Johnny Kincaid takes you back to the golden days of Evansville's summer festivals — from Mike Harvey's legendary Sock Hops (and a losing basketball bet that landed Johnny in Mickey Mouse ears) to the rise of Shriners Fest after the Freedom Festival came to an end.

The centerpiece of this episode: Johnny's unforgettable encounter with Orestes Lorenzo Perez, a Cuban Air Force major who defected to the U.S. by flying a stolen MiG at wave-top altitude — and later staged a daring solo mission back into Cuba to rescue his family from a public road. Perez then offers Johnny something no flight suit was built to handle: a ride in that very MiG.

Squeezed into a jumpsuit several sizes too small, Johnny takes to the skies over Posey County for rolls, inverted flying, and a serious Top Gun identity crisis — only to land and realize his phone died before he could capture any of it. A very corporate lecture followed.

Johnny closes with a reflection on Evansville's festivals — Freedom Festival, Shriners Fest, the air shows lost to COVID — and whether communities ever get these gathering points back once they fade.

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Chapters

00:00 — Introduction: Still Crazy After All These Years
00:36 — Mike Harvey, Sock Hops, and a Basketball Bet Gone Wrong
03:17 — From Freedom Festival to Shriners Fest
03:50 — Meeting the Potentate and Planning the Air Show
05:00 — Broadcasting Live from the Airshow
05:27 — Orestes Lorenzo Perez: Defecting with a Stolen MiG
06:50 — The Rescue Mission: Landing a Cessna on a Cuban Road
08:00 — "Would You Like to Go for a flight?"
08:30 — Squeezing Into the Flight Suit
09:56 — Airborne Over Posey County: Rolls and Inverted Flying
11:26 — No Video, No Pictures, and a Lecture from the Station Manager
12:56 — The End of the Air Shows and the Shrinking Festival
14:09 — Closing Reflection: Do Communities Get These Moments Back?Memories