1986 GMC C1500 |S:03E.74

Still remembers fire, grass remembers rain, every scar tells the story, car dials the frame, if you go diggin' some, best mind what you find.

Welcome to the Reckon Yard, I'm Jerry Wayne Longmire, y'all, assembly still y'all.

I'm gonna need to get to mute this.

All are welcome in the Church of Internal Combustion, we just asked that you show up with an open heart.

Oh my goodness, it is about noon on a pretty fine Sunday. Got a little chill in there, it's not too bad outside.

I'm running a little late today because I did what the kids called tying one on last night. I enjoyed the hell out of that myself.

After months of nose to the grindstone, like I don't even know that I can fully encompass all the work we put into this fricking book.

But after months of just grinding it out every day, writing, transitions, all kind of stuff, I finished my book yesterday.

Well I finished the first book, The Reckon Yard, finished it yesterday.

And I mean like finished like the foreword, the acknowledgments, not just the story, like it's finished, finished.

And at least for the ARC.

And now, the next part is, you gotta convince a bunch of people to read it.

We're actually doing something kind of cool that is something our editor kind of invented for a little thing he likes to do with books, he does.

And he calls it book club.

And we just get a couple of voices that we're interested in hearing their opinion.

And we get them to read the book and then we have a little discussion about it.

Just feedback before we send it off for the final ARC and all that good stuff.

So I'm excited about it. There's a new author I just got exposed to a while back named Johnny Bernard.

And we've asked her to participate.

Or at least that's the plan is to ask her to participate in the book club.

And then another really good friend of mine that I've known for many, many years, probably close to 20 years.

My friend Elizabeth Redman, she is an author in Ireland and she's going to read the book and give us some feedback.

So that's kind of the next step.

And then I started last night.

So one of the things, one of the initial things we thought would be really cool in the book is if I drew like a Tokian style map of the Wrecking Yard.

Go to accompany the book. So I started working on that map last night.

It actually come out the first draft looks pretty cool. I was like, oh man, this is a lot of fun.

I'm also doing a family tree in the front of the book that will just kind of be like a quick primer to tell anybody who's who in the book.

And I think that's going to be pretty cool.

Yeah, man.

Yeah, I finished the last 25 pages yesterday. I mean, just buckled down strapped in and

I'm cooked.

I had a few drinks size now, boy.

Woo, son. I sat up there in that porch till I was cross-eyed.

Felt good. I enjoyed the piss out of it.

Did not make it to the gym this morning.

I decided I'm going to go as soon as I get this uploaded.

Not hungover or nothing professional, but I did sleep in a little late.

Oh, hope things are going well for y'all this weekend gearing up for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is my favorite. It's probably my favorite holiday.

I just have so many wonderful memories of Thanksgiving over the years with my family.

And since me and my little family have been doing our own Thanksgiving for a good 15 years now.

And since I always enjoy, I usually try to do something different or interesting with the turkey that I haven't done before.

I've done it so many different ways.

I can't even, I've, you know, we've fried it, injected it, dry-brined it, wet-brined it,

spatch-cocked it, not spatch-cocked it, beer-canned it.

I mean, there's just smoked them and grilled them.

I've just oven fried everything you can think of I've done with Dagum turkey.

I decided this year to keep it simple.

We've got kind of a small turkey.

There's only three of us adults here that are going to be eating turkey.

Me, my sister, Rachel.

So, decided that I'm going to do it my little Easy Bake, my little electric smoker this year.

And I'm just going to do it beer-canned style.

I always appreciate the way that makes a bird stay juicy in taste.

And I can always crank it up at the end and crisp that skin up.

I'm going to do a little, little beer-canned turkey.

And just dry-brined it.

In fact, I'm going to go look for some smoke for some rubs this afternoon.

I asked for some advice on the internet and a couple people named off some ones that seemed pretty good.

And I think I'm going to run over to the academy and just see what they got.

They usually got a pretty decent selection.

This cheap little pocket knife that I keep in my car.

I like to have knives around it.

They're very rarely used, but I have all kinds of knives around.

And I keep this little pocket knife in my car.

I went to try to cut something the other day with a duller in hell.

Yeah, the book thing has been weird.

So the problem is I have a hard time compartmentalizing.

I really struggle with that.

And when I get locked into a project and this is what I'm doing and this is the project.

There comes a point towards the end of that project where I get into a feverish pitch.

And everything outside of that project, I have a hard time prioritizing.

So the last, I would say the last two months have just been me really just all I can think about is the book.

And it affects my other content, stuff like that.

Like it's just hard to keep up with everything when you're burning all your daylight on one thing.

So looking forward to the break, kind of getting back into my schedule, releasing content, writing other stuff.

I've had a couple screenplays, ideas I've been working with and looking maybe diving off into one of them.

I mean, it's not going to be very long.

We're going to start working on producing the audiobook.

And that's going to take a few months.

We're going to have to get to some point where I can read parts of this book without balling like a baby.

There's a couple parts in there about my dad that I still can't choke it up and get through.

So yeah, that's the work to do still.

It's also, it's crazy to like, like, so I've read it a couple of times now.

I like to sit on the porch at night, read through it, look for, you know, any kind of thing I think I missed or ideas or whatever.

And so many stories got cut.

My editor has another document called the Wrecking Yards Wrecking Yard.

And that's where all the stories we cut go in the Wrecking Yards Wrecking Yard would also make just a fun book of collection of short stories or something like that.

You know, we may do something with it later on or I don't know.

But it's wild to see how much we cut out.

But also how much is still there?

Like, I'm pretty proud of it.

I think the book's good.

I think this work I've done with Adam may be some most important work I've ever done.

If not, it's second right here to the podcast.

This podcast has taken a turn.

We've moved into a different space and that's okay.

I stopped trying to dictate the podcast and the podcast has kind of taken a life of its own.

I'm enjoying.

Not everybody's going to stay on the ride, but a lot of people have and we get new people every week.

So it's those two things probably the most important work I've done so far.

And also it's a two-book deal.

So in most of the next book is already written.

We got to start on it and start putting it together and piecing it together and building it.

Anyways, it's...

I got my watch on backwards.

Let's tell you I tied it on a little bit last night.

I forgot to start my timer.

I am off.

I am banging it out today.

It's all good. We're going to get through this.

Let me set that.

There we go.

Oh man.

Today we're going to talk about my buddy Steve Gardner.

Y'all have heard stories about him.

All the way back when we were friends in high school.

You know stories.

Quite a bit about Steve.

You've heard about him more than once.

Me, him, and Joe.

I can remember the day.

I met Steve actually before Joey.

Steve was in my biology class.

And Steve, you have to understand like back in the 90s,

I would say like when we graduated in 95,

there's not...

Long hair wasn't real popular with young men at that time.

But Steve was Mexican

but had green eyes and long blonde hair

like down past his ass

and was built like a tank.

He'd been working with his daddy.

I told you I was four.

He'd been roofing with his daddy since he was eight years old

carrying bundles up on them roof and stuff doing construction.

That's all when he got off.

So first time I met him, he was in my biology class.

We all kind of thought he was crazy.

Nobody really knew anything about him.

And I think folks were a little intimidated by him.

But I really got to know him after me and him and Joey

and our Vicka class and Vicka Vocational Industrial Co-op.

It's where you go into school for about half the day

and then you go to a Vicka class

where you talk about time management,

all the stuff you need to be good at a job.

Basically just how to be a good worker bee.

Stuff that we had discussions like that

and worksheets like that we had to fill out.

And then he would talk to us about our individual jobs

and then we left school and we went to work.

And it's just trained you to be a good worker bee the rest of your life.

That's what they were trying to teach us with that.

For guys they thought we're going to probably not go to college

and probably do something in the trades.

Something industrial.

I worked at school print and press.

Steve worked for his father doing construction

and literally...

When I tell you this dude was strong,

I think possibly he's one of the strongest human beings

I've ever met physically.

Like his physical strength was absolutely incredible.

And he didn't go to the gym.

He just did construction every day.

But he was the house.

He was the one his family put it on.

He was the house and he was the little engine that could

and they worked that boy.

Working man.

I became friends with him at the same time I did with Joey.

I went down to Bolliver.

And I heard them talking about fishing in class

and I hadn't been fishing in a long time.

I really wanted to go fishing with him.

And it was after kind of like me and my best friend Jay

weren't talking anymore.

I had broke up with my girlfriend

and didn't have a lot going for me.

I started hanging out with these two cats

and me and Steve got along right off the bat.

You know I always tell you me and Joey's personalities

are pretty opposite.

Joey was calm, quiet, liked a lot of planning control

and I was very much flying by the seat of my pants

most of the time

and didn't really know what planning was

and was certainly not a controlled human.

I was a little wild.

Steve matched that wild side.

He was a little wild too.

I remember the first time I went to his house

at the time they lived over by this AutoZone I worked at.

I worked at AutoZone.

Was I working at AutoZone yet?

Yeah, yeah.

I think I was already working at AutoZone.

And yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know I was.

I was working at AutoZone.

Because literally I backed out of my parking spot at AutoZone.

I was when I had my little blue Ford truck, my 72 Ford.

I backed out of my parking spot at AutoZone

and this dude in a pickup truck

run into the back of my truck,

like hit the bed of my truck before he slammed on the brakes.

He was just flying through the parking lot

not paying attention to what he was doing.

I was already half out of the space when he hit me.

Well, he got out and started hollering

and raising all kind of hell at me.

I was a kid.

I was basically taking it.

And then somebody else got involved

that had seen the whole thing

and started telling this guy that it was his fault.

They were calling the law.

I just wanted out of there.

I didn't want to be in his seat.

My truck didn't hardly have any damage on it.

It was a little screwed up.

It didn't really do much that old Ford truck bed.

It mostly hit my bumper

and the big old steel bumper

did a bunch of damage from this pickup.

I panicked, jumped in my truck and left.

Just bailed. I was like, screw it.

They can just come and get me.

And I had got some paint that night.

Right when I clocked out from AutoZone

I bought some paint

and I hated that bumper.

When that bumper had the color of his bumper

and stuff all over it,

there was a little bit on the bed of the truck.

So I called Steve up.

I was like, hey man, can I come by your house

and he'd do something real quick.

And he was like, sure, yeah.

So I pulled over there and pulled up from his house.

He was like, what happened?

I was like, oh, this dude ran into me

and I ran away from the scene of the crime.

Steve's dad, Big Mike,

it was my first time ever meeting him.

Mexico dude Long Hair.

They were part Native American too.

Long hair, kind of long goatee.

And he's in a leather jacket, man.

And he comes out there and he goes, just pull it in the driveway, man.

Just pull it in the driveway.

And I pulled it in the driveway

and I started spray painting that bumper.

I was the whole time

worried these people about to come looking for me about it.

And they never did.

They never showed up looking for me.

But I just thought it was so funny.

My first instinct was like, yeah, pull up in the driveway.

We got you home.

And they pulled one of their pickups behind my pickup

and another one around so you couldn't hardly see it.

Just in case they did come looking for me.

First time I met Big Mike, he had my back.

And I'd never been around.

My parents were really strict.

I'd never been around people like them.

The first time I walked in their house,

they go in there.

They start rolling joints at the kitchen table.

Big Mike fires up the joint.

They're not offering it to us.

We're kid, you know, we're teenagers,

but just openly smoking.

And Steve, like,

he'd go in his room.

He had, like, black light

and all these cool-ass music posters.

He was a music fanatic.

It was just different.

I'd just never been around a house

where your parents weren't up your ass

in that situation.

And they were also welcome.

And he had an older brother

that everybody called Little Mike.

And Little Mike

also ridiculously strong, man.

Ridiculous.

Little Mike,

he was kind of scary, dude.

He was getting some fights and shit.

He was, uh,

he didn't want to get hit.

He had a little bit of a temper on him.

He was just old enough.

They might have looked bad if he whooped our ass,

but everybody probably

would have just kind of turned their head, you know,

because now you might have had it coming.

There's just that amount older than us.

But I had never been

around folks like that.

It was a different kind of thing.

And we bonded well right off the bat.

In the beginning, a lot of it

was just me and Steve were around doing crazy shit.

They moved.

So we lived out in,

uh,

kind of like the outskirts

of A-leaf.

Out towards going towards, uh,

Fulcher.

And Steve's family ended up moving.

There was a neighborhood of patio homes behind us.

And they ended up moving in that neighborhood.

When they moved in that neighborhood,

uh, we were all,

Steve's like a year younger than me.

He had just turned 16.

I already had my truck

and his dad got him a

1986,

uh, GMC.

Just a

little square body, short bed.

C-1500 half ton.

Had 350 in it,

automatic.

Just your, your run of the mill.

It was clean though.

Booger was clean.

I'll say that.

It was black.

I always liked the 86's grill.

I like that.

I like that front end out of the square bodies.

The 86 is one I really enjoy.

And I, and I prefer GMC

myself. I've always preferred GMC

over Chevrolet.

Just styling wise.

I just like the GMC styling.

It's cool little pickup, man.

Good, good,

good little pickup for

dude's first truck.

Dude's first truck.

They always had all these

plans. They was going to paint it.

Um,

Steve's dad, Big Mike,

when he was younger, he worked

at the Greyham plant

in New Mexico.

And literally he told me

all he did was he would go in there at

night and he had a

scaffold that would go up and down

and they had like

train tracks through the, through the

shop.

And he'd go there and get his sprayer set up,

put his little coveralls

on, get his sprayer set up.

And he'd be on one side

and there'd be another dude on the other side of the shop.

And the, uh,

the Greyham bus body

would roll through the shop

on a train trolley.

And literally as it

was rolling through they would spray it

and then it would

it would stop

and then they'd spray back going the other way.

It would roll back. They'd spray back going.

It'd go back and forth about five times

before they spray. They'd drop like three coats

on it real quick.

Get up there, spray the top.

Do a couple coats on the top.

But two guys

painting this whole Greyham bus, just

spraying from the sides, you know,

kind of like an assembly line set up.

Big Mike

always telling the stories about working at the Greyham

place because

you know this is when he was drugging

and drinking and partying and he

said he'd come in there three sheets to the wind

and he said, but I can still spray that bus.

He said, I might not

can open my eyes, but I can spray that bus.

But he was a pretty good painter.

A hell of a residential painter.

The man had an eye for paint.

He was real good at it.

And he had painted some cars that were going to paint Steve's truck at some point.

It wasn't in bad shape though.

It was a clean pickup.

The paint on it was still in pretty good shape.

They just were going to make it, you know,

it was going to be like a father's son.

They're going to fix it up, make it sharp, that kind of thing.

The first thing Steve did

was go over to the Pluga,

which is the Mexican flea market

and

buy a big old box

with some big old 12 inch speakers

and an amp

and a head unit.

Kenwood, I think.

That's back when we had the ones where you take the face off

the stereo.

And he put that box behind the seat

in that single cab.

So Steve drove like this

up on the steering wheel.

Steve drove up on the steering wheel

like almost pressed into it.

His arm up like this.

And he rode in that truck like just bolt

upright real close to the dash

because of the speakers.

When them speakers were going, son,

people four cars over

could hear your music.

But you weren't hearing that music

in the cab. You were feeling it.

You were living it. It was being pumped through your body.

I may have ultrasonic frequencies

in me, got something screwed up

on kind of them speakers.

That's putting ourselves through that.

Steve's big hip-hop.

I often tell people,

Steve's who ruined Pink Floyd for me

when Steve went through a Pink Floyd

phase

where if I never hear Pink Floyd again

it'll be too soon, honestly.

I listened to so much Pink Floyd

during Steve's Pink Floyd phase

that if I never hear Pink Floyd again

it will honestly

be too soon.

Steve used to turn me on the two-pot.

He had all eyes on me.

We listened to that every

day. We would go to lunch

and we would either take my truck or his truck

and we'd go, there was a taco bell

down the street from school

and we had a haul ass down that taco bell

and it was just

usually banging two-pot

or loonies. There was a loonies

song. I got five on it

and we got excited. We went and bought the album

from the Sam Goody. That's back

when you had to go to a music store.

We went and bought the album from Sam Goody

and it was basically just

the whole album was like 15 different versions

of the same song. Every song

was I got five on it. It was just a different version

of I got five on it.

His family was a whole cast of characters.

His mom lost. She was something else, man.

She somehow kept them all in line.

He had a younger sister

with a little lie that was about my sister's

age that ended up marrying

one of my old friends, Randy

Lee, my tattoo artist who did this.

They've been married

a long time and have a great life together.

They were tight knit. Once you were

a part of that unit, you were a part of that

unit. That's where I met my friend Marzy

Montessori. So there were all

kind of musicians. Steve's dad wanted to

be a musician. Big Mike wanted to be

a musician so bad he could taste it.

And he was real good at percussion.

He had a drum set up. He played

bongos and all that kind of stuff.

He was fire on

them drums, but his favorite

thing was accordion.

He would play accordion with

some Tejano bands sitting

with them. He knew them all.

He played with all the bands that

played down there in south Texas.

We would go to these

Tejano music festivals

and stuff all the time for free

because Steve's dad was going to play

with the band and we

would just hang out and have a good time.

I spent a lot of time going to events like

that and being a part of that scene

and it was

like any other music scene. A lot of drugs, a lot of drinking

and partying.

We weren't doing a lot of that yet. We were still

teenagers at that point.

But it does

make me wonder. So me and Steve both got into

drugs, both got into alcohol later on

in life. One of us raised

by parents who were very strict about all that

sort of stuff and didn't want it around.

One of us raised by parents who were kind of

like, hey, just

take responsibility for your own choices.

We both ended up having problems

at stuff.

It's why

I often

take it with a grain of salt when somebody

goes, you know, my kid turned out pretty good.

I must have done a good job.

You just got lucky.

I'm not 100%

sure. I've seen people turn out good

that come from terrible environments. I've seen

people turn out bad that

come from great environments. Sometimes

you just get lucky.

I hope I get lucky with my kids.

I like them.

It's a pretty good start.

But

we did

all that. I met Marzy. Marzy hung

out over there. He had this buddy

named Snake.

I can't remember the name of his band.

Snake was cool though.

Snake had this Volkswagen bug

that it was this little hot

rod BW bug and the whole

back, when you were inside the bug

the whole back seat in that

area was instead

just like a clear plexiglass

shield.

And so you could see that detailed

engine and the transaxle and everything

from in there. It was really cool.

It was a fast little bugger.

And it didn't matter like

when they threw like, big Mike

like throw down on the grill all the time.

It was a common thing, get off

work, stop, get some meat,

get home, fire the big grill

up, start cooking meat, start

drinking.

All the neighbors would be over there. Their

musician friends would show up.

It was

a party would materialize at that house

in minutes.

You would just be there hanging out with your buddy

and y'all would come out of his room

and all of a sudden there'd be 40 people

in the house playing music

drinking, having good time, smoking weed.

Nobody did a lot of hard stuff around

there, you know, until later on

that come later.

I spent

more

hours at their house

around their families and probably

just about anybody except Joey.

And a lot of times it was

me, Joey and Steve together.

They had a, Steve

had a best friend named Carlos

that he grew up with.

Carlos, I remember Carlos had to

Chevy Nova

with a 307 in it

and somebody convinced

him that turning his air cleaner lid

upside down would make it louder

and faster. It made it louder. It didn't make it

any faster.

But he would, after he turned that air cleaner over

every time Carlos pulled up he'd be revving

up, revving

that old 307 up trying to make it

sound like it had something.

Oh, it was slow and

pissed.

Carlos ended up

doing some prison

time, I think, if I remember

correctly. Carlos

got drunk one night over off

Derry Ashford. There was a police station

called West Side Command for HPD

and behind West Side Command

was a huge cattle pasture.

I think it's probably all neighborhoods

by now.

There's big old cattle pasture

and Carlos one night

had a little too much drink.

This is after high school.

Got over there in this pickup

truck and started picking mushrooms

in the cow pasture.

I was literally driving

around this cow pasture digging through

cow shit

and stumbling back to this truck and compiling

these mushrooms and they were landing

one of the police helicopters

there at West Side Command and the cops

up on the landing deck just happened to

look over and see this idiot

out there in the cow pasture

with his flashlight.

Three cops

just walked across the field

and arrested this dude. It got him

mushrooms and big penalties

in Texas so

ended up screwing on Carlos

here.

They got put in the pokey over

that for a few years.

But also

you know

he got caught picking mushrooms

behind the police station.

Big Mike had some brothers

but his younger brother

was a dude named Chris

Chris went a little

harder in the paint than Big Mike.

He got way off into the drugs.

Chris screwed me up one night

one night

a few years after high school

we was hanging out over at their house

they had some kind of party going on

some sort of thing.

I hadn't really smoked a lot of weed yet

I was

I had tried it one time

when I was like

18

at a field party

and it made my eyes swell up

I had an allergic reaction to it

or something.

I didn't like it.

So then one time

at this party at their place

I go out there

Chris is sitting on the tailgate of his truck

and

he's like hey man

you want to hit this he had this J

and I was trying to look cool from

Steve's older

Steve's uncle you know

and so I was like yeah man I took a couple hits

off of it and handed it back to him

and I was coughing.

He literally did that training day thing on me

he's like I didn't know you liked to fly with angels

Jdub.

I was like what?

He's like yeah Jerry Wayne this got hair on in it

I was like man what are you

you kidding me?

This day I don't know if he was telling me

the truth or screwed with me.

I ran home and went to bed

because I was worried that I was going to be addicted to hair on.

It doesn't really happen

but I remember

I was real paranoid and freaked out you know

so this day I don't know if he was telling me

the truth or he was screwing with me.

My favorite thing we used to all do

was we would

the whole family

Big Mike and all of them

man at least once a week

on the weekend

they would load up

we'd get cooler

and meat

and we'd go over to Bear Creek State Park

where they had

but not Bear Creek State Park

where they had a volleyball net

set up

and we would go over there and just set up

and play volleyball all day long

and just have a ball man

just have a good time drinking

and eat

playing volleyball

Steve had his cousin come to live with him for a little while

his name was Shane

but we called him Shane

and

Shane was

big boy

maybe 400 pounds big boy

and Shane was remarkably good

at volleyball

we put him in the middle of the court

and we nicknamed him the hand

because he would stick that big old meat hook

up there and get that ball every time

Shane could run the volleyball court

from the middle of the volleyball court

didn't move that much

but he could always get his hand on that ball

somehow and boy could just send it

spinning right back across

at the other side, you know

he was vicious

that's some of my best memories with his family

those volleyball games

we would just stay out there for hours

we were still at age where I wasn't really drinking

or anything we'd have Dr. Pepper's

and stuff but

it was just a good time

and every once in a while cops would come over and be like

hey y'all can't have alcohol over here

that kind of thing

big Mike would go out there and talk to them

and get them calmed down

and we were going to hide the beer

and they would hide the beer in the truck

and then that was good enough

Steve was always up for me

I mean day after prom

we were trying to figure out what to do

and we just drove to Brazos River

down there

where it goes under the bridge

in Richmond and used to be able to get down to the river

down there as much houses and shit now

it's all private property

used to be able to get right down the river

there was a train bridge

and we just jumped off in the Brazos River

spent the whole day swimming in the Brazos River

alligators and snakes would be damned

I wouldn't get in that river now if you paid me

but we had a time

of it just down there

didn't even have swimsuits, just weren't swimming in our clothes

spent all day down there

raising hell in the river

he's always up for

adventure

and when I was that age

if I didn't have like work or stuff going on with my own job

I would go work with Steve's family

to make money, you know

I would go do construction

remote jobs with them

just be a helper on the job site

and that's where I learned a lot of my construction

knowledge was working with Steve's family

I always say

Steve's dad taught me construction

which he did kind of teach, he taught me how to use the speed

square

you know the basics

but Steve probably taught me more about construction

than anybody

I worked with him a lot as a teenager

and

we had a fallen out

a little while

after high school

and I honestly

don't remember what the fallen out was about

I'm pretty sure it was my fault

I had lied about something

and got caught in a lie

and Steve kind of like

Steve's girlfriend was mad at me

so Steve turned his back on me

or some kind of thing

and we just kind of drifted apart

we didn't end up talking for many years

years later

after I started

right after I first started comedy

Joey

and Steve had reconnected

and started hanging out again

and Joey brought Steve

up to one of my comedy shows

and I reconnected with Steve

and ended up hanging out with him again

you know by that time I was getting into

I was off into

my own struggles

with drug use I was using cocaine

pretty heavily

during that period and

Steve and his wife liked to party too

so I started hanging out with them all the time

I was probably detrimental to both of us

but

but within a few months

I started getting serious about Rachel

I decided to get away from that mess

stop doing it

and

Steve and his wife

were going through a divorce

and he decided

that was the time to amp up his use

I would like go over to his house

and he'd have an eight ball

I mean I have an eight ball

of coke look like a size

of a freaking tennis ball

he'd be shaving bits off of it

he used to always say

everybody's problems they don't use it in moderation

but he was not using it in moderation

at that point he was getting bad off on it

and it seemed like he always had it

on him and he was always trying to do it

and I was worried

about him

it didn't seem like

things were going well

and he was heartbroken about him

and his wife splitting up

and that wasn't leading to good behavior

good choices

they caught up with him

he was at a wedding

and

he had some coke in his truck

and he was running out there

once while to his truck

and doing a little bump

and there just happened to be a cop

doing security up at the wedding venue

and the cop looked off in there

and saw Steve's goodie bag

and waited for Steve to come back out of the truck

and do some more and busted him

and

you know that's felony

and I think his lawyer

got it knocked down some

but he had to go on probation

and he spent some time in jail

over it

and the dude's still man

even when he was on probation man

he was still smoking weed

and drinking

a gallon of pee cleaner

before he took his piss test

I don't know how many

probation piss tests he popped

ended up getting more time

and

right after me and Rachel

got married I started working with Steve

doing construction I was looking for something

I was looking for a job

transmission shop and closed and been sold

and me and Steve started working

construction on that property together

and I was out there in Conroe

and

he was getting

rough man we were both taking them

pain pills

but Steve

would take them pills and drink on them man

he would drink all the time on them

and it would just turn him into a toddler

you know

I'd take those pain pills I didn't drink on

that time I wasn't really drinking I'd gotten

all that other stuff I didn't pain pills

just so I could go to work you know

just so I could handle all that stuff

we were doing construction wise

we were doing side jobs

we would get off work

at April Point Sound

and then it wasn't anything for us to go

fix a house that a tree fell through

or do some crazy other job

I had us working on nine to ten o'clock at night

beating our bodies up

but I had Rachel to come home to

a sense of something I needed to come home to

and keep my head on straight for

he didn't have anything to go home to

him and Joey roommate and he just

it just got worse where I told y'all

when I was telling y'all about giant tube sock

like it just got deeper and deeper

he eventually starts dating one of our friend

our friend Shelly had a sister named Jamie

and Steve starts dating her

and

that's when he like

really went off the rails

and she ends up getting pregnant

his daughter was born just

man really

I think

maybe about six or seven months before junior was born

my oldest

my kid was born

something changed in me

maybe it was that thing where everybody says

oh you're gonna grow up, you have a kid

but I didn't want that kind of stuff around

my kid anymore

I didn't want people drunk and acting a fool around my kid

I already smoked

a little bit of weed every now and then

I was terrified the government was gonna come take my kid away

because they were doing that kind of stuff back then

so I didn't want people that were

partying and

hanging out a hand around my kid

I didn't want to be a part of that scene

I didn't want to be around that scene anymore

I started

distancing myself from

it wasn't an effort to be me

I just, I was scared

I was scared of where they were headed

that their parties were getting out of hand

things were getting out of hand

it showed up in my house one time drunk

with his kid in the truck

and that was a little more than I could take

and also we had done some jobs together

and he owed me some money on those jobs

and what we used to do being him

would go do these jobs and we would both chip in

for a bottle of the pain pills

but when you got that prescription filled

you had to get these other ones filled

well he liked that soma and xanax and stuff

like I didn't mess with that

so he would pay for that part of it

and he would keep the soma and xanax

and then we'd split the pain pills

prescription

and we'd take that out of our money

from doing the job

but when I stopped needing to do that

with him

because I started going to an actual

doctor who was prescribing my stuff

then he

for some reason I stopped getting my portion

of the money from that

and we went back and forth about it

and the thing was man if you owed Steve

money man he would not let it go

he would be up your ass about it

if you

you know when I worked for his parent's construction company

they took lunch whatever they spent on you

out of your money before you got it

we you know maybe maybe 50-60

bucks a day doing day labor

you worked half day you got paid

$30

if it rained out you got

nothing you know what I mean like

these were people that were shy

about wanting their portion of money

and especially Steve he was

about the worst one about it out of all of them

you know

and here it was man he like owed me

all this money and he

it wasn't even a lot it was a couple hundred bucks

but he kept blowing me off

on it blowing me off on it and then

he would still like then he was hitting me up

for pills because he couldn't afford his own

pills and he was in

he was getting into me deeper and I

finally

I got really frustrated with him and I

wrote him this every time I tried to

bring it up to him he would change the subject

or whatever so I just wrote him this long letter like

hey man I don't want

I won't work with you anymore I won't

do stuff with you anymore because

I feel like you screw me around here

and

also feel like you're lying to everybody

and you got you're

your whole family got mad as hell at me one time

about lying

and here y'all you're doing the same shit I

was doing but it's okay now because it's you

doing it

I don't know what I was trying to

accomplish that letter didn't accomplish much

but in the friendship

his girlfriend read the letter and

decided to get her trashy ass involved

and she was nothing but trash

and

it just blew up into a way

bigger thing that needs to be it was me

reach out my friend trying to connect

with him and figure out a way

to fix things and maybe I didn't

go about it the right way but

it just blew everything apart

blew everything apart everybody

me and Joey's friendship got strained again

because

Joey them we're still hanging out with

Steven I didn't want to go over there be a part

of that anymore

so it felt like once again

as an adult I lost all my friends

and one fell swoop

and it wasn't long after that

that me and Rachel we moved on

you know we moved to spring

we moved up to Conroe

and me and Joey of course

eventually fixed our friendship

but me and Steve never did

you know the funniest thing is

I seen him one day

I walked up into a store

in Conroe

to get some fuel

and I walked in this little gas station

and he was in line in front of me

and I watched him pay for his stuff

and walk out of the store I never said a word

because I didn't even know

what the hell I would say

and I don't have any animosity

towards him either that's

like the thing it's not animosity

I still love to do

to disagree with some of his choices

I'm sure he's disagreed with some of mine

but he's done me some solids

we were there for each other

as friends

but

I feel like mostly all we did

was drag each other down deeper

into bullshit

me and Joey there's checks and balances

me and Steve there's no checks and balances

it was just write a hot check

and get high

you know what I mean

we weren't good for each other

in that type of situation

I'm sure he's grown up a bunch

he's been through all kind of changes

in his life I can't even imagine

what that looks like now

and there being a father will change you

but you know we were working at that property

April Sound

I was working as Steve's helper

Steve was wanting to go back and build houses with his brother

he didn't want to do the maintenance stuff anymore

and they come around right before Christmas

and said they were going to cut me loose

the day before Christmas Eve

they were going to cut me loose

just because

Steve didn't allow for two guys on the job

site they had hired me to help with cleanup

from Hurricane Ike

and we had done a good job

we had cleaned up and fixed all the damage

and they were going to cut me loose

Christmas Eve and Steve said

no y'all better keep Jerry

because I'm quitting

and Steve quit and allowed me to keep

that job

he had his own reasons

but still solid move

he could have waited until he was ready

and he didn't

like when Steve was there for you

he was there for you

but once that shit got a hold of him

like too deep

he just wasn't the same human being anymore

that's just probably ruined a lot of friendships

I went and saw his dad

before his dad died

me and Joey went and visited his dad

I went to his funeral

even though me and Steve weren't particularly close at that time

I went to his father's funeral

because Big Mike was important to me

I wanted to do a whole episode about Big Mike one day

but I'm going to have

my buddy Marzi Montessori

and the Taurus Bud Musician

he's going to come up with

we're going to talk about Big Mike together

because Big Mike was a whole vibe

and a whole experience

I think I'll wrap that up

for today

I'll give you my testimonials

there's some testimonials if you will

and

our comments from last week

what did we do last week

this week was

and I had these set up

there they go

I went to Mississippi

I didn't get to talk to you all that much

about Mississippi was amazing

I had a truly spiritual

experience in Mississippi

I drove out there

myself so it was like 6 hours

well driving out there was like 8 hours

because it was a huge

bunch of construction

in Baton Rouge because there's always construction

in Baton Rouge

so it took forever to get out there

but I had a day just to myself

in Macomb, Mississippi

I went out and found Jerry Clower's grave

and I communed

with the great one

spent some time out there

spent some time in Liberty

checking out the places from all those

great stories Jerry Clower told

while I was growing up

and then I went out and found

the crash site memorial

for Leonard Skinnerd where they crashed

right there in Mississippi

and this lady

there built this huge monument

and I guess they do concerts

out there on the anniversary

of the plane crash and stuff like that

this beautiful monument

also hilarious I got recognized

walking up

to the monument I got recognized

and I thought that was so funny

just so on brand

of course I get recognized at the Leonard Skinnerd Memorial

where the hell else would I get

recognized

that's my second favorite place

I get recognized at truck stops a lot

so it was cool

met some fans out there and took some pictures

they were cool as shit

the show in Mississippi

was the show I needed after the San Antonio show

there was a little saying in the business

you're only good as your last show

and if you feel like your last show wasn't a good one

it doesn't leave you in a good headspace

and that last show in San Antonio

did not leave me in a good headspace

and the show in Mississippi

fixed that was a rock star night

that was that crowd

came there to have a good time

I was on stage about an hour and ten minutes

they got all the extras

we banged it out

plus I love being somewhere where I'm allowed

to make fun of Louisiana freely

and Mississippi is a good place to be

if you want to make fun of Louisiana

and Louisiana is kind of like the middle kid

between Texas and Mississippi

we just sort of tolerated

anyways

it was a magical experience

I came back refreshed and renewed

did see

one of the Mexican trains

pulling the cars to Mexico

flip a Ford Ranger

all over I-12

got it loose and snaked up

I told a little story about it on the internet

but flipped that Ford Ranger

all over the road

I was right there what had happened

and I've been searching news stories for it

I can't find nothing about it

what I suspect happened is that dude

hit the gas and kept going

and left that Ford Ranger

on the side of I-12

alright

let's get in these testing

I had our old buddy

a David Beckard

I did not hear you say anything about

eating armadillo I have

when I was in Arkansas

you got my beat there brother

I ain't never had no armadillo

in fact we used to freak out

when our dogs would try to eat armadillo

because there was a wives tale

when I was growing up I don't know if it's true or not

that dogs get leprosy

from eating armadillo

and that was like a big fear

dog cow down

armadillo start messing with armadillo

you went and got the dog away from armadillo

dog screw around and get some leprosy

I never bet armadillo was a leper

but I was told that

one of y'all might correct me and be like

that's a bullshit somebody told you

at

Steven Byrne

no eight nine seven seven

that guy asking you about the wrecking yard

and what it's about best way I can describe

it is

is that it's

is that it's place in your heart

where you share good times and bad times

are the ones you love

it's a place where we all grew up and learned life

lessons in order to become the person

we are today

it's a special place where memories are made

and when it's our time to leave

and move on to the world that we call life

we end up leaving a piece of our heart

and soul with the wrecking yard

each of us has our own little version of the wrecking yard

and one day I myself will be

taking one final trip to my own wrecking yard

and take one final look

at the place for the last time

that is what the wrecking yard means to me

keep up with the life lessons

we love you brother

boy that's one of

thank you

thank you Steven

that's a beautiful description

I too believe that we all have a little wrecking yard

of our own somewhere

each of us

a little wrecking yard in our own life

there's a spot in the book

that I was reading on yesterday

you day oneers

people from the first season that

seen all the episodes

probably remember the episode I tell you

about going to

CZZ Top

with Uncle Bobby

when I was about 25

somewhere in there

about our grand adventure

working on the gay cowboys hot tub

and them giving us tickets

go CZZ Top

just going in styles

the way only Uncle Bobby could do in the event

and I was having to write that whole story

for the book and really flesh it out

and get all the details in the scene

and

it dawned on me that was my last

it was my last real rodeo with Uncle Bobby

that's the time we went to the Cosmic Shack

that's the last time I really spent

any time with him alone

just me and him

that's the last time I went to Kilgore

looking for him

chased that life that he lived

with him

and when I got to the end

of that chapter I wrote

there's a thing you know he called me

Pooh Bear

and he told me he called me Pooh Bear because

he said

he was like Christopher Robbins one day

he was going to outgrow me

and then the very opposite thing happened

I outgrew him

but when I

was in up that chapter

I wrote something along the lines of

I pointed that forward towards Houston

I left a hundred acre wood

and Christopher Robbins

for the last time

and boy if that line didn't punch me

it's

if that line didn't punch me in the face

that's the other one I'm going to have a hard time

reading on that damn audio book

that's the one I'm going to have to practice

because boy it punched me

in my editor, me and Adam both

had bloody noses the rest of the night

that Jean Bond

thanks for another great one

JW

it's funny to look back and see a different picture

of events in the past

well you may have been proud of an incident at the time

you can now look back and see what kind of dumb ass

you were in the moment

if I knew then what I know now

yeah Jean I don't think I'd want to have to redo

any of it God knows I probably screwed up

second time around

but here's I look back at these moments

I'm talking about Steve and I'm trying to

capture the parts of Steve I love

without focusing y'all have heard the bad

I don't want to focus on the bad

I'm trying to focus on the parts I love

the family

being together hanging out

because I could tell y'all

stories about me and Steve being idiots

all day long and

it's just not stuff I'm proud of

you know

just we were just

we were a bad match together sometimes

neither one of us

talked the other one down

in fact we just egged each other on

until shit got really out of hand

he had that old

he had that old CT and pickup

truck for a long time buddy

he put some dual exhaust on

you hear it plop plop plop plop plop plop plop

it wasn't fast but plop plop plop

and everywhere he went

and then him and his dad

like sanded it down they were gonna

paint it and they sanded it down

a couple weekends and then they

primered it and then Steve wrecked

it and then they fixed that and primered

that and then it just

stayed primer for a long time

and then the frame cracked and had

Steve jumped it through a ditch and

cracked the frame on it

and traded it in on a Ford Mustang

when him and his wife first got

married

so it was uh

yeah some dealership got hooked

on that one because that thing had a cracked

frame when they got it of course

knowing how they do them uh

I don't think them dealerships ever take a beating

on a trade in

I don't think there's any way you win

on a trade in

as always I thank you guys for sharing

with me Sunday with me

spending a little quiet time

going over some things

hope the obstacles

in your life are

making way I know this is

the time of year where

at least I did when I worked in the

trades this is the time of year where

money starts getting tight you gotta

worry about Christmas and

the job starts slowing down people's

money get scared because they're worrying

about Christmas

then especially down here in south

the weather is about to get terrible

jobs get rained out it's hard to

plan jobs when you're in the trades

working outside

this is a stressful time of year for

guys in that situation

I used to tell people every about

about this time of year every year

I'd start hearing that song

if we make it through December

almost

like a few on March

this is that time

of year for you and your business and occupation

I feel you brother

I hope it's

I hope it's a good year

I hope it's not one of them bad ones

luckily it looks like our weather's been pretty mild

so far I'm hoping for a mild winter

forest down there

keep guys working getting that paycheck

people need the money now more than ever

everything's more expensive

it's getting harder to scratch by out here

you ain't telling me nothing

I love you guys

hope

hope you're looking forward to a

decent Christmas

maybe some time this week with your families

hope you have a good Thanksgiving

I got I'm glad my sister's

going to be here again

I like having a house full of people on Thanksgiving

we got a small house so adding one or two

people makes it feel like a full house

and we got our new

our new little friend this is old Philly

who's going to be her first Thanksgiving with

she has just

she has really just taken over our entire

household she has run

calling the shots she now sleeps in the bed

with me and Rachel

it did not

take her along to worm her way into our hearts

and

take over our little household

she's just been a delight

endless source of enjoyment for me

let's

close this up and get out of here for the day

you know there comes a point in your life

where you don't just change

you rise not gentle

not graceful

not photogenic

I'm talking about

climbing hand over hand

up out of a pit you dug

with your own two hands

while the old version of you tries to drag you back

down by the ankle

and that's when it happens

the moment you start moving toward the light

somebody down in the shadows

starts hollering your name like you're doing something wrong

because they

miss the broken version of

the easy version

the predictable version

the version that didn't

challenge them to face their own darkness

some folks don't want you healed

not because they hate you but because your journey

forces them to look at their own stagnation

and it is easier

to call you changed

than it is to admit they've been standing still

for ten damn years

I think about my brother Steve when I say that

we were welded together in chaos

we shared laughter and bad decisions

and too many nights I'm not proud of

we were two halves of the same busted

compass

but when I started clawing my way

toward something better he didn't see hope

he saw abandonment

he saw betrayal

he saw me stepping out of his shadow

he was still married to

I didn't rise above him

I didn't outrun him

I just outgrew the darkness we used to sit in together

that's the part nobody wants to say

out loud when you start walking towards a life

that doesn't hurt as much

the people who won't move will swear

you acting brand new

they'll say you're judging

they'll paint you as the villain in a story

where all you ever did was try to survive

you can lose your entire future trying to

stay loyal to a chapter you were meant to

finish

you can drown trying to save someone

who's grabbing you harder than the water is

you can die a little at a time

staying small just to keep someone else

comfortable

some goodbyes don't blow up

they just whisper an inch of distance

here a missed call there

a silence

that grows until the friendship

you love becomes a ghost

and it breaks you

because nothing

nothing hurts

like losing someone who's still alive

but

but just listen to me

you are not meant to sacrifice

your journey for someone who refuses

to take the first step on theirs

your peace is work-defending

your healing is work-defending

your purpose is work-defending

every damn time

you can love somebody

with everything you've got and still know that

walking next to them will burn you to the ground

you can pray for them

you can hope for them

you can carry their memory like a stone in your pocket

and still refuse to follow them

into the dark

I miss my friend

more than I say out loud

and I hope wherever he is

the shadows finally loosen their grip

and let a little light in

I didn't walk away because I stopped loving him

I walked away

because survival demanded movement

because the road to becoming who you're meant to be

doesn't always accommodate everyone you love

and sometimes the doorway

to your better life opens at the exact place

someone else's path is

I'm J.W. and I love you

J.W.

I hope you guys have a great Thanksgiving

I'll see you

see you next week

I'll be safe

if we

make it through December

I plan to be in a woman

please

1986 GMC C1500 |S:03E.74

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