Small Towns Podcast
Small Towns Podcast
E16: Communication in ALL of its forms…
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Welcome, millions, or perhaps billions, of faithful podcast listeners. We are your hosts, Jason Kimber and Dave Simmons. We'll bring you along with us as we share life stories from our experiences living in small towns, or in Jason's case, an unincorporated community. That's true. Along with genius suggestions for solving the world's problems and a whole lot of laughs. This is the Small Towns Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Hi everyone, welcome again to the Small Towns Podcast. I'm Dave Simmons, joined by, as always, our good buddy Jason Kimber. And you know what, Jason, I've actually been thinking, you're everybody's good buddy.
SPEAKER_00Anybody I talk to out there, everybody loves Jason Kimber. Well, that is about the nicest thing anybody has ever said about me, Dave. I appreciate that. I use the phrase good buddy a lot, maybe a little too much. Listen, I think there was a little cross-stitched phrase on this old lady's house in Grassfriend that said something. There are no strangers, only friends we haven't met yet. Oh my gosh. Hang on, I shouldn't have said old lady. That was mean because she She was 35. To a 12-year-old kid. That was ancient.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, you're like you're like the old yeller of people. You know what I mean? Man's best friend. Well, that's old yeller before he caught the hydrophobic. Oh, you're not. You don't want the rab. I wouldn't probably lock you in a shed. No, I don't. Even if you got the hydrophobic. Unless you're for hydrophobia, it's rabies. If you're foaming at the mouth, I would first ask you, now, is that because you saw double cheese? Oh. And you're real and that sounds delicious? Or do you are you rabid with the hydrophobia rabies? But other than that, you're a treasure of a man. Well, thank you. And I would say the same about you, Dave. Just a treasure.
SPEAKER_00You're a Grouse Creek treasure. Thank you. Yeah, well, I mean, there's not a lot of people out there. Excuse us as we kind of delve into this emotional well-being, because it has been a while since we've been in the studio. Yeah, but it feels good. It has been a while because my life is an open book, and if you have ever been around me for the space of five minutes, you know most about me. One, you know that I'm quarter Belgian. Yes. Two, you know that I like to talk. And three, recently, if you've been around me, you know, because I tell everybody that I'm around, that I recently had my tonsils out. The whole process seemed I mean, it was painful for you, right? Oh, it was awful. I mean, it was actually one of the worst pains that I've had. And Dave, we know people who have had their tonsils out. And I remember Yeah, they're usually six or seven years old. Exactly, not nearly 44. No. And I'm gonna tell you, getting your tonsils out is a young man's game. Because I'd talk to people and they'd say, Oh yeah, it's horrible. You know, people that got their tonsils out as an adult. They'd say, for sure it's horrible. And I remember thinking, I mean, I'm a grown man. Uh, Dave, it's horrible. Everything they said, and then some was Well, do you think it's just as bad for the kids that have it happen, but we just don't think it is because they're kids? Well, maybe, but actually, no, I don't think so. Kids are resilient, they just bounce back. My healing process is not as much, but I'm here to tell you, you know, I was down and out for for sure ten days, a full ten, where I wasn't even doing anything at all. And again, as I mentioned, if you know me, you know that I love to talk. Break my arm, Dave. Break my arm, but don't take my voice.
SPEAKER_01Well, you don't need those arms, but you need that voice. And didn't they take your what is it?
SPEAKER_00My uvula. My uvula, which not to be confused. Exactly, not to be confused, and I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. But just for the non-medical people of our vast worldwide audience, the uvula is that little hanging down thing in the back of your throat. Yeah. I think that's actually the technical term. Technical term. Yeah, that is the the little hangy thing. The hangy down thing. Uh it should be there. I feel like you need that. I well, I think you do need it. And in fact, when I went in for the surgery, I went under the knife, I went to sleep thinking that all I was going to do was wake up minus two tonsils. No, I wake up and the doc's like, hey, just so you know, we also removed your tubula. I was like, what? And the gallbladder too? Anything else you took out while you're in there? Yeah, I'm like, geez, you're getting a little handsy there, doc. I mean, I can't figure it out. Of course, this was all done, my surgery was all done in the name of sleep apnea. Listen, if we had somebody to sponsor this podcast, it would be whoever creates CPAP machine, because I'm a mess.
SPEAKER_01Your CPAP machine was like trying to murder you.
SPEAKER_00It really was. It was actually creating doing the opposite. The opposite. It was actually forcing another funny muscle term. I could go to med school, the epiglottis muscle, if you were. That can't be a word.
SPEAKER_01I think it's you know what? You can keep going with it. You said a potato too, so let's just keep going.
SPEAKER_00That's the muscle that actually, as I understand it, stops food from going down your lungs. Apparently I got a lazy epiglottis. It's kind of flappy. It's kind of flappy. So I put the C PAP machine on, and instead of like giving me that positive airflow, it was actually smashing my airpipe shut. You need that airpipe open. Yeah, to breathe. If one wants to breathe. If one wants to, if one wants to, and I want to. And so, you know, I'm just at the beginning of my sleep apnea journey, if you will. I'm looking forward to uh a few more doctors' visits to see what's going on. But again, everybody I talk to, if they're a grown person, this is now how I'm starting my conversations. I'm like, hey, buddy, you got your tonsils? If so, keep them. You're gonna want to hang on to those. You're gonna wanna hang on to those? Then I had to Google again what the uvula does. One of the things that it does, it apparently helps stop food from going back up your nose. Out your eyes? Well your nose? Yeah, I mean, it's all connected back there, but I think it's just a big cavernous area. But it goes back up your nose, which seems gross. I didn't think that that was an issue. But I'm not gonna lie, when I now when I swallow a big double juicy cheese, my body's kind of had to train itself. Feels kind of like it wants to go up my nose. So I'm like, I miss you, uvula, I really do. It's getting better. Can you grow that back? I don't think so. Like a lizard grows a tail.
SPEAKER_01I think they grow two. You're gonna grow two uvulas.
SPEAKER_00Wouldn't that be nice? That's just gonna be a mess. I would have been eating. No, well, they'll take it out. I hope it doesn't change my um angelic singing voice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you do. You're golden throat. Golden throat. An absolute golden throat. The uh church choir is not gonna be the same without you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, maybe it'll help me hit those high notes. But I'm a better man because of it, and we actually could do a whole podcast on you know medical maladies and things of that nature. We've I think we've talked about this before. You know, I've had my appendix out. Not really, but I've got the scars as if I have. If we haven't talked about that, we'll circle the wagons back around about that.
SPEAKER_01Scars and stretch marks are different.
SPEAKER_00I actually have potato baton out.
SPEAKER_01I actually have had my appendix out. Oh, you did? And I have a nice big old scar, like I'd been in a sword fight, you know? And that's what I tell people. Because it's a lot cooler than you got your appendix out. Yeah, I but I got a cute little freckle on my appendix scar. Yeah. I mean, nobody sees it, but I do, and I'm like, you know what? That's adorable. It is adorable, you gotta name it.
SPEAKER_00Well, I could. Yeah. We'll we'll come up with that. We do need to circle back around to these great important topics, but having my tonsils removed and me being basically a moot I almost said a mute. A moot. I almost said a moot. A mute for like 10 days, two weeks was horrible because I communication is part of who I am. Yeah. And in fact- Good thing you could text. Oh, thank goodness. Thank goodness. But we think about that, but that's a relatively new medium form of communication.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, think about trying to get a hold of your parents when you were young. Oh yeah. My dad worked at ThyCall and you had to sit on that phone. Well, first of all, it was a busy signal all the time. And if you got through, you had to wait and you had to wait all just to call and talk to my dad at his work.
SPEAKER_00Interestingly enough, when you say the term busy signal, I mean to maybe some of our younger listeners, I don't mean to insult intelligence. That may not be a phrase they're even familiar with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because there really isn't.
SPEAKER_00It goes right to voicemails. It goes to voicemail, yeah. You I'm never gonna call if I call you Dave right now on your cell phone, it's not gonna go beep, beep. That's my impersonation of a busy cell. It needs to be a little lower.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't have a UV line. Oh yeah. How's you how are you even gonna try to Yeah, that church choir is done. You're done with that. You can't match pitch anymore, can you? You know what I just felt bad about? I might have spoiled old Yeller for people. Do you think people know that he got the hydrophobic?
SPEAKER_00He got the rabies? Yeah. If they don't know like that movie was like released in the 60s, wasn't it? Yeah. So I shouldn't feel terrible about it. That's on them. Okay, let's make it. I mean, there's gotta be some sort of like, you know, statute of limitations.
SPEAKER_01Did you say statue? I think statute. Okay. Because I don't think there's actually a statue that signals the limitations.
SPEAKER_00There should be a large statue, and on the top of it it should say limitations. I'm gonna make one of those. It's a statute of limitations. Hey, speaking of that, we could do a podcast about random stuff, but I had a listener actually text me just today. She's one of my my favorite people, Carol Warburton. She was um my English teacher the later years in my grouse creek education. Grade five through twelve. Grade five through nine. Five through nine. Her and her husband, Mick. And she just she texted me today at 1.51 p.m. And all she said was awakened, I believe, not awokened. Remember, we actually had a little back and forth, we weren't sure what that was. Awakened. And she says awakened. And and she would let's go with it. Yeah, she would. I mean, if Mrs. Wolberton doesn't know, then nobody knows.
SPEAKER_01So we start talking about our statue of limitations. Our statue of limitations, we actually will have a statue, so don't mock us. I've always said, here's what I've always said, this is words to live by. Always claim not to be a genius. Because then when you do something dumb, just say, Well, hey, I never claim to be a genius. Pump the brakes, buddy. I'm not Einstein here. Yeah. So next time I call you out on something, say, Dave, Dave, Dave, I never claim to be a genius. Yeah, I've never claimed to be a wordsmith, Dave.
SPEAKER_00Problem is sometimes I've claimed to be a wordsmith, and now I'm gonna mess words up. And we did a whole episode about that, and I've messed up my fair share. But I love these rabbit hole tangents we're getting on. But as I think of communication for us now, of course for our children, it's very different. I mean, Dave, if you were to say to, let's just pick on uh well it doesn't matter which one of your kids. I mean, because you I like picking on all of them. You pick on all of them because you've got from twenty one twenty-one down to eleven. Eleven. If you were to ask any one of them what's a collect phone call? No, they wouldn't know. No clue? Nope. Yeah, in fact or a rotary phone. Rother like like dial a phone?
SPEAKER_01What does that even mean? But you Grass Creek, were you just two Dixie cups with a string between them? Between houses? Yeah, that string had to be taught.
SPEAKER_00Well, you have to have it taught, otherwise the words don't travel down the stream. Yeah, the vibrations, they just don't work. But it is funny because again, this is a story that people simply will not believe. There's been a few people question me about the validity of some of these stories that we share. Dave, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but everything that I have shared is just true. Flat out true. Flat out true. Me too. Yeah, I don't have to lie. Why would I make any of this up? Listen, these stories they practically rack themselves. They absolutely do. But I was born into a home that didn't have a telephone. What? No, I did not have a telephone. I mean, in fact, we did not get a phone of any kind until I was probably what seven years old. Really? Yeah. Like there was no phone. And it wasn't because the town of Grouse Creek didn't have a phone system. It did. We just happened to live three and a half miles south of the center of town, and there was no reason to have a phone line go out that far. So we just didn't have one. Well, how do you call grandma? Well, great question. When my grandparents lived in so we were on the very south end of Grouse Creek, and now see it's it slips back into Creek, and I think no, you don't have to anymore. And they lived on the far north end of the valley, and we actually had a C B. No way. We did walkie talkies. We had walkie talkies, we had a C B. We had one in our truck, and then we had a base unit in the house. So we would be able to communicate via C B. How do you open that dialogue? Like break a breaker? I'd say something like um Little Bo Pete. Little Bo Pete, this is uh big bad wolf, 10-4. You got your ears on. I like to say the phrase you got your ears on. That means are you there? Are you there? Yeah. You gotta say like 10-4, meaning I understand what you said.
SPEAKER_01Why can't you just say, yeah, got it?
SPEAKER_00I mean, where did 10-4? Is this like a military thing, 10-4? Maybe. And and or is that, or do you say Roger? No, I think Roger is also Roger, Roger. Roger, Roger. Check your Victor, Victor. That was a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. But we have C B. I mean, so we talked about it. I'm my dad's truck had one of those antennas that would like basically scrape the power lines driving underneath them. They were so long, it'd be just wagging in the wind. Ham radio? Did you guys uh no? I never had ham radio.
SPEAKER_01My buddy's dad had a ham radio. And he was big into it. It was it's quite a it's I think he might still be. It's it's a hobby.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think there's there's actually like a community of ham radio.
SPEAKER_01Well, all I know is his dad was gonna put a tower in the yard, and that was a big tower. And one summer we had to dig the hole for it. Oh, jeez. I don't like shovels. No, yeah, they don't fit my hands out there. No, it turns out I I don't really want to dig a hole.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'd rather not. When I first heard the term ham radio, and then I discovered that it has nothing to do with a nice juicy piece of ham, I'm like kept out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm out. Why would I mess around with a radio that doesn't have a slice of hammer? Exactly.
SPEAKER_00If I might have a hamstake, well, that's one thing. But a ham radio, hmm. When did you actually get a phone in the house? Again, so I was probably seven, eight years old. And the crazy thing is, Dave, is that you know my mom was raised in a home that had a phone because I mean, we weren't born in the days of Alexander Graham Bell for crying out loud. We had phones. So I can't imagine what that transition was like for her because she and my dad got married in 1972. So then we're gonna fast forward to the, you know, gosh, mid-80s before she had a phone in her home. I don't know how she called her mom and dad, you know. I mean, it's just crazy. You would sometimes go up to the store or the school there in town, and you could place a long again, term, a long distance phone call. You had to write it down because then when the bill came from the phone company, of course you had to be responsible for those charges.
SPEAKER_01So the little country store would bring you the bill to your home?
SPEAKER_00Uh we just go up there, settle up, you know, settle up, settle up, put on a tab. Put up my tab. But I do remember the only reason that we got a phone, again, it was just cost prohibitive to bring a line down to us. However, the power company out that services Grouse Creek is uh called Raft River Rural Electric. They still twister. It is, and they do a fantastic job. I mean, I'm a big fan of them. They moved their basically like a substation. It happened to be at the north end of town. For whatever reason, they decided to move to the south end of town and they needed a phone. And it actually went right in front of our house. And so at that point, it made sense for us to get a phone because we didn't have to pay you know three and a half miles to get it there. And so I I do remember when we got our first phone. They were all day bringing the line down our lane that we lived down a lane, and it just seemed to be quite an ordeal. It took several days, maybe weeks, I don't know. I was just getting away. We were just waiting for it's like Christmas. We wanted a call. Who was your first call? Well, I'll tell you who my first call was. It was uh my buddy named Brad. Oh, really? Yeah. Now the crazy thing about that, again it took all day long, and so it was about nine o'clock that I picked up the phone and dialed on nine o'clock in the evening. And I called Brad. Well, I dialed his four-digit number. Don't remember what I got most of the numbers memorized, but I can't remember what his was. Again, a four-digit number. I called him. I didn't know a lot of phone etiquette, but his dad answered the phone. And I'm like, What up? Like, is Brad there? He's like, he's asleep. And I'm like, But I've never made a call. This is my first phone call. Don't you think you could wake him up? This is kind of a big deal for me. Curl his old bones out of bed. Exactly. Like, I think he's gonna want to take this call. My first phone call, and he was asleep. So, a little bit anticlimatic because I don't remember my second one. It was a yellow phone mounted on the wall, again, the rotary in place, and it had a cord on that phone that could wrap around or double wide three times.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, you need privacy. You gotta be able to go into the bathroom and close the door. Shut the door. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's a different world. That is never worked.
SPEAKER_01The funny thing to me is that your first phone call was a failure. You just wanted to talk to Brad, but you put him on the phone. He's got a really good assistant. That gatekeeper.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can't get through that guy. His dad was kind of gruff. I actually thinking about it now seems a little uncalled for. Like he could have just woke Brad up. And that family doesn't live in Grasswick anymore. They moved out shortly thereafter. Maybe maybe uh his dad was just tired of all the incessant phone calls. I don't know. That's chaos out there.
SPEAKER_01Gotta go somewhere where there's no phones.
SPEAKER_00A little quiet.
SPEAKER_01I think they moved to eastern Utah, but um they probably could find some quiet places out there.
SPEAKER_00I know. So that was my first phone call. But we've talked about collect phone calls. I remember when we drive back and forth to school, you know, to high school, my parents would want to make sure that we arrived safely at our destination. And so we would kind of manipulate the system. Because again, you have to pay for a long distance phone call, and a collect call was even more so. And so I remember I would get to to the Sid and Ruth's where I would stay to go into high school. And I'd call my mom collect so as to not charge Sid and Ruth. I think I know where this is going. And again, in the like you have a collect phone call from Jason, Kimber, uh, would you like to accept the charges? And she'd say, No. That means that I was sitting there.
SPEAKER_01So you're you made it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When you used to do that, will you please accept a collect call? And then you're supposed to say your name. Yeah, that's true. You could do it where it says, Can you will you accept a collect phone call? Mom, I made it just be fine. Stupid, good. Yeah. And I mean you're basically telling her, and then so it says, Will you accept a phone call from Mom I made it? No, I will not. That would have been better. Well, I think that's what we should do next time you have to make a collect call.
SPEAKER_00Can you even do a collect phone call?
SPEAKER_01Well, I know in when I was living in Bulgaria for a couple of years, when you're gonna call internationally, like I don't know though, but that was a long time ago. I'm sure you could get an international cell phone service.
SPEAKER_00Well, I made a I made a collect phone call from Australia along the same lines to my parents here again. I was over in Australia, and they were supposed to be calling me. They couldn't get through that. So I called them collect and just say, hey, what's going on? Got my dad on the phone and I said, Hey dad, okay, you know, you got me, but like let's hang up and you can just call me back because this is gonna be expensive. He's like, No, we can't get through. Your mom wants to talk to you. And it obviously had been a while since we chatted. And so we did a collect phone call for like an hour from Australia. You wonder what that cost, buddy? This would have been 1900. $600.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Crazy. $600 just to talk to your kid. That was worth every penny. Well, I guess to your mother. Yes, to your mother. I think about my kids right now. Are any of them worth six hundred dollar phone calls? For a phone call.
SPEAKER_00I I'm gonna say no. Yeah, well that I love them. I do love it. I love them dearly. Yeah, dearly. We love them. But even as we think about the advent of cell phones, and you and I obviously grew up in a time where we didn't have cell phones, we were grown-ups. I was in college when I got my first cell phone, I guess. But still, I mean that's grown up. Do you remember like when you had like a special plan? Like you could only text me back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like texting actually cost money. Yep, like to ten cents a text or something like that. I remember sometimes listen talking to them teenagers and they'd have these texting bills that were like $700. Yeah. And we're like, pump the brakes on texting. Yeah. That's foreign. If I were to share that concept with my girls now, they'd be like, huh?
SPEAKER_01Well, I remember thinking talking to Suzy about, hey, if we get on this plan, we have unlimited texting. And thinking, oh, that would sure be nice. But I remember having to this wasn't feel like that long ago telling Suze, hey, we need to get you on a plan. She's like, I'm never gonna text. I'm not gonna text. Now you don't call almost.
SPEAKER_00But to Susie and your credit, and to mine as well, in the early days of texting, like I wasn't gonna text on a keypad. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Like, you had to hit to get B, you had to hit like one.
SPEAKER_00It's ridiculous. Stupid. Once I I remember my very first smartphone was uh BlackBerry. And Heather, because she was a little bit more technologically advanced than myself, she actually would make me, she assigned me a task every day. I had to instigate 10 texts to her in a day. Really? I remember saying this and thinking this, why would I text? Let's just talk on the phone. Yeah. And now I'm like, oh gosh, don't call me. Just text me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just shoot me a text. Or nowadays, if you get a phone call on your cell phone and you don't recognize that number, let me go to voicemail, right? Every time, I don't know. And then if it's somebody, if it's legit, they'll leave a message or text you and then you'll just call them back. More often than not, at least seems these days, it's something about my car's extender warranty. Yeah, how many times can you get that? This is your last call for the extended. And I and I hear it, I'm like, no, it's not. It's not like I'll be getting another one.
SPEAKER_00Did it be my last call? My extended warranty has been trying to expire for I don't know how long. Do you remember, Dave? Sorry, I don't mean to just keep going off on this, but do you remember the last time you used a payphone? No. I remember using a payphone. I don't remember when it was.
SPEAKER_01No, but I remember them being 10 cents.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01In fact, our parents could probably go back even further. It's probably a nickel. Shining. Shiny nickel. I remember them being 10 cents, and then I remember at the country shopper when I realized that it was going to 25 cents, and I'm like, what? Who in the world can afford to make a phone call anymore?
SPEAKER_00I can't afford to call. And and that, I do believe there was some sort of time limit, even with that. Probably. You'd have to put in more quarters if you wanted to continue the conversation. You know, like some sweet lady named Stella, you know, with these big old earphones working in some sort of, you know, uh, you know, operator shop plugging in things. Plugging in. If you want to keep going with the conversation, insert another quarter. Let me tell you something, Stella, I ain't inserting another quarter.
SPEAKER_01Even in late 90s, when I lived in Bulgaria, they were dealing with a phone system that was way antiquated compared to even what I was used to. I mean, you know what a dial tone is. And that's another thing. I bet our kids don't know what a dial tone sounds like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they'd be like, what?
SPEAKER_01And we talked about the busy signal, but a dial tone in Bulgaria sounded it's like it couldn't figure out the pitch it wanted. Like, So it's a dial toad killed gas. It was the weirdest sound when I picked that up, but we shared a line. I think that they used to call them back in the day in here party line.
SPEAKER_00Oh party yeah, grasswork we had a party line.
SPEAKER_01Oh did you? Oh yeah. So you'd go to pick up the phone and somebody else could be on it. They could be, yeah, for sure. So you're 2055 or whatever. 2205. 2205. Hey, but at least I had a couple of the numbers. Yeah, you were close. Just in the wrong order.
SPEAKER_00You would share that number with because Mo's or something? I would take that back. Party line was a little different. However, I remember talking to my parents, so I can't own that. It was a little bit different, but I could easily I guess it'd be like a conference call, but but no, I would never pick up the phone. Although I think my mother-in-law has talked about she remembers that. Well you'd pick it up and somebody else is on there like, oh sorry.
SPEAKER_01I was we weren't able to call home very often, but I was I remember speaking with Susie on the phone in Bulgaria. Yeah. Who was my girlfriend at the time, ended up being my wife. I was trying to have a conversation with her, and one of the people downstairs in our little apartment complex got on the phone and they wanted the phone. I'm like, I am on. This is not a normal thing. Leave me alone. With the woman of my dreams. Yeah, and so I'm yelling in Bulgarian at this lady, get off the stinking phone, trying to speak with my girlfriend here.
SPEAKER_00She didn't seem to care, but she's like, that's fine, but I've still gotta arrange to get the hog to market. Let's go back to even some of the earliest forms of communicating. Are you a waver when you drive? No.
SPEAKER_01In fact, I have a problem. One of my problems is I don't recognize people in their cars. Like Susie, my wife knows people's cars. She knows what they drive. She's a waiver. I mean, you've seen her. Oh, yeah. You drive by Susie, and you're not getting just a little like a finger wave, you know. She is full body, sometimes both hands. She is going hard at that wave. Yeah, like like I feel like she's gonna like maybe throw her wrist. Yeah, she's gonna she's gotta stretch before you wave like she got like tennis elbow. She's waving her arms in the air, but she does care.
SPEAKER_00She does care. I have been a recipient of one of those waves, and I'm gonna tell you, it makes me feel like a better person.
SPEAKER_01Well, we all maybe should just be waving. Yeah. Because I pass people and I'm like, oh, that was so-and-so. I probably should have waved. And I come off like I'm just an on real curmudgeon. He's all just Dave's, he's all hunched out in his seat, barely see me over the steering wheel.
SPEAKER_00Meddling, kids, get off my lawn. And we would have got away with it too. Of course, coming from a town like Grouse Creek, you waved to everybody because you knew everybody, and you just didn't take the risk of not waving, even if you didn't write. To offend you, you don't want to offend.
SPEAKER_01You kind of just wave. But I'm there's you know, we live in an area now where you're gonna pass plenty of people that you don't know.
SPEAKER_00That's true, but I actually have kind of set up a in my mind a radius. Oh yeah? About a half mile radius in the neighborhood. You'll wave everyone. If I'm within a half mile radius of the I'm waving. Well And sometimes it is like with my hand, you know, ten and two, maybe just the fingers fly up. I kinda wanna go the other way. I'm just gonna not wave to anybody.
SPEAKER_01Oof. No? Seems mean. I've I've there's plenty of people I'm waving at and or Susie will wave at, I'm like, who is that? I don't know. Well, why are you waving?
SPEAKER_00Maybe it made their day.
SPEAKER_01And so in that case, I'm gonna wave at everybody and take my shirt off while I'm driving.
SPEAKER_00That's a good side note because you you may not wave, but I have actually driven by Dave's house. He was actually mowing the lawn on his ride and mower. Yeah. And I'm here to tell you, I mean, just the shirt came off. I mean, what better way to say hello?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I figure that's one of my I think it's the funniest thing when a grown man takes his shirt off. And he sh and he shouldn't, right? I mean, I ain't got no business talking about shirt. I don't think there's many, and I don't even care. Look, if you're over the age, let's let's really pinpoint an age. If you're over the age of, I'm gonna go 19. Yeah, that's fair. Any older than 19, I don't care how ripped you are, how often you go to the gym, you just you don't don't take it off. Yeah, unless you're in the pool. If you are waterside, yeah, waterside. So anywhere waterside, I'm gonna allow it. But if you're not waterside and you're just taking your shirt off, it's weird, man. It's weird. And especially those guys that are suspiciously tan. Oh, and we know a few. We do know a few. And bodies that are like, um, you're not pumping iron. We can tell, we can we can tell that. So if it's January, where are you getting this tan?
SPEAKER_00You're very suspiciously tan. Now I don't I mean, I'm quarter Belgian lends itself, at least in my book, to a nice olive-toned skin. Yeah. I I tan easily. But not underneath the I mean I've got a farmer's tan. Yeah. I don't take my shirt off, but oh yeah, oh yeah, you do. Yeah. Uh mine stops here at the neck and it stops at the elbows. Yeah. Me too. But a lot of times I don't do the full take my shirt off, but I have been known to give people a Care Bear Stare every now and then. Yeah, you have. Yeah. I ooh, look away. Um we were at our home. Gosh, this has only been maybe a year ago.
SPEAKER_01I know what you're going with this. Do you have you spoken with this person about what happened that night?
SPEAKER_00Well, we did speak of it, but it was shortly after it happened. That's my friend Chris, yeah. Yeah, he's gonna have some. Oh, it was actually about two years ago. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I don't want to bring up sadness, but because these were such kind kind of people, but my mom had just passed away. Yes. And so we had a lot of people come to the home, you know, bringing flowers, bringing dinner. It was tender time. And we had, of course, one of our good friends, TJ and Teresa, they had texted me and said, Hey, we'd like to bring you something over, a little something for the girls. We'll be there about six o'clock. And I thought, well, that's nice. So six o'clock, doorbell rings, and our door at the time, there was like that side light, you know, like a side glass piece. And of course the sun was setting in the west, and so I look over and I see a silhouette only, because the sun is shining through the can you picture that in your mind? Uh absolutely, it's breathtaking, yeah. So I see a silhouette of somebody whom I thought was TJ. Yeah. And now, of course, I'm gonna give TJ a care bear stare. Yeah. I mean, why would you? Now, to our listeners who don't understand what a care bear stare is, shirt comes all the way up. All the way up almost to the eyeballs. Actually, north of the nipple. You're north of nipple. Yeah, exactly. And that shirt is up, like, hello. Hello, and it's a reference from the The Care Bear stare. I mean, I didn't watch a lot of Care Bear cartoons, but okay, maybe I didn't. I mean, you can you could say you didn't, but I got dollars to pay, so it says you did. Maybe I watched a few. And what happens is like you rig your shirt up and like a rainbow shoots out of your belly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, when they all do it together, there's power in that.
SPEAKER_00There's power in it. We should try that. We should try it. And it's a nice way to say hello. It's my next favorite way to say hello other than a big old Susie wave. Yeah. So, anyways, I assume it's TJ because they told me they were gonna be there at six o'clock and it's six o'clock right on the button. So I pull the shirt up. Nobody wants to see that. I open the door, I'm like, hey, Tj it's not TJ. Not TJ. It's the brand new neighbors. Brand new neighbors that I think I had met once before. Only once. What better way? And his sweet wife.
SPEAKER_01To say, you know what? This is who I am. This is who I am. This is my cavernous belly button. You can look right into my soul through this. Yeah, it's just I didn't know I was speechless. They brought me a beautiful flower. You get your shirt south of Nipple.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01You get it down, get it back in place, and then you just take the plant and say thank you. You would slowly close the door. I don't know how you cannot at least have like a laugh, like, you were not who I was expecting right there. We did have that later, but I didn't know what to say right then and there. It was just too much. I've never been short on words, and that was the moment.
SPEAKER_00You know, shame on TJ, because again, 15 minutes later, another doorbell ring. You almost did it again. I'm gonna do it again. Well, guess who it was? The steak president. The steak president, Rick! I was so bad. Your wife, Michelle. I wish I would have, they probably would have joined laughs. Yeah, I absolutely did Chris laugh? He did. He kind of chuckled. He's like, Oh, oh, wait. Thank goodness his wife didn't see that. Because I mean, like, that's too much. Well, you're very handsome. Because we well, thank you, but as we've talked about hovering around does does and a half, I nobody wants to see that.
SPEAKER_01Well, I just think when grown men take their shirts off, it is so funny. So, like, there's a few times, this never gets old to me. Now it probably is to other people. Sure. But I like to just when they're least expecting it, yeah hurry and whip my shirt off. Sure, yeah. And then they come around the corner or whatever, and I'm just standing there like there's not a care in the world. Just, oh hey.
SPEAKER_00Hey, what's going on?
SPEAKER_01Hey, how are you? Like you were that way the whole day. Absolutely. Yeah. Or you know, it were now this is a little tricky. When you know you're behind somebody in the car, okay, and you're pulling up, you're gonna be by them. They don't know you're there yet. Sure. Get that shirt off. Sure. And you just pull up to them, you know, you're you got your hand over the steering wheel and you look over at him, like, oh hey, hey, what's going on? And then just keep looking forward as though this is how I drive the car. I did it on the freeway one time. Oh, you did? That's dangerous. It's dangerous. And I had a shirt and tie on, so that's work. Wow, yeah. Got that tie off, got that shirt off. I and I pull up behind somebody, I'm like, oh hey, how you doing? What's going on? Just trying to catch a little vitamin D while I'm in here, you know. Yes. You'll never, the eyes, it's so funny to watch these people because they'll see you and they'll wave and then they'll be like, whoa, his shirt's not on. And you're actually like, well, doesn't everybody that's what you do. Try it. You're gonna like that. I think we should. And please, you know. Cray and I did it to our good friend Jenny the other night. Oh, you did you really? Yeah, and Cray's got a lot more natural warmth going on. He is, he's he's woolly. He's woolly. Yeah, exactly. He's woolly. You could tell for a second there I was really bullying him. Because I'm like, I knew she was coming, I'm like, hey, we should take her shirts off. And she's like, he's like, what? And I'm like, no, we didn't need to take our shirts off. And you gotta be quit. Yeah, like you. And so I hurry and whip my shirt off, and he had to follow. I mean, it was peer pressure. Yeah, good for him. But so we just started talking with one another as though two grown men, men meeting up in the driveway would do. And she comes out and she's like, oh my gosh. Next thing I know, her phone's coming out. Oh no. Now, see, I don't need evidence. No, I don't need people snapping pictures of me with that shirt off. Especially the side angle.
SPEAKER_00No, that's that's not great.
SPEAKER_01I know. I mean, it's not. I try when I look in the mirror nowadays, I try to look forward. Just straight on.
SPEAKER_00I'm just trying to suck in as much as I can.
SPEAKER_01Anything to the side is not my best angle. No, me neither. So I'm just left. Keep the chin up so I don't see all the chins. You only need to see one. Yeah, but you ought to try taking that shirt off in an inopportune moment.
SPEAKER_00Challenge accepted, my friend. Listen, we've talked a lot about, I mean, the theme of course has been communication, and whether it be phone call, wave, care stare, or just ripping the shirt off, you know, be friendly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, be friendly. Let's let's let's bring some smiles to people's life. And it and if it makes it so you have to take your shirt off, well then you have to take your shirt off. Men. I'm not I'm not promoting that to anybody else. Okay, that was that was probably that's I mean, there might be some ladies out there that think, hey, well, uh why not? Well, I mean that that's on you. But there could be some uh legal repercussions. Some repercussions. Not for men. Thanks again, folks, for listening to another episode of the Small Towns Podcast. We're pretty sure we've changed your life for the better. If not, well, we'll try again next time.