Do you have a best friend?

I have a best friend. His name is Tim. He and I grew up together in Ohio. We went to the same school, same church, we would sleep over at each other’s house all the time. And we each have younger brothers, and they were also good friends, and our parents were really close as well. 

Of course I’m in Florida now, and Tim still lives up in Ohio. We haven’t seen each other in years, but we still communicate by phone and on Facebook pretty regularly. Tim’s the kind of guy that if I told him I had some kind of emergency and needed him here, he’d be on the next plane. And I’d do the same for him. That’s just what best friends are supposed to do.

My guest on the podcast today is Alex, and his story kind of illustrates that.

He was out working one day with a group of guys. This was in the summer, and they were working on a mountain that in the winter functioned as a ski slope. They were using chainsaws and getting the long mountain slope cleared of trees and other debris.

Alex ends up getting seriously injured. But it wasn’t his chainsaw that caused his injury. And he didn’t get hit by a falling tree. Alex was run over from behind by an unmanned 1800 pound ATV, and he found himself trapped underneath it. He couldn’t get out; he couldn’t even move. And since he didn’t know if anyone else had seen this happen, he suddenly felt very alone.

Then, his best friend Greg showed up.

Alex’s podcast website: https://thebuildersjourney.com

Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255

Suicide Prevention Text Line: 741741

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This podcast is sponsored by A Life’s Story podcast – incredible true stories of amazing people. Binge all 14 episodes of Season 1 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. 

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Most adults remember where they were on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

In New York City, there were some thunderstorms the night before, but that day, 9/11, had started out beautiful and sunny, with clear skies. 

Then people started noticing that some large passenger planes were flying too low.

When the first building was hit, there was confusion. Even the office workers who were in the building didn’t know exactly what had happened, just that there was an explosion and lots of smoke.

The New York metropolitan area is home to the busiest airport system in the United States, with 3 major airports: JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia. On that morning, the air traffic controllers were also communicating about what they were seeing, and trying to figure out what was happening.

On the ground, there were many 911 calls coming in. Firefighters were deployed from stations all over the city, as well as police officers from the NYPD and the Port Authority.

One of the people involved on that day is my guest for this episode, Tim Brown. He was a New York City firefighter for 20 years, and that knowledge and experience lead to a job working in the Mayor’s office. He was specifically equipped to know what to do when any big emergency happened. He was one of the people who were in charge.

But like everyone else on that morning 20 years ago, he had no idea what he was about to experience.

Tunnel to Towers Foundation: https://t2t.org

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/fftimnyc

Website: http://www.fftim.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timbrown682/

Tim Brown email:

[email protected]

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I was watching a video online recently. I don’t remember where it was, probably in a subreddit. It was recorded on a security camera in some business. There’s no sound, but you can pretty much tell what’s going on. These two men are standing there, and they are obviously in some kind of argument. You know how, even when you can’t hear what someone is saying, it’s easy to see that they’re upset just because of their body language? That’s what this was.

I don’t know if they were two customers, or a manager and a customer, doesn’t really matter. But they were angry. And they were getting up in each other’s face, but neither of them had touched the other one yet. It looked like it might evolve into a fist fight, but for now it was just a verbal confrontation.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a third person enters the view of the camera. He comes up behind one of the guys, and, from behind, hauls off and closed-fist punches him right in the head. And he’s out cold. Of course, he never had a chance to defend himself, or even to brace for the hit, because he never saw it coming. That’s what’s called a sucker punch. It just comes out of nowhere and knocks you right out.

That’s kind of what we’re talking about in today’s podcast episode.

But this story has nothing to do with a physical fight or anyone being hit in the head. I’m talking about an emotional sucker punch. This is when someone looks you in the eye, and they deliver some kind of news that you were not expecting at all, and what they just told you suddenly changes your whole life. As in, you know nothing is going to be the same going forward.

That’s what happened to Victoria one Saturday morning, when a former neighbor showed up on her doorstep.

Warning about this episode. Some of the content may be triggering, and isn’t suitable for children. So if you have kids in the car, you might want to skip this one or listen to it later. 

This episode is sponsored by A Life’s Story podcast – life stories of incredible people. Listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp online counseling – get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/WHATWAS.

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There’s something I find really fascinating, and that’s learning about the wildly different ways people react in a sudden emergency situation.

Imagine you’re in a restaurant and the main dining room is full of people. Everyone’s talking, servers are buzzing around to their various tables, people are enjoying their food. Then suddenly at the table next to you, a middle-aged man clutches his chest, yells out in pain, and falls from his chair. It’s pretty clear he’s having a heart attack. He’s still conscious and breathing, but he is clearly in distress.

And what does everyone do? No doubt, there will be a person who will yell out for someone to call 911. There will be people who see what’s happening, and their first reaction is to quickly look around the room, like they’re looking for help. There might be someone who goes to the man and tries to do CPR. Incidentally, if someone is still awake and breathing, you don’t need to do CPR. I can guarantee that many of the people at the nearby tables will not do anything – they’re definitely going to watch and see what happens, but they won’t take any action themselves. And there will be some people who will immediately get up and get away from what’s going on. Their brain tells them they need to leave. I know this, because I’ve seen it happen.

And there will be some people who remain calm, and try to help. They’ll make sure someone has called for paramedics (or they’ll just take out their phone and make the call). They’ll get the man into a comfortable position, maybe talk to him, maybe check his pulse. These are the people you want to have around when something happens.

But that’s the interesting thing about this. If you’ve never been in a situation like that, you don’t really know for sure how you’ll react. 

My guest today, Jen, doesn’t have to wonder about that. She knows how she reacts. That’s because one day at work in a retail clothing store, she turned around and was facing the barrel of a gun. 

Jen’s podcast is called I NEED BLUE – www.IneedBlue.net

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp online counseling – get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/WHATWAS.

This episode is sponsored by Felix Gray blue-light glasses. Get yours at FelixGrayGlasses.com/WHAT. 

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This is a bonus episode on an off-week Friday.

Today you'll hear Jessica's story of what happened to her fiancé Mike. Jessica and Mike have been together for seven years, and have five children.

After a short family vacation, Mike got sick and was unexpectedly diagnosed with Covid. He was unvaccinated.

If you would like to help, a GoFundMe account has been set up.

Music credit:

Almost in F by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3354-almost-in-f

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Today’s story takes place off the coast of Somalia, a country in Africa.

If you look at Africa on a map, you’ll see Somalia on the east coast, right on the water of the Indian Ocean. In fact, of all the countries in Africa, Somalia is the one with the longest coastline. And for the Americans listening, to give you an idea of how big it is, Somalia is almost the same size as the US state of Texas.

But here’s the thing about Somalia. It’s considered to be one of the poorest countries in the world. I mean, here in Florida, we have homeless people. Some of you know, I work with a group here to help the homeless population get the things they need. But in Somalia, literally half of the people in that country don’t have a home or any kind of permanent residence. This means there are millions of people who are desperate, and hungry, and they’re vulnerable to abuse.

And just on the north side of Somalia is the Gulf of Aden. This is a very popular water route for large ships carrying lots of cargo, headed either to or from the Suez Canal. In fact, each year there are around 20,000 of these ships passing by. That’s more than 50 ships every single day.

So there’s a certain sector of the Somali population who sees all this valuable cargo going by each day, and they see an opportunity to make money. These are modern day pirates. They see many of these big ships as easy targets. I mean if there’s a large cargo ship carrying manufactured goods, they just want to get from point A to point B. They typically aren’t equipped to fight off or defend their ship from being hijacked and held for ransom. 

But today we’re going to hear a story from Robert. There was a time he was on one of those big ships, off the coast of Somalia. The pirates saw it as easy money. What they didn’t see was that Robert’s ship, the one being attacked, was a warship in the US Navy.

This episode sponsored by BetterHelp online counseling – get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/WHATWAS.

Reach more prospects by being a guest on podcasts! The Monetize the Mic conference, August 10-11, 2021, will teach you how to do that. Get your tickets at this affiliate link: WhatWasThatLike.com/conference

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I remember the first time I was ever exposed to domestic violence. My home life growing up was very much non-violent. I was the oldest of 3 boys, and of course we fought sometimes just like all brothers do. But really it was more arguing than fighting. We never got violent with each other. And my parents? I could never imagine either of them even thinking about hitting the other. It’s just not something that would ever be considered. They had been married for 56 years when my dad passed away in 2016. So I guess you could say I grew up pretty sheltered from that kind of thing. I just never saw it. But there was a time when I had a regular job, working in an office with probably 30 or 40 other people. This was quite a few years ago, and it was here in Florida, in downtown Tampa. I went in to work one day, and that morning I was surprised to see one of my co-workers, a young lady probably around 25 or so, had come to work with a bad black eye. Actually it was more than her eye – much of one side of her face was bruised and swollen.  And when I saw her, in my sheltered little world I actually wondered what had happened. I didn’t ask her about it, because we weren’t what you would call “close” friends, and it was really none of my business anyway. But later on as I heard others discussing it, I realized that she had been beaten by her boyfriend. And at first I was really surprised – like why would anyone do that? She’s such a nice girl, always smiling, always friendly. Didn’t make sense. Then I got angry. I imagined what it would be like if someone did that to my wife, or one of my kids.  So that was my first exposure to the results of domestic violence. But the reality is that it’s very, very common. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, more than 1 out of 3 women and 1 out of 4 men in the US will experience rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner. That’s the situation that Shareen found herself in. She was in constant fear of Jerome’s anger and his violence. And she didn’t think there was any way out for her. Finally, she confided in a co-worker – and neither of them had any idea of the terrifying experience they were in for that day. If you’re in an abusive or violent relationship, please tell someone. If you don’t have a person in your life you can talk to directly, here in the US you can get in touch with the National Domestic Violence Hotline. You can call them at 800-799-7233, or you can text the word START to 88788, or you can chat live with someone on their website at THEHOTLINE.ORG. If you need website hosting, the company I use and recommend is Siteground (affiliate link). For jewelry that’s beautiful AND earth friendly, go to AnaLuisa.com/WHAT and use the promo code WHAT for 10% off any item. 

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In a perfect world, a child should be able to trust an adult. Children are dependent on adults for healthy food, medical attention, an education, and a safe environment. Children should be able to expect their parents to love them and protect them from any harm. But we don’t live in a perfect world. For my guest today, Michael, he and his siblings lived in a small home in Tampa, Florida. They desperately needed protection from harm.  But the harm was coming from their parents.  It was mostly his mother, Jamie Hicks. And because they were all home schooled, the abuse went undetected.  In our conversation, Michael described some of the things he and the other children experienced from their abusive mother. And their father who did almost nothing to stop it from happening. There was a time when Child Protective Services was called out and investigated the family, but they weren’t able to put the pieces together enough to figure out what was going on in that house. So Michael and the other older children decided to come up with a plan to escape. Warning: this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence against children. Listener discretion is advised.

This episode is sponsored by Felix Gray – for the best blue light filtering glasses on the market today, go to FelixGrayGlasses.com/WHAT.

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DNA technology is pretty amazing, and it’s gone mainstream. I recently submitted a DNA kit with one of the companies called 23andme. I got the results back, and they gave me a list of 1500 people who were all “somewhere” in my family tree. And I’ve even gotten in touch with some of them.  Here’s an example. When I was a kid, we lived in Ohio but we had a lot of family in Virginia because that’s where my dad was from. I had a great uncle who lived in Virginia, and he was in the market for a dog. Well, it turns out our dog had just had a litter of puppies and we had a dog available. This puppy was a mixed breed but probably mostly black lab, and he was all black except for a little bit of white right on the tip of his tail. So we named him Tippy. I’m a real animal lover and I loved Tippy. This was when I was probably about 9 or 10 years old. We drove to Virginia and brought him with us, because he was of course going to live with my uncle. I remember the day we were leaving, and the last time I saw Tippy. I was really sad. Okay, now fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I got the results back from the DNA test. I got in touch with a young lady who was actually the granddaughter of my uncle in Virginia. I mentioned to her the story about Tippy (mainly because it’s one of the stories that stands out from my childhood). Later that day, she emailed me a picture of my uncle – and there was Tippy, in that picture. She said she remembered my great uncle, her grandfather, having that dog and what great companions they were. So I thought that was pretty cool. But that’s nothing compared to the story you’re about to hear from today’s guest, Monica. She’s 40 years old, she lives in the Midwest, and she has gone through her whole life, in a lot of ways, just like lots of other people. She grew up in a typical family environment, with her mom and her dad, so of course she knew who her family was. But then she discovered that what she thought was true for 40 years, wasn’t actually the truth at all. Links: 23andme.comAncestry.com

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Remember that Seinfeld episode where George is at his girlfriend’s mother’s house, and he sees a partially eaten éclair in the kitchen trash can, and he picks it up and takes a bite? Of course, someone sees him do it, and he tries to explain, and all sorts of hijinks ensue because that’s the world of TV sitcoms. My guest on today’s episode, in a way, plays that role in real life. He’s well-educated, fully employed, married, and is certainly able to afford buying groceries. But he doesn’t spend any money on food, since he’s able to get his food for free. And his freezers and pantry are full.  Ricky’s food doesn’t come from inside the grocery story, but rather from the large bin behind the store. Want to learn more about the unusual subculture and community of dumpster divers, and see what kinds of things they find each day? Check out their subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DumpsterDiving/

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