Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting we are beginning what we’re considering a series, not a week, week, after week series but a series that we’re going to be revisiting throughout the year, maybe years, but starting now, called, Our Friendship Throughout The Years. And we’re starting today by talking about our friendship in elementary school. Yeah, I- The very beginnings. I’m excited about this because, I mean, at this table we’ve shared many memories- It it is a table. Over the episodes, over the years of our shared experiences since meeting in first grade. But I think this is gonna unearth some new stories and it’s a new lens through which to kinda look at all of our memories, specifically the nature of our friendship. You know, I think that there’s kind of this oversimplification- Yeah. Of the story of, “Hey, we’ve been best for since first grade”, and you just kind of… You picture us just kind of going through life together but when you to dig into the specifics of it, again, there’s lots of memories that maybe we haven’t accessed or told, but there’s nuances to our friendship and it definitely has evolved over time and it’s changed with each phase. Yeah, so we’ll be talking about, you know, our first perceptions of each other, we’ll be talking most, I’m most excited about giving you the as true as possible version of that first day that we met and the story that we have told that has become such a part of how we introduce ourselves to people and in interviews and stuff like that. But I think that… And the further back you go, so this is as far back as we can go to the elementary school years, the more that we kind of gloss over things because… It’s like, I mean, Who is interested in… There hasn’t been an occasion for anyone to be like, “Let’s talk about that in more detail” and so this is stuff that we haven’t even really talked… A lot of this is stuff we haven’t talked about together that we’ve never even reflected on. Yeah. ‘Cause we’re… This is the… The challenge with us is we’ve been through so much together and we’ve talked about so much of it that we start having to find new ways, if we want to go back and access old memories, find new ways to talk about it and find new memories to explore. So this is a new sort of rubric? I don’t use that word very often. Oh yeah, okay, let’s use it. If at all, rubric’s cube. Nope, it’s not a cube. I’m gonna open up rubric’s cube and talk about what I used to think about Link. But the plan is… Yeah, every, I don’t know, every month, every six weeks or so we’ll pick up where we left off and look at our friendship through the next phase, you know, middle school, high school, college. Young and married. Yeah, young and married, young and wild. And you get the old and wise or old and whatever we are at this point. Eventually, it’ll just be- Definitely old- Us talking about- And something. Our current friendship. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I think every phase will be juicy but let’s start with something really juicy. Oh, man. The- I questioned whether we should even do this. Yeah, we did discuss but whether we should get into this, but you know what? I feel like this is, I mean, it’s dimly lit for a reason. There’s a bit of a secretive trust exercise going here. So you’re in the inner circle. You’re telling… Don’t tell anyone? You’re telling anyone who’s listening to not tell anyone? Because that- Well, I feel like this is a special space where things are discussed that, hey, if you’re into that, you’re here for it and if you’re not, you’re missing out. So once we go through this thing, I do wanna talk about the stipulations within which we handle the information that we’ve put out there now, okay? Okay. But as a group, as a collective, but we’ve mythologized our first meeting so much over the years that I think… Well, we’ve decided that we’re gonna scrutinize this story. Like from a… Like, as if we were a detective? Yeah, so- If we were a police detective who was trying to like, uncover what actually happened. So first let’s tell the story. Now, we could also sing the story because at some point we wrote a song. I actually think writing that song contributed to some of the simplification. So on the… Here’s how it goes, every single interview, even to this day, next week if we have an interview with somebody for a publication, we will say- On the first day of first grade we were both held in from recess for writing nasty words on our desks. I wrote hell. And I wrote, damn. I’m not really sure who’s says what. Yeah, sometimes we don’t say that. Yeah. And we say, yeah. and that’s when we met, our teacher, Ms. Locklear. Held us in from recess. And made us… Let’s just say it together. Color pictures of mythical beasts. And that’s when we hit it off. And that’s why our company is called, Mythical and that’s why everything we do is called something mythical. And that’s why our fans call themselves Mythical Beasts. Yes. Because of that origin story and you know what? We’ve been best friends ever since. You don’t wanna ruin it for everybody, do you? Here’s the thing, when we started talking about this recently, you… Okay, I’m gonna say something that I believe is true about you and that is, you have an uncanny ability to look back on something and change the detail and then believe it to be true and just, and bypass the whole, like, “Ah, this is probably not exactly what happened.” Like, because there’s lots of things that you’ve said and I’m like, “But you know that’s actually not, like… That’s actually not true, right?” That’s the way that you’ve categorized it and smoothed it out in your mind. But I don’t wanna- I’ve always had feelings about this story. Let’s analyze it, and then explain it. Okay. I think, yes, you’re on to something. You’re on to something, but so let’s just break it apart. We did meet and first of all, we have not discussed this at length. No. It’s not like we’re about to confess something to you that we’ve concluded that we’ve been lying to you. This is a legitimate exercise right now in your presence of us analyzing this mythologized story. So we certainly met- I have analyzed it on my own a few times, but- We certainly met in first grade. In Ms. Locklear’s class, in 1984, in Buies Creek. And we were certainly both there the first day. We were definitely both there the first day. Now, I’m gonna go back to what I remember. I’m gonna try to get back to what I actually remember. I remember both of us getting in trouble and I remember both of us being held in from recess and I remember both of us coloring pictures. And I know- And judge… And looking at how you were coloring and making a judgment about it. Very… And early accounts of that story included the memory from me, of… Again, now I’m just remembering the remembering of the memories, which is what humans do anyway, this is not just me. Well, but I’m going back to what I think is our core ‘Cause a couple of things- Yeah, our core memory. But there’s a couple of things about that that I’ll get into in a second. I remember Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Like, there was a point when I accessed that as what I believed to be a core memory of what we were coloring or I was coloring. Now that memory came from you. Yes. The fact that it was it was Paul Bunyan, ’cause I don’t remember what we were coloring. I mean, so I don’t have an opinion about that. Here’s what I believe to… Here’s… If you put me up against the wall, here’s what I believe. I don’t think it was the first day of first grade, okay. I don’t think that we were- It sounds like- I don’t think we got in trouble on the first day of first grade. It sounds like a simplification. I think what happened was we… It’s safe to say that we met in some form because you pretty much… In some form you meet everybody- Yeah. In your class on the first day of first grade. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s when you moved from California. I was there in kindergarten, you weren’t. You know, so I- And I remember- We met on the first day of first grade, but then at some point, we both got in trouble. Well, I know we both got in trouble because I, you know- But- Back in the day, they used to give the- I could see how- The numbers on conduct. Uh-huh. And it was the higher the number the worse it was. Mm-hm. And if it was a- Four. And four was the worst and I always got fours. And it… But the reason I always got fours- You were talkative. It’s ’cause I just wouldn’t shut up. Self control- I find it hard to believe- I got good hygiene. That I- Yeah. They used to rank your hygiene. Hygiene was on your report card. Yeah. I’m sure I did great on that. Yeah, wait, I wanna talk about that a little bit. I find it hard to believe that I was talkative and boisterous at that age because I was… When I accessed my feelings from that time, thank you therapy, I access a lot of timidity and early anxiety. So I- So it didn’t manifest it, so we’ll talk about first impressions, but- Me becoming a cut up, a class later. A couple of things, if I had to bet and part of this is influenced by the fact that when we met Ms. Locklear, when we tracked her down for our documentary looking for Ms. Locklear, which you should watch even though yes you know we found her, is still… The spoiler is still worth it, it’s only an hour long. She told us, and this was not captured in the documentary. It was captured, but we didn’t put it in the edit. Yeah, we edited out. She was like now- So we weren’t comfortable then like we are now. And just- And at no point had I thought that the thing about being held in from recess together was made up. No. But she said, “I really doubt that I held y’all in from recess ’cause I’ve never done that as a punishment,” and we were like, well. We’re gonna edit this out. Yeah, yeah. Is what we were thinking. But I- Wasn’t gonna document. But I was like … But I know. But like I believe that to be true, like. Yeah. And that was a… There’s memories pre being a nasty word, public figure. Like, you know, when you have to like answer questions by people, reporters and stuff like that or you’re simplifying things and you’re an entertainment act, at that point all bets are off. You’re gonna like massage things and you’re gonna tell the big fish story and the story’s gonna be this big. But back before when I was just remembering things on my own and we were remembering things as friends- Right. I was 100% sure that we were held in from recess. Yeah, we were- And we were coloring. We were doing some interviews for local papers but it was, you know, and we were… Maybe there was a temptation to massage the story for the documentary or to simplify it but no, we absolutely believed. I cannot remember, I don’t have… I cannot visualize getting in trouble but I know in my heart of hearts that we did get in trouble. But I’m 100% sure this is something I would bet everything on. We were not being held in from recess for writing profanity on our desks. We were- Okay, but we believed we were being held in from recess even though Ms. Locklear said she didn’t- I believe that. She never did that. I believe that she did that. So it’s like, if we weren’t held in from recess, we were punished in some way that I think it might have been a succinct way to say it was, we were held in from recess, that’s a more visceral way to sit to… A picture to paint than just, “Oh, we were punished and we had to color pictures”, like the two of… The scene that everyone’s outdoors and we are in the room just the two of us, I am willing to say that might not be true. Okay, but you glossed over something, Mr. Neil, you glossed over the pun… What we were being punished for, I’m saying I am 100%. Oh no, I’m saying that’s the next thing. Out of whole cloth. Yeah. We made up the writing profanity on our desks. We, and- For a while we said, we didn’t remember what we wrote. Well, here’s what we did. And then we just added what we did right. Here’s what we did. I agree. We did not… I do not believe- How do you feel right now? I do not believe- Do you feel deceived? That we wrote profanity on our desk. ‘Cause we… Neither one of us would’ve ever done that. Not right. You wouldn’t have defaced things- Hell no. Just out of personal principles. Damn no. I would not have defaced things out of fear of being murdered by my parents. I have never defaced anything in a graffiti-esque type of way- Yeah. In my entire life. Yeah. I was… I mean. Like, I don’t think I could bring myself to do it now. I mean ironically, we invite people to do that when we had guests on Ear Biscuits. Oh, we yeah invited them. But it wasn’t… You know, we invited them too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. I’ve never done it and so- I would’ve never done it. 100% confident that- That’s made up. I not do that, but here’s my defense for the lie. What we said at first was most likely something to the effect of… ‘Cause the reporter will ask, well, you know, what were you… What did you do? And we’re like, well we probably- Wrote some words on desk. Probably wrote something, probably write- Just made something. Write on our desk. We’ll say, “Oh we talked too much.” I remember that the desks had writing on them. From previous generations. From other people. And that is something that you would’ve gotten in trouble for. I think that happened during the song, by the way, the song composition. I think we probably said something like before the song, you know what, we were probably scribbling on our desks like, oh, and then the reporter’s like, “What were you writing?” And we’re like, “Well, we gotta come up with something,” it’s like, “Oh, I don’t know. We might have been writing profanity.” You know, it was probably just like couched and hypothetical that then the next time we told the story, it was like, you know what? That was a better story, we’re gonna keep it couched and hypothetical but we’re gonna tell it more succinctly and then over time the succinct ability of it removes the hypothetical. Well, and I think… Here’s my defense. And then you write a song. Here’s my defense of how this happens, okay. And I honestly, I don’t have any idea how people are perceiving this right now. If they’re like… They’re whole… If they’re like disappointed, I don’t know what it is. But like I’ve always seen this story of how we met as like a comedy routine that is based in something that actually happened, but like no standup comedian who tells the story is telling you something that happened to them exactly the way that it happened to them, they are taking what happened and then they are mythologizing it in a way to make it funny and entertaining because their job is not a historian, their job is a comedian, right. Is this argument working? And so- I don’t fully buy it. But now, but no, but now, but so I mean. But it is, yeah. When a stand up comedian is like, listen on the way here… And that’s a lie, okay. If they say that something just happened to them today, 100% of the time it did not happen to them that day, okay. If you live in the world and by the way- I do live in the world. Nobody watches the the late night shows anymore, but if you go on the late… If you’re on the late night show and all of a sudden the actor has like a funny story, that’s all rehearsed, okay it’s not like they’re just like, “You know what, what you just said, Jimmy, just made me think of this thing,” it’s all rehearsed. Sorry if you didn’t already know that but I think that this is the entertainment version of Rhett and Link, having a cool packaged story that is largely true- Largely true. But embellished to a point- So large. To make it snappy and funny. Yeah. And I mean… And at least we’re coming out and saying that’s the case. And I do think there’s an evolution of the hypothetical to just leaving out the phrase of the hypothetical is just a thing of rhythm that I’m very good at doing, I’m just like, you know what? This is a better way to tell the story, it still feels hypothetical and then after a while it stops feeling hypothetical to me. Here’s the best example of that just as a little aside, we’ll come back to the origin story because this just always just crack me up. Yeah. So, you know our story after we graduated from college, we were engineers from a while and then we went on staff with Campus Crusade For Christ, the missionary organization that we were involved in as students, right. So we were like college missionaries for a couple of years going around telling people how to tell people about Jesus, right. And so, but in order to do that, if you’re gonna go on staff or crew you have to raise support which means you have to go and ask people for money. Like sit down with individuals and families and organizations and do a presentation. You do a presentation. You go to somebody’s home and you break out your laptop, you do a little presentation and you say, “So, would you be interested in giving us or supporting our mission a $100 a month or something like that?” Yeah, I had to explain why the two of us were gonna be speakers and seminar creators and resident comedians and filmmakers. Like, how do you make sense of that? Right. Well, you talk about the stories from our past of how we did that. Right. Which we did a lot of that. Yeah, yeah. But the evolution of how it came about was like right at the time we were raising support was when me and you had become like a comedy duo who was like making stuff together and singing together and doing conferences and stuff like that, but during college I was MCing with Greg. As a sidekick. And then you were leading with the worship team. Yeah. And we weren’t doing comedy together, we would make video… We would make the videos together. Like, you would film the videos of me and Greg and stuff. But like that’s too complicated to explain to a 65 year old dude who’s just sitting there falling asleep and just wants to hear you tell people about Jesus. You know what I’m saying? Yeah. So you simplify. I understand the motivation. Greg… I became Greg in the story slowly over time. But I… But my theory is is that after telling the story a few times you believe that to be the case an it was- I think Christy did too. ‘Cause she was there. She never said, “You know what? The story’s changed. You know, Greg used to be in there, now you’re just Greg too.” If we can get a chance to talk to Greg about this. Yeah. We- We need to… But, okay. But back to the story. So you were saying that the- So I don’t think it was the first day. I don’t think… Ms. Locklear doesn’t think we were held in. We know that we weren’t writing nasty words on the desk, we don’t know what it was. I think we got in trouble but I think that the coloring was maybe not the punishment but I have a visceral memory of sitting down and watching you coloring right next to you. Always in my mind was just the two of us in the classroom. But I believe the fact… The only real fact that I could defend is that I once sat next to you and colored and made observations about the nature of the way you were coloring, and I was like, “Wow, he’s like really precise, it’s like- Mm-hm. Go on. What is he try… Like, I remember thinking like, “What is he trying to prove?” It was like… ‘Cause I- What did I prove? ‘Cause first grade- Go on. You know what I’m saying? First grade is like, most kids in first grade are just like, they’re holding… This is what I was doing. You’re holding the crayon like this. Like a Neanderthal. Like you’re holding it like you’re gonna kill somebody. You’re gonna like stab somebody with a crayon. And then it just makes contact with the paper and you just move it. And I’m just like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” and then I look- Me not know what wheel is. And you’re like, it’s like, really even I’m like, “Wow, is he submitting this to a contest?” ‘Cause I didn’t know this was a contest and now I need to try, you know what I’m saying? Oh no, this is just art time, I’m not interested in this. But I know that that happened, but I’m not willing to stand by the fact that that those two events coincided and it was actually while we were being punished. Well, sounds like at least three events have been combined into one. You remember us coloring. Yeah. We know we met on the first day of first grade. Had too. And we know we got in trouble at some point at the same time? Well, I’m sure that that happened. Okay. So those three things were compiled into one mythologized origin story. Is there any other part of this that we need to analyze or is that it? ‘Cause I’m not gonna… If we’re gonna come clean it’s gonna be now, I’m not gonna… I don’t wanna come back to this feeling. The last where it all started to fall apart, you know? Yeah, right. This is what happens. We came clean. It’s all fallen apart, including our friendship. I mean- Hmm. And from that point on, so I’ll just move on then ’cause I don’t think there’s anything else. Well, no- From that point on we were best friends and I think the analysis of the rest of this episode will call that into question. Well, I… The only thing I’ll say is I’m not changing the story at this point. I’m not… Okay. Oh, yeah. So let’s decide. I want to establish for all of you listening- How we’re going to tell the origin story. That the next time you’re listening to an interview or us talk to somebody and tell this story- It’s gonna be the same. We’re going to say the exact same thing we’ve always said, we’re not gonna change it and be like, “You know, well, really what happened was is we just met in first grade.” We’re gonna tell the entertaining, embellished mythology of our friendship. And we’re gonna tell it until the day we die. And you know what? There’ll be a little twinkle in our eye because you’ll know the truth and nobody’s getting hurt. Nobody’s getting hurt, okay. Right? We’re all- What’s at stake here? We’re all in this together. What’s at stake here, right? We’re all in this together. Does it really matter? If it comes out that it’s all a sham and it’s not, by the way we never said it was. Well you shouldn’t have used that word then. It’s an amalgamation of truth simplified into a compelling narrative and if you want to mess that up, well, you’re implicating yourself. Mm. Yeah. Okay. But so we are trusting you and we’re gonna keep telling that story and I’m gonna have a hard time for the next year or so, but then I’ll get over. Here’s- I’ll probably forget this conversation. Here’s some- And be cool with it again. Here’s something that I… Here, I’ll go out on another limb here. Do it. And say that if this, you know, you should analyze how this makes you feel if you’re listening to this. Mm-hm. Because what you probably should understand is that the vast majority of news and history pretty much follows what we did. Not only that. You ever read the Bible? Oh God. Not only that, I would say you’re… Take a hard look at your own experience and your own memories. Your memories are a recollection of memories. Every time you remember something, we talked about this, you’re reconstructing the memory in your brain and if some… And it evolves. Yeah. This is science. This is science. So we’re all in this together. Yeah. Like I was saying. And at least we came clean. We’re so defensive right now. No, I just… I feel good. I feel good about it. Well, I mean. I think it was hilarious. I feel great. I feel great. We feel so great. We feel great. I can tell that we both feel great about it. We’re so proud of ourselves. It is canon. Let’s talk a little bit about this T-shirt, you know, I was gonna put it on but I’m a little cold in the studio right now. I mean, it looks good on the hanger. This is the, Hot Dog Is a Sandwich podcast T-shirt, you know, Mythical Kitchen. They have their own podcast, Hot Dog Is a Sandwich. You know who else- Josh and Nicole. Josh and Nicole. Do you know who else has a podcast now? Trevor’s got a podcast. Of course he does. Trevor Talks Too Much. Yeah. First episode with Brittany Broski is already out as of the release of this episode right now, fresh. Listen to Trevor Talks Too Much, he’s good at talking right from episode one. Very proud of him, very- Yeah, he’s got a gift. Very glad that we’ve done it. He’s got a gift of gab. Taking full credit for everything he accomplishes over there. Trevor Talks Too Much, Hot Dog is a Sandwich, expanding offerings of Mythical podcast. Get in where you fit in, you know. I would like to talk a little bit about first impressions as I remember them. Okay. We’ve already talked a little bit about my impression of like how you were coloring. coloring. But, and I actually didn’t… I had to kind of dig back and think like, “What do I remember thinking about Link in meeting him?” Now, I’ve already established that my Mo was to… I was… I wasn’t… I didn’t perceive you as timid but I know that I definitely was not timid in terms of my… I threw myself at people, right, in a way that I don’t do now. Like, I’m more of an introvert but I was a weird extrovert in like elementary school in the way that I would just like meet somebody and then within the first five minutes invite myself to spend the night at their house that night, I did it with anybody. And so I was very drawn to just like- Now I’m wondering if everything you’re saying is an oversimplification. Like, the first time you met them you’d invite yourself over to their house. That’s an oversimplification. It is. But very, very early, like alarmingly early, usually in the first day I would be like, “Hey, so like, what do you think about sleepovers?” I know, I would be like… Its just I’d find a way, that’s all true. So I was… But I would, you know, I was kind of evaluating like, “Oh, this person seems… There’s something here like, this person seems like they’d be fun or like we could have a good time together”, right. Mm-hm. So obviously I thought that about you because I’m pretty sure we had sleepovers in first grade, but here’s the thing that I remember about you. I find that hard to believe. Okay, maybe I didn’t. That seems really early for me. Okay. I remember thinking that you were very clean. Clean? Speaking of hygiene, that you were like very put together like you had this like, your hair was like, it’s like, somebody’s… Like, he really is caring about like his hair and his clothes. Somebody’s combing that head of hair. His hair is combed, his clothes like match. Like, someone is like laying them out or he cares about it. Like, you know, I’m wearing like gray sweat pants and a gray sweatshirt. You’re like, that’s an outfit, I’m there. You know what I mean? And like, you’re like, “I only have a blue Coke shirt and yellow Coke pants.” And like, you know what I’m saying? And that… I know this wasn’t just first grade but I remember thinking that it was like, but I didn’t process it, you know, I’m first grade. So I’m looking back and thinking that, like, what did you think about- Do you remember like- This kid. On the first day of a grade, would you… I mean early on, would your parents- Not first grade. Would your parents put you in an outfit and take your picture? No. Yeah. Every year I would be putting an outfit and my mom would take my picture with like my new trapper keeper and my lunchbox and I’m standing in front of the closet and you know, I’m going to school and boy, this is really built up and I don’t know how I feel about this. I think my parents were just happy- My anus is very tight right now. Oh gosh. I think my parents were just happy to get us to school without someone dying. You had an older brother too. Yeah. It was just like, this is old news to them. Yeah, the sweat… Just put on your sweats. It’s like, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna go out and you’re gonna play some B-ball and- And I had a… I don’t know if in first grade I didn’t have a buzz cut in first grade, but like it pretty early on, I was just like, they were just like, let’s just head into the barbershop and put it on level one. Like me and my brother just had ones just like. It’s like… It was like a military family but it really wasn’t. It was a family that just didn’t care about just like, okay, well you go to school like, we gonna care… Oh, we care what you look like when you go to church and we care what you look like on picture day, sorta. Sorta. But not really. Yeah, for me it’s like, you know, I was an only child and it was like, you know, my mom was like, I was her little baby. So like, she’s like doing, you know, she’s like, “Everything’s gotta be right for little Linky”, you know. But for you it’s like, you’re the second and it’s… There’s also two opinions in your house. So it’s like, even if your dad wanted to dress you up and your mom was like, “Oh, don’t worry about it, let him wear his sweats” or vice versa- I’m sure my dad was not, “Lets dress him” my dad was like- I’m just giving, you know, I’m not trying to play into gender stereotypes here but I’m just saying there’s two opinions and those opinions are distributed over two boys. Whereas me, it’s one opinion that was not throttled, my mom’s opinion that I did not question. I was like, “Okay yeah, it’s like, oh, this is how things are done.” I also think it’s a disposition too, because- Sure. We actually think about like… Jessie and I have both had probably more opinions than we should have about like, what our kids wear when they go places, do you know what I’m saying? I think it might just be- Oh yeah, I see. Just like living in a more superficial culture or whatever, but it’s kind of like, “Hey bro, that doesn’t match or your hair looks crazy right now.” Those conversations didn’t happen in my home. You know what I mean? It just didn’t… Just that wasn’t a part that I remember, it wasn’t a part of things. It was kinda like, “Yeah, you’re dressed and you’re alive.” I’ll tell you what- Get out there. What wasn’t a part of my life and it was a part, I know that my hair was just combed straightforward. Get a bald cut. It was combed straightforward. Yeah. And there was no… But it was combed. It was brushed. I remember thinking, “His hair looks like it’s cut by a lady.” As a total… Yeah, a total generalization. Yeah, it was. Now her name was- Not Rudolph Blanchard who was just… I will say, her name was Bobby though. Oh really? She didn’t have a man’s name. Okay. But she’s a woman. No one… Scissors did not see my hair until 30, the age of 30. I mean, I went through my whole twenties cutting my own hair with Clippers. I mean like, but scissors, I could see you had scissors on your hair. I think- It was written all over your face. I’m trying to think what my first impressions of you were because I have to kind of interpellate from the facts that I know. I don’t… And maybe I’ll access a memory but nothing specific comes to mind like it does for you. It’s like, I’m so good… I made such a strong impression on you. So many visceral and specific memories. But it wasn’t… But because it was different. That’s what I’ll say that like, I felt like most of the other kids sort of seem like, “Yeah, like we’re in first grade. We’re just kind of like- Going with it. Existing.” Yeah. But it was like, “Oh, this kid is like, he’s”- Put together. “It’s picture day every day for this kid.” Put… Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? I like that. Yeah. Yes, definitely. And for the reasons that I mentioned, I think that, you know, I don’t think it was anything that I analyzed, it was just the opinions in my life, basically my mom, were like- But you don’t think that you- I never questioned it. You don’t think that you- And I never looked around. I don’t think I… I was self-conscious. I do have this early preschool memory of like, I was… The guys were so rambunctious and physical like, there was like wrestling happening in preschool and I was afraid of the guys and I would always hang out with the girls. Like, the guys would climb this fort structure, built indoors at the Littleton First Baptist church and be up there and I would… And doing rambunctious stuff and I was just intimidated and so I would hang out with the girls. Well, and no, I didn’t… So there’s that- I didn’t know you at that time. kindergarten version of that. I didn’t know you at that time, but what I do along those lines is that it was a very quickly- First grade. Was like, “He’s not interested in sports.” Now again, I wasn’t… I didn’t have a- Yeah. I’ve never really been that like… I’m not a judgemental person, you know what I’m saying? So it’s not like, “He’s not interested in sports so therefore he’s not my friend” like no- No, it was like he’s- Process that happened. Apparently it was, “He’s different, I got to see his house.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to spend a night, like- But it was clear that like, even in first grade, I remember in first grade, first, second grade talking to other boys about, you know, like, “Jr Reid’s coming to Carolina”, like that’s a level of conversation- . That I would have with these other kids who like cared about college sports and like what was happening at Carolina and State and Duke at the time, right and a lot of that comes from the fact that like, okay, my dad was really into sports and all these other kids’ dads really into sports. Yeah. And I had a brother and that kind of thing, but it was like that wasn’t a conversation I was gonna have with you. It was like, “Okay, well, I’m gonna have a different conversation with this guy. My first impression of you had to have been related to the fact that like you weren’t there the year before in kindergarten, you were taller than everybody. Yeah, I was already a head taller. Tall and skinny. You had this look about you. A look. It’s like, you know, I’m not gonna- Like a hawk, like a Falcon. I’m not gonna say it’s Gollumasque but you had bigger eyes and you were gangly and if you- But you did just say it was Gollumasque. If you got down on all fours, I’m not gonna say, that’s like… You know how in like the Fellowship of the Ring they put Gollum in there for a few seconds but you didn’t really… Like, they hadn’t fully figured out who Gollum was. They hadn’t done all the CGI. So like in two towers, he’s fully fleshed out and looks different but in like the first one he’s kind of like this shadowy new character that you don’t really know and like, boy, he’s really hunched over and you can kind of count all of his vertebrae and boy, there’s a… And he looks like he has some extra vertebrae and his eyes are so big. You’re talking- That’s probably what I thought- You’re talking more- But I’m not gonna say because I don’t remember. You’re talking… But factually that’s not true because I looked that way during and shortly after puberty, I actually was just kind of a tall kid but proportionally relatively normal. Okay. I began looking like Gollum in ninth grade. Hey, man. I was just joking. Okay. Well, that’s a good joke. It was a good run there. Now it’s worth the 90 seconds that it took. Let’s go… I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thoroughly enjoyed it. So we were… Let’s go through the teachers we had. Okay. From first to sixth grade. First grade, Ms. Locklear class. Mm-hm. Second grade I was in Ms. Bailey’s class. I was in Ms. Lawrence’s class. So we were not in the same class. Right. And we can revisit some of these but I just kind wanna go through it. Third grade- I was in Ms. Hood’s class. We were both in Ms. Hood’s class. Mm-hm. I mean, I remember you being in Ms. Hood’s class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You remember me being in Ms. Hood’s class? Yeah, yeah. And that’s when Ben… And that’s the year Ben moved into town from Oklahoma. Okay. Third grade. So I remember really a liking Ms. Hood’s class. Ms. Hood was great. She was tough but she was great. She was a great teacher. Fourth grade- Ms. Everhart. I was in Ms. Rand’s class. Right, yeah. Now, what happened was they did this thing where it was like… By this age all the kids knew that they were labeled as… Like, some kids got this AG label, academically gifted. Right. And there was this… It was something that everybody knew and it was… I don’t think it was healthy that we all knew it. No. And so then you were kind of put into different classes based on that. It was like, “Oh, you’re in the smart class” or “You’re in the not so smart class.” Ms. Everhart was the smart class. Ms. Rand was the not so smart class. Right. And you’re right. We all kind of like… We all knew it. You all knew it. And the reason why… I was a smart kid, I think I was in the AG bucket. No judge to those who weren’t, I guess maybe I don’t want to imply that but my mom had heard all this stuff about how Ms. Everhart was so tough on her students. “Oh, that she gives so much homework, she’s so… She pushes them so hard,” that my mom went to school and requested that I not get Ms. Everhart. And then I was… Ms. Everhart was actually an incredible teacher. I know, that’s the sad thing about it. And her room was out in one of those trailers. Yeah, she was isolated so she could get away with all types of stuff. My mom didn’t want didn’t want little Linky to have to suffer through. And the smart kids, by the way, got a computer. Did you all have a computer in your classroom. Uh-uh. Yeah, we had like two, they gave two, they gave us two computers and they gave y’all zero computers. I’m sorry, man. Your mom screwed that one up big time. And that was the year I’ll learned my multiplication tables. And I learned how to beat Oregon Trail. Yeah, I didn’t get to play. I had to go to the library to play Oregon Trail. Yeah. I could do it anytime I wanted. Man, I remember… Well, I’m not gonna talk. I’m not gonna talk about my teacher but it was like, yeah the classes, it just wasn’t the same- Caliber. Caliber. Fifth grade, I was in Ms. Hobbs class. Hobbs, Ms. Hobbs. I couldn’t remember if you were in there. Yeah. My big thing about that year, my claim to fame was that’s when I won the anti-drug poster contest and had to travel with Ms. Hobbs to the Kiwanis Club dinner at the Western Sizzlin in Dunn. We haven’t given the update, I not gonna do it now but just as a reminder we haven’t given the update about what we learned about… We met someone who knew about the posters contest. I need to get the full story and report back. From Cole. Yeah, from my brother. Your brother. My brother met someone who was in charge of choosing the winner of that contest. The other thing I remember… Oh, wow. The other thing I remember from Ms. Hobbs was she was pregnant that year. Mm-hm. And lots of times she was not in a good head space. I remember her seeming a little bit perturbed with the children, yeah. Yeah, she had a short fuse and a very pregnant belly. Yeah. It’s like, I… In retrospect, I kind of feel for- Oh yeah. Could you imagine? But now I was like… I was like, “What is wrong with this woman? I mean, I know that she’s pregnant, but I mean, what’s her problem?” She was a- Now I’m like- Good teacher though. Good gosh. She was a good teacher. Learned a lot of math in that class. Yeah. And then in six grade I was in Ms. Campbell’s class. And I was in Ms. Leneer’s class. Ms. Leneer’s class. And at that point- I really feel like I missed out on Ms. Leneer’s class but Ms. Campbell was super sweet. It was a combination class. So there was some… It was the smart sixth graders and the not as smart seventh graders. Yeah, right. That’s yeah. That’s really how it worked. Yeah, it’s pretty simple. You know, it’s… We haven’t really thought about it in a while that like, every year… We met in first grade then every other year we weren’t in the same class. Yeah. So, and you have this memory of like, from the beginning going on sleepovers to people’s homes, in the Book of Mythicality, if you’re into this type of conversation and you haven’t gotten your copy of the Book of Mythicality get one because there’s stories that we’re not gonna share here and lots of other stories from our shared best friendship, even though now we’re dismantling it. Available in audio book form as well that we read. Oh, probably even better. I don’t remember spending a night. I remember I told the story spending the night at Zach West’s house and then he pile drived me. Mm. And he wasn’t best friend material, is how I put it in the book. Right. I think I spent the night at Matthew Enzor’s house once and his dad, Benny, was watching Alien and like, I felt really uncomfortable. So yeah. It’s just like- I don’t know, man. I just remember feeling uncomfortable in other environments. Like, I was only comfortable at home so I can believe that if you invited yourself over to my house, I wasn’t gonna say no, I would be like, “Sure.” But I would not have been comfortable going to your house at such an early age. Oh, I didn’t invite people to my house ’cause I already know about that. Okay, so- I didn’t have sleepovers at my house until… Like, very few of these people. Probably sixth grade, maybe seventh grade. Yeah. So, okay my- And that’s when I would’ve started spending the night at your house. My perspective on this is that… Again, the way that my brain works is that I don’t… Especially at the time, I didn’t like categorize people, right. And so if you asked me in first grade, “Who’s your best friend?” I’d be like, “I got lots of friends”, and I would probably answer that question the same way. I would say that it was probably like third and fourth grade after Ben moved into town. Yeah. It was probably, especially that year, the Ms. Everhart year where we were not in the same class. Yeah. Where I would’ve said Ben was my best friend if you would’ve put me up against a wall. But I did not think in terms. Maybe not and there’s a reason I’ll give in a minute but- I didn’t think in terms of- I’m not surprised by this, yeah. I makes sense. I didn’t think in terms of that, it was more just like there’s people that I like to hang out with a whole lot. But everybody, like… If I mention any guy, tell me if you spend the night at his house, Adam. Yeah. David R. Yes. You didn’t… Let’s see who, the Enzor’s, did you spend Matthew Enzor’s house? Not… Definitely at least a couple of times but I don’t remember exactly. It may have been a little bit later. Tate Maddox. Oh yeah, multiple times. Who else? Zach. You spent a night at Zach’s house? Oh yeah. Julian. Oh, Julian, skateboarder? Yeah. Oh, he was too intimidating. And I think Chris too. Chris Morris? I think so. Of course, Peter. Peter Dinklage, not the Peter Dinklage. Well, he was your neighbor, so you’d walk over. He was younger too. You would spend a night at somebody a year younger? You got a house, you got a fridge, you got a TV, I’m there. So you would- Justine. Oh, Justin? Mm-hm. You’d go around the corner to Justin’s house? Every kid in my neighborhood was on the list. Michael Jubi, he was in the mix. Oh yes, Michael Jubi had the best house. He had that- Had a loft with a spiral staircase. Loft thing with a spiral staircase. And he was on a golf course. Oh yeah. Whole 13 at the time on Keith Hills, man. And his parents were fun to talk to. His parents were so cool. So cool. Yeah, man. Let’s see. I didn’t spend the night at any of these people’s houses ever. I was gregarious, man. I was up for a good time. That… When Adam Nicholson had that sleepover for his birthday and we watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that may have been the first time I spent the night at anyone’s house and that was probably seventh grade, sixth grade. Really? Yeah. I mean- I can name 10 more, by the way, if you… I need a yearbook. Okay. We won’t get into it. You know, Brooks. I don’t… Okay, so Brooks was younger too. Two years younger, but we were- But he was a family friend. We were… Our families were really close. And what… So, and you loved it. You were never like, “Get me outta here”? No, man. I… Here’s the thing, I- I mean, we’re so different in this way. But this is something- But it didn’t register, that’s the thing. No, but this is something that I didn’t know about myself and I’ve never really thought about it, but like I, especially back in the day, I don’t feel like I do this as much anymore, but like I would find the way to connect with somebody. I would be like, this is the thing that they’re into and it’s just like, I’m into everything so when I go to this person’s house all we talk about is this. And you know- I didn’t dictate what we talked about. It was like this person’s into this, “This person’s really into Nintendo, well, I can be really into Nintendo.” You spent the night at Chad Leander’s house? Yes. And just played Nintendo, just like he would do a speed run through it all? I think it was one… I think one time. Okay. But… And it’s funny because now that I’ve learned more about the Enneagram, you know, one of the things they call the Enneagram three is the chameleon, right. Hm. It’s a person who- Blends in. Can enter into a environment and immediately be like, “This is what we’re doing here? All right, this is what I’m doing. If that’s what makes everybody happy, that’s what I’m gonna do.” And that brought me joy. And you had a really stable home life, you know, I think, and it… I’m doing some work now to kind of go back to that point and this is kind of helpful. Like, I’m not gonna bring it up here like, I’m not gonna bring the therapy component into this except to say… Maybe later but for now the only thing I’ll say is that like, yeah, I’m coming to grips with the fact that like, you know, my mom did an excellent job. I’m not critiquing anything she did with the hand that was dealt her but it was not… I had this perception of it, it was not a stable environment, you know? And I had this really keen sense of like just a gut feeling of lack of safety outside of the home. That’s an oversimplification and maybe an over dramatization of it, but it was like that’s kind of how I ventured into the world was with trepidation. Yeah. So, you know, when you were spending the night at people’s homes, like, what was I doing? I was doing my own thing at home like watching this new thing called Nickelodeon on channel 34. I didn’t have cable, that was another reason I had to get to other people’s homes, they had cable. And then I would do some exploring in the woods and all the stuff around my house alone. I would pretend to be an army guy who was like- Yeah. And like a commando. And we- And we had the- So you remember those duck boots that everybody had and on the back of them they said “Explorers”? Uh-huh. Because I think it was like an addition of that duck boot. Yeah. So Cole and I had those and then Jeremy Fisher down the street had those boots as well, and so we were the explorers but that was again, that was with- Neighborhood kids. Yeah, that was my older brother, three years older. I Didn’t have any- And so we would go- Neighborhood kids either. Like name the forks and stuff like that but like. My community wasn’t like that, we we’re on opposite sides of the town. Right. So… But I think one of the main forces that brought us together and it superseded school and then might change a little bit of the complexion of like what would’ve been in your mind as a fourth grader saying that Ben was your best friend, which you certainly would’ve said, but would’ve kind of put me in that conversation was church. Yeah. You know, from the moment you moved there you joined Buies Creek First Baptist Church. The church that me and mom and my stepdad, Jimmy, went to. So we were at that church. Why do you think your parents chose that church? I think Jimmy had a connection to that church that went further back, so it was like there was like a longer established connection there, but… And then I was very… We were both very involved. Your parents were very involved. My mom, if she could pull everything together in time to get to church on time. Yeah. She was gonna be there but she, you know, she had a hard time getting ready to the point where at a certain point I’d be like, “Mom, you need to stop halfway in your like, makeup and hair routine to bring me to church because the kids are making fun of me for being late for church every Sunday morning for Sunday school.” And then she would come back and like show up halfway through the Sunday school lesson or just show up at church. She could not get herself ready. Wow. But yeah, we would Sunday school and church every Sunday morning, every Wednesday night there’d be something and then there was usually another night of the week that we were at church. So it was like, even the years that we weren’t in the same class we were spending like our youth group time- Yeah, that’s true. And church time together and like, so, and we were very close in that world. Like, if you think of everybody else that went to church… Who were the other guys that went to church with us? There wasn’t… Like, Matthew McKinney went to church with us And Matthew and John. Matthew, and John Enzor. But, so it was a smaller group that like we were the closest to each. Yeah, yeah. But by that time I would’ve- And so… And that was from an early time. And by third grade… Third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade I would not have said that any of those other kids that I had spent the night with were my best friends. Yeah. I would be like, my friends are Ben and Link. Yeah. In terms of like my friends my age and then I would be… And I think I would’ve been like, and I hang out with Brooks quite a bit too, but yeah. Sports… Yeah, when you talk about Brooks. Sports was such a big part of your like, basketball. Yeah. Like, you played everything, you played baseball, you played soccer. I played soccer from… That was the big thing in Buies Creek, everybody… That was like a five, six and seven year old team, recreation team. Like, they started you really young. It was like very organized the what, basketball recreation didn’t exist. Yeah. Baseball recreation didn’t exist. But like, it was interesting that soccer was the thing that was like really exploding in like the late eighties. And so- And Campbell had a really good team. That’s right. So like, I always played soccer and had enough confidence to at times, begin to enjoy it but not any other sports but you were into every sport. So we didn’t connect in that way but I played all the other sports all the way through, you know, up until… Yeah, like baseball started at like maybe sixth grade. Mm-hm. And I did play, boy, I hated that, maybe fifth grade. Yeah. But… So a little bit of soccer but it was mainly church and like your parents were so committed to it, and I kind of folded in underneath that like level of commitment that was like, I was, I mean, as we’ve established from a young age, you followed your parents’ example and I kind of followed your family’s example of like being super committed. Yeah. It was like that was from an very early age, our identity as people was- Right. Our evangelical belief system, even in contrast to the other church across town, Memorial Baptist and say, “Oh, they’re the more liberal church” and like, we had friends from school who went to that church but we thought of them differently because it wasn’t… They weren’t as fervent in our opinion as we were. I mean, that’s a whole story in and of itself is just, yeah, there’s a saying for that, there’s something of minor differences I can’t remember what it is, but it says that, “You’ve got to have an enemy” and in this little teeny tiny town there’s two main churches that are two Baptist churches and those two Baptist churches have to find a way to look down on one another, it’s just so crazy that that’s the way humans work. Because there were… I mean, read the Lost Causes of Bleak Creek you’ll see how he folded that into the novel, but… And there weren’t many people, we didn’t have many classmates who didn’t go to one church or the other, you know, so it was really, that’s why there was such a dichotomy. It’s like everybody went to one church or the other. And we were getting closer to the group of kids that were our age that were at church as well. And as we got older, you know, you start taking it more seriously. Oh yeah. And so then the fact that you take this very seriously and like, you believe in God in this very particular way and you practice that belief then you start making connections with people. Right. And also there’s like the whole like, you start kind of drawing some political lines because that’s part of it as well and of course we’re talking early nineties south, by that time, the Christian right had pretty much taken hold in the conservative party- Mm-hm. So republicans, so it was just like, “Oh, are you a Democrat or Republican?” Right. So it’s like you needed to be a Republican Christian in order to be like, really in on the in club and that was beginning… That was starting to filter in the way that we were thinking, right. Yeah. And I remember even, you know, around like fifth, sixth grade, Ben started to kind of experience some of the issues that- The tension ’cause he went to Memorial Baptist. Well, but also he was always such a open-minded like- Yeah. Challenging thinker, his parents were too. ‘Cause his family was. And so it’s just like that started to get a little complicated as I’m like getting serious about this, it’s kind of like. Yeah, it’s like your dad was a law professor. He’s not really into this. He’s got more questions about this. But Ben’s dad was a biology professor, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it’s like, you know, you can definitely see that vibe. Right. Of like, you know, the rule following versus the- Well, but coupled with the fact that Ben was also beginning to experience some emotional things and some physical things. Right. Like trying to figure out has he got chronic fatigue whatever, I can’t remember exactly when that started to manifest itself, but that began to complicate. It’s difficult for kids to understand how to navigate a friendship when someone’s going through stuff like that. Which again, we’ll refer to the other podcast that, you know, where we talked at length about Ben, our other best friend, so we don’t have to get back into that now. But I mean, we certainly connected over like being out in nature, so even though you spend a lot of time playing basketball, as we got into these older elementary grades, like you were… I was more comfortable coming out of my shell, you know, gramping up into middle school and like starting to get like… We connected over like being in nature and I got in on what you and Ben were doing. But back to the church thing, I mean, our first teacher, I remember was Ms. Tolsma. Tosome, something like that. She- I do not remember her. She was my neighbor across this street and she was our Sunday school teacher at fist. Was she blonde and had all the kids? She had the two twins who were blonde. The blonde twins. Oh good gosh. Really? The fantasies, the fantasies of just going over there and swinging on the swing set with those blonde twins. Yeah. That’s all I wanted. I Didn’t remember. I just wanted to swing with them. I didn’t remember being into them. But that was kind of like a normal Sunday school teacher. You and I, feet like you had different tastes- Mom. In women. But my point is she was a normal Sunday school teacher but then Ms. Clark showed up. You remember Ms. Clark? Oh, okay, now we’re talking, now I remember. Ms. Clark, you know, had a son who was a year older than us, Sam. Yeah, yeah, yah. And her husband was, he was a science guy at Campbell. Well, they lived in that house that like the, not the Campbell house but near the Campbell house where like people who were in town working at Campbell would like live for a little bit. He was a professor, but he had just… They had… Yeah, somehow they just moved in and they were very associated with the school and… But she was very scholarly and kind of this like homeschool precursor type thing. So like when we went to her Sunday school class it wasn’t just like, “Hey, here’s a nice Bible story and you’re gonna have some prayer and a craft,” no, this was intense education. Like, “This is what grace means, this is what mercy means, this is how they don’t mean the same thing.” And it’s like posted all over the- Yeah, we were being indoctrinated real hard. And it was… Yeah, she was… Very effectively. It was very intense. Yeah. And she was a… I wouldn’t say a… How would I describe her? Scholarly, intense, proper, like prim and proper. It was kinda like if she could have had a ruler and smacked you on the hand, it was almost like if it was, you know, a couple of decades earlier she’d been- She was from the old school. In that old school vibe. And again, this is just Sunday school. This is just an elective thing. But you know, one of the things that I think is a significant about this is that kids respond to this type of instruction and let’s just be honest, this type of indoctrination in different ways. Some kids sniff it out and are like, “I’m not into this” and they rebel at that point and they kind of check out, even though our personalities were very different- Mm-hm. We both locked in on this thing and we’re like, for whatever reason, this is it, man, this is important like, I got to listen to these people, I got to be about this and I think that the fact that we both latched onto it so hard- Really brought us together. Is really what made us such good friends. Yeah. Leading into middle school. Even if we weren’t in the same class, we didn’t see each other at school for every other year. Yeah. That’s absolutely what did it, you know, and she was also artsy. She didn’t write it but she brought in this play, The Bible Tells Me So Show. Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was her, huh? Yep. Her son, Sam was like, a gifted actor and singer and very charismatic and like larger than life but in retrospect I it think was, okay, she can’t cast her own son to be the starring role of this because- The host of the show. You know, it was The Bible Tells Me So Show- It feels like a game show. It was a spoof of Family Feud if Family Feud was just about Bible trivia. Yeah. And then the two teams that competed that which like the two families were friend groups. So it’s like all the… They were like all kids in a youth group that knew each other, so there was like some sort… I wouldn’t call it drama but there was interplay, friendship interplay between them. As part of the story. Christian interplay. As part of the story. As part of the story that rounded out it being- ‘Cause we were all in the same youth group. Yeah. So she couldn’t cast her own son to be the star, which he clearly needed to be. Yeah. As I recall, that would be the case. And so she cast me to be the host of The Bible Tells Me So Show. I remember you getting that part, and this was at a time that I was like any sort of like… I was about being a class clown and like, you know, cutting up and getting attention in that way. I was too. And you were too but when it came to like, this is organized and somebody else is dictating what this is I was always like, “This is not for me” but then- Well, especially because it was a play. But yeah, yeah. Like, I had this- We didn’t think we were the drama kids. Right, right. But I remember you getting cast as that and it’s like, now I’m thinking back to what I must have been thinking and be like, well, you know what? He is very clean. Like a host, like a TV host. Yeah, he’s like, he’s very put together. Like, this is good casting. You know what I’m saying? You’re not gonna give the kid with the buzz the hosting job ’cause it’s like, you had like hair, like you had hair that could be like combed into a- And at Easter I would wear suits to church- Yeah, yeah. So I had a few suits. You had, yeah. You had a blazer, at least one. Yeah. Right, yeah. I think it was pretty good casting. I think Sam would’ve taken it to gone too hard. He def would’ve gone too hard. He went so hard at everything. Yeah, so, I mean, you were in the play. I was on one of the teams. All the youth group were there but I had so- Good answer, good answer. I had so many lines. That was one of my lines. And it was a musical. ♪ When I see trees ♪ Hold on. ♪ Waving in the breeze. ♪ You had to sing that? ♪ And hear the birds in the air ♪ ♪ I thank the Lord for all that he has done this. ♪ It’s amazing that you remember this. ♪ To show me he cares ♪ You don’t remember that? No, man. I don’t remember that, dude. ♪ Oh, give thanks to the Lord ♪ ♪ For he is good to all ♪ This is why there’s two of us. I remember certain things and remembers other things ♪ He sends the sun to light our day ♪ ♪ And helps the rain to fall ♪ No, hold on. Do you think you could sing this without the fact that you found it on video? I found the video, I didn’t watch it. I remember this stuff from then absofreakinlutely. Really? The thing that I- It’s crazy. And what I wanna do is, I want to digitize the… I’ve got this VHS, it’s got my mom’s handwriting on it, she kept it all these years and now I have it. Let’s put that- I wanna digitize The Bible tells me so show. On the society. Let’s put it on the society and we’ll like, do a director’s commentary… Well, we didn’t direct it. We’ll get Ms. Clark to do it. I love Ms. Clark. No, we’ll do a participant and actor’s commentary over this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a really good idea. I think we kind of have to put it on the Mythical Society just because that’s where it makes the most sense and there might be rights issues otherwise. That’s what the Mythical Society is all about, man. Yeah. It’s about the coolest stuff. I remember all the songs, but I’ll tell you what I don’t remember, any of my lines. Even at the time, I remember drilling my lines… I had a stack of stuff, I had so many freaking lines. Weren’t you at one point in the baptismal? Didn’t the baptismal open up and you said something? I don’t think so. In my mind that’s what happened. I had the script on the pulpit and I would flip the script and I’d follow it along. I couldn’t memorize all the lines. Did we do that on a Sunday morning? Did they give us the service? I don’t know, maybe. Or was it like it come to this thing on Wednesday night. But it was such, you know, there was… We were so… Like, the youth group was like so much of our identity and like you said, it really brought us together and it was like our youth group against the world, against… Like, when we went in they would talk in terms of like, when you go into school it’s like you support each other and you hold each other accountable to the things that we’re committed to. But we were developing this incredibly tribalistic mindset, right. And I’m using that in terms of how hard you identify with another group of people and an ideology to the point that in this tiny little town where everybody pretty much thought the same stuff to begin with. Yeah. And again, they might think a little bit differently about some things, but like we developed this mindset that we were different even in this place that was so different from everything else. Mm-hm. And I just had no idea what was happening in my mind. It’s like, that is so… I’m so happy I was able to let go of that. Well, one of the things was pride, you know like- Just thinking that you’re the rightest of the right of the right of the right of the right. We definitely took pride in that and said, okay, now I can… “Through this lens, I can understand who I am.” And when you find other people who think exactly the same way, it creates an incredible bond, you know. And we’ll talk about middle school and high school in two other episodes. Mm-hm. But yeah, it’s like this being established- It fuels it. Now in sort of that late elementary school is what… It’s the reason that we ended up staying such good friends through all that and it’s the reason that we went to college together, it’s the reason that we went on staff together, it’s the reason that we’re sitting right here at this table. So I can be kind of like, I can poke fun at it or I can say that it’s toxic in some ways but we really owe everything to the church. You know. ♪ The Bible Tells Me So Show ♪ ♪ Yeah, it’s the place to be ♪ Yeah. ♪ You’ll see. ♪ It’s very catchy. Did she write that? I don’t think she wrote any of it but she was capable of it. She’s very capable. I’m a little disappointed you don’t remember any of the songs. I don’t know how that’s… I wish I could repurpose that part of my brain. Dude, I don’t remember the words to any of our songs. When we get ready to do a concert I’m like, “Give me a few days, I have to reacquaint myself with every part of this.” But lines. I mean, I don’t know. It’s a different spot in my brain. I don’t know. Yeah. Maybe I should be more into musicals now and maybe I could have a career in music. You know what? I thought about this, I don’t think it’s music versus lines, I think it’s your long-term memory. There’s a part of your brain that stores it really, really effectively. Yeah. I have a really good short-term memory. I have very bad long-term memory. Mm-mm. In terms of like lyrics like that. So I do think this sets up our next conversation, you know, when we revisit this and go into middle school. I mean, because there’s so… You know, there were so many pressures that then of puberty and- A lot of pressure. And dating. Yeah. Pressure in the pants. Better pop that Zipper open. So, but there’s different… I think there’s maybe, and we’ve explored some of that, but there’s like other ways to look at middle school. Yeah, we’re not just gonna talk about erections all the time. And high school as we get back into that but I think this is a good start, you know, I have a good appreciation for how it’s a combination of so many circumstances and like, in spite of our differences that brought us together, it’s like we had these things that mattered the most to us. Yeah. That brought us together and they were the, you know, and the amount of time associated with those things and those priorities really worked. But I mean, you could be sitting here with Matt McKinney or even more likely, I could be, you know, there were times… Because like in the youth group he was probably the other guy that like at times, like I really hit it off with when you were, you’re in your basketball mode, you know. Mm-hm. ‘Cause he went to church with us. Like, I don’t know, you know, if there’s many other people that, you know, once you get in like fifth grade that it could have been. Yeah. But it was… It felt kind of preordained to commandeer the term. And there was… and the thing I think we’ll talk more about For us. It in the next one, but like the things that we were finding funny- oh yeah. Like, ’cause we didn’t even get into that but like we were connecting on how silly we were and the things that we thought were funny. Yeah. And that was… That was really the connection between us and Ben too. Like the three of us were so silly to the point of like- Yeah. Just the level of silliness was off the charts. It would push other people off. Yeah, people were like, “These guys, there’s something wrong with them.” Yeah, it was like, they’re their own little club- Right. Of silliness. Like weird to a degree. It was inaccessible. And I like, and I really liked, I was like, “Yeah, I’m super into sports and I wanna be the best at all this sports stuff but I wanna be incredibly silly,” and it’s completely unreserved. Like, we were completely unreserved when we were being stupid. And I think we did… That’s the thing that we fully explored in the Book of Mythicality That- Yeah. That we really didn’t talk about as much here. Because those early radio shows and the stuff that we did that was all in elementary school, that was all very early. Yeah. We were doing that stuff at my house with the jam box. Probably not quite as early as we think it was but yeah, yeah. Making those shows. Yeah. But look, I’m probably fifth grade. Fifth grade. Yeah. But so to tie a bow on this, you know that the origin story is at least parts mythology and then the best friends since first grade, it’s like, well, it’s a little more complicated than that. There were some ins and outs and some circumstantial things in the elementary school years but that as we were coming to the elementary school years were coming to a close heading into middle school I think it was… We would both safely say that we were each other’s best friends and it’s been that way ever since. Yeah. But that’s not as clean… Just like I a Link Neal bowl cut right across the forehead as saying best friends since first grade. And you know what? This is a special… It’s kinda like renewing our vows, our best friendship vows, that’s another way to look at this thing. We can have a ceremony. Okay. We’ll put that on the society too. And you know what? There’s another reason this episode is special. That’s right. I’m not gonna give a wreck. This is our last recording with Kiko. Yes. That’s right. Kiko, we’re gonna get a little sentimental with you here, man. Kiko joined us about five years ago and has been working exclusively on Ear Biscuits for about four of those years, right? So been here in the room, he has listened to us talk about so many things and you know what? He has to listen to it when we talk about it now and then he has to listen to it again when he edits it. Yeah. Are you tired of us yet? Is that why you’re leaving? So you got a great job opportunity with Patreon and we fully, we fully bless. Let’s go churchy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re giving you blessings. We’re giving you blessings, Kiko. We’re going to send you over to Patreon and then when you’ve had your way with Patreon- Whoa. We want you to come back- What? Into the fold at anytime you want. Had your way? Yeah. It’s like, that’s not right. I don’t remember anybody saying that in church, at least not from the pulpit. The prodigal Kiko returns. Yeah, we’re… First of all, thanks for everything that you’ve done. You’ve made this podcast what it is in a lot of ways. Yeah. Thank you for protecting us from things that we said that came out wrong that you caught before they went out. Yes. And Patreon is lucky to have you and I know that we will stay in touch. And you know what? It’s been truly inspiring to see you develop professionally- Yeah. And as a person, like, you know, we kind of an honor to know you and to have been a part of your life and to kinda just to see who you are and, you know, we appreciate the things that you’ve said about the impact that we’ve had in this experience has had on you, and we want you to know that it absolutely has gone the other way too. You had a tremendous impact on us and we will never forget it. And we’re not gonna forget you because we’re still gonna be in touch, but thank you for everything that you’ve done to shape this podcast and also to be an inspiration, we’ve learned a lot from you. So thank you. Yeah, thanks, Kiko. We’re not gonna give you a mic, so you can say anything. All right. So we’re… But we’re gonna keep doing this Ear Biscuits, we’re not gonna stop just ’cause you’re leaving, all right. So yeah. Yeah, so- We’ll speak at you next week. Thanks to Kiko. Good luck. We know he is gonna be successful wherever he goes. Yep. #EarBiscuits. To watch more Ear Biscuits click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.