Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / Rick's Blog Live - Full Show 10/28/26
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- rick's blog live 10 28 26: Hi, I'm Rick Altson, and this is Rick's Blog Live. Thank you for watching. We've got a lot to cover this sh in this show, and you're gonna want to stay with us through all of it. But let's first talk about the issue. This is our foo foo issue. This is a guide we do every year. 12 days of foo. What are the big bands? What are the big artists in town? It's arts and culture with the blue angels as a part of it. You can find it on probably wherever you work, shop, or dine in Escambi and Santa Rosa counties. Or you can go online and read us there. I'll tell you what, we've got so much y'all wanna cover. Let's go ahead and get right to it. A new report is out by the state. Every year they report on infant and fetal mortality in the state. By region, we're region one. We've got some good numbers and some not so good numbers in it. We saw our fetal mortality rise from four four point four to five point seven per 1,000 births. We saw our infant mortality fall from 6.9 to 6.1, which is good, but we're still above the state average. on that number. The person who really watches this and and looks after b maternal care and healthy start, it's a healthy start coalition. We have with us Alison Anderson. Alison, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having us, Rick. You know, it's we're you were teasing me before that I got the report before anybody. The only reason I know about the report is last year y'all we sat down and you explained to me what was going on. Looking at this report, what were your takeaways? A tale of two two cities, if you will. Mm-hmm. As you pointed out, we've seen tremendous improvement in our infant mortality in our community. But on the flip side of the coin, and equally important, is we're trending the wrong way in fetal mortality. And that's what Healthy Start exists to do to address those issues in our community. And make improvements with our partners and friends across the scambia whenever we can. All right, well that's that probably should have been the first question I asked you because I got ri I'm a numbers guy, I go right into the numbers and you know me. But but for our for our viewers who d don't d know much about Healthy Start, the coalition, tell us a little bit about it. Healthy Start was formed in nineteen ninety-two and it was created as a statewide program where we have thirty-two Healthy Starts across Florida, and our mission is A healthy b a healthy start for every baby, with particular emphasis on reducing impetal and infant mortality, reducing low birth weight babies, and prematurity. And so we exist to move the needle on those data metrics. And we do that through our home visiting programs. And those are coordinated by registered nurses at our local department of health. So that at our core is what we exist to do. We have other wonderful great programs that were we also or entrenched in the community on but home visiting is the core nugget of our mission and who we are and what we do. Well and the other thing that y'all do is y'all analyze every death. Yes. You know, so we're getting a real good view of what's if there's a trend or there's something happening. I know one noticed I noticed one stat I noticed Allison was on unintentional causes of death with infants, which was particularly high, over almost thirteen percent. Right. And what you have to also kn know, and the community should understand, those that number, there is a great disparity in our community between white babies and babies of color. if you are a brown or a black baby, your infant mortality rate is nearly three times as high as that of a white baby. but the data metrics that you point out Tell us that unintentional injuries are a leading cause of death. And what are unintentional injuries? Right, that's my next question. we're just coming out of the summer, drownings. We've had several high-profile drowning deaths in our community. we do safe swim programming at Healthy Start during the swim season. Accidental suffocation deaths, those are among the most tragic and moonbreaking that we see. What does that mean? It means where a parent or a caregiver falls asleep, perhaps, and smothers the baby, rolls over on the baby, an exhausted new parent, or the baby is placed in an unsafe sleeping environment with blankets and pillows, and little babies can't move their noses and their mouths to get out of trouble to breathe. And so we see far too much of that still. And that correlates to one of our signature programs, which is Safe Sleep. In our community, we provide what's called a pack and play. Used to be called play pen back in the day. Right? we provide pack and plays to any family who asks for it in our community. We fundraise to do it so that no baby goes to sleep in an unsafe space or environment. We also see car accidents. Rick, it would astonish you to hear that there are a number of babies who are transborn in our community without a safe car seat. They show up at the Healthy Start office at least a few times a month. Mom's carrying the baby, someone's in the back seat carrying the baby. We provide a car seat installed by a certified technician to anyone who asks us for one because we fundraise to do it. Right. we don't want any baby travel and traversing this community without a car seat and a safe means of transport. All right, we've re we're gosh, it always go so fast, Alice that but Good news yesterday it the children's trust meeting. we've got a couple of minutes. Tell us about the grant that you received. We are so excited. Our Scambia Children's Trust awarded Healthy Start a hundred and twenty four thousand dollars per year, three year grant, total of three seventy-four to launch a doula program in our community, which is something we have wanted to do for years. So a doula is what? A doula is a non medical trained person in our community who provides educational, emotional, and physical support to a woman who is pregnant, has newly delivered, or within a year of postpartum. So wh why do you think this is helpful? Research tells us that one of the biggest indicators of maternal and infant health relate to maternal stress and anxiety. That dualer's role is to bring the temperature down and help mama through that whole process. To bring her anxiety down, her comfort level up, build trust with her care team so that the baby is born as healthy as possible. And we don't have so many of those preterm births and and low birth weight births in our community. Yeah, you we've we've we've got all your information up on the screen throughout this interview. But I think people should know that y'all want people to call you. yes, we do. You won't you wanna hear. We do wanna hear. 850 696 2291. Well, and and y'all have so many different services you can offer and it it's before and after. Yes, sir. Zero to three. Zero to three, which is great. Well, Allison, thank you so much for coming around. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. It's been a pretty good partnership, hasn't it, over the years? It has. We meet and we talk about heavy set things, right? but there are strategies out there and we know what they are. And at Healthy Start, we're a small but mighty team that's trying to do something about them. And we're very blessed. We work with a partner, a community of partners that support us in our work. So we're delighted. That's a good deal. Well so much thank you. Thank you, Rick. Yeah, we're we're gonna go ahead and take a break. This Healthy Start, check it out. Go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back. I learned during my military service to train every day to fight and fight to win. If you've been injured in an accident, you already know one thing for sure. The insurance companies are gonna fight you for every dollar you deserve. At Michelson Booth, we settle most of the cases we handle. But if the insurance companies choose to fight, well, we're okay with that too. If you've been injured in an accident, choose a law firm that's got the resources, training, and stomach for the fight. Michaelson Booth, don't be a victim twice. Take a breath and step into something green. At Pensacola Seed and Garden, both of our locations are open seven days a week, ready when you are. We don't just sell plants, we grow many of them right here, with care you can see. And once you take one home, you'll find everything you need to help it thrive. Visiting from out of town? 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I found it on YouTube and you touched on a lot of point a lot of reality moments and what you're dealing with. of course, number one was enrollment. Yes. You know, I think at the time were you told me we have, you know, 33,129. How did that number hold up in the official count in October? Well, today we have thirty-three thousand and sixty-five students enrolled in our public school system. First of all, thank you for having me. I don't want to ever pass up an opportunity to talk about our school district. I did a presentation back in September to talk about academic momentum, then to talk about the truths of where we are as far as student enrollment, how that has changed over the last Five, six years, and how it's changed dramatically. the state of education in Florida has changed with the voucher system. Talked a little bit about some of the things that we have done in the past two years, whether it be a hiring freeze, travel freeze, right-sizing our staffing population as it relates to instructional staff members, administrative staff members, support staff. went through all of that, and then I talked about What perhaps should be next steps laid that out for our school board members, our our citizenry here in Escambia County, because there are gonna have to be some things that are done. Sometimes those items aren't always fun to do. Right. I've told you before, leadership is lonely. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna make certain our board is well informed, they'll be able to make the decisions that they need to make, because we need to make certain that our public school system here in Escambia County. has a chance to be the best that they possibly can. Well you've activated a CASAT committee. Yes. it's looking it's part of its charge from you is to look at Lincoln Park Elementary and to look at Warrington Elementary. the and and create watching the video you talked about taking the MB Cook model and creating that on the west side of town. Let's talk about Lincoln Park. Because it's a school that was that was struggling for a long period of time. It's gotten up to a B, but its school its attendance zone has been rated by by other schools. It it it doesn't have that many students, but it seems to be working. Well i it is working. They do a great job at Lincoln Park, just like all other of our thirty-two elementary schools. They work their tail off to make certain they're providing those students the great opportunities educationally. Lincoln Park is a small neighborhood school. If you just ask Keith Leonard, that would be the last thing that he would want to be able to do or have to even bring up. That school is built for about 300 students. And right now, I want to say earlier this week when we were looking at things prior to the SAZAC meeting yesterday, it's like a hundred and ninety-five kids, and that's including pre K that are currently at Lincoln Park. Within that attendance zone, there's at least Three times the number of those students that live within that attendance zone. But they've chosen to go elsewhere. So we that's one of the places that we looked. I had to start somewhere. I told you again, leadership slowly. The two schools that I picked for us to be able to look at rezoning those students to other sites were schools that were under 300 students. And that would just happen to be Lincoln Park in Warrington right now. Our school board has talked Many, many years now about trying to do a cook model on the west side. I'm certainly not opposed to that. I'm very excited about trying to do something like that for students on the west side of our county. There was one other school that serves a therapeutic type mental health group of of students. There's only 33 students at that site, and it's one entire site. So we're looking at co-locating students to another location with that site. We'll be able to bring those new zones. in December to our school board, so there'll be a public hearing for that. And then the hopefully the final decision would be made in January. I'm actually going out to Lincoln Park next week, I believe it's Thursday, to talk to their faculty. I hope to be able to do that again with Warrington and actually talk to the be members of the community. But when you lose 7,000 students, you're gonna ha s somewhere you gotta give. We gotta figure out where that's gonna be. So those are just a couple of the the ideas. So when you look at Lincoln Park, you know, and y'all have too one thing y'all do today that we didn't have five years ago, ten years ago, is your data scientists that you have, y'all y'all are able to really get down to the minutiae of what's going on. Where are the students going that you Lincoln Park's middle? Yeah, so they're looking you talking about right now? Yeah, yeah. Let's say out of the twelve, thirteen hundred eligible kids, where are they going? Everywhere. with school choice, if you can provide that transportation or we have a trunk route, you can end up going anywhere you want to. So they could stay in the public school system anywhere they wanted as long as there was a desk. What's difficult to figure out is where families are that never came to our school district. That's very, very difficult. And we don't have them in our database. So if they take a voucher, we don't know because we never had We know about the ones that have been with us and are now taking a voucher. but it's everywhere. If you and I both lived in Lincoln Park's district, you had a child, you let stay at Lincoln Park, you thought that was what you wanted to do. I work at Jim Allen and I want I I take my child with me. Right. And when you got, you know, twenty seven hundred teachers, that does occur. And that community has grown. There's old homes there that have been around for years and there's brand new homes. there's some good things about school choice and being able to go anywhere you want to go. And there's also some difficult things, some challenges for a school district, and this just happens to be one of Talk about the MB Cook mo model. What for someone who's not familiar with that, what is that monitor? So art, drama. I was there d y are you gonna ask me about the hurricane as well? No, no. We'll that's a whole nother show. But drama, theater, music, dance. we actually have a dance teacher that helps us with that that art. Right. Which I'm not I don't have much rhythm. But there had been some talk of taking MB Cooking and you know w working something out with OJ Sims and and You know me. I I think I'm creative. Some of the things that I had thought about and talked to our board about was actually making that Cook a K A model. Right. And using OJ Sims, and also doing a small attendance zone within that community. I I got mixed reviews on that. real realtors loved it. some of the parents thought it was a really good idea and some of the parents didn't think it was a good idea. But it was not to do anything to diminish what they are what they do at Cook. It was actually to try to expand it. And Our data scientist has actually been able to drill down to the data and I want to say it's now three years in a row that if we had tried that, all three of those all both of those schools would have been an A. Right. If you go by grades. Right, right. You know, it it's one other idea, now you've got me thinking, you know, when I listen to what you say, you know, and the other idea that was being kicked around, and in fact I sat in on a parents meeting gosh, over a year ago. on creating a a middle school program at Pensacola High, an IB middle school program. Where where does that stand? It's going well. Eighty, I'm gonna say we have around eighty or eighty-two kids in seventh and eighth grade currently at Pensacola High School. you may see us bring that to be a sixth, seventh, and eighth. The other thing you may see that's part of what I put in the presentation was adding sixth grade at a few of our other elementary schools. If we have capacity, which obviously we do, why not take advantage of that? Moms and dads are a little hesitant about that trip into middle school. Right. yeah that was Talk about the difficult place where your your daughter teaches. Middle school is a different world. Right. so those are some of the things that we're throwing out there. You're right, we've done that at Pensacola High School. We have our school choice expo tomorrow night. I'm hopeful that there'll be many, many parents. More importantly, students that are interested in going into that middle school year's academic program in hopes of being in the IB program because that is one top-notch program there. All right. Yeah, there's one topic that that came up last week at the school board meeting, the book The Devil's Arithmetic, which is a part of the Holocaust curriculum. the where does that book stand right now with the school district? That book is removed from K through six. Okay. It is still available at our middle schools and our high schools. And there were several books that were on that list, that were on the states list that we took to our board for approval. that had grade ranges and grade bands in it. That's where those books would be removed from. If they were moved, were removed from another school district, K through six, that's what will occur in our school district and that's where the devil's arithmetic is. Okay, so the book is still in middle school and high school. In middle school and high school. Well, good. Seventh seventh through twelfth grade is what it was. Well, you know, in in y It was a com confusing meeting. And and the I know that that th there was a lot of concern because there was you know, the idea of of not teaching a book like this, which is there's a there's a place for historic novels that really help kids connect to a story better than just getting the wrong numbers or, you know, a history book as its own. Y y the I think I think you and I both probably read it in I know I I I think I read it in middle school. I thought back in time. I'm not certain. I believe it was published in the late seventies. So either I read it or I used it to teach when I was a social studies teacher. So I was familiar with it. I do believe it's very appropriate for upper middle school and high school students. I can see where there could be some inappropriate material in there that you might not want a second or third grader to read. So I I get it. Yeah. Well Keith, thank you so much for coming on always it's been good. We're going to go ahead and take a break. I've ran this one longer than I should have, but it when you're talking to Keith Leonard, you want to get as many questions in as you can. We'll go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back. Well I think it's all about local and I'm a big believer in local. So I think anytime you can carry a message out locally it's important. And I think it's any time the person that delivers the service can also deliver the message. Which is unusual. Do you have the people that actually deliver the project doing the talking? And I think that's a huge difference and a lot really makes a huge value difference for the consumer. 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We're three weeks out from the storm. where does Guff Bree stand right now? Yes, so you know, we were talking just before we aired that I've been on the Mississippi, I'm sorry, on the Gulf Coast for twenty years now and boomerang back to Florida, and I've responded to about twelve to fourteen different storms directly managed. And the one thing that that, you know, has shown me is that you r you prepare. plan for the storm you think that you're going to get, right? We we always prepare for the storm we anticipate, but then you have to respond to the storm you actually get. And that's, you know, w in this case, the storm was full of surprises. And so leading up to it, we were preparing for a cat three. We you know, with our staff were looking at a lessons learned from Ivan. And that is so important to be able to go back to your after action reports and you know, the lessons learned even when it's twenty years ago. And so, you know, we were putting, you know, generators out and, you know, pumps preparing for the storm surge just like our neighboring, you know, communities. And then of course, what we actually got was something, you know, almost like random tornadoes and we've all heard the the new term of of jet stinger, right? I don't think I'm wanting to learn anything new after all this time. And so I really felt like that was a foul on the field. Right. Well and we had we had always been taught that West is best. And we we would say once we heard we hated it to land anywhere, but as it was moving further east of us, we were thinking, Okay, we're we're gonna be okay. That's right. And then it was almost like the eye passed over us. That that twenty minutes of no wind with that led The beginning was like you're right, being in the middle of the storm and then having the eye and then have the wind shear completely disappear. Yes. Right after it. It was. It was. And it you know, it's always a natural disaster is always a test of the relationships that you build prior to the storm. And so being able to communicate real time and know that everyone else is thinking the same thing and saying, you know, we're feeling that, you know, that there's a shift. It's coming from the north. How can this be coming from the north? Right. And so that was very interesting real time to be having those conversations and be communicating with our hospital and with the EOC and thinking this is a very different storm. So where we are now of course, you know, three weeks later is you know, this is where our employees and those relationships really shine. We talk a lot about resilience, it's almost become a buzzword. Right. Everybody now talks about resilience, but but I do think that sometimes it's it's misused and and people think that well it's just about endurance or weathering through something, but it really is the measure of how quickly you bounce back. So this is when those relationships that we've built, you know, our county and state partners, it's when they're tested and we're so very grateful for them and We were also tacking talking prior to airing about in Gulf Breeze that you you see so much of neighbors helping neighbors. Right. You hear the chainsaws the next morning and everybody's w and and y'all did a great job of like one thirty in the morning. you had trucks going through the neighborhoods cleaning pathways on the streets. Yes. which was a again something we'd never seen before. Those you had a lot of things work well, Samantha, Engulf Breeze. What could we do better? Yes, well, no matter no matter what your plans are, any time you have a natural disaster, it's gonna expose those vulnerabilities. And we spend a lot of time talking about that leading up to to a hurricane event. you know, that Friday, you know, as we were having our planning, I said, This is the last time we're gonna all see each other until after this event. There's going to be mistakes that are made. We're all gonna fall back on the level of our training. Remember your training. And so I think that having good people well trained in those decision making roles really shined. But we boy we had some curveballs. So I think by now most of the public know that our natural gas. We did not know that after Sally we had, you know, so many people in our or or so much growth in our service areas. And of course we serve both Penskola Beach and we stretch down to almost bar. And and so for a period of time we our pressure dropped so low that we were not receiving natural gas ourself. Right. Our EOC was in the dark. Our police department, our fire department. So again, falling back on that relationship with the hospital for you know, Julie Cardwell to be directly messaging me saying, We're okay for now, but how are you? Right. Yeah, we we don't have water and yeah and we always want our hospital to be able to provide service. Right. And so falling back on those types of relationships even during winter storm Enzo, you know, we put Julie Cardwell in an excavator to make sure she could get to the hospital that we, you know, cleared off the the helo pad there so she knew she could get, you know, the straight talk from us. And and so that now it is very much about it's not just debris, but it's about our community's recovery. It really is. It is. and Smith, thank you so much for coming on. It goes by really quick. you know, y'all you know the city's website, we've got that information up. Their Facebook page is full of a lot of information. You can go by shoreline parking, you can see the debris piling up. on one of the ball fields as they go to collect it. But y'all did a great job, Samantha. Thank you, Veg. Appreciate you. always appreciate you. we're gonna go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back. I'm Rick Alson. This is Rick's Blog Live. At A1 Automotive, we do it all. All kinds of repairs for all kinds of vehicles. We do AC repairs, we do suspensions, we do pre-purchase inspections. We'll diagnose your problem and get it fixed. Free brake inspection. We can provide financing for any work we do. Veteran-owned, military, and first responders discounts. A1 Automotive, 403 Beverly Parkway, Pensacola. I'm Emily Echeveria. I'm the Marketing Communications Director for Council on Aging of West Florida and the host of Coming of Age. 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It's if I have a claim, I need to preserve the evidence. And I can help people, I can walk them through that. Welcome back. I'm Rick Altson. This is Rick's Blog Live. my editor this week, when we came out with this issue, she said, Rick, I never thought I would see in twenty twenty-six a story about the KKK and Holocaust, and someone denying the Holocaust in the same issue. Well, we have it in this week's issue. it is it's it it began at a school board discussion about a historical fiction novel called The Devil's Arithmetic. Where a young girl is thrown back into pre-World War II Poland. into the and it it's a fascinating book that really grabs middle school or high school students, which is the purpose of it. And but in looking at that, and in looking at the story that we wrote about someone denying the Holocaust or calling it propaganda or inaccurate, I wanted to go to someone who has a very personal story about it. And the person I've interviewed him before, you know him as being sportscaster for Channel Three. He's worked with the Studer Institute. He's also now he's with Ascension Sacred Heart. Steve Neesom. Steve, thank you. thank you for this. Thanks for having me Yeah, this is th you have a very personal story about the Holocaust. You've lost family members. yeah, a lot. Well my dad was a Holocaust survivor. You know, he grew up in in Greece in the city of Salonika, Thessaloniki, which is the second largest city in Greece. And At the time there was a very large Jewish population there. This nineteen forty one, there was fifty-six thousand Jews in the city. And he was thirteen years old when the Germans entered Greece and word came that they w they were gonna reach Stalonica soon. And even though he was he came from a you know a big family, dad owned a restaurant, successful the you see the family right there. he had four brothers and a and a little sister. That's my dad on the lower left. This was taken just a few months before the Germans arrived. And when the word came that they were they were gonna be there soon My dad, he was thirteen, but he was a very headstrong kid and he listened to the news. He knew the Germans hated Jews and they they treated him mean and they put him to work and he's like, Well they're not gonna treat me mean, they're not gonna put me to work, I'm gonna get out of here before they arrive. So he was determined just to leave town before they got there. He knew his parents would never let him do it, that it was a crazy idea, so he did not tell them and he just you know he tried to get somebody to go with him, if that didn't work, so he just took off on his own. He literally snuck onto a ship going to Athens. Like he j jumped on a rope and climbed on the on there. He was that desperate to get out. So a few days after he did that, the Germans arrived and took over Salonica. So he went to Athens and he just found a way, he got help from adults or he got help from military people. He just found a way to finagle his way in. So from Athens the Germans were heading that way. He got out there again a few days before they arrived, went to Crete. And then in Crete again, he when the Germans were gonna start heading that way, he got out of like a few days before and literally he got on a British convoy, military convoy, like half an hour before he got on the ship half hour before they left. And then shortly after that the Germans arrived and started attacking and and took over Crete. He went to Cairo, Egypt. So this is like three, four months now. He's a thirteen-year-old on the run. Wow. And he's in Egypt. And at that time he he found a way to be housed by the British military. He just kind of finagled his way in there. And there was a large Jewish population. He went to to meet them and told them a story. I'm on the run, I'm thirteen. They were like amazed by it. And they said, Do your parents know you're alive or anything? And he goes, No. So they said, Well we gotta get him a telegram. So they said they arranged for him to send a telegram to his dad's restaurant. At that time the Germans took over, but they had not yet started persecuting. So the telegram got through and he found out later that his dad like gave everybody free food and drinks when he found out his son was alive and where he was. And they sent a letter back saying that we love you and embrace you. And my dad said he broke down and cried at that point because I it really hit home what he had done. So he was in Idra for a while and and he got help from a lot of people and eventually he went all the way when the Germans were coming there, he went to Kenya at one point, he went to Belgium, Congo, he went all the way to South Africa, which is long way from Greece over over, a multi-year period and rode out the war different ways, getting favors, you know, doing what he had to do to get by. Eventually, you know, the war ends, the Germans lose, so he ends up getting to go back to Greece. You know, it's four and half years after he fled. So he left, he was thirteen, he got back, he was like seventeen, eighteen. And that's when we found out what happened to his family. So the Germans, even though they didn't persecute right away, before long they did persecute. They took away homes and businesses, made them live in deplorable conditions in in a ghetto. His older brother, Albert, he escaped at one point and he fought with the resistance in the mountains and he was there. He had survived. but the rest of the family, two years after the Germans took over, they had their plans in place to deport all the Jews of Salonika to Auschwitz. And in in nineteen forty three, over a several month period, they put him I mean you we've all seen the images, in cattle cars in horrible conditions you can't even imagine for a weeks long journey to Auschwitz. And so all of the rest of his family members were taken to Auschwitz. He found out that when you get there they either send you to the work camp or to the showers. And he found that his mom, his dad, and his little sister who was like six years old, all went to the showers, which of course was poison gas. Right. And they were murdered and then burned. He found out that his two older brothers, his three brothers were sent to the work camp. Two of them were ended up being shot at one point, his older brothers, his youth his younger brother was seen almost before liberation, but then wasn't seen again. And out of his whole extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins, he had one cousin that got back alive from Auschwitz. That's how he knew some of these details. And out of the fifty six thousand Jews that were in Salonika, less than two thousand survived. Wow. And almost all of them were murdered at Auschwitz. But my dad was one of those two thousand. they find a way to survive, but obviously a a horrific and and traumatic you know event for our family. You know, when you and I know you've encapsulated a huge story and I pr you know the you know when you speak to community groups and to students, I we had Keith Leonard, superintendent of schools, in here a few minutes ago and he just you know, in in between the break you just was talking about how, you know, what a fine person you are and how you know, it you know, what you've done in helping teach kids in the school system, about your family's history and the Holocaust. What are the questions that you get when you when you start talking? Well, I think one of was, Well, why didn't they fight back? That was one one question. And I think as a as a community, they decided, you know, other communities did different. But they they decided well let's just try to go along. It can't be that bad. They can't they can't be that much of a of a monster, but they can and they were. So that that's part of it. They also you wonder, you know, how did my dad have the have the nerve to do what he did? You know, and I I've done the talk, it's been a number of years, but I did it in middle schools for for a bunch of years. The kids were thirteen years old. So I said, put it put you know, put this in your shoes. Would you do the same thing at thirteen? 'Cause you do I couldn't have done it. and my dad's not a hero. He was not really he actually not a great person and all the this trauma he had a lot of guilt and anger and all that stuff. But he was smart and he and brave, you know. So I I get a lot of questions about that too. And also just about about you know the hatred that caused this to happen. Why? Why did that happen? Why why was there this hatred and and you know how do you deal with that? Yeah, we we've the book, The Devil's Arithmetic, was questioned. S there was a member of the public that saw it as propaganda and not true. how do you res as a son of a survivor, And have family members who perished in Auschwitz. How do you respond to something like that? And it's, you know, it's almost like you're trying to create the Holocaust again by denying it. I mean, these were people that were murdered just for being Jewish and there is heavy documentation of it. I mean my dad was interviewed by the Scholl Foundation with Steven Spielberg's organization. They have thousands of interviews. There's there's records, you know, the Germans kept great records on it as well. so that's just pure hatred. To to be able to do that, that means that's anti Semitism. It's you're trying to, you know, promote an agenda. So it's it's really hurtful. It's disrespectful to people that have suffered greatly to to say that and to me they're just fueling some kind of agenda. I don't even know if they really believe that or not, because it's insane or maybe they've convinced themselves of that. but you know, it's thinking like that. That's what allowed the Holocaust to happen in the first place. Because there was a lot of You German w Germany was a progressive society for many years, but hatred took over. Too many people bought into it, too many people did not stand up against it, and then you got what you got, because people are capable of horrific things, and that's what the Holocaust was. Well it's it it's scapegoating to create somebody to be the scapegoat of what the what the issues are. Gosh, we're we're we've gone through this so f so fast. if if there was anything you wish People to know about your family's story, what would what would that what what would that be? Well, I mean, there were so many lives not lived because of what happened of being murdered. It's not just the people that were murdered, it was the generations afterward. I have so few relatives on my dad's side because there's there's not there's nobody there to have it. So so many lives were impacted for generations to come. So many people that could have been great people or contributed to society, that's all gone because of hatred. mindless, unnecessary hatred. And, you know, I I never got a chance to meet my peop my my friends and, you know, even but but, you know, because my dad survived, you know, we won. We did beat that. You know, he he had a lot of heartache and guilt and anger, but I have life because he survived. And then my children have life, you know, because he survived. So we we persevered. But so much is lost because of hatred and is it's it's it's not needed and people need to stand up when they see something like this happening. Steve, thank you so much for coming on and sharing. it's the it's we gotta keep telling the story. Yes, because there's so few still alive survivors, so we gotta keep finding a way to tell the story. All right, we're gonna go ahead and break. golly, I've I've got a this was this was a heavy segment, but one that was very important. We'll we'll be right back. Hi, I'm Emily Echeveria, Marketing Communications Director for Council on Aging of West Florida, where we're dedicated to helping seniors and their families live healthier, happier, and more connected lives. That's why I'm proud to host Coming of Age, an engaging show highlighting local experts, community partners, and ambassadors of the programs and services making a difference locally. Watch Coming of Age Wednesdays, 3.30 on Blab TV and anytime on YouTube. And remember, enjoy life. You've earned it. I learned during my military service that you train every day to fight and fight to win. If you've been injured in an accident, you already know one thing for sure. The insurance companies are gonna fight you for every dollar you deserve. At Michelson Booth, we settle most of the cases we handle. But if the insurance companies choose to fight, well, we're okay with that too. If you've been injured in an accident, choose a law firm that's got the resources, training, and stomach for the fight. Michaels and Booth, don't be a victim twice. I'm Andrea Housen, practice coordinator for Derek Jones Facial Plastic Surgery. Dr. Derek Jones is amazing. He's double board certified, he's skilled, and he's been doing this show with Blab TV for almost two decades. If you're looking to grow your business, Blab TV has an amazing reach in this local viewing area. We always hear we saw you on Blab Television. I'm Andrea Housen with Derek Jones Facial Plastic Surgery, and I am Blab TV. Gil Marine, your one-stop shop for all your boating needs. We offer a vast selection of parts, accessories, and electronics. Discover our range of used boats in every size, shape, and brand, all ready to get you on the water today. And we provide expert advice and top notch customer service to ensure you have the best boating experience. We service all outboard, inboards, stern drives, jet drives, and personal watercraft. Our certified staff will get you back on the water. Visit Gil Marine at 3541 West Fairfield Drive, Pensacola. Welcome back. I'm Rick Alton. This is Rick's Blog Live next month, which is just around the corner in Oklaosa County. They're going to sink the SS United States. This is something we've been talking about in our community or in the country. Who is going to get this ship to create the largest w reef, man-made reef in the world? And this is it's gonna be right close to us. This is a big project for Coastal Conservation Associ Association. we've got the Pensacola, Florida chapter president with us now, Mimi Bass. Mimi, thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Tell tell who people who aren't, you know, don't much about your group. Tell us just a little bit about it. Well, CCA Florida Coastal Conservation Association. We're celebrating our fortieth year as an organization, and we're the largest marine environmental organization. in the United States. So we're kind of like Ducks Unlimited, our buckmaster in that we're an advocacy for sportsman fishing. So we're there to help preserve your share catch, mine, as well as comfort, conservation and education. You know, and we know you know, we had the risky knee here, got twenty years ago, where that was sunk off of the coast here. When it sank it kinda it went by really quick. You and I were talking about how qu it didn't take much to sink it. but then it settled and and it's hasn't quite worked completely the way everybody thought it would, although it's still been a great draw. This has been a big taking for CCA to take to take home. you betcha. This is our largest individu excuse me, individual contribution of five hundred thousand dollars just for this. The sinking of the project. The Okaloosa group that has put this together with the lead of like Alex Fogg there and their natural resources, they've really done a phenomenal job in preparing this vessel, getting it here. I've toured it a couple times, and you can see some of the photographs. It is phenomenal and it is big. 990 feet. Wow. So the goal is that it's going to be rest on more of a secure rock bottom and at about sixty-five feet to be able to reach to the It'll be on the western side of Oklaosa County, so it won't be that far from us. no, no. And once you get out into the Gulf you're headed that way. So yeah, it's about it'll be twenty-two miles, about twenty-two miles out there. And I think I'd shared the coordinates with you that they're also available on the C C A. website. And this is this was a cruise ship, right? Well it was the it was originally built in nineteen fifty one and it is quite the pride of American engineering at the time. It w I believe it may even still be the largest US billed passenger ship. And it holds the transatlantic record in crossing. So it's a narrow, long ship, very fast. and it's very, like I said, very noble that we have this opportunity for it to be here. Yeah, when I when I put this up on the blog, I'm gonna I'm gonna link to the page because you look at the it it's it it it's an amazing ship when you look through all the the the inside and the I think for fishermen it will be great. I think for scuba for the scuba enthusiast it could be really creepy and interesting to go through. Yeah. They've opened up areas where they will have some safer access. Uh-huh. but yeah, when I toured it, I see a lot of habitat. I walk through there and I know there's gonna be an octopus living in there and that looks like a big groupers residence, so it's gonna be something. Now in December y'all have got a big fundraiser coming up. That's right. Our Pensacola banquet, we moved it to December ninth because of the storm and a lot of people not needing to get out. So to be at Sanders Beach, it's a great time for people to come and learn more about CCA, the camaraderie of other fishermen. Our banquets, our sportsman banquets, and they're a lot of fun. They are just fun. And everybody leaves with a lot of swag. We have a lot of door prizes. We have a lot of silent auction items. We give away, we have auction items of boats. We've had people win boats at our things. We've had even in our tournaments, local people win trucks. boat combo so our s our our events pretty fun. Now how did you how did you get involved? what drew you in? Well I just as a person who had always enjoyed fishing and I think Red Snapper was one of my species and when our share catch kept getting less and less I felt like as a sportsman fishing I needed a voice and not just Tallahassee but also in Washington and that's what CCA serves. If you go to our website and you look at the initiatives getting rid of long lining in the Gulf from rigs to reefs, instead of imploding abandoned reefs, letting them continue to be an environmental habitat, to our fish release in the Duke fishery and hatchery that we've partnered with and just released over five hundred thousand fish, redfish into our estuary systems. And these are genetically involved fish by scientists so they can survive in that habitat. So it's just so much work to be done. And it's really staking up for the sports fishermen, isn't it? It is. Because we know there's always the the commercial fishermen have a huge lobby and of course they have a lot at stake in the economy, but the sports fishing needed a spokesman for that too. So Yes. Thank you. That's exactly it. Well, I appreciate you bringing this to us. I think that this is something that that I I think it kind of fell off everybody's radar because it was such a big issue for the last couple of years. but I think for us and for our community to have know that we have it right there. And then we also have your your big banquet and auction coming up in December. So anything we can do to help promote it, we'll do it. Thank you. Thank you so much. We really appreciate all your work. well, thank you for coming on. All right. W this is we've been everywhere in this show. We're gonna go ahead and take a break. I'll try to figure out how to wrap all this up. I'm Rick Outson. This is Rick's blog live. 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Our walls are covered head to toe in all the classics, from taffy to gummies, and lollipops to gumballs. And don't forget our ice cream. With endless toppings and dipped cones, we've got what you're craving. Let us take you back to a time when every problem could be solved with candy. At Bubba Sweet Spot. Well, you can always say I'd never underdeliver. We have given you a show today that covered everything from the school district to infant mortality to the Holocaust, Gulf Breeze recovery, and the sinking of the SS United States. how much more can you do in one show? I don't know. I I've I'm still trying to catch my breath. Thank you for watching though, and please follow us on YouTube, like and share our episodes. Also you can go to ricksvlog.biz or go to nweekly.net. We thank you for watching it and we'll be back next week.