The Days Grimm Podcast
The Days Grimm, "arguably Indiana's most comical, thrilling, and controversial podcast", This three-pronged mandate acts as a primary filter for their guest selection. The "comical" aspect is reflected in its official genre of "COMEDY INTERVIEWS" and its history of hosting local stand-up comedians. The "thrilling" component is evident in interviews with individuals who have extraordinary life stories, such as people who survived shootings, rare medical conditions, and combat. Finally, the "controversial" element is demonstrated by Brian & Thomas’ willingness to engage in difficult or unfiltered conversations, touching on topics like homelessness, artificial intelligence, and religious hypotheticals.
A crucial element of the show's tone is its tagline, "Brought to you by Sadness & ADHD (non-medicated)". This self-aware and raw positioning signals a modern comedic sensibility that embraces vulnerability and finds humor in personal struggle. The podcast's brand is not built on polished narratives but on the authentic, often messy, intersection of hardship and humor. The most compelling guests are those who have navigated a "Grimm" reality and emerged with a story to tell, and ideally, a sense of humor about it. This dynamic is the core of the show's appeal and the primary filter for identifying a story worth telling.
The Days Grimm Podcast
Ep.230 Thomas Grimm Sr. - Life as a Grimm
In this powerful episode of The Days Grimm Podcast, hosts Brian Michael Day and Thomas Grimm III sit down with the man who started it all—the original Thomas Grimm Sr. From growing up in 1930s–40s Evansville to raising a family and working hard through changing times, this conversation dives deep into the stories, struggles, and unforgettable memories of a life well lived.
Thomas Grimm Sr. shares his firsthand experiences of old Evansville, from mischievous childhood adventures and neighborhood rivalries to hitchhiking as a kid, Catholic school days, and the tough lessons that shaped his character. He recalls how his grandfather raised him after the loss of his father, the resilience it built in him, and how love, family, and a relentless work ethic became the cornerstones of his life.
Listeners will also hear:
- Hilarious childhood pranks, bicycle treks, and wild fireworks runs to Kentucky.
- Evansville history through the eyes of someone who lived it—local landmarks, the famous 1937 flood, and the roots of West Side pride.
- Stories of young love, meeting his wife Brenda on a blind date, and starting a family with nothing but determination.
- Lessons on perseverance, family values, and finding pride in simple, honest work at places like Hahn and Whirlpool.
This episode is more than family history—it’s a living time capsule of Evansville’s past, told with humor, humility, and wisdom. Whether you’re a longtime Evansville resident, a fan of real American stories, or just someone who loves hearing about how one generation shaped the next, this conversation with Thomas Grimm Sr. will stick with you.
👉 Tune in now to hear “Life as a Grimm” and explore Evansville history, family legacy, and timeless life lessons.
[The Days Grimm Podcast Links]
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDaysGrimm
- Our link tree: linktr.ee/Thedaysgrimm
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[The Days Grimm is brought to you by]
Sadness & ADHD (non-medicated)
Hello, hello, hello, hello everyone and welcome. to another thrilling episode of The Days Grimm. My name is Brian Michael Day. My name is Thomas Grimm III. Thomas Grimm III, T-A-G-3, who is joining us in the studio? Well, joining us to your right is the original, the, I don't even know, the non-Carvin copy, what do they call that? Yeah, Carvin copy. One and only. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The starter of it all, Thomas Grimm I, senior. Nice, dude. My grandpa, who I get my name from.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Big time. I'm proud of my grandson, too. All of them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I'm the only grandson.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You are the only grandson? Only grandson. Now, there's great grandsons. There's great grandkids that are boys, but of that generation, I am the only great grandson. Nice, dude. So, you say you're proud of him, so you're not disappointed by him at all?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let me think about that.
SPEAKER_02:No, I'm not. I'm proud of him. Yeah, he's a pretty good dude. We were talking pre-show and you had asked how tom and i met uh yeah he's definitely the
SPEAKER_01:better but today's not about me we're not we're
SPEAKER_02:not inflating my ego you know what i'm saying that's already it's already up there you know i always joke and say it took them three times to perfect it you know when people ask oh lord he's such a clown this guy right here oh yeah so well you know where i get it from is my papa tom are you really are you a jokester
SPEAKER_00:I've been accused of that before.
SPEAKER_02:Ever since I was little, he's always telling me new jokes, playing like he'd always in his hand, hey, come here. And he would tell like kids and they'd come up and there's nothing in his hands, but he'd like get you or spook you or something all the time. I still do that. Yeah, I know. Even with the great grandkids, yeah. Hey, that's a solid party trick, man. I'll be honest with you. Whenever you come up to him with one of those and you're like, you want it? You want... I thought it'd be cool to bring in the original to get, you know, to showcase some of it. But then also like you remember completely different Evansville than what we grew up in, which is like crazy to me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it was a lot more calm back then. In a way. It was
SPEAKER_02:still a small town. I mean, it was one of the bigger towns. Green River was the city limits, right? Mm-hmm. I have a question, if I may. You're 86? 86?
SPEAKER_03:In
SPEAKER_02:his 80s. Okay. So, like, my grandmother, she was alive. She still is alive. Virginia Brooks. She's awesome. But she has, like, newspaper clippings from, like, the flood in Evansville. Do you remember that? The one that, like, came way.
SPEAKER_00:I know what you're talking about. The one that
SPEAKER_02:flooded all of downtown. Yeah. I don't remember what year that was. But it's just cool to have, like, that life. What I think is cool is, so your great-great-grandparents, or was it your great-grandparents, they were the first ones to come over.
SPEAKER_00:Right, from Germany. Right.
SPEAKER_02:And then... It's all making sense now. But then, like, we spoke about it a little bit before. Like, your dad wasn't really around. And so you were left with your grandparents to be raised. Right?
SPEAKER_00:Well... You know, I told you, my real dad committed suicide. Right,
SPEAKER_02:when you were just two.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I was with my grandfather after that.
SPEAKER_02:Your dad's dad.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And... Then he had a lady that pretty well babysit with me, you know, and she cleaned the house and stuff like that. Boy, eventually they got married. So that's who I call mom. Right. Even though my real mom was alive at the time, but mom to me is the one there when I was little. Right. She always
SPEAKER_02:will be. If I may, I want to pump, where is mom at before the babysitter?
SPEAKER_00:Well, my grandfather... Now, you've got to stop and think now. There's a lot of things that probably I don't know about, and I think she was the reason why my dad committed suicide.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, okay, okay. So maybe kind of a shysty
SPEAKER_00:situation. And he tried his hardest, from everything I've heard from my aunts and uncles, to get me away from her.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, eventually... My grandfather was able to get custody of me, and then I had to go to a Catholic school for eight years. That was one of the agreements. So that's how I ended up with my grandfather, which is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. You were
SPEAKER_02:telling me that they would take you over to your great-grandparents' house, and everybody's speaking German, and you didn't understand any of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it wasn't really where my grandfather, he already had me, he would take me to his German family and they're sitting there talking and I'm thinking they're trying to Do something so I can understand what it was. He was talking German, and I didn't know it.
SPEAKER_02:It sounds like they have peanut butter stuck to the roof. I guess. I'm angry. You know what I'm saying? I'm saying thanks for this wonderful meal, and it's like they're sitting there yelling. Yeah, no worries. You want to move his drink next to him, too, while you're at it? Swap him around? I'm going to get everybody situated. Sorry, I got cozy.
SPEAKER_00:But under the circumstances, I consider myself very fortunate that my grandfather took me in.
SPEAKER_02:Right. What was the Catholic school you went to? St.
SPEAKER_00:Joseph down there on Garvin and Virginia Street. Oh, yeah,
SPEAKER_02:dude. Shout out to the Catholics, man. Shout out to them. Good on them, dude. So did you enjoy that or did you... What was it like growing up in elementary school? What were you into? What did you do a lot of then? What was the thing to do growing up?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we pretty well played out in the playground, actually. It wasn't funny at the time. But you know how kids are. They'll experiment to do things out in the playground. Oh, yeah. They don't always turn out like you want. Right. They had like a, I don't remember what it was, a rock or something out there. And they had a board, and they put it on there. Somebody
SPEAKER_02:jump on the other side?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then they had another rock over there. And anyway, it started to move, and I bent over to get it. And this kid jumped on the board. And my front tooth right there in the middle, of course, I got false teeth now, it chipped that off completely. And I never could whistle after that. Damn. It hurt a little bit. And it
SPEAKER_02:was a lot of bike riding. I remember you telling me a story about riding your bike all the way across town or something like that to go swimming or something.
SPEAKER_00:All kinds of stuff. We could talk all night about some of the stupid stuff that we did. I'd love to hear some of them. Yeah. What's some of the crazy
SPEAKER_02:stuff? craziest shit you did as a kid that nowadays kids are just not doing like you know what i mean like what's some crazy antics that you guys got into
SPEAKER_00:well one of them comes to mind used to you couldn't get fireworks in that in indiana so you make
SPEAKER_02:your own
SPEAKER_00:no we go over there uh kentucky oh yeah but let me tell you we'd start out on our bicycles me and my buddy And back then, people would take their soft drink bottles or whatever, just throw them off the side of the road.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And we'd pick them up, and we had a tray and the bicycles. In time, we got to Henderson, we'd have a whole bunch of bottles, and you'd sell them. You know, they would buy them. Like
SPEAKER_02:recycle them? Yeah, get a penny a bottle or
SPEAKER_00:a nickel. I don't remember how much it was. It might have been a nickel. I don't remember. But anyway, we'd get enough to buy all the fireworks we could get. And then we come back on Waterworks Road. And there's a bridge there, a little bridge. You know
SPEAKER_02:what I mean? Yeah, in between the farm fields, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. We'd go down in there, and we'd shoot the fireworks. Of course, we'd shoot them all before we got home. But can you imagine? I still think about that today. My grandfather and them would have had a fit if they knew we was riding them bicycles down Waterworks Road. And then on 41 and over the bridges in there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a hot. People don't slow down
SPEAKER_00:there. No, it's dangerous. And then
SPEAKER_02:probably even worse back then, people just gave less of a shit back then. I guess. But yeah, that's wild crossing state line. You know, I've ran that before. I've ran the... Oh, have you? Yeah. When I lived on closer to the river on the west side over here, I left from there and ran downtown over Waterworks into Henderson and then turned around and came back, like ran the whole bend. But yeah, that's not a small journey, dude.
SPEAKER_00:And then another thing that comes to mind is March of Yaqui.
SPEAKER_02:Never heard of it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, you're just a young kid. You say
SPEAKER_02:varsity hockey?
SPEAKER_00:Marsha. She was a weather forecaster.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, Marsha.
SPEAKER_00:She was really entertaining to listen to, but when she got done, you think, now what did she say about the weather? This
SPEAKER_02:lady right here. On the screen. Was she just an angel?
SPEAKER_00:That's her right there, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, so she's kind of. Oh, everybody loved her. So you had a thing for like a, was that your first crush?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I guess in a way, but I mean, I just, I really liked her, you know. But anyway, I used to ride a bicycle, and I don't know if you ever heard of Pathlands Lake. It's up there by, oh boy.
SPEAKER_02:Linville?
SPEAKER_00:No, it ain't going. Isn't that something?
SPEAKER_02:What was the name of the lake?
SPEAKER_00:Pathlands Lake. Up by Newburgh, I think it is.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's your neck of the woods.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, we would ride our bicycles up there and swim all day and look at the girls. Oh, yeah. And then on the way back, you've been up there all day in the sun and swimming and all that. Then you're wore out. Guess what? In the afternoon, the wind is blowing and it's always against you. And you're pedaling that bicycle and you're all wore out. Oh, yeah. Well, anyway, one day, some days I would hitchhike and go up there by myself.
SPEAKER_02:And how old were you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was young enough where I didn't have a motorcycle or nothing else. All I had was a bicycle.
SPEAKER_02:So under the age of 16?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_02:I think you were 10?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we might have been 10 or 11. I don't know. Just hitchhiking. Just a
SPEAKER_02:bunch of children hitchhiking. Stupid, too. We looked it up. They changed the name of Pathland's Lake to Patoka Lake. Oh, I know Patoka Lake.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No?
SPEAKER_00:No. Okay. Not that I know of. In fact, it's got houses around it now. Mr. Pathland, he had it. There's a big lake. Big lake. And he had a 27-foot high dive, which is kind of comical because a lot of us would go up there. A lot of guys and a few girls would go up there and dive off of it, which to this day I can't imagine that. That's terrifying. And I don't know how many times I went up there and I'd chicken out to even jump off of it.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, no
SPEAKER_00:kidding.
SPEAKER_02:Well, we brought up Linville a minute ago. Did you ever spend much time up in Linville? Yeah, the stripper pits. Yeah, did you? Were the stripper pits a thing when you were a kid or were they still like quarries?
SPEAKER_00:Well, they were quarries and, you know... Didn't really mess around with them until I got to fishing and hunting. I've done a lot of fishing and hunting up in that area. So
SPEAKER_02:we'll cover that a little later. Okay. Stay on hiking to lakes.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, get back to Marsha Yawkey. She got in trouble one time for flying her airplane. She flew an airplane. This lady's a pilot and a meteorologist? Yes, and a cut-up. Pretty much you could ever want to meet. She's really fun to listen to. Anyway, you know where the railroad... The railroad bridge is in Henderson. It goes across the river.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00:She flew underneath that and got in trouble. No, she didn't. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. She's a wild one.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, I was hitchhiking, and she pulled up there. Of course, I didn't know who it was until I got in the car.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:It was her. And she had a convertible. And, man, I thought, man, I'm with a movie star right
SPEAKER_02:now. What are the odds, Dan? I know you go home, and your grandpa's watching the news, And you're like, I wish I could tell him this lady picked me up and drove me 30 miles up the road and back. So where does Papaw think you're at all day when you're hitchhiking?
SPEAKER_00:Probably didn't have a clue or he had a heart attack. But anyway, I thought she was going to drop me off at the entrance out on the road.
SPEAKER_03:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, no, I'll take you back. Oh, I'll say, you don't have to do that. No, no, I'll take you. She took me all the way back there. And I know with you not being familiar with the place, But you had to go back a little ways. I mean, we're talking about Pathless Lake was a big deal, man. I mean, all the kids and everybody went there.
SPEAKER_03:And
SPEAKER_00:grown-ups, you know. Anyway, it made my day, man. I couldn't wait. Guess who picked me up and took me in a convertible, you know, and all this stuff. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:and what a sweetheart to not just, like, dump you on the curb like some kind of homeless person. She actually took you to where you were trying to get.
SPEAKER_00:Well, she probably had to drive probably half a mile, maybe. Maybe not quite that far. To me, it seemed like it was that far. Yeah, what a sweetheart just
SPEAKER_02:to get back there. Yeah. So who taught you hunting and fishing? Did you learn that at a younger age or did you learn that later
SPEAKER_00:on? Pretty well, Fred Devine. We got a schoolmate. He was allowed to have guns and that. Of course, I had to really push the envelope with my grandfather since my dad killed himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my grandfather finally gave in and let me have a BB gun. Then a friend of mine, he had.22s and stuff, you know, BB guns, and that's how I kind of got started.
SPEAKER_01:Was it like middle school, high school?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, no, this was in grade school. Okay, okay. And I'd go out there quite a bit because, to me, that was pretty wild to get to shoot a regular gun. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. When you shoot a.22 as a kid, you're like, this is the coolest shit ever.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I'll tell you what, to tell you the truth, you'd laugh at me now. A buddy of mine had a.22, and I think he was shooting shorts. And you know what shorts is, right? Short, long, long rifle. Oh, yeah. The bullets.
SPEAKER_02:Like a.22 short would be like a handgun, right?
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah. But, I mean, the bullet would be a mild dose of powder. Then you had the next layer. Then you had the super rockets or whatever, which they call like long rifle. It's just distance, like
SPEAKER_02:different FPS. Oh, yeah. I guess I don't know. Okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00:So, anyway, my buddy was going to let me shoot his new Remington he had. Yeah. And I was scared to death. I was scared it was going to kick like a... mule, when you shoot it, you don't even really feel the recoil. But that was funny because he kept saying, it's not going to hurt you, Tom. Go ahead. It's not going to hurt you. And finally I did, and then he couldn't hand me bullets fast enough.
SPEAKER_02:Were you guys just shooting at bottles?
SPEAKER_00:Well, cans or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Did you ever, speaking of kick, you ever shoot a 10 gauge? No. That'll take your freaking
SPEAKER_00:arm off, dude. No, I haven't. 12 Muzzle gauges, yes. Muzzle loaders.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, muzzle loader will kind of kick back pretty good. So you've got this buddy that's showing you guns and.22s and all that.
SPEAKER_00:Get me introduced to it. Yeah, that's kind of where it came from. And then one of his friends, which was a little bit older than us, he had a pistol. I thought, man, that's really great. I mean, I don't know why. Could you imagine a
SPEAKER_02:bunch of elementary kids running around? One's got a BB gun. One's got a.22. The other's got a handgun, probably a 9mm. A little child militia. Just riding their bikes through the neighborhood. Parking their bikes at that wood line and just running off.
SPEAKER_00:Nowadays it's AR-15, sad to
SPEAKER_02:say. Everything's an AR-15 anymore. But yeah, that is why. So, okay, when do you go on your first hunt? What does that look like? Is it like a 17-22 hunting for squirrel hunt, rabbit hunt, or did you go right into big game?
SPEAKER_00:No, pretty well squirrel
SPEAKER_02:hunting. I'm sure your buddy's dad takes you and your buddy and somebody else out and you guys are like the dogs basically, right? No,
SPEAKER_00:they were already, my friends were already introduced to guns, so I'd go out with them. But it wasn't like their dads would be along. They already knew better how to handle them and everything. So I pretty well learned from my schoolmates. Anyway, especially one of them, he was really good at. The other one, he was kind of, I mean, he wasn't dangerous, but...
SPEAKER_02:Wild card. Wild
SPEAKER_00:card
SPEAKER_02:nowadays. Could have an on day, could have an off day. Maybe just don't be around him when he's getting ready to pull.
SPEAKER_00:I'll tell you one thing that's funny. When he was out, Dave was talking about, now this is down Pigeon Creek out by Green River Road.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. I used to walk from Louisiana Street in Evans All the way out there.
SPEAKER_02:Man.
SPEAKER_00:That's a long walk. That's
SPEAKER_02:damn near downtown. Is that where you lived?
SPEAKER_00:Well, at first I lived on Main Street, and then we moved to Louisiana Street. Which is
SPEAKER_02:still downtown, though.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you were in the heart of Evansville. Right. You watched it grow from the inside out. Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I don't know if you guys ever heard of it. Probably a lot of things I could tell you you never heard of. I don't know. But we lived down there. You know where Garland's Park's at? Yes, sir. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:The ballpark.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know who started this stupid stuff, but anyway, it did happen, and you could check into it, and I'm sure there's other people my age could tell you in a heartbeat. If you stepped across the street to the other side, you was on the west side.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, Lord.
SPEAKER_00:Just crossing the street. Oh, Lord. It was kind of an east side versus a west side. And they'd have BB gun fights, and I do mean they'd be shooting BB guns at each other. Damn. Ain't no telling how many might have got an eye put out or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Probably not many, but.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but anyway, and then you're not that far away.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you're shooting across the street.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you're not that far away from where the wood line and all that is, like where Garvin's Park's at back in there. Yeah. And the Pigeon Creek. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of stuff back there that probably happened, but I mean, you didn't feel comfortable or most of us did like if we was to go on the other side of the street it's just like you're the enemy which is weird I feel
SPEAKER_02:like this oh that's so kind of you you have a map pulled up thank you Tom little Tom no so I wonder if this is where the West Sider genome started
SPEAKER_01:Like the West Side's the best side?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because no one in Evansville says, oh, I'm an East Sider. I'm a South Sider. No, it's like you're a West Sider or you're barely an Evansvillian. You know what I mean? I wonder if this is where it started.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. Did the
SPEAKER_02:West Side win the BB gun war? I
SPEAKER_00:never was involved in that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02:You were like Kentucky during the Civil War. You'd pick a side.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's just like we used to do a lot of roller skating at the skating rinks okay okay and just give you a clue you know you could go uh downtown in evansville skating rink
SPEAKER_03:yeah
SPEAKER_00:if you weren't a regular there you were kind of the enemy like you know the the neighborhood guys would try to i don't know if they're scared you's going to be dating their girlfriends or something you know yeah but uh they would uh You had to be careful when you went to some places, almost like you was the enemy. And I told that one
SPEAKER_02:buddy
SPEAKER_01:of mine. Just a new face, small town. They didn't have social
SPEAKER_02:media, so. Espionage type shit. So, okay, we've talked a fair amount about elementary years. Okay, so what does junior high and high school look like for you? Like, what happens?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you still have to go to Catholic school and middle school. I had to go to Catholic school for eight years, and then I went to North High School, which is the old North High.
UNKNOWN:You know, it's moved now.
SPEAKER_02:Up on. Right. That one.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. But what junior high did you go to? You said you went to a Catholic school all the way up until high school. What middle school did you go to?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the middle school was built
SPEAKER_02:into St. Joseph's School. Oh, it was one and the same. A lot of Catholic
SPEAKER_01:schools are that way. Like, Holy Spirit's that way, I think. It's like K through 8.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, no kidding. Okay. The Delaware School was right down across the street
SPEAKER_02:from
SPEAKER_00:St. Joseph's. And they all called us cat lickers. Catholics, cat lickers.
SPEAKER_02:Play on the name. Very
SPEAKER_00:clever. Very clever. There was a lot of... Hey, at
SPEAKER_02:least you were licking cats and not other things, you know what I'm
SPEAKER_00:saying? Right. Licking dogs. Yeah. And you would sit there and... Yeah, they'd pull weeds out of the ground with dirt clods on them, and we'd have dirt clod fights. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. As far as I know, it was nothing serious, but it was kind of like almost an enemy thing or school thing, you know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Great school. Leading up to high
SPEAKER_02:school, you go hunting and fishing, like, regularly? Does that become, like, a common thing for you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's how it started out, and then... I really didn't get too much into hunting except for squirrel hunting until a little later on. Then I got into groundhog hunting and deer hunting and all that.
SPEAKER_02:Did you have like any four-wheelers or anything like that? Anything with a motor before high school?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Size shoe nine or something, you know. All foot. All on foot, dude. Oh, yeah. I used to walk all the way up there like I told you from
SPEAKER_02:Louisiana Street all the way up there so back in the day when you when you popped a 240 pound buck i mean you had to haul that
SPEAKER_00:your work was cut out for
SPEAKER_02:you yeah you had to haul that fucker out
SPEAKER_00:unless you had buddies or somebody back in that was before four wheelers and all that stuff
SPEAKER_02:yeah and tom little tom mutcher earmuffs uh so would you hit like a real big buck like that and then just have to dress it right there and then like strip it and carry
SPEAKER_00:generally i'd bring it on out but uh you would
SPEAKER_02:drag
SPEAKER_00:it all the way
SPEAKER_02:out to wherever you to the road
SPEAKER_00:that he had if you had another buddy was up or hunting with you he'd help you you know or something sometimes other hunters would help you yeah that's why but you had your work cut out for you and i mean if it was a any size deer at all it would wear you out if you and a lot of times you were way back in there you know it wasn't like
SPEAKER_02:you how do you think and this is i know i'm diverging from the storyline a little bit but like just to stay in that era of hunting how do you think the guys in like canada and like north Northeast America. How do you think they did elk? Got smart with a tarp. Or like a sled. You
SPEAKER_00:pull it on something like that. Yeah, a sled and drag them out. Really? But
SPEAKER_02:still, an elk, dude, that's a 350-pound
SPEAKER_00:beast.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Oh,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, you're talking about a whole different
SPEAKER_02:animal there. I think they hunt moose up there, too. That's a fucking 600-pound animal, dude. I mean, that's huge. You're dragging a motorcycle. I saw a guy that shot a moose, and he was, like, laying down next to the moose just to show the size comparison. It's wild.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It made him look like a young kid, didn't it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Moose, actually, because the Day family is from New England area, they had friends that were truck drivers. Moose will total a tractor trailer. Oh, yeah. It will total a tractor if they hit a moose. Right. It's wild how large they are. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. I just think that's very interesting. Your generation's work ethic compared to mine is just not even comparable. It's not even comparable. I'm a huge pussy compared to your generation. Like, it's embarrassing.
SPEAKER_01:Anyways,
SPEAKER_02:you get done with middle school. You transition to now a non-Catholic public high school. Is that a shock?
SPEAKER_00:No, it was a relief to me because I didn't like going to Catholic school.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because back then they would hit your hands with rulers and stuff, right? Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:and a lot of times if they were mad enough, they'd turn around and use a metal edge to hit you. Ooh,
SPEAKER_02:that razor blade
SPEAKER_00:edge thing? In fact, well, it wasn't a razor blade, but it felt like it. I
SPEAKER_02:know what you're talking about. What is that? little metal trim even for what did they use that for
SPEAKER_00:oh draw a line with i think you're like if you wanted to draw a straight line primarily probably
SPEAKER_02:chips less it wasn't made for hitting kids because i feel no
SPEAKER_00:no no no
SPEAKER_02:i'm only joking
SPEAKER_00:but i got some mad because that uh sister you know they call them sisters and they're wearing their things over their face and all that stuff it ain't like they are now now they just dress like regular women or whatever yeah but uh Anyway, this one hurt me so bad that I hauled off and hit her. I made a fist. I hit her in the hip. I didn't hit her in the body or face or nothing like that. Just load back. Instinct. Yeah, instinct. Anyway,
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, nuns, they got it, dude.
SPEAKER_00:I'll tell you what, they didn't put up with no bull.
SPEAKER_02:No BS with
SPEAKER_00:the nuns. And one time, you know how a kid, you tell them not to do something, and that's the first thing they do?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you had to line up to come in school. no matter what the weather was, from the playground.
SPEAKER_02:You had to line up to go in to walk into the school?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, at break where you went outside. Oh, like recess and stuff. Yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So anyway, we were told not to slide on the ice.
SPEAKER_02:Immediately, slides on the ice.
SPEAKER_00:And I slide on the ice. And you guys are going to think that I'm exaggerating. Oh, my gosh. If I am, it's not too much, I'll tell you that. There's a big puddle of ice, not water, ice, like standing on a sheet of ice, right outside the classroom. She made me go back out there and stand on that ice, and all she had to do was look out the window and see if I was still standing on it.
SPEAKER_01:That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:And I don't remember exactly how long it was, but it seemed like it was two hours. I was about to freeze to death, man.
SPEAKER_02:That's like Navy SEAL training. At first, you're probably sitting there, squeaking your feet, having a great time, and then
SPEAKER_00:the breeze picks up. This ain't bad, and then all of a sudden, it's not fun
SPEAKER_02:anymore. An hour later, you can't feel your nipples anymore, and now
SPEAKER_00:we have
SPEAKER_02:a problem.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And you feel like your, you know, watch is
SPEAKER_02:going to fall over. So
SPEAKER_01:freshman year, high school,
SPEAKER_02:you're like 15, finally in a public school.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's back up a little bit because I'm still in grade school. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, the public thing was grade school.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, they're going to have some kind of a play. And I guess you might, putting it politely, say me and a buddy of mine, we were pranksters, you know. Yeah. Funny ha-ha. Class clowns. Class clowns. There you go. So we go in the auditorium, and they got kids playing their instruments or flutes or whatever they're playing. Well, they give us the cymbals, or however how you say that. Yeah, the cymbals. Where you just bang them together. And at a certain time, we're supposed to bang them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I'm not sure, but I think it was my idea. It probably was. But anyway, I told them, I said, that's just me and my buddy. I said, hey, let's do it when we're not supposed to do it.
SPEAKER_03:Bam!
SPEAKER_00:Go to the principal's office. She's a big mama to his sister. Oh, yeah. We knew we were going to get licking like you wouldn't believe. Oh, yeah. Get the paddle ready. Oh, yeah. And so we thought we were pretty smart, we thought, but we wasn't. So we was borrowing handkerchiefs and getting toilet paper and all kinds of stuff. And we thought, oh, man, funny. You know, go ahead and have at it,
SPEAKER_02:you know. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, yeah. Of course, your pocket's sticking out probably like that.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:She says, okay, boys, take everything out of your pocket. So we knew our ass had had it, too. Oh, you're adding fuel to
SPEAKER_02:the fire.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. She worked on us big time. She's getting
SPEAKER_02:more mad. Yeah. That's the worst, dude.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But we asked for it. We're typical kids, you know.
SPEAKER_02:You got any other–
SPEAKER_01:fun little prank she pulled through school? What about
SPEAKER_02:junior high? You do any cool pranks in junior high? Well, it's still elementary for him. I don't know. Same, same. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade? Any other kind of cool pranks or
SPEAKER_03:anything?
SPEAKER_02:Cut loose a frog in the damn P.E. class or something? Nope. Oh, damn.
SPEAKER_00:The only thing I got in trouble for in high school was somehow or another uh If I get the story straight now, how it was. Oh, they had a doctor in there, and they were supposed to examine you or something. And somehow or another, I didn't get the statement from the doctor. Somehow, I didn't get the signed paper or something. So I forged his name. Of course, naturally, being a kid, I didn't spell it right. I got in trouble for that, and they called me in the principal's office. And, you know, it was just a pure accident. You know, it wasn't, you know. And I told him where it was. I said, well, I looked to the doctor, and I couldn't find him. I don't know what happened, but I said I didn't get it. I figured I was going to be in a bunch of trouble. And being a kid, I didn't really think it would be trouble writing his name down or something. Anyway, he agreed with me. He said, well, I understand. So that went smoothly. Well, at least he had
SPEAKER_02:your back.
SPEAKER_01:Let's get to high school. Did you get your first car in high
SPEAKER_00:school? Eventually, first thing I got was a little Harley Hummer motorcycle. Right. And... Come about as close as you can to getting in big trouble. I'd go down there when class was going on, and I'd race up down the street right outside the school there.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, they'd love that, I bet.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. One stepped out there, he said, I'll catch you doing that one more time, boy. You know, this was one of the counselors or teachers or something, you know, and... That scared the hell out of me. Were there a
SPEAKER_01:bunch of other kids in your high school that had motorcycles?
SPEAKER_00:No, not a bunch. There was about two or three of us, I think.
SPEAKER_02:What era are we in, by the way? Is this like the 50s, 60s?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, early, about mid-50s. Mid-50s, okay.
SPEAKER_02:I'm just trying to picture the motorcycle. I
SPEAKER_00:do have a funny story for you. Yeah?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:This one guy, I don't remember exactly what kind of car, doesn't really matter, I don't guess, but he had a car and he had it painted on the side of it, Cherry Chaser.
SPEAKER_01:He's going for them virgins.
SPEAKER_00:You know what a cherry is
SPEAKER_02:now, don't you? I'm tracking. You're lying, too. No, popping a cherry. I got you. I'm tracking. Cherry chaser. Very nice.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, they were going to kick him out of school. We all got a big laugh out of that because he painted on the front of it, retired chaser.
SPEAKER_02:That's funny.
SPEAKER_00:Damn, dude. Then we had this one guy come in from another school. He got kicked out of several schools. in bigger towns. What's it
SPEAKER_02:take to get kicked out of school in the 1950s, 60s?
SPEAKER_00:He got kicked out of so many schools they finally brought him north. And he had the idea and the reputation. Of course, I think a lot of times when you look back at it, you kind of look at, well, he's trying to let everybody know he's not no candy ass.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah, he's a tough guy.
SPEAKER_00:Tough guy. So anyway, I never, oh God, I'll never forget this. He's standing out there in the street outside the school there. And he's badass acting, you know, and all this. And a lot of the kids are scared of him and all that shit. Anyway. It doesn't matter right now, but the guy that done it, he was a good guy, as far as I know. And he wasn't real big and muscular, but anyway. Oh, man. This guy was trying to impress everybody in the school how he was bad. Leroy Brown, you don't mess with me. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. I love that song.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But anyway, it doesn't matter, but that kid's name is on the tip of my tongue. They were standing there face-to-face pretty close.
SPEAKER_02:Him and another fellow?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a good guy in school.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And he wasn't a big guy. This other guy standing in front of him, like, I'm bad at it, you know, Leroy Brown, you know. And anyway, this friend of mine, He just sat there and he put a cigarette up to his mouth to take a drag. My cat boy knocked that dude out. Then all those kids started laughing. And after that.
SPEAKER_02:The good guy did that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Hell yeah, dude. Yeah, he knocked his ass out. And after that, all the classmates started making fun of that guy. So he wasn't Mr. Badass after that. But he deserved it. You know, he did. He really did.
SPEAKER_02:And he wasn't in school. So the good guy, your buddy, he didn't get like expelled from school. or anything, did
SPEAKER_00:he? No, he probably got the trophy for it.
SPEAKER_02:I know you met my grandma, Brenda, your wife. You met her when you were like 15, 16, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I robbed a cradle.
SPEAKER_02:Well, what's that? How did you guys meet? Because you would have been in high school. You
SPEAKER_01:really want to know. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:you would have been in high
SPEAKER_00:school.
SPEAKER_02:If it's too bad, we'll edit it
SPEAKER_00:out. Oh, no, it ain't bad. It's funny, but it ain't bad. He said he robbed a
SPEAKER_02:cradle, and I don't know if What reference? So
SPEAKER_00:let's just see where this goes. I'm three years older. I know, I'm just teasing you. She's 16 and I was 19. Oh, that's not bad at all. No, I know, but anyway, everybody teases me of being Robin Clayton. I got you. So anyway, this friend of mine lived behind us on Louisiana Street. Did you have your, you already had a car then? Yeah, barely. And no money, no gas hardly. But anyway, he come over to the house. He's a good friend of mine. We went to high school together. He wanted to know if I'd be at a restaurant going on a blind date. Well, I'd probably really have to be blind for somebody to go out with me. But anyway, I said, yeah. So I hate to even admit this, but I'm telling you the truth. Between me and him, we just barely, and I do mean barely, had enough money to get enough gas where we could go pick them up. Of course, I'd never seen Brenda before, you know. That's why that was part of the blind date. He already had a girlfriend.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And her girlfriend was looking for somebody for Brenda. And anyway, we go pick them up, and we go out to– oh, boy–
SPEAKER_02:like a drive-in
SPEAKER_00:yeah the one out there on holiday main drag out there on uh oh
SPEAKER_02:this is the one that was in the city
SPEAKER_00:it was out there yeah uh yeah go on
SPEAKER_02:yeah i was just talking to somebody about this drive-in in evansville city in the 60s they shut it down in like the 80s i think
SPEAKER_00:i think so was it
SPEAKER_02:big top no that's the food place that's a good place
SPEAKER_00:You know what will happen when I leave here, I'll think of it, but I can't think of it right now. But anyway, we went out there. Now, if you remember right, I should have. Sunset. No, that wasn't it.
SPEAKER_01:Family drive-in theater. Nope. Let's see. We got a whole list of options. Evansville Drive-In. No. Westside Drive-In. Audubon Drive-In. No. HIY
SPEAKER_02:Drive-In. Starlight Drive-In. How many drive-ins were there at the time? I remember Starlight. Cardinal Drive-In. I don't know. But anyways, you go to a film, right? It's a movie, a drive-in
SPEAKER_00:movie. No, no, no. It's just a restaurant where you can order and they bring your food. Yeah, it's not a movie theater.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I thought you meant that. Was it Zesto's?
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_02:And it wasn't Big Top?
SPEAKER_00:No. It was out there by Skateland on Kentucky Avenue, I think. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:I only know Zestos and Big Top. But anyways, here nor there. So you guys go get some burgers, some chili dogs.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you do remember we just barely had enough money for gas. Right, they're sharing
SPEAKER_02:meals. True, yeah. You guys are sharing a chili dog.
SPEAKER_00:No, not even that good. Sharing a Coke. Yeah, they're expecting to get a hamburger and a Coke or something. Well, we didn't have any money. So we just sit there and they couldn't believe it. And to this day, I can't believe it either, but that's what we did. But, uh, anyway, I don't know what happened. Were there a
SPEAKER_01:bunch of other kids? Like, was this a drive-in that a bunch of kids go and hang out with? Like when I
SPEAKER_02:was in high school, we'd hang out at like old Walmart parking lot or Sonic. Yeah. So like, yeah. Okay. I get it
SPEAKER_00:now. So yeah. Yeah. That's what it was. And, of course, Brenda and her girlfriend, they couldn't believe it that We wouldn't at least buy them a soft drink or something.
SPEAKER_02:Boys come pick us up, not buying us nothing? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But that's the way it was, and that's how we met. It's a wonder that that worked out, right?
SPEAKER_01:I ain't going out with that bum again. Well, so, like, you went to North. She went to Wrights.
SPEAKER_02:Was there, like, high school rivalry at that time?
SPEAKER_00:Well, when I started dating her, I felt a little insecure going out on the west side. Of course, my grandfather always wanted to keep me away. They didn't like it at first because she was a west sider and you know he didn't want me to get involved with my mother or something accidentally or whatever
SPEAKER_02:right right
SPEAKER_00:anyway there were some of the west side boys that uh Nothing ever really happened, but, you know, they made you feel a little uncomfortable like you was on edge. Like you had
SPEAKER_02:to watch your back or
SPEAKER_00:something. Right, a little bit, you know. Nothing serious, probably, but I was more worried about what they were, probably.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Did you play sports or anything
SPEAKER_00:at this time in high school?
SPEAKER_02:Uh-uh. So you didn't have, like, you weren't walking around in, like, a letterman jacket
SPEAKER_00:or anything? Oh, no, no. I tried out for basketball, and I think they said, well, dribble the ball, and I dribbled it about three foot, and they said, okay, that's enough. That's enough. Didn't take them no time. I said, no, not him. No, you're good. You're good. Yeah, you're a good guy. Go rest a little bit. But you guys got married young. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. When did you guys get married? How old were you?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, boy. Well, let's see. I was probably... Well... I was 19 when we got married. She was 16. And we went together for a couple years, you know. And I know you young chicks here, or chicks, young guys, probably may not know what I'm talking about. Because you lived a sheltered life, you know.
SPEAKER_02:I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, as you know, Wright's High School is up on a big hill.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00:And the Ohio River, you can see it from up there.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00:Well, all the teenage These kids would go up there, and I want to see how smart you guys are now. We'd go up there and watch the submarine races.
SPEAKER_02:I went up there once and watched submarine races. I've seen a couple of submarine races.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, have you? Anyway, how the hell can you watch a submarine races when it's underwater?
SPEAKER_02:Little Tom told me that joke earlier the other day. Yeah, he spoiled it.
SPEAKER_00:And then like the double dip. We used to go down that and fly down that.
SPEAKER_02:In cars or rollerblades or what was that like? All of the above?
SPEAKER_00:Car, motorcycle. Used to race down in Burdette Park, that hill there where you're coming back down like Torres Town. Yeah, oh yeah. Of course, we used to race, started out racing down that hill. With the motors running, then we thought it'd be cool just to have a race without the motors running, have it in neutral. Just
SPEAKER_02:shut it off and let it
SPEAKER_00:roll?
SPEAKER_02:See how many guys you can fit in the car for more weight going downhill.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we never thought about
SPEAKER_02:that. So this is the time, this is the era that the Lloyd Expressway doesn't exist. The only way to get to Posey County is the highway, which was Broadway.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that was Division Street back then. Division divided the town.
SPEAKER_02:Morgan. Division is now Morgan. I'm talking about the old highway. You're talking about
SPEAKER_00:Broadway.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00:That's where we live now, right off of Broadway. Oh, you guys live out that way? Out there by what used to be Buzler's Gas Station. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:my family lives in Dogtown.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, do they?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. The Colbs? Do you know? That's my stepdad. I'm not sure. Yeah, but anyways, yeah, they live out that way. But yeah, so Broadway was the old highway. That was the only way to get to Posey County from Evansville. Right. And a lot of people don't even realize that. They just think that the Lloyd Expressway has been here forever Yeah. And it's not.
SPEAKER_00:Well, see, the Lloyd Expressway was Division Street.
SPEAKER_02:In Evansville.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And Division Street separated, like, the north side from the east side. And the railroad tracks run down to there. You'd be going down Division Street, and there'd be a train running right beside you. You're looking out the car when there's a train right
SPEAKER_02:there. Golly. A
SPEAKER_00:lot of people don't know that, you know, but.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Did you ever jump off the Red Bridge or anything? The Red Bridge? Yeah, the one downtown. Isn't it just called the Ohio Bridge? Oh. No, not the Ohio Bridge. The Red Bridge is that bridge where the train tracks go over. Yeah, it's on Ohio Street that I think it's called the Ohio Bridge.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it's closed now.
SPEAKER_02:You can walk over it still.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but anyway, the bottom of it is like metal that's welded together. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. And you go across that on a motorcycle and you're like that. Yeah, that's kind of wild to do that. Of course, it's closed down. I mean, you can get over there and walk around.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they got it fenced off.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I know like my dad's era, like they would climb to the top and jump off. There's been a few times I've been on the Ohio. We've taken boats over there and climbed up it and jumped off. When the water's high. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to do it when the water's low. Put that out to the universe. Yeah, if water's low, there's... Tons of rocks there. Broken bottles and rocks. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. You do not want to hit bottom at the Red Bridge. Don't do that, guys. Well, you might hit bottom and... Yeah. Anyways. So, like, what was it like? Like, okay, so you and Brenda, Maul, go on that first date. And then, like, you guys keep dating after that? Yeah. Yeah. So then, like... How did you get her to keep dating you after you turned... Yeah, that's a good question. After you looked like a bum, dude. Yeah. Like, hey, man, check it out. I know I'm a loser. Give me one more shot.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think a lot of it, she's mentioned this several times over the years. Yeah. But she was the oldest, so she was helping raise all the kids, which they had a bunch of kids, about five or six or something like that. Yeah, yeah. My wife would have to give all the other kids a bath. In other words...
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so my grandma's dad was like a playboy, always out chasing
SPEAKER_02:some butt. Right. Cherry chasing. Yeah, cherry chasing, you could say. And her mom was always chasing him, trying to get him, so my grandma would be left at home taking care of her four younger siblings.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Damn. Had a rough life. And then Brenda, my wife, she'd have to give the kids, the younger kids, give every one of them a bath.
SPEAKER_02:Get them cleaned up.
SPEAKER_00:And they didn't have any water there at the house back then. All they had was like a well. And they'd have to go over the next door where they had water and carry the water over there and pull it in a tub, you know, metal tub.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then she'd have to give him a bath and get that one out and put another one in there and get, you
SPEAKER_02:know. What's crazy is I remember, so like when I was a kid, I was conceived in a trailer, but when I was born, my mom and dad bought the house across the street from the house my grandma grew up in, right? That was the house. And I still remember that little well-like thing they
SPEAKER_00:had in the backyard. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And they had an outhouse back there. I'm telling you, this house was like, the kitchen was half the size of this room. It had two bedrooms and a living room and that was it. Yeah. And they had five kids.
SPEAKER_00:And for a long time, it didn't even have a bathroom. All it had was an outhouse. Isn't that
SPEAKER_02:wild to think that we've gone the complete opposite direction as a species now? Like people are only having like one or two kids and their houses are like... Massive. Gargantuan now. Yeah. Isn't that wild that we've just gone the complete opposite? Okay, I got another question for you here. What's that? Did you guys have alcohol at your wedding?
SPEAKER_00:Because neither one of you were 21. No, not that I know of. My father-in-law probably
SPEAKER_02:did. You didn't have to be 21 to drink back then, did you? You only had to be...
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I'm going to think you did. I thought back then the state of Indiana. Actually, the state of Indiana, you had to be 16 years old to buy a pack of cigarettes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Did you know that? Did you know that?
SPEAKER_02:That's crazy. You've got to be 21 now.
SPEAKER_01:Really? Yeah, they changed the law two years ago.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but back in the day, kids used to get sent by their parents to go get cigarettes. Hey, go pick up cigarettes. And then they changed it to where like, no, now we need an ID. And the first time you get an ID is when you're 16.
SPEAKER_01:So you guys are freshly married. What happens? You guys have your wedding. What goes
SPEAKER_02:on from there? Work. Yeah, work. What did that look like? Where was your first job? Because it wasn't... God bless you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I had Sherbo, but I don't know... Needless to say, they were low-paying jobs because I didn't have any talent or know anything. I like
SPEAKER_02:delivering newspaper. No, I wouldn't do that. I appreciate your honesty, sir. I just appreciate the shit out of
SPEAKER_00:you. I'll just tell you where it was.
SPEAKER_02:Big Tom is the man, dude. Dude, I like him more than I like you, and I didn't think that was possible. You can be our new podcast co-host. You're like, listen, I wasn't good at a lot. I barely made it through school. Okay, so what do you want? Where did you end up working? You guys are freshly married.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. I got a job at Hahn Incorporated, which made lawnmowers and snowblowers and farm equipment, some of it was.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. What'd you do there?
SPEAKER_00:I worked on assembly line for about three years, and then I tried and tried to get into the tool and die department to learn something besides assembly line. And I finally got lucky enough to have, well, I forget what they used to use as an excuse. I was too old for that or something like that. Too old for 29?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but that was just a story. Oh, okay. Well, then all of a sudden, two or three years later, oh, I'm not too old for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they need help in that department.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I got in there, and that was the best thing I could have done because I learned enough where I could go out and be a tool die maker. And when I went to Whirlpool, actually, I'd help fit right in. Right,
SPEAKER_02:so before Whirlpool, I'll cut you off there real fast. He's real good at cutting people off while they're speaking. I want to know, like, in this time, like, so you had a motorcycle when you were in high school. You got a car around the time you and Brenda were dating and getting
SPEAKER_00:married. 50-53 Mercury. In that first year, in
SPEAKER_02:that first time of marriage, like, did you get a new car? Did you get a new motorcycle? Was that just not on the, it was all about getting a house
SPEAKER_01:and
SPEAKER_00:a
SPEAKER_01:job
SPEAKER_00:well
SPEAKER_02:and I have a point to make before we take off from this too
SPEAKER_00:anyway you mentioned my first job okay I got a job at that was before we got married I worked at Stocks Hardware out on Oak Hill Road by Oak Hill Cemetery and didn't make any money speaking of it that's where I worked for several years Not making any money, but
SPEAKER_02:if
SPEAKER_00:I worked all week long, maybe not on Sunday, but during the week and then on Saturday, and when it's all said and done, when I got paid, I put gas in the car, and if we went to the drive-in and watched a movie, I was broke until next week. I just barely had money to do that. And anyway, then I moved on to Hahn and got a more, a better job. And then
SPEAKER_02:your question again was, did he get a new motorcycle or a new car? Well, yeah, like I didn't know, like in that time, like you still probably had the same car, the same motorcycle. Were you guys saving up for a house or like, what was that?
SPEAKER_00:Didn't have any money to save up. Just making ends meet. Well, I had that car. Well, let me back up. Okay. I had a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Harley.
SPEAKER_00:Little Harley. Yeah. And then a friend of mine got a big BSA Super Rocket, which I was in love with that thing. What's a BSA? Boy Scouts of America is what a lot of people call it, but BSA was like a British motorcycle. It was really popular years ago. It looks like a little
SPEAKER_02:cafe racer. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:it kind of looks like that one there on the right there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, kind of like a little cafe racer. cutter type european bike yeah that makes sense okay anyway sorry
SPEAKER_00:that's right
SPEAKER_02:but you liked that one a lot
SPEAKER_00:yeah so anyway i worked at the hardware store and my buddy that was his uncle aunt and uncle that owned the hardware store so they got a call your little hardware store like that people call it hey i need such and such yeah sometimes they'd have us to get the car or whatever and go deliver it to their house
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_00:So I asked my buddy, I was begging him if I could take his bike instead of mine. So he was kind of reluctant at first, and then it started raining. And anyway, he said, yeah, go ahead and take it. Well, I got down there to...
SPEAKER_02:And it's raining.
SPEAKER_00:It started raining, yeah. And got down there at... Oh, boy. Street that the Harley shop's on now.
SPEAKER_02:Green River and Morgan.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Morgan Avenue. It stopped at the light.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm sitting there at the light. Now, it's nighttime, and it's raining, and I'm sitting there at the light on the sickle, not moving an inch. This is the
SPEAKER_02:worst time to be on a motorcycle, by the way.
SPEAKER_00:So anyway, I know this sounds strange, but this is the way it was. The light turned green, and all I remember was letting out on the clutch.
SPEAKER_02:No
SPEAKER_00:gas. I don't remember seeing a car or nothing. And my high school friend, one of him worked at that gas station right there on the corner. And he's seen it happen. He said, when that car hit you, he said, it knocked you off the bike and completely over that car. He said, I figured you was dead.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And you would have been like, what, 20 at this time?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, hell no. No. I was like, I guess, 16 or
SPEAKER_02:something.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay. Wow. Golly, you are hard to kill, sir. I know it. I'm still fighting it. But anyway, it.
SPEAKER_02:Jesus, Murphy.
SPEAKER_00:Nice, dude. Yeah, but I got some regrets about that.
SPEAKER_02:Was it your fault? What happened? Oh, no. The light went green.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we're sitting there like this, and he's wanting to go like towards the Harley shop. So basically, he either didn't see me. You know, motorcycles only got one headlight, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:He either didn't see me or whatever, and he just tried to beat me through the intersection. I don't know. And this is the part that I regret. And by the way, if you ever have to go to lawyers, the lawyers are looking out for themselves.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they want the money.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00:And don't ever, and I do mean this, don't ever trust what a lawyer tells you. Because they'll ask you, well, did that guy have his windshield wipers on? You say it's raining. I said, well, I don't know. I said, I don't even remember seeing the car. Why in the shit would I know that? Right. I know. So anyway, he's telling me. Dude, I got smoked
SPEAKER_01:by a car. CTE, you know?
SPEAKER_00:That's before. He's telling me to lie. Yeah. Saying, no, tell everybody you didn't see no windshield wipers. I get it. Tell them he didn't have more.
SPEAKER_01:That's against your morals.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, that wasn't right. And another thing was, if that guy, I understand some of this to a certain extent, but if he comes to your hospital to see you, don't let him in. And I regret that to this day because he came to the hospital and they said he was out there. Could he come in? And I said no because that's what the lawyer told me. Right. You know, and I'm like 15 years old or whatever, you know.
UNKNOWN:Right.
SPEAKER_00:I can imagine how much that hurt his feelings because he probably really wanted to apologize, you know, and I said, no, the only reason why I've done it is because the lawyer told me not to. Do
SPEAKER_02:you look, and I know you said you have some regret here, but do you think then when you made that decision, do you think it was more just out of pure ignorance? Like you didn't know what was the right thing to do? I think it was. Or do you think a little bit of you was actually like kind of pissed at the guy still?
SPEAKER_00:No, I wasn't pissed at him.
SPEAKER_02:Damn. That's mad. What's crazy is concussions weren't a thing around then either. Oh, and I want to make my point now that we've made the end of that. I have a question. Back in the mid-50s, what was a crappy car? What was a car that you would not be proud to drive? Because you said you had a 53 Mercury. Pretty snazzy looking Vic. Pretty nice looking whip. But would this be considered a crappy car back then? Or when you were driving it, like let's say late 50s early 60s if you're driving this around do people make fun of you for that or
SPEAKER_00:no but it was kind of an okay car you know
SPEAKER_02:so what was a crappy car and then I want to have Tom Google it and then I just want to make my point what was a crappy car back then like 53 year ish
SPEAKER_00:probably about like that car on the right there
SPEAKER_02:yeah that's not a bad car no but anyway it's just what was a crappy car back then though like a Studebaga
SPEAKER_00:yeah stuff like that I always called them helicopter car Can you
SPEAKER_02:look up a 53 Studebaker? I don't know how to spell it. Studebaker, something like that. Baker. Yeah, Studebaker. That's kind of a crappy car, right? Yeah. Here's the point I want to make, though. Even then, though, even with their crappy cars, they all still kind of look cool. Yeah. Nowadays. I mean, yeah, they
SPEAKER_01:look
SPEAKER_02:similar. I mean, you don't really notice too much of a difference between. Yeah, it's all about what's under the hood.
SPEAKER_00:One way I can explain it to you. I bought that car, and it was a Mercury, and it was a four-door, I think. Well, after I bought it, I found out the going thing was like a 50... 55 or 56 Ford, two-door hardtop or something. Oh,
SPEAKER_03:yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And the guy told me, he said, man, this is a Mercury. He said, this is real, yo, he's car salesman now. Slick. Used car, yo. Slick, yeah. Yeah, he's slick, you know, he said. But this here, he said, this is like a.
SPEAKER_02:That's a beautiful
SPEAKER_00:car. Well, see, I had a 56 Ford like that black one there, except mine wasn't convertible. Mine was a two-door hardtop.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a beautiful car. Fair lane, yep. God damn, it's a good-looking car. Shh. shoot
SPEAKER_00:better looking that black one because that's a two-door sedan
SPEAKER_02:i don't know if you have i have an infatuation with motor vehicles i think it's there's a certain art to it especially like the classic era of vehicles i love the 50s and the 60s and the 70s they just had the pickup trucks looked so clean and just so yeah the f-150s were beautiful oh the 70s or the f-100s i mean the 70s f-100 will forever be my favorite pickup truck of all time and the c5 and the f-100 100 were essentially the same truck back then they're both very beautiful vehicles oh yeah i love those they just don't make them like they used to that's the only point i wanted to make so moving on from that we we get so we get what happens you get out of the hospital do you wind up ever seeing this guy again did you get your buddy's money back for his motorcycle like what happens
SPEAKER_00:oh he he got insurance money but i'm sure he didn't get near what it was worth right i know i had to hurt his feelings you know because i mean he come out loser on it you know
SPEAKER_02:were you ever scared to hop back on the motorcycle the first few times?
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_02:My man, dude. Dude, I'm liking Tom every minute we go through this interview. When was the first time you went to Sturgis? Was that when you were before Maul?
SPEAKER_00:I went to Little Sturgis, but that was later on. But anyway, to get back to what you was asking me, uh, I had that small motorcycle. My buddy had the big BSA. Right,
SPEAKER_03:yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, then I had that wreck. Well, when I had the wreck, I had a Triumph 250, which was like a hot rod compared to what I did have.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Triumphs are decent.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, good bikes. It's not a big motorcycle, but it was hot compared to my other car by Harley I had. And Harley was a little Harley. It wasn't no big Harley or nothing. But anyway... Of course, I had to go to school, and a lot of the kids was calling me Chester, like with Gunsmoke, you know, because he limped in that show. Oh, dude, Gunsmoke. Kids can be pretty, they can be cruel, you know. Right.
SPEAKER_02:100%.
SPEAKER_00:To me, it wasn't funny. You know, you're limping going down to school, and everybody, oh, there's Chester, you know, and all that. But that's kids. But anyway, I snuck down there and had a buddy of mine go with me. My grandfather, I found out he had my Triumph moved to a friend's garage a block down. Somehow or another, I found out about it, or somebody told me that's where it was at.
SPEAKER_02:He was trying to hide it after your wreck?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I understood.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:He didn't want me to have a motorcycle again. That reminds me, that's how I ended up with the Mercury. But anyway, I wanted to convince myself that I wasn't scared to ride a motorcycle again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's a certain...
SPEAKER_00:So I took it out and went down the road, and I was in my 7th heaven ride. My grandfather would have yanked my butt off that thing if he'd seen me. So he made me a deal. He said, I'll tell you what, I'll buy you a car. This is where the Mercury come in. He said, I'll buy you a car, but I don't want you riding a motorcycle anymore. So... I understand now. I mean, I wasn't for it, but I understand.
SPEAKER_02:Just to point out my 13th favorite characteristic about you that I've gained today, Big Tom, the fact that you have that, what's the word I'm looking for? Perseverance. Not a lot of kids are born with that anymore. You know what I mean? They go through a life-altering experience like a motorcycle crash. That'll be the last time they ever ride a motorcycle. But the fact that you were like, I'm want to prove to myself that I'm not a sissy. And you got back on the bike.
SPEAKER_00:It's called stupidity.
SPEAKER_02:You say stupidity. I say, you know what I'm saying? I'm joking. Yeah. Well, that's like right now. My kids. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:My daughters. And they want me to quit riding a motorcycle so bad it's pathetic. Wait, are you still on the motorcycle? Well, hell yeah, isn't everybody? You're still riding a motorcycle? Yeah, sometimes
SPEAKER_02:somebody might have to start it for them, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Are you shitting me? I've got two motorcycles. I've got a VMAX. You know what a VMAX is? No, sir. I'm not in the motorcycle world. Well, it's pretty badass, even in today's world. Holy shit. It'll shit and get. But anyway.
SPEAKER_02:That's the more I like it.
SPEAKER_00:I got a... Yeah, that's it there on the right. That's a good-looking bike, dude. It's bad. Four-shelter. It'll get it. What's your other bike? It's my old Sportster that I bought brand new in 63.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I bet that's a beautiful... How many miles do you have on it?
SPEAKER_00:Hell, I don't know. It's all hopped up. It looks about like that second top there in the middle. Or actually, it looks more like the one right underneath there where he was just pointing. Go back. That one there or either one of them.
SPEAKER_02:That is something beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:I've got it all hopped up. It's got a stroker in there. I don't know if you know what all that is.
SPEAKER_02:No, shit, no. They had dual carbs off the side back in the day. Let me see. I wonder if they have
SPEAKER_01:one. Let's see
SPEAKER_00:here. I doubt if you'll be able to find the dual carbs. Surprise me if you do. Yeah, and they stick out like this on the nose. I
SPEAKER_02:know what you're talking about. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Tom moves as fast as possible. I
SPEAKER_00:doubt if you'll see one. Maybe
SPEAKER_02:something a little similar to this, but not necessarily. A
SPEAKER_00:lot prettier than that. Yeah, that's like twin. But that's pretty well, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But normally, like you were saying, they stick out like in a V almost. Right. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00:It's still a tension getter big time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but that, dude, that is a lot lizard.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's got dual carburetors there. Yeah, a lot lizard. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:that's hot. That's hot. I like that. So let's see. You bought this in 63 when it was new. Right. You didn't have kids at this point? No.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I bought it when I got to be 21 years old. I had to wait until I got more sense, which that never came about. But I wasn't allowed to have any of that money until I was 21. What money? Insurance money from where the guy hit me. No shit? They didn't pay you out until you were 21? No. Was it a lot? Oh, I forget what it was. It seemed like it was$100,000 or something like that. So anyway, I went out and I bought that sickle.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, my God. Hell yeah, dude. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:And I've had it ever since. Hell yeah. I still love it, you know, and a lot of people probably don't understand it, but I do. Tommy probably understands.
SPEAKER_02:I think if and when I get my first bike, it will be a Sportster. Well, what's crazy about this is the compression on this Harley Sportster was so high. When you have, like, people try to start
SPEAKER_00:it as, like, a joke. That's one thing I could kick your dad for. Of course, he's always been, he's had very few sickles he had to kick, you know. Right. And it wasn't really hard to kick. But anyway. Oh, this one's a
SPEAKER_02:kick start.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And the compression dog, like, if you don't get it in the first kick, you better watch when it comes back because you'll blow
SPEAKER_00:your knee out. Yeah, especially if you let up on it. If you kick it halfway through and let up on it, it's kicking shit out
SPEAKER_02:of you. Oh, no shit.
SPEAKER_00:But anyway, he was trying to kick it. And, you know, your dad Right. Right. Well, your dad, before I could even blink my eye, he jumped way up there and come down and sheared all them teeth off. Oh.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because it's like free-floating. It's not locked in place. No. And then you just...
SPEAKER_00:You're engaging it. And then when you come down, you get it on compression.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then that's when you kick it.
SPEAKER_02:And then you rip it through. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Golly,
SPEAKER_02:boy. Old school stuff,
SPEAKER_00:man. I got a shit whenever he done that. Yeah. Boy, that's cost me a lot of money, too. Dude,
SPEAKER_02:there's kids nowadays that can't even spell carburetor. You know what I mean? know what i mean yeah i asked a kid the other day do you have any carb cleaner they said what's that yeah well they don't yeah now everything's fuel injected you don't have to start your car and let it warm up for five ten minutes before you take it down the road i don't know shit about bikes but i could fit i know what a carburetor is i can figure it out it's the same thing that's just wild
SPEAKER_00:i had that 56 ford and uh it had a
SPEAKER_02:it's a beautiful car yeah
SPEAKER_00:let's say i hope i'm not telling you wrong here but uh police interceptor engine is what I called it. And, uh, It had a four-barrel, which was a big deal back then. Carburetor?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I come about those three deuces, which was three carburetors, and I put them on there, and I never let anybody at the gas station, want me to check you all? Nope. Are you at first? Nope. And then I put them three carburetors on there, and them younger guys in the gas said, you want me to check you all? Yeah, check them all. They raised their hood. Oh, man, look at him. He's got three deuces. God
SPEAKER_03:damn.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I bet that thing would shit and go. So did you
SPEAKER_01:guys get your first house around that time you turned 21?
SPEAKER_00:No, we rented for several years after that. In fact, just three or four days ago, I started to get kind of pissed at an old friend of ours. Her husband had a motorcycle and his family, they had several cycles. But anyway... She was kind of indirectly, she probably didn't realize what she was doing, but she's kind of hurt my feelings, you know. She said, like, I was getting a red ass, so I was having trouble kind of controlling myself, you know, and I felt like saying, well, what business is it of yours that I bought a motorcycle? What was wrong with that? And it was kind of like, well, you sure took that money and bought a house, but you were thinking about yourself and you got a motorcycle. Well, being a young kid, I never looked at it like that. Right,
SPEAKER_02:yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I didn't have a motorcycle after the wreck.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And I knew how much I loved the motorcycle.
SPEAKER_02:And the freedom. It's like a hobby nowadays. You got people that work their whole lives away and they don't have any enjoyment outside of work. And that's not a life you want to live. Right. Even if it's a 20-minute motorcycle ride.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, to and from work. You know what I'm saying? That's the highlight of the day. Oh, yeah. You get off of work or going to work or it's fun to get on your bike and go. Feel the wind
SPEAKER_02:in your face.
SPEAKER_00:And your mom and I, we went. down to Smoky Mountains and stuff like that several times. It wasn't like it was just for me, you know. But later on, she got where she really wasn't interested in life. Well, she
SPEAKER_02:probably had a sore butt from all those long rides on those motorcycles. You know what I'm saying? Those are not comfortable.
SPEAKER_00:But anyway, I was getting kind of upset. And I like that lady. But
SPEAKER_02:like in all reality, that was not even like a 20% of the money you had. You know what I
SPEAKER_00:mean? And I took and give... Now, I'm not bragging about this. I'm just telling you what it was. Her mom and dad didn't even have inside water. Like I said, they had to go over to neighbors and carry water over to take a bath
SPEAKER_02:or
SPEAKER_00:cook or
SPEAKER_02:something.
SPEAKER_00:So I went and Brenda asked me if it was all right, and I said, yeah. Had the water hooked up and all that stuff and the sink and everything. You know, and the bathroom and everything. And I paid for that. Right, that's not cheap. It wasn't like I blew all the money on just me on a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and I'm sure not only did your in-laws appreciate it, but like your sister-in-laws, your brother-in-laws, I'm sure they... And
SPEAKER_00:Brenda. Right. Because she was having to give all of them a bath. Right, still going
SPEAKER_02:over there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, I don't regret it at all. Right. But no, I kind of got, I was on the edge. Boy, it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. And that lady's been a friend of mine for years. Heard her husband. And he had a sickle, you know, and all that.
SPEAKER_01:Was your guys' first house that one at the end of St. Joe? The one I remember? Todd's old house? The what? Todd's house. Was that your guys' first house?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, no. No. Well, that's the first house that we owned. Right. The rest of it, we just rented. Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, so that was your first house that you bought.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You remember buying it? Did you have any kids already then, or did you buy the
SPEAKER_00:house before the kids? No, we bought the house and then had the kids.
SPEAKER_02:You guys working at Whirlpool at that time?
SPEAKER_00:I think I was working at Hahn when we first got it. Gotcha. Which I didn't make big money at Hahn, but anyway.
SPEAKER_02:So what's it like getting that house all the way at the end of St. Joe?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, then here you're thinking about, well, I work at Whirlpool and, you know, the kids are kind of growing up like your dad and Jill and all that. How many kids you got?
SPEAKER_02:Three. Well, technically four. They adopted my dad's cousin. Okay. Sick, dude.
SPEAKER_00:Nice. And then Richard started talking about wanting a bigger house. I thought, what? Yeah. I said, our kids are growing up. And that house was big enough, you know what I mean? Right. Not to say it was too big or anything, but anyway, I said a lot of people would be thinking about retiring and not making a new bill. Well, that's what she wanted. I was against it in the beginning. I mean, not fighting mad about it, but I wasn't for it. And... And then now that I look back, it was the best decision we ever made because we got a bigger house, and it's nice with the kids and grandkids now, and I don't regret it now, but then I did.
SPEAKER_02:Is that the house you're in now? Yeah. Now, I don't need, what's your address? We already went over it. I'll buy bustlers. Oh, it's the one, that's right, that's right. You're out in like Dogtown, St.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we're right off, you turn off Broadway right into our street. And it's called Highfield Road. You can turn it off right before you go down the hill to go to Buzzler's. Yeah. Which I hate to call it Buzzler's because I hate that name. I forget what it is now. But anyway, everybody still thinks of it as being Buzzler's just like he does. But anyway, before you go down that hill to Buzzler's, we'll call it. I think it's called. I don't know. I should know because I look at it all the time. Anyway, you turn left right before you get to Buzzards off of Broadway. You go down the hill and you turn right. Then you go down to what... Excuse me, but I can't think of the name of it now that it's straight, but... Anyway. County line road. Huh?
SPEAKER_02:Isn't that county line road?
SPEAKER_00:No, county line road's back the other way a little bit. Yeah, it's back up further towards town. But anyway, when you turn and you come to that intersection there, you turn right again, takes you right back to Buzzard's, okay? Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah, yeah. I know what
SPEAKER_00:you're talking about. Okay, that one there. They got that ball diamond back there for kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know
SPEAKER_02:what you're talking about. I got you. I got you. So that's the house you're in now. What? Well, I want to rewind a little bit to like back to having kids. We jumped kind of big here and like we went from first house to... current house i remember when you guys got the current house so i want to go back to like well you're you guys like you had twins as your first set of kids
SPEAKER_00:yeah jill and joy
SPEAKER_02:that's kind of crazy you got a set of my wife's a twin
SPEAKER_00:oh really
SPEAKER_02:yes sir
SPEAKER_00:yep yeah i'll be darned
SPEAKER_02:yeah that's wild isn't it yep uh are they identical twins jill and
SPEAKER_00:joy no no they're a lot like in some respects
SPEAKER_02:they're uh would you call that a fraternal yeah they're fraternal yeah yeah but both girls right And then how much older are they than my dad? couple years not very many
SPEAKER_00:yeah something like I think it was like three years later your dad was hatched right
SPEAKER_02:oh yeah so but like during that time like uh I'm just trying to think of this window like you're still hunting like did you pick up hunting and fishing more before you had kids in this little gap before you had
SPEAKER_00:yeah it kind of slowed me down a little bit on the hunting and fishing there for a while but I remember uh feeding them kids when Brenda she worked days and I worked nights and uh I'd be feeding them kids. You take going from not being used to taking care of kids or anything. So I'd be feeding them in the mornings and they're turning their head, not wanting to eat and all that. Boy, that was an experience. And then I'll tell you something funny. You ought to ask, next time you see Jill Joy, ask them if they like hot dogs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I remember. That's all you fixed. Everyday hot dogs.
SPEAKER_00:Hot dogs. Dad's going to fix hot dogs.
SPEAKER_02:They asked for it or that was just your
SPEAKER_00:go-to? That was my go-to. That's the only thing I knew how to fix. That's your
SPEAKER_02:go-to move. Hey, Dad, can you fix us something? Hot dogs. I'm going to take a bathroom break real fast, but y'all can continue. And that was Tom, number two. Is that what you're talking about?
SPEAKER_00:Well, Let's see. Yeah, no. Because
SPEAKER_02:it was Jill, Joy, Tom?
SPEAKER_00:Jill, Joy, and Tom. And then I think the last time she went to the doctor's whenever he said she was going to have another kid, which it made it four. I think that's about when I thought I was going to have a heart attack when she said that. She started laughing.
SPEAKER_02:She
SPEAKER_01:was messing with
SPEAKER_00:you?
SPEAKER_02:Getting you back for all those years of jokes? Yeah, yeah. So, like, how old do you think my dad was before you started showing him hunting and fishing?
SPEAKER_01:Well, he's pretty young. Can I get an apple, by the way? Yeah. Let's get Graham's one, too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he was, I got some funny stories now that you mention that. Are you an apple beer guy? Do you like the apple beers? I'll try it if you got it. I'm not a guest beer or anything. I just didn't drink it that much.
SPEAKER_02:Let me hear one of these stories from when my dad was little.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. It
SPEAKER_02:was
SPEAKER_00:icy. Well, we was out there dove hunting down there by St. Joe Avenue.
SPEAKER_01:You were using him as the dog?
SPEAKER_00:No. So he was standing off down just a little piece from me. And now I'm talking about he's pretty young, but he's got a gun, you know. Right. And he starts screaming and hollering, Dad, Dad, you know, like you wouldn't believe. And I look and... He had a squirrel that jumped up on his pants leg.
SPEAKER_02:It was attacking him?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was hanging on it. It wasn't doing nothing to him. Yeah, I could see where it would scare him. But, boy, he was panicking big time. I ran up there and grabbed the squirrel. It wasn't biting him or nothing. I just grabbed it, pulled it off of him, and laid it down.
SPEAKER_02:Got attacked by a damn rabid squirrel.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a rabid squirrel. But I could see where he was scared. Then another time, first time I took him out deer hunting, I put him up in this tree, told him to go up there. And I said, and there's an open field in front of him. It wasn't like he was out in the woods all around him. And I said, you see that tree right down the hill there? Yeah. I said, that's where I'm going to be. And I said, if you was to holler at me, I'd hear you or whatever. No problem. Don't be scared. Now, this is a kid that's not used to being out in the dark after dark by himself, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Let alone in the woods. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, he wasn't really in the woods. This is just a tree out in the field like, you know. So it wasn't really the ideal spot to be, but that's where we were at. So, yeah. By the time it was almost dark, or probably just might as well say dark, he started screaming. Dad! Dad! Dad! I mean, he was panicking, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:So I was panicking on account of scared of what he might do or try to jump out of the tree or something, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I got down out of the tree as quick as I could and hot-footed up the hill. And he was scared to death, you know, and... I got him down on the ground. He was calming down then, you know. And I told him before I left, I said, now, Tommy, there's nothing out here that's going to hurt you.
SPEAKER_02:Right. You got a gun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but nothing's going to hurt him, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Right,
SPEAKER_00:right. But I can understand why he was scared. Do
SPEAKER_01:you remember when he got his first deer?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let me see. He's actually a pretty good deer hunter. He done all right deer hunting. Yeah. But I remember he shot that one deer, that was his first one, and we had a rough time finding it. In fact, there was a couple of it, one or two that he shot with a bow and arrow or something, and he must not have had a good hit, had a little bit of blood or something. But I was always excited when he got a deer.
SPEAKER_02:When did you pick up bow hunting? We talked about guns, but we never mentioned a bow and
SPEAKER_00:arrow. Oh, well, I was young enough where all the guys at work at Hahn was making fun of me. You think you're going to get a deer with a bow and arrow, you know, and all this? I mean, that's always a big joke, you
SPEAKER_02:know. Were compound bows a thing back then?
SPEAKER_00:No, they come along later.
SPEAKER_02:So it was just the true traditional bow and arrow. Yeah, yeah. And when I was little, he would take me to the traditional bow hunt shoots with Samuel Rice. Remember we had Samuel in the runner? Yeah, yeah. So that when we would go bow hunting, Sam was a kid, I was a kid, and my grandpa would take me up there and we'd go through.
SPEAKER_01:They have like a wood set up with all different type of animal targets and you'd hunt it. That's so sick.
SPEAKER_02:That's sick, dude. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. We had bows, those compound, the non-compound recurve bows. Recurves, yeah. And I remember yours says old thumper and mine says little thumper.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know, I still use that as my Gmail address with I can't get my Gmail going for some reason.
SPEAKER_02:Gmail is kind of a son of a bitch sometimes. I guess. Yeah. All right. So anyway, do you remember his first deer? Yeah. Tom's first deer. I want to know that camper. When I was little, you had a white camper. It had like an orange interior with the, like, I don't even remember the type of fabric, but it was like a rougher fabric. Yeah. You bought that when the kids were little. Yeah. I remember my dad was talking about going hunting or camping in the winter and like you only had like a limited amount of heat in it or something like that.
SPEAKER_00:Then his friend, Jason Springer was his name. He was a neighbor in the neighborhood when we lived there by St. Joe. And he was going to go with us up there to this one place that we was ready to hunt on. And it's out in the country, you know, and Jason, he's not used to being out in the country or deer hunting or nothing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I told Tommy what I was going to do. I said, after it gets dark, I said, I'm going to reach down and start scratching on the side of the camper with my fingers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, give it a little.
SPEAKER_00:Be quiet. Jason, don't you guys move a muscle. And they're scared. Or, you know, Tommy knew what was coming, but Jason didn't. Whispering, yelling. That's a bear. Oh, man, he about come up clear. We all died laughing. I told him I was just having fun with this. Ain't no bears.
SPEAKER_02:No daggone bears. But now I think there are bears here. Are there not bears here?
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, I'm sure there is in some parts of Indiana, and they're in
SPEAKER_02:Illinois, too. They cut those big cats loose. The DNR. DNR. Yeah, DNR cut big cats loose in Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana. You want to tell Brian what DNR stands for? Do not resuscitate? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. In fact, I got a picture on my phone that shows my hat, and I lost it when Tommy's house caught on fire, and we were rebuilding it, and it fell down and got buried in the concrete. I'd love to get another hat like that, but it's black, and it says DNR in red letters. Yeah. Anyway, a friend of mine over in Illinois, He was all the time, damn non-residents, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Damn
SPEAKER_00:non-residents. That's what it stood for, for us, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And
SPEAKER_00:he didn't like it because non-residents was coming over hunting her deer, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had that hand made. In fact, I had a person over in Illinois make it for me. She was making hats and she did a beautiful job.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, they did. They cut loose some big cats. I think there's bears here now. Just all jokes aside. Yeah. What was like, let's talk about like your work years. You worked at. basically the majority of your life and retired from Whirlpool. Right. How long did you work for Whirlpool?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, boy. 30 years, I guess. I
SPEAKER_02:remember pulling up when Ma would get us on the weekends or some days and you'd be at Whirlpool and we'd pull up and you'd drive up on your golf cart that you had. Oh, yeah. Or
SPEAKER_01:whatever, you know. What was it like working in Whirlpool for those years? You were in tool and die. Were you in tool and die the whole time?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I hired in as a tool and die maker. Yeah. And I got laid off when working. Count it twice. Went to Job Shop, which that's a joke working in them damn places. But anyway, I got called back to work. I worked there for like 30 years. My only... Well, I say that's not my only problem. My problem was Whirlpool was set up contract come up instead of getting raised they'd want to take money away from you
SPEAKER_02:no shit
SPEAKER_00:don't take away what i already got no kidding that's the way i feel right now don't take away from what i've already got you can leave me
SPEAKER_02:with that but don't take away yeah well i was gonna say what uh like what what do you think you learned in years of doing tool and die that like may be applied to outside of work just like patience because you gotta
SPEAKER_00:well no that you learn how to do a lot of things you know how to run a lay and how to run grinders and how to uh proper There's a way to use drill presses. I mean, I know that sounds pretty basic. But anyway, you learn a lot, you know. And I've got a small lathe there in the garage, you know. I mean, there's things I can make if I have to or fix or whatever. Without
SPEAKER_02:using super glue? Brian, he uses super glue to fix anything. Why can't you?
SPEAKER_00:That's a universal tool. Oh, my wife teases me like mad.
SPEAKER_02:Super glue and duct tape, the key is super glue the thing together. Duct tape it. And you got it, man. If you don't have a vice.
SPEAKER_00:The rest of your life, you got it. Duct tape is
SPEAKER_02:just as good as a vice. That's how I look at it. That's right. I'm with you, Big Tom.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think she gets upset when I use super glue and spill it on something.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I've kind of got to be more careful with it. A lot of people,
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if a lot of people do this. You get a cut on your hand. Yeah, I do it all the time at work. Super glue. Yeah, super glue. It immediately stops the bleed. It's so great. Well,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, they use a lot of that stuff. Operations. Yeah. Doctors do. Yeah. Just dip
SPEAKER_02:some super glue in there. Good to go, dude. I'd like for you to tell Brian some of the jokes. Do you still remember the Frayed Knot story? And this is an 18-plus show, so you don't have to hold back. Or you want to tell Brian the joke you called me back in the bedroom the other day for? That
SPEAKER_00:was the other day. You couldn't tell me in
SPEAKER_02:front of them all. I don't remember. I'd heard it before. I told Brian about it. You called me back because you didn't want to say the joke in front of them. Oh, and you couldn't remember it? Yeah, I couldn't remember the joke, but I knew the punchline, but it was kind of ornery. But I can't remember what it was. We'll think of it. But I was telling Brian that you've always been a little jokester had funny little stories been accused of that what's what's your what's your favorite what's your favorite like you're just hanging with the boys kind of joke you know what i mean you're out with the boys maybe having a beer around the
SPEAKER_01:like in illinois on a hunting trip
SPEAKER_02:yeah like what's what's one of the jokes you would give to one of your boys you know what i mean I hope it's dirty. I love a good dirty joke, dude. And this is an 18-plus show, so.
SPEAKER_00:This is not a joke. This is real, but the guy found a ditch there, and he looked down, and it was a dildo down there. And he's told that when he come back here from hunting, boy, I started riding his ass. I made all kinds of jokes about it. I said, you still got your dildo? In fact, I... Did it fall out of you when you were jumping? Anyway, I... Oh, I know what it was now. One of the things was I bought a thing. It was really a practical thing. I used it before and told other guys. I even bought it for the game. When I say game wardens, there's about five of them come in from...
SPEAKER_01:Basically all over, and they're in your hunting group. They're buddies with you guys, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but they're from Mississippi and stuff like that. Some are different states, but anyway. They
SPEAKER_02:all go to the same hunting grounds that they go to. In Illinois, yeah. One month a year. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So a lot of times, when you're up in a tree stand, 25, 30 feet in the air, and you drop your hat, It's colder in the booger or whatever, you know, or maybe it's raining. Or you drop anything, you know, or even maybe an arrow or something. Man, I wish I could get that, you know. Drop a glove. Anyway, I found through a hunting site where they had this thing where You could lower it down out of a tree, you know, and get it down there and swing it back and forth and hook on to it and reel it back up, you know, which is handy as all get out. So I bought each one of the game boards one. And I always teased that one about it. I said, now, next time you see a dildo, you want to crawl down in the mud to get it. They all laugh about it. I generally bring it up every year.
SPEAKER_02:I generally like to remind them every year about the dildo. I remember one time, I remember one time in Palo Alto here was taking me to some drag races. They were like in Indy, I think. And we're driving from Evansville, at least up past Terre Haute. I'm in the backseat of the car. I think I threw a blanket over my head and I was making police siren noises like wee-woo-woo.
SPEAKER_01:I think he pulled over. I
SPEAKER_00:told him, I said, I think I'm going to get stopped. Your grandpa's going to get a speeding ticket. And when the cop pulled up there, he said, where are you going? I said, I'm going to the races. I told him he was going to the Indianapolis Drag Strip. He though yeah i don't think he gave me it no i think he got out of it yeah
SPEAKER_02:but yeah i remember all kinds of like i remember one year we went to a bow shoot and i had like this action figure i loved and they just let me kind of run around the campgrounds or whatever i was there were girls playing volleyball and i'm you know in the volleyball pit or whatever as a kid i buried my action figure and i couldn't even find it afterwards i still remember being upset about it oh lord but no i i remember uh just like all that stuff it was kind of cool but i remember uh well so it's It's funny. When Brian told me to cover my ears, he's seen me pass out from the blood. And what's funny is you used to do it when you were little, and my dad used to do it. But they can both hunt and gut deer. Oh, really? Oh, I
SPEAKER_00:had a rough time when I started squirrel hunting.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, skinning them?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. Just doing anything after you shot them, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Well, squirrels are the easiest from what I hear. And again, we won't get into details, but they're relatively easy to skin.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but what got me is it's like operating on somebody, you know what I mean? Yeah. Seeing the blood and all that. That's what get me. Yeah. And a buddy of mine kept after me until he got me away from that, which it took a while. It's weird.
SPEAKER_02:The first time you like see like a good amount of, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you're doing it yourself. Trying to keep it safe for
SPEAKER_02:Tom over here. Hanging deep breaths. I have the only one that I don't think hasn't outgrown it yet.
SPEAKER_00:Let me tell you a funny story about this character, him and his sister. This character.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's about right. This character.
SPEAKER_00:We're over in Illinois somewhere. I forget where I was at right now, but I'm sure he'll remember when I start telling the story where I'm headed.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It had real steep hills up and down. Well, both them kids, you and your sister, had cell phones. So I go down the hill. I'm not thinking about you. I'm talking about steep hills. You're down in the valley.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, they was losing the signal. Oh, man, they about had heart attacks. You know, hurry up, Grandpa. Go back up a hill. I don't have a signal. I can't use my phone. And when they said that, all I did was add fuel to the fire. Well, I'd go up real slow, you know. I'd get up to the top, and then they'd get their signal back, and they was all happy. When you go to the next one, they'd go down. Oh, no, I kept doing that with them. There's about Do you remember that? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I remember the tricycle. We had a tricycle we'd ride around. The trike, the motorized one. We'd ride around all that air and gas place across from North St. Joe. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what else I just remember. That one might be frozen. No, mine was frozen. See if you can get that, if you would, please. This fridge is weird. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you're
SPEAKER_00:good. I got my fingernails trimmed kind of close anyway.
SPEAKER_02:It might be like super cold. Mine has a little bit of ice in it. You were big into hunting and fishing. You went to Sturges. You heard of Sturges, surely, Brian, right? I got buddies that ride. What was that like?
SPEAKER_00:Well...
SPEAKER_02:Like Woodstock
SPEAKER_00:for motorcycles, right? I went to Sturgis a couple times. Did you ever go to Woodstock? No, thank goodness. It was going on, though, at that time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you probably don't come back from that.
SPEAKER_00:No. Anyway, I'm glad I didn't go to it. I started to, and I thought, no, I don't know. Oh, you wanted to? Yeah, I thought I did, but I'm glad I didn't.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, to answer your question about Sturgis. Yeah, what was that like? At first, I thought it'd be fun and that, and then... I want to really hear the truth. Yeah. When I got there, you know, women were showing their tits and everything and some of them were naked and this and that. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sitting there, you know, here I am, a married dude and got kids. And my first reaction, and it did hit me hard, I said, I shouldn't be here. It's just not right.
SPEAKER_02:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think I went back the next year again, and that was it. Still didn't feel any
SPEAKER_02:better the next year?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, it just wasn't the right thing to do, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_02:Not anymore, right? Like, it would have been different if you weren't married or didn't have kids
SPEAKER_00:or anything like that. Probably,
SPEAKER_01:probably. Yeah, it would have been a different
SPEAKER_00:environment. Well, hell, there was... I mean, I didn't see this, thank goodness, but I'm sure it went on all over the place down there. Everything happened, I think. But some guy was screwing a gal out there on the open. People were standing all around him watching him, you
SPEAKER_02:know. That's weird. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's strange. This is just... I don't claim to be real religious. I should be, but I'm not. But I'm thinking more about it all the time, naturally. In fact, I've been praying for people for a long time now. They don't make me real religious, but at least it's a start, I guess. But just like... you felt like, Lord, I'm sorry, but I shouldn't be here. I mean, I just, I did. I felt guilty as hell.
SPEAKER_01:Well, what's crazy, too, is,
SPEAKER_02:so, like, I remember, like, the bike scene blew up in Evansville eventually. Like, I mean, when you went to high school, like you said, there were only two, three people with bikes in your school. And then, like, the Hell's Angels was huge here in Evansville, or the Grim Reapers.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I don't even like that word. That's what they were called. Right. People said, oh, you belong to Grim Reapers. No, that's just my last name. I don't have nothing. And they were just down the block from the Harley shop
SPEAKER_02:right
SPEAKER_00:wasn't even a block away
SPEAKER_02:yeah they were on well I remember you were like you got like all the bikers like would go to you know this lake you guys were talking like everybody in the town the the like watering holes or whatever you wanted to call it the places where people went to hang out in their free time you know you got all sorts of people there and I remember you telling stories about like you'd have the biker gangs over there and they take their empty beer cans and pour milk into it and give it to their kids to like Drink milk
SPEAKER_00:out of it. But I wouldn't doubt it a bit. Yeah, there's things that, you know, It's kind of like you could be on a street or be somewhere, and on one side of the street, they're doing all this crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And on the other side of the street, people are more normal and got sense and Christians or whatever. I'm not proud that I went to Sturgis. I have no intentions of going back to Sturgis. No way in the world would I go to Big Sturgis. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Where is Big Sturgis at?
SPEAKER_00:It's out there in... Not Colorado.
SPEAKER_02:Little Sturgis is Kentucky,
SPEAKER_00:right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then Big Sturgis is like
SPEAKER_00:further west. It's like the Carolinas or something. It's out
SPEAKER_02:west. Look up Big Sturgis. Where's Big Sturgis at? Big Sur. I think you're spelling Sturgis wrong, but yeah, there you go. Where is this
SPEAKER_00:at? Down there at the bottom. 2025 right there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what's that one then, big dog? What are we talking here? What are we talking? Tom, just tell me. Dog, I'm trying. You suck at this. How do I get? Oh, Marilyn Manson's going to be there? How? Yeah, dude. ZZ Top isn't only one of them alive. Okay, all right. Not
SPEAKER_00:a lot of information. South Dakota, isn't it? South Dakota? Black Hills?
SPEAKER_01:Free basic registration, blah, blah, blah. Here we go. This is Sturges SD, South Dakota.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, South Dakota. I've been there. I've been through there twice, but it wasn't for that. It's just going through it.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Let's see. I wanted to hit on some technology stuff that happened over the time. Did you have a pager? Did you get a pager when pagers came out? Like a beeper? No. Will you remember when you got your first cell phone? When was that? Was that like going from just a house phone to?
SPEAKER_00:I wanted one. Ma didn't want me to get one, so we don't have a need for it. Yeah, but tell you what, hunting and everything else is damn nice. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:if you hurt yourself out there, it's nice. If you tore something, broke something, you can't crawl to where you
SPEAKER_00:got it. Well, one day, I'm dead serious about this now. One day, I forget how it was, somehow or another, I made a wrong move in a tree stand, and I'm always minimum 20 foot off the ground. Okay. 20, 25 foot, probably most of the time.
SPEAKER_02:That's a good
SPEAKER_00:drop. Occasionally, maybe 30. Enough to kill. Been a lot of bohas, a lot of hunters killed.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:just falling out of the tree stand. Or crippled for life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And anyway... Made a silly move and moved the wrong way and knocked part of the tree stand loose. So I was kind of hanging on for dear life. Still in it, but scary. I sat up there for a long time, scared to death, to tell you the truth. And finally I come to no cell phone. I mean, didn't even have a cell phone. That's really spooky when you're out there. And a lot of times I hunted in places where I'll be here, I'll be there, I'll be here. I'll be in that town, I might be in another town. And people wouldn't, even people who knew me may not have a very
SPEAKER_02:good idea.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I'm sitting there and I done resigned myself, I guess that's the right word to use, that I'm probably going to have to spend the night in this tree. And which was kind of spooky because it'd get cold at night and I really wasn't worried about something getting me, but I never had done it before. So it's a pretty serious situation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm scared to try to get out of the tree stand and shimmy down the tree. Well, this half-assed buddy of mine, which he thinks he knows everything, not anybody you know, but one of the idiots over in Illinois. He's about the only idiot I know over there, but thank God. Anyway, well, I'd have just jumped out of there and sent it down that tree and wouldn't give it a thought. Okay, maybe you would, and I believe he's probably telling the truth, but... You know, you got one shot at it, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You swing out of that tree stand and try to let go of that tree stand and grab that tree or something. If things don't go right, you done made a mistake. Right, and you already got a bad knee. Yeah, not only that. Nobody knows where you're at to look. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you're in a tough spot. I mean,
SPEAKER_00:I could tell somebody, hey, I'm going hunting up in Linville. Well, yeah, maybe his dad or some other people might be, but where am I in Linville?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:Linville, big
SPEAKER_02:county.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and there's a lot of places to hunt. I might be here, there, or there. I'd be all over
SPEAKER_01:the place. I think your house was the first house I'd ever saw a computer.
SPEAKER_03:Hmm.
SPEAKER_02:I remember you had a computer. You had all kinds of games on there. Big Bow Hunter was one. You had like some...
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that was the first computer I ever got. Oh, it was so stupid on my part.
SPEAKER_02:They were expensive
SPEAKER_00:back then. I paid$3,500 for that computer. I still got it downstairs. Yeah. And then it's... Unbeknownst to me, man, I thought if you bought one, you had it for life.
SPEAKER_02:Huh, yeah, right. Yeah, no, you're good for like five years, man. Yeah, something like that. Does it still boot up? I need to try to turn it on next time I'm over there. You can have it if you want it. I took a floppy disk. I'm going to put one in a shadow box. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I mean, I just thought that kind of money, you got a computer, which I didn't know anything about. I didn't know what the hell a computer was or what it was for. I asked guys at work, what do you need a computer for? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:They were like, you can look at Naked Chickens. Not yet. Not yet,
SPEAKER_00:I love. That's probably pretty
SPEAKER_02:little when I've seen them.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I remember friends of mine that lived two or three doors down from us, brothers. One of them had a big Harley, and the other one had a smaller Harley, size-wise.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_00:I asked his other brother, another brother, three of them, So which one's the fastest? He said, that smaller one. Well, me being a kid, I thought, well, the bigger one would be the fastest. Right. That wasn't the case.
SPEAKER_01:That's kind of like the Kawasaki's and the street bikes now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. See, that's another thing. That VMAX that you had up there a while ago, That thing will shit and get.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Is it 1,200?
SPEAKER_00:I think so. It might be bigger than that.
SPEAKER_02:It's not a very big bike, but I know the motor cage is rather large.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's a four-cylinder. It's a heavy bike.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it's got...
SPEAKER_01:1,679 cc.
SPEAKER_02:That is a damn near 1,700 cc. There you go. Jesus Murphy. Holy shit. Why do you own that? God. He used to drag race that roadster. Or sportster. Yeah, sportster back in the day. Brother, there is no...
SPEAKER_00:I think I run circles around that sportster and it's stuck.
SPEAKER_02:And there is no good reason on God's great green earth you need 1,700 cc's.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let me tell you, this new Kawasaki, which Tommy's told me the name of it. I just heard about it a week ago. Kawasaki's come out with a new hot rod like that. And it'll run circles around that one.
SPEAKER_02:Is it the Ninja? No, it's
SPEAKER_00:not. No, no, it ain't nothing like you ever heard of. Look it up. Maybe it'll show it. Latest Kawasaki or something.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, 2026 Kawasaki fast bike. Yeah, fast.
SPEAKER_00:Like I said, my VMAX Just like Todd always said, when they see somebody on a VMAX, they know not to mess with it because they ain't going to beat it. It is a Ninja. It's a Ninja H2R. Oh, it is? Oh, is
SPEAKER_02:it 2000? There's no way that's a 2000cc.
UNKNOWN:Holy God.
SPEAKER_02:It's a 1998cc. But it's supercharged. It's not. It says 998. Yeah, basically. Yeah. So it's a 1,000. Yeah. So it's smaller than the previous one. Yeah, but it's way lighter.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, you print that out.
SPEAKER_01:I can send it to you.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:That's wild. I
SPEAKER_00:mean, that thing, from what I understand, it is without a doubt the meanest motorcycle out there. I mean, my VMAX wouldn't even be able to hold a candle to it. And it's also, when you give it to gas, it's got a thing that...
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the quick shifter?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. But anyway, when you give it to gas, it's like the back tire engages, and the back tire starts spinning immediately without you trying to make it to it. When you really get on it, the instant you give it, it's ready to go, but there ain't no hesitation to it at all.
SPEAKER_02:It
SPEAKER_00:ain't like giving it to gas and popping a clutch or nothing like that.
SPEAKER_02:There was a family feud over naming me the third, right? Not a big feud, but there was some jokes about it, like my mom didn't want to name me the third, but you and my dad and Ma all wanted I mean, to be named a third, what was that like? I remember Meemaw, you guys made a better
SPEAKER_00:mistake. Well, they wouldn't want us to make you like Tommy the third, which jokingly, a lot of times, later on, I'd say Tommy the third. Third.
SPEAKER_02:But anyway. He's kind
SPEAKER_00:of a turd. I wanted to carry the family name on more.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:That's how you ended up with that. But no, I think your mom and a lot of other people really wanted to name you something else.
SPEAKER_01:They were trying to keep the same initials. Initials. We'll keep the same initials, but they wanted to change my middle name or something.
SPEAKER_02:I like Alfred. Alfred is a strong middle name.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, see, that's my name, Thomas Alfred.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And your dad, his name, let's see. And Junior's what I think of all the time. But I mean, there's no, I don't think there's no Alfred in there. Yeah, it is. Is it? Yeah. Okay. It's all the same. Anyway, I wanted to carry that on.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And yeah, there wasn't no family feud, but there was discussion about it. Right, but I remember
SPEAKER_02:like you and Meemaw bet a stake over me or something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I lost and she rolled my ass about it. You know, I finally bought her that stake. Yeah. After several years, I loved that woman, her and her husband both.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Good Lord
SPEAKER_00:Almighty. Oh, she loved teasing me about that. I finally took her Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Good times, man. Yeah. I
SPEAKER_02:think, so one question that I really want to know is in your, in all your age and time and wisdom and years dealing with this turd and this turds. Third. Yeah. The
SPEAKER_00:third.
SPEAKER_02:But with all the years and all the things that you've done and things you've built and everything, like what's one of the biggest pieces of of advice you would give to a 30 year old man right now Don't be like your grandpa. In what way? It seems like you had a fun life, you know? No, but I mean like for my, just think about it like our generation, Tom and I's generation, like the 30 year old.
SPEAKER_00:Have a good time and don't get in trouble and don't be a troublemaker. That'd be the first things that come to my mind.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Get along with people and you know, I worked with a lot of people who were complete assholes to be quite honest. And I worked with a lot of good people and you think I have any respect for the ones that are assholes no
SPEAKER_02:no
SPEAKER_00:never will and uh but anyway uh just try to be a good person and uh accept life as it is and have the best time you can. Okay. About the best way I can put it.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Be a good person, love thy neighbor. That's a strong message, man. You don't hear that a lot, honestly. No. Yeah, I agree. What are some of your highlight real moments? Looking back, what are some of your favorite moments? The key, you'll remember them forever. You got any? Just off the top of your head, maybe by chance.
SPEAKER_00:No problem. No problem and you won't ever guess.
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_00:A highlight of my life is who I'm married to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, when you met Brenda?
SPEAKER_00:Yep. With no money.
SPEAKER_02:Couldn't even buy a damn cheeseburger.
SPEAKER_00:Not even a hot dog. It's crazy to look back. Not even a mini hot dog.
SPEAKER_02:Not even a corn dog. Not even the pups, dude. But it's crazy to look back from that first date, you know, just money for gas to go and sit at the same place together to now, what, 60 plus years later on the west side just hanging out
SPEAKER_00:on the back porch. I want to tell you about this one time. Don't take this the wrong way. Take me at what I'm saying. Yeah. Right. You got a whole bunch of rigamarole. Yeah. I just suggested let's get in the back seat, and not for the wrong reasons. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:No more, and never thought anything about it. Back then, I didn't think it was really right, but it didn't take long after that I started realizing it is right, because there's probably been a lot of young girls who's been up here on Wright's Hill. Seriously, you know. Anyway, we got in the back seat, and the windows no more and got steamed up.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think. Anyway, there was nothing going on. Yeah. But it does look bad.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Cop. No way. Do your parents know you're up here? No, sir. Well, I think it might be a good thing if you got up front and, you know, go on about your business. Or you want to be, in other words, even being real polite
SPEAKER_02:about it. Yeah, go on about your day now.
SPEAKER_00:So, guess what? I did that. And when you come off of the backside, you know, the submarine races are over here. Well, when you're leaving, you're going the other way.
SPEAKER_02:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. And you got to go down that little dip to get out of there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I know something.
SPEAKER_00:Well, at 53 Mercury, I shifted in second gear or something. Somehow or another, it got humble. Oh, no. Oh, no.
SPEAKER_01:Would you have to fly like a pigeon, like a courier
SPEAKER_00:pigeon? Yeah, we couldn't do nothing. I mean, you couldn't back up. You're stuck there because the weight was against the transmission and everything. You know, you couldn't do nothing. You couldn't get it in neutral. You couldn't do nothing. And... I forget exactly what he'd done, but it was somehow or another, I don't know if he used a crowbar or what, but he was able to push it back enough to where it would go up into neutral and start it up and I could go. I thought I'd catch all kinds of hell about that, although he wasn't doing anything up there. I
SPEAKER_02:remember one time, I'll tell you this story as a funny little loop of coincidences here in the family tree. I was up one time on Wright's Hill watching submarine races. Nice. Who won? The U.S. No, nobody won, honestly, this night. Do they ever? It was kind of cold, so I had the Mustang, the 5.0 1990 Fox Body Mustang. Oh, yeah. Shout out. And the seats lay down, and we were in the back, you know, whatever. And I left the car running because it's cold outside.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it overheated, and the radiator blew. And all that steam came piling into the car. I just reached up and turned the car off, and I was like, I'm going to keep
SPEAKER_00:going. That was the same car that you got with your... Nettie, your mother's boyfriend.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Jason?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And remember you went down there in the Bosborough house and something, a transmission stuck on you or something. I went down there and I said, what are you doing down here anyway?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, they do submarine races down in Dogtown sometimes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I heard they
SPEAKER_02:did. That's what I hear. Yeah, between cornfields looking over to Ohio. Yeah, you get down there by a wall bash. I remember my car was shot basically at this point. I had to call Myra to come pick us up or whatever. And I just remember I left my underwear in the car. I was like going commando with no underwear trying to ask like nothing. What was that? And then, you know, I was like, oh, I was driving by. My car started overheating. I just pulled into the parking lot. We're all the way in the back where nobody'd ever go. Nice. Oh, man. Funny how, you know.
SPEAKER_00:You know down there where that happened? You know how you go across that little bridge? It always floods whenever the water's up. And you're headed around on the backside of the tar plant.
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:I turned around where the—as far as I know, that's where they transfer the coal onto the barges and stuff out in the river.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, anyway, I go around there, and the sunset—this is this year. I've been in T-Bird. And got my binoculars. You know, I go out there in the evening or something.
SPEAKER_02:Looking for submarines?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I'm looking for deer. But anyway, I'm sitting there, and— When I left the house, I could see how pretty the sun was when it was going down. Boy, it was about the prettiest red or pinkiest red you've ever seen.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I had my camera, well, I had my phone, and I was going to zoom in and take a picture of that. So I had the window down, didn't have no gun or nothing with me, just had binoculars and that camera. And I'm sitting there looking at it, and all of a sudden this truck pulls up, white truck. And it's sitting back a little. It's not right beside me, but it stopped. And I kind of waved when I seen it, you know, and I just thought it was somebody.
SPEAKER_02:Sheriff.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, think I broke down or need to get around me or something, whatever. And he pulled up there beside me. He says, what are you doing? So that's kind of an odd thing to ask. I thought maybe somebody said, well, you got car trouble or something, you know?
UNKNOWN:And...
SPEAKER_00:I felt like saying, well, what do you care? Why are you saying that or something? I wasn't going to get smart, but I just didn't know why he would ask something like that. Well, come to find out, he's on security patrol. I'd never seen that before down there. Now I've been around that time, I don't know how many times. I said, well, all I'm doing is taking my phone, and I want to take a picture of that real pretty sunset. And... Then I asked him what he was doing. He said, well, I'm security. I seen it on the side of the truck when he left. I didn't know they had it. I guess they do. That's wild. That's one thing,
SPEAKER_01:actually, that you mentioned that I think is interesting. Ever since I was a kid, I remember you had a camcorder, and you would record every
SPEAKER_02:single family event.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of them. What brought that up?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, was that like the thing? Was that what people were doing at the time? Not a lot of people do that nowadays. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's a way to get stuff like that and save it. I think it was
SPEAKER_02:just a new thing, though. Yeah, I thought it was pretty neat. Thinking back on it, I was like, man, is that why I got into cameras? Well,
SPEAKER_00:look at what Ken and Joe got us in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:It's all pictures that we've taken or they've taken or whoever. We put them on there, and it shows you for a few seconds, and it goes on to the next picture. Oh, hell yeah. I
SPEAKER_02:love those. Those are
SPEAKER_00:great. Yeah, it's a lot of memories, you know. You've got Braden with your ma and that teeter-totter down there by the ballpark by our house. Yeah. Stuff like that, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Good to have the memories.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so anyway.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, man. Crazy. Yeah. Life's a journey. It is, dude. Anything else you want to let the world know or keep on air?
SPEAKER_00:Anything
SPEAKER_02:you can think of?
SPEAKER_00:Probably could think of a lot of things, but I thought about it a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it's been fun. Brian was like, what are we going to do? We had somebody cancel, and I was like, I got the perfect guy to fill the slot. I got a guy.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know how you go down Waterworks Road?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Go by the old waterworks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you remember that where the waterworks is at? It's that real steep concrete road. Comes down from the waterworks.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that embankment. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I rode up on that on my sickle, and then I got scared and pulled a clutch in. You talk about a wild ride coming in and free-wheeled it backwards, not knowing exactly
SPEAKER_03:how you...
SPEAKER_00:I thought sure I was going to have a hell of a crash, but I didn't. Yeah, that was scary. I bet. Anyway, no, I could think of a lot of things when I think about it, I guess, but...
SPEAKER_02:We might have to do it again sometime. You know, when you think of a handful list of just fun old stories you got or whatever, just let me know. We'll bring it back on out. If you want to come by for a beer anytime, you're welcome, Tom. I like your attitude. I like you way more
SPEAKER_00:than him. That's understandable. You
SPEAKER_02:know what I mean? So if you want to figure out how to run a podcast, maybe we could just sub him out. He's been learning to
SPEAKER_00:fly a drone.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah, dude. Nice. I
SPEAKER_00:need a... I didn't follow up on the updates. I did for a while, and somehow or another, I didn't. Dude, he was a legal drone flyer before I was. FAA
SPEAKER_02:or whatever? Yeah, he was like, yo, you got to take this free online FFA course. And I'm like, come on, Grant.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know. Really?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. He was like,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, you need to sit down here and take it. Let's do
SPEAKER_02:it. Little Tom likes to break the rules. He's like, I'll fly however high I want. It doesn't matter. I'm like, dude, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, he found my drone for me, and that was kind of neat. I knew then, but I was scared and got I called him and he said, yeah, I can find it for you. And I was out there by the, the gas station. Yeah. I mean, I was at my house close to it and I flew up and I didn't go across Broadway, but I was up where you could see the highway. Yeah. Right at the edge. Yeah. And, uh, anyway, uh, Low battery, low battery. Oh, fuck. Well, I panicked, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Tried to come back and all that, and finally it says, I think it says something like, tried to find an open area or something, low battery, low battery, and then everything went silent. Oh. No, it said landing in an open area.
UNKNOWN:Damn.
SPEAKER_00:And that was it. Well, I panicked and panicked too much because I thought it was on the other side of the...
SPEAKER_03:The
SPEAKER_00:highway, even on the other side of the road. St. Philip's. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. And... I never did get across Broadway. You know? And I was over there asking people if they'd seen a drone or anything. And I went out in the fields and looked and everything.
SPEAKER_01:I remember it was getting dark and he called me. He's like, hey, I need a favor. He's like, you don't have to do it today, but if you want. He's like,
SPEAKER_02:my drone just landed itself and I don't know where it's at. And I drove all the way from Newburgh and ended up finding it within like 30 minutes or whatever. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was a hunt. Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And there was no damage. It landed right out. You know, I drove by there two or three times and look back that way from the vehicle. Yeah, I didn't see it from the road. And I couldn't see it. It was
SPEAKER_02:laying right out there in the open. They're not large. I mean, if you're looking at a huge field, it'd be easy to overlook something.
SPEAKER_00:This
SPEAKER_02:wasn't a big
SPEAKER_00:field. It was a little field, but I guess you take a little bit of grass and it's laying in the grass, so that'd not be enough to hide it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because they only stand six or seven inches off the ground. I mean, if it's in a 10-foot-tall grass field,
SPEAKER_00:you're... Boy, I was tickled to death because, man, I was sitting there thinking about how much money that thing costs and everything.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, a little time. Tom's the man, dude. If you need anything technological, this guy's got you. Yeah. I remember I showed him an AI video I made based on his truck sticker. So ever since I can remember when he got this black truck, switched from the red one, you put a sticker on it that said, vegetarian is an old Indian word that just means bad hunter. Yeah. Remember I made that AI
SPEAKER_00:video? Yeah. That's all about truck right now. Yeah. Nice,
SPEAKER_02:dude. Yeah. Nice. Well, Tom, I'll tell you what, man. I really do Appreciate you. I mean, I know you didn't. I guess you had a chauffeur all the way out here, but we still took two hours out of your day, if not more, so I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I... He invited me, and at first I thought it would be great, you know. Now
SPEAKER_02:you don't like it so much. You were like,
SPEAKER_00:this is going to be awesome. No, no, no. It's the other way. I even got nervous about it. No, never be nervous. I said, man, I don't know what I'm going to say or what they think I'm going to say or whatever, but, no, I'm glad I came.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, look at us now. We're two hours in here talking, and we're, it's just. Having a good time. Yeah, I could do another hour easy. Yeah. But we do have to shut it down, because normally after an hour, people start tuning out. Yeah, you got to keep it for the listeners. Yeah. I said, we'll get you in for round two. Oh, my God. If you can think of some of these jokes and maybe jot them down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I remember he had double knee surgery. Well, how many knee surgeries have you had now?
SPEAKER_00:Three? Two.
SPEAKER_02:Two? I remember the first time, if you look at his knee, it's a straight line. This one here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's no kneecap. That's where I had the car hit me.
SPEAKER_02:But you see the straight line. And then years later, they had to go back in and do it again. So they cut a U. And I remember you said, have you ever seen an IU surgeon? Because it looks like the IU symbol. Well,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, but they didn't... This was all done at one time. So you have no patella. You have no patella over here? Well, you can look at the difference in the knees. Can I touch it? Is it gross? As long as you don't get sexual. I've had knee surgery here, but... So this one's totally...
SPEAKER_02:This one doesn't. This is a total replacement. Top and bottom, right? Top and bottom
SPEAKER_00:replacement. No, just out there in front. Just the front. The kneecap's gone.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, so you don't have metal in your femur or your tibia over here
SPEAKER_00:there might be some metal I don't know
SPEAKER_02:and I'd love to see those x-rays dude
SPEAKER_00:I've been accused of having lead in my ass
SPEAKER_02:damn dude well I'll tell you what man you bring a lot of knowledge and a lot of good stories we're going to have to have you in again I don't think
SPEAKER_00:there's a shadow of a doubt would you do
SPEAKER_02:another one
SPEAKER_00:well yeah
SPEAKER_02:some other time we'll get you back in in a few weeks or something yeah come in and kick it hell yeah dude If
SPEAKER_00:nothing else, I'll listen to you.
SPEAKER_02:I like that, too. Just bounce ideas off of. But, yeah, I don't have anything else. Little Tom, you got anything? I think this has been another thrilling episode of The Day's Grimm. My name is Brian Michael Day. My name is Thomas Grimm III, and joining us has been Thomas Grimm Sr., the original. The first.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_00:You're welcome. Thank you, guys, for having me. Our pleasure.