Latest / A Time to Sharpen / FAQ'S Part 4

Transcript

FAQ'S Part 4 · A Time to Sharpen

• 0:09
  Is there anything worse than a dull blade?
• 0:12
  Yeah, well, lots of things, I guess.
• 0:14
  Poverty, War, Pulling up to your favorite greasy spoon breakfast
• 0:19
  diner only to find out that it's closed because it's Monday.
• 0:25
  Seriously though, the dull blade is bad.
• 0:28
  It's unusable. In fact, it's downright
• 0:31
  dangerous. Knives need sharpening.
• 0:34
  From Whetstone Boys Ranch in Mountain View, MO, comes A Time
• 0:38
  to Sharpen, a bi weekly podcast that examines how we can all be
• 0:42
  better versions of ourselves. Better counselors, better
• 0:46
  teachers, better parents, better people.
• 0:56
  So this is the last installment of WBRFAQS.
• 1:01
  That's a lot of letters. We hope that these 4 episodes
• 1:04
  prove useful to anyone with questions about what we do, how
• 1:07
  we do it, and why. It would really help us if you
• 1:10
  could pass them along to someone you know, whether that's a
• 1:13
  family that needs help, a potential employee, or someone
• 1:16
  looking to get involved as a volunteer or a donor.
• 1:19
  Everyone knows someone who's affected by the problems we
• 1:22
  address here every day, and together we can make a
• 1:25
  difference. Well, that's my spiel.
• 1:28
  Hope you enjoy this episode of A Time to Sharpen.
• 1:39
  Welcome back to A Time to Sharpen.
• 1:41
  I'm Axel Limata, and I'm here with Brandon Maxwell.
• 1:45
  Hello, Brandon. What's up?
• 1:47
  What is up? The sky.
• 1:49
  Sky, yeah, we'll just leave it. But.
• 1:54
  I remember I used to think I was so funny back when you're in
• 1:58
  junior high or before that. And some of those initial kind
• 2:02
  of witticisms, you, you're aware that they exist and that you can
• 2:06
  use language in that way. And so you say them and you
• 2:10
  just, oh man, I'm, I'm awesome. And then and then you realize
• 2:14
  over time that you're lame. Well, that's one of those ones
• 2:17
  where it's like such a, that's what I always say.
• 2:21
  It's like, hey man, what's up? Yeah, it's just kind of what I
• 2:25
  say all the time. And so many of the kids, like,
• 2:29
  especially like we were just talking about golf and kids on
• 2:32
  the golf team or the girls on the volleyball team, they'll
• 2:35
  always just like, look up or the sky and I'm just like, all
• 2:39
  right, enough is enough. Come on, It's not funny anymore.
• 2:43
  Yeah, I'm all I get it, I get it.
• 2:46
  So yeah, yeah, what's up? Well, what is up is we are
• 2:53
  talking about FAQs. It's our last installment.
• 2:56
  So we're going to, we're going to bring it home today and we're
• 3:00
  going to round it off. And hopefully this is going to
• 3:02
  serve as a resource for parents, teachers, counselors to find out
• 3:06
  about our program and don't have to listen to all the 70 other
• 3:09
  podcasts, although we encourage you to.
• 3:12
  They're, they're pretty good. And if you want to take a deep
• 3:15
  dive, but this is a good place to start.
• 3:17
  So where we left off was with Adventure Week.
• 3:19
  I think I mentioned that I was going to be heading off to into
• 3:23
  the wilderness. We went to Mount Tom Sock, which
• 3:28
  is the highest part, highest point in Missouri.
• 3:30
  So you're whopping 1700 and. 76,000 yeah, it's.
• 3:36
  Pretty cool spot, no nosebleeds or anything up that up at that
• 3:39
  height, but you do get some pretty, pretty nice views.
• 3:42
  A beautiful spot. You've been there a couple
• 3:44
  times. I know at least once we we did
• 3:47
  Adventure week up there together.
• 3:48
  I think we've been there, or I've been there three times,
• 3:50
  Yeah, adventure weeks. And yeah, there's always
• 3:53
  weather. So right, it's right on top
• 3:56
  there. You guys had a pretty good luck,
• 3:58
  but you still had a storm come in on Thursday or something.
• 4:00
  The the very last night, Friday night, we had a storm.
• 4:02
  It was loud and there was a lightning strike.
• 4:07
  You know, Thunder woke everyone up from right in the middle of
• 4:09
  the night and. I know it's kind of sketchy
• 4:11
  because there's that big metal tower like right by the
• 4:13
  campsite, so it's not. A blessing and a curse.
• 4:16
  It's like it draws the electricity away from you.
• 4:18
  But it's pretty close to where it's pretty close.
• 4:21
  Yeah. And usually we get a lot of wind
• 4:22
  and there's a lot of trees. And so, you know, we take all
• 4:26
  the necessary safety precautions and make sure we're not camping
• 4:29
  under something that could fall on us.
• 4:30
  And we've had a couple times when we had to abandoned ship
• 4:34
  and go find a Airbnb somewhere because the storm was coming in.
• 4:38
  But you know, safety is is a priority when we're on those on
• 4:43
  those trips. But briefly, just just, I'm just
• 4:46
  going to talk about Adventure Week and how we kind of work the
• 4:49
  outdoors into the program. We kind of feel like that's an
• 4:52
  important part of being a boy and growing into a man is kind
• 4:56
  of getting comfortable in in nature and learning how to
• 5:00
  survive. And, you know, you can learn
• 5:03
  those lessons in a variety of different environments, but
• 5:07
  nature accelerates the process because nature is out to kill
• 5:10
  you. Yeah.
• 5:11
  I mean, nature is not your friend.
• 5:14
  No, I think it was the guy who started Outward Bound, Kurt
• 5:21
  Hahn. He, he had a statement or saying
• 5:25
  that kind of applies to this. He just always said that nature
• 5:29
  demands respect and you're not going to tame it.
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  You're not going to, you have to respect it or else, like you
• 5:37
  said, it'll kill you so and it'll put you in uncomfortable
• 5:41
  situations. You know, how many of the kids
• 5:43
  you know by the end of the week? What kind of grumbling and
• 5:47
  complaining did you hear? Or what were some of the
• 5:49
  uncomfortable things the boys talked about?
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  We actually had an amazing group this time, like this is in my
• 5:56
  many years, over a decade now of doing adventure weeks with the
• 6:00
  boys. Yeah, this was the the best
• 6:02
  group in terms of attitude, in terms of problems.
• 6:05
  They had their moments, they had their squabbles, mainly among
• 6:09
  each amongst each other, but in terms of like respect, in terms
• 6:13
  of them following our directions and kind of going along for the
• 6:17
  ride. That's a big speech we give at
• 6:18
  the very beginning was it's going to be a good week, but
• 6:20
  it's only going to be a good week if you just kind of just
• 6:23
  accept what it is for what it is and don't make demands and don't
• 6:27
  don't expect anything. So we pulled the old Discovery
• 6:30
  Ministries trick of anytime they asked anything, just, you know,
• 6:34
  would say, you're going to find out, you know, or we're on an
• 6:37
  adventure. And that's part of what an
• 6:39
  adventure is. You don't know what's going to
• 6:40
  happen next. And so, you know, the, in the
• 6:44
  past, you know, when I, I always like to play a game to guess
• 6:48
  who's going to be the first boy to ask, when do we eat next?
• 6:53
  You know, because usually it happens about halfway through
• 6:56
  the 1st meal. Have you, has that been your
• 6:59
  experience? Like we always stop at Subway on
• 7:02
  the way out to Tom Sock. It's kind of a tradition.
• 7:04
  About halfway through the Subway sandwich, someone's like, what
• 7:07
  are we eating for dinner? Yeah, you know, and you're like,
• 7:10
  just enjoy the Subway sandwich that you have.
• 7:13
  And and not not to speak ill of the boys, because while I'm
• 7:19
  eating, honestly, the same thought sometimes occurs to me.
• 7:22
  It's just association. It's like, yeah, I'm just
• 7:24
  curious. And I hear that all the time
• 7:26
  from my own kids, yeah. Right.
• 7:29
  So anyways, that week allows us to to really teach lessons like
• 7:33
  that lessons like enjoy the moment, enjoy the ride.
• 7:36
  This is an adventure. We don't know what's going to
• 7:38
  happen. There might be some some
• 7:40
  situations we get into that are a little sketchy or you really
• 7:44
  have to think about it before you get yourself into a tough
• 7:48
  situation like that water there, it looks really nice, but you
• 7:52
  know what's the current doing or how deep is it?
• 7:55
  Or that rock looks like it could be fun to climb, but what
• 7:58
  happens when you get up to higher than you think, or
• 8:02
  there's slippery Moss on the rock or things like that?
• 8:05
  We're there, of course, obviously to prevent them from,
• 8:08
  you know, making really dumb decisions.
• 8:10
  But there's always going to be those moments where boys, in a
• 8:13
  good way, in a healthy way, want to test themselves against their
• 8:16
  environment. And we want to encourage that.
• 8:19
  Yeah, They're expected to set up their own tent when they get
• 8:21
  there. And so just if anybody's ever
• 8:24
  set up a tent, most of the time it's takes a little bit of
• 8:26
  figuring out. Yeah.
• 8:28
  And they've never done most of them never done it before.
• 8:31
  So we'll, we'll help them along if they need help, but they're
• 8:35
  expected to figure it out, spend some time trying to figure it
• 8:39
  out. And then how to start a fire and
• 8:41
  just how to set up a Cam, like where, what's a good spot, you
• 8:45
  know, and things to look for just some basic out store
• 8:48
  outdoor skills that they hadn't been exposed to most of them.
• 8:53
  And so there's a lot of good things that happen on those
• 8:56
  weeks. And so that's a small portion of
• 9:00
  the outdoor, overall outdoor program, I would say on campus
• 9:05
  as we're talking about like what does our outdoor program look
• 9:09
  like as a whole, whether we're working with animals, whether
• 9:12
  we're working on property or doing adventure things on
• 9:16
  property. So Axel, what are at this point,
• 9:21
  what would you say the exposure to animals on the property in an
• 9:25
  outdoor setting? What are some things that we do
• 9:28
  with the boys or. That one, that one really has
• 9:31
  varies over the years. You know, we've had pigs and and
• 9:35
  and chickens and cows and horses and dogs and cats and I don't
• 9:38
  think we've ever had sheep, have we?
• 9:41
  We had a goat. We had one goat.
• 9:43
  We did have a goat. And so we're always open to new
• 9:47
  ideas and opportunities for boys to engage with God's creation
• 9:53
  and with animal life. And everything kind of depends
• 9:56
  on the staff we have, the set of skills they have, the
• 9:58
  experience, the money that we may or may not have available
• 10:02
  for investing in, in cattle or, or pigs or that kind of thing.
• 10:07
  Recently we got, we butchered our, our hogs, but we had, we
• 10:11
  had hogs for quite a while. Yeah, they had several litters.
• 10:16
  But I think with the recent expansion, the the pig pen has
• 10:20
  kind of been cleaned, cleared out and so we don't have a space
• 10:22
  to put them. Right now it's kind of an ice or
• 10:24
  yeah, it didn't smell good. No, I didn't, but I'm sure we'll
• 10:27
  I'm sure it'll come back. They do have charge chores in
• 10:30
  the morning but have to take care of animals, specifically
• 10:33
  chickens and dogs at this point. But right now, well, we have a,
• 10:39
  we have our house, parents have a couple horses, yeah, and the
• 10:42
  boys and we have one horse, Amadeus.
• 10:45
  And then they get some exposure to cattle because someone leases
• 10:48
  our land. And I think there are times when
• 10:51
  we have to move fences and maybe move cows from pastures.
• 10:55
  But in general, the person that leases the property does that.
• 10:59
  Yeah. We have some friends of ours
• 11:02
  that have a equine therapy program in Ozark, MO.
• 11:07
  And that's something that we eventually want to have here,
• 11:11
  but currently don't have the staff to do that the right way
• 11:16
  and so. We'll get there.
• 11:18
  Yeah. But so we'll take the boys, it's
• 11:20
  usually once 1/4 I think to Dogwood Ranch and we'll do
• 11:27
  they'll kind of set up the whole day for the equine program and
• 11:31
  so get our boys exposure to that.
• 11:33
  There's always good things that come from there and trying to
• 11:37
  move just all the elements of a horse and trying to get a horse
• 11:41
  to go one way or another and building trust with the animal.
• 11:46
  There's a lot of good things that from a therapeutic
• 11:48
  standpoint that is caught during those times.
• 11:52
  Yeah, a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, a lot of discomfort.
• 11:55
  Same, same thing as adventure week.
• 11:56
  Let's let's put this this guy next to a this huge animal
• 12:00
  that's like intimidating. Yeah.
• 12:03
  And it's going to bring a lot of stuff to the surface that's
• 12:05
  that's useful as a therapist to to kind of talk about those
• 12:09
  emotions and and how to handle them.
• 12:11
  Kind of like high ropes does the same thing.
• 12:12
  It just accelerates that process and, and forces those emotions,
• 12:17
  those difficult emotions to rise to the surface.
• 12:19
  And you can't, you can't hide them.
• 12:21
  You can't compensate for them. You can't, you know, distract
• 12:24
  yourself. It's like this, this is real.
• 12:26
  This is happening. Exactly.
• 12:29
  Yeah, a lot of ticks too. Boys get to experience a lot of
• 12:32
  ticks, a lot of insects. Yeah, unfortunate.
• 12:35
  In the Ozarks, yeah. That's one of those things where
• 12:41
  you get put in uncomfortable situations.
• 12:43
  Those very those C ticks can be pretty uncomfortable.
• 12:48
  Right. But yeah, that's, I mean, that's
• 12:50
  unfortunately that's one of the downfalls of Missouri.
• 12:55
  So this time of year, as we get into summer, we have to really
• 12:57
  be pretty intentional with making sure the boys have some
• 13:01
  spray and volunteers. We got a volunteer group coming
• 13:05
  out this week and so I made sure to have them bring some of that
• 13:12
  tick spray so it's not too miserable, but it is what it is.
• 13:17
  You. Got to check, you got to check
• 13:18
  yourself. You got to.
• 13:22
  And that's actually like, boys are not really good sometimes
• 13:25
  about self-care, you know, so ticks are bad and you have to
• 13:29
  watch out for Lyme disease and alpha gout and all that stuff.
• 13:35
  And you shouldn't play around with it.
• 13:36
  But at the. Same time did you say alpha
• 13:38
  gout? I think I did.
• 13:39
  Alpha gal. Sorry, for a long time I thought
• 13:41
  it was gout. I just wanted to make sure
• 13:43
  because you're you're a man of words.
• 13:45
  And so I just wanted to thank you for calling me.
• 13:47
  On that, thank you for sharpening me, Brandon, you're.
• 13:49
  Welcome. So, boys, I see it all the time.
• 13:56
  Like, hey, you know, you mean do this, do that, check yourself,
• 13:59
  watch out, be careful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:00
  Whatever. You know, it won't happen to me.
• 14:03
  Well, if you're, if you're not taking the time to take care of
• 14:06
  yourself, you know that scab is going to turn into an infection.
• 14:08
  That infection's going to get worse.
• 14:10
  And if you don't check for ticks, you're going to you're
• 14:12
  going to get a bite, you're going to get in, it's going to
• 14:14
  get infected. You could, could end up in the
• 14:16
  hospital, You know, so not that we've ever had a boy, you have
• 14:20
  to go to the hospital because of a tick bite, but it is a useful
• 14:23
  lesson. Like nature is out to kill you,
• 14:26
  right? And so or it doesn't care.
• 14:29
  At the very least, it's apathetic.
• 14:30
  So be, be, be prudent. All right, all right.
• 14:36
  So outdoors. Oh, we should say that like
• 14:38
  every boy has to go on one adventure week.
• 14:40
  I don't know if we mentioned that like during a boy's stay,
• 14:42
  whether it's six months, 8 months, 10 months, 14 months, he
• 14:45
  has to go on at least one of those trips.
• 14:47
  Yeah. Typically it's their first.
• 14:49
  We have a few home visits, family visits that we call them
• 14:53
  and their first family visit that week that set aside, they
• 14:58
  are required to go on adventure week.
• 15:00
  And so that's their adventure week.
• 15:02
  And then the next family visit, then they'll get to go home or
• 15:05
  go to a mutual spot that sometimes they go to Branson or
• 15:10
  go to a lake or just whatever the family decides to do.
• 15:13
  So before we kind of get off this subject, I, there's a few
• 15:20
  other field trips and things that I just for parents to give
• 15:24
  them an idea of some of the different things that we do
• 15:29
  during the, during the month. I mean, now we started to do
• 15:33
  like at least a field trip a month that this last one, they
• 15:37
  went to Springfield and went to Sky Zone.
• 15:39
  It's like a trampoline park. Sometimes it's a disc golf
• 15:44
  course that they go to. And so there's just a handful
• 15:47
  some of places, whether it's local here to the West Plains,
• 15:52
  Willow, Mountain View area or we'll go to Springfield.
• 15:55
  But the the point is just to get boys out exposed to different
• 16:00
  things. And it's good to get our boys
• 16:03
  out in public at times to just see how they treat other people
• 16:07
  and act in public. And sometimes we have to correct
• 16:11
  them and they bring things back on campus that they shouldn't
• 16:15
  have. And so all those are teaching
• 16:17
  opportunities. And as we prepare the boys to go
• 16:20
  home, that's the goal, right? It's like you're going to be
• 16:22
  doing these things when you go home, you're going to be out in
• 16:25
  public and how you going to carry yourself.
• 16:27
  And so it's a good way for us to kind of gauge where they're at
• 16:32
  in some some elements. Yeah, we want to avoid
• 16:35
  institutionalization. We don't.
• 16:37
  We want them to, to be able to behave in the, in the normal
• 16:41
  world, you know, see a girl every once in a while, you know,
• 16:45
  and, and, and deal with whatever feelings, you know, hormones to,
• 16:50
  to, to train your, your, your words and your thoughts.
• 16:54
  And, and we'll have guys that that may speak inappropriately
• 16:58
  about something they see when they're out in public in that
• 17:01
  regard. And so it gives us an
• 17:03
  opportunity to coach them through that.
• 17:05
  And it also like keeps them from like really kind of freaking out
• 17:11
  when they go home and they get to.
• 17:13
  And then the parents, the one that's having to deal with that
• 17:15
  transition. And then we kind of set them up
• 17:17
  to fail if we don't give them some exposure to that stuff as
• 17:21
  well. There are concerns that parents
• 17:23
  have and that we are are always aware of isn't and that's, you
• 17:27
  know, flight risk when you go off campus, especially with a
• 17:31
  newer guy, you have to be careful that he's not going to
• 17:33
  seize the opportunity to, to just escape in some in some form
• 17:38
  or fashion. So, but we always keep that
• 17:42
  ratio really low, at least three to one, usually more and usually
• 17:46
  better than that, maybe 2 to one when we're when we're on trips.
• 17:49
  And also boys on level 1 don't, don't go on school field trips.
• 17:53
  They may go on that one field trip a month, but in school
• 17:56
  they're taking field trips every other week, going to museums a
• 18:01
  lot of times. And in Branson, we go to Memphis
• 18:05
  to Beale Street and visit the Rock and Soul Museum.
• 18:08
  We visit Sun Records, we visit stacks, we visited the National
• 18:11
  Civil Rights Museum. We go to eat ribs at the
• 18:14
  Rendezvous. It's an annual tradition.
• 18:17
  Yeah. This past Adventure Week, we
• 18:20
  took a day while we were in Saint Louis to go into the city
• 18:22
  and see the arch, and we planned to go see the Blues Museum, the
• 18:25
  National Blues Museum. But it literally closed the
• 18:28
  Friday before we came. It's been open for over a
• 18:31
  decade, and I've kind of dragged my feet to get up there and see
• 18:34
  it. Finally, I was going to have the
• 18:36
  opportunity. Then we got there and and lo and
• 18:39
  behold, it was closed. Huh.
• 18:40
  And so instead we went to a wax museum.
• 18:43
  Oh man, yeah, you just had. To And that's a whole yeah,
• 18:45
  that's a whole other story. We won't get into the.
• 18:47
  Wax Museum. But don't go.
• 18:50
  If you're in Saint Louis, don't go to.
• 18:51
  The wax? That's gonna be a rabbit hole.
• 18:53
  So all right, well, I think we can move on to #15 on our sheet
• 18:58
  here talking about medications and intake situations and just
• 19:05
  kind of how we deal with boys on on meds and different things.
• 19:09
  Sometimes it's supplements or sometimes there's specific
• 19:14
  allergies that they may suffer with.
• 19:16
  But how actual do we handle that at Whetstone from start to
• 19:22
  finish with the boys here? Boy, the intake process is
• 19:26
  something we've worked a lot on over the last year as we kind of
• 19:31
  scale up to where we have 18 boys in the program and two
• 19:35
  houses and more graduations, more enrollments, making sure
• 19:38
  that we get that process down to a science.
• 19:41
  But kind of the, the brief overview is when a family
• 19:45
  reaches out to us, they'll usually talk to Thomas first.
• 19:48
  He'll give them kind of the nuts and bolts of the program little
• 19:51
  overview. He's really good at connecting
• 19:53
  to connecting with people and and being empathetic and, and
• 19:57
  helping them out. Even if it's like we can't help
• 19:59
  you here at Whetstone, we can, we can steer you in the
• 20:02
  direction some of some other programs and facilities that
• 20:04
  may. So we try to be a service in
• 20:07
  that regard. But if it looks like it's going
• 20:09
  to be a good fit and it looks like they can potentially afford
• 20:12
  the program, then we'll pass that contact along to Jessica
• 20:16
  Foster. And she's kind of our intake
• 20:19
  kind of specialist. She's a therapist as well.
• 20:22
  And so she knows how to ask more specific questions that will.
• 20:28
  Allow us to, to really decipher if a boy is, is truly going to
• 20:32
  be a good fit. And then she'll walk them
• 20:34
  through all the paperwork and, you know, get all that
• 20:37
  information about the medicine and why he's on that medicine
• 20:40
  and what behaviors are trying to be corrected.
• 20:43
  And then then once all that has been approved, then the boy will
• 20:48
  make a date. The family will make a date to
• 20:50
  come here. And then of course, we'll have
• 20:52
  everything ready when they arrive to, to bring them into
• 20:54
  the program. And they'll, they'll spend an
• 20:57
  afternoon shopping for clothing, going out to eat, getting to
• 21:00
  know the house, parents or whatever staff is assigned that,
• 21:04
  that duty for that day to, to bring the boy out.
• 21:06
  And it's generally a pretty memorable time.
• 21:08
  I know the boys that I've done that with, I've always kind of
• 21:10
  bonded in a special way because it's like I was here and maybe
• 21:14
  the most memorable day of his life.
• 21:17
  Yeah. Helping to console or or connect
• 21:19
  or or joke. I mean, some guys are really
• 21:22
  down hearted and sad and you're trying to lift them out.
• 21:24
  Some of them are are a little kind of excited like this is a
• 21:28
  new opportunity and there's a honeymoon period and.
• 21:31
  Yeah, I'd say that's probably the rarity.
• 21:33
  Yeah, that one, at least on the last one.
• 21:35
  Yeah, mostly. I mean, it's a very emotional
• 21:37
  day on both ends. I mean, obviously there's a lot
• 21:40
  leading up to that decision and you're essentially handing your
• 21:44
  son over to strangers at that point.
• 21:46
  You don't really know them and you've done your homework as a
• 21:50
  parent the best you can. And obviously there's some level
• 21:53
  of trust based on your research or else you hadn't got to this
• 21:56
  point. But at the end of the day, from
• 21:58
  the kids standpoint, like he doesn't understand a lot of
• 22:01
  things or not quite sure. And then obviously he's going to
• 22:05
  be staying with a bunch of, you know, peers he doesn't even
• 22:10
  know. And so there is just a lot of
• 22:13
  emotion around that day. And we tried to just from again,
• 22:17
  for the parents to understand is we don't like to belabor.
• 22:23
  A lot of that time there's not of we like them to come in, do
• 22:29
  sign the documents, get them intake, all the intake stuff
• 22:33
  done, just all the professional or paperwork type type things
• 22:36
  that we need to do and then let them say goodbye and then have
• 22:40
  mom and dad kind of roll out. Because it just our experience.
• 22:45
  The longer that you have kind of let that Stew, it just has more
• 22:50
  time for the boys behavior to act out, whereas you just drop
• 22:54
  them off and it's it's typically like an hour and a half, I would
• 22:58
  say from the time they come to yeah, expectation when they roll
• 23:04
  out, say goodbyes and then so yeah, so that's kind of the
• 23:08
  intake process. And then that, like you said,
• 23:12
  each boy's a little bit different, but there's a
• 23:14
  homesickness time period. Usually the first couple days
• 23:19
  it's just a reality check. It's like, oh, this thing really
• 23:22
  just happened. Like they're gone.
• 23:24
  I'm going to be here potentially for 6:00 to 8:00 months to a
• 23:29
  year. You know, I think that's
• 23:30
  probably the biggest slap of the face, I guess, or the biggest
• 23:35
  wake up call for them is like, oh, I'm going to be here for a
• 23:38
  while. And so, yeah, that can.
• 23:40
  And if you're only 12, yeah, which we take boys as as young
• 23:43
  as 12, like that's it's a big chunk of your life.
• 23:46
  Yeah. And I can.
• 23:47
  And most of those 12 years, you don't even remember.
• 23:49
  I mean, you only remember maybe the last five or six probably.
• 23:53
  So it's a, it's a huge chunk of your life that you're like, like
• 23:58
  for you or me, like what would the equivalent be?
• 24:00
  We're 50. So say it's probably relatively
• 24:07
  speaking, 7 or 8 years of our life, you know, if we were to
• 24:11
  show up here, right? Like in my memory, like I'm, I'm
• 24:15
  thinking like a 12 year old. Say you have six years of like
• 24:18
  collective memory. Yeah.
• 24:19
  So it's 1/6 of your life is kind of what I'm doing.
• 24:21
  OK. You like the math there?
• 24:23
  Is it good math there? I mean, it's good math.
• 24:25
  Yeah. But yeah, I think that's legit.
• 24:27
  I think it's good. It's good to put yourself in
• 24:30
  their shoes. Seems legit, right?
• 24:32
  There's another one of those things.
• 24:34
  Seems legit. Yeah.
• 24:35
  Yeah. Medicines are a lot of another
• 24:38
  part of the question, like, are are you going to be careful?
• 24:41
  Are you trained, you know, substances?
• 24:44
  Some guys have like tendencies to try to like cheek the
• 24:52
  medicine or, you know, use it inappropriately.
• 24:56
  So we have to, we're all trained, or at least the people
• 24:57
  that deliver the medicine are trained about how to deliver it
• 25:00
  and what to check for, to make sure it's not being cheeked, to
• 25:03
  make sure they're actually taking it.
• 25:05
  Yeah, that's done privately. It's done regularly.
• 25:08
  I had to do it when I was adventure week.
• 25:09
  That was my job. I had to do the medicine.
• 25:12
  So we, we keep it secure. We keep it locked in adventure
• 25:15
  week, we keep it locked in a car, in a backpack.
• 25:18
  Here it's double locked behind a, in a steel cabinet, behind a
• 25:21
  door. So we'll have Med times in the
• 25:24
  morning and the evening usually and.
• 25:26
  And we have a registered nurse that helps just like make sure
• 25:30
  that we're refilling those when we refill them or if there's
• 25:33
  some issues that. She's great, right?
• 25:37
  Need to be changed up or if her dosage or something's going on
• 25:41
  behavior wise than to try to get in to see a a doctor to maybe
• 25:46
  it's the meds you know or maybe. So, yeah, and we're, we're, we
• 25:49
  want to do kind of what what you want to do.
• 25:52
  We're not going to try to pressure you into like getting
• 25:54
  off the meds or to get on meds if you prefer the natural
• 25:58
  approach, we're all on board with that.
• 26:00
  So we kind of leave that up to the parents and the counselors
• 26:04
  and every family feels a little differently about about that.
• 26:08
  So but we have been pretty successful in in getting guys
• 26:11
  off meds over the years if that's what the family wants.
• 26:15
  It depends a lot on the history and what the actual issue is.
• 26:19
  But right, yeah. Good.
• 26:22
  Yeah, I would say too on the intake there's and as it relates
• 26:26
  to medications, I mean there is sometimes boys try to, if they
• 26:31
  know they're coming in and going to be dropped off, then they may
• 26:35
  try to hide some things. And so we have to you know, we
• 26:41
  do a, it's not like a full, full cavity search, you know, but it
• 26:47
  is with the parents or at least the dad and two staff.
• 26:52
  So there's multiple people in there and it's very quick, but
• 26:55
  it's just making sure that boys don't bring things on campus,
• 27:00
  substances and other contraband that is unhealthy.
• 27:03
  Yeah, smuggled phones in before. So yeah, that's something to be
• 27:08
  expected. And of course, all that stuff is
• 27:12
  explained to parents by our our intake team.
• 27:16
  So there's no surprises there. Yeah.
• 27:19
  I would think the main thing just before we move on to the
• 27:21
  next point is I think we do a good job of being pretty
• 27:24
  empathetic and of of easing that transition.
• 27:27
  We're not a place where it's going to be like, stand, get,
• 27:29
  stand here, stand up straight, look me in the eye when I'm
• 27:31
  talking to you, you know, like drill Sergeant, first day basic
• 27:34
  training or there's none of that.
• 27:35
  Like we don't and we don't do transport services.
• 27:40
  You know, you have to be able to talk your son into coming here
• 27:43
  because we don't want to do more damage to the relationship by by
• 27:46
  forcing something like that. And so it's going to be, you
• 27:50
  know, as painless as possible, I would say, because we're trying
• 27:54
  to build relationship life and life ministry is what we're all
• 27:57
  about. Yeah.
• 27:59
  All right. OK.
• 28:01
  So let's move on to length of stay concerns that families have
• 28:06
  about money cost. You know, what if it doesn't
• 28:09
  work? What if it's, you know, a
• 28:11
  failure to launch? What if this isn't a good fit?
• 28:14
  What happens? What happens then?
• 28:16
  Yeah. Well, we we tell parents that
• 28:22
  it's really a 7 to 9 month average length of stay.
• 28:26
  And so we have boys that can be here for past a year.
• 28:31
  If they don't, it usually takes boys a little bit of time,
• 28:34
  sometimes couple months to really get in the groove and get
• 28:38
  with the program or really start making some progress.
• 28:41
  And so if that's the case and they're looking more towards the
• 28:45
  910 month side of things, but very rarely a boy will come in
• 28:49
  and just knock it out of the park and get out of here in
• 28:51
  about seven months. We've had maybe one or two boys
• 28:54
  kind of hit that mark. But I would, I would gear
• 28:59
  towards more of the just as a parent, just kind of plan on 9
• 29:03
  to 10 months as the average. And and so as far as looking at
• 29:13
  the, you know, you mentioned, I guess the money in the some of
• 29:17
  the scholarships or part of that is that was one of.
• 29:21
  The I didn't mention the scholarships, but yeah, you go
• 29:23
  ahead and talk about that because that's a kind of a new
• 29:26
  thing that we're launching. So, yeah, I mean, obviously it's
• 29:28
  a huge investment for for parents in time and and
• 29:33
  resources. And so we've always wanted to
• 29:36
  try to help out as we can. I mean, we're still a fairly new
• 29:39
  organization. We can only do so much.
• 29:41
  But we did start a scholarship program this year, which is been
• 29:46
  great. We've had a couple families get
• 29:48
  approved for that. But essentially it's up to half
• 29:51
  the tuition. And so if it's something that
• 29:54
  your boy's going to be a good fit, but you can't afford it and
• 29:58
  you fill out a scholarship application that we look at and
• 30:02
  either will approve it or not. Or maybe it'll be not quite a
• 30:06
  full half tuition, but maybe it's a proration of our, you
• 30:11
  know, prorated amount. But either way, there is those
• 30:14
  options available out there for parents who who qualify for that
• 30:20
  so. Yeah, I would add to that too,
• 30:22
  that I would say most of our families are not from a
• 30:29
  situation where they can just money isn't an option, right?
• 30:32
  So if you're, if you're concerned about the cost and and
• 30:36
  there's going to be a struggle, like, you know, join the club.
• 30:40
  I mean, that's, it's, this isn't we're going to try to work with
• 30:43
  people. And they're like, people get
• 30:47
  really resourceful when their son's life is on the line,
• 30:51
  right? And so whether you're a parent
• 30:53
  or you're a donor listening to this or, and you're like, man,
• 30:58
  that's, and we're not going to state the specific amount
• 31:01
  because it, it needs to be something that you talk about
• 31:04
  with our executive director and our intake staff and everything
• 31:06
  like that. But we want to help as many
• 31:10
  people as we can and parents when, when they're thinking
• 31:13
  about the future and is like, is my son going to be alive?
• 31:16
  Like I've saved up this money for him to go to college.
• 31:20
  I'm not, this is not, it's not in the cards right now.
• 31:22
  So it's, it's a matter of thinking about survival and
• 31:30
  life. Like what is your marriage
• 31:31
  worth? You know, what is your son's
• 31:35
  life, your other kids? You know what I mean?
• 31:37
  I think sometimes people think of what we do here in terms of
• 31:42
  like, oh, that's a place where I can send someone to get some
• 31:45
  help and to, to get back on the right track and they're
• 31:48
  struggling. Or like a school, what I would
• 31:51
  pay to send them to a school. No, this is like life and death
• 31:53
  for a lot of families. And that that fall and that
• 31:56
  decline that they've seen in their son is, is drastic.
• 32:00
  So I'm not just a parent who's like, this is hard.
• 32:03
  The reason a teenager is hard, it's it's way far beyond that.
• 32:07
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 32:09
  Yeah, the as far as the other part of that that you asked is
• 32:15
  like what if a placement doesn't work or what are some reasons a
• 32:19
  placement may not work? That really, man, that's all
• 32:23
  over the map. But I would say, I mean,
• 32:26
  sometimes our parents pull their son because the timing like they
• 32:33
  want it's like maybe close to graduation, there's two months
• 32:36
  left and it's got to be starting.
• 32:39
  They want their son to start the school year at the and not be
• 32:43
  behind. And so they feel like, you know,
• 32:46
  they'll, they'll cut some corners and just be like, all
• 32:48
  right, well, it'll save us some money, but also our kid will be
• 32:52
  able to either start school or start a sport.
• 32:55
  Sometimes that's a situation there is sometimes something
• 33:00
  happens where we try our best on the front end to, to vet the
• 33:05
  families and we realize that the boy just needs a higher level of
• 33:09
  care. And so from our standpoint, I
• 33:13
  would say we are always trying to do our best to do what's
• 33:17
  right for the boy and the family.
• 33:19
  So if we decide that he needs to a higher level of care and
• 33:23
  there's a environment that has kind of escalated here to where
• 33:27
  some of the other residents are not safe and this boy
• 33:30
  continually is the instigator, then we need to keep the other
• 33:35
  residents safe. And so that's a very tough
• 33:37
  decision and difficult at times to kind of navigate the right
• 33:41
  answer, but that's a situation where a boy will leave Whetstone
• 33:46
  and go to a higher level of care.
• 33:48
  Yeah, we try and then take process that we talked about
• 33:50
  earlier. We'll we'll try to eliminate
• 33:53
  that likelihood as well. Like if a boy is constantly
• 33:57
  burning things, for example, that's we're not going to be
• 34:00
  able to take someone who's who's tempted to do that and who's
• 34:03
  displayed, you know, a tendency to destroy property or to, to be
• 34:09
  violent beyond just the punching a wall or losing his temper
• 34:14
  every once in a while. I mean, every young man does
• 34:16
  that. But if he's going to be a danger
• 34:18
  to himself through suicidal ideation and stuff like that,
• 34:22
  like they're probably not going to come here in the 1st place.
• 34:24
  But if we do discover something that wasn't identified during
• 34:28
  the, during the intake process, that that means he's not going
• 34:32
  to be able to be in a be in a place where there are no holds.
• 34:37
  Learn to have fences. You have to take responsibility
• 34:40
  for your actions and move through the program then then
• 34:43
  yeah, we're going to have to help you to find another place
• 34:46
  that can, can, can do that, provide that service.
• 34:50
  Yeah, like how you said that we're going to help you find
• 34:53
  another place. It's not just we have resources.
• 34:56
  And again, whether you know, we're just going to help you
• 35:00
  find the right placement if it's not Whetstone and we have a
• 35:04
  network and people in place that have other programs available to
• 35:08
  to find the right help. So that's certainly part of
• 35:11
  that. So well, actually I would say,
• 35:15
  so let's, I mean, we're kind of getting to the end here.
• 35:18
  And I like #18 kind of the last question there of talking about
• 35:24
  some human questions. So let's address some of those
• 35:28
  as we kind of are getting on the back end of and finishing up our
• 35:32
  FAQ podcast here. OK, OK.
• 35:35
  So what are? Well, the, the one that sticks
• 35:40
  out to me is, you know, what's the most, what's the most
• 35:46
  hopeful change that we regularly see Like parents.
• 35:50
  If I were a parent, I would, I would want to, I would want
• 35:54
  some. I wouldn't expect a guarantee.
• 35:58
  I wouldn't expect certainty. I know my son.
• 36:01
  I know that he's a human being who makes his own choices and
• 36:05
  that that life is hard and unpredictable.
• 36:08
  So I'm not going to expect a guarantee, but I'm going to want
• 36:11
  some evidence that that there's hope, right, that this program
• 36:15
  is going to put me and us in a better place when he returns
• 36:19
  home than he was when when he left and that we're going to
• 36:24
  have a chance. And so I would say we deliver on
• 36:29
  that. I'm a little biased because I
• 36:32
  work here. You and I are Co finders.
• 36:34
  I wouldn't keep doing this if I thought I wasn't making a
• 36:37
  difference, right? I'm not here for the paycheck.
• 36:39
  I mean, I need enough to eat. But none of us are getting rich
• 36:43
  on this by any stretch of the imagination.
• 36:45
  And I certainly wouldn't do it if if we weren't making a
• 36:49
  difference. So I guess where where I land on
• 36:53
  that is when, when your son returns home, he's going to know
• 36:58
  how to work. He's going to and and this is
• 37:02
  this is almost across the board unless a boy is like dismissed
• 37:06
  like within the first couple weeks.
• 37:07
  And we've had that a handful of times with 160 boys.
• 37:11
  That's happened, you know, less than 5 or 6 times, right, where
• 37:16
  it was just like within the first month he's gone, you know.
• 37:19
  Yeah, certainly the single digits.
• 37:23
  And so he's going to be here for 234567.
• 37:27
  Sometimes a boy's here for 12 months and doesn't graduate.
• 37:30
  But in that time he's going to learn how to work with his
• 37:33
  hands. He's going to develop some
• 37:35
  self-confidence in, in some area of his life, whether it's school
• 37:39
  or whether it's interacting with other people and learning some
• 37:42
  social skills, whether it's losing some weight and getting
• 37:45
  in shape, whether it's finding out something about himself that
• 37:50
  he didn't know that that wow, I can actually make people laugh.
• 37:53
  I'm a funny guy. Or whether it's I can, I can do
• 37:58
  hard things. I don't have to wither it when
• 38:01
  it, when I come up against nature, right.
• 38:04
  So I, I think those, if I were a parent and I knew that he was
• 38:07
  going to come home with those skills, along with his ability
• 38:11
  to talk about his emotions, to engage with a therapist and to
• 38:15
  use his words and that he's going to have some tools for
• 38:19
  working through conflict. No boy is going to have all of
• 38:21
  the, all of his issues solved. But when he leaves here, he's
• 38:24
  still a teenager, right? And he's still going to have
• 38:27
  hormones and he's still going to do dumb stuff.
• 38:29
  The best of teenagers does those things, but you hopefully are
• 38:33
  going to have some skills to put that in perspective and to work
• 38:37
  through those things. And he's going to have some
• 38:38
  skills as well to hopefully trust that that you know, you
• 38:43
  have as best interest in mind. You guys aren't enemies anymore
• 38:46
  that you can work together. Right, Yeah, I think there is a
• 38:53
  being able to help parents understand the journey and it is
• 38:57
  a journey and that it's not an end all be all.
• 39:01
  Hey, they're going to a program and this kids going to be fixed
• 39:05
  and that kind of attitude. I would say, you know, our most
• 39:08
  of our parents don't have that attitude, but there is some it
• 39:13
  it's kind of two things working against each other, right, Is
• 39:17
  that you have, you know, these types of programs are are not
• 39:20
  cheap. Again, the time and the
• 39:21
  resources. And so the other part of that is
• 39:26
  what the boy's dealing with that he's been through whatever
• 39:30
  traumatic event or situation that takes time.
• 39:34
  And so sometimes parents get frustrated and, and it's just
• 39:38
  the dynamic that exists. It's like it's a very expensive
• 39:43
  to have your son in a program and you want him fixed and he's
• 39:48
  not getting better and it takes time.
• 39:50
  And so sometimes those are things that are just, they are
• 39:53
  what they are and they're working against each other and
• 39:55
  can create some anxiety and some strain on the parent side of
• 40:00
  things. But just understanding that
• 40:03
  going back to the question of like, what's the most helpful
• 40:06
  change you can see? Is that what I thought of is
• 40:11
  just those honest conversations, being able to break some of
• 40:14
  those barriers down. Help.
• 40:16
  The kids see from the parents perspective and the parents see
• 40:20
  from the kids perspective and sometimes just having that
• 40:23
  separation is is helpful to break down some of those
• 40:28
  barriers and also just the spiritual development side of
• 40:32
  it. We do Chapel every morning and
• 40:34
  that we believe the word of God does not return void.
• 40:38
  And if a boy's here for seven months and doesn't graduate,
• 40:42
  there's a lot of spiritual development potential that is
• 40:47
  that he gets exposed to now, just like anything else.
• 40:51
  What he chooses to do with that is, you know, that's that's up
• 40:54
  to the the young man. And we could have the best
• 40:56
  program in the world. And if a kid doesn't want to
• 40:59
  accept help or accept change or all those things, there's
• 41:04
  nothing we can really do. But he's seen a different way.
• 41:08
  He's seen the model of relationships and how people can
• 41:12
  work together and how we can build something together and how
• 41:16
  the staff communicates. And we try to obviously model
• 41:20
  the best we can what Christ expects of us.
• 41:24
  I mean, that's the thread that kind of works through.
• 41:25
  Everything we do here is we believe that Christ can change
• 41:29
  the lives and we try to model our actions after that and hope
• 41:33
  the boy catches some of that. And a lot of times they do.
• 41:37
  And so that's a hopeful change that we can regularly see.
• 41:43
  I would say that boy's spiritual development is on the whole, is
• 41:48
  increased. It's a big one.
• 41:49
  A lot, Yeah. And.
• 41:51
  And as the former headmaster and, and someone who's a
• 41:55
  lifelong educator, I see a ton of academic and intellectual
• 42:00
  growth with what happens in the school room, Have a lot of faith
• 42:03
  in what Gabe is doing. And I think the system that we
• 42:07
  have works because it puts the responsibility in the hands of
• 42:12
  the boy. And that's lacking in today's
• 42:15
  educational system. Like everyone wants to blame the
• 42:19
  teachers or the system or the government or whatever.
• 42:21
  It's like, ultimately, like, the student has to decide that he or
• 42:24
  she wants to learn, and then the Sky's the limit.
• 42:27
  Yeah. So once a A boy realizes that
• 42:31
  about himself, he can teach himself pretty much anything,
• 42:34
  right? And so there's a lot of hope
• 42:38
  that comes with seeing your son develop and acquire those
• 42:41
  skills. So I feel like that was good,
• 42:47
  dude. Any of those other questions You
• 42:48
  want to brooch, brooch, brooch. I think we, I think we did a
• 42:54
  pretty decent job of giving a pretty good overview of the FAQs
• 42:58
  and what we do here and how we handle situations.
• 43:02
  Yeah. If you I would say if you have a
• 43:04
  question that we didn't answer, we'd love to hear about it.
• 43:08
  Send us a message, a text message, an e-mail, post
• 43:12
  something on Facebook or on Spotify or whatever.
• 43:16
  We should, we should see it and we'd love to come up with all
• 43:22
  kinds of other questions that will that people have that that
• 43:25
  will be helpful to parents, teachers and counselors.
• 43:28
  Yep. So exactly.
• 43:30
  All right, I have nothing else. OK, it's been fun.
• 43:33
  This has been fun. It's been a fun 41 minutes 42
• 43:38
  minutes. Exactly.
• 43:39
  Right now we. Got it in and. 42, There's that
• 43:42
  number again. 42, yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day.
• 43:46
  Speaking of 42. Really.
• 43:48
  Yeah, OK. Yeah.
• 43:49
  How about that? How about that?
• 43:51
  What'd you do for Jackie Robinson Day?
• 43:54
  Worked on my taxes. Yeah, Ditto.
• 43:59
  How fun. But and I helped my son work on
• 44:01
  his taxes first time he's had to do those Oh yeah.
• 44:05
  So apparently he didn't check the dependent box, so he sent in
• 44:10
  his forms and he got a message back today from TurboTax saying
• 44:15
  these your forms been rejected because someone else claims you
• 44:19
  as a dependent. So we got to go back and, and
• 44:22
  resubmit those. But hopefully it's just a matter
• 44:24
  of a funny story before we leave.
• 44:26
  So Speaking of teenagers and and young men, I've used TurboTax
• 44:32
  for a long time now because I have a small business with eBay
• 44:35
  and then I have Whetstone and other stuff.
• 44:37
  So it's just simplifies. It's a little expensive, you
• 44:39
  know, I think 200 bucks to pay for the, the software and
• 44:42
  everything. And then the filing on top of
• 44:44
  that, the electronic filing, but it's always, it's worth it,
• 44:47
  walks me through the process and it takes the headache out of it.
• 44:49
  But he was like, even for his taxes, which are not that
• 44:53
  complicated, but kind of complicated because he's treated
• 44:55
  as an independent contractor. Instead of getting AW2, we got a
• 44:58
  1099 and EC and it was like, Oh well, you're going to have to
• 45:01
  pay the $150.00 and then you're going to have to pay to file.
• 45:03
  So it's going to be 200 bucks. He's like, no, no, no, I can do
• 45:06
  it myself. I'm just going to log on
• 45:07
  irs.com.gov and figure it out. Like I wouldn't do that.
• 45:13
  If he's like, no, no, I, I can do it.
• 45:15
  I can spend. If I, it only takes me two
• 45:17
  hours, then I'm going to make, you know, $100.00 an hour,
• 45:20
  $75.00 an hour. I'm like, OK, but I'm not going
• 45:23
  to sit here with you for the next 5 hours and, and figure out
• 45:26
  all these questions and then it's going to go wrong.
• 45:29
  And you're not going to do the wrong.
• 45:30
  He's like, no, I'm going to do it.
• 45:32
  I was like, OK, well, I applaud you for that.
• 45:34
  Yeah, go with God. I'm going to be over here.
• 45:37
  I'll answer your questions here or there if chat doesn't answer
• 45:40
  it for you, Yeah, maybe I'll be able to answer a question or
• 45:43
  two. But the, the, the interface, the
• 45:45
  tool, how to get all the information in there.
• 45:47
  What are those terms mean where you go to the government
• 45:50
  website, do it and like, but he sat down like 5 o'clock 6:00 and
• 45:54
  got to work on it. He made some progress and then
• 45:59
  eventually it was like 10 o'clock, you know, 9930.
• 46:01
  He's like, I don't think I'll be able to get this done.
• 46:03
  I said, OK, great, let's use TurboTax.
• 46:07
  So he logged on. He's like, this is amazing.
• 46:09
  He's like, this is worth every dollar.
• 46:11
  I spent time in TurboTax and he got through it in like 45
• 46:18
  minutes, you know, and it saves you money that you you don't
• 46:21
  recognize some things. And so the $200 ended up being
• 46:25
  like offset by the what he was going to pay.
• 46:27
  Yeah. So it was it was a happy ending.
• 46:30
  And, you know, I couldn't help at the very end to say, well,
• 46:33
  your dad knows a few a thing or two.
• 46:35
  Yeah, he's picked up a few tricks along the way.
• 46:38
  Yeah. But.
• 46:39
  Just had to see it for himself. Yeah, but that's great.
• 46:41
  I, I admire that in my son. He's very independent and is
• 46:44
  willing to try and take apart an engine.
• 46:47
  Yeah. And put it back together.
• 46:49
  Yeah, 'cause he's gonna learn something in the process.
• 46:50
  So. But I would have been pretty
• 46:52
  impressed if he'd have been able to navigate irs.gov.
• 46:55
  That's like next level. The next level for sure, yeah,
• 46:59
  we used to use TurboTax years ago, but even that, I mean, we
• 47:04
  use Shauna and right man, it's it's even cheaper than TurboTax
• 47:09
  and I don't all I got to do is just here's all your documents,
• 47:12
  right. So it's nice and she does it
• 47:16
  quick, man Yep. So yeah, she's good anyway.
• 47:20
  All right, Brandon, thanks for talking with me.
• 47:24
  So I'm always glad to know that you, that you still like to talk
• 47:26
  to me and that we can, we can have a good time just shooting
• 47:30
  the breeze. And I like have carving out the
• 47:32
  time to have an extended conversation.
• 47:35
  And we, we really appreciate you guys for listening and, and for
• 47:38
  sharing and for telling us every once in a while when we see you
• 47:41
  that, that you liked the conversation that we had.
• 47:44
  That's a real pat on the back for us.
• 47:45
  So thanks to Thomas Love the little intro he did last week
• 47:49
  with the Wizard of Oz. If you haven't listened to that
• 47:52
  intro, go back and listen to it. It's pretty funny.
• 47:55
  He's got such a vast knowledge of movies and music and
• 47:59
  everything. He always spices it up in a
• 48:01
  really cool way. So, as opposed to our at least
• 48:03
  my narrow dumb stupid humor knowledge of movies, we didn't
• 48:09
  get a quote in this time, but we did.
• 48:12
  A bummer. We'll have to do 2 next time.
• 48:13
  Yep, make up for it, right? All right, So thank you all for
• 48:16
  listening and we'll catch you next time on.
• 48:18
  A time to sharpen. Whetstone Boys Ranch is a
• 48:29
  therapeutic boarding school located in the scenic Ozarks of
• 48:32
  southern Missouri. It was founded in 2011 to serve
• 48:36
  families from around the country who are struggling with
• 48:39
  challenging behaviors from their 12 to 16 year old sons.
• 48:43
  Our mission is to sharpen the character of young men.
• 48:46
  Please visit whetstoneboysranch.com if you
• 48:49
  want to learn more about our program or about how to contact
• 48:52
  us for help. Thanks for listening and we hope
• 48:55
  to catch you next time on A Time to Sharpen.