The Uncannery
The Uncannery
Wills, Wombs, and Wagers: The Great Stork Derby
When Charles Vance Miller died on Halloween 1926, few could have predicted the bizarre legacy this childless Toronto lawyer would leave behind. Born to humble farming parents, Miller had built an empire through shrewd investments in breweries, silver mines, and racehorses, becoming one of Canada's wealthiest bachelors. But without heirs or close relationships, his true lasting impact would come through what he called his "necessarily uncommon and capricious" will.
Miller's will became notorious for its mischievous provisions. He left brewery shares to temperance-preaching ministers, jockey club ownership to anti-gambling clergymen, and forced three men who likely despised each other to co-own his vacation home until the last one died. Yet his most extraordinary stipulation—which would become known as "The Great Stork Derby"—offered roughly $500,000 (about $12 million today) to the Toronto woman who gave birth to the most children in the decade following his death.
What began as an obscure provision in a will evolved into a public spectacle that laid bare the tensions of 1930s Toronto society. Newspapers published "racing cards" tracking mothers' progress, while courtroom battles determined which children "counted," revealing deep prejudices about legitimacy, immigration, and women's autonomy. When a woman who had left an abusive husband found herself disqualified despite bearing ten children, and another lost standing because her child was stillborn, the darker implications of Miller's game became apparent.
The final ruling in 1936 declared four women joint winners, each receiving approximately $2 million in today's currency. Surprisingly, these mothers used their windfalls responsibly—purchasing homes and providing education for their large families. But the ethical questions linger: Was Miller's contest a cruel manipulation of vulnerable women or a unique form of philanthropy? And what does our continued fascination with this story reveal about our own attitudes toward wealth, family, and posthumous power?
But when you realize the pigeons were part of the experiment, the whole thing makes a lot more sense.
Ron:It still seems wildly unethical. I don't know.
Doug:It was a different time. Depends on how you. You guys think pigeons are real. You guys still think that? Huh.
Ron:You ever seen a pigeon and a dove in the same place?
Don:Hey everybody, Welcome to the Uncannery. I'm Don.
Doug:I'm Ron and I, very much as Doug, believe in pigeons. I just want to make that clear, wow.
Don:Hey, doug, you're here, two in a row.
Doug:It's really good to be here twice in a row, to say the least, I lost money on that. How much?
Ron:$10 at the pickle court.
Doug:At the pickle court we went from. Is that the natural court, A regular court?
Don:Regular court is a pickle court.
Doug:Very good Regular court is a pickle court Very good.
Don:So, hey guys, From what I understand about having listened to you two talk to each other it seems like you guys like to play games.
Ron:Oh, do you like to play?
Doug:We're always playing games, game play.
Don:Game to game we're gamers Play us.
Doug:Yeah, that's us.
Don:So well, what? What are some crazy like the?
Doug:what's the weirdest game you've ever played, great question I was part of a when I was a young lad. At the local mall they had a game show. They filmed a live television audience game show for um, an animal network for kids, in which they would bring out different animals for games they were. If you won the games, you would win gift cards. Were you competing? Against the animals no because I would watch that. Yes, if they really. It would still be on the air if that was happening.
Don:Put the kid in the cage with the tiger as you enter one leaf, that's a solid plan right there, rome did that it didn't go super well, best empire in the history of the world.
Ron:Where were you, yeah?
Doug:No, the game that I had to play.
Doug:So it started with the host of the show saying whoever screams the loudest in the in this audience can come back, and I remember screaming to the point that I was in pain, um, like I was really hurting my throat, and I saw like the host looking at the crowd and then his eyes like went to me as I'm just like full mouth, like just screaming at the top of my lungs, and he goes you, um, flutter of nerves, I get on the stage and the game that we had to play.
Doug:It was a variation of what is called chubby bunny, which is putting things in this case marshmallows into your mouth and you had to say words off of a card and the person across from you, who was my mom, had to guess, guess what I was saying. And I lost because the girl that I was competing against, in my opinion, was clearly cheating, because she still had her fingers in her mouth, like she'd put a marshmallow in, pull her cheeks back and would still very clearly say the word. And yeah, I didn't do too well, I was definitely the chubbier bunny.
Ron:I still am.
Doug:But yeah, I didn't win that one. What was the prize? Was it? It was an elephant five hundred dollars to sam goody oh I would have bought so many albums. But yeah, my music career would have started way earlier yeah, if that that's a whole different life path, that what could have happened you know what could have been what could have been. Indeed, that's a big one.
Ron:Um, yeah, that's a pretty zany game, yeah, um, I've never been on a on a game show, um, but I I do remember you reminded me that uh, we went to an angel, uh, angels baseball game, yeah, in gorgeous anaheim once, um, when I was pretty young maybe 10 or 11 or something and they do like, uh, radio stations will be out front right and they'll be like trying to do little competitions or whatever, and they just sort of picked me out of the crowd. I was like walking by with my dad and they're like you come do this. And I was like a kid and I was like I do what I'm told. So I walked over to this like booth scared it was like a radio guy.
Ron:I think he was for like K-Rock or something, and he was like take this football and throw it through one of these three holes. And I'm terrible at this kind of stuff. I just don't really like doing any ball throwing. I'm not good at it and I just sort of without. I just like wanted this to end as quickly as possible. So I just sort of took the ball in my hand, I just threw it as fast as possible and it went straight through like the bullseye hole, like the big winner hole, and this guy's, like whoa dude's, got a cannon on his arm or whatever. And then basically I got like a K-Rock t-shirt that was like two sizes too big and that was it Very cool and then so, but I don't know if that's a game, I guess it's kind of a game it is.
Ron:I won that game.
Don:That's a carnival game, it was a carnival game. Yeah, yeah, yeah For sure.
Doug:I mean.
Ron:Warhammer itself is also a very silly game.
Doug:Yeah.
Ron:The game of pushing little figurines across the table. People take it very seriously. I remember being a teenager and playing with some of my friends. We would like playing sleepovers around playing like a big game of Warhammer. And I had two friends who were brothers and they absolutely hated each other at the end of a game of Warhammer, like like actual tears crying and like shoving each other and it was bad. And we kept doing it because it was kind of fun to watch they were the Warhammers.
Doug:They were Warhammering, getting Warhammered. Yeah, with your buddies.
Ron:What is the game of warhammer? The game of warhammer is really actually a sport of kings. It's a deeply tactical and strategic uh so it's like bad tabletop
Doug:game.
Ron:Yeah, yeah, very much like badminton, yeah, very similar, lots of crossover in that uh player base. Uh, it's a tabletop game but you move miniatures to fight a simulated war game against someone else's team. And in warhammer it's science fiction and you got ridiculous teams. They'll be the bug team versus the marines team versus the elf team yeah, yeah, get them out there.
Doug:Yeah, do your bid. Notice that you didn't mention custodians. Really hurts, that's right. I'd rather not Do your bid. Notice that you didn't mention custodians.
Ron:It really hurts. I'd rather not. They're the lamest team.
Doug:You'll see them soon. You'll see them soon.
Ron:And, of course, the part of the big thing about Warhammer is you got to buy these little figures and then assemble them and paint them and it's really more of a, it's more of an achievement to have even brought an army to the table. Yeah brought an army to the table. To even have been, to even have the opportunity to play is already a victory in and of itself. And then you have to play like a three hour long game on top of that, which is of questionable. Like fun, yeah, but still pretty cool.
Doug:Yeah, if you're not role playing it, I think there's something wrong with you. It should be that level of fun.
Ron:Yeah, what's your zaniest game, dylan?
Don:So I try and think so zaniest. So I tried out for a game show once which was Card Sharks oh, I love that one. Yeah, and I left completely disillusioned, wow.
Ron:With television, with the sports.
Don:Yeah, because I was good at it right.
Doug:Yeah.
Don:Like I know cards, I know trivia. Like that's all you need, right? But like you had to put on this over-the-top personality in order to continue to be selected through the various phases of processing. Like they didn't ask us to scream our heads off. Like your experience, but it was so I just didn didn't like it wasn't was the host of that one, bob eubanks at some point.
Don:Yeah, the the he didn't do the um the kid version though it was somebody else, but anyways I know it's higher than a two bob, I just know it.
Don:you had to be that kid, yeah, no, yeah, I'm glad you didn't compromise, I didn't make it, but one time I did participate Actually I think I may have been my idea, but I'm not sure At a church youth group when I was a young person gosh, maybe early 20s we used to have middle school nights where we would just run games for two hours after, as you do, yeah middle school nights where we would just run games for two hours after, yeah, just to tire everybody else. They go home.
Doug:We decided to do it one night in jello.
Don:no, so we like, we, we hung plastic around the entire hall of the church and like every like your admission ticket was you had to bring a bowl of jello and then like the whole room was just jello everything and we had like really races in it and fights and it was yeah, it was fun.
Doug:I distinctly have a memory of a church group that ended with pig troughs filled with ice cream and you just went in with your hands at the end of it. So there is something you need to church groups of like just just trying to make it messy, yeah.
Don:Anarchy yeah. Being really well like just just trying to make it messy. Yeah, anarchy, yeah, being really well, I, I bring a crazy contest because I have got a good one for you tonight, um, that I want to talk about, but it's gonna, it's gonna be kind of a meandering path to get there. So you guys have a few minutes we can, can, can indulge in in some history yeah, I'm contractually obligated and are we playing the game?
Ron:are we playing the game? Are we playing the?
Doug:game Because I need to stretch.
Don:if that is the case, you know, if you would like to play the game, I'm totally open to that idea. You may want to run it by your wife, oh.
Doug:But we'll see. Sounds more complicated than stretching.
Don:So we'll go back to 1854 in Toronto, canada, and that's the birthday of a young man named Charles Vance Miller.
Doug:Hey Charlie.
Don:Welcome to the world, hey, hey.
Ron:You and I will just provide Foley for this history lesson. Sounds good.
Doug:Charlie, you're a beautiful young boy. History Sounds good, charlie, you're a beautiful young boy.
Don:So he's born on on a farm to farming parents, um and uh, and decides he doesn't want to be a farmer. So he, uh, he goes to university, probably not right away, like when he's older, um and he graduates with a 98%.
Ron:Wow, Charlie, not bad for a farmer boy.
Don:He's not bad at all. He passed the bar examination in 1884. Law bound, and becomes a lawyer and is very successful at it. And then he decides to diversify a little bit. He starts investing some of his money. He becomes president and part owner of a brewery in Toronto named O'Keefe's Brewery. He becomes president and part owner of a brewery in Toronto named O'Keefe's brewery. Um, he purchases an express company and actually is responsible for delivering mail in British Columbia. Um, he invests in a silver mine, uh, and he does it just like a couple of months before they find a 14 inch wide uh streak of silver. So he's he's set for life. At that point Did you Is the game.
Doug:how bad can you feel about your accomplishments in life, because I'm not doing well at this point? Well, you know he had time, he had time he owned winning racehorses, so he was a horse racer.
Don:He invested in a racetrack so he was part owner racer. He invested in a racetrack, so he was part owner of the Kenilworth Park racetrack. And then they were building a tunnel between Detroit and Windsor and he, he bought, he put a $2 investment into the tunnel.
Doug:You said he's from Toronto. Yeah, he's the Wolf of Toronto.
Don:Oh that $2 investment turned into $100,000. How fast he's dead by the time it does but it's still. That's a pretty good return on your investment.
Ron:He can't stop, yeah, he's just winning Is he tired of winning.
Don:yet Right, I didn't think that he would be yeah exactly, but a strange thing and we might need to circle back to this later is that he doesn't have any romantic relationships in his life.
Ron:That's what you got to do to succeed. You got to have that grind set 24-7.
Don:He maybe had one when he was younger, and the word jilted is appearing in a lot of the literature here. So one and done, I think. Did he jilt or was he jilted? He was the jilted one, yeah.
Ron:That can wound a man.
Don:But he, uh, he did. He was an observer of people he liked that. That was definitely one of his, one of his pastimes. He was known for a kind of a prank like personality he, since he was so well off, he would sometimes as a pastime go and sit in the lobby of a hotel and place a dollar on the ground somewhere where he could see it and watch people walk by the dollar and consider pickering it up, because a dollar in the 1920s, like our value to be, like finding a $20 bill, like people will walk by a quarter or a penny or whatever but, like if you, this is a $20 bill on the floor.
Don:Yeah, but uh, apparently because it was inside the hotel there was some, some kind of uh of public, I don't know pressure about. You know it'd be a faux pas.
Ron:Yeah.
Don:Well, and to be seen caring about that amount of money, right. Because, like, why would you bother to pick that up? If you're in a fancy hotel, you must be rich anyways, right? But so he liked to watch people like struggle with that and then like think nobody was looking and then go back and pick it up and he thought that was fun, that was his pastime.
Ron:Only $20 for an hour of riveting entertainment. Absolutely.
Don:Yeah For sure. Well, well, hey, absolutely, yeah for sure. Um well, well, uh, uh, hey, charlie was born 1854. Like I told you, charlie, uh, grows old and uh, and charlie.
Ron:Charlie dies.
Don:What a life, though hardly knew you, charlie, thank you right it's good to have him, though, yeah thank you for your money and your prank, yeah he uh, but, like I said, he didn't have anybody to leave his money to when he died. So, as a lawyer, though, he knew the importance of a will, so he wrote a will, and his will includes some important pieces of.
Doug:I don't know caveats have you written your will yet?
Ron:I'm considering my will. I'm trying to think like who do I leave my war hammer to? Because it will be substantial yeah, it really will, and I can't leave it to someone who doesn't know how to play the game, like you. So I probably need to start, like raising a ward. Actually, your son is a good, it's a strong candidate right now.
Doug:Don't do this to him.
Ron:I'm trying to keep him out of the family business.
Doug:Okay, charlie left farming. My son will leave Warhammer, that's all I know.
Don:You heard it here first, and now it's recorded forever. I've got that soundbite to play back to you 10 years from now.
Doug:10 years from now. Yeah, when we're in the podcast, I go guys. Turns out he's a tiered player.
Don:So this is the opening of Mr Miller's will. He says this will is necessarily uncommon and capricious because I have no dependence or near relations and no duty rests upon me to leave any property at my death. And what I do leave is proof of my folly in gathering and retaining more than I required in my lifetime.
Ron:Little self-important, I think he's like he's about to send it up to like all the rich people of the gilded age. Right, like what were we doing, fellas? Is that what he's going to say?
Don:Well, I don't know, so let me let me share with you some of the. There are nine different clauses in his will. Let me share just some of them with you. I'm not going to go through all of them, but there's this one too. Tp Galt, jd Montgomery and James Haversom I give for life my house on Jamaica Island, known as Ivy Green, on the halfway tree road, and upon the death of the last survivor of them, I direct my executors and trustees to sell the same and give the proceeds to the council of the city of kingston, jamaica, for the distribution among the poor of the city. What it's, a nice guy he gave away.
Don:He's giving it to the city after these other old guys die right but he's giving his vacation home to these three guys, but they have to co-own it.
Ron:Oh, until the last one of them dies. Were they all like enemies? They all hated each other.
Doug:It's pretty cool, I like that. I like that. That's good.
Don:Another one. Again, it shows his generous nature. He was a Roman Catholic and he decides to. To each Protestant minister exercising his clerical functions and to each Orange Lodge in Toronto, I give one share of the O'Keeffe Brewery Company of Toronto Limited a brewing company, today Brewery monks. Let me go far yeah, protestant ministers in Toronto, canada though Toronto was still under prohibition at this time and Protestant ministers in Toronto, canada Toronto was still under prohibition at this time and Protestant ministers, for the most part, were preaching temperance.
Ron:So it was a little send up.
Don:Yeah, so this Brewery to temperance ministers.
Doug:So clearly he's just testing their faith.
Don:That's what it is.
Doug:It really is just a final gift to the Lord, he is a temptation.
Ron:he the the tempter of toronto that called him ah there we go he um.
Don:He also gave a share of a jockey club to two ministers who were known to be anti-gambling, as well as a third person who owned four other racetracks. So it was that, though, the rules of the will said they had to own the share for three years. So it was a big question about whether these ministers who were so anti-gambling would accept the gift, because it was worth about $1,500, which would be like $25,000 today. It was not an insignificant amount of money, but they had to own it for three years in order to access that. So how seriously are you about your anti-gambling?
Ron:compulsion yeah, they could take it. They could shut it down.
Don:So what wound up happening? And I'm not sure how this happened, because the information that I have on this is that this happened in August. So Charlie died in October of 1926, october 31st, actually Halloween and the following August the two ministers apparently became members in the jockey club for exactly five minutes, because that was the minimum amount of time the bylaws would allow them to be before they sold their shares to somebody else. So they got around the will somehow but Lord forgive me for these five minutes.
Doug:That's right. So that's it. Charlie's a real chestnut.
Ron:Most chestnut I've ever seen?
Doug:Yeah, yeah.
Don:So, uh. So here's the the. The thing that he's most famous for, though, is for uh, it's provision number 10 in the will, which leaves the residue of his estate to the woman who has the most children in the 10-year period beginning on the date of his death.
Doug:Although a contest, he really was interested in populating the world.
Ron:Yeah, maybe he was one of those. Like, the birth rate in Canada has really hit the toilet, we need to pull this up, otherwise we're in Japan territory right now and based on what we know of this guy already, clearly that was his motivation.
Don:Yeah, for sure. So the amount of the estate that we have is about $500,000.
Doug:Canadian, but $500,000 in 1926.
Don:Huge, that's a huge amount of money.
Ron:How huge are we talking, cause I have zero idea. One it's too far away. Two, it's Canadian. It's about $12 million. All right, it's a pretty good amount of money.
Doug:That's enough that people do bad things to get it.
Don:I'll tell you that.
Ron:Yeah, so, uh, what could be bad about having children? Childbirth is a miracle.
Don:Children are the, the, the glory of of creation.
Ron:Every child is good. No child has never been not provided for or left behind.
Don:Or left behind, or left behind.
Ron:And that's resulted in bad things for them and their neighbors.
Doug:Never, yeah. As a new father, I can definitely agree with that.
Ron:Yeah, You're already planning, like what? Ten more?
Doug:Just you saying it, I had to guard myself a bit.
Don:Hey, Doug, you wanted to play the game. You were.
Ron:You were gearing up a little while ago I see now why I needed I know better than to say I'll play your game dawn yeah, it's not really those three episodes you were gone for.
Doug:I learned a lot about dawn I don't know if you listened to those. Yeah, I did. We need, yeah, nicky honey 12 mil, yeah, 12 mil, and we're all. We're gonna spend it on the kids obviously so.
Ron:How many kids do you think you would need to have to to have birthed the most kids in toronto in 1924?
Don:yeah, well, don't. 26. 26 to 36. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It sounds like a what you're over under on those sounds like primary, like big family years.
Ron:That sounds like I'm going to say the smallest family is like four kids.
Doug:You know and they're having kids, then it's more of a economic at least three of them are going to die, so we're going to make sure these many take care of us.
Ron:We need one to run the potato field one to run the corn field?
Doug:run one, but he got out of farming, so that's the thing you know. So one to run the law practice.
Don:Yeah, yeah so what do you think the winning number is? Oh so so how many babies could you physically have in 10 years? Mean none, but so you're not going to win?
Ron:Yeah Well, a little more than 10.
Doug:What? 12? Very wise. 13? Yeah, I'm going. Biggest family I know is 16. And you know a 16 person from love. I've met one sibling from a family of 16. So I'm going to say 16.
Ron:I'll stick with the same number. I cannot conceive of a higher number.
Doug:I can't and it wasn't a great story.
Don:You think they can have 16 children in 10 years.
Doug:Oh no, you can't.
Don:Well, I mean twins. What's the new?
Ron:demand, twins count. Oh yeah, you can get some freaky stuff happening.
Doug:Yeah, literally, but you have to be a factory.
Ron:You can't let up for those 10 years, yeah, like if you're, can you imagine?
Don:being?
Doug:I can't imagine at all.
Don:But like having met a pregnant person, I can't imagine asking someone to be pregnant for 10 years.
Ron:Yeah, yeah honey, come on, it's time. This must have been a very male-led. Like you know, the phrasing in the will makes it seem like the women are the actors here and that they will get to choose to participate in this game. But I feel like there's a lot of men behind the scenes being like come on, what's another one honey?
Doug:It's, but then I also know people and money, so this is happening. I'll stick by 16. Ron, what do you say?
Don:I'm gonna this is Price is right rules, I'll go 17 that's it, okay, all right, I'll tell you, 17 is the largest family that I know of that participated in the game. Wow, but those children don't count because some of them were born prior to 1926. So the rules of the game only count the children born after the death of of Miller until exactly 10 years after, which would be October 31st 1936.
Ron:Before we go any further um what are the rules of wills? Someone actually has to do this. Like, like, like, who's, who's the guy executing the will.
Doug:Yeah, and he actually has to.
Ron:oh my god, he's reading this like I gotta set up a whole game so what a town or a state so town.
Don:So toronto has to be in toronto. Um, the children have to be registered in the log of vital statistics of the city. So there's, it can't just be, there has to be official proof that the baby existed. And two things yes, there was an executor who was a fellow lawyer, and two, charles was a lawyer himself. So he wrote this pretty buttoned up. It was challenged by distant relatives, like second cousins, who wanted to say you can't do this, and they wanted his money. It went all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court, whoa, and they said no, it looks like it's a legal will. So the questions were whether two things. So the first question that was raised by his distant family was that this promotes immoral behavior. It certainly does. Having children, oh yeah, it certainly does Having children.
Ron:Oh yeah, it's the most moral of all behaviors. I see some of those kids, those little rats that run around the streets of Toronto you know, hitting your knee and begging you for 10 pence.
Doug:Toronto 10 pence. I like that they're in the pence system.
Don:That's good it would be a toonie or a Looney. Yeah so, but no like is this? Promoting immoral behavior Is like what would be the argument for immorality?
Ron:here, I'm actually on their side. I would love to hear I will cede the floor to my opposition the procreator, Doug.
Doug:Meaning. So, Ron, you're taking the stance that this-.
Ron:I think it is immoral.
Doug:Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with you if the-. No, no, no, you have to disagree. Okay, sorry, I definitely disagree with you because, no, this is tough.
Ron:I'm just thinking of everyone who has kids that doesn't really want kids, and it makes me sad that's kind of what I'm thinking right, like like you're gonna get the very worse, kind of like probably the people who probably shouldn't already be having a lot of kids. You're gonna get those people saying, wow, that's a lot of money.
Don:Shucks, yeah, sorry, that's a lot of money like it's money, eh. Proverbial.
Ron:Canadian joke just slipped its way in. We just lost all of our Canadian audience.
Don:What do you mean? We're speaking their language.
Doug:Is that the way to the heart? It's like the generational slang.
Ron:They like this. Right You're going to encourage people to be very irresponsible with their family planning right, Like whether or not those families can provide for all those children or, you know, give them the attention.
Doug:The only thing I could see as a positive is just that end of life moment where you look back at your legacy of how many people are in your family.
Ron:There seems to be a certain amount of warmth that a person has, maybe in their older age, saying this room is so crowded everybody's looking at me you think that's your last thought before you go if it is, what a terrible way to go basically how titanic ends not for the musicians it was an honor playing um, yeah, that's all I got.
Ron:So the morality question you guys are debating is the response the financial responsibility of rearing children, I would say the emotional responsibility, the the parenting responsibility, like, yeah, financial for sure, but uh, so the fact that in order to get that far in this, this equation, you have to have done the sex over and over again, that doesn't raise any moral questions for you. No, because I mean that would happen regardless.
Don:I'd hope.
Ron:But his family was worried about the sex. I think so, yeah, I mean, that makes sense I'm sure back in 1926 Toronto they didn't care so much about like generational trauma.
Doug:I thought part of the roaring twenties was the sex, but okay.
Don:That was the roar part.
Ron:Yeah, but that was the problem. That's why everyone was so mad.
Don:And the reason that I think that is because the second objection that they raised was that it was against the public good.
Ron:Oh yeah, to have all those Toronto ones.
Don:Right To be promoting the families that were already impoverished and to be having more children than they could afford to raise.
Ron:Yeah, that part I agree with, but the sex is cool.
Doug:Thanks man.
Don:Somebody had to say it. Yeah, only between married persons, though.
Ron:That's why I didn't find it to be quite as immoral, right, I mean, I don't, I mean, but it's probably. I mean what we've got. He's a roman catholic and we've also got teetotaler protestants right next door. Yeah, probably. This is a very sexist for procreation, regardless culture right yeah, because.
Doug:Is this bundled in with the pairing off of the house amongst men that hate each other and giving the temperate members of the clergy the brewery Like? Is this all packaged into one Because those are easier to point a finger at.
Ron:Right. He seems to have a twisted right, like he's like the wish master. You remember that series of films shout out wish master, you know yeah, a corrupted jinn who who gives you your wish in the worst imaginal way the non-intended way. Yeah, a monkey paw thing right so he's giving you a house, but with two men you hate, and so it seems like there must be that he must have conceived of that element when he wrote this down. Also, right, I'm not just rewarding someone who makes a big family.
Ron:I'm driving you to essentially curse yourself with way too many children to see if the value of the money was worth it in the end.
Don:I think that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you guys about is why is he doing this?
Ron:Yeah.
Don:Right, Like so we have. We all have had experience either tangentially or directly with, with, with provocateurs, online or right, I'd like to think we are provocateurs.
Ron:Oh, there you go.
Don:And, and you know why do people troll online, why do people post, you know oh, so we're calling him a troll.
Ron:You think well?
Don:I'm wondering that's my question is he because? Because they do that on purpose to get a reaction out of people you're raising? The reaction in this case is yes, there's a like if you win the money, great, you get 12 million dollars, but if you lose the money, like second place, sucks right, it really does no money and uh, and a whole bunch of mounts to feed, but uh, but he's dead.
Doug:Right, you know, does anybody else thinking this? I'm thinking of the horror film franchise saw I was really hoping you were going to go back to wish list but yeah, let's rope in as many, let's rope in as many horror film franchises as we can.
Doug:Well, if you're not familiar um, the idea is is there are very sick games, so these are very like horror film. You know um sick games that this um, this killer named jigsaw, sets up, in which people are put in situations because of selfish or destructive decisions that they've made in life, in which he's kind of forcing them into some kind of ultimate test, like a person who's incredibly greedy, maybe has a test that they're put into a death trap. But if they remove a pound of flesh from their body, like using blunt instruments, and put it on a scale, they can escape and they leave their life realizing their body, like using blunt instruments, uh, and put it on a scale, they can escape and they leave their life realizing. You know, like um, you know I had to give up this part of my body, but then, at the same time, I I did this and I'm it's corrective in some way corrective, in some way Right.
Doug:And they reach an epiphany. Yes, uh, that's usually what it is. Yeah, like there were some people that are victims of jigsaw that say like he helped me, which is like one of the most horrific you know, things in the movie is like no, like you've been corrupted by this. And obviously he's not doing this to hurt people, but well, maybe he is.
Doug:Yeah, I was just going to say in some ways I suppose he kind of is because these things are being bound up in a legal document that maybe changed the course of behavior of somebody, that they might not have made the same choices, uh, that compromise them in some way. So instead of it being corrective, it's, it's uh to test their I don't know will, because ultimately right, If you're telling somebody like, do you want money? This bad, that you're willing to potentially have too many kids, that you can't take care of them, then yeah, we're back well, yeah, change the entire trajectory of your life, right?
Ron:like it is a he he's exercising a form of uh ghostly power. He's like the most powerful ghost in toronto that's right right influencing all these lives yeah for the for the idea or promise the whiff of this money. Yeah, um, you use the word troll I did um.
Ron:How are we defining troll? Because I think this is, I think we probably, I'm sure most of the listeners also are aware of like how the word troll is used in modern, modern parlance ron, I feel like you're the expert at this, considering you have the most knowledge about lord of the rings.
Doug:But go ahead, there's no troll in lord of the rings. Oh yeah, there is definitely a troll in lord of the rings Go ahead.
Don:There's no troll in Lord of the Rings.
Ron:Oh yeah, there is definitely a troll in Lord of the Rings. Multiple trolls Okay, we know the mythical troll monsters, but online trolls are very different kinds of people, right? These are how are we defining?
Don:I would define them as someone who deliberately posts provocative, offensive content in order to get an emotional reaction or to to disrupt some some type of conversation. That's happening, okay, yeah, so I think two important things.
Ron:Yeah, they disrupt conversations and they are just fishing for a reaction, an emotional reaction, from their interlocutor.
Don:Right.
Ron:Okay and, like you said, he's dead right, so he can't like. He doesn't seem like. He is like disrupting something or provoking reactions.
Don:Well, he's disrupting behavior, right? I mean we would assume that some of these families wouldn't have. Some of them are trying to have large families. So the behavior didn't seem to change. They seemed to accidentally be in the race Right and some of them did overtly change behavior to try to win.
Ron:Was there a provision that the race had to be announced Like couldn't you do this in two ways? One is just hey, at the end of 10 years, I want you to go through the county register and whichever family has the most happen to have had the most kids, give them this money. They will need it.
Ron:That would be the the, that the scrooge effect on christmas morning approach, right, but the scrooge prior to christmas eve sounds like the one he did, where he announced it and everyone were people aware that this was a game. He did not announce it.
Don:It just was a provision in his will because he didn't know what the moment of his death would be.
Doug:Right.
Don:His will just said, from the moment of his death, 10 years exactly. And so it wasn't. It was for several days later that, after obituaries were published and people actually became aware of the will's existence, that the, the rules, even became known, but at that point, like you didn't have to announce that you were participating, like it just was, the clock had started when he died. Whoever happens to have the most babies by the time? So so the executor planned to do exactly what you said, which is to, at, at 10 years time, look at the roles and see which, which mother has the most children, and and announce the winner. But what happens is that, uh, at the beginning, nobody cares. It's 10 years from now. Like you know, you can't. It's not like running a race. You don't have to start running right then. Then, like you know, throw off their clothes and go have sex right then. You know we got to start.
Don:I read I screw, but but it did start to pick up at a competition and actually the, the Toronto daily star, picked up on it as a story.
Doug:And that's where it took a turn. Okay, so this was going to be my question, because another thing defining within troll is like I think of a YouTube comment section, you know, like, like, what's, that it's nothing good. I can start there where maybe it's affecting I don't know, like a hundred people that read it, you know, and then, I think of something like this and I was going to ask what is his audience? Because, yeah, how many people? But if we're being picked up by, you know, statewide news, that's a whole different.
Don:So it took five years. So 1830 is the first newspaper article in the Toronto daily star about about this contest happening. Um and uh. They actually assigned a reporter to identify pregnant women in Toronto and go uh, secure the rights to their stories.
Doug:Wow Excuse me. Are you pregnant?
Don:Thank you, thank you.
Ron:That's exactly how it went.
Don:And they're the ones that named this event that actually still carries this name today. So they called it the Great Stork Derby.
Doug:Oh yeah, I just pictured Charlie on his deathbed. What's the difference between the horses I was racing and these women?
Ron:having babies, nothing that's life. His deathbed these women having babies, nothing that's like his dad, but he's like that's lame.
Don:I totally want it to be different so they actually started to print a like, a like, a horse card of the women. Oh my god, in the newspaper showing the number of people placing bets of I I believe, probably yes, but I don't know for sure.
Ron:Yeah.
Don:Yeah, um, the uh, uh, so, uh. So in that list right, some names started to uh to become more popular. So Mrs Kenny was a name Uh, mrs Kenny was known, uh uh, for being very protective of her image. Uh, so, uh, she only would allow the newspaper to take photographs of her if they paid her for the photograph smart no, and so the story goes that apparently a photographer snapped a picture of her without permission at one point and she decked him sick, so good for her.
Ron:She became no lives. You got it one punch kenny was her name from wow. Wow, I'm pulling for one punch, kenny.
Don:It's hard not to right, um, let's see who else do we have in the running? We have um, oh, mrs bagnato okay yeah, uh, mrs bagnato, star wars character she did?
Doug:she had the big pastries on the side of her head. It's a trap.
Don:Yeah, yeah, big time yeah, so she gave birth to twins. Uh, in there in in early 1930s, and apparently at the birth of the twins the doctor commented to her oh, are you trying to catch up with mrs kinney? Yeah, and mrs bagnato didn't know there was a contest oh, what a terrible life moment.
Doug:Like like, what a terrible. Like you have this beautiful you know. Like, wow, I've had twins. Like look at what's in store for me and your life's about to take a different turn.
Don:If you're greedy, even in the slightest so uh bagnato moved to the top of the card on the Toronto Daily News racing card.
Doug:Bagnato's, got it in the bag, baby.
Don:Because with these twins she had 10. Wow.
Doug:Jesus For sure.
Don:Mrs Brown, who had nine. Her husband had this to say about Mrs Bagnato taking the lead If a few more Canadians would be themselves and produce a decent sized family, the country would not be overrun by foreigners. Mrs Bagnato was the daughter of Italian immigrants, so she was Canadian born, but her parents were immigrants from Italy and her husband, whom she had married when she was 14, had come from Italy in an arranged marriage to marry her. So she herself was not an immigrant, but her family was considered such. Mrs Brown added that I can't let any Italian get away with that leadership stuff. I'm Canadian and so is my husband. We're honest to gosh died in the wool. Native-born Canadians of the fifth generation and think six babies in five years ought to be lead those Browns.
Ron:Browns have always been rotten to the core Really are.
Doug:It's tough, it's tough.
Ron:I'm just glad Canada's as racist as America.
Don:Thank you for being glad about that Utopia, my butt.
Doug:Absolutely, man yeah. Well, it's ugly.
Don:Well, it's getting ugly, yeah, yeah.
Ron:Why, charlie? Why'd you have to do this? Um, why Charlie?
Don:why'd you have to?
Doug:do this, cause he could?
Don:he's laughing? Yeah, for sure. Um so, so here's what happens. Is it comes to 1936, right, we get to October 1936 and somebody has to decide who the winner is.
Ron:Yeah, yeah, not the executor.
Don:So well, the executor has some problems. Okay. Um so, yes, the executor has to decide, but he's being sued left and right, okay, and they wind up in a courtroom. A regular courtroom, a regular court of law courtroom and it's hosted by Maury.
Doug:Yeah, instead of. You are not the father, you fathered everyone, that's right, absolutely, you fathered everyone it's not the apprentice.
Don:All right, unless I understand the joke the funnier so, uh, so the the judge who presided over the proceedings was named Justice William Edward Middleton, and on the first day of the proceedings into Judge Middleton's courtroom walked 32 attorneys.
Ron:Whoa Were they all the children? Yes.
Don:Well representing various different women who thought they had won. One of the attorneys was uh was representing the attorney general of of toronto oh well of ontario and uh. And so when he announced himself as representing the attorney general, justice said really, how many children does he have? This is good this is.
Ron:This is a script for like a 1944 Jimmy Stewart film or something.
Doug:Well, all of you seem to be having a lot of kids.
Ron:Honey Wow.
Doug:They did make a made-for-TV movie in the early 2000s.
Don:Of course they did. They did make a made for TV movie in the early 2000s.
Doug:Oh, of course they did.
Don:So he first thing he does is weed through 32 and get it down to six. Okay, Quick. Anybody representing anyone with less than eight children was immediately eliminated, scratched out. Okay.
Doug:So yeah, yeah.
Don:But we still have some confusing situations we have to deal with. So we've got some women claiming 12 children, but of those 12 children, half of them maybe are stillborn or miscarry. So question is does that count?
Doug:Yeah.
Don:Will says, children born.
Ron:They're going to say no, aren't they?
Doug:Of course, if they're not the party that, yeah, yeah, that's gonna get thrown around, yeah yeah, so you think you would say no, don't count, don't count children who die.
Ron:You want to oh, I think I would count them, but I I'm feeling like they are going to not because they're going to say this was not successfully quote unquote born yeah, right. And then also, I imagine, it becomes a record. It could be a record problem, right, like were they ever filed, doesn't, didn't you say they?
Don:had to be on record. Yeah, they had to be on record into the uh uh, the vital, the log of vital statistics. So what Judge Vilderton rules is that a stillborn infant is not a child, but that which would have been a child is how he phrased it Whoa.
Doug:Yeah, I knew it was going to get ugly.
Ron:But man is that bad? Thanks Judge, making my life better.
Doug:If Jimmy Stewart says it, it's not as bad.
Ron:Yeah, I think they skipped that part of the script that's my guess too.
Doug:Made for tv?
Don:no way. So this was bad news for one punch kenny, your favorite. So far because one punch kenny had lost a child to uh stillborn and was now reduced to eight children so she's punching everybody, so at this point yeah punch up kenny punch up.
Ron:Yeah, so uh, thank you.
Don:So now we have one other issue with uh, a figure known as mrs x oh sick, so it's a comic book now.
Doug:Yeah, yeah, superman shows up mrs x enters the court.
Don:Mrs X was tracked down by the newspapers because she had 10 children born within the window. Wow.
Ron:Yeah.
Don:The closest other. So the group that is currently in the race is nines, so we've got a few other women with nines. Mrs Kenny just had her number reduced to eight because of the ruling on stillborn, but Mrs X has 10 children.
Doug:And her names are A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
Ron:One hundo, two hundo, three hundo.
Doug:You named them after the amount of money she's going to get from them, mrs X used the pseudonym for a reason, and I will first tell you a fact about her.
Don:that is not the reason for the pseudonym.
Ron:The first fact is that she's 24 years old.
Doug:We started early.
Don:Can you do that math? How old was she?
Doug:Don't wanna 10 years, right, yeah, 14.
Don:Yeah, 10 years, right, yeah, 14, yeah, so she was 14 years old when she started having children um and had 10 of them by the time she was 24 freshman in high school.
Doug:That's terrible. Yeah, now we're back to the moralism here yes, it's not great.
Ron:It's not the fun script. I thought it was legally married though okay sure, whatever it's 10, let's call that a win for Mrs X.
Doug:Thanks.
Don:Mrs X. So no morality issue, right.
Ron:That's a morality issue, I'm feeling it.
Don:So I mean, I guess like but you're applying 2025 morals there to a situation that's 1926.
Ron:Yeah, I mean I imagine Mrs X as a 14 year old in 20, 20, what 19, 26 is still probably doesn't want to have kids.
Doug:I don't know, was it more common? Was it an accident? I mean?
Ron:I don't know. Was it more common for people to have children at 14, 15?
Don:big families, big Catholic community in the area um and uh um we're busy apparently marrying young, because they 14 15 seem to be the major the age of marriage for most of these women. Here's the issue with mrs x.
Ron:Her name is actually pauline, may clark so she was married to Tommy May Clark, Mr Clark.
Don:Mr Clark apparently was a little bit physically abusive. So five years into her marriage she left him. Okay, at that point she had five children. She lives with a boyfriend and has five more children, jeff X. So does she win? She had ten children.
Ron:Yes.
Don:She had ten children.
Ron:The game said the woman who has the most children, not the woman who has the most children in a single marriage. That's correct, but the court's going to say no.
Don:Why do you think that? Because they suck.
Doug:Because Jimmy Stewart's running it, but the court's gonna say no. Why do you think that?
Ron:because they suck because jimmy stewart's yeah, yeah, this is traditional.
Don:This rotten negative land, jimmy stewart is like what would be the rationale. You're correct, they do disqualify the children that are not born of her husband why?
Ron:oh so the second man she does not marry, she does not, so it's out of wedlock or something right.
Don:So here's the and here's her explanation was that she left her husband because he was abusive and she expected that he would divorce her, but he just never did so.
Ron:They're illegitimate children yeah, yeah, they don't exist in the eyes of the law started out as a made-for-tv movie. Now it's just a tragedy they would have been children if she's been married man slow motion scene at the end, all of them fighting and screaming they start disappearing like uh.
Doug:Back to the future photographs it's just the judge reflecting on his life going. What have I become?
Ron:Yeah, His wife tries to cheer him up in the morning with like a hot bowl of oatmeal and he, he just can't bring himself to enjoy it.
Doug:Throws it against the wall, cause there's no sentiment in it. Yeah, it's unfortunate.
Ron:We're visual storytellers. A hundred percent.
Don:So here's the thing, though Were the children born out of wedlock.
Ron:Oh, if she was technically married, she was technically our children.
Don:They are children, just not by that man, that's true.
Doug:I mean are these a bastard rules Cause that's how. That's where things get tough. Right, if we're getting really medieval and not part of the royal lineage.
Don:It's 1926.
Ron:It's not medieval, it's pretty close the way that we're treating them now 100%.
Doug:This is tough. I mean, if I'm the judge, no disqualification yeah exactly.
Ron:But, we are pulling for these women, yeah.
Don:So here's the thing the Ontario law says that children born in wedlock cannot be counted as illegitimate. So her attorney argues these are legitimate children. That's true, because she was married, right? The judge says no, not buying it. Yeah, the judge says children when used in a testamentary document, meaning mr villers will, must mean legitimate children. So, um, the judge rules against, uh, against mrs clark, and uh, she now drops out of the race down to five.
Ron:Wait, what was with the ex? Was that, like a, she wanted her?
Don:name Because she was living with a man who was not her husband and having children. So she didn't want the publicity, gotcha yeah, but they tracked her down anyways, and they Filthy yellow journalist.
Doug:She may not have wanted the publicity Maple journalist. It's just getting so dark. For all the Canadians who listen, I swear.
Don:So we're left with four women. Annie Smith had nine children in the 10 year period. She's the one that we know the least about, so she's probably the most boring of the women. Kathleen Nagel also had nine children. Lucy Timlick had 10 children, but one died in infancy before she uh um had it registered. So there was only nine counted Um, but she wins. And then Isabel McLean.
Ron:All right, four winners, four winners All get $125,000. Did um Pauline, paulina I'll get 125,000 dollars Did um Pauline. Paulina, pauline, this is X. Uh huh. Did Pauline do something To make this judge mad Like? Just, she's very close To taking it all and he was like, nah, I'll just split it Four ways with these other and you get none. Yeah, yeah Dang.
Don:She sued on the side Both she and Um um, lily and kenny the one punch kenny both of them sued on the side um because they thought that they were owed something. And, uh, they were awarded, in an out-of-court settlement by the executor, twelve thousand five hundred dollars each. Okay, which doesn't sound like a great deal, but if you do the CPI math, that's about $200,000.
Ron:Something, so something, yeah, okay.
Don:The $125,000 prizes for the other women works out to about $2 million each Dang.
Ron:Wow, so did we follow their lives afterwards Did this drive them into happiness.
Don:They are surprisingly responsible with their money.
Ron:All right sick.
Don:They buy houses, they educate their huge families. Yeah, the most eccentric thing that I found was one of them I think it was Mrs Timlock took a trip to New York with her husband. That was it. Otherwise, they use the money to New York with her husband. That was it. Otherwise, they used the money to raise their families.
Ron:That's pretty cool. Good for them.
Don:So victory for morality. What do you think?
Ron:I don't know. It all shook out a lot uglier than I kind of thought it would. Everybody leaves in pain. Yeah, I kind of thought it would. Everybody leaves in pain. Yeah, it's not fun when you bring the law in and have to start questioning the personhood of children born legitimately or otherwise I want to know.
Doug:I want to go back to Charlie sitting with the dollar in a hotel. Yeah, and it's like was he doing it? And every time somebody reached down from the dollar was he saying in his head there's another son of a gun, reach for the dollar. Aren't they all Like? It seems a lot darker. That's exactly what it is.
Ron:It is a I think trolls troll because they want to feel a sense of superiority.
Doug:Yeah.
Ron:And you can rationally be like there is no superiority in having made someone contemplate picking up a $20 bill or whatever. But I think they would argue it shows I have power. I influenced or manipulated someone in some way to do a thing. I controlled their emotions. That gives me a sense of power, and it's ultimately a very fickle and kind of useless sense of power because, like, this is something we do every day. Right, we influence people's emotions every day, usually in positive ways.
Ron:Right, we try to have a positive influence on the people in our life and make them happier, make them more content, whatever, and so, then, to be like, well, I can do the opposite, probably means you're struggling to do the first right. You probably struggle at improving people's lives in positive ways. It's very easy, and there there is no skill check to uh, that requires you to like do the opposite of improve someone's day, right.
Doug:And now I'm starting to, of course, fill in blanks that I don't really have any right to. But is it a coincidence that he doesn't have anybody close to him? You know, like maybe it's not that shocking all of a sudden, but like of course you don't have people you don't want to leave this to. And again, I know I'm filling in who this person was without really knowing him. But yeah, I wonder if we were a little bit rough around the edges with even with all of that success Cause. But I think my personal view goes in of knowing, like the people who in quotes, have everything but they have nothing. You know, cause he's a very successful guy. But yeah, it does change the narrative a bit when you think of everybody walking out of that courtroom.
Don:Should we do it again?
Doug:Well, first I have to ask Nikki, and then we'll see what we can do. If Doug's in, I'm in.
Ron:Can't let him get away with winning. No Thank you? No, I don't know, it doesn doesn't sound fun, maybe at the time it's.
Don:I don't like people, so yeah yeah, let's watch fewer people the better.
Ron:Yeah, yeah I don't know. Maybe, like like you said earlier, maybe I'm approaching it with 2025 eyes right, and at the time it was a fun, you know, like family was important and people were having, on average, larger families, so maybe it didn't bend the needle for that many people Right. Maybe they didn't really behave in a way that was that extreme from what they were already going to have done.
Don:Speaking of fun, I forgot to tell you that what happened to one of Mrs Kenny's children was that it was bitten by a rat and died. That is fun don, yeah, well, I mean ron was bringing up how much fun it was for people to be participating in the game.
Ron:Just wanted to I don't mean it was fun for the participants, but I mean like maybe there was fun for the dead guy thought it was fun, right, or maybe? Maybe him dying thought it would be fun. This would be a fun thing for Toronto. It'll put Toronto on the map.
Doug:I don't know, like maybe that is literally his Maybe capital of the world.
Ron:And maybe that's just a 1926 man's worldview. Like it wasn't informed by any real, like you said, understanding of what that would do to these women or those families, or to be a child who was born under such a circumstance, or blah blah blah so. I don't know. So no, I don't think we should do it today.
Doug:Again, I'll let you know what my wife says, but in the meantime, no, I don't think that good things came out of that. I think about, you know these, I'm thinking about everything that he put into his will and you think about, like, the larger consequences there, whether it's the person because there's a certain amount of admiration that I have of putting your literally like, where your money, where your mouth is like in terms of like, do you actually believe these things? That I don't necessarily think is a bad thing to test. It's just too bad that people couldn't figure it out. You know, like, when humanity doesn't serve itself right, because it's like they do get too greedy, you go, ah, damn.
Doug:I thought we might get one good story out of it, you know, necessarily. So there's another part of me that's like no people should be able to do what they want, you know, and even if it does have the consequences that it does because human beings should be better it's just too bad when they're not yeah, and also, if we are calling the, the participants in the game, greedy, or if we're, or something right, it doesn't mean all humans are greedy, right?
Ron:I think we sometimes make the mistake of being like oh, some bad apples prove that humans are rotten, rotten species, but it's like you know, for every one person to join the competition.
Don:There was, however, many who said hell, no, like yeah, I'm not joking, and I have to, I have to say, because I already hinted but all of the families that participated seem to be strong, caring families like it didn't seem like anybody is just recklessly trying to win the race. They, they wanted large families. They, they profess the race, they wanted large families. They professed they wanted large families. They had large families before the race even started. So the mayor of Toronto when the Derby began, a guy named Thomas Foster he was the mayor from 1925 to 1927.
Don:So he was not the mayor when the race ended, but gosh, he said this was such a fun thing. Uh, he died in uh in 1945 and uh, he decided that uh, toronto should have another historic derby, oh god. And matter of fact, he in his will, set up a contest that began on a rotating schedule so same same rules, 10 years to have the most babies possible. First place is a $1,250 prize, second place had $800, uh 450 for third place. And there was a contest that began in 1945, 1948, 1951 and 1954.
Doug:What's the overall record?
Don:So I don't know. I couldn't find results on that one. It seems like like that one wasn. It seems like that one didn't capture the imagination of the public.
Ron:It's not $12 million. Yeah, and being the second guy to do it, you lose some charm.
Doug:Sure do. It's like oh, you're just copycat dweeb. Mayor and to completely ruin the Saw franchise. Guess what happens? Jigsaw dies. What? Somebody takes over the mantle and says he was doing good work. Yep, Yep. So now we know this is the origins of the Saw franchise. That's what I got out of this today.
Ron:I think you paired those. You demonstrated some strong parallels, wow.
Doug:You really jump into some conclusions there, but I appreciate your optimism, Ron. Now please give me your Warhammer Army.
Don:So one of the winners, mrs Tim Lick, just a few years ago in 2015, a newspaper tracked down a descendant of the Tim Licks and found a guy still living in Toronto who pointed out so she had a family of 17 children, so only nine counted in the in the race, but she had had children from before and after, and the guy they tracked down in 2015 said he has more than 100 first cousins.
Ron:Yeah, yeah, this would be like. This would really shape like a couple of generations, right.
Doug:Yeah, thanksgiving is going to be wild.
Ron:Maybe that was Charlie's real gift.
Don:That's the thing. Charlie had no children, yeah, and so a dead lawyer gives birth to literally hundreds of children.
Doug:Yeah. Way to leave the legs. He should be revered.
Ron:Does he have some sort of edifice in Toronto somewhere?
Don:He does not, but Thomas Foster does.
Ron:Okay, so Thomas.
Don:Foster, the second Stork Derby guy, actually has like a little mausoleum that kind of looks like the Taj Mahal.
Doug:And if you ever watched Charlie Brown, that was about his life.
Ron:Charlie Brown also never had children.
Don:Not yet he's just a kid.
Doug:Sorry, charles Schultz, that was completely wrong.
Don:Well, thanks guys for for a good conversation.
Ron:Thank you for bringing that. I had no idea, don. Any of this exists. Anything can be a game. Anything can be a game. You're right.
Doug:You asked us what our strangest games were and I'm realizing we need to push it up. Like they were, they did not hold a hold a flame, and I didn't realize that recently becoming a father is a game, but I guess it is yeah, it's a game and you need to win.
Ron:If you don't, your whole family loses.
Doug:Thanks for the encouragement bud.
Don:Thanks guys.
Ron:Bye, thank you.
