In this special episode, I interviewed my father, Everett (Easy) Ryder for a Father's Day edition of the podcast. I sat down with my Dad after Father's Day because I knew he had a message to share. The first thing that he told me was that he didn't have anything to share like the other people that have been interviewed  on the podcast. I knew differently because EVERYONE has a story. If you haven't interviewed your own parents, you should take the time to do that even if you don't have a podcast. You might just learn something!

Here is some clips of the show notes. You can catch the rest on our blog

00:07:10.000

Trey: What were you doing for a job, did it affect your job affect your finances. How did you prepare to be a father in that?

00:07:23.000

Dad: I was very fortunate at the time Trey. Because right before Karyl was being born. You know like maybe two years before that we were going through some very hard times, very very hard times I mean having to sell blood plasma just put gas in the car and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner and stuff. So I basically started my career with the government because I had my own construction company before that building homes, and then in 19, January, 5 1978, is when I started working for the government.

00:11:00.000

Trey: Why did you leave being an entrepreneur and owning your own business and go into a government position? It almost sounds like not necessarily you but the world in general. Was it hard times, because you talked about the Navy, or the shipyard was freezing hiring. And you also had left being an entrepreneurial business. So what happened there?

Dad: Okay. One the Naval Shipyard did not have a hiring freeze that was not a Naval Air rework facility. That was it an OB Norfolk. That's why they offered me a temporary position, and I was working at an OB Norfolk and the work building department. 

So, the Naval Shipyard did not have a hiring freeze on it to time to go back to when I had Ryder construction company that you have to remember in the mid 70s was a building boom. You wouldn't remember but it was, it was a lot of houses being built all over.

I needed three crews up and running to keep the business afloat. To go where I needed it to go, I only had one crew. There wasn't anybody to hire for the other crews and then my one crew wasn't that experienced that I had. Basically, I had to be on the job site, all the time.

Then I broke an ankle up on a job, and I had a cast with my foot twisted all the way up to my crotch on crutches, and I wasn't supposed to be doing anything but house rest. The business was failing since I had to pull out from being there, so I went and paid everybody off and close the business out.

Later on, we jump into topics about his thought process of when I was thrown in jail, how he handled the process and put the house up for me to post bail.

Other topics we discuss was making a hard decision as a father to get a divorce, not because of falling out of love but for what was right for his children. We talked about alcoholism in the family that ultimately led to my moms death.

Easy Ryder then tells us three things he learned from his parents and how he applied them to his parenting skills. Before we wrapped up, dad gives a piece of advice to other parents that may be listening.

Go check out the rest in the blog post, make sure you listen to the episode and don't forget to rate this podcast and leave a review!