The Blind Movie Podcast Ep 3
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00:00 This is Uncle Si. The Roberson family is telling it like it is.
00:05 Our true story in The Blind.
00:07 Here's the next episode of The Blind Movie Podcast with my brother Phil, his wife Miss Kay, and their son Willie.
00:16 Y'all watch the movie?
00:22 We loved it.
00:24 The Blind, you lived the movie. What'd you think?
00:26 I loved it. I loved it. The girl looked just like me. The boy needed a crew cut, but other than that he was fine.
00:33 Did anybody spoil it and tell you how it ended? Or were you able to watch it without knowing the ending?
00:38 I knew the ending, silly. I lived it.
00:44 So how was it? Was it exciting to have the movie made or it was kind of depressing in some ways?
00:51 Yeah. Well, it's like you gotta have the bad to get to the good. Right, Mr. Bad Boy?
00:59 Well, when you look back, and you look back at, I'm now 77, it was like this much.
01:12 It was fast.
01:14 It was incredibly fast.
01:17 You know, when I watch the movie, I think it could have went either way.
01:24 That's it.
01:25 Like it could have went a different way and none of this stuff would have happened the way we know it, right?
01:32 Do you think Dad's glad I stayed? What do you think, Will?
01:38 Are you glad you stayed? That's the question.
01:40 Well, at the time I was wondering, but it's worth it now. When I see all my boys, all their families.
01:48 Well, we watched how you guys grew up. Now, was that pretty accurate?
01:55 Not many young girls in high school load the car up with grub and go down there in the middle of another family unit,
02:03 all of us standing there looking, you know, what you got to eat in there? We were poor, dirt poor.
02:09 Now, what did your family think about that?
02:12 Well, you know, my dad passed away when I was 14, so it'd be my mom, and she said, "You don't want to date that poor boy.
02:21 You'll wind up poor all your life."
02:23 Oh, wow.
02:25 You never heard that before, have you?
02:27 So, yeah, so she didn't see that as a positive.
02:31 Yeah, when Phil said, "I'll be there by dark."
02:34 Well, I'm out there looking at, "How long is it going to be dark? I can't figure it out."
02:38 He said, "I'll be there about, what'd you say, noon, I guess."
02:43 I mean, nothing had a time. It just had whatever was happening outside.
02:47 I never got around to building, wearing a ring or a watch. I never got to that level. I just didn't fool with it.
02:56 Did you think you were going to make money one day?
02:59 I would say, after going to college, getting a couple of degrees, teaching a little school around, you know, I decided, by right along in there,
03:13 I'll top out at, it's been 30 years here, and I'll top out at about 30 grand a year.
03:21 I just looked around and said, "I believe I can beat that."
03:24 That's when I started thinking about, "I need to build some duck calls that sound like ducks. How would I start?"
03:32 Yeah, because the movies got you really thinking about just being in the woods and hunting all the time.
03:39 I was trying to figure out how you make a living at that.
03:42 And you did.
03:43 Then duck calls came up. I said, "Hmm, duck calls." I said, "Yeah."
03:47 So I literally started, I'd never done any woodworking at all.
03:54 But the cost of all that to switch over and start building duck calls, I said, "I'll fish the river."
04:02 You could never get rich off of that because that's about $200 a week, on a good week.
04:09 And other times it wasn't.
04:11 So I just finally got duck calls, the dream of building duck calls.
04:17 But one of the biggest mistakes we made, Phil had it all added up to exactly what was needed to start the business,
04:23 which was a great idea and everything.
04:26 Then I said, "Phil, you don't think you should have got some extra? What about us living?"
04:33 You didn't think about that, did you?
04:35 No, no.
04:36 And Phil said, "Well, I can catch a few fish and do all that in the house."
04:39 Now that scared me because I thought...
04:41 That banker, 30 years later, someone said, I don't know whether he's still living or not, but at some point he told that story.
04:51 He said, "I've never seen somebody come from that rags to riches. I never saw that."
04:57 So he was looking at, you know, when I first walked in there, he told that story for the 30 years of his life, the last 30.
05:06 So you never know.
05:08 Yeah, you need to think about when you've already started a business, allow for living too.
05:15 Took me about five years to pay the guy who told me, he said, "Just show him this. This is my financial statement. Just show him that."
05:24 So I did. So it took me about five years.
05:28 And we paid him off.
05:29 We paid him off. So we slowly paid it off.
05:32 He said, "I don't get in a hurry, but put him whatever you got."
05:35 So I just slowly paid him off. It took about five years.
05:40 How important was the move, like you guys moved here, pretty much isolated from most everybody?
05:51 Yeah, the way we wanted it.
05:52 Because he changed lives.
05:54 Yeah.
05:55 He went from one life to another life.
05:59 All my old friends were culled.
06:02 We were hiding out from them.
06:03 All of my new friends were brothers, biblical brothers.
06:09 I came over here first because somebody put us out.
06:13 And you were there, you were traveling in the night.
06:16 We got out.
06:17 And so I had to get that little bitty apartment because it was based on your income.
06:22 So I got it, you know, because I didn't have very much income, just working the office like I did.
06:29 And so when he decided to change his life and become a different person,
06:38 we were already settled in that little apartment.
06:41 So he joined us, but, you know, it wasn't, it was so little.
06:47 Phil was in there trying to cook and bumping into, the kitchen was so small, I'm telling you.
06:53 But he made do, you know, because he knew he had lost his family and then we were back.
07:00 Yeah, how will you use the movie?
07:03 Do you think it'll, like when you're sharing the gospel now, will you reference the movie now?
07:10 I will.
07:11 Because before, you would just, it was your story, you know.
07:16 So I'm wondering now, will you actually say, hey, if someone comes and says,
07:20 I saw your movie and you're going to share the gospel.
07:23 If the movie shows one thing, it shows how stupid a young man can get.
07:29 Yeah.
07:30 That's about what I might have.
07:31 Do you think that's good though, to show? I mean, to, yeah.
07:34 I think if we convert one individual, if we don't get one out of the world, I would say,
07:44 it certainly doesn't hurt anything, it just, you get a glimpse of how hollow and shallow
07:52 a life without God is.
07:54 Yeah.
07:55 I mean, it just shows you how shallow and how stupid human beings can get.
08:01 And I was one of the worst.
08:03 You know, I know it sounds crazy, if they watch that movie, they probably are wondering,
08:10 when did all the filthy language stop and all that?
08:14 I woke up one day, about a month or two ago, I saw that movie, you know, and I thought,
08:20 hmm, but I haven't cursed in 40 years.
08:29 Get mad, I tell you, that dries up when you start following Jesus, all that kind of stuff.
08:37 Just small things, just no cursing is coming forth from my mouth.
08:45 Who was worried about that the most was Jason.
08:49 He said, "Mom, what are we going to do if we go to church and Daddy starts cussing?"
08:54 Yeah.
08:55 And I said, "Well, we hope he don't.
08:58 And then we'll just tell everybody he's a brand new Christian."
09:06 Phil Robertson here.
09:08 You're listening to the Blind Movie Podcast.
09:11 And I want you to come out and see "The Blind" in theaters starting September the 28th.
09:18 When you see it, you'll know that redemption isn't out of reach for anyone.
09:23 Get your tickets today at theblindmovie.com.
09:35 But I will know one thing about my dad.
09:38 He was the hardest working man.
09:40 I mean, from the time he started working, I mean, he was--
09:44 But he was about 48, 49 when he had the heart attack.
09:49 Do you see any of his traits in any of your kids?
09:52 Yeah, I do in you because, I mean, you work.
09:57 I mean, you work hard.
09:59 I mean, it's not like you're starving, but you're still working
10:04 and still creating things for other people to work.
10:07 So Bill Smith was one of the--
10:10 I think one of the most fascinating people in the movie.
10:16 Now, Bill, we all knew until he passed away.
10:22 So we sat and learned all kind of stuff from Bill.
10:25 So when he comes up to that bar, there was that animosity between you guys?
10:32 Yeah.
10:33 Phil was rude.
10:35 I had a quart of Budweiser.
10:39 I'm seated in a chair and I had a quart of Budweiser just between my legs.
10:44 I'm sitting there, you know, and he walks in.
10:47 I said, "You some kind of preacher?"
10:49 Because Jan, my sister, was with him.
10:52 She brought him.
10:53 Yeah, she brought him.
10:54 I said, "So you're some kind of preacher?"
10:57 He said, "That is correct."
10:59 I said, "You ever been drunk?"
11:01 He said, "Yeah, I've been drunk."
11:03 I said, "I'm getting drunk right now."
11:05 I said, "There's no difference between you.
11:07 You've been drunk. I'm getting drunk right now."
11:10 I said, "That's the world. That's the way it is."
11:13 So, you know, get that bye-bye, bye face.
11:16 He told me later, he said--he told Jan, who was with him, who brought him,
11:21 he said, "I think he needs--we need a little weight, a little of this."
11:24 You know, I don't think he's ready.
11:26 He was so rude, but he just kept laughing. Bill did.
11:29 He didn't--he would just laugh and feel and smile.
11:32 He said--he thought you said when he first walked in, "What you selling, preacher?"
11:37 Yeah, something like that.
11:39 Yeah, he said, "What you selling?"
11:42 And he said you had a pistol in your belt, too.
11:44 Oh, yeah.
11:45 He said you had a pistol and you had your Budweiser.
11:48 That's scary, isn't it?
11:49 Everybody's getting drunk on Saturday and fighting at night and gunfire and, you know, knifes.
11:55 And I've got that pistol in my belt, and I'm in between all of them,
11:59 keeping the peace while everybody gets drunk.
12:02 What made you think that was a good idea of a business plan?
12:05 I know, because he was fixing to get fired from school.
12:09 That's what he was fixing to get, because they didn't find out about him doing that,
12:12 and he's a coach and a teacher.
12:14 And he jumped at that first chance of somebody said, "Phil, you ought to run this place."
12:20 And I didn't even know about it until he done made the deal.
12:25 And then he told me about, "We're going to just move right up there, and we're going to get rich."
12:29 Do you think it was to perpetuate the lifestyle that you were kind of wanting to live?
12:33 I see it.
12:34 Because the way I thought about it was it's really no different than duck commander.
12:39 It was whatever the lifestyle you were in, you just figured out a way to run a business,
12:44 do what you want to do.
12:46 Yeah, but I was up there in the front, and they'd say, "Well, you're not drinking."
12:50 I said, "I don't drink, ever." I didn't.
12:53 I stayed in the woods or that bar.
12:57 I mean, it gives you a lot of free time, a bar that sells beer and all the stuff,
13:03 jukeboxes and all that, all that that goes with it.
13:07 But it gave me a lot of time to be able to stay in the woods.
13:11 I was in the woods or at the bar at night.
13:14 That's when the fights break out on the weekend.
13:17 So I was there as a referee.
13:19 Everybody getting drunk up in there.
13:22 Did you like the fight? Did you like being a part of that?
13:25 I didn't like it, but it's just like watching one of Matt Dillon's movies, Gunsmoke.
13:33 They get all drunked up, and they want to fight.
13:38 Did everybody know who you were?
13:40 I was the referee, and I had to be the last one standing.
13:44 Did everybody know you were Phil from when they played quarterback and all that?
13:48 They didn't act like it. I don't know.
13:50 They didn't much act like it. It was rednecks, but I guess probably, yeah, they knew what type of man I was.
13:55 Some of them did.
13:56 Because it wasn't far from Ruston, from Louisiana Tech.
13:59 No, about 50, 60 miles.
14:01 How did you think your life was going to play out at that point as bar owners?
14:06 Well, I thought we'd just make a lot of money, get out of there, and we'd go back and be good.
14:12 But then that was just because I wanted some kind of stability.
14:16 But I hated it. I mean, I didn't even drink.
14:20 They'd say, "I'll bring you one every time because I'm the bartender in the front."
14:25 And I said, "I don't drink, thank you."
14:27 And they'd say, "Why are you in a bar?"
14:31 And then the ones that we called that came there all the time, you know, just bar people that were always there.
14:37 Those were your regulars?
14:38 Our regulars.
14:39 They'd say, "Don't mess with her. She's a good girl. She don't drink and everything."
14:45 They said, "Well, why is she running a bar?"
14:47 And they said, "Well, she came because her husband drug her up here, but I'll tell you something.
14:52 She's nice and you don't even fool with her because we'll all whip your butt if you touch her or say anything inappropriate."
15:00 So I had my own fan club and my own people that protected me from being in the bar.
15:06 Well, even though you ran a bar, everybody couldn't drink.
15:10 Oh, yeah, I never drank.
15:12 That's right.
15:13 Well, and I do tell you this. We only had beer. We never had hard liquor. Only beer.
15:19 Oh, just beer.
15:20 Just beer.
15:21 I think there was some hit in the back for maybe somebody like you.
15:25 Okay, so essentially the movie is kind of your love story, like how you guys met.
15:34 How did y'all feel that the movie portrayed that pretty accurate as far as when you two guys started dating?
15:43 Yeah, I mean, the funniest one that nobody ever knows is, and this is the truth,
15:50 we actually got set up by an older class girl that looked at him and looked at me and thought we would make the best couple.
16:00 Because back in those days, the girls didn't come up and start, it was usually you're waiting until the boy makes the move to talk to you.
16:11 You see what I mean? It's just a lot different than today's time.
16:15 And so what she told me was, she said, "You know, Phil Robertson, the quarterback, wants you to walk him off the field tonight."
16:24 And I said, "Yeah."
16:25 Yeah, they talked about that walking off the field.
16:27 I walked him off the field. So they went and told Phil that Kaye Caraway, who's the cheerleader, they said, "Do you know her?"
16:33 And Phil said, "I've seen her." And he said, "She wants to walk you off the field tonight."
16:39 So that was the thing.
16:41 That was a big deal.
16:43 That meant?
16:44 That meant you walk off the field.
16:47 Was that after the game?
16:48 Yeah, after the game.
16:49 I didn't know that was a thing.
16:50 That was after the game.
16:51 That was the signal.
16:52 So the game's over.
16:54 And you go out there and walk him off the field.
16:56 You know, if you had a boyfriend, that's what you did. Girlfriend, that's what you did.
17:00 So that's what we did. That was our first hookup and it was by that girl who just thought it.
17:06 And so after then, he asked me out and all that and we started dating.
17:12 But had it not been the first walk off the field, and I told him something recently that I never told him before.
17:21 I said, "But I had seen you many times in high school, cornering around the corner and everything."
17:28 And I told a girl one time that I was with, I said, "I might marry him one day."
17:34 And she said, "That quarterback Phil Robertson?" I said, "Yep, I might. Yep."
17:40 How did you know?
17:41 I just knew. I just saw him. I mean, I liked the way he looked and all.
17:46 But see, and what else people don't understand is, of course, he was known because he was a big hunter, fisherman, outdoorsman.
17:55 See, what you didn't realize about that, they'd say, "Well, you won't want that because that'll just take up time."
18:01 No, I was opposite.
18:02 My daddy, who I loved and my protector and all that, he was a hunter and a fisherman and all.
18:10 I had bird dogs and he did a lot more bird hunting than Phil did.
18:14 But he hunted ducks and he hunted deer and all that.
18:17 And I loved that about my dad.
18:19 Did a lot of people hunt? Did a lot of the kids hunt? Were they outdoorsmen?
18:24 A lot of them.
18:25 Because I figured, yeah, that was kind of...
18:27 A lot of them.
18:28 Back then, yes.
18:29 I told stories that the weekend would come, then on Monday morning, at dinner time, I would squat down and I'd be talking to one buddy or two.
18:43 But every time I did that, we were talking about what happened over the weekend.
18:50 Dinner time at school, I'd lean up against the building, talking to my buddy.
18:57 Then two of them would come walking up there, then another one, then another one.
19:01 It'd all end up, every time, up to 50, 60, 75 people listening to the...
19:08 They did. They'd just draw a crowd.
19:10 They'd just do a crowd.
19:11 And that was in high school?
19:13 That was in high school.
19:14 Every time...
19:16 I'd say, "Where is he?" And then I'd look over there and there was a bunch of boys.
19:20 And I said, "That's probably... They're listening to Phil."
19:24 What we harvested over the weekend. Fish, game, ducks, birds, quail.
19:31 It's ironic that you said that because you might have known earlier, I know you've heard this before, but when I was in the store, our big store, the biggest store in the town we lived in,
19:43 I'd go over there by the heater or at the cool place when my sister was having to actually work and all.
19:50 But what I did was I entertained the older ladies because they were so lonely and they came to our store to talk to people.
19:58 So what Phil didn't know at the time was I had stories, but I made up a lot of mine.
20:05 But they were so lonely, they just loved to hear somebody passing to them and tell them stories.
20:11 And I had stories galore.
20:14 So you were entertaining at the store.
20:16 At the store while he was entertaining at school.
20:19 So in school, was he popular?
20:21 Yes.
20:23 So everybody knew... This is a small school, right?
20:25 Well...
20:26 Double A.
20:27 Yeah.
20:28 Double A High School.
20:29 Yeah. Well, and they knew about him as being the quarterback, but they also said, "Well, he's hunting fishes and does all things like that."
20:38 You know, that was like... Everybody didn't do that. All of them, you know.
20:43 The Dean of Men, when I was in college, the Dean of Men sent somebody and said, "You be in my office on such and such a day."
20:57 So I thought, "Hmm, where did I go wrong?"
21:00 The Dean of Men, because if you went to the Dean of Men, they overlook males at colleges who are causing trouble or whatever.
21:11 So that's the Dean of Men's job. He's the one that kicks you out of college.
21:15 He probably thought that he heard about you.
21:16 So they called me up, you know. Somebody come up there and said, "The Dean of Men wants to talk to you."
21:22 I said, "Uh-oh." I said, "What would he want with me?"
21:26 So I'll go up there and I sat down and said, "I think your name is Dean Lewis."
21:31 I said, "Dean Lewis, how can I help you there?"
21:34 He said, "Mr. Robertson."
21:38 He said, "Do you know the name of that road that you live with the married people at Louisiana Tech?
21:49 Are you familiar with the name of that road?"
21:52 I said, "Scholar Drive?" And that's what the road's name was, Scholar Drive.
21:58 I didn't really knew it.
21:59 He said, "Scholar Drive. You said it."
22:02 He said, "Mr. Robertson, I just wanted to tell you, the president of this university was with some dignitaries and they drove over to Scholar Drive.
22:15 When we got to your house where you live, I'm trying to be kind here, Mr. Robertson, but it just didn't have a scholarly look about it, your yard."
22:27 And I said, "What are you trying to say?"
22:31 And I said, "My equipment?"
22:34 He said, "Boats, decoys, nets."
22:38 He said, "It looks like a madhouse."
22:44 He said, "But it's not scholarly. You came here for an education."
22:50 He said, "Straighten it up."
22:52 I said, "What do you want to do with all my stuff?"
22:55 And he said, "Hide it somewhere, but get it off out of your yard."
23:00 Backyard. It all went to the backyard.
23:02 He said, "Well, I'll see what I can do."
23:04 Hey Jack, this is Uncle Si.
23:10 Y'all are listening to the Blind Movie Podcast.
23:13 Watch The Blind Movie in theaters starting September 28th.
23:17 Remember, if God can save my brother Phil, there's hope for all of us.
23:22 Get your tickets today at theblindmovie.com.
23:26 Well, I've noticed the yard didn't improve even when we moved down here.
23:38 Our yard was always terrible.
23:41 That's where I came in as the yard cleaner.
23:44 And who taught you how to do that?
23:45 Granny taught me how to clean the yard.
23:48 That's exactly right.
23:49 But see, I was never the neat person.
23:53 They'd say to me, "When you going to mow that grass?"
23:56 Somebody would pull up, "When you going to mow this grass?"
23:58 I said, "I ought to frost to get it."
24:00 Well, I mean, I just...
24:02 They said, "The frost?"
24:04 I said, "Wintertime, get it. It'll lay right down."
24:07 There were a lot of things that he needed to improve on more than, to me, the yard or whatever else.
24:14 So, I mean, I just learned I wasn't a neat freak either.
24:19 And so I just said, "Well, that can go."
24:22 I just wanted him to be a better person.
24:25 But, you know, if he wasn't a neat yard person, it just didn't bother me.
24:29 Yeah, I wish we could have seen more of Granny.
24:32 Like we saw the kind of when she was having one of her spells, for sure.
24:37 But they were very instrumental, actually, in raising us.
24:42 They were. 15 years.
24:44 In helping you guys.
24:45 15 years they lived by y'all as you were growing up.
24:47 Because most of my memories were Granny was in the garden with Granny and Paul, and they taught us how to work.
24:53 We planted this right here, right behind us.
24:55 I remember.
24:56 Yeah, that was our first...
24:58 That was the original garden.
25:00 Yep.
25:01 And Paul thumped me in the head because I knocked the stem out of the cantaloupe.
25:06 And Granny said she was going to hit him with a boat.
25:09 But he did.
25:12 He thumped me right inside the head because I pulled that.
25:15 I was probably four.
25:16 Well, when did you learn how to play dominoes from Granny and Paul?
25:20 We learned how to play dominoes.
25:22 We watched The Price is Right every day.
25:25 Yeah, Ma won that whole thing.
25:27 But Granny would take us, yeah, and Granny ended up winning the double showcase.
25:32 They were great domino players, and they taught all of y'all dominoes, you know, Jason, Al.
25:38 Well, I remember Paul working in the wood shop.
25:41 Oh, yeah.
25:42 Bill McCall.
25:43 He's the one that told me to put up that little dimple between those reeds so when your double reed is vibrating, it's not, it will never stick because it'll hit that little tip there.
25:56 And he's the one that said you need a little--
25:59 Oh, Paul actually was the one--
26:00 He's the one that told me, he said, "You can, you'll get, duck call won't stick as bad if you get that little tick in between the reeds."
26:08 And he showed me what he was talking about.
26:10 I said, "Paul," I said, "that is some good advice."
26:13 So I obeyed what he said.
26:16 But--
26:17 That's when she taught me how to cook, too.
26:20 Yeah.
26:21 Okay, so the actors that played you guys, they were, so there were younger versions and--
26:30 Yeah.
26:31 Mm-hmm.
26:32 Then middle versions and then the older versions.
26:36 How accurate--
26:37 I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't believe, in my case, how much they looked like me, especially the 20-year-old one.
26:45 But I think they all favored me, you know, the three different ladies, girls.
26:51 Which was your favorite?
26:53 I guess, I mean, the one that I think looked the most like me was the 21, the one in her 20s.
26:59 Yeah.
27:00 I think they were British, weren't they?
27:03 Some were, yeah, the older ones were for sure.
27:05 I couldn't believe how good they did.
27:07 We all got to hang out together and--
27:08 Yeah.
27:09 Kind of--
27:10 Yeah, I mean, it was so funny because their regular talk was nothing like the Southern drawl like we have.
27:19 Yeah, what did you learn from actors who actually play other people?
27:23 I was shocked at how good they were, how they could change their voices like that.
27:28 Yeah.
27:29 That was amazing.
27:30 Now, the only thing I will say a negative on, I told that boy to get his hair in a crew cut for Phil, but he would not do it.
27:38 No crew cut. So Phil had the crew cut, which is interesting because now it seems like you never cut your hair, but at that point, he must have been getting his hair cut all the time.
27:48 Had that stand up, stand up right there.
27:50 Yeah.
27:51 That's just the way it was in the 60s.
27:53 So by the 70s, you start having more of that kind of 70s look, the longer hair and the--
27:59 Yeah, but you know when he--
28:00 But where's the-- when you taught at school, you had to have--
28:03 Oh, yeah, he had to have his coat.
28:05 You had to have your head. I'd say once I left college, the haircuts and the trimming of the beards pretty well, I would just--
28:15 Well, your first job, Phil, you couldn't let that go.
28:18 I got a few whiskers here. If I wanted to remove them or shorten them, I'd just take a pair of scissors and--
28:25 Yeah, I've been dreaming about that.
28:26 But going to a barber, I hadn't been to a barber shop in 50 years.
28:30 But we know a barber from church that come down to Trimcher.
28:34 Yeah, from time to time, you know, come down there and take a little of his hair off.
28:39 You know what he trades it for instead of paying him? A meal, a good Miss Cattenfield meal.
28:47 Who do you think would be the most surprised from y'all's family at how it all turned out, even the movie and all this stuff?
28:56 You know?
28:57 Well, my mom and dad would, you know, if they were still alive, I mean--
29:02 You think they would be shocked?
29:04 My dad liked him because he only got to meet my dad once or twice because we were dating.
29:12 But then we broke up, you know. I mean, he wanted to lay off during the hunting season because--
29:18 Your side of the family would be more shocked than Mom or Pop.
29:26 All right, so when you first got back together, Kay, what was your perception of that?
29:31 Well, I was scared, just like Jason said. I didn't know what he was going to say in church or what he was going to do.
29:38 He just didn't know. Like, the first time he picked up the songbook, he just looked at it and I was like,
29:46 "Phil, I know you can sing," because he was always beating on the radio.
29:51 In fact, he tore up several, beating on them when he was singing with the radio in the car or the truck or whatever we were in.
29:59 Whatever I had at the time to write in.
30:03 So, you know, I was thinking, "Oh my goodness."
30:07 And he just looked at the songbook like, "How do I do this? I mean, I just start singing these songs."
30:14 I said, "Phil, you sing every day on the radio with the radio. You just read the words."
30:19 And I know you heard these songs when you were growing up because you went to church.
30:24 He said it's just embarrassing to sing them because he wasn't feeling like this.
30:29 It wasn't just easy for him to go from this world to this world.
30:35 But he did, you know, gradually just start singing them.
30:38 Yeah, that's actually remarkable that y'all were able to actually get through all that.
30:43 I mean, did you go to counseling or meet with people at the church?
30:47 That's what I say. Nowadays, what people don't realize, there's so much to offer help.
30:54 Back in our day, who do I talk to?
30:57 You know, I didn't know the older women yet at the church.
31:01 I did meet Bill Smith's wife and talked a little bit to her and all.
31:07 But, you know, I think we've come a million miles in having people to talk to and to counsel you and to help you.
31:15 But, I mean, Bill would just want him—he just kept wanting to study with Bill, wanting to study.
31:21 And then every time Bill Smith would have a Bible study, Phil was like,
31:25 "Now, I'm going to be mad if you don't call me. I need to go. I need to go."
31:28 And when he found out Bill had one, he forgot to call Phil.
31:32 And Phil just kind of like was getting on to him. And I was like, "Oh, don't do that."
31:36 But he was like, "I'm serious. I've got to learn. I've got to learn how to do this.
31:41 I don't know what to do in the Bible. I'm trying to learn. You've got to teach me."
31:46 So Bill said, "You're right, Phil. I do have to teach you.
31:49 And you've got the desire, you've got the want to, and you're smart. You can learn it."
31:54 But it is remarkable that y'all were just able to get through all—especially all the damage and trauma.
31:59 Well, we hid out because those other—his drinking guys didn't know the little apartment we were living in, where it was.
32:06 And they didn't know where Phil was. And for the longest, I didn't just put that out there
32:11 because I said, "Well, Phil can just hide from us." But they finally found him, of course.
32:16 Thank goodness there wasn't cell phones.
32:18 No cell phones. No. No cell phones. In fact, I got so tired of having to stop at pay phones. Can you imagine?
32:27 Yeah, no. All right, Phil, you got something?
32:29 This is what keeps me following Jesus and is thankful for pulling me out of a wicked world
32:39 and look at what we now have and making movies about it.
32:44 It's worth a movie.
32:46 Because by one sacrifice—his death on a cross—he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
33:06 So when you put your faith in Jesus and his death, knowing that it took him, his blood, to do it, the only way,
33:20 he's made perfect forever.
33:24 So all of us in the faith, you say, "You're perfect." As we're being made holy, it's a process.
33:38 So we'll always make mistakes, but not near as many as before you ran up on Jesus.
33:44 The sins will begin to die down some, but you'll always have them.
33:49 I'm 77 years old. I still make mistakes, but as I'm being made perfect, it's not counted against me.
33:59 Your sins, you're not in and out. He's got all that covered.
34:04 Just get up and say, "Lord, thank you for your blood because I'll do better. I'll do better tomorrow."
34:11 I'd say that's a good legacy to leave behind right there.
34:15 I want to tell you something. I feel like I have treasures beyond treasures,
34:20 even if we'd never made any money because my boys are good boys.
34:26 They're married to their original wives, have great kids, and they're not perfect.
34:31 But they are on their way to heaven with us.
34:36 Well, that's a good legacy, and I'm thankful that y'all actually allowed the movie.
34:42 Yeah, we're all glad you stayed and glad y'all turned around.
34:45 But I'm really just glad y'all shared it with the world.
34:49 I think there'll be a lot of people who will be impacted by it in a positive way.
34:53 And I do like who played me in the movie, my grandson, and y'all's great-grandson, John Shepard.
35:00 Oh, I was so excited when I saw him. I can't wait for the world to see it.
35:08 You reach out to him by all possible means.
35:12 Well, it takes a movie. Lay it out there, you know, what difference God can make in your life.
35:20 Without him or with him, there's no comparison.
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