Do Americans Still Love America

Do Americans Still Like America

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's post midterms. And those election results got me asking, Do Americans still like America? Because it doesn't feel like it. We put those feelings and emotions to the test as we take our brand, Loud Proud American, back on the road as we kick off the old holiday bazaar, the Christmas push, if you will. All that and more on this week's episode of Share the Struggle Podcast. Let me tell you something. Everybody struggles. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. If you find strength in the struggle, then this podcast is for you. If you have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations, uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you, and they build you. When you sprinkle a little time and distance on it, it all makes sense. Most disagreements, they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be. O

Road Brain And No Filter

SPEAKER_01 1:46

man Y'all didn't think I had that kind of lung power, did ya? Well, let me tell you something. Big Daddy might eat a lot of chocolate, but he ain't never had a pack of smokes. You know what I'm saying? Boy, what be wrong with you? Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh. What it do, what it do, what it hot did, did doo. Gello. Almighty, am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it is true. It is damn true. Why? You already know why. Because I love you, boo. Girl, you know it's true. Every once in a while, man. Just gotta get in there. What is that? Is that Did I just do Bobby Brown or um Eddie Murphy party all the time? I don't know. Anyways. I'm a little loosey-goosey. I'm a lot tired and beat and run down, apparently. Getting back on the road after having a couple weeks off the road, getting in that rhythm, figuring things out, apparently it leaves you in a cloud of dust. Leaves you a bit foogy. Yeah. Because I'm having a hard time staying focused today. I'd like to take a nap today, but I'm fueling up on strawberry lemonade monster juice today.

Monster Energy And Dunkin Coffee

SPEAKER_01 3:11

These free cases of monster that we nabbed in Syracuse, New York at the Nationals. This episode of the podcast should be brought to the fine folks at Monster, not because they sponsor us, but because in a roundabout way they sponsored us because we came home with like six cases of Monster. I needed that. I had a nice coffee today from Dunkin' Donuts. This is just a little side side rant. Pretty pretty positive they're watering down coffee at a lot of a lot of Dunkin' locations. As if you're not making enough on the eight bucks a cup that you're gonna continuously screw up in the first place. To have the audacity to water it down. Ridiculous. And and here's one of the reasons why I can I can make such an outlandish claim. Two iced coffees and a hot coffee. Okay? I'm drinking mine it's it's not it's not hitting, right? It's not it's missing the mark, and I'm like, is this is there did they use oat milk instead of um did they use almond milk instead of oat milk, and I'm exploring it and I'm swirling around my palate and I'm saying to myself, This seems kind of watered down. My mom, sitting in the passenger seat with a hot coffee, looks at me and says, Does your coffee taste watered down? This thing's doesn't even taste like coffee. Then my wife's at work, drop the coffee off to her. Later on in the day, I check in, how was your coffee? And she says I couldn't even finish it. It felt and tasted like it was watered down. That's that's conclusive evidence right there. To have three connoisseurs all identify with the same problem. Ridiculous. I got a real problem with people dunking donuts. I don't know. This is what happens when you feel overtired and and uh overspant. Okay? You just start losing your train of thought and complaining about caffeine. But y'all have come accustomed to the opening of my show getting a touch off the rails. So here we are, right off the rails to get things going. This is certainly the side effects of a sleep-deprived hillbilly trying to chase his all-American dream. Here we are. On

Holiday Tour Kicks Off

SPEAKER_01 5:31

the road again, the LoudProt American Express, back on the road again, as we kicked off our holiday tour, the Christmas push, got the family out the door, and we got back on the road looking for more. But before

Midterm Shock And Voting Concerns

SPEAKER_01 5:47

we hit the road, we had the most recent midterm elections. And if you recall last week, if I roll back the record to last week, I was recording during the midterms. I was feeling rather optimistic. I was having a lobster dinner in celebration of what I was hoping would happen. And uh obviously, one week later, sprinkle a little clarity on it, you realize that um what I was hoping would happen definitely, absolutely, certainly didn't happen. The opposite happened. And uh Yeah, that left me rather disappointed. Okay, rather disappointed. But uh I don't know. I don't even know how to get into it. I I was a I was feeling optimistic. There was a time when um well when we were recording, I was watching the counter and I was watching uh Democrats, you know, gaining seats and and uh but there was a there was a a moment in time where it showed my state might actually flip red. And um crazy thing is, is I looking at some maps post-election, and um looks like the majority of Mainers, or more Mainers I should say, than before, voted Republican, but there's certain cities in my state that tend to uh trump all of the votes, and uh they're this these ridiculous liberal cities, and some of them that I'm surrounded by. And I'm not gonna get into a lot of uh conspiracy and and uh excuse making and all those things, but there's some things that are alarming. Going into the election, one of our local news channels, the main wire, was reporting on translators for uh Somali voters and uh how they were could hear them coaching people on how to vote and all this just craziness, and and there's been ballots found in our state that didn't get counted, and for example, one of the only Republicans to win was PaulaPage, and he's already off the DC, and his Democrat uh competitor had called and conceded, but Maine today. Uh Shana Bellows is saying, Well, not so fast there, Paul. We're gonna go to rank choice voting and see how this works out. Which ranked choice voting is a big pile of nonsense. Paula Page won the popular vote. She's saying that the rank choice uh voting could remove his um his victory, which happened a few years ago. Spoiler alert, when a Republican Bruce Pollaquin won, and uh they went to rank choice voting, and when you tallied up the second place votes, then Jared Goldman won, and uh they used that vote tabulation to move him on to victory. So funny how here we are counting rank choice voting all over again because the Republican won. It's uh it's foolish, it's uh something that I don't even really understand for rank choice voting. You're supposed to have three people on the ballot because otherwise, if you vote for one, isn't the other one automatically ranked second?

unknown 9:10

Huh.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Spoiler alert. So some of the ranked choice voting options on our ballots this year were two people. That makes no sense to me how they could have a ranked choice option. So, anyways, there's there's nonsense like that, or the fact that all of Maine's overseas ballots, for example, military ballots that oversees that get mailed back. 90% of those ballots voted all Democrat, which I don't know a lot of members of the military that are voting Democratic. Just uh putting it out there, considering would they be voting to abolish themselves, like what the Democrats want to do? Like abolish the Department of War, abolish ICE, impeach the president. Because all these things about saving money and lowering things, uh, the cost of living and living and lowering uh, you know, the cost of uh taxes and and all these things uh that they ran on. Isn't it ironic that as soon as they were getting elected, they came out and started saying that um Trump better get his lawyers in order because impeachment papers are coming and uh Heg Seth's gonna get gonna get impeached and and removed and we're gonna dismantle the Department of War and we're gonna end this Iran war. All these things are none of the things they ran on. Okay? None of these things are what they're running on. They were running on affordability, they were running on lowering gas, they weren't running on all this nonsense about impeaching the president, ending a war, and causing all this craziness. And uh then you have the people in Iran celebrating the leaders, the dictators in Iran celebrating the Democratic win. Uh, what do you think that says, America? Do you think um that you really are receiving what you voted for with these outcomes? When I look at a state like Texas going blue, which has never happened in my lifetime, and the voter turnout for a midterm election, which is always lower than a presidential election, has uh Federico, Freak Rico, having a higher vote total than any other uh Democrat has ever had. I think he actually um got more votes than President Trump did. So uh none of this stuff here makes sense, man. Illegals should not be allowed to vote. Residents need to vote. I don't understand why we can't resolve this. I don't understand why this wasn't put into law before. I don't understand why these voter rolls are not cleaned up previous to elections in the first place. You have different states finding thumb drives of votes that uh went untallied. This stuff is nonsense. In this country, it is one of our rights, one of our freedoms, and it should not be jeopardized and it should be confirmed as accurate and safe. And uh it's crazy to me that we continue to have these problems. And a lot of the Republicans that um were voted out, I'm gonna tell you, you should have done better. You should have done better because you had the opportunity over two years to pass a lot of these things, and your lazy ass couldn't get it passed. The unfortunate thing is your lazy ass not getting things passed got you replaced by some left-wing lunatics that aren't gonna stand up for what's right in this country. And when you have two years into a presidency, when you start to get things to turn, it's crazy to me that we're just gonna watch it just sit back and watch it burn. And uh beyond disappointed, scared for my family, because I'm worried about that the borders being opened back up. I'm worried about the violence ramping back up. Murder totals, uh death totals in this country have been going down since President Trump secured the border. All this this craziness, the fact that we want to fight and abolish ICE when President Obama deported more illegals than President Trump has, and he used the same man to do it. He used Tom Holman to do it, and Tom Holman got a freaking medal of honor for doing it uh under under President Obama. So it's just it's just crazy to me. It's the complete anti-Trump retict, not the pro-America feelings that we should all have. It's depressing, it's saddening, and it has me worried about this country and the future for my family.

Is Patriotism Becoming A Liability

SPEAKER_01 13:56

And it also has me worried about my business and my brand, and it left me with a lot of questions because we've had a challenging year. Y'all heard me come on here and celebrate that during the Freiburg Fair, we had we have uh set a new benchmark. We are um winding down the largest net sales total in the history of our business, of our brand. We continue to grow, we continue to have a successful, uh successful rise for the business. But with that said, a lot of that has been because we've um we've gone many places, we've we've tried many new things, and we put ourselves out there, and I ran myself a little too thin this year, and it wore me down and it left me behind on so many things that I don't think I can really afford to do that going into uh into the new year. So I sat back and I really spent some time thinking about some of my events and realizing that how they were all such a challenge, and that only a handful of events were more successful this year than last. And I started thinking about the difficulty that I had at some of my biggest events. Like I think about um, you know, some of the reactions I experienced in New York. I think about a lot of my regulars not even coming in to say hi. Never mind purchasing for me in Freiburg, just walking by. I think about you know, some of the reactions, some of the um this just some of the the hate that I received, some of the um just I don't even know how to describe it, just really some of the some of the people that came by our booth and just took pictures and laughed and mocked and made fun during the year, and I think about it and I and I I start to worry about this country and I start to worry about this brand, and I have conversations with trusted people about this business and this brand saying, is some of the difficulty I'm experiencing with sales stemming from a complete lack of patriotism and maybe more so now, a fear to show your faith and your patriotism. Because if I can sit in uh a parking lot at an event, if I can be in a field at a fair or a store at a mall, and I can count the amount of people that walk by, that roll their eyes, that's that that that spew hate, that stop and stare and and complain, to take photos and to mock. If I can see all that at all these locations, that's what people are afraid of. That's what people are afraid of. So many people might believe what you believe, but they no longer have the strength to wear it, to wear what you stand for because they're afraid, because they don't want to be looked at, they don't want to be talked about, they don't want to be mocked, they don't want to be antagonized. And it's sad in this country that wearing the American flag or saying that you're a Christian, that you believe in in God, that you have faith, that you love your country, that you support your military, by doing any of those things, you somehow are a racist, you somehow are full of hate and bigotry. It's crazy to me. And seeing these results and and seeing in Michigan Al Saeed win and and give a speech in friggin' Arabic, to see um the people in this country that rallied it's depressing. It's depressing, it's scary. The the the uh the party that says love trumps hate seems to always be spreading the hate. And um I didn't see Republicans rioting, I didn't see Republicans looting, I didn't see them marching in the streets, so it's crazy to me. It's crazy to me that this is that this is uh this is happening in this country. It saddens me for our state to think that Where are we gonna be in another four years? It's crazy for me to think that maybe we're digging ourselves a hole in this state that we'll never come out of. One of the highest um charged electric bills in the entire country, some of the highest cost of living in the entire country, the tax rates through the roof, um, and then you just literally elect a party of people that um are all for higher taxes and have their hands in the in the kitties for uh kickbacks and all this nonsense. The crazy thing for me when I think about my state is all the years growing up, I've always heard all the jokes about about Maine and and how backwards we are, and you probably kiss your cousin, and uh you hear all these just jokes about people living in Maine between the accents and the cousin kissing. Well, we went ahead and elected Troy Jackson, who married his cousin and fathered children with his cousin. That dramatic pause was completely intentional. We elected a cousin. Early on in this podcast, I definitely would have dropped an F bomb. Trying to clean up my axe with my father over here. We elected a cousin ever. Ever. You kidding me? I don't even get it. A dude that admitted to fraud, that admitted to deceiving and robbing and lying to his voters and to the taxpayers of his own state, as he was falsifying documentation and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had admitted to that in this state. He is goes by the name Taxon Jackson because he's always voting for higher taxes in every which way you can see. He literally had a scam where he um had a cell phone tower gone through the state, this big massive purchase. It's on family land that he's getting kickbacks on, all this craziness. This is what we voted for in our state. It's uh it's sad. I've talked to a lot of um fellow miners that are worried about the direction of the state, and if we'll ever dig out of the hellhole that they have put us in. So with all this gathering, all this information gathering, all the the thoughts, all the um just medicine for depression, all of this swirling around. You spend too much time thinking about woe is me, you spend too much time feeling sad for me and my family, right? I just get all in my heart feels, and I think about the future for my daughter, I think about uh the future for my family, I think about the future for my business, and I leave myself with a lot of questions, and I find myself spending so much time just wondering are the people in this country afraid to be patriotic? Are people in my state afraid to say they believe in God? Are people around me afraid to support and stand for the same core values and beliefs as me? Is that holding me back? Am I setting my family up for failure because I keep chasing something that I believe? In something that I stand for. I spent a lot of time in that thought. And we had a lot of questions about going back on the road this weekend and finding out the hard way.

Testing The Waters At The Bazaar

SPEAKER_01 22:11

What do people really think and feel? As we put ourselves back in the public eye. It's easy to hide at home and sit alone in your thoughts. But when you get back out in front of the people, in front of the public, and you set up your display and you load up all your goods and you open yourself up to public criticism yet again. A lot of thought went into it. How's it gonna go? How are we gonna end up? And it seemed like good old status quo. I felt like there was a lot more positive than there was negative. We were received so well by so many. Many folks having much of a very similar conversation with us saying they're they're nervous about this state and the direction and if it will ever come back. All leaving ourselves puzzled by the fact that just eight years ago, we can't remember how great it was eight years ago when this was a Republican-run state, and there was money in the budget, and there was money in our family savings accounts. We spent a lot of time talking about uh the hope and promise for this country, the fear that we all are living with, but the desire and the knowing that we need now more than ever to support and stand up for our values and our beliefs, to show everyone that we in fact are the majority, that patriots are the majority. People that love this country are the majority, and to do so, you need a brand willing to get out in front of it. To do so, you need a brand with core values and beliefs, and together we wear what we stand for when we all support Loud Proud American. I had so many people talk about the greater importance of this brand based off of these recent results. When you spend time and thought thinking that people are going to shy away from buying from you, it's encouraging to hear so many people emphasize the importance of continuing to buy from you because we need to show everyone we are proud to be here and we want to support American manufacturing and we want to celebrate our faith, and we are not afraid to do so. It was encouraging to hear from so many people.

Mockery At The Booth

SPEAKER_01 24:43

I will tell you that um we certainly heard from quite a few that weren't happy to see us, most of them not really having the courage to come in and have a conversation, most of them standing out in front of your tent with disgusted looks, talking nonsense, muttering under their breath, rolling their eyes, waving their hands at you and strolling on by. A few kids stopping to take photos and to laugh and mock our tent. One thing that never stops offending me, that will never not boil my blood, is the fact that at the front of our tent I will hang some displays like our shirt Fearless, live like Charlie, faith over fear. And it's a big cross, and on the other shirt we have is a freedom shirt, much like what Charlie wore, and the back says God family country. And to see the amount of puke kids take photos, send TikToks, Snapchats, to talk shit, to stand there to mock, to be little, and and and to just be vile. It it it never gets it never gets easier. I I have to always do my best to not absolutely freak out. If I ever in a million years thought that my daughter went into public and acted that way towards another business, a small business, mind you, it's not like they're walking around Walmart and they're talking shit about something on the shelf at Walmart in front of an employee who doesn't give two hoots about it. No. They're standing at the front door of a business of my business. They're standing at the front door of a small business with a husband and a wife and a two-year-old chasing a dream, trying to pay bills, building a brand, running a business. To have these kids standing in front of my little little piece of retail, standing in front of the the dream and the vision that I bet my life savings on, taking nasty photos, saying vile things, celebrating and laughing the death of someone who gave everyone a platform to speak their mind and debate his beliefs while he stood fast in his faithful beliefs. If I ever thought for a minute that my daughter walked into somebody's house and acted that way, walked into their business and acted that way, I'd be appalled at myself. When I see these kids act this way, I just want to find their parents and find what the hell went wrong with them and shake the hell out of them. Some of these kids, man. And I know because I'm the face of the business, like this is my brand, and I depend on these locations and I depend on these opportunities that I can't go over and just smack some sense into them. I can't lose my cool and tell them all off because that's just gonna end up on some social media video that's gonna prevent me from getting into even more events. Far too often you have to um grin and bear it. But it's so disappointing and discouraging, and it makes me worried about the future of this country when that's the youth, that's the representation, that's the future. Celebrating an innocent man to death, laughing at a family trying to to chase their dream, their American dream. It's sad, it's sickening. After about the third or fourth group of teens that I caught doing this, I walked up to one who was taking photos, laughing and giggling with her friend, and I got right up next to him, and I said, I'm sorry, I didn't find any of that funny. And I just ran off. I don't know, folks. I just want to grab these people and and and have a conversation. Which help me understand what's funny here. What's funny because let's just put this into perspective. What if um what if I I I shot your mother in the throat? Does that sound funny? What if your father was on TV and I shot him in the throat? So the whole world got to see it, and all your friends got to see it, and so many people celebrated it. Would that be funny? Because I don't think it is. Nothing about it is funny. And to have the lack of respect, the lack of dignity and morals to act the way some of these kids are acting. Those are my fears. Those are my fears in this country.

Staying Loud Proud On Purpose

SPEAKER_01 30:07

So many people probably hear me week after week, and they hear some of my political rants, and they hear some of my political beliefs, and they think, Man, why? Why would you put yourself out there like this? Why would you say those things, and why do you believe these things? Well, I have a very interesting perspective, folks. I'm on the road half of the freaking year, more than half of the year, with a patriotic faith-based brand, opening myself and my family up to criticism, ridicule, and constant feedback and judging. And some of what I'm seeing and hearing and receiving is repulsive, and it makes me nervous for the direction of this country when I can take that, those results, and pile them up with the election, pile them up with the direction of this country when I sit back and look at at other countries and what's happening there, and envisioning what could be happening here, that's what has me scared. So some of you might be listening and you're saying, Well, if that's how you feel, then how do you call yourself a loud, proud American? Let me tell you this as bad as it would ever get in this country, this is still the greatest damn country. When you compare us up against the rest of them, we certainly are the best of them. And without people like me and other loud, proud Americans being bold enough and committed to remaining loud and proud, to being a proud American, to not being afraid to be loud to showcase our patriotism. The moment you lose all of us, you lose this country. So, yes, I have a very interesting perspective because I am seeing parts of this world from a different point of view. It's optimistic and it's pessimistic at the same time, man. It's crazy. This um this half full glass of mine, I like to think of my glass being half full, but it's like sitting in the cup holder of my school bus as I'm going down 95 on a very unpaved road, and that water just happens to be uh bouncing up and down and in and out of the cup. You know what I'm saying? Like it might be half full, but I'm riding on some turbulence. So good luck tiptoeing that wine glass with high heels down the runway, the walkway of the airplane heading through turbulence. That's me with my half full glass of H2 Isil. You understand what I'm saying? I might always look at things half full, but they might always be just a bit rocky. You know what I mean? I might be holding on to half full on the verge of being empty. That's me. True and through. How do you do? Now, this interesting point of view that I get on the road also creates an amazing opportunity to be on the road. And this weekend was was no different. As I started being back on the road, and we um started doing our our first of our Christmas push, our holiday events.

Condemned Mall And Retail Memories

SPEAKER_01 33:29

We started off in Bangor at the Bangor Mall. Well, we should have been at the Bangor Mall, but this is a saddening thing about retail, about brick and mortar in this country, and that's the dying malls in this country. The Bangor Mall was condemned just a week before our event. Guess right, folks, condemned. Not safe for people to be in the building. That is how bad the mall conditions are. But thankfully, the lady that puts on this event, she also owns a furniture store and she just sold her business. And at the end of the year, her she's her building's going with the business. But they just emptied everything out, so we used her storefront, which is a 70,000 square foot storefront that was packed with over 300 plus vendors. I think it was 350 vendors inside the storefront, giving us all a little taste of holiday retail, a little taste of what it would feel like to have our own storefront. And for me, a man that'll probably never have a storefront, it feels incredible to be in a mall setting and hear it buzzing, to have that holiday uh juices pumping through you as you're as you're playing the Christmas music, and people are just flying around and scrolling around and and they're buying things up and they're and they're they're getting that that holiday feeling, that seasonal awesomeness popping through their veins. People are are choosing you to put under their Christmas tree. It's amazing. And it reminds me of what it used to be like as a kid going out Christmas shopping, Black Friday shopping, when the stores were buzzing and the registers were ringing, when the world seemed right and the problems seemed small. That that feeling, it comes right back, and it's amazing to uh to do this, to have this um the this this opportunity. Our schedule over the next couple weeks is pretty fun because we just spent two days at the mall and then we came home, leave our setup all together. We're gonna return back on the weekend, spend another two days there. We're gonna come home, do another event at the Civic Center in Augusta, and then I think I might go back to Bangor for two more events, but only one-day events. So we're putting ourselves out there with the people, uh, even more so this year than last year when it comes to the holidays. But this year, one of the best things about um this particular event was that the Lao Pron American Express is back on the road.

The Bus Upgrade Family Life

SPEAKER_01 36:03

The bus is back on the road, and the family hasn't been in the bus together uh since it's been put back together. So I've made some changes, made some improvements. So what's awesome right now is when you get in the bus, I actually have this big power bank system that is solar powered. You could charge it up electrical, or you have a solar power bank scenario when you're on the road. So I'm running maybe a 40-inch flat screen TV mounted above uh above the driver, so little Paisley can watch TV while we're going down the road. It's got a fire stick plugged into the back of it, so she's watching the Disney Channel, she's she's watching Minions and she's watching The Grinch and all of her favorite shows and Toy Story and all these things while we're on the road. I got a fridge and a microwave all hooked up and connected inside the bus. So she's got um, you know, pouches and cheese and milk and every snacks in the fridge, and you can be going down the road and open the fridge and and uh fill up a bottle and chuck it right in the microwave, and she can have warm milk in a movie. All while we're rolling down the road. And the memories and the moments that we had in that bus, although for the first hour plus on the way there, I had a little girl trying to take a poop that did not want to be in uh a car seat screaming bloody murder, that had us on the side of the road changing a diaper. Uh, that might not have been as enjoyable, but the rest of it certainly was. And it it's really one of those things where you're driving down the road and and you have your family lined up watching movies and singing karaoke and and pulling over and having dance parties for pea breaks. All those moments are things that um I'm never gonna forget, things that I won't take for granted. And it's also uh a show of um of growth, of expansion, and of achievement for my business because I remember where we started, and I know that um this might still be you know a mediocre beginning for so many, but it's uh it's a humble achievement for us. And uh I'm so grateful for the improvements that we've made and the levels that we've attained to allow us to do this. I know last year, just for this event, I had to borrow a box truck from my cousin just to make it, leave it in Bangor because I didn't trust it to make it home. And uh I had to go up there separated from my family and my wife and baby in one vehicle because the one we were driving wasn't safe enough for all of us. Now here we are together having movie night um and and and just making memories and and having moments, and and to think about this business and and us being in a mall and being set up and and spending nights in a hotel room and going out to dinners and these experiences are things that um for my little girl, it's just another weekend, it's just something that she might take for granted. But for so many people in this world, so many kids, it's um it's an amazing thing. It's something that they couldn't even imagine, and it's just another day for my little girl for her to um wake up in a in a hotel, to go to the mall, to set up, to be having a conversation with Santa Claus while he's looking at t-shirts, to screaming at the Grinch later in the afternoon, to going over and touching dinosaurs, uh, these live-action, life-size dinosaurs. This is all in a weekend for my little girl. To climbing in the bus, settling up, having her milk warmed up on the road, having snacks and watching movies while she's traveling down the road. This is all just part of her life. But to me, to think of me as a kid experiencing these things, being a part of these things, it's hard to even imagine. That's the life we are giving our baby girl because that's the life that loud, proud American is bringing to this family as we chase the dream and the reality that this country needs patriotism and we are gonna bring it to them. Speaking of our little girl on the road at these events, she's always the star of the show.

Self-Employment And Raising Kids

SPEAKER_01 40:37

And I mean that in multiple ways. I mean, customers obviously they come in and they're obviously super, super happy and smiley and giggly to uh interact with her, you know what I mean? And when she's in a good mood, she'll say hi and thank you and all those good things. But you know, a lot of times she's not in the best of moods. But it's the vendors, the vendors that are there that um are completely blown away and surprised by the fact that she's able to put in these days with us. So at the mall this time around, we're open from nine to five, and uh so it's an eight-hour workday. And I know 18-year-old kids, 25-year-old somewhat adults that have a hard time making it through an eight-hour day, right? So she'll work through through the day, and at this particular event, we don't really have a lot of extra space, so she doesn't have room to run. So she's confined to a small area, and the surrounding vendors are blown away. Like they'll come in and be like, I can't believe uh how good she's been, you know, and so many people say, like, oh, if I had my kids here, like I couldn't imagine. And and this particular event, which is really cool, was just the way we're set up as a vendor directly behind us, and it's this sweet older couple and their son, who's probably my age, and they're selling stuff. And the way that we're set up, we have two tents, two 10-foot tents with a little uh space in between. That's where our cash register is. So we literally like you're our backs are to their backs, their cash register is where ours is, so we see and interact, and you're all up on each other's uh personal business during the day. And um little uh Paisley was walking around with uh with Allie and uh she met um some vendors and they gave her a little tiny Jesus. And I don't know if you've seen these before, but it's all the all the rage at these events, these little tiny, uh like one-inch tall rubber Jesus statues, figurines, whatever you want to call them, and a little tiny mini Bible. And then she um was spending all her time telling the sweet lady behind us about her Jesus, and uh it just warmed her heart, and we were having this great in-depth conversation, and um she had mentioned to me, she's like, you know, uh, we've been self-employed for you know so many years, and and she said that um for 20 like four or twenty-six years raising her kids, she was self-employed, and she talked about the fact that you know there's a lot of give and take, you know, you're you're not gonna have those nine to five schedule work week, two days off, you know, you're never gonna work harder for anybody else as you are for yourself. So it's you know, it's a challenge. But she expressed the fact that I would never change it because it's a it's a way of life and um and it's in a major impact on on your children. And she talked about um with Allie about homeschooling the kids until they were able to go to high school, and then she knew that they had a great foundation and they were rooted in their faith. And she was just having all these great conversations, either with with Allie or with myself, or just interacting with Paisley and just kind of chatting with the whole family and them, you know, explaining all the uh benefits of being self employed parents and um raising your child and and then literally just bringing her up in your business and and the impact that it has on your kids so it was just um it was just super super amazing and I had to run to the truck to get some inventory and Paisley um saw the Grinch and uh she's been obsessed with watching the Grinch as of late all forms of the Grinch and uh she saw this this fella dressed in full Grinch outfit and he was walking around and she spotted him through the little separation window space with our our neighbor vendors and while Allie was holding her she was yelling through the window Grinch hey Grinch Grinch can be a Grinch and was waving to him and um apparently what transpired next was pretty hilarious and I'm gonna do my best to let Paisley explain it to you.

Paisley Scares The Grinch

SPEAKER_01 44:56

She told me the story at the event and it was absolutely hilarious. But I think we've pushed our limit a little too much because we made her tell Mima we made her tell us all the time so tonight um while running some errands we uh asked Paisley to um tell us what happened with the Grinch and um I'm just gonna try to replay it for you and see if you guys can piece this together with me.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

Yeah what happened with the Grinch you saw the Grinch at the fair I scared you scared what happened what about the Grinch Oh, I scared Grinch.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

You're scared to Grinch. You scared the Grinch.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Yeah. How did you scare the grin okay what do you do? How did you scare the grin?

SPEAKER_00 45:54

You yelled.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Then what did he do?

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Yell.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

He yelled.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

I do.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

You do?

SPEAKER_02 46:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

I do yell.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

When you yelled?

unknown 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

But he run off?

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

He said hi.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Hi, Grinch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

How did you get the candy?

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Mm. I ate it.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

You ate it? How did you get it?

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Mm.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Well Yeah, I know you put it in your mouth, but how did you get the candy?

unknown 46:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Well that is the best rendition that I could possibly get uh given the fact that you know she doesn't want to retell the story but um i it was hilarious. I came in everybody was looking at me like I totally missed out and then Ali told me the story and then Paisley had to retell the story so apparently she's yelling at the Grinch to get his attention and uh Allie's like you know you gotta give him a minute and she's trying to cash people out and uh the Grinch comes around the corner and sneaks into our booth and when when Paisley turns around she sees him and his face can be kind of scary so when she sees the Grinch she lets out this super death defying yell and when she does it scares the Grinch so he yells and he takes off running and uh he says hi bye and throws the candy cane at Allie and takes off running and that's the candy that the baby the baby ended up uh taking and eating and she's talking about I come back from getting inventory and she's covered in candy cane all over her face and her hands and I'm saying how did you get a candy cane and that's when I find out she's scared the Grinch so all in a day's work man all in a day's work to think about her um starting the day off Santa Claus shopping at loud proud American over playing with dinosaurs to scaring the Grinch to riding home watching Christmas movies on the big screen in the bus stopping at uh rest stops and having dance parties it's all part of the Liberty experience and we wouldn't do it any other way and we get to do it our way because of each and every one of you and the fact that you continue to support us this family this brand this podcast this business so because of you I thank you for supporting our American dream. Now go

Thanks And Where To Find Us

SPEAKER_01 48:42

wash your freaking hands you filty savage that's it and that's all Biggie Smalls if you're all proud American and you find yourself just wanting more find me on YouTube and Facebook at all Proud American on the Facebook if you're a fan of the Ram Crackin want to find me on Instagram for all the kids on Tickety Talkin on the TikTok you can find me on both of those at Loud underscore crowd underscore American big old thank you to the boys from the Gut Truckers for the background beats and the theme song podcast if you are enjoying what you're hearing track down the gun truckers on Facebook Gutter Gut Truckers

SPEAKER_02 49:54

I will make it clean I hate to say I told you so

SPEAKER_01 50:12

I truly thank you for supporting my American dream.