Speaker 1: Yesterday or the day before yesterday in a podcast, I
Speaker 1: read an email that I got that was very critical
Speaker 1: of me, and I don't know why I read it.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of things I do, kind of straightening
Speaker 1: up my desk here, don't pay no attention to the
Speaker 1: mass behind me. I am a total disorganized wreck my office.
Speaker 1: That's why I never show my office because it's such
Speaker 1: a wreck. But I don't know why I read that email.
Speaker 1: It was a spur of the moment kind of thing
Speaker 1: because I mentioned it when I did the intro to
Speaker 1: the video, and I knew it was close on my inbox,
Speaker 1: so I just pulled it up and read it. Because
Speaker 1: and those emails don't bother me. Some people may think
Speaker 1: that they do bother me, but after a while, you
Speaker 1: get thick skin and it's not a big deal. It's
Speaker 1: just not a big deal. If you're going to be
Speaker 1: in this this internet game, you're gonna get a lot
Speaker 1: of criticism, and that's fine. I don't know why people
Speaker 1: do it, and that's why I read it, because it
Speaker 1: doesn't Those kind of things don't make sense to me.
Speaker 1: Because if I'm looking through videos on YouTube or Instagram
Speaker 1: or Facebook or TikTok. I feel no need to be
Speaker 1: critical of the of the creator because that's just what
Speaker 1: they're doing. I may look over at my wife and say,
Speaker 1: is this stupid or what? Or Hey, this is good,
Speaker 1: isn't it. So that's kind of where it comes from.
Speaker 1: I've never spent much time around people that are ugly
Speaker 1: to other people. I've met several in my life. If
Speaker 1: you're a man, you know, you kind of grow up
Speaker 1: fighting and defending yourself and those kind of things are natural.
Speaker 1: But just as an adult, you know, to be around
Speaker 1: like I see these Karen videos and stuff. I've never
Speaker 1: run in to anybody like that ever. I wonder where
Speaker 1: these people live. I don't know. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: just funny to me. Anyway. I read that email that
Speaker 1: I said it was a woman, but it was actually
Speaker 1: a man. I didn't realize that. I think my brain
Speaker 1: was telling me it was a Karen, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was a man. But today, about five o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, I walked out on the porch to have
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee and this was the first email
Speaker 1: I got, and he sent me a letter of apology.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to read his email and be
Speaker 1: critical of him and then let this apology go. So
Speaker 1: this is not a story video. I know I talk
Speaker 1: a lot. I'm sorry, it's this thing. I don't move
Speaker 1: this thing down a little bit, hopefully it won't fall over.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to let it go without you hearing
Speaker 1: his apology. And I've had I've told you before. I
Speaker 1: get probably a dozen nasty emails a year, and I
Speaker 1: usually don't respond to them. I have responded to a couple.
Speaker 1: Most time I delete them, but maybe ten percent of
Speaker 1: the people kind of realize after they've sent it that, oh,
Speaker 1: that was a mistake, not because I read it. I
Speaker 1: don't read hardly any of these on the podcast. This
Speaker 1: one just happened to be a spur of the moment thing,
Speaker 1: and I read it. There was no nothing that made
Speaker 1: this one different from any of the others, even though
Speaker 1: the wording was different. But I cannot read one on
Speaker 1: the podcast a bad one without reading his response to that.
Speaker 1: And he says in his life, I'm going to read
Speaker 1: it to you, And he says in his email he
Speaker 1: was going to apologize to me the next day. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was on his mind, and before I even get started,
Speaker 1: I want to say to this gentleman, thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you owed me, are you. I'm glad that you
Speaker 1: didn't owe me one. I'm glad that you sent an
Speaker 1: apology letter that tells me this is a full grown man.
Speaker 1: Let me say before I go any further, I am
Speaker 1: guilty of popping off about different things. I have been
Speaker 1: in many stages of my life. You get frustrated with something,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what it is around people, you get impatient,
Speaker 1: get If you're opinionated in any way, and you have,
Speaker 1: especially a male, you have a certain level of testosterone
Speaker 1: running through your veins. You tend to say what you
Speaker 1: think is right, and you say it in a way
Speaker 1: that hurts other people. I've done it a hundred times,
Speaker 1: and if I catch it, if I'm conscious of it,
Speaker 1: and the person did not deserve it, then I apologize,
Speaker 1: just like this man has done. So I want to
Speaker 1: tell him, thank you, thank you very much. You don't
Speaker 1: owe me anything. I want you to please continue listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast, extend to me some grace that I'm
Speaker 1: not a professional. I'm a person in the construction business.
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't have any I have a little
Speaker 1: college education, but it's not. It would not have trained
Speaker 1: me to be a grammar or English expert, or even
Speaker 1: knowledgeable in those areas. I let the software correct my
Speaker 1: grammar if it will, I let the software correct my spelling.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness for good software. It will check grammar. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I'm just rambling, but I want to read you his
Speaker 1: letter and this is very very good, good evening, and
Speaker 1: happy Halloween. A few moments ago, I listened to the
Speaker 1: what If It's True podcast in which you read the
Speaker 1: shorter email very maturely sent to you earlier this week.
Speaker 1: Before listening, I was already going to apologize to you tonight.
Speaker 1: You refer to me as a lady, but I'm a
Speaker 1: man and that is no big deal, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was funny or amusing. You also said something is
Speaker 1: wrong with this person, and you are correct. I have
Speaker 1: a horrible meanstreak, not all the time, but much too often,
Speaker 1: and I realized that I need to lighten up and
Speaker 1: be more civil and more positive and less negative. I'm
Speaker 1: very sorry for insulting you, mister Buckner, including saying get
Speaker 1: a brain. That was ludicrous and inexcusable of me. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I think how I must care more about words and
Speaker 1: correctness than about people. I remember being hypocritical at the
Speaker 1: age of seven. These days, and I'm a year older
Speaker 1: than you, that attribute is amplified. As a perfectionist writer
Speaker 1: and speaker, I hold everyone else to very high standards,
Speaker 1: even to the extent of condemning them. Such condemnation is wrong.
Speaker 1: My family is a literary family, grammar champions, writers and poets,
Speaker 1: and we all notice errors everywhere all the time, on newscasts, billboards,
Speaker 1: store signs. But none of the other family members react
Speaker 1: as hatefully and anally as I do. Perfectionism is a curse.
Speaker 1: Two or three months ago, I sent you an email
Speaker 1: from my primary email address in which I praised you
Speaker 1: as a good reader with a very good voice, and
Speaker 1: I complimented you for having your own podcast. I do
Speaker 1: not think poorly of you. I just get so extremely
Speaker 1: frustrated when everyone, not just you, makes spelling errors, pronunciation errors, etc.
Speaker 1: And I sometimes personalize these reactions by attacking people with words,
Speaker 1: even viciously. My behavior is irrational and just playing bad
Speaker 1: too much of the time. Just from listening to you,
Speaker 1: I can tell you are a good person and a
Speaker 1: man of integrity. You obviously are intelligent, I'm not. Intelligence
Speaker 1: is a necessity of having a podcast in my perspective,
Speaker 1: So cruelly telling you to get a brain was absolutely
Speaker 1: stupid of me, and I'm very sorry. Also, in a
Speaker 1: recent in a recent episode of What If It's True,
Speaker 1: you exhorted us listeners not to send you hateful emails.
Speaker 1: But I did that anyway. That was very disrespectful of me,
Speaker 1: and I heartily apologize for the disrespect. Now, there are
Speaker 1: people who will say something ugly to someone and then
Speaker 1: they'll just go, I'm sorry. This is not one of those.
Speaker 1: This is a well this man thought about what he said,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to spend any more time on
Speaker 1: making him feel bad. I want him to know that
Speaker 1: I'm friends with you, and I know you are friends
Speaker 1: with me, and I believe you, and I have every
Speaker 1: reason to believe that you don't really think the things
Speaker 1: that you put in your first email. I am not
Speaker 1: critical of people with just about anything. I think. I
Speaker 1: probably am. I may be and not know it. I'm
Speaker 1: a flawed I'm a flawed man, very flawed man, and
Speaker 1: so I'm sure of that. I've done that before, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I do it. And I don't even think
Speaker 1: about it, but I don't say much about it. I usually,
Speaker 1: especially you know, in my middle aged years now, I
Speaker 1: will just walk away and not say anything. And that
Speaker 1: is because I understand that I'm not really good at anything.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like i'm good at anything, so I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I can give anyone any critical advice
Speaker 1: or criticisms, even helpful advice. Usually I preface it with
Speaker 1: maybe you could try this, what do you think about that?
Speaker 1: Or maybe just you know, I just don't feel like
Speaker 1: I'm good at anything, so I'm not very critical. So
Speaker 1: it's hard to understand why somebody would send an email
Speaker 1: that's critical to just a podcaster who's having fun. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can tell in my demeanor maybe in the podcast,
Speaker 1: that I just love doing this. I don't, and I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I read very well. I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I read these stories like I hear them in
Speaker 1: my head, maybe a little bit like adults used to
Speaker 1: read to me when I was younger. But what you
Speaker 1: hear is how I read, how I hear it in
Speaker 1: my mind. When I'm reading short stories, audio books, emails
Speaker 1: from listeners, I'm not trained. I don't. There are a
Speaker 1: few people say, oh, man, you're awesome at this. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I would never be picked, never be chosen to narrate
Speaker 1: a best selling book ever, because of my accent and
Speaker 1: the way that I speak, and because it's not professional.
Speaker 1: The sound of my voice may sound good to you,
Speaker 1: but there's way more to it than that. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember years ago, not years ago,
Speaker 1: but maybe months ago, I talked about a subject of
Speaker 1: knowing your place. You have to know your place as
Speaker 1: you go through life, in any situation, any group of people,
Speaker 1: any organization, whether it be business, church, social groups, whatever,
Speaker 1: you have to know your place. You cannot go through
Speaker 1: life going thinking of yourself more than you are. You
Speaker 1: can't do that. You are doomed to failure if you
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know if that's humility or what.
Speaker 1: But I learned that a long time ago working for
Speaker 1: a massive steel company, when a general manager explained to
Speaker 1: me what that meant, by knowing your place, knowing when
Speaker 1: to speak, knowing when not to speak, knowing when to listen.
Speaker 1: And it took me a long time to learn how
Speaker 1: to listen. I was always so full of this talking
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't listen to people in it and it's
Speaker 1: an acquired skill for me. It is I don't listen
Speaker 1: very well. But in this world of story narration and stuff,
Speaker 1: which is such a trivial little thing to even think about,
Speaker 1: I know my place. I know my place. It's on
Speaker 1: this podcast and doing probably independent author published books because
Speaker 1: I give them a good deal. I'm like, when I
Speaker 1: narrate audio books, I'm like, I'll just I'll give you
Speaker 1: the audio, you go sell it on audible. I didn't
Speaker 1: used to do that, but I do that now. So
Speaker 1: I give them the audio free so I can put
Speaker 1: it on the podcast. And I earn income from ad
Speaker 1: revenue by releasing audio books and short stories and things
Speaker 1: like that. I don't know I could. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this timer here, it's thirteen minutes. This email really moved
Speaker 1: me this morning. And if the man was here in
Speaker 1: front of me, I would hug his neck. Probably he's
Speaker 1: probably a type a personality. It goes back to knowing
Speaker 1: your place. People like that are not very responsive to
Speaker 1: physical touch and all. He may or may not be
Speaker 1: that way, but I would want to hug his neck
Speaker 1: and say, man, I love you. It's okay, no big deal,
Speaker 1: no big deal, it's all under the bridge. I don't care.
Speaker 1: And when I say I'll never think about it again,
Speaker 1: I damn well mean that I want to even think
Speaker 1: it about it again. The only thing I will remember
Speaker 1: is what a nice email this was. Speaking of which,
Speaker 1: through the years, I have talked about people being ugly
Speaker 1: in the comment section and through emails, and that is
Speaker 1: not fair to the people to the thousand to one
Speaker 1: emails that I get from viewers who send me nice emails.
Speaker 1: It's a thousand to one and I'm going to say
Speaker 1: this not in a braggy sort of way, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a little taste. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to remember them all and I can't respond to
Speaker 1: I get a lot of emails. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but I can't respond to all of them. But it
Speaker 1: would be hard to remember all the emails that I've
Speaker 1: got of people who have said things like I'm trying
Speaker 1: to I'm going to think of the ones that just
Speaker 1: hit me right now. There have been several from people
Speaker 1: who are going through recovery from some sort of addiction
Speaker 1: to a substance, alcohol, drugs, whatever, And I bet I've
Speaker 1: gotten I don't know how many people saying you your
Speaker 1: narrations helped me through that. That was never the intention
Speaker 1: of this podcast. The only intention I ever had was
Speaker 1: to be just have fun doing this. That's it. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't care about anything else. I just am
Speaker 1: having fun. But that if there are some byproducts of
Speaker 1: what is I'm doing, it makes me feel very good
Speaker 1: that somebody who is in recovery and who is look,
Speaker 1: that's hard. That is hard, hard, hard, it's hard to do.
Speaker 1: And they and you use anything that you can get
Speaker 1: because you have a you have tonal vision, a single
Speaker 1: track mission to break free of the substance. You'll use
Speaker 1: anything to get through it. And that people would use
Speaker 1: these my podcasts to help them get through that, that's unreal.
Speaker 1: I had a woman not long ago tell me that
Speaker 1: she would listen this is crazy. She would listen to
Speaker 1: my podcast and she was pregnant. She had a baby
Speaker 1: that was soon to be born, and I think she
Speaker 1: said that the baby would get you know, mother's how
Speaker 1: I remember my wife when she was pregnant. I would
Speaker 1: put my hands on her bellies and the kicking in
Speaker 1: the feet and all that stuff, and you can see
Speaker 1: their head roll around in their belly. It's almost creepy,
Speaker 1: but it's beautiful in a way. She said that she
Speaker 1: would put on the podcast and the baby would be
Speaker 1: kicking like crazy and hurting her. This is late late
Speaker 1: in the pregnancy, and she would put on my podcasts
Speaker 1: and the baby would calm down. And then she said
Speaker 1: that the little girl was born and when she gets fussy,
Speaker 1: probably not all the time, but sometimes she would put
Speaker 1: on the podcast and the baby would settle down. How
Speaker 1: cool is that. That was never the intention of this podcast.
Speaker 1: It was never to help anyone. It was all selfish
Speaker 1: for me, just to try to do something that made
Speaker 1: me happy. But in the in the process of all that,
Speaker 1: it seems to make other people happy. I have gotten
Speaker 1: emails from people, older people from older generations saying, I
Speaker 1: am a housebound, homebound they're alone, they don't have, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't have, whatever the situation, but they're alone
Speaker 1: a lot. And they say, you've been such a good
Speaker 1: friend to me listen to you know, reading these stories,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't know what to say to them,
Speaker 1: thank you for letting me know that. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel so good and it gives me steam to do more.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of people recovering from surgeries, talking
Speaker 1: about the how listening to the podcast kind of got
Speaker 1: them through recovery. Oh, there are others, and I wish
Speaker 1: I could think of them, and I do answer some
Speaker 1: of those, but I'm telling you back, it's not that
Speaker 1: much anymore. But back daring from twenty to early twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, I was getting sometimes twenty emails a day
Speaker 1: from some Half of them are stories, and half of
Speaker 1: them are people just saying they enjoy the podcast. People
Speaker 1: don't have to do that. People don't have to do
Speaker 1: They don't have to take the time to sit out
Speaker 1: and send an email, but they do. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you something else over I've wanted to say these things
Speaker 1: to y'all forever, and I just I don't like to
Speaker 1: talk about myself. That's why there's no story in this video,
Speaker 1: so people don't have to watch it. But I have
Speaker 1: a po box that's listed in the description or somewhere
Speaker 1: in the about page on my channel. I have received
Speaker 1: more gifts, books, wood carvings, metalworking projects, and most of
Speaker 1: them are Bigfoot related good books that I've read, just
Speaker 1: gift after gift after gift, and I never make it
Speaker 1: a thing on the channel, and that there's one reason
Speaker 1: for that. It's because I don't want people to do that.
Speaker 1: I don't want if you talk about it, it makes
Speaker 1: it happen more. I've seen other channels where people love
Speaker 1: that stuff. I don't want anything from you, and I
Speaker 1: don't mean that in a bad way. What I mean is,
Speaker 1: let me just read these narra and keep putting these
Speaker 1: podcasts out and you just enjoy it. The income from
Speaker 1: the ad revenue is fine with me. I don't need.
Speaker 1: And I know people will say, well, you need to
Speaker 1: accept gifts from people, and I will if you send them,
Speaker 1: I'll be thankful for them, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: talk about them on the channel because because it just
Speaker 1: encourages people to do more and I don't want you
Speaker 1: taking time. So there's some people will say, you know,
Speaker 1: you just don't know how to take a gift. I don't.
Speaker 1: I'll admit that I don't know how to do it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, six years into this, probably fifty gifts from people,
Speaker 1: and I know they're sitting there thinking, you know, he
Speaker 1: never said thank you for that, he never acknowledged it,
Speaker 1: and I don't get many anymore, and I'm happy with that.
Speaker 1: All I want to do is do these stories you guys,
Speaker 1: enjoy them, and then go back to my life. That's
Speaker 1: all all I want to do. But to the people
Speaker 1: who have sent me gifts through the years, you are
Speaker 1: so generous and I'm so thankful that you thought of
Speaker 1: me to do that Christmas gifts, just general stuff through
Speaker 1: the year. Anyway, reading this email made me feel very good,
Speaker 1: made me feel very appreciative and thankful and humble. This
Speaker 1: man's humbled me because I wasn't angry with his email.
Speaker 1: I was just good. God man, Why would somebody take
Speaker 1: the time to send that? But now he took the
Speaker 1: time to send a much longer, well thought out, heart
Speaker 1: felt he says at the end, I heartily apologize for
Speaker 1: the disrespect. I accept that apology. As Val Kilmer said,
Speaker 1: we off friends now in Tombstone. We be friends now anyway,
Speaker 1: okay man twenty two minutes. Nobody's gonna watch this video
Speaker 1: all the way through, but it is my channel. I
Speaker 1: don't get to talk to many people. I'm out here
Speaker 1: in the sticks all by myself and the you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm on a desert island out here sometimes,
Speaker 1: but I like it. I like the solitude I like
Speaker 1: being by myself. I like doing my own thing, but
Speaker 1: there really is nobody to kind of express your thoughts
Speaker 1: and feelings too, So that's what I'm doing here. So
Speaker 1: thank you all for watching this. I'm sorry it's so long,
Speaker 1: and I hope the gentleman who wrote this, who wrote
Speaker 1: this apology to me, sees this. This is a podcast
Speaker 1: just for him, basically or spurred on by him, So
Speaker 1: thank you. Okay, Fiction Friday is tonight. I've got a
Speaker 1: really good couple of scenes out of a great novel
Speaker 1: that I'm going to read to you, and I hope
Speaker 1: you guys enjoy it, so get ready for that. I
Speaker 1: think it'll post around six pm tonight, and when you
Speaker 1: hear it, I hope you want to buy this woman's
Speaker 1: book because she is one hell of a writer and
Speaker 1: storyteller and a really nice person with a really nice family.
Speaker 1: I've gotten to kind of digitally know them, and they
Speaker 1: are very good people. So anyway, listen to that tonight.
Speaker 1: And since I never know how to say bye, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to say it's a Southern thing. We don't
Speaker 1: know how to end a conversation, but I'll end it here,
Speaker 1: So thanks for listening. And we'll see you tonight on
Speaker 1: Fiction Friday. Thanks