This Week in America - Nothing Much Happened... And It Was Great

Some weeks are full of big moments. Others remind you just how nice an ordinary week can be.

This week, I reflect on the unexpected joy of having nothing much happen. We chat about the explosion of comments on my YouTube channel, why watching strangers connect in the comments has become one of my favourite parts of creating content, and why I still choose to keep politics out of my corner of the internet. 

I also share a few snapshots of everyday life in Tennessee—working from the back deck while baby deer wander through the yard, losing the annual battle against tomato-stealing squirrels, the strange beauty of Southern summer storms, getting paid to watch England play France during an unusually quiet shift at work, and the ongoing Chick-fil-A vs McDonald's debate between my daughters. 

Sometimes it's the ordinary weeks that end up reminding us why we're grateful for the life we've built.

☕ Buy Me a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/fromdownundertodownsouth

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: michael@fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You better take cover. This week in America, I found myself trying to think of exciting things to talk about, but it's actually been a pleasantly uneventful week, which maybe doesn't sound very exciting for a podcast, does it? Welcome everybody. This week, absolutely nothing happened. Thanks for listening. See you next week. But honestly, after the last month or so, I'll take an ordinary week every now and then. The YouTube channel's been absolutely flat out. Several videos have really taken off, which has been amazing, but I've discovered that every extra thousand viewers seems to come with another 5,000 comments. I used to think replying to everyone was manageable. Now I open YouTube Studio and it feels like walking onto a beach trying to stop the tide. I'll answer 20 comments, refresh a page, and apparently another hundred people have had thoughts as well. It's actually a nice problem to have. I'm incredibly grateful that people care enough to write something. I just never imagined there'd come a day where replying to YouTube comments felt like a part-time job. One thing that's made me smile, though, is how many conversations happen underneath the videos now. People aren't just talking to me anymore. They're talking to each other. And somebody mentions growing up in Ohio, someone else says they haven't lived there for 30 years. Someone else starts talking about their grandma, and suddenly complete strangers are swapping stories like they've known each other for years. I don't know. I think there's something really nice about that. Internet gets a pretty bad reputation, and sometimes it's deservably so, but every now and then you stumble across a little corner where people are just being decent. And it's nice to be reminded that those places still exist. Of course, there are still the hate comments, and I guess every channel gets them eventually, but they don't really bother me anymore. I work very hard to keep from down under to down south non-political. There are plenty of people covering politics already. The world doesn't really need somebody else to do that. I'm much more interested in the little everyday things, the things that make us laugh or the cultural differences that make you stop for a second and think, yeah, I'd never really noticed that. The good news is that they're heavily outnumbered because for every person who's determined to be offended by something, there seems to be another hundred people who just want to tell a story, have a laugh, and share a memory. And maybe that's what most people are really like. They just don't shout as loudly as the other ones. Speaking of nice, I've spent quite a bit of time sitting out on the back deck this week. It's always been my favorite part of the house. I love just having somewhere I can sit outside surrounded by trees and still get work done. I take my laptop out there and I write. And sometimes I get work done, sometimes I just sit there with a beer and end up watching the squirrels instead. It's surprisingly therapeutic. Our backyard is full of these big mature trees, and during summer the leaves are so thick you can barely see another house out there. It feels just so private and peaceful. It's one of the few places where my brain slows down for a bit. And every now and then the neighborhood deer wander through. And this year we've had five new fawns been born here, and they're absolutely adorable. They'll follow their mums around the backyard on these tiny little wobbly legs and suddenly decide that they're brave enough to start bouncing around on their own. It's one of those little things that I never get tired of seeing. So the wildlife around here is generally pretty welcome by my standards. Then one of the squirrels appears, usually carrying something that belongs to me. I think I've mentioned before that I planted tomatoes and strawberries this year. Well, I say planted, because apparently I planted them for the local wildlife. And the squirrels have absolutely cleaned me out this year. Normally they'll take one bite of every tomato and leave the rest behind. But this year it's been so hot they're eating them for the water. So now they're taking the whole thing. I watched one squirrel this week sitting on the fence eating one of the tomatoes. He wasn't in a hurry or scared either. He looked completely comfortable. Kind of like he'd paid for it. And I think we're past the point of me actually owning this garden now. At this point, I think they think that I actually work for them. Summer in Tennessee still fascinates me. Even after all these years, every July I still forget just how green everything becomes here. And before I moved, I don't think I ever imagined Tennessee looking like it really does. I guess in my head it was country roads and rolling farmland. It certainly wasn't expecting something that felt almost tropical for half the year. But this place really is lush. The humidity is ridiculous. The walk outside and you immediately feel like you've been hugged by a wet towel. Most afternoons, the storms roll through. You can almost set your watch by them. The sky turns black, a thunder starts, rain comes sideways, you think, oh, that's the day over. And then 20 minutes later, blue skies, the birds are back out, and everyone carries on as if nothing happened. Honestly reminds me more of island weather than anywhere else I've lived. And maybe that's one of the reasons Tennessee has ended up feeling so much like home. I've always had this little daydream about living somewhere like St. Croix one day. And that because I want to have some luxurious lifestyle, I just love the idea of somewhere warm, close to the water, where life feels just that little bit slower. And then again, maybe that's why Tennessee suits me so well. It always gives me a little bit of that feeling. So yeah, it's been an ordinary week. I had one of the quietest shifts ever at the storage place this week. The weather was awful, absolutely pouring down. Not one customer came in all afternoon, which is probably not ideal for business. But it did mean I got paid to watch England play France in the World Cup. So there I was. Every time a car turned into the driveway, I'd think, finally, I've got a customer. No, wrong address. I almost started barracking for people to actually rent storage units just so I would have someone to talk to. Although the football wasn't bad company. What a game that one was. It's amazing how quickly your standards changed. Because a few years ago, I was managing large retail bank branches, and now I'm genuinely excited because nobody interrupted the second half. I guess life gets kind of weird like that. The biggest debate in our house this weekday wasn't about football or soccer, it was dinner. Georgia has decided that Chick-fil-A is the greatest invention in human history. Brianna, well, she remains completely loyal to McDonald's. Neither of the girls are prepared to compromise. Georgia, she'll start listing everything that's better about Chick-fil-A. And Brie will immediately start explaining why she is completely wrong. It's become less of a discussion and more of an election campaign. Each presents their case, and both somehow expect Nikki and I to settle it. I usually just stand there hoping someone suggests pizza instead. That's funny. At the start of the week, I was really trying to think of something interesting to talk about. And then I realized this week I had mostly been sitting on the deck, watching baby deer wander through the backyard and losing another tomato to the squirrels, getting paid to watch soccer and trying to stop my daughters from starting a fast food civil war. Which now that I say it out loud, it actually sounds like a pretty good week. Thank you as always for spending part of your day with me. Hopefully next week I'll finally get to eat one of my own tomatoes, although I'm not all that optimistic. That was this week in America.