WHO ARE THEY…. Tim Koch

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Where are they? [00:00:04] Speaker B: They're probably upstairs. They never answer the door. [00:00:10] Speaker A: Oh, wait, it's Monday night. [00:00:12] Speaker B: They're on the second floor. [00:00:26] Speaker C: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Second Floor Sessions. We are here again in Bearden at the Biopet lab. Poo Prince, if you will. If you've got a pet and your best interest is towards the pet, come and check them out, call them, figure out exactly what they're all about. They've got a lot of different things, new stuff going on with genealogy and just tracking of dogs and everything. So check them out if you're in need. Today's episode, we have got Tim Cook here, who is a retired LA county fire captain. I think this episode is going to be really good. [00:01:03] Speaker B: It is, Absolutely. [00:01:05] Speaker C: So, Tim, thank you for coming on the show and taking the time out of your day to do that. We really appreciate it. But we'd like to tell the viewers a little bit about Tim and who he is and where he comes from. [00:01:17] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks for having me. [00:01:19] Speaker C: Oh, thank you. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Tim Cook spelled Koch. It's German spelling. English pronunciation. There's a cool story behind that. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Christian. That's number one always. [00:01:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:01:33] Speaker A: Before. [00:01:33] Speaker C: I like that. [00:01:34] Speaker A: Before you identify with anything. That is first and foremost. And I also happen to be a retired LA county fire captain, single father of three kids. Boy, girl, girl. And they are 24, 22 and 20. [00:01:51] Speaker C: Wow. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You got your hands. [00:01:54] Speaker C: We got young kids. Can't you? Both of us. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Y' all got kids? [00:01:59] Speaker B: Got three. I got three. [00:02:00] Speaker C: I have two. [00:02:01] Speaker A: That's the Lord's blessing. [00:02:02] Speaker B: It is. It is. [00:02:03] Speaker C: When we get done, I'll tell you about my little one's soccer practice today. I didn't get to see it, cuz I'm here, but I got a phone call for me. [00:02:11] Speaker B: I don't know if it was for you. We'll get right back to you, but did three. Did three throw a wrench in. In. In the. In the. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, man. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Two has felt like it was. I knew what I was doing. [00:02:21] Speaker A: You're playing man covers. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, Yoda. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Now you got three. You got to go to a zone. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Oh, man, it's. It's next level. And then I just wanted. I love when people say that they got three kids because I've got to ask them that. That third one really stir things up. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Changes everything. [00:02:37] Speaker C: I liked. I've never heard somebody say, you're playing, man. Had switched his own. [00:02:41] Speaker A: You're still playing, man. I mean, assuming you' with their mom. [00:02:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. That's fine. [00:02:46] Speaker A: And then when the mom goes, then I'm playing, you know, three on one. [00:02:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. You're outnumbered big time. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [00:02:54] Speaker C: Well, where'd you. Where'd you grow up? You born out in California or what? [00:02:59] Speaker A: I was born in Chicago and moved out and I'm the youngest of three. Older sister, five years older, and my brother was 10 years older. And. And so my folks always wanted to move out to California, so that had to have been around 69 or 70, you know, you had a lot of people coming west, you know. Yeah, so, yeah, we came out west and, you know, wasn't too crowded and didn't. Was much different than the way it is. [00:03:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I could imagine. [00:03:33] Speaker A: But yeah, grew up Socalboy, Southern California. SoCal. [00:03:38] Speaker B: SoCal. [00:03:39] Speaker C: Everybody knows what that is. Okay. [00:03:42] Speaker A: It's funny because, like, I came here, we have a. A group of law enforcement and fire retired guys that meet down and I would say Maryville, and they go, oh, no, no, no, no, it's Merville. [00:03:55] Speaker B: That's Merville. Yeah. [00:03:58] Speaker A: We know you ain't from around here if you're saying Maryville. [00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:01] Speaker C: You want to blend, say Knoxville and Merrill. You'll blend. Yeah. [00:04:07] Speaker A: So, yeah, I grew up in SoCal and San Fernando Valley. You guys heard of that? San Fernando where they. You ever heard the movie Valley, Girl? [00:04:18] Speaker C: I don't think I have either. [00:04:20] Speaker A: Okay, good, good. San Fernando Valley, just. It's pretty famous valley and it's just over the hill from Hollywood and. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, them. [00:04:32] Speaker C: Oh, okay, okay. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:33] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So you're low. That's lower part of California or kind of. It's not. Is it right in the middle or lower side or. It's not upper right. [00:04:41] Speaker A: Southern California would be in the South. [00:04:42] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, you said SoCal. [00:04:44] Speaker B: So cowboy, I wonder where you was going with that. [00:04:46] Speaker C: Not far from San Diego. [00:04:48] Speaker A: SoCal is right by NorCal. At some point. There's a line between. [00:04:52] Speaker B: There's a meat. There's a meat right there. [00:04:55] Speaker C: I got you. [00:04:56] Speaker A: No, but, yeah, so San Fernando Valley would have, like, you know, famous high schools. Van Nuys High School, where Marilyn Monroe went. [00:05:05] Speaker C: Okay. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Don Drysdale, the, you know, Dodger pitcher. [00:05:09] Speaker B: Okay. [00:05:09] Speaker A: You know, stuff like that. So. But a lot of famous people down there in San Fernando Valley. [00:05:17] Speaker C: Okay. [00:05:17] Speaker B: But I had no idea. I didn't know about that. [00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:20] Speaker B: So how far. How far Harpworth or, you know, is that where you. Y' all moved to originally? [00:05:27] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. All right. So is that. How far is that from top. From Hollywood? [00:05:35] Speaker A: Well, we'd have to go distance Wise versus time wise. Okay. Time wise has changed a lot. Okay, so probably from the west end of the San Fernando valley, maybe about 15 to 20 minutes. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Oh, oh, that's nothing. [00:05:51] Speaker A: Okay, 15 to 20. 15 miles. [00:05:53] Speaker C: 12. [00:05:54] Speaker A: 15 miles. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Okay, that's nothing. [00:05:56] Speaker A: But nowadays that, that would take you over an hour, probably an hour and 15 to get there. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Oh, Joe, that really. Yeah, it's something that used to take 15 is now taking an hour. Well, I mean, roughly 45 minutes to an hour. [00:06:10] Speaker A: I'd say, you know, it's probably about 15 miles, but back in the day you probably take it 20, 25 minutes. Now it's probably hour and 15. [00:06:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:20] Speaker A: That's crazy. That's crazy. [00:06:22] Speaker B: I've always thought I've wanted to go to California. I don't know why I would want to go to California, but I've always thought it'd be pretty cool to go. [00:06:28] Speaker A: California geographically is a really neat place, offers a lot of things and I mean there's a ton of farmers and ranch lands and, you know, cowboys. [00:06:42] Speaker B: I don't think, when I think California, I don't think any of that right there. I don't think of any of that. All I can think of is sand and surfboards. Yeah, that's all I think that's just, that's what I've always seen when you. [00:06:54] Speaker A: I mean it's such a, it's such a tall state, you know, from. Goes all the way from Mexican border up to Oregon. It's really tall. And there's really just like three huge cities where, you know, population so big. San Diego, Louisiana and San Fran area. Okay, so. But yeah, LA county itself is. It's like a little over 4, 000 square miles. So I, I did look up like Knox out here is like 529. Wow. Square miles. So. Yeah, okay, the math on that, you know, you. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Shoot. [00:07:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. [00:07:36] Speaker C: Wow. [00:07:36] Speaker B: I wouldn't have thought that. [00:07:37] Speaker A: And then the biggest, one biggest county in America is San Berdu, San Bernardino county. And that's like 28, 000 square miles. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Wow. [00:07:49] Speaker C: So that's got to have some farmland on it. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Does it? It does, it does. But yeah, there's. There's a ton of, I mean highest production and Avocados beef. All this stuff comes from California. [00:08:03] Speaker C: I've got some, some guys I know run a couple of stores out Fresno and Readley. I believe it's a name of one of the places. But, but yeah, I know those guys. Actually, I, we were talking before the podcast about the Dodgers game. Versus the Braves. I was just at. I actually FaceTimed guy I know out there, and I was like, hey, man, look where I'm at, beating our Dodgers. Well, we wasn't at that time. It hadn't started yet. I was like, yeah, this might be ugly. We'll see. But it turned out Braves one. [00:08:33] Speaker B: So I got. I got questions. So when you moved to Cali, did you stay in Cali pretty much your whole life? In that. [00:08:42] Speaker A: In that area jumped valleys. I went from. Went from San Fernando Valley to Santa Clarita Valley. [00:08:51] Speaker B: Okay. [00:08:52] Speaker A: It was a little bit more further out in the country. You know, the last place I lived in LA county was. It was like the last establishment of homes and then miles of open land, you know, forest land, unimproved land and whatnot. [00:09:12] Speaker B: Okay, so now school me on LA county versus LA. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Okay, so LA county has, I said 4, 4000, 4, 100 square miles or something like that. And there's a lot of cities within Los Angeles County. So think of it as maybe, okay, you got Knox county here, and. And we're sitting in Bearden, but that's still Knox County. But it's Bearden Farragut is still Knox County. Right. But they're their own city. So, like, LA county encompasses this whole geographic region. And there's other cities in there that can have their own government, their own law enforcement or fire services or whatnot. Because all the in the city services or county services in the taxes, that's how you pay for, like, your fire service and law enforcement. Okay. [00:10:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:19] Speaker A: So I learned out here, where I live in Harden Valley is covered by Karns Fire Protection District. And so there's no taxes. They'll still respond to your house. But I have paid like 5:46 a year for their services. Or they would bill you per hour based off, you know, like, if you had your house, you know, like, the engine would be like 2,000 bucks an hour, the truck would be 3,000 and so on and so forth. So if you didn't pay that 546. So that being said, with all these cities within Los Angeles county, you have LA City also. Yeah. So you have LA County Fire Department, you have LA City Fire Department. Both autonomous. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both separate entities themselves. Okay. [00:11:14] Speaker A: So like LA county, we're the second biggest department apartment in the nation, second to FDNY. [00:11:23] Speaker C: Okay. [00:11:23] Speaker A: We have 177 stations, cover from the desert to the sea. [00:11:29] Speaker C: Wow. [00:11:29] Speaker A: And FDNY, I believe, has 212 or so firehouses. [00:11:37] Speaker B: That's wild. [00:11:38] Speaker A: LA City has like 103 or something, mind you. We got LA County Fire has got 177 stations and LA City is still in LA county and they got 103 stations of their own. Right. So that's 280. And then you have other departments like Pasadena, where the Rose bowl is. Okay, yeah, Downey. And all, you know, all these other departments that might have smaller, you know, amounts. [00:12:11] Speaker B: Stations. Yeah, yeah. [00:12:13] Speaker C: Would you, would, would LA county always respond? Even if it was just a city fire, they would still go. [00:12:20] Speaker A: So when we border on each other, because, you know, we do have some first end districts that border upon other departments. You know, it's a race. Like say if there was a structure fire and it's right on the county line. County city line. [00:12:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:36] Speaker A: We would, we would love to be first due on a fire just inside their district so we could poke them in the ribs, you know. Yeah, I mean we're, we're a real fun loving, loyal group of firemen everywhere, but we do like to poke and jab. Oh yeah, tremendous pranksters. And I mean we pull pranks on each other all the time. [00:12:59] Speaker B: It's. [00:13:00] Speaker A: We could, we could talk about a little bit of that too, if you want. Oh yes, absolutely. Fireman are great pranksters. [00:13:07] Speaker C: Yeah. Well before we, before we go too far into that fire, I feel like that's going to lead everything because we'll just have a question after question. But so I mean, would you go to public school? [00:13:19] Speaker A: I went to private schools my whole life. [00:13:20] Speaker C: Okay. [00:13:22] Speaker A: We were Baptist when, when I was born and so I was dedicated in a Baptist church. And then I'm the youngest of three. Both my older siblings went to public schools. And then all my friends were where I live, not all of them, but some good friends where I live. They went to a private Lutheran school. And so, you know, I'm just this little five year old kid and I want to be with my friends. So, you know, I told my parents I want to go to school with, you know, so. And so, and so we went to a Lutheran school that had a church and it was K through 6. And so, you know, we just started attending church at the Lutheran, you know where I went to school at. [00:14:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:14:08] Speaker A: And so I guess we're defaulted Lutherans, you know, so. But honestly, growing up, I mean, you know, I played baseball with a lot of Jewish people. You know that because it's right, right over by Agora and by Calabasas and there's a lot of Jewish people that. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Now was those, was those actual Jews or they're like Jewish, as in messianic. Like they believe in Christ or is they. Or do they just believe in. In God. And that's it? [00:14:42] Speaker A: Yeah, just. Just God. So like. But it was so, you know, back then it was so welcoming because like we would invite our Jewish friends over for Easter, they would invite us over for Passover. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Passover, yeah. [00:14:56] Speaker A: And you know, it's just two totally separate people, but I mean, we're all together, you know, and so I mean, that was just a nice way to grow up, you know. And then, you know, you know, baseball team or whatever, you'd have a, you know, somebody's birthday or end of season party and, and you'd have a pizza party. But if it was at a Jewish guy's house, you couldn't have like any meat on the pizza. It's got to just be a cheese pizza. [00:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:23] Speaker A: So, you know, growing up with that. Hey, where's the pepperoni? Oh, it's at, you know, Tony Schwartz's house. So. Yeah, you can't. [00:15:29] Speaker B: No, yeah, yeah. [00:15:31] Speaker A: Pork. [00:15:31] Speaker C: No. [00:15:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's got to be. Yeah. [00:15:33] Speaker A: Kosher whatnot? No, no big deal. Oh, okay, cool. Give me another slice of cheese. You know, but so yeah, went to Lutheran schools and on to Lutheran Junior High and Lutheran High School, but in that mix too. So I mean, you take, you know, a lot of you guys went to private school. So you have religious. [00:15:57] Speaker B: We're public. [00:15:58] Speaker A: Oh, you're a public. [00:16:00] Speaker C: Public school kids. [00:16:01] Speaker B: Public or trouble? We're troublesome. [00:16:05] Speaker A: But so we have a lot of faith based learning in there amongst all the other, you know, stuff you need. So even, you know, going in junior high and high school, you know, you have these other classes and we'd study other religions, we'd study other denominations and everything. [00:16:23] Speaker B: And that's pretty cool. [00:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. And I tell you what, by studying other religions, what it did is it made me a stronger Christian. [00:16:33] Speaker C: That's what I feel like it would do for me if I took the time to study it. It would make me realize, well, well, [00:16:39] Speaker B: I think another thing for me with, with studying something like that is your, you've got your prayers and then your Presbyterian, you've got your Lutheran, you've got your Baptist, you've got, you know, your Calvary Baptist, you got your, you know, your First Baptist, then you've got. They all have their different. Even the Baptists have four or five different. Oh yeah, maybe more now. I don't know. And then your Presbyterians got two majors and then your Lutherans have Got two [00:17:06] Speaker A: or three different Mennonites, your Amish, and. [00:17:10] Speaker B: But learning all of that I think would be really neat because, you know, because sometimes as human as I'm speaking from, from for myself is you get into, well, they believe this and they ain't, you know what I mean? You get this, I'm better than you or whatever or, you know, that sort of thing. And I think it's really good to learn that sort of, you know, denomination. I'm Baptist, so I grew up Baptist. But looking at that, you know, and saying, well, he, you know, the Presbyterian, they don't believe in baptism, they sprinkle, you know, or whatever the case is. But you understand why they do this while we baptize, you know, why, you know, Lutherans do. They do something totally different, you know. So I think it's pretty interesting. [00:17:55] Speaker C: Just helps you understand everything it is, [00:17:57] Speaker A: you know, I think no matter what, you just gotta, you gotta respect people, you know, whatever their beliefs are. You know, like I said, I born into a Baptist family, we became Lutheran. But then when I was like 13, after studying, you know, different religions and different denominations and, and whatnot, I go, shoot, you know, there's a non denominational church that I would like to go hear this one pastor speak. And I was 13, youngest in the family. And I said, ma, I want to go check out this church, you know. And so we did. And I fell in love with it because there was a vast array of people from different backgrounds and different races and everything like that. And I just found that so welcoming. So I couldn't say that any one denomination was right. I couldn't say anything. [00:18:57] Speaker B: No, I agree 100%. [00:19:01] Speaker A: But I knew that I was a simple kid and I'm a simple man. And I know if you believe in Jesus as our savior, son of God, [00:19:10] Speaker B: that's the end goal. [00:19:11] Speaker A: That's, that's to save us from our sins. Yeah, I can do that. And I could, I could spread his word, you know, so I can't say the wrong. I can't say that either. Yeah, but I would. I don't want to exclude by putting different monikers and names on, on all this stuff. I would rather include the inclusive. And I could be totally wrong, you know. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Well, when we went to, when we went to Israel, they made a point to say that you were a. Don't tell them that you're a Christian. Don't tell them that you're. You tell them that you are a believer in Jesus. They don't want you to say Christian because to to in Israel, you have Palestine, you have. You have all kinds of different people over there, and you tell that you're a Christian to the wrong person. They take. It may not. They don't. The Christian that they might know is not. You know, it may be something totally different, but you're a follower of Jesus is what you are. And. And that was kind of hard. [00:20:09] Speaker C: I was like, well, I'm. [00:20:10] Speaker B: I'm a Christian, you know, and they're like, no, just don't do that. We're in another country here. [00:20:14] Speaker A: You know, don't act. [00:20:15] Speaker B: Don't act crazy. I mean, when I got there, I did chill out a little bit because customs absolutely raked me through the coals. I mean, absolutely rake me through the coals. I'd never been across country before. I've never been in an airplane until I went to Israel. [00:20:28] Speaker C: Wow. [00:20:29] Speaker A: My goodness. [00:20:32] Speaker B: That's one. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Hey. That's one way to get over it. [00:20:35] Speaker B: I hope I like it because it's 16 hours. [00:20:38] Speaker A: This. A little bit of trivia. Do you know when the followers of Christ were first called Christians? [00:20:47] Speaker C: No. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Book of Acts. Book of Acts. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Okay. [00:20:52] Speaker A: They were called Christians. Okay. So it's funny, you know, So I have a lot of buddies from, you know, the job and from school and whatnot. There's like five of us from high school that were still in contact frequently, all the time. And so I. I just love talking about Jesus, talking about the Bible. And so in our group, there's a lot of slapstick stuff, but I do like to throw out just some trivia. [00:21:22] Speaker C: I love Bible trivia. I can sit for hours. [00:21:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's awesome. And. And not to make it competitive at all. And it doesn't matter. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Learning, it's. It's learning together. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:32] Speaker C: Oh, I'm competitive. [00:21:33] Speaker B: I thought she was meaning like a timeline. [00:21:35] Speaker C: I'm Peter. I'm competitive. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. That's good. I'm gonna win, and I love it. No matter. No matter what, the correct answer is coming out. And that's knowledge, right? [00:21:47] Speaker C: You're learning. [00:21:49] Speaker A: So one. Since I would do that all the time, one of my buddies renamed the group for a little bit. They called it kbi. And I'm like, what the heck is KBI he goes, knoxville Bible Institute. You know, I thought it was pretty good. He's changed the name since, but, yeah, he's just kind of. Anyhow, first and foremost, you know, being Tim Cook. Regardless. Anything else? I'm a Christian man, follower of Christ. And, you know, if I bring glory to his name and Bring others to him. That's what I'm here for. That's why I think any of us are here. [00:22:23] Speaker B: That's what we're put here for. Yeah, that's absolutely it. [00:22:28] Speaker C: So private school. So how in the world did you decide or when did you decide or what made you decide? You know what? I want to be a fireman. How did that happen? [00:22:40] Speaker A: So it's a little interesting. I either wanted to be a pastor or to be an obstetrician. [00:22:50] Speaker C: What's that? [00:22:51] Speaker A: Obstetrician delivers babies. [00:22:53] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [00:22:54] Speaker A: You know, your guys wives and people, you know, they go, the OB GYN. Right. So I'm, you know, like a 16 year old kid and I, I just thought I could either be a pastor or I thought bringing new life into this world, that's got to be a great job, you know, delivering babies. So I'm 16 and then come to find out you can't just do that. You got to be a gynecologist too. So you got to do all the exams on the ladies and. [00:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:26] Speaker A: You know, when they're not pregnant and you know, on up to old ladies. And then I go, whoa, I ain't gonna do that. [00:23:35] Speaker B: Scratch that idea. [00:23:37] Speaker A: Yeah, so OBGN is out. And, you know, I played sports my whole life. I went to Zeus Pacific University, played football and I was going to play baseball too, but left. And so my buddy Carl, he got hired on the fire department. Young, early, and he was a couple years older than me and we used to train together and whatnot. He was a great athlete. And then he got hired by the fire department and he goes, hey, man, you ever thought about being a fireman? I told him, yeah, well, you know, I wanted to be an obstetrician so I could deliver kids. And he goes, firemen, paramedics, we deliver kids. [00:24:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:19] Speaker A: And he goes, and it's a bunch of us ex athletes because the job's so physical and it is, you know, a whole lot of. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I can't imagine. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, we got people that played professionally and everything. [00:24:35] Speaker C: So. [00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah, not everybody's like that, but. Yeah, you know, as dumb jocks that we're just willing to sweat and work, grunt, be physical and we love that, you know, and then, you know, you get hired on, they start teaching you a whole lot of technical stuff and, and the ability to deliver kids and save lives and. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:25:02] Speaker A: It's, it's not always. You have more losses than wins when it, when it comes to. [00:25:11] Speaker B: That's tough. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Saving lives. Yeah. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's tough. [00:25:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Nobody. [00:25:16] Speaker B: I've never heard a statistic like that, so I didn't. Did not know that. [00:25:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you just kind of. [00:25:22] Speaker B: My wife's being emt, and she's never told me. Or paramedic. She's never told me that, so I didn't. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah. More losses than wins. Okay. [00:25:30] Speaker C: Okay. [00:25:30] Speaker A: That's why the winds kind of stand out more. And then a lot of times you don't even find out, you know? [00:25:36] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:25:37] Speaker A: I'm sure you just go and do [00:25:38] Speaker B: your job and do all the best you can do. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Go to a few full arrest. The full arrest. You know, somebody's stopped breathing, their heart stop. Stop beating. That's called, you know, cardiac arrest. Full arrest. And so you go to a few full arrests a day and, you know, you bring them into the hospital and you're thumping and pumping on them and pushing drugs and innovating them and all that stuff. And then, you know, we transfer to you hand them over, then we gotta be ready to go for the next. [00:26:09] Speaker B: The next. Yeah. [00:26:11] Speaker A: And so you don't. You don't always find out. Sometimes you do, though. Sometimes you do. And it's really neat because, like, there's this little girl. I didn't deliver her, but one of the stations I was at, 124s, one of the medics, like Ev. All medics in LA county are firemen. Okay. So there's no. It's together. But you could also be just a fireman too. You don't have to go to medical school. But. So one of the other medics had delivered her and they would come by the firehouse every year on her birthday. They probably still do it if they still live in the same district. So you get pictures with this gal, you know, a little baby on up sequentially. And I think the last one I took with her, she's like 15 years old, and that was probably like 10 years ago. [00:27:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:05] Speaker A: So that little girl that you delivered [00:27:07] Speaker C: probably has a fan by now. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, so that kind of stuff is neat, you know. And then sometimes you get a call from like our PIO department public information office, and they say, hey, we need you to be at this gathering here because one of the people you worked on, you brought them back. Back, and like you never knew, you know. [00:27:28] Speaker B: That's gotta be a pretty cool feeling, though. [00:27:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:30] Speaker B: I mean, it does. It's gotta be a pretty cool feeling that you've got if it's a. You know. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, every morning, though, all of us, we yeah, we gotta make sure to take our humble pill. Okay. So it was just what these hands were taught to do and this brain was taught to do and train to, to give. We're, we're your only shot. We're your only shot. You know, nobody calls 91 1. Hey, I'm having a great day. [00:28:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:02] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, yeah. [00:28:04] Speaker A: People call 911 on their worst day. So anything you see on the news or read about newspaper and so many things, you don't call 91 1, we're going to be there. I always say, like we see more, you know, dead people than the corner does. Because not every case is a corner case. You know, people that die in their home and yeah, it's natural causes and you know, you just call the mortuary, have them come on out. So they never really explain that to you before you get hired either is how much death you see. [00:28:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:37] Speaker A: So. And yeah, be able to pull up your bootstraps and go on the very next call. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be able to [00:28:46] Speaker C: put it behind you. [00:28:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:28:48] Speaker A: We had a guy, a paramedic trainee. So it takes. Paramedic training is like two years worth schooling jammed into five months. And then you have a month of clinical at a hospital and then two months of your internship on a squad just like you guys. Ever watch Emergency Squad 51? Old Johnny Gage, Roy DeSoto? [00:29:14] Speaker C: I haven't seen that. [00:29:15] Speaker A: A little too young for that anyhow. So it's, it's quite an undertaking to become a paramedic. It's a long multifaceted thing to do. But once you, once you get it and you're trained, you go out to the field for two months under two preceptors that you know, watch you work and can jump in when things are bad. So I remember we had this preceptor and there's no easing into it. I mean do you show up at the firehouse? Whatever we get, we get. And you're up. So I remember this one guy, it's his first shift, man, it was about 8:30 in the morning. His first call. Four year old brother and sister. Four and five year old brother and sister drown in the swimming pool. That was his first call. Wilted, couldn't perform so we had to step in. And you know, that one did not end well. And this guy was shell shocked and he couldn't go on anymore. That was it. That was, had just spent seven months in this program. First call the water. [00:30:35] Speaker C: What was he thinking? I'll just be fighting fires. I mean he couldn't be going through [00:30:39] Speaker A: because it's like, these are not nice things that we go to. No, no, it's not nice. [00:30:47] Speaker B: It takes a different. [00:30:48] Speaker C: I. [00:30:48] Speaker B: My personal opinion. It takes a different type of person. I mean, I don't know that I could do it. You know what I mean? I don't. [00:30:53] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:30:53] Speaker B: I might be that guy that folds. I. [00:30:55] Speaker C: You know, things are different when you see a dead kid. [00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:30:58] Speaker A: You just don't want to. We are there to do the best we can to mitigate whatever crisis is in front of us. And so that's why I was saying earlier, there's a lot more losses than there is wins. And that stuff, it sticks with you. But we just. Firemen, we shove it down. We shove it down and. And then, you know, you. You retire, and then a lot of stuff comes flooding back. [00:31:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Then you get to sit around, think. [00:31:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:34] Speaker A: So it's. And, you know, we joke around with it a lot, but there's, you know, there's a big PTSD thing with us, and we could. We could function with it. Y' all know what PTSD is? [00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah, Yeah. [00:31:51] Speaker A: A lot of times I'll. There's so many acronyms in our field, and I'll say stuff like that, but, you know, figure maybe you guys know that one. [00:31:59] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. So what about your first call? [00:32:05] Speaker A: I don't even know. [00:32:06] Speaker C: You don't remember? I. You know, obviously it wasn't like that, guys, you know. No. [00:32:11] Speaker B: What was your first. I guess, first one that you do remember. Do you have one that. It was early on, earliest, [00:32:20] Speaker A: so I was on an air attack crew where, you know, you fly in and we have fire. We're big, big department. Like I said, LA county fire. And so we have air attack crews where there'll be like eight of us that'd be on a copter. And we would fly in to the fire and, you know, inaccessible areas, and we'd start cutting perimeter control lines around them and putting fire out. You know, you ain't got no water, the copter drops you off, inserts you. You go to work, try to catch a head or flank of this fire, and then copter goes off and gets water. And at that time, we're flying in Bell 205. So Huey's like the, uh, ones that you would see in, like, Vietnam and whatnot. So he carried about eight of us. And they had a retrofitted tank and not even retrofit, a fabricated tank that one of the copter mechanics put a Patent on he invented thing. And so that would carry like 350 gallons of water. So I had come out of training for that, and that was my first day on the floor. It was on the air attack crew. And, you know, we pop a fire. You pop so many brush fires there all the time. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Right. [00:33:40] Speaker A: You know, so it's just the hotbed for brush fires. And, and going in on, flying in on that. And I remember looking at it from above, and I'm going, this is pretty damn crazy. This is like nobody in their right mind would choose to be down there. [00:33:59] Speaker C: Flying into a fire. [00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Dropping off, fly in. [00:34:02] Speaker B: And then they're, they're, they're leaving you. Yeah, they're going to go get water, [00:34:06] Speaker A: you know, so there's eight of us and a foreman who's the engineer rank and just started battling Eddie, you know what Eddie, Some of us, we call fire Eddie, you know, but yeah, you start battling Eddie taking what the fire gives you. Get to work. Yeah, it's not an option. [00:34:26] Speaker B: So, I mean, it was the, was the, the helicopter. Is that a. Is that a normal thing? Yeah, up there. Okay. Okay. For us, if you see a helicopter throwing fire, it's like something's real bad, you know, around here is what I would think. [00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:39] Speaker B: You know, but we're, you know, there, I guess, is different. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's different. And now we have. Most of it are Blackhawks, you know, we call them Firehawks. We do have. We don't have any more 205s, but we have some Bell 412 still, but mostly firehawks, and they carry up to 14 guys or gals. And a thousand gallons of water. [00:35:05] Speaker B: Yeah, boy, that's a bunch of water. [00:35:07] Speaker A: Great. And we, we were testing the Firehawks before I got out of that unit, and. Yeah, just. What a workhorse. Great, great lift, you know, so. But [00:35:22] Speaker B: that's. So now when you were. So you say build a perimeter. I mean, I guess that's. I've seen it before. So you just go out and just. How does that, how does that work exactly? If you, if you don't have no water, you don't have nothing there. [00:35:38] Speaker A: I mean, tools and chainsaws, okay. [00:35:40] Speaker C: You're cutting out stuff that's going to spray and burn. [00:35:42] Speaker A: So you separate the burn from the unburned, you know, so if you, you try and have the wind at your back, fire leaning into, you know, what's burning. [00:35:51] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:51] Speaker A: And then you could either, you know, scrape what's left into the black or scrape away the unburn from the Black and let it burn itself out. And then, of course, copter's coming and they'll come in and they'll drop along that hot flank of fire, you know, so. [00:36:10] Speaker B: Okay. [00:36:11] Speaker A: It's a coordinated effort. [00:36:12] Speaker B: Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure it is. [00:36:14] Speaker A: You got fuel. Weather and topography, you know, is what makes up the wildland fire triangle. So. Yeah, you could have terrain driven fire because it's got a lot of mountains out there and hills and whatnot. And then we get the Santa Ana winds. You all heard of them? Santa Ana winds comes out of the Great Basin and blow like. I'm sure you probably saw the Palisades fire a year ago January, where it burned down, like all those homes. [00:36:43] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Terrible. [00:36:46] Speaker A: So those are Santa Ana winds is blown like 80 miles an hour. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like uncontrollable. I mean, it's almost uncontrollable. Yeah, there's nothing you can do. [00:36:55] Speaker C: The Gatlinburg fires, you know, when those gallon you. Do you remember seeing that on the news? [00:37:03] Speaker A: No. [00:37:03] Speaker C: So there was a big fire and up in Gatlinburg, it started, I think they said some kids lit some fires or tires on fire and rolled like two tires down a mountain. Yeah, well, it started a brush fire. Well, it been. We were in a drought. It had been real dry. You know, I don't even think campfires were allowed at that time. That's how dry it was. But. And I may be wrong about that, but. But it started spreading and spreading and spreading. Well, they're. They're battling these fires up there and like, they battle them for an entire night and day and whatever else. Well, they just can't get them contained. They're trying. They're trying. Well, then that night it was supposed to rain. I mean, it evacuated homes. People we knew had homes burned down. You know, nothing but a slab left and. And all that. But it was supposed to rain that night. But before it was going to rain, it was gonna be windy for, you know, until the storms got there or whatever. And it was like 60 mile an hour winds up at that elevation, you know, and it was like blowtorches. It just spread and burnt down home after home, and it was terrible. You know, Trapped people up there and killed them. Yeah, you know, all. All kinds of stuff. But I'm assuming it's the same thing. It's like a blowtorch. [00:38:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty what you just described as like a routine deal down in SoCal. [00:38:13] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Y' all would probably annihilate. Something like that. You're prepared for it. Well, fly in there and. Custom stuff. Yeah, just him. That's all they need. Tim and a pilot. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Not anymore, but yeah, we also have dozers, fire bulldozers, Big fleet of them. So. Yeah, we do. [00:38:35] Speaker B: It's an operation. [00:38:37] Speaker A: It's huge. You know, it's around here. [00:38:39] Speaker B: I don't even know. I mean, I don't even know if anybody. Do they have that around here? [00:38:43] Speaker C: Hey, firsthand, what you don't remember when I was young, my dad about burned every house around us down. You don't know that story? Oh, yeah. They came and they came and dug a fire trench around our property. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Oh, really? [00:38:57] Speaker C: Yeah, that's how bad it was. He cut our entire. So he's burning some brush in our back field. We had. We had a backfield. We had woods in our house and then front field. And he was burning some brush back here where the wind got up and it got over in the woods and it just came up through our woods all the way up to the back of our house from our back field back there. Well, the fire marshal was on vacation and when. When he got back in town, he wrote my dad a letter. But they came out. I don't know how many counties came out or how many different, you know, substations or whatever. Yeah, they came out. They took a Bobcat and dug a fire trench around our property and everything was. So, yeah, they got stuff to have here. I know firsthand. [00:39:37] Speaker A: Yeah, there's so much humidity out here, you could never. It's. You can never get it as dry as, like, SoCal. SoCal is just a hot bed for brush fires. [00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's what you always hear in Cali. I mean, I see it. [00:39:55] Speaker A: Before I moved out here, it hadn't rained in six months. [00:39:59] Speaker C: That's crazy. [00:40:01] Speaker A: Dryer in a popcorn fart. [00:40:03] Speaker C: So what's starting all those fires out there? Is it like natural things like lightning? Or is it people. [00:40:09] Speaker A: Sometimes you get some lightning strikes. But like i5, you know, we're all. That's all on the west coast, so that's where the interstate system starts numbering. So the 5 Freeway out there, Golden State Freeway, it runs all the way from Mexico up to the Canadian border, you know, and so as there's a lot of truckers, we'll say, you know, transporting. Getting people the goods they want. The Amazon, the this and that, whatever. And, you know, they might blow a tire or something like that. And they're rim riding and throwing Sparks into the brush and the dry grass, which is. [00:40:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:57] Speaker A: You know, extremely dry. And it'll catch some. Set stuff on fire. [00:41:02] Speaker B: Or it could be flicking a cigarette butt out. Yeah. Something that simple. [00:41:06] Speaker A: That's wild. [00:41:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:08] Speaker A: But, yeah, so, yeah, it's a hotbed. [00:41:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:13] Speaker A: It's just different. Different. [00:41:15] Speaker C: So when you say you were so. Okay, so your first. When you first went in and you graduated, whatever it is you need to go through training and everything else and you go in. Where were you at then? Damn. Was you on that. That air support? [00:41:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:32] Speaker C: Okay. That's how you started out. [00:41:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And then there's so many. With LA county, you have so many things you could do. You could do hazmat, hazardous material. You could do usar, which is urban Search and rescue, you know, so, like, I think LA county sent a team over to Nepal. You see that flood? [00:41:51] Speaker C: Yes. [00:41:52] Speaker B: Oh, that was terrible. [00:41:53] Speaker A: They just came back from, I think it was Venezuela, had an earthquake, and [00:41:57] Speaker C: so they're sending people all over the place. [00:41:59] Speaker A: They are, yeah. You know, depending on, you know, what it is. Yeah. Most time, like earthquakes and floods and stuff. [00:42:05] Speaker C: I feel like they'll be over there in Nepal forever looking for those people. [00:42:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:10] Speaker C: I mean, they're buried. [00:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And then we have. We have dogs. Shoot, I don't know how many dogs we got now. Search dogs, you know, for bodies and whatnot. Companion dogs and whatnot. You can. So you'd be part of. [00:42:26] Speaker B: You. [00:42:26] Speaker A: Sorry. You could be a paramedic. You can be in fire prevention. You could be with the heavy equipment, with the dozers. You'd be in air ops, which is, you know, the copters where you're dropping water. And also, like an air ambulance, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of things you can do. [00:42:47] Speaker C: Yeah. So where did you go through? How did it go from you entering to being in the air to eventually becoming captain? Did you go through a lot of that stuff or did you just kind of how. [00:43:02] Speaker A: Yeah, so then, you know, you're a firefighter. And then I wanted to go to medic school, so I went to. The department will send you through medic school and. And that opens you up to a lot of different stations you can bid. And then normally you would go from that to engineer the one that drives a fire engine. And just so you know, a fire engine is the one that has a tank of water. You don't see it when you're driving down the street, but if it has, like a whole bunch of plumbing gauges and stuff on, that's A fire engine. [00:43:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:41] Speaker A: Fire truck is with all the ladders. Okay, okay. No, no water on it. So. And then they started making quints, which. That means it has five things. It has hose, water pump, ladders, and the tools, you know, so it's got five things. [00:44:06] Speaker B: A quint. [00:44:07] Speaker A: A quint. [00:44:08] Speaker B: A quint. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:09] Speaker C: Okay. [00:44:09] Speaker A: Because in a fire engine is by NFPA standards. NFPA is National Fire Protection Agency. They said, like the lingo and the language and the standards across the country. So a fire engine is called like a triple because it has three things, three main things. The hose, the engine. I'm sorry, the hose, the pump, and the water tank on it. Like 500 gallons on a standard fire engine. But when you see what people call the hook and ladder, that's fire truck. [00:44:43] Speaker B: Okay. They know there's a difference. [00:44:46] Speaker A: Fire engine, fire truck. [00:44:47] Speaker B: Okay. There's a difference. [00:44:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:44:52] Speaker B: Now in the midst of all of that is. So I guess after you become a paramedic, is there a. Is there a time period there where you have to. Like, before you become captain, you know, is there. How do you work your way? I mean, is it just like a ranking? Like, you wait for two or three people to step out? I mean, or is it just a ladder system or. [00:45:26] Speaker A: So the. The levels of the ranks would be firefighter, firefighter, paramedic, then an engineer who drives either fire truck or fire engine. He's the one that drives and pumps. And then fire captain, and then a battalion chief, assistant chief, deputy, chief, chief deputy, and then the overall fire chief. So those are the ranks. Other departments will have different names or a different step in there. So like fdny, their engineers that drive the fire engines or the fire trucks, they call them a chauffeur. A chauffeur. [00:46:11] Speaker B: Okay. Chauffeur. Chauffeur. [00:46:14] Speaker A: And yeah, New York language. Hey, where's the chauffeur? Hey, come on, get the chauffeur. [00:46:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Brooklyn. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And then they also have. Before you become a captain, you become a lieutenant and then the captain song. But I mean, it's all, you know, it's paramilitary organization and whatnot. So we have our. Our rank and whatnot. They can tweak a little. [00:46:42] Speaker C: So what. What was the duties there of the fire captain position? What was your responsibilities? [00:46:49] Speaker A: I'm responsible for my crew. So anything they do, I'm responsible for their safety. I'm responsible for the tactics that we're gonna, you know, deploy on a fire. [00:47:05] Speaker B: The. [00:47:07] Speaker A: You know, everything from. And report. Like, if you're a first, do for your first on scene, you got to give a report and over the radio and try and make it short and concise. You know, where you at, what you have, what you need, so on and so forth. [00:47:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:25] Speaker A: You know, so you're responsible for paying everybody on duty. You're responsible for. For enforcing the rules and regulations of the departments. [00:47:34] Speaker B: So you kind of in. In overall responsible somewhat for their actions, if. [00:47:42] Speaker A: Thousand percent. [00:47:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:47:43] Speaker A: And if you're a good captain, you'll take the heat for them too. Not saying, like, if they did something wrong, bad or wrong, nobody comes to your fireman and rips their behind. [00:47:54] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:55] Speaker A: It don't work like that. You come to me. [00:47:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:58] Speaker A: You know, so the captain will take the hit. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. That's neat. [00:48:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So you're responsible, but you're also working position too. [00:48:07] Speaker C: So that's at like one fire station. Is that accurate? [00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So the way it works now, is [00:48:12] Speaker C: that your fire station or there other captains in the fire station? [00:48:16] Speaker A: There. There is other captains in the firehouse. So typically we work 24 hour shifts. Now, different departments can do their schedules differently however they want, but it's typical. Do 24 hour shifts. And so we have three separate shifts. We have A, A, B and a C shift. And so if there's 30 days in a month, you're going to be working 10 days a month, like John Q. Public says. Yeah, I only work 10 days a month. Well, there are 24 hour shifts. [00:48:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Oh, well, you sleep all night. Oh, really? [00:48:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:51] Speaker A: Come right along with me. [00:48:52] Speaker B: Yeah. See how much you sleep. [00:48:53] Speaker A: So if I'm working in the, in the ghetto, in the hood. Yeah. It rarely gets. [00:48:59] Speaker B: Yeah. All night long. Yeah. [00:49:01] Speaker A: So if you take 10 shifts a month, 24 hour shifts, that's 240 hours. So if you're working 40 hours a week times four weeks, how many hours you work? [00:49:11] Speaker B: It's 160. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Oh, you're good at math. [00:49:15] Speaker B: That's 160. [00:49:17] Speaker A: So you'll have three separate. [00:49:19] Speaker B: I didn't even think of it like that. That's wild. [00:49:22] Speaker A: So you'll bid a firehouse. But like, say if you bid, you know, if you're going to Fire Station 124, you would bid what shift if there was a vacancy or an opening on that ship. So you might, you know, put a bid in to go to 124B. [00:49:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:49:38] Speaker A: So, yeah. [00:49:39] Speaker B: So that just puts you on a different week or a different day. I guess you'll say a different 24. [00:49:46] Speaker A: So with LA county, the, the schedule will Go. You work a day, you're off a day, you work a day, you're off to. You work a day, you're off one, you work a day, you're off four. And then the whole cycle starts over. But they are so short manned that they have to recall you. A lot of times the guys can sign up for overtime to fill those spots and you know, make time and a half. And if they run out of those people, which they offer every day, I'm sure. And they're like, hey, you're recall. And there's no, like, I don't want things. [00:50:23] Speaker B: I don't. [00:50:23] Speaker A: It don't matter what you got going on. [00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Figure it out. [00:50:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:50:27] Speaker A: You know, you get recalled. [00:50:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:29] Speaker A: You get recalled in your job. [00:50:30] Speaker B: No, I don't. No, I don't. [00:50:35] Speaker C: Maybe, I mean, it's happened, but it's not on the norm. [00:50:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But things can happen and so it's not a choice. Like we, we can't go. Nah, I don't want to do. [00:50:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:46] Speaker A: And then, you know, big conflagrations, big, big fires. You might be gone two weeks. [00:50:52] Speaker B: Golly. Yeah. [00:50:54] Speaker C: That's crazy. Yeah. [00:50:57] Speaker A: I mean, I've gone a week, you know, working out there a week, no shower, nothing. Sleeping out. [00:51:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:05] Speaker A: On the fire line, sleeping. [00:51:07] Speaker C: What you can get. [00:51:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:08] Speaker B: So I bet you when you do get to that point though, I bet it's a crash, isn't it? [00:51:14] Speaker A: You know, it's kind of funny. So sleep with us. We get conditioned differently. So like you don't need sleep every night. As long as I got like one decent night of sleep a week, I'd be okay. [00:51:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:33] Speaker A: Then like if you go off on injury or when you retire or whatnot, you're like, I'm tired. You didn't realize you're so tired, you know, Is your just conditioned to getting up? Yeah, I'm being short on sleep. [00:51:52] Speaker C: So how long did it take you to make captain? [00:51:56] Speaker A: Well, that's a choice. You know, you can take a test, I think bare minimum, you have to have five years on before you can even take the captain's test. And really that would be a little short in my opinion because you probably hadn't seen enough or done enough to do that. But that's, you know, that's bare minimum. So you can, you can take that test whenever you want. It's a competitive test, you know, multi phase. Deal. And so I would have done it sooner, but I was raising three little ones on, you know, on my own. And so I promoted later in my career, you know, so. [00:52:47] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's got to be tough for. With. With three kids to. To do 24s. [00:52:55] Speaker A: I got all my caregivers from church. I got Christian ladies. I put a. Well, first of all, I put my hands out. I asked the Lord to take away my worry. I remember it's 2009, and I was so busy raising these kids and working [00:53:13] Speaker B: full time in 2009. They'd been young then. [00:53:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So the kids. When their mom and I split, the kids were 6, 5 and 3, and the girls had just turned 5 and 3. So I had all this on my plate. And so I was in the upstairs hallway in front of the laundry room, and I'm just like. And I held my hands out like I was holding a platter, and I spoke out loud and I said, lord, I just pray that you take my worry away. Haven't worried a day since. True story. [00:53:49] Speaker B: Wow. [00:53:50] Speaker A: It's awesome. Says that in James, chapter one, you know, verse two. And on, you know, say your prayer. Believe. Believe in your prayer. Yeah. Because if you don't believe in your prayer, it ain't going to come true, you know, So I appealed to him, and at least he. He took that. That worry away from me. So I don't say Tim Cook did it. I did it because I allowed the [00:54:16] Speaker B: Lord to come in you and. And take care of that for you. Absolutely. [00:54:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:21] Speaker A: And then one thing I've gone on, I love to. To share this. As the Lord tells us, hey, do the birds of the air worry about what they're gonna eat? The flowers of the field. Do they worry? So we're. He tells us straight out, don't worry. But we can. We can. If you still want to have some of that. Let's change W's. Let's change that worry. To wonder. It's okay to wonder how things are gonna, you know, pan out. [00:54:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's good. I found myself. Stuff that I've went through recently and things that happen in life, me personally speaking for myself, that I. That happens in life that are really large to you, like a kid going through. Your kid going through cancer, stage four cancer. You learn these things that you once worried about when you ask the Lord to be like, you're going to have to help me with this, because I can't. I don't. You know, I can't. I can't do this on my own. We're going to have, you know, and these things that I used to worry about. There's no absolute no worry anymore. And still to this day, it's kind of like you said, I don't worry about that stuff anymore. You know, what was in front of me at that moment was the largest worry that I think that I possibly could have. You know what I mean? [00:55:48] Speaker A: And can man even extend his life one day by worrying? [00:55:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we can wonder, though. Yeah, we can wonder. I do like that. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Wonder is okay. Use it. Please use it. [00:56:00] Speaker B: I like it. [00:56:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good stuff. [00:56:04] Speaker C: But. [00:56:04] Speaker A: And just, you know, the whole fire service thing, you can't be part of the problem. You got to be part of the problem solving team. And we have more losses than we do wins like we talked about. But you have to be really service minded and think of others before yourself, you know, so. And that combined with a lot of ex athletes, it's a wonderful career. Even amidst all the bad stuff that we see and do, we know that serving you guys, we're gonna give you the best possible chance y' all got. Yeah. You know, you could be driving down 40 here and you know, some. Somebody comes and hits you and now you're in a precarious life or death situation. And you know, we're gonna come there and do everything like we do. We're gonna cut you out of that [00:57:06] Speaker B: car, save you, do whatever we need to do to get you. [00:57:08] Speaker A: We're going to do whatever we can. And it's a real service. We work for you guys, you know, and we don't take that lightly. And we train hard, we train hard, we remain current. We get new stuff all the time. And training, so training is a huge part of it. So we ain't just sitting around fire. [00:57:26] Speaker B: Yeah, you're just sitting there collecting a check. Yeah, yeah. [00:57:30] Speaker A: Every morning, I mean, we. You got to check out the rigs, you got to make sure all the equipment's on there, that it's operational. Start everything, make sure you got full boat, because at any moment that bell could go off. And you know, just like I told you about that day one paramedic training, you know, it's got four. [00:57:49] Speaker B: Is a fire department. I mean, this is not all fire departments, but they all have the, the pole that you see the firemen sliding down. [00:57:58] Speaker A: No, no, they don't. So that, that's really a throwback from the horse drawn steamer engines. Right. And so firemen, the quarters would be up above in the next to the hay loft, you know, and so that was the quickest way down. And they would, they would release a deal. The harnesses would come down right on Top of the horses because they're staying in the stable. [00:58:23] Speaker B: I had no idea. That's right. [00:58:25] Speaker A: You know why? Here's a, here's a little fun fact. You know why dalmatians are typically associated with firehouses? [00:58:34] Speaker B: I have no idea. [00:58:35] Speaker A: Okay, so first of all, dogs were in the firehouse to chase the rats out of the hay loft and, and where all the horses were. Right. But when they're coming down the street, the horses, you have all these other neighborhood dogs that be chasing after the horses and nipping their heels and whatnot. So the firehouse dog, they would have chase away those other dogs that were trying to get at their fire horses. And because it's easier so the horses can know which dogs were theirs. A black and white spotted dog. So that's how dalmatian became to know. You know, became known as universal fire dog. [00:59:15] Speaker C: I did not know that. [00:59:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty interesting. [00:59:16] Speaker A: And dalmatians also are great with horses. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Okay. [00:59:20] Speaker A: Okay. [00:59:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:24] Speaker B: Now when, since. Okay, so say we may come back to the, the fire now, after you've retired. Do you do anything now fire related? Anything medical related? Anything, you know. So are you retired? [00:59:45] Speaker A: Well, I'm, I'm retired. [00:59:47] Speaker C: Right. [00:59:47] Speaker A: And you know that it's, you spend most of your life doing this and it's, you know, like, like I said when we first talked, I'm a Christian. That's my identity. But I did this for work and a role and so there's a big identity of that. And you're never going to stop being a firefighter. I mean, you know, just driving down the road, you're, it's ingrained in us to look for hazards and whatnot. Dangerous situation, you can't set that down. And so we're very like minded in that out here. There's 26 ex or retired LA county firemen that live out here in Knoxville now. So the first Monday of every morning of every month, we go meet at Flying Biscuit, 8, 8:30 in the morning for breakfast. [01:00:54] Speaker B: The third Thursday, you said how many? [01:00:57] Speaker A: There's 26. Not all 26 go. I haven't gotten them like, but I [01:01:00] Speaker B: mean, how many, how many on a Monday? [01:01:04] Speaker A: Oh, you might have anywhere from. [01:01:06] Speaker B: And they're from LA County, LA county alone here. So. So is this guys that you worked with or is this some of them? [01:01:14] Speaker A: Some of them because, you know, LA County's big. We have like 30. [01:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:17] Speaker A: You've got. [01:01:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:01:19] Speaker A: Hundred firefighters. [01:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:20] Speaker A: Just in LA County. [01:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:22] Speaker A: LA City also has like 3,000 of [01:01:24] Speaker B: their own and they're here. That's wild. [01:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So, and then the, the third Thursday every month, we meet at the Wendy City Grill and Murrayville Merville. [01:01:35] Speaker B: There you go. All right, I know where you're talking about now. [01:01:38] Speaker A: And that's a law enforcement and fire get together for lunch there from guys from all around the country. I mean, I went last Thursday. I was sitting next to two Sacramento county deputies, you know, from California skies, from FDNY FBI guys, city of Miami firemen. [01:02:04] Speaker B: So you're enjoying the retirement life then? A little bit, yeah. That's awesome. That's good. [01:02:08] Speaker A: And I, you know, that's good. [01:02:09] Speaker B: I just. The only reason I asked that is I've got. I've got customers at my store that, you know, they are retired, either medics or their fire that they've retired out of. And they still, they still want to do some, you know, I mean, not that you don't want to do anything, but they still want to be in, you know, almost like they don't want to turn it off, I guess, but just kind of like what you're saying. They still want to be kind of involved. And, you know, I'm not on the, on the payroll, but I'm here. You know what I mean? I didn't know if that was something like you. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah, you do absolutely go through a little bit of separation anxiety there, you know, kind of like, well, who am I now? [01:02:54] Speaker C: But. [01:02:55] Speaker B: And how many years did you do it? [01:02:57] Speaker A: 33 and a half. [01:02:58] Speaker B: 33 and a half. Yeah. I'm sure that's 33. That's hard to let something go like that after doing it for that long. [01:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:03:04] Speaker B: My wife was. Was, was paramedic for six, and she even said she was like, it feels weird not to, you know, get that adrenaline that. Ready to go fix whatever's going on, you know, and then I can't imagine for 33 years. [01:03:20] Speaker A: I, I do. I tell you, I do like being in my own bed and sleeping at night. I do love that, you know, that's something you don't get. [01:03:28] Speaker C: So how long have you been retired now? [01:03:30] Speaker A: Three and a half. [01:03:31] Speaker B: Three and a half. [01:03:32] Speaker A: Are you. [01:03:32] Speaker C: How long did it take to get on, like, a normal sleep schedule for you? [01:03:35] Speaker A: About 14 months, so over a year. Because all of us have this recurring dream, all of us. And you'll still have it occasionally. And this is a topic of discussion amongst us in the industry nationwide. So we have this one dream where we missed a call. We didn't get up at night and get on the rig or we can't find our turnouts, you know, our turnouts are our fire, those that we wear. And everybody has that same dream, you know, with different frequency. But even guys been retired 20 years, they go, yeah, every couple years I have that dream still. So took me about. And then when you have a lot of time to think back, things that you've seen and done, you're not looking for them to pop up, but they pop up. And all of a sudden, it could be a run that you hadn't thought of for 15 years, and all of a sudden it pops back in your brain and, you know, it's. It's real somber thing, you know, you get. You know, I don't know how deep you want to get into this stuff, but, yeah, there's. There's some bad stuff there. And this pops into your mind at random. So sometimes you can't sleep because. [01:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure. [01:05:00] Speaker C: Do you have thoughts of when? Because this would be. I couldn't. We've talked about this before on the show. I would. I couldn't do it because I. And I can't leave work out at work now. Like, if it was something that actually meant something, I know I couldn't. I mean, because what I do don't mean a whole lot, you know. [01:05:21] Speaker A: No, that's not true. [01:05:22] Speaker C: You get off and you go home and literally everything can wait till tomorrow. You know, your stuff is. [01:05:27] Speaker A: Everything that people do means a whole lot. We're no different. I mean, we have our role, and y' all have your role, and. And I mean, they're equally as important. [01:05:39] Speaker C: Well, in my mind, you're doing better stuff than me when you're saving lives and I'm fixing a tire or whatever. [01:05:48] Speaker A: Now how are we going to get down the road? Well, if you don't fix that now, [01:05:51] Speaker C: see, there it can. It can join in something like that, but I just feel like I would not be able to. I mean, I couldn't let it go. I would. Here's what I think. I'm retired fire guy. I've been. I did it for 30 years. I'm having things pop up in my mind, and the next thing I would think of is, dang, what if I didn't do that and I did this? But I don't know, y' all might be just. It's. It's so. You're so ingrained with training. It's only one way and that way works, or it doesn't, and that's the end of it. Maybe you don't think that way. [01:06:22] Speaker A: You Know how to tie a knot? You know how to tie a bowline? [01:06:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Do you think about it? [01:06:26] Speaker C: No. [01:06:27] Speaker A: There you go. It's rope memorization. You just train certain way. You, you do it the same way. Paramedicine is like that a lot. You're just taught to recognize what you have and then break out your toolbox, you know, your med box and, and, and apply it. [01:06:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:47] Speaker A: To the te. [01:06:49] Speaker B: To the te. [01:06:50] Speaker A: You know, so it's. I tell you, being a paramedic is a pretty awesome thing, what you can do with that training, you know, it's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. [01:07:06] Speaker C: I know a guy who was a medic in Vietnam and they had trained here him. Now this is opposite of what we're saying, but they had trained him to dress this kind of a wound in this way. [01:07:20] Speaker B: Right. [01:07:21] Speaker C: So apparently in Vietnam it was just a nasty and disease ridden and you know, and all that stuff he said, he got to the point to where he didn't do none of that stuff that they told him to do. He carried safety pins with him and he would safety pin everybody back together. [01:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:37] Speaker C: Like just because, you know, you got fire coming in on you or whatever and you know, it's nasty and you just need to cover up as fast as possible and try to get it. So he started doing that. [01:07:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there is some, some certain things that you could, you could tweak some of that stuff, you know, with what works. I mean, there's the way things are and then there's a way things actually need to be. [01:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For it to work correctly or better. [01:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you're. We're just constantly training, you know, I mean, cutting people. I'd never seen two cars crumple the exact same way. And so when you're cutting people out of vehicles, you're always presented with new angles and, and you know, whatnot. New, new trouble and how to mitigate that stuff all the time while somebody's just circling the drain right in front of your eyes. You know, you got to get a couple large four IVs in them, patch up their holes and extricate them at the same time. [01:08:39] Speaker B: There's a lot going on. [01:08:41] Speaker A: You're working. [01:08:41] Speaker B: There's a lot going on. [01:08:42] Speaker C: You ever animated somebody? [01:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. More than I can count. Yeah, yeah. It's just you spend, you spend that amount of time in a hot bed like la. I mean, I, you know, I've forgotten about more fires than I can remember. More, you know, in a basin. [01:09:06] Speaker B: So normal. It's just. Yeah. [01:09:07] Speaker A: This is what you do. [01:09:08] Speaker C: Yeah. You're just. [01:09:09] Speaker A: How many tires you put on? [01:09:11] Speaker C: No hotel. [01:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:14] Speaker A: It gets to the point now if. If you're working in Not a busy department or you weren't a paramedic, you know, that. That would be a more marked event. I remember one time I got. Well, I got called in numerous times for depots, you know, whatnot. Most times just as a subject matter expert, you know, that was on the call. Wasn't like I was getting in trouble in court or anything, but I. I remember this one lawyer saying, oh, it was a real bad call. You remember because you guys even flew in a helicopter to airlift them out. I go, ma', am, if I had a nickel for every time I personally called that in to bring a bird in, I go, that's common. [01:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:03] Speaker A: I mean, that's calm. [01:10:04] Speaker B: That's just. Yeah. [01:10:05] Speaker A: We had one of my paramedic trainings. Jason, he was, you know, with us for 20 shift. And. And at the end of that, he goes, dude, I flew 25 people out of here in that 20 shifts. We're like, oh, wow. I mean, it's just, you know, you work in a. Bad stuff's gonna happen. And if you make this choice to be part of this career, you want to put your skills and training to use and so you'll go to busier spots. [01:10:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. You want to be doing something. [01:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I didn't become a fireman to not fight fire. [01:10:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:47] Speaker A: You know, so, I mean, what are we doing here? [01:10:50] Speaker B: I think it's wild to think of what you said a second ago is. [01:10:53] Speaker C: It's. [01:10:54] Speaker B: You are those people that's going through something. You're their last call. [01:11:00] Speaker A: That's. [01:11:01] Speaker B: That's pretty. I mean, yeah, that's pretty powerful stuff. That's. [01:11:04] Speaker A: That's, you know, until we get you to the hospital. [01:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. I mean, exactly. But they're not calling the hospital. They're calling, calling. And then you're. You're the one. It's you on the other end, you know, so. Yeah, that's. That's pretty good stuff. [01:11:17] Speaker A: So whatever's coming, you know, whatever's out there. Yeah. [01:11:20] Speaker C: So what are some memorable. Obviously you got a ton of them, but, like, just something I'm trying to think, like, I guess unheard of. Like, it was a wild call. Like, is this something you. It was out of the ordinary. Just something that sticks out to you. Is there anything like that? [01:11:39] Speaker A: So we had a. [01:11:41] Speaker C: Like you was talking to some other firefighters, but, man, listen to this. This happened to us. Like, is there anything like that? [01:11:47] Speaker A: So we, There's a lot of that. And it's just a matter of which which one? [01:11:52] Speaker B: Which crazy which. Yeah, I mean, it's just which wild one you want? [01:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. [01:11:59] Speaker C: Well, to me, I mean, flying in on helicopters, cutting brush up to fight a fire there, or flying people out and everything else is pretty wild to me. I mean, you don't hear, care about that stuff around here, you know? Yeah, I mean, that stuff's not happening around here. Not like that. [01:12:12] Speaker A: I mean, that's just. So right now they're burning, burning up down there in SoCal. So those boys are. They're doing the same thing, flying in, you know, almost daily on, on different fires. It's just, it's real frequent. The frequency of you applying your skills and training, you know, that you learn. But I, I will talk about one, one call. You know, we had traffic collision on the freeway and you know, high speed impact, whatever. And that, that, that's something public shouldn't see is what happens to bodies. Yeah, High speed deal like that. Yeah. So. But that's something we see every single time. [01:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:13:01] Speaker A: well, not every single accident. But you know, when, when that stuff happens, they call. Right. So there's this. I was the, the medic, you know, the hands on medic patient man. And we had a high speed deal and oh gosh, this guy must have been in his early 20s or whatnot. He's having agonal breathing and you know, he just jacked up. You know, arms and legs are looking like question marks and you know, all twisted around. [01:13:38] Speaker C: Was he in a car? [01:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:40] Speaker C: Okay. [01:13:40] Speaker A: On the freeway. High speed collusion. [01:13:44] Speaker C: And [01:13:46] Speaker A: my friend Tori and I saved him. Biologically, we. He went into full arrest twice. Stuck two needles in his chest because he had collapsed lungs, pneumothorax. And so we did a needle T decompression, bilateral chest re inflate his lungs and we kept them alive. And then this something I didn't know Tori actually found out about it. They were able to harvest six things from that body. So we saved a non viable person and in return that person saved six other people. Yeah, so. And he told me that. I was like, holy crap. You know, because he's an organ donor and whatnot. And that's not your normal. You know, we got feedback on that one, so that one. [01:14:44] Speaker B: So I mean technically you could have. I mean if you could have just let you know this is, it's a, it's a. He's deceased. He's passed on. But you actually, you know, he's not. [01:14:57] Speaker A: Piercing is not. We have a criteria for death, and so it takes. We can't. We don't play God with our hands. [01:15:05] Speaker B: No, no. [01:15:06] Speaker A: So. And we just go down algorithms, and this person was technically breathing, you know. Okay, so, you know, it ain't gonna end well, but you still go to work as if it's viable. [01:15:21] Speaker C: And. [01:15:22] Speaker A: And, yeah, so that. That's kind of. That's a neat story, I think. [01:15:28] Speaker B: That is very neat. Yeah, absolutely. [01:15:30] Speaker A: Even, like, you know, we've had miscarriages, and you have a baby that can literally. I mean, it's maybe about as long as your iPhone. [01:15:42] Speaker C: Right. [01:15:43] Speaker A: And the fetus is so transparent, and that's not viable. But I remember a call, and my partner, Ben, that day, so, you know, she has a miscarriage. We deliver that. That little tiny fetus, and I look at Ben, I got this little thing in one hand. I go, ben, look. Yeah, I could see the heartbeat. [01:16:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:16:14] Speaker A: It's like, dude. He goes, you know, we know it's not going to make it. I go, but we don't get to decide, you know, so let's load up real quick and bring this little thing in, you know, with. With a heartbeat, you know, so. [01:16:32] Speaker C: Well, I talked to. My son was in ICU for a long time when he was born, my youngest one was. And while we were in there, not the. Not the nicu, we were in the picu, the pediatric icu. He had already left the hospital, went home. We had to take it back. And. And they had a bunch of NICU nurses. They are working. So I'm. I am like, with you, I'm like, I want to know about stuff, you know, So I started asking the ones that's watching that night over my son or something. I'm like, so tell me about the nicu. Like, what's the smallest baby, you know, that you ever delivered in there, you know, or had in there? I mean, you know, and he's like, that lived. And I'm like, shoot, I didn't think about that. Sure. You know, lived or not. He said, well, I'll tell you what, I don't know. Lived, not lived. But I can tell you that the smallest ones that we have come in through come in there and, you know, you're holding them in your hand like that, you know, they're so small. You can see through them all the way through. Like you said, Transparent. Yeah. Yeah. You can just see right through them. [01:17:40] Speaker A: My mom was crazy nurse for 28 years. [01:17:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:43] Speaker A: And I remember. I still remember the kid's name, Jimmy Pananski. He was like a pound and a half. And Jimmy made it. [01:17:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:53] Speaker A: That kid. I mean, he's probably 50 years old now. [01:17:56] Speaker C: He's monster now. [01:17:58] Speaker B: He's huge. [01:18:00] Speaker A: So, Yeah, a lot of different. A lot of different stuff like that, you know, just. [01:18:07] Speaker C: So tell us, you. So you've retired and you're enjoying that, it sounds like. Yeah. How in the world did you decide that East Tennessee is where you would grace us with your presence at? [01:18:21] Speaker A: Well, it was great growing up in SoCal. You know, beach Boys are making songs about California girls and whatnot. [01:18:30] Speaker C: Right. [01:18:31] Speaker A: You know, the Beach Boys. Are you. [01:18:33] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:18:33] Speaker A: Okay. [01:18:34] Speaker B: All right. [01:18:36] Speaker A: It was a great place to grow up. And it wasn't that crowded. You could get around, and it just started to get more and more impact, you know, It's. I live on the other side of the Santa Monica mountain range, so, you know, you get the coastal influence there, and then it kind of gets blocked by Santa Monica mountains. And then if you're not by the coast, it's kind of. You go into the high desert where I lived, but it's just on the other side of those mountain ranges. So it's always dry and it's always windy. When it rains, it. You know, just torrential downpour. But it might not rain for six months. And so it's dusty, dry and everything. And it is neat. But I was kind of done with that. I didn't really know what. I bit off with the humidity here. I love any weather the good Lord throws at us, but I'd have to say summer. This is my first full summer here. [01:19:46] Speaker B: This is a rough summer, too. [01:19:47] Speaker A: Is it? [01:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah, this is. Thank goodness. Yeah, this is a rough summer. This is probably. [01:19:51] Speaker C: I mean, we've had some hot streaks, you know, up in the. But not like we've been sitting on, like, 98 for a week. [01:19:57] Speaker B: No, but the humidity has been through. [01:20:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:20:00] Speaker B: I mean, outside's been terrible. [01:20:03] Speaker C: Man, it's always bad. [01:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:05] Speaker C: Like, there ain't. [01:20:06] Speaker B: I just don't. I don't remember it being this bad for this long. This. [01:20:10] Speaker C: And. [01:20:11] Speaker A: And. [01:20:11] Speaker B: And hit so fast. Oh, man. [01:20:13] Speaker C: I mean, we're in August, like, but we. We should start going down from here sort of. Yeah. [01:20:18] Speaker A: A couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago, I was mowing my lawn at 9. 23 at night, because that was the coolest part of the day. [01:20:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:20:26] Speaker B: You know, and it was still terrible [01:20:29] Speaker A: the other day. I was mowing like an idiot. I was out there at noon and just drenched. Yeah. Yeah. And so I fish. I'm a bass fisherman. I love fishing. East Tennessee's got all this water. It's almost too much. It's like hard. [01:20:47] Speaker C: You don't know where to go. You don't know what direction. [01:20:49] Speaker A: I have been to so many places already, but there's so much of each waterway, you know, and so yeah, it's, it's a, it's a big change. But fishing, I feel there's more God fearing people out here. [01:21:09] Speaker C: That's fair. [01:21:10] Speaker A: LA area is, you know, and it's great. People from all over could come in. They're welcome and everything. I feel like it's not as nice as it used to be because different, different countries and cultures and whatnot. So it's a little bit changed. So I just felt like there's more God sharing people out here. I like that. And that's beautiful. Started coming out here 2018 and it's just kind of grown. [01:21:47] Speaker B: Are your kids still here with you or are they? [01:21:50] Speaker A: So I have, my youngest is here with me. My middle daughter elected to stay out there and she's doing well. And then my son is at his girlfriends in Peachtree City, Georgia, and he got a job down there. Okay. In Atlanta. So, you know, he's kind of hybrid here and there, but mostly there. [01:22:12] Speaker B: Right. [01:22:13] Speaker A: You know. [01:22:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:22:14] Speaker A: So. [01:22:14] Speaker C: And that's not a bad drive. We just made it, so. [01:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [01:22:17] Speaker C: It's not that bad. [01:22:17] Speaker A: It took me 2 hours, 35 minutes to get back. [01:22:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:21] Speaker A: Up home today. [01:22:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it's not bad at all. [01:22:23] Speaker A: And my friend Jeff, retired battalion chief, he, he lives in Colombia and so he, he met us out there. [01:22:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:31] Speaker A: And he says like four hours for him. [01:22:33] Speaker C: Yeah. And he was in Columbia, Tennessee. [01:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:22:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:36] Speaker A: Okay. So not only I told you, we got 26 from LA county here in Knoxville, but we also have a group in middle Tennessee. [01:22:46] Speaker B: Did y' all talk to each other and say, let's go to East Tennessee or did you just wind up. [01:22:49] Speaker A: Well, we have, we also have a lot of guys in Idaho. So you guys go to like Arizona, Idaho, Texas, Tennessee. A lot of us go there, so. And then another reason to leave California is math. Simple math. So we all love our children. Right. And. But if you are a youngster trying to start out in SoCal, how are you going to pay for housing? How are you going to buy a house? How are you going to travel to work? How are you going to get that wage and you get taxed so much? I mean, the state income Tax with California is like 15%. So my thought was, like, I want to give my children the best possible chance and help them out with a little bit of math. So it's much more affordable, I think, for young people starting out here then it would be in SoCal, unless, you know, you're. The parents are helping out so much. But if you have multiple kids, like. [01:24:01] Speaker B: Yeah, you can't do that. [01:24:03] Speaker A: There's the math in your bank account, too. [01:24:05] Speaker B: Yeah, you can't do that with multiple kids. [01:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and if you're a Catholic family and you have a lot of kids, kids, how do you get them all started in SoCal? You know, so it's math and. Math and water. [01:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:22] Speaker A: Is what brought me out here. [01:24:25] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. [01:24:27] Speaker C: Well, it's a long way to travel. Long way to travel. I don't know. [01:24:30] Speaker B: I. [01:24:31] Speaker C: To me, it's just. There's a lot of. There's a lot of land between here and there. You know, it's like you just, you [01:24:37] Speaker B: know, wind up in East Tennessee. [01:24:39] Speaker C: It's pretty wild. [01:24:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been good. We, you know, it started with one of our guys that retired out here, and his wife was a realtor. And so when we came out, she found out about it, says, well, you're coming over here in Knoxville. We're going to show you around, you know. [01:24:56] Speaker C: Okay. [01:24:57] Speaker B: All right. [01:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:58] Speaker B: Nice. [01:24:59] Speaker A: It's a good deal. [01:25:00] Speaker C: Well, that's cool. [01:25:01] Speaker A: Well, everybody's so nice here. And traffic. Easy. [01:25:04] Speaker C: Shoot. I think it's terrible. [01:25:07] Speaker B: I think it's awful. [01:25:09] Speaker A: If you ever go to la, you'll see what terrible is. [01:25:13] Speaker C: So. [01:25:14] Speaker A: All right. My. My Sweet Mama, she's 94. She died the day after my birthday last year and in October. But we had her in a boarding care, you know, because that was appropriate level of care for my sister. And I had her there. And my mama, she is the sweetest gal that ever lived. Never heard her say a bad word about anybody on this planet. Wow. Never heard a raise her voice saying, you know, with us losing Dolly here, I was thinking, I go, they didn't look the same, but they were like the same character. Because, you know, Dolly's such a sweetheart. I don't think anybody could not, not like her. [01:25:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:54] Speaker A: You know, just because that. That character, that. And. But so my ma's place was down in Laguna niguel, is about 90 miles from me. Okay. So I go down and see her, and it's 90 miles, mind you. Take me two and a half hours to get down there, which Was good and about four hours come back. Four hours go 90 miles. So you know, you're talking about, see my mama, I'd be on the road for six hours. [01:26:25] Speaker B: Seven hours. Yeah, six, seven hours just to go 90 miles. You know, 180 miles. [01:26:30] Speaker A: She's worth it. I do it. [01:26:31] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [01:26:31] Speaker A: Willingly. Never be moan. But those are, that's the math. [01:26:34] Speaker B: That's the difference. [01:26:35] Speaker A: That's the math you get there. [01:26:38] Speaker C: Yeah, the math. Don't math there. There's other stuff too. [01:26:44] Speaker A: It's interesting and you know, once you, you've had your fill of that stuff, you don't get, you know, starstruck or awestruck by, you know, if you kind of grown up there, you know, movie stars, who cares? You know, they pretend for a living. [01:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:26:59] Speaker A: They do what six year old girls do, you know, pretend for a living. I don't know why they think they got a voice or whatnot. I mean, honestly, is that the truth? Why would I listen to somebody that play acts for a living? [01:27:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. [01:27:12] Speaker A: That's awesome. [01:27:12] Speaker B: I had everybody, I hadn't anybody say it like that. So. [01:27:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So I mean use that platform to glorify the Lord. [01:27:19] Speaker C: You. Yeah, well, I think. Is that it? [01:27:27] Speaker A: There's so much more. [01:27:29] Speaker B: But I got, I got one question. [01:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:32] Speaker B: You said Passover. Have you observed Passover more than just when you were younger? Have you done it as you were older? [01:27:40] Speaker A: I wouldn't say we are not observing it, but we acknowledged Passover. No, but I mean, I would, I [01:27:50] Speaker B: thought that's what I was gonna say. I think every Christian needs to because we do it probably more than most. My, my wife come from a messianic background, so they observe most things. And I think everybody, every Christian should do the Passover. I think that's a super, super cool. I mean at least once in your [01:28:13] Speaker A: life just to say was a Jew. [01:28:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I know, absolutely. I, but we do it quite a bit. But I mean I think just, just the whole, the whole take of everything and taking everything in and, and, and learning about the, the steps, the, the food, the prep, the, everything. You know, if you go to it. Yeah. If you go to a one that. I mean, yeah, it's food's next level. But learning all of your different herbs and your spices and stuff, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's neat. [01:28:47] Speaker A: It's just, you know, respect to respecting your fellow man. Yeah. [01:28:53] Speaker B: I will say another thing. When I went to Israel talking about Jews, the faith that those guys have is impeccable, but they're still as lost as anybody that we have run across because they don't believe in Messiah, you know, and it's. That's tough. [01:29:15] Speaker A: Let's add something to one word yet. [01:29:18] Speaker B: Yet. Absolutely. Yet. Yeah. Yeah. We went and played music in Israel and in a worship band, and it was really cool to see the Palestinian bus driver, the Jew. These two don't. I mean, shouldn't get along. And so the Jew, the Palestinian bus driver, and a busload of Jesus, Christian Jesus believers. [01:29:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:52] Speaker B: And when we played music, to see both, whether they ever. I don't know if a seed was planted or not, but while we were there to see him and him and now the Jew he was. You could tell the wheels was turning, you know, you could definitely. This guy, I don't know, but that's between him and the Lord. But it was powerful just for them, too, to be able to come together in that 10 days that we were there to see those two actually kind of bonding. And that don't happen there. You don't get a Jew and a Palestine together. It just. It don't work. [01:30:34] Speaker A: And nothing's too great for him, though. [01:30:36] Speaker B: No, no, no. [01:30:38] Speaker A: Just give him a shot. [01:30:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I. Absolutely. [01:30:40] Speaker A: I was talking about with that little fetus and, you know, give it a shot. Let him decide. [01:30:46] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [01:30:47] Speaker A: But we'll do. We'll keep doing what we're supposed to do. You know, it's amazing. [01:30:50] Speaker B: And observing, you know, their Sabbath, you know. You know, over there. That's wild, too, that you. They. They lock the place down. They ain't nothing running. They ain't nothing. And I'm like, wow, these dudes have. These dudes are serious. You know what I mean? We need to take a little this back home with us, you know, I mean, they shut down the place. They don't, you know, their Sabbath, it's. [01:31:13] Speaker C: It's. [01:31:13] Speaker B: It's locked down. You. You're walking. You better. You better get to where you're going before Sabbath rolls around. You're going to be walking home. [01:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:20] Speaker B: I mean, they get out of their vehicles and they start walking to the neighbor's house. And this and that. You're like, wow, okay, this is how you guys do it over here? [01:31:28] Speaker A: I haven't been yet. I long to go. [01:31:30] Speaker B: Oh, you did, Definitely. It just puts. It puts the Bible into perspective. I mean, all the. All the different markers and stuff. It's. It's neat. But anyways. Well, yeah, get started on that. [01:31:43] Speaker A: One of the things, too. I wanted to bring up as a mountain, injuries that we have through the course of our employment, you know, doing all this super physical stuff, you know, so most of us. Yeah, most of us break. Yeah, I've. I've had 13 surgeries on account of the job. Bilateral knee replacements, which I came back and worked. After that was done, after I was off for the last time, I got a right hip replacement. But it just. And we have. So we love what we do. We're extremely committed, extremely loyal to. To doing what we do, but it comes out at a cost, you know, so both mentally and physically. So, you know, you really have to have that spiritual side to keep you going in whatever you do choose to do when you retire. And I think, you know, we talked about the identity and how some guys still want to be involved with that, and that's all great, and we support that and everything. So I think I know my. My pathway is I just want to be known as a Christian first. [01:33:00] Speaker C: And, [01:33:02] Speaker A: you know, that's. That's what matters, you know? [01:33:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:06] Speaker A: So absolutely. Great career. [01:33:08] Speaker C: That's a good way to end it right there. So it's good. We'll thank Tim for being here again. Thank you so much to come talk to us. We appreciate. [01:33:18] Speaker B: Definitely a pleasure and a blessing, for sure. Yeah, it was good stuff. But anyways, we want to thank Pooh Prince biopet Labs again for lending us the space, and thank you guys for tuning in on the second floor. And Tim, thank you. We'll see you guys next time.