Brandon Hoops: Mentors, Golf, and the Wilderness Garden

Where do you go to remember who you are? Brandon Hoops joins the show to talk about mentors, mud-built memories, and a piece of family wisdom called the wilderness garden.

We get into how Brandon picked up his nickname, why he flips garage sale golf clubs for fun, what it was like to mail Wendell Berry a book and get one back signed "Professor Hoops," and the spring break ski trip that nearly ended in tears (his sons' and his own). Brandon also opens up about two men who shaped him: his grandfather "Butchy Boy," who lived to 99, and John Drage, the campus minister who took him in for seven years before cancer took him five years ago.

It's a conversation about creativity as the lens that brings the world into color, mentorship as a kind of love that outlasts the grave, and why his 90-year-old grandmother's hidden patch of land, a mile from the house, might be the truest picture of joy in this episode.

Plus: Cubs fans in Cardinal country, the tear-soaked truth about Go Cubs Go at Wrigley, and Steinbeck's idea that every man needs a spot.

Follow us today for some weekly joy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, welcome back to A Fiercer Delight. I am Matt, and this is a show where we just kind of chase around joy, happiness. I don't actually care what you call it, but we just kind of chased that around. Um and today I'm gonna chase it with my friend Brandon Hoops. It's a cool name. Right?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Yeah, you call me Hoops. That's what most people probably know me as.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Did you know early on you had a cool name?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Once you hit junior high high school and you know, sports and guys do their thing, that's when I knew I had the name.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

And you played ball, right? I did. That's like kind of lofty expectations, though. It is. It was better to be Brandon Brick.

unknown 0:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

And then you make shots than Brandon Hoops. If you go like 0 for 7, you're hearing it.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Or you're under 100 pounds in your junior high school. You're you know, your your career's not gonna go very far.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Okay. So yeah, the name. Well, what's in the name? Sometimes a whole lot. Uh you have a family.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

A family? Tell me about them. So my wife, she works here at VU, she's in information security, and then uh got two boys, eight and six.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Eight and six, and you guys, uh, I know some of the things you're into. Baseball.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Baseball. Um is that still going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Last year they were kind of leaning in.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yep, we forced them onto the same team this year, forced our youngest to learn how to uh play a pit uh pitch machine.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Just so that we don't have multiple nights of baseball. But um, yeah, I think it'll be fun to see them on the same team together. They play in the backyard all the time. Balls are always hitting the the windows and hoping wiffle balls can't break glass. I I don't think they can at eight and six, but maybe at uh eighteen and sixteen they can.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

But if they did, it's like Ruth.

unknown 1:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

And if any of them ever make the show or something, that's gonna be the story where they broke the window with the wiffle ball.

unknown 1:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

It'll live in lore. This is good too, that we're together on the show because we live in a super polarized world, and I'm sitting here in a Cardinal's hat, which you loathe.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah, I can't I can't really say I I like the Cardinals.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Longtime Cubs fan, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Longtime Cubs fan. Mostly, you know, I mean I grew up in Illinois where I was far enough away where the White Sox were also in the mix at times when the Cubs weren't good, but I came to Missouri and realized, man, I gotta have something to antagonize these uh annoying Cardinal fans. So my love of the Cubs only grew when I moved to Missouri.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Aaron Powell Have you taken the boys to the pilgrimage? Have you gone to Wrigley?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

We did once, and it was against the Cardinals.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

And unfortunately, it was a good game until late in the game. And then the Cardinals pulled it out and I it left one of my sons in tears. Oh no. Because he didn't get us in Go Cubs Go at Wrigley Field. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, here's what I'd say to him. Serve you right, you little jerk.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

See the unity. Peace. But it's Go Cubs Go's that really uh won them over. You know, when you have that kind of you know rallying cry, it really uh attaches to young children.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

I went to a Cardinal Cubs playoff game in Wrigley, which is the most urine-smelling place I've ever been. And the Cubs thumped the Cardinals, and so I was in tears. And then the person with us, all Cardinals fans, in the van, headed back to the airport, played Go Cubs Go.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

On repeat.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah. And I was like, we don't and he's driving through and he's like, well, they're having a moment. It's exciting for them. I was like, that's not how this works. We're supposed to hate them always and forever. But I think that guy probably had the right perspective. We were maybe wrong.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

But the funny thing is, when I was a kid, that wasn't the thing, you know. It was just uh the pregame sh uh like lead-in music. Yeah. And uh yeah, someone got smart at a certain point and realized, hey, let's let's use this. Yeah, there's a marketing department. The marketing department, you know, I know what that's all about.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

You love that as a marketer yourself. Uh tell me a little bit about joy. Like what lifts you up, what I don't know, brings you peace, what gets you sort of up in the morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Um I think just I I love to be creative. So whether that's me getting to, you know, do things creatively with my boys, like I mean sports in some ways is an act of create creation, creativity.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Um I don't know if I've ever 'cause I like to be creative too, but I've never actually thought of my fandom and like sports necessarily as that.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Right. I mean I think the if you're playing the sport, the way you go about playing it, yeah, you know, each person brings their own DNA to the mix. Um I mean I saw that w growing up watching Jordan in the nineties in Illinois. Um I mean I think that's why I've always uh watched and grown an attachment to Steph Curry. He brings a level of creativity to the game that um I don't think we we were we were accustomed to seeing. And so that that caught my eye and always I always wanted to watch him. What could he do today? Um I you know, I see what the way my boys play the game, play games, you know, they they they don't do it the same way. Um I got one kid who can really hit. I got one kid who when he when he has puts a glove on, he he will catch just about anything.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Um it sounds like in some ways, because you're seeing this through sports or whatever, but you said you get up and what kind of gets you going, creativity. It feels like creativity is the lens by which you sort of see everything. Like you'd probably don't maybe this is too far, but you probably don't even like sports. In some ways you do because you see the creative aspects, and that's what brings life because I'm the same way. I don't know if I actually even like baseball, but I know the guys' stories and I know the like human dynamics, and that gets me drawn into the game. And so is it like that for you? You go through the day and it's like that's the stuff that stimulates you, and then my follow-up would be has it always been that way? Like that your mind was just wired to where, man, you just wanted to see that black and white thing and throw color at it.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah, I mean, I I grew up in a lot of like rural farming communities. I I lived outside, you know, and so like my parents didn't know where I was half the time. I was outside building tree houses or, you know, exploring, you know, the woods, playing in creeks, uh, you know, walking through cornfields, picking up corn, and uh just even like a sunset, you know, just stuff like that, just you know, those kinds of things have always been something that kind of draw my heart in. Um, and I think that's why I like stories too, because those days when you're trapped indoors, those are the things that can kind of engage, you know, your mind, your heart.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

You sound like a much younger Wendell Berry. That's one of your guys, right? Yeah. You like Wendell? If you don't know who Wendell Berry is, look him up. He is one part farmer, one part artist. And those are both very pronounced parts. Like if you just knew him and he was just talking about environmental stuff or agricultural stuff, you'd be like, that guy is a hundred percent a farmer, but then you go read his works and it's like, how does he have any time to farm because his writing's so good?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

But so that's kind of how your vibe is, like being outside and being among the creeks and among the fields and among the farms stimulated something in you.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah. I mean it's just I think I saw the people who I was shoulder to shoulder with who lived in, you know, in those spots, and there's just, you know, there was uh not often a very dynamic element, but there was a depth to them, a substance to them that always kind of pulled me in. Um and I think um I think that's even what I see when I read Wendellberry, you know, just someone who um there's more below the surface than than you often see right up up top.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Didn't you write him a letter?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

No, so I uh my college roommate who is very um just he he's the one who introduced me to Wendellberry. And so we read a ton in college, Wendellberry and tons of other authors. Um and uh when he got married, I one of Wendellberry's books, um I don't remember the name of it, but has a great story in there of a young marriage and a proposal. So I sent a copy of the book to Wendellberry, found his address, and said, Hey, would you sign this for my buddy? Oh wow. So he sent me a little note back, signed it, and he called me Profess Professor Hoops because he thought I worked at the university when I was by no stretch of a means of the zoo letterheading. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So that was that was kind of a fun little moment. So I still had a little card framed at home.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

That's awesome. It was super kind of you to do that for your friend, uh, and kind of that's creative, a creative gift. And then super kind of him, he didn't need to do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

No.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

And yet he wrote you I mean, or he could just send the book signed. He could do nothing, which is what I would probably do, or he could sign the book, and that's like the path of least resistance. But to sign the book and write the note, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, so yeah, it's one of those things I'll always cherish. I know my my buddy, it's one of the things he loves on his shelf at their home.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

So when if creativity fuels you and drives you and brings you immense joy, um what about when there's lapses to creativity? Writer's block, whatever you want to call it, because I I think anyone who's creative has that and talks about it. So what how do you push through that? How do you, when you're in kind of a doldrum, raise up out of that?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, I think that's what you what you partake in, what you um what you're putting into your body, what you're what you're ingesting. So I mean, when I'm stuck, I go find I go to the places where I find inspiration. Um you know, it could be books, um shows that you want to watch. Um or even just just sometimes it's just gotta you gotta get out you gotta get outside. Yeah. You gotta get out of the you know, out of the outer routine, I guess you could say. So for us, we have a f my wife's family's farm is an hour south of Columbia. So that's one of the spots where I think I can go and kind of like kind of decompress, kind of recharge, and ho and kind of hopefully come back a little bit more uh emboldened to get back at it.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Is that where you get to create that for your sons too? Because I I I have kids and I was kind of raised like you, be home when the street lights are on or check in and then you head back out. But I I'd see my parents once a day for 15 minutes, woof down dinner and then see ya and be off getting into mischief doing all kinds of stuff. Different these days, it feels like, or harder in some ways? You have to kind of fight to do that. Um so do you find yourself pushing your kids out the door and see you in a few hours, or do you take them to the farm, or do you just nope, I've just adapted?

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, I mean we we try to. We go to the farm about once a month, and that's a spot where I think, hey, get out there, you know, go explore, go have fun. I think the challenge they've grown a little bit more accustomed to uh people helping them spark the entertainment, whether that's grandparents or parents. So sometimes I'm wanting to be like, hey, it's okay to for you to go create that sense of discovery without me having to put all the pieces together for you to go go do that.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

So I would say that's maybe what's a little bit different. I think they've grown accustomed to grandparents who are more willing to kind of get hands dirty with them than maybe my grandparents were. So I was kind of forced to like just go do that. My parents, you know, uh, you know, were we occupied. Yeah. Um but I think we have a little bit more flexibility. So sometimes they're they grow accustomed to thinking that we can help them. But I but I want them to have that sense of exploration and discovery on their own without someone having to hold their hand.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yeah, adults become the training wheels in some ways, which is good and helpful, but at some point it's like, hey, you can ride faster if you take these off. And you can do it anytime you want. You don't need it here.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah, it's like when we went we went skiing over spring break and um the first morning, man, it was it was a rough go. I didn't think it was gonna the three days of ski rentals were gonna be a lot of money just, you know, burned. Um it was just it was hard, you know, like it's not an easy thing. They it did I think they're accustomed to things coming a little easier.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So it was so is frustration on their part like this I can't ski or I fell down or this hurts, it's cold.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

All those dad might not have been the most patient or uh best coach for them. Yeah, maybe maybe the lessons and the expense of the lessons would have made more sense. Um but I think it was cool that they were persistent. We took a lunch break, they came back out, the first time down, my oldest son, he got it. And that you could sense there was a sense of accomplishment in the way he carried himself after that. That I think I was I mean, I was super proud of him.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Were you moved seeing him? Like I imagine that would when I see my kids just it happened to us recently. Uh their grandfather showed up and he gave them fishing bowls, and they were like practicing casting and just in their own heads, just but to just see their joy at even they didn't have success yet, but just in their minds they were having success. They were catching huge catfish in their minds. Uh it just moved me. It was so so I imagine uh especially after all that frustration, to see it go well with just be like cartwheels.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

And it was, yeah, just a hard-earned, I mean, I if if the topic here is joy, I mean a hard-earned joy, right? Like it didn't just come like at the snap of a finger, right? Some things in life we have to work at it, you know. And it was cool to see them be rewarded for their persistence to realize they can push themselves through difficulty and hardship in that there's something beautiful on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah, I mean that's do they understand that life lesson? Did you guys talk about it in the car or as a company?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

No, no, I I I I doubt it. Yeah but I mean for me as a parent, there's a lot of sense of satisfaction in that. Yeah. The resilience that they showed. Yeah. When they I think they probably wanted to give up at a certain point. Sure. And I kind of wanted to give up at a certain point too. There's only so much handling of the tears and you know, you can handle, but um no, it was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

That's cool too. You have an object lesson for the next time that happens in like school or life, and like, hey, we're skiing, was that easy the first day? And they might not remember the hard, but you have something in your bag to pull up.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Well and I and I had my own, you know. I'm I was I've never been a fan of ski lifts. Yeah. And I would say after, you know, fifty plus trips up and down up to ski lifts with them, I you know, I I got to say, hey, I went, you know, side by side with one of my kids, going up to ski lift, just talking to them about, hey, you know, one of the ways in which I feel like I've kind of grown some courage is going on these ski lifts time and time again with you. So hopefully they can see that. Yeah. It doesn't you don't gr grow out of that need to overcome some of those lessons.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Yeah, for sure. Uh yeah, the ski lift situation, and it's funny because every 10 years they'll make a movie where people get stuck on the ski lift. And it's like if you have to keep making the movie, maybe we should change the ski lift to make it not so terrible and dramatic. But yeah, you gotta keep pushing. If you want to get up the hill, you gotta keep keep pushing. So you're pouring into your kids. This is something else I kind of wanted to talk to you about because you just have this um, I think a stronger version of this than most of us have, and I think a lot of us crave it, and I don't know how it happens, but you're like mentoring your kids now, and also in life, you have adopted or invited some mentors into your life. And so I was wondering if you could speak to that at all. What is it like um walking with someone who's maybe older and wiser and like humbling yourself, listening to them, growing with them? And then even when you lose them, when they your lives go separate ways, like are you okay on your own type of thing?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah. Well, I mean, my first probably true kind of like um the person I say probably shapes me more anything was my my grandfather. Um you know, so here he is, probably late fifties, and I'm one of the later grandchildren on that side of the family. And just um he the time he spent with me when he on the farm or when he would come visit, he called me Butch or Butchy Boy and just um you know, his presence you know, again we're we're not having heart-to-heart conversations, that that wasn't his makeup, that wasn't his DNA. Um but he just um you know, he was with there with me. And so he ended up living to being 99, and so his those like forty some years we got together, I mean his just like steady um you know, kind of anchor his steadiness kind of anchored something in me in my life. And then he and then when I came to Mizzou and came to college, um I was just kind of a uh a somewhat wayward freshman looking to uh be a journalist. And um something about being a fresh college freshman, 9-11 happening two weeks after you move into a dorm, you're out of home for the first time, kind of rocks your world. Um kind of puts things in perspective. And so at that point, you know, there was just um this guy who's just doing campus ministry and uh I don't know, probably in his thirties at the time, coming into the dorms talking to college kids and uh yeah, so the John Draghi eventually became one of those people in my life who um was kind of that mentor, that friend, um someone whose presence and just words and just were my one of those things that shaped me.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah. And how d did you I mean, you're a college kid, you're busy, he's thirty, he's I think probably at that point growing his family and has things of his own concern. So how did you guys stay consistent and how did that do you have a set meeting time? Was it just text messaging? Was it just organic? Like how did that play out?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

This is long before text messaging. Well, okay, yeah. Really? Yeah. So yeah. So he no, he he made he just made a point, he was in he just came to the dorms. We would have different like Bible studies, and he was just there was just um persistence in, I guess, in that sense. Um but he what what was cool about the way John did life, his his home, his doors were always open. I mean, and they lived close enough to campus where you could walk and you knew the door was open. And so he would do things like, Hey, I need a I need to run an errand because we're we're gonna, you know, paint this bedroom wall, and will you come help me? So then we we would be shoulder to shoulder painting a wall, talking about um you know, we're not talking sports, we're talking about the kind of more of the substantive things of life. Um and he just always had a way for um kind of getting a few layers down.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

There's something to that like companionate love where you do something together, like hey, I'm gonna paint a wall or something. I even see that with my own kids. They are yearning for me to ask them to help. Thing is, I don't need their help. They're not good at stuff. But I do need them, and I need them to learn these things, and also that's the way to get to that depth, like you're talking about, the substance is hey, let's go, you know, get all the acorns out of the yard. Or hey, I I gotta go to the hardware store. Can one of you come help me pick what we need? I don't need them, but I do, but they definitely need me and that just to come alongside, and so I love that he'd be like, want to help them, hey, come pay my house, I'll just kid.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

But I if I did that, and then I'd be in the recliner, hey, you're almost done in there, hoops, right? But he's alongside you, you guys are painting, you're learning things, you're talking, and you kind of get lost in it. You don't realize when you're actually engaged on something, you don't realize what you're saying and where it's going. You get you get deeper, especially for men, I think.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

And he was one of the first people who I think saw things, you know. You don't you know in high school you're like, what am I gonna do in my life, right? And so you're trying, you're kind of told to go figure it out, or you know, what you try to figure out what those things are that you're passionate about, what you're good at. Um but you often don't always see what you're capable of. It's like I just read The Hobbit again, and one of the things you see early on is Gandalf seeing something in Bilbo. He says something about how Bilbo has something there, right? And Bilbo's like, What are you what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

But then as the book goes on, you see that and you see how in some ways Bilbo is like the hero, you know, he's the one who has he awakens a self-fulfilling prophecy in Bilbo. Like you whisper the truth, and even if it's not true, you whisper it enough it becomes true.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

And all of a sudden Bilbo is like, I am tough. Or I I do have courage. He didn't even want to go. Right, exactly. He he skipped the trip and then he had to catch up later, and it's like, no, actually, you're super courageous. So that is something about like speaking that into people. You found that in a couple different places with your grandfather, with this man named John, who just like took you under his wing and led you. And then you said your grandfather lived till he was 99 and then he left. Um, you and John, his life went a different way, and your life went a different way. So how's that? How do you carry? I mean, that's hard when you lose people that important to you, and yet you still have joy and you still talk about these relationships and they still shape you, I think. Um so what was that like when the mentor isn't as readily available, or at least in normative ways?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yes, because it's what's crazy about this with John, I mean, he invited me to come work for the church that he worked for. And then I lived with his family for seven years. So I'm in the home. We're doing life together. So you know, we and we had meals together every night for seven years for the most part. Celebrate Christmases, Thanksgiving, Easters, all those things w alongside their family. Gotta see what a healthy family look like in some ways to spark many of the things that I'm trying to even build with my own family now. And then I don't know what, five years ago um just cancer kind of hit and kinda um you know, took him very early. And now, you know, what was hard is it's one of those two things that you kind of you don't know how to in the last five years lost two the two people who in some ways are more form have been more formative in my life than any other men or women in my life. Um and sometimes it's hard to like you kind of feel like that foundation a little bit that you have has has kind of crumbled, but in some ways, you know, the I think the torch has also been passed, you know. Um and again, like I I don't think that means immediately uh all the things I'm doing now with people or d but but it it's like hey my my grandfather didn't know me until it'd be like another like fifteen to twenty years for me. Like who's that person who's gonna come into my life in in another fifteen or twenty years. Um so those are kind of the things that you know I think they they've kind of left that legacy to make me be mindful and present to those people who get put in my path.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Well that's the old saying like it's on the British two pound or whatever we stand on the shoulders of giants. I think it was Newton or something who's credited with it. And that's when you know it worked and like the love was good and the advice was good and the joy was good, it endures.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Even beyond the grave like it endures. And so to get to live that out and I think with parenting too it awakens all that where it's like what did I love about the things that my grandfather did with me and now I get to go do this with my boys. Right. How would they have talked to me after the worst day of skiing ever? And maybe I can ratchet myself down and turn up the dial on you know my friend John how he treated me when I was probably the worst skier ever. Okay. It's great. I mean it's hard but it's great when that hits and it's that's what legacy is. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Well that's what's cool about taking them to Colorado too is I mean that's where John and I spent four summers leading a leadership training program out there and he would we would hike backcountry, you know, do a lot of stuff. So I didn't get to share Rocky Mountain National Park with them quite yet but still just like going back out there was one of those one of those chances to just do a little reminiscing but also like you know my mind had his face and his those memories fresh in it.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah. And you also said I didn't get to share that with them quite yet so it's coming. Yeah exactly like aren't those the sweetest bucket list things it's not like the grandiose ones. It's these simple hey we're going to go hike the backcountry.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

And it's going to be super meaningful to me. And it might not be for you yet but someday it will be and then you'll go hike the back country with someone whatever the backcountry is um so this has uh been a little more serious than this is sometimes so I'm going to bring it back to um my level uh stupidity. What is something dumb uh that just gives you a lift uh I'm not saying like dumb like I don't know sinister I'm just saying like you do this thing and you kind of know it's a waste of time but it's a beautiful waste of time to you and it makes you very happy. I have one for you if if you can't get there because it just popped in my head.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Okay. Well I want to hear yours first.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

I might need a little I think when I think about garage sales your face comes into my mind because you're like I don't know if you're still doing this but for a while you you like a little micro adventures and your micro adventure for at least a season of life was Saturday morning you had the listings and you're going.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah. Well yeah one of the dumb ones probably would be like I like to find golf clubs. Yes that was what that's what I think and um find an audience for those those golf clubs that I come up on cheap for just a little bit of profit as a way to like uh afford my hobby just a little side budget just to be able to you know keep my love of golf going.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Doesn't that feel cr like so good though that you go buy a golf club for $10 and you sell it for $1250 and somehow you've never felt more like a man in your life.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah exactly a little bit that that's funny about that is a little bit of that is a is John's DNA. John was kind of a a little bit of a I I mean he would admit maybe a little cheapskate um but um it's just one of those things that I got back into golf for the f three or four years ago and um realized you kind of need those hobbies. You need those things that just like you do that just like are part of you. Like I played golf every day for four years of high school I it was just one of those sports that just worked for me. Yeah. You didn't have to be super I didn't have to be over a hundred pounds and on the basketball court being able to like dunk to basketball. Golf is a little bit more of an individual challenge. So getting back into it just seeing that you know it's not a affordable sport in some regards. So it's just a fun way. And I get to meet I ironically enough I get to meet all kinds of people. When they come to my house for a random golf club we end up talking in the driveway for 10 minutes about what golf course they like to play or why they're excited to get back into golf themselves. And so it's just kind of a a weird little bond and community that I've built from a stupid little hobby of flipping golf clubs.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yeah I think it's awesome. I also you're speaking to something that I think is so true and so since this show is kind of themed around fiercer delight like just loving life a bit more and finding those nooks and crannies of life that we can actually elevate. Like with little kids they usually have a blanket or a stuffed animal or comfort item and up to a certain age they actually think that thing is an extension of themselves. That's why it's so hard if they lose ducky because they think ducky is their hand. They look at their left hand and ducky the same way and so you're taking their hand away and that's why kids can't share and I think sometimes with that stuff like you said golf for whatever reason for four years you played it every day it became ducky to you.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

And then you get mature and you get a family you get your life together and you're like I can have no more duckies. And it's like no we actually probably need some of those like comforting things that are just escapes. You can't have too many of them because then you're just escape escapist all the time but to get away to a golf course probably does something spiritual and emotional for you that's beyond just trying to make par.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

It was largely inspired by my wife. So my wife you know she works in information security which isn't maybe the the most um creative department in terms of what it what they do at VU and she was a graphic design major. So here she was she wanted to do something creative with her life and now she's I mean she loves what she does uh at work but when she comes home that's where her creativity comes out and she macramays or she sews or recently cro uh crocheting has become like the thing that she do does to kind of like be part of her true self at at the end of the day. So seeing that it was like what what is it for me? You know, because again I don't want to be writing you know this as as an all as a writer author at eight o'clock at night when you've maybe poured yourself out the rest of the day doing that. So you need something else to kind of like bring that out of you. And so yeah that's what golf has been a little bit for me.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Trevor Burrus It's almost like uh antithetical activities too like you said. And maybe you could call them complimentary activities that yeah if you write all day the last thing you want to do at 8 p.m or probably the thing that's the least healthy for you is to write and so it's better to you know put face paint on and go to a baseball game. Right. And go crazy for the Cubs and sing the song or something. Because just so disparate. That's why I always think of football games where you see the people with the spikes on and the face painted and it's like on Monday they're an accountant. It's like that's why Sunday they need to go rage out at the raiders game or whatever. It's like because they're it's you need those disparate activities. So I think that's interesting that you find them and they actually complement your passions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Your creativity is probably better on weeks you get to go play golf and be outside and do nature and I'm and I walk you know I don't like to necessarily be in a golf cart so it's a chance and oftentimes if school's out hey the boys come with me and they walk. So it's just a chance for us just to again have that time together and maybe eventually we'll they'll be out there you know kicking my butt and showing me how to play the game.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yeah it's like you'll talk about walking the farm as a youth and they'll talk about walking the course it's the same you're outside you're in the air you're with a mentor, a leader. Right. You're just like doing life together. So I think it's a beautiful picture. Anything else you want to get to that we didn't get to anything you want to say? Any uh mic drop moments for you?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah I don't I mean I guess maybe what the the one I was thinking of my grandmother my grandmother now we just got to see her on the way out to Colorado and coming back. She'll be 90 here in April so again another one of those people. What was funny is when we were up till midnight talking um when we came back from Colorado and so you're just trying to soak in you know this this woman's stories. You know, she's such a great storyteller she has um but she was describing how when she was a young parent and I think you and I can relate to this you know it's it's immersive, right? It's intense. It's it comes with a level of um stress and there's a lot of things that you kind of fret about or am I doing this right? Am I doing it well? And she described how like there was a spot about a mile from their house uh on their land and they had what she called the wilderness farm or wilderness garden is what she said she called it. And that was her spot where she could kind of set aside let the boys you know kind of do their thing back at the house. My my gr my grandmother had five boys. The Hoops family had five a whole basketball team. There you go. Perfect which is pretty crazy. Starting five. But the wilder the wilderness garden was her spot where she could go and she could kind of like um you know just get her hands dirty, kind of separate a little bit but also come back I think replenished or charged and then kind of you know be a better present parent, you know, for the for those boys.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Yeah that's lovely imagery. Steinbeck says every man's got a spot. Yeah. And he has this image of a guy going to like a seaside pipe and he sits inside the pipe at night by himself and just watches the waves crash in and he has to go there once every few weeks in one of Steinbeck's books and I was like it's so insightful and also a lot of us don't have a spot. Right. But we do we just have to find it we got to reinvigorate it we have to like value it and protect it.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

So but but that's one of those images I just I haven't been able to sit shake since she was telling that story at like 11 o'clock at night in our living room.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

So there's our mission uh our takeaway for this week find your wilderness garden whatever that means to you it might be a golf course it might be a farm it might be the painting a friend's room but go to your wilderness garden as often as you can uh to refresh. Hoops thank you I love your insights uh deep waters and I always like talking with you I hope you've liked listening uh we'll be back again next week I want a fiercer to light you probably do too so let's chase it together. Thanks