-Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton and sometimes Emmaus.

Welcome to the "Lehigh Valley with Love" podcast.

-All right.

All right.

All right.

Welcome to another episode of the "Lehigh Valley with Love" podcast.

I am your cohost George Wacker with our esteemed other cohost -- -Esteemed, wow.

-...Tyler Rothrock.

-Wow, I've upgraded, esteemed.

-You have moved up into esteemed.

-I appreciate that, George.

-How you doing?

-I'm good.

I'm good.

I got a little sun.

-You looking good.

You been working out, hitting the beach?

-Yeah.

My brain has been -- I've been pacing upstairs, so... -Did I tell you I -- -How have you been running?

You look good, though.

You've some weight.

-I was forced to start working out again because I went to get life insurance, and they were like -- -Oh, yeah.

"You're uninsurable."

-No.

They gave it to me -- -Took one look at you.

-...which is, like, I'm like, "That's good."

Like, they're like, "Your life is not worth insuring."

Do they -- They have to decline some people.

-That'd be weird.

-But they're like, "You're totally -- You're in."

But they're like, "You have high HDL."

-"You're in."

-..."so you have pay more."

-Uh-huh.

-I'm like, "That's not good."

I'm going to, like, recharge my body, get back into shape, and then I think that I can do, like, a redo.

-You're basically refinancing your body right now.

-That's a good way to look at it.

-Yeah, and so -- What are you doing?

Are you just -- You running?

-Mostly running.

-You eating right?

-Believe it or not, back in the day, like, we're talking like mid-'90s to early 2000s -- -Yeah, what was the day?

-...I was decently good.

In fact, our guest for today is you could say -- I mean, this is good or bad depending on who you are.

There's a reason that I live in the Lehigh Valley.

-Who?

-So I want to introduce our guest for this episode is author, coach, runner, Mark Will-Weber.

-Inspiration to George.

-Yay!

Yes, yes.

-It's great to be here.

-So I have to ask you, you know, what did you see in me that you had to come up to Honesdale, Pennsylvania, and you recruited me to -- I went to Moravian College where you coached for a long time.

-Well, you know, I knew your uncle and aunt pretty well, so I knew that you were fast before we even recruited you, and Moravian had gotten a really hot quarterback out of Honesdale one time.

I forget the guy's -- -Rob Light.

-Rob Light, yeah.

-That was somewhere in there.

Yeah.

-So, you know, we had connection up there but you had, you know, really good high school time, especially for up that way.

You know, it's a little different than down in Philly where they have indoor track meets every week.

-Yeah, yeah.

-So you actually -- You recruited him?

He was on the -- -Recruited him, and... -Well, I mean, you know... -...you know the guy was -- This will shock you.

He was a real free spirit, and I usually do pretty good with free spirits.

He was a little too free-spirited even for me.

-You had to reel him back a little?

-But, no, he wasn't very, you know, he wasn't that reelable, but... -But fun.

-But at the end of the day, you know, I think that we had more ups than downs.

I don't know what you think, George, but... -No, I definitely.

It was good.

-Yeah, but he ran some great races for us as well, you know, but he was his own individual.

-Last thing I want to -- -As he still is, yeah.

-The last thing that I want to say about myself is I'm still -- I'm 99% sure that I'm still on the record books at Moravian for the indoor distance medley relay.

In 1999, I'm on that squad, and it says a school record, so... -Well, we'll have to check that out.

We'll have to verify that.

-I also want to go on record for saying that -- I hope the producers are listening.

You said that's the last time that you will ever talk about yourself, so... -About -- You know what I mean.

-All right.

So that's on the record, everybody.

You've heard it here for the last time.

-But for those who don't know, Webs, you started out -- Give us kind of a history of just, like, your early running history.

You went to ESU, and... -Yeah.

Well, I was a runner at East Stroudsburg, and my first job out of college was with the Morning Call, so that's how I ended up in the Valley.

That was 1976, and it is vastly different than it is now, but one of the... -The Morning Call is vastly different.

-You guys did those things called news -- What are they called?

-Yeah, newspapers.

-Newspapers.

-Great, yeah.

-Yes.

They're an endangered species, but, you know, one of the first people that I met in the Valley was McCallum who was one of your guests earlier in the year, so... And an impressive guy, you know, because I actually was going to apply to the Globe-Times, and I walked in there, and McCallum introduced me to Jack Collins, and Jack Collins said, "I could hire you, kid, but..." Jack Collins owned the OBT by the way.

-Right.

This is the second time that we have talked about Jack Collins on this show.

-...in the Valley, and Jack says, "I could hire you, kid, but you probably couldn't eat on it."

That's what he said to me.

He goes and then he goes, "But I heard that somebody "punched out one of the night editors over at the Morning Call branch office, and there's an opening there."

And sure -- -What a time to be alive.

-And sure enough, that's what happened, and I went over there and I got hired because some guy had punched the guy in the mouth and got fired.

-'Cause of his writing?

-I don't know what their argument was about, but after I met the editor, I understood why the guy punched him in the mouth.

-Was that when you were allowed to, like, drink in the office?

Like... -Well, we didn't -- -Was that really just -- -That was a little -- You could do it discretely, probably, but we were, like, a minute walk from the Bethlehem hotel because we -- Our old branch off was in that Thai restaurant there, right on Main Street, so if you really needed a little liquid courage you could sashay down to the hotel and get one.

-Those were the days.

Like, that's -- If anything from the past could make a comeback that would be like -- -Yeah.

That's what -- I always think, like, all form of -- -Like, we should be drinking now.

-And in your book, the mental -- -I think it's against the law to do that on television, but... -How did we -- We shaped the nation through a bunch of drunk men.

Isn't that a little weird?

-I mean, it's true.

-That is pretty true.

-I can vouch for that.

-We'll get to that in a bit.

How did your running career and your writing career kind of -- -He got punched out.

-Well, I know, but how did they, like, coincide?

-Well, what happened was I was still running and training, and I was winning some local races, placing in some local races, and so eventually the Morning Call worked me into sports, and I did a running column, you know, about upcoming races.

I would cover races, and I also covered Lehigh football, Lehigh wrestling, stuff like that, and then at some point Rodell bought "Runner's World" and brought "Runner's World" from California to Emmaus, and so I think that in the late '80s I ended up at "Runner's World" and I worked, you know, 13, 14 years at "Runner's World."

You know, they sent me all over the world to cover events.

I went to Moscow.

I went to Ireland.

I went to England.

-Was "The Quotable Runner" your first... -"The Quotable Runner" was my first book and it was sort of a -- It came out in 1995, so it's almost 25 years old, but it sort of came about -- I saw this book on baseball quotations in a bookstore.

It was, like, Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel, as you would expect, and I'm thinking, "Man, somebody ought to do this for running."

And I had always put, like, inspirational quotes at the bottom of my workout sheets or result sheets, and I thought, "Man, I got a couple hundred running quotes.

I should do it."

You know, I still didn't do it.

A year later I walked in and saw the same baseball book in the bookstore and I thought, "You know one day I'm going to walk in and there's going to be a book on --" -On running.

-Yeah, "on running quotes, and I'm going to be suicidal because I should've done it."

-Like, when you're a runner, anybody who's ever run, you know, at least for an extended period of time, like -- -Everybody has run.

-You know what I mean.

-Yeah.

You mean run for, like, a sport.

-I bet you there is a human being -- There's many human beings on this earth that have not.

-That's true.

-Whatever.

-Like, you would probably watch me, and even you, could see me run, and be like, "He's all wrong," you know?

So there's got to be, like, can you tell somebody running the street, like, bad form, you know, they're doing something wrong?

-You can tell.

Yeah, and you can improve, but, you know, there's been some great runners out there that didn't have picture-book form as well.

This is my 50th year running.

I started when I was 14, and I'm going to be eligible for Medicare this fall, so that means I'm going to be 65.

That's 50 years, man.

Do the math, but I still have my same knees, my same hips, and I think a lot of it is because I did a lot of my running on the toe path.

I think that's a factor.

-Get the right shoes, too.

-Get the right shoes and change them up, man.

You know, it's like, they're sort of like tires, when they are bald on the bottom.

-All right.

So these aren't good.

They're ripping and everything.

I should probably change them out.

-Well, I don't know.

I want to look at your tread, and then I'll tell you if they're good.

-All right.

The grip is not a big deal.

-Should I take them off?

-Please don't.

-You don't want that.

It's a very small room in here.

So 50 years, how many miles have you logged, if you had to guess?

-You know, it's funny.

Somebody asked me that at the Wise Bean Coffee Shop the other day, and basing it on a 40 to 50 mile a week average -- Now, I only do, like, 30 a week now, but there was times where I did 90, 100, 105.

-I didn't -- My highest was probably 70.

That's amazing.

-Yeah, so, I mean, I came out close out to 100,000 miles.

-That's insane.

-But, you know that's -- -What's the circumference -- -That's probably around the world.

-That's 50 years.

It's close, I think.

-You had the passion for writing and running, so how did it transition to drinking?

How did you involve drinking?

-Well, I'm well-versed on that subject as well, but, you know, like George said how he sort of just got burned out on running, I sort of did, too.

It was like -- I sort of felt like I could every other year write a book about running and continue doing that for who knows how long, and I thought, "You know, I really want to write about something else."

And I thought, "Well, what am I interested in?"

I'm interested in history, and a friend of mine wrote a book about the presidents golfing, but in that book, they talk about Warren Harding, who's one of our worst presidents.

He's always ranked near the bottom, and Harding, during prohibition, would go golfing.

Nobody is supposed to drink or transport alcohol, and this guy would put a fifth of whiskey in his golf bag, and he'd drink, and he'd tee off, and then every three holes he'd take a shot, and by the back nine he could hardly hold the club.

He never broke 100, or rarely, and my buddy goes, "You know, I'm fascinated by that."

This president, you know, we know what he drank because of this.

And he goes, "I want to know what all those guys drank."

And he looks at me.

He goes, "You're a writer.

Why don't you write a book about what all the presidents drink?"

And that's how "Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt" came about.

-Which is, like, it's fascinating.

-Yeah.

-Because, like, what you just said, when you're talking about something -- Like, how do you, when you're researching that book, where are you getting those types of stories?

-It was so fun to research it and -- -Because some of those I would imagine aren't -- like, they don't want people to know or... -Well, you know what?

It's funny because the older presidents was the easiest part, and I thought that might be really hard, but because we have so many letters that Washington wrote, and the best example I can give is John Adams, the second president.

I can go to the Massachusetts historical website.

I can call up every letter that he and Abigail wrote to each other, and then I can plug in, "Rum," in the search button, and it'll pop up 17 letters where he mentions rum, and maybe 14 of them are throwaways and three of them are very interesting.

-Right.

-And that's how I did the research on the early guys, their diaries and their letters, and so, you know, we know exactly, for instance, when Washington decided to go into making whiskey at Mount Vernon, and they've recreated the still down there in the last few years, by the way.

-Was there, like, a reasoning for it, for him to... -Yes, and what it was is he had a Scottish overseer, a guy by the name of Anderson, and Anderson having been a Scot knew how to make whiskey, and he kept after Washington.

He said, "You know, we can make whiskey."

And this was a couple years after Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion, by the way.

So it's, like, you knock out the competition, and you make it yourself, but... So we know because Washington wrote a letter to a relative or a friend, and he says, "Mr.

Anderson says I can find my account in this," and by that he meant make money.

And at one point he had five stills cranking out whiskey, and they would barrel it up and they would sell it off the backs of wagons in Old Town, Alexandria.

-Where there any presidents who were, like, just drunks?

-Yes, and everybody... When I do talks on this subject everybody always asks me, "What president drank the most?"

And the poor guy, Franklin Pierce has that honor, and he did die of cirrhosis of the liver, but Pierce had a very sad life, so I always stick up for him a little bit.

He and his wife had tried to have children, and their first two or three children died either before they were born, or right after, and finally they had a son that lived, and they doted on the son.

His name was Benjamin.

They called him Benji, and he would as a good-looking kid, and right after Pierce is elected president, they're on this train ride in a snowy place, I think in New York.

And there's this horrific train wreck, and a lot of people are hurt or injured, and his son gets thrown from the train and actually is the only person that dies.

-Jeez.

-Oh.

-And he has to scramble down this snowbank to retrieve his son, his dead son that they loved.

He was 10, 11, 12 or something, and bring his body back up.

-Oh, man.

-And his wife, who was sort of a religious fanatic, got it in her head that God was punishing the Pierces because he accepted the presidency.

It was a weird thought, but... -Well, she's probably just, like -- -Distraught.

-"I've lost all these kids," and yeah.

-Yes, and so she spent most of his first -- his only term, up in a room as a recluse at the White House writing letters to the dead son.

-Oh, my god.

-So if that doesn't want to make -- -Really?

-...you drink, I don't know what would, you know?

That's a sad story.

-Yeah, I think -- -I would drink.

-I do stick up for Pierce.

-Were there any drunks who were just jerks?

Because I feel bad for him.

-Well, yeah, Harding.

Lyndon Johnson was a very interesting drinker.

I mean, he used to drive around his ranch in Texas and drink.

He would be going 80 miles an hour in his Lincoln Continental drinking Cutty Sark scotch out of a plastic cup.

-That's fun.

Don't do that.

-And his Secret Service guys would have to follow him around, even though they're on this ranch about the size of Rhode Island, and whenever he would pull over and wanted more, he would rattle the cup out the window, and they'd have to trot up and refill him, and he'd take off again.

You know, occasionally, President Johnson would have to get out and relieve himself, and the poor Secret Service guys would have to shield him out of protocol.

-Right, yeah.

-Are there any drinks or a president that surprise you?

Like, that's like, "That's a weird combination.

I can't see you drinking that."

-Teddy Roosevelt liked the mint julep.

Teddy was really into tennis, and he had a tennis court right by the White House, and next to the tennis court was some beds of fresh mint.

And his cabinet, he would actually, you know, beg these guys to play tennis with him, and they would do it because he was president, but he'd want to possibly even it was raining, and finally they'd be like, "Oh, man, Roosevelt wants to play tennis, and I'm sick of this."

So to placate them, he would have his steward, after they were done a couple sets, mix up these really wonderful mint juleps with -- He liked rye whiskey, which no Kentuckian would drink rye whiskey with a julep, but... And they would use the fresh mint, and the steward would mix them up, but Teddy would present them courtside to the players, and they'd say, "Thank you Mr.

President."

And he'd say, "Delighted", with a big wide Teddy grin, and they became known as the Tennis Cabinet because of that, so... but the enticement were these mint juleps, and that's why the weird title for that particular book that I did.

-I remember Obama stopped at Brew Works.

Do you remember that?

-Yes, when he -- They have pictures of that.

-Really?

-I remember, when he was campaigning -- It was before he was, like, "Obama," so it was, like, very -- It was early on.

It would have been like now kind of in the race.

-Uh-huh, yes.

-Like, I remember he stopped in.

-For a beer, or for -- What did he get?

-If you look up Obama Brew Works, like, yeah, he had, like, a golden ale at Brew Works.

-Right?

-He just, like, at that time you were like, "Oh, that's cool.

It's a presidential candidate," who turned out to be the two-term president.

-Yeah.

-And they actually made beer at the White House when he was there.

They had this special beer called White House Honey Ale, and they used the honey from Michelle Obama's beehives that were in the Presidential Garden, and they brought in guys, because they used craft brewery experts, to show the kitchen staff how to do it.

So they brought in guys from I think Dogfish, and somewhere else that taught the kitchen staff how to make the beer, and they would only do it a couple times year, like, the Super Bowl, that kind of thing.

-Sure.

-I always thought maybe I'd get invited to -- but it didn't happen.

-So, Obama, if you're watching.

-Yeah, Obama, if you're listening to "Lehigh Valley with Love."

-If Obama was watching, this we should do more of that.

-He might have a Google alert anytime anybody mentions him.

-"Oh, I'm mentioned again."

-George, if you were president, what would be in the book about you?

What drink?

-If I... Man, people always make fun of me for this.

I don't care because my brother, like, you know, I don't do this often but... -If it's a long explanation, you know it's going to be a good one.

-Well, one of my favorite -- Well, if you're taking as, like, a shot.

You know, my brother was like, "Try the Southern Comfort with a splash of lime juice."

-Ugh.

-Like, I know.

I know.

I know.

I get it.

I'm not even -- Like, I wish I could be like, "Oh, I'm into all these crazy craft beers."

But, like, right now a Summer Shandy from Leinenkugel's.

-Yeah.

What about your Brew Works order?

-Brew Works I go Golden Ale, or Blueberry Belch if they have it on.

Their whit is good, too.

-You know, I'm a fan -- I'm ashamed to admit how many craft breweries in the Valley I have frequented, but I love the Two Rivers Brewery down in Easton.

-They're great.

-I play trivia there every Monday, so... -Oh, yeah.

-But they have some really interesting beers.

-Have you been to the new one at the Moravian Book Shop -- -I have.

-...which is a lost tavern, they were in Hellertown, and they are still in Hellertown but they are now at the bookshop?

-Yeah.

-And that's... -I saw this guy Chris there.

-Yeah, yeah, I know him.

-You know him.

-He used to be a runner at Lafayette College, but that's another complete episode.

-Again, Lost Cavern has got some great beers and Funk's over in Emmaus.

I mean, if you can't find a good beer in the Lehigh Valley, you're not trying.

-Well, I was even telling this story, we were at Brew Works, and bring in my brother again.

He lives in Charleston now, but he lived here when Brew Works opened, and he was telling me, he was like, "Everybody told them, 'This isn't going to work.

There's no way.'"

-Yeah.

-"What, you mean to tell me that I walk into your bar, and I can't get a Miller Lite?

Like, it'll last for a month."

And they put out, you know, obviously a really quality product, and they're still there, and they're in Allentown, too, so... -So you were telling us before we went on that the "Mint Juleps" book, was it that one did so well that they reprinted it?

-The book kind of continues in various forms.

You can still get the full book which has the Republicans and Democrats together -- -I have a signed copy -- -...the Teddy book.

-...by the way.

-Oh, nice.

But you had to add a chapter right?

-Yes.

I very recently had to write a chapter on Trump which was challenging because we know that Trump himself doesn't drink.

-Yeah, it was great.

-But there's still some really good stories that revolve around him, and the same is true of Lincoln.

Lincoln really didn't drink, but there's great stories that revolve around Lincoln.

-With involving alcohol or just in general?

-Involving alcohol because, you know, even if you're president, the people around you drink and make you miserable.

For instance, like, Jimmy Carter barely drank but his brother, Billy -- -Well, his brother, yeah.

He had Billy Beer.

-Yeah.

Billy was always causing him trouble with his drinking, so there's great stories that revolve around that.

-But Trump has a vodka doesn't he?

-Trump had a vodka.

-Oh.

-It was called Trump Vodka -- -Really?

-...and it came out -- -Ingenious name.

-...I want to say 2006, something like that.

It lasted a few years.

You know, in typical Trumpian terms, he said, "It's going to be better than Grey Goose," and it was more like Dead Duck.

It didn't survive, but a friend of his -- See, a friend of his had come out with Grey Goose.

Sidney Frank sold Grey Goose, I think to Bacardi, for $2 billion, $2 billion, and that's why Trump was attracted to trying to do it, even though he wasn't a drinker himself.

But unfortunately, you know, they made the Trump bottle, the Trump Vodka bottle was built like a skyscraper, and it sort of got wider towards the top, almost like a bouncer with big muscles.

It had all this gold tint on it, and, of course, big Ts, so the actual bottle production was very expensive, and that hurt it, and then, you know, of course, the recession hit, and all of a sudden people weren't shelling out $30 for vodka.

-Yeah.

The one piece of trivia that I have for a president is -- I could be wrong.

I'm pretty sure it's William Henry Harrison.

-William Henry Harrison.

-His wife was from Honesdale -- -I didn't know that.

-...where I grew up.

So did he drink any?

Do you or was Harrison kind of a... -Harrison was a drinker, and the fascinating thing about William Henry Harrison is that his campaign was all about drinking.

If you remember, it was called the log cabin and hard cider campaign.

-Yeah.

-And that came about because his opponents insulted him in a newspaper, and they said something to the effect -- They tried to make Harrison out to be a hick, and they said, "If you give Harrison a jug of hard cider and a log cabin, I guarantee you he'll retire tomorrow," that kind of thing.

And instead of taking it as an insult, they turned it around and used it as their campaign slogan.

-Sure.

-And so when Harrison ran, he ran against Van Buren.

and they painted Van Buren as the champagne-sipping aristocrat, so it was a very class warfare kind of thing, and his guys would actually build little log cabins and drink hard cider and whiskey there and get plastered, and harass Van Buren voters at voting places.

-Wow.

-Sounds like another fun time.

-Yeah.

-History sounds like a lot of fun.

-But then Harrison, you know, Harrison had the shortest because he died right after the inaugural.

-He gave the speech and didn't -- What was it, he didn't wear a coat?

-Didn't wear a coat, he was out in the rain and the sleet and stuff, and he got pneumonia or something and died rather -- I think just a few weeks into his term.

-What fascinates me, like, fascinates me is that somebody that is writing about history, especially presidential history, right, and especially right now at a time when facts are having a hard time.

They are having a rough time lately.

-You could say that.

-How do you -- And the Internet is full of just crazy information.

-Oh, yeah.

-How do you find out, like, how do you sift through something and make it legitimate or illegitimate?

-Well, that's a great question, and I'll give you a classic example, and this involves Lincoln.

You've probably heard this where, you know, one of Lincoln's crosses to bear was that Grant was his best general, but Grant was known to be a heavy drinker.

He wasn't very good at it, by the way.

Grant got drunk quite rapidly, despite the fact that you look at your 50, and it's a burly looking guy on there.

You would think that he could drink a lot, but he wasn't.

He was a lightweight.

You know, people came and complained to Lincoln and they said, "You know, Grant is a drunk, and you should get rid of him."

And Lincoln allegedly said, "Find out what whiskey Grant drinks and give it to the rest of my generals because..." -He'd do it, yeah.

-Yeah, so that's probably not a true story, but I present it in the book and say that there's no proof that his is a real story.

And that's the way to sort of handle something that you want in there because it's interesting and funny, but probably not true, but it certainly did sum up how Lincoln felt about Grant, so it wasn't totally off the mark.

-If you're doing the job, like, people are okay with that.

-And then to circle back to something that you said earlier, and kind of in relation to this, you said that it was easier to find out about past presidents than it is about recent ones, even, like, ones that are alive.

Why is that?

Like, even though that's somebody that you can hear them or talk to them, I mean, probably hard to get in touch with them, but why has it been more difficult for the later presidents?

-Yeah.

I think, you know, with modern-day presidents, their staff try to protect them more.

-Sure.

-I mean, with the older presidents, I went so much on diaries and letters that you have it there in black and white in what journalists call a primary source, you know, which is great.

-Mm-hmm.

-You haven't heard this through the grapevine, but, you know, you also go back to some real cornerstones of basic journalism where you try to get two sources if at all possible, you know, that kind of thing.

-Right.

Mm-hmm.

-And, you know, if there's an opposing view on incident, then present both of them.

-Right.

-Say, you know, "Somebody said "that Nixon did this, but Nixon's, you know, chairman of such and such said, 'No, Nixon never did that.'"

So there's ways to present both without, you know playing fast and loose with the facts.

-Mm-hmm.

-And we're on now, I mean, so you have "Drinking With The Republicans," and "Drinking With The Democrats" I'm assuming is the other one?

-Yes.

-What are -- Obviously this is out now, but do you have -- are you looking -- Do you plan that far and ahead?

Are you looking for some new topics or... -Well, it's funny because I think I mentioned before that my publisher just contacted me to update this and add a Trump chapter which will be challenging but doable.

So as long as I'm alive and presidents get elected I'll suppose that I'll keep updating it, and afterwards maybe my, you know, daughter can update it or somebody.

-Who would you rather drink with, like, the Democrats if they were all in a room, or the Republicans?

What would be a better party?

-Well, that's a great question.

I think I would rather drink with the Democrats, and I'll tell you why.

Because I would start with Jefferson, and Jefferson had the best stuff in the world at the time, you know, that you could possibly have, and he wasn't a whiskey guy or anything.

You could get beer or hard cider at Monticello.

He called those his table drinks.

-Mm-hmm.

-And they actually -- And this is weird because I always assumed they drank wine with dinner like we do, but they didn't drink wine with dinner.

They had hard cider and beer at dinner, then wine was for afterwards with cigars to pontificate in the library on science and history, so there was an intellectual thing.

-Foreign affairs.

-Yeah.

-Sounds like it has something to do with foreign affairs.

-Yeah.

"Hey, guys.

"Let's get."

-That's your government.

"Let's get drunk and then talk about..." -"Who's got Germany's number?"

It's like, "President, you're drunk, okay?"

-So... -He's like, "Wait.

I got to telegraph."

He's like, "No.

No.

Don't telegraph.

You've have been drinking.

Stop it."

-Jefferson would have been a great guy to have a drink with because of that aspect.

On the other side of it, I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and then an independent, and Teddy would have been interesting to have a drink with as well, but they're all sort of interesting in their own weird kind of ways.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Grant, you know, I would have loved to have sat down and have a drink with Grant because Grant used to play poker and drink, and I love to player poker as well, and there's this wonderful story about this guy that comes down to play cards at the White House with Grant and some of his cronies.

He was a newspaper editor from upstate New York, and the next day he wakes up and finds out Grant appointed him to be the ambassador to Greece.

Yeah, so... -That would be like waking up from a -- -That would be great.

Like, "Tyler, you're now the ambassador in Honduras."

-Yeah, waking up from a blackout.

-So he's like all foggy headed, like, "What?"

-I've never been there.

-So somebody wrote.

They said, you know, "Is playing poker and getting fuddled with Grant a prerequisite to be an ambassador?"

-That's a funny story.

-Well, we want to thank you for coming on.

-Yeah.

This was awesome.

-Obviously, it's always a pleasure.

I still see you once and awhile, but it's nice to bring you in.

-Not enough, George.

We got to -- -I know.

-Yeah.

-And I wish we could have talked about -- There's so many stories that are just not appropriate for television.

-That's good.

-Yeah.

-So I'm glad that we just weren't able to talk about them.

-Thanks for not saying them on television.

-Yeah.

I mean, you know, so thank you.

I appreciate you.

-I was worried about that.

I got to be honest.

-When he comes in, he messages me.

He's like, "I don't know if I want to come on the show."

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-But it was good, so thank you again for coming on the episode, really appreciate it.

-It was my pleasure.

I enjoyed it.

-Thank you.

-All right.

-It was great to meet Tyler.

-Yeah.

-Absolutely.

-I got smarter.

-And thank you for watching this episode of the "Lehigh Valley with Love" podcast, filmed at the PPL Public Media and Education Center at PBS39.