WE GOT HIGH & the 10 Year Chapter Closes

[00:00:00] Maybe you know what a zombie is. When a person dies and is buried, it seems a certain voodoo priest who have the power to bring him back to life. How horrible. It's worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring. You mean like Democrats?

[00:00:34] Some things you just know, right? That is not an AI clip. That is a clip from days long past. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess, PBN family. What had to happen yesterday is you didn't hear from me. You didn't hear a peep out of the Prepper Broadcasting Network on a Monday. That's very rare.

[00:00:55] That is... I don't know. I don't know when the last time something like that has happened. Not a peep. There was not one thing posted Monday on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. Because I had to get high, you know? Every so often you just have to get high. You just have to get high. And I took my son to get high as well. You know? So my son and I, we got high yesterday and that's why there was nothing on PBN.

[00:01:26] What? And what I mean, of course, is that elevation. We had to get high in elevation. We had to get up there. Years ago, I never really saw mountains until I moved to Virginia. I never really... And, you know, you West Coasters will laugh at the Appalachians, the ancient mountain range. The ancient and eroded mountain range of the Appalachians. Though it's, you know, mind-bendingly beautiful up there.

[00:01:55] But I remember driving past Charlottesville through Waynesboro and just seeing sort of the spectacle of what, you know, these peaks are. And it just blew my mind forever. It was like finding a place you... And it has the same effect on my son. It's so cool to see. But it's like finding some place you were either meant to be or had been in a past life. You know, it's like returning to Vinland. I doubt you get the reference.

[00:02:24] But that's what it's like. It's like that. It's like... It was always felt like some sort of... Just felt like it belonged in my life. Those mountains, right? I don't think... Side note. I don't think there's a single person on the road in Richmond, Virginia that can drive or has driven a vehicle yet today. They're in their cars and they're doing things I've never seen people in cars do before.

[00:02:52] But after I found sort of the majesty of the mountain, I called a buddy and was like, Hey, we should go camp up in the Appalachians, man. It's really beautiful. And we went up there and he got hung up at work or something like that. I was making a tortellini with Italian sausage waiting for him to come on the campfire. And he's an Italian guy. He loves it.

[00:03:15] But anyway, I sat there and I scrawled down a very short poem that actually showed up in Darker Trails called Get High. And it just... I don't know. It was just... This is probably... I think my son was about one or two years old. He's now 15. So it was a little ways ago. But I remember sitting up there, you know, at that high elevation. We were at Big Meadows, I'm pretty sure. And... Yeah, I remember writing that. Calling from tree to tree. Something along those lines, you know.

[00:03:46] But it was like... It's like that. It has that effect on you, you know. For those of you who imbibe. Getting up high. In elevation, it's a special thing, man. It's nice. If you're a valley dweller down here like me. You get up there in those higher elevations and you see things. Oh, man. It's nice. So we spent the day yesterday. Carter and I. Bombing around Skyline Drive. Up the Hawksbill. Our goal was to get up to the highest peak.

[00:04:15] Because he's really been into rock climbing a lot lately. And mountain climbing and that kind of stuff. And I said, well, let's go to the highest point we can go in Virginia. Why not? You'd knock that off the list, right? For you. And we went up there. And it looked like Hurricane Isaiah was still up there. It was so crazy up that high. Winds and howling and rain. I saw the craziest thing. I was sitting there. Staring off the cliff.

[00:04:44] Into nothing but mist. The visual. I mean, the visibility was probably. If it was 10 yards off the cliff, I'd be surprised, right? And I'm sitting there just looking over the cliff. I told him, let's wait. Let's wait till about 930. Because the wind was clearly blowing up the mountain as the heat was rising. And maybe the weather would lift, right? I'm sitting there, man. And all of a sudden, this bird.

[00:05:14] Some kind of bird of prey. Comes flying up backwards. Its wings are tucked. And it's riding the jet stream backwards up the mountain. It's like in reverse. It's coming up in reverse. And then it launches left off the same sort of energy. I don't know. It was amazing to see. But what was great, man. I'll tell you what was really great. Oh, look at these folks. They did a great job with their Halloween decorations.

[00:05:45] Well done. Oh, and to the left, we got the Cheshire Cat, ladies and gentlemen. Great cemetery set up here, man. I see some political messaging, though, I could do without. Please, can we take the political messaging out of every aspect of our life? Well, it's Halloween. Let's put some headstones up and we'll put some Abigail Spanberger signs up while we're at it. Anyway. So, we are a nation of.

[00:06:16] When you see that, you know you're in trouble, right? That's the opening line. You know you're in trouble. You run from that. You go up to somebody's house and they have a, we are a nation of. Or this nation blank. Or is. Or whatever. You know you're in trouble. Run. Run for your sanity. So, what was really interesting, you went up the Hawksbill. Highest point. 4,050 feet. Not 40,000.

[00:06:45] 4,050 feet up. We go to the peak. Can't see shit. Okay, that's fine. No big deal. Let's head back down. We passed Bear Fence Mountain on the way there. And I said, you know what man? Why don't we try it? Why don't we go there? I took him there when he was five. Literally. A decade. Exactly. Not exactly because it was winter time. But a decade ago, right? We did this Bear Fence Mountain for fun.

[00:07:16] And it was so crazy returning there 10 years later. He barely could remember it. He was blown away at the rock scramble we did together as a dad and a five-year-old. He was like, I did this when I was five? And I was like, yeah, I guess so. I mean, we definitely, I got pictures. Somehow we did it. We made it up here. And yeah, that was really fun, man. It was great. All together a great day.

[00:07:43] We fold that day into this day, which is my youngest son's birthday. He turns 11. He turns 11 today. It's hard to believe. And what's really interesting and important about today is this is the death of one of my great recommendations as a father to the fathers out there. Which, thankfully, I've been wrong about. And it's why I wanted to talk about this. I'm not wrong about it.

[00:08:13] There is something to be said about it. But it's not as dire as I thought it would be. Okay? And here's the whole thing. When I had young kids, you guys, some of you know the backstory, right? When I had young kids, it came apparent to me that this was going to be, not only was this going to be the best chapter of my life, but I was really good at it. You know what I mean? I was entering a phase in my life where I was becoming much more patient, much less volatile.

[00:08:43] You know what I mean? Especially by the time my second son came. And it wasn't a matter of like, I can sustain or I can survive fatherhood. You know what I mean? It became this thing of like, these two kids are the coolest people right now. You know what I mean? There's nothing cooler than hanging with these two. That was just what it was. And my kids are cool.

[00:09:12] And I don't mean that in a broad sense. Like the whole world will fall in love with them. They probably, it's possible. But to me, they were cool. To me, it was like this. And then I started to realize the value in it. I remember listening to Jesse, Jesse Itzler talking about time and talking about counting the amount of times you get a thing in life. Right? How many times? How many summers? How many this? How many that?

[00:09:39] He really, he really changed my life by putting things like that into perspective. Right? So I start doing the math a little bit. And I'm not really a math guy, but this math makes sense to me. I start doing the math in my head. I'm like, ooh. Ooh. You know? And then I start thinking about my own life. I still, I get these fall breaks. I get these summer breaks with the kids. You know? Right now, they think I'm God.

[00:10:04] And they, uh, and we, you know, everything they want to do is basically the things that I want to do. You know what I mean? And every little adventure is a blast and all that kind of stuff. And it was just, it just became this thing where it was like, oh. So what I have and what every father has is about a 10-year window. You have about a 10-year window where you're going to experience a little guy or a little girl like nothing else in your entire life. Right?

[00:10:34] There's a 10-year chapter in your book if you have children. And that's years 1 through 10. And there's nothing like it. And frankly, there'll never be anything like it ever again. Right? And that was when I realized that, you know, there was some health issues with my mother-in-law. And that was when I realized, like, if we're going to take some great risk, then now is the time to take that great risk.

[00:11:02] And to spend as much time with these kids as humanly possible. Right? To be here for these first 10 years with each child as much as you can be there. And selfishly. Right? Selfishly and for them. And for the wife on top of it. Right? I mean, you know, it's not to say it was without some great benefit from my wife. You know, to have this, like, locked-in dad. You know what I mean?

[00:11:32] I was, you know, still to this day. And that's what I did, guys. And I did it. Like, today marks the day that I did it. My youngest is 11. That chapter from 1 to 10 is closed. One of the great lessons I learned in all of that was the fact that, you know, you can't, you cannot get enough.

[00:12:00] One of the, you know, everything in my life is at least a little bit painted by fear. Do this this way to prepare for it so that it doesn't turn out bad and terrible. Or, you know, there's always some sort of taint of fear or some twinge of it, right? At all times. And, you know, that was not without that. It was notwithstanding that by any stretch. I definitely was in a situation where I thought, I don't want to miss out.

[00:12:26] You know, I want to make sure I see all these games and these school events. And I just wanted to be available. You know what I mean? I wanted to see it all. You know, you make a kid, you want to see it all. It's not like, let's just make this kid and send him out there into the world all by himself and no one in the audience and that whole thing. And, but around about the time my son was probably 8 and my youngest was 4. My oldest was 8, my youngest was 4. It was like, I kind of figured it out.

[00:12:55] I kind of figured out this isn't a, you know, there's no volume in this container, right? There's nothing to fill. It's like the joy goes in one end and it comes out the other end. You're never going to get full. You're never going to get enough of your young children. It's just never going to happen. And that's an important lesson too, right? That's an important lesson too. You realize there aren't enough days to spend together. There's not enough time to do the things that you want to do together. There never is. Even if you make it the highest priority in your life, which I did.

[00:13:28] But all that said, I mean, you know, what happens? I'll tell you what really happens in terms of memories and fun and all that kind of stuff. Is you have so many great days together. You have so much fun that you wind up in a situation where you can't even remember it all. You know what I mean? You just can't even, you can't even remember it all. I have, you know, I see things that pop up here and pop up there. And I look through pictures and I go, oh my God, I forgot that whole day happened.

[00:13:58] I forgot all about that. You know, because you're talking about days of sort of not the same thing, but the routine. You know what I mean? Like there was a time when my son was in preschool where, you know, three days out of the week or whatever it was. He didn't go to like a preschool preschool. He went to a three, was it about three hours, three, four hour preschool. It really helped. It gave me four hours to really lock in and write with no disruption in the early stages of my writing career.

[00:14:28] And, you know, it was one of those things just every day that he's there, you go and you pick him up and we'd walk, right? So we'd walk from preschool to the library and we'd walk the library and pick up books to bring home. And then we'd go to the cafe and he'd get, I can't remember what it is he'd get, but he'd get one thing all the time. And I'd get a coffee. Oh, an apple juice. You'd get an apple juice. I'd get a coffee.

[00:14:55] And, you know, it's just one of these things, man. It's like this happens for three years in a row or whatever, two years. Every single day, you know, this is not every single day. Every preschool day you're doing this thing, right? You're waking up. You're taking the kid to school. The oldest goes off to school. The youngest walks him to school. I just, I mean, I don't know. You know, you create this thing, man. It's just this unbelievable. And then, then, boom.

[00:15:27] Then the door shuts. And whatever you've done is what you've done. There's nothing else. Nothing left. All the money in the world. Elon Musk can't buy you one second back, right? Not one smile back. I remember, I don't know. You want to get really nostalgic. Get the tissues out. But whatever.

[00:15:55] I'm just going to discuss the reveries of this because it is what it is. I was riding a bike alone in the Outer Banks. I don't even remember why. But I went out on the bike alone. I think I was going somewhere to pick something up and coming back. And I saw the house that we first stayed at. Our first house we stayed at when we went to the Outer Banks. And it was really cool to see it. And I was just hit with memories. You know what I mean? I remember my kids, when we first got there, they sent a video.

[00:16:25] Like a video tour to my sister who was on her way. You know what I mean? And from that moment, I wound up writing the lyrics to a song I later called A Strand. But there was a line in there, or there is a line in that song, that is, yeah, it goes,

[00:16:55] Those moments ground so fine by the... It's the idea of the fact that your kids, that year, those kids don't exist anymore. Right? Their faces so young are now forbidden on this earth. Right? Those moments ground so fine by the passing of time. They have long been sifted through this dimension into the next. And just, you know, to me, that really codified the whole experience. You know, the whole...

[00:17:24] And the value of every single day of your life. Right? The value of every moment of your life. The idea that life can become meaningless is so insane to me. It's just mind-boggling. Right? It boggles the mind. And I find myself in this situation where I'm like, God, I just want people to understand the value. I want people to grasp onto this thing and get it.

[00:17:53] Because it is so valuable. And it is so magical. And, you know, I don't know. Why... Why... Why stop set? Why make a jump cut from there? You know? Why jump into some prepping topic or some other topic? Sometimes it just is what it is. We spend a day on the mountain. Now we spend a day together to celebrate the birthday. And a life happens. You know, just like that. And a life happens because of a collection of days.

[00:18:21] And the most beautiful thing about your life, remember, is that there... Even if you work insane hours, there's still a portion of your day that you control. A portion of the day that you can build out just the way you want. And if you build the days out just the way you want them and stay consistent, then in a matter of time, all of a sudden, that's what life is. Life becomes this thing. This collection of wonderful things. And listen, I was a writer, guys.

[00:18:51] You know what I mean? I was a new freelance writer. This is before I even owned PBN. Like, I didn't have any money. You know what I mean? I wasn't some tech billionaire guy, millionaire who was like, I'm going to retire at 30 and spend every day with my children. No, no, no. There was work to be done. There was, you know, scraping by. There was a little bit of money to sink into a coffee here at the cafe. But make sure you have enough to pay the car payment. You know what I mean?

[00:19:21] I want you to understand. Like, it wasn't... I don't live that world. You know what I mean? PBN's been great, but it ain't been that great. You know what I'm saying? So, no excuses. No excuses. You're awake. You're alive. God woke you up this morning. Make the most of it. Enjoy this thing. You know? There are forces outside of you. There are enemies outside of you that, you know, they want you dead. They want your family dead. They want your way of life dead. They want, you know, there are monsters in this world.

[00:19:52] But the distance is important too. Right? The likelihood that you're going to confront one of them today is probably pretty low. And if you're listening to me, the chances are it'll probably be their worst day ever if you do wind up confronting them, right? So, enjoy it. Enjoy it, folks. I'll talk to you soon. Listen up, PBN family.

[00:20:18] If you want a viable alternate emergency communications method, every Sunday, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, we will be conducting a radio check with the community. You will need a POC-capable radio from Skycom PTT.

[00:20:44] These radios will come equipped with the Preppers National Radio Network talk group. Our radio checks will be in said talk group. Come 9 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, the intrepid commander will lead off with a radio check. Bring yourself. Bring your Skycom PTT radio. Bring a dad joke.

[00:21:17] And join the Prepper Broadcasting Network emergency comms group. Visit skycomptt.com to get your radio. And look for the PBN button on the left under shop so we get credit. See you Sunday night.