Welcome to “Ear Biscuits”. The podcast where two friends, lifelong. Oh gosh. Talk about life for a long time. I left that word out but I put it in later. I’m Link. Wow and I’m really wanting you to do it again but I’m not going to enforce that, I’m Rhett. This week at The Roundtable. You’re my friend, lifelong man. This week at The Roundtable of Dim Lighting we are picking up on our friendship through the years series. This time we are talking about the high school versions of us and specifically the high school version of our friendship. Because as we were just talking about a second ago we you know, let’s be honest. We’re two friends, comma, lifelong comma. Yeah, I’m with you. Talking about life for a long time. We end up treading through some of the same ground. Like we’ve talked about the way that we were engaging, each of us were engaging with our sexuality through the years in high school. Sure. We’ve talked about how we engaged with our spirituality and now we’re kind of honing in on the. How we’ve engaged with each other. Yeah yeah. And not sexually or spiritually necessarily but just as friends. And so. Lifelong. We might be revisiting some of the same territory but hopefully bringing some new perspective to it and also you did bring some yearbooks I see. Yeah, I ask you to bring yearbooks but it was this morning. I mean it was 7 a.m.. I believe. I thought you had plenty of time to find your yearbooks. Well I’m not gonna, I did look. I have a section. I should’ve told you a week ago. I have a section in my garage that is in need of reorganization. That is, those Rubbermaid boxes and they’re three deep. And two or three high. Oh God, yeah. And it’s up on this thing that I had to get on top of a ladder and stand. I literally have to stand, I did it this morning and I feel, I feel bad about this. This is like a six-foot stepladder and in order to get to the top box, I am standing totally on top of the ladder. Do not do that. Like on the green part at the top. That you’re not, you’re not even supposed to put a foot. I’m putting both feet on that. My business is too tied to yours. Like economically we are too tied together for you to be teetering on top of a ladder. I have excellent balance for a tall person though. You’re 12 foot seven inches above the garage floor, the concrete floor. I thought about asking my wife to hold the ladder but that would’ve required coming back down the ladder, going up to the stairs to the house. The top two steps of a ladder are not steps. Yeah, yeah I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed. They’re to be leaned on. I’m ashamed. And you still came down with nothing. And I still didn’t find any of your books. You have nothing to show for it. ‘Cause I think they’re in the way back. Can I ask you something totally unrelated before we get into this based on something that happened to this morning? It’s very fresh. I love, I love changing subjects. When you go to the bathroom, here at the office, we’re still wearing masks in here. It’s the utmost protection for everybody. Protection. In our studio. So we’re still in mask mode indoors as people are working. When you go to the bathroom. I take my mask off, is that what you’re about to ask me? And do you take your mask off? No. When you, if you poop in the bathroom, do you take your mask off? I mean. Yes or no? No, why would I? So I could smell it more? Well, I. That’s one of the benefits of, I’ve actually, I hate wearing a mask. I’ve established this with my beard, I hate it. I have to comb the beard out. But when I go to the bathroom, I actually think to myself, “This is one scenario where it really.” ‘Cause even when you’re thinking about a virus, it’s not tangible and sometimes you’re like, ah man is this really doing anything? But when I’m in the bathroom and I’m pooping, I’m like, “This mask is doing things for me.” And also doing things for me, to not have to think about who was in here before me and what particles they left in here. If what I’m about to tell you changes your mind, proceed with caution. I have no idea where this is going but it must be that you don’t wear a mask in the bathroom. Yeah, I. Well I don’t like to wear a mask in the bathroom when I’m pooping because. You poop through your mouth. I don’t. It’s a. Boy that’s hilarious. No, I don’t poop through my mouth. You jerk. Well, okay. You jerk. It was a joke. But I do believe that actually is a thing that can happen, poop through the mouth. I don’t want to talk about that. It’s probably on WebMD. I take my mask off when I’m pooping in the bathroom because I don’t want to suck in. I don’t want all this poop stuff to get caught in my mask that then for the rest of the day I am slowly breathing in poopy particles. You’re not breathing it in. It’s on the outside of the mask. It’s in the mask and then some of it gets through the mask. Yeah, where have you read this? What research paper? I haven’t read it anywhere. But that’s what I do okay? I’m almost sure the poop doesn’t make it through the mask. It doesn’t seem like I’m changing your mind but, oh. Whatever happened to Mr? So you’d rather do? Open-minded Rhett? Well I mean. Just be open minded until I’m done with my story okay? I’m close-minded about things I’m right about. Be open minded. No, no. Can you keep your mind open until I’m done with my story? Okay, there’s more okay. I haven’t even told it yet. Okay, all right. I’m ready for more. So I sat down to poop this morning in the bathroom. I sit down and then I look over and I make sure the door is locked and then I realize, you know what? I still have my mask on. I forgot to take my mask off and here I am pooping. Now I don’t want all these poop particles caught in my mask. I want my mask to be. I’m one of those people who like yeah, takes his mask off to sneeze ’cause I don’t want sneeze particles inside of my mask. You sat the mask outside the bathroom? Well exactly. So what I normally do is I put my mask in my back pocket when I’m taking my mask off for stuff, like when we’re filming stuff. So what I did was I took my mask off and then I instinctively started putting it in my back pocket and I almost wiped my ass with my mask. Yeah, this is appropriate. This is how ill-advised your whole scenario is. I never would’ve told you that yeah, I am on the brink of wiping my own ass with my mask. Well I – But I was. I guarantee you. Here I was. This has happened with hundreds if not thousands of people. Not by accident. That makes me feel better. Because think about it. Oh, when you run out of toilet paper? How many people have run out of toilet paper and up to this point in time, most of us didn’t have on masks. Now you’ve got an ass mask. And people are like, “Well I’m gonna go into the bathroom with a mask “and come out without one and have to explain this.” I mean there was TP in there but let me tell you, I came a lot closer than I want to admit. Do you still have this mask? Yes, in my back pocket. So how close did it get to your butt hole? I don’t know, just can you, just tell. Just sniff it. Just sniff it man. But see here’s the problem. Here’s the problem. Didn’t you watch that? I love how you didn’t even want to say no. You just sniffed it. I’m not going to sniff it. Sniff it. Mike Rowe had this, I want to do some podcasts they do this. Have you noticed that? Where they like just sit here with the microphone like this. In fact I’m gonna start doing it. I didn’t actually wipe my ass with my mask. That’s why I’m still using it and it’s fresher. Would you like me to tell you, or I can also tell me ’cause I’m here why your plan is wrong? Nope, that’s not what this is about. Okay. I think, I think. Well then why’d you tell me about it? If you don’t think that it’s obvious, then it doesn’t need to be explained. Well I think maybe even. I think it’s obvious. More important. I almost wiped my ass with a mask. It’s obvious why that was a bad idea. But I also think. I don’t need you to tell me. This is a violation of our work protocol. As the co-owner of our company. Oh. I didn’t want to discuss company policy in this scenario but I will say that the. There’s a vent. Yeah but in the bathroom when you’ve got your pants down, you’re breathing hard and you’re in an enclosed space that someone else is about to come into, this is probably one of the top spaces that you should keep your mask on. And you’re taking your mask off and almost wiping your ass with it? Not anymore man. And you’re like. Not anymore. You own half of this company. I’ll tell you man. We need to adjust the percentages. All of this mask thing, it’s so fresh to me you know? What is it? It’s very old to me. I haven’t quite got, I haven’t quite got the hang of this whole mask thing yet. I think it’s picking up steam though. People wearing masks. The only way that your plan would make sense is if before, just from a personal hygiene standpoint. Not from a company policy ’cause we’ve already established that you violated that. I don’t have COVID. You sound like, you sound like such an idiot. No I’ve taken two tests already today. Yeah, yeah well I understand that. But the only way that your plan makes sense is if you were to take your mask. When I wipe my ass with my mask. Let me finish, damn it. I didn’t sound like an idiot? I just don’t like it when you tell me I sound like an idiot when it’s obvious I sound like an idiot. Oh I’m just, this is for the folks. Don’t state the obvious. This is for the folks at home if he’s not gonna listen to me. The only way this makes sense is to take your mask, put it in your back pocket before you go into the bathroom which by the way, would be a violation of company policy and if you do it outside, everyone would see you do it. So it would be setting, not only that, it would be setting a bad example. Then you go into the bathroom, do your business and then come out. That’s the only way to follow your logic which is to not get poop on your mask. Yeah. But you’re the guy who’s trying to wipe his ass with this mask. So apparently poop on the mask is not something that you’ve, not having poop on the mask is not something you value. It’s a very ironic, what happened. Obviously what should happen is after I’m done pooping, without ever taking my mask off, I should then put on a fresh mask as I exit the restroom. That’s what I’m gonna do from now on, everybody’s happy. Yeah, you figured it out. We didn’t even need to have this discussion. Let’s promote our podcast. Well you know, we actually have a Mythical Pods TikTok account because we have found that you know, sometimes things are said on this podcast and the other three podcasts that we have. “A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich”, “Best Friends Back, Alright!” and “Trevor Talks Too Much”. Yeah. All the Mythical pods, things are said that are interesting and you might be one, just to get a little tidbit of a podcast. And that works really well on TikTok. Just a little. Just a little dingleberry. If you want a dingleberry of a podcast, any of our Mythical podcasts. Follow the @mythicalpods TikTok channel. If you’re just not on TikTok because you’ve you know, you’re like, ah that’s one more platform I don’t want to get on. Well. Get over that. We’ll see you soon. Get over that, please. We’ll see you soon. I mean, I’m just telling you, this is your sign. You know how, when people say that this is your sign. Get on TikTok. My recommendation today is gonna be TikTok. So over the course of listening to the rest of this podcast, I’m gonna recommend a TikTok account so you’ll be ready, it’ll be one of the first ones you can follow. And I’ll add to that. So now we’re just promoting TikTok. Well unfortunately, I don’t remember the guy’s name but there was a guy who made a YouTube video and I think you can look this up. It didn’t have very many views when I watched it. Like literally like three because he had added me on Twitter and that’s why I saw it. But the name of the video on YouTube is “Rhett and Link are holes” and I watched it and it was a funny video where he’s actually a big fan. Oh. Who has been watching since the beginning and has just discovered that we have a TikTok and that we’ve been doing all these old school sketch stuff. Like the old school Rhett and Link days. We’re holes ’cause he didn’t know about it? I mean I kind of, I don’t know what exactly the logic but I think that was just more of a clickbait thing. Okay. So anyway, yeah. This is no longer the ad by the way, we’re back into the show. Right. Because we’re not, you know we’re just telling you to follow Mythical Pods on TikTok and we’re telling you to just get TikTok if you’re saying it’s not for you because I’m gonna recommend something at the end all right? And we’re holes apparently but in a good way. Look at this photo Rhett. Look at these photos of us from high school. Look at that one, describe it. This is your bathroom at your house. Yeah. We’re using a flash camera because that’s covering up your face. Almost completely, the flash. You’re in your letter jacket. Yep. And we are both wearing. I was, I was a star soccer player in high school. We are both wearing beanies which we would have called. Toboggans. Toboggans. Toe-baggans. Well I didn’t say toe-baggan, I said toboggan. You know. That’s ’cause I was born and raised in North Carolina. I moved. I moved to North Carolina at age six. You’ve moved around. And they still have the price tags on them. What does it say on there? I don’t know, I can’t figure that out but we bought these toboggans and we like to take pictures of ourselves. I took one of you. That was a cool jacket, very warm. And then you took one of me. That’s a flattering face. And again, we didn’t take these pictures and then immediately look at them. We took these pictures and then waited, maybe months before we could see them again because we had to finish the roll and then get it developed. We could’ve invented Instagram back then doing pictures like this. Look at this, I mean look at how much fun we had. You and me in my room. Get an index card. Is that an index card? With toboggans on. That’s a napkin with your tongue being pressed through it to make a hole. I’m taking a very point blank closeup picture of you and then you. Outside of the focus range of the camera. You thought it was such a good idea that then you took a picture of me doing the same thing. And then here’s one that’s, it’s tough to take a selfie when you’re you know, when you can’t take a whole bunch of them. So we were having a good time now. Now this is. We were such good friends. This is senior year ’cause you’ve got that jacket. No, I got the jacket after my freshman year. I got my letter jacket as a freshman. Are you 100% sure of this? Yeah, because there was no JV soccer team. Everybody was on the varsity soccer team so I like. They let you get it as a freshman? Well I was on the varsity soccer team. Every varsity player got a letter jacket. Are you jealous or something? Well yeah but I, no. I thought that. I’m 100% positive. That you got it as a freshman? Yes because. It feels like a little bit of a cheat code. It didn’t, I got. Just being honest with you. I played in one game. A game that we won nine to zero. I know this because in the yearbook my mom kept the, she kept the schedule and she wrote down the score and we were in the final four of state playoffs that year. That was the peak of soccer. For Harnett Central High School. When you weren’t playing. When I was on the bench. But I got my, I got my letter jacket and I think that’s what I remember about starting high school and it really had an impact on our friendship. Because you know, we were so nervous. We thought a lot about beginning high school. We were really in that head space when we were writing “The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek”. Because we put our experiences into, into that story. And there was so much expectation. But I actually started playing soccer. We had practice like six weeks before classes began. And I remember being so nervous ’cause it’s like okay, I’m on the soccer team. There’s no tryout, everybody makes it like I said. But still I was nervous because okay, you got these upper classmen. All of a sudden I’m playing soccer with seniors and juniors and I don’t know that many people from Buies Creek who are going over here and playing soccer. You played soccer in middle school because everybody who liked soccer kind of played but then in high school you started to just matriculate so to speak. So soccer for me was my introduction to high school and you didn’t have any part of that. And then that became a part of my identity as a freshman, as a soccer player. But basketball. I will say that. Basketball season hadn’t started. I will say if you don’t remember this is that Coach Randall, was that his name? Brandall. Brandall. Actively, almost to the point of harassment recruited me to be on the soccer team. As the goalie? Yes. Because you could stretch out. Well because I allowed one goal in middle school. One goal. I was trained by, you remember Peter. What was his name? He was this famous Campbell goalie that I think is in like the Campbell Hall of Fame for being a goalie. Peter something. And my dad hired him. Oh really? To come and train me. Oh wow. And I remember being out in the cold and having to learn how to do that thing where you fall on your side and then my dad got me like the equipment. Just lay out, yeah. I got really good. I could do the dropkick you know? And I’m like six, I was already six five going into school. He would actively, aggressively kind of like try to bully me to being on the goalie. It almost worked. He had an abrasive personality. I should’ve done it man. The stories we could’ve had. Coach Brandall was the coolest guy but yeah, you should’ve done it man because well I mean, you were focused on basketball at that point. I was like, “I gotta ready for basketball season.” And man but yeah, Chad. Chad Holly was a senior and he was a really good keeper. He was great. He was a great keeper. He played, and again, that’s one of the reasons we went to the final four. We had a pretty good team but he was a great keeper and yeah he played in college. But you would’ve been groomed, sophomore year you would’ve taken over. Who ended up? Who ended up, I Brian Coleman did, was a goalie for awhile. No no, he was defense. No, yeah he was a sweeper. He could boot it really, really far. He also, he’d do the flip. He could do that thing where you’re throwing in from the sideline and you would get a running start and he would put the ball on the ground, do a flip and then throw it in. Yeah, yeah yeah. And everybody would just be like flabbergasted on the other team and so they would just stop playing. Yeah, it was a great technique. Who was your goalie? Phillip Hatcher became the goalie, remember him? Oh yeah yeah and he was good. He was a glutton for punishment and you kind of have to be. He was fearless. Yeah throwing yourself all in the ground. I think I was a little bit too scared of getting hurt also. Yeah, you gotta throw your body around. Ah I don’t like getting hurt. So of course I mean, we were best friends going into freshman year but like, I had this reconnaissance thing. You were on the cross country team though and you guys started running before. Not freshman year. Oh you weren’t? Not freshman year. So once classes started, I felt like oh I’m wearing my letter jacket. I’m a part of something, I’m getting in where I fit in kind of thing. I’m part of a team. It actually helped kind of kickstart things a little bit. At least I have to think it does. Well my brother was a senior. That helped you. And he was like a popular guy. Was you know one of the stars on the basketball team and so there was this sort of, a little bit of a runway setup for be coming in as another McLaughlin right? And I don’t know. I’ve never, especially at that point in my life. I’ve never been one to like get too nervous about the next stage. I get much more excited about the next stage right? And so, I remember. There was a, before school started that year. There was an athlete, some sort of athlete, I can’t remember what it was. But it was the first event at Harnett Central before school started. Orgy? Yeah it was an orgy, outside. In the tobacco pit where everybody smoked. No, it was just some sort of get together and my brother was going and I was gonna go with him and I just remember thinking a lot about what I was gonna wear and I wore these shorts. And of course I tucked a polo shirt into them. Braided belt? And I had a braided belt that went. Hell yeah. Boy, it got close to the knee. Got close to the knee. Tied into that knot and send it south. And no shoes. I mean no socks. It was very phallic. And loafers. Penny loafers with no socks, wow. But you blended in with that, instead of being very tall and lanky. And I was so tan. You know that like? Sunscreen, we didn’t understand that that was a. Didn’t believe in it. We didn’t think that was a thing that you could do. It was like you don’t need sunscreen unless you have red hair and I don’t have red hair. When you get a tan that becomes your sunscreen. Your sunscreen. Is what we thought. And by the end of the summer, boy you were tan. Oh yeah. You know and you’d show up, I just remember walking into that setting with just so much confidence. Oh you had confidence? Well I mean you know. Yeah, I didn’t have confidence. Going in. Going in as a freshman, six five. You know you’re looking down on everybody. You got a brother who’s already paved the way. You know a lot of people who are gonna be there. You know what I’m saying? You’re good, you’re not going, you’re bringing everyone from your school ’cause we were going. Buies Creek joined Lillington and Angier all together and Lafayette. And Layfayette. All together. So that’s still the minority. And that’s how I looked at you know? No I was like, we’ve got a faction man. We’re at least a quarter of the school. A quarter of the population is a minority Rhett. Yeah that was enough though. But I mean, yeah and it was like, and then all these upper classmen from all of these other places too. You didn’t know them. You really didn’t know a lot of the older Buies Creek people too. So I mean it was definitely an exciting time. I remember there was no commons area in our elementary slash middle school. You know where there was that break and everybody would like, like hum ha around and fiddlefart around. After homeroom. After homeroom. So me being on the soccer team, you were focused on basketball and then the basketball season started. I don’t know, after a couple of months I guess. October. I mean that was. That was a big separation for us that started to, you know we had identities apart from one another in ways that kind of like could get a little cliqueish right? So and I think that was the first time we experienced that as friends. What we discussed before from middle school, it was more, it was more like, well you lived on that side of town. So you had your friends and I was on the other side of town alone. Now it was more of, okay I’ve got my soccer team, I’ve got some friends there. You know, I made friends with Jason from Angier and he would invite me to his house and I was like, “Okay, I’m hanging out with other people.” So our horizons were expanding and our friend group hadn’t yet coalesced beyond what it would become in sophomore junior year. We started to develop a friend group with some Lillington people, some Angier people and a lot of Buies Creek people and we had a pretty tight group there for a couple of years. But I remember freshman year it was, it was kind of this branching out. I didn’t really, I didn’t, that is true but I didn’t see it that way. Yeah, it’s not something we ever talked about. Because I think. It’s more in retrospect. I had definitely had this again, we talked about it. That summer between eighth and ninth grade and you know, going and swimming in the river and this is when we had, at that point definitely our friendship with Ben had really transformed. So that summer going to the river was something that was pretty much me and you. We still hung out with Ben when he felt up to it but he didn’t, there was a lot of times when he didn’t feel up to it and making that phone call and seeing if he was feeling okay, it just created this thing that me and you became this unit. So. Yeah. We talked about what we were going to experience and what we were going to do and of course I was talking a lot about all the women that were gonna be here at this place. If there’s a thousand people, we’re going to this place that’s got that many more women and I saw us as this unit that, I kind of just took that for granted. That like okay well, I’m not going to try to find another best friend or anything you know? It’s like. And I never, I did. I was never threatened. I didn’t think there was anything that was all gonna fall apart at this point. Yeah we were getting, we were definitely getting closer than ever but it was the first time that we had aspects of our high school identity that were completely separate. Like you as a basketball player right? Yeah I mean, there was a little bit of that in middle school. But it began to develop more. But I was friends with everybody on the basketball team. Like in high school I wasn’t friends with anybody on the basketball team. Yeah that’s true. Because it’s all new students and there’s a lot more of them. So you know the ones that you’re kind of hanging out with. Yeah I mean the thing, I started to experience this. Now I kind of understand it as the chameleon-like quality of an Enneagram 3 that I never really understood was a thing until it started looking like in personality evaluations. But that’s a tendency to sort of infiltrate a particular group and be a version of yourself in that group in order to excel in that group. So there was sort of a basketball version of me right which is a totally different set of friends ’cause they’re all on the basketball team and a kind of different way of being. Like that version of Rhett was pretty serious and committed and worried about being good at basketball and kind of thought he was pretty cool because it wasn’t a silly environment. Did you have locker room slang? I don’t remember that but maybe. You were like, “Boy I’m flaming some hoops tonight.” But you know how, you get into a certain environment where, and the basketball team is different than the soccer team right? Because the basketball team is way smaller than the soccer team or way smaller than the football team. There is this sense that you’re like. yeah. Hey, we’re the 12 guys that they chose for this right? There’s just this sense that like you’re kind of in this elite group of guys. And guys especially sort of like embrace that and kind of start to feel like this cool gang. You would wear your uniform to class on the day you were playing right? No no, you wore a suit. Oh that’s right, you wore a suit to school. You had to wear a suit and tie. That was the rule. You had to wear a suit and tie on game day. Oh wow. Yeah. That’s wild. Yeah and that was really once we were on varsity which for me, started sophomore year. Oh okay. But the point I’m making is that there’s this mode. There’s sort of a social code amongst the basketball team where I’m behaving in a different way and as soon as I’m outside of that environment, I’m not that guy anymore. I am silly, class clown Rhett. Yeah. You know which is what I was most of the time and then of course with you, we were, it was a whole different level of silliness. Taking selfies with beanies on. I guess I want to emphasize. Yeah. The embarrassing level of silliness that we were still. I mean we never really stopped but. Yeah. It was just, it was so, so stupid. We acted so stupid. It was fun man. Oh yeah. I mean, when I read through. Once I started looking at these yearbooks and I started reading everybody’s notes, that was. It helped put things back in perspective. First of all, we went to Trinidad after our freshman year of high school on that mission trip because all of our friends, all of our church friends were talking about we were going. The school year had ended and this was like the big thing, we’re going to Trinidad. So that’s when that happened. But every single person called me crazy. Like I was, I guess I was. I’m pleasantly surprised and I’m sure the same goes for you because people would write about me and people would write about us and then our closest friends like Michael and Trent, they would write about me and you. You know it’s like, we were these ringleaders amongst a group of guy friends because we had these, we were super silly, we were super crazy. All the girls just thought we like had, I’m projecting my notes onto you because I know it’s true of you too because I just read these. All the girls just thought in our friend group, just thought we were just crazy. Thank you for making us laugh all the time. That type of thing. And then there were people who were not in our friend group who were on the edge who would say it a little bit differently. Like you were the craziest person I’ve ever met. I have no clue. It’s like we were, we were just. And it was a silliness. It wasn’t like, it wasn’t like Jackass like Johnny Knoxville. Like they’ll, and we would do some daring things but it really was more about just cutting the fool. Like being the butt of the joke if I had to be, that type of thing. Class clowns and us being a unit that would bring other people into it. Like people, our friend group, the way that I can see in the yearbook is that they all fed off of our energy and it’s just something. Sometimes I feel like we’ve developed personas, because we have. It was nice to go back and like, have a 98% agreement amongst notes that we were that way then too you know? We were organizing. We’ve always been about entertaining people and so if you think about the things that we ended up doing. There was this, all right we’ve got this group of people. Let’s figure out, let’s find a way to do something that’s a fun experience. So something as stupid as let’s do that thing where we, in the middle of the summer we’re gonna go to the movies but on the way to movies at Waverly Place. Yeah. We’re gonna turn the heat on. This is North Carolina, it’s 95 degrees at night. 90% humidity, let’s turn the heat all the way up and play heavy metal music really loud. And thrash. And thrash all the way to Cary. Just to see how much you can sweat. And then when you get out of the car it’ll, it’ll feel great. It’ll feel cool. You’ll be sweating your ass off though. Then you’ll stink in the theater. And let’s get our friends to do that with us. As long as we all stink together. Let’s bring more people and we both were like that. Love to bring people into that situation. So I think that this career that we found ourselves in. It’s just instinct. Is about bringing people along for a good time. There’s a lot of notes, freshman year notes about hey this summer. Can I, maybe I can go chase cows with you guys. ‘Cause that’s what we had been doing for a couple of years. Everybody knew that after school, we would go back. Your brother would bring you home, Kevin would take me home and then we would get on our bikes as freshmen. We were still doing that middle school-type stuff where it was like we’re going into the woods. We’re going swimming in the river. We’re gonna chase these cows and then we’re gonna come back the next day and we’re gonna tell everybody about it as if they missed the best thing ever. It’s like, so by the end of the year people were like, “Can I come? “Maybe I can do that?” Well we did. The camping was later. That was like. Well we did eventually bring them along. Yeah. And we told that story about they all ended up crying. Yeah. Several of them did when they almost drowned in the river and it was, that was a bad move. So there was the, yeah but back to your basketball identity thing and my soccer identity thing. Yeah we were starting to branch out but at the same time, those things like chasing cows and spinning, like the default being. If it was when we weren’t practicing, I had soccer practice every day after school. When that was over, then it was basketball but then we would always find time even when like, the reason why we would chase cows during basketball game days is because you weren’t practicing after school I think and so it was our only opportunity to still get out there and get back into the woods. It was kind of like, those people who loved to fish and they carry around their fishing pole and they’re always waiting to like. I see a water hole and I’m gonna go over there and fish. We were kind of that way about getting back into the woods and sophomore year you got your license. We could do that even more. It was closer to junior year I guess. Or the summer after that I got my license but. Right. That overwrote, that time in the woods chasing the cows, the fact that we were unabashedly best friends doing strange things. I think, I mean that was the backbone of our friendship and there was this identity of okay, there’s the two of us and are you in on it or not? And I think that that’s what, that’s what sort of solidified our friendship and solidified it as a unit. Is the fact that okay, if we’ve got this. If one of us has this ridiculous idea to do something, there’s no question whether the other guys are gonna go along with it. Right. So okay I know I’m in to this. Now let’s go and try to get other people on board but we’re bringing this thing to our friends. Like even with the idea to start the band, was yeah it’s like okay. Eric gets a guitar and starts playing it and it’s like his intention in getting a guitar is more like, “I want to learn how to play the guitar.” Maybe get girls. It’s like this is something that I’m interested in doing just personally as a hobby that I want to explore. And then we’re immediately thinking, “Well yeah but we need to start a band.” You know it’s like. Yeah. It’s you’ve got a guitar, we are all friends. That means we should start a band. That just seemed like the logical next thing. It’s like how do you blow this idea, the seed of this idea out into something that is just a big experience? And me and you didn’t, there wasn’t this stopping to convince each other. It was all right, yeah band great idea. Now let’s convince some other people about this. Yeah. That was the kind of mode and I think that getting, doing that without ever having to confer about it is, it’s the reason that we ended up working together. And to see. ‘Cause people are always like, we forget. Two is a majority with any idea. But people forget, we forget the sort of novelty of the depth and length of our friendship but also the fact that oh you’ve been working together for all this time. And how does that work? And how do, explain that to me and it’s like well because there were, there was an unwritten language that was being developed and honed over many, many years. Where there’s a whole lot of other things that normal business partners have to have a conversation about something. They have to work through something. They have to get on the same page about something. I’m not saying we’re always on the same page. We’re very different in some ways and we work through things. We have a lot of conflict and we’ve talked about that in the past but the core of it is something that there’s a lot of unspoken things. And I think that high school, as we sort of broke off from the trio of the two of us and Ben, just because of what was happening circumstantially with Ben. Began to, that began to solidify. I remember freshman year, English class. Kelly Smith, our teacher, she drove a Mitsubishi 3000GT. GT. And she, we’re in the same class but what we gave her, we gave her hell. But she loved us because she thought we were ridiculous. And we were kind of a cutup duo. But we were very engaged with what she was doing and she’s like. She was super cool. You’re gonna do a speech. And we were like, “Okay, wait. “What we’re about to break out for this speech.” Yeah. We’re very participatory in class. We had a section on film. She taught us the rule of thirds. She taught us you know, lots of cinematic principles and then said, “All right guys, you’re gonna divide up.” I think it was two groups, it might have been three. But maybe just two. And you’re gonna make a movie. Who here has a video camera? And you’re like, “Ah I’ve got a video camera.” And Trent was like, “I got a video camera.” And it was like, “Okay so you guys are on different groups.” And then she assigned the groups. I got assigned to Trent’s group, not your group and I was really pissed off about that ’cause I was like, we’ve already, we’ve been. What a missed opportunity. We were making videos in middle school. Miss Smith. We could be showing this, we could be cut into a video right now. We would be so much further along in our careers if she had let us work together in that class. So I was pretty bummed out. I don’t know what your group made but my group made a horror movie like ala Scream involving, let’s see. Like somebody calling from, calling a house but then realizing they were calling from inside the house. Because wasn’t there a thing where you could call your own number and make it ring? Yeah. Can you still do that? I don’t know, I don’t have a landline. You could call and make your, and something about that was like pivotal in the script of like oh my God, he’s in the house. That sounds interesting and compelling. I have no idea what my group did. I think I was more of a cinematographer. I wasn’t as much into it because it wasn’t a comedy and you and I weren’t making it together. But I do remember it being a lot better than your group’s. So I did feel a little vindication. Are you serious? That like maybe, I was like, “Maybe he needs me more than I need him.” Oh you’re rewriting history man. I’m rewriting history. I don’t remember yours being better though. I’m sure. Well I don’t remember what I did but I’m sure was. You don’t remember it at all it wasn’t memorable. I’m sure was a comedy because I used every opportunity that I had to. And I’m sure you took charge, yeah. Because somebody has to. I don’t remember what. You had the camera. But yeah I mean that was pivotal. That was a great class and it was like, we actually started to. That was the first time we started thinking about, oh there’s principles associated with filmmaking. You know ’cause you watch movies, it don’t register with us. So a question that I want to explore but I know we’re gonna read something from the yearbook. So I don’t know which one. Yeah I could. We should do first ’cause I want to talk about the. Okay. Just the aspect of future planning stuff and that dynamic. Well our, let’s see, 1995. So this is 1993, okay. This will play right in to what you wanna talk about. First of all after freshman year, I’m pretty sure we’ve read this one before. Like your note to me. “Link Neal, you have 14 different things going for you.” Well hold on, you didn’t read the. I wrote something in print. Charles Lincoln Smith Johnson Neal the third. Okay. Okay. So you. I was embellishing. I was making fun of how many names you had. Yeah you have 14 different things going for you. Oh thank you, very complimentary. “But I can only mention one, you have soul. “When I say soul, “I’m not talking about the kind of soul “that Veronica Swan said you had. “I don’t remember her saying “I had soul at all or what kind it was. “So I can’t comment on that. “But I’m talking about the kind that run DMC.” DMC or DMC, you just spelt it three different ways talks about it. I think you thought that was funny. Like I would like, what did I do? It was alternate spellings of DMC. Oh and then some phonetic spellings. Phonetic yeah. “If you got the soul then keep the soul. “If you ain’t got the soul, then get the soul. “Fart blossoms only come once a year. “So don’t let them pass by you. “If you try hard, you can catch one in a net. “If you don’t catch one, then buy one. “I’m sure your granddad has plenty.” My grandad Clyde, my papa. He would always call me a fart blossom. Right. And you signed it Rico and then in parentheses you put stupid. Ah. So it was self deprecating. “P.S.,I wanted to do something “that would mess up your yearbook so look down.” And then in a big scrawl you wrote, “Rusty Jernagan.” Which was another guy we went to school with. Yeah. So that was signed as another person very big, obnoxiously. There was nothing meaningful in there. There was nothing heartfelt in there. Oh come on, there’s a lot of heartfelt stuff in that. I mean think, if you gotta read between the lines. I really want you to dig up what I wrote in your yearbook and I’m sure it was equally stupid. Hold on, but I mean yeah I’m trying to crack. It was sweet. I’m trying to crack you up but read between the lines man. There was a connection there. Okay. There’s like 14 different things you got going for you. Yeah, well that was nice. You’ve got soul, that’s the best compliment you got in the whole yearbook probably. Yeah, I still don’t know what you meant by it though. I don’t either, it’s been awhile. And then the fart blossoms part, I have. That’s just silliness. Just prose. That’s just prose, it didn’t rhyme. Let’s see, coming of age, 1995. So sophomore year, I think they gave us our yearbooks way late. Love the graphic design on this. Well the graphic design on the 93 is horrible. Looks like an oil spill. It’s like. Looks like somebody discovered fonts for the first time and was like, “Well, let’s use all of them.” Yeah, not all there. That’s what we were. What does it say on the back? Not all there but here’s the best. But here’s the best. Good God. What does that mean? I mean there’s the, we weren’t on the yearbook committee so we can’t take credit for that non sequitur. Not all there but here’s the best. Coming of age. This is a slightly better one. Yeah this is tasteful. Design-wise. Yeah I wrote on the inside cover. Link Neal will never come of age. That is hilarious man. That’s true. You wrote, “Lunar.” You’ve never called me Lunar, it’s a cute little nickname that ah. Yeah. Starts with an L but you’ve never called me that before or since. That was just for this yearbook. The yearbook was an opportunity for just, to work out new material. Well I was hoping you would come of age and start using it as your moniker. But this gets to kind of your point of ambition. “Lunar, coming soon to a theater near you. “The Judge. “The script is to be written. “The life is to be lived.” Oh. “The day is to come “and we will be there. “You will be there, I will be there. “Let’s get there.” Wow. Rhett. You signed it Rhett. Wow. You know what The Judge is? I don’t know man. I’m sure it’s awesome though. It’s a movie. It’s a movie idea that I think you just made up on the spot for the sake of saying. Well, I didn’t expound on it. The script is to be written, the life is to be lived. Yeah. We’re gonna write a script and then live it? The day is to come. Yeah man. I think it’s gonna write a script and we’re gonna live the life of making the movie. Well so. We will be there. You will be there, I will be there. Let’s get there. Now this is what I wanted to talk thank you about. I love this. Because there is a, you know there is a scene in “The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek” and you may have figured out that Rex and Lief are you know, analogs to Rhett and Link. And. Yeah I did. There’s a scene in, in the book where Rex is like getting Lief to think about something in the future and something that they’re gonna do. I think about how they’re gonna meet. They’re gonna have breakfast with Robert Zemeckis. Yep. And that was in the book because it was very indicative of the very big dreams that I would bring into our friendship and be like, “Come on man, we’re gonna do something amazing.” Oh yeah. And this is what, and this is the plan. We’re gonna, in one point. It was we’re gonna to UNC Asheville. I’m gonna play basketball there because they’ve come to see me play and they’ve written me some letters and so they’re kind of recruiting me. Junior year. And they have a film school or a film minor, I couldn’t remember which one it was. And so hey, we’ll go to UNC at Asheville. I’ll play basketball, we’ll major in film and then we’ll become filmmakers. Yeah. And so the thing I. I was like, “Do they have a soccer program?” No I didn’t, I did not care about soccer. I never again. I never, the way that I thought. I just knew that you were always gonna be into the idea. Right, and so it wasn’t like ever was like, “All right I gotta have this conversation with Link.” It was more just like it went without saying that if I said this kind of thing in your yearbook, even though I’m kind of just screwing around. But like I’m. We were having these discussions. Setting an intention about the future. In the cow pasture, the discussions that led to the blood oath which may. I believe, like I don’t know when we dated the blood oath in the past. This had to be around the same time. But I have to. If I had to put money on it, I think that the blood oath is around, after sophomore year. Sometime in junior year. Because that’s when you’re getting like, that’s when you’re forming this UNC Asheville plan. You’re like, “We’re thinking about our.” You’re thinking about your future. Your parents are thinking about your future. The counselors are telling us to apply to places. That would’ve been between junior and senior year because I wouldn’t have been getting any interest. I got interest. Okay. From them. Well that’s late, that’s late to do the blood oath. No the blood oath was earlier. What I’m saying is that, I’m just saying the UNC Asheville idea because I played AEU basketball and had had a pretty good junior year. So I wasn’t getting college letters after sophomore year. Oh okay. So that was when it was. I think the blood oath could’ve been that late then. It could’ve been. Maybe. Junior, late junior year or summer after junior year. Is that when you did AAU? Summer after or during junior year? I did summer after sophomore and summer after junior. Okay, so in that realm. So we were having this conversation. So then yeah there wasn’t, The Judge is not a specific idea we had. No. But you made it very specific in the yearbook because that was just a choice you made. But it was a reflection of, like deep bloodletting conversations that we were having in that cow pasture. We never stopped going to the cow pasture throughout high school. We’ve been back too. We did not outgrow that. Yeah and if you want us. In Good Mythical Morning, we go back to Buies Creek and we did a three or four episode series where we literally take you to the places that we’re talking about. So check that out. But yeah I mean, you. You orchestrated in your mind this UNC Asheville plan. It was a compromise to like, you know, with your dad thinking about okay, he’s giving you so much opportunity and you’ve capitalized on it when it comes to basketball. Well this pays that off. But it also gets you into a film program which is something that we wanted to do. And then how did I respond to that? I mean you said you knew I would be on board. I mean I think that’s, that’s a dramatic understatement. Because for me, you know, I didn’t even know how to engage in the future. I didn’t know how to make plans. I wasn’t, you know my mom wasn’t having conversations with me about like, hey you can take this thing you’re interested in and turn it into the rest of your life. Like you were having those basketball conversations with your dad you know right? So for me, and that’s just not really the way that I think. But I had this deeply rooted feeling of like, I mean, maybe it’s even attachment to our friendship. You know so it’s like, I’m sure it wasn’t my idea to go to summer camp back when we did that years earlier. But I was like, “Well if Rhett’s gonna go, I’ll go.” I still may hate it and be the one that means we’re not gonna go again. But I, you know we’re hatching these ideas of like, “Okay we can make. “We make videos for presentations. “We are funny, we’re a duo.” Like that was our biggest identity in high school above these other things we’re talking about. So for me, without knowing the application of it I was just like, this is. I’m comfortable in this friendship. I have, I have hopes. I don’t know that I had my own dreams. I had my own hopes. So I kind of felt like when you brought the dream and attached it to, like my hope immediately paid off. So it was like this huge relief. I felt like as much as you practice basketball with your special shoes and your blocks and like, we couldn’t go and swim in the river until you had shot 100 basketball shots. Maybe 300. Like I would go over to your house and just sit in your yard and just be like, “What the hell man?” Yeah. It’s like hurry up dude. It was just like, I was just waiting on you to get done so we could go chase cows. So that dynamic was a play on the macro scale too of like, who am I to say, hey yeah let’s, let’s hatch a plan to be filmmakers. You know, I’ve felt like I was at the mercy of like, this basketball plan. So when you start saying things like, we can do this. We can do, I can do both so that we can do this and if I, because that’s what I really want to do. We need to do something. It’s like you know, making a blood oath for me was such a validation of my hopes and it was like, oh this is official. Rhett actually prioritizes what we can do together over this basketball thing. Because you know, leading up to that for years it wasn’t like, we didn’t have those type of conversations about everything you know? It wasn’t, I’m sure there were many times where there were like question marks and it was like, well I’m not gonna push this. I’m also not one to like have specific futuristic dreams. So once you made it official with the oath and then once you start making these plans. I’m like, yes, yes, yes. It was like a relief to me. Because it’s just something that I was hoping that would come together but I couldn’t push. And then when you come back and you’re like, you know, once you realize that’s not gonna happen you know? And the reason that, and you know what happened. We got very serious about the band that summer. That was when. After junior year. Yeah, so that was when you know, towards the second half of junior year and the summer before senior year is when you’re kind of in that timeframe is when our music went from singing like country covers, two lead singers with cowboy hats and white t-shirts and jeans to like, I’m gonna actually. I’m gonna get a guitar, I’m gonna learn how to play guitar and write music. Because I feel like we need to take this in a certain direction. We don’t need to be playing other people’s songs. We need to be writing our own music. Yeah. And I mean I always tell that story, like I was embarrassed that we had two lead singers and so I started playing guitar. That’s the joke version. The real version is is I was like, we need to write our own music. You know listen, if we’re gonna be a band we need to be defining some kind of style or something right? And it doesn’t need to be The Eagles. Right and so. Which is what Benny had written in the 70s. And again I am, if I’m really good at anything it’s drinking my own Kool-Aid right? It’s like I am great at making and drinking my own Kool-Aid. That’s kind of what propels me. I think I like it too apparently. My gasoline is my Kool-Aid and so once we start writing music, by the time basketball season rolls around, I specifically remember thinking, “Okay I’m gonna do this because you know, “I have gotten to this point “and I’ve done all this work for basketball.” I’m gonna try to some extent but, I’m not gonna play college basketball. I had made a decision before I even started playing my senior year that I wasn’t gonna play college basketball. I wasn’t telling my dad that but I was kind of like, “I’m gonna do well and I’m gonna shoot “a hell of a lot of threes. “But my future is as a rock musician.” You know what I’m saying? That’s what I was thinking. Yeah we were both so aligned. We were both so committed to the band that it was, and it was much more real right then than being filmmakers. Right. So it eclipsed it. And it wasn’t like, oh we’ll never make videos again. But it was like, right now the thing we’re trying to break into is this music industry and specifically the Christian music industry at the time in a very particular time and place. So that’s why that dream went away. So I’m actually interested to see what, I don’t know if. Well. If this has anything, the 96 yearbook. Our senior year. Has anything to do with that. Yeah like the thing that I’ve found here is the senior, what’s it called? Like your last words as a senior. Your senior quote. Senior quote, that’s what it’s called. Now I would’ve, I’m not gonna. I’m gonna guess that what I would say in this situation and what you would say in this situation wasn’t actually true. But was more about what are people going to think when they read this? Are they going to laugh? Are they going to think that we’re weird or? It was more about how people would perceive it. That’s how I would’ve approached this. So that’s what I’m guessing going in. Yeah this is a public statement so it has to be stupid. This is not a personal mission statement. “I Rhett McLaughlin leave at the speed of a plunge “from the 75-foot plunge cliff with a pod at my side. “Get ’em Dogz.” With a Z. So do you want to, let me read mine and then we can decide for both of them. Let’s see. “I, Link Neal leave with the boys pondering the pod. “Acapulco, wax paper dogs and various excursions.” We mentioned all exactly the same things. “Knowing Harnett Central High School “will catastrophically crumble in our absence.” Catastrophically crumble in our absence. Ah that’s funny. Which by the way, that phrase, knowing that it will catastrophically crumble in our absence is totally something that my son would write in his yearbook. It’s just like this fake bravado that he just, I don’t know. That’s his sense of humor. Which son? Lincoln. Not Lando. So Lake Acapulco was a lake in Lillington that was an old rock quarry that had been, where we would, you would break in and you would jump the fence and you would jump off of the cliff which was actually probably 35 feet. It was very tall but it wasn’t 70 foot. It’s taller from the top. It wasn’t 75 feet but it probably 35 feet. It was enough to, if you didn’t land right you’d get hurt. Yeah so that’s what you called the plunge cliff and I called Acapulco. Yeah. Yeah ’cause by senior year that was the thing that we were, we were instigating groups going, jumping the fence. And hopefully there would be a full moon so you could see. But I mean it was scary jumping off of this cliff because it was a swimming hole. A lot of military people would come up from Fort Bragg and swim there and get drunk and some of them would jump off and a few people died. Yeah. So they closed it down and it was never open, day or night. It was abandoned. I would love to go by there. I know, it’s so close to my nana’s house. But yeah, jumping off of that cliff in the dark was petrifying and if you hit wrong, you could really get hurt and we, we talked to all of our friends to. Boys and girls to jump off of that thing. It was terrifying. It was very. So it became this rite of passage and of course, we were the instigators. And then everybody did it because we made them do it. Well there’s a peer pressure you know? Everyone gets a really hard time if they don’t do it. Yeah it wasn’t just us but it was our idea. So yeah we, I mean, I guess senior year. That was like the big thing that we were getting people to do. So you were leaving at the speed of a plunge off of the Lake Acapulco cliff with the pod at my side. So that was the camping pod. That was the group of guys and occasionally girls who would camp by the river. We were very proud of that group. Right. We started letting them come out and chase the cows with us at night and camp with us. It wouldn’t just be the two of us, it’d be a group of us. That was fun. I mean the fact that we didn’t go out there and drink. I think most people probably expected that that was gonna happen. They expected but like. So no, we’re gonna like, might drink some Coke. That’s not what we do. Yeah if it was, if some of our other friends were in charge, then they would have, then we’d have been drinking. I’ll tell you, that would’ve been fun. It could’ve been really dangerous though. Yeah. Especially crossing the river. So I mean I’m glad we didn’t for our own safety but yeah because we were in charge we got to set the rules and we were very pious because again, the third piece of this when you’re like, “Get ’em Dogz.” It’s like the wax paper dogs was the biggest thing on our mind. It wasn’t like you’re gonna see my film. We didn’t put that, neither one of us put that and we put the same thing. We had really, we really developed our group of guy friends and then our group of guy and girl friends. There was like. And so the message I wrote to you is not compelling here? No, actually I don’t, there’s not one. What? You did not write in my senior yearbook. How is that possible? I don’t know man, I don’t know. Maybe it was just too pure. Yeah you didn’t write in it, I’ll look again. I mean surely I did somewhere. My girlfriend. Whoa, that’s tiny font man. Well she wrote a lot, yeah. I had learnt from this that we’d been dating for three months at the, when I graduated. That’s really late to start a relationship. Yeah, you should’ve thought twice about that. I didn’t, you know. So that’s what. That’s why it was like, it lasted through freshman year because it had just started senior year. Yeah. Like I came back and went to prom with her. Oh you did that. Yes. Oh college boy coming to prom. Because she was a junior. Yeah. Like when I was a senior, she was a sophomore so like. So yeah that. That was a bit more acceptable at the time. Just to throw that out there. We’re all very old. Well I didn’t. Wow and here’s my good friend who was my girlfriend and then my enemy. Why did she stop? She was leaving room for somebody else to write something. I guess. Maybe me. No you didn’t, you did not. Go to the front. You did not write in my yearbook. Maybe I wrote in the front. No no no no, you didn’t. That’s it. What, this is sad. You’ll have to see if I wrote in yours dude. But yeah so it’s not that big of a deal. Well I mean I guess it can’t be ’cause I didn’t have it. Maybe I’ll write in it now. But we, you know we had this group of friends. First of all, talk about the prom. You know we have that iconic prom photo in my girlfriend’s front yard where we’re shaking hands and we got the one leg lifted in the air. Well I found these photos I took before we went to my girlfriend’s house. My mom took pictures of just me and you in my kitchen and boy we’re. I mean we’re doing the pointy fingers. We’re going to the prom. I got tails. But not together. We do have dates. Working your tails. Oh it’s me, you and the fridge. Oh. Me and you thinking about how much fun the prom is gonna be. This is just us getting ready for meet and greets in the future. We had to come up with different ways to pose. And here we, here we are shaking hands but we did not lift the leg. This is the precursor to the leg lift and then there we are. Just kind of styling a wide shot. Total side note here, when I started looking back through these photos, I was like, “Oh man, I remember my kitchen.” You know it’s like, the photo. My momma’s taking a photo of us but I’m just looking around that kitchen. It’s like you never just take photos of your childhood kitchen thinking when you’re a middle-aged man it will trigger so many memories. Like look at, I remember that thin pantry. I still haven’t done the thing that. You know I talked about this a couple years ago. Taking that 360-degree camera. I know, we need to do it. And taking pictures of the inside of the house so my kids will always remember what their rooms would look like. But I gotta do that before Locke goes off to college. But if you look at, this is when we were at the graduation party. At the Maranatha Cafe and you just look at all these, all of our friends and like, you know, a lot. A couple of them were dating. I dated, you know some of us had dated each other and then broke up and still stayed friends and like, I miss these people man. The last time we had a reunion I wasn’t able to go ’cause there was a hurricane. Yeah I that. It’s like you go back home and like, we really had a special friend group where it was like, some of them put up with our piety. All of them put up with our craziness and they were, a lot of them were along for the ride with our crazy ideas. Like we’re gonna cross this river with everything we got in trash bags. And if you get swept down the river, we’ll come get you. Just go to that bank, not back where you came. Because then you’ll have to cross again. That was the instructions. And keep your feet in front of you so you don’t die. They were petrified. They weren’t getting them jumping off cliffs but like going over there and camping. You’re just staring at this photo like, are the memories flooding back or something? I’m just looking at everybody. I mean and to think about, we are younger than Lily is now. We’re younger than Locke is now. And I just think, I remember. Well this is almost the exact. Same age as Locke. This is the same age as Locke, yeah. And almost the same age as Lincoln right now and I just think. I remember thinking about how much I had figured out you know? Really? I just thought we were like, I thought I was a fully functional human. I was not. Well yeah, I mean to say the least yeah. Yeah I don’t know exactly what I’m thinking. But we had a good group of friends. Because you know, yeah. I’m very, in trying to relate this to the dynamic of our friendship. It was such an interesting thing because we were so, we felt like there was. And there was. There was something special between the two of us that sort of eclipsed any other connection we had with other people and that had been, that had begun to solidify because of the dynamic that I talked about earlier about just kind of being on the same team conceptually in the way that we wanted to approach life and deal with things. And then for whatever reason, and we explore this in a different episode. But we got so serious about our faith and everything became about the Great Commission. It was like our lives are gonna be about the Great Commission. Yeah we’re gonna be in a band but that is superseded by this idea that we’re doing it all for the glory of God. And because none of the other guys in the group were like, “Okay, I’m gonna go along with that.” I mean of course the guys in the band did but they were in different grades. They were, we were friends with them through the band. We just had this double whammy connection because there was a conceptual sort of stylistic connection. Yeah yeah yeah. But then there was the worldview connection. Me and you yeah. So wrapping up high school and getting ready to go into college, there was just this, and again, this wasn’t anything we processed. You can only kind of see this looking back. There was a very unusual connection that we were then taking into college. ‘Cause we were also like, “Oh we’re gonna go to college and room together “and study the same thing essentially.” Oh yeah. Ah we’re gonna get, to me there’s this thing with twins right? And you’ve got different types of twins. But you’ve got the twins who get to the end of their high school and they begin making decisions about college and they’re like, “Well of course we’re gonna go to the same school “and we’re gonna have the same.” We knew twins like that. We knew twins that you kind of experienced in college. But in twins, eventually, sometimes they make a choice. Sometimes they don’t. I mean there is a, thanks to the internet I know about a set of twins that married a set of twins and they all live together. It happens I guess. Interesting possibilities there. But even for twins that was a point, that’s a point where it could be a point of separation. That was never on the table for us. Right, yeah. It was like basically, I was gonna go to college wherever you were gonna go to college. If basketball was a determining factor. Right. And then when it just became about well you’re good at math and you’re good at science. So you should go into engineering and that’s true of both of us. Yeah. And Michael Jhube’s parents took us to visit State’s campus and we were close with Michael. Yep. And Trent was going to NC State. Michael was going to NC State. So it was like, and they were part of our pod. Don, he was going to NC State. Nobody else from our friend group was going to NC State. But most of the dudes, so yeah. Five of us. Yeah. So I’m actually surprised. No, no Don went to DCU. I think he thought he was going to State and then maybe he switched up. I think that’s what happened ’cause he wrote a note in my yearbook about going to State together. Okay. But I’m actually surprised that we didn’t stay closer with Trent and Michael but they were on the other side of campus. And of course, we’re not gonna get into college. Yeah yeah. If we keep this series going and maybe we should. We always think we’ve told all these stories but looking at it through the lens of our friendship, I think it is a different dynamic there. So it’s like, we were bringing that, this twin energy I guess to follow your logic here into our college career. And, but yeah. Looking back on high school. It was, we had all these different ways that we were. I mean we didn’t even talk about the church aspect of it. But yeah that’s kind of what the band grew out of. Right. So there’s so many different identity defining elements of our high school career that then were all pretty rewarding. And our friendship group was also a big part of that. I think that’s my takeaway is that like, feeling a little sappy about the friends we had back then. We had a good friend group. You know and, and whenever we did. Not everybody has that. Not everybody has that. When I read the notes it’s like to me, it’s like man you were so crazy. Thanks for bringing so much to our friend group and to our friendship. We weren’t always on the best terms but we always came back together as friends. Yeah. I still love you. All of the girls at some point, there must have been a thing because most of them ended up saying to me. You had a way of crossing all of them. Blah blah blah blah blah, but I still love you. You know? Yeah, well that’s not surprising. I’m sure in their own way, all Mythical team members can feel the same way even now. Yeah exactly. Like ask Stevie, she’s like, “Ugh yeah Link but I still love him.” I think is how a lot of people feel. You gotta dig up your yearbooks man. I’ll find them. Don’t stand on the top ladder. I’ll find them. I need to get a robot to help me. So do you have a rec? Oh yeah, let’s go to the rec. TikTok, I recommend following ThisIsRangerKeith. Have you seen this guy? No. He goes out into the woods and it’s almost meditative. And he’s like. Hey, get out of your head. Are you doing your best? And are you being reasonable? Oh that’s not the one I want to show you. Hey, it’s Ranger Keith. I’m out birding this morning and I thought you might wanna take a minute to just wind down a little bit. We’re just gonna sit and listen and be present. If you don’t know your bird calls, that’s okay. I’ll just tell you what they are as we go. Pssht, oh there was a blue-gray gnatcatcher. Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger down the hill. It’s a Carolina wren. Carolina wren. Northern parula we just got here. Northern parula just got here. Carolina wren again. Carolina wren again. Northern parula again. Northern parula again. Peter peter peter. Peter peter. Tufted titmouse. Tufted titmouse. Angry squirrel. All right, I’ll see you later. There you go. Well I’m mesmerized. This is Ranger Keith. Is he in North Carolina? I love you man, I don’t know where he is. He’s with birds. Well I mean. Tufted titmouse. I guess the Carolina wren can migrate elsewhere but. I love a tuft titmouse. Not titmouse, whatever it is. I don’t know. Well he’s a very peaceful man. Yeah, that’s what you get on TikTok if you want it. Anything you want, yes. Anything you want. It’s not dancing. I mean it is dancing teenagers but none of those come up in my For You page so. #EarBiscuits, thanks for experiencing our friendship with us again. Yes. 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.