November 22, 2025 • 34 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Berry Show. I've often said, and I believe
it to be true, that people are fascinating. Many times,
it's the people that think that they are boring or
simple who turn out to be the most interesting, the
most fascinating lives and stories to tell. But they think, oh,
it's nothing much. I'm just a fella in the blank.
(00:21):
A few years ago, we had a woman named Nicky
Johnson Coons, also known as the Texas Shrimp Diva. She
runs a shrimp boat in Galveston with her father in law,
who I think you're just going to fall in love with.
We certainly did. Everyone calls him Pops. He was recently
profiled in Texas Monthly. He's an interesting, interesting fella. It's
(00:45):
an interesting story, and I think you're gonna love it.
I'd love to hear from you after you hear this story,
and I'll forward it on to Nicky and she'll share
it with Pop. You can send me an email at
any time at Michael Berryshow dot com. You can buy
our merch there, you can sign up for our daily
e blast, and you can send me an email directly.
(01:06):
And I read all of them. I can't respond to
all of them, but I do read every single one
of them, you know. I love to do human interest stories. Yeah,
we got to talk about elections, and we got to
talk about culture, and we've got to be mad at
DC and how stupid Biden is. But at the end
of the day, who we are as a people, how
we mark our civilization when we're gone, And we're all
(01:28):
going to be gone, whether it's in a week, a year,
or fifty years, we're all going to be gone. When
you look back on our civilization the way you do
the Romans degree, we're going to ask how did we
treat each other? How did we treat our children, What
did we do to educate them? What did we do
for leisure? What were our pastimes? What were our great joys?
(01:50):
What did we do for our elderly? How did we
treat people once they grow old? What were our professions?
What was our commerce? What were our houses of worship?
These these are the important things. And I like to
tell stories about people who may not be famous. Although
our next guests used to qualify for that, but I'm
(02:12):
not sure that's true anymore. He's become rather famous, uh,
and he's not. Just as they say in Galveston, island famous. Uh,
he's he's famous north of the Causeway as well. Let
me start, Ramon. We were supposed to do Popeye the
Sailor Man to start, Okay, so hold on, folks, we're
gonna restart the segment. Okay, here we go. We're restarting
(02:34):
the segment.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Here we go, not doing the pop by the ceremony.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Lay wowe. It is to make those big.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
N what I am bet out to make you think
of Popeye and olive oil and the whole deal. So
I see this, uh, this story that keeps swirling around.
There is this very spunky, feisty lady who's posting on Facebook,
(03:24):
and people are always sending me show ideas, which is
where I tell you, folks, all the time, I'm constantly mining,
constantly trolling as trawling for you, Ramon. But you don't
understand fish speak like our next guest, and I do.
You're not the fisherman that we are. I'm always looking
for interesting people, interesting stories, interesting things to talk about,
(03:46):
and I keep hearing about this woman. She posts on
the name of Texas Shrimp Diva and her name is
Nikki Johnson Coons, and she posts every day about her
and her father in law and they're out on a
shrimp boat, going out shrimping every morning, and she posts
videos and she makes it almost look glamorous, but if
(04:07):
you watch closely, it ain't glamorous. It's hard work, it's dangerous,
it smells bad, it's tough, it's brutal, the winds blowing
the net doesn't work. I mean, it's not easy. So
she posts about her father in law, and if you
don't fall in love with her father in law at
the end of the second or third post, if not
(04:29):
two seconds into her, then you have you're not alive.
Because we've either known this guy or someone like him
in our lives or we've always hoped to. They did
a story on him in Galveston, the Galveston Chamber of
Commerce or Tourism Board. I'll play that for you to
get started, so you get a sense of who we're
(04:50):
talking about.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
The water is an amazing thing, you know. It always
relaxed me. So working on the water was right up
my alley. I've been doing this so long now that
I thought I was gonna give it up about two
years ago. It did work. I'm still working. So I
was ten years old. My daddy started, went to school
(05:13):
for a while to quit. Don't it every since? I
always got work to do, never run out of it.
Nineteen thirty three. I was born in Gallaton. My daddy
before I was ten years old, he bought a whole
boat out of the yacht base and made a massed
(05:36):
out of wood. Stuck it on. Now, he said, you're
gonna try a shrimp it. We had to do everything
by hand. Didn't have no wins, no nothing. Its hard
to tell you how what kind of lived it was,
but it was all right. It was a good life.
(05:57):
Before I got married, we'd always go to drive, Yet
you don't drive the beach and check the girls out.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
And all this. Well.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I met her she was sixteen, I was eighteen. We
tried to get married in g I wason too young.
We got ten kids in twenty years. It's a good life,
you know. I had a great life. I had no complaints.
I'm still there to talk about, so it ain't too bad.
(06:28):
You ain't gonna last long. You got to get out
and move. Work won't kill you, because I wouldn't be
a talk to you. But I can tell you that
I'm about eighty seven years old, born nineteen thirty three,
(06:50):
and I'm playing on to be in here. I hate
to head tail.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
We will talk to the man they call Pops, the
captain coming up. Well, I probably took longer intro in
our next guest. Then he feels comfortable with. But I've
been really excited to talk to him because I follow
him now by way of his daughter in law, who
is the most made up woman on a shrimp boat
(07:22):
you've ever seen. That's why she calls herself Texas Shrimp
Diva because she looks like she's a runway model and
recently was because I follow the feed and there's her
and her father in law out on a shrimp boat
before most people are awake, and the daily accounts of
their struggles and joys, and it's a pretty cool deal.
(07:42):
So Jerome Coons is our guest. Welcome to the program, sir,
Now you do it. I'm good. May I have the
honor of referring to you as Pops, which it seems
everybody else.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Does, right, good, very good.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Okay, that's roder that I'm the permission to come aboard granted.
Speaker 6 (08:04):
Any come aboard he wants to come onboard the boat?
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Oh yeah, anytime.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Hey, Pops, They told me that you wouldn't be able
to hear me. But you can hear me, can't you.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Yeah, boy, hear him a little bit. Yeah right, I'm
harder here and so we're working on it.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Hey, don't you worry. Don't you worry one bit. So
I understand that you've been shrimping in Galveston Bay for
more than eighty years. Tell me how you got started
in shrimping.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Well, my daddy started. I was ten years old, and
I went to school for a little bit and then
he just said, oh hell, just get on the boat
with me, and hell with the school. You don't need
no education, just need the work. And that's what I
(08:57):
did all my life up till working. I'm a workaholic,
I guess that's what they call me. And I enjoy
I worked that part of my life.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So they said in the video that you were eighty seven,
but that's a few years ago.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
How old are you now, I'm ninety years old.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Ninety years old, man, that's a good run.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's a nice round figure.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Hey, tell me something that you've learned about shrimp from
being a shrimp boat captain for all these years that
people wouldn't know.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Well, I tell you one thing. I didn't think that
Benny Swemp left right now. But they're still here and
I'm still here, and they reproduce a whole bunch we
know lose when they have it. When they have a spawn. Well,
(10:02):
there's so many eggs that come up into the estuaries
that they get in by in the grass and round
the roots of the grass, and they stay there till
they grow up a little bit and then they start
my grating out. But they are really amazing little creature.
(10:24):
I tell you that they I didn't think that be
anyth today, but they're still here, and so am I.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
When you look at a shrimp, you got a whole
boat full of shrimp, and you look at a shrimp
to decide whether that's going to be good to eat
or you're looking at it? What can you tell when
you look at that shrimp? What are you looking for?
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Uh? Well, they're all good deed, there's no problem. But
there's a there's one of them called a man of shrimp,
and they got a lot of stickers, but there's not
much meat in there. And the Orientals love them. They
I don't know what they do with them, but they
(11:10):
cook them and eat a bunch of them. And I've
never tried them because they're too hot on you on
your lips. Man. They tell you you got to get
that shell off and then get down to the meat,
which ain't very much. But we have a brown shrimp,
white shrimp, and that I catch. You know, there's there's
(11:35):
some red ones off shore. The further you go, the
further deeper they get deeper red. And anyway, I catch
brown shrimp and white shrimp, and the brownies come, oh,
in the last part of April, they'll start showing up,
or maybe the first part of May, and they're just small.
(11:59):
They'll be one hundred and twenty to the pounds something
like that. And then they grow and they we catch
them for about the old couple of months, two or
three months, and then they migrate out to the girlf
and then the white shrimp show. They start showing. Even
(12:20):
when the brownies are here. You catch them about sometime
half and half. But they they're tail wise, they they're
a little heavier and the brown sramp blues less or
less got a smaller head, so it's less uh, less waste.
(12:44):
But they all they both good. They's no problem with them.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
How many days a week do you eat shrimp on average?
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Well, right now I'm only working two days they want
them and go out by myself anymore.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
So, uh, we just picked up Friday, go down, just
pick up a third day. You need to calm down there, Captain.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Yeah, but anyway, I'll just work on the weekends now
since I hit ninety years old. But anyway, now, the
past week, Nikki, she was going with Ben. We were
making five six days a week, and then she kind
of got bored out.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, Pops, Pops, what's happening? Pops? Let me ask you
if this is what's going on. I think what's happening
is they're saying, you know, Pops is ninety, will only
go two days a week. I think they can't work
like you do, so they use you as the excuse
because they can't keep up.
Speaker 6 (13:57):
You might be right.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Uh yeah, Well she's started getting aches and things and
this and that.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
So okay, telling me you just had major back surgery
for the love of.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
God, Yeah, well I did have surgery, but that didn't
hurt nothing.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But part of your recovery. You like to be out
on the water, you like to be working. I find
for your generation people don't want to just sit down.
They want to get out there and work. It's like
work is therapy. That's what mattress Mac says.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Oh yeah, I love the work. I'm crazy old guy,
but anyway, I still do pretty good for my age.
You know, I'm not what I used to be, but
I'm still here to talk about it, so it ain't
too bad.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Pops, Pops hole with me for just a moment. I
want to bring your daughter in law in because there's
two parts of the story I love. There's your passion
for shrimping. There's you as a character, and there is
your family, your son and your daughter in law, and
how everybody pitches in to help you continue to do
(15:05):
what you love to do. And I think that's a
great story. His name is Jerome Coons. He's known as
Pops or the shrimp Captain in Galveston, Moore with him
and her coming up. He's ninety years old and for
the last eighty years since at ten years old, his
dad took him out of school and said, everything you
need to learn, I'll teach you on the shrimp boat.
(15:25):
Eighty years later, he's still on the shrimp boat and
his son Jason and Jason's wife, Nicky. They love Pops
and he still wants to go out and shrimp and
it's a big job. I mean, if you go to Facebook,
she's on there as TX Shrimp Diva Texas Shrimp Diva,
(15:51):
and she tells the stories. And a lot of listeners
were forwarding me links to this, and so I started
following it, and I was watching the tale of them
going out and shrimp, and and she's all dressed up
in her couture, and there's Pops. He's got his old
rubber boots on. He looks like Forrest, an older version
(16:12):
of Forrest Gump in in Forrest Gump, and he looks
like a shrimp boat captain. And you could tell he's happy.
But what I loved about this story was not just
what a character he obviously is. I love the fact
that his adult son, and more importantly, because his adult
son has a very important job at Kirby Marine, that
(16:32):
his daughter in law, who was an executive with the
Finger Apartment companies, she retires and still still gets up
every morning and puts all her makeup on and dresses
in her fancy clothes. Just a little more, just a
little more functional now she goes and picks up Pops
and they go out and shrimp. And that's probably not
where she expected to see herself because if you watch
(16:54):
the video, she's got her nails. She's all dulled up,
as my mother will say, she's got her nails perfectly.
French Man and these two are out there. This is
like a seventy sitcom, Like these two You're Chico and
the Man kind of deal. So Nicky Koons, Nicki Johnson Coons,
the daughter in law Texas Shrimp Diva. I wouldn't know
who Pop says if you hadn't taken to Facebook. Now.
(17:16):
I noticed that you had your own page before you
started Texas Shrimp Diva. I can't imagine that you ever
expected it would grow this big, not just in Galveston,
but but far beyond. Uh, why did you do this?
Speaker 6 (17:34):
You know what? Michael Hey, By the way I started,
I think I started overwhelming my friends on my personal page,
and they got to the point where it was like,
oh my gosh, enough already of the shrimp.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
You know.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
And I know someone had said you need to do
a reality show and post and I had talked about it,
and we were like, you know what, it's not for us,
not interested, and we're approached again and we kind of
started doing a little bit and in the end just
(18:12):
decided we just wanted to do our own thing and
on our own time schedule, and we work well that way.
And I don't know, I just started the own my
own page, Shrimp Diva, Texas Shrimp Diva, and that way
people in Galveston that were not on my personal page
they could kind of see what was going on. You know,
(18:34):
I like to keep personal personal with my family, my mom,
my nieces, and then I like to just share parts
of pops in my life together. So I think there's
probably more interest there. So that's why I started my
own page.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Why do you think people have responded? Because you have
developed an incredible following about this this deva, this woman.
I mean you you a few weeks ago you said
he was on your bucket list to you know, I
can't dance, and you probably typically didn't do runway model stuff,
and there you were being this runway model in Galveston
(19:11):
and you agreed to do this, and it's like you're
having fun with this, You're profiling him. And I feel
like a lot of people from different walks of life
in different ages and age groups well beyond Galveston are
following along even though nobody's ever been on a shrimpboat.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
No, you're right, we have people. Oh sorry about that.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
What's the dog's name?
Speaker 6 (19:34):
Bailey? Okay, and that's pop Son's dog. But she's hanging out.
I need to throw a colachi at her. So you
know what. Most of our followers are of the older generation,
and I do have a lot of women, and I'll
say at first, when I started the private page, I
did have some haters, and I had women who would say,
(19:58):
I can't believe you're out there with those fingernails, and
you know, why are you wearing tank tops? And who
are you trying to impress? And I'm like, number one,
it's Texas and it's one hundred and thirty five degrees
on the shrimp boat. I have never not had nails
in my life, and they're faster to pick shrimp with
my lashes. By the way, keep out the fish scales.
(20:22):
So I am fully covered in like taking care.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And p end like, well this is functional as well.
Speaker 6 (20:28):
Okay, absolutely absolutely. Pops would beg to disagree because I've
already been in the hospital twice for shrimp, shrimp scales
to the cornea, major injuries along the way, but.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Stinger ray.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
He called it a skingerrey. I had a stingery barbed
straight through the knee when Pop's told me not to
pick up a sting ray, and I did it, and
I nearly passed out and vomited on the deck, and
Pop said, oh, baby doll, it'll just hurt for a second.
And I think he turned whiter than I did. But
I ended up in the in the hospital UTNB for
(21:06):
seven days. Anyway, I think it's just taken off because
they have such a love and admiration for Pops and
his age and what he stands for, and the fact
that he raised ten children on a shrimperman's salary, and
that he was out there every single morning, you know,
(21:28):
getting up at two o'clock in the morning, and sometimes
he didn't come home, he'd stay overnight. But I don't know.
I think that's just a bond and a connection that
people have with our Facebook page, and they think about
their great grandfather or their grandfather and how hard they
worked and the blisters, the blood, the sweat, and you know,
(21:53):
it's it's hard out there and they just all appreciate
what he Yeah it is, it is. I mean times
are tough, you know, but he made it happen with
ten kids and there was a great life for him.
And I just I'm just there along the way. So
(22:17):
he's killing me, but I'm still out there. He'd be
out there seven days right now if we could. I
just said, I'll give you Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So baby steps,
baby steps. But yeah, we we love our fan base
for sure, and I think I'd have more. I think
i'd have more if I wasn't kicked off Facebook for
(22:37):
a couple of days. But so I think we're up
to fifty eight thousand. Pops, you had fifty eight thousand
followers right now.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Oh god, it's a lot of people to say hi
to it is.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
That's a lot of shrimp fans.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Yeah boy, yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
So off of the haters. After the women actually we
started seeing Oh, the main question I got was, well,
what I heard was she didn't shrimp. She ain't out
there working those lines. She's she had the accountant. What's
she doing just counting the money? So once they saw
videos of the whole perception started to change, and there
(23:20):
was like lack of judgment.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
So well.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I think it might have been the juicy couture sweatpants
with shrimp across the bottom, and the manicured nails and
the fully applied makeup. I think that might have you know,
let's not call the haters, you know, absolute haters. Hold
with me for just a months. This shrimp is the
(23:45):
fruit of the sea.
Speaker 7 (23:47):
You can load to it, ball it, brawl it, bake it,
sutic days on, Trump gloves, triump, creole, trimp, gumbo, paying fry,
deep fry, her fries, pineapple shrimp, limon shrimp, coconut shrimp,
pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes,
(24:14):
shrimp berger shrimp sandwich.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
That's that's about it, Pops. Have you seen Forrest Gump
the movie?
Speaker 5 (24:26):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I have?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Did you? I mean, was that exciting when you saw
the whole shrimp boat stuff or did you say they
don't know what they're doing?
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Yeah? It was. I had to go see it again.
It was so rested. You know, boy, what a show,
what a shell.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
That was a heck of a show. That was Uh.
I think that probably did more for shrimp Boat captain
awareness than all the other movies about shrimp boat captains
that I can't think of right now.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
Do you want a fun fact? Yeah, about Forrest Gump. Yep,
so fun fact the shrimp when Captain or when Lieutenant
Dan and Forrest Gump were out in the water and
they brought in that huge, huge hall. Every single shrimp
that they jumped out of that net, probably about two
(25:20):
thousand pounds, were dead and headed.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
So fun fact if you have, oh they must they
probably went and bottom right and.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
Just and I have receipt. I have the receipt on
my Facebook page. Yes, like they bottom head and headed.
So that ain't how it works.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You mean you got to go to all the trouble
to take the heads and the shells off and the
vein out and all that, Nikky, I have to tell you.
And Pops, Pops. When I was a kid, it was
a real treat when I would stay with my grandparents.
Is my grandfather on the drive home on Friday evening,
he would bring home fried chicken. And on Saturday, my
(26:03):
grandmother and I would sit outside and we would we
would devein shrimp all day and then fry them that night.
And that is my very very fond nostalgia of shrimp.
Speaker 6 (26:15):
Yeah, well, yeah, we don't do that, do we. No,
we don't devein or head them.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
No, no, I know. But but before you cook them,
you do when you when you make them for your
own do y'all eat a lot of shrimp?
Speaker 5 (26:29):
Oh? Yeah, no we well we had them. We make
them home to eat, but we get off the boat.
We we wollam cooked already. We don't have to go
home and take them.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
But anyway, So, Nikki, I have to ask you when
you get home every day and you smell like shrimp
and you're supposed to be retired, but instead you're very
sweetly going with your grant, with your grandpa, with your
father in law and taking him out on the shrimp boat.
And you come home to Jason and you probably have
(27:06):
tales to tell about his father. What does he say?
I don't need to hear about my dad right now.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
No, he just says, well, you know, you know how
popsy is. You ain't gonna stop him. And that's exactly
what he says. He's like, Babe, I've known this my
entire life. And you had asked how many times you know,
when do we bring shrimp home. Jason's allergic to shrimp,
so I am very I brought shrimp home like three
(27:36):
times in a year. It's horrible. I wish I could
bring it home more. But that man braced out and hive.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Oh that's awful. So you know, I think what I
love about y'all story, which, as you know, based on
input I make on your page, is the intergenerational interplay
because there's obviously a lot of love. I mean, this
is this is a show of love from you to
your father and all, but this is also a show
of love to your husband that you take care of
(28:04):
his dad. And I think that's that's a that's a wonderful,
beautiful story. I'd like to see more of this, you know,
when you go back and look at the Golden Girls
and what that what that TV show? That show exploded.
People love the inner generational stuff, and there's not enough
of that on TV. It's it's it's neat stuff. But
(28:24):
you learned a lot about what your husband, Jason, how
he was raised in terms of values and and strictness
and punctuality. When one day you showed up six minutes late.
I saw the post about this, tell that story. If
you would.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Well, you know, it's funny that you bring that up, Michael,
because you had mentioned that our phone call was going
to run a little bit late today. So when I
told Pops, I'm telling you he is a stickler for time,
and I'm like, well, how dare we tell Michael Barry
he's got to be on time, you know, I said, heck,
you left me at the boat dock, and that day
(29:05):
Pops and I were just talking about it. That particular day,
I called three boat captains to have them call Pops
on the CB radio and call me, and each boat
captain said, Nikki, he ain't answering. He ain't answering, and
I said, he is pissed off. I know he is.
(29:26):
But Michael, I was leaving Pops a note on his car,
and I was writing so hard with that pencil that
the lead broke, and I wanted Pops to know by
having that hard lad on the paper how mad I
was that he went out without me. Anyway, I showed
back up to the dock around the time that I
saw Pops coming in, and Pops looked at me and
(29:48):
just started laughing from the boat, and I was fuming.
I was so upset but I just looked at him
and I just started laughing. I could both of us
just started laughing, and we embraced. We hugged each other
with two hands, the tight two handed hug, and I said, Pops.
He said, I know, I'll never do that again, and
(30:11):
I said, neither will I. But then I chewed him
out because I could have. I could have died on
the way there. He didn't leave his cell phone on
because he thinks leaving his cell phone on is going
to cost more money, you know. So anyway, we haven't understanding.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I'm like, God, it's such a great line because
it's so I.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
Have not been on Like, I've not been late in
four years. I'm not a late person ever, So if
I am late, there's a reason. So I said, you
better call me or pick up that phone.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
So anyway, he's never gonna leave me again for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Hey, Pops, can I get you to do me a
favor and record something we can use on the show. Yes, Look, okay,
I need you to say this. Okay, you can. You
can take a couple of I need you to say
this is the Shrimp Boat Captain Jerome Coons, And you're
listening to the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
This is the Shrimp Boat Captain Jerome Coons on the
Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Can you change it to and you're listening to the
Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
To the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
This is Captain Jerome Coons, and you're listening to the Michael.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
This is Jerome Coons and you're listening to the Michael
Berry Shows.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
No, it's okay. We can edit that. We can edit that. Yeah,
that's enough. Hey, pops, can.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I also anyway?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Can I can I also get you to say it's
hard out here for a shrimp. It's what it's hard
out here for a shrimp.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
Oh yeah, it's hard out here for shrimp.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
At'll work, that'll work. You two are absolutely wonderful. I
love everything about y'all. Keep doing what you're doing. You're
inspiring to the rest of us. And much bigger than shrimp,
and much bigger than all that is that you're reminding people.
If you're fifty four years old and your father in
(32:19):
law is ninety, and you're lucky enough to have them,
then if they like the garden, go dig in the
garden with them. And if they like to play bingo,
go play bingo. And if they're at the old folks home,
go sit there with them and listen to the other
old folks people complain about whatever's going on in the world.
This is an act of love, selfless love, and you'll
(32:42):
be the better for it, even if you get left
at the dock. Thank you, guys, All.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Right here right, you have a good bud.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
This is the Michael Bay Show.
Speaker 8 (32:53):
If you like the Michael Berry Show in podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(33:14):
Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast
is produced by Ramon Roeblis, the King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(33:39):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLain.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our assistant.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated into
our production. Where possible, we give credit. Where not, we
take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the memory
of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple man
(34:11):
like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
The Michael Berry Show. I've often said, and I believe
it to be true, that people are fascinating. Many times,
it's the people that think that they are boring or
simple who turn out to be the most interesting, the
most fascinating lives and stories to tell. But they think, oh,
it's nothing much. I'm just a fella in the blank.
(00:21):
A few years ago, we had a woman named Nicky
Johnson Coons, also known as the Texas Shrimp Diva. She
runs a shrimp boat in Galveston with her father in law,
who I think you're just going to fall in love with.
We certainly did. Everyone calls him Pops. He was recently
profiled in Texas Monthly. He's an interesting, interesting fella. It's
(00:45):
an interesting story, and I think you're gonna love it.
I'd love to hear from you after you hear this story,
and I'll forward it on to Nicky and she'll share
it with Pop. You can send me an email at
any time at Michael Berryshow dot com. You can buy
our merch there, you can sign up for our daily
e blast, and you can send me an email directly.
(01:06):
And I read all of them. I can't respond to
all of them, but I do read every single one
of them, you know. I love to do human interest stories. Yeah,
we got to talk about elections, and we got to
talk about culture, and we've got to be mad at
DC and how stupid Biden is. But at the end
of the day, who we are as a people, how
we mark our civilization when we're gone, And we're all
(01:28):
going to be gone, whether it's in a week, a year,
or fifty years, we're all going to be gone. When
you look back on our civilization the way you do
the Romans degree, we're going to ask how did we
treat each other? How did we treat our children, What
did we do to educate them? What did we do
for leisure? What were our pastimes? What were our great joys?
(01:50):
What did we do for our elderly? How did we
treat people once they grow old? What were our professions?
What was our commerce? What were our houses of worship?
These these are the important things. And I like to
tell stories about people who may not be famous. Although
our next guests used to qualify for that, but I'm
(02:12):
not sure that's true anymore. He's become rather famous, uh,
and he's not. Just as they say in Galveston, island famous. Uh,
he's he's famous north of the Causeway as well. Let
me start, Ramon. We were supposed to do Popeye the
Sailor Man to start, Okay, so hold on, folks, we're
gonna restart the segment. Okay, here we go. We're restarting
(02:34):
the segment.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Here we go, not doing the pop by the ceremony.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Lay wowe. It is to make those big.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
N what I am bet out to make you think
of Popeye and olive oil and the whole deal. So
I see this, uh, this story that keeps swirling around.
There is this very spunky, feisty lady who's posting on Facebook,
(03:24):
and people are always sending me show ideas, which is
where I tell you, folks, all the time, I'm constantly mining,
constantly trolling as trawling for you, Ramon. But you don't
understand fish speak like our next guest, and I do.
You're not the fisherman that we are. I'm always looking
for interesting people, interesting stories, interesting things to talk about,
(03:46):
and I keep hearing about this woman. She posts on
the name of Texas Shrimp Diva and her name is
Nikki Johnson Coons, and she posts every day about her
and her father in law and they're out on a
shrimp boat, going out shrimping every morning, and she posts
videos and she makes it almost look glamorous, but if
(04:07):
you watch closely, it ain't glamorous. It's hard work, it's dangerous,
it smells bad, it's tough, it's brutal, the winds blowing
the net doesn't work. I mean, it's not easy. So
she posts about her father in law, and if you
don't fall in love with her father in law at
the end of the second or third post, if not
(04:29):
two seconds into her, then you have you're not alive.
Because we've either known this guy or someone like him
in our lives or we've always hoped to. They did
a story on him in Galveston, the Galveston Chamber of
Commerce or Tourism Board. I'll play that for you to
get started, so you get a sense of who we're
(04:50):
talking about.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
The water is an amazing thing, you know. It always
relaxed me. So working on the water was right up
my alley. I've been doing this so long now that
I thought I was gonna give it up about two
years ago. It did work. I'm still working. So I
was ten years old. My daddy started, went to school
(05:13):
for a while to quit. Don't it every since? I
always got work to do, never run out of it.
Nineteen thirty three. I was born in Gallaton. My daddy
before I was ten years old, he bought a whole
boat out of the yacht base and made a massed
(05:36):
out of wood. Stuck it on. Now, he said, you're
gonna try a shrimp it. We had to do everything
by hand. Didn't have no wins, no nothing. Its hard
to tell you how what kind of lived it was,
but it was all right. It was a good life.
(05:57):
Before I got married, we'd always go to drive, Yet
you don't drive the beach and check the girls out.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
And all this. Well.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I met her she was sixteen, I was eighteen. We
tried to get married in g I wason too young.
We got ten kids in twenty years. It's a good life,
you know. I had a great life. I had no complaints.
I'm still there to talk about, so it ain't too bad.
(06:28):
You ain't gonna last long. You got to get out
and move. Work won't kill you, because I wouldn't be
a talk to you. But I can tell you that
I'm about eighty seven years old, born nineteen thirty three,
(06:50):
and I'm playing on to be in here. I hate
to head tail.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
We will talk to the man they call Pops, the
captain coming up. Well, I probably took longer intro in
our next guest. Then he feels comfortable with. But I've
been really excited to talk to him because I follow
him now by way of his daughter in law, who
is the most made up woman on a shrimp boat
(07:22):
you've ever seen. That's why she calls herself Texas Shrimp
Diva because she looks like she's a runway model and
recently was because I follow the feed and there's her
and her father in law out on a shrimp boat
before most people are awake, and the daily accounts of
their struggles and joys, and it's a pretty cool deal.
(07:42):
So Jerome Coons is our guest. Welcome to the program, sir,
Now you do it. I'm good. May I have the
honor of referring to you as Pops, which it seems
everybody else.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Does, right, good, very good.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Okay, that's roder that I'm the permission to come aboard granted.
Speaker 6 (08:04):
Any come aboard he wants to come onboard the boat?
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Oh yeah, anytime.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Hey, Pops, They told me that you wouldn't be able
to hear me. But you can hear me, can't you.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Yeah, boy, hear him a little bit. Yeah right, I'm
harder here and so we're working on it.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Hey, don't you worry. Don't you worry one bit. So
I understand that you've been shrimping in Galveston Bay for
more than eighty years. Tell me how you got started
in shrimping.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Well, my daddy started. I was ten years old, and
I went to school for a little bit and then
he just said, oh hell, just get on the boat
with me, and hell with the school. You don't need
no education, just need the work. And that's what I
(08:57):
did all my life up till working. I'm a workaholic,
I guess that's what they call me. And I enjoy
I worked that part of my life.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So they said in the video that you were eighty seven,
but that's a few years ago.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
How old are you now, I'm ninety years old.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Ninety years old, man, that's a good run.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's a nice round figure.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Hey, tell me something that you've learned about shrimp from
being a shrimp boat captain for all these years that
people wouldn't know.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Well, I tell you one thing. I didn't think that
Benny Swemp left right now. But they're still here and
I'm still here, and they reproduce a whole bunch we
know lose when they have it. When they have a spawn. Well,
(10:02):
there's so many eggs that come up into the estuaries
that they get in by in the grass and round
the roots of the grass, and they stay there till
they grow up a little bit and then they start
my grating out. But they are really amazing little creature.
(10:24):
I tell you that they I didn't think that be
anyth today, but they're still here, and so am I.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
When you look at a shrimp, you got a whole
boat full of shrimp, and you look at a shrimp
to decide whether that's going to be good to eat
or you're looking at it? What can you tell when
you look at that shrimp? What are you looking for?
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Uh? Well, they're all good deed, there's no problem. But
there's a there's one of them called a man of shrimp,
and they got a lot of stickers, but there's not
much meat in there. And the Orientals love them. They
I don't know what they do with them, but they
(11:10):
cook them and eat a bunch of them. And I've
never tried them because they're too hot on you on
your lips. Man. They tell you you got to get
that shell off and then get down to the meat,
which ain't very much. But we have a brown shrimp,
white shrimp, and that I catch. You know, there's there's
(11:35):
some red ones off shore. The further you go, the
further deeper they get deeper red. And anyway, I catch
brown shrimp and white shrimp, and the brownies come, oh,
in the last part of April, they'll start showing up,
or maybe the first part of May, and they're just small.
(11:59):
They'll be one hundred and twenty to the pounds something
like that. And then they grow and they we catch
them for about the old couple of months, two or
three months, and then they migrate out to the girlf
and then the white shrimp show. They start showing. Even
(12:20):
when the brownies are here. You catch them about sometime
half and half. But they they're tail wise, they they're
a little heavier and the brown sramp blues less or
less got a smaller head, so it's less uh, less waste.
(12:44):
But they all they both good. They's no problem with them.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
How many days a week do you eat shrimp on average?
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Well, right now I'm only working two days they want
them and go out by myself anymore.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
So, uh, we just picked up Friday, go down, just
pick up a third day. You need to calm down there, Captain.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Yeah, but anyway, I'll just work on the weekends now
since I hit ninety years old. But anyway, now, the
past week, Nikki, she was going with Ben. We were
making five six days a week, and then she kind
of got bored out.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, Pops, Pops, what's happening? Pops? Let me ask you
if this is what's going on. I think what's happening
is they're saying, you know, Pops is ninety, will only
go two days a week. I think they can't work
like you do, so they use you as the excuse
because they can't keep up.
Speaker 6 (13:57):
You might be right.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Uh yeah, Well she's started getting aches and things and
this and that.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
So okay, telling me you just had major back surgery
for the love of.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
God, Yeah, well I did have surgery, but that didn't
hurt nothing.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But part of your recovery. You like to be out
on the water, you like to be working. I find
for your generation people don't want to just sit down.
They want to get out there and work. It's like
work is therapy. That's what mattress Mac says.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Oh yeah, I love the work. I'm crazy old guy,
but anyway, I still do pretty good for my age.
You know, I'm not what I used to be, but
I'm still here to talk about it, so it ain't
too bad.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Pops, Pops hole with me for just a moment. I
want to bring your daughter in law in because there's
two parts of the story I love. There's your passion
for shrimping. There's you as a character, and there is
your family, your son and your daughter in law, and
how everybody pitches in to help you continue to do
(15:05):
what you love to do. And I think that's a
great story. His name is Jerome Coons. He's known as
Pops or the shrimp Captain in Galveston, Moore with him
and her coming up. He's ninety years old and for
the last eighty years since at ten years old, his
dad took him out of school and said, everything you
need to learn, I'll teach you on the shrimp boat.
(15:25):
Eighty years later, he's still on the shrimp boat and
his son Jason and Jason's wife, Nicky. They love Pops
and he still wants to go out and shrimp and
it's a big job. I mean, if you go to Facebook,
she's on there as TX Shrimp Diva Texas Shrimp Diva,
(15:51):
and she tells the stories. And a lot of listeners
were forwarding me links to this, and so I started
following it, and I was watching the tale of them
going out and shrimp, and and she's all dressed up
in her couture, and there's Pops. He's got his old
rubber boots on. He looks like Forrest, an older version
(16:12):
of Forrest Gump in in Forrest Gump, and he looks
like a shrimp boat captain. And you could tell he's happy.
But what I loved about this story was not just
what a character he obviously is. I love the fact
that his adult son, and more importantly, because his adult
son has a very important job at Kirby Marine, that
(16:32):
his daughter in law, who was an executive with the
Finger Apartment companies, she retires and still still gets up
every morning and puts all her makeup on and dresses
in her fancy clothes. Just a little more, just a
little more functional now she goes and picks up Pops
and they go out and shrimp. And that's probably not
where she expected to see herself because if you watch
(16:54):
the video, she's got her nails. She's all dulled up,
as my mother will say, she's got her nails perfectly.
French Man and these two are out there. This is
like a seventy sitcom, Like these two You're Chico and
the Man kind of deal. So Nicky Koons, Nicki Johnson Coons,
the daughter in law Texas Shrimp Diva. I wouldn't know
who Pop says if you hadn't taken to Facebook. Now.
(17:16):
I noticed that you had your own page before you
started Texas Shrimp Diva. I can't imagine that you ever
expected it would grow this big, not just in Galveston,
but but far beyond. Uh, why did you do this?
Speaker 6 (17:34):
You know what? Michael Hey, By the way I started,
I think I started overwhelming my friends on my personal page,
and they got to the point where it was like,
oh my gosh, enough already of the shrimp.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
You know.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
And I know someone had said you need to do
a reality show and post and I had talked about it,
and we were like, you know what, it's not for us,
not interested, and we're approached again and we kind of
started doing a little bit and in the end just
(18:12):
decided we just wanted to do our own thing and
on our own time schedule, and we work well that way.
And I don't know, I just started the own my
own page, Shrimp Diva, Texas Shrimp Diva, and that way
people in Galveston that were not on my personal page
they could kind of see what was going on. You know,
(18:34):
I like to keep personal personal with my family, my mom,
my nieces, and then I like to just share parts
of pops in my life together. So I think there's
probably more interest there. So that's why I started my
own page.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Why do you think people have responded? Because you have
developed an incredible following about this this deva, this woman.
I mean you you a few weeks ago you said
he was on your bucket list to you know, I
can't dance, and you probably typically didn't do runway model stuff,
and there you were being this runway model in Galveston
(19:11):
and you agreed to do this, and it's like you're
having fun with this, You're profiling him. And I feel
like a lot of people from different walks of life
in different ages and age groups well beyond Galveston are
following along even though nobody's ever been on a shrimpboat.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
No, you're right, we have people. Oh sorry about that.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
What's the dog's name?
Speaker 6 (19:34):
Bailey? Okay, and that's pop Son's dog. But she's hanging out.
I need to throw a colachi at her. So you
know what. Most of our followers are of the older generation,
and I do have a lot of women, and I'll
say at first, when I started the private page, I
did have some haters, and I had women who would say,
(19:58):
I can't believe you're out there with those fingernails, and
you know, why are you wearing tank tops? And who
are you trying to impress? And I'm like, number one,
it's Texas and it's one hundred and thirty five degrees
on the shrimp boat. I have never not had nails
in my life, and they're faster to pick shrimp with
my lashes. By the way, keep out the fish scales.
(20:22):
So I am fully covered in like taking care.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And p end like, well this is functional as well.
Speaker 6 (20:28):
Okay, absolutely absolutely. Pops would beg to disagree because I've
already been in the hospital twice for shrimp, shrimp scales
to the cornea, major injuries along the way, but.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Stinger ray.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
He called it a skingerrey. I had a stingery barbed
straight through the knee when Pop's told me not to
pick up a sting ray, and I did it, and
I nearly passed out and vomited on the deck, and
Pop said, oh, baby doll, it'll just hurt for a second.
And I think he turned whiter than I did. But
I ended up in the in the hospital UTNB for
(21:06):
seven days. Anyway, I think it's just taken off because
they have such a love and admiration for Pops and
his age and what he stands for, and the fact
that he raised ten children on a shrimperman's salary, and
that he was out there every single morning, you know,
(21:28):
getting up at two o'clock in the morning, and sometimes
he didn't come home, he'd stay overnight. But I don't know.
I think that's just a bond and a connection that
people have with our Facebook page, and they think about
their great grandfather or their grandfather and how hard they
worked and the blisters, the blood, the sweat, and you know,
(21:53):
it's it's hard out there and they just all appreciate
what he Yeah it is, it is. I mean times
are tough, you know, but he made it happen with
ten kids and there was a great life for him.
And I just I'm just there along the way. So
(22:17):
he's killing me, but I'm still out there. He'd be
out there seven days right now if we could. I
just said, I'll give you Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So baby steps,
baby steps. But yeah, we we love our fan base
for sure, and I think I'd have more. I think
i'd have more if I wasn't kicked off Facebook for
(22:37):
a couple of days. But so I think we're up
to fifty eight thousand. Pops, you had fifty eight thousand
followers right now.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Oh god, it's a lot of people to say hi
to it is.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
That's a lot of shrimp fans.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Yeah boy, yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
So off of the haters. After the women actually we
started seeing Oh, the main question I got was, well,
what I heard was she didn't shrimp. She ain't out
there working those lines. She's she had the accountant. What's
she doing just counting the money? So once they saw
videos of the whole perception started to change, and there
(23:20):
was like lack of judgment.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
So well.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I think it might have been the juicy couture sweatpants
with shrimp across the bottom, and the manicured nails and
the fully applied makeup. I think that might have you know,
let's not call the haters, you know, absolute haters. Hold
with me for just a months. This shrimp is the
(23:45):
fruit of the sea.
Speaker 7 (23:47):
You can load to it, ball it, brawl it, bake it,
sutic days on, Trump gloves, triump, creole, trimp, gumbo, paying fry,
deep fry, her fries, pineapple shrimp, limon shrimp, coconut shrimp,
pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes,
(24:14):
shrimp berger shrimp sandwich.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
That's that's about it, Pops. Have you seen Forrest Gump
the movie?
Speaker 5 (24:26):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I have?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Did you? I mean, was that exciting when you saw
the whole shrimp boat stuff or did you say they
don't know what they're doing?
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Yeah? It was. I had to go see it again.
It was so rested. You know, boy, what a show,
what a shell.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
That was a heck of a show. That was Uh.
I think that probably did more for shrimp Boat captain
awareness than all the other movies about shrimp boat captains
that I can't think of right now.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
Do you want a fun fact? Yeah, about Forrest Gump. Yep,
so fun fact the shrimp when Captain or when Lieutenant
Dan and Forrest Gump were out in the water and
they brought in that huge, huge hall. Every single shrimp
that they jumped out of that net, probably about two
(25:20):
thousand pounds, were dead and headed.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
So fun fact if you have, oh they must they
probably went and bottom right and.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
Just and I have receipt. I have the receipt on
my Facebook page. Yes, like they bottom head and headed.
So that ain't how it works.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You mean you got to go to all the trouble
to take the heads and the shells off and the
vein out and all that, Nikky, I have to tell you.
And Pops, Pops. When I was a kid, it was
a real treat when I would stay with my grandparents.
Is my grandfather on the drive home on Friday evening,
he would bring home fried chicken. And on Saturday, my
(26:03):
grandmother and I would sit outside and we would we
would devein shrimp all day and then fry them that night.
And that is my very very fond nostalgia of shrimp.
Speaker 6 (26:15):
Yeah, well, yeah, we don't do that, do we. No,
we don't devein or head them.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
No, no, I know. But but before you cook them,
you do when you when you make them for your
own do y'all eat a lot of shrimp?
Speaker 5 (26:29):
Oh? Yeah, no we well we had them. We make
them home to eat, but we get off the boat.
We we wollam cooked already. We don't have to go
home and take them.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
But anyway, So, Nikki, I have to ask you when
you get home every day and you smell like shrimp
and you're supposed to be retired, but instead you're very
sweetly going with your grant, with your grandpa, with your
father in law and taking him out on the shrimp boat.
And you come home to Jason and you probably have
(27:06):
tales to tell about his father. What does he say?
I don't need to hear about my dad right now.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
No, he just says, well, you know, you know how
popsy is. You ain't gonna stop him. And that's exactly
what he says. He's like, Babe, I've known this my
entire life. And you had asked how many times you know,
when do we bring shrimp home. Jason's allergic to shrimp,
so I am very I brought shrimp home like three
(27:36):
times in a year. It's horrible. I wish I could
bring it home more. But that man braced out and hive.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Oh that's awful. So you know, I think what I
love about y'all story, which, as you know, based on
input I make on your page, is the intergenerational interplay
because there's obviously a lot of love. I mean, this
is this is a show of love from you to
your father and all, but this is also a show
of love to your husband that you take care of
(28:04):
his dad. And I think that's that's a that's a wonderful,
beautiful story. I'd like to see more of this, you know,
when you go back and look at the Golden Girls
and what that what that TV show? That show exploded.
People love the inner generational stuff, and there's not enough
of that on TV. It's it's it's neat stuff. But
(28:24):
you learned a lot about what your husband, Jason, how
he was raised in terms of values and and strictness
and punctuality. When one day you showed up six minutes late.
I saw the post about this, tell that story. If
you would.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Well, you know, it's funny that you bring that up, Michael,
because you had mentioned that our phone call was going
to run a little bit late today. So when I
told Pops, I'm telling you he is a stickler for time,
and I'm like, well, how dare we tell Michael Barry
he's got to be on time, you know, I said, heck,
you left me at the boat dock, and that day
(29:05):
Pops and I were just talking about it. That particular day,
I called three boat captains to have them call Pops
on the CB radio and call me, and each boat
captain said, Nikki, he ain't answering. He ain't answering, and
I said, he is pissed off. I know he is.
(29:26):
But Michael, I was leaving Pops a note on his car,
and I was writing so hard with that pencil that
the lead broke, and I wanted Pops to know by
having that hard lad on the paper how mad I
was that he went out without me. Anyway, I showed
back up to the dock around the time that I
saw Pops coming in, and Pops looked at me and
(29:48):
just started laughing from the boat, and I was fuming.
I was so upset but I just looked at him
and I just started laughing. I could both of us
just started laughing, and we embraced. We hugged each other
with two hands, the tight two handed hug, and I said, Pops.
He said, I know, I'll never do that again, and
(30:11):
I said, neither will I. But then I chewed him
out because I could have. I could have died on
the way there. He didn't leave his cell phone on
because he thinks leaving his cell phone on is going
to cost more money, you know. So anyway, we haven't understanding.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I'm like, God, it's such a great line because
it's so I.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
Have not been on Like, I've not been late in
four years. I'm not a late person ever, So if
I am late, there's a reason. So I said, you
better call me or pick up that phone.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
So anyway, he's never gonna leave me again for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Hey, Pops, can I get you to do me a
favor and record something we can use on the show. Yes, Look, okay,
I need you to say this. Okay, you can. You
can take a couple of I need you to say
this is the Shrimp Boat Captain Jerome Coons, And you're
listening to the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
This is the Shrimp Boat Captain Jerome Coons on the
Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Can you change it to and you're listening to the
Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
To the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
This is Captain Jerome Coons, and you're listening to the Michael.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
This is Jerome Coons and you're listening to the Michael
Berry Shows.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
No, it's okay. We can edit that. We can edit that. Yeah,
that's enough. Hey, pops, can.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I also anyway?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Can I can I also get you to say it's
hard out here for a shrimp. It's what it's hard
out here for a shrimp.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
Oh yeah, it's hard out here for shrimp.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
At'll work, that'll work. You two are absolutely wonderful. I
love everything about y'all. Keep doing what you're doing. You're
inspiring to the rest of us. And much bigger than shrimp,
and much bigger than all that is that you're reminding people.
If you're fifty four years old and your father in
(32:19):
law is ninety, and you're lucky enough to have them,
then if they like the garden, go dig in the
garden with them. And if they like to play bingo,
go play bingo. And if they're at the old folks home,
go sit there with them and listen to the other
old folks people complain about whatever's going on in the world.
This is an act of love, selfless love, and you'll
(32:42):
be the better for it, even if you get left
at the dock. Thank you, guys, All.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Right here right, you have a good bud.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
This is the Michael Bay Show.
Speaker 8 (32:53):
If you like the Michael Berry Show in podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(33:14):
Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast
is produced by Ramon Roeblis, the King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(33:39):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLain.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our assistant.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated into
our production. Where possible, we give credit. Where not, we
take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the memory
of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple man
(34:11):
like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
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