Latest / The SEANC View / Treasurer candidate says pension system "crowding out other priorities"

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Treasurer candidate says pension system "crowding out other priorities" · The SEANC View

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Music.
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Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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This is Jonathan Owens, your communications director here at Scenic.
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Joined today by Artis Watkins, our executive director, Suzanne Beasley,
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government relations director, and Sam Klein, our digital communications specialist
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slash producer. How are you folks doing today?
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We're good. The way you hesitate with each of our names, despite the fact that
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you see our faces all day long, every day.
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See, I have no problem. Crows me up. It's probably not the greatest thing for
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a communications director to have, but I always have. I think it's like a little
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bit of a stutter or something.
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I picture you at the pharmacy window when you're picking up something for someone
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else in your family and they ask you the birthday.
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Oh, I have to think about it. I have to think about it. And you know they're
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thinking, this is not really for his family.
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Well, Clara's birthday is 10, 11, 12, so I can never forget that one.
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If someone asked me, like, your anniversary, that would be tough.
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Oh, Lord. Going to have to get that one quicker on the draw.
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Well, it's been an interesting week around here for us, but folks in the West
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are still dealing with fallout from Hurricane Helene.
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And we want to kind of start with giving a little bit of an update on what we're doing.
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We're still collecting goods and doing as much as we can to help folks up there.
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We're hearing from a lot of members up there who need help.
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It's not gone away, even though it's gone away from your TV screen.
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I mean, it's probably not as prevalent in the news, but people are still hurting.
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I saw a TikTok last night of someone riding through Swannanoa,
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and it's just devastating.
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Just everyone's belongings out on the side of the street, like just ruined.
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It's just really heartbreaking.
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What are you guys hearing out? I've slowly heard about more and more of the
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smaller towns out there that are starting to open back up. So make sure you
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guys are checking lists if you guys still want to go see those beautiful fall
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changes and those small fall towns.
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Check those lists and see which towns are starting to accept visitors again.
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Yeah, there was something on X about, there was like a graphic of towns that
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are open and ready for business and towns that are still closed.
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And it was getting shared a lot. And I think we should share that with our account.
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I think that's very important. I have family who own businesses in Blowing Rock,
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and this is their busiest season of the year.
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They depend on October and November to kind of make it through the rest of the
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year, and they're not seeing customers right now.
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Obviously, people don't want to get in the way, but if you would like to go
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visit the mountains, you still can.
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Especially Blowing Rock, Boone, the northern areas are a little—and even like
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Cherokee is still kind of open, right?
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Yeah, Silva, Callowee, I know those are both open. in a couple of areas that way.
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And I know, too, I've heard people talk about, you know, Shop Small,
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which I'm always a fan of with the holidays coming up.
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But, you know, you can order things online from businesses that are reopening
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out west to, you know, help them restart.
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Yeah. It's just so big, it's hard to get your head around. And I feel awful
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for the people who grow Christmas trees. Oh, yeah.
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Because, I mean, I've not been out that way to see it, but I heard that if you
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look up on the hills where you see those beautiful rows of Christmas trees that
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they're not, you know, they're just devastated.
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So I can't imagine that's your entire, your life's work, your life savings.
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Everything is growing on that hill. That would be an interesting story for a
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journalist to look into is the Christmas tree industry right now.
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It's going to be a changed market this year. The White House Christmas tree
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usually comes from that area too, right? That's right. Usually.
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Our pottery shop on Bowen Rock.
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I mean, that's about the fourth one. God bless y'all out there, I'm hoping.
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No, I think I'm in a unique position to understand that just because I see their posts.
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And, you know, it really is a tough time for them right now.
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And while we're shameless plugging, let's get our thank yous done.
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And DOT, I think we were just talking about DOT.
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Oh, man. The first and biggest thank you, DOT.
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Y'all are trying to get it done to where we can get to people,
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where we can get people back to their homes, to their businesses,
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allow other people to get to their businesses.
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And it's a Herculean effort. I know the National Guard is playing a huge role
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in that as well and as are many other entities.
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But DOT has to lead that charge, and they've done a great job this entire time.
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And shout out to the DOT's social media team, too. They're just really doing a great job.
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They've always been one of the best agency communications departments,
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and they're doing a great job getting the word out about what they're doing.
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You have a chance, just follow them on X. It says here they've reopened 600-plus
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roads and making progress to restore western North Carolina.
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And they had identified like 5,400 plus sites that were, you know,
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not stable and still dangerous at the beginning of this. Health and Human Services.
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Thank y'all because I know there are so many employees that were completely
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devastated by the storm that work for Health and Human Services and who we've
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talked about on this podcast.
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Care for other North Carolinians who are some of our most vulnerable populations.
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So thank you for staying in the pocket, staying calm and getting the job done.
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And the Department of Adult Corrections, I think it was like 2,200 offenders
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that had to be evacuated and moved to other prisons. Six prisons.
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And God bless all of them because some of them have lost everything they had,
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too, as well as not having someplace to go to work right now and having to be
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transferred other places in the state while they're still trying to recover themselves.
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So just shout out to our state employee workforce. Even the state park staffs
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and the forestry folks, their social media presence is pretty good, too.
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So you've seen a lot of work out of them.
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I thought this post from DOT was pretty interesting. They shared a Blue Ridge Parkway.
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I guess that's part of the National Park System post. And it said that the post
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from the parkway was the parkway is closed because of all these terrible,
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like it shows a picture of the road just pretty much gone.
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And DOT said that it's heartbreaking we don't maintain that road.
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So I didn't know that, that the DOT does not maintain the parkway.
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Federal, yeah. Yeah. But it shows the dangers all over the mountains. Yeah.
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Continue to keep those folks in your thoughts. And if you want to contribute
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to our relief effort, we're happy to have your help.
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We have set up an Amazon list where you can just go on and buy goods and send
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them to us and we'll get them to the proper places up in the mountains.
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And we don't want to move on like most outlets have and act like we're forgetting
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you guys in the mountains.
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So just keep in mind that we still love you. We're still working for you.
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We do have an election coming up there. Yes.
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And there's a lot of there's a Herculean effort around that as well that people
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are making so that the folks in the West can can cast their vote so that we
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can't have anybody disenfranchised because of this storm.
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Yeah. I think the relief package passed last week had some funding for that. Right.
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So it did. And I think last I saw maybe there were supposed to be 80 early voting sites out West.
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And I think they had it was either 76 or 78 or up in and ready for folks to go vote.
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And early voting starts today. So, you know, if those folks can get to the polls, go vote.
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I wonder, I don't know specifically, but is there a way to get a ballot if you
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say left for Florida or something to get away from the storm?
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I guess you can contact the.
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There is. And I would probably step all over myself if I tried it, but there is. Yeah, OK.
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So speaking of the election, it is getting down to the wire here,
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like we said, and it's really close across the board, it seems like.
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Even the races in North Carolina.
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I saw a poll yesterday that said that 20 percent of voters haven't even made
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their mind up in the Council of State races, which I thought was...
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Yeah, they probably haven't heard of most of the people.
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Yeah. You know, if you're not involved in state government, you really don't
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understand how often your lives or your life is touched by people who run the
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agencies and the decisions they make.
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So you can't blame people because you just don't hear much about those races.
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Except in that last little blast before the election. We're seeing some debates
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and things like that. Yeah.
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Unless you're Steve Troxler. Everybody knows who Troxler is.
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Everybody knows. Speaking of which, State Fair, y'all, starts today. State Fair is coming.
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Oh, starts today. Starts today. Wow. We're taping this on Thursday.
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Thursday, October 17th. You
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know what else starts today? I'm really a segue-ing. Well, early voting.
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Early voting starts today. Please go and vote.
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Cast your ballot. Yeah, I think it's that time in the few weeks right before
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actual election day where you're going to see that last ditch effort made by
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council estate folks running in council estate races with whatever money they have left.
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If they can get on the airwaves, they're going to do that.
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Yeah, I'll just be really glad when this whole election is over.
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It's been I usually love elections, you know, and it's just been very disheartening. Yeah.
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One of the worst ones ever. It's exhausting, right? What do young people think about this election?
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Young person correspondent, Sam Klein. From what I've seen, it's just been a
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lot of anger towards either side.
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It doesn't matter who people are voting for. They've just been getting angry
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at each other and yelling at each other. And it's everywhere.
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It's all over social media, just them yelling at each other,
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basically saying, you're wrong. Yeah.
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And I can't even get on social media right now. And that's part of my job.
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I hear that a lot, that people are overwhelmed by it within seconds of getting
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on social media right now. I believe that.
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I walked out of my daughter's volleyball game last week, and it's held in a
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gym that also held elections.
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So the yard is just filled with signs.
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Right. And there was a man there who pulled up the Harris sign and was like
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stomping on it in front of all of these kids walking out. And it was like, I mean, come on.
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First of all, we have to live together, you know, like illegal.
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But second of all, yeah, showing out with kids. Children. What are we teaching?
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And well, I'm wondering, that's why I'm wondering, Sam, like are a number of
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your friends saying I'm just not vote.
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Is it affecting is it creating an apathy that will keep them from going to the
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polls or is it just kind of avoiding it?
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But then going and casting your vote and avoiding social media again.
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I think part of it is that this election has been so controversial that people
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who are exhausted by it, they're not posting anything about it.
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They're still planning on voting, but they just don't want to voice their opinions
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because no matter what, someone's going to be angry. Oh, there's backlash for sure.
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No matter what. So they're just not saying anything, but they're still saying
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that they're going to go out and vote. They say if you want to make the real change, go and vote.
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Just wait. Don't get on the internet and start yelling at each other.
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Just wait until the actual election day or until early voting and go cast your vote.
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And I know, I think that's part of the reason I don't know if I trust the polls
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right now, just because I think there are a lot of people who aren't responding to...
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Polls, especially like your generation. I don't know that polls are a great indicator at all.
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Since I've been watching politics, they've always been kind of skewed on both sides.
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Well, I've heard this said many times that a poll is just a snapshot in time right at that moment.
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So, you know, how much you can depend on that long term is questionable.
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I feel like with how this election has been, though, and everyone being so angry
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at other people for the way they say things or who they say they're voting for.
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There's a lot of people who are going in these polls of what they think they're
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going to do and lying because they're scared to say what they are actually going to do. Yeah.
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And so they're going in there and saying, yeah, I'm voting for this person.
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Yeah. Because they're scared. So we've said on here many times a race that is
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very important to state employees and retirees is the state treasurer's race.
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Last week, we were able to sponsor one of the hometown debates from the Institute
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of Political Leadership. Is that the right name? Yes. Yes.
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And it was in Greensboro. I think it was filmed October 8th,
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but they played it on Sunday.
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And I'm sure that everyone turned off their football games to watch the hour-long
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state treasurer's debate.
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That would be a perfect world if it happened, but nope, I bet not.
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But it was a very interesting debate. I thought Wesley Harris is our endorsed candidate,
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and I I thought he did a good job of spelling out why he is good for the job
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and why he, I think his opponent kind of went after him for being supported
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by state employees like Scenic and the NCA.
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Call us a special interest, actually. Yeah. Which is strange.
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So he had said something about, he's basically insinuating that he's going to
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do whatever we want him to do.
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And he's talking about Scenic, the firefighters, the teachers.
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All of the groups that have members in the state health plan and retirement system. Yeah. Yeah.
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And we're special interests. No. I mean, that's the public employees in the public employee plans.
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Those are the people who should care about the state treasurer's race.
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Yeah, the people who sometimes get shot at when they come to the door.
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That are directly affected by... Brad Briner is a Wall Street money manager.
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Said he's been doing investing for 25 years.
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Personal investing. Not institutional investing, like endowments or anything
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like that, and certainly not pensions.
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And those are critical distinctions in the investment world because the type
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of investments he's got experience with...
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According to what he's sharing as his experience, is a completely different
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animal than the kind of more conservative investment you do when you're trying
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to maintain the retirement, the actual living of all of these public employees
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who are counting on that to be there.
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It's not the same as investing Michael Bloomberg's money.
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Yeah, he was quick to point out one of his customers, clients,
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was one of the top five richest people in the world.
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And I think that's wonderful. It's just a completely different animal than pension
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investing. I mean, that's great.
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I'm glad he's had a successful career doing what he's been doing.
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But this would be a complete departure.
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And also the state health plan would be. Yeah. So that was another thing.
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He said the number one most important job of the state treasurer is to manage
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the pension fund. And he totally didn't say anything about the state health plan.
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He mentioned it later on. But that's also a huge part of that job.
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Also, the banking commission. Local government commission.
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Which he had called all of that part time jobs. Well, I mean,
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there is so much on the treasurer's plate that all of it has to be a part-time
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job, and it's all huge, which is kind of bad.
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But I did pull one clip out I thought we could kind of talk about.
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You mentioned that he worked in personal investing and not a pension fund,
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which is run by a government, right?
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So maybe he doesn't know the ins and outs of government, and I think this clip
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kind of points that out a little bit. Let me play it for you.
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Okay, same question to you, Mr. Briner. When we look at the pension plan,
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do you think it should continue on the current path that it's on?
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Thank you. By and large, we agree. We need to do better for our retirees and for our taxpayers.
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What is very different, though, is the capability to do so.
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As an example, Wesley just said we have 14% in cash.
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For those of us in the investment business, numbers matter. We have never had
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14% in cash in this pension plan.
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We have 7% in cash today. If you pull up the state treasurer's website,
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I encourage you to go look at that today.
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That is a $10 billion difference.
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For those in the investment business, $10 billion is nothing to laugh at.
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For the taxpayers of the state, you should pay attention when people give you
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numbers that are just wrong.
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We need to have a more assertive investment strategy. We need to make 6.5%.
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That's what enables the math to work. That's what enables us to give cost-of-living adjustments.
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That's what enables us to stop taxing the taxpayers so much.
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We have gone from 4% of the state budget to 16% of the state budget going into
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the pension plans over the last 12 years.
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That is a trajectory we cannot continue on.
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It's crowding out so many other priorities of the state. Okay,
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so yeah, I played that clip because... Well, he's wrong.
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He said numbers matter. Yeah, that's fine. And I agree with him. They do.
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And then he was wildly wrong when he said 16 percent of the state budget goes
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into the retirement system. Right. It does not.
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16 percent of state payroll. Goes into the retirement system.
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There's that difference.
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How big is that difference, Suzanne, number wise? About $4 billion.
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Yeah, it's $1.9 billion. That would be the contribution lawyer. Yeah.
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So he starts out by, you know, saying, oh, Wesley, you don't know numbers here.
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Like, you're wrong. And then he just says a stat that is wildly inaccurate.
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Well, numbers matter. Yeah. Numbers matter. And we're in agreement.
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So we do agree on that part. I think that 16 percent of the 12 billion dollars
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in salary would be about one point nine billion dollars that is put in by the state each year.
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The state budget is $33.7 billion.
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So if you did, what, 16% of that, it would be about $6 billion.
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So we could totally deal with it. That's making retirees sound like they cost,
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you know, many, many, many times what they cost.
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And forgetting that these state retirees have consistently, while they were
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active employees, put in 6% of their paycheck every single month.
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When the state at times put in zero and then less than a quarter of one percent.
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And that wasn't all that long ago. That was 20 years ago.
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So the state has been wildly irresponsible when it felt like it.
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The retirees, when they were active, were steady with that six percent.
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And now we've got somebody wanting to be treasurer who says numbers matter and
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then says the retirees cost a whole lot more than they do.
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That's a recipe for a disastrous mess.
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And it's not just a mistake that he didn't just misspeak in this debate.
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He said that several times. We found a few other instances.
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He said it when he spoke to the Retired Governmental Employees Association last month.
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Which makes you wonder what's behind that. He's obviously saying that...
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I think he probably believes that's how it works. He's not been in government.
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And he's saying that state employee and retiree shouldn't be...
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A priority in the next breath. So is he saying that the state should spend less on?
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I have no idea. I don't know what he was getting at. I just know it was wrong.
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And I know that he also really argues hard to get rid of the sole fiduciary,
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which in 2009, we agreed.
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We were talking with a lot of pension experts around the country, actually.
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And we thought, yeah, we got to get rid of the sole fiduciary and then our problems will be solved.
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And then people around the country started educating us that when these boards
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are appointed, they're appointed by politicians.
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So you end up with buddies of politicians comprising a board that then makes
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the decisions, but you can't file a vote for or against those people on the board.
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Politicians get to put them there. You can file a vote for or against the state
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treasurer. We can hold that one person accountable.
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So we were really concerned to hear that as well, because the answer isn't,
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hey, we get rid of Sulfiduciary and then everything will be great with these
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political appointees running the show.
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It's that what you need is to have the people involved in the system around the table.
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And I never heard that, the special interests, as he calls us.
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Yeah. I mean, if you look at us as special interests, then you definitely wouldn't
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want us around the table.
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And we can't guarantee that we would have a voice on a board like that. We would not.
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We can't even do it on the state health plan this year. We had an issue with that. Right.
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The state health plan board was written in legislation to have an active and
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retired state employee and an active and retired teacher.
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And it is not working out that way because over time, those things get shuffled around.
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And you know who gets left out in the cold, the people who aren't the good buddies.
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And we're not talking, we're talking about. And that perspective is so important.
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You have to have it. Somebody who's making, you know, $40,000 a year is going
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to consume health care in a different way than somebody who's making $100,000.
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And we've sat in that room, Suzanne, and listened to people whose investment
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experience was endowments, for instance.
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You know, large university endowments. And let me tell you how it works.
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And look, it's not the same. Again, if you improperly invest a university's
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endowment, maybe the football stadium can't get built to be bigger that year.
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Maybe you can't add a special wing to the library that you wanted to.
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Probably the whole universe isn't going to fall apart. If you improperly invest
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state retirement funds, people's retirement they have worked for and that is
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promised to them won't be there.
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It is a different type of investment. And we've watched people sit there and
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talk about them like they're the same.
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So, yeah, we're very worried. Yeah, you're messing with people's lives.
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So, I mean, we've done a lot of work in the last eight years with Treasurer
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Falwell to cut fees. And he's given us a voice, maybe even obviously larger
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than we've ever had. And we were very appreciative of that.
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But what's going to happen when or if we don't have that voice anymore?
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Oh, we'll be back to business as usual. And actually, it's even before Treasurer Falwell,
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Senator Apodaca, when he was the rules chair in the Senate, he was making sure
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legislation was put in place to try to give groups that advocate for state employees
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and retirees and the state employees and retirees themselves.
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A voice through the legislation. He worked so hard. I'd say he was the leader of that.
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And it will go back to the days before, which didn't matter who was in charge.
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By the way, this is when either party was in charge.
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It was just friends of people who were the most politically powerful that end
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up on these boards saying how state employees' health care and their retirement should be run.
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And what happens when the state treasurer's, all of his friends, our rich investors.
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I mean, you know, it's not a given.
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Anything could happen. He could go in there and be amazing. But I would say
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these comments have been a little concerning because I think maybe he doesn't
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understand a lot about the office and certainly about,
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he certainly doesn't understand the way the retirement system works or it's funded.
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Because to say that in two different speeches or places, that wasn't a misstatement.
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That was, he doesn't get it. I have a clip from Wesley Harris here that I thought was interesting, too.
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You have to focus on the benefits. And, you know, my opponent likes to say I
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like to throw money at the problems.
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And I like to make smart investments in the problem that actually lower costs
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in the long run, that actually will limit the amount of money that the legislature
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has to throw at these problems.
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And that's the difference between a short-term fix and a long-term solution.
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The long-term solution is making sure we are investing in our families,
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make sure we are investing in our state employees with preventative care,
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with wellness programs to make sure that they are consuming health care in the
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most efficient way possible.
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And we have to focus, you know, push back on hospitals, push back on some of
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the pharmaceutical companies to make sure we're getting fair prices,
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embrace price transparency so people know what prices they're paying so that
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they can make the better decisions.
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But again, that's the critical piece because again, growing up,
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my dad was a banker and And he used to tell me, he was like,
23:53
well, thank God for your mom's pension plan and thank God for your mom's health plan.
23:56
Because when she retires, that's going to be better quality than anything we
23:59
can get at that price point.
24:01
We've gone away from that. That was the bargain we made for state employees.
24:04
And we are suffering as a result of that because we're not making those investments.
24:08
Those investments pay for themselves and actually lower costs.
24:12
So I'm not throwing money at the problem.
24:13
I'm limiting costs in the long run by making sure we're making those smart investments.
24:18
So that was about the state health plan. I thought it would be important for
24:21
us to talk a little bit about their differences on the state health plan as well.
24:25
Well, I mean, right off the first thing that hits me, well, two things.
24:28
Number one, Wesley Harris acknowledged that you have to renegotiate everything
24:32
with the hospitals and with pharmaceutical companies because we are overpaying. We know that much.
24:37
I think, in fairness, Brad Briner said something about pharmaceuticals,
24:41
at least. He might have said something about hospitals as well.
24:43
But the other thing that strikes me is when Wesley Harris says,
24:47
yeah, on the dependent coverage, you have to spend the money to bring the dependent
24:50
coverage down to save much more money in the long run.
24:54
And that's because of the fact that actuaries determine how much each of us in that plan costs.
25:01
And actuaries look at children as much less expensive to insure health care wise.
25:06
And so people aren't putting their kids on the health plan. It costs too much.
25:10
They're going to cheaper options.
25:12
And therefore, it skews the age of people in the health plan up.
25:15
And we pay a lot more. Affects the pool.
25:18
Yeah. What did you think of Bronner's statements about kind of wellness for state employees?
25:24
I mean, that's the whole thing. It kind of takes me immediately back to there
25:29
was a period of time with the state health plan.
25:32
Gosh, it's been a long time ago. But there was a push to base premiums or coverage. Anyway, your BMI.
25:40
Your body mass index. was going to be what drove your coverage.
25:47
Absolutely insane. Going to put calipers on everybody. I mean,
25:50
it would be going right back to that, which is a really astounding thing when
25:55
the actuaries that work with the state health plan have already said we can't
26:00
see the contracts because the state law is...
26:02
Right, transparency is the whole thing. There is no transparency around any of it.
26:07
But what we do know is that the range of what we're paying is up to more than
26:12
four times what it would take to profitably run a hospital.
26:15
So that's we know that much. But knowing that the answer is we're going to find
26:20
different ways to increase costs on state employees, probably the ones who need
26:26
the health care the most. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
26:29
So, well, that's that's a little bit of election talk for us.
26:33
So we urge everyone to go out and find your early voting spot and go cast your
26:38
ballot as soon as you can.
26:39
As soon as you can vote, the quicker the mail stops coming to your mailbox because
26:45
it seems like people take you off a list somewhere and then they don't send
26:49
you the 3,000 mailers that I get every day.
26:52
So I'm going to vote probably today, maybe tomorrow to just stop all that.
26:56
But please go out and vote. Scenic members always vote in droves and we expect nothing less this year.
27:02
But please vote. If you can't vote early, make a plan to vote on Election Day,
27:07
November 5th. Find out where your polling place is and go vote.
27:10
And Scenic members can find our endorsed candidates on the website at scenic.org.
27:14
Scenic.org. We'll make it very well placed on our website so you can find it easily.
27:20
And you can see all of our endorsed candidates.
27:22
There are a ton of them. So please look through and find the ones in your area and vote accordingly.
27:27
Now, I've given y'all a break for two weeks from this John's Wacky Weird Question of the Week.
27:32
But we have to get back to it. John's wacky weird question of the week.
27:41
So my question this week is, what is your favorite fall activity?
27:47
Sam, we're going to eat first.
27:49
I have quite a few, but I do several things every year around fall.
27:56
I think my favorite fall activity for the most part is rewatching Gilmore Girls
28:00
because that's something me and my mom both do together.
28:02
We may be in different areas, but we start rewatching at the same time so that
28:07
we can finish rewatching at the same time.
28:09
And just talk about it and gab a little bit.
28:13
So not to be rude, I really try not to be, but why is that a fall activity?
28:18
Why do you do it in the fall? A lot of the show takes place and surrounds itself with fall.
28:23
And it also is in Connecticut. So it's a very fall, comfort, cozy show.
28:29
So it's kind of like my go-to fall activity. It's just what evokes those memories in you. Yeah.
28:35
It makes it feel like fall. But you spent a lot of time in Western North Carolina.
28:39
Were there any festivals or anything you went to up there?
28:42
Not this year. Whenever I was at Western Carolina, we had Mountain Heritage
28:46
at the end of September, which is what made it feel like fall up there.
28:50
We would have some trunk retreats that would be in the different churches around
28:55
the area, as well as some things that they would do on campus.
28:58
I did a trunk retreat on campus one year at the Ramsey Center.
29:03
That was a lot of fun. We did it basically by dorm rooms.
29:07
So like our dorm building had its own little table for all the kids in the area
29:11
to come up and get candy and stuff.
29:14
Cool beans. What about you, Suzanne? I know I bet it involves taking those grandkids
29:18
around well it does now because I have grandkids but even when Garrett was a
29:22
little boy going to the pumpkin patch The pumpkin patch the pumpkin spatch.
29:28
That's what he said Going to the pumpkin patch and you know picking out a pumpkin
29:32
to make a jack-o'-lantern out of he wasn't a fan of scooping out the guts of
29:37
the pumpkin but Was always fun more memories and now I have me and Libby to
29:41
do it with so They have that big.
29:44
Air-filled bouncy thing on most
29:47
of those pumpkin patches now i know we have gross farms in
29:50
sanford's shameless plug for gross farms but it's a big one there and we always
29:56
took cameron my stepson to it clara she went one year and she was not very excited
30:01
about it so it was more of a thing for him because he loved getting on this
30:04
huge air pocket thing and jumping around and stuff I'd be the one stuck in the corner.
30:10
I'm not able to get out. And they have a corn maze, too. So those are fun.
30:16
What about you, Artis? What's your favorite fall?
30:18
I mean, it's hard to pick a favorite. I just love everything about fall.
30:21
It's my favorite season, definitely.
30:22
I think it is a lot of peoples in North Carolina, though. The weather's beautiful here in the fall.
30:28
The fair happens. We've already talked about that.
30:31
Eternal devotion to the fair. You know, the fact that football's back in the
30:35
fall. And then... Elections.
30:37
Yeah, no. Harvesting pumpkins. And now, because with the kids being grown, horror movies.
30:45
Yeah. That's become more of a little tweaked tradition.
30:49
I'm not a horror movie person. Nor am I, John. I am.
30:53
See, my brother traumatized me because he was a huge horror movie fan.
30:57
And I'm like 10 years younger than him.
31:00
And so he like made me watch them and scared me for the next week afterwards.
31:05
So I just never have gotten into them, really.
31:07
Yeah, Friday the 13th did me in. That was it. I like Get Out.
31:12
That's a good one. But as far as like the gory, scary ones.
31:16
I like the documentary thrillers. Oh, yeah.
31:19
I like the ones that are like based on true crime. I was going to say that's taken it.
31:24
Now that actually scares me. I like horror films. Those aren't scary and,
31:28
you know, because they seem so silly. But yeah, those things scare me.
31:31
So my fall, favorite fall activity has always been the Ashboro Fall Festival.
31:37
Because we went every year and set up a table for pottery every year.
31:42
We went to this fall festival, and it's huge.
31:44
And it's like all through the city.
31:47
I mean, the downtown area on Fayetteville Street.
31:50
And it's just like, it was like what fall meant to me when I was little.
31:53
It was like the start of fall.
31:56
We always went to the Ashford Fall Festival, and it was a lot of fun.
32:00
So fall festivals are great. We also had the Pottery Festival in Seagrove, which was a big deal.
32:05
That was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Shameless plug again I got three in
32:09
this episode Oh it's pottery y'all Four Well thanks to everyone Who joined us
32:15
And we'll try to Keep you on your toes For the election Please go vote And.
32:20
Music.