Whod a thunk it, eh? A raging party at a faux four-hundred-year-old Tuscan villa in the rolling hills of Southern Illinois. And on a Wednesday morning, no less. Wednesday morning? Yup. Heres the poop: Because our schedule was so tight, we had to do this segment at a very specific time. All our locations were set up geographically, hitting one place, then another, based on how close it was to the last place. And Blue Sky Vineyard just happened to fall on a Wednesday morning. So over the phone we suggested they get a couple of people on site to do some wine tasting, and perhaps a guy or gal to strum guitar in the background. Obviously, Jim and company had other ideas about how they wanted their place to come across on camera. So they called the local paper and asked about buying an ad to get the word out that we were coming. They were going to offer $1 glasses of wine and free food to draw a crowd. The person at the paper stopped Jim in his tracks and said, Hey, dont buy an ad this is NEWS! Ill send a reporter and well do a story. Wont cost you a buck!
The Carbondale paper printed the story announcing WTTWs arrival and Blue Skys desire to have a crowd present, and man, did they come. (They also sent a reporter that day and followed with another story about what happened while we were there. Good story, I might add.) So while we pretended on air to be whooping it up on a Saturday afternoon, what you were actually seeing was local fun lovers shaking their booties and bending their elbows big time well before noon in the middle of the week. Any chance there were some SIU kids there cutting class? No way.
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