Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep.#148 - Heath MacDonald

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Originally from Fort St. John British Columbia Owner of Crudemaster Transport here in Lloydminster.  Business Owner, community member & family Man  He is one of the best who tells it like it is Let me know what you think text me! 587-217-8500

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they enjoy hearing that you're listening and hearing and discussing all right now let's get on to the t bar one tale of the tape originally from fort st john british columbia you know him as the owner of crude master transport here in lloyd minster with encouragement and maybe a kick in the ass from his wife tracy in 2006 they started up to trucking company he's a business owner community member and family man. He is one of the best who tells it like it is. I'm talking about Heath McDonald. So buckle up.

Here we go. This is Heath MacDonald. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Tonight's a special one. Port a nice Glenn Fitch. And I got Mr. Heathrow sitting across me, Heath MacDonald. So first off, thanks for hopping in.

Thanks for having me, Sean. I don't think it could have got colder outside. That's for damn sure. You picked a gooder. Well, I mean, now we're, at least we're inside and it's warm, right? Yeah, you bet you're a nice place, nice setup. Now, Heath, can you pull that mic in just a smidge closer to you? You got a deep voice, but you got to treat this thing kindly.

Yeah, all righty. Well, a little homophobic. Now, what I had envisioned for this is you're a guy who's made a name for himself in the trucking industry. and we can go back as far as you like I'm always curious about the oil patch the early days by sounds of it you got some amazing trucking stories from your time

all over this place and I just thought we might start a little bit we don't have to go right back to day one but you know you've seen some things over your career maybe we could start wherever you want to start but back a little closer to the start in the end

okay well I won't bore you Try not to. I guess my career in trucking started in 1986, you know, 85 when we were young, just, you know, swamping on the odd truck, swamping your bed trucks and what have you, and jumped into the industry in 86. Went to work for a company in Grand Prairie.

H.L. Powell was what the name of it was then. you'll see the trucks and trailers around now formula pow. So that was two of the big boys that amalgamated later on in the 90s. A bit of a funny story to that. So I went to work in a mud truck. It was hauling drilling mud at that time. And it was busy. The oil patch was going to beat hell.

And at that time, they were 100-pound bags, drilling mud that we hauled to the rigs. And for the most part, you get loaded by a forklift in the yard. but then you got to lease and you unloaded it by hand. You had a swamper with you, so the two of you'd unloaded, and we made it kind of a race to see how fast you could get this mud unloaded and stacked and made sure it looked decent when you left. So a couple of years of that, it wears thin on you. Literally thin, it was probably in the best shape of my life.

And the company I was working where then Powell, they decided they were going to start moving drilling rigs. Pat, the owner, he'd come up to me and he said, you ever done that before? and I said, oh yeah, I've done that. I had never moved to Drillenrigan in my life. I'd never. But if you missed the opportunity, that was an extra $4 an hour, right?

And Tracy and I were married at that time with Megan, our firstborn. So I got to move this drilling rig. So I started pulling high boys and low boys in for the next year. And springtime come and we always had a breakup up there in Grand Prairie. Like spring breakup lasted a strong two. months. So we had a bit of ask time, so I asked Pat, I asked him, I said, can I borrow the truck and trailer? Well, he said, what for? I said, I got to get my license. He looked at me, he says, you rotten bastard. Get out of here, then. He said, go get it. So I drove the truck

and trailer down to the licensing place. A lady, her dad, was actually in the truck and industry. I knew her brother. She'd come out and she said, how did you get here? I said, I drove here. She said, well, I hope you're not going to waste my time by doing this. So we had a quick run around the block and got my license and went to work. Pat, he brings that up every time I see him. Quite a story to that. Never miss an opportunity though.

No, no, you turn one down in those days. That's how it's changed. If you drop the ball or you missed an opportunity, you said no in those days, then somebody else was sitting in your truck. So jobs were scarce And not everybody wanted to do what we were doing What do you think about now that, Heath? Well, it's a different world out there.

Safety is a huge thing, which is good. It's come a long way from when we first started. The equipment we have now, compared to what we had, it was insane. I worked up in the Arctic with a 19, oh, I believe it was about a 1966 Kenworth, had a 318 Jimmy in it with a 5 and 4 transmission, and that's what you worked with up there. The trucks they have now, I don't know if you get somebody to drive something like that now anymore.

We were heading up to a place called July Lake once, and that's, That's north of Fort Nelson. It's from the Northwest Territories and BC border. And we had just a small load in the high boy in the back of the bed truck. I was going up what they called a Sickeny River Hill. And just to kind of relate the horsepower to you, so I was almost to the top. Twelve or thirteen-year-old kid passed me in the ditch

on one of those old one-skiy scadoos, you know, like the two tracks and the one ski in the middle. Yeah, their top end was probably 25 mile an hour and he beat me. You were not going anywhere too fast. No, no, you didn't set any records. I just had to look up Fort Nelson quick. I was thinking I knew where it was. I'm glad I looked it up because it's a lot of further up than I remember.

Yeah, it's about, well, back then would have been five, five and a half hours out of Fort St. John. So the highways improved quite a bit since. It's still not a great trip. I can imagine the highways back then, though. They weren't bad. They weren't as bad as when dad was doing it. You hear dad's stories and even your dad's. That highway was pretty much freshly built.

What we knew was pavement now was gravel. The pavement's a lot better. Highways are a little wider, and they've cut out some of the hills and went around a couple of them, so it's a little easier trip than what they had to do, and a little easier trip than what we had to. Did you ever, or do you still talk to your old man about the old days?

Oh, yeah. It's funny to sit down with dad. He's got some great stories. You get thrown in jail for some of them, but there was really, that was the original old patch. I think dad. How old would your dad be? Oh, dad is. Dad was born in 1944.

Okay. So he went to Fort St. John, left Hillmond. In his 20s, early, early. early 20s. I'm going to say if not maybe 19, 18, 19. And he went to work with my Uncle Ray up in Fort St. John. They had a trucking company of Fort St. John, McDonald's Transport. And he went to work up there. And kind of a funny story. The company that I worked for, I just talked about H.L. Powell while dad worked for his dad. And it was called Lake End Industries at that time and then turned into H.L. Powell, which was Pat's dad, Hubert.

So, yeah, kind of followed in their shoes a little bit. But their trucking was way different than mine, and people that work for me now was way different than what we had. A constant improvement. Oh, constant, yeah. The horsepower in these trucks now is crazy compared to what we had.

We thought we were in heaven if we had 400 horsepower. You were really, up down. Dad remembers he says, man, if we had 300, you were set in records. So it's changed. What's the truck got now? Well, you can still, like right now, you can get these new 600 Cummins and most of them are 550s. Some of the young fellows like to take them in, get them tuned up and opened up. You know, it's, uh, when I, my first winch truck that I bought, bought had a four and a quarter in a four and a quarter cat. And that was a good size engine.

That was a good, it was a good engine, probably Caterpillar's strongest engine. And then, of course, the Cummins come up with a 460 and then cat with the 475s. Cummins and Caterpillar back in Dad's days and my start days had the big, big engines, the 600 K-Line Cummins, and then Caterpillar had the V8, the 3408 cat. But right now it's more torque than horsepower. So you have the horsepower, you have the torque, and you have, well, it's quite a bit better fuel efficiency, I guess you'd say. The emissions right now and the shit they put on these trucks right now

makes it tough to go up to the Arctic where we work. The trucks don't run right up there. You know, we had, when we were up there, the cell phones didn't exist. we had there was eight of us up in that one camp and two out of the eight trucks had xJ mobiles in so you could if you got into a bind you could find a tower and phone out but other than that you had cbs and two-way radios and no cell phones so when you broke down you had to figure out a way to get home so you had to be a little bit mechanical these trucks nowadays the only thing you need in your toolbox is your cell phone because you can't do anything.

So that's a huge change. I was curious what a, when you say when you get in a bind, I'm curious what a 1980s bind looks like because today, you're right, you break down on the highway, you ain't stepping out of the truck, you make a phone call. Yeah. Well, you did what, I guess you did what you had to. You did, we learned, like when we learned, like the big difference between now and then, today you can go

you know pay your X amount of dollars I don't know how much it is and you come out with your class one it's absolutely zero hands-on experience to where when we started you sat in a jump seat for a year maybe two and that's how you learned

so you learned from your mentors what to do when something broke and how to bypass something to get home. Whereas now that hands-on experience just isn't there. I blame the government. They've turned our industry into a mockery, to say the least. How young were you when you first started driving a semi?

Oh. And I don't mean, I really don't mean, I was trying to think of this. I know dad and I, I was probably like 13, 14. Yeah. Well, that dad would let me drive when, you know, as long as he was there, and kind of showed you a little bit. You know, you got the feel of it. You were totally addicted to them.

I was, you know. You couldn't wait. That was the only thing on your mind was to drive a truck. That was no other industry, no other job, nothing else mattered in the world until you could drive your own truck. I look back at that sometimes

and go, geez, the hell were you thinking? But it's been good to us. It's I'm glad none of my kids got into it they went different routes

because trucking's not a trucking's a good career but it's not a it's not a great family career keeps you away at least it did then now with a lot of the new rules and the safety

scheduling is there where we didn't have a schedule when we were doing it your schedule was freeze up till spring break up days off and schedules didn't exist. Excuse me.

It was way different. Well, I grew up when Dad was hauling across all of Canada. He'd be gone for probably, and Dad remembered probably better than I do. It felt like 27 to 30 days, but I know for sure when he started working for Sandpiper in town. I actually had to eat him at the start. He was working 27 to 30 days, and they weren't 12-hour days. but, you know, they were like 18-hour days. Well, you worked until the job was done, basically.

Like, there was no... I'm trying to remember the year that they started to enforce logbooks. I think... I think it was about 1995 that the government started to enforce pre-trips and logbooks. So your hours of service came into play,

and at that time, when they came in, we were allowed to work 15 hours a day every day legally 365 days a year there was no limit. Yeah, they slowly just keep pulling. They keep pulling back from it. Now, I think, like now as long as you're still provincially regulated, they've taken an hour off you, so 14, but you can still work pretty much every day. Federally, being you're crossing borders, you have a set schedule to follow. And I believe it's 70 hours and eight days.

So do you, as a guy who's made his living in that industry, is that part good or not? I think it's good. I think it's, I don't think, like, I enjoyed it when we were younger. When I enjoyed it, like, he just worked. That was what you did. But looking back, I pretty much watch my kids grow up in shifts, meaning you, like, you'd come home, you'd have a couple of days. and then you'd be gone again for 30, 40, 50 days.

First year he removed Lloyd Minster. Tracy, my wife, hardly knew anybody here. More or less unloaded her and the kids and then jumped in the truck and went to Zama Lake for the winter. Left her in a strange community with three kids and a young son that wanted to play hockey and she had no idea how to dress him. So we've done that over an XJ Mobile

I got it or through how to put his hockey equipment on. He was just about done the season before I watched him skate. So that's the kind of stuff you missed back then. So the industry way it is now, I think it's better. You can almost be a family man and be in the industry. Was there nothing else just knowing how much you care for your family, and I'm sure you would have rather been at home and around Tress Colbs to go play some hockey.

Was there no other options back then? There was, but none that we could afford. Tracy and I were married young, and we had a family young. So that comes with its benefits as you get older, but when you're younger, you've got to work, like the bills need to get paid. There was nothing really out there that paid like the oil. It was big money. It was...

There's still nothing like the oil patch. No, there isn't. It's good money, and you have to work hard for it, but it pays the bills. Pays the bills quicker. I couldn't afford, and I'm not blaming anybody, or, you know, it's just the way life dealt its hand to us, an apprenticeship program somewhere,

or starting in a smaller business, out of the oil patch doing a 9 to 5 money to Friday, just there wasn't enough cash there. You needed to work up north, you needed to get up there to make the money. And back then we were doing well. There was $11,000 months in the early 90s, in 1990, 91, and that was wages only. And we weren't paying a lot of income tax then either.

So I don't think we kept any more than we did now. But it was good. I enjoyed it. The memories are great. I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but it's definitely an experience, and I don't know how much of that they're even doing anymore, where we worked anyway.

You mentioned I kind of cut you off when you talked about the government and the oil patch. I don't know if I want to get you wound up. I kind of want to get you wound up tonight, but it's a strange, you know, dad was telling me, did you hear about Regina? Not yet, no.

Dad was telling me that Regina, the city of Regina has removed oil and gas from sponsoring anything. Says they want to distance themselves from it. Really? Well. Well, I believe that if you're going to stand behind a cause that you think is right,

stand behind it. Absolutely. but stand behind it. So shut your natural gas off to your house. See if your vehicle will run on unicorn piss and get a wood-burning stove and stand behind it. That's a protest.

You want to bury our industry and enjoy the luxuries of our industry? You're not standing for much. This industry, Canada is a highly regulated, country in the world when it comes to the oil and gas industry. This carbon tax that's been opposed on us right now, Canada should be getting the credit from every country in the world because we are a carbon sponge with our wetlands and forest.

And yet our government wants to turn us into the villains. We went to BC this spring, or this summer, rather, Dad and I and my sons and dad's grandsons and nephews and salmon fishing we were in Victoria where oil and gas is taboo and I didn't see one electric vehicle and I'm fairly sure these big ferries that were going back and forth to the mainland where they weren't rowing them they were all diesel powered so yeah if you're going to stand behind something like I say stand behind it but do it with some dignity and actually support what you're backing down.

Does it have anything to do? This is just my young mind looking at it. Does it have anything to do with where the population sits? 81.4% of Canadians live in cities and like is that where this disconnect is coming from? I don't know how it's, I don't know. know where the disconnect started. Because most of our bigger cities, all of our bigger cities are run, you know, their heating sources are natural gas based, their vehicles they're driving. Lots of them say, well, we

take the transit. Well, maybe you can afford that luxury. Us guys like yourself and myself in smaller communities in rural areas, there's no transit system in our areas. So I'm sure people try, they carpool as they can because of the price of gas, but really their world doesn't make sense to me. I don't know how they justify

what they're boycotting. I really don't. They can't break down. California, for instance, they're promoting all these electric testes, the vehicles. Well, that's great, you know, but there's not a part on that vehicle that's not petroleum-based. So the batteries that are powering that vehicle, if you've got no petroleum industry, what's going to build the battery? No, they don't think of that. Nobody said the tires on the

ground. You know, they're not chiseled out of rock. So, and this is where our government falls down. This is where we're not hearing the full story we're not hearing the right end of the news. What we're hearing is I guess what the media and our government want us to hear so they're promoting a false product.

Our world needs regulations for the climate. Absolutely I agree. The old days of dumping oil into a ditch and you know having an oil spill or

letting diesel fuel run down the side of the highway, those days are gone. And I think Canada leads the industry when it comes to the environment. And I believe that you need to enforce that. But you also need to support the largest driving force in our country, which is, like it or not, the oil industry, in my opinion. Well, I think you're right. Oh, I always bring back the population thing because it always staggers. It staggers me to this day that 81.4% of people in Canada live in a city.

And, you know, let's just go something my, I'm a farm kid, right? I grew up a farm kid. But as far as when slaughtering beef and stuff like that goes, never done it. Never seen it. So I'm removed from it already. And my kids will be removed from it again. And as time marches on, that's where it goes. Like the 100% non-beef, what the hell they call that?

Beyond meat. I don't get it. I really don't get it. But what I do get is what the media sells them, right? They see Calbian slaughtered. Yeah, is that great? Well, no. We're this giant population, how would you like to get your meat?

Like, it just doesn't come magically in the store. pre-packaged and sitting there, right? And for anyone to think that, I just don't think they've actually thought through the full process. And when it comes to oil and gas, you know, you look at how media works and how social media really works

and feeding people what they want to see. Man, it doesn't surprise me because I see it on both sides where people get hooked up or stuck up on their things and they get fit more of it, more of it, more of it, and there they are. But us sitting here in this industry,

you spending your life, life working in the industry, know exactly how important it is to not only, like, building things, but Canada's economy is like, you know, we're attacking all the things that make our economy up, which is oil and gas, which is agriculture, which is lumber, which is all these amazing things. And we do live in a country, thankfully, that is conscious of, like, what we're doing to the environment and what we're doing to people in different places. And we're trying to make things better. meantime, I, I don't know, I struggle with what's going on. I believe the media and the social media is, you know, is poisoning a lot of, you know,

a lot of things we should be thinking about. Commercially gets me on TV and it just drives me nuts every time I see it. I want to turn it off. I won't name the name, but I'm sure everybody that's listening will know which what I'm talking about when there's a, they started interviewing a couple of ranchers that have grass-fed beef. well I'm 52 years old and I'm I don't know what the hell else we fed them as long as I've been on the ground I'm pretty sure it was grass

the cow eats grass that's grass fed they're not serving you a product that's any different than any other product but what they've seen heat is they've seen what's happening in the states probably closer to bigger centers in Canada for all I know I'm pretty sure the cows eat grass there too well they might but they also get fed a lot of grain they also get probably less what they're going on is they have less room to move more people to feed so they what the industry has done is found a way to feed a giant population and keep them fed listen I just had I was saying before we started I had Vernon Marladen here guys 98 asked him what are your remembers about the 20s I don't remember what money was he said what do you mean you

don't remember what money was he goes well probably for I don't know he couldn't figure out the years, but, you know, let's call it the first five to ten years of his life. The way they got groceries in town was by making butter and cream. That's in one man's lifetime. And here we sit. And the bleeding hearts, as everybody likes to call them, but heck, I don't like, like, does anyone like seeing a cow being slaughtered? No. But at the same time, you have to understand, if they aren't doing it, then you got to get out there and be self-sustaining because what they did through the 30s and probably the 20s and probably before that. as they were on these little farms everybody had these little farms and they did all that and if you talk to all

most of them actually i should say all of them but a lot of them said one of the things they didn't have a problem with back then was food they're always well fed why because they were self-sustaining that way they didn't have money to do anything hell of them half of them turned their vehicles because it couldn't afford gasoline into something the horse has pulled exactly you know and really i don't if you don't want to eat it, don't. I don't have a problem with it. It's... The funny thing is, can't you see they're going to have some health problem in like 15, 20 years because everybody went to beyond meat and weight? It isn't that healthy and nutritious and everything else. Like, I just, I'm just looking at it and I'm going, like,

this is bad shit crazy. It is. As far as I'm concerned. You know, I'm, it's just a guess, but I don't think the caveman evolved from turnips. I think it was beef, meat of some sort. you don't have to like it, but don't try and crush an industry because you don't agree with it. Well, the thing is I don't think people fully understand if they crush oil and gas, what's going to happen to the rest of Canada,

let alone Alberta. That I feel is the fault of the media and social media by not giving all of the information. You want to buy an electric vehicle like I taught you before on it. Go ahead and buy one. Understand what that vehicle is made of. Understand what powers that vehicle and how it's made. You cannot, in California, for instance, all those windmills you see down there,

and they think they're doing great guns. California, Los Angeles is probably the filthiest city in the United States. There's a layer of smog that lays over that city like you've never seen, and if you don't believe it, go there and look at it. The windmills you see there, they're probably only 20% in production, because the bearings in the windmills can't handle the sand from the desert. And they can't afford to fix them. When they break down, when the bearings are shot, they lay their dormant.

So wind power is good in its place. But then they don't want to do dams. Now, Fort St. John, that site sea dam. They boycotted that. They raised hell about that. So there's another source of power, but they don't want that either. Destroying the coal mining industry. No, can't do that.

They don't want coal. What the hell are you going to do? You know, they want an electric car, but they want a boycott every other way to make power. Well, yeah, makes zero sense. But the media is not telling the whole story. If they were, would people listen? I don't know.

But there's got to be some logic. You've seen in your, how old are you now here? Well, 52. 52. In your 52 years, you've seen. a lot of recessions. Yes. Are the 80s anything like this?

No. So my wife and I went through the first one in the 80s. We were first married. We were just married and we were, we raised a family on roughly 13 hours a week. So you grab whatever work you could then and you, and you did it. Was it three in the morning or whenever you just went and done it?

And you weren't fussy about what you did. Seeing the next one. the 90s right when we moved here. 1997. Oil bottomed out. Another one in 04. It's a very small one. Minor one in 08.

And when this one hit in 14, I'm sure people wrote down what I told to me that this was, I never saw it. I undershot this one so bad. I said this one's going to be a year, year and a half. And we'll be back at it. I would have never predicted this. This is the worst one I ever seen.

This one is second only to Mr. Trudeau's father's reign when the interest rates went through the roof in the early 80s. Pierre Elliott drove that interest rate into the high 18s and 20%. Mortgages went through the roof. So if that would have happened now with what we're going through today, we'd have been up shit creek. this is by far the worst one I've ever seen. And sadly, when you think you get just a slight breath,

something else shows up and they drag you back under the water. It's terrible. This COVID thing is the biggest politically driven farce I've ever seen in my life. Sadly, well, my wife and I come back from the States. We've done our 14-day quarantine, so you get a lot of time to think on how the world is thinking and how, you know, how this should be attacked. I believe that this flu, call it COVID.

It is bad, and the vulnerable should be protected and should have been protected, the elderly, the ones with the lung conditions. I think politically it was handled terribly. They've pretty much flanked the whole country. And they've, the first. The fear-mongering that has gone on in the social media and the media itself is insane. Dying is one thing.

We're all going to do it at some point in time and nobody wants to. The fear of dying right now is sadly overpowered by this disease and people not being, not thinking the fear of not being able to live is where I'm at. And right now we're not being allowed to live. And that is scary. Well, I'd talk to you a while back about Christmas was an interesting time, right? Mm-hmm. Because I kept telling people, listen, they shut down the ranks.

Don't worry. Like they're talking about the ponds being shut down. Don't worry. And then, you know, you hear about the guy being hauled off of Calgar. The young junior guy. I think his name is Ocean. Yeah. Of course it was.

And, you know, at the time, it shocked me because I was like, I never thought I would get that close to home, right? Like when it's often, you and my wife's hometown, Minneapolis, right? They had all the riots and everything's going on. It's far enough away that you're kind of like, it isn't going to get this close. And when the cops did what they did in Calgary, I mean, obviously you can see, like, all he had to do is get off the ice and walk away and it wouldn't a big deal. But then the other side of that argument is, is like, he's skating outdoors on a rink. I don't know. Like that seems pretty like illogical to have, bring in the SWAT team to bring them down.

It's, I thought it was terrible. I think that could have been handled numerous different ways. I think, you know what? People are so frustrated right now with some of the rules that are being rolled out. And even the new ones that our prime minister just rolled out here for, for traveling to the U.S. and other international countries. I think it's, I don't agree with it, but. Well, what was his exact words on that one?

Well, he's like a politician is, you're not going to get an exact wording on it. You've got to kind of wait and see what happens. Right now the fear is that he's going to close the border to even his own countrymen, so he won't allow us back in if we leave. You know, and really nothing surprises me anymore. he very likely could.

Back to that young fellow on the skating rink, people are losing respect and confidence in the people that are put their lives on the line every day to protect us, but they're also following a different set of guidelines than we as average citizens do. I think they have a job to do and they're doing what they're told

as their sworn duty, but at some point in time, they're going to start to question what they're being told to do. And I think people with common knowledge, common sense, we're all kind of in that boat right now. We're wondering, we're doing the math.

You've got a 97, 98% recovery rate. It's bad? Yes, it's bad. But are they, have they gone to an extreme right now? I believe they have. The rules that they've set in place so you can walk into a restaurant but you have to have a mask on. So you walk into the restaurant

and sit down and take your mask off. Gone from six people down to four. You can sit with. So what's your gain? Prove to me, prove to me that these masks are working. If they're working, why are the infections going up?

If the masks actually work. I don't believe they work. And I've talked to doctors that say they don't work. So who's steering the team right now? Well, I'll say this. I'm not a doctor. I will say this, though.

Our leadership is lacking. And when you have that, you question everything to do. And they've been doing that since day one. That goes all the way to the top. That goes to Trudeau. That comes all the way back through everybody we got. Because any time we, I had January 15th, Heath, I think I said that to you over last time we talked.

I really thought, you know what, over Christmas they're not going to open it up and I was like, you know, whatever, you're going to play the game and we got two main, we're going to shut it down because you don't want the entire country interacting, whatever. But I thought January 15th you'd start to see them open it back up, hockey would be coming back, kids would get to go play, blah, blah, blah, and here we sit. And, you know, you talk about restaurants. I mean, that's the Saskatchewan thing. You hear the stories like the Vermilions, the Wainwrights, the Cold Lakes,

all their restaurants, no-in dining. Like Alberta's locked down. They aren't allowing anything. It's only takeout. That's it. I think when the smoke clears on this eventually, and I hope to God it does soon, there's going to be some good things come out of it.

There's some of the stuff I'm seeing out there that I like, and then lots of people I talk to, like the, getting your temperature tested before you go into a mall or into Walmart or into superstore, I think that's great. If you've got a fever and you shouldn't be allowed in there, period. I think that's going to be something that's good and that should be carried on after this is all done.

As far as washing your hands and all this stuff, that's getting old. We were told we were brought up, wash your hands. So this isn't nothing new to us. I think we're just paying more attention to it. Yeah. Right? Like, it's probably, well, let's assume that it is worse than the common flu.

Right? I agree. It's killing lots of people, not good. But everything else after that, with all the numbers and how much focus we put on it, is all we're doing is just looking at the flu and, and, because it's not like they're saying this is a, like, I don't know. I'm reading, I keep coming back to this. People will think I'm dumb for saying this, but I'm reading Big Bear's book, right? Big Bear is around in the 1800s,

you know, North Battleford, Paradise Hill, Lloyd Minster, that circle, right? If you were to put a triangle between the through. And he talks about coming across smallpox and it wiping out like entire camps and they were there the day before. And you just, you understand, like, I go back to, and maybe I'm wrong on this,

maybe modern medicine has made us all feel a little too comfortable. The way I look at it is if it was really, bad, you wouldn't have to tell us jack shit. I wouldn't be sitting in here, you wouldn't be sitting here. We would be in our spots, everybody would be getting, finding some way to get groceries, you'd be hand sanitizing the groceries because you'd be worried about everything. Heck, at this point, we're pretty much bathing in hand sanitizer, which is going to come with its own set of problems down the road. Yeah, I don't think it's, I think it's bad. You know, is it as bad as they're telling us? I don't believe so.

But like you said, and I agree, and I'll say the same, we're not doctors. So we have to rely on those professionals. Hopefully they're feeding us the right information. But there's a set number of doctors and nurses out there that are saying the opposite. So I guess what side of the fence are you on? I'm looking at what's going on out there with our economy, with our elderly. I've got a grandmother in Fort St. John right now.

and my mom hasn't been allowed to see her in over a year. That is sad. And if this virus was that bad, why are the nurses allowed to go home to their families every day and go back in to see my grandmother? And yet my mom, with a positive test, offers to quarantine for 14 days to go and see her, and that's not allowed?

That makes zero sense. so if you're going to make a rule it better make sense a lot of these out there don't in my opinion let's talk about something I think a lot of people in this area

for those who've been listening to the podcast and don't know you Heath or maybe just know he has crude master the guy who does Final Five I've been Dad and I were talking about this the other day and I was explaining that I've heard it a couple times when I've had a couple late-night

Sasparillas with you but when did you decide that you know what let's start a trucking company you and Tracy decided like we got to do something here and we got to change something like how does that come about well that would have been that would have been about 2004 I was working for a company in Lloyd here and things just weren't going the way I thought the way I wanted him to go I was just I was a supervisor for one of the local companies and I'd been talking to the people people what I was dealing with. And it was actually not my idea at all to start a trucking company.

My wife was up my ass for about six months, saying, we got to do this. So it's her idea. She takes the credit. That's it. We're stopping the episode right now. I'm going to go get Tracy and be done with it. Yeah. But no, she was the push and pull behind the move, like to start Crudemaster.

That was her. Dad and I in early 2005 went salmon fishing to Prince Rupert and we talked about it. We drove down to Rupert from here. We met some guys there. So 17 hour drive down, 17 home, and I'd run this idea by it. Like this is, this might work. And we'd done the math all the way home, all the way back.

So in 2005, September of 2005, we incorporated Crudemaster. I borrowed $275,000 off Dad to start. I love you, Dad, but you're probably the most expensive banker I ever had in my life, but that got us going. And we hauled our first load of fluid February 24th of 2006. So we bid, essentially, the one company I approved, before we started the company was, you know, I want to bid on this work.

They said, well, if you don't have the equipment, you can't bid. I said, well, how do I bid on a job? I don't know what I'm going to get and have all the equipment. And he said, well, that's not our fault. You put your bid in and you prove you have the equipment. So we went and bought 26 trailers at that time. and bid on the work and waited, and waited. Oh, my God. I'm pretty sure the shares of Rowan Bacardi went up substantially

when I was waiting for this one. But, yeah, we were awarded the bid on the 1st of February to take over March 1st, and the company that was hauling it when they got the news that they weren't going to be hauling it, of course, pulled out. And we went to work. Yeah, we started out. with 26 traders at that time.

We had 20 least operators on the road and six spare traders. What was the McDonald's household spending that much money and having no idea if you're going to work? Because what happens if you don't get that? Well, we were in the trader sales business apparently. Yeah. It would have been it. Yeah.

That's a, you know. It was a gamble. When you read books and they talk about, you know, in business, you've got to take risks, that's a pretty, that's a pretty big old risk right there. My dad's probably the biggest gambler I've ever met. He's taking chance as a lucky man. He said we could pull it off.

And Tracy said there's absolutely no way it won't work. Yeah, it was sketchy. There was a lot of sleepless nights. But we made it work. And what did your dad say? Your dad's just like, yep, here's the money. I think this is going to work? Oh, no, no, no.

Not quite with dad. dad. He was as nervous as anybody. You know, that's a lot of money back then. Dad's life wasn't roses, so the money he had he worked hard for. And so it was, it was quite a pull for him. But hindsight, yeah, and we got, gods were shining on us, I guess, and we pulled her off. We ended up losing the work. We bought another about another 10 trailers a year down the road and the work went up for bid and we lost it. So we were a year and a half in, into a contract, didn't have anything. So that's when it got real sticky.

But scratched around and picked up the odd job here and there until everything kind of came back. But it was a struggle. Sleepless nights. Probably, well, I'd have a problem. probably throwing the towel in, but Tracy said, no, God damn way, we're not. We're, so we've been talking to some other junior oil companies, and we ended up getting their work, and just the way it worked, there were small companies that ended up growing substantially in months. We went to work for one outfit. We started there with two tractors, and in 16 months' time, we went

had just about 38 units working for that company. So that's why you never turned down, never turned down the one truck job because that could be the 100 truck job. Which I say, good luck. And you just never know when a door closes and another one opens, you just don't know what you're walking into. Yeah, and that was, yeah, that was in 08.

That's when oil really took a run. What did it get up to? 130 some of barrel? We bought our first company truck then because we couldn't hire subcontractors fast enough. The production was coming on so hard you just couldn't get the right people in there and trained up in time to do it.

So I jumped in the company truck and went to work until we had subcontractors to to sub in and keep the company going. You know, from working with Dad and Jay and Harlan, I have to assume you have seen some absolute characters come through a crude master. Oh, God. Yes, we have, yeah. There has been some dandies.

We've had all in all. In the time we've been in business, we've had some great people. And still have. I've got some of my original subcontractors still with us. But yeah, we've had. About the time you say, I've seen it all, you haven't. haven't you haven't come close and you have to just back away and go someplace and laugh it just amazes you some of the shit people who try to pull off is you wouldn't believe it

if I told you now are you liberty to at least tell one of those stories no no no I'm not going to dip into that I'll tell you one I'll tell you one I actually. So we had a guy unloading at a battery over by out point. And we were pit dumping that, which is, in my eyes, should have been outlawed,

but it was gradually getting that way. There's very few that still do it. But anyway, that's... It was messy and gross. So where they were unloading this oil ad was right up on top of the hill. They built it up, and then the trucks drove up the hill and dumped into the pit, and then the pit gravity fed to the tanks.

So I got a phone call, and so-and-so. You got to get to the battery because he's hit the pipeline. So I drove out there. I looked at the truck, went up to him, and I said, what happened? I said, I started unloading, and the maxi brakes just come off. I said to him the Mac I said your your brakes

just don't come off on these trucks nope dead serious no maxi brakes just released themselves it don't happen it can't happen

I was so angry I fired him right there I was I thought about hired him back a week later just so I could fire him all over again I was so mad

because to think that you're that stupid to think that a maxi will just anybody that's in the industry knows that it just doesn't happen and he's stuck to his story right to the bitter end. So what he'd done

is he pulled his trailer brake on instead of pulling his maxi brakes. Jumped up in the pit, pulled his trailer brake, jumped out, opened the pit valve. And the trailer brake released as they will gradually, and he rolled off. Down into

the pipeline. Thank God it was his insurance and not ours. What a mess. That's one minor one. How much is How much has things changed over the generations? You mentioned working with your dad. Now you have Tracy making sure you make great decisions.

And now you've got your kids working with you? Yeah, actually. I always liked working with dad. Dad was very, there was two ways with dad. There was dad's way and the way you weren't never going to do it. So you got used to that. He's pretty wise when it come to business. I knew a lot about trucking.

When we moved down here, I was working for my dad. Dad actually designed and patented that arm on those tank trailers that your dad uses. Really? Yeah. Your dad did? Yes. Yeah. He patented that arm.

So I actually was down here. When I first come down here, he was getting the first trader with that arm put on it, so I pulled that for him when we were down here. So, yeah, he's pretty knowledgeable fella. but it was his way. Now, with my kids and my wife, with all of us working together, I guess it's their way.

I just listen. I'm still a pretty good listener. No, I'm just kidding. No, it's great. I'm kidding, Tracy. I love you. The nice part about having your family working with you is you always have that element of trust.

I can leave that office. and know everything's handled, or Tracy and I can leave, and know that everything's being handled. We don't have to worry about anybody trying to get ahead of you, stealing money. You know, it makes for a very comfortable atmosphere for us. It's good. We leave our work at work, and home is home. You have to, I believe, to be able to survive.

Work stays at work. Sometimes it doesn't, but that's... for the most part. What has been maybe, you know, we've mentioned some of the tough times of Curdmaster, some of the low days. What is some of the best memories so far of Curredmaster? That's a good question.

Well, there's been some good years. 2012, exceptionally well. We've got to do a lot of things. You know, we stretched to, for instance, we first started, we were Lloyd Minster only. Now we're stretched out to, we have offices in Calgary, Denzel. Our business model has exploded.

We've got to meet some good people. We have some great people on staff. And even now, like in the tough times, we still manage to have a little fun. We've always had fun. If you're in business and you're not having fun, you don't want to be in business. I don't care if it's good, bad, or otherwise. If you can't stand going to work, then you've got to find something different to do. we've tried to

Tracy and I both create and keep an atmosphere in our office to where it's very family-oriented and family-based even to the people that aren't family we like to make them feel that they are and I think that's what creates the team that we have because basically

Tracy and I and our family are only the name of the business the business itself is built by the people that work for us true but people follow good leadership It's been fun. The goods outweighed the bad.

You know, one of the things I was excited to talk you about, and I don't know how much you want to share about it, maybe you'll open right up about it. I have no idea, because I actually have no idea how much you guys do. But I've said this a bunch of times on the podcast when mentioning Crude Master, specifically you and Tracy, is how much you guys give back to the community. Like, that has been, I don't know, pretty evident to me, but I grew up in Hillmont, played for the senior hockey team.

So I got to see that pretty evidently. Started a podcast. Sweet talk to you and Heath and, or you and Tracy into being the crewed master final five. But to me, when I get talking to you and Tracy about it, it just seems like, nah, that's been us since the start. That's been the plan from the start. Well, I believe you have, in business, you have your family, your friends, your community, and your business. And you have to pretty much in that order look after them all. Without the community, your business will starve.

We believe. We believe that looking after the people in our community that look after us is, just the right thing to do. Probably the first first real sponsorship we ever done other than 4H. We've been always active sponsors in 4H was the

Hillmont Hitman when they decided to put that team together back. What year was that? I believe 2008, maybe 2009. So Brad Simons came to me. I'm going to mention Brad's name because he won't mind. Came up to me in my office. look, they wanted to build a dressing room in the arena. Okay.

What kind of a dressing room? Well, they want to start a senior team. Well, what do you need? Well, we're wanting to know if you had a couple hundred dollars for lumber. So you're not going to buy much lumber for 200 bucks. So I said, why don't you let Crudemaster sponsor the bill of the dressing room? I said, and we'll take that as advertising in the arena. So that was kind of our first real major sponsorship.

Not evolved into sponsoring the uniforms partially the first year, and then I believe we've been the only sponsor in the uniforms since. So that's one of our major ones. Morgan Mann approached us one year when they had bull riding in Helmand. wanted us to co-sponsor with Wade Redden and his family. I thought that's a great idea to raise money for the rink. It's perfect. So I said, yes, count us in.

That's our community, that's our home, and that's where we work. We do a lot of work in that area. So that was a two-year, three-year deal. And it was a great exposure for us, and it gives back to the community. We've done some work with the health foundation. Yeah, I guess we do it because we like it. It's nice to be able to give back.

Yeah, it's just, I like to shine some light on it because to me, being a part of that community, it's been very evident. And you go quietly about it here. You and Tracy. It's just very quiet, right? It's not about making some noise. It's about doing things when they need.

to be done, I guess. And it's just, I admire that. I really do. I think that's a very, very cool trait to have. Well, thank you, yeah. I'm glad to hear that. I guess where I grew up in Fort St. John, there was, some of my mentors up there were the same.

So I looked at them as, you know, that's pretty cool. They'd go and do something with very little recognition. And, oh, man, that's something else. And you want to do it not because you want your name read out. You want to do it just because it's the right thing to do. That's, and it works good for the community. Because the community, you can raise your problems or you can teach them the right way to do things. And I believe Hillmond, as a community, teaches our kids and our next generation that's coming up to do the right thing.

That's really well put. I was going to ask about mentors, and if you had any grown up, that either stick out and taught you things, and obviously one of them is what we just chatted about. Is there anything else that a mentor taught you growing up? I had a hockey coach when we were playing minor hockey in Fort St. John. He coached us right from the time we were in, I guess, first, second year, Adams, right up until I left Fort St. John.

as a band. The name was Doug Wiles, a great guy. Kids loved him, parents hated him. He was that type of coach. He dragged all the parents into a room at the start of the year when he'd cut the team and he'd say, if I hear one word out of any of you,

I'm going to cut your kid. So if you want to talk, you take your son in his hockey bag and you leave, and I'll replace you. I don't want your input. I don't want nothing. Parents absolutely hated him. As players for him,

he'd have us out to his place at Charlie Lake. There's scadooing on the weekends, and we'd spend the nights there. He was probably one the greatest men I ever knew. My dad, another great mentor, totally admire him and the challenges that he went through in his life.

And I have an uncle up before it's St. John. Great hockey player. Had quite a career. Finished it off in Fort St. John with the Flyers there, and definitely another one. Great mentor. A guy that says exactly what he's going to do and doesn't. I had one here, a later in life mentor that I had. Frank Mann, probably one of the greatest men I ever met. If I had to look at a mentor from the time I met him until he died, that would have been probably

the greatest man I ever knew. Hands down. I say this all the time. He's number two on my, well, not regrets, because, I mean, how would I have known? But two people I would have loved to have had on this to be recorded.

My grandmother, Oh, yeah. Followed closely by Frank Mann. Those two would have been fantastic. Story about your grandma. she was always, she came to every one of our family reunions in North Bend. I believe it was about the third reunion we had there. We had them every five years.

And we'd mowed a patch of grass and set up horseshoe pits. So we drove these big stakes in the ground for the horseshoes. And Dora come roaring in. She was waving at one of my aunts and not paying attention. We were waving at Dora, telling her to stop. And she ran around. over those horseshoe pegs you could just clunk clunk i thought she tore her hole in the oil pan and she bawled us out for not marking the horseshoe pit saw properly and never forget

that she was quite the lady yeah one of a kind as was francis yeah yeah well i mean he got uh on my wedding night on my wedding night colby was my best man and he told the story of us getting drunk and Frank coming out. It was on a school night. That must have been like grade 11, grade 10. Ah, probably grade 11. Fixing Colby's car. We thought we were all being sneaky with having a beer

and him not knowing. And he came out and was talking to us. And finally when there was this awkward pause, is he going to give me one of those beers or what? It was so smooth. They were just like, that was Francis. Francis was a great man. Yeah, one of the,

Most classic one-liner fellas I ever met in my life. I asked him, one of our friends was snorting around at a rodeo once. I said, Frank, what the hell is he up to? And he said, well, he said, he's looking for a wife and he don't care whose. That was one of the best lines ever heard. I was told this story, and I had no idea. Well, I wait to hear the story, I guess. you've had a daughter kidnapped.

That's true. Yeah, that was, that is very true. Yeah, that was a terrible day, and I was horrible on my wife. I was hauling prefab houses at that time down to Salmon Arm, Colonna area. And so I was unloading this house in,

just outside of salmon arm. And one of the boss's sons, he was a salesman there, and your typical boss's son, he pained in the ass. He'd come over and said, I had to go with him to go phone home. And I said, well, I'm going to finish unloading here,

and then I'll stop in and I'll phone. He said, no, you have to come now. And I didn't like him. So I told him where he could go and I'd be there. once I finished, and he was very insistent that I had to, so I got pissed off and drove in there, and here I got a phone call that, yeah, Spencer, our youngest daughter had been taken, we lived in an apartment in Grand Prairie at that time.

So this young gal that, where the story goes, that lived upstairs from us, had decided that she was going to be a mother, so Tracy and I both worked. We actually worked for the same company, actually. She was a secretary for the company I was driving for. And so we had a babysitter. We lived on the ground floor of the department building, and the sitter laid the babies down, which everybody has nap time,

and then she had a nap herself, which everybody's going to. There was steam cleaning carpets in the apartment at that time, and so that's how this girl got into our area, walked in, grabbed the baby, and left. And the poor thing that was babysitting for us woke up, and the baby's gone. to phone Tracy at work and asked her if she had the baby. Well, of course, no, she doesn't.

So hence the hunt was on. But I handed to the RCMP, they had it figured out who had her, where she was within hours. So that's when I phoned. Of course, I decked my trailers off then, and I was bob tailing home to get home. So consequently, by the time I got home, they'd found her. But no cell phones or anything, so you don't know until you actually get there, right? And they were grilling Tracy on, like, where's your husband? Well, no, he's, it wasn't him.

He's, last time I talked to him, he was in dead man's flats, was the cops as well, where the hell is that? Just a little town just outside of Banff. But, yeah, it was a terrifying experience for her. They found the baby that day. A little girl and her dad, her dad worked for the radio station in Grand Prairie. I can't for the life of me to remember. name, but anyway, they were walking through the park, through Bear Creek Park, and she's

seen a little chunk of pink blanket there, and so she walked up the hill. This is about eight hours after the baby had been gone, and pulled it, and Spencer rolled down the hill. So can you imagine what went through that guy's mind, right? So did I hear that correct? The baby just kidnapped, and then she hit it? She knew the police were on to her, and she got scared, so she took the baby, he took Spencer and buried her in a bunch of willow bushes in the spill banks of Bear Creek in Grand Prairie.

And just by luck and by chance, that little girl and her dad happened to be walking by. So Spencer, if you've ever, if you've met my daughter, you know, like she's, if something's going to happen, it's going to be her. Yeah, she's got, she's got quite a biography behind her already.

Starting from very, very young. I don't know what I'd do with that, Heathell. Yeah, it was hard on Tracy. It's hard on everybody, right? It just takes a while. A parent's worst nightmare is anything happening to their kids, right? I mean, like, and that is pretty, man, that is, fuck. That is, I don't even know the word for that.

And then top it off, the cops didn't find her. The cops, she knew, and hit her, and that's like, holy shit. That's a fucking story. Yeah, they were on to her, but, you know, like they pretty much locked that whole city down, you weren't getting in or out. So my hats are off to them. Boy, they done a great job. They'd have found her.

It just would have taken a little more time than the luck of that little girl pulled on that pink blanket. Spencer, she'd tell that story, and people wouldn't believe her, and she'd come home and be mad and be crying. She had a school teacher in Grand Prairie. She told that story to,

and the teacher called her a liar. And Tracy went up one side of her, and down the other. That was a very bad day in her world. Well, it was Spencer who texted it to me, and I went, no freaking way. Spencer's going to hear this to be laughing. I'm like, what?

I texted her back, I'm like, daughter, kidnapped, really? Like, I mean, that just doesn't happen. Or I shouldn't say it happens very often. Yeah, it's not something you hear of, right? And then that's, thank God, you don't hear of it a lot. Our story turned out a whole lot better than something. Well, my last one for you, before we get to the crewed master final five, which I've been looking forward to for a while, is Tracy. You're talking an awful lot about her.

Obviously, she is knowing you, a very big piece of your life. I always forget to do this with a lot of people, but I'm not going to forget with you, especially knowing Tracy. When did you first meet her? I moved to Grand Prairie from Fort St. John when I was 13. So yeah, and then went to school. Grade 9 in Grand Prairie. I met Tracy in grade 10. She was dating.

A guy used to play hockey against when I played for Fort St. John. I have a big lunkhead, but... At any rate, we started dating in grade 10 in Grand Prairie. We married when we were 19. Dad at our wedding, he said it was the perfect case of opposites attracting each other. He said, she's pregnant, he's not. I'd just to laugh about that. So, yeah, we were parents at 19, and we always teased Megan that.

Our oldest daughter that she was born six months premature, that full weight. Yeah, no, Trace is a trooper. She's been, as far as Crude Master's concerned, with her accounting background, has made it so much easier to do business. And she's taught Spencer, now our youngest daughter. Spencer's more or less taken over from Tracy, so Tracy and I can, kind of get out and do the traveling that we want. I know that everything's getting handled.

The old saying, if Mama's not happy, run. What was it about Trace the first time he saw her? He was pretty fiery. We all smoked at that time, so this dip shit that she was dating, he wrestled her for a cigarette, and I said to him, I said, that was wrong what you'd done. I said, I don't care. I said, all right, no, fine.

I think I asked her out on a date a couple weeks later. She's quite a gal. Always look for, by no means, this is an archive episode. But with my archive episodes, with people who've been married or together for a long period of time, for advice on marriage slash being with a significant other for as long as you've been. Is there something you can pass long to anyone listen? Well, you can be right or you can be happy. You decide.

Bruce Sutherland said once, and I laughed at this one. He said it's been a long road and most of it hasn't been paved. No. Once you're not going to get along every day and you're not going to do everything right. At the end of the day, you have to weigh in what's going on. And as long as, as far as tracing I are concerned, our goals are the same at the end of the day. So we both want the same things. So it makes it that much easier.

Getting to where we are today wasn't, you know, say it wasn't all paved. Never is. But we're here now. I think if you set yourself up for thinking it's all paved, that's probably. Probably the part, that's probably a big reason of the problem. I believe that's the trouble with the world today right now is not, most people don't have any try. Worst thing about it is when you have divorce lawyers advertising on billboards.

I think that's where shit goes south. Well, you understand. They realize there is money to be had in divorce. Mm-hmm. That's a scary thought, in my opinion. Tracy says, says once that we probably would have, but we couldn't afford the $200 retainer, so. Lucky for me.

Well, let's do the Curdmaster Final Five. I'm sitting across from the guy who makes it happen, so I don't know if I need any more intro than that. There you go. The first one is always, especially on the first time in here. If you could sit across from somebody and do what I'm doing to you, who would you take? If I could sit across from somebody, I would have taken Frank Mann,

but that's impossible. Sadly, if you're not. If I had to do it, the ones that I would want to sit across from aren't here anymore. Is there a runner up? Is there a runner up? Yeah. I would love to sit across from Frank. I know you, that would have been a fun.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Toss a couple of mics and just me sit here and throw curve balls and soft balls and slow pitches and any other pitch you can imagine, the old spitball and see what you two would do to it? That would have been fantastic. But without Francis around, is there a runner-up? Yeah, I would say the runner-up would probably be another old friend of mine, Dean Swanberg, a great guy.

Well, Patchfella, Empire in the business, that would be one that I would like to talk to. And we do all the time. His stories are great. His laugh is contagious. Most of what we would talk about probably wouldn't be G-rated. How would if you could take somebody out for, well, if you could go party him with one person for one night, you're going to paint the town rent, you can have anyone.

Who do you want beside you? Sam Elliott. Sam Elliott? Absolutely. He'd be hilarious. He's got a better voice than you, Heath. Absolutely. Yeah, he's cool.

You just want to catch what fell off of him. Your favorite Frank story? Oh, there's lots of them. I'll tell you this one. So in 2000, Frank and Candy and Tracy and I went on a Caribbean cruise. It was an inaugural cruise, Princess Cruise, into the Caribbean, a seven-day. And we got to, we stopped. Their first stop was Trinidad.

And I believe this next stop was in Barbados. Anyway, we jumped in a cab and we were touring the island because we were off the ship for the whole day. We didn't sign up for any tours. We'd just hire a cab and get him to take us around. And we got to the top of the mountain and there was a real skinny black fella playing a ukulele. Weird straw hat on and he noticed Frank's hat. Frank wore his cowboy hat everywhere. And so we walked up and we're listening to him and he was.

He had his guitar box out there for donations. He was singing that song all day, all night, Marianne. Frank looked at him. He says, well, who do you think I am? Superman? And that guy just totally stopped playing his guitar. Couldn't figure the line out. Oh, my God.

I was on my hands and knees climbing back into that cab. I was laughing so hard just to look in that guy's face, but he totally shut him down. Frank laughed about that the whole way back down the mountain. And if you ever heard Frank laugh, That would have been one of my favorites of him. Like I say, he had some good ones. We were coaching the boys in a hockey tournament.

While I was coaching, I think, I can't remember who was with me that time. I think Rick Wack and Frank was the tournament organizer. We had a local referee that volunteered his time, numerous times. And we weren't playing, but there was two of the opposition playing. and the tournament first lead off on the Saturday morning. The lady from the one team come up to Frank and I, we were having a coffee in the lobby of the old Hill Monterey. She asked who the manager was, and Frank says,

well, that'd be me. She, I have a problem. And Frank says, oh, what might that be, ma'am? She said, I think your referee has been drinking. He said, you better hope so. Her eyes got as big as these scotch glass. and she stomped away well that was and she didn't know how true that was because if he wasn't that game would have went to hell in a handbasket that was the old days too we

shouldn't be repeating that if you were on a cross-country tour had to co-pilot a semi you're heading you had a long haul you're driving 12-hour shift and switching off and sleeping in the bunk and you get to pick your co-pilot. Who you take it? Kirk Thompson. Yeah, we've traveled together since I moved here in 97. Probably my best friend. You know, if Kurt is listening to us, which he probably will,

the Thompson boys would be a great... Oh, yeah. It wouldn't be G-rated either, though, I'll give you that. Since when do we need to be fucking G-rated, Heath? Hey? No, that's right. That'd be something you could turn on your car stereo anywhere in the world and be like. Yeah.

Yeah, no, that would be a good one. Yeah. Those boys, they know a lot of history. We've had some laughs. Final one. It's left on the bucket list. You got a lot of life left to live. But I'm curious.

What's left on the bucket list? Well, hopefully this dip shit that we got running our country smartens up. And we can. get some of the Buccas just chipped away. I would like to, Tracy and I always taught, we want to see other parts of Europe. We'd love to go to Iceland.

I'd like to see that. See the world. That's, uh, want to get some traveling in and well, a guy's still healthy enough to travel. So many times when we, uh, some of the trips we were on,

some of the cruises and what have you, we find that people, be it their own accord, but they wait too long to travel. They wait too long until they can't maneuver as well as they should be able to, and I think that robs them from seeing what they should be seeing. Lots of cases. It's not of their own accord, but if you can afford to do it, I hope we still can. and I'd like to see the rest of this world before I go.

I have no desire to go to China, but I'd like to see other parts. Well, I appreciate you coming in and doing this. Yeah, well, I appreciate you having me. It was a lot of fun. Hey, folks, thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review.

I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, all you keeners who are waiting again, two for two. Man, and as soon as I started this, I'm going to show all my screw-ups. I must be getting better, or I'm letting a few things slide.

Yeah, either probably works. Shout out to Dawson Jenkins, who was listening to Mr. Clint Malar truck on his moving day. Post that on social media. Shout out to you, Big Shooter. Thanks for listening. And if you enjoy listening to the podcast, make sure you post. You let me know, and we'll try and get you mentioned on here, all right? Now, champ, get your feet up off the desk already.

Go back to work. Until next time, you filthy animals. All right, I'm out.