Ep37: Nick honors George Washington Carver; Evelyn might require her Epi-Pen.

Episode 45 begins with Nick bringing an actual American icon to the table: George Washington Carver, scientific genius, agricultural legend, and longtime cornerstone of Nick's mother's first-grade curriculum.

Nick explains how his mother’s students carefully copied “George Washington Carver” from the board, then absolutely freelanced the word “peanuts” into something far less classroom-safe. A tribute to innovation quickly becomes a transitional first grade disasterpiece.

Evelyn, unfortunately, is severely allergic to peanuts, which leads to a moving deathbed monologue in which she thanks Mr. Carver for his contributions while gently asking whether he ever considered almonds (a nut she can enjoy).

The conversation takes a sharp right, a sharp left, and almost lands in the ditch as, for the first time in Reverse Jackass history, Nick and Evelyn try on 3 different question prompts before landing on one that Evelyn has the brain power left to answer. 

Somehow Canadian Tire’s Frank mascot enters the conversation as Canada’s possible answer to George Washington Carver. Let's just agree that the peanut lives on. Frank’s gummies do not. And who the heck even knows where we are on the diplomacy-o-meter anymore...

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Want to get in touch with Nick & Evelyn? 

Email them at reversejackass@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It's reverse Would you like to lead us in?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I would love now that I'm on edge. Let's just get right into it.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Evelyn, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yeah, it it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Okay. Okay, but you're the one making it weird. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

No, it's not, it's not weird. But I mean just you'll know what to think and what to do when you when you hear it. And it'll be fine. And it is fine.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I can't tell right now, to be honest, if you're doing a bit or if you're actually Yeah, I'm doing a bit. Okay. I was like, yeah, I'm cool with it. Like, let's just go.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I loved watching the tension build. It was like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah, you know what? Because for once in my day, I didn't feel tense. So thank you for bringing it right back.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

You're welcome. It's good to know. I think the let the takeaway for you is that these things, these things are controllable.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Um gosh. Yeah, fair. You're right. You're right. I owe you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

I am it was then that I carried you, Evelyn.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

It was then that I carried you. I threw you over the ledge.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Wait, so you're telling me the the worst parts of my life are when you carried me? Can I just can I just put in a request to stop carrying me?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Please. Can I can you let me down, please? Put me down. I'm fine. I got two legs to two feet in a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Oh, yeah. Okay. Folks, welcome back to the Reverse Jackass podcast. We're so glad to have you here. I'm Nick with me as always is Evelyn, the Canadian Blade. Evelyn.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Hi, everyone. Uh, we're we're so glad. Nick already said it, but I want to make sure you really believe it that we are glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Crazy glad. Just glad as hell.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah. Gladder than glad.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

The gladdest glad that ever glad. I'm fucking full of glad right now. It's up to my eyebrows. I'm pissing glad with how glad I am with that you folks are here today. Americans, Canadians, I'm glad for all of you. I'm gonna reach out to Glad and see if we can get sponsorships for this episode. Glad. Well, anyway, so it's a Nick episode this week. So I'm gonna lead us in. And I want to talk briefly and lead into a story about a very famous and important American that I'm curious if you have heard of before. Have you ever heard of George Washington Carver? Yes. Okay. What do you know about George Washington Carver? Oh, nothing. Just the name is familiar. You've heard the name. Okay, I've got the name. Okay. So you could we could do a whole series on how important and what a generational intellect George Washington Carver was. A very famous black American, um, a pioneer in his time. He was dubbed the Black Leonardo by Time magazine in 1941. Like Leonardo DiCaprio? Yeah, like Leonardo, the teenage mutant ninja turtle.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Um yeah, he was a leader. He used katanas in battle, and he uh and he died at the end of Titanic. Uh spoiler alert. So absolutely there was room on the door. There was room. He was room on the door. Way ahead of his time. Yeah, way ahead of his time and all those things. But no, like uh Leonardo da Vinci, the famous Italian inventor um who was good at exceptionally good at so many different things. I know that there's a fancy word for it, but I can't think of what it is. George Washington Carver was a man of incredible intellect and and very many skills. He was the first black student at Iowa State. He was the head of the agriculture department at Tuskegee University, which is a historical black college university in the United States. He worked there for 47 years. He was an absolute scientific intellectual beast. Right? Okay. An important American, somebody that we're proud to call our own, and a real innovator. And one of the things that he innovated with, most notably, was uses for the peanut, which is a big crop in Virginia where I come from. It's probably the second biggest crop after tobacco. And maybe the biggest now that tobacco has taken a little bit of a beating in the press over the last 40 years or so. Um, George Washington Carver figured out, devised many dozens of ways to use peanuts.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And I know that peanuts are not your favorite thing. Well, I don't think it's a matter of my favorite or not. Like, yeah, but for those of us who are a little hardier, peanuts are a delicious and affordable thing. And George Washington Carver thought of many ways to use them, right? Okay. Um, and so George Washington Carver was one of those historical figures that you learn about every year of elementary school. It's really, really important. The teachers teach him, you know, again, being in a peanut state, it's important. And my mom was such a teacher, and she taught a grade called transitional first grade, which was revolutionary at the time, but pretty new back then, which was for kids who were like first grade age, but maybe not quite ready to go to first grade. My mom taught them. Okay, okay. And every year my mom would do a unit on George Washington Carver. And she would have the kids draw a picture and write, you know, an essay. But of course, when you're six years old, like one sentence to maybe two is what counts as an essay, right? Maybe a sentence would be more appropriate about George Washington Carver. And every year my mother would write on the board the words that the kids would need help spelling, right? Right, okay. Kids are not born knowing how to spell George, for instance, which has an E and an O in a weird place, right? Kids are definitely not born being able to spell three-syllable words like Washington or right, or or you know, Carver would even be tough for a six-year-old. And peanuts obviously is a challenging word for kids to spell. So my mom would write all any words that the kids would need on the board, and she would say, This is how these are spelled. Just copy these when you need them. George, Washington, Carver, Peanuts. And so the kids would would make these, draw their pictures and write these sentences. And year after year, they would refer to the board for the spellings of George, Washington, and Carver. And then, for reasons my mother was never able to figure out, they would always go rogue when it came time to write the word peanuts.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

And I would challenge you, Evelyn, to imagine how you think a six-year-old spells peanuts when they don't know how to how to spell yet. How do you think uh how do you think a six-year-old spells peanuts?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I think they leave out all the vowels. Nope. Oh, like I like I would say there's a letter P. I'm gonna say P P N I T S.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

You're getting closer. Okay, so the current thing is P-N-I-T-S. Yeah. Okay. So P, obviously, right? E, they hear it. N, P S I S. Kid after kid after kid would spell peanuts P-E-N-I-S. Even though my mother really tried to get ahead of this thing year after year. Okay, so now I want you to imagine that these kids are drawing pictures at these five-year-olds. Oh. None of them the Leonardo of that elementary school. Yep. Not creating the Mona Lisa, right? Yeah. They're creating a five-year-old's picture of George Washington Carver working with peanuts. I'd like you to imagine what a five-year-old drawing of a man doing science experiments with a peanut looks like.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Oh, wow. This is really this is something. This is one of those teachers' experiences that I imagine your mom will tell till her last breath.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Well, she's over it. I tell it at least once a week, over and over again. And she would come have me help in her classroom, and the kids didn't take the assignments home, and I would beg her to let me keep them because nothing would be funnier than like 30 drawings of a thing that says George Washington figured out new ways to use penis.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

George Washington Carver, George Washington Carver did experiments with experiments all spelled wrong, with penis. With the picture of a man handling what is always, it's never a little peanut that fits in the palm of your hand because it's a five-year-old. It's always a poodle-sized peanut that the kid is handling, right? So George Washington Carver figured many ways to use penis. Wow. And that is how the transitional first grade in Virginia in the 90s honored one of our great American citizens and scientists. Yes, I love it. I love that. So my question for you, Evelyn, is who is the Canadian George Washington Carver?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Okay, let's talk about criteria for a sec. Maybe this will help me narrow it down.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

So we're looking for someone of brilliance.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

We are looking for someone who is innovative. An innovator, yeah. An innovator, someone who liked by the people. Was he liked by the people?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

I assume. I he's certainly I assume he was, and he certainly is now. Yeah. Influential. And then maybe like who didn't have a totally easy road to the top. Do you know what I mean? Like so, let's do a new prop then. Who is Canada's Mr. Peanut? I'm talking about an elegant top hat monocle wearing symbol of both some kind of produce and also affluence and class. Oh, who is Canada's Mr.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Peanut? Is it Frank? No. Frank's the Canadian tire brand would not be anywhere near Mr. Peanut. Like maybe we're developing a scale of things here. Maybe you know, we have Frank's. He's he's all over everything from, you know, sponges to gloves to garbage. Sponges and gloves? Yeah. So every kind of kitchenware that there is. Every kind of kitchenware. Sure. Um, candy, right? Gummies, jujubes, chips. Like Frank's. Frank's a one-stop shop kind of guy. He's the everyman's Frank. Okay. I wouldn't associate him with too much of the people. He's too much of the people. Okay. He's yeah. Who else do we have? This is a sign. The fact that I am freezing on these prompts, this is a sign that I have not had enough time for my brain to do it.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Well, it's not my strongest prompt. Create. And asking you to name like historical figures rather than things from your own experience is a little next level. Fair. Okay, here's another prompt for you. Yeah. You're known to have a peanut allergy.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

How would you beg George Washington Carver to spare your life?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Well, first, I would have a quick meeting with your mom. Mr. Mr.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Carver, the air in this lab is a little is a little close. Is there any way we could open a window? Because I I can feel my lungs starting to close up just a little bit. Uh like uh boy, yeah. This is meeting you at your office was a mistake because it feels like there's maybe peanut dust all over everything here.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Um yeah, this is this is no problem.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

I don't want to snack. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, no, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah, can we get do you guys have you guys have any of those purifiers going on here? Because I'm just I'm I'm sweating. I'm s I'm sweating and my my tongue feels does anyone else feel like their tongue has a sweat sock on it right now? No, just me? Cool. Yeah. Um invent any life-saving measures? No, sir. How would I ask George Carver to spare my life? Um, you know what? I don't know if I would. You just you surrender. I think I'd surrender. Like what like why why would I? I mean, why would I?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Okay, so let's imagine this. So you're in George Washington Carver's lab, you are perishing. Okay. You have you have 30 seconds left to a minute left to live. Yeah. The airway is closing in, the sweat is pouring down, you feel flushed.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Um, use that time to thank him for his accomplishments and contributions.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

I just want to thank you. Mr.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Mr.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Carver.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Well, you're choking.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Mr. Carver.

unknown 11:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I just want to say thank you so much for the work that you did that I will never fully be able to appreciate, that everyone else on the world got to enjoy, you know, on the planet got to enjoy but me.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Okay, pause. Can I give you a note here?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Okay. So same monologue, but you also have to acknowledge that you are perishing in this moment of anaphylaxis. Okay. Uh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Thank you for the bean. I wish I got I wish I got to try it. I would ask him if he did any work with the almond. Because that isn't that I enjoyed.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Done. Oh. Oh, wow, that was stirring. Disturbing? Stirring. Or stirring. Stirring. I have tears in my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

What a moving what a moving tribute. Can we get the people to write in to reverse jackass at gmail.com and tell us which one of us they think has a degree in theater.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

I don't know. That was that was a masterclass right there. Uh I think I would have hammed it up a little more. You went for realism. I went for like actually not breathing. Which is which would be accurate, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I've never had uh I've never had a peanut attack. You've never had one? No. Well, I mean, since I first learned I was allergic. Got it, got it, got it. But I was two. It's a it's beyond a distant memory for me at this point.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, on the other side of that same coin, George Washington Carver's memory lives with us all forever. So thank you, Mr. Carver, for your contributions.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Thank you. You know, I do want to say, like, I think it was worth bringing up Canadian Tire, Frank. What do you think Frank looks like?

SPEAKER_00 13:54

What do I think Frank? Is Frank a real person? I don't know. I think Frank looks like a guy who always has a smile on his face and he always has something new that he wants you to try. Something, some delicious little thing, some little snack, and you're always like, you're always excited to try, and it's always delicious, but he always has tire residue on his hands. And so you're always hoping that he'll gesture to the bowl of candy rather than hand it to you. Because it's Frank's tires, and you're like, he I know he's been working with tires all day. Like, even if he washes his hands, his hands are always black from the rubber on the tires. Like, just tell me where the bag of candy is and I'll get it.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, you don't need to hand me three loose jelly beans.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Right, exactly. I'll get I'll get them myself. Sit yeah, sit there. I'll get you some. I'll like uh yeah, I'll get a scoke. Like, yeah. Let me, Frank. Let me. Let me.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

You've done enough. You've done enough. You rest, take a load off. You can get your tires changed at Canadian Tire, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, sure. You can get all a variety of auto parts there. There's like half the store is oil, tires, air fresheners in the shapes of trees. Sure. And the other half, you could get like uh get a KitchenAid mixer or a Keurig. That's so Christmas decorations. Weird. It's weird. It's cool, but it's yeah, weird. So I would I would maybe I would maybe take a stab that Frank is Canada's George Washington Carver. Like now that we've talked it out a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Sure. This is gonna be a hell of an editing job for you, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Sorry. Can't wait for that. I'll be better prepared next time.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

No, I stopped editing earlier today because I was like, if I have to hear myself say one more sentence.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Your sentences are literally at least half the reason that people listen to this podcast. That's an interesting take. Not these ones that I was listening to.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

These were bad, these were bad. These were the duds. We're getting into the dud episodes now. I've edited all the good ones first. I would think it was Frank because like you're talking about George Washington Carver working, and maybe, maybe maybe this is Canada's answer. Like this is George Washington Carver is American from my point of view. Well, I mean, and obviously he is, but he did one thing. And factually, yeah. Really? And and factually, he did one thing very, very well. Like nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Oh no, George Washington Carver did a million things very well. We're just focusing on the peanut here. On the peanut thing. Okay, got it. Okay. The look you gave me. No, I just wanted to be his. I didn't want people to walk away saying like the peanut podcast was to talk about that he only did peanuts his whole career.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

That was like a you know, no, he was like, Yeah, no, that that was on me because you did say you did spell him out a little bit. You literally compared him to Leonardo da Vinci and As did Time magazine. As did well, you know what though, let the record show you said it first here on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah, I was saying it in 1940. Anyway, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Okay, so let me back up. George Washington Carver did a whole bunch of things, but really nailed it on the peanut. Okay. Okay. Frank from Canadian Tire, also a bit of a renaissance man in that he's just doing all the things, right? He's doing it, he's doing it well. Uh, we're not taking any shortcuts here. Nope. We're, you know, we're we're doing everything from tires to air fresheners to oil to garbage bags to Christmas lights to backyard pond liners, right? They have a garden center in the so they again, we're covering a bit everything, but the one thing they do really well is that bag of assorted gummies that I got for you and Amber. Jeez, that they don't make anymore. Thanks a lot. Thanks for nothing, Frank. Thanks for nothing, Frank. Yeah, those were good. They were hey, honestly, I've I've looked at many Canadian tires and they just don't exist anymore. Had I known that, I would have probably bought you about 19 bags of them and shipped it in a crate. But I think if it was a competition between Frank and George, between Canada and America, I probably would have to give this one to America, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

The use of the word probably is the funniest part of this podcast. You're like, we're like, look, I'm leaning, I'm leaning George Washington Carver here. I'm leaning George Washington Carver after careful deliberation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah. As I've talked myself through this now in the last seven minutes of me rambling myself home here, I think that I'd have to give the point to you guys because the peanut is not going away anytime soon.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

No, it's an important crop, even though it, even though it's lethal to certain ones of us.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yes. 50% of us in this conversation actually. In this podcast. Yeah. 50% of us. But the peanut's not going anywhere. And I don't think America's going anywhere either.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Oh, exactly. Oh, broad claim, Evelyn. Broad claim. Let's see. Well, I didn't mean like downhill. Like I meant like I mean, you know, where you're not going to be able to do it. No, no, I just I just meant like, yeah, there's there's speculation. There's speculation on this side of the border about whether America as we know it continues to exist. It's a whole thing. I don't know if you've heard, uh, I don't know if you've checked in with our local and and national politics recently, but we're in we're in just a little bit of a pickle. Do you guys do you guys have stuff going on? What's going on that side of the fence? What's going on? We have a shockingly, shockingly horrific government situation right now. Um, sorry to hear that. I wish you would have spoken up sooner. I know. I should have brought it up. We just I honestly I've just we ran out of time in a lot of our conversations heretofore.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Um yeah, well, you know, I mean, I'm sure it'll be fine. Anyway, I don't think the peanuts going, I don't think the peanut's going anywhere. The peanut will outlive the regime. And the peanut and those gummies, nothing but a distant memory. Yep, over with. So United States one, George Washington Carver one, Frank Zero. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

That feels like a good place for us to end. Evelyn, I I have a favor to ask. Yeah. I want you to pretend that you've just accidentally ingested a peanut. And I want you to use these last 15 seconds of your life to thank everybody for listening to the podcast, to invite them to like and subscribe or whatever it is we're supposed to do to build listenership, and then to say goodbye to this earth. Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

That's Evelyn. Sorry, let me.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

This is Evelyn Canadian Blade! No! I was neck.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Can we get help here? Can we get an ambulance? Thank you. Like See next week, Evelyn. Good luck with that whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Some neighbors are besties.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Others quarrel bitterly.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Stuck together through geography. One of us has nukes, and the other has tokes. It's American Canadian diplomacy.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

It's reversed.