Episode 2: From Homestead to Hardship

Welcome to Episode 2 of Simmons Sooty Stories! This week, we dive into the fascinating and often comical misadventures of our host directly after high school. Discover why he opted out of college despite his father's firm directive of "military or Citadel".

Travel back to the 70s, an era defined by "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" , as he reveals his youthful experiments with substances, influenced by his own father's unconventional advice. The main event? His ambitious, yet utterly unprepared, attempt at a self-sufficient homestead in the Mississippi swamp with his friend, John Cochran. Hear about their struggles building a rapidly collapsing log cabin , their diet of state-record catfish from a very unconventional "refrigerator" , and the ultimate realization that sent them back to society.

But it's not all laughs; he also shares a powerful and emotional account of his mother's addiction to morphine and her incredible journey to recovery. This episode is a rollercoaster of personal anecdotes, offering a unique glimpse into a life lived on the edge and the profound lessons learned along the way.

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0:07

um, that's what happened. Not good. All right. So, you graduate high school. I did. Do you remember what year you graduated high school?Yeah, '83. Graduated high-- no. Uh, sorry,'74. That was college. That was college!But, you know, college was like high school. Except I had a lot more fun. It was almost as long hearing those two numbers. It was much longer than high school. Uh, but, yeah. You know, that would have been appropriate, though. I actually graduated, uh, high school in time. High school in '74. Yep. Okay. I have a ring. A high school ring?I had a high school ring. I lost it. Southside High School. Ohh That's gone. You lost that too?Or you pawned it?I hit Denise square in the head sleeping one night. Oh God. Because I kind of wailed. Yeah. I used to wail at night. Yeah. And I pegged her right there. Knocked her out in bed. Thought she was dead and at oh, you can't ask her. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. She told me. I pegged her. Yeah. Actually, I think she said it. She wouldn't let me wear my college ring when I got it. Yeah. So because of that. Yeah. All right. So graduate high school in '74 and you go off to where?Do you go to trade school?Do you try?Well, what happens?Okay, y'all. I used to love to experiment and partake in... Um It was the 70s, okay?So it was the drug culture and the sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Okay. Do you remember what your favorite band was back then?Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Well, you're going back way too far because that would have been like um Chicago?No, way before that. The... We don't know. I'll think of it eventually and I'll, believe it or not, I'll... interrupt you in the middle of something. No, I believe. I'll come back and tell you. So, do you go to a... you get accepted or go to a college?I mean, you graduated... Well, I applied... What What happens was, I was just... I wasn't going to go to college. Okay. Um I wasn't college material. So why did you... why did you end up going? Or why did you go to the first college? I didn't go to the first college. My dad told me I needed to do something with my life. Okay. Because I was out till two, three in the morning every morning with my friends. Um I had no responsibility. I did not follow rules. I was the black sheep. Okay. All right, and my dad goes,son this cannot continue under my roof mm-hmm you got two choices mm-hmm you can either go into the military or you can go to the Citadel all right for those of you that don't know what the Citadel is it is the college that he went tofor his freshman stuff or for his undergraduate. Um It's the military college of South Carolina and you have to be in the military to do it. So he gave me two horrible choices. You have to understand, Vietnam is going home. Yeah. And you are peace, love, I hell am not. You don't want me in there trying to shoot people. I'm a good shot, right?But I don't shoot people. Okay, um, I'm non-violent. Yeah. Always have been. My dad also told me that He didn't believe totally this way, but he was very non-violent. He just didn't believe it to the extent that I did, which is... Under no substance. And you'll see why, if he asked me a question related to it, why I was totally non-violent and and don't judge other people based on what I hear. Umm So... Yeah. Alright, so, well, your dad gives you a choice. Okay, gave me a choice. And I go, and this was a very tense evening. I'm at home. Dad is laying down the law. Can we pause for a second?How many years after high school is this? Immediate. Immediately after high school? Well, aboutNo, that's summer. You know, spring break. Okay. Summer break. Okay. And I learned geez. I don't think you can say that, but what... I can say it. I can put a bleep! No! I can say that. Uh oh. all right so very intense conversation that night very intense Nate I have to sort of tell you where I was um my mom um had gone through several unsuccessful back operations And my dad, of course, was a doctor of dental surgery. So he's a doctor, he can write scripts, everything else. But anyway, my mom is doing a lot of drugs, and the 70s is sex, drugs, and rock and roll, so. And my dad always told me, big mistake he made, is how can you say something about a drug when you've never done it? So that set a light bulb off in my head. Okay. Well, I'm going to do as many drugs as I can do and not get addicted. Very interesting philosophy. Well, I was very successful. Very successful. I did all of mom's drugs we're talking about. Some of these were opioids. Some of them were um whatever they had back then. Sure. But I learned a lot about different drugs. Now, at the same time, I can say this because my father has passed. Oh, goodness. I would maybe delete this. I'm going to say it. But my dad, being president of the South Carolina Dental Society, having a blooming practice, being very much in the focus of the community, you know, he he started doing legal methamphetamine stuff and of course I'm son I find those drugs too and I find out that's like my favorite because it's it you get the illusion now it's real that you're better at operating and getting a lot done under the influence of... It's probably a drug. Back then, it's probably like a prescription. It's all script. We didn't have these black market drugs. No, I was saying it was probably like the next level up from the medicine that they give you for ADD. You know, like Adderall. Oh yeah, next level up from that. But see, he's a doctor. Right. He can actually script it. Sure. To himself. Yeah. Back then?Yeah. I don't know if you can do that now, but back then you could. Sure. And he was doing that, and then he didn't get addicted. Our family has addictive behaviors. My My mom, she got addicted to morphine. Mm-hmmWe didn't go through that, did we? No, we didn't. I was growing up. But anyway. You just did. Back surgery, she was addicted to morphine. Yeah, and she lost her mind and we committed her to a mental institution. I'm gonna have to finish this story for you. Yeah, keep going. Well, just do it. Anyhow, she she got, when she had five unsuccessful back operations. was in probably as much pain, if not more, than my wife was when she was in the worst part of her cancer. And um so, you know, they prescribed her, she was in a body cast for over a year. A body cast. We carried my mom into Christmas. It took my dad, actually up here,and me on this leg and my sister on that leg and her arms are fixed also. So the body cast went from here to here down to her feet. Okay. Total sensory deprivation. She's on morphine and she loses her mind. I'm talking about Became the meanest woman And I've met a lot of mean woman but the the meanest woman I have ever met in my entire life was my mom and My dad Had a lot of collaborative opinions that she was not fit to be in society and he committed her to a mental institution of which she was in for a year and a half or so. Okay. Um This is when I'm in high school. Okay. But mom is gone. Yeah. I had a great dad. Well. He's holding it down. He's holding it down. Yeah. And anyway, she goes off to this place in Asheville, North Carolina to a shrink who's a Freudian shrink. I don't know what y'all know about Freudian medicine, but it's like out there somewhere. It's like not... To me, there's no logic to it. Beyond logic. It's beyond logic. I mean, they were analyzing, of all things, her dreams. This dudedid it. He, after a year and a half or maybe two years, I don't really remember, he snapped my mom, cured my mom. No longer addicted to drugs, no longer addicted to nothing, back to my mom. I got my mom back. That's great. Oh man, you don't even know. Um And now she was somewhat of a mean mom, but still I got mom back, okay?I mean, first of all, I was me, and I was still disobedient and experimenting with everything I could experiment with. Um But she did it in a rational manner. And God, I thank that man so much. But that man went and killed himself right after he cured my mom. took his own life. He didn't have anybody that could practice on him. But only after he counseled me and my sisters, he told me, which I was beginning to wonder, he told me I was normal. Just hearing that from a man of authority. In the medical fields, a shrink, which is like the highest you can get, um I was like elated. Mm-hmmI'm normal. Okay good and Well, no, I didn't think I was but I was he told me I was and and that Cured me of whatever I had Yeah from that and he told my sisters they were normal good and so the family kind of comes sort of came back before my dad goes you have to yeah go to the Citadel right right and soWhen he says you can go to Citadel or you can join the military, what did you say?I said, Dad, I'm 18. I don't have to do any of that. And I'm not. And he got irate. So what is irate?For your dad?So I called him grandpa because I never saw grandpa. He raised his voice. Okay, I never saw him mad. Right, he raised his voice. I saw him mad twice. That night and when I disrespected my mom much later in my life. And he goes, Don't ever, don't let me ever catch you talking to my wife like that. Wow. And being the man I most respected yeah my entire life. Um It worked. Yeah, it worked. So you say no. I said no. And so what was your solution? John Cochran, my best friend. Okay. Did his dad have a similar conversation with him?What was his conviction?You know, I don't know. I was, didn't really care about him and others that much. You know, I know I had a problem. I mean, I'm a kid. Yeah, so your decision was you and John Cochran are gonna go do what?Well, we started a plan and we go, well, let's leave Greenville, South Carolina. and let's become self-sufficient. So, now you have to know John too. John Cochran um at the time was the most redneck. He's from Alabama. Most redneck person. Wait, he's from Alabama? Yeah. So how are y'all friends in South Carolina?His parents lived in Alabama. Okay. Right across the line from Gewin. Is Gewin in Alabama?I don't know. Or is that Mississippi?Gewin, Mississippi, I think. I don't think I've ever heard. But right across the border from Gewin, Mississippi was where his parents lived and his dad inadvertently or got swindled into buying some swampland in Mississippi. in a place called Fulton, Mississippi, which is not far from Elvis's birthplace. Okay. Um Tupelo. Yeah. By not far, 30, 40 miles. Okay. So John and I purchased the Foxfire series, which tells you how to do everything to become self-sufficient. Okay. in a time of no solar cells no technology no nothing nothing the real way right okay so we decide to do that so we sell all our earthly possessions all of maybe a thousand dollars and buy the property Wow. If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around, does it make a noise?No. Yes.'Cause that was it. All right, well, bottom line is we... You know, we're flippin'. We just... Gonna go live off the land. Let's go do it. Yeah. And so... I've got all those. On the way down there... Yeah. I read... I'm reading the books. Oh, first time in your life. Yeah. John hadn't read them either. He just, he just had somebody tell him that's the books you need. Okay. All right, so... We'll read them when we get there. Yeah. So anyhow, we sell everything we own. we have some money and the book tells us what to buy sugar um flour uh I forget there's a whole list yeah okay and pigs chickens fishing gear mm-hmm that type stuff so we do all thatAnd then it comes time to build the cabin. That's like Chapter 3, it needs to be at the beginning. Chapter 3 it goes, OK, to build a log cabin, you must cut your wood one year, one to two years, in advance of building your cabin, or it will shrink and compromise the structure. We go, oh ****. We ain't got no time. We're here. And so we just start cutting wood, notching it out, building a log cabin. John and I had never done any physical labor our entire life. I'm a doctor's kid. He's a country club kid. John is just John andwe didn't know how to do any of it so we we did the most beautiful cabin um it was amazing for for no late no skills and so you know but it wasn't a month into that journey when the cabin started creaking okay plusWe're so busy. When you, y'all don't ever, don't ever go out and do a homestead with nothing, okay?Because guess what you're going to come home with? Nothing, okay?We go out, we do this, what today they call a homestead, and we work our tails off. We wake up, first of all, you have no choice and even today if you're where we lived there's no cell signal even if you had one but there were none so we had no communication with the outside world what we did have communication with was what good God provided which is the sunrise in the sunset and we had X amount of time to survive So, we built the cabin and we realized during building the cabin, we didn't have nothing to eat. And so, we'd only get half a day in before we had to go find something to eat. Chickens were too small. Pigs hadn't been castrated. Oh, that was horrible. I can't, I know exactly what they're feeling. You ain't doing that to me. But anyway, you know, none of that. And then we got to eat, so that leaves fish. We didn't have a garden in yet. So we went down the swamp, which was 90% of our property, and we'd catch fish. Is that what y'all mainly lived off of those fish?100% For... Is that why you always tell me like if you're ever going to buy a property make sure it has water?Yes. Yes I mean you can take some little what do they call feeders or you can take some little fish put it's like growing a garden you can put them in there and they'll grow. Yeah okay but anyway yeah I mean oh my god um so weWhat kind of fish did y'all catch?Catfish. We had catfish, and we had some bream, and we had some, bream didn't have enough meat on 'em when you're hungry. Okay?I love 'em today, it's my favorite fish. But today is not yesterday. Um Bass, they weren't big enough either. Hmm Oh my God, let me tell you what happened. To us, it was the best thing ever happened. Okay. Is a guy is down there and we let him fish on our property and he's... I'm probably out of frame, I really don't care. He's fishing away and he catches a fish and... He is being dragged off the bank into the water. He's got his clothes on. He gets wet. He ain't letting go of that pole. And he he pulls that fish back, and he just walked back, and he walked back, and he walked back, and he's like, ohh Fish is winning. No, I'm winning. Fish is winning. No, I'm winning. Comes back. he got a state record catfish. Whoa. No way. And in Mississippi, a state record is like... Yeah. It was a little bigger than me?For sure. The catfish was much bigger than me. Wow. He gets them own land and we're taking trees and just banging it and it won't stop flopping and whatever. Well, that was our food. The guy goes, That catfish ain't no good. Nobody wants a catfish that big. We want it. We want it. And so our refrigerator was the little creek. Now you have to understand, above the flow. And why do I say that? We had not yet had time. Matter of fact, during the whole experience, we never had time to build an outhouse. So we had two trees fell across the river with a toilet lid. And we'd crap and **** in the river and store our fish above that. How did you store it in the cold water? Really?You can eat fish forever. Don't let them don't let them tell you expiration date is a week from today. That's a lie. You You store it till it don't smell good. Okay, so I'm just thinking like raccoons, all that. How did you handle, were they live fish?Y'all built like a live trap well?No, these are dead fish. Well, these are alive until they die. And then they're just in a cage in cold water. Okay. Now, when they die, you gut them. Yeah. But there's nothing colder than the water. Right. Because we had no electricity. We had no... Yeah. I mean, it's where I put my beer. Water. When I go down to the creek, put my beer in the creek. We had no nothing. Um But that's... How long do you think you could keep a fish in the creek?Of course, I I would guess... If it's alive, a long time. So y'all really did have like a live well built in the creek?Oh yeah. That's cool. You know, it's... Especially back in the 70s and 60s, thisplanet was so polluted back then yes not now no because now we have plastic Island rivers when I grew up the Reedy River coming over the Falls Reedy River Falls which is downtown Greenville now it's like their poster child of a beautiful river okay it's 30 foot fall of the water yeah with a brown foam uh-huh when I was growing up was much taller than the waterfall. Wow. At the bottom. Wow. From phosphates, from... So we've actually come a long way from... God, you have no idea. We were screwing this planet up so bad. I was always a big Earth Day person and into the environment. I mean, we we were messing it up big time and we were good at it. Um Chemicals, heavy metals. Which, you know, all of y'all are suffering from now because that stuff is long-term cancer stuff. That's why our cancer rates are going up. You know, I wish Kennedy was right about all this, but most of it has to do with your upbringing. What we want to do is help the Trent and his kids from having to go through all this. Which is what I think he's doing because he's foundthe new age of what you're talking about. So back then it was heavy metals. Now it's dyes and, you know, yellow 5 and red 20 or 40. I don't know what it is. Anyway, the the that experience was after a year, not a year, about after 10 months, it was the winter. it was cold as **** for Mississippi ain't that cold sorry about my language it was cold as **** and um and so it's it's uh time to um go to bed we go to bed and we hear this cabin was in rough shape y'allWe didn't let it cure for a year, the logs. It had shrunk like five inches on one side, three inches on the other. The notches weren't even in place. And we heard that thing starting to fall in. It's cold outside. We have to run outside, we would be dead. But it falls in. Well, fall, totally. How big was the cabin? huge it was uh eight by ten When you ain't got no lights and you ain't got no water and you ain't got no crap Eight by ten is plenty in it. You just need a place to sleep. You're just sleeping in it. Okay, so eight by ten It was big It's the biggest thing we had. What'd you make the roof out of?the roof was made of Bark. Hmm Kind of like in shingle form. And it's what Foxfire said to do. We just did what they said and everything from that series worked. Yeah, that's what you said last time. We actually finally caught up to last time. Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff in in here that you mentioned now that you didn't mention before. OK, so that's good. But anyway, the Foxfire series, great. But the cabin falling in... Hey! That was a dog, sorry y'all. And I love dogs. Not our dog. Whose dog is that?I don't know. But anyway, um cabin falls in. We're outside freezing our frickin' what only men have off. Yeah. And uh.. And I go, John, I'm hanging in the towel. Yeah. We gotta get a job. I said, First of all, it's been a year. I hadn't had a date with a female. I haven't seen a female in a year. I didn't realize how strong hormonal urges were when you're 18. Uh-huhthey're like huge yeah okay and so I'm like so anyhow I go and first place I go to get a job was Mueller brass and everybody said that's where you need to go that's where you need to go so I go there I interview and they go man you're one sharp dude that's what I said and and then they goI'm sorry to tell you, but you're overqualified. I go, Whoa, whoa, whoa! Tell me a little more about this. Says, Well, um our our positions are kind of like repetitive tasks that do not take a lot of thought to perform, and yes, we pay you well. but you're you're you would think too much. You're overqualified. And I go, Why?They go, You have a high school diploma. I went, What? We don't have a single employee that has a high school diploma. And these people are not going to take kindly of you giving them orders. when you're not on their playing field. Yeah. And I'm just thinking to myself, where the hell am I? This place is backwards. Mm-hmmAll right, so anyway, get refused. So then I find, I don't even know the name of the company I worked for, a furniture factory that madeum Mobile home furniture. Yep. Y'all don't ever buy. If you buy a mobile home, don't take the furniture. Ask them what kind of deal you can get. That's what you said last time. Well, the furniture about killed me. Yeah.