TAGQ (That's A Good Question)
TAGQ (That's A Good Question)
Buggies and Umphreys McGee
We drive the Driftless after a late night with Umphrey’s McGee and let the road pull old stories loose, from bike crashes and basement slot cars to a wild cat named George and the quiet joy of becoming a grandparent. Along the way, Amish buggies, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the honest comfort of unpolished podcasts set the rhythm.
• festival glow at a grass amphitheater with Umphrey’s McGee
• why the Driftless landscape feels different and holds sound
• Hillsboro Brewing, Taliesin, and car-camping culture
• curiosity about Amish craft, parts, and Sunday routines
• the new cadence of grandparenthood and re-learning care
• bike freedom, concrete gutters, and gravel-pit adventures
• basement ping-pong, slot cars, and an orange VW dream
• George the cat’s wild streak and what he taught us
• walkie-talkies, voice as company, and low‑polish podcasts
Yeah. Is this podcasting to drive? Are we recording? Yeah. All right, yeah. Maybe we we could do we could do like one part before coffee and then have a then, you know, and then have a break.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then the next part before coffee and after coffee. There'll be a lot of bosses in there before coffee. Yeah, people tell how the page picks up. So hi, this is you're welcome to uh That's a Good Question. And I'm uh Scott Johnston, who's uh usually hosting this with my son Ben. But today we're starting starting a new experiment where one of us hosts with one other guest. And this one I'm doing opportunistically uh driving through uh somewhere in the driftless region of Wisconsin with my friend Steve, who uh don't keep on going. We just went to a music festival last night. So who is the music, Steve? It was uh first of all, I'm Steve. Uh and it was Umfre McGee. Umfrey Umfreeze Umfrey's McGee or Umfrey McGee. I think, yeah. Uh Umfreeze McGee. And great music and trying to figure out if what kind of music they played if you need to jam people into a genre. Um I came up with jam funger, like something like that, sometimes encrypted into EDM. Jam phone psychedelic psychedelic, yeah. With EDM lighting. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Now we're desperately looking for a quick trip. Yes, we need to often as we as we drive through uh the amazing landscape of uh small roads and small valleys in the driftless region of Wisconsin. It is beautiful here.
SPEAKER_01:Unculturably beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:Really steep valleys that uh have been carved out by a little creek because uh their very mature drainage system because the glaciers did not come here. That's why it's called driftless. So this little creek has been carving away for longer than the ice ages. So I met Steve when we were three going on four, I think. That sounds right? Yeah, yeah, that sounds that's a sound alright. I don't have the exact name, but I I remember it was December, and like your your mom had Christmas candy, those hard little Christmas candies. Yeah. And that, oh okay, that nobody likes and spot every year and that's from away at the end. She also had that booze with the fruit in it.
unknown:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:What what's that? Brandy. Brandy. Okay, I I guess the directions are gonna get into the podcast. It was a cold winter in 19 I don't know what year that was, 62, maybe. 63 62 going on 63. Maybe maybe we're maybe we're stretching it a year. And now I still know him and he's a few years older. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. So let's call that's a good question. So what's a good question? Am I asking? Yeah, you what you yeah, you can make up a question. R structure that way. Okay, that's that's the whole point. What what's uh what's the favorite thing you saw yesterday? Yeah, I I'd say the band or the but the the sky, the surroundings, it was beautiful. Right, it's tucked into this little green valley. Yeah, it's just unbelievably gorgeous, and um but some other favorite things were uh Hillsborough Brewing. Hillsboro and and uh Tally at Tally Essence. Tally Essen, yeah, and we made a pit stop at Spring Bree to go see Frank Lloyd Braith's famous house. And you you in Hillsbroke Brewing you had some beer to honor my great uncles probably used to get drunk in the same area. Yes, we paid homage to that. I highly recommend the Hillsborough. A lot of different choices. Hillsborough. Hillsborough, I never know how to say it. The town where my mom grew up on a farm. Long pause, long pause, and I'm still trying to think of a question. Um I'm just starting. You also have to think of something to sponsor because that's like uh oh sponsored by you know we could we could sponsor out freeze McGee. There you go. There. There you go. I like it. And the Driftless music gardens in Yba, or is it Yuba? Yeah, the UC address is actually um, I think it's Hillsborough, but I guess it's closer to that whole town of Yuba. Yeah, uh Yuba, Wisconsin. It's music festival that have one show a week and they uh have camping there. It's like car camping. It's sort of like a mini with uh mini wood stock, I think. Right right now I'm slowing down because they're passing uh Amish buggy. One horse and one man sitting in the buggy. It was a good question, like where do they buy new buggies? There, that's my question. That was your question. Yesterday. I can only figure out why, where uh buggy that looked brand new. What do they where do they get parts or where do they get them when they need them to serve buggy manufacture still for the Amish someplace in the United States? Right in Pennsylvania. Theory's actually tell us. Yep. And this festival, they had a just a hillside of grass where you pull up and get assigned a parking spot, and then your camping place is right next to your parking spot, and you can drive out anytime you want. We went to the town of Hillsborough and then came back, and the music started at eight at this stage they have built so that the music goes up this hill that's also green and grass, or it goes out the back of the stage over the camping area and and uh yeah, the setting is a natural that looks like a natural amphitheater that we may just the um stage and then it kind of faces that hillside, and everybody can sit there and then I think the sound stays in there somehow. Yeah. But it it's uh nice setting too. This this is uh a long way to go without the when this gets to uh what else you've been up to this summer, Steve? Um boy it's been a busy summer with work. I'm still working, and uh but I had a granddaughter in A. And so that is that really keep us busy. We see her a lot, and we help out our daughter and son-in-law babysitting, and so we are there a lot, and they're over our house a lot, and so it's been fun. Now you're now you're uh a new kind of person.
SPEAKER_01:I am same old, but new.
SPEAKER_00:You're a grandparent.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's uh doesn't make you feel old to be a grandparent. That's what I was thinking, you know. Like how do I feel about that? I'm younger than you now. Yeah. More than two weeks younger than you. Oh whole bunch of buggies. It looks like they're going to some church today. Yeah, we saw uh four or five buggies just in the other lane getting and they're they look like they're all dressed up for their Sunday fast. It would be Sunday. So this all makes sense. We are riding in our own buggy that Toyota Tacoma. So these must be on the sh um yet another buggy, yeah. Nice looking strong horses. I think they're waving because they don't get many people out on these roads. Except they should get a lot of people living leaving the driftless music festival. And yeah, Altre's McGee and they're just six guys. No at least six, yeah, six, yeah. And uh they can play anything. Yeah, they they really do uh they cover some other performers real well, but then they have these really reflected cams and they're uh they all seem so talented and it just sounded so good. I think it was the perfect place to see a band like that. Yeah. Yeah. See you get to feel you get to feel this podcast thing, and it's like you're it's like you're sitting on a stage and there's like two or three people out there listening.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's all. Just two or three and you want to keep it moving along. Yeah, I've tried I've subscribed to some people that are just starting out and uh and I don't know if how much editing is involved, but it's interesting to hear some people because they it seemed like you know, maybe they weren't career or they just thought they wing and talk off the top of their head so that there's just losses and then uh you know they don't have any sponsoring exposed. Yeah. Yeah, so it's interesting to listen to um stuff like that. Yeah, that means you can get the really big produced ones and then they you know give you a lot of ads to have to fast forward over. Or you can you can find a podcast like this where it's just two interesting people talking or are are leaving. Yeah.
unknown:I was surprised how much I would really like that, you know, when I first heard about podcasts.
SPEAKER_00:I you know, a few years back I didn't really mean like what's you know, I don't get it that uh right now with traveling so much for work. Traveling so much for work, I really come uh in the or yes sometimes it can just be people talking, you know, not anything I'm particularly interested in even. Right. It's just that well, nice to listen to people their opinions and what they have to say about things. And you get used to used to their voice, and it's just like you always just listen to them talk. Right. Listening to them have a conversation. We got some horses here. Listeners who can and can't see those horses. They're nice looking horses. I'll give them ask for them. They're brown. And soon we're gonna hit civilization here. But right now we're still lost in the beautiful Greek valleys. I think that these are some of the homage places we're going by the summon plant. There's no wires going up to the house.
unknown:Good point.
SPEAKER_00:But it looks uh they're both definitive, they're nice, but it's uh I was trying to see if there was a way to figure out the difference. I guess it's just a lack of cars in the driveway and lack of wires going to the house. So how old is your granddaughter? She is three months old now. Just over three months, so it's been fun. And that and that first three months, I mean, uh the growth is amazing. You know, it's they don't have they're I don't know how to put it. They're just, you know, like until they're a few months old, they they're just not really too much emotion going on. They're just kind of I think they cry when they're hungry or they have to go to the bathroom where they're diversible or something, but uh um yeah, yeah, it's uh but now it's starting to get fun because she can uh uh she recognizes us and she recognized our voice and she giggles a little bit and talks a little bit in giversh, obviously, but uh excuse me. And uh yeah, so it's it's it's really she recognizes you? I think so, yeah. It's uh you know, I um you get a smile and yeah, yeah, you and you know, I she walks into her, not walking into her, but mom or dad carry her into a room and and everybody's hand that goes up to her and you know she she does start to uh recognize people and so yeah. But the first couple of months were not I don't I'm not so sure. Maybe the twice, who knows? But yeah, it's been fun. It's easy to watch her now. There's not much to do, just hold her once in a while. And did you forget everything about it? I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I did.
SPEAKER_00:I was uh a little bit competitive to hold her and uh take her out for walks or how I should put her in a crib or change a diaper. And uh now I've gotten a little better, and some of it's coming back, but now I'm getting uh educated by my daughter. Re-educated. Re-educated as parenting. She tells you she tells you how to put a diaper on. Yeah, that well, yeah, a little bit. But then it's also uh it's uh the stuff the technology they have for for kids is um that they wave that they're people. This is kind of magic what roads used to be like. Yeah, and they were gravel. And I just wonder how hard it was to get around with uh you know, like winter game before the plows did people just come out and crack down the snow and their buggies or their horses. Oh, they could have they could use a sleigh probably. Yeah, maybe that was it. There it is. They have something electrical going into the house. Maybe that needs to fall.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Wait, where where am I going? Did I do that? Did I do that for all? Oh, nope, I went on the right road. Keep on Kebel Road. We seem to we're getting to a smaller and smaller road. Yeah, I think it's like the people on the buggies are looking at a slight uh this is like a horror movie. Amish horror movie Sunday morning. They're all going getting lit into these deep valleys. No signs anywhere. Wow. They definitely are all out going to church. Their horses and their buggies. Excuse me. I gotta get that coffee in here, the squad casting. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Okay, let's take a break until the until the um and until we'll hold it. I gotta find the ad. Here we go. Perfect. It's recorded again. Only only twenty more minutes of this interrogation.
SPEAKER_01:And actually, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So the so the listeners want to know. What do the listeners want to know? They want to know how I knew you so long. Which, well, as we talked about earlier, I didn't get to uh across the street from Scott when I was Jewish Great. You moved back. You moved back, yeah. You were born across the street, and then you left for true. Uh or where did you go? Duluth. Duluth. Yeah, Duluth for four years and uh thing, right? So that's then it began there. I don't know if we saw much of each other because I it was winter. Who knows? But then summer came around, but I suppose. So what's uh what's the story from way back? I I can I can't I can tell one. I remember how we were trying to learn how to ride bikes at the same time. You have better memory than me. And you got you know started from your driveway, which was a little higher elevation because they put more they put more dirt on your side of the road, and you were doing fine riding down the street. I started driving biking from my side of the driveway, came out, and then we were biking down the street and I crashed into you. Well, I think I I surprised you remember that. I don't remember that, but yeah, I mean, yeah, that's that's great. Not that you grabbed it to me, but I can imagine I like wanted to like learn bike at the same time you did. So when I saw you were making it, that probably gave me the motivation to like, yeah, okay, I'm gonna go. The motivation in our house was you wanted to get out of the house, so it was like, okay, I gotta do something. There's this thing called the bike I hear that's kind of fun to ride, so uh and from there we just you know living across the street from each other, and then we were in every class together until sixth grade, so kindergarten.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:We were in at the same uh elementary school teacher. I remember I remember through fourth. Oh, was it through fourth? Fourth with Mr. Kop was the last one. And then fifth grade we moved to Mendota and uh Mendota High School M Mendota Elementary School. Yeah. And then we were like independent for the first time. You had whatever at Mr. Damp's grade you had who oh yeah, Mrs. I think half a class picture somewhere, and uh I used to know all about that. You have any other memories before fourth grade? Um you know what I remember was playing out in um in the street and in the yard when we were young because there was just there was a lot of kids around, so we were always playing in your backyard because you had a big backyard and fence around in our backyard was a little smaller, but we had a fence. Uh so I I remember that playing outside a lot. Exploring the neighborhood too, that'll be you know their neighborhood beyond uh where the house is clear, is um just I don't know, meals and gas, and so it was kind of a fun place to go out. The housing development was like built in the some California developer came to Minnesota and some farmer said, sure, I got some wetland, I'll I'll sell you.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sold off his wetland, his bottom land, and that's where they built this housing development. Yeah, it's uh interesting holiday with uh someone who uh used that piece of land, but I didn't hear it was all it was full land, and then they butt for it and built it up and then just every street time we went around a clock there was uh they were a little bit lower than we do you remember do you remember the gutter that ran through our front yard and across our driveways and everything and open storms or um but they were instead of a sidewalk that went through Scotland Street, they had a little uh spent gutter and it would let it rain, you know, and we there would be meddling with uh, I don't know, like algae or some sort of line. But when it rained you could uh go running down it and then just slide on your feet because it was really nice and smooth. Yeah, it was great for like making little paper boats and floating and yeah, yeah. It's every house on our side of the street had a soft puff because the basements were definitely below the water level.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so I think that's why the gutter was there was for the soft puffs.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I imagine this is something my dad who liked to watch the whole thing get dug and built. You know, as soon as they dug the basements on our side, which they did in one big strip, all the basements were dug in once, like a big trench. Oh, and I'm sure it filled up with water. And we were at the bottom of the street, so it's like I'm sure our base was all water, and my dad said, no, you gotta put in drain tiles, you gotta put in self-call. Yeah. I remember like you park of a bike with training wheels over this over this gutter.
unknown:Yeah. Remember that?
SPEAKER_00:And then you could yeah, the spit the training wheels would hold it the middle wheel off the bottom of the gutter, and you could bike and spit and spray. Yeah. Yeah. I think you came over and showed showed that, or your brothers did, or something. Yeah, and other things built out of boredom, but you got a bunch of neighborhood full of kids hanging around out in front of somebody's house. But bicycles were the liberating native uh freedom because you can go to other uh our neighbor our development entry sections, and so you could go to other people's sections, and it was sort of like uh seemed to me when I was younger like a big trim, like, oh, we're going to the other side of the beer, but it wasn't that far, but well, sorry, whole whole world. Well, and this housing development's all surrounded by marsh and farmland that we could go off and explore. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it, too. But then this one, you know, there was still uh I believe some active farms up there, but you know, we would both kind of run around uh at the summit and the beasts, of course, and then there would be these farmer rock piles that were always uh one place to Do you remember when I well I just fell into that like it was a little I knew yeah little pond of ice?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It was a little pond covered with a little bit of ice it broke through it you know, it was like two or two feet deep maybe. Yeah. But it got wet. Did you get wet?
SPEAKER_01:I don't remember getting wet.
SPEAKER_00:I that gave me like pneumonia like uh January of first grade. Okay. Oh boy. I do remember that area being it was kind of a bird. I think they got a lot of a fill out up for something, and then it was it gathered water at the bottom and it had some trees coming back out of it, but you know, sort of like a sand pit. So it um that was where the spike trails were. So again, it must be we thought it was really wild to go uh the spiking. We thought that was the coolest thing, but I never really did it. Well, no, maybe maybe when eventually I got to the bike with the banana seat.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You were way ahead. You had like the right you had a schmin bite and you didn't have a banana scene, I think I had to add it. Had to um bank my parents for that. But it was it was like a low it was a like a low rider, you know. Yeah, it was a lower speed, but it was sorted as like an Aberden bike, but uh yeah, when everybody started getting the um the funky um bikes with uh banana seats and the chopper style handbars that everybody wanted them. So when I got five regulars with bike outfit fitted with uh high-rise handlebars and the chopper seat. Then I took it down those things a few times, like in that you're talking. It was sort of the genesis of mountain biking. But makes me historically makes me wonder why why don't I do mountain biking all the time. Yeah. Like in the cabin that's surrounded by mountain bikes. Yeah. I don't know. Back then again, it was sort of fun to um it was how we got around the neighborhood and to go up to the little general store to get a candy bar. I was fascinated by those formations. Maybe that was the Frank Lloyd light that brightened me. I wanted to build houses in those gravel pits. Yeah, I uh often wondered how they I suppose they just kind of filled it in when they finished developing last year.
SPEAKER_02:But I uh was gone by then, and I don't really remember what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00:I remember when you had uh you can you can come up with memories anytime either, but maybe you maybe you forgot your childhood. Try to now we're crossing the Mississippi into uh we leave leave leaving Wisconsin going into what's the state called? Uh Iowa. In the South. Where I used to be from. I still am, sorry. Still from there. Ivy R is another memory I remember uh your basement. Uh I don't know that you guys had a ping pong cable, and we um sometimes co-opted the ping pong cable and set up race cars, buildable electric race cars. We had a little rim, yeah, and uh you put it in this track and and then the the track was electrified, and then we could race for hours down down in your basement, and then I think we even went to like the hockey shop and bought the little decorations and stuff like that, like a mouse or a ready. Yeah, but I remember doing that. Um especially when it was cold or rainy outside and it was like great thing to do because we if you could have somebody in the basement, it's all like admin space. I think we kind of had that because our house was always just like uh I don't know, we had so much you don't tell there that it wasn't that it wasn't that kind of basement. But your American basement, there's basement or something like that. I remember my car was uh orange Volkswagen Beetle and that that was just like the dream of my life was to like, oh, I'm gonna move to California and have an orange Volkswagen Beetle and you know it things didn't quite work out that way.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um did move to California, but did get a did get a Volkswagen, but it wasn't orange. I bought the Volkswagen in St. Paul actually, but it was reddish and then yeah, that drove it to California. Yeah, the basement. I played um ping pong. I practiced some ping pong on that table this year in the garage and the cabin. And when I was going through all the stuff, all of a sudden I disorganized, not with the organized ping pong stuff. I first thing I find while I'm trying to find the net and everything is this paddle that says S G on it. And uh the S standing for Steve and the G standing for good one. And I texted you. What did I say? Like you said, I God damn it, Steve. Couldn't you take me to get around and ship it? It is something that has been in my parents' basement since 1976. I became aware of it in my cabin garage 50 years later. Yeah, we had a lot of fun doing that down there. Um another memory that I it was all coming back to me now, and and you can make it part of my question that you ask me and you say the question is. I can cut the question in earlier.
unknown:Yeah, you can.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, quiz George is okay. Quiz George, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Is that a question?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh that you can ask me. Oh, I can uh I can tell you about George. I said George was our big white cat, the that you guys found at the cabin and that befriended him by taking my uncle and mom did this work to take a push fish hook out of his lip. Oh, I and then he hung around and we took him back to suburban life eventually. But I oh I at that gap and we have a big like two by three poster picture of of them. He he's the one the one photo from my childhood that we like want to hang up with that. Yeah. Well my memory at George's it was uh really funny because George was a different kind of dad. He was so used to living on his own, I think. Um, especially up in Nevert Wisconsin out in the woods. But anyways, um but you guys brought him home. But you guys brought him home. George kind of still wanted to live that life at sea. So you guys, I think, uh would you know let him out at night and then just open the door in the morning and he'd be there. And uh he George is kind of grown. So, anyways, when Scott would have to happen for uh some player would go some someplace that they were able to bring the bird, but Scott's mom always asked me if I'd watch George and I'd say sure. So he said all you got to do is uh um, you know, the first time in the morning is come over and open the garage door and Joel just around the out there. George will um just appear. And he didn't he did. He just came out of the key rouse and there he was. And then uh I so I just I I think just give him some water or something to eat or whatever like that, and then that it was uh that nearby at the door and then come back in the in in the afternoon or the evening and do the same thing and just open the door and let him breath.
unknown:So I thought that was pretty funny.
SPEAKER_00:They just like let him roam all night long and just uh open the garage door was basically it. Yeah, that roaming all night stuff, yeah. Pol only did it once we were gone. We usually put him in the basement every night, yeah. But I know we did things differently, like when you were taking care of. Yeah, I think George really liked that too, because he was really a roamer. When when we first got him, he like we were keeping him for a few weeks for my hand. We were like your whole plan was to dump them on us eventually, but then he like disappeared for like four nights straight. And when he finally appeared back again, and I remember it's like uh Larry Person was uh holding him and walking around the corner going, is this your cat? Maybe Larry had been confiscating him and hiding him for the past four days. Now that I'm thinking back on this story, he could have done that. He didn't have that uh train, I think. But the relief we had like when he showed back up, my my dad lost his fight. He didn't want to have a pet.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But he gave up at that point. It's like, oh, okay, these kids are really attached to this cat. That cat really helped me with uh fifth grade.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I could go home and share my fifth grade when I no longer had you to rely on. I could go home and share my feelings with the cat. I think we I think we determined that it was your cluelessness that yeah, you're so good. Yeah, that's uh you didn't know if I was sharing feelings or not, so it didn't bug you. I do remember that, you know, this is really the same thing as sharing feelings. It was about communicating. But uh Scott and I got uh walk with talking at about the same time, and I don't know what grade we were in, like third or fifth or second or something. We live right across uh the street from each other and we go home and say we'd see out the street and say, okay, let's uh talk at like turn on left things at eight three or nine.
SPEAKER_01:We see a bed at the end, uh what do you do on the umboy? Yeah. Um okay, okay. That's this is my state. And then in the morning you go to bed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but it was fun because it was like you were across the street and you know, we didn't have like electronics after day, so that was really uh We had we had nothing to say. It's like okay, I'll send you an email.
SPEAKER_01:We use like undervices. That might be I wow.
SPEAKER_00:Well as you can see by the timer, we're we're all we're all done here. Yeah, that no that was perfect.
