An Army of Normal Folks - I Was Miserable On Father's Day, Until...

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

For Shop Talk, Coach Bill shares his deeply personal experience with Father's Day. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. Shop talk number 56. Oh, that's a big one. That was aggressive. That was an aggressive one. I'm glad you're still alive. I got a question. Oh, geez.

Do your teeth still feel good? Because I mean, you went to the dust last week. Well, we're recording this at the same time we recorded last week. So you're trying to be cute about it. Talk me not to time stamp. And there you are, producer stamp timing guy. All right, guys, shop talk number 56 is on something that is a one time had been a quandary for me.

And at other times, it was just great and now it's great and it's basically called I was miserable on Father's Day until. I'll set it up for you right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as

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So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Shop Talk number 56. June 15th is Father's Day and I have a special Father's Day message that we've featured on our YouTube channel which you need to go check out

our YouTube channel and subscribe to it but I'll just set it up for you real quick. Basically Father's Day given the way I grew up. It's all on the video. I know but Father's Day given the way I grew up. It's all on the video. I know the father's day given the way I grew up against the winds of being a father of four children and my struggle with the beauty of what I have now versus some of the dysfunction I dealt with as a kid has always been a quandary in my life. And in honor of all of you who have fathers, are fathers, celebrate a father, love a father, or even wish they had a dad and miss their father,

this clip and this Shop Talk number 56 is for you. My dad left home when I was four and we really didn't have much of a relationship. He actually passed not too long ago and it was my stepbrother that actually told me and I had nothing to do with it. We had no relationship. There were a lot of, my mother was very well intentioned and I don't want to make it sound like she's evil, but there were a lot of guys after that that came into my life, and there were a lot of guys that left.

And so, as a result, Father's Day has always been a really kind of sore spot for me. I didn't even recognize it, but in my early 40s, Lisa pointed out to me, more than pointed out, very frustratingly said, you know, quit being an a**hole on Father's Day. It's not about you anymore. You have your own children and now you were a father So I know you can't celebrate Father's Day from a standpoint of celebrating a father

but you can you can celebrate Father's Day from the standpoint of being a father and I didn't even recognize that I got miserable on Father's Day, but I but I did and and the truth is You know, I identified as a kid, now I identify with the kids of Manassas a lot more closely than I identified with my own children in terms of my reality. I understand growing up without a father. I understand the kind of hopelessness and sadness that accompanies

not having a father in your life and all that that entails. And I understand the sadness. And I understand that when you're a 14, 15 year old strapping guy and you look at the mirror and your father has no interest in you. I understand looking in the mirror and thinking something must be wrong with me.

You know, why is it that I lack such value that my home father doesn't even want to spend time with me? Especially on Father's Day. And I fought that for many years and I know many of the kids that played football for me and my wife has fought that for many years. And so on the one hand you see a grown man with a business and some success and been married to his wife for 30 years and these beautiful four children who've grown up well adjusted and happy and healthy, and you think,

oh, well I know what that guy's life looks like, but the truth is you don't. You have no idea the trauma that preceded the life that I have now. And as a result of that, people have always asked me, how do you think you connected so well with the kids of Monassas being this white business guy? And the truth is, I don't identify as a white business guy.

I identify as a kid that came from a lot of trauma. And so the truth is, I really understand them more and their reality more than I understand my own kids' reality. Because I understand my own kids reality because I didn't grow up like my kids did. So it took a lot of work to get to a place that Father's Day is a happy day around my house but Lisa whipped my ass into shape like she normally does and now we have good Father's Days but it took a long time to get there. So that's Shop Talk number 56.

I hope Father's Day is as meaningful to all of you as it is to me. And I hope you'll think about the power that fathers can and should have been in their children's lives. That's Hob type number 56. Hey, and you're close to becoming a grandpa. Maybe next year. Do you think we'll be, I mean... Ain't nobody pregnant yet. Yeah, but by next Father's Day, you think anybody's gonna be pregnant? Maybe, but then we'll be talking about Grandparents Day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I guess. All right,'s halftime number 56. We'll talk to you next week. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success.

You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. A lot of times big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. Small but important ways, from tech billionaires

to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chaston. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and

sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground you'll discover No Rules Fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored.

Listen to the Away Days podcast reporting from the underbelly on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you happen to get your podcasts.