Weird thing happened. Weird, weird, weird. Welcome to Bledsoe said, So, we have a very very special, mythical, legendary guest tonight. It's something that I can't believe that we are finally in the midst of and experiencing tonight. But before we get into that, I'm going to talk about something coming up in May that you guys really need to consider. We're going to be my dad, my sister, and my wife and I will be at the Contact Modalities Expo
in Delavan, Wisconsin from May tewond to May fourth. It's going to be an extraordinary conscious expo. There's gonna be three rooms simultaneously hosting different panels and events. There's gonna be guest speakers, all kinds of different things like crystal bowl healing and breath work and meditation and all of these kinds of extraordinary consciousness related subjects, all happening in the same space, so to speak. My Dad's gonna be
a keynote speaker. There's gonna be a live panel, there's gonna be a cocktail party on Saturday with a live DJ, and everybody's just gonna be having fun, hanging out and I will say on Friday, there's gonna be a SkyWatch, so definitely don't want to miss that. Just check it out at contact modalitiesxpo dot com. You can see your ticket information and booking and see all the events that we have there. I think there's gonna be like thirty to forty different guests at this event, So check it out.
You definitely don't want to miss it. It's gonna be a great time. I'm looking forward to it. I hope to see you guys there. So onto tonight's episode, we finally have caught the mythical white whale is what I keep calling it because.
Because he's been harpoon.
He's been hardpooned. We have my my one of my favorite people, Alex's dad. I wanted you to introduce them, but you wanted me to introduce them, So I'm just gonna introduce him as one of my favorite people because he's your day. He's also one of my favorite people, yeah, but also one of mine because we get along, we hit it off, and you know, we're we're both g's on the same wavelength. So I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
No, I'm b.
This is not much. We don't carry much in person, but I do have a little something for you, just a little. I promise you. It's not much. I wish it could be more, but it is a little gift for being on the show. Most of our stuff is online, so maybe we'll have to send you something extra. But maybe on some cold nights you can keep your head warm.
And you've got to save some stuff. I can get them for Christmas. Yeah, something went all out on the sweatshirt. I could have used some slippers, but that's okay. It'll get warm. I gotta still bogging at summertime, and I'm ready to go. I feel for Nick's Thank you, Ryan and you guys are too nice.
You're the best. Dave with Sean.
Yeah, yeah, we've switched the situation here. We got Nick on the on the equipment.
I'm feeling very strange. Actually, we have two guests in the student feel very weird.
On this side of the room.
We had to let you, like, I know, I'm happy about it, be able to talk to your dad.
I'm happy about it.
I thought it'd be cool.
This is Alex.
We have his years. I thought it was an intervention it first showed up. But I's glad to know. It's it's not that our child support.
Yeah, so let's start with the show. We've been doing this three three going four years now, what is it like? This is your first time in here, is your first time in the studio. We talk a lot about it. What are your thoughts on the show, on me doing the show?
You have any thoughts there or anything which is off a cliff Well.
I've always thought that was pretty cool. And uh, you know, back in my day, we just got together and talked. We didn't have the podcast, and the hell we didn't have a radio. We sold it, you know, I sell Hey, you're in it. But uh, nice, it's nice, and I'm
glad you found a good group of people. And I think you know, and in the world we're living in that certain people have a touch and you meet certain people and they go out of your lives, and then you meet people that seems to took around and it's all you seem to all have the same and I'll call it an orb. You all have the same light. And and that's what I think. The group of people that y'all attract to is people that are believers, want in the Good Lord and are always an attraction for
people to need help. We all need help, and you got to find the people that surround yourself with the people that have different strengths that make you stronger. And if you're going down, look who you're around. If you're going up, stand up. And that's one thing I like about it. And y'all's camaraderie and your closeness and your friendship and your beliefs, and that's what I feel the world needs more of. And I think we all have a light. It's just how it shines and how it attracts.
That's great.
Yeah, you know, Beautifully said, Well, you know, I've been blessed. I've never wanted a lot, but I've always got what I needed. And I think people tend to want more of what they want than what they need. Just pay attention to what you need, you'll get what you want. I've always lived like that. I've had months in my business that I didn't know where it was coming from, and I just fed five hundred people free. Because I've done it. Even though bad times are here, I continue
to do it. And people said why, I said, because it seemed like a few weeks later my phone will ring and I just got a thousand people to feed. Yeah, you know, you blessure yourself by blessing others. Yeah, and that's what life is about. In my opinion, that's always always lived. And I've lived a crazy life. I mean, I lived it. You know, I'm sixty eight most in a one hundred and ten year old body.
I want to touch on that real quick. So I want to talk about parties. But that reminds me. You know, it's not a joke. I remember, we'd never leave for a hurricane. We know hurricanes coming, we know we're going to lose power at the restaurant. There's no generators at the restaurant. So before every storm, we would be giving everything away. You would be giving everything away, you know, me and Nick would help or whatever whatever needed to be done, but you'd.
Give it all away.
The storm would come, you lose power, Everything that would have gone bad is now somewhere feeding people who have been misplaced from the storm. And you seem to just turn around and bounce back, I mean, and get more from that.
Well, you know, life's too short to worry about what's happening. You just got to take care of those that need it. And I had a great relationship with First Baptists, and every Tuesday night they feed the homeless, no matter what their situation is. Also, and you know, I've had times where I emptied my freezer and the power w'd come on as I'm doing it, and my meat will still seemi frozen, but I'd already promised it and they had counted on it. And I've never followed an insurance claim
because they do just for those people. You know, you got to fill out thirty six pages and submit and hug. So I just you know, I never gave to get a reward back, either financially or I always got mine back spiritually if I know I'm helping the right things and the right people. And I had great causes that I did for for years, twenty thirty years, and I would do them today if I was still in business.
Yeah, you know that's amazing. I resonate with what you said, particularly the other night, Alex and I. I don't know if you know this or how much you'll talk about this, but we actually have three shows now, and so on Tuesdays, Nick comes over, we record our third show and then he leaves, and then we go and record our second show. I know the timing is weird there, but and Alex and I do one show without Nick, not for any reason other things. It's just the way it works.
You know. I mean, if Nick don't show up after the night, I might be in that chair and put my son back behind the camera.
So there's a show that we do this like a And I know why we did it with that, because you didn't.
Learn it here.
It's a departing gift. If you're honored. I'm honored, and I'd be honored to be replaced by you, sir.
I don't work anymore and be a heck of a show. I'm retired when I.
Start our own thing, don't worry. Yeah, that's good to take off, absolutely. But I say that to say that, like, there was a conversation we had the other night that both of you guys weren't present for, and one thing that Alex and I were talking about was about the
company you keep. You had just said that I can't remember the exact words that you used, but you said, when you're going down, look around, when you're coming up, stand up, And we were just talking about that the other night, and I think that's like one of the most powerful things you can that you can live by. It's like surrounding yourself with people who uplift you spiritually.
You uplift each other. Yeah, and that's how you grow. I mean too many people. Especially if you start becoming successful or something, there's people there that want to bring you down instead of lift you up and celebrates. And especially if you got the right heart and mind, the higher you get up, the higher you can give. You know, I always measured my success each year is how much I gave away, not how much I made. That didn't care of what I made. It took care of itself.
And there was a lot of rough times. But you know, I feel is the problem with our world. Everybody's just stepping on top of each other to get where they want to go and don't realize they're really going to hell.
I mean, shockingly, put I do agree.
And everything it really is. You're on your way to hell and you're quick to get there. But just treat everybody with kindness. And if you see somebody in need, you're hard to tell you if it's true, because everybody gets asked for everything. Nowadays, you can't drive past the corner without a sign. And I've never been blessed by so much, by God, by these cardboard signs, and they're making more money than are people that are working forty hours a week in a few hours. So but there's
some that need it. But your heart to guide you. If your heart guide, you give it. And if it's not true, but your heart's satisfied. You know. I walked out of a convenience mart about three weeks ago. It was a cold evening, rainy, and uh homeless guy was sitting by the trash cans smoking some you know, end of cigarette butts out of the cigarette supposal. And when I walk out, didn't that's where any money? Some He said, Man, I'll pay you to take me to a hotel near
the bus station. This guy's gonna pay me to take him to a hotel because he's leaving town homeless people. I don't think like Wilmington because they all seen. This is the third time at the same convenient mart I've taken people. And I said, man, I'll give you a ride. What the heck? I got nothing going on? And the guy that spends the whole time thanking me because he can't believe and he wants to pay keep your money. Get on the bus get back to Asheville. They all
seem to come from Wilmington and spend time. I don't think we treat him as well as other places because they all seem to get on the bus and go to Asheville. I took this one guy to the bus station. He slept in the you know, it's like midnight when I took him there. But it's amazing all the people that's walked through there, and no one probably said yes, or they might not even ask people. But that's I feel.
My orb is I track people and my heart tell and I've had a bunch asked me and I said no. But I think you shine a light if you truly believe in what you do it and yourself. I think you shine a light and people see that light. You know.
Lady in the Convenient Mark when Alex was a baby, we pull up and I'm pumping my gas and this little old lady comes up to me and I'm at the time six seven, still close to that shrunk a little bit, but I was four hundred pounds and you know, there's a lot of people, and it wasn't I was the only one out in the parking lot. You know, there was cars filling up and people, small people, regular people. But the lady came straight to me. She's been driving
around for eight hours trying to find her house. That happened twice and at the same gas station, within months of each other. All my stuff comes in twos or three's, and it's always been thirty to sixty days apart.
What do you mean she's trying to find her house.
She had Alzheimer's in it. She's been driving around Wilmington for eight hours, and she lived in Forest Hills, and she was on College Road and where the publics is now at that gas station right beside it.
Okay, quite a ways away then.
Oh yeah, been driving around the whole time trying to find home. She left at noon. Wow, this was eight at night.
Jeez. I've heard quite a few stories from both of you about things like this that have happened to you, like probably as long as you can remember. I'd imagine it's it's been with me all my life.
Yeah, I mean I moved out of the house at seventeen. I was still in high school. You know, I lived with a bunch of great people. But you know, to be honest with you, they didn't have the same morals that I grew up with. You know, I didn't have a lot, but I had discipline and how told how to treat people and respect people and stealing is not good. And my friends had different philosophies on a lot of that stuff. But they were fun and they were great hearts,
but they were just thieves, you know. And I got dragged in. Only one out of eate ever got arrested. Go to the police station. They interrogate me, and I told them, I, you know, we think we're going to go do something. I'd get out of the car and hitchhike home. I didn't stick around. I knew they were coming back home. I'd come back. Back. In those days, there was little gas stations that had that little silk dogs playing cards and all. I'd have one hundred and
fifty of them in my house. You know. They'd break in the little storeage area and steal them and bring them home and sell them. And what I had a job, you know, I was working, and that just amazed me. But we ended up. The fun ended when the cops came to the house during Happy Days at eight o'clock
on a Monday. Back in those days and knocked on the door and walked in and took us all downtown, and I'm defending myself, and you know, we're all in different rooms, and after about an hour and a half, the guy comes in and said, well, we're not We're convinced you didn't have anything. We're convinced you didn't have anything to do with the break in, but we were not convinced that you're not. That you're guilty, not guilty, So we're gonna let you go. But you got to
call your daddy. Yeah, that's what I said. Well, how much time am I looking at if I don't call my daddy? And they knew my family. We've been in the parks recreation concessions business. We knew my family was very well known. He said, David, call your daddy. That was the hardest conversation I've ever made. Yeah, and still has calling him to come get me. And you know, he was cool as hell, a lot cooler than I thought he would be. But the thing I remember most
is when the last thing the police offers. I wish I remember his name, but I don't. And he said, David, I know you love your friends and they love you obviously, because no one said you had anything to do with this, And I said, because I didn't. And he said, I don't care how cool you think they are, but if you hang around dogs, you're going to catch fleas. And from that day forward, I moved in a different direction, started following people that had something going for They had
family and business. They were headed that way. So I jumped on the train, got in the basketball legs, started, you know, changing my priorities of how I was having fun to you know, get in direction. Yeah, you know, I started my restaurant with five dollars in a bicycle and the help of my parents. How old were you I was twenty seven heading over?
Yeah, And how old were you when you said you kind of started to change and like turn things around when the cops came and you had to talk to your daddy.
I was nineteen nineteen.
Wow.
Been out of the house for two years, went home, regrouped for sixty days and never went back after that.
And the job home, the job before you have them parties? Didn't he drag you outside, make you look at the sign.
Well, every restaurant I worked at would eventually pulled me out front basically say you know, what does that science say? And I'd say, and that's say when it's got your name on it, we'll do it like that, okay. And that wasn't you know. Long after that, I was gone to another restaurant to run their show. Because I always could figure out the easiest and the and the best way and the cheapest way to give a quality product
at a fair price. You know, when I closed, I was two three dollars cheaper on the same thing anybody wanting to and use top quality. I just had a small chest freezer. I didn't use much frozen food. We used fresh butts, fresh chicken, you know, cut our old steak. Did it all old school, but I bought cheap.
You know.
We didn't pay a lot for the building because nobody can make it there. They said, no one can make it there. And that's all I need to hear. Especially the ones I worked for, said, you know that that did is it's not going to make it. They'll never make it. And I think that's what drove me to make it, because I probably because I was very odd. I get into something and get out get into something, and I go full speed when I'm in it, but eventually burn out.
And move on.
But that was all I needed to hear and whispers of he ain't on me. Yeah, because I made one hundred and thirty five bucks for three years and I was probably giving away more than that. Yeah, you know, working for different groups like child affacacy and clubs for kids.
You know.
But even after a while, you realize what people that raise money, They raised money, but they spent so much raising it. Yeah, but then I understand that the publicity is what gets some more money. You want your name to be. I never put my advertisement on because they all say we're gonna put you on our T shirts, and I said, put it on somebody that'll pay you. I said, people will find me. I never advertised, never ran a website. Then I asked you to take a credit card for twenty two years.
Yeah, at the time of selling, when in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, it was like a legendary staple in the community.
You don't really realize how but you are appreciated until the end. Yeah. I mean I couldn't even tell the meeting because we couldn't handle the business we already had just because of the COVID and the relief checks and the money my pricing because people started going back to the best value for their money. You know, they quit doing the forty dollars lunches they were looking because the money just stopped flowing there for a while. But our
business never busier during the COVID times. I mean, we never closed a day for COVID. It took me twenty four hours to realize COVID wasn't as bad as they're saying. Because once they said, you know, everything's closing except Walmart and the liquor stores, I figured life still good. I mean, you know, it made no sense. Yeah, I guess they just wanted to keep people drunk to go along with it. I thought people were going to be dying. Ride down
the street, you'd see people falling out. The way they made it, you're shutting countries down.
So what you were saying, though, is y'all knew you were going to close for months, but for maybe a month, but we didn't tell anybody until So when Parties closed, we knew it was happening long long before, but we couldn't. Parties wasn't built to handle the volume that was going to come.
When we announced that it was going to be no more.
And I think what two weeks prior we announced, they ran a little article in the newspaper and it was slammed. I mean we'd what closed the doors? You and Nick and Joyce would close the doors at noon because you ran out of food.
Yeah. It was uh yeah, And it's hard to prepare for because once I realized I was going to sell, I knew it was already busy. I was going to hire someone else. Probably didn't want to hire someone and then lay them off. I didn't want to do it to them, and so we kept working with the same small crew we had, and God bless them. Uh, they hung in there. We got it done. And uh but I never did the interview they wanted to do two weeks before because I just didn't want. We couldn't take
care of what we had. Yeah, and I never advertised because we always stayed busy. And how am I going to try to lure you were into stand in line and wait? You know, I didn't feel that was fair, you know, to my customers, are to my staff, because we always operated, we got a lot done. You know, I walk in the restaurants see all these people running around, and we probably did more day than they did and only had two three people, but we worked. You know,
it's the difference. We took care of people, people were patient. I had customers that clean their tables. I mean, I had customers that would put an apron on, wash their hands and come and help us at times when we got busy. And this and and and those guys are still some of my greatest friends and will always be. Wow. You know, you just don't see that.
And these are lawyers and uh, guys that could go anywhere for lunch.
Yeah, real estate, I mean guys that own most everything.
Yeah, but that's an apron and get behind the counter.
But that's who you attract and and what you look for. People find each other, you know. And and it's all different spectrums, especially my friendship group. With amount of success, A lot of my friends have had and and degrees and but yet I'm just one of the guys with them as they are with me. And money doesn't impress me. Hearts impressed me. And I and my son and Nick. That's one that's one thing they got from me is my heart. And that's the best thing I ever could
leave anyone. Yeah, is a part of my heart because I've always I've had that, I've had. I got my mother's heart. We had eight children, and it'd be two or three other kids eat at the house.
Wow.
So you mean when you were growing up. He's one of eight, right, yep. And friends would always be coming and going so well, not my friends.
They were scared of my daddy, my sister friends.
Yeah. So there'd be like ten to twelve kids eating regularly at your house.
Yeah, and all girls. Like hell, I'd give up a little bit for that.
I mean, hey, I mean, you know my wife was my sister's friend. I mean, you know, I get it.
So I want to, uh, this reminds me just to paint a little bit of a better picture of your home life growing up.
I want you to tell the guys the.
The Christmas basketball gold story.
Well, we kind of rotated around for nice gifts, and nice gifts were you know, good gifts. You know, we didn't have what you know, I had a friend of mine always got g I Joe's. I was at his house at Christmas waking up. You know that was exciting for me. You know, I got hard candy in a stocking with lint on it, you know, and you know, and my one pair of jeans for the year, my one pair of tennis shoes, and then never so often
you'd get a good gift. And I in my rotation before I had siblings leaving, because there was a big gap from the eighth to the first. My parents were to have six children. The seventh was accident and the eighth was keep the seventh company. So my mother didn't My mother didn't want anybody to grow up alone. Yeah, she did it. She had seven brothers and sisters. My daddy was an only child. Imagine that.
Yeah, that's gonna be like me and Jenny, but reversed. She's an only child.
And my daddy never saw a paycheck. He got, you know, for me a card and cigarettes a week and the fifth of Jack Daniels and that was his pay for every paycheck.
Wow.
And he showed back home. Man, I'd gone out for a pack of Luckys, and I had to keep that sucker running in the opposite direction with these hoodlums, I mean, we were wild. The only time you never heard of sound was dinner time because if you won't eating, you were losing weight. Yeah, and Mama could cook on a two or three burner stove because nothing of the burners always worked, but she could put a feast on. You know, the first time I spend the night away from home,
it's I'm going for dinner too. You know, this guy's an only child. I walk in there, I look on the the stove and there's a pot that looks like what we put butter in. I said, man, did you tell your mama I'm coming for dinner? He said, yeah, I told her you're staying over the night and eating dinner. But this, I said, but I don't think she prepared well enough. I gotta go. I went home to catch by six o'clock dinner in the house. I didn't stay tonight.
That's funny.
But back to what you asked me, Well, so I get My first best gift was I was twelve years old and I used to fly model aeroplanes and I had a Cox trainer and it flew on strings, had a motor, and you went out and you circled and you flew, and man, I could make that thing do what it wasn't supposed to do. And I wanted a remote control aeroplane forever, but just didn't have the means to be able to get it. And I woke up one morning and it was cold at Christmas in Wilmington,
and I opened up my box. It was a B fifty two bomber oh cool remote control aeroplane, Cox motor on that sucker came from the number one. What the name was, I can't remember the name of the store, but anyway, nice place. I mean, this was top of the line and I got it.
Oat.
Come on today, let's get out of the park and fly. He said, son, it's too cold. He said. This ain't like your little Cox trainer airplane where it's held together by rubber bands. When you crash it, you just put it back together. He said, it's too cold. If you, you know, go one way or the other. You crack this plane up, plastic and cold. I mean, it's like twenty five degrees. Tomorrow's gonna be forty. We'll go out and fly it, okay, daddy, you know. So I put
it back under the tree and go upstairs. And I knew that my daddy was but he gets up early at Christmas with these youngins, and I knew he'd be napping here soon. And he falls asleep and tiptoe down there, go by the tree. I get my plane. I'm out in the back door and I'm headed to the park. I fired that thing up. Man, it sounds so sweet. I take all perfect and I'm flying around doing loop
the loops, figure eights, and I'm top of the world. Yeah, can't wait for some of my friends and wake up and come down here look at this thing and start sputtering a little bit. So I got to bring it in for a landing. And I'm down to Hippie Park, I mean human cray No. I met h Wallace Park and it's not a level field. And I pulled that thing down of that wing tip, and that thing broke in half, the wing broken half. And cried and sniffle it up. I get my plane. I put it back
in the box. I get it back package, get home. I put it under the tree. I go to my room. I've been crying. Next morning, my Daddy wakes up. First thing, he says, all right, boy, get your plane, let's go flying. I said, Daddy, I'm okay. He says, son, you've been bugging me. Let's get the plane and go for now. I'm okay, Daddy. That's the first thing he said.
What'd you do?
Boy? Daddy went downstairs, pulled it out, opened it up the broke wing. He said, damn son, least you won't by yourself. I said, what do you mean, Daddy?
I was?
He said, no, you didn't. You had your dumb ass, would you. I said, think you did it first and only?
Flight first and flight.
Sixteen years old?
That's fun.
Christmas, wake up. My daddy put a six by six posts in the backyard backboard, rim net or basketball my gift. Wow backyard. The alley had a surface, so me and my brothers will all go start playing basketball. Then the fight start. I grab my ball, run in and Daddy said, you know, so I got to learn how to play and get along. I said, Daddy, it ain't you know how it goes. So then we started another game and
the fight was starting. And after about the fifth fight, I'm sitting there arguing that my brother's got my ball running away, and I hear when I turn around, look, my daddy pulls the chainsaw out and cuts my damn gold on Christmas Day, said dad. End and dad, and it never went back. Oh no, Christmas is not one of my favorite times of the year with gifts.
And that it makes sense now and that and that was your rotation. Yeah, four years.
Between rotation I was done.
Well.
My first one, I got a bike, but it was used and I tore it up in about three weeks. So wow. Christmas was never a I loved Christmas for the meaning, but I never took the gifts. I love giving gifts anyway. You know, my kids asked me what do you want? I don't know. I mean that's how you end up with a sweatshirt when you say that word that nothing for nothing for a drill cover. Yeah. But my brother was a very wealthy feller and uh poet year. I think this was back in the whenever
the Atlantic Olympics. He lived in Atlanta. Hell of a businessman back then. He was making hundreds of thousand dollars year. Bought my mama Olympic pen. I said, man, you really broke the bank. And I always spend every time I had on my mom at Christmas because my daddy couldn't afford to buy our jewelry at the time, and I'd buy her whatever I could afford.
So Alex got you that hoodie for Christmas? Yes, and I'm sensing that it was not a great gift.
No, I love thee I'm just messing with it. I asked me all the time, what do you want? I said, whatever you want to get? So if I I made a point of my life, if I wanted, I already got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm hard to shop for. I got, you know, a tall.
Guy's sixteen shoe.
Yeah. You know, it's not like you're gonna go get me a pack of slippers. You know, you get me a box that you got your shoes in for some laces on them, to say happy birthday, daddy.
But I just don't.
I never felt comfortable gidding.
I'm the same way.
I'd rather leave it, or I would rather be the giver. Yeah, I love giving. I don't like I feel uncomfortable. I feel like, you know, do I owe you something for that? And actually they're trying to pay me back for what I've given. But yeah, I don't do it for that. I've never done anything to.
Get I'm kind of the same way, like i'd rather It's not that I don't want gifts or on a like gifts. It's just it's because of similar things, having three siblings and being in times of poverty, and you know, sometimes gifts are shared between kids.
It's just disappointing, and you don't want to feel the disappointment. You rather feel Wow, man, almost got that. I'd rather almost get it then get it, especially certain.
Things, right, I completely understand.
Yeah, you know, and that's but Lord, people out there won't it.
Yeah, around Christmas, Alex is always like dunking on Christmas and he's always like, we're Thanksgiving, which, by the way, wish on Thanksgiving is amazing. It's a city recognized holiday.
Yeah, yep, it was nineteen eighty six. We were proclamated the wish on they old Thanksgiving. Whatever you say, No, that's funny acclamation.
Yeah, I love it. It's real.
Mayor Ben Halterman one of my daddy's best friends. But we had a community Thanksgiving. We'd put the tin up and have the pig cooking and do oysters in the morning hang town fry what they call it. First we started with a pig in the ground fish fry.
You know.
It was a celebration. We'd have seventy five hundred people every Thanksgiving for what six to eight to ten hours.
We started at eight in the morning, seventy five hundred.
Seventy five to one hundred and fifty probably.
Oh there's still a lot though.
Well, hell, we filled up, you know, quite a few ourselves, especially when the grandchildren all started coming along. Yeah, but a Thanksgiving now, you know, there's average of fifty to fifty three.
Can confirm I did go this year.
Yeah, and this was one of our lightest year.
Is probab.
We had some people that weren't able to make it through illness or distance. But uh, and I've never my oldest sister. I'm not gonna say, oh she is, she'll beat my ass. We call her the serge. God God gave my mother a daughter, then four boys, you know, oh gosh, and my sister raised most of the boys. You know, I'm a year basically a year and four months separated my brother. The first five were at the first five were within uh seven years, so you know,
it's a half years. It was pretty quick, you know. And lived in a two bedroom house, so it was interesting. But we never went without. We didn't know we were poor unless you know, we all we thought we were rich, right, But man, we had some good times. Never a dull moment, never a dull moment. But we all learned how to treat people. My father was an unbelievable man. His ethics is his uh morals. If he told you was gonna do something, it was done. And that's how it was.
I never had a contract in thirty six years of business, uh for catering. Wow, two thousand people, thousand people. If I told you I'm gonna be there, I'll be there. I catered on my daddy's funeral. That after his funeral, I had to go to work. Wow. People said, man, I think these people would understand. I said, no, my daddy would. Right. He said, there's nothing you can do for me now. So the best thing you can do for me is live on and show them what a
wishon's all about. That's the best way I could honor my daddy is by being morally right. That's true.
You guys are definitely a very unique family. First of all, there's a ton of you. Yeah, I guess, being that you know you were with eight, not that you didn't figure there was eight of you, or you had eight siblings.
I had seven brothers. Yeah, so you and a couple of stragglers and dad a couple of stragglers.
Oh.
Like, my sister would take people in all the time. Mother would become their mother.
Also, like me, growing up, we always had I mean, we've had somebody on the show that lived with this grown up, and there's been lots of others. So you guys had eight in your family, and then all eight of you throughout time have had your own kids. So there's what like twenty five first cousins yep, twenty five of my first cousins. Yeah, yeah, not to mention all their kids if they have kids now they have kids.
Yeah, most of my cousins have kids because of the age difference in my uncle's Plus.
Your parents probably had siblings, so your aunts and uncles that also have all their own kids. So, I mean your family's massive.
Used to be real close with my mother's family until the eighth was born and they disowned her. Basically, they said her mother when I was born, kind of left contact with the family because my mother, my grandmother, would tell my mama that she's running her life. She'll never be able to get anything done because she's got all these children. You're straddled at home. My mother never drove a day in her life. What my mother never drove, my imagine can't get away from it now. When the
eighth was born. There's such a big gap. My sister was already getting married and was having a baby the same age, basically as my youngest sister. Of course, the seventh and eighth. There was a big gap between the sixth and seventh because the only one in six children, and obviously Diddy didn't know what causes it, and they had another one, and the eighth one was born to keep the seventh company.
Wow, where are you in the in the.
I got the crab. I was number five man.
Oh wow, I got from both ends, towards the bottom, but also towards the middle.
You know, back when I could be in control. I was basically rated out on everything. Yeah yeah, and then if you hit my you ain't hit you younger, you know, come on, man, he just messed with me. So that's one of the reasons my daddy said, you know, if you don't want to live under my rules, go make your own. That's when I packed up my MP bag and moved out at seventeen.
Wow, back then when it was just like a lot more normal.
Not really, it was not. When you're in high school. Most people waited at least till they got kicked out. When he quit school or I still I had a job, went to school. But uh I had a blast though. You grow up, but sometimes you don't make sure until later on. Yeah, you know, I wasn't gonna have children. I were going to get married after I turned I was thirty eight when I got married. I was forty two when I had Alex. Okay, life has a plan for everyone.
Was that four years buried and then having a kid.
But if I had got married and had a kid earlier I had ever been around, if my life would have took the same path because I worked a lot, and if I went't mark and I played golf.
Did you already have So you already had parties when he was born because you started in twenty seven. Okay, so you were born into it. Interesting, it's all I knew. What was that like growing up around parties? It was awesome.
Yeah, yeah, it's become It's like one of my goals, you know. Uh, like with fatherhood on the horizon, one of my goals is to provide a way for my children to work. Because I think that that's something that has really kind of set me apart. Uh So I didn't I didn't think it was weird at the time were different, right, I just knew it was what it was. The interesting thing was is because of the hours, I
could only work in the summertime. So we'd do our summertime thing and go to work and I'd we know, we'd go pick up bread for the day, and then we'd stop by mister Fisher's office and talk to him, and then we'd go into work and I'd work for you know, a couple hours. But my life was, Hey, Dad, I want this. He said, okay, how much is it? I said, you know, I can remember my first surfboard was two hundred dollars. I said, I want this surfboard. He said, all right, go to work. So and I
don't think I was getting paid. I think it was just all tip money. I was wiping down That's all I could do. I mean, liven, I'm seven years old, wiping down tables. And then people, would, you know, give me a couple bucks.
That's absolutely great.
And I worked all summer and I spent two hundred dollars on my first surfboard.
But he was in the restaurant at four and five in the summertime with me cleaning tables. Yeah, and then he went into management. When his younger brother was able to reach the table, Alex would instruct him how to clean the table, and then they would because my people tipped the kids well, yeah, they knew I wasn't paying them, and they tipped them well. And then Nick was told that Alex would take care of all the tips and he would get his percentage yet the end of the day.
So he went in to manage it, and he was the next day with me a long time. And Alex, when he got driver's license, he got the hell out of there.
He knew that job was not and he was at Ashley by the time he was you know, seventy.
He left Meshley right right, Yeah, he left you and went there. Yeah. Yeah, I'll never forgive you.
By the way, if it's not clear, Alex's younger brother's name is Nick. I don't know if you ever said that on the show. It's just kind of a thing.
My favorite son.
Wait, which which one?
You know?
I was gonna ask, is it Nixon's favorite? No way, dude, Nick carried that restaurant man, That's true.
He did.
He helped a lot, didn't he.
Alex was always busy. Nick was always there.
What was Alex busy doing uh.
I guess running Ashley Furniture. You know, Courton Olivia. He was.
I was about to say Court and to live Court and missus Ashley.
I remember the first time I saw those group of kids together, and there's all great friends, which is great to see. But uh, Alex hung around a lot of people that had a little different uh upbringing. Of course, you know, hell help everybody's granddad. You know, most people always thought I was their granddad. Yeah, you know, because the age is different. You know, by the time they got to school, I'm fifty and everybody in there, all the other parents are in their thirties.
Same with my parents. You're you're only a few years older than my mom.
And I said, one day you'll thank me because I was the meanest dad in his classes.
Well my kid, Yeah, my friends are scared of him.
But I was then end up all their being their favorites.
Yeah, and they're all hanging around, yeah, you know, and and my friends still have a great relationship. Like my friends from middle school and high school. I now go hang out with my dad. I know they don't even they you know, I'm busy and they're going to hang out with my dad.
It's cool. I'm glad, you know, I know one of your buddies is still going over there all the time.
Yeah. Yeah, Wow, It's got a good group of friends and I all got the same type of hearts.
You know, I've I've never really thought about this, but I've never met. Does Nick have any like other group of friends? No, he kind of I mean stuck with your crowd.
Yeah.
Nick was just I mean, growing up, Nick was my shadow and for a long time I didn't like that, Like it was like, go be your own person. And then somewhere in high school it kind of flipped and it was like, you know, if he's with me, I know where he is. And so then we like and and my friends were kind of pushed me. They're like, hey, man, you're being a jerk, and I'm like, and so they they talked me into it and they all adopted him, and yeah, now he's great friends with all my friend group.
It's all very meshed together now.
But yeah, Nicky, we love Nick. Nick. We were calling party at the bachelor party, did you know that party, Junior? And he was cooking for us. Nick was running the shit.
Yeah, he came serious. He does he does very serious.
We were all calling him Party Junior or just party, and you know he's he's really coming.
To his own Yeah, and that was my fault that run him away. It was just he didn't have enough help. And and he's like his daddy. He's a worker, not a instructor. He took me twenty some years to become a delegator.
Yeah I was, and now he's really good at it.
I got I've got a professor delegator. But I worked myself to the boat. I mean it was the first twenty some years. I did everything I've witnessed anybody on the grill. I had to line out the door when I was cooking. People just wanted to come in. One food was great, but just to hear what I was going to say, because I'd get pissed off until I got too big. I'd holler at people, close the door, pick up your food. People would just come in to hear what I was going to say.
That that's amazing.
I tried to communicate with my mom. I was under the hood and it sounded like I was yelling, but I wasn't.
You know, where'd the name parties come from?
It became a nickname on my daddy's They used to call him Archie like Archie Bunker and my mama Edith. This was in the family. My sister in law and my brother in law started calling Edith and Archie, and so Archie became my daddy's name, uh pet name. And my oldest brother's wife was an artist, and she drew the logo with the pigs ass as the p P A R C H I is. So the reason she did that. Her youngest son couldn't say Archie, he said Parchie, and being a contrariy like Archie Bunker, was that she
drew the pigs ass as the pea. And that's how Parchies became. Because when we first started, we were IPI parkin session. Yeah, and I work, and I had to help my daddy on the weekends and all we always because I was out of the house, so I'd go make a you know, I'd work all day. I'm talking with sixteen. We'd have tournaments and would sell hundreds of dozen a hot dog barbecue sandwiches at fifty cents a piece,
and he'd give me twenty bucks. He thought he was ever paying me from what he used to make in this day doing the same thing right in the thirties, you know, in the forties.
So I'll never forget it. Man, going to the parties. It was just like a legendary experience because you know, we were working together and we would ride and it would be like our special lunch. There was a while there we were doing it once a week and Nick never got to see it. But I'll just paint the picture like little things like this, like these little guys and these little guys, imagine that. But there's like probably
one hundred of them, and it's just pigs. And that was he never big ones, small ones, And I never bought him. He never bought it. They just brought them to you guests or customers.
Yeah, but bus customers, most of them are freewheks. Yeah, you know, I had I saw three generations grow up in that neighborhood.
Yeah.
You think there's not enough time, but it is. In that neighborhood. It was children and uh grandchildren, great grandchildren and the mother hadn't hit forty yet. Wow, yeah it was. But you know, we had a great time. I met a lot of great people, met a lot of probably only probably had five bad instances the whole time I was there. That's amazing, And people are always scared of that area. They said, where's your restaurant? Whole all good
to that side of town. I said, well, I wouldn't at twelve o'clock going to buy some drugs or something, but you know, between eight and two it's very safe. And I go down at two in the morning, three in the morning, four in the morning. Because I'd cook barbecue, I had to put my pigs on the grill. I didn't even when I first opened. I parked on the side of this city street and had a special cooker built with a handle that was better than a lock.
You couldn't figure how I'd be gone my cooker sitting on the street, barbecue smoke coming out of it, smelling great, and people walking by they could have they could have backed up and hooked onto my grill and drove it away. I didn't even have a lock on it.
I think some of that so, like, obviously the joint's never been robbed or anything like that. It is it isn't in a kind of part of town that, at least for me moving into town, it's like, whoa, this this is a sketchy area. But like, I am willing to bet my life on it that because of the reputation you made for yourself in service to the community and being so good to people, you were like you were respectable.
Disrespect it's respect for sure.
It all is. I mean, I eventually get quite a few buildings around the other commercial buildings, and they'd messed with other buildings, but they never messed with mine. Yeah, it was a word on the street that you don't message. He's one of us. Played football with their daddy's over at the Eighth Street Center. You know, one of the few only white guys, the only white guys ever went in MVP Trophy for defensive Player. He is talent, you
know everything. Giving three thousand people out there and uh, two teams going at it for the Turkey Bowl. We had a year long, you know, a football season during the fall and it at Thanksgiving Day, wow, and uh, I'd be partying on Castle Street after the bank went down there at the ah Street Center. And Pat Murphy was the guy's last thing. Great guy really cared about the youth. He kept a lot of people safe just through his organizations. He's in the Greater Wilmington Hall of
Fame was inducted a few years ago. Cool, but you know, we our pro was always to get semi pro football because we had some athletes, and especially in those days in the eighties early eighties, I played with three Wilming to ten guys.
You know, I want to tell a story about the neighborhood with parties. It was nineteen or twenty and Florence ripped through, Oh, Hurricane Florence, because eighteen was wasn't it might have been eighteen Yeah, yeah, So twenty eighteen Florence rips through devastating, devastating storm because it sat for so long and the wind was blowing the opposite direction that it normally does. And so I remember the story. It was moving so slow, and I came right over us,
and you said, hop in the car. So me and Nick and Dad hopping the car. And we're driving down to the restaurant, and I mean the busiest four lane roads in Wilmington and where it's completely empty, and we're weaving through fallen trees and power lines and stuff like that. And we get to the restaurant and one of the original glass windows that's been there since the fifties, the fifties blown out right, water glass, wind blown, everything in the restaurant.
There's it's it's flooded.
We're like, oh my god, right, we pulled up just in your truck.
Nothing, we're not.
So he said, all right, let's figure this out. I'm sure it was a little more colorful than that. And so me and Nick start walking up the street and here's Henry, one of our best customers in there every day. He said, Hey, what are y'all doing? We said, Henry, the wind is blown out. He said, I got some wood in the backyard. So we walked to Henry's backyard. Perfect sheet of plywood, perfect size. Me and Nick drag it back up the street, prop it up. Henry comes
with us. We got the right amount of hammers in the back of Dad's truck and the right amount of screws, and we hammered the board up in the eye of the hurricane that we didn't should like it, just everything was provided to us in the moment. That's one of my favorite stories, just with you know, Pargy's placed in the community, but also I think there's an element of just kind of giving it up and letting things figure themselves out.
It's the only hurricane I closed for a period of time.
For because every hurricane before that, you were on the hurricane response crew, right.
For Rice Will Beach to see the fire in the city of Wilmington, until they just didn't. I quit the city of Wilmington, and they brought me in during a hurricane, during the storm, and there was only ten people that showed up. The need to eat, and I risked my life to fulfill my obligation. And it was supposed to be and the contract was written for two hundred people, and they wanted the same price for twenty or thirty people.
And I actually even opened up the restaurant, turned had fans blowing stuff out and generators on my refrigerators, and I cooked for three days and fed fifty people. I think I made three hundred dollars.
Wow, speaking of your refrigerator. I seem to remember you guys both. Yes, yes, I have always told going back, because I mean I've known you guys for I guess like seven years now something like that.
So yeah, don't don't uh I want to tea that he knew you know what he's talking about.
I don't want to. I don't want to spoil the story by teeing it up.
Go ahead, said the.
On the side of the road with the baby choking.
Oh that was not long after, you know, one of my employees I found.
But we can talk about that first if you want to.
Well, I think it goes in a in order, Okay, to go with that, I had a kid working for me and he was supposed to going back to night school at k NO. That little mount, the one that used to be up on the corner up there, up towards Market, straight up towards the college. Actually across straight from the college. Uh, I forget the but anyway.
Miller Mott, Miller Mott, that could have been it. There is a Miller Mott out on Market.
I think I think this was actually on College Road behind the Greek Church. There was a I'm not sure that community. But anyway, his wife he went to UNC, couldn't make it there, and he was a great with people, great cook, loved what he did. His wife work at PPD and she and we fed PPD and she was
she was embarrassed. She didn't like him being a grill boy basically, and so he started back school to finish his degree to go, in her opinion, to become a real man, I guess and uh, christ was about to comment is towards the middle of the end of November and December. Man, it's wacky. We're just non stop for because we closed for two weeks after Christmas. Wtch I pay my guys bonus him out and uh what it was close to that and he was graduation. His family
was coming to town. They were having a big party. I was going to the party. We're all going to celebrate getting his degree. And uh, instead of getting a degree, he closed up, took the money bag and disappeared.
M I'm going So I closed the restaurant, took the money bag from the restaurant.
Yeah, And then next day I hear about eleven o'clock at night, his wife's calling me, have you seen him? Said, I saw him when he left work, but that's the last time I saw him. Well, I can't find him. Well, look around. I'm sure there's nothing wrong. He's probably having a beer or something somewhere. And time got away. Next morning, there were to be no one seen, no one's heard from him. Talked to his wife and she's very distrolled, as she should be. His mother and father getting ready
to arrive for the graduation party. And uh, so I asked her. I said, well, look at the credit cards. She said, well, they're still in his parents' name, his credit card. Let's to call them see if they can track any gas purchases or anything like that. And so for three days there was nothing, no purchases. So he can't be traveling. You got to put gas in his car.
He had a jeep, older green jeep. And he lived right down from actually in the same area where you used to live, in those apartments that they built there off seventh sixteenth Street and right down the road across from back then it was a temple Baptist church activity center. Across was a cut through where you could take before we go drive and go into those woods where you lived. And he lived in that set apartments up towards Conneby Trot.
And after the third day, you know, I'm calling the phone company because he had one of my phones through the company, and I would see if there's any pings coming off, any transmitters, no communication. Wow. And it was the last night it was cold as heck, and h I started getting a feeling, you know that something's wrong, something's really wrong here. Is he try to, you know,
commit suicide or something. That's what's going through my head and h The next morning I get up, I called for riseon first thing I did at five point thirty in the morning. It was all tell them and I called him and I said, has there been any communication with this number? She looks, She said there was at twelve thirty. That's about what I was thinking about this thing. There was a ping off of that line. I said, what location? What tower picked it up? And she said
the hospital tower. He lives here, all these woods here. He's got a four wheel drive jeep. I had just bought a four wheel drive truck a week before, never owned one in my life. I give the truck. I go to work. I tell my key guy, but she was my key guy. So I told the guy I'm working for us, and I said, uh, Floyd, I got I think I know where our guy is. So I drive down seventeenth sixteenth Street, take a right, take a right of the trail, and I got just basketball goosebumps.
Yeah, goosebumps.
Because every time I went around a corner or something, I do what I'm a fine and so that I don't know where I'm at in the woods. It's along It was three blocks long at one time, that block where the where the movie theater now is and all that.
Okay, yeah, I know, yeah, the area.
So I get to about the middle where the movie theaters park in the middle of the woods there, and you go about fifteen to twenty yards you go straight and left. Now, Maggie, if you're going straight, you're going to run right into Independence at the end of the road there, because that whole block runs into where Independence comes down all the way through to Calenda Beech Road, right so, and the food line is back in that back corner on Calenda Beech Road, on that whole thing.
But I don't know where I'm at in those woods. I've never been in there. So I get to a point where I got to go left or straight, and something says take a left, So I take a left. Backed up in the woods, is g this is the fourth day when he's been gone, Yeah, and I'm dying one one I found him, Well, I found the truck lives in it. I'm a quarter mile now, maybe a half mile away from that truck. I don't want to get near that truck. Yeah, I don't want to find
my little buddy after four days. But I knew he was live at midnight, but I just didn't know what to expect. I said, well, that's y'all's job. You need to come down here and you come. No, You've got to go see if he's in the car. And I'm crying.
What would anyone do?
You know, I'm just basically hysterical, trying to keep it together. And I'm okay, okay, and I go in and I get up close enough to where I see him in the back seat, slumped over. He's here. Hurry up, come on. We don't even know where you're at. I said, I'm in the woods here off of sixteenth and seventeenth. And the name of that street.
Uh no, the.
The street that runs beside the church you're in front of.
The now I'm not sure.
Yeah Anderson, Oh yeah, yeah, George Andrews, Yeah, I said, this is.
Literally like where they built the apartments that you just used to live.
This is all woods. This is where I picked up on that, and which is crazy because that's a big lot of woods. I mean, it very well could be the exact spot that your apartment was.
Now the Little Father back to the left, where the retention point is now based because once I after it's all over. So anyway, I go up there and I said, yeah, he's in the car. Then she says, is he alive? I said, I don't know. You need to comment. And I could start hearing the ambulances coming and the police and all this because he's been under you know, a missing person right, And uh, he said, where are you?
I said, I'm in the middle. I said, you see my tire tracks come in and they said, well, we can't get the ambulance in there because it's not fold will drive.
Oh my gosh.
People they're on foot and they're bringing the gurney. But is he alive? I don't know. He don't look good. Check him, see if he's breathing, And are you kidding me? I'm finding one of my best friends, my manager gone. And I got to see if he's breathing, and I don't know how to even do that, you know. I open up the door and there he is, and he's been bleeding. There's a pile of blood in the floorboard. He's not conscious. His keys are laying in the pile
of blood. My bank bag which is right beside him, and I put my hand on his you know, I'm trying to see what I saw on the TV about checking a pulse. And but finally I put my hand up on front of his face and I feel a faint breath, breath, And luckily that night it was cold, because at the end, you'll realize he wouldn't have been there if it wouldn't cold. Blood bled out.
Did he cut himself?
Yes? So the police finally get they made their way down. Come to find out I was thirty feet away from the food line parking lot. So they all circled around, and they all brought the cop cards and the ambulances in the backway. I was from here, not even a block away from that food line, but you couldn't see it because of the trees, and I didn't know where. I'd never been in those woods. I was so distraught and confused. I didn't know where I was.
You definitely weren't thinking straight. Anybody wouldn't have.
So the police show up, the amblet show up to get him on a gurney. They take him off. I'm going to follow the ambulance to the hospital. His wife's there, his family's there, his mom and dad and brother, and they're all there, and the police asked me to slow down a little bit and then need ask me a few questions. They could not understand how I figured and found him. They've been looking for him and now they think I got the sense done. Dumb, I will suspect
number one, Oh gosh. And I finally have to tell him. I called Clay and I told him. I said, this lawyer, you know, I said, My lawyer works for chicken. You know my best. That man can eat a lot of chit.
Very true.
Yeah, somebody, you didn't have to defend me free. That's how much chicken this sucker's eating. Little Feller took.
Right, great guy. So I'll talk about that in a second.
So anyway, I said, and if you want to arrest me, you need to rest me now. But I'll get in my car and go find out how my little buddy's doing. All right, but we're gonna need to talk to you again, I said, come on, brod, go to the hospital. So go there, and uh, they got him back. They got him stable. He was could have died anytime it was warming up. If it had started bleeding again, he had been dead. And his daddy comes out he hugs me and thanks me, and he said, man, I don't know
what would even make someone do that. And I said, your daughter in law, she just had so much pressure on and he felt like such a failure. Had everybody believe in he's graduate. He's been going to school for two years and never went because when he disappeared, they called him school. They had a record of him in school since he started.
Ten years old. He was supposed to have the party in right.
And U he would just he would rather kill himself than disappoint her, right, And I told him that's terrible. Yeah, and uh, I said, well, how did he try to kill himself? And it used his key. His wrist was cut with a jagged key, tried to saw his arm off, his wrist off and that was sad. And now he has four children divorced from her not long afterwards salt treatment.
His parents had the means to do anything, and he took the advice and now has like I might even have chick grandchildren now, wow, which is an unbelievable great kid. And his daddy's I don't know, but it's been a few years, but the first fifteen years always get a Christmas card from his dad. That's amazing and that was my favorite gift.
There's a few takeaways about this story. The first thing is like, anybody else in the world would have been like, dude, this a hole took my money back, screw you, and that's it. But no, you're like, something's wrong here, something's really wrong here. You like to were you even phased by the fact that he took the money.
I didn't care about the money. Yeah. I've had other people's work for me that had problems with their nose, and U I just try to give them help and support. You know, money can be replaced, but your life can't, and and and your mental you know, money comes and goes. I've never money, doesn't I don't live for.
Money, right, I'm just saying, you realize anybody else in the world would.
They would have had probably took a warrant.
Out on it, right right for press charges.
Yeah, yeah, and U of the money was mincing. I didn't care if he would have spent it to live on. Well, he was for three days. He never used a card, and he was never ate. Yeah. The only thing that was in there was some alcohol. I guess it'd take that to try to cut your wrist off with car keys. But that was just a cry for help. But it would have killed him if I wouldn't have found him. The police sure weren't gonna find him because they back then they you know, they were surprised I could find him.
That's kind of like, that's kind of some remote viewing type stuff he did.
It's not the I wouldn't say that's the first time something like that feeling has happened to you, and it certainly wasn't the last.
No, a lot of situations I've always had. I don't know what I've had, but but I call it a gift. People with problems seek me out.
So what I would describe I was singing about this a lot today because I knew this would come up, right, And I think that you like, there's nothing inherently special, right, but the special part is your choice knowledge of what's knowledge of it or more like listening to it, right, like you have adapted or let me say, you're more in tune with that force that's guiding you.
But I think you're born with it.
Yeah, I think.
I don't think I do create it or manifesto it. I think certain people and that's one thing with your group of listeners and all it seems like because when y'all get together, there's there's no drama. Everybody's got the same heart, everybody's got the same purpose, and that's what it's all about, is is to uplift each other, uplift the glory of God. And there is signals and signs, and there is angels. You know, I've told a lot of people, I said, one day you realize I'm your angel,
and that's what I'm here for. And I attract a lot of people with certain problems, it seems, and being an idiot, I always seemed to have a way to make them feel better or they feel worse, because I'm gonna tell you like it is if I feel it.
That's why I brought this story up and wanted you to tell it because I know, like ever since i've known you, guys, for I guess it's been what is it seven years right to twenty eighteen, so seven or eight.
I don't know.
I'm bad at math, but seven or eight years now we've known each other, and that's something you've always told me. And then you've told me as you're like my dad has always told me son, I'm an angel, and.
I love that. I think certain people are. And Devil the Devil's guy is workers also, you know it.
And I know what you mean when you say that. You know I get it.
So that rolls itself into the story that.
Yeah. So just the next summer, I'm over at Great Friends and feeding the basketball team, which I did a lot. And it was like a Tuesday night and it was we eight around five o'clock, So around six o'clock I was packing up going home to come see my family. And I normally go down when the area of town I was in, I would normally go back down Market Street,
straight down to Princess Street in twelfth Street. And some said just shoot out of there, go the back way, go out on Riceville Avenue and just take Riceville now all the way down to seventeenth and then get on the Princess. So some I've been to this house. I go about every week. Every other week I'm doing something for the tea and because we were a family. But for that only particular time I've ever left that location, I went a back way. So I'm driving down Riceville
Avenue man just ready to get home. Put a whole day in the whole afternoon inf catoring and great time. And I get down to the stop light at Uh, I'm just terrible with remembering names of the streets, the one you cut in to go towards the college. That's true.
It you live off of that. It depends which where you're coming from.
Well, if you come in from say IMPI park down, you take a right on it and you go across rights Ful Avenue and you go the back way around to the college. McMillan, Yeah, I.
Used to live there right again. Yeah, happened right by your e.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah. It is kind of crazy, isn't it, because I'm just putting that together.
Yeah, me too. Both of these things are around. Yeah, well, i mean look at you know, I'm over here.
So you know where the dentist office or there was a doctor's office right on the left. On the other if you're I'm heading towards Wilmington downtown and at the light, I'm sitting there and on the left there's an accountant or there's a little commercial building there. Yeah, and uh, I'm about the sixth car in line, because it's like six thirty seven o'clock, pretty busy. Wish you not to take the other route. And all of a sudden I
hear something. I hear screaming. I don't see anything. I'm in my party's van with parties on the side of it, you know, and I'm looking. I don't see anything. And when I get to the light, I see a lady holding a baby and blood is everywhere. She's hollering to help me, help me. All these cars both sides already passed her. I pull up about a half block away, and I I said stop because I wasn't gonna stop, man. I was ready to get home, see my family. I
pulled off a run back, got across the street. It's busy, people are riding by. I could hear the baby gurgling, a little bit blood coming out. I'm going wow, I said, what happened? She said, he's eating up uh limon lemon he drop or lemon head. And the kid was like two three years old. Shouldn't have been eating a lemonhead. Yeah, and it got trapped, but I knew. I could hear some wheezing, so it's not totally blocked. Kate Fair Hospitals right down the street. A taxi pulls up. She said,
I've called my husband. He's on the way. Can you sit with mother? Two boys? There was two boys in the car that were six and eight, maybe kid was three or four. Mama gets into the taxi. I'll get her in the taxi, I said, go, I go sit in the car waiting on their dad show up. So I'm sitting there waiting and talking to the kids and finding out what happened. And you know, they're all cried because you know, then the dad shows. It wasn't long afterwards.
She never called nine one one. She just panicked, totally panicked, which I would too. I mean, blood, how the blood? You know what? You's choking? I don't know how the blood got there, But get them off to the hospital. I'm sitting with the kids. The dad thanks me. They're going to the hospital right there. And I'm sitting there scratching my head. Man, this all happened in ten to fifteen minutes. And I get in my van and I'm thinking, Wow, I'm glad I stopped. Nobody else was going to stop.
Just hope the kid makes it. They don't know who I am. There's a party's on the side of my truck with a phone number, but I never got a phone call from anybody, and I called to hospital the next morning to see if the kid was fine, and they wouldn't give me a lot of information because there was no kin. But he was released, so I figured, good. You know, they got it unclogged and I didn't have to read about him being dead, and uh, life goes on right. So a few years later, I opened up
another restaurant on Riceful Avenue. Great opportunity to come in and flip it. Only like one place at a time. So I opened up and I got I needed some more refrigeration. I needed a walk in cooler and uh bud, he said, Man, you got to call this guy, Dwayne. Great guy. So I called Dwayne and Drayne come over and we talked, and great guy. You know, man, I'll get you a great deal. I can help you out. I'll put it together for you. I said, man, that'd
be awesome if you could do all that. I mean, guy was going out of his way for me to pay twenty five to three grand for this cooler. I was happy to have Dwayne on board. Dwayne comes in, puts the cooler up, sets it up, gets it running free, arms it up. I said, Dwayne, bring me the bill, and he had a bill and five hundred dollars. I said, Dwayne, I thought we said it was going to be like thirty five hundred dollars. He said it was. But he said, remember a few years ago when you stopped on the
side of the road to help that lady. That lady was my sister, and that that kid was my nephew. Oh, and I don't think anyone's ever told you thank you. No one had, but I didn't think, you know, she couldn't remember to call nine one one, And I said, well, the first thing out of my mouth was not wow. I said, how's the kid? Oh, he's great. By then, you know, he's seven, eight, nine ten years old, doing
good and excelling in everything. And he said, I'm just doing it what I got in it, because I appreciate you taking the time. Because my sister in law said, my sister said people were just nobody was paying attention. She probably said fifty to one hundred cars passed by for I stopped. I brought tears to my eyes right then. And he says, this is my way of saying thank you. Wow. You know, I wasn't worried about being thanked or rode
up about or anything. I didn't want that, But then all of a sudden years later.
You're just always finding yourself in these positions where you have the choice to help someone and then it comes back to you. It's just like, how how can you make that up?
It's crazy? And it's because I had to ask someone who I should call because I've never had a walk.
In cooler, right, And that's that's even weirder.
But the crazy thing is after that, me and Dwayne stayed friends until the end of his life. Wow, I mean he and up. He'd come in to bring his family in the restaurant and I, you know, I took care of him as he took care of me, of any repairs or anything like that, for the for the years.
Did you ever see the sister again?
Never have kid again since the I saw him, And that's the guy that had I visited him in the they had to go into the UH to get straighten out in the in the UH record and UH it did end well with me, unfortunately, but that's that's a different story. But I still love him, just to say, because it was my busiest time in the bonus time and his bonus wasn't the same, but he missed two months and couldn't understand. And uh, but it just makes you appreciate what you do for, not what you get,
you know. But I don't care if I ever get anything. If I do anything, I do it because it's the right thing to do. And people get putting those positions. You see it all the time on the news, you know. Check that airplane that flipped upside down. Who was there helping not running for their selves? Yeah, and that's all I could see is I'd hope somebody be rushing in for me, like stopping for that lady. And I wasn't going to do it because I was tired, man, and
it's been a long day. But God wouldn't let me get away.
So why do you think this stuff keeps happening to you?
I don't know. But the crazy thing is, I asked him. I said, Then he said, you'd never guess what my sister is. She's a trauma nurse. Wow, And the blood came from I asked him. I said, why was there so much blood? She was very well had a manicure, very well groomed. She was trying to pull the candy out of his mouth, which what she don't do cause her nails were cutting his tonsils and his throat and
that's where the blood was coming from. But when it's yours, yeah, you panted right, And that's when I went wow, because when she just and it probably happened to me, I mean, you're all it's different when it's yourself. I guess, I don't. I don't know.
Yeah, I can only imagine.
I've just always panicked and always flew up right side down, and luckily I got out of it because my lifetime has been filled with blessings of survival, of times when most people wouldn't survive. Ye, just partying and hanging out because I mean I'd go to West Virginia a drop of a hat to go to a witch hopping festival, or o Philadelphia to watch Doctor j play basketball every Thanksgiving and didn't have any money, but always got I provided good times.
You're not from West Virginia, are you? I seem to remember you telling.
Me how to roommate from there, okay, which which is uh, one of my best friends until he gave his life up because of wrong decisions, and uh, he was like a brother to me and he had a special shotgun. This is a story I'll say right quick before I could talk for twenty six years and I get everything in in my life. But he had his prize possession with his grandfather's and Marty had a rough life from West Virginia. The first time I went there, it was
like the movie. People had their glasses on and they take their glasses off and their black face by the coal. And this is like six because we always pulled in Rup. We drove all night to get there for the wood chopping festival and would pull in. It would be early in the morning and these guys walking with their pale lunch, pale black dirt everywhere. I mean, it was crazy. I love the place. And we'd watch wood chopping and actually I lost my thought.
Are you saying wood chopping? Yeah? Yeah, a festival saying witchhopping. I thought he was saying shopping shopping Martin.
Uh. My buddy's uncle was a six time world champion.
Of chopping wood art and Colgert Wowa.
He was a mountain of a man. John Henry cut up cut the logs in between this, you know, stand up on the log and they'd shave in the mornings with it all and uh he would what you shaved with their axes before the competition. That's how sharp they are.
Oh cool.
And then if you're watching they're standing on the log chopping in between their feet. There's a centimeter a quarter of a meter of losing a toe or your foot because it's going to cut it. Yeah, I mean, it was just a great time. You know, people asked me if I competed it in the twelve ounce curls of Old Milwaukee, you know why. It didn't get any better
than this. But we had just how we arrived. Sometime lucky we'd be an old Volkswagen with no brakes and we'd have some of the some of the steepest uh drops in America in the United States. In West Virginia. Yeah, I mean they had them tractor trailer ramps there for a reason to where they went down if they lost their breaks. You know the shot on the right. We hit that before. Oh yeah, oh in a Volkswagen. But it wasn't It wasn't smooth on the Volkswagen suspension and
no back seat. There was a being back back there. It would stop once for gas and we had milk jugs for restrooms. Oh wow, man, we'd have two three cases of beer in the truck and the Volkswagen or it wasn't and then party all weekend and uh, chump would carry on. But that that was one of my uh you know, almost died a couple of times in Philadelphia watching Doctor J play basketball. Uh the guy driving truck was so drunk we'd run off the road. Wake up,
weren't you mugged? Never mugged? The police officer said, if you want to live until to see the morning, we suggest you get off this location that was in DC.
Someone hit you over the head with something that was a my.
Whole birthday party's when I jumped on the bench and the crack the it wasn't about four over my head because I jumped on the end and it sprung up and you and the board was face planning me and the top of the board flew off and I was hit. Some people. Oh no, nobody got close to me after that because I was still moving around, never didn't face. People thought I was waiting for me to die. That sucker hit me, and I just kept on moving. One thing we got is hardheaded. Alex got that.
Yeah, I know he definitely does. I could tell some story, malady, something you would probably know the best out of all of us.
But but it saw myur thing up and what, Lord has been too long? My wife's think I've left her and she's probably already packed my bags and give it to charity. Because as long as I've been away from home in a while.
Than probably the wedding night, which I wanted to ask you about that, were you happy with the ceremony? I haven't seen you since.
I thought the ceremony was beautiful considering how bad the weather was. The weather was beautiful.
The poor sound guy got electrocuted, did.
You know that?
Oh yeah, that's how to scream it.
Yeah, but he lived.
And there were no chairs, yeah, oh there was on the front road for them for the VIP.
It was. It was gusty and a beautiful, beautiful ceremony. I was glad to have all you guys there and it was a magical moment.
Yeah, it was for sure. That really got me that night at the end when everybody was taken off and we had all been uh in the cart and a little bit, and you said something to me. You just said something like, I'm glad that you guys go together, and you know y'all are good for each other, and y'all just y'all's friendship and thank you for guiding them and all that stuff. And I was just like, wow, man, this is just really surreal. You have the same heart, I said, I feel like we goide each other. You
remember that? Ye? Do you remember that? The week that I proposed to my wife, I came to parties and we showed you the ring? Oh yeah, you do remember that.
I don't drink, so I do. I remember everything except what by Alzheimer's is making me forget? Oh no, but it comes and goes. I mean I lay down and most times what I don't sleep is I remember. Yeah, And it's always certain situations where I'm stressing about, I'll always get reminded of what. And that's a special thing. I mean, if I died tomorrow, I lived. I lived a life of I mean, I really didn't grow up till I was twenty nine years old. Yeah, I had children.
I told my wife I couldn't have children. Then we get pregnant not long after, and I asked, you know, whose is it? That's not a good quick Boys out there listening, do not funning around. Don't ever say that when your girl tells you she's pregnant, just go with it and go holler somewhere else. But God knows when you're ready for certain things. People stress of not having children. I have friends that have spent thousands of thousands of dollars to have children to then end up adopting and
then having children. Wow, under no artificial means distress. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be for sure. And if you even if it's meant to be, to an adopt and take someone out of their misery of where they're at and guided, God give them guidance. Man, you got to give you can't. I told my boys early on, I said, listen, we'll be friends after you're eighteen.
But right now I'm here, not here to be your friend. Yeah, I'm here to guide you and lead you, and We're going to become friends, I hope, because a lot of times people don't become friends the whole grudges they keep, no matter how horllered bad. My son hollered at me or I hollered at him, we all love each other.
That's true. He absolutely said that too, And.
Then Alex when he got nineteen twenty thanked me, said, Dad, you know, I thought you were the meanness, but I really appreciate what you taught me. Yeah.
I hit that point too, not necessarily with my dad, but with my grandfather.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's reflecting back. I'm like, man, he really was just trying to show me some tough love.
And I gave my daddy hell, but it turns out I'm just liking. And that's always the one you butt heads with the most. Yep, and always never felt I was good enough and good enough for my daddy. Year older brother than I am was my dad's favorite, you know, because he could do the woodworking and take the time, and my patience was about as short as a firecracker.
Man, sounds like somebody I know.
You'd light it. I'm ready to go, and I want to get it done and get it fit.
I'm just talking about one of these guys are here.
I mean one year, when I was seventeen, I got a summer job with the with his parks and recreation apartment. And I showed up to work and uh, the guy looked at me and said, uh, can you drive? I said, I can drive anything. Sir, he said, okay, gave me two black guys and a tandem truck, a dump truck. How didn't even have driver's license. My daddy wouldn't give me my license. The only thing I passed in the ninth grade. And if you do the math, I was
a little old for the ninth grade. I was past sixteen, and I passed driver's head back then you took it as a class. And I told my daddy I passed it, I said. He said, it's about the time you pass something. I said, well, you know, I don't have to get a permit. I'm go get my license. He said, do you got a car? I said no, Daddy. He said, well you sure as hell I ain't driving mine. And that was the end of the conversation. So I had to wait till I was eighteen to go get my license.
And I was nineteen when I got him. Because it seemed not to bother anybody with me driving around. I had a motorcycle, a car, oh beat up crap with dirt or something stuck over where the tag's supposed to have the year on it. And uh so I get a truck and to give us a list of things to do in eight hours. I can do in about thirty minutes with help and my guys, you know, they were used to working all day at a slow pace.
I said, guys, here's what we're going to do. We're going to work three hours, go to lunch, y'all, get your wine. I can blow me up joint or something. Listen, listen to my leads applet or somebody, and then we'll go clock out at five. Man, you crazy. After the first day, we worked the whole summer for three hours, got paid for eight. We'd drive back at five o'clock. And they never did ask me if they asked me if I had license. I'd just said no, he didn't
ask me that question. But luckily I never just think about I gotten a wreck. But back then things were a little different with yeah. But still people assume you can do something. They'll let you do anything. Hey, can you fly a plane yet? Well, here you go, man, I'm gonna check credentials now, yeah, show it to me. But boys, that's been fun, it's been real. I probably confused a lot of people. I get the rambling, and uh.
You're not gonna give us one embarrassing story of Alex not one it's not a single one.
Oh lord man, it'd be hard just to find one.
I'm scared.
But there's something your children don't need to know.
Oh.
The most scariest thing in my life with Alex was when I set him down and I jumped into swimming pool to swim, and he was going to come to me and jump in the pool with me, but he was pouting or some shit. And I set him down on the little wall and I'm swimming, and all of a sudden, he jumps up and he's got magical feet moving and he sat on a fire d hill and that ship was in his diapers, tearing him a new one. And I get up to the deep end. There's pull
myself out of order like Superman. I grab him ump in the water in the deep end and we start going down, and I started lifting him up like that little kid in uh what's that movie?
Uh?
Linking Yeah, lin king Man, high Line Kingdon's ass, because I was and I'm sucking in water by the gallon. I'm swallowing it, dude, and I'm trying to climb up the side and it's slippery and it's a you know, it's a nine foot pool. I'm trying to get him the side of it, hold him out of the water, sucking water down. I get him on the side of the pool, get the water out of my lungs, and man, that was the last time I did that. But that was embarrassing.
I love how I knew the movie.
I don't know how you knew the movie because I was not going to get there.
It's just it's just a thing, a connection.
And that movie came out after I did it. First, sall me some money, right, because I was underwater. My wife would have killed my ass.
She knows about it.
Now.
Hey, hey, I got one. How about you enlighten the audience and you share when you spoke your first words to your newborn son. What were the first words that you said to Alex when he came into this world?
Daddy can buy you some hat, son, and his head was his. Mama's first words were, that's not my son. And he's still attached at the chord that she wants me to cut. After a five hour delivery two hours early, two months early, two months early.
She and you asked her if it was yours, and then she said, that's not my son.
No, no, no, I did I didn't say, asked her at the end if it was mine.
Didn't you before when she was pregnant.
When she first told me she was pregnant, I was just messing her.
Yeah, but I told her.
I couldn't have children. She was fine with that. She really wasn't looking forward to that. We were both older, and hell, I was an old man. Believe me, have them youngs all. I can tell you you wear out.
Right, but uh, and then you're sixty something on a podcast.
And we go to the hospital to get some medicine. She was fully dilated for six hours before we got there. And I'm completing about my neck, and hell, she won't be quiet so I can go to sleep. I gotta go to work in the morning. Woman, and she's in the hot tub vacuum inn. She's fully dilated. She's two months early. A week before. I'm talking to my nephew. This is He said, Man, it'd be cool if it was born on my birthday. I said, justin your birthday's two months before Alex's do date, but it.
Would be cool.
You're right. He was born on his birthday. Wow, two months premature, amazingly strong, had some issues, but they didn't think it would have to go the nick you unit, and I go back to check on my wife that had no medicines. During this four and a half hour nivory that they used every tool to try to manually bring someone out of the woo. They're getting ready to do surgery because my wife was wearing out or just
worn out. I was worn out and I wasn't doing nothing but holding her hand and count and getting hollered at. And they took the little safety net at the end of the table. They had it up against the winter, and after the contractions, everybody would get up. We didn't make no birthing classes. We went to the hospital and geinst some medicines so she'd quit nagging me. We had a baby that day and it took so long, and
we're sitting there and the nurses come in. When we go to the hospital and get some maid they said, well, we'll just check her out before the doctor gets here, and they go, oh my god, she's fully dilated. They all go run out of the room and leave me there by myself and say, what the hell am I supposed to do? You know, the doctor finally gets there, when they take us over to get her ready. They said,
this thing't gonna take long. Four and a half hours later he was born, and they first thing I didn't know what they were going to be doing during the birth. They take the little sledg that's out to where her feet are stirruped, and there's a landing trade for your baby if the doctor misses or something. I don't know what it's even there for, because the first thing she did was take it off the anybody that's had children and been in the room with know so they took
that out of the way. Oh so then after an contraction, they would all get up and leave the room and leave me in there. I've always been pretty quick, so I started to figuring out how long would it take me to catch him if he popped out? Because he came out. Now he's going to the floor. He's already gonna have problems two months early. So I'm getting stressed. When I get stressed, I get loud. So I started
hollering for the nurses. I said, listen, either put this damn thing back on, or somebody sits at the catcher's position when y'all go on break. Because after every ten or fifty minute they're leave the room and leave me either, And she's crying, wanting to go home. She's hurting. I mean, this woman, it's like a superhero. She ain't got no medicine. And the boy's head stuck at the end. I didn't want to look at it. It was hideous. Jerry. So after temps with Tom and plungers, my god, man, be
easy on that head, I said, Doc. She said, we're gonna have to go do surge. We're gonna give one more time. And I'm sitting in my chair with my wife's hand and I'm looking at the doctor's face. I can't look. I'm just watching the doctor's face. All of a sudden, you hear Alex shoots out and lands on her shoulder and chest, and I'm going, that's the craziest shit I've ever seen. She told me you ain't gonna just pop out that little fella, just pop the hell out.
And I'm going. And then she grabs the scissors and says, cut the cord. I said, lady, I work with knives every day. I mean, no no situation to be cutting a cord. That little woman put my big hand and threw them damn scissors in my hand and said, you're cutting a cord. And I cut the cord. Thank god I did, because I don't know if I could live without it, but I could have done without it. There's the craziest thing I've ever seen. They take Alex away.
My wife's laying there now they can give her a shot. So I followed then with Alex, and they they're cleaning him up. I'm the proud of stad in there. You know, man, my little boy is little undersized, but he's breathing. He's doing good.
That's two months early, three pounds and that tig for too.
Much premature wow, because I found out later he was a horse. So I'm sitting there and watching him clean him up. They're telling me how beautifully he is. I said, yeah, it looks like it's daddy, don't it. And Uh, all of a sudden, sir, you gotta leave. He starts redlining. I said, well, I'll get check on my wife. And my wife's in there like she's on the planet Mercury and the doctor's putting the glove on all the way up to her shoulder. And I thought to myself, this
can't be fun. I said, is everything okay? Yes? But We've got some problems. Your wife's placina didn't come out. I've got to go get it. Would you like to stay? Oh? Hell no. So I walked back towards where Alex is and I can hear a lot of movement, a lot of panic. I dropped to my knees, and this in between the the delivery rooms and to where they take
the babies into their little hall. And I go unconscious, praying for four or five minutes, and all I can hear is my wife hollering in my son's red line. I think I'm gonna lose both my children, my wife and my child at the same time. I don't know how long I was out, and I came to I looked around the corner. Alex was gone. I went across the hall. My wife was gone. I turned into wrecket Ralph in the hospital, No lie man. They were getting security up from me because I was insistent on whearing.
The hell's my family in my mind they were in the morgue. They finally got me to calm down. They had Alex up in the neo natal clinic where the where they put the prevy chair Nick you. My wife was on the same floor but in a different room and obviously not good shape because of her trauma and the drug she was on. And uh, I went and saw Alex. But after Alex was born, after that great escape out of the uh of the vice, he looked just like the conehead some Saturday Night Live, like an alien.
I mean it was a cone head.
I ain't lying to you.
He was maybe thirteen inches long.
And nine of it was head.
I'm looking at it. That sucking, I'm saying. The first thing I said is, don't worry about you. Daddy can afford to buy you some hat. And his mama looked at him and said, oh my god, that's not mine. He was an alien. He is, That's why it. And there you go. There you have it. Buy his alien daddy.
Yeah, his daddy's an angel.
But uh, I changed his first little Primo diaper because mama didn't seem for a day because she was just not in good shape after that. Wow, and uh, but you know you're sitting in this, you know, only going certain times. He's hooked up to all these machines. And I take him his little first toys and the people had got him and we had got him, and I mean I had eight inch toys that were bigger than him, my little dolls sitting in the little chamber with him.
There's a picture of me in his hand. Oh wow.
Yeah, and his feet didn't go out of my hand. I got big hands. But but anyway, being the curious guy I am, there's other kids in there, and I was already amazed that the one beside Alex was less than a pound, looked like a squirrel. I said, oh my god. And I went around the corner and it was a pound and a half and two pounds. Alex was a stud in there at two point nine by the time he got cleaned up, and I'm you know, I'm kind of walking around and I shouldn't have, but
I was kind of boasting my bull. We're gonna take you own over here, but I started looking and boy, they set me down and said, sir, you cannot leave your area for private and confidential. And I understood that. I respected. I didn't think of it. I should have, but you know, some people don't want.
Right, Yeah, it does make sense. I wouldn't. I didn't know that was the thing either, But.
All right, so if it ever happens to you, just stay in your lane. Yeah, I learned the hard way. Yeah, but man, but what they did and the care they gave. There are special people that do that nick You work, and Alex probably wouldn't have survived if luckily we were the number two nick You on the East coast here. Oh really, people go to Chapel Hill and if it's serious, it's Chapel Hill. Can't take you that this was back in those days. And what is he twenty twenty six now?
Yeah, I'll be twenty seven this year?
Wow? Wow? Wow the story and he started out with a life from fight.
Yeah for sure he got that dog in him too. Yep he still does.
Are he stilled out? Wow?
What this has been amazing? Man, We for for fort this June will have been doing this show for four years and from the jump we have talked about having you on the show. And I think that we've talked about it so much that I began to believe that it would never happen. And then what was it two days ago? Alex is like, guys, this is it. Got him on the shot, got him, We got him.
He had a lot of stipulations and I hope I don't bore anybody or no, no, this is awesome. Yeah, but you know, I can only speak when I get comfortable. And he called me, and I know that you guys been wanting. I've been saying this, that and the other, and I said, you know, finally I said, I'd hate to die tomorrow and not it gave my son. And people might hate it or people might like it, but this is just a gift I gave for him and to you and to Nick that if you call it
that I just called. We talk like this all the time on my.
Front porch, for sure, but this is a gift to us.
But well, I appreciate that, and I hope someone can feel something out of it, and hope you wake up. It's amazing to help someone. The next day.
We have now had all three of our fathers on the show as of tonight, and that's really cool.
Well, maybe one day we need to get the jam bree together and have all three things.
I've been saying that for Yeah, we've really been talking about that.
And the thing is, both of you have all three of you parents are a little older than their norm for a child of your age.
How old are you My dad is about to be He's I think he's like fifty eight. So honestly he had me when he was around around twenty ish.
So mine is a little older though.
I'm just talking about what they've lived through.
Yeah, absolutely, and.
Being anywhere towards sixty. Yeah, it was a different time. These kids today have no idea of the luxuries. They don't know what it is to not have a TV, to not have a telephone, to not build to pick and call anywhere you want to be in the world. The communication, and but what has it all led to. No one talks to each other. I have people that text me, I'll just say, man, that's too many word responds, I'm gonna call you. They don't answer me, and they
text me I'll call you later. And that's the problem with the world. Man. You don't know how someone's feeling unless you ask them. Don't text them. Everybody's gonna say I'm good, and most people are gonna tell you they're good if you ask them. But you're here, your ear will hear the cry and the fear.
I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming coming up. Yeah.
Yeah, And you think I didn't watch Batman? The Riddler was by.
Hero Did you see him as the Riddler got the later I'll show you later. Alex actually came one time to the show dressed as the Riddler, and none of us had any idea about it. It was a guest it was on a different It was on a guest show, I'll tell you, and it was a podcast that talks about Batman. But anyway, show, shut up, shut out bat Force time. Yeah, shout out back for it. Tom another great father. I think, Yes, Yes, this has been amazing.
Thank you you're the man. Any thoughts, any last No, I'm good, Thank you for coming on.
But for people to listen to the show, tell your friends. This is a show about good guidance and belief. Without belief, there's no reason to carry on tomorrow. And that's what's wrong with our society today, is because people are losing losing their beliefs and they're without a belief. Man, you gotta believe in something, and there is a higher power. We're all being guided by the same light. But some
people's lights are dark, some people's lights are bright. You always find your way out when there's a light, you always find your way in when there's not. It's like being outside and inside, you know, and you gotta look for the light. It's not always what it looks like or seems. And people are putting your life for a reason to help or be helped. It's always been my philosophy. And people that always seem to attract need help, but have the heart to help right, and they help me
in a way. We all have needs from each other, we all have strengths. Like I said earlier, but you know, I love your group. I love what you're doing. I love your message. You're not commercializing the hell out of it. You're just saying what your daddy believed in and sees. And the world needs to wake up. You know, there is people that has the power of foresight and the message and how to translate the message. Everybody gets a message, not everybody can tell the message, or say the message,
or learn from the lists a message, you know. So I thank you guys for taking the time out having a man on and rambling. We'll do it again. Yes, we'll get three old goats on and go from there.
You want to plug your socials, well.
I am on ao L. I'm the last member, so I wouldn't be hard to find. So just look it up AOL. There's not a lot of us left. I don't like change, man. I never changed it. Decord in my wrist. I just added. But I never took anything off to replace with something new. I never changed working equipment. I changed it when it broke.
Who does that sound like a lot of people I know? But yeah, somebody we have over the chair over there.
You didn't pull off from there. It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It's just funny to see, you know.
So they're gonna keep your prices cheaper for your customer. I mean, first time I went to the dentist, you know, it was like forty bucks. That was how fault. Now it's to forty. They got all these machines. I can look in and I don't want to. I don't have to look at you work. I trust you're working in there. I don't need to watch TV and see your hands in my mouth cutting it open or whatever. Hell. I went to them denist's office and the guy said, well,
you got two cavities, one on each side. I can do one today, You're going to have to come back for the other. I said, what do you mean, I'm here, do them both. I ain't paying for another visit. I'll pay for the extra, but not another office visit and a cavity. He said, well, I can only numb one side of your mouth at a time. I said, that sounds like a plan to me. Numb the worst side, freestyle the other side. He said, Man, you're like John Wayne,
let's get it all. And I'm sitting over there and it took everything I had and I slapped that man when he started drilling on my unnovacine side of my mouth. But I spit it out and I'll walk on with it and didn't go back. But you know, I'm different. I live with a lot of pain because that's all I've dealt with. So get on with it all, right, you.
Know, say bye guys.
Hey we're out, Bye guys. What up?
Bmies.
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