WHO ARE THEY…. Dr. Kevin Fowler

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Where are they?
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They're probably upstairs.
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They never answer the door. Oh wait, it's Monday night.
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They're on the second floor.
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Hey guys, welcome back to the second floor. We're got our third guest this time on the second season here and he's gonna tell us a little bit about himself. We're gonna drill in with some questions, he's got some stories. Take it away.
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Well, alright guys, we have Kevin Fowler with us today. He is my first cousin. Just like a brother. We grew up together and think a lot of him. I just, I wanted to get him on here, give a little rundown of where he come from, where he's at today. I think he has a super awesome story. So Kevin. Yeah, let's just get started.
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Well, he's mentioned his cousins several times on this podcast, so I binged as many episodes as I could. He talks about his cousins all the time. He talked about cousins who can just build houses, just foundation to roofline. He's talked about cousins that are in real estate and that can just do. Play music and all that. I'm not that cousin.
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That's not who I am.
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So we have the same hair color but. But that, that's it. Yeah, I'm not that cousin, but no, yeah, I am. Was born in Blount Memorial Hospital down the road. Grew up in Von, Ore. My entire life. I left here. My first job was at Vicks Texaco right down the street here, which was like a rite of passage around here in Von or. My dad worked there, my brother worked there, I worked there. There's a whole lot there of how, you know, having a blue collar there helped me eventually get a white collar. And I'm not saying that that's, you know, the pinnacle or the goal that everybody needs to ascribe to, but I'm just really grateful for my roots there, working out the garage. But yeah, I mean I am a bit of a product of the public school system here. I attended from kindergarten to one day in seventh grade and swore I just, I'm not going back. And then I started homeschool and yeah, that was a whole journey in and of itself. At 18 I was, I worked my last day at Texaco on a Saturday and on Monday I was at Maryville College. And that, that kind of started my whole academic career. I got my bachelor's eventually, you know, I will, we can talk about some work. But eventually I got my master's and then years later got my doctorate. But that's just really because it was free. My work would Pay for it. And so I thought, why not? But, yeah, that's. That's. That's just been the trajectory, I thought, when he was.
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When he told me. I remember I was very young. I mean, I would have been probably in fourth or fifth grade. When I heard he was going to be homeschooled and figured out what it consisted of, I was like, mom, mom, can I do this? You know?
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Yeah.
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And I remember, like, me, like, begging her to become. She's like, honey, you don't know how it works. I can do it. You just. You get me the books, and I'll do it, you know? And I was like, kevin's doing it. I can do it. You know? And she's like, it doesn't work that way, you know? And I remember. I remember that going down, and I remember telling some of my friends. I was like, dude, my cousin, he's going to be homeschooled.
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Yeah, well, I mean, you already had homeschool cousins.
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Yeah, I did.
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Well, cousins.
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Well, I said, I didn't know them until you introduced me. Until we were. I didn't even know that side of the family.
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Yeah. I was your gateway to the other.
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To the builders.
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Yeah.
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But. And then we had some pretty cool times at. At Marvel College.
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Yeah, that was. Yeah.
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You know, I didn't. That was a sight, because now I didn't go to college.
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People are going to hear that stuff. I think that we're. I was an ra. I busted up the booze and the. And the weed.
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That's true.
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Yeah, that's true. I was so. What do they call it straight edge when you don't, you know, partaker anything. I was so strict, I didn't even know what pot smelled like. And they had to bring cops on campus and do a controlled burn for me. And once they lit that, like, we, like, all the other RAs were gathered around. They're like, yeah, we all know what
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this smells like now, once you smell it.
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Well, once I smelled it, all right. I took a big whiff of that, and I said, the entire third floor smells like that. And they're like, yeah, that's the point. You need to bust them. I said, I just thought it was just like some type of BO that all the jocks are up there. I thought it was just a weird soap or something they were using. So I was locked in at that point. You know? You never forget that.
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No, no, you don't. Once you. Once you. Once you smell it, I mean.
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Yeah.
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You know exactly what it is.
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Yeah.
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But I remember I remember some of the going. I mean, I was what, 15, 16, somewhere in there when you were in college and getting. Because I had already kind of made my mind up then. I wasn't going to college. Now, whether I do a tech school or something, I might do that. But I thought, well, dang, I get to go up and stay in his. Chill out in his dorm and figure out what college is really about, you know, But I'm with the ra, so, I mean, we ain't doing nothing, you know? You know?
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Yeah.
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Was you expecting something different?
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No, no. But I didn't know what to expect. That was my thing. I didn't know what to expect. But I remember, like, sometimes we'll be sleeping or something. You'd hear some loud noises and he'd get up, you know, it'd be like, what, 10, 10 or 11 o', clock, and hear something, you know, rustling something down the hallway. Boom, he's up. I'm like, what's going on? You know, and he's going out there to check, see what's happening.
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Yeah.
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Probably seeing if there's girls past 11 and you have to. Yeah, that's ride them up and stuff like that. But yeah. Yeah. Now we, like. We pretty much grew up as brothers. Well, yeah, I mean, we were every weekend.
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Every weekend.
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We were about 85% of the time you were at my house. But sometimes I would go down there to Loudon. But yeah, And I mean, we. We really did. I was. I was thinking about just this idea of cousins in general and, you know how people talk about grandbabies, Right.
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And.
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And how it's different show. Oh, it's the best part of. Because you get to take all the good and then you push back the bad. Yeah. You send them back. That's kind of like what first cousins can be like, you know, it's like a close brother. They're like a brother to you. And yet they're at such an arm's length. There's really not that much fighting and bickering that goes on well.
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And then if you stay. If you stay from Saturday to Sunday, Sunday's the breaking point. Sunday's like, we're ready to get in
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a fight one more day, you're fine.
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Yeah.
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They say three days with house gas, they start smelling like fish. Yeah. You got to kick them out. Yeah. But, yeah, that. That was. I mean, we used to burn down the streets. I was okay. I know you get asked this all the time. How many are. How many times have you broken an
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arm or a body part 13 body parts.
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13.
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9 arms and 4. 4 legs. So, yeah, bones in the leg. So when I got to double digits, I started doing legs. Yeah.
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So, yeah, so I was. So you said nine arms. I think I was present for probably seven of those.
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I'm sure.
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Absolutely.
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But my fingerprints weren't on any of them. Well, until. Until I was so proud that. Because Matt used to point the finger. Well, yeah, you broke my. You did that and you broke my arm.
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I don't remember. I don't really remember most of them.
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And I was always so proud to say I've never broken one of his arms. I was always around. I was watching this stupid thing take place. But I was never responsible for an arm break until, like the last one. The last arm break you had. We were playing football out in. Out in the yard. And I mean, it was. I can't believe you went on to then play sports. Like, it just boggles my mind that and, I mean, I can't even remember what I did.
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That's probably my last arm I did break.
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I thought I barely touched you. Like, I really did. And then I hear you're going out for football and stuff. I'm like, are you serious?
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He won't survive that.
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No way.
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I do remember my first bone.
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I do too.
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My first bone. And I. There again, if. You know it's like when there's a drug bust.
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Yeah.
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Your. You know, whoever's in there, in that room when they have a drug bust.
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Yeah.
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You're. You're guilty by association. I remember he was in the room.
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I mean, we can. We can do names here, but it's like Devin and Tanya had your. Like they were swinging you like that. Yeah, I was standing over you. I mean, I remember an arm.
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They had a huge bean bag. I mean, a big old bean bag. And they were. They were doing this. And then they'd go up and we go down.
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Well, we went.
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And here we went. That's. I do remember that. And I was like three.
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Yeah.
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And I remember when I broke my first bone. I remember he's got. They had steps down in his old house. And I remember walking up those steps and I was like. I felt like my arm was £10,000 when I was three years old. I was like. And maybe it was because I was three years old trying to carry a broke arm up the step. I don't know. But it felt like I was never going to get them steps, like, for a long time. I remember
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not.
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It was just. That was like such a hardcore memory. Of mine. It felt like I was literally just dragging my arm up every step as I went, you know? But that was my first bone, and probably my last bone was with him. So.
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Yeah, it was just at least once a year. He was just. And he was. Since he was always at my house, that's where it was happening.
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Done it on Easter one time.
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Yeah.
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And running Granny's yard.
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But to tell you how far we go back, the first time I had ever. I. You know, you have those core memories that. That just pop out at you. I don't remember. I guess we can calculate what age I was, but the first time I remember seeing a pregnant woman, he was in the womb. Like, that was his mom, my aunt. And I remember, yeah, I was out on my Big Wheel, my big Batman big wheel, out in front of Mamaw's house, and I was riding bicycles with your sister. And I saw your mom walk in, and she was ready to pop. I mean, pop. And I just remember turning to Tonya and saying, why is your mom so fat? Why is your mom so fat? And she said, like, I was the biggest idiot in the world. She's pregnant, Kevin. She's pregnant. She's gonna have a baby. And so that's where I was like, oh, okay, that's. And then I remember going to the hospital to see you. I remember with our cousin Michelle. You know, I remember her swinging me by my arm. I think my sister had the other arm. And, you know, they were lifting me up and all that. And I remember looking through glass and seeing you. But I also remember. So Matt, my mom, babysit Matt when he was six weeks old, six weeks till. And so he was pretty much the first infant I remember seeing. And so going into. I remember Darlene, his mom, came and put him in a baby carrier right in the kitchen floor where, you know, the sliding glass door was. But I remember me and the other kids pretty much from the neighborhood. I mean, my mom babysat other kids, and we were just all leaning in, and that was really the first newborn baby I remember singing. And, yeah, you. You were pretty much. I mean, obviously there from there until
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we were most summers, 16, 17.
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Yeah. Yeah. And you always had a. I knew. You know, you can see from kids early on just the track that they're going on. So we would go over to my uncle's, you know, Uncle Alvin's house, and he'd be there working on a car. Matt would. Matt's right there. He wanted to know what's going on here. And he would just sit and Watch. And he didn't want to play. He just wanted to sit and watch. I wanted to be on Alvin's computer because that was the first computer I had ever seen. And like, oh, what. What is this? And then that's, you know, our careers.
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Hell, here we are.
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Yeah.
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So Alvin's to thank for all this.
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Yeah.
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Just think about it. I mean, he. He probably had the only computer in Von Ore, Tennessee, probably. So, like, before the library had.
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Did he not have, like. No. Maybe it was at your house. I remember when, like, Oregon Trail first come out, I thought. Did we not go to his house to play like a computer game or something?
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No, he. It wasn't that way. Yeah, he had some game, but I can't remember what.
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I remember what.
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He wouldn't let me anywhere near it. Get away from there and all that. And so. Yeah, I don't know what he did.
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I never. I. I didn't know that about myself, but it makes sense now.
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Oh, yeah.
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You were just all over.
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All over. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I used to. Remember, we used to go out and play and stuff. And I mean, I'm a big boy. I used to be a pretty good sized boy.
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Yeah.
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And Kevin's, you know, just like he's built today. He's just, you know, more in shape, fit, skinny. And we would be playing and he would always want to play football or do something. Couldn't ever catch him. Couldn't ever. I don't know what the point in playing is. I can't win, you know?
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Yeah. Because I'm a jock or something.
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No, you ain't a jock. It was just. It was just I couldn't catch you. I mean, I never could catch you. I mean, you're always going to win football. Why would we keep playing? I can't. I can't beat you at this, you
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know, and change sports up.
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Yeah.
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What am I going to play?
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We. Yeah, we play baseball. We. We didn't play basketball. Like, I suck. I still suck at that.
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We play a little bit back here in the backyard. I forgot. I forgot what we did, but I think one of the. For you and me, the. When we used to. I used to really look up and still do look up to you as a. As a brother, but more as a. I think you're a incredible financial. And how you do your finances and not how you do your finances, but how you manage as well as you do with the program that you use, the Ramsey program. And I really look up to that. As far as, you know, it's always intrigued Me on how the man has. How many kids do you care to say?
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Yeah, yeah, six. Yeah. Okay.
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I didn't, I didn't know six kids. Okay, well, six kids.
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Yeah.
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And, and, and to balance everything and do as well as you do. I mean, I honor that. That's.
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I appreciate that. I appreciate you. Well, I can't, I can't even take credit for it. Like, I'd have to say like, Dave Ramsey has a super simple formula and I, we are just super disciplined. We live simply and it has paid dividends. And so I work well when somebody says, hey, here are seven steps to improve your finances. And we needed that and it has worked for us. Yeah. I mean, and a lot of, I mean there are some folks that could look at the situation and assume that I make a lot more money than I do, but it really is like, yeah, the Ramsey program, they did the largest study of millionaires ever. And like the top 10 career, like number three is a teacher. Teachers are becoming millionaires. And you know, that's the kind of. We were doing this program when I wasn't making a lot of money at all. And still it scales upwards.
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And that's what I mean by that. I think that's very good. To be able to be a teacher and to where you were at, be able to do what you were doing as a, to make things work and to have at the time you had three or four kids. And it's just. What is the average of raising a kid? How many, how many thousands of dollars is it to raise a kid?
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A lot of. It's bull crap.
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Oh, I know, I know it is.
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Absolutely.
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I know it is.
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It's too much.
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Yeah, well, they, well they've said, Somebody told me the other day, it was like, and I think this may be a little far fetched, but they said somewhere in the neighborhood of like a hundred thousand dollars. I'm like, I don't believe that. I don't know what they mean by a hundred thousand dollars. Like, what do you mean? Like, yeah, you know.
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Yeah.
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How do I put in college? Well, no, college could potentially be more.
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That'd be. Yeah.
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Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But I just don't know.
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I, I heard there, there's a, there's a clip online of George Camel, who is one of Dave Ramsey's lieutenants out there. You know, he's, he's kind of the Gen Z guy. But he, he did push up against some of those statistics and he said for a hundred thousand dollars you could raise four children. Yeah, he said if you're like $2,000 rent or mortgage a month, and plus you have, you know, several thousand more to play with just to feed clothes that he said, obviously we're not talking about Disney every year or anything like that, but, yeah, you can make it. And the figures that he was giving really kind of lined up with where we have been. And to say, yeah, you can, for kids, make it work, but, yeah, you just have to be super intentional. That's really what. It's what it comes down to. But no, I. Yeah, I don't really talk about.
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I know you don't.
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Never really had a conversation with Ramsey.
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We haven't. We haven't. But I. I see it. Yeah, I see it. You know what I mean?
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Yeah. I went on the show. Yeah, well, that.
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That. But I mean, I see it as you being a. I don't, you know, the sole provider of your home and all that sort of stuff. You know, I see that. I mean, I am, too, but I'm just saying, like, you do it well for.
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For. For six. Yeah, I appreciate it, but, man, it really. And I'm sure you can attest to this, too. It would have been impossible without my wife.
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Oh, of course. Absolutely. I mean, she.
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She is there just doing it all. I just close my office door and make some money and she's. She's out.
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Handles the rest. Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, absolutely. Well, I. You know, I was telling somebody the other day, and you're. Well, you're not. No, you're not like me exactly. As far as. I've literally bought diapers for the last 11 years straight.
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I heard you talk about that.
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Yeah.
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11 years straight.
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I'm like, when's he gonna quit?
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I mean, I understand he quits when you quit, man.
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I get that.
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That's how that works.
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I get that. But I'm just like, you know, because they're spaced out far enough, but with Coop's treatment, it didn't work out, you know, so it just kind of was like, okay, boom, boom, boom. You know, he's still three and a half years old, having to wear a diaper.
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And.
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And then here comes Ruby, and then here comes Robbie. And then it's like, you know, we.
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We were doing the cloth diapers there for a while. Did you ever experiment with that?
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Lord, no.
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Oh, no, no. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I was glad when that face was over because I would pay whatever money it took not to open that container. It's like a bio released out of me.
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I would. I'll buy diapers for the next 11 years again before I do something like it.
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Yeah, I wasn't gonna do nothing like that.
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Oh, man.
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So how old are your kids?
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Well, we had some birthdays, so let me think about it. They are 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17.
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Wow.
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Yeah, there's two of them that are pretty close in age. We call them the twins. We have a couple adoptions in there from foster care, but yeah, that's why they're lined up right after the other. But, yeah, eventually the 14 year old, he's. He's turning 15 in just a few days. Several days. And yeah. Yeah.
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Chomping at the bit to drive you to learn from it. Drive.
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Yeah, you know, chomping at the bit to buy a car. His oldest sister. That's another thing that we're really big on. Save up, buy a car. Originally I said, we'll match you. Eventually that got out of control.
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It's like these kids have got like 10 grand.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Yes.
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I mean, we're not saving up for our Rolls Royce here. Like, we're just. But no, it worked out well. So I'm thinking about capping that policy in some way. It did get a little crazy.
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I'll match you, dad. All right. I'll match you.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Watch this.
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That's a challenge at that point.
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One of the things that we, you know, we've had kids in organized sports briefly. It's really hard when you have so many kids. And I mean, those sports, you know. Yeah. Practice four days a week and then we, you know, our meet or our matches on that fifth day and you're like, what? Like, I don't know, like, I have a buddy, love him to pieces. He has six kids as well. Every kid is doing something dance.
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Him and his wife never see each other. I mean, they've got to be where the kids.
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I, yeah. Love that man so much. He. He raises his kids well. But I, I just said, that's one thing we cannot do. So we've had one, like doing a sport. I'd rather have him working. This guy right here has been working.
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11.
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Yeah. Since you were 11? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been working since I was 14 down the road here. And I like. You tell me what benefit organized sports will do for a kid. And I'm not saying I love sports sports. I love SEC football. It has its place. But what you learn as far as interacting with customers, learning skills, working with other people, man, I can't. I just do not think that I could be where I am right now. If I learned that on a field as compared to a garage. So I'm really grateful for work, and I've been working since I was 14, and I don't even see myself retiring, you know, slowing down. Yeah. Not doing what I'm doing. Yeah. But still, there's. There's just got to be a way for me to add value in, learn a new skill. You know, even if I'm not making much, I mean, even if I'm volunteering somewhere, I just don't see myself not getting out of the bed and going somewhere.
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I think some of the problem of the younger kids today is the. Which we've said this before is the phone has hindered them. And I've seen where you have put, like, when their friends come over, he gets their phones. You don't get to see your phone when your friends come over. Everybody's phones is lined up on a table. But people miss that so much to where that communication. If you don't have a job or you don't work somewhere, you don't know how to even talk to somebody face to face other than, hey, meet me. Yeah, here, you know, yeah. Or, you know.
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Yeah. So, you know, I mean, you know, when you're going down there and they're just doing that and they're, you know, like, what are you guys doing? So, yeah, we have this table, and, I mean, they just surrender their phone, and then they go downstairs and they have a blast, and there's just laughter. And that's the way it should be. Joy,
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now, at what age do you think phones should be given to kids?
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I know that that's a controversial statement, but as for me, in my house, it's when they get a car, that's when I got mine. And
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I talked to a customer about that today. He was like, you know, he was a principal for 35 years at a school up in Illinois, and he said he was a head football coach for, like 12 years at the same school, Principal, football coach. And he said that. He said the problem with it today, he said the kids are so consumed with their cell phones and their social media that they don't even know, like, they can't even. They're so consumed by it. They don't even know how to interact to be a kid, to be what, you know, what we were truly designed to be, you know, And I was like. And he's like. He said a kid shouldn't get a phone until they've got a set of wheels. And I was like, that's 100 yeah, that's. That's it.
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Yeah, that's what I did.
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I will say now, I got mine when I was like 13, but now I was driving that scooter around.
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Same difference, though. Years.
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I mean, and I mean, was it a smartphone at 13?
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Well, no, wasn't a smartphone. It was. Yeah, it was just a Nokia.
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That's two totally different.
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Yeah, that's true.
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I give my kids smart watches, like when they. They do have organized sports or get a job or something like that, and I. I need to know when to pick them up or something like that. So I give them a smartwatch and. Yeah, that's. We're talking about.
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I get what you're. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
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We ain't. We.
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That's what that phone does. An iPhone or a. Yeah. Android or something does to them as a kid. Absolutely, that's true.
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Now, kids need structure. Sounds like you're giving them rules and things to go by and way things should be. And it's simple things. It don't have to be complicated or even even disciplined type things, but it can just be, you know. Well, whenever. Whenever somebody comes over, if you're having a friend over, your phone goes here. You need to pay attention to your friend and you need to hang out with them and have fun. There ain't nothing wrong with saying that. And that does probably more for them than you could ever imagine.
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Oh, yeah.
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Plus, you don't know, I mean, we. Our kids have some tremendous friends. We know their parents. We know. Let's say that their phones are. I'm really big into. You know, these phones need to have guardrails. If they have them. Guardrails go up, go up. And so you at least have those guardrails. And of course, you can just veer off of the guardrail. And that's a whole other story. But, you know, kids in the neighborhood that I don't know, and I know for a fact, according to my kids, they have no guardrails on their phones. You if, like, do not look at that screen, you do not know what's. You know, because how many times have kids been exposed to. Hey, look at that.
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Oh, yeah, it's done.
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Yeah. And so, yeah, just. Let's not even worry about it. Surrender your phone, go downstairs, have fun. You know, we have video games and all of that.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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So raising six kids, I can't imagine, man. I. I've only got two. And we're in sports. Yeah, yeah, Baseball. And we run two separate directions. I couldn't imagine even thinking about having three, much less six in sports, trying to do that. So I'm, I'm with you on that. I don't know how. I mean, they want to, you know, my kids, which one of them's too young right now, but the other one, I mean, he wants to play football too. Yeah, well, football's the worst. You're. Wow, you're in football so many days. I mean, you literally, it's like five days,
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four days of every night going to the football field.
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And then.
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What about game?
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Yeah, what about baseball? You have double headers. They play all the time. Isn't football games just like. Oh, yeah, it's three hours on this and I know the practices and everything.
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And so obviously it's going to be different as you get older and you get into like high school sports and things like that. But yeah, but no, so for us, I mean, we do. I mean, your, your, your games are like hour 15, hour 20. Yeah, that's it.
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Yeah.
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Now you'll practice. So, so like rec is not as bad because you've got, you got two days a week, like say Tuesday, Thursday, that you'll be practicing or playing, and your practice is just that you'll practice for, you know, a month straight or a month and a half straight, and then your games start. Well, they just take place at the practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays like you're already used to. Now travel's a little bit different story.
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Travel ball.
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Yeah.
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So my oldest one's in travel, but we don't, we don't travel that far, though.
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Yeah.
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I mean, last year the furthest we went was Chattanooga and that was one time and it was like a, it was like a voted on thing amongst all the parents. Like, y' all want to do that actually go get a hotel and do. Do this tournament down there and, and all that. So I mean that. But that's as far as we went. So we're real. The people that run it or the guy that runs, the coach that runs it, he's very, I don't know, I guess he considers a lot when he's deciding this stuff. So he keeps local tournaments. We only do two. Two in a row and then take a week off. Two in a row, take a week off. Now they're practicing, they're still practicing on that week off, but we're not traveling for tournaments on Saturday and Sunday kind of thing, you know, So, I mean, it can, it could get bad. If you're taking a trip down to South Georgia every weekend Or Alabama to playing some kind of. That's crazy. I ain't doing that. I ain't doing it.
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I couldn't imagine me doing travel ball with any of my kids because it don't matter who's playing, whether it be Cooper be playing, whether it be Ruby, whether it be whoever. All the other ones want to do is go eat. They want to go concession stand.
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Oh, that's the way it is.
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You know what I mean?
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And I could.
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I mean, I can't. For.
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Dad calls session stands.
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Session.
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I want to go to the session.
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Session stands.
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But we. But like, we pack sandwiches. Absolutely. But you.
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You'll.
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We'll quick. You'll quickly find out, like Bo has, that if we're going to pal Levi to play, we're eating a concession stand. Smoked baloney sandwiches. I mean, it's like real good food when you go there. I mean, you go get funnel.
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Most of the places you go is just junk.
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Oh, yeah.
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The chips are. The nachos and cheese are.
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Let me tell you. I went to a game.
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It was a.
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It was a wreck game. I'll tell you what. I'm not even gonna say where it was.
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Yeah, don't say. May make somebody mad.
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Yeah, I'm not gonna say where it was, but I went over to the session stands and I ordered nachos, and they gave me nachos. I swear to you.
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I'm not even kidding.
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I swear. It was literally just crumbs. I'm not kidding you. The entire thing was nothing but crumbs covered in chili and cheese, and they had no spoons or forks.
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What am I going to do?
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I was supposed to eat it.
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So I went and robbed a fork out of somebody's truck. They told me they had a fork or a spoon or something. Oh, it was awful. But that's how. It's an example of how they came.
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Yeah.
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No, so there's some of them. It's good. And some of them. But we pack sandwiches. I mean, that's what we do.
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Megan, that's the way she.
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If she was sitting here right now, she would say, he's full of it. I'll pack the sandwiches.
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Yeah.
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You know, if it was up to him, he'd eat out every time. Yeah, that's probably true because I don't want to make the sandwiches and all that, but. Yeah, no, she's pretty. She's good about that.
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And then with gas being five dollars, you know, four and a half a gallon, you know.
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Yeah.
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Gotta think about that.
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You know, the eating hacks is something smaller families, larger families that you got to figure now. You know, we, we do Dollywood season passes every other year and all of that. Like, we go so many times, the kids get sick of it.
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My kids ain't been once. I want to go one time with your kids. I ain't took my kids. I'm not. I've never. Well before Cooper was diagnosed and that was the only time we ever went.
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Get out of here. Oh, man. Yeah, they'll show them ropes.
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Well, we want to do that with one year.
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Y' all go, you, you gotta, you gotta be able to pack some food. I mean, and therefore they were pretty authoritarian just as far as, oh, you can't bring. You have notices on websites and all that. But we, we have other friends. They have homeschool kids. Six, six in that family as well. And there's one, one of these kids, and these kids are tall. I mean 6 foot 4, 4 and all walking around the park and there's this kid and he just walked in holding the biggest bag of family size potato chips you ever saw. And he's just like right out there in front of everybody. And I thought, nobody cares about this. We're bringing in a picnic to this place. And so that's what we do. I mean, PB and J, all of that. I mean, you know, probably go to Burger King out right outside the park there before we go home. But that's, that's how you have to.
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I remember when we used to go, when we used to go to Dollywood and stuff, we would think a thought about spending six and a half dollars on a, on a Coke, you know, and you only get one refill on it unless you buy the mug, the trap, the mug that you get the $30 mug for free fill ups back,
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back when we were kids and that just didn't think a thing about, about money. You know, I go to the movies several times a week, which just unheard of. But now what I liked the most about Matt, he got that to that age where he just didn't care what anybody thought about him. You could literally tell him, hey, I dare you to fill in the blank.
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It don't matter what it was.
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I mean, I can't even think of a time where he said, nah, I'm not gonna do that.
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Oh yeah.
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But like he would go to Dollywood, you know, you just walk in front, it's just people with a handful of barbecue or whatever just walking around the corner. Matt would go up and just all of a sudden just bark Just. Just do it like that.
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I mean, it was bad. Oh, anything. It didn't matter what the guy asked me to do. He was about the only one because we. I mean, I hung out with him all the time. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Like, whatever it was. Yeah, I'll do it. It don't matter. Yeah, I'll do it.
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I'm finding out that y' all were very cruel, and I think you was his tool. He wanted to be, but he wasn't going to be. He would put you up to it.
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I was telling him. I was telling him about when we go to Walmart.
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Yeah. I was going to say this.
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We would take. And we didn't take. Like, we didn't take big basketballs or nothing. Yeah, he may have been that. I mean, he may.
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But we weren't even driving at the time. Let's make that how immature we were. I mean, I was 14, probably.
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You were 10 or 12, I don't know. But anyways, it wasn't like we was taking basketballs or soccer balls. We was taking the little 299 soft bouncy balls. But we would find people and we might not even be next to the toys. We may take the balls to the food, but. Yeah, the food. It doesn't matter. We'd take that stuff and we'd line up. We'd line up.
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Yeah. I would, like, cough or something near a.
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Here comes the ball over and then he's. He's standing over there and I'm gone. I'm running or I'm finding a place.
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You'd be on the other row.
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Yeah, I'd be on the other row. And I would line him up and I would cough in the general area and I would have to.
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Y' all are like these guys that stand in the. I'll tell you, Stand in the rows and hold the rice in the. Home Depot. Throw it up and then it lands all over.
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There's just a lot of. I think if we. If we had the Internet back then, we would be like the Jack Vales of the world with the. With the sound machines or whatever.
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Yes, that's what. That's exactly it. We would have been those people. If we had video cameras that were. Could slide in our pocket and had the Internet backed into where we could. We would. We would have been YouTube or. We would have been video cameras.
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We'd probably be in jail. There would be eyewitnesses.
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I would definitely have been trespassed out of Walmart.
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Oh, yeah, we would have.
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We would have which isn't a bad thing.
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We did some wild stuff. How we. I mean nothing bad that hurt anybody, but. But some stuff that we. I would absolutely beat my kids if they done it today, you know, I would.
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Yeah. But now one time we got caught in a life threatening situation, shall we say?
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You'll have to remind me.
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Well, the hike.
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Oh gosh, the hike. I thought we'd done something. Yeah, no.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Something I had done. No.
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Where, where I, I thought, okay, we're in trouble.
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Like I thought, this is it. Yeah, I'm dead.
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So it's the, you know, the hangover hike. And I think the trail heads in North Carolina. I think it might come into dip in them. I don't think it dips in Monroe county at all. But yeah, it's, it's a six mile hike and it's pretty extreme. I went to the all hikes website or whatever. It's called trails.com or whatever.
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Yeah, a six mile.
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And they said this is a, an intense hike. This is for expert hikers or whatever. But anyway, so we go with our cousins. The cousins.
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The cousins.
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And we started way too late. I mean we, you, you, you need to go there at the break of day, like 5 o'. Clock. You need to be there. It is incredibly strenuous. But Matt, he. Before he started playing football, he, he was on the pudgy side.
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Oh, I was two. I was 250. 250?
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No way.
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I weighed about 245 to 250 pounds when I was playing football.
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You were every bit.
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I was a chunk. I was a chunk. Yeah, I was a chunk. And this was, you know what I would have been, I would have been 15.
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Yeah.
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16.
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I was driving. I remember I had an MP3 player. So I'm trying to date, you know, that's what kind of. Yeah. It wasn't an ipod.
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It wasn't the, it wasn't the walk. I remember the walkman plugged into the cassette.
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It wasn't in 2006. Then it was probably 2003 or something.
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We're getting in there. We're getting in there. Anyway, we're on this hike and there, there are two paths.
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Okay, well, let's start back though. So before we left his house, I, I remember it very, very, you know, vividly.
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Yes.
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That his mom made sure. Before I left, you make sure you wear. Because it was going to be cold.
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Yeah.
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So coveralls. And she done put in my head that if these, you got to have these coveralls. I mean, big old Blue coveralls that you would wear. Well, I put them on and I didn't take the things off. So we'll. We'll continue with the story.
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Well, and by the way, my mom knows that knew to do this because years ago, my church went on this hike and a whole bunch of people, they weren't. They thought it was just going to. Okay. It's almost like the men's ministry. But our church did so few things that everybody just showed up. Elder old ladies. I mean, in their set, maybe late 60s at that time, but definitely knocking on 70. And it was. And it was so cold up there. We were getting into. That was our Mount Everest.
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Yeah,
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it was survival mode getting up there. But anyway, that was something we never forgot. And so here we are. And my mom went on that hike like to killed her knees. And so, yeah, she's prepping us. This isn't just a walk in the woods. This is serious. Anyway, we come up to this split and it. It's like the Lord of the Rings, you know, which way? Which way do we go? Somehow I got signal.
302
00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:04.000
Yeah.
303
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.000
And I mean, we're talking. This isn't smartphones.
304
00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:09.000
It was a little Nokia or something. Something.
305
00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:26.000
And I. I called the guy who took us up there last time and said, okay, left or right? And he said, well, which way did you come? Which trailhead did you do? And I didn't know. I said, I think it was the first one you mentioned. He said, okay, go right. And so we went right. It was the wrong direction. So we walked.
306
00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:28.000
Oh, we walked.
307
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:33.000
We walked eight miles about a couple miles past. And we saw the sun.
308
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:34.000
The hangover.
309
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:37.000
Yeah, yeah. And we were like, it's starting to now get dark.
310
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:39.000
We walked a long time though.
311
00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:50.000
It's starting to now get dark. And so we need to head out now. I was bringing up the rear. And poor Matt, he was having an existential crisis.
312
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:57.000
I was in bad shape. You don't realize, like, when I tell you I was on the break of like, it was probably.
313
00:40:57.000 --> 00:40:59.000
He was hallucinating.
314
00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:11.000
I mean, it was that bad. Like, I had every bit of sweat had left my body. I was literally eating snow. Probably the first mile in, I was already done. I was over scooping snow and just eating it as I was going.
315
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:14.000
You should have took him cover. I was off.
316
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:24.000
That's what everybody told me. My aunt down there told me to not. I just didn't know. She told me, you need to keep these up. Well, then. Then I was worried about. I said, I'm gonna get Hypothermia, you
317
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:25.000
know, and all this, you know.
318
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:28.000
So I didn't take the coveralls off.
319
00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:56.000
The big moment was I'm bringing up the rear. I remember I was listening to Switch Foots. I dare you to move. Like, I remember the song. And Matt. And he was just dragging and he just kind of stumbled and I took off my headphones, said, matt, it's getting. We have got to go. I don't care. We have got to get off this mountain. He said, kevin, he said, you're gonna have to get somebody come up here and get me. I said, who is gonna come up
320
00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:57.000
here and get you?
321
00:41:57.000 --> 00:41:59.000
He said, I don't know. Helicopters.
322
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:01.000
Helicopter. Horse.
323
00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:23.000
Yeah. I said, there's no helicopters that are gonna land on this. Where would they land, Matt? He said, well, get them horses. And I was like, matt, it's going to be dark. Like, we're now going to be one of these stories about kids that are stuck in the woods and everything like that, lost in the Smokies. And I said, we have got. You have got to stand up and you have got to get going right now.
324
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:30.000
And I said. I looked at him, I said, kevin, I promise to Jesus, I can't make it.
325
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:40.000
I promise to Jesus, I cannot do this. And I. And I just said, you. You have no other choice, Matt. But yeah, that. That earnest. I promise to Jesus is. Is the.
326
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:51.000
That was. That was going to be it. That's when I thought. When I think when I said that I would. When I said that. No, when I said that, I thought maybe now they'll come bring me a horse or a four wheeler or something up here.
327
00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:56.000
You know, there was a time we like found a cave that we had to just rest.
328
00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:00.000
We walked just a little bit further and they was just cave. It was just like perfect.
329
00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:02.000
And you thought Bear had been in there?
330
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Something had been in there.
331
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:08.000
I. Matt, I heard him snore a little bit. So he went to sleep just for a second.
332
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:11.000
But we're talking like it felt like I had slept for like two hours.
333
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:12.000
Yeah.
334
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:18.000
And it was still like this. When I went to sleep. It was like this dusky. And when I woke up, it was still the same thing, but I was like.
335
00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:19.000
And we had.
336
00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:24.000
I felt like I'd slept for days. And when. I mean, I immediately went to sleep and I was out and I woke up.
337
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:25.000
Do that anyway.
338
00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:30.000
Well, I used to. I don't know more, but. But I mean, I was just out and then I woke back up and I was.
339
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:31.000
I felt.
340
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:32.000
Almost felt like A new person.
341
00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:33.000
Was you just that tired?
342
00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:36.000
I guess it was mental, physical.
343
00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:51.000
It was just everything. I don't know. But they. They. I remember me getting kind of tucked up in that cave. It just started raining, snowing. Yeah. It was spitting and slow, and it was just like. Oh, it was. It was crazy. It was one of those moments like, this is it.
344
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:52.000
This is how.
345
00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:53.000
This is how I'm dying.
346
00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:54.000
Yeah.
347
00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:56.000
You know, when I was 6, 15, 16 years old.
348
00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:08.000
Yeah. Yeah. I thought we were gonna have to carry him down. Well, I mean, there for a while, you did have the arm over me, and, you know, I was. You had £100 on me, so it's not like I could do a whole lot with that.
349
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:12.000
But I thought I was. I was done for there.
350
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:13.000
Yeah.
351
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:27.000
I've been stuck in the woods overnight. I got stuck. I've. I think I told that story on here back beginning of the first season, but we were riding horses one time in East Fork over Jamestown, Tennessee, towards Cumberland Mountains.
352
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:28.000
Yeah.
353
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:36.000
And we got stuck in the. And out in the woods at night with the horses. Got dark on us. Like, full canopy in the summertime.
354
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:37.000
Yeah.
355
00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:42.000
And it just. When it. When it started getting a little bit dark, it just all sudden went lights out.
356
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Yeah.
357
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:47.000
Couldn't see nothing. And we. We laid on the ground till the next morning.
358
00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:48.000
Oh, my goodness.
359
00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:49.000
Till we could see.
360
00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:58.000
I remember getting scooched up in that cave, and, man, when I went out, it was. It was the best I literally, I can remember how good that sleep. That sleep was. When I woke up, I was like, man, that's.
361
00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:08.000
It wasn't more than 10 minutes. Yeah. Because we. We were fight. And by gosh, when we got to the car, it was pitch black. Like, my little MP3 player, I was holding it like we had a little
362
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:10.000
flashlight, had some sort of little cheesy light.
363
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:13.000
Yeah. Yeah. But I remember when I got.
364
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:19.000
When I got back to his house, I laid on that couch. I laid there, and it still felt like I was walking in the woods.
365
00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:47.000
Yeah, I've had that. But back when I was mowing grass all day long, every day, when we had all seven such townhouses, Patrick, I swear, man, I would mow. I would get up and be at his house before dark, be at the first yard at daylight. And mo. When the last bit of daylight was there, I was still mowing, and then drove home in the dark, and I'd lay down, go to bed and dream about mowing all night long and then wake up and have to do it again.
366
00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:59.000
I guess I forgot Yeah, I weed eated some too. That was another one of my first jobs. But yeah, that. Hearing that, the roar of that weed eater for six, seven hours, you feel the.
367
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:13.000
And you feel like it's just like riding a bobcat for a long time, you know, you don't think, like for us, we're on our feet and doing stuff and always have been. And it's like you see people on equipment and it's like, I'd be better than this, you know, is what you always think.
368
00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Then you.
369
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:18.000
I ran a bobcat for eight hours down there at the property. Man, you get off that thing. You were beat to death.
370
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:19.000
I wouldn't beat you to death, you know.
371
00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:27.000
And you feel. I can feel the sensation in my hands just cramp. Yeah, well, just. I mean, just like the vibrations. I can just feel them in my arms.
372
00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:28.000
Yeah.
373
00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:28.000
Still.
374
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:29.000
So.
375
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:37.000
Yeah, it changes things. So, six kids, married, Marvel. College.
376
00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:38.000
Yeah.
377
00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:48.000
All the way up to there. Oh, you've been with Matt, basically. I mean, on and off, but yeah, up until then. So then when did you get married? How old were you?
378
00:46:48.000 --> 00:47:34.000
I was 20. Pretty sure. Maybe I was 21. Yeah, I got married. She's a couple years older than me, so she. She already had her degree. And so I got married my senior year. Going in my senior year of college. Yeah. And, yeah, I guess I've always. I'm a little bit of an old soul. I mean, even from the. I'm a big fan. Like the Andy Griffith showed, All in the Family. I'm. I'm just. I'm. I was just always a little more precocious, a little more ahead of where my peers were as far as maturity in a lot of ways. So, yeah, I was one of the first of my whole year to get married. One of the first to have kids. Yeah. I've just always been on top of it.
379
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:59.000
So. You just said something. I want. I want to say something about this. I swear, with every. Everything I got in me, I think that this world, all the corruption in this world could be resolved if everyone would sit down as a family every night and just watch one episode of Andy Griffin. Yeah, I think everything would be better. I really do. I truly think that. Yeah, I love Andy Griffin, man.
380
00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:05.000
Yeah. And I love the songs that point us back to Mayberry. You know, I remember Rascal Flats had a song called Mayberry.
381
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Yeah.
382
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:08.000
And just Simpler Time.
383
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:10.000
And if you even think about it, it makes you feel better.
384
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:11.000
Yeah.
385
00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Just think about the Andy Riffle.
386
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:14.000
Oh, my goodness.
387
00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:15.000
Yeah.
388
00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:24.000
I've got a couple of Episodes that are just my go tos that I always pop on. What's your two favorite Andes?
389
00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:36.000
Well, I don't know about favorites. I wouldn't call them favorites necessarily, but there's two that automatically come to my mind when I think Andy Riffet. One is whenever Barney's driving that car back. Mrs. Lash sold him, you know.
390
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:37.000
Yeah, yeah.
391
00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:47.000
The steering wheel's coming out at him, so I always think about that one. And then I always think about the one where Ernest T. Bass takes Darlene.
392
00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:48.000
Yeah.
393
00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:55.000
When she's gonna get married and runs off with her. Yeah, he's. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I think about those two episodes.
394
00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:07.000
Those are good ones. I forgot about Barney's first car. That. That was a good one. My two are the pickle story, you know, Aunt Beast, pickle. And they. They were just so bad.
395
00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:09.000
Is that. Is that the contest?
396
00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:11.000
Yeah, yeah. Them contest and all that.
397
00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:12.000
That's a really good one.
398
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:15.000
And the second one was Barney and the choir.
399
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:18.000
The qu. I was. The one I was going to pick was the choir.
400
00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:19.000
Yeah.
401
00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:21.000
A little bit lower is. A little bit lower.
402
00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:35.000
Is that. Is that. That's. So that's in the choir or is that it? Okay, now there. There's one where he. He wants to be in a. Is it a town show, maybe? And then the. Some big old guys got the big.
403
00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:40.000
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah.
404
00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:41.000
So that's the same.
405
00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:46.000
Yeah, those are my two go to's. Yeah. I love. Love Andy Griffith.
406
00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:47.000
Yeah, me too.
407
00:49:46.000 --> 00:50:45.000
You know, and just going back to you there for a second, when you told me, and this is when I would have been what, 18, maybe 17. 18. You told me that you were going to be a teacher. Yeah, I knew. Like now looking back at it now, but I thought, man, ain't no way I'd ever be a teacher, because back then. And I don't know what a teacher makes or does anything now, but the things I don't. I don't care. They. I don't care if you pay them $150,000 a year. It ain't enough money to mess with little turds like me and this guy. I mean, honestly, it's not. It's not enough money. But looking back at it, even, you know, the time that you did do it, there is no way I would have, unfortunately, would have some kid strangled in the corner somewhere. That's just my. That's just me. I just can't.
408
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:46.000
Oh, man.
409
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:52.000
I don't know how you did, you know, Patience. Yeah, it's patience. I know that.
410
00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:54.000
But I don't know, I just, I
411
00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:56.000
just never have had it.
412
00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Well, what's the craziest thing that happened? Where'd you. Well, you might want to say where you taught at.
413
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:02.000
That's fine.
414
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:04.000
But was it, what, what grade?
415
00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:06.000
So it was high school.
416
00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:10.000
High school. That's probably the worst it could possibly be in my mind.
417
00:51:10.000 --> 00:53:13.000
Yeah, so I, I did some, well, secondary in high school school. I did teach junior high as well. And I was a social studies teacher. I was probably the only social studies in history teacher in history that was male and didn't coach anything. So that was one of my claims to fame. But yeah, taught US history and government and I loved teaching government. And yeah, it, you know, you have your kids where it's a challenge. But I think one of the craziest stories I taught at a high school that just churned out NFL players eventually, I mean, they win state championships and I get, you know, any local folk will know which school I'm talking about. But there I am and I caught one of the guys plagiarizing, cheating, you know, pulled him out in the hall. And if you can imagine me at that time, like I'm, you know, I'm about 170 pounds now, I was about 140 back then, looking up at this giant with my finger and my catching and threatening that he will not graduate because I caught him cheating. And I just thought we were out in the hall by ourselves. This man could snap my neck. Like he has every ability to be able to do that. And so that's one of the more bizarre moments. And at that time I was even student teaching. So I was, I was. Well, I was 20 and so he's 18. I'm just a couple years older than him, you know. And so, yeah, that's some of the more crazier experiences where I'm dealing with adults at that point point, legal adults. But yeah, they're just trying to get their tickets stamped out of here. He's. And he did make his way to place for some SEC teams and all of that. So he was massive mountain of a man.
418
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:15.000
That's pretty good. I didn't know that.
419
00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:17.000
So how long did you teach for?
420
00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:44.000
So I've been in education my whole career. But education just isn't teaching in front in a public school classroom. I've been teaching something and so I'm in the private sector now, but I usually, I count my student teaching year as my first year, even though I was an intern. But I had great mentor teachers and they're like, you can have the class. Go for it. And I taught. I had a full. I was grading paper. I was.
421
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:45.000
I.
422
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:53.000
They went to their office and sipped their coffee. And I'm not saying that in a dispute, disparaging way. They just had trust in me. And they say, hey, you come to me for guidance when you need it,
423
00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:54.000
you need some help.
424
00:53:54.000 --> 00:55:12.000
But yeah, you got it. And they threw me at the deep end of the pool. So that was my first year teaching. I taught two years of junior high after that. It was during the Great Recession, so I was just so grateful to have a job. I did not want to teach eighth grade, but that's what God had in store for me. So I taught 8th grade to the fullest of my ability. Great kids. It was up in West Knoxville, so it wasn't a. Even though it was West Knoxville and a lot of people think money in the same class. I had a kid whose father. Now this is some talk. No, no, no, it's actually confirmed because I. One of my co workers who was also a teacher, she nannied the girl and she said, yeah, we went on to their private jet to their island in the Bahamas. So that girl is in my class next to a kid who is homeless, like, whose mom lost her house and now he's in a hotel room. And so they're literally sitting catty corner to each other. And so such a different world how? This girl, she goes to school, school just to be normal. Like she watches High School Musical and she's like, I want that. I don't want this private school. I want to go to public school.
425
00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:13.000
Yeah.
426
00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:20.000
And it was a pretty well off public school too, I might add. And then you had this kid who I don't even know if he ate breakfast.
427
00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:21.000
And.
428
00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:43.000
And I'm. I'm teaching him the constitution next to her, you know, so it was just a bizarre world. But there was some great kids that came out of there. One, two. One kid came. I really kind of took under my wing because he was homeschooled his whole life. And I want to go to public school one year and there's a girl.
429
00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:44.000
What a culture shock.
430
00:55:44.000 --> 00:56:38.000
Yeah, yeah, it was. I love hearing him talk about it. I still know him. He was over at my house several months ago. He's now a missionary over in England, but there's a girl in my class and they knew each other a little bit from youth group, but he walked her to lunch every day and did all of that. That was the beginning of their relationship. Now they have two got Married, two kids. They're over. And so it is really neat to think that I had a little something to do with that. So. And it's good to look back. That's what keeps the fuel to the fire. But I tell you what made me just. The day that I'm like, well, no, I'll just sum it up like this. The reason why I had to get out of teaching was the parents. Yeah.
431
00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:42.000
I can see it.
432
00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:53.000
Whenever I was in public school, if I got in trouble, I knew it was going to be magnified at home. You know, like, if I get written up, my mom and dad are really going to.
433
00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:54.000
Yeah.
434
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:55.000
Oh, yeah. They're going to light me up.
435
00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:56.000
Absolutely.
436
00:56:56.000 --> 00:56:57.000
Yeah.
437
00:56:56.000 --> 00:57:17.000
Yeah. I remember one of my kids, one of my kids, one of my friends, one of my classmates, he got paddled. I loved that episode when you all were talking about that. I. I showed that to my kids. That's just culture shock for them. No, it's culture shock for my wife, too. She sat down. I mean, she grew up in Texas, and she's like, yeah, we. We didn't have that back then. She's two years older than me.
438
00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:18.000
It's like.
439
00:57:18.000 --> 00:58:05.000
You never had a kid paddle? Nope. But I remember my buddy Matt coming into the bathroom after he got paddled. Now, I was. I was the class pet. All of that. I bobbed it. I remember one time, I only got my name on the board two times. One was a substitute teacher, and there was a gasp that went in the room when they wrote my name on the board. But my first day of kindergarten, I got my name on the board, and I remember the teacher had to move the American flag to write the name on the board and put it back. And I thought, the founding fathers are so upset with me right now. Oh, no, you're thinking that in kindergarten. Yeah. Yeah.
440
00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:07.000
This guy's light years beyond.
441
00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:08.000
It was.
442
00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:29.000
Yeah. It was more about the men that died for that flag. And now. And now my name is written. Yeah, I'm going to be a convict. But anyway. But no, it. The parent, like, I knew again, my buddy Matt just got a paddling, walked into the bathroom, and he just said, my dad's going to kill me.
443
00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:30.000
Yeah.
444
00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:41.000
And I. And I went to church with his dad. Great dad. Great father. But, yeah, your dad's gonna kill you. That's it. That.
445
00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:47.000
That's so bizarre that you're even your wife at the age that she is. She's never seen anybody or heard of anybody getting paddled.
446
00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:48.000
Yeah.
447
00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:49.000
That's crazy.
448
00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:55.000
So we had names. We had designs on the pa. I mean, some of them had holes drilled in. Little faster.
449
00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:57.000
Oh, I like.
450
00:58:57.000 --> 00:59:04.000
So what, so what was you going to say though? You said the parents and then used to you would. Yeah, it'd be magnified.
451
00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:15.000
I was arguing more with the parents on what their kids clearly did than like their parents were coming in as their lawyers.
452
00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:16.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
453
00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:17.000
Okay. I.
454
00:59:17.000 --> 00:59:21.000
Not my. They weren't my partners in all of this.
455
00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:22.000
Yeah.
456
00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:23.000
And they should be disagreeing.
457
00:59:23.000 --> 00:59:26.000
You were saying this wrong. There's no way they done that wrong.
458
00:59:26.000 --> 01:00:29.000
Right. Yeah. My kid, my kid would never do that. One time we even caught a kid on camera and like, roll the footage. Then we didn't tell her. And we're like, okay, roll the footage. And then she still looked at us, looked us right in the eye and said, my kid would never do that. And you're like, I'm not. I'm not dealing now with logic and reason. I can't do this stuff anymore. But to know that I loved the content. I love. In fact, I am going to be teaching a government class for homeschool students soon. Where in like a co op situation where, you know, I. I'm certified to teach it or I guess my certification technically lapsed, but it can still be for credit. But I love teaching US government and the Constitution. So I'm going to be doing that for my kids. And then I'm going to get some other kids around and give them some high school credit for it. I love the content. I loved a lot of the kids and they loved me too. It's just some of those kids getting in trouble. Here come the parents. And I could not deal with that. I'm sure y just couldn't deal with it.
459
01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:33.000
I believe it. So a total of. Well, in the public school.
460
01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:35.000
Three. Three years.
461
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:36.000
Three years.
462
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:37.000
Three years. And then I.
463
01:00:37.000 --> 01:00:47.000
Which I thought was crazy. Crazy because he was homeschooled his whole life and then he goes, or not his whole life into seventh grade. But anyways, went from seventh all the way.
464
01:00:47.000 --> 01:01:01.000
I had never been in a middle school before. Like, I didn't even know what size the kids were going to be. I was trying to remember, okay, I'm going to be teaching 8th grade. What ages are we talking about here? How big are they? Like and so.
465
01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:02.000
But boy.
466
01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:07.000
8:00am okay, that's the size. And off we go. Yeah. You have about 130 students.
467
01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:29.000
You know that guy that come in today was classic that I was talking about. He said that school that he, that he taught or that he was the principal for 35 years at. He told me they. I graduated. I didn't know you could get this large. And I bought it better. Again, we come from a whole lot smaller area. But he said it was a graduating class of 4700 kids.
468
01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:30.000
That's crazy.
469
01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:43.000
In Illinois. And he said when it's in Illinois, they pack kids everywhere. He said they pack them like, you know, just many as we can get in there. It don't matter that the. It's running over. You know, we've got teachers that are teaching 43 kids in one classroom.
470
01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:47.000
It's technically illegal or, you know. Yeah, yeah, they make it.
471
01:01:47.000 --> 01:03:47.000
They make it. So anyways, he said. He said, and I went. He said I left and went to. He said was still in Illinois, but it was like southern Illinois or something. And he said it was like a rule, like just a graduating class of like. What do you say? Like, I think he said like 110 kids graduating class. He said, but the school itself only had the high school. It only had, like, what do you say? I want to say like five, four or five hundred students in the whole school. And he said, man, the difference. He said, I never realized I'd done this my whole life. He said, and John over here and don't know what Billy is going through. He said when his mom just died, he said, but seeing this other school, I've done this for 30 years. So he said I was so just blind to it. I never even looked at it like this. He said I was so blind to it to where. He said, I just assumed that these two, you know. You know, Billy didn't know what was going on with over here with this guy. They just make fun, poke, pick, do all kinds of stuff, not knowing what's going on. But he said when we got to this smaller school, he said, man, it was just like everybody knew each other. They knew their mom. They knew that, you know, that Billy's mom passed away. And everybody's, you know, he said it was so different. He said the. The atmosphere. And he said going to a town where it was more rural and farm. And he said, and all the kids, he said, instead of being piled in on social media and their phones, he said all the kids was up before you. The teacher was up doing farm work, doing this, doing that. He said they learned respect. He said some of them drove to school, they didn't have a phone, he said, which blew my mind when I got there, you know. He said not to have. He said, probably, he said 25, 30% of the kid didn't have a phone.
472
01:03:47.000 --> 01:03:48.000
Yeah.
473
01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:49.000
And I was just like, wow, you
474
01:03:49.000 --> 01:03:51.000
know, that's, that's pretty breath of fresh air for him.
475
01:03:51.000 --> 01:03:56.000
Yeah, well, it was, it was for him. He said, man, he said, I wish that I could have done that for 30 years at that school.
476
01:03:56.000 --> 01:03:57.000
Yeah.
477
01:03:56.000 --> 01:04:02.000
He said, where I done one for a graduating class of 4700. That's nuts. Yeah. Yeah.
478
01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:03.000
That's crazy.
479
01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:03.000
My goodness gracious.
480
01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:04.000
That's a lot.
481
01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:06.000
That's the size of some Tennessee towns.
482
01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:08.000
Yeah, it's just. I couldn't believe it.
483
01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:12.000
So you got out of teaching and then did, what
484
01:04:12.000 --> 01:05:28.000
is it, at a community college here in East Tennessee. Yeah, and that, that was kind of my foot in the door. I, and I was only there for three years, but I, I went up the management. That was the first time that I managed a team and, you know, great people with great hearts, but I, I didn't like that. One of the reasons, yeah, I really respect my, my boss at the time. He was the cio, the chief Information officer, you know, the chief IT guy. And once I got my big, big promotion, I was in the college president's boardroom, and one of his devices stopped working. And so I got in the floor and I started, you know, fixing it, because that's just what I do. Like, just, oh, yeah, I'll. And I, you know, different man, you know, if my old boss watches this, I just want to let him know I, I respect him and all that, but just different, you know, perspectives. But he was like, hey, you're now a director. You do not get in the floor and, and unplug wires. You get a member of your team down here right now and fix this. And that's, that's right there where I knew it's like, that's not me. Like, like, I, I, I don't want to tell somebody to do something that
485
01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:30.000
I could do right now.
486
01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:31.000
You have it done before they can get here.
487
01:05:31.000 --> 01:06:55.000
Yeah, absolutely. That right there is when I knew that management just really wasn't for me. And so, yeah, I did that. And then, yeah, I was kind of recruited from the tech company that I work for now. I've been there for 12 years, I think, and it's, it's terrific. It is based in Silicon Valley. I, I have kept a spreadsheet of every flight I have ever been on, because I only got on my first airplane when I was, like, a sophomore in college. And so I have tracked every flight that I've been on. I think I'm up to I was just looking at it. It's like 350 airplane rides. I've gone out to the valley three dozen times. We're starting to go to Austin a lot more. It's just cheaper than. Than California. And so, yeah, I. I've done a lot of travel, but I've been working from home before. It was cool. I mean, way before COVID I was, I was working at home in this position and a lot of people can't do that. And, and I, I can understand that. But it really comes down to the boss gives us deadlines. If we meet those deadlines, they really don't care what you do, what you're doing with your time. Cause you're making your marks and adding value.
488
01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:56.000
But.
489
01:06:56.000 --> 01:06:57.000
Yeah, so I have a.
490
01:06:57.000 --> 01:06:59.000
How many flights do you think you've had?
491
01:06:59.000 --> 01:07:10.000
I mean, I could pull it up, but I mean. Yeah, 353. Yeah, it's over. But you know, flying out of McGee Tyson, I pretty much have to connect.
492
01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:12.000
Yeah. You're going to Ohio or you're going
493
01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:18.000
down to every trip. Every trip. I've been over on 100 trips. And so.
494
01:07:18.000 --> 01:07:20.000
Okay, so you're upwards to 300.
495
01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:21.000
I got you.
496
01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:22.000
Yeah.
497
01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:23.000
So that's okay.
498
01:07:23.000 --> 01:07:30.000
Yeah. And that has dropped since COVID Actually, I used to be going out to California about 12 times a year.
499
01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:33.000
You fly from Charlotte all the way to the other coast?
500
01:07:33.000 --> 01:07:34.000
Yeah.
501
01:07:33.000 --> 01:07:34.000
How you do that?
502
01:07:33.000 --> 01:08:01.000
Yeah, a lot of it. I try to stay out of Charlotte. I call it the Protestant purgatory. That is the worst airport that I've ever seen in my life. I do fly out of DFW a lot. You know, they have that sky train Charlotte. You will see a sign that's, you know, you're in terminal A. E is where all of the regional jets fly out of. And I have pictures of the sign. Say 40 minute walk.
503
01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:02.000
Yeah.
504
01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:15.000
And you're walking for 40 minutes. And if you've got a close connection and everything, there are a few of those moving sidewalks. That's your. That's your only hope. That's all you got. And that very few. And far in between. Yeah.
505
01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:22.000
I call those the little. That's the. That's the little Mario Super Blast. Mario Kart Super Blast. You roll all over on them.
506
01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:23.000
Yeah.
507
01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:23.000
You're going.
508
01:08:23.000 --> 01:08:30.000
Plus it's a whole lot better too, going out of Dallas because your flight's. You're. You're two hours there and then two more hours there. It breaks.
509
01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:32.000
Stop and get some barbecue.
510
01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:33.000
Yeah, you're so much better.
511
01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:39.000
I like it. So right There it is. Number of trips, 101 and then 364 aircraft.
512
01:08:39.000 --> 01:08:41.000
Three, almost 370. That's crazy.
513
01:08:41.000 --> 01:08:51.000
Yeah. Taking a personal trip on Friday for a wedding in Nebraska. So that. That will get me over the three. That'll get me to 370.
514
01:08:51.000 --> 01:08:56.000
I went one plane trip. Went one plane trip and went to first one.
515
01:08:56.000 --> 01:08:58.000
That's crazy.
516
01:08:58.000 --> 01:08:59.000
First one.
517
01:08:58.000 --> 01:08:59.000
This is insane.
518
01:08:59.000 --> 01:09:17.000
And went straight to Israel. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm not the first, but I had to connect. Yeah, I left. I left McGee. Tyson, went to Newark, New Jersey, met some of the hatefulest people I've ever met in my life. I hadn't hardly been out of Tennessee, and I got to Newark, New Jersey, I thought, gosh, these guys are a bunch of jerks.
519
01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:19.000
Was it tsa?
520
01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:20.000
Oh, just people.
521
01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:21.000
Because you're connected.
522
01:09:21.000 --> 01:09:26.000
Just walking in people and just, Just, Just hateful and nasty people.
523
01:09:26.000 --> 01:09:27.000
And I thought.
524
01:09:26.000 --> 01:09:33.000
And here I am, I mean, and I'm in a big old straw hat, you know, and I'm. I look totally out of place and in some old shorts.
525
01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:34.000
Yeah.
526
01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:50.000
And. But anyways. And went. We went to. From Newark all the way across the big water to Israel. And that was a 13, maybe 12, 13 hour flight. And the first time I'd ever fallen.
527
01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:59.000
Yeah, that's insane, man. I could not imagine. My first flight was from Knoxville to Charlotte and from Charlotte, San Diego.
528
01:09:59.000 --> 01:10:00.000
San Diego.
529
01:09:59.000 --> 01:10:04.000
So. Yeah, but save that because we'll get onto that. That's going to be a while.
530
01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:07.000
Yeah, we'll get to do an airline episode.
531
01:10:07.000 --> 01:10:13.000
Well, that's pretty crazy. At the customs wore me. I didn't know what customs was. I didn't know what customs.
532
01:10:13.000 --> 01:10:16.000
That's a whole other world. That's different than just flying around.
533
01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:24.000
When you go international and you go Customs, man, you better have. You better know what your mama's middle name is. Oh, you better know what your daddy's, you know, date of birth is.
534
01:10:24.000 --> 01:10:34.000
Well, you have the IDF in Israel that you're not dealing with tsa, like, they are trying to root out actual terrorists and stuff like that. You're not going to get that at the uk.
535
01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:50.000
Yeah, they. They absolutely wore me out. I got there and even the people we were with, they're like, you might need to ditch that hat. You look very suspicious, you know? And I'm just like, what are you talking about? I'm coming over here to see the Holy Land. Yeah, you worry about me. Look, you know, and they're like, just do what I say.
536
01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:53.000
Yeah. But. Yeah.
537
01:10:53.000 --> 01:11:17.000
I ever tell you when we walked through, we got to. We got to. Was it Newark? Okay, maybe Newark or. We got to. We got somewhere. And I know it wasn't. It could have been. It could have been. When we got into Israel, we got back behind security somewhere. We either got off, we got off the plane, we were behind security, we done made it through, and Poppy had a knife in his pocket.
538
01:11:17.000 --> 01:11:18.000
Get out of here.
539
01:11:18.000 --> 01:11:23.000
He had a knife in his pocket the whole time. He had to throw it in the trash. Yeah, he had it in his.
540
01:11:23.000 --> 01:11:24.000
Somehow he did.
541
01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:29.000
So. Yeah. Because he. He was like, oh, my God, we throw that thing away right now.
542
01:11:29.000 --> 01:11:31.000
So he went all the way through TSA here.
543
01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:36.000
Yeah. some point, I don't know if we. If we were in Newark or if we were somewhere, but he got behind
544
01:11:36.000 --> 01:11:41.000
somebody talking 9, 11. Wasn't too far in the rearview mirror, was it?
545
01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:50.000
Well, no, it was. It was 11. It was 2011. Okay, 10 years, but. Yeah, but still, I mean, however you got back here behind, throw that through
546
01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:53.000
tsa, I was like, golly bum, we'll
547
01:11:53.000 --> 01:11:54.000
never make it out of here.
548
01:11:54.000 --> 01:11:55.000
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
549
01:11:55.000 --> 01:11:56.000
Anyways.
550
01:11:56.000 --> 01:11:57.000
Oh, my goodness.
551
01:11:57.000 --> 01:12:01.000
Customs was wild. I just. I didn't know what to expect.
552
01:12:01.000 --> 01:12:17.000
Yeah. Eventually you get. It's just like a science. There. There's. Oh, gosh, it's that George Clooney movie about that guy who always flies. I can't even remember up in the Air or one of those chick flicks. But he just talks about how. Okay, this is the type of TSA lane that you get into. You.
553
01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:18.000
You.
554
01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:27.000
Oh, no, parents. You need to get into this one over here. You need to find. This is how you get the right seat. And everything that he was talking about is how you think once you get there.
555
01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:28.000
When you do that much.
556
01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:36.000
Yeah, when you do it that much. You know, when. Whenever you see people fiddle with their bags and everything, you know, who travels for a living?
557
01:12:36.000 --> 01:12:37.000
You.
558
01:12:36.000 --> 01:13:06.000
You just how they put their bag up. And it is just such a defined. Like, I know which seat I'm going to get. I know how to gauge it where you. You have a good chance of getting the. The middle seat empty next to you. It's not a perfect science, but it happens a lot. It's pretty much just standby, our airline standby people get anyway. Yeah, it's. It's the little things when you're up there. Like whenever you get that middle seat empty next to you, it's.
559
01:13:06.000 --> 01:13:07.000
Oh, it's a game changer, I'm sure.
560
01:13:07.000 --> 01:13:53.000
It's. It's. It's the poor man's first class. I think Bill Burr said that. Poor man's first class again, the middle seat empty. Yeah. And you know, the last in that American Airlines is who I've flown for the most. And the way that they have their point system now, I'll probably never get to do it again. But that's when I was flying multiple weeks out of the year. The last time I was in first class, the guy sitting in front of me was the guy on the sandlot that said, you're killing me, Smalls. Yeah, the red haired, curly red hair guy. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I got to chat with him. He's gonna throw out the first pitch at a Smokies game or whatever. So that was the last time I, I flew first class. And it's.
561
01:13:53.000 --> 01:13:55.000
So you got that off a point system for having flat hours.
562
01:13:55.000 --> 01:13:57.000
That's the only.
563
01:13:57.000 --> 01:14:59.000
I got a first class seat like that one time, but not with my points. I got it with somebody else's points that we knew. When we got on the plane, he was sitting in first class and, and he lived in Charlotte. We flew out of Charlotte or. No, no, no, no. We flew to Dallas. He flew from Charlotte to Dallas, but we were connecting back to Charlotte to come home. So when we came out of Baton Rouge, nice. So we called him in Dallas. So we had like a 30 minute flight to Baton Rouge from Dallas or something. It was short. And he gave Brody that front seat and sat with me in back of his seat and rode. He's like, you can have first class. Lay back. I was like, I'm going all the way to Charlotte first class, you know. So I did that. But I remember thinking on my first flight, when I flew all the way to San Diego, it was miserable. I was in the middle seat on a. Probably an Airbus, some kind of Airbus. Middle seat. Flew all the way landed, got off. It was during COVID or right after Covid. So you had to wear a mask the whole time. Time. Yeah.
564
01:14:59.000 --> 01:15:00.000
Man.
565
01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:16.000
I remember my back of my ears hurting so bad from that for like the next two or three days, it was so bad. So on the way back I was really dreading it. I'm like, oh, here we go. You know, this is going to be awful. Flew all the way to Dallas with the middle seat open.
566
01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:17.000
Yeah.
567
01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:29.000
And then got on a just a four seater plane, two on each side. Y from Dallas back to Knoxville and I didn't have another passenger beside me, so I flew all the way back from San Diego on two different flights with no gas.
568
01:15:29.000 --> 01:15:36.000
Isn't it like we're. We're literally. It's the best day of our lives when a guy's not like that close.
569
01:15:36.000 --> 01:15:37.000
Yeah, yeah.
570
01:15:37.000 --> 01:15:44.000
Just. Just how grand packed we are. But having that seat open, it's. It completely breath of fresh air. Yeah.
571
01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:45.000
It's real nice.
572
01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:46.000
Yeah.
573
01:15:46.000 --> 01:15:51.000
Well I think we've. Have we touched on everything that is Kevin pretty.
574
01:15:51.000 --> 01:15:52.000
I guess.
575
01:15:52.000 --> 01:15:53.000
Oh, wait a minute.
576
01:15:53.000 --> 01:15:56.000
No, no, no, no. One last thing. Yeah. Preaching.
577
01:15:56.000 --> 01:15:57.000
Okay.
578
01:15:57.000 --> 01:16:08.000
We heard that yet when did you decide. How did you decide you were going to do that? What did you. Where you know, what age was that and how long you been doing that?
579
01:16:08.000 --> 01:20:05.000
Okay, I'll make it brief. Since. Yeah man. We could probably do a whole episode on this. But I mean I grew up in missionary Baptist churches. The one down here, Mount Zion here in Von. Or Love those people. Love them to death. I did. I came up right about 18, 19 or so. I just knew that doctrinally little different. Like I don't necessarily subscribe to X, Y and Z. And so that took a few years to really kind of work that out where finding a church that doctrinally matches what I believe. But anyway, long, very long story short in our denomination which is. Well and that's. It differs between church to church really. But I'll just say the way that we see it, we have churches that have elders in there and those elders, what we see in scripture is elder and pastor are all shepherd and they're interchangeably used in the Bible. So if you're called to be an elder at our church, you are a pastor. Now sometimes we do say we'll call those that are full time, we will call them pastor. And those that are lay pastors we will call elders. And so that's a little technicality there. But elders as called in the Bible are called to teach and to shepherd the flock. And so joined church in Maryville and I'd been there for several years and eventually you're nominated to be an elder and so then you have to go through this kind of a pretty apprenticeship and eventually yeah, I, I would teach in and preach mainly in assisted living homes. So I actually bumped into some of your old. Your principal. Yeah. And got to know her really well. And so yeah, pastoring there and teaching there. But eventually yeah, every, every. I've got a couple of dates on the calendar coming up that I'm working on. I'll be preaching from the pulpit at the church. So yeah, I say all of that to say by preacher it is a little. I, I prefer. Well by Preacher around here and where I grew up, I. I see, you know, the guy up at the pulpit, what my dad calls Hut Hutton and all that. That's. That's not what I do, you know, So I shepherd a flock. I pastor a flock. Most of my work is actually done counseling people, but I do an assisted living ministry at least once a month. I preach there. And, yeah, I do. I do preach from the pulpit. But, yeah, love our flock. We grew so big. We are not in the model of, okay, well, we need to build a bigger church. We're in the model of we need to plant another church somewhere else. So we planted. I think we're going on three years now. We're already at two services, and already those two services are getting pretty big. And so I think a typical Sunday, we're. We're getting up to 300 or so. And so now we're. We're already talking about, okay, what would it look like to plant another church? Because we're not going to go to three services. We don't want to be a big church. We. We want to plant.
580
01:20:05.000 --> 01:20:06.000
Yeah, absolutely.
581
01:20:06.000 --> 01:20:08.000
And so, yeah, that's.
582
01:20:08.000 --> 01:20:10.000
That's just. That's. I like that.
583
01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:11.000
Yeah. I don't.
584
01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:18.000
I don't think I'd like a massive church with your little groups that they have within the. I don't like that either.
585
01:20:18.000 --> 01:20:48.000
Yeah. Different strokes. But we see smaller churches in the New Testament, and we're trying to go by the New Testament as much as we can, and that's why we use terms like elders. You'll see that term thrown around there. And smaller churches. Paul wrote to Titus, he said, plant channel churches where you're at, as I have directed you, raise up elders. And so that's. That's what we do call.
586
01:20:48.000 --> 01:20:49.000
What was you going to say?
587
01:20:49.000 --> 01:21:18.000
Nothing. I was just over here grinning about, you know, because we was. We were always together, going to church or, you know, on the weekends, I'd go to his church most of the time. I always go to his church and always remember we had the best grandmother. We'd take her to church and it would be a fight from the moment we pick her up to the moment we get to church. We'd be picking, pinching, pulling. She'd be flicking boogers at us. Yeah.
588
01:21:18.000 --> 01:21:20.000
I mean, she would pretend.
589
01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:31.000
She would pretend. You know what I mean? Or she'd act like she'd pick her nose. I mean, it was just always Kevin would be grabbing, pulling on her seatbelt, just anything all the way to church. It was.
590
01:21:31.000 --> 01:21:35.000
We would not. She would give it back, you know, she would fight back.
591
01:21:35.000 --> 01:21:39.000
She'd pinch the fire out of you, too, man.
592
01:21:39.000 --> 01:21:40.000
Yeah.
593
01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:41.000
Love.
594
01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:45.000
Great memo. Great.
595
01:21:45.000 --> 01:21:47.000
All right. Is that it?
596
01:21:47.000 --> 01:21:50.000
Think so. That's pretty good. I believe that's a wrap.
597
01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:51.000
Kevin, Thanks.
598
01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:53.000
H. Yeah, my pleasure, guys.
599
01:21:53.000 --> 01:22:12.000
I love it. Absolutely. All right, guys, thanks for tuning in. Mondays. We're going to try probably to have some. Some guests on next Monday and maybe the next two, so probably a good another full month.
600
01:22:12.000 --> 01:22:14.000
Really worth the guest.
601
01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:19.000
Guest, guest guests every Monday. So tune in and. And check that out. And thanks for listening this time.
602
01:22:19.000 --> 01:22:22.000
See you guys.