November 15, 2023 • 61 mins
What does a retired Navy Chief, a dedicated educator, a passionate writer, and a resilient cancer fighter have in common? They're all the facets of our extraordinary guest, Jason Stone. Jason's journey is nothing short of inspiring - a whirlwind of two decades in the Navy, a transition into teaching, and a recent battle against stage four prostate cancer. His story serves as a testament to human resilience, adaptability, and an unyielding spirit to learn and grow.
We kick off this episode with Jason's military tale that threads from his decision to join the Navy to his tenure as a nuclear machinist mate. He paints a vivid picture of life aboard a ballistic missile submarine, the unique rhythm of night shifts without sunlight, and the adrenaline of carrying 24 ICBMs onboard. The narrative doesn’t end there, though. Jason opens up about his shift from the Navy to a teaching role in Minnesota and his passion for writing. His love for learning and sharing knowledge shines through as he recounts his transition from the military to academia.
However, it's not all smooth sailing. Jason's recent fight against stage four prostate cancer takes center stage as he delivers a raw account of his diagnosis, treatment, and the emotional rollercoaster that follows. He doesn’t shy away from the fear, the waiting, and the toll it took on him. He takes us through his journey, shedding light on his coping strategies and his proactive approach towards mental health. Tune in for an enriching conversation that transcends military life, cancer battles, and personal growth, leaving you with pockets full of inspiration and newfound perspectives.
Produced by Phil Ewert Productions
Theme Music: Hero's Journey
Joel Loopez Tunepocket.com
Licensed by: Phil Ewert Productions
hometownherooutdoors.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the land of 10,000 lakes, a remarkable movement
was born.
Welcome to Hometown HeroOutdoors.
We are dedicated to honoringour military service members,
veterans and first responders byproviding them with
unforgettable outdoorrecreational opportunities.
We believe those who haveserved and sacrificed so much
(00:24):
for our country and communitiesdeserve a chance to reclaim
their spirit and find healing inthe great outdoors.
This is Hometown Hero Outdoors.
Welcome to the Hometown HeroOutdoors podcast.
(00:50):
Here is your host, chris Taitro.
Well greetings everyone.
Welcome to this week's HometownHero Outdoors podcast.
(01:12):
I'm Phil Ewert, media producerfor HHO, filling in the host
chair for this week's podcast.
I'm joined this week by ourspecial guest, jason Stone,
retired Navy chief, as well asone of our board members for
Hometown Hero Outdoors, andyGraff.
Welcome everyone and thanks forjoining us tonight.
Guys, glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Absolutely, so I'm going to read through some of
Jason's bio to get us startedtonight.
There's a lot going on here.
This guy's lived a full life,and so I'll just get to reading
it.
Jason is a retired Navy chiefwith 20 years, 10 months and 20
days of submarine service underhis belt.
He worked in commercial nuclearpower since 2009, starting off
(01:58):
as an instructor at theMonticello Nuclear Plant in
Minnesota, and it is now inWashington state where he works
in the initial license classsupervisor as excuse me, the
initial class supervisor at theColumbia Generating Station.
He also teaches thermodynamiccourses as an adjunct instructor
at the local college.
(02:19):
Jason has his Bachelor ofScience in Nuclear Engineering
Technology and a Masters ofEnglish and Creative Writing.
He has a passion for learningand teaching.
He got his general classAmateur Radio License in 2007.
His pilot license in January2008.
He loves to write stories, makeleather bags and wallets,
builds fishing poles, helpspeople learn how to shoot better
(02:42):
and loves board games.
I don't know how you have time,to be honest.
Recently, though, jason startedhis own podcast called Prostate
Cancer to Road to Recovery,documenting his journey with
recent Stage 4 Advanced ProstateCancer Diagnosis.
So welcome, jason.
Very happy to have you on theHometown Hero Outdoors podcast
(03:06):
and to get a little bit of yourstory.
I met Jason, I want to sayabout 2011, when we used to be
next door neighbors, jason and Ilived next door to each other
in Big Lake, minnesota.
Over the years we went shootingtogether, spent a few nights
around the bonfire, enjoyingsome cigars, maybe even a little
(03:29):
scotch now, and then Jasonmoved from Minnesota in 2018.
We've stayed in contact, sowelcome Jason.
I'd like to start us outtonight Having you tell us about
your military service, why youchose to join the military,
specifically the Navy, and thenwalk us through your military
(03:49):
career, if you will.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, Thanks, Phil, I'd love to.
I always wanted to fly and soand I had a girlfriend in high
school I grew up in Pocatello,Idaho.
I went to Pocke High School foranybody in Idaho watching and I
wanted to join the Air Force,and so that's all.
I just knew my entire lifethat's what I was going to do.
I was going to join the AirForce and fly, and I remember
(04:12):
going to the recruiting officethere at the mall in Pocatello.
The Air Force office was closedand I was walking back down the
hall in this guy in a whiteuniform with a big smile on his
face.
He said how can I help you?
I said I don't think you can,so I'm trying to join the Air
Force.
And he said why do you want tojoin the Air Force?
I said well, I want to fly, hegoes.
(04:33):
Well, why would you want tojoin the Air Force?
I got really confused at thatpoint.
I was 17 years old.
He started telling me stuffabout well, the Navy has better
pilots, the Navy has more planes, and this and that, and then he
had me take this test.
And then he had me take anothertest.
The next thing I knew I joinedthe Go Submarines.
I'm not quite sure how thathappened.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
A little bit opposite there Above water, below water,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
You had your own experience with recruiters too.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Oh, absolutely.
I know they can swindle youpretty good.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yep, Sometimes you don't exactly know what you're
getting in for.
That's kind of how I startedoff, and that didn't necessarily
know what I wanted to do otherthan fly.
And then, once my careerstarted in the Navy, I just kind
of went along for the ride.
They started saying stuff likewell, in order to fly, you got
to be an officer.
In order to be an officer,there's better programs to be an
(05:25):
officer.
And so I kind of bit the wholething cook line and sinker.
Oddly enough, I later in mycareer ended up going to be a
recruiter.
I tried not to be that guy.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So what was your rate in the Navy?
What job did you choose?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I was a nuclear machinist mate so I was the back
aft on the on the nuke subs.
It was a.
It was a fun ride I had.
I had a good time doing that.
I did six and a half years onmy first submarine, the USS Ohio
.
I did three years of recruitingduty down in San Diego and then
(06:04):
I went up to, went out toHawaii and I spent the rest of
my career in Hawaii and that wasawesome.
Wow, I did back to back seatours on with back to back
Westpacks.
I started off on the USS Tucsonand then I went to the USS
Chicago.
I loved being a sea.
I loved being on submarine.
I loved being out there fixingstuff.
(06:24):
I loved the mission and so Ireally got to do six years
straight of sea duty and then Iwent to the Pearl.
Harbor Naval Shipyard there inHawaii and I was able to dial it
down a little bit.
I was achieved by that pointand I was able to kind of coast
a little bit better, Teach acouple of my first classes to
(06:46):
how to run the shop.
I ran nuclear test equipmentthere in Hawaii and let them
kind of take things and I got togo do other things best around
in the in the chief's mess andwent and got my pilot license.
That was a.
That was a bucket list item formy whole life and I was like
I'm not leaving Hawaii till I dothat.
So yeah, I had a good time.
(07:07):
I got involved in emergencyamateur radio clubs, so EARC out
in Hawaii.
That was a lot of fun.
It was really interesting toget it involved and
participating in drills with thecommunity, with setting up the
Oahu Races, r-e-c-e-s, gettinginvolved in emergency
communications, having a hamradio set up, and yeah, that was
(07:31):
a lot of fun.
I had a lot, had a good time inHawaii.
If they had a nuclear reactorI'd live there forever.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, I've been to Hawaii a couple of times, just
mostly just tourism.
But yeah, it's, it's a niceplace.
I knew a bunch of sailors thatwere living in station out there
, Because Nick Tams Pack, whichI'm sure you've heard about,
that's Naval Communicationstelework area master station, if
I believe it's been a few years.
Okay, and pack and Pacific.
(08:00):
So I did, I did voice and datacomms on my ship.
My job was an IT but I was aradio man Right in the radio
shack.
So yeah, when you talk aboutyou know the ham radios and
stuff, it's kind of up my alley.
It's kind of a littleexperience in that.
But so yeah, I totally get it.
Yet Nick Tams Pack there inHawaii is a very big station for
(08:21):
guys with my rate.
So I know a lot of friends thatwent there and loved it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So did you get your radio license outside?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I didn't.
It's funny you say that.
So I had a family member thatwas a chief of the Navy as well
and he has his license and he'sout near Virginia and he always
is like you got to get it?
You could get it.
I probably could, because hewants to communicate with me.
He's always shown me his setupsand his antennas and all this
stuff.
I totally respect it, but youknow, I just unfortunately don't
(08:49):
have enough time to do that.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
My motto is you can never have too many hobbies
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
So, jason, I want to reel you back just a little bit
for some of our listeners who,like myself, are not super
familiar with the Navy.
You mentioned, I think, threedifferent subs that you were on.
What was the difference betweenthose subs?
Or were they all very similar?
Besides being nuclear, wasthere?
(09:21):
I mean size difference,capacity, mission style, I mean,
what can you tell us about thedifference in the ships?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yes tall.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
The difference is about 200 feet in length and a
10 feet diameter.
So the first boat I was on theOhio up out of Bangor,
washington, was a missile boat.
That was a ballistic missilesubmarine.
They carried 24 ICBMs and wehad about over a dozen of those
(09:58):
boats on the east and west coasttotal at the time a dozen and a
half and our goal was to go out, submerge and hide from the
world for two to three months ata time, and so it was a pretty
slow, easy going mission.
We just go out, we submerge.
It was a big old heavy boat and18,000 tons submerged
(10:19):
displacement and they just wouldgo out and we'd train and run
drills and, yeah, it was apretty easy life.
They call it the hotel ofsubmarines.
What's interesting about thosewith 24 ICBMs?
Each ICBM has multiple warheadson it, and so if that submarine
(10:41):
, that one single submarine,went out in the middle of the
ocean, surfaced and declareditself its own country, it would
be the third most powerfulnuclear-armed country in the
world Just one of those, so onlybehind the United States.
And so union.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That's a little crazy , it is right.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And to have more than a dozen of those running around
.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
So obviously, nuclear is actually very safe.
It's very stable until it isset off, and that's also the
same for power plants.
They're incredibly safe untilthey're not, until they're not
accurate.
And but did that ever crossyour mind?
(11:27):
That you're basically, you know, sleeping feet away from 12
Nagasaki sized or larger bombs?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, I mean it does at first, but the whole trick to
being in the Navy, out to sea,is stay busy.
You stay busy and you're tryingto find something to do all the
time and there's if you haveany downtime, you're.
You're feeling it on your own.
I think that's kind of where mydrive to constantly be doing
something comes from.
(11:59):
If I'm not busy in training, ifI'm not cleaning, if I'm not
fixing a valve, if I'm nottroubleshooting some weird noise
in a turbine generator, thenI'm going to be reading, I'm
going to be doing laundry, I'mgoing to be doing something I'm
going to be doing, and so that.
And on a submarine you get,you're on a different schedule
because we don't have thebenefit of sunlight, daylight,
(12:20):
right.
So that's what governs yoursleep time.
On target sailors, no offense,and you know, as is a regular
human being right now on land,that's what our day is based on.
On the submarine it's not.
So your body is naturallyacclimated with lack of sunlight
, to about an 18 hour day.
(12:41):
So we would spend six hours onwatch doing our, doing our job,
taking logs, running equipment,and we'd spend six hours after
watch, doing either training orafter watch cleanup or
maintenance or something likethat.
And then, as long as therewasn't something else going on,
we got six hours to ourselves todo laundry or shower, eat stuff
(13:06):
like that, and so you generallyget about four hours of sleep,
three and a half four hours ofsleep every eight out of every
18 hour rotation, and you getmore.
It feels like more days of theweek go by.
So it's it's kind of weird whenyou're underwater and deprived
of sunlight.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah.
So, andy, how does that compareto being on a, on a carrier?
I mean, obviously you're, yousee the sunlight, but I mean,
does your?
Work ship similar.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, so what we did.
So I worked nights, I was thenight supervisor, I was the
communication watch officer andbasically our job, like we
worked 12 hour shifts but thenwe'd have overlap and then when
I was on watch, I was on watch12 hours.
I didn't get the free time, Ididn't get the extra time for me
it was I was the CWO, so I wasin charge of all voice and data
(13:55):
comms coming on off and on theship.
So it was a big job.
You know, captain had a directline to our shop.
If there was ever an issue he'dcall us directly because you
know, obviously every everythingcomes out of our ship.
So we had an outage.
It was a big deal but we wouldbasically work.
I'd work.
I think it was like 6 pm to 6am.
I was my shift every day, butthat was because I was stationed
(14:15):
over in Japan and that thatarea, that was pretty much
daytime in the United States.
And then after that we'd havecleaning stations, which would
be we do.
The whole ship was shut downoperations for an hour unless
we're doing real world stuff andwe would clean.
It called XO's happy hour, thewhole ship.
So it's 5000 sailors on a ship,5000 people cleaning, and you
(14:36):
know what it does get dirty.
You wouldn't think it does, itsure does.
So we do that.
And then if we had a generalquarters or drill training as a
team, it would go basically fromlike seven to 10, 11.
So now it's almost noon andyou're ready, you're trying to
get some food and I got to hitthe rack and go right back at it
.
So, and especially with my job,we had some, a lot of stuff we
(14:57):
had to do before work.
As far as, like, taking overthe watch, because we do 12 hour
watch rotations, sure, but yeah, so I would say we were right
about that 16 hour day schedule.
They try to give us eight hoursoff, but it never, never really
Cue me.
But when I worked nights I,like you, never saw the daylight
.
I worked in a space.
There's no windows.
We were a TPI space, whichmeans two person integrity, so I
(15:20):
mean it wasn't free in and out,it was very who's coming in
here we have an authorized listof who could be in the space.
So there's no windows, there'sno open doors, nothing, so very
well secured.
Once I sat down, I pretty muchdidn't leave for the day unless
I had to make a quick head call,so it was kind of tough.
I always like after my thirddeployment I figured out all my
(15:41):
snacks.
I needed to make it throughBecause otherwise I'm sending
people down to the ship store.
Because the carrier did havethe benefit of Razz's, which is
replenishment at sea.
We did have a ship store thatwas operational but unlike you
know, you sub guys you get downthere and you may not get a Razz
for a minute.
So I give you respect there.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I didn't serve in the military.
I was in law enforcement and Iworked overnight, so I know what
that's like, but I don't thinkI would have been cut out for
being above or below the water,other than when I take my
pontoon out fishing.
So I want to change gears herea little bit.
And, jason, you started.
(16:21):
After your service, you wentand started working in new
plants.
How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, once again, I ended up doing something I
didn't want her to do.
I was going to be an operatorout in Idaho and I interviewed
for a job.
It was a perfect job.
I wanted to get back home andthey said yeah, we're going to
send you an offer letter.
It might take a couple of weeks.
Hr's doing some restructuring.
(16:49):
I was like, okay, awesome.
They said we want to hire you,we want to hire you.
All right, perfect.
This is 2009.
The whole situation with gettingjobs and stuff was pretty rough
at that time Money and housingcrisis and all that.
So I was excited that I wasgoing to come out of the Navy at
that time with something.
(17:09):
And a couple of weeks went byand I called them back, didn't
have an offer, and they said, oh, just give it a couple more
weeks.
And this turned into a thing.
And so a couple of months wentby and I called a recruiter and
I said, hey, I'm starting to getnervous, I'm getting cold feet.
I says I want to be an operator.
I don't necessarily have to bearound nuclear power, I'm just
(17:30):
looking for a job where I'mturning wrenches.
That's what I want to do.
And she said, well, I've gotthis instructor job in Minnesota
.
I said there's two things wrongwith that.
And she said, well, call meback next week.
And I called her back and thenthat turned into a thing and so
this went on.
We tag teamed for a few weeks,and then I finally said, hey,
(17:52):
how big of a jerk would I be ifI went and did this interview at
this place I don't want to liveto do on a job I don't want to
do.
And she says, no, if you haven'thad any job interviews, you
should be doing this.
You need the experience.
And I'm like, oh, that'sinteresting, are they paying?
And then she said, yeah,they'll fly you from Hawaii out
to Minnesota.
I was like, heck, yeah.
(18:14):
So I flew out and I should haveseen, I should have thought
about this, right, I didn'trealize at the time how I should
be prepared, what I should doto be prepared for this
interview for an instructor job.
So I'm sitting there, we'rewaiting on one of the
(18:35):
supervisors to come in, and themanager is chatting with me and
he says well, what are you gonnapresent today?
I said about what he said well,I mean, you're hiring for an
instructor job.
What are you gonna teach us?
Well, what do you wanna know?
Completely not prepared, right?
And he sat back, crossed hisarms, started saying things like
(18:58):
well, you're not ready for this, blah, blah, blah.
At that moment I startedfighting for a job I didn't want
, in a place I didn't wanna live.
I'm like, holy crap, I failedthis job interview and it hasn't
even started.
And so I started asking somequestions and he was very much
like I was like what does ithave to be about?
Does it have to be technicals?
(19:20):
Does it have to be nuclear?
Do I need a PowerPoint?
And he just kept not answeringthem and saying you don't wanna
do this, you don't wanna do this, which makes sense, except that
I had nothing to lose.
So I was gonna do it.
It didn't matter, I was gonnado this interview.
And so he finally gave in.
There was a whiteboard behindme in his office.
I said as long as I can justuse the whiteboard and start
(19:43):
talking, I'm ready to go.
And he's like okay, he says I'mnot gonna give you another
chance.
This is it.
I said, all right.
So I had just gotten my pilotlicense a year before, and so I
had a bunch of stuff fresh in myhead still and I knew that I
was talking to nuclear peopleand so people that had degrees,
(20:03):
engineering degrees even and soI didn't wanna hit the surface
stuff, the stuff that you mightlearn pick up in high school or
something.
So I went for all the littlenuggets of random things why is
the engine offset so manydegrees?
Why, how does the propellerrotation direction impact all
(20:25):
this stuff, and what is groundeffect?
And all these different littlethings.
And so I started talking.
I was drawing diagrams on theboard behind me and talking
through stuff and they startedasking questions and all I had
to do was present for 20 minutesso they could see whether or
not I could teach, and I'venever taught this is my first
time really teaching, right, asI was a knuckle-dragger.
(20:51):
I was turning wrenches in theengine room and he's up there,
they're asking me questions andthey're asking me questions and
finally he goes.
He looked at his watch and hesaid, holy crap.
He says we have to stop theinterview.
I panicked and he looked at theother guy and said well, we
(21:11):
missed the other interview.
So apparently they weresupposed to.
They missed an interviewbecause I was teaching and they
just got sucked right up into it.
So we went for two and a halfhours when oh, oh, oh.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Supposed to be 20 minutes, 20 minutes, oh jeez, I
went two and a half hours.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And we got done with the interview and he's like well
, we're gonna send you an offerthere.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
In my head.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I'm like, okay, I know how this goes.
And he said you know, hawaii'sa big place, so I know you know.
Everybody gets asked why?
Oh, do you know so and so right.
And it's an island with so manytens of thousands, of millions
of people.
And he says but I'm gonna askdo you remember, do you know a
sailor?
Cause?
We hired a guy a year ago bythis name and I was like truck
(21:58):
and I heard around the cornertruck piped up and said stone.
So he came out, we hugged, Ihad no idea he was working there
.
And then I heard another guy.
He said Mike, you know anotherguy was working there and
another guy knew from the Navywas working there, Mike, Huh,
interesting.
And then we're walking to go tolunch and I hear a voice from
(22:19):
20 years before, pulled rightout of the old memory banks.
I hear this voice.
I'm like that sounded like myA-School class leader from back
in 1989, 20 years ago.
And they're like, well, itcan't be.
I'm like, well, is it?
Unless it's this guy's name I'mnot throwing names out here, I
(22:43):
don't know if I should orshouldn't, but it's this guy's
name and I'm like, well, that'sour ops director.
I'm like, oh yeah, I knew him.
And so I suddenly all thesepeople I knew, and yeah, so I
thought about it.
I went home and made a couplecalls and decided you know what,
(23:03):
maybe there's something to this.
It was six months without anoffer letter from Idaho.
It had gone six months now.
So I finally just took the hintand said I guess I'm not
supposed to be doing that.
I'm supposed to move to BigLake, Minnesota, to be Phil's
neighbor.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
That you know what that's so funny about that story
Cause I obviously, as long asI've known you, I haven't heard
that entire story Is that I lovethe part where you said you
were fighting for a job youdidn't want in a place you
didn't want to move, and then,you ended up winning the job.
That's great.
So, and obviously because youtaught and you are an instructor
(23:43):
, I assume that's how you thentransitioned into teaching
college classes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, I got out here and now I was.
I went from teaching out therein Minnesota to teaching out
here and they have this like apipeline program at the
community college, the ColumbiaBasin College here, a nuclear
technology pipeline for thecommunity college.
So kids coming out of highschool can join in on these,
(24:11):
take these classes and learnabout the nuclear power plant.
They can learn about advancedthermodynamics, facility
components, all these differentthings, and they're taught by
people that work in the industry.
The Hanford Reservation outhere is a huge area.
We have PNL labs, we have whatthey call the tank farms, we've
(24:34):
got the VIT plant, we've got thewhere I work, the Columbia
Generating Station Nuclear PowerPlant.
There was the old test reactorthat was out here.
There's all kinds of stuff and$8 billion a year gets poured
into the Hanford Reservation.
So there's tons of technology,tons of opportunities, tons of
(24:55):
stuff going on out there and allthese kids in the area are like
well, I've heard there's goodjobs, so the college has a path
to get them into those jobs.
And so they asked me hey, weneed some help teaching one of
these.
And I started teaching like onenight here, one night there,
and then I took one whole classand then I took the next class
(25:15):
and now I'm teaching a bunch.
Like this quarter I'm teachingthree classes, which is the most
I've taught.
It's a challenge juggling allthat, but making it do, making
do.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, well, as you say, juggling, you said at the
beginning that you can't, youbelieve you can't have enough
hobbies, and I listed a few ofyours.
I want to touch on one of themwhich I think is pretty unique,
and that's your writing hobby.
Oh, okay, and so you, one ofthe times that you and I had
spoken privately previous tothis, you were working on
(25:51):
writing some scripts for somethings, and so how is that going
?
What are you writing?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So writing the script we talked about back then.
I did finish and I did send itoff to some I don't know, ink
something or other, the ink farmor whatever these places where
you can get movie scripts read,and it got a little bit of
interest, but nobody.
It was about a situation thathappened on the Arsak rain where
(26:17):
we ended up leaving a sailor inKorea and cause he got arrested
.
And it was this whole dramathing and.
But if you look at it from aproduction standpoint, hollywood
doesn't want to make anotherbig submarine Navy movie where
there might be some bad lightcast on the Navy right.
(26:38):
There's this whole scandal outthere called the Leonard.
Oh, that was a fat Leonard, fatLeonard, the fat Leonard
scandal.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
My CO has mentioned that specifically in that, so I
was fully involved in fatLeonard.
Ouch yeah, if you haven't.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's worth an interesting read.
If you go to the Wikipedia page.
So this was right in the middleof that time and there was some
the reports from the sailorafter he finally got out and
released.
There was a lot of corruptiongoing on and bribery and some
weird things he reported fromhis time in Korea and so I put
(27:22):
this whole screenplay togetherabout that.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
But of course Hollywood's not going to make
that, so well, but a uniqueexperience that you wrote a
screenplay after going throughyour masters in writing.
I think that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
It was fun.
I do a lot of short stories.
I'm putting together acollection of short stories
right now, my most recent storyI actually started this.
So, as you know the viewers maynot know yet I've got a
prostate cancer and so I justgot diagnosed back in June, on
June 27th, and within days ofthat I was doing this kind of
(27:57):
mental holy crap is, if you goto Google and put in the you
know stage four, bravo,aggressive, it's aggressive,
it's metastasized.
Already it's spread to my spine.
You put those things intoGoogle, it doesn't give you very
positive outlooks.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Dr Google, you will die of a splinter.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yep.
So I'm like holy crap, if I'vegot a year, what am I going to
do?
What do I really want to do ifI've got a year?
And one of the things that cameout of that self-evaluation was
writing a story about myexperience with cancer.
So I started a story called theTumor and I started it.
It's a three-part story and Idid the first two parts before I
(28:47):
started my actual treatment,because there's a long time from
diagnosis to treatment.
I was officially diagnosed June27th of this year and I took my
first pills for my firsttreatment on August 11th.
Yeah, it's a scary weight too,when they tell you it's
aggressive and then they makeyou wait.
(29:08):
That's not fun.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
And since we've now talked about the cancer, how did
you obviously we'll talk laterabout how people can listen to
your podcast series that youhave, which is very, very
informative about your journey,but for our audience, tell us
about that initial diagnosis,how that happened, how you found
(29:33):
out, and let's go from there.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
So they put you in a room, they have you drop your
pants, you're bend it over, notthat You're talking about like,
how did I find out I had?
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I know about the test Us old guys.
I don't know if Andy's had tohave this.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Not yet.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
But yeah, we've got the old oil check.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, well, that's not even the diagnosis, that's
still just checking symptoms,right?
The diagnosis is actually worsebecause it's a biopsy.
They take core samples fromyour prostate and they go in
through the same outdoor oh boy,through the wall into the
prostate.
They take 12 core samples.
Feels like you're gettingstapled right in the center of
(30:17):
your core.
But yeah, what sent me to thedoctor is I was, I'm heavy guy,
I'm a big guy, I'm six foot four, I'm really heavy and I'm
trying to get back on the bike,trying to lose some weight, and
I was just had some discomfortdown there and I had a doctor
(30:37):
visit coming up.
So I mentioned it to the doctorvisit and she's like well,
let's do a PSA test.
So she drew a PSA test and itcame back just a little above
four and she's like, well, thatcould be an infection or
something.
So she says, let's wait a littlewhile I'll give you, I'll put
you on an antibiotic.
And so I went on an antibioticfor five weeks to prove flaxen
(31:00):
or something, and came back inthe sixth week, did another test
and it came back six.
And I was like, hmm, all right,now, what doc?
She's like, well, I'm going torefer you to a urologist.
And throughout that waitingtime things started to get more
uncomfortable down there and soI had our time sitting.
(31:23):
You know, I started to noticechanges in how hard it was to
pee, how often I was going,stuff like that.
And the urologist he got me andhe said, ok, well, let's do
another PSA test.
And I'm like, holy crap.
So we did another one and itcame back even higher.
(31:44):
It was in the upper sixes, andhe's like, all right, now it's
time for the biopsy and that'swhere they go in and they do the
12 core samples.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
We'll return to the podcast in just a moment, but
first hometown hero outdoorswould like to thank the
following companies that supportHHO and our mission Relentless
Defender, apparel and Gear,silencer, central Suppressors,
best Defense Armory and Range inForest Lake, minnesota, and
(32:12):
Tito's Handmade Vodka.
We thank them for their support.
Now back to our podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But, looking back, what I found is those symptoms I
was having.
I was rationalizing as one.
I'm, at the time, 52 years old.
I'm starting to get older.
I'm starting to.
I'm a supervisor of training,so I'm more sedentary now than
I've ever been, and so I'msitting on my butt.
I've put on some weight.
(32:42):
This is what's going to happen.
This is what happens and thisis what it feels like, and so I
didn't get checked out earlier.
And the really sad thing aboutit, looking back, is back in
2017, I had a really good friendthere in Monticello.
He lived in Elk River, but weworked together at the
(33:03):
Monticello plant.
He passed away from prostatecancer.
He found out when it was reallylate and they went after it
really super aggressively.
But there was just no hope forhim and a bunch of us went and
immediately got our PSAs tested.
So PSA is prostate specificantigens and what that is is the
(33:24):
blood tests, All it is.
They draw some blood and theycheck for these antigens in your
blood and it says that there'sall that tells you is there's
something going on with yourprostate, because if there's any
trauma to your prostate whetherit's cancer or an infection, or
you got kicked or you're ridinga bike, those levels go up.
(33:45):
They release these antigensinto your blood stream, and so
mine came back 1.59.
Now a normal male in their 40sat the time should have been 0.6
to 0.8.
But before 2019, the standardwas if it's below 4.0, they just
(34:06):
tell you you're within rangeand you know, that's it.
They don't tell you to monitorit.
They don't tell you hey, it'sslightly elevated, so you should
do this every year.
They didn't tell me anything.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
So in 2017, you were possibly already slightly
elevated Yep.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I likely had this prostate cancer growing since
through 2017.
Wow, and because the doctor said, well, it's less than four,
you're good to go.
And that's what I want.
One of the things I want tomake sure biological males 40
years or older, every year,every September September
prostate cancer awareness monthgo get your PSA tested, because
(34:45):
what matters is the trend.
Some men have PSAs that arenormally 2, 3, 4, even.
I know a guy in the prostatecancer support group on Facebook
who's six.
His he doesn't have cancer,he's fine, and his PSA is just
six point something.
And so what's important is youdo more than one test and you
(35:07):
track that trend, and it's goodto do that, like every year,
every September, and as soon asit starts going up, you get with
the urologist, you check it.
Now, you're checking it everymonth and you're treating it
before it breaks out of theprostate.
Because what's happened since,from 2017 to now, is it's been
growing, what's likely beengrowing, and eventually it just
(35:31):
turned the corner and becameaggressive, and that's where I
started to have the symptoms.
It broke out of the prostate,it's formed a primary, another
tumor on my spine, on my L1vertebrae, and once that happens
, the prognosis changessignificantly.
In fact, if you catch it whileyour PSA is a little.
While it's still contained inthe prostate it's almost 100%
(35:55):
curing, and once it breaks outof the prostate it's your
palliative, not curative.
And that's scary.
I forgot what question I wasanswering.
I started babbling there for abit.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
No, no, you're good.
I wanted to make a comment thatbecause you first told me about
all this going on, I believe inAugust.
Initially, I had a doctor visitcoming up to get reevaluated
for my life insurance and theydid a PSA test and that was the
(36:28):
first thing I checked andluckily, like I mentioned to you
in a private conversation, isthat mine was like 0.4 or 5,
which is great.
It's really low and very, veryhappy to see that.
But I tell you what it wasdefinitely top of mind after our
conversation and listening towhat you've been going through,
(36:52):
and so that's definitelysomething that I've been
preaching as well as you justmentioned, that biological males
above the age of 40 need to getit checked, and especially when
you look at, as you alsomentioned, that all men at some
(37:16):
point, regardless of if theyever die of it or not, will
probably have prostate cancerand most men don't die of it but
will probably get it somehowbefore they die.
Yeah, and so I found that veryinteresting, and so it does keep
it more top of mind, and solet's talk then about so, once
(37:40):
you found out and, as you said,it metastasized into your L1,
what was that like?
I mean, you were waiting fortreatment.
What was that period of timelike where you were between the
diagnosis and a treatment plan?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah, I was scared, I was worried.
I started having dialogue atwork like, hey, I don't know
what's going to happen, I don'tknow what this looks like in the
coming months.
I started looking at what is myoption to take some time off.
Fortunately, I've got a reallygood job here and they let me
take a couple months off.
I'm actually going back to worktomorrow morning After two
(38:20):
months off.
I've been off since August 20,8, 7, 6, 5, or 4th.
August 24 was my last day.
I'm going back tomorrow.
So because my radiationtreatment's done, and yeah that
that time is.
That waiting really sucks,Because now it's now you know.
(38:43):
Now you know you've got a tumoror multiple tumors, in my case
growing and it's aggressive andthey're they're working on
scheduling this and they'rescheduling that.
You're waiting for a call fromthis person and a call from that
person and nothing seems to behappening fast enough.
I wanted to just go straight inthe next day and get zapped.
(39:04):
I just chewed me with someradiation.
I don't care, I'll give me somechemo pills, I'll take all of
them.
I wanted, I want to startdealing with this right away,
and it was tough waiting.
So I channeled and that's wherethat short story I wrote the
tumor.
That's where that came from, asI started channeling all that
frustration and fear into,because that's why, that's why I
(39:26):
write.
I write for emotional reasons,it's an outlet for me, it's
therapeutic, and so is intalking about this.
So that's also where so I wasworking on the short story and
then I also had this idea of I'mgoing to start telling people.
I want to let people know,because when I turned 40, nobody
(39:47):
handed me a book and saidhere's, here's what you need to
know about your prostate and howto, what to look for and what
to check for and what it means.
Yeah, there's, there's nothingout there.
You know, my dad didn't knowbecause he didn't experience any
issues.
I have an uncle that just wentthrough prostate cancer or two
years ago, and just you knowpeople don't talk about it's an
(40:08):
embarrassing thing to talk about, for one sure.
Fortunately I was in the Navy onsubmarine so I have no
Boundaries.
I'll tell anybody anything.
So I want to buy up?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
see, I'll tell you so I want to I want to bring that
up as Giant some light on whatis possibly one of the elephants
in the room.
That was my first initialthought when I first found out
you worked on a nuclearsubmarine.
You also worked at a nuclearplant, and so I already know the
answer to this question.
But I want you to answer isthere a connection?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
So there's no way to know, right?
I don't think there is.
We are really super safe.
Andy will tell you.
You probably were a TLD on so.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I only had to wear one when I went into the Spaces,
but, yes, we were issued them.
If we were ever and, like theysaid, a commercial flight gives
you more radiation, then whatconnects to the radio or the
reactor?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
so, yeah, so I'm not concerned that that was what my
Source was.
I did have a week I spent inAbu Dhabi.
That apparently was near a burnpit when it was active, and
there's a Recent that's calledthe packed act.
(41:26):
Va just came out with thepacked act and they finally
admitted the exposure to the airover in the Middle East during
certain times is what they calla presumed condition for some
cancers, and so Maybe that's it.
I don't know, and that's thescary things.
(41:46):
I'll never know.
What I do know is we, mydoctor's really good, my
radiation oncologist.
He says, hey, let's find outthat we can do this genetic test
, find out number one if it'sgenetic, because that changes
our course of treatment, andthen, if it's not, we can still
look at some genetic markers andmaybe there's, there's some
treatments that are better forsome genetic markers.
(42:07):
And so we did that.
There was nothing special aboutmy prostate cancer.
It was just naturally occurring.
It wasn't genetic, it's notfamily-based it's.
It's just it just happened forsome reason.
So Externally caused, likely,but why I don't know.
But there's, we do so much, wehad, we take so many precautions
(42:29):
at work at the nuclear powerplant and the Navy I got.
Like Andy said, I got lessradiation Underway on a
submarine.
Then my family did sitting in a, you know, sitting in the house
in Hawaii on Volcanic lava,lava beds, concrete houses on
near asphalt roadways all thesethings admit radio.
(42:51):
You know, they have radioactivedecay from the minerals at them
, yep, and so now I don't thinkthat was it, but I'll never know
what I did do.
I'm gonna, you know, you theright.
What you should do is make theVA figure out.
If they can figure out what itwas, yeah, so I did submit a
claim.
I think the most telling thingis that week I spent in Abu
(43:14):
Dhabi.
So I had a little write-up onthat and we'll see.
We'll see what they say If theymake a service connection grade
.
If they don't, then I'll justkeep not knowing.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Now you mentioned that you just finished your
treatments, so what's next?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
well, sort of.
So I'm on two differenttreatments.
I was supposed to be on three.
So when we did our the CT scans, they said you got it's in your
prostate.
It looks like it's broken outof your prostate in the local
area and you've got this tumoron the L1 and you have something
showing up, something lit up onthe scan on your 11th rib on
your left side.
I'm like holy crap.
(43:55):
So what we want to do isAndrogen deprivation therapy,
adt, along with radiationtherapy, along with chemo.
I'm like so what's the timeline?
Oh, all three all at once.
Like holy crap.
So.
But before my radiationoncologist, dr Brian Luinda
fantastic doctor out here hesaid before we do all that,
(44:18):
let's do one more scan.
And it's a highly specialized,very expensive scan.
The Navy covered, the VAcovered it, fortunately, and
it's called a PSMA PET scan andif it doesn't show up on that,
it's not cancer.
And so my rib didn't light up.
So it was just my L1 and justthe prostate.
And so he said with that let'sskip the chemo, let's just do
(44:41):
the ADT and the radiationtherapy.
So I did 28 doses of radiationto my prostate and then I did
five doses of radiation to myspine and Then that was all.
While I'm doing ADT, this, thesedrugs, and it's two drugs.
It's called Zytiga and Lupron.
So I get a Lupron shot onceevery three months.
(45:04):
I'm two months into my.
I got my first shot on August21st and I took my first Zytiga
pills on August 11th.
And I do the pills every day.
I do a thousand milligrams ofZytiga every day and then every
three months I'll get thisLupron shot and that's.
I'll be on that for at least ayear.
I think that's the worst partof all the treatments.
(45:26):
Radiation treatment great, killthe cancer.
But the ADT, you know, becauseit's temporary, there's a start
date, there's an end date andyou're done with it.
Adt is different.
This is it's a little emotionalfor me, because you know when
they give, when they castratechemically, castrate like
(45:48):
pedophiles and Rapists, theygive them two drugs.
They give them Zytiga andLupron.
So yeah, for them it'spermanent.
They have to take it the restof their life, except that
eventually your body figures outhow to avoid it, and so your
body.
And so the reason you're doingthose is prostate cancer is a
(46:12):
hormone-fueled cancer.
It feeds off of testosterone.
So if you know men who have lowtestosterone, right.
That's a thing where you feelthe fatigue and lethargic all
the time.
You don't have any energy, nomotivation, your mood goes
through the floor, you just feellike garbage and don't feel
like doing anything and you feellike crying all the time.
(46:33):
And that's what they're goingfor with this is, they're trying
to take my testosterone down tozero, and so I'm on that.
My PSA went from 10 at the lasttest to Because they did one
right before I did the start ofthe treatment down to zero, down
to four and then down to zeropoint eight, and I will get
(46:56):
another test for about anotherthree weeks, which is I'm in
that fear phase again, like Idon't actually know if this
radiation therapy worked.
We're not going to do a scan andfind out.
All we're going to do ismonitor my testosterone to make
sure it stays at zero, and we'regoing to do that for another
eight or ten months and thenthey'll look at my blood work
(47:19):
and if I'm a candidate forcoming off, they might wean me
off of the adT, see if mytestosterone comes back up and
Then watch my PSA levels.
So, as your testosterone comesback up, it should.
Mine was 400 and somethingbefore all this started so
pretty healthy for 50 somethingyears old, not too bad and it
(47:41):
was down to zero.
Now it's, it's undetectable andso should start going back up.
And as it goes up, my PSA isgoing to come back up.
But my PSA should come up tolike point six, point eight,
maybe one point oh, and thenstabilize and as long as my
Testosterone rises to normallevels Well, almost normal.
(48:04):
It'll never go back tocompletely normal.
My, but my, my PSA stays low,then that's showing that there's
no active cancer.
That's growing.
As soon as I have active cancer, it's growing, my PSA will
start to rise again, and so I'mjust going to be.
The rest of my life will bemonitoring, holding my breath
(48:24):
between PSA tests, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
So you obviously started a podcast and you wanted
to talk about it, and I knowpart of the reason you wanted to
talk about it was it wastherapeutic for you.
You want to tell us about yourpodcast, how you started that,
why you started that and howit's going and where people can
catch it.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, so I was when the pandemic hit.
I was teaching classes at thecollege and the pandemic hit,
and then I had to start teachingfrom home.
So I had to get a microphone,which I'm not using, but I had
to get a microphone.
I had to get a camera and alittle setup.
So I just set up a littlesomething here in my craft room
(49:07):
where I do my leather work andfive million other hobbies, and
so I had all this gear sittingaround and this diagnosis hit
and I was telling some peopleabout it and I was.
It was kind of a roller coasterof how I felt each day I'm
dealing with it a lot better nowand I can just talk through it
(49:30):
normally, but at the time it wasa little tough to talk through
and so I thought you know what?
I just need to record this.
I need to record what I need tosit down and just say it and
record it.
And I did and I turned it intoepisode one and it's a prostate
cancer road to recovery.
It's on YouTube, it's onSpotify, it's on iHeartRadio,
(49:56):
Apple, it's on all the normalpodcast stuff, but I primarily
publish for YouTube.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
And.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
I've done.
You know that first one's justkind of.
I got a lot of good engagement,a lot of good feedback and I
met a couple new people HarryIan from Australia, and he's two
years ahead of me.
He's been, he's going throughthis journey and he just last
month just eased off.
They kept him on the ADT fortwo years, so they just eased
(50:28):
him off last month and so he'sclimbing back up and he's
holding his breath, hoping hisPSA stays low, and so he and I
start chatting.
And then I just met a bunch ofgood people through this and so
I did another episode and thenanother, and then I said, ok,
I've had this little plan onthat.
When I sat down and did thatfirst one, I was like, if I'm
going to do this, what is mygoal, what am I going to try and
(50:50):
talk about?
And I realized it was too muchfor one video, so that's why I
decided to break it up into apodcast.
There's still a bunch of peopleI want to talk to.
My sister-in-law went throughbreast cancer several years ago
and prostate cancer and breastcancer are very similar because
they're both hormone-fueledcancers and so there's a lot of
(51:12):
similarities in what you do inthe treatment and she was able
to do a different treatment.
She was able to do the surgery,and so I want to get her on
there and do an interview.
My brother had cancer on hisneck.
We'll talk about that.
I just had an interview Friday,two days ago, with a friend
from work who went throughprostate cancer 12 years ago and
(51:36):
then, because of my diagnosis,he was like you know what?
I haven't checked my PSA levels.
They removed his prostate 12years ago, but that doesn't mean
that you will always get arecurrence.
So that's what sucks aboutprostate cancer is you get it
and you're cured, but you'recured for so long until you get
it again, because all it needsis one cell, one prostate cell,
(52:00):
not scraped off of the bottom ofyour bladder or something.
And sure enough, he went andgot his PSA tested and it was
slightly elevated again.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
So they waited.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
They did another test and they waited.
They did another test and thenthey were referring to urologist
and they're like yep you havecancer again.
And so he's going through thisagain and he wouldn't have done
that if I hadn't been doing this.
So a lot of people are gettingtheir blood checked.
A lot of people are gettingtheir PSA tested.
Most of them are good stories,like yours.
(52:30):
Most of them are coming back.
I'm getting lots of texts saying, hey, it came out at 0.8.
Hey, got it back, it's 0.6.
And then this one you know, hejust came back higher.
So he's going to deal with.
He's got to decide whether hecan do radiation, whether he's
going to do ADT, whether he cando both.
But once again he's facing thisand it just sucks.
(52:53):
So I like doing this.
I've done, was he?
I think this was episode nineor episode 10.
I've done nine or 10 episodesso far and we're going through a
gambit of not just my treatmentand my diagnosis, but what are
the other options and why wouldsomebody choose those?
I've got an episode I'm justtrying to schedule with my
(53:15):
doctor.
I want to sit down with myradiation oncologist and get
some right from the doctor infofor people to.
You know, this is what you know, these are the questions people
are asking and have him answerthose.
I think that'll be good.
So I think overall, it's reallygood.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
No, it is good, and I've been listening and I've
been encouraging others tolisten, especially people that
are in our age group.
You know that it is important.
There is a history of cancer inmy family.
I don't believe it was prostatecancer, I guess.
Actually, I had a grandfatherwho had prostate cancer, but
that's not the cancer thatkilled him, because it ended up
(53:55):
in his colon, I believe, and sothere was other things going on
there.
But it does make it again, likeI mentioned before, it makes it
top of mind, especially forthose of us who have crossed the
50-yard line.
Let's just say, and yeah, Iwant to thank you, jason, for
what you're doing for bringingawareness to cancer.
(54:17):
The last thing I want to askyou about is because, obviously,
the mission of Hope Town HeroOutdoors is mental health
awareness, and so tell me aboutthe mental health aspect of what
you're going through and whatyou're doing to keep yourself in
(54:40):
check.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yeah, because I'll tell you I wasn't always doing
healthy things.
It's easy to just sit on thecouch in the dark and think
about it and keep thinking aboutit, and that's not good.
That's not a good loop to be in, right, I have to keep myself
busy, I have to go after thethings, and what sucks is, once
(55:03):
the therapy starts, themotivation to do anything just
goes away.
So I am constantly just forcingmyself to do things that I know
I used to enjoy that I'm nownot enjoying as much, but when I
do the podcasts and I'm meetingpeople and I'm seeing that it's
helping, that brings some ofthat motivation back.
(55:23):
I'm just fighting against.
I'm basically fighting against achemical issue, a chemical
balance issue with my body,where that testosterone gives us
the energy and the drive andthe motivation and helps us
think, clearly helps ourshort-term memory and all that's
trashed and my body's trying tore-figure out how to do things,
and so you have to do things inorder to allow your body to
(55:47):
figure it out.
I dug an old hobby out of thecloset.
I don't know how well this isgonna show up.
I used to make fishing polesand so I know you did a segment
recently where you had some guyson there doing some fishing
poles.
So I'm putting together thisnine-foot casting rig for my
(56:08):
brother to do some salmonfishing.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
And yeah, it'll be double guide feet and they'll
have their base wrap.
So it's got this base wrapunderneath the guide feet so
when the pole flexes it's notscratching the graphite.
It's got a nice cushion there.
It'll be a high-end pole.
I do the writing.
(56:34):
Of course.
I do a lot of writing.
I do leatherwork.
Of course I don't have it.
That's the one thing I'm tryingto get back into that I'm
having the hardest time goinggetting back into.
You can see a lot of mysupplies and stuff here, but I
do like little bags.
I got just need something for Itie flies.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
So Now you made me a really nice knife sheath for my
hunting knife.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
Oh, yeah, thank you yeah yeah, I do little sheaths
for knives and this one's for askiver.
I got a couple knife sheathproject requests so I'm trying
to get back into doing thatstuff.
One of the things I'm gonna dowith the fishing poles.
I bought a, so light blue isthe color of prostate cancer
(57:21):
awareness, so I've got a lightblue blank.
Once I'm done with my brothers,I'm gonna do this light blue
fishing pole and it's all blue.
It's gonna be everything, thethreads, light blue, everything
on it is all prostate cancerawareness pole.
And then at work, every year wehave this.
We support the United Wayauctions and so I'm gonna donate
(57:44):
that and some leather goods togive away to raise some money.
And then, if that goes, if I'mable to build that pole I want
to.
What I wanna try and do isbuild another one or two of
those and maybe raffle them offto raise some money for prostate
cancer, for an actual prostatecancer charity.
(58:06):
But we'll say I don't know.
The thing is you gotta plan forthings, you gotta keep things
your calendar, you have to havesomething to look forward to,
because sitting on the couch inthe dark is not something to
look forward to, and one of myfriends reached out to me for
Minnesota.
He lives up there in Zimmermanand he's like.
He's like Stone.
(58:27):
I used to go fishing with himup at Lake of the Woods every
May and he's like Stone, you'regoing fishing with me.
Speaker 3 (58:33):
It's like I don't know if I'm gonna be he's like I
don't wanna hear it.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
you're going fishing in May.
I'm like hurry.
So I guess I'm coming back outto Minnesota in May All right?
Speaker 1 (58:40):
well, I expect to see you when you get here, you will
, you will.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
What's a good friend right there?
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
Absolutely it is.
We're rolling up around an hourhere and so we're gonna start
wrapping it up, and, as Ilistened to the Mike Rowe
podcast, he always says this iswhen he lands the plane.
I like that analogy.
And so, andy, do you have anylast questions or last words as
we wrap up?
Speaker 3 (59:07):
tonight.
No, phil, I just wanna repeatyour sentiment to Jason, like
thank you for what you're doingand getting this awareness out
there.
I don't again, I'm only 34, butI'm getting close to that time
when it's time for the oil checkand all the PSA talk and I
don't know anything about it andI don't know if I would be told
about it.
So I appreciate you spreadingthat awareness to me and then to
(59:28):
your followers and the peopleyou're meeting.
So keep doing what you're doing.
It's awesome work.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I've turned out.
I've got a YouTube channel youcan watch to learn all you want.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
There we go Next subscriber right here.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Yeah, jason, any final words and you wanna pitch
your podcast again or any otherway?
Speaker 2 (59:46):
people are gonna hold you up If you're a biological
male, 50 or 40 year old, or evengo get your PSA checked.
Next time you check with yourdoctor say, hey, I just want my
PSA checked and then trend it atleast every year.
That's important, hugelyimportant.
It would save so many lives ifyou just did that once a year.
Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
That's all right, well, thank you.
Thank you very much, jason,thank you Andy, and from all of
us here at Hometown HeroOutdoors, just a reminder again
we are here for mental healthawareness.
If you are struggling in anyway, we have members that are
assist, train, applied suicideprevention training and you can
call anyone at any time.
(01:00:30):
If you are unable to do that,the national hotline you can
call or text 988 for suicideawareness.
And so with that, I am PhilEwart, along with Andy Kraft and
Jason Stone.
Have a great week, everybody.
We'll see you next time, takecare.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
See y'all Love y'all.
Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Thank you for listening to the Hometown Hero
Outdoors podcast.
For more information, visit ourwebsite at
hometownherooutdoorsorg.
Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Course seal.
In the land of 10,000 lakes, a remarkable movement
was born.
Welcome to Hometown HeroOutdoors.
We are dedicated to honoringour military service members,
veterans and first responders byproviding them with
unforgettable outdoorrecreational opportunities.
We believe those who haveserved and sacrificed so much
(00:24):
for our country and communitiesdeserve a chance to reclaim
their spirit and find healing inthe great outdoors.
This is Hometown Hero Outdoors.
Welcome to the Hometown HeroOutdoors podcast.
(00:50):
Here is your host, chris Taitro.
Well greetings everyone.
Welcome to this week's HometownHero Outdoors podcast.
(01:12):
I'm Phil Ewert, media producerfor HHO, filling in the host
chair for this week's podcast.
I'm joined this week by ourspecial guest, jason Stone,
retired Navy chief, as well asone of our board members for
Hometown Hero Outdoors, andyGraff.
Welcome everyone and thanks forjoining us tonight.
Guys, glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Absolutely, so I'm going to read through some of
Jason's bio to get us startedtonight.
There's a lot going on here.
This guy's lived a full life,and so I'll just get to reading
it.
Jason is a retired Navy chiefwith 20 years, 10 months and 20
days of submarine service underhis belt.
He worked in commercial nuclearpower since 2009, starting off
(01:58):
as an instructor at theMonticello Nuclear Plant in
Minnesota, and it is now inWashington state where he works
in the initial license classsupervisor as excuse me, the
initial class supervisor at theColumbia Generating Station.
He also teaches thermodynamiccourses as an adjunct instructor
at the local college.
(02:19):
Jason has his Bachelor ofScience in Nuclear Engineering
Technology and a Masters ofEnglish and Creative Writing.
He has a passion for learningand teaching.
He got his general classAmateur Radio License in 2007.
His pilot license in January2008.
He loves to write stories, makeleather bags and wallets,
builds fishing poles, helpspeople learn how to shoot better
(02:42):
and loves board games.
I don't know how you have time,to be honest.
Recently, though, jason startedhis own podcast called Prostate
Cancer to Road to Recovery,documenting his journey with
recent Stage 4 Advanced ProstateCancer Diagnosis.
So welcome, jason.
Very happy to have you on theHometown Hero Outdoors podcast
(03:06):
and to get a little bit of yourstory.
I met Jason, I want to sayabout 2011, when we used to be
next door neighbors, jason and Ilived next door to each other
in Big Lake, minnesota.
Over the years we went shootingtogether, spent a few nights
around the bonfire, enjoyingsome cigars, maybe even a little
(03:29):
scotch now, and then Jasonmoved from Minnesota in 2018.
We've stayed in contact, sowelcome Jason.
I'd like to start us outtonight Having you tell us about
your military service, why youchose to join the military,
specifically the Navy, and thenwalk us through your military
(03:49):
career, if you will.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, Thanks, Phil, I'd love to.
I always wanted to fly and soand I had a girlfriend in high
school I grew up in Pocatello,Idaho.
I went to Pocke High School foranybody in Idaho watching and I
wanted to join the Air Force,and so that's all.
I just knew my entire lifethat's what I was going to do.
I was going to join the AirForce and fly, and I remember
(04:12):
going to the recruiting officethere at the mall in Pocatello.
The Air Force office was closedand I was walking back down the
hall in this guy in a whiteuniform with a big smile on his
face.
He said how can I help you?
I said I don't think you can,so I'm trying to join the Air
Force.
And he said why do you want tojoin the Air Force?
I said well, I want to fly, hegoes.
(04:33):
Well, why would you want tojoin the Air Force?
I got really confused at thatpoint.
I was 17 years old.
He started telling me stuffabout well, the Navy has better
pilots, the Navy has more planes, and this and that, and then he
had me take this test.
And then he had me take anothertest.
The next thing I knew I joinedthe Go Submarines.
I'm not quite sure how thathappened.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
A little bit opposite there Above water, below water,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
You had your own experience with recruiters too.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Oh, absolutely.
I know they can swindle youpretty good.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yep, Sometimes you don't exactly know what you're
getting in for.
That's kind of how I startedoff, and that didn't necessarily
know what I wanted to do otherthan fly.
And then, once my careerstarted in the Navy, I just kind
of went along for the ride.
They started saying stuff likewell, in order to fly, you got
to be an officer.
In order to be an officer,there's better programs to be an
(05:25):
officer.
And so I kind of bit the wholething cook line and sinker.
Oddly enough, I later in mycareer ended up going to be a
recruiter.
I tried not to be that guy.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So what was your rate in the Navy?
What job did you choose?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I was a nuclear machinist mate so I was the back
aft on the on the nuke subs.
It was a.
It was a fun ride I had.
I had a good time doing that.
I did six and a half years onmy first submarine, the USS Ohio
.
I did three years of recruitingduty down in San Diego and then
(06:04):
I went up to, went out toHawaii and I spent the rest of
my career in Hawaii and that wasawesome.
Wow, I did back to back seatours on with back to back
Westpacks.
I started off on the USS Tucsonand then I went to the USS
Chicago.
I loved being a sea.
I loved being on submarine.
I loved being out there fixingstuff.
(06:24):
I loved the mission and so Ireally got to do six years
straight of sea duty and then Iwent to the Pearl.
Harbor Naval Shipyard there inHawaii and I was able to dial it
down a little bit.
I was achieved by that pointand I was able to kind of coast
a little bit better, Teach acouple of my first classes to
(06:46):
how to run the shop.
I ran nuclear test equipmentthere in Hawaii and let them
kind of take things and I got togo do other things best around
in the in the chief's mess andwent and got my pilot license.
That was a.
That was a bucket list item formy whole life and I was like
I'm not leaving Hawaii till I dothat.
So yeah, I had a good time.
(07:07):
I got involved in emergencyamateur radio clubs, so EARC out
in Hawaii.
That was a lot of fun.
It was really interesting toget it involved and
participating in drills with thecommunity, with setting up the
Oahu Races, r-e-c-e-s, gettinginvolved in emergency
communications, having a hamradio set up, and yeah, that was
(07:31):
a lot of fun.
I had a lot, had a good time inHawaii.
If they had a nuclear reactorI'd live there forever.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, I've been to Hawaii a couple of times, just
mostly just tourism.
But yeah, it's, it's a niceplace.
I knew a bunch of sailors thatwere living in station out there
, Because Nick Tams Pack, whichI'm sure you've heard about,
that's Naval Communicationstelework area master station, if
I believe it's been a few years.
Okay, and pack and Pacific.
(08:00):
So I did, I did voice and datacomms on my ship.
My job was an IT but I was aradio man Right in the radio
shack.
So yeah, when you talk aboutyou know the ham radios and
stuff, it's kind of up my alley.
It's kind of a littleexperience in that.
But so yeah, I totally get it.
Yet Nick Tams Pack there inHawaii is a very big station for
(08:21):
guys with my rate.
So I know a lot of friends thatwent there and loved it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So did you get your radio license outside?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I didn't.
It's funny you say that.
So I had a family member thatwas a chief of the Navy as well
and he has his license and he'sout near Virginia and he always
is like you got to get it?
You could get it.
I probably could, because hewants to communicate with me.
He's always shown me his setupsand his antennas and all this
stuff.
I totally respect it, but youknow, I just unfortunately don't
(08:49):
have enough time to do that.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
My motto is you can never have too many hobbies
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
So, jason, I want to reel you back just a little bit
for some of our listeners who,like myself, are not super
familiar with the Navy.
You mentioned, I think, threedifferent subs that you were on.
What was the difference betweenthose subs?
Or were they all very similar?
Besides being nuclear, wasthere?
(09:21):
I mean size difference,capacity, mission style, I mean,
what can you tell us about thedifference in the ships?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yes tall.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
The difference is about 200 feet in length and a
10 feet diameter.
So the first boat I was on theOhio up out of Bangor,
washington, was a missile boat.
That was a ballistic missilesubmarine.
They carried 24 ICBMs and wehad about over a dozen of those
(09:58):
boats on the east and west coasttotal at the time a dozen and a
half and our goal was to go out, submerge and hide from the
world for two to three months ata time, and so it was a pretty
slow, easy going mission.
We just go out, we submerge.
It was a big old heavy boat and18,000 tons submerged
(10:19):
displacement and they just wouldgo out and we'd train and run
drills and, yeah, it was apretty easy life.
They call it the hotel ofsubmarines.
What's interesting about thosewith 24 ICBMs?
Each ICBM has multiple warheadson it, and so if that submarine
(10:41):
, that one single submarine,went out in the middle of the
ocean, surfaced and declareditself its own country, it would
be the third most powerfulnuclear-armed country in the
world Just one of those, so onlybehind the United States.
And so union.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That's a little crazy , it is right.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And to have more than a dozen of those running around
.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
So obviously, nuclear is actually very safe.
It's very stable until it isset off, and that's also the
same for power plants.
They're incredibly safe untilthey're not, until they're not
accurate.
And but did that ever crossyour mind?
(11:27):
That you're basically, you know, sleeping feet away from 12
Nagasaki sized or larger bombs?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, I mean it does at first, but the whole trick to
being in the Navy, out to sea,is stay busy.
You stay busy and you're tryingto find something to do all the
time and there's if you haveany downtime, you're.
You're feeling it on your own.
I think that's kind of where mydrive to constantly be doing
something comes from.
(11:59):
If I'm not busy in training, ifI'm not cleaning, if I'm not
fixing a valve, if I'm nottroubleshooting some weird noise
in a turbine generator, thenI'm going to be reading, I'm
going to be doing laundry, I'mgoing to be doing something I'm
going to be doing, and so that.
And on a submarine you get,you're on a different schedule
because we don't have thebenefit of sunlight, daylight,
(12:20):
right.
So that's what governs yoursleep time.
On target sailors, no offense,and you know, as is a regular
human being right now on land,that's what our day is based on.
On the submarine it's not.
So your body is naturallyacclimated with lack of sunlight
, to about an 18 hour day.
(12:41):
So we would spend six hours onwatch doing our, doing our job,
taking logs, running equipment,and we'd spend six hours after
watch, doing either training orafter watch cleanup or
maintenance or something likethat.
And then, as long as therewasn't something else going on,
we got six hours to ourselves todo laundry or shower, eat stuff
(13:06):
like that, and so you generallyget about four hours of sleep,
three and a half four hours ofsleep every eight out of every
18 hour rotation, and you getmore.
It feels like more days of theweek go by.
So it's it's kind of weird whenyou're underwater and deprived
of sunlight.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah.
So, andy, how does that compareto being on a, on a carrier?
I mean, obviously you're, yousee the sunlight, but I mean,
does your?
Work ship similar.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, so what we did.
So I worked nights, I was thenight supervisor, I was the
communication watch officer andbasically our job, like we
worked 12 hour shifts but thenwe'd have overlap and then when
I was on watch, I was on watch12 hours.
I didn't get the free time, Ididn't get the extra time for me
it was I was the CWO, so I wasin charge of all voice and data
(13:55):
comms coming on off and on theship.
So it was a big job.
You know, captain had a directline to our shop.
If there was ever an issue he'dcall us directly because you
know, obviously every everythingcomes out of our ship.
So we had an outage.
It was a big deal but we wouldbasically work.
I'd work.
I think it was like 6 pm to 6am.
I was my shift every day, butthat was because I was stationed
(14:15):
over in Japan and that thatarea, that was pretty much
daytime in the United States.
And then after that we'd havecleaning stations, which would
be we do.
The whole ship was shut downoperations for an hour unless
we're doing real world stuff andwe would clean.
It called XO's happy hour, thewhole ship.
So it's 5000 sailors on a ship,5000 people cleaning, and you
(14:36):
know what it does get dirty.
You wouldn't think it does, itsure does.
So we do that.
And then if we had a generalquarters or drill training as a
team, it would go basically fromlike seven to 10, 11.
So now it's almost noon andyou're ready, you're trying to
get some food and I got to hitthe rack and go right back at it
.
So, and especially with my job,we had some, a lot of stuff we
(14:57):
had to do before work.
As far as, like, taking overthe watch, because we do 12 hour
watch rotations, sure, but yeah, so I would say we were right
about that 16 hour day schedule.
They try to give us eight hoursoff, but it never, never really
Cue me.
But when I worked nights I,like you, never saw the daylight
.
I worked in a space.
There's no windows.
We were a TPI space, whichmeans two person integrity, so I
(15:20):
mean it wasn't free in and out,it was very who's coming in
here we have an authorized listof who could be in the space.
So there's no windows, there'sno open doors, nothing, so very
well secured.
Once I sat down, I pretty muchdidn't leave for the day unless
I had to make a quick head call,so it was kind of tough.
I always like after my thirddeployment I figured out all my
(15:41):
snacks.
I needed to make it throughBecause otherwise I'm sending
people down to the ship store.
Because the carrier did havethe benefit of Razz's, which is
replenishment at sea.
We did have a ship store thatwas operational but unlike you
know, you sub guys you get downthere and you may not get a Razz
for a minute.
So I give you respect there.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I didn't serve in the military.
I was in law enforcement and Iworked overnight, so I know what
that's like, but I don't thinkI would have been cut out for
being above or below the water,other than when I take my
pontoon out fishing.
So I want to change gears herea little bit.
And, jason, you started.
(16:21):
After your service, you wentand started working in new
plants.
How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, once again, I ended up doing something I
didn't want her to do.
I was going to be an operatorout in Idaho and I interviewed
for a job.
It was a perfect job.
I wanted to get back home andthey said yeah, we're going to
send you an offer letter.
It might take a couple of weeks.
Hr's doing some restructuring.
(16:49):
I was like, okay, awesome.
They said we want to hire you,we want to hire you.
All right, perfect.
This is 2009.
The whole situation with gettingjobs and stuff was pretty rough
at that time Money and housingcrisis and all that.
So I was excited that I wasgoing to come out of the Navy at
that time with something.
(17:09):
And a couple of weeks went byand I called them back, didn't
have an offer, and they said, oh, just give it a couple more
weeks.
And this turned into a thing.
And so a couple of months wentby and I called a recruiter and
I said, hey, I'm starting to getnervous, I'm getting cold feet.
I says I want to be an operator.
I don't necessarily have to bearound nuclear power, I'm just
(17:30):
looking for a job where I'mturning wrenches.
That's what I want to do.
And she said, well, I've gotthis instructor job in Minnesota
.
I said there's two things wrongwith that.
And she said, well, call meback next week.
And I called her back and thenthat turned into a thing and so
this went on.
We tag teamed for a few weeks,and then I finally said, hey,
(17:52):
how big of a jerk would I be ifI went and did this interview at
this place I don't want to liveto do on a job I don't want to
do.
And she says, no, if you haven'thad any job interviews, you
should be doing this.
You need the experience.
And I'm like, oh, that'sinteresting, are they paying?
And then she said, yeah,they'll fly you from Hawaii out
to Minnesota.
I was like, heck, yeah.
(18:14):
So I flew out and I should haveseen, I should have thought
about this, right, I didn'trealize at the time how I should
be prepared, what I should doto be prepared for this
interview for an instructor job.
So I'm sitting there, we'rewaiting on one of the
(18:35):
supervisors to come in, and themanager is chatting with me and
he says well, what are you gonnapresent today?
I said about what he said well,I mean, you're hiring for an
instructor job.
What are you gonna teach us?
Well, what do you wanna know?
Completely not prepared, right?
And he sat back, crossed hisarms, started saying things like
(18:58):
well, you're not ready for this, blah, blah, blah.
At that moment I startedfighting for a job I didn't want
, in a place I didn't wanna live.
I'm like, holy crap, I failedthis job interview and it hasn't
even started.
And so I started asking somequestions and he was very much
like I was like what does ithave to be about?
Does it have to be technicals?
(19:20):
Does it have to be nuclear?
Do I need a PowerPoint?
And he just kept not answeringthem and saying you don't wanna
do this, you don't wanna do this, which makes sense, except that
I had nothing to lose.
So I was gonna do it.
It didn't matter, I was gonnado this interview.
And so he finally gave in.
There was a whiteboard behindme in his office.
I said as long as I can justuse the whiteboard and start
(19:43):
talking, I'm ready to go.
And he's like okay, he says I'mnot gonna give you another
chance.
This is it.
I said, all right.
So I had just gotten my pilotlicense a year before, and so I
had a bunch of stuff fresh in myhead still and I knew that I
was talking to nuclear peopleand so people that had degrees,
(20:03):
engineering degrees even and soI didn't wanna hit the surface
stuff, the stuff that you mightlearn pick up in high school or
something.
So I went for all the littlenuggets of random things why is
the engine offset so manydegrees?
Why, how does the propellerrotation direction impact all
(20:25):
this stuff, and what is groundeffect?
And all these different littlethings.
And so I started talking.
I was drawing diagrams on theboard behind me and talking
through stuff and they startedasking questions and all I had
to do was present for 20 minutesso they could see whether or
not I could teach, and I'venever taught this is my first
time really teaching, right, asI was a knuckle-dragger.
(20:51):
I was turning wrenches in theengine room and he's up there,
they're asking me questions andthey're asking me questions and
finally he goes.
He looked at his watch and hesaid, holy crap.
He says we have to stop theinterview.
I panicked and he looked at theother guy and said well, we
(21:11):
missed the other interview.
So apparently they weresupposed to.
They missed an interviewbecause I was teaching and they
just got sucked right up into it.
So we went for two and a halfhours when oh, oh, oh.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Supposed to be 20 minutes, 20 minutes, oh jeez, I
went two and a half hours.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And we got done with the interview and he's like well
, we're gonna send you an offerthere.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
In my head.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I'm like, okay, I know how this goes.
And he said you know, hawaii'sa big place, so I know you know.
Everybody gets asked why?
Oh, do you know so and so right.
And it's an island with so manytens of thousands, of millions
of people.
And he says but I'm gonna askdo you remember, do you know a
sailor?
Cause?
We hired a guy a year ago bythis name and I was like truck
(21:58):
and I heard around the cornertruck piped up and said stone.
So he came out, we hugged, Ihad no idea he was working there
.
And then I heard another guy.
He said Mike, you know anotherguy was working there and
another guy knew from the Navywas working there, Mike, Huh,
interesting.
And then we're walking to go tolunch and I hear a voice from
(22:19):
20 years before, pulled rightout of the old memory banks.
I hear this voice.
I'm like that sounded like myA-School class leader from back
in 1989, 20 years ago.
And they're like, well, itcan't be.
I'm like, well, is it?
Unless it's this guy's name I'mnot throwing names out here, I
(22:43):
don't know if I should orshouldn't, but it's this guy's
name and I'm like, well, that'sour ops director.
I'm like, oh yeah, I knew him.
And so I suddenly all thesepeople I knew, and yeah, so I
thought about it.
I went home and made a couplecalls and decided you know what,
(23:03):
maybe there's something to this.
It was six months without anoffer letter from Idaho.
It had gone six months now.
So I finally just took the hintand said I guess I'm not
supposed to be doing that.
I'm supposed to move to BigLake, Minnesota, to be Phil's
neighbor.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
That you know what that's so funny about that story
Cause I obviously, as long asI've known you, I haven't heard
that entire story Is that I lovethe part where you said you
were fighting for a job youdidn't want in a place you
didn't want to move, and then,you ended up winning the job.
That's great.
So, and obviously because youtaught and you are an instructor
(23:43):
, I assume that's how you thentransitioned into teaching
college classes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, I got out here and now I was.
I went from teaching out therein Minnesota to teaching out
here and they have this like apipeline program at the
community college, the ColumbiaBasin College here, a nuclear
technology pipeline for thecommunity college.
So kids coming out of highschool can join in on these,
(24:11):
take these classes and learnabout the nuclear power plant.
They can learn about advancedthermodynamics, facility
components, all these differentthings, and they're taught by
people that work in the industry.
The Hanford Reservation outhere is a huge area.
We have PNL labs, we have whatthey call the tank farms, we've
(24:34):
got the VIT plant, we've got thewhere I work, the Columbia
Generating Station Nuclear PowerPlant.
There was the old test reactorthat was out here.
There's all kinds of stuff and$8 billion a year gets poured
into the Hanford Reservation.
So there's tons of technology,tons of opportunities, tons of
(24:55):
stuff going on out there and allthese kids in the area are like
well, I've heard there's goodjobs, so the college has a path
to get them into those jobs.
And so they asked me hey, weneed some help teaching one of
these.
And I started teaching like onenight here, one night there,
and then I took one whole classand then I took the next class
(25:15):
and now I'm teaching a bunch.
Like this quarter I'm teachingthree classes, which is the most
I've taught.
It's a challenge juggling allthat, but making it do, making
do.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, well, as you say, juggling, you said at the
beginning that you can't, youbelieve you can't have enough
hobbies, and I listed a few ofyours.
I want to touch on one of themwhich I think is pretty unique,
and that's your writing hobby.
Oh, okay, and so you, one ofthe times that you and I had
spoken privately previous tothis, you were working on
(25:51):
writing some scripts for somethings, and so how is that going
?
What are you writing?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So writing the script we talked about back then.
I did finish and I did send itoff to some I don't know, ink
something or other, the ink farmor whatever these places where
you can get movie scripts read,and it got a little bit of
interest, but nobody.
It was about a situation thathappened on the Arsak rain where
(26:17):
we ended up leaving a sailor inKorea and cause he got arrested
.
And it was this whole dramathing and.
But if you look at it from aproduction standpoint, hollywood
doesn't want to make anotherbig submarine Navy movie where
there might be some bad lightcast on the Navy right.
(26:38):
There's this whole scandal outthere called the Leonard.
Oh, that was a fat Leonard, fatLeonard, the fat Leonard
scandal.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
My CO has mentioned that specifically in that, so I
was fully involved in fatLeonard.
Ouch yeah, if you haven't.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's worth an interesting read.
If you go to the Wikipedia page.
So this was right in the middleof that time and there was some
the reports from the sailorafter he finally got out and
released.
There was a lot of corruptiongoing on and bribery and some
weird things he reported fromhis time in Korea and so I put
(27:22):
this whole screenplay togetherabout that.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
But of course Hollywood's not going to make
that, so well, but a uniqueexperience that you wrote a
screenplay after going throughyour masters in writing.
I think that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
It was fun.
I do a lot of short stories.
I'm putting together acollection of short stories
right now, my most recent storyI actually started this.
So, as you know the viewers maynot know yet I've got a
prostate cancer and so I justgot diagnosed back in June, on
June 27th, and within days ofthat I was doing this kind of
(27:57):
mental holy crap is, if you goto Google and put in the you
know stage four, bravo,aggressive, it's aggressive,
it's metastasized.
Already it's spread to my spine.
You put those things intoGoogle, it doesn't give you very
positive outlooks.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Dr Google, you will die of a splinter.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yep.
So I'm like holy crap, if I'vegot a year, what am I going to
do?
What do I really want to do ifI've got a year?
And one of the things that cameout of that self-evaluation was
writing a story about myexperience with cancer.
So I started a story called theTumor and I started it.
It's a three-part story and Idid the first two parts before I
(28:47):
started my actual treatment,because there's a long time from
diagnosis to treatment.
I was officially diagnosed June27th of this year and I took my
first pills for my firsttreatment on August 11th.
Yeah, it's a scary weight too,when they tell you it's
aggressive and then they makeyou wait.
(29:08):
That's not fun.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
And since we've now talked about the cancer, how did
you obviously we'll talk laterabout how people can listen to
your podcast series that youhave, which is very, very
informative about your journey,but for our audience, tell us
about that initial diagnosis,how that happened, how you found
(29:33):
out, and let's go from there.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
So they put you in a room, they have you drop your
pants, you're bend it over, notthat You're talking about like,
how did I find out I had?
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I know about the test Us old guys.
I don't know if Andy's had tohave this.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Not yet.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
But yeah, we've got the old oil check.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, well, that's not even the diagnosis, that's
still just checking symptoms,right?
The diagnosis is actually worsebecause it's a biopsy.
They take core samples fromyour prostate and they go in
through the same outdoor oh boy,through the wall into the
prostate.
They take 12 core samples.
Feels like you're gettingstapled right in the center of
(30:17):
your core.
But yeah, what sent me to thedoctor is I was, I'm heavy guy,
I'm a big guy, I'm six foot four, I'm really heavy and I'm
trying to get back on the bike,trying to lose some weight, and
I was just had some discomfortdown there and I had a doctor
(30:37):
visit coming up.
So I mentioned it to the doctorvisit and she's like well,
let's do a PSA test.
So she drew a PSA test and itcame back just a little above
four and she's like, well, thatcould be an infection or
something.
So she says, let's wait a littlewhile I'll give you, I'll put
you on an antibiotic.
And so I went on an antibioticfor five weeks to prove flaxen
(31:00):
or something, and came back inthe sixth week, did another test
and it came back six.
And I was like, hmm, all right,now, what doc?
She's like, well, I'm going torefer you to a urologist.
And throughout that waitingtime things started to get more
uncomfortable down there and soI had our time sitting.
(31:23):
You know, I started to noticechanges in how hard it was to
pee, how often I was going,stuff like that.
And the urologist he got me andhe said, ok, well, let's do
another PSA test.
And I'm like, holy crap.
So we did another one and itcame back even higher.
(31:44):
It was in the upper sixes, andhe's like, all right, now it's
time for the biopsy and that'swhere they go in and they do the
12 core samples.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
We'll return to the podcast in just a moment, but
first hometown hero outdoorswould like to thank the
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(32:12):
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We thank them for their support.
Now back to our podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But, looking back, what I found is those symptoms I
was having.
I was rationalizing as one.
I'm, at the time, 52 years old.
I'm starting to get older.
I'm starting to.
I'm a supervisor of training,so I'm more sedentary now than
I've ever been, and so I'msitting on my butt.
I've put on some weight.
(32:42):
This is what's going to happen.
This is what happens and thisis what it feels like, and so I
didn't get checked out earlier.
And the really sad thing aboutit, looking back, is back in
2017, I had a really good friendthere in Monticello.
He lived in Elk River, but weworked together at the
(33:03):
Monticello plant.
He passed away from prostatecancer.
He found out when it was reallylate and they went after it
really super aggressively.
But there was just no hope forhim and a bunch of us went and
immediately got our PSAs tested.
So PSA is prostate specificantigens and what that is is the
(33:24):
blood tests, All it is.
They draw some blood and theycheck for these antigens in your
blood and it says that there'sall that tells you is there's
something going on with yourprostate, because if there's any
trauma to your prostate whetherit's cancer or an infection, or
you got kicked or you're ridinga bike, those levels go up.
(33:45):
They release these antigensinto your blood stream, and so
mine came back 1.59.
Now a normal male in their 40sat the time should have been 0.6
to 0.8.
But before 2019, the standardwas if it's below 4.0, they just
(34:06):
tell you you're within rangeand you know, that's it.
They don't tell you to monitorit.
They don't tell you hey, it'sslightly elevated, so you should
do this every year.
They didn't tell me anything.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
So in 2017, you were possibly already slightly
elevated Yep.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I likely had this prostate cancer growing since
through 2017.
Wow, and because the doctor said, well, it's less than four,
you're good to go.
And that's what I want.
One of the things I want tomake sure biological males 40
years or older, every year,every September September
prostate cancer awareness monthgo get your PSA tested, because
(34:45):
what matters is the trend.
Some men have PSAs that arenormally 2, 3, 4, even.
I know a guy in the prostatecancer support group on Facebook
who's six.
His he doesn't have cancer,he's fine, and his PSA is just
six point something.
And so what's important is youdo more than one test and you
(35:07):
track that trend, and it's goodto do that, like every year,
every September, and as soon asit starts going up, you get with
the urologist, you check it.
Now, you're checking it everymonth and you're treating it
before it breaks out of theprostate.
Because what's happened since,from 2017 to now, is it's been
growing, what's likely beengrowing, and eventually it just
(35:31):
turned the corner and becameaggressive, and that's where I
started to have the symptoms.
It broke out of the prostate,it's formed a primary, another
tumor on my spine, on my L1vertebrae, and once that happens
, the prognosis changessignificantly.
In fact, if you catch it whileyour PSA is a little.
While it's still contained inthe prostate it's almost 100%
(35:55):
curing, and once it breaks outof the prostate it's your
palliative, not curative.
And that's scary.
I forgot what question I wasanswering.
I started babbling there for abit.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
No, no, you're good.
I wanted to make a comment thatbecause you first told me about
all this going on, I believe inAugust.
Initially, I had a doctor visitcoming up to get reevaluated
for my life insurance and theydid a PSA test and that was the
(36:28):
first thing I checked andluckily, like I mentioned to you
in a private conversation, isthat mine was like 0.4 or 5,
which is great.
It's really low and very, veryhappy to see that.
But I tell you what it wasdefinitely top of mind after our
conversation and listening towhat you've been going through,
(36:52):
and so that's definitelysomething that I've been
preaching as well as you justmentioned, that biological males
above the age of 40 need to getit checked, and especially when
you look at, as you alsomentioned, that all men at some
(37:16):
point, regardless of if theyever die of it or not, will
probably have prostate cancerand most men don't die of it but
will probably get it somehowbefore they die.
Yeah, and so I found that veryinteresting, and so it does keep
it more top of mind, and solet's talk then about so, once
(37:40):
you found out and, as you said,it metastasized into your L1,
what was that like?
I mean, you were waiting fortreatment.
What was that period of timelike where you were between the
diagnosis and a treatment plan?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah, I was scared, I was worried.
I started having dialogue atwork like, hey, I don't know
what's going to happen, I don'tknow what this looks like in the
coming months.
I started looking at what is myoption to take some time off.
Fortunately, I've got a reallygood job here and they let me
take a couple months off.
I'm actually going back to worktomorrow morning After two
(38:20):
months off.
I've been off since August 20,8, 7, 6, 5, or 4th.
August 24 was my last day.
I'm going back tomorrow.
So because my radiationtreatment's done, and yeah that
that time is.
That waiting really sucks,Because now it's now you know.
(38:43):
Now you know you've got a tumoror multiple tumors, in my case
growing and it's aggressive andthey're they're working on
scheduling this and they'rescheduling that.
You're waiting for a call fromthis person and a call from that
person and nothing seems to behappening fast enough.
I wanted to just go straight inthe next day and get zapped.
(39:04):
I just chewed me with someradiation.
I don't care, I'll give me somechemo pills, I'll take all of
them.
I wanted, I want to startdealing with this right away,
and it was tough waiting.
So I channeled and that's wherethat short story I wrote the
tumor.
That's where that came from, asI started channeling all that
frustration and fear into,because that's why, that's why I
(39:26):
write.
I write for emotional reasons,it's an outlet for me, it's
therapeutic, and so is intalking about this.
So that's also where so I wasworking on the short story and
then I also had this idea of I'mgoing to start telling people.
I want to let people know,because when I turned 40, nobody
(39:47):
handed me a book and saidhere's, here's what you need to
know about your prostate and howto, what to look for and what
to check for and what it means.
Yeah, there's, there's nothingout there.
You know, my dad didn't knowbecause he didn't experience any
issues.
I have an uncle that just wentthrough prostate cancer or two
years ago, and just you knowpeople don't talk about it's an
(40:08):
embarrassing thing to talk about, for one sure.
Fortunately I was in the Navy onsubmarine so I have no
Boundaries.
I'll tell anybody anything.
So I want to buy up?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
see, I'll tell you so I want to I want to bring that
up as Giant some light on whatis possibly one of the elephants
in the room.
That was my first initialthought when I first found out
you worked on a nuclearsubmarine.
You also worked at a nuclearplant, and so I already know the
answer to this question.
But I want you to answer isthere a connection?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
So there's no way to know, right?
I don't think there is.
We are really super safe.
Andy will tell you.
You probably were a TLD on so.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I only had to wear one when I went into the Spaces,
but, yes, we were issued them.
If we were ever and, like theysaid, a commercial flight gives
you more radiation, then whatconnects to the radio or the
reactor?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
so, yeah, so I'm not concerned that that was what my
Source was.
I did have a week I spent inAbu Dhabi.
That apparently was near a burnpit when it was active, and
there's a Recent that's calledthe packed act.
(41:26):
Va just came out with thepacked act and they finally
admitted the exposure to the airover in the Middle East during
certain times is what they calla presumed condition for some
cancers, and so Maybe that's it.
I don't know, and that's thescary things.
(41:46):
I'll never know.
What I do know is we, mydoctor's really good, my
radiation oncologist.
He says, hey, let's find outthat we can do this genetic test
, find out number one if it'sgenetic, because that changes
our course of treatment, andthen, if it's not, we can still
look at some genetic markers andmaybe there's, there's some
treatments that are better forsome genetic markers.
(42:07):
And so we did that.
There was nothing special aboutmy prostate cancer.
It was just naturally occurring.
It wasn't genetic, it's notfamily-based it's.
It's just it just happened forsome reason.
So Externally caused, likely,but why I don't know.
But there's, we do so much, wehad, we take so many precautions
(42:29):
at work at the nuclear powerplant and the Navy I got.
Like Andy said, I got lessradiation Underway on a
submarine.
Then my family did sitting in a, you know, sitting in the house
in Hawaii on Volcanic lava,lava beds, concrete houses on
near asphalt roadways all thesethings admit radio.
(42:51):
You know, they have radioactivedecay from the minerals at them
, yep, and so now I don't thinkthat was it, but I'll never know
what I did do.
I'm gonna, you know, you theright.
What you should do is make theVA figure out.
If they can figure out what itwas, yeah, so I did submit a
claim.
I think the most telling thingis that week I spent in Abu
(43:14):
Dhabi.
So I had a little write-up onthat and we'll see.
We'll see what they say If theymake a service connection grade
.
If they don't, then I'll justkeep not knowing.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Now you mentioned that you just finished your
treatments, so what's next?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
well, sort of.
So I'm on two differenttreatments.
I was supposed to be on three.
So when we did our the CT scans, they said you got it's in your
prostate.
It looks like it's broken outof your prostate in the local
area and you've got this tumoron the L1 and you have something
showing up, something lit up onthe scan on your 11th rib on
your left side.
I'm like holy crap.
(43:55):
So what we want to do isAndrogen deprivation therapy,
adt, along with radiationtherapy, along with chemo.
I'm like so what's the timeline?
Oh, all three all at once.
Like holy crap.
So.
But before my radiationoncologist, dr Brian Luinda
fantastic doctor out here hesaid before we do all that,
(44:18):
let's do one more scan.
And it's a highly specialized,very expensive scan.
The Navy covered, the VAcovered it, fortunately, and
it's called a PSMA PET scan andif it doesn't show up on that,
it's not cancer.
And so my rib didn't light up.
So it was just my L1 and justthe prostate.
And so he said with that let'sskip the chemo, let's just do
(44:41):
the ADT and the radiationtherapy.
So I did 28 doses of radiationto my prostate and then I did
five doses of radiation to myspine and Then that was all.
While I'm doing ADT, this, thesedrugs, and it's two drugs.
It's called Zytiga and Lupron.
So I get a Lupron shot onceevery three months.
(45:04):
I'm two months into my.
I got my first shot on August21st and I took my first Zytiga
pills on August 11th.
And I do the pills every day.
I do a thousand milligrams ofZytiga every day and then every
three months I'll get thisLupron shot and that's.
I'll be on that for at least ayear.
I think that's the worst partof all the treatments.
(45:26):
Radiation treatment great, killthe cancer.
But the ADT, you know, becauseit's temporary, there's a start
date, there's an end date andyou're done with it.
Adt is different.
This is it's a little emotionalfor me, because you know when
they give, when they castratechemically, castrate like
(45:48):
pedophiles and Rapists, theygive them two drugs.
They give them Zytiga andLupron.
So yeah, for them it'spermanent.
They have to take it the restof their life, except that
eventually your body figures outhow to avoid it, and so your
body.
And so the reason you're doingthose is prostate cancer is a
(46:12):
hormone-fueled cancer.
It feeds off of testosterone.
So if you know men who have lowtestosterone, right.
That's a thing where you feelthe fatigue and lethargic all
the time.
You don't have any energy, nomotivation, your mood goes
through the floor, you just feellike garbage and don't feel
like doing anything and you feellike crying all the time.
(46:33):
And that's what they're goingfor with this is, they're trying
to take my testosterone down tozero, and so I'm on that.
My PSA went from 10 at the lasttest to Because they did one
right before I did the start ofthe treatment down to zero, down
to four and then down to zeropoint eight, and I will get
(46:56):
another test for about anotherthree weeks, which is I'm in
that fear phase again, like Idon't actually know if this
radiation therapy worked.
We're not going to do a scan andfind out.
All we're going to do ismonitor my testosterone to make
sure it stays at zero, and we'regoing to do that for another
eight or ten months and thenthey'll look at my blood work
(47:19):
and if I'm a candidate forcoming off, they might wean me
off of the adT, see if mytestosterone comes back up and
Then watch my PSA levels.
So, as your testosterone comesback up, it should.
Mine was 400 and somethingbefore all this started so
pretty healthy for 50 somethingyears old, not too bad and it
(47:41):
was down to zero.
Now it's, it's undetectable andso should start going back up.
And as it goes up, my PSA isgoing to come back up.
But my PSA should come up tolike point six, point eight,
maybe one point oh, and thenstabilize and as long as my
Testosterone rises to normallevels Well, almost normal.
(48:04):
It'll never go back tocompletely normal.
My, but my, my PSA stays low,then that's showing that there's
no active cancer.
That's growing.
As soon as I have active cancer, it's growing, my PSA will
start to rise again, and so I'mjust going to be.
The rest of my life will bemonitoring, holding my breath
(48:24):
between PSA tests, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
So you obviously started a podcast and you wanted
to talk about it, and I knowpart of the reason you wanted to
talk about it was it wastherapeutic for you.
You want to tell us about yourpodcast, how you started that,
why you started that and howit's going and where people can
catch it.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, so I was when the pandemic hit.
I was teaching classes at thecollege and the pandemic hit,
and then I had to start teachingfrom home.
So I had to get a microphone,which I'm not using, but I had
to get a microphone.
I had to get a camera and alittle setup.
So I just set up a littlesomething here in my craft room
(49:07):
where I do my leather work andfive million other hobbies, and
so I had all this gear sittingaround and this diagnosis hit
and I was telling some peopleabout it and I was.
It was kind of a roller coasterof how I felt each day I'm
dealing with it a lot better nowand I can just talk through it
(49:30):
normally, but at the time it wasa little tough to talk through
and so I thought you know what?
I just need to record this.
I need to record what I need tosit down and just say it and
record it.
And I did and I turned it intoepisode one and it's a prostate
cancer road to recovery.
It's on YouTube, it's onSpotify, it's on iHeartRadio,
(49:56):
Apple, it's on all the normalpodcast stuff, but I primarily
publish for YouTube.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
And.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
I've done.
You know that first one's justkind of.
I got a lot of good engagement,a lot of good feedback and I
met a couple new people HarryIan from Australia, and he's two
years ahead of me.
He's been, he's going throughthis journey and he just last
month just eased off.
They kept him on the ADT fortwo years, so they just eased
(50:28):
him off last month and so he'sclimbing back up and he's
holding his breath, hoping hisPSA stays low, and so he and I
start chatting.
And then I just met a bunch ofgood people through this and so
I did another episode and thenanother, and then I said, ok,
I've had this little plan onthat.
When I sat down and did thatfirst one, I was like, if I'm
going to do this, what is mygoal, what am I going to try and
(50:50):
talk about?
And I realized it was too muchfor one video, so that's why I
decided to break it up into apodcast.
There's still a bunch of peopleI want to talk to.
My sister-in-law went throughbreast cancer several years ago
and prostate cancer and breastcancer are very similar because
they're both hormone-fueledcancers and so there's a lot of
(51:12):
similarities in what you do inthe treatment and she was able
to do a different treatment.
She was able to do the surgery,and so I want to get her on
there and do an interview.
My brother had cancer on hisneck.
We'll talk about that.
I just had an interview Friday,two days ago, with a friend
from work who went throughprostate cancer 12 years ago and
(51:36):
then, because of my diagnosis,he was like you know what?
I haven't checked my PSA levels.
They removed his prostate 12years ago, but that doesn't mean
that you will always get arecurrence.
So that's what sucks aboutprostate cancer is you get it
and you're cured, but you'recured for so long until you get
it again, because all it needsis one cell, one prostate cell,
(52:00):
not scraped off of the bottom ofyour bladder or something.
And sure enough, he went andgot his PSA tested and it was
slightly elevated again.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
So they waited.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
They did another test and they waited.
They did another test and thenthey were referring to urologist
and they're like yep you havecancer again.
And so he's going through thisagain and he wouldn't have done
that if I hadn't been doing this.
So a lot of people are gettingtheir blood checked.
A lot of people are gettingtheir PSA tested.
Most of them are good stories,like yours.
(52:30):
Most of them are coming back.
I'm getting lots of texts saying, hey, it came out at 0.8.
Hey, got it back, it's 0.6.
And then this one you know, hejust came back higher.
So he's going to deal with.
He's got to decide whether hecan do radiation, whether he's
going to do ADT, whether he cando both.
But once again he's facing thisand it just sucks.
(52:53):
So I like doing this.
I've done, was he?
I think this was episode nineor episode 10.
I've done nine or 10 episodesso far and we're going through a
gambit of not just my treatmentand my diagnosis, but what are
the other options and why wouldsomebody choose those?
I've got an episode I'm justtrying to schedule with my
(53:15):
doctor.
I want to sit down with myradiation oncologist and get
some right from the doctor infofor people to.
You know, this is what you know, these are the questions people
are asking and have him answerthose.
I think that'll be good.
So I think overall, it's reallygood.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
No, it is good, and I've been listening and I've
been encouraging others tolisten, especially people that
are in our age group.
You know that it is important.
There is a history of cancer inmy family.
I don't believe it was prostatecancer, I guess.
Actually, I had a grandfatherwho had prostate cancer, but
that's not the cancer thatkilled him, because it ended up
(53:55):
in his colon, I believe, and sothere was other things going on
there.
But it does make it again, likeI mentioned before, it makes it
top of mind, especially forthose of us who have crossed the
50-yard line.
Let's just say, and yeah, Iwant to thank you, jason, for
what you're doing for bringingawareness to cancer.
(54:17):
The last thing I want to askyou about is because, obviously,
the mission of Hope Town HeroOutdoors is mental health
awareness, and so tell me aboutthe mental health aspect of what
you're going through and whatyou're doing to keep yourself in
(54:40):
check.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yeah, because I'll tell you I wasn't always doing
healthy things.
It's easy to just sit on thecouch in the dark and think
about it and keep thinking aboutit, and that's not good.
That's not a good loop to be in, right, I have to keep myself
busy, I have to go after thethings, and what sucks is, once
(55:03):
the therapy starts, themotivation to do anything just
goes away.
So I am constantly just forcingmyself to do things that I know
I used to enjoy that I'm nownot enjoying as much, but when I
do the podcasts and I'm meetingpeople and I'm seeing that it's
helping, that brings some ofthat motivation back.
(55:23):
I'm just fighting against.
I'm basically fighting against achemical issue, a chemical
balance issue with my body,where that testosterone gives us
the energy and the drive andthe motivation and helps us
think, clearly helps ourshort-term memory and all that's
trashed and my body's trying tore-figure out how to do things,
and so you have to do things inorder to allow your body to
(55:47):
figure it out.
I dug an old hobby out of thecloset.
I don't know how well this isgonna show up.
I used to make fishing polesand so I know you did a segment
recently where you had some guyson there doing some fishing
poles.
So I'm putting together thisnine-foot casting rig for my
(56:08):
brother to do some salmonfishing.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
And yeah, it'll be double guide feet and they'll
have their base wrap.
So it's got this base wrapunderneath the guide feet so
when the pole flexes it's notscratching the graphite.
It's got a nice cushion there.
It'll be a high-end pole.
I do the writing.
(56:34):
Of course.
I do a lot of writing.
I do leatherwork.
Of course I don't have it.
That's the one thing I'm tryingto get back into that I'm
having the hardest time goinggetting back into.
You can see a lot of mysupplies and stuff here, but I
do like little bags.
I got just need something for Itie flies.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
So Now you made me a really nice knife sheath for my
hunting knife.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
Oh, yeah, thank you yeah yeah, I do little sheaths
for knives and this one's for askiver.
I got a couple knife sheathproject requests so I'm trying
to get back into doing thatstuff.
One of the things I'm gonna dowith the fishing poles.
I bought a, so light blue isthe color of prostate cancer
(57:21):
awareness, so I've got a lightblue blank.
Once I'm done with my brothers,I'm gonna do this light blue
fishing pole and it's all blue.
It's gonna be everything, thethreads, light blue, everything
on it is all prostate cancerawareness pole.
And then at work, every year wehave this.
We support the United Wayauctions and so I'm gonna donate
(57:44):
that and some leather goods togive away to raise some money.
And then, if that goes, if I'mable to build that pole I want
to.
What I wanna try and do isbuild another one or two of
those and maybe raffle them offto raise some money for prostate
cancer, for an actual prostatecancer charity.
(58:06):
But we'll say I don't know.
The thing is you gotta plan forthings, you gotta keep things
your calendar, you have to havesomething to look forward to,
because sitting on the couch inthe dark is not something to
look forward to, and one of myfriends reached out to me for
Minnesota.
He lives up there in Zimmermanand he's like.
He's like Stone.
(58:27):
I used to go fishing with himup at Lake of the Woods every
May and he's like Stone, you'regoing fishing with me.
Speaker 3 (58:33):
It's like I don't know if I'm gonna be he's like I
don't wanna hear it.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
you're going fishing in May.
I'm like hurry.
So I guess I'm coming back outto Minnesota in May All right?
Speaker 1 (58:40):
well, I expect to see you when you get here, you will
, you will.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
What's a good friend right there?
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
Absolutely it is.
We're rolling up around an hourhere and so we're gonna start
wrapping it up, and, as Ilistened to the Mike Rowe
podcast, he always says this iswhen he lands the plane.
I like that analogy.
And so, andy, do you have anylast questions or last words as
we wrap up?
Speaker 3 (59:07):
tonight.
No, phil, I just wanna repeatyour sentiment to Jason, like
thank you for what you're doingand getting this awareness out
there.
I don't again, I'm only 34, butI'm getting close to that time
when it's time for the oil checkand all the PSA talk and I
don't know anything about it andI don't know if I would be told
about it.
So I appreciate you spreadingthat awareness to me and then to
(59:28):
your followers and the peopleyou're meeting.
So keep doing what you're doing.
It's awesome work.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I've turned out.
I've got a YouTube channel youcan watch to learn all you want.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
There we go Next subscriber right here.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Yeah, jason, any final words and you wanna pitch
your podcast again or any otherway?
Speaker 2 (59:46):
people are gonna hold you up If you're a biological
male, 50 or 40 year old, or evengo get your PSA checked.
Next time you check with yourdoctor say, hey, I just want my
PSA checked and then trend it atleast every year.
That's important, hugelyimportant.
It would save so many lives ifyou just did that once a year.
Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
That's all right, well, thank you.
Thank you very much, jason,thank you Andy, and from all of
us here at Hometown HeroOutdoors, just a reminder again
we are here for mental healthawareness.
If you are struggling in anyway, we have members that are
assist, train, applied suicideprevention training and you can
call anyone at any time.
(01:00:30):
If you are unable to do that,the national hotline you can
call or text 988 for suicideawareness.
And so with that, I am PhilEwart, along with Andy Kraft and
Jason Stone.
Have a great week, everybody.
We'll see you next time, takecare.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
See y'all Love y'all.
Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Thank you for listening to the Hometown Hero
Outdoors podcast.
For more information, visit ourwebsite at
hometownherooutdoorsorg.
Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Course seal.
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