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That's greenlight.com/slash iHeart. Welcome to the W, where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw-dropping defense, and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non-stop action and world-class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The biggest stars, the brightest age.
ATT WNBA All-Star 2025 comes to Indianapolis July 18th through 19th. Tune into the game July 19th at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC. Homes.com has collaboration tools to help home shoppers search, share, and discuss home shopping with family, friends, and their agent directly through the site. Though it was fun to get that email from your husband about that three-bedroom in the hills, to which you replied via text that you would never live in the hills and you'd like to find a three-bedroom closer to the beach.
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For Richard Larimore of Diamond Missouri, that saying rings especially true. what started as a favor for a brother in law morphed into something much, much bigger. the world's largest small electric appliance museum. Here's Richard. With the story.
Well, it was, I thought in my mind back then it was The Last Frontier. My brother-in-law in California was collecting old. Black fans, you've seen those black ugly fans.
Well, he called me up one day and said, Richard, he said, you know, you're out there in Missouri. Why don't you start looking for these fans for me? I said, okay.
So we like to travel because I don't drink or drive or smoke any of that kind of stuff.
So we started looking and I got interested in the fans. I had about a hundred of them. But then again you see one black fan, you see them all. And they were getting harder and harder to find, and when they were, they were double what you started out paying.
So I called in us. brother-in-law and I asked him where I said denos I said when you're traveling and you can't find your fan, what do you collect? Electric toasters. I said, what? Electric toasters.
And I didn't realize he was trying to corner the market on the newer version toaster you pull down and it toasts and it pops up. He thought he could buy them all up and make lots of money.
Well, he found out he couldn't. But I started Looking for, I didn't know what he was like, but I seen a toaster, I seen it all, and I. Bought it. And then I really made a mistake. I bought a book on toasters.
They make porcelain toasters? Holy cow, I gotta find one of those. We drove the wheels off of the car looking for a porcelain toaster.
Now I've got a big collection of them. But that's kind of how I got started on the toasters and then Holy cow, look at this.
Well here's a coffee pot, it's same brand and it looks got the same markings as a toaster so I bought that. I thought that'd be nice to display them together. And then pretty soon. My brain went crazy if it was small and electric and I didn't have it. I had to have it.
So I started buying it all. And that was in a big mistake. If I had to do it all over again, it costs so much, people don't realize what it costs to run a museum like this. If I paid you a dollar a piece to clean those toasters, it would cost me. I got about $8,000, so that'd be $8,000.
And you can't harp nobody wants to work anymore. They can't So you can't hire them. I've cleaned those. I'll bet you I've... Three times I've completely cleaned everything in there and But anyway, that's basically how I got started.
But I started in my basement. You couldn't walk down there. You'd have to watch it. Don't step on this one, move around here. And then have you heard of gathering of the artists they have in in Neosho.
Well, Lowell Davis and Bob Tommy and a bunch of them got together, and every year they would have a Show and they would show their paintings and so forth, and they would sell it. One day I went there to see their artwork and talked to them, and I said, Hey, I said, What are you guys doing Friday night? Because I knew they. in town from Texas and all over the country. And Martha Spurlock, super, super good artist.
I said, Martha, I said, what are you guys doing? Friday night. She says, Well, I don't know. Far as I know, nothing. I said, How would you like to come out to the house and see my collection of electric appliances?
I said, we can have coffee and whatever my wife wants to bake or cook. She said, okay.
So sure enough, that night they all come up. to the house and They came in and we talk little breasts. Come on down the basement, I'll show you my appliances. Anyway, we went down, we looked at it, and I could see they were interested pretty good to begin with. But you can tell when people get tired and they say, well, So I says, hey, come on, let's go upstairs.
I think Janice has probably got coffee and. and a cake or something ready for us. It's okay. And all the other people went upstairs, and I just made one step on the stairway. Doug grabbed me.
Richard, I got something to... Say to you. That's it. I was trying to think what said what, Doug?
So I stepped back and we got to talking. And if I I shouldn't say what he said, but You'll get the drift of it. Or can I say what he said? He said, You know, when you invited us out to see this collection, he said, I told everybody. What a bunch of BS.
What a waste of a good evening. Come out and see this. Crap. I said, oh. But he says, man, he says.
Am I impressed? He says, I can't believe this clicking you've got down here. He said, This is oh, you've got the prettiest appliances I've seen in a long time. But He says, I got another problem. And I said, oh, now what, Doug?
He says, you know what's wrong with this? I said, what? He said, As nice a collection as you've got. It's a crime that only a very few people can see it. You need to have it where everybody can see it because he said, Man, I've never seen any of this.
He said, I've been all over the United States. And he says, This is Absolutely fantastic. When we walked upstairs, you know, I got thinking, you know, he's right. Because I only show people that's my friends and so forth, seen it, so I thought.
Well, how could I do this?
So, more people could see it.
Well, I had the Western store, and I thought I could add on to the Western store, and I could have a museum. And you're listening to one unique American voice, Richard Larimoy's voice. His story, the world's largest small electrical appliance museum, is his achievement. More of his story here on Our American Stories. Um Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories.
Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country. Stories from our big cities and small towns, but we truly can't do this show without you. If you love what you hear, go to ouramericanstories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Go to ouramericanstories.com and give.
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Eastern Time on ABC. And we return to Our American Stories and Richard Larimore, the founder and curator of the world's largest small electric appliance museum in Diamond, Missouri. When we last left off, Richard was telling us about how what started in his basement morphed into a full-fledged museum. Let's continue with the story here again. is Richard Larimore.
Thanks. Everything I've got back there, 99%, I might have one or two things. It's all U.S. products. Back then, We had manufacturers, we don't have them anymore.
And another funny thing, and you probably didn't think of this. They never had computers. They never had smart cell phones. Everything come from their head. How am I going to do this?
I need to make a toaster and I can't make it like the ones that's already there, so I've got to change it because they had about a dollar a patent fee or something, so they'd change it. These inventors kept coming out with new New products because the people never had those before.
So, boom, that's brand new. I gotta have that. They might not have never used it, but it's different. Do you There's percher toasters, you just put it in, it sets on the top and it cooks. You got floppers that flop the toast over, you got swingers that swing around.
And the manufacturers, I think, this is my own personal feeling. If that Toaster could do more than one thing and you can have two different type of people. They might need this, they could buy it for that, or they could have a toaster. I would love to talk to some of those inventors, and some of the stuff they invented was so stupid. and dumb but I'm glad they did because I love talking about stupid and dumb stuff.
Well, somewhere I've got a toaster. That is also A heater. Can you have you yeah, your heaters get all the dirt and the crud. Can you imagine having a toaster? Like I say, it's dumb, but I'm glad they did.
It gives me, I love to talk about the stuff that's so different. I've got one back there, one of a kind. I've got a lot. I've probably got 40 or more one-of-a-kind toasters, coffee pots. I've got a waffle iron.
They had the old drive-in movies.
Well, they turned it into a flea market on weekends, and I went there and I've seen this. Waffle iron. And I thought, boy, that sucker is brand new. I don't want to buy that. I want old stuff.
Well, I kept thinking about it and I thought, you know, that was in mint condition. I gotta buy it.
So I bought it and it came in its original box, which was nothing. It was just a plain cardboard box. Brought it home and had a guy come through the museum once and he says, Oh, he says, I see you got a rare. Waffle iron. I said, I have.
He said, yeah, that one right there. I says, you've got to be joking. No, he says, that's a rare one. I said, how come? Then he told me the story.
It was made out of. part aluminum. And when you plugged it in, And it heated up. If you forgot to turn it off, it would completely melt, fall apart, or it would start a fire. Mm-hmm.
So they quit manufacturing it. You're not going to plug it in if it's going to start fire or forget about it. And that's another thing with the old appliances. When they made, if they had the same kind of laws. Back then, as they had today, we wouldn't have none of that because if your little boy burnt his.
Hand on a toaster. Oh, that's unsafe.
Well, you can't make that anymore.
So Back then, They educated their kids. Don't touch that because it's hot. Yeah, oh, you're right, Dad. And you only did that once. Tell me what this is.
Top. I was just about to say, don't say what you think it is. If I would have got a dollar for every time somebody said a hairdryer, I'd be rich. That's what everybody and now let me tell you the story. There's another one of those stories.
I bought this in Eureka Springs. And I seen it on the shelf, and I walked up, and a guy behind the counter, and I said, sir. He says, what? I says, you know, I'm not the smartest man in the country, but I don't think I'm dumb either. How does that hair dryer with the holes in the side work?
He starts laughing. He says, We got no hair dryer with holes in the side. How damn dumb can a guy get running the place or on the don't even realize he's got one like that? And then he looked up and seen that He starts laughing. and he reached in his drawer and I've got the patent somewhere and he pulled it out.
It says here read it. I, R. Naro, have invented this man's face steamer to take. place at the hot towels that they would wrap round their head before they would shave them. Very, very rare.
And what really scares me right now. God forbid that if anything ever happened, Had a tornado and that tornado just missed this place, you know. If a tornado took that out. You can't replace that, what I've got back there. I'm proud to say that, but it scares the you know what out of me that.
Tornado would take it away, you can't find that stuff anymore. I'm still looking. for things I don't have, but There's not too many out there. We drove. Oh, I've been driving all of I love looking.
I'm a hunter. I go in there, oh I don't have this, look at that. I spent thousands of dollars on eBay. And I had a good friend of mine. He was a multimillionaire.
In fact, I used to know his name. He had 40 patents. I'm not sure whether it's medical or whatever, but he was a smart. Foreign guy. And the only way I could outbid him on eBay.
If I wanted to bid on that, I thought, okay. That's worth $100. I had to bid $150 or $200 in order to get it because I knew he was bidding on it. I I met him one day before he passed away and I I said, you know, you rotten sucker. He looks at me and I says, you cost me lots of money.
And he just, yeah, I know it. It was a game with him, but I wanted it for my museum. And he had a museum. It wasn't any good. I shouldn't say it wasn't really small.
Never open, you had to get an appointment. He might have had a hundred different items in there. Yeah. And I love what I'm doing. I spent Half of my life collecting that stuff back there.
Younger people nowadays, if it's not a cell phone, They're not interested, but I'm surprised that some of the young people that come in here, that's a toaster. How does that work? That's a what? A coffee? Whoa, that's cool, yeah.
Some of the young people ask better questions, and I figured just the old people like myself. The young ones. I had three boys. Coming here and they were up 17, 18 or 16. And I thought, oh, this is going to be fun because I can use me.
spot people that might be interested and I like showing people that And they asked so many questions and the one young guy says, Boy, he says, I can't believe how pretty some of this stuff is. And I looked at him and I says, I forget what I call him, sir. I said, just stop and think. Everybody loves something that's pretty. I says, When you're looking for a girlfriend, are you going out trying to find an ugly one?
No, you're looking for a pretty girlfriend. And they really got a bang out of that. And they give me. the best. donations of anybody that's ever come through there.
I could not believe it because they were so excited about that's a what going on they had tons of questions but when I told them that he thought I said okay your girlfriend is she ugly He said, no. I said, there you go. You like pretty stuff. That's why this museum is different. Everything back there has its own Pretty near this to it.
And a special thanks to Katrina Hein, Jim Watkins, and Monty Montgomery for all the fine work putting that story together. What a delight. Richard Larimore, the world's largest small electrical appliance museum in Diamond, Missouri. If it was small and electric, I had to have it, he said. We drove the wheels off a car searching for a porcelain toaster.
I love what I'm doing. And so many Americans have these hobbies. Richard Larimore's hobby, the world's largest small electrical appliance museum, the story of that museum. Here are our American stories. There's nothing like sinking into luxury.
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won't subject to approval in available locations. You're great at protecting your own personal information. You probably even use things like two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN. But as much as you try to be in control of how your information is protected, There are lots of places that also have it, and they might not be as careful as you are. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second for identity threats.
If your identity is stolen, a LifeLock U.S.-based restoration specialist will help solve identity theft issues on your behalf, guaranteed or your money back. Plus, all LifeLock plans are backed by the Million Dollar Protection Package, meaning Life Lock will reimburse you up to the limits of your plan if you lose money due to identity theft. You might not be able to control how others handle your personal information, but you can help protect it with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Call 1-800Lifelock and use promo code iHeart or go to lifelock.com/slash iHeart for 40% off.
Terms apply. Welcome to the W, where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw-dropping defense, and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non-stop action and world-class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The biggest stars, the brightest age.
ATT WNBA All-Star 2025 comes to Indianapolis July 18th through 19th. Tune into the game July 19th at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC. Homes.com has collaboration tools to help home shoppers search, share, and discuss home shopping with family, friends, and their agent directly through the site. Though it was fun to get that email from your husband about that three-bedroom in the hills, to which you replied via text that you would never live in the hills and you'd like to find a three-bedroom closer to the beach.
To which he replied, Why are you so uncompromising? A fun way to spend an afternoon, but we think it's just a tad bit easier our way. Homes.com. We've done your homework. This is an iHeart podcast.
