Regina Swarn Audio Series Presents - What makes a genius: talent, hardship, and quiet pride. - Part 1

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

Fan MailA single hug can reset a life. That’s how Murphy Elliott describes meeting Emma at Elizabeth W. Murphy School—the first real embrace he remembers after a hard stretch in foster care—before a string of firsts turned a quiet kid into a relentless maker: a classroom-length chalk drawing that pulled in every student, an oil painting that won a scholarship, a slide rule that drafted a ranch home built by his classmates, and a sketcher’s eye that found its way into Apollo life support diagrams.We start where most stories don’t—at the pump in the yard and the outhouse out back, with a family line rooted on islands in the Chesapeake and a father whose tuberculosis vanished after a prayer. From there, the details stack. A broken collarbone at five while shoveling chicken coops. A pig drawn on the inside cover of a coloring book so younger siblings had something bright on a bleak Christmas. Hootenannies, trumpet practice, and math classes sharpen the tools. Then come the machines: a 1936 Chevy resurrected from boxes in a barn at thirteen; a too-loud highway test that sends cars scrambling; the humility to sell it on and buy a $35 fixer that becomes its own education. Along the way, a stepdad who can repair anything models how patience and design fit together.The journey winds through industry and service. Tech school drafts lead to real products—the Cross Your Heart living bra components, a toothbrush profile, a tampon dispenser—and to translating computer readouts into drawings for the astronaut’s portable life support system. The Navy detour promises art, delivers administration, and still yields stories: perfect scores on hill-starts in a two-and-a-half-ton truck and chauffeuring a base captain between duties. When the uniform comes off, the refrain is familiar: “get a real job.” Murphy does, one stroke at a time—painting the local Dairy Queen, fielding house requests at the drive-through, and discovering how public work builds a private archive. Nights belong to oils on canvas, days to ladders and trim, and eventually Vancouver becomes home for three decades, where he meets his wife, raises talented kids, and paints toward an astonishing tally of 16,000 houses.This first chapter ends with gratitude—a shout-out to supporter Susan Roberts—and a promise. The next part dives into the fine art career, family collaborations, inventions, and the choice to return to the States and start again. If you care about craft, resilience, and the unexpected roads that lead to mastery, press play and ride with us. If the story moved you, follow the show, share this with a friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find it.Write to Murphy Elliott  at....https://[e-mail] for Part 2 coming Next ....Reaching for 🌟  A message from me to all my wonderful  followers.  Please  feel free to share your feedback. Click fan mail and leave me comments.  The end of my showSupport the showContact [e-mail]

To Regina Soaring, audio series presents bringing you stories of people from all walks of life. If you would like to support this podcast, feel free. Your support helps keep the channel running. You can also support the channel by becoming a monthly subscriber. And last but not least, feel free to share with your friends. If one of these podcasts touch your heart and it resonate with your heart, please share with your family and friends. Now, let's take you into an episode of Regina Swarn, Audio Series. Hello, Regina Swarine. Welcome to Season 8 of Regina Sworn Audio Series Presents.

I would like to thank all of you for coming out to be a lot of. part of this audio series. Thank you so very much. I like to also thank my wonderful, wonderful guest today who will be coming in shortly Murphy Elliott. Now, this man has, he needs no introduction, honestly. His career spans multiple decades. And we spoke about three weeks ago, and I'm telling you, I was so intrigued.

I was so inspired by his story, and I wanted my audience, my community, to hear his story, as he's going to tell you part one of his story to date, and we're going to follow that by part two, and if needed, a part three. But he's a great artist. When he told me, he had painted over 16,000, not 100, because I got it mixed up, 16,000. houses, I was born away. And this man has, his work, as I said, spent multiple decades. I'm not talking a decade. I'm not talking a year. I'm not talking two years. I'm not even talking two decades. I mean, multiple decades. It goes back. And he was telling a lot of stuff the other day and we were talking in conversation. And I was like, oh, my God, a story needs to be made about his life.

Murphy Elliott is a genius in my words. If I have to say it, he's a genius in my word. In my opinion, if that counts. And one time in the newspaper in Yahoo, I remember them saying, if Jen said it, it matters. So I guess my word have a little cloud to it. I don't know, but back to my first guest, I'm so excited to have him, and he'll be coming through shortly, guys. You can follow him online, and I'll get him to tell you all the information that you need.

But again, I was so intrigued and so motivated with his story the other day when we were talking things that he said. He's such a humble soul. He's so humble. I love that about him. You know, I've never heard him brag on himself or, you know, of course, he talked about the work that he had created and stuff like that. That's different. But I never heard him bragging and all that kind of stuff. I just only heard him or talk to him.

He's always talking about the things that he do, the things that he's done. And he's just a really wonderful person. He has two kids, a son and a daughter. Now, when you listen to the podcast, in the beginning of the podcast, you hear the soundtrack by Chris Murphy Elliott. Now, Chris is Murphy's son, and Chris is an excellent musician. I'm talking excellent. So in the beginning of the podcast, you hear that music created by none other than Murphy Elliott's son, Chris Murphy Elliott. And at some point, I'm going to speak with Chris as well.

the entire family is absolutely, God, they're genius. You know, when you start at the top, if the top is good, you know the bottom is going to be great. It's even when you bake a cake. If you got that top and all that looking good, then everything else's going to be good. It's ready to go. I don't know if I'm making any sense right now, but I hope so. But we're just rambling along to my guests come through. And again, like I say, as a daughter as well, who's beautiful, she's talented,

his wife, a wonderful lady that stands behind him, that believes in what he's doing. And, you know, behind every great man, that's a great man, every great man that's a great woman. Words getting all bumble up here, but behind every good man is a good woman or a great woman. So his family is awesome, and they support him. And so he's going to talk a little bit about his early beginning. And again, we're going to have a part one, part two. Part one is coming up. We're going to do a part two.

And, yeah. So we're just waiting for my guests. So let me have some of the trick here. Something cold to shrink. Sorry, but I'll be nice. I'm just getting a little something to drink. I'm waiting for my guest to come through. I am having a little juice this morning.

Grip juice. I love it. that is delicious and if you're sitting here listening to the podcast so take you just something to drink have something to eat and here you can't welcome Murphy

Elliot how are you well good morning Regina and thank you very much for having me on your show I sure appreciate that you know I was just sitting here for almost 10 minutes just talking about you and the great thing you have accomplished. And, you know, I said, well, he'll be here in a minute.

So I just spent the time speaking about you, your kids, your wife, and just what a great, great family you are, a great family you got. So how are you feeling this morning? Well, like I said, I'm getting older by the minute. Why? Well, we all are getting older. So that's life. That's life.

So we got a talk, you know, the other day we was speaking, and I just learned so much from you. You inspire me, as I was telling my audience right before you walked in the room, visual, was it virtually, virtual room. I was telling my audience just how inspired I am by you when I hear your story. And the first time I heard you talk a few weeks ago, it just inspired me, made me cry a little bit, but it did inspire me a lot. And I was like for you to tell my audience a little bit about yourself because I think I rumbled enough. Welcome Murphy, everyone. Here he is.

He's going to talk to you a little bit. Well, I'm like one of those old men now that can reflect back a few years. I'm from a time that a lot of you probably don't know about a time when we didn't have running water in the house. We had a pump out in the yard. And we had an outhouse, not interior plumbing at all, quite a long time ago. Yeah, we love long time.

We would go into town. We had a horse and buggy to go into town. Now, a lot of people had cars, but our family didn't have money to buy cars and things like that. We had a huge garden and grandma, and the whole family would get together and put up canned food for the winter. And that was the time frame that I started out as. Wow.

Sounds like a time. It sounds like a, I mean, I know we live in times now that's past pace, but it sounds like a more calmer time, too. me now, that's just me. And my audience, the ages, you know, from all the way up to in their 80s, I think, 90s, and then I have teenagers that listen, but we all want to learn, we all can learn, and your story is inspiring. So, oh, boy, proceed.

Well, my father is from Brooms Island, that's on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. and our family has been there. There's Broom's Island and Solomon's Island and Elliott's Island. Is Elliot is that associated with your name or is that just the island's name? Well, that's after they got there. But I was going to say the Queen Mary of Scott said my ancestor, John Elliott, over with the family to find land for Scotland in America. Wow.

And when they came up to Chesapeake Bay, the islands were there and they were occupied by Indians. So what they did was they sent off fireworks off of the boat, off of the ship, a lot of fireworks, and they scared all the Indians away. Wow. And they took over those islands. So that was back in the early 1600s. And our families have lived there ever since. Boy, it sounds kind of like I was watching Wish's name,

one of the older actors one day. And it's kind of reminding me at that when you were saying that. It was like, it was a good movie, though. It was a good movie. So, wow, Murphy, you, it goes back there a minute. I mean, like I say, when I hear you a story, it puts me in that time frame. It really just takes me right there. You might not believe this, but it put me right there in the middle.

And like I'm there, like I can feel it, you know, what you're speaking about. So I want to know more. Oh, my God. Well, my dad grew up on Brooms Island. He only went to third grade and then quit school in third grade. but he meant somebody that showed him the Bible and taught him about religion and he became quite obsessed with it. And he left the island, I guess he was 21 years old,

and he moved to Dover, Delaware, where he met my mother. And she was 15 at the time. And they got married. Wow. She was very young, and he was quite young as well. Right. But he went on, he started preaching, and he got tuberculosis from a spray painting. Oh, boy.

He was put into a hospital. And while he was there, my mother went to work in Baltimore, in burlesque. Oh. And she meant quite a few entertainment. went showbiz type people. And she was a lot different than my dad. My dad was very quiet. And while he was in the hospital with the TV,

he went and he saw Oral Roberts. And Oral Roberts prayed for him, and his tuberculosis disappeared. He didn't have it as a scar. And that really put him over the edge. far as being religious and preaching. Right. He would pray constantly and preach constantly.

And the marriage didn't last. They were just too different, my mother and my dad. Right. Right. He's in burlesse, right? Burlitz. It's your business. Yeah.

I don't know. People nowadays, I don't know if they know about burles. but it was risque show business. Showgirl. Yes, yes. And my mother was quite beautiful. I was a young age. Wow.

She left, and my dad had kids, three of us, and he didn't know what to do, so he put us in foster care. And that was probably the best thing for us at the time because he didn't have their three kids. He was still young himself. Right. Wow. So how was foster care? I mean, you said she put you up in foster care. So what was that like, that life? Well, foster care, it was a family out in the country, and they had a large chicken farm. They produced chickens and lots of eggs, incredible eggs. They had 12, 30-foot-long chicken coop, we'll call them.

and, oh, an amazing amount of chickens. But they put me to work right away, cleaning out these coops. I would have to do two a day for six days. Oh, God. It's a lot of work. Well, I really enjoyed it. I was five years old. And I enjoyed it.

It was kind of fun as far as I would have concerned. I had a pitchfork, and I shoveled out the hay and everything out of the coop every day. Five years old. I was paying. I could stand up and walk through the poop because I was really tiny. Wow. One day I was working on the second chicken coop, and the foster parent came out,

and he thought I was still on the first one, and he was upset with me. He said I was just blacking off, so he hit me on the shoulder with a stick. and I started crying and he stopped crying and get back to work and I didn't stop crying

so he hit me again on the other shoulder and it broke my collarbone and sticking through my shirt and he realized that he kind of hit me too hard oh my God when you think

but they put one of those ace badages around my shoulder behind my back at a figure eight and pulled it tight. And that's it. I got a few weeks off. I was mending. But he broke both

collar bones, not just one, but both of them that day. Oh, my God. Did he keep working there? After a few weeks after it healed up, I went back to work again. And like I said, I enjoyed it. Marcy.

Did the guy, did they, keep his job, I guess? I'm sorry? Did he keep his job for, you know, breaking your collarbone and stuff? Nobody knew. He didn't tell anybody. I didn't go to the doctor or anything

like that. Nobody knew about it. Oh, boy. It was my sister and my younger brother and I, and we were there at Christmas time. and they had their kids and their grandkids there at Christmas. And we had to sit there and watch them all open all their presents,

and there was nothing for us, three kids. So after it was all over, my sister and brother were crying, and they gave us a coloring book, a small coloring book, with a box of six crayons for the three of us. Yeah. So that was the first drawing I remember doing. On the back cover, on the inside of the back cover, was just a white page. And I drew a little pig and colored it for them and let them color in the rest of the book.

But that was the drawing that I remember doing. And I guess I was probably six years old by then. Six years old. Wow. That was sweet, though, you could do, your brother and sister. Yes, my younger brother, Steve, he was born with high. hydrocephalitis. And they said that he probably wouldn't live past six or seven years old.

And, of course, I took care of him. I had toward him and anything he wanted, I would give him. But it turned out he moved to be 66. Oh, okay. He outlived all the doctors. Well, I never know if our time is up to God. You know, so wow. Oh, I want to be glad you are, though.

Oh, my God. He turned out to be special. His family, everybody, he was a special person his whole life. Well, bless his heart. Yes, indeed. You lived longer than they said, and that's really great. That's great. That was an early chapter, and things got better.

After I got out of foster care, I was eight years old, and I was put in a home called Elizabeth W. Murphy School. And it was beautiful. We had four mansions, an infirmary. It was just an incredible place to be. The first day I went, it was the day that John Kennedy was elected into office in November of 1960. And I remembered it clearly. That day, the three of us, when they took us in, they took us in to meet the cook.

And her name was Emma. Emma. Emma was a lady of color, and she was about 350 pounds. And when we went in, Emma gave me the biggest hug ever. It was the first few that I remember. And I come in love with Emma. She was just a wonderful, wonderful lady.

Wow. I realized that people of color are capable of incredible love. Right. I wish everybody would realize that, especially people who are prejudiced and don't understand that we're all capable of extreme love

if we want to. Right Boy Was that the only hug you had Was that the first hug? That was the first hug That was the first hug

That was the first hug that I remember My mother hugged me When I was a baby But then with the foster care And being away from everybody And that was really the first hug And I felt so much love Shout out to Emma

Wow that was so sweet Oh It was a nice place to be. Like everybody else, I really liked John Kennedy, and I wrote him a letter and asked for a picture of him and his wife. And he sent them to me, and I still have them to this day. Oh, wow, you still got it. Ooh.

Wow. Great memorabilia, say what I call it. But that was the year. That was the year also that I started to get attention for my drawing. Hmm. In the first, oh, sorry. Yeah. What year was that, Murphy?

What year was that? I'm sorry. Okay, what year was that? I'm sorry. What year was that? Nineteen, 61 in that area. Okay. 61, probably.

And I was sitting at my desk drawing a telephone, the old rotary telephone. And it was a pretty good looking drawing. When I went out to recess and I came back, somebody had taken it. Oh, my goodness. Well, I told the teacher, and she felt really bad. And she says, well, Murf, I'll tell you what, I'll let you draw a picture on the chalkboard. And back then, the chalkboard was the entire length of the room at the front of the room. Yeah.

She gave me a box of colored chalk. And on the right side, I drew the three wise men on camels heading toward Bethlehem. And on the left side, I had Bethlehem, of course, the star of David above it. And the manger, I drew the manger with baby Jesus in it. And she was so impressed. She invited every class from Dover School at the time of Dover School to tour the class to see the drawing. And it was, my ego got really big. Wow, I bet.

I mean, it's worth getting big. Wow. That inspired me to keep drawing. Wow. Artistic at that age. It goes back that far, everyone. You hear telling me its own words. He's drawing at that young age.

Oh, my God. You know where I shop? I shop right online, right from the comfort of my own home. At Duna's perception. For the latest, in fashion, clothing, shoes, bags, accessories, and so much more. shop www. www.

Dunamusperception dot com elevate your vision and tell them I sent you I've the next year

I won an award for a drawing that I did it was a library contest and I won the first and won the award

for that Yay So that was the year that math teacher had a hoot-nanny group, and a lot of the young people probably don't know what a hoot-nanny group is. It's just a bunch of kids singing, and she asked for people to join. And she had an extra guitar, and she let me use that guitar, and she showed me how to play a few chords.

And, of course, I played along with her, and we sang to, they'd have people come in, older people come in, and we would sing and play to them. and I still remember quite sure of those songs. Wow. But that's when I learned how to play the guitar. Boy, he played a guitar too. That's another thing.

Add to your list of great, great things. This is why in the beginning before you entered the room, I was talking about the genius. That's to you. That would be you. But I really fell in mathematics. and I took a lot of drafting courses, mechanical drawing and drafting.

And it stayed off today, I still enjoy drawing technical things. Wow. Man, that's amazing. As I went on, I did a lot of drawing and painting on my own, a little bit of sculpting. and what's next. I'm telling you, it goes back a long way that art and all the great things that you're doing now.

It started out way back then. I mean, and it's just amazing. It started so young, is what makes me, it's priority to me that you were able to do all these things so far, and you was so incredibly, young and gifted as a child, just totally gifted and just seemed like you just, you did it to the best of your ability, Murph.

I just caught you, Merth. Oh, my God. I think most kids given the opportunity, you know, were talented in one way or another. When I got to junior high school, I took up the trumpet, and I played the trumpet for a couple years I enjoyed being in the marching band. We had uniforms. When I was 12, I played Pop Warner football. I was the same size as everybody else back then. I didn't. But my most memorable play was I was halfbacked and they called my number and said, okay, Murf run out wide and turn around and the ball to be there. So I was really,

small and I go running out and I turn really fast but the helmet stayed straight. So I ended up looking out the earhole and the football came bounced off my helmet and everybody that probably was laughing.

Oh my God. Oh my gosh. The helmet turned like that? The helmet stayed straight. I turned really quick and like that. looking out the earhole and I could just see the ball coming and bounced off my head. Oh, my God. That's probably not funny.

You didn't get hurt, though, did you? No, no, no. It's funny now. It was embarrassing. Yeah, it is funny. Oh, so glad you didn't get hurt now. I'm really glad about that. But, darn, another gift.

You're out there playing football now. Oh, my God. Well, I love sports. but like I said, everybody else got big and I didn't. I wanted to play football when I got the high school they said, no,

Murphy, too small. Oh, my God. So instead I joined the wrestling team. And... Wrestling? Oh, my God. But I used to like to wrestle

when we practiced with the biggest guy. I was the smallest guy on the team. And the guy, named Dick Colvin. He was six foot eight and weighed over three hundred pennies. And practice with him. But I could always be eating. I just tickle him.

That would do it. But one day we were practicing, and I wrapped my whole body around his leg from a knocking to the ground. And he fell on me. Oh, no. And he snapped my collarbone again on the one end I broke early. So instead of going to the nurse, I went around the school showing everybody. You took the selfie girl, showing them the bones ticking through. Oh, my gosh.

Creepy and scary. And to finally it started, oh, okay, I better go see the nurse. Right. I went to see the nurse. She called my stepdad, and he came to take me to the hospital. And I did all right until they put that band. It was almost the same figure eight. It was a scrap instead of it.

They pulled it tight, and I started seeing stars. Oh, I hurt that bad, I guess. Well, it made me almost pass out, but I didn't hung in there. But that was my stepdad. and he was a man, among men. He was a mechanic. He was a sewing machine mechanic, but he could fix just about anything.

He was brilliant. He was really smart, and he taught me a lot, and I idolized him. Oh, great. Great. Now, finally a great daddy. Yay.

Yes, yes. But he was such a good mechanic. And the house that we moved into, we rented, it had a barn outback. And in the barn was an old 36 Chevy truck dismantled. Oh, my God. There was parts everywhere in boxes and cans. Some were in oil, motor parts, rerun parts, break, everything ever, just everywhere.

And I kept asking my dad, can I have it? Can I have it? And I was 13 years old. 13. And he would say no, but finally he said yes. First I said, you know, keep asking him. And so I started putting it together just like all the models I'd put together over the years. And it was, it was like a large model.

And finally, after six months, I got it together and running. Hmm. You got it together? Yes. I was 13. And, of course, I had no lights and I couldn't drive it. So he said, well, listen, we'll take it out on the Shet's Run, so he got in it. But the cab was almost so small, our shoulders were almost touching.

That's how small the cap was. Yeah. It was fire engine red, and we go out onto the freeway. And the muffler wasn't working, so it was just as loud as you could imagine. And as he started going, please me a second. Hello there, I'm Regina Swarren. Thank you so much for enjoying my podcast, stories, live true stories, people from all walks of life. If you are interested in being a part of my show, my podcast, please write to me at Sworn, Regina, at e-mail.com.

Now, stories from all walks of life means I cover everything. That's religion, politics, everyday life, music. You know, once a point of time, I just covered music, but now I cover everything. So again, contact me at Swerin Regina at gmail.com. And thank you so much for checking out my shows right here at IHeart Radio. Take care. Man, this is amazing. The story is amazing.

I mean, wow. It was so loud. Cars were pulling off the road because they thought we were a fire truck or something, I guess. He did it. But when he stepped on the brakes, it yanked the steering wheel out of his hand almost because I didn't get the brakes exactly right.

Right. But he said, okay, Mark, this is just nuts. He sold it. He sold it actually for pretty good money to a mechanic. Right. And he says, I'll take you out so you can buy another one. And we went looking and we found a 1952 willie. Oh.

And the backyard. And I bought it for $35. Why. $35. $35. Oh, my God. Yeah, but the next couple of years working on it, just making it really nice.

I came to a little Annie-Sanny on the sides of the door. Yeah. It was a nice car. I had that until I went into the military, along with a few others back then cars weren't that expensive. All right, yeah. I came that, right. $35.

You can buy a lot of cars with that. Well, in 1970, when I left Delaware, you could buy a Corvette for $5,000. Oh, boy. Off the showroom floor. Things sure have changed since then. Yeah, things have changed so drastically. Oh, my goodness. You know what, Marphy, though, would I notice, even as you started as a child?

on up to now, and I'm sure it's going to get greater as you tell you a story. You just got that. It's something about you. Like that talent was always there, that gift. And it's like you never, what I love most about you, you never gave up. It's like if one thing you don't work, you go to another. I mean, guys, listen to this. This is inspiring.

It's inspiring. I'm serious. It's so inspiring. I'm sorry. Proceed. I just had to say that. Oh, my God. Well, when I was in high school, I started painting with oils. My first oil painting on canvas won me a scholarship to the Philadelphia College of Art. I still have that painting.

Wow. But also, when I got into high school, I went to Tech School. I went to Caesar Rodney High School for three hours during the day. And then I went to Tech School for three hours during the day. And I studied architectural drafting in Tech School. Wow. I really enjoyed that, too. It gave me a chance at a drawing board.

Back then, we used slide rule. We didn't have calculators. They had slide rolls. Right. But my second year there, I grew up the plans for our ranch house from the basement all the way, all the plumbing, electrical, everything. And the next year, all the trades in this school built the house. And they sold it for charity, and they awarded the house to a family. Wow.

I was quite proud of that. Yeah, I bet you were. And then the next year, my last year at tech school, after they've seen what I'd done the first two years, they decided to send me out on the job. So for three hours a day, I went to regular school, and then the other three hours I went out on the job at ILC Industries. and ILC Industries was making rubber plastic all kinds of different things for

in that year I designed the first living cross-your-heart living bra I also worked on a couple of other projects like I said I designed the first plastic tampa pond dispenser. Boy.

I'm wondering if you get credit for it for all of those designs that you did because, man. Well, I didn't get paid, but I got a good grade in school. Oh. I designed, like, the PicoPay toothbrush. Oh, goodness. There was quite a few things that I designed. I was a sub routine at the time. But also, I got to work on the Apollo.

astronaut space suit. Okay. From computer readouts, I did the drawings for the portable light support system for the astronauts. Right. And I really enjoyed that. And I got to meet three of the

astronauts at the time. And it was quite nice as well. That's good. You got credit for that at least. Yeah. And I did a a sculpting, I enjoyed that. I did

Michelangelo's David where he's reaching out to God. I did that sculpture when I was in school. Right. Wow. It turned out really good. My teacher wanted to bronze it and she took it to her

studio and melted it so it never came out. But when I was getting close to graduation, I was on my own. I wasn't living at home with my parents anymore. And going to Philadelphia to college was sort of scary for me because it was a big city and I wasn't used to a big city.

And I was talking to the military recruiter, Navy. And he told me that they needed somebody to do the recruiting posters. Wow. And my part of the work, that that would be great fit for. me to be able to do that. So I thought, okay, well, they trained me to pay me, the place to sleep and eat, and that was kind of much more acceptable than going to Philadelphia, a big city that was over. Yeah.

So, of course, I enlisted, and when I got in, they told me, oh, no, that's a civilian job. So they totally lied. Oh, boy, what a trick. Well, right away in basic, my first duty, well, actually in basic training, they asked all the guys, we're here, 250 of us that arrived at the same time, and they asked who knows how to type, and I was the only one out of 250 guys that knew how to type. That's great. Great for you.

Great for you. It became the company clerk. That's cool. I was like Radar. I kept track of everybody's records and everything like that. Basic training was fun. I really enjoyed basic training. Yeah.

That's good. Some people say they don't like basic training, but you enjoyed it. Yes, I did. That is great. The only one that could type, they got me right there. Boy. Yeah, I took a typing class when I was in school. Hang off.

So after I got out of basic training, my first duty station, it was submarines. And I was going to school for training in submarines. And the first thing I did was I went and got my military driver's license. Wow. And I got a 4-0, which is a perfect score. Great. put you in a big two and a half-ton truck and drove you up a hill and you got to the top of the hill with the south side. And they said, okay, go, but don't drift backwards.

That sounds scary to me. It just sounds scary to me. It may not be scary, but. Well, I knew how to drive a standard. I knew how to shift gears and work the car. clutch and everything, so I did it perfectly. So as soon as I get my license, I get a call from the captain of the base. Would you like to be my chauffeur?

Wow. So I chauffeur, the captain and the executive officer around in their limousine whenever they needed to go somewhere while I was going to sub-school. And once again, military went pretty quick. I got out as quick as I could As soon as my time was up I got out I wanted to carry on

But when I got to have a military I wanted to do artwork How many years did you do military I was quite young I was in two weeks out of high school And I did two years Oh okay two years Yeah

So after I got out of the military I wanted to be an artist and do artwork but everybody said, Murph, get a real job. Wow. They didn't consider art a real job. It was just sort of something to do, a hobby. So I decided, okay, well, my dad painted houses, so I thought, okay, well, I'll try to do that.

So I was at the Dairy Queen, a couple of my friends worked there, and they asked me if I would like to paint the Dairy Queen. So as I'm painting the Dairy Queen, I had people driving through and asking me to paint their house. Wow. So I picked up quite a few jobs painting house from that first job. And then I had a friend who came down from Canada, and he went to high school with me. He came down his sister.

Her husband was in Vietnam, so he stayed a year with. with her. It was my senior year, and I met him the first day in school, and we became really good friends. Wow. But he came down after I got out in the military. He said, hey, Murphy, want to go visit Kennedy since Vancouver is a beautiful city. Yeah, it is. I said, sure.

Off I went to Canada. And I ended up spending 30 years there. 30 years in Canada Yes That's where I met my wife She was from a small island Off the coast And she just arrived

At nearly the same time that I arrived in the city And now that's sort of another story And that's when I began my painting career And did a lot of painting and everything But we should save that for the next next episode. I certainly will. Again, I started painting seriously on

canvas at night when I'd be painting houses during the day and I'd paint on campus at night. And I started getting recognition in that. So let's leave that for the next story. We sure will. We've got to leave that. I can't wait to put that in the next story because

we're looking at about his wife. You're going to find out about his beautiful kids, beautiful wife, his artwork, his painting I invented games and all kinds of other things. And after 30 years, I came back to the States and started all over again, and that's another story. All right.

So we got some good stuff coming up in part two, and, hey, we may need a part three because we're talking to Murphy Elliott the Genius. I said it. I ain't taking it back. I'm sorry. So Murphy, thank you so much for joining me for research. Tina Swar and your series presents. Thank you so much for being my first guest on season eight.

You've been wonderful. I couldn't wait to talk to you and have the opportunity. And so we're going to do part two. We're going to be recording part two this week as well. You should be able to hear part one very soon. Thank you so much, Murphy. I appreciate you, and I hope that your fans enjoyed my ramble. Right. I know

nobody that told me you like to thank a person that one of your fans that has been there for you. Would you like to thank her right now? Yes, I would. I have a special fan who's been a fan for quite a while. And she actually painted my portrait with oils. And her name is Susan Roberts. And she is such a sweetheart. She's about

my age and she is just a sweetheart and I really appreciate her supporting the community here. Right. So hey, a shout out to Susan Roberts. It's always good to have a supporter and it's always good to

have that person that really believe in you that no matter what nobody says, you've got that one fan or a thousand fan or whatever and so shout out to Susan Roberts. Thank you so much for support. Murphy and anything else you would like to say before we close?

Well, I have so many fans that I could mention, but it's just too many to mention. And I appreciate everybody who supports me and comments on my work. It just helps me keep going and know what I need to do next. Right. Well, just keep it up, Murphy, because you are, you do an excellent job, and I really appreciate your work. I admire you very much. I thank you so much for all that you do. And so I just want to thank you for being my first guest.

And here I said, we're doing part one right now, but part two will be coming up, but part one would be played. Shortly, I'd be posting it up on social media. So thank you again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thank you too, my dear, and you take care of. Be safe. All right, Murphy. Thank you. Have a great day, everyone.

And we say goodbye. for now. Okay, that concludes another great broadcast. Thank you so much for joining me for Regina Swarine Audio Series. If you'd like to be a part of this series, please send me an email at Swarine Regina at gmail.com. I want to thank all of my wonderful friends, fans, and guests for being a part of this show. Most of all, I'd like to thank the Lord. Until the next time, take care of yourself and be safe.