Conversation with Scott Neal, My Big Brother, Part 1

I have been looking forward to my conversation with today's guest long before I even thought about a podcast . He has literally been a positive influence for my entire life , and I mean my entire life . He is my big brother , nine years my senior .

We didn't have that typical childhood , i guess , where you're playing with your sibling and playing games and outside and riding bikes together . He left home when I was nine , so we missed out on a lot of that , but we are extremely close today . There's not many weeks that go by that we don't talk several times , or at least texts .

He's been a source of encouragement for all the years . We share a love of BMWs . I'm guessing he probably introduced me to auto racing at a young age . We have worked together , we have camped together And I had intended to take a one day road trip with him and we just never could work that out .

So we're going to go on a virtual trip for this episode , but I will tell you there are going to probably be multiple parts to this conversation . Our parents died in 2014 and 2015 . And it left both of us , i guess , with some unanswered questions about our ancestry Before we age any further .

I wanted to get some answers to some of my questions about my brother , and here's to the show , a man who will always be my big brother , scott Neal . Ok , so welcome to the show , scott . Thank you , dan . Boy , it's just a pleasure to have you here . Yeah , it's a pleasure to have you here .

I think long before , dan , the road trip podcast came into being , i was going to take a road trip with you and ask you lots of questions . So now we're going to do a virtual road trip and we're going to hit those same questions .

Scott is my big brother , anyway , been looking forward to having him on the show , and the first thing I like to do , scott , is I like to give people a couple minutes just to tell my listeners who they are . For you and I , you know this will be fun because we've both been on this race track .

I like to use a race track up in the middle of Ohio called Mid-Ohio , so we're going to take a warm up lap around the track . And just who is Scott Neal ?

And I actually pulled off the side of the road at rest stop and got out of a pad of paper and a pencil and started and I started drawing . So I drew a triangle . I figured there's , what I was doing was I was defining who I was or who I am , based upon the roles that I play in the lives of other people . So I put I was a dad , I was a husband .

I started sketching these things out and I put them on a triangle And then I said , well , I don't , I don't quite have enough . You occupy one of those points on the triangle of the personal life as a brother . I think I had son on there , son and brother family member on there . There's one of them . So that didn't seem to be enough .

So I drew another triangle . Well behold , then I had the star of David On the other point . On the other points of the triangle I had the advisor . I served as an advisor role , I'm a business owner , I'm a community volunteer . So then there so those six points , and I decided that who I am is that space in the middle of those two inverted triangles .

So it's where , where , where all of those different roles find intersection , And I can't I can't , deny any of those kinds of things . So I'm a dad , I'm a husband , I'm an advisor to clients , I'm a friend , I'm a business owner , I'm a community volunteer . Compete with one of those somewhere along the way . I'm hoping that that gets to my , my essence .

There was a spray on type of paint that you could spray on the top and it looked like vinyl .

Four speed right , it was a four speed , four on the floor , four bar carburetor and had a 411 rear end , which meant that it would go from zero to top speed in about an eighth of a mile . It was a good eighth of a mile car but it was not going to run much over 80 miles an hour , which is another reason why I think that he bought the car .

He never said any of those things , but I think he was watching for me . Yeah for sure He was buying that car . but I was proud of it and he helped me take care of it , did lots of things , did lots of things to add to it . Interestingly enough , a few years later I got into college .

He decided I didn't need that 63 Chevrolet anymore and he traded it off . It was still in his name . He could do that , so he traded it off to a 71 Plymouth Sport Fury .

The first one that I ever owned was a 71 2002 Ti . That was when I lived in Germany and that was my introduction to BMW . So I have to tell the story of when I headed off to Germany . you were into motorcycles at that time . Yeah , you were into . I forgot what you were riding at that point , but you were definitely riding a motorcycle .

and you said , well , you should check out BMW when you get over there . And that said to you well , i'd like to have a car , not a motorcycle . And you said check out BMW . So you're responsible for me signing up for BMWs . So anyway , i found this 2002 Ti , which is a dual side-draft , carbureted 2002 .

They didn't make many of them , just I love that car . And then I got rid of it and got a 74 2002 turbo , which is one of those cars that if I had today it would be worth a whole lot of money . Yes , for sure You know . and so I drove it up and down the Audubon but I was bound and determined to ship a United States model .

Couldn't bring the turbo back home with me at that point because it didn't meet federal specifications .

but they went to the local BMW dealer there and ordered , and through the American company , american PX , was able to order a 78 320 , which and that you know I was told when I bought it that I should not drive it or I shouldn't , i shouldn't get the engine over 4000 RPM , which was about 80 miles an hour in high gear for 600 miles .

And so I drove it 600 miles on the Audubon at 4000 RPM And then I could kick it up to 4,500 RPM for the next 600 miles . And that's pretty much what I did . That's 90 miles an hour on the Audubon . When they tore the engine down , had the engine rebuilt at 100 and 4000 miles .

when they tore the engine down and rebuilt it , they said it was the cleanest engine that they'd ever taken apart . Attributed that to that break in exercise that I did on the Audubon .

. This is a road trip show And I don't know , do you have an epic road trip that just in your mind , that one of those that you'll just never forget ?

You could sleep in the in the footwell of the backseat Yeah , i remember that And one of those And I slept on the backseat and he would just drive us straight through from Kentucky to Orlando And we'd have Thanksgiving dinner at Ann Oly and Uncle Ed's house with our cousins , with Dad's cousins . Actually they were our great aunt , uncle That was .

So those were pretty epic And provided some great memories . We'd stay until Sunday and come back home .

The change in the temperature between Kentucky and Florida resulted in condensation under the tarp that covered the steel , which also resulted in the fact that this was cold steel . So it resulted in the steel being covered with a light thing of rust , a light covering of rust , And so he would . so he attempted delivery and this was like two days before Christmas .

He was covered with rust And the load was refused by the , by the receiving party down there , because it had the rust on it .

But they had already shut down the plant where we were delivering the steel for Christmas . And dad looked at me and he said your mom is going to shoot me if we're not back home for Christmas . And I said , yeah , you're probably right , she might not go quite that far , but you're not going to be in her good graces .

I don't think dad had ever flown anywhere before , but he called up Southern Airways . He had a car sitting in Atlanta . He said if we could just get to Atlanta then we can drive home in the car .

Yeah , that was quite epic .

And sure enough , he said well , if you I'll tell you what I'll do , son , if you can demonstrate that you can back it in over there on the blind side meaning that I had to be looking in the right-hand mirror to see where I'm backing this thing into the hole And if you can perfectly back it in over there , then I'll someday teach you how to go forward .

So I practiced that He would stop . He would always park the truck in such a way that it had to be had to be backed into a parking space if he was gonna be at home for any period of time . So he would pitch me the key and say go over there and back it in . I developed some pretty good backing skills for a tractor trailer .

So one day we were in Knoxville , got out on an I-75 coming north . He pulled off the side of the interstate and I said what are you doing ? He said get over here , you're gonna drive this thing . So I gladly obliged and jumped into the driver's seat , headed up I-75 out of Knoxville .

We got about a mile up the road and he said you know , son , this thing rides and drives a whole lot better with all the wheels on the paint . Yeah that was kind of his style .

You knew you were just having a sibling back in those days probably You were supposed to be a girl . Yeah .

So we grew up right on that road and I remember it being very busy . All I know is you . You broke your leg one morning Taking on a car , i think , out in the highway , and so tell me about that because I just don't know . I don't have any recall of that held you were , and what were you doing ? crossing the street , because mom wouldn't let me .

After that , i wasn't even allowed near the street .

I had ridden home from church with an arty the night before and for some reason she happened to be driving by and I had left my Bible in her car and Aunt Betty Was was also over at the grocery store . Well , you know , we live right across the road from the grocery store .

So , and she was there and she yelled at me and said can I give you a ride to school ? And I said sure , and already had stopped to give me my Bible that I had left in her car . Okay , what on earth they were doing out that early in the morning and on a Monday ?

Oh , my okay and already , and , and Aunt Betty came out and Helped me off the road And I was laying there in the middle of the road and they came out and got me off to the side . Oh gosh , still remember the ride to the hospital . Archie Brown was the Ambulance driver .

Okay , he and mom had had pretty good conversation , as I remember Driving up there , but mom was over in the house and she was in the kitchen . Somebody ran over and got her and she came over and so the three of them were huddled around me waiting for Archie to get there .

They drove me up to Somerset , yeah , but I wore a cast that year , that well , in that year I was at home . I had to have a window cut in the cast to dress the wound and take out the stitches and so forth , so I couldn't use crutches or couldn't walk around on the cast and what could do these days .

But I had to cast up to my hip , full , full leg cast , for three months . And then I had another , had a Up to my knee for the next three months . I was in a kind of a growth spurt and so the the small bone did not Guess it's called the fibula was not broken .

It kept growing and pulling apart , the big Broken bone kept pulling apart the place where it was broken , and they kept telling me that We might have to break the little bone to get them both to heal back at the same rate .

They hauled you to the hospital if you were sick or injured in some way , but they also served as the funeral home's hearse . I Think it was a , probably a Cadillac , i'm not sure .

I guess you know , walking into the side of a car or warranted getting a bee in contact . Yeah , maybe that's miss . Never did ask miss kid What's behind that . Yeah , don't expect she would remember , but one of the things that that did , mother engaged our cousin , teddy ball , to be To be my helper at school .

I don't know if she paid him or what happened , but if he volunteered , but he was my , he was my , he was my , my right leg . He Made sure that I could get him out of the school and get to the restroom without a whole lot of problems .

One of those are grandmother , a couple aunts that just stick out in my mind , and then that's on our dad's side , and then mom's side , of course , had wonderful aunts and uncles And we were just surrounded by a lot of family growing up in a small town , which is something people don't normally see today or live out .

I want to ask you a question about our grandmother , because I think you spent more time there probably than I did . I do have great memories of being there and just a wonderful woman . What is one memory of her that just you just never forget ?

in 1929 , about three months after our dad was born , she bought this farm for , we think , $300 in 1933 and bought some milk cows . So she did milk cows , made butter and all that sort of thing .

But so I would go down to her house and mother was working , our mother was working in the grocery store at that point , and so I stayed with grandma just about every day when I was very young

. But I remember one day I was out in a field it was really between the house and the barn I stuck my foot in a post hole and I had those pointed toed cowboy boots . I stuck my foot in this post hole , got stuck . Gosh , i thought . I thought I was going to have to . I thought I was just going to live there .

I had no idea how I was going to get out of there because it was just stuck .

She said well , scott , all you , all you really need to do is you need to push your foot down into the post hole a little further . I thought she was crazy . She said push it down and as you push it down , curl your toes up . And that's what I did And it came right out .

So it was a , it was a life lesson that oftentimes you just have to kind of pause and do the opposite of what you think it's called for , and you might come to a better solution than you would if you try to do it the hard way .

I just always remember when I would be down there and she'd give me a bath and she'd stick me in a tub in the backyard And I swear and I could have just dreamed this . I could swear she had some sort of device that she would put in the water to heat it . No , i think you dreamed it .

I hope that I draw the drinking water , but , yeah , but I don't remember her ever complaining about anything either And I think it was a function of going through the depression .

She and her grandfather married in 1927 , like it was , and she would have been 17 years old at that point in time And then he hauled her off to Detroit where our dad was born in 1929 . And then , three months after dad was born , they traveled back to McCurry County on the train . I always postulated it was to show off the baby .

Yeah , right , and for whatever reason this was in , he was born in April . He was born on my birthday . I started to say I was born on his birthday . So right , but . And then ? so this was in July . Grandma and dad had traveled back to Detroit and left our grandfather there in McCurry County . The newspaper article said to attend to some business .

We don't have a clue as to what kind of business he was attending to Right , but it learned after , after grandma's death , we were going through her effects . Our grandfather actually had a degree from Fugazi Business College in bookkeeping And I said , well , maybe my accounting skill is genetic , i don't know .

Yeah for sure , on the train back to Detroit from visiting McCurry County . He died in Harrodsburg , kentucky , to became ill on the train and got off the train and had relatives in Harrodsburg . The Roberts family lived in Harrodsburg . We died at their house . It was the story that I got .

We don't know , we don't know what the cause of death was , we don't know what was going on there , but our grandmother then was a depression era widow And so I always figured that that probably had a whole lot to do with her demeanor and the way that she experienced life , because you know she was a .

She was a 19 year old widow with a three-month-old when Took place Yeah , yeah , so 19 . She came back and lived , i suppose , with family that live there and already , and Bellevue And her brothers and sisters and her parents are still living at that time .

You know once again that that close-knit family , to really help Help them together , they were the Hamlet's yeah , for sure .

My hope is that people who have family still living Will just sit and talk about stories good stories , bad stories , whatever those stories might be because we Certainly , after people die , then you , you , begin to go wow wish I had the answer to that question .

This was gonna be recordings that I stuck away and held on to , but I appreciate you your encouragement over my I'm guessing , my 61 years .

I'm guessing you were encouraging me earlier , because The line in a wonderful life that always comes to my mind whenever I watch that every year Our family watches it , and it makes me think of you , and it's when Peter Bailey is talking to George and he goes You were born older and I think I've always thought of you as born older .

You're nine years older than me , but your , your wisdom that you've imparted on me over the years has been very Well received . Well , thank you very much . Yeah , like to wrap up , though . My show with you can tell people how to find you either a website , social media , your favorite Charity , whatever you want to , whatever you want to share .

I just like to open it up .

So right , but that's , those are the two ways for sure .