are prepared to do the 650. It's just a really good safety measure as well so that we don't have anybody out on the water that doesn't have business being out in a race like this because it is dangerous. And so you just want to make sure that everybody that is towing the start line is prepared for what's ahead of them. All right, Rhonda, of course, people can track along at the website and watch this, but your prediction as six years into this Greg, when do we see somebody show up at Fort Morgan? What day? I think we're going to see if weather holds out for us, we're going to see a late Friday finisher, probably sometime in the evening on Friday, all the way in to potentially early, early on Saturday morning. And based on the way the race is spread out right now, we can have finishers all the way in to next Tuesday, October 1st, hopefully sometime before 2.45 p.m., which is the cut off. All right. Well, we're watching them online here. Greg, it's always, I appreciate you checking in with us and exciting stuff, exciting stuff. Thanks so much. All right, there goes Greg Wingo, and we're out of here. It's AlabamaCenicRiverTrail.com, if you want to find more on it, or a great Alabama 650. Paul Feynbaum next. Talk to you all tomorrow. (upbeat music)