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Barbara Baird

Researcher

Oct 24, 2026

1:10
What is it and how exactly does it work?
1:14
Well, a long time ago, this goes back.
1:16
Oh, ancient, ancient times, Egyptians.
1:19
I mean, people in the mid the Mideast were using this the system for finding water.
1:26
a long long time ago and they would uh and then throughout the years people would use of course they didn't have coat hangers so they would use peach or witch hazel forked forked branches so to use it you know they would hold the fork part back or the the metal rods you hold it back um like 90 degrees from your elbows and your elbows into your body and then the straight part of course is in front of you so you're holding on the to the two pieces of the forked end of it or you're holding the two rods.
1:56
So did I answer your question?
1:58
So that's to find water underground?
2:01
Water or, well, anything.
8:15
World's
8:17
largest rocking chair on Route 66.
8:19
It used to be the world's largest rocking chair.
8:22
But again, your home state of Illinois factors into this story because there was one over there in Casey.
8:31
I don't remember where it was in Illinois.
8:33
But anyway, it was...
8:35
It was large, and then the one in Missouri, which is in Fanning, which is like a little unincorporated community near Cuba off of I-44.
12:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:29
I don't want to get off the track here because we're talking about Route 66 history with Barbara Baird, the accidental Ozarkian, the Munger Moss Hotel.
3:39
Oh, yes.
3:40
Isn't that an interesting place? And, you know, that sign, iconic, neon, beautiful, just refurbished.
3:46
And it stood in front and still does of the Mungermoss Motel, which has been there since, well, 1946.
3:53
It was the Chicken Shanty Cafe.
3:55
And then the next year it turned into the Mungermoss Motel.
3:59
And recently, just a few years ago, it was given over to the city after the last owner of it had passed away.
5:31
What is that?

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