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Speaker 1: When your old career gives you lemons.

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Speaker 2: Throwing some ice, mix in some vodka in color a

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podcast from the Mac of All Trade Studio in Fairport

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and driven by Victor Chrysler Dots Jeep Ram. It's Billified,

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the Bill Moran Podcast.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. Thanks for getting your pot on. Thanks

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for telling a friend. That's how we spread the word

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about the pirate ship. Uh, this is a solo it's

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just me. You may want to turn it off right now.

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I don't know. I hope not. I'm gonna do these

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once in a while, just me. I think, like once

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a month, thoughts on different things. And if you ever

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maybe I'm a fool even say this, but if you

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ever have a topic that you'd like to hear my

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thoughts on, I would be happy to do that on

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these kind of episodes. But we're going to throw these

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in every once in a while. Uh. You know, I've

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had I've had a lot over the past couple of days,

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and my head's been in many different places and you know,

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kind of spinning around, right, you know, like all of us,

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all kinds of things. But one of the things I see,

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and there was a headline that recently grabbed me in it,

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and I guess it was focused on Matthew McConaughey, and

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it said sometimes the best thing to do is to

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step away from a parent, right from your parents. I

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think the actual headline is why breaking up with a

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parent is sometimes the right choice. And it kind of

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makes me sad and I and probably because I just

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had yet one more memorial service for my dad that

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I'd like to explain a little bit more than I

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did on the on the previous episode, but you know,

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it kind of brings everything sort of to light, and

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I'm having a hard time being a parent myself. It's

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fucking hard, man, It is fucking hard to be a parent.

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I think it's harder today to be a parent than

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it was when I ray, when I was part of

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the raising. I guess I can say that of my

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older two boys, who are in their early to mid

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twenties right now, it's harder. There's more information that is

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available to everybody in an instant and I think there's

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also some of that shows you, like, hey to your parents.

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I don't know what it is, but your parents do this,

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tell them that blah blah blah. I have no idea

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if that's in my head, but I think that it

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just is harder now and I'm having a bit of

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a tough time parenting my kid, and I'm trying to

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do it in I hate the term gentle parenting, but

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almost like I want you to know your heart. You're

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a fifteen year old person. I want you to know

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you heard, you're heard, and you matter, and whatever you

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have will work in consideration, I'll give you one like

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you see how I'm dressed today, It's kind of how

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I wanted him to dress when we went to the

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memorial service for my dad and he was upset, didn't

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like it, thought it looked ridiculous, blah blah blah, and

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maybe I made the wrong choice, but I said, Okay,

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wear that, bring a shirt you would rather wear, and

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after dinner on the boat you can change. And that's

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what he did. I don't know if that's the right

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thing to do or not, but it felt like somewhat

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of a compromise. That way, you're heard, We got our thing.

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I have no idea, and that's why I think all

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this is kind of hitting me. And I think for

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anybody who's a parent, it's tough. It's tough in today's

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date age, and it used to be my way or

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the highway, and that just doesn't seem to work anymore

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because there's so much information available and so many different

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influences on your kids that they know my way or

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the highway is fucking old school and they're not you

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know what I mean, They're not having any of it.

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It is how I see it, So you know, I

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try to more or less be a guide and don't

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forget he is his mom and I separated when he

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was nine, so there's obviously that would be traumatic, is

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what I think. So well, going back to it, because

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the memorial service was for my dad a lot of

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times the only experience that we have being a parent

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right there. You always hear people go there no manual

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on how to be a parent. No, there's not, And

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I think a lot of it has to come from

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gut or what your parents did. And sometimes what your

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parents did may not have been the best things, so

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you know that doesn't work, or maybe it does work,

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or maybe you do the exact opposite of your parents.

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I certainly feel like some family members of eye of

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mine do the opposite of what our parents did. However,

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I will say this I don't think that any parent

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is the same to each child. I think that you

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parent each kid differently. You just do and and that's

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a necessity at times. I think Laura, who's on the podcast,

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said at best ones, she worries that her one son

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feels like the other kid gets attention. She said, but

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he needs it because of this. And she wrote him

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a letter that she's going to give him later on

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in life. And I go, boy, that to me is like,

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that's great parenting, right because I can't explain it to

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you now. You're not going to see it, you're not

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going to understand it. But I want you to know.

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I want you to always know, especially as you look

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back on your life, that you were loved and supported.

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And I think that's such an important thing to say.

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And I say that now because my dad was. He

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was a different cat man. He was just a different

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dude in certain ways, certainly presented from his exterior, extremely

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conservative suits, ties, the whole thing. One of the funniest

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mofos I've ever been around in my life. I remember

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being at Saint John Fisher College. He comes to visit,

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stuffing beers in his socks and walking around and doing

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all this and people just laughing and loving him and wanting,

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you know, always excited when he would come visit me

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at camp. He was just he was the life of

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the party in a sense, and he had had this

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very very serious side, but he didn't get sports and

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he didn't get things. And you know, this past weekend

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we had the memorial service, and the reason we did

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was he was up in Maine and things transpired in Maine,

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and he said, I would like to have a church service,

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an open casket, and I want to be cremated. Then

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I want when a couple months passed and the dust settles,

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I'd like you to have a big party. And we

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thought down in the Hudson Valley, where he spent majority

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of his life, where he built the home we grew

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up in, would be the best place to have it.

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And there were a lot of coworkers that he had

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and friends that he had, and friends of the family

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that still live there or could get there much easier

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than they could Maine. So we thought, okay, we'll do this,

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and my sister did an amazing job putting this all together,

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and it was a lovely weekend. It hit me harder

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than it did when it happened in Maine, it hit

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me a lot harder, and uh, I wanted to I

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was going to tell this story. I was going to

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tell this story because of course they have me kick

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off the past the mic to tell stories about, you know,

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our dad, and there were some wonderful ones, really really great.

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So I start, and what I was going to say is,

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I'm back at Saint John Fisher University working on a

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master's in mental health counseling. I submitted my first paper,

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a really simple thing, and I was going to call him,

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and I realized, oh my gosh, I can't call him.

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And those in the moments that when you see a

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headline like the one I shared just a few minutes ago,

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why breaking up with a parent is sometimes the right choice,

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it just kind of hits me different. I'm not saying it.

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If you feel like that's the best thing for you,

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you got to do it is the best thing for

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you in your life. But either way, so it just

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kind of hits me different. And I was about to

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tell that story, and I you know, we were on

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the boat on the upper deck because it was sunset,

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and we were watching the sunset as we did this,

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and I look, and right in front of me is

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my mother, who was married to my dad for thirty

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almost thirty eight, thirty four, somewhere between thirty four, I

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don't even know. I gotta think thirty eight years before

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they separated. And I did call her after I submitted

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my paper Fisher, but I didn't want to say I

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don't know why. It was one of these things where

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I'm like, I don't want to say I was going

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to call my dad, or you were second best is

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how I felt she would hear it. So I didn't

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do that. But this all made me think a lot

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about my parents. Right, You don't want to hurt one's feelings.

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Sometimes you felt like you were walking on eggshells. They

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are people too, they have feelings, they have stuff, and

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as you parent yourself, you kind of draw back on

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those memories. My own man, I would always think like,

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he didn't understand radio, right, he didn't like that, he

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didn't he didn't care for it, he didn't understand it.

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So right there, you could kind of go, well, they

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never supported me. No. What my dad had was a

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love of knowledge, an absolute love of knowledge. Yes, he

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went he was highly educated, but I think even if

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he wasn't. He had a love of knowledge. He had

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words that were just I mean, you would never hear

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in your life ort the little bit of food on

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your face, which, by the way, I'm hearing his offensive

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now in some cultures, I don't know. I think there's

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another word. Well, I won't get into it, but it

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means too. I think it's lask or lasking or lasking

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about adding urineto like the tanning of leatherns things or whatever.

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The guy had a love of knowledge, the point being

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that that was where his strong suit was. But he

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allowed each of us to go find our own way.

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We were never forced. It wasn't like why aren't you

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going into the family business, not that there was one,

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but like teaching, why don't you follow in the footsteps

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of your parents? None of us really did, and I

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guess the closest would be my sister, but nobody really did.

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They all kind of went on their own, and you

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were allowed to do that, which I thought was really

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really wonderful when I look back. You were not forced

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into doing anything. Now, my father didn't would tell me

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all the time. When I hear a voice come on

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the radio, I pushed the button like you could take

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that and it could destroy your confidence or whatever. I

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don't know why it didn't. Maybe I kind of knew

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inherently that that wasn't That may be true for him,

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but it wasn't like he wasn't supporting me. Don't forget

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I played football. I look up in the stands he's

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doing a crossword puzzle. He didn't get it, but he

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was there. There was such love, and I do remember

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like the last time I talked to him, and I

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always wish I turned around and looked down the hallway

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at him as he was there. I said, I love

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you so much, and he said, there's so much love

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from this end for you. And that was always true.

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And I think sometimes we don't feel it. And I

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think as the as the child, and I think sometimes

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as the parent, we feel misunderstood and maybe we don't

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communicate well. Do you see me. I'm starting to tear, uh,

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And I think that it's really really hard. But whatever

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you're doing as a parent, keep doing it. And if

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you and your gut feel like you can do better,

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or you should do better, or you should be more present,

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then do that. You know exactly that all the answers

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to pretty much everything in life is inside all of us.

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We have a gut for a reason, and we know

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you know what I mean. We just know if there's

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anything in what I'm saying, it's go with your gut.

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It's not your life, it's theirs. See the flaws in everybody,

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you have them to we all do. I do, certainly Jesus,

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and do the best you can. And when it all

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is over, like it is for my dad at list

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on this planet, I look back fondly and I hope

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my guys do that, even though it's tough. And when

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I think about it, I gave my old man a

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run for his money, and not even with the funny

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stuff like you know, fart powder and call call when

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he burnt his hands like we and that that would

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be mild compared to car wrecks and girlfriends and uh

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speeding tickets and you know, uh drop mufflers on the

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on the side of the highway where I need him

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to come out and you know, figure out how the

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fuck I'm going to get this wreck home. And like

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he did it all. He did it all, and that's

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the job of the parent. It is not easy. So

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keep going and thank you for listening. This is brief

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and uh, we'll be back with the longer one tomorrow

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because you know, Danny's got thoughts on the Buffalo Bills.

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And I got to tell you about my brother in

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this metal musial day. It's changed my life. I know,

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I know, I'm Bill Miram, will see you tomorrow. Woke

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up in a hotel, didn't know what to do. I

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turn a TV on, wrote a letter to you and

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this stounding