While Hooky Bobbing off the Back of a UPS Truck
[00:00:00] Casey: Mid eighties, so we’re off the, uh, we’re right on the coattails of Back to the Future. And Martin, like fly riding a skateboard around. And I know that we fly, Hey, this is like, this is, we have skateboard, but yeah, like this, we’re on the ice. And so like, we would do that. I remember hooking, hooking onto the, uh, UPS truck.
Oh, that’s, and, and them realizing that we were on there and fishtailing us. Yeah. Now people are like, dude, he’s making this stuff up. No, this is how, this is how we grew up. And, and I don’t know that it was unique to, to Boise or to Idaho. I don’t, I know they’re probably doing this in
[00:00:34] Cameron: Detroit necessarily.
Yeah. So let’s go ahead and do intros. Okay. Uh, I am so glad to have my long-term friend Casey Hopson with us today.
[00:00:44] Casey: Well, thanks Cameron. How long have we known each other? Because, well, I. I turned 50 in April, and we’ve known each other since I moved out here from Georgia in the second grade. Okay, so that was seven years old.
You were probably six. I was, so yeah, whatever the math on 49 minus seven comes out to be.
[00:01:08] Cameron: Wow.
[00:01:08] Casey: 42
[00:01:09] Cameron: years. Yeah. 43 years. Four decades. Yeah. And I, I, uh, I don’t know how you feel about it, but we grew up in probably the most ideal circumstance with the most ideal type of kids. I, I wish my kids had the group that we grew up with.
[00:01:27] Casey: Yeah. Yeah. Like I look at what, uh, some of my kids have gone through and their experience has been going through high school and stuff, and, um, in fact, Brian Bird, uh, comes to church at our building and everything, and I, I remember we were talking about stuff in, in church one day and I said, look. The difference between the way my kids grew up and the way I grew up is that I had Brian Bird and my kids didn’t.
You know? Um, and what I meant by that was like it’s friend groups, right? Yeah. And it’s, you know, you grow up, if you can grow up inside a, not a cocoon. ’cause I don’t think that you should be sheltered from the world, but in a, in a cocoon that supports you, that, that, you know, where you all have the same type of beliefs and the same values, then it, then the rising tide raises all ships.
Right? Right. It kind of helps you along the way, but to be the lone man on the island, so to speak. Yeah. But that’s, I I think it’s a family model, so yeah. I’d agree with you. I think it was,
[00:02:31] Cameron: it was a stellar way to grow up. Yeah. When, um, uh, so I was talking to my kids, uh, some of, so Hyatt actually ended up with an amazing friend group.
Yeah. Uh, his last year. Um. The older kids, because we were moving around so much, they would have friend groups, but then we would move on up and, uh, you know, it, so Elizabeth had her friend group. We ended up moving away, so she went off to college and just established her own thing. Yeah. But Hannah and Mary, they came here and then, you know, it so disruptive.
And yet it kind of also built the resilience and taught them how to inter igate, uh, engage with new people. So I could see, I can see the argument for someone else to say, well, you know, that’s neat that you’re, you guys had that stellar, amazing friend group growing up where the, the worst thing that happened maybe was someone taking a leap where they shouldn’t.
But
[00:03:33] Casey: wow, you talk about that, like it, like that was a regular occurrence. Hey, just saying the wood pile is much more convenient than headed all the way home. You know? So, I mean, not to totally sidetrack us, but my wife’s family’s from Salt Lake City. Yeah. And, and like there’s city slickers. They don’t realize they’re city slickers, but they’re city slickers.
And, and you and I, we grew up here in Boise, so we weren’t Idaho Falls, we weren’t Gooding, we weren’t, you know, Burleigh, Rupert, these Farm Ag communities. But growing up here in Boise, it was, it was still a very much farm mentality state. It was like Boise back then wasn’t what Boise is now with a major metropolitan area and all that kind of stuff.
Agreed. And so we grew up very country and like, this is what everybody’s tuning into here. Right. I can’t, like we had our one friend, and I don’t necessarily wanna name names, but he used to walk past his bathroom at his back door to go pee outside. And, and like this is so commonplace. Like, you talk to anybody who grew up here, like, yeah.
Peeing outside by like going outside to pee. And it is, this is redneck as it gets, right? Yeah. But like my wife’s side of the family and stuff, and probably a lot of people listening to this can’t, can’t figure out, they can’t fathom you go outside to pee. But like, that was, that was the way we grew up is like, not why are we gonna stop playing?
[00:04:55] Unknown: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:56] Casey: Why are we gonna time out? ’cause I gotta go potty.
[00:04:58] Unknown: Yeah.
[00:04:59] Casey: Bases are loaded in the whiffle ball game or in the middle of the basketball game or whatever. It’s like there’s a wood pile right over there. That’s right. Oh. So
[00:05:07] Cameron: yeah. That’s, it’s, that’s so fun because, so my tits, they’re gonna be horrified that I’m talking about this.
But we have two bathrooms. Eight kids. Yeah. Uh, five girls, plus my wife. So that’s six gals. Yeah. In the house, there’s a good chance that when a dude needs to use the bathroom, it’s occupied.
[00:05:25] Casey: I think, uh, God equipped us to be able to take care of matters in unique ways.
[00:05:30] Cameron: Yeah, I agree. And I’m grateful because it is so pleasant to not have to get uncomfortable.
Yeah. To just be able to take care of business somewhere else or into a container.
[00:05:41] Casey: Yeah. Now, the problem we’re gonna have now is one of my neighbors is gonna get a hold of this somehow, some way, and go. Oh my gosh. Is he still doing this?
[00:05:50] Cameron: That’s old. Well, I, uh, my, uh, my kids when they’re like, Hey, can I, you know, we can hear him.
I need to go to the bathroom. I, I’m, I’ll be done in a minute. And they wait too long. Right? Yeah. And so then you hear this do, do, do do, do slam. And it’s like, I know what’s going on. Okay. But I, I did have to go out and I, uh, I discovered where they were using the facilities that are outside. Yeah. I was like, no, you, apparently I did teach proper c Yeah.
Take taking a leak outside. You gotta, number one, don’t ever do it in the walkway, right? Yeah. Or someone’s gonna naturally walk you and go find something to pee on and make sure it’s not gonna be worth or because find a weave. Yeah. Make use of it. Someone should be able to see you when you’re doing it.
That’s the ideal. Anyway, so I did have to instruct them on proper outside urination etiquette. But yeah, yeah, that was, uh, that was a lot of fun. But for us, it was not a big deal. And in fact, um, it didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t normal. And so I was at my cousin’s house and, uh, this was in St. George and we were going on a hike and we were probably, uh, I, I’m not a hiker, I never was a hiker.
I’m much more of a hiker now than I was when I was a kid, but I’m headed up this hill. And, uh, I was like, man, I gotta go. So I just stepped off the trail and relieved myself. And I got back on the trail and started walking up and they were looking at me like, I was a, like, what? How obscene is that? That was horrible.
And I was like. What, what do you mean? Yeah. All the time. Yeah. Not a big deal.
[00:07:43] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:07:43] Cameron: So I think little Microcultures as well. ’cause I, if my parents knew how much we peed outside, they probably would’ve been like, uh, no,
[00:07:54] Casey: that’s a, that’s a key ingredient. Yeah. Like, we didn’t have helicopter parents by day. No.
You, you know. So like, I think that was, I don’t wanna say it was the least of their concerns, but it wasn’t at all a concern. Yeah. Because there’s a lot of stuff that wasn’t a concern. That’s true. And it wasn’t that they didn’t care about us, it’s that Boise growing up was a place where you could allow your kids to still go and be, I mean, think about all the hours that we were on bicycles, all the hours that we were just out and about, going from one
[00:08:24] Cameron: friend’s house to another.
Yeah,
[00:08:25] Casey: exactly. And, and my mom didn’t know where we were at any given moment. She knew we were out playing. She wasn’t, you know, totally, she wasn’t back in the bedroom passed out or something. Right. You know, but she, we had that liberty to go play. And she could whistle like nobody’s business. Best whistler I’ve ever heard.
And she would go out on the front porch when it was dinnertime or whatever, and that was the dinner bell. She would just, you know, and I, to this day, don’t know how she does that, but we could hear it for a block away. Like, oh crap, mom’s calling. You know, and we’d come from whatever direction that we were at and you know, but they weren’t, uh, I don’t think they were concerned about, um, I know man ca and his friends are out peed in the backyard again because like, that was just whatever, their, their boys being boys.
[00:09:13] Cameron: That’s right.
[00:09:14] Casey: Now maybe if there were girls in the family, I didn’t even have any sisters. Maybe if there were girls in the family, it would’ve been a completely different dynamic. You didn’t have Not sisters.
[00:09:20] Cameron: I didn’t have sisters did. So
[00:09:22] Casey: like I know that, uh, well when I got married, my dad had to change some of his.
Habits and stuff. Okay. You know, ’cause suddenly there was a daughter-in-law and that was Right. So sitting around in his underwear was not acceptable anymore.
[00:09:39] Cameron: Yep.
[00:09:39] Casey: You know, I know what you’re talking about. So maybe, maybe it wasn’t so much growing up Idaho. Maybe it was growing up. Sister us you know, on
[00:09:47] Cameron: and know.
That’s interesting. Uh, it would be fun to get Chad and uh, Danny on Yeah. And just see what their perspectives were. ’cause you’re right, when, when I got married, I was the first one married in my family. And, uh, it was, it was odd the amount of change my dad did in such a short period of time.
[00:10:07] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:10:08] Cameron: Where I was like, oh, oh, well, okay.
That makes sense. I, I didn’t think about that. ’cause I had just grown up used to, uh, the, uh, the dress code inside the home was very relaxed. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it’s not. And one of the cool things. I would’ve never, ever guessed. But my dad was amazing at buying my wife clothes. Really? Yeah. So, uh, for Christmas, uh, so we were married in November, uh, for Christmas.
He gave her this, this, uh, beautiful dress, and I see my wife and I was like, holy cow. I would’ve never picked that for her. But it was flattering, it fit and it was gorgeous. Yeah. And I’m like. That, that’s awesome. And he goes, oh, she’s easy to shop for. I was like, okay. And, uh, the, so next holiday more, uh, or birthday, whatever, more gifts.
And then Brian got married and Eric got married and the gifts stopped and I was like, Hey, so how come you stopped buying Sarah clothes? ’cause you were really good at it. And he is like, oh, I couldn’t figure out how to get the clothes for the others. They’re not as easy to shop for. Oh, interesting. I was like, lame.
My brother stayed single. My wife would’ve had a, uh, a complete set of clothes every year. Yeah. He was just, it was odd. Yeah. The chances of odd. Well,
[00:11:37] Casey: he may have been one, you know, he’d never had a girl That certainly did. And I will tell you that, so we have, you know, my two oldest, my boys and my youngest and my girl, and she’s 10 now.
And Kohl’s is going outta business over at the Boise Town Square Mall. And so I went in just the other day on my lunch break and I was looking for, okay, what, what can I buy that’s on clearance, you know? Yeah. Jeans for my job, whatever. Well, all my stuff was picked over. So you started looking for the kids.
And I will tell you, it’s a lot more fun to shop for Paige than it is for Bo or Catcher because, well, I don’t know why. It’s just, it is just different. It’s you’re shopping for your little girl and you can say, oh, like she would look cute with those red shoes on. She would, you know, like with the boys, it’s like, I don’t know, like you’re gonna look like moronic
[00:12:30] Cameron: boys either way.
You know, oh, that reminds me of the quote that you can take an awkward girl as a teenager, uh, get a, get her in a fancy dress, a little bit of makeup, and she can be gorgeous. You take a guy, no matter what you do, you’re gonna just make an awkward young man in a suit. Yeah. Doesn’t matter. It’s always gonna be weird.
So,
[00:12:52] Casey: and Seinfeld has a good bit about that. It talks about the best man and everybody dresses in the tuxedos and he says, uh, basically the idea is that mine are all the same anyway. They can be irreplaceable. They can just plug and play. That’s why we dress ’em all the same in the tuxedo. That’s why in the We wedding ceremony, it’s not, do you take Cameron Watson, it’s do you take this man?
Because if you don’t show, the next one just slides over and boom. And so
[00:13:20] Cameron: the ceremony continues. He’s got a good bit about that. Matt, you know, comedians I have decided have to be the most intelligent. Uh, off the cuff. Beautiful. Yeah. And I know it’s not off the cuff. I know they practice their art. Yeah.
But the amount of knowledge they have to have in order to pick a point and have it resonate, it’s amazing. The, the genius that goes behind some of their bits. Oh
[00:13:46] Casey: yeah. Well, quick, like, quick and recognizing quick and being able to deliver, you know, and, and I think there’s a talent that comes that gets refined there.
Um, ’cause we’ve all been around in the, in the gab sessions before and stuff. You’re like, oh. And like your eyes get wide and the light bulb goes off. ’cause like you’ve got the perfect reaction to that comment that was just set and you trip all over trying to get it out in time. Yeah. So it’s like, I think they gotta be patient.
I think they gotta be quick, but they gotta, you know, I think. Your mind sometimes goes 10,000 times faster than your tongue can keep up with. Yeah. So it’s pacing themselves and just knowing that, Hey, I got the time. Let me deliver this perfectly and wham, you know? Yeah.
[00:14:34] Cameron: But yeah. Sharp, witty. You, g you, I, uh, my perception was that you guys were, uh, your family was exposed to comedy far more than my family.
Like, uh, you guys would joke, uh, and have little rifts, and I, uh, I would look and I, I couldn’t, I couldn’t figure out how you guys did that, you know? Yeah. You were entertaining. In fact, it was your, your vehicle if we were gonna go camping. I wanted to be in your guys’ vehicle because it was gonna be so funny and fun.
Yeah. And, uh. It, it’s, uh, I wonder if there was a, uh, your family was just naturally wit inclined or,
[00:15:18] Casey: I don’t know. I think, um, I think that there’s coping mechanisms that everybody develops. I think that there’s, um, you know, like some families are really easy with their emotions. They’re very expressive and, and stuff like that.
Other families are uncomfortable with that. And so they turn to laughter. Maybe that’s what we did. I don’t know. I mean, we could, well, at the same time we were not afraid to tell each other. We loved each other, you know, like, um, most of the time, um, to this day even. Well, I’ll backtrack on that a little bit.
My brother and I don’t do that as much anymore. ’cause I know it makes him uncomfortable.
[00:15:55] Cameron: But that would be fun just to do it. Hey Josh, that was for a while,
[00:16:00] Casey: but that was
[00:16:00] Cameron: all that I was like, okay. My undyed, Devo is your brother.
[00:16:05] Casey: You, uh, you end the conversation with. All right. Good talking to you. Love you.
And, and he pauses and is like, yeah, love you too. Um, but you know, we always, that was common to express that leaving the house or whatever. So we had that side to us. But I think more than anything, um, we were defensive with humor and we were, um, that was just kind of our, our go-to, to, I don’t know if we were masking emotions and, and feelings or if we were using humor to convey feelings.
I know that we did a lot more yelling than a lot of families. Uh, my wife to this day will not play pin pinochle with anybody because the first time she tried to learn the game, my dad. Well, she says he yelled, I think he communicated right. That’s what, how we did it. And not to make excuses for dad, but um, like, she’s like, no, that’s a violent, horrible game and all y’all do is yell.
And I said, no, we communicate. Yeah, we, we, we talk about things. And that was kind of across the board. So, I don’t know, maybe humor balanced that. Um, I don’t know. But the reality was we probably weren’t comfortable in our own skin. So instead of being sappy or risk emotion, putting it out there, it was a joke instead.
I don’t know.
[00:17:26] Cameron: Yeah. I think out of our friend group, Danny had the best one-liners. I remember him. Yeah. Going through a book one time and, you know, he, he, he got to the fat section and just let go. I was just like, dude, leave me alone for a bit. Let me catch my friend come up right here. Because it was so funny.
It was directed at me. But it was so funny. Yeah. Like the beach whale one, you know? Hey, I saw that. I don’t remember that. Shain, make sure when you go to the beach, make sure you take a friend along so that if they can prevent the people from throwing you back in the ocean. Yelling beach quail, beach whale.
And it was said a little bit of extra. ’cause I don’t think the book said took a friend a along, you
[00:18:12] Casey: know? Probably. Yeah, he probably adapted it. Yeah. No, they were good that way. He and he and Carrie both were, um, and, and so like they were the kings of sarcasm. Yeah. Like if you wanted sarcastic humor, all right.
Put ’em in the room with you. And boy, you look back on it and I’m sure that nothing is, is perfectly remembered. Usually you don’t have a hundred percent clarity in your recollection, but. I think they lived more for being able to deliver the zinger, the sarcastic zinger than to add the bulk, the meat and potatoes of the conversation.
[00:18:51] Cameron: You know? Yeah, I could see that. That’s interesting. And that kind of fit a lot of the, the joy that you would see afterwards. Yeah. ’cause when he would deliver it, it goes back to that, oh, if light bulb, I got it. But he could actually get it out.
[00:19:06] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:19:06] Cameron: And it perfectly timed
[00:19:08] Cameron: Uhhuh
[00:19:08] Cameron: and you’re like, ow. You look over at him, he’s just grinning.
You know? He knew exactly what he did. And it depends on
[00:19:17] Casey: who the target was. Yeah. But there were, there were times where I can remember being in Target and you just left one to beat the snuck. Yeah. You know, like, dude, what’s, what’s, what’s wrong with you? Why are you so crappy? And you know, you. Teddy was making fun of me, or you know, whatever it was.
But it was like, yeah, it, it, it rubbed you wrong for the, for the majority of the day. Like, man, why, why would you pick on Chad or Cameron or, you know, like, why was I the target today? But yeah.
[00:19:45] Cameron: Yeah. It’s, I wonder what his perception was. ’cause I bet you, uh, he lives just down the road here.
[00:19:51] Casey: Yeah, I was noticing that when I pulled up.
Yeah. I was like, I think Danny lives right around here.
[00:19:55] Cameron: Yeah. So I see him from time to time and uh, you know, in our adulthood we obviously put away childish things, so I don’t think I’ve heard him Duo Z here or a one-liner as, uh, an adult with kids. Yeah. It just doesn’t happen. But looking back some of the funniest things, whether it was directed at me or someone else, and I feel a little guilty because I did prefer it being directed at someone else.
[00:20:20] Casey: Well, that’s not, that’s natural. Yeah. I wanted it directed at someone else, but
[00:20:23] Cameron: it was
[00:20:24] Casey: so
[00:20:24] Cameron: funny. Yeah. Um, my kids, uh, so I, I’ve been doing a lot of retrospection, ’cause now my, my family’s kind of split in half now, so I have 18 to 25, or she was 19 to 25, 4 oldest, uh, service, mission three married. Okay. And then I have high, two high schoolers and two elementary schoolers.
And I’ve been looking back and looking at the mistakes I made with the oldest and reading books and learning. And I, I remember having a conversation about roughhousing and roughhousing. I hated it growing up because I was always, uh, you know, my limbs were longer than my muscles could sustain. That’s, you know, yeah.
I was clumsy as in other words, and roughhousing with hurt, and I couldn’t defend myself and I hated it. So growing up, I didn’t allow any roughhousing. No, no. Not, not. Yeah. And then I’m reading books about how important it is to rough house, and I’m like, gosh, shoot, did I miss something here? You know? Yeah.
I protected the oldest four from roughhousing, but the nice thing is it was three girls and a, and a guy. And so I have a son who’s extraordinarily sensitive Yeah. To the needs of others and will protect women. Like yeah. I, I watched him one time and it, it was one of the first times I got a little nervous on behalf of my kids because I was like, he is about to get beat up.
He’s stepping in where he’s, this is not his thing. And then I realized, oh, he’s my son. He’s huge. He’s gonna be fine. Yeah. But it was weird to watch him, uh, do that. And so now with my younger, my youngest two boys, uh, I don’t know where the line is for roughhousing. And I, I still don’t know. I’m still wondering.
Yeah. But I’m not gonna be as quick to say, Hey, we don’t roughhouse. Where for the oldest ones, when they would start, if they started to swing pillows at each other, I’d be like, nah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Play something else. Yeah. Now I think I might encourage them to get some pillows out and, you know, go to town.
[00:22:41] Casey: I’ve got, uh, I’ve got a cousin who’s like a sister, uh, a sister to me, closest thing sister I ever had. And I was over visiting her in Idaho Falls one time, and, and she has four different boys. And, um, they were kind of, they were gonna picking at each other and they’re, they’re the most behaved kids you’ve ever seen.
So, like, God throw that out there as the, but they’re kind of picking at each other, riving each other. And their dad, her husband says, all right, go get the boxing gloves. And made ’em, put ’em on. And then they just, it turned into a boxing match right there in the living room. Seriously. I was like, I was, and, and we grew up, we grew up very redneck like, and people assume, well that’s ’cause your mom’s from North Carolina and that was your heritage and stuff.
And like, no, like most of the redneck stuff we got from living out here. Um, and so I remember watching this going, oh my gosh, they’re gonna like, the 16 year olds are gonna kill the 8-year-old type of thing. And, and I wasn’t horrified, but I was just, I was mesmerized because, but at the, when they were done, it was like, all right, so you got it outta your system.
Uh, now, you know, now go off and play well together or whatever, whatever the lesson was. So they’re boxing, big age difference and it Oh yeah. Like, uh, you know, there’s four of ’em. So I think it arranged at the time I. 16, 14, 12, and then I think the, the last one dropped down from 12 to eight or something like that, you know, to, and so, yeah.
[00:24:20] Cameron: Did you ever do the dirt quad fights with, uh, with us? I, I don’t remember you being part of that. We were too sophisticated for Yeah.
[00:24:29] Casey: And as I claim to have grown up redneck and then claim the sophistication there. No, I, you wouldn’t, I don’t remember that. No.
[00:24:36] Cameron: That, I think that was a, a different set of friends and Yeah.
It, it got, it got nasty where we had boundaries. Like you couldn’t. You could throw the dirt clo, but you had to stay on your side of the street. And, uh, oh my goodness. It, it got bad. Uh, so bad that, uh, Stephanie’s dad. So on, on our street Uhhuh, um, this is when the lakes lived further on down. I don’t know.
Yeah. You, you remember that, but yeah. Um, so we’re, we’re, I’m having a dirt cla fight with the jenssen’s across the street and a gal named Stephanie Veter and this, uh, person, the, the neighbors next to us. And Stephanie catches one right in the face. Yeah. And you know, dirt clo stay fur. Well, they usually got some rock reinforcement in them.
They do. So she catches one in the face, starts crying, goes on inside. And, uh, we continued to play. And actually I think we stopped playing at that point. ’cause we all went, oh, I don’t think I want that to happen. So then we just gathered and we started playing. Well, her dad comes marching down the street and everybody just goes, P Yeah.
And disappears. And I’m the idiot who looks and goes, I wonder what, why he’s so mad. And he comes up and he is like, your friends abandoned you. I was like, what do you mean my friends? Where are my friends? Boy, you’re right. And he is like, you did this to my daughter. And we’re like, uh, actually I, I know I didn’t, but because I can’t throw that well, you know, and my mind, I’m going through all of these Logical Yeah.
You know, things and he is just yelling. And when he was done, I remember going, yeah, I don’t, I don’t think I want to be like that. I don’t ever want to yell. I. Yeah. Someone for doing that. And so I think that was one of the little turning points for me to decide that I wouldn’t be the guy to, to, uh, raise my voice in order to handle conflict.
[00:26:36] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:26:36] Cameron: And it served me well, but, uh, I had, as a dad, I had to practice raising my voice because sometimes that was needed. Yeah. To get the discipline going for the kids. ’cause they wouldn’t know that they were in trouble. I’d be like, all right, so, uh, you, you did this wrong. And you’re like, oh, okay. And, and then finally it’s like, all right, so I’m gonna yell, Hey, you did this wrong.
And they’re Oh, and they feel it and then they can change.
[00:27:04] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:27:04] Cameron: I wonder where the balance is ’cause I know I was pretty extreme. I I look at other families that would vocalize. You said there was a lot of raised voices in your household. We couldn’t, we couldn’t be loud in our house. ’cause my dad worked nights.
Oh, so we, like, when we would fight, we had to do it silently. So it was a lot of this, and then if someone yelled pH, the puck would be over. So if you wanted to risk the wrath of dad, yeah. You would just vocalize something that you were in pain. So if someone accidentally, uh, went too far, ’cause you know, the, they, the goal was never to kill each other.
Right. So I, I, uh, I have a scar. Right. See this scar right there? The two Oh yeah, yeah. That was a steak fork. Three-pronged steak fork thrown at me by my brother. And it hung. Yeah, I was like. Huh. And then the blood came out and I vocalized on that one. Yo, everyone ran because, you know, my dad, if he got woke up would come stomping out and then Right.
That’s where death was really at risk.
[00:28:13] Casey: You guys were, we were learning combat in our households. You were learning psychological warfare because like, yeah, I could win this war without even firing a shot because I wanna wake dad up and he’s gonna think that you hurt me and you’re dead. That’s so, yeah. I, I don’t know.
It’s an interesting concept because, you know, my wife would be the first to tell you that, well, you never have to yell. And I don’t know that I believe that. Um, and I think, I don’t know that there’s a one size fits all. That’s true too. Um, I think it depends on the family. I think it depends on the kids. I think it depends on the DNA.
Mm-hmm. My kids are half of my wife and half of me. Right. Which means there’s a half of them that very much. Is like inline and in the link that links to her soul and she knows how to like message to them and how to raise them, right?
[00:29:10] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:29:11] Casey: But there’s another half, a completely different half that is my DNA and it doesn’t move, doesn’t twitch an ear unless is yelled at and threatened with their life type of thing.
Yeah. You know, what’s the better half? Well, probably my wife’s half right? But I can’t change the fact that the, the half of ’em is my DNA. So I gotta speak to that half at times and say you could better, I don’t know if you’re podcast is rated or PG or PG 13, but you know, you better move your ass or else there’s gonna be some hell to pay, you know?
And yeah. And um, feel free to bleep that out if you need to. Um, but like. There’s times where I think that’s, I’ve got some friends who have adopted kids. Okay. And they’ll be the first to tell you. It is weird because the ones that we’ve adopted, like there’s DNA in there, that is just going to send them in a direction.
Like even though they’re in our home and in the environment and everything else, there’s DNA in there that just doesn’t line up the same as the kids who are, are genetic kids. Interesting.
[00:30:22] Cameron: And that goes to that nurture versus nature
[00:30:26] Casey: Yeah. Discussion. And it’s like, I think, so here’s, here’s the challenge.
Yeah. We’ve all done it, right? We’ve all been out in public and you see the mom scolding the kid, or you see the dad flying off the handle and you’re like, what a piece of crap. I would never, but I. Yeah, be careful with that because you may be right. Like there’s times where you are like, I’m gonna go over and smack the crap outta that dad because like what he’s doing to that kid is, you know, but there’s also times where like that parent knows how to communicate to their kid, like just inherently, instinctively knows that.
Um, so, and it’s not, it is not a free pass. You don’t get to be a jerk. Yes. You don’t get to be like abusive. You don’t get to do any of that. But I do believe instinctually, like my dad could talk to me and say things to me that were short and direct, but that would cut me to the core. Not in a bad way, but like,
[00:31:23] Cameron: yeah.
Okay. Affect change.
[00:31:24] Casey: Yeah.
[00:31:25] Cameron: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:25] Casey: You know, and had my mom said those things wouldn’t have done any good. Right. Um, and if somebody would’ve come in and given me a 30 minute lecture about this wouldn’t have done nearly as good. I. But my dad coming in and saying, you know, whatever it was that he said at any given time, it was like there was a direct conduit.
And I’ve noticed I’ve got the same thing with my oldest, my second child is, is got some challenges. He’s got cerebral palsy, so that’s kind of wildcard in there. Like I don’t have a manual on him. Yeah. Uh, I can’t even begin to write one because it’s all over the place. Um, my daughter, the jury’s still out, but like there’s, I do have a direct conduit
[00:32:06] Cameron: to that kid.
Yeah. You know, one nice thing about having eight kids, what is, as you screw up with the older ones, he can learn for the younger one,
[00:32:14] Casey: you see, that didn’t work. That didn’t work in our family because. There’s, each kid has had to have their own manual written on the fly. Okay. The first one. And everybody, you know, their first child is, is gonna be that way.
Sure. You know, ’cause it’s the first you’re figuring it out. You’re like, I don’t know what to do. What do you think we gotta do? I don’t know. Take this away. Yeah. Let’s give that a try. You know? Then you make your notes and go, yeah, that didn’t work. So child number two, no. That we gotta do this and this and this.
Right. Well, in catcher, having a cerebral palsy, everything in our manual that we were developing for bo. Mm-hmm. And just so people don’t realize we’re actually writing a manual, but in your parent manual that you’re developing, it’s like, okay, none of this applies whatsoever. Brand new manual for that kid.
Yeah. And then Paige comes along and she’s a girl. There’s no carryover parenting on her either. So like three kids, three distinct different manuals.
[00:33:05] Cameron: So if you’d had six or maybe eight, maybe you’d get a read, maybe there could be some copy and paste. Yeah. Yeah. Well, how did you find out about the s uh, the what, what was the first time you went?
Huh? We might need to pursue finding out more about number two with catcher. Um,
[00:33:25] Casey: it was my wife. She watched this. She’s gonna be like, yeah, Casey, when was it? When did, when did you know? She’s gonna watch this? See if I know. Um, he had speech delays.
[00:33:36] Cameron: Okay.
[00:33:36] Casey: And we’re, I think it was 18 months in and we’re not seeing any, you know, there’s certain, you know, kids are supposed to start and like talking, even though they’re not talking, they’re trying to non
[00:33:48] Cameron: Exactly.
Para language.
[00:33:49] Casey: Um, and catcher wasn’t doing any of that yet. And, uh, the doctor said, Hey, you know, he’s, he’s a little behind in speech development. You might wanna. Go in and see somebody. And, um, we didn’t think it was that big of a deal to be honest with you. Uh, Liz had a brother who, who didn’t talk until later.
And then, and then Josh, my brother didn’t talk forever. And then when he finally started talking, it was full sentences. It was just like, okay, I’m ready to talk now. You know, type of thing. So, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t alarms and stuff going off for us, but then at two years, and even two and a half years, I think it was about the two year, two and a half year mark, somewhere in between there, that we were like, okay, we probably ought to go, you know, like, just see.
And, um, he came back, uh, diagnosed mild, mild cerebral palsy, which is good for him. Good for us. Um, cerebral palsy is basically had, I’m fend people out there by describing it in such a, a,
[00:34:56] Cameron: um. One of the commenters, one of the commenters from the YouTube channel. Yeah. When we talk about being offended, had the best comment.
I wish I should look at, I remember listening to a podcast when they’re like, oh, and some commenter sent, I can’t remember who it was. I was like, yeah, they should know who that is. Now I’m like, oh, I can’t remember who it was, but some commenter out there said, those who get offended, uh, are not good at understanding.
[00:35:23] Cameron: I, I
[00:35:23] Casey: agree with that. Like there’s, there’s, it takes a lot to offend me. Like, you’ve gotta get ruthless and just, all right, that was just plain me. You, you’re trying to be a jerk now.
[00:35:33] Cameron: Right. You know?
[00:35:34] Casey: Um,
[00:35:35] Cameron: so anyway, free, free reign here. Those who are offended, you just, they need to understand better. Sure. So go ahead and be rudimentary in talking about
[00:35:43] Casey: it.
So, cerebral palsy, as I understand it and how it’s been explained to us is basically brain damage. Yeah. Now, it doesn’t happen from a, from a impact or something like that, but at some point during. The birthing process or while he was in the womb or something, um, they figured that he had basically a, a little bit of a stroke.
Oh, okay. And as a result, it, it put scar tissue on the brain Now with a stroke victim. And again, what little bit I understand. ’cause I’ve unfortunately never been one. You know, the one advantage a stroke victim has is like, if they have to learn to walk again, if they have to learn to talk again and things like that.
As horrible as that always, um, they’ve done it before.
[00:36:24] Cameron: Okay.
[00:36:25] Casey: So it’s up there.
[00:36:26] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:36:27] Casey: But the, the paths for that message to route from the brain to the extremities is now closed. Got it. Like there’s a big barrier there. The bridge is out, whatever, whatever analogy you want to use. Um, so the brain has to just like, on our GPS when, and it says rerouting or whatever.
Yeah. You know, the brain has to do that. It’s like, okay, I know what I’m trying to launch here. But I can’t send it this. And so you have to learn to send it a different way. And that’s what all that therapy is and everything. Gotcha. Now there’s somebody at home right now going, dude, this guy’s doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
[00:36:59] Cameron: And then someone else is like, oh,
[00:37:01] Casey: I finally understand. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but with catcher, he never had that. Nothing was ever learned. So the brain is just programmed like, Hey, I gotta send these, these signals
[00:37:14] Cameron: off, but I don’t, it doesn’t actually understand purpose or, uh, evidence of outcome. Yeah. So there’s no reinforcement thing to, uh, so I’m big into AI and neuro networks and I, I won’t go into there, but there’s, um, feedback part.
No one talks about it because it’s geeky weird stuff, but Right. When you’re trying to train a neuro network, you have to be able to give it feedback on how well it did. If someone’s already walked, they know what success looks like. Mm-hmm. And so when they’re trying to move a leg and it’s not moving, the brain’s like, that didn’t work.
Let’s do it. Yeah. If it’s never happened before, it’s just like, is is that okay? I, yeah, I, how do I know? Did that work?
[00:37:52] Casey: What’s your, what’s your, uh, control part of the experiment, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, and, and without a control part, then you’re just firing stuff off. And the best I can understand the cerebral palsy is, you know, with catcher since you had it from birth, you know, the brain’s just firing signals off.
And, and, and, and the down part to that is if it learns to mediocrely, if, that’s obviously not a word, but I like it in, in a mediocre way if it learns how to get the job done. Okay. That’s, that’s how it works, right? Yeah. And so then. Later on. So you go through all kinds of therapy and all kinds of speech therapy, occupational therapy, different things like that to try to relearn around what the brain thought at the time was, Hey, cool, we got it done.
[00:38:42] Unknown: Yeah.
[00:38:42] Casey: Right. It is like, oh, this isn’t so cool. We gotta, we gotta, well, I don’t know. ’cause this is what we’ve figured out, you know? No, trust me if you go this route. So anyway, um, we’re fortunate, he’s fortunate because, um, it can be very debilitating just depending on how, how bad that scar tissue was. Right, right.
Um, you know, you can have, uh, kids who are in a wheelchair their whole life, and it may be, they may be completely functional. Just again, where is that on your brain? And they could be completely functional intellectually. But have no use of the lower half of their body or, you know Right. No real control of any of
[00:39:25] Cameron: this.
So it all depends on what part of the brain Right. Was affected by what whenever and whatever it was that caused it. Right. So I didn’t realize it was such a broad umbrella as far as the diagnosis goes. Yeah. That’s interesting.
[00:39:38] Casey: Yeah. So his, um, they say is mild, like super mild. Um, the blessings of that is that he still does a lot of stuff like a normal kid.
[00:39:50] Cameron: Okay.
[00:39:50] Casey: Um, the word you’re supposed to use these days is typical. Yeah. But, um, give it 10 more years and that’ll be a taboo word. So that’s the cycle normal. Um, but then there’s other stuff like, you know, he’s 15, uh, he can’t tie his shoes, you know, so he’ll come up, Hey dad, every tie my shoes so I can go to the gym and play basketball.
Yeah, I, you know, I’ll do that for you. Huh. Um, and so like, do you the other kids, so bringing this full circle, like how did you grow up? How did we It was great having the kids that we grew up and stuff. Well, the other kids looked and like, what’s this kid’s problem? Sure. You know, like, Hey Biff, get along with this guy’s life.
Jacket dot thinks he’s gonna drown. You know, it’s, it’s future. Yeah. Very s um, you know, kid can’t tie his shoes. He can’t, you know, what is, what is, and there’s a lot of that kind of stuff. Um, so it’s a double-edged sword, right? I mean, yeah, he’s, it’s a much better situation than it could be, but it also brings in his challenges and stuff.
[00:40:56] Cameron: Did you, um, do you have any recollection of my inability to communicate growing up? Did you ever like go, wow, that kid can’t speak?
[00:41:06] Casey: I. Like when you say that, I think I remember it, but like, it’s not what I remember about you.
[00:41:12] Cameron: Yeah, yeah. It’s good. So I had six years of speech therapy and, uh, it was, it was, it was bad, right?
Yeah. It because of that, I didn’t learn how to read because how do you teach a kid to read? You put a book in front of him, right? And you say, this is an apple. Say apple. And I’m like, and they’re like, okay, moving on. So I just, you know, didn’t, uh, didn’t read until this one, uh, my reading teacher in middle school, uh, it was like the first teacher who came over and said, so you can identify these words, but you don’t, you have no idea what you’re reading, do you?
I’m like, no. Have you ever read a book? No. And she got me to read my first book. Yeah. And it was, it was life changing. Became, uh, she’s like, Hey, when you come into something you can’t figure out how to. S read just, or you don’t know what it says, just keep going. You’ll be able to figure it out by context.
And so it changed my life. And she, by the way, she, I, I hated the idea of reading a book. ’cause none of ’em sounded interesting. So Right. She goes, what’s, what’s your favorite show? What’s a movie that you’ve enjoyed? I was like, well, I just, I like the rats of Nim. She goes, do you ever wonder what happened after?
I was like, what? No. Wait, what happened after she goes to her bookshelf, pulls off this book and says, this tells the story of what happens to them after the movie’s over. And she gives it to me and she goes, there’s gonna be a lot in there. You don’t under, you can’t read. Just keep going. Yeah. And I did.
And it, it created a love of reading. So I owe that teacher a huge debt of gratitude. Right. But that speech therapy made me so sensitive that with my oldest child from when she was like. Barely Gooing and Guying. I was coaching her having to do the mouth exercises.
[00:43:00] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:43:01] Cameron: And my family makes fun of me.
’cause there was a time, uh, she was, awe, she was two and she, uh, was really into this thing and wouldn’t let it go. And so I stopped her and I said, Elizabeth, you’re fixating. Can you say fixating? And she looks up at me and she goes, fixating. ’cause that’s, I was constantly trying to get her to speak. Yeah.
Words. So she’s talking like a champ. Great pronunciation. I didn’t say, I can’t even say pronunciation. Right. It’s all right. She’s, she’s saying all these things. Then number two comes along and just a little delayed. I go in and I don’t want her to have the same issues I had. So we, we have health and welfare person come in, a speech therapist to evaluate her and they’re like.
She’s ahead. Like, how can you be ahead? She’s so far behind. And you’re like, yeah, your other daughter’s obviously really, really advanced. You’re like, oh, okay. But yeah. So now that fast forward and that communication and that manual that wasn’t, doesn’t come with each child and each child’s different.
Right. Our fourth child, I was, he has, um, uh, he was a really, really good kid. Everybody knew he was a good kid, but he was a kid and he was a boy. He would do stupid things like boys do. Yeah. And one time he, at, in the middle of the night, he, he, his friend went around and started knocking on people’s windows.
And this is when we were living back where we grew up, uh, in a subdivision called Charter Point.
[00:44:33] Cameron: Okay.
[00:44:33] Cameron: If you want to ask the sheriff where most of the issues in ADA County come from, what subdivision is one to avoid. That would be the, uh Oh, really? Yeah. And anyway, and I was like, you can’t do that. And I’m talking to him and he’s listening and he goes, he has a flat effect.
So no external, uh, indication of what he’s feeling or what he’s thinking. Okay. And he wasn’t verbalizing what he’s doing. And this, I don’t know, he’s maybe 10, 10 years old. And so no effect. I’m like, oh, he doesn’t get it yet. So then I start to talk about consequences. Still not getting it. I was like, you could have been shocked.
And I go into great description. All of a sudden he goes, pale past really? Well, you got through. I just, I got through and I got through, I, I got through enough that I knew that I had gotten through. So at that point I was like, oh. So my inability to understand whether or not he understands is yeah. A limitation here or not him understanding me.
But yeah, he actually, uh, later on, uh, he’s, he’s gone through quite the, uh, quite the life ’cause uh, he has a tendency for moral, uh, obsessive compulsive. Okay. Uh, so meaning that he feels like he has to be morally correct. And when he sends, uh, he, it, it just cycles and it beats him up. And so when he was, when, um, his cousin who was, uh, just slightly older than, uh, committed suicide, uh, now that moral OCD had a target.
Yeah. And, uh, suicide became a real possibility. And he had a couple notes and it was, it was horrible. Right. Yeah. Well, um, the, it was his friend group to kind of go back to where we started. Uh, playing a game that, that was like the start of him living again. And, uh, we, for a long time we just, our focus was preventing them from dying.
[00:46:42] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:46:42] Cameron: There was no effort in trying to get him to live. It was just, let’s prevent him from dying, you know, five hospitalizations. It was, was a really tough part of life. But, um, he, they started playing this game called Senior Assassin. Have you ever heard of it? Yeah. Yeah. So for those who don’t know, uh, you get a group together, uh, everybody is given a target.
And this is the seniors in high school, A graduating class. Yeah. Yeah. So, and he wasn’t a senior. Uh, I’m pretty sure, yeah. He wasn’t a senior. Okay. But he, they, they were like, Hey, we’re gonna open this up. And the, the token they had, I think were, um, spoons so you could get your target out with a, by touching them with a spoon.
Okay. And the idea is, if if I was your target, you could touch me with your spoon, I would be out and then you would assume and take on my target Right. Until there’s one left.
[00:47:32] Cameron: Right.
[00:47:33] Cameron: So he’s playing this, you never know at any given time who’s, who’s after you. That’s right. And so he has this, this group, they’re all, and they’re creative and I’m watching him.
And, and up until that point, it, it was life-threatening depression. Spike of just bad depression back down to life-threatening depression. And then he started playing this game. And with all the other things going on, I mean, we were trying everything. I mean, if we got, we, we did all the normal things that people do, then we started going into the world of wacky and we were trying anything and everything.
And then I noticed that things started good getting where it wasn’t, he wasn’t just having bad depression. He was having mild depression. And that was like, yeah. You know, and I, I’m talking to him in the car one day and, uh, that’s one thing he’s always done, just totally willing to share exact worries at how are you doing?
I wanna die. I just don’t wanna live anymore. Can you just please let me die? Can you help me just end my life? And, you know, it’s like, no. Yeah. And, uh, so I asked him, I was like, things seem to be going well. What, what’s occupying your thoughts here? And he’s like, it’s this game. And I was like, tell me more.
And this group of friends pulled him back into living, gave him a purpose that what was neat about it is if he, it, it didn’t, it wasn’t life threatening that nothing mattered. It was a game and it gave him an excuse to interact with people. Mm-hmm. Doing absurd things like setting up a trap above someone’s door so that when they walked out, he could pull a string and a spoon would fall and hit him.
Yeah. Uh, you know, just bizarre. Yeah. Weird, fun things. And that, um, connection with friends helped pull him back from just surviving into living again.
[00:49:29] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:49:29] Cameron: And I wonder if one of the issues that we never had, that our kids had was isolation. We spent so much time at each other’s homes in the backyards on the, uh, those we, I remember, do you remember the cravens?
Yes. Okay. For some reason, one of their kids, I, I feel awful, I remember, uh, Sarah’s name, but the older kid, uh, he was a basketball player. Yeah. I can’t remember his name. This is terrible. But I, one day he’s like, you, you like playing basketball? I was like, yeah, I do. And he goes, you’re not very good. He didn’t say it like that.
I was like, no, I’m not. He goes, if you want to get better, meet me here, uh, at Silver Sage Elementary, meet me here after school and I’ll, uh, coach you. Yeah. I was like, okay. He’s a high schooler. Sure. Coaching some Yeah. Dumb. And so I’m all, and he’s like teaching me stuff that he had learned and helping me, and he didn’t have to do that.
Yeah. He’s a, he’s a teenager helping some annoying elementary school student about to go into middle school. Who’s clumsier than most people? Because I had these huge feet. Kind of fat and not very, you know, just weak. And he’s all coaching me and helping me.
[00:50:50] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:50:51] Cameron: That, um, we, that was just the neighborhood we were in, ev and, uh, man, I remember a couple times getting into trouble, but it, it was such mild, you know, I felt, I was like, oh, wow.
That wasn’t, that was pretty bad. And now looking back, I’m like, wow. I would be excited if my kids would go do something. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. And, and get into trouble.
[00:51:16] Casey: Well, and I think, and not only was it the neighborhood, um, I think it was the community. I think it was Boise. I think it was Idaho.
[00:51:24] Cameron: Okay.
[00:51:24] Casey: Um,
[00:51:26] Cameron: and you think must have changed that much from culturally speaking?
[00:51:30] Casey: I do. I certainly do. I think that there’s, I think that’s still Idaho in many areas. I don’t know if it’s still Boise.
[00:51:36] Cameron: Okay.
[00:51:36] Casey: Um, but I think it was Idaho. My mom, you know, grew up in North Carolina, lived in Atlanta. Um, was always very grateful that she moved her family out here to Idaho when we were so young, because she said, and still to this day says it was a great place to raise kids.
Oh yeah. And, and I think it goes because that was the environment that, that allowed us to do all that stuff. Um, but I, I think a thousand percent, you know, you mentioned like the isolation, the, I think that the stupid phones mm-hmm. And this entire generation is the iPhone generation. And for as remarkable as that technology is, and we’re using ’em right now for this podcast, and, and you’ve got the world of information at your fingertips, um, you can carry around.
Everything from the constitution at your fingertips to the scriptures at your fingertips and, and any, anything that you want, but also all the filt that you can also carry around. But it’s the, it’s the glued and the brain rott that is right there in the palm of your hand. We didn’t have that, you know, so I look at my kids and, and their friends and they’ll sit in a room together and scroll through TikTok videos and, um, you know, I’ve, I’ve never looked at TikTok, couldn’t tell you anything about TikTok.
I’ve seen reels on Facebook and I’ve seen reels on YouTube.
[00:52:58] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:52:58] Casey: And they can get addicted because like, oh man, that was cool. That ship went up this wave and came crashing down and all this say, I’d never seen anything like that. And then the stupid, uh, algorithm knows, oh, he liked this. Lemme give him another one.
I’m gonna give another one. And pretty soon you’re, you’re 60 minutes, two hours later
[00:53:15] Cameron: watching desk
[00:53:15] Casey: that A desk. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so like, we didn’t have that. Yeah. So we had to go live life. We were on our bicycles. We were throwing rock cla, dirt closets at each other. We were throwing, you know, like, here’s one for you.
We used to hooky Bob in our, in our subdivision every winter time. Yep. And, and like it was probably only two or three really good snow years that we had. Yeah. But to me, in my memory, that was our entire childhood. Absolutely. And we would go strangers.
[00:53:45] Cameron: Yes. Would, you would hook onto the back of a car that slowed down at the intersection, grab on, and, and if they noticed, instead of being like, okay, they’d be like,
[00:53:56] Casey: oh yeah,
[00:53:57] Cameron: Uhhuh.
[00:53:58] Casey: And it was like, I think we all, you know, this is mid eighties, so we’re off the, uh, we’re right on the coattails of Back to the Future. And Martin, like fly riding a skateboard around. Heading on. That’s right. And I know that we thought, hey, this is like we, this is, we have skateboard, but yeah, like this, we’re on the ice.
And so. Like, we would do that. I remember hooking, hooking onto the, uh, UPS truck. Oh, that’s, and, and them realizing that we were on there and fishtailing us. Yeah. Now people are like, dude, he’s making this stuff up. No, this is how, this is how we grew up then. And I don’t know that it was unique to, to Boise or to Idaho.
I don’t, I know they probably weren’t doing this in Detroit necessarily. Right. You know? But this was how we grew up and it was the time that, and this is how we interacted. Yeah. Like, why would I sit at home when, man, there’s a whole world right outside that door, and all I gotta do is go across the street to Chad’s house or to Cameron’s house, or just go outside.
Somebody will be out there. Yep. And we start, Hey, you want hooky Bob? You have this’s, hooky. Bob car goes by, you’re ver like, we didn’t need these phones. Now you can get caught up in the phone. And I understand depression, isolation, like all of this. When all you know is right here and you’re not experiencing out there.
[00:55:17] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:55:18] Casey: Like life is not right here in this room. Life is not right here in my hand with this phone. There’s no, God gave us bodies to go experience life, sit us down here, put our spirit in a body, and I believe it brings him great joy to watch us water ski or to watch us play basketball or to watch us now.
I think it brings him great sorrow when we misuse those bodies.
[00:55:45] Cameron: Oh, interesting. Yeah.
[00:55:46] Casey: But he gave us a body to go and experience the world and I think that’s why it brings him great sorrow when we wreck that body with drugs or with alcohol or with different things like that. Right. But you know, think of the greatest memories you have.
Very few of ’em. I mean, I’m willing to bet and willing to guess, but very few of are inside. Now you might have Christmas memories, you might have Thanksgiving memories, you might have memories of when your child was born and all that was inside. Yeah. In Idaho, some of that might have been outside with the child being born and stuff.
[00:56:23] Unknown: Yeah.
[00:56:23] Casey: You know, like most of your greatest memories are probably outside and it’s out doing, and it’s out in ways that you can’t have a phone in your hand while you’re doing that. Right. Um, I believe these phones for all the good that can come from ’em, I believe they’re Satan’s greatest tool in stunting
[00:56:46] Cameron: the development of this generation.
You know? Uh, I could not agree more. Uh, the hooky bobbing when you, man, it’s, I bet you there’s people out there who don’t even know what that is.
[00:56:57] Casey: Yeah. And, and not to cut you off, I want you to come back to whatever, but this, that’s one thing I was going to, so like a few years ago, two winners ago, I. We were in our neighborhood and I’ve got my three kids and my oldest, who’s 17 at the time.
[00:57:10] Cameron: Yeah.
[00:57:10] Casey: I said, all right, everybody outta the truck. I stopped in the middle of the road, everybody outta the truck, come back to the back and my wife’s like, what are you doing? I said, just relax, it’ll be okay. I didn’t tell her ’cause I knew she was gonna object. And I said, okay, get down here like you’re catching.
And we’re sitting right behind the truck and the exhaust is coming into our face and stuff. Yeah. I says, get down like you’re catching and grab hold of this bumper. Okay. Now when this truck starts to move, don’t let go. And my, my daughter who’s who was probably eight, nine ish at the time, to her credit, she’s like, I’m out.
And she waved, come back to it like she’s the brains. Okay. And, um, my wife is like, you’re not doing this. You’re not doing this. I said, they’ll be okay. We lived, they will too. You know, type of thing. But like, I had to force them.
[00:57:58] Cameron: I. To do this. Right. Things that we naturally discovered Yes. Was possible and were, and we watched back to the future inside and thought, how can I apply that coolness, let’s go play to my life, back to the future that’s right
[00:58:10] Casey: outside, you know, and see if I can get my bicycle up to 88 miles an hour.
And if we go down this hill, oh my
[00:58:16] Cameron: goodness.
[00:58:16] Casey: The Lovelands Hill. Yes. That’s what I just thought of. Do you remember my oldest brother? Yeah. He took a nasty, like endo tumbling down that hill.
[00:58:25] Cameron: Yes, he did. But boy, howdy. Did he at that? I I was, that was when I applied some brain cells and went, I’m out. Yeah. I never did it because that was freaky.
You gotta describe it though, ’cause we’re talking, you and I have a shared memory. We have the curse of knowledge. People listening to this, they’re like, what?
[00:58:42] Casey: Yeah. So, so Lovelands
[00:58:45] Cameron: lived out at the
[00:58:46] Casey: south side of town?
[00:58:47] Cameron: Yeah. We, we were in Boise, but we were in the. Outskirts of Boise then a little bit even further, yeah.
Was the loved ones. Yeah. Where paved roads stopped.
[00:58:59] Casey: Yeah. Like they would have been rednecks by definition because the directions to their house, as Jeff Fox already said, would’ve included the words, turn off the paved road. And that was how you got to the Lovelands place. That’s right. And so along the side of their house, there was a road that went back to their neighbors.
Well, the road went on back ways and then up, and when we say up, it’s not like a little knoll or a little hill or a little grassy whatever it was up. Yeah. And, you know, um, and it was gravel.
[00:59:31] Cameron: Yes.
[00:59:32] Casey: And so you got a bunch of scouts out there having an overnight campfire, you know, overnight camp out and everything.
And, um, in the dark, the bright idea of, hey. We could, so’s got their bike, but you can’t ride the bike down the hill in the dark. I bet I can.
[00:59:50] Unknown: Mm-hmm.
[00:59:50] Casey: And so Eric took off down that hill and, you know, you’d have to check with him for the, for the true nuts and bolts behind the story of that. Yeah. Took off down that hill and at some point in the, in the descents, whether it was the halfway point or the threequarter point, if, you know, that happened and then Yeah.
And just, you know, and burning left skill,
[01:00:12] Cameron: he left some skin.
[01:00:14] Casey: Yeah. In that apple. Um, but you know, again, going back to like, nobody wants to see their kids get hurt. No. Right. No. But you learn life skills. Yes, you do. I guarantee you Eric has not done that since. And that he’s got a new perspective on certain things.
Like yeah, that’s probably not a good idea. And he can make that decision based on life
[01:00:35] Cameron: experience and the other side of that coin. Okay. So that he did that on a bike. He crashed, he experienced pain, he recovered Uhhuh. So now fast forward, he’s um, home from serving a mission. He’s living in St. George, Utah.
And he takes my parents to a place that he says this, I want, I wanna show you the type of place I wanna live. He’s driving a wagoner, I believe, all wheel drive. And he’s driving along and as my parents describe it, he pulls off the paved road, okay? And he starts driving up a hill that is not intended to be scaled.
And he just drives all the way up at knowing that worst case scenario, he’s probably gonna be okay. Yeah. You know that he, um, yes, that was probably very scary for him and I bet he didn’t ever do it on a bike again or in the dark as well. But it also let him know that, hey, when bad things happen. You can heal.
Right? You can get better. Now you take that to an extreme and it’s, it’s not good. Right. But I love listening to my parents tell that story because my mom was terrified, I think, I don’t know if this is true, but I think when they got up there, both of them got out of the car and refused to get back out in and said, you can just drive down on your own.
We will walk.
[01:01:58] Cameron: So,
[01:02:00] Cameron: but that, you know, take from a scouting outing like that where we’re experiencing life that sure we did stupid things, but we learn from those stupid things sometimes the wrong lessons. Right? But boom. But
[01:02:15] Casey: were they though,
[01:02:16] Cameron: that’s, you say the
[01:02:17] Casey: wrong lessons, but were they, because even like Eric’s, there was no wrong lesson learned there.
There was the right lesson. You learn like, oh, that wasn’t a smart idea. It was survival of the fittest. Sure. And you weeded out the people who weren’t smart enough to go. Uh, yeah, I’m not gonna do that again. Yeah, that’s true. You know, the kid is like, I I can still do that. I’m
[01:02:39] Cameron: okay. Well, death weed you out.
That’s true. So you were telling the story about hooky bobbing and Yeah. And we got off on the lovelands, but we, I still think we’ve explained what hooky is.
[01:02:53] Casey: Well, and it’s probably known by different names. I don’t even know how, why we called it hooky Bobby, other than that it just, somebody was like, Hey, let’s go hooky Bobby.
What’s that? Well, it’s this. Okay, cool. Let’s hook it. Where you hook yourself to the
[01:03:03] Cameron: back of the car and you bobble on It’s probably the worst car. Okay. So let, I’ll, I’ll explain it. So, in the wintertime, in Boise, in where we lived, we would get a couple of snow storms a year. Sometimes it would cake onto the road and make the road really slick.
And when that would happen. Everybody would go outside and you would gather around intersections in the neighborhood because at the intersections, as cars would come by, they would ha they would slow down ’cause the roads are icy. Mm-hmm. And you could go around, grab on, hook onto the back of the bumper, and then you would ski essentially on the ice as the car pulls you
[01:03:43] Casey: ski.
Or like, once your legs went out from underneath you and you still had to hold that bumper, you just, you just drag,
[01:03:50] Cameron: you know? That’s right. What happened to the back of your coat? I don’t know. What, what did you mean? The worst though is when, um, it would start to freeze thaw and then you would get the little patches of Yes.
Asphalt
[01:04:04] Casey: with around the manhole coverage. Oh, the manhole coverage we’d always get and say,
[01:04:08] Cameron: and you would stop. The car would keep going. Yep. Yep. And down you would go, but you would then get up, dust yourself off, or brush the wet snow off and go back to an intersection to catch another hooky, uh, another car.
And we, I, I remember only getting yelled at by one person.
[01:04:27] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:04:27] Cameron: And you know what we learned that you don’t grab the bumper of a nice car, you just grab the bumper of the cars that were around our neighborhood. Yeah. Not the nice one that you’re like, Ooh, that’s a nice one. Get here. Oh, he cares about his car.
Okay.
[01:04:43] Casey: Trucks are, trucks are good to stick to. You know, you can’t go wrong with a truck. The
[01:04:47] Cameron: suburbans, uh, I remember hooky bobbing on the back and having neighborhood kids come and grabbing onto the handles. ’cause they would stick out Yeah. And do side surfing, standing. Oh, really? So I don’t remember that part.
I tried it. Didn’t worry. Yeah. I opened the door, so I was like, ah, I don’t have that ability. But yeah. Uh, something else my, uh, do you remember doing donuts? Is uh, like as soon as you’d have a license, whether it was at the church parking lot or the, the elementary school, you’d go in and you’d practice cooking or doing donuts or whatever you wanna call ’em.
I took, tried to get my kids. I was like, sweet. Hey, let’s, I’m going, let’s go have some fun thinking I’m gonna be the cool dad. Fuck, stop. This is, I’m like, whatcha talking about? I’m totally in control. Yeah. And I actually made several of them as soon as they were old enough to drive. Oh, that’s the other thing.
I don’t know when you started to drive. I started to drive when I was nine years old.
[01:05:43] Casey: Yeah. It was a, I was. And again. Right. Like different tires, different, but, but you, what you’re gonna know about Idaho is it’s an agricultural state.
[01:05:53] Cameron: Yeah. It was legal to have a
[01:05:54] Casey: license at 14. At 14, you know, and so, and that was just technicality.
A lot of the farm kids were driving at nine and loading the hay and stuff like that. And you know, a little kid goes driving down the street maybe 10 years old, that’s the Johnson kid. He is just going into market to get parts for the, you know, let it be type of thing. Yep. And so, you know, the laws that were passed in Idaho for the longest time were like, Hey, whatever.
Just don’t impact ag. Yeah. It doesn’t, if it enables agriculture, great. You know, and so that was the beauty of the state that we grew up in. Um, I got my license at 14, actually. 15 learners permit. 14 license at 15. Um, but I mean, I was driving, I was working for my granddad, I was driving the forklift in the backhoe at 10 years old.
[01:06:40] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:06:40] Casey: You know? Yeah. And saying dump trucks. And so like. You know, the license was just a technicality that I was when it came and I was like, okay, cool. I’m legal now. It’s, they’re illegal.
[01:06:52] Cameron: I remember getting a job at Boise Hawk Stadium and, uh, wherever you worked there. Yeah. That was, oh my goodness. That was,
[01:06:59] Casey: and didn’t you, uh, take out the fence with a, with a track?
I did.
[01:07:03] Cameron: I sure did. Yeah. And what the, the funny part of that story though, so for those who don’t know the story, I am, so I’m working at a baseball stadium. I’m, I’m barely 14 years old ’cause we’re in Idaho, so you of course you get a job
[01:07:18] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:07:18] Cameron: For pay on the books legally. Yeah. At age 14.
[01:07:21] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:07:22] Cameron: And, uh, one where they let you drive heavy equipment.
That’s right. Well, and so the. Uh, he, the, my boss, he goes, do you know how to drive a tractor or do you know how to start a tractor? Is what he asked. Well, of course I did. ’cause I’m an Idaho and we had a farm and I know Glow plug, you push it, light comes on, you turn it. So I tell him, he’s like, great, go take the tractor, load it up.
And this is where the literal side of my brain gets me in trouble. Yeah. I was like, I didn’t say I could drive it. I knew how to start it. So I, I go and I figure it out. I get it started and I’m messing with stuff and I figure out the bucket and all that. I go and I load it up with garbage and I’m supposed to take it behind the, the home run wall, right?
Yeah. And it’s painted blue. I, I remember it so Crystal clearly in my mind ’cause I freaked out ’cause of what I did. I pull behind there, um, I dumped the garbage, the, the weed, the, all the clippings and stuff. Yeah. And then with it, with the bucket. Out still. I turn and I start backing out and I crank the wheel and I’m going a little faster than I should for sure.
And that bucket, as the tractor swings, hits the, the back fence and the whole thing just starts to do this wave freaks me out. Right. And I’m just watching it. And I look and I’ve torn up the blue paint off of the, and the fence was, uh, basically telephone poles with things behind it. So it was big, tall telephone pole stuck in the ground.
And the, that’s the thing I’d hit, damaged it. And then on the bucket of the tractor was a bunch of blue paint from the fence. Yeah. And I’m just, I’m all like feeling awful about it. So I drive the tractor back to the wash pit, where, and I go and. By this time I’m actually supervising college students. Yeah.
Which doesn’t make sense. Actually, I’m not supervising college students. All the college students who were back in school, these were the guys who couldn’t go to school ’cause they were interested in other things other than college. Yeah. Um-huh. So I tell ’em, I was like, Hey, uh, go to the wash pit and scrub the blue paint off of the bucket.
You go to the back fence with some blue paint and paint the, the fence. And I go looking for my boss. He, he wasn’t around. And uh, he, when I found him, I go up to him, I was like, Hey, just so you know, I hit the, the back fence with the, the bucket of the tractor and he is like, and just start swearing and, you know.
Back in the day when my dad would swear when we were working on cars Uhhuh, I would just set the light down and I would leave it. I hated it. Yeah. Swearing would happen. And uh, so he’s just cussing and he’s just swearing at me and he goes, he was, he goes marching towards the fence and I go marching towards the fence with him and he gets up there and he looks, and it’s freshly painted and he touches it and he goes, did you paint this?
I was like, no. I had Joe paint it. And he is like, oh. And then he go, goes Martin over to where the tractor is. It’s in the wash pit now. It’s pristine ’cause it’s got wash. Couldn’t get the blue paint off. He looks at it and he’s like, did you got, did you wash this? I was like, no, I had Henry wash it. He’s like, oh.
He goes, okay, then don’t do that again. All right. But I, the reason I ended up supervising is because I could drive. Yeah. As a 14-year-old and we were driving her. So this was after the next morning, after the game, uh, pickup truck. Uh, the boss’s pickup truck. We are loading it up with garbage sacks, mostly a beer.
Uh, uh, those clear, uh, cups that are full of beer, right? Yeah. So it’s full of this. Trash bags are just full of it, and it’s smelly and stinky. We’re driving, picking ’em up, putting ’em in the back of the pickup. The guy who’s driving one of these college a astute guys, um, he pulls up in front of a cement filled pipe.
That is supposed to be there to protect like a hydrant or something. Yeah. Yeah. They have my gas stations too. Yeah, exactly. Bumper posts. What’d you call it? Bumper posts. Bumper post. Yeah. That’s such a perfect name for it. Yeah. Because what happened next? The guy, I was like, Hey, there’s a thing in front of you.
And he looks at me and he goes, huh. And he drives forward, hits it, just as the boss comes around and he goes, he the boss starts yelling at him. This was before I was in charge. And uh, he starts yelling at this college ages guy. And the guy is like, and then he turns his wrath on me and says, and why didn’t you?
I was like, Hey. I told him. I was like, this is not me. Yeah. And he go, he looks at him and he looks at me. He goes, do you know how to drive? I was like, yeah, I know how to drive. What? I’m 14. Of course I know how to drive. He goes, none of you. SOPs can drive my vehicle. Again, you’re the only one who can drive.
I’m like, okay. And so that became my job. Yeah. And because I was the one driving, it naturally turned into, I was the one to, Hey, get that done, and then I would delegate it out. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s how I ended up being the guy who then runs, uh, almost knocks down the, the back fence and has everybody fix it.
But yeah, that, that was, I, that was cool. My kids, my daughter, um, Rebecca is 16. She teaches, uh, she’s a tutor at some math, uh, focused place where kids come in and she teaches them math. Yeah. That’s awesome. Um, I don’t think any of my kids have had a physically demanding job. Growing. Yeah. And we, we painted, we, we worked at the Hawk Stadium.
I worked at the, uh, tortilla plant. Oh. Well, I mean, we. It was just normal to have jobs. You worked for your granddad, that, that was an industrial job?
[01:13:25] Cameron: Oh yeah.
[01:13:25] Cameron: I, I remember the first time I realized that the, was it Dale’s uhhuh? I remember the first time I was at a gas station, I, I made the connection that, that symbol, that logo down the Yeah.
Was the same one that was on the pickup that you would dry sometimes. And I was like, wait a second. Is that, is that the thing? And Yeah. Then find out that like half you, half the stuff was gas related. Half of it was like HVAC and heavy air elevator. That’s what it was. Yeah.
[01:13:52] Casey: Yeah. HOS and elevator. Yeah. Um, I don’t know.
I’m very appreciative of how I grew up with the opportunities that were given and not, um, it wasn’t silver spoon and hand opportunities, but it was opportunities to learn to work.
[01:14:05] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:14:05] Casey: Opportunities to learn life skills. You know? Um, granddad started Hopson Elevator, um, back, um, 1960 ish. Uh, he started Dale Service 1950, started Hobson Elevator sometime shortly after that.
My cousins would probably get on me for not knowing the exact year, but, um, started it because he had a friend who needed an elevator put in his house. Hey, Dale, can you, can you help me de in, can you help me do this? And Granddad was just that guy, right? He was just that guy that knew how to build everything, knew how to fix everything.
Um, and he’s, yeah, I could probably, I could probably figure that out. Went over, got the elevator installed in the guy’s house. And he, and, and literally the thought process was, well, that wasn’t that hard. I do this professionally. Starts Hobbs an elevator and starts, and to this day, even though they sold the family business three decades ago, you’ll still find in some of the buildings around town here that are two or three story buildings.
Mm-hmm. A Dover Elevator with the Hobson Elevator logo in it. Um, and that’s a, that’s. Legacy. Right? Yeah. Um, you know, when I see those, it’s a flood of emotions that come back because it’s like, yes, it’s my granddad. That’s everything that I grew up doing. That’s my childhood. That’s, you know, to me it’s all intertwined.
Yeah. And so, um, you know, using a blowtorch it 12 years old Yeah. That’s ’cause that’s, you know, um, that was how we grew up, you know, welding something together. Yeah, sure. You know, and so it’s, it’s, it’s been tough as a parent because you want, you look at these things that as an adult you realize, okay, that shaped me and that developed who I am.
How do I recreate that, that for my kids? Yep. Because I have a business for them to work in like that now. Yeah. So how do I, so you go out and you buy a cheap harbor freight welder, and, and you let ’em start welding in the garage and stuff. And you know, you put out the fire that’s going in the garage before it burns the house down and they’re like, okay, let’s move it out into the open.
And, you know, you, you buy, uh. A 1978 Ford pickup. And so they learn how to drive a stick and, and can work on it, you know? Yeah. And, and all this kind of stuff. And so
[01:16:17] Cameron: work on it where it’s not gonna be, uh, so horribly misguided. Number one, they can work on it and number two, if they mess it up right. Can easily be Yeah.
Gotten back up to Yeah. You didn’t destroy
[01:16:28] Casey: five other things. That’s right. Like, no. Okay. You messed that part up. Take it out. Go get the go, get another new part and put it in.
[01:16:34] Cameron: That actually reminds me two, two experiences looking back. The Homer, um, there was a guy named Ethan. He was Carries crowder. That’s it.
[01:16:43] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:16:43] Cameron: Anyway, they had this old Subaru and they asked me, I was over there and they’re like, Hey, can you help us? I was like, yeah, uh, I can hold a light, you know? ’cause that’s what I used to do for my dad. Yeah. Uh, but they were, they were trying to get the transmission back into it. And yeah, it took forever hours, on hours working on this car.
And when everything was done, Ethan goes, what’s this? Aw man. They literally had to pull it back out so that they could take apart the transmission to put this ring thing back in Uhhuh. Yeah. And I remember looking at that going, holy cow. And they’re doing this because they kind of want to, right. It wasn’t like, Hey, you need to get that fixed.
It was, we need a car, this car is available, we gotta get it, the transmission working. So they went to do that. And then, uh, so that memory is very crystallized. And then I remember a big project in your backyard when you guys put in a basketball court. Oh yeah. I don’t rem I don’t remember ever thinking it, it had never occurred to me that one you could have a basketball court in your backyard.
Yeah. You know? And then number two, that you would just do it yourself. Yeah. And I just remembered the amount of work that went into it and. How, how cool that you guys did it. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, oh we’ll, we’ll general contract it out. It was, you actually did the work.
[01:18:09] Casey: Yeah. And it wasn’t, uh, I mean, just to lay a little background there, it was, you know, we’ve removed the saw, we brought in road mix, we compacted the road mix, we framed up the concrete pad, you know, we poured it in.
We had a mixer out there in the backyard.
[01:18:23] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:18:23] Casey: And a big, um, and, but that was some of the access stuff we had access to. Right, right. We had a dump truck at work, so dad, to go get the dump truck filled with road mix and bring it home, back it into the backyard and dump all the road mix out there. And I could sit there with my shovel and bags of Portland concrete and spoon, you know, feed that stuff into the mixer.
And get the blend right and then bring it over in a wheelbarrow and dump it out. And Dad would trail it out. And we poured it in these five, uh, different sections to where we had this basketball court out there. Yeah. And it was, you know, there’s some of those skills that, that I acquired just through nationally growing up.
I feel guilty because I, when was the last time I framed up Concrete Pad, you know? Yeah. Decades. But I still know how to do it. Why don’t my kids know how to do it? You
[01:19:10] Cameron: know? And so to, to bring it back to the phone. So for me, that exposed me to the possibility of doing things for oneself, right? Yeah. You, you can fix a car, you can pour your own basketball court if you want.
If you want to do it, you can. It’s not, there’s no one who’s going to tell you no, nowadays, that’s not necessarily as true because they have all these regulations and you, you probably would have an HOA who would have a fit about having a dump truck pull into your backyard. But, um, with YouTube. And now if, if I need to fix something, like I, we, I’ve been, I have fixed the washer and dryer so many times, um, just because YouTube was like, I’d be like, what’s this noise?
And it would then say, some guy’s, like, if you’re experiencing this noise, Uhhuh, I was like, oh, okay. That makes sense. This is my make and model. If you happen to have this make and model. Yeah, it was wonderful and I’d fix it. And thank goodness this last, um, year, the last time it, it broke actually on Amazon, it tells you how many times you’ve ordered the same product.
Yeah, the last time. Yeah. I was like, wait a second. That was only three months ago. It, it, now there’s something else going on that is making this part wear out. So we re replaced it. But all my kids grew up with, Hey guys, we’re not gonna have laundry services for a couple days. Because I have to fix it and I don’t have time.
[01:20:40] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:20:40] Cameron: And then they’d come down and everything’s sprawled apart. And that, uh, the knowledge that you can do something for yourself that’s still available if you’re exposed to it. So YouTube is the how, but you know, I, I think there’s some real value in making the attempt yourself when, when things are not, uh, life on the line type of stuff.
Uh, and one of the favorite stories that I tell is what my wife, when we were first married, we had a 1985 Buick Park Avenue. It was, it had come from my grandpa who had passed away, gone to my parents, and then we had, uh, gotten it and it muted. The brakes replaced.
[01:21:25] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:21:26] Cameron: Well, I knew from experience that brakes can be replaced by you.
Yes. So I, oh, by the way, I remember, did you have like a Pontiac that had a. The steering, the steering wheel had like a thousand buttons on it.
[01:21:41] Casey: Is that a real hit? Yeah. Mom and dad had a pon, a Pontiac Bonneville, that was the SE package. And so it had some spoiler trims on the front and on the rear. And, um, it was probably six cylinder engine, but it could actually get up and move.
I mean, it wasn’t probably gonna be a Corvette or anything, but it was, it was a peppy little car. And yeah, I had, you know, this was probably in 1990 ish. Yeah, 89 ish. So the idea it had all these steering wheel buttons and stuff Yeah. Was like, yeah. That was out there. That was, that was a hit from night rider at that point.
[01:22:15] Cameron: It was, uh, anyway, so I’m, uh, it’s hot, so I’m gonna use my parents’ garage. Uh, plus my dad had tools. Right. I, I was still young in my. Uh, in my marriage and I hadn’t acquired all the tools that I have now. So I’m, uh, over there and I’m working on the breaks. I, uh, back then, this is pre-internet for me, I went to the library, checked out a book, and I read the book, and then I was gonna go do it.
And my wife comes to the, I remember I’m underneath the card working on the caliper, and she comes out and she goes, Hey, um, do you want my dad to come over and help? I’m like, oh, please, no. Nothing against Steve. Sure. But I don’t, I don’t need a supervisor. I don’t need, I just, I’m try, I am figuring this out.
Well, in her defense, you know, this is kind of a life or death thing to get wrong. Yeah. You want your breaks to work. But I’m, I’m working on, next thing I know, her dad shows up and I’m like, what the turns out she had called him before she asked me and said, dad, I’m just really nervous. Cameron’s working on the brakes of our car.
And so he came over to help and she asked me hoping that I’d be like, grateful Yeah. For the help and didn’t know what to do. And I said, no, I don’t want any help. So anyway, got got through that and the breaks worked great. Yeah. And you know, nowadays. Uh, there’s things that people are always like, you have, Hey, if you open this up, it’s gonna avoid your warranty on electronics.
But I still, I open things up and I have soldering irons and I like to tinker and I set up in the living room when I’m tinkering.
[01:23:58] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:23:58] Cameron: Uh, I have a nice place out in the side yard, but if I impact the kids, if I do it in front of ’em and they come in, they’re like, what are you doing? I’m like, oh, I’m replacing this, uh, capacitor that, uh, it’s not flexing anymore.
That’s right. Nice reference. Yeah. I see. So, uh, I, I like to do things in front of ’em and so, um, we have an Oculus and it had, uh, a overheating issue. Well, what in our society most people would like be, oh, take it in. And I’m like, well, hey, let’s fix it. So watch a YouTube video on how to fix it. Get my tools and I have all the tools, which is a good excuse.
Hey, I’m teaching my kids Sarah. I gotta get the more tools and I, I take it apart, get the fan out. This is the problem. So let’s order the part and then we fix the, the oculus. And I do that in front of them. Even though it’s inconvenient, it’s easier to do it without anybody around. And it’s easier to do it by myself, but I have them participate.
And I look at my dad who used to have me hold that flashlight until he started cussing, and then I’d set it down. Yeah. But I wonder if it was annoying to him to have me sitting there and nonsensical words. Not able to communicate very well when I’m 5, 6, 7 years old. And you know, he’s working on it and it’s constantly drifting.
And if he would just be able to have it magnetized and hooked on and just have someone holding it right, it would make his life better. But I wonder how much of my, um, Hey, I’m gonna try that came from that exposure of holding him and watching him do it.
[01:25:43] Casey: Probably a lot of it, well probably, you know, look if done right, if, if the family environment’s right, you always look up to your parents, you look up to your dad, you look up to your granddad, whatever.
And so you wanna be like that. Well, this is something granddad could do. This is something dad could do. So by golly, I’m gonna figure out how to do it, or I should be able to do this. And there’s a lot of that that’s driven me in my life. It’s like, Hey, every Hobson on record can probably do this. Or if I pull that, I’m like, I’m.
Tiny compared to the rest of them. So we’re gonna figure this out, type of thing. Um, so I think, but the reality is, you know, to your dad’s credit and to every dad’s credit who does that, yeah, it could, it would be easier to just, and put that up there on a magnet, but it’s like, okay, let me get my kid out here on my hip so that they learn some life lessons and stuff.
Yeah. Um, I think challenge with, challenge with the youth these days, challenge with the younger generation, like with the world, with the community, is all stems from the home environment. And I think that there’s so many non-traditional home environments anymore and that, and look stuff happens.
[01:27:00] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:27:00] Casey: You know, people go through divorce.
My hat’s off to any single mom who’s raising those kids and holding down a full-time job. I think that’s the most impressive thing out there. I’ve watched go through that and I’m, uh, like. I have to take care of my kids for two or three days and do full-time work. And it’s like, I want to just, you know, scream.
Yeah. So I don’t, I don’t get that capacity. It’s, that’s, that’s amazing. Sure. That said, the ideal situation, having both a mom and a dad in the home where they can raise the kids and you can learn mom things, nurturing things, whatever, from mom and dad things, man, things from dad. When that’s, when that’s disrupted.
I think that you get a lot of stuff that just doesn’t get transferred down to the kids and downloaded to the kids and programmed to the kids that it’s not, that they can’t recover from that. It’s not that they can’t overcome it just makes it different. Makes it harder.
[01:27:57] Unknown: Mm-hmm.
[01:27:58] Casey: Um, I worked with a guy who could not repair anything to save his life.
Uh, basement, started flight. At his house, he had no idea to turn the water off. Oh. And so he said, well, call the guy and tell him it’s kind of emergency and they need to get out there quick. And meanwhile the water was just pouring. Yeah. Like, dude, stop what you’re doing and go figure that part out. Right.
Because, you know, but like, he never had that example growing up of, of, you know, someone in the household who could figure that out, you know? And, and I don’t care if it’s the dad or the mom. Right. But somebody’s gotta model that for the kid. Um, I worry, I worry about this generation and their mental health challenges and they’re real.
And I don’t mean to downgrade those. Mm-hmm. You know, you’ve experienced it. Uh, you know, I personally have, have dealt with anxiety a little bit as an adult. And then first time I, I came across that, I was like, well that’s weird. What’s was that? Yeah, exactly. And I’m telling buddy about it and he laughs. He goes, you got anxiety, you gotta go see a doctor.
I said, no, I don’t have anxiety. And he’s just. That’s anxiety. You go see a doctor, get on some pills until you can sort that crap out and you know, but you look at a whole generation, there’s a constant struggle with that. And you look okay, say what’s different? What, why are they all struggle with this?
And very few aren’t versus our generation where a few did and most did not. Right. I really believe it’s the things that we’ve talked about today and like, how’d you grow up? We were out doing things, we were out exploring things. We were out putting ourselves out there so that when we got to the adult phase in life and had to deliver for the family or had to, you know, accomplish or whatever, it wasn’t like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?
You know, I don’t know how to do, like, my phone won’t work to fix the car. Like, I can’t, you know, fix it that way by setting my phone on it, you know, it’s. It’s like, no, we, we survived growing up. We did. Eric survived End down in the mountain. Right?
[01:30:09] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:30:10] Casey: Okay. Life. What are you gonna throw at me? Yeah. That’s any worse than that?
[01:30:13] Cameron: Yeah. Oh,
[01:30:14] Casey: okay. There are a few things worse than that. Okay. But you know, I’ve got the foundation to tackle those things.
[01:30:19] Cameron: Yeah. Um, I think what, you know, this is actually a great place for us to wrap up because what you’re talking about is that play has value play teaches people how to overcome Yeah. And, um, with being outside for play.
Uh, and we’re not talking about playing video games, right? Right. We’re talking about physical play, whether that’s hooky, bobbing, playing basketball, uh, wiffle ball, uh, just jumping on the trampoline at the porters, uh, you know, doing whatever it is, being active and playing and not isolated. I think that play is what gives you some resilience because if, if play is done right, there’s low risk of death, high risk of injury.
Right? Right. So I think that might be the title of this one. Is there play Done Right High Risk or Low Risk of Death? High Risk of Injury.
[01:31:21] Casey: We, uh, the guy that was the scoutmaster in our ward forever, uh, his motto was, uh, boy Scouts. We do dangerous things safely. You know, basically that’s, and it was like, hey, there’s not a challenge out there.
We’re not gonna try and tackle, but, we’ll, for the moms out there, we’ll make it as safe as possible. But yeah, I think being out and about and interacting with the components of life, right? And that’s, that’s problem solving. And it is core, it’s, it’s a very caveman structure of it, but it’s problem solving.
It’s, oh man, I can’t, I don’t have the strength to ride my bike up this hill. What am I gonna do? Well, I guess I better keep trying it, or I guess I better, you know, go ride up other hills that are in, in, you naturally evolve in a death as a kid to where you can, and you take that same mentality out and about.
We play basketball all the time. Well, you were the tallest kid that we were playing with. And so it’s like, okay, I can’t do a layup down the middle with Cameron there because he’s freaking the Jolly Green Giant. So how am I going to. You know, okay, so I’m gonna adapt. Yeah. Like, I’m gonna have to be quicker, or I’m gonna have to set up a play where like it draws Cameron one way and it opens the back door laying for a layup.
Or you know, how am I gonna rebound with this Goliath around? Okay, well we’re gonna have to use my body to box out and stuff. Yeah. But like, if you’re not doing that in your formative years and then you get into your adult years and life expects you to be able to execute that way and think that way.
Yeah. No wonder you got a bunch of, I want to be disrespectful. But they don’t wonder you got a whole society struggling with anxiety because they’re not equipped for it anymore. Yeah.
[01:33:07] Cameron: And I, uh, you know, COVID is gonna be a ongoing theme of the damage that was Oh yeah. And that, that, but it was, I, I think it was an accelerant.
[01:33:17] Casey: I don’t think it was a root cause. Okay. I think we had a fire started by the iPhone generation and it was burning pretty good. And then you throw covid on there and it’s an accelerant and it just, you know, that’s, but I think you could go back and look at data and I’ve heard psychologists talk about this and stuff.
The trend was there, the isolationism, the mental illnesses.
[01:33:37] Unknown: Mm-hmm.
[01:33:37] Casey: Were there all tied to the launch of the smartphone. And I like my phone as much as anybody. Right. But it was a society changer in terms of all that. Then you throw in the isolationism of, of Covid and all the, the little kids being told all the time, Hey, mask up or You’re gonna die.
You gotta put that mask on, or you’re gonna die. You don’t wanna get sick and die like everybody else. And my daughter at 10 years old is got some serious anxieties. And if the topic of health or death comes up, she almost goes in a corner and No, no, no, no. Nah, nah. You know, because it’s like, shit,
[01:34:15] Cameron: it,
[01:34:16] Casey: we wigs her out.
[01:34:17] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:34:18] Casey: Okay. I placed that right on the shoulders of what y’all went through. Through Covid. Yeah. And the, Hey, gotta wear your mask. And I don’t mean to make this a whole master good, master bad, like I Hey, to each their own. Right? Yeah. Like, you know, uh, for your family. That might’ve been the right solution for my family.
Ours might’ve been the right, like you gotta do what’s right for, for you and yours.
[01:34:42] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:34:43] Casey: But within the school system and society. Like, look at the messaging that we sent the kids at that age.
[01:34:52] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:34:52] Casey: It was clearly, whether intended or not, it was clearly you better wear a mask or you’re gonna get sick and you’re gonna die.
[01:34:57] Cameron: You’re gonna die from something unseen and you’re gonna wear this, a hunting that makes you uncomfortable and makes it almost worthwhile to die. Um, that I have a very morbid sense of humor. My kids who’ve dealt with depression and anxiety have a morbid, morbid sense of humor. And this is something that, um, we joke around about and not to, I apologize to those who are sensitive, but, um, you know, the saying that if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.
Yeah. We changed it to the, well, if it doesn’t kill you, it probably makes you wanna die. So that’s, uh, you know, yeah. But going through that where this unseen thing, non-tangible, it wasn’t something you could attack. But it was this weird Okay. Almost like a ritual of well put this mask on and magically you’re gonna be okay.
If you don’t put the mask, mask on, you’re going to get sick, or worse, you’re going to kill others. Yeah. Um, that, that’s a very weird, that’s a psychological screw job. The the kids. Yeah. And even if that wasn’t the intent, I remember thinking, yeah, I’ll, you know what I’ll isolate for 14 days to flatten the curve.
[01:36:08] Unknown: Yeah.
[01:36:09] Cameron: And then, you know, two years go by of the weirdness of that. Mm-hmm. Uh, we are gonna be recovering from that for decades. I do think there’s a, there’s a change happening. I think, uh, awareness in the same way that hey, don’t do drugs. The Nancy Reagan Sure. Say no to drugs. Yeah. That we were growing up.
So, um, that kinda caught on. People stopped, uh, drug addiction, um, experimentation. Is down, cigarette smoking in high school is down, uh, per mix. Uh, then it became sex. The fact that Brian was on MTV still boggles my mind today talking. I
[01:36:47] Casey: don’t know this story, not totally reset us back to, you know, a new hour, but I don’t know that, I didn’t know that Brian was on MTV.
[01:36:54] Cameron: Okay. So do you remember the walkouts in, uh, at Meridian because of, uh, sex ed?
[01:37:02] Casey: Vaguely, now that you’re saying this vaguely, I remember a whole week worth of bomb threats where every day there’s a bomb threat and we had to evacuate the building. So those are the ones I remember. They Oh, cool. Another bomb threat.
Oh, I have to go to science class test today.
[01:37:16] Cameron: Yeah. So, um. Uh, you the same back. Oh, so Brian was two years older than me. He was a year older than you said. The day. His birthday’s the same day as mine. Is it really? April 11th? Well, happy birthday next month. Oh, thank you. You bet. End of Brian. That’s right. Uh, so the, the idea was, um, they started teaching sex ed, but they, Meridian went through this little bit of period where they, the teachers trying to do good things from their perspectives, forgot that the parents are in charge of their kids.
Right. And so the teachers would get kind of in trouble. And so they were try, they, they kind of did a little whiplash and the students did a, a walkout and, uh, some of ’em went down to plan, uh, plant the Planned Parenthood equivalent back then. Yeah. And got like five gallon buckets of condoms and we’re passing them out, uh, for, you know, all of this thing.
And the, the big push was, Hey, we, we want education on this. ’cause the same used to be when Brian was a sophomore. Was we came as, uh, children and left as parents. There were so many kids attending Meridian High School as pregnant women. Yeah. Because there was a big push to, Hey, let’s not isolate ’em, let’s have them keep going to school.
And then, you know, Sally gets all the attention from being Prego and, uh, all of her friends all of a sudden become Prego. Yeah. It kind of, it became an issue where Maring High School, uh, west of the Mississippi had the largest per cap at a pregnancy rate of any high school. Okay. See, I didn’t know
[01:38:51] Casey: that, but I do remember a lot of pregnant women at a lot of pregnant girls in high school.
Yeah. Like a, like a lot like that was, people say, how big was your graduating class? Well, we were about 450, but I think only about 390 of us walked because between X, Y, and Z and pregnant pregnancy was one of the Yeah. Variables there. So it was
[01:39:09] Cameron: a thing. So MTV, uh, they, they had the, they had a walkout to say, no, we want to be educated about sex.
And MTV came in, they did a little thing and the song was, let’s talk about Sex Baby. Yeah. Right. And so the clip of my brother got in there because he’s wearing his letter Letterman jacket, and they’re like, well, let’s talk about the other side. And Brian’s there he is like, Hey, if you wanna talk about sex ed, that’s fine.
I’m gonna be abstinent so I don’t need it.
[01:39:35] Cameron: Yeah,
[01:39:35] Cameron: that’s his clip. Yeah. But he, it is on MTV back in the day, back when they used to play music. Good for Brian. Yeah. So that was the story. And it, it, it was, it was bizarre. Yeah. But that’s how we grew up is when in, um, a, a farming community high school, uh, where people,
[01:39:55] Casey: which Meridian definitely was at the time.
Anybody who’s living here now wouldn’t realize that No. Meridian was out on the Boondock. That’s right. In the sticks. And you go across the street from the school and go pheasant hunting after school, school. And don’t kid yourself. There’s a lot of kids that have shotguns behind the seat of their truck or just wanted
[01:40:14] Cameron: Yeah.
They, it was not, it was not weird. And I remember a couple days coming in and someone, uh, was showing off their dove, uh, thing by lining it up along the, the, uh, the bed of the pickup. Yeah. And they had, had gotten their quota before school. Yeah. It’s like, okay. Yeah. Not a huge deal. Uhhuh. Anyway, we digressed again, but I, Casey I have to tell you the, I can’t believe I looked at, I looked at your watch and I went, what?
[01:40:43] Casey: Oh, I haven’t even looked at
[01:40:44] Cameron: it. Isn’t that bizarre? Yeah. Anyway, it’s been so fun talking with you. Yeah. It’s been a hoot. Thank you so much. Yeah. And if, um, if you have anything else to say, now’s the time. Uh, I’ll edit it, uh, cleanly at the end.
[01:40:57] Casey: Atlanta Braves 2025 World Series Champions. You heard it here first.
[01:41:01] Cameron: Now
[01:41:03] Casey: you know that’s the message I.