Speaker 1: Everybody, Bill Courtney, welcome to the shop. Welcome in, Alex,
Speaker 1: How you doing? That's so weak? That was like my
Speaker 1: little kids doing it. The other day it was George excep.
Speaker 2: If you're a grow.
Speaker 1: George, I I'm a grown up beer there, Welcome in?
Speaker 1: How do you like? It didn't get better?
Speaker 2: Do anythink I should believe that's where I heard?
Speaker 1: We just said I want George back. Okay, Hey, George
Speaker 1: is awesome. All right? Shop Talk number fifty one on
Speaker 1: becoming a junk man. Charlotte Dance, a listener sent us
Speaker 1: a really cool email, and I think it's worth talking
Speaker 1: about right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome back to shop Talk. Charlotte Dance is a listener,
Speaker 1: and I will read this to you, and the topic
Speaker 1: is on being a junk man Dance. I listened to
Speaker 1: the podcast about the Whistler today. I loved it. Chris Olman,
Speaker 1: Chris Olman, the whistle the.
Speaker 2: Goat Whistler is Chris Vernon Golden Yeah.
Speaker 1: I listened to the podcast about the Whistler day. I
Speaker 1: loved it. It made me miss my dad. Although he
Speaker 1: didn't really sing. He loved a whistle, and I always
Speaker 1: wanted to whistle like he did. Ten years ago I
Speaker 1: wrote this essay about my dad being a junk man.
Speaker 1: I think you could do a shop talk on being
Speaker 1: a junk man. So here we go. My dad is
Speaker 1: a junk man. This is not an occupation that is
Speaker 1: a life goal for many people. He chose to be
Speaker 1: a junk man in every area of his life. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that growing up on a farm during the Great
Speaker 1: Depression played a big part in directing his life. True
Speaker 1: junk men have to find great value in junk or
Speaker 1: they can't survive in the business. My dad has excelled
Speaker 1: in finding value in junk. Where everyone else saw junk, Sorry,
Speaker 1: where everyone else saw junk, Dad saw physics lab equipment.
Speaker 1: He used old bicycle tires to make gyroscopes and axle
Speaker 1: helped students to learn the pulls of centrifugal force, and
Speaker 1: even an old vacuum cleaner to make an air table
Speaker 1: to teach frictionless motion. Where everyone else saw junk, Dad
Speaker 1: saw an addition to our house so our family of
Speaker 1: six didn't have to live in a two bedroom house. Windows, doors,
Speaker 1: and lumber were all salvaged from houses being torn down
Speaker 1: Where everyone else saw junk, Dad saw a solar greenhouse.
Speaker 1: He researched it and then made it for two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars plus lots of reclaimed parts. It's been working consistently
Speaker 1: for thirty years now. Where everyone else saw junk meat,
Speaker 1: Dad saw venison that could be made into sausage and
Speaker 1: jerky and feed many people. It all starts when our
Speaker 1: pastor gave us an antelope meat for our dog. Because
Speaker 1: they couldn't even eat it in chili, he gave them
Speaker 1: back sausage he made from it. They couldn't believe it
Speaker 1: was the same meat, junk meat. Where everyone would say
Speaker 1: that things in his past were junk, Dad used them
Speaker 1: to make a difference for his family. His father was
Speaker 1: extremely harsh and always used Dad's name and anger. Granddad
Speaker 1: wouldn't have anything to do with him and didn't come
Speaker 1: to his wedding. Dad decided that if he didn't forgive
Speaker 1: his father, he would never be able to have a
Speaker 1: good relationship with his children. He forgave him and worked
Speaker 1: on making peace between them. Not only does he have
Speaker 1: a good relationship with his biological children, he has had
Speaker 1: others adopt him as their father. Where everyone would say
Speaker 1: that a young boy could be annoying and was a
Speaker 1: slow learner. Dad saw someone who was interested in everything
Speaker 1: he did. This boy followed him as he worked on rentals.
Speaker 1: Butchered set up science labs and worked on object lessons.
Speaker 1: His family split up and moved away, but he remembered
Speaker 1: those afternoons with my dad. He became a butcher, bought
Speaker 1: a rental, and put himself through an engineering school. He
Speaker 1: even went to law school. He came back to visit
Speaker 1: saying I still use your abject lessons. Where everyone saw
Speaker 1: a man with wasted life in prison, Dad saw an
Speaker 1: opportunity to serve. He visited a man in prison for
Speaker 1: six years and saw him growing to a man of
Speaker 1: God after his sentence was over. Dad was the best
Speaker 1: man in his wedding. Now this man is fixing junk
Speaker 1: in the lives of juvenile offenders and helping them change
Speaker 1: their future. Where everyone else would see junk in their
Speaker 1: own lives, he saw an opportunity to serve or to listen.
Speaker 1: With insurance payment for roof damage didn't cover the cost
Speaker 1: of shingles for an elderly woman's roof, he not only
Speaker 1: did the roofing, but paid for the the rest of
Speaker 1: the shingles. One man went through many rough times and
Speaker 1: Dad listened to him through all of it. He said,
Speaker 1: he has to talk through everything before he knows exactly
Speaker 1: what to do. Never once did he complain about the
Speaker 1: time or effort it took. Where everyone would say it
Speaker 1: is a hopeless case of junk. Dad didn't give up.
Speaker 1: He prayed for his sister for twenty eight years. His
Speaker 1: brother in law told him to never talk about God again.
Speaker 1: He didn't talk, but he prayed and he lived it.
Speaker 1: His nephew's nieceus came to Christ, then his sister, and
Speaker 1: finally his brother in law. Recently, he counted forty people
Speaker 1: on his side of the family that were believers. He
Speaker 1: was the first where everyone would see junk that all
Speaker 1: we go through. Dad saw an opportunity to prepare several
Speaker 1: years ago. He felt strongly impressed that he should prepare
Speaker 1: to die. He was in good health, but he wanted
Speaker 1: to have things ready. He bought cemetery plots in a gravestone. However,
Speaker 1: his most important thing was to find people to pray
Speaker 1: for his great grandchildren. Shortly after this, I was mourning
Speaker 1: the loss of my friends in a canoe accident, and
Speaker 1: I need something constructive to do. When I talk to Dad,
Speaker 1: he suggested that I find people to pray for their grandchildren.
Speaker 1: It has been an honor and privilege to do that.
Speaker 1: I may not want my yard filled with recrming lumber
Speaker 1: and other various treasures, but I think I want to
Speaker 1: be a junk man, just like Dad. Looking past the
Speaker 1: junken scars in people's live lives and seeing the treasure
Speaker 1: that they truly are. Seems like a awful lot of
Speaker 1: Army members are junk men. Thanks for having a great show, Charlotte.
Speaker 1: Dance Charlotte. If my children speak about me one day
Speaker 1: with twenty five percent of the reverence you speak about
Speaker 1: your father, I will rest a very proud man. That
Speaker 1: is a phenomenal tribute to your dad, and can certainly
Speaker 1: see why you wrote it. There's a lesson there too.
Speaker 1: The junk the homeless, the foster children who were aged
Speaker 1: out of foster care at nineteen or twenty and are
Speaker 1: living destructive lives. The kid who has never read a
Speaker 1: lullaby or saying a lullaby or read a bedtime story,
Speaker 1: who can't read on grade level now in seventh grade.
Speaker 1: Who we know because he's not reading on grade level
Speaker 1: by third grade, is more likely to be in prison
Speaker 1: than he is to have a job one day. The
Speaker 1: junk that your dad saw opportunity in is exactly what
Speaker 1: the call to an army in normal folks is is
Speaker 1: to see the junk and use it, see the junk
Speaker 1: and fix it. You're right a lot of the members
Speaker 1: of the army of normal folks that we highlight our
Speaker 1: junk people. But the call and the inspiration is is
Speaker 1: that you listeners out there see the value in the junk.
Speaker 1: The power of an army of normal folks is that
Speaker 1: is that we see areas of need and fill it,
Speaker 1: which is effectively, as Charlotte points out, being a junk man.
Speaker 1: So my question is, and maybe even my challenge is
Speaker 1: when's the last time you drove by, pasted a polla
Speaker 1: junk and thought, man, somebody had to clean something up,
Speaker 1: but kept on going instead of getting down to your
Speaker 1: car and cleaning up yourself. We are surrounded by junk,
Speaker 1: and the cleanup is not going to happen by a
Speaker 1: city crew coming, buying a tax paid for a truck
Speaker 1: and throwing it in the back and dumping in the garbage.
Speaker 1: It's going to happen by an army and normal folks.
Speaker 1: Of course, all of that is metaphorical, but I think
Speaker 1: you get what I'm saying. Alex, she gonni id is
Speaker 1: some junk.
Speaker 2: So I forgot to include this in your prep. She
Speaker 2: actually wrote it before her dad died, and then she
Speaker 2: read it at his funeral.
Speaker 1: Wow is that cool? I bet there were I bet
Speaker 1: there was was a dry in the place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of junk thoughts. I mean, one thing
Speaker 2: Christ says is I didn't come to heal the healthy, right,
Speaker 2: I came here to heal the sick. And that's why
Speaker 2: I was thinking out with tax collectors and prostitutes. You
Speaker 2: when people challenge them on that and then like an
Speaker 2: interesting business case for this too, or even just take
Speaker 2: the army case first, Right, That's actually where a lot
Speaker 2: of the fun is. Like you're grunning to grow something, right,
Speaker 2: from from nothing into something you know, significant. That's that's
Speaker 2: a lot more fun. I bet Charlotte's dad had a
Speaker 2: blast making a what was it a solar garden or
Speaker 2: something out of a bunch of johnt I mean, can
Speaker 2: you imagine the satisfaction he felt growing stuff for thirty years?
Speaker 2: Out of something people left on the curb. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: that metaphorically is the satisfaction you can feel by seeing
Speaker 2: junk in your life and fixing.
Speaker 1: It and then like a bit.
Speaker 2: I mean, this isn't so normal, but I think people
Speaker 2: can do it in a more normal way. There's a
Speaker 2: guy who once interviewed who basically had a bunch of
Speaker 2: energy exploration projects, but there were a bunch of things
Speaker 2: that Exon Mobil was trying to get rid of, like
Speaker 2: it wasn't interesting enough for Exon Mobile, and so he
Speaker 2: collected a munch of these things, built up the business,
Speaker 2: and he made five hundred million dollars when he sold
Speaker 2: it one day. But it's an interesting case, like there's
Speaker 2: a lot of things out there that aren't interesting enough
Speaker 2: to the big players, but for you, you can actually
Speaker 2: build a really interesting business off it. Obviously you don't
Speaker 2: have to sell for five hundred million, even if you
Speaker 2: you know, make a one hundred thousand, you make five
Speaker 2: hundred thousand, you make a million whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: It's actually a really interesting business thing to think about too.
Speaker 2: What does everybody else see as junk that actually could
Speaker 2: be an opportunity.
Speaker 1: Which could be a business. It could be in society,
Speaker 1: it could be wherever. Yeah, Charlotte Dance. That is an
Speaker 1: incredible tribute to your father and it is a beautiful
Speaker 1: illustration of exactly what we're talking about. And I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how much we appreciate you sharing it. If
Speaker 1: you have any ideas for shop talk, would you please
Speaker 1: Emily Bill at normal folks dot Us. I'll always respond
Speaker 1: and hopefully like Charlotte stuff here, we we can comment
Speaker 1: it because we think others will want to hear the.
Speaker 2: Story and beautiful pieces of writing like this if anybody
Speaker 2: else has Actually, that's a good idea of letters you're
Speaker 2: read like World War two letters and that's letters like
Speaker 2: the writing back in the day is I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: it'd be real selling beautiful today. Send it to us too,
Speaker 2: But especially back in the day, all those kind of
Speaker 2: love letters were so much better than the way we
Speaker 2: text each other's.
Speaker 1: So it's so true. I think it's a lost start.
Speaker 1: Send us, send us that stuff. If you enjoyed the episode,
Speaker 1: rate review it, join the army at normal folks dot us, subscribe,
Speaker 1: become a premium member there and what else you goofed
Speaker 1: it up? Again?
Speaker 2: You can't subscribe on the website. But it's okay.
Speaker 1: Whatever you do, just people know you're a goofball. Then
Speaker 1: now follow us, you know, listen, tell people about us,
Speaker 1: and help us grow the army because the more members,
Speaker 1: the more impact we can have. That's shop TALP number
Speaker 1: fifty one. Is that it.
Speaker 2: I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.