BeTempered
BeTempered
BeTempered Episode 28 - David Jones' Odyssey of Love and Business Wisdom
What if the journey to a wedding became an epic tale of resilience and determination? Join us as we share the remarkable story of David Jones, the mastermind behind Excellence Advisory, who took us on a whirlwind journey—not only across state lines but through the stormy path of Hurricane Helene's aftermath. From his roots in Indiana to mastering the art of operational excellence with Pal's Sudden Service, David enlightens us with timeless business principles that transcend industries. His insights into achieving excellence are not just about business but about life's wider ambitions.
David's narrative takes an emotional turn as he battles nature’s chaos to reach his daughter's wedding, a testament to a father's boundless love. With roads washed out and conditions perilous, he recounts the resourceful and heart-wrenching journey, showing that love and family can conquer even the fiercest storms. As David navigates blocked highways and the possibility of not being there on his daughter's big day, he brings listeners on a gripping, inspiring adventure that underscores the power of human spirit and connection.
The heartwarming conclusion to David's journey—a symbolic wedding gift of a reflector—captures not just protection but a reflection of divine love. Through this touching gesture, David reminds us of the profound impact parents have on their children's lives. His story is a beacon of hope, resilience, and faith, resonating with families worldwide. Listen to this unforgettable episode where personal and professional excellence intertwines with a father's unwavering love and determination.
David Jones-
Website: https://theexcellenceadvisory.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmjones/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidjones328/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001022268227
Here's the link to David's Red Cross fundraising page for Hurricane relief: https://americanredcross.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.personalCampaign&participantID=9397
Hi, my name is Allie Schmidt. This is my dad, dan. He owns Catron's Glass. Thanks, allie. Things like doors and windows go into making a house, but when it's your home, you expect more like the great service and selection you'll get from Catron's Glass. Final replacement windows from Catron's come with a lifetime warranty, including accidental glass breakage replacement. Also ask for custom shower doors and many other products and services. Call 962-1636. Locally owned, with local employees for nearly 30 years, kitchen's best, the clear choice.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Be Tempered Podcast, where we explore the art of finding balance in a chaotic world. Join us as we delve into insightful conversations, practical tips and inspiring stories to help you navigate life's ups and downs with grace and resilience. We're your hosts, dan Schmidt and Ben Spahr. Let's embark on a journey to live our best lives. This is Be Tempered. Oh, look at that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, all right, you tell me when, kevin, you know what episode this is 28. What's up everybody. Welcome to the Be Tempered Podcast, episode number 28. We are excited. Today We've got a guest. I heard his story on the John Gordon podcast, which John has been an inspiration to me as far as his podcast and his motivation and reading his books the Energy Bus and so you know we are excited. Today I've got David Jones, who is joining us and I want to give a little introduction before David actually speaks and David is the current owner of the Excellence Advisory and he's become known to many across the country and the world, most recently about a story he will share with us in this episode. And before we get this amazing story of love and determination and resilience, I want to know about David and the man that he is. So, david, welcome to the Be Tempered podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you, dan. It's a pleasure to be here. I've been looking forward to this ever since we scheduled it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no we're excited to have you and you know we had a conversation yesterday and I told you you know we want to get to this story towards the end, but I want to know more about you as a man and kind of your story coming up and what you do. So can you give our listeners some of that information?
Speaker 3:How far back do you want to go? As far back?
Speaker 1:as you want to go, 64.
Speaker 3:Well, I was born in Indiana, so we have a little bit of common blood there who's your blood in us and lived in upstate New York for 10 years growing up and then moved back to Indiana, moved to Shelbyville and went to high school there and graduated from there, went on to Purdue, got an engineering degree and from there was recruited by Texas Instruments down in Johnson City, tennessee, and that's where I spent the last 40 years or so. I picked up a master's degree from the University of Tennessee. During that time raised a family in Tennessee and just recently moved to Boiling Springs, south Carolina, where my wife's daughter lives we're two doors down from her and her husband and two beautiful grandchildren, elias and Adley, and we have her mother living with us now too. Okay, surrounded by lots of family, and in my quote-unquote day job I do management consulting and my space is in business excellence. I help organizations reach their full potential, and we do that through helping leaders reach their full potential.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we talked yesterday a little bit and you told me about a company that you had worked for doing a similar type work Powell Sudden Service. Can you kind of talk about that company? It's not anything I'd ever heard of Ben and I talked about it this morning and he'd never heard of it. I know it's more a Southern thing, but can you kind of talk about Pals, what they do and what you did for them?
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah. So, Pals, unless you're from East Tennessee or Southwestia or had lived there for a while, you wouldn't know. Pals, it's a 31 store fast food drive-through only hamburgers and hot dog chain. That is one of the best run businesses in the world. These folks are phenomenal at what they do, very focused, very popular and just really really phenomenal at what they do. Very focused, very popular and just really really good at what they do. They won the 2001 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Speaker 3:For your listeners, that's like the Nobel Prize for business in the US the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award and they were so good at what they did that businesses from around the world were beating a path to their door saying, hey, can we learn from you? Can you share with us? Can we spend a day with your CEO? Can you? You know what's the secret sauce? And so, in a very pals like fashion, they established a business excellence institute. They, you know. Basically, they said, well, we're not educators, we're restaurateurs, we know how to run restaurants. Let's find some people that can help tell our story.
Speaker 3:And so I was fortunate enough to be one of them. I joined in 2012 and there were two instructor consultants David McClaskey, who is still a good friend and me and we did all the teaching, all the consulting, all the public speaking conferences and whatnot, and basically we shared with these organizations that came from around the world how to be excellent at what you do. The principles that we taught and that I still teach to this day. I continue. I'm not with them anymore. I continue to do the same type of teaching and coaching. The principles are universal. How you apply them changes a little bit depending on your organization. You know, if you're a restaurant or if you're a hospital or if you're a public utility, you're going to use different language, You're going to tweak the principle to make it fit your culture, but the principles are universal.
Speaker 3:And they're not rocket science. They're absolutely well within the reach of anybody who is focused and determined and disciplined enough to go down that path. The results are phenomenal. Just real quickly. I know I'm going on and on.
Speaker 2:No, you're good. That's what we want to hear.
Speaker 3:All right. So PALS, you know they compete against all of the global brands the Burger Kings, the McDonald's, the Wendy's, the Hardee's, all of those type of Dairy Queens. They go head to head with all of them in all of their markets and they have a 400% higher repeat business rate. Just for example, one stat. So the average Wendy's rate, just for example, one stat. So the average Wendy's, hardee's, mcdonald's customer visits three times a month. The average Powell's customer visits three times a week. So imagine if you had 4X, 400% higher repeat business rate than these global behemoths. I mean these folks. They open more stores in a day than PALS has, right, and yet PALS is out competing them by miles.
Speaker 3:The typical PALS does triple the sales and triple the profitability of all their competitors. So if you think about it from a leadership or an ownership standpoint, and you have 31 stores, when you're doing triple the sales and triple the profitability, it's like an enterprise of 93 stores, yeah, but you only have to run 31 to get those results. So now life becomes better and easier at the same time. It's like, oh, these things work together, they don't work against each other. Their average service times. Just to give you another example at PALS. You place your order with a person and you drive around the building and you pay and you pick up your order on the other side with a person. Their average order times are 13 seconds. Their average handout times are 18 seconds. Their average handout times are 18 seconds. You might think, okay, anybody could open a window and chuck a hamburger.
Speaker 3:Roll your window down and I'll throw you some food. We could do that in 18 seconds. But actually they get one complaint in every 3,700 customers. That's crazy. This is like a 99.97% accuracy rate and they're working on 99.98. Their competition is about one complaint in every 15 customers. So they're going four times faster and they're 100, 150, 200 times more accurate and they do it day in and day out, and day in and day out with basically a high school like a teenage high school and early college workforce yeah, so so?
Speaker 2:so what's the what's the secret sauce?
Speaker 3:Well, there's no one secret, but it starts with great leadership and the leadership sets the foundation with a vision, mission and values. You know, if you're going to build a business or build anything, you guys are in construction right, you got to build on a sound foundation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so you start with vision, mission and values. And if you're an operation, your mission is really important. So just to be clear, because those terms get misused and abused out in the business world your vision is what you want to achieve. It's what you want to become. It's that shining star in the hill that you're aiming for. It's like, oh yeah, we want to be the number one glass business in all of Ohio, Indiana and Northern Kentucky. That's that grand vision.
Speaker 3:The mission is what you do day in and day out to get closer and closer to that vision. So if you think of vision as like victory, like if we had got there we would be winning and we would set a new vision, right now we're going to be, you know, the number one in the United States or whatever. The next grand vision would be. The mission then is your march, so you can remember them that way. Vision equals victory, is your march, so you can remember them that way. Vision equals victory, mission equals march. And then your core values are the guardrails around your operation as you're marching toward that vision. So we're not going to lie, we're not going to cheat, we're not going to steal, we're not going to say bad things about a competitor they help form the culture. Competitors, they help form the culture, and so, without, those, businesses end up on a hamster wheel or a whack-a-mole kind of existence where it's just, you know, fighting fires, fighting fires, fighting fires. Oh man, didn't we fight this one last week? Oh, fighting fires, fighting fires. They never make progress, they just they're, they're struggling in the way they wonder
Speaker 3:why spinning their wheels exactly right. So, on that firm foundation, then you can look at your hiring, your onboarding, your, your training, your operations and, most of all, the way you learn and grow, because no organization starts out at the top. We were talking before you hit the record button. You work your way up to it. That's the way every team, every business, every individual, you work your way up to it. How do you do that? You learn and grow. You learn and improve. You apply what you learn, make the next step a little better, and you retain that. You don't grow. You learn and improve. You apply what you learn, make the next step a little better, and you retain that. You don't let it go, you don't lose it. And then you apply the next improvement step and apply, and you just keep doing that over and over again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's. That's fantastic information for anybody in business because, like you said, we were just talking about that how, you know, when I was 24 years old, buying a business, didn't know what the heck I was doing, really had no business owning a business, but you just you know the kind of person that you are and you know you have your morals and your standards and you know where you want to be. You have that, that vision. Stay within those guardrails and just keep moving forward. And actually, ben is kind of in the same boat, because he was in the gun industry for 17 years, yep, and we brought him into the glass industry, so not even really any construction knowledge. So he's back where I was, you know, 20 years ago. You know, just drinking from a fire hose in a lot of cases. But you know, every day is a new experience and you just build upon those and learn upon it. So that's great advice for anybody in business. And it sounds like PALS has just got it down to a T.
Speaker 3:They do, yeah, absolutely, and they keep refining, keep getting better all the time. Once you have your vision mission in place, then you can focus in on the key customer requirements. So every business will have probably six or seven, maybe eight key customer requirements like speed, hospitality, value, cleanliness, whatever yours are, and then you just drill down on each one of those until you get to a measurable number. So for PALS, for example, it might be. Customer says well, I want good quality food. Okay, we can do that. But what does quality mean? Well, I want it to be hot. Okay, what does hot mean? And you eventually get down to a number. Let's just say 165 degrees is hot, all right, now we have something we can manage to and we can measure to know whether we actually achieved that key customer requirement or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. The other thing we talked about yesterday keep it simple, right. I think that's what a lot of businesses do is they get you know as they grow. They think they got to do more and more and more. But at the end of the day, if you stay close to what really got you to wherever you're at, you know. If you're close to what really got you to wherever you're at, you know if you're at that spot that you want to be. Keep it simple, right. That's a big thing with PALS.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Their menu is very simple, their operations are simple. Simple is easier to replicate, it's easier to train, it's easier to manage and customers recognize you for that. You know there are I'm not going to name names but there are fast food restaurants out there that were in. You know they were known for something like roast beef not to pick on anybody, roast beef but then all of a sudden you see salads and turkey and all these other things like why are they in that business? I don't understand. They're known for roast beef, right, um, and and so it sort of muddies the message with the customers, um, so, yeah, no, it makes it simpler, better, makes it more challenging the more that you try to do.
Speaker 2:So all that leads into why I contacted you. You know, as you were talking about, you know staying on that path with the guardrails. It kind of leads into this. So you know, when I heard your story, you know, and many people may have heard it, because I've talked to some of my family members and said, hey, david, david Jones is going to be on the podcast. They're like who's that? Well, you've heard. You've heard the story here more recently. I mean you've been on the Today Show, you've been on Fox, you've been on CNN and ABC.
Speaker 2:John Gordon podcast, like I said, is where, where I heard your story. So, for those who don't know, could you kind of back up here. It was what? The end of September, basically, and kind of start from the beginning. And I want you to be as detailed as you can be because the story is unique to you and I have a lot of people that I shared John's podcast podcast with and they say, well, you would do the same thing for your daughter. Well, I would, and I think a lot of people say that. But saying it and doing it are two different things. So talk about that story, talk about what happened, and, and and you know just just the strength and the resilience and the love that you have for your daughter to make sure that you got to that wedding.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah. So she was getting married the last Saturday in September and the plan always was for my wife and I we were going to drive up the Friday before, the day before, and then there was a wedding crasher named Helene Hurricane Helene and so we changed our plans slightly. We decided we would ride out the storm here in South Carolina. We're only two hours from Johnson City, it's right up Interstate 26. It's a straight shot and we would ride out the storm here, make sure everything was okay, and then we would head on up. Well, the storm came through there, everything was okay, and then we would head on up.
Speaker 3:Well, the storm came through. There were trees down in the neighborhood, power was out, internet was out, cell phones were out, but I had a generator here. So I got that going, got my wife and her mother set up, cleaned up the yard a bit and got them set, and the new plan was for me to go on ahead, and if the roads were clear because without internet, without cell phone, we had no idea If the roads are clear, I'll call back and let you know and you can come on up Saturday for the wedding. And so off I went, and you know in this area. By the time hurricanes get this far inland, they're usually just a rainy day, you know. It's low clouds, lots of rain, and then it passes through and it's clear. You know all of that activity sort of clears the air and makes for a nice day afterwards and that's what happened here. So when I set out the first 20, 30 minutes I was on basically clear highway. There was hardly anybody out. I thought this is easy.
Speaker 1:I got this right.
Speaker 3:And then I crested a hill and there was a long line of stopped traffic and that was my journey for the next six and a half hours or so. It was just in that blocked up traffic. There were detours. We were forced off the interstate in a couple of places. One place I was very fortunate was the Flat Rock North Carolina exit, where I got to the bottom of the ramp and then they reopened that section of interstate. So I was like the first one to go back.
Speaker 3:All right, but it became this sort of what's the next obstacle? What's the next obstacle? It started to occur to me that this was much bigger than anybody anticipated. You know there were warnings that well, let me see if I can find a road that goes north. And I got in a pack of cars. There's three or four cars, All right, they look like they know what they're doing.
Speaker 3:Nah, they didn't. We got to one point where there's this huge tree blocking the road. There were trees, some areas were partially cleared so they had one lane open, but there were downed power lines we were driving over. So I come back and I try another road and it's blocked. It's got barricades and state troopers blocking that road. So I thought, well, I'll just go on the east side of the interstate and see if I can find something over there. And by the time I got back to the interstate it was open again.
Speaker 3:So I thought oh, these crews are great, they're, you know, they're clearing the way for us, they're doing the best they can. Got up on the interstate and again there was a lot of trees down where they had cleared one lane so you couldn't just drive. And the way the storm came through and the way the interstate, it's 26. So it's, you know, it's numbered like it goes east-west, but at this section it's basically going north-south. And the way the winds came through, they blew the trees from the right-hand side, so from the east, across the road, okay. And so there were some areas where the crews had cleared one lane and so traffic went on up through. I got up into Asheville. Of course it's pitch black everywhere I was going to say what time is this?
Speaker 2:by the time you're this late into the journey. I mean it's dark, it's nighttime, it's after midnight at this point yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, and so I get through Asheville. Very eerie that no cars, hardly at all anywhere and no lights. I'm familiar with the road, having made this this trip several times. We still own our house in tennessee, by the way, so that's, that was the target, that's where we were I was heading for, yeah, and so get through ashville and I'm like, okay, you know I'm not letting my guard down, but it's looking pretty promising here. And go up the mountain. And and I start to go down the other side and as I got closer to the bottom, it said road closed ahead and I thought, oh no not again all right, here we go, let's let's deal with this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so off on the side, through the back roads, back up on the interstate, I found a way, uh, but then it was closed permanently, or not permanently, but you know, close to to nothing's getting through it was exit 43, the temple hill road exit. I'll always remember that exit.
Speaker 3:So I got to the bottom of the ramp and I pulled off to the side and there was a group of state troopers. They had all their cars, lights flashing and all that, and they were meeting. They were standing outside by their cars and they were having a meeting. So I just went up and tried to politely insert myself in and see if I could learn anything. And then I asked one of the troopers you know, is there any way I can get through? And he said, well, you have to talk to that guy over there. And he pointed to somebody who looked like sort of the incident commander. And so when I got the chance, I asked him you know, is there any way I can get through? Because at this point I'm seven hours into the trip, it's almost two in the morning and I've been, you know, finding a way. Yeah, so I'm just gonna find a way.
Speaker 3:Right, just let let me through, I'll, I'll drive around the trees, you know and, uh, he says no, the bridges are washed out, nobody can get through, nothing can get through. And said, well, my daughter's getting married at 11 o'clock in the morning in Johnson City and I want to be there to walk her down the aisle. What about the back roads? And he said, sir, I fully appreciate your position and I'm really sorry, but we can't let anybody out on the back roads. They are washed out too. It's dark. We don't know the full extent of the damage. We can't let anybody out. No cars are going anywhere from here. The best thing you could do is go back to your car and spend the night there, and maybe in the morning we can have a road open and you can get on up to Johnson City. Well, I couldn't hang my hopes on a. Maybe this is my daughter's big day, right?
Speaker 3:So I went back to my car and I thought, okay, I'm going to go back down the interstate. I just came through there, I know the way and I can do a big loop. I'll go down to Charlotte and I'll go up to Whitfield, pick up 77 and come down that way. And I got about five minutes out and I looked down at my gas gauge. I thought oh, wait a minute. Oh no, I don't have enough gas to do all that and there's no power between here and anywhere, right, as far as I have no idea who has power, who can pump gas.
Speaker 3:So I looped back, went back to exit 43, parked at the bottom of the ramp and I got out on foot. I had asked the trooper you know what about on foot? And he said no, sir, we really don't want anybody out on the roads. Well, I just I got out of my car, grabbed my backpack, stuffed a few things in there that I needed, including my laptop, which I don't know why. I felt like I needed my laptop. It was already in the backpack. So I did that.
Speaker 3:I grabbed a windbreaker because I didn't know if it was going to rain anymore, and there was a volunteer, a guy that worked with the state troopers and he lived in the area. He knew the area very well, he knew the roads and he had downloaded a map to his phone and he showed me the road that I could take to get into Irwin. That's sort of like the first town. It's in Unicoi County, the first town that you get to when you come over the border, down the mountain into Tennessee, and so he showed me the path. So I knew which way to go, and it pretty much paralleled the interstate. I thought, okay, this will work. I knew from having lived there in Johnson City that I was probably 20 or 30 miles from home, and I've run marathons before, so the distance didn't scare me. This is a no-brainer.
Speaker 2:Come on, guys, you and me, here we go. It's 2 in the morning, right?
Speaker 3:But it's 2 in the morning.
Speaker 2:yeah, You've already been driving for seven hours. I mean you've got to be exhausted already.
Speaker 3:Exhausted and a little bit running on adrenaline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:So I flip on the light on my cell phone and I start my Garmin watch. I'm a runner right.
Speaker 3:I'm going to track this. That's great, why not? And off I went. And the first little bit, first few miles, it was just dark. There were some barking dogs. I grabbed a stick with some sharp branches on. I thought, well, if I need to defend myself, you know I. You know, a hurricane just came through, maybe the bears are washed out of their dens or who knows what. Right, I don't want to be anybody's next meal, so let's do this. And so I'm walking along. And then I come to an area where the road is washed out and the debris is maybe ankle deep or a little more. And you know, I can pick my way through it and I'm starting to get an idea of the the extent of the destruction here. And then I came across a bulldozer and a backhoe clearing this road, and they were. It was like ballet, I mean. You know the way they were moving around and doing their thing. It was beautiful. But it's a little narrow country road and they're going back and forth, you know in a hurry and they're not expecting some guy heading to his wedding at
Speaker 2:two or three or four and whatever time in the morning to be walking. You probably scared them. I did.
Speaker 3:You're exactly right, dan, the, the, uh. I I'm waving my cell phone like because there's no way I'm going to get through. This would would be like an episode of Wipeout. I'm going to get the wipeout Boom Off into the weeds. There he goes. And so I'm waving this light.
Speaker 3:And I startled the bulldozer driver because, like you said, he's looking at me like where did you come from? What is going on here? And I asked him if I could get through and he said I don't think you can. The road is completely blocked, it's covered with debris. I don't think you can get anywhere.
Speaker 3:And I said well, sir, my daughter's getting married at 11 o'clock in Johnson City and I'm going to be there to walk her down the aisle. He said, well, let me radio the other guy see if I can get him to stop that mantra. That soundtrack if you listen to John Acuff, that was my soundtrack that night. I also have another sort of overarching soundtrack that I use, just life in general, that I use just life in general, and that is be strong on the uphills or in the face of headwinds. We all have those right. So be strong, take what the downhills and the tailwinds give you and finish strong. So I have that going always in my head. And then I have this other. I'm going to be there at 11 o'clock to walk my daughter down the aisle.
Speaker 3:And I kept repeating that to anybody who would listen. I repeated the state troopers, I repeated the bulldozer driver, you know. And so the backhoe stopped. He was really nice, he sort of tucked his bucket in in a safe position and he let me by, and about 30 or 40 feet past him I hit the debris that the bulldozer driver was warning me about and it completely blocked the road. It spanned the road. This storm had the presence of mind to put things across the road and not along and neatly stacked next to it. It was completely blocked and it was about six or seven feet high. And so I'm trying to find a way to climb on this thing. Oh, I'll just climb over it, and wherever I stepped it would just kind of collapse and it was a mess and there were sharp branches sticking out and fence posts and farm equipment. It was just a tangled mess.
Speaker 3:So I thought well, maybe I'll go around it and I I went around to the left side and I looked down and it just looked like mud and I thought this is fine and I stepped. It was like quicksand, oh, and I sunk right down to my knees and it kind of sucked me back in a seated position and I'm stuck and the backhoe driver has started his thing again. This boom is swinging around and and he had a light on it. So you know, a light would would kind of flash by me and I would flinch. And I'm thinking this guy's going to finish the pile he's working on sooner or later and come for this one, and he can't see me. I'm, I'm basically a sitting duck here. I need to get out.
Speaker 3:It was at that point where I added a little volume to my prayers and I literally pointed skyward and said I need your help in a very loud voice. Yeah, and I was able to get my my right leg out, but the mug pulled my shoe off, so i'm'm standing there on one leg. I've got this cell phone in one hand and this weapon stick in the other hand. What am I going to do? So I toss the stick? There's plenty of other sticks here. We've got the sticks, so I don't need that. I found a place. There was a tree that was laying down in this debris pile and its roots were sticking right over my shoulder, so I put my cell phone in there in a way that I could use the light to help me dig down in the mud and get my shoe out, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to do this you know, barefoot Without shoes, right do this, you know, without barefoot, yeah, right.
Speaker 3:So, uh, I got my shoe out and I was able to just slowly work my way back up to the roadway, just you know, getting stuck again and unstuck, and stuck again and unstuck. And I got out and this backhoe is still spinning around, he's still doing his thing, he's not expecting me to be anywhere and I didn't want to wait to put my shoe on. I was too much of a hurry. I heaved my shoe over the pile to the other side and I found a hole in this debris field, this big pile that was down on the ground, this big pile that was down on the ground. So the roots of that tree that I put my phone in the branches were holding it up enough above the road that I could actually crawl into this pile and then kind of work my way through, sort of like a piece of paper in a copy machine. I was doing that thing and I made it out. The other side found my shoe sat down on another log plenty of places to sit down and and put my shoe. I'll shake the mud out and put my shoe on and continue on. I found out there's a section of water there. I was able to dance around in that, get the mud off my shoes and my legs a little bit, try and not get it on my phone.
Speaker 3:And as I was walking earlier, I need to back up a little bit as I was walking in the part where before the road was washed out, where before the road was washed out, actually two state trooper cars came by because you could drive on that section of road, okay, and the first one was the incident commander. He said so, you decided to go anyway. And I'm like, yes, sir, very repentant, I didn't want to be hauled away for trespassing or disobeying orders. And he said well, you recognize, you're on your own. Recognizance is what he said. And I said yeah, sir, I am here at my own will and I will not hold anybody else responsible for that. And he said, okay, good luck, good luck. And he drove on. Then another, uh, trooper car came, um, I don't know, 30 minutes an hour later, um, and there were two troopers in there. They stopped and, um, they were very professional, but I kind of got a hint talking to them that they were sort of rooting for me okay because he said you know, sir, we can give you a ride back.
Speaker 3:You know you really should turn around. You know we don't know what's up ahead and all that. So I'm going to get as far as I can. Maybe I can learn something, I can come back and report to you guys firsthand, but I really want to get as far as I can. And he said, well, okay. Then he sort of leaned forward a little bit and he said if you can get to the bottom of the hill, I think you can get up on the interstate from there, and it's closed right now, so it should be clear sailing. Okay, that's great.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sir.
Speaker 3:So and he did offer me a ride to the bottom of the hill. I thought the bottom of the hill was just like 100 yards or 200 yards away and I thought I'm not going to bother you for that. Well it was. It was a little farther than that, but um, nonetheless. So after I got through that debris field, there was a couple of more and I was able to climb over them and they were shaky but they were stable enough that I could. I could get over them and I found the on-ramp to the interstate and I thought all right, here we go.
Speaker 3:And I went up the ramp went down or up the interstate about a quarter, maybe a half mile, and I came to where the bridge was washed out. So either I misunderstood his bottom-of-the-hill hill comment or, in the fog of war, he didn't have full information. Yeah, these, these troopers, believe me, they, they are on top of things, they are, they are going in when the rest of us are rushing out Right, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:They're phenomenal people, they were doing a great job. Um, and so I I got to where this bridge is washed down. It's like mind-boggling the destruction. It's like, wait a minute, this is thick, heavy concrete. Huge trucks drive on this all day long and it doesn't budge. And here it's completely shambles and there's rushing water down at the bottom of it and there's just debris and logs and pieces of houses and everything all littered all along the road that I'm walking through.
Speaker 3:One thing caught my eye, so I had to turn around. At that point I couldn't climb down in there or get across. I go, man, this is not good. Yeah, there was a little plastic jar. It was like a clear plastic with purple tinted, with a lid on it, it was full of cotton balls and it was just sitting there on the interstate, just sitting upright, looked in perfect condition, and it occurred to me that you know, know, there's no houses around here. That had to come from a long way away, yeah, to get all the way here, and it had to come from the inside of somebody's house. This is, this is not not good, no.
Speaker 3:So I hiked on back and, uh, the volunteer that showed me the map, it said there's one road, one bridge going into Irwin. That's not washed out, but they're not letting anybody cross it because they're not sure how stable it is yet. They won't know until the morning. So I thought, well, that's my only chance. I'm going to try and head back, see if I can find that bridge. And I did, and I, when I got there, there were two state trooper cars and at first I thought maybe they won't see me, right? You know, shrink down a little bit and go. Yeah, I thought, no, I can't do that, that's, that's not right. So I went over to the cars and and they weren't there. They were out on patrol. They ride on foot, uh, doing their trooper thing. So I quickly just scooted across that bridge and I didn't detect any problems, and in fact there were no problems. A few days later they had it open to traffic, and so from that point on, the worst of the destruction was behind me. Okay, the worst of the destruction was behind me, okay. And now I still have 20, 15, 20 miles to go, but it looks like it's mostly going to be walking.
Speaker 3:And a little ways up that road a state trooper came up and he stopped and he rolled his window down. He said, sir, are you the one that's trying to get to his daughter's wedding? I said, well, yes, sir, how did you know? And he said we're all talking about you. That's cool. I said, oh my gosh, I hope it's good. Well, they've all said you're determined.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I said well, my daughter's getting married at 11 o'clock in Johnson City and I'm going to be there to walk her down the aisle. He said, well, I'm heading into town. Would you like a ride? I said, well, I'd like a ride. Well, if you weren't so ugly, I'd kiss you right now. He said, all right. All right, get in the car.
Speaker 3:So he gave me a ride into town. It was about two miles that he where to where he dropped me off. They had set up in the Irwin Town Hall. They had something set up in there, and so I hopped out there, thanked him and started back out again. And then I had a choice Do I want to try the interstate again or do I want to go the old highway? And they both head right up north, kind of parallel to each other, to Johnson City. And I thought, well, I've been fooled by the interstate once, let's do the old highway, and so off. I went and I got a little ways up through there, a couple of miles, and a car came by really fast and he didn't see me and you know I jumped down into the weeds, into the shoulder and I thought, well, I got to do something better than this cell phone light. And I noticed a reflector. You know those reflector stakes that people put out at the end of their driveway.
Speaker 3:I snatched that up, and my full apologies to whoever's reflector I borrowed. That day. It became an important life-saving tool for me as I walked down the old highway. Every once in a while a car would come by. It wasn't very often, but I was able to hold that reflector out over the edge of the road. Sure enough, the car saw me. They would slow down and go around. There were just a couple, but it was just enough. I'm sure to them they see a light and a reflection. They're like well, what the heck?
Speaker 1:is that.
Speaker 3:Right, you know, at three or four in the morning, after a hurricane, yeah. So I just continued on up the road. The worst thing I encountered there was a very loud and vicious sounding pack of dogs that fortunately did. They must have been fenced or chained. Uh, they didn't come. I couldn't see them in the dark, uh, but I know I was a half a mile away. I could still hear them barking, um, so if they had come down, um, yeah, that would not have been fun, right, uh, at all, uh.
Speaker 3:And so at this point I'm thinking all right, I've seen a couple of cars, so traffic is flowing here. Um, it's four ish in the morning, um, I can call and wake somebody up, and they come get me now. And so I I tried calling my brother and um turns out he didn't have cell phone service, so it went right to voicemail. I said, hey, when you wake up, give me a holler. Need some help? I'm out here, you know. And um, he didn't get it until much later in the day, until service was restored, and I thought well, if I don't hear from him, I'll call. I have three daughters, you know, the one that was getting married and the other two I can call them one of them. Of course I don't want to do that. They all are part of the wedding party. You know they have their plans. They need a good night's sleep. They don't have an hour or more to come find dad out on the side of the highway. So, um, I'll just hold off a little bit as long as I'm on time and I'm watching my pace right to see if I'm really going to make it on time. And at that point I thought I would get to the house around nine o'clock and that would work, because I was supposed to be at the church at 10 for photos and then the wedding at 11.
Speaker 3:And I got about eight miles away from home. I used to work near there and so I knew I was about eight miles from home because I'd go out and run at lunch. I knew where I was and out from the side road comes a white pickup truck and he sees me in my reflector and he stops and he lets me pass, and then he rolls his window down and says, hey, would you like a ride? And I thought, yeah, I would. And I was a little nervous about you know, who should I take a ride from if anybody offers. I didn't expect many people to offer in this day and age, but I had said a little prayer. I said, lord, if, if anybody does stop, can you make it somebody who it's okay to get in the car? Yeah, and so this white pickup truck pulls up. It was like a white angel and so I said yes, and uh, he so hop on in.
Speaker 3:So I hopped on in the truck and it was probably about 6.30 or 7 at this point in the morning and the sun was just starting to peak up over the horizon. The sky was getting a little bit light, but it was still dark in the truck and I thought I recognized this guy's voice. I didn't recognize him, but I thought I recognized his voice. And so we're talking and he said a few things that made me think I know this guy. I used to work with him back in the day. It's like oh my gosh. So I said, are you Steve Parfit? And he said yeah, I'm David Jones. We used to work together at Texas Instruments.
Speaker 3:He says, oh my so we had this little reunion there as he's taking me home. Yeah, and it was just great catching up.
Speaker 2:What made him stop and pick you up? I mean, not many people would stop and pick up a guy with a reflector covered in mud, covered in mud with a reflector.
Speaker 3:At this hour, you know, I don't know, know, but I can tell you this. He said he woke up about 4 30 in the morning that he and his wife had just bought this house where he was coming from, but they hadn't moved in yet. They were still doing the painting and all this stuff, you know, before you move in. And he came down to check on it. See how it came through the storm. He said I woke up about about 430. I don't know what woke me up, but I couldn't go back to sleep. Wow.
Speaker 1:And I'm thinking, I know.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. So it must have been the same higher power that encouraged him to offer me the ride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. What a great. So, he take you the rest of the way in.
Speaker 3:He took me the rest of the way in that last eight miles, dropped me in my driveway. Of course there was no power there either, but I got out with my backpack and my reflector still had the reflector and I went on in. I sat down for a few minutes. I didn't want to lay down. I was afraid if I fell asleep I wouldn't wake up again. So I got cleaned up. I still had a suit there. It wasn't a suit I had planned to wear for the wedding, but I had an old suit there and shoes that I could wear. I got dressed. I had an old car. It's the old beater. It's an old Ford Explorer. You know the, the kind of vehicle you use to haul mulch in right, take trash to the dump.
Speaker 3:So I fired it up and got to the church on time and I told a few people what had happened, but I asked them not to tell Elizabeth. I said please do not upset her on her wedding day. This is her day. We'll have plenty of time afterwards to let her know what happened. She saw my old car there in the parking lot. She was like huh, I wonder why dad drove blue. I wonder why he drove blue. But okay, whatever, you know, it's her wedding day, right? She's not focused on that. She's focused on wedding day stuff. So we went through the ceremony candlelight ceremony uh, no power at the church. Try not to fall asleep I'm, I'm sure I I had a gatorade fast twitch with
Speaker 3:me, which is, yeah, like 200 milligrams of caffeine in a little bottle, and and so that got me through the night. That helped get me through the night and so and I don't drink caffeine very often, so it has prolonged effect on me and so a beautiful ceremony. We do photos afterwards and we go to the reception, and Daniel her now husband, and Elizabeth had asked me if I would say the blessing over the food before we ate and say a few words to the group there. So there was power at the restaurant where we were. So that worked out well. It was interesting, though they just had set us up in the middle of their restaurant, so there were people around us that weren't part of the wedding party. They were kind of experiencing all this.
Speaker 3:So when I got up to say a few words, everybody in the restaurant heard this wedding party or not, and I told the story. I had the reflector with me. Of course. I had prepared something to say, but I made a called, called an audible. You know, last minute game time decision. I said I'm going to tell the story and use this reflector to help me tell the story.
Speaker 3:So told everyone and you know a lot of jaws dropped and a lot of tears and emotions. And I got toward the end. I said, and I want to give this reflector to you two as a wedding present, whenever you see it, let it be a reminder to you to always protect the other one, especially in your darkest hours, like it did for me, and to always remember to be a good reflection of God. And of course I can't even say it now without choking up, but the tears flowed again. A lot of hugs, a lot of wishes and that sort of helped close the chapter for me. I made it through. I'm handing you this thing that I carried for the last so many miles.
Speaker 3:I'm done with all that, it's behind me now and maybe it can help you a memory for you and the rest of the celebration. There was a celebration the next day, just a beautiful, beautiful weekend. It all worked out that is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:I mean, that is uh. I appreciate the detail that you shared throughout that whole journey, and so a question I have for you now that you're sharing this story all over the all over the country and all over the world, how has it affected your relationship with your daughter, her husband and your family?
Speaker 3:Well, it's interesting, you know, I had tried to call my wife all through the night while I was driving and, of course, no service and she had been trying to call me. So when I finally was able to reach her, she was relieved and had some anguish, you know, just knowing what I had gone through, it was heavy on her heart. My daughter, it not only I mean she said, well, yeah, that's what dad would do. That's dad, you know, not really surprised but humbled that somebody would do that for her. And it also strengthened her relationship with God because she thought, man, if a human, an earthly father, would go through this, just imagine, you know, and our heavenly father did, jesus did sacrifice himself for us. Wow, I mean, it was kind of overwhelming for her. In that regard, daniel the groom, he, he was, he's just the best guy and he was so thankful and so happy. And a lot of people have been teasing him.
Speaker 2:Like you know, daniel, the bar's been set really high well, you said you got two more, two more daughters right, this was the first, so you set the bar a little high that occurred to me during the walk like oh no, I got two more to go.
Speaker 3:what am I gonna do? Yeah, so, um, yeah, it's, it's been humbling, but the only way this message can go around the world like it did is if God was behind it.
Speaker 3:Now, it was a good news story amongst a lot of bad news. So a lot of the news outlets wanted to grab onto that and share here's some good news. And a lot of them have that little segment in their show where they share some good news or, um, you know, hero of the week or whatever it is they have, and and so they were all happy to pick that up. Yeah, um, but it it was just flabbergasting to me that the calls that were coming in from, like, like you mentioned, cnn and the Weather Channel and Today Show and BBC London, and all these people wanted me on their, you know, their Shows, news hour, their shows, their episodes it's like, wow, sure, yeah, hey, let's do this. Yeah, be happy to if this helps anyone.
Speaker 3:And what I'm finding is that there's a lot of messages in it about persistence and determination and all that. There's a survival aspect of it and I can tell you I wasn't very well prepared from a survival tools aspect. I didn't have flashlights and all the flares or whatever you need in the survival kit, but my fitness I like to stay fit and my fitness was my best survival tool. I wouldn't recommend an overweight, out of shape, 64 year old person to go on this journey or try some of the things that I tried, but, being fit, it was like, okay, I got this, I can do this. So I've always encouraged people to take care of their health and their fitness. I'm not a fanatic or anything like that, but I like to lead by example. So that was very helpful to me and I hope that message gets out. But the other message that really resonates is a father's love, and we hear that you heard that from your friends, dan, where you know oh, yeah, I would do that, you know, and kids are saying
Speaker 3:yeah, my dad would do that for me and I love my dad for it. And then there's the other side where people are saying I can't even get my dad to text me on my birthday, or my dad passed away before I was born and I had a series of awful stepdads, you know. That kind of ruined my childhood, and so it's resonating on both parts and I think that tells me that there's a need for this message in the world that strong dads, the love of strong dads, what strong dads, not just dads, moms too. But there's an important message there that God wants to get out to the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely 100%. I mean it's an amazing story of resilience, of love. I mean you said everything there and you know, this has been awesome to hear the story in such detail and, as we land this plane, I want to ask you is there any quote? Is there any Bible verse? Is there a motto that you live your life by on a daily basis that you could share with our listeners?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, yeah, there's probably a lot, so I keep those soundtracks in my head. As I mentioned, be strong on the uphills, take what the downhills give you, finish strong. I keep that going all the time, and when I'm out running, training or running a race, you know that's really helpful.
Speaker 1:Having a purpose.
Speaker 3:Like my vision that day. Like I teach in my classes, my vision that day was to walk my daughter down the aisle and my mission was to get to the church on time. So I was marching toward that. So for people to have purpose in their life and we see this especially in the younger generations they want to know what the purpose is of what they're doing, especially in the workplace. So having a purpose is really important. I think it's Philippians I'm going to get the exact verse wrong, but it's I mount up as on wings of eagles and that one. In fact, I have an old T-shirt that I got from a 5K that has that on the back that I've saved. It's worn through, with holes and everything, but I've saved it because it's got that verse on the back. Yeah, um, that's a favorite of mine as well. Oh, that's great, that's again inspiring.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's obvious to me to Ben, to anybody listen you're a good man. You know not only a good father and and, um, you know good in business and everything that you do, but more importantly, you're a good man and, and that's what you know good in business and everything that you do but more importantly, you're a good man and and that's what you know. As far as our podcast goes, we want these stories to get out because, again, there's so much negative in this world. We just came through, you know, the election last week, where you know prior to the election and now even after, but it just was negative, negative, negative If you turn the TV on or the radio on and you listen to all these ads. So getting stories like yours out is truly inspiring and I can't thank you enough for one.
Speaker 2:Responding to you know our be tempered podcast and saying, heck, yeah, I'll come and do it. You know I was. I was shocked that you said yes and in fact I asked you yesterday. You know why, why you don't even know who we are. We're 27 episodes in. This is a new venture for us. We're trying and I think you hit the nail on the head. You know Stories like yours of resilience, of love, of strength, perseverance. They need to be shared with the world, and I can't thank you enough for joining us.
Speaker 3:You're most welcome. I love what you guys are doing with this podcast and I hope it exceeds your wildest dreams in terms of success and impact that you have on your listeners.
Speaker 2:We appreciate that. Again, we appreciate your time and I hope that in the future, if you're up in Shelbyville we're about 45 minutes a little further, kind of north and east of shelbyville um, you know, look me up I'd love to love to have breakfast with you or something and get to know you a little more in your business and all that good stuff that'd be awesome yeah, let's make a plan for that. That sounds great, well, thank you again for your time. And then thank you, dan, go out and be tempered hi, my name.
Speaker 1:My name is Allie.
Speaker 2:Schmidt.
Speaker 1:This is my dad, dan. He owns Catron's Glass. Thanks, allie. Things like doors and windows go into making a house, but when it's your home, you expect more like the great service and selection you'll get from Catron's Glass Final replacement. Windows from Catron's come with a lifetime warranty, including accidental glass breakage replacement. No-transcript.