WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Chasing the Whole Whale | Boys Only #18

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

Nate and Storm chat with Dr. Jason Peters about good jokes, great books, and the wonder of a balanced life.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child, Nate? I wouldn't know. I've never had a child. And I say thanks a lot. I usually say sorry, though, first. That is the kinglier quote, actually. The, the only one. That's the only one. And just like poetry to your ears, we are, or poetry to your eyes, we are a podcast to your ears. Poetry is sung. It's poetry is sung. And podcasts are spoken. This podcast. We will not sing anymore on this podcast. Because we have no more Theta's. We will not be singing. Only professors from here on out on boys only. Storm, who do we have this week?

We have an extremely special guest. We have Dr. Peters of the Hillsdale College English department. Yeah, you got to clarify. Yeah, yeah. Do you clarify. How's it going? Going great. How are you doing?

It's so good to see you. I feel like it's been a minute. Well, you know, it's hard to hide on this campus. Pretty small. Plus you guys walk by my office every day because it's the only thoroughfare now. It is. I think that's a good thing. thing.

You get to now see everybody. That's a great place for people watching if the people are okay. Yeah. People are all right here. People are all right. After two years, my assessment is, all right. You're solid. So for some of our listeners who don't know who you are, do you want to quickly introduce

yourself, kind of say what you do here, who you are? Yeah, I'd be happy to. Do you want me to tell the truth or make stuff up? Yes. Either one. Yes. Yeah, both. Embellish.

Inbellish? Inbellish all the way. I was raised about 75 miles from here. I still live about eight miles from where I was born. I live about a half a mile from where my wife was raised. I commute about an hour and 20 minutes to Hillsdale when I come down here. I joined the faculty in the fall of 2020. That was a semester after my daughter graduated,

after spending 25 years at a school in Illinois. And my job is to teach great books and mostly American literature, on top of which I have been given the charge of terrorizing especially undergraduate males. Yes. One notorious fact about your class is that it tends to be a lot of guys. I've noticed that. I have one all male section of great books right now. That's awesome.

Because we keep spreading the word to like the Simpson guys because when I got here, everyone was like all the upperclassmen Simpson are like, you've got to take this guy. We all took him. He was the funniest. He's the best. And then I was like, okay, so I took your class. It was fantastic. And then this year I found myself to the freshman being like, okay, when you're looking at great books this spring.

I've already started plugging. I've already been like, wait, I'm them now. I've already started plugging. So how's it feel to be an upperclassman finally? It's like old. Or aren't you yet? Yeah. I don't know.

Are we? We are. We are juniors. So Simpson definition is sophomores are upperclassmen, but now we're like everyone else's definition. We are campus upperclassman now. That's horrible. I don't like that. I like being an underdog.

I like being like a rookie of the year. Being like an unc is... Rookie of the year? That's not my favorite. You know, you only got one year left, but if you want to stretch it out, you know how to do it. And how's that?

With grad school? No, with bad grays. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I try my hardest to get this. I mean, Gallagher doesn't want to be the only one over there taking a fifth year victory left. I will.

If you do, I'll like a pact with you. Try not to, but if I must. I will. It's an expensive lap. It's really expensive lap, trust me. I was talking to Jones about that earlier today. He was like, he was like, dude, we got to like do grad school together. And I was like, heck no, I don't want to do grad school. And he was like, yeah, I mean, I have to, man. You have to? I think so. Pretty much no matter what profession, no, no matter what profession I'm going to do, I have to do grad school. Yeah. It's not worth it. Teaching or law? Not history, not straight history. Why, there's not many jobs in being remembering things.

That's what the Internet's for. Well, the problem with history is there's no future in it. Yeah, exactly. But don't... So, wait, you got your doctor at where? Michigan State, 1994. So I graduated from college in 86. I took a year off, got married, worked for a newspaper for a while,

went back to my golf course job, which I worked for 11 or 12 summers, something like that, and started grad school in the fall of 87 and was out of there, Michigan State, by 94. Did you enjoy it more or less than undergrad education? I think that's a good question. Very different experience. How so? Different pace of things, usually taking two classes at a time and also teaching a class. So you just kind of get thrown in the classroom.

So I taught my first college class at age 23. Wow. Why? That's neat. They still do that? But you have to, you know, if you're going to graduate school, you've got to, first all, you've got to pick a city you can tolerate. And I mean, I'm not just, I don't just mean the vibe of the place, but can you

tolerate what it looks like? Smells. Smells. Yeah. And, you know, if you have a couple of friends in graduate school, you're lucky, but it's a, it's a big help to have a couple of friends getting through. And I met a couple guys I still keep in touch with. That's awesome.

That helped a lot. As the statute of limitations up on, did you do any kind of pranking? You strike me as the kind of person that would do a lot of less than dean-approved activity in college. It's not like you guys. What do you mean?

We're perfect. Yeah, I know. We're spotless. We're spotless. I hear about half of what you guys are allowed to speak about. Well, we're not allowed to say it all yet. A tithe of what you do. We're still here right now.

Last episode, we'll just like. Let it all rip. I didn't, I wasn't, I was not a big, big pranks. I pulled some pranks and I wasn't a big lawbreaker, but I broke a few laws. When did that change? I broke more laws later in life than I did. Like, for example, when I was at teaching at another school once and our building was going to be a renovated. It was going to be a two-year project.

So the administration wanted us out of the building on the last day of finals. because they were just coming in with a wrecking ball crews. And so the one prank I wanted to pull, I didn't have time to, which was I had a colleague, and what I wanted to do was go into his office and just put a bunch of incriminating material up into the ceiling tiles. So when the wrecking crew came through, you know, 25 whiskey bottles fall down on them and let's just say articles of clothing and whatnot. Yes, yes.

But I never had a chance to do it. However, I did invite my seniors up into my office. on the last day for a drink and a cigar because both drinking and smoking were forbidden. So I thought, yeah, let's break a couple of rules. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. That's like good stuff. That's not like bad rule breaking.

That's not like you guys. Yeah, what do you mean? We don't break any rules. We've never once broken. We have an entirely straight record. Yes. We have a million billion questions. We have one William questions.

The new unit of measurement that's been going around is one William. It's a William. Or an Elmer. This podcast I usually asked about an Elmer. So since you stole my intro Like one or two weeks ago? I did not.

I might have. I'm stealing the question The first question. Fine. Luke Jones asks What's the best and worst or worst nickname for a student you've ever had?

I think Gallagher was pretty creative. Just your last thing. Can't see where you got that one from. And I was curious with this too because you threw around some funny nicknames. Well, I thought I had a pretty good one for Mr. Daniels here. It was timely.

The president of the United States at the time was cavorting with a porn star. And I happened to have, I happened to have somebody in my class, his name was Storm Daniels. So I started calling him Stormy D. Unfortunately, not very many people got the joke. But a few people got the joke. I was banking on the fact that no one got the joke the whole year. I think they got it. And then I think they got it by the line of the class.

A couple of them got it. So that was an experience. Do you have any other ones, though? Like ones that before our time or any other good nicknames you remember? Almost every class has had a number of people with nicknames in it. And most of them are fairly benign. I mean, they're not too edgy. And the thing about it is if you're teaching English,

most of your students are going to be women. Right. And it's, women are scary. It's not easy to give them nicknames. and, you know, feel like you can get away with us. But the guys, you know, they're not so scary.

Well, it was Squatch. Was the Great Books 1? That one girl who ran out of the classroom ran absquatchelated. That's right. Yeah. We had, we had Squatch for Absquatchelate. Yeah.

Who was that? I was married. Yeah. She was an hour grade books class? She was, no, she was in the other section of Great Books 1 when we were a freshman. She was Squatch. She told me that.

I was like, what does that come from? I remember. I remember there's a guy on the other, And I won't say his name. There's a guy on the end of the table there in group is one called a Schmidt house. That's right.

That was great. That's an old Santa Claus joke. Am I allowed to tell that one on there? Sure. We'll cut it if we did. We need to. There's nothing racy or anything than what you just said.

No, no, no. Just let it fly. But the setup is, I mean, it's a cartoon I saw years and years ago, and Rudolph and all the reindeer and sand and the slayer, they're just in a pile on top of this little tiny wood structure.

and Santa's he's scolding Rudolph and saying I said the Schmidt House, you idiot. So good. That's a good thing. Yeah, Luke Jones's other question

because he wanted to get both of these in was, would you rather have a dog named Wyatt or a son named Shamus? Don't you mix them up sometime? I mix him up all the time. It doesn't make any difference, I guess. I'll say this. My dog is slightly better trained for doing his business in the backyard than my son is,

but that hasn't always been the case. Wait. Great answer. All right. Next question. I mix their names up all the time. I don't know why it is, but I do. Could be senility.

Wyatt, come here. That's the best one is when you're like, quiet. I'll never forget going to visit you for the first time That was the first time I'd ever heard that You were like Wyatt And I was like Wyatt standing right here And you were like oh no I met the dog And Wyatt just hits his face is Wyatt

Wyatt just like oh man The dog is pretty obedient Maybe it's just a wishful thinking that I had a son who was obedient You got some stories about Hawaii We can tell you later All right We had a lot of funny questions so far Let's get one that's this is Willemore

In the weeds it's Austin Piku, if you had to live for a week as one of the characters of Moby Dick, who would you choose and why? Ooh. You don't speak at any point in the story, obviously, so. I think I would live as a stub

because he has the most cigars. Was he the second mate? He's the second mate. Yes, I remembered from Great Books, too. Yeah. And he's funny. I mean, there's a lot of good choices there. The cook, you know, he's a prankster.

Yeah. Ahab gets all the serious lines, but I don't want to walk around and I wouldn't peg if I can help. That'd be kind of miserable. He just is miserable all the time, actually. It's just a grouch. Most of the time.

Who would you want to be? Neshmao. The main character, doesn't he have it kind of rough? He's, like, pretty low on the totem pole of the ship's piracy. I'm not one to chase power and one to chase just the vibe.

He has to, like, do the stuff with the whale stuff. Gallagher, they don't just chase the whale's tail. it's not just chasing tail it's the whole whale they chase chasing the whole whale chase the whole whale put that on a t-shirt

chasing the whole whale got to chase the whole whale oh man I want to be is it Starwin Starbuck? Starbuck He's the first mate yeah I think he's the coolest

I think he's a big he's a big tall guy who's like I'm here and you guys don't have to do everything I have says Starbucks's a little too straight-laced for me. He's a little bit too much of a rule follower. Is he? Yes. Do you not remember anything? I remember some things. Yeah. I did read the book, actually. I, uh, I guess I'll say this now. You can't

flunk me anymore. So I made, when you say there were three books in great books. I was like, only three. First of all, that's scary. And I, I said, I'm going to read every word of Paradise Lost. We did. And I'm going to read every word of Moby Dick, because they're too good to pass up reading those things. I also really don't want to have to read them again because they're really long. Let me guess where this is going. What did I not read? Gallagher is going to say that King Lear is no good. No, I just didn't. I just didn't really read it. I read it together. I read every word of, no, we read all over together. We acted out. No, I missed. I missed. You missed one of those I was, I was, I was in the middle of like a thing. I was in the fall semester sophomore

was an interesting time for me. So I was it kind of in the middle of something right then. And then, but I was really, it was good before and it was really good after. Well, for those who don't know, And this is a tradition that should be kept on. The Simpson guys who take your great books two class every year try to do an out loud reading of the first two of the three books. Moby Dick's a little harder to coordinate and do because the chapters are longer and the reading sizes are different. But we read all of Paradise Lost out loud switching. And that was fun. But I loved King Lear the most because King Lear we got to play the parts and the roles and do the different like the voices.

He was the fool. It was a lot of fun. Who was Lear? He's thinking it rotated. There were usually, there's what, seven or eight characters? I remember Jones was always Kent, and he would always be like, oh, this is me, I'm Kent, every time before he said a lot.

But Jones, it was a great time. Big Jones. Yeah. The old Gallagher, one of these days, you're going to have to read more than every other word of King Lair. I don't want to do that. I do work at the theater department. Maybe we'll put it on someday. I think King Lair is my favorite.

We didn't cover a lot of time on it. It's such a bad take. I loved that, but I loved it. It was also like my third time reading it. It's the worst one. Of those three? Yes. Dude.

Said the guy who didn't read it. Yeah. Why do you think I didn't read it? You can't give it a fair opinion? Yeah, exactly. Whatever. He's so mad at me about this. And he thinks he's going to graduate school.

Let him smell his way to graduate school. I read that part. Nice to you done. It was like, it was like, was it Act 3? What's the Middle Act Act 3? Yeah. I didn't really read that one. I read Act 5 and Act 1, most of 4.

What kind of smattering is that? I miss three. I like the back. battle scene at the end of the one second of it. Yeah. It was a great battle. Anyway. Anyway. Yeah. Would they have like played that out at all or would they have just kind of like in the it's reported off stage? Okay. Yeah. As usual. Shakespeare's so lazy. I'm gonna not fall for your rage bait. Tiske. Tiske. I love Shakespeare. He's all right. Big Will. He's a height. Book of Will. He wrote one William plays. He did. Sorry. He wrote him. Billiam. All right.

Well, it's possible that the opinion of one Hillsdale Jr. will overturn the judgment. of centuries, but we'll have to wait and see. I sure hope so. Do you have a favorite from that class? From great books? Yeah. No, I like all those books equally. I love the fact that I get to reread them every year. That's awesome. Do you find something new every year? Wow, that's incredible. Do you remember what you found new our year? Do I remember what? What you found new? What is the new thing? How dumb we were. How stupid. That's what he found that I are.

There are certain things that hit me differently every year or hit me for the first time. You know, they're rich enough that stuff can hide from you. The devil's not the good guy, the Paradise Law. In Paradise Laws. He's the protagonist, but he is not the good guy. He's the interesting guy. He's the human.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that the Heaven chapters or the Heaven books in Paradise Lost are like the most boring. Was it chapter three? It's like the Big Heaven chapter. It's like a snooze fest. And then you get back to hell and it's like, oh, they're cooking down. I like, I like Raphael's speeches to Adam. I think those are pretty interesting.

Well, that's not to like seven or five or seven. It's like seven or eight. Six or seven. Cannot even believe. Are kids saying that in your classes? Sorry? Six, seven. This is going around campus.

Everyone's doing this like six, seven thing. Okay. You just, you just know. If you say, you're going to be, you're going to, if you remember, you're going to like listen to it. but in class now, you'll say like page six or like page seven or something like that and look around your class.

They look at each other. They'll snicker. They'll look at each other. I'm in a class. I'm in a class of one guy. It's a non-sequitur meaningless joke. It doesn't. It's so dumb.

It's the best thing ever. Henry, I don't think Henry was ever in a great book's class with us, but that's unfortunate. He's a great guy. Henry Webster? Yeah. Recent birthday member?

Recent birthday. Big 17 today. Big 20. Yeah. Anyway, he says, favorite joke of all time. You're famous for, well, many things, but one of them is the faculty review every year where you do stand up. Are you doing it again this year? Please do it again.

If I get invited, I'll probably do it. He better do it again. Yes. Come on. So what's your favorite joke of all time? That you can say here, please. Well, my favorite, my top 10 favorite jokes are no way suitable for this venue. And my favorite one of all time is about a guy who claims that he can tell what any piece of wood is just by sniffing it.

And I heard this joke when I was in high school, and I was working at a sporting good store, stringing tennis rackets. And there was a guy who had come in, mailman, who would come in every day. And he'd come over to me and we'd tell jokes. And he's the one who told me this joke. It's a really, really good joke. But you can't tell you. You guys aren't drunk enough for me to tell that.

Yeah. Maybe next year. When I turn 21, I'll go to the bar. And then I heard another really good one from a guy. Can I tell this one? No, I can't tell this one. My gosh. What can you tell?

Sounds like nothing, man. It's like a limerick. You just can't tell them. Just fire it. You know, there's no, I mean, the dirty limerick is a little bit of a, you know. Yeah. Taboo. Pleonasm, I guess you could say.

But anyway, this one was, I heard it, I was in a, I was in a brewery and I heard that, I was at a table telling jokes. And then there was a guy at another table telling jokes. pretty soon the two tables had become one table and this guy and I were in a joke telling contest and this went on for about an hour and a half and he told a joke that I thought was really good and on the way home I asked my brother I said what was that joke that guy told about the feather duster or something like that and we couldn't figure out so I knew the guy was the bartender's brother so I went back the next night and asked him what's that joke your brother tells he's I don't know

That's my brother's joke. So for a year, I didn't have the joke. And then a year to the day, I went back in there, and there the guy was. And so I went up and I asked him, hey, what's that joke you tell about the feather duster or something like that? And he told it the same mannerisms, everything I remembered exactly the same. So I went and told it to about five different people just to get it in my head. So I would remember it.

That's also off limits. I love this and all the setups of the stories. How you got them. Don't you remember in class? I would say, this reminds me of a joke and then keep talking. about King Larry? He said to tell the joke. That one with the feather duster. That one was so good.

It was one that you kept holding over us about Moby Dick and you just wouldn't say it. You were like, at the end, I'll say it. I'll say it at the end. And I don't think you ever did. It was really sad. I was like, I want to hear it. What was this?

He didn't say, it was at the end. It was a joke about Moby Dick. I think so. And he said, well, there was that one where you're like, hey guys, this is a book. I've got a bunch of guys. Oh, yeah, yeah. Chase a whale.

Jason a worm whale. Whose name is Moby Dick. Yeah. Let's just be real about what we're reading here. What are we reading? All right. Wyatt, here's son. Wyatt.

So I think before we ask the question, it's about the background is fair. Not one, why, but on this show, Wyatt asks probably the best questions. He has a pretty good record of asking pretty good, would you rather questions. I'm curious what he's going to ask you. He's got two. He's got two. He's got two questions. Because he hits us with the strangest, would you rather scenarios.

that always make my week. Yes. So. Well, the one the last time was, would you rather spontaneously use the bathroom? Whenever you were within 50 feet, vertically and horizontal, just in all directions of a cheese steak cassidia,

or read 0.9 times slower. So you read 10% slow. Or at 0.9 times speed. And we just, we were just baffled by that. Yeah. And that's like not even close to one of his best ones. Well, I read slowly to begin with. It wouldn't matter if you took a little bit off.

Yeah, I think I could, I could read slower. I would help me. You might help me to read slower, actually. I like Tuesday, Ksadias. That's my thing. I like to go to El Cerritos. Big fan. So what's why's question?

His first question, which I told him, I said, why, you should ask this question. He's like, okay. He's just, the question is just, why? Which is why? Great. Single word. Why? Because.

Great, great answers. I feel like I'm on, I'm on, I'm completely blank on the show. On what? On family views? And he's Steve Harvey or my Steve Harvey? No, no. Wyatt, Steve Harvey. Why?

Why? He just said, because Steve. Because Steve. Big, me, me, bing. Good answer. And then we have, would you rather? Wyatt. His question of would you rather is, would you rather have to become a T, T, T,

Tito Taylor? Titoaler? Titoaler or have seven mother-in-laws that you have to put up with. What is a teetotaler? What is a teetotaler? Someone who doesn't drink. Oh, okay. You'd you rather give up alcohol or deal with seven mother-in-laws? You guys almost made it through college without knowing the definition of teetotaler. Someone has failed you.

You are English teacher. You were supposed to teach us all the big words at the beginning of college. I guess I'm here to define words for it. Would I rather be a teetotaler or have seven mothers-in-law? Mother-and-law. Seven mother-in-law. Mother-in-law. That's the most.

That's the trocious. Those are both... It's really the worst of both worlds, no matter what you pick. This gets at the heart of the problem of bigamy or polygamy. You might think, well, I could get by it with two eyes, but remember, that comes with two mother-in-laws. And the whole family. Oh, and the family on top of them.

No, I would forsoir. all spirits. Yeah. It's, you can't know seven mothers-in-law? The question does not mean seven wives necessarily. It's just seven women

who are in mother-in-law position. I think it implies the sisters-in-law and the brothers and law and their children. I'm not a wife. The brother-in-law is always rough. Can be rough.

Yeah, the brother-in-law can be... This is a setup for like a Scott Pilgrim kind of scenario. You have to like battle all your mother-in-laws sequentially to get to the true woman of your dreams. Have you seen Scott Pilgrim versus the world? He has to fight all his, all like seven of his girlfriend's ex-boyfriends, like one after the other.

And like in epic different types of battles. Sounds like a really bad deal. You guys hear the story about Wyatt when he was eight years old and the threat of piano lessons looming over him? No. So we'd moved and we couldn't find a piano teacher for the kids and Wyatt was about eight years old. And one night at dinner, my wife announces, I've found a piano teacher for everybody. This is where we were just setting up the farm at the time. And he shakes his head and he says,

I won't have time for piano lessons. I'll be too busy farming. Look at him now. As an eight-year-old. Look at him now. I'll be too busy farming. Does anyone who represents the agricultural lifestyle is Wyatt? Big agricultural list. Oh, man. I miss the great books classes where you would go off on rants about how we're losing all the topsoil. Oh, well, we're losing it. We would be talking about like, you know, the Odyssey, and then something will come up and you'd be like, you know, man,

it's all going away. It's all going away. We're slowly losing it. Yeah, top soils are worth worrying about. Callie. So Liam has two questions. Liam's currently in your class. He's actually got three because two of them are really serious,

one of them silly. My last serious, silly, serious. I love that. Sandwich the silly. So this is a long one. It's a doozy. Come on write this down.

He's asked me two questions the last two class sessions. I'm going to need more time on that. Sorry. He says, I struggle with loving the academic side of learning and growing as a man. I often think I would be better off

in nature somewhere, laboring and learning through natural experience. All the hustle and bustle and pomp and pride of higher education can get a lot. So as someone who deals with both of these worlds,

how do you reconcile them? You do them both and you do them sequins. You do them one at a time. Most of my life has been spent part of the time of school, part of the time paying no attention to school, working with my hands, manual labor, the kind of jobs that you would qualify with the word that you can't say on air.

But I wouldn't speak ill of the academic life. It's a lot of fun. I would speak ill of the academic life if that's all you did. So I do. What a great way to put it. I pretty much. I pretty much managed to do eight months of headwork and four months of handwork every year.

And each day and each week is a mixture of both as well. I'd go nuts if I didn't have things to fix or things that destroy. Yeah. I'm a big part of the, fan of the destroying part. Yeah. That's fantastic. So Liam doing both. Figure it out.

Doing both. Yeah. Liam's a big. Liam loves splitting logs. Yeah. Big nature guy. Yeah, he's a big. Big nature guy.

Big fan. When we were doing volunteer hours for homecoming this past... This year. Yeah, this year, I guess. I went out in one of the jobs, and I just see Liam out there in the woods, bare feet, flannel, swinging an axe over his head. I'm like, he's in his spot. Good for him.

He's where he needs to be. I learned how to use a hatchet that day. Yeah. That was a great time. I learned I'm really good at it, actually. I'm like, I hit the same exact spot every time. Dr. Webb. Dr. Webb.

We were working in his in the woods behind his house. clearing them slowly. It's fantastic. It was a great job. I'm very blessed to be able to do that. Yeah. What is your favorite animal? After that, the follow-up is what is your favorite animal?

The brook trout. Why? Why? It's a beautiful animal. And it's fun to bring in on a hook and a dry fly. What's the biggest one you ever caught? Brook trout? And there's the biggest fish in general.

We can do both. Let's see. I think my biggest rainbow is about 17, 18 inches. I got a brown in the summer in a place I didn't expect to who was probably 10 or 12. Wow. And I think I actually got a brookie that was about 14 once. Brookie.

Nice. I bet just fish in general. Oh, I only fish for trout. I don't do any other kind of fishing. You're kind of a brookie. What should call you? Brooklyn boy? A brookie?

I am not from Brooklyn. Not from Brooklyn. The Michigan writer Robert Traverse says, the Michigan has the three most beautiful animals on earth, the white-tailed deer, the ruffed grouse, and the brook trout. What's a grouse? A little like vole, mole kind of thing. It's a bird.

Oh, never one. It's like a mole. It's like a bird, actually. Totally wrong. Smaller than a pheasant. Yeah. I don't know. I've never seen a pheasant either.

What's your favorite animal? Man. Humans? People? You people? Guys? It was instilled on me at an extremely young age because of all the Calvin and Hobbs I read, but I love tigers.

That's a good one. Mine's dinosaurs. If you believe in dinosaurs. If you believe in dinosaurs. People. Homeless apians? Tyrannosaurus wrecks. Dude,

dinosaurs are the greatest thing ever. It's a gigantic, mindless, just machine of destruction. If they're so great, how come they're so not here anymore? Well, when you get a really big,

well, you get a really big rock and you throw it at something. It tends to, you ever thrown a rock at a window? Yeah. Now, take a rock that's about six miles long.

Throw it at the earth. Throw that at the earth. really fast. It doesn't, it hurts a lot, apparently. Also being cold blood, it doesn't help. Anyway, the third question, this is another serious one. What is the difference between ignorance and wonder? Oh, that's when he asked me in class

yesterday. Did you give him a good answer? No, I said you can have to wait on that one. Oh, is this? We all have to wait until this episode comes out. They're not unrelated. Ignorance and wonder are not necessarily unrelated, but wonder is the thing that all real good intellectual work begins and this is what Socrates said. Philosophy begins in wonder.

And I, you know, even to this day, reading stuff that I know well and have read for many years, I've filled with wonder at certain passages in it. And that's nothing like ignorance. Ignorance is just not knowing. And the worst part of ignorance is sometimes you don't know and you don't know you don't know. And that's where it really gets dangerous.

If you're ignorant, let your wonder do something about it. I've definitely had a great experience with Wonder here at this school. Being from such a suburban populated area, I don't really... My sky access is, you know, a couple dozen pale little dots. You know, you don't really see too terribly often. And I came out here freshman year when they were still building the football, soccer field, up at Hayden? I want to way up top at Hayden.

I don't know if it's soccer or football. I think it's soccer field. Yeah. The soccer, they were still building that. And so it was just super, super, super dark up there. And I got to go up there during the dead of winter, like January. And it was fantastic. I saw planets.

I saw a little bit of the galaxy. He could kind of make it out across the sky. And it was fantastic. It was wonderful. I cried a little bit. Like, this is fantastic. It was just such a sense of overwhelming wonder and joy. There's a poem out there for you, Galler.

It's called Frost at Midnight. Right about it. I'm running about to. I'll write that down. Ross at midnight. By who? Coleridge. Coleridge.

Go look it up. Pause the episode. Can we plug that? Does that count as a plug for a Samuel Taylor Coleridge play? That's only about 200 years old. Dr. Dolts did a good job of instilling wonder this year. We spent the whole first class of physics,

which is something you know everyone has to do here, even though I'm a Bachelor of Arts. he had a whole first class, he was just like, let's just look at cool stuff to get you hype for the learning why they work. And so the whole first class, we just like watch videos of things, watch like what black holes colliding looks like, and stuff like that.

And I was like, this is okay, this is awesome because I'm not a big STEM guy, but I'm excited for it. I'm sure there's wonder in the sciences. There has to be. I have no doubt those people are, all of wonder.

I wonder why they're doing what they're doing. I have heard of such things as physics and chemistry. I believe they exist. They probably do out there. Well, science is fake. Lewis Thune has confirmed this. That's true. Lewis Thune has confirmed that science is fake.

They're just making stuff up. Mary Hannah asked. You shared a lot of recipes in her great book stew class, apparently. And her sad saga life was challenged by making some of them. Of all the dishes out there, what is the supreme dish? Steak tartar, hands down, no question. Wow. Off the back, yeah.

Just completely plain. Like how are you going to... Well, you need a good cut, so I usually use a ribby. That's great. And you cut it one direction, and you cut it the other direction, so you got it cubed. So you need the right color bowl, because there has to be contrast. So a white one is good, light blue is good. Meat goes in.

You chop up a shallot or two. Those go in. You chop up parsley. Those go in. You got to have capers. You got to have a little dejean mustard. You got to have some Worcesters sauce. salt, pepper, olive oil, and then you put a raw egg yolk on it.

And then at the very end, right before you're going to eat it, you don't do this until you're going to eat it, then you squeeze a lemon and you sprinkle the lemon juice on it because the lemon juice will cook it just a little bit, and you don't want it cooked, hardly at all. So you sprinkle the lemon juice on it, you mix it all together, you can eat it off the fork, you can eat it off of a piece of bread, but it's raw beef, that's what it is. beef with all those other stuff in it. And then, you know, if you forget the recipe, Mary Hannah, it's in my book, which you can

buy if you want. Are you serious? I forgot, I forgot about this book. Wait, what is this? You have a cookbook? Well, it's a food book. I wouldn't call it. But there's, there are recipes in it.

It's mostly a, I fully didn't actually know about this. It's mostly a book about food. It's the food stories and, you know, that kind of thing. But recipes pop up now and again. And there is a very clear steak tartar recipe in the book. And if you're nervous about eating raw beef, first of all, you shouldn't be. I mean, almost everything is better not cooked or undercooked. But, excuse me, I had a friend who was a parasitologist that was a specialty biology teacher.

So I asked me about this once because I get grief from people and they tell me I shouldn't be eaten raw beef, which I've done my whole life. Look at me. I'm still here. He said, just make sure it's been very. frozen. Nothing that you don't want is going to be alive when you defrost it. Don't worry about it.

I don't even freeze it. Just slap a band-aid on him and he's back in the out in the pastor grazing. That's what I want. What's the name of the book? You can plug your own book. It's called the culinary plagiarist. The culinary plagiarist? And the subtitle is Misadventures of a lusty, thieving, God-fearing,

gourmand. I need a copy of this. In the words of Dr. Greg, every good title has a subtitle. If I or our listeners wanted to get our hands on this book, where would we... I believe there is at least one copy in the college bookstore. Just lit his shelves. But you should never buy anything from Amazon.com. Get it from a local bookstore or from bookshop.org or something like that.

But not Amazon. Never put any money in Amazon's buck. I'm not supporting a cause. I'm dissing on a cause. Are that okay? That's a lot. I think that's all right. They're big enough for giant corporate eye won't turn towards.

our microscopic podcast, yeah. Nicole, always the adventurist, says, would you rather climb Mount Everest or sail around the world solo? Sail around the world solo. Same boat. Is it climbing Mount Everest in the same boat? What are your chances of climbing Mount Everest

and coming back a lot? Oh, me, zero. Not very much. Zero? Oh, me, zero. Zero percent chance I'm coming back. No way. I'm not getting up there.

Have you read Crack Hours into thin air? No. Book about the failed assault, one of the failed assaults on my. on Everest. Oh, you can't put it down. Just a real page drummer. Write that one down too.

It's also going to dissuade you from trying to climb Mount Everest. Yeah, I mean, you're basically in like space. You're in the upper level of the atmosphere. The air is just not there anymore. The air is in fact gone. It's gone. Don't do that. No, I would rather sail around the world.

I think that there's a lot of, that's a lot more places I want to see than just Mount Everest. Mount Everest, you know, I can give or take. I certainly go there. I'll be like, there it is. There it is. I'll hit base camp. I'll hike to the base camp.

I love to do that. Apparently that's a hike in and of itself. Yeah, that's an hike in Nepal. But I think there's way more places I want to see. By sea? By sea. Yeah, definitely. So you'd be a character in Moby Dick, too.

Yes. This is great. When was he, 1200s, 1300s? Which you wouldn't expect this. Traveler, he was a Muslim. His name was Eben Batuta, I believe, was his name? I believe that was his name. I believe that was his name.

Eben Batuta? I believe that was his name. I could be wrong. I could be thinking of a fictional character, but I believe that was his actual name. And he just went around the whole world. He went to China. He went to sub-Saharan Africa, up to Europe.

He was everywhere. He just got back into his bright blue submarine. He just, he went everywhere, man. It was unbelievable. This guy in 1300s, he'd go see the world. And look what he, and now, look at us. We're sitting here in Michigan. We're talking about the world.

Yeah. I think if there's one place that I'm like, amped to visit, I want to go to like Southeast Asia. That would be hype. Thailand, Indonesia, islands out there. Do a little trek around there. My brother's probably going to go to Thailand

when he turns 18. Dude. Because he's a Thai fighter. He's a Moi Thai fighter. Oh, that's cool. And their own martial art over there. And he's really good at it, actually. Yeah.

He's had fights. And he's won them. He's really, really good. Some people here have had fights and not won them. Oh, yeah. I'm a big fight loser. Yep. Not here here, but here at this college.

Sorry. Don't you in here, here. Yeah. Have you ever done any martial arts or any? Oh, no. Have you any fistfights? No. Not even any fist fights.

You're just a peaceful farmer? Yeah, a pretty peaceful guy. I would like to say that I've bloodied a few faces, but, eh, I haven't. What do you think about that old saying you haven't lived till you've gotten punched in the face? I believe that's every man has a plan until he gets punched in the face. That's Mike Tyson, doesn't know? Yeah. Every man has a plan until he gets punched in the face.

I didn't have a plan. And then I got punched in the face, and now I have a plan. I, the plan was never there. I got head butt in the face one time. A freshman year, I got headbutt in the face. You got a headbutt? On purpose? Oh, oh, during, during, I'm not sure it was on purpose.

I remember those now. I'm not sure it was on purpose. Yeah, this guy had butt butt me in the face. Because I wrestle him to the ground. So that explains it. I, no. I wrestled him to the ground and I pinned him. I had my shoulder.

Sure he didn't butthead you in the face? Maybe. He might have done that. And then, and then he just, I pin him, and I'm like, he's down on the ground, shoulders down for like, seven seconds and I'm like, I kind of pop myself up because I got my shoulder in his, in his rib cage. And yeah, like that. And then he just, I'm like, all right, you're done. I go my hands on his shoulders, like even a man. I'm like, all right, can you like,

because his legs are wrapped around me. And he just says no and then just swings his head forward at me. I was like, this was not the play. What on earth man? I bled all over the fountain. It used to be there, but then they power washed it. That's true. There used to be a little spot of Nate blood. My blood. I'd pass by it every day and I'd be like, I did punch a guy in the gut once, and I meant it. That's awesome. What did he do? This is, I was in college, and I was a freshman, and he was a senior on the basketball team,

and he was trying to roughhouse me and teach me who was the boss. And so we would get close enough so nobody would see, and I would punch him in the gut. And he started swinging elbows at me. At a certain point, the coach noticed, and he kicked us both out of practice. Wow. You were basketball player. But I took the starting job from him anyway. What's your points record?

High school or college. Any single game. What position did you play? Point guard in high school and shooting guard in college. I think I lit it up in high school for 41 or 42 a couple of times. This is pre-3 point line way back in the day. Pete Maravich. Dinosaurs around the earth.

I wish. That's what they tell me. It's your favorite. I didn't quite get that. I think maybe 34 in college or something like that. Pretty good. You didn't happen to watch the mock rock competition this year, did you? I did not watch mock rock.

Joe Van Cat dunked. During we played Space Jam, the basketball space song, and he jumped and dunked the ball mid-Mockrock, and it was awesome. I might have seen a video of that. It's possible I did. It was cool. Joe's about the only guy on In Simpson that can dunk. That's actually not sure.

We got a couple. I can't. Joe, when he jumps that high, looks like he's like the logo. of like the guy, like the Air logo. Air Jordan. Yeah. If Jones can't dunk, there's something wrong with his legs. That's true.

Yeah, it's just, it's hard to get, like, when you're six foot three, it's kind of sometimes hard to get up like that. If I was six or I'd be able to dunk. I can touch the net. Joe's not six three. Joe is six two. I'm, I'm 511. He has to be at least 5'10.

That's a great joke. That's a great joke. We talked about this on one of the previous episodes is I'm 63, but it's funny to be like, I'm 511 because then all the six foot guys are like, what? No. No, no, no, no, no, no. You had Baldwin, right, Jack? Jack Baldwin was in your, was in that class.

Me and Noah. And I can actually say Noah because he knows Noah, which is great. We convinced him we said, Jack, you should go around saying you're six feet tall. Because he's six five. And you just make everyone upset. Make everyone mad. Make everyone upset. This is only about the third time I told the story.

We also learned through this that girls don't know. Girls have no perspective. You're saying you're six foot if you're six foot five. They just don't, like, especially girls that are five foot like eight or lower. They're five foot and nothing. usually, like the ones who are like four foot 12. Yeah, they're like, oh yeah, it makes sense to me. Must be true.

The kind of Nate looks right in the navel. Yeah. I am actually about two feet tall. Yeah. Exclusively. Yeah, good for throwing. Great for throwing. Good for throwing.

Tiny man cannon. Yeah, you make me think of Gimley and Lord of the Rings a lot. I like, I appreciate that. You have to toss me. Are you a Lord of the Rings fan? I am not. I am not like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, Hobbit fan, not Lord of the Rings.

I've never read the Harry Potter books. Have read Enders' game? How did Harry Potter get thrown in that mix? That's like okay literature with like some of the greatest novels of all time. I just think some, I have my experience is that people who are into Hobbits are also into whatever that other stuff is. Fair enough. Have it, Enders game?

That's a good one. Enders game. It's good stuff. That's actually, Lord of the Rings is whatever. That's like the classic. Lord of the Rings is whatever. It's whatever as a recommendation. It's like ever, but I do recommend Ender's game.

It's, I think I would say one of the sequel books, Children of the Mind, which is one of the sequel books after. That's the fourth one. That's the final of the series. Quadrology. Quadrilogy or whatever it is is maybe my favorite fictional book ever. It's very, very good. It starts sci-fi and then it's just philosophy.

And the whole thing ends up being philosophy and zinology, which is like how species relate to each other. and I think you would have a blast. I like the sci-fi part. Yeah. Because at the beginning it starts with this kid going to flight school. We're like space flight school.

It's a strange thing. Orson Scott Card, the author, really got into like a ton of theology and philosophy later in life. When were these folks? This is old. These are old books. The 70s?

Yeah, he's old books. Dinosaur books. Dinosaur books. That's my favorite books. Actually, I have a quote written down. I've just totally thought of this just now from Orson Scott Card. It's one of my favorite quotes ever

that he has written in the not the preface but the prologue. Nope, the after book thing. The foreword? It was at the end. It was at the afterward. It was the end. Epilogue.

It was like in his notes about like writing everything in his book series. And at the end he said, quote, you see the work of a storyteller doesn't get any easier the more experience we get because once we've learned

how to do something, we can't get excited about doing exactly the same thing again, or at least most of us can't. We keep wanting to reach for the story that is too hard for us to tell and then make ourselves learn how to tell it. It's one of my favorite quotes. Wow.

He gets like unreasonable deep later on in those books and it just like I close the last one and I remember sitting on the beach and being like, you know what? I've read everything I need to read. You start playing Jimmy Buffett. Yeah. We're going to win. Yeah. So I highly do recommend for anyone listening and to you, Ender's Game as the starting point

because fantastic. Do you like science fiction much at all? I haven't read very much science fiction. Any Frank Herbert? I have read the Frank Herbert. The only Frank Herbert I've read is the White Plague. Ooh, I haven't read that one. Which is a pretty old book, but it's a book about a guy whose wife is killed by the IRA, I think, or maybe.

So he engineers a disease that kills only women. What? That's insane. That's all right. What? The chromosome defeater. One of the questions is, how's it spreading? So is it spreading?

So is it spreading? Is it, is it on currency? What is it? Yeah, it was kind of an interesting book, I guess. Yeah. You've definitely probably read the CS-Lewis space trilogy. I read the Ransom Trilogy, as I think we're supposed to call it. as opposed to the space trilogy.

Oh, yeah. I guess the Christian name for it, would be the Ransom Trilogy? Yeah, it's, well, because the third book takes place on Earth. Yeah, those are interesting books. I haven't read the third one. I haven't read any of them.

I've only read Paralendra and Out of the Silent. The third one's the really good one. Yeah. Okay, so I'm, I should... I'm shockingly unread. I'm unread, dude. I haven't read anything. You've never read a book?

Okay, I have a very... You guys are a red king of... I have an extremely... I've read, I've read three-and-a-half-fifths. I've read, I've read three and a half-fifths. Three and a half fifths. So, three and a half fifths. So you read, three point five over five. But there's a better way you can say that, right?

What is it? Wouldn't that be seven tenths? I'm sure. For 70%? Sure, whatever, man. I'm trying to differ from my math. Whatever you want. Whatever you want, man.

Of Kingley. I've heard 70% of King, man. It's close enough. I thought you would find this in the beginning. In the end? We, for this year, I'm taking, US Great War to Cold War with Dr. Gamble. And the entire reading for the class is all literature.

And we read it. We started the class by reading an essay by John Lukach, who you probably know who that is. Historian, yeah. Who was talking about the relationship between the historian and the novelist and about how sometimes novelists can reveal more about history than historians can because they're able to get into like the spirit of the era and like portray it through fictional characters to show really what it was like at the time rather than just, here's the event. events that occurred.

And then he's like, in light of that, we're reading six novels. So I've been liking them. We just read Magnificent Ambersons by Bootharkington, which was a fun one. Indiana writer. Yeah.

So we're going to get into some later ones. There's some ones down the road that I've not read at all. We're going to read Gatsby. I've read Gatsby before. But there's someone down the road that I'm blanking out right now, but when he listed him, I was like, ooh. So I'll have to stop by the office

and let you know how that goes. Lukash is a, he's a really interesting I mean, I would say a little bit heterodox historian, but I'm heterodox? Not orthodox. Okay. But I think he's a really, really interesting thinker. I think Gamble's working on a biography of him, right? Yes.

Yeah. That's a great stuff. He had a great stuff out of the history department, man. Really the best department. Yeah. Best, best faculty. I don't know about that one. They got the best department in the game right now.

This is blatant stray, right? It's not a stray. We got the... It's not a lot. What do you think about the history department? Called me two feet taller. I'm a solid five, six. Solid.

I used to play shooting guard. Oh, yeah, you were a basketball. You and I are not so different. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. Well, we've kind of run the hour. We have run the entire hour almost.

One Elmer. Thank you for coming on to Boys Omer. We had to do it. Yeah. What did you think? Was this your podcast debut, or had you been on any such thing before? I've done radio shows before.

Okay. As far as podcast goes, this guy says, I guess this is the, yeah. This is the maiden voyage. Do you have any words of wisdom, warning, or humor for our listeners out there? Ideally, all three. In that order. Wisdom warning and humor.

And then humor. For your listeners. For our listeners out there? 25 listeners. For your son. This is called boys only. So my word of warning is avoid boys only. Don't listen.

Don't listen. Turn it off. Don't let him say anything else. It's going to be the opposite of what Gray said in their collegiate article. Panic. Is this the room you guys got locked into? It is. This is the legendary room.

You now are a part of a grand expanding legacy. And you really are that because you are a professor of English. You're already a part of that. But now you're part of another one. I remember the story because I read about it in the Collegian. Yes. Good times. Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, glad to do it. Thank you. Send us out, Nate. Okay. Thanks. Thanks. More questions. More boys.

And less only. Bye-bye. Bye.