An Army of Normal Folks - When Normal Folks Became “2nd Responders”

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

For Shop Talk, we dive into the worst ice storm to ever hit the American South. And the Oxford, MS citizens who became a relentless Army of bloody do-gooders!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. Welcome to the shop for shop talk number 89. Do you know any 89s, Bill? I got to know some 89s. Was Lynn Stallworth 89? 89. I mean, some receivers were 89s for sure. Who would win in a wrestling match? Dicker God. Who?

Trick question. Dicca is God. Mike Dicca. Like Ditka was 89? You've heard that joke before? Yes. Ditka was 89. That makes sense. Being from Chicago, you would actually care about that one.

I was actually born in 1989. Oh, God, you're a puppy. I know. I graduated high school three years before you're born. That is just disgusting. All right, what else? Anybody else? No.

Well, I mean, you might know these people. I don't. Let's see. Who are they? Gino Marchetti, come on. Hall favorite. Great defensive end. Steve Smith, yeah, that he was awesome.

Yeah, I think the big one is Gino Mershetti. Not my birthday? Come on my birthday. Oh, and your birthday. All right, everybody. For Shop Talk 89, we're going to talk about Winterstorm Fern, which is something that just wreaked havoc on my business, wreaked havoc on Memphis,

wreaked havoc on a lot of places, but worse, absolutely smoked North Mississippi. And we're going to talk about the recovery efforts. Warnerstorm Fern is one for the ages right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Inalick Lamoma. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated. And Black America, was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Almemata,

Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr., and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest.

It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy you? a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.

Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted.

The biggest mind game of all, NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Roald Dahl. The writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.

Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either.

Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock

before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be. So we asked kids, what do you want your parents to hear? I feel sometimes that I'm not listened to. I would just want you to listen to me more often and evaluate situations with me and lead me towards success. Listening is a form of love. Find resources to help you support your kids

and their emotional well-being at soundedouttogether.org. That's sounded outtogether.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. All right, everybody. Welcome back to Shop Talk number 89. Alex, welcome into the shop. It's great to be here, Bill. It's amazing you made it up here.

Well, we had to cancel an interview because of the storm that we're talking about. I know. It's, so I'll just tell you the Memphis perspective of winter storm ferned real quickly. Everybody needs to know. This is the worst ice storm in the history of the southeast

in the United States. I spent three days up here shoveling, well, scooping with motor graders, snow, and there's outside when you leave. You've got 130 employees for that, Bill? They couldn't get here. I know, I'm just messing around. I was here by myself and two other guys. I saw a video of, like, Max, going down on the highway with another guy on their equipment.

Yeah, it's insane. And we have, I mean, I've got, I've still got 13, 14, 14, 15 foot tall, massive piles, pyramids of snow up. Can we go sledding after this? You don't want to sled on that. That's basically a rock at this point. You don't want to touch it. But what's crazy is January will be our worst sales month we've had in 11 years.

Congratulations. Thanks. You want to know why? We produced. I couldn't get a truck here to pick any product up. So I lost the entire week of shipments. The depots were closed so we couldn't get containers here. And all of the interstate south of here had trucks stuck on them for four days.

And so trucks couldn't even get here, so I couldn't even load any product. Do thankfully all those sales are all into February? So, yeah, oh, I didn't lose the sales. Yeah, yeah. So what we're going to have is probably the biggest February we've ever had because all those sales are still good and now trucks are wrong. Come on, Bill. That's what you call lies, damn lies, and statistics.

You just did that to us. No, but the point is I've never been a situation where we could not get a truck to our plant and for a week. Never in all the years of the business. Never, ever. And for a week, we couldn't even get a truck here. And when I say it was bad, there were people on I-55 and I-269 running out of gas who were there for three or four days. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Oh, it was horrible. They could not move.

I know it was like shut down, but I didn't think they were stuck like that. There were people there who ran out of fuel and were stuck in their car and freezing temperatures for days. It was insane. Sadly, I mean, I'm jumping ahead, but one person actually died in Oxford from hypothermia. It's not a surprise. small matter, yeah. So, in addition, my beloved Oxford, Mississippi, home in the University of Mississippi, which is only an hour or so south of Memphis, and probably as a crow flies, 50 or 60 miles south of Memphis, the separation of the line of snow and freezing rain and ice was right

in between Memphis and Oxford. So Memphis got eight, nine inches of snow, and then about a half of inch of ice. ice on top of it. South of Memphis, Oxford included, and up through the North Mississippi vein, and while these trucks could move on the interstate, they got over an inch of just ice. And really, I think some place it's got two inches of ice, and it was insane. And Alex was in Oxford, and he's going to tell you about it. And the reason we're talking about this, too, is not just because of Oxford and you

and I caring about it, but there's actually, I think, some interesting lessons for the Army here. Yeah. The real reason that we're covering it. I think actually what the university is trying to do

for students as well. So let people know about it. I don't know if you knew this, but I was in Salt Lake City last weekend for the chapter training of Sleep and Heavenly Peace.

Really? So I actually got to see our former guest, Luke Mickelson. He was there. He was there? How's he doing? He's doing great, yeah.

So they have 380 chapters and they've built 360,000 beds for kids without them. Unbelievable. So far. And in this one, they probably had 20

new chapters from across the country. Actually, the most powerful part is they had like a dinner where we each got up and talked about why we're doing this. And hearing everybody's stories, and a lot of the cases, you know, people who went out into delivery, you and met a family without a bed. And I actually got to do that while it was out there too. So we actually did that delivery. I mean, it was powerful. I mean, these two kids were really quiet.

So, I mean, I think some cases, like, you know, the kids are overjoyed and they're jumping your arms. I think so some kids like, yeah, just from all their circumstances, like it's. Those kids have likely suffered some trauma, so you never know what you're going to get. I know, yeah. But like walking into a room where, yeah, there's no bed in there. There's nothing in there. Like, it's just a room. Yeah, it's just a room.

So anyway, I was supposed to fly back on Sunday. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen. So I made the last minute decision to fly to Florida to my parents and work there all week. So I was thankfully able to get back on Friday. But I did get probably a couple thousand dollars for the damage to my porch. A tree fell on my porch. Yikes. I will tell you this.

Will, my son, was in Memphis for the weekend, and he tried to get out for two days, and he finally made it back on Tuesday. But he sent me a picture in the Memphis International Airport, and he said there were thousands of kids sleeping in the airport on air mattresses, all from Ole Miss, because they didn't have any power.

They were trying to get home, and they couldn't even get out. So, I mean, it was, it was a real thing. At least they got in the airport with power. That's true. That's where they were. They had heat.

So, yeah, I'm about to hit this. So the storm started on Friday, February 23rd. And by 3 a.m. on Sunday, the 25th, most of Oxford and Lafayette County was dark. So northeast Mississippi power, out of 30,000 members, they had almost 25,000 without power. And it was the weight of the ice snapping branches and then breaking, tearing down power lines, right? Correct. Yeah. And I was actually in my Bible study with a.

friend this morning and he said that his house got to 30 degrees. He's actually still without inside. Yes, inside. Good grief. And he's still without electricity. So thankfully, most of Oxford's back up, but the county in like Lafayette County, I mean, a lot of those places are still down. It may be like two weeks to get power back. So the city actually put a shelter in place order where people couldn't, you know, move for a couple days there. As I mentioned, two people have died from storm-related deaths. But I really want to focus on the recovery stuff. This is kind of the fun army of normal folks in action live in Oxford. So the employees of Baptist Hospital decided to stay there, sleep overnight, and work there

so that people needed. Did they have generators? Yeah. Got it. Ole Miss Dining Hall workers left their homes and stayed on campus to feed the students during it. You're kidding. And I saw actually, I pulled it out of the prep, but it was something like just one particular day there.

I think they did like 2,000 to 3,000 meals there. Yeah. I mean, just normal workers, their commitment to staying over. linemen especially everybody's praising the linemen right now so i guess northeast mississippi power has a crew about 50 but we ended up getting a 350 additional people from throughout the region actually i was helping with some of the recovery efforts on saturday and i saw a crew from opalika alabama you know out there too so literally just these linemen from across the region have come to oxford and they're just working all day and night to get everybody back up wow and the town has really

rallied around them with free food and all that people need to realize and i know not so timestamp this, but this is February 2nd. Yeah, it's still going on. And it's still going on. And this happened January 23rd. And there are people down there still without power. And people need to understand that even though the stow and I stopped, the next night, it got down to six degrees. So people literally just freezing their butts off.

I was going to mention this later. But now they're on this topic. I actually have a stranger sleeping in my house right now. Do you really? It doesn't have power. Wow. And honestly, that's not to brag about me. it's I'm honestly more convicted by all of our guests who've done this.

It's like even just the Charlotte Dance one the other day. You remember her parents have had 50 people in their homes throughout the years and strangers. Who likes this person that's sleeping in your house? There's a whole recovery effort. So Betsy Chapman is the head of the farmer's market in Oxford. And she and my friend William Tier and some other people have organized what they call Oxford second responders. And so obviously you've got first responders. Right.

So we are the same. So we are the second responders. Here, let me see the number. All right. So they have 183 people on this group me. So it's basically like this massive, you know, text message thread with 183 normal citizens. And they're basically organizing, you know, all the needs and responses. And so people can submit a form about what they need.

And then they have these 183 people ready to respond. So they've actually like set up seven collection sites around the city to collect goods and stuff for people. Just think about this too. Like, what are they being down for? for so long. A lot of people couldn't get to work with a shelter in order. So like if you're already barely making it on the margins, and you probably heard this number before, that something like 40% of Americans couldn't meet a $500 emergency bill. Right. So you have a like a week or like this happen. Like a lot of people are truly, you know, struggling. So they stood up seven collection

sites at schools and churches, including what's funny at our church. So Sierra Cannon, who you've met before, they actually, she actually volunteered the use of our church without even running it by our priest first. So she just said, hey, we're going to do this. I'm sure he said it was fine. Yeah, and to give him credit, too, he's been awesome. So he's actually been driving generators to people. And he was talking about it when I was actually helping him a little bit on Saturday. He's like just the blessing of people, strangers welcome me in their home.

And it reminded me, too, of Isaiah 117 house. Yeah. When she said, I think I've repeated this line on the podcast the day too. Like, people don't want to, like, come to your church social, like, with ice cream. and like these white people dressed up all nice and they got all their lives act together. Like if you want to grow the church, you need to go to people in their need.

That's where you need to show up. So like, yeah, a priest showing up, bringing generators to people's houses and setting them up. Like, that's what the country needs. That's what we need. Anyway, through this Oxford second responder, as they said, somebody's without, you know, electricity.

Yeah, and so I offered it. And so. There's also a fund that the university set up that you can donate to to help students who don't have the money to get out of town, right? Correct, yeah. So there's all kinds of funds up there. So my friend Wayne Andrews is running a fund through his nonprofit.

So it's called the Long-Term Recovery Committee. And for example, they were able to get 77 heaters for people without power. So if you'd be interested in contributing to that, you can go to givebutter.com slash Lafayette cares. Lafayette is L-A-F-A-Y-E-T-E-E-T-E-E cares. All right, who else we want to celebrate here? Actually, our friend Marshall Ramsey had a great thing, too. Have you ever heard his line that one of our superpowers of Mississippi is that when a natural disaster strikes,

and before you can crawl out of the rubble, there will be a church van in your front yard full of people at chainsaws and casseroles, which is really what has happened. And he nicely cited us, he said, but there is a lot of people stepping up to meet that need. My friend Bill Courtney talks about an army. normal folks.

I know we're basically seeing that out there. Crew is another cool example of this. So the campus crusade for Christ, speaking of all the students, they posted this hilarious Instagram video of them like clearing a bunch of debris, like dozens of, you know, these old Miss students.

And they put on there when you're known as one of the biggest party schools in the country, but you are so much more than that. All these kids show up and doing it. Walmart's actually doing a ton with another charity offering free showers there. This Operation Barbecue Relief is set up there. I don't know if you heard of these guys, but they started during the Joplin

tornadoes. And they've, you know, show up at these disaster sites like this. And they've served more than 14 million years across 43 states over their years. They're in Oxford for like two weeks. Eight days of hope, former army member and past guests. They're deploying 80 people right now in the town over two weeks. They're staying at the North Oxford Baptist Church and have their base out of there. I'm planning on helping them on Saturday. How much the city has power? now. I think the city's pretty much, you ever, I mean, there's maybe like a hundred, I think I saw like 100 residents without power in the city. But the county is the problem. Yeah. It's like, yeah, my friend of my Bible studies in the county still doesn't have power. Unbelievable. Yeah, Samaritan's purse is down there

too. Actually, I was going to say about eight days of hope too. If you're interested in getting involved, they're going to be there through February 14th. So if you Google eight days of hope, Mississippi, you'll see that. And with all their efforts over the years, they've helped with 20 disasters. 60,000 volunteers, and they rebuilt 7,000 homes. Samaritan's purse is down there. The YMCA is offering free showers. And one personal story with a friend, too, so we were helping at our church with the collection site on Saturday.

And these people then are still without power. They're in the county. And yet they're at the church, and they're cooking gumbo for all the volunteers helping at the church. I mean, they made a meal for probably like 50 of us, even though they don't have power themselves, even though they have a tree on their house. So mad at Michelle Zerang, just to give him a shout-out.

But anyway, these are just a couple highlights of how the community has really come together here in Oxford. It is a great example of an army of normal folks showing out. Is there tree stuff down just everywhere? Everywhere. Is it going to change the look of the city? I'm sure, well, I'm not enough of an expert, but... That's a shame. Oxford is a...

Trees grow back, don't they, Bill? They do grow back, matter of fact. I think we've done a thing of that. But it's a shame because I bet on campus keeps their trees trimmed up well. So there's not as much deadfall and weight. But most people don't do that. And we had an ice storm. We called it Ice Storm Elvis in Memphis, I don't know, 15 years ago.

But it was similar. And, man, you could hear, it sounded like gunfire. You could hear tree branches cracking and breaking constantly. It was just snap, snap, snap, all night long. Was it like that? That's what everybody, I was gone during it, but that's exactly what everybody said. It said it was the eeriest thing

just hearing that all night long. Yeah, all night long. Just in the middle of the night, it'd be quiet, and then you'd just hear crack, crack, crack, crack, and you just knew there was another branch falling to somebody's house. Yeah. So.

So an army of normal folks showing out, the thing I also wanted to say, I want to be careful how I say this, but obviously things like this, or 9-11 is a good example, too, that can really bring people together. but it is also so easy to go back in our slumber after this. Like, why weren't we this convicted before this with all the social ills in our country?

You know, I think 30 to 40 percent of kids in Oxford are not at grade level. So it's like, why don't we have the same sense of urgency about that? Or the fact that the reason we're starting to sleep in Heavenly Peace chapter in Oxford, too, there's, you know, been 80 kids in our community who've asked for a bed, even though there's not a sleep in Heavenly Peace chapter yet. I mean, these parents are literally so desperate. They're Googling for something like this and found it. We're in the surrounding area.

There's like 500 people, you know, without a bed. So it's, you know, we need to have this same level of conviction once this particular, you know, event goes away. So hopefully that's something worth all of us reflecting on. And it's true for our listeners across the country, too, right? That's not just about Oxford. That's every community where these things like this can bring us together. And what if we just kept that up year round? Well, hopefully the Army and Normal Folks Club.

and what do we call it? Service Club. Service Club in Oxford, Mississippi will continue to have the same urgency of this effort after the ice storm is gone. So we are having our kickoff meeting on February 22nd,

5 to 6 p.m. at Circle and Square Brewery in Oxford. Perfect place. Yeah. I don't know if you've been there, but it's pretty cool. No, I've heard it's very cool. Yeah, but March 1st, we're on our Memphis one. March 8th, we're having our Atlanta one. Sorry, guys, I'm blanking on the rest of it. them. Wichita is February 26th, but if you're listening to any of those communities, go to our

website, you can get plugged in with all of them. That's it. All right, everybody, Shop Talk 89, making the best of Winterstorm Fern in Oxford, Mississippi, and really good examples of how an army and normal folks really does make a difference. And Alex's point, I think it's true. We shouldn't have a disaster to have a sense of urgency of joining the ranks of the Army of normal folks making differences in our community. It's a reminder of the power that we have, but it's also a call to use that power every day, not just in cases of emergencies. Shop Talk 89, screw Winterstorm firm. That's it. We'll see you guys next week. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. At a Morehouse College,

the students make their move. including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King, Sr. It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Minnick Lamumba.

Listen to the A building on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka Neurilingualistic Programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcasts. People who didn't do what John of God wanted them to do, they usually disappeared.

John of God was once Brazil's most famous spiritual healer. But in this limited series podcast, we uncover the darker truth behind his global empire of faith and fear. From exactly right and Adonde Media, this is Two-Faced, John of God. Listen on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roll Doll. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG.

But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you.

I was a spy. Listen to The Secret World of Roll Doll on the Eyeheart Radio. app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.