Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 235 - Ward MF'n Hall

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

Today we take a huge deviation for the type of topic we typically cover here on Timesuck. The Space Lizards on Patreon vote on two topics a month through the app, and for today, they voted in my grandfather who passed away back on December 23rd. Probably the most influential person in my life. Today, I cover how the Hall family ended up in Idaho which leads to a history of Idaho settlement. My great-great-grandfather was one of the area's first homesteaders. I also share a lot of stories from my childhood, about central Idaho, and of course Papa Ward. I take you on a timeline of this man's wonderful, inspiring life. He meant a Hell of a lot to me and always will, and I think you'll like the tale of his impressive life. Hail Papa Ward :) Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions give $12,500 this month to the USC Shoah Foundation. Click the link to learn more: https://sfi.usc.edu/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ns3yVzMB7Cc Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Very different kind of time suck topic today. Ward, mother fucking hall. Who is he? If you're new to the show, this topic could not be less representative of the kind of topic we typically cover here. He is not a known historical figure. He is not a co-leader, not the center of a conspiracy,

not a serial killer. I'm 99.9% sure. He did lead a great life. And I think we can all learn from his example. He is my grandfather. My mom's dad. He was a great man. And I think we can all learn from his example. He is my grandfather. My mom's dad. He was a great man who's story I'm proud to share. And he passed away this past December,

early in the morning of December 23rd, with my mom and his wife Betty by his side after getting up to use the restroom. Set down, closed his eyes, and that was it. My mom said it was like a light switch, just turned off. He was 88. Shortly after his passing, our space earth Patreon supporters

who vote on two topics each and every month here at TimeSuck, they voted his name up, the topic board to the top spot. I was shocked. Now he is part of the catalog. I'm glad they did. I've mentioned his advice in the past on the show and they wanted to hear more, I wanted to know who he was.

So get ready for a little hero worship, MeetSex. Hail Nimrod and Hail Pop Award. Was my ready for a little hero worship, meet sex, hail Nimrod and hail pop award. Uh, was my grandpa wore a perfect man undeserving of any criticism? No, not of a star. He can be jealous. He can be rude. We grumpy, especially when the slots were kicking his ass at the tribal casino. He could be a little controlling. They'll snip me from time to time with my grandma Betty, but I never saw them fights, even though they were married for over 60 years. Uh, pop award had his faults, but they were heavily outweighed by his good deeds, qualities, his character. Was Pop-Award a better man than most? Yeah, sure shit was. And I don't say that just because I'm

blood. I have plenty of other family members who I also love, who I would not give the same glowing review. He was, as the cliche goes, a good man, a really good man. The kind in the world could always use more of. He was good dad, a good granddad, a good husband, neighbor, friend, veteran. Who was Ward Hall? What made him great? That's what I hope to lay out here today. I'm going to pepper in lots of little stories about the man. He was this week, who he was, how he treated others.

And also, because this is still time suck, I'm going to provide some historical and geo-targeted context for his life let's learn about ito is well today the state no one ever really cares about uh the state that is actually more than potatoes and racists and anti-government paranoid people uh today on this very personal glad i got to spend some time reflecting on one of the most important and influential people in my life edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. How have you Monday, MetsX? Step inside the circle, you curious bastards and grab some hands.

Welcome to the cult of the curious. I'm feeling extra excited for the future of the cult this week. Folks that on my grandfather has been healing for me. It's recentered me, reminded me of, you know, what, why I'm here. What we're doing here is special. Not that I forgot, I was just behind the scenes,

you know, letting, maybe the minority, little small slice of trolls, negative Nancy's out there, get to me more than they should. Instead of folks on all the positivity, my grandpa would consider that kind of thought weak mind, I believe. So I'm not going to that shit off. Hail Nimrod Helles with Fina Praisebo, Django's glory be to triple M recording in the sucked

dungeon out of Cordillin Idaho, a city where a pop war took his beautiful bride, my grandma Betty, on a honeymoon back in 1957. And now I'm recording an episode down the street from where they undoubtedly had a lot of honeymoon sex. You know they did, there's two horny kids in love, just knocking it out. And yes, I'm talking about my grandparents. It's only weird, it's only weird if you make it weird.

Still not quite ready to promote any standup tour dates, but those are coming, I feel like it's getting close, right? The things are opening up, it's exciting. What is happening pretty soon is a real live scared to death show, April 22nd, 6pm Pacific time at loop.com, a Thursday night, recording from the scared to death studio. Gonna be interactive, loop has some looped,

excuse me, has some really cool features. I'll have more details soon. Just plant in the seed now. Just set your calendars now. Turn on the lights off that night and enjoy some horror with Lindsey and I, Joe and Logan going to be working production. Descript Keeper Zach also might be helping

produce that show. So set the date. Very cool time sucks Striper inspired to hell with the devil t-shirt in the store at badmagic Merch.com right now. Think about how much fun it would be to have that song stuck in your head all day long because you're wearing a to hell with the devil t-shirt. Oh, nice. All kinds of fun stuff here at badmagicmarts.com. When you're not checking in on the store, I hope you're playing the TimeStuck trivia game on the app. A reminder that the March Bad Magic Productions charity is the USC Show of Foundation.

Given them $12,500, thanks for helping us make a donation to that important charity, sfi.usc.edu. Link in the episode description if you want to learn more, donate more. And you can check out the new charity page on the time, suck app, and learn about all kinds of charities. List out all the charities we donated to with the link to each charity, little description who they are.

So that's exciting. More excitement coming on the app soon. The order of the Suck tab should now be live. So I say soon, soon for me, recording when I'm recording, when this episode comes out, should be right now, present tense. So make sure and update your app. Look for that order of the Suck tab.

That is the Suck as an S, you know, little acronym, society of the understanding of critical knowledge, X-Q-O-Berbuss. Head on over to badmagicmerch.com, store there, start March 15th. That's the day this episode comes out. Sign up to receive one of our time stock free mason type stickers. They'll cost $5 to cover shipping and handling. You can put it up in your business, prominently displayed place to let fellow meat sacks know to come support that business.

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Be sure to update your app on or after, again, the day this comes out the 15th. Really excited to support small suck businesses right now. Okay, enough announcements, time for me to suck my grandfather. So why did I and do I look up to my grandpa? My mom's dad. So why did I and do I look up to my grandpa? My mom's dad. One of the things that made him great to me

was his devotion to family. One Christmas several years ago, maybe 2015, 2016, like so many other Christmases, I was hanging out in the living room with my pop award and grandma Betty's house and Rick and Zydehow, not far from the high school that I graduated from, the high school my mom graduated from and the one that my grandmother also graduated from. I spent so many Christmas's, Christmas's, that little house so many days, overall there.

I once laid on my back as a newborn baby on that living room floor, listened to the ticking of the same clocks that are still in the walls, still ticking today, played on that floor as a toddler with my great grandparentsgrandparents and now my kids have done the same with theirs. My great-great-grandfather Frank Burman, the old Swede, once lived on that property and the bunkhouse outback that he helped build. He also helped build the two bedroom, one bathroom until about 20 years ago when his second bathroom was added main house with his son, my great-grandfather John, not long after

they immigrated to America from Sweden. Hingy bengi, oof, de, oof, de. My family is exactly, or my joking about the Swedish language comes from. Great grandpa John and his wife, my great-grandma, still a dirty Norwegian. He loved the teas for being Norwegian. He picked up a Minnesota on the way to Idaho, raised their kids there. My grandpa Betty, and her sister Ruth.

My grandpa Betty still lives in her parents' old home now. The one her grandpa helped build. She moved away for, you know, part of her younger life, but then moved back to help her mom in her final years. I say moved away. She moved like, you know, half a mile across town. How interesting and rare is that?

That she's 81 years old. She makes sure the lawn is taken care of. The same lawn she once played on as a kid, like 70 years ago. The lawn, my mother, and aunt played on when they were kids, the lawn where I played, or my children have played still play. I've only ever felt like my heart was really connected to one piece of actual land, one piece of property, and it's that one. I have no parental home equivalent, like we moved around quite a bit, not as a kid.

Altogether, I added it up. I lived around quite a bit. I was a kid. All together, I added it up. I lived in 10 different places before I graduated to high school, went to three different grade schools and two states, five different houses and regains, one outside of town and nearby Pinehurst little community, three different apartments over a few years in Anchorage, Alaska, and an apartment for two years in Las Vegas.

Then in college, I spent a year in each of two different dorms, then in four different houses, and then after college, lived in an additional seven apartments and houses. So I've called 23 different places my home, and in two decades of stand-up, I've spent so so many nights away from wherever I've called home and hotels across the world, and throughout all of that, the Riggins house. That one property, always there for me. A place for me to return to and recenter is built around 1950. My grandma thinks, you know,

buy my great grandpa and great, great grandpa. Six generations of my family have broken bread on tables under that roof. Six generations have slept in beds there, have eaten walnuts, fallen off, the old black walnut tree out back, have played, you know, a lot of kids have played my family, the old ditch that runs through the property and through town.

You know, a lot of people laughed, cried, built lives, lived lives there. And anyway, that one Christmas several years ago, I was there with my wife, Lindsey, Kyler, Monroe, and my only sibling. My sister Donna was there with her two kids, Emerson and Ellie Bird, and her husband Jared, my mom, Charlene, my step-dead, Tim, my aunt Stale, her husband Mike, my grandma Betty, your sister Ruth, my papa Ward, numerous other cousins and uncles, great uncles, et cetera, have been in and out of there over the holidays.

So many memories. And there's one Christmas. As wrapping paper lays scattered all over the floor, as I watch Kyler and Row and their cousins play with new toys on the floor, as I listen to my grandma Betty joke and laugh with their daughters, my mom and aunt Stell, and with Lindsey and Donna, my grandpa sat in his recliner in the corner, watching over everyone and smiling like he often did. He sat sip in his coffee, did love coffee.

Sip coffee all day long for as long as I knew him. Sip didn't sat like he'd done in that chair for over 20 years, so many times, where my great-grandfather had once sat before him and sip coffee and watched everybody for additional decades. And I sat in the front of the wood stove, my great grandma used to constantly toss more firewood into, and somehow still be cold. While everyone else felt like they were gonna pass out from heat stroke.

And I'm sitting there, my popcorn gets up, walks over to me, and he says, Danny, this is what life is all about, family. Watching everybody grow up. He truly loved his family. I think he loved family in a way many people never can, in a way they can't appreciate, because he didn't have someone like himself

in his life when he was a kid, not even close. I don't remember ever meeting any of his family outside of the few brothers who came to the house the night before the funeral. He never spoke about them. He only talked to me about them. If I asked him, he had a terrible father. He referred to his father not by name, but as the old man and the old man was according to pop award, the few times I was able to get this

out of him an abusive drunk. He just would rather not talk about. And his mom, he didn't seem to have much love for her either. She left him when he was young for and he never really spent any time with her after that during his childhood. She never seemed to he was young for and he never really spent any time with her after that during his childhood. She never seemed to make much of an effort to have a relationship with him, growing up outside of some of his siblings, he had really no one to lean on, no safety net to ever fall back on. And then he grew up and instead of being bitter about all that, instead of complaining about how life wasn't fair and about the bad hand he'd been dealt about how he'd been given a raw deal, et cetera. He worked his ass off.

He seemed especially motivated to make sure he wasn't anything like his father. He just built himself a very different life than the one he had as a kid. He knew what it felt like to have parents he couldn't count on who didn't seem to care for you, who didn't protect you. So he made sure to be the exact opposite of that for his family. And he did so well in that regard. He and my grandma took my mom and I, my sister into their home after my parents divorced when my mom couldn't afford to live on her own, couldn't afford to raise two kids on

her own. And we never felt unwanted, never felt like a burden, the opposite actually. He helped raise me and my sister, he never complained about it, he seemed to love it. I ate more meals at their house growing up than I did at either my mom's or my dad's houses. So many meals with pop-a-word. Digging up potatoes from this garden out back to have grandma cook them up, classic Idaho. Of course I was digging up potatoes. Such stereotyp. Picking some corn from this garden or some tomatoes, never saw a guy like tomatoes more than pop-a-word. A dude ate them like apples. Also, sometimes we eat onions like apples,

which still disturbs me. We just bite into an onion like a fucking madman. Never ate the liver. He kept always trying to push on my plate. Dude loved liver. No one loved to tell you what you needed to eat. No one tried to put more food on your plate than pop ward. And he gave us, yeah, anyway, he gave us a home,

a great home. He did the same for his only other child and her children, my aunt. I've heard of yours. She also moved back with him and my grandma. He did whatever he needed to do to take care of his little tribe. He always put family first, even ahead of his primary retirement entertainment of slot machines.

Man, he loved the hot slot. Pop-board never made a lot of money in any given year, but he and my grandma were so good with the money they did make. The classic, it's not where you earn what you save. They didn't waste it. Never gambled more money than they were okay with losing. They never made much, but they had such great retirements. They saved.

They planned. He knew what it was like to live without. He was born during the Great Depression, and from what I've learned was a kid from one of the poorest families of a really impoverished area of Idaho. He knew what it was like to have not. So he taught himself to be very good with the money. He did have once he had it. The first priority he had with money was not to go get a fancy car,

new truck or fancy clothes or a bigger, nicer house or to go on luxurious vacations. He didn't give a fuck about keeping up with the Joneses. The Joneses could run up their credit cards all day long. Pop-A-Word would drive with Beater until they could buy a new car or truck with the Joneses. The Joneses could run up their credit cards all day long. Pop-a-war would drive a beater until they could buy a new car or truck with nothing to cash. His first priority was always to make sure everyone was taken care of.

He was the rock for everyone to lean on. Finds so much nobility in that, right? So much altruism. You don't see a lot of that in life, very inspiring. I hope you enjoyed the story of his life today. As best I can tell, it's gonna share some of the advice he gave and a lot of funny family tales

and some pointignant memories. I have to create the best picture of who he was. Gonna lay out a timeline of his life and mix in some Idaho history with it. Need to lay out some context of where he lived first. Need to throw down some Hock-Fop dogfolk. Central Idaho history. Not too much though, not too much.

I doubt there are a ton of listeners who just can't get enough of Central Idaho history who just thinks like, man, I sure hope comments leads out a ton of Central Idaho. Most of the episode is Central Idaho history. If there's one thing I can't get enough of, it's learned about Idaho County. Fuck yeah, bro. Now, I'm going to make it all as entertaining as I can. Let's hop on and learn about pop ward also about Idaho.

I learned so much. I wish I would have learned years ago. I'm embarrassed I didn't on today's time suck timeline right after today's sponsor break Now we go full Idaho Shrap on those boots soldier were marching down a time suck timeline August 13th, 1932 on a soccer time line. The The The The The The The

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The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The of Arlene Idaho. He's born with a comb over wearing suspenders and blue jeans that wouldn't stay on his butt without him. At least that's how I imagined. That's how I saw him for most of my life. He's probably born with a trucker hat. He's born on the homestead. His grandfather Samuel Hall who was born in Nashville, Tennessee in August 28th, 1851. It traveled west to lay claim to. Before Tennessee, the halls go back to Virginia and North Carolina. My oldest known American born relatives on that side being Elizabeth Amanda Hall born in Stony for North Carolina, 1739. Before North Carolina, I think they came over from England, but I'm not 100% positive.

Ancestry.com, the family tree there, not currently tracked back prior to the birth of Elizabeth Amanda, which is a great name, by the way. I love both of those names and I really like them put together. I'm just going to say, I bet my fourth great grand aunt was a looker, Hey, Lucifina. Samuel Hall got his homestead land title for 160 acres near and now partially under Cascade Lake in 1894. And since you generally had to homestead for a good five years

before you got your land deed, guessing Samuel, who would be my great, great grandfather, started farming the land where pop award was born sometime around 1889. He would have had to have traveled by wagon train, by horseback for at least part of the journey since no railroad reached anywhere near that area of Idaho at that time. Probably did take the railroad to get to from Tennessee over into southern Idaho. Early central Idaho roots, at least for a white man. And how crazy to hop on a train, head out west, you know, to just join some wagon train,

to claim, then try and tame 160 acres of untamed land with the tools, you know, that today you can only find in a museum or on somebody's property, is decoration. How weird in the time we live in to think about traveling anywhere, where you can't access Wi-Fi or drive through a Starbucks, or head to an urgent care clinic, or own, or access a car, or own, or potentially buy a nice pair of comfortable hiking shoes,

air conditioning, heater, fast food, or a little tiny Arlene Idaho, you probably couldn't know, couldn't even get a restaurant. If there was a restaurant, there was no more than one. My grandma doesn't even think they had a single restaurant. Samuel in all likelihood would have had to build his own place to live, build his own barn. You would have had to clear the ground of pine trees, maybe a lot of pine trees.

You would have had to use an axe or a cross cut saw also called a misery whip to fall that timber. The term misery whip comes from the difficulty and frustration of using a saw that was unwieldy and didn't hold a sharp edge very well. Cutting down tree after tree with an unwieldy fucking dull saw made you miserable. A misery whips came in a variety of sizes, depending on the tree that was cut down the saws ranged from the one man saw, which could be a short as three feet to the two man saw, which could be as long as 16 feet. Those guys just pulling it back and forth. Felling saws were flexible, relatively light saws. These lumberjacks would use to cut down these trees.

Sounds terrible. And then you had to get rid of the stump. Here is how one article on homesteading in the 19th century laid out a way of getting rid of stumps. It says after a tree was filled, branches were cut off and the trunk rolled aside. The stump might have been left in the ground for a few years to let it deteriorate a bit. Eventually, the stump had to be grubbed. Just grub and stumps. A grub axe, four to eight inches wide, flat on one side was used to dig around stumps, cut off small roots. A pickax was used to cut off

larger roots. A double bit or pickaxe had two sides that was used to break hardened stumps, cut off small roots. A pickaxe was used to cut off larger roots. A double bit or pickaxe had two sides. It was used to break hardened or rocky soils to chop out roots while loosening the soil and to remove to break rocks. To remove or break rocks. And then blacksmiths made the axes and the tools that all these tools are used.

So a real big tree with a lot of big healthy roots, that was an all day job. Imagine clearing 160 acres of stumps. Just grubbing, grubbing, grubbing. When I read about stuff like this, I often think about how much tougher folk had to be to survive in times like these compared to now. I also think about web trolls randomly

and whiny outrage police types. People always bitching about how this or that isn't fair. Life isn't fair. I wonder how much less they would bitch if they had to do some fucking grubbing, some stumping, hard manual labor. I feel like I could calm down a lot of keyboard warriors, a lot of Debbie downers fucking come to their senses real quick.

They had to do some grubbing. Uh, old Pappy Samuel would have likely had a pair of workhorses to pull the steel plow across the land. Him walking behind it. What did he grow? I don't know for sure. Possibly potatoes, corn, wheat, probably a variety of crops on rotation, depending on what was selling that year.

Whatever he sold, I know he didn't sell much. They don't make a living off the farm. He never even built a proper cabin on the homestead. Pop awards family tree, not many branches were anything other than extreme rural poverty. He homestead at large, I imagine, because he didn't have enough money to buy anything back in Tennessee. I want a different kind of life. Hard work, not much money. I know the old hall farm had milk cows. They could have had fresh milk. They did when Pop award was young, turned butter, maybe make some cheese even, they had chickens, they hunted deer, cut extra fish for food, they ate with the, with the grew, and they did okay in that respect, you know, they were very poor, but no, no family stories about anyone starving that I'm

aware of. They lived off the land, and, and they sure picked some pretty cold snow, laden land to live off of. The average low temperature for the area was just 10 degrees Fahrenheit in January with an average high of 36 December about the same. The average low is either below freezing or at freezing from October all the way through May. And then there was a snow cascade that the long valley there averages 102 inches of snow per year.

That's in case you're bad with inches. That's fucking lot. That's over eight feet a season. Much more in all the surrounding mountains. Not all not all at one time, of course, but still a lot over a winter. The average snowfall for the US 28 inches, Cordelaine, here averages, we get a lot of snow compared to most places. Average is about 70 inches. You know, it was an extra 32 inches in long valley there. Popward talked about having to walk to school through the snow when I was a kid. I thought

he was just exaggerating because we didn't get a lot of snow in regains. He was not kidding. He had to walk through deep snow. Only source of heat they had growing up was a wood stove, no hand warmers, no modern insulated fancy-ass gloves. You could buy it R.E.I. or some ski shop. Now maybe a pair of some old leather work gloves.

You better not lose because you just can't Amazon a new pair to yourself in 48 hours or less if you do lose them. Man, gotta have it easy compared to my grandpa. Or compared to my old Paffi Samuel, holy shit. I typed up these notes on a MacBook Pro. I listen to some Chubby Checker radio on Spotify through a nice Bose speaker here in the Sucked Dungeon. Pop-Award loves some Chubby Checker. Lossin' fast domino.

I set in the Climate Control Studio, grabbed a hot coffee from a coffee stand down the street, tons of delicious lunch options within five minutes of the sucked engine, still sleeping on a sweet lease of mattress with all this fucking mattress technology, watching shows on Netflix, Bouncer from device to vice,

or two device seamlessly to do so. Watch them on a big ass flat screen TV that costs less than a TV half the size and 10 times the weight cost a few years ago and I still bitch about shit every day. Right? Wi-Fi takes more than five seconds to bring up a site and I'm like, come on, load already, a piece of shit. But now I have some Facebook problems.

Like I had to verify something and I had to wait on the email, took longer than I thought and I immediately was like, fuck Facebook, fucking hate it. Ah! All worked up. Got it so easy compared to these guys back then. I'm dumb enough to look online and read some one star reviews myself from time to time

and immediately I'm like, I'll fuck you out. So you have no idea how hard I work on this. If Babby Samuel would have heard me complaining about any of this stuff, you'd probably whip my ass or at least would have wanted to. I think about it all, it's always a good reminder to try and be mentally stronger. Try not to sweat the small stuff. I'd appreciate how good we least would have wanted to. I think about it, it's always a good reminder to try to be mentally stronger, to try not to sweat the small stuff.

I'd appreciate how good we have it in so many ways. Pappy Ward's grandfather Samuel, an early central Idaho settler, the area around the no longer there, Arlene community, and the still around Cascade, 70 miles south of where I grew up in Riggins, Idaho, down Highway 95, then highway 55. I wasn't first settled widely wise until, uh, whitey wise until some point in the early

1860s by a man named John Welsh, a man more commonly known in local lore as Packer John. Packer John. It was the first Packer Johnny. Packer John was the first man to establish a travel route between Lewiston up north in Idaho down to Boise, the Boise basin, down south. That time celebrated at West Bannock, the richest mining region in southern Idaho. Packer John packed a lot of shit, a lot of miles, went through a lot of, you know, untamed wilderness.

Idaho, and I didn't know this until digging into my family tree this week, was one of the last areas in the lower 48 states to be explored by people of European descent. And central Idaho was the last area of Idaho to be settled. Basically, in the lower 48, the area where I grew up was the very last area in the US to be settled by people not native to this continent. The Lewis and Clark expedition did not enter present day Idaho until August 12th, 1805. They were probably the first people of European descent to set foot in present day Idaho.

Not that long ago. Probably. British Canadian Explorer, surveyor, and fur trader David Thompson may have let an expedition into Idaho down from Canada in 1803, but fuck that guy. Did you know that David Thompson killed all three of his wives by throwing them off cliffs and either the Idaho or Canadian wilderness? If you know that, hit me up with the deets because I don't, I don't know that. I'd never heard about David Thompson.

I just wanted to shake up the story a bit, say something crazy. Random crazy, actually true David Thompson. In fact, a nickname, the stargazer, dude traveled 56,000 miles back before cars all across North America, mapping 1.9 million squares of land of North America. Considered by some, this British Canadian to be the greatest practical land geographer the world has produced. I didn't know who the hell he was until this week. So maybe he dipped into Idaho, maybe not. So 1803 or 1805 is when the first few white people dipped into the potato state. Fur traders started showing up on Idaho around 1808 or 1809 and they first showed up not

very far from where I recorded these podcasts. The Colisebel House was a fur trade in posts about an hour north of the Sucked Engine on Lake Ponderay near the beautiful town of San Point built for the Northwest Company of fur traders in 1809. Some French-speaking traders working there began to use the French words Corde de Laine as a nickname for the Stitche-O-Womps people who traded at Colisebaugh House. In French, core means heart, a lane means all, a sharp pointed tool used to pierce leather.

In other words, they were known as sharp traders with hearts like the point of an all. Within a few years, the Stitcha Womps people became known as the cordolain tribe. And large lake at the center of their homeland became Lake Cordolain. The lake, the suck of their homeland became Lake Corde lane. The lake, the suck dungeon I record out of, it's about a half mile from here, the short us. The

Koli smell house would be abandoned after just two years in 1811. By the 1820s, more fur traders, the British owned Hudson's Bay Company were established in Southern Idaho, working that snake river in 1836. The first Christians to make Idaho their permanent home showed up that year Reverend Henry H. Spalding established a Protestant missionary lap way where he printed the North West's first book, established Idaho's first school, developed its first irrigation system, and brought some taters. He grew the state's first potatoes. How about that? Idaho's first Tater man. I wonder if he had any idea. Idaho would become the potato state known mostly for potatoes. Poor guy never got to experience how tasty a french fries.

Never had a salty waffle cut bit of deliciousness. Dittins with sweet tangy ketchup and then put in his pie hole. Reverend Spalding is family joined with some fur traders, other missionaries to be part of the very first wagon train, the head west on Americans, or on America's Oregon trail. So a little bit of, yeah, yeah, yeah, there. Lapway almost exactly a hundred miles north of where pop awards spent most of his life in my hometown of Riggins and 175 miles north of the Hall homestead. Pop awards grandfather, league, claim to ever installed, moved to Lapway mostly to convert

members of the Nez Perse tribe there to Christianity. The Catholic showed up not many years later. In 1850, Cotaldo mission, the oldest standing building in Oliveira, Ho was constructed just 27 miles east of the Suck Dungeon by members of the Cortalaine tribe and early Catholic missionaries, some Jesuits at a St. Louis who moved into the area just a few years earlier. I've been inside this building with Lindsey before. You know, it's nice.

It's not mind blowing, but it's nice. There's no big stone and marble masterpiece. You know, some big cathedral you'd find back east. No elegant Spanish-tiled mission. You'd find down in the Southwest, but it's cool. Crazy that his Idaho's old is still standing building. Compared to say anywhere in Europe, most places in the US, it is not very old.

I go to London, you can find Roman ruins. You can see Westminster Abbey. I've been in there. Massive Stone, church built in 1960, or built in 1960. Built in 960. My brain doesn't even want to acknowledge how old it is. Remodeled in 1245, pointed arches, ribbed vaulting, rose windows, flying buttresses, remodeled again in 1722, has a delicately carved fan vaulted roof

now with hanging pendants that's awe-inspiring. The big Gothic behemoth, kings buried underneath its floors. Nilear hundred statues of saints in niches around the walls come to Idaho. You can find one small wooden church from 1850 with a floor that is pretty flat. It doesn't look like it's going to quite fall apart yet, You know, it's more beat up somehow than Westminster Abbey. No one's coming to Idaho for architectural masterpieces. Those Jesuits would go on to found Gonzaga University about 60 miles west of Cotaldo,

west of that mission in Spokane, Washington, where I would go to college. They founded that in 1887. Go Zags, men's team, still undefeated, headed into the NCAA tournament. Number one in the nation, goes Zags, men's team, still undefeated, headed into the NCAA tournament. Number one in the nation, all season long, case you hadn't heard, pumped for March Madness this year. The Zags not making it to at least the final four this year is truly going to be some

fucking craziness. This is the best chance they've had to win it all ever. And Gonzaga was founded by father Joseph Cotardo, same man, the old mission is named after. In 1850s, the Mormons showed up when a variety of Mormon settlers settled into southeast Idaho, oh my heck, gosh dang there, they got to some flipping homesteading down there. What a flip is up with all these stumps, we got grub,

Ezekiel. On March 4th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, names of names of Bel, Bagley, he signed an act to create Idaho territory. With his territorial capital originally not being in Boise, but in Lewiston. It would change a few years later, but originally Lewiston. Lewiston been there so many times, so many memories. The giant metropolis of roughly 30,000 people, home of the big potlatch, paper mill, aka

big-ass, gag, and stink factory. I always spend about 15, 20 minutes having to get used to it. I travel to Houston. Lustein. I've been to Lustein so many times. I just drove down to Lustein last Tuesday with Lindsay and the kids to have dinner with my mom and Graham and Betty at Zainey's.

Great little Lustein long time restaurant. Lustein halfway between Cortalaine and Riggins. It's where a pop award and Graham and Betty or my mom used to drive me to get school close and do Christmas shop and growing up. It came out in shop, but we would drive two hours to do some sweet ass came out shopping. Neither store is there anymore. I got my first computer in Lewiston from another store that no longer exists.

Best electronics. I think they've been out of business for like fucking 30 years. Commodore 64, fuck yeah, bro. A plane skater dies, some airborne ranger at pop award and grab a betty's house with the Wilson boys, Kyler and Chance. And after watching the 1983 Matthew Broderick movie war games, dream to be a hacker and somehow hacking into the bank in town, taking a penny a day for everyone's account and put into the savings account.

Grab a betty open for me. It's gonna be rich, you know, no one's gonna notice. Pop award and grab a betty. They let me turn the entire back room of their house into my mess around on the computer, uh, practice the saxophone, which I'm sure was super fun for them to listen to in a small house and flip to the encyclopedia, right? They let me just do whatever I want back there. They had a little small three bedroom house, one bath, and they let me have free rain

over a good chunk of it. As long as pop-a-ward had his recliner in the living room, got to watch the five o'clock boys he knows on the TV and the Atlanta Braves games, whenever they were on TBS, he didn't care what she did with the rest of the house, as long as you weren't too fucking noisy. I was spoiled. I wasn't pulling stump, so I wasn't grubbing. I wasn't walking through the snow and old boots

covered in newspaper to keep my feet from freezing like Grandpa Ward used to do, because he didn't have proper boots. Back to Lewiston, bought a lot of GI Joe's at that came art in Lewiston, bought a lot of GI Joe's at that came art in Lewiston, a lot a lot of knockoff sneakers at that shop. Go. About my first compact disc and some long dead record shop in that old Lewiston mall on top of the hill, Dr. Dres the chronic. Fuck yeah, nothing but a G thing. That you didn't expect that one years earlier.

I had a funny, I had a funny pop award memory from that tiny Lewiston mall. Back in the mid 80s, I was there with Graham, I betting pop award memory from that tiny little small. Back in the mid 80s I was there with Graham and Betty and pop award we were in JC Penney's maybe Sears. I'm all so tiny. Its food court was an orange jeweless like that's it. Literally just one place to get food and they didn't even have much food. You could get hot dog or you could get orange jeweless or maybe like two other flavors of jeweless and that much else.

I had like three anchor stores at JC Jay-Z Penny, Macy's, and I think Sears. Most of what I wore in grade school, junior high and high school, was bought at either that tiny S mall or K-Mart or Shotco, which we're nearby. Other than those stores, I think they all had a hallmark store, a jewelry store,

yeah, tiny music store, a few other stores, all then pretty small. Even the anchor stores, pretty small. Like we're not talking like a New York City Macy's. We're talking one big room on one floor, the whole mall one floor. It's barely a mall. And I wandered away from my grandparents one day, probably being a little jackass, probably probably hide in the middle of those closed racks that I used to do a lot. Kind of pissed off my mom. And then, you know, when I came out from wherever I was wandering or hiding, I couldn't find them. And I immediately panicked. And I thought that they forgot me

and just went back to Riggins, like that's the thing that would happen. I was like, well, I don't know where he is. Let's just go home. And I started crying. And some manager noticed me crying. I thought he was gonna kidnap me. He'd call me down enough to find out that, you know,

I was looking for my grandpa. And so he asked, I could ward hall. Ward hall, please come to Sears and pick up Hall, uh, Ward Hall, please come to Sears and pick up his grandson Danny, could Ward Hall, please come to Sears and pick up, you know, whatever the section, he came, he comes to get me. I'm sure he was embarrassed. Probably took him 30 seconds to walk from wherever he was in the mall to where I was. And then he didn't get mad at me. Even by the time, you know, by the time you made it, even though I was ugly crying by the time he made it to me. He didn't yell at me. He didn't yell at me that day or

any other day. I literally don't have a me. He didn't yell at me. He didn't yell at me that day or any other day. I literally don't have a single memory of him every yelling at me. Now once in my whole life, he walked me over to Orange Julius and he called me down with no surprise in Orange Julius. Maybe a hot dog. And I was good in the world again. What the fuck even is in Orange Julius by the way? I've never looked into it.

It's like in Orange Julius, but not. It lives somewhere between Jews and smoothie. It's not either one. Anyway, do you know what Lewiston was found in an 1861, but not. It lives somewhere between juice and smoothie. It's not either one. Anyway, doosden was, Lewiston was founded in 1861. After the nearby town of Pierce, had a minor gold rush in 1860. Gold is what brought most of the early settlers to Idaho.

Pierce the little town of about 500 now. It's where gold was first discovered in present day Idaho. In 1849, Elias Davidson Pierce had made it to California for that big 1849ers, right? The 49ers gold rush and after really learning how to mine in California and serving in California's house representatives, he headed north, then east and he became Idaho's first successful minor. Gold then drove 10 to 1000s of minor into Idaho over the next few months.

The clear water gold rush. Yeah, yeah, there's more than Tadas knows heels. There's gold, gold and. Yeah, yeah, there's more than Tatoes and those hills. There's gold, gold and Tatoes, name hills. Seeking the pay dirt following Pierce's discovery of golden on our phenocreek, October 1860. There were so many people coming in that according to Pierce, they made the hills and mountains ring with shouts of joy. The mining camp of Oro Fino, Spanish for fine gold, spring up shortly after gold was found, right? Two miles away in Pierce within a few weeks, 60 buildings were built within a few weeks, nine or 10 stores, lunches, saloons, a couple, uh, blacksmiths, et cetera.

I mean, they're just throwing stuff as fast as they can to make some money off this gold rush. Uh, Oro Fino became Orfino. So it's said now, and I remember playing Orfino in basketball. They're school when I was in junior high. We heard a story about Orfino to show how backwards my homeland was and is. Orfino is home to the Idaho State Hospital North in asylum first open in 1905. I believe a girl from my graduating high school class of just 23 kids works there right now. It's been a home for people suffering from mental illness for over 115 years. And in 1927, or Fino High School, they decided that

their basketball team and then all their sports teams should be called the maniacs. Hmm? You heard that right? The mascot for the high school that sits like two blocks from this, not even like a block and a half from the state of silent is the fucking maniacs. The official story behind the name is that or Fino not having the resource to provide his players with basketball uniforms at the time in 1927 game. They got teased by some cammy eye fans. Cammy eye a little tiny town 22 miles down the highway where a couple of my cousins live.

Cammy eye fans said that the Orfino players, you know, played their hearts out, you know, played so hard that they looked like quote, a bunch of maniacs. Huh, I wonder why they use that word. I wonder if it was because, you know, kids in Cammy I who didn't live very far away, definitely knew about the Orfino asylum, the biggest asylum in Idaho at that time.

Like they would have been the biggest villain in town at that time. To this day, the school refuses to change the name of its mascot. Their mascot is a dude who looks severely mentally ill, painted on the wall of their gym, jumping up and screaming. The high school is like, I looked on a map, it's literally like 800 feet from the mental hospital and they still call themselves the fucking maniacs. And back in 1993, the Idaho Alliance for the Mental Ill wrote a letter to the Orfino Joint School District School Board requesting that the mascot be abandoned because it stigmatizes and perpetuates the old stereotype attached to the mental ill. And then a bunch of towns folk got mad that they

wanted to change their show to the meeting where in all kinds of Orfino maniac gear hats, fucking jackets, little fucking prie, you know, like flags, they're waving and they voted down like in a landslide. It did not change the name. And then my high school in junior high, the one pop awards house is about a stone's throw away from. Our mascot was and is still the savage. It's an American Indian on horseback called a savage.

Eek! And this purse protestor of this mascot once said that the word savage is as offensive to indigenous peoples as the N word is to African Americans, which makes sense. They're not fucking savages. They're modern people. They have artists, doctors, lawyers. They're every bit as cultured and civilized as anyone else in America. It's so inflammatory. And Riggins also refuses to change the name. The school district administrator defended the decision recently to keep the name. Saying that the term savage doesn't really mean anything about American Indians, it's quincidence, right? It's just someone who plays hard or fights really hard for what they believe in, kind of like, you know, a maniac.

A maniacs and savages. Just they're just people who play hard. It sports. They're definitely not the mentally ill. They're definitely not American Indians. Get the fuck out of here! When I was in junior high, I was on, you know, the basketball team and the savages played the maniacs. Holy hell. And some and some Idaho wonder why in many people's eyes, we are a hillbilly laughing stock of a state. Back to 1860 now, things are just getting going in Idaho, white settler, you know, population wise. There are a couple missions, some early home stethers, some fur trapping, and now small gold rush up north by Lewiston. Two years later, much bigger gold rush kicks off in the Boise basin. The area around Idaho's biggest city in state capital, an area 78 miles south of where

Papa Ward was born, have been populated by members of the Shashon and Bannock peoples for thousands of years, and then the Pacific fur companies Astor Expedition brought whites to the area for the first time in 1811. John Reed, part of that Astor Expedition, and a small party of Pacific fur company traders established an outpost near where the Boise River meets the Snake River in 1813. The post would soon be abandoned due to hostilities with local tribes. Another trading post would be established few years later, also abandoned due to ongoing hostilities. 1819, same thing, but yet another post.

1834, Thomas McKay, a fur trader who'd worked for the Hudson's Bay Company, then builds Fort Boise over on the Idaho Oregon border. It would be abandoned. After more hostilities, several rebuilds in 1854. It's abandoned. Finally a new Fort Boise is built in 1863 as a military outpost in present day Boise to help protect a whole bunch of gold prospectors who had just poured into the area in the past year. Let's talk about this gold rush. It's a huge one. The

really never gets any attention. George Grimes heard a tale by some local Native Americans about so much gold laying about. He heard that's a tale walla walla where he's at you can literally pick it up at the handful and he was inspired to go check it out he and a group of prospectors from walla walla in washington set out for what would later be known as the voicey based in an eighteen sixty two where he discovers that crazy story to be pretty close to the truth just gold

lane all over the fucking ground right like shallow streams is laden with gold. How pumped were those guys? Over a decade after the big 1849 California gold rush, the stories of massive fortunes being built from various claims and all that madness, you know, right, whirling around in your head and then you hear about a place miners haven't made it to yet where there's literally gold, lane all of the ground and then you make it there and then it's true. Lot of celebratory moonshine drank that night.

Unfortunately for George Grimes, he would never get to sell any of the gold he found. Grimes was murdered within just a few days to find an all that gold. Big bummer, highest of highs to the deadest of deads. And we'll never know who did it. Uh, if not my dad, probably somebody's dad did it, right? You get it. Uh, something he was killed by a greedy partner. The accepted story is that he was killed by local tribes. Or maybe they just made a convenient scapegoat.

Whoever killed him, he never witnessed the result of the Boise Basin strike that his discovery started. Previous to gold being discovered in the Boise Basin, the area was a wilderness inhabited only by some tribes with a few mountain men for trappers occasionally passing through. Within eight months of the strike, the area became the largest settled area of the Pacific Northwest. By 1863, the population, just the next year, the population of the area estimated as being between 25 and 70,000 people. At 25,000 to 70,000 people, more people living in the Boise Basin than there were living in Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington at that time.

The actual rush years lasted from 1862 to 1864. Those good, big gold strikes, always pretty quick. The Boise Basin gold strike turned out to be one of the richest strikes in American history. Various articles say this gold strike was bigger than any of the now much more famous California gold strikes. Idaho in addition to sometimes being crazy is hell often also a very humble state. Not kidding. Local Idaho culture I think is to not really make a big deal out of stuff. I mean, we don't want to seem like we're showing off. We're not bragging or something.

For a hard work and gold miner in a good location during the strike, a week of prospecting could yield $2,000. Right. That's that's over60 grand in today's dollars. Fortunes were made quickly. Making it anywhere from $8,000 to $20 a day was common. That's $250,000 to around $6.50. And today's dollars. The work was hard. Bench gravels often had to be packed and backpacks,

transported to the water, but a hard working minor often made $50 to $60 per day. That's, you know, up to $2,000 a day, today's dollars. Then by 1870, after cooling off in 1864, the rush was completely over. Mining continued, but not the same way, not at the same feverish pace. Most of the easy stream, you know, gravels were considered played out and many claims were sold to Chinese miners who then were willing to work. The lower grade claims, which continued to be profitable for them.

In the 1870s, numerous stamp mills were in operation, quartz mining prospered, supporting the area for decades. Place remaining continued for long stretch because it was not possible to work an area long enough in a season two to plead it quickly. Dredge mining began in 1898 and continued to the 1950s. All told, 2,800,000 ounces of gold estimated to have come out of there between 1863 and 1959. The big boy seat gold rush brought in a lot of people.

People like Packer John. His name sounds a lot like Papa John. So this guy didn't sell pizza and he probably wasn't super racist. Actually, he probably was super racist. This was 1860s. Packer John was the first known white man to head up North of Boise,

the present day area of Valley County, sometime another 1860 or 1861. Remember this is the guy who established that first route between Lewis and Boise. So sometime, you know, 1860 or 1860 when he makes it into Long Valley, or my grandpa was born, or my aunt, Stella, Uncle Mike, now live near in McCall.

There were other white men's surrounding areas, like around the boom town of Florence, first territorial capital of Idaho County, my hometown of Riggins is in Idaho County, town legendary among many Riggins. Florence was a gold strike town that went from nobody to about 9,000 people to nobody in four years. From 1861 to 1865,

and then a few additional waves of mostly Chinese miners stayed until around 1890. Later waves of a little bit of mining took place all the way into the 1930s. Florence could be a suck unto itself, kind of a forgotten tombstone type of place. They had a Mason's Lodge, library, school, tons of saloons, butchers, hostels, lots of outlaws, lots of gunfights, gunfights in the street the street gun fights in the gambling halls all kinds of shit Lot a lot of a yippee-yup yon Florence a lot of all-be your huckleberry With all this mining

Being done around Florence, which sat 160 or while all this mining was being done around Florence Which sat a hundred and sixteen miles north of where pop orders born and about 40 miles from where he settled down on my Home town of Ricans the area where pop a grew up, that long valley area remained largely unsettled. Packer John Welch had contracted to freight supplies from the Umatilla landing on the Columbia River, now on the board of Washington, Oregon, to South Tri-Cities, aka the Dry Chitties, to the miners of Idaho City, 300 miles away. Idaho City about 40 miles north east of Boise, 70 miles from the Long Valley area of the Hall Homestead. Soon after making it to Idaho, Packer John

established a supply station near what later became the town of Cascade as he took on the new job of bringing supplies back and forth between Lewiston and Boise, 270 miles, 270 rough, hard, traveled miles, no slow moving rivers to float down, no paved highways, lots of, no roads, lots of real rugged mountains, lots of dangerous rivers and tensions between whites and local tribes. I'm sure these packing trips were a lot of fun. Also very random thought, but how dirty do you think Packard John's balls were when he finally made it to either Lewiston or Boisey, right?

Like on a scale of two rotten pine cones dipped in mud and sprinkled in squirrels shit to a pair of moldy tater soaked in vinegar and then covered in a mixture of dog shit and pus from a boil. What do you think? Closer to the cones or closer to those groin taters. Good luck totally getting that out of your head, rest of today. Then during the 1870s prospectors, I didn't think about that. I'm like, God, you'd be so fucking dirty. Time made it someplace. During the 1870s prospectors, but I didn't think about that. I'm like, God, you'd be so fucking dirty Time made it someplace during the 1870s prospectors and miners followed and Packer John's footsteps To scour the valleys and surrounding mountains of central Idaho for more gold once a boycy basin

Minon strike got a little bino tough when gold got hard to get there once in central Idaho They encountered the peoples of the sheep eater tribe, a band of Shoshone, also known as the Tukadika, a people whose lives were once centered around the lives of the areas of big horn sheep. Pop ward used to talk a lot about the sheep eaters and how they lived, not long ago, all around where I grew up. As a kid with Pop ward, I sifted for arrowheads a few times, found some, also found some spearheads, most of them found 30 miles from Riggins on my stepdad's property in their whitebird, named after Chief Whitebird, leader of a band of Nes Perse.

Maybe we found some Nes Perse arrows, maybe we found some sheep ear arrows. The sheep eaters were the rare tribe never to adapt using horses. The high mountain terrain they lived in, the rough steep mountains I used to climb for something to do as a kid, not suitable for horses. They lived in small, self-sufficient groups, hunted big horn sheep, followed them all around the mountains of Central Idaho. Other sheep eaters lived in southeast Idaho, Wyoming, around Jackson Hole. In the 1870s, the sheep eaters of the Long Valley around Cascade and Arlene were removed

and sent to reservations further south. Some mines were established in the general area, but nothing big, nothing compared to the big Boise Basin strike. By the late 1870s, most of the mining had dwindled down to just a few prospectors. Some of the miners, once the easy to get gold was all gone, they decided to squat and stay. These squatters weren't exactly legal homesteaders. They skipped all the paperwork, part of the whole homesteading deal, and just built a cabin, wherever they wanted to live.

It was going to kick them out out like no one was around. There are still the ruins of old squatter cabins from the 1870s and the subsequent decades dotted all around where I grew up. People who came to mine or furtrap or hunt, grow some vegetables, trade, just be the fuck away from society. I love that they didn't file any paper or anything. All right, they just weigh out in that middle of nowhere, where from any roads or towns or any government officials,

and they were just like, my wrecking spot looks good, plenty enough. They can cut down your pines, get into some grabbing, stack these rocks. They got a sailor, and I wrecking all this live here for a few years over the rest of my life. It was like going camping on unmanaged land. But instead of throwing up a tent, you just threw up a cabin, and you just maybe stayed for the rest of your life. The first squatter near where my grandfather's grandfather got that original homestead was a man named James Horner.

He built a cabin on Clear Creek in 1881. Just a few miles from the hall homestead. Soon after some other miners settled along the nearby Payette River. So, like, you know, when my grandpa where he settled, he was like within the first decade of people, my great, great, great grandpa. In 1884, the first blacksmith shop was opened in the valley by LS Kimball who had come over all the way from Illinois around that time. Another man named Maxi came to nearby round valley to fatten some hogs on the valley's camis roots.

Sounds like something dude named Maxi would do fatten hogs and whatnot, right? Harry Maxi is my name and fatten hogs in my game. Please do meet you. I mean Maxi We like spit some tobacco into his hand and expect you to shake it Also, whose balls are dirtier? Packer Johnson's or Hogman Maxie. Another early long Valley seller, Mr. Caroline Jarvis bought his home set in 1888. Dude named Caroline in 1888. Do not expect that, but that's what the source says.

Johnny Cash's boy named Sue Vives there. Then in 1892, W.A. Billy Bacon. Billy Bacon. Wow, for the name Billy Bacon. There's a Maxi hog over here. Billy Bacon came to boys in 1863, Mary and Sarah Jarvis. And built a log cabin to, I don't know why I love his name is Billy Bacon. Built a log cabin to begin his homestead and round Valley.

1886 Jack Jasper, all these great names. Well, Jack Jasper, a meat Billy Bacon. We, Jack Jasper, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, we didn't go talk to Maxie the hog man. Um, uh, so anyway, anyways, Jack Jasper, uh, Jasper, he establishes a homestead estimates, uh, that there were about 30 families in the valley in 1886. And then in 1888, the first post office in Valley County is opened. And around this time, guess in an 1889, maybe 1888 Samuel Hall, pop awards, great grandpa shows up. This little area starts working that land. One of the first home stethers that appears to ever settle around what will later become the town of Cascade, where pop near where pop award grew up. The next year

1890 Idaho becomes a state 1893 Charles Hall, Ward's father born in the Long Valley of Idaho on the Hall homestead. The homestead actually part of the little town of Arlene Idaho. Now Arlene just a few houses, not sure a sign even designates it as a place anymore. Can't find anything about him in the way, really. I don't remember anyone ever talking about it to me.

Most of Arlene just eight miles up from Cascade now lays at the bottom of a lake. Over the next 30 years, Charles Hall grows up with his 12 siblings deep. And I never heard pop-a-ward once talk about a single aunt or uncle. So weird. 1916. This guy marries Hazel Viola Williams, pop-a-wards mom was just 16, barely 16. Her family moved out west all the way from little town of Horton Township in Elk County,

Pennsylvania. Just two years earlier, 1914, the Union Pacific completes track from Emmett, 10 miles north of Boise, to McCall, 30 miles north of Cascade, making commercial logging in the area profitable. Logging then became along with farming and ranching the economic mainstay of Long Valley for many, many years. The railroad track passed right next to or through cascade and the town grew. The track also apparently ran right through part of the hall homestead. I hope they got some money for that.

Sounds like they may have gotten some train cars out of the deal, that they would weirdly live in, more on that later. Charlie and Hazel, my great grandparents, would have their first child together 10 months after getting married. Norma Ruth, born in October of 1917.

Hazel still just 16. That same year, Valley County is created by the Idaho State legislature. They'd have seven more kids together before they had pop a ward. He was their ninth child born on the farm. Two years after ward, they had their tenth kid Thomas. He didn't settle him down outside of Seattle. Ward was closest to his brother, Tom, apparently when they were young. Two would move to Riggins together later,

right before meeting my grandma Betty. The 11th child was Milton born in 1936. He'd moved to Macon, Georgia. He was the brother I heard the most about growing up. Grandpa would go to visit him a few times. 12 child forest born in 1938. Good dude, talk to him a lot of the funeral. He put in 20 plus years in the military,

settle down in Nampa, Idaho. Couple separated around this time after a force was born. With half the kids then living with Hazel down in Cascade, the other half living on the farm with Charlie. A 13th child Leo was born to possibly a different father a year or so later, he was settled down in Boise. Leo, I have met him and he is a character. The night before Grandpa's funeral, he traveled up to Riggins with his brother,

Forest, and we were sitting in the living room. My grandma beddies home, the house from the opening of this suck, and somehow the topic of painful surgeries came up. And he told the most ridiculous story. He told us his most painful surgery he'd ever had story about getting some hemorrhoids removed. Actually, that's what he first opened.

He said it was hemorrhoids, and then he paused after he said hemorrhoids and he goes, well, I probably shouldn't say this. But I thought it was hemorrhoids. It turned out it was actually an STD. And then he proceeded to explain in front of my grandma, his brother, forest, forest wife, my wife, Lindsay, the kids, Kyler Monroe, my sister, and her kids,

some of my cousins, my mom, stepdad, aunt, uncle, how he had gentle rewards on his asshole. A lot of them. They built up for years, and then had to be surgically removed because it was hard for him to sit down. And then after having the general rewards burned off of his butthole,

he sat in some epsin salt in a bath, and he said he felt like his butthole was on fire. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, just talking about nasty ass shit like that in front of everybody, like it's not a big deal. It's in my blood to do that. Hail Nimrod. Not long after telling that story, Leo just said about nasty. I shit like that front of everybody like it's not a big deal. It's in my blood to do that Hill Nimrod Not long after telling that story Leo just second night

It's had sorry about pop-word and just when it was hotel like he hadn't just told you know Hey General warts on his butthole story My favorite part of that whole day easily not so much for grandma Betty. She did not find that funny Kyler and Monroe my niece nephew, nephew, Ellie Bird, and they're a little bit stunned. They were not expecting a lengthy tale about an 80 year old man once getting general awards burned off his asshole. Pop Ward would have found that tale both embarrassing and hilarious.

Back to Pop Ward's childhood. Growing up, Grandpa made it sound like the kids on the farm just, you know, a few miles from the kids in Cascade never saw each other after their parents divorced around 1936. His mom had more kids than she could handle, so did his dad, and despite living so close, they just parted ways and just like stayed apart. My grandmother said that pop ward never stayed at his mom's house. Right? He left when he was, or his parents split when he was four, and then his siblings who went

to live with his mom were not welcome back on the farm by his dad, like fucking, like ever, for the rest of their childhoods. How fucked? Charlie Hall had no interest in seeing half of his kids ever again, and they were just down the road. There were just a few miles away. And then he wouldn't let the other half of his kids know their siblings, right?

Their other half of their siblings or their mom. Ah, so weird. Graham and Betty said pop ward, never knew his mom. They were never close. His dad never remarried. Never really had a maternal figure in his life. His mom never seemed to remarry either. Graham and Betty said she also,

she never worked, family assumption. I mean, she had a lot of kids, they cared. Family assumption, she lived on welfare. Charlie worked as a freighter, tough job, carried goods via horse. It's kind of like Packer John. He carried goods via horse horseback into the Stibnite mining district 60 miles away 60 miles of mostly trails no roads Stibnite now a ghost town first mind in 1899 Stibnite kicked out gold silver

Antimony and tungsten and random fact from 1941 to 1945 Stibnite mind and milled more tungsten and antimony than any other mine in the US. During that period, Stibnite produced 40% of the nation's domestic supply of tungsten, 90% of its antimony, both rare metals used in weapons manufacturing. Antimony found in nature, mainly in the mineral called Stibnite.

It's really pretty, looks like silver. My great grandpa, John, may have worked in that mine. I think so. He definitely worked in some other mines in the area, and as a kid, he gave me a big silver ore. Coolest rock I've ever had by far. When Pop War talked about his dad and his life on the old man's farm, which was very rare, he basically said that life was hard.

He said he never really had a childhood. I remember one time I'm saying that literally no one ever bought him a toy. Like he was talking about some toy, he got teased me about being spoiled. And I thought he was kidding. He was not kidding. He never like literally never got a single toy. His childhood, apparently. And some of his older sisters, especially Charlotte and Florence, they were the ones to basically raise him. They were the ones who would tell a lot of these stories to Grandma Betty who would verify all these details with me. I just talked to her the other night, interview her about all this. He said he had chores, lots of them for as long as you can remember.

He started milking cows at the age of either four or five. He started helping to plow and harvest the fields at around the age of six or seven when he didn't do his chores. His dad beat the shit out of him. Graham and Betty said a few of his siblings told her that for reasons never quite made clear. Pop-a-ward was his drunk father's whipping post. quote unquote,

the only fun memory my grandpa ever shared with me of his childhood that I can remember was about going sledding on a nearby hill with some of his siblings and maybe some friends. He worked, he boarded his dad, he did a shit ton of farm work, he went to school until he dropped out of high school at some point. He went to a high school in council

and hours drive away. He went to go live with an older sister, school at some point. He went to a high school and counsel and hours drive away. He went to go live with an older sister, not sure exactly when he left his dad's farm. I'm sure he couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. He never talked to me much about his child and never was kind of a betty either. I asked her a bunch of questions and she really didn't know many details. They were married for over 60 years and he just never really talked about it. She didn't even know he had a terrible childhood until about 30 years into their marriage. When they were in Georgia,

and one of a pop warded sisters finally told her, just took her aside and told her, she was blown away. Like he just did not want to talk about it. Going back to his early childhood, apparently on the homestead, the family didn't even live in a proper house. Grandpa told a grandma they lived in some weird configuration of old train box cars that were been converted

into living quarters. Like no electricity, no running water, no indoor toilets, just real, real country poor. They live like fucking hobos. If the hobos, you know, the train never moved. The grade school in junior high, he went to just a one room schoolhouse. Now sits at the bottom of Cascade Reservoir,

known as late Cascade. Remember that he said most of the kids at that school during the brief time was around were halls. They were his relatives. They were either pop-ward siblings or his cousins. The lake was formed by a dam on the north fork of the Payet River in 1948 when pop-ward wasn't quite 16. The lake ended up covering part of the homestead and has relatively shallow water controlled

for irrigation, flood control hydropower now. 1951 when Ward Hall was 19 after dropping out of high school and council so he could get a full time job working with heavy equipment on highway construction. He got his GED signed up for the Air Force and became an airplane mechanic. He served overseas in both Africa and Japan before receiving an honorable discharge in 1955. Why the Air Force? He told me he signed up to avoid being drafted into the Korean War into the infantry. He found out that if he signed up to enlist, he could steer his destiny a bit more. He didn't wanna be drafted into the infantry

because quite simply he didn't wanna die in the Korean War like his brother had died in World War II. His older brother Charles, born 11 years before he was born, had been drafted to fight in World War II, died in the battle for breast. Fought in August and September on the Western front at the age of 23, he was fought in France, almost 10,000 Americans who fought in that battle were killed or wounded. The Allies won that battle. My grand uncle died fighting Nazis and helping the allies secure the port of breast so allied ships could supply the allies, push east and further beat the Nazis back towards

Germany. Did not know that until this week's research, fighting was intense. The Nazis had entrenched themselves in the port city of breast, allied soldiers like my grand uncle had to battle them back, taking over one occupied house at a time, this house to house urban warfare. Eventually, the old city of breast was raised to the ground during the battle with only some medieval stone built fortifications left standing. After the war the West German government paid reparations to civilians in breast who

have been killed, starved or left homeless because you know everything they had was just fucking destroyed. My grandfather showed me pictures and coins that he collected years later during his military adventures when I was a kid. Sitting in his living room, I'd often flipped through books to coin to kept from Africa, Japan, the South Pacific. I'd matched the currency to a country on the globe.

That was so cool. I'd been to so many places around the world. I still do. I'd only been to Idaho and to Alaska, where I'd lived from around the age of two to around the age of seven. That time, returning to Riggins, my parents divorced. My grandpa had been to multiple continents.

I remember thinking how funny some pictures were. He also kept from the war. Picture my pictures of my young pop award with a couple ladies in Japan that he seemed to have been very fond of. Women who were definitely not my grandma Betty, even as a little kid, I would think, does grandma know about these ladies? She like, is she okay with this? Do I have cousins?

I don't know about apparently at? She like, is she okay with this? Do I have cousins? I don't know about. Apparently at some point during the service, pop awards stayed in the same barracks as a man who would go on to become known as the man in black. Johnny Cash, he told this story a lot. Johnny Cash, the same age, also born in 1932. Cash was talking about music then, according to my grandpa,

talking about his big musical dreams and ambitions. Grandpa said he thought I was supposed to finish it. I was just a big talker. Cash would then release the huge country hit. I walked the line the year after grandpa got back home from the war. I guess Cash wasn't bullshit. I walked the line, stayed on the charge for over 43 weeks, sold over two million records that singled it.

When grandpa returned to the States in 1955, he returned to a little bit of a different financial picture than Johnny Cash did. He had been sending extra money home for years to his dad, so his dad could save that money for him so he could buy a car when he got back. Why did he send his money to his dad who he knew who his business shit? I don't know. Maybe some attempt at reconciliation he never said. What he did say was that his dad, Charter the Old Man Hall, drank it all the way and left him nothing. So for four years, came back didn't have a dime to show for it. and left him nothing. He served for four years, came back, didn't have a dime to show for it. Student after returning home, he ended up getting a job running heavy equipment again on a construction

crew. There was a big job near Riggins, Idaho, just north of town. There were little cluster houses known as Lucille on Highway 95. They were repaying the highway there. His brother, Tom, came to work with him and the two rented a house right across the street from where I went to grade school. Riggins, right by city hall. Working at the Summerville's diner in Riggins,

about a hundred yards down the street was a hot young waitress, my grandma Betty. Betty Burman, just 16 of the time. Grandma was 23 and the young bachelor was a frequent customer. Summerville's is still there, by the way. I'd be into the same counter where my grandma once served my grandpa food.

And when my grandma first noticed a young skinny veteran with a big grand big ears and the blue eyes She says he had a girlfriend some woman from council with a few kids She thought Ward and her were married. She asked him a third married one day when he was in there without her He said no Betty and her friend Venice same age. I remember Venice hanging out with my grandma all the time Venice passed away in 2016 and Betty and Venice they noticed Ward didn't come in a lot on the weekends So they asked him one time, you know where it was he or was he going? He said you know to council to date that woman

Grandpa or grandma excused me clearly interested in pop ward. It's some Luciferina in her She had him in her crosshairs and my grandma asked him why was he driving over an hour? Right to date someone. I always need dating somebody around town one of the girls there And she said because no one or he said because no one in town would go out with him. And so she said adorable. I'll go out with you. And she told me there was a dance that next weekend, 20 miles up the river of the Sam River at a little tavern by the mouth of French Creek. And pop-a-ward loved to tell the story of how they met. He loved to brag that grandma asked him out. He was, oh, real big on point that out. She asked me out.

She asked me. One of his favorite stories to tell. Always had a big shit eating grin. Telling that story. It's pretty cute. And he loved to point out that when they drove up the river, there was no dance. The dance had been called off for some reason or another.

The dance never happened with the date dead. He said that she just wanted to get him alone up the river. The two were in separate life for that. No more councilwoman. Thank God I wouldn't be here anymore if he would have stayed with her. When grandpa first dated grandma, the company he worked for, wanted to get him alone up the river. The two were in several after that. No more councilwoman. Thank God I wouldn't be here anymore if he would have stayed with her. When Grandpa first dated Grandma, the company he worked for wanted Grandpa to keep repaving

the highway with them and leave Riggins. Go further north up the road. He didn't do that. His brother Tom took the job instead. Ward took a job at the Slate Creek Somal, a little Somal 20 miles south of town just so he could stay in Riggins with Grandma Betty. She said about this, why do you say? Because pop-a-ward, she said, and she really emphasized this, really liked me.

Adorable. You sure did. He loved the hell out of his betty, and he never left Reagan's ever. Betty's parents, John and Stell, they liked pop-a-ward right away. My grandma said her parents liked him because he was kind and respectful. Grandma liked him because he had a huge dick. It's what she told me the other night on the phone. She would be, if she was listening right now,

she would be fucking slamming her phone down. Like, no, I did not say that. I would never say that. What, why would he say? No, she said, she liked it because he was very nice and respectful too. She said he was a gentleman. 1957, my grandma Betty graduated from San Marble High School.

In that may, I believe, maybe June. And then on August 24th, 1957, the two got married in Riggins. Took their little honeymoon right up here in Corde of Lane. Awards Brother Tom moved out of the house, the two of them shared, gramma Betty moved in, and they started saving up for their first house together. And before we go further into the history of pop award,

let's talk for a second about the town where they built their lives, where they raised their kids, where their daughter Charlene raised her kids, me and my sister Donna, I didn't know much about my hometown prior to this week, like as far as the history. And this is the last history lesson, by the way, the rest of it's just pop award info. Riggins today, this kind of shocked me, I dove into it. Only about 250 people left, 258 in 2019.

Head over 400 when I went to high school, over 500 when I was a little kid in grade school. It peaked out at around 600 to 1960. The US Census first took note of Riggins 1910. Just 60 people lived there at that time. 60 people lived with a little salmon river, flows into the main fork of the salmon. A lot less snow there,

the more grandpa grew up in Cascade. Sure, he loved that. Just 34 inches of snow per year, which seems high to me, actually. Most of the winter, no snow is on the ground in town, and rigans. And it's at the bottom of a little canyon. Only two months have an average low of at or below freezing. Just December and January, the bottom out, exactly at freezing, 32 degrees Fahrenheit. And July and August, the average low is just 65, and the average high is 95. It's hot over 100 on a regular basis, but it's pretty good weather-wise. A lot more snow and a lot colder weather, just a half hour south and an hour to the north on the only highway that cuts through town, high with 95, but rigging is like this little banana bell,

kind of a climate. Shout out to theiggins Chamber of Commerce and Harold Wisdom. Grandma Betty went to high school with his sister Betty Jane Wisdom for this next bit of info. Because previous info on the web, and this was just posted on the web like about a year ago. And previous to about a year ago, the best information you could find about the history of Riggins came from, one of my best friends, Dad,

who I won't name to embarrass him, but he was fucking way off. Like the accepted history of Riggins was off by a lot of the dates by I'm talking like 30, 40 years. The following is the best explanation of how Riggins came to be that I've ever heard. In 1863, Mike Deesey, a minor stepped on the way to that or stopped, excuse me, on the way to the boom town of Florence. I mentioned earlier. and the still barely around, you know, Goldstrike town of Warren, when there's a kid, to explore the bar. A bar in this context being an elevated region of sediment, such as sand or gravel that has been deposited

by Riverflow. At the confluence of the little and big salmon rivers where the town of the Riggins sits today, he found traces of gold on the north end of the bar, just not enough to keep him from heading on to Florence, heading on over. He continued to Florence, and then later at some point, he returned to the bar, just not enough to keep him from heading on to Florence, heading on over. He continued to Florence, and then later at some point he returned to the bar to do some place reminding, all he wintered his horses on the bar.

He laid claim to the entire bar from what was to become the eight-can-ranch, just south of town, along the little salmon river to what is now in North Riggins, at the northern end of the bar. He did some place reminding along the bar, wasn't sure what to do with his claim, didn't find enough gold to hold his interest, place reminding by the way is that classic old timey prospect of this gold-limb hills to have a money. Most people think of it as that practice

of like separating heavily eroded minerals, like gold from sand or gravel. It mean anything from using a gold pan, right, to sift through the water, get the gold out of there, to a screen to separate the sand from the gold, to a dredge that'll bring up sediment from the river bottom to sift and separate gold from everything else. People still have today, dredges running around riggins and the sand river, a few little claims burned into the mountains around town too.

Other than Mike Deese, no one dicked around looking for gold in the area that was to become riggins for about 40 years. And then in 1891, two men, Johnny Irwin and Charlie Clay were prospecting for gold in the area that was to become Reagan's for about 40 years. And then in 1891, two men, Johnny Irwin and Charlie Clay were prospect for gold on the Northern end of the bar. They thought they'd found promising ore, but they had to negotiate with Mike D.C. before working their site. Johnny and Charlie traded two spotted ponies and a watch for D.C.'s claim to the entire bar. I love it.

How much do I have for that claim, D.C.? Hmm. How does $ I have for that claim, DC? Hmm. How does $5,000 sound? I give you two spotted ponies on a watch and then, pfft, deal. 1893, Johnny Irwin's father, Isaac Irwin, Jr. sold his round Valley homestead for 180 bucks. Round Valley, about 10 miles south of the hall homestead.

Moved his family down to the little salmon river to the bar, the confluence of the big salmon river with his wife Mary and sons George, Byron, Noah, and Ike. They built their first house on the bar. I love that the original Irwin's homestead was just a few miles away from the Hall Homestead. Papa Ward would follow the Irwin's to Rickens about 60 years later.

The Irwin's enclaze realized that hydraulic mining was the only practical method of mining that bar in the north end of the claim. But there was no ready source of water where they wanted to mine for that purpose. So accordingly, they spent the next two to three years digging this large one mile and a half long ditch from Squaw Creek to what's called North Riggins to provide water to hydraulic to this hydraulic mine to mine the bar.

That ditch now runs across my grandma Betty's property. I played in it as a kid. Pop ward and grandma Betty's first home they owned together was in a little block of homes called North Riggins. I was born, my parents lived in North Riggins. That's where I spent most of my childhood. A ditch runs through North Riggins too, and I lost a lizard.

I caught by the high school and told myself with my pet. I called him Speedy, because he always tried to run away from me, probably because he fucking hated me. He wasn't a pet. I kept him on my shoulder and one day standing next to that ditch, he jumped off and killed himself. And John himself, and that was one of my worst memories. This kid was like, oh, Speedy hates me so much, he'd drown himself in the ditch.

A random memory, jogged by this story. Anyway, that ditch was dug with just a pick, shovel, and a horse. And then, unfortunately, the or content of the sand was maker and not worth the effort of digging that ditch. But now the Irwin's enclairs had a nice piece of land, had a ditch through it that could provide water for homes and crops. There's a 22 unit set of low income apartments in the middle of town now called the Irwin Center. My grandmother, he worked across the street from the Irwin Center at the post office for

about 30 years. My mom worked next door to the post office at the bank for almost 20 years. My brother Irwin's center named after this original settler. Johnny Irwin and Charlie Clay, I was friends growing up with the descendant of Charlie Clay. Thomas Clay lives in Riggins now, got a bus to them to school for years. Same bus stop, worked at the grocery store with his aunt. Johnny and Charlie decided to capitalize on the fact that the bar was the only sizeable piece of level ground along the river large enough to build stores, hotels, other businesses necessary to support a town. Dick Noah, Ike Irwin, Charlie Clay then took out homesteads on the bar. Dick homesteaded the north portion of the bar. Ike homesteaded

the south portion. Noah and Charlie homesteaded at the center of the bar, which now the business section of Riggins. If you've ever been to the Chevron station and Riggins, that's where Charlie Clay had one of the original houses in the area. More people soon moved into the area in the late 1890s, minors heading through town soon started settling down there, became a supply stop along the Sam and River for minors and loggers mostly. A man named Dick Riggins, fucking Dick Riggins, that's a powerful name. What's your name? It's fucking Dick Riggins! A lot of a testosterone in that name. He built a small hotel, library barn, on Charlie Clay's homestead, and soon filed open a post office.

And the post office needed a name for the town. And the name, a lot of people wanted to give the town, it was the name of the town at that time, as far as just what people would call it, was Gau-Gai. Riggins tried to be Gau-Gai. The origin of that name came from a Saturday dance. Some schoolhouse nearby when Homer Levanter and Big Markham, that's literally how his name is written in the history books. Big Markham, what's Markham's first name?

Big, why? You fucking know why. Only Big Markham could take down Dick Riggins. No, but these two guys got into a fight over a woman named Daisy Trumble. Oh, Daisy, what a looker. Markham was getting the best of the fight. He's a bigger man. Of course, he was. He's big Markham. And then Homer gouge says, I, some say gouge's a zycle clean out for a few years. The town was called gougeye. But the government was like,

we're not fucking giving a post office to a place called gougeye. So we're going to have to come up with a new name. And then the, uh, Dick Reagan suggested Irwin, uh, Clay, Clay Irwin bar. Those suggestions were rejected because apparently there were already little towns up by those names in the US, like a couple of each, which is crazy to me. And if I heard of towns by those names, uh, the Postal Department then suggested the name Riggins because there was only one town in Missouri by that name at the time. Uh, the towns people agreed, but it was going to be not in honor of Dick. This is made clear in the sources. It was in honor of Dick's father, John Riggins, who carried mail to the region for the past

couple of years. So 1902, Riggins opened a post office in Dick's hotel and named it Riggins. Riggins subsequently sold his hotel to another dick, Dick Irwin. Dick Riggins selling to Dick Irwin. I'll sell this hotel, but only to another dick. Dick Irwin and his wife, Leon, about it. Then the post Dick Erwin and his wife, Leonna, bought it and the post office was put under the supervision of Leonna in 1904. And then there was a town. Now it's a town.

People are ranching cattle, sheep, and the nearby mountains for food to be sold to various prospectors. When the National Forest Service Reserve was formed in 1897, there were already almost 14,000 headed cattle and 70,000 sheep permitted on the nearby Nez Perse National Forest.

Crops were being grown, wherever some flatland was found on the Sam River Canyon. As the area prospered, the need for lumber grew and the Sam and Rivers timber industry was born since it was easier to haul lumber than logs. Lumber was cut in the mountains packed out on horseback. Soon Roger built rough lumber was frayed into town. Eventually there were small sawmills up nearly every stream in Gulch, right? My grandpa would work at one of those at Slate Creek. When the advent of timber sales from nearby public lands in 1945 went down, the lumber industry

became the base for the area economy and remained so for many years. The sawmill having the greatest impact on Riggins was the salmon river lumber company originally started by George Jensen, right, right around 1945. Later Warren Brown developed a company located at the confluence of the little salmon and main rivers to include a sawmill, a shipping operation, planning mill, dry kiln, and logging operation. And that company was a community's major employer until 1982 when the sawmill burned down. And that's why the population's been decreasing.

It's like a whitewater rafting town now, but this doesn't have as many jobs as it did when there was the sawmill burned down. And that's why the population's been decreasing. It's like a whitewater rafting town now, but it just doesn't have as many jobs as it did when there was a sawmill. Warren Brown sawmill employed my dad at a time. I don't know, I mean, when he, I don't know what he's doing exactly there. Probably taking a lot of time off, to travel around the country and do God knows what,

you know, you get it. An employed pop award also his father-in-law, Grandpa John Burman, Grandpa Betty's father from Sweden, and John's brother Sig, and Oxel, Oxel, Oxel Burman. That guy, Betty's uncle. He would sell Pop-A-Word and Grandpa Betty to the land for their first house that they would own together.

And that guy terrified me as a kid. He was an old man, when I knew him as a kid. He always seemed grouchy. He was big. He was burly. He spoke with a really thick, Swedish accent. He seemed very serious all the time. And he had one arm, he'd lost an arm, and instead of having a shirt tailored, he was

sometimes just stuffed to sleeve without the arm in his front shirt pocket. And he was missing parts of three fingers on his remaining hand, and he just had a menacing presence. He lost his arm in the sawmill, got caught in the planer, he just shredded his arm, mangaled it into ground beef, barely survived the blood loss of that wound. Then he retires from the sawmill and then he takes up fucking woodworking. Put a table saw on his shop and he lost three different fingertips and three separate accidents

over their subsequent years, a few of his fingers down to the knuckle. Dude was the epitome of the stereotype of the stubborn, sweet that if I lost an arm in a sawmill accident, priority number one, numero uno, going forward, avoid, sauce, stay away from extra sauce at all costs. He clearly felt differently. And when you point you son of a bitch, you like to live dangerously.

On May 7th, 1958, my mom, scandal was born full term less than nine months after my grandma and grandpa got married, what the flipping fuck? So my grandma was pregnant on her wedding night, ugh, two horny kids were knocking it out. No birth control, a couple of raw doggers. Grandpa and grandma, raw dog, you get it. My mom was born, she's gonna fucking kill me

if you ever listen to this. I'll never be allowed to home. Pop ward was 25, Grandma Betty just 18. I hope she never listens to this, Jesus great. Around 1958, my grandma uses her waitress money to buy a small plot of land from her uncle, Oxl. Then Pop ward built him a house on the weekends. And evenings, he wasn't working into Somal.

Doug got the foundation and seller with a shovel, no back hoe, used his own back instead. Port the concrete himself, built the house himself, talk about sweat equity. Graham and Betty said he was always a hard worker. Everyone flailing around. She said she used her way to money by the house, Grandpa or Billed House. Two years later, 1960, one of my favorite stories for my family. Pop World Graham and Betty had their seconds and only child, my aunt, Stella Jean. How she was delivered is insane. Early in the morning of May 22, 1960, around 6 a.m., Grammy-Betty goes into labor with

her second and final child, she and my grandpa, grabbed my mom, Charlene, hopped in their 1950 Plymouth Coupe. They drop off Charlene at John and Stills, Grammy's parents, Warren Betty, then drive a little over 30 miles to New Meadows. Take a right. Stay on, you know, Highway 95, driving another seven miles to the Tamarack Saw Mill. Still was starting to come out of my grandma's vagina. So grandpa pulled over, ran over, knocked on the door of the owner of the mill's house.

I guess his house was attached to the mill, asked to use their phone to call an ambulance, and that son of a bitch wouldn't let him in. Wouldn't let him use the phone. Fucking shut the door on him. He was mad, I guess, because that guy, uh, because grandpa wore a fucking shut the door on him He was mad I guess because that guy because grandpa ward woke him up He was quote of no help. It's my grandma. What a dick You know what time it is buddy? Sorry my wife is having a baby in that car right now. Please it's a snowstorm My wife's having a baby the baby's coming out. Please use your phone and keep me awake longer. No, thank you

I'm gonna lay down and forget about not helping a young couple in need of a simple easy to accommodate favor. You can go fuck yourself. Slam. I was another 18 miles to council. This is a 20-minute drive to the hospital there, but that baby was coming out right now. My aunt was knocking on my grandma's door and by door, I mean, where her vagina ended and some other stuff began. I'm actually kind of starting to gross myself out now. They started driving and then now around 7 a.m. they pull over on the side of the road

and it turned out there had been a late winter storm. There's snow all over. Grandpa runs around, opens the passenger door, gets down on his knees in the snow, helps deliver the baby right there on the side of the road, uses his farm skills. I'm not even kidding. He hands grandma his daughter and still on bill of the court, still attached, tries to start the car. It will not start.

They're freaking out now. He tells grandma to hold her newborn baby scoot over to the driver seat. She holds a baby in one hand still attached to her while he runs around in the back to push the car to help get it started. Well, grandma uses her free hand to turn the key and pump the gas pedal. I punch you out with her foot. Obviously, the car starts. Grandma slides back to the passenger seat.

Grandpa drives her the rest of the way to council where he runs through the snow to ask for a nurse who then runs out of the parking lot to cut the umbilical cord in the car, how dramatic, it's like some nut of a movie. Grandma's then helped into the hospital where she stays for a few days. Grandpa left his car in the parking lot,

walks over to nearby hotels, stays there for a few days. He said he wasn't getting back into that car until grandma came back and cleaned up the fucking mess she made. Get out of there, lady. Clean up your blood and baby juice. It's not gonna clean itself. No, I'm kidding, that's terrible. No, he cleaned it up.

He never said a word about his gentleman. The two of them then decide not to have any more kids. I bet, they were traumatized. Grandma said they were both pretty shook up by that. Yeah, I bet. For the next 16 years, they raised both their daughters at home until my mom turns 18 and moves out. And they have a great life.

Grandma soon gets a job at the sum or grandpa, she soon gets a job at the sum in town and his commute goes from 20 miles to one mile. No stoplights, just one stop sign. They buy a few other lots in North Riggins over the years. Grandma, she works for the Forest Service then she works for the Post Office where then she works for the Post Office, where she'll work for about 30 years, great job.

Yeah, he builds these rentals by himself mainly, he ended up with five or six rentals in town, they take some family vacations, they get a few dogs, they play some cribbage, runmy, lots of board games in my family, a lot of yotsie. Grandma starts a weekly bridge game with friends that she still plays today. Grandpa quits smoking at the age of 36.

He'd started smoking at the age of 16. Grandpa bed is mother-in-law. Grandma Stella is silver dollar. He could quit just like that because she didn't like him smoking. So he did. And years later, he told Grandma Betty that he was pretty irritated. Grandma Stella still hadn't paid him that silver dollar. Grandpa fished a lot, bought a little booty-kipped tie to the bank of the Sam River below his

house. I caught a steelhead with grandpa and the river behind his house in that boat. Hunt a deer, he caught Sam and a trout, smoked them, tended to his vegetable garden, watched his kids grow. You couldn't get him to eat fish later in life because he said he ate too much from growing up because he was poor. He got him barest. When his wife wrestled his daughters in the living room, he would tell them to at least close the blinds for God's sake so the neighbors couldn't watch. Grandpa beddinged your two girls, you know, laughing and joking around all the time. Graham always watched him shaking his head. At some point, Graham became a volunteer EMT for a while.

Worked for a while as a city inspector. He was very active in the VFW hall there. Did a lot of fundraising for them. He became the mayor for a while. He would help with the Reagan's rodeo every year. He was a, he was the grand marshal the parade one year. He said there was no campaign to run for mayor

when he became mayor. He said a quote, he was just the only one dumb enough to do it. Interesting political fact about my grandpa, he was a lifelong Democrat in a town that bled and bleeds red. It's about 97% Republican. And mostly far right.

All the grandpa's friends and he had many all Republican and he would talk to them about politics at men's breakfast they had every week for years and years and they disagreed on just about everything political and they stayed friends. How about that shit? Turns out we don't have to hate those who disagree with us politically. We can actually not be petulant children and we can get along with people who have different political opinions. Who who does on get? My grandpa and his friends didn't tell anyone their political views. You would have guessed they weren't different, right?

They they looked pretty much the same. They had different ideas, different opinions of how things should be run, but they basically lived the same lives, had the same morals. Papa War was also the odd man out, religion-wise. A lot of his friends went to church. He didn't. On Riggins, he felt he saw too much hypocrisy with the religion going on there. There was the party hard bar crowd and the church crowd and they were the same crowd.

And then there was, you know, everybody else, go eat my grandpa told it to me. He would watch people, you know, go hard on the bars for a while, cheat on their spouses, ignore their families, waste money on party and then feel guilty about it, you know, then be threatened with divorce or get divorced or something, whatever. Then they get real into the church again for a while, get real holier than now with everyone, and then go right back to party. Just go back and forth for years. Meanwhile, with no church, Grandpa remained focused on family and kept his morals consistent. One Easter, he and Grandma, and the kids Charlene and Stell went to church in town, the assembly of God, where my other grandpa, Bill Cummins, my dad's dad, would later preach for many years.

When his family moved to town in the mid-70s, both he and his wife, my grandma Carol, buried not far from Papa Ward right now. And anyway, this service, the pastor made a point to thank the real Christians who supported the church all year long, didn't just come for Easter. And grandpa felt singled out by that, and so he just stood up, and everybody stood up, and they just walked the fuck out and never came back. He told me it made him feel kind of disgusted. To be judged by those who in his mind

were not following Christian ideals nearly as well as he was. Though he didn't need the passage approval, he was already living a righteous life. And dear Christian meat sacks, I do realize that the people my grandpa found hypocritical do not represent at all, all Christians. My aunt Stell, the one who got delivered in the car, she's very religious and never bothered

pop a word one bit. 1976 Warden Betty's eldest daughter, my mom Charlene, graduated from high school at age 18. She's already dating my dad Daniel Neil Cummins who's 22 and From what I understand who can't totally account for his whereabouts this year or the previous few years typical Take this out two years earlier nine women killed by Ted Bundy, Washington, Oregon. What state neighbors both of those states? What state is the only state to border both Washington, Oregon? Idaho. Where was my dad living in 1974? Idaho.

Did Bundy's victims look kind of like my mom? Yep. Did a young Ted Bundy look kind of like my dad when he was young? Mm-hmm. Do police make mistakes sometimes and attribute victims to the wrong killer? Yes. Do I think my dad is actually the guy who killed those Ted Bundy victims?

I'm not gonna say I think so, but I mean, I'll be fucking, you know, you laid out there like that. There's a chance. 1976 my mom, I don't know, that joke still hasn't got tired from me. 1976 my mom and dad get married, the year after graduation, on May 17th, 1977, I am born another weird birth in the family. I am barely born. I'm sure you've heard about babies who end up, you know, sometimes

tragically strangled to death when their unbilical cord gets wrapped around their neck. It is much more rare, but it sometimes happen, what happened to me when I was born, my dick got wrapped around my neck. And I couldn't breathe for a little while. No one remembers the exact number, but my baby dick was wrapped around my neck, and I couldn't breathe for a little while. No one remembers the exact number, but my baby dick was wrapped around my neck either three or four times, which I guess is kind of rare. No, I was born five.

Come on. I was born five. No, I was born with John Dis, because my mom wasn't taking vitamins or vegetables, probably. And then I was a formula fed baby, which is probably why I have allergy and digestive problems, and chronically we commune system, and a chronically weak immune system.

But I'm not upset about that. I said about mom. Pop award was apparently overjoyed. They now had a baby boy around. My mom and aunt still have teased me literally in my whole life that pop award, considering me more of a son, but a grandson and that he liked me more than them. Not kidding, it gets a little weird sometimes.

In my grandpa's defense, my mom and sister were shitty kids sometimes growing up. You know, they had to be spanked. I never had to be. I never could have my grandpa any trouble. So maybe if they wanted to be loved more, they should have been fucking cooler kids, you know? Think about that.

Take some responsibility for how you are as a kid. My grandma Betty also overjoyed to have a grand kid. I was apparently spoiled rotten as a baby by my grandparents who live just three houses away when I was born. My mom seems a little annoyed to this day that even as a baby, I seem to want to be around them

more than my actual parents, which would be pretty annoying as a parent. But maybe they should accept that they're parent game, right? Made life more fun for me at home. Not gonna get down on the floor and play with me lady. Not gonna make me a nummy lunch or a tasty dinner, huh? Dad, not gonna play hide and seek, lawn boeing in the yard.

Not gonna read me some cool stories when they go fuck yourselves. I'm off to pop award and grand bb. And all seriousness, they really did do it on me. I don't have any memories of hanging out with pop award before my dad took off to Anchorage, Alaska. When I was two, and then my mom and I fall not long after, but I know we hung out a bunch.

I do have a box of postcards somewhere. My grandma write me postcards all the time when I was a little kid. Once I did go to Alaska, pretty adorable. Sometime around the end of 1979, beginning in 1980, my mom and I leave Riggins to head up to Anchorage, live with my dad. My dad was alone up in Anchorage. This is interesting. In late 1979, 80, did you know that five women were apparently killed by the butcher baker, serial killer Robert Hansen? Five women from Anchorage, young women. Do you know that my dad was really into young women at that time?

It is unreal. How often this stuff comes up when you really look into it. One woman went missing on June 28th, 1980, whereas my dad that night, well, your guess is good as mine. Anyway, pop award and gram of betty would head up to visit a few times over the next few years. My mom and I would then head back down to Riggins for long summer breaks.

During one of those early summer breaks, I had my first memories of pop award. My mom and I spent summers at pop awards in Greenwich House, and I remember him taking me fishing in lost valley reservoir. He called it Lost Lake, or sorry, Lost Lake reservoir. I was confused with Lost Valley, but Lost Lake, about 45 miles from Riggins down high with 95 to Tamarack, right, where that fucking guy wouldn't let him in that one night. Uh, I remember trolling in a little fishing boat he had catching trout and catching tadpoles long as shore.

I bought a bunch of those tadpoles home one summer, put them in a kitty pool in the backyard and they grew up and came froggs and hopped away. It's pretty cool kid experience. August 1st, 1982, my sister Donna is born in Anchorage and apparently I was furious, which was brought home from the hospital. I demanded that my parents take her back and they did not and still a little annoying. Now I'm mostly okay that we kept her. She's pretty good.

1984, my parents split up, my mom moved, my sister and I back with her to Riggins, Idaho, my dad stayed in Anchorage. Five different bodies attributed to serial killer Robert Hanson found in Alaska in 8485. You know, when he was kind of upset about the divorce, so that's also pretty weird. Pop award, him being the rock of the family. My first memory of him comes from my final days living in Anchorage. The first memory of him being like the rock of the family. He was 42 years old and 84, bit younger than I am now, which is so weird for me to think

about. He took time off work, flew up by himself out of Boise into Anchorage. I was a dad his boy in Alaska. I wanted to stay with my dad after the divorce, but that's just not how things were gonna go down. I was confused. I didn't know any other kids whose parents had been divorced. When I went back to Riggins,

I was actually the only kid in the grade school, as far as I can remember, who's parents were divorced. He was in third grade when I went back, but my grandpa, he knew divorce, and he knew how to console me, right? console me like his shit head dad never consoled him. He was such a rock. He took Don on me to my favorite restaurant, Skippers,

French fries and clam chowder. I was quite a culinary sophisticated. He took me to Fred Myers, my favorite store, got me some GI Joe action figures, maybe a he-man or two. Amazing how much that cushioned the blow a bit. Then he packed on my mom and my sister stuff into a U-Haul trailer and drove his daughter

and grandkids back to Rigids, 2,600 miles. I remember laying on the back seat, while my sister laid on the floorboards, remember driving up and down some pretty steep mountains on a pretty skinny highway being real nervous. A grandpa never seemed nervous. He always drove the family on trips. He always felt safe with him behind the wheel.

Listen to a lot of Oak Ridge boys. That trip. Elvara. My heart's on fire. Elvara. I remember that breakdown. It was a giddy up, a umbap, umbap, umbap, umbap, umbap, umbap, umbap, umba, Oomba, Oomba, Oomba, Oomba, what happened to the Oak Ridge boys? Grandpa never caused a wreck, never gotten a wreck driving. He actually never got a single speeding ticket for parking for action's entire life, about 70 years of driving. We got back home to Riggins, I missed a hell out of my dad, but I loved living with Grandpa. Pop-board gave me a BB gun, put me on patrol, on a deck, he had off the backyard, overlooked in Sam River flanked by some big pines.

I was told to shoot any woodpeckers on site and not to get caught, because it was a big fine to get caught student woodpeckers. But they picked a hold in the roof of the shop and they were on the to be killed, to be cold. They were his emuse. I soon learned that woodpeckers pretty hard to kill.

Daisy air rifle, tough little birds, robbins, not so much, poor Robbins. They just wanted to worm and then they got fucking shot. They got sniped, right? By corporal commons, sitting on the deck. Graham at that time was working in a construction with a man named Mike Gazzinski, a dirty pole. God, Mike had a daughter Michelle in my class, another daughter Crystal, few years older.

I had crushes on both of them. Beautiful girls became beautiful women. I have long been tormented and attracted to the dirty pulse. Funny that I ended up marrying a scheme. My grandpa used to love to tease Mike, who is his best friend at the time, this Poloq jokes. Definitely got some of my ridiculous stupid humor from my grandpa word. Here's the first joke I can every member learning. This is a joke I remember my grandpa telling Mike Zinsky.

He said, two pollocks were out hunting deer, way out in the woods. The first afternoon, one of them starts feeling sick to the stomach and he heads back to camp to lay down, wait for some gas, some cramp into pass. Second one keeps hunting. Sure enough, he soon shoots himself a buck and he hauls it back to camp.

When he makes it back, he finds that the first pollock is out cold snoring away. And that second pollock decides to play little prank on him. So he guts which somehow doesn't wake him up, which makes even less sense. It's not really a prank at this point. It's just really nasty and disturbing, but that's how the joke went. So he pushes his guts under a sleeping friend. It doesn't wake up. And then he goes back to hunt. You know, because apparently they're really good at it. And then he's like, I don't know, I'm not sure if I can do it. I'm not sure if I can do it. I'm not sure if I can do it. I'm not sure if I can do it. So it pushes this guts under a sleeping friend.

Doesn't wake up. And then he goes back to hunt. You know, it's because apparently they were poachers and then they decided to get more of the one deer piece. He comes back a few hours later near sunset, finds the first Polo sitting on a log, round a fire he'd made, big grin on his face. And that first Polo who was sick says,

oh man, you would not believe what happened when you were gone. Turns out I was a lot sticker than I thought. I laid down and take a nap. And then when I woke up, I realized I'd shit out all my guts. And then with the help of this trusty stick, I got them all back in. That's it. That's the whole joke. Get it?

You should have the whole bunch of deer guts up his ass with a stick. Why would you think that was okay to do? Because he's Polish. Because he, you know, cause he's a stereotype. Is cancel culture gonna now turn on me for retelling a soul pole out joke? He's his friend in mind, Mike Zinski just shook his head and said, oh, ward, maybe not the best joke,

but it made Mike and Pop-Award laugh, and made me laugh as a kid, dude. Made me laugh when I thought back on it, wrote it into my notes. Pop-Award loved a good joke. It worked real hard, but it never took life too seriously. Around that same time, I also made my grandpa laugh harder than I'd ever seen him laugh before.

I like to watch cartoons as a kid. Of course I did. I was a kid. When the school bus dropped me off in front of Pop-Award and Graham and Betty's house after school and like third grade, all the way through eighth grade, my routine was out. Grab a snack, almost always rich crackers, cheese.

I would lay in front of the TV and watch some cartoons. And one of them was Loni Tins. And Tom the cat, one cartoon, he's chasing Jerry the mouse, but he steps on a rake. And it pops up and it flattens his face. And I thought, I wonder if a rake would really do that.

Would it really pop up like that? So the late one afternoon, I tried to play a dirty trick on a neighbor kid, and leave I. I don't remember a lot about leave I. He only lived nearby for maybe half a year. The main thing I remember about him is the 80s own boogers. I know because he told me, he showed me one day. He was like, you know, you need boogers. I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, watch. And you picked a booger out of his nose and you ate it. I just thought, like, I probably should never

high five this kid again. Probably not going to be real good friends. And we weren't. But this one day invited him over. I'd hidden a rake, some tall grass around the shade, around the back of Grandpa's house. And I talked him into racing, he'd 10 laps or something around the house, just some nonsense kid shit. And each lap I would try to steer him into stepping on that rake, and he never did. And then that bugger eater whized up,

and he realized what was happening, and he got mad and he stomped off, went home. So now I still didn't know if a rake would pop up and smack you in the face like he did on that cartoon. So now I laid that rake out in the backyard, on the sun, I started stepping on it, cautiously at first, with one arm raised. The catch it should have pop up.

But it didn't budge, didn't pop up. I thought I had a bum rake. So I started getting frustrated. So I started stepping on it harder, harder, still nothing. I get really frustrated. Pretty soon, I jump up in the air, stomped down on the rake with both feet, forget to put my hands up.

And that son of a bitch hit me in the fucking head. So hard. It flattened me out of my back like like cartoonishly. Like arms out, almost knocked me unconscious. I was seeing stars in a lump formed on my forehead almost instantly, right? I ran in the house crying, told my grandpa what had happened. And he was like, you what? And I told him again.

And then he just laughed the hardest I had ever seen a grown man laugh. Oh my God, my grandma gave me some ice, you know, put on my head and life went on. Pop award, not one to feel sorry for you, if you did something stupid like that, or if you fell down, my first instinct when somebody falls down is to laugh.

Grandpa's first instinct was just to shake his head and be disgusted with you. I'd be mad at you for hurting yourself. That was the exception to the rule I guess, the rake. I'm not known now as a big nurture in the family. Like, if you have a legit reason to cry, something related to some big emotional event, okay, I get it. But most of the time, I'm just annoyed.

I'm more of a suck it up than a cry it out type of person. I get that from Pop Award. This is a story my sister decided to share with me to share on this talk about pop award. One of her favorite stories illustrating this. Grandport and Grandfibetti, it would drive out into the mountains all the time when they were married. They would still do that well into his 80s to go get wood for his wood stove.

Go cut down a tree with a chainsaw, chop it up and carry in the truck. He didn't have his 80s. So he and Grandfibs out in the middle of nowhere, out to Sam River. She's down at the base of the hill by the truck. He's in his 80s. So he and Graham's out in the middle of nowhere, out to Sam and River. She's down at the base of the hill by the truck. He's up way above the road. He haulers down for her toss in the oil can for his chainsaw. And Graham's not known to have a good arm. My sister and her play on the same cornhole team

for a little family get together. And they are fucking ridiculously bad. Like they're like, how is it even possible to be that bad? How can you not throw a thing even 10 feet in front of you? My sister has the upper body strength of a normal person who has just had both of their arms like severely broken. I'm pretty sure she's never been able to do literally

one push up in her whole life. And she gets that from my grandma Betty, neither winning any arm wrestling tournaments anytime soon. And this day, grandma tries to throw that oil cane up the Hill to pop a ward. He's up to mount in the way, so she plans her feet, winds up, flings her with all her might,

and it goes up behind her. And that makes her laugh. He's not to mount in the way so she plans her feet, winds up, flings with all her might and it goes up behind her. And that makes her laugh. He's not amused. She's just staring at her dead pant annoyed. So she grabs again, now she's laughing. Tells her not to worry. She's gonna get it this time. She winds up. This is a woman in her late 70s. Goes to throw it. Somehow flings the can further behind her and flings herself back on the ground. And now she's laughing so hard she She has tears running down her face. He doesn't even crack a smile. She eventually gets up, goes to grab the oil, she doesn't come to check on her, doesn't

make sure she's okay. She grabs the oil can, they, they, you know, brings up the hill to him and then they, you know, make it home with their wood haul a little bit later. Later grandma is telling the story to Donna and grandma is laughing so hard she can barely get the words out. Tears in her eyes again. Donna is also cry laughing. They're both dying. Pop awards and the recliner sit next to them listing still can't see the humor in it. He finally mutters totally disgusted. Well,

grown ass woman can't even throw a can and he gets up one's off into the kitchen. And then that made Donna and grandma laugh even harder. They're like almost on the floor again. He just shook his head and his disgust and just left the house for a little bit. He didn't think that was funny, but he did have a sense of humor. He liked a good practical joke. The best one he ever pulled that I know of by far went down around 1985-1986 when he was eight or nine. He was 43-44 years old.

He was about my age now. He had little rental homes and riggins on one spring day. After one of his tenants moves out, he finds a marijuana plant, the guy's bedroom, or his grandpa would call it some wacky tobacco. And he signs to use this wacky tobacco to mess with his friend and neighbor who lived two houses down the street. Buckhorn. Buckhorn Lawrence. Buckhorn was a character, as you might imagine, based on a guy being called Buckhorn.

Not sure what his real name is. Everyone just knew him as Buckhorn. And if you forgot his name, it was easy to remember it, because you could just look at his belt buckle and it would say buckhorn on it He always wore blue jeans cowboy boots big ass belt buckle, you know some kind of western shirt cowboy hat often drove a log and truck for Robinson log and Like a lot of people around Reagan's ride grew up for whatever reason he despised hippies Wacky to backy he thought that was a hippy drug, so he hated it.

One thing he didn't hate was his vegetable garden. He grew like my grandpa did, you know, like corn, potatoes and stuff, tomatoes. And in some hidden part of the garden, Grandpa Ward planted that marijuana plant. He assumed buckhorn would soon find it and be a little bit annoyed, but not too annoyed. Oh, he didn't. That plant grew all summer. Pop-board later said he was going to tell him about it, but then it was just, it was too big. It was huge. He was afraid it was really going to piss him off. So then

it just keeps growing. And Pop-board started getting a little nervous for Buckeorn. Since growing weed and Idaho, you know, it's still illegal, but it was like more illegal than. This is during like the Nancy Reagan War on Drugs, Idaho era. And in Idaho County Sheriff's Deputy lived across the street from Buckeorn. Despite all that, Pop-board at the end ended up taking the joke even further. He bought a bumper sticker that said a friend and a friend with weed is a friend indeed. And he slapped that on the back of Buchorn's big duly GMC Sierra or Ford F350 or whatever truck.

And Buchorn drove around town with that bumper sticker, a friend with weed is a friend indeed for over a week. And then one day, this is like one of my favorite memories from childhood. It's so crystal clear in my head. I was laying down in the living room, front of the TV, watching right in those cartoons. Grandpa's watching, you know, stuff with me. You know, before dinner, sitting there,

crying, all of a sudden, I hear this booming voice yelling from down the street, word, word. God, dammit, we need to talk. Word, get out here. My grandpa perks up out of the reclining and he goes, Danny, get up and lock the door. That's what I did. I don't know what the hell is going on.

I'm kind of afraid. And then as Buckhorn is storming up the driveway to the front door, Grandpa yells, I'm making a close of curtains. So I run over, I close the curtains as this angry, red-faced giant belt buckled cowboy logger dude storms up and then starts pounding on the front door. My grandpa is nervous laughing.

His buckhorn is just still you know, word, I know you're in there. Then after maybe 30 seconds, buckhorn gives up, walks back home. I just remember what the hell's going on. Like again, I'm scared and he tells me the story. I thought it was so funny then and I thought I think it's funnier now. He told me that he would go talk to buckhorn after he had time to calm down for a few days and he did and eventually went back to being buds. Pop-word man. He made life fun. He loved to joke and tease and get a rise out of people. He loved to say something crazy, then turn to me and wink and laugh.

So hard at himself. Man, laughter. Not taking life so damn seriously. Man, that's so healthy. Right? There's a lot of tense, outraged culture web trolls out there right now, and they could use some pop award, right? Maybe pull that big, unnecessary indignation, easily offended stick out of their asses.

Around this time, I auditioned to help and mold my sense of humor pop award also help mold my work ethic. Who knows what I wanted at the time when I was a kid? You know, like comic books, grocery store, toys, video games, something. I wanted to buy people presents on their birthdays, my own money, Christmas presents, whatever. I could be a pretty sweet kid. And Grandpa gave me a job to make money

so I could do that. Grandpa first paid me a trim ahead in the front yard, with some old school, giant scissor-looking hedge clippers. Take me forever to do it. I felt proud of myself when I was done. I got a couple bucks. They gave me five bucks to moe and weed eat the lawn. When I had to pick some of the weeds by hand,

and then when I wanted to make more money, he had me talk to a variety of neighbors. The neighborhood asked if I could mo their yards. Some gave me five bucks, some of the less, some a little more, pretty soon I was mo and I don't know, four or five, six yards a week. Thank you so much. Grandma Betty got me a bank book,

taught me how to make deposits, how to save, how to spend, all right, make sure I could save up for what I wanted. So simple, them doing this, but so valuable. Like, if no one ever teached about money, like working money as a kid, how are you supposed to be responsible with an instant adult? Grandpa kept working with Mike Zinsky until the mid 90s

when he was in his mid 60s, then he retired, sort of 10 into his rental properties more, 10 into his vegetable garden more. In the mid 90s, he moved into the house that Grandma Betty lives in now, that once he grew up in, he helped take care of his mother-in-law for the final 10 plus years of her life. Graham was still, she could be cranking his hell.

And he never complained, not that I heard. He did sometimes pinch her butt when I was around. And then he would laugh and wink at me after she turned and hit him and cursed him in Norwegian. And she would laugh too and tell him that he was crazy. Inappropriateness is definitely my jeans. We're a big butt slapping, butt-pinge family. Pop award, Graham and Betty gave each other

or gave each of their grandkids some money for college. Over the next several years, I would have never studied abroad for a semester without them. They bought each of their daughters new cars, Subaru Outbacks three times over over the years. They drove to Jackpot in Nevada several times a year to play the slots at cactus peets. When a travel casino opened your Lewis Idaho, they drove there a few times a year. When they

added a travel casino at Wurley about a half hour south of Sucked Dungeon, you know, a little over 10 years ago, they started driving there. And his grandkids who wanted to come along and hang out with them or any grandkids who wanted to come along and hang out with them, we would get to have our own hotel room to sleep in some cash to play with so we could sit next to them, play the penny slots, they loved it. Grandpa would hit a $500 jackpot, it was like he wanted to fucking $10 million. He'd be so happy. He'd be grinning for hours.

If he was on a losing streak, he'd be just a couple hundred dollars down, well, then they were going home early and he would complain for weeks about how they tightened up the machines they were cheating and he was never going to go back and then he would go back Uh, he never got tired of trying to beat the casinos You know, also never gambled more than he could afford to lose They were always quick to point that out. All right. That is set amount of money when that was gone I was gone Uh, that they were gonna gamble with that weekend or whatever

He sat near his grandma Betty. They would play together like uh, you know, like the two kids who've been married over 60 years earlier Grandpa having a beer grandma having an Emirate home coke, they'd laugh and enjoy each other's company, like they'd done, you know, after those first dates, after they met at Summerville's. He wasn't always annoyed with her for not being able to throw a can up the hill of oil.

They'd hold hands when they'd walk back to their room, then they'd cuddle up in bed. I don't know how grandma slept around him. That he would snore loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. And then this past summer, outworked in the yard like he done thousands of times before he suddenly fell down and lost consciousness.

Came to, had to be helped to the house. Seems that he probably had a minor heart attack. Maybe a stroke we never found out for certain, but he was never the same after that. He lived a really good healthy life, right up until that very lucky. And then he had to try and jump through some hoops because of COVID to get more doctors appointments.

It was a huge crazy pain in the ass one of her months. His legs kept growing weaker and weaker until he could barely walk our family rallied around him took a lot of trips to Wrigans last year to help him with the yard work, which he hated. He hated seeing others do his work work to find so much of him. Doctors finally found out that his heart wasn't pumping near the amount of blood it was supposed to around his body. At some clogged arteries turned out he had been born with a heart defect and he had powered past it and outworked almost to everyone around him

despite that for about 88 years. Now he needed three different heart valve procedures to get his legs working again and also have some arteries cleaned up to get his mobility back. He was ready for all that. He wanted that. He wanted that. He wanted the operations, no fear.

But then a few months before he passed, they found cancer in his lungs. And then it was game over. They couldn't operate. Doctors gave him maybe a year or longer to live, but Grandpa had other plans. Once he found out he couldn't get surgery, he was pretty much done.

I remember my great-grandma being the same way in my family. Once her health started to go a little bit, she'd been alone. I remember telling her one time, she was like 95, I'm like, get her, make 200. And she literally said, she goes, why? She goes, my friends are dead. My husband's dead.

Every morning I wake up and I'm like, why am I still here? I know that it was kind of dark, but also I'm like, yeah, it's kind of best case scenario to make it to that point. You know, grandpa, once he found out he couldn't be operating, he didn't want to be around anymore. He told me once, a couple of months before he passed, he goes, Danny, this is no way to live.

I'm ready to go. When I asked him once how he was doing near the end, he just laughed and goes, not good, dying. Last time I saw him this past November, he had a hard time standing up and embarrassed him. He was weak, it was hard to see. He'd always been so strong. He pulled me in close for a hug. Last standing up and embarrassed him. He was weak, it was hard to see. He'd always been so strong. He pulled me in close for a hug.

Last time I hugged him. The last time I talked to him person, and he said, enjoy your life. Man. Man, how powerful is that, right? He's thinking about me living as he's dying. Whew, well. Thought I was gonna make it through this one. Living is he's dying. Whew, well. Ah.

Thought I was gonna make it through this one. Everyone listening, you should try and do the same, right? Live while you have life, you know? Best case scenario, one day, you'll be where he was at just a few months ago. The Reaper doesn't take days off, he's always waiting. So while the sun still shines on you, right? Whenever you can like, uh,

uh, you know, get a little moment of happiness, you fucking take it, steal it. Well, you can still suck air into your lungs. Enjoy your life, meat sack. That's what Pop War was saying to you. Enjoy your life. Whatever hand you're dealt with, deal with it, work with it. That's the only hand you got. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. And once again, I thought this was going to be a short episode this week. I just can't help myself, apparently. More, I thought about pop-a-war, the more stories just kept floating up. This could have been a six hour episode. I could have talked about how much you enjoyed Sharon Food with his family, right?

How he loved, I love Pickling cucumbers. You grew those in his garden too, bottling fruit, drying fruit. I guess this is what you call it. I dehydrate it, dehydrate it maybe, making jams and jellies. You grew pears, plums, peaches, nectarines, love can in peaches and pears. Man, pop awards, peaches. And his pears were delicious. Codderman roe loved them when they were little.

They loved playing a game of rummy, give me yotsy with the family around the table. Oh man, if he was winning, same big ass grin, like he was winning the casino. If grandma was beating him, he would have joked that she was cheating. He seemed to actually convince that she must be cheating to beat him.

He loved building these little stone churches. He would give to everybody. Oh, we got several of them in the house right now. Funny, how he wasn't religious, but he built these little stone churches he would give to everybody. We got several of them in the house right now. Funny how he wasn't religious, but he built these little stone Christian churches, by little figurines to kind of decorate them with, create these little scenes, you got way into that for years.

Love going on a long walk and love telling you that he could out walk you. He'd still do that when he's in his 80s. All right, how you doing? I'm fine. He'd say, I'm good. I could walk a couple more miles. He hated laziness, hated laziness,

hated people who were mean to their kids, are not there for them. I think you know why. He loved a good nap and his recliner, and he could fall asleep so fast, he could be talking in one moment and then just sound asleep the next. When I asked him how I could take a nap so easily,

he once said, it's easy to sleep when you got a clean conscience. More good advice. He loved music. He's a listening music a lot, but he did love it. He loved going to old time fiddlers, kind of a little get-together, so it would swing through town sometimes. Fats Domino was his favorite blueberry hill.

He seemed to be his favorite song. He also loved Willie Nelson. I loved to watch the Atlanta Braves play baseball. The boy, State University Broncos play football. I like to watch the news. I like to shake his head at the state of the world outside of Riggins. And before I wrap up this suck of his life, my sister Donna has another story about pop words you'd like to share, to show who he is.

She said, when she was little, my sister loved pop word and Graham and Betty's house, just like I did. After he moved to Riggins, moved out of their house into a house just across the road from them, one they owned. They really became extra parents to us both. Donna used to get confused, accidentally called Grandma Betty mom. We're there so often, I'm sure our mom love that. Donna would sit on his lap when she was little, flip his comb over over his head,

I kind of hit a comb over so many years. It would dangle down the right side of his face and then she would braid his hair. I did that too. He was very tolerant of all that. He loved to have both of us on his lap. He would give Don the occasional sip of Keystone light. If Don had an extra bad day in kindergarten or first grade, you would head to Papa's house, tell him about it first before mom got home from working in the grocery store, like when she got in trouble for grabbing boys by their shirts and spinning them around as fast as she could, flinging them across the grass because they made her mad at recess. Then he would tell her not to worry about it, not let those boys be mean.

They would send her across the road to go play with her best buddy, Leah Katharman, and then they had a system. She would go play, and then when mom came home, he would stop over at Grandpa's house first, and then he would smooth things over with mom and make her swear that Donna wouldn't get in trouble. And then Donna would call the house

to make sure the coast was clear, and then she would come home to Papa's house. For our mom, it was infuriating, but as a kid, it was pure gold. After her first year away in college, Donna came back home, lived in Graham and Papa's bunk house where Graham from Frank lived at one point, great, great, great, great, Graham from Frank, my God, over summer break. She was working construction with her dad, but she wasn't really built for it.

You heard about her, of her body strength. She came home after the first day of hard labor, battling young boys at the job site, completely covered in paint. She had been paying ceilings, working in his labor all day, and she was near tears. She was so sore, popping new that. He didn't have to be told that her pride was on the line or that it mattered. He barely chuckled when she got home, let her by the hand to the shed out back, scrub her down with turpentine.

No words were exchanged, right? They didn't talk. She tried not to cry at a frustration. They laughed a little and then he handed her a keystone light. He was good that way. He knew what it was like to be the underdog to hold your pride together with the value of hard work. Wasn't something to be mocked.

Something to be quietly respected. Also, it's a value of an ice cold shit cheap beer on a hot summer day. You get the fridge stock for the rest of the summer. She still drinks a keystone light on occasion, but it has to be a wicked hot day after a hard day's work outside. So thanks for sharing that, Donna.

Pop award, you tell me you're a good man, Charlie Brown. If so, I learned from one of the best. I was talking to that day with Joe and Zach here, Reverend Dr. Scrib Keeper here in the stock dungeon about parenting, about what makes a good parent. And we arrived at this point about how a lot of it boils down to respect. I mean, not always, of course, there's going to be aberrations some kids have developmental

situations, behavioral problems, but for a lot of kids, it boils down to respect. If you don't live a respectable life, why should your kids respect you? They're not going to listen to you as much if they don't respect you. That old adage do as I say, not as I do. I always thought that was bullshit because it know, because it is. Grandpa never had to get after me. When I was around him, I always told the line he set, far worse than a spanking or a grounding for my parents was a disgusted look of disapproval from pop award.

That shit killed me because I respected him so much, right? It meant so much to get, you know, to have him respect me. I told him as much a year ago, Lindsey encouraged me to tell Pop-Award and Graham and Betty how much they meant to me before it was too late. I'm so glad I did. They told me a mom later, you know, about me, them cry. So tell your Pop-Award and Graham and Betty's, if you got them, tell them how much they matter to you or the other people in your life, right? You never know when it's going to change. So, Hail Pop-Award, my Nimrod set you on some kind of cosmic throne, my lucid fiend to comfort you until Grandma Betty joins you.

Bojangles be extra good. You can't stand a disobedient dog. And triple them. Take a set break. We love you, but he prefers fat stomato and some blueberry hill. Time for today's top five takeaways. Time, suck, top five takeaways. Number one, 1894. That's when Nashville's Samuel Hall got his homestead Top five take away. Number one, 1894.

That's when Nashville's Samuel Hall got his homestead land title for 160 acres near and now partially under Cascade Lake. About three decades after that first white man, Packer Johnny, Packer Johnny, 102 Valley counties, Long Valley. Number two, May 22nd, 1960. That's when my aunt was born in the passenger seat of a 1950, P with coupe on the side of the road between New Medos and council. Pop award helped deliver her. Uh, grandma Betty had to then turn the key as she held her baby born into a few minutes earlier while pop award pushed the car through this snow to help

start it. Number three, pop awards dad, my great grandpa Charlie was a colossal asshole and his self is drunk. Fuck him. Number four, lead by example. You want others around you to raise their game, raise your own game first. You can't command respect if you're not respectable. Looks like that's straight from Pop-A-ward. Number five, new info. Jamie Jean and Elliot Davis, two awesome dudes living out in Nashville, have been filming

a documentary on time stuff. Filming footage for a couple years now. At some point it will be released. We have no idea when. But the interview to pop board and Grammy-Betty to see what they thought about me a little over a year before he passed. So meet the man, the myth, the legend. Here are a few minutes from the two most influential people in my life.

We've had a very good relations with our grandkids, especially with Danny. He was always called him a motor mouth when he was younger. That's all he did, that's talk. Easy. He's a good, shoddy mouth. Easy. Must've got it from his mother. Who blame her anyway? He lived down the street. Down the street from his wife and Regan's. I used to call him the absent-minded professor. He would come up and get a house key, forget to bring it home.

I don't know how many we've made. Or many raised Dan. I mean, they were just so much a part of his everyday life. Breakfast in their house, lunch at their house dinner, and their house just like this. I basically raised him there for a few years. Well, both of them, how many of us died our sister too, for about three years. We just treated him like anybody else.

We don't think of him at some time. We don't think of him as a celebrity. No, as somebody else. He's a damn grand kid. Yeah. Danny's high somebody else. She's a damn grand kid. Danny's high school graduation. Yeah. That was, you know, when they walked down the aisle, he was a soldier. And my mother when she was sitting by me and I never noticed, because they were walking

with the camera and she said said look at Danny. He doesn't have any shoes on. They had their gowns on. And they had their boxers shorts on. They had the rigans that had never seen anything like that before. I was weirdo. You want to ask him about it. So what's the first that you hear of him doing comedy? Well, I was kind of worried about it because you know, it had to be some rough spots. And I still worry about him, you know, all that flying on the everything, you know, I don't know, is you just can't help it or worry about him a little bit. I know he's alright, but he's still there. We haven't seen too much. Well, I've just been one of the world twice, and then the boy he wants to see him once said and some of the language he uses

We're not used to that of course, they don't bother me, but you know enough some I totally one time tell me you can be funny without using that app word What do you think? He said I like to say it. You know, he's made a good living, you know, so we appreciate that. And we supported for what it does. And he's a very much a family man. And he's very conscientious and he's thoughtful.

You know, he never forgets Warts birthday and my birthday. These sounds are Kyler Monroe playing with Pop Award. I got you now. Come back here. Come back here. Come back here. I still to this day don't know where those keys went. It's a mystery. It's a fan mystery. It must have lost at least ten of them.

He didn't care for the profanity, but he did care for me. And yeah, me and Ryan Shaw, yes, we did flash the town's focal rigans. One of my many questionable decisions, my youth. I do like to say the F-word still. I really do. Thank you everyone for listening to that. That was, that was pretty special. Time, suck. Top five takeaway. Pobble Ward has been sucked. 1932 to 2020, gone, but certainly not forgotten. Thanks to the Spacesers for voting that topic in. You know, it really kind of forced me to look at his life

in a way I honestly probably would have never done had you not voted that topic in. Just because you know, we get busy, you know, you focus on work, different things. It was, yeah, especially this week. Come on. All right, thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help making time. So Queen of Bad Magic Lindsey Commons, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, the Scripkeeper's Act

Flannery, Sophie the Facts, Orser 7s, Biddelixer, Logan the Art Warlock, Keith, Run of Bad Magic Merch.com, working on the socials with Liz Hernandez. And again, the new Improved Customer Service email stored badmagicproductions.com. Still hoping to get the cold to the curious private Facebook page back online. Fucking Facebook, goddamn, I've had so many fucking Facebook problems this past week. Talk and what's some people at Facebook?

They're very nice. But they've got a lot of fucking rules right now. They're very confusing. Wish we could speed things along. Now, shifting gears big time. Next week, not gonna be an emotional episode. For me, at least, I'm gonna be sucking a serial killer. Again, we're gonna go to crime.

Again, with a little-known serial killer named Kerry Stainer, aka the Yosemite Killer. You may have heard of his brother, Steven Stainer, who was the kidnapping victim of Kenneth Parnell and notorious pedophile, who kept Steven for seven years captive. Such a weird convergence of stories. Meanwhile, Kerry grew up in a home that was physically

together but emotionally broken while his brother was away, he would receive no counsel from his parents about his missing brother. And to make things even worse, he would later claim to have been molested by an uncle when his brother was missing, when Kerry was 11, so much going on in one family. It's a crazy story. Kerry's only refuge from the pain in his life was Yosemite,

the park where he felt at peace and nature alone. He camped and hiked and seemed to find some stability, but the tragedy would continue outside of the park with Stephen Dine and early death. And Keri's uncle, the one who molested him, getting murdered. When Keri was living with him, please still not sure if Keri murdered his uncle or not, probably. He for sure murdered some other people. In the spring and summer of 1999, Carrie Stainer brutally murdered four women, three women

in February, who were staying at the Cedar lodge where he worked in one woman, a park worker in June. He would sexually assault two of his victims to capitate one, nearly decapitated another. In February, the FBI canvassed the area for anyone they could find, who could perpetrate such a horrifying, violent know, violent crime. Kerry would look right under their noses until June when he would murder again. Investigators described him as seeming too nice and too normal to be a suspect. They were wrong.

The horrifyingly sad story of Steven Stainer and the equally terrifying life his brother Kerry Stainer next week on Time Suck. And now let's head over to this week's Time Sucker updates. Lots of interesting Alon school messages pouring in this week Okay, I'm keeping this first up date or this main up date or anonymous because I don't want him to get in any more trouble at work and I've already gotten him in. He writes good afternoon Dan Kingucker and Bojangles Bitch. I discovered time suck from scared to death.

Now I can't get enough of either one. That's great, thank you. Sometimes I try to make my commute a little longer just so I can listen to more. Need to share this update, an incident with you. First, the update. I was excited to hear that you'd be sucking the Alon School. When I was in high school in the mid 90s,

some of my finer teachers and one guidance counselor would use the Alon School as a threat if we didn't straighten out. Living a little more than an hour from this quote unquote school made the threat seem more real. My father was the middle school principal and knew some of the happenings of that school and the topic was hush hush in his school. But in my high school it was the last resort.

We always heard that they were strict, ran a tight ship, but never heard the true horrors you described. I never knew anyone that went there, thankfully, I recently passed by the school for work and it is an abandoned pile of shit riding on the woods now. Good. the true horrors you described. I never knew anyone that went there, thankfully, I recently passed by the school for work and it is an abandoned pile of shit riding on the woods now. Good. Clearly this guy was not from Maine.

We may be backwoods up here, but we're not cruel. Now to something slightly funnier, I totally got Cummins Lod. I actually wrote a Dummons Lod. Not Cummins Lod, where Time Suck plays at an inopportune time, but a Time Suck reference, gone horribly wrong. Have you ever used a phrase calm down killer or relax killer when someone gets worked up about a subject?

At my work, we have a pretty diverse workforce. There's a guy from Bulgaria that works in the same building as me. Being an ignorant American, I put Bulgaria as part of Russia. Anyway, the Bulgarian I work with was out at the smoking area and I walked by him as he was getting fired up about something. So I looked at him and said, in my best Russian accent, go down, she could deal with. I thought it was funny and I walked away snickering to myself.

Later that day, I was called into HR. And I had to explain why I said what I said. Apparently, he knew of she could deal with and he did not find that funny. Now I have to attend a sensitivity training. I hope you find this as funny as I still do. Now, I have to attend a sensitivity training. I hope you find this as funny as I still do. Sorry for the short email. Three out of five stars wouldn't change a thing.

Keep on stocking soon to be your newest space lizard and King of Diamonds law. I call myself Captain Dinkwad. Well, good luck with your sensitivity training, Captain Dinkwad. I sincerely hope you are not fired. If you do get fired though, before leaving, you might as well just throw out, you know, what this big deal? So I took off and saw, saw she's cocking corn right by the no one. Uh, glad to

hear what was once the launch school now lay in ruins. Uh, now a random positive drug update that I loved hearing from super sucker Kyle, uh, Thario, Terrio, Theriot, Theriot, Theriot, Theriot. Uh, Kyle. Kyle writes, hey, fellowship with the suckers. I've been here for years now about Dan's opinion on drugs and how he wants them all to be legal. True. Well, that might be sooner than later. Washington State just passed the Pathways to Recovery Act,

which will decriminalize the use of hardcore drugs like crack cocaine, et cetera, putting more money into rehabilitation and also letting people be responsible for themselves that they choose to make horrible choices. But anyways, thought you'd be interested. Keep on stocking. Hail them, right?

Yes, Kyle. Thank you for the link. Yes, the Washington State House Public Safety Committee voted seven to six to approve the Pathways to Recovery Act, which would remove penalties for personal use amounts of illegal substances, just all of them, and expand outreach and recovery services. The vote is the first time a panel of lawmakers in any US state has voted to remove criminal penalties for possession of all drugs. Well, it's about fucking time.

Legalizing drug use, all drug use will not send our culture into some depraved death spiral. I don't know why people think that. It's just a bunch of bullshit morality posturing. Not saying some drugs aren't bad, some of them are really bad. I'm just saying that kicking people when they're down for using them is fucking stupid. It's so fucking stupid. Punish harmful crimes committed by those on drugs.

Don't punish people for using the drugs. Tired of stuffy old men who I'd rather kick in the fucking nuts than have a drink with to decide he wants right and wrong for the rest of us. Now another, a long related message. Like those long kids, sweet sucker Sean had a shit time in the system and he writes, hello suck master and crew, latest episode hit me hard without going into great detail. I spent most of my formative years in the system.

It is tough feeling abandoned blaming everyone and being victimized. I mean, obviously, as humans, our primary responsibility is to grow our little meat sex into safe, successful adults, yet these type of caretakers still exist. It's outrageous. It's been 20 years since I left the system, it still haunts me to this day. It has brought up some shit for me with this episode, but I want to thank you. Thank you for sharing their stories and bringing to light how children become victims and have nowhere to go and often no one to advocate for them.

I hope we'll cause more people to question, always be curious when it comes to the care of the children around them. I found my family in this cult. That's all that I need. You hope our minds are main open, our hearts remain in Nimrod's belly button. Sean, thank you, Sean. I'm glad that you're out of the system. Sorry, I was so fucked for you. Hope this episode helps in some way as well, you know, in addition to the Alon school episode, pop award, not in the system, but, you know, you might have been better off had he been. I have a feeling he was abused pretty severely.

And with I imagine a lot of effort, he worked really hard to get himself into a much better life than those who were supposed to protect, gave him, who were supposed to protect him, gave him. Glad we can be here for you, dude. Also, a lot of time suckers, since the cult Decurious Facebook page has shut down, have bounced over to the scared of deaths,

creeps in people private, Facebook page, and also the Iswi dummies, Facebook page. so you can search in the Facebook search bar for both those groups and find a lot of the people that you were talking to while we await the Facebook God's decision. Now for another along related message from another meat sack victimized as well in a two unreregulated system. I got Emma. I'm going to leave her last name out of this right.

Hey Dan, I'm going to huge fan of your out of this, right? Hey, Dan, I'm going to huge fan of your stand up for many years now time suck and STD. Listen to the law in school slash cult of synonym suck. It brought back many memories of when I was in a cult like group in high school. It was a Christian ministry out of Ohio. I'm not going to say their name because I don't want to give them any more attention than they already receive. I had to sign a notarized contract stating I would not engage in sexual behavior, drink, smoke, do drugs, I would attend small groups, Bible studies multiple times a week.

We put on a theater production as well, travel all over the country. If we broke our contract, we had to pay $2,000 in addition to the 2,000 we pay to participate. I wanna elaborate too much, but there was a great deal of grooming, pedophilia, and matchmaking going on. We were kids surrounded by adults who were supposed to protect us, but instead put us in

bad situations. And it was always the girls fault and they failed us. I blame my parents a lot for what happened to me. So I can't imagine how the students at the Elon school felt. Thank you so much for informing us on topics like this, the suck, and they call it the curious. Keep me going every day. Also, if you read this, shout out to my best friend in the whole world who I turn into

a huge time sucker. I love you, Mack, MAK. I'm a huge time sucker. I love you, Mac, MAK. I'm an Assumance Mac. You're the best auntie to my little girl in the whole world and to you Lord, suck master, keep on sucking and hell is a fena. Thank you Emma and hello Mac. You both sound awesome. Sorry you were abused by the people who were supposed to protect you by people who pretended to be gods people wolves hiding in the light. Worse kind of wolves. Hope their group gets exposed to the proper legal channels and shut down.

Screwed knives who you let, you know, watch your kids meet sex. Don't be afraid to check in on anyone. You know, even if they're a part of some religious group, that you're a part of. That doesn't mean they're above scrutiny ever. And now let's end on a positive trouble teen industry update. We have gotten some positive matches as well.

It's like, you know, kids being helped in these behavioral institutes, parents of kids, the kids themselves. This is a sweet sucker who wishes to remain anonymous. He writes, dear Dan Sucksworth, the third, first of his name, I love the podcast. I've been listening to the, have been listening since the transgender suck. I'm currently listening to the law and school suck and heard you bring up wilderness therapy programs as I am someone who works for one of those organizations.

I wanted to quickly give you and possibly other suckers some insight on the current state of the industry. A little background about my position and how at least my organization works. I've been a wilderness therapy guide, think like a cross between an expedition guide in a dorm room residence, a hall assistant, a residence administrator, excuse me. For the last two years, which essentially means

I take groups of kids between the ages of 13 and 17, struggling with mental health issues like depression, anxiety, asperger's high-functioning autism, substance abuse, et cetera, and bring them backpacking, mountain biking, rock climbing, as well as other outdoor activities. Then once a week, the kids will meet up with their therapist, try to come up with some goals to work on for the upcoming week, as well as try to figure out solutions to problems back at home. First, yeah, I do want to acknowledge that in the past, there has definitely been a bad

track record when it comes to wilderness therapy, and then occasionally, there are problems that still arise today. Though I'd like to point out how, just like Penn Hurst and other mental health facilities back in the early days of adult mental health were horrible and abusive in the same similar ways as the Elon school was for teen mental health. Similarly, those industries have come leaps and bounds, come up, leaps from downs, to try to remedy and prevent those abuses and actually become successful in fulfilling their role in trying to help people's mental health. Though I do recognize that it has been a lot slower in the teen mental health realm, most likely due to the slow changing of ideas around what appropriate discipline looks like, bread lessons. Like I said though, there have been leaps and bounds in the last decade to try and prevent further abuses. For instance, the organization I work for prides itself on being a non punitive program,

meaning that there is absolutely no form of punishment. The closest thing that could be considered as punishment is the safety measure we take from one of the kids is threatening the safety of the rest of the group. If they're bullying, physically threatening. We have them do the activity that they're all going to do that week separately from the group for a week with two guides. While they work with the therapist on a way they can safely reintegrate to the rest of the group. Additionally, staff are not allowed to be alone with kids,

always need to make sure another staff is with an eyesight around the kids. Also, staff have to go through state and federal background checks, as well as guides have to go through a week-long orientation vetting process before they're officially hired and allowed to work with kids. I do believe we could definitely use more training and mental health before we start, but we attend weekly meetings on different mental health trainings, have found them useful. The kids are also allowed and encouraged to write weekly letters to their parents as well as phone calls.

On top of that, while the students are in the program, the therapists work closely with the parents to figure out what the parents need to do better, since let's face it, kids who are struggling emotionally usually don't have parents who are bad in a thousand. True. There are still issues. And granted, not every kid has a great experience with the program, due to it being an outdoor program,

for them not being suited, for being in the outdoors for such a long time, and the issue of a lot of their parents opting to send them to the program despite the kid now one to go. On the flip side though, I have seen this program do wonders for lots of kids, mental health.

I've gotten multiple letters from kids saying that this program has helped them immensely, as well as seeing the change that happens to them over the weeks that they are with us. As someone who seems to enjoy nature as much as I do, you can probably agree that getting into nature can be quite healing and perspective changing, not to mention adding therapy from actual therapists. Anyways, if you made it this far, I want to thank you for reading the poor spelling and grammar I've typed. There's a reason I work in the woods tonight. It's

like it's fucking great. I appreciate you calling out the ugly parts of the industry. I wouldn't expect any less of you, but I wanted to just add in my perspective and try to show that wilderness therapy is not the abusive riddled industry at once was, and they can actually produce a lot of good. If you want to look deeper into the program I work for, it is as Spiro Wilderness Adventure. Thanks again for reading. PS, if you do mention this in the suck, I would appreciate it. You don't need to use my real name. Just wanna make sure to cover my bases.

When it comes to anything, HIPAA related stuff. You can refer to me as Big Thor. Well, Big Thor, I appreciate you sending this message. I did not spend enough time pointing out what a positive experience some of these facilities can be for struggling kids. Thank you for doing that for me and thank you for doing what you do.

Yes, I do love nature. It's so good to disconnect from tech, reconnect, you know, with how we humans have lived for the overwhelming majority of our existence. And thanks to modern clothing, tech and hiking equipment, you know, you can now enjoy nature in the safest way we've ever been able to enjoy it as a species. Best of both worlds. Good hike, good company, sunshine, an incredible vista to look at, combine with some solid therapy that does sound like a wonderful way to heal and grow. Hail them not to you, sir,

and to all the wonderful therapists out there, those with degrees, those without, will become pop awards for those who didn't get to grow up with one like me. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Thanks for listening to this bad Magic Productions podcast, Meet Sacks. Now go hug your grandpa and your grandma and then pinch him on the ass like a pop award used to pinch grandma still. And then tell them to don't worry about the fuck work, you know, the f-word and to keep on sucking. A friend with weed is a friend indeed.

I don't know about going with so mad about. That's a fucking great friend.