Dads on Books

Mike (00:00)
I don't. Move it.

David (00:02)
Well, you better remove the box, dude.

Mike (00:04)
We'd like to move it, move it. We'd like to move it, move it. We'd like to read books.

David (00:11)
Was I doing the right song? did the do-de-do-do-do-do-do-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-

Mike (00:16)
No, that's a different

song.

You were doing salt and pepper. Yeah.

David (00:22)
I can also do, hello darkness my old friend. that's Simon and Garfunkel.

Mike (00:23)
Something about.

And from last week's episode, we could do Hall and Oates. Although you don't know about that yet. So you'll have to watch it.

David (00:37)
thinking

people who like put a bunch of oats in the truck and then drive it around because they're hollow notes. Probably I come from the beat a dead horse into the ground school of comedy. Hey, I need to ask you. No, I need to ask you a question. Are we recording?

Mike (00:43)
Exactly. You've used that joke before, I Probably.

and it still won't drink.

Go

yes, yes, we are. Yeah. You didn't see the countdown?

David (00:58)
yeah, we are. Okay, I did.

I did, but I got so in the zone with you. I think we were flow. We were in workflow And I thought, wait a second. This isn't like pre-recording warm up banter. This,

Mike (01:06)
my God. Totes. Totes.

recording banter if it sounds good enough.

David (01:17)
yeah, so what I was gonna say is, hey, welcome back to Dads on Books. If this is your first checking us out, we're glad that you did. We are Dads on Books and I'm David are, and he's Mike, and we are Dads on Books because between us, separately, we have five different girls and we have read different books to them and discovered, hey, it's fun to read those books and talk about them. So that's what we do. We pick a book.

Mike (01:26)
I'm Mike.

We sure have.

David (01:40)
and let me read it, but I think today is a unique episode.

Mike (01:44)
It is, is the first ever season two, first episode.

David (01:51)
that's right, we're in season two.

Mike (01:52)
We are in season two. This is technically episode 53. If you look in our list, it would actually come up as 54 because the trailer is the first one.

David (02:04)
Right, it's sort of like decades, so do they start at zero or one? I still don't know. Well, hey, I see.

Mike (02:08)
Right. I don't know. I don't care. But I know the Japanese,

I think, start it differently than the Western world.

David (02:16)
wow. You know they also do? So my parents lived in Japan for a while. Address numbers on blocks are in chronological order of when the building was built.

Mike (02:26)
I remember you telling me that. That's so cool. No, I meant that in a good way. didn't, I wasn't saying like, my God, you tell the same story over and over and over. But you kind of, no, I'm just kidding.

David (02:29)
Yeah, I don't...

No, was the reason. No, no, no, no, no, the

reason why I don't remember for your recording yet, but I talked to you earlier today about some joke or something and how I come from the beat a dead horse into the ground thing. So that's the school of comedy I come from. The reason why I did this, put my head down as I thought, did I, because I just forget who I tell what and when. I thought I told it to you like two days ago, but apparently.

Mike (03:00)
yes.

David (03:04)
Could have been 30 years ago when my parents were actually living in Japan.

Mike (03:07)
⁓ no. I don't... Did I know you when they were in Japan? I don't think so.

David (03:09)
No?

No,

I just realized that no, by the time I met you in 98, they'd already been away from Japan in like three or four years and they were already retired in New Mexico and that's, we're going way too much about my parents' geographical history.

Mike (03:17)
they would have been back.

But we love your parents. are awesome.

David (03:27)
One of them is awesome and one of them was awesome, but you are correct. Lovely, lovely people. The only thing better about your parents than mine, between you and Kim, y'all have so many parents. All of whom.

Mike (03:29)
Yes, I'm sure he's still awesome somewhere.

God. I didn't

that when I got married that I would end up with nine parental figures. Yeah, or parental units, I believe, is something somebody used on a TV show long, long ago. Yes.

David (03:45)
How many are your?

Yes. And how many of yours, you have

nine. Does that include your side and her side, right? So how many, who has, especially with an odd number, who wins, you or Kim?

Mike (03:56)
Yes.

Right now I would win on the original biological parents. I've got both Kim has her mom Sandy. Hi Sandy. And then we both have a step-parent who is step-mothers who are alive. And coming up this weekend.

David (04:02)
Okay.

Mike (04:22)
is Mother's Day. So happy Mother's Day belated to anyone who's listening to this.

David (04:26)
Yes, that's right. Mother's Day falls between this recording and when the episode drops. Ergo, coming up with and belated in the same phrase. Ergo. So.

Mike (04:31)
Exactly.

ergo ergo it

is almost six minutes so we should say hey what did we get did you get the same copy no interesting

David (04:39)
Talk about the book.

heck no. No, I mean,

yeah. So I got mine from the Grapevine Public Library, one of my local libraries. Yours is and other stories and mine is and one other story because mine is mine is RIP and sleepy as the author, not the author, the professors who wrote the prefaces.

Mike (04:52)
Nice.

⁓

Pro-fest? Pro-fest? ⁓ Mine is Rip Van Winkle, the legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Spectre Bridegroom, and Mount Joy. And that's one word, it's not like the named Joy. So, right, Mount Joy.

David (05:08)
Hehehehehe!

wow.

it's not Mount Joy, it's Mount Joy.

Okay, I have heard of 50 % of the tales in your book. All of which are in mine.

Mike (05:27)
have heard,

I have read two of the tales in my book, but not recently. One of them was recent. And I didn't read it out of this book because if you might remember from our last episode of other lots of firsts, our first last episode of our first season.

David (05:33)
Okay. Yes, of course.

gosh, I'm gonna diagram that, but I'll have to warm up first. I don't wanna pull a muscle.

Mike (05:52)
So this book I put in my suitcase, meaning to put it in my backpack so that I could read it on the plane And I did not do that. So I landed, I think in Charlotte and decided that, I should just download it because I have plenty of time and I'm sort of bored. So I read this book mostly in Charlotte and partially above the United States.

David (06:19)
I love it.

Oh, and I do remember that because I do remember saying that you read it in the second you showed me the book. thought, wait a second. I thought he, okay, he got one. Cool. But, and I, as soon as you told me that we should do Rip Van Winkle, I went to the Grapevine Library app on my phone and it was available as a book and I pressed hold. And I got it on Tuesday and I read most of it last night and finished it this morning.

Mike (06:27)
Yeah. Yeah.

David (06:44)
And before I tell you my opinion of this, I want to ask you, because I don't think we delved into why did you choose this book?

Mike (06:52)
We have not delved into that. First of all, I'd like to throw out that the Twig Bookshop in San Antonio is really awesome. The lady that helped me and took my bookmarks to give some to her daughter who was about to be a first time mother. ⁓ Yeah, so that was really cool. So I just want to give them a shout out because, hey, it's a cool bookstore and you should go buy some books from them.

David (06:59)
Hmm.

⁓ fun!

Mike (07:18)
Okay? Okay.

David (07:19)
I

am writing that down right now because I'm going to go to San Antonio. I know.

Mike (07:22)
You're only five hours away.

So I picked this book because I was thinking, you know, we haven't done a book that you or I had read when we were younger in a while. Like we've been doing a bunch of, you know, the goosebumps and all these other things

so I thought it was about time that we did a book that we had read probably in school. Like that's where I remember reading the story. And after getting into it, I knew the story, but I totally did not remember the writing of like how it was written.

David (08:01)
Yes, ⁓

I am so glad you brought that up. That is so cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Okay, so here's my story. I'm bad with names and faces. So when you said...

Mike (08:11)
I believe his name

was Brady. And there was ⁓ a

David (08:17)
I just got that.

Mike (08:18)
Okay, Alice, go on.

David (08:19)
wait,

here? Over here? Wait, down there? Like there? No, anyway, so, good night, mama woman. my gosh. Let's leave the 70s and come back to today. We're back. So I, you said Rip Van Winkle. And I thought, yeah, of course, Rip Van Winkle, part of the American lore. And then I thought, is that the guy who like, okay, spoiler alert.

Mike (08:25)
Good night, John boy.

Yes, we're back.

Yes.

David (08:45)
thought, is that the guy who like fell asleep and woke up a long time later? Or or Is that the troll guy under the bridge? Did someone let her hair down? I just didn't know who it was. you know me, I'm clean slate Dave. So when I got the book,

Mike (08:49)
Yeah.

David (09:01)
And I don't think when you mentioned it, you mentioned it was Washington Irving. Cause if anyone said to me Washington Irving, I would simply say Sleepy Hollow. Exactly. But I got the book. And as I showed you earlier, this is a book that has those two tales. And I still, when I started reading it, still did not know, is this the guy who fell asleep? And I did not read, and this copy of the book, it's hilarious, dude. It's published in 1980. Okay.

Mike (09:08)
Sleepy Hollow. Yeah.

David (09:31)
with a, it's the second edition with a preface by Andrew Breen Myers, including introduction by Haskell Springer. And each of those guys are PhD dudes. They're literature professors. And I thought, not gonna, I know, and I'm not gonna read their prefaces or introductions. I'm gonna go straight to the story. And in my edition, there's a story talking about

Mike (09:45)
Of course. And why would they be?

David (09:57)
but the

Mike (09:59)
You drink Knickerbocker. Bum bum bum!

I'm watching.

David (10:25)
Rip and Winkle. It's like, I'm on page 21. Is this the damn book?

Mike (10:30)
did kind of the same thing I kept going, wait, where's the actual story start? Because I don't even think in my copy, if there actually is a spot where it starts.

David (10:32)
Okay.

YES!

Right. So while you're doing that, the one I just showed you that says Rip Van Winkle, the second one I showed you. And then it has like words and stuff like a book. was page 20. Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the cat skill. How is your cat skill spelled or spelled K double A T. cool. OK. So on the same page sort of. OK. I'm on page 21.

Mike (10:47)
Uh-huh.

What does it start with? Boy, you jump the Hudson must remember the cat skill with a K.

Yes. So sort of, well, I'm on page two, but see.

David (11:11)
But anyway, so let me get into the book. So I'm reading and there's all kinds of cool descriptions. I need to tell you that, you know, even though I'm from the Dallas Fort Worth area, I went to college in Massachusetts. My dad got transferred to New York. My two best friends from high school, Matt and Doug went to Princeton and West Point respectively. So because of that, I'm familiar with the Hudson.

Mike (11:12)
Yeah.

David (11:31)
and the Catskills and all that area. And it's a fond place in my heart from the memories of all those days. Plus my parents settled in Princeton, New Jersey, and I went to college in Massachusetts. So when I drove, I would drive through a lot of those areas. And so I loved all that. Yeah.

Mike (11:46)
That is cool. I

was just wondering if, because our friend Alan is a comedian and didn't they have like a lot of comedy in the Katzkill mountains? That was part of that circuit. so I, I just thought of him cause it's the Katzkill mountains.

David (11:51)
Yes.

Yes, in the Catskills. Yep, exactly.

I was going to say that

our friend Alan has great skills and he's allergic to cats. That's why he's called Alan Katz skills.

Mike (12:11)
And that's why it's spelled with a K or maybe because it's Dutch.

David (12:13)
Exactly.

Or maybe because he's silly. Okay.

Mike (12:16)
Yeah,

but we're gonna go Dutch on this meal.

David (12:21)
I thought you were paying. was your idea. You're taking me out. Alan Katz is one of the many professional writers who we've had. We've had the pleasure to have on our show. So check him out. He's hysterical and nice and all the good things. So I'm reading the book and I'm going, this is really cool. I love the descriptions of New York in the turn of the century being the early 1800s. So basically

Mike (12:23)
damn. Okay, fine.

Yeah.

hysterical.

Let's move.

David (12:44)
very very new the united states of america there's some illustrations in my book which were done i have none okay

Mike (12:46)
Yes.

I got none. Now, so if you're going

to refer to them, please show us.

David (12:58)
showing you right now. Okay, you don't need to worry about details. But after I read the book and then when I read the preface and the introduction and the pre introduction and the pre all the pre's were illustrated by a guy named F. O. C. Darley Felix O. C. Darley. I don't know what the O. C. stands for but he was exactly.

Mike (12:59)
Cool.

Okay.

Orange County.

David (13:25)
he was a contemporary of Washington Irving. illustrated this in the mid 1800s and apparently Washington Irving loved these pictures. But.

Mike (13:36)
Sorry.

David (13:37)
I didn't say Dan Gutman yet. Why did that bell have

Mike (13:38)
I know that's

the problem with keeping this little xylophone thing ⁓ next to me. It's, yeah. Do you, do I need to show you? See, this is where I keep my books and stuff. And, and then I also keep the, Lego box there so that I can use my mouse.

David (13:45)
You have a silo.

Yes, I didn't hear a xylophone thing.

I, of course. your mouse is on the Lego box. Okay. I didn't understand the relationship between, you know, I can't use the mouse if I don't have my Legos. But I have a question for you. I see. How did we get into season two before I realized that you had a xylophone there? Did I miss that? Like, Mike, I've known you since the late.

Mike (14:01)
Yes.

I have to build a mouse pad.

David (14:22)
1900s

and I'm still discovering new things about you. You're the gift that keeps giving, dude.

Mike (14:26)
I know, right? Ruby was taking percussion in middle school she stopped playing and I decided that, you know, when we do the show sometimes I should be able to go.

David (14:42)
Dude!

Mike (14:43)
so it has been with me probably for the last eight episodes. But no, but it's been a couple of months and think I only hit it once because I was nervous and not sure if, you know, the percussionists out there would make fun of me.

David (14:49)
Okay, so not from the beginning.

Hey, Ringo Starr, Richard Starkey, if you're listening, you can make fun of Mike.

Mike (15:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, because I'm super percussion guy with no rhythm. I got a rhythm. that reminds me of Phineas and Ferb, so I this next to us so that, you know, at some point I could start just hitting things and then I always forget to bring a mallet. And then I just had this red Sharpie.

David (15:12)
coats.

Mike (15:30)
So I used it instead.

David (15:31)
Does it do the job?

It does the job, clearly. Hey, you do the sort of ding, ding, ding, what they used to do, like to introduce the old timey radio shows?

Mike (15:34)
Clearly.

Mm-mm.

I don't know the notes.

David (15:45)
next time. That's your homework. Hey, for season two, episode two.

Mike (15:49)
How was

that?

David (15:50)
you have homework now, sir. Season two, episode two.

Mike (15:51)
I do. Sweet.

I was thinking actually about, the song that we started using in the very beginning, my friend Rob wrote and one of the reasons I loved it so much was there's a xylophone in that, and the little part of the, I'll stick that in right here.

David (16:06)
yeah!

Mike (16:12)
and then you guys can all listen to it.

David (16:14)
What's, tell us Rob's last name I forgot.

Mike (16:16)
Rob Reef. Rob's last name is Rob Reef. R-E-I-F-F. We'll put a link to, I don't know, something that he has. Which actually brings me to another thing because this is our first episode of the second season. I know we had.

David (16:16)
it in our blooper section? Rob Reif, that's a cool name.

And so

Mm-hmm.

Mike (16:35)
kind of discussed this the other day, but I think we're going to try and do some sort of music review-ish thing because Rob has some other children's music. And then also there was music guy that we went to see a long time ago who was really funny. And I thought about reaching out to him.

David (16:43)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mike (16:55)
and seeing if he would be on the show. Yeah, Jesus.

David (16:57)
that's great. I love that. Well, hey, we're 21 minutes in roughly. Maybe once we edit

out the laughter, we're 80 minutes in. But the point is, let's go back to the book, shall we? Okay, so we're getting to the good part. So I'm reading, I'm like, this cool. and then he falls asleep. And I'm like, this is the guy that falls asleep.

Mike (17:03)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

And then.

And that's when you remembered.

David (17:21)
But what was so cool is I'm like, that is such the seminal moment. And in it's so subtle. He falls asleep and then he wakes up. like nothing happened. as far as we know at that point, assuming you know nothing when you read it, which very, very few people will know nothing about this when they get to that point. But it was amazing after my wondering.

Mike (17:30)
Like nothing happened.

Yeah.

David (17:44)
Is this the one where the guy falls asleep and he literally just falls asleep and then he wakes up? I mean, it could have been, did like, you know, when you're really tired in school and you kind of bob and then you go like this, it could have been that short or you take a 20 minute nap and it's so deep that you wake up and don't know your name or you sleep well overnight, but he wakes up and I'm like, my gosh, it's it. And it was so cool. Despite the fact that I knew that I also didn't know anything else about it. I didn't know how it ended. I didn't know.

Mike (17:55)
Mm Yeah.

David (18:13)
how he started to realize what had happened and that reveal. And it was so, so cool.

Mike (18:18)
which is really,

it really is so cool. It's so fun to, because you're aware of it at that point now that we've read the book a few times in our lives. Obviously I didn't remember most of that stuff either. So I was in there too. I'm like, what does happen afterwards? And honestly, all I remember about the story was he goes to the mountains.

David (18:22)
⁓

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Right.

Mike (18:44)
He falls asleep for 20 years and comes back to town and everything's different. This time, I'm like, my gosh, there is so much that happens in this book. I mean, they really build up his character and the people around him, his wife, some of the townspeople. I can just hear her yelling.

David (19:02)
Mm-hmm. his wife.

More on that later. the writing is amazing. And there's going to be another first on this episode, by the way. Okay. So without even talking to you, I have come up with what hopefully will be a recurring segment for us on possibly all, or some of our episodes. There were some words that I came across and I had no

Mike (19:08)
Yeah,

Go for it.

David (19:30)
idea what they meant.

Mike (19:33)
That is so funny because I was thinking a couple of days ago, I was thinking the same thing. like, there's like words in here that I don't know. And I went and looked something up and I don't remember what it was, but I was like, we should talk about that. And there's always something in a book that you don't know,

David (19:34)
Really?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dude! Dude!

These are lists of words I didn't know. And down here, I looked them up in the dictionary and wrote the definitions out. real quickly, sidebar, I love books, right? This is a dictionary. OK, yes, and it is the Random House College Dictionary that my grandmother, me, ma gave me on Christmas.

Mike (20:00)
Nice.

Yep. Yep. Indeed it is.

David (20:15)
1979, I think, or 1978. And it even has.

Mike (20:19)
That is a totally

random story.

David (20:22)
Can you see the name plate? Yeah, and it's David Patrick. It's like printed. My used to give like here's a thing printed, but you could just put that in your the years. I would look up words in this dictionary and actually take a little note as to what words I looked up and even even the date, which also happened in the movie say anything. But anyway, and then I took an acting class.

Mike (20:24)
my book.

cool.

That's awesome.

anything.

David (20:50)
in Los Angeles. you just said anything. You are coachable. You're so directable. Now I took an acting class called the Beverly Hills Playhouse and Gary Emhoff was my teacher and he had us read book about Clifford Odets, He had us read that book because it's a really important theater in the history of American theater. It was the people who brought Stanislavsky over.

Mike (20:52)
I did. Sorry.

Thank

David (21:13)
but he had us look up words in the dictionary and write down the definitions. And I did that and I use this dictionary. So I thought at least one episode, once per episode, let's learn a new word because Mike, we've already done that before. Tell me about that. Mm-hmm.

Mike (21:19)
Awesome.

we have. Midden. This is my midden. That's

my little den of inequities. I don't know. I don't even inequities. Is that like bad? I'm gonna look it up. It's my den or my cave. There you go.

David (21:33)
HAHAHAHA

I think so. let you know what? Look it up. But in the meantime, let's just call it your den so that we don't have to. It's your den. Yes, exactly.

And we did On our episode when we read the case of the missing pink piggy.

Mike (21:51)
written by Linda Harky.

David (21:53)
Yes, one of our author guests But anyway, we'll talk about these words later. Let's get back to the story. I absolutely loved the story. I loved the writing. And one of the many things I loved even before we got to the plot twist is his descriptions of the wife. And it reminded me

Mike (22:07)
Yes. Really all of

his descriptions. I'm sorry I'm jumping are so interesting. they've just really intriguing the way he develops his descriptions.

David (22:22)
You're absolutely right. first of all, don't ever, ever, ever apologize one of the things that you, that happened with you and me is like, I don't know about you. I get so excited about the book and the conversation and you'll say something makes me think of something and yes, and, then we got to go back to, but gosh, what was it? Okay. So his wife, his wife reminds me of Kate as in Kate and

Mike (22:26)
Thank you.

Yes.

David (22:44)
Is it Petruchio, Chaming of the Shrew?

Mike (22:45)
⁓

I was thinking of Kate Mallee, TV show from the early 80s,

David (22:48)
Hahaha

And not my

niece, Kate. Kate, I'm not talking about you. You are many things, but you are not a shrew. No, but it's Kate. And I think Petruchio is the husband, right? From the taming of the shrew. Well, the point is, Kate is the shrew that needs to be tamed. And his wife in this, can I read a little passage? because today we'd say, yeah, and I forgot her name, but we'll just call her Dame Van Winkle.

Mike (22:57)
Totally, yes. Pretty sure, I can't remember.

Please do, please.

Yes, because that's all I remember her being called.

David (23:19)
So

Dame Van Winkle, you know, she nags him. Now he deserves but And instead of saying she nagged him a lot and all this stuff, is he says, there was one species of despotism under which he had long grown. And that was petticoat government.

Mike (23:23)
and

Absolutely.

David (23:42)
And this is when he realizes that it's the American Revolution has happened and all of a sudden it's the United States and no one, there's now this George Washington guy and no longer King George III. But I'm like Petticoat government. Happily, that was at an end. He had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony and he could go in and out whenever he pleased without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle.

Mike (23:45)
Yep.

Dame Van Winkle.

David (24:07)
DVW. No, it was just a great way of saying my nagging wife. Now, I don't have a nagging wife. I have a beautiful, lovely, beautiful bride, but it was just language he uses to describe things was that's just a great example of all the fun stuff.

Mike (24:14)
Yes.

Yeah. Agreed. And I,

while you were talking, I was, I was listening, but I was also skimming through to try and find her name and I could not find it. Every reference that I saw was Dame Van Winkle. I don't think so. She's Dame Van Winkle. Van Winkle, not Van Dwinkel.

David (24:30)
Mm-hmm.

So there's no name, she has no name. That's awesome.

Where you put that spay smatters.

Mike (24:52)
Well played.

David (24:53)
Thank you. I have another one. What we might just say, he retired. Irving says, having arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity.

And I was like, dude, I cannot wait until I arrive at that age when a man can be idle.

with impunity, which by the way means impunity means exemption from punishment.

Mike (25:15)
with impunity.

because of Dame Van Winkle and her

David (25:24)
Yes, and I'll.

Yes, frankly, my dear, I don't give a dame, I looked it up in my dictionary. That's what impunity means. And impunity is one of those words where I didn't go, golly, I've never heard of that. Cause there are a couple of words like that, that I thought, golly, I've never heard of. And is it because Irving wrote this in the early 1800s.

Mike (25:39)
Right.

I think that that is a lot of it because when I first started reading it, my first reaction was this is old.

David (25:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (25:56)
I mean, the language is so not what we're used to.

David (25:59)
No, and how did you spell old? A-U-L-D-E? Not that old?

Mike (26:03)
No, I spelt

it O-L-D-E.

David (26:07)
That's medium old. Slightly pink in the center with gray on the edges.

Mike (26:09)
Medium old. I like that.

David (26:12)
That was for Kim, Kim Lake steak. Go ahead.

Mike (26:13)
Indeed, yes, yeah.

I just saw the word sassapras. That was cool. back to the book. I loved the language eventually. at first, it was hard to kind of get into because the little thing at the beginning where he's talking about he found these stories in Diedrich's

David (26:17)
No

Mm-hmm.

Mike (26:35)
journal. I was like, what does this have to do with the story? I'm like, okay, whatever. So I'm like, wait, Washington Irving not write the story? Is he just copying verbatim a journal, which I did not look at. But when I got to the second story in my book, it starts with

David (26:46)
Yep. Yep.

Mike (26:59)
the legend of Sleepy Hollow found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker. So I'm assuming that if I continued on, each story would have something about Diedrich at the beginning. So that is maybe his way of bridging the gap of here's the end of one story. And to remind you of Diedrich.

David (27:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (27:24)
hears a little bit about him and something. And then here's the story.

David (27:27)
Mm hmm.

So common frames of the two stories. that's interesting. I love it.

Mike (27:30)
Yes. Mm-hmm. So

I didn't actually read it to see if there was like an actual thing burging the gap, but yeah.

David (27:41)
Well, I love my edition of this book so much, and it was published in 1980 and the stickers on it from the Grapevine Library, think, I mean, I've had it since then. I it's like, But I went to Amazon and other places where you buy books and I couldn't find this anywhere. So I might lose it. And sorry, Grapevine.

Mike (27:52)
Probably.

⁓

They've got many copies over at the Twig bookstore. Pearl Parkway.

David (28:07)
I'm heading on,

to I-35 South and take a left and just go. I'm just going to go. If I go to New Mexico, I'll turn around because I've gone too far and I'll go back to San Antonio and I'll say, up Twig? I will not say that ever again.

Mike (28:12)
Just go. Ride. Ride and ride.

Haven't

got a worry, they gotta care. Haven't got a place to call my own. That's a song that says San Antonio, San Antonio in it. I just can't remember all of the lyrics.

David (28:37)
Dude, I don't think there's a song in the world that says San Antonio. I think every single one says San Antonio. It's like the language of music. You know, you have to say San Antonio.

Mike (28:41)
SysAnon tone.

So, right, because it's

with probably. Although if you go to one of those rhymy websites that those author friends of ours told us about, Dan and Alan, it would be easier. Yeah.

David (28:49)
Mm-hmm. Totes.

Totally true.

OK, so one more observation for me. What I also didn't realize and I think so after I read the book or the story, then I went back and read the preface and the introduction and the post-fist and all the other stuff. And I learned some cool things. And one of them was that this story was it was actually from a Germanic fable or tale.

It was not a completely original story that Washington Irving made up, but he made it so American and placed it so well in the Hudson River area and all that. And then of course.

Mike (29:30)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Where my,

my great, great, great, great, great uncle, great, great uncle, 3000 greats in there, shot Aaron Burr.

David (29:47)
that's right. Wait, no, no, wait, Tim out, pause. Didn't shoot Aaron Burr because Aaron Burr shot Hamilton.

Mike (29:48)
And that, what I was thinking about when we doing that.

what did I say? don't know what I said. no. I meant Aaron Burr shot. Yeah. My bad. I'm going to cut that out. It's not.

David (29:55)
You said shot Aaron Burr.

Hamilton. Okay, but yeah, but the point is, no, but

you don't have to, it's fine, because it's the same geography and a very close point in history. It was during Rip's nap, because that's another really cool way that Washington Irving made this American.

Mike (30:10)
Yeah.

He could have been woken up by the gunshot.

David (30:19)
But his slumber was deep. It was so deep. No, but was cool about Irving Americanizing the Germanic or Dutch tale of the long sleeper. The fact that he fell asleep during the American Revolution and it was already happening, is it one? Well, yes, but I thought he mentioned Breed or Bunker Hill.

Mike (30:20)
Yes it was. Deep.

before.

I thought that was during when they were talking about people going away to the war. Yeah. Yeah.

David (30:47)
you know, you're totally right. You're totally right. That was the beginning of him going,

wait, what's happening? No, but what was really cool is, you know, this was like the time machine trope. Because even though he didn't go through a time machine, he was unintentional and completely unaware. It's the idea of what would happen if, you know, for him, his perspective, he didn't sleep. He did a 20 year time machine, but didn't know it. So it was just, I just really thought it was so cool.

Mike (30:57)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

David (31:14)
And again, I tried to imagine being a first time reader of this, not knowing the story at all. That's really cool.

Mike (31:20)
Yeah, and that is cool. Because I was

thinking a little bit about that too, because I was thinking, if I was, you know, no, no, no research mic. ⁓

David (31:33)
Clean slate, Mike?

Mike (31:35)
no research, Mike. I like that. It's harder to say and remember.

David (31:37)
Okay.

And clean slate Dave is mine and I appreciate you for letting me.

Mike (31:42)
Exactly. And I don't I don't want

to ruffle feathers. Because they flocked together. but

David (31:45)
I thank you.

Mike (31:50)
I was thinking that it's really cool if you don't know what's going to It's then all of sudden you're like, whoa, you're put in his shoes as he's discovering everything. So that was a really cool thing.

David (31:55)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

I love it. I love it. So, one more thing I need to tell you about, we've talked about before about classics, right? And I think we mentioned it when we read each peach pear plum, cause that's a classic, but it's also younger than we are. That and then you have books like good night moon that both we and our daughters

Mike (32:12)
Mm-hmm.

David (32:27)
1930s. And we read Flat Stanley, which is also old. But then this one, I mean, this one's like 200 years old. And I thought, wait a second, there's almost like a spectrum. There's books. Then there's books that hold up. Then there's classics. But you know what this one is? This might be the first piece of literature that we've read.

Mike (32:29)
Right.

This is really old.

What's that?

my goodness, you could be correct. You are totally onto something.

David (32:51)
Can I be on to something?

Because for me, also, I was an American history major in college. I also took American art history class, which covered among other things, the Hudson River Valley School of Painting. I mean, all of this and this idea of our nation was brand new. And one of the things that these professors talked about with Washington Irving is he was one of the very first American authors.

Mike (33:07)
Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah.

David (33:21)
And he took a German or Dutch tail, but he made it American. So he was almost planting his flag. We are a new country and therefore we are a new culture. he was one of the first, if not the first American authors to be recognized by literary folks in Europe as, okay, truly American.

Mike (33:34)
Yes.

And he was very popular

in England, I believe his, his writing was very popular. And I think he was friends with Dickens. Or at least they had met, I know, cause Dickens I think had come to America as well at some point in his career. so I read something about them, like at least they appreciated each other's work, whether they were good friends. don't know.

David (33:42)
Yes. Yes, so he probably was.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I love it.

I don't think either of them killed the other in a duel though. Okay, good. You never know. You have to look it You're research Mike, I'm clean slate Dave. I have no idea. Okay.

Mike (34:08)
Probably not, but you never know. We'll have to look that up.

But

this is the last thing that I have to say is that one of the things you're right about it being, he basically took it from a Germanic tale that even then was I think a couple hundred years old, but it actually goes back even farther. Like there's, I forget there were, I remember there were four or five.

David (34:31)
Yes.

Mike (34:40)
different stories that are very similar. the ⁓ you go away and you fall asleep for 20 years. One of the stories was only 10 years. I know that I think the 10 year one I think was a Jewish tale. And I can't remember I'm not going to say something stupid like you know, it was the Martians had a tale.

I'm like, were there Phoenicians? Were there guacamoleans? I don't know. Sorry, man. Sorry, man. That's what I had for breakfast.

David (35:07)
guacamole. Don't do that to me when I'm hungry. Come on, man. I love guacamole. no.

Also, but now that you're saying that, was there someone in Greek mythology? They had everything. Yeah, and Odysseus, Odysseus ended up being gone for 20 years. The Trojan War was 10 years and it took him 10 years to get home.

Mike (35:17)
I'm sure that there was. Yeah.

but he didn't sleep probably along the way.

David (35:28)
No. Well, but he also spent like six years alone on one island. Was it Circe's spell? There was some.

Mike (35:35)
Yeah, something.

then there was the Cyclops somewhere.

David (35:39)
yeah, I know that story now.

Mike (35:41)
So we totally

have to like get into the Cyclops stuff more.

David (35:45)
Well, one of the books

I want us to do, because Greek myths, where do you start? But Ingrid and Edgar Dallaire, we should. That was before our hiatus. In other words, since last week when we recorded the last episode of season one. But that book is where I learned and was exposed to the Greek myths. we'll do that book. But what's really fun, I think we've mentioned before that

Mike (35:49)
I know. Yeah, I remember in season one way back when. Yes.

Yeah

Absolutely.

David (36:12)
My daughter Delaney got us into Epic, which is a musical version done only as music on YouTube of the Odyssey. it is like millions of listeners. It is literally like the introduction to the Odyssey.

Mike (36:26)
billions and

billions of listeners, just like our show. wait, we have tens and tens of listeners.

David (36:36)
Hey, speaking of which, let me do a little bit of shameless self promotion. We would like to have more than 10s and 10s of listeners because we may be biased, but we think that what we do is kind of fun. We certainly have fun doing it. And we now have a more defined mission because we love reading. We loved reading to our kids, but we also like as adults, we like to read our kids books. So share this with people. If you like what we did, email it to someone.

Share it with people, review us, like us, download us. Did I forget any verbs or platforms? All the things.

Mike (37:07)
I don't think so. I'm pretty sure

you can find us anywhere except on X because we just haven't opened an account yet.

David (37:16)
Is that my job? Mike, I'm so sorry.

Mike (37:18)
I don't know.

we're up to three now. So, you know, that's a good start after a year and, ⁓ soon we'll have a website with, merch. So, we will probably only stock, you know, 10 or 15 t-shirts because, you know, we only have tens of listeners.

David (37:23)
Yeah, totally.

We'll have merch.

But and also we'll have our own email addresses. So soon we will be Mike at dads on books.com and will be David at dads on books.com. But as an overlap transition, we really still are dads on books at gmail.com. So anyway, ⁓ we love.

Mike (37:53)
on books at gmail.com

David (38:02)
reading books and talking about them. If you have a book you want us to read and talk about, let us know. If you have a book store you love,

Mike (38:07)
And one of the things, libraries.

I was going to say one of the things I've been really thinking about as we're reading these, and I think it's why I picked this book this week or this story was that I think it's really interesting to read the books your kids are reading and then be able to talk to them about them. Like if they're reading it.

David (38:19)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mike (38:31)
at the same time, then something to go, Hey, I saw you were reading that. I picked it up and started reading it and it's really good. I really love

David (38:41)
it's bonding with the kids. And another thing we discovered, Mike, if you listen to our very first episode, which was.

Mike (38:48)
the giving tree or

David (38:50)
labra joyeux, which is French for literally the joy.

Mike (38:51)
You're gonna die.

I'm going to to the

David (38:59)
I almost passed out. No, but Mike and I, we chose that one first because we both had read it and we had good memories of it. But we also separately both reacted to, wow, there is so much more in that book that we did not get as kids that we do as adults. And that's one thing we've also kind of tapped into. When you read children's books, whether you have read them as a kid or not, the perspective you have as an adult is so fascinating with so many of these books.

Mike (39:27)
It really

is. It really is.

David (39:28)
Yeah, it's nothing

we have kind of stumbled upon is the value of reading kids books as adults.

Mike (39:33)
and

to prove that we have children, I have bought this book.

David (39:40)
You have another one!

Mike (39:41)
I bought it in San Antonio.

David (39:43)
love it! Interstate commerce, my friend. You did interstate commerce.

Mike (39:49)
Indeed I did. I can't say that one. I'll tell you that one later. so David, what tastes better than it smells?

David (40:00)
what tastes better than it smells.

Mike (40:02)
Mm-hmm. Your tongue.

in that special.

David (40:08)
special.

Okay, we mentioned our friend Alan Katz before one of his books is funniest joke book ever. And I was going through that wow, look at this amazing bookmark that I use to mark my book. Anyway, what do you call a pile of cats?

Mike (40:31)
I don't know.

David (40:32)
A meownton.

Mike (40:37)
That's what's really funny is I just read something similar to that. And I didn't even think of me out and that's awesome. this is a quick one. My Uber driver really cares about my mental health. Just this morning, me a message saying, I'm here for you.

David (40:57)
That's awesome.

and wait, we also have dad jokes. And I found one and

Mike (41:01)
Dad jokes. So

flashback. My guy doesn't have a mustache, which is weird because all of the joke books have mustaches. Carry on.

David (41:10)
wait, I've got

one world's greatest dad jokes. No mustache. Can February March?

Mike (41:16)
I don't know, can it?

David (41:18)
No, but April May.

Mike (41:23)
That's good.

well, thanks for listening. ⁓ you right. You, you get to do two, two.

David (41:26)
No, no, no, I have more dad Yeah, but-

I just know I get to do three, two. Because I've already done two, I've got a third. OK, so and this is my other book. wait a second. This is the one I showed you where the dad doesn't have a mustache. The eight, the A does.

Mike (41:32)
Okay, one. Okay, go.

Yes, but the A does.

That's Never mind.

David (41:46)
so

I am so glad no, that's not the joke Mike I'm so glad you mentioned Charles Dickens

Mike (41:50)
How glad are you? ⁓

Yeah.

David (41:57)
What does Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack?

Mike (42:01)
I don't know.

David (42:02)
The best of times, the worst of times.

Mike (42:05)
and time spelled with a T-H-Y. Yeah, yeah.

David (42:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, That had

spice rack. No, but it's funny. I did choose this one thinking, ⁓ Charles Dickens was around the same time as Washington And then you mentioned Charles Dickens and I was like, I would do funny. I forgot. Sorry. And I did finish my book, but when I read Washington Irving part, I will go like this.

Mike (42:16)
Right.

That's so funny. That's so funny.

Son of a gun!

David (42:30)
Dude,

this thing protected my bald head. Okay. Yeah. So now we can say, thank you so much for listening. Check us out. tell all of your friends about us and all of those things. And we cannot wait to see you again for season two, episode two, the double deuces. Happy reading.

Mike (42:33)
Yeah.

Season two two. Oh, and that's back to