I charged into trust thinking I had it figured out. Confucius stopped me in my tracks. From Jesus to Hemingway to Epictetus a deep dive into what trust actually is, what distrust actually costs, and why the wall you build to protect yourself might be the most expensive thing you own.

Plus a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas.

Hurricane Ike is hours from landfall. Tony rides out the storm in the Heights with Dusty and Tinker, a joint, a Weber grill, and the Martin. Eighteen floors above the city, Amber sends her friends home and listens to Blue October alone. Neither one knows the other is out there. The storm doesn’t care.

Humility was supposed to be the easy episode. It wasn’t. JW traces the concept from Aristotle to Augustine to a back porch in East Texas, then takes his own road to Damascus in the middle of writing it. Two sides of the humble coin, some stories about getting knocked off the horse, and a hard look at the difference between real humility and the fear that’s been wearing its clothes. Plus a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas Season Two: as the storm draws closer, two displaced souls find themselves in the same Houston bar on the same restless night.

Mercy is a word we think we understand until life puts us in a room where we have to actually practice it. JW explores what Jesus, the Stoics, Dostoevsky, Schopenhauer, and Twain had to say about mercy, then tells the story of a hospital room, a dying woman, and what happens when mercy gets corrupted into self-protection and called something else. The second labor of growth starts here.

In Duwali Bottoms, a bloody nosed Tony Haines finds his way back to his papaw and an old man who knows that sometimes the most merciful thing you can do is let the big ones go.

I was handed a broken blueprint for love early on. Spent a lot of years building damaged things with it. This episode is about the people and moments that handed me a better plan and why love isn’t a feeling you fall into, it’s a labor you pick up. Season Four starts here. We return to Duwali Bottoms just in time for season two, Hurricane Ike is still just a disturbance in the Atlantic, but the storm is already building closer to home.

There’s a woman from Laird Hill you haven’t met yet. Her husband spends his evenings covered in grease keeping their Cavalier running. She’s quiet. A preacher’s wife. The kind of person you pass in a hardware store and don’t think twice about.

She knows exactly where she’s going this morning.

Danny Ware has been carrying something since Korea that most men never have to carry. He’s made his peace with most of it. An old soldier knows what he knows.

Tom Levins is running out of road.

And somewhere in Duwali Bottoms a lawyer named Dave Tilton has a briefcase full of things that are going to change everything for everyone still standing.

Episode 13. An Old Soldier Knows.

The season finale of Duwali Bottoms Texas. Thirteen episodes. One complete story.

Some debts get paid in ways nobody sees coming.

With the Reckon Yard Podcast on hiatus for a couple of weeks, Duwali Bottoms must go on,

1977. A stolen Pontiac. A state trooper on Sexton Road. A jail cell in Rusk County where two former best friends finally tell each other the truth. 1987. A phone call Tiffany wasn’t supposed to hear. A confession Danny was never supposed to get.

JW closes out the season with stories about every time technology made his skills obsolete,the print shop, NDT, foundation repair, what he did about it. Plus a trip to Fredericksburg, the S10 Lot Legends video, a 4L60E update, a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas.

Why JW makes fun of brands, the truth behind Dawn soap and the Exxon Valdez, and why you don’t need the right boots to be worthy. Plus a road trip, the Austin show, Avalanche updates, and a new Duwali Bottoms. All are welcome in the house of internal combustion.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

JW talks friendships and the complexity of favors, the fear that pervades us all regardless of station or occupation.

This week in Duwali Bottoms, healing does not always mean mending.

As Carl Jr recovers and the Haines family tries to steady themselves after tragedy, old friendships strain under the weight of silence and distance. Around town, life carries on in the summer heat but something restless is beginning to move beneath the surface.

JW revisits a brief fling with a ’92 Toyota pickup and the chaos that surrounded it in the early 2000’s. Late nights and a hard look in the mirror at a version of himself he didn’t much like.

This week in Duwali Bottoms, TX:

After two boys end up dead and a case gets filed away, Red can’t shake the feeling something doesn’t add up. Danny refuses to sit still, Tom learns the noise is spreading, and the line between justice and vengeance starts to blur. In Duwali Bottoms, nobody waits forever.