Dave Grohl's Heart of Gold, the Buc-ee's Gingerbread House, and the blonde raccoon

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Santa's getting closed. So hope you haven't been naughty. If you've been naughty, you're listening to the wrong show. Because Hi, I'm Johnny Mack with five Good News Stories. Do you know what a BUCkies is? You're either like, yeah, of course I know what a BUCkies is, or you're from Queens, New York City and you're like, I've never heard of that. I hadn't heard of it until it came up on the other podcast I host Daily Comedy News. Anyway, It's a big store down south that sells everything, and Deanna and Paul thought the BUCkies in a town in Texas would be the perfect model for their annual gingerbread creation. They even include people pumping their gas. They were celebrating National Gingerbread House Day and they wanted to celebrate the BUCkies. That's about an hour from their house, a place they say they always stop at. The kind of gets our vacation started. Gingerbread BUCkies comes with cars, electric charging stations, gas pumps, printed photograph of Deanna's co workers, and various poses around the store. She said, we purchased all the vehicles, got all the candy, and tried to make it happen. The people that made up the village are depicted completing other tasks like changing a tire, charging their tesla, giving their dog a chance to stretch their legs. I think that's code. If you actually look through the windows, you can see people inside walking around. They are the gas pumps. People are getting gas and fixing their luggage. Let me catch the northerners up. USA Today wrote what's so great about BUCkies? They wrote, BUCkies maybe as big as a football field, all with bathrooms, maybe cleaner than yours at the house, and they're popping up all across America.

1:34 There's more to BUCkies than buying gasoline, sandwiches, brisket, beaver nuggets, fudge, beef jerky, or t shirts, beaver nuggets the case you're curious, or puffed corn with special coating. The mascot Bucky the Beaver, named after the owner's beloved dog Buck. The USA Today has some tips. Is Bucky's a truck stop? No, how do you pronounce BUCkies? The correct pronunciation is buck ease. Saying buck you c's will mark you as an outsider. FedEx is hooking up some military families with trees for troops. They're delivering nearly sixteen thousand Christmas trees this December to family is at over ninety military bases across the US. They've partnered with the Christmas Spirit Foundation. Tree number three hundred thousand was delivered during a special celebration at Fort Liberty in North Carolina.

2:19 Wendy Richardson is the chair of the Christmas Spirit Foundation and said the program started on a crazy idea and started small. We delivered forty three hundred trees to only five bases that first year. It's hard to believe we're now going to exceed three hundred thousand total trees since we began working with FedEx nineteen years ago. Nice job by Dave Grohl. You know him from Food Fighters. In between his bands tour dates in Australia, Grole spent a day off in Melbourne volunteering for the Big Umbrella Foundation, a food rescued charity that helps feed unhoused and food insecure individuals. The charity said Dave Girl spent eighteen hours preparing and lovingly smoking forty four pounds of pork ribs, pork butt and beef brisket. USA Today says she brings him food, he brings her joy. No, it's not her boyfriend, it's a blonde raccoon. Crystal has at least nine bird feeders that often attract blue jays, cardinals, goldfinches, and even woodpeckers.

3:08 I had my dog out in the yard the other day and I left out some food for the dog and boy. The blue jays were loving the dog food. Anyway, Crystal got a surprise visitor on her security camera. It was a blonde raccoon that does not have the distinctive black mask that most raccoons have. Crystal did some research and learned all about blonde raccoons, which are quite rare. She believes the raccoon is a boy and has named him Blondie. So now she started feeding Blondie the raccoon, and she's even recorded Blondie interacting with the gray raccoons that also hang out in the yard. She says it's fun to watch. There's a pecking order with the gray ones and also with the blonde one. If the gray ones are there and the blonde one comes, the gray ones scatter. Interesting. She says she's now known around town. I went into Verizon after one of the news stories ran They said, Hey, that's the raccoon lady. A military dad is considered the prankster of his family. While he tried to surprise his wife and three kids by returning home. He had been in Kuwait for nine months. He couldn't wait to see the expression on the faces of his family. He showed up at the house and he said everything was going wrong until the very last moment.

4:11 His right of the airport was delayed. The plane was then downsized. He had to catch a later flight. Series of connections, try to rent a car. They would accept his debit card. His friend picked him up. He got home, his family wasn't there. They were visiting relatives three hours away. Oof. Then he got another surprise when he walked through his front door. His wife had installed security cameras, and he was like, all right, how am I going to do this? Now? I can't turn on any lights and I can't watch TV because anywhere I'll go the security camera would be looking. He didn't want to give up on this prize. He found a spot in the house where he wouldn't be seen. He sat in the dark for five hours. His wife came home and said, I was really, really in shock. I guess that would be the best way to explain it. I was completely in shock. I screamed Iran, I cried, Yeah, she's got security cameras, dude, and you exposed the blind spot. I suggest you have your security system tweetd but welcome home and thank you for your service. Those are your five good news stories for today.

5:00 Astor will do a Christmas version tomorrow and I'll be back on Wednesday. You have a great day.