He worked himself right to death trying to please someone who couldn’t be pleased. But in the dust and noise he left behind, he planted something none of us saw coming, a legacy built from the wreckage, the stubbornness of a man who never quit. This week on The Reckon Yard, we talk about how the hardest lessons don’t always come from saints or teachers, but from the broken ones who showed us how to keep walking anyway.

JW takes us back to the cheap seats side of Lake Tyler in the 1980s, where summers were long, lessons were everywhere, and the shoreline was full of stories. From the awkward rites of teenage romance to the quiet wisdom of turtles and fishing lines, it was a place where memories got made on a budget and lasted a lifetime.

In “The Phoenix” we return to the pine shadowed Reckon Yard where rust, memory, and family collide. I take you with me as my cousins and I unearth my mother’s long lost Volkswagen, a broken shell that still burns with meaning. Along the way we wrestle with fathers, ghosts, and the strange grace of letting go, finding out what rises when you finally set old weight down. This episode is about resurrection.

Some folks flash hot, some smolder until they burn through an engine block. My Uncle Terry? He just let it pass. Do you fight fire with fire, or are you learning to stay unbothered?

A viral video about my Cadillac turned into a sermon on planned obsolescence. Then a story from the Comal River reminded me just how dumb luck and good friends shape a life.

don’t sign your name next to a crook’s, or you’ll see it stained in the same ink. The Reckon Yard is about what you rebuild, not what burned you down.

Back in ’97, I was just a heartbroken Texan shivering my way through Milwaukee, chasing work and bad decisions.

Now it’s 2025, and I’m chasing stories that make the sadness sit lighter.

This one’s about the past, a surprise trip for my friend Adam, and what it means to leave new echoes.

It’s “Less Hell”.

JW starts season 3 with a bang. Enjoy a deep dive into his father-in-law. A real-life Rodeo Cowboy. He worked on the Goodyear blimp as flight crew and ran around Houston with a classmate Billy Gibbons.

JW breaks down the design history of the second gen Mazda 3, before diving off into a recent roadtrip, a moment of unparalleled kindness from a stranger named Russell and a in person testimonial from a Day One’r named Forrest that changed his whole perspective on the show. Let’s wrap up season two with a bang!

JW breaks down a brief history of the events that led to the development of the Ford RS200 for Group B Rally. Afterwards, he tells some stories about someone important in his life who shares his affection for the RS200.