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Thank you so much for joining us for Last Call.

Alvin Reed, we're going to start this edition off with you uh because you are the only panelist who have visited Jingle, which was supposed to be a really great Winter Wonderland in Ofallon Missouri I think on the Hughes Parkway there and they'd have a very big ice skating rink and food booths and DJs and it was supposed to be a great outdoor party celebrating you know December.

However as it turns out uh it was a financial mess and the uh vendors as well as employees are complaining that they're not getting paid and as a result they can't pay rent or pay their tuition at the local community college Did you notice when you were there any problems?

oh yes oh yeah yeah oh yeah what what was those horror movies of black Christmas that thing was a was a was just a sham and it was very dangerous cuz like where the the was at the uh baseball stadium out in O'Fallen and it was very slick there was really nothing to do there was no signs telling you there were where to go and some people had pre-registered to do like the you know inner tube down the icy snow tube and they had to wait forever in line and ice skating rink the the ice skating rink hadn't arrived yet so they didn't have that you know my mom just found a place to sit inside of a tent where it was warm and we kind of walked around no place to shout nothing so we leave and just said like we you know we got clipped okay this was some sideshow action and they beat us didn't think anything about it kind of you know for that night but apparently it continued to be bad I don't know if it ever improved and now they didn't pay their employees here or in the Kansas City uh Kansas area and somebody needs to go after them cuz this was just never mind Christmas holidays it was just an alarming ripoff what was the weather like it was freezing that night too right nothing like it is now but it was really cold that night too well and it seemed it seemed like it was going to be like Notting Hill, you know like in London like as you said this winter festival but it turned out being more like one of those carnivals where the rides are held together with Elmer's Scotch tape you know when you got the bearded lady and that they and the flatbed trailers but you and Ryan did a lot of looking into what was going on with this organization yeah Ryan Krull actually did some great reporting on this because we kept hearing the one in Kansas City the year before had just been amazing and so it wasn't that Alvin was dumb to go it was that was Alvin somehow tricked and so Ryan looked into this and yeah Alvin pretty much was tricked in that there had been this Outlet out of U Montreal that had started doing this in Montreal it was wildly successful you know sort of spread around the country kept adding new locations well this was the year they decided to franchise it and so they franchised out the previously very successful Kansas City version that also ended up hitting the skids this year and then the St Louis version was done by these new franchisees again who were doing Kansas City but didn't really know what they were doing there um just a mess and I think it's actually part of a national Trend where people are seeing money by doing like these events and they'll kind of use AI to make it look great on Instagram they had these pictures of like this ice skating track the one that never showed up well they admitted to Ryan yeah that was like an AI like synthesis of what it could look like and so it's all kind of smok and mirrors people pay top dollar to have like a big event that they can Rave about and you get there and it's kind of like there used to be a lot of a lot more due diligence that's all I can say and and you know I I don't know enough about AI just I'm very confused because either it's the devil or the angels I I can't tell but we did used to have it seems anyway mun from a municipality standpoint more more structures in place the 1904 World's Fair they made movies about it I know I mean how far have we gone downhill here here's the thing we do have a lot of great activities you know at this time of year in Defiance the Daniel Boon house that's really cool you go from one candle it house to another and then you got the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Wild Lights Plaza but it would be nice I think to have what what are those like chingle markets where you have little booths and mold wine and it shouldn't be too difficult to put on I think people would love it have a bunch of them in this town well there's something about a ripoff at Kris just kind of makes you think wow bless tell like uhuh yeah want you know yeah sh oh you right but it'll never happen again I mean there was no place to wash your hands the bathrooms were closed they just had Johnny on the spot so there was no place to literally wash your hands oh that's overrated hey Bill I want to ask you about Illinois seniors because you're from the land of Lincoln and there's a proposal to change the rules for drivers in Illinois Illinois Remains the only state in the nation where when you're of age right now I think it's uh 79 you have to take a road test to maintain your driver's license now they're talking about maybe changing that to 87 so you'll still have to take a road test as a senior citizen in Illinois but not until you're 87 years old do you like the road test at 79 I think yeah I think it's it ought to be mandatory I mean as you get older your reflexes are slower I could knock down my coffee cup you know so I I I think it's uh very good now I had trouble just you know when I was like 65 I let my license expire and I had to go in and take a driver's test again and so I thought well I mean I'm pretty good at this I've been driving for years and I went in there and the uh state agent went out to my car with me and he said I'm not getting into this car because it was kind of messy and I said oh well here I'm sorry about that sir and I threw the stuff in the front into the back seat and he said I'm not getting into this until you clean it out and and so I thought wow you know so so I'm not saying I would pass if I had to take but I I do think that as people get older it shouldn't be automatically assumed that their reflexes and their eyes except senior citizens have the lowest per driver accident rate in the nation that's because we drive 15 miles an hour and I did not know that Felix hunger was working for the state you know for the licensed Bureau I'm with Felix I'm with Felix I mean it's a rolling landfill have you seen this car seen this car it it was a little bit then and then when I got it I went I got a different guy thank goodness and this was on the one in Kings Highway South Kings Highway right and we started out and I was just trying to make conversation with the guy and I said a lot of bosnians live in that building right there and he said keep your eyes on the my gosh yeah okay so I don't support any of this that they put Bill through I think our seniors should be allowed to have messy cars I think they should be allowed to make conversation but I do want them to take these tests and I say this in part you know my parents are now getting up into their late 70s I want this for their own protection I understand this is kind of a hoop to jump through but if it's a hoop you're not capable of jumping through your kids want you to be not driving on the roads you know if you want them to be protected take the driver's 25 and under off the road well I the answer well I mean when you see these cars speeding down 6440 or 55 are they driven by seniors I don't think so I don't knowen some they're in another Lane yeah and they're like driving into like you know uh cars that are parked and it's just it's not a good situation when things go right you know these Illinois tests they flagged very few people but it's good that they flagged the ones they did that happened to me Bill when I got to Danville my first paper I thought my license expired on September the 6th and it expired on September the 1st and they had said I knew I had to take the written test they said do you know you have to take the driver's test like I do that's my greatest Fe he like yeah I said like well okay and so I took the driver's test when I was 16 I got a 71 when I was 23 I got a 99 so I did improve wow and and the lady who gave me the test like nobody gets a 100 so right so I said all right the cars though that senior citizens used to drive and you're too young to remember this but those those the Pontiacs or the you know the the cutless Sue those were like houses so if you hit if you if you hit somebody you know they were probably going to live no they were I mean the the the person driving the house was going to live that's right and and you know so we because we did have high performance you know we had muscles car muscle cars back then too but uh the cars were a little bit more substantial but my my my mom is her late ' 80s and she drives better than probably anybody sitting at this table so I I wouldn't doubt it right well all we can say in Illinois is drive carefully and Missouri please do the same thanks for joining us on last call we'll see you again next week