Latest / Doug Has Questions / Episode 41: Randy Simmons; What Would David Do When Life Breaks

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Episode 41: Randy Simmons; What Would David Do When Life Breaks · Doug Has Questions

• 0:00
  Douglas: Welcome to this episode of Doug Hats Questions.
• 0:02
  Douglas: Today my guest is Randy Simmons, father of David Simmons, and a very good friend of mine.
• 0:08
  Douglas: And somebody that got a start off with a gift for you.
• 0:13
  Douglas: Thank you.
• 0:13
  Douglas: Doug Has Questions.
• 0:14
  Douglas: Yep.
• 0:15
  Douglas: And if you turn it over, see now you're you have to have answers.
• 0:18
  Douglas: Oh, because you've already been you've already been paid for the answers, Randy.
• 0:22
  Randy: Alright, yeah.
• 0:23
  Randy: I'm ready for it.
• 0:24
  Randy: All right.
• 0:25
  Randy: We'll give it our best shot.
• 0:26
  Randy: Thank you.
• 0:26
  Douglas: Well we'll we'll we'll get to it eventually, but you and I met under uh unfortunate circumstances.
• 0:32
  Douglas: I didn't meet you until after David had passed.
• 0:35
  Randy: You know, we didn't meet till after David passed, but we communicated weeks beforehand because uh I purchased a uh David went to Elfin Cove and He was gonna go deer hunting.
• 0:45
  Randy: He went deer hunting and he had a wonderful time, and so um I thought, well I need to buy him a good deer rifle.
• 0:50
  Randy: So I bought him a Remington 30 odd six, similar to what I have, but you know, with the uh composite stock and whatnot.
• 0:56
  Randy: And uh of course I had to send it somewhere, so I contacted you.
• 1:00
  Randy: I got I gotta send it to a sports shop.
• 1:02
  Randy: Yep.
• 1:02
  Randy: And um that rifle came the night before David died.
• 1:07
  Douglas: Yep.
• 1:07
  Randy: He sent me a message on WhatsApp.
• 1:09
  Douglas: He said he was in here picking that up.
• 1:10
  Randy: I got the gun, Dad, it's so cool, and and he was so excited about it.
• 1:14
  Randy: And and uh, you know, we had hunted from a very young age, and so uh it was it was like I really wanted to to be able to p provide him with a rifle that you know he was borrowing a rifle his first time out and he's had you know had a wonderful time hunting.
• 1:27
  Douglas: So uh Yeah, he'd had uh I remember him coming back from that deer hunting trip and he'd had such a great time, and then when he came and picked up that that 306, he was just absolutely stoked, and you know, it was a present from his dad, something he was gonna hand down uh future generations, and yeah, he was really, really excited about that.
• 1:48
  Randy: It was interesting because uh I started him shooting when he was really young.
• 1:51
  Randy: I mean, he was a legit expert marks from the time he was eight years old.
• 1:55
  Randy: We'd go out with the 22 and we'd take a brick, a 500 round box, and he would sit there and shoot and shoot and shoot.
• 2:02
  Randy: We'd put paper plates on the logs and he'd sit there and he would just shoot for hours in cars.
• 2:07
  Randy: And so when he finally got of age, 16, we started hunting together, and that was my my life dream.
• 2:13
  Randy: We're walking through the fields, you know, hunting side by side, and then he lost interest.
• 2:17
  Randy: He didn't want to hunt.
• 2:18
  Randy: He didn't he didn't really he didn't want to kill things, yeah.
• 2:20
  Randy: Okay, he totally quit hunting.
• 2:22
  Douglas: And then he became See, what what age was it that he quit hunting?
• 2:25
  Randy: Shortly after we started here.
• 2:26
  Randy: Okay it's 18, 19, uh-huh you know, and it got to where you know he didn't he didn't feel right killing animals.
• 2:33
  Randy: But then he came up and became an Alaskan outdoorsman.
• 2:37
  Randy: It's like, you know, a f you know to field to table kind of thing, and he was really proud that he could provide for his his you know himself and for Libby.
• 2:46
  Randy: Yep.
• 2:46
  Randy: And so it's complete change.
• 2:47
  Randy: So it's like, yeah, I'll buy your wife back in the thing.
• 2:51
  Randy: You know, it's it was disappointing that because I grew up as as a young uh man and uh my dad didn't help, but my uncles did.
• 2:57
  Randy: I I grew up in Denver and they were southwestern Colorado, and I remember I shot my very first animal.
• 3:02
  Randy: This is really strange.
• 3:03
  Randy: I was six years old, sitting on my grandfather's lap, and my mother and grandmother in the backseat of the station wagon driving down the river, and I shot a rabbit out the window with a pistol.
• 3:14
  Randy: Really?
• 3:14
  Randy: And they're they were plotting in the back.
• 3:16
  Randy: People say, How can you shoot animals?
• 3:17
  Randy: It's it's in my blood, you know.
• 3:19
  Randy: And and they were but they were plotting that I shot my first rabbit, and and then he shot a rabbit that same evening, and then the next morning we had rabbit for breakfast, and he he only cooked one.
• 3:28
  Randy: He goes, Well, mine wasn't any good, but we're eating yours.
• 3:31
  Randy: Probably it was mine that wasn't good.
• 3:33
  Randy: But you know, that that was my my indoctrination hunting, so I really I was so proud to pass it on to David, then it kind of faded, then it came back.
• 3:40
  Randy: So it was full circle, and unfortunately it didn't uh go on.
• 3:44
  Randy: But uh it was important that for me that he was able to well you you you closed that circle before you pass.
• 3:50
  Douglas: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:51
  Randy: I I saved that uh voice message that he would that was literally the last voice message.
• 3:57
  Randy: I spoke to him you know before the the the day of the slide, but as far as something I had on record, just like I got the gun, Dad.
• 4:03
  Douglas: Got the gun.
• 4:03
  Randy: Yeah, yeah, it was pretty exciting.
• 4:06
  Douglas: So you you talked about let's let's go back to where life began here.
• 4:09
  Douglas: You caught talked about growing up in Colorado.
• 4:12
  Randy: Yeah.
• 4:13
  Douglas: Is that where you were born?
• 4:13
  Douglas: Was Colorado?
• 4:14
  Randy: Born and raised Denver, Colorado.
• 4:16
  Randy: Um my dad was in the Air Force, so we stayed there.
• 4:19
  Randy: Um he actually had some uh assignments out of Denver.
• 4:24
  Randy: One time for one point he was in uh Japan for two years, so we stayed in Denver.
• 4:29
  Randy: And then eventually um he got transferred to upstate New York, Plattsburgh, New York, right on Lake Champlain.
• 4:35
  Randy: And so I literally went from kindergarten through sixth grade in one school, and then we got transferred to New York, and I was there there was a um seventh through twelve year old school.
• 4:48
  Randy: So I was there from seventh through tenth grade, and then he got transferred to California.
• 4:52
  Randy: So I literally went to three schools my entire life, and that for an Air Force brat, that was unheard of.
• 4:57
  Douglas: Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
• 4:57
  Douglas: Usually you're going every other year or something.
• 4:59
  Douglas: Exactly.
• 5:00
  Randy: And and uh in fact, when I entered that um elementary school, it was the the day that my first day of kindergarten was the initial day of that school.
• 5:08
  Randy: We were see we were the original students of the school.
• 5:10
  Douglas: Original students of the school.
• 5:11
  Randy: McMean elementary.
• 5:11
  Randy: Everything was brand new.
• 5:13
  Randy: Yes, yes.
• 5:13
  Randy: And uh, you know, there's a picture of us on the wall, the original, you know the original class K through six, and and uh I I think I left two weeks before we graduated or you know, finished.
• 5:23
  Randy: Yeah, and we drove to New York State.
• 5:26
  Douglas: So was your mom just a stay-at-home mom then taking care of you?
• 5:30
  Douglas: Did you have any siblings?
• 5:31
  Randy: Yeah, uh I have two sisters.
• 5:33
  Douglas: Okay.
• 5:34
  Douglas: Older or younger?
• 5:35
  Randy: One of each.
• 5:36
  Douglas: Okay.
• 5:36
  Douglas: You're in the middle there.
• 5:37
  Douglas: Boy, they had you bracketed.
• 5:39
  Randy: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:40
  Randy: Uh but uh yeah, well, my mom worked when my dad was overseas.
• 5:44
  Randy: She worked at Sears because you know we had make ends meet kind of things.
• 5:47
  Randy: But uh for the most part, she was a stay stay-home mom.
• 5:51
  Douglas: So you've you'd mentioned before that sports was a big thing for you growing up.
• 5:55
  Douglas: When did that start?
• 5:57
  Randy: Well, I mean, I was born in 54.
• 5:59
  Randy: Mickey Mann started about the same year.
• 6:01
  Randy: So I um going back to my childhood, uh I was a big baseball, I loved baseball.
• 6:07
  Randy: And back in the 60s, there wasn't ESPN games every night.
• 6:11
  Randy: There was one game a week, Saturday game of the week.
• 6:13
  Randy: And in the 60s, it was usually the Yankees just kicking ass.
• 6:16
  Randy: So it there were there was no professional teams in Denver at the time.
• 6:19
  Randy: It's like Mickey Mannell, Roger Maris, I'm a Yankee fan, been a Yankee fan my entire life.
• 6:23
  Randy: Okay.
• 6:23
  Randy: Just because, you know.
• 6:24
  Randy: Um I remember uh reading a book of Mickey Mannel's life, and his dad taught him how to pitch hit when he was a little kid.
• 6:34
  Randy: Or not pitch in, but uh be a switch hitter.
• 6:36
  Randy: And so I thought if I ever have a son, I'm gonna make him a switch hitter.
• 6:39
  Randy: And I did, you know, David started uh playing little league.
• 6:44
  Randy: Um I was his coach from T ball on forward.
• 6:47
  Randy: And from day one at in T ball, he bat right-handed the first time, he batted left-handed the second time.
• 6:51
  Randy: It doesn't really get in any significance to you into high school when they start throwing curveballs and slider stuff, but I wanted him to have that uh ability, so from day one he he went back and forth, back and forth.
• 7:01
  Randy: And he played, you know, he was an all-star high school and played some college ball and ended up playing uh semi-pro ball in Germany for 10 years, and uh he was a legit switch hitter from day one.
• 7:12
  Randy: So that was pretty cool.
• 7:14
  Douglas: Dad made it happen.
• 7:15
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 7:16
  Douglas: Take the the Mickey Mann influence.
• 7:18
  Randy: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:19
  Randy: It's like, well, I'm gonna give him every possible advantage.
• 7:21
  Randy: I mean, we we had like five acres of property uh when he was in high school, and um I put a sixty-foot batting tunnel in the in the back 40.
• 7:29
  Randy: I mean uh full-on cage and a professional pitching machine, and and uh and we'd have the whole team come out and take practice at our place because we had a freaking facility out there, yeah, and it was big big for me uh to be able to do that for my son.
• 7:43
  Randy: Um but my goal as a youngster was to always be a professional player.
• 7:47
  Randy: That was my life goal to be a professional baseball player, and I I lived in and breathed baseball.
• 7:52
  Randy: We I played little league and I played you know summer ball.
• 7:56
  Randy: And um when I was a sophomore, we were still in New York State.
• 8:00
  Randy: Um I was uh first baseman on a team that took the Northern New York State Championship.
• 8:05
  Randy: We were we you know I was I was pretty good.
• 8:07
  Douglas: That was a pretty good team.
• 8:08
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 8:08
  Douglas: Um York's got a few baseball teams.
• 8:11
  Randy: Yeah, but then my dad got transferred to California, and so we transferred once again at the end of school year.
• 8:17
  Randy: So I came out and I didn't play summer ball that year.
• 8:20
  Randy: And so then I as a junior I got to play baseball, and they got this big dude uh that's been uh all league, and he's a senior and he's playing first base.
• 8:29
  Randy: So I didn't play summer ball, I didn't get to play much my junior year, and then I played uh my senior year, and I was all gung-ho to, you know, make my next step to professional playing.
• 8:40
  Randy: And you know, it's a short season.
• 8:42
  Randy: I had a little bit of of a uh a slump, and at some point, two-thirds of the season, I got benched so a junior could pitch.
• 8:50
  Randy: Or could play my position.
• 8:51
  Randy: And I quit.
• 8:53
  Randy: I I quit my life it it devastated me.
• 8:55
  Randy: I quit my live stream.
• 8:56
  Randy: I I quit the team for two weeks before the season was over, and that was the end of my baseball career.
• 9:00
  Randy: And part of that was because I played basketball as well.
• 9:03
  Randy: And um my senior year at basketball, uh, we had an undefeated team.
• 9:08
  Randy: I was MVP all league, and so I got recruited to play at the junior college for basketball.
• 9:14
  Randy: So I transitioned to basketball at that point, but uh because that was the end of my career in baseball, my goal when I had a son was I'm gonna make this kid a professional player.
• 9:24
  Randy: Yeah, and so that's why he's gonna switch hit, I'm gonna coach every team he plays, and and um he was very, very good at it.
• 9:31
  Douglas: And you know, that was So you think there was anything you could have done differently that would have gotten you drafted and getting you some minor league ball?
• 9:40
  Randy: Or was that just you know, it was it was such a transition because you know, you're a senior, and I I like I said I was really successful on the basketball court and I was recruited by the um the junior college, and the junior college was an outstanding program.
• 9:53
  Randy: I mean, we had the best bot team in the state of California.
• 9:56
  Randy: But I I played against I played with guys there were I was 18, played with guys, big black guys from North Carolina and and Indianapolis that were recruited to play on our on our you know uh college team.
• 10:07
  Randy: We we were undefeated in league, took third in the state of California.
• 10:10
  Randy: So it's like I was I was in the big basketball team at that point.
• 10:13
  Douglas: But so did what was that at that point, was that enough of uh salve or whatever to the to the pain of losing baseball?
• 10:22
  Randy: Yeah, I I made that transition because I could still be a in sports, you know, and um as it was in in that junior college team, I was like the sixth man.
• 10:32
  Randy: I didn't start, but I played a lot of time.
• 10:34
  Randy: Um but the coach also got me a job at the local lumber yard so I could make some money.
• 10:41
  Randy: And I bought it, I bought a a new used car, and my sophomore year I decided I I wasn't gonna be a starter, so I then I quit basketball.
• 10:49
  Randy: But as it turned out, him getting me this job at the lumber yard, I ended up working in the lumber industry for many, many years, and eventually became a uh general contractor.
• 10:59
  Randy: And so that you know, that transition from the basketball coach getting me in the lumber business and me pursuing that, uh, I became you know a contractor down the road.
• 11:10
  Douglas: So kind of gave you your it's kind of crazy about it.
• 11:13
  Douglas: So you look at it, you quit baseball, go into basketball, the coach gets you a job, and that ends up being your profession.
• 11:20
  Randy: Well, yes and no.
• 11:21
  Randy: In a way, yes and no, because I also was uh um in college, I I went to uh two years at the Merced College, then I transferred to Chico State University, and I majored in psychology, and then I ended up getting uh a master's degree in counseling psychology, and um out of the 90 people in the graduate practicum, I was one of the two people that was selected to be actually a counseling intern at Chico State University, and I became really uh involved with the community college, Merced College, and I was recruited to be a psychology instructor at 23 years old.
• 11:57
  Randy: So I was a professor of psychology for 13 years at this junior college before.
• 12:03
  Douglas: 23 years old.
• 12:04
  Douglas: Yes, you're teaching psychology at the college level.
• 12:07
  Randy: I'm I'm teaching, you know, freshman, I'm teaching 40.
• 12:10
  Randy: It was a night class, I'm teaching 40-year-old businessmen, you know, it was all like personal and social growth and you know the type of uh yeah, I did the psych 1A and the basic psych, but I I specialized in you know personal growth, self-assertiveness.
• 12:23
  Randy: Did they kind of you know touch a fielding class where you sit in a circle and you you know get to know one another and and work on your eye contact and in personal skills?
• 12:31
  Randy: And I, you know, quite honestly, I think that that helped make David become the man that he he became.
• 12:37
  Douglas: Oh, absolutely if he's getting that foundation at home from a very young age, yeah, that that can't be anything but good.
• 12:44
  Randy: Yeah.
• 12:44
  Randy: So I put myself through college working in the lumber business.
• 12:47
  Douglas: Look in the lumber So why you said you did that for 13 years.
• 12:51
  Douglas: Is there a reason you decided to go into contracting after 13 years?
• 12:55
  Randy: Yeah, part of it was because it was a it it was a part-time position as a psychology instructor.
• 13:01
  Randy: And they were like two full-time guys, and we were best buddies.
• 13:04
  Randy: I took them fishing to my cabin.
• 13:06
  Randy: We, you know, we were best of friends, and but it's like um every year I'd go in for my um evaluation with the dean, says, Yeah, your your stuff from the students are great, you know, your your uh evaluations are top-notch, but we really don't have any full-time positions.
• 13:20
  Randy: So I'm getting paid by the hour.
• 13:23
  Randy: And and so I'm working in the lumber yard, right?
• 13:25
  Randy: And the the junior college is 15 miles away.
• 13:28
  Randy: So four days a week when I first started out, I punch out, I drive 30 minutes to the college, I teach for 45 minutes, drive back, punch back in, and so I'm getting paid, you know, 20 back in the 70s, 20 bucks an hour for big bucks, but yeah, I got paid for the hour I stand in class and I didn't didn't pay for my travel time, for my class prep.
• 13:45
  Randy: And so after 13 years, I you know, at some point I said, you know, what's the chances of me getting a full-time position?
• 13:50
  Randy: There you go, well, you know, Randy, we got a lot of people coming from Chico State.
• 13:53
  Randy: And and so this is the time when David was born.
• 13:56
  Randy: And so I thought, well, you know, I no longer I'm I'm at this point I'm managing a lumber company, you know, uh in charge of in charge of the scheduling it and buying and selling the lumber and all the contractor sales and whatnot.
• 14:09
  Randy: And I'm I'm thinking, well, you know, um after like 10 years, I I told him I'm not gonna drive to be a college anymore.
• 14:17
  Randy: I'll I'll teach a night class in town at the Chico High School.
• 14:20
  Randy: So I teach a three-hour night class, one that I like teaching.
• 14:23
  Randy: That's why I kept going on and on.
• 14:25
  Randy: But the the option for me to become a full-time instructor really wasn't panning out.
• 14:28
  Randy: And at this point, I'd been in the lumber business, and all my friends in town were contractors.
• 14:33
  Randy: So a friend of mine said, Hey, come work for me.
• 14:35
  Randy: So I worked for him for a year, then I got my license, and then I rolled into being a contractor for 35 years.
• 14:40
  Randy: So it it evolved from basketball coach getting me a job, you know, at the lumber yard to being a management in the lumber business to being I had enough of this, now I'm gonna go be my own boss.
• 14:52
  Randy: And that was the best thing I ever did was you know being a contractor, because then you're you don't answer to anybody.
• 14:57
  Randy: Did you miss the teaching though?
• 14:59
  Randy: Um No, because it can't it got to be where my priorities were, you know, taking being a family guy, being able to be with pick with the kids at night, and you know, my son, and and so um it was time for the change.
• 15:13
  Randy: And the the idea of being not having to answer to anybody other than you know the worst thing about being a contractor is you never it's it's like you have to go apply for jobs every day all the time.
• 15:23
  Douglas: All the time.
• 15:23
  Randy: You know, if some guy works at the at the Ford dealership, he's got a job for 20 years, it's a contract.
• 15:28
  Randy: You've got to go in and and bid your bid your soul, you know, over and over and over again to get the jobs, and you know, you don't get them unless you bid them, but you don't get paid for bidding them.
• 15:36
  Randy: So uh there was good and bad about that, but uh it was it was a very successful career for me.
• 15:40
  Douglas: So if do you ever think about what would happen if they had given you a full-time position?
• 15:46
  Douglas: Do you think you would have how long do you think you would have stayed with that?
• 15:50
  Randy: As long as I could, I didn't.
• 15:52
  Douglas: If they would have given if they would have offered like at eight years, hey, we got this full-time position with the benefits and all this stuff, because it like I said, I was an hourly employee, period.
• 16:00
  Randy: Yeah.
• 16:00
  Randy: And just for the hour I'm standing in class and not for prep time.
• 16:03
  Douglas: Not for anything else.
• 16:04
  Douglas: And you're just teaching one class a day?
• 16:06
  Randy: Uh I would probably average probably two at a semester, you know, okay.
• 16:11
  Randy: At at one point.
• 16:12
  Randy: But initially it was one, and toward the end, it's like, you know, I'll teach one night class, you know, Wednesday from seven to ten, and and I want to do it in town, and and that's all I want to do because it's an easy class and I I'd like doing it.
• 16:22
  Randy: You know, and I enjoyed, you know, the personal growth.
• 16:25
  Randy: It's like, you know, it forces you to be a better person when you're teaching people how to be a good person, you know.
• 16:30
  Randy: Pretty much.
• 16:30
  Randy: Yeah.
• 16:31
  Randy: And once again, going back to David, he's a better man than I would ever be.
• 16:35
  Randy: You know, I I I aspire to be as good a person as he was.
• 16:38
  Randy: So, you know, he I didn't just it didn't just rub off.
• 16:42
  Randy: He he leapfrogged me in terms of you know personal growth and having dealt with people.
• 16:47
  Douglas: So is that was that a conscious thing on you bringing stuff like that up, or was that just something he absorbed?
• 16:53
  Douglas: Because you're you're teaching this and you're now practicing a lot of that in your own personal life.
• 17:00
  Douglas: Is that or was there a conscious kind of like you want him to be a switch hitter at the beginning?
• 17:05
  Douglas: Are you thinking, man, if I can just reinforce these lessons with David, that's gonna pay off.
• 17:10
  Randy: You know, I took a lot of pride in being a good dad, you know, and doing the right thing and working hard.
• 17:14
  Randy: He worked for me in the construction business when he's like 10 years old.
• 17:19
  Randy: He's making, you know, five bucks an hour.
• 17:21
  Randy: Well, he was younger than that.
• 17:22
  Randy: We were building a house uh that took four years, but he was out there picking up nails for a penny of nail, you know, on the job side.
• 17:29
  Randy: But then, you know, once he became uh uh able to handle equipment, I mean he was he was working, you know, as a as an apprentice contractor or apprentice builder for many, many years.
• 17:40
  Randy: Yeah.
• 17:41
  Randy: Uh but it my point is he learned a w a good work ethic, but also, you know, it was always important to to do the right thing, you know, to to be honest and and to treat people the way you want to be treated.
• 17:51
  Randy: And you know, just try to be a good person.
• 17:53
  Randy: And that's kind of the the goal of the uh personal growth class I was teaching and and sharing with other people.
• 18:00
  Randy: And um so he got a full dose lifetime and he was like a sponge.
• 18:05
  Randy: He just picked it up and became the great guy that he is.
• 18:09
  Douglas: No, it's knowing him the short period of time that I did know him, you could that just there's never any questions about his character.
• 18:18
  Douglas: Yeah, I mean the way that he he had f he had friends all over.
• 18:23
  Douglas: All over.
• 18:24
  Randy: He can make a friend any place he went.
• 18:26
  Randy: It it was you know, um at one point Michelle and I went to um Europe to spend time with him, you know.
• 18:33
  Randy: And we visited him when he was in in Germany.
• 18:36
  Randy: We got got a c got to watch him play some some baseball and we traveled to Portugal and we traveled to um France and we're on like the high speed uh train going for someplace.
• 18:46
  Randy: And there's a group of people about his age, and he before you know it, he's always sitting with them and the best buddies by the time we get to where we're going, it's like total strangers.
• 18:53
  Randy: It's just that's what he was, you know.
• 18:55
  Randy: He was drawn to people.
• 18:56
  Randy: And uh it was just uh like I said, there's I I look at him and the the man he became, and he's the better person than I I will ever be.
• 19:05
  Randy: And and uh, you know, I take some credit for that, but it was a lot of his own just self uh motivation to be a good person.
• 19:13
  Douglas: So with your contracting, were you doing houses right at the beginning?
• 19:16
  Douglas: Did you start off with remodels?
• 19:18
  Douglas: Did you s did you kind of stage that up or I did anything I could do?
• 19:21
  Douglas: Anything that somebody would pay you for.
• 19:23
  Randy: Yes, I mean I got to the point where I would I would draft a a letter that I sent to every single real estate agent in town saying, I will do your termite work, I will do inspections, I'll, you know, whatever it took to get work.
• 19:35
  Randy: You know, I I would do perhaps one house a year, actual construction house, but I did, you know, a lot of remodels and um I didn't have a big crew.
• 19:44
  Randy: In fact, toward the end of my career, um I worked a lot uh by myself and meaning I had a lot of subcontours.
• 19:52
  Randy: I had the same subcontours for 20 years, but toward the end I did a lot of remodels.
• 19:56
  Randy: I mean people have a house they've had for 20 years, and we'd go in and we'd just gut the kitchen and do all new stuff, put in can lights about the house, change all the doors, just change make their house a new house.
• 20:07
  Randy: And I like doing that kind of stuff, you know, and um it was profitable and a lot of stuff I did, time materials.
• 20:13
  Randy: I didn't have to bid it.
• 20:14
  Randy: I'd just go in and I'd say I'm gonna charge you fifty bucks an hour and this is what I'm gonna do, and we'll just figure it out as we go.
• 20:19
  Randy: And I had a clientele rapport where they were they were good with that, you know.
• 20:24
  Randy: Uh because if you if you bid a job, you gotta bid all the what ifs and and you know that doesn't usually happen.
• 20:30
  Randy: But uh you know, when you do a house, you gotta give them a firm price, that kind of thing.
• 20:33
  Randy: But I really preferred to do the time materials, materi you know, remodels and things where I could be creative and and just add on as they go and you know, it was always change orders.
• 20:43
  Randy: It wasn't like it came out of the blue, but you know, we made made sure everyone got what they wanted.
• 20:47
  Randy: Uh it was it was nice to have tangible results because like I said, toward the end of my um lumber business, I was the manager and I'd you know I'd have to buy products and and get the orders out and and you know buy low, sell high kind of thing, and and you can make tremendous uh decisions all day long.
• 21:04
  Randy: At the end of the day, you look at your desk and it's like nothing changed.
• 21:07
  Randy: But if you go you go frame a garage in a day, it's like, yeah, look at that, dude.
• 21:11
  Randy: You know, it's tangible results.
• 21:13
  Randy: That's the thing about being a contractor.
• 21:14
  Randy: There's tangible results.
• 21:16
  Randy: And uh that's what uh was the most rewarding for me because I I felt really good about being creative and and doing good work and being able to, you know, there's a lot of problem solving in contracting, you know.
• 21:27
  Randy: It's it's not a mistake if you can't fix it, you know.
• 21:30
  Randy: So she's just gotta figure stuff out.
• 21:31
  Randy: And our our our motto was we're smarter than wood.
• 21:34
  Randy: Just sit back and make it work.
• 21:35
  Randy: My my stepfather at the time when I first got my contractor license, he he had some t shirts printed.
• 21:44
  Randy: Simmons construction, known for quality craftsmanship, we're smarter than wood.
• 21:48
  Randy: Nice.
• 21:50
  Douglas: I like that.
• 21:50
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 21:51
  Douglas: That's pretty good.
• 21:52
  Randy: It's better than being dumb in a rock, you know.
• 21:54
  Douglas: It is.
• 21:55
  Douglas: It is much better.
• 21:57
  Douglas: So did you think uh as David was growing up.
• 22:01
  Douglas: Did you think he was going to follow you in the business at all, or was it pretty obvious that he was he had he was destined for other things?
• 22:08
  Randy: It never was going to be an option.
• 22:09
  Randy: I mean, he he he liked making money and there was always money to be made, but I know he had bigger and better things.
• 22:17
  Randy: I mean, um he started, like I say, really young, and he 10 years old or whatever, he was working weekends and then he worked summers, and um by the time he was 16 years old, he had a $5,000 bank account from you know working.
• 22:31
  Randy: And I told him that was one of his first cars.
• 22:33
  Randy: I said, you know, whatever you put up, I'll match.
• 22:36
  Randy: 16 years old, that was like 2006.
• 22:40
  Randy: He bought a 1999 Pontiac Trans Am for $10,000.
• 22:43
  Randy: He was the hottest kid in school.
• 22:45
  Randy: I mean, it was a nice ride.
• 22:47
  Randy: We we bought it online, had to travel down to Central California to get it.
• 22:52
  Randy: And uh he we had a a friend of ours drive us down there because he he couldn't drive it back yet.
• 22:57
  Randy: He was just 16.
• 22:58
  Randy: So we dropped when Tess drove it, so I you know she dropped us off and we checked it out and then she took off and we drove it back.
• 23:04
  Randy: But yeah, he was uh he liked the fact he could make money and he was really good about you know saving it.
• 23:11
  Douglas: Well that was that was the thing, he was he found a solution to financial things.
• 23:21
  Douglas: Because like his traveling.
• 23:23
  Randy: Yep.
• 23:24
  Douglas: He was he was travel when he was in Germany, he was traveling all over and he was couch surfing, you know, he'd find friends, or sometimes he had it arranged, and he was I never quite understood what he was talking about, but he explained it to me one time about the different airline rewards and credit card things.
• 23:44
  Randy: That was it, that was it.
• 23:44
  Randy: Capital Capital One and Capital Freedom.
• 23:47
  Randy: He created a a system where you know he had a YouTube video that explained how you can use the two and and coordinate the money and you know get free flights.
• 23:59
  Randy: And every time someone saw his YouTube and signed up in his name, he got $10,000, 10,000 miles in credit.
• 24:05
  Randy: He had so many freaking miles.
• 24:07
  Randy: He had to put one in my name, he had to put one in his in my sister's name.
• 24:11
  Randy: So because he can only he can only make like 20, 200,000 miles a year.
• 24:15
  Randy: Uh-huh.
• 24:15
  Randy: And so he basically flew around the world three times with free miles.
• 24:20
  Randy: Free miles.
• 24:20
  Randy: Because of he had like 200,000 likes on this YouTube, and it was phenomenal.
• 24:26
  Randy: Every time someone looked at it, and he upgraded it a couple years later, but um that was that was it.
• 24:31
  Randy: That that's what made his, you know, people said, Oh, your son's flying around the world.
• 24:35
  Randy: How much does it how much are you paying for?
• 24:37
  Randy: And I go, nothing.
• 24:38
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 24:38
  Randy: Yeah.
• 24:38
  Randy: And then he got the couch surfing thing.
• 24:40
  Randy: But uh yeah.
• 24:41
  Douglas: Hey, you just find a spare spot on the floor or a couch or whatever, and and so that'll bring us to the I was gonna wait till we got to this, but this was fifty countries, fifty stories.
• 24:53
  Douglas: You finished this.
• 24:55
  Douglas: Let's let's jump ahead a little bit.
• 24:57
  Douglas: You finished this after Dave had passed away, because you got you thought all of his laptops, all of his stuff was gone after the slide.
• 25:06
  Douglas: Everything that he owned was everything that's gone was gone was in the ocean.
• 25:09
  Randy: In the ocean.
• 25:10
  Randy: Gone.
• 25:10
  Douglas: Everything we don't have any access to it.
• 25:12
  Randy: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Douglas: But then what happened?
• 25:14
  Randy: Well, he had purchased a brand new MacBook like two weeks before the slide.
• 25:19
  Randy: And he was in the final stages.
• 25:21
  Randy: He'd he had his rough draft, but he was going to he had like 10 terabytes of video.
• 25:26
  Randy: He was going to make an interactive where you could read the book and then hit a URL or whatever, and he'd have a video talking about what he showing what he talked about.
• 25:35
  Randy: So he was in the process of of doing all this on this new MacBook, and he'd just run up the stairs and he slipped and dropped and he cracked the screen.
• 25:43
  Randy: So it's brand new.
• 25:44
  Randy: He sent in to get repaired, and so it was gone.
• 25:46
  Randy: And then when he passed, um Michelle and I flew up here and we're sitting around with Libby and her family, and and the repaired book showed up.
• 25:54
  Randy: And it's like, oh my gosh, I wonder if it's on there, you know, because we had no other access to it.
• 26:02
  Randy: And so she says, Well, let me see if I can open it.
• 26:05
  Randy: And she didn't know his password.
• 26:07
  Randy: And she tried once and she tried twice, and they gave her a clue.
• 26:12
  Randy: It's like, how did I get the down payment for buying our house?
• 26:16
  Randy: Buying the house.
• 26:17
  Randy: Yeah.
• 26:18
  Randy: Trains.
• 26:18
  Randy: Trains.
• 26:19
  Randy: Trains being my father um was uh an obsessive uh train collector, not just that he had a few, he was in the business.
• 26:28
  Randy: He he had his entire walls were covered with uh these in-scale trains, little tiny trains, and he went to sh to to shows.
• 26:36
  Randy: He had he had he had two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of these little frickin' trains, literally.
• 26:42
  Randy: Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in trains.
• 26:44
  Randy: Yes.
• 26:45
  Randy: Supposedly, and and so he was getting on in years and he he wanted to get rid of some of the triplicas and duplicates that he had, so he enlisted David to to set up this eBay system and processed tons and tons and tons of trains.
• 27:00
  Randy: And David made like uh twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars on his cut, uh-huh.
• 27:05
  Randy: And that's what he used for his down payment on his house, and so she put trains, and the thing opened up, and there was his 95,000 word rough draft, literally rough draft, no spell check, anything.
• 27:18
  Randy: Yeah, and so I I had that, and um of course they didn't have his all of his videos and stuff, but turns out he had everything backed up on hard drives with his buddy in Germany.
• 27:29
  Randy: He lived with his German family and for like 10 years, so they had everything on hard drives, three different hard drives, 10 terabytes, and so he sent those to me, and so now I've got the rough draft, and I've got all this massive amount of of uh videos and and pictures to go through.
• 27:46
  Randy: And I'm thinking, okay, I'm it's my life goal to make this thing happen for him.
• 27:51
  Randy: And I couldn't have done it by myself.
• 27:52
  Randy: Uh Joe Altman Moore from Moore from uh Haynes was a good friend of his, and he was a freelance author, and and he said, Well, you know, he was David's neighbor actually.
• 28:01
  Randy: He was in the involved in the slide.
• 28:02
  Randy: He said, Well, I I can help you out, you know, and he helped me set it up and started processing it.
• 28:06
  Randy: And we worked on it for 18 months and we're really hitting a flat spot and kind of burnt out on it.
• 28:13
  Randy: And and David's third grade teacher, uh Jody Dillman, um had become adult friends with him.
• 28:21
  Randy: And she reached out at one point saying, you know, if you ever need any help or anything, so I reached out to her and said, you know, we're we're looking for a third leg on this book because we're, you know, we're at we're at a flat spot.
• 28:31
  Randy: So she jumped in.
• 28:31
  Randy: Took her a couple months to get to it, and and she she went through and helped edit it.
• 28:35
  Randy: And between the three of us, we had the whole thing concise enough to where it was it was ready to be, you know, put to publish.
• 28:44
  Randy: Then I had the task of getting through all the pictures.
• 28:47
  Randy: And so now I had the book in a in a solid form, and I spent six weeks, like full time, nine out ten hour days, and I'd read a chapter and I'd go through all these different videos and try to find exactly what he's talking about.
• 29:05
  Randy: And then I would grab a still shot, because I'm not I wasn't gonna be able to do that the uh you know hit the tab and get a video thing, but I just want to find a picture to what he's talking about.
• 29:14
  Randy: And after six weeks um and going through thousands and thousands and thousands of videos and pictures, um I pulled out I think two hundred and sixty-five pictures that we put in the book.
• 29:28
  Randy: That may be around.
• 29:29
  Randy: Any of them, a whole bunch of pictures.
• 29:31
  Randy: And it's it's like he talks about being in some cave in uh uh Nepal with these kids showing them down these, you know, chamber like a uh anyway, there's bats and I found a picture of the bats flying flying that he talked about, just like that.
• 29:50
  Randy: You know, it's so it was so neat to be able to, you know, it it was a lot of work because I I he kind of had them in s in company in countries and but then they were all different areas that I had to bounce around and I I re I learned the book inside now because I would read it and and after looking at it, then I'd spend two hours trying to find a picture of it.
• 30:06
  Randy: So uh but it turned out great.
• 30:08
  Randy: It it it was really rewarding to be able to to put his vision to to paper in uh it's on Amazon, right?
• 30:15
  Randy: Amazon.com.
• 30:16
  Douglas: Sam's gonna put a link on here so people can find it.
• 30:19
  Randy: Yeah.
• 30:19
  Douglas: Yep.
• 30:20
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 30:21
  Douglas: So how how we're kidding we're kind of kind of skipping ahead, we're gonna have to get go back on a bunch of stuff here.
• 30:28
  Douglas: But how cathartic and therapeutic was that for you to go through and see all these pictures and to work on the book?
• 30:35
  Douglas: Was that a was that tough for you?
• 30:39
  Douglas: Was that a healing process for you?
• 30:42
  Randy: It was it was wonderful for me because I knew he was doing this book and and I had we'd spoken about a number of things that were in the book because you know we talked all the time, but I was always anxious to get a chance to sit down and look at it, you know, and and he never was able to present it to me when he was alive.
• 30:58
  Randy: Um and then once I had it, um, this rough draft, I I really it was difficult to to sit down and read 95,000 words.
• 31:08
  Randy: And it was like a year after he had died, and um I had it on my laptop, and Rochelle and I went uh camping up in Lassen National Park for a week and I took it with me.
• 31:20
  Randy: And I spent that time sitting around the campsite and I read the entire thing.
• 31:25
  Randy: And it was just yeah.
• 31:30
  Randy: Some of the things he said really in four-star closeness.
• 31:38
  Randy: So yeah, it was very cathartic, and you know, that was just the words.
• 31:42
  Randy: But like I say, then I got to go back to the pictures.
• 31:44
  Randy: Then a year and a half later, it's like, oh wow, there's pictures of this, and you know, and a lot of the videos that um he that I recovered weren't necessarily part of the book either, just things that you know we'd shared together, you know, heartbreaks and stuff that he went through as a you know, first love kind of thing, and we he talked about that and and uh the closest that we had to experience that together.
• 32:07
  Randy: So it was a it was a double package, it was great for the book.
• 32:11
  Randy: Plus it was it gave me and it's like he had all these fantastic adventures, and it's like all of a sudden I'm a little bird sitting in his front pocket because he's got videos there.
• 32:20
  Randy: He was so good about videotaping everything.
• 32:22
  Randy: He was a great uh producer of of his videos.
• 32:26
  Randy: It was amazing the stuff he put together.
• 32:28
  Randy: And he would have done a much better job, you know, doing it the way he wanted to, but just to be able to capture a still image of what he was thinking and what he experienced and what he described, it was it was pretty magical to be able to do that.
• 32:40
  Douglas: Yeah, so going going back now, we're gonna we're this is good we're I have a feeling this whole thing we're gonna be skipping back and forth, but that's it's all right.
• 32:49
  Randy: Sure.
• 32:50
  Douglas: I don't mind where uh however we tell the story, I don't care.
• 32:52
  Douglas: Um so in high school, because he ended up where did he go to college out of high school?
• 32:59
  Randy: He he he graduated from high school and he went to um Shasta Junior College, which was 65 miles away from Chico, to play baseball.
• 33:08
  Randy: He was recruited to play baseball.
• 33:09
  Randy: Um and it's interesting because uh Butte College has a pretty successful program, and um my grandsons are going to the Butte College baseball camps in the summertime, which are really big time for you know 10, 11 year olds.
• 33:23
  Randy: And um this is really an interesting story that just came out the last week.
• 33:27
  Randy: Um David's most exciting experience in baseball at at one point was he was playing for uh Shasta College and they're big rivals, rivals of Merced College, or Butte College, which are from Chico, and they were Butte College was playing at Shasta College, and this was uh David played first base, and um it was a game where Shasta was up, or excuse me, Bute was ahead like ten runs.
• 33:54
  Randy: It was like they were blowing them away.
• 33:56
  Randy: And um, but Shasta started chipping away, and David didn't start the game, and but he got to he got to pitch hit in the bottom of the eighth, they're down three runs now, not ten runs, and he literally hit a inside the park grand slam home run to put them ahead.
• 34:13
  Randy: But to make it even even more significant, he's a switch hitter, right?
• 34:17
  Randy: Uh-huh.
• 34:17
  Randy: And so mostly he's he bats left-handed because there's mostly right-handed pitchers.
• 34:22
  Randy: So the Shasta coach knows this, excuse me, the Butte coach knows this, so he puts a left-hander in to turn David to bat right-handed.
• 34:29
  Randy: And the kid he puts in is a kid David played little league with.
• 34:32
  Randy: Seriously.
• 34:33
  Randy: Nick Florey, yeah.
• 34:34
  Randy: He knew him.
• 34:35
  Randy: Yes.
• 34:36
  Randy: And so he's he comes in and they make David bat right-handed because that's his weak side.
• 34:39
  Randy: And he hits it, you know, it's it's it it's like a little league home right.
• 34:43
  Randy: It was a shot up the alley, and then it was a missed throw, but he ended up coming all the way around and um scoring the go-ahead run, and then he played first base for the for the top of the ninth and made two diving catches on the field to win the game.
• 34:55
  Randy: And um he actually had the game ball, and I I gave it to Libby, and she's still got it.
• 35:00
  Randy: But anyway, um full circle.
• 35:03
  Randy: Last week I was at the uh at the clinic with my grandsons, and I've I I I said, I want to share a story about uh my grandson's uncle, David Simmons.
• 35:12
  Randy: And I told him the story.
• 35:14
  Randy: Seventeen years ago, and he remembered the game.
• 35:19
  Douglas: Really?
• 35:20
  Randy: Yes.
• 35:20
  Randy: He said, Yeah, we were up by 10, I was bringing guys in, and and uh he remembered this he remembered David by name, and David didn't play for him.
• 35:29
  Randy: He knew of David because you know he was in the local high school, he was probably the only switch hitter in the league, and he he was he was a good player.
• 35:34
  Randy: He goes, Why'd he go to Butte?
• 35:36
  Randy: You know, why'd he go to Shasta?
• 35:38
  Randy: And there were two reasons.
• 35:39
  Randy: One was he was heavily recruited by the coach.
• 35:42
  Randy: He he we we played a game up there and he scouted him and invited us up, took us out to dinner.
• 35:46
  Randy: He paid for uh David's um apartment, paid for all his fees.
• 35:50
  Randy: But the other thing was the Butte coach um wasn't David's fee.
• 35:54
  Randy: He had it he had an attitude that David it rubbed David the wrong way.
• 35:57
  Randy: Okay, and so I I didn't say that the coach, I just said he was heavily recruited and you know that's why he went there.
• 36:02
  Randy: But uh I just it it really moved me that this guy I mean he he's a good guy, the coach.
• 36:08
  Randy: I I I appreciated that the uh all the uh all the camps that the grandkids are going to and you know he's he knows his baseball, he's been doing it for 28 years.
• 36:16
  Randy: But the fact he he remembered some random game 17 years ago in 2000, whenever it was, 2000.
• 36:23
  Randy: It was 2009.
• 36:25
  Randy: And yeah, he said, Yeah, I remember that game.
• 36:28
  Randy: So anyway.
• 36:28
  Randy: But the fact is that the whole purpose of making him a switchhead was he could adapt and it turned out to turned out.
• 36:36
  Randy: But the worst thing about this story, it happened to be on my birthday, and my wife had had planned um a special dinner, and so it's like the seventh inning, and he hasn't got up to he's not in the game.
• 36:50
  Randy: I left and was driving home when he got up and did this life.
• 36:55
  Randy: And missed it, yes, and oh no, and so the dad's called me, you're not gonna think of what happened.
• 37:00
  Randy: It's like, what?
• 37:02
  Randy: Oh no.
• 37:04
  Randy: But uh, I still enjoy it because did anybody have video of it?
• 37:08
  Randy: No, no.
• 37:09
  Douglas: Because say that's close enough into the digital area.
• 37:11
  Douglas: Well, I guess not.
• 37:12
  Douglas: Not everybody would have had video games back then.
• 37:14
  Randy: But but uh like I say, I had the game ball and I gave it to Libby, and and uh I I I got full.
• 37:20
  Randy: In fact, I talked to the coach, he goes, Yeah, he he was coming around third base and I I sent him home as I just got big.
• 37:25
  Randy: So I got the story from the coach and the players and everybody else, but uh I missed it.
• 37:29
  Randy: But uh it was it was still you know, at the time in his life, the greatest baseball experience he ever had, which of course was big for me too.
• 37:37
  Douglas: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:37
  Douglas: Especially since you wanted to be a switch hitter.
• 37:40
  Douglas: Yep.
• 37:40
  Douglas: And it worked out.
• 37:42
  Douglas: So where did he go from Shasta then?
• 37:45
  Randy: Well, Shasta, it small world, one of the assistant coaches in Shasta knew a guy in um Deggendorf, Germany, Bavaria, that ran this uh club team, baseball team.
• 37:58
  Randy: And so David reached out to him.
• 38:00
  Randy: He he was going there to go to the international university.
• 38:02
  Randy: So his sophomore year he went to abroad to go to school.
• 38:06
  Randy: And so he hooked up with this coach and the player coach, and that turned out to be his best friend who had that 10 terabytes of stuff at his house.
• 38:16
  Randy: Yeah.
• 38:16
  Randy: Um, but so he went there and and uh he went to this international university, that's where he became uh friends with a lot of people from around the world, and uh, of course got in the baseball program, and even when he graduated and moved on, he still would play for this team in the in the summertime.
• 38:32
  Randy: There, you know, it's not a professional league.
• 38:35
  Randy: They have like four different levels of um club ball in in Germany.
• 38:40
  Randy: And when he started, the Degendorf Dragons were like number two.
• 38:43
  Randy: By the time he finished, they were in the top echelon because, you know, him and the progress that they made.
• 38:48
  Randy: So it was really really exciting of him to be able to play in a in a sport like that.
• 38:52
  Randy: And he said he actually learned the German language more by playing with the guys on the team because they're all just you know, they weren't all professional athletes, they were, you know, farmers and and construction workers and and guys that w knew baseball and they they he learned German with playing with them.
• 39:09
  Randy: But a lot of stuff that the German guys would say like turn two and so they'd say it in English because it was kind of a crossover.
• 39:15
  Randy: But uh yeah, that was that was uh he he played he went there for a couple years and then he ended up going to uh coming back to Chico State University for his last two years to graduate.
• 39:25
  Randy: But um Yeah, he was he was very serious about his education.
• 39:30
  Douglas: Did he play ball at Chico?
• 39:31
  Douglas: No, he didn't.
• 39:32
  Douglas: He didn't play at Chico State.
• 39:33
  Douglas: Didn't play Chico State.
• 39:34
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 39:34
  Douglas: But then what what did he get his degree in?
• 39:36
  Douglas: Because wasn't he a road scholar?
• 39:38
  Randy: He he was he he got a degree um in international business at Chico State, uh Magnus Sung Lati, it's the top two percent of the entire graduating class.
• 39:47
  Randy: Um and then he went to um he realized he could do his graduate work overseas better cheaper than in the United States.
• 39:56
  Randy: So he he got uh he went to college uh graduate work in Germany, then he he got involved with uh the Russian language, so he spent a year transitioned and he went to a Russian college for for a year.
• 40:12
  Randy: Um but anyway, once he finally got all of his degrees, um then he was uh he was hired by the s um State Department to be a rural scholar, so he was actually a representative, he wanted to be involved in the Russian um culture, but instead of going to Russia, he went to Belarus because it was it's like it's still Russian.
• 40:32
  Randy: And so that was a whole nother experience in his life.
• 40:35
  Randy: He was he would he give lectures at the university and he also gave a lecture at the local community center for the regular people, and uh just you know he he videotaped all of those, they're on a YouTube program where um it was it was it was that was also kind of neat full circle because he's there in his nice shirt and in slack and he's he's doing his his spiel, and that was me at 20 years old.
• 40:56
  Douglas: Yeah, because you were doing the same thing, yes, yes.
• 41:00
  Randy: And um that brings me back to one of the one of the most important lessons I taught David because I I was a little timid when I was you know teaching a college class um at that age.
• 41:13
  Randy: Uh-huh.
• 41:13
  Randy: I remember when I first started out.
• 41:15
  Douglas: Well, it's gotta be like you were saying, you're 23 and you're teaching people in their 30s and forties, and there's there's gotta be a little of intimidation.
• 41:23
  Randy: Well, yeah, and you know, I I got a lot of support.
• 41:26
  Randy: I would I was I was really good.
• 41:28
  Randy: I was like I was a freaking phenom at the time.
• 41:30
  Randy: I mean I I I was good at what I did, but I I had to I had to fake it till you make it.
• 41:35
  Randy: I remember standing in the bathroom in the first uh semester class, looking in the mirror, and I just you know, my my motivation was I look in the mirror and say, I I come to you unafraid.
• 41:48
  Randy: And I taught that to David.
• 41:49
  Randy: Yeah, when you face your when you face something, you just you gotta man up and say, I come to you unafraid.
• 41:56
  Randy: And he he mentioned that in his book numerous times.
• 41:59
  Randy: Yeah.
• 41:59
  Randy: And you know, it's like you can be afraid, but you can't let anybody know.
• 42:05
  Randy: And and that got me through my initial teaching because I was, you know, stepping, stepping out into that thing.
• 42:11
  Randy: But I had a lot of lot of support and and you know, um a lot of feedback that I was capable of doing what I was doing.
• 42:17
  Randy: You know, um I didn't even have my complete degree.
• 42:20
  Randy: I I was actually teaching on a partial fulfillment credential because you had to have a master's degree to get the full fulfill uh credential, but because they wanted me to jump into it, um they they got started me at say at 23 years old.
• 42:31
  Randy: But anyway, that's the that's one of the things that um life lessons that I that I taught David.
• 42:36
  Randy: You know, I come to you unafraid.
• 42:38
  Douglas: Where where where did you get that from?
• 42:39
  Douglas: Where did you learn that?
• 42:40
  Douglas: Was that in your studies or was that just something from the heart?
• 42:43
  Douglas: Yeah, you learned that I I come to you unafraid.
• 42:46
  Randy: Yeah, you gotta have that.
• 42:47
  Randy: You gotta look them in the eye and tell them that.
• 42:49
  Randy: And uh, you know, it's well he definitely lived that.
• 42:53
  Randy: Yes, he did.
• 42:53
  Douglas: You look at everything that he did, yeah.
• 42:55
  Douglas: Um, you know, and he was telling me stories, I'm like, you're doing what?
• 43:00
  Randy: Mm-hmm.
• 43:01
  Douglas: They just ran to people's houses, just hey, I'm gonna meet you and stay on your couch and I'm gone the next day.
• 43:07
  Douglas: Like Yep, yep, yep.
• 43:11
  Douglas: And it wasn't like going from Chico to San Jose and saying that somebody, it's you're in Belarus or Greek or Greece or Italy.
• 43:22
  Douglas: Who knows where you're at?
• 43:23
  Randy: And he would go there for a weekend and he would literally fly into our airport, yeah, not know where he's gonna stay that night.
• 43:30
  Randy: Yeah.
• 43:31
  Randy: In a foreign country, not even know what the currency is.
• 43:33
  Randy: I mean, who does that?
• 43:35
  Randy: David.
• 43:35
  Randy: Yeah.
• 43:36
  Randy: He talks about walking down the street, looking at, you know, uh people that are renting a room, it's like, oh, check it out, maybe I'll go there.
• 43:44
  Randy: It's like I I'm not a big traveler.
• 43:48
  Randy: I mean, I I'm you know, more of a homebody, and uh, you know, I like coming here every summer and I, you know, um take a road trip to Colorado, but for him to be going around the world and Not having any real set plan half the time.
• 44:02
  Randy: Uh it was just it was just unbelievable.
• 44:05
  Douglas: So other than the one trip that you and Rochelle took over, did you take more than the one trip over to Europe to visit him?
• 44:11
  Randy: One and done.
• 44:12
  Douglas: Did he was he coming back to the States very often?
• 44:15
  Randy: Yeah, he came back.
• 44:16
  Randy: Like I say, he came back and did um his work at Chico State.
• 44:20
  Randy: In fact, interesting content one of the other things we did, um I had a project up on the Klamath River where I was uh contracted to build um a cabin for some people.
• 44:30
  Randy: And so he spent the his last summer working with me at the at this uh off grid job site.
• 44:38
  Randy: But he was trying to get all of his uh credits in so he could graduate.
• 44:42
  Randy: And he's taking online courses.
• 44:44
  Randy: We're working 10-hour days at this, you know, off-grade.
• 44:49
  Randy: Um it wasn't off-grade, we had power, but um, and he's taking on online classes and he would drive his the truck down to the end of this road for because uh some guy up the hill had internet and he'd do his classes so we'd get the he had just enough units to get his 40 units to to to graduate in time, and he had to take a written or an online thing.
• 45:08
  Randy: So he drove 20 miles to this library in Montague so we could sit there and have the internet to take.
• 45:14
  Randy: There's the old ladies going, what are you doing?
• 45:15
  Randy: Oh, I'm taking a test here.
• 45:17
  Randy: He was that motivated to work 10 hours, you know, hard hard labor, yeah, and then drive up to the end of the road where he could get his internet and and do his classes, just random classes that would get him in the proper amount of units to get exactly what he needed to graduate.
• 45:30
  Randy: Yeah.
• 45:32
  Douglas: And then when he graduated, he was back overseas, right?
• 45:35
  Randy: Yeah, then uh once he graduated, um that's when he went to work for the State Department?
• 45:40
  Randy: Yeah, yeah, eventually.
• 45:41
  Randy: I mean, prior to that he did his his uh World is One project where he he planned to to travel around the world in for one year.
• 45:49
  Randy: Uh he was gonna do a a a video pr production for that, thirty countries, thirty s thirty stories or whatever, end up being fifty for the book.
• 45:59
  Randy: But um yeah, that was uh he did that after he had graduated and he was just you know, some kids take a summer to to go to Europe.
• 46:07
  Randy: He took a uh a year and went around the world.
• 46:09
  Randy: Yeah, you know, what the hell?
• 46:11
  Randy: And it and he did it on a dime, you know.
• 46:13
  Randy: It did it that's amazing uh ingenuity to be able to pull that off.
• 46:20
  Douglas: And he was so he was in Europe when he f he was living in Europe, wasn't he, when he first came to Haynes?
• 46:28
  Douglas: Or is he back?
• 46:30
  Randy: Yes, oh yeah.
• 46:30
  Randy: In fact, he had he finally got a corporate job.
• 46:34
  Randy: He was working for um I forget the name, it was a uh travel zoo or something like that, where he was um selling ad space for travel companies, small mom and pop companies uh to be on this website or whatever, and he did it for like six months and he really didn't like it.
• 46:55
  Randy: It it's like first of all, he was in he he was very fluid in German and English and Russian, but he had to speak German in in the office, he had to speak German, and he was selling a product that he didn't believe in.
• 47:05
  Randy: You know, he he was you know he was selling ad space for these mom and pop places and then you know wasn't really doing them as much good as the company said it was.
• 47:14
  Randy: So he he had he had a a moral problem with that, and um he just had it he had some time off and he came up to visit uh Cammy here.
• 47:22
  Randy: She had owned a pilot light, his cousin hadn't seen her for I don't know how long, and that was well from that day on he he knew he was gonna be here the rest of his life.
• 47:33
  Randy: Yeah.
• 47:33
  Randy: He talks about it in his book pretty pretty openly.
• 47:36
  Douglas: Yeah, because so he went back to Europe and it was pretty much the next year he'd moved up here, wasn't it?
• 47:40
  Douglas: Oh yeah.
• 47:41
  Randy: He went back and and quit his job within um he quit around the first of the year within a few months.
• 47:47
  Randy: He quit his job.
• 47:48
  Randy: He told his his buddy Stefan, the guy that's been his friend forever, and said, you know, I I just I know what I gotta do.
• 47:56
  Randy: I'm going to f I'm going to Alaska.
• 47:57
  Randy: And he packed up and left.
• 47:59
  Douglas: So what year was it that he moved to Haynes?
• 48:02
  Randy: 200 um.
• 48:03
  Randy: Oh, you got me in a spot here.
• 48:07
  Randy: Uh it was 2007, maybe?
• 48:14
  Randy: No.
• 48:15
  Douglas: No, 17?
• 48:15
  Douglas: 17, yeah.
• 48:16
  Douglas: 2017.
• 48:17
  Douglas: 17, yeah.
• 48:18
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 48:18
  Douglas: I was trying to figure out if it's 17 or 18.
• 48:20
  Randy: It was one of those two because I came up the probably 2018 when I came out to visit him.
• 48:25
  Randy: That was the my first trip up, and it happened to be the Beer Fist or yeah, I think it was the Beer Fist.
• 48:30
  Randy: He came up the year before.
• 48:31
  Douglas: He came up the year before.
• 48:32
  Randy: And and then he was here in 18, that's when I came up.
• 48:35
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 48:35
  Randy: Yeah.
• 48:35
  Douglas: And so when he got here, he was kind of looking for a business to start right away.
• 48:40
  Douglas: And he was because he was working for Cambria at the uh Alpen Globe.
• 48:46
  Douglas: Yep.
• 48:46
  Douglas: Correct?
• 48:47
  Douglas: And then he came up with the shuttle to Haynes to Whitehorse.
• 48:50
  Randy: Yep.
• 48:51
  Douglas: And he was doing that, and that um, and he was in the full leaderhosen and everything was kind of how he was presenting that, right?
• 48:58
  Douglas: Because it's kind of like this Alp Alpen tour or whatever.
• 49:02
  Randy: Well, I think the Lederhosen was more about the the vibe for the pizza place, first of all, because it was, you know, Alpen Globo is kind of a European deal, and he had no problem wearing just freaking leaderhosen and working.
• 49:14
  Randy: And uh first people saw him, it's like, who is this guy?
• 49:16
  Randy: They're like, Well, he's not that weird of a guy, you know, he's a pretty good guy.
• 49:19
  Randy: Uh small aside on there, at one point it was like the fair was going on or something.
• 49:28
  Randy: For some reason he had his Lederhosen off and somebody grabbed him and took him.
• 49:33
  Douglas: They stole his leaderhosen?
• 49:34
  Randy: Yes, by accident or whatever.
• 49:37
  Randy: But um he they were from Whitehorse, somehow he got him back.
• 49:41
  Randy: I don't know.
• 49:41
  Randy: It was a weird story.
• 49:42
  Randy: I not worth bringing up because I don't know the full details at this point.
• 49:45
  Randy: It's been so long, but um, but he was known as the the guy in Lederhosen, you know.
• 49:49
  Randy: And he was he was kind of the guy with with, you know, he wouldn't just bring your pizza, he'd come in and sit down next to you and and talk to you, and you know, uh he was too personal.
• 49:59
  Randy: I mean, people love that that attention.
• 50:01
  Douglas: I didn't know him when he first got I think the first interaction I had with him was I was officiating uh City League basketball.
• 50:08
  Douglas: It was just kind of a loose they they pay me to go in and officiate, and then this guy comes in, this younger guy, really athletic, playing back, and he's pretty good ball player, and and I was like, who's that?
• 50:23
  Douglas: Like, oh, it's David.
• 50:24
  Douglas: Okay, David who?
• 50:26
  Randy: Yeah.
• 50:27
  Douglas: Uh David Simmons, he's a guy at the Alpen Glow.
• 50:29
  Douglas: The leader.
• 50:30
  Douglas: I was like, it's kind of literally I I hadn't seen him, I hadn't gone to the Alpin Glow, anything like that, and I was like, okay, whatever.
• 50:37
  Douglas: And he kept showing up to play basketball, and and that was kind of the first time that I remember interacting with David was on the on the basketball court, and then when uh Tyler moved here in 2018, and then him and David became really good friends af after that.
• 50:54
  Douglas: Good ball players, too.
• 50:55
  Douglas: I know both good ball players, and I know they like to play ping pong against each other as well.
• 51:00
  Douglas: Yeah, they had they they love playing ping pong.
• 51:04
  Randy: Ping pong goes way back with David.
• 51:06
  Randy: We we ate when he was a child, we uh we had a great big house.
• 51:09
  Randy: Um I built this big Victorian mansion with th three stories, but we had a big uh barn.
• 51:15
  Randy: We had horses, and we had a ping pong table in the barn when he was like five years old, and one that got him started, and he he was didn't take long for him to be uh expert at that as well.
• 51:27
  Randy: Everything he did, he got good.
• 51:29
  Douglas: I think that was one of the things one of the calling cards for the Alpine Glow as well, is they had the ping pong table in there and they'd have tournaments all the time.
• 51:35
  Douglas: Tournaments coming in and play ping pong.
• 51:37
  Randy: Yep, first place, first prize wanted pizza, but he kept winning the prize every year, every week.
• 51:45
  Douglas: That's a good way to keep the profits in the house.
• 51:47
  Douglas: If you're the one winning the winning it, don't have to claim it.
• 51:52
  Randy: Exactly.
• 51:54
  Douglas: Yeah, keep them going.
• 51:55
  Randy: Yeah.
• 51:56
  Douglas: So but yeah, so he was um he always had a very entrepreneurial spirit.
• 52:02
  Randy: Yes.
• 52:03
  Randy: Oh, yes.
• 52:05
  Douglas: I I mean I picked up on that getting to know him, but that that started at a young age.
• 52:10
  Douglas: You put he did stuff.
• 52:11
  Douglas: You did that.
• 52:12
  Douglas: I mean, that that had to be an offshoot of you starting your construction company and everything, and getting him in it at a young age.
• 52:19
  Randy: He went beyond that, Doug.
• 52:20
  Randy: I mean, back in the day, he was he was on computers really, really young, you know, playing whatever the games were back then.
• 52:27
  Randy: But there was some game where um it was an internet game and you you worked you know across with other people, and you could get certain points.
• 52:37
  Randy: Anyway, he would mine the points and literally sell them to people.
• 52:42
  Randy: Him and a buddy would would somehow mass these these extra you know bonus points, and you could they were like a commodity, you could sell them.
• 52:50
  Randy: So he was making money, probably junior high or younger, doing this sell the points of a video game.
• 52:57
  Randy: Yes, yes.
• 52:58
  Randy: I didn't even know you could do that.
• 52:59
  Randy: I didn't I didn't understand it at the time, I still don't, but he was making cash out of doing it.
• 53:04
  Douglas: Uh and so the first I'd seen David in and around, kind of knew who he was, but the first time I really got to know him was in spring of 2020.
• 53:19
  Douglas: Everybody knows COVID hits, and uh his business of bringing tourists back and forth to Whitehorse totally shut down.
• 53:29
  Randy: Yep.
• 53:30
  Douglas: He's got a house that he sold a bunch of trains to get the down payment for.
• 53:34
  Douglas: Bought it in April.
• 53:35
  Douglas: Bought it in April, and yeah, so you're looking at March, you know, just right after everything shut down, he's buying a house, just moving into it, him and Libby, and uh him and Tyler good friends.
• 53:48
  Douglas: Tyler comes to me one day, he's like, Hey, can do you think we can have David work for us because his business isn't working?
• 53:54
  Douglas: I was like, sure, why not?
• 53:56
  Douglas: Man, he had it didn't matter what you gave him, he was all in with the meat department, the freeze department.
• 54:04
  Douglas: It it didn't matter.
• 54:05
  Douglas: I mean, our freezer was never as organized as it was when David was working.
• 54:09
  Douglas: He was laminating labels and putting stuff everywhere.
• 54:12
  Douglas: I'd walk in there, like, holy cow, this is perfect.
• 54:15
  Randy: Yeah.
• 54:16
  Randy: He put his heart into everything he did.
• 54:18
  Randy: Everything.
• 54:18
  Randy: Everything.
• 54:19
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 54:20
  Douglas: I was trying to figure out, I was like, okay, how do we how do we keep him here?
• 54:23
  Douglas: And I know him and Tyler had had conversations about eventually owning the business together and working together with the two of them.
• 54:32
  Randy: Yep.
• 54:32
  Randy: So well, he had that option, and then also they he was uh being um groomed to take over the fjord land, too.
• 54:42
  Randy: Mm-hmm.
• 54:42
  Randy: Yeah, yep.
• 54:43
  Randy: He and he and uh uh Libya were gonna run that thing and have a golden circle trend uh Yeah, between the boat and the bus and everything like that, that would have been guaranteed they would have kept that going.
• 54:56
  Randy: Yeah, but uh yeah.
• 54:59
  Douglas: But then you got the big um So in August, I think it was August, there's all these he started working with uh he became the executive director of Haynes Economic Development Corp.
• 55:11
  Randy: Yep.
• 55:11
  Douglas: And then he was doing helping a lot of people with the different grants and things like that, commercial fishermen.
• 55:18
  Douglas: I know a bunch of them owe David a big thank you because he got payments for them because a lot of the places that were shut down.
• 55:26
  Randy: So we all know there's a ton of different government programs out there, and he was he was able to to assist in the weed through the red tape and and yeah, there's a story about that in his book too, where uh some fella, some fisherman at the very, very end of the uh application process, he didn't have all this stuff together, and he he wasn't able to uh do his application.
• 55:48
  Randy: And David called me literally in tears, saying, Oh, I let this guy down, Dad.
• 55:52
  Randy: I I just didn't get it done in time and and he missed out.
• 55:55
  Randy: And uh I just said well you did the best you could do, and you know, being a dad, but he was he was hurt, he was crying.
• 56:02
  Randy: And he got some somehow he managed to f to figure out some extension, and he stayed, you know, extra and and worked that night or whatever, and this guy ended up getting a fifty thousand dollar grant, cash money, because David wouldn't give up on it.
• 56:18
  Randy: You know, that's the kind of guy he was.
• 56:20
  Randy: It was like yeah, he put his heart into everything.
• 56:23
  Douglas: Did he ever have the numbers?
• 56:24
  Douglas: How much how much money did he help get to different fishermen and businesses and haints on those grant programs?
• 56:30
  Randy: I mentioned it in the book or somewhere that you know, a couple million dollars that he he processed um in grants and and you know, small business financing or whatever.
• 56:40
  Randy: Um in fact the gal um I think at his uh uh celebration of life, the gal from um Juneau who worked with him around him uh was ringing his praises.
• 56:55
  Randy: Yeah, he did more than anybody in in Juneau at the time what he was doing to put to put full money together for these people.
• 57:01
  Randy: He was just good at at being meticulous about the details, you know.
• 57:07
  Douglas: And and he and he learned things quickly.
• 57:10
  Randy: Yeah, he was real smart.
• 57:11
  Douglas: He learned things very quickly, and so once he knew the system, once he knew the parameters, yeah, he's like, okay, let's figure out how we can help as many people as possible.
• 57:21
  Randy: Yeah.
• 57:22
  Douglas: And so you've already mentioned it, but after wasn't it right was it right before Thanksgiving that he went on that deer hunt?
• 57:29
  Douglas: Yes, it was like it was uh it was over Thanksgiving, I think, that he went down with that group of people and got what four deer?
• 57:38
  Douglas: Four deer, yeah.
• 57:39
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 57:39
  Randy: And he was so proud.
• 57:41
  Randy: Because, you know, and for me, it's like I I couldn't have been more proud myself because I mean that's my family tradition going back when I was five years old shooting that rabbit in my grandpa's lap, you know, that he it's it's my family on my mother's side are are hunters.
• 57:55
  Randy: And and uh they used to hunt just to survive, you know, back in the whatever, but to be able for David to all of a sudden be so involved and wanting to put meat on the table that he harvested, you know.
• 58:07
  Randy: And uh a lot happened in that three weeks before he passed because he had all four carcasses hanging in his shop and a brown bear came in and tried to bust in.
• 58:18
  Randy: They he was breaking the glass because he had them all hanging in there, and and uh Walker was upstairs, they they were living upstairs in Janae, and they came down and ran the bears off.
• 58:26
  Randy: But I mean, that was like a week before he passed.
• 58:30
  Randy: It's like there was those deer on site and things were happening.
• 58:32
  Randy: It was it was crazy.
• 58:34
  Randy: Yeah.
• 58:36
  Douglas: So let's move forward to beginning December.
• 58:39
  Douglas: Yep.
• 58:39
  Douglas: And storms going on in Haynes, and you you were having a conversation with him that morning on the phone, correct?
• 58:50
  Randy: Yes, I was.
• 58:51
  Randy: And um it's funny because we s we spoke frequently and and you know, always made time for each other.
• 59:00
  Randy: Uh when he called, I was uh right in the middle of I was building cabinets for my cabin at the at the Klamath, and I was at a phase where I'm right in the middle of something, and and he called and I go, uh, this can wait.
• 59:11
  Randy: And I put it aside and I talked to him.
• 59:13
  Randy: And he said, Yeah, I can't believe it, Dad.
• 59:15
  Randy: It's really raining up here.
• 59:16
  Randy: It's just dumping the the town's flooding.
• 59:19
  Randy: Um they sent uh Janae home because you know she couldn't work at school.
• 59:23
  Randy: And he's sitting there at his at his, he's still working, he had his laptop looking out.
• 59:26
  Randy: He had great vision out of his his uh his house.
• 59:29
  Randy: He looked right right out on the on the water.
• 59:32
  Randy: On the water.
• 59:32
  Randy: He goes, It's so weird, Dad.
• 59:34
  Randy: It's like there's 300 feet of brown water from the beach going out.
• 59:38
  Randy: It's really weird, Dad.
• 59:41
  Randy: And that's what that's what made the mountain give way because it snowed four feet and then 10 inches of rain, and basically the water got down to bedrock or whatever, and it was flushing everything out, and that's what made the mountain break loose.
• 59:53
  Randy: And I spoke with him literally an hour before it happened, because I, you know, I sent him pictures and they they weren't received because his phone was gone.
• 1:00:05
  Randy: I I know I knew within two minutes when it happened.
• 1:00:08
  Douglas: Oh, wow.
• 1:00:09
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:00:11
  Douglas: When so you you know when the pictures weren't going through, but when did you know when did you hear about the slide?
• 1:00:18
  Douglas: How soon was it that you were notified?
• 1:00:21
  Randy: Oh, same day I was I was it's funny, it's like my dad's birthday is uh December 2nd, 7th.
• 1:00:28
  Randy: So I was at the Safeway parking lot.
• 1:00:29
  Randy: I just had gone in to buy him a card, and I'm putting the label and address on his card, and I'm gonna take it to the post office and I get a call from Libby.
• 1:00:35
  Randy: And she said, David's gone.
• 1:00:45
  Randy: Like, what?
• 1:00:45
  Randy: She said, Yeah, there's a there's the last slide, he's gone.
• 1:00:52
  Randy: And uh I didn't well I don't say if she said it that's uh that uh definitively, but she she said it you know he's gone.
• 1:01:02
  Randy: And uh of course I was in shock.
• 1:01:07
  Randy: I tried to call Rochelle and and left her message calling when you get a chance and and uh you know she when she got home and and we were sitting there just you know trying to see what's going on and trying to look at pictures online and and uh say, well, let's call the police department and and see if we can file a wellness check for him, you know, and and uh we called and and they put the head guy on on and he I forget what he said because yeah, we're we don't have any information on where he's at right now and we're we're searching and kind of a thing.
• 1:01:44
  Randy: But I I was able to see someone locally uh on Facebook, whatever posted pictures of it and I saw what it looked like and I just said you know if he's not a If he was home you knew the results.
• 1:01:59
  Randy: Well yeah, and and um I heard through Libby that Walker had actually stopped by to talk to David and Janae.
• 1:02:09
  Randy: And David was running around in his shorts trying to unplug a drain or or whatever, and uh Walker had to got called to go up up the further up uh beach road, and then it happened, and and of course Walker's the one that called Libby and then Libby called me.
• 1:02:24
  Randy: Um but um when I saw that the pictures that the whole mountain was gone, um I knew he was gone.
• 1:02:32
  Randy: I knew I knew.
• 1:02:33
  Randy: And it's funny because um David's friends locally were all posting on Facebook, oh David's a survivor, he's he's on the edge of the woods there somewhere, and it's like there's no edge, man.
• 1:02:45
  Randy: Mountain's gone.
• 1:02:47
  Randy: So I knew he was gone.
• 1:02:51
  Douglas: Did you did you immediately like I need to get on a plane and go to Haynes?
• 1:02:55
  Douglas: Because you were here within two days.
• 1:02:57
  Randy: Yeah, we got there as quick as could.
• 1:02:59
  Randy: It was it was crazy because you had to get a freaking COVID test to even get on a plane, and then you had to get show your clearance in the airport, and it was it was a whole lot of trouble.
• 1:03:08
  Randy: Um but yeah, we we put it together pretty quickly.
• 1:03:11
  Randy: In fact, uh the previous year, my first trip to Haynes, well not the previous year, but the first time I came to visit um David, um he brought the the box truck from the restaurant on the ferry so we could redo a Costco run.
• 1:03:29
  Randy: And so we ended up staying at a Airbnb in in Juneau.
• 1:03:33
  Randy: And um reason I bring it up because I called the lady we stayed with is because we had to book a flight, and then we had to stay overnight to get on the ferry, and so she knew all about it, and and um yes, you guys can stay with us kind of a thing.
• 1:03:47
  Randy: And the someone was in the Airbnb, they let us stay in their house, you know.
• 1:03:50
  Randy: Yeah, but uh um we we got there as quickly as we could, but I d I don't think well we we probably didn't get there till Monday, and it happened on Wednesday.
• 1:04:01
  Randy: But no, uh and we always book our flights to visit in the summer, like in December.
• 1:04:08
  Randy: I'd already booked a flight to come visit David that summer, so I had to call Alaska Airlines and say, you know, I've got I've booked flights, I need to switch those to ASAP and so yeah, we just re rebooked those tickets uh to get there.
• 1:04:21
  Randy: And of course, middle of December we weren't gonna get on the seaplane, so we had to get the um on the ferry.
• 1:04:29
  Randy: No, I think on the yeah, we we took the ferry.
• 1:04:32
  Randy: I was thinking that when we came back the year later for his uh celebration of life, we all came on the fjord land, a bunch of Europeans and all.
• 1:04:39
  Randy: But yeah, we we were on the ferry.
• 1:04:40
  Randy: Uh and that was the hardest part coming around the in there at Battery Point.
• 1:04:45
  Douglas: I was gonna say, well, what was that like for you seeing that from the ferry?
• 1:04:49
  Douglas: Obviously you were looking that way.
• 1:04:55
  Randy: Yeah, I just leaning it small and grind.
• 1:04:56
  Randy: That was the hardest part.
• 1:05:03
  Randy: It was just bare to ground.
• 1:05:09
  Douglas: Well in that time too, the w that there's stuff in the water all over the place.
• 1:05:14
  Randy: Oh yeah.
• 1:05:15
  Randy: Just the the trees along the shore, just the the debris in the water for days afterwards was Stuart DeWitt uh new Libya course, and uh uh the second or third day we're here, he brought he he he took Libby and I and and Michelle and and uh a couple of uh David's close friends on his boat so we could go out and we went down to Battery Point and uh like I said, I'd been there in January and did all this work on his his apartment, Airbnb apartment.
• 1:05:54
  Randy: And we went all the way down to Battery Point, just walking on the shore there.
• 1:05:57
  Randy: And then they they've already done a lot of uh resting.
• 1:05:59
  Randy: know search and recovery people volunteered.
• 1:06:03
  Randy: And two things turned up.
• 1:06:05
  Randy: First of all, um I found a a piece of the face frame and the new cabinets I put you know busted up, I'd recognize it on the on the beach there.
• 1:06:16
  Randy: And then uh Brian David's best friend found a boot.
• 1:06:20
  Randy: And I'm thinking, God, I hope his foot's not in that boot.
• 1:06:23
  Randy: Oh, geez.
• 1:06:24
  Randy: It wasn't.
• 1:06:25
  Randy: So anyway, we found some debris there.
• 1:06:28
  Douglas: I can't even imagine what was going through your mind when you're wondering.
• 1:06:31
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:06:31
  Randy: But so I find this debris from the cabinets I obviously knew very well.
• 1:06:35
  Randy: I just installed them.
• 1:06:36
  Randy: And then we came back and and passed Haynes and went up Lutek another eight miles that way and there was chunks of this deck and stuff.
• 1:06:46
  Randy: And I found another piece of the same frickin' cabinet ten miles apart.
• 1:06:51
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:06:52
  Randy: That was really bizarre.
• 1:06:54
  Randy: It just shows how things just exploded.
• 1:06:57
  Randy: They went every which way.
• 1:06:59
  Douglas: Yeah because the amount of I mean they were calling us from Skagway wanting to know what to do with debris if they needed to save it and but the it hit with such impact that it just it basically went everywhere.
• 1:07:10
  Randy: Five to ten miles in both directions.
• 1:07:12
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  Randy: And of course you heard that Liby founder Christmas ornament there too.
• 1:07:17
  Randy: Yeah that was really special yeah that was a hard trip.
• 1:07:22
  Randy: That was a really hard trip.
• 1:07:28
  Douglas: Because I was like when I was talking to Kim I was seeing this from a different perspective.
• 1:07:32
  Douglas: Yeah we're in the EOC the whole time.
• 1:07:35
  Douglas: Yeah and that side of the road pre-slide you really you could see that there's houses back there but you really couldn't see what was there necessarily from the road.
• 1:07:46
  Douglas: You could see the garage you could see the front of the house but you had no idea really what was there.
• 1:07:51
  Douglas: And I think it was two or three days after the slide um that I I was I was like I I need to go see.
• 1:08:03
  Douglas: We got all these pictures in there right they got they've been blowing them up we got them on all the walls is what we're dealing with and slides up everywhere.
• 1:08:10
  Douglas: Else we got inundated with pictures um from all the damage the whole valley and I was like I need to go see it.
• 1:08:25
  Douglas: And so they they wrote me a a note to the police department to please take me to the slide.
• 1:08:31
  Douglas: And I I remember having to them sticking it up on the door that I they have permission to bring and um well you're the mayor you're the boss man see what the hell's going on.
• 1:08:40
  Douglas: Still had to get a note of permission from the incident commander to let me go to the slide.
• 1:08:45
  Douglas: But I remember going out there and parking on the side of it and just walking up just a little bit onto the edge of it and I didn't recognize where anything was before you know other than the house on the right yeah and looking forward every visual reference to what was there before was just obliterated.
• 1:09:07
  Randy: Right.
• 1:09:08
  Douglas: And trying to get my bearings on where things were where the road was I mean I could see the beginning of the road and I can see the end of the road but it totally the pictures and then standing on it were just two totally different things.
• 1:09:24
  Douglas: Totally uncompre uh uncomprehensible the amount of material that came down off of that section.
• 1:09:32
  Randy: I mean we didn't get put get to put foot feet on the ground till the next summer and I was able to locate the septic line where it came out of the house.
• 1:09:41
  Randy: I knew exactly where the house was and the thing that really struck me is there are three boulders the size of garbage trucks that's stuck there.
• 1:09:51
  Randy: Those are the ones that stuck the rest of them kept rolling.
• 1:09:54
  Randy: Kept rolling yeah but because of that landmark um I was able to build that um observation deck a few years later and it is exactly where David was sitting because I know where the septic line is so getting into that on how you got that property oh god do you want to go down that road yeah we can go down that road that was so because after the slide there's still a mortgage I'd out on this property.
• 1:10:26
  Randy: I lost I lost my son and we had just uh co-signed on this loan in April he he only had the down payment uh Rochelle and I co-signed for it and so I'm thinking well you know probably some equity in there you know because it was a pretty nice house and you know he only put 25,000 down or whatever.
• 1:10:48
  Randy: So started looking into it and uh you know contacted uh whatever it was farmers or whatever the insurance company was and and um they said yeah what if we'll help you somebody got from Juno was going to look into it and by the time they got down to the to the fine print uh it's all cut it's not covered because it was an act of God an act of nature earth movement and so now we have this piece of property that's worthless and we have a $300,000 mortgage payment.
• 1:11:20
  Randy: And it's like oh my gosh well let's let's let's find out what we can get for you know disaster relief you know if we went to the state in fact when I came up that that week I had a had a personal phone call from from the governor said you know as a father I just want you to know if we could do everything we can to help you and and uh you know we're with you on this and and so we started looking into it and uh we're on the lease David's or on the mortgage David's on the mortgage well unless you're a resident of the state of Alaska you don't get any state relief so we got absolutely no we qualified for nothing in for in terms of disaster uh relief on the in the deal so I thought well let's go to FEMA you know let's check FEMA I mean I spent months going through all these red tape and think about FEMA you hear about well there's a big flood in in Louisiana and they come in and help you out well there's like a minimum you gotta you have to knock out 25 houses before FEMA steps in and does anything for you so we struck out there.
• 1:12:19
  Douglas: But even with FEMA so there was there was state money but it's only like 1800 maximum there's federal money which is like 1800 maximum so it's it was less than 4000 dollars if you lost everything the max that you were going to get was forty thousand dollars and the the thing that we didn't never having gone through this before we're like okay this this seems absurd that there's not more money but we had a uh a guy from the Stadio C that was sitting in with us and he was explaining this process about okay this is the maximum they're gonna get here this is the maximum we're gonna get here and it's like well wait a second how did they rebuild this well there's this program this program you had to be signed up for this and this is like okay none of us know anything about any of these programs and the ones that are out there it's six to ten years in order to go through all the paperwork and hoops and everything to get and that's only if your house is still standing right for that property where there's no house it's like no we don't do anything for that.
• 1:13:30
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:13:31
  Douglas: Wait a second how do you how is any of this actually helping the people that are impacted by this yeah there is there is absolutely no help to be recovered from any government agencies.
• 1:13:43
  Douglas: You and I had several conversations about this at the time because I you're like hey we're trying to go down this rabbit hole is there anything you guys can help us with like let's see what we can do.
• 1:13:52
  Douglas: And it it just and you and several others were just like how do we find help for these there's nothing there.
• 1:13:59
  Randy: Well for us it went on for months for over a year I I was trying to deal with the um the the mortgage company the insurance company um back and forth back and forth and and um at this point it's hard to remember what happened but eventually I I got I I pled the case I mean I've I've got a mortgage on a piece of property that is devastated it is non-buildable you know and I have a $300,000 debt on this property.
• 1:14:29
  Randy: And um to make a long story very short but eventually by the grace of God or whoever I I finally got a notification from Fannie Mae that because of the tremendous uh devastation and uh unique situation that they were going to write off the mortgage.
• 1:14:49
  Randy: They were going to write off the loan.
• 1:14:51
  Randy: And it's like after a year and a half of going through all this red tape and and literally hundreds of hours I got the great news but because they're writing it off they had to file a 1099.
• 1:15:05
  Randy: So now I have to claim $300,000 income that they wrote off and I I contacted my tax guy and says yeah that's gonna bump your taxes up $100,000 this year.
• 1:15:17
  Randy: You know one third or whatever so so this free write-off was went from a hundred grand and so then I go well now what the hell am I gonna do?
• 1:15:28
  Randy: And so I started trying to uh talk to the IRS I go you know I luckily there is a uh a branch office in Chico so I went down and I I I wrote this long letter you know which we lost our son we've got a worthless piece of property it was gifted to us it's worth nothing but we have to pay income tax on it and just laid it out I mean I'm a I can be a very influential writer I I wrote it to the point where I was like how can this be how can this be you know um and as it turns out um the intake person said well let me have you I'll I'll I'll assign you to a caseworker and we'll work on it.
• 1:16:09
  Randy: I came back and I talked to the caseworker and and uh they kind of you know I looked at well let's see if if you're a resident you can write off $50, $500,000 well you're not a resident uh I spent uh two days with that person and then they said well the district manager is going to be in next week we'll talk to them so either that person or the next person finally I I talked to someone and um as it turns out Michelle and David were both on the lease on the mortgage mortgage they sent they sent us a 1099 for $300,000 and they also sent one to David so she goes all right David qualifies for a $500 if it's less than $500,000 then the state will write it off the government write it off.
• 1:16:55
  Randy: So I had my accountant file a tax return for David I'm not sure how he did it but and because of that we didn't file our 1099 because we both don't have to file it.
• 1:17:08
  Randy: Okay.
• 1:17:09
  Randy: And so they filed a tax return for David with the $300,000 loss but he was qualified for the half million dollar write-off so it all went away.
• 1:17:21
  Douglas: All went away and at that point we realized we own this property and it was such a relief because I thought well he's I remember getting that call from you yeah I could you could sense the over the phone the relief.
• 1:17:33
  Randy: I remember walking on that property um you know this took like three years for this to go away I remember walking up and down beach road and looking out on that full moon bay there's just it's like a million dollar view.
• 1:17:43
  Randy: I thought you know this is a worthless piece of property but it's always going to be a great view and wouldn't it be nice to do something with this so of course three years later I I came out or four years later and once we realized that we it was our property and you know we're paying our property tax I I worked with Roger Snobble because they they were going to do the road FEMA paid them whatever a couple million dollars to fix the road they wouldn't fix our house and he said well wherever your lot is we're gonna do a little approach I go what could you push a little I took some sticks and put where I'd like to build this deck and so he actually you know not only did he make the approach but he kind of built it up a little bit and and set me up for just a the perfect spot to build that deck and like I say it is literally where David was sitting when he died.
• 1:18:30
  Randy: So um that's why I come back every year.
• 1:18:33
  Randy: I I sit there every night in fact I spent two hours a day scrounging firewood off of uh Todd's place I I say with Todd Winkle you know because it's 300 yards from David's house we say it on his uh Beast Road house let me borrow his four by four and I I I get massive amounts of downwood and I have a a mammoth uh bonfire every night I'm in town.
• 1:18:55
  Randy: I mean literally I've got four foot tall fires I built a huge fire pit after I built the deck and so that's that that's uh that's where I spend most of my time with David.
• 1:19:04
  Douglas: Because he used to have that fire pit out behind the house there that was looking out over the bay too that that was kind of one of the gathering points was the sitting sitting there and friends and family hanging out and yeah one of the things for me is um that hits pretty close to home is I know they were gonna have a ping pong tournament that night in David's garage.
• 1:19:29
  Douglas: Oh is that right yep my I I didn't find out this out until it was a few days later I think I went up to um actually I think he had his ping pong table in the living room.
• 1:19:41
  Douglas: Was it in the living room?
• 1:19:42
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:19:42
  Douglas: Okay wherever it was I it might have been that next day or whatever that Tyler was telling me that there was there's like a half dozen people that were going to be going over there to have a ping pong play ping pong yeah that night.
• 1:19:58
  Douglas: Yep and as as tragic as it was losing David and Janae you had another five six people to that if it was a few hours later yeah it could have been it's what what gets me Doug it is so random.
• 1:20:18
  Randy: I mean you get on the ferry and you go from Juno to Haynes it's the same topography steep cavernous hillsides you know tall trees and and whatever and that entire 90 miles whatever it is the 600 foot wide section that gave way was where my son was sitting I mean that's the the the toughest part to to uh accept why why that spot well and also you look at it the trees that were there I always assumed that was extremely stable area because you got these huge mammoth trees that are a couple hundred years old and then when they did the lidar out there they were showing headscarf headscarf headscarf headscarf and from like 1300 years ago there'd been numerous slides along that whole yeah that whole area through there.
• 1:21:11
  Douglas: Right and I say what?
• 1:21:13
  Douglas: Yeah it just why but why does it go a few hundred I I I know why because of the the hydraulic pressure with the amount of waterfall that we had and they've explained the they explained the geology to me but it's just like you said this whole area why that 600 feet that little that it's big but it's still it's just this tiny sliver of this whole area.
• 1:21:40
  Randy: Yeah the the 90 miles for Lynn Canal canal.
• 1:21:43
  Randy: And even to this day like this last week I was sharing with my doctor something I I tell people about the the tragedy you know and going to Taynes to visit so yeah there was this catastrophic landslide 600 feet wide and a half mile long and 45 degree angle I go wow how many people died like it a whole city died well just two yeah my son and his his uh tenant because that they think it took out a whole city or whatever you know I I tell my dentist oh was he was he hiking did he get knocked off a trail no he was sitting in his house sitting in his house scraped off the face of the earth yeah it's hard to just describe that to people I mean it's it's just so well obviously it's never gonna be understood why or when or why it happened is it easier for you to come back each year or is there still I know I know you're always gonna come back and I know you enjoy that connection with him there.
• 1:22:40
  Randy: But is there still uh no it's not e it it's not easier it's not hard.
• 1:22:44
  Randy: I I look forward to being here it's Deborah Marchelle she has a hard time she's she gets um she gets real sad here.
• 1:22:51
  Randy: I mean I get sad but um I celebrate David I I go down there and I play my music and I make a big fire and and uh you know I feel 'em I I I I come here because I want to be with him not because I'm sad you know and I I celebrate I celebrate every night on that on that day.
• 1:23:10
  Randy: Good thing there's no neighbors because I I play my little moon box laugh it's it's it's it's part of my celebration.
• 1:23:18
  Douglas: Yeah yeah is that songs that you guys shared together is there his favorite songs or what what's the playlist?
• 1:23:26
  Randy: Oh I just whatever comes up on my Pandora I we don't have a specific song I can I mean there's songs that I think of him obviously but it's not like I pull one up I just it's just put on whatever channel on Pandora and listen away.
• 1:23:40
  Douglas: A little Morgan Wallin whatever he has up his sleeve.
• 1:23:42
  Douglas: So that that's your do you do you think your previous career has helped you with dealing with the the grief?
• 1:23:53
  Randy: Yeah it definitely does.
• 1:23:54
  Randy: I mean people ask me when it happened if if I was going to go to therapy and it's like you know I I I will I'll function when I didn't I didn't feel I needed to go talk to somebody about it.
• 1:24:05
  Randy: You know uh not saying it was easy but uh I d I didn't feel like I was at a loss of how I was gonna how I was going to function with it.
• 1:24:15
  Randy: Um and I you know there's no easy way about it but I I do feel like uh I just uh am proud of the way he was and and you know I cherish the fact that uh he was such a good man and uh I I wouldn't have done anything different.
• 1:24:35
  Randy: You know I told my love him every time I talked to him how many fathers do that I have no regrets I I remember when I came up that on the ferry and we first thing I did we went to the fire station and you know everyone was meeting and we introduced us and and I just said yeah I listened to the messages I had on my phone and uh I got no regrets.
• 1:24:57
  Randy: That wasn't anything I wanted to say I didn't get to say.
• 1:25:01
  Randy: That makes me feel good I think there's a lot of parents out there that could learn amazing parenting from you based on the way that he turned out yeah I mean like I said I take as much credit as I can but uh he's better than I will ever be and and uh that's that's true fact that's true story.
• 1:25:25
  Douglas: Yeah but he had to have he had you can you can deflect that praise but he he had to have a teacher he had to a lot of that is having somebody to look up to having having that role model and and wanting to make that role model proud.
• 1:25:41
  Randy: Yeah we were very very close closest I've ever been to any person in my life we went through a lot you know had some weird uh family situation with his mother and and uh made us even closer don't need to go into that but uh we were bonded in a way that uh I'll never be that close to anybody in my life so I got that you know the fact that he turned out as well as he did uh because we were good buddies you know leave it at that what uh if there's somebody listening to this that didn't know David what would be your how how would you describe him if they can't if they haven't figured it out from our conversation so far you know Randy's description of his son David had a way with people where he had the utmost respect and compassion for everyone you know um and that's hard to do I mean like I say he's a better I'll say that many times he's a better man than I'll be but um his his ultimate goal was was to be compassionate and understanding and accepting and um supportive I mean he looked in your eye and and you know he he looked at you and he he accepted you and and he wanted to know about you.
• 1:27:19
  Randy: You know he was all about in incorporating anyone in his life to be understood and respected and I don't think you can have a higher compliment as a human being that you care for people in a way that um makes them feel that they're being seen and and and that they can be comfortable with that.
• 1:27:42
  Randy: I think that's the most important thing.
• 1:27:45
  Douglas: I mean no judgmental and I I think the way that I saw that was he was he had really close friendships in so many different circles in Haynes yes it wasn't just one Group.
• 1:28:00
  Douglas: Yep.
• 1:28:00
  Douglas: It was all over the place.
• 1:28:03
  Douglas: That he was one of those people that was bringing people from disparate backgrounds and thought process and everything.
• 1:28:12
  Douglas: They're all coming together under the tent of David.
• 1:28:15
  Douglas: Just bringing him into the fold.
• 1:28:19
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:28:19
  Randy: I mean he had his he had his opinions about politics and what have you, which are neither here nor there, but the fact that he he didn't it didn't keep him from being accepting and listening to all walks of life.
• 1:28:36
  Douglas: And I think that was the biggest thing is he he generally was listening to people.
• 1:28:40
  Randy: Yep.
• 1:28:41
  Douglas: He was generally listening and and I and I think yeah, he he definitely had his own opinions and his own thoughts.
• 1:28:47
  Douglas: But he wasn't listening to you to rebute what you were saying.
• 1:28:52
  Douglas: He was listening to you to understand why you have the position that you have.
• 1:28:58
  Douglas: And it w it was it it seemed to me like it was a learning he wanted to learn more about people rather than argue with people.
• 1:29:08
  Randy: Yes.
• 1:29:08
  Randy: And the concept that I mentioned earlier about, you know, coming to life unafraid, there was some other it was really it was when he was like a teenager or younger.
• 1:29:18
  Randy: I was watching some TV show or something and and the guy was talking to his son and he said, When you run into a problem, you gotta just lean into it.
• 1:29:27
  Randy: And that's another that I I grasped that and I and I embedded that in David.
• 1:29:32
  Randy: I come to you unafraid and I'd lean into problems.
• 1:29:35
  Randy: And he mentions that in his book a couple of times.
• 1:29:38
  Randy: And he gives me credit and it just but yeah, it's just you know um when you have a problem, you can't just walk away from it, and rather than fret about it, just lean into it and find a way to fix it.
• 1:29:52
  Randy: And he he that was his way about life.
• 1:29:55
  Randy: He came to you unafraid, and if there's a problem, he's he's he's gonna lean into it and and make something happen that that'll that'll solve it or make it okay.
• 1:30:03
  Randy: And that's the way he dealt with life, and and he dealt with that in a way that he'd worked with if relationships he he was able to to find a way to you know find the goodness in people.
• 1:30:15
  Randy: And uh that's what the essence of what made him a good person and and a happy person.
• 1:30:22
  Randy: He's a happy guy I knew.
• 1:30:24
  Randy: He died with a smile on his face.
• 1:30:26
  Randy: He literally did.
• 1:30:27
  Randy: There's a picture in the back page of that book.
• 1:30:29
  Randy: He was talking to Libby that morning and uh you know, hours later he died, but he was he had a smile on his face and he was sitting there happy to be in his in his house and and out of the weather and uh at peace with the world.
• 1:30:42
  Randy: You know we should all be that place when we pass.
• 1:30:46
  Douglas: You know that would be an amazing way to go.
• 1:30:50
  Randy: Yep.
• 1:30:51
  Randy: Smile and not a full heart and a smile on your face.
• 1:30:55
  Randy: Never saw it coming and and just checked out.
• 1:30:59
  Douglas: Yep.
• 1:31:00
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:31:01
  Randy: That kind of stuff makes me happy.
• 1:31:06
  Douglas: And so now you're spending time with grandkids.
• 1:31:10
  Randy: Yeah, and full circle on the baseball thing.
• 1:31:13
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:31:13
  Randy: Because I have two grandsons.
• 1:31:16
  Douglas: Are you are you teaching them to be sweat hitters?
• 1:31:18
  Randy: Well, no, you know, I I I would have, but that would have been a little too over-controlling.
• 1:31:22
  Randy: What I did do though, um that right now they're uh 10 and 11, and they played different leagues for the first time.
• 1:31:31
  Randy: Up to this year, they were in the same team, but they both made the all-stars.
• 1:31:34
  Randy: But the oldest one is uh natural left-hander.
• 1:31:37
  Randy: So of course he bats left-handed, throws left-handed.
• 1:31:40
  Randy: The younger brother is right-handed.
• 1:31:41
  Randy: However, I taught him to bat left-handed, not right-handed.
• 1:31:47
  Randy: Okay.
• 1:31:47
  Randy: Because, first of all, you're two feet closer to first base.
• 1:31:51
  Randy: How many times is a guy out by half a step?
• 1:31:53
  Randy: But the thing is, he's gonna see 90% of the batters.
• 1:31:56
  Randy: If he plays beyond, 90% of the pitchers are gonna be right-handed, so he'll have the advantage of being left-handed.
• 1:32:02
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:32:02
  Randy: And so it's just as easy from day one to teach him to bat left, right, or both.
• 1:32:06
  Randy: And so they both bat left-handed, even though he's a right-handed pitcher.
• 1:32:10
  Douglas: And so they're it's easy with everything.
• 1:32:12
  Douglas: It's easier to teach them when they're first starting rather than to change habits later.
• 1:32:17
  Randy: But but the younger one, just as this summer's thing, I might want to try switching.
• 1:32:20
  Randy: And so I may have him going both ways.
• 1:32:21
  Randy: But the fact that you know people say, Well, why is he bat left-handed?
• 1:32:24
  Randy: Well, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference in a little league other than you're close to.
• 1:32:28
  Randy: But if he plays, gets into high school.
• 1:32:29
  Randy: He decides to continue.
• 1:32:30
  Randy: I mean, there's some professional players that have to platoon because they can't hit offhand.
• 1:32:37
  Randy: They can't hit, you know, and so I I give them that little advantage because and they've they've started really young.
• 1:32:44
  Randy: Their uh their mom wasn't married, so that she was a single mom.
• 1:32:48
  Randy: And so I've been I've been their baseball mentor from day one, you know.
• 1:32:52
  Randy: It's like it's important to be that that guy for them.
• 1:32:55
  Randy: And it was a good timing.
• 1:32:56
  Randy: When when David passed, they were they were five and six years old.
• 1:33:00
  Randy: And so they've become my little Davids, and being the male figure in their life.
• 1:33:04
  Randy: I mean, um I had to teach them how to pee in the backyard.
• 1:33:07
  Randy: Mom can't teach them that kind of stuff, you know.
• 1:33:09
  Randy: And so we have a real bond.
• 1:33:11
  Randy: It's those things that, you know, only a guy can teach them.
• 1:33:15
  Randy: Now, you know, she's she's married now, and and there's a father figure in their life, which is great.
• 1:33:19
  Randy: Uh, but as far as when it came to you know teaching them baseball and showing them how to swing and and you know, teaching uh how to be a good coachable kid kind of thing.
• 1:33:29
  Randy: So yeah, it's so rewarding for me to be there.
• 1:33:32
  Randy: And it's and I'm a little lazy now.
• 1:33:34
  Randy: I I wouldn't want to coach.
• 1:33:35
  Randy: I don't have patience for 10-year-olds anymore.
• 1:33:37
  Randy: But I love to be at their games and and you know they have these extra camps, and I I go sit through the camps with them because I want to be there.
• 1:33:46
  Randy: I'd I would if David was at a camp, I spent every you know, they most parents drop them off to come back four hours hours later, pick them up.
• 1:33:51
  Randy: But I mean I took David to a lot of camps and I sure as hell didn't leave.
• 1:33:55
  Randy: I sat there and watched him and ended up being friends with the other kids' dads.
• 1:33:58
  Randy: And uh so uh it's a little different being a grandparent, you know.
• 1:34:02
  Douglas: Uh well, but I think it's the I I think in some ways it can be just as um helpful, rewarding, fulfilling.
• 1:34:11
  Douglas: Oh yeah.
• 1:34:12
  Douglas: Because you're I I don't think it ever hurts to have too many good mentors or people you can look up to that are gonna give you good advice that that they can watch the way that you're walking through life and aspire to follow that.
• 1:34:29
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:34:29
  Douglas: So yeah, they've got a they've got a man, they've got a dad in their life now too, but having a grandfather, um, cousins, uncles, whatever, I don't think we any of us can ever be short of uh or have too many mentors and positive influences in our life, no matter if we're 10 years old or if we're 56 years old.
• 1:34:51
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:34:51
  Douglas: And it helps to have those people in our life, uh, male and female, that show us show us how to be better people, inspire us to be better people.
• 1:35:02
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:35:02
  Randy: And if uh if David's any example of a success story, I guess I can take whatever credit.
• 1:35:10
  Randy: Thank you.
• 1:35:10
  Douglas: Because that was something just even even in the casual relationship that I knew him at, which very surface low, we never really talked very deep about anything.
• 1:35:22
  Douglas: Um he he was one of those type of people that when you're around them, you want to be a better version of yourself.
• 1:35:30
  Douglas: You want to raise yourself to that level of of that person that you're with.
• 1:35:35
  Douglas: And he and he was one of those people that was you you could sense that when you're around him.
• 1:35:40
  Randy: Yeah, right after he passed, I I wrote on Facebook for the first time and and uh said, I want to be a better person.
• 1:35:48
  Randy: And you know, I I phrased the term WTD.
• 1:35:50
  Randy: What would David do?
• 1:35:51
  Randy: You know, how would he react here?
• 1:35:53
  Randy: Because I know what my first reaction is, eh, but it's like, what would David do?
• 1:35:57
  Randy: You know, cut the guy a break or you know, be a better person about it.
• 1:36:00
  Randy: And and I still strive to be a better person because of David, because I'm not nowhere near perfect or anywhere close to it, and and any any step I can get to be closer to David than who I am now is a step, it's it's an upgrade for me.
• 1:36:14
  Randy: And I it'll be that way the rest of my life.
• 1:36:16
  Randy: You know, he's he's my mentor now.
• 1:36:19
  Randy: He's my role model.
• 1:36:20
  Randy: Full circle.
• 1:36:22
  Douglas: Full circle.
• 1:36:23
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:36:24
  Douglas: Well he had a great model and uh great role model, and so do you.
• 1:36:29
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:36:32
  Douglas: Anything else we should cover, Randy?
• 1:36:34
  Randy: I don't think so.
• 1:36:36
  Douglas: Cover it all.
• 1:36:37
  Randy: I I I uh yeah, I went places I wasn't sure we were gonna get to, but yeah, this is uh I appreciate you sharing with us.
• 1:36:46
  Douglas: I I know it's not easy, but I hope in some ways it's it's also also cathartic for you.
• 1:36:51
  Randy: Oh absolutely.
• 1:36:51
  Randy: You know, uh anytime I get to sh sh you know sing David's praises, uh it warms my heart and to be able to express how important it is for me to be in this place.
• 1:37:01
  Randy: This is, you know, this is my home away from home.
• 1:37:04
  Randy: I I came in to get my fishing license and and my spool wound up and I was walking out and gate, welcome home.
• 1:37:19
  Douglas: Well, as as a longtime Hamers resident, it makes me happy that you consider this your home as well.
• 1:37:26
  Randy: Yeah.
• 1:37:26
  Randy: It'll be the place I come to the rest of my life.
• 1:37:32
  Douglas: Always look forward to having you here.
• 1:37:33
  Douglas: Thanks again, Randy, appreciate it.