Growing Together
Step into a virtual garden of spiritual growth and community connection with the "Growing Together" podcast. This podcast is a nurturing space for individuals seeking to deepen their faith, cultivate relationships, and explore the boundless beauty of a shared spiritual journey.
Each episode of "Growing Together" is a breath of fresh air, where Pastor Michael, Syd, Nic, Pastor Holly, and Pastor Roger try to navigate the twists and turns of life while staying rooted in faith. Their warm and inviting presence makes you feel like you're sitting in a cozy living room, engaged in a heartfelt conversation with old friends.
Diving into topics ranging from personal growth and self-care to building resilient relationships and fostering a sense of community, the podcast aims to equip listeners with the tools to nurture their faith in all aspects of life. Through scripture readings, open discussions, and interviews with experts in various fields, "Growing Together" provides a holistic approach to spiritual development.
Whether you're a lifelong believer, a seeker on the spiritual path, or simply someone curious about how faith can shape lives, "Growing Together" offers a welcoming haven for everyone. Tune in during your morning routine, while taking a leisurely stroll, or even during a quiet moment of reflection – the podcast fits seamlessly into your daily life.
Join the "Growing Together" community and embark on a journey of discovery, growth, and genuine connection. In a world that can sometimes feel disconnected, this podcast reminds us that nurturing our faith and cultivating meaningful relationships can lead to a life that's deeply fulfilling and spiritually abundant. Subscribe now to start your journey of growing together in faith and fellowship.
Growing Together
How Does Your Faith Determine What You Watch on TV?
Ever wondered how to sneak past those pesky service cancellation fees? Join us as we unravel a clever personal strategy that might just save you some cash and discuss how faith and values influence our TV habits. We also take a fascinating detour into the dark world of true crime, pondering the chilling realities behind infamous figures like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. Through the eyes of devoted investigators, we seek a sliver of positivity within these grim tales, while balancing the darkness with recommendations for lighter, quirky historical podcasts to cleanse the palate.
Our conversation then meanders through the heartfelt and humorous pathways of family life, touching on everything from addiction recovery to the amusing chaos of planning family vacations. Stories of children’s innocent questions about the world around them provide laugh-out-loud moments, while highlighting the importance of teaching inclusivity and understanding. As we reminisce about old Westerns and classic TV shows, we reflect on how these cultural staples have shaped and shifted societal norms over the years, offering a warm dose of nostalgia and cultural insight.
For those bitten by the travel bug, our episode wraps up with tales of adventure from airport escapades to the thrill of planning a first-time cruise. We even toss around some lively discussions about changing geographical names and the hilarity such changes might incite in future generations. As technical glitches slip in, we smoothly transition to a reflective moment of gratitude and prayer, hoping to leave you with a smile and a newfound appreciation for the twists and turns of everyday life.
All right, can I get my Kimball update now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so I finally.
Speaker 1:I finally beat the system. So let me rephrase that. I think that maybe they haven't figured out that I've beat the system yet. So I got an email from the guy and he says hey, I got. I know that you want to cancel, like you're really unhappy. He's like, but if you keep your contract until September of 2025, you won't pay any fees. Well, that's seven months. If you buy out your contract, which is what they want me to do, you have to pay for six months. So, paying for one more month plus, I get all the service cancel, no penalty, right? Here's the problem that he hasn't apparently figured out yet. Our contract doesn't expire until sometime into 2026 or 2027.
Speaker 1:I signed a new one when we went to weekly pickup and I know for a fact that that's the case. I looked through my email. I can't find the new contract. But I know for sure that I did. But he doesn't know that. So I'm running with it. I'm like you know what? Yep, absolutely, we'll do that, we'll do that and that's why I was going to cancel it, because I knew we were like two more years at least because the three year terms and it hasn't been a full year since I switched because we were weekly when we first got the dumpster. I switched to biweekly or bi-monthly. Is that every other? However, twice a month.
Speaker 4:And then biweekly, okay, biweekly.
Speaker 1:And then I went back to weekly and every time you change your service schedule. You sign a new contract, so I know for a fact that I'm 2026, 2027, but he thinks 2025. We're gonna take it, so I'm happily pay them so hopefully he's not listening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, even if he is, I've got the email to prove that.
Speaker 1:That's what he told me, so right yep there we go.
Speaker 1:There's the kimball update, Nice I also have one of our other businesses is expiring in September October of this year. Maybe that's what he was thinking about. That's kind of what I thought too. I wasn't going to say that, but he emailed us and said that he received our cancellation. I'm like well duh, we sent it a year ago that we would be terminating our contract at the end of the contract date. So I called another trash company today, and they're coming on Tuesday to give us a quote for replacing it in September.
Speaker 5:Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they always, every time I talk to Kimball, they always tell me like, oh, that company has environmental and service fees and they have administration fees. And I sent them copies of my bills with none of those fees on any of my bills. I have like seven accounts with them. Not a single one of those fees on any of my bills. I have like seven accounts with them. Not a single one of those feeds on any of them. And they're like well, maybe you're just a really lucky customer, but if you sign a new agreement, you're certainly going to have this. I'm like, whatever you say, I'm like I ain't paying them right now.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, always good fun, love it. What's today's topic? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Is it this one?
Speaker 2:Or television. Oh, you're right, it is.
Speaker 1:Okay, how does your faith influence what you watch on TV?
Speaker 5:and look at on the internet. There's nothing on TV worth watching.
Speaker 1:That's a great answer. It is a pretty good answer. Real quick question how many of you have ever heard of the musical Avenue Q? No, I didn't figure. Okay, we'll talk about it, but not right now. I need you guys to sin a little bit before I do, okay.
Speaker 5:I'd say, in the last year the Holy Spirit has really worked on me on that. If there's something on that is offensive, I just won't watch it. Explain that. What do you mean by offensive? Worked on me on that? Um, just because if there's something on I did it's offensive, I just I, I won't watch it explain that.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by offensive?
Speaker 5:because offensive is different to everybody so, um, like I talked about my husband watching mike and molly and anything like vulgar, yeah, anything sexually whether it's. It's just, even if they're making hints about it, it disturbs me. Yeah, I mean, I just that, I mean it's really changed. I just like, and what I will sometimes get caught up watching that he watches and then I'm like, why am I doing this when I have to leave the room? Is that Bar Rescue?
Speaker 1:Oh, I've never watched that show.
Speaker 5:It's foul. I was going to say.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I think I've seen clips of it and the guy that's rescuing the bar, he goes in there and he starts just dropping some serious language.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's the foul language.
Speaker 1:And listen. I can keep up with the best of them.
Speaker 3:I really can. Is it like Hell's Kitchen kind of yes, same concept. Up with the best of them, like I really can, but like hell's kitchen kind of yes, same concept okay but so here's my thing.
Speaker 1:This is not everybody's gonna agree with me. Most of you probably won't agree with me at all, but in my mind, when I say a swear word, I don't swear at people. Do you know what I mean? Like you sob, or you know, I'm gonna knock the whatever out of you. Like I don't, that's just never been my gig, but I'll dang it, things like that. That happens pretty frequently, but I very seldom am ever directing it at people and almost every one of those shows that you watch they're always directing it at people. And I'm not justifying saying it at all. I'm saying that for me. There's a rationalization in my brain whether it's right or it's wrong, but I just I don't know why. Like when you watch a show and I remember um, manifest, have any of you ever watched manifest?
Speaker 3:on netflix. I watched the first the first season.
Speaker 1:Good, stop, because everything past the first season is garbage. Um, that show was I think it was a netflix original, but it was filmed in canada or owned by a Canadian company First couple of seasons super clean you might hear the D word or something like that, but it was very, very, very clean. Then Netflix took it over in the United States and all of the sudden and I'm talking characters that have never said a swear word on the show before are now swearing like sailors. I'm like that doesn't make any sense to me, because you've ruined the character and you've ruined the show. So I didn't make it past season one of that show, but my wife watched the whole thing and while she was watching it I would catch a piece. I'm like what, what happened?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's what it was. It was the same with House of Cards, where the one guy was the president and his wife was. Yes, I think it was. I think maybe that show ran seven seasons or something like that was like season five. All of the sudden, everybody's swearing and this was exactly what it was. It was bought by a different network and just went downhill I think spongebob.
Speaker 3:Like that happened to spongebob they swear in spongebob.
Speaker 1:No like.
Speaker 3:Oh, I was like like new owners, but then not necessarily that change of like swear words, but you could tell there was like a personality change between him and patrick, new owner, who dis um, I will tell you my kids that is a tv show.
Speaker 1:My kids have never been allowed to watch spongebob and it's because they always call people stupid yeah, they're always calling names.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like laughing, like yeah, yeah, laughing at one another, yes, right and so like they will see clips like um, the, the clip where patrick is answering the phone at the crusty crab, oh yeah. And they're like is this the crusty crab? No, this is patrick. They call right back is this the crusty crab? No, this is patrick. On and on and on again. And my kids will do that. Yeah, they have never seen the episode. They don't actually get all of the funny, but and they've seen the guy who went and ripped his pants, the song in the one episode. Like they see some of that, but they definitely are not allowed to watch that show on the reg. Like we're pretty, I don't want to say we're strict about what they pretty careful Easton. Though you can't really stop him, he finds ways around it.
Speaker 1:If he figures out your password for anything. You can count on. Whatever it was that you told him not to do, he's going to do it. He's going to do it. We've learned that there are some things you just don't say to him. They made an Elvis cartoon. Did you watch that, nick?
Speaker 3:I think you were telling us about it.
Speaker 1:He was a secret agent, so elvis was always. He always wanted to be a super, like he always thought of himself as like. Not thought of himself as yes yeah, um, but like identified with um captain marvel jr yeah, something like that lightning bolt yeah and so like.
Speaker 1:He always had a fascination with comic books, things like that, so he's always like his dream was to have a comic book or a cartoon made after him, and so Priscilla made that happen a couple of years ago. Easton desperately wanted to watch it and I told Alyssa I'm going to watch it first, at least some of it, to see how we feel about it. Right off the rip there's a monkey doing cocaine. They're dropping the F-bomb. I'm talking like it was. Are you kidding? They're dropping the F-bomb. I'm talking like it was. Are you kidding? No, no, it was nuts. And so I said to Easton that he couldn't watch it, and he was immediately angry because he wants to see it. There was no way you could let him watch that.
Speaker 2:No way Was there any premise to it.
Speaker 1:No, not really. So he's a secret agent and Elvis had a monkey. Scatters was the monkey's name and so that's the monkey in the show, and I think it was just like a funny tie to the fact that Elvis had a monkey. So that was the reason he was in there. But this monkey was just. The whole show was off the chain.
Speaker 3:And I think I maybe watched. Didn't you say it was on the kids part too?
Speaker 1:Yes, you could watch it. So, like Netflix kids, it was available on Netflix Kids, which was crazy. I don't think it is anymore, but it was at the time. But that was nuts, that was absolutely nuts.
Speaker 5:Turn him on to Tom and Jerry.
Speaker 1:You know what? Here's the problem with Tom and Jerry. You know, at the beginning of Tom and Jerry it's like that. Do not try this at home. These are only cartoon characters. That's like the new thing, Did any of us, as kids, ever think that we were going to light dynamite in somebody's pants?
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 1:Did any of us think that dogs could walk on two legs and talk? Did any of us think that a chicken could talk with a stutter? The answer no, but for some reason we have to tell kids today that this is only a cartoon. There's something wrong with society, which is the reason that we can't have toy guns anymore.
Speaker 3:Right, you know what I?
Speaker 1:mean.
Speaker 4:Yes absolutely.
Speaker 1:It used to be that toy guns and Nick, this is probably true from when you were a kid, because I know it was true when I was a kid they didn't have the orange tip.
Speaker 4:No Like.
Speaker 1:I could have a. It was green or black or you know what I mean. It looked like a gun. You can't do that anymore. They have to put the orange tip on the end, because kids are carrying these things into school and you know it's nuts. I saw, I remember, years ago there was a little boy who got shot by the police. He was carrying a squirt gun. It had an orange end on it, but they covered it with electrical tape, so the cops thought he had a real gun. Oh, that was in cleveland, wasn't it?
Speaker 5:I don't know, I can't remember for sure. Yeah, but like, what do you do? What do you do? Like you don't feel like you should have to tell people not to do that stuff. But here we are. I think, like, even like the podcast I tried, I'm like nope, nope, nope, can't do it so how do you feel about like true crime podcasts?
Speaker 1:I've been watching I'm a Murderer on Netflix. Did I have? I told you guys about?
Speaker 4:that you mentioned it last week. Okay, I haven't watched it yet.
Speaker 1:Great. It's a great show because you get to see all of these people who are in prison and they tell their story first, and then you get kind of a mix of the arresting officers or the investigating officers and they're like, well, that's not quite how it actually went, but they let them listen. So like the inmate will get to listen to what the arresting officer said, like no, that's not true, and then they'll speak to whatever that.
Speaker 3:I think I watched one a few weeks.
Speaker 1:It is really, really good, but I mean, we're talking about murder.
Speaker 4:We're talking about drug addiction and drug use, and rape and all of the like really nitty-gritty kind of gross things. That doesn't bother me. It is the foul language though.
Speaker 5:Because that truly has happened.
Speaker 1:So that was going to be my question. So if it's reality, it doesn't like. If this is a okay, so how about like a Jeffrey Dahmer documentary or like a retelling of a Jeffrey Dahmer?
Speaker 2:story. That's what I was going to bring up, is? You know, a few years ago, like I watched a, I think one was John Wayne Gacy, one was Ted Bundy yeah, and I watched a documentary and by the end of that I'm like why am I watching?
Speaker 1:yeah, why did I sit through that?
Speaker 2:and every time I watch it's like okay, now I have to watch two hours of something silly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right To even try to get this out of my head.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just as a side note, the John Wayne Gacy thing is bizarre to me the fact that his wife lived in that house. They said when they walked in, you could smell it, you knew that there was something going on.
Speaker 2:He just kept telling his wife like, oh, it's the sewage.
Speaker 1:Or this that I would have been like we sell in this house and move in.
Speaker 2:I can't go to the bathroom without Margie knowing where I am, and what I'm doing. It's like how is he burying these people under the house when she's totally clueless?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely clueless yeah absolutely clueless to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to fathom, but what I really like, though, if anything out of those shows, is if, uh, the investigators are part of it and they're telling their yes I really like that because you could tell they're on a quest to stop whatever and it's a professional, you know and you can see all the sacrifice they're making to try to find this person and stop them, and it's like that. That at least makes it kind of like. Ok, yeah, you know somebody here is doing something good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, before you get to learn about them. Before you started, nick, I was thinking like, yeah, it's OK, but then if you're like binge watching something for a week straight, like those, or you know, or that's all you listen to, is true crime, like you, you know, or that's all you listen to is true crime like and you know, then that might be an issue.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know, so I have to jump between podcasts right now like I have an obsession with the best idea yet, so if you haven't listened to it, absolutely listen to. It's on the wondery app.
Speaker 3:It's fantastic, one of the best do you pay for the wondery app?
Speaker 1:no, no, you can get them on apple podcast, you can get them on spotify, you can get them anywhere, but it's like it's a wondery podcast that then is distributed other places. I'm telling you, if you just like weird history about stupid things, it's fantastic. I just listened to the one about Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It's well put together. It's a fun thing to listen to, but at the same time I'm usually listening to like right now I'm listening to somebody knows something. It's about a girl who just vanishes. She just vanishes. Her boyfriend proposes to her on New Year's Eve on some television show and she's never heard from again. That's it, that's the end.
Speaker 1:And so her mom is desperately trying to find her. They have no idea. She didn't show up to pick her mom up from the airport, and that's they knew something was wrong. So it was the very next day and they never found her.
Speaker 3:No idea where she's at there's one I listened to um and like it happened in australia, there were like 49 episodes all an hour and a half long geez oh, they like that. Yeah, that's when I was working six days a week.
Speaker 5:I'm like, all right, another one roll that beautiful bean footage see, I like the crime stories, but most of them, even though it's, it can be brutal or you don't have that foul language yes, typically yes it's not a lot of swearing and things like that uh
Speaker 3:and I think, like to go back to it, I think we're all so interested in those things because we're all like it's just fascinating, like how does someone like us, who grew up in a small town or something, you know, how do they get to that point where they start to think I'm going to eat people? You know like it's just I think I read something or heard something like it's fascinating for all of us, because it's just like we can't imagine.
Speaker 1:Doing.
Speaker 3:Yes, and like how the human brain works, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I will say this though and I preached this maybe two weeks ago, I can't remember for sure but we want to, we want resolution, and so we listen to those things looking for resolution. We get obsessed with serial killer documentaries because, like you said, we want to understand it, we want resolution, we want finality as to why it happened. The fact remains is it doesn't matter. We'll never have an actual understanding. John Wayne Gacy just didn't think he was doing anything wrong. He genuinely thought this is normal. Jeffrey Dahmer, he knew he was luring people into his apartment and that wasn't okay.
Speaker 2:He would say I wanted to stop.
Speaker 1:Yes, whether that was true or not, I don't know but he would say that like I wanted to stop. There was so much of it that I think is learned behavior in my opinion. So like and I'll just be honest with you, like easton, I don't think he's serial killing, but like he'll say things like I'm sorry, I was bad. He knows that I have to apologize in order to get my tablet or in order to like. There's that like conditioned learned behavior that I have to do or say in order to get X On that I'm a murderer. There's a guy this is a bizarre story he started drinking at the age of nine. By nine, he was a full-blown alcoholic, is what he said. Okay, this is his story. So I don't know whether any of it's actually true or not, it's just the way he tells it. By nine, he was a full-blown alcoholic. By like 13, he was doing hard drugs yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:Been in and out of jail his entire adolescent and most bar parks. It inside says to a guy watch my bike, he goes over to shoot pool.
Speaker 3:Oh, I watched pool.
Speaker 1:He looks up, notices his bike is missing. He goes over to the guy where's my bike? The guy goes even if I knew I wouldn't tell you, and they were pranking him, they had taken the bike outside and put it in the of a truck or whatever. This dude gets raging mad and stabs him three times and kills him over a bike. Okay, Because he's drinking, he's probably on drugs, and that's what happens.
Speaker 1:Right, our minds can't process Like I could never be so mad at somebody that I stabbed them, right, yeah, Like even a Kimball person, I could never be that mad. Like it's weird, speak for yourself, okay, I could never be that mad. It's weird, speak for yourself. It's weird for us to think that that somebody is capable of doing that. So during the episode he's sitting there and he's telling his story and he says you know, I know that I didn't make the right choice Under the influence of alcohol and drugs. I made a bad choice, I know, and I didn't mean to do that, and my life should be better than it is. That's what he's saying. And then they have like a forensic psychologist and she's like yeah, but if you listen to him, it's never about the victim, it's never about the victim's family.
Speaker 1:It's always about him which is a psychological disorder, and he is exactly where he needs to be, basically. So he decides to transition. That he's. The reason that he did all of these things was because he actually wanted to be a female and all of those psychological issues were building up to this moment. He changes his name to Ezdith E-Z-D-E-A-T-H. E-z-death, d-e-a-t-h Easy death. Now, what kind of insult is that to the person you've murdered, the family who's still alive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you have any remorse at all.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and he's like well, that wasn't my intention, I just love the name. I'm like no, no.
Speaker 1:If you said your name was Mary, I would probably believe you, because, right, it's a common name but as death, spelled that way just kind of feels like it's an insult. And this whole episode he's talking about how all of these things that he went through as a child made him do what he did. And I'm like no, because you can stop, you can get help. You chose not to. And I'm not saying that there aren't people who, like, genuinely struggle with those things. There's some point when you're like you're clean and you're sober because you're in jail and you're still making really poor life decisions.
Speaker 3:No, you're just a jerk yeah, a lot of people blame it on the generational curse oh yeah, for sure you know I've. Oh yeah, I know it's. I know it's bad around here, but I also have seen plenty people around here who have broken that. So you know, I know it's possible. My children are two that have.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my daughter hates it when it's called a disease. Yeah, because it's not. She said addiction isn't a disease.
Speaker 1:It's a choice.
Speaker 4:A disease is cancer. Yes, she's like. You don't choose to get cancer, but you choose to continue to use drugs.
Speaker 1:Now I can understand and again, maybe not a popular opinion, but I understand how addiction can feel like a disease Absolutely, and the mindset that you can't stop Right exactly, and they don't take care of their mental health Exactly. I cannot go to a casino. I can't do it. If I go to a casino, I can't stop, I don't know when to stop, I will drain my bank account.
Speaker 3:Dopamine hit, that's what I'm saying. Listen, I can't go to Chuck E Cheese because I'm like it's give me all the tokens. How many tokens can I get for $100? That's it. Let me go to the bank and get another $100. Chase and I have gone like two or three times and we'll both say, all right, $50 for me, $50 for you. And I'm the same way. I'm like, oh, mine's all gone. He's like here you can have mine. I'm like, no, no, no, I shouldn't. But then I end up just taking it.
Speaker 1:I just can't do it. And because I know that, I know that I can't go to the casino, if anybody says to me, hey, we're going to go to the casino, do you want to go? The answer is flat out, no, somebody. But that's a choice, right, like I know. Trust me, I've done it. I went with my sister one time. I said I'm taking a hundred dollars in cash, that's it. Well, they got atms all over that place they just want you to spend it?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, yeah, because they get like 20 bucks off of me just for saying I want to keep playing and I, we were playing nickel slots and I was like 10 minutes in and I'm flat broke and my sister was like what, what? I'm like max bet, baby, a hundred lines. I don't know how this works. I don't know how I'm going to win. Just keep hitting the button. It was nuts. It was absolutely crazy, but I knew that I just can't do those things, and so I agree that that part is the disease. The inability to stop is the disease. The choice to do it for the first time is not is made that decision that this is what you're going to do.
Speaker 1:I look at my cousin. You guys all know her. I won't use her name. She did not come from a line of drug addicts or alcoholics. She didn't come from a family who didn't. I didn't know a single person in my family who did any type of hard drugs until her. It was lifestyle. It was the people that she ended up running around with. It was the people she made friends with and then it was hard to kick yeah but man, when she did, when she finally beat, it turned her life around.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean, she's working six, seven days a week, making as much money she can't putting it in the bank so she can fight for her kids, like that's what.
Speaker 3:That's what getting sober looks like yeah, because you have a sober mind. Yes, that you know has the willpower to want to do it for yourself and your kids.
Speaker 1:Like yeah yeah, it's crazy, though, because when she was using and I don't know why they think we don't know if you don't call them out on it, you don't't know. So it had gotten pretty bad and my grandma's like we've got to do something. She's like I need your help. So I went to my grandma's house, I called her and I said hey, I need you to come to grandma's house and she's like basically she's like I can't and I was like, okay, well, I'm not leaving here until you come.
Speaker 1:And she's like, well, I'm fine, I like everything's fine. I'm like no, you're not fine. I said and quite frankly, I don't even know if you're the one texting me right now. You could be dead and it could be somebody else texting me pretending like you're okay, I need to see your face. So it was like two hours since she finally shows up. She has a sty in her eye Like she is just looking rough. Okay, another two, two hours sitting there. She finally agrees to go to detox. So I drive her to detox.
Speaker 4:My grandma and I drive her to detox.
Speaker 1:She's there for 48 hours and leaves.
Speaker 5:She ain't clean.
Speaker 1:It wasn't until she got picked up for something. They forced her into rehab. That's when she finally got clean, and they didn't just force her into rehab. So she rolls up to rehab, being driven by the guy who she has a protection order against. Yeah, absolutely as soon as the rehab saw him, they call the cops. He gets picked up. So now he's out of her life.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, so she stays in rehab, she gets out of rehab Now she's clean, she doesn't have that crowd following her around, so now she's able to actually get clean, have a real life and have a shot at getting her kids back. Yeah, Listen, she misses church most Sundays and that's because she is at every wrestling match that her kids have Like for her. That's important to her because she has been absent for so long, absolutely, that she feels like that's—.
Speaker 3:You know sorry.
Speaker 1:You're okay.
Speaker 3:She messaged me when the fasting started and was like, hey, you know I did the fasting start yet for church. I want to do it, but I don't. You know, haven't been there in a few weeks. I'm like I said, well, it just started yesterday.
Speaker 1:I'm like, but just go a day later, you know, jump in.
Speaker 3:So I was happy to see that she, you know, had asked, so that was nice.
Speaker 1:You know, when we were young, it was what friday, the 13th and freddy krueger, children of the corn we saw all of those movies.
Speaker 5:I wouldn't dare watch one of those nowadays. I'm a firm believer when you watch that stuff in your house it brings evil spirits.
Speaker 1:It's just so I we don't watch. We don't watch scary movies. Now again, I'm just, I'm just gonna stand over here, okay, like my kids, like we've watched hocusocus, which I know everybody gets like kind of crazy about that stuff, and I'm not advocating like, but we teach our kids that this is fiction, this is not real, we are not witches, we are not wizards, and so like we make a very clear definition as to what this is. This is a fun movie.
Speaker 4:That is it, just like Harry.
Speaker 1:Potter Correct, and movie that is it. Just like Harry Potter, correct. And I'm not saying that that's for everybody. I'm not saying everybody can do that, because some people will obsess over it. And then they're buying their kids Harry Potter wands and they're walking around saying magic spells. You're probably getting into some dangerous territory there. And there are some of those shows where I guess they were using real spells in the show, like real witchcraft in the shows, and while obviously they're not doing magic, we would never, never allow our kids to watch Nightmare on Elm Street or Jason. And again, it's because I know that my kids are not ready for those types of things when they turn adults. If they want to watch that, if they can understand and process that, fine, I'm going to be honest with you I can't watch it without having nightmares especially the 80s horror movies, because everybody's like, oh, they don't even hold a candle to today's scary movies.
Speaker 1:That's not true. We've become desensitized to that type of movie.
Speaker 2:What I was going to say is, I think, a lot of those old horror movies, even going back to the 60s, all that I think for the most part they were date movies, suspense movies. You took your girlfriend there.
Speaker 1:And she screamed and buried her head in your chest.
Speaker 2:They were made to give you a scare.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know which people like for some reason people like to get scared yeah.
Speaker 5:But now.
Speaker 2:I mean, but now these movies they're coming out with it's like there's no scares to it, it's just blatant and it's blood and gore.
Speaker 4:And that's what I was going to say. Yes, I'm not watching any of that.
Speaker 1:To the point franchise I'm like.
Speaker 2:Why are people watching this why?
Speaker 1:are you watching people cut?
Speaker 2:off their own limbs and a lot of times in the old, in the old horror movies you still had like a good guy. Yes, the whole point at the end of the movie was okay, we have to stop yes, yeah, good overcome, yes good overcome yes, yeah these movies.
Speaker 1:Now it's everybody dies and like yeah, no point. So how many of us have seen the Final Destination movies sitting in this room?
Speaker 2:Maybe one, but no, I've never really seen those Really.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we? That was the movie. When I was a teenager. I can't drive behind a log truck without having like a panic attack because in the movie one of the logs rolls off of the truck and kills one of the people in the movie and the premise is they cheated death. They, like the one guy freaks out and they all get off the roller coaster or whatever and they cheat death in that moment and so now death is coming for them in like in all of these unique ways. That is not the kind of thing I want in my life we had a classmate pass away from that.
Speaker 1:From a logging truck.
Speaker 4:And I will not follow a logging truck, I don't care how fast.
Speaker 1:I'm going. It's exactly what I said I'm going to pass that truck.
Speaker 5:He was in the military, in a military caravan. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I said it doesn't matter to me If I have to go 90 to pass that log truck. I'm doing 90. I don't care.
Speaker 5:I will not follow that logging truck.
Speaker 3:You don't have to worry about me. Well, you do 90 into the parking lot.
Speaker 1:Why won't you do 90 there? We're giving you, we're giving you a rake.
Speaker 3:So you can clean, scrape back up. I reminded me my grandma. She said her, not this grandma you guys know, but my other grandma, um, you know the green bridge, like in janine, used to be green yeah, now it's yeah, the one they blew up, yeah yeah, well, my her cousin and her would drive to school, you know there and back.
Speaker 3:And she, I think it was like the well, my her cousin and her would drive to school, you know there and back. And she, I think it was like the first day her cousin picked her up to go to school and she gasses it past, you know, on this bridge. And she's like gloria, what are you doing? She's like I'm terrified of bridges and would like gas it. My grandma, like on her way back from school, I think it was. She's like stop the, I'm walking across this bridge.
Speaker 4:She totally didn't pick me up on the other side. Listen I used to watch soap operas when I was young the daytime soaps and the evening soaps, oh yeah. But I quit watching those before I even became a Christian.
Speaker 1:It's like that was all about sex and, yeah, my grandma used to watch. So we would get off the bus on Packer Street and we would walk up the alley to our house. But before we did that, we always went into grandma's house and we had something to eat. It was either whole potatoes cold out of the can or cold ravioli out of the can. Those were my jam. She always had a stock for me. Okay, so we would go in. Grandma would be asleep in the chair taking her afternoon nap, but the soaps were on Edgy night, probably after school. Never, like you didn't go in the house and they weren't on. And I don't know if this is true or not, but I think my grandma like purposely waited to go places until after we'd gotten off the bus. Probably Like she waited for us to get off the bus, come in the house, do our thing and then she would go and do whatever else she needed to do. But it was like that.
Speaker 4:She wanted to make sure that her kids were taken care of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess, or make sure we didn't do anything stupid. That's probably more accurate.
Speaker 4:But she wasn't a dumb woman. And some of the daytime talk shows Jerry.
Speaker 1:Jerry Jerry.
Speaker 3:Oh, I watched that documentary.
Speaker 1:Did you watch the documentary?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was good though, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, I was shocked. It was only one episode.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it was one really long. It was more like a yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, wasn't it? There was girls that worked at Embers, that were on.
Speaker 1:Oh, we had people who attended the church, which is the same concept. I mean it was smut. Maybe it was smut and the thing is they pay you to come they were like oh, we're getting new clothes, it's all expense paid trip. They put you up in a hotel, they feed you real well, and all you gotta do is get on TV and fight act stupid.
Speaker 4:There was a Jerry Springer episode that the woman came out on all fours with a dog collar around her neck. Her boyfriend was leading her and she was nude.
Speaker 1:Oh geez, yeah, that was. That was Jerry's thing.
Speaker 4:And I'm like nope, this is it. Turn that off.
Speaker 1:What's funny if you watch it. That was never Jerry's intention. He wanted a real talk show and he did it for two or three years. It was absolutely boring. And then they hired a new producer who's like no, we, we need to make this like late night spicy, yeah. And I mean the next thing, you know, they're beating Oprah in the ratings because nobody had ever beat Oprah ever, and Oprah has doesn't even stand a chance against Jerry Springer, and it was when it wasn't until the couple killed each other. It was a double homicide suicide. That they're like we're done.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I didn't realize that happened oh yeah, yeah, they came on the show.
Speaker 1:So it was a husband, a husband and a wife and a mistress. They come on the show and the mistress won't fight. She won't fight them at all. She's like you know what, whatever, because she was not anticipating that, she was not thinking that they were going to be that. She thought she was coming on and it was going to be like reconnection, whatever, like it was going to be reconciliation. And so she's sitting out there, the boyfriend or the husband comes out and then he brings out the girlfriend that he's been seeing and I mean it's a total fight.
Speaker 1:This lady leaves the studio and they tell her if you leave, we're not flying you back home, you're going to figure out your own way home. She walks to the bus station in tears. Somebody buys her a bus ticket back home. She goes back home, the other two fly home and eventually they all kill each other. Like I think I can't remember if he kills the wife and then the other wife and then himself, or like who did what, but or like who did what, but it was a double murder, suicide, and then it was like we're done.
Speaker 3:And what was the one with? The one guy was like that's where it drew the line for me when he went to the hotel room to like.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. There was a girl on there who called and wanted to be on the show because she was a call girl and her dad would call and hire her. So like she had, she was part of a service and he would ask for her and she had to go. And so she was like I want him to stop. So the producers had to go to the hotel rooms of each of the people and like get them geared up for the show. He shows up to her room. Dad's there they willingly yeah.
Speaker 1:And he was like that's enough enough, I've had enough, yeah, and he quit. It's bizarre, like the stuff that people do on tv, and what I can't wrap my head around is how I get that. In the 90s, tv was pretty like mostly clean, mostly clean, like you were still watching cheers and you were still watching like there was a lot of. It wasn't quite I Love Lucy and I Dream of Jeannie Days and Gilligan's Island, but it was still fairly clean. You're talking Family Matters. You're talking.
Speaker 2:More often than not, there was still a lesson. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yes, Step by step. What was the ABC? They had the whatever they called their Monday night lineup, but they had a name for it TGIF.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the whatever they called their Monday night lineup, but they had a name for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was it. That was their Friday night lineup. It was TGIF, yes, and so you had Family Matters, step by Step, full House, like you had a series. So it was all fairly clean. So when Jerry comes out, like this is all new and people are interested, it's like going to the carnival to see quote unquote freaks yeah, which there? Yes, yeah, there's like this part of you that can't look away. But you know it's wrong, like you know it's not right to stare and point and do those things, but but you do, you do it anyway.
Speaker 1:I don't remember where we were at my whole family. We were somewhere and I can't. Maybe the kid was having a meltdown, but he was very clearly had special needs. Let's assume that he was autistic or on the spectrum of some sort, like I don't want to put him in a box, but there was obviously and he was having like a serious, serious meltdown and all of my kids are looking. And I turned around and I looked and I said stop staring. I said because each and every one of you do that and you don't have an excuse, like there's no reason for it, you're just bad, like you're just misbehaving, and he's like I don't do that. I'm like, dude, you're gonna do that by the time we're in the store like I'm surprised you're not doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know for a fact we're gonna do this at least once today, uh-huh, and so there's just that, like we want to stare, but we know it's not okay to stare.
Speaker 5:I remember when McDonald's first had the indoor playground, the one there on the bowl I took Sarah and Clayton up there. And there's his dad. He's playing with his little boy going down the sliding board. All of a sudden he goes down the sliding board and his artificial leg falls off. Oh my gosh Sarah's at the top. She ain't coming down. She ain't coming down.
Speaker 4:It was horrible.
Speaker 5:And he's like no, honey, look, it's okay, I'll just put it back on, and she's going no way.
Speaker 1:Just from a like a horrifying kid standpoint.
Speaker 1:You know, when we were picking Aaron and Aiden up and we were driving three hours every other weekend, we stopped at the Speedway in Newcomerstown one time and we went in, I took Aaron and Aiden in, we all bathroom that's kind of a bath, quick bathroom, stop, grab a drink or whatever.
Speaker 1:And we go back out and we walk into the to the gas station and there is a little person, beard, mustache like and Aaron goes, that little boy has a beard, doesn't know, I mean, he's five, maybe six at the time and the guy gives him a dirty look and I'm thinking like, okay, if that were me saying that, I can. He he genuinely thinks that. And I said, aaron, you can't say that. And he's like well, I just want to play with him, like to him, right, yeah, yeah, boy, it's tough, yeah, so it's just but figuring out how you talk to your kids about those things and make them understand. But so we again, just on the spongebob topic we won't watch shows that we won't allow them to watch shows that call people names and do mean things to people, because it becomes that's normal, right?
Speaker 3:so I will say, um, having a family member has it's not a prosthetic leg, but it's a foot on foot, and her mom says, you know, most people are oh honey, don't stare, don't point, don't look, you know, ask ask yeah, yeah, what is that?
Speaker 5:You know?
Speaker 3:Yes, I know that's a societal change, you know. But yeah, like, because maybe chances are mom doesn't even know what that is, you know. So, like, if your child does like oh, what is that mom? Like, I don't know honey, maybe we should go ask them yeah and then, hey, do you mind, mom, like can you explain more?
Speaker 1:like yeah, I one of the big things for me in situations like that, like mike I, that's never bothered me. When it's a situation like that, it's hard. Adeline has a really good friend who has a sister who is handicapped and she's not of an age which you can explain the severity of the handicap, just that she is not capable of running and playing and talking and doing some of the things that her sister can do. But then Adeline looks at that and goes but why is she like that? And her sister's not right, why is she like that?
Speaker 1:and her brother's, not whatever. It's just like there is a fine line with trying to explain to them and also being age appropriate about how you explain it, because you're not going to explain a limb difference to a kid who's not going to understand a limb?
Speaker 3:difference. You know it's, just's, just it's. And at the end of the day, god made everyone different. Like that's, that's, that's all you got to say. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And my kids because of I worked in the nursing home for 70 years and they were in and out of the nursing home. I mean, at one point they came to work with me, spent a half hour there and their dad came and picked them up. Yeah, tomb to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yeah I think sarah was probably about three or four when that happened. I think her little mind was thinking if I go down my legs, I used to go to what used to be shun brown nursing home. Now it's divine regularly like I was there pretty regularly doing all this or whatever, just volunteering. And I remember I was there one time and it became like a whole ruckus and I had no idea what was going on. But apparently one of the patients took his prosthetic leg off and beat the administrator with it like was hitting the administrator with it. The administrator got put on leave because they had to investigate it because the guy was saying the administrator had done something to him. Turned out this guy had done these things in the past and had been evicted from multiple nursing homes got evicted from that one too.
Speaker 1:Like what is the deal? Like you get old, you think you just beat people with a prosthetic leg and get away with it he's gonna end up losing his leg.
Speaker 5:They're gonna take it away, yeah repossess his leg I think I'm like roger we jarvie and I watch a lot of the old western oh yeah bonanza, what'd you say?
Speaker 4:laramie, laramie which one's the gun smoke lot of the old Western.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, bonanza, what did you say? Laramie, laramie, which one's? The bank, gunsmoke, the bank.
Speaker 5:The guys rides with the stagecoach, with the money.
Speaker 2:Oh, wells Fargo, All right.
Speaker 5:And then there's the train where all the covered wagons go together. That guy, we watch that one Wagon train.
Speaker 1:Wagon train. I was going to say that's the one that Tina Newman was watching the last time she was in the hospital. Hey, quick question about that, and I think we've covered this. No, I think we covered this in the cafe one morning. So Western movies, generally speaking, are pretty innocent. Right Like they're not bad.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's lots of shooting, but we don't see.
Speaker 1:It's not blood and gore and things like that. Like you know, usually it's uh, yeah, whatever. Um, how do we feel about blazing saddles, is that?
Speaker 5:inappropriate.
Speaker 2:I've never watched it it was appropriate at a time when everybody had a sense of humor yes, exactly, you could not make that movie today. No, because you watch that and you think how did these actors all agree to do this?
Speaker 1:Nobody get offended, but they did. They all had a sense of humor as long as everybody got treated fairly. The deal was we offend everybody equally. A Mel Brooks movie that was the deal I like the old man, the prospector? I don't think, just don't say it, because whatever he's gonna say, I don't when the sheriff is oh yeah, when the sheriff's coming into town, yeah yep like archie bunker.
Speaker 5:Yes, how did he get away?
Speaker 1:well, because again the times were different, yes, and again it almost. And I'll be honest in my opinion watching, um, all in the family, watching the Jeffersons, watching Sanford and son because I watched a lot of that I loved, loved, loved, loved all in the family it actually kind of taught you a little bit of stuff.
Speaker 2:Cause it's not as obvious.
Speaker 1:The lessons are trying to teach you, but they're there but what I realized very early on was I realized that, okay, racism is not okay, right like to not like somebody because of the color of their skin. And while archie may have been that way, like yeah, but a lot of times it's clear, like you understand.
Speaker 2:Like, okay, archie's being the jerk, correct. That's what I'm saying, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like it taught you that because archie was being the jerk, yeah, but I you also like when George Jefferson was a spinoff character from all in the family.
Speaker 1:But when George would show up at the house, although Archie was mean to him, you could tell that he still liked it, still respected he's still right and there was like because he had a dry cleaner and like he it was, there was just that, like I don't know how to describe it, but it was the same way when you would watch the Jeffersons and George would call what was the white friend.
Speaker 2:No, the white friend, he'd call him a honky. He's called Mike the Dumb Polox. He's treating everybody with a sense of criticism.
Speaker 1:Edith's a. He always had names for Edith Dingbat.
Speaker 2:Dingbat Just the way he treated his wife. Who treats their wife like?
Speaker 1:that you knew that Archie was kind of the bad guy quote unquote but there was always like a soft spot too, yeah. Yep.
Speaker 5:Jarvie always tells me come on, spit it out, Edith, Spit it out, Spit it out Edith.
Speaker 1:I love that show. I just felt like that was one of those shows made forever. They should have made forever. Now I fun fact. I love fun facts because, again, love that show. They donated the chairs archie and edith's chairs to the national museum of american history and you can see them there if you go. However, after they donated the chairs they did a reboot and archie and edith they had an extra season. The museum would not give them the chairs back, they had to have reproductions made, uh, archie's place.
Speaker 2:yes, that was it. Yeah, and they would not give them the chairs back, they had to have reproductions made. Well, there was Archie's Place. Yes, that was it, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they would not. They wouldn't give the chairs back, so they had to go have replicas made of the chairs. But you know, that's one of my favorite museums. If you ever get a chance to go to DC and go there. All of the museums in DC are free. Yeah, dc are free. Yeah, they don't cost you anything and you can walk to most of them. But that museum is super cool. They have a kermit the frog puppet, so you can see kermit. They have oscar they the grouch.
Speaker 3:They have one of the pairs of the ruby red slippers. Is that the one that has the world trade center?
Speaker 1:yes, antenna, yes, that's really you can see like pieces of the iron from the world trade center. You can see the flag that was that they hoisted to the top of the rubble. I mean it's a really cool museum. It costs absolutely nothing. It's like again that culture that you get to experience.
Speaker 2:Just don't go in the middle of summer. You're elbow to elbow with people. It's no fun.
Speaker 1:Alyssa and I went, just her and I, and we walked the whole thing. I mean most of it, we scootered, we would get those little like scooters.
Speaker 1:We would just scooter around. And then we walked, we stopped and had lunch at like a little tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and then we walked to the museum where you could see all of the paintings the National Art Gallery, Is that what it's called? We went there because she desperately wanted to see Michelle Obama's portrait. You want to talk about disappointing? Because in photos it's pretty cool. You see it in person, you're like that thing is ugly, it looks nothing like her. This thing is hideous. But it's a cool museum to see because you get to see the portraits of the presidents that have been painted. Yada, yada, yada. Anyhow, we decided we were going to take a taxi from there to the White House because we wanted to see the White House, we wanted to see the outside of the White House and it was the only place that we really hadn't been. It was like $22 and it was like four blocks, but we were in the cab forever because you couldn't get across town. It was ridiculous.
Speaker 2:So, but we enjoyed ourselves. You couldn't even really get close to the White House.
Speaker 1:No, and they had the fence up like in front of the other fence, so it was there was entertainment out in front, like it was not like, yeah, paid entertainment, but it was like street performers. Yeah, it was a neat experience, alissa, and I would totally take the kids to do that, but we obviously couldn't walk the whole thing because, geez, kids would die.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I have a wagon. You want to borrow it.
Speaker 1:No you know my next trip. I have decided that I'm doing this and again maybe this is a great topic of conversation even live shows, like I'm a little bit iffy on live shows anymore too. I love theater, I love Broadway, but when I first started pastoring here, I was in a show called Company and it was about a guy who was having like a mental breakdown, basically, and I played a character that smoked weed and like it was a little on the iffy side. I played a character that smoked weed and like it was a little on the iffy side. But anyhow, I think theater is a little bit different when you're in the show. I don't take that as a reflection of myself.
Speaker 1:It's a reflection of the character that I portray. Now I do my best to try to stick to stuff that's not super controversial. There's a new version of Godspell, which is the gospel according to Matthew in play form. They sing day by day and you know. It's the story of Jesus, of his ministry. However, the 20, the 2007 maybe revival version, is very political.
Speaker 1:And so I just tried it like I've. I won't be in that show and I really won't go see that one because I feel like it ruins the gospel. Like you you're trying to pervert the gospel with politics.
Speaker 5:And so I try to avoid that.
Speaker 1:But I just saw yesterday that Milo Manheim. Does anybody know who that is? He is a child prodigy star. He was in a lot of the Disney Channel movies. He was just in Journey to Bethlehem. He played Joseph in Journey to Bethlehem. He played Joseph in Journey to Bethlehem. He is going to play Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors on Broadway, and a girl from one of the shows that Easton watches, victorious, which is a Nickelodeon show, is going to play Audrey in that same run of the show, and I have got to go see it. I'm just obsessed. But I'm a little torn because the whole premise of that show is about a plant that eats people and, like Seymour, murders people to feed them to the plant.
Speaker 3:and so there's this like I mean, were you planning on taking Easton?
Speaker 1:yes, because it's his favorite musical and he loves both of those people who are going to play characters. It was just going to be me and him. We're going to take basically two days. We're going to drive over see the show, spend the night, drive back home.
Speaker 5:Where are you going to see it?
Speaker 1:at New York City have you ever seen one on Broadway?
Speaker 3:I've never been to New York, really, I went four or five years ago and I'm not a huge person about plays or musicals and I loved Broadway. I mean, we only went and seen one show.
Speaker 1:What did you see?
Speaker 3:The Waitress, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, I can't wait to go because my son and his wife they go over, because she grew up going over to New York City.
Speaker 1:Oh, I bet I'm worried about driving in the city Like in Manhattan.
Speaker 3:Why don't you just get something like 25 minutes out, or something, because I I'm still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want to uber I don't want to.
Speaker 1:That's true with that I don't want to uber in, I would much rather so. The hotel. I have a friend who's she they're new york all the time. Like it's a day trip for them. They'd love to go and they stay at the home two suites, which is a 10 to 15 minute walk from just about any theater there. It's like 136 bucks a night. It's super inexpensive and it's a quick walk. But you have to be willing to drive into Manhattan in order to go, and so I'm a little bit nervous because I won't have a co-pilot. Alyssa won't go with me, so I've got to watch the GPS, watch traffic and I couldn't imagine.
Speaker 2:One time I was there in new york I was. I was just amazed. The traffic to me seemed like a school of fish. I don't know how they were doing it, but they'd be going up over the sidewalks and I can't just all and I'm like nobody got in an accident, I'm just looking at this like how is this possible, all these?
Speaker 1:bikes that are doing yeah in the bike lanes and yeah delivery now yeah, they're cutting everybody yeah that's amazing yeah. So I'm a little bit nervous about that, but I really want to do it.
Speaker 3:I desperately want to take him and I thought maybe we fly in I was about to recommend that because I don't think you realize how big new york is well, and it's an eight hour drive.
Speaker 1:It's eight hours to drive to new york. If I can fly out of Akron Canton Airport into New York and then Uber to the hotel and then Uber from there or even walk from there, that to me would make me feel a little bit better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was my first time flying was going to New York. It was a bumpy turbulent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 3:Trying to land, I was like, right now I'm going to get sick.
Speaker 1:My very first flight ever. This has nothing to do with what we're talking about. My very first flight ever was from Akron Canton Airport to Chicago O'Hare, from Chicago O'Hare to Bentonville, arkansas. I was part of a select group of people that got to fly to Bentonville, arkansas for a program that we had piloted for Walmart. I piloted a big inventory program and I got to like I was in a commercial. It was a really cool little shtick that I got to do, super awesome. Um, and it was one row of seats, like one seat on this side of the plane, two seats on the other side of the plane, and there were very few people. It's middle of the night, very few people on the plane. Um, there was a family in the very back corner and the lady, as soon as she got on, she asked Barf bags.
Speaker 1:She pukes the whole flight. I'm talking from the time we got in the air to the time we landed and I've got my headphones on and I am desperately. I'm like Lord, I can't, like I'm going to die, I can't take this, because that noise makes me want to puke and I didn't realize how badly I would get motion sick in the air. So we landed in Chicago, I did not realize there was a big time difference and so I'm thinking I've got three minutes to get to the other side of the airport. I'm booking to the other side of the airport to find out I had an hour, which was fine, because then I had time to go find Dramamine and take a nap, because I was not getting on that next plane, otherwise I was gonna die.
Speaker 1:And honestly, this is not a joke, this is not a joke. This is not a joke. This is real life. We take a uh, it's a, it's got propeller, like it's, not like a jet turbo prop, yeah so them, them stink from chicago o'hare to bentonville, arkansas, and we land at a cow field.
Speaker 1:It was basically, it was, uh, tyson chicken tyson chicken we landed in their place, like they have.
Speaker 1:They had an airstrip there for their corporate planes to land. That's where we landed, and then they bust us from there over to where we were going in, bentonville Nuts nuts. And then on our way back there were hundreds of us that had to fly back from Bentonville, cause there was there isn't an airport in there, hundreds of us that had to fly back to catch other flights in other places, and so they couldn't get the planes in fast enough to get us all out. So they show up with boxed lunches of chicken.
Speaker 2:I was like, hey, I'm not going to complain, wow.
Speaker 3:I just watched a documentary about the airplane food. It's pretty interesting, is it? Yeah, most of the time they make it's pretty interesting Is it. Yeah, Like they most of the time. They make it fresh, like at the airport.
Speaker 4:There's really yeah, and then they ship it and then put it in the boxes.
Speaker 3:I mean, some places aren't that way, but a lot of them are.
Speaker 4:I was like I've never had food. I've only ever had a snack.
Speaker 2:Same ever had a snack, same. I was like I didn't know that they were making all this, like I always just, yeah, I've never had a meal. I mean, I've only flown two or three times, but yeah, yeah, I never had a meal to um.
Speaker 5:We flew into italy with the kids, with school, and so we went from african canton to chicago. From chicago, we got on a german airline and flew into germany, and then switched planes. Well, back in that day, I, I was a big girl. Well, that little tray didn't want to come down. So those they're bringing, they feed you a meal.
Speaker 5:So the tray don't want to completely down on my belly. And I got. I'll never forget that German steward guy said maybe you don't need this. I just wanted to lay him out. I just said, well, I'll take two of them.
Speaker 1:So you can't fly from Akron Canton, not on Breeze Airway, because that's my preferred, because it's fairly cheap, it's very basic.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's very cheap, but it's very cheap.
Speaker 1:It's like $39 a flight, but you can't fly into New York. You can go to Westchester. Breeze, yeah, breeze, dude. I'm talking it's budget, though, like the way one wing is usually held on with duct tape, like it's budget budget. But I've never had any bad things to say about it.
Speaker 3:It's a little tight. It's a little tight. I think that's who we're flying with in July Seat four, seat four four, seat four is that the?
Speaker 1:do you have the right behind? So behind the?
Speaker 4:three first class.
Speaker 1:Do you pick your? Do you pick your seat? Never me either. Never me either. I always just let them pick it. But now, if I'm going to travel with the kids, I'm going to pick my seat because I want to like lily and I got seat four on the way back from florida I we had two windows.
Speaker 1:She could have slept on the floor if she wanted to I flew me, alissa, aaron and aideniden all flew to Orlando to meet my mom and dad in the three littles. They were going down for a long period of time. We just went for one day just to surprise them and we let the airlines pick our seat. We always got two together, but it was usually two here two up there whatever, so it was always two together.
Speaker 1:So on the flight down, on the flight down, alyssa sat with Aiden, I sat with Aaron. On the flight back, we let them sit by themselves together and then we sat in the back but we sat behind them so we could still see them to make sure that they were safe. But yeah, I think if I took Easton, though, I'd probably have to pick my seats, probably have to pick my seats just to be generally, if you book together, they try to seat you together.
Speaker 3:I do like doing like southwest and then doing the early check-in, like if you go on 24 hours before, you can like pick where your seats are, like for free. So a lot of people just don't do it or they don't know about it or something. So if you want a window seat, you just click on it and what's the other airline?
Speaker 5:I can't remember what I took Spirit no out of. Akron Canton that goes to New York.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 5:Do they have Southwest out of Akron Canton? They used to.
Speaker 4:They used to have I don't know. They used to.
Speaker 3:I've only done Cleveland.
Speaker 5:I'm thinking that's what I flew into New York. Well, I'm trying to figure it out because but my teeth belt fell out. That Uber is like from there to the hotel is like 62 bucks.
Speaker 4:Does Allegiant from Rickenbacker go into New York? Where's Rickenbacker? Columbus, columbus?
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't like the Columbus one. Well, I don't mind the Columbus one, I don't even mind the Cleveland one. We flew out of Cleveland when we went to Orlando.
Speaker 4:I like Pittsburgh. I fly out of.
Speaker 1:Pittsburgh. I don't mind any of those, but with Easton it's such a hard down when the plane lands then I have to drive an hour and a half or two hours home. That's a real challenge. Because he's ready to get out of the car. He's been bundled in. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like he's well, and I mean columbus, I think it was like two over two hours like coming home and I don't know.
Speaker 5:Then you just had to go through the traffic yeah yeah, and shy was a terrible driver because they don't drive like you, don't I?
Speaker 4:know I'm like it doesn't take me that long um, so interesting.
Speaker 1:It says that out of Akron Canton there are no nonstop flights to New York.
Speaker 4:Huh, and I'm always wanting a nonstop.
Speaker 5:Me too, I don't want a layover, me too. Where's the layover?
Speaker 1:It doesn't say, I'm looking at just where the nonstops out of Akron Canton are and it gives you a list, but New York's not on there.
Speaker 4:Check Pittsburgh. It's an hour and 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:It's still a long drive with these things, I know, but it's better in two.
Speaker 4:It's better in two hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And it's an easy airport to get to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a really easy airport.
Speaker 2:Okay Well, all right, marty and I want to do a Christmas trip to New York.
Speaker 1:Oh, just take the bus, just take one of the buses, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, certainly, we say that every year and we've yet to Well, when we discovered one this year.
Speaker 5:It was sold out.
Speaker 1:They sell out fast. Yeah, they do, they sell out really fast. Oh man, I was going to say something.
Speaker 3:And if you do, go, go at night on top of the Rockefeller Center and you can just see all of New York like lit up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty cool. Oh, I was going to say this my wife has decided that we're going on a cruise this year.
Speaker 2:Might do that next year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be our first cruise. I have gotten some really great tips from some people I work with who are like cruise aficionados.
Speaker 3:It's what they do.
Speaker 1:There's this one cruise line. I don't remember the name of it now, but it's super kid-friendly and next to nothing.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:I'm talking like $500, $600 a person, and that includes your taxes, your port fees, everything. The only thing it doesn't cover is your gratuity, and it's a seven-night cruise. It doesn't cover your gratuity or drinks. So if you want alcohol or soda, you have to buy their drink package, which is yeah, if you're a water drinker, you're fine.
Speaker 5:I would die, I would too.
Speaker 1:Can I take soda with me, because I ain't going to survive on this cruise.
Speaker 3:Tommy and Skeeter would go on cruises all the time.
Speaker 4:I've yet to be on one. It's on my bucket list.
Speaker 1:Here, I'll tell you real quick.
Speaker 2:I love those Viking cruise commercials. Yeah, the I love those Viking cruise commercials. Yeah, oh those are river cruises. Yeah, no kids. Obviously it's probably for retired people, but I think that's the ticket right there. They go on the Mediterranean and all that stuff.
Speaker 5:I'd like to do one just down the Mississippi.
Speaker 3:Well, so I was going to say my brother-in-law he was on the sailing team at OU and him and my father-in-law always talk about going down the Ohio River, then going all the way down the Mississippi into the Gulf, and I'm like, yeah, I mean they want to do it before Ben dies.
Speaker 1:So I'm like hey, it's MSC Cruises, msc Cruises and I'm telling you like I just there. It's stupid, like that one's in November of 25. So it's it's not like I'm booking a last-minute cruise and it's under $700 per person and there are cheaper ones. You can do shorter days, obviously, but that's a seven-day Bahamas.
Speaker 4:I've always said I want to do a three-day first, just to make sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm the same way, so that I don't get seasick. But Alyssa is convinced that we're doing. Five days is the minimum for us because we want to like, we want to really get a chance to relax.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I've looked into them, but I would have to go out of Charlotte or some of those weird places because Jarvie won't fly.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 5:Oh.
Speaker 3:No, he won't fly. You can go out of Baltimore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or New York. Even you can go out of New York too, but then those ones are typically not tropical either. Right, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, the ones up in New York, you can start going up north.
Speaker 1:I've seen yeah, oh yeah. I want to do an Alaskan cruise desperately. My sister did that. My one owner went on an Alaskan cruise and he came back with the best pictures of orca whales.
Speaker 4:Oh, I bet my dad wanted to do that and I'm like, oh my gosh dad.
Speaker 1:I'm not interested in the cold, but I want to see whales so bad.
Speaker 4:I worked with a friend that she went in the summer months. It was 70 degrees.
Speaker 1:Oh man, maybe I need to do that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she said it was 70 the whole time she was there.
Speaker 3:I so badly want to go there. She got to go to Germany. She got to go everywhere.
Speaker 2:I want to go to Switzerland. That'd be fun In the winter.
Speaker 1:I just want to go there to be neutral.
Speaker 5:My parents went to the one. Is it the Panama Canal where they put the water in? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Pan American Canal. You mean, yeah, by the way, this is a fun story, so you know we've. There was an executive order to rename the. Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Speaker 1:Do you know why that is. I don't know if this is true. This is what I heard. It's not just a. He's not just doing it. To do it, biden wrote an executive order that we cannot drill in the Gulf of Mexico. So he's changing the name to the Gulf of America, hopefully circumventing that order, and then he'll be able to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. I don't know if that's true or not, it's just what I heard.
Speaker 2:Liquid gold baby Drill, baby drill but anyhow that makes sense. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 5:Would be the way to do it.
Speaker 1:I guess. Yes, anyhow, I I heard today that on some of the chitter chatter for Ice. No, my goodness, gracious Meteorologists. So they share information and whatnot. They now refer to it as the Gulf of America, really and it's not like they're not political at all, but it's technically been changed. So, yeah, I'm going to save the map on the wall. Maybe it'll be worth money someday.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 3:Cooper's going to be like that's the Gulf of America.
Speaker 4:Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 3:What happened.
Speaker 1:You guys, your map is dumb.
Speaker 5:I can hear it now.
Speaker 1:Well we answered it without answering it. We've hit an hour and I guess we're having some tech snafus in the sanctuary, so whose turn is it to pray? It's Beth. We're back to the beginning. You're back to the beginning, yes. So all right, beth, you want to go ahead and pray for us?
Speaker 5:Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you for the opportunity to come before you tonight and just share what's on our hearts and have some good laughs and just spend some time with special friends. And, dear Father God, we ask that you just bless all the listeners and that you just bless us all with traveling graces, dear Father God, and get us home safely. In Jesus' precious name, we pray, amen.
Speaker 4:Amen.
Michael Brindley
Host
Beth Jarvis
Co-host
Dawn Reed-Enochs
Co-host
Nic Affolter
Co-host
Roger Deardorff
Co-host
Sydney Erickson
Co-hostPodcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
REWIND
Organic Church