The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 204: A Quick Look Over the Railing

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

The true story of the first woman to go where no man had gone before, followed by the true cost of progress, the false value of safety, and a revealing conversation about the profoundly annoying sensation of being swindled by someone you trust.

The ocean moves us. Surfing a wave or savoring the view. The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelpores. The ocean connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. Hey guys, it's Mike Rowe. This is episode number 204 of the way I heard it. And this one's called A Quick Look Over the Railing.

A Quick Look Over the Railing. We start with a chapter from my book called One Hell of a Toll, which tells the true story of the actual cost of an historic journey into space. I'm not talking about space, the final frontier. I'm talking about the space that millions of people have since explored and the woman who went there first. Then, after contemplating the actual cost of that fateful trip, I discussed the true price of progress,

and what happens to a guy who suddenly realizes he's working hundreds of feet up in the air without a net underneath him. Turns out, it's exactly like waking up one morning to learn that your once robust investment account has been entirely depleted. I can say this because the guy in question is me. And since Chuck had a front row seat to those formative and somewhat traumatic years, he joins me once again to try and pry some information out of me that I am legally forbidden from disclosing. What does come out, however, is a really candid conversation about the nature of fear and comfort and safety and danger and of course money. In other words, it's a conversation about the cost of progress and the value of security inspired by the universal feeling that we've all experienced somewhere in the pit of our collective stomach that follows a quick look over the railing at the top of a high rise,

especially if the railing turns out not to be there. And spoiler alert, it never is. It's episode number 204, and it all starts right now. Is it weird to love people but despise human resources? If so, well, color me weird. It's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments and companies all over the country. I do. It's just that I don't envy him. That's why MicroWorks doesn't have an HR department for better or worse. And it's also why I use ZipRecruiter whenever we need to expand. ZipRecruiter has proven themselves a million times over by helping countless employers get through the hiring process faster and more effectively than ever before. And now they have a new feature that instantly shows you the most interested, the most passionate, and the most qualified candidates first. This is a huge time saver, hours and hours of save time. And it helps people like me find the people who can

function in a non-traditional work environment like MicroWorks. In other words, ZipRecruiter works for me, and they'll probably work for you too. Post a job for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash row. And watch what happens. Odds are you'll find a human resource that just happens to be a great fit for your company in 24 hours or less. ZipRecruiter. dot com slash row. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. The smartest way to hire. Chapter 26. One hell of a toll. On the day of the great celebration, the invalid looked through his telescope at the crowd

gathered below. Thousands of people had already assembled. Hundreds more were on their way, hoping to see the passenger embark upon a most unlikely trip. A trip experts had predicted would never be completed. The invalid rolled his chair close to the window and considered the price of the little expedition, $15 million, twice as much as what he'd budgeted. Somehow, the cost had gotten out of control, way out of control, unforgivably, totally, completely out of control. Today, we call such profligacy, business as usual. Back then, they called it the price of progress. Either way, $15 million for a 10-minute trip was one hell of a toll. Through his telescope, the invalid watched the passenger approach

the vehicle, turned to those who had assembled and began to speak. He couldn't hear the words, but he knew what was being said. The passenger was thanking the taxpayers for their patience, thanking them for their faith in the mission, thanking them for the honor of being the first to go, where no man had gone before. When the passenger finished, the crowd applauded with great enthusiasm. Fireworks exploded.

The band began to play. Then, after 14 years of painstaking preparation, heartbreaking setbacks, and too many obstacles to recall, the passenger climbed into the vehicle, waved to the crowd, and rode off into the history books. Grimmissing in agony with every breath,

the invalid watched it all through the lens of his telescope and wept. Perhaps if his wife had been with him on that historic day, she could have eased his pain. Ever since his escape from that terrible fire, 60 feet below the surface, she'd been trying to treat the mysterious symptoms that continued to plague him.

They'd begun with the strange tingling in his feet, and hands, followed by intense pain in his knees and elbows, an inexplicable bruising on his chest and ribs. Then the headaches had begun, headaches that made him wish he'd stayed below with the men who had perished and that pressurized pit of despair. But his wife had never left his side, even when the swelling had left him mute, even when the numbness had left him paralyzed, even when his skin had begun to molt. and slough off in pieces. Today we call it the bends. Back then, they called it

casein disease. Either way, it was one hell of a toll. The invalid never recovered, but he did remain on the job, supervising the progress from his bedroom window, always behind his telescope, always racked with pain. His wife became his nurse, his ears, his hands, and his mouth. relaying his instructions to the men who labored below. In her spare time, she studied physics, hydrodynamics, and structural engineering. When her husband's condition deteriorated even further, she began to take the meetings that he could no longer attend. Meetings with crooked politicians, ruthless financiers, and a clutch of unscrupulous vendors. Meetings where women were not at all welcome. She attended them anyway.

She lobbied hard to prove the experts wrong, and in the end, she did. Through his telescope, the invalid watched the celebration unfold beneath him and continued to ponder the price of progress. Slowly, painfully, he shifted his gaze away from the triumphant passenger and back to the scene of the accident. Not the accident that had left him crippled and ruined, but the one that had left him in charge. He found the exact spot on the pier, half a mile away.

A slip, a fall, a broken foot, an amputation, an infection, and just like that, his father, the chief engineer who'd conceived this audacious journey in the first place, was gone. Of course, it hadn't felt just like that at the time. It had taken weeks for the old man to die. First, he'd endured mysterious contractions that bent his spine backward, leaving his body arched and twisted. Then he'd contended with spasms that caused his arms to jerk wildly

before they too had gone rigid. He'd never forget the way his father's face had slowly retracted from his skull, how the muscles in his head had tightened and seized pulling the features ever backward. When his father finally died, his eyes were wide and bulging, His teeth, bared, and a terrible grin. Today we call it tetanus. Back then, they called it lockjaw. Either way, it was one hell of a toll.

The invalid lowered his telescope. He brushed away a tear as the passenger slowly rolled off toward the history books. His work was finally done. The trip of a lifetime was now underway, a $15 million excursion that's been repeated so many times since, the original cost has long been forgotten. In fact, in our own century, you can take the same trip for free. The toll, you see, has already been paid. Paid by the 27 men who were crushed, burned alive, torn in half, and hopelessly mangled in a

series of workplace accidents too horrific to describe. Paid by hundreds of other men who lost fingers and toes and other body parts, working on a job site that OSHA would have shut down on day one. Paid by the countless immigrants who labored for $2 a day in the bottomless pits called caissons, pressurized wooden coffins far below the surface, where forgotten men had dug the foundations by hand and built mighty barbacons one stone at a time. day after day, week after week, year after year, until limestone towers emerged from the watery depths and scraped the Manhattan sky. Those were men who paid the original toll.

Men like John Robling, the chief engineer, and the first man to die during construction. Men like John's son, Washington Robling, the man who'd inherited his father's title and paid his own heavy price in the caissons, the same man who now watched through a telescope as his wife completed the work that he and his father had started. Make no mistake, it had been a team effort, a family affair. But Washington's wife was the one who put the ball through the hoop, the self-taught contractor who'd never stopped learning, the unelected official who went toe to toe with countless corrupt politicians, the uncredited engineer who won the respect of an army of men 40 years before women were given the right to vote.

Her name was Emily, and she too understood the price of progress. That was why Emily Roebling was selected to become the first passenger to cross the East River in a horse-drawn carriage on a road, expert said, could not be built. A road suspended in space 135 feet above choppy waters, one that had cost over $15 million to create and would have not been there without her extraordinary efforts. Back then, they called it the eighth wonder of the world. Today, we call it the Brooklyn Bridge. Either way, getting it built took one hell of a toll.

The Mighty Mac is a suspension bridge that connects. Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas. It's five miles long and 552 feet tall. In May of 2007, I painted it. Not all of it. Painting the Mackinnell Bridge takes a team of maintenance workers seven years to complete. As soon as they're done, they go back to the beginning and start again, kind of like what I did when I finished the last Travis McGee mystery. It was windy that day, and as we worked from a scaffold, hundreds of feet in mid-air, covering everything we could reach

with a thick layer of foliage green, I couldn't help but look down and recall the sad fate of Leslie and Pluhar. Leslie was crossing the span in September of 1989 when a gust of wind blew her Hugo off the deck and sent her plunging

into the icy water far below. Hell of a thing. One minute, you're driving across the bridge and your trusty Hugo, cursing the ever-increasing toll. The next, you're free-falling, toward oblivion. Eight years later, the Dirty Jobs crew was trying to avoid a similar fate. Along with the hair-raising business of filming hundreds of feet above the water, we shot inside the towers themselves,

specifically inside the small steel compartments that made up the honeycomb-inspired interior. These tiny industrial cubicles needed to be painted with a zinc, based solution that would keep them from rusting. It's hard to choose between the vertigo of working 500 feet above the water and the claustrophobia of cramming yourself into a coffin-sized steel space with a paintbrush and a respirator. Happily, I didn't have to choose. I got to do both. Back on deck, just when I thought we were done, I jokingly suggested to the foreman that we get some footage of me replacing light bulbs on the outer suspension cable. This would have required me to climb over the railing and walk across a steel girder, about 15 feet long, several hundred feet

above the water, at around the same place where Leslie Ann's Hugo had gone over the edge. Once across the girder, I would have to step out onto the suspension cable and walk up to the top of the tower, replacing bulbs as I went. It was a ridiculous suggestion. That was the point. In the history of dirty jobs, no one had ever allowed me to attempt something so inherently risky. I expected the foreman to laugh along with me. Instead, he said, sure, what better way to show your viewers what my guys do every day than to let you experience it for yourself. Gulp. Fans of the show will remember that scene. It was one of the most ambitious we ever filmed. We had a helicopter, and it captured every step I took on my long ascent to the top.

The footage illustrates the dangers of the work, along with the beauty of the Mighty Mac, and the dedication of the men who maintain it day after day. But no one saw the moment, 500 feet up, when I realized that my safety line wasn't attached. Suffice it to say, the fault was all mine, a simple lack of concentration. Here's how it works. As you move up the suspension cable, you have two safety lines that slide up with you, each looped over two smaller cables that function as handrails. Problem is, every 10 feet or so, you run into a perpendicular cable between the handrails and the suspension cable. It prevents the safety line from sliding along.

You have to unhook each line one at a time and reattach yourself on the other side and keep climbing. After changing dozens of bulbs, I had become increasingly comfortable with this procedure and increasingly confident, overly so. I stopped thinking about what I was doing and began to focus on how I was doing, trying to coordinate with the helicopter pilot to get especially good camera angles. As I leaned over to unscrew another bulb, I looked down between my legs at a freighter passing under the bridge. At that height, it looked to be about four inches long, like one of the battleships in the game of the same name. In that moment, I realized I hadn't reattached my safety lines, a realization that nearly caused that nearly caused. me to vomit. It's strange, right? Physically, nothing had changed when I realized I wasn't secure.

I was no less stable than I had been a second earlier. I was at no greater risk of slipping. But the stakes of slipping had changed dramatically, and as a result, my sphincter slammed shut and remained that way for the rest of the week. As for the rest of the day, you'd better believe I remained properly tied off and fully focused on the what of what I was doing. Screw the how. At 500 feet in the air, how doesn't matter. That's the thing about safety nets. Their presence impacts everything, not just when you fall, but when you don't. And this brings me back to the moment I lost my life savings at the age of 37. Nothing really had changed, nothing physical. Anyway, I still had the skills that allowed me to book as much work as I wanted, no more,

no less. I was still healthy, debt-free, unencumbered, and able to earn a good living. It's not as if I was Leslie Ann Pluhar, plunging toward oblivion, praying that something or someone would catch me on the way down. But when the feds dragged the trusted financial advisor who'd pretended to be my friend, off to prison and explained to me that my safety net was gone. My sphincter slammed shut and stayed that way until I got back on my feet. But getting back on my feet required me to do something that Travis McGee would have never done, except a full-time job. I'm referring, of course, to the aforementioned

Evening Magazine, the inexplicably popular series in San Francisco that afforded me my aforementioned bronze bust, along with the chance to reconstruct my aforementioned safety net, whose sudden disappearance I've just compared to my unplanned walk up the aforementioned Mackinall Bridge, which I now hope you'll agree was worth mentioning. Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth? You find yourself wishing we lived in a simpler time. Do you miss the rotary phone?

Well, get over it. The genie is out of the bottle. The poop is out of the goose, I'm afraid. AI is here to stay. And every business in the country is asking themselves the same question. How do we make it work for us? Well, the answer to that question varies, but you'll find it in a free guide that you can get right now at netseweet.com slash Mike.

It's called demystifying AI. It's totally free. It's essential reading for anybody trying to make sense of a future that appears to have arrived yesterday. NetSuite, of course, is the number one AI enterprise resource planning software out there, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. With NetSuite, you can use the AI of your choice, GROC or Claude or Chat, GPT, whatever else is out there, to connect to your actual business data, all of it, and automate all of those tiresome, time-sucking, soul-deadening manual processes.

This is AI built into the system that's currently running your business. Learn more at netsuite.com slash mike. And while you're there, pick up their free business guy, demystifying AI. It's filled with super useful information. And again, it's free at netsuite.com slash mike. That's netsuite.com. Slash Mike. And so begins another, the way I talked about, the way I heard it, or two dudes talking,

or questions Chuck has that I am obligated to answer. Call it what you will. It all starts right now. And by right now, I mean right now. Right now, man. There's no commercial. Do you think that's annoying people, that thing I started to do there in the top part of the podcast where I kind of say right now and then hit them with an ad?

Right. Do you think that's clever or stupid? I think it's clever for now. And I think if it were annoying, people would have told us already because people tell us everything, you know. That's the truth. Tell the people why I do that. Would you please in an attempt to maybe somehow Justify it? So that they feel okay about it. Yes. Well, the reason that you do that is because at some point, we change the advertiser with a library advertiser. Somebody, like if you go back and listen to episode 100 right now, or 100 might not be the right one. 101, maybe? I don't know. There's a bonus episode somewhere in there, but let's say 125. If you listen to episode 125, it's going to start with an ad at the very top. And because

we've taken out the previous ads, the original ads, and now we have a new sponsor for the library. You know, they put their ads on all of the episodes. And so this is so it's easily taken out. And when that's taken out and this episode becomes a library episode when you say, and it all begins right now, it will actually begin right now. Permission to truncate? Yes, please. I do that so we can remove the ad later. Well, there you have it.

You've basically taken my soliloquy and made it absolutely irrelevant. Thank you for that. Thanks for asking the question. And thanks for correcting me. One hell of a toll. One hell of a toll, Chuck. You never know the price you're going to pay for asking a question, crossing a bridge, writing a book, producing a podcast, hosting a show, right?

The unintended consequences of the things we do are, in fact, the underlying theme that I think is throbbing, dare I say, throbbing, not just through this chapter, but through the entire manuscript. Yes. Yes. And I think there's always a price to pay for every decision, is there not? Well, it's just math, right? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You should write that down. That's smart. Yeah. You know, I'd probably get a nasty letter from Newton's estate.

For sure, because they're listening. They got a spider that's listening for, you know, Newton quotes. A spider, by the way, gentle listener is a diabolical little piece of technology that allows people who own copyright to technically scrub the internet for any perceived violation, legitimate or otherwise. It's a way to protect the intellectual property rights of a photo or a song or any number of other things. Have we heard anything from John Prine's people last week when I sang a few bars of the saddest song ever written? No.

No. No spiders like you described or even the eight-legged one variety. Arachnids, I believe you're referring to. What did I say? Well, eight-legged variety. I just wanted to let you know that arachnids are what you call anything with eight-legs. An arachnifobia? is the fear of spiders. Arachnids are spiders. Is it a fear of spiders specifically or anything with

eight legs? Because there are other things with eight legs, aren't there? That's a good point. Like saying an octopus. Right. But clearly an octopus is not an insect and an insect is not necessarily a spider. Is an arachnid always a spider? I mean, always an insect or? See, these are good questions. I have a book on my bedside table I want to read called my octopus teacher. Go ahead. Go get it. I'll wait. And I have another one shut up called The Soul of an Octopus. People are giving me all these octopus books. And honestly, I'm worried to read them.

Yeah, because you'll never read octopus again. That's what I understand because they're super smart. They're so smart. I actually did read through the first one. And my God, they're so smart. They have nine brains. They have like a main brain in their head or whatever the main part of them is. And then they've got a little tiny brain-like thing at the end of each ten.

and the specificity with which they can perform incredibly complicated tasks is mind-blowing. That is insane in the main brain. The attachments they form. I mean, yeah, look, if you enjoy eating grilled octopus, this might not be the book for you, unless you crave enlightenment. Well, you know the best part about this to me is that you're reading again. That's awesome. Look, all you have to do is get your nose read.

built and then sit around for two weeks, unable to do anything else. I thought I'd be writing right now, to be honest with you. Oh, you were writing some pretty interesting texts. That's all I, that's all I know. My nose continues to slowly heal for those of you who care. I posted a couple videos on Facebook, which have been digested vociferously. So many people are asking if I think they should do it. And I'm reserving judgment for three months from now until the thing is totally healed. But the first thing you said to me just this morning, 12 days post-surgery was, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think you said I look like a pig. You are putting words in my mouth. I did not say that at all. Would you say?

The first thing I said to when I said, well, I said that, you know, your, your nose is swollen. You said it's morbium. So when you look up, I can see clear all the way. I can see all the way to the back of your head, yeah. Like a pig. It's like, let me just say this, that when you looked up and I saw these two cavernous holes, and I said, wow, a second later, I heard, wow. And that's through a Zoom-like technology. My nose is a bit swollen. Nobody cares anymore. This is an opportunity for you to ask some sentient questions regarding the chapter. People have so patiently listened to, assuming you have any. I have a few, and I figure some others will come about. The first one is this is the first time,

that we've sort of jumped ahead. Like, the book is not chronological in the in the grout. As everybody knows, there's the tile, the story, and then the grout is the second half of the chapter where you tell us a story from your own life that sort of rhymes with the story ahead. It deals with the same themes. It's a brilliant way to have a book that's part biography, part autobiography. Don't suck up, dude.

You already have the job. Well, you know, you always threaten to fire me. I got to lay a little pipe every now and then. You know what I mean? But if I had a nickel for every time I heard you say, I can't wait to fire you. I really am looking forward to it. I could retire with all those nickels. Okay, but this is the first time that we deal with a story that is from the Dirty Jobs days.

Right. So you sort of jump ahead to Dirty Jobs. Why is that? Well, it's not a Dirty Jobs story so much as a thing that happened that I thought illustrated the bigger point that I was trying to make, which was the perceived importance versus the actual importance of having a safety net in your life. The safety net that I'm writing about in the grout is the million bucks or so that I managed to squirrel away, invest, and watch grow, thanks to my trusted financial advisor. And the incredible freedom that gave me for seven or eight years there throughout the mid-90s where I was,

where I was freelancing. The reason I hopped forward, and by the way, I made a mistake in the book where somebody made a mistake. You're taking away one of my questions, dude. All right. Well, you said, why did I jump ahead? And I jumped ahead 18 years from the day Leslie Ann Pluhart got blown off the McAnall Bridge. But then in the chapter, I say, eight years later, the Dirty Jobs crew and I were on the bridge. That's not true.

We were there 18 years later. eight years later in what that would have been what 1996 97 I was having the time of my life I had my nest egg I had my money I had the ability to freelance whenever I felt like it dirty jobs wouldn't start for another seven or eight years but when it did sometime I think it was in the second or maybe third season 2005 or six I guess that's when we were on the mackinaw bridge and that's when I made the error in my tie-off process and realized I was 550 feet in the air, leaning off the edge of a cable, mugging for the camera that was dangling from the undercarriage of a helicopter in order to get a great heroic shot. And it was that feeling. I think I described it as my sphincter slamming shut. Yeah.

And then it's just the whole notion. You know, I skipped ahead because that's the best example in my personal life and my professional life when I realized that the net that I thought was there, in this case a safety line, wasn't there. And the impact it had on me physically, I thought was interesting because nothing about the physical environment I was in changed except for the perceived notion of having a safety net beneath me. Can you explain that with the metaphor that you told me earlier about the railing? Well, anybody who's ever been at the top of a high rise and walking. to the edge or an apartment building or the roof of any building. When you walk up to a railing

and look over it, there are two types of people. There's the kind of person who gets that sinking, sick feeling in their gut, and there's the kind of person who doesn't. Some people are okay with heights. Some people are not. I'm okay with heights. So I don't get that sick feeling when I walk up to the railing and look over. But if you removed the railing, even though I never touch it, then I would theorize that 99.999% of the species would experience that sinking, feeling in their gut, and the almost audible noise a sphincter makes when it slams shut. Because you don't have to touch the safety net. You don't have to use the safety net in order to be impacted by the safety net.

And that was the point. Yes, just the fact that the safety net exists, that there is something that will break your fall. that keeps you from worrying about it. And just the idea, nothing else changes, just the idea that realizing that it's not there when you thought it was, for me, it makes me shake to even think about that because I have a bit of a fear of heights. That is a great truth, I think, but it's also equally true that it's only true to a matter of degree. So everybody falls somewhere on that spectrum, how much money do you need in the bank in order to feel confident and comfortable? How much money do you need in order to take a vacation or a few weeks off?

How many safety lines do you need to be tied off to in order to feel safe on the cable of the McAnall Bridge? Two, one, or none, right? So there is no right or wrong answer, but I remember you telling me, I mean, I know you have a fear of heights. And you used to, you called me after you saw. the McAnall Bridge thing air, along with my mother and my girlfriend and like a lot of other people I knew. And you were impacted by that. Yeah, it was really hard to watch. I find it very difficult.

I feel as though I'm there, you know. I read somewhere that the reason that people love sports is because we can imagine ourselves running, you know, and diving over the goal line. We can imagine ourselves swinging the bat and circling the bases. And it's the same thing in reverse with the fear. I can imagine myself being in that situation looking down 500 feet below my feet and discovering that I'm not tethered off. That makes me go to a degree. Some people don't go, some people turn the channel. Other people shrug it off. Did something happen to you? Because I've seen you, we shot some commercials, you and me, a couple years ago. I mean, for, what was it? Marketplace events, right? Yes, marketplace events, the people who do the home show, yes. And I was on a 12-foot roof,

I think, tops, right? Of a garage. A gently sloping roof within a couple of feet of the ladder, just sitting there. No, the ladder was taken away, remember? So there was no ladder. Okay. But you used the ladder to get up. We took the ladder away. Yes. Right. So the ladder falls. down and you're stuck on a roof. Yes. Essentially. That was the point of the show. That was the premise.

But I was surprised at how far in your head you got just being 12 feet off the ground. I was surprised too. And I think partly what it was is that we, we our company, your company, produced these as well. So I was just, I was producing it. You know, I'm like, oh, okay, we're doing this. And now it's time for me to act, right? And so I climb up on the roof. I had just in my head, just like, well, well, I'm going to be up on the roof.

The ladder's going to be down, right? You know, picking the angles, getting it all set up. But I had never, like, actually thought about the fact that I had to get up on the roof. And as I climbed up on the roof and the ladder came away, I felt very, very isolated and afraid. And it was a very gentle slope. In fact, you came up there and started walking around on the roof like an insane person in my mind, even though it's 12 feet, falling 12 feet onto concrete is going to hurt.

Sure, it's going to hurt. It's not going to kill you, but it's going to, you know, unless you land really just on your head. But you're not going to fall. But I didn't know that. And, you know, this is an interesting thing too, because people say, I've heard this somewhere I read this, that it's not a fear of heights that people experience, but a fear of jumping. Have you heard this? I've heard it. I thought my grandfather put it better when, and he says, I had no problem with heights, but widths to scare the hell out of me. I've heard you say that before. I love that.

Well, I mean, imagine walking down the middle of a sidewalk on any street, right? All you have to do is stay in the middle of the sidewalk. Right. You do this every day. You don't think twice about it. It's the easiest thing in the world. Put the sidewalk 12 feet in the air. Yeah.

It's not as easy, but you can still do it. Put it 600 feet in the air. Yeah. It's the same sidewalk. It's the same width. Nothing changes except the stakes. Yes, the stakes. It's about stakes.

That's right. But apparently even low stakes like 12 feet scare the hell out of me. And I was really surprised at how scared I was. But to answer your earlier question, did something happen? Yes, I remember exactly what happened when I was a young child and I have an older brother. You know Rick. And Rick, we were with the family. in New York City. And I don't know how old I was, three, four, five. I think pretty young.

And we were at the top of the Empire State Building. And my brother, who is, I think, six, four at this time. And he was probably pretty close to that then because he's nine years older than me, lifted me and above his head above his head on the observation deck yes and threatened and pretended he was going to throw me over and uh what an asshole yeah well he he didn't thankfully um and he's you know he's mellowed out now as you know my brother's very very laid back guy now but he was kind of a dick back then apparently but uh yeah i that that stuck with me that's stuck with me. And by the way, he's one of the people, because I went backpacking with him once as a kid. We were in the Shenandoah Valley. And he's one of the, we were, and it had started to snow.

And we were up on top. We said like, hey, let's go up there. We went up on top of this rocky sort of cliff. And he walked over to the edge of the, or I walked over first. I was like, I like walked over and I was creeping. And there's no railing, obviously. There's snow on the ground. I got with, I wouldn't get within four feet of the edge. Right. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's a long way down. And he walked over as if there was nothing, you know, as if it was just stepping off a curb, you know, if he fell.

And he walked right over to the edge and leaned over and looked down and went, yeah, you're right. And I'm like, get, get back. Don't don't do that. Yeah. That's interesting, you know. And I think when you add a camera into the mix, it makes it even more interesting. Like, in real life, I'm not risk averse, but I take far fewer chances than I do when the camera's rolling. Right.

That's not a compliment. No. That's foolish, you know. And I realized when you were on that roof, you know, the cameras were rolling and it didn't lessen your concern. But when I was on the McAnall Bridge trying to get that shot, I was assuming a level of risk because the. cameras were rolling. And I knew it was my job to try and do this. And I wanted to do my job well. And if I'm being entirely honest, you know, there's some ego in it. I wanted to look good up there, very high in the air, doing a very dangerous thing, you know, because it wasn't easy. I just wanted

it to look good. And I took my mind off of it. I went from worrying about what I was doing and concentrating on what I was doing to thinking about how I was doing. Yes. And as you, you know, that's violation of Rule 1, the prime directive of Fred King, who told us all the time. Now, he was talking, of course, about singing and about performing and about any kind of artistic endeavor. But the minute you start thinking about how you're doing vis-a-vis the audience, instead of what you're doing vis-a-vis the work, you're in danger. It's true. It's absolutely true. And I think that is a lesson for anyone. I mean, that applies to any situation, no matter what the job is, you think about what you're doing, not how you're doing.

Because the minute you think about how you're doing, you're already, you're grading yourself, you're outside of yourself, you're not in the moment, you're not focused. You're focused on an exterior view of what you're doing rather than the thing that needs to be done. Right. So let's go back in time for a sec, if we can because that whole notion of what, not how, that's one of the few lessons. I can't speak for you, but when Fred drilled that into our heads in high school, I remember knowing at the time that that's worth remembering. Yes. So much good advice doesn't turn out to be good until years later when you look back on it and go,

oh, yeah, that was very wise. I knew the second he said that, that it was smart. So I wanted to write briefly about that a little. But I also realized it was very much in play with the Brooklyn Bridge and the business of building the Brooklyn Bridge and what that took in terms of a real cost. $15 million was the financial number. But of course, the real toll that I wanted to write about were those 27 men who died in the most unspeakable circumstances in that pressurized wooden coffin called a Ksson, many, many, many meters below the same. surface of the East River. And did those guys stop thinking about what they were doing at some point and wonder how they were doing? Did Robling take his eye off the ball when he was injured

because he started thinking about how he was doing instead of what he was doing? I have no idea. But all of it bleeds seamlessly into my personal safety third philosophy and the sweat pledge that we ask all of our scholarship recipients to sign. It's all of a piece. And personally, I was kind of proud of that chapter because when I step back and looked at it, it checks a lot of boxes. You know, bridges, obviously, old and new.

Safety nets, old and new. Competency. And just the whole business of getting the job done and the state of mind you're in as a result of either a height, a width, or a fear. It is very interesting and I know that the whole point of this chapter is about the metaphorical safety net of your life savings and losing it. Yeah. And the fact that the circumstances of your life savings changed, but the circumstances of your life hadn't changed.

But just the fact that you knew that there was not a safety net there any longer affected how you lived your life immediately. It completely changed my business model. It changed my identity. It changed my sense of self. This whole romantic notion of me vis-a-vis this Travis McGee character that I had quietly assumed, right? the freelancer who goes out to eat only what he kills, to work when it suits him, to take his retirement in advance. All of that stuff was made possible by the fact that I felt comfortable enough, comfortable enough to do that. Not that I was a particularly brave or courageous

or risk-friendly individual. I just had a big enough safety net to allow me to do that. The challenge in the chapter, though, is that I'm not quite sure. still to this day, how much to say about the circumstances that surrounded my fleecing. And we've kind of talked around this before, but, you know, it's very humbling to get swindled. It's very humbling, you know, I mean, I think about those victims of Bernie Madoff, you know, who I write about, not in this book, but in a separate story. And I did that because I was one of a couple of dozen people who got taken to the cleaners by a very bad actor back in Maryland, who was my good friend. And I talk about her as a hymn in the book, partly because I had to

sign this nondisclosure, as you know. And I, so I can't get into the real details of what happened. But the truth is the betrayal on a personal level. Yeah. Combined with the practical reality on a financial level conspired to reinvent me into someone else, I can't say entirely different, but someone that I used to be before I had a safety net. And so eight years after Leslie Ann Pluhar got blown off the McAnall Bridge, that was actually 1997. And that's when I was at, I was having. the time of my life. Tell us what you were doing then. Why were you able to have the time of your

life at that moment? Because the money I'd earned virtually every penny over the last 10 years, I had given to my trusted financial advisor. And she had put me in some instruments that generated, let's just say, much better than average returns. This, of course, was because the money wasn't really invested. Because they were too good to be true. Right. But I got the money back every couple of months. So it's not like I said goodbye to it. I was just at the top part of a kind of Ponzi scheme. And there was no reason for me to imagine that I was being fleeced because I got the money back. The thing is, I just never spent it because, as you know, I'm cheap. I just needed to have a big chunk of money that I could look at. Like I go to the ATM, I see how much money is there. And I'm like, good.

Now, now I can work. That's the ugly truth of who I am. That's how much safety I needed. But I had it. And once I had it, Chuck, oh, well, then it was easy. I had a, in 1997, let's see, I was doing no relation, a game show for Dick Clark, which didn't require much of my time. I was shooting a show for PBS called New York Expeditions, which took place in upstate New York and was paid for by the New York lottery.

Didn't take much of my time, but it was a steady thing. I had clothing deals with American Eagle Outfitters and Eddie Bauer. I never had to buy a piece of clothing. Plus, I always helped myself to whatever clothes were available from the wardrobe departments on whatever commercial shoot I might be working on in those days. And I also had a gig with American Airlines called On Air TV that allowed me to fly anywhere in the country. I had a thing called a D2, which was a must fly.

So it was a plus one pass. So me and the cameraman could walk up to any gate in any airport that American Airlines served. And I could show this pass and they would make a call. And the two of us must fly first class. We would get on, me plus one. And I'd meet the rest of the crew in, oh, it could be Vegas. It could be Sydney. It could be anywhere in the world that American served.

we could fly to and make a show about that destination. So the point is, in those years, I was living in hotels, I owned virtually nothing. The clothes on my back and the clothes in my knapsack, I typically gave away to the first homeless person who was my size on the way back to whatever airport was in whatever town I happened to be leaving. Go to the nearest Eddie Bauer or American Eagle when I got to wherever I was going, pick up some more clothes, check into a new hotel and start working on any of the aforementioned shows. So I was doing the Travis McGee thing full stop. I could work when I wanted. Plus, this pass, this D2, I could use it

any time I wanted. So when I had time off, I could fly anywhere in the world. I felt like going. What's the craziest thing you did impulsively with that pass? Well, there are a couple things. I actually wrote a story on Facebook a couple years ago about flying to Phoenix during daylight savings time, met a girl on a flight. And she had a similar situation. She worked for Marriott. And she could stay for free in any Marriott anywhere in the world. And yeah, we hit it off, had a couple of drinks up there in first class. She was fascinated by me because she saw me check in. And when I checked in, you know, I handed my card to the gate agent, made the call and said, well, right this way, Mr. Roe.

So she winds up sitting next to me. And she's like, that routine out there at the gate, she says, who are you? And I said, no one of any consequence. She said, well, why do you fly like you fly? And I said, I have important business in far-flung areas of the world. And she laughed and she knew I was kind of messing with her, but she was just a lot of fun. Anyway, we wound up in Europe a couple days later. That's where we stayed.

The Marriott? You bet. So she was great fun. What bit of serendipity is that? It's like I got a brand new pair of roller skates. You got a brand new key. I mean, it was really a very nice and a convenient match. But in those days, like I had the power, really, to,

In terms of a date, I was a good date. Crazy. Crazy good, yeah. You have a drink, you know, and then you say, well, what would you like to do? And I say, you know, we should get breakfast. Oh, where do you want to go? I know a place in New Orleans. You want to fly to New Orleans for breakfast?

I fancy a Bené. Yeah, yeah, let's go to Cafe Dumont, right? Okay, straight to the airport, straight onto the plane, no fuss, no must, just you and your date, they seat you. You're on official airline business. Oh, my God. Just wrapped in mystery. The next thing you know, you're having a bignet down there off Canal Street. So those were heady days and they were fun days.

And I was so completely sure that I had it figured out, Chuck. I mean, I had it figured out. I had cracked the code. I didn't need a hit show. I didn't need to hit it out of the park. I had enough money saved, a trusted financial advisor tending to it. I could fly anywhere in the world I felt like for free. I could work pretty much when I wanted.

And I had a couple of modest gigs in constant production that gave me enough money coming in to make me feel like, okay, you did it. You actually figured it out at 37 years old. You figured out how to make a living in this stupid crazy business. And then how did you find out that all your money was gone and how did that make you feel? I was in Phoenix. I'd gone to see a final four game, which is funny because I don't give a crap about basketball. Never have.

But my friend, Scott Flansberg, the human calculator, he had a phenomenal place in Phoenix. And I was there and I'd spent the weekend with him and the guys who I traveled through South America with. We went to Cusco, Machu Picchu. I went down to Tierra del Fuego, Nushwaya. And, you know, I was flying all over the place. Just live in the Vita Loka.

And I'd flown out there to see this game, and I went to the airport. And in the newspaper, there was reference to this scandal that was unfolding back in Maryland. And without naming any names, I realized the totality of what was at stake. And I thought, good God, if I'm somehow wrapped up in this, I got to get my money out, pronto. So I got home, actually now I flew to BWI instead to try and cut this thing off as best I could. But it was too late. It was all gone. And how did it make me feel?

I mean, honestly, the best example I can give you is the one you just heard in the book. I felt like I felt when I looked when I was sitting on the cable, 552 feet in the air, changing light bulbs on the McAnaw Bridge and realizing I wasn't tied off when I thought I was. My sphincter slammed shut and I suddenly went from a guy who could call up his financial statement and see slightly more than a million dollars invested to 0.0. It was all gone. It was all gone. And of course, the interesting thing was nothing else changed.

I still had three gigs. I still had the ability. I didn't have to buy my clothes. I was still living in hotels that other people were paying for. I wasn't going to starve. I was just suddenly wiped out. Somebody hit the reset button on my personal economy. And I throw up in my mouth when it happened.

In the same way that you would, if you were looking over that railing off the top of a building and all of a sudden the railing vanished. Oh, no. That's how I felt. And we'll learn in the next chapter, but since we're talking about it, I'll just tell you, I did. I left Travis McGee in the dust. And I went looking for something. I swore I would never, ever, ever, ever have again, which was a full-time job. And I got one.

I'm curious how it affected your trust level. You know, as you said, this person was a friend of yours who swindled you. Yep. Did it affect other relationships? Did it affect how you, I mean, it must have. Well, the funny thing was, and this is kind of a roundabout answer, but all the Travis McGee mysteries, all of them, ironically, dealt with Travis trying to recover that which had been swindled, conned, furloined, or otherwise illicitly taken from some poor victim. And here I was identifying in such a visceral way with Travis McGee that all of a sudden I suddenly realized, no, dude, you're not Travis McGee. You're one of the many victims.

You need Travis McGee. You're the pretty bird that walks up to the boat and needs help. With the broken wing. That's it. You're the damsel in distress. You're the victim, you idiot. So it was terribly humbling, terribly humbling. And I didn't really understand until enough time went by that that's exactly what needed to happen to me.

Because, well, I don't think I was truly arrogant, at least in an outward way. If I'm being honest inwardly, I really was, man. I was so sure that I had cracked the code. Well, to a certain extent you had at that point. That's right. That's right. I had. But then I hadn't.

Then, you know, life happens. My perfect plan that was perfectly executed went straight to hell the second somebody punched me in the face. And that's what happens to all plans. Some famous general said it, right? I mean, once the shooting starts, forget about it. Yeah. plans over. So I gave up the freelance life. I started auditioning for full-time gigs. I started looking for full-time work. And it took a while for that to happen, to tell you the truth.

The first order of business was finding a lawyer who could help me and trying to get my money back. Right. And so that really consumed me for a couple of years. And when I realized I probably wouldn't get my money. back, that's when I really abandoned the whole freelancing thing. Right. And took the job in San Francisco. Yeah. Which of course led to dirty jobs and led to microworks and led to every good thing in my life. So it's, I don't mean for any of this to be about, oh, poor me.

It was a moment, you know, it was a snapshot. It was a feeling that I just wanted to try and articulate in some way. Well, that's a really good point. And I think it's something that I've reminded myself of many times that, you know, we are a product of everything that's ever occurred in our life. We're the good and the bad have helped to make us who we are. And if we like who we are, then you got to take the bad with the good. And it's all part of the story. Yeah. And, you know, something else that's a part of the story are things that happened. Before I was born, before I was here. And I know we chatted about this offline a little bit earlier, but it just seems to me that what's going on to some degree right now with millennials and Gen Z and whatever the current generation is, is this unawareness that the world was around before you were on it. And it's part of the reason that I wrote the stories that I wrote and part of the reason I've always been so attracted to the way Paul Harvey told his stories. And part of the reason I wanted to do a podcast that was fundamentally about history. Because the Brooklyn Bridge was and is, I think, a modern marvel.

Yes. And how it got built and the toll that it took and all of that. You know, that happened decades before you and I were walking around fogging a mirror as a horror. And yet so many of the lessons that were learned by men and women who were living in that time are identical to the lessons that we're learning in this time right now. And so not to get political with it, but when you're talking about critical race theory and when you're talking about systemic racism and when you're talking about all of the things

that are in the headlines right now, it just seems really important to be able to see them in the context of what was going on 100 years ago. And the same is true with our own lives. It's so easy to think that whatever happens to us is so unique and so specific to us. Well, look, not everybody wakes up one morning to learn that they've been swindled. But in some way, everybody who's ever lived from the beginning of time has looked. over a railing and thought either, boy, I'm glad the railing's there, or boy, I don't like heights, or man, that's awfully high, I'm not having a good time right now, or some variation on that theme.

So I'm always just trying to find something that everybody can relate to, even if it's not the specifics of my circumstance, but just the business of getting through the day. There was a period there that I just wasn't anticipating. I was going for an ellipsies, but let me say it this way. I wager that no one listening to this story right now had an older brother who lifted them over their heads and dangled them high in the air near or over the edge of the Empire State Building. That experience is probably unique to you. What happened to me on the McAnall Bridge is probably unique to me. but the feeling, the feeling is not unique.

Everybody's had that feeling. So, you know, that's the trick. That's the challenge of the book. Write something about yourself that isn't just about you. Make it about John Robling. Make it about the toll people pay. Make it about the toll you've paid. Make it universal, make it personal.

Make it micro, make it macro. This reminds me sort of your spiel for, the MicroWorks Foundation, you know, because while you don't know how to pave a road or, you know, replace a circuit, you appreciate smooth roads and electricity that goes on and off. You appreciate the poo going away when you flush the toilet. You appreciate those things that have happened. And that's something that a lot of people don't think about. And you did.

Well, yes, I was humbled. I was humbled on the McAnaw Bridge. I was humbled by the sudden vanishing of my nest egg. And as we'll learn later in the book, I was humbled in the sewers of San Francisco when I realized that there's a big difference between impersonating a host and being a good guest. All those lessons, what, not how. All of those lessons for me allowed me a measure of grace, I guess, to look at dirty jobs for what it really was, which was not a TV show. It was an opportunity to do my job in a totally different way.

So MicroWorks is just another reflection of that. Look, somebody asked me the other day, why? Why is dirty jobs coming back? Well, in part, because after a year of lockdown, I think a rumination on essential work is timely. And I think people need to see what work ethic looks like on the TV again. So, you know, we're featuring a dozen really hardworking people in six episodes that will be coming out sometime this fall. Same thing with Microwworks. You know, why are we putting a curriculum?

We have a curriculum, by the way, folks, right now. it's in a pilot stage and it's in something like 30 colleges. Yes. And it's basically the sweat pledge, which has been fleshed out into a 200-page curriculum. Why are we doing that? Well, because I think a lot of parents want to see something in schools that makes a persuasive case for work ethic and personal responsibility and rugged individualism and delayed gratification and a positive attitude. A lot of people, as you know, and pardon me, but I'm up on the soapbox for a second, but a lot of people right now feel like those things are under assault. And I'm in that camp.

I've seen what Lockheed Martin is doing with the vernacular. I've seen how those surveys that include phrases like work ethic and individualism have now been, those phrases are being deemed problematic because they're being associated with something that's systemically racist. I take exception to that, and I want our foundation, and I want the sweat pledge, and I want this curriculum. And to some extent, I want dirty jobs to push back against that and say, no, wait, look, there is a way forward. And these tenants still matter. What does this have to do with the chapter we're talking about? Only that sometimes you're Leslie Ann Pluhar. Sometimes you're out there in a Hugo just driving along mining your own business and the wind can blow you right over the edge. You just never know. And there's not always going to be a safety net down there. In fact,

there wasn't one for her. And so what can we fall back on and what can we fall into if not a safety net? It has to be something else. It has to be a code. It has to be a belief. And if you believe that working hard still has integrity on its own. If you believe that a decent attitude and some sense of individualism are still powerful tools, if you actually believe those things, then the moral of the story is you already have a safety net because you already have a code. If you have a code, then you've got something to wear when you look down and the net isn't there. You have something to put on. that's the Travis McGee of the whole thing. McGee had a code and he lived by it.

There's a great quote in one of his books where McDonald talks about what integrity is and what it isn't. It's not a means to an end. There's no guarantee just because you have integrity. It doesn't mean anything good is going to happen to you, but for the fact that you can look in the mirror. Right? There are no guarantees with it. So anyway, end of lecture, but all of it kind of goes back, for me anyway, to that moment when you're humbled without a safety net. And you have to ask yourself, all right, well, what are you going to do in a moment like that?

Aside from hope you don't get blown off the bridge. That's a great speech. But all I could think of was the fact that you referred to her car as a Hugo rather than a Hugo. go. See, this may be one of the things that it's holding you back, Charles. It may be one of the reasons you call me a pedant. Listen, let's wrap this up. I have an idea. I wrote down some just random questions because one of the things that I've been reading in all of the reviews that people are leaving us is that they want to ask you questions. And so I thought maybe I'm just going to just quick answers if that's even possible. And after the last lecture, the soapbox thing, I just, I doubt it.

But let's give it a shot. Have you ever changed a diaper? Yes. Whose? Dirty Jobs, season four, daycare worker. I changed many diapers on that day. And I forget the baby's name, but he was a big, chunky baby. And he filled those diapers with so much shocking disappointment.

I can't remember the kid's name, but I'll never forget his, enormous turds. You know, babies, because there's really nothing in their digestive tract. It's a straight line, right? Yeah. They make big turds, big, impressive turds that you would normally associate with a full-grown man. It's incredible. We also did a segment on a diaper cleaning service up towards Sacramento.

And so all those cloth diapers that need to be washed, those all show up filled with delicious treats. Oh, yeah. I've changed hundreds of diapers. but never on a child that I brought into the world. Next question. Okay. What scares you? We know that you don't have a fear of heights, but there must be something that terrifies you.

Changing diapers. Really? No. I don't have any phobias that I know of in the classic sense, but as you know, this whole nose thing. You know, I am claustrophobic when I can't breathe. And when I'm lying flat and unable to breathe, that's a non-starter. I can't sleep. I believe you're a little claustrophobic in the traditional sense as well, based upon what you've

told me about your experiences in Australia mining for opals, right? That's fair. I mean, people ask me all the time, what was the worst job or the most dangerous or the best or worse? I don't have a pat answer for any of that. I just like spin the wheel of disappointment. There are 30 good answers. Yeah.

It can all justify a decent reply. But there's only one job that I would never do again under any circumstances, and that's mining for Opel. To be lowered into a 60-foot tube while you're sitting on a Bosen's chair and to have that little pinprick of blue sky gets smaller and smaller as you go further and further. down. And then to stand on the very bottom, this is a shaft the size, the diameter of a manhole cover. Right. So it's like shoulder to shoulder. Shoulder to shoulder. Yeah. Straight down. Yeah, they lowered me down on that thing. I had a camera on my helmet and I had a camera in my hand. We couldn't get an actual cameraman down there. But, you know, you look for traces of opal between the soapstone and the sandstone. And if you find it, then they pull you back up and they

drill another prospect shaft, and then you go down there again for the purposes of confirming the existence of an actual vein of opal. And if you find actual veins of opal, that's when you come in with the big equipment and dig out a cavern and start mining for the opal. Now, as a guy who has watched a little bit of the Oak Island, you know, mystery that is never ending, why not just look at the dirt that you've pulled up and see if there's any freaking opal in it? Well, Because if you do that, you wouldn't know exactly where the vein was. See, they use a drill when they're prospecting. This is in Cooper Pety, Australia.

It's not unique to that place, but it's called a Caldwell bit. And it's basically, it's about a yard in diameter, and it's hollow. And so this drill spins down, and then they pull the dirt up from it, and they dump it in a pile. Well, the opals typically doesn't show up till 30, 40, 50 feet down. And so by the time you're pulling up big loads of stuff, you're dumping it in a pile and you'd have to root through the dirt looking for these little pieces. That's not the way they do it in Oak Island.

That's all I'm saying. Hey, man. First of all, what are you doing watching Oak Island? Isn't that on the history channel? Oh, sorry. You were insane? You know who I worked for? John turned me on to that, my brother-in-law, John.

And I got something. David Zazlov, who is now, I believe, the most powerful man. He's the king of all media. In media. Yeah. If you haven't heard, Discovery and Time Warner appear to be on the road to a merger. And when that happens, my boss really will become, I think, the most powerful man in the history of media. It's horrifying.

Anyway, I don't think I'm allowed to talk about the history channel. Okay. Well, then, never mind. It was a place called Polk Island. It was a show called Poke Island that I watched, and it was on the Pistory Channel. So what's your biggest regret? Aside from this podcast? Yes.

Well, I'll tell you, buddy. I mean, it's Hackneyed, but I will defer to the chairman of the board. I've had a few, but too few to mention. Perfect. I mean, I know you're looking for short answers, but that's the point of this chapter. I can regret losing my money. I can regret virtually everything. But why in the world would anybody who's in a position where they're fundamentally grateful to be in?

And I am fundamentally grateful to be running a foundation. I care about hosting shows. I care about working with people I love. I am fundamentally grateful to be here. Why in the world would I look back at the road that got me here and start cherry picking the moments that were important or not important or pleasurable or not pleasurable, or comfortable or uncomfortable. You don't get to do that.

You don't get to look back and say, oh, I really regret that. Because if you retroactively remove your regrets, well, it's like sliding doors. You're going to wake up someplace other than where you are. Yes. And I like where I am. That's exactly what I was talking about before. Okay, one last question and then we're going to get out of here. And this is a good one. What did you miss most about the lockdown last year? What do I miss most about it right now? No, what did you miss about it last year? Oh, oh, what did I miss as a result of the lockdown? Yes. What couldn't you, what did you miss doing? What did you do that you loved that you were unable to do because of the lockdown?

Yeah. Well, perversely, for the, For me, it was traveling. And I say perversely because, you know, I was really getting comfortable bitching about the fact that I was always on the road. Yes, I believe I heard a few of those. And then when I couldn't go on the road, I was a caged animal. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny.

It happened a few years ago, too. All the shows were out of production for whatever reason. I was so glad to be home. I was so sick and tired of tickets and Uber. and airports and cancellations and all of it. And literally two and a half weeks, after two and a half weeks of not going to the airport, I got a call from a friend of mine

who was connecting through SFO and had like an eight-hour layover. I said, I'm coming to San Francisco. I want to see you. I said, great. He said, where do you want to go? I'll meet you anywhere. And I said, stay where you are. I want some clam chowder at the Yankee pier

in the San Francisco. I took an Uber to the airport and I sat there and watched the planes coming and going, looking at people coming and going. I missed the very thing I cursed. Isn't that funny? It is funny. And it goes to your other question. What do you regret?

Who cares? Who cares what you regret? And who cares what you miss? Give it a couple of weeks. And you might think differently about the whole thing. I actually thought you were asking me, what do I now miss now that the lockdown is over? What did you miss? What did you really love about the lockdown, Mike?

Is there an answer to that question? Yeah, there is. Okay. I enjoyed, again, perversely, I enjoyed not knowing what was going to happen in the next. like remember how fast the news would change? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, everything. It was not just the politics.

It was literally everything. There was a day during the lockdown. I remember I was on the phone with you. You had taken up your walking crucible. And I was still doing that it. Chuck, by the way, if you don't know, it lost, what, 30, 35 pounds over the lockdown? 30 pounds, yeah.

30 pounds over the lockdown. Doing part to his commitment to walk five, six miles every morning. And I was doing the same thing. And one morning we were walking and talking, you down in L.A., me up here in the Republic of Marin. And I sent you a picture. Remember the fires? Oh, wow, that was so weird. The sky was as orange as an orange crayon.

And there was smoke in the air. And we were also dealing with an infestation, a plague. of ants. The house was overrun with ants. The entire neighborhood was overrun with ants. A giant colony of ants from Chile, apparently, Chilean ants going from San Diego all the way up to San Francisco, hundreds of billions of ants. Well, they presumably, they started in Chile, didn't they?

They got over here. They hitched a ride on a boat. And unlike other colonies, they had. not just one queen, but multiple queens, enabling the colony to stretch for hundreds of miles. Anyway, Marin is burning. The sky is orange. A plague of ants is upon us. The Raco had just blown through Cedar City, leveling most of it.

Our hurricane had just come up from the Gulf, leveling parts of Texas and Louisiana. And, of course, don't forget the plague. And the lockdown on top of it all. Yeah. So I'm not saying this was a good thing. It was not a good thing. But there was so much, holy crap, are you kidding me? What else do you got?

What's coming next? And through it all, we're trying to figure out a way to stay in business. I'm interviewing the captains. We did the first Zoom TV show for After the Catch. We took road trip. We took dirty jobs out on the road during this time. When nobody was shooting anything. We were constantly pivoting and trying to figure out how to keep the lights on in a situation

where the degree of difficulty had been ratcheted up to a place where I'd never seen before. And I understand just how much pain and suffering this thing brought to so many people. It was difficult for us, too. But the challenge, if I'm really being honest, was intoxicating. And when I look back at how we tried to figure that out, I remember that day talking to you. I remember reading the headlines and looking up into that orange sky, smelling the smoke in the air and seeing the ants on my shoes and thinking, what's next? End of days. What else you got?

Yeah. And suddenly, the Walking Dead was not that interesting to watch it anymore. Right. You know what? I stopped watching it as well. I did. That's so funny. It didn't appeal to me as much anymore.

Well, listen, for content, your answers were like a. 10 out of 10. On the brevity, I would have to give it a 0.0. I can live with that. Okay. I can live with that because the brevity was your rule, right? Yeah, right. Gravity goes to how. How are we doing? How much time are we spending? How are people enjoying these answers long or short? Me? I'm still focused on the what, Charlie? What am I talking about? What am I saying? What's important? What matters? What are you saying? So you go ahead and you just check your little time. piece, and you congratulate yourself for pulling this thing in and under an hour. You took a long time.

How much time we've been talking? Be honest. An hour and one, two minutes or something. Yes. Well, there you go. You've got an edit button over there. Go ahead and take out some of the spaces. We'll get this thing down to about 20 minutes.

Great. I'm going to take this opportunity while he's sipping some water to say, if you'd like to hear the entire book, you can get it at Audible. It's called The Way I Heard It's by a fellow called Mike Rowe. I'm micro. You are micro, yes. And please, uh, drop by and subscribe, tell your friends and give us five stars. Jesus.

Again, that was so much how you doing instead of what are you doing. Amazing. It's one bit of advice. That's the only advice. It's not the only advice, but it's the best advice I got. And it's the same advice you got when you were 17 years old. I was thinking about what I was doing. I just was trying.

Okay. Think harder. Hey, seriously, thanks, folks. It's always great to catch up with my old pal, Chuck, and you're very patient to listen to so much free association. Hopefully there was something in there worth sharing. If not, do what he said. Give us five stars anyway, and congratulate us for giving you something for free.

You get what you pay for. I'll talk to you later. See you. If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, and your machinery isn't working right, Granger knows you need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible. So when a conveyor motor falters,

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