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Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to

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you by Pizza man Productions .

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Hello Scott , let

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me just begin by saying I've

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always been really terrible

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at Valentine's Day . My

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wife , anjanette , loves all

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holidays . She treats them all

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like huge celebrations . She treats

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them all like huge celebrations

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and

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I have always just felt a tremendous amount of pressure on Valentine's Day to

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try and come up with something that was meaningful or that would

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seem sincere or whatever

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, and I always feel

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like a dismal failure . And I I

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think that now , you know

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, 32 years in with my wife

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, um , through

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a series of unintentional , just

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utter failures , I think

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I've set the bar pretty low . So there's really not much

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expectation anymore . But back

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in 1997

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, we had only been married for like four years

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, and so I was still trying to prove

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that I could be the romantic

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that I I hoped I would be

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and all that stuff . And so

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anyway , for those

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who don't remember , 1997 was also

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the year that the movie Titanic

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came out , and all the trailers

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and all the push for that movie had

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shown it to be this epic

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love story and I thought thought

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, ok , this is it , let's do this

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. I made reservations at a restaurant

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we were going to go to Tulsa , which is about

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, you know , 45 minutes away , or

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an hour away at the time because of the speed

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limit had not changed on the highway yet . And

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so I made all the arrangements

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, got a reservation for a restaurant , planned out the tickets

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and all that kind of stuff , and we

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of course left town late and

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so I managed to get a speeding ticket

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on the way to the restaurant

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reservation and

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that was about $100 even back then

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and , yeah

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, rushed through the

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meal and dinner

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and all that to make sure that we got to the theater

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on time because we knew it would be jam-packed

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, because the movie was exploding

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and every time every showing was just

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full . And so

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we finally get to the theater and

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as we walk in

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I

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just noticed I started seeing a lot of familiar

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faces . And , to

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make it worse , the familiar faces that

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I was seeing were all kids

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from the youth group at the

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church that we were going

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to , and so they had all

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. I mean , the movie was huge and they all knew that it

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was going to be a big deal , and so we

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got seated and tried

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to sit away from all the youth group kids that

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we knew in the room . And then

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hopefully there's no spoiler

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here , but as the movie goes on , there's

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also a pretty tremendous

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love scene

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with full on nudity

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and all that . So yeah

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, you can imagine just sitting in a theater next

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to kids from your youth group and just

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boobs being on a giant screen

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, and it was just a whole lot

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. And then three

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hours later the boat sinks

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and finally

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, mercifully , the credits

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rolled and all

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the romance had left the air in

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the theater and it was just

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tragic . And then I just thought to myself

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well

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, what was I expecting ? It's Titanic

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. You know the ending . They're

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not rewriting it . It

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doesn't all of a sudden reach New York and everybody has a

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great day . It's going to sink

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and much

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like my Valentine did . So anyway

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, I have

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a long history of bad Valentines

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, but that's probably the worst . So

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a speeding ticket , nudity

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in front of the youth group and a sinking

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ship , and then

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at least an hour drive home after

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all that , and that was the

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Valentine day of 1997

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.

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That was Jay Webster . He's been on the podcast

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before he wrote the book . You don't have to

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read this . He's been on the podcast before

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he wrote the book . You don't have to read this . He's

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a great storyteller , has an article in the Bartlesville

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magazine once a month , and

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yeah , so I asked him to share a Valentine's Day story because I knew

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he would have one , and

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so I really appreciate that , jay . And don't worry about giving away the ending

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at the end of titanic . I think we all know what happened . But yeah

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, that's hilarious . Uh , nudity , youth

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group , a ticket

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and a

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three-hour movie , that's

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yeah . By

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the time you walk out of the movie , people are bawling

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. We went to go see Titanic . There

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was one person in that theater

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that was inconsolable

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. Anyway

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, they were just boohooing . The

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whole mood in that theater was just ravaged

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. It's

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sad and horrified

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and a sense of loss

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and tragedy , but

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it's a good movie and that's what it was intended

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to do . So , james Cameron , good job

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. But yeah , it's probably

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not the best movie to go to on Valentine's Day

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. It is if you stop in the middle

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of it , but if you go all the way to the

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end , man , you are in

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for a ride as

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far as Valentine's Day goes , I

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don't like Valentine's

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Day or any other holiday where I have to

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perform . What

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I mean by that is there's this expectation

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that corporations

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Hallmark and chocolate companies

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and candy companies have

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conjured up and just promoted

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and scaled over

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the years . The

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expectation is that you need to

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perform , you need to get in on this , you

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need to get the candy for Halloween

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, you need to get the cards and candy and

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dinner reservations

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, and so you go to a dinner reservation

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on Valentine's Day , which is the

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worst day to go out to eat because

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everybody else is doing the same thing

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, so there's

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no enjoyment there . If you ask anybody

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in the restaurant business if they enjoy working

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on Valentine's Day or what

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was the other one ? There was another holiday . That's just

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murder . Anyway

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, I know Valentine's Day , but Easter

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I think it is . It's

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tough man People . You're

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turning those tables and you're working hard

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on valentine's day

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. There's a lot of pent-up

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, emotion and stress and it's

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not my idea of a good time . So we don't go out to

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eat because , unless you went

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in on all of that , it's

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probably best to stay away . So if the whole crowd's

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going this way , I like to go this way . If

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they're going . All right , I want to go left , because that means I have

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to deal with less people

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, less crowds , less

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stress . So

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generally , on holidays

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I'm

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all for doing something else , or

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if not , if nothing at all , that's

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not to say I'm not about promoting

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love and my relationship for

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and with my wife . Uh

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, I heard a uh

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story about

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Jack Benny , the old-time

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radio comedian , something

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that he did after he died for his wife

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, mary Livingston , and

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when I heard this I was like , wow

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, that is really great . That is so

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intentional , so purposeful and

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anyway . So just take a listen to

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it and we'll come right back .

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And his final appearance on television that's

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this photograph was in 1974

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in a television special , and that

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was the year he died , 1974 . Mary

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Livingston died nine years later

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, in 1983 . And

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here is the capper to their lifelong

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love story and marriage of almost 50 years

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. After Jack Benny's death

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, a florist delivered

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one long-stemmed red

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rose to Mary Every

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day For the rest of

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her life . In Mary Livingston's

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words I learned that

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Jack actually had included a provision

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in his will that one

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red stem , the red rose , would be delivered to

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me every day for the rest of my life .

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So , yeah , that was . That's just

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so awesome . And I

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, when I heard that and

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I decided that I

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want to do something like that

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. I can't afford to send a rose every day

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for

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a very long time , if

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even just a short time , but

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I could do a rose a week

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. So I arranged

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for our florist to deliver

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a long-stemmed red rose to

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my wife , either here at the house or at the

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school where she works , and I've been

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doing that for several years now and

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it's a

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I love doing that . She

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has not tired of getting

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the rose on Fridays

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. Her

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friends all ooh and ah every time

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she gets one . They all know she's going to get one next

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Friday , but they still act like it's the first time

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they've ever seen someone do something like that . So

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we do Valentine's all

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year . We

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do Valentine's all year Once

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a week , just a good little

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reminder , and

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that works for

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us . So on Valentine's Day everybody

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else is freaking out and getting cards and candy

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and doing what everybody else is doing

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, not because they love their

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wife or husband or significant

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other partner , it's because there's this

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expectation and

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then the other party gets mad

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if they don't get something . You

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know . So blah , blah , blah . So

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we just do our own thing , but we do it every

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week for 50

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, 52 weeks in the year and

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we like it that way . So

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there's my Valentine's Day story , and

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I hope you have a good Valentine's Day , whether

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you're going out to eat or you've carved out

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a tradition for yourself

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. Forget the masses

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, forget the crowd , do your thing . Do

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you Celebrate

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Valentine's in August ? And why

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do it once a year ? Well , it's because you

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know corporate America wants

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you to spend that money , baby . So

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actually

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I do better than that . I spend

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it all year . That's it Valentine's

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. Happy Valentine's Day . I hope you love

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the show . Speaking of love

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, if you do like the show

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, let me know . Scott at ScottTownsendinfo

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. Leave a review , write a comment

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, ask me a question . If you have

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a question , I really

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appreciate the fans that we have and would

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love to interact with you fans that we have and would love to interact

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with you . And if there's

12:13

something that you need to know or have a question

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about something I've said or a

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guest has said , I'd

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love to hear from you and answer

12:24

that question . You guys have a

12:26

great . I really appreciate you guys and

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appreciate the fans that we

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have , our small

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little fan base of

12:34

family , and friends and a few strangers

12:37

out there not strangers . You're

12:39

fans of the scott townsend show , so you're

12:41

not a stranger . Um

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, tell friends about it , share

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it like it , subscribe . You

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got the . You know the . You know the drill . So anyway

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, for valentine's day , this

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is scott townsend . Have a great day

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, everything's gonna be all right

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and we'll talk to you later

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the scott townsend show is

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a deets o man production .

13:03

For more episodes , visit the scott townsend

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show youtube channel , listen on apple podcasts

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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

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.