Neil Dudley: The Cowboy Perspective, well, it might be hard to define, but I guarantee if you think about it, you’ve got one in mind. Whether you’re building a legacy, an empire, or a fan base, I bet when your friends look at you, they see some cowboy in your face. Y’all come along, let’s talk about this or that. Maybe when we’re done, you’ll go away with another perspective to put under your hat.
Welcome back to the Cowboy Perspective. I say welcome back – I hope you’re coming back. I hope the things that I am putting into this podcast, the people I’m talking to, the ideas, the thoughts, all of whatever value may be there is something you come back for on a weekly basis. And if you do, tell a friend, it might be valuable to them. If you don’t, if you haven’t, if you’ve listened to my podcast and you haven’t found value, tell me. I can change. I could do better. This episode is awesome. And I want to tell you why. It’s especially awesome because it brought me to a realization that everything and anything I want to improve on or be better at, learn is within my circle. Johnny and Zulean Poyner are this episode’s guests. And they have mentored me, have been a part of my life through our church, through the community in so many ways. Now how many people know Johnny and Zulean? I don’t know, relatively small number if you want to compare it to something like Will Smith or Ed Mylett or Brad Lea or Tim Ferris. But they have the ability, the desire, the willingness to share and work with me. And they know things those people I named don’t know. I think it’s just so important for everybody to think you don’t need to know Will Smith. Yeah, he’s probably a great, fun guy that is enjoyable to be around. So in that regard as a human, yes, he’d be great to know. He doesn’t have access or knowledge or anything bigger, better, or more than people right in your community right next to you. All you have to do is talk to them. And I had the pleasure and the luck to be in Johnny and Zulean’s life and have this conversation recorded for everybody to hear. I guess what turns out to be the truth is the Cowboy Perspective is me sharing insights from brilliant people that I am next to and around each and every day of my life. And no, they’re not famous. Not everybody in the world knows them. They don’t even care to be. They just do great things without even telling anybody. So, I think that’s important. Everybody, just think about that a little bit. Who in your life, all you need to do is go spend an hour with them, talk to them, you’re going to learn something that you can then use in your life to be better. So, let’s get to talking to Johnny and Zulean. I hope you all enjoy it. Johnny and Zulean, if you’re listening back to this, I thank you so much for your time and just everything you’ve given me in my life. Okay, let’s do it.
Hey everybody, thanks for listening to the Cowboy Perspective. And I’ve got a really awesome guest today, the guy I look up to, continually thank God for the blessing of this podcast, because it gives me a great excuse to talk to some people that I look up to into just coming on here and giving me their perspective on things. And that’s what we’re going to do today with Mr. Johnny Poyner and his wife Zulean sitting here listening. If I get lucky enough, might have to get the mic in front of her for a little bit, because the truth is- maybe let’s start with that. I don’t know where to start, so we’ll just start talking. Maybe the first thing that would be good for everybody that doesn’t know you that would be listening is tell us all a little bit about where you come from, who you are, what your childhood was like, what some of the things you’ve done in your career were, and as we go along, I’ll try my hardest not to butt in and cut you off and chase a rabbit that I want to in that. So, everybody, here’s Johnny.
Johnny Poynor: I was just thinking back when you said that, I moved from West Texas here in 1953, and I had one year of school left to go through. I went to Comanche of course. Looking back, I really feel like God sent me here for one reason, to meet her. And it’s kind of funny, when we go to our reunions, especially her reunion, the Fishers live right next door, her grandmother and grandad, and of course, the Poyners live here, and it took that long for the Fishers and Poyners to get together. But anyway, it’s kind of neat that her folks live right there and we live right here. But anyway, I moved here in ’53 and I was born in McCamey, Texas, in an oil camp. They used to have a lot of oil camps in the country, and that’s where I was born and raised and moved to San Angelo and went to school there through junior high to most of high school, and then I moved here. And I always wanted to- I just loved Comanche. I don’t know when I was a kid, my grandmother used to be there. Of course, she died when I was just three, but we still kept coming here because my granddad, he lived. So, he went to live with his sister in Oklahoma later. But anyway, we come here a lot when I was little and growing up, and I always loved Comanche and wanted to live here. I thought loved me better than anybody. And I thought when I get big, I can buy this place. And she was still living when we got married. And after I got to West Texas and was working out there with Miss Zulean, we always wanted to come back here, and I’d talk to Aunt Minnie. I said Aunt Minnie, I said I just love this place. And I said I’d like to buy it. You can live here forever if you want to and run your cows, whatever. Her husband had died. But anyway, to get back to the really desire to live here is when me and Zulean got to dating and we finally got engaged and we picked this spot where this house is. That’s where we are going to build our home because Aunt Minnie is going to let me buy this, I know it. And so, the moral of the story of that is she said no. Minnie didn’t let me buy it.
Neil Dudley: That’s a great illustration of the most well laid plans don’t always go off.
Johnny Poynor: That’s exactly right. And so that knocked that the head. So anyways, she left it in an estate and so I was going to bid on it, and of course, I’m busy in the oil field at that time. My dad and I went into partners after- I’ll go back. When we got married, we lived in Ozona, and that’s a beautiful place to live in too. But I hate to back up like that. But anyway, we got married and moved to Ozona and I went to work for Continental Oil Company, worked for them for six years. And my dad had moved back from here. He lived across the road at that, when we got married. That’s where we lived when I went to Comanche High School. So he owned that part, and then this is my aunt’s over here. So anyway, we went to- Got married and moved to Ozona, and had three kids, every year for three years. So Zulean, I remember her saying that she didn’t think she’d ever get to wear a bathing suit again. For three years, pregnant most of the time. Never get another night of sleep is right. So anyway, I’m getting kind of lost myself in this story. But we lived in Ozona over six years. And then my dad had moved back to Big Lake. Of course, when I was growing up as a teenager, I worked with him. He was a paint contractor. We painted tank batteries and all that kind of stuff in the oil field. And so, he went back to West Texas.
Neil Dudley: I was kind of about to ask you to paint that picture a little better for me. You said you were born in an oil camp. Do you have any siblings?
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, I’ve got, I had one brother is all.
Neil Dudley: Which I know Bob, but everybody else wouldn’t. And really where I know you guys the most from is church. That’s where I know you from, just being involved and doing that thing. So back to the oil camp, you and Bob, what was that like growing up there? Like you’re a guy that is so intriguing, and I think a lot of ultimately people’s perspective and work ethic and thoughts and Christianity, all of those things. So, an oil camp sounds really like tough living to me. Was that true? Or am I just dreaming that up?
Johnny Poynor: No, it wasn’t tough. We had good neighbors, and everybody kind of gathered around. And that’s what I’m going to say is I wasn’t raised in a church. You talk about oil camps, most of those were guys that they drank their beer and they liked to go dancing and they liked to party. And my dad was one of them.
Neil Dudley: They call them roughnecks?
Johnny Poynor: Well, roughnecks is the ones that really worked on drilling crews, but roustabout and then pumping. And my dad ran a pulling unit actually for all the time I was growing up because I could see him from the camp. Sometimes I’d walk down there.
Neil Dudley: When you say camp-
Johnny Poynor: It’s a- I’m sorry. But back at [inaudible 10:38], nearly every oil company, they just finished your houses and all outside. And they had a big camp. It was all fenced in.
Neil Dudley: Really?
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. A big camp. And they had the laundry- laundry rooms down there for all the ladies, they had laundry room and all that for them to go wash in and all that stuff. But it was- that’s what I was raised in, an oil camp. But we could go outside the camp and run around all over the country. Except we had an old rancher, I don’t know if all ranchers are like that.
Neil Dudley: They didn’t like you running all over the place.
Johnny Poynor: No, they didn’t like you running over. And she chased us from her corrals up where we were messing around keeping the sheep from going to water and run us all the way to that camp. And we’d run in that camp. And this is a crazy story; I shouldn’t even be telling that. But we crawled up into an old dog house that you put on the back of the truck – for the rest of the crew, if you were going out to work in an oil field, they had a dog house to put on the back bobtail truck to carry the men in when they left. And so we jumped up in there and hid in that dog house. She come in and drove all the way around that camp, looking for us, and it scared us to death. I’ll never forget her name. Her name is Ms. Weitz, and she was a widow woman rancher, but she was tough. Anyway, to get away from that story, that’s where I was raised. And I don’t know, from there we went-
Neil Dudley: Was Bob with you when you got chased-? How close were you guys?
Johnny Poynor: Well, he was four years older than I was. But he probably got me in most of the trouble. He was a good brother from [inaudible 12:22]. Of course, the only thing wrong with that, my name was Mary Alice, so I was born because he wanted a little sister. And then when I was born, he come in hollering, “Mary Alice! Mary Alice!” and mama said, “No, it’s not Mary Alice.”
Neil Dudley: It’s Johnny. [inaudible 12:40] Mary Alice and Johnny. Now is that your name?
Johnny Poynor: John Allen.
Neil Dudley: John Allen. So, I’m kind of calling you a nickname right now. It’s interesting how names-
Johnny Poynor: I’ve always gone by Johnny, but John Allen Poyner is my name.
Neil Dudley: All right. So now we’ve gone from a labor camp – labor camp. See, I’m kind of- that’s what I think, when you say camp, I kind think of Auschwitz or some kind of- it’s so far from that, but that’s why I’m like we need to make sure the picture is painted not the same as in my brain right now. So not labor camp, oil camp, which it was really cool that the companies would build those. And was it a foundation-built house?
Johnny Poynor: Oh yeah.
Neil Dudley: To me, it seems like they would try to roll in trailers or something like that.
Johnny Poynor: No, no, it was nice. It was pretty nice.
Neil Dudley: So, when they went into those places, they planned on being there and drilling wells for a while.
Johnny Poynor: There was Gulf, big camp going [inaudible 13:46], Conoco was where my dad worked, Shell, every major had a big camp, because all of them got some of that production, I guess.
Neil Dudley: How bad were they fighting for the employees? Did you notice it?
Johnny Poynor: Well, I don’t know, but they did fight. It’s just kind of like high school, those young guys went out of their camp, they all played baseball back then. Every camp had a baseball team. You go back to the bigger part, the young guys, that’s what they did. And they did do the fighting too because I can remember hearing those stories. But anyway, to get away from the oil camp, we moved to Big Lake. My dad went into the roustabout construction business. That’s building the tank batteries that we used to- We ended up painting later.
Neil Dudley: What’s a tank battery? I mean, you’re going to have to educate me on a lot.
Johnny Poynor: The tank battery is you got your pumping wells and oil wells. And they go to a tank battery, and then the tank battery, they take it and go-
Neil Dudley: It’s not an electric battery. It’s just a- It’s not a battery.
Johnny Poynor: No, not like a- I’m sorry. Its storage tanks. There’s like six, three on each side. There’s stairways that go up. And we got heater treaters and separators. That’s a tank battery is what they call it.
Neil Dudley: There you go. Hey everybody, when you go by and you’re driving down the road and you see them three tanks with stairway in the middle, that’s called a battery. Never knew that. I’ve seen them my whole life, just going to school at Lubbock, you’d go by, they are all over the right- and left-hand side of that-
Johnny Poynor: What did you think they were? Tanks?
Neil Dudley: Just holding tank.
Johnny Poynor: That’s what they were actually.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, but I love learning the lingo of all industries, lingo, and in the bacon business, we call the little label you put on the bacon an L board. Where does that come from and why? That’s just what it’s called. Doesn’t make much sense. It’s not an L. It’s like where did that really come from? It’s just what people started calling it and it stuck. Okay so, sorry, see, these are the rabbits that we end up chasing as we go just learning about your growing up. Probably we’re back to you and Zulean and having the three kids, where are y’all at that point?
Johnny Poynor: Ozona.
Neil Dudley: Okay. So, we’re back to Ozona.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, we did run around in a circle, didn’t we?
Neil Dudley: And so why did you have three kids?
Johnny Poynor: Well, we talked about this before we married, we wanted a big bed, and I didn’t know my grandmother and granddad that good. My grandmother died when I was three. And my granddad, of course, by the time I got big, he was sick. But anyway, I said, I told Zulean, I said I’d like to have our kids early enough that they know their grandmother and granddaddy. And we did. And they really enjoyed our kids, and her mother and dad enjoyed the kids. But anyway, that’s the story of that. That’s why.
Neil Dudley: I tried to talk Stacy into having our third kid pretty quick. She’s- See, I’m kind of proud of you for getting Zulean to just put them all together real quick like that. Stacy had to have a break. She said I don’t know, I’m not ready to go through that again real quick. So, I think it’s all God’s plan ultimately. And that’s just how it worked for you guys and what ours has worked out to be has been great for us, a total blessing in every way. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard work and challenging at times.
Zulean Poynor: At one time, we had them so young and so close together, I thought, well, they’re going to all be gone at same time. And Johnny said we’ll just go see them. And that’s what we did. We were empty nesters, but we went to see the kids.
Neil Dudley: Well, right. The nest got empty quick. That was a thing you might not have thought about early on until- I mean, I think about that a little bit now. I don’t even have a kid in junior high.
Zulean Poynor: But the years go by in hurry. But anyway, that’s what, that’s all I was going to say.
Neil Dudley: All right. So, you’ve got the three kids. Tell me a little bit about them. I mean, I’ll be honest, you’re probably going to tell me about the third one, but I can’t think of the third one off the top of my head.
Johnny Poynor: Well, we lost him at 33.
Neil Dudley: Oh, okay. So, you’ve had to live through that tragedy.
Johnny Poynor: That was after we were living here. Life’s good, but all marriages have these problems, up and down. And this boy had the HIV. I mean, he had AIDs and it’s hard to say that. And then, but I mean, that’s the way it was. That was the life-
Neil Dudley: In that time. See now I think-
Johnny Poynor: This was early in that time.
Neil Dudley: That’s right. You can say that now and it’s not perceived the same way it was then when you were going through it. Wow, that had to be a wild, tough ride. So, had you come to know God by that point? So, you weren’t raised in a Christian, maybe church going family. So, tell me about that journey a little bit.
Johnny Poynor: Well, I was a senior in high school, and like I said, I was just like all boys, I did little things I shouldn’t have done and drank a little, tried this and that and the other. But I don’t know- I started to say I don’t know why, but my mother started going to church big time and changed her life around after I left home. But anyway, she’s a Christian woman living here. So, the senior year, she encouraged me to go to church with her. Daddy didn’t go of course at that time. My dad was the kind that I told him when I graduated high school, Dad, we’re going to go partying tonight. I could tell him because he didn’t care. He said, well, just be careful and just don’t drink too much or whatever. And when- all of this same time, I’m going to church every once and a while to Taylor’s Chapel. I started riding, trying to ride bulls that summer with Ride Star used to have every Friday night during the summer, you could go ride bulls. And so I started doing that and then really enjoying that. And I was working for my dad that summer. I painted for him in the summertime, and I’d go to [inaudible 20:42] and come back and he’d lend me a bull, stop Friday night, and try to ride a bull I mean, enjoying that. Anyway, come back home, and they’re having a revival here during this time, and I’m looking forward to going to the bull riding. But for some reason I didn’t go, but I went to church and that’s a God thing. I don’t know why. I say I don’t- I didn’t know why then, I do now, because looking back, I saw my mother and Mrs. So-and-so around here, all these ladies at our church that I went to church with was praying for me. My dad’s sister, Christian, strong Christian woman for our Poyner family. She was the prayer warrior of our family. And she was always praying for us. And I looked back and I said that’s what it is. That’s why I went. That’s why I was there. And God touched my heart that night. I floated down that aisle. And I was so bashful. I would never do that on my own. You couldn’t have made me, nobody, but God put me down there in front of the alter to ask for forgiveness and ask Jesus to come into my heart. And so, I got to tell this part of it.
Neil Dudley: Don’t skip anything. Anything you want to say, tell.
Johnny Poynor: I go home and go to bed that night, wake up the next morning and I’m wondering because I don’t know anything about the Bible, I didn’t know Sunday school, very little. So, I’m wondering if- was that what happened? Is that true? And so anyways, I get up that morning. I got a little horse named Cheetah. He was broke out in New Mexico by the Spanish boys. And it wasn’t like you just walked up and put a bridle on him. I had to take a rope, throw at him or rope him. Or let the rope across the back end, he’d stand there then. Then by the time, he’d jerk away from you and to get away from you. And of course, I’d throw my reins and I’d cuss at him and called him things I shouldn’t have been talking about. But when I said that, I said, before- I got to finish this. So anyway, I did the same thing, I drawed back and I started, like that. I dropped them reins, I felt the spirit to go out. And then I said I know it’s true. God is in my heart. And from that time on, this is a little demonstration that kids can understand, before that happened, if my mom and daddy didn’t know it, it didn’t matter. I could do anything I wanted to. So that’s the only ones I worried about. If they didn’t know it, everything’s fine. But now anything I do, God knows. That’s a different story. And then, when I didn’t want to go to church, I felt guilty. Why’d I feel guilty? Because the holy spirit’s there. It changed my life at 18 and so that’s- or at 18 ½, 19, I don’t know, it was right in there. That was my salvation. And I’m proud of it. anyway, I always wanted to- and that’s when I really got serious going with her. And I knew she was a Christian girl and she helped me grow in Christ. And from then on, we always tried to go to church from the time we married. We got a little slack sometimes or another. I remember one time we were trying to tithe, and we wrote a hot check and I said, ah no, I mean, that was a hard deal to do when you got three kids in a row and was having a hard time making it. And we finally moved from Ozona to the Big Lake, and I went in business with my dad. After six years of Continental, I retired- I didn’t retire, but I changed jobs and we went in business together then. That’s when I went in business in an oil field.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, was this painting batteries at that-?
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. And roustabout. No it was doing roustabout work. And we ended up with hot oil trucks and I run hot oil truck. That’s what I got in with them at. And then, I just hated it though. I never enjoyed it at all, but it was good money, and I was doing good in it. I was running hot oil trucks, he was running a roustabout business.
Neil Dudley: Just a second. What is roustabout?
Johnny Poynor: They are the ones that builds those tank batteries, lay the flow lines and just do the repair work-
Neil Dudley: Sounds like oil field services is what you guys were doing?
Johnny Poynor: Exactly. I call it construction, but it is oil field service.
Neil Dudley: So, how do you make money doing that? I mean, you just charge people for those services, and then they have to have them so it’s hard to get fired.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, it’s just like electrical company here. Like they got four or five, six crews they send out. Same thing they’re doing out there. You’re paying them for their services. And they paid us for our service. We hired them and paid them so much, charged so much.
Neil Dudley: Was your dad the kind of guy that- why would you go to five or six crews? Why not just one crew? See, that’s kind of the entrepreneurial thing I like to paint the picture of on this podcast or in this conversation. What makes you go from one to five? Why would you have five and maybe why not ten?
Johnny Poynor: Well, it’s you go with the flow in the oil field. Big Lake has been one of the towns that’s been up and down as many as any place in the world, I guess. Cause I mean, it’s a boom and bust, boom and bust, boom and bust. And I guess that as you start out, you got to have enough crews to work to make you living and your dad a living. And so, the first thing you know, and then, if you’re doing a good job and other people want you, it is tempting to go to put another crew on. But anyway, we ended up with about 20 crews, roustabout crews. Then we had a well or two and a backhoe, that kind of stuff you rent out.
Neil Dudley: You just start building it. I think it’s you built relationships, you did good work, people start saying, hey, will you do this for me? Well, sure. That makes sense. We can do it. It’s so cool to see how people build their careers and build their business and go into business for themselves, with their family.
Johnny Poynor: I think the business part I learned from my dad, just like your dad – I knew your dad, me and him could shake a hand on a deal. My dad, he was the same way. He wanted to do a good job. And he did a good job, and he didn’t overcharge. He just was honest. I mean, he wasn’t a Christian at that time.
Neil Dudley: But still had that integrity.
Johnny Poynor: He had the integrity. His dad was like that. I mean, he was from Comanche. He was known here for his mules, good mules. And a good heart. And he had a wife that was one of the prayer warriors, I mean, you could hear her praying out in the yard at night.
Neil Dudley: Get the mic up there to your mouth so we can hear what you’re about to say.
Zulean Poynor: I was just going to say he’s talking about his granddad, I didn’t know if you realized, that lived here that had the mules.
Johnny Poynor: Well, he lived here- lived here a long time
Neil Dudley: What was his name?
Johnny Poynor: Locky, that’s what they called him.
Zulean Poynor: Richard Lockridge.
Neil Dudley: Okay. So, his name wasn’t Poyner?
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, Richard Lockridge Poyner.
Neil Dudley: All right. So, that was your granddad. And then what was your dad’s name?
Johnny Poynor: Well, his name was Cornish Herschel. They called him Muck.
Neil Dudley: Oh really? See, I didn’t know any of that.
Johnny Poynor: And he’s short like me. Then when he went to the oil field, Shorty. He was known as Shorty from then on.
Neil Dudley: Seemed like everybody had a nickname in those days. I don’t know why I say those days.
Johnny Poynor: Back then, they did. Everybody had a nickname.
Neil Dudley: Okay so, you guys have built the oil field business up. I don’t know. Let’s keep following that story.
Johnny Poynor: Okay. And then we’ll get back. We did pretty well, and I got- I was wanting to come to Comanche. So, I didn’t want to hurt my dad by leaving the business and not working. So I found [inaudible 29:49] he retired on me as soon as I bought in. When I got rid of my hot oil trucks, to go back to that, I got rid of my hot oil trucks because one of them blew up one night, it was terrible. The ball of fire went through the [inaudible 30:03] of a pulling unit, burned all the wires off of it. Transport was hooked up to the- sucking oil off it. And everybody was running everywhere. I was hollering at that truck driver to drive that transport out because it had a hundred barrels of oil on it. I mean, yeah, yeah, a hundred barrels of oil on it, and now it’s sucking off it and heating it up and heating it. So anyway, nobody- I mean, my driver left there, of course, and I run over there and jump in that truck and just throw it in gear and took off and pulled the hose into and got it off location, and all that rest of it burned. My truck, it melted it down, the hot oil truck. I hadn’t explained what that is.
Neil Dudley: Well, I was fixing to ask.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. They used it for a lot of different things. Pressured up on the wells, heating the oil to circulate it to get rid of the paraffins, go down the flow lines and melt paraffin, that kind of stuff. Bad oil, go circulate it and heat it and get it cleaned up, that kind of stuff. So, you’re sitting there, we’re pumping down that oil at three in the morning, and we’re pumping down oil and holding lights up. I pull up, of course, I’m the boss at that time, I’ll come up in my car, pickup and sitting there watching the temperature and keeping everything going. This is what happens. It’s a real quiet night. And you got your [inaudible 31:37] oil and you’re feeding it and your bypass a little bit because the pressure- you are trying to get the pressure down. And the gas goes back. I mean the hot oil goes back in the truck and you got a vent on the back. And I don’t know if I am the only one it’s ever happened to or not, but that is what happened that night. Everything got just right in that gas when it- you know, it just pow. And it’s a ball of fire and everything. I mean, it was- I go back in the next day and I told my daddy, I said this is it, we’re selling out. I can’t do this. I was getting in bad shape. I got where I couldn’t talk without crying because it was really stressful job. And it was day and night. And they were always wanting to- Oh, another thing hot oil did is you know what they call fracking? Well, some fracks, they use oil and they wanted it heated at a certain temperature. Why I don’t know. But you go out there and you heat all these frack tanks and get them up there at a certain temperature. And that wasn’t dangerous because you wasn’t putting any pressure, just heating oil in the tank, circulating in the tank. But that’s another thing they’d want you out there all night to where they could start fracking early in the morning. So that’s part of what hot oil truck do.
Neil Dudley: How were you heating the oil? Were you burning gas off the well?
Johnny Poynor: So you had a load of diesel on your tank too.
Neil Dudley: You had combustible stuff all over the place.
Johnny Poynor: That’s what I’m saying. You’re sitting there with pressure of about a thousand pounds and hot oil and diesel, and then it wasn’t a- Matter of fact, I feel bad about it, I sold my- I had a friend in the pulling unit business, and he had a hot oil truck, and he was wanting to buy me. So, I mean, it wasn’t no problem to sell it. But he had a grandson that got killed on it doing the same thing.
Neil Dudley: Well, that’s part of that conversation we were talking about, your relationship with time and that thing that’s kind of percolating in my brain these days, just from a lot of different things-
Johnny Poynor: Why do something that dangerous? But somebody does it.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, but farming is dangerous, driving down the road’s dangerous, there’s dangers all over this world.
Johnny Poynor: You know statistics, you said that farming, there are more accidents on the farm then anywhere else.
Neil Dudley: Sure. I can talk about a lot of great people that have lost their lives in farming accidents or limbs or just you can get in trouble real quick. That is one of the things I value a lot from what I call my being raised by cowboys. And you learn that there’s danger and pay attention, but you can’t just hide in the house all the time. You got to go out and live and experience and enjoy and get a little risky, but be paying attention while you’re out there making that risk.
Johnny Poynor: Where are we at?
Neil Dudley: Now we are at you kind of sold out of the business. You told dad I’m out, we are selling this thing, I’m going to Comanche.
Johnny Poynor: Okay, back in the business. And then I was telling you, I didn’t want to hurt him, so we bought him out. And then after a couple of years, I went ahead and come down here. That’s what I was getting at a while ago.
Neil Dudley: What was that like? I mean, see, I’m interested in that transaction. Like you’ve built a big business. How did you go about finding somebody to buy it? Was it in the middle of an oil boom?
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, it was good. It was good when we came here. I thought I’d never see another poor day. I bought some of that shallow production in between, and I took care of it. I’d pump it early in the morning before work. Anyway, to make a long story short, it worked real good for me and that’s why I’m here. But anyway, that’s the good part.
Neil Dudley: Is that oil well still producing? A little bit?
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. What’d I say? I guess I said the little shallow production. That’s not the big deep wells, but the shallow wells and they call them strippers. They just barely hanging, making enough to not pull the plug on them. And the price got good though. I jumped in there and bought it, I don’t know, I can’t even remember, like $18 a barrel or something like, or maybe 30. I don’t know. But it went to $80 to $90 there for a while. Paid mine off so quick I couldn’t believe it. And then Uncle Sam saw me, and I thought my gosh, I said I can’t believe how good and hard we worked, I don’t believe it’s worth it. I mean, they took everything, all my savings, everything, because I was too dumb. I sold- I paid it off, I mean, as fast as I could.
Neil Dudley: You didn’t have any way to-
Johnny Poynor: They locked in ol’ me.
Neil Dudley: Everybody, listen, that’s valuable. You can learn something from what Johnny is saying right there. You build a business and you get in that position, I don’t know that paying it off quickly wouldn’t have still been the right idea, but you just didn’t know Uncle Sam was going to come knocking. Some of that experience, it could be valuable to anybody listening that’s now building a tech business. I mean, I guess the oil well- I say oil well, the oil field and oil business is still pretty good.
Johnny Poynor: Oh, it’s real good right now. I mean not real good right now. It’s like $46 a barrel, but I mean, the way politics is changing this year, you likely will see it go way up. Of course, when you do fuel it’s the same way.
Neil Dudley: Sure. It all is tied together. Every bit of it. There’s not one piece that’s not tied into our life, our economy, all of those things.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. Well, I know we need to get on down around the road. Where are we at?
Neil Dudley: Well, I think we’ve got a really good visual on what your life was like and how you kind of ended up here. And now I’m seeing you and Zulean in church and knew Brit and Penny.
Johnny Poynor: You didn’t know Jesse.
Neil Dudley: Let’s explore that a little bit. How did you live through that?
Johnny Poynor: Well, of course, I was stupid enough after I retired, out here, I went in the feed lot business, and I was busy, busy. And Zulean took all the butt of it.
Neil Dudley: Well, so Zulean, tell us then a little bit, how did y’all- just it’s anybody that has a kid, you just aren’t supposed to outlive your kids and it’s nothing you expect to deal with.
Zulean Poynor: That’s true. And he was very sick, and we made lots of trips to Dallas and to that hospital. I can’t even think of the name of it right now. Parkland hospital. And he just gradually got worse. So, I kept thinking, well, I’d have to be down there in an apartment or something. And Jesse said, no, I want to go home. So, he came home and that was the thing to do. And it was just let’s say a few weeks or maybe a month or so that- but he was here at home, and we had that time with him. And Johnny was here too. He was busy, but he never- And we grew closer because of that, I think. Sometimes marriages don’t stand up to when you lose a child. And of course, with God’s help. And it was really hard. We were here together when he died.
Neil Dudley: Now, was he the oldest, middle, youngest?
Zulean Poynor: He was oldest. He was 30 years old when he died.
Johnny Poynor: And he was the most compassionate, loving kid. Never forgot anybody’s birthday. He was one of those kind. His grandmother- always remembered. He was just one of those guys. Anyway, like Zulean said, it was hard because we were wondering if we knew how to do that. I mean how he was going to die and suffer.
Neil Dudley: Well, I think in that time, nobody knows about AIDs at all. You’re worried you are going to catch the disease, too.
Zulean Poynor: That was a part of it. And then like breathing, it bothered his lungs. We worried about that. But it all worked out anyway, the way god meant for it to. And Johnny even had to go to the funeral home and make arrangements, special arrangements for that.
Johnny Poynor: They had to know that.
Zulean Poynor: And we couldn’t wait until it happened. But our son and daughter were with us. Brit, in fact, stayed with Jesse the night he died.
Neil Dudley: Now were they real close as kids? Jesse and Brit and Penny?
Johnny Poynor: They were all pretty close.
Zulean Poynor: Yeah. Jesse and Brit lived together in Eldorado for a while and worked for the company, and then Penny didn’t live here then. She had married and lived in Eldorado too. But anyways, yes, we’re a close family, and I’m thankful for that. But anyway, that was one of the hardest things of our life.
Neil Dudley: Oh my goodness. I mean, I think, which I talked to John, and I interviewed John on this, and Jackson died, and I was like, man, see, I didn’t know that part of y’all’s story. So, I look up to John and Ginger because I know how tough that had to be, and there’s a piece of that that I want to be sure I keep in mind because I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow. I can have to live through something like that. I don’t want to, but I might have to, and I need to make sure my relationship with my wife is strong enough, with my kids, with God. I want to pay attention to those things. Barring that it does happen, if it would, I’m not totally un- I’ve got a little bit of a tool set there to lean on.
Zulean Poynor: You’re so smart to think about that because it kind of blindsides you if you don’t. But if you do have God in your life, that helps you through everything that comes along.
Neil Dudley: That’s absolutely true.
Johnny Poynor: As many suicides going on right now for the kids and stuff, they got a lot to face. They got to know God.
Neil Dudley: I think this might be a good time to just say if you’re hearing this, I don’t know if you can hear Johnny’s voice cracking, but the importance of, he knows the importance of you knowing God and the salvation that is in Jesus. So, I think that’s just, if you don’t, we’d really encourage you and beg you to either contact us or get in a church somewhere, find somebody that can help you build that relationship. And you really don’t even need somebody. You can just sit right down where you are and pray, and God will come to you.
Johnny Poynor: Amen. I got to say something else about Jesse. The night he died – that’s what I want to tell you about. I mean, I heard him fall in the bathroom, and I went in there and he’s on the floor. I pick him up and I carried him in there. I sat there holding his hand, then that’s when he died. And we didn’t know if we could take this, but God was with us. So, I wouldn’t have took nothing for her taking care of him in our home all that time until he died and what we went through, I would hate it if he was off by himself at the hospital. He came home because he wanted to be with us. And I’m telling you I wouldn’t take anything for it. And that’s kind of crazy to say, but I mean, that was something special for us to be with him.
Neil Dudley: I can understand that. I’ve heard it said, or you say you wouldn’t have took anything, and that’s a big statement. And people, there’s so much in life that you wouldn’t take anything for. I would rather live a day, I would rather live and be able to love on my family and experience this world than any other thing. Now I do want to make money. I want to be successful. I want to be respected. I want to have opportunities. I want to experience the world. But I wouldn’t trade for some things. So, I just hope, I don’t know, doesn’t really- I don’t even know if there’s hope there. That’s just the truth. That’s what I feel.
Johnny Poynor: So that’s behind this. And anyway, I don’t even know what do you got to ask that’s coming next?
Neil Dudley: Well, so let’s help people that want to be like you and Zulean understand how y’all keep your relationship. I know it can’t just be wake up every day and we’re just happily married, and we made it all these years together. What kind of work goes into keeping a marriage healthy and growing, that kind of thing?
Johnny Poynor: Well, we’ve been doing the last year or so, maybe even longer than that, even just- but it’s easier to do when you’re retired. I don’t have a whole lot to do. And I get to [inaudible 46:10] do some things, right now, we’re studying, going through Genesis and we read the Bible together. Then we read a commentary together and then we talk about it every morning.
Zulean Poynor: And we didn’t do that at first. When you’re young, you have your children, you’re busy with them and making a living, but you just grow into different things. And with God’s help, it’s always with his strength that gives us-
Johnny Poynor: We went through, besides that, I was telling you the ups and downs, how good the business was, how good it was, I thought I was going to- I thought I had the royalty under that stripper production that I was telling you about. Well, they come in and wanted to lease and buy it. Well, that’s great. Things happened in my business, I had to- I was going to use that to drill another well or sub it out to somebody else, and which I did, but then I had to pay off the one. I had somebody else running my business and the oil went down to $11 in ’84 I think it was. It wiped me out out there. People owed us $200,000, not one, but I mean, a lot of them went bankrupt. And so, it took us too. And so, I had to close the business down. And here I am. In other words, I’m telling you, what I’m saying is I’ve seen it where we thought we had it made and we didn’t.
Neil Dudley: I’ve heard it say don’t believe everything you think. Just because you think you know what you’re doing- I think it’s good to have confidence and believe in your skillset, but there’s always that you got to just spend, I don’t know, 2% of your time believing that this could all fall apart, and what are you going to do then?
Johnny Poynor: Well, the business is like a family. It didn’t end up like I wanted it. We lost part of it. The business we lost, I guess, as far as cash wise, we’ve never had less. But ever since all this happened, we’ve been happy here. And we like our church family.
Neil Dudley: But it paints the picture that money is not happiness. It’s a great tool. It’s a great thing to have. I love the idea of building money and having assets. But it is not, will not be your happiness.
Johnny Poynor: I wanted to be that millionaire too. I guess everybody does. I don’t know if they do or not. But one thing, one time my mother was sick, and we had to sit with her during the day. Bob and me were sitting at night because he was working. And anyway, I remember I used to think I had to plow this whole bottom and get the oaks planted, I mean, and it come time to do it, and I had another responsibility. She couldn’t sit with her all the time. And I sat back and I said, went to thinking, well, this old [inaudible 49:28] bottom line. I said I can’t make a living off of it anyway. I said you plow it, you fertilize it, and then to hope it don’t make it that year, there you are. And then one year it is just bumper crop. And then I bet I learned then, I said, you know what we’re going to do? I would just let ‘er go back to native grass and run what we can and not worry about it.
Neil Dudley: Hey, I want to take a quick pause and just tell you a little bit about Dudley Brothers Registered Hereford’s. They’re having a production sale. This is actually the 59th one. It’ll be happening October 8th at the headquarters there in Comanche, Texas. You can also check it out at Superior Livestock Auction online. You can bid and buy bulls there. So, if you’re a commercial cattleman and you’re looking for quality bulls to put on your cows and raise you a lot of beef, go check them out, www.dudleybros.com.
I got to tell you all about one of the sponsors of the podcast. It’s Little Buster Toys. Check them out at www.littlebustertoys.com. They got some of the coolest stuff you can’t find anywhere else. They’ve put out a new line of show animals – show sheep, pigs, steers, trim shoots, show pens, shavings, little squares for shavings for the animal stink. If you are a show animal family, I’m telling you, you’re going to love these toys. My kids love playing with them, and I think they’re something really unique you can’t find anywhere else. So go check them out. Use TCP5 for a 5% discount thanks to the Cowboy Perspective. We appreciate you listening. Back to the action.
Zulean Poynor: Johnny, you haven’t mentioned that when you moved here that you started raising horses.
Neil Dudley: We were going to get to that. We’re not- see, that’s where I really feel the most kindred spirit because horses are just a huge part of my life. I just love that animal. And when I need some time to unravel my brain that’s all messed up, I go get on a horse and go ride and it solves the world’s problems for me. And so, I think I definitely want to touch on that. We got a little bit of a connection because my granddad Eltos, you and him kind of got together on a horse deal. Let’s just talk- So what got you into horses?
Johnny Poynor: Well, I don’t know, when I was a kid-
Neil Dudley: What was the guy’s name that did the mules?
Johnny Poynor: Locky.
Neil Dudley: So did the mules and Locky- Is that where that sprung from?
Johnny Poynor: He was a horse man too. I mean, they were talking about how good he could rope and all. And matter of fact, he had a little brother that, you know where the Bruton place is south of Comanche? They used to have ropings down there and where you run by and jerk, jerk down ropings. Well, Brackey is Locky’s little brother. He is 27-years-old, and he broke his neck down there doing that.
Neil Dudley: See, now there’s a guy that I got to know up in Lubbock that got a half hitch around– His name was Buttons Howard, and he has to talk with a little finger over a whole there now since- I mean, he could have died. I mean, it’s another illustration of just about anything you do is dangerous.
Johnny Poynor: It can happen. But he jerked it. I mean, some way, I don’t know, if I’ve never done that kind of roping or anything like that, but when he run by, someway he got it around his foot. Can that happen?
Neil Dudley: Yeah, sure.
Johnny Poynor: I mean, it drove him in the ground and his saddle had a spur it went across his [inaudible 53:29].
Neil Dudley: Let’s talk about Docs Budha a little bit.
Johnny Poynor: Docs Budha, well, my brother-in-law called me one day and he said- I don’t know how he got to know Bobby Brown, but anyway – oh, the lawyer, his lawyer was a- anyway, they got together. He said they’re selling some shares in Docs Budah. He said- I guess I’d already bought some horses here, hadn’t I?
Zulean Poynor: Maybe so. But it was around that same time.
Johnny Poynor: But anyway, I got up there and I went and looked at him, fell in love with him. And anyway, no, I bought ol’ Jesse, you know that horse Jesse? I bought him and let Billy Albin train him, and that’s where I got started in the cutting part. But I just wanted to raise mares to start with. Budha, then I liked the Royal King horses, heard the stories of him, so I bought me some Royal King bred mares. And bought them. We had another company together out there. My brother-in-law my dad, we started another company besides our company. I mean, it was a different deal, I wasn’t ever really in it. But anyway, we took that company and used it to do our interest buying in Docs Budha. And so we kind of got started that way. I didn’t have the money- Well I might have then, but I didn’t go into debt or anything to buy Docs Budha or a share of him. And we started, me and Zulean, we started hauling mares back from here to Gardendale. That’s where it went. So, we started raising them and I sold quite a few of them
Neil Dudley: Gardendale, what-?
Johnny Poynor: It’s right out of Odessa, north of Odessa. That’s where me and your granddad went.
Neil Dudley: So, you were hauling mares out there to get bred and then bring them back. Now so if I say Lucky Budha, do you know what I’m talking about?
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, that’s my stud.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. And see, we ended up- That calf horse that I did most of my roping career on was an own son of Lucky Budha. And then Buddy Lane got a hold of Lucky, racing horses. Cody talks about him. Matter of fact, I had asked Cody the other day if he had ever really rode a cutting horse because I’ve never been on a real cutting horse. One of my episodes that I put out with a lady named Stacie McDavid, she’s big into the cutting horse and she’s had a lot of success doing that. Well, she’s offered me a chance to come ride a real cutting horse. I’m going to definitely take her up on it. I asked Cody if he had ever rode one, he said, yeah, I rode Lucky Budha, he’s a real cutting horse. So that’s just kind of a side story about a horse that you raised that I’m real familiar with.
Johnny Poynor: Well, I got doing that too. And Mr. Albin was the one that changed my thinking. See I’m not a cowboy.
Neil Dudley: Oh yeah. That’s another thing we’re going to explore at some point.
Johnny Poynor: I just started riding horses here. I just loved it. And then I did go help Buddy Lane a lot, just moved from pasture to pasture, that kind of stuff. And what I like about going to his place, you were always on a horse. You didn’t do nothing else but sit on a horse.
Neil Dudley: See, I need you to call Buddy and tell him to do this. I’ve been begging him and begging him to get on my podcast, I want to interview you. But he’s a little bit like you in this regard – I think the fact that I call it the Cowboy Perspective gets some of you guys that respect that word cowboy so much kind of hesitant. You said told me even, well, I’m not a cowboy, Neil, so I can’t really be on the Cowboy Perspective. Well, you’re a cowboy, you just don’t want- You respect it enough- In real life, and I look at you and I see a cowboy, just like Buddy. Man, he has mentored me, had a part in raising me. Being so close to his son, I was just out there a lot. He’s like a second dad to me, and I want him to come on, but he’s real hard to convince he should, which is kind of some of that cowboy perspective that’s to me-
Johnny Poynor: Well, you know what, I’ve noticed that about him. I would go down there and ride lot and [inaudible 58:15] him, but we’re close. We’re pretty close. And I’d notice he’d always say, well, [inaudible 58:27] him like a cowboy, so I just can’t put a handle on the horse or something like that, or I can’t finish one. Maybe he couldn’t. I don’t know.
Neil Dudley: He made a lot of good horses. He’s made a lot of good horses. He just never, I think it’s kind of this extreme humbleness that, I don’t know, it was just kind of a reality in some of the cowboys that I know.
Johnny Poynor: He didn’t really think he was a trainer, could train or any of that. He was a cowboy cowboy, I guess. But I thought he could, I would like to have a horse he-
Neil Dudley: Sure, I’ve got to ride a lot of them, and he does a great job with them. Okay. So now you’ve owned some shares of Docs Budha. Then we end up- my granddad, how I’m tied to Docs Budha is we own that stud called Doc DB, which is own son of Docs Budha and a mare called Lady Bracket that I think come off the Pitchfork or somewhere. But he was just the coolest thing. In my life, that was the horse. And then we raised all these horses. And to me, one thing is every- almost every memory I have of Eltos is horse- is tied to horses in some way. Cause I’d go ride. We’d talk about what was good confirmation in a horse, what was good mind in a horse, what was good feet in a horse. So, and then my dad did it, too, to a certain extent, probably as much, but it feels like Eltos was more influential on me in that way.
Johnny Poynor: Well, Mr. Albin influenced me to go- or I’d go visit with him when I’d go down there and check on my horses and Billy was breaking them. And I rode and helped him out there a lot. But Mr. Albin, Earl, he looked at me one day and said, well, are you going to show these horses? I said, ah, no. I said I can’t, I’m not that good of a rider to show. He looked at me and he said, boy, if you’re going to spend the money on them to train them, you need to go ahead and learn to ride them and enjoy them. And I did. I started right then. Then from then on, and I showed for I don’t know how many years. Do you?
Zulean Poynor: No, it’s quite a few.
Johnny Poynor: I showed Lucky some.
Neil Dudley: Did the horses make any money?
Johnny Poynor: No.
Zulean Poynor: Just enjoyment.
Neil Dudley: That was a great insight from- anyways, I’ve got a lot of questions now coming to my mind, but that was a really insightful thing I feel like – hey, if you’re going to do this, your reward, the money you’re making, is that experience, the enjoyment of riding them.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. I mean, instead of a speed boat, another boat or hunting Jeeps and all that, I did not have, but I had that horse. I enjoyed that. And I did until I really couldn’t afford it, then I had to- I quit. The horse I got right here now, he’s 18 I think we said, and it’s been about seven years since I showed him. And I had the hip replacement and I laid off three months. I come back and I was wanting to try to show him, and I did, and I don’t know, it’s just I got to the point I was getting old, and it was kind of a chore to go and nobody to go with. But anyway, I showed that- one time I showed him, I showed him seven times, had four seconds out of the- it’s not that I was burning it up, but I could compete.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, sure. Which that, I see that in you too. You’ve got that competitive nature. I don’t want to go just to say I was going, I want to be- somebody needs to worry that I showed up. They may not have an easy path to first.
Johnny Poynor: But this wasn’t a Budha horse that I ended up with. I mean, it is one that my brother-in-law, they wanted- they were going to turn him out and wanted to know if I needed a good horse ride. And this is funny about horses. I took him, and I just went to riding him and used him. And then one day they was down there doing a practice cutting and wanted me to come over and turn back for them. And so, I went over there and turned back, or this was when I’ve just trying him out. Anyway, I had had him a few months and I went over there and I turned back. I said why don’t you go ahead and cut you one. [inaudible 1:03:14]. I mean, he went to working. I said woah. And I said- I did two of them that way, and then, I worked out a deal for that horse. So, I got him. And then I went to showing him. And honest to goodness, I never had to train him or nothing for a year or two. And of course, I’m not a trainer, so I’m not getting him stopped every time on the ends where you got to really correct them and let them go and all that stuff. You got to be quick and think, and the older you get, the worse it got. But anyway, the horse is one of the best things that ever happened to me. It wasn’t a Budha horse.
Neil Dudley: What’s his breeding like?
Johnny Poynor: Jae Bar Fletch one side. And I forgot on his momma’s side.
Neil Dudley: Anyway, that’s another thing that I kind of am interested in. Like Budha, you can’t find much of his offspring anymore. It just didn’t have the success that’s required for that breed or that lineage to kind of proliferate and stay around. If you talk about High Brow Cat these days or Woody Be Tuff, it’s just, wow, these horses are really hot and everybody wants one, but sometimes you can- Like I think about Seabiscuit, and some of these racehorse stories. That’s what keeps me in raising colts is there’s going to be one that hits the ground on my place one day that is just special. And that’s what I want. And I hope my daughters enjoy him, or I’ll enjoy, but if they can, that’s even icing on the cake.
Johnny Poynor: I don’t know what the other kind of- I don’t know how expensive it is to go rope and show and all that, or the reining or what, but cutting horses is expensive.
Neil Dudley: Oh, sure. It’s all expensive. I mean, we’re talking about barrel racing, at this point, they’re selling those barrel horses for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, it’s expensive. That’s one reason I want to raise one. You can raise one and get lucky a little cheaper than you can just go buy one, but you might not ever raise that real special one. And that’s the risk you got to take.
Johnny Poynor: It’s just you got to really work at it like a golfer. A weekend golfer is not going to go win every tournament. And the same thing with cutting horses – if you don’t really work at it, you’re not going to go win, win, but if you can just do enough to you know you can compete, and every once in a while this horse gets twice, but I marked a 75 on him two different times and beat some of those non-pro women trainers’ wives, I mean, that’s what you’re competing against. And so it’s a really good feeling. Of course, I marked a 75, my horses, even the Budha ones I had, it is partly the rider, but at the time 72/3 third, fourth, second, but you’re still in there, see what I mean? Just enough to keep you wanting to go.
Neil Dudley: So what is it when I’m watching the Futurity and I’m seeing them mark these 120s and stuff, is that just a whole other level? Do they score them different?
Johnny Poynor: More judges. They got six judges, or five judges and throw one out. That’s all the difference. You’ve got two instead of one. Which they’ll mark 80 to something-
Neil Dudley: A pretty good score.
Johnny Poynor: I’ve never seen a 80.
Neil Dudley: That’s up in the top.
Johnny Poynor: 76s I’ve seen several of. I guess 120’d be-
Neil Dudley: That’d be a couple of 60 top scores.
Johnny Poynor: See, that’s not really good though. 70 would be-
Neil Dudley: 140. Well, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about and that’s possible. That happens to me a lot. I’ve been watching the Futurity a little bit.
Johnny Poynor: Well, it’s been so long I forgot about all the judges, but I know they have so many and you can throw one score out.
Zulean Poynor: Don’t they throw two out?
Johnny Poynor: They take four scores, I know, maybe the four lowest. I don’t know.
Neil Dudley: Well, who knows, right? I mean, go check it out. If you want to know about cutting horse-
Johnny Poynor: Don’t ask us.
Neil Dudley: All we could tell you is it’s a really cool sport. It’s a lot of fun to watch. What about all this yipping and hollering and stuff whenever they’re out there cutting. What good does that do?
Zulean Poynor: It is probably the family hollering.
Neil Dudley: Is that some kind of a thing you train the horse to get encouraged by?
Johnny Poynor: I don’t think so
Neil Dudley: That’s just a kind of a thing, part of the culture maybe?
Johnny Poynor: It’s just like the bull riding I was watching last night. That bull come back and mark at 94, everybody was hollering. I mean, he had that ride going. He had that ride going, the same way- Then they go to yipping and yapping.
Neil Dudley: Yep. Same difference, that’s how you cheer. Well, I’ve just enjoyed the conversation so much. I could probably keep going. Let’s touch on, just for a minute Christianity. It’s certainly been woven into this conversation a lot, but maybe explore or think about or tell me some of the things that you just value about that. I know you’re involved in the church. You mentioned tithing earlier and writing a hot check. That’s a piece that I think being a Christian, tithing, some of that is discipline. Some of that is stuff that’s valuable to you in your life in a million other ways.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, that goes back to that. I remember of the time we did it. And I remember when we moved to Big Lake, me and her talked about it, we are going to just start tithing no matter what. Finally, our horse got right about it. It got okay. And like I say, we been on ups and downs and all the way, but we’ve never quit tithing. I’m blessed that I was able to and help our church because the church got expenses. A lot of people don’t realize that, how much it costs to run the church. But then when you do give to the church, you get to see 5,000 the church gives to missions. This one they help, this one they help, and this one they help.
Neil Dudley: I’ll tell you, that’s a great thing about-
Johnny Poynor: A mission church.
Neil Dudley: Even giving, even tithing, I feel comes back to you in so many ways and even multiples. So, it’s like just being nice to people, giving to somebody that needs your help without expectation of any return, just because you’re giving of yourself. I’ve never once found out that that was bad for me. Every single time I get more than I gave.
Johnny Poynor: Better to give then receive.
Neil Dudley: It so is. Why does humanity- is it just Satan or it’s just the sad piece of humanity that we kind of lean towards the take. It’s like what is in it for me?
Johnny Poynor: Before we get through, I just want to say that our other two kids, they’ve grown up and it was not all- Brit was an alcoholic when he left here and he’s been sober 15-
Zulean Poynor: 15 years, it’ll be 16 this year.
Johnny Poynor: And works at the church again.
Zulean Poynor: He’s a deacon in the first Baptist church in Big Lake.
Johnny Poynor: And he really turned his life around.
Neil Dudley: So, I knew Brit. See, well, he was training horses. Clay was close to my age. I knew Casey well. So, his family, at least acquainted with closely and knew as I was a little kid and spent time with. So, and then there’s alcoholism. That’s a whole other thing that kind of has this stigma to it, but it’s just a disease. I mean, it’s a thing Brit- I so- I’m sure he doesn’t want this, but I kind of want to say, man, I feel sorry for him because that’s a thing he’s got to wake up and deal with every day, that luckily for me, I don’t have to deal with. The truth is I’m addicted to things, sugar and my cell phone. I mean, I have things that I have to deal with too. There’s just not a stigma. It’s not attached to some stigma.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. Alcoholism, my dad was kind of like that. I did tell you that. Before he had a brother-in-law that really led him to Christ, after he got 80. But I mean-
Neil Dudley: There’s never a day too late.
Johnny Poynor: Never. So I just didn’t want to leave it like my dad was not a Christian, but he ended up being a Christian, and him and my mother both. My mother was a real strong Christian for a while, a good while.
Zulean Poynor: Well, also you’ve mentioned Penny and we’re thankful that Penny and her husband live here, and they mainly moved back here so they could be close to us and help us as we are older. And we’re so thankful for them.
Johnny Poynor: They’ve been here 14 years. See we built that house for my mother and dad. They lived on lake LBJ. They retired down there. This is a neat story. I hate to do this. Anyway, I bought- my dad, I built him a house – I mean him and my mother, we built that house for them. So, we got that fixed. Well here comes my brother. He rigs it up- he’s a head therapist for Fort Worth Children’s Hospital. He started that or was the goal and really had him a new therapy clinic fixed the way he wanted it. And then all this kind of come about and God led him. And so De Leon needed a therapist, so he kind of looked into it and he just quit his job up there, and come down here and built him a house over here. So there’s Bob and me.
Neil Dudley: Everybody’s right there.
Johnny Poynor: You can’t write it any better.
Neil Dudley: I’m living a similar life because Stacy and I live right here, well, Kenneth and Vicki are just across the pasture, mom and dad are just across town. My kids get to see them anytime they want and learn from them and experience their knowledge. Can’t paint it any better.
Zulean Poynor: I love that our family lives all in Texas, not that far from us. All of our grandkids are married and have kids and live in San Angelo.
Johnny Poynor: Every one of them.
Neil Dudley: Are y’all proud of those grandkids? I can see it on your face. I can just feel it coming from you.
Zulean Poynor: I have to say something else. Even the great-grands, we have 13 great-grands. Having our family young, can do that because we’re able to enjoy the grandkids and the great-grands.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, sure. I got to building- Stacy and I started our family a little later, I mean, in our thirties, early thirties. So, we might not get to have that same experience. My kids are going to have to get to having kids pretty quick for me to get grandkids, great grands for sure.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. You don’t want to rush that.
Neil Dudley: That’s right. I mean, I think I just want them to have their own journey. Man, I want to give them everything. That’d be so unfair to give them everything. They need to go build.
Johnny Poynor: Oh yeah, they got to learn. But you’re lucky that- I mean, just enjoy those grandkids because I remember we went, after Brit and them divorced and they left and the kids all lived in Eldorado, you don’t know how many thousands miles we drove to ballgames. We went to every football game from junior high up.
Neil Dudley: I remember that Grace and Eltos. They were at every game. My mom’s mom, Robert and [inaudible 1:16:30] Lee, they were there.
Johnny Poynor: That means something to you, didn’t it?
Neil Dudley: Yeah, you bet it did. I mean, I remember grandpa, he was, I don’t know what age he was, but he wasn’t getting around very good, but he’d get you out in the backyard. Now when you- I think a lot of my competitiveness probably comes from dad, but to dad from Eltos. Some of that flows that way.
Zulean Poynor: Yeah, your family is wonderful. And I’ll say it looks so good to see Stacy coming to church with those three daughters. And I love to see the young people start their Christian life.
Neil Dudley: We have to be- I’m convicted in I don’t do everything that I could in the church. I try to do what I can, but there’s needs in the church that somebody has to do. And there’s a lot of our older congregation still kind of carrying that load. We’re going to have to pick that up at some time. And I don’t know. I just try to let it- have a relationship with God, feel like I’m doing what I need to do. I feel responsible for my family first. I can’t shirk those tasks to go be a deacon.
Zulean Poynor: No, family was established before church.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah, family, you got to- I mean, they’ve got to- I mean, you got to make sure they connect and know God. We just can’t let that pass.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, that’s right. What else? You got any other things you want to say about the Brit or Penny, or how about in-laws? Or how about your son in-law and your daughters-in-law? That’s another dynamic that’s pretty interesting.
Johnny Poynor: My son-in-law is just super to Penny and he takes care of his family. And he takes care of me and Zulean. I mean when he is here and around, he does all he can for us. And Penny is just a joy because Penny walks with her mom every morning – I say every morning – most mornings, and she’s here for me, always trying to help me and do things. Sometimes she interferes with me.
Neil Dudley: Did you find that you were real similar to any one of your kids and that that made it tougher or easier? Or you, same question for you Zulean? In my particular experience, I think I have a very similar personality to one of my kids, and it turns out that we butt heads a lot.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. Maybe so. Well, I don’t- growing up, one kid likes everything you do, but maybe another one doesn’t. And that’s just, that’s part of being in a family, but I’ve seen that and I guess Penny, I had her help me fix the water gamut down here. And first time she’s ever seen a water gamut, I think. We’re out there waist deep, and all of a sudden, she’s telling me how to build a water gamut. That’s nice to have help, but-
Neil Dudley: Just do what I say, I don’t need you to tell me how to-
Johnny Poynor: But she’s in there belly deep helping me.
Neil Dudley: It’s such a good illustration of just grace and love. And Dad says you may not like me all the time, and I might not like you all the time, but I’ll always love you. There’s no way you can foul that up.
Zulean Poynor: He’s a sweet man. And your mom is sweet. I love Harry and Rhonda.
Neil Dudley: Oh, yeah, I’m blessed. I’m so lucky to have them as parents. I feel so lucky to have Kenneth Vicky as my in-laws. I feel so lucky to have the grandparents I had, the church family I have. I’m just really blessed in a lot of ways. The people I get to work with and toil in a business and try to improve that and do something that’s valuable to the world. I’m just really lucky. And I love this podcast because it’s a great chance to just hear y’all story. I learned so much about an industry that I didn’t know anything about. Y’all’s walk, the important things that you see in life that really people need to focus on.
Johnny Poynor: We had never said how long we’ve been married, 63, 64 years. July, it’ll be 64 years.
Zulean Poynor: June 30th.
Neil Dudley: How many times have you got in trouble for that?
Johnny Poynor: That’s a first.
Zulean Poynor: I don’t want to leave Brit’s wife out. She is a wonderful daughter-in-law and that’s his second marriage, but she lost her husband. He died when he was real young.
Johnny Poynor: And he was Brit’s cousin. They were real close growing up.
Zulean Poynor: So, she didn’t even have to change her name. She was Marla Poyner and she still is Marla Poyner. But she has been a helpmate to Brit, and I think he’s been good for her.
Neil Dudley: That’s what’s great. She’s good for you, you’re good for her. I’m good for Stacy. Stacy’s good for me. I was even thinking about that a little bit on the drive, how Stacy, I so want her to just tell me I’m a great marketer, that I know what I’m talking about, but she won’t because I’m not yet. I need to get better. That’s the value of it.
Zulean Poynor: She makes you think.
Neil Dudley: And yeah, sure. She pushes me. I push her. I know I frustrate her in a lot of ways.
Johnny Poynor: Oh, and that’s a part of it too.
Neil Dudley: Sometimes you just have to sit back and say I’m letting that go. I’m just letting that go. There’s so much more value there, why am I focusing on that one little thing that gives me an itch.
Johnny Poynor: Seems like I said it yesterday after 64 years. She hasn’t figured me out yet I don’t think.
Zulean Poynor: Well, no, I’m still trying, just like you’re still trying with me.
Neil Dudley: That’s the thing, you got to find somebody you can marry that won’t quit on you, will just keep trying. And I’m not the kind of guy that I think divorce is necessary. I mean, it’s sad and it can be tough. And then there’s a little bit of a stigma there. Like, oh, you’re getting divorced. Yeah, well sometimes you just made a mistake, married the wrong person, and you shouldn’t need to take that beating for the rest of your life. It’s okay. I mean, I don’t think God’s going to send you back because you made that kind of mistake.
Johnny Poynor: No, it’s just another mistake.
Zulean Poynor: He’s going to be there for you. One thing we didn’t talk about was Bob and Johnny, in fact, Johnny’s dad, they we’re up on that hill over there and he said something about a cross up there. Anyway Johnny, our two families have Easter sunrise service every year that we can – we didn’t have it last year because of the COVID.
Johnny Poynor: See that was my dad, after he accepted Christ, he was the one that brought it up. And we have an Easter service for our family ever since.
Zulean Poynor: Our kids and their kids, they make a point come to that even more than coming to Christmas. And it’s such a wonderful time with-
Neil Dudley: Well, they call it Poynor- What does Brother Van say? The Poyner fill a pew?
Zulean Poynor: Poyner pack a pew.
Johnny Poynor: All them would come to church even after sunrise service before we- when it was 11 o’clock. That’s really when we packed the pews.
Zulean Poynor: But another thing, our grandchildren, when they come here on a weekend, they know we’re going to go to church. So, they make a point to be prepared to go to church with us.
Johnny Poynor: And we admire [inaudible 1:25:05] little kids and trying to get them up. They want to go fishing. But anyway, they never have to ask them, they just go.
Neil Dudley: It’s an illustration of you just set expectations and it’s less of a problem. If everybody understands this is going to happen, then you don’t have a problem because they just know.
Zulean Poynor: We don’t tell them they have- we don’t tell them they have to, but they just want to.
Neil Dudley: Well, and that’s respect for you. They know it’s important to you. And I bet maybe you don’t say they have to, but you probably have a million other ways that you’re letting them know this is expected.
Johnny Poynor: I’m just thankful that we have three teenagers that have all accepted Christ already.
Neil Dudley: All right. So, this will be our last thing. Maybe your great-grand son or daughter’s going to hear this someday after you’re gone. Do you have an idea of just something you’d want to tell them just so they could take it with them? I think about that a lot when I’m doing this – I don’t know if I’m going to be here tomorrow or not. I’m not guaranteed anything. So, part of this is something I want my girls to be able to hear or my grandkids to be able to hear, my great-grandkids. They can say someday, hey, if you wonder about Neil, go listen to this stuff and that will tell you a lot about Neil. I kind of even get emotional just thinking about that because God’s watching me, he’s with me, he’s knows- I thought that was such a great thing you said – it was like, I used to get away with about anything beause as long as mom and dad know about it, I can do it. Now you can’t do something God doesn’t know about. So, what about it? Does anything come to mind, just some wisdom you’d love for them to have?
Johnny Poynor: Well, I think I wrote a letter to them. We got a – what do you call that? A time capsule buried somewhere. It looks like a well or a bob that you leave out so you can see out there in the field, but everybody put a letter in that. Anyway, it’s supposed to open it in 20 years from ’85, I think it was. Anyway, not time to open it yet, but a few years. I think I wrote and said that I hope and pray that we were an influence on y’all and you remember that Christ comes first, Jesus comes first, family, and then your job. Put it that way and you put God first and nothing can interfere or stop the good.
Neil Dudley: How about you? Same thing?
Zulean Poynor: Same thing. I’m just so thankful for our family and the love that we have for each other. We don’t have a lot of strife for anything like that, and they’re a blessing to us and we appreciate them.
Neil Dudley: I think if I was kind of doing the same thing, I want to tell people, my descendants, self-esteem, work on your self-esteem and God can help you with that. Because the world is mean, and you need to be happy with who you are and you don’t have to be the person I want you to be, you got to be the person God wants to be, and that you find for yourself. Now I’m going to certainly try to massage that, but at the end of the day, I just want them to be able to have that self-esteem and that security that comes with salvation.
Zulean Poynor: That’s true. And be happy.
Neil Dudley: And it is not free. Happiness is not free. That’s worse- I think that goes along with self-esteem. You have to want happiness. You have to be willing to accept happiness. A lot of people just want to be unhappy because there’s no thing that makes them stay there in my estimation. All right. Good deal. We spent about an hour and a half talking here. Burned into all your duties and etc. going, but I hope and I feel very confident that the listeners out there can find a lot of insight in this conversation. And then even outside of that, your family, I’m excited for them to get to hear some of this conversation and just appreciate y’all spending the time with me.
Johnny Poynor: Well, we appreciate you even asking us. I’m glad that you came out. I was dreading it; I knew I was kind of nervous about it. And I got to mention my big brother because I just lost him a few months ago. He was always a mentor to me as a Christian. I mean, he led me all the way. Not that I knew it at that time, but Bob has always been a good stout Christian man. I just want to remember him and let my kids know what I think over this.
Neil Dudley: Those memories are so beautiful and so nice to mention and keep alive. I remember Bob. I can see him right now sitting in the pew and smiling at me when I came by. There’s that – smile at people. It costs you nothing, and it gives them so much. We even talked about you grew up, your family is just across the pasture here. Let’s explore that because we’re kind of recording this – we’re not kind of, we’re definitely recording this to put out as a podcast to give people insight, to help them in any way it might. I don’t even know if I have a specific expectation. I just like- I’ve learned a lot from you guys. I see you as people I really respect. We call it the Cowboy Perspective, but there’s cowgirl perspective that has shaped me as much as anything – my mom, my grandparents, my grandmothers. So as the matriarch of the Poynor family, let’s explore where you came from a little bit.
Johnny Poynor: Before she starts, I have to say that she’s a cowgirl because she milked cows when she was in school.
Neil Dudley: There you go. That’s totally- A lot of people in your age group milked cows. That’s where you got milk from.
Zulean Poynor: Well, I was born in Gorman. Everybody around here was born in Gorman hospital seemed like, but my mother and dad-
Neil Dudley: Gorman has a hospital?
Zulean Poynor: They used to have a really nice hospital. My dad owned a grocery store in Beady, and his name was Cecil Fisher, and my mom was Inez Matthews Fisher. And she lived around here too. Anyway, I started school at Beady. But anyway, my dad was a peanut farmer. He did have that grocery store in Beady, but he didn’t like it that much. He was a farmer. But he also died very young. But he was president of the Farm Bureau. He’s on the school board. In fact, he signed my-
Johnny Poynor: President of the School Board.
Neil Dudley: He signed your diploma?
Zulean Poynor: I believe he signed Dale’s anyway, because he was- my brother.
Neil Dudley: Now, who’s Dale?
Zulean Poynor: That’s my brother. I had one brother. And so we were always real close. In fact, Johnny and Dale are real good friends. And he lives in San Angelo now, and we’re still close. He and his wife live there. But my daddy died when he was 45 years old. And that was really a blow.
Neil Dudley: How old were you?
Zulean Poynor: I was 20-
Johnny Poynor: We were just married.
Zulean Poynor: We had three kids though, about 22.
Neil Dudley: Well, y’all when you all had kids, you pretty much just married and then you had three of them.
Zulean Poynor: That was a hard thing to deal with. And my mother worked at Higginbotham’s after he died. And anyway, she lived to be nearly a hundred, like just a few weeks, Inez Fisher.
Neil Dudley: Now, would I have ever known her?
Zulean Poynor: She went to church. But she was in assisted living in White Stone when she passed away. And I always said that Johnny moved back here to meet me. No, he said that. So, but anyway, that’s not much background. But I was a peanut farmer’s daughter and hoed peanuts.
Neil Dudley: Well, tell us a little bit about what it was like raising three little kids. I mean, so you had kids three under five for sure.
Zulean Poynor: Well, it was time-consuming, but I didn’t work. I was an at home mom.
Neil Dudley: There’s so much value in that, that a lot of people- like that at home mom has so much influence on those kids’ lives and their understanding of what living a good life can be and should be. So, I think that’s a real piece of our culture and our reality that we miss a little bit today.
Zulean Poynor: We enjoyed all of the school things. Britt played football, Jesse played in the band. And in fact, Johnny and I sponsored a trip to Dallas, the Cotton Bowl Parade when Jesse was a freshman. And so, we had some- we lived in Big Lake and all of them were raised there. And we were able to move to Comanche when Penny was a senior.
Neil Dudley: How’d that go for her from your perspective? It seems like that would be tough.
Zulean Poynor: We thought so too. And we gave her the option. We weren’t going to move until she graduated, but she said that would be fine with her. No, because we thought about that too. And it turned out good. So anyway, that’s it. It’s a very good life.
Neil Dudley: I always liked to think there’s that yin and yang, dad and mom, and why it’s good to have dad and mom because sometimes dad’s a little bit too far on the tough side. We’ve been listening to this song a lot and it makes me emotional a little- a lot when I’m hearing it and I’m thinking about my girls, but there’s always love in daddy’s hands. Those hands can be soft when she’s crying, but hard as steal when she’s done wrong. I think that mom has to temper that sometimes. Do you agree? What do you think about that? What did you feel like your role was?
Zulean Poynor: Oh, I felt like I was just the mother that took care of the food, took care of the meals. And Johnny was the provider. But we agreed on how we dealt with the kids. Sometimes we had our disagreements.
Johnny Poynor: When I would go overboard, I had to be tempered pretty good.
Zulean Poynor: But nothing’s ever- we have to kind of clear the air every once in a while.
Neil Dudley: Everybody, if you’re listening, that is such a valuable statement Zulean just made – clear the air, let it all go. Like address it. Even in my family, there’s tension a little bit. I’m this personality that wants to talk; hey, we have a problem here, let’s get right into it, address it. Don’t beat around the bush about it. You’re not liking me and why, and I’m not liking you and why. Almost every personality in my family, that is stressful. They’re not excited about that conversation. Well, I’m pretty excited about it because I like the result. I’m like oh, the air is clear. We don’t have anything boiling underneath the surface.
Zulean Poynor: I’m always the silent type, and Johnny says what’s wrong? And I say nothing.
Neil Dudley: You know there’s a problem-
Zulean Poynor: It takes a while to get through to it. But that’s the way it is. It’s not all joy and happy. You have to take care of things.
Neil Dudley: I think it’s okay to have your feelings hurt and to feel unappreciated. I mean, it’s okay. What’s I feel like sad is when people feel like they can’t be honest about that. I guarantee I don’t appreciate Stacy in every way she deserves to be appreciated in. And that hurts her feelings. It hurts my feelings if I don’t feel appreciated or given the respect that I want. Nobody’s intending that for me. I’m really- I’m doing that more to myself than anybody else. It’s like what we talked about for just a second, focusing on that thing instead of all the million other great things. We spend a little time everyday writing down a gratitude. Just everybody, give me the thing you’re grateful for today, and we’re going to write it down in a book.
Zulean Poynor: Do you do that with your family? How wonderful.
Neil Dudley: And sometimes they’re silly – cows. Well, if you think about that for a little while, you can be pretty grateful for having cows to go check and look at it and have that experience.
Zulean Poynor: Well, that’s so neat that you do that with your kids.
Neil Dudley: It’s part of this self-esteem building thing. I think it’s so valuable- I was just giving it without anybody really knowing or understanding what they were giving me, but they were giving me tools to deal with stress, bad times, uncertainty, low self-esteem, depression, whatever it might be. Depression is probably not true; I’m not sure you can just quit depression. If depression comes upon you, it’s a thing you’ve got to address, and you can’t just necessarily dig out without some help. But I want them to have a tool that says I got made fun of today and that hurt. But actually, I’ve been thinking about things I’m so appreciative of that those can outweigh the hurt. I don’t know if it is going to work or not-
Zulean Poynor: Yeah. But that’s part of life, just because you’re going to get your feelings hurt sometimes, but it is hard, especially when you’re a child or even when you’re an adult. But anyway, this has been really-
Neil Dudley: Now, did you get involved in any organizations and that kind of thing? I think women have so much influence through the organizations that you ladies get involved in and mentor other women through.
Zulean Poynor: Well, when I first moved back to Comanche, well, I did start playing bridge in Big Lake, but then I moved back to Comanche, and I joined the newcomers club. I used to live here, but I was an old comer who joined the newcomers club. That was good for me. And I got involved in bridge club and then Grace and Rhonda sponsored me, asked me if I’d like to be a member of the Heritage Club. So, I’m still a member of the Heritage Club in Comanche. And so, yeah, I like to meet other people and the people in the community, I like to get to know people in the community.
Neil Dudley: The community is what lifts you up when you need it most I feel like. So that’s a good encouraging thing. Go be a part of your community. It’s a little scary putting yourself out there because you have to risk that some people may not treat me the way I want to be treated, but the upside is so much bigger.
Zulean Poynor: And another thing I really enjoyed was Wanda Carney’s Sunday school class- not Sunday school, Bible study class. I learned a lot through that, through our church.
Neil Dudley: Oh, my goodness, we could just sit here and name people for hours. Wanda and Sid, that makes me think of them. Sam Randoff is another one that comes to my mind and Patty, the amount of these teachers, they’re teaching school and they’re also in the church. James Quast. It just can go for hours and hours about all the people you think about and remember.
Zulean Poynor: He was such a wonderful man. He had a short life.
Neil Dudley: Oh yeah. Russell, he’s another one. Miss him.
Johnny Poynor: I admired those guys. To think when your dad and all the rest of them didn’t get hurt any worse than they did.
Neil Dudley: It could have been- I could have lost my dad and it just turned out it was Brandon’s his son’s name, isn’t it? Brandon and Katie were the ones that lost their dad. I got to keep mine. Which Katie, I mean, there’s another person you can talk a lot about. I love her music and I just think- it makes me kind of want to cry because I know how much Russell must be loving that and just we don’t know how much he is enjoying it.
Zulean Poynor: Just like when my daddy died, we had three children, but of course, they didn’t ever really know him. And of course, that’s their grandparent. But that’s- my mother said that is just life. And that’s true. Like you say, we never know how long we have, and we should enjoy every day.
Neil Dudley: That’s totally right.
Johnny Poynor: I don’t know how many times I heard her say that. That’s life.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. You can accept it, deal with it, or shrink down and totally let it be the end of your experience. I’m hoping everybody just keeps experiencing life. It won’t be, it’s never going to be just a perfect thing.
Johnny Poynor: Yeah. Life’s good and life’s hard.
Neil Dudley: And it kind of wouldn’t be even any fun if it didn’t have some hard parts. I’ve been praying pretty hard to be thankful for the hard parts. That’s a pretty tough thing to really genuinely be gracious and thankful for that struggle. That’s something I work on pretty hard and I’m not good at, but I want to be.
Zulean Poynor: Sometimes it takes a little time and you can look back at it and see that it helped you.
Neil Dudley: All right, Zulean, we explored the Fisher family a little bit. What else? How about your mom? We didn’t say a whole lot about her.
Zulean Poynor: I’ll tell you what, she just took care of herself after daddy died. She started- she worked at HarLex and then she worked at a Higginbotham’s and she paid her way.
Johnny Poynor: Very independent. Tell him about her keys and going a nursing home.
Zulean Poynor: Well, she had a car.
Johnny Poynor: Going in a nursing home first.
Zulean Poynor: Yeah. Dale and mother talked a lot about it was time for her to go to this assisted living and she just loved it. And I didn’t ever think- She was always really independent. What do you want me to tell?
Johnny Poynor: I was trying to say she put herself in there. Nobody had to.
Zulean Poynor: But the thing of it too, I think you’re talking about is when she drove when she first got in there, but then she came to the point where she didn’t think she should drive anymore. We didn’t have to tell her. She told Dale he just needed to come get that car. She gave him the keys. He took it and took care of it. I mean, most of the time you hear these stories about having to-
Johnny Poynor: Going into a nursing home and also the keys, that’s just most people don’t want to do either one.
Neil Dudley: Paint the picture of her, who she was.
Zulean Poynor: And she loved Johnny. And she loves Vicky. That’s Dale’s wife, Vicky.
Johnny Poynor: She was a dandy.
Neil Dudley: That’s right. Like we’ve said a million times here, it’s just a blessing. Family is a blessing, good, bad, or otherwise, there’ll be pieces.
Zulean Poynor: And it can be so stressful if you don’t- if your in-laws don’t- if you don’t get along with your in-laws and so you’re blessed that way. We are too.
Neil Dudley: That’s true. There we go. I’m glad you mentioned that and we got to say a little bit about it.
As we come to an end of another episode, I just say thank you for listening this far, giving me and the people I talk to, Johnny and Zulean specifically in this case, your attention, a chance to share with you those things that we know about because it’s our life. Everybody has so much value when they just talk about the thing they know about so well, and that is their life, their experience, what they’ve been through. So, I appreciate you all for listening. I love you. I just am a happy person that I get to do this and share it with you. If there’s any advice or direction you could give me, I’d love to hear it. Otherwise, come back next week. We’ll be talking again about something that I think is interesting. Parking lot insights. Like when you walk through a parking lot, do you pay attention to how the cars are parked and what the people are up to? Love you, catch you around the next corner.
The Cowboy Perspective is produced by Neil Dudley and Straight Up Podcasts. Graphics are done by Root & Roam Creative Studio. And the music is by Byron Hill Music.