Everybody, Bill Courtney, welcome to the shop. Welcome in, Alex, How you doing? That's so weak? That was like my little kids doing it. The other day it was George excep.
If you're a grow.
George, I I'm a grown up beer there, Welcome in? How do you like? It didn't get better?
Do anythink I should believe that's where I heard?
We just said I want George back. Okay, Hey, George is awesome. All right? Shop Talk number fifty one on becoming a junk man. Charlotte Dance, a listener sent us a really cool email, and I think it's worth talking about right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Everybody, welcome back to shop Talk. Charlotte Dance is a listener, and I will read this to you, and the topic is on being a junk man Dance. I listened to
the podcast about the Whistler today. I loved it. Chris Olman, Chris Olman, the whistle the.
Goat Whistler is Chris Vernon Golden Yeah.
I listened to the podcast about the Whistler day. I loved it. It made me miss my dad. Although he didn't really sing. He loved a whistle, and I always wanted to whistle like he did. Ten years ago I wrote this essay about my dad being a junk man. I think you could do a shop talk on being a junk man. So here we go. My dad is a junk man. This is not an occupation that is a life goal for many people. He chose to be
a junk man in every area of his life. I'm sure that growing up on a farm during the Great Depression played a big part in directing his life. True junk men have to find great value in junk or they can't survive in the business. My dad has excelled in finding value in junk. Where everyone else saw junk, Sorry, where everyone else saw junk, Dad saw physics lab equipment.
He used old bicycle tires to make gyroscopes and axle helped students to learn the pulls of centrifugal force, and even an old vacuum cleaner to make an air table to teach frictionless motion. Where everyone else saw junk, Dad saw an addition to our house so our family of six didn't have to live in a two bedroom house. Windows, doors, and lumber were all salvaged from houses being torn down Where everyone else saw junk, Dad saw a solar greenhouse.
He researched it and then made it for two hundred dollars plus lots of reclaimed parts. It's been working consistently for thirty years now. Where everyone else saw junk meat, Dad saw venison that could be made into sausage and jerky and feed many people. It all starts when our pastor gave us an antelope meat for our dog. Because they couldn't even eat it in chili, he gave them back sausage he made from it. They couldn't believe it
was the same meat, junk meat. Where everyone would say that things in his past were junk, Dad used them to make a difference for his family. His father was extremely harsh and always used Dad's name and anger. Granddad wouldn't have anything to do with him and didn't come to his wedding. Dad decided that if he didn't forgive his father, he would never be able to have a good relationship with his children. He forgave him and worked
on making peace between them. Not only does he have a good relationship with his biological children, he has had others adopt him as their father. Where everyone would say that a young boy could be annoying and was a slow learner. Dad saw someone who was interested in everything he did. This boy followed him as he worked on rentals. Butchered set up science labs and worked on object lessons. His family split up and moved away, but he remembered
those afternoons with my dad. He became a butcher, bought a rental, and put himself through an engineering school. He even went to law school. He came back to visit saying I still use your abject lessons. Where everyone saw a man with wasted life in prison, Dad saw an opportunity to serve. He visited a man in prison for six years and saw him growing to a man of God after his sentence was over. Dad was the best
man in his wedding. Now this man is fixing junk in the lives of juvenile offenders and helping them change their future. Where everyone else would see junk in their own lives, he saw an opportunity to serve or to listen. With insurance payment for roof damage didn't cover the cost of shingles for an elderly woman's roof, he not only did the roofing, but paid for the the rest of the shingles. One man went through many rough times and
Dad listened to him through all of it. He said, he has to talk through everything before he knows exactly what to do. Never once did he complain about the time or effort it took. Where everyone would say it is a hopeless case of junk. Dad didn't give up. He prayed for his sister for twenty eight years. His brother in law told him to never talk about God again. He didn't talk, but he prayed and he lived it. His nephew's nieceus came to Christ, then his sister, and
finally his brother in law. Recently, he counted forty people on his side of the family that were believers. He was the first where everyone would see junk that all we go through. Dad saw an opportunity to prepare several years ago. He felt strongly impressed that he should prepare to die. He was in good health, but he wanted to have things ready. He bought cemetery plots in a gravestone. However, his most important thing was to find people to pray
for his great grandchildren. Shortly after this, I was mourning the loss of my friends in a canoe accident, and I need something constructive to do. When I talk to Dad, he suggested that I find people to pray for their grandchildren. It has been an honor and privilege to do that. I may not want my yard filled with recrming lumber and other various treasures, but I think I want to be a junk man, just like Dad. Looking past the junken scars in people's live lives and seeing the treasure
that they truly are. Seems like a awful lot of Army members are junk men. Thanks for having a great show, Charlotte. Dance Charlotte. If my children speak about me one day with twenty five percent of the reverence you speak about your father, I will rest a very proud man. That is a phenomenal tribute to your dad, and can certainly see why you wrote it. There's a lesson there too. The junk the homeless, the foster children who were aged out of foster care at nineteen or twenty and are
living destructive lives. The kid who has never read a lullaby or saying a lullaby or read a bedtime story, who can't read on grade level now in seventh grade. Who we know because he's not reading on grade level by third grade, is more likely to be in prison than he is to have a job one day. The junk that your dad saw opportunity in is exactly what the call to an army in normal folks is is to see the junk and use it, see the junk
and fix it. You're right a lot of the members of the army of normal folks that we highlight our junk people. But the call and the inspiration is is that you listeners out there see the value in the junk. The power of an army of normal folks is that is that we see areas of need and fill it, which is effectively, as Charlotte points out, being a junk man.
So my question is, and maybe even my challenge is when's the last time you drove by, pasted a polla junk and thought, man, somebody had to clean something up, but kept on going instead of getting down to your car and cleaning up yourself. We are surrounded by junk, and the cleanup is not going to happen by a city crew coming, buying a tax paid for a truck and throwing it in the back and dumping in the garbage. It's going to happen by an army and normal folks.
Of course, all of that is metaphorical, but I think you get what I'm saying. Alex, she gonni id is some junk.
So I forgot to include this in your prep. She actually wrote it before her dad died, and then she read it at his funeral.
Wow is that cool? I bet there were I bet there was was a dry in the place.
Yeah, a couple of junk thoughts. I mean, one thing Christ says is I didn't come to heal the healthy, right, I came here to heal the sick. And that's why I was thinking out with tax collectors and prostitutes. You when people challenge them on that and then like an interesting business case for this too, or even just take the army case first, Right, That's actually where a lot of the fun is. Like you're grunning to grow something, right,
from from nothing into something you know, significant. That's that's a lot more fun. I bet Charlotte's dad had a blast making a what was it a solar garden or something out of a bunch of johnt I mean, can you imagine the satisfaction he felt growing stuff for thirty years? Out of something people left on the curb. Yeah, well, that metaphorically is the satisfaction you can feel by seeing junk in your life and fixing.
It and then like a bit.
I mean, this isn't so normal, but I think people can do it in a more normal way. There's a guy who once interviewed who basically had a bunch of energy exploration projects, but there were a bunch of things that Exon Mobil was trying to get rid of, like it wasn't interesting enough for Exon Mobile, and so he collected a munch of these things, built up the business, and he made five hundred million dollars when he sold
it one day. But it's an interesting case, like there's a lot of things out there that aren't interesting enough to the big players, but for you, you can actually build a really interesting business off it. Obviously you don't have to sell for five hundred million, even if you you know, make a one hundred thousand, you make five hundred thousand, you make a million whatever.
I mean.
It's actually a really interesting business thing to think about too. What does everybody else see as junk that actually could be an opportunity.
Which could be a business. It could be in society, it could be wherever. Yeah, Charlotte Dance. That is an incredible tribute to your father and it is a beautiful illustration of exactly what we're talking about. And I can't tell you how much we appreciate you sharing it. If you have any ideas for shop talk, would you please Emily Bill at normal folks dot Us. I'll always respond and hopefully like Charlotte stuff here, we we can comment it because we think others will want to hear the.
Story and beautiful pieces of writing like this if anybody else has Actually, that's a good idea of letters you're read like World War two letters and that's letters like the writing back in the day is I mean, obviously it'd be real selling beautiful today. Send it to us too, But especially back in the day, all those kind of love letters were so much better than the way we text each other's.
So it's so true. I think it's a lost start. Send us, send us that stuff. If you enjoyed the episode, rate review it, join the army at normal folks dot us, subscribe, become a premium member there and what else you goofed it up? Again?
You can't subscribe on the website. But it's okay.
Whatever you do, just people know you're a goofball. Then now follow us, you know, listen, tell people about us, and help us grow the army because the more members, the more impact we can have. That's shop TALP number fifty one. Is that it.
I'll see you next week.
I'll see you next week.