Welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota nice that it desperately needs. We are all in the studio. Kevin Gorg drove across country from Minnetonka to Matamedi during rush hour. I feel like I should be in Alexandria right now with, uh, the rate I made today, but I'm glad to be here. Love this studio. It's cozy. Remember when you were a kid and there was a storm out and you build a fort? It kind of feels like that.
It's it's, it's a little Ford ish and, uh, and Steve, you drove all the way from, uh, from your workplace, which is White Bear, Fadnas Heights area. Very close by, very close to the, to the meat pie. Yeah. Um, we get a special guest coming in here shortly coming into the studio. I would like to spend a little time talking about the current political season and the chaos that has come with it. We're going to be, uh, uh, visiting with my uncle, Harry.
Who was a very dear friend of George Latimer, the, St. Paul mayor who recently passed away. And what I loved about George was he was one of those politicians that regardless of where you were at on the political spectrum, you just love the guy. Yep. He was a, a Democrat, but he got 85, 90 percent of the vote whenever he ran. I think he was the mayor of St. Paul through the entirety of the eighties. Maybe the 90s. I should probably know that.
Well, that's my question because obviously I know his name and I, I even could picture him, but I don't remember what era that was for sure. The eighties I'm with John. I thought maybe it might've touched the nineties as well. Yeah. He just seemed like a first class individual. I never had the, uh, The opportunity to meet him, I wish I would've, but everybody that's come in contact with him says he was the absolute best. Yeah, he was the, uh, the mayor of St. Paul from 1976 to 1990.
Wow. Uh, a member of the DFL party, but I bet you there hasn't been a DFLer that's gotten so many Republican votes than, uh, than that guy, but. So he played the middle. He was true to his leanings, but was just so good at it. he was just such a likable guy and, uh, my uncle used to, uh, well, we'll let Harry tell us a little bit about that, but we haven't been in the studio together in some time. Yeah. Asul, catch up work. KG, um, you're wearing a new shirt.
That's your favorite shirt from what I understand. It is. Uh, according to the person I live with, I wear it too much, but, you know, Uh, we just have a fresh load of laundry that, you know, again, that we cycle back on Mondays. So it's a Monday shirt. And it's a, you know, Monday or Tuesday, it gets right back in the hopper. I went to Saratoga about a month ago. Everybody knows it's my favorite racetrack. The canoe on my hat represents the iconic canoe at Saratoga.
There is a small lake in the middle of the race course, and the canoe is painted in the colors of the jockey silks for the horse that wins the biggest race there every year, which is the Traverse Stakes, which happens this Saturday. And this just happens to be one of the better traverse stakes in the history of the running. It's the, all the derby horses tend to migrate to this race, but this year there's a Philly. That's one of the favorites named Torpedo Anna.
That's trying to become the first Philly in 109 years to beat the boys in the traverse. And when I was at Saratoga a month ago, we got to watch her run. As she just toyed with a group of fillies and now she's taking on the big dogs. So is she a big woman? She's good size, but she's more sleek. She's built for speed. She won the Kentucky Oaks. She's an unbelievable racehorse, but to beat this group, she's going to have to run faster than she ever has.
In honor of Torpedo Anna and the Travers, which happens later this week, I'm in my outfit. Well, let me just add, you look great. It's kind of a trucker hat. It's pretty cool. It's got a cool logo. It's very You got a cool You guys are something. It's a trucker type of hat. It's very cool, and he's got a long sleeved, cool, uh, logo shirt on. Thank you. So let me ask about the, uh, the fillies, uh, running with the boys. Nowadays, you have to identify a certain way to race in those races.
After the Olympics, and you know, there was a lot of drama about this, horse racing's different, and remember, these high level colts and fillies are all running now when they're three, and maybe when they're four, and maybe if they're up to maybe five, and then it's to the breeding shed. These horses are worth way more right now off the track. Then they are on the track. And so they're all running because right now the Travers is the race.
If you can get this on your resume, um, your stock and the breed, the breeding shed goes way up. And so I think good trainers with really good fillies that are going to run against the boys. And train fillies in the morning in their practice runs with the boys because honestly for both sexes it can be an issue. You know, again, think about a three year old horse as like a teenager, 17 or 18 year old human. You got those hormones running pretty wild, right? So it's a different deal.
And um, it's a big deal when the fillies can beat the boys. And it's always been my favorite part of the game because the first time I ever picked the winner of the Kentucky Derby, it was 1988. 1988.
And I picked the Philly winning colors and she went wire to wire beat the boys in the front end And I that really enhanced my Falling in love with the game and you've been uh entrenched ever since ever since I've been chasing fillies ever since so let me think about it So let's let's talk about this is we're learning a little bit And this is his peak. It's his peak season way sharp on everything, right? I am sharp. It's so interesting I don't know much about that.
So these 17 or 18 year old I know they're only three but you know in in human human years there. They're probably seniors in high school. There's this You Attractive. let's say 18 years old, this Philly that's out there and all these boys are chasing her, that seems a little untoward, Well, and that's the point, right? Like when you, when you look at the race on paper, you it, it does. It makes you think about literally these Colts trying to run down this fantastically talented fast Philly.
And, uh, yeah, it's, it's really something we don't see very often in our game. This, uh, this does not happen. Like literally this is crazy. Uh, unique in terms of the game. I've never even thought about this before. So you're telling me, um, it's, it's more often that they're not mixed. They're not, they're almost never. Okay. Okay. It's always males or.
So when you have eight races at Canterbury, which we will Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, most weeks in the summer, Four or five of the races will have all boys, three or four races. We'll have all girls. They always tend to run to know their own grouping. And that's just the way the game is. Yeah. They develop at different ages and you know, the boys are again. Like any other sport, like I guess big, strong strapping boys.
Can the girls give up it's the special girls in our game of horse racing have and can, and this one that's cool, this torpedo Anna. And if you, again, if you're into the game, like I am these, these moments don't come along very often. I mean, this, she's as good as any filler I've seen in, in many, many years. I think the last one was affiliated by the name of Rachel Alexandra and she beat the boys in the Whitney, which is. race for older horses. So she did something.
This horse hasn't even thought about trying yet. They're all three year olds in this particular race, so they're all kind of teenagers. Uh, this is a very, very extraordinary, uh, Philly for sure. Huh? Yeah. I didn't know that. How has the season been at the track? Have you guys, has it been busy? I gotta tell you, you know, the hard part of our game for Canterbury is we no longer have the partnership with Mystic Lake. They gave us a 10 year deal. A hundred million dollars.
That money went straight into our purses to support the game, right? The breed, the people that, that run the races every single day. And when you say purses, you're talking about Every day The prizes. The prizes for the, winning the race. So now, that went away a couple years ago. So we are kind of playing against a stacked deck right now. And I think the, the tricky part for Canterbury is they've had to go from 70 race days In the summer down to 54.
So we've cut 16 days, but the one constant I can tell you guys is our fans support the game this past weekend. On Sunday, we had the Corgi dogs and it's funny. You could put rate, you could put some of these fine three year olds that I'm talking about, including Thorpino Anna out there on a Sunday, and we'd have a decent crowd. You put Corgi dogs out there, you bring a couple of food trucks out there. And it was bonkers. So it's corgis racing.
So we have, we have horse races and then we stopped the horse races after race three and after race six, and we run different breeds. This was corgis. We've run all the breeds this summer. And then in each heat, there are six heats on any particular Sunday bet on these side bed and the dogs, little side thing, top two dogs in every heat come back. And so now you've got the wiener dogs, the Bassett hounds, um, the doodles, they all come back Labor Day. For the bark in the park.
When all the breeds get mixed together and they run for a championship, it is a big trophy and you can't get in these races. Like you have to start signing up on our website and win like a lottery to get in. I mean, this thing has gone crazy. People love doing it and the fans love coming out. So on a particular race day, like Sunday, Paul Allen will call the three dog races after race three, all called the three after race six. And it, the crowd goes bananas.
Like we had 12, 000 people out there and half the Corgis can't run to the finish line because they're, they're hearing that crowd and they're running towards the noise. It's chaos. It's awesome. How do I get my dog involved in that? You got to go to our website, Canterbury park. com in the dead of winter. And then when you click on some of the events you can see, and then you, And you put yours in as early as you can and you hope you get picked because they all fill up. That's fantastic.
So are these dogs, like, training to win the race? That's the thing. I mean, they train in their backyard, right? They have mom on one side of the backyard, dad on the other, holding up their favorite toy or holding a milk bone. And they hope they run on a straight line. It all sounds great until you get on that racetrack. And now it's like 75 yards. Turf. You can barely see the other person. Muddy. Isn't it really muddy? And well, it's deeper dirt, right? It's cushiony dirt.
Yeah. And then like, I'm not kidding. We have eight, 10, 12, 000 fans that literally, when I say ready, set, go, and those suckers start running, the place just erupts. And for a lot of these dogs, it startles them, but there's always a couple that just run out of thing. And so one of the corgi races I called last week, The 12 and I think his name was Phil. He busted out of the gate and he's leading and he's way, way ahead. He's running a straight line.
He literally got a foot away and he did a U turn because he got distracted by a Corgi dog that he saw on the other side out of his, you know, maybe peripheral vision. And he spun around and went back to see that dog. And then two dogs went right on by and qualified and his owners were sitting there going, well, it looks like we're not getting to come back on labor day. So are the, is there. Prize winnings for these dogs. It's more of a trophy.
There's not a lot of money at stake I think they get a they get like a hundred dollar gift card trophy Honestly the people like they have shirts with pictures on there, you know Like matching shirts the handlers do with the picture of their dog on they take it serious. They really do I also have a question for KG. This is kind of KG minute here. It kind of is. It's been fantastic I know well, this is kind of interesting. I know you do this, but uh, how does this feel for you?
You Because this is a live event, you're often on, on TV or on camera or, you know, on just, you know, through the microphone, but how does it feel to be calling something like that in a live setting where you have a crowd that's kind of connected to what you're saying, like, is that, I feel like you, I should have my red pants on. I feel like Johnny Clueless. It's kind of a, cause I'm right down there. Paul and I are right down in the winner's circle, like, like right next to the track.
And so we grabbed the mic from the winner's circle. The crowd gathers around and then we introduce each dog, like the number one dog, you know, John Schweitzer and they go, Hey, and so you introduce each dog and they go to the starting gate, then they run the race and then we call the race. It is just popping circumstance. That's not normally how you know, I'm usually up in that booth doing, this is a performance. This is a live event where you get an automatic feedback from that crowd.
That's got to feel great. It does. And speaking of that, I have to go here because. My all time favorite band was in town last night and I don't get out to concerts very often, but journey once again, last night at target field crushed it and I went, I went and I loved journey. I loved it. It was Steve Miller was cool. Journey was fantastic. They, they put Def Leppard on the tail end. And I think that was a mistake, my opinion. Again, it's all in the beauty of. Who's out there, right?
What your favorite is? I like Def Leppard. I don't love that band. My concert peaked in the middle of Don't Stop Believin towards the end of Journey's 90 minute set. They still have it and they're 70 years old, man. I had some friends that were there too. sent me a thing last night, too, and he said it was just fantastic. He said, think about these guys. He said Neil Sean was, was spectacular.
And you need to know that Neil Sean played at Woodstock with Santana, you know, he was like 17 years old. That's where he got his start. No, he started when he was 15, 19. I went back this afternoon and watched VH1's Behind the Music with Journey to get some background on that concert. Neil Sean started when he was 15 years old. With Santana because he was such a, uh, a talent, right? He was such a, uh, way ahead of his time. He left high school at age 15 to do what he's doing now.
And he never looked back. And last night, Def Leppard and Journey were talking about 40 and 50 year anniversaries. For their songs think about being relevant. I know for five decades. I I just I marveled It was a beautiful night for a show too. That's great. Well speaking of 70 years old. Hey and being relevant free transition four or five decades My favorite uncle, Uncle Harry, has entered the studio. Yes. Welcome, Uncle Harry. You gotta speak in this. Oh, yes.
This is a, uh, an audible medium, so it's much better when you, uh, speak into the microphone rather than nodding your head. That works. That, it does work. Yeah. So, um, I, we, we started talking at the very beginning about, uh, the passing of George Latimer. Is that my mother's? Is what your mother's? Oh, that's your mother's. That's my mother's. Okay. You talking about this table? Yeah. So Harry's never been down in the studio before. Oh, no. If he hasn't, this is a big deal.
I'm sure he's been Oh, boy, I'm telling you, I couldn't hardly sleep last night. Oh, that's Not just you, all of us. That's most nights. That's great. So, um, so Uncle Harry, as we like to call him, he's Uncle Harry in the, uh Uncle Harry is kind of a big deal. I like to, uh, I like to remind myself that I usually only call Uncle Harry when I need something. That's right. But, uh, before we talk about George Latimer, I just want to tell you a little story about Uncle Harry.
For starters, Uncle Harry, Sold me my first house that we're in right now. No kidding. And he even gave me the money for the down payment. Now that's a good guy. He's a good guy. I'm not sure I ever paid him back the down payment money, but, uh, I wouldn't bring it up then maybe you keep that out of the podcast. In addition to that, you still had a little buyer's remorse or what? I don't feel bad about it at all. I love this house. But in addition to that, we tore down that house.
Oh, and this guy. Helped build he really built the the house that I'm living in now. Come on. The guy's got talent He's got real talent. She's and you're kind of the the house fairy you built a house for your son Yes, you renovated a house for your daughter. That's the problem when you're good at everything like that. It's trouble. Yeah You get pushed into situations Time and time again, time and time again.
So uncle Harry, um, we were talking about George Latimer and I got to know him a little bit. You connected me with him. Um, I remember on a couple of occasions I went and picked him up for an event and took him to an event and couldn't have loved the guy anymore, but in the land of a, the political landscape that we're in right now, where people, it's just so divisive and people just seem to. Just, if you're a Republican, you hate those Democrats. It's too much, all of it, both sides.
And if you're a Democrat, you hate the Republicans. George Latimer was one of those guys that regardless of where you were at on the political spectrum, people just loved this guy. you talk about from a bygone era. He was the mayor of St. Paul, we said from 1976 to 1990. I recall that he won some elections with like 85 percent of the votes, which is just completely unheard of.
Tell us about your friendship with George, because I know that you, uh, you had a close relationship with him, uh, Spent a lot of time out on the lake with him. Tell us, how did you meet George? You know, I didn't meet George really till later on in my life, probably in the nineties. Okay. He no longer was the mayor. I believe he might've been, he always had these cushy jobs, you know, he, uh, Oh, it sounds like somebody I know takes one to know the family member of the cushy job company.
Let's not go there. But, uh, I think it was probably mid nineties. And, uh, in fact, I remember it with Nancy and George were up at the lake or not at the lake, up at St. Cloud and the building trades convention. And Nancy Latimer, his wife who worked for the McKnight foundation, I believe. And she was lovely too. Early childcare stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Big time with that. Bought him a drink, which was, you know, something that he enjoyed and, uh, kind of took off from there.
Uh, but just, I mean, uh, as I always said, it's one of the, One of the gifts that I was given because of my job that he became more than just, uh, uh, an acquaintance, but a friend. Absolutely. You know, welcomed into his house, you know, just, uh, you know, when he lived, it was great for me. So my wife, you know, actually likes to have a couple of herself once in a while. Okay. John's does too. So when Fern's was open, you know, her, they would have their gathering there with the geriatrics.
Well, that's what they are now. At the time, they weren't. Yeah. And I would drop her off and I'd go over to Linwood and sit with George and, you know, just, you know, knock a couple back and just talk about life and, uh, we just had a very interesting relationship I can't say enough about the guy. He was the most irreverent person I've ever met in my life.
The one thing that he did do a week ago Sunday is that, and this he would do with his kids, whoever, if he was done with you, he'd tell you to leave. He just says, I'm done with you now. Okay. Thanks for coming last Sunday. That takes skill. I'll last Sunday, but the Sunday before, you know, he was getting ready to go and it's the only time he hasn't told me to leave. Really? He said, he said, are you, are you, you're not going?
I, and I looked at him like, I mean, I've been here for an hour now. It's time to wrap it up. Yeah, but, uh, no, it was time for him to go. I mean, he, he'd been suffering for well over a year and, uh, We would talk about death as getting off the bus. You know, he says, Hey man, you gotta get off the bus. And he would say, I'm not ready to get off of the blankety blank bus. But finally he got to the point where he just said, you know, Yeah.
Well, he was, he was a great guy and he was good for the city and you know, you talk about What what civic leaders should be like I mean if there was more George Latimer's in the world Oh my we we'd be in a better place. Yeah. Yeah, you said he was you said he was really Frank Oh, so I just said so do you think that served him in his communication style or do you think that made people like?
If he's really that way and you're saying he was as successful as he was he It must have served him, right? Like, how do you, how do you balance those two things? Well, you have a public face and you have a private face. So his private face was very, you know, he was like somebody who grew up, you know, that was 15 years older than you on the East side.
Yeah. And then he had his, uh, you know, his, uh, his public face, which was always jovial, which, which 80 percent of his personality was that, but, uh, he, uh, you know, he had his way. Okay. It was, uh, But he was just such a kind person. So George, one of the things that he told me and we use this and, and I refer to George in our civility school. One of the things that he taught me was whenever you connect with somebody, don't ever say, nice to meet you say, good to see you.
He says, because you have no idea whether or not you, you know, if you meet a lot of people. You have no idea if you've met that person, you know, four or five times vague way to say it. I just burned myself the other night at a function by saying, nice to meet you. And I had met the person and I felt so bad. You probably called him chum or something, right? No, I just. No, it was somebody's wife. And I said, Oh, very nice to meet you.
And she's like, actually when Jordan was playing for the wild, I met you as Jordan Leopold's, um, Mississippi gardens. We have a charity event there Sunday night. Anyway, I, I, that advice is rock solid. Nice to see you. Yeah. Yeah. Nice to see you. My kids. I guarantee you they use the nice to see you. And they know that that's how they know George Latimer. Wow. My other favorite George Latimer story goes back to the Paul Wellstone memorial service that was on TV.
And if you recall, do you get, you recall when Paul Wellstone passed away? There was, how long ago was this? 20 years, 25 years ago, probably 2005 or something. Or I think it was 20 years ago. Three or four. I mean, it, you know, one, if we'll go to the Google. Huh? Yeah, math major. But anyways, um, when, when Paul Wellstone passed away, they had this, memorial service for him. It was on all the local channels. It was on all the local channels.
In fact, the reason, so my sister in law and her husband were going to be on Dr. Phil that afternoon. Come on. I'm not kidding you. Are you? Yep. And it was, we were so embarrassed by this. Oh, and we say that Paul Wellstone died for our family, so we didn't great cause. So what's the 25th, 2002, 2002. So anyway, George talks about the fact that it's a good thing that he wore a dark suit because he had just had maybe prostate cancer surgery and he said, I pissed my pants two or three times.
Oh, come on. I mean, Okay. I don't know if he did or not, but he, he, that was the kind of guy that he was just irreverent and, and, and just a swell guy. So I'll tell you a story about how mechanically inclined he was. Okay. So Nancy had passed away and he had this great old house on Lidlen with, uh, wonderful plumbing fixtures. So I just said, call McClellan's up, have him come and redo it. And, uh, those two weird guys from the commercial.
No, no, no, this is when, this is when it was different. Playing hockey in the field. This is when, this is when McClellan's used to take care of the, the state fair. Okay. And, uh, so they come in and they read, you know, do the guts and you know, everything's worth it. And he goes, he had this beautiful sunworm looking over, uh, Linwood out, out towards the river. And he goes, you know, I've lived in this house for like 35 years and it's always cold here.
And you know, you know, there's radiators and the guy looks around, he walks over to the corner and there's a thermostat. He looks and we go here. Turns it on. And then he, then he was foolish enough. He, he never, he never realized that that's what you had to do. Oh boy. That's the technical. He sounds like he's a member of my community when it comes to mechanical things. Wow. Yeah. Well, all I can say is, as it relates to George Latimer, people ought to take a look at the way that he operated.
Uh, and it's just an absolutely great guy in a couple of weeks. We're going to have the mayor of Duluth on and, uh, I met the mayor of Duluth, uh, last week and Roger. Yep, Roger Reinert. And he became known, in fact, Joe Suchere talked about the fact that he admired Roger, who was a Democrat, because he ran a campaign, there were no negative ads, he never went negative. And it worked out for him. He's to be applauded for that. It's yeah. Pretty incredible. Do you know Roger?
Yeah. Yeah. Roger was up, it was a legislator up the Capitol. Oh yeah. You know, he, he defeated, uh, Oh gosh, she'd kill me. Uh, the woman, the woman mayor. Oh yeah. Very nice woman, you know, but people wanted to change, you know, Duluth was changing and, uh, But no, Roger, uh, Roger's a good guy. People that didn't like her wouldn't say she was a very nice woman. Yeah, you don't, but we don't talk politics on this show. You gotta find good in everybody. We're on the high road.
We're gonna, we're gonna, we're on the high road. Well, anyways, Harry, uh, just wanted to thank you for reminiscing a little bit with us about George Latimer. We're gonna be, uh, addressing some political matters, uh, in the weeks to come, the good side of politics. Okay? Dig deep and, uh, yeah. And, uh, with that off we go. Thanks, Harry.