"Suburban Bull Rider" Ft Ethan

You know what I mean ? The Easy Company .

They have people talk about the event like the Battle of the Bullish . You know all that stuff . It's all my unit , which was awesome .

I said we , we interview anyone and everyone , we share stories , we tell them to Max , we live life to the max and we got Ethan .

I actually got thrown out of high school when I was a junior for making a bomb . No , I wasn't making a bomb , no that's a reference to the previous episode . It was some other stuff I don't care to share on the internet , you know , in front of people .

Just bad kids yeah really 5000 .

So I did a bunch of online classes got out in December of 15 . I graduated early and immediately started working as a mechanic and that's kind of the story that leads up to me sitting in your kitchen . I was working as a mechanic at a shop in Peloton . I did that for about three years and I got sick of it .

The company I worked for originally they had their fleet vehicle serviced over at the shop that I was working at and I would see these guys , you know , once , twice , three times a month , depending on how much driving they would do . And I befriended a tech named Dave . Dave and me we're not in touch anymore . He moved somewhere south .

We talk every now and then , but I was having a horrible day . I was covered in grease and oil , you know coolant , translucent , whatever , dripping all over me . It was a winter time . So we were getting all the salt . You know the salt wash from the cars when they came in . It's warm in the garage , so all the stuff was dripping down .

Dave's like hey , ethan , how you doing man ? I said Dave , dude , I am having a horrible day . I don't want to keep doing this . You know I'm thinking about going to school for HVAC . I didn't know that appliance repair was a thing . So I said , dave , man , what do you guys do Like ? I want to get into HVAC . I want to stop working on cars .

He said man , you know , we work on refrigerators , wall ovens and microwave steam ovens , vent hoods , and I think we might be looking to hire a training guy . Here's the owner's phone number . Owner's name was Pete , really , really nice guy . So when I got off work I called Pete . I said hey , pete , you know I've been working at the shop for a few years .

I've been working on your trucks and I want to get into HVAC . You know I'm interested in doing what you guys are doing . Dave's a good buddy of mine . Now I've known him for about two years . We talk every couple of weeks . And Pete said why don't you come on in for an interview ?

Come for a ride along , see if it's something you're interested in , I show up . I was working six days , five days a week . Thursdays were off and then I was going to night school . I started going to Harper College over in Palatine for HVAC , so I went on a ride with Pete , the owner of the company , and I immediately fell in love with it .

We got to see some really , really nice houses on the North Shore working in just mansions . You know more money than we could possibly imagine what to do with , and we're working on these people's refrigerators .

So he said , great , once you finish school we'll hire you on full time . So school was , I believe , eight months , maybe it was six months , I don't remember exactly . So every Thursday , my off day from the shop , I would go ride with somebody from the old company running house calls , trying to learn the trade .

And I graduated trade school , quit my job the next day , gave my two weeks in and then got hired on at the company that I was working for originally and I was with them for five years . I was in training for about two years , training with the senior tech every day and learning some good skills and seeing some nice houses . So I was out on my own .

One thing led to another . I ended up breaking my leg and that put me out of work for about 14 months and that's how I ended up coming to your house . I ended up with another company , got called out to work here and that's how I'm here . But yeah , the upbringing was good . I mean we didn't do much horseback riding out there , definitely no bull riding .

I didn't know any cowboys , so to say , or cowgirls . There was a stable in Palatine called the Palatine Stables , my cousin . He served in the Army . He was stationed up in Alaska out of Fairbanks . He ended up staying there .

So Max was gifted horseback riding lessons when we were like 12 , 13 years old and it's all English riding , hunter , jumper , English permit , proper riding . So kind of got into it . Then lost touch . The real gear had grown up so we were riding little mini bikes and stuff like that around the neighborhoods buying dirt bikes .

Four wheelers got into the snowmobiles and stuff like that .

You're like , okay , if I finish school and on Thursdays I'm gonna go on these ride-alongs and get better at working on refrigerators and stuff like that , and then I don't know , like the pot boils all the way to the top Sometimes . Does you ever have a moment where you're like , fuck , I can't do this ?

We were doing a lot of oil changes , brakes , shocks , all that stuff . You know cool flushes . So I've never worked for a dealership . I worked in a quick loop . It was a quick loop but we did other things like not like a jiffy loop , but we would do brakes and struts , engine components . We'd never pull motors , we would never do transits .

I mean we would do U-joints on driveshafts and stuff like that . But I think the main difference is probably pay scale . I know that GM is union and they all work off book time .

So let's say you know you bring your Chevy Silverado into the dealer under , you know under a dealer warranty or if you're , you know if you're out of warranty and you need a water pump on your motor . I believe , like I said , I haven't worked in a dealership for my buddies that I have .

This is what my understanding is If the book , if the GM book , says hey , this job's gonna take you three hours , so that's all you can charge for it , and you do the job in an hour and a half .

I always went to mechanics back then and they would do what they do , charge what they charge , and I always thought I was getting screwed over . So I got another question for you , my friend have you ever screwed over a dumb girl ? Who walks in and says , I need my oil changed , and then you say oh , your transmission's busted .

So she brought it to a mechanic , not a dealership . She brought it to a mechanic and the mechanic quoted her like $23 , $2,500 to pull the heads off , to do the head gaskets and the valve covers sit right above the head , get right above the heads and to pull the valve covers off on an older truck like that it's a really quick and easy job .

You just pull the four bolts , pull the valve covers off , clean up the old gasket , put a new gasket on and you're done Gasket . I mean you get our TV it's like a liquid gasket that we like to use or you get the regular one . If you get a regular gasket it's like $25 . With labor , I mean you're looking at $150 , $200 .

The mechanic quoted her that $2,300 for the heads and it wasn't even the heads leaking , it was the valve covers leaking down onto the heads . So they were trying to pull a fast one on her and another buddy of mine who works on trailers . He's a trailer hedge installer . He looked at her truck and told her hey , this is . You know what do you mean ?

You got a $2,500 quote . This is your heads aren't even leaking , it's the valve covers . You know , we could do this in my driveway in half an hour and be done so . That's , that's one story that I saw .

If a doctor tells you you need a surgery , you better get another doctor that's gonna tell you the same shit .

I ended up going with the middle guy . He seemed the most honest and it made the most sense .

She had a water heater out in her garage and the Dateline people set up the cameras , hidden cameras , and they cracked one of the water fittings loose so it was leaking a little bit .

Okay , they called like five or six different companies over to see who would be honest and who wouldn't be , and I think three or four of the five companies Tried to sell her a new water heater for thousands and thousands of dollars . One guy was blatantly honest .

So , like that's , the last thing I want to run into Is screw somebody over and then have hidden cameras come out like hey , you know , like .

I want to talk about , you know , when you got the opportunity to ride your first bull . You know how did that happen .

So About a year and a half , two years ago , I was dating this barrel racer girl and barrel racing is a predominantly female sport and make a clover around barrels with horses . So , um , we split up and I Ended up getting into horses

. I was sitting at home board shortly after that breakup . It was the winter time and I'm like man , you know , it's too . It's too cold to ride out . We're gonna ride motorcycles . I'm a big motorcycle guy too . So when the salt flies I'm putting that bike away for the winter . But I'm sitting there just bored , like man . I've got nothing going on .

And there's a riding stable right down the street from me and I called them up . I said hey , you know , I'm , I'm brand new to this . I'd like to get involved , start riding some horses , because it seems like a Really fun thing to do . And they said well , hey , you know we , we got an opening tonight . Why don't you come on down ?

So I went down there , rode for an hour as a private lesson , immediately fell in love with it , did a few private lessons and they said hey , man , we are , we have confidence in you . We could put you out in a group lesson . Group lessons , they're a little less expensive than a ride , than a single , you know one-on-one lesson .

So the group lessons are fun . You got a lot other people in there that you know , ride horses . All different ages , it's all adult , you know . So , from like 18 to , you know , 60 , 65 years old . We're in there hanging out with everybody ride horses around arenas . You know , in the winter we got an indoor arena , in the summer we got an outdoor .

So I Was doing some research online . I wanted to try to get into , get into bull riding and I Usually you got to start when you want to go pro . You got to start young and you got to be tough as nails . Those guys are a different breed of people and I've learned pretty quickly after my experience . I'm come . I'm not cut off for that .

I'll never go pro . But I found this guy never say never never . No , I mean , it's I , it's . It's a tough life from the guys that I know that do it . They're always on the road . But to get back to how I got into it , I was , I was doing some research online . I was looking at rodeo schools . You know , just practice pens .

There's a practice pen about four hours south of here . I don't have any bull riding equipment . I didn't have a helmet or a vest or a bull rope or spurs or anything like that . So a gentleman named Lyle Sanky he's a Really famous rodeo cowboy that that rodeoed in the late 80s and early 90s . He was a saddle-bronk rider and a bull rider .

He , once he retired from rodeoing , he started a school called Sanky rodeo schools . So he teaches bull riding and he teaches saddle-bronk riding and he teaches bull fighting , and bull fighting is just like the they call them rodeo clowns . Those guys are awesome . I mean a lot of respect to those guys because they're in there with every single ball .

You know , we just get on one and then get out of there as quickly as we can . So I found his school online and it was booked up for months and months and months and months . So I hopped on one . I think I waited eight months to go down to the school and he was having a school in Oak Hill Ohio .

So that's like southern southern Ohio and he's got a stock contractor that that travels with him . So he has schools in Texas , a lot of schools in Texas , he's travel , he travels everywhere .

So he hauls a big trailer , all his gear and supplies , all his equipment and he has stock contractors that he hires to bring bowls or , you know , bucking broncs to these different rodeo events . So we were at a place called the Diamond J rodeo company in Oak Hill Ohio and it was a three-day , three-day school .

So basically I Dragged my dad and my brother down there with us with me , because if I got hurt I wouldn't come in but drive myself home , you know , if I broke an ankle or something like that . So they really enjoyed going to see that . But I signed up for the school , went down to Oak Hill .

This is , I believe , april of last year or April of this year , in about eight months , since I've been on a bull . Oh , your first bull yeah first , first , first time getting on . Like I said , I grew up Valentine . We do not have .

You know ask hey man , how can I help you set up ? We're getting all these kind of get me acquainted , all the equipment . We're setting bull ropes out . A bull rope is basically the rope that you tie around that ropes ropes , chest , mm-hmm , to hold on to when you're , when you're getting on a ride .

So we're tying all these bull ropes on the fence getting getting ready for all the other students to show up , and they have a few . Uh , it's called a barrel . Basically it's just this big mechanism that rocks back and forth and you sit up on top of it to practice lifting up .

You know when you , when you , when you get on a bull , that bull's gonna rear up on you and you got to get up over its head to take its power away . So if you fall backwards and that thing goes to buck , you're gonna go right off the rear end of it . Well , so we're kind of going . He's a .

He's a big storyteller , so he's telling all these stories from his rodeo days and we're down there with , I want to say , 25 people were down there , a lot of young kids . I think the oldest guy there was 35 , maybe 40 years old and Day one or pretty much going over all the ground rules . You know what to do , what not to do .

You stay the hell out of the way if that bulls in the arena . You , you're not in there . I mean you let the bullfighters do what they're doing , let that bull get up out of there . So we're going over . You know all the equipment that we're gonna use spurs , you know , like I said , bull , vast , bull , vast . Just it's a puncture vest .

I mean if you get stomped on you're still gonna be pretty hurt . It helps from getting actually punctured , you know . You get horned or something like that . So we're getting all this stuff set up now . We didn't nobody was wearing champs , unfortunately a lot of cowboy hats , but yeah , the when we're getting everything set up and get our helmets adjusted .

You wear a mouth guard because if you take one to the chin you could , you know , break your teeth , you could you knock yourself out . You get pretty hurt . So these are not rank balls , these are . These are just practice balls that were on and a rank balls . It's basically just like a bull that really , really bucks hard .

So we're on some practice balls and the stock contractor is awesome . They're getting these balls unloaded off the trailer , bringing them back around the arena and get them in this corral . It's basically a bullpen where they all hang out till it's time to start lining them up to get in a bucking shoot .

So Lyle's telling all these stories and he's just kind of teaching us some some things . I mean none of . There's a few younger kids that had ridden before . The vast majority of us have never , never , been on a bull . So he's going over the basics and we have lunch and this is day one . He says , all right , well , who's , who's ready to get on ? So we're .

You know I'm like , oh yeah , let's go , let's , let's get on , I'm getting ready . And they just keep saying , hey , just stay calm , you know , just remember to breathe , try to think about driving forward , stop locking it with your heels . See where spurs , and the spurs are kind of they're tweaked inwards and those spurs help you stay on .

They kind of grab that bulls like his , his ribs , mm-hmm . So that's , that's one thing . We tie our boots on to us with with leather straps , because if they get ripped off you know they're not gonna do us any good . So we tie those on . And he's calling us up one by one .

You know , ethan , come up here , mike , go over there , josh , you , you get on on shoot number four . So we're up there getting ready and these bowls are in the shoot . So one by one , we're starting to pluck these bulls . You know , get on these bowls and go out .

So I was number three up and I dropped my bull rope down in that shoot we there's a guy with a grabber it's like a long , basically like a long stick with a with a hook on it to grab the bottom side of your rope , to bring it up , because you don't want to go , you can't let go in there , you'll get hurt .

So they bring that rope up , bring it over the top of the bowl and they they tied on there lightly so that you could get get into that shoot . So you're standing over that , you're standing over that bowl just looking down on it . You're getting really amped up . You know it's just . It was a huge adrenaline rush . It was unbelievably awesome .

And they teach us how to , how to mount this ball . We get on , we want to put both our feet on its back , but we can't . We don't step hard , we don't want to hurt the ball . You know we're it's , we're not . You know we're bucking bulls , but they're animals .

We got to be careful we don't hurt them there at their livestock and they make these guys money . So teach us how to get on .

Put your feet on and you slide down and you sit your butt on that bowl as soon as you can , because the more time you stand up with your arms like that , that bowl Decided to kick or buck or anything and it knocks your arm off and you fall into that bucking shoot , you're gonna get hurt . You're , you know , you could get really , really injured .

So they say get on , I'm in fast you , you , you get in and you drop in and you stay on that ball . So we're sitting on these bulls , wait and wait , and for waiting for our puller to pull the gate and Use this stuff called rosin . It's really sticky . If you warm it up with your hands , it gets really sticky .

So these bull ropes have a bunch of rosin on them and they're pretty simple ropes . I mean , it's literally just like a I don't know if it's cloth , I don't know what material , it's a soft material that wraps around it and then there's a little knuckle pad with a little bit of foam on it so that you don't you know , you don't hurt your knuckles too bad .

We got a glove on . We tape our gloves on so you lock your hand into that , into that rope . The ropes pretty thin .

I mean you're just , you're just hanging on by the tips of your fingers and you got to warm up that rope , get that rosin nice and sticky , warm that rope up , bring it through once you , once you pull that thing you got to warm up that rope . Yeah , you got a warm to rope up .

You know , get that rosin nice and sticky and warm so it'll stick in your hands . It doesn't get yanked out . Um , you tell him to pull , pull , pull , pull , pull . It gets tighter and tighter and tighter and you're you're sitting on that pole , you know , with your arm just locked into your crosser , so you're pulling it .

He brings that tail into the rope around you , wrap it around your fingers . If you look online , some guys put one through their pinky like that . Other guys just hold it . I was . I had so much adrenaline going I had no idea what so . So I got this vest on , I got my spurs on a helmet mouth garden , I got a hell of a gag reflex .

So I had to cut that mouth guard up pretty , pretty far because I couldn't you know , I couldn't keep that thing in my mouth . So you know you're , you're in there just gritting your teeth holding on to that mouth guard , your helmets nice and tight , and they say , hey , you ready to go ? So they , you know , yeah , I'm ready to go , let's go .

So you sit forward to keep your chest forward . You sit up , take your hand off that shoot . You nod your head , so I can . You nod your head . That gate flings open and that bowl takes off . So , um , I got on four of them . I didn't ride a single one . Riding is just basically saying , I'm afraid , seconds .

I got bucked off pretty quickly after , after every single After , every time I nodded my head . I was eating dirt Within a few seconds beforehand . But you know you're thinking about all that training and everything they tell you and you're like you know what drive forward , keep your chest up , hold on , watch that bull's head .

You want to go , you want to kind of you kind of want to . You know , drive your hips in your arm . That bull's going right . You're gonna try to stay with it . You got to stay up . So you know , the second that shoot opens , everything just goes black . You don't think anything and then , boom , it's over .

You know , then you're , then you're on the ground , you're scrambling to get up . Sometimes that bull go after you .

But and this was back then , so like in the 80s probably or the 90s when this happened I mean so , while you said his name is , yeah , he probably went through like bulls , like that ranked bulls , you know , like so that's crazy , but so you were falling off all day right .

. I'll never forget this kid . He was awesome . He lived down in Ohio . He was just hired on with the stock contractor to come help us out and be a bullfighter . So he , he was awesome . He was in the ring the whole time . He was trying to talk us through it . You know , a stay calm , smile , man . Bull riding is fun .

You know , we're in there , just , you know , just like freaking out , trying to stay calm . He's like look man , it's just riding balls , like relax , it's fine . You know , you just just do what you got to do , stay on that thing and get out of the way .

So , tristan , they put Tristan on the rink , his bull they had at the end of the , at the end of the deal , because we were all giving him shit about . You know , oh , you're talking all this and that just smile , smile , smile . This bull that he hopped on . It was unbelievable .

This bull that he hopped on jumped out of the air at least four feet clean off the ground and he , he didn't get bucked at all . He stayed on the foyer seconds .

It was very impressive to see him , see him ride those bowls and he , I believe a year , maybe a year and a half before got bucked off in the shoot , fell underneath that bull and got his neck broken . He recovered from that and the the time that he rode for us was the first time he had gotten on a bull since he broke his neck .

So he , he was pretty amped up when he he didn't . He landed on his feet . He didn't even land on his back or an honest hands when he jump .

The bowl gets 50 points and you get 50 points depending on how ranked that bull is and depending on how good you ride . So that's kind of how you get your scoring . So you know , if I ride that bull for eight seconds and I look like I'm struggling , it's there's , there's a , there's an etiquette to it . You know you got to look good .

Keep your shirt tucked in . You want to look presentable .

If the bulls , if the bulls good at bocking , if it's , if it's rank , if it's doing what it should do , that's that bulls gonna score high as

well . So when you're talking like PBR or PCB or one of those big name rodeo companies , I want to say some of the biggest guys are JB , mooney , lane Frost , tough heatman , they're all . They're all really legendary bull riders . And JB he just retired recently . He got injured pretty bad quite a few times .

I think he's broken both of his legs at least twice .

Because I've seen like videos of dudes like doing a full , like flip over the wall and just running to the gate , and it always like it , always like dawns on me , because a broken neck usually means a spinal cord injury .

Yeah , I mean like me , yeah , like someone that could be in a position like me , like , so you're doing something extremely dangerous that could cause a spinal cord injury , but you're doing it because you love it , you know .

So it's like pick your poison and , um , sometimes people fall the wrong way , and one of those people that come to mind Is Christopher Reeves , because he wasn't even riding a bull , he was riding a horse , you know , and he broke his neck Because it popped .

So if you're riding with your left hand , you know you want to get off on that left-hand side , so you want to dismount , throw your arm over , get off on that left-hand side . If you get off on the right , you could have a hang up . That hand can hang up in that , in that bull rope , and then you start getting dragged around arena by this bucking ball .

You fall underneath the thing . You get pretty hurt . So when I got bucked off , I , you know I it was the one thing that I remembered was get off on the left , because if not you're gonna be in big trouble . And yeah , no , I wasn't flipped or anything like that . These balls weren't that rig . Um , so I had a bull come , my second bull that I got on .

He came out of the gate , buck twice and I ended up . I ended up losing it , hopped off on the left and as I was going off , I'm hitting the ground Kind of backwards , so my feet are towards the , towards the bulls head and his bulls feet come right down across my back . So you could see , on the bull vast there's , like you know , it's mud stains .

So you could just see that that mud stain go right across my back and I had a hoof mark on my , on my lower back , for a little while I'd want on my inner thigh Kid got bucked off . 16 year old kid got bucked off there and I watched his arm snap and that was on day three . That was towards the end of the deal . Has Mao was down there .

He was a bull rider . He that's what he did . He lived in North Carolina . He came up from North Carolina to do this . I guess they do a lot of bull riding in North Carolina . They don't do a lot of it up here in Illinois .

I'm like , oh man , you know , that's when the adrenaline really starts kicking in and yeah , cuz you said , you really Really sit , you know yeah , yeah . Once you get on , you say saddle or no ?

there's no saddle no saddle , just a rope , and then there's a Hard on your balls , there's a , there's a flay it's called a flank strap and that's what makes the bulls buck . There's a lot of controversy on the internet . You know they wrapped the rope around the bull's testicles , this and that . It's not true at all .

All this is it's a soft cloth rope with 2d rings on it . That you know . When you pull d-rings you could tie stuff up so that that rope gets tied around that bull's hips and all that bull's trying to do is kick that rope off . So when you nod your head , they're gonna pull that rope and that bull's ready to ready to start bucking .

So it doesn't hurt the ball at all . It's a really soft like cloth fabric .

You know you sign the contract , you guys got the insurance . These bowls are our livelihood and we care for them . We love them . They love these animals . They're like pets to them .

You know you get on them and ride them , but During the day they hang out in pastures eating beautiful green grass , getting grain , getting whatever they eat , and they're just hanging out . So you know , they know what their job is .

When they get into that arena or when they get into that bullpen , they , they know it's time to go , but 90% of their lives they're just hanging out eating grass .

Like you know beat music and stuff like that . But you're like old-school man , you like the outdoors , you like you know it's dirt biking . You know like horseback riding . You like what's the plan ? Like you stay here . Do you want to like move ? Like to like a pasture ?

Owning a horse , to my understanding , is very expensive , not only the cost up front , and it depends on what bloodline you buy , it depends on what you want to do with it . Um , but horses , they , to my understanding , they like to get hurt and they don't want to live .

I mean they , you know they obviously want to live , but when they get hurt , you know , let's say , the difference between a horse and a cow . If a cow is out in a pasture and it gets a tough car in a fence you know a barbed wire fence that cows gonna hang out and wait for somebody to come help it .

A Horse , it's a , it's a pre-animal , so they have a really severe flight or flight , flight or flight instinct and when they get into a pinch like that , they can , they can really hurt themselves , break their legs .

I mean it's If a , if a horse got stuck in a fence , it's gonna thrash and freak out until it either cuts itself loose , breaks a leg , bleeds out . I mean that's it , they , they go downhill pretty quickly .

I mean , if it's got a broken leg , it can't , it can't stay up , it's it's , it's just gonna lay there , and they can't lay for too Long . It's kind of like an elephant , you know . The organs get crushed , so they gotta , they got to get up and move around . So I believe that if that happens there , they're done for .

And then you have to keep up with , like , the vet bills . You got to keep up with the stables and the washing , the feed , everything . But when you have your own ranch leg and you're in charge of it , do you think you could ever be in charge of a horse ?

I think it's hard to get into it From as you know , you know , you know you know fourth , fifth , sixth generation farmers you know you don't hear of . You know John , from down the street , you know in .

like . I remember I went to go Genoa , genoa do you know where Genoa is ? Yeah , I was hauling bale with my hauling bales of hay , with my friend Travis and I left weights , bro , like I was like good . I thought I was like good , like like dirt .

We started early in the morning and then when we like got to like the afternoon , we had a lunch break and then we had two more hours left . Bro , my , I couldn't feel my fucking hands because of , like these farm country boys Just throwing bales of hay like on the fucking , like it was .

It was a really cool moment because it got me to really appreciate Travis , because at first I was like this fucking doosik or whatever you know . I mean shout out Travis , use , by the way , if you're listening . But yeah , no , it was cool . It was cool to see , you know , it's cool to like see a different scenery rather than the city you see land .

But just seeing , you know , growing up , seeing how he cared about her and you know the things that he would do , just you know , not out of pocket , but just different ways that he thought about her throughout the day , it kind of stuck with me , I mean it's Did you live in like a neighborhood or did you have like a house like that was like kind of

isolated , like kind of like this house ? Yeah . So we grew up in a neighborhood Back in the day before , back in the day when we were young , myself and my brothers I'm four years apart between me and the youngest one , so it was more isolated back then as Neighbors got old or moved away or passed away .

Their properties would be sold and then they would tear down their small houses and build large houses . So if you looked at the neighborhood I grew up in , you know 20 years ago , compared to today , our house does not fit the appeal you know . There's . There's beautiful homes on that street . We have truck tires , pick up truck bed cabs sitting in the yard .

I mean , we had chickens there at one point in time , like let's go , it's . It's totally not , not what it used to be . Yeah , I grew up in a neighborhood . Sustainability you got some chickens . We did . Yeah , we did . I'd like to get some more . But there's a force that we used to go hang out in there's like we called it the swamp .

It was more just like a wetland that some older kids built a treehouse in the middle of this wetland Couple years before we were old enough to go hang out . So we had a pretty fun childhood doing that .

I never thought I'd be wearing football jerseys eight years later , but I am wearing football jerseys .

to the max ?

Some days are gonna suck and you're gonna have to work real hard To get to where you want to be , but if you believe in it , I mean it'll pay off eventually and you'll get to where you want to go and it's just a daily thing . You just got to take it one day at a time .

Yeah , I'll take that leave of faith do good today and hopefully something good is gonna happen to you tomorrow . So that's kind of how I , that's kind of how I live my life . I mean that . And then you know , just making living every day Like it's your last .

I know it sounds cliche to say that , but you know , we don't know how short life's gonna be , so why not just take , you know . Take what you got and just just live it up to the max .