April 30, 2024 • 17 mins
On the latest episode of Better Dave, titled "Putting the FUN in Funeral," host Dave Jackson shares a heartwarming and humorous tribute to his favorite teacher and mentor, Jim Blackstock. This episode takes us on an emotional yet uplifting journey, emphasizing the profound impact a great teacher can have on our lives.
Here are three key takeaways from this poignant episode:
- **Integrating Humor in Education**:
Dave underscores how Jim Blackstock's unique teaching style, blending humor with education, made learning enjoyable and memorable, influencing Dave's own teaching approach.
- **The Power of Mentorship**:
The episode highlights the significant role mentorship plays in shaping personal and professional growth, as demonstrated by Jim's encouragement of Dave's writing, which started in his college days.
- **Celebrating Life with a Smile**:
The touching account of Jim Blackstock’s funeral, infused with whimsy and laughter, serves as a reminder of the importance of celebrating life and the legacies we leave behind.
🎙️ Tune in to reflect on the laughter and lessons shared in this special episode of Better Dave. It's a true testament to the lasting impact of teachers like Jim, who inspire and transform lives beyond the classroom.
Here is the episode I did before. The best teacher I ever had.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And I, to this day, can't kinda turn that off. That's just the way it
is.
(00:31):
Hey. What's up? What is new and exciting?
Speaking of exciting, I was in Walmart
Friday night because, you know, that's how I party.
And I saw an old friend many, many, many moons ago.
I was the editor. Well, first, I was a writer. We'll talk about this.
For the student newsletter at Stark State
(00:54):
College. And I've done an episode about this person before.
That is James Blackstock, better known as Jim. He was my
favorite teacher, and that's the problem. I just gave the, I just
I just let the cat out of the bag. I'm in Walmart, and I see
Amber. Haven't seen her really since we graduated,
I think. I might I actually videotaped her wedding back in the day
(01:17):
when you would put your camcorder on your shoulder,
hand seen her. And she's like, hey. And I'm like, hey. I remember
you. And she's like, did you hear coach died?
And the last time I saw Jim Blackstock was at his retirement
party, and he was amazed that so many people showed
up. And I'm like, dude, you're Jim Blackstock. You won, like,
(01:41):
teacher of the year 8000000 times.
And he really helped get me through school.
I remember he taught tech report writing. Now tech report
writing and he even said this. He goes, look, this is the most boring class
we probably teach at this school because tech report writing is
like if we're doing a tech report for opening
(02:04):
a jar of peanut butter. It would be like grasping the
jar with your right hand and,
with your left hand turning the lid counterclockwise. Like, you had to write
stuff so that, like, a monkey could do it. And so he would come in.
He'd be like, hey. What's going on? What's new and exciting? And he would just
blow off, like, the first 10 minutes. And we'd all be laughing and having
(02:26):
a good old time. And he just said, yeah, we're gonna do this, and then
we'll have to do the boring stuff. So we're trying to have some fun at
the beginning of this. And that's really it influenced
my teaching style that, hey, you can actually have fun at school. That
and I've said this before. My niece, Emily, one time,
she was all of 3, and there's nothing more beautiful
(02:48):
than the belly laugh of a 3 year old. And I said,
Emily, what are you doing? And she said, Roger Rabbit is teaching
me reading. And I was, like, she doesn't even know that she's learning. She's
playing a game and having fun. And she was spooky smart, still
is spooky smart. But that's when I was like, if you can
get people to have fun while they learn, it doesn't seem so
(03:10):
much like school. And so
Blackstock and I had the same warped sense of humor.
And every time there was a class that he was teaching that was in my
field and in some cases, even if they weren't, I would take
it. That's how much I loved having him as a teacher. And I think the
first class I had him was some sort of techniques of writing or something like
(03:32):
that. And there was one I don't even know what the assignment
was. I think I've told you about this before where I
wrote a piece, I guess, you could say. And
the idea was this is back in the early nineties probably.
And there was a rumor going around that if you ate enough wheat
bread, you would get high. Now for the record,
(03:54):
this is not true. But, nonetheless, back then, it
was like, wait. What is that for okay. And so I wrote
this article on what
what would the you know, those commercials you see on TV,
like, this is your brain on drugs, that kind of thing. I took
every cliche you could think of
(04:17):
and applied it to wheat bread. Like, I went
from homeboy to home pride, you know, all this
stuff. I got busted, getting money out of my
grandma's purse. And she said, what are you doing? I'm like, grandma, I'm trying to
get some butter top. Don't you know it's good stuff?
And, it was very weird, and yet,
(04:40):
you know, Blackstock saw it, and he stopped me
after class. He's like, hey, man. I just wanna let you know
I laughed a lot at this. This was funny. Have you ever
thought of of writing? We we would love to have, like, a
column from you in the the newsletter.
And I was like, what would I write about? He goes, I don't know. We'll
(05:01):
figure it out. He goes, maybe you'll have your review movies. He's like, but I
I love your style, and this is good stuff. And
so I'm driving home from Walmart,
and I'm thinking about Blackstock. And I'm like,
man, we had some good times together. And I was trying to figure out,
(05:21):
like, when did I meet him? What what really stuck out? What was that first
time? What's that first meeting? And I think that was it wasn't that was the
first time I met him, but that was the time that I look back
now and go, was this dude the linchpin? Because he really
said, this is funny. I like this. You should do more of this kinda
thing. And that led me to believe. I'm like, wait. Because
(05:43):
later the next year, it was funny. He comes to me. He goes, hey.
Great job last year with the newsletter and the articles. He goes,
I'd really like to see you be the editor of the
newsletter. And I'm like, dude, I I am so awful. I'm like, you
bleed all over every paper I hand you with my
grammar. He's like, no. No. No. I'll I'll handle that stuff. He's like, I
(06:05):
just need somebody to run the office. And I'm like, well,
okay. And he's like, oh, that's great because everybody else graduated. You
are you are the newsletter at this point. And so that was
funny. And he always had me laughing.
But I I looked back and I was like, that this is good. That led
to me being the editor of the newsletter, which
(06:28):
then, actually, at one point, I was writing articles, and I
was literally biting the hand that feeds because the nursing program
at the college would allow so many nursing students in, but
there were only so many placements. And so these poor
nurses would end up taking unwanted classes,
unneeded classes just waiting for it was like a bad game
(06:50):
of musical chairs. And I
just remember I would come in when I was just writing articles,
and I would hand him 1. And we would both
just start laughing until we almost, like,
peed ourselves. And we'd be laughing and laughing and laughing. He's like, oh,
man. He's like, yeah. We can't print this.
(07:15):
So that was always funny. My favorite was we
we decided to do an April fools joke because I don't know what
date we published, but it it turned out it was gonna be on April 1st.
And at the time, they had just banned
cigarettes on the campus. You couldn't smoke anywhere
unless it was outside or whatever. But you couldn't smoke in the cafeteria and all
(07:38):
that other stuff. So smoking was banned. And so one of the articles
was, not only had they banned cigarettes, they had banned
candy cigarettes. And then the line that that got him is
we had, like, the community calendar. So it was like, you know, the blah,
the glee club will meet and blah blah, yada yada. And then on Wednesday,
the gay Nazis for Christ will meet. And I just love the phrase gay
(08:00):
Nazis for Christ because it's just a bunch of words you never see next to
each other. And he saw that and just howled.
And because number 1, we were right next door to, like, sister
Mary Teresa, whatever her name was. And, he just
laughed because, again, it was just so wrong. And, again, he was like,
Yeah. We can't print that. And I think we changed it to gay Nazis for
(08:22):
Elvis or something like that. But it was funny. And, of
course, during that time, my mom died. And it
was one of those things where I would go to his office, and he would
get me laughing and and kinda make it through. And
so the last time I saw him was at his
retirement party. And, again, he was freaking out there
(08:43):
there were that many people there. And I just thought, don't do
your Jim Blackstock. What what do you of course, there are this many people here.
And at this point, luckily,
I always wonder, like, how I haven't seen Amber in, like, 20 years at
least, if not 30. And I just happened to be at
Walmart, happened to see her, and she lets me know on a Friday
(09:06):
night that his memorial service is on Monday. And I
was like, thank you. Because I really it was
it was not like, I wonder if I'll go. It's like, no. I'm going.
And even though I didn't know anybody there besides his wife,
and so I'm at his truly his his retirement
party, as in retirement from the planet. And what was
(09:29):
interesting is I just picked up
the bulletin, you know, and it says at the bottom of
the page, it's got a picture of him, and he was 76.
And it says, don't cry because it's over. Smile
because it happened. And, apparently, doctor Seuss said that. But then I opened
it up, and he's got 4 kids, and they are chips
(09:52):
off the old block. And like the procession, it says
the service will commence when the family enters. They might
proceed, or they might just show up in a conga line to form a human
pyramid. You never know with these clowns. And then later, it
says, music, only scars in heaven from casting crowns.
We invite you to sing along softly if you'd like, very
(10:15):
softly if you can't carry a tune. And then towards the
end, the benediction, Brett will close our time together and
dismiss us. You can leave before the family, but that's
rude, and it will be noted. And so I
get there. I find a seat. We sit down, and I'm
assuming it's his oldest son, but I don't know. One of his sons, he had
(10:37):
4, gets in. He's like, hey. For
those of you that knew my dad, you know he loved baseball.
Like, just and he and his sons had visited
every Major League Baseball Park in the United States. He
loved baseball. He also loved music. And so they
said, so to start off today's celebration of life,
(11:01):
we're gonna start off by doing the wave. We're gonna say hi to dad
by standing up. You know what the wave is. You stand up. You lift your
arms up. And he goes, we're gonna pass it from the right to the left,
and then left will then pass it back to the right. And you're sitting there
thinking, are we gonna do the wave at a funeral?
Like, no. Just like, okay. The guy's like, alright. Here we go.
(11:22):
Remember, we're starting on the right side. 321. And everybody
stood up and did the wave. And then they passed it
back. And I instantly felt like this is
where I'm supposed to be. I felt like he was there because that was just
wacky, kinda wrong, and yet kind of
fun. And so his his
(11:44):
wife got up and spoke, and then his,
kids got up and spoke, his grandkids got up and
spoke, and then they opened up the floor. And it
looked like nobody was gonna get up, and they'd left a lot of time. They'd
said, hey. Kinda keep it short if you can. And I was like,
well, somebody's gotta be first, and you never leave an open mic with a
(12:06):
podcaster in the room. And so I got up, and it was kind of
interesting because everything else was about family.
And I just got up, and I said, Jim Blackstock was the best teacher I
ever had. Hands down, no contest. Don't even think about
it. And then I shared the things about tech report writing and
things I've said here. And so it was interesting because you had
(12:29):
all these different perspectives from his brother-in-law got up and
spoke. Because once I got up and spoke, other people did. And, you know,
there's always got to be that one person to to break the ice. And what
was interesting is everybody did the same thing. You would get
up, you would tell a story, and explain how you ended up
laughing. And then somebody else would get up, and they would share a
(12:51):
story. So on one hand, you're sitting there, and we're
all laughing. And then that laughter would make you
feel good. But then if you didn't watch yourself, you'd be
like, I'm not gonna get any more of that, and it made you feel bad.
And then somebody else would get up and make you feel good because it was
a funny story. So it was kind of this roller coaster. But in the end,
I was was so happy that I was there. But it it
(13:14):
really as I listened to it, how especially from, like,
his not sister-in-law, when you
your your daughter-in-law. Right? The people that married his children,
and they just said, he embraced us. Like, you never felt like
an outsider with him, and he made
everyone comfortable. And once you are comfortable, it was
(13:37):
easy to make people laugh. And I just thought
about that. I'm like, you know, I kinda complain a lot. You know? Have my
opinions, and I'm not too shy about sharing them.
But I wanna do that. I wanna embrace
people and make them feel welcome, get them comfortable so I can make
them laugh. And I I
(14:00):
don't know. It's just one of those things where I still have the bulletin here
in front of me, and I kinda wake up in the morning, and I'm like,
okay. How can I make people feel comfortable?
How can I help them to kinda forget whatever crappy thing is going on
in their life, their stress, or whatever? And then how can I make them
laugh or something or at least smile, something like that? But
(14:20):
I gotta tell you, I have never been to a more fun funeral
in my life. And that was the other thing. It's kinda weird. He was 76,
and that's only 17 years older than I am. That's weird.
That's like because I realize as as we
if I look at 2024 and subtract
(14:40):
17 from it, right, that's something
2,007. Right? Yeah. And I'm like, 2007
wasn't that long ago. Not really. And
so I'm like, well, holy and I and I I wanna live to be, like,
90, but you don't get a whole lot of say in that. Now
Jim had Alzheimer's. He'd been kinda sliding away for 7 years, and that
(15:03):
sucks. I've lived through that. That's no fun. But all of a
sudden, when you see stuff like this, it reminds you
that I am not immortal. I
am going to eventually, And then you wonder how is how's are you
gonna be lucky like my grandpa and bowl on Thursday and dry
die on Monday or whatever it was, something like that?
(15:25):
And I think about, you know, I'm the
baby of the family, so I'm gonna end up burying all my brothers and sisters
if everything goes according to plan. That makes me cry just thinking
about it. It's the the bonus of being the baby as you get away with
murder when you're growing up, but then you get to yeah.
Holy cow. And that's one of the reasons why I'm a
(15:47):
bit of a a workaholic. When
my my mom, my grandma, and my uncle died in the span
of a few months, that's when I first realized, oh, wait a
minute. I've only got, you know, a very short time on this
planet. I gotta get to work. And I, to
this day, can't kinda turn that off. That's just the way it is. And when
(16:09):
stuff like this happens, I'm like, I gotta get going. I gotta get
going. But on the other hand, the more
stuff I put into action, I end up moving,
you know, a 100 peanuts a half an inch, where if I just
focused on 1 peanut, I could move it a mile. But that's
not my style. Sounds like I'm rapping now.
(16:31):
But it was just I I keep I'm
I'm glad I have this because that bottom line again,
don't cry because it's over.
Smile because it happened. And the thing that was cool is
he started attending church, and he found the lord
(16:51):
later in life. So for me, it's not goodbye.
It's a see you later and,
still my favorite teacher. And if you ever see me
present or teach or anything like
that, I am really a cheap knockoff
of Jim Blackstock. I'll miss you, buddy,
(17:14):
but I will see you later. And in the meantime,
hopefully, it's gonna get better.
And I, to this day, can't kinda turn that off. That's just the way it
is.
(00:31):
Hey. What's up? What is new and exciting?
Speaking of exciting, I was in Walmart
Friday night because, you know, that's how I party.
And I saw an old friend many, many, many moons ago.
I was the editor. Well, first, I was a writer. We'll talk about this.
For the student newsletter at Stark State
(00:54):
College. And I've done an episode about this person before.
That is James Blackstock, better known as Jim. He was my
favorite teacher, and that's the problem. I just gave the, I just
I just let the cat out of the bag. I'm in Walmart, and I see
Amber. Haven't seen her really since we graduated,
I think. I might I actually videotaped her wedding back in the day
(01:17):
when you would put your camcorder on your shoulder,
hand seen her. And she's like, hey. And I'm like, hey. I remember
you. And she's like, did you hear coach died?
And the last time I saw Jim Blackstock was at his retirement
party, and he was amazed that so many people showed
up. And I'm like, dude, you're Jim Blackstock. You won, like,
(01:41):
teacher of the year 8000000 times.
And he really helped get me through school.
I remember he taught tech report writing. Now tech report
writing and he even said this. He goes, look, this is the most boring class
we probably teach at this school because tech report writing is
like if we're doing a tech report for opening
(02:04):
a jar of peanut butter. It would be like grasping the
jar with your right hand and,
with your left hand turning the lid counterclockwise. Like, you had to write
stuff so that, like, a monkey could do it. And so he would come in.
He'd be like, hey. What's going on? What's new and exciting? And he would just
blow off, like, the first 10 minutes. And we'd all be laughing and having
(02:26):
a good old time. And he just said, yeah, we're gonna do this, and then
we'll have to do the boring stuff. So we're trying to have some fun at
the beginning of this. And that's really it influenced
my teaching style that, hey, you can actually have fun at school. That
and I've said this before. My niece, Emily, one time,
she was all of 3, and there's nothing more beautiful
(02:48):
than the belly laugh of a 3 year old. And I said,
Emily, what are you doing? And she said, Roger Rabbit is teaching
me reading. And I was, like, she doesn't even know that she's learning. She's
playing a game and having fun. And she was spooky smart, still
is spooky smart. But that's when I was like, if you can
get people to have fun while they learn, it doesn't seem so
(03:10):
much like school. And so
Blackstock and I had the same warped sense of humor.
And every time there was a class that he was teaching that was in my
field and in some cases, even if they weren't, I would take
it. That's how much I loved having him as a teacher. And I think the
first class I had him was some sort of techniques of writing or something like
(03:32):
that. And there was one I don't even know what the assignment
was. I think I've told you about this before where I
wrote a piece, I guess, you could say. And
the idea was this is back in the early nineties probably.
And there was a rumor going around that if you ate enough wheat
bread, you would get high. Now for the record,
(03:54):
this is not true. But, nonetheless, back then, it
was like, wait. What is that for okay. And so I wrote
this article on what
what would the you know, those commercials you see on TV,
like, this is your brain on drugs, that kind of thing. I took
every cliche you could think of
(04:17):
and applied it to wheat bread. Like, I went
from homeboy to home pride, you know, all this
stuff. I got busted, getting money out of my
grandma's purse. And she said, what are you doing? I'm like, grandma, I'm trying to
get some butter top. Don't you know it's good stuff?
And, it was very weird, and yet,
(04:40):
you know, Blackstock saw it, and he stopped me
after class. He's like, hey, man. I just wanna let you know
I laughed a lot at this. This was funny. Have you ever
thought of of writing? We we would love to have, like, a
column from you in the the newsletter.
And I was like, what would I write about? He goes, I don't know. We'll
(05:01):
figure it out. He goes, maybe you'll have your review movies. He's like, but I
I love your style, and this is good stuff. And
so I'm driving home from Walmart,
and I'm thinking about Blackstock. And I'm like,
man, we had some good times together. And I was trying to figure out,
(05:21):
like, when did I meet him? What what really stuck out? What was that first
time? What's that first meeting? And I think that was it wasn't that was the
first time I met him, but that was the time that I look back
now and go, was this dude the linchpin? Because he really
said, this is funny. I like this. You should do more of this kinda
thing. And that led me to believe. I'm like, wait. Because
(05:43):
later the next year, it was funny. He comes to me. He goes, hey.
Great job last year with the newsletter and the articles. He goes,
I'd really like to see you be the editor of the
newsletter. And I'm like, dude, I I am so awful. I'm like, you
bleed all over every paper I hand you with my
grammar. He's like, no. No. No. I'll I'll handle that stuff. He's like, I
(06:05):
just need somebody to run the office. And I'm like, well,
okay. And he's like, oh, that's great because everybody else graduated. You
are you are the newsletter at this point. And so that was
funny. And he always had me laughing.
But I I looked back and I was like, that this is good. That led
to me being the editor of the newsletter, which
(06:28):
then, actually, at one point, I was writing articles, and I
was literally biting the hand that feeds because the nursing program
at the college would allow so many nursing students in, but
there were only so many placements. And so these poor
nurses would end up taking unwanted classes,
unneeded classes just waiting for it was like a bad game
(06:50):
of musical chairs. And I
just remember I would come in when I was just writing articles,
and I would hand him 1. And we would both
just start laughing until we almost, like,
peed ourselves. And we'd be laughing and laughing and laughing. He's like, oh,
man. He's like, yeah. We can't print this.
(07:15):
So that was always funny. My favorite was we
we decided to do an April fools joke because I don't know what
date we published, but it it turned out it was gonna be on April 1st.
And at the time, they had just banned
cigarettes on the campus. You couldn't smoke anywhere
unless it was outside or whatever. But you couldn't smoke in the cafeteria and all
(07:38):
that other stuff. So smoking was banned. And so one of the articles
was, not only had they banned cigarettes, they had banned
candy cigarettes. And then the line that that got him is
we had, like, the community calendar. So it was like, you know, the blah,
the glee club will meet and blah blah, yada yada. And then on Wednesday,
the gay Nazis for Christ will meet. And I just love the phrase gay
(08:00):
Nazis for Christ because it's just a bunch of words you never see next to
each other. And he saw that and just howled.
And because number 1, we were right next door to, like, sister
Mary Teresa, whatever her name was. And, he just
laughed because, again, it was just so wrong. And, again, he was like,
Yeah. We can't print that. And I think we changed it to gay Nazis for
(08:22):
Elvis or something like that. But it was funny. And, of
course, during that time, my mom died. And it
was one of those things where I would go to his office, and he would
get me laughing and and kinda make it through. And
so the last time I saw him was at his
retirement party. And, again, he was freaking out there
(08:43):
there were that many people there. And I just thought, don't do
your Jim Blackstock. What what do you of course, there are this many people here.
And at this point, luckily,
I always wonder, like, how I haven't seen Amber in, like, 20 years at
least, if not 30. And I just happened to be at
Walmart, happened to see her, and she lets me know on a Friday
(09:06):
night that his memorial service is on Monday. And I
was like, thank you. Because I really it was
it was not like, I wonder if I'll go. It's like, no. I'm going.
And even though I didn't know anybody there besides his wife,
and so I'm at his truly his his retirement
party, as in retirement from the planet. And what was
(09:29):
interesting is I just picked up
the bulletin, you know, and it says at the bottom of
the page, it's got a picture of him, and he was 76.
And it says, don't cry because it's over. Smile
because it happened. And, apparently, doctor Seuss said that. But then I opened
it up, and he's got 4 kids, and they are chips
(09:52):
off the old block. And like the procession, it says
the service will commence when the family enters. They might
proceed, or they might just show up in a conga line to form a human
pyramid. You never know with these clowns. And then later, it
says, music, only scars in heaven from casting crowns.
We invite you to sing along softly if you'd like, very
(10:15):
softly if you can't carry a tune. And then towards the
end, the benediction, Brett will close our time together and
dismiss us. You can leave before the family, but that's
rude, and it will be noted. And so I
get there. I find a seat. We sit down, and I'm
assuming it's his oldest son, but I don't know. One of his sons, he had
(10:37):
4, gets in. He's like, hey. For
those of you that knew my dad, you know he loved baseball.
Like, just and he and his sons had visited
every Major League Baseball Park in the United States. He
loved baseball. He also loved music. And so they
said, so to start off today's celebration of life,
(11:01):
we're gonna start off by doing the wave. We're gonna say hi to dad
by standing up. You know what the wave is. You stand up. You lift your
arms up. And he goes, we're gonna pass it from the right to the left,
and then left will then pass it back to the right. And you're sitting there
thinking, are we gonna do the wave at a funeral?
Like, no. Just like, okay. The guy's like, alright. Here we go.
(11:22):
Remember, we're starting on the right side. 321. And everybody
stood up and did the wave. And then they passed it
back. And I instantly felt like this is
where I'm supposed to be. I felt like he was there because that was just
wacky, kinda wrong, and yet kind of
fun. And so his his
(11:44):
wife got up and spoke, and then his,
kids got up and spoke, his grandkids got up and
spoke, and then they opened up the floor. And it
looked like nobody was gonna get up, and they'd left a lot of time. They'd
said, hey. Kinda keep it short if you can. And I was like,
well, somebody's gotta be first, and you never leave an open mic with a
(12:06):
podcaster in the room. And so I got up, and it was kind of
interesting because everything else was about family.
And I just got up, and I said, Jim Blackstock was the best teacher I
ever had. Hands down, no contest. Don't even think about
it. And then I shared the things about tech report writing and
things I've said here. And so it was interesting because you had
(12:29):
all these different perspectives from his brother-in-law got up and
spoke. Because once I got up and spoke, other people did. And, you know,
there's always got to be that one person to to break the ice. And what
was interesting is everybody did the same thing. You would get
up, you would tell a story, and explain how you ended up
laughing. And then somebody else would get up, and they would share a
(12:51):
story. So on one hand, you're sitting there, and we're
all laughing. And then that laughter would make you
feel good. But then if you didn't watch yourself, you'd be
like, I'm not gonna get any more of that, and it made you feel bad.
And then somebody else would get up and make you feel good because it was
a funny story. So it was kind of this roller coaster. But in the end,
I was was so happy that I was there. But it it
(13:14):
really as I listened to it, how especially from, like,
his not sister-in-law, when you
your your daughter-in-law. Right? The people that married his children,
and they just said, he embraced us. Like, you never felt like
an outsider with him, and he made
everyone comfortable. And once you are comfortable, it was
(13:37):
easy to make people laugh. And I just thought
about that. I'm like, you know, I kinda complain a lot. You know? Have my
opinions, and I'm not too shy about sharing them.
But I wanna do that. I wanna embrace
people and make them feel welcome, get them comfortable so I can make
them laugh. And I I
(14:00):
don't know. It's just one of those things where I still have the bulletin here
in front of me, and I kinda wake up in the morning, and I'm like,
okay. How can I make people feel comfortable?
How can I help them to kinda forget whatever crappy thing is going on
in their life, their stress, or whatever? And then how can I make them
laugh or something or at least smile, something like that? But
(14:20):
I gotta tell you, I have never been to a more fun funeral
in my life. And that was the other thing. It's kinda weird. He was 76,
and that's only 17 years older than I am. That's weird.
That's like because I realize as as we
if I look at 2024 and subtract
(14:40):
17 from it, right, that's something
2,007. Right? Yeah. And I'm like, 2007
wasn't that long ago. Not really. And
so I'm like, well, holy and I and I I wanna live to be, like,
90, but you don't get a whole lot of say in that. Now
Jim had Alzheimer's. He'd been kinda sliding away for 7 years, and that
(15:03):
sucks. I've lived through that. That's no fun. But all of a
sudden, when you see stuff like this, it reminds you
that I am not immortal. I
am going to eventually, And then you wonder how is how's are you
gonna be lucky like my grandpa and bowl on Thursday and dry
die on Monday or whatever it was, something like that?
(15:25):
And I think about, you know, I'm the
baby of the family, so I'm gonna end up burying all my brothers and sisters
if everything goes according to plan. That makes me cry just thinking
about it. It's the the bonus of being the baby as you get away with
murder when you're growing up, but then you get to yeah.
Holy cow. And that's one of the reasons why I'm a
(15:47):
bit of a a workaholic. When
my my mom, my grandma, and my uncle died in the span
of a few months, that's when I first realized, oh, wait a
minute. I've only got, you know, a very short time on this
planet. I gotta get to work. And I, to
this day, can't kinda turn that off. That's just the way it is. And when
(16:09):
stuff like this happens, I'm like, I gotta get going. I gotta get
going. But on the other hand, the more
stuff I put into action, I end up moving,
you know, a 100 peanuts a half an inch, where if I just
focused on 1 peanut, I could move it a mile. But that's
not my style. Sounds like I'm rapping now.
(16:31):
But it was just I I keep I'm
I'm glad I have this because that bottom line again,
don't cry because it's over.
Smile because it happened. And the thing that was cool is
he started attending church, and he found the lord
(16:51):
later in life. So for me, it's not goodbye.
It's a see you later and,
still my favorite teacher. And if you ever see me
present or teach or anything like
that, I am really a cheap knockoff
of Jim Blackstock. I'll miss you, buddy,
(17:14):
but I will see you later. And in the meantime,
hopefully, it's gonna get better.
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