100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt
Learn More at https://100humboldt.com/
100% Humboldt
#43. John Packer's Tapestry of Service: From Oakland Streets to Humboldt's Heart of Law and Community Connection
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Embark on a captivating exploration with Scott Hammond as he invites John Packer to share his journey from the streets of Oakland to the heart of Humboldt County. This episode promises to stitch together a quilt of experiences that define John's life, from his untamed childhood adventures to his meaningful career in law enforcement. Our conversation traverses the landscape of memory, freedom, and the ties that bind us to community and purpose.
We're not just talking about a career transition; it's a transformation that led a man from inside sales to serving his community as a police officer. John Packer recounts the serendipitous moments and decisions that shaped his path, including a damaged sprinkler system and a college Bible study group that bolstered his connection to the people around him. As a retired officer, John opens up about his strategic exit from the force, his legacy within the Boy Scouts of America, and the nuanced challenges he navigated while educating children about drugs through the DARE program in a region known for its marijuana cultivation.
Our conversation extends beyond John's personal narrative, touching on the broader themes of diversity and identity in Humboldt County. We reminisce about local legends and reflect on the delicate balance of law enforcement, particularly during campus protests. Closing on a powerful note, John speaks to the impact he hopes to leave on his community, his considerations on end-of-life decisions, and the importance of forging a life filled with intent and personal truth. Join us for this intimate portrait of a life well-lived and the lessons we can all draw from John Packer's remarkable story.
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
Find us on You Tube, Linked In, Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok!
John Packer's Journey to Humboldt
Speaker 1Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, it's Scott Hammond and 100% Humboldt with my new best friend, john Packer. Hi, new best friend, yeah.
Speaker 2Hey, you can be my old best friend, okay, old best friend, you can be my friend, john Packer.
Speaker 1How's it going? It's going good. It's going really good today, good, good. So tell us the John Packer story. Unpack the Packer story from. How did you get to Humboldt? I realize you're from Oakland, correct?
Speaker 2Oakland, california, yes, yes, gunshot, capital of California, that's right. Just there, now, not then. I was there a couple weeks ago too. It was interesting. Yeah, not my Oakland, it's different, it is different, it is different.
Speaker 2I actually went by the infamous uh, the chicken place right next to it, and I was with the boy Scouts actually, and uh, hop out of the van of my boy Scout uniform, armed guard comes up and goes you guys can't come in. We're like, well, what's going on? He says, well, we get robbed. So you can't come in. Uh, cash only with a card. And so we got chicken that way.
Speaker 2But anyway, no, I came to Humboldt County in a couple different manners. So, first of all, unbeknownst to me, I had been introduced to Humboldt County because my family, even though we were growing up in Oakland, my dad, worked for Challenge Dairyman's Association, so we're a Challenge family, which made us teamsters. My dad's a mechanic. He and a buddy of his named Bob Jones would flip trucks when trucks broke down, and so our family had been up here, or not. My family, my dad, had been up here, my mom hadn't, and so I knew of Humboldt County as the place where my dad would go to get some work done and come back here. His Challenge was based in Fernbridge Was that?
Speaker 1a challenge.
Speaker 2Challenge. You know to this day and we'll talk about this a little bit later, I think challenged dairymen's associations, a group of independent dairymen throughout Humboldt County. So I still hunt some of the fields that were challenged dairymen fields back in the day. They have cattle, now dairy cows, but I still I've met those families, or some of those families the kids of those families. So bird hunting, Bird hunting yeah, yeah, geese Geese love-.
Speaker 1I know you and my son-in-law met hunt.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1Is he a good hunter, by the way?
Speaker 2He is very good. Is he good? Yes, he is. Yes, he is. I up Matt Mullaney, what's up? Yeah, no, he's good at whatever he puts his hand to.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I knew about Humboldt County in that respect, although I couldn't have told you Humboldt County, and so, born and raised in Oakland, my sisters will tell you that my parents picked up the wrong kid from the hospital because there is not one gene of city kid in me at all. I mean they would have to explain why their brother you were at church. Where's your brother? You're in the Wright County. I'm in Wright County. Yeah, yeah, he's over someplace called Yuba City putting in Where's that? Yeah, putting in cattle enclosures and getting paid for it. He's a wrangler. And so, about fifth grade, um, one of our teachers, um believes the Oakland public school system moves up to what, at that point in time, um becomes enterprise. Uh, enterprise is a new city, um a suburb of. Of writing.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And so about junior high, tyrone Hopper there's a great name for a discussion. Tyrone Hopper and I throw our backpacks on the Greyhound bus, catch the Greyhound bus up to Humboldt County, up to Arcata, and get off the bus there and backpack camp, ride in cars you know, meet and go across 299 over to Redding camp, hop back on the Greyhound bus, catch the Greyhound bus from Redding back down to Oakland. Every summer, every summer.
Speaker 1So it was your summer field trip.
Speaker 2Summer field trip. Yeah, just two buddies, you know, hey, see the road man. And back then, you know it was cheap. You know you, the only the only sketch thing about it was the Greyhound bus station Oakland is was. So the only sketch thing about it was the Greyhound bus station in Oakland was an interesting place, with the prostitutes hanging out and stuff like that.
Speaker 1But once you got San Francisco, la same one, la same one, stuff like that.
Speaker 2So I come up here. You get off the bus, the bus at that particular time. The bus stop for Greyhound at that time was the building just to the south of what's known as Adventure's Edge right now. Yeah, became a barbershop.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Barbershop, stuff like that. So we got off there. So that's all, mostly junior high, high school and because of the era I grew up in. So for the people watching or listening, I'm at the tail end of the baby boomer, so 46 to 64. And I'm born in 62. So coming out of the Bay Area it's just chill.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I mean, you can get a ride, you can hitchhike, you can hop in a car with anybody.
Speaker 1You can walk, you can just you know, not anymore, not anymore, don't do that, anymore, don't do that at all.
Speaker 2I walked to school in kindergarten by myself and with Lala Bagalantes, a Greek gal who lived down the street from me, and so I'm coming up to Arcata for that Skip all the way to high school. I get out of, I'm finishing up high school and I'm going to decide if I'm going to go into either marine biology at San Diego or wildlife management at Humboldt State. So I hop on the Greyhound bus, get off. I'm like dang, I know this place. I've been here before. I've been here before. So I'm halfway up here and I'd never stopped it at Humboldt State. Right, that was not any of. I was not concerned with Humboldt, I just want to get on the road.
Speaker 1Where could I camp, which isn't that far from the Greyhound station, right, but I mean, yeah, you're busy getting ready, busy getting ready.
Speaker 2I got a backpack and I'm going right, and so I go hey, I know this bus stop and I get off, and I actually know that I'm coming up to an area that I'm familiar with because I passed the B mail down in Scotia, and I'm like, hey, I've been through that before. And um, so I come up to humble state in 1980 has a wildlife management major and, yes, yeah, me too, until I found that, and I wanted to be a game warden. Sure, and, uh, and, and then you couldn't get a job as a game warden at that time. Now you can. Yeah, they wanted, um, wildlife biologists and I was, I'm. I was definitely designed to be in the outdoors or to be outside, and so I would end up switching to speech communication as an emphasis or as a degree, with an emphasis in organizational communication. But I moved down to Cal State, fullerton, to finish that degree and then, immediately upon finishing, almost immediately upon finishing, moved back up here to go to live in Humboldt County. So you finished at.
Speaker 1Fullerton. Finished at Fullerton, came back up here. Yeah, is that where you met your wife?
Speaker 2No, I met my wife here, so I'm involved in a couple different nonprofits or organizations, and one of them still is a group called Young Life. It's a ministry to high school kids, sure, and at that time I was on staff. So I'm finished with school, but I'm on staff with Humboldt County Young Life and I don't know whose house. We've got 30 or 40 kids in a house going crazy, singing songs, doing skits, and I'm going to do a talk on who Jesus is at the end of this, and so those are great places to recruit people. You're the old guy.
Speaker 1You're the graduate from college. Yeah, you're 22, or?
Speaker 2something.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And these three gals come in One of them is my wife to be someday Don't know that at that time. Sure, one of them is my wife to be someday Don't know that at that time and they walk in and I see them and I'm like dang, she's good looking. And so we meet while I'm a part of Young Life Ministry here in Arcata, eureka, mcleanville area. That's how we met. So she's from the Riverside area. We end up. I end up working for a company later on known as. So I go, I go from college into the outdoor industry. Yeah, so a couple different careers before I get to the law. That's how we met Moonstone, moonstone Mountaine industry. Yeah, so a couple of different careers before I get to the law.
Speaker 1That's how we met Moonstone Moonstone Mountaineering.
Design to Law Enforcement Transition
Speaker 2Yeah, so I go and I work for a company called Sport Chalet and I run their camping department, I run their fishing department for the Huntington Beach store. Wow, I go from there to Moonstone Mountaineering In Arcata, in Arcata, and I start their retail side of their business. Yep, and they already had a wholesale Phenomenal. Phenomenal I have well, that's 30-something almost 40 years ago, no, 40-something years ago. I still have equipment that works as great as it did the first day.
Speaker 1Quality is really good. Yeah, are they still in business?
Speaker 2You know, they are not that I know of. I the R&D is still phenomenal. I mean you have a hood on your down or, excuse me, on your mommy's sleeping bag, because of the work that Fred Williams put into.
Speaker 1He was the designer. He was the designer for that. Yeah, yeah, we lived with the Steve and Janet Cole who were Yakima racks. Yeah, I knew the Coles, they were great.
Speaker 2He would do 12 hour days. Who were Yakima racks? Yeah, I knew the Coles, they were great. He would do 12 hour days. Oh yeah, so and that was my last, that's the last place I worked before I went in law firm. So I went to work for Yakima racks and I did inside sales for what was called Northern California, so inside sales from Fresno up to the Oregon border, reno. And then I had interesting story I had the key account from Cabela's. How about that?
Speaker 1So, um, right up your alley.
Speaker 2Well, yes, it was kind of interesting. Uh, I'll throw a shout out to a um. A friend of mine, larry Hewitt, was the national sales manager at Yakima. When I was there, phenomenal guy Um ran into him at the old Eureka Inn. Huh, uh, he, I don't. I didn't know who he was. He knew who I was. He walked up to me and he says you're John Packer, aren't you? Yeah, sure, Sure, so is my dad, who's asking my granddad too. He says hey, I'm Larry Huett, I'm with Yakima. I saw what you did at Moonstone. You need to come work for Yakima. Wow, so, okay. So Larry walks in to my little cubicle at one point in time and Yakima was attempting to get the Cabela's account and he says I got a question, cabela, and he actually got. I managed some of the outflow of the product in that pipeline. And he says Cabela's asked me a question. They want to know. Cabela's is a hunting company, right, right, right. Oh yeah, not really the genre for Yakima, Not at all At that time, right?
Speaker 1Not a lot of outdoorsmen in Yakima Steve.
Speaker 2Cole and Banducci are not. I mean, they're outdoorsmen from a kayaking standpoint. Yeah, maybe, fishing Right. Yeah, maybe so, yeah, maybe so. Cabela's wants to know how many coyote pelts can fit in this case. And hey, dude, you're the resident.
Speaker 2I'm like well, You're the hunter, Are you talking female pelts or male pelts? Because the females are going to be a little bit larger. That's funny. So I give them a number and I'm like and you got to figure, you know, did we just harvest them or they've been fleshed and salted? So I give them some numbers. That was sufficient that we got the account.
Speaker 2Well, because up until that point, salt weighs a lot. Salt weighs a lot. It's got moisture in it, you know, and prior to that, and they still do, I'm sure they do. That was just kind of a funny spin on. I think Cabela's trying to say hey, can you go toe-to-toe in this conversation, because this is going to be a big account.
Speaker 1Did they sell the account? Did it happen? Oh yeah, it happened. Yeah, it was phenomenal.
Speaker 2Yeah, it was phenomenal.
Speaker 1Oh, that's cool. I mean, having a Cabela's on there was similar to having an REI on there, and things like that. So how did you? Did you go to Police Academy at CR?
Speaker 2I went to the Police Academy at CR, so I'm at Yakima Products and Yakima is going to be sold. I think at this point in time, kranz Co was going to buy them. First sale, first sale. Yeah, this is first sale, which was really heartbreaking, I mean for everyone, for everyone. I mean, it was an organic homegrown group of guys that had been out paddling river rats.
Speaker 2That made it good it made it great, and so we knew, because we'd been told that the majority of the company was going to go to either Oregon or what was called South San Diego, tijuana Guess where that is yeah, mexico, you can go to South San Diego.
Speaker 1I'm from.
Speaker 2South San Diego. I'm from National City. Okay, no exactly.
Speaker 1Well, they located it in Mexico, did they not? Yeah?
Speaker 2So, but we're not going to pay you any extra. You're going to get the same pay, wow. And so I said you know, we can't do that. Betty and I were married. I wasn't going to say her name, but my wife and I were married, yeah. And so I said we need to start looking at some other things. And I looked at law enforcement before because I wanted to be a game warden. But at that time and we started praying about it because we really wanted to stay up here and the way that prayer was answered was interesting Somebody ran over the sprinkler system at our house. So I get up in the morning and we've had a. We've had a college age Bible study that's met at our house for 30 years now.
Speaker 1Is it that Wow?
Speaker 2Yeah, that long we've been in town. So from Humboldt state now, now it's Cal Poly, now it's Cal Poly. I say Humboldt, I don't even try to say Cal Poly.
Speaker 1I like that. It's a running joke, cal Poly.
Speaker 2Humble. Who are we? C-p-h-s-q-r-z-l-m-n-o-p? We'll go humble, yeah, so humble 30 years.
Speaker 1That's awesome dude.
Speaker 2It's fantastic. I actually have married a couple of the students that have met at the College of Bible Study. I've stayed at their houses in Washington, in Idaho. So there's places across the United States. Your Uncle John, Grandpa John.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And so I look out and there is, there's water gushing out of our yard. And so I call the police department up and I file a report. And an officer named Demas Madera shows up Cuban guy. And he says you look like you're distracted. I'm like, yeah, I've got a Bible study I'm doing, man, and somebody ran over my. My sprinkler system is water gushing out. We get it turned off. He says here's my card, here's the case number, call me on, you know, next, next week, and we can, we can talk about this. So I okay, great, unbeknownst to me, and I know this now because it's funny, because I spent 27 years in law enforcement. There's not a darn thing you can do about it.
Speaker 1He's not going to do anything about it. He's not doing anything.
Speaker 2There's a case, yeah, there's a case. Never think about it?
Speaker 1Was he recruiting you?
Speaker 2Yes, of course he was. So I get there and I look for Demas and I'm like yeah, have you got anything on my sprinkler?
Speaker 1system Got a hot lead, yeah, and he's like dude, you're just going to have to fix that.
Speaker 2Yeah, good luck, he says.
Speaker 1But here's my boss. Yeah, he wants to meet you, yeah.
Speaker 2He's like here's the deal. We need more Christian men working in law enforcement. Why don't you come on a ride along and consider it as a career?
Speaker 1Wow, and I'm like that's a random answer, it's like, wow, really Okay, like out of left field.
Speaker 2This is why I'm here, and so I would eventually go on with Arcata Police Department. They did a neat thing. What they did was they offered me a job. Well, they offered me the academy. So I went in and I became a reserve. I put enough hours in to be a reserve and then the academy came and 73rd Academy comes up. But I'm working at Yakima.
Speaker 2And so I go to Steve and I say Steve, here's a deal. I got this opportunity to go to the police department law enforcement academy, steve Cole, steve Cole no, no, no, sorry, not Steve and Ducci, larry Hewitt. I go to Larry Hewitt, excuse me, and he says well, here's the deal, john, why don't you go ahead and go? We'll give you a leave of absence and you can attend the academy. If you get a job, then you'll go on and be a police officer. If you don't, you can come back for Yakima. Wow, I'm like okay, so that's great.
Speaker 2So I accept that offer from Arcata Police Department and about a month into the academy, mel Brown, who's the chief of police, passed away at this point he's deceased Said if you successfully pass, we will guarantee you a job at Arcata Police Department and I was like, so fantastic. So now I've got this situation where I have a job, I'm on leave from the job, I have a job that's waiting for me. Okay, you're set, it gets better, betty. You're set, it gets better, betty. This other lady, this other lady that I'm married Okay, the one from the Bible study the one from the Bible study, yes, that I'm now married to is pregnant with our first child, wow, okay. And we're living in a one bedroom house where you can, without exaggeration, stand in one spot, reach into the kitchen, the bathroom, the closet.
Speaker 1I loved that place, that place, yeah.
Speaker 2Which one Down on South G Street. And so we need to buy a house. Right, wow, we need to buy a house. Well, here's an interesting thing, right, wow, we need to buy a house. Well, here's an interesting thing we make enough money that we don't qualify for a house, except for, you know, first time home buyer and things like that in terms of qualifying for our first-time homebuyers program. So we qualify, we close and move in on January 2nd, my birthday. Is that your birthday? Yeah, yeah, it's also my daughter's birthday.
Speaker 1That's funny yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I start the academy the next day.
Speaker 1So you qualified based on your numbers being low. Being low yeah, perfect Okay, hey, whatever works.
Speaker 2Hey, I beat everybody on the introductory at the academy. It's like, can you give us one thing about yourself that nobody knows? Yeah, I had a child born yesterday. My wife is at home right now and I'm a dad today, and I wasn't earlier yesterday. How do you beat that? Yes, anybody, anybody.
Speaker 1I should have put some $5 squares out there for just to make a little extra money. So this was the academy is this is number 73? 73, yeah, 73. And how many are there now? There must be 131. Wow, that's a lot of classes. Yes.
Speaker 2A lot of cadets going through.
Speaker 1Is that CR Academy pretty famous in terms of JC academies in the state.
Speaker 2It still has cadets. There's others that have been closed down.
Retired Officer's Legacy in Scouting
Speaker 2It's still going Right, it's still going, and there's two types. So police academies operate under what's called peace officer standards and training post. There's two types of academies within that post structure. There are academies, for example at CR, which are non-affiliated academies. Within that post structure. There are academies, for example at CR, which are non-affiliated academies, and there's academies that are affiliated with a police department. Okay, so LAPD has a post-certified police academy, but it's for LAPD. So if I were to, for some unknown reason, go back into law enforcement and want to work for LAPD, I'd have to complete their academy.
Speaker 1So they have their own schools. They have their own schools, so their farm system like baseball Right.
Speaker 2Yeah, because working for Oakland Police Department or San Francisco well, not San Francisco, they use ours. But LAPD, for example, is so unique in terms of their structure and what they're doing that they need to fine tune that officer. Yeah, right out of the academy.
Speaker 1Wow, okay, so that's a really have a setup. So UPD for how many years at university? So 17 years at?
Speaker 2university police department. Wow, and you just retired a couple of years ago. Retired a year, you retired. Well, I stopped working October 30th of 2021 because I was not going to work on Halloween. Just bad things. I'm not superstitious, but I didn't want to take a chance. I knew enough. You put on costumes in the middle of the night. When there's anonymity, the crime rate goes up. Right, it just does. I didn't want to catch that. I did catch a case at the end that was unfortunate for another officer. So stop working October 30th and retire February of 2022. Okay, just to cover the different two years. Because of accumulated compensatory time and vacation time. Nice, if you go out at a certain part of the year, you're going to get hammered in taxes because it bumps you up in your so there's a strategic yeah, strategic, yeah.
Speaker 1Oh, that makes sense. So you have other interests. So Boy Scouts of America America you've been with forever. I know you're very involved in the ministry at Telios and Arcata Calvary Chapel. And talk about BSA for a minute and I know you yeah, that's interesting and you're known as Packer right, I'm known as Packer.
Speaker 2Everybody calls me Packer.
Speaker 1Packer at the university BSA and the whole nine.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's usually Packer Sometimes. It's Officer Packer Sometimes, and it's been Officer Packer forever.
Speaker 1So your legacy is so the Bible study at the campus for college guys and gals, and then with youth at BSA and Young Life.
Speaker 2That's you've invested over time. It's paid dividends because even in law enforcement I had a stint where I was everyone's DARE officer or school resource officer. So you meet the majority, if not all, of the students coming through. So our K to high was a school resource officer from 2002, 2004. Define DARE for those of us that don't know. So back in the day, drug abuse recognition education. So it came out of LAPD. We were looking at specifically fifth and sixth graders and how to give them tools not to become involved in gangs and drug use. But it also reached back and did some work with the K through fourth as well, the K through fourth as well. And so you'd go in and you just develop relationships with kids and talk about you know what peer pressure is like at that age. There was a lot of criticism about it. I would get adults that would tell me dare doesn't work, you can't use.
Speaker 2I've seen this stuff and I'm like, yeah, I do, and you're. You're 40 years old and it's written for a sixth grader, so I'm pretty sure that's not for you.
Speaker 1It's not for you pal.
Speaker 2Come on.
Speaker 1I thought you were going to tell me what, some like growers going to tell you how this is terrible material.
Speaker 2And we had that, I mean we. And we had that, I mean we had we. It's Humboldt County right.
Speaker 1It is Humboldt.
Speaker 2County. You're doing your parent once a year type of conversation and I'm I'm officer Packer with Arcata Police Department, I'm your DARE officer and you know we're going to be talking about A, b and C and one of our rules is that we don't ever ask kids to use names. We always ask them if they have a question. Use the phrase someone I know smokes weed, has dope growing here, has their nugs hidden here, and I kid you not and Rabarchek was an author before me that was in the same program he said it's going to be hilarious.
Speaker 2You're going to get to that point because you have a certain amount of information that everyone gets out and this is one of them. Just to let them know, someone I know smokes weed. He says half your parents will get up and walk out at that point in time. And I kid you not, every year I'd have that parent meeting Folks I want to let you know, because I know a lot of you here, because you're worried about this. But if you're using weed, we're not trying to develop leads with your kids. We use the phrase someone I know has nugs and that's all we're doing. And then we address what they're talking about and half the parents get up and leave. Yeah, every year without exception.
Speaker 1It's been illegal for a long time, until that point.
Speaker 2Yes, it does, and so, yeah, so that was, you know, it was foundational for me. It was educational for me to um, to learn about the County and the people in the County. It drew me really close to a lot of people in the County and families that I know to this day, um, and it also helped because it really kind of solidified we wanted to raise our kids here, in spite of the whole weed issue, um, which we to keep our kids away from. It's not hard to stay away from weed, yeah, um and uh. So we really enjoyed that and so it really was foundational for it.
Speaker 2Now my kids might not say the same thing, because you know, there's time where I had to. I could not be a dare officer or school resource officer, or my kids were in school. You don't want to do that to your kids. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to be the school resource officer when my kids were in school. You don't want to do that to your kids. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to be the school resource officer while one of the kids was at our kid high. Right, that's just not cool, right? I mean, even for now I've had no problem going on the campus in uniform because I have a daughter, sure, and asking for her in uniform, right reform right just to fly the colors.
Speaker 1I had no problem. Just to mess with their.
Speaker 2Yeah, so scout how'd you get into scouting we? So I got into scouting at eight years of age in oakland, california, in pack 220 and stopped for a little while because I was here in college and I was a grown man. I didn't have any uh desire to be a part of scouts until my son came along Were you an Eagle Scout? I did not Eagle, I did not Eagle, I got. So they talk about guys will not get their Eagle if they get involved in fumes Fumes from girls, fumes from their car, and so perfume or gas fumes Could be weed fumes. Now too's true, yeah and uh. So I got as far as uh, my life and life rank um, but was outdoors too much, was outdoors way too much more. And to get your eagle you have to have a really excellent balance of being that outdoor scout but also the someday going to be a businessman, sit down, personal finance, personal management and those types of merit badges that you're in Communication skills yeah.
Speaker 2And so that didn't interest me at the time. So I was like personal management, wildlife management going for wildlife management yeah easy, Personal management, You've already done wildlife management, let's wildlife management going for wildlife management. Yeah easy, Personal management, You've already done wildlife management, let's do wildlife management again.
Speaker 1Let's do wilderness survival again. How about that wilderness survival thing? So you're a PAC leader then in McKinleyville.
Speaker 2Yes, well, not McKinleyville. So I come back up here. I get out of scouting when I'm 18, 18, 19 years old.
Speaker 1Our son is born and it becomes a requirement that he goes into Cub Scouts. So I can live vicariously through him An unwritten requirement?
Speaker 2It's a requirement. Yes, To this day my daughter is mad at me because at that time girls not allowed in Boy Scouts. And to this day she's not happy with the fact that she could not earn her Eagle Scout. Did she do Girl Scouts? No, it was not going to happen. Yeah, no, she's not a Girl Scout. Well, I shouldn't say it. So not, I need to qualify something here. Humboldt County Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are excellent programs. They're different than the rest of the state of California. Yeah, so if you're a Girl Scout in Humboldt County, you're a badass.
Speaker 1Yeah, the Kinghams are our neighbors. Yeah, you're a badass. Everywhere else, shout out to Cheryl and-. Not so much, but yeah, here you're Mr Kingham.
Speaker 2Yeah, the gals toe-to the pack master, the cub master. My wife and I ran a pack and moved all the way through Cub Scouts to Weeblos and then we went to Troop 95 and Betty dropped off because it was you know. Hey look, this is who's Betty, who's Betty, yeah.
Speaker 1That girl you met, yeah, the girl I met, an anonymous Anonymous, it's just a fake name.
Speaker 2Lady, that was at the youth get-together, yeah.
Speaker 1So-. So. A troop then is so a pack is a group, a small group, small group of Cub Scouts, and the troop is Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts, yeah, okay, how many typically in a troop?
Speaker 2So at that time I think we had 25 boys 25 to 30 boys in the troop with five patrols. So it's a very much paramilitary organization. Sure, scouts the name Scouts from Baden-Powell was not happenstance, they were scouts right for the military. And so you run patrols, patrols, run troops, and then it branches out from or it moves on from there, depending on what you're doing. So if we go to a national jamboree, for example, we have contingents that continue to troop. The troops are part of a subcamp, subcamp's part of a camp, camp's part of a. It's very well structured, any case. So I go to Troop 95 and it's just my son and I, because at that point we're definitely in this mode of. Boys need to learn how to be men from men and we need to put them into some stressful situations and address those stressful situations and learning situations and learn and learn and learn, and we use wooden grout to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So you're going to, we're going to put a pack on your back and you're going to sweat and there's going to be a prize. That lake, that camaraderie, that building a fire at the end, the fish, yeah, the fish, yeah, it's going to taste better than anything you've ever eaten. It tastes fantastic. Man, You've never eaten fish like this. I could open up there's a story. You could be out of food. I could hike you for 10 miles and that can of sardines will taste phenomenal. It's amazing.
Speaker 1Where Sardines?
Speaker 2are great.
Speaker 1Are these from?
Speaker 2grocery outlets. Somebody told me a story about that the other day. They were talking about their kid that hiked and they ate sardines. And they come home and they're like asking their parents hey, can you buy sardines? These are good. They get them out. Oh, what is that?
Speaker 1It's disgusting you have your sardines.
Speaker 2Those things are disgusting. That's not what I had.
Speaker 1you're put under duress. Let's see what you got and hopefully you have safe people Right that are around you. That'll coach you up. You know coach approach and take care of you and walk you through that.
Diversity and Community in Humboldt
Speaker 2And I did. I had when I was in Boy Scouts. Obviously the scouts had their problems and still do in some ways, in terms of it's not, I say, boy Scouts of America, bsa, and I'm always going to say that Kind of like Humboldt, yeah, humboldt, boy Scouts of America, but it's actually Scouting BSA and sometime next year it's going to Scouting America or American Scouts or something like that, and so it's kind of a train wreck in that sense. But Humboldt County Boy Scouts is Humboldt County Boy Scouts.
Speaker 1Sure, and you knew Mac right, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was a neat guy. Yes, he ran the store, he ran scouting in Humboldt, he ran the-. What was his last name? Mac, I'll think Anyway. Mac, I'll think anyway.
Speaker 2Yeah, he ran the store. Well, he ran the office which had a store in it.
Speaker 1Right, he was like the admin, into his old age.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, he was a believer, yes he was. He believed, hard yes he did.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh, that's cool yeah.
Speaker 2So we lost that store. Right, that's gone. That store was sold by the council to pay part of their bill for the lawsuits.
Speaker 1How about that?
Speaker 2It's too bad because that was a key store. It was, and it was given to the kids. So it wasn't, yeah. So then there's a.
Speaker 1I still have a source of discontention there on that yeah Kind of picking up on that right now.
Speaker 2Yeah, we have a lot more to talk about. It's a kid's store. It was given to them as a gift, so it was given to them as a gift.
Speaker 1So I see a thread here. So you have this service, this ministry to Humboldt in police, in law enforcement and certainly in BSA. And you're a hunter too. So hunter safety, do you do stuff like that too? You know, I've done—I didn't get in trouble.
Speaker 2I got some raised eyebrows. So Arcata is Arcata. Arcata is a different town, sure, but not really. I mean, growing up being a kid, running around Oakland in the 70s is not very much different than running around Arcata. True, now right, okay.
Speaker 1Everybody came from San Francisco to Oakland and kind of, yeah, infiltrated early.
Speaker 2So I have this great idea at Arcata Police Department that I'm going to get a hold of the National Rifle Association. Do what?
Speaker 1Where.
Speaker 2Arcata and Arcata and bring in what's called the Eddie the Eagle program, which is a hunter safety program for kids.
Speaker 1Nice For the city of Arcata, for the rec program or whatever.
Speaker 2For you know, as a part of an outreach from Arcata Police Department to our kids. How'd that go? It went really well with the kids, not so well with city council. Go figure, go figure. It happened. You know it happened. Fantastic chief Mel Brown had come up through the ranks and I'm sure there was a lot of conversation about that. Mel's a good guy. Mel's a good guy, was a good guy, yeah, and Maybe still is a good guy.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, let's go with that.
Speaker 2And and so it happened. But to this day, Daveer, what were you thinking you did that? The NRA Arcata? That's funny, why not? I don't think that was ever. Hey, let's make it happen, it's for the kids.
Speaker 1It looked good on paper. Yeah, so let's talk about African-Americans and yourself and Humboldt. What's the experience here? So it's, I'll just let you speak to it. What's it like to be a man of color in Humboldt County over the years?
Exploring Identity, Activism, and Community
Speaker 2So it's interesting. So let me, let's do two things. One, if I want to push that person's buttons right and we have this conversation, my typical response is I'm an American of African descentan descent. Amen, okay, that's who I am sure um. However, I know that if I use the term black um, as long as I'm saying that from the standpoint of, so we're not trying to decide the fact that you know part of my family's from nigeria, part of my family's from west congo, and sure um that I also know that there are people with very, very dark skin that are in the West Indies, and so you know Haitian or wherever, right? So we're just using as, just so we can have the conversation and move on to what we need to talk about. Sure, I'll do that, but it's been interesting because, just from a personal standpoint, if you look at my birth certificate, my birth certificate has my dad as a Negro laborer.
Speaker 1Wow, yeah, okay, that's not that long ago. That's not that long ago. Yeah, right yeah.
Speaker 2And so I look at it and then so fast forward to a couple of years ago. I'm old, considering the students that are on campus at Humboldt right.
Speaker 1You and me yeah.
Speaker 2So this term BIPOC comes out right.
Speaker 1I've never heard that you haven't. Thank you. What's that? I'm old, like you are.
Speaker 2Black Indigenous People of Color BIPOC.
Speaker 1BIPOC B-I POC by POC, bi Indigenous meaning from from.
Speaker 2Well, for us indigenous would be native American, okay, Okay, and people of color? Poc, POC.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And so I have. So someone uses that term when the kids is that a university thing? No, no it's, it's, it's a it.
Speaker 1One of the kids Is that a university thing?
Speaker 2No, no, it's a thing right. And they throw it out there. I'm like, what's that? And so they tell me you didn't know, I didn't know I'm what. And so now I'm having this conversation. I'm like, wait a second. So what? If I want to be a person of color, can I not be a person of color African-American and so American, of African descent American, african, but that's mine? Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1I coined that. Okay, yeah, good.
Speaker 2I've never heard any On your podcast.
Speaker 1I coined that, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2And so then I'll have the discussion about who decided that, because, uh, I didn't, yeah, and and no one asked me, and so, and no one ever will, no one ever will. Someone else is gonna tell me entitled yeah, what gosh. Yeah, and they're gonna take that empty tube called race and I'm gonna fill it with something, huh, because it's a construct, right. And and they're going to take that empty tube called race and they're going to fill it with something, huh, because it's a construct, right. And they're going to tell me that that's what I fit in.
Speaker 1With words that aren't enough, that aren't enough, yeah, they aren't enough, or wrong, yeah.
Speaker 2Worse. So there's that part of the conversation, but in terms of Humboldt County, so yeah, I've had a fantastic time I when I first got here 1980, and the other thing I didn't know was what a kegger is, right you?
Speaker 1didn't know a kegger.
Speaker 2I didn't know what a kegger was. Okay, so in Oakland you don't go to keggers. What do you go to? You go to house parties.
Speaker 1A house okay.
Speaker 2You go to a house party. Where there might be a kegger. No, we didn't have kegs. So there was never kegs at any of the house parties I went to. Nowadays you would say they were handles Okay. So you were at somebody's house, their parents were gone and they had their bar. Their home bar was there. They had handles, we had an entire bar, and so I'm introduced to for-buying and keggers.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And it's a neat story because my kids are adults now so I can tell this story. But gary and evan and I a bunch of us who were freshmen at humboldt and um, we, we hear about this kegger huh at a barn with handles.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, no, it was it was.
Speaker 2It was a legit kegger, uh, down in the bottoms. Yeah, I mean that at that point in time that's all code, right. A kegger at a barn in the bottoms with red solos, I'm like. So we hop in and, and Levi overgones there too. So we have every in Garrett, who are two white guys from Lone Pine Bishop area. We have Levi Obregon, who's Hispanic, hispanic, hispanic, and we have me, african American, american of African descent. We hop in and Jay Harris, and we, and Jay Harris is like white guy with red hair from Utah, motley Crue man, and we're confused because we've got on our Mexican Harachi ponchos, 501s and top siders, right, top siders, it's the 80s, and so we hop on and so we're like following this, and so we wind up at a barn just past Tony's right, and it's owned by the Kallenbergs.
Speaker 2I don't know them at the time. Now I know the Kallenberg family. Yeah, not far away, yeah, so they just. Tony's 24 hours. Right, so they just built a huge barn out there and they're having a barn opening. How about that? Right, right. So we so that crew. Imagine that crew. We pull up, hop out of the truck and we're like there's a band playing, it's loud, there's a ton of locals there. I mean hundreds of locals, if not thousands of locals.
Speaker 1These are Arcata High and Humboldt. Arcata High, humboldt. I mean, these are country boys. Mill people, yeah, mill people, yeah, ranchers A ranching community is there in full force. And you guys are a humble contingent.
Speaker 2We walk up and there's some boys out front. They're sitting there. They look at us and we're like, hey, how's it going? They're like fine, like we hear there's a party. They look at us Yep, beer's that way, dance floor's that way. They look at us Yep, beers that way, dance floors that way. Have a good old time, gentlemen.
Speaker 1Nice.
Speaker 2Boom, we went in. I like it and that's been my experience at Humboldt County the entire time I've been here. Except for a few idiots that were transplants to Humboldt and not a part of this community.
Speaker 1Yeah, I like that story because it represents kind of what I think Arcata is, was, is and could should be. Yeah, I mean because it doesn't represent the jerks, right? Yeah, so Cal Poly just had these big, big Palestinian, gaza-related Israel Gosh, I want to quantify it, I'm not going to do it. So it was in your mind how did all that come about and how, how's it gone? And and it was a week, a one week long protest at Humboldt State here in Arcata, north Bay.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was actually longer than a week was it longer, okay, and they really screwed up our campus. It felt really personal. It's a train wreck.
Law Enforcement and Campus Protest Tactics
Speaker 2Yeah, it was an absolute train wreck from beginning to end Administration, the way it was handled, the way the students didn't handle it, the way the professors and staff were involved in it and sponsoring it. It was a complete and utter train wreck. So everybody contributed to it Everyone contributed.
Speaker 2Complacency under the guise of activism. But yeah, nothing positive came out of that, which is what your hope is for when a protest. So, speaking from a law enforcement standpoint, you know I'm 27 years in law enforcement. I've been on, or had at that point in time time, been on Humboldt's campus for 17 years, been gone for a year and a half, almost two years, right, you know the campus.
Speaker 1I know the campus.
Speaker 2I know the dynamics of the campus.
Speaker 1It's kind of personal.
Speaker 2It's personal, because I have a historical understanding of how that should have been handled, in my opinion, as a sergeant, obviously not as an executive, and that's not how we handle those during my tenure and some of the other guys that came before me Because our role, first and foremost, is not to stop protests. It's not the law enforcement's role to end protests. Now we're at a protest because you have a right to regress your grievance against in this case, the government, whomever but you have to do it lawfully and safely and safely. So our role there, our duty there at that, is to make sure that whatever protest takes place takes place in a lawful manner, regardless of how loud it gets or, you know, barring something criminal written on the building and things like that, or the property destroyed. But once people break the law, then the officer's duty is to apprehend the criminal. That's what you owe, that's what I owe the community.
Speaker 2So I always look at it if we're driving through Eureka and I'm a police officer and there's a hit and run and I'm the only officer on, I need to stop and render aid to that person because that's a human being there. So I'm going to render aid to that person and I'm going to use technology to send out information to other officers to go find this guy who just ran over someone. And so let's say he has a head wound. So I'm going to put gauze in that person's head wound, I'm going to hold pressure on there. Here's the deal.
Speaker 2If I see you, joe Citizen, and I look at you, I'm going to call you over, I'm going to give you some rubber gloves to put on. I'm going to say hold his hold pressure on this wound, don't leave here until emergency medical shows up. And I'm going to go and do my duty, which is to apprehend the criminal. So Humboldt State has. And then, secondly, protests on college campuses are nothing new, right, right, I've said this before. You're probably not a legit campus if someone hasn't protested on your campus.
Speaker 1Right, so you go back to Earth.
Speaker 2First in the 80s. I mean so you go back to earth first, and I mean you go back to earth first, I go. I go back to being a kid in the Bay area. Vietnam war, vietnam war, we had the symphonies liberation army, the SLA watched them Well, not personally, but the kidnap Patty Hearst back, and then we had the. Was that done there in Oakland? That was in Oakland. Yeah, that was done in Oakland, where she was kidnapped and for whatever reason, they love to rob the Wells Fargo bank on Ashby and King Street, up the street from my church. They just like that bank. Yeah, they love that bank. Paid well, that bank would end up hiring police officers. There was a sign. So I went to church at Progressive Missionary Baptist Church right down the street from that Wells Fargo and the videos that you've seen of Patty Hirsch walking around, some of them were in that Wells Fargo bank.
Speaker 1And they would end up hiring police officers. That's famous video, yeah. Famous footage, yeah.
Speaker 2Patty Sign says your teller may be an off-duty law enforcement officer. That got that bad right. Wow, in any case. And he's packing, he's packing. And, uh, I mean, even as a high school student, I saw we we had the benefit of looking at the earlier baby boomers and seeing the the damage all the drug use had done to them and going, yeah, it's a good cause, but I'm not going that way. Right, my protest, and so we ended up. I remember in high school we had the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, whoa, that showed up at our school. Huh, and we went and got like so high school, high school Cartons of old milk and oranges and just beamed them for two days Just thumped them Just thumped them, just thumped them, just thumped them.
Speaker 2They didn't come back. Yeah, they smelled bad after a while. It was bad Oranges and milk is not Were the Black Panthers around in those days Black Panthers were. So here's the thing with the Black Panthers Now I'm not going to condone them, or-. And there's Hells Angels too. There's Hells Angels too, there's Hells Angels. So we had Hells Angels, we had Black Panthers, we had the Symbionese Liberation Army. Synanon was open then, so there was communes that were out there and stuff like that.
Speaker 1Sure.
Speaker 2But as far as the Black Panthers were concerned, they didn't affect bother create. Now, maybe if you were up on Telegraph or Shattuck you might run into. You know protests led by the Black Panthers, but in our communities they are responsible for after school lunches. You know summertime lunches, things like that. Right, yeah, there was never. There wasn't a clash with the Black Panthers by any stretch of the imagination. I would imagine some of my parents' friends were.
Speaker 1Black.
Speaker 2Panthers, whereas Hells Angels were in the middle of all of it. They were in the middle of all of it, and Hells Angels were used in a different way as well.
Speaker 1They were just more chaotic. Yeah, they're making money.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're doing drugs, they're running drugs, running weapons like they are today, like they do yeah.
Speaker 1Some things never change. Love you, hells Angels, maybe. So back to Humble. Yeah, so it didn't go well. Everybody didn't play their position correctly.
Speaker 2They didn't play their position correctly. So you have students that are going to, so you have. You have a war between Israel that's taking place on the Gaza Strip against Hezbollah, affecting directly impacting Palestinians, right Sure, an area where they've been forced by an accord, and common sense should tell you to have an op plan for your college campus, for that A plan, and it should A protest plan, a protest plan.
Speaker 1By admin and UPD. Everybody knows.
Speaker 2Yeah, everybody that sits down and go. Okay, at some point in time, something's going to happen on this campus. Wait a second. These guys didn't have anything going on, I don't know, but I'm saying what played out appeared to be working just behind the curve on that issue. So you should have a conversation. Well, where, what are they going to try and take over? It's going to be the president's office. Sure, yeah, definitely Guaranteed. Yeah, what is that going to look like? What's all Siemens.
Speaker 2Hall, yeah, siemens Hall. What do we have? And so we're going to get. Let's get into this a little bit. Two floors is Siemens Hall. First floor is classroom, second floor is the president's office. But what's more important is human resources, personnel, the second floor Key. So that's key because if you lose control of that which they did for over a week, you cannot guarantee that you have control over personnel files anymore, Right, that's data.
Speaker 2Money. That's data. That's money. That's hard files, grades yeah, that's how much money you make where you live. Wow, all that information. So that's compromised, and so you have to think about those things. Okay, the same way. When I was younger, I worked on a SWAT team and we wrote threat assessments for different places on campus, so I've written plans or reports on what happens. This is a key building. Siemens Hall is one of them. There's others on campus that we have to always maintain control of.
Speaker 1So there's a game plan.
Speaker 2There's a game plan there.
Speaker 1Yeah Well, it's kind of like guarding the hill Right.
Speaker 2Yeah, and you don't know what's going to happen, but you know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1They didn't take Van Dusen Theater.
Speaker 2You don't have to have a plan for Van Dusen Theater, but you probably have to have a plan for the president's office and where your uh, where your personnel files are located, that does, where you don't lose control of it. And, um, and that didn't happen. And then to, to make matters worse, when you did move in, it was not sufficient. Um, it was not in a tactical way. That was sufficient. The idea was good, but the approach was not sufficient. So I talked about this earlier.
Speaker 2If you're going to put a plan into place from a law enforcement standpoint, you have to win. You have to win, yeah, you have to win, not illegally, right, but you have to win. It's got to be a win-win, you got to win. You can't say, oh shucks, yeah, you know you can't. Now to law enforcement, just to flip on the other side after the first couple hours. You know the law enforcement is not making decisions on that. So the president's office, vice president's, chief of staff, those individuals who so, once instant command is established and that executive team is there, then law enforcement is and they're always taking orders. There's someone always in charge. But that rapid response that happens in that first couple hours is definitely boots on the ground, sergeant, lieutenant chief, individuals as they move through based on what they know their administration allows them to do.
Speaker 1So is your guess? The president made the calls thereafter, or his team? The team would have, okay, the team would have His admin team. Yeah, so their admin team.
Speaker 2But ultimately, he stops there. It's his decision, and so they have to consider him in that. Yeah.
Speaker 1So after that it just felt all out of control for seven days. It's just like-.
Speaker 2It was.
Speaker 1It was the campus is closed.
Speaker 2The campus is closed. You have to. You kind of have to close the campus because it's in a central place.
Speaker 1It's a safety issue right, yeah, yeah, it is. Other people could come on and.
Speaker 2Well, and then if you look at so you can go online right now and you can run out the numbers on who was arrested, the majority of them weren't students, weren't even from this area Correct.
Speaker 2I was going to bring that up Like two-thirds, yeah, like 30-something people got arrested Crazy. But here's the problem with you know. So now you've got, how does Humboldt handle this after that? So let's set aside what's behind us and looking forward. We want to make sure that. You know, does Humboldt get the Department of Justice in to look at this is a crime scene? How do they sort through what was compromised at HR? I looked at one of the cases there and they have a criminal threats case the morning of and a 236, which is kind of like a kidnapping but false imprisonment oh wow. 36, which is kind of like a kidnapping but false imprisonment, oh wow. So there's things that have to be considered. Were there students involved in this that, when it got to the point where they locked that place down as activist protesters, were there students there who didn't want to be there but couldn't leave because they felt compelled to stay? Is that true? I don't know, but you have to look into that.
Speaker 1You have to ask, you have to ask that question, you have to get curious, you have to get curious.
Speaker 2You have to dig into that. Professors that were there. Yeah, if you're, we don't have a football team anymore, so I'll use that. So if you have a football team and your football coach suits up with the team and goes out and busts heads, you fire the coach. Yeah, he's gone. It's not his role, right?
Speaker 1It's not your job description. He's gone. It's not his role, right? It's not your job description.
Speaker 2It's not your job description. You don't join. What are you thinking? Okay, so there's that, so it's a train wreck up there. We'll have to see what happens with it.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's too bad. You know it's funny. I could watch Columbia on TV and go oh, that's too bad in New York. But when it's home, turf your alma mater, your friends, people that have jobs here. It's like it's real personal. And you know my son goes well, dad, that's what a protest is. It's supposed to well. I don't think a protest is supposed to do 2 million in damage to state property and I'm okay with it. It's like I'm not okay with it on a whole bunch of levels.
Speaker 2Right, well, think about that. So it's $2 million at this point. I heard $1.6 million at the first. It's gone up. What if, in the first three hours, you had to deploy a chemical agent or some type of force and there'd been some damage? Right, you wouldn't have had $2 million worth of damage.
Speaker 1The protests could have gone on.
Speaker 2And you can still have a protest. I'm not saying, don't you know, LK would could have been a big giant protest.
Speaker 1Yeah, the, the, the quad. Yeah, that's hard it, it, it's. It's hard with the freedoms that we have, right, but I love students.
Legacy and Impact in Retirement
Speaker 2Love them to death. Oh man, absolutely, that's. I mean, that's why we spend time at teleos doing stuff. Yeah, whose name might be Betty, which is actually kind of okay, cause it's not her, it's not her, not her real name, yeah, false name. Yeah, it actually isn't. That's just her nickname that her sister called her, cause those are dyslexic.
Speaker 1But wait, what is it spelled backwards? Wait, no, it's not. It's not Debbie either.
Speaker 2Daddy. Yeah, daddy, debbie, you have it, you, you know. So you know what we're doing right now in my retirement and she's never going to retire, she says, because she's working with kids is just, we want to impact families, we want to impact the kids that are, that are here in this county.
Speaker 2They're growing up, they're meeting each other or get married, they're having kids and we get to, we get to experience that with them and kind of just say hey look, we've been married for 33 years, so you want to have a talk about what it's like to be John and Betty and be married in an interracial with biracial kids, and then let's have a chat.
Speaker 1We can talk about that. Nice, it's a great legacy and I think you're living it. You know, a lot of people come here and said, hey, you know, I'm going to create jobs, I want to create a lot. You're creating legacy through a lot of other means. So what is it? What are we saying at your uh, your uh, celebration of life? What's your, what's your, uh, your tombstone going to say John?
Speaker 2I'm not going to have a tombstone.
Speaker 1You're not Okay, oh online.
Speaker 2I don't know Packer, I don't know Sarge, something like that, I don't know. So I had a conversation with my kids, kind of in a funny way, because we have family members that have gone through some pretty traumatic. My mom passed away from Alzheimer's circum to Alzheimer's, so that was brutal. For 12 years between a dementia and Alzheimer's Wow, my father Not uncommon, Not uncommon. No. My father had a cancerous growth between his brain and his skull that took him. My wife's going through that or similar things with her parents right now.
Speaker 2It's just you know, I've seen friends on tubes and things like that, and so I told my kids I said, you know, if that happens, if I get to that point? So first of all, I want to decide how I go, where I go when it happens. Sure, or I want it to happen like that. So I said, half jokingly, if I get that diagnosis and I'm not, there's no tubes, there's no, nothing right, we're not doing that. I'm going to send you a text, or however we were communicating back then, letting you know that I've got my backpack and I'm headed to base camp for Everest and I'm going on a freaking walk. Is that code or actual Everest? That's actual. No, I'm going to either make it. I'm on a boat Part way there or all the way there, and wherever it happens, that's where.
Speaker 1I'm going to be and come get me, come get me.
Speaker 2Come get me, but I'm not I like it, I don't want to go with that. So in my mind I mean, you don't have a say in how that happens, but just to express that. Well, john.
Speaker 1Packer, appreciate your friendship and your being here Anytime.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And thanks for continuing to leave that legacy. Thank you and the folks at Teleos. Man, they're just great, jim. Shout out to Jim Thomas.
Speaker 2Yes, our pastor over there.
Speaker 1Yeah, good guy, teleosorg, sure, Sure, it's something. It does sound like that you can find it T-E.
