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Kevin Allison (3:54)

Now here's the show. Up in the morning and out to school. The teacher is teaching the golden rule, American history and practical man.

Ezra Holmland (4:39)

You study him hard and hoping to.

Kevin Allison (4:41)

Pass, Working your fingers right down to the bone and the guy behind you won't leave you alone. Ring, ring goes the bell. Hello folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, this is Chuck Berry behind me now. And we're calling this week's episode School Days 2 mostly fun and definitely affirming stories about unlikely good students. Now on the day this episode drops, you, dear listeners, will be a whole week past election day 2024. So myself Kevin recording this episode on the Monday right before Election Day, only hours before November 5th, I am hoping all of you in the future are doing well. Now in a little bit we're going to hear from the one and only Ezra Holmland. But before that, a story from Diana Medina. Thanks to Lisa Cantrell from Capitol Storytelling in Sacramento for sending us this story. Every now and then we run a story that was recorded at a storytelling show we love. And we love Capitol Storytelling. Now Diana Medina is a first generation Mexican American storyteller, a poet and an educator from Los Angeles. And here she is now with a story we call the Ferris Wheel rock, rock, rock and roll Feeling is there.

Ezra Holmland (6:32)

Body and Soul.

Diana Medina (6:44)

So it's 1996, and I'm in seventh grade, and I'm sitting in my math class. And our math teacher announces that we are going to have the first ever math fair at Mulholland Middle School. And everybody in our honors math class is required to submit a project to the fair. And this presented two challenges for me. Challenge number one is, I didn't feel very smart because I had been added to this honors math class after having been in the regular math class. And the teacher noticed that I was doing well, so she moved me into the honors math class. And when you are the smartest kid in the regular class, it's one thing, but then when they move you into the honors class, you move way down on the totem pole of smartness because you're in a room with a bunch of other people who are way smarter than you. And the second challenge was, I didn't know anybody in this class, and we needed to work in partners. And I was like, well, I don't know who I'm going to work with. But I ended up partnering with this girl named Lillian. And we didn't have a lot of parameters for the project other than three things. We needed to make a poster, we needed to build something, and we needed to use math in a meaningful way. So Lillian and I meet a couple times during lunches to try to figure out what we're going to do. We have a few weeks, and I quickly found out that Lillian and I both loved ideas and were very big procrastinators, because every time we met, every time we met, we'd be like, this is all great. We'll figure it out next time. And we'll figure it out next time. Eventually, we get down to a week before the math fair, and we still don't have a project. So we meet urgently in the library, and we go on AOL and we start looking up, what are we going to do? And we download and print this picture of a Ferris wheel from Texas. And as you know, the 1996 Internet, the picture was really grainy. So we look at the picture, and we decide, okay, we're going to make a Ferris wheel out of popsicle sticks, and that's going to be our project. And she was like, yes, I love it. It's going to be great. I was like, it's going to be great. We decide we're going to meet on Friday after school to build the Ferris wheel. And Lillian says, all right, I'm going to get Popsicle sticks. And I say, okay, cool. I'm going to get the glue, and we're going to meet at her house, and we're going to make this Ferris wheel happen. So Friday comes, and I go to Lillian's house after school, and we start trying to glue the Ferris wheel together, or the Popsicle sticks to make, like, the two circles on the sides of the Ferris wheel and realize it's really tedious. So then Lillian's like, oh, I have an idea. Why don't you glue your circle? And I glue my circle. That way we just make two circles, and it's faster because we both have the same measurements. We had already done some of the math and conversions to figure out what the. You know, how big it needed to be. So I said, okay. And I'm following Lillian's lead because I'm like, well, I'm not very, very smart. And maybe Lillian is smarter than me because she's been in this class longer. So we glue our two circles together, and when we're done, we hold them up and we're like, oh, okay. And they're crooked. They don't really match. And Lillian is like, okay, great. So you're going to figure out how to glue these together, right, and make this into a Ferris wheel. And I wanted. I wanted Lillian to think I was smart, but I looked at these two crooked Popsicle stick circles and was like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. But I said, yeah, I'll figure it out. To Lillian, and I take the two crooked circles home. Now, it's Saturday. I'm in the back porch of my house, and I'm spread out on a table with my math book with a bunch of scratch paper with the two big crooked circles. And I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to attach these two circles together. And my dad passes by. He looks at me, and I'm really stressed out. And he's like, what are you doing? And I said, making a Ferris wheel. And he looks at the table and he's like, conque. Which means, with what? And I hold up a Popsicle stick, and I'm like, conesto with this. And he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean? He's like, tell me again and explain it to me slowly. And a side note about my dad, my dad is a carpenter. He has, you know, all sorts of tools and things, like, strategically scattered all over our backyard. He immigrated to America in the 1970s to help support My mom and siblings who were living back in Mexico until eventually he made enough money to bring them all over. And then my sister Velya and I are the only two that were born here in the States. And when he was a child, he stopped going to school after second grade to go work with my grandfather, cutting down trees and turning them into lumber that they would use to build houses in the local town. So my dad cannot help but butt in when he sees somebody trying to make something. And that's exactly what he was doing. But I was really astonished because him stopping to take interest in what I was doing in that moment was a rarity. My dad worked two jobs. He worked as a carpenter during the week, and he worked as a handyman on the weekends. The only time I ever saw him was when he was either coming or going from work. And him taking an interest in what I was doing because I was doing something with sticks and trying to build something was a rarity. My dad had never been able to help me with my homework before, so he says, okay, explain it to me again. What are you making? What are you doing? So I say, okay, there's this math fair coming up, and me and Lillian made these two circles, and now I have to figure out how to do them together. And at this point, I'm really frustrated because he's taking up a lot of time making. Making me answer all these questions, and my project is due soon, and it's Saturday. And he's like, when is this due? And I said, Monday. And he's like, ah, come on, Miha, you don't have enough time that, you know, you need more time than this. And I said, I know, but, you know, I have to do it. And at this point in my head, I'm like, oh, my God, please stop talking to me, because I really have to finish my project. And he says, which means, tell me again, what are you making? And I start trying to talk about the math fair. And he's like, no, no, no. What are you making? Like, he wanted me to explain to him the Ferris wheel. And he's like, como la quieres? How do you want this thing? So I said, I want it to be a Ferris wheel. I needed to turn. I needed to be to scale of this grainy picture from a Ferris wheel in Texas. I needed to be a working Ferris wheel, and I have to somehow use math to do it. And then I pick up my papers that have all my weird calculations on them because I was, like, trying to make a scale model, and I hand it to him and I say, and this is for a math fair, so it's really important. And he looks at the pictures and he looks at all the stuff and he throws the stuff on the table. And he's like, nah, nah, nah. He's like, tu no necesitas tode se papeleo, which means, you don't need all this paper. He's like, that's bullshit. And he tells me to follow him. And so I follow him into the kitchen and he goes to this cabinet where my mom keeps all of her pots and pans. And he takes out this one giant pan that my mom uses every year to roast tamales. It is a giant pan, it's about 3ft tall. A small child fits inside of the pan. And he grabs the top from the pan and he takes it back to the table. He pushes all of my stuff out of the way, including my two crooked wheels that me and Lillian had painstakingly worked to make. And he starts laying popsicle sticks inside of the perimeter of the pan top and says, this is how you're going to glue your sticks together to make the two sides of your wheel even. And he goes and brings me wood glue. He brings me Q tips from the bathroom. He brings me a paper plate and he tells me to start gluing. So I'm gluing, and as I'm gluing, he's standing there watching me. And he goes, what are you going to use to make the base? And I said, more popsicle sticks, because that's all I have. And he's like, no, no, no, that's not going to work. And he goes averas and he walks away into like the depths of the backyard to go grab things. Now the phrase invento agricolam translates to agricultural invention. This is a phrase my dad loves to say and use when he is going to use his talents and resourcefulness to like make something happen out of nothing. It has nothing to do with agriculture. He just likes the way it sounds. So that's why he says it. And he comes back with scrap wood. He pulls out his table saw and he starts just tinkering. And an hour later I have a base for my Ferris wheel. And then he shows me how to attach the two sides of the wheel that I made with more pieces of little scrap wood, with bits and pieces of popsicle stick. And then, you know, a little while later, he makes somehow this like weird dial looking thing and finds a dowel out of an old broomstick and sticks it in the middle and by, you know, an hour later, there's a working Ferris wheel on the table. And then he goes, que mas nesitas, mija? What else do you need? And I said. Because I know he's busy. And at this point, I'm like. I had already taken a lot of time, and I'm like. And I still need to do the math calculations and call Lillian and tell her that somehow we made a Ferris wheel happen. And I said, no nada. Si sta vien. That's it. I'm fine. And he's like, no, no. He's like, ferris wheel. And he's like, looking at the grainy picture of the Ferris wheel from Texas, and he's like, you need little seats for people. Like, where are they gonna sit? So he grabs a handful of Popsicle sticks and walks over to his saw, and he, like, saws a whole bunch of them in half. And he starts gluing them together to make these little baskets. And he's like, okay. He's like, me vasa sen muchas destas. And he tells me how many baskets to make. You're gonna make a bunch of these. And so I make these little baskets as he's telling me to make them, and then he finds a little drill and drills holes in the sides of the baskets, and he runs a wire through them. And then he puts old paper clips on them. And maybe another hour and a half later, there's a Ferris wheel with little baskets, and it's spinning, and the baskets are swinging on the Ferris wheel. And we leave it like that until the next morning. So now it's Sunday. I wake up and go out into the kitchen, and my dad is drinking his coffee, and he's like, what else do you need for our project? And he's, like, looking at the picture, and he's like, oh. He's like, do you want me to put grass on it? He's like, maybe we can. Maybe we can make it look like a carnival. He's like, oh, maybe we should paint it. And he just has all these ideas. And I said, no, no, si, stavien. It's fine. It's fine. And by that point, you know, it's Sunday. We have to go to church, we have to run errands. We have to do all these things. And I still have to call Lillian, but I let him convince me to put some of my nephew's action figures in the baskets because he wants to test the structural integrity of the swinging baskets. And it works. So we go to church, we come back, I Call Lillian. I tell her what happened. And the next day, Monday is the math fair. So now it's Monday. And her and I decide frantically, in true procrastinator fashion, that we also have to make our poster because we hadn't had a chance to do that. So we meet up at nutrition, frantically glued together the three part board of our math fair project. And it's like popsicle stick, Ferris wheel, amazing. And we put the Ferris wheel in front and take it to the auditorium, put it on the table and all that stuff. And people are passing by and the teachers are judges in the math fair. And everybody's really impressed with the Ferris wheel and how it's spinning. And my dad said, bring the action figure so they can see that people can sit in the little baskets, right? So people are spinning it and liking it. And my teacher is so impressed and she's like, how did you do this? And I said, my dad helped us. And I didn't tell her that we didn't use any math until after the fact. I didn't tell her that, you know, my dad butted in and maybe use a pantop and all these random things. I didn't tell her that my dad had never helped me with my homework before and that this was a really special moment for me. And we ended up winning first place in the math fair. And the teacher was so impressed with our Ferris wheel that she took it to the staff meeting and said, look at what my honors math students made. And she had that Ferris wheel displayed in her classroom for the rest of the year and two years after. And that Ferris wheel was the first of many things that my dad has made for me. My dad has made me bookshelves, he's made me coffee tables. He's made me coat racks, cutting boards, rolling pins. He has made my siblings patio furniture. He has made them decks, porches, playhouses for their kids. He's even made my niece a baby doll bed that is like, exactly to the specifications that she asked for. And any time he ever sees any of us needing something, wanting to buy something, he's like, no, no, no. What do you. I can make that. What do you need? Como lo quieres? How do you want it? And seemingly, like magic, a few days later, the thing we want appears exactly how we asked for it. And most recently, the thing my dad built for me is a portable wooden stage for us to use at the nonprofit that I work at where we teach public speaking skills to kids. And when I asked him about it, all I remember was the way he was asking me the questions about it. Como lo quieres? How do you want it? Who's going to be using it? Will old people be stepping on the stage? Will young people be stepping on the stage? Who's moving it? Are you moving it? Are you moving it in your car? Is there going to be people helping you? All these questions and questions and questions until eventually he made me this four part stage that fits in the back of my Honda Fit, it's on wheels so that I don't hurt my back moving it. And last month when our organization had an event, my dad drove six hours from Los Angeles to Richmond, California to see our students use that stage. And he saw me perform poetry on that stage. And I'll never forget the look on his face the whole day. He was sitting there and people were like, oh, you know, he'd be walking around talking to people and he's like, I built the stage. I built the stage right, really proud. And it's beautiful to me because my dad has used his talents and his hands in many ways to make my life better, to make my work more meaningful. And I didn't know what could be a love language until my dad and all the things I've noticed he makes for us. He's not a man of many words, but every time we need something, he's like, como lo quieres? How do you want it? And then he makes it. And these days I'm very sad that I live nearby him anymore, but I stay in touch with him by calling him whenever I need help with a DIY project. And I FaceTime him and ask him questions about it. And when I'm feeling really, really anxious about things, I go to his favorite place, Home Depot, and I go to the wood and lumber section of that place to smell the wood because it reminds me of him. And every time I take a breath in the section of that store, it reminds me to approach seemingly insurmountable things like that Ferris wheel project calmly, with curiosity and with patience. And that's the way I remind myself to be more like him. Thank you.

Ezra Holmland (22:52)

I'll ride the roller coaster on a carousel I like the spider and the.

Kevin Allison (23:06)

Diving bell.

Ezra Holmland (23:11)

But since she's gone I don't like so well the fairest wheel I'll ride the rockoplane or the tilt of world it wasn't on these rides.

Diana Medina (23:40)

I lost my girl Way up high.

Ezra Holmland (23:49)

Is where I lost her on the Ferris wheel on the Ferris wheel.

Diana Medina (24:03)

On.

Ezra Holmland (24:03)

The Ferris wheel we'll be right back.

Jenna Fischer (24:08)

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Ezra Holmland (25:15)

We are best friends and together we have the podcast Office Ladies where we rewatched every single episode of the Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me?

Diana Medina (25:28)

Steve.

Ezra Holmland (25:31)

Carell in the studio. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exciting exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus on Mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Diana Medina (26:43)

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Ezra Holmland (27:12)

We're back.

Kevin Allison (27:27)

This is Risk. I asked the Internet for an instrumental song with school in the title. And so this is the school song by Dream Theater behind me now. We just heard from Diana Medina, who you can find on Instagram @offtheclocker. And to help her finish her next book, go to buymeacoffee.com off the clocker, folks. Over on Patreon, there's a new bonus story out now by none other than the amazing Melanie Hamlet, a long time Risk favorite. And it sounds a little something like this.

Melanie Hamlet (28:07)

At night, I would stay up like he's a night owl and he would just, you know, stay up until 2 in the morning. My sister and my stepmom would go to bed and I would just stay up with him just to be near him. And he's kind of fun when he's drunk. And he'd be like. But then like, he goes into like sad dad mode and he starts after like 10 o'clock, he stops being funny and he just gets sad. And he would always be like, bitch about his dad and how his dad didn't love him. And I mean, I heard the same story every night as I got older, especially as like more of a teenager. I'm just like, fuck this dude. Like, I started getting pissed. Cause I'm like, I just want to be like, well, at least your dad didn't leave. You know, it's like I started getting resentful that I'm like his free therapist. I could have gone to bed, but I'm like codependent. So anyway, truth.

Kevin Allison (28:55)

And there's plenty more where that came from. Plus the ad free feed of the podcast that you can plug right into your regular podcast app@patreon.com risk Next up, we're going to hear from Ezra Holmland. Now, back in 2022, Ezra told that riveting and mournful story called Ten Unforgettable Pounds about his little dog Izzy's fateful encounter with a wild cougar. And he's back now with another amazingly titled tale. I should warn you, there's child sex abuse allegations happening in this story. And here is Ezra Homeland now with a story we call Jimmy side Pocket's Junior class president.

Ezra Holmland (30:14)

So several years ago at Thanksgiving, my cousin, he looks across the table at me and he says, you almost made it into the high school curriculum. All my family members kind of laughed. Inside. They all knew what he was talking about. See, my cousin, he works for one of those companies that decides what goes into the high school curriculum, what goes into the books. And he explained that when the topic of free speech came up, that my case came up for possible inclusion. He said it was pretty fun to raise his hand and say, yeah, that was my cousin. Unfortunately, I did not make it into the high school curriculum. And maybe that was for the best, because, to be honest, I still don't know how I feel about all that. It happened during my junior year of high school. I was junior class president, and I was a very presidential young man. This all took place at centennial high school, Portland, Oregon, 1995. So, first day of my junior year, first day of being in class president, I showed up to school with this huge fresh black eye. I gotten punched out at a punk rock show, and I was wearing this t shirt that just says vacuuming sucks in big black letters. Now, the student activities director, he was not impressed with my sense of professionalism. And I quickly learned that I was not impressed with the job of being junior class president. We decided things like the theme for the winter formal, how pep rallies should go, ideas for spirit Fridays. These were things that I had a very limited interest in, to say the least. And my attitude probably showed that first line of my speech was, most of you know me. Some of you want to beat me up, and I want to be your junior class president. And I won. I actually fucking won. Kind of surprised everyone, including me, now understand I wasn't a complete nihilist or anything. I still cared about some things. I still had good grades. I cared about what my friends and my family thought about me. I wasn't a sociopath or anything. I just didn't care what the world at large thought about me. It was one of the best gifts that the universe could have ever given me in high school. So, junior year, class president, it was a slow start. First couple months of school, not much happened. Honestly, the whole class president thing felt rather pointless. It was just a nice accolade for a college applicant. But a few months in, I actually had the chance to start being presidential. The whispers started slowly. I started hearing them in physics class. And then in trigonometry, the band kids were whispering. I wasn't in band, but I knew a lot of the band kids. And the band teacher had been absent for a couple of weeks, and so had one of the senior girls in band. So I started asking around. Every band kid that I asked had a different anecdote, A little interaction that they'd seen between the band teacher and the Student. Now, each story on its own, it wouldn't have proved anything. But all 40 stories together. Oh, it became evidently clear that they were having a sexual relationship. And the principal. The principal had gone down and stood in front of the band class and explained that Mr. Dyer is going through some personal things and that he'd be taking the rest of the month off from school. Now, obviously, that was a lot. And as class president, I thought I should set the record straight. So I went home after school that day, and with the help of a couple of friends, I put together an underground newspaper titled the newspaper the Goons of Hazzard. I wrote the lead article, titled it, Do I Get an A? I wrote under the pseudonym Jimmy side Pocket. And I talked about how teachers probably shouldn't be sleeping with their students in high school, that it didn't set a great precedent. You know, we had some other amazing articles, like Making Smoking a School Sports. You could get a little cigarette pin for your letterman jacket. Real highbrow stuff. So I made 50 copies of the paper, two pages stapled together, and I stuffed those into my backpack. And I showed up to school half hour early the next morning. I slid a few copies into this bathroom, a few copies into that bathroom. A few copies here, a few copies there, a few copies into the locker room. Then the first bell rang. School started, and it didn't take long. By third period, there were copies everywhere. Kids were making copies left and right. Even the teachers were reading it. At this point, I'd hear the students between classes in the hallways. I could. Oh, he was sleeping with her. Oh, he was fucking her.

Kevin Allison (35:48)

Oh.

Ezra Holmland (35:49)

I mean, it was going way better than I ever imagined. And it didn't take long for the school administration to figure out who'd written it. I was in fourth period math class, and the school security guard comes into the room, points at me and he says, you come with me. Well, they'd figured out Jimmy side Pocket was. I was a little bit scared. So I get up and I follow him down to the principal's office. The principal is there, the vice principal and the student activities director. And when I walk in, the principal, he says, are you Jimmy side Pocket? I kind of smirked, you know, figured there was no way out of this one. So I said, yeah, I'm Jimmy side Pocket. And then the principal just unleashed on me, you have no idea what you've done. Do you know what slander is? Do you know that Mr. Dyer can sue you for slander? And I thought, oh, maybe I flew a little too close to the sun on this one. But then I asked him, he's like, where is Mr. Dyer then? And there was this pause between them, and it lasted just a little too long before the principal said, Mr. Dyer is going through some personal things. And that is all. And they called my mother, and she came down to pick me up. And then they told me that I was suspended for two weeks, that I was no longer junior class president, and because I'd broken so many rules, that I was facing possible expulsion. On the car ride home with my mom, I told her, like, mom, I really think the band teacher was sleeping with one of his students. And my mom said, well, then you did the right thing. So that night after dinner, telephone rang. This is back in the time of landlines, and it was for me. So I pick up, say hello. And this voice says, hello, Ezra. My daughter goes to school with you. And I work for the Oregonian. That's the big newspaper in Oregon, the big state paper. And he says, I was wondering if you could tell me about what happened at school today. So I tell him all about it. And then he asked, would it be possible if I could come over to your house and do an interview with you? So I asked my folks, and they say, yeah, absolutely. So a couple hours later, this guy shows up and he's brought a photographer and a lighting crew, and they take pictures of me and my family sitting on the couch. And then he does this big interview with me, and I tell him about what happened, what I'd heard, why I'd written the newspaper, the punishment that the school had given me, the whole story. The interview lasted about an hour. And at the end, you know, we stood up, shook hands, and he told me, you're gonna be in tomorrow's newspaper. And I thought, all right, all right. Looks like Jimmy's side pocket is back. So the next morning, I wake up early, and I go out to the mailbox, grab the paper, and I go inside and I set the newspaper down on the dining room table. And there I am on the front page, a picture of me and my family sitting on the couch. And then I read the article. Turns out that the parents of that student, the one who'd been absent, well, they had filed statutory rape charges against the band teacher. And the school administration had been trying to keep it quiet. Looks like I wasn't gonna get sued for slander after all. And then the phone, it just started ringing nonstop. By noon, I was doing TV interviews with all the local news stations out in front of my house. And, oh, I Was hitting back. You bet I was hitting back. I was talking about losing my presidency, about trying to do the right thing, the school punishing me. You bet I was hitting back. So that night, I made all the local evening news broadcasts. There I was on tv. And then the phone really started ringing. I mean, nonstop. People were calling me from across the state to congratulate me for being a brave young man. And the next day, it was even worse. I did more interviews with other newspapers. I even did an interview with a college law review journal. The phone was just ringing and ringing. And at first, I'll admit it, I liked the attention. I did. I'd never experienced anything like that before. But very quickly, it all just became really overwhelming. And I started to realize, like, I don't think I like the spotlight. But then. Then a movie producer called me, said she'd read about me in the newspaper, that she was in Portland making a movie based on a very similar topic. And then she asked me if I wanted to be in it. Of course, I said yes. You know, I've always been interested in how movies were made. And two days later, I was on a movie set shaking hands with Angelina Jolie. Movie sets are crazy places. You know, they're just full of people who just crave attention. And that's kind of the exact opposite of what I wanted at that point. But I did end up selling weed to a couple of the actors on the set. I did like that part. Movies called Foxfire. Not a great film. Really. Not a great film. But if you watch the trailer, you can catch a glimpse of old Jimmy side Pocket. And at home, man, when I got home, the phone, it just kept ringing and ringing. More interviews made the front page of the Oregonian again. And this is in the span of a week. You know, I was really starting to feel overwhelmed. Now, the school district, they were taking some hits, some serious PR hits. And the principal, he calls me up and says, hey, hey, hey. We'd like to meet with you tomorrow. So the next day, I'm back in the principal's office with my mother. And the principal is there and the vice principal and the student activities director. But now there's also a superintendent and a lawyer. And the principal, he starts in, who. I just wanted to say that we're sorry about the misunderstanding, and we'd like to let you know that you're no longer suspended and that you can have your class presidency back and you can come back to school tomorrow if you like. And I'm just sitting there thinking, what happened to Getting sued for slander. What happened to that? And I was just starting to fill up with rage. I mean, feeling up. So I let him have a little bit of my rage. I was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. What? You scared the shit out of me. You threatened me with a lawsuit while trying to cover up all his shit. And now. Now that you got caught, you're like, oh, you're not in trouble anymore. You're supposed to be the adults here. You're supposed to be the role models. What kind of lessons are you trying to fucking teach me here? What kind of lesson is this? Fuck off. Even my mom's like, simmer down, young man. Simmer down. And they all just sat there in silence. And I do have to say, when you're 16 years old and you can tell someone in authority, someone in direct authority over you to fuck off without any repercussions, that feels pretty good. That feels really good. So we left the office, went home, and the phone had just kept ringing and ringing. And I'm starting to reach critical mass. I don't want to talk anymore. I don't want any more of this attention. And. And that evening, my older brother, he's 19, graduated, but still living at home. He says to me, hey, we should get back into fly fishing. And my older brother, I think he could tell that I was starting to feel really overwhelmed. Our dad had taken us fishing as kids. And my older brother says, let's just drive out to the Deschutes tomorrow. We'll borrow Dad's waders and gear, and we'll go. And that's exactly what we did. We went fishing. I did not go back to school the next day. And it was wonderful, wonderful. We didn't catch anything but standing in the middle of a river, oh, God, that felt so good. It was just a reprieve from everything. And that evening, and when we got home, the phones just ringing and ringing. And one of the phone calls that night, it was a lawyer from the aclu. Lawyer told me that she'd read all about me in the paper and that what I had done was great and that we had a real case on our hands that we could fight for student free speech rights and that the case was substantial, that it was significant. But at this point, I was just done talking. I didn't want to be the spokesperson for student free speech rights. One of my biggest regrets to this day, because that lawsuit probably could have paid for college and then some, but I just told her, it's like, look, I'm sorry But I just think I want to go fishing. And I hung up. And that's exactly what I did. Next day, brother and I, we drove back out to the Deschutes, went fishing. I didn't not go back to school. And it was absolutely amazing. Now, of course, I did go back to school and continued to be junior class president. But for the rest of my junior year, I skipped every Thursday and Friday, drove out to the Deschutes and went fishing with my brother. And the school administration said nothing. Nothing. They didn't want any more Trouble. And my GPA in my junior year, I got a 0.75. I went from a 4 point to a 75. But I was starting to learn how to catch trout on the Deschutes. Fair trade off, to say the least. I mean, I fell in love. I just fell in love with standing in the middle of a river. I remember one morning specifically, brother and I, we'd walk down the train tracks to our favorite spot. We called it the Boulder Patch. And I waded out into the river, waist deep, and I looked upstream and the caddisflies and the mayflies were bouncing off the surface of the water. And the trout were rising and feeding on them. And the red winged blackbirds were singing their song in the bushes. And the crickets were humming and there was an offspray overhead. And the whole place, it just felt electric. Like touching your tongue to a 9 volt battery. Electric. It was everywhere. Everywhere. And as I stood there waist deep in the river, I knew that I'd found something special. Something that not everyone finds in this lifetime. I found a place where I was so excited every time I showed up. Like a little kid, just giddy. A place that let me forget about everything else. Rivers are amazing places. Even to this day, I still feel that same excitement when I wade out into the water. It's still just as electric like it was back in high school. And I feel so lucky to have found rivers and fishing in high school, because high school, you know, it's a crucial time when you're trying to develop your sense of right and wrong. And these microcosms of morality are constantly unfolding in front of you. And these moments, they imprint on you as a teenager, they imprint, you know, like the school administration covering up the sins of one of its teachers and intimidating me and threatening me and then getting caught and turning around and saying like, oh, oh, oh, we're sorry, we made a mistake. You know, these things imprint on you as a teenager. And I wasn't without my own sin several Months after the whole underground newspaper incident, as class president, I was put in charge of selling prom tickets. And it was easy to rig the numbers. I'd sell 20 tickets a day and fix the numbers. So I only sold 15. Pocket the difference. I stole 800 to $1,000 from the school, and I did it willingly. Thought the school had fucked me, so I was going to them. I mean, I was a teenager. I was in the beginning stages of development, developing my sense of morality. And when I look back on it now, you know, I don't feel great about stealing from the school, but at the same time, I don't feel bad about ruining Mr. Dyer's career whatsoever. There's some things that you just shouldn't do, you know, you just shouldn't sleep with your students in high school. So at Thanksgiving, you know, at the table with my family, all reflecting on the table, I said, could you guys imagine me being the advocate for student free speech rights when I was 16? The ACLU would have had their hands full. I don't think they would have been ready for Jimmy's side pocket. The ACLU would have put me in front of a microphone and been like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We support student free speech rights, but we don't think this is gonna work out. Happy hour belongs to America's best love thugs. Here come the four wheel drive for Santa Fe. His ass Doctor thug racks tractor ties and Richmond drivers We couldn't find a chick we sit in the middle so we tricked ourselves sick Cleaned out the.

Diana Medina (50:53)

Windows and the gas inst.

Ezra Holmland (50:57)

Follow through.

Kevin Allison (51:02)

We'Re on down by this is Risk. This is Alice Cooper behind me now with dead Kennedys. Before that, and before both of them, of course, Ezra, Homeland. Ezra once fled the United States to go live as a fugitive in Brazil. And he's been sharing the pieces of his long form story about that on YouTube and he shares regularly at Gorge Storytelling in Hood River, Oregon. You can find out more about all of that@ezrahomeland.com Also, Ezra and I talked afterwards and we just wanted to make it clear that in all of the reporting around that story, both in Ezra Zine and in the wider media's covering of it, the young lady at the center of it all was never named. There were of course, kids in band who had suspicions about who that might be, but she admitted least was spared any of the media reporting around it. Well, folks, I believe we have 10 folks now signed up for our fundraiser, this vacation trip to Portugal with me and jc, the business director of Risk. We're going to have wonderful meals and sightseeing, story sharing and so much more. It'll all be happening in May of 2025 and you can sign up for the trip too. We'd love it if we could get 15 or 20 folks on the trip because the more the merrier and because Risk vans are such great company. So go to risk-show.com Portugal to learn more and you can click on the link for signing up right there. Again, that's risk-show.com Portugal and if you have any questions, just email me@Kevin risk-show.com Folks, tomorrow we're releasing another beautifully intimate and fascinating story from Adarius Bell in conversation with our own Taj Easton. But that's tomorrow. And folks, today's the day. Take a Risk Scooter and up.

Diana Medina (54:15)

Scooter School down with fever School out come.

Kevin Allison (54:57)

Hey folks, there's so much more of Risk in the holiday season. Risk is always publishing new episodes and new stories stories as well as holiday favorites. This holiday season, don't forget, click on Risk.