I Ain't Even Lyin
I Ain't Even Lyin' is a podcast that values the lost art of southern story telling. Join us as we chew the fat on topics such as the outdoors, faith, family and good ole fashioned yarn tellin'. Be warned, some of the stories you'll hear may be true, and some of them may just be out-right fiction, but that's for your imagination to decide.
I Ain't Even Lyin
Redneck Ninja, Black Eyed Scotty and The Possible Impossible
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On this episode of the I Ain't Even Lyin Podcast, join us as we discover that there is a Ninja among us, how black eyes hurt more than just your face and how the impossible is actually possible.
Welcome to the Ineven Line podcast. This is episode 10. Episode 10. And uh this is kind of a milestone. Yeah, it is a milestone. It's a milestone. We've been doing so um I want to introduce ourselves because sometimes we get comments that say uh that nobody introduced who they were. So who are y'all? Yeah, who are well? I'll tell you who we are. So I'm Tommy. This is my dad, this is Scott, and you have also my Uncle Michael. He has actually never been on the podcast before. Not at all. But he has had some honorable mentions in a few of our stories. Yes, he has. Um I one question I want to know, um, and Uncle Michael, we'll dive into uh because I want to talk about a little more about you and and and things that you're getting into and and whatnot. But honestly, did you listen to the episode where we did um you drank it right there right by the right by the mic?
SPEAKER_01I had to do that because I mean you'll make sure you got your cup of coffee and listen.
SPEAKER_00If you don't have a cup of coffee, just rewind it for 10 seconds, close your eyes and pretend. I mean that slurp. The sound effects are there.
SPEAKER_02Okay. That's what this is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Ice coffee. This is for dad. You gotta put it up to the mic.
SPEAKER_02That's iced coffee. He gets on me about he says, uh, yeah. Well, we're not supposed to put ice in your coffee. That's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01Nothing sweet in it either, is it? No black coffee.
SPEAKER_00You're still a step up from us. We put creamer and sugar. I want to taste a coffee bean. That's what I tell you. Okay. Well, there you go. But listen, so we've had a pot, so we did a podcast episode. One of our first, really, honestly, that did pretty good stories that we posted on Instagram and Facebook, and it was one of the stories that we did in the podcast. We uh we talked about the story of the banana sandwich and the knife wielding bully, and um, and dad told his perspective, but you're older than him. And so give us a quick uh view of what that looked like on your side, because we may do a part two just so people can can hear the.
SPEAKER_01Was I close on that?
SPEAKER_02You yeah, you were pretty close.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you were pretty close.
SPEAKER_02Because I mean, I was a little kid. I what you remember I don't remember him running in the house, but that that that did sound better.
SPEAKER_01That did sound better, so I hate even look mentioning that, but I never was much of a fighter, and then Michael probably was more than me, but I did bite a guy on the shoulder one time. Sure did. And you were taking up from me, actually.
SPEAKER_02He was a big younger brother, but that was twice.
SPEAKER_01You took it. That Joker was beating up or picking on Michael, and I run up to him on Benny Cox. Remember who it was? And it was in the churchyard. Yeah, it was churchyard. I run up there to him, and I I latched on to his shoulder. I mean, I had a hold of him. He was swinging, I was like a bulldog. My legs are swinging around. Last I seen him, I ain't seen him. Benny, are you still alive? Is Benny Cox still alive when Lynn Haven? I mean, I don't know. He may not never come to church again, but he was walking away and I could see the sun going down, and he was holding his shoulder. That's a different kind of church hurt. Yeah. Well, I was a little kid. I thought, man, you can mess with my brother.
SPEAKER_02I believe he had to go get a tetanus shot.
SPEAKER_01Well, I know somebody else that did. Yeah. Me. I bit him later on after that. I thought, boy, this thing works good, these teeth, chompers.
SPEAKER_00Well, tell us your size. So, so kind of breakdown real quick, just in a real fast. So, so you guys are getting kind of bullied. You it now Well, this is a rough section of Bill Deal over there.
SPEAKER_02It was uh Bay Harbor, which is anybody from over there or Bay County, period, that wasn't from over there, they knew to stay away from there. Yeah. So it was and we we lived over there. That was uh it that was in the late 60s or mid-60s, and dad was gone. He he worked on the uh supply boats, he worked on the oil in the oil field uh running those boats off of Louisiana. So he was gone most of that year. We were over there. And uh so he, you know, and and this family that lived across the street from us, the whole we were poor, the whole neighborhood. It was just a low-income neighborhood. Yeah, it was bad. And this, but this particular family, they were uh it was some rough kids. And uh and you know, we were I think uh Scotty, you were three, I was five. Three, four. Yeah, yeah, something like that. And uh, and this other kid, he was my age. Uh he was five, six.
SPEAKER_01Come on, the guy that jumped on you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He was I thought he was four or five years older.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I had to take up my perspectives uh I had to take up for you and the five. I ain't even lying, I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_01The kid was your age?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, but he acted like a serial killer of about 20 something when he came back with that butcher knife. Yeah, he did.
SPEAKER_01Now the butcher knife was not a good deal.
SPEAKER_02You know, and you you had it right. It was it wasn't the whole butcher knife, it was just the blade. Yeah, and it was shimmering in the sun. Shimmering it was shimmering the light like it was shimmering in the sun. And uh, so and he did. He he uh he slapped with no hesitation. You could just see, and Scotty had mayonnaise running down both corners of his mouth. Just he would look at me, he would look at him. Look at me and look at him. I'm eating this dinner sound, yeah. And and and he loved banana sandwiches, so that was a sacrifice for him to do that. Oh, yeah, taken up for you, man. Yeah. And so but you did. You had you had it pretty well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I smeared it. Pretty well spotted.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the the cool thing was I think if if he well, I don't reason I don't think he ran in the house is because mama had that little snub nose 25.
SPEAKER_01I mean many times, honestly, if somebody was prowling around, how many times did she shoot out the back?
SPEAKER_02She shot twice. It's in the dark the one night that she shot out the back porch through the screen.
SPEAKER_00Hey, look, if you're gonna do it, yes sir, but then you can open the door, she said shit. She just shot.
SPEAKER_02This Watson bow or whatever that bow is right behind there. Yeah, you know, so there weren't a house back there. No, but still it was in town, you know.
SPEAKER_01And I tell you what, you back there trying to roll somebody's house, you'd liably get what was a 25 or 32 or something like that. You're gonna get stung. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02More than six. It sounded like a 45. Oh, yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01I think a little short barrel make a noise, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It was loud. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's she was she wasn't playing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, let me tell you about a short barrel. That uh I'm gonna tell you right now, you ain't hit nobody with no little snub nose, nothing. It better be close. You might you you'd be better off stabbing somebody. That's so dad's got a derringer, okay? And I don't know if any of y'all know what a derringer is, but a derringer is a pistol that is about that big.
SPEAKER_01That's the whole thing, is the five-shot stainless steel like American arm. It's really cool little pistol.
SPEAKER_00Five shot 22 fits in your pocket, barrel is that big. And I tell you what, so there was a there was an armadillo, and we have some armadilla problems over at the property, and we're riding, and armadillas are stupid. I didn't realize how dumb they were, but I we drive by and there's this armadillo that ain't 20 feet from the truck. And I was like, that joker's on my property.
SPEAKER_01Well, I thought you was a smart uh like the engine, and you may just sneak up on him like that.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'd like to pretend that was that. I mean, maybe, maybe, maybe I got the gift. I don't know. But I tell you right now, I that joker didn't move, and I said, You got your gun on you? And you said, Oh yeah, I got this 22. I said, You ain't got nothing else in that? And you know, no, all I had was that big old 270. I said, I ain't about to waste no bullet on no armadillo, big old 270 like that. And what I did was I he said, Well, I got this derringer. I said, Well, let me get the derringer. Surely it'll kill that thing. So I even said get close. I did get close. I I did everything but touch him with the barrel. Yeah, I eased up on that thing and I put it. I mean, I wasn't five feet from him. You videoing it, too. I videoed my other hand. I did this right here. I shot, and that thing shot right over him. He didn't move a muscle. He's still just feeding around, nothing bothered. I cocked the gun again, stepped another step closer, put it even closer, shot again. Well, he kind of moved around. I was like, all right, well, let's do it again. So I cocked it, got even closer and shot again. He still didn't move. I didn't hit him, and I'm shooting all around him. I I mean I'm pointing right at him, and I shot here and it hits over here. I don't know. I've seen the dirt puff up in a different spot, I'm thinking.
SPEAKER_02I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it probably I it's probably that far away. Four feet, five, three feet, something like that. Yeah, it ain't far at all. And so I'm like, what in the world? So the next shot, I did everything but touch him. I still didn't hit him. And I went in and I put that thing back in the truck. I said, What are you gonna do when somebody's coming after you? No, it's you said you said I I probably just stick it in the rib case. Honestly, I don't want people being that close with a uh you need something else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I mean, I uh it's the best of got, you know, it's in the pocket, you know, it's it's it's it's a rib gun. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There you go. So, but anyway, we'll we'll uh we'll we gotta bring it back in. You got three Kellys all at one table, and uh and uh we got a bunch of stories. So listen, so Uncle Michael, dad has always been uh historically the kind of the hunting he'd shoot squirrels and rabbits at grandpa's farm and all that stuff. Sparrows and sparrows. And so, and you were more the athlete growing up. You went in the military and you you you got a history of uh you just had it it's the definition of y'all had different personalities and different interests as kids, but now you found more of a love or an appreciation for the outdoors. So kind of kind of walk us through the process of what even got you wanting to get in the outdoors recently as of now versus earlier than now.
SPEAKER_02Well, for for years, uh my wife uh she would she would tell me, you know, Michael, how come you don't how come you don't hunt like your brother and put some deer deer meat in the freezer? You know, because I would put corn out and but I I just loved watching them. You know, I was a deer watcher. Yeah. Is anything wrong with that? Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I remember going up to the city.
SPEAKER_02You're like watching them with a gun in you. But I'll tell you what got me into it. My precious grandsons, Trenton and Trevor. Uh it and this was, you know, I lost my wife to cancer three years ago. And uh um, but it was shortly after that that uh it was probably the tail end of hunt that hunting season, which uh she passed away in in uh December. So the the second half, I guess, of hunting that second half of that hunting season, uh they talked me into starting to do to do some deer hunting around.
SPEAKER_01Take the wildlife sanctuary off the yeah, I took the signs off up at the house.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And uh I told Scotty years ago he was wanting to kill something on my property, and I said, This is a sanctuary. I think it was a bald eagle.
SPEAKER_01They're free up here. I think it might have been a bald eagle or something. Yeah, something protected.
SPEAKER_00You can guarantee on that. It's a joke. We don't I mean, if we bleep it out, it ain't a cuss word, it's just because we don't want to get demonetized or we don't want to get arrested. Okay. It really wasn't a bald eagle, it was a joke.
SPEAKER_01There was not any bald eagles because back then.
SPEAKER_02It was some hawks though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you killed um so you killed your first deer. Well, that I didn't kill nothing the first season. Okay. And uh I mean nothing. I didn't get a shot at anything, but the second season, which was season before last, uh, I killed I happened to kill two. All right. And uh and the first one, you know, I had never skinted deer. All these deer that over the years that Scotty and all you guys have have have killed, I've never been around when y'all skint one out. I've never helped anybody skin one out. So uh and uh Ginger would be beside herself now if she saw me.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Processing it by myself. I I I process my own meat under his guidance uh for sure. And uh but the first one I brought up here so Scotty could help me skin it out. And uh and so we're we're done skinning the deer out. We done got all the meat in the in the ice chest, it's on ice. And because it was my first deer, Scotty was gonna uh what do you call that? A skull mount?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just to cut the meat off the skin skin up around around the skull plate. Well, you cut it off, you don't want all that fat and meat because it was gonna cut the hide off of it.
SPEAKER_02And so uh I was holding one one part of the skin where he could, you know, and and he and the knife slipped and he jabbed it in right here. No, I'm sorry, it was right here. It would be another wound.
SPEAKER_01If we're being honest, it really didn't slip.
SPEAKER_02Probably not. He has he's got to get me back for a lot, probably over the yeah. But uh, and it went to the bone. I mean, to the bone. And and uh he said, Ooh, I got you. That's that was his reaction. Well, I mean and I and I and I happened to look at it and it would just gaped open. I said, Yeah, you sure did. And he said, Oh, Michael, I'm sorry I didn't mean to do that. But it was it was pretty it was pretty nasty, probably about the same kind of wound that you received when he cut you, huh?
SPEAKER_00I honestly uh I've kind of made a rule either you stay on the other half of the deer and you work on the back side and I work on the front side, or we just skin two different deer, or we'll take turns. Because he gets kind of like he's like one of them ninjas in the movie when he's skin, or at least he thinks he is. You know how they'll uh they'll you'll see like uh like uh for instance, it'll be like something will be they'll go to cut something and they make all these like quick motion movements and you know and nothing happens and all of a sudden everything falls apart or or it works scissor hands, yeah. Like that, for instance.
SPEAKER_01See, I mean I use two knives at the same time as well. No, I don't really do that. Before you defend yourself, so he's he's sitting there, he starts to swing that knife, he cuts fast. Now we're talking, we're I'm excited. Tommy's killed this giant 160 class buck. We're up in a different state out west, and so I cut him out of town. Is that which one you're talking about?
SPEAKER_00Uh honestly, you've cut me multiple times. If I cut you not like that, I'd never had to go to the hospital, but you're not going to be able to do that. I was thinking about gluing it shut, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings or nothing. You you skin deer like someone's got you on a time limit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, how how many stitches did you get, Michael?
SPEAKER_02Well, they they could have uh they they asked me, do I want stitches or do I want this uh uh medical glue? And I said, Well, I'd I'd rather, you know, just glue it. I could have did that at the house, really, and that saved me some money. But uh Yeah, they they just bandaged it up and uh I mean it looked like he couldn't even use his hand for like a year.
SPEAKER_01Well, it was months.
SPEAKER_02No, I you know, it did get in the way. Finally, I I just took it off and put a regular band-aid around it once the but I had to keep applying the glue to it. One of those cartoon band-aid Scooby-doo band-aids. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But uh Okay, so I feel bad about cutting both y'all, and I just want to be on record with that.
SPEAKER_02Well, I can't say too much because and uh you know that was a blessing that you showed me. You gave me my first crash course in skinning a deer out. And and process and and then after that, processing the deer, how to how to cut the certain meats up, how to use them for certain things for jerky and yeah, you know, and first one thing and another. I I I absolutely would have been lost.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's so nice. It wasn't you weren't showing me nothing, you just cut me. Well, you already knew. You already knew.
SPEAKER_01I mean, uh so he did, he did make, he's made his own burger this year and and and he made some jerky. So let's let's test his jerky. Crack that open. Let's uh so let's see what okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_02Let's let's do the crack let's open so this is let's open mine. What is this? This is yours?
SPEAKER_01That's his let's open mine. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Angel singing. Let's open this one.
SPEAKER_01Okay. What in the world is this? Well, I usually use the uh well, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00All right, so let's so let's we're gonna give it a shot. Let's taste it. Let's see. You're just gonna keep it to yourself.
SPEAKER_03Let's try it.
SPEAKER_00Let's see.
SPEAKER_01This is more like uh Jack Link.
SPEAKER_00There's more people who are listening to eat into the mic. This takes like cards.
SPEAKER_02You remember those? No. This is good. Yeah, this is very good.
SPEAKER_01His is more like Jack LinkedIn because he did use what did you use it to do?
SPEAKER_02You got the hair on it. Well, I use Mossy Oak, the Mossy Oak brand uh seasoning and cure. Get it at Walmart. Yeah, that's good. I like that. It's got very good taste to it. You saying mine is? Well, I put a l I put a little liquid smoke in it because they they were out of hickory. The hickory flavor, they got a hickory flavored one too. So I just you know, doused it with uh and marinated it for 24 hours, let it soak in it, and seven hours on on the dehydrator that you laund me. And I know every dehydrator I'm sure is different, but seven hours is perfect.
SPEAKER_01As far as it ain't too dried out, it's still a little bit soft, but he actually slices it on a slicer so he's got the right length uh thicknesses too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, about three sixteenths thick.
SPEAKER_00The majority of the pieces. I won't I won't subject the the listener to me eating two more pieces, but I will eat some more after we're done or maybe during the break. So um we got story uh time for one more story before we go back, before we go into uh to our um uh to announce our sponsor today. So uh kind of talk about you had mentioned a story that I want to hear, and uh something about dad giving CPR to uh a bird.
SPEAKER_02Best I remember that this would be uh when we lived in Lynn Haven off Arkansas Avenue. Um probably eight, seven or eight, yeah, something like that. But we had you know, they'd uh daddy had bought us, you know, a couple of daisy baby guns and uh and Scotty was he was I saw him kneeling around the backyard. We had an old pond in the back back there, and there was a lot of big oak trees and squirrels and and birds and all and I didn't see him in the backyard, but I looked way down there and I saw him squatted down way down in the bottom down there, and uh so I I walked down there and I could the closer I got to him, I could hear he was sniffing, you know. And so I walked over there to him and I could see he was crying. I said, What in the world, man? What's wrong? And he said, uh he's dead. I killed him.
SPEAKER_03I killed him. He ain't even breathing.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02And I said, Well, that's usually what happens when you shoot him with a BB gun like that. I said, you know, I said, that's it's it's all right.
SPEAKER_01You know, Opie Opie done the same thing. And that's right, he did. Well he did, absolutely did, and he cried too.
SPEAKER_02There is absolutely episode. I don't think he shot oh he did shoot. He killed a mocking bird or something, too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know what it was. He had to, I don't know. This didn't have no babies far as I know.
SPEAKER_02But what got me was this is what what takes the cake. He he reaches down and and picks this bird up and starts blowing in his little beak.
SPEAKER_01Everything deserves mouth to mouth or mouth to beak, foot to chest, he was desperate to bring that bird back to life, but it didn't happen. The other ones were hard to shoot. If I could have got him to come to be life, I could have shot him again.
SPEAKER_02But I I will say this, it it it didn't take uh probably days, weeks or nothing like that. It was within well, within two or three days, he had turned in from uh went from a sorrowful, sorry that he killed this little precious innocent bird to a bloodthirsty hunting killer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you mean to tell me that God squirrels were no longer saying God was probably sitting there looking, he's like, Look, man, I see every sparrow that falls. Quit shooting them. I got other things to attend to. Quit shooting the birds.
SPEAKER_02That day it's like God said, I see every sparrow that falls, even the one you shot with your BB guns. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I blocked it, you know.
SPEAKER_00I love it. I love it. Well, hey, listen, we got more stories for you. Don't go anywhere. You're gonna want to hear the rest of the stories that we have today, as well as a very awesome testimony. So uh we'll be back in just a second. Y'all hang around. So today I'm gonna spotlight a local company called Rodney. Rowl Roofing. I know this ain't the first time you've heard that name, and the reason why that is, is because we like to spotlight local companies that do a good job, have good customer service, and they do what they say they're gonna do. So listen, give Rowl Roofing a call. They're gonna take care of you. They're gonna give you a callback, which I know sometimes that's hard to find, is someone that will return your call and get you a prize. And y'all give Luke a call. He's just the guy.
SPEAKER_01He's the man. Yes, he is. And they got some real good, like Grant is bro, they're good sales guys. It's just pleasant people. They're gonna they know what they're doing, and they're not gonna stutter when they talk to you, they're gonna come just lay it right out and give you a prize. And uh these guys are really good at what they do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, some people do ask, I get asked this question pretty often. How much do people pay y'all? What does that look like? What does a sponsorship look like on your show? And at the moment, we don't get paid anything at the moment. And the reason why that is, is someone would say, Well, why are you why are you doing sponsorships if no one's given any any money towards it? Well, the reason why is we want to spotlight our friends and and people that we enjoy in local companies that just do a great job. And the reason why we're calling Ravel Roofing out today, and we call out Coastal Lumber Chemistry and other companies like that, is because we want to spotlight companies that deserve recognition. Yes. Okay, they're small businesses, family-owned, and they just do a fantastic job. So give Ravel Roofing a call today. The information is on the screen. So again, call them, they'll take care of you. Let's get back to the podcast. I'm ready to hear some more stories. There you go. And we are back. So I want to go and dive into some stories. And uh y'all waited long enough, and I think it's time to to to kind of dive into what y'all got today. So one thing I I do want to say is uh this next story I uh I haven't heard it, you just kind of told me what you're gonna go into. Yeah. And uh but this story's interesting because you were the guy that told me as a kid we're not strikers.
SPEAKER_01Well that we did yes, yes. We're not strikers. I wouldn't I wouldn't ever let them I see this is the thing. I knew that someday somebody would push you enough to where you would have to be in probably be in a scuffle. But I didn't want to ever give you a free tag as Christians. I didn't want you to feel like that, hey, my dad said it's alright to fight if if this is the the certain categories that happen in my life. So we just called it no we're no strikers. So it made it to where you really wasn't somebody with your chest out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, honestly, I was more scared of you than anybody that ever bowed up at me. I was like, I don't want to go home and get my tail tore up from my dad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And nowadays, see, it's not like you can fight anymore. Nowadays people get arrested. People ain't used to you you hit somebody, people get expelled from school and all kinds of stuff. But it went hard for you because you was homeschooling.
SPEAKER_00So since we kind of you that's a good segue right there. So uh tell me a little bit about this uh this famous phrase that that has that went from one brother to the next. The infamous uh maybe knocking somebody's head off. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so what it was is if you recall, we were in Milton, we'd go spend the summers in Milton with family over there, and was a at a cousin's house named Mike Barry, and his family was at their house. And the neighborhood, you know, there's a dynamic of the neighborhood. A pecking order. A pecking order. And Mike had friends there, but me and Michael come in and there was a few girls there, and and you could tell them old boys didn't they they kind of like an old dog, they didn't want us too close to them girls. Well, they was pretty, and so we're just hanging out, you know. We really wasn't doing a whole lot, but you know, you'd you'd uh jump out of a tree or something, try to impress a girl, I guess, you know, whatever you're doing. I hope you didn't break into your own. Yeah, just stupid stuff. And uh, and so anyway, they come over and try to bully us around a little bit. And and really was I don't remember exactly what all they done, but what was enough to get Michael. Now, Michael is a little different than me. I never I I know I bit people and put a banana sandwich on something, but I never was much of a fighter. But Michael, when he got quiet, it meant that he was disturbed and something wasn't gonna happen too good until he was, you know, because so what a couple of days you was quiet about this deal. A day or so. Them old boys picked on it, and it just didn't go over too good with him. Now, you gotta keep in mind it's between my sixth grade and seventh grade year in the summertime, and it was between your eighth and ninth grade year, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So this old boy comes riding by on a bicycle, am I correct on it? And he kind of keeps smirking and saying stuff to us. Well, I couldn't ought to keep my mouth shut, and I said something back to him, and the guy said, if you say something else, uh or you know, you I'm I'm not I'm you just keep running your mouth, little boy. And Michael looked at him, he said, If you say another word, I'm gonna knock your head off. And I thought, man, that's that's cool. That's that's as cool as it is.
SPEAKER_02Well, the guy just a regular old Buford pusser, yeah. So I said something to him.
SPEAKER_01I tried to ag it on again. I and so then he said something, and Michael just went growling across the road, had shoes on. Only blood came off himself where he stubbed his toe on the asphalt barefooted, but he beat that old boy off his bicycle, nose was bleeding, mouth was bleeding, all this stuff. And you know, he'd never been somebody about it.
SPEAKER_00Now, did his did his head stay on his shoulders?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. He did not get his head off.
SPEAKER_00I didn't even come close.
SPEAKER_01Hey, but the thing, and Michael's never been somebody to brag about fighting or nothing like that. But but what I'm saying is, for me, I'm looking at my older brother, I'm thinking, man, I want to use that. And I held it in my pocket for a long time. I thought, man, where am I gonna use it at? Where am I gonna use it? You know, knock somebody's head off. Because I mean I I wasn't much, I was more of a jokester. Well, I was in seventh grade, it was probably a couple of months in, seventh grade at Moat, junior high school. I'm sitting there at the lunchroom, old Pete Smith, my friend, was sitting over by me, and I don't even know what the other guy's name was. Kind of a husky little fella, about my size, maybe a little bigger, but he's quiet, never said a word. Well, about two or three days in, us sitting there eating lunch together, he finally said something. And I looked over at him. I said, if you say another word, I'm gonna knock your head off. I'm talking about he ain't even said nothing even abrasive or nothing.
SPEAKER_02You caught him off guard. That was the whole idea.
SPEAKER_01This was the thing. This was the thing. I I held on, I held on to it so long it was near about to fall out of my pocket.
SPEAKER_02You had to use it.
SPEAKER_01I had to use it. I said, if you say another one, I'm gonna knock your head off. He looked at me and said, Well, come on. Let's go outside. I said, let's wait till we get through eating our lunch first. So we go outside and we walk out the door outside the lunchroom. Everybody's staring at us. My old buddy Pete Johnson, he held, he's over here taking my jacket off. Old Terrell Kirkland. Remember him from school? He was standing in the inside of the lunchroom. The door's closed and everything. Well, Pete gets my jacket down to my elbow. This is a classic right here. Oh, yeah. The boy punches me in the stomach. So I bend over. Smart move. And then he hits me and punches me in the jaw. Now I can say this. He didn't knock me out, but he knocked the breath out of me. And old Pataro Kirkland told me later, he said, I heard your jaw pop pop all the way in the lecture. So I'm up in the seventh grade. Yeah, he's trying to take mine off.
SPEAKER_00He's trying to cast a check that you wrote.
SPEAKER_01I did write mine bounced. So then you did bounce. Yeah. So the teacher comes up by that time, and uh she said, Do you uh did you get in a fight? And I said, Yeah, you know, because I was trying to hold, I mean, I'm a breast steel out of it. My feelings is hurting everything else, you know. And so uh she said, Does anybody know who done that? And two of my buddies, you know, because your friends don't want to fight you, but if they can beat your the dude that beat you up, then they they above you. Yeah, they're better than you. Oh, yeah. So my two friends over there said, Hey, we know him and we know where he went. So them two jokers went over there. He whipped both of them at the same time. So this cat in 30 minutes became the baddest guy in the seventh grade. I'm talking about beat up me and then these other two guys, and he's probably telling somebody right now the same story. Yeah. You know, I was in seventh grade, this old boy said something about knocking my head off. Yeah. But let me tell you what I've done.
SPEAKER_02I showed him and his two buddies.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_02He has you to thank for his 15 minutes of fame.
SPEAKER_01Joker's probably a professional wrestler now with some famous name.
SPEAKER_00And if he's good at telling stories, he said they all three ganged up on me at the same time. That's right. And I wrapped their jackets around all of them and I beat every one of them up.
SPEAKER_02I think that he probably got a nickname Headhunter, huh? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I can tell you this. That's probably his phrase now. If you say another word, that's it. I'm gonna knock you off.
SPEAKER_01Well, I tell you what, I can tell you this one thing. I never ever again said, hey, if you if you say another word, I'm gonna knock your head off. Michael, you used it that one time, but I wasn't, it was out of my pocket.
SPEAKER_00Maybe that's one of them phrases you say after you've already won. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00You know what I'm saying? Because then you say it though after you won. It's kind of one of those end-catch phrases. If you say another word, I'm gonna put it on the floor. I mean, my little support fighting, and I don't honestly, my my like my entire goal for the rest of my life is to never have to do that. Now I want to show the love of Jesus and not ever have to fight no. But I will say this if in that scenario, I would imagine if they're if you've won and they're like, I'm done, and I want a more that's right. You say another word, your head's coming off. That's it. And then that because they already don't want no more, and they don't want so that's the thing. But you don't say that before him. You've laid some pretty high expectations.
SPEAKER_01I remember one time, we was I remember one time I got in a fight, and the dude said, I've had enough. But he gave me a black eye and told everybody the next day he beat me up.
SPEAKER_02They believed him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But you got the better hand of it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Did you give him another black guy? No, I thought, well, uh, you know, I don't want I mean, I didn't want to push for luck. Don't go back. Because he might the second time. You gave me a black eye. I didn't want another one, you know.
SPEAKER_02So was this before or after the head was under? Before that? Okay.
SPEAKER_01You know, I never was much of a fighter. I really wasn't. Uh I just uh, you know, uh that's kind of crazy how that was.
SPEAKER_00Oh man. Well, listen, down the line podcast, you heard it here first. We don't support fighting. No, we aren't strikers. And I'm gonna tell you this we show the love of Jesus. We don't w, and it ain't our job to take the uh take wrath into our mouths. So I'll tell you, you're liable to get whooped. That's right. That's right. It ain't gonna work out for you every time. Yeah, no, you're better off spreading the love of Jesus than um, so listen, we got time for one more story, and then I want to dive into uh Uncle Michael, I want to dive into your testimony. So we need to end on a bang. What are we gonna what do we got?
SPEAKER_01All right, so so um when we when when he came back from the military, he uh he came back and went off coon hunting with me. Now, this is the thing. We used to coon hunt, and a lot of people probably we ain't talked about coon hunting on here, and the books got some stories about coon hunting, but that was one of the things when I was in high school, me and old Randy Beebas, we coon hunted nearby every Friday night, Saturday night. And so uh we'd go to these competitions, old competition coon hunts, man. We we had and Randy had a bit fine uh grand night champion coon dog named Smokey, is that of a world champion coon the son of a world champion, and it was a good dog, and I had a dog that was really a good dog and and uh placed uh sixth place in the Florida State Championship. Should have been higher, so had some old men kind of fool with me on that deal. But uh but it was a really cool time period in our life, man, because everything then I didn't even deer hunt, didn't care about no deer. I wanted a coon hunt. But you could you could back then sell the hides. That's gas money for you for your truck back in the back in the early dog feed probably. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had a tree and walker, man. I'm telling you, that was the fine dog you could have. But uh my b best dog ever had his name was Babe, was her name. You remember her? Good good dog. So we went off one day and I took Michael with me. He'd just come back from the military, I think, on leave or something. We was sitting there. Home on leave, yep. Yeah, and we was there hanging around. Now, I'm telling you, I've I've made a name for myself as a as a redneck, you know, cone hunter. You know. Uh talked out of the corner of my mouth, you know, like hey yes, coon dog right there, you know. So yeah, she's good. And so Michael was with me, and he was trying I was hoping he'd represent you know our character, yeah, redneck family. That was my goal. That was my goal. And and so there was a guy there. I wanted to make you proud. Yeah, and and him being an older brother looked up to him, but he did he did drop down a few notches when he looked at a fella's dog, and what did you call the dog?
SPEAKER_02Well, he had a he had a a black and tan, right? Well, but I didn't know. I just I was trying to compliment him on his dog. I said, That's a pretty nice looking black and brown dog.
SPEAKER_00Listen, some people are probably thinking, what in the world are the what's the black and tan is the name of a breed. You don't that's that's one of the things that it actually matters in certain in certain groups of people. And so you're in the group that cares.
SPEAKER_02And so that some of my Scotty leaned over to me at that point.
SPEAKER_01He said, and so some of my friends looked at me and they said, Are you serious? Is this so this is your family? Where's he from? Up north somewhere? You know? But he says, You guys. Oh, he's in the military. So uh Montana was rubbing off all the uh and I, you know, this this babe dog, I've seen a lot of strange things happen over the years. And I remember one time uh I was thinking about this the other day, uh, and I love this dog. Uh uh it was she was went all the way through my high school years and then uh uh had to had to put later on. She died a few years later. But uh but I remember one time when I was hunting over behind a sod farm and you take I I was I was over hunting and in the morning time and I turned her loose and she went down in there and tree this layup coon. Layup coon's a coon that they tra they trail them, and then when they tree, they put their legs on a tree and they'll bark differently. You can hear that different, it's a lot different bark in the air. And they'll start barking faster depending on what kind of bark they have, but you can tell if it's a trailing track or a tree track. And so I get in there too, and I see the coon up in the tree, but she stops barking just before I get there, and she's moaning and wallering, and I look and she's cutting flips on the ground. And I'm thinking, what in the world's wrong with my dog? She's been snaked bit, what's wrong? And she's pawing at her head, her mouth, her ears, and I'm thinking, what in the world? And I got a 22 ride. I'm thinking, am I gonna have to put my dog down or something? I mean, something's wrong with it. There's no way I can lead her out of here like this. And uh so I I I the coon was up there, and I I'm thinking, man. So she just wild acting, you know. I think she got rabeat. What's going on? Yeah, and so um I grabbed her and held her in the headlock. And I thought, is there something in her ears and held her ears? And she's pawing me with her legs. I mean scratching the fire out of me. So I finally shoved my hand in her mouth. And a lot of coon dogs, one of the things they'll do when if they tree hard, a really hard tree dog, and it's hard to break them from it, is they chew the tree. They'll tree, they'll chew on vines, they'll hang from them like an old bulldog. But so what she done was is she grabbed a bamboo vine, like we was talking about, had has got a bar a lot of briars on it. Oh, yeah. She bit it, and it was one big as your finger. She bit it and pulled on it, but twisted, and it broke off and lodged in the roof of her mouth, but from one side of jawtooth to the other and was sticking into the roof of her mouth crossways. And when I stuck my hand in there, I pulled it out and she was fine. Yeah. I'm talking about, I'm thinking, I I was this close to like putting my dog to sleep or something. I mean, I didn't know what to do. I mean, I mean I'm not saying I would have done everything I could to try not to, but I would that thought run through my mind. Them things is bad news though. Oh, yeah. But now it wasn't a year, probably a year or two later, I was hunting, doing the same thing, and all of a sudden, she started doing it again, and I was with two guys. We was all hunting together, and he said, Man, what in the world's wrong with your dog? I just got a stick crossways in my mouth. He said, What ain't that that's crazy? Something's wrong with that dog. I said, No, stick crossways in my mouth. So I walked over and grabbed her by the head, pulled that stick out. He said, How did you know? I said, That's just what I mean. That's that's that's what you I mean, that's that's a sign of it right there. That's a symptom. Yeah, you look and see a dog cutting Somersets like that. You mean to tell me you don't you didn't know? He didn't know. I'm thinking, what kind of idiot are you? I mean, uh everybody knows that. I mean, except for people that don't know black and tan.
SPEAKER_02Little did he know you you almost shot your dog.
SPEAKER_01I'm serious, man. It was it was bad stuff. And I love that dog. But you know, so that's uh that's one of the things that you run into because you'll be out there in the woods by yourself. If you coon hunt, I mean that that's it it gets so crazy. And I'd shared this early on. I I early on I I wanted to coon hunt so bad that it it I overcame being scared of the dark by coon hunting. Yeah, that's how that's how I'm I mean, and there's a lot of people grown men that'll that'll that won't tell you they scared of the dark. But I can tell you now, hey Tommy can tell you, I can walk through them woods, I ain't gotta have a flashlight. I am not gonna be, I ain't scared of the dark.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I don't want my flashlight to go dead. Because I've been out in the middle of the swamp and it'd be dead. Oh yeah. I mean, and then you have to wait a little bit, hit the light, and you can see it for about 10 feet. But I've waded out of swamps without a light. But yeah, it's it that coon hunt's a lot of fun. I I wish I had a dog, but it's a lot of work.
SPEAKER_00It is a lot. Well, also, too, everything's done at the Tommy had one too. I had I had one and it was fun, but the it's so much work. It's a lot of work. To have a good coon dog. And to do it, you gotta it's a pretty much a nighttime thing. Yeah, and you've got to three or four nights a week to have a good coon. If you have a kid and a wife, it's one of those things, it's one of those sports that's really hard to do and also be present in your marriage, present in your kids' life, unless your kid's old enough, but even still, is so important, I think a lot of people, even dads, and this is just me as a father of a of a one a one-year-old to be two this year, is understanding that my kid, you may not think now, and I think we had just assumed that the first few years of their life, they really just need their mama and they don't need their daddy, and they'll need us later on. But ultimately, is you'll lay the very groundwork of the trust for that kid to wonder whether they're gonna want to follow you or or or or they're gonna want to stay home. Yeah, and for me, I'm seeing a lot of that as my son is today. My wife had to call me and get me on FaceTime while I was at work because I went in early before she did, she's still at church tonight. Well, this is this is filmed in an afternoon, so sorry to ruin the to peek you behind the curtain. Yeah, but um even still, we're still drinking coffee though. So if you're drinking coffee, we're all still drinking coffee together. But she had to FaceTime me today because Judo kept calling out, he's a he said, dad, dad, dad, dad, like the whole time, and he would just screaming trying to find where I was. And it's one of those things to where I think for a long time there was this misunderstanding that I could just run and do what I wanted to, because it doesn't really matter as much, other than the fact that just maybe help her change a diaper. But yeah, you my presence really made a difference, is making a difference in his life, and ultimately is I'm I'm I'm laying the very groundwork of our relationship even now as a as he's one year old. Um but I I say all that is is to to say is there's certain sports I just can't get into, being mindful that I have a son that needs me right now. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um so I saw the big problem with society now is is dads that aren't present. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Across the board. Absolutely. Absolutely. But uh I know someone who can change that. Oh yeah. I know somebody that can change the narrative. So uh but speaking of that, um so I want to pause this just for a second because I think we got time. I I want to make sure that we get the whole story. Um so don't go anywhere with it. It's just gonna be a a blip in the in the screen for you. So just hang on just a second. And just like that, boom. Just that fast. So um I want to go ahead and jump into uh because we believe here on the 9 Line podcast, we believe in the Bible. Yeah. Uh we believe it's a a true word, and uh we definitely don't want any of our stories to discount the truth of the Bible. Though we might tell jokes and and we might cut up and tell a story that might be pushing the limits of truth. And we we do it in good fun, but I will say is as don't fictional books on fiction. Yeah, yeah. We don't want to ever degrade the Bible and its truth. Yes. And the effectiveness it can have in your life by our stories. We hope you enjoy hearing the podcast. We hope you you in you enjoy good, clean humor. You don't you you shouldn't hear any profanities or anything like that on the show because we we want this to be a family show and as well as we want our lives to be a living testimony of the goodness of God. And uh but we here on the podcast, we use this reference a lot as we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And we've had several people share their testimony, and I've said this before too, is testimonies are good for two people, you and other people. Yeah. The reason why that is it's a remind a reminder to you, it's a reminder to us that God's but been faithful before and he'll be faithful again. Yes, yeah. And it's good for other people to know that though they're not through the tough season they're in or the battles that they're facing, if they can hear that somebody else has seen the other side of the storm, then maybe they can have a little bit of hope, understanding that if they can make it through, then you can make it through too. That's right. So today I want you to share your testimony because I believe you have a testimony that is a very powerful one. And if you want to kind of just break that down and and and share it to the to the viewer and the listener, because you never know who you're gonna reach through this podcast.
SPEAKER_02Well, uh I was um raised in church. Uh me and Scotty both were raised in church, thank the Lord. And uh when I was uh 17, I went in the Air Force, and uh I'll condense this, but I was gonna hit hit some highlights of uh where where I turned away from God at. And that was when I got off, uh a long ways from home, just like the prodigal, uh, and I ended up being a prodigal and uh stationed in Montana, away from friends and family, and uh and I backslid and I turned my back on God at 19 and uh and went through, did my stint in in the Air Force, and uh got into alcohol, and uh God had given me um uh you know a talent to to some degree to to play and sing, play the guitar and sing. Well uh I began playing in church and uh uh mama had us in church when we were little, you know, singing in you know, in front of the altar. And um but when I got to be a teenager, when I got into service, I took that into the bars and the clubs when I got in Montana and and began drinking. And uh for 22 years I was away from God and the alcoholism got very bad. And uh and right there close to the end before I turned to Christ, I I was I I was married, and um my wife Ginger had gotten saved eight years before I did, so she put up with a lot of my drunkenness before that, um uh during those eight years. Um and the night I got saved, and uh well let me back up just a little bit. Um I had gotten so bad on the alcohol and copen and tobacco. I I didn't smoke, but I chewed uh Copenhagen, nicotine had had a hold of me. But uh worse than that was the alcohol. And I lived 30 minutes away from where I worked in Linhaben, and uh every morning, and I don't know how long I I did this, I would stop at a store before daylight and I would get the first quart of beer and drink it and have it polished off by the time I got to the parking lot at work and for breakfast. And uh all of my waking hours I had to have the rough edge, I thought, you know, taking off. Uh uh I I that I couldn't I felt like I couldn't function without alcohol. And uh anybody that's ever been bound by that, and if and if that's you, uh then you know what I'm talking about, whether it's alcohol or drugs. Um and I saw myself after the 22 years that that was just the way it was. I I couldn't I could never see myself sober again. I'd been doing it too long, I thought. Uh I'd been chewing the Copenhagen too long, and I certainly couldn't quit that either, so I thought. And but I had always been taught that anything is possible with God, and I know that sounds cliche clicheic. We we we sort of throw that around in church circles uh like it's nothing, but that's every bit true. And uh it was on a Monday night in 2004, um and I had um I had caught a big mess of mullet uh that evening. It was August the 2nd, 2004. I remember uh remember exactly uh every detail. And um and I had cleaned those mullet and came inside, got cleaned up, got a shower, and uh, but for the two weeks before that, and I I love music and uh uh specifically gospel music and quartet music we were raised on. But specifically I was I was listening to a I had a doubled C D set of Elvis Presley gospel. Every song on it was gospel. And beautiful. Any any of you that's ever heard him sing gospel, it's you know uh just beautiful and it would stir your heart. And uh, and it did mine. And God used that to begin to soften my heart for the two weeks, I'd say two to three weeks.
SPEAKER_01And you're drinking while you're listening to this.
SPEAKER_02And I'm drinking, yes, and I'm drinking while I'm listening to this. The devil still had uh, you know, a hold of me. Uh the the alcohol still had a hold of me, and the devil still had me bound by those chains. And uh, but God was doing a work, He was starting a moving in my spirit, and I knew it, I could feel it. And uh I so my wife told me, said, No, you know, you don't I don't want you bringing that alcohol in that in the house. And so I I felt like I was comprom I I compromised by I would leave the bottle up underneath the truck seat and I would I had one of them old, I don't know how many y'all ever remember those Thirstbuster cups that you used to get at the um junior store years ago. Well I had one of those and um I would fill it full of ice and then go out to the truck and pour the beer in there as if I wasn't drinking alcohol in the in the house. And so I was sitting there in the recliner and listening to that gospel music and drinking the beer, and and Ginger was in the kitchen doing something, and and she came in and stuck her head in the in the living room and she said, Look at you drinking that beer and listening to that gospel music. Michael quit one or the other. And I told her, I said, babe, I I can't quit. If I quit, God's gonna have to help me quit. I can't quit. He's gotta help me quit. And I said that two or three more times, and and and then the last time I said it, I broke and just began weeping. And she ran in there and knelt in front of me. She knew something was happening at that point, and she started praying with me. And um and I just wailed and just cried out to God and and begged him to change my life. I was so sick of living like that. I smelt like alcohol at work, every I I I just reeked of it, I know. Uh wherever I was. Uh I just couldn't do without it. And uh, but God, I as I was weeping, I could I could literally feel Him cleaning me from the inside out. There's something about weeping and crying out to God that it's no wonder the scripture says, uh a broken and a contrite spirit, he will not turn away. Yeah. Because that is that's when we get to, that's when we his most prized possession, humans, get to a place in their life where it's only him. It's him, it's he's all or he's nothing. And I was at that point where he had to be all or he was absolutely nothing. Yeah, nothing I'd learned as a child was true if he couldn't fix me. Yes. And he fixed me that night. And 15 or 20 minutes after all of that crying out to him, I knew I was a new man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And uh and I hadn't looked back. It's been 21 years. Wow. It'll be 22 years, August the second.
SPEAKER_01Come on. Yeah, that's good stuff.
SPEAKER_02And uh he's he's he's let me make up for some of those 22 years I was away from him. That's good uh and uh you know this will be oh that you know what that just struck me. This August the second will be it'll be exactly the length of time I was away from him. I hadn't even thought about that until right now.
SPEAKER_01Wow, wow that's good.
SPEAKER_02So he's up to this point, he's he's let me make up for that and and and minister to others. Uh I've been fortunate to be able to um you know uh to go and do some jail and prison ministry and and share my testimony and and uh you know share what God's done to give hope to those that are in the same situation. So if if that's you, I'm telling you, you hadn't never gone too far. You hadn't gone too far, you hadn't been a drunk too long that he can't fix you, you ain't been a drug addict too long that he can't fix you, yeah. You hadn't been on that tobacco so long that he can't take that away. I hadn't had the craving for neither one of them in 21 years. Not not one craving. It's like I'm a kid again, and and I hadn't tried the first drink or the first dip of that mess. And uh he's faithful, he is who he says he is, Tommy. You know, and he's proved himself, he's still prove proven himself.
SPEAKER_00One part to me that really stuck out to me, and it's not I don't, and this take that take this from a pastor, someone who preaches. Um church is very important. Okay, it's very important to find a body of believers. And I'm and I'm not I'm not I'm not talking about I'm not talking about religion, I'm not talking about about the ugly side. I I'm not talking about I'm talking about finding a group of people to do life with. That's right. To call you uh uh to call you higher and to and to keep you accountable, but also motivate you in the low times of your life. But one thing that stuck out to me about your story is you may be sitting in your seat right now, or you may be thinking to yourself, I don't know if I can step foot in church the way I am. I had a buddy of mine uh look at me one time. He said, Tommy, I don't I've done church my whole life. He said, but I drink and I dip. And and and uh he said, I'm just bound to a bunch of different things in my life. He said, and and I've done church. I've done that. It hurt me really bad. He said, and and I just I'm not ready to go back to God. I got so many things I got to work out. And I said, Man, that's the that's the mistake that the enemy wants you to wants you to believe. That's the mistake in your thinking, is that you have to fix yourself before you come to Christ. No, God will enable you to overcome those things in your life if you're ready to let go of them and you give them to him and you're willing to put them in his hands, you think can help you overcome them. But one thing that stuck out about my Uncle Michael's story, as I've never even heard that story, is that he found salvation. He found Jesus in a recliner, probably not even six feet away from the thing that had him bound, yes, sitting in his house and him and his wife. He wasn't in he wasn't at the altar, which I think that is a very there's many people find Jesus at the altar, but you may think to yourself, Well, I want to meet Jesus right now. Well, you don't have to wait till Sunday. That's right. You don't have to wait till Wednesday. You can do it right now. Give it to Jesus. Right. Like that's I think to me that part was is so valuable.
SPEAKER_01It's the same exact thing it done to me. That's uh this what you're thinking. I I thought, man, what a mu very profound thing that he found him, knew the need, and and in in your own home, yeah, right there, where he was dealing with you at. Oh, yeah. You was able to then give him everything about your life.
SPEAKER_02And it's a precious thing because uh my wife was was there with me to share that moment and to pray with me, just the two of us, just the two of us. That that was my salvation experience with my precious wife, crying and praying, watching God answer her prayers that she prayed so fervently for eight years for me, yeah, finally come come true. Yeah, and uh and she watched me, she watched me live for the Lord for these past uh well, she's been passed away three years, uh, but up to that point, she watched me live for the Lord, she watched me never look back and never turn to that mess again. She watched God work his life through me, and uh she saw the proof of if anybody knew the proof of what God did in my life, my wife did because she saw me at my worst. Yeah, and um that's the most beautiful thing to me.
SPEAKER_00Let that be something too to be mindful. If you're a husband or a wife, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, your prayers are working. Don't give up. Don't stop praying. That's right. Because how many years were y'all together that she had prayed for you? Eight. Eight years. And you may think to yourself, man, my prayers aren't working. I'm gonna tell you right now, they're working. Don't stop praying. Yeah, don't cease to pray. Keep praying.
SPEAKER_01And and you had parents that prayed 22 years old. Oh, absolutely, 22 years. And so the great thing about that is uh parents don't don't think that just keep on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I had a brother that prayed for me too. You were saved, he was saved uh long before I got saved, long before I came back to Christ. And uh and I knew you guys were praying for me too, you and Robin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, last thing I want you to say, Uncle Mike, didn't you uh Dad always tells a story? He says, Something about, are you praying for me? Or something like that. And you said, What was that story told me about? Oh, that's it was Jeff. Oh, that was Uncle Jeff. Oh yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01So my little brother, he's passed on now, but I remember one time he told me he'd say, Man, uh everything's tearing up. My truck's tore up, uh, you know, the air conditioner tore up at the house. And man, it just seems like everything's tearing up. I said, Man, you know you need Jesus, man. He said, I know you're gonna I said, but I can tell you right now how to stop all that. And uh he said, What? I said, Why don't you call our grandmother, Granny Riley, and ask her to quit praying so hard for you. He said, Oh, I ain't doing that. Because the thing about it is those prayers that she was trying to get him to realize his life wasn't great, yeah, that would turn him to the Lord. Yeah, yeah. Uh he knew she was she'd have bared down harder and prayed harder for him.
SPEAKER_00And it wasn't it wasn't the fact that that that I would even say as that that God was p punishing him, or honestly, I just think that's that's the very definition of not being under the covering.
SPEAKER_01Well, and the Bible says this the ways of a transgressor are hard. Yes, and so that's a bit true. And even if you even if I've got the same problem you have, I'm saved you ain't, or you're saved, I ain't, yeah. I've got somebody to help me or to lean through it. And the thing is, a lot of times when you're by yourself going through those kind of things, I I just uh there's many times I'll ride down the road and just whisper a little prayer and just be thankful. Because I mean, hey, uh we we love these outdoors. Every one of us, y'all that watch, too, this is this is an outdoor thing. But I'll tell you this, it's so much better. Yeah when you can look up there and I mean look, man, I the the beautiful sights it a lot of times that I get to thank the Lord about and four is um is gonna be a lot of times not with a deer in my hand or a fish in my hand. A lot of times it's that I got the opportunity or I got the experience to be with uh you or you or dad or somebody or Johnny with a clear mind and not looking over your shoulder, no paranoia.
SPEAKER_02Yes, man. The peace. Yeah. I guess that's what I'm explaining. Peace. That peace that the Bible says you can't understand, and you you absolutely can't. Yeah. You can't understand it w when when you s when you gain that peace when you become born again. Uh it's it's over the top, as they say. And uh uh, you know, the Bible says it rains on the just and the unjust. The difference between us as Christians is that we have, just like you said, we we have a Savior, we have a God that we can turn to that has a a covering over us, like you said, Tommy, and that keeps certain things from us from happening. But it does rain on the just and the unjust. The difference is, Christians, it's a test of of how we'll respond. We know how we respond when trials come when we're unsaved. We turn to a bottle or a drug or we use profanity, we we do all kind of ungodly things. But for a Christian, when that rain comes, that trial, that storm, then it that's our opportunity because the the non-Christians are looking at us to see if how we're gonna respond. Every time they're looking at us to see if we're gonna if if we're gonna respond like they do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And when we don't, that's an instant testimony right there of God's keeping power and his provision.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, that's an interesting point that you kind of bring that up, and and we'll we'll we'll close with this, and I'm gonna get you to pray over the listener. But I had a guy, I I was talking to a gentleman who was who was struggling in an area in his life um this this past week, and and he kind of talked to me, and and he just said, I don't know why God he he's he's struggling with um alcoholism and he's struggling with with the bottle and all that stuff, and and he says, I don't know why my life is uh God don't ever answer my prayers. He don't ever answer me. I prayed these prayers, I asked God to help me, I asked God to take these things from me, and it's still not happening, and and I don't know what's going on. And at the time I was talking to him, and um he was currently under the influence at the time. And I said, you know, man, I said, prayer requires faith. And I said, the reason your prayers aren't getting answered is you don't have any faith. And he says, Oh, I got plenty of faith. I said, I said, brother, let me tell you, I said, if your outlet for when times get hard in your life isn't Jesus and it's the bottle, that's the evidence you have no faith that God can handle the situation in your life. Yes. I said, as long as the bottles are present and you keep them around for the rainy day, you have no faith that God is in your tomorrow, that he's got things worked out for your good, that he's working things out when you can't see. And so faith is faith is the is faith is is It's the very thing that that that you don't have you may not understand what's going on, you may not be able to control the situation, but you know that your father's in control. Yeah, yeah. And so I told him, I said, Man, as long as the bottle is present, somebody might say, Well, I feel like I'm getting really bullied today, and I I I'm struggling with alcoholism. Listen, God can help you through that. Yeah, God he wants to walk with you through. The Bible says, the Bible says, cast your cares upon him because he cares for you. Yeah, and I know we say that all the time, but it's because it's true, and that his burden is easy and his yoke is light. He wants to help walk with you through this and get this. Nobody's expecting you to stop at a moment's notice. Sometimes these things take. Process. Sometimes they take time, and that's okay as long as you're giving it to Jesus. As long as you're walking it out with Jesus. That's right. That's what's important. We don't expect like the the thing is, is uh I think sometimes, and not every church is guilty of this, but sometimes there's this false narrative that that you must be perfect at the moment of salvation. But listen, it's a work. He's doing a work inside of you, he's changing you from the inside out. Yeah. And and sometimes it's hard to take years of habit, and some people it works like this, but it's hard to take so many years of habit and change it in seconds. Yeah. Sometimes it takes a few days, sometimes it might take a month or two. But listen, all I can say is give it to God. That's right. Have faith and trust Him that He's got your tomorrow in His hands. Yeah, He has big shoulders. He can carry it. That's right. That's good. So, Uncle Michael, I want you to pray us out and we'll we'll conclude with that. Okay. Let's go for it.
SPEAKER_02Oh Lord. Thank you for the sake of God. Thank you so much for your grace and your mercy, Lord Jesus. On this family, on this podcast, Lord Jesus. This podcast is reaching folks that uh that Scotty and Tommy have no idea who they're reaching. But you do, God. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to come on here and share your love and share what you've done in my life, in my family's life. And God, I ask that whoever listens to this, that you bring salvation, most of all. Yes, I'm I'm we we've had a we've had a blast doing this. We've had a lot of good laughs, telling a lot of good stories, sharing a lot of memories from childhood. That's one of the most precious things you've given us is memory. And I ask right now, Lord Jesus, that if there's someone, a prodigal out there, and I know there's many that's probably gonna listen to this, maybe it's somebody that's never been in church before, wasn't raised in church, but they had an aunt or a grandma that told them about Jesus at some point in their life. And they planted those seeds in their life. I ask you that you use those memories to stir their heart and soften their heart and break the chains of bondage, Lord, whether it's alcohol or drugs, pornography, whatever it is, God. You know. I heard it said one time by an older minister who's gone on to be with you, God. He would say, upon repentance comes the power to believe. And that was what Tommy was talking about a while ago. You know, we we don't have the power to believe until we surrender to you, God, until we repent. Once repentance, true repentance is made, heaven opens wide open and pours out on us and gives us the power to believe that you have the power to change our life and our situation and our heart and our mind. And I ask that you do that right now in hearts and minds, Lord. Bring them into your kingdom, Lord. And we just want to thank you, Lord Jesus, for giving us a beautiful morning. And I ask that you bless everyone that's listening to this. Everyone is represented by a family. I ask that you continue to keep your protecting hand on them. Get them connected with the church, Lord. If they're not, ask all this in your precious name, Jesus. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen. Listen, if you're alive and breathing today, you have a purpose. God woke you up for a reason today, and maybe that reason is to have an introduction with the Father Himself, or even if you know the Father, what if you're alive today to be able to share the love of Jesus with somebody else? Oh, yeah, and somebody be able to receive salvation and eternal life in today. What if today is the day that the Lord pulls out the pen, he opens the book, and he jots down the name of the person that you shared the love of Jesus with? How awesome would that be today? My goodness. Some people just said, did I get on a spiritual podcast or is this that I didn't even line funny podcast? I like, well, listen, you got a little bit of both today. And uh, and I hope y'all enjoyed it. I hope you laughed a little bit. I hope you had a good time, but I also hope that your heart was stirred and uh y'all come back and see us again. Y'all don't be strangers. Yes. Enjoy your coffee, go ahead and finish it off. And uh there you go. Got that ice coffee. If you're an ice coffee or a hot coffee man, whatever that is, or woman, yeah, pop all that's for you. And uh y'all have a great Tuesday. Y'all have a fantastic Tuesday. I wish y'all could taste this. Both of them are really good. I think Uncle Michael's is better than yours. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry, I can't I can say it again.
SPEAKER_00I think I think yours is better than his. Yeah. Huh? You talking about him? Maybe you maybe instead of doing all the skin, maybe you show him how to skin and he'll show you how to process near me.
SPEAKER_01Well, I ain't gonna act prideful. I I mean maybe I'll just let him make some jerky for knowing how to do it. There you go. That's right.
SPEAKER_02Be careful, he might take your head off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, he might cut me. I'm a mighty dangerous man. With a bucket knife. That's right. But look, I ain't gonna knock nobody's head off I'll tell you that. There you go. Hey, y'all have a great Tuesday. All right, see y'all. See you later.