Ben Greenfield Interviews His Mom: Homeschooling, Coffeeshops, Writing, Music & More With Pat Greenfield!

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, my faith was solidified after that. Yeah, it was like, okay, God could have taken me, but he didn't. He left me here. I better do something good.

I think that was one of the most important gifts that you gave me, you know, besides just teaching me how to. How to love Jesus and have an upright life.

I mean, I feel like you became my parent because it was very typical of you to be like, mom, do you think you ought to be doing that?

I still do that.

Do you want to hear the rest of that story?

I think it's an interesting story if you want to share it.

Yes, it was life changing.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. You know, a few years ago, I had an interesting podcast episode in which I interviewed my father, and I got a surprising amount of positive feedback on that episode. And so I thought, you know what? I want to interview my mom. I want to interview my mom. So that's what I did. And you're going to hear an interview with my mom. We talk about what kind of kid I was growing up and the kind of foods we ate as a family and what we did and why they homeschooled and how we wound up in Idaho. And just a super fun story. There's part where it gets a little bit rough in terms of possibly not safe for work or for young people in terms of some traumatic issues we get into. And so I just want to warn you about that. And then also, we recorded My Kitchen Table on a nice, quiet Sunday afternoon, and about 45 minutes into the podcast, we got just waylaid by dogs barking and people running about and lots of noise. So I tried to keep my sanity, but it got a little bit distracting towards the end. Who. Hopefully you got a lot of that edited out for you. But just so you know, my only thing is, I wish I could have interviewed her for three hours instead of an hour. But hopefully this gives you a good chance to get to know my mom, and we'll give you a few little ways to improve your life along the way. How'd you like them waffles, Mom?

They were good.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Have you ever been to people's waffles before?

No.

Okay, so for people listening in, this is like a fancy waffle joint that I've been going to. My mom follows me on Instagram. I think all moms probably follow their kids on Instagram.

Some of my friends in Moscow have.

Come up to there to Instagram or to people's waffles. Waffles, yeah. So people's waffles, they do like these really good farm to table ingredients. And then the gluten free, I think they use like the Bob's red mill type of flour. And today we had. We had a. Well, it was you and me, my brother Zach and his daughter. We had. What do we have? The Reuben, which was really good. Like the corned beef and sauerkraut. Almost as good as I. Well, I grew up in Lewiston, as you know. I hope and remember Clarkson Washington Fezzari's pizza, they had like a sauerkraut mustard.

It was called the Schatz.

The Schottzki. Yeah. This reminded me of that. It was like a waffle with like Reuben and sauerkraut.

That's.

I forget what else you put on a Reuben, but it was really good. And then we had a lemon curd, which was blueberries, lemon sauce. What else was on there? I don't know. It just all tastes so good in your mouth. There's leftovers in the refrigerator.

That hard disc of lemon.

Yeah, it was like a lemon. Like a candied lemon thing. And then the last one was what we give. Oh, Curious George. Bananas, almond butter, pumpkin cream, Banana cream. That was pretty good too.

That was good.

Yeah. Yeah. And I've got you drinking some bastardized form of coffee. It's like chaga. Have you ever had chaga in lion's mane before?

Okay, no, but you can't even see through the top half inch.

The only problem when you put the chaga in the coffee is the coffee tastes a little burnt because chaga has, like a burnty flavor to it. So. Yeah, but, you know, I'm. I'm. I don't know why I always like to talk about food at the beginning of a podcast.

I know, I'm getting hungry. Why are you doing that?

We'll have steak later on. For those of you listening in, I'm preparing my lovely mother, who you listening Listening to right now? Some sous vide steak. You've never had sous vide before?

No.

Okay, so we're living it up today. We got waffles, chaga coffee, and sous vide steak. So anyways, though, I think I got more into, like, nutrition and cooking from scratch and all those kind of things. When I started hanging out with the girl who is now my wife, I remember the first time she made me a meal. She brought out meal and it was wrapped in paper and I'm like, what the hell? It was salmon and parchment paper. You know, she made me this fancy meal and. And I just wasn't used to that kind of stuff and that I. People a lot of times ask me about the diet that I grew up on and maybe we could get to that later. But I know that you used to follow, like, weren't you like vegan or vegetarian or something like that at one point? Tell me about that.

When I was young. When I was young, I think. I don't really exactly remember the age, but I feel like was somewhere around 12 years old to when I was like 17 or 18, that I was vegetarian.

12 years old.

But it was. It was kind of. Yeah, it probably irritated my mom, but it was kind of a little bit hypocritical because I was also smoking cigarettes.

Cigarettes made from animals. Pretty sure cigarettes are vegan. It's tobacco.

Okay, then that was good. That's good.

Yeah. So why do you. Do you remember why you decided to be vegetarian?

I think it was just like a. Some kind of thing about animals and also just a trend. There were a lot of trends then. That was in the late 60s and early 70s.

Yeah. Yeah. And you grew up in Alpena, Michigan, Right. Tell me about how that little town was.

It was. It's a very cool town. It's on. It's on the coast of Lake Huron, one of the five great lakes of Michigan. And it's kind of a touristy town, but it's not very big. I want to say probably now it might be 35, 40,000, but it was very water oriented and like water sports, water everything.

Because it was on the lake.

Yeah, yeah. Because a lot of people lived on the lake or everybody had boats and that kind of thing. We didn't have a boat. But it was a beautiful little town. Yeah. But it was definitely a tiny town to grow up in.

And you had a heck of a lot of sisters. Tell people how many sisters you had.

I'm the youngest of nine kids and we're all girls.

What was that like growing up in a house with.

I had eight sisters, nine mothers.

Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Yeah. They all had told me what to do. They all acted like my mother. I really. Yeah, it was interesting.

What kind of kid were you?

You want me to say that on here?

You can say anything you want on my podcast. It's my podcast. We can always edit it out.

Kind of a. I wasn't a good kid because I was kind of a brat and kind of spoiled. I mean, Pat the brat. That rhymes. Yeah. And so I kind of made life miserable for a lot of them because I didn't like being mothered. And by the time my mom got to girl number, I don't know, 8 and 9, it was, it was, you could see she was wearing thin, you know what I mean? And so we didn't have a lot of interaction time with my mom because I was youngest, but. And my father, he was older, so he was 50 when I was born.

Yeah. So he was an athlete, right?

He was an athlete, yeah. Baseball primarily, yes. But he signed a contract with, I don't know if you called them major leagues, but just under the major leagues, I can't remember what they were, but he signed a contract to be a left handed pitcher for a pretty famous baseball team. And then to celebrate.

Wait, wait, I think I remember because you told me a long time it was a Toledo Mud Hens.

Yeah.

Yes, Toledo Mudheads.

Yeah.

Probably like a farm team.

Yes. I don't know what. Because I was, I was. I don't think I was born at that point, but he. I don't think I was born at that point. But he went out fishing to celebrate because he was a passionate fisherman and he went out fishing to celebrate that contract. And his friend who went with him fished his eye out on a cast.

My gosh.

So he went blind completely in his right eye. And of course the team didn't want him anymore, so he didn't realize his dream. So after a couple years he turned into a coach, referee, umpire of baseball and basketball. As a matter of fact, the, the Little League. He started Little League in our town and the field was named after him.

Geez. Were you in the, in the sports?

Based on his influence, my dad started girls Little League, which was really cool. So. Yeah.

So you played Little League baseball, girls?

Yeah.

Was that the only sport that you did?

No, I did basketball in high school. I just rode my bike like a maniac all the time. But mostly basketball in junior high and high school and then baseball when I.

Was little, being in Michigan. Did you do much skating? Like, I know a lot of people are into ice skating.

All winter long they would take hoses and flood the football field and freeze it and then they'd charge like a couple bucks to get in or whatever and you could skate all day and they'd play the coolest music on the speakers overhead.

Yeah.

And we just spent the entire day there. And they had food, they had concessions and stuff. It was really cool. And because it was so cold that Close to the Upper Peninsula. Then it stayed frozen a long time.

Yeah. Yeah. So how. How long did you live in Alpena before you kind of, like, moved out of the house?

I think I was about every summer. Like, when I was 14, 15, 16, I would go to Florida for the summer because I was giving my parents trouble, and so they liked it that I would go stay with my older sister in Florida.

I was gonna say it was just randomly chipping off to Florida. You had one of your sisters?

Yeah, and so I'd stay with them every summer, but I got in trouble down there, too. But then when I think when I was like. I want to say 17 and a half maybe, I. I left to move down to Florida with some friends because my dad was dying of cancer at that time, and it was just overwhelming, you know, the whole family was taking care of him, and he was just dying before eyes, and I just. I couldn't take it because I would. I didn't deal with things the same way I do now.

Yeah.

And it was hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Which part of Florida was that?

I went to Bradenton, Sarasota area, which is beautiful.

Yeah.

Part of Florida.

Yeah. We still have some family that live down there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like the Tampa area.

Yeah. Troy. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So. So you. You lived part of the time in Florida and then part of the time in Michigan.

I didn't go back to Michigan except for my dad's funeral, which happened. My dad died a couple hours after I left.

Yeah.

And so went back to the funeral, and then I didn't. I didn't go back to Michigan. I think I lived down in Florida for. I don't know if it was a couple months or so, but I was getting in some trouble down there and did not. I had some bad influences of friendships. And so my mom came down with one of my sisters and hauled me up to Back up to Michigan. But I only got as far as Detroit because my sister, who lived in Detroit, found a job for me there. So I had a job.

All right. So I can edit it out if I need to. But when you say you got into trouble in Florida, what do you mean you got in trouble?

Like.

Well, I mean, tell me what kind of kid you were.

I was hanging around with people that weren't good influences, and I was not exactly a follower. I was leader to.

Yeah.

And I was turning on my nephews to pot and stuff that wasn't legalized then and just things that were.

This was mostly drugs.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

But I was also into Drugs up in Alpena too.

Yeah.

Selling and that kind of thing.

Yeah. Did. Was that just you or were all your sisters into that kind of stuff?

Oh, no, they were. They're much older than I. I mean like, I only have one sister who was close to my age and she's a year and a half older than me, but there's a five year gap. And then like my oldest sister is like 16 years older than me. So there, there wasn't a lot of. They did. They were all doing their own thing. It was during that era where everybody was doing their own thing in the 60s and stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Do you think. I don't even know if you have your finger on the pulse of this, but do you think it's kind of weird that a lot of those drugs that, that were obviously vilified and considered to be the things that like bad people or the trouble kids do now are now considered to be like trendy like Silicon Valley executives using psilocybin?

Well, you've taught me some of when I first started hearing about microdosing and things like that.

Yeah.

And then three of my kids live in the state of Washington, one of my kids lives in Arizona. Those are all legal states, you know what I mean?

For marijuana? I mean.

Yeah, yeah, for marijuana. And that was really concerning for me. But the more that I listened to what they were saying and I realized that times have changed, that stuff is not really true anymore.

Well, it, I don't know.

Well, maybe for abusive people it's kind.

Of a catch 22 because you know, there's, there's, on one side of the equation you've got stuff like, for example, like psilocybin, which I'm sure a lot of people got into trouble with back in the. Really.

Well in Florida.

Yeah. And now people use it for creativity in very small doses or productivity. It's almost like perhaps the way that it was intended to be used or the reason that it was created in the first place. But then you have something like marijuana, which for you back in the day, I think, I don't remember what the THC content of like the average joint would be. But now and I. Because some people who grew up, when you grew up will try modern day marijuana and it'll freaking like fry them for days because the THC content is so much higher. So in some ways it's almost worse now in terms of the potency. Just because technology and extraction, everything has come a long ways and I'm sure.

The abuse factor is still there with Drugs now.

Oh, it absolutely is. It's the same as it always has been for all of humankind. Anything that allows you to shift your state of consciousness and escape or run away from problems in life, if that's why you're using it can, you know. Obviously it'll always be an issue. Humans like to tweak their brains. We're dopaminergic creatures. And whether it's wine or food or exercise or anything else, but. Yeah, Mom's drinking. What kind of wine is that, Mom? 4:45 in the afternoon. But is that the Fitvine?

No, that's lavier. Organic.

Yeah. And we'll get to that later on because you serve up some pretty good brews down at your place in Moscow. We'll talk about Moscow later on. I'll try and stay somewhat chronologically appropriate here as we go down the timeline of your youth. And then we'll get into raising us kids as well. So you eventually made your way out to Idaho. I know you have kind of an interesting story about what got you out to Idaho in the first place. That has to do with you working up in Detroit.

Yeah.

Or getting a job there. So tell me about that.

I don't know that that was the catalyst to get me to Idaho. One of the things that got me to Idaho was because there are only one of the sisters was living out here. That's the firstborn.

Mary Lou.

Mary Lou. She's awesome. Yeah, we call her the Jesus one. Yeah, she's awesome. Anyway, she.

She definitely falls in the category Jesus freak in a good way. Yeah, she was like your perfect sister.

Yeah. And she lived out here and she really was hoping that some. Some sister would come out and visit her. And the others were already married and having kids and stuff. And I was just living in Florida. I went to Bible college for like a year with my sister who was a year and a half older than me. And so then they asked me if I wanted to just ride out for the summer and like get a part time job in the summer and then I could go back in the fall to my wonderful little Florida. And so I moved out here. Just. I moved out here with them and just that we were just talking the other day about this and laughing our heads off over at bootsers about my impression of them when they came and got me because they were like dressed in like Idaho clothes, you know, and they had.

And they came and got you from Florida?

Yeah. And like I got like a couple hours away from Florida. I thought, I gotta escape. I gotta get out of here because they were just so. They're so different culturally, you know.

So basically you're like a bad kid in Florida.

No, I actually by that particular time I wasn't. I. By that particular time I had converted to Christ.

Okay.

And so that I was already a Christian for, I don't know, like maybe six months or something.

Yeah.

So when they came to get me, I had the like mindedness up that they had in that way. But my culturally I had been seasoned so differently that. So it was a little bit.

But you'd cleaned up your act.

Totally. Yeah.

Yeah. What did that happen when you're in Florida that you became a Christian?

No, it actually when my mom and my sister came to get me from Florida and take me up there because they were really worried about me because I was living with kind of a bad crowd of house full of people and they came to get me so that one of my sisters could give me the job in Detroit. When I got up there, I was really, just really lonely and really like, wow. And my dad had just died a couple months before. He had died on Father's day weekend a couple months before then. And I was just. Gosh, I was like rock bottom. And I was living alone in an apartment, something I'd never done. Who gets to live alone when you have that many siblings? And you know, I just never lived alone. And so my sister set me up in an apartment and got me a job in a big printing equipment firm. You know, the kinds of printers that. Newspapers. I don't know if they still use them, but they're humongous. They're like as big as a car and they flip out the newspapers and stuff. That's what, I don't know what they.

Call them, like a printing press or whatever.

Yeah, that's what was sold at that business. That, that's what, that's what they sold at that business. So it was a humongous warehouse, really large warehouse with those in it and then in the back. So the. The father of the family owned the printing press company where people would come and look at these things and then they'd make deals at the bank to buy them. And then in the back through a big door, like a. Like a heavy regular opening door, there was a screw machine parts which was. They made like they, they hired maybe illegals and young people to go to make. There were a lot of people back there that made screws and nails and stuff like that. I mean, that's what it was. The son owned that company. And I was just the secretary in the front by the front door of the printing press place.

So that was your new job when you move from Florida up to Detroit. When your sisters came to quote my sister rescue you from Florida, they got you a job as a secretary at this factory warehouse place.

Except for the front wasn't a factory, the back was a factory, the front was a place they tried to make a warehouse look good so people would come in and buy these huge things because those things were a fortune. And so do you want to hear the rest of that story?

I think it's an interesting story if you want to share it.

Yes, it was life changing. So by that point, when I went to work that particular day, I'd only worked there for a couple weeks. And I had become a Christian a couple weeks before then because I was really lonely and I was really like confused about what the heck was I going to be as an adult if I had made such a mess. And I remembered that morning that I prayed, I want to cry.

You can cry.

That I prayed that I said, I'm not going to make this, this is too hard. I lost all my friends because they thought I was going to narc on them and that this is just too hard. And so I asked God to make himself real to me. And then I got in my car and I went to work. My Volkswagen and I went to work and I got to work and I remembered that prayer. And it was about 4 o' clock in the afternoon and I was supposed to keep the door locked. The door the customers come in, I was supposed to keep locked. But I grew up in a little town. I'm like, why do I have to lock the door? You know? And four young guys came in. They're actually ended up being my age, 18. And they came in to. They said they wanted to apply for a job in the screw machine factory in the back, which happened all the time. You know, they would come and they'd get a, get an application, they sit on, fill it out. And so that's what I did. I just gave them applications and they sat down, I don't know, 10, 12ft from me and they were filling them out. But they look really, really nervous. And all of them had one hand in their hoodie, like just one hand stuck in their hoodie and then the other one they were just like, I don't know, trying to fill that out, which they weren't interested in. Anyway. Within a few minutes they had all pulled their guns out of their, over their hoodies and two of them ran up to where the older boss was in. The younger boss. They sat, like, in window nest, where you could see the whole building. So they. They sat up there, and you could see them at their desk. So two of them ran up there to apprehend them or to make sure.

Your bosses were upstairs.

Yeah, they could see every. They could see everything. Like, you could see the door and everything. So they went up there, and they just, you know, put the guns to their head, and then one of them stayed at the front door to guard the door with a gun. And then one of them came up to me, Put the gun to my temple, and pulled the hammer back. And, I mean, I watched enough mission impossible and that kind of stuff growing up, Where I knew the next thing that happens is you die.

Yeah.

And so he did that, and he told me to sit down and that kind of stuff. And then they decided that they would. All four of them, decided they would take us on a little journey to the back of the deep, into the back of the warehouse where there were.

You and your two bosses.

Yeah. And so when we were walking past that door, I told you about that Kind of a heavy, regular door, but it was. It was pretty heavy. In the door that led to the factory in the back. When we were walking past that down the hall, it opened. And when it opened, it was one of the elderly women who worked back. Women who work back there. And she had a truck driver with a clipboard with her who was coming to get it signed that he was picking up a bunch of parts. That was just happened all day long. And when she looked in and saw the guns to our heads and us walking down that hall to go to the back, she let the door slam. It was heavy. And knocked him in. He knocked. He came in with us then. So then he.

One of the guys with the gun.

No, one of the. Like, the young guy, the truck driver. So he got taken hostage.

Oh, the truck driver got knocked in. So now there's. There's four hostages. You, your two bosses on the truck driver.

Yeah. Yeah. So they took us to the back, and they took us to the back, and they. It's a hallway that's not really visible from anywhere else. And the building had hundreds of little, tiny windows, Most of which had been shot out, Joyriding around this big curve that went around the front. So people just go by and shoot them all out. This is Detroit. And so most of the windows were boarded up, but there were a few that weren't boarded up, that were still glass. But you couldn't really see into well unless you put your nose up against it. But they took. I knew I was in trouble when they took the guys to the men's bathroom and told them to go in there and not come out. And if they were going to come out, they're going to get shot. So I thought, I want to go with them.

Yeah. But because that's all three of them, which leaves just you.

Just me. So it just left me. By this time, one was. One of those guys had gone back to guarding the front door. So nobody came in. I don't know. I mean, when you're going through like a trauma like that, when you're going through a violent. Being the victim of a violent crime, it's. It's hard to have a time frame. It's really hard to have a time frame.

I can't imagine.

It's kind of like a woman describes as labor. You don't even know how long it is. It's just like, I don't know. So then they. They thought that there might be cash in the vault. The Vault was maybe 10ft deep and 10ft wide. But we didn't keep money in there. We only kept petty cash in there because all the transactions, the big ones, were just done at the bank. So they thought that a vault. And it was a real. Like a real vault with a thick door. They thought that there would be money in there.

Right. Significant amounts of money.

Yeah. And we found out later, later that the. They were all junkies. So they were just probably after some fast and easy cash to go buy again. And so they took me into there. But while they were in there, this time I was with two. And while they were in there, they. They gave in to their sexual desires and they decided that they would rape me. And. So the reason I cry is not. I mean, this happened a long time ago, but it's what God did. So I was. They were doing things like one at a time, they'd call another one in there and then one would go and that kind of thing. And they all had guns. So it's not like. Like all the martial arts that you've heard about or that you might think you might do. You don't do those. Not when they're guns. You just don't do them.

Yeah.

And so.

Meaning you can't really fight when you have a gun.

You can't. Plus being raped is pretty traumatizing. And so they were taking turns, and when it came time for the third one to come in and then the Others would leave. All of a sudden, I don't even know. I don't even know if I said this out loud. I don't know. But all of a sudden I realized that prayer, that prayer from the morning.

That you said, that morning that I.

Said that I needed God to make himself real to me. And so right then, I just asked God this. And again, I don't know if I said it out loud because. No, but I remember saying, very consciously saying, lord, please get me to heaven with one clean shot through the head. Or make this top now. Just make this all stop now. Or take me to heaven with one clean shot through the head. I'm not into pain. So I thought, okay. And I just. I remember saying, in Jesus name. That's what I remember saying that. And then, right then there was a loud, loud pounding. And myself and a couple of them looked over towards those very few little windows that still had glass in them. And there were. The SWAT were out there with all their gear.

The SWAT team.

Yeah. With their helmets, their vests, huge rifles, huge guns. They were in that. They were looking through that little tiny window. Later I found out that was one of the first windows they walked up to. And it was. It was in an office across a hall. In other words, they really had to angle themselves to look through the office, through the hallway and into the vault.

Yeah. And chances.

And. And so when they. When they use the. The butt of their guns to pound on the window, that scared everybody. It scared me. It scared them. And so they threw me on the ground. I had been up on a table, but they threw me on a gr. On the ground, on the. On the floor. And they were just like, it's the pigs. Let's get out of here. And so then all of a sudden, what I had just prayed all of a sudden just happened. And they took off down a hall that I knew had no way out. They took off down that hall by the bathroom, and there was no way for them to get out of the way. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I jumped into the corner of the room. I had watched a lot of those kind of shows when I was little because I was really into like.

Like Mission Impossible.

That was on my face.

So I. I know this because you were super into us watching Mission Impossible when it came out with Tom Cruise.

So I hid in the corner standing up and put a bunch of empty boxes in front of me so you couldn't tell there was a human there. And they came running back in a few seconds, and I knew they were going to Take me hostage so that they could get out of that building.

Right.

And they looked in there and they couldn't find me. And they said, she's gone, but it wasn't gone. And then they ran out.

You're literally hiding under a bunch of.

Like, cardboard behind a bunch of boxes I stacked up. Yeah.

Wow.

In the corner. And they. They ran out into the big showroom. And then guns firing everywhere because the cops were. You know, the cops knew they all had weapons and stuff. And so the next thing I heard was a police officer. I. I could tell because it was a different. Different way he spoke. And he came into that room and he said, are you in here, miss? Are you in here? And then that pushed the boxes away. He put his coat on me. And then we walked out and hid behind one of the big printing presses until all the shooting was done. And at that time, one of them managed to escape from there. We don't know how, but I guess he climbed out the ceiling or something. One got shot there. That was a homicide because the officers shot him there. They had had him lay spread eagle on the floor, and then he lifted his gun up to shoot one of them. So they just. And then two were captured there. And then there was a trial a couple months later where we had to send him to prison. Wow.

What was going through your head when the. When the guy, like, saved you and you knew that you were.

It was awesome. I think I said. I think I said something like, oh, praise God, or something like that. I feel like I said something very, you know, very rejoicing. I think I did. And he. Then I had to go. That was about, like I said, 4:30 or 5 in the afternoon. And then I had to go down to Homicide, downtown Detroit to look at photos and all that kind of stuff to try to catch the one that escaped.

Yeah.

So I was down there till 11 o' clock at night.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

But I was really. I was really happy. And I wasn't. I didn't feel my faith was solidified after that.

Yeah.

It was like, okay, God could have taken me, but he didn't. He left me here. I better do something good.

I could stop the podcast right here. Just based on the. On the power of that story and. And how profound it was in terms of. Of God coming to your aid in the way that he did. But I know your. Your journey went. Went pretty far beyond that.

Yeah.

Because you eventually wound up in Idaho.

That was like the start.

That was a start. Tell me about that, about getting up to Idaho.

Oh. I came out with my older sister and her husband and their three little girls.

Was it. Was it right out? Were you after that, Were you just like, give me the hell out of Detroit?

Was that what I did want to leave Detroit. I had to. I think I went up to Alpena for a while to be with my mom, because my mom was really, really, really mad at those people. She really wanted to kill them. But I went up and hung around with her, and then I went back down to the Bradenton, Sarasota area, and that's where Chuck and Mary Lou picked me up. That's where my oldest sister and her husband picked me up.

Yeah.

And we went to Idaho. And when I got to Idaho, I.

Thought drove across country.

Drove in a pickup. Yeah. Truck camper thingy.

Had you driven across the country yet?

No, I'd never been to the west at all.

Never been to Idaho. Wow. You know, I did interview Dad a few years ago, and for him, it was literally like pointing his finger on him.

I know what he did. Yeah.

And then reading about farming and why he wanted to move to Idaho to be an idyllic farmer, but he had the same. It's kind of funny because he kind of is now. He's just, like, off in the sticks. And eventually he got the farming thing kind of down.

The thing is that culturally, we. I mean, we both came from larger or places where we had some of those experiences. And then we both came to Idaho. So it was kind of funny that we both ended up in Idaho, just different reasons. And then when I came out here, it was summertime. I got a summertime job.

Where at in Idaho?

Moscow.

In Moscow.

That's where my sister lived. And I came out to Moscow, and I lived there all summer, thinking, I cannot wait to get out. There's so many, like, hicks here. Like, they don't even know what's cool or what That's. That was.

You were like a back east girl.

Yeah. Yeah.

Been living in Detroit, obviously in Florida. You were kind of living a fast lifestyle down there.

And so when I got out here, everything seemed so slow. And so by the end of the summer, I was totally in love with Idaho. I was. There was no going back. I didn't want to go back to Florida.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's how it started.

So at what point did you meet Dad?

I met dad. Actually, I met dad before that summer was over. He was walking down the street in Moscow with one of his friends, and he was on the way to a Bible study, and I met him there, because I was. I had become. I was hired as a youth director for that Presbyterian church from Moscow. And my job was just to ride bikes with the kids and have a fun time. So the. The youth group was nine little boys. There was. There weren't any girls in it, so I just hung around these nine little boys all day.

From growing up with eight sisters to hanging out with nine little boys in Moscow, Idaho.

Yeah. Yeah. That's how I met him.

So fast forward a little bit. You guys. You guys get married?

Yeah.

Didn't you get married like a hitching Post or something like that? Tell me about that.

Still there. We had planned a wedding that was kind of big in Idaho, but we didn't know hardly anybody. And it was April the following year, and my family, they. They weren't. They weren't really wealthy, and they were all planning on coming to see their little sister get married out in Idaho. And we just. We just decided that since the wedding would only be our family flying out here, why didn't we just. And we. By the way, our honeymoon was going to be moving to Flip back to Florida to work for your grandpa.

Yeah, that dad's dad who was a salesman. Yeah, yeah. Because dad came from a little bit wealthier family, and his dad was a successful salesman, but he was hanging with the likes of Zig Ziglar and all those guys.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I. I remember that was. It's. It's kind of funny because I used to be infatuated when I'd go to grandpa's house with all of his, like, sales and body language and all the zigzags, like, positive psychology. I was so into that, and I. And. And really, like, that culminated in me. It's kind of funny because I interviewed him a few weeks ago that culminated me in. In me discovering the Tony Robbins old. I forget, claim your power. Something like that. And I listened to that, and that kind of, like, got me down.

Power positive.

Kind of like the entrepreneurial roots and. And so. But you guys didn't move back to Florida. You stayed in Idaho.

No, we moved back to Florida. So our honeymoon was moving back to Florida, so we took the top way to Michigan because we had canceled the actual wedding. Wedding ceremony thingy. We got married at the Hitching Post and then we drove.

It's so funny, the Hitching.

I know it is. But I just met somebody the other day in Moscow who got married at the Hitching Post.

I know. I've been over to Coeur d'. Alene. I've driven Past the hitching. Yes.

And they. We drove over the top of the United States and then we ended up going down through the Upper Peninsula and then down through Lower Peninsula and then heading for Florida. We did that so that dad could meet all my sisters. So. Yeah. Except for the first stop was Marquette, Michigan. And when we were there, we decided to go for a bike ride and I broke my leg in four places and had.

You broke your leg in four places on your honeymoon?

Third day.

Jeez.

Yeah. Had to get it all pinned together and be in the hospital.

Yeah.

Anyway, so then we ended up down in Florida, but we didn't stay very long. We really missed Idaho.

Really?

And we came back. Yeah.

So you moved to Miami for a little while. Dad was working for grandpa and then you just decided to go back?

Yep.

Dad went back and worked at. And by the way, for those of you listening in, I'll link to the podcast I do with my dad where he tells some of, some of his story. I'm gonna keep all the show notes for you if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Pat Greenfield. I don't even know if I mentioned your name, Mom.

Pat.

Patricia.

You said mom.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com Pat Greenfield is where all the show notes are and where you can leave your comments or your questions if you have follow up questions. But you guys, you guys wound up moving back to Idaho.

Yep.

You've never worn a headset on your, on your head, have you? All right, you guys be forgiving. This is my mom's first time wearing the headset with the microphone on. So anyways, so you, you went back out to Idaho and at what point did you guys start popping out kids?

Well, we, we didn't find a job specifically. We didn't find a job in Mo. Found a job in Lewiston, which is 35, 35 minutes south of Moscow, Right.

Where I grew up.

Where. Yeah, not only where you grew up, but where we got into ambulance and fire department, ems, fire suppression. That was our thing we were into. And then dad always had, well, the family always had another part time adventure of, of job or entrepreneurial.

Yes, that, that was a serial entrepreneur.

He was.

Yes, we talked about that. A very, very.

I'd have to talk him into staying.

In a business from job to job to job to job.

He'd go, you know what I like to do?

I'm like, ah, I know it's like a bagel franchise, a coffee house, a telephone answering company, telephone communications company. Remember we had pagers. I Was like, all my friends thought was like. Well, not my friends but the people who would first meet me and not know my background. That was this clean little Christian homeschooled kid from north Idaho was a drug dealer. Cuz I went over the pager because our. We had the first cell phone. Like a giant brick size cell phone with an antenna in the car. We were like super early adopters of technology.

A lot of that influence was from pop up.

I was the first person amongst my friends to get a 56,6K modem. None of all the friends wanted to come over and play on my computers. We had like one of the first Apple computers and that came out, remember?

And all those cordless phones everywhere. All over the house.

Yeah, phones everywhere. I know. It's kind of funny because now I'm like the low EMF guy.

Yeah.

You know, no smart home and you're still no dirty electricity. Yeah. No brain cancer yet. But yeah, it was funny. We were very, very tech, which is really interesting.

That was fun.

Why did you guys decide to homeschool us?

Oh man, I don't know. I mean I was really, really, we were, I was really into my kids. That was my life. Just, you know what I mean? I mean we had 1, 2, 3, 4 kids and then eight years later another kid. But just really loved to be around my children and I just couldn't imagine sending them off for somebody else to have them all day to teach them. When I, I had read up about homeschool and I knew that I could do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, for, for me, my memories of homeschool and maybe you could tell the story better than I could because I have my own memories of how I was when I was a boy. But maybe you have different memories. I feel like for me, homeschool was to a certain extent me going to the library a lot, reading a lot of books, getting a lot of books from you guys and just kind of going on my own adventure for a lot of it.

You were, you were very self motivated and self taught. I mean like, like some of the other kids, if you gave them a book, you'd have to make sure they were reading it and then you'd have to ask them at the end of every chapter. But you, you just consumed everything we gave you to learn and you didn't necessarily need a lot of babysitting about it. So that was nice. I mean that's. Every homeschool parent's dream come true is a kid who will basically educate themselves on things, right? And that was. That was real blessing, especially considering your brother older than you and your brother younger than you.

My sons are the same way. I mean, we tell people we unschool and be like, what do you mean, you unschool? I'm like, we don't. Like. Yeah, they have some classes and some certain things that they. That they need to go, like an online math class or like a guy who comes over to the house and teaches them some stuff about financing real estate, you know, and they go take little classes in town. Like, you know, they're in pottery class and jiu jitsu and, you know, it's similar to what we did. We had, like, a homeschool co op down in Lewiston, and it was. It was really fun. We had, like, a talent show, and we had. It was kind of like just this collective of. Of. It was like the island of misfit toys. All the people back then. Now there's a lot more people in homeschool. But in Idaho, you know, just by the nature of it being Idaho, had a pretty decent population.

Yeah, we had 90 families in our home school.

Yeah. Yeah. But. But I mean, I'll just give river and Tara and my sons books and just tell them, learn this. Come, you know, write me a report. And they just do it. You know, a lot of times I'll just leave books out and they just.

Read them when they're at my house. The way that they are motivated to learn is like, you.

Yeah.

Just like you were.

Yeah. They probably read somewhere in the range of like, six to a dozen books every week. Like, sometimes I get worried that they read too much, which I think is a good problem.

Wow.

Yeah. But I was kind of similar, wasn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. Remember, we'd have to. When we'd have company, we'd have to tell you that you had to come up and greet the company, and then you could go back to your room.

And then you had to get threatened with punishment because I didn't want to come out of my room. All I would do is stay in my room.

And Legos and books.

Right. Read and Legos. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

We use the intercom to get you upstairs so that you would interact with the people and you would. It'd be like you're looking at your watch like, okay, I've been here two minutes. I'm gonna go back down.

If you could go back, you think you'd still homeschool?

Yeah, yeah. As much as, like, mean, like, sometimes the kids say, oh, I wish I was this. And I wish I was that. But you know what I think? I don't think, I think every educational system has its weakness. Homeschool does, private school does, public school does. I think that. So I don't think that any of them are perfect, but I think it's what you're willing. What are you willing to live with as far as education? What are you willing to do to round out your kids education?

Yeah. Did you, and this is just kind of like a, I guess this is kind of a selfless question, but did you think when I was growing up that I would be doing what I do now? I guess podcasting exists. Of course you didn't. But like media and books and stuff like that.

Well, I knew that you would have something to do with writing books or reading books. I did know that because you were so passionate about reading and you like to write. And so I knew that whatever you did, even if it was a hobby, you'd be writing a reading. I didn't know that you would make a living out of it. But I also know that you're very, very driven. Yeah, just very driven. And I mean, I feel like you became my parent before you were even out of the house because it was very typical of you to be like, mom, do you think you ought to be doing that kind of thing?

Yeah, I still do that too, mostly. So it's like food and nutrition and health stuff now and buying you a fitness bicycle for Christmas. Yeah, no, I, I, I feel like that as well.

I think I kept the humor in your life.

Yeah. Yeah. And so there goes the dog going a little crazy. He's gonna have to sit out there. So, you know, one, one thing, and I've told you this before in gratitude, I feel like you influenced my ability as a writer, much to the chagrin of, of many of the people who work with me, because I'm such a stickler for editing. And I'm always with the red pen writing stuff up or seeing some ad somebody wrote on Facebook. And like, dude, you totally should not use the word amazing there. You should use the word stellar or explosive. And so I do a lot of wordsmithing, a lot of wordsmithing, a lot of editing. I still am the guy who, like, I don't really like to do it, but I'm so picky, I almost have to do it. I'm the guy who edits my own books, edits my own articles. Just, I'm a real stickler for high, high quality writing. I think that if you can Express your thoughts clearly in a written or spoken medium. You can go on and do just about anything in life because you can persuade, you can make an argument, you can convince people of things. You can inform people about cool things that you've discovered. And that's really what I do and what I still love to do. And, you know, my team often tells me, Ben, like, 6,000 word blog posts, nobody's gonna read those. I'm like, well, I read them. So, you know, that's. That's kind of. Kind of my shtick is I just do what I want to do.

And I agree with you.

Some other people are interested. But you used to red pe me like crazy. Like, I remember, Like, I would write an essay. I think it was perfect. I'd come back and literally it'd be like the whole thing would be read, you know, commas and punctuation, grammar. But where'd you get that?

I don't know, because I. I actually dropped out of high school a couple months before I graduated. And then I went on to get my ged, but I dropped out of high school because my dad was really, really sick and I just couldn't stay around and watch him. I just want to take off, but. But I was really interested in the different programs for homeschoolers, even way back then. And so the. Right. The particular writing program that we chose was excellent.

Literally, the Institute for Excellence in Writing.

That's right. Andrew Puduva. It's exceptional. It still is. It's still. He's still doing it. And it's still one of the best.

Oh, I know. You used to drive me up to his house in Moscow. Yeah, you know, like the half hour drive. Occasionally. Like once. Once my older brother Isaac got old enough to drive and I got old enough to drive. We'd have math class and we had a writing class in Moscow, and we would have races to see who could get to Moscow. We literally could get from Lustin to Moscow driving like 92 miles an hour in our family car in like 18 minutes. And we would just. We would be pedal to the metal all, like, one person would look for the cops and the other person be driving. And then occasionally there'd be other kids with us in the back seat. These parents had no clue that the Greenfield boys were literally race car driving with their kids up to Moscow. But we had math class, which. I hate it up there. I absolutely hated math. But then we had the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I was so impressed with that course. And take note, by the way, for Anybody listening and wants to be a good writer. My sons. I don't know if you knew this, mom, but every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they are downstairs in the basement watching Andrew Poudois videos and Learning Institute for Excellence in Writing. And they're like, it served me so well that I thought, geez, I want to give this gift to my own children. Like, I really want to give them the gift of writing. Every. Every week. Well, not every week. About two to three weeks out of every month, I give them a book, a book that I've read that I really appreciated and learned a lot from. I tell them, write a book, report on this, write a book. And sometimes I don't give anything. Sometimes I'll give them a gift card to people's waffles if they write a really good essay. But I realized a. How much writing was important to me. And thank you for that, because it just, you know, despite me getting really annoyed and pissed off at all your red lettering or red marks on all of my essays, it turned me into, I think, a, you know, someone with decent writing chops. And I would love for my sons to be able to do that. And secondarily living in an era of, like, Twitter and short form and TikTok and shortened attention spans, not a lot of young people are growing up learning how to write with excellence.

That's true. That is really true. I even read some of the papers from. I. I live within eight miles of, I mean, two universities and then another.

Private college, University of Idaho.

Yeah. And I've seen some of those papers.

Washington State.

Those. Yeah. And those people, they'll leave their papers at my pub. They'll just accidentally leave them there. And I've looked through some of those papers and their notebooks, and I'm like, how old are these people that they could be writing so poorly? And somebody's got to grade this, you know?

Trust me, I know. I put out, like, positions for my company in editing, and I think I just drive my team nuts because what'll happen is they'll. They'll submit to me all the sample essays that the editors write in. And I'm like, this is sometimes a little brutal. I'm like, what is this, like a 14 year old? This is like a fifth grade. And like, no, this was like the top, you know, editor that came through on ProBlog or whatever. I'm like, no way. You're kidding me. And I'm not saying this to sound, like, arrogant, but I just think that, yeah, writing seems to be something that we've lost touch with.

Oh, yeah. And it's gold.

Yeah. I think that was one of the most important gifts that you gave me, you know, besides just teaching me how to. How to love Jesus and, you know, have an upright life, despite me kind of pushing against the goads and going against that for a while and coming back full circle. You mentioned your pub, and I definitely want to talk about that. But basically there were five of us kids growing up, and we had Isaac, my older brother, kind of like, kind of a little bit of a troublemaker. And. And now, now he's. He's a great guy. He's a farmer. And down. Down in. Down in Moscow. And then. And then me, and then my younger brother Zach, who's gonna come over for steak tonight. And then my sister Natalie, who's an amazing musician who lives in. In Arizona now. And then Rosie, our adopted little girl. Tell people about Rosie.

What about Rosie? I mean, Rosie's amazing. She's absolutely wonderful.

But what was it that made you and dad want to. Want to bring another baby into the home after the rest of us were kind of sort of growing up a little bit.

When we first got married, we said off and on for years while we were having kids, we said, you know what? Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be cool to da, da, da. And I. And I don't want this to come off in any weird way, but it was so specific that we said to each other, wouldn't it be wonderful if God dropped a biracial infant into our lap? That is what we would say to each other. And I thought, number one, why did we say biracial? And why did I have to be an infant and all that kind of stuff? And why do we want another kid? You know what I mean? We already had a lot of kids, and I just thought, how would that ever happen? And so we. Your dad had just turned 40. I was going to be 40 in a month. I mean. 40.

And your oldest kid was nine, I think at the time. Something like that. Eight or nine?

No, my youngest kid was.

Youngest, yeah. Your youngest, yeah.

And you guys were all like, 11 and then teenagers. And so it came through a phone call from like, a pregnancy center or whatever that this woman was pregnant and couldn't keep her child. And did we know anybody who might want to adopt this child? This child was going to be healthy and all this kind of stuff.

And dad at the time was on the board. Board of the.

One of them, yeah.

Counseling center.

Yeah. Yeah. No, he was, I think he was. Yeah. Chairman of the board or something like that. So he hung up the phone and he said, what. What if this is. You know, because we know we had so many friends who already had biracial children or all. All kinds of diversity in their family. And so we thought, we'll just tell them. Tell them they're younger than we are. They're, like, in their 20s. They're in their 30s. And so then dad said, what about us? I said, what about us? We're 40. He goes, I know, but what if this is the time we always talked about.

Yeah.

And so I said, what are we supposed to do? And he said, we have to put in a portfolio. I didn't even know what a portfolio was. So we stalled and waited around to, like, the last day I did. And then we wrote this thing. And. And then the. The birth mother would get to choose the family, but there weren't any. Any contact information or anything. And she would get to choose them. And so she got so many portfolios, we knew that she wouldn't choose somebody whose kids were taller than they are. You know what I mean? Why would she do that?

Yeah.

And she chose us. So be wise. Told Rosie that she was conceived to be a greenfield.

Yeah. Well, I remember the best part about. As you said, you zipped your pants up and went to the hospital to pick up the baby.

That's right.

Yeah.

It was awesome because I had. I had gained a lot for the first four pregnancies, so it was really nice to be able to throw my Levi's on and do them up. Just.

And so in my podcast with dad, we talked about how he went through all these different businesses. And I know that eventually you guys separated, but one of the businesses that he had been owning and operating along with you is what you still do to this day. So tell me about your existence now down in Moscow and what that looks like and what you do down there now.

Okay. Well, 21 years ago, we found us a kind of a rundown building on Main street and fixed it up with another couple. And at the. The. So there were four of us. And the. We got bookshelves. We had some bookshelves built in there and a huge community table. And I mean huge. Like, probably four and a half feet wide, 14 to 16ft long. And that became, like, the theme of the front room. Anyway, we fixed the whole thing up.

I remember it was cool because you used to hire us to, like, go in and, like, beat stuff with chains and make the walls all distressed and paint and yeah.

And it's brick and it's wood and it's leather and it's very, very inviting and really warm. And it has 1, 2, 3, 4, I mean, like five rooms in things. So you can walk in the front door and end up in the alley behind. Because it's. It's kind of long and skinny.

Yeah. And it's like a. A combination like a coffee house and a pub. There used to be a cigar smoking room.

Yeah. There. The city outlawed smoking about nine years ago, but we still sell cigars and pipe tobacco there.

Yeah.

So. And then we also sell. We also have somebody that we allow to sell used books in there. We have thousands of used books and we sell a lot of books. I just make a small percentage. I can imagine.

That was my favorite part about working there was all the books.

Yeah, a lot of books. I mean, we sell so many books in a week. And that most of the money goes to the people who own that come. Who own the company that keep. They keep the shelves tidy, they keep them organized and everything like that. Which I wouldn't want to do that. That's a lot of work. And then I love music, so we host live music every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night for the last 21 years. And that's really fun.

And because I think you said the name of it, it's called. Called Bootser.

Oh, yeah, Boots are. Sorry.

You guys have a website I'll link to.

Nobody.

U C E R S. Who was like a. Wasn't. Wasn't he like a reformer?

Yeah, he was like a famous reformer. And Martin. Boots. Martin Bootser. But the other couple really wanted to name it that. And we didn't have any real solid ideas otherwise, so we thought, yeah, you know, you could probably memorize that. People have a hard time knowing how to pronounce it. They call it buckers or boozers or buters or whatever, but it's very, very popular. And it's in. It's in a college town. Well, there are two colleges in the Moscow and then there's.

There.

Washington State University is just eight miles away. And so college students love coffee houses. So, you know, in the summer it's a little bit quiet there, but it's. We're slammed all the day long and we have been for years.

Is that. Is that weird for you to be like managing a coffee house and just surrounded by people all day long? Is it exhausting or.

I love it. Remember, I'm the extrovert.

Yeah. Exhaust me. I'm an introvert.

Yeah, I love It. I love it. As a matter of fact, it's. It feels like my home. It feels like what we try to do there is make it feel like home to everybody who comes in so that they want to come back. Because it's a good feeling. There's something magical about it. And that's what we hear all the time. And we serve food there. We make all our. We have a commercial kitchen, which is unusual for a coffee house. Usually they just get their stuff farmed in, you know, packaged in. But we make every. Everything that we sell there, we make. There's there, which is really cool. We roast our own coffee still all these years, and we sell our coffee there wholesale. I mean, sorry, by the. By the bag of beans and also in our espresso. And we have really high standards for coffee and food and.

Yeah, yeah, it's a cool place. I mean, if everybody's listening and you're ever in Moscow, Idaho, you should. You should swing by my mom's coffee shop and you may even. You may even meet her. We'll see. But speaking of, like, food and coffee, this is something I was going to ask you that I didn't ask you, but I want to ask it to you anyway. Was like. Because I get asked this by so many people, like, what'd you eat growing up? What was your diet like growing up? Because, you know, you mentioned that you were vegetarian from 12 to 17, but what was. Did you have any nutritional philosophy in terms of the way you raised this kids, or was it just, like, figured out a way to get us calories?

I thought I did. But I mean. I mean, we always had, you know, we always had vegetables with things and always. I mean, we always put vegetables in the meal and, you know, meat and everything. But I mean, I've learned a lot from you, and I've learned a lot, you know, over the years. You. I fed you better than we pots.

And stews and soups.

That's because I grew up in a family with nine kids.

Yeah.

And my mother would make vats of things. Just huge vats of things. And I still make vats of things.

That's. That's what I remember. Giant pots, giant vats with just like tons of stuff, like Texas black bean chili. And what was the other soup? It had, like, potatoes and I forget the name.

There's a New Brunswick stew.

Yeah. The New Brunswick Stewart. And I could never stomach the Texas black bean chili after my brother Isaac threw it up in the back of the. He's still what you still couldn't eat it because I think about him throwing it up. But yeah, it was a lot of like bulk, like stews and foods, but.

That'S because of the habit I had of Costco trips.

Yeah, yeah. Do you remember the. Cause I think I wrote this in a book once. Do you remember how you'd take us down to 29 cent hamburger on 39 cent cheeseburgers at McDonald's and we'd just buy bags and bags and bags and fill them up.

I do remember doing that.

In a suburban.

Yeah, yeah.

We would literally like have hamburgers in the fridge for a week.

Yeah, we've come a long way, baby.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that was. Well, I mean, you know, 21st street in Lucent, Idaho, had the Burger king, had the McDonald's. And I remember my first year of college, I went to college and in Lucent Lewis Clark State College, I played tennis for the tennis team down there. And I remember I would still like stop at McDonald's every day before tennis, press practice, get a super sized Big Mac and fries, giant Dr. Pepper, suck that down and go play tennis for like three hours. I didn't know anything about nutrition. You know, I'd be doing hell sprints. I'd be like, why is my stomach. Or I'm doing these hill spreads, you know? Remember I used to be super into milk too.

I didn't know lactose made you very sick. There was ambulance trips because of milk.

Oh, yeah. I drink like gallons and gap, like literally on the day I'd go through 1 to 2 gallons of just like 2% milk from Albertsons and just have horrible stomach issues at night. And I didn't even know there was such a thing as being entitled. I just thought milk was like the healthiest food on the planet, you know, clear, clear, white, amazing nourishing fluid. Yeah, yeah. And then regarding, you know, like, like the fitness and movement and sports piece, was that something you guys heavily emphasized or did we just kind of pick that up on our own?

Well, I, I really, we really wanted you guys involved in sports, but homeschoolers were limited. You were the first kid, I think, in the state of Idaho on public school sports.

I remember something like that. Like, I had to file a bunch of paperwork and stuff like that because I really wanted to play.

Because you actually were put on a varsity team, but you were just in junior high.

That's for basketball or. No, that was, that was for tennis. That was part of the varsity team.

Yeah. So we really wanted you guys to have that, to have that experience and There were somewhat limited with homeschoolers. It's not anymore. Because there's so many club teams.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, there's so many club teams now that, that they don't. They don't differentiate. You mean like a lot of the public school kids can be on club teams?

Yeah. Yeah. And you were super into music. I. I feel like I got some of that from you as well. Is that. Was that just your whole family?

I think my parents did us a service and we tried to do that to you in getting you to understand the discipline of learning an instrument, learning music. So you grew up playing the violin. I grew up playing the violin. And I was not the kind of kid that would go to, you know, that would play a violin.

Right.

But I still, my mom was just like, you got to go. You got to do this. You know, you got to take this class. And so I think that the discipline of music was something that was really ground into me, so I thought it was important to grind into you guys too.

Yeah.

And at least four of you kids are musicians.

Yeah.

Where you still, as adults, play that, play the instruments.

I think it's like learning a language if you learn to read notes. Like, I went. I took my sons to a violin concert the other night, and they had the sheet music for the violinist. Great band they call black violin. These are these like hip hop violinists. And I walked by the, by the table as I'm going into the symphony room of the symphony chamber and I pick up their sheet music and I start thumbing through it. You know, I hadn't read violin music and gosh, it's been like 20 years, and it was literally like reading a book. Like, I could understand every note, every C, D, E, A. I saw the sequences, I knew the tunes. And it's literally like knowing a second language when you, when you learn a musical instrument. Growing up, you know that I think in addition to writing was a huge gift.

I think so too, personally.

Yeah. Even though I eventually got to the point where violin wasn't cool and I switched to guitar, either way, it's still.

The discipline of music.

Yeah.

Because like tonight you say you want to play a bunch of music after we're done here, after dinner. So, I mean, I just think it's such a, such a wonderful part of being, of having it in your family and in your home. It's just like, I mean, I think, I mean, like, you have two brothers who are drummers and Zach's plays guitar, and then Natalie is a singer and she's so good on piano, you know what I mean? And then you play, well, guitar, you could probably still play value and you play your voice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in terms of, you know, just like legacy, I'm curious, this, this might be one of the last questions I ask you, but what's it like being a grandma?

It's amazing. I love it. I just wish every one of them lived in my town. That would be easier to spoil them. But I absolutely love being a grandma. I thought I would have more grandkids, but I'm very thankful for the nine that I have. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Yeah, it is great. And I want to, I want to know them. I want them to know me. I want to have influence on them and I want to assist and support their parents and whatever their parents are trying to do, you know what I mean? I don't want to do anything to cause my grandkids to not listen to their parents or to not, you know, honor their family.

Yeah, yeah. Very, very matriarchal role.

Yeah, yeah, it's fun. But I also spend my entire day finishing raising people's teenagers and stuff because I have 25 college kids.

You just have college students all over.

All day long is I just, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, two, two of your grandsons, river and Taryn, they want to go to college. They want to go down to that, that new Saint Andrews College down there. So. And you know, news flash, I've kind of alluded to this a few times on podcast, but it's looking very much like I'm going to be moving to a tiny little off grid.

Viola.

Yeah. About 10 minutes outside of Moscow in the backwoods of Idaho. So I'll probably be down there too.

That'll be great. Yeah, I like that too.

Well, it was fun talking to you mom and getting to know my own mom with the microphones.

Hot.

And I don't know, you ever been on podcasts before?

No. How would I ever have been on a podcast?

I don't know. But maybe you'll get invited on a whole bunch of podcasts now.

No, I think I sound like a 12 year old boy on this.

No, you sound great, mom. You did well. And for those of you listening in, if you have, you have questions for my mom or comments or feedback, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Pat Greenfield. I'll put all the show notes there and I'll put a link to the podcast I do with my dad too if you want to listen to the one with my dad and, and get the 1, 2 combo. You can feel free. And then if you're ever in Moscow, Right, Mom, Swing by, swing by bootser. Say hi to my mom, have a cup of coffee, have some quiche or one of. What are they like? Peanut butter. What's the one that I eat? The peanut butter chocolate truffles.

Well, they can, they can make it all in the cookbook in the E book.

That's right. I convinced my mom in my entrepreneurial spirit to launch a cookbook for her coffee shop now.

So if you go to her website.

It'S like boots or I'll link to it in the show notes. But yeah, you can, you can get her cookbook and try, try, try some of their, their famous coffee house recipes down there. So, mom, thanks for coming on the show.

Love you, son.

Well, I'm Ben Greenfield, signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week. More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. If you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.