The Romance of Niagra Falls Expertease

Podcast guest, Clare Sera, we invited some Canadians and Americans to the show tonight. And since you are the acknowledged expert in Niagara Falls, I thought we could probe your area. Pardon? Of... Expertise! Spelled wrong? Naturally. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer Clare Sera and expert comedy writer Danno Sullivan bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, podcast listeners who love to get their knowledge in podcast form, welcome to the Expertise Knowledge Podcast.

I'm your host, Danno Sullivan, and my special guest today is Niagara Falls expert, Clare Sera. Welcome. I am so happy to be here in the honeymoon period of your podcast. Niagara Falls is known as the honeymoon capital of North America, the Paris of the American-Canadian border, the Eiffel Tower of water. What makes it so popular with the lovebirds? Oh, Danno, so many things. I think most among them is the metaphor. Marriage is much like getting in a barrel and leaping over the edge. Yes, yes. Falling to your demise is the way I think of it. Absolutely. Crashing and landing wet.

Personally, I did both. I was married and went over the falls in a barrel on the same day, if you can believe that. I think that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. I can't believe your wife stayed with you. She didn't. I lost her. Okay, I see. So you went over the falls together in one barrel thinking it would be a romantic dream come true. And really, there need to be some warning signs up there. First, a barrel is made of wood. Yeah. You think, okay, sure, a wooden hollow vessel is going to float, but it also gets smashed to smithereens. Yeah. Let me guess, you were saved by the voluminous folds of her wedding gown where she was dragged down to the briny deep.

Wow, Claire, it's like you've gone through my wedding photo album. I actually did, Danno. I hope you don't mind. I always have people send me the host's wedding photo album before I come on as a guest. I wondered about that, but now it makes complete sense. Yeah. You want to go through a few pages together? Yeah, I mean, page two is especially disturbing. Well, this is Cheryl and I when we first met. And you can see her there with mud caked on her face because even then she was not good at going over falls. No, and neither of you just, you don't have that spark of intelligence about you.

You can see in these pictures. We were farm folk, Claire. We were not raised to be intelligent. We were raised to fall over things, basically. Right. You know, a lot of times you just need a counterweight at the end of a rope and Pappy would just shove you off a height. Right. And you just needed to provide some leverage to whatever was there. Well, and little did she know that she was going to be the living counterweight of your fall over Niagara. I see page five, six, and seven are just you in various showers together wearing barrels. We didn't realize at the time that we were piecing together this wonderful romance, this really beautiful, special, unusual kind of romance.

And the barrels you'd think were kind of a premonition of things to come going over Niagara in a barrel. But in fact, it was really all that we could afford to wear at that time. There's a lot of pictures of her sort of like looks like just after she's fallen. Well, you can't see in these pictures, but she only had one leg, Claire. That's what it is. It was a Thrasher Combine incident when she was just seven. And that was her apparently one good eye. Yeah. A lot of peripheral problems for that young woman. Well, you know, it was the sweetest thing. And this is why I loved her so, I think, was she was off kilter, but she was on balance.

So, you know, she lost her left foot, but she lost her right eye. So, by squinching and hopping, she was able to maintain just a straight path in one direction. To her, it was not a handicap. Right, right, right. She never swerved to the left or right in any sort of way. I can see the true nature of it. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for your loss. And I'm sorry that Niagara was any part of that. I'm sure that you signed forms that we provide for any honeymoon couple coming towards. These falls are raging powerhouses. Yeah, we sure learned that. Now, Claire, so many people think of Niagara Falls from the American perspective.

But there's just as much fall on the Canadian side. For those of us who don't have a passport, what are we missing? What's over there? Just recently, the tunnel beneath the falls was opened to the public. It has been decorated with mosaics and tile work that, honestly, I think they should charge folks to walk through that tunnel. Oh, free to walk through. It's free to walk through once you have paid to come to the area of Niagara Falls and then paid to come to the lower area of Niagara Falls and then paid to be a walker. Now, does that seem right to you to be charging humans who are animals of this world money to take part in a natural splendor like Niagara Falls?

Well, I understand you bringing up that controversy. But Dano, if folks weren't paying for the upkeep of the things that you get when you arrive at the falls, you get a little plastic bridal veil. You get a lollipop that says, welcome to Niagara Falls. Can I ask a question real quick? Because, you know, we're farm folk and never much on learning, really. Right. I know from you that the sign said bridal veil. But I think we were given a piece of bridal veal. Does that seem like an honest mistake or are they making fun of the farm folk? You know, Canadians have a real ironic sense of humor.

And it's true. Sometimes you'll get a horse's bridal with a veil. Sometimes you'll get a bridal piece of veal. Sometimes you'll get actually groomed instead of being given a groom to marry. Like a lot of people come to the falls to get married, not having a partner. And we will provide the partner. I mean, that's part of what the charge is. You know, I mean, that's why we do need to apply some cost to what we're providing. That seems very fair. Husbands, wives, a free ride on the rainbow boat. And there was no charge for that veal. And I have to say, after I lost Cheryl that day, it was comforting, you know, to have something to remember her by.

I still have that here wrapped up in a tupperware. See, that does my heart good to know that some of the things we've implemented are having the effect that what we desire is when people come to the falls is for them to feel the rush of new love. Not just the hydroelectric power, but the love in power of rushing water, of raging foam, all the things that people experience on their honeymoon. Well, I wish you could take a whiff of this veal. The point is that we are really trying to help the marriage rate in our current culture. You know, we're trying to help couples stay together.

Do you have to know each other? Do you have to agree? No, but do you know, you do have to have power. You have to have the power, the willpower. And where else are you going to get that kind of power but at Niagara Falls? That is going to power you through a nightmare of a relationship for 30, 40, 50 years. And that's our guarantee. We just want to be hitching couples and tossing them over the falls. You just make it sound wonderful, you know. I know it's beautiful, but it also sounds like it represents a wonderful way of life. Also, you get a plushie heart on your way out, you know, a red plushie heart.

Boy, oh boy, I may be looking for another bride myself the way you're making it sound. We also, we do have t-shirts if you get the big package, you know, I fell for, and then we'll put in the name of your spouse at Niagara Falls. It really is kind of a home for lovers and a home for daredevils. Well, love is a daring adventure to take, Dano. That's what I was about to dare say. You'll do better if you're a devil, if you know what I'm saying. Claire, you are putting the cart before the horse. And honestly, I'd like to see that go over the falls. Well, I will tell you too, and your listeners, for one month out of the year, we do a anything over the falls.

So folks that are just looking to get rid of some junk or some whatever it is that they need. It's like for one month, anything over the falls, we call it for a set price. So that's like for a basement clear out. Yeah. Kids going off to college. That's it. So for anything over the falls, Claire, that must collect at the bottom. I can only imagine the discounts available to anyone willing to go down and rummage through all the junk that's come down. So February is anything over the falls month. And then March is scuba-doo, where we allow people to go treasure hunting.

One man's junk over a fall is another man's treasure under a fall. It sounds like you've created a really self-sustaining ecosystem that serves people at all levels of society, Claire. Good on you, as the Canadians say. Thanks. Thanks, mate. We are on just our last minute of the podcast here. I just wanted to ask, if I brought up that Tupperware veal that I was given 15 years ago on my honeymoon, would that be eligible for anything over the falls day? Oh, absolutely. Folks that have had a legitimate breakup of a marriage that took place over our falls, and yours certainly does sound legitimate.

You'd get a second go around, you know, with at least a 10% discount if you want the cattle prod and the t-shirt. So bring down that Tupperware veal. Let's get you going again. 15 years has been too long since you've experienced the Niagara rush of love in your life. Expert Claire Sarah, you have brought not only knowledge, but a little bit of compassion and a wealth of understanding to our podcast today. Thanks for being our guest. Thank you. See you at the falls. Funnypodcast.com and follow us in your favorite podcast app like the expert podcast listener we know you are.

You know, it was a farm family. We did lots of things in barrels.