Then... and Now Episode 17

The host, John Shomo, starts the podcast by giving a shout-out to the Tomello family. He then goes on to talk about the facts, anniversaries, and birthdays for the week of June 19th to June 25th. He mentions that June 19th is now a holiday called Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas in 1865. He also talks about notable people born on June 19th, such as Moe Howard, Lou Gehrig, and Dirk Nowitzki. He continues to discuss various events and famous birthdays for each day of the week, including the admission of West Virginia as the 35th state, the start of Ed Sullivan's television show, the opening of the first Dairy Queen, the signing of the GI Bill, the Cuyahoga River fire, and the release of Prince's Purple Rain album. He mentions birthdays of notable individuals like Len Dawson, Brian Wilson, Hello, hi out there, all you podcast aficionados, wherever you may be. This is episode 17 of the podcast, Then and Now. I'm your host, John Shomo, and we have a packed show for you this week. So we'll get right down to it here. First of all, a little shout out to the Tomello family. We got an email recently on the Three Good Questions email address from Derek Tomello. Derek played on our 10-0 2004 Suburban League championship golf team. Derek's doing well, working from home down in Columbus, and had a nice conversation with the former Firestone High School homecoming queen, Priscilla, out at the mailbox the other day in the neighborhood. Nice to talk to her, nice to catch up. So hi to Priscilla, Dick, Dave, Derek, and Rachel. Hope you all are doing well. Nice to talk to you. Okay, let's begin as we usually do with our facts and anniversaries and birthdays. This week we will look at June 19th through June 25th. Starting with June 19th, June 19th is now a holiday, a day off for many people. It is the Juneteenth holiday, very recently added to the holiday list. What is Juneteenth? So very briefly, over 200,000 enslaved persons in the city of Galveston, Texas, were informed by U.S. government officials of their emancipation on June 19th, 1865. They found out they were freed people. That is the genesis, if you will, of the Juneteenth holiday. So if you have the day off on June 19th, that's why, and that's a really good thing to celebrate. Days on June 19th include the following, Moe Howard, Moe of the Three Stooges, born on June 19th, 1897. The great Lou Gehrig, the wonderful captain, the great guy of the New York Yankees, sadly died way too young, Lou Gehrig, born June 19th, 1903. Former Cleveland Indians second baseman and longtime San Francisco Giants broadcaster Dwayne Kuyper, 74 years old on June 19th, hit one home run in the big leagues. It was at the old Cleveland Stadium. He kind of hooked it into the right field corner and Joe Tate went crazy on the radio. Dirk Nowitzki led the Dallas Mavericks to the 2011 NBA title. Dirk Nowitzki is 46 on June 19th, probably not as happy as he could be right now, but I digress. More about that later. Let's move to June 20th. We actually got a question. One of our Three Good Questions deals with this fact, and we'll get to the question later on. West Virginia was admitted as the 35th state of the Union right in the middle of the Civil War on June 20th, 1863. And when we get to our Three Good Questions segment, we'll follow up and explain how that might have happened. Ed Sullivan began his long-running CBS television show on June 20th, 1948. It was first called Toast of the Town after a newspaper column that Ed wrote in New York. Later it became just the Ed Sullivan Show. I've always said there's never been a guy in media history that I can think of that had less innate talent but more of an eye for talent than Ed Sullivan. Just a remarkable story, really. Birthdays for June 20th. Len Dawson, who just passed away a couple of years ago, born June 20th, 1935, in Alliance, Ohio, the Hall of Famer, quarterbacked mostly the Kansas City Chiefs, won Super Bowl IV for the Chiefs against the Minnesota Vikings, and a local guy, also went to Purdue University. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys turns 82 on June 20th, just two days after his contemporary Paul McCartney turned 82. Lionel Richie, another tremendously successful musician. Lionel Richie turns 75 on June 20th. Actor John Goodman, who's had many, many roles over the years. One of them that our students might remember is he was acting President Walken in the West Wing during the time where President Bartlett had to step down temporarily due to the kidnapping of his daughter. I'm not trying to give anything away or anything, but John Goodman's had so many great roles. He is 72 on June 20th. Nicole Kidman, Hall of Fame, not Hall of Fame, that's for baseball. Academy Award winner, great actress, Nicole Kidman, 57 years old, on June 20th. And 2021 and 2024, this year's U.S. Women's Open Golf Champion, Yuka Saso, who will be only 23 years old on June 20th. What a future she has ahead of her. Moving to June 21st. That's the date the U.S. Constitution officially went into effect in 1788 because New Hampshire ratified it and became the ninth state. The rules for ratifying the Constitution said it would go into effect once nine of the 13 states ratified it. New Hampshire checked that box and became the ninth state on June 21st of 1788. The first ever game in the new WNBA, Women's National Basketball Association, the first WNBA game was played June 21st, 1997, the WNBA experiencing unprecedented popularity this year due to, in part, a great part, Kaitlin Clark being in the league now, not only, but certainly to a large extent. Actor Chris Pratt will be 45 on June 21st. And a guy who's had a very interesting year, a very lucrative year, a very successful year, very interesting week in Louisville a few weeks ago, Scotty Scheffler, the number one golfer in the world, turns 28 on June 21st. All right, June 22nd, we're now into summer officially. The first Dairy Queen opened on June 22nd, 1940, in the same state as the first McDonald's was opened a few years later. The first Dairy Queen opened in Joliet, Illinois, about 45 minutes southwest of Chicago. France surrendered to the Nazis June 22nd, 1940. One year later to the day, Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union. It was his biggest mistake that he made, June 22nd, 1941. In 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt signed what became known as the GI Bill, which enabled the millions of mostly men who were serving in the armed forces at the time, a chance to get loans at very cheap rates or buy a house for the first time. It transformed many, many millions of families of those sailors and soldiers who were lucky enough to come back from World War II, including my father. He was a beneficiary of the GI Bill, again, along with probably 10 million other guys and their families after the war. One of the greatest pieces of legislation in the 20th century. The Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 22nd, 1969. It would again a year or two later, spawning all kinds of Cleveland jokes and all that sort of stuff. Pistol Pete, Pete Maravich, born June 22nd, 1947. The greatest scorer in college basketball history, bar none, he didn't have a three-point line, and Pete Maravich was a remarkable player. Sadly, his son passed away just about a week or two ago. Just a terrible thing. About the same age as Pete died, very young, in his early 40s. What a shame. A couple of other birthdays, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democratic senator from the great state of Massachusetts, one-time presidential hopeful, turned 75 on June 22nd, as does the wonderful actress Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep and Elizabeth Warren born on the same day, June 22nd, 75 years ago. A couple of other ones, Clyde Drexler, the Basketball Hall of Famer, is 62 on June 22nd. And a guy that my wife Tammy and I saw practice on a couple of holes last week, down at Pinehurst No. 2, Dustin Johnson, the 2016 U.S. Open and 2020 Masters champ, he'll be 40 on June 22nd. We'll talk more about the Open here in a couple of minutes. June 22nd, we really don't have any massive events, June 23rd, pardon me, to report for that day, so we'll go right to birthdays. One of them, he who shall not be mentioned in Northeast Ohio, I guess I have to mention him now, Arthur B. Modell, born 99 years ago on June 23rd, and I'm not really going to talk about him a whole lot. Wilma Rudolph, three sprinting gold medals at the Rome Olympics in 1960, one of America's greatest Olympic stars, was born June 23rd, 1940. Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he's been in the news a lot lately, not for good stuff. Clarence Thomas will be 76 on June 23rd, enough about him. And Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson will turn 45 on June 23rd. A couple more days here, June 24th, 1812, Napoleon made his greatest military blunder when he invaded Russia on June 24th, 1812. Didn't work well for either him or Hitler, thank goodness. The Chicago Stalys professional football team was renamed the Chicago Bears by their founder, their owner, and their head coach, George Hallis, on June 24th, 1922, and so they still are today, the Chicago Bears. The Cincinnati Reds played their final game at Old Crossley Field in Cincinnati on June 24th, 1970. They eked out a 5-4 win over Willie Mays and the San Francisco Giants for pulling up stakes and moving down to what was then called Riverfront Stadium. The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24th, 2022, two years ago, overturned the case Roe versus Wade by a 6-3 margin. Roe v. Wade had been decided in January of 1973. It had set up a system by which abortion was legal in the United States. That case was overturned. Each state has their own rules now, as of this time. The great Celtic Sam Jones, the Hall of Famer, ten-time NBA champion as a player, the late great Sam Jones, born June 24th, 1933, he's smiling from up above today, I know. Nick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac, 77 years old on June 24th, and perhaps the most famous soccer player in the world, Lionel Messi, will turn 37 on June 24th. Finally, we go to June 25th for this week's look at anniversaries and birthdays. The Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana was fought on June 25th, 1876. It was a bit of a mismatch, as General Custer found out. He and about 200 of his men were slaughtered by the Native Americans up there, not taking sides there. President Eisenhower was appointed, not the future President Eisenhower, I should say, General Eisenhower at the time was appointed commander of U.S. forces in Europe on June 25th, 1942. That was a good move. North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25th, 1950, setting off, obviously, what became known as the Korean War. Prince released his probably greatest known work, Purple Rain, the album Purple Rain, 40 years ago, June 25th, 1984. A couple of birthdays. James Meredith will be 91 on June 25th. James Meredith was the first African American student enrolled at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, which was a big story in 1962. He really had to put up with some terrible things, including being shot, but he is still with us. Happy 91st to James Meredith. And Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, will be 70 years old on June 25th. Okay. That's where we'll leave it as far as our events, et cetera, for this week. We'll turn to our current events segment, and we have quite a lot to deal with this week. Let's go first to a couple of thank yous here. I mentioned the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2. We had a great time there, Tammy and I did. Thanks to Brother-in-law Mike and Phyllis for putting us up. Thanks to Leroy for getting us tickets to the Open. We went Monday and Wednesday, Tammy and I did. A great experience. Television doesn't do the course justice. I've had several people ask me about that after I've come back. The greens there look like kirtle shells, look like giant kirtle shells when they're alive. They just, balls fall off the green. We saw four guys hit off the first tee in practice round. All four of them hit the green. One guy wound up in the deep bunker left of the green. One guy ran off into a grassy area right of the green, and two of the four actually stayed on the green. It's really kind of, you have to aim for the middle of the green there. It just doesn't work otherwise. The fairways are generous. They're wide enough, certainly. They're fair. But if you miss them and get into the native areas where there's brush and grass outgrowths and things like that, and rocks occasionally, it's really pot luck. You could have an open shot, you could have a clean swing at the ball, or you could really have almost nothing. It all depends on where the ball comes to rest. Leroy, Mike, and I played a round at Longleaf Golf Club, which is about a mile as the crow flies from Pinehurst No. 2. We played on Thursday morning, and I had a couple of those lies, unfortunately. On one of them, I had a tuft of that grass right behind the ball. You got nothing there. You have to figure out a way just to get the ball out of that area. Another time, it was sitting there just like a waste area bunker shot. You could hit the ball and get it out of there and advance at a good distance. It's total pot luck, though. We saw that on television, those of us that watched the Open later that week. Randall Chamblee was complaining that Bryson DeChambeau got all the breaks in the waste area as well. He kind of did get a few. As for the Open, boy, what a story. What a final round. It was riveting. Rory McIlroy, who was 496 for 496 on putts of 4 feet or less this season, missed a 2.5 footer on 16 and a 3.5 foot downhill left-to-right slider on 18. Just brutal. Bryson DeChambeau hit a great 55-yard bunker shot on the 18th hole, made par, and won the Open by one shot. Congratulations to him. Brutally disappointing for Rory McIlroy. He announced yesterday, as I record this, that he's going to take the next few weeks off instead of playing this week, for instance, in Connecticut. And he will reemerge in Scotland in mid-July to play the Scottish Open, which he is the defending champion, and then, obviously, the Open Championship the following week. Just a tough, tough way for anybody to finish up, let alone a four-time major champion like Rory McIlroy. Really kind of unbelievable to see all that. It was entertaining. It's a great spot for the U.S. Open. That is a big-time sporting event, and it's treated as such. There must have been 1,000 or more volunteers there. They couldn't have been nicer. They had all kinds of tents set up. I practiced putting on one of the Pinehurst greens as part of a little contest they have going on Monday. It took me eight putts to get into three holes. The greens are pretty tough there, folks, just saying. But had a great time. Had a nice visit. Thanks to everybody who helped us there. Really, really terrific experience. Okay. Moving on. Did you hear? The Boston Celtics are world champions. As predicted here on Then and Now, if you go back and listen, a podcast or two ago, they won in five games. And we'll deal with a little bit of that later on in Three Good Questions. I got a question about it. I want to stress the importance of not screwing up the NBA draft, and I'll give you a couple of examples. Okay? A couple of really important examples as far as the Celtics are concerned. In 2016, here are the first three picks of the 2016 NBA draft. The Philadelphia 76ers had the first pick. They picked Ben Simmons, who has had a star-crossed career, to be sure. But really, I think it's fair to say, hasn't come close to panning out as the number one pick. The second pick in 2016 went to the Los Angeles Lakers, and they picked Duke's Brandon Ingram, who has been a reasonably good pro player. Let's be honest. He's had a fairly good career. Does it measure up to the number two pick of the draft? I don't know. It's debatable. The number three pick in the 2016 NBA draft was Jalen Brown. Now, I think that's gone pretty well for the Boston Celtics, don't you? So Philadelphia and LA had a chance, didn't take him. He wasn't as ballyhooed as some people, but the Celtics and Danny Ainge at the time really scored with the Jalen Brown pick, the most valuable player of the NBA Finals. One year later, here we go again. In the 2017 NBA draft, here are the first three picks. Philadelphia once again had the first pick. They picked Markel Fultz, who couldn't shoot a free throw in the pros. I'm not lying. The LA Lakers had the second pick and picked Lonzo Ball. Okay. I don't think you can say that went fairly well for the Lakers. The Boston Celtics once again had the number three pick. They picked a guy out of Duke by the name of Jason Tatum. Jeez. Philadelphia and LA, probably the two biggest rivals of the Boston Celtics, had every opportunity to have either or Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum. They passed on him. And I think it's fair to say that they really blew it, and I'm glad as a Celtics fan. But it shows the importance of, really, if you have one of those top draft picks, you can't mess it up. It just throws your team all out of kilter. And I think it's fair to say that the Lakers and Sixers kind of blew it there. Okay. A little bit more about that, about the Finals in the questions, as I said. Just want to mention, early this week, a mini tornado almost ripped through the Howe Road area of Talmadge on Monday, this past Monday afternoon. Did a little damage at the THS Stadium. The soccer goals were all out of whack, and the high jump pit was blown into and over a fence. And it did some tree damage at a few friends' houses. Hopefully the good news is that everybody's okay. No casualties reported, and everybody's getting back to normal up there. But a little scary. I did go up to the stadium to take a look, and it's kind of crazy. Okay. We have about one week left until the first presidential debate. This is a very strange cycle that we have going. Instead of three debates in September and October, we've got a debate in June, and we're going to have a debate later on, September, October, I can't remember which. And there are very different rules for this upcoming presidential debate, if it happens. I'm not so sure that one of the two candidates is going to show up for the debate. I'll be a little surprised if Trump shows up for the debate. I just don't think, with these rules, they don't really help him. He can't shout everybody down and filibuster and walk around the room and try to intimidate people. I mean, he has a hard time walking now anyway. I'm just not sure if he's going to show up. I think President Biden will be there. If they have it, he'll be glad to show up and debate the issues. I'm just not sure. We'll see. If it happens, that would be a good thing for democracy. But I'm not so sure. I'm not sure I'd put my money on it happening right now. Okay. We may also be looking at a national convention for one of our major political parties where the nominee can't even attend due to being under house arrest or something. That would be the Republican National Convention in July in the city of Milwaukee, which Donald Trump just called a terrible, terrible place. They're not very happy. I've been to Milwaukee two or three times. It's not a terrible, terrible place. There's a lot of nice things in Milwaukee. So I'll vouch for that. Okay. What else do we have here? Oh, yeah. One more thing I want to talk about in the topics before we get to our three good questions. It was announced this week that Hard Knocks, the HBO series that they do with different NFL teams, the in-season portion of Hard Knocks will feature the AFC North Division. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh. Okay. Gosh. The best division in the NFC, I didn't want to mention Baltimore Ravens there. The best division in the NFL, I think, actually certainly was last year, but I'm just wondering here. It starts in December. December and January is when it will be on. Does that mean that they're going to have to have a massage parlor camera for the Cleveland segments? Just wondering there. You know, that could be a problem. Okay. Enough nonsense. We now move to three good questions. We got one of them is from Brother-in-law Mike. He asked it a couple weeks ago and we kind of were full, so held it off until this week. He sent me an article and I'd never even heard about this. In a previous episode, we talked about the best way to cut a sandwich. And this article presented a different way. I've literally never seen a sandwich cut like a Y, the letter Y. So Mike asked, is the Y cut the best way to slice a sandwich? Personally, I wouldn't know because, again, I've never seen a sandwich cut like a Y. I might have to do it one of these days just to, you know, experiment, I suppose. I literally have never seen that in my life, but it exists. Thanks, Mike, for the question. I didn't really answer it, but, you know, I'll have to give that a try. Okay. Our other two good questions this week come from Alec Livingston, former baseball teammate of our son, Matt, at Ohio State, proud Boston area native. I'm sure he's really happy this week with the result of the NBA Finals. His two questions, one of them have to do with that. One of them doesn't. I'll go with the one that doesn't first. Where did your, my birth state, great state of West Virginia, join the Union and for what reason? Well, they joined the Union on June 20th, 1863. Some of you may be actually listening to this on June 20th as it goes. It's on the flag. The date's on the flag. June 20th, 1863 was right in the middle of the Civil War. Why did the western counties of what then was Virginia decide that they wanted statehood? Well, I thought I knew, so I looked it up to be sure. They felt that they weren't being represented in the state government in Richmond. The land is very different out in the western counties, out past the Shenandoah Valley. It's, as you know, very hilly. And the people in the western counties felt like they were being ignored. They formed their own government and then asked President Lincoln, who granted them statehood in June of 1863, after those counties decided to agree to the gradual emancipation of any slaves that existed in those western counties of Virginia. Slavery wasn't as big of a business in the western counties of Virginia because there aren't these massive plantations, if you will. There would have been a few along the Ohio River, probably. But it wasn't as big of a financial issue in the western counties of Virginia. And again, it's kind of bad to be talking about it as a financial issue. It's a moral disaster. But it was also a financial issue to some of these counties. So that's when and why West Virginia became a state, one of two states to join during the Civil War. The other was Nevada in 1864, FYI. Okay. That's question number two. Question number three also comes from Alec, and it deals with the Boston Celtics. Where does this Celtics team stack up with others you have witnessed, and where do you think it will ultimately stack up in NBA history? Really hard to tell the second part of that. They've got a core that they seem to be willing to pay and keep together. Brown's going to be there, Tatum's going to be there, Porzingis, he's going to get an operation on that leg injury, we don't know when he'll be back. But a lot of these guys are sticking around. They seem to have had a long-term outlook for building and keeping their roster, unlike a lot of other NBA teams. They've got a chance to win multiple titles. We're never going to see a dynasty like the Celtics of the late 50s and 60s. That's just not going to happen in today's financial world in sports. But this team could win multiple championships. I don't want to jinx them, it's hard to do, it's really hard to do, but they ran through the playoffs 16-3, after winning the most games of any team in the regular season. They were something like 80-20 overall this year, which is, you know, when you win four out of every five games, you're pretty darn good. They have a chance to be multiple champs, that would be wonderful. Where they stack up in NBA history, again, you're not going to see what happened under Bill Russell, with Bill Russell and Sam Jones and all those guys, Havlicek, etc. It's not going to happen anymore. But this team in modern NBA history has a chance to do some really special things. Again, you win multiple championships in a period of time like the Spurs did, or maybe Miami, although I don't like to talk about that very much. Then the Warriors certainly earned it. Then you're really a modern-day dynasty. I'm not going to put that tag on the Celtics. They've won one since 2008, but they have potential. They keep the team together and the team can stay healthy. Shout-out to Joe Mazzullo, their coach, who's 35 years old, believe it or not. Al Horford, one of their players, is older than the coach. Joe Mazzullo, five years ago, was coaching at Glendale State College in West Virginia. He's now won an NBA title with the Boston Celtics. Talk about a meteoric rise in five years. And all credit to him. He seems to have a good grip on what he wants guys to do. They seem to respond to him. And congratulations to Joe Mazzullo as well. Played at WVU for Bob Huggins, by the way. Okay. There's our three questions. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Alec, for those. We'll be back in another week with episode number 18 of Then and Now. I'm your host, John Schomo. You can find us on Spotify. If you have a good question, we always need good questions, please email us at threegoodquestions, T-H-R-E-E, threegoodquestions at gmail.com. And we'll do our best to give our best answers as possible to those questions. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for choosing us in the podcatosphere. Have a great week, everybody, and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you.