What It Means To Be A Man

Beefcake's out. Trying to herd him with the mower, pig board. He is not going after food. We learned our lesson from the other pig though. We just gotta wear him out and then he'll go. I'm trying to herd with Willie. There we go. We got him this far before. We got him trapped. Just keep him going just like this. You got him in there good. This is it. This is how we do it. How did he get out? 400-pound pig out. He's got a lot of stamina for living on deep bedding. No, man, we got him in there. Gosh, did you get a workout this morning?

Oh, he went to the pig pig feature at Earth Gym.

How do you get out? Okay, so is he lifting that latch?

This is third time, this is not first time. So he coming from there, what happens? So when they're closing the gate, um, they don't put the lock back on, they're just like sliding this. So he putting this up, so he know how to take this up.

All right, do you have to put it on a special way? Because he's lifting the chain up. Yeah, look at this. She's packing candy goodies. This is yours for the camp and for Princess Palace.

No, Princess Palace is—

oh, you got a piñata?

We're doing a piñata because we're celebrating Lily's birthday.

So the men get— this is, this is the pot. Yeah, right here. My buddy Ben Holler's coming. Holler Homestead bringing all the things for cooking. All the boys. Wait a minute, this is one step. This is one particle away from being a glamping.

It's very hard for me to be handing out all this candy cuz I'm not like— we do not eat this stuff normally, so this is very hard for me. But I did opt, I did opt, I did opt for the vitamin C pops, so there's vitamin C in these.

I don't think there's anything good in these. They're 1-2-year junk food. Looky here. The Lost Boys loading the trailer. Lost Boys? This is Lord of the Flies. Rhodes boys, you got your tent, sleeping bags, pillows? Jonah, where are you going? You got your sleeping stuff? Here's the sleeping bags. This is my home for the next 2 days. Mighty Man Camp. Nobody's feeling sorry for me. Neighbors Lake, absolutely beautiful. Beautiful scenes, nice friends, cool air. Perfect camping weather. First things first, setting up the tent. Well, this ain't gonna stay up without tent stakes, which we left at the house. I wonder how many times we're gonna go to the house. We got the famous cot going for somebody. I lived in that when I lived with the chickens for 24 hours. How's it going over here, Will? It's going good. Trying to get these stakes in. So we don't have a rubber mallet, so they're just using like this big metal hammer over there. Are you breaking in this tent, Ben?

Yeah, this is the first time I've ever slept in it.

How's it going setting it up?

Well, the boys have set it up, so this is all new to me.

Nice.

I think we just about got it.

Ben said he's got extra tent pegs, so we're just gonna go with that.

Is this where you want it?

Yeah, I think so. He didn't bring his anvil for nothing. He brought his hand while camping.

See, he wasn't crazy.

That's a Boy Scout right there, always prepared.

Why you need an anvil camping, I don't know, but it came in handy.

Will's doing the Boy Scout method, gathering the stuff by hand, organizing it. Ben's doing it, I don't know, the camping method, electric chainsaw. It, uh, did just run out of battery.

No, it's, uh, better than a sharp stick in the eye. It, uh, I am actually pleasantly surprised at like a battery-powered tool. It works really well, especially if you sharpen that chain.

Yeah. Oh man, you've already done cut through this just about 6-inch log. Jack caught a fish because you know the rule: if we don't catch it, we don't eat. Luckily I'm the only one eating so far. The electric chainsaw wasn't enough, we got a blower. We got the, uh, we're really roughing it.

This is the fire getter going 2000.

No flint and steel today.

Nope, we don't have time for that.

I think this is going to be my highlight. The meals.

The meals. Well, I hope I don't, uh, disappoint.

We're starting with grass-fed hot dogs for lunch.

I love it.

These are like snooty patootie hot dogs.

I love that that's all we're eating too for lunch. It's great, so easy.

I mean, I've, I've brought a good amount of food, uh, but I figure start slow. We'll start slow and build.

We're warming up. Next up Hobo packets. I think this is gonna be the highlight of the meals.

You think so?

Well, I don't know. What else you got planned? We got burgers. Better than hot dogs.

It's better than hot dogs. These are shredded potatoes, onions, ground beef, and cheese.

Nice.

They're pretty good.

And you're just gonna put them in there, and then you're gonna put— just let them cook just like that.

Let them cook just like that.

They're just laying on the coals next to the coals. How will you know when they're done?

They usually start puffing up when all the steam's really coming out.

45 minutes later. Are you calling it, Ben?

I'm gonna say they're—

look at that! Look at that combo! Have you guys already salted it and everything?

Yeah, they're seasoned.

Nice. They're all ready. Give it a try. Does it pass the Mr. Brown test? Is it hot? Yeah. Did it pass the Jonah test?

It might be too hot.

Might be too hot. That's good. The next Morning. Everybody seemed to have slept well. It's just a little cool, which is perfect. The boys are super excited, so they're up super early. Look at this! My heart is singing right now. It's been so long I've had breakfast sausage. We've been out of pork. Well, fried in lard. Man, I hope it's good. Ben is the guy to go camping with. Here we go, now the fun begins. That was the AR. Let's see how these pumpkins stand the shotgun. Wow, y'all be careful shooting this when it kicks like a mule, Ben says. Yeah, that had a kick. Can I try? First time shooting a shotgun, Jason? This big? Yeah. Nice. Next up, how about a drive up the mountain? The cabin, it's buried in kudzu, it looks like. Be careful, poison ivy. Man, this thing hangs in there. Be careful, the glass on the floor. Wow, still here. Look at that.

Now imagine living in here.

Yeah, this was somebody's house. You don't see any old electrical outlets, do you? Did that exceed expectations, or— this is really cool.

I want to read this.

It's pretty cool. This is good for the imagination, this old house. Last day of Mighty Man Camp. We basically have to be a man and do the right thing, which is get up and do chores. Thinking about what it means to be a man I look back on my life now. I'm 42 years old and I feel like I'm a man. Biologically 42 years old, but that does not matter because my son Jonah, who's 13, is in many ways more of a man than many 50, 60-year-olds I've met. So I don't think it's about that. I look back on my life and think, well, what are the moments that became— that turned me into a man? Well, first, what is a man? And I guess a man is somebody who's mature, not taking any more than he's giving, preferably giving more than he's taking to the society, to his family at large. If I look back on what molded me as a man, I don't think of the water parks and the ball games. You know what I think of? I think of the hard times. I've had plenty of hard times. But to name just, just a few, one of the hardest times was my mom and dad's divorce. I was just 14 years old. That was a difficult time. Still hard. That doesn't go away ever. Another difficulty, let's lump it all together and say family. Now it's a wonderful thing to get married. Everybody's excited, and then you have your first child, and oh my goodness, I imagine that sums it up because You gave up of yourself and took up a lot of responsibility when you got married. I mean, for us, we moved out of the house, so we— it was on us to start paying bills. And then I had this other person that I needed to consider in making decisions. But then when we had a baby, I had this whole other person to keep alive. That was big. That was maturing. For me, that was becoming a man. If you say, when did you grow up? I didn't feel like a grown-up even after I've had 4 children, and it wasn't the 5th that made me feel grown up either. You know what it was? And this would be one of the 3rd difficulties of my life, and that was losing my dad. And actually, 2 years ago, I sat right here. This is the spot because my dad was dying. My dad died the Sunday that Mighty Man Camp ended 2 years ago, and, uh, I ugly cried right there. Right now, Pop. So right now, pup, you're making a lot of— That was rough. If there was one single moment that I can pin down as that's when I became a man, that was it. I grew up. I'm a grown-up now. I'm no longer— I don't— I'm grown up. That was my perianal lifeline. There's no, if you get married and move away and tragedy comes, well, you can move back with your folks. That's gone. In a pinch, hey Pop, can I borrow some money? That's gone. That lifeline is gone. Now I'm the dad, the husband, the man. One final story, real quick, real funny. Rebecca and I are laying in the bed. It's night, we're asleep. I forget which child it was, but we had a child— I don't know, they were about 2 or 3 years old. They had been spooked or something and had come and, and was sleeping with us. Maybe it was Jonah, the 2. And there came a lightning storm. Well, I didn't know anything about it until Rebecca had woke me up. I got woke up with, "Justin, Justin." "Yes?" "There's lightning." "Okay." I'm thinking in my head, "Okay, there's lightning a lot of times." And well, I said to her, "Okay." And she said, "Well, you take Jonah and get out of here." Because see, our bed was only about 3 or 4 feet from the window. And she said, "You guys are gonna get struck by lightning." And I laid there and I thought, "No." And I just laid there. I didn't just jump up and grab Jonah and do anything. And she said, "I really want you to get up and go do that. Get out of here." I said, "Well." I don't know. I don't— I really don't think we're gonna get struck by lightning, she said. She took a deep breath. Justin, be a man and do the right thing. Well, here I was. I had to sit here and think, okay, now I'm on the hook. What is the right thing? I've got to be a man here and do the right thing. If I just go and do this, well, I'm gonna have to do this every time there's a lightning storm, and I don't know if that's the right thing to do. We're gonna start a trend here, but she wants me to do it. And should I do it? She's probably asleep. She's probably just sleep talking. She probably doesn't really want me to leave. She'd probably rather have me by her side. And I had to sit there and think about it. What's the right thing to do? Well, I finally came to my conclusion and I said, all right, I'm gonna stay here. It's quiet. And then she took a deep breath. Justin, I don't know how to say this nicely, but sometimes I hate you.

Wow.

So I sit there and I thought, oh boy, I guess I didn't do the right thing. But I sit there and thought about, you know, and then soon she just forgot all about it. But I'm sitting there in turmoil. Did I do the right thing? Does she really hate me? What's going on? Is she asleep? Is she just talking crazy? Well, finally I went back to sleep, and the first thing in the morning I went to her, and of course She had no recollection of that event at all. She was totally sleep talking, and we had a good laugh. And of course she doesn't hate me, but, but the point is, of this whole weekend, even she knew what it was to be a man. It's, it's about being a man and doing the right thing. We go through those hard times and they, they build character, but they can also make or break us. And so those are really important times to do the right thing, because I think the more we do that in those powerful times, the faster it advances us to who we really want to be.