Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Where are they?
[00:00:04] Speaker B: They're probably upstairs.
They never answer the door. Oh wait, it's Monday night. They're on the second floor.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Hey guys, thanks for joining us on second floor sessions again. We're back and we've got a guest with us that we've known a really long time that we would like all of our listeners and viewers to get to know.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Both of us have known for a really long time.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I said us, we, both of us, we've known for a really long time. So we've got Jack Simon here.
He actually works with me. He's worked with Matt. We've all worked together.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: I worked with him for 10 years.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: So we thought we'd bring him on. He would be somebody who can kind of talk about the things he's done through his life that some of you might be able to relate to. So Jack, take it away. Let's start from the top of where'd you born, where'd you grow up kind of things you get into.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: All right. Well, I was born in Blount County. My parents had just moved here from New Jersey in 92 and. Or 91 I think they moved here and I was born in 92. I think my mom was already pregnant though, whenever they was on their way down here.
[00:01:20] Speaker C: So your dad. Dad was from Jersey too?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Dad was my grandparents. My grandparents moved down here originally by
[00:01:26] Speaker C: farmland when I was at.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: And my papa would come down here every weekend and cut roads on that property. He'd cut down trees, he built fences.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: And he'd leave work on Friday, drive down all Friday night, work Saturday, work most of the day Sunday, leave Sunday evening, be back at work at Monday morning.
[00:01:47] Speaker C: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: That's getting it done right there.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: That's about 850 mile, one way trip from here.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: Dang goodness.
So I did not know your dad was from Jersey.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, my mother is.
[00:02:00] Speaker C: He was he raised in Jersey?
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: Golly bunch. How did I not know that?
[00:02:03] Speaker A: I. I knew that. He don't have that Jersey accent though.
[00:02:06] Speaker C: No, I never even would have thought he's a Yankee at all.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, he is thing.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Well, but you knew Uncle Larry and Holly.
[00:02:14] Speaker C: Well, I knew they were. I knew, I knew Larry was. Yeah, I didn't think about Dave. Now has. How is he related to Dave?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Okay, so Aunt Holly is my grandpa's sister.
[00:02:25] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: So she married Uncle Larry. They were like 14 or 15 maybe. Don't quote me.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: Right, right, right, right.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: But whenever he passed away, my grandfather told me that he had Knowed Uncle Larry for since they were 13 years old. And how they met. Uncle Larry was hauling hine in down the road and wrecked a car into their fence.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: It's a good way to meet somebody.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Into Uncle Larry's fence?
[00:02:46] Speaker B: No, into my grandfather's fence on their farm.
Larry was hauling high and in and wrecked into their fence. And that's how they got to know each other.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: And so the listeners. So the listeners know we're. We are saying Uncle Larry because we also worked with Uncle Larry and that was his name at work.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Yeah, everybody. Everybody, everybody called him Uncle Larry. Yeah, he was my legit great uncle. Yeah.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Awesome guy. Yeah. And my great aunt Holly also worked for Matlock Tire as well.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: Yeah, she did.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: So.
So you come from Jersey? You wasn't born yet, though.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: And see, we born Blunt.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: You just come. So you just come straight to Blunt from Jersey.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Well, so it's funny how that property runs. The mailbox is in Lenore City, and right past the mailboxes, Blount County.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: Wow. Yeah, I've got. That's the way my house is. Sweetwater in Monroe County.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker C: Or Madisonville.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Whenever I was born, we lived in a camper up until my parents bought their first house.
And I don't remember much after that because they decided to go separate ways after that, after my little brother was born. But. Yeah, somewhere in there, I think he was three, maybe, you know, they separated.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Okay, so maybe so you're so. Okay, so you're five.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Somewhere in there.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: I don't very, very. I don't even remember my parents being together. But they always got along. We got lucky. That's always best friends.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Co parent.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Co parent is fine.
[00:04:12] Speaker C: That's awesome.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Didn't hold us, you know, like some parents do.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Fight back and forth.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Use the kids as a puppet.
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Manipulate each other.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Whenever dad was supposed to get us, he got you.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: That's good.
That's awesome. So lived in Blount County.
So did you. I thought. Did you not go to lc?
[00:04:33] Speaker B: I did. So.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: When my parents moved, they moved to Lenore City whenever they separated. My mother stayed in Lenoir City, my father went back to Blount County.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: And then that's how I ended up. Okay. The Lenore City school system.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Okay. You know, so you were, what? Oh, is you 9 or 10? Graduate?
[00:04:52] Speaker B: 10.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: 10.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Okay, 10. I. Yeah. 10.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. It's been a minute, ain't it?
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Been a long minute. Actually.
I blinked.
I can't even remember how many years now.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: 17 years.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Have you went to any of your reunions?
[00:05:05] Speaker B: No.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah, me neither.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Used to go to them.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: I haven't either.
I'll probably one day wish I would have.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: You went from Blunt. Did you stay. I mean, BL City. Did you. Was it, like, what grades? Did you stay in there all the way through? Okay.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: I can remember.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: I think I went all the way.
[00:05:26] Speaker C: Okay. So the whole. Okay. Okay. Wow.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: All right.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: So now when you.
When you got finished, anything crazy happen in between?
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Say, what was high school like for you?
[00:05:37] Speaker B: High school for me. I was heavily into skateboarding. I was.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: I forgot about that. You were in Sky Skateboard.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: I was big into the Jackass movie series and that kind of stuff. So my friends and I would always play hijinks on each other, skateboard, do pranks on each other, do stupid stuff in school, fall downstairs, do stunts in class.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Did y'?
[00:06:00] Speaker C: All.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: So answer. The answer. So I used to do the same thing. I was skateboard. I like to skateboard, but I also
[00:06:06] Speaker C: did stand on a skateboard.
I can't skateboard.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: I was all over the board. But anyway, so we skated and stuff like that, too. And we loved the Jackass movies and all that. Did you ever. Would you ever play with your friends?
Nutball? Yeah, with a Hacky.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Play with all kinds of stuff.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: We used to play with a Hacky Dog Bones.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: All kinds of stuff.
The finals is whenever it got tough. The finals is whenever the big boys come out. Okay.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: We never made it that far. We wouldn't.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Some of that stuff was recorded on the old vhs.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Yeah, Home recording.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: I had one of them. I had one of them, too, but it didn't. It wasn't like a VHS style. It was.
Maybe you could plug it up with USB and extract it that way or something.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: This was ancient.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: I never was smart enough to do it.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Anyway, this thing had a box. I mean, the size of this couch. You put the dagger.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: That was probably before we were doing it. Then I'd say.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: I think it was just the old one someone's parents had. We didn't have any money growing up or anything like it.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I had this little bitty camera. It's about that big. And it had a little thing you flipped out on the side and you could see a video of it.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Flip it around.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: It did that, too.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Classes before. That was.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: Well, high school. Sounds fun then. What? What else? Anything.
Anything else.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: Trouble.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Any through school? Yeah, I got.
[00:07:19] Speaker C: I meant like, like some big trouble. Like, like, not like in suspension. Like, actually, you Know, maybe even almost went to jail over some stuff.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: I threw some books at some teachers and I'd get mad.
[00:07:33] Speaker C: I can't imagine
[00:07:36] Speaker B: a book at a
[00:07:36] Speaker C: nine year old woman.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Well, they mess. I was so bad that my mother had to get a job in the school system because she couldn't. She had to quit leaving work. She's gonna get fired from her other job.
[00:07:50] Speaker C: She had to come work for the school.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Work for the school that way.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: Yeah. Take care of Jack.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Take care of that. And also whenever we was off on breaks, she was off too.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: So she. That makes pretty good.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: I've never thought about trying to find a babysitter.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: Yeah, that's pretty smart, actually. So when you're off, she's off.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Well, especially if you're a single parent. Yeah.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: And then smart in the summer, so we'd go to New Jersey and all that stuff. And mom, she was off all summer, so we'd leave whenever school let out, not come back until a few days before school started.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: So what's your.
What's your opinion on Jersey?
You love it, like it, hate it? What?
Or has it been so long since you've been.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: I was up there not long ago. It's. It's different. Yeah, it's not bad.
It's very expensive. But I mean, people are different. It's just different. I don't know how to describe it
[00:08:38] Speaker C: because I know there was some rude people up there. I went through Newark.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: You went through Newark?
[00:08:42] Speaker C: Oh, that was that. Well, the dangerous I get. Well, it was the airport. Everybody was so hateful at the airport.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Everybody.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: That's every airport you go to. Everybody, even the agency, mad, screaming and hollering, touch your shoes.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: I mean, I just couldn't believe it. I was like, dang. Yeah, you get wild.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: People up here go to New York City and ask a cop for help. You'll get cussed out.2 seconds and get
[00:09:03] Speaker A: told, go, go back across the bridge,
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Go back down south.
[00:09:08] Speaker C: Yeah. New Yorkers around.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: New Yorkers hate Jersey and Jersey hate New Yorkers, Right?
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Well, I'm just talking in general.
One of us walk up to a cop in New York or somewhere like that, ask him for directions. Oh, no, ain't got time for you.
[00:09:20] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, didn't know that.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: I ain't ever been to New York City. I ain't ever. I ain't got nothing up there I'm looking for either.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: New York City's a cool place.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: My wife likes it, but she's been.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: I'd like to go to New York City. I just been in the airports. All I've been.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: I'll probably wind up up there one day somehow or another with work or something. But I don't have no desire to go, I'll tell you that.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: It's definitely a fun place.
[00:09:41] Speaker C: So after high school, I do know you went to trade school.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:45] Speaker C: So you went to trade school.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, through my welding school and got my American Welding Society certifications.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: That was in Florida.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: That was in Florida. My grandparents lived. Lived down there rather. My grandfather now is Alzheimer's and they moved back to New Jersey where he's more familiar.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Because they were living here for a while and had lived. Believe.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: So I lived with him for a while. I went through all that. I've got my 6G or my 5G. I can't remember the hardest pipe you can get. It's at a 45 degree angle with an open route. And you've got to fill in that route yourself. Hot pass and then go from there.
Did all that. And then I got homesick and wanted to come back home. Then I worked for a few people before I come back from Matlock and they kept on jerking me around.
I'd get them a bunch of craft work to do and I'd get them caught up and they say, well, I don't need you no more. You got me caught up. So they usually do the dirty work and send me on down the road. That's awful. And then I end up back in my.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: So any reason? Like, like, did you ever.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Why?
[00:10:48] Speaker C: I guess pursue. Did you ever want to really pursue welding or. I mean, did it just.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: At one point I did. But then you got to travel a lot to make money.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: I don't like.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, traveling, so to say for work.
I like going home and going to bed.
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah. With your family.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: That makes a big difference.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: There's just no way I could live in a hotel or an rv.
[00:11:10] Speaker C: Yeah. For five days. My next.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah, for four or five months. My next job's coming or some stupid.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I get that.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: You know, the money was real good. I just.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Money ain't always worth it.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: No. I knew. Definitely going to Alaska. Make 150 an hour. Yeah.
[00:11:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Back in 2010.
[00:11:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: It's more than that now. I guarantee you it is.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Probably. Yeah.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Well, that pipeline.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: So I've done that.
And then I like. I say come back home and got jerked around a few places and just ended up back at my outlook.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Okay. So now when. When you were.
When you were in school did.
Was they ever a time where.
I'm assuming they were a time, but where it was like you just kind of flipped a switch to where it was like in. In school that you. You realize, like, I don't want to do this or. Or you were gung ho when you went into school.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: I was gung ho.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: You were going to do it. Yeah. You were going to.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: You got to travel here and travel there.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: So it was just the traveling that absolutely killed it.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that and then that and then you'd be stuck in a factory doing factory work, which is the same thing all the time.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Or you'd be in a fab shop doing a little bit of everything.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I get. Well, I guess I never thought about.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Be pretty nice getting a job like that working in a, like a local fabrication shop where you are doing different stuff. For like a private owner, that would be a good job.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: I have a cousin, he's a machinist and he welds and you know, all the. But he. His. His.
His job is cutting metal out, you know, welding certain things together or, you know, passing it along. And he does. Like. He told me. He told me they've done like the handrails. All the handrails at Disney.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Dang.
[00:13:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Disney and Disney World. Disneyland and Disney World both. They. He cut all the. The pipes and all the different stuff to make.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: That's some real money. Right?
[00:13:09] Speaker C: And it's the one off of Watt Road.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Oh, hey, it's Awful lot Road.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Right at the road.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, on Watt Road. And they done all of his. They done all the Disney stuff.
Holy crap.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Dang.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: Took him like. Took him like seven months to do all of them.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: I bet you. I wonder if that was like a bid job.
[00:13:26] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure it was.
But you're sitting.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: You're sitting in. They're outside Lenor City. And n. When you go, you know what? Why don't we bid on Disney World? Disneyland or Disneyland.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Let's go beat down their doors. We need those special. They probably don't even know where. Where it is.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: No, I guarantee you they don't. Yeah, for sure.
I guarantee you they don't. Well, but he's a machinist there, and that's what he does. Like, he runs all the, you know, the computers and CNCs. There you go. Yeah, CNCS and all that stuff. He does some weld, but he's not like their fab guy or nothing. He runs all the. He's like their tech guy on CNC machines.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: So he reads blueprints, puts in the dimensions.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Lets the machine do as well.
[00:14:05] Speaker C: Lets it, lets it work. Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: But so we're back at work now. So around that time, how old were you back then?
How old are you now?
[00:14:19] Speaker B: I'm 34 now.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Now how old were you then when you can't. When you got out of school and come back to work?
[00:14:23] Speaker B: I was 20.
[00:14:28] Speaker C: Yeah, he's probably in 20s.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: 21.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: So 21 years old. 21 years old.
You're back. So for the last.
Well, probably for the last, I won't count. How long you been married?
[00:14:42] Speaker B: I've been married since 2021.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Okay, so let's call it the last nine years.
Let's say those were pretty wild years of your life.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Oh, they were wild before then. I was a full on alcoholic before I was 21 years old. I was 18 years old needing to have a drink.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
So how'd that go? Take us through that.
I mean as far as.
What'd you get in? What was that like? I mean, because I know that you tore up the bar scene because it was, it was accessible and easy for you.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: It was accessible. It was easy. Well, actually the first time I got drunk I was 15 years old, my cousin.
[00:15:20] Speaker C: Golly.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Now was that, was that, was that just like a fluke?
[00:15:27] Speaker B: No.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Or is that when it started? And it just kept going and going, going.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Well, he said we're gonna go to a party and we're gonna drink. And I said okay, let's go. And I got excited because I'd never done it for. And I showed up, we showed up and somebody put a bottle of Southern comfort in front of me.
I didn't like beer. I started drinking that. Next thing I knew that bottle was gone and I was in a one of the mo onesie mechanic suits and I was sliding through mud and they had four wheelers out and I was holding on to the back while they doing donuts.
[00:15:54] Speaker C: Dang.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Sounds like I woke up the next morning, everybody thought I was going to be sick. I woke up next morning ready to go. I said I like that few years went no hangover, have no part of it. And then moved down to Florida and got around my old cousin again.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Same one, same one, same one.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: And the party started.
The party started down there cuz we had made friends with some guys. Their families owned all the bars up and down the beach.
So before he was 21 we was getting in okay. They weren't ID in us.
[00:16:30] Speaker C: Yeah, just walk on in.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Just Walk on in. You know, at the time I grow a beard, I'm.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Pretty much growing a beard since I was like 15.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: I don't know. Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: But yeah, so we was able to rip. Roar down there, get trouble getting fights, not get in trouble. They throw them out, you know, calls for trouble. I mean, they'd throw the other people out, let us stay in there.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: So.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: So when you say that you were a.
An alcoholic, so.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Not at that point.
[00:16:57] Speaker C: No, no, no, no, no.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: But.
[00:16:58] Speaker C: But he was saying that he was so, like, I guess. How does it, how does it get to the point.
This is just my. My naiveness, I guess. But how does it get to the point where it's just so consuming that you just like, you can't not have it.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: It's almost like. Have you ever played something before and you can't put it down
[00:17:20] Speaker A: or have
[00:17:20] Speaker C: you say that I really.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Have you ever fiddled with something that you fiddle with it and put it down, pick it up, fiddle it some more, a little bit longer?
[00:17:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Then you fiddled with it even more.
Then you put. Then next thing you know, you're fiddling with it all the time. And then that's pretty much the way, okay, you're having fun. The next thing you know, you're at home, oh, I'm stressed out.
Take some off. Oh, I had a. You know, my woman's mad at me, get all wild crazy.
[00:17:48] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: The problem is, is it's good everything because you can use it for. To celebrate.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: People can celebrate or you can use
[00:17:55] Speaker A: it for a downer thing, you know, so it's.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: But it's. Honestly, in my opinion, it is the biggest legal drug that there is.
I think it's the worst thing that's legal on the market that.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Well, I mean, not.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: I think it's one of the worst things. They allow that. That between that cigarette. I mean, just.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I can. I could see that. I mean, I can agree with that. It's. I mean, they talk about how much drunk driving skill people. You know what I mean?
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Look, people we've lost.
[00:18:24] Speaker C: Oh, no. Yeah.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: JD.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: JD was a big one for me.
For me.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: What, 53, 50.
[00:18:30] Speaker C: 51. 53.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: John Easter, 49.
[00:18:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: And that's just from drinking. They didn't like dying and drunk a
[00:18:37] Speaker B: car wreck, but they were heavy alcoholics. Yeah.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Through the years. So.
[00:18:41] Speaker C: Yeah, but it was like alcohol poison, wasn't it? I mean, on. I mean, was. Was it eat. Was neither one of them.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: That neither one of them had autopsies?
[00:18:49] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: Nobody really knows what it was.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: I mean, they were pushing 60, you know, so.
But you got to imagine with the amount of consumption it controls, you know what I mean?
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Helping either. Whenever I got back and got hanging around JD and John and all them, and that didn't help me and my drinking problem. Not any. Not at all. It helped it actually.
You know what I mean?
[00:19:15] Speaker C: Come a little easier.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Come a little bit easier.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: So when you got back. So you kind of picked it back up down in Florida and got reacquainted with it as you got closer to legal age.
And then you got back to Tennessee. And how did things go from there with that?
[00:19:30] Speaker B: I was still 20 whenever I moved back here. I remember that now because I turned 21 and I was working a job that I didn't like, wasn't back at Matlock yet. And I told him I was sick and I went to the nearest bar I found and I got as wild as I could and called my mom to come pick me up.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Like you called into work? Is that what you're saying?
[00:19:53] Speaker B: I left work.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Oh, you told me halfway through, and
[00:19:58] Speaker B: I was like, yeah, I'm 21, it's noon, it's 1 o', clock, I'm sick, I'm going home.
I don't even remember who I was working for at the time. Well, I wasn't back at Matlock, though. And then shortly after that, I was back at Matlock.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Well, what.
So, so that, so, so once you.
When did things really pick up, though? Like how long did it. How. How many years went by before you realized that you had a problem?
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Oh, I knew I had a problem whenever I was 23, 24, but I just didn't care.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: I just knew I had a problem.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: What were things like then, as far
[00:20:42] Speaker B: as I was an angry person?
I really just felt like I needed to be messed up all the time to feel normal.
That makes sense. I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: No, no, it makes sense.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: It may not make sense to y' all feeling.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: It does to me.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it makes sense.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: No, so I felt like I just needed to stay messed up a lot, really.
And then it come to a point in time, whenever I was. What really, really picked up real heavily whenever I was about 23, 24, I had this relationship that went sour and I had to move into a one bedroom apartment.
And from then on, I was mad at the world and everybody for quite some time.
Then I ended up with this other girl. I'm not gonna name any names.
And she really didn't help the situation much either. She enabled me. She'd go and buy me stuff.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: You know, if I couldn't drive, she'd drive me wherever I wanted to go. Sit at the bar with me. Just.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: You know, she really. And then it turned to a point where I was done with her, and I was gonna kick her out and she was gonna beat herself up and call the wall on me.
I got the phone, I called my mom, and my mom, my little brother, went up there and got her out of there. Well, in the time. Well, over that time, I was drunk as I'll get out. I drunk a gallon of Russian standard vodka in probably three hours.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: Jeez.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a wonder you didn't.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Alcohol, poison. Well, you may have. I did. Just didn't kill you.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: So fast forward. My mom got her out of the house.
Then my breathing starts slowing down, and I fall down and I use the bathroom on myself, and I'm aspirating in my mom.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: That's some scary stuff.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: So that's how that went. Phew.
[00:22:42] Speaker C: It's a good way to die.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Mama wasn't around.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, you could have.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: I would have died. Probably that. Or ended up in jail because someone. She was gonna beat herself up and call the cops.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: You'd have been domestic. Been domestic up there.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Yeah. For. I mean, it's over nothing. So I want to get on. I took off. And I don't remember much after that, but after that incident, I put it down pretty much from that moment.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: You dropped it or you knew at that moment I had to quit.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: I gotta quit. This isn't right.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: And then a little bit time went by, and then we was getting ready to open up our Hard Valley store back in 2020, and I decided enough was enough and I was gonna quit.
And I did.
And I told Jimmy what I was doing, and I said, I'm probably going to be sick for a while. I'm probably going to be shaky. I'm probably not going to be worth the heck, But I'm here. It's middle of summer. And he looked at me and said, I'm proud of you. You do what you need to do.
And I'm sitting here six years later, just.
[00:23:51] Speaker C: Just. Just cold turkey. It just like, just dropped it. And I bet you had some cravings and some. Some walls and. Not bad. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: To this day, it's still hard for me to go into places. I'm not gonna sit here and lie.
[00:24:04] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:05] Speaker C: I'm Sure. I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it at all. Yeah, that's. That's a. That's crazy.
Go for that. Hardcore. To nothing.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: To nothing. And I'm talking. I'd play what I'd call the blackout game. I'd say what time I'd remember and where I'd wake up and if I could find my keys, my wallet, my phone and make it to work on time.
Golly, I was at work on time every day.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: What a game.
What a game.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: Now I'm in bed by 8:30.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: It's hard to imagine that you would. Is it hard for you to imagine that you used to do that, like.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Stay up late. Yeah.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it. Yeah.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: I couldn't imagine going through that.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: And I wouldn't eat on purpose, so I'd get more messed up. Yeah. I'd go days without eating.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I got you. I used to do that on Wednesday nights.
Used to do it on Wednesday nights.
So on purpose. But no, I could definitely see how it's. How it does that.
[00:25:02] Speaker C: I've never.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Thankfully, I've never had a.
[00:25:04] Speaker C: Have you ever had a blackout moment? Like gotten to the point to where you just couldn't?
[00:25:09] Speaker A: No.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: And I mean, you don't remember nothing?
[00:25:11] Speaker A: No, I've been.
I've been pretty.
I mean, I've never blacked out of anything, you know. You hear that? I used to get somebody to black out when you fight somebody or whatever in school. I don't remember. I don't know.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: People weren't blacking out.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: I don't know anything. I Black just.
[00:25:26] Speaker C: They just went crazy.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: I blacked out. I don't remember. You know, I don't. I. I mean, I. I've never done anything like that. I mean, I've. I've drank some alcohol, but not anything to assert, you know.
I've been drunk one time or a few times, but one time I killed somebody's grass.
I threw up dead it. Dead for like a whole summer.
Not doing front flips on trampoline made me sick.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: Doing front, please.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: That sounds like a good time, don't it?
[00:25:57] Speaker C: That's what you did when you were drunk.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:59] Speaker C: Jack was watching the clock.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah. No. Yeah. I never took it. I never took that stuff serious, like, you know, I mean, I. I didn't do anything stupid and I just did it very here or there through the years.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: It's amazing to see, like.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: And I don't care a bit to have a drink today. I don't Care to drink a beer or something?
[00:26:18] Speaker C: But the addiction, I guess it grabs and holds somebody like that.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: You know, it's weird how we're all different and it can do it to certain people and other people.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: Well, I've seen, okay, for instance, like cigarettes, how people get addicted to the cigarettes and stuff.
John Dupree can pick up one cigarette and he can smoke it and never pick up another one for another seven months.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Well, one don't matter.
[00:26:39] Speaker C: Well, I'm talking about. But he. I've seen him smoke one or two or three, but then he'll never pick them back up for another. Yeah, he just said there's no craving there. And I'm like, yeah, if I was. If I was. If I had. If I've consumed alcohol, if I've done cigarettes, I'd be the guy that would be hooked on them.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: You know, you've always said that.
[00:26:56] Speaker C: I guarantee, yeah, I would be the one. I would be the one. Because I've got uncles that are. That are drunks, alcoholics. My other uncle's meth. I mean, it's all of it, you know, if I got on anything, I guarantee I'd be hardcore on it. If it was cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, whatever, I would be hardcore on it. Yeah, I'd be addicted, so.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Well, let's get. Let's get to the good part, to your story, which is coming out of that, because that. I think that changed your life a hundred percent.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: Twenty. Twenty for the better.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Well, a lot has happened.
[00:27:34] Speaker C: We'll say this. When I worked with Jack, there was a lot of good. Me and Jack, but there was a lot of that. We. We was. We were. We were ready to kill each other half the time.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: I could make Matthew mad, or I
[00:27:45] Speaker C: could make him mad.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: I mean, like Matt said, you're the only person to make me mad.
You told me that. The only person say one thing and make me mad.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: And. But we could. We've done this back and forth thing to where, you know, we could. I could have him ready to go to fight right now, or he could have me the same way.
But, you know, looking back at it, of course we're all grown up now, so it doesn't. It's water under the bridge and gone, but it's. It's one of those things, like, I didn't know to the extent that you're going through something like that. You know what I mean? I mean, nobody knows that you're blacking out when you're going home.
I was trying to.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Suicidal. I mean, all kinds of stuff. I mean, there's a point where my family wouldn't even talk to me.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: Right. Yeah, exactly. So I didn't know none of that. I just know that.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Whereas by myself, literally.
[00:28:35] Speaker C: Yeah. So in 2020, you dropped her, put her down. And then now I know you have a.
A wife.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: I met her in that same year that I literally, like two weeks after I quit, I'd met my wife.
[00:28:49] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Met her then from there.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: So she had pretty. I mean, I'm assuming she's. She has to be or you would be drunk again. So, you know, or. So she's a good supporter of that.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: She's a great supporter. She told me if I ever by do with it.
[00:29:08] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: She's heard from everybody.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: Yeah, well, she said no, pick it up. It's over.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:12] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: So.
[00:29:13] Speaker C: Okay, good.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: She's a good influence.
[00:29:16] Speaker C: That is good.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: So we. We met in 2020. I married her in 2021.
[00:29:21] Speaker C: I never thought that Jack would get married. I thought he'd just be the part of the animal, never settled down. Never know a lot of people.
I thought he'll be a. He'll be a wild man the rest of his life.
But yeah.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: Married her. And then after about a year, we had a kid.
Well, our anniversary, she got pregnant. But yeah. Then it was In April of 22, my son was born.
[00:29:54] Speaker C: That's a. That's a game changer, isn't it?
[00:29:56] Speaker B: I was ready. Yeah. I always wanted to be a dad, I realized. Be a dad.
[00:30:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:02] Speaker C: Just a different level though, I guess, is for. For me, it was anyways.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: It was really. I've always liked kids growing up. I've babysit neighborhood kids growing up.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Nieces, nephews and stuff like that. I mean, it never wasn't a huge, huge, big.
[00:30:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: I mean, I was the one who made him quit crying for the first time in the hospital because no one knew how to make him quit crying.
[00:30:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
There you go.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: But that's awesome. So.
So I guess looking. Looking at the whole scenario of all three of us sitting here, what we've all been through, worked through and everything. I think we've all come out pretty well, you know. I think we've all come out really well. Especially you, you know, especially going through this is. I remember, you know, I remember the times that you wanted to kill yourself and the times that you were so mad and you wanted to, you know, kill me or kill it somebody, you know, and to look.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Really. Figuratively.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: But.
[00:31:03] Speaker C: But, yeah, no, Exactly.
But where, where we're at now. And you know, when I first heard you were having a kid, I was like, really? Jack's. I bet you that is going to just turn his world upside down. And then you tell him, you're like, no, it's not. It's just. That's. That's great. That's awesome.
Yeah. Why'd you have three?
[00:31:21] Speaker B: I'm not gonna have three. One and done.
This has been the hardest summer we've ever been through. My brother passed away in May, and then in August, two days before or about a week before I closed on my new house, my nephew passed away.
My sister in law was about five months pregnant with him and she had to deliver him and she had a funeral and all that stuff.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Geez, kids, funerals were worse.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we had that special box made. It's probably a little bitty 7 inches, but he was fully developed.
[00:31:59] Speaker C: I mean, that's sad.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: How about your.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: How about your cousin down in Florida? The one he didn't have a motorcycle wreck. How's he doing from that?
[00:32:09] Speaker B: So last time I talked to him, he told me I was a know it all and he told me not talk to him no more. Okay, so he obviously has alcohol problem to this day, but he hit a Tree doing about 120 on a motorcycle running from the cops.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Yeah, he was supposed to be dead and everything else and made it through that, but he's crazy. As I'll get out. He lives by himself. I mean, he's.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: But he's made a full recovery.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: No, no, no, he's.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Well, I mean, besides collect disability for
[00:32:39] Speaker B: the rest of his life.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: He's.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: He's done. He's.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: But he's. Is he mobile? Can he walk?
[00:32:44] Speaker B: He can walk and talk and stuff like that. He can't remember much of anything. He.
He's going through a breakup and it's. It's a crazy situation, but he still drinks like a fish. And he's on probation where he's not even supposed to be drinking.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: It's a miracle he's alive.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: He's alive. They had to remove half his skull.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: I remember when it happened. It was.
I didn't think he'd make it through it.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: I didn't either. I told Jimmy, you know, I'm probably gonna take a trip.
Let me know. Yeah, and actually the day the state troopers come in to try to prosecute him, he had been sent away to a place where people go to die. So they just wrote it off.
[00:33:23] Speaker C: So he just it was all clean.
Clean slave.
Wow.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Then got out of that. Got some trouble. He did. In jail a few times. Like I say, now he's on probation, and part of his terms and conditions is not to drink. And what's he doing?
[00:33:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I will say.
The only person.
You know, like. Like we were just saying, me and Jack, back and forth, fight, carry on, want to ring each other's necks. He was the only person.
No, nothing towards anybody. He was the only person that come see me in the hospital. Beside. I think John Dupree may have come up.
Oh, with. With Coop. With Coop. When Coop was diagnosed. And right then, I was like.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: You meant. What are you talking. I went.
[00:34:08] Speaker C: Well, I'm talking about the moment it happened. Like the. The.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: The.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: The day there. The day it happened. It was. He was the first person to come.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: I don't even know how even.
[00:34:18] Speaker C: Who's there?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: I don't know either, but about six hours we spent up there.
[00:34:22] Speaker C: Yeah, he was up there. And we.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: We talked.
[00:34:24] Speaker C: Yeah, we sit there always in the toy room. Sit there and talk for hours.
Sure was first. First person that come see me.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: This is before that.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: What?
[00:34:32] Speaker C: Bo, Let me. What.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: I'm sure it's like today where you wouldn't answer my phone call. Probably.
No, I'm almost positive you called me the next day. Maybe you called me that night.
I don't remember how. It doesn't matter.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: I don't even remember how.
[00:34:47] Speaker C: But anyways, I just had on my mind.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: I needed to go check on that gain.
[00:34:51] Speaker C: Gained a ton of respect.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: And I just. Yeah, I felt like I need to
[00:34:55] Speaker C: go check on that ton of respect.
The only. I mean, first.
Not the only. I should have rephrased that there. Don't get all offense, Bo.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: So, okay, so you got.
Let's see here.
There. So there's.
There's a big part of Jack's life. To me, it's big.
That you're leaving out right now.
You are going out of the country for weeks at a time.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: And you're working on dual citizenship.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Is that something we want to talk about on here? Tell us all about that, because I want to know more about it.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: What do you want to know? Tell me what you want to know.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Well, so.
Okay, so I guess where did you. Where. You know, I. I noticed that you.
The text that you sent me the other night, it was saying how you kind of come about it, but what made you dive into thinking about something like that?
[00:35:59] Speaker B: So originally.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: So you're gonna tell about it first. What do you mean nobody knows what you're talking about?
[00:36:04] Speaker C: Well, he's fixing to. He's fixing to. He's fixing to.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: All right, go for it.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: I texted Matthew. He was. We was just back and forth and I was telling what I was up to and told him I was getting my dual citizen, working on getting my dual citizenship with Hungary and stuff like that.
And I was just.
[00:36:22] Speaker C: I guess. I guess more the lines of like, what made you want to get to get a dual situation?
[00:36:28] Speaker B: So originally. So.
So all this is on my mom's side. So through her father. So originally I was going to try to go through her dad with was for Irish immigrant, straight from Ireland, moved to Ellis Island. You know, all this stuff was heavily documented. But in Ireland, in order for you to gain your citizenship, he would have had to claim my grandfather before or he would have had to.
There's a chain of commands that would have to be in him. Then my grandfather would have had to have his Irish citizenship before my mother was born. My mother would have had her Irish citizenship before. Before I was born. So on stuff. So it passes down to the next person.
[00:37:06] Speaker C: So it's more hoops.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: So the chain was broke and my mom was like, well, that got my mind going because it gives us access to the eu, having an Irish passport, which is all your EU countries. You can go live over there without any visas. My son could go to school for free, stuff like that. I could be eligible for health care if I wanted to move over there, there. So I was like, that's cool. And then my mom was like, yeah. I called the Irish embassy and this is blah, blah, blah. She said, but you are eligible to get your Hungarian citizenship, but you have to learn the language and a few other things. And I was like, okay. So I got thinking on it and that evening I got online and got looking around on ancestry and I was tracing all this stuff back and I was like, okay. So actually pretty easy.
And about a week later, I signed up for classes and I've been trying to learn Hungarian from then on. I'd take a few months break because I was buying a new house. So I've just kicked it back up here recently. But it's.
And that's actually a Hungarian passport stronger than an Irish passport because it gives you more access to more countries.
[00:38:17] Speaker C: Huh.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: So in a sense I could. If whenever I do get this, I could go live in Czech Republic if I wanted to. If part of the eu, I go to Norway. Norway's part of, not part of the eu. I don't think. But they're part of one of the countries you go live in, work in if you have a Hungarian passport, which I love. Norway. I'm going back to Norway.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: And so you've been out quite a bit of the. You've been out of country quite a bit, then.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: Country. Okay. Okay. That's definitely. Was definitely an eye opener. See, that way I'm sure. Well, you've been out of the country.
[00:38:52] Speaker C: I have. I have, yeah. Yeah. But I mean, not. Not. I hadn't been that side of it.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: So, yeah. So back to Hungary. It's pretty hard. It's probably the hardest language to learn, statistically. Some people say it's Chinese, Japanese. No, Hungarian is. They don't even call Hungary Hungry.
As Silent Said.
[00:39:13] Speaker C: Wow. That's how they say it.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: And the language is not.
It's Hungarian.
[00:39:18] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Yes.
M A, G Y, A, R, O, R, S, Z A with a accent over it.
G at the end.
[00:39:31] Speaker C: Golly.
[00:39:32] Speaker B: I think I spelled that right, but yes.
So I'm going to go to the consulate, have an interview with Hungarian embassy people. People. Then I've got to write an essay about why I want it, and then obviously prove all my documents back to my great, great grandfather, which I have his documents. I was able to get those through my cousin because he's already been through the process. He lives in France now.
[00:39:54] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: It was hard to find his stuff because there were Greek Catholic baptism records. It was before they had birth certificates.
And I kept getting a hold of the Roman Catholic record. I didn't know there was a Greek Catholic church at the time. I thought there was only Roman Catholic. And they're like, this is a Greek Catholic document. You need to get a hold of them. So I got a hold of them and bada bing, bada boom. They sent me everything over for nothing. Like here. Everybody wants 40, 50 bucks for something here. And five proofs of identification about who.
[00:40:26] Speaker C: You've got it.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Huh?
Wow.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: Okay, so I've got something right now. Wait. I actually. My great grandmother's documents are coming from Pennsylvania right now, so I'm waiting on those.
[00:40:38] Speaker A: So what is.
What is your desire? What is your ending goal? To gain dual citizenship. And what does that timeline look like for you?
[00:40:50] Speaker B: So it's just whenever I'm fluent enough.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Okay, so that's. That's what it's based on.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Based on that. Which I respect. Respect that. I believe everybody should learn the language wherever they're.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you said that. You said that the other night. Even to get into the U.S. i think I think you should. Yeah, I. 100.
Yeah. No, I agree.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: It should be part of your test.
[00:41:11] Speaker C: I agree with that.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: I don't think you should know who. Abraham Lincoln. None of that stuff matters. I think you should be able to speak the language and.
[00:41:17] Speaker C: Yeah, you should. You should be able to definitely speak our language.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: Speak our language and write a short essay about yourself. Because that's what you've got to do. You gotta go in and just have a conversation like we're having. I mean, there's formal and informal ways of speaking to people. Hungarians, I mean, it's. It's crazy.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: So Hungary won't accept you at all if you don't have ancestry there?
[00:41:36] Speaker B: No, no. Unless you have like a work visa. See these people somewhere.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: These people want to fuss about the United States. Like, try going somewhere else and getting in to live there, like, that's. It's dang near impossible.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Well, I've had to go back to 1881 and get partial, partially ruined documents sent from the Greek Catholic Church, literally to prove him. So.
[00:41:59] Speaker C: So at the end of the day, what, what is your. Are you. Are you planning on moving indefinitely over there or just a back and forth? Like where you can go over for two or three months at a time
[00:42:09] Speaker B: or back and forth for now. Okay. Until my son gets older and if my son wants to go to school out that way, or if we want to retire, we can take up and go.
Or if things. I'm not saying they are, but things go south here.
[00:42:21] Speaker C: You could get somewhere to go.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: Yeah, you never know. You never know with anything that's going.
[00:42:26] Speaker C: I used to, I used to keep. I used to keep my passport handy just in case, like some crap hit the fan here and you could. I could go somewhere. You know, I don't know how, what I do exactly or where I'd go, but I could, I could leave.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: Well, one thing you, one thing you can't do is tell them you're going over there to stay.
[00:42:43] Speaker C: No.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: No matter where it's at.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: You got 90 days and you got to be back.
[00:42:49] Speaker C: So.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: So where have you been? Out? I mean, like where. I know y' all went somewhere last year, year before.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: We've been Norway pretty much a lot of Norway. We love Norway. We love the Arctic Circle. We love. This year though, we'll be going to Finland and Norway, but that. So there's a black metal fuse.
There's a black metal music festival that we like to go to. It's called Inferno Fest. Normally it's a four day long festival and we go and we do that and some other things.
Big into music.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: What's Norway like? How would you describe it?
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Or is there. Norway is one of the cleanest places in the entire world. You get off of the train whenever you get into Oslo, and you.
And that cold salt water hit. So that cold salt water air hits your lungs. It's just the purest smell ever. There's not a pollution. There's no smog. You go into some big cities, it usually smells like urine. From homelessness and. Yeah, no.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Is there. Is there any homelessness over there?
[00:43:56] Speaker B: There's homelessness over there. They get a pension from the government. The government. Government takes care of them. They don't act crazy and run around like mentally ill people like here. No.
And I mean, very, very the cleanest. I mean, I keep saying it's clean. It's just. It's crazy how clean it is.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Is it mountainous?
[00:44:13] Speaker B: Oh, there's mountains all over. They're Carpathian mountains running through there.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: But there's a. But there's a beach there.
Or where's the salt water come from?
[00:44:21] Speaker B: I don't know exactly where the salt water comes from, be honest with you. But there's salt water there.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: I'm not sure exactly.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: I gotta imagine there's a beach there if there's something.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah, there's Beachburg. I'm sorry.
Bergen, I think's the name of this. It's one of the oldest fishing towns in the world.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Okay, well, but see, like, you go out to the Pacific, you know, you're out on that side of the country, and it's not like you go to Florida or something or the east coast where there's beaches all up and down it. I mean, I was. When I went to San Diego, I mean, you know, there's cliffs on the Pacific. You know, it ain't like that on the Atlantic side. So I don't know what it's like there.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: It's kind of like there, and then it just kind of just drops off. There may be some beaches I'm not familiar with, but, like, in Bergen. I'm pretty sure it's Bergen.
Don't quote me on that, but it's the oldest fishing village literally, like, in the world. And the place is literally like this. The houses are starting because of the erosion that's happening. It's literally.
[00:45:16] Speaker C: Yeah, they're just hurting sideways.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: The whole place is.
It's interesting and. And they're very.
It's very shocking. Just.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: Is it expensive there?
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Very expensive. Is it the most expensive cities that There is.
[00:45:34] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: What's your plan? What's your plan to deal with that?
The cost?
[00:45:39] Speaker B: Well, it just depends on where we want to go. We may end up there, we may not. I don't know. Whenever life takes us, we don't know we're going to travel to some more countries.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: Absolutely love that.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Figure out what we, we like.
[00:45:49] Speaker C: Don't, don't. So do you, when you go, do you, do you take your kid with you?
[00:45:54] Speaker B: No, he stays.
[00:45:55] Speaker C: Okay, that's nice. I was fixing to say that's.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: There's no way. There was someone. Last flight we took and there was this little kid about my kids age screaming the whole time. About 10 hours of screaming in economy. So, you know, we're all like this. Three people in a seat for 10 hours.
[00:46:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: I had an aisle seat, thank goodness. I told. But it was awful. It'd be like go to the bathroom and take you two hours to go to the bathroom. There'd be a line and they'd be trying to push out snacks and be trying to go.
[00:46:25] Speaker C: I mean it's awful.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: They need a better bathroom situation on the planes.
[00:46:30] Speaker C: Sure, yeah.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: But it's not as bad as what you think. Being on the plane for about 10 hours. It's not as bad as what you think.
[00:46:35] Speaker C: I was on it for 16 going across to Israel.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: I've been on a plane for a long time, but not because of a choice.
It was. That was nightmare. I was talking about it today at work actually.
[00:46:48] Speaker C: I got first class too and I had a broke leg.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: That's right, you did have your broke leg.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: Had a broke leg when I went through.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: They give it to you.
[00:46:55] Speaker C: Well, it's so funny that you say that. We, we went.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: I can't imagine you paying for it.
[00:47:00] Speaker C: No, I didn't pay for. No, it was not. It wasn't. It was, it was a.
So on the way over there, my leg was absolutely. I just wanted an outside aisle so I could just every now and again put my foot out because it's, you know, for swelling. And I asked the lady and she, she was really, really nice and she said, she said, well, after we got up, you know, I said are they anything open that I could go sit and prop my leg up for a little bit, you know, I said it's just swelling. I took my boot off.
This was only like a week and a half after it happened.
So I'll the story really quick.
At work I broke my leg two weeks before I went to Israel and at work broke it and that's where. That's where the story comes from. So anyways, elevate my foot. I said, anything, like an aisle somewhere. I can just put it up for 15, 20, 30 minutes, something. I'll go check. She comes back and she's like, I got one down this way. So she walks me down the aisle and we keep walking. We're on like a 7:30, 7 huge. Just keep walking and walking. So we get up towards, towards there. And I was like. And then these things start opening up and opening up. And I was like, oh, oh my goodness. Okay.
And this is after about an hour, hour and a half.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Dang, that is a big plane. Walking that long.
[00:48:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Walked an hour.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: Well, no, no, not walking hours.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Hour and a half.
[00:48:25] Speaker C: I'll tell you about hour and a half. I got up, I asked her, and she starts walking me down the plane and the seats just start doing this number, you know. I was like, oh, wow. And I got to where I was going and it's about the size of this right here, you know, and you. I could kick back. I had this TV that was, you know, huge. She's like, you can sit here, she said, until we get to where we're going. And I'm like, this is the last flight for the last 14 out for the next 13 or 14 hours.
And she never, that she never come back and got me. She never did anything. So I sat there for like. I went back to my seat because I felt bad. I went back to my seat a couple times, I sat down. Like I go back to that thing, you know, I'd stay there an hour or so.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Afraid you're gonna get charged? Not know, secret charge.
[00:49:10] Speaker C: Exactly. Something will happen, you know, I didn't sit there the whole time.
[00:49:13] Speaker B: That'd be my luck.
Have a $5,000.
[00:49:17] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. Because I was like, I don't know if I'm supposed to be here. They come up and offer you all kinds of, you know, food, drinks, whatever you want. Yeah, it was wild because the. You get a different, you know, stewardess when you're, you know, there. You don't get the same. You don't get the economy stewardess.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: You know, you get the little.
[00:49:35] Speaker C: You get the high end stuff.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: The person that wears the thing on their arm.
[00:49:38] Speaker C: The butler.
Yeah.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: But anyways, my first class ride wasn't like, yeah, well, so you're talking about. And, and we'll have this, we'll have this on a podcast, by the way. It's coming up.
Chris. So I told you about father on Reese's baseball team. Yeah. So anyway, he's got a lot of stories and one thing he told me, you're talking about expensive, one of the most expensive places to live.
We got to talk and me and him did, and he's talking about the opposite of that. Inexpensive. Okay. He said, we. I was talking about maybe going to Mexico or something on a trip, but we did one time or something like that. And he goes, have you ever thought about Vietnam? I said, never.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: There's a lot of people.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: I said, never. He goes. He goes, well, I didn't either. And I was. We were looking for somewhere to go. Like they just went to Ireland and got back from Ireland this year. And so they do stuff, you know, and he's like.
We were looking at doing a trip one time and I was talking to a friend of mine and he's like, look into Vietnam. It's like, what were you talking about? And he goes, I mean, dirt cheap. We'll let him tell it. But. But dirt cheap stuff. Here's how dirt cheap it is. You ready? You don't take nothing when you go.
You don't take clothes.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: Just buy them while you're there.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: You don't take luggage when you get there. You buy your luggage and all your clothes and it costs less than checking a bag.
Dang. Yeah. Really?
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: And I'm talking like Louis Vuitton, like
[00:51:06] Speaker C: high end clothes, then. Nice clothes.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I was meaning a bag. Yeah.
[00:51:09] Speaker C: Oh, oh, okay.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: What you buy though? Because they got to declare it.
[00:51:14] Speaker C: Well, it's true.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: You could. He, he said, he said, what you do is you buy while you're there because it's cheaper than checking a bag.
[00:51:21] Speaker B: You just leave it opposite to you this way. In Norway, McDonald's one night cost us 55.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: Well, how much you buy?
55 bit chickens. That's a lot of food.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: We bought 20 nuggets and two large fries. Well, they have nine. So we bought 18. I bought 18 nuggets for myself, about nine. 18 nuggets for my wife. Two large fries and a drink. It's 55.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: And over there I couldn't eat all nine of my nuggets, so I end up wasting half of it because it's actual real food.
Yeah. That's not like this process.
I mean, a chicken nuggets over there, I mean, it's that thick and I mean it's.
[00:52:01] Speaker C: That's the way Israel works. Got it. And it's legit with their burger. With their burgers. Like their, their McDonald's was like made
[00:52:06] Speaker A: out of cameras over there.
[00:52:08] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, they were like that big.
[00:52:10] Speaker B: Now Burger King is nasty over there. Really, it was awful. We had just landed. I'd have been up for three days.
[00:52:17] Speaker A: And my.
[00:52:18] Speaker B: I told my. It was. I put. I told my wife to go find us something to eat in a foreign country. That's how safe it was. I said, just go find us something. I don't care. So she comes back and Burger King, I'm getting ready. Turn to this. But I'm like, oh, I take a bite.
She said, I spent $20 on that. You better. This is Nor. I didn't know. I said, I'm not eating that. I said, you can have it. She took a bite of same thing.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: Spit it out, D. What was so bad about it?
[00:52:46] Speaker B: So sweet, I guess. And. And I was sick for days, too. I don't know. Yeah, it was real sweet taste. And I don't know if it's from all the sugar we put in our stuff stasis.
I don't know. Because we were sick for a few days too, whenever we landed. Like our body was detoxing from all the processed stuff.
[00:53:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why we all just grow our own stuff. Be all a lot better if we did.
[00:53:10] Speaker C: So you ever have any trouble with customs?
[00:53:13] Speaker B: My wife usually just. I wear long sleeves and my wife,
[00:53:17] Speaker C: okay, I was going to say, because, man, they learned that they raped me through the cold.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: And when I went.
[00:53:23] Speaker C: And I mean, I don't think I'm at, you know, that, but, I mean, I can't imagine you buy.
[00:53:29] Speaker B: We got global entry, too. So we don't take our shoes off or anything.
[00:53:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's nice.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: They monitor us.
[00:53:34] Speaker C: Yeah. But once you start, I guess. I guess it was because when customs found out that I had never flown in an airplane and I'm fixing to go to Israel, 7,500 miles away from home, and I've never even been in an airplane. I guess that may have threw some red flags or something. I don't know why.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: Are you going?
[00:53:51] Speaker C: Yeah. What doing are you. You doing? You've never left your house before. What are you doing?
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Never left East Tennessee.
[00:53:56] Speaker C: What are you doing? Yeah, so I just wonder, you know, big beard, you know, I had a pretty good beard when we went to Israel. But I mean, I. You know, tats and beards and everything. I'm like, I bet you customs are. I guess not. But if you've got the global pass
[00:54:09] Speaker B: through jfk, too, and they're pretty strict in jfk. It's New York City.
[00:54:13] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:54:17] Speaker A: well, we current.
We're up to date anyway.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: Pretty much.
[00:54:22] Speaker C: Now. What are you now. I mean, this is kind of irrelevant, but at your job now. So what are you doing now?
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Kind of like a shop manager, foreman. Let's kind of keep the stuff going.
[00:54:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:54:33] Speaker B: Stage tires. Make sure to put up for customers.
Say, make sure just wheels are turning. People are doing.
[00:54:39] Speaker C: Everything's rocking. Okay.
Keep the conveyor belt going.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I'll show you how to do s. You ready? Whatever we need to do.
[00:54:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:47] Speaker C: Right. Whatever needs.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: That's your answer, Whatever we need to do.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, my hand still black.
[00:54:52] Speaker C: Still. Still.
[00:54:53] Speaker A: Whatever we need to do.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: Still have to do. Whatever needs to be done.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: We need to do.
Whatever we need to do. Whatever we need to do.
[00:55:02] Speaker C: I got you.
[00:55:02] Speaker B: Okay to do.
[00:55:04] Speaker C: Well, we all started from the bottom.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: I just wonder now we here.
Jack, thanks for joining us, man.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: Thanks.
[00:55:10] Speaker C: It was awesome.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Appreciate it. You took time out of your evening with your family to come and talk and catch up. That was good with me and Matt.
[00:55:18] Speaker B: I appreciate y'. All.
[00:55:19] Speaker C: That was good, good stuff.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: Thank you guys for listening. Another episode in the books.
We're. Me and Matt have taken a little bit of a break.
Life got kind of crazy. We may get into that, but we don't have to bring it up now.
But we're trying to get back on track. We've got a lot of good viewers.
[00:55:36] Speaker C: Been down a month.
[00:55:37] Speaker A: Well, I got a good guess for our viewers to hopefully get back on track with.
We ain't going nowhere. Thanks for still watching and still catching us on our new episode. So we'll get another one out shortly. Thank you all. Have a good night.
[00:55:51] Speaker C: I'll see you all next time.
