SPEAKER_00 0:00

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.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

This is the Small Towns Podcast. Well, welcome once again, everyone, to uh Jason and Dave's podcast. We're still working on figuring out a name. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Do you have any ideas yet? I, you know, I'm drawing a blank. I mean, we've been at this for weeks.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

We sure have. I like the idea of uh something like Tales from Small Town USA. Ooh, I like that. Now there might be people out there that are just looking for. Do you know, have you ever heard of the Lake Wobegon stories? Oh, for sure, Garrison Keeler? Yeah, great. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Well, I mean, can't we be the modern version of Lake Wobegon? But these are real stories. He was making them up. He was making them up, and for the longest time, again, I want to remind you of comments that you have made to me in the past before you were yourself at Grouse Creek. You referred to that as Lake Wobegon.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, I mean, it's mythical more than anything. Isn't it something like where the men are men and the women are something and the children are all above average? I think it's like like that. So yeah, these are real stories, folks, and we're uh just hoping to pass some of the enjoyment on to everyone else.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, you can't make this stuff up. And I've a lot of times I've been accused of embellishment. I promise there's not much embellishment.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Well, you've had some crazy stuff happen to you out in Grouse Creek, which is I know you took me there, but I'm not really sure that was not a whole big stage you put on. But you told me one about well, you told our audience last time about the Mama Cat having some kitties in your bed that night, but there were a couple other cat stories too, weren't there?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Well, yeah, Dave. But listen, I don't want to. Well, of course I want to. I mean, I've got lots of people. That's what we're doing. That's what we're here. And it's hard to pick just one. We've got so many kitty stories.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

It seems like cats were kind of running the name. Was there was the mayor a cat?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Have you ever seen the Broadway musical Cats? I mean, it's very sad. Yeah, that's just I can't watch that.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

That's just everybody, that's another episode of Halloween. I have a problem, and it's getting worse every year. I can't wait to tell you. I can't, I can't get into well, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Listen, let's jump back into the kiddies. Um, again, just to kind of a refresher from our listeners, my mom didn't care for animals, and so strict no animals in the house. So anytime I saw an animal in the house, I didn't question it. I just did my best to make the most of the experience. So come with me if you will to a uh Saturday evening. Do I need to close my eyes? You might need to because this is me in the bathtub. So picture that if you will. I'm gonna open my eyes and not picture that.

unknown 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Picture with us, dear listeners. Again, I'm I'm young, you know, I'm gonna guess seven, eight years old, taking my weekly bath. You know, you had to bathe every Saturday night in preparation for church on Sunday with Saturday is a special day.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

It's the day you get ready for Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

We wash our clothes and we hang our socks, we dry some shoes. I can't remember how it works, but I was taking a bath. And I need to kind of paint a picture of the setting. So again, I'm so proud of where I was raised and and how I was raised, and I'm grateful for that. So when I tell these stories, I I'm not making I'm kind of making fun, but in a good way. But like double wide trailer, the bathroom is not like high-end. I mean, we didn't have like marble tile and stuff. We had like fiberglass panels that at one point were attached to the tub. So we had like, what do you call that, Dave? We had a tub and a shower combo. A shub. Thank you. A shove. Yes, yeah. It's a shub. So I was in the shub taking a bath.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

There's nobody that is gonna, not in this room, anyways, that would shame you for shubbing. I love it. I shove to this day, and I'm mad enough to admit it. Seems like a great place for a soak and a snack.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

A soak and a snack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah, we're gonna get into that. That'll be a later episode, but I have no problem with the shub. As long as after the tub part, you stand up and shower and get the bacteria frap off of you.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Well, now, yes, but eight years old. Oh, eight. No, you don't need to. I mean, I was bathing in my brother's water.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

We had to happen. We were little enough that all three of us were in the tub. Yeah. Until next thing you know, Heidi's let loose a little bit of a log. And now we are all abandoning ship.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Heidi, what did you do? What did you do? We are out of there. You don't you don't continue to soak in the shub if there is foreign objects.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, there you don't want those in there.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Heidi.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Heidi. Come on. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

She was probably two or three, but she should have known well enough to not launch the logs. Yeah, it's like the submersible submarine. Here we go. Let's go down, Captain. Okay, sorry. Sorry, go back. I'm in, yeah. I'm in a shove. I'm I'm taking a bath. We had a great tub. It was a real deep one. So I like to fill it up clear up to my my little eight-year-old neck, if you will. So I'm sitting there, and uh over the years, the wall had kind of broke free, if you will, from the tub itself. So it's kind of hard to picture, but you're sitting in the tub and then you come up to the top of the tub and fiberglass piece comes down again to protect from water damage. But that fiberglass piece would pull away from the wall. And so as a kid, you kind of mess around with that a little bit. Well, I was sitting there soaking in the tub, thinking about life's mysteries, if you will, of an eight-year-old. And out of the corner of my eye, Dave, I saw a little paw kind of swipe down, kind of like dab the water, if you will. Like a kitten. Yeah, I understand that, but I s it's still hard to picture the cat out of the house? Well, that's a great question. The cat is actually inside the walls, and it's that's trippy. Again, double wide picture of this, if you know. Hot water tanks at that time with the double wide, you access those from the outside of the house. There was like a panel door that you would remove. And then sometimes the cats, I mean, it was at this point, it was an older trailer. The cats could get up underneath, they'd kind of camp out in that that room because it was so warm for them. That makes sense. So I don't, I still to this day it's a little crazy, but there was a cat in the walls. Seems kind of creepy. I mean, this got Stephen King written all over it. Yeah, sure does. A little paw just kind of dabbed the water. Yeah. Now, as you know, testing the water. That's it. Nice. Exactly. He wants to come in and have a little shrub himself. Now, as you know, I spent a lot of my life looking for cats and taming them. So I knew all of my cats. I knew all of them very well. I did not recognize this one.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

By the paw.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

It was kind of a gray, tabby, striped paw, if I may. And I'm like, I don't recognize that cat. That's not a cat I know. But it's a cat I need to know. It's a foreign cat. It's a foreign cat, but if it's in my tub. Do you speak French? Yeah. We we. How do you say cat in French? I'm not sure. Quarter Belgian, I should know. So I'm sitting there and that cat kept doing it. I'm like, the next time that cat sticks its little paw into my tub, I'm gonna grab it. It's gonna be the last. It'll be the last time. I mean, I was timing it like a skilled timer. Yeah, thank you. The paw comes down. I grab the paw. Now, if you grab a wild cat's paw. Oh, trouble. Like its talons, if you will, its claws, just how's that? Yeah, like straight out. I mean, I've probably still got like little paw marks in the palm of my hand, but I wasn't letting go, Dave. You're a tough kid. I was not letting that go, but you cannot even imagine the commotion that was happening just on the other side of that fiberglass wall. Grab hold of the cat now, what? Yeah, what are you gonna do now? Pull it through? Yeah, well, of course I'm gonna pull it through. What else should you do? I'm gonna let go. Well, how big is that little crack? Not big. Not big. The cat's coming through. And it's it's almost hinged. You know, it's like it's like there was like in a tight spring because sure it was loose at the bottom, but at the top of the wall it was very tight. Well, you're gonna pull that paw off. Yeah, well, I'm so either the paw's gonna come or the whole cat. So I just grabbed that paw with both hands now and I started to pull. And I pulled and I pulled, and sure enough, then all of a sudden I see like a little head crowning. Exactly. This cat is being birthed from my bathroom wall. It was a much bigger cat than I thought it was. In fact, it was an old Tom cat that was wild. Oh no. Yeah, so sure enough, I do it, buddy. I get that whole cat. As we all know, you don't have to be a cat lover to know this. Cats don't like water. No. Cats, water, no bueno. Cat somewhat touches the water, but in cartoon fashion, scrambled, scrambled, scrambled, jumping out of the water. In the scramble, one of them claws. One of them claws caught me right in the right earlobe. And pause. No pun intended. Funny.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

That is funny. But the fact that you just said one of them paws means you're from Grouse Creek. Go ahead and carry on. Thank you. Yeah, no pun intended. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

I think we're gonna see a lot of that. That's like our equivalent of a fact tricker. One of them paws. One of them paws. It grabbed me right in the earlobe, the right earlobe. Ow. Yes, ow is right. Like it just, I mean, I don't know. I hope that sound effect is coming through on my mic. Okay, because it just took a swipe at me, caught me by the earlobe, and at this point I'm screaming, I'm bawling, I'm crying. Yeah. I mean, it hurts. For sure. It hurts. And the cat is now outside of the tub and is like a cyclone in our tiny little bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Just going nuts.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Just running around the walls, knocking over my sister's like aqua net hairspray. I think there might have been a bottle of mousse, you know, some of that type of stuff. I mean, think of the 80s making a mess of the bathroom. Once again, I like to think at this point in my life, my mother was quite used to this type of behavior from me.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

So she hears commotion. I'm crying my head off. She busts open the door. And just as she busts open the door and is trying to kind of take stock of the situation, a huge tomcat that is drenched wet just bolts by her. So, hey, what's this cat doing in my house? Right. Why is it dripping wet? My bathroom looks as if a tornado has gone through it. And in all reality, it would have probably been cleaner had it been a tornado instead of a wild wet cat. And my seven-year-old youngest favorite son is bleeding profusely somewhere from the head region. We're gonna have to change that water out because the water is just covered in blood. I'm bleeding like a stuck pig. And in the spirit of things, Dave, I don't I don't know which is more disappointing. I'm trying to go back in my little seven-year-old mind. Was I hurt? Yes, very much so. Was I going to have to take a bath? Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, I wouldn't think I would again. You're gonna have to do it again. Such a waste of time and water. Yeah. But more importantly than that, I was sad that that cat was long gone.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

That cat was long gone. I was just gonna have to start over catching it and then taming it again. And I I never did, but that was the one that got away.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, it's a good thing your mom was close, that she could hear that commotion. Because what would you have done?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

It's a fair question, but just from the look of things, I mean I probably could have just bled out right there in the tub. Just to your earlobe, right? Well, yeah, but it was a pretty big paw and there was a lot of blood. Did the claw get stuck in you? Well, it felt like it did, but I mean it probably didn't. I mean, in fact, you know, if my mom were telling the story, she'd probably be like a little trickle, but I swear the whole water was like it was.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

There's not many people that can say they pulled a cat from their wall into their bathtub with them and lived to tell the tale. Thank you. Yeah, that's that we didn't have too many of those. I didn't have any feral cat stories. I do remember one time No cats living in your wall. No, no cats living in our walls. I don't think that that would have gone over it very well. We were on the deck one night, and you know, we all had our little sleeping bags out there, and this is the middle of the night, and all of a sudden I'm woken woken up. Oh, see, I think it might be the grouse cricket coming out of it. I was awoke. I was awakened. That seems I like it. I'm gonna go with that to the licking of my face by Shasta Tidwell.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Shasta Tidwell had gone out. Now Shasta Tidwell is a dog.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

So we need to clarify because if you missed our last episode, you remember that dogs in Dave's neighborhood. I all have last names.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

I woke up to Shasta Tidwell licking my face. And you know, instead of freaking out about it, I was just like, oh Shasta. And I pushed the Shasta away and just dug burrowed deeper into my sleeping bag. And I guess Shasta Tidwell went home. I don't I don't know that's really not that bad.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

She went home. I mean, what a drama your cab fair.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Well, it's just across the backyards. I figured she didn't have far to go. I shouldn't have to pay for that.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

I hadn't mowed any lawns lately to learn any money. You were woke up to the licking of Shasta Tidwell on your face. Yeah. Much like, again, not to reference an old thing, I was woken up to little kitty's porn on your bosom. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

That is crazy. The worst one though, you know how people will now go out of town, they'll ask a neighbor to take care of their dog. Well, we were tasked with such an event one night. I guess it would have been over the course of a week. We were asked to watch the neighbor's dog. And I don't remember how long it was that we were watching this dog, but we were watching Sandy Mills. And uh to this day, I don't know how this happened. Somebody shot Sandy Mills. They shot Sandy Mills while we were dog sitting Sandy Mills.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

What side of the tracks of Providence were you raised on?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

I thought it was a nice side. Jeez. I came home and from school and Sandy Mills had been shot. I mean, I don't know for sure. I we there's some suspicions who shot Sandy Mills. My parents and the Mills family that were as close as you and I. So it'd be like you saying, Dave, can you watch Max while we're gone? And I say, sure. Probably wouldn't happen. Yeah. Oh, we can't handle another dog. Say we were watching Max Kimber. Yeah. And you came home and we're like, um, sorry, somebody shot Max. Yeah, how did you approach Mr. and Mrs. Mills with this? Well, fortunately, I was a little kid and my parents had to do it. But I'm sure there was some tears, and that I mean, I don't want to bring our podcast down, but well, I mean, thank goodness the same fate didn't happen to Nikki Branchley. Yeah, well, Nikki Branchley was they had a bathroom in their garage, which I always felt was awesome. Because let's clean up out there before we come into the house. But I had never seen another bathroom in a garage. But Nikki pretty much stayed in the garage bathroom until I came and let her out, and she'd run like a crazy dog for a while and then she'd go back in.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Because I can only assume after a traumatic event like that that your days of dog watching were over. I was asked to watch Nikki Brentley after Sandy Mills was killed.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

After the after the uh homicide. And what do we know? I mean, the kids found Sandy, so our first reaction is we gotta call a doctor. Yeah, well, Michelle Webb was for a long time a nurse and she helped deliver babies. In fact, she delivered Maya, my oldest. We called Michelle. I don't know what we expected Michelle to do. Yep, Sandy's dead. But that's what happened. And when the Millses got home, I don't know if my parents contacted them while they were still on vacation or let them enjoy the rest of their vacation and then got home and kind of gave the this is really bad, but here it is.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I mean, I'm that's a sad story. Yeah, that's a sad story. Wasn't there one more cat story you wanted to share?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

When the double wide was getting old.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, it was getting old. And and so I was gonna ask you, did the double wide ever have to be replaced? It did, thank you. I mean, I can't believe I almost forgot this story. Now, again, I do think that we need to put a disclaimer out here. Like, I mean, hashtag sorry pita, we're not we're from the country. We're from the country, and and we don't want these sort of behaviors to happen, but sometimes you just have to be safe and you gotta take matters into their own hands. This wasn't too many years ago, Dave. I'm I'm gonna say less than 10 years ago. Double wide had a great run. I mean, let's say 1972 to gosh 2010. I mean, you had a good run. Good run. Good run. Um sure there were cats falling out of the walls. Yeah, sure. Sure. I like to think of it as like secret passages that they ran around in between and did their like secret kitty cat handshakes. It was time for a new house. And you know, my mom and dad had talked about getting a new house for years. I mean, growing up, that was a topic of conversation. And finally, again, early 2000s, we purchased a home actually out of the Ogden area, Ogden, Utah area, had it moved to Grouse Creek on a huge truck. It was a brick rambler. Of course, we had to remove the bricks to move it, and then my dad and I, and many others, of course, uh, gutted it and kind of built it. And it was a nice new house. But my mom wanted the house right where our old house was because the yard was already placed, trees were there, right? Set up. Yeah, you don't want to change that. You don't want to do that all over again. They obviously had to have a place to live while we were fixing the house. And so, as I tell these stories, there's all these side stories, but like we just hooked up the trailer to a D8 cat and a neighbor brought their D8 cat, big old cat, and we just caterpillar. For our more urban listeners, we're talking a tractor. Like a tractor, like a bulldozer, if you will. So we basically just hooked onto the double wide and needing to keep it in one piece because we're gonna live in it for another six months, or my parents were, anyways, we just pushed it out of the way. My dad was able to run water and power to it, and it was fine. And my mom and dad lived in that house for six months while we remodeled the new house. After we finished up that house, of course, I mean, it wasn't good for anything. I mean, nobody was gonna come out and buy that house and you know, fix her up. Exactly. Take that, Jojo. You know what I mean? Chip and Jojo, that wasn't gonna happen to the old double eyed. So we had to dispose of it because it was just sitting out there south of the house where the old cesspool used to be. Right. And uh we had to do something with it. And when you're in Grouse Crick, what are you gonna do? I mean, you're not gonna part that sucker out and haul it to the junkyard. Easiest way to get rid of it, burn it. Burn it. We burned it. So I took the honors upon myself. I started that house on fire. Nice. Yeah. Kind of sad. Is it a match or a lighter? I actually I wanted to run. I kind of wanted to I wanted to recreate the experience of how scary it would be to have a house on fire. So I just lit a match and I threw it in the garbage can. That's all I did, Dave. And I walked away. I'm telling you what, in 15 minutes, that thing was a raging infernal. Really? Yeah. Yeah, this is the sad part. Again, I apologize to uh to the cat listeners. Um Well, you're living in an area where it builds all around me's farm. We've got a huge haystack. Gosh, 50 yards away. That's basically a pile of money. You know what I mean? Like that's you know, we But it's also kindling. It's kindling, and it's uh we should have thought this through a little bit better. I went through before I lit the house on fire, I of course went through looking for any sort of living creatures because sure. Yeah, but of course, why you're a sensitive man. I am, and I love my kitties. I thought I had them all. Well, I tell you what, Dave, we started that fire. Cats just started running out of the house. Oh my god. From underneath it, from underneath and kind of inside, because it had sat vacant for so long. So these are these wild feral cats that we're talking about. They're not nice guys. No, no, they're hissing at you, spitting at you. Folks, I tell you what, my dad sees this and he starts to panic. I'm just thinking, oh man, I actually ran up to one. The fire was just too hot. And and most of it the cat was on fire? Well, oh, kinda. I don't mean to he was smoking and I was trying to run save him. I'm so sorry. This is horrible. Like my heart's breaking while I'm telling the story. We may we have to put an E next to this one. Yeah, probably. But my dad runs, he says, Jason, go go grab my rifle. And I'm like, why? He's like, Jason, I cannot have two horrible things could happen. If a cat catches on fire and runs to the haystack, or worse, runs underneath the new house. Yeah. Or the fields, as far as the eye can see. Like, we have to take matters into our own hands. Folks, spoiler alert, I'm just telling you right now, that didn't happen. We didn't have to do that. But that poor kitty cat, like, I did my best. I ran up as close as I could. Um, obviously, no cats were, you know, none were harmed and no were harmed by our hand.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

You know, but I tell you what, I mean, um That's something you gotta think about.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

If you're gonna burn your double ride down, you've gotta make sure that there's nothing gonna run out on fire from underneath it.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

It's a fair question. I hollered as best I could, Dave. I hollered as best I could. At the cats? Yeah, so get on out of there, cats. That's what you say. Get on out of their cats.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

I'd say that's all you really do for a cat to get it out of there. That's what I was taught back in the day. You just and they'll go. Why did we why do we choose two of the saddest pet stories to end on? Hey, this podcast can't be all what are they, rainbows and unicorns. No, that's true. We we gotta stay with real life. We're we're gonna stay with the facts. And if a cat has to be shot coming out from underneath a double eye to save all of Grouse Crits, yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. And hopefully one day we'll open up that cold case of tell me the Sandy Mills. Sandy Mills, we'll open up that cold case. Yep. We're running out of time, buddy. Okay, well, wrap this one up. Guys, we appreciate you listening and stay tuned because we got a lot more animal stories. I think we've got some hunting stories. Sure to be good listening.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, they're gonna be crazy. Those ones were unfortunate nudity. Oh, I can't wait for that one. Well, I hope my mom doesn't listen to that one. And we're out. 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.