EP6 - "Path Not Taken"

Summary

The Musers The Podcast - Episode 6: "Path Not Taken"

Release Date: July 30, 2025
Host/Authors: George Dunham, Craig “Junior” Miller, and Gordon Keith
Network: Cumulus Podcast Network

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In Episode 6, titled "Path Not Taken," The Musers delve into the pivotal moments and decisions that have shaped their lives. Hosted by George Dunham, Craig “Junior” Miller, and Gordon Keith, the trio explores how seemingly small choices or unforeseen circumstances can lead to vastly different life trajectories. This reflective episode offers listeners an intimate look into the hosts' personal histories, the impact of relocations, experiences with bullying, and the interconnectedness of their professional paths.

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2. Early Life and Relocation

The conversation begins with Gordon Keith reflecting on his upbringing in a small town in Central Texas and pondering how different his life might have been had his father not accepted a job in Dallas:

Gordon Keith [03:56]: "Shouldn't we all three start with where we were placed by our parents? Because I think that's what I always think about."

George Dunham contrasts his upbringing, sharing his move from Gulfport, Mississippi to Richardson, Texas during sixth grade:

George Dunham [07:53]: "I moved from a town in Mississippi... My dad drops the bomb on us that, hey, I feel I've been called to a church in Richardson, Texas."

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3. Impact of Geography on Careers

Gordon discusses how staying in his hometown might have led him down a completely different path, possibly involving ranching:

Gordon Keith [05:14]: "I was an FFA... I may have stayed in FFA and my grandfather had a ranch."

Craig Miller shares his experience of multiple relocations during childhood, which accustomed him to moving frequently, but also shaped his adult decisions:

Craig Miller [14:55]: "I moved when I was 3 from San Antonio to Minneapolis... moved again at the age of 12, then moved again at 15."

George Dunham highlights how moving to a larger city like Dallas opened new opportunities but also brought challenges:

George Dunham [09:34]: "I thought everything good would continue if you put me in a new setting. And it didn't. I suffered a tremendous setback."

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4. Personal Experiences with Bullying

The hosts open up about their encounters with bullying during their school years and its lasting psychological impact.

Gordon Keith recounts being mocked for his fashion choices in junior high:

George Dunham [11:38]: "This guy made fun of me... It was such a tremendous psychological injury."

He further explains how this experience transformed his approach to humor:

George Dunham [12:03]: "I became much more interested in comedy and being on the edge... it led to a career that was successful."

Craig Miller shares a personal story about being bullied in his new school in Dallas:

Craig Miller [16:28]: "Bob pulled my chair out from under me, and I fell on the floor. The whole cafeteria starts laughing."

Additionally, Gordon discusses the long-term effects of early bullying, including his decision to abandon playing the violin:

Gordon Keith [18:32]: "I kept [playing violin] up for 20 years before I started picking it up again... Somehow he made me ashamed to play violin."

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5. Career Paths and Decisions

The discussion shifts to how various decisions, or lack thereof, have influenced their career trajectories.

Gordon Keith reflects on his near-miss opportunity with a prestigious radio station:

Gordon Keith [43:55]: "I took a job to rewire a house and forgot to pursue the radio opportunity. That contractor's daughter getting sick changed everything."

Craig Miller discusses a pivotal moment when he chose to stay in Dallas instead of moving to New York with his then-girlfriend:

Craig Miller [38:46]: "I decided, no. Everything for me is in Dallas right now... That was a big moment for me."

He further elaborates on how staying in Dallas led to his current successful career in broadcasting:

Craig Miller [40:31]: "I don't know what would have become of me. But the Ticket never would have happened if I had stayed in Oklahoma."

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6. Reflections on Life's Unpredictability

The hosts ponder the "butterfly effect" of their life choices, emphasizing how minor decisions can lead to significant outcomes.

George Dunham [23:19]: "How many people, couples or partners at work, how often has that happened? Like a couple that walks by each other on a street."

They discuss the randomness of life events and the importance of appreciating their chosen paths despite lingering "what ifs."

George Dunham [53:25]: "Our experience of this life only happened the one way. So appreciate the way that it happened and respond to it the best you can."

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7. Advice to Children and Future Generations

As fathers, the hosts reflect on advising their own children about making life decisions, recognizing the weight and potential consequences of their guidance.

Gordon Keith shares his approach to advising his son on job offers:

Gordon Keith [50:08]: "You got to do what's best for your family, whatever you feel in your heart."

Craig Miller emphasizes the importance of trusting one's own judgment while supporting his children:

Craig Miller [50:24]: "They're looking to you for advice and you do... What's your interest?"

George Dunham touches on the emotional aspect of seeing their children face similar life decisions:

George Dunham [19:17]: "Even those of us who didn't have childhood trauma all had the trauma of being a child."

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8. Concluding Thoughts

In wrapping up the episode, the hosts express gratitude for the paths they've taken that led them to The Ticket and the podcast itself. They humorously imagine alternate realities where their careers and personal lives never intersected, underscoring the serendipitous nature of their collaboration.

Craig Miller [51:35]: "I'm glad we didn't take all those other paths and we stayed on the path that kept us together."

They acknowledge that while "what ifs" are intellectually stimulating and make for engaging podcast content, living in the present and appreciating their shared journey is ultimately more fulfilling.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• George Dunham [02:10]: "Paths not taken, turning points in our lives... little butterfly effect moments..."
• Gordon Keith [05:14]: "If we had stayed in this resort area... I may have heard you guys, I guess."
• Craig Miller [06:10]: "I refused to join the family for dinner for the first six months that we were living in Dallas."
• George Dunham [11:38]: "That guy made me... ashamed now when I look back over my life..."
• George Dunham [23:19]: "I'm not pure evil incarnate. Okay, that's good. I can work with that."
• Craig Miller [38:46]: "I was in agony making that decision."

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This episode of The Musers offers a heartfelt exploration of how life's unpredictable paths shape who we become. Through personal anecdotes and candid discussions, George, Craig, and Gordon invite listeners to reflect on their own turning points and appreciate the intricate web of decisions that lead to their present lives.

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Connect with The Musers The Podcast:

• Subscribe: Available every Wednesday on major podcast platforms.
• Contact: [e-mail]
• Social Media: Follow The Musers across various social platforms for updates and behind-the-scenes content.

Transcript

[Gordon Keith]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything.

[Craig Miller]

Going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a.

[Gordon Keith]

Thing Mint Mobile Unlimited premium wireless.

[George Dunham]

Better get 30, 30. Better get 30.

[Craig Miller]

Better get 20, 20, 20. Better get 20, 20.

[George Dunham]

Everybody get 15, 15, 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month.

[Gordon Keith]

Sold. Give it a [e-mail] Switch.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Upfront payment of $45 or 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy. Taxes and fees extra.

[George Dunham]

See mintmobile.com Just to cram as much information in my ears as I possibly can. So I think we ought to pioneer the. We ought to do one podcast in which we're all talking at the same time. The whole.

[Gordon Keith]

There's no way you can listen to that.

[Craig Miller]

What if we recorded our podcast at 1.5 and then people listened to it at 1.5? They'd get through it even faster.

[George Dunham]

That's true. Or we record it at 1.5 and then have them slow it down to 0.5. What would that be?

[Craig Miller]

That would be Even Steven.

[George Dunham]

Who's he? Ready?

[Gordon Keith]

It's me. My name is Even Steven.

[George Dunham]

Hey, even Steven.

[Gordon Keith]

How you doing?

[George Dunham]

Oddly enough, Your favorite number's 3. Tell us about that.

[Gordon Keith]

Well, that came about. It was my high school friend.

[George Dunham]

I want to hear you improv this answer. What's your high school friend's name?

[Gordon Keith]

Well, his name was Smarty McFadden.

[George Dunham]

Okay, thank you, thank you. Even Steven.

[Gordon Keith]

He passed away and. But his favorite number was. His favorite number was three, so that became my favorite number.

[George Dunham]

All right, you ready?

[Gordon Keith]

Let me start this by proxy.

[George Dunham]

Don't say by proxy.

[Gordon Keith]

We pipeline.

[George Dunham]

The number always annoy me.

[Gordon Keith]

From him to me and.

[George Dunham]

Oh, you're crying.

[Gordon Keith]

I really appreciate y' all having me on. Did I make the cold open?

[George Dunham]

The Musers, the podcast, Episode six, Path Not Taken. All right, you're listening to the Musers, the podcast. I'm Gordon Keith.

[Gordon Keith]

I'm George Dunham.

[Craig Miller]

And I'm Craig Miller.

[George Dunham]

I still like doing it, damn it. Still real to me. We've been talking about our lives and our loves and work and friendships on this podcast for months now. And I asked you guys recently, when we were all crammed into that rental car on one of our work adventures, if you ever wondered how different your life would have been with just one or two changes that may not have seemed like a big deal at the time. Or perhaps you knew it would change something, you just didn't know it would change everything in your life. So I'm talking like one less chance encounter, one less decision made, or one less decision you didn't even know was a decision at the time. So I thought today we'd start off talking about paths not taken, turning points in our lives, because, you know, with close attention, even the most mundane life is kind of this epic story. And you talk to some stranger and they'll tell you about how they ended up, where they ended up. And I'm always struck by these little butterfly effect moments where they tell me some. Some detail, some job they took in a different city that led them on an epic adventure. And it really is only with hindsight that we get any sort of perspective on our lives whatsoever, because trying to analyze it in real time, it's just a muddled mess. So I figured we'd look back and find those little moments that changed everything for us. So my question to you. What are some of the moments in your life you look back on and now think, wow, I may not have realized at the time it was a massive fork in the road. I just thought it was another little footpath, but I took it. And how your life changed. Start with you, Giorgio.

[Gordon Keith]

Shouldn't we all three start with where we were placed by our parents? Because I think that's what I always think about. What if my dad would not have taken the job that he was offered in Dallas and we had stayed in little town in Central Texas? I think about that not all the time. I used to when I was younger, and I think everything would have changed. To me, I never would have met Craig. I never would have gone to North Texas, I don't think. I don't know if I would have gone to college because I went to a little school then, and some kids were really motivated to go to college. But I remember thinking about, man, what am I going to do when I get out of high school? Am I going to go to college or am I just going to start working? I think my life would have been so different had we stayed in this resort area. And then I went to, you know, would have graduated from Llano High School with a class of like, 75, I think. I think about that.

[George Dunham]

You would have been herding cows.

[Gordon Keith]

I may have ffa.

[George Dunham]

Weren't you?

[Gordon Keith]

Yes, I was an ffa. Sure was. And I would have probably stayed in ffa and my grandfather had a ranch. Maybe I would have, you know, had a big interest in ranching. And I'd be listening to you guys, I guess.

[George Dunham]

I think you're absolutely on that. That is the biggest thing that was the determiner of our lives. And I think about it a lot as well. Craig and I, our experience was different than Giorgio's because you and I, Craig, were both, I'm going to use the. The very strong term, victims of a move that we did not want to make when we were kids.

[Gordon Keith]

Right.

[George Dunham]

And that we experienced it as being very, very traumatic. And yet those moves is what gave us the life that we ended up having.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, I agree with you, George. That's the first thing I think of was when my dad moved us from Oklahoma City, where I had basically grown up to, to Dallas halfway through my junior year. Very traumatic. As I've told you guys before, I refused to join the family for dinner for the first six months that we were living in Dallas.

[Gordon Keith]

So you said to your parents, I'll take room service, please.

[Craig Miller]

No. My mom would make my plate every night, and they would all sit down and I would come out and grab my plate and I would walk back to my bedroom and I would eat it back there without talking to anybody. I was so mad because I had gone to grade school with the same kids from first grade. Then most of us went to the same high school. So I had these same friends. They were all I knew, and Oklahoma City was all I knew, and I just didn't want to leave them. So, yeah, that was the first big one for me, because, like you, I would not have gone to North Texas if my dad had stayed in Oklahoma City. There's a great chance I would have gone to OU or osu. That's where all my friends went.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

And there's a decent chance I never would have gotten into this business. By then, I had decided I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. But I think there's also a chance that had I gone to ou, they have this great meteorological school, and I might have gone back to my original love. You know, from age 6 to about 10, I wanted to be a TV weatherman. And then around 10 or 11, it changed to, I want to be a sportscaster, radio or tv. But, you know, North Texas had that great broadcasting school as we've talked about in some of these past podcast episodes. But I wonder if I would have stayed that course or if I would have kept the weather itch or started scratching that again. I don't know. But I know I wouldn't have gone to North Texas. I wouldn't have met you. Probably never would have ended up at the ticket. Never would have met Gordon. This podcast never would have happened.

[George Dunham]

Which is the most important thing that has occurred.

[Gordon Keith]

How old were you when you moved from Mississippi to Texas?

[George Dunham]

So I moved. So this was my situation. I came from a town in Mississippi. It was on the Gulf Coast, Gulfport, Mississippi. And I was in sixth grade. And I thought sixth grade was wonderful. I mean I had friends, I liked my town. It was the right amount of size for me in that it wasn't a small, small place. I think it was maybe 30,000 people, but it wasn't so big that it felt overwhelming. And I loved my school, I loved my friends. I had just won student council. There were only two kids from our grade that was elected for the student council for seventh grade because that was when we were going to go into a junior high, you know, where multiple elementary schools fed into that junior high. And I think that the two kids were elected from each of the feeder elementary schools to be on student council in seventh grade. And I won that election towards the end of that year. And I thought that that was just so huge, you know, it felt like I had arrived.

[Gordon Keith]

Going places.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. I mean I read hard fought campaign. George survived many scandals and October surprises that came in May of that year. And I survived him and still won the election. And so my life was set and I was really excited to go to junior high in Gulfport, Mississippi. And then my dad drops the bomb on us that, hey, I feel I've been called to a church in Richardson, Texas and I'm like, what, what do you mean called to a church? Mean you got to go there this.

[Gordon Keith]

Weekend and it's called Dublin. My salary, son.

[George Dunham]

Right. It's, it's called the Lord wants me to be there and they're doub doubling my salary. So, you know, at first I, I remember greeting that announcement with some ambivalence, like it, it scared me because it meant massive change and I knew that it was going to be different. But you're a kid and you always think, and perhaps even adults think this, you think the way your life has always gone will be the way that it will keep going. We don't think about what massive change is going to be to our emotional makeup. And I moved here and I was kind of excited. I was like, you know, this is kind of cool. This is a big town. This is Dallas, Texas. And you know, my mom's giving me the hard sell job. If you're going to make new friends, it's going to be wonderful. And you're going to love it. All of your. All of your good fortune and goodwill and happiness is portable. You're going to take it with you and it will continue at this new place. And I got to the new place and I've told you guys the story before about going shopping with my mom to buy new clothes for this new school going into seventh grade. And I bought these cool pants with these. It was. They were jeans, but they had these little subtle pinstripes. Really smart.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

I mean, really, really fashion forward and future thinking. And I wore those the first day of school. And for pe we didn't dress out that first day. We sat in the locker room area with, you know, just in our regular school clothes. And there was a kid in that class. I'm not going to say his name because he. He may be a listener.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

But he just started in on me and he held court, making fun of me and my new pants that I was so excited to wear.

[Gordon Keith]

Okay, you've referenced this before. Is this the guy that turned you into the.

[George Dunham]

Absolutely.

[Gordon Keith]

Really?

[George Dunham]

Absolutely. This guy made fun of me. And it was such a tremendous psychological energy. I think it did two things. I was always a jokester before and a class clown. But I think it. It gave me an aggression to my humor that I'm very ashamed of now when I look back over my life and realize that I ended up starting doing that same kind of thing that he did to me to other people.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

I would come in and make jokes about this person or. And it truly was a psychological injury what that guy did to me. This day that still lives just as strongly in me. And I've tried to find ways around it and everything, but I can still. It's easy for me to conjure that emotion of what I felt that day. And I didn't realize this until I was just saying it, until I was telling the story to you guys that. The other decision points that I had on my list to talk about were times when I was courted to leave the radio station in Dallas that we've worked for for so long. And I think that that has always been in the back of my mind, that idea that your good fortune is not portable the way you think it is.

[Gordon Keith]

That's interesting.

[George Dunham]

I moved from that city and I just thought that everything good would continue if you put me in a new setting. And it didn't. I suffered a tremendous setback and. And it took me years to regain confidence. And it doesn't always just go great at the new place.

[Gordon Keith]

See, and I think so many people can relate to that because they say that it's over 70% of Americans live near or in the city that they grew up in.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

And I'm thinking I translate that to where you graduated high school from. You can maybe move around a little bit like I did. And maybe that's the advantage I had on you guys growing up was that I moved when I was 3 from San Antonio to Minneapolis. My poor sister was a senior in high school, and she moved. You know, I think that was very traumatic on her, but I think about that and how significant that was for her, because had she not, she would have gone to a Texas school. She was on track to be the valedictorian at the high school my brothers and sisters went to, but she ended up going to Iowa State, and that's where she met her husband. And they became dairy farmers. Her path. But it was immediately impacted by. That's where my. My dad was about to put four kids through college, so he took that job that paid him more 1500 miles away. And that was a very traumatic move for my brothers and sisters. But I thought I was three years old. I thought, man, pack it up. Let's take the dog. This is great. And then I moved again at 6, and then moved again at the age of 12, then moved again at the age of 15. So moves were. Were no big deal to me. But as an adult, once I started having kids, I didn't want to move them, so I carried that with me to my adulthood as well.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, I didn't see my move from Oklahoma City to Dallas the way you saw yours, Gordo. That everything was just going to be fine because I was happy in Oklahoma City, had great friends, and I didn't think that that would just recreate itself in Dallas. I was kind of dreading it. And I didn't know where we were going to go to school. And I remember we decided on school Bishop Dunn in Dallas, and we went to visit the principal, and this is mid November when we moved. And he said, well, there's no sense in Craig starting now. The semester's almost over, so why don't you just start January 2nd? And I was like, that's great. I've got the next two months off. But I was scared to death to go to that new school because I had not been to a new school in forever with new kids. And I remember when I walked into Bishop Dunn for the first time, it was so overwhelming to me, crushingly so. And I tried to make friends, and I had A table where my buddy Quincy, that I've known forever invited me to. To sit with them. And it was my three friends at Bishop Dunn, Quincen, Bob and Dave. But Bob was kind of a bully. We would become really good friends my senior year. But I remember that junior year. I'm new. I've been at the school two or three weeks. I kind of know these guys, but not really. And I remember one time when I went to sit down at lunch with them. Bob pulled my chair out from under me, and I fell on the floor. And the whole cafeteria starts laughing.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, man.

[Craig Miller]

And I got up and I got my stuff, and I went to my car and I drove home. And my mom and my Aunt Mary were at home smoking cigarettes, by the way. And I walked in on them.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, what's going on, Craig?

[Gordon Keith]

Come sit down.

[Craig Miller]

My mom smoked surreptitiously. She never let the kids see it. But since I was home two hours early, I walked in on her smoking. They tried to hide their cigarettes. What are you doing home? I said, I don't want to talk about it, and went to my room.

[Gordon Keith]

What are you doing smoking?

[George Dunham]

I should have confronted her, turned it back on her.

[Craig Miller]

But I also had a traumatic experience like you at my new school that really. I don't know, it impacted me, and I didn't want to go back for days and weeks after that. And then I think by the end of my junior year, I realized I could make people laugh with some really bad comedy or stolen Steve Martin stuff, but I could make them laugh. And then I had a great senior year because people wanted me to make them laugh.

[Gordon Keith]

Okay? And this is going back to when we were young. And I don't know why I let this affect me, but I started playing violin in the fourth grade, and I excelled at it. And I really liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it. And I started taking private lessons with a guy named Mr. Dobbins who used to be with the Chicago Symphony. He was just a really sweet man. And I got really good. But then I had my head handed to me because I played violin. And I told. I've told you guys about this guy named Jeff who just used to. I mean, it was just. It was ruthless. I mean, it's every day. Hey, there's. You can't say the word anymore. There's a word that starts with an F. George. Because he, you know, he's gay, plays violin, and. Oh. And I just kind of made a pact with myself, okay? When I don't have to play this anymore. And I saw that as when I got out of high school that I just wouldn't play it anymore. And I kept that up for 20 years before I started.

[Craig Miller]

Wow.

[Gordon Keith]

Picking it up again. And it was because I was so. Somehow.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Somehow he made me ashamed. Play violin, which you were good at. Yeah. How crazy is that?

[George Dunham]

I know. And he probably didn't think anything of it.

[Gordon Keith]

No.

[George Dunham]

And he would have no idea that you are here this many decades later and can still bothered by. Be bothered by it.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. It's just so wrong. And I don't know why kids do that too. You know, we see kids, oh, they're so sweet and they're so innocent. No, man. You get your head handed to you at a very young age in elementary school. And it's just. Yeah. I always thought about that with my kids. You can't prevent it. It's just gonna happen.

[George Dunham]

No, that's part of the heartbreak of even having children is you have to watch them suffer. The world.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

You know, it's like, even. What's the. It's like even those of us who didn't have childhood trauma all had the trauma of being a child.

[Gordon Keith]

Right. But what if I'd stayed in Chicago and kept taking. Would I be in the Chicago Symphony? I don't know.

[George Dunham]

With Mr. Dobbins.

[Gordon Keith]

But. But the sad thing is, I didn't get any better from seventh grade when it really ramped up until I graduated high school. I got really no better because I didn't really try anymore when the bullying ramped up. Yeah. It's just kind of like, man, I don't want to play that thing.

[Craig Miller]

It's interesting that the topic of this podcast has morphed into bullying.

[George Dunham]

I know. Well, yeah. Hey, that's what happens. It's that, once again, it's the butterfly effect of one thing. Said then it affects a trajectory of something.

[Craig Miller]

I saw my 3 year old at her school a couple months ago. She went up to this little girl that she wanted to play with, and the little girl just turned to her and said, I don't want to play with you. You're not my friend. And that hurt me more than any thing any bully ever did to me. More than Bob pulling the chair out from underneath me. It was just gut wrenching to see that. And I immediately went over and said, hey, I'll go. Let's go play over here. Come on. I got something fun to show you. But it was so awful to see that. And then it made me think, what kind of bullying does she have ahead of her? We have friends who have a daughter who was bullied and they had to take her out of high school.

[Gordon Keith]

I know, I heard those stories.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

So terrible. And our friend Bobby Duncan, who is a musician, that's what he always says to his. I guess the only way to combat it is with kindness because he always tells his kids when he drops them off, okay, have a great day and be kind, you know, and that's all you can do. This probably sounds really funny to people who listen to us in Dallas Fort Worth, because we just murder people every day.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. And, you know, I want to talk about that because I don't know whether this is a cope of mine or whether this is useful, but, you know, I think back to when we share these stories, the one comment here that affects you for a lifetime and how many of those that I've probably issued to people when I take the wireless microphone out and you know, lead with, so you thought that shirt was a good idea? Talk to us about it. You know, and maybe that dude, you know, felt good about that shirt and he had just gotten it, it was just a gift from his wife or, I mean, you know, and how horrible that makes me feel to think about that. The effect that we have on people, that I have on people and you and everybody. But the, the way that I've kind of, I don't know, gained a little bit more perspective on that is be careful with your words afterwards. Try to tell someone, you know, hey, thank you for be in a good sport during that. It's kind of, there's a performative thing that's going on here, and you're really, you know, compliment them, let them know that you see them as a person and, and you appreciate them. And then I've also have to remind myself of the many times people have come back and said something to me that was positive that I said to them that I had no memory of. They'll say, hey, I don't know if you remember this. In ninth grade, you came and sat by me and you said this, and I always appreciated that. And then those little moments remind me of, oh, wow, I'm not pure evil incarnate. Okay, that's good. I can work with that. Nice. Okay. That helps me in my recovery to live with myself for the rest of my life.

[Gordon Keith]

But going back to that guy who made fun of your pants, had he not done that, somebody else probably would have said something. But that affected your path.

[George Dunham]

Oh, absolutely.

[Gordon Keith]

All of a sudden, that sharpened your skills of okay, if this is going to be, this is kill or be killed insult hour, then I'm going to be really good at it.

[George Dunham]

It absolutely did. It affected the trajectory of my life in a way that, you know, I became much more interested in comedy and being, you know, on the edge and, and that led to a career that was successful. And as we've talked about, the three of us being kind of like a three legged table that has strength and stability that in a way I always look at, you know, you two have given me a life because it was our relationship together that provided me with a career that I really had no idea that I would ever have because I am wildly incompetent at life because of the way my brain works.

[Gordon Keith]

You're better than you think. You're better than you think.

[George Dunham]

And had I not had, I'm hoping that had I not had that, that period of time in which I was more aggressive to people personally, that I wouldn't have had the time where I am now in my life trying to spend the rest of my life dedicated to making people feel good in my private life.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

And in public life too, you know. But yeah, I think I've changed a lot in the past five years.

[Gordon Keith]

And you guys, we really haven't noticed.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[George Dunham]

This Friday, starring Taron Edgerton.

[Gordon Keith]

Holly Dangerous men are coming for us.

[George Dunham]

I want you to kill the brace. Can you do that for me?

[Gordon Keith]

All a father needs is a fighting chance. Everybody is looking for you. What did you do?

[Craig Miller]

I'll keep you safe.

[Gordon Keith]

Promise.

[George Dunham]

She rides shotgun. Rated R under 17.

[Gordon Keith]

Not admitted without parent. In theaters Friday. So if you would have stayed in Mississippi, what do you think you would have done?

[George Dunham]

I really and truly have zero idea of what career I could have possibly gone into.

[Gordon Keith]

Would you be Leonard Skinner's tribute band?

[George Dunham]

I didn't even choose this career. This is a theme for me, is that I have never. Life has chosen me every step of the way. I've never chosen it. I've never said, okay, I want this life and not this life. It feels like I've just responded to what life threw in front of me that very moment. And I've always lived in a reactive phase. I've never lived as an author of this sprawling Russian novel of my life.

[Gordon Keith]

What if you just stayed in Oklahoma? What do you think you would have done?

[Craig Miller]

Would have gone to ou, probably still would have pursued sports broadcasting or, like I said a while ago, tried to get a meteorological degree and gone into. If you're a weatherman, you are either working at the National Weather Service or you're a TV weatherman. It's like those are the only two paths. So I may have done that, but I probably would have gone into sports broadcasting because by high school that's what I wanted to do. But I ended up at North Texas because of my dad's move, which was the best broadcasting school to go to, like we talked about in episode two, and ended up getting a job in Dallas and ended up at the Ticket. So the ticket never would have happened if I had stayed in Oklahoma. I mean, the station may have come into existence, but I wouldn't have been a part of it. And so you wouldn't have been a part of it. George and Gordon, I don't know if you may have ended up there, but we wouldn't have had this show. So I don't know. I think I would have gone into broadcasting and I'd probably be doing something in broadcasting. The fork in the road for me, career wise, one of the many was out of college when I was looking for a job either in radio and TV and couldn't find one. As I told you guys in episode two, and I believe I've told you before that, we don't just unveil everything on these podcast episodes. I went to Colorado with my buddy Dave, and just for a year of racing our bicycles and bartending and waiting tables and then see what happens with the career after that. And if that job at KRLD hadn't gotten open, come open, and you hadn't called me, George, I might have stayed up there for a long time. Like, if I couldn't have found a job in broadcasting up there, I might have kept waiting tables and bartending and riding my bike. And I think about what I would have done. And my bet is that if I had just stayed in Boulder, Colorado, for five years or 10 years, I bet I would have ended up working in a bike shop, because I love bike shops. They are my favorite retail outlets in the world. I can wander into a bike shop and spend hours, and I'm just very happy when I'm in a bike shop. So if broadcasting hadn't worked out because of the path, I chose to go to Colorado for a year and kind of immerse myself in that sport, I bet I would have ended up working in a bike shop, and I probably would have been pretty happy.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Yeah. Sports with me, I think, would have driven me to the game of golf. I was just so obsessed with it when we lived in that resort area in. It was Horseshoe Bay. It was just in Llano County. And had I stayed and graduated from Llano.

[George Dunham]

And is that in Texas for our national.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes, that is in Texas. That's Singapore. Listeners overseas, I think I would have gone into the golf business. Somehow I don't think it would have put me on a path to the PGA Tour. That. That was my dream.

[Craig Miller]

But club pro, maybe.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Because I would look at the club pros and think they've got the greatest job. They're around the game. They give lessons. The head pro at the time, his name really was Bob Putt. Horseshoe Bay put.

[George Dunham]

Strange credibility.

[Gordon Keith]

Maybe he, you know, and I never asked that he change his name to that, but he went by Bob Putt. And I just thought he had a great life. He made a lot of money. The. The merchandise he had control over. But for. No. And I. Yeah, that was a goal for me back then. Okay. Someday I want to be a club pro.

[Craig Miller]

And that would have been a happy life for you.

[Gordon Keith]

I think so.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

But isn't that what makes Back to the Future such a great movie is Marty goes back in time, and he's got to make sure that his mom meets his dad. I think about that too. What if. And I was just drawn to my wife when I first saw her. I just. Maybe there was something pushing me, fate or whatever, saying, no, that's the woman you're going to marry someday. I thought that the first time I saw her, it just took a couple years to, you know, get enough nerve to ask her out. But I think about that for my own kids. If I'd gone down this path now it's a next generation that would have affected and then grandkids too.

[George Dunham]

So, yeah, the romantic aspect of it. So where did you meet her? She was part of a group of friends.

[Gordon Keith]

We were all freshmen at North Texas and she was at a baseball game because her friend was dating somebody on the baseball game. And of course, Craig and I were. It was a North Texas sporting event. So we were there and gosh, that may have been the Oklahoma State Series where we had a run in with Pete Incavilla, future major leaguer at the time.

[Craig Miller]

Gary Ward, their manager came over to talk to us, came into the stands and told us to shut up.

[George Dunham]

The manager did?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, because we were insults at his team.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, it was very scary. He was very intimidating.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, those guys just out there trying to play baseball.

[Gordon Keith]

And again, we're just, you know, trying to bully them.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, but you're starring in your own movie. They've just been hired as bit characters.

[Gordon Keith]

But yeah, I said that's where I first saw her. And she was, she happened to be dating at the time, a guy who lived across the hall from us in West Hall.

[George Dunham]

And I like that dude, that's.

[Gordon Keith]

You never met him.

[George Dunham]

I really enjoy.

[Gordon Keith]

Never met him. But I'm glad it all eventually worked out because my kids are too. But yeah, it was. It seemed like fate. And you know, what if her family had not moved to this area. She was born in New York, but her dad came down to the Dallas Fort Worth area and that's why she went to North Texas.

[George Dunham]

How did you ask her out? Do you remember your first date?

[Gordon Keith]

Date? Oh, yeah. We actually. We were in our friend group and one night, I don't know if you remember, I don't know if Craig and I have even talked about this, but we were all together and somehow I got in a room alone with her and told her, I said, you know, you got cornered her. I cornered her. We'd had a little bit to drink, I think all of us. That was the thing. I was really impressed by her because we all used to play quarters together. The drinking game.

[George Dunham]

Quarters.

[Gordon Keith]

I remember Kelly would always just smoke Us. She was really good at it. So we were all hammered. And I got enough nerves to tell her, I said, you know, this is kind of crazy. We're friends now, and I really appreciate our friendship, but I've basically been. Just had the biggest crush on you for, like, three years now. And she said, oh, my gosh. I had no idea.

[George Dunham]

How does she not pick up on that?

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know. I don't know. Probably because I dated some of her sorority sisters first. That's a whole nother thing. But, yeah. Yeah. But I finally got up enough nerve and. And the rest is history.

[Craig Miller]

Was that one of the nights I did the Home by the Sea dance?

[Gordon Keith]

I hope so.

[George Dunham]

What is the Home by the Sea dance?

[Gordon Keith]

One of the greatest.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, it was unbelievable.

[Gordon Keith]

Choreographed dances of all time.

[Craig Miller]

Signature of mine in college.

[George Dunham]

Is it like Napoleon Dynamite in that scene where he's dancing for Pedro?

[Gordon Keith]

Similar.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Very exaggerated. And.

[George Dunham]

And wasn't that in lieu of Pedro's campaign speech?

[Craig Miller]

I think so.

[George Dunham]

Napoleon just panics instead of.

[Gordon Keith]

Napoleon just saved him by doing that awesome dance.

[George Dunham]

What an odd plot point that is.

[Gordon Keith]

I know. Very strange.

[George Dunham]

But yeah. So you ask her out, and I guess there was a chance she could have said, I just always think of you as a friend. I don't know.

[Craig Miller]

Oh, I know.

[Gordon Keith]

And that's why I was so worried about it. I was so nervous that I put a pair of sweats on my head.

[George Dunham]

What? You were wearing sweats on your head?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I had sweats on my head. I said, look, this is going to sound really crazy, but here's the deal.

[George Dunham]

Were you pantsless at the time?

[Gordon Keith]

No, I had another pair of pants on. But I just. For some reason, I felt more comfortable, maybe like Pedro. My head was very hot and I was just. I don't know, I was overheating or something. But I think she thought, you go.

[George Dunham]

In and you ask her, did you build her a cake?

[Gordon Keith]

I did not build her a cake.

[George Dunham]

That's always a way to get the girl to say yes.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I should have thought of that. But it was her idea for us to have our first date with her parents. And we actually went. And I don't even think we had dinner. I think they'd already had dinner. We met at the Anatol in Dallas, where they used to have a live band every Friday night or Saturday night. It was Saturday because the next day we went to the Giants Cowboys game. Cowboys won the east that year.

[George Dunham]

Back to sports.

[Gordon Keith]

But she thought it was important. She wanted me to meet her parents.

[George Dunham]

On the first date.

[Gordon Keith]

On our first date.

[Craig Miller]

Wow.

[Gordon Keith]

So there's something. Yeah, I guess, magical for her, too, of I really want him to meet my parents and. Yeah.

[George Dunham]

And that could have gone really sideways.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, I know.

[George Dunham]

But what if her dad pulled the car up to Inspiration Point and you're all in the backseat going, wait, wait. What is this double date? Oh, wait.

[Gordon Keith]

Okay. Don't make it weird. Don't make it weird. But we did. Yeah, we had a great first date. We, you know, I met her parents, and I, like, dance with her mom, and it was fun. I know it sounds. Don't put it through your computer, because it's gonna come out. It's gonna come out strange, but it was a. It was a wonderful first date. Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Well, I have to tell you, Giorgio, I've never heard of that before.

[Gordon Keith]

Really?

[George Dunham]

Yeah. A first date being a double date with. Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

Her parents don't think I have either.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. I don't know. It was just her idea. And that. I think she explains that she saw me as somebody special, and she already thought that it was really interesting, and she wanted me to meet her parents.

[George Dunham]

So she already liked you when?

[Gordon Keith]

I guess. I think she kind of liked me when I went back up there with the sweatshirt after the year of Brookhaven, Siberia, when I had my academic suspension. And when I came back, I think she saw me. She thought I was just kind of goofy when we were freshmen.

[George Dunham]

But returning from academic war.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes, but I came back from academic war, I lifted some weights, and, you know, all of a sudden, she saw me as. Okay, maybe.

[George Dunham]

Right. This guy.

[Gordon Keith]

About this guy.

[George Dunham]

Gosh.

[Gordon Keith]

I know.

[George Dunham]

All right, Craig, any other times that come to mind?

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, you bring up relationships. And I thought about that, too. The first big moment was dad moving from Oklahoma City to Dallas. The second big moment in my life. The first year, the Ticket was on the air, and I was dating a woman that I was crazy about. I was saving up for an engagement ring. That's how crazy I was. And then she told me she was moving to New York. And I thought long and hard about moving with her, following her up there. I didn't have a job or anything up there. I figured, well, I can find a job. And at the last second, I decided, no. Everything for me is in Dallas right now. I think the ticket. Our radio station could be really big. I think our show is going to be pretty good. I've got my friends here. My family's here. I think I need to stay. And I stayed. Thank God I stayed.

[George Dunham]

You were so close to going to. I remember because we were close then, talking all the time, and you were in agony making that decision.

[Craig Miller]

Had I gone, it would have been the biggest mistake of my life on so many different levels. It would not have. It would not have worked out on so many different levels. Personally, professionally, I mean, I don't know what would have become of me. I'm sure I would have come back here, but by then the ticket would have moved on. It just wouldn't have. I don't know. That was a big moment for me, though. That was a path that I didn't take that I am so glad I didn't take. And you know what? And after that, there were several more relationships where I look back, and a lot of these were great girls. But had I moved forward in those relationships or gotten married to any of them, you know, my life would be completely different if things unfolded the way they should have unfolded. Because now I'm very happy in my personal life. I have an incredible wife, an incredible daughter. And somehow, through all of those relationships, I got here. But also somehow, through all of those relationships, I managed to keep my professional life steady. And now I'm in a very good.

[Gordon Keith]

Place, you know, now that I think about it. I remember that. And had, let's say you went up there to Buffalo for a couple of months. Don't you think that. Who. I don't. I can't remember who our management was. Don't you think they would have said, oh, yeah, if Craig wants to come back? Well, I know all of us on the air would have said, yeah, getting.

[Craig Miller]

Back maybe a couple of months. But what if it had been a couple of years?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, then I. Yeah, we'd moved on.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Because relationships, you know, a lot of times, they take a long time to untangle, to play out. So, yeah, it probably would have been a few years.

[Gordon Keith]

Gordo and I would have been doing a show with.

[George Dunham]

We would have been Bradsham, probably just each other. And it would. We would have been killing it. It would have been the show that everyone deserved.

[Gordon Keith]

We may have killed each other back then. I don't know if that would have worked.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, back then we would have killed each other professionally.

[Craig Miller]

I have no idea what would have become of me. You know, Boulder, the natural path was to work in a bike shop or keep waiting tables or bar pretending. But going up there, I don't know what would have become of me. I've told you guys this before, and I've actually put this into practice with you, George. One career path that I May have ended up taking. I've always wanted to be a travel agent.

[Gordon Keith]

Really?

[George Dunham]

Yes.

[Craig Miller]

I love planning trips.

[Gordon Keith]

He's really good at it. Every time we go somewhere, Junior books our airline and rental car, and he's really.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, for the show.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, for the show. When we go somewhere.

[Craig Miller]

And I remember you and your wife took a trip somewhere to some beach, and I kind of helped you put that together.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

Chose the hotel.

[Gordon Keith]

We're really good at it. Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

There's just something that's incredibly fun to me about booking trips and researching towns. Now everybody can do that their own online. I don't even know if travel agents exist anymore. But back in the day, I used to think I would love to be a travel agent because I get great satisfaction out of people telling me that was a great hotel you recommended and then thinking, yeah, I put together that whole trip.

[Gordon Keith]

You've been good at. Travel agent.

[Craig Miller]

That's a career path not taken for me that I probably also would have enjoyed. Travel agent.

[Gordon Keith]

That's so wild.

[George Dunham]

I'm real good at planning trips on my own.

[Craig Miller]

Oh, my God.

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know what's happened to you in travel again. We got to do a segment on that. What happened to traveling? Gordo, did you. And I think you. We talked about this a little bit on a previous episode, but did you all almost leave us at any point? Did you almost think, okay, there were gonna pursue it anyway?

[George Dunham]

A couple of times. The ones that I remember was there was a radio station in Dallas, Fort Worth, wbap. They started courting me because one of their guys who did a character, Sam from sales for Forever. It was, you know, and I think when I came on the scene, a lot of program directors took a little bit of note of me, you know, like, who's this weird guy they have over there? He's seems like a wild card, but he may have something. So BAP was one of those stations that came that called on me at one time when the guy who was doing their main character was leaving and.

[Craig Miller]

Character meaning a funny voice.

[George Dunham]

Yes, funny voice on the air.

[Gordon Keith]

They did him every day.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Monday through Friday.

[George Dunham]

They did. They did. And so they started talking to me about coming over, doing that character and being the board operator that would run the audio for the morning show. And I had, I think, two. Two or three meetings with them and many more conversations on the phone, and it was pretty serious deal. And that was a pretty known station. And, you know, prestige. And you have to understand, I have had zero interest in sports, so I was already fish out of water there.

[Gordon Keith]

It's one of the oldest stations in America.

[George Dunham]

That's true.

[Gordon Keith]

Very prestigious.

[George Dunham]

And it is a clear channel. One of those big gas stations that no one else shares that frequency, so you can hear it all over America. So you can see how attractive it was to me. And I. And I want to say that if I remember this correctly, there was a guy. I just got in a house, and there was a. It needed lots of work, and there was a repair dude. I was supposed to get back with him with an answer. They kind of offered me the job. Let us know next week. And next week rolls around, I have this house that needs a lot of work. There's this handyman that I knew, and he had a daughter that got sick. And so he couldn't work that week or couldn't work that Monday or whatever it was. And so I took it upon myself to, you know what? Screw that. I'm going to learn how to rewire a house and I'll just do it myself.

[Gordon Keith]

Amazing.

[George Dunham]

So typical me, I go balls deep into learning how to wire a house and I study up. And I spent that whole week just preoccupied with that.

[Gordon Keith]

And you forgot to call him.

[George Dunham]

I didn't get back around by the time I did, they told me, you know, he spent this past week thinking he's going to stay here, the guy who does the voice. And so we're not going to do that.

[Gordon Keith]

Meantime, you're in a crawl space, Right?

[George Dunham]

Right. Yeah. So that. That one. Because that. That contractor, that handyman's daughter got sick. I never got back with him and took a job that they would have then had to take back away from me, maybe.

[Gordon Keith]

See, I never thought about it once I started here at the. At the Ticket in Dallas, that I never pursued anything. The only thing I can think of is there was a time when the voice of the Dallas Cowboys was removed from his responsibilities. And he actually contacted me and said, would you be interested in throwing your name in the hat to do play by play for the Cowboys? Do you remember this?

[Craig Miller]

I remember that, yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

And I said, well, and for those.

[George Dunham]

That don't know, we're talking about the Dallas Cowboys, which is an NFL franchise. They're an NFL team, professional country called.

[Craig Miller]

America for our Singapore listeners.

[Gordon Keith]

And, you know, for growing up a lifelong Cowboys fan, that's, you know, the dream job. But the Ticket had already been on the air two years, three years, and I thought, our show's really taken off. And I remember telling him, well, do you think I could? But at the time, they were on another FM station. And I remember asking him, do you think they would let me do Play by Play and still work at the Ticket? And he goes, yeah, probably not. And similar story to yours. I never submitted anything. I just thought, I don't think, number one, I don't really have that great a chance because there's all sorts of people from around the country, you know, giving them tapes to listen to. And I didn't want to leave the Ticket. I just thought by then we had established something. And what I thought this kind of goes back into why we thought about doing this topic. What I thought was a dream job years back. And when we started doing broadcasting, Craig at. I didn't see it any that way anymore. I'm living the dream now. And I never saw myself as a talk show host. But we're doing this thing now that is. It's working and it's a lot of fun.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. And as a person, you shoot guns, don't you, Giorgio?

[Gordon Keith]

Yes. Shotguns.

[George Dunham]

Eh, not so much shotguns, but the, the idea of trajectory is really interesting because just a millimeter of difference now.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Means miles of difference with the added addition of distance and time. And that's a good thing and a bad thing. Right. All these little points in our lives where we decided to just go one way rather than another, end up making a huge difference in the long run after you add time to the equation. But the good news of that is that when it comes to habit forming. How many times you heard about that? Make one little move now. And if you do that over time, it makes a huge difference over time.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

So it, it comforts me. It's scary to me that life seems so random sometimes, but maybe it is like the science fiction movies and that the universe always wants you to be on some particular course. Happiness researchers say that people have a set point of happiness and the kind of no matter what happens in their life, they return to that level of dissatisfaction or satisfaction that it's somehow genetic, that the universe already has it coded and built in what your fate is going to be, Even if the particulars of it are a little bit different. You're always going to find that person, that special person that serves that. It may have not have been that one, but it may have been someone who had kind of that soul, no matter what. Shared soul. It's fascinating for me to think about that, but I think ultimately all the what ifs are just an intellectual exercise because we don't live with the what if. We live with what did. Yes, and all the time you spend thinking about what ifs make for a good podcast, but I don't know, that makes for a good life ultimately, if you're doing it during your regular life, other than, other than it may give you perspective and appreciation for the way things turned out.

[Gordon Keith]

And you'll see this as a, as a father now, Craig is your kids start asking you as they get older, well, what do you think ought to do? What do you think? Where should I go? And that's a really difficult one that to answer. I would always.

[George Dunham]

Because, you know, you're giving them advice on something that's going to be just. It's going to affect them, it's going to affect their children and their grandchildren.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes.

[George Dunham]

Just this one moment of you saying, yeah, I don't know if you should take that job. Like that could make all the difference in the world.

[Craig Miller]

But you got to give it. They're looking to you for advice and you do.

[George Dunham]

Right.

[Craig Miller]

You do need to trust that you're going to give them the right advice and that it will work out because you can't be so gun shy that you're going to give them the wrong advice, that you never talk to your kids.

[Gordon Keith]

Right. Yeah. And my son, who's a coach, he's asked me several times in his adult life as he's been offered jobs, what do you think? Because I've been around sports for a long time and I always started with, well, this is your decision, but let's just weigh these jobs. And this is this program. That's that program. And, you know, I always throw it back on him of, you know, you got to do what's best for your family, whatever you feel in your heart and that way to go. But it's, it's tough, you know, it's because you are, you know, in some way influencing what they're going to do. But I do feel that all three of my boys have made their decision whether it was college or a job. Whatever they asked me. I, I never tried to swim of, hey, you've got to go to Arkansas or Oklahoma State or North Texas. I never, I never tried to throw that on them. It's just, you know, where do you feel like you're being led? What's your interest?

[George Dunham]

Not even north Texas.

[Gordon Keith]

I may have swayed him. Texas a little bit. Worked out okay.

[George Dunham]

A little bit more. All right, boys.

[Gordon Keith]

Well, well, I'm glad we ended up here about it, whatever we did.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I know.

[Craig Miller]

I'm glad we didn't take all those other paths and we stayed on the path that kept us together.

[George Dunham]

That's right.

[Gordon Keith]

And that Craig would have scheduled a trip for me as a golf pro, and I would have gone to this destination and seen Gordon in a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band.

[Craig Miller]

How funny would that be?

[George Dunham]

And we joked around and we got along and said, you know what?

[Craig Miller]

We should do a show together.

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know what it is, man.

[George Dunham]

I could see spending a lot of.

[Craig Miller]

Time with you, but you know what's weird about that? If the three of us had never met, and I'm a travel agent and I book a trip for George, who goes to see Gordo in a cover band.

[George Dunham]

Okay, stop putting me in cover bands.

[Craig Miller]

I think that's a really funny scenario. And we never would have known each other. How many people. Couples or a threesome or partners at work. How. How often has that happened? Like a couple that walks by each other on a street.

[Gordon Keith]

That's what was great about Lost.

[Craig Miller]

Exactly. That's kind of where I was going.

[George Dunham]

You know what he's going to say?

[Craig Miller]

A couple that walks by each other on a street and because of paths they didn't take five years earlier that would have ended up where they get married, instead they walk by each other and they have no idea who that person is. I bet that happens way more than we think.

[George Dunham]

Absolutely. All the time. How many times you've been driving through an intersection and an accident happens right beside you, go, man, if I just gotten here one second earlier, all the time, things could have been different. But then you got to remind yourself that, you know, if I'd been one second earlier, that may have made a difference here, but there may have been one back there that I was one second ahead of.

[Gordon Keith]

Right.

[George Dunham]

So ultimately, it'll just make you crazy thinking about it.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Our experience of this life only happened the one way. So appreciate the way that it happened and respond to it the best you can.

[Craig Miller]

And in sports or music or we always talk about this. There's another Jordan or LeBron or maybe 10 or 20 of them out there that just never found their way to basketball for whatever reason.

[George Dunham]

I know, right?

[Craig Miller]

Social, economic. Got bullied out of the sport at a young age. Some reason.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. We're sitting with a classical violinist. We're not a master violinist.

[Craig Miller]

That there's another Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix out there somewhere that just never was exposed to the guitar because they don't take these paths or the paths aren't presented for them.

[Gordon Keith]

It's crazy to think about.

[Craig Miller]

Really crazy.

[Gordon Keith]

It can't drive you just insane when you start really digging deep into it.

[George Dunham]

Now I want to take this whole conversation and slow it down and sound like a stone or something.

[Gordon Keith]

It's great.

[George Dunham]

Thank you guys. Thank you to Peter, our engineer. And don't forget, you can listen to the Musers. The podcast every week. Comes out on Wednesday, so check it out. We got great stuff planned for you next. Wait till you hear next week. I'm excited about it.

[Gordon Keith]

Me too.

[George Dunham]

The end the users the podcast New episodes drop on Wednesday, so make sure you follow or subscribe so it's always there waiting for you.

[Gordon Keith]

And don't forget, you could contact the.

[George Dunham]

Musers across all sorts of social media.

[Gordon Keith]

But you can also shoot an email to themuserspodgmail.com the Musers the podcast is.

[George Dunham]

A tired head production.

[Craig Miller]

All talk. Check, one, two. Test. All talk together.

[Gordon Keith]

Hey, everybody.

[Craig Miller]

One, two, three, go. Everybody talk.

[George Dunham]

Check, one, two, one, two.

[Gordon Keith]

Everybody talk.

[George Dunham]

We're all talking at the same time. I think we're gonna do the whole podcast podcast just like this where we all just kind of tell our story at the same time. So ready?

[Gordon Keith]

So you want me to talk?

[George Dunham]

Two, one.

[Gordon Keith]

Well, you know, I lived a lot of different places growing up.

[George Dunham]

Go forward with the idea. I just, I don't know.