Contractors and Conmen |s:03E.63

Are you really digging for peace? Or is that just a lie and tell to help you sleep?

You sure that you really wanna know? We'll be hiding all the stories that go.

But the chaos don't lie, they scream but they know us, don't forget.

Welcome to the Reagan Yard, I'm Jerry Wayne Longmire and hell y'all are presumably still y'all.

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

It's a big day today. I'm recording this on Saturday and I'm recording it during the day.

You can tell it's a little bright outside. But today is me and Miss Rachel's anniversary, 17 years.

My life changed long before September 6th of 2008. Long before that day, I ran into this girl.

This girl who carried every promise of a good and worthy life if only I could be a man good enough to earn her love.

17 years. 17 years don't feel near long enough to hold all our stories. All our adventures.

All the laughter we packed into late nights and long roads.

Still, it was on this day that we were married 17 years ago.

On this day we came home from the Venetian Hotel in Vegas. We got married to Venetian.

We came home just in time to write out Hurricane Act.

Holding fast to one another. Storm on the outside. No match for the peace we had found within each other.

I love you, baby. You're everything beautiful in my life. Every joy, every victory.

Every single ridiculous moment worth remembering is because of you.

And here's to the next 17.

Maybe we crammed them just as full with laughter, with adventure, with love that only grows wilder with time.

Love that girl. Y'all just don't know, man. Maybe you do. You've been around a minute.

That's why I'm filming this this afternoon because we're going to cut loose, have us a little fun tonight.

We're going to get turnt up. Just kidding. I'm 48. I don't get turnt up anymore.

When I say turnt up, that means three or four bourbons on the porch listening to all our favorite music we love to listen to.

That's about the gist of it, but it's a pretty good night.

You know, one of the times in our early days before we were married, Rachel used to go on a lot of the road trips with me, you know, when I'd go out and do comedy and stuff.

And I can never remember where we were coming back from on this particular trip.

I think it may have been Texarkana.

Maybe. That's a possibility.

Thank you. It was Texarkana or Shreveport. Come back from doing the funny bone there or something.

We was in her Mazda. We was bebopping on the way home and probably about three hours from the house and Rachel's mom called us because some of her friends and guys, she lived in West Texas at the time,

some of her friends in Galveston had told her that the bioluminescence was running.

And if you don't live near a coast, you may not be familiar with bioluminescence, but it's and I'm going to screw this up.

I should have looked this up before I talked about it, but it's some kind of bacterias and whatnot.

Well, it gets in the water. It's not harmful to you, but it kind of they kind of glow.

It's kind of a crazy thing. You swirl your hand through the water and you can see them glow and they light up the water.

Maybe they're phytoplanktons or something. I can't remember. It's some kind of little organism.

Anyways, it happens every great once in a while, even rare in Galveston because water is usually pretty dirty down there.

Her mom called us. She said, man, I don't know where y'all are at, but you are getting down to Galveston.

There's bioluminescence in the water tonight. It was probably six, seven o'clock by that point.

We were still a couple of hours away from the house and we decided to take us an adventure.

And we called up my buddy Steve and my brother Joey and said, hey, man, we're going to go down to Galveston and see the bioluminescence.

You already come to. We're going to go get us room at the flagship hotel.

Now the flagship hotel was this big, beautiful hotel and it was out on the water right off the sea wall.

It was on stilts out over the water.

He had to drive out there to it and had this big, beautiful mermaid imagery all down the side of it.

And it was kind of a, it was a landmark in Galveston, Texas for a number of years, not unlike the Balinese room or other various landmarks in that fun little town.

But it was one everybody knew. Everybody knew the flagship hotel.

And at that point in my life, I'd never stayed at the flagship hotel.

I'd been there a couple of times for prom parties and stuff like that, but I'd never stayed, never had a room at the flagship hotel.

It was a little out of my price range as a young man.

I didn't come from Katie now.

Well, that's when we decided to get us a room at the flagship hotel.

We was going to go down to the flagship hotel and Joey and Steve said, hell yeah.

And they got in the car. They headed down there to meet us.

And I figured we got down there about nine or 10 o'clock and we must have spent two or three hours out there playing in them waves right there in Galveston Beach in the dark,

watching the bioluminescence swirl around us drinking, having a good time that only young people can, where you're not too worried about tomorrow.

And we had no idea then that 17 years later we'd still be here in Houston.

But we suspected we'd still be in love.

We did. We played in that water all night and then we went and had some drinks and went to our room, had kind of other fun that young people like to have,

especially those in love with each other.

It's just a fantastic memory that rolls around in my brain.

It's just one of those.

When you need to pick me up, I think about that night, how much fun.

And I was back when we were still friends with Steve and before a lot of the group friendship drama came along, split everybody apart.

It's just a different, younger, easier time.

I think about that when I think about my anniversary because when we come back from Vegas and I come through and hit Houston, I wiped out the flagship hotel.

I mean, just knocked it.

We went down there and took some pictures of it.

Just knocked it to pieces.

And Fertitta, who owns most things on Galveston Island, built the Pleasure Pier out there.

And the Pleasure Pier was a mock-up.

It's supposed to be kind of a mock-up of an older Pleasure Pier that was there at one time way back in the day, back in Galveston's mafia day.

Boy, you want to go down a, you know, you guys know I love James Lee Birx, one of my favorite authors.

And he's touched on it a little bit, but Galveston is one of the most fascinating places in this whole country when you look back at its history.

And a lot of people don't, when they hear the word mafia, they don't associate it with the South, but we had a lot of it down there.

Dallas was mostly Italian and Greek mafia running a lot of the businesses there.

Galveston at one time was just all mafia business.

Like everybody was the Maceos and the Fertittas, and, you know, Fertitta's won, clearly.

You know, New Orleans.

New Orleans is a hotbed, Atlanta.

It's interesting stuff to read about.

And before that, the most interesting pirate in the history of all pirates is John Lafitte.

And John Lafitte basically created Galveston.

That was his No Holds Bard, Pleasure Hideout, Hangout, Stash Spot, whatever you want to call it.

It baffles me, you know, in all the movies they remake, all the crap that they remake and refeed us.

Not one person sat there and going, man, if you read John Lafitte's Life, that's one of the, but that would be one of the greatest movies anybody's ever, it's already written.

All you got to do is transcribe it and film to something.

Maybe I ever get me in one of them rooms where they give me an opportunity to decide about something's being made.

Maybe John Lafitte comes to life.

That would be a hell of a story.

Hell of a film.

And something nobody's seen yet.

Anyways, I'm in a good mood.

It's my anniversary, so I'm being a little rambly.

I'm not sorry.

Y'all come here to listen to me rambly.

And one of my favorite things to ramble about is that Gal and all our adventures and good times together.

Those stuff I'm going to talk about in this episode wasn't necessarily a good time for us.

It was a time of struggle.

Not in our love, but time of struggle financially, hardship, that sort of thing.

But it's an interesting story and it's got some fun twists and turns.

And if you stick around to the end, I got to tell you, we're going to unwrap.

I got two big old boxes that sound like big old boxes of hot wheels.

And then I got a box from a long time podcast supporter and listener and a long time fan,

Kiran Kinsella over in Ireland.

And Kiran sent me something.

So I have to crack these boxes and check them because unfortunately there are devious people out there.

And there's people that have different senses of humor than the rest of us.

And occasionally somebody tries to send me a glitter bomb or something like that thinking they're going to be funny.

So I take all these packages back behind the garage, crack them, open them away from me.

Just in case it's going to bust.

And I've had two.

I've had two people send malicious packages like that.

And that's why I have to do it.

So I had to crack Kiran's box.

No, Kiran wouldn't send me anything malicious, but just, you know, I have a routine.

And what I saw inside that box has got me so psyched, I didn't get to pull it out and really look at it.

So I'm going to save that.

We're going to do that together later.

But I'm really psyched about it.

So I hope you stick around for that.

Let's do some quick sponsor copy.

This season of the Reckon Yard is brought to you by absolutely nobody.

Sponsored free church, just black coffee stoviness and a loud ass portable air conditioning unit.

But hey, if you're a brand, a business or a rich uncle with a guilty conscience, there's room at the table.

Slide in, sponsor the Reckon Yard.

And remember, all ships rise.

You know, I was in business for a long time and I've been in a number of different businesses.

I've had a number of jobs in my life.

I've worked for a great number of men, worked for a few women.

And some of those men have been crooked.

This ain't the first crooked man I ever done business with.

Might be one of the last.

It was like at the end of this one, I kind of finally learned my lesson about dealing with these sort of fellows.

Hopefully in sharing my tale, maybe you find something in there that relates to you.

Maybe you've owned your own business.

Now, this happened about 2018 and a long time breaking our fans know.

But that was after I had split my business from another real crooked son, 50, old Paul Russian.

Guy got busted for all the child stuff.

Boy, I had to get away from that fella.

That's a couple of things I don't tolerate in people.

That's one of the big ones.

I think most people feel that way.

But it's wild.

You hear stories every day about people.

Just recently, a man who I considered a friend for a number of years, we weren't super close.

We had spent a lot of time, but we've been in this industry together for a number of years.

We've worked together a number of times with broken bread a couple of times.

And some recent allegations have come out about this man that,

to say it's disappointing just barely scratches the surface.

I'm going to string them all up once you find them guilty because I got no use for that mess.

This is right after I broke off with Paul and I had basically restarted my business.

I called it Superior Structural Services because I like alliteration.

Man, can I tell you a dumb story about, I don't know, that was a different time.

It doesn't matter.

It caused Superior Structural Services.

I was leveling houses, doing foundation repair, also doing some remodeling stuff for people,

some of my old clients who knew me from my remodeling days and would call me up for little projects.

Of course, still working for Mr. Bob all the time.

Mr. Bob even tried to warn me about this fella.

He said, Mr. Bob told me in the beginning this deal sounded hinky too.

Told me to keep my head on swivel dealing with this fella.

He had read some things and was concerned about getting in too deep with this guy.

Now one of my old clients from the April Point South days was a lady named Deborah Ducey.

And me and Deborah Ducey and Bo, we got along just about as well as two people get along.

She was an artist, always liked her.

She was a cool chick, been married to a race car driver for a long time, so she was real hip to racing.

She had one of the big condos out there with all these multi-level floors and crazy high ceilings.

And she had a bunch of damaged ceiling.

Nobody could figure out how to get up that ceiling and fix it because even a 16-foot ladder wasn't going to do the trick.

And I come in there with my crew.

Actually, I didn't even have a crew back then.

It was just me doing everything.

And I built some scaffolding that would have made an OSHA employee faint.

I built some scaffolding out of 2x4s and timbers in her house in modular.

I would design a piece of it, build it, bring it in there and assemble it.

Kind of a modular design.

So that I could get up there and redo all the parts of her ceiling where the roof had leaked damaged her ceiling.

Ended up repainting the whole ceiling, taking care of it.

And she was so impressed because they didn't send so many people over there and told her they couldn't do it.

They didn't have a ladder tall enough, blah, blah, blah.

It wasn't going to be a quick, easy thing for them, so they didn't want to do it.

Anyways, over the years she would call me for little side jobs.

And then for a period of time, she had a son named Corey Ducent.

And I always liked Corey, man.

Corey's a good kid.

He's a little rough around the edges, but he was a good kid.

Corey's the kid I always think about when people tell me, when you hear guys talking about,

oh, they bought a car to attract women, that kind of stuff.

We got this truck, women love this truck, that kind of thing.

Because that's weak sauce.

If you need a good looking vehicle to pick up women, then there's something wrong with your game, son.

And Corey was living proof of this.

Corey was a good looking kid, but he was a good talking kid.

And this is the kid he can be in the passenger side of my pickup and see two girls in a new car.

And by God, talk one of them into giving him a ride somewhere.

And before, you know, he'd be dating that old gal.

You know, like he was just, kid had game, he was a good kid.

I liked him.

One time he bragged that he was the greatest lighter thief in the world.

He was always, everything he did, he was the best at.

And, you know, after a while, listen to that shit out of somebody.

You start screwing with them.

So he didn't know he was in the truck with the greatest lighter thief in the world.

And so over the course of the next two weeks, I made it a point to steal every lighter he had.

At the end of the two weeks, I handed him this bag of about 20 lighters that I'd lifted off him in two weeks.

Just to screw with him because he was sitting there in that truck with me and Josh telling us what a great lighter thief he was.

You know, he's just one of them dudes.

He always had a line of shit, but he's a good, hard working kid, man.

They would get down.

I mean, me and him had to work on some plumbing behind a Mexican food restaurant one time where their wastewater was going nuts and leaking everywhere.

And we had to get down in about a four foot deep hole in, I don't know if you can imagine Mexican food wastewater.

They had an odor, the level of grease to it.

And we were down there in four foot deep water working on these pipes underwater.

And bro, he's a trooper. That kid was working 750, man.

Like that kid.

That was a devil's kid.

He worked for me for a little while.

Just a good end. Good end.

I always liked the kid. He went on to bigger and better things.

And he's one of those I couldn't be happier for him. Glad he did.

He was real good at flipping cars, too.

The kid was good at cars.

He turned me on to fall out in New Vegas.

One of my favorite video game series of all times.

He was playing it and was telling me about it.

And he found out I liked the dark tower series by Stephen King.

He goes, dude, if you liked reading that series, you're going to love playing this game.

And so I went home, downloaded fallout bait, New Vegas and became one of my favorite game plays of all time.

It's still right. It's up in the top three, I guarantee.

Anyways, old Debra calls me out of the blue.

So what's going on Debra?

She said, well, you know, I finally moved out of April Point South.

I was like, oh, well, I'm glad to hear you got out of there.

Place was going crazy after we all left.

She said, yeah, I just couldn't deal with any more of the new board.

Her tyrannical being a little nuts.

She said, I decided to wait. She had been talking about it for a long time.

So 2009, 2010, maybe even a little earlier in that tiny houses became the thing.

All of a sudden there was all of these dudes was trying to build tiny houses, trying to figure out and make money with tiny house.

She said, I bought me a tiny house.

And I know you level houses and stuff.

And they had an accident with the house and it's not level.

I want to see if you come out and fix it because guys could kind of give me the run around that I bought the house from.

I said, sure, you know, I'll come out there and take a look at where that she said it's a.

It's right over by your house off 1093.

It's got what is called Butler's Ridge or some crap like that.

And what it was, it was ORV Park right there on Lake Conroe.

But this fella had started paying somebody local in town in Conroe to build him these tiny houses.

And he had another little spot called Fisherman's Cove.

He'd already put some of them up and was renting them out.

People come to their fish and stuff on the weekend or kayak and that sort of thing.

The fella named Bill Miller Mitchell, some shit like that.

Anyways, she said, come on right here and take a look at us.

Yeah, you know, come over there.

I ain't got a lot going on right now.

Come check it out.

It's something we can fix on the spot and fix it on the spot for you.

At the time I had this job going on in Livingston, which was like two hour drive away.

So I was like, I'll come out on Saturday.

And if it's something we can fix on the spot, we'll fix it on the spot.

Nothing she told me could have prepared me for what I was going to find when I got out there.

Because it was indeed a tiny house.

What they were doing is they was coming out there and setting these tiny houses on this pad,

on these RV pads, grab RV pads.

Some of them were paved, cinder blocks, or just like you'd level a home.

But this fella had just dumped the house off a tilt bed truck onto the ground.

I mean, the house was on the ground.

There was no amount of anything that had been done to it yet.

I had a couple blocks and a little bit of cribbage under it.

But it was the house you could tell something happened to it.

It was just twisted up.

I mean, just walking up to it and them little houses are pretty stiff.

They don't do a lot.

The whole point of those tiny houses are supposed to be built a little bit better than how they frame up a new house.

But what happened is when everybody got in the tiny house craze,

all these run-around builders and old-field guys that decided they were home builders

started throwing these tiny houses together.

Same way they'd throw a quick little builder neighborhood slab on grade stick frame house up.

It doesn't equate when you've got something that's got to travel.

It's got to be moved and set and everything.

So there's a lot of low quality tiny homes when this first started.

A lot of these guys that didn't understand it was a completely different process than what they'd been doing.

And that's what you find problems like that in builder stuff all the time.

You find a builder who's real good at building these little three-bedroom, 1,800 square foot homes,

and then he gets a little money in his pocket and he decides to go after a wealthier client

and he starts trying to build these 3,000, 4,000 square foot homes.

And his crew, they haven't done this.

They're not good at it yet.

And he'll have all kind of problems with that first run of homes.

And if he makes it through that, he might have less problems on the second run.

But I see builders go under left and right because of this.

Tackling, fighting off more than they could chew quite literally.

Now I digress.

We got out there in these houses.

Nine kinds of twisted up.

You can tell by the peek in the roof that the whole backbone of the house is twisted.

I'm not sure if there's any amount of concrete blocks that is going to fix what's been done to this home.

And that guy, we can't get him out there on the site.

The guy that she bought the house from had it moved out there.

The guy organizing the hotel.

But he tells me on the phone, do whatever you got to do.

Charge me for it.

I'll pay for it.

Well, the man had a big business and it was clearly developing real estate.

I assumed he was good for the money.

This is how these kind of guys work though.

They're always good for the money up front.

They do that to build your trust.

And then once they built your trust, they start asking for more and more.

And then they leave you high and dry somewhere.

This is a similar story.

So I walk around this house, take a look at it.

I said, Deborah, we're going to do our best.

But I can't tell something's happened to this house.

Something more than somebody sliding it off a tilt bed.

Either this house was built wrong.

Something's gone right here.

But I'm going to do the best I can for you.

Deborah was an old client and a friend.

Me and my guys get out there.

We order some cinder blocks.

Good quality cinder blocks from the 84 lumber, the kind I like.

We start leveling this house doing our best.

I got old Joel working with me at the time.

Old Joel is a pretty good hand.

Joel will read a level just about as good as anybody.

He had an eye for leveling stuff.

He was good at it.

I had Joel on the inside.

We're jacking, blocking, jacking and blocking.

We get this house up.

But hell man, because of the slant of the pad,

the back end of the house is about five foot off the ground

before we can get the thing close to level.

And that still puts the front of the house

only about eight inches to a foot off the ground.

It's not an ideal setup.

We're going to do hurricane strapping on this thing.

I don't know if y'all have this in other places.

I know in tornado places you got it.

But here in the Gulf, close to the Gulf of Mexico,

we have to do hurricane strapping.

And what it is, I had my drill,

my big auger, franken auger I had built.

I had made an attachment and welded it onto a bit.

And it would screw in these anchors.

They're about three, four foot long, these auger style anchors.

And it would use that hydraulic auger,

screw that anchor into the ground good and tight.

And then it had a bolt mechanism and metal strap.

And you hook the metal strap on the inside of the frame

of the home and wrap it over and down.

And then you crank that thing down there

with that bolt mechanism, tie it up.

It's a pretty permanent solution.

Works wonders.

I've seen many houses ripped apart,

but hurricane straps were still there.

So we hurricane strapped the hell out of this thing.

Just to make sure.

Because I didn't like the fact it was sitting so high

in the back end.

I didn't like going that high.

I just built some nice block cribbage for it

and everything in the back.

I felt secure about that.

Used high quality blocks.

I see a lot of people go out there and buy cinder blocks

from, you know, one of these little, you know,

big box stores, whatever that.

Those are real low quality cinder blocks.

I mean, cinder blocks just fly ash basically anyways.

They're not real strong.

You see somebody karate chop break a cinder block.

I can't do it.

But I'm just saying it's not as impressive as it sounds,

you know, depending on how they break it.

Because you hit a cinder block in the right place

with a hammer, break that sucker clean in two.

Real easy.

Too many times I tell my guys unload them off the truck.

Hey, be careful, bro.

You're custom because they're breaking blocks.

Throw them on the ground and shit like that.

I like by them thick ones, real strong ones.

Had a small diameter hole.

Sometimes we use the solid blocks.

We had solid blocks on the end of that house

because how high we had to go with it.

I just felt better about them solid blocks.

Boy, we strapped that booger down.

That house still wasn't right.

It was still as level as I got the doorways.

Things were just tweaked and twisted in that house.

And nobody seemed to have an answer about

what the hell had happened.

That's how the guy delivered it.

I told her, I said, I'm going to have to charge this guy,

but your house still ain't right.

It's still, this house needs,

sometimes I have to come in here and redo that hole.

The rafters, this house was just jacked.

There wasn't nothing square in the house

except the two doorways we had managed to get level.

But everything else in the ceiling of this house

was just torqued and twisted.

You could just tell.

It was more than a leveling issue.

Something had happened.

Well, we finally get old Bill over there in the property.

He comes out there to bring me a check

about a week after we'd done the work.

And she's hot still because her house ain't right.

And she's got Bill out there to look at this house.

You know, I worked with structural engineer all the time.

I told Bill, I said, boy, I, you know,

I call Ernie DeLuca come out here and look at this,

but he's going to tell you the same thing.

I'm going to tell you, there's something inherently wrong.

Either this thing was framed wrong to begin with

or something bad happened this.

And Bill finally coughed up the story

about what happened with that house.

Bill called this old boy out of Port of Texas,

no, Temple, Texas.

Bill kept trying to find somebody to move these houses.

Couldn't ever find anybody reliable

around town to move these houses.

House moving is a tricky business

and there's only a handful of companies left there.

He ain't good at it.

And he gets hold of this old boy out in Temple, Texas

who gives him the deal he thinks he wants,

which translates to cheaper and shit.

And this old boy in Temple, Texas is going to come out here.

He's going to pick up this house on a slide truck.

He's going to bring it all the way from Conroe

up there to Willis and mount it on this pad for him.

And so what happens, old boy from Temple, Texas

comes over here with his truck.

Turns out he don't have a CDL.

He don't have no kind of permits, no kind of nothing.

He hasn't cleared it yet.

I mean, there's all kind of steps you got to go through

when you're moving the house.

He hadn't done none of that.

He decided it was a tiny house.

Wasn't that big deal?

Well, for a tiny house, this was a pretty good size house.

Had a second floor to it, like a loft.

Apparently they get it all loaded up on his truck

over the place because they got,

they put a, you know what you call it,

a sled underneath it,

lifted it up, loaded on his truck with forklift.

Big forklift.

No problem.

But he didn't bother to check the height clearance.

So he just takes off through Conroe

about eight o'clock on Sunday evening

with his house, and lo and behold,

starts hitting hanging lights,

traffic lights and shit with his house.

Not only that,

had to go somewhere he had to go through

with his low clearance.

He hit something with the top of the house.

They said when he pulled up at the RV pad with the house,

there was a string of about 18

sheriff cars behind him and a fire truck,

and he still had traffic lights hanging on the house

when he pulled up there that he had yanked,

traffic lights he had yanked down with his house.

And that's what twisted the piss out of that house

and everything.

And Bill come clean on that story,

never turned around and looked at him.

She said, I need a new house.

You ain't, you ain't ponding this off on me.

And Bill of course assured her his guys

were gonna come in and fix it and all that stuff.

She said, no, I didn't pay

for something to be damaged and then fixed up.

That's not what I bought.

I bought a new house from you

and that's what I want is a new house had been damaged.

And she had to go back and forth to it

and finally he gives her another lot

and another house.

Who knows who he ponded that damn house on.

After his guys fixed it, he had me come out there

and check the level on it one more time and adjust it.

Of course she recognized that I was knowledgeable.

He says, hey man, I'm doing this in a couple of places.

I got a couple of properties.

I got Fisherman's Cove up there.

I got this place out here.

I got this company building me these tiny homes.

I got, do you do moving?

I said, no, I don't do moving.

I want nothing to do with that.

But I know this house mover over here

who's a good house mover and I recommend him to you.

He says, all right, he gets with the house mover.

He says, well, I'm gonna move all these houses

out of these spots.

I need somebody to come out and block them up and level them up.

He says, especially these ones we're doing over in the preserve.

We've already done a couple of them.

But the preserve is a flood plain.

He said, these houses I need four or five foot off the ground.

I said, well, that's a tall order in the blocks.

It's not the best idea.

I said, you know, you're gonna have to hurricane strap

shit out of everything and you gonna need solid blocks.

He said, no, no, we can do it in the center box.

We got a guy that already does it.

I said, well, I guarantee you that I said, damn,

I'll be damn surprised that pass inspection.

I'll be damn surprised.

If it was me, I'd use solid blocks.

But I ain't trying to tell you how to do your business, Bill.

If it was me, I wouldn't trust my investment on center blocks,

especially if I didn't know where them center blocks is from.

Well, Bill kind of shooed me off.

He said, prices were a little high.

I said, no problem.

I understand when I don't start doing something else.

Wrapping up that big job and living still boy,

get old call from old Bill again.

He said, you know, this other guy that I got out here

blocking up these houses and stuff, he just ain't cutting.

He's way behind.

And I'm just not sure they know what the hell they're doing.

You come down to your price a little bit.

I said, so you heard a guy don't know what he's doing.

You want me to come down on my price to help you fix that.

And that don't sound right to me.

It didn't sit right to me.

You deserve a discount because he thought my price was too high

to get it done right to begin with.

But sure, now I should give you a discount.

Boy, you're out your monkey ass mind.

I said, no, Bill.

I said, I ain't lowering my price.

I said, oh, actually, some of those houses,

I did.

I might charge you more because I might go out there and fix

whatever he asked up.

That's the way this thing works.

When we go back and forth, Bill finally decides to hire me

on to do some of this stuff.

So I go out there to that butler's ridge place

and level a couple of them houses for him.

They's had somebody else do and they're all screwed up

and they're happy ass in their blocks under them.

I make him pay for new blocks.

We don't have to do solid blocks on those

because it's not as high in their smaller houses.

Of course, none of them are straps.

We got to strap them all.

I kept probably about 200 metal straps in the back of my truck.

I always had that machine with me.

I was working out my little Z71

but also was I still working out the Z71?

Man, I might have had diesel by then.

I might have had that gum Duramax by then.

Either way, I always had a machine with me.

A machine with my money.

So we strapped all them and everything.

I hit him up with the invoice.

About a week later, I get paid on it.

We complains about the price.

Somebody complains about the price

if you've already made a deal, always bugs me a little bit.

We don't shook hands and agreed on this.

I charge most of my customers deposits

but because he's big enough company,

I assume those good for it.

I didn't charge no deposit because I'm foolish, foolish man.

It comes back a couple weeks later.

I got all these houses out in the preserve.

I had this guy start doing them.

Inspectors got some problems with the guy's work.

Insurance people have some problem with the guy's work.

They want me somebody out here.

It's insurance.

I sent him all my insurance.

Come here and see what you have.

I had Gabby and Joel had already left at that point.

By the time we got to this stage of job,

I had Gabby and the rest of the crew.

Gabby is sharp.

Well, Gabby knew what didn't work on them houses.

We go out there to look at them.

About five houses, there's other companies already done.

I found out also that he ain't using the moving company.

I recommended he's found some other fly-by-night

cheap guy that's out there just dumping these houses

on the ground with very little cribbing on them,

which makes our job harder,

because now we've got to dig holes to jack these things up.

Or use airbags.

My airbags were just...

I had some older ones that were in bad state of affairs.

I didn't like using them too much.

I didn't trust them, mainly.

And I always liked the old school, man.

I prefer the jacks.

I had them good-ass jet 30-ton jacks

than 30-ton jet jacks.

You just couldn't beat them, boy.

And they were easy to rebuild when they went bad.

I always had a couple kits in stock

so I could go through there and change them O-rings in them

and whatnot, change the oil out of them.

Them old jet jacks, they were just as smooth as you want to be

and they never faltered.

I trusted them jet jacks.

They were high-dollar.

They didn't come cheap.

Well, we run out there to look at these things.

This guy's got these houses, four or five foot in the air.

I mean, in a 20-foot span, maybe four block sets.

Like, it's just not enough block sets.

See, these tiny houses are still heavy.

And very few block sets on the inside,

on the interior of the floor plan underneath.

Just real sparse.

This guy was clearly trying to save money on his blocks.

I called a little bill up.

I said, man, I'm going to be honest with you.

I don't want to touch these houses with a 10-foot pole.

What you guys done here is dangerous.

I don't trust none of it.

And if you want me to do it, I'm going to redo every one of them.

We're going to do them with solid blocks

and we ain't going to do this kind of thing.

Bill, no, no.

I just need you to fix these and strap them down.

I'll have you do all the other ones fresh.

I said, I ain't touching these things

unless you let me redo them, Bill.

I just ain't.

I don't trust what's been done here.

You can fart on one corner of these houses

and the whole house moves.

I don't trust what you've done.

I don't want my name attached to none of it.

Bill said, come back outside today.

I got Inspector coming out.

He's going to check them.

You and him can agree on what's got to be done.

I knew the inspector.

I ain't going to say his name here, but he's a good hand.

I've met this guy.

He worked for an insurance company.

I'd run into him before on other job sites.

Got out there and saw it was him.

I was glad he's a bit of a stickler.

The problem is these tiny houses,

there was a lot of free room with what you could do.

There was a lot of loopholes.

So there wasn't a lot of governing regulatory data

that could limit what you could do with these things,

which made them dangerous.

Every Joe Blow could be out there building them

and doing whatever he wanted to do with them.

Sure enough, that's what had happened here.

I'll never forget, they had one of these houses out there.

Six blocks high.

What was that?

Six times eight.

48 inches.

It's not quite about 48 inches.

50 inches with shims and stuff.

That's five foot in the air.

That's a lot of space underneath the house.

Not near enough block sets.

This first house we go look at, I'm just like, boy,

and the inspector said,

I ain't crawling underneath that thing.

Not for no amount of money,

not for no amount of job.

You soon as taught Jerry into climbing another house,

I said, boy, I ain't climbing underneath one of these things.

One of the things the old inspectors used to do,

this always made me laugh.

I still laugh about thinking about old Bill's out there

and he's got some old Gallup

working his office out there with him

and they're trying to tell me about,

all this work they're going to send my way

if I can help them fix this problem.

And I told him again, I said,

there ain't no fixing this problem.

It's just redoing it.

And it's going to be a tricky one to redo

because I don't trust the way it's sitting right now.

Old Bill climbed up the ladder,

jumped on the front porch of that house.

I said, boy, you're out of your mind.

He said, I'm telling you this thing's solid.

You can see the house moving.

I said, man, I don't know what you're looking at,

but you are in danger.

This is not the time for bravado.

You're in danger, sir.

I had a healthy respect of filing at that point

because I didn't fall enough of a roof on my head.

Old Bill comes down.

He's still arguing me and that inspector about it.

One of the things my inspectors used to do,

one of the things I always did with my guys,

when my guys got done shimming a house

and blocking a house, I'd go around

and kick the shit out of every one of them block sets.

And if that block set moved, you got to redo it.

I want my block sets tight.

That's the man that taught me had done the same thing.

I had had plenty of my block sets

kicked out of the Munter House.

I had to go fix.

Sure enough, that old inspector

walked around the back of that house.

He said, well, there's one way to test it,

and he kicked one of them stack of blocks

on the back of that house,

and we heard it.

One of my, Gabby, was over close to the other side

of the house, the downhill slope.

And I hollered at Gabby to run,

but Gabby was already moving.

Gabby heard the sound too.

There was a clink.

If you've heard a cinder block break,

you know what that sound sounds like?

Like a little grinding plunk.

And all of a sudden, it was followed by a bunch more

kick, kick, kick, kick, kick.

And that house started swaying a little bit

and all of them blocks set started

kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick.

And we all jumped back and that house

just sort of

cracked all the blocks on one side

and fell cockeyed with the front

point of the house pointed down into the ground

and the back end of the house still

up in the air just teetering.

You could literally, the way it fell,

you could walk up this house

and push it with your finger and make it teeter.

And Bill said, good God, my...

What'd you do? He said, hey, what I did

is what the people you hired did.

That's what I was trying to tell you.

You were up there jumping on that thing like a fool.

This ain't no good, brother.

We didn't do nothing.

It's the guy you hired did this to you.

You got to figure out

this got to be fixed.

Bill said, well, that deal we was talking about earlier.

I said, oh no, this one just got way more expensive.

Now, I got to try to figure out

how to get it back up on the side.

You know how hard it's going to be

to jack while it's cockeyed like that?

This one just got way more expensive, brother.

He said, well, I got to get this thing up.

I can't have people coming out here

and seeing this.

I wrote him up an estimate.

I said, just for this one.

I said, the rest of these been blocked

up like this, I'll write you up an estimate

and fix them.

Redoem saw blocks.

They're on the spot.

Front Gabby from the inspector.

I said, I'm going to need a deposit on this one though,

because I got to put a lot of money out

ordering these blocks.

I got to have all these blocks delivered out here.

I'm about to put out some money, Bill.

I got to at least have it in

deposit covered in blocks.

I'm so glad I did that.

We agreed on

wasn't my normal 50% deposit,

but we agreed on deposit.

I called over there

84 Lumber,

ordered all the blocks I want.

I had them

sent out to observe.

Total, there's about five houses.

No,

there were six houses at the time.

Two of them had not been blocked at all.

They were just on the ground on some cribbage.

I said, we'll do them last.

I said, we got to fix this bad one first.

Boy, we had a time

fixing that block,

because it still had all them crumbled blocks underneath it.

And we would have to,

we set up jacks and poles to keep it tilted on its side.

So me and my guys

cleaned all them crumbled blocks out

and just break all that crap out from under there.

And just, I just stowed all them by.

The guy had left his Home Depot

pallets out there.

I knew he ordered them blocks from Home Depot.

Those just, those ain't the right grade

but it's fine for your garden project.

You don't want to put a house on them.

I ain't knocking Home Depot.

It's good for what it is.

But when it comes to really building something,

you need to go to,

you need to go to a builder supply,

a real builder supply.

I had an account,

a good relationship, 84 Lumber.

I've been doing business with them a number of years at that point.

I like their product.

That's what I worked with.

Lumber, siding,

all that crap I got from them.

Yeah, we kept that thing tilted.

We cleaned it out.

And then we had to lower it

about six inches at a time real slow

until we could

get it almost level.

This is on a tilted pad too.

I mean, it's just,

the whole environment's bad.

I can work, I can work

with different grades. I've done plenty of that.

That's not a problem.

But it's a tough environment to work in.

Well, we tilted it

and we got the other side of that house

jacked up me and the guys.

We got that one straight.

Hurricane strap

to piss out of it.

Bill

pays me the remainder for that house.

I feel pretty secure at that point,

but he's just one of these guys

every time he talks, you feel yourself

checking for your wallet.

He's just, he's,

I just don't trust the guy at this point.

But, you know, sometimes

you got them dollar signs in your eyes

and you stop thinking about the right things.

And I needed that money. I needed that project

at the time. Business was a little slow.

I was starting over.

Well,

it's just one of them decisions

you make sometimes

and you end up regret it.

Well, I said, all right,

I'll do the rest of these houses for you, Bill.

I mean, my guys start going out

there every day.

We're going to knock these other five houses out.

Boy, we see some crazy stuff.

One of them houses, the way it was

blocked up and we got out to it,

Gaby started laughing.

He said, hey, come look.

And we go over there

and you could grab the corner of the porch

on the house and you could twist

the house on the blocks.

It was so cantilevered

and oddly balanced on these blocks

you could just twist that house

on its outside blocks because

the few blocks you put in the middle

was too high.

Some of them were just wild,

man.

We was out there probably

a month working on them houses.

Some of them took a lot of work to get right.

Some of them were, the two

they sat on the ground, we did those in a day,

both of them, but them ones that were cantilevered

and done weird stuff with, boy, they were work.

Boy, we hurricane strapped

everything down.

We got everything right with them houses.

Bill comes out.

He's going to do a final inspection.

Of course, all of a sudden

he's nitpicking about this and that.

I don't like the way you

can you move that hurricane strap closer to the house

because

all this kind of stuff.

I have to put the hurricane strap where there's good soil

and a lot of these pads are pure sand underneath them.

There ain't no good soil to attach to.

So I have to get out here and some of this better,

some of this clay and whatnot to get it better.

He wants them moved anyway.

So we, whatever.

We move hurricane straps

all his little nitpicky shit.

So I guess I can come by you all

for Saturday pick up that

remainder check.

They say, well,

let me move some money around.

It's going to take a few days to get it.

It was a substantial

sum at that point.

I think he was into me

for about 12 grand

left over at that point.

12, 15 grand.

So Bill, usually my money is due

at completion of work,

but we've been doing a little business together.

I give you some grace.

I do need to get paid on these.

I got a bunch of payroll to make.

That's that kind of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, we'll get you.

No problem.

Okay, Bill.

Well, it comes about a week.

I still ain't heard

nothing from Bill.

So I call him a couple times.

Answer the phone.

Nothing like that.

Boy,

I think

I've called him about four or five times this point.

He probably picks up.

He goes in this died drive by how he had an engineer

out there said all my work

was wrong. It's all got to be redone.

I said, who's the engineer?

He don't want to tell me. I said, well, I work

with a state engineer,

a license engineer, civil engineer.

I bring him out there to look them houses.

If he's willing to write your report on them,

certifying them is good.

I think we can just

not care about what the other engineers got to say

unless he wants to come out there and argue

his points from my engineer.

I don't know all this. Just bring your engineer

out there. So I get Ernie out there.

I pay Ernie go out there

to check these things.

Ernie's happy with everything I've done.

The only thing Ernie bitches

about is the hurricane straps I moved into

the sand

for this idiot's wishes.

Oh, Ernie.

Ernie didn't take no shit off of you.

Ernie got mad at Bill. He yelled at him

a couple of times. He said, I want to know

who this other engineer is. He told you all this was wrong.

I'm about to file a complaint

with state

license on board against this guy because he clearly

don't know what he's talking about.

Boy, all of a sudden, Bill can't remember

the other engineer's name

or even who he's affiliated with.

Boy, I'm getting a hazy feeling now.

Here we go.

We're on the ride now.

Here we go.

Bill says, call me Monday.

We can get all this straightened out.

Call him Monday.

He wants to know where Ernie's report is.

I said, I ain't give you Ernie's report

until you pay me because I had to pay for

Ernie's report.

That cost me a good little sum of money.

Ernie gave me a deal on it because we were

friends, but still, you know,

that was $1,600 out of my pocket

to get that report done.

I said, I'll give you a report while I get

my money. I'll bring you that report

when you've got my check ready.

All right, all right. Just call me a couple of days.

I have to check right.

Boy, I call him a couple of days.

He ain't answering the phone.

I don't get no call back.

Boy, this crooked bastard.

Well, his office was right over there

at Fishman Cove, right there by my house.

I drove by it every day.

I started looking for his old pickup truck

and he had a real nice fancy pickup

truck at the time, brand new

F9000, whatever the shit,

F350.

Boy, the truck wasn't over there.

Well, the preserve

was about an hour away from my house.

Out there in Cleveland, Texas, I said, boy,

I guess I might drive out there

and find out what this is.

Well, I drive out the

preserve, drive around

and there's another company out there

leveling houses.

So I stopped

talking to old fella

and I could tell

they're kind of a

loose organization.

I tell the guy, I say, you know, I'm trying to get my money out of him

for all this work I already did. He paid me

and

the guy said, well,

he paid me. There's going to be a whole bunch of problems out here.

I said, yeah.

I said, I reckon I feel the same way.

I'm about the point I'm ready

to start causing problems about all this.

In fact, I'm about to get on the phone.

I had a little lawyer. I used a counter

for stuff.

I didn't have to do it a lot,

but if I had to put a lien on somebody,

I had somebody I used.

I said, boy, I'm about to cause a lawyer

and see what's got to be done here.

Well,

lo and behold, after that,

my truck scene driver out there

preserve, I get a call from old Bill.

I'm here at the office Wednesday. I have you checked.

Come over here now. We're about a month

out now.

We'll get over to his office.

For whatever reason, he's only got

half my check and he's got a big story

to go with that. I said, Bill, I can't wait

on this money anymore. I'm going to go ahead

and file a lien, all this work

and you just keep this check,

pay me when you pay me the whole thing.

Now, Jerry, come on.

We ain't got to operate like that.

I said, oh, we ain't got to operate like that,

but I know she already got another company out there

leveling these houses. So it's clear you ain't

playing on doing no more business for me

and it feels like you ain't playing on paying me

for the work I already done.

I don't like that feeling.

I got

seven guys

out in that truck.

They ain't happy either

because I'm having to pay them out of my fresh

earnings right now and it's taking me a little

more time than I like to take, pay my guys.

Which wasn't true, I just told them

I already had everybody paid up, but

they was all sitting out in the truck looking

menacing.

Bill said, no, no, no.

Come by tomorrow.

I have the full check.

Well, I don't know who Bill had

robbed and paid me, but by God, boy,

I got there the next day

and he had my full

check.

I said, all right, Bill.

I take my check, but I ain't going to do no more

business with Bill.

Bill is one of those

clients that when I walked away from the

business, sold all my stuff, was one

of the clients that

honestly

was a driving inspiration

that decision.

You might say he was my divine

like, that I was tired of dealing with customers

like that and by God,

there just seemed to be more and more of them every day.

I'll never forget that house.

Fallen off in the back.

I've seen that happen

a time or two, but I've never seen

that happen to somebody kicking a block. That was

the funniest shit I've ever seen in my life.

Boy, it made a noise.

We had the hell getting that one level

after it was off torque because these guys, he had

been building these homes. I don't think they was real good

at building tiny houses. I think they were probably

good at building slab on grade

stick frame cheap builder homes.

Boy, it was

maybe about a month later.

Oh, Debra, do see

and calls me. She says, you ain't going to

believe this. You got to go over there

and see what's happening.

I said, what do you mean? She said, Bill

done pissed. You told me Bill screwed you around with that

bunny. Well, he done pissed that other company off.

I guess he didn't pay them

neither. I said, oh hell, I got to go see

this. So while I hopped my

truck, I run over there to

drive by a fisherman's cove

and

these guys have hurricane

strapped Bill's truck

and Bill's trailer

to the ground

and tight.

Springs are compressed.

They done strapped his truck

his fancy truck, his trailer

everything to the ground.

I guess he also had a bunch of materials out there

for a bunch more houses. He was about to do a

fisherman's cove and they had hurricane strapped

all the materials to the ground

and

just everything out there was hurricane strapped

to the ground, bro. If you've ever dealt with

them hurricane strapped, you know they are a pain

in the ass. Somebody had run around with a grinder

and cut all that shit loose.

Boy, I laughed.

Couldn't happen to a nicer person, Bill.

You had that one

coming, I suspect.

I also

made mad. I didn't think of it. That's the funniest

thing I've ever seen anybody do to anybody.

I'm glad I got my money out before you all

come to that. By God, boy, he must have

pissed that other fella off.

I know some of those

developments are still out there

for people living in them and stuff.

I'd sure be mad if I paid a tiny house price

for one of them tiny houses. I'll tell you that.

I'd sure be hot.

They weren't selling them cheap. That's 60, 70 grand.

Tiny houses are crazy expensive

now. But that's because

most of the good builders that build them

they know what they're doing.

And though it is a smaller

house, there's a lot more of what goes into it.

Do it right.

We'll wrap up there

this week.

We'll do us some testimonials.

We'll unwrap

some packages.

Now, thank you guys for tuning in every week.

And again, the new season

numbers always drop a little bit.

That's okay. We lose the people.

We gain some people, but

I appreciate those y'all

that tune in every week. I appreciate those y'all

that show up to the live chat

and want to sit chat and talk.

Do me a favor. I always get to ask

guys this. Please like and subscribe

to my channel.

I always get to ask for that. You're supposed to ask people to do that.

Please, please like the video.

Just click like. Take a couple seconds.

Subscribe to the channel.

Chances are you probably

like the other stuff I do anyways.

And that's about all I do on this channel.

It's a kind of a combination

of everything.

You're going to be in the

if you're in East Texas

I got two shows coming

up Gladewater, Texas.

Jackson's Theater.

September 19th and 20th.

I sure

I sure love to see some y'all out there.

I love to see my wrecking our people at the shows.

We have a deeper connection

and I always appreciate

that. Appreciate talking y'all after the shows.

Of course, I always

do a meet and greet after the show. Hang out.

I have my Diamond Gym certified

stickers.

In case you want some of them with me.

Getting ready to do some hats

and some shirts. I finally

found a shirt brand I like. I'm wearing

one of my new shirts today.

This is a shirt my lovely wife got me.

It's a singer salvage

from a TV show

called Supernatural. I always liked a lot

and in my mind Bobby

Singer was most important character in that whole

story.

Bobby Singer had him a junk had him

wrecking yard.

And boy Bobby Singer.

He had his tools and cars

and

just kind of my hero. I like

old Bobby Singer. Balls

bunch of widgets.

All right, let's do some

testimonials now that I've

bored you with the boring stuff.

I

had Jacob all trades master

fun, our old buddy Smurfette

Jake isn't me, but another

Jake who appreciate you as much as I do.

I'm sorry. That's my bad. I got y'all mixed

up. My wife was the blonde

with the daddy's girl tattoo. Oh, that's

hilarious. Bro, I laughed about that

all the way back home from Chicago. I'm

still laugh. That's one of the funniest things I

ever heard. Most feel better about

some of my experiences.

That y'all were a hoot. I really

enjoyed meeting you after the show,

but

also

thanks for coming out, man. Both

of the Jakes.

Oh, there's a girl

at Cinnamon Girl 76, our old buddy

Amy Iris.

Mark felt thank you to JW

and the Wrecking Yard podcast

congregation. The universe

heard your thoughts and prayers. I've had

some positive happenings come my way this

past week. Love and gratitude, Amy Iris.

Boy, I couldn't be happier to hear that.

You sound a little down in the dumps

in your last letter.

It just made me sad

because you seem like a really,

you seem like a light bringer, like

a person, a positive light in this world.

I hate to ever see a

light getting

their flame diminished by the

negativity of others. Happens

to me sometimes. Boy, I hated

hearing that happening to you. So I'm glad

things are turning the corner for you, Miss Amy.

At LMJ420,

you're growing up, Bubba.

This trip, it was JW going to visit. Not Jerry,

not Jerry Wayne, not even Poo Bear took

this trip.

This was all JW going back to

show the land how he's grown, and the land

was trying to show you that y'all have grown from each other.

And there's a purpose to that growth.

I picked this comment because I've read it

out loud to myself about

15 times in the past week, Ellen.

Sometimes things y'all say stick

in my head and this stuck in my head.

And I couldn't quit thinking about it.

I was working on the book right now and I couldn't quit.

I crashed a little bit

after going back home

last week.

It made me feel sad in ways that

I hadn't felt in a long time.

I crashed a little bit, drank

a little too much this week.

I was having some big, big

ass feelings about it all.

This comment kept grounding me.

I kept thinking about it.

I wasn't Pooh Bear. I wasn't Little Jerry.

I wasn't Jerry Wayne.

She's JDep going back

to look at this.

I think it was realizing this little postage

stamp piece of land, post stamp size

piece of land.

I just had all these

feelings tied to it.

It's not yours.

It's somebody else's now.

I'm really happy

with the person who's got it.

I've told you all my cousin Jimbo

has it now.

I hope when we go up there

to do these shows in a couple weeks

I'm trying to line it up

so we can load the Volkswagen up

and get it out of there.

I hope

my cousin Jimby let me

walk around the shop a little bit

and just have a minute

before I say goodbye to that place

and say goodbye to it.

But I think it's time.

The wrecking yard ain't there anymore.

The wrecking yard's here.

The wrecking yard's in y'all's hearts.

The wrecking yard's in this old garage.

Where the hell I am.

That's where the wrecking yard is.

Thank you for that comment.

It's like I said, it's stuck.

I've read it a bunch this week.

And it really, it helped me

on a piece of the book I'm writing right now.

Figure out how to

explain some things.

And I just really appreciate it

stuck with me.

Let's open some packages.

Let's see here.

Got the old knife for freedom.

Let freedom ring.

I would not just be

nothing. My head all full of

stuff and my heart all full

of pain.

Life would be some merry things

for people.

Only had a brain.

Well, this is an interesting looking package.

Oh, there's no note in here.

Let's hope there's one inside.

Does it say anything out here?

It says Susan M.

Kelmer out here.

So I don't know if that's sent.

That's who sent it.

Let's

Let's keep digging.

Oh, my God, that is a mess of

Hot Wheels.

Just a bag full of them.

A bag full of Hot Wheels

right there.

What did I say? We thought

it was about 790.

So let's do this.

That's a 796.

799.

Oh, that is a cool ass one.

Look at that.

Radical wrestlers.

1959 Cadillac. That's bad as hell

right there.

Hope the right kid that

appreciates that gets that one.

All right. What did I say?

We're going to break 800 today

on the wrecking yard.

There's 802.

There's 805.

808.

Damn, those are cool.

These are all really cool ones.

Not that they're not all cool, but I mean

these are exceptional. Oh, I have this one

at 59 and Paul, I got one just like that

in my collection.

What did I say?

808.

This is 811.

Oh, that's kind of a cool one too.

A little Chevy 1500.

What's that?

811.

Three more on that. That's 814.

814 smiles.

We're going to give out

still no damn note in here.

If you sent these, please reach out to me

and let me know because I'd like to recognize you.

That was a 24 pack.

Put us at

814

smiles we're going to give away.

All right, God, let's see what's in this box.

Thank you whoever sent them.

I sure love knowing who you are.

Woo doggie.

Holy cow.

Well that

that dumb

big box.

That is 250 packs.

Smiles right there

from

James Damick

Damick Potts.

Hope I said that right, James.

James, thank you so much man.

This is too cool.

So

what I say we 814

914.

We almost a thousand smiles for babies this year.

We almost a thousand

smiles.

Like I said before

kids ain't got a lot to smile about.

I thank you, James.

God bless y'all.

God bless y'all the pieces.

God bless y'all.

Set them up there right now.

I'm like to rearrange the pile to get them all fit now.

914.

914 smiles.

We so close to a thousand.

I can smell it.

God bless y'all.

914 ain't nothing to sneeze.

That's a lot of joy.

That's a lot of joy y'all

that

y'all bring into the world man.

That's my favorite thing in the world.

I spend most of my time

trying to figure out how to make people laugh and smile

and feel better about themselves

and feel better about the struggles

and crap they're going through

because I just know how hard it is.

I've been to low points in my life

and

if I can help somebody else get out of one

or feel a little better about what they're going through

my God that always

tickles me.

Last but not least

our good friend Kieran

Cancella

all the way in Dublin

with this package

and

my God Kieran

I just

can't wait to show this off.

Got a letter here.

Dear Jeroen Longmire

this package is a belated birthday gift for you.

I know you're a fallout fan

I was just talking about fallout

and I made this new coca-cola crate for you

I weathered a little to make it look

a little more authentic

and closed is Ireland's trucker's

cab

and some die-cast cars

I know you like Mopar

so I got you a Dodge Dart

and the Irish have a connection with the DeLorean Company

as they were built in Northern Ireland

you can keep them

or give them to the Driven Dreams charity

I'll leave that up to you.

I'm a big fan of your podcast

and look forward to hearing it every week

I'm rooting for you keep up to great work

if you're ever in Dublin

Kieran Kinsella

and he drew a cartoon

about my caveman

selling the wheel

a bit

that's fantastic

thank you Kieran

let's look at what Kieran sent

oh god I'm a sucker for a good hat

look at this bad boy

made in Ireland

Ireland original heritage

Brian Boru

Brian Boru was born

in Killilow County Clair in 941 AD

he was known as the Irish King

who ended the domination of the High Kingship

of Ireland by the

the Ewing Nail

and probably ended

Viking invasion domination of Ireland

Brian first made himself

King of Munster in 978 AD

then he goes on to say a bunch of other stuff

I might have to read that later

it's very long

well let's check this out

that's a fine hat right there

I have just a tiny

tiny little sliver

of Irish heritage

most of mine is Scottish

but there's just a little

shark there's a little

30%

Irish heritage

but I had family that lived in Court County

that I've founded

on one side of my family

I always wanted to go there and see that place

I'd love to get out to Ireland sometime

sure love to have a pint or two

I don't leave stickers on hats because I wear hats

I don't

boy I already sized my big ass head

to you look at that

that's a good looking hat

there above

thank you brother I love that

what a beautiful thing

let's see

happy birthday to me

pretty and purple

look at that honey

right there

68 Dodge Dart

that one might have to go with my private collection

nah I won't give it to the kids

haha

look at that little art car

DeLorean that's cool as hell

thank you Karen

that's right up my alley

I did not know the DeLorean art car

that's cool as hell

look at that

tell you how cool that shit is

man right

look at that

in fact I just saw a dude

on the internet somewhere

it makes some vintage looking

Nuka Cola bottles

I'm going to have to order me a couple

and

I'm going to have to order a couple

I'm going to have to order me a couple

and

we might have to replace the cola box

with the Nuka Cola Box

because that's just right up my alley son

thank you

thank you so much Karen this is a beautiful gift

thank you

I will treasure this for a long time

it may have to go in my office

because I just like looking at it so much

hell yeah

set that right there for now

we decide

I'm going to display it

well that was fun

we'll get back over here

off the comments page

we'll wrap this honey up today

appreciate it once again

I appreciate you all being here

on Sunday with me

the most important and most valuable gift

you know I've said it

and talked a little bit about it a week

is to give somebody your time

and you guys give me your time every week

and

I like sharing time with y'all

there's an old English proverb

it says

if you lie down with dogs

you get up with fleas

and folks will argue it's from the bible

but it ain't

closest you'll get

in the bible there's actually

a proverb

and I don't remember what it is but it's basically

if you walk with the wise you'll be wise

if you run with fools you'll get yourself destroyed

that's the truth

but it all comes down to this

it's dirty if you even suspect it

you can't tie yourself to them

and not end up filthy

you can't swim in a sewer and come out smelling

like roses

you can't sign your name

on a deal with a liar

and not see your own name stained

I knew better with Bill

I should have known better

I felt it in my gut

the first time that slick here came at me

with his fast talk and crooked grin

I felt it and I ignored it

and it cost me

time and money

and most of those developers and contractors

up there was crooked as a rams horn

and I should have walked clean away

from a mess up

it wasn't long before I did

before I left that whole business behind

because I'd rather be broken honest

than fat and dirty

I'd rather sleep

light on an empty stomach

than heavy on a guilty conscience

and I carried that

into this business too

and entertainment's full of snakes

and new boots buddy

I mean there's clubs I won't step foot in again

comics I won't share a stage with again

and that's fine that's more than fine

that's me sticking to what I believe

these days

took me a while to get that

you got to guard that little piece of yourself

that's still good

you got to grip it tight, pause it

wear it like armor

this is the only way

you'll ever stand in front of a mirror

and nod your head and say yes

I'm alright

I wasn't always there you guys know

I've told you many many stories

I don't mind

admitting when I was in the wrong

and owning that sort of thing

and I know some of y'all been there

you've had to cut ties, walk away

maybe you got burned once or twice

that's fine that's life

we don't flog ourselves

for the past in here

the wrecking yard ain't

about what's broke down

behind you

it's about what you can rebuild

from what's left

that's what the wrecking yard was always for

right here, right now

me

and you

I'm rooting for you

dreaming at the table for everybody

I'm J.W.

and I love you

914

914 smile

that just tickles me

I hope you got, oh man

I got a new

got a new sticker

to the sticker wall

young man

come out

and brought me some stickers

from his unit

Combat Medicine Branch

Trained, Sustained, Saved Lives

and it looks like

it's got a howl in the coyote

or a red-eyed chupacabra on there

but I guess he's a medical chupacabra

he's out saving lives

but we're gonna add that one right here

to the sticker wall

for a good day

if I could peel the sticker

I would bottle away the hours

confirmed with the flowers

consulting with the rain

life would be some merry things

would be dang-a-dang

if I only had a brain

so I got Adam Harmon

one of his tattoos

I got two of his tattoo stickers

I got a MOBA 1

TwinMill

MOBA 1

Hot Wheels Legislature

of course Diamond Jim

my sticker from World Outlaws

Final Stampede Devil Bowls Speedway

last night they ever run spring

Devil's Bowls Speedway ever run races

for a truck sticker

one of y'all sent me a while back

another little MOBA

the MOBA 1 Pegasus

another one of Adam's tattoo stickers

now we got a little unit sticker there

we'll just keep adding that

as long as we got room

I love you guys

I think y'all's being a part of this

this has turned into something

I never could imagine

we're

we're sanding the book with fine grit

and it's

taking on the life of its own

and it's going to be something even more

than what the podcast was in its own way

I'll catch you guys

y'all be safety, I'll catch y'all next week

Thanks for watching

Contractors and Conmen |s:03E.63

Ford F350

Porsche 914

Delorean DMC-12

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