Be Extraordinary. Be You.

Do you remember when they had commercials like, "this week on a very special Blossom?" This is one of those weeks. Heather and Randy Bacchus share the story of their son's tragic story, the perils of "today's marijuana" on the developing brain and how it has led to the development of Be Extraordinary. Be You.

Transcript

0:11

Hi Alrighty, welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota nice that it desperately needs. Back in the studio, we got Steve Browns here. Hello. Hi, Steve. Hi. KG, where are, uh, where are we calling you at today? I'm in beautiful Shakopee, Minnesota, just past the finish line at the beautiful, uh, pony palace we call Canterbury Park. And what, what brings you out there today? Hey. Well, I'm swinging by the, uh, the print shop here at the racetrack because they've got tomorrow's programs available tonight. I've got to color them up with my crayons tonight and get ready to fill in for Mr. Paul Allen, who will be our guest next week on the kindest chronicles. He's on assignment with the Vikings in Cleveland, and that looks like the Titanic just set sail with all the injuries they've got, but I'm going to call the races tomorrow and Saturday while he's on the road. Yeah. The Viking injury patrol is out of control, man. We can talk about that with, uh, with your pal next week, next week. We also have with us, uh, Randy and Heather Backus. Welcome. Thanks for having us. Thank you. This is a, uh, an audible medium, so when questions are asked, you know, nodding your head doesn't necessarily always work. Um, and this is for our friend Michael. I just have to tell you about Randy. So Randy, uh, Went to high school at Hill Murray with Steve and I. And, and St. Jude's. We went to St. Jude's together as well. Yeah, it goes all the way back. He went to St. Thomas with me and Kevin. Oh boy, he's hitting all the marks. Roll Toms, baby! And he lives in Mata Midi! Oh my god! So we have this listener who's kind of a pain in the backside, and he says, you know, if we played Kindness Chronicles, bingo, bingo, every week you mention, Mata Midi, Hill Murray, St. Thomas, and then we're going to get into Seinfeld later because there's always a Seinfeld connection. Always. But he brought who he's described as his first wife when, when he walked in, which, uh, I find crass. Um, anyone else feel that way? She's, she's heard that one before. Yeah. She's recovered from it. Randy comes to us. He's got the best hair in Mata Midi, always has. He's a silver Fox. Wow. It's looking pretty good, but, uh, we are here to talk to, uh, to the Bacchuses about a mission that they are on, and it is a mission that comes from a very sad chapter in their lives, but, uh, there's some, some wonderful things coming out of it, why don't you guys introduce yourselves and, what brings you in here today? Why would you want to come to this this basement? Well, because I twisted their arm yesterday when I ran into him at a restaurant. I just also want to say that Heather has become somewhat of a media star. I saw her on, uh, Fox with, John Roberts. Um, and then I happened to be a person that watches some alpha news and you were on with, Liz Collin. welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So, tell us a little bit about your mission. Well, in July of 2021, we lost our son to cannabis induced suicide. Yep. And at that point, um, we really didn't know what had happened exactly with him. We knew he struggled with, uh, with cannabis use. But what we didn't know was the damage it did to his brain. Um, and sadly, his last text to us said, You know, that he wished he would have been a better person. And the hard part was, you know, he was a good person. He was a great kid. Yeah, he was a great kid. He was smart. He was funny. He was handsome. He was personable. One might say a clown. Yeah. He was a clown. He was a clown, and he liked to have fun, and he liked to be funny. But, um, The sad part was he was really struggling with social acceptance. And I think, like many kids today, trying to find their comfort level in just being who they are. And so, you know, he, he said he didn't want to be an ordinary person. That was a song he sent me. And it breaks my heart that he didn't know he was extraordinary. And I, my personal belief is that we're all created extraordinary. We're all unique. We're all different. And all of those differences bring, Um, to the party, right? If we were all the same, life would be very boring. So, we created Be Extraordinary, Be You, to encourage kids to, um, really be who they are, and if they're not comfortable in their own skin, if they're feeling social anxiety, or they're feeling depressed, or they're feeling, you know, You know, any sort of like kind of mental anguish to find a trusted adult, a loved one, a teacher, a counselor, whoever it might be that they can speak to rather than resorting to drugs, which will be a temporary solution to a. Long term problem that will probably be made worse by sprinkling in drugs When I ran into you guys yesterday, I was familiar with the extraordinary BU What's what's interesting is I had called the phone number that I had for Randy on file And he didn't respond and I thought maybe they just don't want to talk about this stuff I'm sure that they listen to the podcast because who doesn't listen to the podcast who doesn't everybody everybody listens And I mentioned to him, you know, Hey, would you guys yesterday? I said, would you guys mind coming on and being on our show? And I said, you know, I called you a while back and he goes, you didn't call me. And I rattled off the phone number. And so happens that that's the phone number of their daughter, Anna. And I'm sure Anna thought, why is this 55 year old man calling me? So I apologize. For the creepy factor of that. But, I became aware of Be Extraordinary, Be You. And this podcast is kind of a,, we hope that it's an uplifting podcast. And the sadness that your story has also has this very positive thing. And one of the things that we always talk about is just the importance of young people feeling accepted by somebody and how important it is for those of us that see those kids. And I always use my example of the kid that's sitting alone in the lunchroom, that somebody has the courage to go over and ask them to join them. And you pointed out this little check over here, it was a check that was, uh, It's an oversized large check and we have it down in the, uh, in the basement studio. And it was, the first essentially selfless scholar scholarship that was given out. It was, we had this organization called Bonafide U and Timmy Lindquist was nominated by six of his classmates at Matamedi High School. And they all talked about the fact that Timmy was the guy that would go around during the first couple weeks of school and look for those kids that. that just didn't have that connection with anybody. And I always say that individuality or your loneliness is more exposed in a high school lunch room than just about anywhere in the world. And to your point, Heather, the importance of young people understanding that they have advocates out there and those advocates can be classmates, they can be teachers, they can be parents, they can be friends of parents, there's, there's just so many places for them to go and just not to give up that hope and turn to marijuana or drugs. But marijuana specifically, and what I find fascinating about your story is, people look at marijuana as sort of this benign drug, back when I was in college. a lot of people smoke pot. The pot of today is not the pot of, of our day. So, can you speak to that? Sure. Um, well, what we learned, we knew pot was a little different, but we didn't realize just how strong it is. So back when we were young, the percentage of THC, which is the intoxicating component of marijuana, was about one to three percent. Um, and over, like through the 90s it maybe went up to 5%, Like at a minimum, what you're finding is it'd be tough to find anything that was below 10%, but you're finding up to 23% holy cow, t cow, TH, c, cow, in just smokeable marijuana. And that is just like, so eight to time, eight to 10 times more potent than it was. Yeah. Back when we were involved. Yeah. And that, but the hard part is, you know, you don't, you see people and you smell people smoking marijuana around you, right? But what we don't smell are the vape pens. And then also if parents don't know, there's also something called dabbing and those are concentrated forms of THC. What is dabbing? Uh, dabbing is where they take the THC and they run it through an extraction process. Yeah. Yeah. With a solvent and what results is a sticky hard Waxy like substance and you just take a little dab you heat it on a nail or a banger you a banger a banger Which is what the term is that people use? Okay product call it and then you inhale the vapor and what it is a really potent and strong Hi. And so those potencies for vape pens to, and dabs can go anywhere from 30 to 99 percent THC. You have become quite a student of the topic. Sadly, we know way too much. Yeah. So I'm just curious, the state of Minnesota recently made What do they call it? Recreational marijuana. Is that how they describe it? We'd like to call it adult use marijuana. Okay. So that kids know it's just not for fun. Yeah. Um, and it shouldn't be used by anyone unless they're an adult. But is that legal in Minnesota now? I don't even know. It is. As of August of last year, August 1st, it is legal for you to carry marijuana on you. No kidding. The only difference is you have a hard time buying it around here. Okay. I think that the, Oh, that's, that's right. Some of the tribes will sell it right now. And a lot of the stuff they're selling is 24 to 27 percent, uh, THC just for the smokable product. So, I mean, the, the game has really changed and at this point, you know, part of our focus was we, we did meet with the state last year when they were trying to legalize and we really wanted them to put guardrails in place. They weren't willing to do that. Guardrails being things like potency caps. Um, instead they decided to leave it up to the Office of Cannabis Management, which right now is kind of being formed. They still don't have a leader or true leader for the office of cannabis management. So it's been about a year Um, but this stuff will be going to retail here towards the end of the year possibly in early next year And aren't they incorporating cannabis into like beverages and all kinds of other so so like THC. Yep So to just to clarify that so When we talk to kids and parents, we help them understand that cannabis is a genus of plants, right? The two main ones we hear about are hemp and marijuana. Hemp primarily contains CBD, which is not, um, intoxicating. And then marijuana contains THC. However, with the Farm Bill that passed in 2018, you can harvest all the CBD out of the hemp plant. You can molecularly change it. Um, by running it through that extraction process. And then you create a psychoactive component, intoxicating component. And those are your Delta 8, Delta 10, THCO, THCP, and 22 other varieties. Jesus, we got like a scientist here. You guys have become experts. Holy cow. And all those right now are sold in a lot of our vape shops or they're sold in our, uh, gas stations. Yes. So right now that's, that was a loophole. So it's a long story short, but yeah, CBD, you know, in, in its natural form is fine. But as soon as you start taking it and breaking it down, you're creating, these are really synthetic drugs. It's no longer, this is not God made. So we don't talk politics on this show, but let, help me understand something. This is a state that, sued the tobacco people. They raised the age to buy just plain old tobacco to 21. they don't allow you in like the city of St. Paul to buy menthol cigarettes anymore. But they were full steam ahead on having access to this. Is it just that the legislators are stupid? They're uninformed? I think it comes down to money. Follow the money. Because this was such a big hot button for them. They all voted lock, stock and barrel to pass this without any guardrails. And the fact of the matter is, uh, you know, we met with a lot of legislators and we listened to a lot of their, their positions. One of the funniest one was a gentleman that's, uh, from a neighboring community. His daughter was addicted to menthol, so he wanted to get rid of flavored cigarettes, but he was okay with, but he was okay with the marijuana. With marijuana because he said it helped him. It helped his A DHD. It turned his ocean into a calm lake. His mind, who he described it as an ocean, but once he took. It was like an edible. It was a calm lake. And I said, well, do you know what you were taking? Do you know the potency? Do you know the strength? No, I don't. And didn't care. But this is what we were up against. And so fast forward. So when we went through all that, that's when we started Be Extraordinary But You. And we thought the only way to really change this game is to get to the kids and get to the parents because they need to know what this stuff is. When we first lost Randy, we thought we were an anomaly. We thought we were unique. As as we dug and we learned more and we Well, first of all, he left us a gift. He left us video. So we have hours of video footage of him thinking he's going to be a rap star. So he's out in Colorado. He's 20, 21 years old thinking he's going to be a rap star, but he's never taken a music lesson in his life. He starts investing in stuff, doing, uh, doing music. And we thought he was just off his rocker. After he passed away, we got all that video footage because he recorded thinking he would be somebody he's not. Hmm. So he just had delusions of grandeur? Yes, totally. And those delusions at least provided us.'cause he would take video snippets of himself and he'd talk about his sobriety.'cause he'd go through tea breaks, which are tolerance breaks. Okay. So as we went through this and we went down to the state, we thought, okay, the only way we can really make change with this is to share some of this message with other youth. And to get to the kids and tell them, hey, if you do this, this could potentially happen. Not everybody's going to go through what our son did, but I can tell you just from being in the community here and being in the state of Minnesota and even being meeting people from around the country, there's a lot of people going through this and it doesn't hit, it doesn't matter race, it doesn't matter ethnicity, it does not matter economics. I've heard you guys talk about the fact that. Marijuana has an even greater impact on the developing brain. we think back to our days in high school and the people that, reportedly smoked marijuana, we called them stoners or potheads or, they were, they always seemed a little slow. Right? True. And now you've got this, Kevin, there are some of your dear friends, right? Most of the Absolutely. Yeah. No, but there was, I mean, there was a whole network of people that I went to high school with that were like super chill and super laid back. It's just, going back to the start of this conversation, it feels like a completely different version. Yeah. It's a different drug. But once you get that access to it, And I, I don't understand guys, the guardrail position, like how, how in the world can we not want to have more restrictions and that guardrail available if we know the type of potency we're dealing with and the type of harm it can cause? It makes no sense to me. True. I mean, this is all true. And you know, you look at, so the, the weed back in the day, they'd always say nobody that has smoked weed will ever went out and started a fight. But the fact of the matter is that weed today is so strong that it actually is more like More like a, um, meth or something? Yeah, like a, that kind of drug. So a lot of, and I'm not going to get down this road, but just to give you an idea, a lot of violence, a lot of these gun related things where people have gone to shot up, marijuana is involved with this. Well, absolutely. I mean, you talk about, how often, when a person is involved in a shooting, did they say they found them with drug paraphernalia, specifically, you know, three ounces of marijuana on them? And I'm sure that the police vehicles that pick up these young people, I mean, you know how it is, you walk, you know, through downtown Minneapolis and you can smell it everywhere. We are in New, we were in New York. I was a, A year or so ago, this was after I had the fight with Elmo. Remember we talked about the fight with the Elmo? Fuzzy Elmo, yeah. Yeah. Just so you guys know, Elmo in Times Square called me a fat ass one time. He used a Spanish term for it, he called me El Gordo. And I know enough Spanish to know that's not a very nice thing. That was not nice. But you could not, you could not walk through the streets of New York without being inundated with the smell of marijuana. I don't want this to be all about marijuana. I wanted to talk about the Extraordinary BU. How is it that, I know that you guys do speaking engagements, in fact you had one today. Tell us about how you're getting the message out there and who you're talking to. Well, we, you know, we're trying to get into schools. That's our primary. So tell us about that. I thought that that was interesting. Yeah, trying to get into schools like what school wouldn't want to hear this message. Well, I think that they they will be open to hearing it. I think the schools are You know, they're overwhelmed. They have so many responsibilities and things to do, but there's channels that you have to go through. And the schools where we've had success in getting into, we're working with the coalitions and those have been in the greater part of Minnesota, um, in the twin cities, it's been a little bit more difficult and challenging. We seem to connect a lot with the coalitions in the outer regions, uh, here in the twin cities that hasn't been as successful. So we've had good luck getting into some of the private schools. Um, they seem ready to hear a message and they want to present it to their kids and to the parents. But the public schools have been a little bit more of a challenge. So I guess our ask would be, um, if people, you have kids in public school and they would like us to come and present to the kids and to the parents that, you know, talk to your administrators, talk to your counselors, talk to the principals, and we would love that opportunity. Because we think it will greatly. Um, it will educate the kids and educate the families and even open up dialogue between parents and kids. But in all fairness, I mean, we've spoken to schools that are around here that are private. Um, and when we do a, uh, teen presentation or student, you know, we get really good response from them. They come up and ask questions. A number of them will come up afterwards and ask us questions because in there we show a video of our son. We talk about the brain. We talk about how this stuff affects the brain. But what's interesting is when we do parent presentations, maybe 100 people sign up, 50 show up. And I think a lot of people still think it's this benign product. So, so part of our education is getting out and letting people know that this, you know, if you don't watch this and if you're not careful of it, it could really create a lot of harm and a lot of chaos in your home. I would imagine. And there's something called, I mean, this is an actual diagnosis. It's cannabis induced psychosis, right? I mean, I have read articles in preparation for this, that, you know, smoking marijuana there. I said, you know, God, I say, you know, a lot, um, it can cause schizophrenia. It has an impact on your brain chemistry to the point. I mean, if there's ever been a need for scared straight, this has got to be it. Yeah. And I think what people just don't know or understand is that cannabis has the highest conversion rate to experience psychosis out of all the drugs. Is that right? That's right. And then if you go into psychosis and you continue to use cannabis, you have a 50 percent likelihood of transitioning to schizophrenia. And, you know, sadly, like Randy said, we've connected with parents who've either lost children, or they have children who experience cannabis induced psychosis and have been diagnosed bipolar or schizophrenic. And they're living with these adult children in their home, and, you know, they're at, They're at their wits end because these kids can't function themselves. They've stopped using, but their brains are broken and they're forever scarred because of their use and they've transitioned into a permanent condition. I have a question. So I just want to ask, is that because of the use during development of the, of their brain? So, so does that also pertain to adults or is it because of that developmental phase in their life that it's sort of, it's. Mess with that process. The way one of the psychiatrists that we've worked with at the state last year explained that I always like to equate it to, it's like when your brain is developing as a youth, it develops from the front to the back, the prefrontal cortex where you house all your adult executive functioning skills, that's the last place to develop. So that's why people lack judgment, um, they're impulsive. It just affects things. And so when. young people use it. It's almost like you're rewiring the brain or you're taking out a building block for that brain. And it's just never going to develop as it should have. And he even said, even with kids who stop, he will still see just kind of a difference in how they function and get along in life. And they talk about the prefrontal cortex. So we have a little place called the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain. And Who is that? Someone's always calling during our show. We're gonna ignore that. We typically bring them on. Yeah, we typically bring them on. It's usually one of my children. First time caller, long time listener. Yeah, there's a lot of first time callers showing up. But, at the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, they talk about, the neurons that fire together, wire together. And that prefrontal cortex, that doesn't fully develop until you're like in your mid twenties. And if cannabis is having an impact, I guess the moral to this story is you gotta be really careful and really thoughtful about, consumption of, of anything like that, especially with all the other stuff that now makes its way into, to, to these drugs. So, don't do drugs. I is it that simple? I mean, it kinda is. As crazy as that sounds. Well, can I just share something about vaping? So I don't know if it obviously ties in, but I will say that my kids are now 20, 19, you know, both, both 2021 year olds, my younger ones. And, uh, in junior high, all of them were vaping everybody. And that was, I think there was a point of that even before I think the pandemic, it was a big deal. Maybe it was after, I don't remember, but it was a huge deal. Well, that hasn't, that didn't stop. It's now, it's just kind of common. And, um, my son is done doing that, but my daughter was doing it for a long time, not long ago. She quit and she went through a horrible time stopping and it made her feel like the nicotine addiction through these vape machines is, is real and it's horrible and it's enough that she'll probably never do it again. But I think that it's probably a step. Junior high kids are vaping because they you can't smell the cigarette smoke and it's like smells like peaches or whatever it is And it's a track that leads to the next the next plan or the next process which is the vaping weed or whatever it is because it's a It's it's the next step right and that's true. I mean vaping weed comes in different flavors So you're not gonna know if somebody's vaping weed or if they're just yeah nicotine That's the other hard part that that is difficult to tell. So when our son lived with us, I mean, he was using in our house once in a while, but it was hard to know. We didn't know at the time, but it didn't smell like pot, but we had no clue. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he was vaping and you know, we have it in his journals that he said, I didn't bring my vape pen home from Colorado. Well, there were different times where I found like a lot of vape pens. I didn't know you could vape marijuana. So, at that time, like back in 2018, so that was a whole other thing that we didn't, you know, I thought it was nicotine. I didn't realize it was marijuana. It's, it's serious and it's, you know, just aside from the psychosis issues, it's doing the, the fake nicotine, the fake vaping is doing horrible things to kids lungs that are developing. I'm assuming it's 21, like cigarettes, like you can't buy. Okay. So at least I got that part. Yeah. But the junior high kids are doing it. Cause you can do it. You don't have to go to the bathroom and, uh, you know, hide out with your buddy smoking in the boys room. And the things that they smoke, like the, these vape. Things that they smoke do not look like you would imagine something. I mean, I saw a guy smoking something. It looked like he was had a harmonica. It looks like, uh, they look like, uh, uh, cartridges of computer cartridges, but I've also seen them where they look like a credit card. It's like, well, how are they? I don't know. They have water bottles that are vape pens. So it looks like you're drinking water bottle, but it's actually a vape pen. They have Sweatshirts. We called that a bong back in my day. Yeah, it's a little different. And they have sweatshirts with like, you know, the string coming out of the hood. And the little end of the string is a vape. That's creative. It, and they have markers and highlighters that look like vapes. So, and the other thing people need to know is that kids have access to this because they can just simply order it online and have it delivered. Uh, again, reading some of Randy's journals, he said he ordered a vape pen because he didn't really like smoking and this was back when he first started. So I think he was a sophomore. And like I said, I didn't know at that time, I, we didn't even know people are vaping. But so he went out to Colorado. Yep. We knew that he used out there, but we didn't realize what this stuff. Well, in Colorado is like the Mecca for ground zero. I mean, the bottom line is there's a lot of issues out there, but when he was out there, when cannabis induced psychosis hits somebody 50 percent of the time, they can seem normal. The other 50 percent of the time they're off, which a lot like mental illness where somebody can go out of the house and they can keep it together. As soon as they come in the house, they, they turn into a different person. Like with, you know, Cause Randy had a job. I mean, he held a job. He had a couple jobs and so he was always working. I mean, it wasn't that he was lazy, but I think that with the cannabis, He was ambitious. Well, he was ambitious. I remember like he had a clothing line that he was starting and I thought, you know, that guy's got, he's getting it together. But, you know, behind the scenes, just, and that was all on his dime. So we didn't give him any money when he moved out there. I remember you saying that. He was on his own dime other than we paid for him to fly home. If he came home, I heard you paid for his cell phone and we paid for his cell phone. Yes. Well, that was in the family plan. I've got an uncle who's paying for his 42 year old son's cell phone still. So that's a whole nother story, but, but I think that, you know, the, the biggest takeaway was really for us to be able to affect change. is to get out in front of people and explain this to them. And we could either be advocates at the state, which we, we, we tried that, but we're not really political people. It's just really, I think the only way that this is going to change for our youth is that they know what the potential outcome would be if they do some of these things. And hopefully they choose wisely after they, they know some of this brain formation, uh, information that we discuss. It's undefeated. I mean, your brain is not going to develop. You know, by the time you're 13 years old, it just doesn't work that way. the extraordinary BU is a nonprofit organization. You accept donations. I'm assuming online. What is your website? Well, extraordinary BU. Oh, that's, that's simple. And it can be. com or. org. Okay. We got both. or if somebody has a hard time typing all that out, harms of THC. com. Really? So, okay. Um, and the funds go to the advocacy programs, basically for us going out and educating. So we don't take, we don't get paid at this point to do any of this stuff, but for every time we, we get a donation, we use that for some of the items that we print. Sure. Some of the things we put together. Okay. Um, when we speak with the kids, sometimes we do a quiz and we give them prizes and get them engaged. So they answer the question, they get a prize. Um, so we use the money for that and for some printing options. for pamphlets to hand out to people. And we have other ideas. We'd like to get some groups started in schools so that kids can sign like a pledge of saying take the lead, say no to weed. Um, and make an agreement to not use until their brain's developed. So let's, uh, I want to talk about the Bacchuses, the Bacchuses are well known as two of the finest people in town. You're realtors. you guys have been, uh, on, bus benches for buses that no one ever takes. Um, in fact, I think there's one right in downtown Matamedi that, uh, right there at our 50th in France. You know, Willerney is our 50th in France. Um, but one of the things I just have to say about the Bacchus is every major holiday we get, I'm assuming there's lots of us that get it, uh, a lovely reminder of, the joy of the holiday season. And I, I don't know whose idea that is, but it really, it just, it seems so genuine from you too. Where if I was getting it from, I won't say who, but you know, someone else that's in the business is selling something. I don't know. It just feels very consistent with what you guys are. And you've got three lovely daughters, um, Anna, who doesn't return my phone calls, but I'll get over that. I know who's this weird guy that keeps texting me. Why aren't you calling me? Where are you? Um, but, uh, tell us about your girls. Uh, the oldest is Brooke and she lives in Texas. She works for a technology company that collects data in, you know, Funds non profits by collecting that data. And she went to Notre Dame. Oh, good for you! Yeah, and she loved it there. What's not to love? Yeah, and then Sabrina just started working as a nurse at the cardiac unit. At United. Oh, really? This week. Oh, very cool. And she just graduated from St. Ben's, right? Yes. Okay. Yep. And our youngest, Anna, is going to be a sophomore at St. Mary's in, of Notre Dame. And we talked to her last night that we don't want her to go into marketing because that's what I did and look at how I turned out. Were you a marketing major? I was. You were. Of course you were. Of course you were. Yeah, I think I ran into you at a few classes, uh, Where we looked at each other and thought, boy, what are we doing here? KG, um, you probably graduated just a couple years after Randy, right? Well, you know, I took the, uh, I took the long road home at St. Thomas, and you love to bring this up. I was student teaching. I was out, uh, as a grad assistant coaching with Terry Skrypec. Um, I don't want to get into the years that they all got run together. I do. I do. In fact, I just have to say it was really fun. Kevin and I went and played in a St. Thomas baseball Fundraising golf tournament, and we recently stop. We show up and there are your name tags and it has the year that you graduated. And what did your say, Kevin? Well, number one, it was wrong. It, I was supposed to finish up, it said 93 and I'm like, no, hold on. 93 now. Hold on. Alright. 90. I shoulda graduated if I was really. I wasn't. Yeah. Bottom line is I got through all my classes by 90. I student taught the entire year in 91 and I technically got out in 92 and you have not lived this down. It's unbelievable. It took me longer. You don't have to call that KG. They call it a super senior. Super duper senior. I was the guy that got led into St. Thomas on the front end. I was the guy that got led into St. Thomas on the front end. Uh, because of my, at the time, assumed hockey skills, which I never really proved that to be true. But I got a, I got a probation and I, I overachieved just getting a degree. So I'm just proud of the degree that I got. I want to circle back to the, uh, the message of the foundation because I am, and we're not here to talk about me. I've, I've been a teacher. I've been a coach. I've got three daughters and I just think the message of being extraordinary being you is like being yourself. It's so much harder now than it was. You know back when maybe we were in high school or junior high because of social media I think social media can be wonderful But I also think it could be so damaging and I think for kids to believe In themselves and not get caught up in what they're reading and seeing on social media. I don't know how you guys are gonna Fight that battle. But to me, it is so important for these kids to realize that they are special just the way they are. And I think we live in a world where everybody thinks you've got to be like the people you see on social media. And I think that is so damaging to self esteem. Well, I think we deal with it as adults when you look on fake, fake books sometimes. Uh huh. Yeah. Because fake book kind of shows a different life than what a lot of people are living. And our kids are inundated with this tenfold of what, of what we are today. And it's the highlight reel and it's so much information. You're supposed to do this and you're supposed to do that. And it's overwhelming for me. And as, as an adult where I just turn it off, but for kids, you know, they just keep looking at it, looking at it. And they think. Yeah. They compare and they feel lost. As adults, yeah, we have context to what these photos mean. We know that they're just the, the funnest moment of that vacation or whatever. But yeah, kids, they think that life should always be like they're visually, uh, stimulated and what, exactly what they're seeing. And it's really not the truth. Well, I do want to mention that Randy, you, um, have posted some videos. You're a very talented, video producer. And there was one video that you put out there. Was it like your mom and dad's anniversary or something like that? Probably a number of years ago, yes. It was so well done. I have goosebumps just thinking about how Incredible. That was, would you mind just telling people that don't know you of the tragedy that you experienced early in life? Is that something you can talk about?. So I went to high school with John. I actually, ironically, he had a locker that was next to mine when I was a freshman, he was a sophomore, but that was back when we shared lockers at Hill. Yes. So when I was a senior in high school at Hill Murray, my parents and my, uh, siblings went on a vacation. I stayed back, uh, because we had quarters at that time, I guess, cause some of this, you're going to edit out. But. Um, I stayed back and kind of stayed, worked, and my parents, uh, when they went to Steamboat on the way back, they had a plane crash. So I lost my parents, and I lost my two brothers and a sister. I was 17, I was the oldest. At that point in my life, uh, my life had changed forever. But what we did have is, as time had gone on, my dad had taken lots of little videos, but these were the 8mm, I think they were 8mm, where there's no sound. Mm hmm. So we had some of the stuff from my grandparents from when they got married, uh, one of my sets of grandparents, my parents, uh, so I had all this video footage, but keep in mind everything was done in three minute increments because when you bought that you would develop the film after you had the three minutes done. So each year we'd probably have two or three reels and I was able to put a lot of those together and save those. And that was really important to me. So when our son passed, um, we had a lot of video of him as well. Not only of him growing up, but then him taking his own video and being able to use that to go out and talk to other youth is just been huge. Yeah. So I really see a huge piece of that video. I really do clamor to it. And I look at it and think how important it is. Granted he is gone, but to a degree he kind of still lives in. Sure. And I would say just from like the video of his parents, I never had the pleasure or joy of knowing any of his immediate family. Right. And so, you know, to watch his dad on video eating a bowl of cereal and realizing, oh, my husband eats his cereal just like his dad does You know, like, that's cool. Those are things that, that's cool. Yeah, because I didn't, I didn't get to know them and I didn't mean to go dark on this thing, but it, it was, it was light. I mean, it was, I saw that video and I thought. The standard has been set for a guy that just has a love for these parents, and they're still here. You know, those memories and the fact that they're on the video, my god, it just gets the best of me. Okay, I want to end with this. I want to read We're going to take it back up again. Um, this is in the, uh, on the Be Extraordinary BU, uh, website. I just want to read this because I think it's beautifully written. I don't know who wrote it, but, Each of us is created uniquely with special talents, gifts, and treasures that are meant to be shared with the world. No one is just like you. You are unique. You are extraordinary. But you have to be an extraordinary person to embrace and just be yourself. God, I love that line. We are prone to comparing ourselves with others and sometimes we want to be more like others than ourselves for many reasons. When we do compare, we always come up wanting. It is important to remember that there is only one you. Oh my God, this is, maybe I shouldn't be reading this. Uh, you are enough and you are loved. When we exercise self love of our physical being, intellect, talents, emotions, and spirituality, and just be our God given selves, we are being extraordinary. Believe it or not, it is a lifelong process and journey to be extraordinary. Instantaneous gratification and constant connectedness help create a disconnect. Also, brilliantly connected. And it is easy to lose sight of who you are and to feel good about who you are. Spend some time thinking about who you are and decide whether or not you are living up to the best idea of who you are or should be and work on it if you're not. Be true to your core identity rather than faking a different one because you think it will be attractive to others. Once you do that, you'll be ready to show that you, you're good. Show that you to other people and you'll do it in the spirit of honesty and authenticity. That is extraordinary. Who wrote that? Come on to looking at each other. Somebody. It it, I think I did. Oh my God. But you know what? It was honestly like a while ago, but it holds true. Well, it got the best me, so Well, was it, was it Mark Twain that that said, comparison is the thief of Joy. Yes, yes, yes. And I think we do so much of that and we kind of forget about this because, you know, when we were young, we had struggles, right? And these kids today are tenfold of what we had. I mean, we could get away with stuff. Be, you know, somebody could not reach us today. They're available 24 seven. It's just letting them know that they are enough. And, and I think, um, I mean, our son knew this ironically. I mean, he knew that he wanted to be able to help people and he had a few different clothing he had designed. One of them was, uh, try, try self love Jesus and just things that, you know, But yet at the end of the day, it's easy to talk about these things, but it's a lot harder to live them. Yep. And really just trying to, you know, kind of share that message and, and look at it as, as much as we went through, it was not something I want anybody to ever experience, but we were given so many gifts and we've been given gifts and we continue to be given gifts. Well, on that note, uh, thank you very much for coming in and sharing your story. Thank you guys. Thank you. And, uh, off we go.