From the rugged streets of Humboldt to the heart of community service, Bryan Hall's life story unfolds like a gripping novel you can't put down. The Executive Director of the Eureka Rescue Mission joins us, revealing his tumultuous journey through substance abuse, encounters with the law, and an eventual dramatic pivot towards faith and service. His personal narrative, rife with the harsh realities of addiction and the redemptive power of second chances, sets the stage for an intimate exploration of homelessness and hope.
In the bustling environment of emergency shelters and thrift stores, we pull back the curtain on the daily challenges and triumphs within the Eureka Rescue Mission. Bryan's firsthand experience shines a light on the complex web of issues faced by homeless individuals, from the biting cold of Humboldt County nights to the intertwined struggles with mental health and substance abuse. As we weave through Bryan's transformation from a man lost in the shadows to a guiding light for others, the podcast reveals the profound impact of human connection and understanding in fueling positive change.
Our journey with Bryan doesn't just stop at the Mission's doors; it extends to the scenic trails and nostalgic streets of Humboldt County. Here, we celebrate the enduring spirit of the community, the 'grit' that binds its members together as they navigate the trials of addiction and the quest for redemption. By sharing stories of those who've walked the thorny path to recovery, we underscore the beauty of human resilience and the undying hope that life, no matter how bleak it may seem, holds the promise of renewal. Join us for a conversation that's not just about the trials faced but the strength found and the community built in the face of adversity.
Find us on Facebook at 100% Humboldt.
From the rugged streets of Humboldt to the heart of community service, Bryan Hall's life story unfolds like a gripping novel you can't put down. The Executive Director of the Eureka Rescue Mission joins us, revealing his tumultuous journey through substance abuse, encounters with the law, and an eventual dramatic pivot towards faith and service. His personal narrative, rife with the harsh realities of addiction and the redemptive power of second chances, sets the stage for an intimate exploration of homelessness and hope.
In the bustling environment of emergency shelters and thrift stores, we pull back the curtain on the daily challenges and triumphs within the Eureka Rescue Mission. Bryan's firsthand experience shines a light on the complex web of issues faced by homeless individuals, from the biting cold of Humboldt County nights to the intertwined struggles with mental health and substance abuse. As we weave through Bryan's transformation from a man lost in the shadows to a guiding light for others, the podcast reveals the profound impact of human connection and understanding in fueling positive change.
Our journey with Bryan doesn't just stop at the Mission's doors; it extends to the scenic trails and nostalgic streets of Humboldt County. Here, we celebrate the enduring spirit of the community, the 'grit' that binds its members together as they navigate the trials of addiction and the quest for redemption. By sharing stories of those who've walked the thorny path to recovery, we underscore the beauty of human resilience and the undying hope that life, no matter how bleak it may seem, holds the promise of renewal. Join us for a conversation that's not just about the trials faced but the strength found and the community built in the face of adversity.
Find us on Facebook at 100% Humboldt.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome Brian Hall to the 100% Humboldt Podcast. Good to see you, scott. How's it going Good? Good to see you, and it is chilly out today. Boy Woo, you can feel some of that on the way in.
Speaker 2:It's supposed to be an emergency weather shelter tonight, oh is that right?
Speaker 1:It's going to be that cold. It's going to be 30-8 or something like that, yeah, and it's the mission Eureka Rescue Mission Director. You would, you'd have a pulse at that. So tell us, tell us what your job is, what are your duties? You're calling what? How did you? We'll talk about how you're doing. I know you got there, but what do you currently do? I'm the executive director.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what does that mean? That means I oversee everything and I'm responsible for everything. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So to find everything. How many beds? How big is the mission here?
Speaker 2:Well, we have about over a hundred beds, okay, I think, at the men's shelter and the women's shelter right now. I'm not sure, probably 60-something.
Speaker 1:Okay, are they housed?
Speaker 2:together down in Old Town. Yes, yeah, on 3rd Street is the women's shelter 2nd Street is the men's.
Speaker 1:Okay, gotcha, they're kind of the opposite sides of the block. Two different buildings, Gotcha. And how did you? How did you get so? Tell us your story, your God story, your testimony. You have a pretty colorful background, I do.
Speaker 2:I'll let you tell that. Please share, how far back do you want me to go?
Speaker 1:I don't know until you were a kid and you know in Reading or wherever you're from.
Speaker 2:I've always I'm a Humboldt County boy been here my whole life. You might say 100% Humboldt, 100% Humboldt. Okay, yes, I was adopted when I was a baby. Oh wow yeah, and my mom and dad took me to Orleans and so I spent three or four years, I think, in Orleans and then we moved to Metropolitan. You know, Chapman's Jimman Mineral Shop is Just right down the road from that is a dairy Okay, and I lived right behind the big house, what we called it, and the intertrailer house there.
Speaker 1:Right off the 101 down there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my uncle my uncle. He used to be a bartender and a friendail and so he's been passed away for a couple of three years. But yeah so I was raised on the farm, had a good life, good mom, good dad, nice. You know I grew up with a bunch of cousins. They're like brothers and sisters and you know it was just your normal childhood running around in the fields barefoot Farm kid Stepping in cow patties and the warm ones were the best on a cold day, yeah so.
Speaker 1:Gross, but probably on a cold day. Yeah, yeah or not.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and experienced all the farm hood things when I was a kid. So, sure, just, you know, like I say, I grew up really well. We moved from there up to Hidesville and with the Hidesville school, I think it was my seventh grade. Eighth grade is when I tried my first taste of marijuana and I didn't like it. I didn't like the way it made me feel. I got real paranoid. But there were a couple of friends of mine that I wanted to hang out with and that's what they did. So they were smoking weed. Yeah, for, you know, mom and dad got a divorce. My dad was an alcoholic.
Speaker 2:Who's was it right, I know, Back then it was my goodness, it was a big. You know, a big thing was beer, beer and football.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, cigarettes, yep. They all the folks in Iowa, where I'm from. They would get drunk and fight at the pub. They just fighting was the other pastime. Yeah, my dad told all these stories. It's like, wow, people don't do that here, right that?
Speaker 2:much Right? Yeah, I don't hang out with those who do. I like to keep my face in form, absolutely I like my face, like it is. So I ended up going to Fortin High School and still smoking pot, and then I tried methamphetamine for the first time.
Speaker 1:Wow, high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, I can just, I could just tell you it went all bad after that.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:You know, I took a good moral kid that had. I didn't know Jesus when I was a kid, but I had an experience with Jesus when I was a kid and I didn't have a Bible, I didn't have anybody take me to church. Good, but Billy Graham on TV, and I can remember when I was just seven years old, eight years old, sitting on the couch, my mom would call me in from being outside playing and she would call me in, tell me Billy Graham was on TV tonight. And so I come in and take my bath and sit down on the couch and watch him and I can remember crying more than one occasion watching him. He was great Crying when he, when he got done and everybody went forward, he would do the altar call. Sure, I wished I was there, yeah, and so I would get on my knees in the living room and I said a prayer and I received Jesus.
Speaker 2:But again, I didn't have anybody taking me to church, nobody had a Bible and nobody taught me the ways of the Lord. So I I look back on my life now. Through all the things I've been through, I mean some really bad things, and I can see his hand on my life protecting me for for today. There's no doubt in my mind that he had a hold of me and that he came into my heart all those years ago. But so I go to high school on drugs, getting in trouble, got out of fortune in high school, then graduate, went to East high school. Is that like a continuation?
Speaker 1:It was a continuation high school In fortunes, yeah Like football or sports.
Speaker 2:No, I wished I did. You know I'd look back now. I wish I. I see them graduate and the kids get up and they get their diplomas and you know my heart just sinks that I didn't.
Speaker 1:You're like me. You're on the party team starting quarterback for the the bong team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was, it was. You know, I regret a lot of things. I wish that I would have finished the high school and maybe been a jock. I probably would have made a good football player.
Speaker 1:A quarter of a billion. Funny, yeah, the funny story. How many people turn out, they turn out. Okay. Those are terrible years that were terribly fun and it's arguably but terrible in terms of their, maybe their long-term possibilities. But how God yanked some of us out of that stuff, yeah, and I think some people, with or without God, grow out of it too. There's that element, so shout out to you guys that do that. So what? So? What happened after school? Just got downhill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'd been to jail a few times, all drug related, and I can. I can take you fast forward. It's 34 years ago. I was in Eureka drinking at the Schooner Saloon and I met this beautiful girl named Karen. That's right down by the mission on the third street.
Speaker 2:And she was just man you knock out, and so I was hoping I would go home with her that night, but it didn't work out. So I went home to Living in Hidesville at the time and I had given her my number and I thought nah, she'll never call man. That very next day she called me, she called you, she called me. How about that? Three months later we were married.
Speaker 1:Wait they never call. I think she called, that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, three months. Three months later, yeah, we were married. Wow, I was working at the sawmill at the time, pulling Green Chana A-River Sawmill's MLA. That was at Hidesville. Carlotta, that's right, as you're going to Rio del right before you go over the bridge to go to Rio del, you should be on the side of Big Mill and I worked there.
Speaker 2:I worked my butt off and drinking after work, and so the party life, but got fairly responsible. But then, june 19th 2002, we had built a home in Fortuna, on Murray Court, right off of Falma Avenue, and Brand's making a new home.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I had gone to work for another company after that and I was off on disability and I learned how to make methamphetamines and so on June 19th 2002. It's like breaking bad, Kind of yeah it was. Yeah, all the stuff that was on the streets was not potent, so I figured I'd make my own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of like growing your own. I guess, if you're a weed, yeah, it's a little different.
Speaker 2:But ramifications are quite different. Yeah, so needless to say that I did get caught. I was raided by the Amble County Drug Task Force and Drug Enforcement Agency from Reading came over and we lost our home, lost my kids lost, my wife, lost everything. Yeah and one fell swoop.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Huh, in September of 2002, I was sitting in San Quentin Prison West, block Fifth, tier Cell II, waiting to go down to California Rehabilitation Center, which is a big, long name for a level two prison. Where's that at? That's down in. Oh, that's nice, I guess. Well, that was. You know, our chest was protests in the late 50's as you wereもy recently and we were seeing things like stayed filming for over District Body's bodies. But there's our foundation body, well, down by LA it's. I forgot the name of the place.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of times by Bakersfield that way, but anyway, yeah, so you're going to go bye-bye. Yeah, I went bye-bye for a while, my wife went through streams of living water.
Speaker 2:We never got divorced. I spent 14 months. I got out and did good for a while. I started lifting weights. I was listening to ungodly counsel and so I was going to file for divorce and thinking that she was going to be the one that was causing me to live a life like that. Really, it was my own sinful nature and I wasn't being the man that I should have been and the father that I should have been.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I broke a lot of things, a lot of hearts.
Speaker 1:What streams of living water does go back to. That's what was sootilly.
Speaker 2:At the time I was running that and it was I don't know how many long a year, I think, program. It was a live-in program. So when she went to that she went to that, was that up here in your humble Mm-hmm? Okay, it's where the women's center is, I think on downtown Eureka.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so while I was in prison, she was there, wow. And so, yeah, with the kids, no, okay. So I actually went with my sister-in-law, who worked for the Department of Health and Human Services, and so she got the kids, thank God, and they went into her custody for 14 months Wow, more than that. So we fought and fought and finally got our kids back.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:But then, you know, the story didn't end well there, because I got out of prison and I had tattoos all over me and I was lifting weights and I was a big guy and I thought it was all that you know. And I got hooked back into meth not cooking meth, but using meth, Wow yeah. And then I got arrested again Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:Fun probation?
Speaker 2:probably. Yeah, I think I just the day that I finished my parole. I think it was the day after that, I actually got arrested again and then I got OR'd. So I was on felony probation and then I did another crime and yeah, I was. I was looking at six years prison, so they just send you back up at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that was I take it. That didn't happen.
Speaker 2:That didn't happen. Yeah, I lied. I mean I could tell you what happened, the crime. Yeah, it's pretty comical.
Speaker 1:Okay, if it's a good story, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's a terrible story, cheers, it's just gonna. Everybody out there looking at me right now is gonna go. Dude, you were so stupid, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I know, I know most of us at least you're being honest about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was early morning. Uh-huh, I had gone down and stolen. A guy that I was with broke into an ACE hardware van. We popped the lock off the side of it and went in and got a bunch of stuff out, put it in my truck and took it back to the apartment and had forgotten a knife sharpener that was inside. And so I thought where's the white knife sharpener? And he goes oh, we must have left it there In the van, in the semi-truck trailer, yeah, yeah. So I know, better go back get it. Yeah, and that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2:A friend of mine wanted some heroin, so he gave me some money and I jumped in my truck and I was gonna go get his heroin. And it was still dark and I thought I'll go get that knife sharpener. And so I went down, parked the truck down the street, went back in, got greedy, tried to shut the door to go inside and get more stuff. Well, while I was in there, the trucker that was staying at the motel room came back to get early morning to go do his route Right, and he heard me in the back. Yeah, he locked me in the back of that Perfect Pitched. Yeah, we're going for a drive. Oh, it's terrible Boy. So my story was that you know it was somebody else in the truck, because I made my way through the top of the truck with a couple of gardening tools while he was calling the police and I was on top of a pallet and peeled the aluminum top of that truck back and Got out of there. Somehow I went out through the top.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to your knife sharpener.
Speaker 2:No, I was still in the truck.
Speaker 1:Still in the truck, locked. Yeah, in the real truck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so long story short. I got arrested and I was looking at six years. I made up a story that I heard somebody in the van. I got up on top and was trying to help him out, the whole, and it was just stupid. I lied to my attorney, I lied to everybody. Wow yeah, and it was early morning, it's about 3.30. I was in dorm 385, h, quad, and Ryan Craig was the correctional officer. This is here. It's Humboldt County Jail, downtown. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then was it done? The same one we know today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, the new jail, yeah. And I got impressed upon my heart, said I want you to tell the truth. And I had to tell somebody in authority the truth. I knew I wasn't going to get out, but God spoke to my heart and said the truth is going to set you free. Whoa, yeah. So I got on my little jailhouse slippers and walked up and Ryan was standing there at the podium and I told him I did it and he looked at me and he said you did what I said. I did the crime. I've been lying all along, I'm guilty and I deserve to be here. Whoa yeah, good for you. And he kind of looked at me and he said oh, okay, cool. And I turned around and walked back to my bed and I felt like a million pounds was taken off of me Amazing. And God gave me a piece that was beyond anything I could ever describe. I knew I was going to prison, but he was going to take care of me and so that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was strange who was Ryan. Again, he was the correctional officer, he was the overnight guy. Okay, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:He's a good friend of mine today. How about that? Yeah?
Speaker 1:You probably know a lot of these guys that you had run-ins with right yeah. That's funny, yeah, that's great, it's funny, it's wonderful. Actually, it's great.
Speaker 2:About a week later, after I did that, or two weeks later, he had come back from vacation and I was laying on my bed and he came up to my little bed and leaned over the concrete wall and said I had some lunch with some higher ups this weekend. Yeah, and I said okay, and he goes yeah, we talked about you. And I said you talked about me. And he goes yeah, don't blow it this time. Wow, and I tried to get more information out of him. Even to this day, he won't tell me who he talked to. And higher ups, some higher ups, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know who they were but they were at the top, they were way up there. He talked to the right person? Yeah, because I was completely transparent and being honest and I had repented to ask God to forgive me and he wouldn't tell me. And a couple of three weeks later I went to court and the district attorney came off of six years mandatory prison and they gave me probation. Wow, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, and I needed a Christian program, wanted a Christian program but I didn't know where to go. And my probation officer we were just brainstorming places and I said something like I heard the risk mission had a program and she said that's it. She got on the phone, was talking with Steve Lorenz just seconds later. And the next day I had an interview and two days later I was in the program at the rescue mission. Wow, it's been about 17, over 17 years.
Speaker 1:So there were those in the jail ministry while you were there too, right? Steve Darnall, Arrest Connette, was any of those names.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember the names Stuart, sundett, sundett, yep, stuart was he would come in there. But I had known Stuart from before, when I'd got saved radically saved years ago, and Small County. Oh, I did want to see him when he came in jail because I was so ashamed. Yeah, I know, but yeah, I love it, man.
Speaker 1:You're super raw and honest. I was a liar, I was lying through my teeth, oh yeah, yeah. And then, which makes the confession and the turning away from that, turning toward God, just that much more real yeah, and I was like I'm fine, I slept good that night. Yeah, yeah, I felt great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, you need to respond.
Speaker 1:Good word Truth shall set you free.
Speaker 2:I had no idea. When he told me that God spoke to my spirit, I had no idea that he really meant that he was going to set me free.
Speaker 1:Literally free. So you got to go to the mission then how did that go?
Speaker 2:It was great. My first two weeks I stayed there in the dorm with the homeless people Because there was no room in the program member rooms, all those people, yeah, and I was just like, oh my goodness, I didn't know what to think. I thought there was a program house uptown, right, you know that the mission sponsored and had the biggest green TV, yeah, but I didn't know I was going to be in the shelter with the homeless people, on a cot, in an bunk bed, yeah, with somebody above. Yeah, yeah, it didn't smell good.
Speaker 1:I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't want to take my shoes off.
Speaker 1:Probably still doesn't Down.
Speaker 2:It actually smells good. Now Is it better, okay, well, you would know.
Speaker 1:As much as we can. As much as we can, yeah.
Speaker 2:So how long were you in the program then? It's about a year. I did 10 months at the time. It was a 10 month program.
Speaker 1:Do you guys do outside work and stuff?
Speaker 2:Like daytime stuff. Yeah, we do out. We go out in the community and clean up stuff.
Speaker 1:So how would that differ from Redwood Teen Challenge in terms of what you guys do day-to-day? I imagine it's a pretty structured program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Ours isn't nearly as structured as Teen Challenges. Teen Challenge has more of a curriculum and ours that would never work where we're at With the homeless folks. Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's no way.
Speaker 2:Two different demographics, two different demographics, two different styles, but the same Jesus yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you're meeting people where they're at. So I think, on the Sisters of St Joseph this week, I'm on a board and it's a really good video, if you see it. The sisters came here. There was no hospital in Eureka, nothing. And there was eight or 10 of them and they just hit the streets and they wanted to find needs and, hey, let's start a hospital. And they did. And this is ground zero for the Sisters of Orange, who later went to Vancouver, in Orange, orange County, and met people where they're at. Yeah, so you did a year. Did you then go to the workforce? Go back to work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to go to Bible college and the director at the time, Dan Ice, told me that people aren't praying. If they're going to help me financially, they're praying. How much they're going to give me to go to Bible college? Wow, yeah, so what I was going to? I was thinking how can I get all my kids together and my wife and they're living up in the projects and I'm living at the mission. You know how am I going to put this all together? Because it was crazy.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the kids were running amok and two of my kids were doing drugs and three of them were, and then it was really tough. But then Dan asked me one day. He said, you know, maybe you think, maybe, good, god might want to use you here. And I was just like man, that would be so cool, that'd be cool. Yeah, because I love the mission. I loved everybody coming in. I couldn't wait till 5.30 at night when all the homeless people come in. I just met, I just got to know them, you know. I got to know their stories, their lives, every story. Yeah, I'd start with a little handshake, maybe a fist bump Fist bumps weren't too popular back then. But yeah, just getting to know people, you know. And my favorite was that people didn't want to be touched. Because I'm affectionate, I like giving people hugs.
Speaker 2:You're a hugger, so my favorite ones were the ones that didn't want to give a hug, so I would work on them and after a while I was always getting hugs.
Speaker 1:It's a challenge.
Speaker 2:I think it was a both way thing, you know, because I needed the hug as much as they did and I still do to this day. Yeah, it goes both ways, yeah. So I started at the thrift store and I worked there for about three months. I learned why. I heard a preacher say a man who knows how will always have a job, but the man who knows why will always be his boss. And so God was taking me down the Hawaii road and I learned why. And pricing on Vasis and pricing on knickknacks and things, and just tracing that item to the shelf, to the register, to the office, to the bank, you know, to paying the bills and taking care of. The mission and the very purpose of it is to Was it at the old Larry's Market order?
Speaker 2:isn't it Still going strong today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're big donors man, I'm a big fan. Yeah, you guys are awesome. They do a great job yeah. And then we go to rescue Mission Mission thrift store. Yeah, yeah. What's the address on Broadway?
Speaker 2:Shadda 1031 Broadway, eureka.
Speaker 1:So it's right there by Don's Reynolds, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Well, Leon's The怕 of across the street. Leon's is the gas station in the, and then Leon's yeah, I heard you guys have nice stuff. It's some really nice stuff. Yeah, Pretty pretty nice stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gently used items, I mean, we'll take any kind of donation. There's days we don't take linens and various things. There's a board out in the alleyway where you drop stuff off and tell you what we're taken that day or not. No cash oh, you can bring cash.
Speaker 1:I have a big bucket of cash, so how much? Without saying how much of that funds? Is it a chunk of what funds the mission in Old Town?
Speaker 2:Every bit of the proceeds from the thrift store go to the ministry. That's cool, and so paying the wages. And so we offer employment. And the folks that work there are usually mission program people Right, we have seven graduates that are working there right now. That's wonderful and keep it running and work hard too, and also current mission folks that are maybe I have people that are managers not part of the mission, and she hasn't been part of the mission. There's other employees that have never been a part of the mission.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Dan Ice man Shout out to Dan. I remember when he was a roofer oh man, so he brought you up and raised you up in that ministry.
Speaker 2:He took me under his wing when I was in the program Wow and I had no idea. So I was working under Dan at the thrift store and then back at the shelter. I came back to the shelter as a house manager and I did that for a couple of years, worked as the men's shelter director. So I was in charge of the men's shelter and partially the women's shelter as well. Yeah, and it was 11 years ago, last September that Dan told me that I was going to be the next executive director. Wow, and you said yeah, okay, I said me. I said yeah, right, what did Moses say.
Speaker 1:He said I can't even talk. Good Pick, aaron, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how I felt I really did. He sat in his chair and was in his office, meet with him every Wednesday and discuss the ministry and things going on. And he leaned back in his chair and tapped the arms of his chair and said you know, Brian, someday you're going to be sitting in this chair and I said that's. When I looked at him, I said yeah, right, and he goes. One thing I learned is don't question Dan, and I learned he is a very good discipline.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And he said no, I'm serious, yeah, confident. I'm taking a full-time pastor position at Calvary Chapel. Eureka, I've already talked with the board and you're the next guy. It's done. I saw it. Give you six months, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're a maid man, yeah. It's already going to happen.
Speaker 2:Had to pray, had to talk to the wife. Sure yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's back it way up to say magnificent ministry. I'd like to talk about the history of the rescue missions on, you know, all coasts but this coast and then the acute need that Humboldt has always had. Humboldt County's been, you know, the home of homelessness. Big time for you know, since I've been living here, but especially really acute since Jerry Garcia died in 95. I mean, certainly in the 2000s, and then homelessness now is just normal. I mean, and specifically Eureka, my observations, I don't think they're all together correct, but you know, even Fortuna has some homeless people now, in places that we never had homeless people has a few, and I always marvel that some towns just don't have the issue. But so, so, history of homelessness and Humboldt, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:You know, when I was a kid I never noticed. The rescue mission became the rescue mission in 1967. I was born in 1965. So there was a need and I can remember in my dad's orange Plymouth scamp with my mom and it had the I forgot the top the roof, it was like vinyl but it was. Yeah, we would drive through Old Town, eureka, and I would always beg to drive through Old Town so I could look at the whinos and the bones and I never could figure out why they were laying on the sidewalk. I couldn't understand that.
Speaker 1:This is before Old Town had a retrofit and a renaissance and it hadn't been gentrified quite yet.
Speaker 2:It was probably seven years old, eight years old, six, seven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Old Town was still pretty gross back in the day, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:probably. I don't remember much except for watching, looking out the window in the back of the car and seeing people laying on the sidewalk and the doorways, and my dad always said those are whinos and bones. So, but I couldn't figure it out. I was thinking like why would they? You know, why did they lay on the sidewalk? Why don't they lay in their bed? You know, yeah, and I never knew. And I understand now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, primarily substance abuse, sure Alcoholism. Yeah, mental illness too, more so now, maybe back then, I don't know. Yeah, but now it's really really prevalent. There's a lot of mental illness, yeah, yeah, it's really sad, it's really sad.
Speaker 1:The chief was here a couple of weeks ago and he said you know that's, the training is different. For that now it's not all just total enforcement, it's counseling, it's coming in gentle and soft and trying to figure it out. Yeah yeah, different world.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But so this coast, this county, this town has been kind of a magnet for, I think, a westward migration, and it is kind of the end of the line in some ways, right, right Right on the coast. Yeah, that's kind of part of it. I mean, I guess you could go to San Francisco or San Diego the weather's better, but it seems like a lot of folks end up here, yeah, and I imagine many with different stories which we'll get to in a minute. I'll ask you about maybe some of the more memorable stories there, because I imagine you have dozens. But so what do we know about the rescue mission system? I know George Vaughn, who used to work with us at the Tri-City newspaper. He worked at the PDX mission in Portland, which is apparently a pretty big one. Where are there other missions up and down the coast?
Speaker 2:I haven't been. I used to have Santa Rosa has one, oh did they. But I haven't been out to visit those.
Speaker 1:But they exist and they have one Reading has one Okay.
Speaker 2:Larger areas, of course they're a lot bigger.
Speaker 1:Sacramento would have one of some sort downtown.
Speaker 2:There was, it used to be called the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions and now it's called City Gate, and so we are a part of that. It's a networking of missions all across the country.
Speaker 1:Was that started by like a specific denomination?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know how that started. Uh, I'm right. Um Gosh, John is his name. He's no longer the CEO, but we had him up here for a fundraiser and he spoke, and so now it's somebody else. I don't know who it is.
Speaker 1:So it's an association, but it's loosely knit in the sense that they're not telling us what to do, right? So you guys are autonomous. You do what's good for Eureka. Yeah, gotcha, which are most of them that don't have a thrift store.
Speaker 2:There's a few that do. I know that ours is, for the area is pretty concise.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, yeah yeah, the old Larry's Market. That was pretty big, a lot of square foot, big, big floor, yep. Any idea how big that is?
Speaker 2:I don't 10,000. It's a pretty big store. Yeah, I should know, because we're getting a bid to put a new roof on it. Oh, he'll know soon.
Speaker 1:Cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That'll be real funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it.
Speaker 1:Is he and I going to do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I actually I called A&I to get an estimate.
Speaker 1:Dan, by the way, was a heck of a pastor at Calvary.
Speaker 2:Eureka sorry.
Speaker 1:Always good to see him. And just saw the guy, yeah, and in fact his son went to school with my son 100 years ago. So tell us a couple of stories about folks that you met, that you know. I think homelessness is a mystery to most of us. Like it's the guy in the alley listening to Jimi Hendrix while he shoots up in my alley, literally in G Street downtown. Yeah, but I've gotten to know him. He's a really nice guy. He's always respectful, he's doesn't yes or no, sir, he's really a nice man. So he's this human being I've gotten to know a little bit. Another story is the guy wrote me a little card because you never treated me like dirt, because you always spoke to me like a human being, and so I think we forget as we drive by. So what would you say to that perception? And maybe a couple of stories of folks and maybe a couple of graduates. I mean, you're graduating guys. I'm looking at Facebook all the time. Hey, there's another one.
Speaker 2:You know it's. There's such a mix of, across the board, every homeless person, a drug addicted person, alcoholic or whatever you call it. Whatever you want to call them, is somebody's child. They at one time were a soft, beautiful little baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and with little fingers and little toes and beautiful little eyes, you know, and life just takes a toll on us. We've got to send nature. We make bad decisions, we suffer the consequences and some people get so stuck that they either can't get help or refuse help. You know, and you know, we see, we see, we see the bodies of broken spirits, I believe that the spirit can maintain or handle a broken body, but I don't think the body can maintain or handle a broken spirit.
Speaker 1:And so I see some of those.
Speaker 2:I see broken spirits every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, every day there's a. There was but you, but you never know, you can't judge them, by the way, they look Right. You can, but you're missing out.
Speaker 1:I think God could unbreak a spirit too, right? Oh, he can heal it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, instantly. Yeah, a born again experience and a brand new person. Yeah, just maybe no teeth. Yeah, right, not the body, the spirit, right, yeah, but I've seen people that it's where they'd never make it have get born again and and become so whole that you never. You see the before and after pictures. You just didn't have the brain damage, didn't have the. Maybe some, some, but they don't realize it. You know.
Speaker 2:So there was a guy named Don. You know, this is several years ago. Don wore the same coat. Don's coat did not smell nice, he had food on it, but he refused to ever give up the coat. There was some kind of sentimental value to that coat. He never talked very much, but I got to know him. He had really long fingernails with dirt underneath his fingernails, a beard and again, he didn't talk very much but he would say he would start to say hey, brian, when he would come in at night. And so over the years I just would talk to Don and man a few words, I would share the gospel with him, and he didn't really respond a lot because, and even then I would be teaching at night for a chapel on nights, when somebody wouldn't show up from a church and and I would share. And I was kind of forceful with the word sometimes because I knew everybody and they knew where I was coming from, so I could do that.
Speaker 1:How seet are doing with that. My friends seeters, awesome, see, see, good preacher.
Speaker 2:He's teaching for our guys in the program. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's, I just love him he's, he's perfect. No great joy. So I'm saw him today and I thought he he told me that he was doing that.
Speaker 2:That's great yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just love him. So this Brian came. You know you're Brian, so he came in, don came and yeah, and you're preaching that night.
Speaker 2:I'm preaching, yeah, and so you know. You look at the faces. Try to read the faces. Are they receiving? I just don't know, you know. So I just, I just just did what I did. So Don never talked about Jesus. He never professed Christ or anything like that. Of course, I couldn't get much of a conversation out of him, but then something happened to my eye. I can't believe this is my right eye. I woke up.
Speaker 1:That's weird. Emergency alert? That's weird. Is it tsunami? I hope not. You can roll the film.
Speaker 2:So something happened to my eye.
Speaker 2:I got some kind of a blood thing in the back of my eye and I was losing vision out of my eye and I had been at work that day and I shared that night If anybody would pray for me. I'd gone to the ophthalmologist or opthomist, or one of the two, and they took pictures of my eye and they didn't know what it was. So they wanted to hurry up and get me down to Santa Rosa, but I didn't have a way to get there and that the guide was coming up from Santa Rosa in two days. So I was at work and in the parking lot I went out to get into my truck and we had the gate, a gate with slats in the gate and the day use area was right there and you couldn't see in because of the slats. And as I was walking to my truck I heard this voice say Brian, I've been praying for your eye, and I thought who was that? And I walked around. I looked around the edge of the fence there and it was dawn and I Did he see you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did see you prior to that, yeah, he's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he knew I was getting in my truck, gotcha, and I walked around and I said thank you, don, and he said I'm believing that God will heal you and I'm praying for you. And I just told him thank you and I got in my truck, I went home and the next morning I woke up and I'm getting ready for my day, and about 10, 15 minutes after I got up I realized Nothing's wrong with my eyes, well healed, and I went back to the optometriontologist, dr Gibb, and he had the specialist that came up and they went in and looked in my eye and they saw absolutely nothing. And so they had the photos of my eye that they took a couple of days before, compared to what my eye was, and they couldn't see anything. Oh, nothing, wow. And so just my point being is that oftentimes we see homeless people as just no good vagrants, but on the inside there's something there. And then Don ended up leaving and I don't know where he went. I haven't seen or heard from him in years. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if you do Jeff Kazanich. He was a pastor at Coastline. He died last about two years ago. But he had a fellow come in church once a Sunday. He was pretty rough looking and, jeff, if you do have me, he would sit and talk with you and ask good questions. He was a great guy and he sat with this guy and he found out his story and he shared it. He said the guy came home to his wife cheating on him with his best friend and he went crazy, he went nuts, he lost his mind, he lost his wife, his home, his job and he'd been on the road for 10 years and it was just you're going.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's not the typical story, but that's another one in a collection of human stories. The story we always tell ourselves is oh, it's just a bunch of bad choices. He just wants to live in the woods in a five gallon bucket and shoot up and it's just party. We don't fully narrate that, but I think a lot of us prejudge in a way that's and pre-narrate in a way that we have no business doing and it's to our detriment. Because Amago Day, image of God these are, you know, child of God. You're right, that was. I often think of that and pray for folks when I drive by. Go, that lady screaming at the top of her lungs, with no teeth, who's freaking out, crying and swearing. It's created in the image of God and that was somebody's daughter who was a really awesome sixth grader and played basketball or did something and then, oh my God, you know, all the life happened and it's not over for her either.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's the hope piece that keeps y'all going. You know to go. Hey, come on in Cedar's preaching and you're going to love it. He's great. You're going to dig what he's got. It's going to be good. So how about individual stories? Right, without names or HIPAA rules, but people that have. You've seen that are amazing over K-Mods. Maybe a super sad story? Maybe somebody that was sober 10 years and dove back in?
Speaker 2:I've got a super sad story and I've got a really good story. Let's start sad. I'll call him Rich. He came to us absolutely completely just the worst drunk I've ever seen, and he came in and out, in and out, in and out and finally there was one day that he actually made a decision to come in the program and he did well and he came alive Wow. Yeah, and you? If I showed you pictures of before, you wouldn't even be able to tell.
Speaker 1:You saw the real.
Speaker 2:Rich, yeah, and so he did well for a long time and unfortunately went back to drinking and using drugs, and I think it was behind the Bayshore Mall that they found him overdose, rough, yeah yeah. So those are sad stories.
Speaker 1:It's heart-racing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Especially when you have an investment. You know this person and it just happened to us. I have a good friend that graduated Teen Challenge and I was going to go down and work at the headquarters in LA and six weeks later he's dead in Motel 6 in Arcado. And one of us got to go get his car and his stuff and it was just. It was pretty important for my 21-year-old and I. I said, aaron, do you know what we're doing right here and do you know why? And I explained to him that Jeffrey just couldn't make it. We tried to come get him and the Marines come back for their men and women, and sometimes they're not there and he didn't make it for whatever reasons, but that still sits. Really, really weird, yeah. And let's hear or the sad part, let's hear the good story.
Speaker 2:It was a probably six foot four, six foot five, over 300 pound, a Hispanic male that came to the rescue mission. Deeply involved with gangs. He came to us. Did he give him a fake name? Yeah, I don't know, that's Jose. That's calling him Jose.
Speaker 1:Right, jose works. Yeah, is that his real name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so still with that penitentiary gang mentality, the Lord got ahold of him and it was a night day difference. And then he graduated and he went to work for a local flooring company and then he had some ups and downs and had struggled, but he got back on his feet and then started his own flooring business. How about that? Yeah, and so has done pretty well. He's still had some ups and downs, but now he's doing really well. Now it sounds like he's going to be retiring from his flooring company and pay for his house and everything. So he's been married. I was kids with him that he didn't have before. How about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but wand up in Eureka. Probably not from Eureka, no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Southern California. I think yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, remember talking to a graduate from Teen Challenge. I don't mean to keep juxtaposing, but that's okay. No, it's good, it's the same. We're playing on the same team, like you said. And he was going back to med school one morning it was his last day in the program and we used to gather down at the when Kelno Cellular was, where they're old headquarters, anyway. So we would go down there and and a good-looking guy, man, just a good-looking young guy, and he's going back to grad school at UCLA and going to be a doctor. And he goes. Two years ago, let me just tell you what meth does to you, and he had this whole story of it destroyed my body. He goes. It was the worst thing that I've ever could imagine. And another success where I got to walk through it. I have no idea if he's a doc or where he's at, but he's on the path, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, any other stories come to mind? Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Really good one. Yeah, I'll say his name because I'm going to tell you who he is. He came to us great big guy, big, booming voice, big personality. But he was a wreck when he came to us and had contemplated suicide and all kinds of things going on in life.
Speaker 2:So he came in the program, he did a year in the program and then basically begged us if he could do another year because he just wasn't ready yet, and so we granted him another year and then that time he got involved with systematic theology, and when it was taking classes for that, and so it wasn't too long after that that he was attending a church in Redway and then he is now a senior pastor at Redway Baptist Church.
Speaker 1:How about that? Amazing. Yeah, how about that? Yeah, you know, it occurs to me. There's probably a whole cadre of itinerant great local lay pastors that come in and do the chapel right. Yeah, you know. Yeah, are you guys all generally plugged into Calvary Chapel? Eureka.
Speaker 2:Well, we do Calvary Chapel, I think. Some of them go to Cotton Community Church, some go to First Covenant Church, some go to Faith Center, so it's just spread around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And so what we're doing, dan would always bring some of the guys to Men's Breakfast or Men's Retreat up at Dr Holmes South Fork, and you know it was great. You know, hey, come on down. It's all level down there at the cross, it is it is it's good.
Speaker 2:Thank God, thank God, yeah.
Speaker 1:Any other stories come to mind?
Speaker 2:Let's see my story is is played out in so many other individuals. It's just the resurrection power of Jesus Christ man. It's not religion, it's a relationship with the Lord. Religious people put Jesus on the cross. They joined together with their enemies, which was the Roman government, to do it, and so he hung out with the worst of the worst. Talking about that today. Yeah, yeah, he wasn't welcomed up in the higher echelons of the religious leaders. As a matter of fact, they hated him because he showed him up. He was healing blind people, raised dead people, causing the lame to walk, and that was showing him up. They should have been doing that. They should have been reaching the people, but they weren't. They were too busy about their outward appearance, maintaining that popularity.
Speaker 1:I think we both know better than to rip God's bride the church, but the churches failed. Some churches have failed Because they don't. They're like the unseen. Or how many churches have a bunch of prostitutes come in, or tax collectors, or our version of that? You know, publicans and unbelievers. What are these guys doing here? Yeah, and which would be the greatest answer? They're here because they're looking for that wake up call that moment with God.
Speaker 1:And that which I think is the whole idea. But that's. I don't run a church, so I don't have a whole lot of say so. But yeah, to your point. I think that's great. So, real quick, tell me about your vision for Humboldt, in terms of where we're at, maybe in your world, and where you see things going, where you'd like to see it go generally, within your perspective, your mindset, where I would like to see things go is no more homeless people.
Speaker 2:Everybody gets radically saved and preaches the gospel everywhere they go. Wow.
Speaker 1:That's a perfect world.
Speaker 2:That's a big vision. It is a perfect world. But is it gonna get there? Well, maybe not, but I don't know. Yeah, you know, and I'm gonna strive for that. I'm gonna keep preaching the gospel, loving on the people, treating them human, bending over backwards for them.
Speaker 1:So the county's known for, you know, in many ways, in and out of church, it seems like it's that camaraderie, that connection, that community idea. Not 100%, but we get pretty good marks on that one. Larry O'Doss called it. He called we have grit. I think it's also grit, which means people grind and they till, they don't yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the really the difficult part, and I understand, because I weigh the business community with the homeless community, because we're so tied in with Old Town and working together with the businesses and so the guys that were home was coming to our program, get their lives together. We then go back out into the community and make a difference. Sure, and the difference that we're making is we're cleaning up homeless camps.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And within town. We work together with the C-set team and Eureka Police. John Shelter in those case, John. I think John's working Southern, Is it sure he's?
Speaker 1:down elsewhere. Okay, I think that's where he's at. He does the same kind of idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then Aaron Ostrom with Green Pack Up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, phenomenal. We're primarily right there in Old Town and sometimes we'll go to different places like that and work together. But down with the docks, sensitive areas, and we work together with this. We can't just go in and make somebody leave, and that's law enforcement and how they want to deal with that, and tag the camps and stuff like that. But we'll go in and we'll load all the stuff up and work together with the city as good as we can. So but you know, that's the difficult part is there are so many people that are so addicted and so mentally ill. You know, I understand somebody wanting to pitch a tent for the night. You go in there, you go to sleep and you get up in the morning. You roll your stuff up, putting your backpack on, you go, but that's not the case and so tap, it's just. You look around, you drive through town, you see it that people are just really, really really severely addicted or just mentally, so mentally sick that they just can't function.
Speaker 1:I think it's where the non-homeless tolerance goes in the toilet, Because here's mines are trash In feces and needles and it's out of control. You go wait, this isn't society. But to your point it can be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we just gotta stay on top of it there's. You know, I don't know politics and all of that stuff, for you know the laws and I just look at it. It's a huge problem and I can't fix it, but what I can do is pour my life into other people and give them the hope that I have, and that's the hope of Jesus. Nice, and you know, the rescue mission is our newsletter's called Changing Lives, and that's our motto is changing lives, one life at a time. It's reading it this week. Yeah, and that's why I tell people is there's a difference between speaking to somebody and speaking into somebody, and that's by the power of the Holy Spirit. You can speak the word of God to somebody, but when the Holy Spirit gets a hold of the word, it goes into them, and when God's word goes into them, there's something's gonna happen and it's gonna be good. It just may not be right now, and so we never give up hope and never give up.
Speaker 1:That's what I and I'm hearing from you and I think it's really important to connect and I believe this the Holy Spirit works on people from day and year one. You know, all the way through, whether it's through Billy Graham on a TV show or a great sunset, and God's always speaking. It's just are we listening? Yeah, you know. And maybe more important, are we responding? Yeah, I really like that. I'll ask you this. I've never asked this to anybody in the show and you're number 30, so congratulations.
Speaker 1:There seems to be, after 43 years here and hanging out with Christians and talking to different people from different faiths and different backgrounds and some are dead and some are still living, but there is a sense of a destiny for Humboldt County. You kind of spoke it hey, I'd like to see it. Radical revival you didn't use the word, but I'll use it and that there's something really special about this county on a spiritual basis and a God thing and a Holy Spirit thing. What do you think? Do you think that's in the cards or is that real? Is that just some guys that were prophetically feeling good one night?
Speaker 2:I think that there's truth to that. However, for that to be true, there must be a huge impending darkness. A darkness that you can feel, and that's when the light of Christ shines so bright is when there is a lot of darkness. And I, like I said, I've lived here. I'm 58 years old. I've lived here in Humboldt County my whole life. I've seen things get worse and worse and worse and I've sensed it in my spirit. You know A lot of witchcraft, there's a lot of, I believe, a lot of Satanism. That goes on. It's just not in front. It has a different form now. It's not some devil with horns and stuff running around. It's more natural, it's more earthly, it's more sensual.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, pastor Jim, arcada, Calvary Chapel. I'll show you where that is. It's right up here in Arcada, you already know. Yeah, up by the high school, it's part of my chic. I hey, this is, and Eureka's right here, southern Humboldt. So he said this should be Shangri-La, it should be marijuana, fun, better weather, fun and beaches, rivers, fish and hunting.
Speaker 1:And instead it's a darker version in many ways. We hold statistics in drug abuse, alcoholism, child abuse, human trafficking. I mean we have some. You probably are touched with that more than I would be, but that there is craziness in violent crimes and fentanyl and it just starts. Here comes the list. So it isn't Disneyland, but it's, and that's kind of to the darkness point that, hey, it's Humboldt. Come to Humboldt. It's where Leo DiCaprio was filming a movie and you can go up to the Redwoods and I know you're from Europe, you've never seen the woods and it'd be great to see the beach, and that's all true. However, that dark underbelly Even now I'm uncomfortable addressing it but it's real and you would see it as real on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:I would say yeah, but. The toll of that.
Speaker 2:When you look at that, though and I agree with you, but you really have to look that that's everywhere. That's everywhere. There's a dark underbelly everywhere. Good point Okay.
Speaker 2:It's not just humboldt Right and it's easy for me to get on my phone and look through all the news feeds and go oh man, that's right. You know what I mean. Yeah, so if I'm always focusing on that, good point. And so for me, I get up in the morning and I spend my time in the Word of God. Nice, I constantly listening to teaching. On my way to Eureka in the mornings I'm listening to some kind of teaching.
Speaker 2:My favorite teacher is Jack Hibbs, calvary Chapel, chain Hills. Love him. It's too bad he didn't have a message every single day. You know, you listen to it. Yeah, I would. I would. I just love him. And there's others too that I listen to.
Speaker 2:But if all I ever do is focus on the negative, I'll become negative. Correct, okay, and I know there's a lot of negative to focus on, oh boy. But you know, if we rise above that preacher Ed Cole said one time. He said he was outside and it was raining and he was praising God. There was ants in here. Praise God. Thank you God for the sunshine. You know when people think you're nut, he said above the clouds the sun is always shining and above every circumstance there's a savior. And when we have our eyes focused and fixed on Jesus. Yeah, it's a dark world we live in, but you know what? Light will always overcome the darkness and we are to be children of light and we're to speak love, kindness, gentleness in the situation. It's not like I'm a word of faith guy, I'm just saying that that's who we need to be.
Speaker 1:That's who we are. Yeah, yeah, that's who we are.
Speaker 2:And if we fail to identify ourselves with the person of Jesus Christ, then we'll succumb to just whatever is coming down the bike. Right, you know then?
Speaker 1:whatever's on Fox News or CNN tonight and our channel six news or whatever it is it's. You're right and we boycotted news about three years ago. I'm so much better for it.
Speaker 2:My joy levels are just like. I just don't have to.
Speaker 1:You know, it's, it's, it's fed as a discouragement, it's just here it comes, yeah, so yeah, I killed my TV.
Speaker 2:I still have it. Yeah, we watch YouTube videos and stuff. So I no longer have the news and but I do have news feeds. Well, I don't want to be stupid.
Speaker 1:Right. If something dumb happens or hard in the world today, somehow we get worried about it, even though we're not plugged into it. It's funny how that that if you really had to know about it, you'd know about it. You know so great point. Well, hey, what a delight. So the contest. Here's my bell. Are you ready?
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Here's for all the prizes. What's what do you do on your day off? What in humble? What's your favorite things to do? Stay home, ah, staycation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, stay home with my wife. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What would you do? Just projects Spend?
Speaker 2:time. Yeah, sit by the fire, nice, and watch YouTube videos and just hang out with my wife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I would do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:Mothalon yeah Well, big wife points on all of this. Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:I love it. She's awesome.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, when do you? Where do you drink coffee in Eureka?
Speaker 2:Question number two I don't usually go out to coffee. I bring my own from home. If you could, where would you have a coffee? Oh, I don't know. I like jitter bean and okay, yeah, rick at jitter bean, he's a good dude, great guy. Yeah, he's awesome. Great product, yeah, super good. Yeah, I know, I've had Starbucks. I've had a few coffees from Starbucks, but I like the local people, yeah, yeah, somebody who's built something here.
Speaker 1:You know I like those. Funny how that shifted. So if you were to go for a hike, where do you hike?
Speaker 2:If I was going to go for a hike. I like the Fortuna Rohner Park. Okay, yeah, it's nice back up there, the woods, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you can also go back behind Carson Woods Road, back behind the park. I haven't been there for years, but you can go away back in the woods back there.
Speaker 1:Somebody said, behind CR you can go all the way over to Elk River too.
Speaker 2:There's a series of trails up there. Oh wow, Hyde'sville. I grew up in Hyde'sville. Beautiful out there. I've ridden my motorcycle on the PG&E I think it is the gas pipeline all the way to Bridgeville.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I had an XR75. But that was fun. Oh, it was a blast.
Speaker 2:See a bunch of stuff back there. Oh yeah, carry a can of gas on the back, me and my buddy Johnny, we would just ride.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the good old days. Yeah, we'll see you on the show. Thank you, scott. Appreciate you 100%, humboldt, and we'll talk again. Thank you All right.