IWD- David M From New Mexico

All right, we'll start 100% Dad, uh, podcast interviews with dads. David, why don't you introduce yourself, who you are, what you do, marriage, kids, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, my name is David Mendonca. I am a father, a husband, a journeyman lineman. I have 3 kids, the oldest being 14, the youngest going to be turning 5 here this week. This weekend, actually.

Nice.

So, um, been married now going on 15 years. In fact, we just had our anniversary on the 17th of this month.

So congrats.

Yep, yep. Thank you.

And, uh, how old your oldest? You say 14?

She's 14, yeah.

Okay.

She's 14 years old.

And what are the other ones? You got a 5-year-old. Was there one more in the middle?

Yeah, there's one in the middle and he's, he's, uh, 7. He turned 7 in July. So, but, uh, background of me is I was in the military, spent 5 years in the military. I've been a journeyman lineman for about 14 years now as an apprentice and as an actual lineman. Journeyman altogether. Um, I've been all over building power line. I worked a lot on the road. I was one of these fathers who did a lot of road work. I was always on the road. My children pretty much grew up without ever really seeing me, maybe on the weekends a few times. So I was an absentee dad.

For how long?

About 9 years. Okay, 9 years.

Okay, was, was that, was that the same for the first year of your marriage?

Actually, the first year of my marriage, no. Okay, the first year my marriage, I was home. Okay, so I was home during that time. But, uh, I started hitting the road more and more, you know. As an apprentice, you pretty much just go wherever they tell you to go. It's like being in the military. So they tell you you need to go up at 7 o'clock in Arizona, or, you know, Texas, Oklahoma, or wherever, then that's where you're going to be. Kansas, you know, that, that's where you're going to be, questions asked. Um, one of the things they always ask you is, well, how bad do you want it? How bad do you want to be a lineman? Is what they would say. So they didn't care if you had a family or anything, you know.

So utilities are usually like some local company owned, uh, well, actually, so I learned that's not always true. I learned in Texas there's lots of different, um, companies that provide, that provide the service. Um, yes, but like in Florida, like, we have like FPL is like the main energy supplier, but they own the line, so their linesmen fix the lines. So I was just wondering, like, who do you end up working for when you're a journeyman linesman? Are you just like an independent contractor that's going to work for the individual energy companies, or is there like a whole industry or company I don't even know about that does that on a, on that nationwide scale?

Yeah, what it's called is the IBW. It's the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and they call us tramp line. So we travel with the workers. We're outside construction. We're the baddest of the bad, you know. We We do all the work utilities can't do. Um, nothing against utilities, you know, but they like to get the cush work where we get all the hardcore backyard, you know, whatever, hard money jobs, right?

And I know I saw some really cool ones when Puerto Rico went down. Oh yeah, and they were, they were doing all that stuff from helicopters. It was awesome. I just saw a video of it. It looked, looked really cool.

Yeah, heck yeah, that's always fun when you get to do that. Um, but, uh, so that's what I do. I've tried working at the utility and I was miserable. I worked there for 3 years and being a construction hand, it just goes against everything you've ever been taught, you know?

Okay.

Different mindset. As a construction hand, you're always, you know, like, let's get this done, you know, we don't want to be here all day, I got beers to drink, or whatever. And as utility hand, which normally they call us a car— the carnival or construction hands, you know what I mean? And we call them utility pukes, kind of a rivalry there. But, uh, they want to just skate, you know, kind of work and, you know, do whatever they kind of possibly do, the least amount of work usually. I mean, there's some good hands there too. I've worked with a lot of guys that were actually jammers, you know, and could do some really good work. But I'm a construction hand. That's, that's what I normally do. So Being with that, you go wherever there's work, you know. I traveled a lot wherever I can make the most money. Um, I always try to stay home, you know, or at least close, within 3-4 hours. I always tried to, to manage if I could.

Now, is that like, uh, 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, home for the weekends, or is that like 2, 3, 4, 5 weeks at a time and then you're back home for a week or two?

It depends. I've had it where, you know, you know, 2, 3 weeks gone and then come home. I've had it where, uh, this last time I was, uh, El Paso. I was a foreman in El Paso, Texas, which is 3 and a half hours away. So I had work Monday through Friday, you know, sometimes up until Thursday, depends on if we had overtime or not. And I'd come home on the weekends. Which was nice. Um, yeah, but during that time you're still gone, you know, you're still gone during that week. You're in hotels or trailers or whatever, whatever you stay in, you know.

Yeah, so basically, are you still doing that?

No, no, no, I, uh, that's actually where my story starts, starts going into, is, uh, in 2018.

Let's hear it.

Okay, uh, 2018, around September, uh, you know, between September and November, my wife was training for marathon. At the time, I was working in El Paso. Like I said, I was a foreman out there, and I was making great money. Only 3 and a half hours away, had a company truck, everything, everything you could possibly want, you know, working for a good guy and everything. And, uh, My wife was training for a marathon. She was getting ready. She's running about 6 or 7 miles a day. And she started calling me more. She knows not to really call me during the day because, you know, I have guys in the air. It's a dangerous job. I have to be paying attention to them. I need to make sure my crew comes home with all their fingers and everything else, you know, you know, basically just being that guy. So she started calling me a lot, and the topic around that conversation was starting to turn into little fights. And it was, you need to come home, I don't feel good. She started, uh, really hurting, and it started adding a lot of, uh, stress at work for me. You know, I didn't— I don't like her. I mean, when you're on the road like that and you're getting that call there's really nothing you can do at that moment.

It's helpless.

It's helpless. And as men, we seem to try to go into this mode where we want to problem solve right away. So I start thinking of all the things. Well, you know, it's only 4 days, you know, can you get through this, try doing this. I started making all kinds of, you know, retroactive plans for her and everything else, trying to, trying to be there, but at the same time be there for my guys. Now go into November, that was around September September to November.

So this is what— this was, this was over the course of like a month or two?

Yes, yes, this is between September to November. She was training. She actually, she was telling me one day that she was taking a shower and, you know, just getting ready after a run. It was unseasonably warm and she saw this thing on her leg. Well, she went down to like brush it off. She thought that she had a cut herself shaving. Well, when she did that, it fell off and it had legs, and it was tiny. I mean, it was the size of a, like, like a granular pepper, black. Okay, so she didn't think anything of it. She's just like, what the heck was that? So that was, that was between September, November when she started calling and all that. Um, she started getting worse. Uh, November came around, she started getting migraines. That were— that lasted a month. She had a headache for a month. She thought she had overtrained. She started getting neck stiffness, all kinds of other issues. The calls started happening more, you know, we're fighting more. Kept on telling me, you need to come home, I, I can't do this without you. And my whole mindset was, I'm making money, I'm providing, you're at home with the kids, deal with it, okay? December 24th came around. I was on Christmas break from work. I got off on December 19th, and I wasn't supposed to come back till January 7th. So we're at my sister's house for Christmas Eve, and my wife, she started, uh, losing feeling in her hands and her legs started going really like tingling and started going numb. She couldn't feel her legs from her hips down. At all. So my mom at the time was like, oh, you need to take her to the emergency room. I was kind of bugged, I'm not gonna lie, you know. I was like, man, we're here with my family and everything, you know, we're having a good time, what's going on? You know, you got to understand, I've already gone through this since September, all this pain, having these, these weird symptoms she was having. So I was already fed up with it at all. So we go to the doctor the emergency room. Her heart's really pounding and they don't know what's going on with her. They put her on an EKG and everything. There was limited staff due to the holidays, so they're basically like, you guys go ahead and go home, enjoy your time with your family. If anything happens, come back tomorrow. So that's what we did. We took their advice.

Your wife stayed or she went back home with you?

She actually came back home. Okay, came back home. Uh, December 24th, we started opening up all kinds of, uh, presents. Uh, I'm with the kids and she starts getting really dizzy. She starts having, uh, heart pain. Her vision was blurred. She had numbness and tingling. She told me that her symptoms, that she felt poisoned. She felt like she had— someone had poisoned her. She didn't know what had happened. She just felt weird. So I had already taken the kids a shower, and we called the emergency room, and they said don't bring kids, that, that H1N1 was rampant. So they're like, at all costs, don't bring any— anybody susceptible to this. So we don't have any family near us. We live out in the country, so my wife decides to drive herself in. I stay with the kids and she goes to the emergency room. We're texting, talking, you know, they're running tests on her and they're trying to figure out what's going on. Well, I get a call at 3 in the morning from a nurse saying that my wife's heart stopped and they had to intubate her. Can't imagine the thoughts I was having at that time.

Okay, sure, sure.

The, the nurse just— I mean, when she told me, my heart dropped. I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go. The kids were in bed. It's 3 in the morning. It's, you know, I, I have one pant leg on, one off, because I'm thinking I got to go in there. I'm thinking of leaving the kids here with my daughter. I'm trying to call people, no one answers. The nurse tells me that they revived her and that they're going to keep her overnight and just to— just, just—

I would hope so.

Yeah, right. So I stayed home that night and I was gonna— the plan was to get up the next morning and then go in there and visit her, see what was going on, you know. Take my kids to go meet my sister or something, you know, because she's the closest person to us. And, uh, that whole night I just laid in the bed just thinking, God, why me? Why, you know, why, why, why my wife? She's in the prime of her life. She's 6 years younger than me. I'm thinking, man, what— how am I going to do this if she passes on? How am I going to take care of 3 kids? I don't even know the first thing about taking care of kids. I've never had to. So it starts going into this big old deep spiral while I'm in bed thinking of all the things that I'm gonna have to do, which is pretty selfish now that you think about it. You know, here I hear my wife's heart stop, I'm thinking about what I'm gonna do. Poor me.

Well, it's a reality.

It's the reality. Yeah, exactly. But, uh, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't realize that until later on. You know, hindsight's 20/20. You know, um, so she's in there in the ER. Um, fast forward January 1st, she gets sick again. She comes out of the hospital and she gets sick again, same symptoms. She's feeling like she's poisoned. Um, she refused to go to the ER that time though. She had inconclusive test results, so she's like, what for? They don't even believe me anyways. So she was laying in bed during that time, and she told me that she was just having thoughts of death, you know. She, she thought she was going to die, and she kept on asking God to spare her. She got a thought, you know, just a small voice in her head just kept telling her, lime, lime. Just a little, just, just a little thought, you know, came to her. And she kept on passing it off, passing it off. Well, we kept getting all kinds of tests and stuff like that on her, and finally the doctor's like, you need to take her to the Mayo Clinic. We, we don't know what's going on. We've done all kinds of tests on her and we can't figure this out. It's something beyond us. So she asked the doctor to test for Lyme, and the doctor's like, well, we've tested for everything, so Why not? Let's give it a shot. So she got tested for Lyme, and immediately that next Monday they called us and they're like, the Center for Disease Control wants to talk to your wife. She needs to come in immediately. We got to start treatment. She's tested positive for Lyme. She has a positive test. So they immediately started the treatment, which is, uh, it's 3 weeks according to CDC, and, uh It got her really sick. I mean, it was an extensive treatment of antibiotic rounds. I mean, taking anywhere from just, just 6 to 10 pills a day. I mean, just, just antibiotics, and that's a 3-week protocol that they have. So she started getting really, really weak. She couldn't get out of bed. She couldn't see. Um, She was very fatigued. She couldn't lift her arms. She couldn't even go to the bathroom. She stopped eating on me, so I'd have to feed her. I had to force-feed her. I was supposed to be going back to work out of state again on the 7th of January. So the whole entire time I'm dealing with my wife, I'm dealing with my kids, and I'm wondering, how the hell am I going to go back to work? What am I going to do? So I called my boss at the time and I tell him, hey, I don't know what's going on with my wife. I can't go back to work yet. And being that it's construction, it's not a utility. He's like, I can't keep your job for you. Sure, you got to work. You know, I, you know, get your wife better. I can't, I can't keep your job for you, though, which is understandable. So he let me go. So I didn't have any income coming in at all during that time. And, uh, I think God had saved a lot of money and stuff like that, but, uh, I had to be forced to be home because I couldn't— I couldn't go nowhere. I couldn't— there's no one to take care of my wife. Like I said, she's pretty much bedridden. Um, we started seeking after people that were Lyme doctors because because after that 3-week process they put her through, that's it. They don't, they don't, they don't do anything else. It's just a 3-week protocol. If you got rid of it, you got rid of it. If not, we don't know what to do. So she started seeking accredited Lyme doctors, and it just so happened that one of the, you know, more sought-after ones is here in New Mexico. She retired and she lives in Taos, New Mexico. So we found her and my wife started going through these extreme, very expensive treatments. And it was a horrible result. Horrible result. My wife, instead of taking the treatment slowly and progressing with it, my wife was trying to get rid of it because she was tired of feeling like, like hell, you know. So she developed a mast cell defect where she became allergic to all foods, chemicals, and that's where she started wasting away. She lost like 35 pounds. She couldn't eat. She couldn't even be in her house. Um, any kind of smell or anything like that just really just— I mean, it was, it was horrible. So during that whole entire time, God, you know, God's really doing this work on me and myself. I felt extremely helpless. I couldn't buy my wife's health no matter how much money I made. No amount of money will ever buy someone's health. And, uh, my relationship with my kids was estranged. I mean, they were like kind of freaking out that Dad had been home this long. My daughter was kind of like rebelling against me. Um, my baby was— he didn't really know me.

Sure.

Uh, my middle son was just kind of like, who's this guy?

That's a whole lot of stressors going on at one time.

Oh dude, you got— I'm surprised I don't have white hair, bro. Honestly, but, uh, we had no income coming in. I was forced to be at home. But when I hit that low is when the restoration started happening. That's when I started to see that I wasn't celebrated at the home. I was just tolerated. And I started seeing my level, that all the success that I had try to achieve through being a lineman, through providing for my family and doing all these things which I thought was honorable, which it is. It's honorable to provide for your family, but at what cost? You know, what was the space that I was willing to do that for? Um, I was willing to sacrifice my family. They took a back seat for me to go and achieve success. I was not being significant in that moment. So I started looking up the meaning of significance over success, and it just totally just clicked like a light bulb in my head. I started seeing that I needed to be there. I started to see that I needed to lead. I needed to love. I needed to be loyal. I needed to look after my family. And that's where it just all started changing. God had opened my eyes to, to this huge void of this absence I had created. He started helping me to re-engage with my family. And throughout that whole thing, it was just a long road of rest, just a whole restoration with kids, just building that trust back with them that I had lost because I didn't even have trust with them. And it— he just used that to just build that trust again with them. Now that I'm home, I'm able to see that. I mean, their grades are better, they're acting better, they're, they're, they're not fighting as much. I mean, it's just a big impact that father has in a child's life. My daughter has more confidence. She's playing varsity tennis. It's just, it's just amazing just to see night and day.

You know, that ability of self-reflection is actually pretty impressive and probably a pretty rare skill to be able to see that in the moment and do something about it, as opposed to most people kind of, you know, woe is me, live their life, just kind of deal with it is what it is, and then 20 years later they're reflecting on the fact that man, they're failing, and this is how they, you know, probably could have fixed it. So to be able to recognize that in the midst of it is, is a— it's pretty impressive skill, man.

I always say that sometimes God— I'm so hard-headed, sometimes he needs to hit me in the head.

Yeah. What faith are you?

I'm a born-again believer. I believe in Jesus Christ. I'm Christian.

Oh, so which, uh, denomination?

I'm non-denominational.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, non-denominational. I just, uh, believe in Jesus Christ. Um, I don't really believe in religion per se, but I do have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Good.

Um, just being through something like that, there is a God, you know what I mean? So I can't deny him. And I'll never deny him, you know. But, uh, as a result— what's that?

Oh, go ahead and continue. I was gonna ask how she was doing, but go ahead and continue.

Oh yeah, yeah, no, she's, uh, she's doing a lot better. She's about 95%. I mean, we still deal with, uh, some quirks here and there that we're working.

That's like— that's— if I remember, Lyme's lifelong, right? Like, she'll be it's manageable, but like she has to be taking, uh, meds lifelong.

Yeah, that— yeah, we're trying to— we're trying to be— we're believing that she's not going to be one of those. She's going to be a success, you know. There have been some people that don't have any relapses.

Oh really?

Oh really?

Yeah, they know that.

But then there's some people that have been been totally decapacitated by it and have been in wheelchairs. So it just depends on how you treat it, what you're treating it with. I mean, she became a, an expert in, uh, um, in herbals and stuff like that. Uh, there's some herbals that she's taking now that are 10 times better for the human being. Uh, just Andrographis is just one of them. I mean, it's super powerful antibiotic.

Say it one more time.

Andrographis.

Angelo graphis.

Andrographis.

Andrographis. Never heard of it.

Super strong. Um, they— I believe they put it like in— they make it into like a tea and they put it in the rice in like Asia and stuff like that during the flu season. It's really helpful for during the flu and stuff like that. In fact, a lot of people— it was kind of scary because my wife takes it because, you know, obviously what she's going through. But during this whole COVID, people started finding out that this is an actual medicine that actually will kill it, and they're sold out. We couldn't find it anywhere. Yeah, and she actually has a prescription for it. You know, she gets, uh, these, uh, prescriptions that are written up for pharmaceutical-grade herbals, okay?

They're the—

they're— they're non-standardized or standardized or something like that. She could tell you more about that. I'm not really familiar with all jargon, but, uh, I mean, they really, really helped her. I mean, tremendously, compared to the 20-some pills she was taking a day of antibiotics at nearly took her life, you know. It was— it had destroyed every single good bacteria that she had in her gut, and that is not good at all.

Nope.

So out of a result of all this self-realization that I had and being able to just, uh, look at myself hear and see what a failure I became as a father, as a husband. My children started to, uh, embrace a lifestyle of generosity, you know. Just me being at home, they started seeing that I was being generous with my time and self-sacrificing and just using opportunities to really show them consistency in areas that I was lacking in. You know, showing them love, you know, just being really consistent. I think that's one of the number one things as a father we can do. If we tell them something, you know, we better— we better do it, you know, and be consistent at it. You know, practice makes perfect. And I started putting that into play, you know. Uh, I never wanted to— I never wanted them to think of me any less than what they had thought of me at that.

So again, incredible self-recognition of that in the moment, which most guys just put their head down and kind of grind through those, those times and, and can't assess in that way. But, um, you eventually had to get back to work somehow, so, um, yeah, yeah, um, you can't not work forever. Well, most people can't not work forever.

I, uh, actually took a job here locally as a lineman. Uh, one of my good friends at the time, he, uh, he started his own line construction business, uh, Union. And, uh, I was fortunate enough to be able to work at home with them. Oh, really? Yeah. While this whole process of my wife starting to rebuild her life and starting to rebuild her health and stuff like that, I was actually home. He was very generous. There were certain days where I had to be home and he would pay me for that. He was just like, you know what, dude, you know, we know your wife's in a bad way, go take care of her. So he was— yeah, yeah, he was extremely generous at that. Can't thank him enough. You know, no longer work with the guy, but during that time he really helped us out. You know, he was generous and I hope that his generosity will bear fruit in his life in other areas, you know. Oh, it will. But, uh, yeah, that's, that's Pretty Mud in a nutshell. Just, just a self-realization of, of how much I failed and how much I had missed all those little tiny nuances.

How long now? How long has that been? 2 years now?

Yeah, 2018 is when it started, so yeah. 2 years now. Okay, we're finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We look at everything now with the silver lining, so, you know, but let me tell you, that was a rough, rough 2-year season.

Sure, sure. So really, it was just kind of all about time, wasn't it? It was just time and interacting with them because it just— it went from so non-existent to, to so present.

Exactly. And, and I credit that to just being around them. You know, a lot of people say, oh, it's about not quantity, it's quality time. That's a farce. You need to be out there.

It's both.

Yeah, it's— I, I live by that of having quality time. And I used to say it all the time, I would, I would take them out. I mean, like I said, as a journeyman lineman, you're very fortunate. We make better than most. Okay, that's not— that's, that's humble as I could put it. Our job's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and I think we still need to be paid more. You know, every single day when you're up in that zone, there's a potential for you to be maimed or killed.

Sure.

Every day. And that's just dealing with electricity. That's not dealing with helicopters, crushing pinch points, heights, falling, truck wrecks, you know what I mean? Whatever.

So, so at any point In the previous, what, 12 years of having a kid, was there any point where you were kind of realizing that your relationship with them is not good, that there's not a lot of respect happening, or does this kind of go above your head?

It kind of goes above your head because you're so concerned about providing and the job and being— take pride in your work, you know.

Was there ever Was there ever any thought to like moving your family with you? And, you know, we're just like a lot of— just because we're in this, you know, I guess lifestyle now of the RV world, like there are people that travel for work and they just take their family with them, especially construction superintendents and things like that, where they're a year, a year and a half at a time and then moving on to the next project, um, where they just bring their family with them and their house is now on wheels. And was that ever like a consideration of moving your family where you work, or or it just wasn't even a factor?

It wasn't even a factor just because I was trying to build a life here for them. You know, we have a beautiful house, we have a farm, we have property, and I thought in my way of thinking, if I can buy everything, if I can pay off everything, if I can just survive their needs gifts, right, then they would just be happy, and that would negate the fact that I wasn't home. I bought into that.

And now you know the presence is more important.

Presence is more important, bro. Absolutely. Because, man, without that, that father there, that, that leader there to, to really show them to, to what a servant is, to be able to see them serving their mother the way I did, you know, bathing her, feeding her. They never saw that before.

Sure.

All they knew was just a dad to come home and, you know, yell and, and cuss and whatever, you know what I mean? Let's go, hurry up, you know, in lineman mode. And, you know, my kids even started yelling at their other kids at school. You know, you suck, or, you know, who showed you that?

Oh, they started, you know, that heavy-handed military personality.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So, well, what kind of, what kind of house did you come from? Uh, did you grow up in a house with where, you know, your dad was gone a lot, or was your dad and mom always there?

No, my, my parents are still married to today. Um, My dad was always there. He, uh, he worked for the city and he busted his ass, you know. He was a good provider. He, he, he, he worked his butt off and he was always there for us. He, he worked, he provided, did everything right. But now that I can look back and see, I can see the patterns he did, or I started doing. He would He was checked out even though he was home and he didn't have to travel like me. He was checked out. And I think that happens to a lot of fathers. They go to work, they're tired.

Yep.

You know, they, they, they have stuff that they're thinking about, their minds heavily laden with, with what happened earlier that day. So they can't— disconnect. Exactly. They disconnect, they become sedated. And they can't even give the attention that their children are craving, because that's what they— your children crave your attention. And when you can't even do that because you're so exhausted, because you just gave the part of your life to work, and your kids and your wife get crumbles, something's wrong, you know. I think that's where society is today. It's too many men like that.

I agree 100%. Did anybody ever pull you aside and say you need to be spending more time at home, or, or this isn't going to go well down the road? That any of your parents or, or even your wife kind of tell you stop taking these jobs out of state, like do something near home?

Uh, my wife always was pleading with me. She always wanted me home. Every single time I'd buy something for her, she was happy, but she wasn't happy. And it would piss me off because I would be like, well, I— any other woman would want that. What do you mean? Why aren't you happy? And then it finally dawned on me one day. She told me that a house without me wasn't a house. It was, you know, or how did she put it? She said a home, a home isn't a home without me, you know.

It's just, it's just a house.

And the stuff that I was buying here, that's not what she wanted. She could care less. She said that she would rather live in a, a, a lesser house and have lesser things but live life with me.

Yep. Is there— there's a shack on a rock versus a castle on the sand.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I, I don't know if it was pride or whatever, but I'm like, bullcrap, you know, that ain't gonna happen. We're gonna buy stuff, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. And yeah, all other stuff. And it nearly cost me, you know, just that whole way of thinking. It— like I said, I had to be hit upside the head and almost lose the person that I love to realize where I had gone wrong. And I am so thankful that I finally realized that. I am so thankful that he spared my wife. I'm so thankful that I have a relationship back with my kids. It's not perfect. My 14-year-old daughter— I'm not trying to say I'm perfect at all, by no means. But I do put in the, you know, sure, I put in that.

That's all you can do when, whenever you realize it. That's all you can do is just do the best you can going forward.

Yeah, you just put in that same drive, that same amount of work that I did on everything else, and into my family, and just try to shower them with love and try to be that example for them, you know, because, yeah. They never had that. And this is all new to me because I, like I said, we're talking about my, my past. You know, my dad was very stern. Like I said, he, he, he provided and everything, but we didn't have a lot of love shown.

Sure.

You know, this is, this is all new to me, but, uh, it's something that's necessary. And I, you know, I think that's a great thing when you can have that realization and say, hey man, I'm not going to do it like my parents. Nothing against my parents or nothing nothing like that, not bagging on them at all. But I realized that they had faults, and I don't want to relive them. And I think that's a— that's a life.

They, they probably did what they thought was best and what was right, and now we know better. And now we're just— we're doing— we're doing the same thing they were doing, what we think is best and what we think is right. We just— we just know so much more and have a different perspective. So it's not that— it's not like they were bad or anything. Well, just like you said, it's, it's about We're just doing the best we can, doing the best we can with what we have, right?

And the time we have. Um, money can't buy time, and that's my biggest realization. Money cannot buy time, not buy health, and it cannot buy love.

It does help because it did buy you time when you needed to take off to be with your family. You, you were smart enough to have reserves and savings and that allowed you to do that with less stress. Um, but yeah, it's not the end-all be-all and certainly not the cure to everything.

No, no, absolutely not. But like I said, uh, you go through stuff like that, it just— if you really allow it to to go through the process. I had a friend tell me it's always the process. He was a lineman and he was a pastor. Okay, they said that you can never be, you can never do that, that's impossible to be a pastor and a lineman, you know, and he's doing it and he's a solid, solid man. He's a heck of a lineman and he's a foreman and he'd always tell me just go through the process, don't fight it. You know, just go through it. Let God, let God do his work in you. He always tell me, because that's who I would turn to. I'd be like, man, I don't know what's going on with my marriage. I don't know what's going on with my wife. All she does is complain. I'm buying all this stuff, I'm doing all this stuff, how the heck can she complain? And the whole entire time he's like, just go through the process, do the process, love your wife, love your wife, you know. You need to spend more time with your children, you need to spend more time with your kids. At that time, you don't want to hear that. You think you know everything. At least I did. I thought I knew the best way.

And most guys are the same way. They're super hard-headed. It's hard to get through sometimes. And, um, but then when you do get through, you know, they go all in and they kind of, uh they preach it to other people. So guys tend to go all in on what they believe.

I know I do. I, uh, once I get my mindset, it's pretty much done, you know. If I, if I have my mind made up, I'm gonna do it, and that's, that's it. No one's gonna stop me, you know.

It's funny, so the pastor and the foreman thing, um I've always felt— because, so I did construction for, I don't know, maybe 4 months, 3. It was like a 3-month period between my freshman and sophomore year of college. Uh, laid concrete, uh, you know, pumped cinder blocks, things like that. Uh-huh. And yeah, it's a, it's a— I, I don't know why that industry, but it's, it gets crude. The language and the, the thought the thought processes. And it's just, it's a different type of guy out there. I mean, there's good guys obviously, but there's some really rough stuff being said and talked about. And it is, uh, um, it's not something I think I would have been comfortable being around, uh, as an adult. It was a little awkward as a teenager sometimes walking into that.

Oh yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it's definitely a crude world, um, Like I said, linemen, we're a different breed completely. I mean, some of the old linemen I used to work with used to tell stories about how they would go to a new town or whatever they're building, the big job, you know, big, big line. And, uh, they'd rent a room, and since they couldn't have like an adjoining suite, they'd tell the groundman to go grab the chainsaw. They'd cut the freaking wall down in between the two rooms. Just so they can be together and party, you know. I mean, these guys were crazy.

Yeah, sounds like it.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I've never met— I mean, I've worked, you know, I was a combat medic in the military, so I've met with some hard dudes and worked with them and been in the presence of some really great men, but, uh, down some linemen, the old— some of the old school linemen that I grew up with. Gosh, I don't know, man. I don't know who's, who's the harder bunch, bro, honestly, because them dudes, they were— they, they worked hard, they party hard, and they took pride in the work, and there was nothing they couldn't do. Nothing.

Yeah, different breed.

Yeah, definitely, definitely different breed. That's when They made— linemen were made out of steel back then, and wire was made out of copper, you know. And now it's, now it's reversed, you know. So it's, uh, it was definitely a different breed back then. And I had the pleasure of working with all them old school guys and stuff like that, which was pretty awesome. Um, but I'm just, I'm just thankful now, you know. I'm just, I'm just blessed. I'm thankful. Thankful that I'm, you know, at home finally with kids and just, just doing, doing the father thing, you know what I mean? Just being that role model, being that, that leader in the home now that was missing for so many years, you know?

So you've got a, uh, a teenage daughter, 14?

Yeah.

So she's starting to enter the dating pool, I'm assuming. How are you handling that? No, she ain't dating nobody. What, what, what are the, uh, what are the rules that have been set in place?

Uh, she knows, she knows that there's no dating, um, until she's 18. And, uh, she's, uh, she's, she's, she's awesome. I mean, my little daughter, she's She's really focused on being a veterinarian, so she's really into her studies. And she's been playing varsity tennis since she was in 7th grade. So I mean, she's, she's a little— she's a, you know, badass in tennis. So she's really busy in between that. And then like I said, we have a farm, so she takes care of all kinds of animals here. And that's, that's pretty much how she likes to spend her time, you know. She, she enjoys being outside with the animals, and she's always wanted horses and stuff like that. I've never, never wanted to get a horse, you know. I grew up with horses, and we traded those suckers in for ATVs because they're— it's a lot easier to feed ATV gas than it is to be, you know, feeding them bales. So we traded off But, uh, like I said, she, uh, she's just really focused on her, her academics and stuff like that.

That's not gonna last forever.

Yeah, I know, I know, but if I could postpone it, you know. All right, I, I, I'm trying to be an example for her. I, I heard it once said that a daughter's first love is her father. With that being said, every man that she judges, she's going to compare it to her father.

Oh, sure.

So that, that's the— let me get into this story real quick. That's one of the reasons why I stopped drinking. I haven't drank in over probably about 12 years now. And, uh, my wife, when I'd come home, I would jam down a couple of shooters of Maker's Mark because I loved— I love bourbon. Yeah, so I'd down some Maker's Mark. Uh, for whatever reason, Shiner Bock tastes better in Texas, so I'd get a 6-pack of Shiner in Texas on the way home.

Never even heard of that.

Never heard of Shiner Bock?

Nope.

Oh wow, it's a, it's a really good beer. I don't drink anymore, but I highly recommend it, you know. But, uh, I'd be jamming them down. I'd get home and wife would always have a 6-pack of Shiner Bock here for me. I didn't want her to know I was drinking and driving, so I would come in the back, I'd run into the refrigerator trying to avoid her, and I'd pop open a— I'd pop the top and act like I had, you know, that was the first beer that I had. Little did she know I'd already had 2 miniatures, a 6-pack, and driving, you know, yeah, 5 hours. So, uh, one time I'm outside, I'm with my trailer, I'm smoking some, some meats and whatever, and, uh, the neighbor— there's 15 acres that is behind us and it's all alfalfa fields Okay, real nice. And, uh, he comes over and he has a 5-gallon bucket and he's like, are these yours? And I look and it's filled with miniatures of Maker's Mark. And my wife knows I like that. She looks at me and she just shakes her head. She puts it down and I'm like, no, I don't know where they came from, you know. So And that goes on, and she comes up and she's like, you know, I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'll never do that. She's like, but, uh, you do realize that when you come home smelling like alcohol, your daughter, that's registering, that smell. She's, she's becoming okay with that smell. She's, she's recognizing that smell on your, on your breath. Are you okay if she marries a man that she's comfortable and always smells like that. She said, are you okay with that? And she left that. And I was like, why did you have to tell me that? You know, I had already tried to stop drinking. My cycle was drinking or tobacco. So when I got off drinking, I would chew tobacco. When I was a hellion, you know what I mean? And, uh, that was like my cycle. I'd drink or tobacco, drink or tobacco, drink or tobacco.

One vice or the other.

Yeah, exactly. So I stopped drinking completely once she told me that, and I had tried all kinds of other stuff. And man, she told me that and it just— it, it was like a sword splitting my heart in half. And I just thought about it. I'm like, wow, I wouldn't want my daughter with some asshole who smells like like alcohol and all this other stuff, you know. Example, my setting, you know. So I completely stopped cold turkey, and then a few years later I was able to, uh, kick the tobacco vice, and I don't do anything now, you know, other than—

pretty impressive willpower, that gum.

Like I said, brother, I— whatever I put my mind to, there ain't nothing I can't do. I think that's a military thing or whatever, but, uh, once I set my mind and make it up, that's— it's done. And you pretty much—

and you didn't— and you didn't swap it out for another vice, right? You just cut it?

I just cut it out completely.

Because a lot of guys, you know, they'll be able to— they'll be able to cut out something like that, but then they get fixated on something else, and there becomes another addiction or another obsession.

You know, it could have been work, honestly. I think that's how I started doing a lot of working. So I mean, it could have been, it could have been work. I mean, I was— I would come home and even relax at the house. I was outside putting up a fence, stretching fences, uh, you name it. I was giving her hell. I gave her hell all week on the job, and then I'd come home and I'd start giving her hell over here at the house. You know, and instead of relaxing and enjoying my kids, I was outside working all the way until the sun would go down. You know, sun up to sundown. I think I worked harder at the house, to be honest with you.

So, uh, so I don't have any daughters, but, uh, I always thought it was a cool concept of, um, you know, whenever the age of dating approaches, you know, because some parents will say, you know, you can't date till you're 14, 15, 16, whatever it is. But I always liked the concept of dad— like, when that happened, when you hit that age, dad's gonna be your first date, and dad's gonna take you out on a proper date. And, you know, we'll get dressed up, go to a nice restaurant, open the door for you, you know, pure chivalry, the whole thing. I always thought that was a cool, a cool little thing. Have you guys done that, or do you want to? Have you thought—

that's actually— I've been doing that with her since she was a little girl. I would open up the door and I'd get her corsage and stuff like that, and they would have our— her school over here because we, like I said, we have— we live in the country, so we're fortunate where they would have a father-daughter dance every year. And it was just so awesome, just date and get her corsage and open the door for her and take her to go eat and just show her how a gentleman should be, you know.

Set the bar high.

At the bar high, exactly.

And, uh, but then at the same time, you can't just do it for her, you got to do it for your wife too, so she sees it day in, day out as well.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, like I said, you got to be an example for them. They watch you.

Yeah, more than we know.

Exactly. One of the coolest things I ever saw while I was working at the utility was we had this supervisor, and he'd always put these quotes on a chalkboard, right? Dry erase chalkboard. And one of the quotes he put up there is, 'Be the man your children think you are.' And man, that hit home with me. I was just like, wow, you know, if I could just be that superhero, just be who they think I am. I mean, it was awesome. For me, it hit home real big. I still remember that. That was probably 7 or 8 years ago when I saw that, you know. But, uh, that's still— I'm just trying to be that example for them. Like you said, set that bar high and lead from the front, you know, just, just be that leader for them.

What do you guys do for fun? You guys have any, like, family hobbies or things you like to go do or do at home?

We're a running family, so we, we do a lot of running, a lot of hiking.

The kids too? The kids too?

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, they love to run. They— I mean, every single one of our children— we have a Jeep stroller, right? And every single one of them has been in that stroller. And I used to run 5, 6 miles a day with them kids, you know, when I whatever, and, uh, we'd go on family runs. That was like our thing is the family run. We love to trail run, and that was just a really cool time for us. That and camping, fishing, just a lot of outdoor activities. Um, I want to get my daughter into rock climbing because I used to do a lot of rock climbing. Uh, one of, one of my good friends is one of the highest ranking American climbers at one point in time, and he was in our wedding and stuff like that, and, uh I used to do a lot of rock climbing and I, I loved it. That was one of the coolest things I used to enjoy. So I think my daughter would be really good at that. So I want to take her and have her try it out. She did it when she was real young, but she hasn't done it now that she's older. It's just, these last 2 years have just been kind of a blur, just everything with my wife and just making sure that she's comfortable and, and everything else, you know, it's Everything else kind of slowed down, and then now with COVID it really slowed down. So, but I think, like I said, be that example for them where we're not panicking. I see so many people nowadays on the internet, uh, social media, whatever you have it, they're so panicked and so consumed with what's going on. I mean, it's almost like this fear is just really just gripping them and possessing them, and they're forgetting about their children, a lot of them. You know, I, I thought it was pretty insane our church having to make lunches for kids, and I was like, well, why, why are they doing that? And, uh, the reason being is because a lot of the kids here sometimes lunch at school is the only way they get fed. And that's sad. That's sad, you know. So make sure, you know, where the hell's the— where's their— where's their family? Where's their parents? Who's looking out for them?

Who knows. That, that's that way. And that was that way in Florida as well. Still is. Where, um, Florida actually does, they'll do for certain income families, they'll do breakfast and lunch. So if you get to school early, they'll give you breakfast and then they'll give you lunch as well. And it was actually a smart program they did, I think decades ago they started it. But school attendance just skyrocketed once they started doing that. Because genuinely, I mean, kids were going to school and happy to go to school because they knew they'd get two meals. And that wasn't guaranteed at home. And so it's actually a pretty, pretty smart program for—

I agree, I agree. It's a, it's a great program.

And man, it'd just be nice if parents were feeding their kids, but you know, take it wherever we can get it, I guess.

I, I guess, right? And it just blows my mind that's how far we've fallen in society.

Yeah, it's not every— it's not everyone, but you know, there is a segment of the population that's that way. And, uh, I've never been close enough to it to really see what's going on there. I, I knew families that— I knew families that qualified for the free lunch and free breakfast, but they were not— if that didn't exist, they were still going to get fed at home. They had decent houses. So I never saw the families that, um where that was a real genuine need. It was a bonus for the kids I knew, and it kind of helped alleviate maybe some strain on the families. But, you know, I think like in the Miami area, the really poor areas in the '80s and '90s, I think that's where they saw like the most benefit in the big cities. But yeah, it beats me how It doesn't matter how low someone's paying me, there's no way I'm not feeding my kids. It doesn't matter what my job is. I mean, it's just, that's kind of job number one. So, so I, I can't comprehend that, that family scenario.

Yeah, either do I. Like I said, it blows my mind that they would even have that. I mean, it really makes you think, what is going on in their head? Are they Are they, you know, is it drugs? What, what the heck would possess you to do such a horrible thing like that? Like not even want to feed your kids, you know?

Yeah, because at that point it's not— it's really not about ability to put some cheap food in the pantry.

It's selfishness. That's what it is. Honestly, um, I don't— honestly, I'm a firm believer that if you're a selfish person, you shouldn't even get married at all. You know, marriage is brutal on selfish people. It doesn't work if you're selfish. And I think that's a lot of times what happens. They— people just get married, have kids or whatever, and they're selfish. They can't get through that. Yeah, the ability to work on themselves, or they don't want to, they don't want to put in the work, they're complacent, they're comfortable, I guess.

Well, and they're— that's a tough balance because we're all selfish to an extent. I guess it's just how deep you are. I mean, a lot of guys would genuinely fall into that narcissistic category almost. Yeah. But can still provide for their families. They still know how to humble themselves and, and, uh, you know, put others before them. Um, it's just kind of that, that masculine mindset, maybe. Um, yeah, so I don't think it— I don't think necessarily it's all, uh, that if you have any selfishness you shouldn't get married, because I think there's, there's genuine selfishness in all of us. Um, now maybe extreme levels of it, 100%, but What do you think?

Let me ask you a question. What do you think is going on with society now, like, that you see as far as like with the family and stuff?

Um, are we talking about current events? Are we talking about just as a general—

just as a general— just society with the family? And do you think—

I think, I think I genuinely— I'm an optimist. I genuinely think it's shifting for the better. It's not ever going to be 100% there. I think that's just— it's impossible. I think families nowadays are a lot better off than they were 20 years ago. I think there's more families trying to hold the family together. I think we're coming from generations that saw a lot of divorce and saw a lot of just a lot of crap in the home and are almost rebelling against that. In the same way, like, um, I just, I just, I just completely forgot some good example. Remember how everyone had like a really nice room that you weren't allowed to go into as a kid? Yeah, because it was all the nice stuff. The carpet was super nice. Um, you just weren't allowed to walk into it. Did you, did you notice the generation after that did not have those rooms and they only had playrooms because they grew up kind of like, well, that sucks, this is stupid. And so when they became adults, they definitely don't have that room. Instead, they went the opposite way and they created playrooms for their kids and playroom for themselves, and they don't have that nice little fine china area that everyone's got to stay out of. So they kind of— so we kind of rebel the other way. And I think we're on a swing just based on what I'm seeing. I'm talking to families based on what I see on social media. There is a lot of push to keep the family together. To, you know, there's a lot of intent to raise kids better. There's a lot of intent to have better marriages. It's not 100% by any means. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done. But, you know, I think dads got crapped on for a long time and were the butt of the joke, and society kind of pushed them to the side. And I mean, I'm starting to see a big— and maybe because I'm in the space now, I'm starting to see a big rebellion and pushback against that, where dad is stepping back up and leading the family, where dad is kind of regaining that masculine presence, and masculinity is coming back and becoming, you know, I hate to say it, but it's becoming trendy. So I think we're starting to swing back the other way. Not near, not even near 100% there, but yeah, you know, but I'm also an optimist looking at it, so I'm trying not to look at the the bad sides.

That side. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm glad you are. You know, that's awesome for you to see the good and everything. That really is. I mean, especially these days where everywhere you look, you know, it seems like marriage is under attack, you know, whether it be mainstream media or, uh, the liberal laws.

Um, but I'm also, I'm also seeing the pushback against that now. To where it was quiet. It was a lot quieter before.

Yeah, exactly. Um, I think it's kind of crazy that according to what I've read, they say that the average— the average family in America, right, it has 2.3 children. Okay, that's what we need to sustain our population. Okay, that's what we're doing right now in America. Okay, according to what I read, Italy, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands aren't having enough children to replace themselves, you know, and they blame it on this feminist movement that's abounding where women lose their inclination for childbearing. You know, they've bought into this, uh, this movement where they call it the atomistic age, where marriage loses its sacredness as it's frequently broken by divorce. Um, so they buy into this idea that, hey, I don't, I don't want to have kids. I don't, you know, like, uh, the world is a bad place, so I don't want to have children and stuff like that. And I'm chasing after a career and stuff like that. And I just thought it was kind of interesting that 2.3 children is what it takes just to sustain your population.

Well, yeah, because you have 2 people, mom, dad, so that's 2. So if you have 2, your population is going to remain even. You have to have more than 2 to grow. If you have one— so, um, there's a great movie, old movie I think now, called Idiocracy. It's a stupid movie, um, but it's, it's, it's on that prem— well, it's on a slightly different premise of, um, that lower income people less smart people tend to have a whole lot more kids. And intelligent people, smart people have less kids. They have 1, 2 kids. So your doctors, your surgeons, your professors, things like that, they have neater lives and more control, so they have 1 or 2 kids. So they don't produce as much as lower income and less intelligent people. So the whole movie is like 200 years in the future to where it's just a whole bunch of bumbling morons that are covering in the planet. It's a, it's a really funny movie. It's probably 15 years old or so.

No, wow.

But there is a, there's a bit of reality to that.

So yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, I wanted to read a quote to you that I had, and I thought it was pretty interesting. Is in 1947 from a guy named Carl Zimmerman, okay? He issued this report warning America that we were following Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and all the great civilizations of the world that fell from within. He then quoted that every society that becomes great becomes great on a conservative biblical mold. Doesn't matter if Christians or not, all became great when they had strong families and strong marriages. What do you think about that?

Oh, it's 100%, and that's accurate. Um, if you dig deep into that, some of that stuff, um, like the fall, the fall of the great empires of the world, I mean, you can see We're, you know, hopefully we hold it off for a while, but we're following the same trends.

Exactly.

What one of— I know one of them is sports obsession, where everything becomes about sports and all of society kind of focuses on those things, less important things. A strong desire not to work anymore and to be sitting back, and entertainment takes priority. I forget what the other things are.

It's been a long time since I looked at that, but depopulation, stuff like that. I know, I thought it was pretty interesting too that, uh, this— just the whole feminist movement itself, you know, and some of the things that I read that the reason why that happens is that marriage supposedly makes women feel secure, you know, and when they're in a marriage, they they want to have children because their husband is going to be there to help raise their kids, you know, is what I was reading about. And I thought that was pretty interesting. And for me, that resonated and hit home because, man, just my presence being home with my family has just instilled more confidence in my wife. I see my wife bloom, you know, uh, my daughter. And just my presence alone, she's got more confidence.

There was a missing piece.

Yeah, exactly.

And, and now it's complete, and now, you know, things are, things are firing on all cylinders.

Exactly, exactly. So I just think it's pretty interesting how everything kind of just falls back to the family and how it ties into our society and stuff like that, and kind of where we're—

competent parents raise competent kids. That have competent families, and when you're taking care of yourself, it's less of a need for everyone else to take care of them. So the family unit, which has been attacked and not quite destroyed, but certainly been attacked for decades, that's a strong reason to where society started to crumble, and strengthening that family unit is how society gets stronger again. That's not my opinion, that's just, that's just, that's just real facts.

Yeah, no, that's, that, that's, that's facts. That's, that's truth, brother. Yeah, that's absolutely truth.

Um, so, so if, I mean, if you really want to get into it, you know, people who want to destroy that aspect of it want a little bit more chaos, a little bit more control They don't want people to be able to take care of themselves. They want, they want people to have to rely on a system to take care of them.

Exactly.

Which isn't good, which isn't good for everyone.

No, it isn't. I was also starting to see too that society today is starting to push— have you noticed with young men You're starting to see a lot more young men who are pushed into the 30s are still living with their parents, still playing video games, and they're in their basement.

That I blame the parents.

What's that?

It's fair. I blame the parents.

Yeah, exactly.

100% the parents' fault. That's parents not having confidence in their kids. That's them not being able to push them out and say, fly, birdie, fly. That's parents not raising them well enough to be independent and strong. I 100% will always blame the parents on that. I won't blame that on any government institution. I will firmly call out mom and dad for saying you're allowing this and you're not giving your kid the confidence to go out and live life on their own.

Exactly. I agree with you 100%. One of the things is being a foreman and a leader, I learned, you know, just being a leader in the military and just, just being a foreman in charge of a 5-man crew, you're always wrong, you know. And it took a, a well-seasoned GF that I had, that I have high respect for, high respect, what goes on with your crew. If they fail, they fail because of you. Your job was to help them to succeed. So I try, I, I try to utilize that in my family as well. If my family fails, it's because of me. It falls on me. I'm the one who's in charge. That's my watch.

Yep, 100%.

That's under my watch.

And the ability to shoulder that blame and accept that blame and not have it crush you is an incredibly important skill. And one that kids need to be able to pick up on and that needs to be talked to them of. It's okay to hold, it's okay to shoulder that burden. It's okay to have that responsibility. It's okay to fail in a sense, or to fail realistically and see that it doesn't crush dad, see that it doesn't crush mom. And that's a lot of the reasons, like you said, people are living at home in their 30s, people aren't going off on their own. They don't have the confidence, they've been protected from failure for too long. And honestly, I'm not sure their own parents believe them.

Wow. Yeah, that's deep. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with everything you're saying. You're absolutely right. They're not letting them fail.

And they didn't when they were kids either. That's too much protection. That's too much mom and dad, you know, standing over the kid, not letting them fall down when they're walking. It's that overprotective, what do you call it, helicopter parenting. But, you know, we got— obviously have to protect them from catastrophic injuries and death, you know, but they've got to scrape their knees, they've got to fall, they've got to learn, oh, you know, when I run like this, when there's roots around, I'm going to fall and get hurt. And they're just— there's a lot of not being given that freedom, thinking it's for the best of the kid, thinking it's for it's protecting them and keeping them safe. In reality, it's handicapping them.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. That's where all those participation medals are starting to bite parents in the butt, you know, the medals that they, they want to give out for participation and stuff like that instead of letting the kids, you know, say, hey, you know, try better next time.

Yeah, so I got— I get called out on that every once in a while where someone will say— someone will drop a comment like that on some of our content that's more like love your kids related or tell them you're proud of them related. I'm thinking that's soft and not realizing that there's also discipline, there's also some more harshness and discussing reality and telling them when they suck and letting them, you know, have some freedom and independence, but also being more on that, you know, quote-unquote soft side of, you know, loving them, spending time with them, caring for them, and having that bonding and that relationship. Like, there's both things can happen at the same time.

Exactly. And it's got to be well-balanced too, just like you're saying. Got to be a balance of both, you know, that tough love I call it. And everything is about balance. Have you noticed you're too protective or you're not protective enough or whatever? You know, everything's got to be perfectly balanced with, with work, with your, your family, with everything. Everything's just got to be perfect balance. I think that's the key to everything actually, is just so I know So I like the balance theory.

I don't like it when people are trying to do it like daily because I think it just leads to failure and frustration where everyone's trying to— they're trying to be the perfect parent, the perfect worker, the perfect husband, the perfect, you know, Christian, the perfect— get the perfect body and enhance their mind all at the same time and trying to do it daily. And I've heard it somewhere said like seasons, and I like that theory. Thought process of, you know, sometimes you need to focus more on work. And maybe that's a few months at a time. And then sometimes you need to focus a lot on your family. Sometimes you need to focus on your marriage. Sometimes you need to focus on your body. Sometimes you need to focus on your spiritual walk. You know, there's things you can focus harder on for, you know, a few months or a few weeks or however long. So I think that longer scope of balance over a year versus, you know, that daily balance, I think A lot of people get confused on that and are trying to do everything every day, and it's just— I, I've never found that to be possible because, I mean, I was one of those who tried to do, you know, an hour of this, an hour of everything every day, and it just, it never worked.

Yeah, no, I agree with you on that too. And you'll— you, you definitely gotta— I mean, that's why you always have another day, right? And I think when you actually put in that time, like me, for me, my typical day is I get up at 5, okay, depending on where I've got to work or whatever. But even when I'm not working, I try to get up between 4:30 and 5. I spend that time reading my Bible. I need it. I'm not saying people need to do that or whatever, but for me, I need to. Because if I don't get into that word, I'm a mess. I'll be hateful, I'll be angry, I'll be, you know, I mean, just, just, just for my own personal good and for those around me, I really need it. And, uh, I'll read it, I'll have my alone time, I'll pray, I'll, you know, just spend time with God, just talking to him and letting him know what's on my heart, and then I'll start my day, whether it be working out or starting on chores or, or getting ready to go to work or whatever, you know. And, uh, I really need that time though in the morning. That, that's my time. It just—

so my wife, my wife, my wife always did the same thing. She always got frustrated with me because I don't do that, right? Because I've tried a couple times where I get up early, just the first thing I do in the morning, for some reason can't be read the Bible. I'll go back to sleep. I just, like, my head just can't do it for some reason. And I tried. I just, I have to do that later in the day, or like I have to have, you know, a workout first or something like that. But she does it. She wakes right up and, you know, does a Bible study for like 45 minutes or 30 minutes, however long it is. And it just, it puts me right back to sleep. So I've got to get coffee in, like I gotta get my blood moving, or else I can't do that first thing in the morning. I don't know why. I know a lot of people, a lot of people have good results that way, but I've just never been— I'm not programmed for that for some reason.

I never used to either. I used to just jump right into doing burpees or whatever just to get that blood flow because I would fall asleep as well. And I start dozing off and you can't even remember what you're reading, and you know, you just get real comfortable and, you know, start doing your neck's almost breaking, you know.

Yep.

But yeah, I've been able to do it now. Now that I've been really consistent with it, it's, it's not even really a big deal. Like, uh, I just look forward to waking up and having my coffee, you know, especially now during this time in the fall. I love that pumpkin spice coffee, man.

That's like— oh, you just went down like 4 notches in my book.

Oh dude, but it's so good. But, uh, hey, you gotta at least let me have that.

I don't have—

I don't drink anything else, you know.

But you're allowed to do whatever you want.

But, uh, no, no. Yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty much, uh, pretty much everything that goes on here and what I do and It's pretty awesome. I've been getting a lot of calls, and one of the calls I had the other day, you know, was a— I get a lot of messages from men, actually, husbands, you know, just asking simple questions. What can I do from, you know, for this or that? And I finally had one from a wife who actually sent me a message. She wanted to know what she can do to how she can better communicate with her husband, right? And from what I understand is she was trying to bombard him with all kinds of questions right when he would get off work. So I went ahead and answered her, and I, you know, I put it on my IGTV on, uh, on, uh, Instagram like that. And, uh, I thought it was pretty good. I had a pretty good turnout. Of, you know, people responding to it and stuff like that. But, uh, laid down what— as men, you know, when we get off of work, that's the last thing I don't— I don't want to come in, the kids are pulling on your pants and stuff like that, and then all of a sudden be questioned, where were you, how was whatever, you know. I'm coming in, you just want to see your family and kind of unwind. And I think that's what she was doing. She was hitting him up and she was getting negative results from that. And, uh, I was able to answer her and stuff, you know, like that. I thought it was pretty awesome that a wife was actually asking a question. So pretty neat, man.

You know, my grandparents used to do, which I, I thought this was a good idea, is he would come home from work— and now this is like what, '60s, '70s, so it's a different era— he would come home from work and there would be a, there would be a martini waiting for him, and she would have one poured for herself as well. And they would have the drink, go sit on the, um, sit on the couch, talk about the days. The kids would be sitting on the floor playing. And you know, the rule was kids were like they, they could play, they couldn't interrupt mom and dad. And so for like 30 minutes they would just kind of get caught up and have a drink, and that would be kind of his unwinding. And she would get to talk and have, you know, catching up, and the kids were still in the room to have that family feel, um, but not interrupting and, you know, pulling on legs and asking, you know, asking a million questions. Um, we never did that, we just couldn't pull that off. Um, but I always thought that was kind of a cool thing, certainly a '60s, '70s era type thing. Uh, but I always thought that was really cool because it kind of did that. It gave a chance to unwind without being bombarded, but you, the, you know, the wife still gets communication. And, um, no, I just always thought that was kind of cool.

Yeah, that is actually really cool. I mean, it's just, it just amazes me how the times have changed from, from seeing that, which— what would that be, the golden generation, I guess, or Oh, I don't know what generations are called.

I don't even know what generation I am.

They, they say after '69 is Generation X, up until, uh, I think 2000.

No, no, they would all be baby boomers, right? Baby boomers, I thought, was after World War II to like the '60s.

Yeah, I think they're baby boomers. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty awesome though. But just crazy how everything's from there to, to where we're at today. And we got 30-year-old sons in basements wearing skinny jeans.

Yeah, I, I'd like to think, I'd like to think that's a rare event and that there's more families that are better positioned and we just don't hear about them because they're less fun to talk about.

Right, right, right on, man. That's awesome, that's awesome.

All right, cool. Is there anything else you wanted to— oh, I've got 3, I've got— there, give me a second. 9, 7, and 4.

That's awesome.

How long? Yeah, 13, 13 years. Hold on, I'm No, no, I got it. I think it's 13 years. 13 years? Yes, it is 13. We have—

that's amazing.

Yeah, so, well, we just started that. We just started that about 4 or 5 months ago. Um, so we're in the RV now. You can see the RV is right here. Uh, oh yeah, that's where we're current— we're currently in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They're actually packing up. We're packed up tonight. We're leaving in the morning, heading down. We're supposed to go to Omaha. We're gonna spend a week in Omaha, but we have a friend in Kansas City, which is 3 hours south of Omaha, and we've already been there. And I guess we're going to go visit them. So we're driving 6 hours south to Kansas City, gonna hang out there for a few days, then driving back up to Omaha to do like another 3 or 4 days, then heading across to Rapid City, South Dakota, where I got a buddy who's in the Air Force there, and we're gonna spend a week at his place doing the Mount Rushmores and Black Hills and Badlands and all that jazz.

Man, that's— that sounds awesome. I really did— I did that. I was fortunate enough to do that when I was a kid, you know. My— oh yeah, yeah, my father, he was— one of his biggest deals, he would save, save, save, and And then we're one of those RV families that have that picture of all of, uh, North America, and everywhere we went, it was like the next goal to put on that little state that we had visited, you know. And yeah, that was, that was a lot of fun. I remember that, that was good times, you know.

And how old were you when that was happening?

Uh, from 4 to 13.

Oh great, and you remember it?

Oh, I remember it.

Beautiful.

It was yesterday.

Cool.

Is, uh, you go see the Sequoia National Park?

I'm looking forward to that.

I stole one of them, dude. That place is— well, now it's on fire, but That's not— I mean, yeah, but the whole state is, you know.

Yeah, so we're, so we're coming down south and we're gonna be in like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona for the winter, and then we're going up, up the West Coast for spring and early summer. So hopefully, hey, after the spring, after the spring, we should stop burning.

I hope so, man, because that place is awesome. You guys are gonna love it. Yeah, I remember bringing home a pot cone that was the size of a basketball from there. Get my backpack and I brought it, I brought it home. I wasn't supposed to do that, but I was just so intrigued how, how big those trees were, like General Sherman and all that.

I've heard they're massive.

Oh dude, you're gonna trip out, man. It's such a good time though. It's a blessing. You guys are gonna really enjoy it, you know.

Yeah, it's been a lot of fun so far. We are now in the mode of it's no longer a vacation, like this is life now. So it's gotten a little more real. We're like, the first couple months we're like, oh, we're just camping every day. So it's starting to feel a little bit more like we're living this way, which is a good thing. I think we needed to hit that, but it's really been a lot of fun. I've never seen this side of the country. Okay. And it's pretty impressive.

Oh yeah, yeah, wait till you start running and see the, uh— are you guys gonna go to the Grand Tetons or anything like that?

I've already been there. Yep. Yeah, so we came up, we went, we went Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado for a month, then we went up into Utah for a couple weeks, Idaho for a few weeks, did the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. Did Wyoming, then we went up to Montana, did Glacier and a whole bunch— spent like 3 weeks in Montana, then 3 weeks in North Dakota, 3 weeks in Minnesota. Now we're in South Dakota. Yeah, we're— we're— we— at least a lot of things I've just— I've never seen before. I never even heard of Glacier. Glacier is amazing. Yellowstone was awesome. Grand Tetons are awesome. Colorado was awesome. Uh, even, even Kansas, which everyone says Kansas is boring. I've never seen that much farmland, and that's just like a huge, a huge cool thing to me. Yeah, I just, I like tractors and farming.

So yeah, no, it's awesome. I like Kansas. I have a lot of friends in Kansas. And, uh, tell you what, Texas ain't got nothing on them on barbecue. Kansas City barbecue is the best, dude. You guys gotta hit that up.

We did. We, we got— there's a place called Q39, I think we went, and, uh, it was phenomenal. Now they tried to— this was back in April we were there, um, and we're going back now, but, uh, we— oh, the brisket. They were saying they were out of brisket. They're like, beef was in short supply. I'm like, this is like the height of COVID like April or something. I'm like, I'm gonna pass 400,000 cattle in the 1-mile trip. From the house to your restaurant? Like, would you like me to pick up a cow since there's a shortage? What do you mean? How can there be a beef brisket shortage in cattle country?

I know, that's crazy, huh?

Some of these excuses we're getting that everyone's blaming on COVID starting to irritate me when you can tell it's bogus.

Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. One of the places that I really, really enjoyed, if you guys get a chance to, it's in on Canada's side, but it's, uh, we can't see British Columbia. What's that?

We can't. We keep trying to go to Canada, they won't let us in.

Really?

Oh yeah, borders have been— yeah, borders have been shut down since like February.

Yeah, that's, that's right, I forgot. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, there's a place out there though called Château Lake Louise, and it's just amazing. I mean, so beautiful. Alberta, that was all beautiful too.

Yeah, we were going to go to Banff, um, when we were up by Glacier, so, but couldn't get in. And our original intent, our original trip was going up the East Coast across Canada and back into Michigan and then doing the Midwest of the country, but COVID screwed that up. We were staying far away from the East Coast, so we, we head out to the center of the country um, where there's less people and people are less crazy. Uh, and we genuinely thought everything would be done by beginning of summer and then we'd be, you know, free to do whatever. But it, uh, it has not been that way so far. Still going on.

Yeah, that's crazy, man. That sucks that it's like that. Well, here in New Mexico, we're one of the most locked-down states there is other than California. I mean, my kids still haven't even gone back to school yet. You know, they're still waiting on—

Oh, they're not even doing like virtual school?

They're doing virtual, but they're not doing the hybrid where you go in, you know, like 2 days or whatever and then 3 days at home. Our kids are still on virtual and that's hard on them. It really is, you know. Yeah, I can't even—

I will say, so we homeschool now and we've done it for a couple years, um, about 3, 4 years now. Homeschooling seems so much easier than the virtual school. Like, the amount of complaints I'm seeing about virtual school and how much time and how much frustration it's causing, like, man, why doesn't everyone just pull out of virtual school and homeschool? Because, man, we get done homeschooling like 2 hours. And like, our kids are intelligent and learning it, and it's just— it seems so much easier.

Yeah, that's what—

because there have been a lot of complaints about the virtual side.

Oh, it sucks, bro. Especially like, uh, you know, just some of the stuff that the— you got these teachers are still old school where they would rather teach in person, and they're just struggling. You could see the frustration on their face. Is with trying to keep the kids' attention and their kids, you know, their parents are on them so the kids are yelling, you could hear them yelling and, you know, the teacher's pretty much losing patience on there and it's frustrating, you know, it's frustrating and you see both sides, you see the frustration in the teacher and then you see the frustration in the kids so what are you going to do though, you know? Pull them out.

Yeah, homeschool. Florida's got a big homeschool community because everyone just wants to go to school for 2 hours and surf for the next 6 hours. So, and I realize the rest of the country is not like it, but you know, and we've got huge communities of support. Like, our kids were more social in homeschool in Florida than I ever was in public school. Anywhere. It was, it was insane. We do 2 hours of school, but they're hanging out with like 70, 80 homeschoolers doing, you know, they go down to the beach, they go down like to hike trails and do like sports clubs and things like that. And man, they were, they were 10 times as social as I ever was as a kid.

Wow, wow, that's pretty cool.

And I just don't know if that's unique to Florida, if that's, if, or if that's countrywide.

Oh, I don't know, that's weird. I never, I never heard of that. You, you wouldn't think the opposite, but that, that's actually really cool. It's almost like they had their own tribe, huh? Where they could just call—

oh, and tons of them, like, and that was just the ones like we were associated with. They were like, in our town of small town of St. Augustine, there were probably like 6 of them, and we were just in one of them. I mean, so it's, it's really big, but you know And I always had that homeschool opinion of it's a whole bunch of like, um, you know, backwoods Mormons or things like that. They're just, you know, the weird, and they have that like strange kid that's never going to function right in life. And, um, yeah, it's, it's highly the opposite. So really?

Wow.

Yeah.

So yeah, because that stigma you would think with homeschoolers is they're going to be like this socially awkward kid because they weren't really, you know, 100% the opposite.

I guess you could be. I guess if you, if you purposely isolate your family and never bring your kid out, then that could happen. But the ones we were involved with, you did, you did your homeschool at home, but you know, then 4 or 5 times a week you're meeting with like 40 or 50 other kids because you all decided to go to the beach, or you all decide, you know, they do a thing called Shoot, um, Nature Fridays or something like that, and they'd all go to like a different trail, and one parent would pick out and like be teaching about the different plants and animals they stumbled across. And, you know, that we'd all go camping together, they do sports clubs together, you know, they do art classes together. And ours, like, every kid every week had to stand up and do a speaking presentation, so they would learn how to do public speaking. And then they were all wild, you know, it was heavily boys for some reason in ours, and we have all boys, so they were all just wild kids too. And they'd go out, climb trees, jump off roofs, and, you know, tackle football games that, you know, would put the NFL to shame.

Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. Yeah, we, uh, we live in a small town out here and It's called Los Lunas, Mexico. It's south of Albuquerque, and it's all farmland. I mean, these kids are tough. I mean, we're, you know, every year these kids are just in the top, you know, 2 as far as draft football goes. It's just because they're farm kids, you know, they grew up— Sure. In a hard day's worth of work and stuff like that. So it's pretty cool, you know, that the kids still open up doors out here. And, you know, COVID really didn't hit too hard out here because, you know, it's just a farm community. So people weren't really worried if you're not wearing your mask. It wasn't like going into Albuquerque where people were like paranoid, like, you know, they stay 6 feet, you know, and bringing out a a ruler and making sure you're 6 feet away from them and stuff like that, you know. It wasn't anything like that.

Yeah, so we, we spent a bunch of time in Montana and North Dakota. Um, North Dakota, COVID doesn't exist. It was wonderful. Uh, we got to Minnesota and we were in the northeast section and they were extreme, extreme, extreme. Like, no buildings had bathrooms. Like, like grocery stores, all that, you— fast food, right? Or all restaurants, all the stores, you weren't allowed to use restrooms inside. And so here's the genius of this. So this is to prevent COVID. So the city put out porta-potties around the city. So now instead of using a bathroom because you'll get COVID that way, now you use a porta-potty because they're so much cleaner. And now since everyone's using those, they're filled up and disgusting, and the hand cleaning stations were only always out of soap and hand sanitizer. So now you're going to the bathroom in something dirtier and not able to clean your hands. This is how smart that decision was. And then like, uh, like you grow grocery shopping, going into restaurants, only one person in the family was allowed to go and they would physically stop you. Um, it was extreme up there. Um, we spent most of our time like lost in the woods hiking and and on trails, which they were— it was beautiful up there. Um, Minneapolis was the same thing, super extreme. Um, where was— and then we came— we're back in South Dakota where it just doesn't exist, and it's— yeah, I, I like this normal feeling, um, a lot better.

Absolutely. I— our norm here is going to church. Our, uh, Our church is— it's a megachurch, and, uh, man, they totally fought the governor and everything, and they just remained open. And, you know, it's the only real place that is normal because no one wears masks there. The cops are there, you know, they're not wearing any masks or anything like that. It's like the little bit of normalcy that we get in these crazy times is all based there. You know, and it's kind of cool. And to this day, no one's, you know, been affected with COVID or anything like that, so it kind of makes you wonder, you know, what the heck's going on.

But yeah, no, it's much more— it's much more enjoyable this way.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right, on, brother. That was awesome, you know.

All right, is there anything else you wanted to touch on?

Yeah, yeah, I think that's it.

Um, cool.

Appreciate it. Appreciate your time, man. And you know, you guys, absolutely have fun and be safe there, brother.

We're trying. Have a good one.

Right on, brother. Have a good night.

All right, see ya. Stay in touch.