Ep. 82 - Let's Take A Ride On The Magic School Bus w/ Mr. Burnworth

This week on Busted Knees & Pretty Trees, we sit down with the man, the myth, the legend — Paddy’s old biology teacher, Jabin Burnworth — and trust us… this one is special.  You know that teacher who made science feel like an adventure instead of an assignment? The one who turned confusion into curiosity and classrooms into ecosystems? That was Jabin.
In this episode, we talk about what makes a great teacher great, how to make biology attainable for every kid, and why curiosity is still the most powerful tool in the outdoors. We dive into stories from the classroom, lessons that stuck for a lifetime, and how mentorship can shape the trajectory of a student’s world.
There’s laughter. There’s nostalgia. There’s some serious birding talk. And there’s a whole lot of appreciation for the educators who change lives without even realizing it.
If you’ve ever had a teacher who made you feel seen, capable, and curious — this episode is for you.

Email: bustedpretty@gmail.com 

Follow us Bluesky: @bustedpretty.bsky.social

Follow us Instagram: @bustedkneesandprettytrees

Join us: bustedpretty.com

Listen: Spotify / Apple Podcasts / Amazon Music / iHeartRadio / YouTube

Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:09

Hello, this is Busted Knees and Pretty Trees. This podcast is a product of unfettered curiosity and a deeper need to connect with the world we were born from. How we explore and connect is only limited by our imaginations, and when we combine that wonder with a little bit of science, you've tapped into a never-ending well of exploration. Today's program is a special one. Not just for the podcast, but for any of us who were lucky enough to cross paths with someone like our guest today. These rare folks are often our teachers, coaches, or other important community members, but it's not their profession or positions that make them who they are. It's the passion with which they share and educate others around them. They are the tender that sets ablaze that unique kind of curiosity in others. I don't remember a lot from third grade, but I do know I was lucky enough to have one of these wonderful people as my third grade teacher. He noticed my interest in the Earth Sciences. One day he handed me a shoebox, and in this shoe box was a treasure trove of things you could find on a short hike. Seashells, rocks, feathers, arrowheads, stuff you would find in owl pellets. That teacher stoked my curiosity and he encouraged me to explore further. I'll always remember how excited I was to discover something new inside of that shoebox. Until later that year, my classmates and I were gathered in a semicircle around a substitute teacher had been asking us questions. This Joker was tossing us softballs. I was nine and three-quarter. I thought I had the world by the horns, and I was hungry for some action. So I raised my little hand. And he says, Yes, you, little girl.

SPEAKER_09 2:05

Did he really?

SPEAKER_08 2:06

I had a real good head of hair back then. And what I remember is saying, I'm a boy, and then my mind stopped recording for the rest of third grade. Not only do we need passion for the trail and conservation of our beautiful spaces, but we also can't forget to conserve the flame of exploration by instilling it in the hearts of others. And don't feel down if the fortune of someone else's fire hasn't passed to you. They come in all manners and times. I found Patty and Brad. We make this podcast in hopes to do what others have done for us. Light fires. I am Travis White. That is Patty Richardson. And that is Bradley R.

SPEAKER_09 2:57

Hello.

SPEAKER_08 2:58

Who was that teacher?

SPEAKER_09 3:00

In third grade.

SPEAKER_08 3:01

Uh well it was when I was uh I went to Hoagland in third. Oh, okay. Mr. Smith. Yeah, it wouldn't have been a Norway.

SPEAKER_09 3:08

Because it was fifth grade when he came to Ossian. Fourth, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 3:12

Next year. Yeah, I moved schools after that. Whoa. He was so embarrassed. He moved schools. But uh I think I would like to, you know, dedicate this episode to the educators and those kinds of people that, you know, do that for us.

SPEAKER_06 3:32

That's fucking good.

SPEAKER_08 3:33

And our guest today just so happens to be one of those educators. He taught for 28 years at Manchester Junior Senior High School and Manchester University. And in 2017, he received the Howard Mashad Award for the environmental from the Environmental Education Association of Indiana. Right down the Busta Pretty Alley. He's also one of those birders. Please welcome Patty's high school teacher, Mr. Jaben Burnworth. Thanks, everybody. Yeah, thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Dude, yeah. So glad to be here. I'm so fucking happy.

SPEAKER_06 4:22

Can I tell you a little story? Yeah, please. When we first started this episode and we started thinking about potentially having guests, probably around the second season, I guess we were talking about guests. This podcast. This podcast, sorry. We were, what did I say? This episode. About five minutes ago, we started thinking about guests, and we were like, what about Jamin? He's right here. He's right here. But dude, we were uh we were putting together a short list, and I like immediately put your name down on the list, along with probably ten other other names from like hunters and just people that I knew that enjoyed the things that we enjoyed. And I so I guess I've just this has been what we're on our ninth season now. Ninth season? Eighth. Eighth season?

SPEAKER_09 5:08

Episode eighty-two.

SPEAKER_06 5:09

No, so that's ninth. Episode 81, season nine. Oh sh. Yeah, season nine. Yeah, there we go. So it's been that long. So to have you on here is just a fucking treat for me, dude.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

I feel very honored. Well, you fucking should because it's the shit's killer, man.

SPEAKER_08 5:27

No, I know. I feel really, really good. We're on the road to a hundred.

SPEAKER_09 5:33

Yeah, you can and you can almost say if Chad's our burning godfather. Now be careful. Jaden's like the god godfather? And he's the gag godfather.

SPEAKER_06 5:43

I'll take that.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

He's got father.

SPEAKER_09 5:45

The god squared father. Yeah, I'll take god squared sounds square. I'll say god. I'm trying to keep it educational.

SPEAKER_08 5:55

Get some exponents in it. See the fruits of your birding labor?

SPEAKER_06 5:59

Yeah. Was it you that got because I remember something about Chad joined the Cosquiasco Audubon Society because you were on the board or something?

SPEAKER_03 6:10

He talked me into joining the board for a hot minute. He was on there before I was a big book. Okay. Yeah. You know, honestly, I need to ask Chad how he like, because I know he wasn't always a birder.

SPEAKER_09 6:22

He found a dead Oreo on the side of a road. Yeah, I think he told us the story. Oh, on the podcast, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Yes, right, right, right. But he would have been in my class and we would have gone over birds. So, like, I think that it's interesting. Some people it just takes a minute. It has to be that moment where you're just like, boom, it hits you. You're like, oh my god, birds.

SPEAKER_06 6:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

And uh, and so if I could plant that seed, maybe I maybe it was in there somewhere, Chad, and it just took him a minute.

SPEAKER_06 6:51

We were talking because Chad's very like linear, yeah where he gets on something. So it was skateboarding in high school. Yeah. Chad became one of the better skateboarders. Then it was well, he was always into guitars and music, but then he got real into that. Yeah. Chased that linear path all the way down to where it ended. Yes. And then or he's still going, but and then Birding, he said Birding kind of became that where it was just this like linear, like I'm going to be, I'm gonna know everything there is to know about Birding. Yeah. So he's one of those guys where I'm like, I'm more of like an octopus where I'm just I'm never like set like in a linear path. I'm just kind of like, that's fucking squirrel. Yeah, that thing's cool, brick wall. Like, I don't give a fuck. Like, I'm just fucking in, you know. Yeah, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_08 7:35

What do you think's harder? Like being a really good guitarist or a really good birder?

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Ooh, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_06 7:42

I wanted to immediately say guitar player, but then I I don't know. If you you gotta travel, dude.

SPEAKER_08 7:48

You gotta make arrangements if you want to see some if you want to get deep.

SPEAKER_06 7:52

Yeah, I I don't know the answer to that question.

SPEAKER_09 7:54

Follow the rare bird alerts.

SPEAKER_06 7:56

Yeah. Do you then get to those rare birds? Like some of those birds are out there. You gotta fucking hoof it.

SPEAKER_09 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:02

You know?

SPEAKER_08 8:03

I wonder what Slash would think.

SPEAKER_09 8:09

That'd be funny if he's also a hardcore birder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would very well interest it.

SPEAKER_06 8:14

Oh my gosh, that'd be awesome. Speaking of famous rad dudes birding, have have you guys been made privy to the uh Sean Bean Let's Go Birding season yet?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

No. No.

SPEAKER_06 8:24

I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 8:25

Have you told me about it, but I haven't checked it out yet?

SPEAKER_06 8:27

Let's go birding. I think it's on its fifth season, or maybe way more than that, I'm not sure. But this is Sean Sean Bean took over. Do you know who he is? No. Lord of the Rings. He's Ned Stark from uh Game of Thrones. Boromir, right? Boromir from Lord of the Rings. Yes. And he is uh like an advantage. I better got that right. So he uh he has a season called Let's Go Birding, and it's mainly in in in England, yeah, but he has a lot of different people on. He just had a DJ on that uses all of his mic mixes that he does or tracks that he does are like bird sounds that and he goes into like all these technical, like how he identifies birds by all these rad technical like sound songs that they sing, and then he makes them into like CJ music. House meet what's what's DJ? Eating.

SPEAKER_09 9:14

Imagine dancing to a blue jay.

SPEAKER_06 9:17

I bet I've I've got a feeling that we probably have at some point, yeah, you know, because it's just uh it's just treble. You can do whatever you want with it. Anyway, it's fucking I will check this out this year. It's cathartic show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there he I think he just plays songbird soundtracks the whole way through the episode. So I always like listen, I watch YouTube, but I'm at my computer at work kind of doing my thing while it's on. So it is just a very like it's very like monotone. It's never too exciting, but you just learn a fuck low. Good to fall asleep too. Very good.

SPEAKER_09 9:52

Does it ever like do you ever hear a bird on it and it catches you off guard?

SPEAKER_06 9:55

You're like, wait, no, where's it at? No, well, I no, because well, one, I don't know near as many bird calls or songs as like other people do. Two, I I think he's like I said, primarily in England. Uh so I'm not really sure.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

There's a bunch of birds you just don't know.

SPEAKER_06 10:11

Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of birds that he does say that like uh that I that I do grackles are there, starlings are there.

SPEAKER_09 10:21

Well, like they have robins, but they're different robins, right?

SPEAKER_06 10:23

Yeah he just to give just one more thing about this, he does a lot of his episodes from this little table. He so he bought a bunch of 65 acres and it just built a forest back into that forebirding, and then has like owl boxes and other things around the property, but he has just like this little kitchen table in the middle of the forest, and that's where he sits. And prior to him taking over the hosting duties, he would just go out there and like have his coffee and sit in the middle of the forest. Nice built. I know it's pretty bad. I like him even more. If I ever come into money, you can find me at a random kitchen table in the middle of the forest.

SPEAKER_09 11:00

Like that is where I would so listen to our podcast first, then listen to it.

SPEAKER_08 11:07

Yeah, um, Brad, we're uh Walt is on what? He's on vacation spring break. I figure so we're not getting a news panther today. Yeah, but I did bring some Travis teasies to you guys with some of those. I'll take some teases. Okay, these are three just real quick ones. Well, one's a gear alert, it's not really a teasy. I just got me a new six moons lunar solo tent. Oh nice. My underwear weighs more. It's just yeah it's wild.

SPEAKER_06 11:37

Barely a trekking pole tent as well. A single trekking pole. It's a very have you seen it yet?

SPEAKER_09 11:44

No.

SPEAKER_06 11:44

Yeah, it's very like when I'm looking at the photos, it is it's weird how it's one trekking pole on the door of the tent, and then everything else is like uh straight like a lean skyline, like a lean.

SPEAKER_08 12:01

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's different. All right, we can talk about it in a gear episode. Sorry. Uh I just read quickly there was a study that urban birds fly will fly away quicker from an approaching woman than they will a man.

SPEAKER_05 12:17

Which is interesting.

SPEAKER_08 12:18

That one's interesting. And hot off the press.

SPEAKER_05 12:21

I wonder what the Yeah, do you have anything more on that? No. That sounds interesting.

SPEAKER_08 12:24

These are teases. Not explaineies.

SPEAKER_06 12:29

Maybe we can ask uh old Jessica Merkling when we have her on. Yeah. Urban urban biologist for the DNR is coming on in a few weeks. That's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_08 12:38

And uh I think we just found out today that birders are the harbingers of doom. Yeah, because they're spreading that new b birders are spreading the body.

SPEAKER_06 12:48

The Hontavirus apparently uh contracted by two birders and then taken back because they were birding at a dump and came across bodily fluids.

SPEAKER_08 12:58

They were birding at a dump.

SPEAKER_06 13:00

Well, I guess seagulls? They said it's like the number one birding hotspot on the island that they went to is this dump. And then they went back on board the boat, and now we all are gonna have Hontavirus.

SPEAKER_09 13:12

Yeah, like I think even on Enlisters, they were at a dump at one point. Yeah. Thanks, birders.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Have you seen The Big Year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's that great dump scene. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:22

Steve Martin's eating the food because he can't he doesn't have a sense of smell. Yeah. That's right. Well, you guys want to get to that. It's a great movie. I was gonna be like, yes, yeah, please. It is great. Hey, uh yeah, sorry, Travvy. We got a lot more to get into, dude. I have a shitload of questions for old Jaben Burnworth, and I cannot fucking wait to get into this. What do you guys all say? We get down to the nitty-gritty of this son's bitches. Yeah. As soon as we get the right sound effect, I thought Walt was on vacation. Yeah, where's it popping into? Is he here? Yeah. Well, there we go. Let's take a bathroom break, grab some more drinks, and get back here for the long haul.

unknown 13:57

All right.

SPEAKER_06 14:00

There we go. All right. A little bit of a break.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

I'll show you.

SPEAKER_08 14:21

Let's just go ahead and start it off as we usually do with the the big question. Like, obviously, you love you know nature and spending time outdoors. What ultimately sparked that fire in you? What makes you continue to go out there?

SPEAKER_03 14:37

That's a great question. I uh it there's a peace and there is a sense of um just inner tranquility when I'm in the woods and when I'm in nature, and it doesn't even have to be like a giant, you know, uh sequoia kind of, you know, General Sherman tree experience where you're like looking at something, you're like, holy cow, yeah, right. You know, uh when I see even like small birds, like I was driving here and I saw a meadowlark on the side of the road, and just that yellow pops at you, and you're like, whoa, I mean, my head still um explodes. I get so excited about those little tiny things. But uh I love those morning hikes uh when you're the only one out there, or even if you see other people, there's just like that ability to just kind of disconnect from uh whatever you're thinking about. Uh those moments where you're like maybe consumed with uh work or family or you know, health, all of those things. And I think that uh being in nature allows you to completely forget about all that stuff and uh just uh be in the moment. And I think it's hard to be in the moment when you're constantly surrounded by uh uh things that are not nature, the noise of the modern life. Right.

SPEAKER_08 16:09

Yeah, like the the tranquility of it. Just I've been my dad recently had back surgery, so I've been driving down uh to the farm in Wells County, and I mean it's not too far away from the city. You still hear a lot of those modern noises and stuff, but it's just night and day difference being away from Fort Wayne, and I absolutely just love standing and not saying anything and just listening to the wind blow through the trees and the birds, and it is like a little moment of tranquility.

SPEAKER_09 16:40

And that's what we say when we go backpacking. It's like our yearly recharge of the batteries just disconnecting from everything for a week.

SPEAKER_06 16:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 16:50

It can't not be healthy.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

They've they've written books about it. There's a really great book I I think it's called The Nature Fix. Um just about how um uh nature feeds our body in ways that um the city can't.

SPEAKER_06 17:07

Yeah, is this like a primordial thing? Like this is a connection that we haven't felt in millennia, so it we tend to is is that what the book is. I think there's comfort.

SPEAKER_08 17:18

There's comfort in it that's like deep in our DNA. Yeah, I mean I certainly agree. Day green, everything's green, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:27

And it's amazing the amount of people that don't I've told the story before on this podcast, but I mean, even myself, I mean it took me all the way to my honeymoon to actually understand what like a forest meant, not just the thing between two cornfields, you know? Yeah, and it it's just uh that's a woods. That's a woods, yeah. But like when I learned when I was when backpacking was coming becoming prominent in my life, I didn't really understand it. Like, dude, that would take like 15 minutes to get around that thing. I've been drinking beers in those woods for ten years and cool these forests, or I can see the whole thing right there. Yeah, but it's but when I came home, I I tried to get it getting a group of my friends and other people together to go on a backpacking trip. And it was it was amazing like when they would look up where we were, and this was Red River Gorge. Have you guys been down there? Yeah, it's awesome. It is awesome, and so uh just they had no fucking idea, and nor did I. Yeah, so it's just incredible the amount like how good it is because it's primordial or because we've engaged ourselves in sound and phones and all this, and lights and screens so much now that it goes back, whatever the meaning is, it's just podcasts, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 18:42

It's just uh it's just crazy. I think a little bit of maybe our generations like want to be out there is kind of to get back to our childhoods. Yeah. When there was nothing else to do but go outside and look at shit. Yeah, build a for it in the woods.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Yeah, and if you think about childhood stories though, too, they kind of make the woods scary. Yeah. Uh and I think that there's still a lot of people that think the woods is uh where bad things happen. Oh, yeah. And yeah, think of all the horror movies that we watch, it's always, you know, in the woods. It's like that's so good. But uh yeah, the big bad wolf. And uh that's true.

SPEAKER_09 19:22

People always say that about us backpacking. Like, how aren't you sc aren't bears gonna kill you? Oh, in a couple of things, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_08 19:30

Yeah, yeah. That's what's fun about people are terrified.

SPEAKER_06 19:33

We have a group of friends at work that are constantly are like want us to talk about what what weapons we take with us backpacking. And the answer we're always like, we just don't really do that. Do you know how much bullets weigh? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 19:48

I don't know. My weapons are preparation and not being a dumbass, and we'll be fine.

SPEAKER_06 19:53

You'll agree, you're gonna be just fine. Except I did just see another story in Glacier where there was another a dead hiker found, and it was they it was a bear attack. Or that's what they think. No, Glacier, another another one. Oh yeah. There's two in Yellowstone and one in Glacier, which are right there.

SPEAKER_09 20:10

Yeah, I know. I know. There he is. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 20:13

Yeah, that would suck. So as Travy kind of alluded to, or did allude to very well, you've been an educator for 28 years, you've been at the high school, junior high school level, and you've been at the university level. But before I get we get more into like that experience and then out of that experience, what I've been curious about just ever since I've known you now for years and years and years, is where this all kind of stemmed from. You know, like you are a very unique person. You have done unique things with your life. Where the fuck did Javen did Javen come from?

SPEAKER_03 20:52

That's a great that's that's awesome. Thank you for those kind words. Uh what are you doing here? Still trying to figure that out.

SPEAKER_06 21:03

I was looking through your bios, I was looking reading all these stories about you. I mean, things that you've done that I that nobody's ever told me that I never I never learned. And I mean, it's it's stuff that like it's not just uh teaching a class, it's creating curriculum for the Indiana Dunes. It's it's uh taking kids down to the Florida Everglades for over a decade. What straight? Take us down. Yeah, yeah. He'd be the guy to go with. I mean, it's it's all of this stuff, and I think there's good teachers that teach, and then there's good teachers that do fucking that take it beyond. And that's what I'm that's like where where who the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 21:48

You know I I r I had a really good biology teacher when I was in high school, and his name was Chris Coy, and uh he was a lot of fun and uh really sparked that. Interest like I had no knowledge about the natural world like growing up, like other than like I enjoyed going to the woods behind my parents' house, uh, and they would let me do that. And I kind of had free reign in the neighborhood, and but I really didn't know um what it was all about. I just knew I enjoyed being in there, yeah. And then when that biology teacher started to put names to those things, like and processes and putting all those things that I loved into big ideas, then that's when it really like clicked. And uh when I graduated from high school, I th I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I didn't have confidence in my ability to be a biology teacher because I just didn't think I was smart enough. And so I uh majored in elementary education. My first year of uh college, I had to visit a fifth grade classroom where uh I had an amazing like supervising teacher, but I realized, man, I I don't want to do this, man. I didn't like the the kids, the age, I didn't like teaching all the subjects. So I was just like, screw it. Like, I'm just gonna like go the bio route, realize I'm not gonna get like all A's, you know, I'm just gonna work really, really hard, a lot harder than probably I would have had to with the other degree. Not that that's an easy degree, but I just knew that my I was just because it where I went to school was uh the biology education degree was not an education degree, it was just straight up bio. So I was in class with like pre-med that's a ton of memory stuff, right? Just like general biology, yeah, general biology. So I was just like, oh man, this is gonna be rough. And so I had to end up going to summer school to get it done in four years, and then uh, and so I did it, and and I tried to apply to a bunch of different schools, um, but no one like this was 1994, and this is where everyone uh was a teacher and had been a teacher for a long time, and there were no jobs whatsoever. I mean, like anybody can get a teaching job right now because they're so desperate, which is sad.

SPEAKER_09 24:12

But like was it a better gig back then?

SPEAKER_03 24:14

It was um, yeah, in a lot of ways. Uh just because they let you teach the subject matter and there wasn't all these tests and rules and all those other things.

SPEAKER_09 24:23

And it was our generation coming up too. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy going.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

So yeah, yeah. But there was no biology uh jobs available, and so I knew I kind of wanted to stay in Indiana, but I looked at jobs in Oregon and a couple other places as options, and then the day before the job at Manchester, uh uh uh before the application was due, some dude, this is of course before the internet, you know, and some said somebody said, Hey, I heard that Manchester might be hiring. So I called the school and they're like, Yeah, you gotta get this in. So I had to like find somebody to fax the uh application, you know, which was crazy. Got it in, uh, uh, got the interview, and I had a few other interviews before, and they were like, they just you could tell there was a weird vibe. I was like, I don't know if I want to be at these schools. I sat down in a room at Manchester with the principal, assistant principal, the assistant superintendent, the athletic director, the uh science department chair, and I feel like there was like uh one other just random person. Oh, yeah, the physics teacher was there too. Jesus, it was like and it was like this big room. And they said, uh, we're gonna ask you one question and it's gonna determine whether or not you get this job. Good fuck I know. I just like I I'm sure like at that point, like you know, I would I'd shit myself. But uh so I they and then they paused, right? So I in my head, I'm thinking about all this pedagogy, I'm thinking about all you know, discipline, I'm thinking about uh you know content stuff, and they looked me straight in the eye and they said, Are you an IU fan or a preview fan? What the fuck? And and I said IU and half the room said, Get him out of here. Half the room cheered. And I thought in that moment, that's where I want to teach because I knew that the people were cool and that it was gonna be fun. And it was the only interview that uh, and the assistant superintendent had uh asked this question. He said, What book are you reading? And I told him what book I was reading at the time, and uh he said, You were the only candidate that answered that question. He said all the other candidates couldn't come up with a book they were reading, and he said that helped get you hired.

SPEAKER_08 26:40

They weren't even smart enough to lie, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 26:48

Animal Farm, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:54

That's how you landed the gig, dude. That was it, it was it, yeah, and and uh and I thought I'd be there a couple years, and uh, because those first years were scary. Um I was 22, and these were like all of this time from 18 to 22. Yeah. Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were scooting a lot, a lot went on, yeah. Yeah, it took me 20 years to get to the yeah, it took me about 15. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But man, they they that was such a cool um uh administration. And I told them, well, my going back to my high school biology teacher, he was awesome, but he promised us that he would take us to Florida. Um, because he had said at one point he had this idea of taking a class to Florida, and we're like, We're the class. Yeah, and he goes, Okay, I'll take you guys next year. The next year came, he didn't take us. Oh, then our senior year, we're like, This is it, this is our senior year. He's like, Okay, we're gonna do it. And he and he didn't do it. So I said, I vow to take my students to Florida because my teacher never did that for me. And so I knew I couldn't do it my first year because it was just, you know, I had no idea what it was doing. And uh, and so, but I really connected with the class of '98 who were freshmen in '94.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

And they just were like a special group. And so I said, uh, when you guys are seniors, I really want to do this. And so we did the first ever Everglades trip that year. That in 98. In 98. Yeah. And then we just crazy.

SPEAKER_08 28:28

And you were gonna do it no matter what, because you know what that disappointment feels like.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Yeah, I had 10 kids uh that went that year. Uh, and then the last year I took, I think there were 42. Wow, which was way too big. But still, it was it was awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be awesome.

SPEAKER_06 28:45

Wow, that was a good trip. I never went, but uh people that did go that I was friends with said it was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

I wish you would have come back. Super fun. We should do an adult trip.

SPEAKER_06 28:53

Well, well, I think all four no. I I was I was pro dude, I was uh the th the thing is with Javen is that he makes you believe it, no doubt about it. Like he makes it interesting. But but yeah, I was probably doing stupid shit, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08 29:14

School for school.

SPEAKER_06 29:14

Yeah, but but anyway, the people that I did talk to that I was friends with that because I I knew everybody that was going, and everybody very much looked forward to by the time we were in the in the school and graduating, it the lore has already picked up of the trip. You know what I mean? And that did help. Yeah, you wanted to go. You knew that you knew the older kids that got to go, and that you thought they were cool, yeah, yeah. So that you wanted to follow in those footsteps, you know. But that was so okay. I got one for you. Patrick's like, it ain't cool. No, that's that's not what I did. But I was I was just a bit of a uh of a of a not not a fuck up, but like I was on my way to being a fossil. You know what I mean? No, I wasn't. I was a very I mean I had friends and I enjoyed people like I do now. I just I had a different I it was I I was I had a different vibe. Anyway, uh yeah, anyway. So Chris Coy is your uh high school teacher. He made biology fun, he made biology attainable like you've done for thousands of kids, hundreds of kids. What I'm what I guess I'm so I know where it came from now. And that that kind of culture you wanted your classroom to be, that was from the jump or even before educating. Like you knew that this was the culture you wanted to build.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

I don't think so. I think it came from uh time. I really do think that it those first those first five years were were hard. Um they were I was just trying to stay ahead, a day ahead of the students. You know, we didn't have the internet to just look up stuff, you know. Teachers will like, you know, come up with a lesson plan. You know, you could do an AI lesson plan just like that, you know, or a worksheet. You know, we didn't have any of that stuff. And uh, I know I'm sounding like an old man, aren't I? Like, well, yeah, man, we didn't have the internet.

SPEAKER_09 31:12

Yeah, it's like we had like we had to go to the library to do our report.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Oh man, yeah, oh man, and the librarian at Manchester was scary. Oh my god, she scared the shit out of me. She would like come over and she'd be like, shut up to me. Like trying to like have a good time here in that room, man. But yeah, I think it was just like I I learned a lot from the students, I learned a lot from I uh uh uh just experience, but also just reading people and just kind of realizing like, what do I do I want to have fun? I want to have fun. Yeah, like so. How do I um keep myself entertained and keep the students entertained at the same time? And I I think a little bit of it is kind of a show, you know. Like uh there were times, I mean, I hate to admit this, where I may not have been very excited about a certain subject. And like, but I had to sell it.

SPEAKER_06 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

So how do I do that? You know, like I'll jump off the desk or I'll like, you know, put tape on my face, or like just be goofy just to like get the attention of the students.

SPEAKER_06 32:21

Man, but you did such a good I was asking this question earlier today at work uh to the group I work with, and ha have you ever had a teacher that just makes that impact? Like Travis was talking about, and like I've alluded to you being for us. But you but like that's not like I I guess I'm trying to get more like into the psyche of JB. Okay, yeah. Because I guess that's the thing. Be prepared.

SPEAKER_08 32:44

That could be a five-minute question.

SPEAKER_06 32:46

That's still not normal. That that doesn't seem to be the norm. Because I mean, this guy did, like, he would jump off the desks, we would do bird songs and of the clock and hundreds. I mean, I can't remember what the test was, but just listening to the sounds, he had snakes and reptiles in his classroom. It was just this different environment. Yeah, so it was just you're just a one of a kind, or probably not one of a kind. There's other Miss Frizzles one. You know, he made it fun. You know, people like that. So I I think it's passion.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

I do think it's passion. I think I want to get it. I really did love the subject. Yeah, I'm not driving you towards an answer of the good one.

SPEAKER_06 33:32

That's what you want.

SPEAKER_10 33:47

It's his passion.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

Oh man. Must have knees and pretty good. But yeah, it was, I I think uh there is no doubt that I love the subject.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

And I love, and I I really did love um uh teaching high school students. Yeah. And uh and I love seeing that light bulb go on, um, where it was just like, oh man, like I never realized this before. Because I had that moment at some point in my life. And to see that happen in my students was pretty amazing. I loved hearing students say, I want to go study uh biology in college, or they would come back and be guest speakers in my classroom, uh, and just stuff like that. You know, it would be yeah, I mean, I would definitely just be elated with those things. But like I think ultimately it was uh uh my love for learning too and learning about the subject matter and how can I stay current? Like, I didn't want to be the teacher. We all had these teachers that were using the same worksheet that they used when your parents were at that school, and you could tell because it looked like it'd been mimeographed or photo copied over and over and over again, and that's boring, it's safe, you know. I had to take a lot of risks, and there were times where, like, you know, they were like, I don't know if you should be doing that, you know. Yeah, I I've been to the principal's office, yeah. Yeah, and uh ask for permission later, yeah. Oh, there's a lot of those. One time, uh uh I shouldn't say I shouldn't say this. I'm just gonna say it. So like uh I had They're probably not listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a former student uh who went to Manchester University and uh ended up working with on uh the first ever damn removal in the state of Indiana.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

And uh uh he uh was in class and uh he texted me, and I never usually checked my phone in class, but it kept buzzing. And I it was in the middle of my AP environmental science class, and I looked at my phone and it said, uh, hey, we're taking this dam down right now. Uh and I forgot to tell you, he's like, any chance you can get out here, and and I was just like, Oh my gosh, I don't want to miss this. So I told my students, I was like, don't ever tell anyone this, ever. But I had a spare van key from our like short bus key, and we and my room had a greenhouse out the back, so we snuck out of school, stole, borrowed the school van, yeah, and drove right to the Eel River, and we met with like archaeologists, biologists, hydrologists watching this dam get torn down. That is awesome. And I didn't tell anyone, and I just prayed that like I didn't get that.

SPEAKER_06 36:55

It was a great day.

SPEAKER_03 36:56

It was a great day. And I would do it all over. That's Miss Frizzle's medical. Yeah, and and I and the kids were freaked though. You know, they were like, What? We're doing what you know. I go, I don't, I'm gonna be straight with you. I don't have her permission. I'm not gonna sign any shit for you right now. I am really scared right now. I would be a horrible person if I didn't take you. Yeah, and uh it was magical and it was awesome. So that is fucking sweet. That is cool. That's that shit.

SPEAKER_09 37:26

Yeah, no, I bet those students are still telling still telling that story today. Remember that time we stole the piggybugs? Yeah, yeah. Like, did that did we really do that, Travis? Yeah, like that was that a thing. That's really cool. That's very sweet.

SPEAKER_08 37:39

Yeah, what a great story. Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_06 37:42

Well, I I guess I gu I guess I'm just gonna keep piggybacking off this because I I just I I just like that. Uh wait, hold on. Let me get my well, let me get my wits about me here. So I get so the culture, you've had the culture. It took about five years to kind of get your culture, understand, understand the students, understand teaching. So I understand the idea from like the educational standpoint, like being in the classroom and then also borrowing a bus and taking uh going outside the classroom. But what's where did all the uh like the other stuff come from of for you? Like the like you're not just spending time building curriculum in the classroom. You're you're doing polar bear runs. You're the firehouse is something that he did. It was a music venue. Yeah. I I can't were you one of the founding board members of it?

SPEAKER_03 38:37

I think a lot of it is just being open and receptive um to some of the things that uh are presented to you. Uh uh Zach Hawkins and Josh White and Zach's dad. Um, I don't know if you guys know Hawkins Family Farm in North Manchester. They do those pizza nights coming soon everywhere. Pizza nights. They're pretty cool. Uh and Sean has done some of those quite a few. So uh they wrote this$35,000 grant to convert an old firehouse uh in downtown North Manchester to a live music venue. And the idea was is that they would um have uh local Fort Wayne bands like the Blue Moon Boys. I don't know if you remember that name. It's a one from way back in the day. Uh they were the big band in Fort Wayne and then have a local uh high school group open up for that band. And they were just gonna do it every weekend for one summer. Well, it went so well that they decided to like keep it going, but not do it like every weekend, but do it like once a month, and just have like a uh a band come in. The idea was to get uh high school kids or these or anyone really who wanted to start a band to just kind of see what it was like to do a live show. And the kids ran the sound and they uh it was all fundraises with no there was no charge for any show, there was no um uh no drinks or anything like that. It was just like there for the music. And so uh when Zach and Josh graduated high school, then they were like, hey Jabin, do you want to take over and book some shows? And they asked me because I had booked a couple shows at the high school. Um and uh in uh 2000 we did a we called them our little coffee houses, and it was just like an open mic. And they'd never done that before in the high school, and I just couldn't believe it. I just thought like this is crazy, there's so much talent here, there's gotta be something for these kids to do, and it went over really, really well. So we booked a couple um touring bands and they played in our cafeteria and our and and and our uh auditorium, so I had some experience, but uh it was the firehouse that really kept me, I think, in Manchester. Like because it was just so unique, and I was bringing in bands from all over the world. We had a band from Japan called Green Milk from the Planet Orange. Look them up, man. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_09 41:12

When I'm editing this, that's you know I'm gonna be looking at it.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

That band was wild, but then yeah, I'd gotten really lucky. I'd called this random booking agent and uh had asked about another band, and he said, Hey, we're gonna give you a chance on this band. But if you he said basically, if you fuck it up, that the this is over. Wow. And we had uh a band called the Busy Signals, and I had just seen them open for uh the shins at Shuba, uh Shuba's in Chicago, so I knew that was a big deal, and then uh a band called I'm the World Trade Center. Now this was in 2000, so it was before all the yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And so uh I was so nervous. It was the first time I had like uh a writer and like a contract and like all of these rules, and uh I just signed everything without reading any of it, uh and sent it back because I was like, I just want to make this happen. Uh we we uh contacted our local uh businesses to see if they could donate some stuff. So we had a they had one, they don't uh car recyclers donated a car and we gave a car away. Toby Tobias won it, and I think it broke down, and like it was in the church parking lot across the street for like a year. Yeah, uh, but it was still fun. And then that booking agent said uh the show was great, the bands loved it. We fed the bands, we also got the bands a hotel room, and that was a big deal. So they always got a guarantee, even though there was no door, and then they got a hundred percent of their merch. And so nobody's getting paid at the firehouse, just except for the bands. And so that booking agent then told other bands who told and those bands that played the firehouse on that show told their friends, and it just the door just it was like the floodgates opened, and we were getting these national acts that were uh crazy. And was this going on simultaneously while you were teaching? Yeah, so there were times where I would like uh I would do a show, um, I would take the band out to the bar usually after I would get home around two and then have to go home and teach the show. Yeah, I'm not sure how I did it, but it was like once a month. It was once a month, yeah, you know, so it was like I knew it was gonna be rough. I mean, those days could have been like movie days or totally worth it. Hey, you guys are gonna work on this worksheet.

SPEAKER_07 43:36

Those would have been good AI would have an AI back then, that would have been a different you probably wouldn't have been in as impactful, I think.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

No, I don't think I could have. Like, and I do appreciate the time. Like, I you you were like basically thrown into. I remember I asked the department chair, like, where's the curriculum for this? And they're like, they handed me this big three ring binder that. Was like, I mean, I'm like, I'm not reading this. So basically you get a textbook and you just kind of like go through it. So you have this idea of like what you want to teach, but like and kind of what the state wants you to teach. But back then it was just kind of like hey, you pick how you teach it. Yeah. And I I only wanted to teach the way that I um I felt would be ways that students would get it. But also I like learned throughout those first five years and ten years really, like to adapt to different learning styles. Not everybody was into like exactly what I was doing. So like I would differentiate things for different classes and for different learning styles. And it wasn't always like a big show. Like there were times where um uh I would do projects for those kids who just really did like to read or didn't like to speak, or the kids who did like the kind of the show boatie kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_09 45:01

So when did it when did you realize that you were actually getting through and like making an impact?

SPEAKER_03 45:06

And I think when I saw those students like go on and want to study it in college, you know, like or they I would get feedback, you know, students yeah, they were brutal, you know. They would tell you suck. But like I uh I would often hear like this is the first time I ever like science. Or I would say 90% of people going into biology didn't like biology. And I think at that time too, um, in the early uh or late 90s, early 2000s, like it w it wasn't there was still a lot of those old teachers that were just handing out worksheets, you know, and yeah, they we had show show a video.

SPEAKER_06 45:50

Yeah, just like gave you every opportunity to not give a shit.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

I mean, and that's kind of the old school. So like maybe it was good timing too. I came in at a time where like I was different, I was weird, I tried to be funny, yeah. Um, I didn't take it too seriously.

SPEAKER_09 46:06

But then it had to feel even better when you realized that you were like what you were doing was working. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:12

What's that feeling like when you've spent I imagine that it took quite a few years to hear back from a student that followed that through into college and out of college. What's that feeling like of knowing that you've impacted a soul like that?

SPEAKER_03 46:28

It it feels uh uh uh rewarding, obviously, but also uh I was proud, you know. I was proud of those people for making it through those moments. So like it was it was uh not like I don't want to say like some sort of like proud dad moment, but but that's the only thing, yeah. Proud teacher moment, yeah, where you're just like holy cow, like the this this is working. That's that'd be so fucking sweet.

SPEAKER_08 46:55

Yeah, it's like whether you consider this important or not, but like legacy, and I think a legacy of you know, sharing your joy for whatever it is you do, and you know, other people can find joy in that, and then they keep going, and then just your legacy is the education, is the joy, is that fire, and I think that's something to be very proud of, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_09 47:22

Still still getting us burning. Yeah, yeah. Patrick's you're still under Patrick's still under the wing. And I felt that a little bit.

SPEAKER_08 47:37

I went and uh had some geodes and stuff unopened, and I brought them to our family Christmas party, and I had my nephews and niece, you know, help cut them and then open them up. And just to see the joy on their faces and the excitement was just like I feel like uh this is really cool, and I'm doing something cool for them, and it feels really good. And then especially when, you know, seems like James might be a little more interested than the other kids, and he'll come back and he'll be like, Hey, you know, can we open this one? Like, hell yeah, we can open this one. Cool, Uncle Travis! But we're gonna forget that ever. Yeah, and that's that's a pretty amazing thing. Yeah, and that's what I I hope that that is uh my legacy. Just I hope they you know remember me for how cool and uh fun and and they want to do the same thing for their kids. I have no doubt.

SPEAKER_09 48:34

They open a cool rare one, and Patrick's like, oh, that one's pretty boring. I'll get that out of here. I'll take that little kid.

SPEAKER_06 48:46

Uh you touched on a little bit of curriculum and kind of how you build that. And in 2010, I believe, you won an award. Mary Leigh, Leah's Lay's award. Mary Lee, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

Mary Lee's or no, uh the Howard Michaud Award. Is that the one you were talking about?

SPEAKER_06 49:03

Let me pull up my notes. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. See if I'm right here. Oh, so many awards. Howard Michad, you won the award, but in 2010, you joined Mary, whatever, master's program environmental sciences. And then what what I found so this dude lived in a van while he was taking that in the Indiana Dunes, is where you did your research. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 49:27

Well, yeah, part of it. Uh, it was that was a really cool opportunity. So Goshen College has um a campus, it's kind of on pause right now, which is a really big bummer, but they had a master's program, it was a year-long master's program. So I asked the school if I could take a year off and get this master's in environmental education, and you just go um on to it's called Mary Lee Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College, and it's located in uh near Wolf Lake, Indiana, just north of like Columbia City. So there's like a there's a great place for birding too. And they have a really cool bird banding program. If you guys have ever have you guys ever done bird banding?

SPEAKER_06 50:07

We tried. We tried back to Saw Owls, yeah, Mary Gray, but we didn't catch any.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Oh yeah. You should go sometimes where you're just doing songbirds in the morning because it is like to to hold a bird in your hand is like quite an amazing experience. And to also just like take the data on it. I mean, you there's so much. There's a guy by the name of Peter Pyle. Do you know this name? He uh came up with this whole system of uh determining like the age uh of the bird based on like feather, um all the different like differences in their feathers. So you pull the feathers out and like you look at like the third feather in and the fourth feather down, and like it's I don't even know it, because it's just so crazy. But like you're take you're working with experts, and so I work with some experts there to um help band birds, and they've been doing it for uh geez, I don't know, maybe 15 years now. That's really a cool program. They set up these missed nets and then birds fly into it and they get down. And sometimes it's like you're trying so hard to get these, like the oh man, the hooded warblers, they get in there and then they freak out so they spin around and you cut you can't cut the net, you know. You just have to very painstakingly take apart all that stuff while you're trying to like keep the bird calm because its heart rate is racing and you're like, Don't die on me.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

So uh yeah. So, anyways, I took the a year off to get that um degree, and that was really cool. And then because of that um experience there, I met Kim Swift, who was working at the dunes. She was applying for a grant through the National Park Foundation, and she said, Hey, would you like to um help write curriculum for the dunes? And I said, Sure. And I said, Well, I live in North Manchester, that's a two-hour drive. I said, Do you have any housing? And she said, No. And I said, Well, can we figure something out? She goes, Hey, would you like to be the campground host at the Dunes campground? Yes. I was like, Yes, yes. So I borrowed a camper actually and uh lived on the Dunes campground uh for the summer and then did research. And that was such a cool experience because I got to visit all these different departments. Like I hung out with the wetlands crew one day, the invasive crew one day, um, the guy that was working on um the uh uh uh carner blue butterfly uh that was an endangered species. They think it's not even there anymore, which is crazy. These uh endangered species called pitcher plants. This guy named Neil is such a cool dude. Uh and so basically I was looking at like all these different things and like what could we um uh study that's easy, that's gonna be there for uh a long time uh uh and also collect data on. So I I focused on the Oriental bittersweet problem at the Indiana Dunes, which is an invasive uh species. There's an American bittersweet, but the Oriental just basically just like takes over and goes crazy. So yeah, another invasive species, yeah, right. So yeah, so that was a fun experience, you know. And plus being the campground house was like super cool, you know. Yeah, everybody was pretty chill. One night though, there was a storm. I had to like go around to like all these campgrounds, and there's have you ever been to the Dunes campground? Like it's not at the state park, it's different. The one at the national park is called Dunewood, it's in Beverly Shores, and it's really freaking cool. It's really small. There's like loops, but then there's also walk-in sites, and the walk-in sites are badass. Uh, so I was walking through the um the uh the walk-in sites, and uh I see a fire, so I'm like, gotta tell this guy there's a storm coming, and he is buck ass naked. Just sitting by himself next to the fire. I was like, hey, hey, buddy. He's like, sit down and join me, friend. So I sat down and it was great. Yeah, I said, Hey man, I'm sorry I would, but uh, I have a job to do. And uh so uh I said just want to let you know the storm's coming in. He's like, I can feel it. I didn't ask him where he could feel it, but uh yeah, it went on. That was a fun experience. It's definitely a good time.

SPEAKER_08 54:33

I feel like that would be a dream job for Patty.

SPEAKER_06 54:35

Dude, I would fucking absolutely love it. Like I would have sat down with that guy, no problem. Like you would have taken your clothes off at the time. Let me go grab this cup of coffee. Dude, honestly, I was hoping your story didn't end with him being that guy. Like, I because I'm definitely vibing with the idea of like solo camping night out in the walk and you know, the walk-in sight. So you know people aren't coming down there after about eight o'clock. You should be good. Fucking butt-naked out there. Uh dude, that's that's all me. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 55:09

I mean, he loved life. Fuck yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_06 55:12

If you're doing that, yeah, you are most certainly loving life. There's no qualms with that. He wasn't, there's no I don't think he's worried about taxes. There's no shame. There's no taxes.

SPEAKER_07 55:24

Yeah, this guy's living it, dude.

SPEAKER_09 55:27

Damn. So when you say walking, how like how far are we walking? Not far. Okay. Yeah, at all.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

So you could but people get freaked because they hear walking, they're like, oh, I mean, I can't do that. I was kind of hoping it was usually available. Yeah, you hope they're they're they're they're better than that. That's cool.

SPEAKER_06 55:44

Well, the whole area, how big is the dunes?

SPEAKER_03 55:46

What's the oh it's like from Gary, Indiana, all the way to Michigan City. It's it's ginormous. That is ginormous.

SPEAKER_06 55:54

But the national lakeshore is just that very kind of a smaller specific area. No, it c it covers all of that.

SPEAKER_03 56:00

It does, and that the the Dunes State Park is only the little sliver like right in the middle, right up 49.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

That you T-bone into. But yeah, there's pockets of the National Lakeshore. I mean, there's so much about the dunes that you don't even know about. No, you're right. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 56:16

That's fucking sweet.

SPEAKER_08 56:17

I have yet to be to the dunes, and these guys just tell me it's trash all the time.

SPEAKER_09 56:22

I do not. I don't say that the dunes are trash. I have a blast, right?

SPEAKER_06 56:27

It is that I well, one I did not know it was that long. I'm just talking about the idea that in that one area it's there's the uh reactor or whatever that is, yeah. There's the industry that's right outside. Neighborhood right outside of that's a little bit on the crummier side. There's a prison right down the road from there. I mean, there's it's you know that's a cool plant. So it is kind of strange. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Yeah, it's a coal-fired power plant. A lot of people think it's the nuclear reactor. It's decommissioned or it will be soon. Yeah. Uh, but that cool that's a cooling tower, and there's only five feet of water in that thing. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:06

That is such a fucking dude. I actually don't mind it all that much just because it's there's a strange, like awe-inspiring to see something that fucking big.

SPEAKER_08 57:16

It's huge.

SPEAKER_06 57:16

Dude, it is huge.

SPEAKER_08 57:17

Do they dump that water back into Lake Michigan? That's why it's there. And now, is there a different sort of uh ecology right in that area?

SPEAKER_03 57:28

Yeah, we were talking about warmer, so like you'll see a lot of fishermen right now.

SPEAKER_08 57:32

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's a place in yeah, in what was it?

SPEAKER_09 57:36

All the power plants in Florida. That's where the manatees go when it gets cold. Yeah, yeah. Below 68 degrees, they die.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Yeah, there's a nuclear reactor uh called Turkey Point uh near uh uh Homestead, Florida, where they have the largest population of American crocodile because and they hired a guy there. There's a guy that's his job to manage that population. So this is far more common than I would have thought.

SPEAKER_09 58:02

Yeah, yeah, because I read about there's a shark nursery in Israel that is on the Mediterranean Sea, and same thing, it's like the only place they breed is there's warm water outside of a plant.

SPEAKER_06 58:12

Yeah, it's wild. What do you think it takes to get somebody into biology?

SPEAKER_03 58:18

Oh man. I think biology is just so huge that what I notice for my students is that some get immediately attracted to things like birds. Like, oh man, I never realized that this could be so cool. Some people hate the birds, but they love genetics.

SPEAKER_09 58:39

Who are they? You'd be shocked how many people do not like birds.

SPEAKER_06 58:45

Oh, I'm not shocked. My wife's one of them. She wouldn't give a fuck about birds, dude. Not a single fuck, dude. I try to get her to come out with me all the time. She'll come out and I'll stop at the first bird taking taking a photo. I'd turn around and she is three quarters, like she walked faster. Yeah. I'm not doing this today, baby. I'll be back in the car, dude. Nah, not having them. It doesn't surprise me because people just well, one, I think it's because people don't look around. They don't like people are not aware of their surroundings, nor nor have they ever been. Like, I don't think that birds were generally like a like a give a shit type of thing. Yeah. But it I just I anymore, I just don't think people have enough gumption to just pay attention to what's going on around them. There's we're not just on our phones, but so curious about we're so eager to get to the next thing that there's no like time in between. People don't know how to fill that time with just nothing.

SPEAKER_05 59:44

Right.

SPEAKER_06 59:44

You know? Like even me, I go out birding, but I'm doing it with a camera, so it becomes competition to me. Yeah, right. It's not just me being in nature like uh the where the robin knows where or what the robin knows where you just sit. Yeah, you just that's that ain't me. I'm a much like my heart, yeah, my heart rate would go faster if I sat.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:05

Unless, of course, it's after a backpack betrayal.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:08

But you found but you found that that works for you, and and I think you're still out there, and I think it still counts. You know, yeah. No shit, Jamin.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:18

It most certainly counts. I'm not discrediting myself right now. Are you kidding me? You shit me at 41. I'm out there birding like a motherfucker, dude. I'm taking it, dude.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:29

Have you got a wood duck in it?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:31

No, no, I haven't. Wait, you haven't seen a wood duck? Well, no, I've seen so so what what happened was, and I'm glad because in this right now. I'm glad you said it. Because now we're in the birding section of all these questions that I have. But no, uh, we started we started that birding competition last year. I got a wood duck last year. This year, I was really interested after getting my fucking dick kicked in by Brad in this competition. He did. I will I I've I thought it'd be interesting to take all the knowledge because last year it was our first years. Like there was so I mean, I had a camera that had a half a battery. Like this thing would go out, like I'd go out and like you've been to Eagle Marsh. I'd get down the main trail to the barn, and my camera better be dead as a fucking doornail.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:13

That's part of the reason because we'd be together and I would keep going and he'd be going back to the car. I would have to I would have to leave.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:20

So there's so many different things I I know what to look for. I've seen birds here, so I'll know where to go. So I just thought it'd be really interesting. On New Year's Eve when they were all here, I deleted uh my Merlin bird list. I deleted everything I had on uh eBird, and I just started fresh this January. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I just thought it'd be kind of fun to see see how see what I see the see what that experience was like doing it a second time.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:45

Has it been exciting?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:46

Dude, I'm not gonna lie, it has been riveting. I bet. I've I've really enjoyed just not stumbling into some of the things like knowing where to go, knowing where to walk, remembering, because I, you know, you have the notes and stuff, so where what pond to go to, you know. It's been a it's been a real pleasure. And I'm I'm I like last year I ended at 111. Yeah. This year I'm at right now, I'm at 107 for the year. Awesome.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:12

So it's uh it's just been like more fun. Have we talked about rank, birding rank?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:18

Oh, I'm not nearly I'm not near Brad by any means, but I I also bought Brad's like I had an old camera that my dad bought me when Sebastian was born. Yeah, but it was it's a bridge camera, it didn't have it just wasn't all it's not all that great for this. Yeah. And uh so I bought Brad's camera at the very end of the year, just gearing up for this year. And that make it makes a difference when you can take 60 photos in 10 seconds rather than one photo every 30 seconds. Because that bird's a half mile away before my camera was done shuttering, dude. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:54

And also, it it helps to have a good pair of binoculars. Oh yeah. I mean, I had a I got a pair when I was 15 uh for my uh for my 15th birthday. I very vividly remember they were bushnels, and they I had them forever, and I even had them, I mean, forever, and I just accepted that that's what that I would see. And then uh I had my brother got this new pair of binoculars, and he said, You should try these. And it was like, what the fuck? Yeah, what have I been I have missed so much?

SPEAKER_08 1:03:33

I used Brad's a couple weeks ago, and I was I can the field of view is so wide, the colors are vibrant. Mine, it's just I don't know. It's like I'm looking through a telescope trying to find these birds.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:47

That's and even though I like I I always have mine, even though I have my camera, I always have my bins because I can see so much better. Yeah, sure. Way better than with my camera.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:57

Yeah. It's been a it's it's been a treat though. Uh a big treat. Uh where where's your uh where's your life list, Ad? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:05

Um at 297. 297? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh I know. It should be higher, right? I am not here to judge a lifeless.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:13

I don't really know. I I I I I think that most of your birds are not like photographed. It's sound, it's sound and sight. Sight. Do you draw? Uh no. No, you're not one of them guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:26

Yeah, I do maybe a rough sketch if I like a sketch. If I forget some you know, part of it, like you know, an eye ring or like uh uh you know some sort of you know distinguishing features.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:37

It's always that it's always that eye ring.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:39

Yeah, that eye ring, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:41

How long did it take you to get uh to the point where you were confident in going out there with because I think part of the reason I like the camera is because I have zero confidence that I'm gonna know a fucking thing. Like if I was going out there with no camera, everything is a house sparrow. Yeah. Yeah. Like what the fuck do I know?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:03

I I would say just experiencing and hanging out with other birders, you know, and and having that discussion, like, oh my god, I is that a white-eyed vireo. I think it is, and then they confirm it, you know. Oh yeah, and so that you know, going birding with you, Fitzpatrick is great because then we're we're at the same spot where we can say, like, oh my gosh, look at that, or like we could question each other too and not get all pissy about it. You know, and also the Merlin app is just so crazy.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:32

It's like people can't believe that it's a like they don't understand what you tell them when you say like it'll recognize a call and tell you what it is.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:40

Oh, I I I get past that immediately. I start there and I'm like, just you got your phone on you? Just go ahead and download that puppy. I'll show you what it does. Yeah, like that's that's where I go.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:49

Then you go, whipper, well.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

Yeah, and then it catches it. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild. And there'll be times where I will question myself and then I'll pull out Merlin to get a confirmation. Oh, yeah. That's what I like to do. That's yeah, I'm like, I know that's what it is. I always like to guess first. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:05

I don't want you know someone just like tell me what it is. Right. Just funner because you learn that way, because you'll be wrong and you'll be like, ah, okay, no. Absolutely. You realize why.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:14

But yeah, that's Chad's given me some of the best tips to ID like a goldfinch that flies on like a J pattern, stuff like that. So even when you when you see them flying up, that's goldfinch. Like you know instantly. Right. That's that's why it's really cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:27

Where they like flutter and drop and flutter and they usually make their call as they're going up.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:32

Yeah, yeah. So like going with Chad, I've learned so much.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:36

That's my uh nephew's favorite bird right now. It's a goldfinch. Yeah.

unknown 1:06:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:40

It's a humble choice. So cute. Yeah, I took my nephew out birding last weekend for the first time. He was super excited because my brother, Sean, got him a uh a couple bird feeders. Oh, yeah. And he's been seeing Goldfinch and Cardinal. Oh, Cardinals, what it what it is. His new favorite bird. Goldfinch was it. Now it's now it's Cardinal. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 1:06:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:00

Everybody goes through the cardinal phase, okay?

SPEAKER_09 1:07:02

Well, it's a badass bird. Oh my gosh. They're beautiful. Fuck yeah. Like right now, when they're they're tough, like every they're just they're going at it. Yeah. They look badass.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:12

Yeah, they do look badass. What's this uh Chad's a longtime uh guest of this podcast? I think he's been on more than anyone. Uh yeah. He was on a season recap uh birding uh twice two bird bird twice. Three times. Three times. I'd be four times. Oh fuck shit. It might be. It's good. Damn. What's this competition you guys have going?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:33

Why are you guys so uh you know at each other's throats? Well, I think part of the fun thing about um uh being a teacher is uh you messing with students. You know, you got you gotta just have some fun. Yeah, you know, I would tell some lies sometimes just to get you know get some you know question like what is he serious? Like what's going on? And so I loved I I made all my students sign up for eBird. Um I made them uh create a you know Cornell account and uh five bonus points or something? No, it was like a requirement. You are all burned population.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:23

That's using your power.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:25

Well, we would go out and then we would enter in our data after we cover and we would just walk around the school sometimes, and I'm like, there we are. Yeah, no, no, but it was fun, and and surely some of them have just you know, or 90% of them probably have like a lot of people. Maybe, but maybe not anyway. It's about the 10%. But it was great because you could like pull up like lots of different data, and like there's a uh a wonderful home page that says like you can type in the county. So I would always type in Wabash and show them stuff from Wabash County, like here are the birds that are you know seen right now. Um, and uh here's the one from Conciasco County, and I tend to bird more a little bit more in Conciasco County because I'm closer to that line, you even though I live like all the all my hotspots are are a little bit more north than they are south. And so, like, I was higher on the list in Conciasco County. So for a while I was like the top three, four, five birder, and Chad was always right there. And so I pulled up and they were like, Mr. Berth, well, you're so famous! Like, this is amazing. I was like, Yeah, I go, but you see this guy right here, Chad Fitzpatrick. I go, I hate him. Uh and they're like, What, really? I go, yeah, man. I go, look, he's like close, he's trying to beat me. I go, uh, there are times where he will surpass me, and there are other times where I will be uh uh above him, but it is a constant rate. And they're like, Do you know this guy? And I'm like, not really. And they would be like, Well, we hate him too.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:55

And it was great to have this collective hate, yeah, for a person. No, it brings people together, hatred, right? It's nice that it's Chad, that there's a generation of kids I could be like, Chad Fitzpatrick, like fucking hate.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:13

What they didn't know is that I don't know how this even started, but uh I decided one year to ride my bike every day uh to school. Uh uh, didn't matter what weather it was. Oh man. So like, and I I did it every single day. But I also decided to stop and take a picture in front of Chad Fitzpatrick's house every day on my bike ride to school. And sometimes Chad would come out with a coffee. It was really sweet. Sometimes we would do selfies with him and his kids together. Yeah, so like I would have these sweet moments with Chad like in the morning, and then I would talk about how much I hated him hours later.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:56

That's awesome. That is awesome. Do you know? Did you hear that? I've I've surpassed Chad and life list. No way. What's yours now? 283. Whoa, that's awesome. In it in just over a year. It's been a crazy year.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:10

Dude, but you went to Costa Rica. Have you gone to Corpus Christi? Corpus Christi is like huge.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:14

I don't mind keeping the North American birds on that list, but I do think when like there's a c like there's there's a difference. It's kind of unfair. When you add Costa Rica, no, it's not unfair. I'm totally into that. But there's there seems like there's two lists going on. Yeah, I I think so. Maybe that's also just me being competitive and trying to bring you down. You know what I mean? A couple numbers.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:35

Well, but yeah, but I can but whenever you whenever you do get a little cocky, I'll just throw those numbers back in. Don't forget, yeah. And don't forget what happened last year, Ben.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:46

My ass whipped, dude. God damn, you did that.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:51

108.97 at something one year. This motherfucker, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

You gotta go to the Everglades, dude. Like I took my kids, uh, they had been begging me to go uh for years, and I told them I'll take them. And I hadn't been back in six years. So the last student trip I took was right before the pandemic. It was crazy. Like we got back from the trip in 2020, and then school shut down like two weeks later. So it was like we squeaked it out, which was great. So uh I determined that la uh this past February was the great uh the best year to go. Uh my kids are at an age where they're just into it, you know, and I knew they would be like really like excited. But we got like 76 species in three in three days, you know. And it's like that's that's another like we man, yeah. So February's the month to go. I would say uh we were a little early. Um, we were just catching like palm warblers, um, yellow rumped warblers, the stuff that we're starting, you know, we're seeing right now. Yeah, they were there. I did get a black and white warbler. I think if we would have gone maybe three weeks later, it would have been a little bit better, but it just worked out that time with school.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:06

There's a place in the Everglades that has just been finished. The Flamingo. The Flamingo Hotel. Oh, yeah. Do you know about this?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:14

I do. We visited it. You did? Yeah, yeah. We were right there, and it was it was cool, but it was also weird. It's like really expensive. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:23

There's not many of them. I don't know. Yeah, pretty limited. Wow. But there's the flamingo campground too.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:29

Yeah, I'll give you way better places to stay. You know what's really?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:32

Yeah. Well, the reason I was we did the story about is because it's it it's like like hurricane proof, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:38

Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a miracle, but it's for rich people. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:44

You give me the good places. Well, it sounds like we're gonna take a busted knees and pretty trees short for this ride.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:14:00

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:08

What does uh what what uh you know what what does a day in uh in outdoors nature look like for you? Like what what is if if I set you out, I said we're going outside, I'm putting you in it, everything is the best thing you've ever had. Well, like right now, perfect time. What's right now is the migration. Well, that might not be his answer. Brad, if I could put you anywhere in nature.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:33

But you said you said put you out in the best time. Right now is the best time.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:36

Well, if that's what he thinks, I don't know. What will just what's the perfect day out in the out in out outside?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:42

I feel like I have two answers. I have like an Indiana answer and I have like an Everglades answer, which is because I've spent so much time in the Everglades. Um so I'll give you my Indiana answer first. So uh there's a spot that uh my friend Jerry owns uh that is uh just uh I cannot believe it is in Indiana. It is a uh fin, which is uh wet a type of wetland where you've got land with like running water underneath that land with land underneath that. Okay, the fin is next to a marsh, which is next to a temperate deciduous forest, which is next to a successional dune on an oak woodland. Okay, and this is all in 62 acres of pure gold. And I love like going there in the morning because you're getting all kinds of different species, uh, especially this time of year, but you're also hiking up this amazing elevation on top of this successional dune, like literally like inches underneath this the topsoil is like sand, like pure sand. There's also a really cool geological. Um actually no. Uh the sand is is more up on top. The water is is moving from this uh basically kind of moving a little bit downhill from a uh a marsh pond uh through those layers of the soil into a creek. Oh, okay. So it's a really unique um uh situation. You've got to have that incline for that that fin to be there. Uh so it's yeah, I didn't even mention the creek right there, too, which is crazy. And on the other side of the creek, there's a really neat geological feature called a came. Do you guys know what a came is? Brad did uh a few hours ago. Sorry.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:40

Sorry, sorry, Mama Greer. Oh man. That was my internal monologue. It was just waiting to say something. I'm sorry about that. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:52

I you can't I really love that. Yeah, spelled with K-A-M-E. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and so it's like when uh so in North Manchester, North Wabash, South Kasyasu County, that's where that Wisconsin glacier came down and then you know receded and came down. And so there's this successional uh that's why the kind of successional dune is there, but there's also these moraines. So the Packard and Moraine, if you go on uh some of those roads, you'll it's they're very hilly. Yeah, and it kind of goes all the way across to Fort Wayne, too. Uh but uh uh when the ice melts, sometimes there would be a hole in the top of the ice, so sediment would go down and then it would fill up that hole, and then this the ice would melt and it would leave just this mound, but it's not big, it's like uh maybe uh in uh circumference like 15 feet, you know. But it's maybe it's really cool. This is also on this dude's land.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:58

On this dude's land, yeah. God, so basically it's like laying down this the cylinder of sediment. Yeah, and then yeah, yeah, ice cream. It looks more kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:12

It's cool, it's still there, like somebody didn't knock it down yet. Oh, it's crazy. I don't think they know.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:16

I don't think they know. But there's farmland all around it, but the only reason it's preserved is because it's not farmable. Okay. Because of that fin. The fin is really so if you jump on the uh the land in the fin, it's squishy.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:30

That's what I was picturing where the where it looks like solid. Yeah, I've seen videos of I thought this was more like in Scotland, Ireland area.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:38

Yeah, I know. We yeah, we have them here.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:40

Like you're jumping on like a waterbed or yeah, yeah, right. That's it. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:45

Really high uh acidic soil PD. Yeah. So going out there in the morning, and then uh uh then there's a heron rookery on the Eel River that I like to visit. You guys know what a heron have you ever seen a heron rookery? Oh yeah, those are so cool. So like uh and just like heading out there, counting the birds in the rookery, seeing what else is around that spot, and uh that's like my perfect nature. Yeah. Especially like when the sun's coming up, you know, and it's got that you got the it's kind of a little chilly still. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:19

I had a question uh that I always think I'm gonna ask a birder, but then it never like makes it into the final cut, I suppose. But would you rather go birding during the morning glow of the sun or the evening you know sunset? That that final push of birds. Where would you rather be? Where would you rather be on trail? Which one?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:42

Yeah, man, that's tough. I would usually go with the morning, uh, but this year I had a magical moment out on this guy's property uh where uh I'd gone out and I didn't see a whole lot. I was heading back to my car and there was this the golden hour, right? And then and this was early. I should look at the date uh of this because it was early April. Uh it was like I felt like a hundred golden crown kinglets. Uh-huh. And then uh and then a blue-gray gnat catcher out of the blue, just like popped in. It's the first one I'd seen of the year, and it was making its little sound. And uh and I couldn't find it, and I found it, and it was just like the sun was setting, and all these uh kinglets were doing their thing, and that yeah, that gnat catcher was so that was like a magical moment.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:32

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:33

Yeah, I think it really is like those moments because usually I'm a morning person. I like to hear the birds in the morning and everything. It's very Disney like, but um, well, my house is pretty much overrun by house sparrows now, and the mornings are complete nightmares because that's all I hear from all the birds. And then, but the evenings, you'll just get these. I feel like in the evenings you get these more unique moments.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:00

Like the other day when we were outside of your house. Yeah. We recorded with Dr. Jordan Marshall uh over at Travis's house. It was quite the experience recording, definitely a busted knees experience recording. Yeah. And we walked outside, and Travis was showing me his new additions to his garage, and we were standing there talking about bats because there was a bat flying around. And as we both looked up, this fucking it was almost dark, so we couldn't really make out what it was, but this bird of prey just came down there mid-air, swooped up that fucking bat, and took it to the other side of the neighbor's garage. Awesome. They're like, What the fuck? This is amazing. It was crazy, dude. That's so cool. It was cool as hell. Yeah, Brad, would you rather be out in the nighttime or the dark time or the uh morning time? Evening or morning?

SPEAKER_09 1:21:50

I'm I I tend to end up out there more in the evening. Yeah. And yeah, probably evening. Evening? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:58

Well, depending on your work schedule.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:02

Yeah, and yeah, the lighting conditions. Yeah. Good for pictures.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:07

Yeah. Throughout the years, have you found any certain like uh ecosystems or environments that you've just been drawn to? It seems like you've kind of worked and had experience in many different ones. Yeah. Is there just one that is blowing your mind?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:22

Uh going back to the Everglades is just like that's it is just so cool uh on so many levels. Um and I think it's just maybe it's because I spent so much time there, but I also got to know the people there. Yeah. And um uh I'm a big people person, so uh for me um getting to know what people are doing in those ecosystems and how they're trying to help them is is important. And so uh when I was on these trips with students, uh this would happen almost every trip where I would see someone that looked like a scientist on the side of the road. And we're in the national park, so I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna play it safe. And I would just whip the vans over, and I would like, you know, everyone would who was driving other vans behind me would know, like, okay, something's going on. So we'd all pull over and I was like, hey kids, just stay in the car, let me talk to these people. So I'd get out and I'd be like, Hey, I'm with some students. Are you guys doing anything cool? And it was always something cool. Always. And I got to know um uh lots of people that way, and uh then I pull the kids out of the van. One time there were these folks that were there trying to catch snakes with um fish traps, and they were like trying to use a novel um experience to to do something you know that people have done other ways, and uh it happened to be that these folks had also done research on the um pythons down there too. So we got to learn about pythons, um the snakes, and then the guy goes, Hey, you mind if I show your kids some stuff? And I was like, sure. And he pulls out um this uh pillowcase and it's wiggling, and he reaches in and he pulls out one of those Oscelot um Madagascar chameleons with the eyes, you know, that look like and it was massive. And I was like, Why do you have that? And he goes, Oh, we there was uh a guy who owned a pet store who released them in some avocado fields years ago to like breed them, you know, and he would go collect them and then sell them in a store, but now they've gotten to become a problem, so they go and capture them. I didn't know that those were a problem. Oh, yeah, it was crazy. It's not a huge problem though, but which is great. But then he was like, Hey, we're going out with a Miami zoo later on tonight. Do you guys want to go with us? And I was like, Yes, wow, so it's just like I think again, like being open to those experiences, yeah, yeah, and also learning to like look for those things. Like, I think some people would just drive by and be like, Oh, I wonder what's going on. I'm like, I'm like, no, what's going on? Let's get over there and like find out. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? They just tell me to fuck off and like you know, I'm trying to take a shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:10

That's generally not the experience at a national park, yeah, right. Like those people are willing to be open and share, they're out there for a reason. There's a reason why they got up, drove their asses all the way to a national park, and then they're walking around, you know? They're probably eager to share exactly what they're doing. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:28

It was cool. Those guys said they were like, This is crazy that you stopped because we were just talking about how um our grant has an educational component, and we didn't know how to fulfill that educational component, and bam, we just did it. And then so like they took a bunch of pictures and it ended up in the this guy's book.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:48

Like spot you a little cabin.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:54

Oh, that's awesome. That's really awesome. The I gotta be funny.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:59

That'll be funny because like now, if we all go down there and he'll do that, then we'll come out of the van.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:05

These are my students.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

They smell like weed.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:17

For good reason. Check me out.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:25

Thanks, Brad, for making me the hard hard. Uh so I just have a couple more, one more question, and then I we always we've been trying to end all of our guest episodes with a little bit of a rapid fire five questions. Cool. Uh so the last one I also asked to every one of our guests. We have like we kind of explained to you before, we do a lot of uh guests with conservationists. Um people just trying to build the environment back to what it was or or what it is. And uh I guess what I'm curious about uh just what what kind of gives you hope? Like what in all of your studies and all of your knowledge gives that you can kind of just give us some hope. Lord knows we need it in this climate. Boy.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:15

Do we ever? Um there's uh do you guys know Annie Dillard? Uh she is an author and she wrote a book called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. And uh I used to, I don't know if you remember this, Pat, but like uh I'll give you maybe the background on it. My when I was in college, my one of my professors read this little section uh of her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Uh he he selected uh just a few paragraphs from this uh chapter called Seen and it made a huge impact on me. And I thought to myself, like, I'm gonna read that to my students every I'll read it every class every year. So it didn't matter if you're a freshman or If you're a senior, you heard this story about um someone hiding a penny in a sidewalk and drawing these huge arrows on the on the um uh sidewalk and it would say surprise ahead or money this way, and the person that wrote that there, the author wouldn't ever stick around to see who got the penny, but would get excited because like somebody found this penny. But the idea was who gets excited by a mere penny, you know. And so the point of her story was um finding a healthy poverty and simplicity so that finding a penny literally makes your day. And so um then I so I read that and then I would tell a story about how I was on a uh boat with my uncle who had just gotten uh lake cottage at Tippy Canoe. And I was 15 years old. I'd just kind of gotten into birds, but not really at this point yet. I was more like excited about going up to this uh lake cottage because I'd heard like there was the Tempe dance hall, that there was this. Um, you know, I had this vision like there was gonna be girls and there was gonna be dancing, and there was gonna be speedboats, and I was gonna make out with a girl, you know, and all these things. And I get to my uncle's house, and I mean, I remember that day even driving up from my house in Harvard City, uh uh, because I was just so excited. And we get to my uncle's house, and there's uh no speedboat, there's no jet skis, there's no nothing. And he's like, got this old pontoon that like literally went like 10 miles an hour, right? Yeah, and so uh uh we get on the pontoon, and I remember we go to the sandbar and I do see some ladies, and I get very excited about this, but my cousins, who were very little at the time, decide to drop their swim trunks and start peeing off the side of the boat. And then my aunt is so embarrassed, she pulls up the anchor and we leave the the spot where all the ladies were. You know, I was like, this is yeah, yeah. So uh, so then uh my uncle could tell him bummed out, he's like, let's go over to this area called Grassy Creek. You might see some birds. I hear you like birds. And I at that point was just like whatever. And I was just like sitting on the boat and I was like watching the piers go by, you know, just like it was like watching telephone polls, you know, in the cars or just you know, gazing out the window. And uh and I see on uh the edge of this pier what looked to be a statue of a great blue heron. Oh, yeah. So this is where I get on top of the desk and pretend to be this great blue heron. I remember you remember this one, yeah, yeah. And so uh, but this is all real, this is all true story. So I'm staring at this, I'm depressed, I'm staring at this great blue heron, and I watch the great blue heron jump off the pier and completely submerge itself in the water, and I'm like, dear God, this thing is killing itself.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:07

It's on a suicide mission, and I get it because I'm not making it out of the girl, and I'm gonna, yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:18

And then it like emerged out of the water and it like came up out of the water and landed almost perfectly back onto the pier. But it everything happened in my head like slow motion, like it was like twisting its head, you know, and it was like water was dripping off of it. And I noticed that it had a fish in its mouth, and the fish was kind of like slow motion, like like the end of a football movie, you know, when they're like, Oh, catch the ball. Uh but then it like tilts its head back, and that fish just goes right down its throat, and the whole thing probably took like 10 seconds, but to me it felt like an hour, and I forgot about the speedboat and the girls and all those things. And so that was my penny moment. That was like that was when I thought, like, okay, I've got to try to keep that alive. Yeah, and I haven't always. I mean, there's been some times in my life where I like fuck the penny, you know. But uh, but uh I come back to that story quite a bit in my life and in my head that try that gives me hope is to find joy in the smallest things. Uh I I did a bird hike for Lindenwood um a couple uh weeks ago, and there was this uh woman who's I don't know, she's in her 20s, and she was so excited to see a flicker that and and I it was just brought me so much joy. We she's like, I said, Well, what birds do you want to see? And she was like, I really hope to see a flicker, and we spotted one, and like you would have thought like I gave her a hundred dollars. We've all had those moments, but like that was a great reminder. Like, that gives me hope that people are out there still wanting to do those things.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:05

That's awesome. Yeah, and the flicker's an underrated bird. It's so cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:10

Yeah, they are when they fly and you see those yellow on the window. We got a we were down there at that lob lolly, yeah, and uh got us got a good look at a at a flicker.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:19

Do you ever see the red shafted ones? No, I haven't. Yeah, those are really cool. Yeah, I've been keeping my eye out, but yeah, I haven't seen one in a really long time.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:27

Hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:29

Damn, that was good, dude. Yeah, that was good.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:34

Read that read that book, uh, or at least that chapter, seeing it. I'll write that down after. Yeah, that's fucking cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:41

I will say watching a heron. I've never I didn't know heron just like actually went underwater like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:45

Like I don't know if it did uh for sure, but that's how I remember.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:51

Yeah, you know it's I know those because I've seen twice now a heron get a big one, like a big fish. And it's oh my heart's always racing afterwards. It's so cool to watch. Like that, like that photo up there. Oh, yeah, that was the first one I saw. Oh, yeah, it's full. Yeah, yeah, see its throat. Yeah, that's sweet.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:06

We had we used to go fishing at my grandfather's house in St. Petersburg, Florida. He lived right on a canal, yeah, and there was always a blue heron. We had a song, a family song that we would always sing. But every I know. Oh, I wanted to hear the song. Something about old blue heron knocking on my deck, knocking on my deck, and something like I don't know. We were I was fucking like five.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:28

But that's awesome. Dude, that is awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:30

It was awesome because it was always there, and the whole family will tell you the story was always there, and we would fish, but every other fish, we would just pop back, and the grandfather would take it off the line and then set it on the dock, and the blue heron would be there ever for we'd go down there for two weeks or whatever, and it would be there every day, just chilling with us all day long. Easy me. That was that was like before the kingfisher, and then before the song or the call of the loon, the great blue heron was if you asked me ten years ago what my favorite bird was, that was it. There's something about them. They're super cool. Yeah, because they're also not as cool to me as like the egret, the cattle egret, the great egret. Like I still would take a blue heron.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:14

I like, yeah, same here.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:16

You know, I mean in Costa Rica, every cow pasture had cattle egret everywhere. Yeah, there were so many. And you'd see like it was kind of cool because it'd be a cow with its head down grazing, yeah, and an eager right next to it. Like that's awesome. Plucking worms in the house. That's how they got their name, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:32

It's whatever the cow pulls up out when he's pulling the grass out. I'm not sure it would be. I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:38

I figured either that or worms in the poop.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:41

Could be worms in the poop.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:42

Worms in the poop. All right.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:44

All right, let's do some rapid fire questions in this book. Yeah, that seems like a good good time to get to the other questions. All right, I'm just gonna go through these. I have five of them. Okay. You can answer as I you can answer in one word, okay, but you can answer in lots of words as long as you talk fast as this fucking rabbit. Okay, gotta wrap up. All right, all right. Let's go. Number one, spark bird. What species got you hooked?

SPEAKER_03 1:36:08

Great blue heron, story from before.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:09

Boom. All right, that was easy. Uh, number two, favorite bird of all time.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:13

Great blue heron. God damn!

SPEAKER_06 1:36:16

I just love it.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:17

Oh, that's the fucking cool could be the answer to every question.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:20

Yeah, now I'm now I gotta go back to the old drawing block or whatever the fuck people go back to. Most underrated Midwest backyard species.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:29

Cardinal, northern cardinal. It's just so cool. And it's just like one time when we were in the Everglades, I'll tell you this really fast, and the slaves like, quick, get over here. It's a bird. And I thought it was gonna be a painted button because I was really excited to see one. And I didn't see one. She's like, quick, quick, quick, it's gonna go. And it was a cardinal, and we were all like, Oh, what? Yeah, but she was so excited.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:47

Male or fee male or female.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:48

Yeah, it was it was male. No, which one's the most underrated.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:52

Oh or which one would do you think's prettier? I we have a we have a split decision among the cards.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:59

So that's where I'm at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:01

Depends on the season. Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:02

I mean, dude, the winter season, when you see a cardinal just sitting up there on a tree with no leaves, it is stunning. With the white backdrop, do come all. I think the females look really cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:12

Like in the favorite bird, especially when they have a little bit of like a brown tune, like a like a golden brown.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:19

I'm with you. How many lifers on your lifelist shit? We've already gone to this. Fuck, man.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:26

Maybe three more. That's a shoot. Uh can anybody think of a better rapid fire question?

SPEAKER_07 1:37:31

Bumper, dumper, or bidet.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:34

Yeah, bumper, dumper, or bidet. Bidet. Bidet? Yeah. Well, we got a portable bidet. We'll give you when before you leave. Yeah, yeah. Nice, dude. You can use it. You won a prize.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:43

I have a prize. And I love I love it. Oh, yeah, yeah. A portable bidet or a bidet. Yeah. Yeah, I got a real one.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:49

I have I have a this one you can shove right in that bottle and give it the old spritzer. I love spritz.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:55

Brad's used it a couple times. I have not used uh used mine yet.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:59

I got a rapid fire. Go ahead. What was 295, 296, and 297? The last three.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:06

Oh, um uh Red Whisker Bull Bull. What? Which was a weird one in uh the Everglades. Um and uh that was the most recent one. Oh my gosh. I've never heard of it. It's it's it's from it's weird because it's actually a Chinese bird, but like they've uh acclimated to life in the Everglades. So I saw it down there, which was pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:34

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:34

Oh my gosh. And 298, I'm totally blanking on 298 and 296.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:38

That's a good enough. The red whisker. Yeah, that's a good enough one. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:42

Chad lost his mind on that one, which made me really happy. He was like, What? Is he like that?

SPEAKER_06 1:38:48

Is that is that ABA? Uh, yeah. I loved hearing those stories. When he got the snowy owl, I think he mentioned something to you because he was telling us the story shortly after. Oh, yeah. Brad and I have started, we got into that competition, but I gotta say, we kept it a lot more PG than you were. I've never once talked shit about Brad. But I've definitely never done it in front of the classroom of people. Yeah, I mean, Sebastian and Ashley's a little different. I walk up and say, motherfucker, dude. So I like it. It's awesome. You know what? A little competition never hurt nobody. Yeah. Javen, I want to tell you from the bottom. I dude, I feel fucking weird. I'm gonna can I end this with a Mr. Burnworth? Do what you get in there. All right, Mr. Burnworth, I gotta tell you, it is it's just a fucking this is you were my favorite guest. You mean it it really you gave a shit, you educated uh generations of young people, got them engaged, built uh some sort of a like in this world that maybe they would have not found. And it's all because of you, that is for sure. And I just I thank you from the bottom of my heart to for you to be down in the studio recording with us tonight.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:03

It's been so much fun. I feel so honored, and uh I love you, man. Thank you, dude. I love you guys too. Thank you.

SPEAKER_08 1:40:09

Pleasure, it's so nice to meet you. And I also want to thank you because you're one of those people that keeps this going. That's why we're here because of people like you. Yep. And we want to do the same with our podcast. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:23

Well, you guys remind me of a lot of things too that I haven't thought about for a long time. So that I needed this as much as uh as anybody else did. So thank you.

SPEAKER_08 1:40:35

Good. All right, guys. Let's get the fuck out of here. Let's get on out of here. Thanks for listening, everybody. Keep on saundering. Goodbye. See ya.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:45

Thanks.