Speaker 1: A lot of the groups, and we are not going
Speaker 1: to get into specific sk You and I would talk
Speaker 1: about that off the record. They want to do what's
Speaker 1: fluffy and looks good and take a lot of pictures.
Speaker 2: I understand when you say a lot of the groups,
Speaker 2: you mean a lot of the quote AID people correct
Speaker 2: or AID really not people.
Speaker 1: Organization organizations, and they're on the edges. They don't roll
Speaker 1: into hell. We only roll into hell. If it's not crazy,
Speaker 1: we don't go. If it's just, if it's fluffy and
Speaker 1: all that, we don't want to go. It has to
Speaker 1: be something where I know that we're affecting some change,
Speaker 1: where they're hungry, where they don't have stuff. Our goal
Speaker 1: is to buy, borrow, or steal whatever supplies. Every guy
Speaker 1: on the street that just had his house washed away
Speaker 1: he needs, he may need a tarp to sleep under.
Speaker 1: I'll get it to him. I'll either bring it because
Speaker 1: I bought it. I know where the facilities are. You
Speaker 1: can get anywhere with good barbecue. I can buy and
Speaker 1: bribe my way into anywhere with good barbecue and a
Speaker 1: cold beer. Colder the beer the more you get in.
Speaker 2: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
Speaker 2: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: and I've been a football coach an inner city Memphis
Speaker 2: And believe it or not, that last part it led
Speaker 2: to an oscar for the film about our team. That
Speaker 2: movie is called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems guys
Speaker 2: will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
Speaker 2: in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses
Speaker 2: on CNN and Fox, but rather an army of normal
Speaker 2: folks us you and me just deciding, Hey, maybe I
Speaker 2: can help.
Speaker 3: That's what big Al Holdron, the voice we just heard,
Speaker 3: has done. You may remember Big Al from our episode about.
Speaker 2: His extraordinary charity Secret Families, but today we're talking about
Speaker 2: his response effort when natural disaster strike. Can not wait
Speaker 2: for you to meet and know Big Al even more
Speaker 2: right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. So everybody,
Speaker 2: this is a first, And since we're not even yet
Speaker 2: a year old, there's a lot of firsts. I think
Speaker 2: first will be harder to come by three or four
Speaker 2: years down the road, but this is a first. Some
Speaker 2: of you will remember big Al Holdron from Indiana, who
Speaker 2: on one day assembles a whole bunch of volunteers, about
Speaker 2: twenty five hundred or so two thousand, and they go
Speaker 2: out into their community and give away christ trees and
Speaker 2: ten thousand gifts all in one day. A massive undertaking.
Speaker 2: And we told this story at Christmas. While talking to
Speaker 2: Big Al, found out he's involved in a lot of
Speaker 2: other stuff. And because we found out the story right
Speaker 2: at Christmas time, we did what we very rarely do,
Speaker 2: which was a remote interview. As you know, we like
Speaker 2: to do face to face interviews. In ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: of our interviews are always face to face. I think
Speaker 2: we'd lose some synergy when you're not face to face.
Speaker 2: But timing was we wanted to hit it for Christmas,
Speaker 2: didn't have time, so we did it. But when talking
Speaker 2: big Al said he'd love to come to Memphis one day,
Speaker 2: and he told me about other stuff. So here's a first.
Speaker 2: We are now interviewing the same guest for a second
Speaker 2: time on a different topic. For Big Al, you are
Speaker 2: now a first for an army of normal folks and two.
Speaker 1: Time guests, two time winner, two time winner.
Speaker 2: Good day Army and normal folks, winn and thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you and your wife absolutely for driving uh to Memphis.
Speaker 1: How was drift drive was interesting? We thought Indiana had
Speaker 1: a lot of construction, but man, Kentucky, Tennessee, they've bought
Speaker 1: every orange barrel that's left the United States. I think
Speaker 1: we passed them all. A lot of construction. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of rain on the way down you Nashville, right,
Speaker 1: we did. We did down through nic.
Speaker 2: I mean Nashville. The construction in the traffic in Nashville
Speaker 2: has just gotten unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And we happened hit we happen to hit Louisville also
Speaker 1: at rush hour. Oh yeah, so that was real special.
Speaker 3: But that was right.
Speaker 1: We had a we had some business down in southern Indiana,
Speaker 1: so it was a great drive. NICs just get away
Speaker 1: and we looked forth. Never had really spend any time
Speaker 1: in Memphis on some of these things we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about. I've blown through Memphis, sorry, police officers, at
Speaker 1: ninety miles an hour at one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: But uh, we've gone, you know, going on the on
Speaker 1: the way to Dallas or down into the for one
Speaker 1: of the tornadoes, one of the hurricanes down in southern Texas.
Speaker 1: As we've been through a couple of times. So just
Speaker 1: have some time to really be here. And boy, I
Speaker 1: mean here's the reality Bill Well, guy, hey, guess that's right.
Speaker 1: Chicken for lunch.
Speaker 2: That ain't that bad, dude, Gus is fried chicken in
Speaker 2: Memphis for everybody? Is wow? Pretty freaking good. We're going
Speaker 2: for barbecue, but we've got some fried chicken around here too.
Speaker 1: We're going to Rendezvous tomorrow for barbecue. There's what I've
Speaker 1: been recommended. So they have it your way through? Did
Speaker 1: you stop in? The Basspro just came from there right
Speaker 1: before I saw you and the two of your place.
Speaker 2: So the bass Pro Memphis Memphis is the whole idea
Speaker 2: behind the name Memphis is after Memphis Egypt. Sure, because
Speaker 2: Memphis on the Nile on well So and somebody's infinite wisdom.
Speaker 2: At some point they built because we're Memphis. They built
Speaker 2: a big pyramid on the river in Memphis, and it
Speaker 2: was our basketball arena and it seated seventeen or eighteen
Speaker 2: thousand people and it was the state of the art thing.
Speaker 2: Forty years ago. Then when the FedEx Forum was built
Speaker 2: and the Grizzlies moved to the FedEx's form off Bill Street,
Speaker 2: here's this pyramid sitting empty and it sat empty for
Speaker 2: a few years. Everybody's like, what we're going to do,
Speaker 2: and then they go and put a bass pro in it.
Speaker 2: We're like, who puts a bass pro and a big
Speaker 2: silver pyramid? It's cool, but once you get inside cool.
Speaker 2: It is the largest freestanding singular elevator in the world
Speaker 2: that goes all the way up to the top. And
Speaker 2: while it is a store, it also looks like a
Speaker 2: natural Louisiana habitat.
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable, is there. It's fantastic. Good. So you're gonna
Speaker 3: do that. You're gonna do Graceland.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do Graceland and Civil Rights Museum.
Speaker 2: The Rights Muzum, and hopefully you have time to stop
Speaker 2: over at slave Haven, which is an unbelievable stop and
Speaker 2: story of the underground railroad.
Speaker 1: And I love it because that's a I'm a I'm
Speaker 1: a Civil War guy a matter of fact. On the way,
Speaker 1: just on the way, just on the way up, I'm
Speaker 1: going to Shiloh. Good dude, I gotta see Shiloh. And
Speaker 1: I and I didn't even know of the other battlefield
Speaker 1: that's right there on the interstate. Yeah, I mean right,
Speaker 1: that stuff is not Peterson an hour and a half
Speaker 1: for here. Yeah, we passed on the way up. I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're we are pulling in.
Speaker 3: And sitting out there.
Speaker 1: On the right on the road. I'm like, I am
Speaker 1: in you. Yeah, it won't be hard to get me
Speaker 1: to see.
Speaker 3: You were in.
Speaker 2: You were in the middle of all of it. And
Speaker 2: you got to know that Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was the
Speaker 2: capital of the Confederacy for some time, is only two
Speaker 2: and a half hour south of here.
Speaker 1: Next trip will be making there'll be an extra day
Speaker 1: added for some Civil War battlefields. I'm an old Gettysburg guy.
Speaker 2: So before we get to it, one more thing, and
Speaker 2: this is I hope, I hope our listeners are interested
Speaker 2: in any of this. But there is a company, an
Speaker 2: old lumber company. It's been around for a century called
Speaker 2: Anderson Tully Lumber Company. And at one time, if you
Speaker 2: got on a helicopter in Vicksburg, Mississippi and follow the
Speaker 2: Misssippi River up to Saint Louis, eighty five percent of
Speaker 2: all the land you would see on that trip they owned.
Speaker 2: They owned all the islands and all the land on
Speaker 2: both sides. The largest lumber producer in the world for many,
Speaker 2: many years, for many years. It was the most single
Speaker 2: expensive stock that you could buy. Incredible old family. Long
Speaker 2: story anyway, one of the islands they owned is Davis Island,
Speaker 2: which was Jefferson Davis's home, and they built it on
Speaker 2: the island to be for as a safe haven. And
Speaker 2: they owned that island and they allowed one hunt on
Speaker 2: it a year and I got to hunt one time,
Speaker 2: deer hunt and Jameson Davis House was still there. It
Speaker 2: was in disrepair, but it was still there. And so
Speaker 2: the history of all through there is unbelievable. So enjoy Memphis.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're here. Thanks, congratulations on being the first
Speaker 2: two time guests.
Speaker 1: I love and I'm honored. I am honored. So cool so.
Speaker 3: To recap.
Speaker 2: Al and his army of twenty two hundred volunteers provide
Speaker 2: ten thousand Christmas gifts to two thousand families can't afford
Speaker 2: them in their community of Muncie, Indiana, and they make
Speaker 2: it all happen on a single Saturday and only ten hours,
Speaker 2: which is a phenomenal deal. And y'all, Al is a
Speaker 2: small business owner. He wants a collection agency, and he's
Speaker 2: kind of like when Bush was talking about compassionate conservatism.
Speaker 2: Al is a compassionate collection agency guy. He does his job,
Speaker 2: but he's the kind of guy that's not going to
Speaker 2: try to make people feel awful. And it was always
Speaker 2: interesting to me that this guy that's donating all this
Speaker 2: time and doing all this for all these families that
Speaker 2: are need and his day job is a guy calling
Speaker 2: up people and saying, hey, you owe money, pay your bills.
Speaker 2: But like any industry, is a good way to do
Speaker 2: it a bad way to do it, and you told
Speaker 2: us all about that, so I'm interested. Let's follow up
Speaker 2: on the first time we met. Have you had any
Speaker 2: of the army of normal folks listeners reach out about
Speaker 2: Secret Families, which is what Secret Families everybody is. If
Speaker 2: you hadn't heard the episode, and I hope you go
Speaker 2: back and listen to it, Secret Families is what eventually
Speaker 2: became the nonprofit that does this amazing work.
Speaker 3: In Monthcie, I'm.
Speaker 2: Curious, have you had anybody reach out to you about
Speaker 2: what's been the We've never been able to ask this
Speaker 2: of a guest. Sure, what's been the follow up and
Speaker 2: feedback from your first appearance?
Speaker 1: And a guy called me about three days after you
Speaker 1: guys posted it, And I believe the first name is Joe.
Speaker 3: I'd sorry.
Speaker 1: Joe Pena, a gentleman out of Oklahoma called me in
Speaker 1: and said, hey, listen to build stuff all the time
Speaker 1: we're in. I've already started finding people in our community
Speaker 1: that have some interest. We're interested. Can we do a
Speaker 1: zoom call. We did an hour zoom call, talked about it.
Speaker 1: I told him, really, hey, here's what we need. Here's
Speaker 1: what you need to do, because this will show that
Speaker 1: there's some true interest in it for us to get involved.
Speaker 1: I said, we can teach you how to do it.
Speaker 1: It's no problem. It's a day or two. We can
Speaker 1: teach you to show you. You know, you can do
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen families at first year. You get your
Speaker 1: feet wet, and then we'll just raise you and it
Speaker 1: gets bigger and bigger. We can show you how to
Speaker 1: go do them. And I said, so, just go find
Speaker 1: some people I get about. I don't know. It's probably
Speaker 1: about a week later. I get a photograph texted to
Speaker 1: me of a list of it looked like some family
Speaker 1: members and fifteen other couples. He goes, we're getting ready
Speaker 1: to go. Gott to finalize that and make sure everybody
Speaker 1: else is still in give me some bullet points. I
Speaker 1: gave him some things to talk to him about. And
Speaker 1: so now we're going to get back with him and
Speaker 1: we're either going to go down and do a training
Speaker 1: with them, teach them, do a big zoom call with them.
Speaker 1: So if it wasn't for you guys, So that's number nine.
Speaker 1: So we had eight on the board, seven Indiana, one
Speaker 1: in Lexington that is doing it out and many of
Speaker 1: them are done out of car dealerships. And then which
Speaker 1: is which is.
Speaker 2: But you need a big open you need a big
Speaker 2: open space, and you need it's a perfect fit.
Speaker 1: It's it's a wonderful it's a wonderful situation. So I
Speaker 1: to him the same thing. Go look, go find a
Speaker 1: car dealership, Go talk to the school. He sends me
Speaker 1: back the list. I've already talked to three two or
Speaker 1: three school superintendents. Got a car dealership, I got twenty.
Speaker 1: Family is ready to go. So on we go, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, yay on army and normal folk promote and
Speaker 1: which is exactly what you guys are. It's what you
Speaker 1: want to be. It's why you're doing this right.
Speaker 2: Trying to do is connect people, get it, going to
Speaker 2: use their passion and discipline and meet need of opportunity,
Speaker 2: opportunities of need and learn from one another and create
Speaker 2: a little army that talks to you. So Monsey is
Speaker 2: where it started. But you're saying there's now eight secret families.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every we do it by county, that's right. So
Speaker 1: that's all all the surrounding counties around months the Indiana
Speaker 1: and then also then down in Lexington, and that's it's
Speaker 1: not odd because he owns the dealership that you work with,
Speaker 1: Steve Gates owns and and I want to and I
Speaker 1: called him Bill Gates I think four times on the
Speaker 1: previous podcast. His name is Steve is Stephen and he
Speaker 1: is phenomenal to my apologies and thank you for all
Speaker 1: you do because without you and your dealership and that
Speaker 1: Mounsey toyto dealership, this and happened. And he's phenomenal to
Speaker 1: He carried it. That's his home dealership down there. He
Speaker 1: carried it back to He carried it back and just
Speaker 1: said we're going to do it, and got his whole
Speaker 1: dealership involved. All their families started there expanding it. And
Speaker 1: it's funny. We always uh Chris and we laugh and
Speaker 1: some of our some of my friends out of Indianapolis,
Speaker 1: laugh the world. The world eventually evolves and points to Muncie, Indiana,
Speaker 1: and then back out.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: And the gal that the gal that was uh that
Speaker 1: is his right hand gal who really took secret families
Speaker 1: for him and expanded it. Her dad I played basketball
Speaker 1: with in high school. She's from Muncie and she had
Speaker 1: worked with Chris and her team for years as a
Speaker 1: young girl. Did you have her? She was a student
Speaker 1: of my wife's here with me.
Speaker 3: She was a student of yours. Yes, what a small world.
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3: And so I guess the world does revolver.
Speaker 1: And she happens to be going and she was going
Speaker 1: into she was in college since she was a little
Speaker 1: with her mom and dad who had been shoppers for us.
Speaker 1: And she's going to college three miles from his car
Speaker 1: dealership in Lexington, and she all of a sudden finds
Speaker 1: out that he's going to go do that, and through
Speaker 1: conversation and so she goes down. She goes I know
Speaker 1: how to do it. You can call out if you want,
Speaker 1: But I've been involved since I'm a little kid. I
Speaker 1: know exactly what's going on. And so now she was
Speaker 1: down there being involved in the running party.
Speaker 2: And now a guy reaches out from an army and
Speaker 2: normal folks just listening says, I love it, and now
Speaker 2: you're going to be doing in Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Perfect.
Speaker 1: Now we're in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: So anybody else listening, go back to the Big Alholdron
Speaker 2: episode from around Christmas time. Listen to it and maybe
Speaker 2: you can be Satellite number ten ten emails how many
Speaker 2: reindeer and Santa slay? Is it nine eight plus rudolphice
Speaker 2: time nine?
Speaker 3: Correct? So currently one slave's being fully pulled. That's correct.
Speaker 3: More sleigh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe they're going to have babies eventually, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, come on a little Rudolph somewhere.
Speaker 3: Danser Team number two. Let's get going.
Speaker 2: Yes, if anybody wants to reach you, we're going to
Speaker 2: finish this up and go to the new stuff. Anybody
Speaker 2: wants to reach you about secret families.
Speaker 1: How do they reach you? You can reach me by
Speaker 1: email at AHLDRON h O, L D R E N
Speaker 1: at atlas at l A S Collections and that's ORLWI
Speaker 1: an S dot net. Or you can call me at
Speaker 1: seven sixty five seven four four O three six nine
Speaker 1: at seven sixty five seven four four O three six
Speaker 1: nine anytime, be happy to.
Speaker 2: Talk anybody that has been thinking about something to do
Speaker 2: that they can't commit to year end, I mean over
Speaker 2: the course of a whole year, but they want to
Speaker 2: do something. Al and his crew have figured out how
Speaker 2: in a short period of time, concentrated on one Saturday,
Speaker 2: to affect the very most neediest people among us who
Speaker 2: need the happy times at the most part of the year.
Speaker 3: Which is Christmas.
Speaker 2: And if you're like I just can't get involved in
Speaker 2: something that takes a day or two days every week
Speaker 2: or three days every month, but I would love to
Speaker 2: do something, I'll have something for you. And I hope
Speaker 2: you will listen to the episode if you hadn't heard it,
Speaker 2: remember it if you did hear it, and consider starting
Speaker 2: at secret families in your neighborhood.
Speaker 3: It literally puts a.
Speaker 2: Smile on the faces of children who otherwise will not
Speaker 2: have a spile on Christmas Day. And frankly, they're families
Speaker 2: Christmas trees. And once again you will get fifty times
Speaker 2: more out of it than you put into it. You
Speaker 2: can just ask Al amen, brother, and now a few
Speaker 2: messages from our general sponsors. But first I hope you'll
Speaker 2: consider becoming a Premium member of the Army at Normalfolks
Speaker 2: dot us. By becoming one for ten bucks a month
Speaker 2: or one thousand dollars a year, can get access to
Speaker 2: cool benefits like bonus episodes, a yearly group call, and
Speaker 2: even a one on one call with me. Frankly, guys,
Speaker 2: premium memberships also help us to grow this army that
Speaker 2: our country desperately needs right now.
Speaker 3: So I hope you'll think about it. We'll be right back,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: So that's the follow up. Yeah, new stuff you started
Speaker 2: talking about. You know, well, we also whenever there's a
Speaker 2: natural disaster, we load up and run headlong into it.
Speaker 2: And I thought, what and you hear about these stories
Speaker 2: of these people, well, first the Red Cross and organizations. Sure,
Speaker 2: but and you hear about like if something happen and
Speaker 2: in and around Memphis, some folks from Memphis might go
Speaker 2: across the neighborhoods to help out with the chainsaw or something. Sure,
Speaker 2: but you and a group of guys, like a tornado,
Speaker 2: a hurricane or whatever, yep, y'all load up and.
Speaker 1: Roll pretty much a couple of trucks, a couple usually
Speaker 1: a couple of tundrd trucks from the Toyota dealership. Of course,
Speaker 1: we do secret families, right, we make phone call. He says,
Speaker 1: come on and pick up a couple of trucks, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and succinctly that's exactly what we do. Typically, it's either
Speaker 1: usually in groups of either four eight of us.
Speaker 3: Big not of your fireman or anything. Are you.
Speaker 1: Oh no, there's a couple. We have a couple officers
Speaker 1: that have gone on the last couple with us. But
Speaker 1: typically that's kind of a unique and actual.
Speaker 3: They're just normal guys.
Speaker 1: These just guys that I know you're on a collection agency. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much when you're not thirty years old anymore. Oh god, no,
Speaker 1: just turn sixty two. I mean, I've got some it's
Speaker 1: a we have a I mean, the one crew's a
Speaker 1: individual guys, a small construction company guy.
Speaker 3: It works. It's probably handy for this work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We don't let him bring any tools whatever, because
Speaker 1: you know, you know about construction guys. You know I'll
Speaker 1: be there on Tuesday. They didn't tell you which tuesday,
Speaker 1: you know, so we can't he when you're on time.
Speaker 1: When you're with me, you're on your time, on task
Speaker 1: and we're rolling. I mean it's a I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a it's giddy up time. My poor wife has tolerated
Speaker 1: that for a long.
Speaker 2: She's in she's sitting five feet from al, laughing with
Speaker 2: the sweetest look on her face and her hands across
Speaker 2: her lap, bobbing her head up and down like.
Speaker 1: Yep, Bill, I'll kick. I'm just gonna say, I all
Speaker 1: kicked my coverage.
Speaker 3: I mean we established that in the first Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, that's and there's not one person the word we
Speaker 1: wouldn't tell you that.
Speaker 3: And you also told me that the holdings are six point.
Speaker 1: Fives, six point five all day long. We are every scale,
Speaker 1: every scale and on everything that we were six point five.
Speaker 1: That's who we are, and we're really not good at it.
Speaker 1: My god, that's a We're not talking six six or
Speaker 1: six four. We're talking six five.
Speaker 3: We're talking an army of normal folks six point five long.
Speaker 1: Anybody it's be on that needs to be just don't
Speaker 1: go with me. I'll drive you a not so we uh,
Speaker 1: we load up and so we got the carpenter, we
Speaker 1: got the printer, you know, we got the collection guy.
Speaker 1: We have the old retired guy who yells at me
Speaker 1: because we move too fast. We have a guy who
Speaker 1: works at Ball State, two cops andross section.
Speaker 3: Of It's just and it is these.
Speaker 2: People have had a disaster in their community. Surely to God,
Speaker 2: eight people with two trucks can get down there and
Speaker 2: figure out a white house.
Speaker 1: And we go without any plan, which is the we
Speaker 1: have a zero plan. But here we here we go,
Speaker 1: and the the deal is there's a gentleman, and please
Speaker 1: world pray for this man. His name is Bob Ball.
Speaker 1: He runs an inner city ministry called Blood and Fire
Speaker 1: Ministries in Months, Indiana, one of the great I went
Speaker 1: to the same high school as him. He was about
Speaker 1: four years older than me. Phenomenal human being is fighting
Speaker 1: a cancer battle. So the army and normal folks. You
Speaker 1: pray for Bob Ball when you hear this. Every time
Speaker 1: you listen to this podcast, you listen and you pray
Speaker 1: for him. He's the one that kind of started it.
Speaker 1: And these guys uh him and along with a guy
Speaker 1: named a Rocky Fuller. Rocky looks like you're and I
Speaker 1: his brother got it okay, same guy felt Oh and
Speaker 1: if and if and if the fight breaks out, they
Speaker 1: are the two guys you want standing there. Got it
Speaker 1: because we're not retreating. We're gonna, We're gonna solve it.
Speaker 3: It's too much effort to go back.
Speaker 1: Oh, let's just solve it right here, because you know,
Speaker 1: if I run, I'm just gonna get tired. They still
Speaker 1: gotta fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, well Rocky, and I'd rather I'd rather see
Speaker 2: him coming to be hit in the back of the head.
Speaker 3: And I'm too fat out run anybody.
Speaker 1: Oh day, Lord, Rocky is a chef and is just
Speaker 1: a great, great, great human being. Funniest heck, well, those
Speaker 1: two were down and this thing, the whole thing started.
Speaker 1: They were at Katrina. So they were down at Katrina
Speaker 1: and they were cooking.
Speaker 3: So they stop.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm sorry, why did they go to Katrina? Because
Speaker 1: it hit?
Speaker 2: And so these two guys were the first of these
Speaker 2: guys from Monsie yep.
Speaker 1: And we weren't even attached. We weren't even doing our part.
Speaker 2: Then and Katrina happen. And they looked each other and said, surely, God,
Speaker 2: we can help. And Bob's is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bob's attached with a group and I believe Feeding
Speaker 1: America and which is a huge, large organization. Uh, they
Speaker 1: had a smoker and so they pulled the smoker down
Speaker 1: there and they were down two guys, these two guys
Speaker 1: in the stand health and kind of through that Bob
Speaker 1: had been connected. So they go down and then they
Speaker 1: spot them in a place where there's no food. Because
Speaker 1: when you get down to these places some of these times,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about Joplin there I met the town
Speaker 1: is missing. I mean it's not like there's something still standing.
Speaker 1: Guses isn't standing. It's gone that.
Speaker 3: Which means no water, no sanitary and no.
Speaker 1: Food and no buildings. I mean, that's just they just
Speaker 1: washed away and crushed and you got cars in trees,
Speaker 1: and you got dead animals everywhere, and you got people
Speaker 1: that they haven't searched the buildings for and they're putting
Speaker 1: xes on them and there's so they're down there cooking
Speaker 1: and they get down there and they so they go
Speaker 1: on you know, we all go on volunteer donations. We're not,
Speaker 1: I mean it's our own nickel and whoever gives us money.
Speaker 1: So they get down there, they come back. The short stories,
Speaker 1: they come back from Katrina and Joplin hits at the end.
Speaker 1: After they've been at Katrina for weeks, they're out of
Speaker 1: food and they're out of money. What are they doing.
Speaker 1: First of all, yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: They take a they take a they take a.
Speaker 1: Cooker, smoker, big smoker, and then they.
Speaker 3: Go down and they go to Katrina in place you
Speaker 3: don't have food, and they just start cooking.
Speaker 1: Start cooking, and people are lined up as far as
Speaker 1: you can see to get a pulled pork in Typically,
Speaker 1: we have a our to our tornado meal is we
Speaker 1: cook it every time. Is it's a it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: a it's pulled porkpropriate.
Speaker 2: It is so inappropriate that I'm laughing. I wish you
Speaker 2: people could see Big Oul because he's hilarious.
Speaker 3: Our tornado meal is.
Speaker 1: Our tornado meal is, and it's pulled pork. It's as
Speaker 1: good as you ever had, so easy, just as easy.
Speaker 1: I'm as good as you ever had pulled pork in Memphis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these guys have no clue. Rocket, these folks from Rocky
Speaker 1: would dominate. You're in rock SATs. Rocky would dominate. These
Speaker 1: guys would have no idea what we have the.
Speaker 2: World Championship Barbecue cook Off down here every spring. He
Speaker 2: had to pull his thing down here and get in
Speaker 2: the big leagues.
Speaker 1: Well, you know the reality is, you know we someone else.
Speaker 1: We're gonna let someone else win a trophy when someone wants,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: So as peanut coleslaw, peanut cole slaw, homemade cookies, peanut coleslaw,
Speaker 1: and barbecue baked beans, and it's like five different beans
Speaker 1: and it's and the main thing is we can cook
Speaker 1: a lot of it because we're sometimes feeding one thousand
Speaker 1: to twenty five hundred people in a day.
Speaker 2: Okay, So in Katrina, I want to set this up,
Speaker 2: so we go into what you guys have actually morphed into. Sure,
Speaker 2: in Katrina, they show up with this cooker and they
Speaker 2: just start cooking because nobody has any food, nobody has
Speaker 2: any power. They're cooking and if you had a if
Speaker 2: you did have a grill, it was probably washed away
Speaker 2: in Katrina.
Speaker 1: It's out to sea now somewhere.
Speaker 2: So they're from Indiana. Where are they getting the meat
Speaker 2: to cook and the buns and all that stuff?
Speaker 1: They take a lot with them and then but they
Speaker 1: do with Feeding America, and there's some there'll be stations
Speaker 1: set up. So once they get to buildings out to
Speaker 1: the outskirts where there's places there's there's supplies coming in.
Speaker 1: Because I'd say there's.
Speaker 3: Supplies, and somebody's got to actually do something.
Speaker 1: They gotta go get them, and somebody's got to go
Speaker 1: get the supplies, get them back down into what a
Speaker 1: lot of what happens a lot, and I've seen it
Speaker 1: over and over and all this whole list of all
Speaker 1: these that will run through some stories with the problem
Speaker 1: is is getting a to B because the smokers out
Speaker 1: here are the people out here, but mainly a lot
Speaker 1: of the groups, and we are not going to get
Speaker 1: into specific sk You and I would talk about that
Speaker 1: off the record, and it would be a whole different
Speaker 1: conversation than what is appropriate for your podcast. They want
Speaker 1: to do what's fluffy and looks good and take a
Speaker 1: lot of pictures.
Speaker 2: I understand when you say a lot of the groups,
Speaker 2: you mean a lot of the quote AID people correct
Speaker 2: or AID really not people.
Speaker 1: Organization organizations, and they're on the edges and we're not
Speaker 1: where the people. They're not where they're not they're not
Speaker 1: into They don't roll into hell. We only roll into hell.
Speaker 1: If it's not crazy, we don't go. If it's just
Speaker 1: if it's fluffy and all that, we don't want to go.
Speaker 1: It has to be something where I know that we're
Speaker 1: affecting some change where they're hungry, where they don't have stuff.
Speaker 1: Our goal is to buy, borrow, or steal whatever supplies
Speaker 1: every That guy on the street that just had his
Speaker 1: house washed away, he needs, he may need a tarp
Speaker 1: to sleep under, I'll get it to him. I'll either
Speaker 1: bring it because I bought it. I know where the
Speaker 1: facilities are. You can get anywhere with good barbecue. I
Speaker 1: can buy and bribe my way into anywhere with good
Speaker 1: barbecue and a cold beer. Colder the beer the more
Speaker 1: you get in, and that means National Guard guys, that
Speaker 1: means state police officers could care less. My goal is
Speaker 1: I've got to get there. Well, a lot of times
Speaker 1: that they get blocked off. They don't let those groups in.
Speaker 1: They'll let me in because so that's what we that's
Speaker 1: what we're moving who on several weeks, several weeks just.
Speaker 3: Cooking, they were just cooking out, sleeping in the truck, or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wherever you can. Sometimes if you can find a
Speaker 1: church building YMCA. Sometimes we have to drive some of
Speaker 1: the places where we may have to drive an hour.
Speaker 3: To get a shelter to then go back, so we
Speaker 3: can go.
Speaker 1: Back and we go back in the morning and they'll
Speaker 1: go back and roll back in at four o'clock. Get
Speaker 1: that smoker started because they got have food ready for eleven.
Speaker 1: Start serving. Then we usually serve. We don't do eat breakfast.
Speaker 1: They only will serve lunch and dinner. And well they'll
Speaker 1: cook whatever they can get their hands on, so they'll
Speaker 1: go out come back. We've slept under trucks, in trucks
Speaker 1: we were in. When we were down in Texas, I
Speaker 1: forget the that was Harvey. Down at the color of
Speaker 1: the tip of Texas. We slept in a jail. The
Speaker 1: jail had not been effected so that we had one cell,
Speaker 1: so we had four sets of stainless steel bunks and
Speaker 1: we had eight guys there, so we had Yeah, we
Speaker 1: were in the jail, so we.
Speaker 2: Going to get to that. My question is these guys
Speaker 2: spent three week down there. Yeah, were you aware they
Speaker 2: were down there?
Speaker 1: Yes, I knew they were there, but I really wasn't affiliated.
Speaker 3: With Bob and you did just nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were just doing they were doing that night
Speaker 1: they roll Joplin happens with Joplin is a twister seventh
Speaker 1: like one of the seventh. Worst death fatalities are they
Speaker 1: in Jopling. So they're in they're down in Katrina and
Speaker 1: they're they're eventually they're just going to come home because
Speaker 1: they're out of money and they're out of food, so
Speaker 1: they're coming back to Munsie to really just take a nap,
Speaker 1: reload a little bit. They get a call and say,
Speaker 1: Joplin just got eliminated from the map. Half of the
Speaker 1: whole city is gone. I mean when I mean gone,
Speaker 1: I mean you can look out and there's no trees,
Speaker 1: there's no buildings, and it just looks like a desert
Speaker 1: barrel landscape just with stuff chewed up. So they said,
Speaker 1: we need you in Joplin. We don't have any cooking stations.
Speaker 1: Off they go. They go to Joplin.
Speaker 3: They didn't even get back to No.
Speaker 1: They would straight to Joplin. Met up with another crew
Speaker 1: of guys and we'll talk about some of those other guys.
Speaker 1: They met that other crew there. So when they got there,
Speaker 1: they have no food, no money, so they're.
Speaker 3: Just they had the cooker, that's it.
Speaker 1: And then there was a Tyson semi pulled up, reefer
Speaker 1: truck pulled up, and so they had Tyson chicken frozen chicken.
Speaker 1: So they're just gonna fix chicken. This is where I
Speaker 1: come in. This is when I get the So I
Speaker 1: get a text message and it was kind of a
Speaker 1: massive text to a bunch of people, said we need money,
Speaker 1: we need food. God speaks to me on Wednesdays. Okay, Wednesdays, Wednesday.
Speaker 1: I have no idea when I when I when I
Speaker 1: when I when I get when I get out.
Speaker 3: Of the average day in the middle of the week,
Speaker 3: I get it Wednesday is.
Speaker 1: It's kind of hum day. And so God talks to
Speaker 1: me on Wednesday's when he tells me to go to
Speaker 1: these I mean that more sincerely than you. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, so I get this text from Bob,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, going.
Speaker 3: What does Bob say?
Speaker 1: But Bob, Bob just get I get this text. I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I said, I just text him back and it was quick.
Speaker 3: What did he say to you on the text?
Speaker 1: Just the text? He said, where we need money, we
Speaker 1: need money donated.
Speaker 3: And we need food and probably stuff.
Speaker 1: And just anything because they gotta have pans and gloves
Speaker 1: and everything and just everything. And we're out and we've
Speaker 1: just we're kind of rolling in here and we're trying
Speaker 1: to make it up as we go along, and so
Speaker 1: I text him back, and this was on Wednesday, and
Speaker 1: so I'm like, so I pray about it, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of quick hat my desk forgot to ask permission
Speaker 1: for my wife. Probably would have been a good phone
Speaker 1: call to make. And just I texted him back and said,
Speaker 1: I'm coming with all kinds of stuff, gonna fill a van,
Speaker 1: gonna grab somebody and go. He's like, all right. So
Speaker 1: he called me and said what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm gonna make it up as I
Speaker 1: go along, which is usually what I do. And so' and.
Speaker 2: So once again it's Chris right, yes, all right again
Speaker 2: Chris is in the corner giggling and shaking her head up.
Speaker 3: Does he make everything up as he goes?
Speaker 4: It's just kind of been your life. Just just go go,
Speaker 4: go go go. Oh that sounds good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: But he's effective.
Speaker 2: So you get a text and you say, I'm on
Speaker 2: the I'm gonna grab somebody.
Speaker 1: And one on the way we're gonna who are you
Speaker 1: gonna grab? A Guy's name's Tony Rawley. Uh, Tony is
Speaker 1: no longer with us. Tony was killed in a car
Speaker 1: accident several years after we had we had gone was
Speaker 1: a dear friend just to Ben there. But he all
Speaker 1: looks like the fourth brother, uh, the fourth fourth Courtney Brother,
Speaker 1: big old dude. And so it was just the two,
Speaker 1: just him and I I said. I told him. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: Bob Balls and Struggle Bush, we're gonna raise some money.
Speaker 1: And I said, you just start texting everybody you know
Speaker 1: and put the word out and uh, let's raise all
Speaker 1: Uh Choplin.
Speaker 3: Was it was.
Speaker 2: It was hot, okay, So I was, it's it's on
Speaker 2: the other side of secret families.
Speaker 1: Where it's it's summer, I want to say. And so
Speaker 1: I said, you in. I said, here's the thing. I
Speaker 1: don't want to go and stay forever. So let's go.
Speaker 1: And I told Bob because when the kind of the
Speaker 1: order of events bill with any of these going on,
Speaker 1: when it hits, they quarantine the whole area because you
Speaker 1: can't travel. There's live power lines down, there's trees in
Speaker 1: the road.
Speaker 3: There's cars and truth with all the laughter and all, you've.
Speaker 1: Got it there, and they will not let you in
Speaker 1: an area until they put They usually put and I
Speaker 1: think this is true, they put a they'll put a
Speaker 1: red X on the property or on the ground that
Speaker 1: there's a body under there. Well they mark the bodies
Speaker 1: with certain they put an X because they've checked it
Speaker 1: and there is none. If there's a body, they're bringing
Speaker 1: cadaver dogs in and they bring all those dogs everywhere,
Speaker 1: and they don't want you there because the dogs are
Speaker 1: picking up your sent also, so they have can't get
Speaker 1: in for a while. So they're on the edge of
Speaker 1: it with it. And this big church they're in this
Speaker 1: this big church parking lot they're set up. They're just
Speaker 1: feeding people because you know, everybody that was where their
Speaker 1: house got squished, they've all moved to the outskirts or
Speaker 1: into other towns and they're coming back to get go
Speaker 1: through their stuff, running through and when they go to responders,
Speaker 1: everybody's got to eat. You got you got police to feed, you,
Speaker 1: got everybody else to go do it. So they're just
Speaker 1: working that with what they've got right now. And so
Speaker 1: you've got to give it a few days, usually about
Speaker 1: four days. So this is on a Wednesday. God's told
Speaker 1: me to go. Tony Rowley said, we can.
Speaker 3: Go getness setting call you on Thursday that I had
Speaker 3: a whole week for you to say.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's been awful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wait till next Wednesday.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you gotta call me on Wednesday. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm a m I'm a busy guy. They'll let me
Speaker 1: just kid. They so give us some time. So they
Speaker 1: got kind of all clear that they had really opened
Speaker 1: it up on a Monday, and I told Bob just
Speaker 1: keep in touch with us, let us know because it
Speaker 1: took us a few days. So we just sent out text,
Speaker 1: called everybody. We had some other lists of people and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go. You guys know Bob ball give me
Speaker 1: five hundred bucks. And people did, and we had I
Speaker 1: think between Tony and I, he had to be I
Speaker 1: made him. Somebody always gets made treasure, which means we
Speaker 1: have a money bag with hundreds wrapped as thousands in
Speaker 1: that bag, and I think Tony and I had somewhere
Speaker 1: between twelve and fourteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So in three or four days, Yeah, people, he's fourteen
Speaker 2: grand in cash. Yep, you load up a bunch of
Speaker 2: crap in a van that's probably also donated.
Speaker 3: Nope, that was our van, God lover, No, not the van,
Speaker 3: but stuff in the van.
Speaker 1: Oh, stuff in the van.
Speaker 3: Meet And so if you don't.
Speaker 2: Have any empt you don't. You're a you run a
Speaker 2: collection agency, yep, and your Santa.
Speaker 1: Claus one day at one day a year, at one.
Speaker 3: Day a year, and.
Speaker 2: Nobody you're not part of an India. Nobody tabs you.
Speaker 2: It's there's need, go do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's go do it, and so and let's have fun.
Speaker 1: We we gotta make it fun. No game won't go
Speaker 1: back with you if you don't have fun the first And.
Speaker 2: Everybody, please remember the thousands of times I get the
Speaker 2: emails and the questions, is I really want to be
Speaker 2: effective in help?
Speaker 3: I'm motivated. I'm inspired by hearing all these stories, but
Speaker 3: I just don't know how. Here's how. You just do it,
Speaker 3: Just do it. You got to show up. We'll be
Speaker 3: right back.
Speaker 2: So you raised fourteen grand from everybody, from everybody, we
Speaker 2: say we're going to jop them.
Speaker 1: We get we big bar and steal four big coolers,
Speaker 1: I mean big big coolers. Throw them in the back
Speaker 1: of a van of what meat and meat, pork pork butts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're cooking chicken. They're cooking chicken. They're looking. They
Speaker 1: want right, I want We're gonna do some. We're gonna
Speaker 1: do some tornado meal and Rocky's chomping at the bit
Speaker 1: because that's what he's he wants.
Speaker 3: So we guess you get plates and seasoning and napkins, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we and so and we had well. And we
Speaker 1: also stopped all the way across Indiana, down round through
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, all the way across Uri. We stopped because
Speaker 1: we only had some meat donated. We really didn't have
Speaker 1: all the connections because we had never done this. We
Speaker 1: had some money. We stopped at every Walmart then they
Speaker 1: were they were opened twenty four hours and we were
Speaker 1: in Wheeland and dealing because you can get deals done
Speaker 1: with a night manager at a Walmart.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you what you're negotia, what are you saying?
Speaker 3: We're going to drop it?
Speaker 1: It going to jop on elp with people out how
Speaker 1: much you're gonna give me and how much do I
Speaker 1: have to buy? And he would go back and say, well,
Speaker 1: we've got some stuff that's really got been pulled off.
Speaker 1: It's got to be used in the next three days.
Speaker 1: I said it's going to be used in the morning,
Speaker 1: and be like, That'll sell it to you for ten
Speaker 1: cents a pound, but you got to buy it all said,
Speaker 1: I've already backed the van. I'm a loader up baby.
Speaker 1: So we were buying everything that was as close and
Speaker 1: then if we needed more that at the end we
Speaker 1: bought enough just to fill. But once we get the cool.
Speaker 3: So from Indiana to Joplin, you're pillaging walmarts yep.
Speaker 1: And the opening we needed restrooms too, because we drove
Speaker 1: all night. We drove that whole night because we didn't
Speaker 1: waste another so we had all night. It was a
Speaker 1: long drive. I don't know how many hours. There was
Speaker 1: a lot, so we drive all night. We get there
Speaker 1: and pull in and they throw it, take it immediately
Speaker 1: out of the coolers because I need the coolers because
Speaker 1: then we go back to the local walmart at Joplin
Speaker 1: that had not been hit and we fill one of
Speaker 1: them completely full an ice cold beer. And remember it's
Speaker 1: real hot, and so dude, if you want to get
Speaker 1: things done, we talked to a National Guard guy and
Speaker 1: you give him a plate of barbecue and two cold michelobs.
Speaker 1: I swear to God, I think he would have driven
Speaker 1: our van wherever we wanted, and they let us go
Speaker 1: into all the areas that had not had anything. And
Speaker 1: I'm carrying when the van with me sixty meals already,
Speaker 1: clamshelled up, cold beer, cold coke, and diet coke, pepsi,
Speaker 1: diet pepsi in a case, and a whole thing of water.
Speaker 1: And the people are on homemade cookies. One of the gals, oh,
Speaker 1: how many dozen? It was like forty dozen homemade cookies.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing. When you're working and you're out
Speaker 1: and it's hot like that, you need sugar, you need energy.
Speaker 1: So these cookies have now become a thing. So now
Speaker 1: when we go the things that people don't have. You
Speaker 1: just remember your house got blown away and you're sorting
Speaker 1: through all your stuff. You don't even got any gloves
Speaker 1: because your gloves are in your truck that's in the tree,
Speaker 1: So you don't have gloves. So we take leather gloves
Speaker 1: men and women's gloves, cookies, and we will have cold drinks,
Speaker 1: and we call as much pork as we can, and
Speaker 1: then we will buy when we go out there. Now
Speaker 1: we try to call head. Now we do it a
Speaker 1: little a little more strategic. We try to find meat
Speaker 1: markets or meat suppliers that are close that we can
Speaker 1: get out to and we'll cut a deal with them,
Speaker 1: and then we will buy with it, buy from them.
Speaker 1: So that's what we that's what we go out and do.
Speaker 1: So we just show up. They take all of our pork,
Speaker 1: empty our coolers, We fill them full of drinks, and
Speaker 1: then ware we go.
Speaker 2: So you got to Joplin and in two days you
Speaker 2: fed four or five thousand people.
Speaker 3: It was crazy. Yeah, yeah, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: They were lined up and they had As we got there,
Speaker 1: it was so here's the thing. We've got enough meat,
Speaker 1: but this meat goes quick. I mean, you're feeding that
Speaker 1: many people. What we had was just I mean it
Speaker 1: was just a little not enough. And so the first
Speaker 1: best one of the first best stories. So those guys
Speaker 1: they empty the coolers, they're going, Okay, you're in charge
Speaker 1: of procurement. I said, what does exactly does that mean?
Speaker 1: He goes, we don't have any idea, but here's the
Speaker 1: things we need and you need to go find them.
Speaker 1: So we did. And there's and just remember there's churches,
Speaker 1: and there's places that have pepsi trucks pulling up and
Speaker 1: unloading pepsis and gatorades and that kind of stuff, and
Speaker 1: people bringing van fulls of tarps and just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just crazy, they're just warehouses. So we go find out.
Speaker 1: I said, if you guys eat, and may we have
Speaker 1: anything to eat for a day? I go, wow, I'll
Speaker 1: be right back. So we go get some meals from
Speaker 1: the ikaid. We have the cookers, so I bring them back.
Speaker 1: I feed all their people and they go, bam. Anything
Speaker 1: you need, I said, well, while you're talking. While we're talking,
Speaker 1: I need access, but I don't want to sign out
Speaker 1: because you have to. You have to come and they
Speaker 1: give you one rake and one shovel. I need forty.
Speaker 1: I need a box of tarps to throw in the van.
Speaker 1: I need whatever else I can get my hands on.
Speaker 3: So we just go through.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't want to sign in out, and
Speaker 1: if this gold vam pulls in, nobody stops me. And
Speaker 1: I'll feed you all the PEPSI coke and all the
Speaker 1: barbecue that you can eat in the next four days.
Speaker 1: Handshake deal. So you always find the director, bribe your
Speaker 1: way in and away you go. And that's and that's
Speaker 1: what we do. And so now we just have access
Speaker 1: to that stuff all night long. And he goes, I said,
Speaker 1: you guys open twenty four to seven. He goes, yeah.
Speaker 1: I said, we'll be back around too, and we got
Speaker 1: to load up for the morning to go do that.
Speaker 1: So we as we're out and about running around Tony's
Speaker 1: like we got to find more meat. Bob said, we
Speaker 1: forgot about. We got busy because what we do Villa
Speaker 1: is that we will go out and we cordon off
Speaker 1: and we work the streets whatever area we grab us
Speaker 1: find us to city map somewhere. So we're working street
Speaker 1: by street by street north and south the first two
Speaker 1: days and then east and west the next two days,
Speaker 1: and we go literally up to every house if there's
Speaker 1: somebody there, and say what do you need? That's what
Speaker 1: I think your comment was very sage to people. Just
Speaker 1: do something if you don't know what to do. When
Speaker 1: in doubt, run people will either run two problems or
Speaker 1: away from problems. I like to run two problems, but
Speaker 1: takes somebody with you that really doesn't care. If they
Speaker 1: don't care, they're not afraid, We don't scare. We're just
Speaker 1: going to go talk to them and just say.
Speaker 3: What do you need?
Speaker 1: He goes, I could use a couple of tarps, you know,
Speaker 1: I need a shovel as he gang gloves nine gang gloves.
Speaker 1: We got gloves. How about cold beer? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you kidding me. I haven't seen a beer in a week.
Speaker 1: We got one for you have thrown a couple. You're
Speaker 1: making friends just by being just by being a friend.
Speaker 1: And you know what, sometimes they want to sit there
Speaker 1: and cry because their son was killed in the tornado
Speaker 1: and all they need is set They just want to
Speaker 1: set in your van and just talk to you because
Speaker 1: there's nobody else. So we've set on tree stumps, We've
Speaker 1: set on trees, we've set on whatever lawnchair. We found
Speaker 1: that the launchair belonged to the guy who lived a
Speaker 1: mile away, just have to fly in his yard. And
Speaker 1: we're sitting there just having conversation with me. Once to
Speaker 1: tell me about his son that was killed, that was
Speaker 1: pulled out of his car out through the side window
Speaker 1: and thrown into a retention pond and then their house
Speaker 1: fell on top of it. Anyone to tell me about that?
Speaker 1: That And so there's there's some crazy. Now if you
Speaker 1: can't mentally do that, we're okay with that. And I cook,
Speaker 1: we just couldn't. You got to do something. You just
Speaker 1: gotta but here just sometimes just that conversation. So there's
Speaker 1: some there's some sad stories with it, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about some of them. So we're out and about the
Speaker 1: first best story. We're out about running aund Tony's and
Speaker 1: you got to know the big glute and he's like, dude,
Speaker 1: you gotta find some brick and meat. We gotta we
Speaker 1: bob and then we're gonna kill us if we don't
Speaker 1: show up. We came out here. You're supposed to be
Speaker 1: in procurement. We're out serving everybody. I'm going we got
Speaker 1: to do both. So he pulled over and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, he goes used, I'm like, what the hell
Speaker 1: wheel that van in? Pull in? It's a building. It's
Speaker 1: not a big it's maybe two thousand, like a home outside,
Speaker 1: but it's a block building and it's whatever somebody's meat market.
Speaker 1: No lights on because there's no electricity. I mean, you
Speaker 1: just remember we're still in the we're on the edge
Speaker 1: of the zone, no electricity. I walk in and the
Speaker 1: husband and wife, the older gentleman and his wife are
Speaker 1: letting their staff go. They have a meeting. They're standing
Speaker 1: up in the front of the meat coolers and you
Speaker 1: nothing running and said, we apologize. They've told us it
Speaker 1: could be a month before we get power back. When
Speaker 1: our coolers timp down, all this meat has to be
Speaker 1: thrown away. But we've got about two and a half days.
Speaker 1: If we don't open the cooler before they start temping down,
Speaker 1: we can put some out in our refer a little
Speaker 1: They have a small reefer truck that they they were
Speaker 1: the ones that sold tenderloins and whatever meet to all
Speaker 1: the little local people. But I have to let you go.
Speaker 1: I only have enough money to give you half a paycheck,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to reopen or not because I can't meet payroll. If
Speaker 1: I could meet payroll, I think, you know, if I
Speaker 1: could get some money, I could get a generator in here,
Speaker 1: and I think I could do it, and I think
Speaker 1: we'll make a fortune because we're going to be some
Speaker 1: of the only meat and the whole part of this county.
Speaker 1: Now worst, we've kicked the door open because it was stuck,
Speaker 1: and Tony kicked it open, and we're standing in the
Speaker 1: back and they're still having the conversation, and I just said,
Speaker 1: excuse me, customer, and they're like, yeah, do you what
Speaker 1: do you want? I said, I heard your conversation. I
Speaker 1: said what if you sold every piece of meat, no
Speaker 1: matter what it is in here right now? How much
Speaker 1: would all of that be? What kind of deal can
Speaker 1: I make on everything? You got all the He goes,
Speaker 1: you want lamb and you want all that? I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't ask what it was. I just asked how much.
Speaker 1: I said, how many pounds of meat do you have?
Speaker 1: He said, well, Mom, she can tell you exactly. And
Speaker 1: she goes back to her a little she's working a
Speaker 1: little manual calculator over there, and said, there's I don't
Speaker 1: know how much. I mean, thousand pounds of meat in
Speaker 1: the cooler, some of us frozen, others fresh in the cooler.
Speaker 1: He said, but that cooler stuff's gotta be done round west.
Speaker 1: We understand, He said, you mean the sausage and ground everything.
Speaker 1: I said, just quit asking me questions, Just tell me
Speaker 1: how much there is. And then he said, well, there's
Speaker 1: I don't know, forty six hundred pounds of meat. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll just buy it all. What's the price on it?
Speaker 1: He goes, you're going to buy it all at any price?
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, we're going to have a conversation. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll come to Jesus meeting here, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: I'll do I can do half of it for fifty
Speaker 1: cents a pound, just to get my cost back out
Speaker 1: of it, and the other half I'll do it a
Speaker 1: dollar a pound. I said, seventy five cents a pound,
Speaker 1: cross the board cash. I thought he was going to
Speaker 1: take my arm off, and so we hand him whatever
Speaker 1: it was five thousand, and I think we made it
Speaker 1: fifty five hundred just because of the Bobby Felt priest, and.
Speaker 3: So he paid.
Speaker 1: He made all his payroll, rented a generator, and we
Speaker 1: cut the deal that every morning he had to fill
Speaker 1: the he had to fill, put meat in in the
Speaker 1: reefer truck and drive it over to the church. So
Speaker 1: I didn't have to forget about it anymore. So he's
Speaker 1: hauling all that meat over there, cleaned it all out,
Speaker 1: said it would be great, no problem. They got it back.
Speaker 1: Business is still there and great. We never saw him again.
Speaker 1: We never went back. I just wrote him a check
Speaker 1: and he just took all the meat over to Bob
Speaker 1: and those guys over the next couple of days, I believe,
Speaker 1: because we didn't see them a whole lot. We're just
Speaker 1: out doing our thing, and it was perfect.
Speaker 2: So literally by showing up. By showing up, you probably
Speaker 2: saved the business.
Speaker 3: I hope so.
Speaker 1: And he was. They were wonderful and they were very kind.
Speaker 1: They kept talking. They kept telling those guys the story
Speaker 1: of this two idiots that showed up and didn't know
Speaker 1: where the hell they came from and show I mean,
Speaker 1: if we'd been five minutes later, he's out, he's gone.
Speaker 2: And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Big
Speaker 2: al Holdron, and you do not want to miss Part
Speaker 2: two that's now available to listen to as it just
Speaker 2: keeps getting better, which isn't bad for six point five guys. Together, guys,
Speaker 2: we can change this country. But it's gonna start with you.
Speaker 2: I'll see in part two. Mm hmm