- How do certain Peoria firefighters do their jobs?

By following their noses.

Their cold and wet noses.

- And I hear they love to play with toys and they're really adorable.

You've gotta see this (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Now, don't get the wrong idea, it's not as if all the Peoria firefighters are weird and sitting around sniffing things and playing with toys all time.

- No, it's actually just two of those firefighters, Molly and Rock, and they are newcomers to this situation.

They're kind of the new pups on the block.

- They are, they're the arson dogs for the department.

And this is pretty rare in Illinois.

In fact, most cities don't have arson dogs.

Even Chicago doesn't have any.

- Well, dogonnit.

Let's check it out.

(light music) - [Narrator] Most firefighters spring into action at the sound of an alarm.

(sirens wailing) But for two special Peoria firefighters, their biggest alarm goes off in their noses.

Meet Molly and Rock, the Peoria Fire Department's two arson dogs, or as they're formerly known, accelerant detection canines.

They help the department sniff out suspicious blazes.

- One of us is on call 24 hours a day.

So no matter what, when there's a fire and the investigator is responding, there's always gonna be a dog there.

So that's an added benefit to the citizens of Peoria.

- [Narrator] Molly and Rock arrived in late 2022.

- Before we had a machine called a hydrocarbon tester that in essence sniffs out the same things the dogs do.

You walk around, it's got the wand and we'd have to decide exactly where we want to put it 'cause it's only gonna pick up a certain cone.

Where the dogs, on their leash, we tell 'em to seek and then they can search the room a whole lot faster.

- You may have to go around to every room and use that hydrocarbon tester and you can't just walk through at a good speed, you have to go slow, you have to be checking the areas that you might think that that was the origin of the fire.

Where with the accelerate detection canines, so Molly and Rock, basically we take 'em in, tell 'em to seek, and if they're smelling the scent, they could be doing that from two rooms away.

They could all of a sudden smell it and then they just start zeroing in on it.

It's like radar, almost.

Seek!

Seek!

Show me.

That's how fast.

- [Narrator] But how does a high tech device get outshined by Mother Nature?

- So the hydrocarbon detector works in parts per million and the dogs' nose works in parts per billion.

- [Narrator] In Springfield, the Illinois State Fire Marshal's office long has had arson dogs.

But that option usually wasn't practical for Peoria investigations.

- We really didn't use a dog, mainly because the distance between Peoria and the nearest state fire marshal dog, we had to wait a couple hours usually or more.

And that's time where we have to hold a scene.

And it was just became non-realistic that we could do that.

- [Narrator] The Peoria Fire Department first talked about arson dogs years ago.

- I think it's a good program.

We were able to get two private donations from two separate companies to fund two dogs.

- They were 4,500 bucks to buy them.

- [Narrator] That's why only a handful of fire departments statewide have arson dogs.

- It's very usual to even have a dog.

Springfield doesn't have one.

Rockford had one and then doesn't anymore.

Chicago Fire doesn't have any dogs.

So they are both Belgium Malinois German Shepherd mixes.

Rock, Brad's dog, is probably more 95% Shepherd.

Molly, my dog, is 95% Malinois.

We got 'em from a guy in North Carolina.

But both dogs were born in Budapest, Hungary.

We got 'em back here and that's when the training started.

- [Narrator] The dogs are trained to sniff out hydrocarbons.

- A hydrocarbon is basically something that is a petroleum based product or an alcohol based product.

Those are substances that could be used to set fire intentionally, used to intensify the flame effect, intensify how fast the fire gets going.

It could be kerosene, it could be trucker lighter fluids.

It could be camping oil, it could be gasoline, it could be all those type of things.

- [Narrator] When the dogs hit on an accelerant, they're rewarded by getting to play with a favorite toy.

- So they are toy-reward based.

So when they find odor, they get a toy.

And both dogs, that's the only time they get that toy.

They have other toys, but the toy they get and they both love that toy.

It's like crack to them.

All right, seek.

Show me Good girl.

We would take our hydrocarbon tester, try to get to the highest concentration of gas to take a sample to send to the lab, to have them tested, where the dog is gonna sniff the whole couch way quicker than the machine and get us to the highest concentration.

- [Narrator] So far, Molly and Rock have had a perfect record of detecting accelerants.

Every sample that she has hit on, that I have sent in, has come back positive from the lab.

- [Narrator] After each shift, Molly goes home with Harris while Rock heads off with Pearson.

Both dogs have become dear additions to their adoptive families.

- I'd say even my kids and my wife, they thought it was gonna be cool.

They didn't realize how attached they were gonna get to her.

- [Narrator] Lots of love and sometimes lots of messes.

- To love water like he does, if there is a puddle, he's gonna find it and he brings it inside.

- [Narrator] Their annual upkeep is about $2,000, paid out of the city budget.

It's a solid investment, as Molly and Rock investigated 75 fires last year.

They love to work and they love to work together.

- When we come to work, both of us, each dog stops at the other door stiffing to see.

If I get to work before him, I'll hear Rock outside our door sniffing.

It's the coolest thing I've done as a firefighter.

- Say, did you have a job when you were a kid?

- Yeah, sure.

When I was a teenager, I worked in a movie theater.

All the popcorn you could eat.

- And all the friends you could let in free.

Maybe?

Kind of sometimes?

- I will not admit to anything, they could be watching.

- Well, a lot of us worked as teens, but we're about to visit with a couple of kids who are much younger.

Not only do they have jobs, but they love them.

- And they work with their parents, which they love as well.

(light music) - [Narrator] They say two heads are better than one, but with a certain family business, it's even better with four heads, especially with the right hair color.

- Hi, my name's Amy Stash and this is the Redheaded Brewery.

This is my son Owen, who has red hair.

This is my daughter Ruby, who has red hair.

This is my husband Danny, who has red hair.

And our dog Madison, who has hints of red hair.

- [Narrator] Ginger Road Brewing Company started a year ago in Utica, a popular tourism and hospitality stop near Starved Rock State Park.

In this family affair, everyone pitches in.

- I think they're learning just that if you set your mind to something, you can accomplish it.

Long as you're willing to put in the work, you can be also creative and do things that you enjoy.

- [Narrator] Creativity was a driving force behind the brewery for both Amy, a massage therapist, and Dan, an inspector at the LaSalle County Nuclear Plant.

- I originally have an art degree, so I like to be creative and my main job is very regulatory, so it's very step by step process.

I needed like a creative outlet, so I started brew beer at home.

We'd always have friends over and they're like, "Hey, we've been to a lot of breweries.

Your stuff is as good or if not better than some, you really have a talent.

You should try and do this eventually."

So then we had an opportunity approach us to rent this space out and I figured I'm not getting any younger, so I might as well try now.

- [Narrator] And they had a perfect spot, a building in downtown Utica owned by friends.

Out front, the friends run Bruce & Ollie's.

Out back, though, they had an open spot.

Small but ideal for a budding brewery.

- It's kind of fun.

Like we get to spend time with our best friends and we're doing something that Danny's really passionate about and we're teaching our kids to follow their dreams and to work hard.

(light music) - Buildings from the 1800s.

It's the original limestone brick.

It's a very cool building.

It originally was a lumber store back in the 1800s.

It just feels like that old rustic, like a mountain town or an old mining town.

- [Narrator] And it's slightly remote, around the corner from the main drag of Mill Street.

- It could be a challenge, but it could also be a benefit.

Like the challenge is just getting people back here.

But it's a totally different atmosphere from up front.

We're very relaxed and chilled back here because sometimes when the streets close down on Mill Street, it can get very chaotic with a lot of people up there eating and everything.

So back here it's just kind of calm.

Our two flagship beers is Punch A Ginger, named after my son.

- Punt A Ginger is named after Owen, so that's his beer.

And then Freckled Face Pale Ale is Ruby's beer.

- [Narrator] Those are just some of the names that reflect the family's red hair, just like the name of the brewery.

- But I will say the funny thing is we have met more redheads in the last year than I think we've had in our whole entire life.

So it's like a mecca to redheads to come.

- So all the gingers are there, and the redheads, we have a gathering place for you.

Come this year.

We made this for you.

It's like fields of dreams.

If you build it, they will come.

(light music) (light music continues) So, they'll wash dishes for us.

My son and daughter have actually helped me brew a couple times.

They'll help us on mill grain and prep.

There's a lot of cleaning in brewing.

- I wanna kinda like do stuff on my own and like be trusted by myself.

- [Phil] What kind of stuff?

- Like taking out the garbage.

- Like washing stuff.

Like I didn't realize how like hand washing stuff was, how like much you had to put effort into hand washing stuff.

- It's probably 95% janitor work, so they'll do that.

And then they'll also bus tables when we're busy and gather glasses.

And we do flights, so they're always fighting over who could get the paddle so they can get a tip.

- And they're very ice cream motivated.

So they know when they come and if they help, they get to get any choice of their ice cream next door.

- Knowing that I'm gonna get free snacks.

- We get ice cream if we work hard.

- [Narrator] And even Madison, you know, the dog with flecks of red hair, helps out.

- Sometimes more dogs than people.

We get a lot of dogs.

We're very pet friendly.

A lot of people come from hiking with their dogs from Starved Rock and they'll just come back here and relax, have a beer or- - And then our neighbors sell dog treats too.

So there's frozen dog treats that they'll get for their dog.

And so they'll get a little treat for their dog and then a beer for themselves.

- [Narrator] And though Ginger Road Brewing Company might be a bit out of the way, and a tad small, for now, it's the perfect size for the Stash clan.

- Ideally, we'd like to go bigger, maybe five or 10 years down the road.

But just with our kids being involved in everything, I don't want to take away from their experience and be way too big and overcomplicated.

- We wanna do fun things with the kids.

Right now, this is a perfect size for us because we can still do what we love, but we can still have quality family time.

And we're small enough that like if we have a family wedding, we close for the day because family's first.

Again, it's just showing the kids that if you believe in something and you wanna do something, it takes a lot of hard work, but you can make it happen.

(light music) - Say, by any chance, I'm just curious, do you know any specific individual who's super, super, super talented, but maybe just a wee bit obnoxious?

Just a wee bit obnoxious?

- Oh, I definitely, definitely know someone who's obnoxious.

- Hm, well, whatever.

I know, by the way, you're not a big sports fan.

- I'm not.

- But I think you're gonna like this next story.

It's about one of the all time great baseball players.

- Okay.

- Whose final resting place is in central Illinois.

The thing is, over a century past his death, he still draws fans to his grave site because of his reputation as an all time great prankster.

- Hmm, prankster.

That's a lot like a obnoxious person- - Possibly.

- You know, since I have to hang around with him, I might as well hear a story about another prankster.

- In the history of professional baseball, there are fewer more interesting characters than old Hoss Radbourn.

This is his final resting place in Bloomington where he grew up.

Now, his baseball history is phenomenal.

He is known as one of the greatest pitchers ever.

In fact, his plaque at the National Baseball Hall of Fame recognizes him as the greatest pitcher of the 19th century.

But more than that, he was just a real wild and crazy guy.

There was the drinking, there was the smoking, there was the fighting.

And despite all that, he was the most feared pitcher of his era.

But the most interesting thing, and one of the reasons people still come to this cemetery to this day, is he was prankster.

And those pranks you can still find online today.

Charles Gardner Radbourn grew up in Bloomington, loving and playing baseball.

At age 19, he took a hard job at a slaughterhouse, but he was a decent enough baseball pitcher to earn a little extra money on the side, playing for area teams, first the Bloomington Reds, then the Peoria Reds.

During his early career, stories of drinking and gambling swirled around Hoss.

Still, he rose through the minor leagues until getting signed by the major league Buffalo Bisons after the 1879 season ended.

So in 1880, he finally makes it to the big leagues, but it's a flop 'cause he blows out that arm of his, and it's back to Bloomington, back to the slaughterhouse.

But his arm healed and he started pitching locally again.

When the major league Providence Grays came to town on a barnstorming tour, he wowed them.

They signed him on the spot, and he quickly became one of the best pitchers in all of baseball.

An ironman who threw inning after inning after inning.

Asked if he ever got tired, Radbourn replied, "Tired out tossing a little five ounce baseball for two hours?

I used to be a butcher.

From four in the morning until eight at night, I knocked down steers with a 25 pound sledge.

Tired from playing two hours a day for 10 times the money I used to get for 16 hours a day?"

So the 1884 season starts out really sketchy for Old Hoss 'cause he is drinking a lot, he's fighting a lot, and he's driving his team and his manager crazy.

But the good thing for him was there was another pitcher, the other main pitcher, he was even worse with the drinking and bad behavior.

And he got booted.

So Hoss stepped up, and he went to the manager and said, "Give the ball every game and we'll win.

Not just a game or two, we're gonna win the championship."

Radbourn turned in a season's performance that will never be equaled, winning an astounding 60 games.

Plus, the season was followed by a best of five playoff series against the New York Metropolitans.

Hoss pitched and won three straight games, giving Providence its one and only championship.

Hoss pitched for several more years, fearsome and effective all the way.

But his biggest claim to fame would come in 1886 when he joined the Boston Beaneaters.

For a team photo for a newspaper, just before the flashbulb popped, Hoss slyly extended a middle finger.

He did likewise the next year during a photo shoot for a baseball card.

In a dubious claim to fame, he is widely considered to be the first person photographed extending the middle finger.

But it's made him more famous even than his 1939 induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Because of that middle finger, his grave site remains a strong tourism draw at Evergreen Cemetery.

After baseball, life turned tough for Hoss.

He retired to Bloomington, where for a while he successfully ran a saloon.

But while hunting in 1894, a friend accidentally shot him in the face, leaving him blind in one eye and causing facial paralysis and partial speech loss.

Later, he was beset also with cognition woes, possibly from syphilis.

His right arm, once so fearsome to opposing batters, became paralyzed, and Hoss became a shell of his former self.

He died at age 42 in 1897.

Kind of a sad ending to his life, but just the beginning of his legacy.

Because still today, people, especially baseball fans, like to come out to Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington and spend some time with Old Hoss and think about those days when characters were bigger than life and still are to this day.

(upbeat music) (upbeat rhythmic music) (upbeat rhythmic music continues) Welcome to chart topping Worth Township, Illinois, and my garage, for yet another episode of "8-Track Time Machine," where we take a look back at the sounds and the songs of the most scintillating period of American pop music, the 8-track era.

Now, we've all seen "Saturday Night Fever," or at least a lot of the dance sequences by now, right?

Can you imagine Tony Manero dancing to anything but the Bee Gees?

That actually happened.

In fact, the Bee Gees weren't even involved with this movie until a last minute burst of amazing and remarkable music creativity.

Check this out.

♪ Hey, boy ♪ ♪ You better bring the chick around ♪ ♪ To the sad, sad truth ♪ ♪ The dirty lowdown ♪ - Early in the making of the movie, John Travolta was dancing to songs by Stevie Wonder and Baz Scaggs.

In fact, in a pivotal scene in the movie, he was dancing to Scaggs' hit "Lowdown."

Now, that has gonna be a big part of the movie until the producers of that song and the record label said, "Uhuh, we've got our own disco movie that we're gonna have that in."

Well, that movie project fell apart, never happened.

So bad decision there, right?

Meantime, the movie's going along and they're filming this whole thing and it's going along and the producer's like, "Who are we gonna get to do the music?"

You'd think they'd figure that out beforehand, right?

Well, such as it was.

And so someone decided, let's try the Bee Gees.

They've been around a while.

They've always got some good ideas.

So they call up the Bee Gees, who are working on their latest album in the north of France or someplace, right out of the way.

So they're reclusive so they can work on this thing.

And they get this call and all they hear is, this is about a guy who's gonna be dancing and it's his way of life.

And he's in New York and something like that.

And they're like, "We don't really have enough time to write a soundtrack.

We're really busy, so thank you anyway."

Time went on just a little bit.

And the Bee Gees said, "Okay, we have one weekend.

One weekend.

We'll give you that and see what we can do."

And so they decided, we'll give it a go and see what happens.

So they crank out some demos and send them to the movie's producers and the Bee Gees are like, "Well, maybe it works.

Well, they're not bad."

They don't really care.

But the producers go crazy.

The demos included "More Than a Woman," "Night Fever" and some other songs.

And they were like, "Wow, this is the core of the movie.

This is gonna be great."

And so the Bee Gees are like, "Wow, didn't know they were gonna be so enthused.

Maybe we can find some more songs to put together."

So they found some time and they decided we need to have the signature song.

We've gotta find something what the movie's all about.

And the movie was called, you know, "Saturday Night Fever."

And so they're thinking, let's do a song that incorporates the title.

And so they got a good, a good melody and some hooks in there.

But then they thought, well, there's all these other Saturday night type songs with that in the title, including this one by the Bass City Rollers.

♪ Night ♪ ♪ S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y ♪ ♪ Night ♪ ♪ S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y ♪ - And that had been recently out, right?

And so they didn't want to get it tied to that or confused.

So they came up with a song, you might've heard of it, it's called this.

♪ Whether you're a mother ♪ ♪ You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪ ♪ Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' ♪ ♪ And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive ♪ - So the producers who were already over the moon with what the Bee Gees had done, went absolutely bonkers.

So they were so enthusiastic that the Bee Gees are like, okay, let's really get down to business.

And they put out other songs.

And it was of course a monster of a soundtrack.

It sold 17 million units.

It's number two all time, second only to "The Bodyguard."

Think about that.

17 million units sold.

Not too bad for a soundtrack that the Bee Gees didn't really have time to do.

So did you bring me a nice gift for this special day that we're celebrating?

- I'm all out of gifts.

I'm sorry.

- Well, there's still time because this is a great day.

- Oh!

- This is the first episode of our third season of "You Gotta See This."

(Phil hoots) - Well, you're very excited, but we're excited because we get to show you these amazing stories about interesting people and fantastic places all right here in central Illinois.

It's such a cool show.

- I think so.

And we're real cool.

- We're voting.

- And you're cool out there too.

And truth be told, we can't do it without you.

We hope you've enjoyed everything we've done so far, and you know what?

But it's gonna get better and better and better, especially the next time on- - "You Gotta See This."

♪ Do do ♪ (light music) - So I said, well, doggonit.

Let's take a look.

(indistinct) - Three, two, one.

- She's actually laughing.

- Such a nut.

Three, two- (beeps) Now you've used your check it out now for this.

You can say, "Check it out" once throughout- - Check out Phil's head.

Check out Phil's belly.

Check out that flag.

Check it out.

♪ Check, check, check it out ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)