- Think, you know, pizza?

We've got a different kind of recipe that just might shake up your pizza world and your taste buds.

- But you have to open up your mind and your mouth.

"You Gotta See This."

(energetic music) (energetic music continues) - So, do you like pizza?

- Of course I like pizza.

I'm a human being.

Everybody loves pizza.

What's so special about this pizza story though?

- Well, a lot of times we pick our favorite pizzas based on toppings, right?

- Okay.

- And that certainly makes sense.

But there's this pizza business in Bloomington-Normal that's blowing people away because of the style of pizza.

It's Detroit style.

- I've never heard of it.

- I've heard of it, but sometimes I don't know, is it like a Sicilian New York?

Is it this, is it that?

- Well, we've gotta go find out for ourselves.

Let's get a sample.

(upbeat music) - [Phil] How does Adam Elpayaa say, "I love you."?

With a pizza oven.

- It's a creative outlet.

You know, some people like to draw, some people like to sing, some people like to, you know, write novels.

I like to cook food and that's my expression of love for people that I love and people that I know, that's what I like to, that's what I like to do in my free time.

- [Phil] And his love offerings are really tasty.

That's clear from the popularity of his two Pizza Payaa locations in Bloomington and Normal, as well as awards recently won at a major national pizza contest.

And he features a type of pie, not often found in Central Illinois: Detroit-style pizza.

- I love to cook, I love to learn new things and be creative with that.

- [Phil] Elpayaa grew up in suburban Chicago, working part-time at pizza parlors.

- I moved down here, I went to U of I in Champaign, and then a year after that I moved to Bloomington with a buddy of mine and we opened Windy City Wieners.

- [Phil] 12 years later, he sold his share and decided to try something new.

- So pizza was something I never really touched.

I would make Chinese food, Thai food, Mexican food, Mediterranean food, and pizza was just something I was like, "You know what?

This is too complicated.

I'm not gonna mess with it."

But then I kind of missed my Chicago places, my Chicago pizza.

And there was nothing that I really loved eating for pizzas down here.

So I said I'll give it a try.

- [Phil] But not with his old Chicago-style pizza, not after a fateful trip to New York City.

- The reason I fell in love with New York pizza, 'cause there was a lot more artistry going into it.

Like they were fermenting their dough for three days, they were using these bread baking techniques, they were using this high-quality cheese and sauce.

And once you take one bite, it's like, "Oh, this is a next level pizza.

This is a different level of pizza."

So I'd made pizza for family and friends and before you knew it, their friends and their family wanted to try it too.

And then they started posting it online and I had like a thousand people asking me for this pizza.

So I was giving it away for free outta my house.

- [Phil] So what is it with this Detroit-style pizza?

Is it like New York Sicilian Pizza?

- Detroit is kind of a subset of Sicilian pizza.

Sicilian's kind of like the father of that kind of category.

It's a similar in that it's a light and airy dough, it's crispy, the difference with Detroit is they put a lot of extra cheese on the edges so you get that caramelized cheesy edge.

- [Phil] It works.

Elpayaa has been crazy busy at his two Pizza Payaa locations.

Success there prompted him to go to Las Vegas in March to make his first entry into the prestigious International Pizza Expo.

Adam Elpayaa went with his bestseller, the Honey Badger.

- There's a whole process to this dough.

We parbake it so you have this kind of shell that's ready to go, right?

We do things a little differently.

We put our cheese down first, then our sauce and our toppings.

We got our red sauce here.

People love our red sauce.

And then we got our pepperoni here.

It's a thick-cut pepperoni with a natural casing on it, fennel sausage on top of that.

So it's fresh sausage and we hand pinch it.

So there's that pizza ready to go and it's gonna go into the oven for about eight minutes.

All right.

once it comes out of this, see that's all caramelized, cheesy edges?

That's kind of a hallmark of Detroit-style pizza.

And it's square so we cut it into squares.

Now we got our Mike's Hot Honey, which, this is something that was not in the area before we did it and now it's kind of everywhere.

And then we have fresh basil, kind of gives that pop of color and that little bit of freshness.

There you have it.

Our Honey Badger.

It's our top-selling pizza.

So at the Expo, we placed ninth overall in the Detroit style category and 14th overall in the pan division.

- [Phil] Beyond food, the menu there boasts craft cocktails, a spinoff of his food obsessions and research.

- Our top seller is probably our Basil Smash.

We use a lot of basil with the pizza so it was a kind of natural tie in to that.

We make a fresh basil syrup, we use lemon gin, lemon, and it's just this delicious, refreshing basil lemonade.

We would like to expand into, you know, additional locations.

You know, Peoria, Champaign we've been looking.

As far as other styles of food, my staff keeps telling me I need to open a pasta restaurant.

My wife tells me I need to open a Mediterranean restaurant.

But we'll see what the future holds.

(upbeat music continues) (bright music) - [Mark] In Southern Livingston County, there's a beautifully-restored church in the village of Forrest.

This house of worship now houses a unique collection.

- Welcome to my hat collection.

- [Mark] Jerry Roth presides over a congregation of more than 16,000 hanging hats.

He believes this is the largest collection of hanging hats anywhere.

- Back when I moved back here permanently in 2006, I just started going to yard sales and stuff.

For some reason, I just, I don't know, (laughs) I just started collecting and I would hang them in my garage and in my basement and it just, I just lost control of my life, I guess.

I don't know.

- [Mark] like many collectors, Jerry ran out of room in his home and had to find more space.

The owner of the dilapidated church made Jerry a great offer and in 2017, Jerry's Hat Museum was born.

- I took all the hats down that I had there, removed all the staples and brought 'em down here and rehung 'em, so.

And then plus now I've added about 15,000 more, so.

- [Mark] So what is your total right now?

- 16,767 are hanging.

- [Mark] Do you have a goal?

- Well, it was 15.

Well I might as well go to 16, but now I want to hit 17 and that's gonna be just about it.

I'm just about full.

(laughs) - [Mark] Jerry isn't picky about the kind of hats he hangs up.

They only need to have a logo and be in good shape.

The king of caps doesn't even wear them.

He just likes the way they look.

He's had visitors from 31 states and 6 countries and they often donate more hats.

Speaking of which, tell me again how many hats you have.

- 16,767 hanging.

- Well, I'd like to add one hat to that collection.

- I don't have one of those.

That is our final PBS hat from WTVP.

So congratulations, you've got one more hat to hang.

- Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

I know I don't have one like it so I will hang it with pride.

(laughs) - [Mark] Hats aren't the only thing Jerry collects.

He has another extensive collection, which is twice as big in units but smaller in volume.

- Welcome to my pen collection.

- [Mark] The basement of the church is filled with pens and pencils carefully attached to display boards.

- And people would say, "Oh, you collect pens."

Well, next thing you know now I've got over 33,000 of them.

So pens and pencils, so.

And I've hung every one of 'em one at a time with a staple gun.

I'm on my 15th staple gun and I've went through over 200,000 staples so far, so, it's probably near 300 now, but.

Pull it, tie it that way it holds the pen.

(hammer thuds) - Could you have any of the naked girl pens?

- There is one here.

- Somewhere.

(laughs) I'm not gonna stay around and try and find it.

- No, I don't remember where it is but there is one here.

- Jerry has spent countless hours stapling, stuffing hats, and climbing ladders.

The 86-year-old says his collections and hard work will live on when the Forrest Historical Society eventually take over his legacies.

Speaking of legacies, we want to be part of them.

I raided our closet at work and I found this WTVP PBS pencil, and I found an "I love PBS" pen, and I found this.

It's got a felt case.

I don't even have one of these.

WTVP PBS.

- Nice pen.

- So how many pens and pencils are we up to now?

- (laughs) I have 33,000, so I have to look.

- Okay, so 33,000 plus 3.

- 33,443 I have hanging.

- So now we're up to 46.

All right, excellent.

By the time this airs, Jerry will undoubtedly have more hats and pens.

You can keep up with the tally on his Facebook page Jerry's Hat Museum.

(bright music continues) (comfortable music) - Here we are in the town of Lincoln and the world's largest covered wagon.

And we're along Route 66.

And you can't get more 1950s kitschiest than this type of thing.

It's like right in your face.

This is the type of thing when I think of Route 66, what used to be along the road all over the place.

And here in Lincoln you kind of get that throwback feel.

And this is a pretty interesting, and certainly, big attraction.

It is 40' long, 12' wide, 25' tall, made of five tons, five tons of oak.

That's pretty darn big.

The wheels themselves, alone, are 12' tall.

It can roll, but I don't think it goes rolling too much.

It'd be kind of hard to get this thing down Route 66.

Lincoln, Old Abe here, Honest Abe, he's 12' tall, I guess that's sitting.

I don't know if he's ever been standing 'cause he's, well he's a statue.

He's made a fiberglass.

And you can see here, if you look closely, he's reading a book 'cause he's super smart, 'cause he was, you know, Abe Lincoln.

And the book is called "Law."

I dunno if that was actually a book, but it says it's a law book.

So there he is.

I don't know if he was driving this here wagon at all.

But there's certainly room for more people.

This maybe can go through Peoria and there's Vanna Whitewall with her thumb up in the air looking for a ride.

Maybe Abe could go strolling past and pick her up for a nice cruise down Adams Street or cruise down Route 66.

Lincoln, Illinois.

(gentle music) You know, some people have said that my physique resembles that of a professional world-class athlete.

- Oh yeah, I can definitely see that.

Mm-hmm.

- Be that as it may, I will admit that there is one sport I'm not good at.

And that's golfing.

- Yeah.

- And if you've done it once or a million times, you know this, it's really hard.

- Well, this next story we have is about golf, but it's a kinder, gentler golf where people do it the way they used to way back when.

And it's less about the competition and more about the fun.

(subdued bagpipe music) - They call it hickory because that's the wood that's used for the golf shaft.

So that wood was used from about the first quarter of the 19th century up until about 1930s, early 1930s.

And then they went into steel shafts.

So we call it hickory golf because we're playing with hickory-shafted clubs.

(bright gentle music) - Hickory golf is a lot of things to a lot of different people.

What you see behind you is probably what I would argue the purest form of hickory golf, which is golf as it was played prior to 1848.

And when I say the purest form, this is the longest form of golf.

This is 300 years of golf is what we're playing today versus the 125+ years that they play today.

And it's all based on the equipment.

So most people play pre-1935 hickory golf, which is essentially the same kind of irons that, you know, they're a little bit more primitive than what we play with today, or a lot more primitive in certain instances.

But the main criteria is the wooden shaft.

And so if you're a beginner and you're just trying to get used to the mechanics of the golf swing, I feel like this is a better way to start out.

And then if you wanna graduate to playing modern golf, you can, but you know, this is easier on the body and you're gonna see a lot of people just enjoying the walk, basically, instead of focusing on a score.

I got into this because I've been a golfer for 25 years and I got frustrated that I wasn't getting better with all the technology that I had.

And it made me realize that I wasn't enjoying the aspects of golf that a lot of people miss when they're focused on shooting a low score or, you know, just beating other people in competition.

And so I said, "I don't want to quit the game, but I wanna find a different way to enjoy it."

So I found out about people playing pre-1935 hickory golf.

I found that the comradery of being at the event was more important than the actual competition and that appealed to me.

I saw a posting for one of the fall events that the Lanes do and reached out and said, "Can I come?"

And so I came and I had never played featherie golf before, but that event pretty much hooked me on this older style of golf that we play today.

- I wanna learn what life was like back then.

You look at Civil War reenactors, they do it for a reason.

I guess it's just trying to understand what life was like.

- That's how this event came around.

You just find guys that want to go farther down the rabbit hole in golf history and this is what happens.

(laughs) They like what we do.

It's pretty low key and not much pressure to do.

It's just a lot of fun.

That's what we want.

(bright gentle music continues) We got people from Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, we got Iowa, I think Arizona, we got a guy from Arizona, somebody from Texas.

But there's really no feather ball tournaments around.

- And I'll also say, I think it's arguably the only event in the world that celebrates pre-1848 golf.

There are other events that play featherie golf, but none that are this period correct in my opinion.

This is kind of an extended family for me.

These are friends that I've worked with in workshops, people that I'm learning from how to make clubs.

So you know, I'm apprentice to some of the people here.

From that perspective, I mean, this is my favorite event of the year and I go to several each year.

- You just gotta get out and try it and not expect too much.

You gotta leave your golf ego in the trunk when you get out and go out and play 'cause you're gonna hit bad shots and you're gonna miss shots.

But it's the heart of the game.

It's just going out and playing and just keep advancing the ball and pretty soon you'll find a technique that works.

(bright gentle music continues) - Once you play with one of these clubs and hit one of these balls and you hit it well, it's like anything else with golf, it hooks you right away.

We have some people that are new here to the event and they're gonna leave this event wanting to play featherie again tomorrow, which we are going to.

But they'll be looking forward to coming back next year because it's just too much fun.

- It's fun to meet people with the same passion and to play and just play a round of golf.

Just play the game like it was meant to be played way back.

(gentle comforting music continues) (soft playful music) - [Julie] If you close your eyes, you might think you're hearing a group of migrating geese, but you would be mistaken.

What you really hear is the fancy-feathered, long-legged cousins called flamingos.

(flamingos honking) - Well, a lot of people don't realize they have that honking, they kind of sound like a goose.

- [Julie] No mere goose could strut around the Miller Park Zoo like this flock of 20 flamingos.

Worldwide, there are six different species, but these leggy beauties are called greater flamingos.

They aren't born looking this good.

In fact, when they're born, they're born white.

That fabulous pink color comes from their diet.

- All flamingos can vary in the amount of pink that they have.

They get that from the food that they eat.

You see, the very distinct curve of a flamingo beak, and that's because they're filter feeders and bottom feeders.

So they dip their whole head down and scoop up something, it's the silt from the bottom of a waterway, and then use that beak to slowly filter out all of the silt and then left with algae or crustaceans, insects, sometimes small amphibians or fish.

- [Julie] They definitely have a unique look and they can talk the talk.

But why do they always stand around on one leg?

- It's still questioned.

(chuckles) But the going idea is that it's for energy conservation.

So if they only have to spend the energy of standing on one leg, then why use both?

So another idea was for warmth, but they do it in any kind of weather.

- [Julie] Or maybe they're just saving their best dance moves for mating season.

- And when that time comes, if everyone's getting into that kind of mood, there'll be actually like a flock dance that they do where they strut together.

And you could see videos of them swinging their heads back and forth, all in synchronized time.

And it's all part of this courtship behavior that the flock will go through.

And then when that's on, they pair off in pairs, different pairs will build nests together.

- [Julie] They haven't had any baby flamingos at Miller Park Zoo yet, but these birds can live from 20 to 40 years in captivity so there's still lots of hope.

One thing for sure is that the zoo visitors flock to see these exotic birds every time.

- They love it.

And I really love that this is the first thing you see when you come through the doors there because it's this bright flash of pink and sometimes the honking is going on and the pool is high.

And it's just a great first impression.

I think it's very well placed to have it here.

- [Julie] Oh, and I saved the best flamingo fun fact for last.

What do you call a group of flamingos?

Why, a flamboyance, of course.

It just seems to fit, doesn't it?

(soft playful music continues) - Look at me.

I'm a flamingo.

A stumbly flamingo.

How's that?

- Did you watch the story?

- Were you on it?

- Yeah.

- Maybe not.

Were you in that?

- What the heck?

- Well, can you do any animal impressions?

- I'm a moose.

(Phil laughs) - Is that pretty good?

- Yes!

Rocky.

- And he was very, very famous.

So you know, we have Bullwinkle.

Why not?

- We got everything.

If you want quality entertainment, including third-rate animal impressions, where do you think you can go next time, too?

- "You Gotta See This."

(bright upbeat music) - That was funny.

(test card beeps) Some people have said that my physique resembles that of a... (Phil's lips smack) My lips.

My lips are entangled.

Three, two, one.

(test card beeps) (flamingos honking) - I'm sorry, flamingos.

They're so mad at me.

(bright upbeat music continues) (bright upbeat music continues) (bright upbeat music continues)