Ode to Our Parents - Episode 7

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Musers The Podcast – "Ode to Our Parents" (Episode 7)

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Introduction

In Episode 7 of The Musers The Podcast, titled "Ode to Our Parents," hosts George Dunham, Craig “Junior” Miller, and Gordon Keith delve deep into the lives of their parents. This heartfelt episode offers listeners an intimate glimpse into the formative influences that shaped the three hosts. Through personal anecdotes, reflective discussions, and shared memories, the Musers honor the legacy of their upbringing and the values instilled by their families.

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Transition from Radio to Podcasting

The episode begins with the hosts discussing the nuances of transitioning from their long-running radio show to podcasting.

• Craig Miller [01:16]: "We are the Musers. We've been doing a morning radio show in Dallas Fort Worth for 30 years and now we're trying our hand at podcasting."

• George Dunham [01:16]: "There is an immediacy to live radio that I love talking about breaking news as it happens. But I'm also really enjoying the more laid back nature of this podcast, which oddly, and I think we've all observed, feels way more intimate than radio."

The conversation highlights the shift from the structured, immediate environment of radio to the more relaxed and personal format of podcasting, allowing for deeper and more vulnerable conversations.

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Choosing to Focus on Parents

Acknowledging the extensive backstory shared in previous episodes, the hosts unanimously agree that their parents deserve a dedicated episode.

• Craig Miller [04:41]: "They need to know their stories because they are, in a very large way, our stories."

This sets the stage for a comprehensive exploration of their familial backgrounds, emphasizing the profound impact their parents had on their lives.

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Stories About Their Fathers

Gordon Keith on His Father:

Gordon shares memories of his father, a man of transformation and discipline.

• Gordon Keith [05:09]: "My dad was this guy that you just didn't want to piss off... the few times that dad did corporal punishment... it worked on me."

He reflects on the balance between his father's stern disciplinary methods and his softer, more nurturing side.

• Gordon Keith [07:04]: "I have to tell you anything new. No, I think I found that too."

Craig Miller on His Father:

Craig reminisces about his father’s multifaceted life, blending professionalism with personal passions.

• Craig Miller [15:52]: "He went back to the University of Missouri, got his degree in business and generic, went into business and commercial roofing eventually."

He recounts stories of his father's adventurous spirit, including a legendary tale about flying a crop-dusting plane after a few beers.

• Craig Miller [17:00]: "I swear we went down there and my dad had had a couple of beers and swore he could fly that plane."

George Dunham on His Father:

George paints a picture of his father's charismatic journey from athlete to naval pilot and eventually a Baptist minister.

• George Dunham [19:30]: "He was at Mississippi State playing football, and there was one of the star football players on the team who invited my dad to the Dallas Baptist Student Union."

George shares his father's dedication to his faith and his natural inclination towards leadership and storytelling.

• George Dunham [36:10]: "He was a great storyteller. That's probably the thing I remember the most about him."

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Stories About Their Mothers

Gordon Keith on His Mother:

Gordon describes his mother as a blend of Southern charm and strictness, balancing household responsibilities with nurturing care.

• Gordon Keith [39:26]: "She was from Mississippi... she grew up in really small towns in Oklahoma."

He shares humorous and poignant anecdotes that highlight her role in maintaining household order and imparting Southern etiquette.

• Gordon Keith [48:51]: "She was just appalled at every single one of these breaches of refined southern etiquette."

Craig Miller on His Mother:

Craig portrays his mother as a selfless caregiver with a strong sense of duty and community service.

• Craig Miller [54:14]: "She was a nurse her entire life... taking care of her family, taking care of her patients, taking care of her students, taking care of those in need in the community, that was her MO for her entire life."

He shares a touching story about his mother's protective and loving nature.

• Craig Miller [62:55]: "She had a great laugh and she had great moments."

George Dunham on His Mother:

George reflects on his mother's unwavering strength and the cultural expectations she upheld.

• George Dunham [43:39]: "She had expectations of what to do around the house... all of us taught to behave properly at the table."

He relates his childhood experiences with his mother's meticulousness and the lessons learned from her behavior.

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Reflections on Upbringing and Discipline

The hosts discuss the different parenting styles of their fathers and mothers, highlighting the balance between discipline and nurturing.

• Gordon Keith [10:24]: "The only thing that worked was the threat of paternal violence was the only thing that really, I think, respected as being okay."

• George Dunham [28:27]: "I'd pass that. I tried not to cuss around my kids. And not that I don't use cuss words, but I tried not to cuss around them because my parents didn't cuss around me."

They explore how their parents' approaches have influenced their own parenting styles, valuing the lessons learned and the fond memories despite the strictness.

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Memorable Childhood Anecdotes

Gordon Keith's Baptizing Coin Incident:

Gordon shares a humorous story from his childhood involving a coin with a risqué engraving found in his father's possession.

• Gordon Keith [24:34]: "She called my dad and said, ‘Hey, we got this in the offering plate.’ And he thought it was so funny. He kept the thing and said, ‘Okay, that's okay, I'll take it.’"

This incident exemplifies the blend of discipline and humor in his family dynamics.

Craig Miller's Long Hair Debate:

Craig recounts his mother's strict demeanor contrasted with his rebellious spirit during his youth.

• Craig Miller [28:33]: "I used the line, Mom, Christ is my role model... but Gordon, you said that to me because you lost both of yours before I ended up losing my dad."

This story underscores the generational differences in dealing with youthful rebellion and the underlying love between parent and child.

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Losing Their Parents: A Journey Through Grief

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the emotional experiences of losing both parents, highlighting themes of grief, closure, and the enduring impact of their parents' lives.

Gordon Keith's Experience:

Gordon shares the poignant experience of losing his mother and father within eight months of each other.

• Gordon Keith [56:56]: "Their two deaths were very different... their two deaths were very different."

He discusses the trauma associated with their passing but also the sense of closure he feels for being present during their final moments.

• Gordon Keith [57:49]: "I felt I took good care of them, and I was there for them for this. But when my dad passed eight months later, I don't think he was done living. And that's the part that haunts me."

George Dunham's Reflection:

George reflects on the enduring absence of his parents and the profound shift it caused in his life.

• George Dunham [65:13]: "I almost like officially became an adult when I went through all of that."

He shares the loneliness and the realization of living without his parents, marking a significant turning point in his personal growth.

Craig Miller's Remembrance:

Craig speaks about the legacy his parents left behind and the balance between grief and fond memories.

• Craig Miller [67:11]: "We have appreciated all of the great feedback these first few episodes and we hope you'll be with us next week for episode eight of the Musers the Podcast."

He honors his parents' influence and acknowledges the shared experiences that bond the trio as co-producers of the podcast.

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Conclusion

In "Ode to Our Parents," The Musers The Podcast offers a deeply personal and authentic exploration of the hosts' familial roots. By sharing their unique experiences, memories, and reflections, George, Craig, and Gordon not only honor their parents but also provide listeners with relatable insights into the complexities of family dynamics, upbringing, and the enduring legacy of parental influence.

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Notable Quotes

• Craig Miller [01:16]: "There is an immediacy to live radio that I love talking about breaking news as it happens. But I'm also really enjoying the more laid back nature of this podcast... feels way more intimate than radio."

• Gordon Keith [05:09]: "It's something that you cannot go past. You can sit there and goof around and whatever punishments my mom would try to give me never really worked."

• George Dunham [19:30]: "He was at Mississippi State playing football... felt the calling to go be a Baptist minister."

• Gordon Keith [24:34]: "I found it, took it to school and got in trouble for it."

• Craig Miller [54:14]: "She was a nurse her entire life... taking care of those in need in the community, that was her MO for her entire life."

• Gordon Keith [56:56]: "I felt I took good care of them, and I was there for them for this. But when my dad passed eight months later, I don't think he was done living. And that's the part that haunts me."

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Listener Takeaways

• Understanding the profound impact of parental influence on personal development.
• Appreciating the balance between discipline and nurturing in upbringing.
• Recognizing the shared experiences of grief and the legacy left by parents.
• Reflecting on the transition from radio to podcasting and its impact on storytelling.

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Final Acknowledgments

The episode concludes with heartfelt thanks to the hosts' parents for shaping who they are today and to their producer, Peter Welton, for guiding them through the podcasting journey. Listeners are encouraged to subscribe and engage with the Musers on social media for future episodes.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Gordon Keith]

Are you feeling more fulfilled now that you're back to work on August 15th?

[Craig Miller]

No, I need a vacation.

[Gordon Keith]

See the movie that critics are saying is an awesome look at that crowd pleasing, fist pumping all out brawl of a film.

[Craig Miller]

You're right about that. They're coming after our family.

[Gordon Keith]

Go fix this. Oh my. Nobody 2, rated R, holding in theaters August 15th.

[Craig Miller]

So this is episode seven. We're already up to seven. I was thinking we could call this lucky episode seven and maybe one listener wins a million dollars.

[Gordon Keith]

Not from us, but from some other organization. They win a million?

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, that listener maybe plays the Powerball lottery and wins a million dollars. But we could tie it into lucky episode seven.

[George Dunham]

We're not going to give them a million, but they could win at some point in their life.

[Craig Miller]

Yes.

[George Dunham]

Okay.

[Gordon Keith]

Got a morny. The Musers the Podcast, Episode seven, Ode to our Parents.

[Craig Miller]

Welcome to the Musers the Podcast. I'm Craig Miller.

[George Dunham]

I'm George Dunham.

[Gordon Keith]

And I'm Gordon Keith.

[Craig Miller]

We are the Musers. We've been doing a morning radio show in Dallas Fort Worth for 30 years and now we're trying our hand at podcasting. I am liking it so far. There is an immediacy to live radio that I love talking about breaking news as it happens. But I'm also really enjoying the more laid back nature of this podcast, which oddly, and I think we've all observed this feels way more intimate than radio. Yet radio has always been considered a very intimate medium. Yeah, but why is that?

[George Dunham]

I don't know.

[Gordon Keith]

Giorgio and I were just complaining about this, about whatever this truth serum is that hits us when we go into podcast mode and how completely unwise that is because for some reason, broadcast radio feels very ephemeral. It feels. Well, I should say it feels like that's on the record when we're on the radio.

[George Dunham]

Very on the record.

[Gordon Keith]

And then we do a podcast and we go, okay, this is the secret thing. And we can be real vulnerable and just spill all of our deepest, darkest secrets. And not realizing this is more permanent than radio ever was.

[Craig Miller]

Right?

[George Dunham]

Yeah. Not today. I'm not falling for it. This is on the record. On the record. And I'm not going to tell you anything new. No, I think I found that too. And I don't know why that is exactly, but is it because we are facing each other and we're in a smaller room?

[Gordon Keith]

So I was talking about this with people of my choosing recently, and there's something about the fact when we go in here, we know that we don't Have a break that's looming over our head or something that we have to get to. And so we don't have laptops in front of us because we don't need to monitor breaking news. And so we're all actually looking at each other and having a conversation in a way that in radio, you have half a mind on what you're about to do next, half a mind on what you're doing now, and half a mind on watching your computer to make sure nothing is happening that you're not aware of.

[Craig Miller]

We're sitting at a very small table in our radio studio. It's a big table. There's distance between us, but here, it's like you're at a bar. Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Why did we build Henry VIII's dinner table in order to broadcast from?

[George Dunham]

I don't know. That table is huge. And I usually don't look at you guys much. I have to look at Gordon. He's right across from me. We do a radio show, but it's nothing personal. Craig, I don't really look at you during our. I like to hear what we're talking about.

[Craig Miller]

Me, too.

[George Dunham]

And so I don't look at you, but this reminds us. Reminds me of us being in the car together.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

So maybe we ought to call it car conversations or something like that.

[Gordon Keith]

We call it in the car, pants down.

[Craig Miller]

Well, as weird as we have been laying the foundation for our podcast, in these first many episodes, we've been telling you about our backstory. And during episode four, we were talking about our parents. And I said, our parents deserve an entire episode. We need to do that soon. So here in episode seven, we're going to talk about our parents, who they were, how they raised us, because they created us and informed much of how we view the world. So we think you should know their stories because they are, in a very large way, our stories. So today is about our parents. How do you guys want to do this? Do you want to talk about the moms first? Do you want to talk about the dads first? Do you want to talk about them as couples?

[George Dunham]

Maybe we should start with moms, because we talk about our dads so much. Do our dads get top billing?

[Craig Miller]

Yes, so far in this podcast, they have. Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Which is strange because moms did the heavy lifting.

[George Dunham]

You spend more time around your mom.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

I think growing up than you do your dad.

[Craig Miller]

Yep.

[Gordon Keith]

But is it. Is it just fathers and sons that always have us talking about our dads?

[George Dunham]

Because maybe that's it.

[Gordon Keith]

They are our shadow selves. One Generation removed.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, my wife is convinced of that, that I get more pub with my kids than she does. But she's been so great with them through the years. They just absolutely adore her as they should. But, yeah, I feel like that sometimes. And I feel like I've been guilty of that. You know, talking about my dad more on our radio show than I have about my mom. And maybe it's just because he played sports, he was in the military, and it applies to things we're talking about maybe more than my mom. But Gordon may have quoted his mom more because she had so many funny sayings to try to calm him down.

[Craig Miller]

Right.

[George Dunham]

That maybe you have talked about your mom more.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I've talked about both of them quite a bit. But certainly while growing up, my. I was much closer with my mom. You know, my dad was. It was very interesting because my dad changed throughout his life so much. You know, early on when we were growing up, my dad was. He was kind of scary in a way because he was very. He was more moody when we were younger because he was very busy. And so when he was at home, he was always having to work on sermons or do church stuff. And it would just seem like he was always preoccupied with that. And so kids making noise wouldn't go over so well. And. Yeah, and so we. And we were our mother's children. That's the way it felt. You know, my mom was a stay at home mother, so she was around us all the time and was our whole world. You know, your mother truly is your world when you're young. And then. So dad was this guy that you just didn't want to piss off.

[George Dunham]

Right.

[Gordon Keith]

Because you get in trouble with your mom and you can. Oh, you can game it. You can, you know, if she ever threatens to spank you, just run away from her. And then she, you know, you can play on her guilt so she won't even spank you or anything like that.

[George Dunham]

Put your hands back there and maybe block a couple shots.

[Gordon Keith]

Whereas dad. The few times that dad did the corporal punishment, which used to be a thing, which seems crazy to us now.

[George Dunham]

Yep, it does. But it had some merit to it. Oh, here goes.

[Gordon Keith]

George. In childhood, it worked on me.

[George Dunham]

It worked on me too. You know, not that I didn't do, you know, misbehave and would face a punishment. But all I knew at a very young age about my dad was that he was at work a lot. He was a large man, and he was at some point in the military and fought the Japanese in World War II. So that's what I knew about him. And I was scared to death of him. And then I realized that he did have a softer side. He was a very sweet person. But I'm thinking from as far back as I can remember to the age of about five or six, I just viewed my dad as. That's the dude you don't mess with, right? And you do, from posture to everything. I just, I tried not to disappoint him and I tried to walk a straight line. And then I realized, okay, as I got a little older, I certainly tested him. But with your dad, Craig, he was always seemed like such a. A sweet and calm person. Did you have that same fear?

[Craig Miller]

I did. And by the way, here we are talking about starting with our moms, but we're talking about, yeah, we got.

[Gordon Keith]

We reversed.

[Craig Miller]

So I guess we'll start with our dads. But yeah, I feared my dad and I spent more time with my mom, like all of us. But my mom also worked for as long as I was in childhood. She was working from day one. She was a nurse. And so, you know, I had a lot of alone time with dad as well. And then my sister was born quickly after I was born. But mom was the one that we went to for nurturing because she was a nurse and loving. And she was the one that would rub our back to make us fall asleep and cook our food. Although dad, when mom was at work, also cooked. He cooked two things. Daddy burgers and peanut butter toasted sandwiches.

[George Dunham]

Heck, yeah.

[Craig Miller]

That was his rotating menu. They were just regular hamburgers, but called them daddy burgers. But yeah, I got probably three pretty good spankings from dad. They were few and far between, but they were memorable and they worked. So there was that. There was that threat that was constantly there. And we never feared a spanking or anything from mom. I'm not sure she ever spanked us. But dad was a very easy going. I mean, he could be stressed out at times too, but for the most part he was fairly laid back. And, you know, as my cousin Tony always called him, he's a peace loving man. In fact, Tony gave my dad a T shirt one birthday that said peace loving man on it. So, yeah, he was very sweet and very nice, but the threat of a spanking was always there. So he was definitely the disciplinarian.

[Gordon Keith]

And why is that? The only thing that worked was the threat of paternal violence was the only thing that really, I think that I respected as being okay. That's something that you cannot go Past. You can sit there and goof around and. Whatever punishments my mom would try to give me is like, they never really worked. It was only when she says, okay, I'm telling your dad when he gets home. Please, let's make a broker deal. Let's broker a deal right now. Don't tell him. Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Or even worse, I'll tell you what. I'm gonna let your dad deal with this when he gets home. Go sit in your room until your dad gets home.

[Gordon Keith]

That's okay. That's okay. No, I mean, you're just going there.

[George Dunham]

And you're just waiting. And I'm not proud of this, but it was just kind of the way of the time. And again, I had older parents. They were from the greatest generation. They were born in the 1920s, and so they went through the Depression. They went through World War II. And we got the belt.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

And sometimes it was just a spanking, but sometimes I remember at least twice. It only took twice. Two times getting the belt. And it was. It was terrible. But I remember thinking, whatever you do the rest of your life, just don't cross this man, whatever it is. And he wasn't unreasonable. It wasn't like, hey, you. You made a B instead of an A or, you know, I never got punishment like that because of grades. But it was behavior. And if it was something that it was, I was really guilty of, whether it was foul language or throwing rocks at cars, I learned at a young age.

[Gordon Keith]

That's so wrong.

[George Dunham]

You don't do that. And this is what happens when you do.

[Craig Miller]

Why don't we start with the Dick Dunham story? Since he was the oldest of our three dads, he was born in Missouri.

[George Dunham]

Born in Missouri. Pierce City, Missouri. Little town in the southeast section of the state. One of six kids. His dad was a World War I veteran, which comes into play because when he was. He was an athlete. He was on the Pier City swim team, diving team. Played basketball. I think I've showed y' all pictures of him playing sports. That basketball uniform, which is just ridiculous.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

That he wore for Pierce City. Also played football.

[Craig Miller]

Played end.

[George Dunham]

He played end.

[Craig Miller]

Generic position.

[George Dunham]

And I've showed you the program that he was in when he played military ball right after Pearl harbor happened in 1941. And he never told this to me, but he told it to my nephews. He said he and his friends got so damn mad that they went and signed up. And my dad went into the Marine Corps. He became a naval pilot.

[Gordon Keith]

He was the original Pat Tillman. He got so Moved by the. He was so moved.

[George Dunham]

But it seemed like the majority of Men in 1941 here in this country wanted to do something because as we learned recently, Marv Levy said that was a must win. Yes, World War II was a must win.

[Gordon Keith]

But he lied, didn't he?

[George Dunham]

No, he. He was of age.

[Gordon Keith]

Okay.

[Craig Miller]

Because a lot of men did lie or a lot of boys did lie.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. And they were really 16 or 17, and they said they were 18. And I guess we didn't check every birth certificate.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

We didn't have a lot of.

[Gordon Keith]

They didn't go on Facebook to make sure back then.

[George Dunham]

But. Yeah. What a time that he went through. He didn't talk much about World War II, but he talked a lot about the Depression. And I think that made such a big impact on him because they didn't have much. They lived in a small town, and his dad was in a. It was a painter would paint houses and sell paint. And they didn't have much with the six kids, but they felt like they did because while they ate a lot of cornbread and whatever they grew in their garden. One of the most heartbreaking things is he would tell the story of going to school, and this would have been by the early 1930s, and this country is right in the middle of the Depression. And the kids would steal his lunch, and all he had was a piece of cornbread with butter, but they would steal. I mean, think about that. Think of all the things we have now. And we still have poverty. We still have extreme poverty in this country, but back then, it affected most of the population. And just to make it through that. And then. Okay, now that you're an adult, go fight for freedom, and let's not let these evil powers take over the world. I can't imagine. And we referenced this in a previous episode. I wish I would have done what Gordon did and sit down and get record of this, not only for me, but for my kids and my grandkids. This is what your grandfather, your great grandfather went through. What was life like in 1933, 1941, 1945, when it was over? What was that like? And I just. I got stories through the years, but I didn't document them. And I. And I really wish I would.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, my nephew sat down with my dad before my dad passed and did three or four hours with him. Yeah, really great that we have that on the record. So after your dad serves in the military and he's a pilot, did he ever think about becoming a commercial pilot or where did his professional Life take him.

[George Dunham]

He loved flying because he did talk about flying and some things that happened to him and you know, scares landing on an aircraft carrier, which again, I wish I would have documented that. What was that like to land on a moving.

[Craig Miller]

I don't see how they do that.

[George Dunham]

That, you know, with eight, nine inch swales on the, on the ocean. But he went, he wanted to get his degree, so he went back to the University of Missouri, got his degree in business and generic, went into business and he went into commercial roofing eventually. But he started working for W.R. grace Co. And he met my mom, she was at Columbia College in Christian College in Columbia, Missouri, where the University of Missouri was. And that's where they met, fell in love. They became young parents within a year of them getting married in 1948. But within a year of being married they had my oldest brother, Tad. Then Nancy came two years after that, and then Rick came two years after that, and then Laura came two years after that. So they became professional parents at a very young age, not too far removed from being married, not too far removed from World War II. So while I was born as a child of the the 70s, I guess because I was born in 65, I've always told you guys I've considered myself a, a baby boomer because I grew up with parents who were having the baby boomer generation and my brothers and sisters were older. But he always loved flying. And I don't know if this story is true or for I've manufactured it because no one else can confirm that it happened. But his mom lived on a farm after my dad was out of the house and all of his siblings and we used to go visit the farm in Montgomery City, Missouri. And one of my uncles was a crop duster and he would fly these planes and put pesticides on crops in Missouri. And I swear we went down there and my dad had had a couple of beers and swore he could fly that plane. And the next thing we knew, the house was being buzzed by my dad, who have his pilot's license anymore, is 30 years after the fact. But I'm pretty sure that story is true and it just made even a further legend, right? For oh my gosh, my dad not only flew Corsairs, the F4U Corsair, but he could get in some random plane in 1975 and fly it. And I'll go with that story is true. That's the way I remember after a.

[Gordon Keith]

Few beers, after a few years, which.

[George Dunham]

Gave him enough liquid courage to go, yeah, I bet I could figure it out. And if that story is true, he did figure it out. And. Yeah, but there was a soft side to him as well. He was a musician. He played trombone in the Missouri band. My niece still has his trombone, his beautiful silver trombone that my brother played growing up. And he. He loved music. Not the music that I like so much, but he could play piano, he could sing, had this beautiful voice. And yeah, both of my parents, I just. I really looked up to them as. And I grew to appreciate him into my adult life, that they had remarkable lives. They lived just going through the time that they went through. They went through a remarkable time in our. In our history.

[Craig Miller]

Gordo. Dr. Jim Keith.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes.

[Craig Miller]

Your father a Baptist preacher. Did he always know he had a calling to do, that he got the.

[Gordon Keith]

Calling when he was in college. He was at Mississippi State. He was a football player. And I think that he wanted to be a professional athlete, to be quite honest with you, because he loved playing football.

[Craig Miller]

Didn't he get a letter from the Cowboys?

[Gordon Keith]

He did. And the Falcons also. We have some stuff from the Falcons kind of courting him and. But, yeah, I think the Cowboys sent him a watch, and I think he got a letter from Landry and all this kind of stuff. Find that stuff pretty cool. But, yeah, so he was at Mississippi State playing football, and there was one of the star football players on the team of that time, invited my dad to the Dallas Baptist Student Union or something, and my dad went with him. And I have all this stuff written down. I wish I would have found it and brought it, invited him. And my dad, that's. He started getting really back into church then, and soon after felt the calling. And then he switched from Mississippi State University to Mississippi College, which was a Baptist university, to play football there and start studying to become a minister. So that's where he got the calling was while he was on the Mississippi MSU campus.

[Craig Miller]

Interesting.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Where Dak got the calling to go be a Cowboy quarterback. My dad got the calling to go be a Baptist minister.

[Craig Miller]

Didn't your dad line up across from Joe Namath?

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know.

[Craig Miller]

Maybe some. Or Bart Starr. It was when they played Alabama.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, yeah. There was some kind of story. Yeah. Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

Didn't he play against Joe Namath?

[Gordon Keith]

I have to ask my brother about this because you're remembering. You would remember sports stories better than I could.

[George Dunham]

You tuned out because it was sports.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I didn't. I don't understand any of that, but yeah. And so he became a minister and kind of quickly rose up the ranks and the Baptist. What's it called? Southern Baptist Convention.

[George Dunham]

There you go.

[Gordon Keith]

Thank you. And so each church was a bigger church than the last. And we would only stay at a place for three years at a time, probably before he finally ended up here in Dallas at First Baptist Church of Richardson, Texas. And we actually lived in Dallas property. You know, Richardson is a first ring suburb, I guess, of Dallas. And so. Yeah, so I grew up a preacher's son, which was like the worst thing for me to grow up to be.

[George Dunham]

So. Yeah. Did you. At what point did you think, I don't know, I wish my dad wasn't a preacher because I have to really walk the walk that it. What. When did you start feeling that presence of. Gosh, I really am in a. A different spot here because I'm a preacher son.

[Gordon Keith]

I think I felt that early on. Yeah. That you're carrying the family name with you everywhere you go. And, you know, times were probably a little bit different back then. And I was in a smaller town, too. So when I was in elementary school in Gulfport, Mississippi, my father was the preacher of the First Baptist Church of Gulfport, Mississippi. So that carries with it, you know, a bit of a, you know, kind of a royal family type thing.

[George Dunham]

Everybody in town knew.

[Gordon Keith]

And church was bigger in people's lives back then, it seemed, and culture. So it was a bigger deal. And I naturally had impulses of class, clownmanship, so I would be getting in trouble. And I remember this. Gosh, I can't believe I'm telling this story. So in second grade, I remember going through, you know, kids today won't understand this, but when you were a kid back then, with no Internet, no phone, nothing to do, you either played outside or you learned every square inch of your house as well. Like, I knew. I knew what was in every cabinet, every drawer, everything, because you'd just be bored looking around because your, you know, childhood in the 70s was house arrest or go out to the exercise yard, which was the entire outdoors.

[Craig Miller]

Right.

[Gordon Keith]

So I remember finding in my dad's sock drawer this coin. And on one side of the coin, there was a woman, a topless woman, an engraving, you know, like a coin impression of a topless woman. And on the bottom, it was the naked rear end of a woman. And I thought this was the most magical thing I'd ever seen in my life. Now, why a Baptist minister had this, I had no idea, but I thought this was incredible. This is how hard up we were for seeing a naked woman when I was growing up. Is that Even just a stamped coin would be something you needed to show your friends. So I took it to school to show my friends, hey, look at this. This is what women's breasts look like. Look at that. If you can see on this monochrome woman, that's stamped into copper. Look at this. And look, she's got a bottom. It's so pretty.

[George Dunham]

She's got a bottom.

[Craig Miller]

Would that do it for today's Internet porn generation?

[Gordon Keith]

So my teacher at the time, she sees us back there causing a commotion in class. What's going on back there? What do you have? And I had to take this coin up to her, and I had it. And I. I have to explain to her. I'm sorry. I found this in my dad. And this is my dad. He's a Baptist preacher. So what is he doing with this thing? And I'm telling the teacher, I found it in my dad's sock thrower.

[Craig Miller]

Throwing him under the bus?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, throwing him under the bus. And so she called my parents. I got in trouble because I'm disrupting class, showing them nudity. Although this is like practically Roman fresco at Pompeii type nudity. And so my parents, you know, they get me and I'm in trouble and everything. And I. I got in trouble for that. And I got to talking to the story behind the coin. You know, my dad, I remember him laughing at it. My mom was mortified. She always felt the family humiliations much more than my father. Any sort of perceived loss of face or stature would affect her a lot more than dad. But I remember my dad laughing. And he told the story of how he came to get that coin. He said that they received it in the offering plate. It was some dude who had it as his settle a bet coin, Flip coin. That's a funny thing that they would give away back in the day that heads or tails is what it was. Heads or tails coin. And some dude had emptied his change into the offering plate. And they had. The woman who did the counting and gathering of the money and sorting of the money at the church had called my dad and said, hey, we got this in the offering plate. And my dad thought it was so funny. He kept the thing and said, okay, that's okay, I'll take it. And he put a quarter in there and took that coin and then. And took it. And he just never got rid of it. Just had it and threw it in and that was it.

[Craig Miller]

How funny.

[Gordon Keith]

But I found it, took it to school and got in trouble for it.

[George Dunham]

Thought it was the most amazing thing you'd ever seen.

[Gordon Keith]

But that was an interesting time when I was so scared of my dad's reaction and he had laughed it off. And, you know, back in those days, it didn't seem like my dad laughed off as much stuff. But there were several times throughout my growing up where my dad would surprisingly throw me a curveball and stand up for me or take my side or have mercy, you know, which is the interesting view that we have of God. People often say that, you know, your image of God is created by the Father that you had. If you interpret God, if you believe in God to be a judgmental God, if your dad was big on law and order and punishment, and if he's merciful, then you see God is a merciful God. Yeah, well, I saw him as both of those things because my dad had those few notable moments of mercy and then those few very notable moments of getting the belt, which were horrible. But, yeah, there was that time. I remember there was another time when my mother was appalled because my brother and I started growing our hair long and getting in bands, and she really didn't want us being in bands. Rock bands. Oh, my God, what are y' all doing? And I was growing my hair out long. And she was always on me about that hair. She hated my hair, my long hair. And I was always. I always had great verbal jiu jitsu with her over that, talking about how, mom, Christ is my role model, right? And I. I'm merely emulating the Savior, so. But.

[George Dunham]

So cheap.

[Gordon Keith]

But, yeah, I remember using that line with my dad one time because this is around the time I really wanted a car and I had long hair and everything and did the old. Dad, Jesus had long hair. And he said, yeah, and you'll notice Jesus walked wherever he went. Great line, great line. But I remember my mom getting on to me one time. My dad said, you know, hey, Sandra, let him figure it out on his own. It's not the end of the world. He's got long hair. Eventually people cut their long hair.

[George Dunham]

It's okay.

[Gordon Keith]

It'll be fine.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Wow.

[Gordon Keith]

And she stopped. She stopped.

[D]

On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us, WhatsApp message privately with everyone. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to do list is a great feeling, and when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person on the phone or using the award winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Gordon Keith]

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[D]

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[Craig Miller]

Both of my parents kind of let us do whatever we wanted within reason, but they didn't really. They weren't strict parents, I would say. They let us kind of find our own way. They tried to introduce us to instruments and sports and travel a little bit. But for the most part, after I had a kid, when anyone would ask me, how are you going to raise the kid? I would say, and I think my sister would confirm this, we'd love to raise our children the way our parents raised us because we felt like we had a great childhood. And my dad was from East Texas, actually born in Breckenridge, which is a little west of the Metroplex in North Texas. But he grew up in Longview and the moment in his life where he graduated from Longview High School, a Lobo where he didn't play sports. He always told us he wrestled, but we could never confirm that. But I think he just wanted us to think he played a sport and tried to pick one we couldn't verify.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, they didn't keep good wrestling records back then.

[Craig Miller]

I'm not even sure they had a wrestling team back then. But when he was 18, he decided to go into the Navy, and my sister and I always talked about that moment for him because they weren't a family that had a lot of money. And I don't think he thought they could afford to send him to college. And he thought, I'll just go to the Navy, make some money, send some money back home. He was the oldest of six kids, yet he was a brilliant man. He did the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. He read, he was well read on every topic. You could talk to dad about anything. And he had this great mind. And my sister and I always felt like he should have gone to college. We felt like he should have been a college professor. That's what he was built to do because he loved that. He loved to get up in front of people and talk and tell stories and teach you. And yet he went into the Navy. But whenever I talked to him about his life, do you have any regrets? Do you wish you had done this or that? He would always say no. Loved his time in the Navy. He spent nine years in the Navy, pretty much the entire 1950s. He was born in 1932. Like your parents, George? My parents grew up in the Depression. They were Depression era kids. And he in the Navy. He went from basic training in San Diego to then he got an assignment at Kodiak island in Alaska. And he was the base commander's right hand man. And he spent about two years up there, made some great friends, told a heartbreaking story of one of his friends, was a pilot and crashed on the Kodiak airstrip and lost his life. But at the time his tenure at Kodiak island expired was also the time that the base commander was retiring. And the base commander called him into his office and said, bob, your time is up here. My time is up too. I'm retiring from the Navy. He said, where do you want to go for your next assignment? I've put in for you to be stationed in Corpus Christi because I know you're from Texas. And my dad said, I joined the Navy to see the world, to get out of Texas. I don't want to go back to Texas. And the base commander said, okay, well, just go to Washington and wait for your orders. So dad finished his time at Kodiak, flew to Washington D.C. and was just staying there. And he said he stayed there for like a month and never got any orders. And then one day somebody came in and said, you need to go get your shots. And dad said, why? He said, the guy said, because you're going to Paris.

[Gordon Keith]

Wow.

[Craig Miller]

That's what the base commander did for him.

[George Dunham]

Dang.

[Gordon Keith]

Send him to Paris.

[Craig Miller]

Send him to Paris because he liked him so much and he knew he wanted to see the world, so he sent him to Paris. So dad was stationed in Paris for three years. And, you know, when he was off on the weekends or whenever, he would travel to Switzerland and made friends there and travel to Italy. I think he saw the Pope in Italy. We grew up Catholic. He grew up very Catholic. My mom really grew up Catholic, which you'll hear about. And then after that, he flew back to. Was reassigned to Washington, D.C. where he worked at the Pentagon. So he had a really fascinating naval career. Worked there for three years.

[George Dunham]

That time we spent in college. When we went to see. We stayed with your parents, but we went to snow ski in Colorado and our roommate Skip went with us. And I remember sitting down and your dad telling us stories about all of those stops. And I. I think it went on for hours. It felt like five minutes. It was fascinating.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

And it. What a. What a time for him.

[Craig Miller]

He was a great storyteller. That's. That's probably the thing I remember the most about him is when we were younger, we wanted daddy stories because he told great stories. All the kids in our family, all my cousins, if they were visiting, they wanted Uncle Bob stories because he was such a great storyteller from scratch. Every night he would just make up these wild stories that were entertaining and had us sitting on the edge of the bed and wondering what was going to happen next. So I love that about my dad. I love that he was always around. My dad didn't do guys trips. He didn't go to the bar and hang out with his buddies. He was always at the house. If he wasn't working, he was at the house. So we had this comfort of knowing dad was always around. Now, was he always paying attention to us at the house? He may have had his nose in the newspaper or his hands in his.

[George Dunham]

Garden, but he was around.

[Craig Miller]

But he was always there. So you could always count on him being around. And he had a career in insurance. After he got out of the Navy, he bounced around a few different jobs. He sold sprinkler systems for yards in the early 60s. He was way ahead of his time.

[George Dunham]

We had sprinkler systems back in the 60s.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, I think if he started that, like in the 80s, he would have been a billionaire. But he started in the 60s and nobody really wanted that. But he went into a career in insurance for 30 or 40 years and then retired at age 65. And I remember asking him if you could have done anything differently what would that have been? And as my sister and I always thought he would have been a college professor, but he said no, if I had done one thing differently in my career, I think I would have wanted to be a landscape architect. Because he loved gardening and he loved, you know, just kind of designing beds in our yard or planting trees or making a little walkway. So that was maybe his one passion unfulfilled in his professional career. But I think he died a happy man. He was 88. He loved his wife and they were married for almost 40 years. And I think he loved his kids and I think he loved the way his, his life went. And like you said, George, when I look back on my parents lives, I think, and my mom's life is extra fascinating, I think, but I think what, what incredible journeys they had. I know being born in the depression era and dying in the computer age is a fascinating life.

[George Dunham]

You know, neither one of my parents ever really messed around on a computer. They. Neither one of them had a cell phone. They started getting, you know, ill in the. In the late 90s about when all that really started to kick in. We got.

[Gordon Keith]

Never had a MySpace.

[George Dunham]

No. Never had a Twitter account or anything like that.

[Gordon Keith]

Geocities webpage.

[George Dunham]

But he was aware, you know, it somehow we got my dad on where he could have email and started receiving email before he got really ill. And I remember it just trying to explain some because I barely understood it at the time and trying to explain it to him. The World Wide Web. Why would that make any sense to them?

[Craig Miller]

All right, let's talk about the moms. George, Tommy Dunham.

[Gordon Keith]

Which is strange right off the top.

[George Dunham]

It is. My grandfather, I think, wanted a boy. He had Thomasine, Geraldine and Roberta.

[Craig Miller]

Three daughters, Tommy, Jerry and Robert.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, we called her Aunt Rob. Aunt Jerry. And yeah, they always called my mom Aunt Tommy. My cousins did, yeah. She was born in Oklahoma and one of three sisters. Her dad, my grandfather worked in the oil fields. That's how he lost an arm and almost lost his life. And they were very young at the time, my mom and her sisters. And I need to get this confirmed too, but I think they spent some time south of the Texas Mexico border because my grandfather was working the oil fields down there and they were babies. I think my mom was maybe three. And then they spent most of their time in Oklahoma. And my grandfather eventually became a, you know, a rancher and had cattle and yeah, she grew up in really small towns in Oklahoma. They moved a lot and then they moved to Tulsa. She went to Will Rogers High school, Rogers Ropers and eventually got to go to college. And I think that was something my grandparents wanted her to do because their generation, most kids did not go to college and certainly women did not go to college. And that's where she met my dad in Columbia. She was, she had my grandfather's toughness. She never really wanted to cross my mom, but she was just so sweet and had just a real gentle voice and she was at home with us. You mentioned that earlier, Gordo, about how she, she ran the house. And long before I came along, she had four kids under the age of six. I still don't know how they did that.

[Craig Miller]

I don't either, but I just.

[George Dunham]

This is. My dad made his way through World War II. I give my mom so much credit to making it through the World War II version of being a mom.

[Craig Miller]

On the Dunham front.

[George Dunham]

On the Dunham front. How did they do that? And, and you know, and they did. They would describe those times as very happy. And I can relate to that because when my kids, my two older ones were little and then my youngest one came along, there were times when it seemed very chaotic, but I wouldn't trade those days for anything. And I think they were all very happy and they were shocked to find that I was coming along 10 years later to my closest siblings. But yeah, my, my mom ran a, a very strict household. You know, you had expectations of what to do around the house. You had your responsibilities of keeping your room clean, not making a mess, being respectful, eating the proper way. I can't tell you how much time I spent at the table with the proper posture, using a spoon, the correct way. All that was really important. And now I look at how our kids grew up and grandkids, that's. How do you come up and like a bunch.

[Gordon Keith]

Bunch of apes eating.

[George Dunham]

My parents be thinking of this and how it's going down right now. But she was a great cook. She had a really nice voice too. She was a really good singer. And then I was, I was so proud of her that when I look back at it, that later in her life and as I got older, the nest was pretty much empty. I was going off to junior high and high school and she got her real estate's license, sold real estate. And I thought that was really cool. And then she was also a great caregiver to my, my grandparents. She. We lived in Texas, moved back to Texas. And I think a lot of the reason why we moved back to Texas was to be close to my grandparents who were getting late in life. And she took great care of my. My grandparents, including my grandmother, who lived with us for the last year of her life. She had cancer. And, boy, does that still happen today. Do you still take grandma into the house, into the home and. And help take care of her?

[Craig Miller]

It seems more rare these days.

[George Dunham]

It does. And I. I almost think we need a cultural shift to go back to those days. As I get older, I want someone to take care of me in that way.

[Gordon Keith]

But stuff you in a home somewhere.

[George Dunham]

That'S probably just as well. But she was. She took care of people. That was one of her. Her greatest gifts to all of us as kids is this is how you take care of people, Whether it's your neighbor or your own kids or in her case, her mom and dad. She was just really pleasant. And I never. Just like your mom, Craig. And your mom, too, Gordo. I never heard. Heard her say a cuss word.

[Gordon Keith]

My mom had fake cuss words.

[George Dunham]

Fiddlesticks and things like that.

[Gordon Keith]

I remember because my mom just had a house. It was just chock full of knickknacks. There were so many. Good lord, does every square inch have to be covered in a knickknack? She answered me. That's what my dad would ask her. But, yeah, I remember her hearing a loud crash and glass breaking in the other room. And I hear my mom go, oh, sugar bears. Sugar bears was a big one for her. My dad had fake cussing, too. His was a flip. Oh, flip.

[George Dunham]

Flip. That's a great one.

[Gordon Keith]

That's a great way. Yeah, particularly when he's working on a car. You'd get at least a 26 flip afternoon from it.

[George Dunham]

Well, I passed that. I tried not to cuss around my kids. And not that I don't use cuss words, but I tried not to cuss around them because my parents didn't cuss around me. And I just think. I didn't think that was something parents should do. Isn't that funny? Parents don't cuss around their kids, and kids don't cuss around their parents. Yeah, but when they're away from each.

[Gordon Keith]

Other and then they cuss all like sailors, right? I know. I just. I don't know. It's kind of creepy to imagine kids cussing around parents. But of course, parents that do cuss around their kids, it's like they're used to it. They've already broken the seal, so it's no big deal anymore. And they probably think it's crazy us talking about not cussing around our parents.

[George Dunham]

But isn't that wild, though, to see an exchange of F bombs between a mother and daughter?

[Craig Miller]

It's always weird if I see families cussing around each other. All right. Over the years on our radio show, we've heard from Sondra Keith so many times. Because you impersonate her and your dad all the time, Gordo.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

And it's always really funny. What was Sandra like? What's her story?

[Gordon Keith]

You know, she was a. She was sweet, but was that Southern belle matriarch, passive aggressive, you know, had more judgments than you could possibly believe, you know, but always delivered with the honey, honey worded stuff of, you know, well, you know, that is his second wife, you know, such a sweet tone. We're supposed to read into that, that there's a judgment in there somewhere, you know? But, yeah, she would always. She always had the. And it. You know, at the time, I didn't think anything of it as I. As I was a kid. But then as I got older, I really got so tickled at seeing her the way that those Southern women are back then in the Deep South.

[Craig Miller]

She's from Mississippi.

[Gordon Keith]

She's from Mississippi. She grew up, was born in Aberdeen, Mississippi, which is where Mitch Moreland, my cousin, is from.

[George Dunham]

Oh, yes.

[Gordon Keith]

As well. And, yeah, just seeing how the. The Southern woman behaves. And Southern people are really interesting because they are these almost like Shakespearean type characters. And the way they talk is so funny. And my mom was just such a ridiculous font of humor to my brother and me, listening her talk about people in a way that she doesn't. I don't even know if she knew that, mom, you know, that's kind of judgmental sounding. I'm not. I'm just stating facts.

[George Dunham]

It's a second wife.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. I'm just saying. I'm just saying that. Just say he's not home that much. Always about some neighbor or anything, you know. And I've used a lot of these phrases on our show before. The way she used to say, you know, he just stayed drunk. Not a moment of soberness on this guy at all. She's not talking about my dad. She's talking about, you know, some neighbor or something like that. And he ran around on her. It's like, mom, I'm a kid. I don't need to know what you know about these neighbors.

[George Dunham]

All of the town.

[Gordon Keith]

Why do you have to say that? Nobody ever. And she was prone to just the ridiculous exaggeration of, you know, nobody was just a smoker. They lit one right off the other. Yeah. Just Smoke constantly. From can't see to can't see. That's all he does is smoke. That meant from morning to night, before the sun came up and after it went down.

[Craig Miller]

No wonder you and your brother were so entertained.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, it was great. And my mom would have loved to have had a household like Giorgio's where everyone and sat up properly and used the right utensils and didn't make noise. You know, our household was my mom being completely flabbergasted and upset because she couldn't impose that kind of order. And I feel bad for looking back on it because, you know, she really was this person who set a nice table and would plan beautiful meals for us and then, you know, had different sets of plates, stuff that we didn't even understand. Mom, why do we need five sets of different plates for different occasions? You know? Well, that's spode. We only use that. That's in casual dining. And this over here, formal. Where did you get that? Well, the dishwasher's full, mom. And got. That's bone china. You go put that back in the china cabinet right now. There were also dishes that we couldn't use. So strange to me as a kid growing up in this household that I was supposed to understand 700 years of culture, of fine dining that made no sense to. And of course, my brother and I, we lived like absolute feral creatures with we. Nobody would. Would you guys wash a dish? Would you ever just wash one? Because if something was dirty, we would improvise. And it was not uncommon for me to go in the TV room and see my brother drinking out of a huge soup bowl. There'd be ice cubes floating on it and coke filling the soup bowl. And that's what he used as his drink. Because we had no clean glasses at the time because no one would unload the dishwasher for her.

[George Dunham]

Poor mom.

[Gordon Keith]

And she was just appalled at every single one of these breaches of refined southern etiquette. And of course, I didn't know it at the time, but I have kind of add. And so I was always making noise. That was the big complaint against me. My dad would even say that you don't always have to be making noise.

[George Dunham]

That's still my chief complaint.

[Gordon Keith]

There is an option called silence. You know, that's another thing. He was also the master of these subtle passive aggressive, you know, you don't always have to be making noise. Always that tinge of smart assness to it. But it was delivered in that preacher smooth voice that you couldn't quite Pin down.

[Craig Miller]

Do you think as you're pushing both of their buttons your entire childhood, that while they were trying to correct you and work through it, do you think they also secretly loved it?

[Gordon Keith]

My dad said that he got a kick out of it. This is later in life, after we're adults and everything. Sure. And. And then, of course, later, after we've made my mom live through the hell of raising me, then those became. Those stories transformed into funny stories, you know, of things that I would do. And I one time brought that audio in. And you guys heard that. Cause I had a. I got a tape recorder one Christmas. It was this red tape recorder that you could, you know, it had a microphone on it so you could record. And so I was obsessed with that thing. I recorded all kinds. I mean, it's insanity to listen to it. I'm doing all different kinds of voices and the stuff that I would say on Just Repeat, there would be words that I would get obsessed with and I just say them over and over again. My sister could tell you all kinds of stories about this. You'd secretly roll on conversations, I'd roll on conversations. I would, you know, just go in and say the same thing to my mother over and over again no matter what she asked me or tell me to go away. And I would just keep repeating the same phrase and get a reaction. But yeah, there's that audio of me going crazy on a tape recorder, just screaming. And my mom coming into the room because my sister's in there too. And my mom yelling at my sister saying, go in there and finish your homework. And my sister's like, yeah, but, but he's not. He's. He's just sitting in here, he's doing nothing. And my mom said, yeah, but I can't control him. I can control you.

[George Dunham]

I can relate so much to your parents. I really can.

[Gordon Keith]

So she had already identified that the allocation of resources had to be put to a smart usage. She only has so much control to expend and she's got to use it on the one that actually works on like. And I was probably like 10 then and already a lost cause. Just, she had written me off. I can't control him. I can control you.

[Craig Miller]

Wow.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, she was interesting and it was interesting to see, you know, as they got older, you know, my mom always said she was very consistent. She was a stay at home mom. And then she went back and taught kindergarten for, you know, the last part of her life. And. And in the end, when they died, and they died eight months apart, to the day. On the same day, eight months apart, my mom passed away, first of cancer, and then my dad died. He had multiple myeloma, but he ultimately died of heart failure because he also had some heart issues. But their two deaths were very different. You know, my mom had always consistently said to us that the greatest time of her life and the greatest joy that she felt a woman could have was being the mother of small children. And she loved it when we were young.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Loved it. And. And she was so wonderful during that time. When we were young, you know, when we became troubled teenagers, she did the best she could with not much material. You know, we weren't giving her a lot to particularly me, but I think that was the happiest time of her life. And when she died at the age of 72, which sounds young now, her passing was very peaceful. Like, she had a real sense of completion to her life. She had raised her kids, and she had seen them all to grow up, have good jobs, have good families, and she was content. And, like, there was no sense of restlessness when her death came on. You know, she even did that thing, and I wrote about it in the Dallas Morning News. She had gone through her house, and here's a woman who spent her whole life collecting things, and she got rid of her collections, you know, one by one. Give them to friends, give them to charity, whatever, and prepared the house for her death. And when she passed away, it was like this very peaceful thing. And I was there holding her hand when she passed. And. And eight months later, I was there for my dad because I was the child that lived closest to them. And so that was kind of my responsibility, and. And in a lot of ways, my honor. Like, I. I have a lot of trauma associated with those deaths, but I also have a lot of a sense of closure, too, because I. Like, there was nothing that I left undone.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

You know, I felt I took good care of them, and I was there for them for this. But when my dad passed eight months later, I don't think he was done living. And that's the part that haunts me.

[George Dunham]

Sure.

[Gordon Keith]

You know, there were more things he wanted to do, and there were more. You know, he was writing a book. He wanted to go see things and travel. And by that time, his body was so debilitated, I was only. I was able to take him to Scotland before he. Before my mom died, even, which was a lifelong trip. And then after my mom died, I took him back to his home in Mississippi, and he got to say, you know, yeah, so we took that trip together. And when he passed, one of the last things he said to me was, I didn't know it's gonna end like this. I know. And he was. He was struggling for breath. And so he was aware and, you know, where is my mom? Faded out. My dad was an abrupt stop. And that is a tough one.

[Craig Miller]

We should all be as fortunate as your mom to have it in that way, where it's wrapped up kind of the way you want it wrapped up and you feel good about everything. And I think the opposite from my parents. When my dad passed away, he was 88. And I think he felt like he had done everything he could do, and I think he was fine. And when my mom passed away, she was 74. Very close to your mom's age, Gordo. And also cancer claimed my mom. And I think she felt like, because she had young grandkids at the time, my sister's kids were very young. And she felt like she had a lot of living still to do. But she didn't get that chance. You talked about your dad was writing a book. My sister is currently writing a book. You know how that goes. She's been doing this for years. I hope one day she publishes this because she's writing a book about my mom's life.

[George Dunham]

Oh, wow.

[Craig Miller]

Because it's such a fascinating journey. She was born in 1930, depression era north Dakota on a farm, little town called Glenoland. So imagine how hard life was for anyone on a little farm in North Dakota, those winters that last 10 months. And she was one of the youngest. Her, she's got one brother younger, but there were seven kids, actually eight, but one died in childbirth, which happened a lot back then.

[George Dunham]

Sure.

[Craig Miller]

So seven kids growing up in North Dakota, and their parents died very quickly after my mom was born. So she only had her mother and father around for the first few years of her life. And then I think pneumonia claimed both of them, if I'm not mistaken. But they didn't have heat back then. They were working themselves to the bone. And just a really tough upbringing. But she did all right. She was the valedictorian of her high school class. There were only 18 in that class, Glenn Olin. But she was the valedictorian, so she had that on her resume.

[Gordon Keith]

So she graduated 18th from the bottom.

[Craig Miller]

Right. She went to college, but it was a package deal where she also entered the nunhood. She was raised Catholic and she became a nun and they put her through college at the University of Seattle. She left North Dakota, went to Seattle, Washington. She was there at the same time of Elgin, Baylor, the Lakers. Great. Don't know if they dated, don't know if they. Well, probably not if my mom was a nun, but I don't know if she went to basketball games. But anyway, she became a nurse and a nun. And when I think of my mom, I think of one word, and that is selfless. Because she spent her entire life taking care of other people, serving other people, serving God. She was a nun for 15 plus years before she left the convent because, as she said, God wanted her to go forth and give birth to an AM radio broadcaster. Her mission in life. No, but seriously, she did feel like she had a calling to have a family. She really wanted to have a family. But she served God for 15 years as a nun. Then she was a nurse her entire life. So she was taking care of others. She was a registered nurse and worked all through our childhood. And then she later in life became a teacher and a counselor. She taught psychology and nursing psychology at Oklahoma State, at the Technical Institute in Oklahoma City when we lived there. And then when we moved to Dallas, she became a counselor at a local hospital for kids and adults who were going through drug addiction. She's serving people, constantly serving people. And then she had a lifelong charitable, community service element to her life. She was heavily involved in Meals on Wheels and did everything she could do at her church and was just always about helping other people. And it always makes me feel awful because I feel so selfish looking at my life compared to hers when hers was all about serving other people. You know, I don't know that we have many people that are cut like that anymore. Cut from that cloth. I know where I'm so interested in getting my bike ride every day and, you know, figuring out what I'm going to watch on TV that night. And those things never entered her mind. She had her own hobbies, she loved to read, and she was a great cook. But taking care of her family, taking care of her patients, taking care of her students, taking care of those in need in the community, that was her MO for her entire life.

[George Dunham]

She had a great laugh, too. I remember your mom's laugh. You must have cracked her up a bunch.

[Craig Miller]

Oh, yeah, and she cracked herself up a lot. As smart as she was, she also had a little bit of a scatterbrained airhead quality to her, which was really funny. And the story that my sister and I always think about when we think about my mom, I was probably 10, my sister 8. We're in our house in Oklahoma City. My bedroom was in the very back, my parents in the very front, and my sister in the middle. And I got up to go to the bathroom. Two in the morning, I go to the bathroom. I had one off of my bedroom. And as I'm leaving that bathroom, I hear my mom the most blood curdling scream. Ah, there's someone in the house, Bob. There's someone in the house. He's in Craig's room. I hear this, and I dive into my bed, which must have been 10ft away, get under the covers, and I'm like, holy ass, there's somebody in my room. And then I hear my dad. Stay away from him. You stay away from him.

[George Dunham]

That ought to do it.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Firm command.

[Craig Miller]

And my sister. And they had come halfway back to my room down the hallway. And so my sister's room was halfway back. So she's looking at my mom screaming and my dad in his underwear screaming. And then like a minute later, I realize there's nobody back here. I'm the only one back here. And I walk out of my room, I said, there's no one here. It's just me. And I see my parents standing there in their underwear. And then my mom just starts dying, laughing because she realized she was half asleep and heard a noise and just assumed had to bed. Somebody was in my room doing something to me. And then. So we laughed about that. For the rest of her life. She just would in tears thinking about that story. And then we gave my dad hell for the rest of his life about, why didn't you come back there?

[George Dunham]

You stay away from him.

[Gordon Keith]

I tell you, you guy.

[Craig Miller]

Why didn't you come rescue me?

[Gordon Keith]

Because the guy was already under orders not to do anything. That's right.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

You were clear chain of command.

[Craig Miller]

She had a great laugh and she had great moments. Both of my parents were very casual sports fans, and she had so many moments where she. She wanted to be a part of the conversation, but didn't really know how or what was going on. So I told you that story. The Thanksgiving Day football game between Texas and Texas A and M. And Texas is up in the game, six to nothing. So they're leading the Aggies, and my mom walks in and the only play she sees is Texas attempting a field goal. And it's wide right, no good. And she goes, oh, Texas, they're hopeless. And turns around and leaves. I'm like, mom, they're winning.

[George Dunham]

They're up. See, I think that was a commentary on the Texas program and that they hadn't Returned to the days of Darrell Royal, maybe.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, maybe we're all orphans now. We've all lost both of our parents. It's weird, I know. Gordon, you said that to me because you lost both of yours before I ended up losing my dad. And you said, it's just weird when you find yourself in life without parents.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Because they are the. That's the bulkhead against death. Right. They're the generation before you. And once they're gone, you realize, oh, I can't hang out in the on deck circle anymore.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, you're up.

[Gordon Keith]

I'm up.

[Craig Miller]

Right.

[Gordon Keith]

I'm in the batter's box now.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

And. And that. It's a very strange feeling. Yeah. Walking out of the hospital that time after my dad passed and that realization, I'm nobody's son.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I know that is hard. And you know, it's been a long time. Mine died first, I guess on the show since we've been together. My mom passed in 2000 and my dad was 2004 and it's been so long now. But when I do look back at that time, I just. It was a really sad time. And you Gordo, going through both of them in eight months. I remember at the time just thinking, golly, Gordo's going through so much right now. But it really was as sad as it was. I look back, it was such a significant time because I think I finally really grew up. You know, I just. It that the whole thing that you just described there is like my life is different now. And now, you know, to my kids, I have this. This legacy to leave that they left me. And I wonder how that's going to look. And that'll quite stack up to someone who took care of kids like my mom did and. And her parents and others around her and a World War II veteran. But yeah, it was just a very. It was a sad time. But it also. I almost like officially became an adult when I went through all of that. And it. Yeah, it really. It was a. It was a changing point in my life for sure.

[Craig Miller]

And it should be said the three of us are very, very lucky that we had both of our parents, all of them into their 70s and 80s. We're very fortunate to have had them around for our lives. So a very special thank you to Bob and Jody Miller, Richard and Tommy Dunham, and Jim and Sandra Keith for creating us and raising us and loving us. Those six people are responsible for the Musers, the podcast co producers.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, they demanded EP cred.

[George Dunham]

Gosh, I just thought about explaining a podcast to my parents. How did I do that?

[Craig Miller]

And also thanks to our producer, Peter Welton. While he didn't birth any of us or raise us, he is parenting us through this whole podcast experience and we'd be pretty lost without him. And thank you to the listener for joining us on this podcast journey. We have appreciated all of the great feedback these first few episodes and we hope you'll be with us next week for episode eight of the Musers the Podcast.

[Gordon Keith]

Son, you don't have to tell all our business. Don't forget because we're told it's important. Take the time to like or subscribe or follow the podcast wherever you may be listening. You can also reach out to the Musers across all social media Social media, but you can also just send an email themuserspod Gmail.com the Musers the Podcast is a tired head production.

[Craig Miller]

It's part sports.

[Gordon Keith]

We have football on the brain, part pop culture.

[George Dunham]

Dennis Leary True or false.

[Gordon Keith]

You refuse to wear a glove with Mickey Mantle's signature on it for the movie the Sandlot. The Red Sox blood, the Bruins blood. They run deep.

[Craig Miller]

Add in the best celebrity interview.

[Gordon Keith]

Robert De Niro here on the Rich Eisen Show.

[George Dunham]

How are you sir?

[Gordon Keith]

Just got over a 24 hour virus. The antidote is to appear on the Rich Eisen Show. There you go. I would just have done it earlier.

[Craig Miller]

And you've got the Rich Eisen Show Podcast.

[Gordon Keith]

There is a medicinal quality to appearing on this program.

[Craig Miller]

Follow and listen on your favorite platform.