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Website: https://jimshockey.com/
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Transcription

Jim Shockey Call Me Hunter

[00:00:00] Travis Bader: I'm Travis Badder, and this is the Silvercore Podcast. Silvercore has been providing its members with the skills and knowledge necessary to be confident and proficient in the outdoors for over 20 years, and we make it easier for people to deepen their connection to the natural world. If you enjoy the positive and educational content we provide, please let others know by sharing, commenting, and following so that you can join in on everything that Silvercore stands for.

[00:00:40] Travis Bader: If you'd like to learn more about becoming a member of the Silvercore Club and community, visit our website at Silvercore.ca

[00:00:52] Travis Bader: he's a true legend in the hunting and outdoor world. A renowned conservationist, award-winning television host, and a passionate adventure With over four decades of experience exploring the most remote and pristine landscapes around the globe. This man is a wealth of knowledge to share with us. Welcome to the one and only Jim Shockey.

[00:01:14] Jim Shockey: No way to go now. I've gotta live up to that for the next, uh, yep. Let's just end it right there. Yeah. Thank you. It's been nice here. They really, I figured 

[00:01:24] Travis Bader: I'd front load that one a little bit. I, I, I always figure, you know, if you're gonna have somebody into your house, you don't get them to introduce themself.

[00:01:31] Travis Bader: So thank you for being on the Silvercore Podcast. You know, the podcast, our core values are primarily about positivity and sharing people's passion with others, and you have passion in spades. I have been doing some research and preparing for this podcast. And holy crow, the number of interests and pursuits that you have endeavored on in your lifetime thus far are kind of mind boggling.

[00:02:01] Travis Bader: And I, I'm looking down, I mean, you've, you're, you're obviously, you enjoy hunting and fishing, but you also enjoy literature and philosophy. You're a musician, you're an inventor. I don't know if many people know that, but, uh, a photographer, an author, you've got an upcoming book called Call Me Hunter, which I have already on the pre-order list for, which looks amazing, which I want to be able to talk about in this podcast as well.

[00:02:26] Travis Bader: But, um, my hope was to be able to talk about things that maybe haven't been covered in as great as depth and. You know, with the Silvercore Podcast, we're always trying to find different ways to not necessarily preach to the choir or talk to the choir, but to find people outside of that. And I get the sense that's what you're doing with your book as well.

[00:02:47] Travis Bader: Am I, am I on the right track with that? 

[00:02:49] Jim Shockey: Yeah, a hundred percent. Uh, I mean, we, we can preach to the converted all day long. We, we have a similar, we're kindred spirits. Our mindset's the same. We common sense is, is common with us. So, you know, there, there's a lot of people that don't, they, they would appreciate it and they would recognize it.

[00:03:08] Jim Shockey: They would relate to it, but they don't hear our message because we're always talking to each other. So, so the novel, the, the number one purpose isn't to make money. I mean, we're giving everything away. My wife and I, you know, to a foundation, everything we're, what are you gonna do? Bury yourself with a pot full of dollar bills.

[00:03:26] Jim Shockey: So, so, hmm. You know, the purpose of the novel was, was to reach outside of our core audience that, um, that already know how we feel, how we think. Hopefully, you know, that audience will also appreciate it. But, uh, you know, we, we've had doors closed to us for 60 years now. We've been vilified, marginalized in the mainstream media.

[00:03:48] Jim Shockey: Stereotyped. I mean, we're, you know, buffoons that spit on the floor, no higher sensibilities. And, and that's just not true. We all know that's not true, but that is bad news. It sells for $2. You know, good news sells for $1. They're not gonna say, yeah, these guys are actually sentient human beings. And, and they're, you know, they, they do have higher sensibilities.

[00:04:07] Jim Shockey: So, you know, I felt the only way to reach out there is to play their game in their world, which means, you know, literature, they, they appreciate that, um, fictional thrillers, commercial fiction. I mean that these are the hardest. Genres to actually break into. And, and I mean, ask Jock car, he, you know, he's broken into it in spades.

[00:04:29] Jim Shockey: He's opened the door crack and thankfully, you know, he's, you know, ushering some of us in as well as many as, as, uh, you know, he feels he wants to put his name on. And he did that with me. He got me where I, you know, I mean, go try and get a, an agent in that world to, to represent your work, your, your creative novel manuscript, and then try and get a publisher, a big publisher like Simon and Schuster is the biggest.

[00:04:56] Jim Shockey: Try and get him to read it. They get a thousand unsolicited manuscripts a week. You know, when I was told, I mean, to try and get your novel read by anybody. Anyway, uh, Jack was instrumental in opening that door and, you know, sliding me through it. And now I'm gonna open that door a little wider, hopefully, if this, if this novel is a success.

[00:05:15] Jim Shockey: So, so it is to reach out to open doors to be able to tell our story what, what that we all know. Is a good story that needs to be a told and represented in know what we do, conservation, the, the, you know, the fact that we care about the wildlife around the world, that that needs to be told. So, so that's why I wrote the novel to get into their world, give me a voice in their world.

[00:05:40] Jim Shockey: You know, as 

[00:05:41] Travis Bader: Shane Mahoney, he, he said something to me, which really kind of stuck. And he says, you know, just because you're right, right? You can jump into that river and you can be going in the right direction where you need to go, but you're fighting the river the entire way with your hands up. You're never gonna win.

[00:05:57] Travis Bader: He says, if you can find something that's floating down the river, something that's got the public consciousness, that's got the attention of everybody else, and jump on that and maybe grab a paddle and be able to steer that in a direction that's gonna be beneficial to everybody, you're much further ahead.

[00:06:13] Travis Bader: And he looked at it from the, the food connection with hunting and nature and. And the, uh, the amount that food is in the zeitgeist and whatever that 20 mile diet and all the rest, and how foraging is, um, gaining in popularity. And he says, you know, if we can tell the story through food, then that's one way we can grab that public, um, attention and say, you know, there's also this story of hunting on the side over here.

[00:06:45] Travis Bader: How, how are you looking at doing 

[00:06:47] Jim Shockey: that? Yeah. You know, the, I think the, the food is a, is a, a, a partial, a partial solution. I, it's very difficult to defend food is the reason we're hunting. And it'll get you out of an argument at a cocktail party with, with a certain crowd. I only hunt. But I do it for food.

[00:07:10] Jim Shockey: And that's the only reason I hunt. You know, I eat everything. I kill that, that works to a degree, like I say, at a cocktail party level, but it, it doesn't stand the test of, of scrutiny. Um, you know, it, it would be disingenuous for any of us to say we hunt for food, we do hunt for food. Yes. But that's, it is not because we have to, it's because we choose to.

[00:07:32] Jim Shockey: And, and the cost. I mean, economically, you don't fly down to Mexico to hunt COOs, deer, um, you know, for food. I mean, it just, but it, but you can also say it's not for trophy because you're eating the food. Right. So, so, yes, it's true. And because we may want to spend $8,000 a pound for our food, you know, that's our choice, you know?

[00:07:55] Jim Shockey: So, so again, it's, but, but it, it, it, it doesn't, it won't stand close scrutiny. Not nowadays. I think you have to have a, um, A spiritual connection with the animals, the, um, with the wildlife, you know, you have to show that we have a responsibility, a, a, a philosophy that includes it. And again, I, I'll bring it back to a religion, you know, where the outdoors is, our cathedral, the forest, the mountains, the hanging valleys.

[00:08:25] Jim Shockey: And I think that's, that will stand the test of, of close scrutiny because we all feel it. We just may not be able to articulate it. And from someone looking outside at what we do, we're, we're smiling, we're holding an animal, and we're smiling. How can you be happy? You're happy cuz you killed something.

[00:08:43] Jim Shockey: But no, no, that's not it at all. We're happy because we've, we've, um, touched our ancestral soul and, and that mm-hmm. That's an argument or that's at least a, a philosophy that it can be argued, it, it can be defended, uh, um, far more to, to somebody that really looks at it. Deeply than, than just, it's a, it's the food, food, food works.

[00:09:08] Jim Shockey: You know? Like I said, it'll get you out of a, an argument at a party. But it's not, it, it, it, it also, it throws a bunch of the hunters under the bus. It implies that I'm okay, but they're not okay. Which, you know, I, I've used the analogy, it's like a, a three toed dinosaur talking to a for toed dinosaur dinosaur and saying, you know, I'm far more involved than you.

[00:09:30] Jim Shockey: I have three toes. You know, meanwhile, the, the comics coming up, both of them, you, no, you're just argu, you're both dinosaurs. So, and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, dinosaurs lasted for Oh, I like it. Yeah. A hundred million years. So, so, so that, that's why when someone says, we just, I only hunt for food.

[00:09:49] Jim Shockey: They only eat what I kill. Oh, that's great. What about wildlife management then? What about predators? You know, you're saying that you don't kill a wolf, even though the wolves are decimating the population of ungulates to the point where it crashes the population. Mm-hmm. Nature works on boom and bust.

[00:10:05] Jim Shockey: That's the counter argument. And then, you know, you say, well, wait a minute. You know, we've created logging roads. You know, you look at British Columbia where I'm talking to you from right now. Look at it, 60, 80 years ago there was, you know, a few logging roads, main, main lines. Look at it. Mm-hmm. Now, compared to a, an overlay map, it's like veins.

[00:10:24] Jim Shockey: It's everywhere. Well, as soon as you do that, you create uber predators. The wolves become uber predators. They run the roads. Now they don't have to go over dead falls and around cliffs and cut banks and, and, uh, rock bluffs. They, you know, they now have to just go down the road until they hit a track where a deer that's out in the field or out in the bushes, you know, across the road to go find more food, the wolves hit that track, boom.

[00:10:49] Jim Shockey: Kill the animal. Come back up, run the road again. Now, You know, is there scientific proof of that? Not really. Is is there common sense? Oh yeah. A whole lot of it, you know, that that's what's happening. So for someone that says, back to the argument that they only kill something they, you know, to eat it and would never kill a wolf and never deined to kill a wolf.

[00:11:08] Jim Shockey: Well, that again, gets em out of the ar you know, the argument at a cocktail party. But it doesn't answer what we should be doing or doesn't accept responsibility, which is management of the wildlife species on a scientific basis. So you're gonna have to manage the predators. Well, I don't eat wolves Well, okay, so the wolves kill all the ungulates and what do you eat?

[00:11:28] Jim Shockey: Yeah. Well, nature works on boom and bust. I mean, you get this constant circling around of, of, um, the simple truth is that there, every wildlife species in this world is managed nowadays. From whales on down and, and to think otherwise is, is utopia utopic? It doesn't, it's not the reality. And, and we have to manage.

[00:11:49] Jim Shockey: You can't let nature do boom and bust because there's 8 billion of us, us 25 billion chickens in this world. There's 6 billion goats, 6 billion head of cattle, 6 billion sheep y you know, that's where the wildlife biomass is turned into. We have to manage wildlife now. We have to, because it's not nature.

[00:12:11] Jim Shockey: When they wrote this boom and bus cycle over hundreds of thousands of years, and you know, they go up, they go down populations and the animals build up, predators. Build up. Yeah. Boom. And bust works when we're not around. But, but, right. So I, I, I just think it's a far more complicated issue than just saying food.

[00:12:30] Jim Shockey: You know, it's, it's food. I, it's not defensible in the long run. I 

[00:12:35] Travis Bader: agree. And you can't stick your finger in the bowl of water without expecting to see some ripples. And we've stuck our finger in it a pretty big way, and now we have to manage how that works. That's, 

[00:12:44] Jim Shockey: um, eight, 8 billion of us. That's, you know, there's 8 billion, 8 billion of 

[00:12:48] Travis Bader: us.

[00:12:50] Travis Bader: So I thought it kind of interesting you're talking about the spiritual aspect. You talked to any hunter out there and that always ends up coming up Mo That's something that most non-hunters might not think about is that connection to nature. That somebody who's out there in the environment hunting has that deep sort of connection and that that spirituality side of things seems to be in high demand nowadays with people seeking answers and seeking, you know, since Covid and everyone got locked up and they're, uh, stuck in front of social media and watching all this different stuff coming in, something I found really interesting is a number of public.

[00:13:29] Travis Bader: Uh, figures, reaching out, talking about mental health, talking about spirituality, talking about, um, talking about how, just getting outside, how beneficial that is for people to, whether that's, uh, on the crystal ball, uh, side of things where they're talking about grounding and being out in, in nature and, uh, grounding their electrical magnetic feel to other people.

[00:13:55] Travis Bader: Just talking about the, the, just the calming and the, um, the mental health benefits to being outside. I, I think that's an interesting area. That's a multi-billion dollar industry in itself. The whole mental health area, which I don't know if it's been properly, um, Are fully addressed in, in the hunting world.

[00:14:17] Jim Shockey: No, it absolutely has not. I mean, we, we, we know it. We feel it. So do I need to tell you about it? You, we know when we're sitting in a camp over a campfire and the sparks are going up and the Northern Lights are above us, and you know, we have our cup of coffee, whatever it is, you know, cowboy coffee, and, and we've had a good meal.

[00:14:36] Jim Shockey: We've worked hard all day, fresh air. We know it, but, and we'll talk about it. We feel it there. But how does that translate to talking to everybody else that's not out there? The ones chasing a second car, a bigger TV screen, a, you know, a fancier restaurant, they, they've, they don't understand because they're not doing it.

[00:15:00] Jim Shockey: And now when they're faced with their mo own mortality, say, holy cow, my, you know, this construct of my world is, is actually, you know, it's an upside down pyramid. It, it's really tippy. Again, 8 billion of us. It's a, it's a tippy world we've created and, and when it goes, you know, tips over, or at least shakes, they, they suddenly realize, whoa, you know, these constructs that I've been working for that I think are so important.

[00:15:27] Jim Shockey: Uh, you know, uh, Oscar Delo, Renta designer dress, I mean, I don't even know any of these. I know you sound Lorena. It's terrible that I can actually name a couple of them. Chan Coco Chanel, you know, when you, when you're striving for that, and that's the most important thing. And, and you know, you have your poodle and you take it down to Central Park and look at my view of all the buildings, but then that, that starts to wobble a little bit and suddenly that, you know, penthouse Suite becomes a tomb, a jail first, and then a tomb.

[00:16:02] Jim Shockey: Because you can't go down the elevators, you can't go down the stairwells. You're encased in this. This jail of, you know, people that you're not supposed to be able to touch and see. And, and it's not natural. It shakes up their world. And so that's why of course, they're going to turn back to something that's real, that they can touch, that they can breathe, that they can feel, uh, I gu I I guess feel sated, feel satisfied that they're living a life that is, is got value because it's not value to have a a, a $3,000 suit.

[00:16:39] Jim Shockey: It, you know, it is, if you live with a bunch of other people that all think the 300 or $3,000 suit is important, but when something like Covid comes along and Covid was a joke compared to what's coming down the tubes for us, you know that that's coming. That, that's nature. Na you know, nature gave a shot across our bow on this one earlier.

[00:16:57] Jim Shockey: I don't know nature, what, you know, I mean, we're, we are part of nature, we're instruments of nature. So if we constructed this virus, you know, we are acting at the behest of nature and, and it's an experiment. A again, you, you start getting into a big philosophical talk, uh, talk on this stuff. Um, but it, it covid shook up a lot of people's world and that's why they needed something real.

[00:17:22] Jim Shockey: That's why prices out in the country went up for land because people wanted to, the ability to walk out their door and, and eat a radish from their garden. You know, they didn't have to rely on somebody far away. They could, you know, get a chicken and have it lay an egg. Um, that, that's a pretty alluring life when, pardon the language shit hits the fan.

[00:17:44] Jim Shockey: Mm-hmm. And, and that's mm-hmm. That's what happened, you know, and, and it didn't really, but they thought it did and that was enough to, to shake up their world. So, so yeah. I, I, I think it's a good thing that people are starting to reach out into the outdoors, but. We have to be careful what we wish for too.

[00:18:03] Jim Shockey: The flip side of that is 8 billion people. Again, I keep coming back to that. Mm-hmm. You know, that's the issue. So 8 billion people living in the outdoors and wild and free. Is it wild and free anymore? Is there just 8 billion people from New York City living where we used to go and, and commune with nature, you know, and then who, like I say, the deeper you go down this rabbit hole, okay, then, then who gets to do that?

[00:18:25] Jim Shockey: You know, who does, who gets to be a hunter? Because you can't have 8 billion hunters out there. We never did historically. Not even percentage wise. We never did. 10% of us were hunters and 90% of us were support for the hunters. Basically, we sup we supplied food and we were good at it to varying degrees.

[00:18:43] Jim Shockey: Um, you know that 10% and, and the others tried when they had to and they gathered when they could. But really they were support for, for what we were doing. We were the ones that were providing. So there there 8 million people. There weren't 8 billion hunters. So, you know, the whole tribe wasn't hunters and, and.

[00:19:01] Jim Shockey: Yeah, we're, we're gonna have to, it. It's gonna be an interesting future. I mean, talk to me in 10,000 years, I'll be that. That'll be an interesting conversation. You know, we saw it coming and we didn't do anything about it, or we couldn't do anything about it. And in which case, is there something that can be done about it?

[00:19:19] Jim Shockey: I don't know. I don't know what the solution take a lot smarter person than me, but I think we have to look at this whole picture in, in a, um, not only more worldly terms, but in, in, uh, temporal terms in thousands of years. What's, what's really happening out there? 8 billion people. Mm-hmm. If anybody thinks we're gonna be able to maintain this population growth for another thousand years, a thousand years.

[00:19:42] Jim Shockey: I mean, a thousand years ago wasn't that long ago. I mean, 800 years ago, it wasn't that long. No. Gangas Khan was running around 800 years ago. Only we're talking not a big long time in, in, uh, certainly geological time. It, it's a nothing so, but a thousand years. Let's talk about it. We can't maintain this growth.

[00:19:58] Jim Shockey: It's impossible. The resources aren't here. We're already, like I say, how many chickens? How 25 billion chickens? Arguably the, the most adaptive creature in the world is chickens. So, so anyway, like I say, you, you, you, if you start me on that, we, it gets, it gets deep and it's not as simple and facile as just, uh, you know, going outdoors for fresh air.

[00:20:21] Jim Shockey: There, there's a far, like I say, our, we have our ancestral souls inside us, and, and when our world gets rocked, that's what we turn to. And that belief structure, that, that peace and freedom and, and serenity, a sense of why, answering why that's, that's important to us. And that's what Covid did. It, it shook up people's world.

[00:20:46] Travis Bader: Yeah. Even if it was in sort of an illusionary way, the prospect of death re real or perceived the prospect of everything changing on them. I, you know, a friend of mine and he's a philosophy student, and he says, Trav, the only thing, the only thing that gives life value is death. I'm like, what do you mean?

[00:21:06] Travis Bader: He says, well, think about it. If you had infinite resources, infinite money, that money's not gonna have the same value. Right? That finite level to it is what gives that item value. And so many people, I think, will go through their entire life and not contemplate their own mortality until it's smack dab right in front of them.

[00:21:27] Travis Bader: Um, hunters on the other hand, deal with life and death and have a very. Honest and intimate relationship with it, which I think is one of the areas that is possibly missing in society. I know, um, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman in the States here who wrote on Combat, on Killing on Hunting or a recent one.

[00:21:51] Travis Bader: Um, but he talks about how death being behind closed doors and the effects it has on society. Um, that's one full tangent that that came to mind when you're talking there. But the other one that I think might be a more positive way to even look at is if only 10% of the people out there were hunters and the other 90% were supporting them.

[00:22:14] Travis Bader: How do we celebrate those 90% so that they feel valued for the support that they're doing, and they're a part of that conversation. When I was in Germany recently, I was talking, uh, with a fellow, he's the head of firearms training and hunter education for the Bavarian region. And one of the things he's talking about is, you know, a guy goes out and, uh, he's successful on, on his haun guy or a girl, and it's then incumbent on them to come back and they're buying, buying drinks and buying rounds for the rest of the crew because they wouldn't have been successful if they didn't have the camp cook, if they didn't have the person helping, uh, set things up with logistics and all the other people who play that integral role.

[00:22:53] Travis Bader: So two different tangents. I'll leave, I'll leave it for you to, uh, go wherever interests 

[00:22:58] Jim Shockey: you. Yeah, I, you know, a relationship is based on communication and when, and, and arguably respect is, is the true basis of love. When you lose respect, when you've, you're not communicating anymore, you take the other person for granted.

[00:23:19] Jim Shockey: And, and therein lies a fundamental problem with, with marriages when, and that's just on a one-to-one level. But the same thing goes with our greater community. When, when there's no conversation, and, and I'm gonna now flip it into urbanization. We've urbanized over the last 60 years, we've urbanized and, and things have come pretty easy to the people in the city.

[00:23:43] Jim Shockey: So it's really simple to take for granted where their food comes from. For, as a, for instance, you know, farmers, ranchers, you know, before we were, we were agrarian, we, we were hunter gatherers. So that food came from hunting wildlife, and it still does in many parts of the world. So the, the, the people, the urban urbanized majority have, have.

[00:24:09] Jim Shockey: Lost respect for, for our skills. The, the ones that provided the, the ranchers farmers, I mean they, you know, they'll shut down ranching because cows, you know, make gases. I mean, it's absurd, but, but it, you know, what they're doing is, that's a lack of respect. It's all, it's all a lack of communication and um, and ultimately it, it results in entitlement and, and, and a separation.

[00:24:40] Jim Shockey: And that, that's what we've had. We, you know, the urban center, the, and I'm not saying every single person, cuz I'm not gonna stereotype. We've been stereotyped. We know what it feels like. And, and, but, but generally they've lost touch with what brought them to the table. And it's only 60 years ago. We go back 60 years ago.

[00:24:59] Jim Shockey: Yeah, there was big centers, but the vast majority of the people are, a majority of the people were in the rural areas. With chickens, with goats, with their cows, planting their gardens, anything access they took to the market. So the city people and the city people provided what they provided. Accountants, lawyers.

[00:25:17] Jim Shockey: Mm-hmm. All those important things. I'm sure there's a lot of accountants and lawyers right now that are throwing stones at my picture. I'm ducking and weaving right now. They, they're accountants and lawyers I, they're gonna miss anyway. Uh, that's, so it's, I, I, I, and I'm so, I'm sorry, but you know, I mean, I, I I love life.

[00:25:38] Jim Shockey: You said at the beginning, passion. Yes. I, even, even this that we're going through is a challenge and it's, it's an amazing, yeah. I mean, wow. Look, look at what we're going through right now. Look at the challenge we're faced and the accomplishment is directly proportional to the challenge. The greater the challenge, the greater the accomplishment.

[00:25:54] Jim Shockey: So when we come out of this and, and figure it out, I'm hoping we do, uh mm-hmm. We, we can stand proud at that point. Uh, going backwards to your second, Your second point about hunters understanding your, your buddy, the philosopher that, you know, life is given value by death. That's 100% true. And, and any of us that are, are myopically going through this world thinking that they're a cosmic event and it's never gonna happen to them.

[00:26:22] Jim Shockey: It is, you know, it's, and, and hunters know it. We, you know, goodness sakes, if anybody knows about life and death and under and has a sense of an, an understanding of how important it is, it's a hunter. I mean, I, I've seen it over and I've augmented death. You know, it's, it's, it's, um, we understand it and, you know, it, it, it, understanding it though, and putting it into a personal, you know, I guess under personal relationship with it is a different thing, you know, and, and, uh, you know, right now in my own life, I, you know, I'm my soulmate 39 years.

[00:26:59] Jim Shockey: I mean, literally head over heels and love the first date with this. Beautiful woman and, and healthiest, you know, dancer, yoga instructor, never ate a deep fried anything in her life, 66 years old and, and, um, suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer. No hope. Three months to live, maybe nine if you do chemo.

[00:27:22] Jim Shockey: And, you know, it's been a year and a half. So I'm, you know, so I am, here's me now, me, and, you know, suddenly this life and death that I've, I've understood my whole life is right here, close to me. Clo can't be closer. Your child, my soulmate. You know, my job was to protect my soulmate and, and our family. And you know, it, it's not easy.

[00:27:49] Jim Shockey: It's not easy. And, and I can't tell you whether, you know, back to your point, you know, being a hunter, we have a sense of it. But, you know, we went to the palliative care team the other day and. You know, they were trying to help me. But, but, uh, you know, I mean, I basically said to the, you know, there's five or six of 'em.

[00:28:10] Jim Shockey: They're younger, so if any of you gone through this, well, no. Well, you've seen other people. You've observed it, but have you ever felt it and no. So you're trying to help me that's going through it right now. That's much older than you. That's seen death, seen life. And I'm trying to try not to be disrespectful cuz they know they're doing their best.

[00:28:28] Jim Shockey: Right. But I don't think that what they had to offer was going to help me because I think as a hunter, knowing life and death, I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm hoping that, that we do have a, a sense of that and that this isn't, doesn't need to be locked up behind a door and feared, you know, fear of death. I have no fear of death.

[00:28:50] Jim Shockey: I never have had a fear of death or I wouldn't have done most of the things I've done in my life. It's, it's death is just part of it. With, without that, it's again, your, to your, to your buddy's statement, the philosopher. It doesn't, your, your life doesn't have any value. If you've taken away death as an option, now you don't seek it.

[00:29:09] Jim Shockey: And the whole, I I saw a thing recently where the, there was a hunter. I faced death. I'm gonna, you know, I'm not afraid of death. I, well, no, you know, that's not right because you, you should be following the five rules of being a hunter, which is safety, safety, safety, safety and safety. Because the whole purpose of hunting was to go bring something back to your family to begin with, and then your greater community, uh, to, so that all of us survive.

[00:29:35] Jim Shockey: So you shouldn't be seeking out death. There's no beauty in that. There's no romance. There's no honor in that at all to go seek death. And you know, I'm gonna face death. No, you're not. You should be avoiding it. You should be doing everything in your possible power to not go there. But when it happens, you should never fear it.

[00:29:54] Jim Shockey: And, and I, I don't know. I'm in this situation right now where, You know, and I'm, I'm trying to look from outside in at this. Um hmm. It, it's gonna be, it's gonna be an interesting, it has been an interesting time for the last 18 months and, and I, you know, the, the future is gonna hold greater challenges and, and I will see, we'll see if, you know, I consider myself a true hunter, um, on the spiritual side of it for field to table living for every, you know, I've, I've u used my life, you know, endeavoring to, to, to be that, that hunter in every.

[00:30:35] Jim Shockey: Way, well-rounded in every way. And that means being a theologian. It means being a scientist. It, it means being an explorer. Uh, you know, it means being an artist. You know, these are all things that people go off in their little worlds and, uh, you know, never the twain shall science and, and religion meet.

[00:30:52] Jim Shockey: Well, you know, 500 years ago, we were all of those things. We were theologians, we were artists, we were musicians, we were scientists, explorers, we were all of it. And, and now we've, you know, now we don't talk because I'm this and they're that, and we explorers and separated from scientists. So, and then hunters separated from explorers and, you know, we just dichotomized.

[00:31:13] Jim Shockey: And so, so I, it'll be interesting to see, back, back to your comment as I go through this, whether it'll stand the test of, of a, of true, the deepest challenge. I can imagine, you know, myself facing death, I, I. I mean, I, like I say it because I'm, I'm facing it. I mean, I know you're facing it. Everybody listen, 

[00:31:35] Travis Bader: the grand leveler of human 

[00:31:37] Jim Shockey: greatness.

[00:31:37] Jim Shockey: Yeah. And, and we're just ignoring it, you know? But, but it, mm-hmm. When you can't ignore it, it's right there. It, it's, it's a different thing. And I, uh, I'll, you know, talk to me when I've gone through this, God willing, I, I get through it, you know, it's, it's, uh, you know, and I know right now it's, it's living day to day, and then it'll be hour to hour, then it'll be minute to minute, second to second.

[00:32:01] Jim Shockey: I, I think I'll get through that. It's afterwards, you know, cuz you're starting now second to second, again, can you get it up to living minute to minute? Can you get it up to living hour to hour and, and be able to live, uh, you know, day to day in the future? Maybe. That's my greatest hope is just to get day to day down the road.

[00:32:20] Jim Shockey: But we'll see. D does a hunter have, have a better ability to cope with this and not fear it? Um, I'm not saying you have to embrace it, but you know, not fear it not to run my life and, and object, fear, afraid of tomorrow. I don't know. You know, like I say, we'll, we'll talk again in, in, uh, in the future and, and I'll hopefully be able to answer those things and 

[00:32:45] Travis Bader: that's a fellow I know he manages a funeral home and he says something similar to that and he says, um, you know, at the event, after the event shortly thereafter, there's a lot of support.

[00:33:00] Travis Bader: There's a lot of people there. That's not the time that he's really concerned about individuals who've been affected by death. He says it's three months later. That's when they need their support. That's when they need people around. If the advice and counsel that the palliative care people who work in that industry was providing was kind of not, not coming up to a level that was, uh, of value for someone like yourself, what sort of value?

[00:33:26] Travis Bader: Or what sort of advice would you give to somebody else in a similar circumstance? 

[00:33:32] Jim Shockey: Well, you know, the same thing I told them, and, you know, I don't try and help me right now, you know, help my soulmate because their, their help was truly a deeply appreciated by Louise. Like, and it's something I can't give because I'm so close to her.

[00:33:52] Jim Shockey: I mean, you know, so, so, you know, I'm not, this isn't about me at this point. This is about Louise and, and this is, you know, her journey. And I'm there a hundred percent to supporter as they should be as well. I don't need support. I'm, you know, I'm, I, I don't, it's not right now, like I say, living day to day, um, I don't, I don't, you know, that's not for me.

[00:34:16] Jim Shockey: So they shouldn't use their time up. So my advice to anybody going through this is well, In terms of palliative cares, absolutely. You know, take what they have to give, but make sure that it's pointed in the right direction. And maybe there's people out there that need it themselves that are the caregiver.

[00:34:36] Jim Shockey: Maybe they need it. Um, you know, I, I'm well aware of my situation and I understand life and death, and I'm, you know, I, I'm not faking trying to be strong or anything. I'm not. I just, it just is. And I accept it. And, and I, I've always accepted knowing it's coming. There's no avoiding, I'm goodness sakes, no regrets.

[00:34:56] Jim Shockey: So, what, what's, what's the worry about it? But it's my soulmate. Um, mm-hmm. So, so again, accept what they have to give, and if you need it, then certainly reach out and, and embrace what they're, what they're giving, uh, for, in our particular case, this is, you know, it's for Louise afterwards, I don't know, not never been there.

[00:35:18] Jim Shockey: It's, it'll be uncharted territory for me. And, and, uh, And, you know, life is, is this amazing, amazing journey. And it ends the same way for every single one of us. So if we live life and you live till you die, why wouldn't you be passionate about every single day and do what you love to do? And every single hour, if that comes down to it, every minute, you know, every second, just love and, and be passionate.

[00:35:49] Jim Shockey: Uh, and, and not embrace it, but, but don't be afraid of it. And, and just, you know, I think fear is a waste of emotion. It, it, it binds you up in a situation where you need to react. It, it's, it's, uh, it's not a good thing. It it, it's anticipatory. Yeah, exactly right. You, you know what to avoid. You know, that's what it's telling you.

[00:36:11] Jim Shockey: It's, but it's not something you should never fear, fear. I think there's somebody, I have nothing to fear, but fear itself. But truth, whoever said that I, I'm, I should be able to pull that quote out or whoever said it. But it's, it's, it's the absolute truth. You never fear, fear, and, and fear is just a warning.

[00:36:28] Jim Shockey: It's a, you know, it's spidey senses. It's, it is. And then that means, okay, switch on because you're alive right now and know you're alive. And whatever's inside you is telling you, uh, you may not be in the future. And, and we, you know, although nowadays I think we fear discomfort more than we fear. Fear, we just can't even see past discomfort.

[00:36:51] Jim Shockey: We, we we're afraid of that. 

[00:36:54] Travis Bader: So it sounds like finding value in being of service to others is something that, uh, Victor Frankl, the fodder father of modern local therapy as one of the areas that he looked at in his bookman search for meaning. Um, In doing my research on you. It was interesting. So Jesse reared it.

[00:37:18] Travis Bader: I had him on the podcast before. What a great guy. And I don't know what you have on him, but it must be good because I couldn't get any dirt on you from him. Everything that was coming outta his mouth. I mean, it just sounded like, uh, family sound like there's a, a family relationship. I'm in doing my research.

[00:37:37] Travis Bader: I'm looking through government records. I've, I'm looking at things that you've done. Uh, you've, you speak at engagements around the world on conservation topics. All of the ones that I looked at, I was surprised and not surprised. I, I was, I, I don't know if I'd say surprised because it, it had confirmed a suspicion from my research.

[00:38:03] Travis Bader: I look in like I wonder how much he charged for that event. Zero. Nothing. You donate your time to others. You don't donate your time to conservation over and over again in being of service to something that's, that's larger than yourself. And that's what I hear when you're talking about this, when you're talking about the palliative care, when you're talking about, um, your passion in life is, seems to be derived from living life to the fullest and having something meaningful and worthwhile that you're leaving 

[00:38:31] Jim Shockey: behind.

[00:38:32] Jim Shockey: Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean a, a correct part of it. I do charge 

[00:38:38] Travis Bader: not the ones that I, I researched on the, on the, I I get that. You would 

[00:38:42] Jim Shockey: Well, I, I do it. Uh, you know, supply and demand is an interesting thing. If, if you make the, the supply so expensive, the, the, it's funny how the demand goes down and, and that's, I hate saying no to someone when they ask.

[00:39:00] Jim Shockey: And it's a good cause and I. I would love to be able to fly to Pennsylvania and do, you know, do this appearance. But I mean, it's gonna take me two days to get there. Um, and it's not fun, you know, I mean, it's not, I can keep myself busy. Um, then I'll speak at the event and then two days to get back. So it's five days of my life taking a, you know, and I love the idea of being able to, if I was next door, I would do it 100% for nothing.

[00:39:26] Jim Shockey: Um, I just spoke at the BC Wildlife Federation here a couple weeks ago, the same night we had a hospital foundation event, um, to raise money for our hospital, well, the hospital foundation here locally. So I went, drove up, spoke at the BC Wildlife Federation, no charge, and came back down, uh, in time to see the auction item that Louise and I donated for the auction, which, which raised the most money of, uh, Of any other auction item that night.

[00:39:52] Jim Shockey: It was a night at the museum for 20 people or whatever it is. Um, you know, $5,800. So I was there and Louisiana went there first, and she's not feeling well. So to her it's also important to, you know, even though she's not feeling well, to make the appearance for the community, to set an example. Um, and, and it, yeah, it, I think it, it it for us at this point in our lives, I mean, I worked hard my whole life to, to get ahead, you know, quote unquote, whatever that means.

[00:40:21] Jim Shockey: Mm-hmm. But we're giving it all away now. You know, that, that's, we can give it back. We we're creating a foundation to give, this museum that I'm sitting in right now are Handman Museum, and it's a big place. So it's 17,000 square feet. It, it's all renovated, you know, state-of-the-art, everything in here. Um, we're donating the land, the building, the contents, which is.

[00:40:41] Jim Shockey: I don't know, millions and millions of dollars worth of stuff. Uh, natural history, cultural arts. Um, and we're, you know, planning to sell our ranch in Saskatchewan, put all that money into an endowment that goes into the foundation as well to cover expenses for 40 years. And that way it can always be donation only at the front entrance, which it is right now.

[00:41:00] Jim Shockey: It has been since we opened. I grew up in a trailer. Wow. So I, I've never, yeah, I could never have come in if there was a cover charge, but if it was donation, I could have brought a, a tooth. You know, I found this tooth, you know, the curator, a pretty rock here, iconic of Grasshopper today, you know, and, and I would've been the curator's nightmare, but it's donation, right?

[00:41:19] Jim Shockey: So from, uh, here's the, here's a quote, Carl Marks from, from those according to their ability to those according to their need. And you know, he got that right. He did on that. He did. You know, that's both the end of Right. But, but he, that part was right. You know, if we can, we should give back to the community because what are you gonna do, you know?

[00:41:41] Jim Shockey: In this museum, have a giant grass sale, sell everything and have a big pot full of money and, and then bury yourself with it, you know, like a feral Mm. You know, or or worse, give it to Eva. Oh my goodness. Our, our daughter. That's, yeah. She, she would have the most Chanel purses. I'm throwing her outta the purse.

[00:41:59] Jim Shockey: Blessing. But, you know, they're, they're doing well. You, you, you don't do a service to your children by giving them so much that you take away their opportunity to, to succeed in their own right. And to be proud of something that they created. So to give I agree. You know, we, we tend to do that. Our generation, you know, like I say, I grew up in a trailer park.

[00:42:19] Jim Shockey: A conversation every night when I was young was whether dad would get laid out, laid off, and, and could we afford to, to pay the mortgage when we did get a house. Uh, you know, that, that's, I don't want my children to have to worry about that. So I did everything to make sure they were protected from it. I don't know if it's the right thing, you know, it made me reach and try and push to my limits.

[00:42:40] Jim Shockey: And it, you know, made me found a find a, a soulmate, uh, that we were partners in that, you know, we did this, I did this, she did that. But together we always worked towards that common goal. That's something I'm very proud of. And my wife, every day this morning, we sat there having coffee, watching outside, you know, the, the, the quail and the rabbits and the squirrels.

[00:43:03] Jim Shockey: There was deer in our field, and, you know, we're very proud of what, what we've accomplished because we accomplished it. No one gave it to us. And, and so when you give something, you sometimes take away the A, the motivation, and, and B, you steal the, the person's life, you know, that child's life. If you don't let them actually go out there and challenge themselves, see what they're capable of.

[00:43:27] Jim Shockey: So, I don't know, we're, we're giving everything away. And that's, uh, and I speak as much as I can for free. But there's expenses sometimes, and sometimes the places I speak at are, are, uh, you know, they're doing good causes, but they're also making good money. And, and it's, yeah. You know, I have to be responsible financially, so, so I do charge, I know there's people, wait a minute, he charged us to speak, but I, if I can do it for nothing, I, I do it for nothing.

[00:43:54] Jim Shockey: You know? I, not for nothing. I do it because it's a good cause and because Right. I can, you know? Mm-hmm. So, cause I can, I should and, and so I, I do my best. It, it doesn't mean that, you know, trust me, you know, good from far, but far from good. Don't look too close because, you know, I have an ego too, and I, I have, uh, ambitions and that takes money.

[00:44:16] Travis Bader: Well, you know, one of our instructors, and he is a damn good instructor, and he says every good instructor should have an ego. I mean, they should care if they're disappointing the class. They should care if they're not living up to a standard that they set for themselves. So ego is not necessarily a bad thing.

[00:44:31] Jim Shockey: Um, I think if it's justifiable ego, it's, it's a good thing. I mean, that's, that's confidence. Yeah. Confidence is, yeah. And, and it's perceived as ego from someone that maybe lacks that. But it, it's, I agree. If, if you can back up your accomplishments with your accomplishments, your, your, I don't know, I don't wanna call it arrogance, but your confidence, you know, with actual accomplishments.

[00:44:54] Jim Shockey: I, I, I gimme that any day over somebody who's spouting off, but has actually done really nothing. I, I, I won't, I won't name names, but I, I could probably, for the rest of this podcast, I could come down names not in our industry, but, but outside of our, yeah. 

[00:45:12] Travis Bader: Yeah. You know, it's funny how often people who've had that struggle in their youth go on to achieve great things in the eyes of others as, as they get older.

[00:45:27] Travis Bader: And I wonder, well, I guess there's two, two wonders in here. Like three wonders now part of having ADHD is your head just goes in a million different directions. And it was actually, it was one of the things I looked at when I looked through all of your hobbies. I'm like, I wonder if it, I wonder if you've ever, uh, been diagnosed with adhd cuz your, your attention and your hobbies are so diverse and so all, all in so many different areas that it's, it's one of the ADHD sort of, uh, factors.

[00:46:00] Jim Shockey: Yeah. It, but, um, adhd, I think, uh, You have a lack of, of ability to focus long term. I, I can set a goal for myself. I did. I was 10 years old when I set the goal of this museum. I was 10 years old when I said, when I decided I was gonna be a novelist someday. I started my first novel, then started collecting for this museum when I was 10 years old.

[00:46:22] Jim Shockey: Um, I have no, I have no problem focusing for decades on, on achieving goal and just, you know, grinding it out to the end because Yep. You know, I, I wasn't gifted with, you know, my wife has more talent in, in every way in her little finger than I have on my entire body. But what I have is the ability to focus for decades.

[00:46:46] Jim Shockey: And, and if you, you know, you might be the world's crappiest singer, but if you keep singing your entire life, all your competition kind of dies off, figuratively speaking. Mm-hmm. And that's, you know, that's how really I've succeeded in everything I've done is just, you know, hard. Just nose to the grindstone and, and, and focused on that goal in the end.

[00:47:08] Jim Shockey: And now I, I do have several goals. I'll be working on this one while I'm working on this one, and I'm, you know, running our little empire here. Mind you, I've got great people now that handle everything. You just can't do it all yourself. And, you know, I'm standing on their shoulders obviously, but, uh, but yeah, I don't, I don't know.

[00:47:26] Jim Shockey: I, I, you know, I, I don't have a problem When I get passionate about something I, I'm interested in it truly, we get one life. We get one life. So I. You know, I'm, I see a grasshopper, I'm excited. A rabbit, you know, if I'm hunting, you know, I don't care if it's a rabbit or a moose. I, I'm excited about it. And look, look, look around us music.

[00:47:49] Jim Shockey: Holy cow. If you looked at guitars, I mean, in our museum, we've got a guitar collection here, Gibson's from the forties and fifties. Nice. As late as the sixties, but they're fabulous instruments, the sound that comes from them, you know, I'm passionate about that. I, I wrote a song, um, how With Me went to number one on the iTunes blues charts.

[00:48:10] Jim Shockey: That's why, yeah. Back in October, 2018. But it was because the instrument, it was a southern jumbo, um, Gibson from 1953, an acoustic, and I, I mean, I strummed it once and it was just, You're, you're inspired by that. And I wrote the song and recorded it. Uh, obviously I had some session musicians and people on our team are great musicians.

[00:48:36] Jim Shockey: Um, and yeah, I went to number one on the iTunes blues charts. Well, that's the instrument inspiring. Well, you know, that's a passion for music. Yes. But it's, it's, um, it's just a joy of allowing myself to, to look in this world that musicians holy cow, they get to sit there and create beauty out of their fingers and their brain and, and a, a work of art.

[00:49:01] Jim Shockey: I, I, I just, I just, to even be able to touch, like I say, there's musicians in this room right now that are a thousand times better than I am. And, and, uh, and, and that's the truth. And, but, you know, just to be passionate about and, and love these things that we're, we're given, it's, um, Yeah. It, it, it, it's not d h adhd, it's just, just a love of life.

[00:49:26] Jim Shockey: This one life we get to live. And I, from the very beginning, once I was about 10, I, I intended to live that life at 100 miles an hour and never stray from that path that I'd set for living this life. And, and I say you drive for half a century in one direction with no, no side turns, you know, you, you end up somewhere.

[00:49:51] Jim Shockey: And this is where I've ended up with my life, totally satisfied and, and still loving the idea of, of challenges like writing this novel. You know, I, I wanted to do that. So I started when I was a kid, but I had no story to tell. Yeah. I, I hid the, my manuscript behind the loose brick on our, on our, our house.

[00:50:08] Jim Shockey: And, and I was gonna write, be a novelist, you know? Well, page eight. I realized, holy cow, I don't even hardly know how to spell. I don't, I don't have any, you know, we played hide and go seek today, you know, cowboys and Indians, whatever we played that day, it, I really don't have a story to tell. So I, I filed it.

[00:50:24] Jim Shockey: I tried in 96 or 91, 91 93, I wrote a novel called the Lord Lee. And it was okay, you know, but my skill wasn't good enough. I wasn't, I hadn't honed that craft, the right, the actual, being able to tell a story through words on a piece of paper. Uh, and, and so it's good, you know, I still have it. I never published it.

[00:50:46] Jim Shockey: Um, why, why'd you hide it? 

[00:50:49] Travis Bader: Hmm? Why'd you hide it behind a brick 

[00:50:51] Jim Shockey: as a child? Yeah. It was actually in our, in our, um, we had a den when we finally bought a house. It was a little 1100 square foot house, but it had a little den with cork floors, and it had a, it had a real fountain in that den. The people that originally built a house in the early fifties.

[00:51:07] Jim Shockey: And, and so this, but, but the, uh, fountain didn't work. Somebody put tadpoles in the, in the little concrete fountain in her house. I don't know who it was. And they went into the, and they plugged it up and then it rusted. Um, but the, there was loose bricks actually on the side of it. And if I pulled those loose bricks and nobody knew just me, I could pull the bricks out and hide it in behind it.

[00:51:28] Jim Shockey: So it wasn't outside the house. It was inside the house in, in these bricks on that, that, uh, just a quick side story on that. Um, my mom and dad, when they got a little bit older, they sold the house. Um, and they moved into a condominium when they were in their late seventies. The people that bought the house.

[00:51:47] Jim Shockey: Just recently, someone got ahold of me through Instagram or something, dms message and, and said the people across the street were tearing. You know, or doing a renovation. And they found one of my time capsules that I'd put back then with, with the important things. And, and I've been trying to get ahold of those people to find out if, if it was, if I put my manuscript in that time capsule.

[00:52:08] Jim Shockey: Cause that's how my brain worked. Always thinking ahead, thinking ahead. It's gonna be important. Somebody, someone's gonna find this and I'll be famous and I'll, you know, they'll, that'll be so cool when they find that I was thinking of them. That, that, you know, how cool would it be to find, you know, whatever Mark Twain's time capsule he put in a, the wall of a house when he was, you know, when he was 10 years old.

[00:52:28] Jim Shockey: Um, of course I didn't quite get to be Mark Twain, but, uh, you know, I was thinking that way when I was young. That was my, my ambition, my, my goals were, were lofty even at that age. 

[00:52:40] Travis Bader: Well, the, to me, the thought of hiding the work that you were working on inside your house, behind a brick would suggest that it's something that's probably deeply personal to you.

[00:52:52] Travis Bader: Would this. Call me Hunter Book, be a reflection of that. 

[00:52:56] Jim Shockey: It's, if you read Call Me Hunter, it starts with a little boy who's 10 years old, um, in a place. I don't wanna give it all away, but, um, let's just say that, you know, to the second part of your, your statement there, the, the call me Hunter is based on a lot of truth.

[00:53:15] Jim Shockey: I, I did not have to make up very much and call me Hunter. Uh, and what I'll tell people is that it's 80% truth and the 20% that'll put anybody in jail, that's all fiction. So it'll be up to everybody, figure out I like that. And that, that truly is what the, um, that's why they took the novel of Simon and Schuster.

[00:53:37] Jim Shockey: They, they haven't seen anything quite like that. I wrote in second person for parts of it, which isn't done in a novel. And, and, and third person, I mixed them up and, and, uh, it, it's. Because it's so close to the truth. I mean, I didn't have to make it. I, I've lived a life that I didn't have to make a whole bunch up.

[00:53:56] Jim Shockey: So it'll be, they, they loved it because they couldn't tell, like they, by the time you're reading it, you don't know if it's well, you know, and, and even Mark Sullivan wrote it or read it, mark, he got one of the advanced reader copies. Mark Sullivan, fabulous, uh, bestselling number one bestseller twice at least on the New York Times, uh, bestseller list.

[00:54:17] Jim Shockey: Um, he, and, and he, he emailed me from, uh, Dubai, I think, or Arab and somewhere up there. And, and, uh, he said, he said, I've been reading it on the airplane. He said, you've, you've, what was it? Uh, you've captivated me something, something to that effect. And he said, that's what a good novel does. And he said, I, I put it on my cell phone so I can keep reading it in the, you know, for the rest of the day here.

[00:54:43] Jim Shockey: And, and he said he, you know, if I, if it's his quote, they, as he was reading it, he. It was difficult to tell what's real. There's so much real in there that he knows is real what isn't. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That, that's the beauty. But it does, does start back when I was, or no, the character in the book, whose name is Hunter, it starts at, um, the age of 10 for that character in the book.

[00:55:08] Jim Shockey: Um, yeah, so, so, you know, as far as hiding it and, and it wasn't close to home, I I probably hid it because it, uh, it wasn't that good and I didn't want anybody, my sister, particularly, to get it. My younger sister is a great writer, you know, truly talented and librarian in her life and read, has read more novels than anybody I know.

[00:55:31] Jim Shockey: Um, you know, I probably didn't want it to fall in her hands and, uh, and then be critically panned before I even got the darn thing past page eight. So that, that's more, more, more likely. The reason that it was personal. 

[00:55:44] Travis Bader: So I'm, I'm looking at the time, and I'm very conscious of your time here. I have a whole ton of other things that I'd have loved to be able to, uh, go on, but I realize you do have other appointments you gotta be at.

[00:55:56] Travis Bader: I've got some stuff on your handwritten journals, your mentorship, you do bird watching, charitable 

[00:56:00] Jim Shockey: work. Um, well, we'll answer 'em real quickly. We'll, you know what, we'll go into 'em another time too. We can go in more in depth, but, um, just your, your list there. My journals, I just, my journals from my travels in Africa were over a million words.

[00:56:16] Jim Shockey: Uh, a long novel is 130,000 words, so I had over a million words, just my, just my journals from Africa. Um, we're going through those right now. Uh, someday they'll be published. I'm not sure if they'll be posthumously or when they'll be published, but, but they, they are being, I, I, I think we've got it down to 180,000 words.

[00:56:36] Jim Shockey: Ken Bailey is a dear friend of mine and, and a. Great writer and technician. I mean, he's, he's my go-to guy when it comes to cleaning up that kind of work. Mm-hmm. He's, he's just good at it. Um, so yeah, my hand, those journals are, that's just Africa. Then there's North America and South America, south Pacific, Europe.

[00:56:58] Jim Shockey: I mean, they're, they're, uh, Asia. There, there, there's a lot of words in those. I kept journals religiously. Obviously I'm obsessive compulsive, maybe not adhd, but, uh, you know, again, I thought it would be important someday. So, so I, I kept journals for that purpose. I, I've, and waiting in the wings, I've got five books as well that are, call Me Hunter is my most.

[00:57:22] Jim Shockey: That's the one I really care about. That's, uh, not Care about, but that's the one that I need to put out for a second poster. Your October. Yeah. Um, and, and I think we, you, you know, you can pre-order it already. Just Google call me Hunter. But I have, I've got four other books. That are done, four or five, four.

[00:57:41] Jim Shockey: Um, the one's on bear guiding stories that, you know, just stream of consciousness stories. It's all done, ready for copy edited, ready for design. Um, there's another one, there's two humor books that, um, if I have any talent writing, it's probably humor. And that's, I did that for u under pseudonyms for a long time.

[00:58:02] Jim Shockey: Ace Toddler. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, you knew it. Um, yeah, so those books are ready for design as well. They're done. And then another one of family one I wrote this last year, 53 stories. Um, they're questions that I answer, you know, as we're going through this journey, Louise and I, over this last year, and about her past and my past, and even our grand, our parents and grandparents, you know, that to tie it all in for our kids along with photographs, um, that's a 480 pages and it's, it's, uh, being copy edited right now.

[00:58:37] Jim Shockey: Um, you know, then plus my journal. So those are all waiting in the wings to come out. But call me Hunter is the most important right now. That's the, that's the one that's looming. Um hmm. What was your, your second, was it poetry? You asked Poetry. 

[00:58:52] Travis Bader: Oh, we have poetry. We didn't talk about a U F O encounter, brain teasers, puzzles, magic.

[00:58:56] Travis Bader: Um, all, all of these other things that I've researched on here, but we, we've got a lot of material for, um, uh, possibly a future podcast, but I, like I say, very conscious of the timings that you have 

[00:59:09] Jim Shockey: here. Yeah. Believe it or not, I'll tell you why. I'm on a timeline today about last July. What are we right now?

[00:59:17] Jim Shockey: We're, we're in, um, almost June. Um hmm. So it's been almost a year now. I, I was playing golf one day and my knee hurt, so I, you know, I go, oh, that's kind of weird. And I always carried my clubs, did it, you know, and, and, um, It's my knee got swollen and sore. I couldn't sleep. I, uh, after a month, I had it operated on her.

[00:59:37] Jim Shockey: Scoped out, and I played in our, I didn't play golf for that whole time. Played in our golf tournament, our club championship. I came third, by the way, with two braces on my knee. Uh, and I may have been pushing it a little bit, but it, it, um, a week after that I started getting all, like, just couldn't move. I mean, there's video of me.

[00:59:56] Jim Shockey: I, I mean, I literally couldn't get up one step. I, I just, every joint was like, never felt pain like that in my life. Um hmm. So they stuck me on prednisone, which is a wonder drug and a horrible, it's a devil's candy, you know, it, it got outta that pain but made you feel like cropping, it's gonna kill you. So for this last year, they've been working on solutions and just today is the first day that they start a new type of infusion.

[01:00:22] Jim Shockey: Cuz I, I still can't work my, I can type with my fingers, but I can't hold anything. Can't. Anybody shakes my hand, I just will hit the roof, uh, shoulders. Ooh, I can't lift my arm above there. Uh, certainly can't, haven't been able to golf for a year. So it's quality of life is a little down on the physical side, uh, you know, pain on everything I do.

[01:00:40] Jim Shockey: But, uh, today they're giving me an infusion of some new wonder drug that'll, I'm sure in 10 years they'll find out that it makes people grow a third eye on their forehead, whatever. But, but that, that's what I have to go do. And I, I couldn't even have a, well, I wasn't supposed to have a coffee this morning, but I did have one.

[01:00:57] Jim Shockey: Cuz I think they're, they probably just don't want you to go to the bathroom while you're sitting there for hours getting infusion. So, so that's what I have to do. I mean, how pathetic is that? I have to run up to a hospital an hour north of here and, uh, and get stabbed and injected with a bunch of chemicals.

[01:01:13] Jim Shockey: So, but I mean, you know, what the heck right? It's just, it's all part of it, right? It's all part the game we play. It's, it's part of the journey. And, and, uh, you know, it is the price we pay for the privilege of being this age 65 years old. So it's. You know, it, it's a privilege to get to this age and, and, you know, lucky that I got here.

[01:01:32] Jim Shockey: Uh, actually when you look at the, the various situations I've been in, so, you know, if it means taking whatever, trying, I mean, what the heck? You know, it's just this one, you know, 40 years knowing it's not gonna make any difference. Whatever is going on today. So it it, it is just, like I say, you just embrace life.

[01:01:51] Jim Shockey: You get one life. I mean, live it, live it with passion and, and, and love to, you know, that degree, you know, do what you love doing and, and, uh, yeah, live with passion. I, I couldn't, couldn't give anybody better advice on that. 

[01:02:08] Travis Bader: Thank you so much for being on the core Podcast. We will have links in the bio in YouTube for people can order Call Me Hunter, and I really 

[01:02:18] Jim Shockey: enjoyed this conversation.

[01:02:19] Jim Shockey: Yeah, it was my, my pleasure. It's always fun. I, I love a, a good podcast interviewer. It's, it, it, it's an honor every single time and, uh, again, really enjoyed the podcast today.