It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ Koston's Radio. Oh thanks a lot, Buddy, Dani's off tonight.
It is a Friday night, and we just don't know what's going to happen around here.
On WBC's Nightside, it's.
Been one of those weeks. You know, I spent a week in Vegas. Then you just never know what's going to go down. If any of you don't like me, you have this man to blame. Joining me right now is educator, politician, philosopher, Beer Drinker, softball star country music lover.
Have I forgotten anything? Jello wrestler Radio tak show host Rich Kimball joins us.
The reason I am in this business? Rich, Welcome to night Side, Jerry.
Do I have to take all the blame for them?
Yes you do?
Yes, Yes you do? And Rich listen. You can catch him online. He does a great job. Downtown is the name of the show that he does up in Vangora. He and Stephen King a drinking buddies.
So he works at Stephen Kings Stephen King's tax right off. Is that what that ready to say? Anyway?
No, no, no, no, no, what's what's the what's the website.
No?
If people want to check out.
Richie Downtown with rich Kimball dot com.
There you go. It's that simple. So he has great guests on and he's a good friend of me.
It did, by the way, a great interview. We did an hour with Dwight Evans talking about his new book and it was great.
Oh who do you write it with?
Eric Sherman?
Okay, I don't know him, but yeah, Doe, he's one of the best.
You know, he's such a gentleman and his I don't want to get off topic, but well, who cares, what the hell? But the thing about Evans that people I think are coming to know is his off field.
Life was brutal. I mean, as a parent, just brutal.
Yeah, I mean I knew, I knew that his boys had some issues, but I have no idea that you know, there were nights when he would be in the hospital all night and leave the hospital and go to Fenway for a game that was in years of that.
I mean, one of my favorite Red Sox players. You know, you always have those group of players which you were. They're not Hall of famers, you know, they're not the they're not the big stars.
They're not like the.
Yaz or the you know, the Clemmens if you will, or those, But there's the next level guys. You know Tim Wakeful who we all loved, God bless him, we miss him. He was one of those guys, you know. And Evans was the same thing and had perhaps probably I mean you know, better than me, the greatest right arm, the greatest arm ever in the outfield?
Was there any he and Clemente.
I would I would say in my lifetime absolutely. Yeah.
Well, Richard's here to talk about educating the youth of America because he's such a great role model. And Richie and I start to have a debate on the phone the other day. We were talking about Generation gen Z and you how many years as a teacher and administrator up in Brewer Bruin.
Banker thirty five years?
Amazing?
And I remember when you were at Boys State. That's when I first met you, when you were a role model.
But you have an interesting thing.
And not only was I role model, but you were selected as a future leader of America by your school.
Yeah, but it was Mexico made. It wasn't It wasn't a hard pick. It wasn't hard I believe me. If I had lived in Rumford across the river, I wouldn't have made it. So this generation, and I've been teaching at Emerson, and this generation is getting a rap, a bad rap in the eyes of some. You may be one of not having a proper work ethic like we did.
And how do you respond to that absolute nonsense? And I've told you before, I always think back on the movie The Breakfast Club when the assistant principal is talking to the custodian. He says, ah, the kids have changed. The custodian says, the kids haven't changed, deck, You've changed. You know, kids, they have different circumstances in life today. Kids are the same as they have or were. And you know, there are hard workers. There are kids who
look for shortcuts. There are kids who get others to do their work for them, and then there are kids who who don't do much at all. But I haven't seen any change in the percentages of kids in each of those groups. And the hardest workers, I think work as hard as they ever did, and in some ways they're a lot better at it. And technology social media
being one of those ways. I find that high school age kids much more savvy about technology and social media than their parents' generation is, and so they come with a lot of skills.
Yeah, I mean when you're talking about obviously social media things are expertited, quickly, information, so forth on. But when you say better, in what way is there do you see other things besides the social media aspects? Basically, are you saying that they work smarter than we did?
I think so, and and I think it's because they've spent their entire life having technology as a part of things, and so they learn to prioritize, they learn to I think, use their time more efficiently, and they also have pretty good BS detectors, whether it's in terms of seeing things on a social media site that they know are just ridiculous, but also in terms of, and I think in a
good way, questioning what they're taught. I worked with a teacher a number of years ago who was teaching students in a high school class to memorize state capitals, and I said, why why are you doing that in the twenty first century? Unless they're going on Jeopardy next week? Why are we spending time on find on their phone in ten seconds? Because it's not all about we're not
supposed to be teaching rote memorization. Now there's some of that that can be a building block of education, but we want to teach skills that can translate into the contemporary world. We want to teach them problem solving and let's not bog them down with the memorization of facts that they can find easily using technology. And kids saw through that. Kids are like, yeah, why do I really need to know that? And if I do, I can find it pretty quickly somewhere else.
Well, yes, you can use that information either on Jeopardy or on Thursday Nights trivia nights for free pitches of beer at the Orinoco.
But you know that was that would come in handy. But yeah, maybe that's why. Maybe that's why I'm here because I was really good at that, you know, the memorization of facts. Man, that was my week.
You were unbelievable. No, Kimball, Kimball, you were freaky. No, no, you you are often No, no, no, you're scary.
I mean the.
Trivia stuff, like for people Richie and I we had a we worked at radio stations music trivia. Dude, you I don't know what planet you're from.
I mean, you knew everybody no.
And some of that stuff is stuck, which is a little scary. Like I'll hear a song from the sixties or seventies or the eighties, and with reasonable accuracy, I can not just tell you who recorded it, but how high had got on the chart. Oh yeah, and maybe who wrote it wrote it?
Oh, that's no time.
But I can't find my way home at night, so maybe.
Yeah, Well that's trade off. There's a trade off. Rich Kimbell is our guest here, educator and TAKS show host, and yes, the reason I'm all here a guy gave me a job in college talking about the youth of today. Well, you just mentioned the BS meter, and you are one hundred percent right, because with my kids at twenty two, in nineteen and thirteen, I can't. I can't do it, and that they don't. They'll sniff it out on a heartbeat, especially the thirteen year old. She just knows if I'm
full of crap, and she'll tell me. And I don't know what that is. I don't where that courage came from. I don't want to call it a lack of respect, but I would never at that age have said something to my parents or somebody else's parents or I never would have thought that an adult was wrong, right.
Yeah, And that's I think the difference. I mean, I think we've always kids have always had that ability to see through things, but for generations you would never say anything. And I'm sure there are people who view that as a sign of disrespect, and it can certainly be delivered in a disrespectful way. But I think it's great to have young people that question, why am I, Why am I learning this? Why do I have to know this?
How is this going to serve me going forward? Because particularly in education, you know how it is, We've still got some people and some schools that operate the way they did fifty seventy five, one hundred years ago, and that doesn't work for a lot of kids today. And I think it's great to have young people that advocate for themselves and say, I'm not sure I need to know this. Could we maybe focus on some things that I can actually use in college, out in my career, whatever it might be.
Well, we want to get into some of those things.
Rich Kimboler is our guest educator and talk show hosts joining me from the great state of Maide right here on wbz's Nightside Gary Tangley for Dan Ray More coming up on WBZ right after this.
Now back to.
Dan ray Line from the Window World.
Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Educator talk show hosts Rich Kimball joining us here Gary Tangwing and for day tonight, Richie and you can check him out of Downtown with Rich Kimball dot com, and you really should. He's got he always has some terrific guests on there. Uh So, let's let's develop a curriculum. You, you and I are going to educate America. Like we talked about how they need to learn things that they can apply and education has to catch up with the youth. There's no doubt. And I'll give you some of my
thoughts coming up. But at the high school level, what do you think needs to be done? What is the curriculum that needs to be in place?
Well, the answer is I think that it's not one curriculum, that it's different for everybody. We always stay in education. We need to meet the students where they are. And then I was thinking about it during the break here that you know when I said kids are doing working as hard as they ever did and doing well and smart and capable, and that's true for the high flyers certainly. I had a kid who graduated last year brilliant. He was at Gates Foundation scholarship winner, full boat to Stanford,
did the Seeds of Peace program with international students. He's an actor, a singer, and a songwriter.
Doing it all sounds annoying.
Imagine doing oh very much. He was great. But we're also finding this, and I think it was exacerbated by COVID. All schools are seeing this around the country. Attendances dropped, We're seeing more and more students who miss more school and miss school on a regular basis, and I think we've got to find ways to reach those students in the middle that maybe don't always have a connection, that don't want to go to college, aren't looking for a
four year degree. I know, on our school system and some others in Maine, we've taken a different approach to things that we started with I think five or six other schools around the state something called the Construction Academy in the summertime, where students go off and work on construction sites and work with professionals in the industry, again supervised by teachers, with a regular curriculum but getting some
real world skills. Yeah. I had a student a couple of years ago who could I think he could go out in the parking lot and take a part of car and put it back together again. But before he could start working on vocational education, you know, he had to struggle through the regular curriculum and learn some things that a he wasn't interested in and be that he would struggle with. But he was brilliant in other ways.
But we have an outdoor education program that I think teaches some groups of students more than they would ever learn in a classroom, being independent, planning for a trip, organizing, being leaders, and so I think we've got to find different pathways for kids if we can and get them there sooner. Doesn't mean you have to decide at fourteen what you want to do with your life. But I think we've got a lot of young people that know, hey, I want to work outdoors. I'm not interested in going
to get a liberal arts degree somewhere. Can we point them in a direction sooner, and that's also likely to keep them in school and maybe cut down on the number of students that drop out or just plunk out.
Well, there's no doubt about because I've discussed that with people in my town and the town that I happen to live in. It's assumed, which I think this is gross, that every kid is going to college. And I've said this to people I go that discuss me because you're putting pressure on kids that if they don't go to college, they're failures. Where if you go to trade, if you go to a trade school, dude, you know me, I can't screw in a light bulb. I can't get a plumber.
There is a need in the trades without question. Where you don't have the school loan right you go to work right away. I mean the plumber I had forever before I had to find a new one. He was an accountant. He went to Bentley, did it for a year, hated it, but because he'd worked as a plumber in the summer, just started his own plumbing business. So there's a tremendous opportunity in what I would call the non
collegiate avenue. And there's a huge void to fill because on the other end, rich when you have people coming out of college.
There's a glot. There's too many kids and not enough jobs.
Well, yeah. I remember years ago I had a student make a disparaging comment about one of the kids going to the vocational school, and I said, yeah, yeah, the big difference between between him and those people are going to go get a liberal arts degree. He's going to get a job when he gets out, there's no question. And some others of you will have a four year degree going welcome to Walmart Man, I help.
You, there's no question. And you're going to owe two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in school loans if your parents weren't able to pay it, and you.
Know, doing it non traditionally. I was a good enough student in high school. I was a terrible student when I started college. I hadn't really learned how to study when I was in high school, and you know, as you know, I was working radio and TV a million hours a week. That was fun, and they were giving me money, and the classes were not so fun, and I was having to give them money for it. And it took me a while to figure out how to
be a good college student. And it was only when I went back after several years and had to finish up my degree to become a teacher at twenty nine. I was a good college student at eighteen. I wasn't. And it's not for everybody, and not everybody is ready at that age.
Well, the value of college is always a huge debate, and it's becoming one now because it's so damn expensive where you have universities that are charging eighty ninety thousand dollars a year, and I look at it even in my own household, and I'm like, wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Well, yeah, we always used to say, you know, being having a college degree can add a million dollars to your income over the course of your life. But if you spend three hundred to five hundred thousand dollars on college, now you go in debt, and of course your interest is going to make it much higher than that, and you've delayed your earning by four or five years. I'm not sure who makes out better in that deal.
Yeah, No, I mean, and I've had I've had this discussion with administrators because I am teaching at Emerson. When I teach at Emerson, I told them, look, I'm not an out of the book guy. Now I do have some intro courses this semester, so it's going to be a little more elementary because the kids they're freshmen and
you need that. You need a base, right. But I teach based on my experience, and the kids also teach me because I'll tell you rich when you go in and they say, well, Gary, you've been on TV and blah blah blah blah blahlah blah blah blah, and then I you know, twenty five out of the twenty seven students don't listen to radio.
They don't really care.
You know, do you have a TikTok account, mister tangwy, I go never when don't.
Come each time?
There are people that don't listen to radio. What is this?
Yeah?
Yeah, I mean look even I mean at WBZ, I know, I know I'll take crap for this, but our podcast, I mean this.
I always say to build my boss. Here I go.
We do this show so you can upload it and people can listen to when they want.
I mean, that's yeah, that's what we do.
That's what you do days, right.
I mean, that's what you do. That's what we do.
I mean people might be listening to me now, but they're going to be also listening tomorrow when they're on the treadmill or whatever. That's that's just the way of the world right now. So you know, even as a teacher, I have to get up to speed with it. And you know, when you look at the price of college, you know, it's a big debate. Man, it's a do
you go into debt? And the thing that still hasn't changed for the networking and also if you're not a trades person and you do want to do certain things, you still need the college degree because you have to prove that you.
Have the aptitude to do it.
I mean that that hasn't changed, correct, I mean you're not walking into corporate America without a degree.
No. But I think we need to put more funding into things like community college programs where it can be affordable and where students can go for a couple of years or so. Did you know, Well, I think you probably did. But I know a lot of people when they start college, they don't know what they want to do.
I think i'd change majors about four times. If you can go to community college for a couple of years and until you've got a bit more direction, transfer some of those credits and then go to a four year school. But to make it more affordable and more reasonable for people. And I think, you know, particularly state universities find a way to bring tuition back into the ballpark where where middle income people can afford that and not have to be in debt until there.
For you, well, it all comes down to what I've experienced riches, It all comes down to it's the networking. I've talked to parents. Now, I go, why are you paying X to go to any They'll say the network. You know, I've experienced somewhat with my kids in some levels where their their school background. I won't get into specifics, but because of where they went, there's a.
Huge there's a huge wall street like an action, you know. And I'm like, do I have to pay two hundred twenty fifty thousand dollars or whatever so my kid can get an internship? And some will say yes, or to get your foot in the door? You know that.
Well now I used to say, and maybe maybe it's not true anymore. I used to say to students that college is all about you. If you're getting a bachelor's degree, it's what you put into it. You can get a great education at a whole lot of places. A state school or an IVY League school. And I don't know that a lot of employers maybe they do now, I don't know that a lot of employers differentiate when they see those applications come in and go, oh, oh you
went you went there? Okay for a master's degree. Yes, where you're really honing in on something specific that you want to study, then I can see it making a difference. Maybe that's changed. I don't honestly know if that's the case anymore.
My experience as a parent of dealing with education is the IVY do matter. H don't matter if you want.
To go to law school.
They they do still have some weight, But that's it as far as I'm concerned.
Maybe some nest cat schools.
But like you know, if it then to me, I think it's all the same. Then you come down to well, the Michigan people hire Michigan people, you know, the BC people, I BC High higher, BC High people, you know, things of that nature.
I used to have bad I rich, you know.
I used to get so pissed off when I would come here to Boston because I was dealing with all my Syracuse cronies, you know, and I.
Went, oh, excuse excuse me. I just went to um zero kiss my, you know what?
So me.
Oh, I had battles, believe me.
And especially when I was working a Channel four and the Syracuse interns would come in and I'd say to the boys, okay, their mine, all right, I'm gonna I'm taking care of this this because it was a noxious you know, and it probably gave me a chip on my shoulder.
But I would deal with that, you know.
I don't I don't know, you know, but I do. I did have a friend who's whose father this is the way he did it. Guy's a doctor on the Cape and he's he's wealthy. Money wasn't a problem, and this is probably why money wasn't a problem. And he said to his kids, he said, the first two years you're going to Cape Cord Community College and you're getting all.
Your basics, which is what you're saying.
And he goes, then you're gonna tell me what you want to do. And two of his kids did that. Then they went to Tufts and became doctors. Right now, I see that as a good point, But then does that take away from the college experience, because I will tell you, along with working with you at you know, the radio.
Stations we worked at. The biggest education for me was this.
Very naive kid out of you know, Rumford, Maine who went on to become the social chairman of his fraternity.
A social adjustment for me was huge, huge, right right.
You know, So I don't know how you replicate that if you don't if you don't experience it.
Yeah, and you know, and I missed out on that because I was I was a commuter student going to the University of Maine, working radio and TV while I was going to school, and so I missed out on a chunk of that. I think I experienced more college life when I went back to finish up at twenty eight and twenty nine, and I was ten years older than some of the freshmen. But I've spent more time on campus and having more fun because I wasn't working one hundred hours.
Well, I think you made it to du once or twice, so you were fine, okay, shop, I do want to talk about writing, being the lost star at the attention span and how we deal with that.
I have some more issues I want to get in with you. Rich Kimberl is our guest.
Check them out at Downtown with Rich Kimball dot Com, WC and ZO and Radio out of Bangor, a longtime educator and basically a friend of Gary. That's why he's here. We'll continue the conversation next on WBZ.
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio, Very Tanguay for Day of Tonight.
Rich Kimmel joining us here educator and Tasha host from the Great State of Maine. Richie, I don't know if you have the exact number, but when you were in the.
Trenches with the kids, did you ever have any.
Stats in what the attention span was and was it longer than ten seconds?
Well, I like to think so. I always felt like this, this weird dual career of being a teacher and a broadcaster helped me a little bit in Bold because I had a loud voice. I would move around the room. I thought mostly history, civics, things of that sort through the years, and did it through storytelling and engaging kids and discussions. So I'd like to think maybe the attention span was a little longer than most and I was too loud for kids to be able to fall asleep,
so maybe it was a little different in there. But I'm sure there were kids.
You engaged with that tuned down, but but you engaged.
Try to and that Look, that's the key. That's the key. I always say, Look, if they look forward to coming to class, that's half the battle. And if they're I don't want to say entertained, because that that diminishes from the teaching. But yeah, if they're engaged, if they're following along, hey you might learn a little bit just by accident, by hanging in there and participating in the discussion.
Well that's my concern because of the attention span.
And even you know, I was with my son and I don't know if you heard earlier, but we made we had a little guys trip to Vegas and we were watching one of my friend, Tory Champaign's doing a documentary on the Grateful Dead in sports. Wait, it's in mid it's going to be great. It's you will love it being a music guy in a sports guide. It's coming out a minute in August on ESPN. But even Van, you know, he was really into it. He was in at the dock watching it and he still had to,
you know, look at his phone. You know, he would still look down at his phone and That's why, you know, when it comes to entertainment. Now, why the by Instagram stories? You know people look at those because fifteen second clubs.
That's my biggest dis is the attack.
You just brought up, the you brought up the you know, the thing that's sending off alarms throughout education. I know in our school district, in our neighboring school district, and I think in a lot of a lot of districts around the country, schools are seriously considering banning cell phones. Have to do it, have to do it. I understand we didn't quite know at first what it was like, but they are the single biggest obstacle to education in America right now.
And because we live in such a crazy world, in a sick world, because of the school shootings, then people who we've been concernedable, I want my kid to have a phone because I want to know that they're okay.
I will I will go back Tomber eleventh, two thousand and one, and in my own school, I could have probably counted on one hand the number of students with cell phones that morning. By the end of the month, I bet it was three quarters of the school. And we would explain to parents, we can get in touch with your son or daughter. We have a phone in every classroom. No, no, I need I need to be
able to talk to them myself if anything happens. So it was hard to battle that, but I think now it's been you know, it's been twenty years of this and it's not going well. And in a high school, I've seen students who've had their phones taken away, who have an emotional breakdown in the office because and with hands shaking, because they are so addicted to checking that phone, even if it's in their pocket. They feel that buzz, you know, they know they've got a notification and they
have to go to it, and that's it's bad. It's bad for education, it's bad for their social skills. Yeah, I've got you know, I got a ten year old and we've had that discussion already. When do we give them a cell phone? And my first thought would be never as good, that's impractical, But yeah, we need to get rid of those in schools.
It's tough to argue with you right now.
Rich My daughter just went to a week long workshop for ballet and that was the rule, you know, no cell phones. And I've seen situations now where I think you know me, I can't remember where I was reading. But schools will shut off the cellular capability. But if you needed to email somebody, or if you needed to get an email home, there was another way to contact your parents, or if there was something along that nature.
So in order to get to the point where you take cell phones out of the school to get some parents off the ledge, you might have to meet halfway some Well, I.
Think what we've talked about is, you know, they sell these little phone holders that you can put on the wall in the classroom, and so students walk in the room, they put their phone in there, they grab it at the end of class and go. You still allow them maybe to use them at lunchtime, maybe in the hallways, I don't know, but just you can't have them in the classroom. It's too much temptation. And I've said this
for years. You give very mature technology to immature people and the results are rarely good.
What do we do about the fact that this generation cannot write?
Is that true? Do you think they can't write?
That's the perception and that's what I've seen. Am I wrong? I hope I'm wrong? Tell me, I'm wrong.
I think it's like we were talking about before. I think the high flyers can write as well as ever, maybe better, because they're exposed to more through the Internet. That's the paradox of it all. But I think there are others that Here's what I think. I think the problem with writing is reading that people read. Students read, heck, adults too read less than they did before. I know myself, as a kid, I was pretty good at spelling. Why was I good at spelling because I read a lot
and I knew what words looked like. I knew just my feel. If I wrote something down to look at it and say, yeah, that looks wrong, that feels wrong to me because I'd seen it somewhere else. And I do think that's an issue that we don't see students reading as much, certainly not reading for pleasure like they did, because they have too many other distractions. I'm sure that has impacted writing. And I think, Wait, it's tougher than ever to teach. I taught English my first year as
a teacher. That's hard work. There's a lot of correcting in that, a lot of reading, some of it not very good. How in the world do you teach people to write with the presence of AI, Now, how do you know what's read? It's a challenge and a half more so than ever. It used to be tough checking for plagiarism in an essay. Now you have to worry about AI.
Well.
I had that experience in teaching at the college level, and you know, I turned to one kid and I said, I'm sorry, but Ernest Hemingway died.
I was like, wait a minute.
You know, come on, but you know what happens is you can't win. You just go, oh my god, you know you am I going to go around and police every student and check their computer and whether they're using AI or not.
I've had this discussion with my wife.
She's in the corporate world and she goes people using the corporate world all the time because it saves time. But I said, yes, but she's a phenomenal writer. But I said, you could write because yeah, I don't have time now, so I'll just do this. I go, well, the problem is is that people that don't know how to write are doing it, and that's the issue. But then the question is rich do they need to.
Well? And that yes, absolutely, that is the next question. And you know, I don't know. Is that like my earlier question about state capitals, that when you and I were kids, maybe you needed to know that because it was one of your building blocks, not as skill one has to have. In twenty twenty four, is writing going to be the same? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I hope not. I hope that we find the balance somewhere along the way, But I'm not sure that I have the answer yet.
What do we do for the teachers, because I think the teachers there's an enormous fatigue. I think that the curriculum needs to be changed up, not only for the students, as you mentioned, but for the teachers as well.
Yeah. Well, you know, we lost We lost a lot of people in our school district after COVID. That was the last straw for a whole lot of people. It was a challenge. I don't know. I know better, at least I can only speak for Maine better. Starting pay would be a good thing. Finding ways to take veteran teachers who maybe have burned out a little bit on the classroom, but use their knowledge and expertise in other ways, whether it's observing and evaluating or mentoring younger teachers. But
I don't know how we do it. It's not really like you can do flex time with school. It's not like you can work from home. I don't know the answer, but I think part of it too, and this sometimes gets me in trouble with teachers. But we also we need to find ways to get people out of the
profession if they're not good at it. That's part of the problem too, is that some people do it and nobody wants to be a bad teacher, but there are still people that are, and we need to work closely with I think administration partnering with teachers, unions, professional associations first of all, trying to get people to get better, but if they can't do that, then to ease them out and find a job for them that don't impact as many young people.
Well, the reason I couldn't do it is because I couldn't deal with the parents. And I've seen that where parents automatically think it's a teacher's fault and not the kids.
And it was so the other way around.
You know, if you got to if you've got a note home from the teacher or my parents got win that I did something wrong at school? I mean, did they were siding with the teacher like I didn't. I did not have a day in court, right, But and that is a.
Change that has I've seen that change in my time on education. When I used to be an assistant principal and I would my job was to call home when students weren't in school. And I called a mom one day and I asked about her son. Yeah, he's home sick. And I said, oh, did you you think that the bag of chips in the mountain dew and the walk in the fresh air would make him feel better? Long pause on the phone, I said, because I just saw
walking down the street doing just that. And she was a hesitation and she said, well, yeah, I told him to take a walk. And I said, I may be out of line here, feel free to tell me if I am. But when you were his age, if you had done something wrong, would your parents have defended you? And she said, oh no, no, I'd be in even bigger trouble. I said, didn't that work. I hear what you're saying. I understand, but it it's tough. I'm a single mom and it's a challenge, I said. I understand
I was raised by a single mom. I know it's hard, but it's only going to get harder if you don't start doing it now. Yeah, but I was shocked at that. I was shocked that someone would kind of lie to protect their kid in that situation because it never would have happened when I was a kid.
Oh my god, no way.
And the problem now, and this is a whole other topic for a whole other time, is that it's okay, our kids will love us.
We have to realize sometimes they're not going to like us.
Yeah, it's not our job to be their best friend.
It's not our job. I'm telling you. I've been through that a million times.
And I can be the most popular dad, and then all of a sudden, when I pull like the discipline thing, they look at me like I got three heads.
Like what happened to you?
You know, They're like, well, kind of, this is the way it is, guys, this is the way we need to do it. And after the thirty seconds they kind of come out of shock. But that's the problem with parenting today. And I will call all of us out. We want to be our kids' buddies, we want to be.
You know, yeah, And don't you think this, Gary, And I think this applies to a lot of areas. I think we see it in the world of youth sports. Parents are busier than ever. You know, when I was a kid, I don't know what the percentage of moms who worked was, but it wasn't that high. And now both parents are working. If you have both parents at home,
people are tired. They don't spend as much time with their kids as they like to, and so they don't want to spend that time fighting over every little thing. So you have to choose your battle along the way.
There's no doubt, Rich, There's no doubt.
And that's like, Look, when I got done, I said, I'm gonna stay home a while. You know, I'm gonna be the mister mom. And I do not regret it one bit. My wife does at times, but I do not regret it one bit. I got some final questions for you coming up. Rich Kimball's our guest check them out of Downtown with Rich Kimball dot com w Z. I went up there in Bangor, Maine, educator and radio talk show talk show host, and we're gonna do a
little bit and ask Rich about the presidential situation. I'm not gonna get too crazy, but a couple questions coming up here on WBZ. Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
All right, Gary Tank Way for day tonight.
Rich Kimberle our guest talk show host and educator downtown where Rich kimball dot com is where you can check it out. Okay, Richard, I gotta ask you a couple of political political things here. Okay, So coming up on the nineteenth, you have the Democratic Convention. You and I have had this discussion, so Harris is and she's gonna have all the delegates and you know, it's another party, it's another coronation like the Democrats, and I just think it's a waste of money.
But you know whatever, nobody listens to me.
But are you surprised how quickly she caught up? Because I'm not, because like it's neck and neck now, and what has it been? Has it been two weeks?
No? No? Because I think what was missing clearly with Joe in there was some level of enthusiasm and I think I think they did some smart things while people were trying to persuade the president to step aside. I think behind the scenes, the Harris people were working very hard to make sure all their ducks were in a row because what they couldn't afford to do. I believe this fully. They could not afford to have a convention fight and a splintered party. They needed to get behind
a candidate and do it quickly. And she was to me, the only choice you could have made maybe convention.
And I'm talking about for Gary's entertainment purposes. Only if you had the convention and it's done on the twenty second, and you've made a choice, right, So for three days it would have been nuts, or four days it would have been crazy.
Right, you made a choice by September first, if it was her again, you could have been tied.
I guess that's what I'm saying is it's just does it matter whether you made a decision now or August twenty second because of the immediacy of the media and the way things happen so quickly.
I hear what you're saying, but I think the last thing you needed to see was anything from the Democratic Party that resembled disarray, because we have never had a president drop out or even a likely nominee drop out this late in the race, and so I don't think you could afford to have a month of confusion, the appearance of disorganization. I mean that the Democrats specialize in being disorganized, but this is the wrong time for that. And that's why I think that smooth transition was the
only way to go. And clearly it's paid off and so anyways, were also she's raised what three hundred and fifty million dollars in a week?
Yeah, yeah, Look, and Trump I said this at the opening of the show. He should just keep his mouth shut, because I think there.
Can you just say that. But here's the thing. He's not going to lose any votes no matter what he says, because his people they don't they don't write a policy. It's a cult of personality. And frankly, most of the things he says, they're like, yeah, yeah, that's my guys.
True.
I wish I could. I wish I could say those things to people.
But there were some moderates I believe wanted to vote with the perception of their pocketbook that might have gone his way if he just kept his mouth shut. I think there were some undecided he could have got You're right.
The Trump people are never that's not going to change. But I think there were some people up for grabs that he may miss out on.
See I think the only undecideds out there were and still are, the people who are disappointed. Rightly so with the two party system, certainly a whole lot of people that didn't want to vote for either Trump or Biden. That's why I think. I just saw a poll yesterday that said, I think three weeks ago registered voters fifty four percent expected to vote, which is a pretty low turnout. Now it's up to sixty two percent. Try I believe
this sixty percent, I believe is the number. If there's a sixty percent turnout, then Harris probably wins in a close race. You get close to sixty five, it has the potential, at least in terms of the popular vote, to be a landslide. And so the more people that vote, the better it is for her. Because I don't think there are Trump people. There are Biden slash Harris people, and then there are a whole lot of people that
have been disinterested and just disgusted. And if you can get some of those people off there but to participate, many more of them I believe will support Harris, then we'll support Trump. And also, I think people, and we're already seeing in the polls people who said they were for Kennedy will bail like crazy. He'll end up getting two three percent.
I think, Richie, it's been great talking to you. Thanks for coming on downtown with Rich Kimball dot com check him out, folks.
We'll talk to you soon.
Rich Always a pleasure. Gary.
Thanks all right, ta for news on WBZ.
Good stuff coming up in the next two hours, including the conviction of Lionel Rayway Williams one decade