Ben Bernstein: [00:00:00] This episode of Rambling on the River is presented 

Sponsor Message: by BB Riverboats. What does summertime in the Ohio River Valley mean to you? From the deck of a BB riverboat, it means a breeze on the water, blush views, and a historic cruise by the queen city Skyline. BB Riverboats offers an experience as unforgettable as childhood summers.

This season let our crew take care of yours as you cruise the mighty Ohio. BB Riverboats. The river is waiting.

Moderator: You're listening to the Ramblin on the River podcast, presented by BB River Boats. The Bernstein family has been a predominant name in Cincinnati's hospitality landscape since the 1960s, and this podcast will be a collection of the stories, tales, and experiences from their entrepreneurial [00:01:00] endeavors in the restaurant and excursion boat business.

Join as they take you on a Journey through the family's history in their own unique style. Now, here are your hosts, Ben Terry and Alan Bernstein.

Ben Bernstein: And we are back. Hello. Terry's already on her phone. Oh yeah. 

Terri Bernstein: I'm working. 

Ben Bernstein: Oh. Like normal. Okay. Welcome to Ramblin on the River. You've made your way to our next latest and greatest episode. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh yeah. This is gonna be a doozy. 

Ben Bernstein: Should know us by now. I'm Ben Bernstein. My father, Alan. I think it should 

Alan Bernstein: be Alan first.

Now I'm last. He didn't even introduce me. Yeah, I, it's crazy. I should be first. Terry should be second. And you are the baby 

Ben Bernstein: of the [00:02:00] family. It's 19 times in a row now. We've had the same introduction. Yes. Of, 

Alan Bernstein: I will keep saying it. Come up with some new material. That's right. No, you. No, we're looking at you.

Oh, you. 

Josh Mehling: Oh. 

Alan Bernstein: I thought 

Ben Bernstein: I was on the right track. 

Terri Bernstein: No. Okay. 

Ben Bernstein: Well, we have a very Famous episode ahead of us

Every single story. Oh, yeah world famous world famous Well before we do get started, we'd love for you to go and give us a like and subscribe on any one of your favorite podcast platforms You can see us on Facebook Instagram. You can go to our website ramblin ontherever. com And if you'd like to email us, you can email us at podcast at bbriverboats.

com This week's episode maybe it'll be the beginnings of a little series here. Something I've dubbed Voices of Our Past. Oh yeah. Where we have a very [00:03:00] special in studio guest. Oh yes, this is In studio. In studio. Yeah, in studio. One of our long, long, long time employees, at least, my generation, put it that way.

We are joined by our former Vice President of operations Josh mailing . Hello? 

Terri Bernstein: SW oops. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. Yeah. He is effectionately known as swoopy. Yep. That morphed from Swilley . We were driving in the Lincoln one day on the way home, if you remember Covington 

Josh Mehling: The Green. The Green Lincoln?

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, the Green Lincoln. Oh yeah. The Jack, Nick Jack Nico series. 

Josh Mehling: Yeah. With 

Terri Bernstein: the white interior. Oh yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: We went the back way home from Covington. And you remember there was an old used car lock. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. sw Billy's auto sale. You know who that? It's a friend of mine, SWER his dad. Well, he might, it might have been my friend.

I don't know. Anyway, might have been your friend. It might've been my friend. I have, I, I, oh, my buddy. 

Ben Bernstein: My buddy. My buddy. We thought it was an hilarious [00:04:00] name. And we affectionately gave it to And called him swilly for many years until a friend of ours screwed it up and called him swoopy swoop and Stuck and that has stuck.

Yeah, I 

Terri Bernstein: still call him swoopy. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah now I call him 

Josh Mehling: There's not many left out there that still call me swoopy 

Ben Bernstein: now Josh and I grew up, as you can probably tell by that story. Josh and I were very close growing up. We went to middle school, high school together in college, I guess, too. Yeah. Josh worked for us for almost 20 years, a little less than 20 years.

Like I said, was the former vice president of operations, my sister's right hand man. And you are now the territory manager or zinc. Okay. FSG. Yep. 

Josh Mehling: I cover the whole state of Kentucky, peddling my wares, selling food service equipment and , my kids, you know, now with these kids and their [00:05:00] technology, they get on they did a Google search on me and my, my son says, well, what the heck is a territory manager?

So I'm still trying to figure that out. Means 

Ben Bernstein: you have a, a territory. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we will get right into it. We'll get started. Gather 

Alan Bernstein: around everybody. It's story time. 

Ben Bernstein: All right.

You are such a clown. 

Josh Mehling: That is much better though, than the original one. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Oh, that was a good touch. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, for sure. Definitely. So let's see. So Josh, like I said, worked for us for almost 20 years and he has had a front row view, a very intimate view of what it's like to be part of the Bernstein 

Alan Bernstein: family.

Ben Bernstein: before we get to some of the stories, why don't you Give us a history of working for us as far as when you started what you what you did and kind of go from there 

Josh Mehling: So I was [00:06:00] 14 when I started and and at that point in time I don't think A lot of companies paid a whole lot of attention to child labor laws because ben and I were on some late evening cruises Yeah But started when I was 14 working in the gift shop, I hope the 

Ben Bernstein: department of labor Is not 

Josh Mehling: the case today, yeah it was a different time in many ways But yeah, so started working in the gift shop, which at the time was On the old dock.

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, that's right in our old seaplane hangar. That's right 

Josh Mehling: Yeah And boats would take off and I'd be in the gift shop and I think at the time Terry was running the photo department. Yep, one hour photo. So we would literally have to get all the pictures, drive across the river, take them, get them developed, bring them back, you know, do all that.

But 

Ben Bernstein: what was the name of that, of where we went, where we took them? Well there's two. 

Terri Bernstein: Jax. Jax. And Elder. 

Ben Bernstein: Elder. Elder, yeah. That's the one I was thinking 

Josh Mehling: of. Yeah, Elder, yeah. So it was kind of boring sitting [00:07:00] back on the dock, so you know, I, I've watched the boat go out and come back in and you know, Ben at the time was, was part of the crew on the boat.

So I wanted to get over into the. Into the food operation side. So then I think I was in the gift shop for a year and then went into the steward department. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. I think your first cruise was thunder over Louisville. If I remember correct. Yeah. Yes. I say, if you can make it through this cruise, you'll be fine for everything.

He's a cake. Yeah. Yeah. Ben 

Terri Bernstein: works so hard playing video games and coming to landing. So, you know, I'm sure it was hard to. Yeah, 

Josh Mehling: there'd be a few detours on the late night trash run through the Covington Landing. Yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: Josh played some video games on the way back as well. I think 

Terri Bernstein: you guys stole quarters from mom out of the office.

Ben Bernstein: No, mom would give us quarters. She would? Yeah, she'd just throw a roll of quarters in our pocket. 

Alan Bernstein: All right. 

Ben Bernstein: Don't worry about it. 

Alan Bernstein: I'm not 

Ben Bernstein: the IRS doesn't know about that. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: So did that. They're not listening. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. 

Josh Mehling: Yeah. We're gonna have all kinds [00:08:00] of audits.

So did that for, you know, started as a steward, worked my way through to chief steward cruise director. And, and then I graduated college in oh five. And at the time I thought I was going to go to law school. 

Ben Bernstein: That's right. Yeah. I forgot about that. And 

Josh Mehling: decided to take a year off to study and prep for the LSAT and do all that.

And that's when Alan called me and said, Hey, we've got a, I think a temporary position for you. We're kind of doing some reorganizing and some new things going on. And I think you'd be good for this for, you know, you're going to go to law school, so you could do this for a year and then, you know, move on, go down your path and Yeah.

10 years later. I was still there did not go to law school. Did you regret not 

Terri Bernstein: going to law school? No, no 

Josh Mehling: after that year I I stepped back and went God, I don't want to go back to school in general period. Let alone go to law school. So Nope, [00:09:00] no regrets. So yeah the last 10 years. I was the vp of operations Helping terry run all the day today You know managing you ran actually josh was running.

Yeah, you know it was what? We still have the, we still have the Mark Twain, right? The three boats the, the dockside facility and all the offsite stuff, university of Dayton, Cincinnati Freedom Center. We had that contract at the time. But I will say, you know, in the 18 years here I mean, so much of what I've learned in my professional life and personal life today for that matter was really you know, I, I owe big credit to you guys and your family.

Cause that really instilled the basics of. customer service, you know, how you treat a guest, basic hospitality. And my wife and I look back and laugh cause I mean, some of our group of friends, they all go, what the hell was going on down there on the river? Because [00:10:00] everybody that we're still very close with are very close friends.

We all met. Here, working here. Yeah. Which pretty cool. We, we've always, I've met my wife, Sid, El Sid Georgia. Yeah. Georgia. 

Ben Bernstein: We've always talked about how we could probably do a love episode. Oh yeah. 

Josh Mehling: Yeah. Yep. I met my wife working here. It was secret. I remember at the beginning it was secret.

It was secret. And then there was one year we went to the my parents used to always volunteer for the Strider Ball. Oh yeah. And you were in the paper Strider ball. And our picture was taken in the paper. Yeah. And of all people, captain Frank. Saw the article, and he, That's a Frank Kass. Frank Kass. Yeah.

And Jenny was walking down the gangway coming into work one day and he's screaming from the pilot house at the marketplace, Jenny, I saw your picture in the paper, what were you, so, yeah. Well I guess that's not secret anymore. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: So, as you started working , obviously you were a great employee, but you have a pretty funny story about how you got your first raise.

Josh Mehling: [00:11:00] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can. So, so like Ben said, you know, we were, I thought you were at minimum 

Alan Bernstein: wage 

Josh Mehling: weren't. I was trying to get out. You weren't. I was looking for some come up and, for whatever reason, we were at Ben's house. And I don't know if you've mentioned this on the podcast at all, but. Alan's favorite lounging attire is a good pair of tighty whities.

Yep. We call those loosey whities. Loosey whities. Why? Because they don't really. Oh, well, yeah, they don't. You're right. Okay. Yeah. I guess it was loosey whities with a tighty afghan blanket because the afghan blanket was stretched across his back and that was pretty taut. And he would love to sit and he had, this was the big old tube, big screen TVs, you know, so he'd roll up a chair and I don't know what you were watching football or whatever.

I decided that was the perfect setting to sit down and ask Al pitch my case for why I should get my [00:12:00] first raise. And I got it. You know, I don't remember exactly the conversation, but I do remember thinking, I hope it's over soon because you should really go about asking for your first raise. But I did and I got it.

Do you have any recollection of that? 

Alan Bernstein: I do. I do. And I mean, all I can say is I said, we'll take you above minimum wage by about 10 cents. Yeah. Or maybe for 30 cents, but well, 4 25 

Ben Bernstein: to four 50. That's big rate. What? Oh yeah. 

Josh Mehling: What, what is minimum wage now? 

Terri Bernstein: 7 35. Seven. Yeah. Seven something. 

Alan Bernstein: You were I started at minimum wage when it was a dollar 10.

Ben Bernstein: No. We debunked that theory. No? Yeah. Yes, we did. No, on, we have it live. What? 

Alan Bernstein: No. We have. 

Ben Bernstein: But what is it? We have the archive. What was it? 115? No, I think it was like 150. No, it was not. Or 140 or something. No, it was not. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: it was. We [00:13:00] did it 

Alan Bernstein: literally right here. 

Terri Bernstein: What year? 

Alan Bernstein: Nineteen sixty. Oh, we're fact checking.

Fact checking live. Nineteen sixty nine. Sixty eight. Nine. No. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Nineteen sixty nine. It was like a dollar forty. It was quite, 

Ben Bernstein: it was 

Alan Bernstein: I think it was a dollar 

Terri Bernstein: Nineteen sixty nine, the minimum wage in Kentucky was 75 cents per hour. 

Josh Mehling: No. 

Terri Bernstein: The state's record low. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, 

Terri Bernstein: wait, that's Kentucky. The federal minimum wage was 1.

30. 

Alan Bernstein: 1. 30. Okay. I kept saying 1. So I was 1. 15. I was 0. 15. But that's the 

Terri Bernstein: federal. Kentucky was only 0. 75. So maybe you were right. 

Alan Bernstein: You were well paid. Yeah. I thought so. Is that a living wage? No. Well, it was back then. I mean, a set of baseball cards was like five cents. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, it was. did it always have the gum in it?

Yeah. The little piece of gum. you remember getting that gum? I 

Josh Mehling: remember the Tops [00:14:00] cards. Oh yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. It was more like gum chips. They were always prepared yourself with a lot of saliva chewing in order to get a chewing. 

Terri Bernstein: Lots of cards. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. I wish you 

Alan Bernstein: did too. They're all, I 

Terri Bernstein: thought we found the, 

Alan Bernstein: no, we found some.

Josh Mehling: We found some you don't have any anymore I had a ton I think I 

Ben Bernstein: I had some Shaquille O'Neal Rookie cards, really no idea where those are either Hmm all gone probably could have been a zillionaire with how much those things go for now. Yeah Now I'm just in the bourbon 

Josh Mehling: A little bit. I see a small small stash.

Oh, yeah, that's 

Ben Bernstein: just for a bad day What does 

Terri Bernstein: every 

Ben Bernstein: day? So Josh and I both went to Dixie Heights high school class of [00:15:00] 2000. And they had a nice program for seniors where you could you could go to school for, Half the day and then you could leave and go to work for half the day It was affectionately known as the school to work program and josh and I were part of that program our senior year and we would leave at 11 o'clock and Go to lunch, maybe maybe do a little hour lunch, and then we make our way back To the bernstein estate 

Terri Bernstein: so you never went to work 

Ben Bernstein: I mean here and there, like when we were scheduled every now and then.

The 

Josh Mehling: crew schedule didn't line up real well with the school to work at. It was like 9 to 3 for 

Ben Bernstein: a lunch and 4. 30 to 11 for dinner. You 

Terri Bernstein: probably forced me to sign off on your paper. 

Ben Bernstein: You weren't even working for us yet. Oh no, I was in college. You were not working for us yet. 

Terri Bernstein: I was in college.

Ben Bernstein: But you were still in college. So, 

Terri Bernstein: well, if he was in high school, I was in college. 

Ben Bernstein: Do you [00:16:00] remember who was in charge of that program? I'm trying to think of Redman was a Barb Redman. I don't think, I don't really remember either. I don't 

Josh Mehling: remember either, but I remember asking other people in the program, you know, did, did, did they come, you know, did they come to your work?

Have they been there? Maybe one or two people said yes, but for the most part, not really. So we were. Spending more time working on our billiards game and Playstation than doing quote unquote work. 

Terri Bernstein: You mean with Al's pool table? 

Ben Bernstein: With Al's pool table in Al's garage. In Al's garage. If you remember. There was a lot of.

With 

Terri Bernstein: the track. The eight track 

Alan Bernstein: there was a turntable and an eight track and a radio and a 

Ben Bernstein: very narrow walkway around the pool table in order to shoot pool shots. Yeah, there were a couple of tricky shots. 

Terri Bernstein: I used to roller skate around the, I used to turn on the eight track and roller skate around.

You 

Ben Bernstein: did, but this was, you know, 10 years after that. And dad started accumulating [00:17:00] His archive and they got in the way of playing pool quite a bit, but there was a time that our teacher did come down 

Josh Mehling: and she, yeah, she did. She made an appearance that we weren't expecting. 

Terri Bernstein: Were you here? And 

Josh Mehling: we, we were not here.

And I think Do you remember this? 

Alan Bernstein: No, I don't remember. And he came to see me and to see how the two of you were doing. 

Ben Bernstein: And you said something like, oh yeah, they're running an errand for us in Louisville or something. Yeah, or there was like an 

Josh Mehling: emergency and we sent them out on a boat with somebody or something.

Ben Bernstein: I remember you called her, you're teachers. 

Alan Bernstein: Cover for us, Al, cover for us. And I covered? You covered, you covered. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, I mean, I think that. I think we got an A for the class.

He could have sent us on a little mission to go get the schnookie lips. 

Josh Mehling: Yes. There was a time where we were sent to go pick up the schnookie lips, which was a, what was that? A speedboat? 

Ben Bernstein: What do you [00:18:00] call it? We had two of them. They were metal boats.

Do you remember the old snooky? Absolutely. But those were not 

Alan Bernstein: normal runabouts? No. That they were, they were metal work boats. They were metal work boats that, yeah, we affectionately named Snooky lips. There was a second one too, but I don't know what was, wasn't. Two was a one and two.

There was one that was, one 

Terri Bernstein: was the Snooky lips. We named the other one something. Oh, the 

Alan Bernstein: The 

Terri Bernstein: corporate yacht. Didn't we call it the corporate yacht? Oh yeah. That's what we called it. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. It was, it was the schnooky lips and the corporate yacht. Yep. 

Terri Bernstein: Thank you. Yep. Thank you. There you 

Ben Bernstein: go. You figured it out. Thank you. I still haven't come up with your word of the day yet though either.

That's a full hour ago. So dad was driving a Ford Expedition at the time. Yep. He said, you, big car. It was a big car. So you and Josh and Michael Snowden go. Oh, and get, yeah. So we had to go to the Washington Marine. Yep. 

Josh Mehling: And how old do you think we were at that time? I don't even know if I had my license.

Ben Bernstein: Oh, [00:19:00] well, sure. Josh is like almost a whole year younger. Yeah. He was the youngest in the class. I was one of the older ones of the class. Okay. So he was born in August. Yeah, so I guess this is before it cuz in the the cutoffs like August 1st now And it you would have been in the grade.

Yeah. Yes. It 

Terri Bernstein: was September 30th. October 1st was it was the 

Ben Bernstein: old one That's why 

Terri Bernstein: I was but I'm saying 

Ben Bernstein: now is like August 1st or something. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah 

Josh Mehling: But regardless of how old I was or if I was could drive or not. I was definitely not qualified to hitch a boat to a 

Ben Bernstein: None of us Dad said 

Alan Bernstein: we went to I think washington marine, I think We sent you out there and I said look it's simple You back the car up where the ball and you put the ball down and when it gets on top of it.

Yes You you lash it down. I it's so simple. It's nothing Well, it was not 

Ben Bernstein: simple. it was not simple. It 

Alan Bernstein: was 

Ben Bernstein: not 

Alan Bernstein: simple. It 

Ben Bernstein: was not the three of us went there. I think you're right. If you started driving, you would just [00:20:00] start it. So we're 16, 17 years old. Michael's probably a year or two older than us.

 I can't remember how old he is, but we back the And didn't do 

Josh Mehling: anything. And we all just kind of looked at it. Looks good. Looks good. What are these chains? I think we found something to hook the chains, like maybe the bumper. We hooked the chains to that. So 

Ben Bernstein: we took off amazingly enough.

We got at least halfway back. Oh, yeah. We're on 275. 

Josh Mehling: Coming up. Yeah. And we're in this big, huge car. I mean, this thing's, I mean, they're big now. But those were, those were large vehicles. And I'm in the back seat. And all of a sudden, I feel the ass end of this car like swaying. And I'm like, what is going on?

And then I hear a car horn honk, and I turn around, and this boat is just wildly [00:21:00] crossing lane to lane. It's like, it's 

Ben Bernstein: like you're towing a water skier, and behind you, 

Josh Mehling: and you're just going way out. And I'm going, holy shit, we're gonna die. And next thing you know, the boat, Ben hits the brakes. The what do you call it?

What would the technical term be? The tongue of the, of the hitch just goes lodges into the back. I mean, it is sliced into the bumper and it's like wedged under the door, the hatch door is 

Ben Bernstein: uncontrollably laughing. 

Josh Mehling: Now here we are three, like. 16 year old kids on the side of the highway with a boat wedged into the back of this giant car.

We're going, what the hell do we do now? Did we have selfies? Yeah, you did because I remember the 

Alan Bernstein: call like it was yesterday. I think it was you, Jush, Jush, Jush said Alan your son, put, [00:22:00] towing the boat, has the boat now, the lip of the tow, is now in the front seat by the steering wheel. It wasn't that bad.

Oh my god. It was pretty bad. Oh, so I said, I went to get a carry. I said, carry, get your ass out there. 275 and figure out what the hell's going on out there. He 

Ben Bernstein: came 

Alan Bernstein: out and he said, 

Ben Bernstein: did you latch it? And I said, 

Moderator: latch what?

Ben Bernstein: Oh my god. We, we are lucky. We didn't kill. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, but you, I 

Ben Bernstein: feel, I feel like we were pretty safe in the expedition. Those people around us and behind the sides of us. I'm not exaggerating. That thing 

Josh Mehling: was, it was like, it was on like a little rope three feet behind, just like side, just across three lanes of traffic.

Ben Bernstein: Oh my God. And what [00:23:00] else do you do? You just hit the brakes.

Josh Mehling: It's all gonna work. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh my God. I, I said, that's the last time we're sending you and Ben. And thankfully that's the last time we ever had to do that. That was probably 

Josh Mehling: the beginning of me developing a reputation here for not being the handiest individual in the group. I've never, what do you mean, 

Alan Bernstein: Josh said on the phone when he made the call, he goes, The boat was going everywhere.

Ben Bernstein: Well, I guess, I guess staying on that topic. Yeah. What, what were some of Josh's blunders? He did have some great one that wasn't at 

Terri Bernstein: work, but after, after he put, Oh 

Josh Mehling: God, 

Terri Bernstein: what are you hanging? Oh, the Hawaiian decoration. 

Josh Mehling: We were decorating for a Hawaiian cruise and the tropical dinner cruise, tropical dinner cruise, which [00:24:00] had a plethora of decoration.

From Oriental trading company. And we were hanging up, I don't know, there was like palm trees, parrots 

Terri Bernstein: and whatever. Well, 

Josh Mehling: all these things have these little metal rings on them that you hang stuff from. Well, you know, on the boat, nothing's made of wood, right? So it's all, it's all metal and metal. You can't just like.

Tack something up there and Hank. So I'm looking around trying to find where to hang this stuff. And that was the day that I learned that track lighting has actual electrical current through the track. And if you shove a metal ring with a palm tree on the end of it, into the track light, it will shock you.

And then it will turn all the lights off. 

Terri Bernstein: And it sparks a little bit 

Josh Mehling: too. It sparks a little bit too. Well, the 

Terri Bernstein: better one of that story, which was not here. But Josh decided that he was going to go home and 

His wife wanted a ceiling fan in their room 

Josh Mehling: in the [00:25:00] bedroom.

And I'm thinking this can't be that difficult. There's a light up there, right? So, you know, you got to hang the fan. You're just going to replace the wires with where they were, whatever. So, you know, You know, my, my first step was turn the light off and then the second step should have been turned the breaker off, but I didn't do that.

so I, I shocked myself once because the brick, and this was an old house. This was probably built in the fifties. This is your house. This is the first house that Jenny and I lived in, in Latonia. And So then I said, Oh, I got to turn the breaker panel off. I go in the closet. I, I had the TV on and I just kept flipping the breaker until the TV went off because nothing was labeled properly and TV goes off, switches off.

I get up there. I'm messing around myself again. That one hurt. So I go back in, I go, well, I don't know what breakers. I turn all the breakers [00:26:00] off, get back up there. Start messing around, shock myself. Again, I'm going, how is this possible? I've turned off everything I had to find. So then I think at that point, maybe I called bill or somebody, I, you know, I was phone and a friend and found the main disconnect had to turn the main power feed off that finally worked.

I get this ceiling fan up several curse words later. And Jenny and I are laying in bed, it's probably midnight, all of a sudden you hear the fan just kicks on, the lights come on, the lights are dimming, they're flashing, I'm like, this is not good. This is real bad. 

Terri Bernstein: Can you imagine laying in bed going to sleep?

Josh Mehling: Oh, so to this day you had to get like 

Terri Bernstein: Missy's husband or somebody, yeah, so I 

Josh Mehling: had to call, I had to call Missy's husband, Eric. Who I still call to this day. We've had several ceiling fans installed since then in different [00:27:00] houses. I don't touch a single one. Yeah, I call Eric man. 

Terri Bernstein: The only other funny Josh maintenance story is when you went to Ikea and bought the what were they?

Josh Mehling: Oh, they were what? Yeah. We bought this like track. This track curtain system to like go over our window and if so, it was like this 

Terri Bernstein: was like their newer house Yeah, so like they were yeah, 

Josh Mehling: so oh god, I forgot about this so I had this neighbor who was like He was a Navy vet. I mean we knew when they were going on vacation because You know, everything was pristine.

He'd pull the van out. He'd take all the seats out. He'd steam, clean everything. He'd get it all good and organized and he had every tool known to man. I mean, the guy could do anything actually the day I remember the day we moved into the house, he was skinning a deer out in the back. I'm like, man, this guy, like this guy does it all.

And I have this curtain [00:28:00] rod set from Ikea that I started to put up at the same time, the exact same time. He was outside and he had one of those kids like the play sets that you buy all the lumber and you know, it's got the slide, it's got the ladder, it's got a little rock wall thing on the side.

It's got a peak roof, you know, all this. So we start at the same time, several hours later, I'm still cursing at these curtains and I look out and his kids are playing on the place. Oh. Oh my, so now I call, I would call Eric for electrical stuff and then my neighbor, Jason, I called him for pretty much everything else 

Ben Bernstein: You learned to get a good roster.

Yeah. 

Josh Mehling: You got a guy, you got to go. Yep. I had several guys. 

Ben Bernstein: So every summer we take the bell of Cincinnati, which I think we probably talked about this right before we we did it this past year, probably a couple of months ago in [00:29:00] August or the end of July. Take the Bella Cincinnati up river and we stop in various cities in West Virginia and Yes, in Ohio.

 Yeah. Four or five cities, . But you were on I I guess you were probably the, the head person , on one of those cruise tours and Oh, yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: I'm sure he was. Josh and I used to split 

Josh Mehling: it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because it was about, was it about 10 days total? 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. Yeah. I would do the.

For a second, it was 

Alan Bernstein: 10 days. 

Josh Mehling: That's 

Alan Bernstein: right. 

Josh Mehling: And there was the summer and the fall. That's right. We did a fall. You still 

Alan Bernstein: do both of them? Don't do the fall. Cause that was during COVID. So we stopped that. We should do the down river river, river and the fall. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: But the crew some of the crew that you had on board really wanted to play video games.

And you guys crafted a bit of a 

Terri Bernstein: well, 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, it was more than a scheme. It was more like a scam. 

Josh Mehling: Well, you got to [00:30:00] remember at some point, I don't, I can't remember who brought the first, but at some point we went on one of these trips and somebody brought an Xbox. And you know, when you're cruising on the river with no passengers, You're on, you're on duty or you're off duty or what, you know, there, there's not a whole lot to do.

Right. You do your work, you get the boat set, you do your work and then you rely, and then you're kind of left to your own devices. This was before, you know, the phones that we have today and all that stuff. So even with the phones you have today, 

Ben Bernstein: you're not always in a place where the phone 

Josh Mehling: can't use it.

Yeah. So there was a lot of. Uno attack that was played on those trips that I remember, but at some point somebody brought an X Box and we had a trip where we were out. I can't remember what city we were in, but we did not have the X Box not there. And, and there was like rumblings of a mutiny going on because nobody could know nobody could play.

There was, you know, everybody's getting bored, whatever. [00:31:00] So for the sake of morale, for the team, we said, we got to figure out a way to get. A video game. A great director of 

Terri Bernstein: operations. Yeah. Wants to get his, you know, team together. Yeah. You gotta support 

Alan Bernstein: the team, right? Absolutely. Well, you knew there was a Walmart close, so, so there was no, no.

Well, yeah. Well there a Walmart everywhere wasn't close. There's a wall. Yeah. You can go to Walmart anywhere. 

Josh Mehling: So we got Steve Coleman. Mm-Hmm. . To who 

Alan Bernstein: is still here. And I actually 

Josh Mehling: remind every day is 

Ben Bernstein: actually in the role that Josh used to correct. 

Josh Mehling: Yes. And Steve at the time was a cruise director, a boat manager, and Steve is a very good salesman.

Terri Bernstein: He is a 

Josh Mehling: smooth talker. I mean, he will sell ice to an Eskimo. And so we all decided, Steve, you need to go talk to Al. And figure out how we can get a PlayStation or an Xbox or something. So he concocts this scheme. Al says, Oh, that's fine. It's what's it going to cost? And I think, what'd he say? [00:32:00] Like 300, 

Alan Bernstein: he said, it won't be more than 300.

It may be more likely to 50 or somewhere in that range. I said, that sounds awfully high for a, you know, a game box, but Not anymore. Well, no, 

Josh Mehling: not anymore. So then Steve meets a passenger on the first cruise. That's right. Smooth talks her into driving him to Wal Mart. I think the stipulation was, Steve, if you can get transportation to and from, and as long as it's not more than whatever the amount was, you guys, go get it.

Yeah. Okay. So, Alan gives Steve his credit card, he smooth talked this lady into driving him to Walmart, which was probably, I think, 20 minutes away. It was a good 20 minutes, 

Alan Bernstein: maybe 25 minutes 

Josh Mehling: away. And this was all going to go down in between cruises, and when we do these out of town trips, you know, you try to pack in as much as you can, right?

We would do a lunch, then you'd have about an hour or so to flip the boat around, you'd do a sight seeing cruise, then you'd come back and have Couple [00:33:00] hours to flip it around for dinner. So I think this was between lunch and sightseeing. So all of a sudden I mean, we need to leave. Like it's getting close to, you know, we got a cruise to go do.

And Steve's not back yet. And Alan gets a phone call or I got a phone call. I can't remember what it was. I think you 

Alan Bernstein: got the first one. I 

Josh Mehling: think I did get the first call. I'm at Walmart. I'm checking out. . And Steve, I should say is, he's a shorter guy, big, big guy. Yeah. Big guy. Big guy. Yeah. And he's an African American guy and the cashier at Walmart was not believing that his last name was Alan Bernstein.

Josh, you're not believing that 

Ben Bernstein: a black guy's last name is Bernstein. Yeah. 

Josh Mehling: So she's looking at the car. Card. And she's looking at Steve and he's buying a place, which turned into a playstation, you got to have controllers. Wait a minute. You have to have controllers. Wait a minute. You need a 

Moderator 2: TV, [00:34:00] a TV 

Ben Bernstein: didn't have an HDMI, but that's right.

You had to buy a TV and wait a minute. 

Alan Bernstein: There were four or five games that were in there. The 

Josh Mehling: tabs up to like 

Alan Bernstein: 800. Oh, it was. Yeah. Every bit of that. Yeah. 

Josh Mehling: So yeah, so the, the, the cashier wasn't having it. She knew something was up. And so Alan though, graciously got the call. I don't know who took you there.

Alan Bernstein: Believe the lady that took Steve, Steve came back to get me to take me out there to verify that it was okay for the charges. That's when I learned it was more like 900 than it was 250. 

Terri Bernstein: Oh my God. And when my mother found out, I knew nothing about this. 

Josh Mehling: I was going to say the internal talk was.

Alan will be fine. He's coming out here. But when Mary finds out about this, we're all screwed. 

Alan Bernstein: I threw Steve in [00:35:00] this juice under the bus. First, she was 

Terri Bernstein: like, sell 

Alan Bernstein: it. Get 

Terri Bernstein: the money back. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh no. Ben was saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a true state. That is absolutely a true story. And we still talk about it today.

Whenever it comes up. Oh, we sent Steve out to get a PlayStation. See, it comes up all the time. Wait a minute, there was another event. I don't remember when the second event happened. I think 

Terri Bernstein: we bought a second set of it. Not there, 

Alan Bernstein: it was on another No, on a 

Terri Bernstein: different But I think we bought another PlayStation.

It was 

Alan Bernstein: a different tour. On another trip? 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, on another trip. 

Terri Bernstein: Because Ben had taken the other one. We need another one. 

Ben Bernstein: So Josh, before we started, we were talking about Susan. And the beef tips. Did that also happen on a summer cruise tour? 

Josh Mehling: That was on a, I can't remember if that was a summer or a fall, but yes, that was on one of the out of town What did she go through?

So, so, so [00:36:00] Sis Which is my cousin's, or our cousin's Our cousin, yeah. Part of the family. So she was working for us at the time as a waitress. She worked for us for quite a while. Yeah, she did, for a long time. Yeah, she did. And you know, everybody gets a side duty that they get assigned for the day. Right.

So it's, you know, you're on outside deck. So you, at the end of the cruise, you go out and you, you clean, organize the outside, stack the chairs and clean it up and all that. Right. So. So the one that everybody hates is when you got restroom detail you had to go in and clean the restrooms and sanitize everything and A lot of these out of town trips your daytime crews Pretty common you'd get like a bus from a nursing home or you know an assisted living facility Which was a big deal for them to get out, right?

So That can lead to various Issues Challenges, I guess. And on this particular one when Suze went in to do restroom details, she was [00:37:00] not very pleased because there was a really big mess in the restrooms. And it 

Ben Bernstein: wasn't a number one, 

Josh Mehling: no, somebody had 

Ben Bernstein: exploded. Somebody had spontaneously combusted.

Josh Mehling: It was Would off the capitalism would be good. Yeah. Yeah. It was all kinds of off the capitalism. Yeah. So Suze, you know, held her nose and, and did her job and got it cleaned up. And she sucked it up. Yeah. we were pretty notorious for playing all different kinds of practical jokes on each other on these trips.

Right. I, like I said, you get, you can go a little stir crazy otherwise. So we thought it would be a good idea on the next trip. And Sue's had restroom detail again. we went and I think Rick might've been involved with this with me. And I know Rick's upstairs and 

Ben Bernstein: Rick is our sales manager. 

Josh Mehling: Yep. 

Ben Bernstein: Yep.

Josh Mehling: So we got a couple of plastic cups and we got into the leftover beef [00:38:00] tips. Which is kind of a 

Ben Bernstein: consistency and brown 

Alan Bernstein: matter gravy, like, yeah, yeah. It has mushrooms in it and other good looking stuff, 

Josh Mehling: other chunks. And so we went into the restroom stall and kind of like, just randomly sprinkled some.

Yeah. Some beef tip gravy all over the place. Well, before I could get Suze's attention and say, you know, Hey, Suze, got to make sure you go get the bathroom before we, we bored. Carl, one of our bartenders just coincidentally went into the restroom. And when he came out, he looked like he'd just seen a ghost.

And he said, Josh, Oh, you're not going to believe it. And I said, what, what's wrong? And he said, they did it again. It happened again. Somebody is spontaneously combust in the bathroom again. So yeah, so Suze went in. She, she [00:39:00] cleaned it all up again. And we kept saying, God, it's so weird. Cause she kept going, Oh, this is so gross.

And we said, Susan, it's so weird. It smells like beef tips. And I we finally had to that night, like, Just say Suze it. We did it. It was a joke. It was a joke us up. 

Ben Bernstein: She is not always the quickest to pick up on a joke. No 

Terri Bernstein: Side. Little note about Suze. Yeah. Do you know that she sleepwalks?

She sleepwalk? 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. Oh yeah. And she sleep 

Terri Bernstein: walks and eats chocolate. Yep. Sweets. 

Ben Bernstein: You have to hide chocolate from 

Josh Mehling: her. Yep. 

Terri Bernstein: I mean, she will find it and eat the entire bag. Yep. 

Josh Mehling: Not 

Terri Bernstein: even now 

Josh Mehling: I can remember trips I 

Terri Bernstein: was afraid she'd walk off. Yeah, she 

Alan Bernstein: very very easily. I think she could have 

Josh Mehling: well We would all bunk on the first floor of the bell where there's where there's no windows, right?

So we had air mattresses out and everybody kind of had their little area and a lot of times You know when terry and I would split the trip We had the joy of then having to like wake [00:40:00] everybody up the next morning and get everything going So it would not be uncommon that when you Got to Suze's bunk there.

Yes, there'd be hostess rappers and 

Terri Bernstein: like a whole box. Yeah. I mean it was like crazy a huge amount Every Reesey cup, you know

Alan Bernstein: Al you said much what oh, I'm enjoying the stories 

Terri Bernstein: Do you remember the story of your keys going in the river? 

Josh Mehling: Oh my goodness. I do right that 

Terri Bernstein: That was back when he you would first become a chief steward. 

Josh Mehling: Yep. I think so Yeah, like your car key probably 16. Yep. We did. 

Ben Bernstein: Were you in the turkle or were you in the 

Josh Mehling: This was Beretta one.

Ben Bernstein: Oh the 

Josh Mehling: That's right This was Beretta one 

Ben Bernstein: you yeah And then you got rid of Beretta one in order to get a Beretta two that had air conditioning 

Josh Mehling: Yep, and then I totaled it 

Ben Bernstein: yet like You had like a sticker. I got it. You put a sticker on the back window and they put it on for you and you pulled out of the parking lot and got [00:41:00] 

Josh Mehling: immediately T bones.

I'm poor oldie. Total discard. Yep. That was the end of Beretta too. Hmm. But yeah, I had, so we had a young kid working for us who was difficult to manage. We'll just, we'll say that. Okay. And it was just him and I on an all day cruise. Which is a lot of work, right? I mean, we probably, I don't know, a hundred people and we're doing everything.

We're feeding everybody. At the end, we're taking all the trash off the boat, we're taking all the leftover food off everything. So, and it's a long day. I mean, how long is that crew? Just the cruise itself is probably 12 hours. Yeah. So it's probably for us like a 14, 16 hour day, something like that.

So. There was an incident at dinner where this particular gentleman decided he was carving the beef and where we stationed the buffets at that time, there was a side door like right behind the end of the buffet where he would stand. I [00:42:00] kept noticing him. He would, carve a couple of pieces, line would die down.

Then he he'd step away and he'd go poke his head outside. I'm going, what is he doing? And he was smoking a cigarette that he would go back to in between people coming to the line. And I said, I said, man, you can't do that. You know, it's breaking a number of different rules, not to mention that just isn't very appetizing or professional.

And that night we get back, we're getting everything cleaned up and I'm ready to go home. It was snowing. I do remember that I can't find my car keys anywhere. They're nowhere to be found. And it was the only key I had to my car. So I had to call a locksmith, you know, run through the whole, the whole thing.

I find out like a year later, I ran into some other kid that worked for us. And, and he said did you ever get your keys out of the river? And I said, well, what are you talking about? And he said, well you know, when all that went down, he said, Jamie wasn't real happy with you and you know, your reprimands or whatever, and he [00:43:00] threw your keys, 

Terri Bernstein: so I solved the 

Alan Bernstein: mystery of where my keys went.

Terri Bernstein: Never a dull moment at BBU ever been? 

Alan Bernstein: Well, I have one favorite story about the Jews. 

Terri Bernstein: What? 

Alan Bernstein: And it was during Tall Stacks. I don't remember which one. , probably in the mid nineties, maybe 95, 99. It was something probably only 

Ben Bernstein: 99, 2003 or 2006. Well, 

Alan Bernstein: no, it wasn't that late. It was before that. But What was before 

Josh Mehling: 99?

Was there 95? In 95? It might've been your first. Well, so I would've done 99 would've been, 

Alan Bernstein: yeah, and, and I don't think it was the first one, so it may have been 2003. When did you leave? 2005. Okay. So, maybe it was 2000. You 

Ben Bernstein: left before the last Hallstacks? No, no, no, no. You didn't stop working for us until like 2000.

Or, I'm sorry, 2015. 

Josh Mehling: Yes. I left in 2015. [00:44:00] Okay, 

Alan Bernstein: okay, okay. I'm like, you were there. I know you were there. It really doesn't matter which one. But, things were not going well that day. And We had Many hundreds of people on board the Bella Cincinnati. It was a I believe a lunch cruise and 

Terri Bernstein: Was this not the red hat lady?

Alan Bernstein: Was that a red hat? I don't think that was a red hat lady. It was the 

Terri Bernstein: saturday. That was 

Alan Bernstein: definitely one of them. I mean It was one of them, but 

Terri Bernstein: was the last tall sex because it was during the flood the bell of cincinnati Was trying to pull in where the be of Louisville because was outta whack.

The schedule was outta whack, it was call won Walker and we had a, it was Kelly Wonger very call won and we had to wait for the bell of Louisville to pull out and Troy was coming in and I'm like, put down the stage. And, and Troy's like, Josh don't touch that stage. You know, like he was yelling at, at us and Al's on the shore going.

Are you ready to board? No, 

Alan Bernstein: no, we're not. We can't even dock. Well, [00:45:00] Josh is out there. He was trying to deck hand and we were desperate to get people on the boat. I mean, just that's, you were desperate. Well, get people on the boat, but us on the shore were desperate to get them on the boat and Josh is out there slinging ropes and everything, and I'm yelling at Josh.

Are you ready to board? And Josh goes, Does it look like we're ready to board? And I went, No, it doesn't. But he was just so dumbfounded that I was yelling, Are you ready to board? 

Josh Mehling: There's a thousand people, I'm asked, like, out on the front of the boat. Who haven't even gotten off the boat yet. Who haven't even 

Alan Bernstein: gotten off.

And I'm thinking, do you know how much stuff we gotta clean up? Well, and wait a minute, it would take a good half hour to get everybody off the boat. There were so many people on there. It was just amazing it was really one of my favorites if I had taken a picture [00:46:00] of his look on his face, 

Terri Bernstein: he wanted to kill you.

Alan Bernstein: I'm sure everybody wanted to kill me that tall stats but it really was a great story and I just remember you. I don't remember seeing any other crew members. I really don't. I think you were deckhanding all by yourself. Probably. 

Terri Bernstein: Swinging the stage, tying the lines.

Oh 

Alan Bernstein: god, it was so funny. 

Terri Bernstein: We had good times. We worked really hard. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. Yes, we did. 

Terri Bernstein: We worked a lot harder than we probably needed to. 

Alan Bernstein: But you know what? Back then, everybody seemed to pitch it. We liked it. Yeah. And it was 

Ben Bernstein: fun. Yeah. I mean it was growing up. That's how we 

Alan Bernstein: I mean, 

Ben Bernstein: kids today, 

Alan Bernstein: if they work four or five hours, they're tired and they need to go home.

Everybody was just exhausted and we somehow or another we got through it. But. We've had a lot of great crew over the years. We have, we have, especially El Sid is one of my favorites. El Sid Sidney Bostic. 

Josh Mehling: Yeah. So 

Terri Bernstein: the [00:47:00] best carver on El 

Josh Mehling: Carver. Yeah. Best carver this side of the Ohio.

Yeah. So funny thing about Sid is him and I when I left you guys were kind, we had a little banquet and stuff here, I think on my last day. Yep. Yep. And Sid came, and him and I had stayed in touch, but. we didn't talk frequently, whatever. So that kind of rekindled our friendship and we we see each other all the time now.

And my wife and I spend a lot of time with him and his wife and our kids and everything. And until about four years ago, Anytime I was with Sid and he would introduce me to somebody, he would still introduce me as his coworker. He would say, this is my coworker, Josh. And I said, we haven't worked together in like 15 years.

Like at what point are, you know, we're just friends. It's like 

Ben Bernstein: teammates. Yeah, they're always forever teammates, 

Josh Mehling: but no hit him. And I swap stories all the time too. , and he likes to bring up , the dreaded double dinners on the. [00:48:00] Oh, yeah, you remember that, right? I know you guys have talked about the fun liner on here.

Yeah, we used 

Ben Bernstein: to do, they were like four 30 to six 30 and then eight 30 to 11 or something like that. 

Alan Bernstein: Something like that. It was 10 Yeah, it was a, on a Saturday night we would do two. Yep. 

Josh Mehling: Sid would tell you those were the cruises that turned the boys to men. 

Ben Bernstein: I had to teach you guys how to wash some dishes.

I was the, yeah. The fastest dishwasher this side of the Mississippi. 

Terri Bernstein: Do you remember when dad taught us how to carve? I have the video of that. 

Alan Bernstein: Do you really? 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah, remember he kept dropping the I 

Alan Bernstein: did not. I was the best carver this side of the Mississippi. I will post that video. 

Terri Bernstein: That video will be posted on our podcast.

Alan Bernstein: Oh, you dropped it like 

Terri Bernstein: four times trying to like get it together and you're frantically trying to carve the meat. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, I was the bad. 

Terri Bernstein: What was that? It was, was it an out of town trip? No, it was a busy, I think it was just a Saturday night. Because for a long time, you would be the cruise director.

Katie and [00:49:00] I would wait tables and bartend and dad one day decided that he was going to be the carver at the end of the line. Cause he could do it faster than anybody else. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, and what about bartending when you needed a bartender? And I stepped in, and I kicked everybody's ass on the bartending.

They're still finding cans of beer rolling around.

Yeah, I didn't know how to open up a box of cans of beer, but I did everything else good. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: All right. Well, let's move on Al's favorite 

Moderator: Now it is time for rambling on the rivers

Word of the day

Ben Bernstein: I'm gonna go back in the edit this segment every time, right when the music stops, this is a good one. [00:50:00] It's a good one. This is a good one. Is it, is it the most famous? Famous, 

Alan Bernstein: yeah. we can go back. No, well this word is famous, but it's not it's not useful today.

Well, yeah. It was. It's extinct. It, it is 

Ben Bernstein: extinct. Yeah. It is great. The word today is It's extinct. It's extinct. It's extinct. Flatboat. Tara, do you know what a flatboat is? 

Terri Bernstein: I do. 

Ben Bernstein: Actually, Josh, do you know what a flatboat is? I feel like I should. You probably should. 

Terri Bernstein: We had a flatboat at one of the old talk shows.

That is 

Ben Bernstein: correct. We did. If you would listen to Bob Poe's commentary during a lunch cruise, you would probably learn this. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, everybody with a flat boat. Okay. A flat boat is a boat that has a totally flat bottom, made outta wood. And 'cause most boats had a little bit of a keel or a. A hall and these boats float, they have no motor, no engine. They just, they had a rudder in the back [00:51:00] and this is how settlers started down the river. In the very beginning of people moving they would tie a bunch of laws a lot. Well, yeah They would tie a bunch and they would, they would and they would make, yeah, it's, yeah.

Ben Bernstein: They would tie a bunch of logs. Yes, they would gather their family up. That's right. And they would go where the river took them, 

Alan Bernstein: and they would make this enclosure. So they had a place to sleep out of the rain and out of the, and they may be on 

Ben Bernstein: there for a week. They may be on there for a month.

Could be on there for six months. That's right. When they found a place that they liked, they pulled it in, they pulled it in and they disassembled the boat, that boat used the wood to build a home or 

Alan Bernstein: whatever they wanted to build. That 

Ben Bernstein: is how Cincinnati was founded. That is how every major 

Alan Bernstein: cities along the every, every single 

Ben Bernstein: city was founded this way.

That's located on the river. I would say, yeah, maybe I shouldn't say 

Alan Bernstein: every, but well, it's gotta be a lot of cities down river [00:52:00] from the main source, we're all pretty much settled with flatboats and flatboats didn't steer very well. You had to have a rudder because there was no way to really steer a flat, but it would just follow the current.

Yep. So It's sort of obvious that they were flat boats, but the term is a pretty technical term. Steamboat or early straight forward. Yep. Yep. Yep. 

Josh Mehling: It is. Now, is there a reason they built them flat as opposed to having, well, they didn't have 

Alan Bernstein: technology of how to do it the way they would build when they got into the late 1800s and all that, the boats started to figure out that they were better off with 

Ben Bernstein: once they invented the steam engine.

I don't know what the year is, but 18, 11, 18, 11. Then they could start going up forever, you know, up to that point. Everybody was going down river. But I 

Terri Bernstein: thought they wanted it completely flat so you could shove all the way into the bank. [00:53:00] 

Alan Bernstein: Well, there were other reasons that a flat boat, but you're needed to be flat.

Ben Bernstein: Like our river boats are flat bottom boats, but they're built that way to reduce the amount of drafts so you can push into a river bank. 

Alan Bernstein: The Belle of Cincinnati is technically a flat bottom boat. 

Josh Mehling: Yep. 

Alan Bernstein: But it does have a keel and it does have. Engines that make it maneuver better. And most riverboats are barges or flat bottom tow boats or flat bottoms.

And that was pretty much everything on the river. Yeah. It was just the reason for that. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. Well, your center of gravity is much higher on a flat bottom boat because you don't have to worry about the waves in the, in, in all of that from the waves, ocean going ships. Are built with a keel and that is to lower the center of gravity.

So when the waves hit you one direction, you write yourself and [00:54:00] come back the other way, you can handle large waves. 

Alan Bernstein: And the sailing ships of early you know, 1492 and all that stuff. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Yeah. Did have some kind of a keel on it. Not much, not much. Most of those boats were almost flat bottom.

But yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: now you can take flat bottom boats out to sea, but it is not recommended. Oh yeah. Yeah. Typically you need to do some nice weather only. Yes. Or you would need to do a little bit of improvements to the boat or temporary improvements, I guess. God, I know we bought a boat or is that when we sold the becky thatcher When it went to sacramento but they did it under its own power, didn't they? 

Alan Bernstein: They 

Ben Bernstein: they did but they watched weather and they made sure that they could make the pass but didn't they put? I, I don't even know what you would put, you would add to the boat welded something to this, to help with that.

I can't remember. They, 

Alan Bernstein: they [00:55:00] welded a steel wave breaker on the bow of the boat. Gotcha. That had to be from the pilot house down to the first deck. So when a big wave came, yeah. It wouldn't break windows. And there was a point on top of the Becky Thatcher. In the bow, so that when a wave hit it, it would break this bird.

Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. I knew there 

Ben Bernstein: was, they 

Alan Bernstein: were required to do that by the coast guard. In order to go across. So that's just Unfortunately, that boat 

Ben Bernstein: ended 

Alan Bernstein: up 

Underwater. Yeah, it met its demise. That 

Ben Bernstein: wasn't that long ago. 

Alan Bernstein: No, no, no. Five, six years ago. It's in riverboat heaven. It was the spirit of Sacramento?

Mhmm. Something like 

Terri Bernstein: that. That one was not our fault. No. 

Josh Mehling: Where's the old river queen? Now 

Ben Bernstein: the old river queen charleston south carolina takes if you ever take your family to fort sumpter. Yeah, they do the fort sumpter. It has an elevator. 

Josh Mehling: That's what I remember hearing that they put an elevator length in 

Alan Bernstein: the boat too.

Didn't [00:56:00] they lengthen it and they put brand new engines in. 

Josh Mehling: Yeah. Oh wow. 

Alan Bernstein: They had to be totally green engines in order to work for the park service. 

Ben Bernstein: We were there for vacation. I took elam. Elam was probably four or five maybe. But we were on the national parks, Fort Sumter's Twitter page or something. They took a picture of us as the, you know, the old owners came back to ride the spirit of the low country is what it's called now, but it takes people out to Fort Sumter.

Yep. All right. Okay. Moving on to current event. 

Moderator 2: All right. Welcome to, as the paddle wheel turns our look at. Pertinent current events happening right now in the world.

Ben Bernstein: Well, I don't know if you two realize this. One person in this room is an award winner. 

Alan Bernstein: Yes, she is. She is, she's going to receive it in about a half an hour. 48 minutes. Okay. I'm sorry. The fest, I [00:57:00] lied. Begin. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. Our very own Terry Bernstein, who was sleeping on the airplane last night. 

Terri Bernstein: Oh, 

Ben Bernstein: that 

Alan Bernstein: was, 

Terri Bernstein: that was mean.

Alan Bernstein: Oh, it was good. It was a good picture. That's called brotherly love. Well, you could tell that he had had a lot of bourbon and that you were sound asleep. And he 

Terri Bernstein: had, because we had a two hour delay. 

Ben Bernstein: We were at the airport four hours before our flight and we still got delayed too.

We were there for ever. 

Terri Bernstein: In the, in the dark sky lounge. We were in 

Ben Bernstein: the sky club. 

Terri Bernstein: But we had both walked 20, 000 steps a day. And neither one of us could even walk. And Ben, Ben was like, go 

Ben Bernstein: get me a drink. 

Terri Bernstein: You go get me a bourbon. 

Ben Bernstein: So what we're pertaining to, for those of you who aren't. Facebook friends of ours Terry and I flew home from orlando last night and she caught a little nap [00:58:00] During the flight home Her loving brother snapped a nice selfie 

Alan Bernstein: the loving brother Took pictures of you after a root canal.

Oh, yeah 

Terri Bernstein: Oh 

Alan Bernstein: you did yes, oh no 

Terri Bernstein: I know 

Ben Bernstein: You have to take the personal responsibility Of just not sending that stuff to you So anyways back to this major award yes, theresa lynn bernstein is one of the 2024 recipients of northern kentucky tribunes newsmakers which will be given to her Like we said here 46 minutes.

Yeah 46 minutes. 

Terri Bernstein: Yay 

Ben Bernstein: Yay 

Alan Bernstein: You can tell she's very impressed. 

Terri Bernstein: I don't like attention. I don't know. 

Ben Bernstein: She doesn't. this award is given to an extraordinary group of top community servant leaders who have [00:59:00] distinguished themselves personally and professionally as outstanding citizens in every way. She has done that.

Alan Bernstein: She has done that. she does it every day. She deserves it. That's right. And she deserves every single day. She deserves the award and I want you to pay attention, Ben, because I don't know that you have any awards. I don't have any awards. I don't know. What do you have an award? 

Ben Bernstein: I don't know.

 There's a journalism award up there. 

Alan Bernstein: A journalism award. 

I don't, there's a student sales into the family business award. 

Ben Bernstein: There's the next, I was the next generation leadership award. Huh? First place golf outing.

I'm a Kentucky colonel. I'm a nice nice frames like that. 

Josh Mehling: Yeah. Mine's right there. The leadership in northern 

Ben Bernstein: Kentucky. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. That's my journalism award. 

Alan Bernstein: This is Terry's spotlight. Do you have any words about your award? 

Ben Bernstein: I'm very grateful.

I'd like to [01:00:00] thank my brother. 

Terri Bernstein: Definitely not. 

Alan Bernstein: You better not thank him. Maybe my parents, my grandparents. I would think that your father in particular. Yeah. Could be. 

Terri Bernstein: I would think so. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. Maybe. 

Terri Bernstein: And my mom. 

Alan Bernstein: And your mom. Yeah. 

Terri Bernstein: So we were in 

Ben Bernstein: Orlando.

Terri Bernstein: Orlando, Florida. We went to IAPA. 

Ben Bernstein: Which is the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. 

Terri Bernstein: You know what we learned the most? 

Ben Bernstein: What? 

Terri Bernstein: That we want an amusement park. You know why? 

Ben Bernstein: It's so much fun. 

Terri Bernstein: Because we want to buy a rollercoaster. You could buy a rollercoaster on the floor. You could buy the pods for, the big Ferris wheel, 

Ben Bernstein: every standup video game.

Every new release all the new video games you go you can play them really the big ball car the the the prize Claws and there must have 

Terri Bernstein: been a [01:01:00] thousand prize when 

Ben Bernstein: I tell you this is enormous Number one, if you walk every aisle from up and back, the whole show floor, nine miles. Can you wrap your head around?

No, no. Have you ever seen the Orlando Convention Center? that's a large convention. Oh my lord. Yeah. Is it the whole thing? 

Josh Mehling: Mm 

Ben Bernstein: mm. It was, yeah. Yeah. It was the entire thing. The whole building. And all three floors too. Wow. It's a monster. Let alone the hotel, the hotel is a whole other thing. 

We stayed at the high Regency, which has a very large convention center attached to it, which is 

Terri Bernstein: bigger than our convention center, I think here. 

Ben Bernstein: And then on top of it. It has a walkway over to the Orange County Convention Center. But it was, that was the one thing is like, man, I went to some of these.

Seminars and the topics all can be applied [01:02:00] to us. But it's just all fun stuff. Like, you know, you're storytelling, you're creating, you know, some of the speakers are from Disney, you know, how they, they conceptualize and come up with, you know, these new storylines for new rides and.

And, you know, you take it from a movie and you, you turn it into a ride or a water slide or a roller coaster or a 3d show, then you go through the exhibit floor and, you know, everything was like, you know, bumper cars and, you know, there was just everything it was, it was a big NASCAR 

Terri Bernstein: run, like that was a whole like actual race car and you sit in it and you.

You can feel it. And yeah, it sounds like 

Josh Mehling: a cool show. 

Ben Bernstein: You could go and pay, I don't know, like 30 bucks or something people were bringing their kids and just going to like the video game part and just go on and playing playing 

Terri Bernstein: and eating the ice cream and the slush puppies.

Yeah, you, 

Ben Bernstein: you had every snack bar vendor. Like, you know, Hush Puppy, [01:03:00] Icy, and all of those things were there. Ice Cream, 

Terri Bernstein: Dippin Dots. We had, 

Ben Bernstein: We walked in, and there is this enormous line. Like crossing, I don't know, five or six rows, which obviously is big as you can, you can tell how long and we're, Terry and I are walking through and I'm like, what do you guys in line for?

And they're like pretzels. They're making pretzels. I'm like, you guys are in line. I mean, this line 75 people deep and they're like, just get in line. Trust us. They're the greatest pretzels you'll ever have. And these people, if you're at like the Kentucky state fair, you, you picture the closures and yeah, like they're in.

So this one lady. Was rolling out dough and folding pretzels. She didn't stop the entire, I mean, she 

Terri Bernstein: was there every 

Ben Bernstein: day and she did nothing, but, but fold pretzels and put, and then they put them out and they gave it to you. It was so hot and so fresh and it [01:04:00] was, and they 

Terri Bernstein: put this butter on top.

Ben Bernstein: It was, it was, it was pretty incredible. And you could buy the whole self contained unit for like 90, 000. That makes them, and that makes it, well, it you, you still, you have to roll 'em out. Yeah. You have to fold 'em. But it, it was a operat. I 

Terri Bernstein: still want the mini data. Make an operation. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. They had those automatic.

Mini doughnut maker. Yeah, I know. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, 

Terri Bernstein: they smell good. Yeah, it's good. 

I learned a lot about line management and snack bars 

Ben Bernstein: That was the other thing that amazed me. So yeah, these are all amusement park people or People who are close to the amusement park industry. Some of these seminars were extremely highly attended like They have like a legend series where say an old executive from Disney or an engineer or something Would would do some of these talks and I mean, what do you think the attendee count was?

50, 000 I mean, I don't I don't even know. I don't know what the numbers are, but it was massive. It was I mean [01:05:00] 

Terri Bernstein: The whole floor was packed all the time. 

Ben Bernstein: But we'd go up and be waiting in line to go into the seminar. And, you know, people just gather around the room. If you think about PVA, people just gather around the room.

And, well, all by themselves without any instruction whatsoever, people started lining up and they'd make a line. They'd go down the side and then they'd wrap back around and they'd queue themselves without stanchions. And you just walk so they when the next person came Oh, where's the back of the line and they'd start just just wrapping themselves back and forth in a clean organized line Without any instruction whatsoever.

It was pretty funny. It was well, I guess yeah 

Terri Bernstein: We did learn something for PVA though. We, we went into a seminar after walking all day long and we found a seminar that had, oh 

Ben Bernstein: my goodness, it was 

Terri Bernstein: the 

Ben Bernstein: first day. We're at like, you know, we're at like 18, 000 steps and we had [01:06:00] like an hour before the thing started and it's like, well, let's could just go find where we're going.

Cause like the app, like you pull up or like, all right, I want to go to this. And then you click a button that says, show me on the map where it's at. Then you got to figure out how to get there So we go up it was on this it was called like the edutalk stage or something we walk in and there's like couches on either side of the room with the The chairs in the middle or whatever.

Terri Bernstein: And a table. And we, 

Ben Bernstein: Terry and I, walk in. I was like, Terry, let's go get out. We didn't, we watched the next 

Terri Bernstein: four 

Ben Bernstein: seminars. We didn't move. 

Terri Bernstein: We didn't care what 

Ben Bernstein: the next seminar was about. The guy kept coming over, are you here for the next one? 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: Because they, they scan everybody's badge, I guess, to give you.

We wouldn't 

Terri Bernstein: even get up to go get it scanned. They hadn't come to us. It was pretty funny. That was a 

Ben Bernstein: lifesaver, really. That was the first day was, was a bit of an overload. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. It was a lot more walking than we're used to. But it was a good time. 

Ben Bernstein: It was a very good time. And then, you know, we stopped at Universal [01:07:00] Studios yesterday to just see how they're doing.

Terri Bernstein: How their line management is. Yeah. How their line management is. 

Ben Bernstein: Snack bars and how their new roller coasters. The 

Terri Bernstein: interesting thing, I sat through a seminar that talked about, you know, what to do and what not to do. And one thing is, you know, go cashless, do not go back, you know, do not think twice, go cashless.

And when you get to universal, they take cash. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, really? 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. One 

Ben Bernstein: of the biggest ones. 

Terri Bernstein: Isn't that crazy? Yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: it is crazy. I 

Terri Bernstein: thought it was crazy. They did also say, I thought we were going to go 

Ben Bernstein: cashless. 

Terri Bernstein: You never make a snack bar item less than 5. 5. 

If you do, you're wasting your time and money, energy, not money, but okay.

Interesting. 

Ben Bernstein: Well we are coming to the end, Josh, this has been a whole lot of fun. 

Josh Mehling: Hey, thank you guys. 

Ben Bernstein: It's 

Alan Bernstein: actually, Oh, you're definitely going to be back. We have more. We never got to the judge. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. We never talked about a 

Alan Bernstein: couple of 

Ben Bernstein: topics. Yeah. Well, you can't do it all the first time.

Maybe the [01:08:00] next 

Terri Bernstein: one will bring Sid too. 

Josh Mehling: Oh, we should bring Sid too. Sid would love to see you guys. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: Well, Josh, thank you very much for coming back. I wish we got to see you a little more often. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, thank your lovely wife for letting you come to this.

Oh, I will. 

Ben Bernstein: I'm sure she had to give them the okay. Yeah. Right. Right. We'll see you again next time. Who knows what we'll do next week, but. I'm sure it'll be halfway entertaining. At least 

Terri Bernstein: you say that every time. I 

Josh Mehling: do got to tell you guys, I love the podcast.

I think I've listened to every episode except the latest one. Okay. It's pretty entertaining. 

Alan Bernstein: Well the subject matter is pretty entertaining. I mean, we have had a tremendous run 

Terri Bernstein: childhood. The last one was your childhood. 

Alan Bernstein: My childhood? I 

Terri Bernstein: liked that one. Yeah. I liked asking you questions.

You don't remember hardly anything. No. 

Alan Bernstein: No, you don't. But I, 

Terri Bernstein: I don't remember my childhood either and I'm a lot younger than you are. 

Alan Bernstein: Well I have a theory about my memory and I think it [01:09:00] is some of the drugs that I'm taking for my liver affect memory and your mother's not as convinced as I am that it, it's medic.

It's I don't think you've ever been any different. 

Ben Bernstein: Your memory seems the same to me. I don't think you should laugh at 

Alan Bernstein: that. Jush. 

Terri Bernstein: I'm not really laughing because I'm the same way. I mean, even right now, 

Alan Bernstein: say stupid shit like that. That's my theory of why my member, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

That that's right. I'm sticking to it. All right.

Josh Mehling: I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but you need to talk to my dad. My mom and dad just got, I think they got back Wednesday. Oh, they did a river cruise from New Orleans. Two. I think they ended in Knoxville, maybe? Oh, in Knoxville?

Tennessee? Maybe Nashville. Nashville, maybe. They were gone for like, seven, eight days. Okay, that could be, sure. And he sent, my dad sends me a picture, you know, it pops up real small on my phone. 

Alan Bernstein: [01:10:00] What line did they do that on? American Cruise Line, I think, yeah. That's the only one left. Well, Viking is on the lower miss, 

Josh Mehling: but well, I told my dad, I said, send me pictures.

So the first day I get this, you know, the little icon. Thing pops up on your phone. It's this real tiny picture and I'm like, well, that looks beautiful. What is that? And I open it up. It was a picture of a painting outside of his room What's right outside of my room and it was a painting of the port of Cincinnati.

Like there you go pictures of where you are How 

Ben Bernstein: is judge mailing doing in his 

Josh Mehling: He's retired now he's really retired He still keeps his You know, credentials. I always laugh that he goes to judges college once a year. Like they're continuing Bill 

Terri Bernstein: runs into him every once in a while. What is that called?

Josh Mehling: He'll fill in every now that Kentucky will use retired judges to [01:11:00] backfill if somebody's on vacation or they can't take a case because of whatever reason. So he'll do that every every now and then. 

Alan Bernstein: And he still has all of his credentials and licenses and all that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. Interesting. Well, he's a good guy. 

Ben Bernstein: Well, I think I think that's it, Josh.

Thank you very much. We will see you again next week.

Moderator: Thank you for listening to the rambling on the river podcast presented by BB river boats. Stay tuned for the next episode of our podcast and remember to like, subscribe and follow us. On all your favorite podcast platforms.

Ben Bernstein: The previous episode was brought to you by BB Riverboats. 

Sponsor Message 2: The moments that await just around the river's [01:12:00] bend are what we look forward to each day. Watching high school sweethearts tie the knot, or watching them celebrate 50 wonderful years together. A group of old friends reuniting for one more adventure, or young minds embarking on their first.

At BB Riverboats, we believe a cruise on the mighty Ohio is where lifelong memories are made. And that once you experience it, you'll want to share it with others time and time again. Plan your group event at BBRiverboats. com. Journey Aboard.