Episode 55: The Wellspring's Haunting Social Architecture

All right, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back. I'm Luke, and this is Luke at the Roost. It's your late-night call-in radio show where you can call in and tell me about what's going on in your life, and I'll give you the very best advice that I can, which is probably not very good advice, but it's worth what you paid for it, okay? If you'd like to give us a call, the number is 208-439-5853. That's 208-8-3. 439, Luke. Today is Monday, May 11th, and it is a beautiful Monday here in New Mexico. I just returned from the wonderful world of Alpine, Texas, where we'll be moving soon. Hopefully, our intern, Devon, has got his affairs in order, and he's ready to find a place down in Alpine and continue doing the show. I have faith in him. Let's check. Hey, Devon, we're almost ready for the move to Alpine, Are you prepared?

Yeah, pretty much, I mean, my civics packed to the gills, check engine light and all. And I subletted the studio to some guy from Craigslist who collects vintage toasters. Should be good to go whenever you want me to map the route or grab coffee for the drive.

Oh, definitely coffee. The route's pretty, pretty simple. There's two roads. Literally two roads from here to there. It takes six hours, but it's six hours on two roads. So I think we'll be fine. Where are you going to be living when we get a? out there.

Oh, man, living-wise, I snagged this tiny Adobe Casita on the edge of Alpine through a Facebook group. It's basically a one-room deal with a hot plate and a shower that sounds like it's possessed, but the rents dirt cheap and the landlady's this 70-year-old widow who bakes killer soap of pillows. Reminds me of that summer I spent houses sitting for my aunt in the middle of nowhere, scorpions everywhere. You think the station's got decent parking?

Oh yeah, it's the desert. There's plenty of parking. You can park wherever you like. There's a There's more than enough places you can stash the Civic. And at night, when we do this podcast, nobody's going to be around. People go to bed, except on the weekends. It's kind of a hop in place on the weekends. So maybe we'll have to go even later.

Cool. The Civic thanks you. That check engine lights been blinking like it's trying to Morse code me. Late nights for the podcast? Works for me. I mean, I've been pulling those since college, wiring myself on energy drinks, and debating conspiracy forums till done. Weekends could be wild out there, though. Any big events in Alpine I should look up?

There was just one. It was called the Voices from Both Sides Festival, right on the Rio Grande. It was actually in La Hitas, I think it's called, about an hour and a half from Alpine. But it's where the Rio Grande splits the United States and Mexico. And on both sides of the river, they had a stage. And musicians, there's bands and partying and barbecuing on both sides. off. It's a pretty cool thing.

Oh, yeah. Voices from both sides. I just pulled it up. It's in La Hitas on the Rio Grande, right? Stages facing each other across the border. Bands jamming. Everybody barbecuing in the river. They've been doing it since like 2012, annual thing around Mother's Day. Next one's May 10th, 2025. Perfect road trip from Alpine. Yeah, about an hour and a half. You ever been?

Yeah, I was just there a couple It's not related to Mother's Day. It's a protest because after 9-11, that's when they closed that border. It was completely open before 9-11 when Mexico bombed the World Trade Center. So every year on the, I don't know if it's always the 12th, but right around 9-11, they have this big festival. And it's super cool. And there's people floating around in the river and you can walk across freely on both sides. I saw, I think, one border patrol guy there, but he was. just eating barbecue. Like, nobody down there wants a border wall. Like, no reasonable person does. Anybody, well, in southern Texas and in Mexico, they want to dance and party and eat barbecue. Like, it's so silly. But that's neither here nor there.

Actually, yeah, I double checked. It's this Fiesta protesta thing. They started back in, like, 2012 after the Lajitas crossing got shut down post-9-11, not Mexico or anything. thing, just security stuff. The one this year was May 11th, so not super recent unless we're talking spring. But next year's May 10th, again. Sounds epic, though, the floating in the river and all. Way better than a wall, per se.

Yep. Certainly way better than a wall. I thought it was interesting because it was so open. I mean, the river is only ankle deep. So there was really not a ton of security. There was almost no security there, and people just walked back and forth with no problem. So I don't know if it's like that all the time, but there isn't a crossing there. There's not like a Border Patrol checkpoint or anything.

Yeah, it's pretty much event only. No official port there. Just folks waiting the shallow spots during the festival. Border Patrol keeps it light or looks the other way.

All times. Nah, they crack down after September 11th, like everywhere else along there. Kind of peaceful, though, Border Patrol to hang out there. Like, I mean, around Texas and New Mexico, all around the border, they have checkpoints on the roads. And you have to, you know, stop and they go around your thing with a dog. And I'm actually a little offended. I've gone through that checkpoint or those checkpoints hundreds of times. And never once, have they ever asked me anything. Are you a US citizen, sir? That's all I've ever got. And I drive through with my truck. It's got tinted windows. I'm always towing something. I've got the adventure trailer. or a utility trailer, or I've got this big mystery box behind me a lot of times. And I guess I'm just too white. They never even look.

Yeah, the ones on I-10, like eastbound before Sierra Blanca and westbound out of Las Cruces, they're pretty standard. Always asking Citizen as the opener. Funny they let your mystery box slide, though. I mean, last time I hit one in the Civic, the dog's nose went nuts on my gym bag full of protein shakes. It felt like a setup.

Well, hopefully you don't get detained and sent to Guantanamo. All right, that's enough of us. Let's get to the show. First up, on our call list here, we've got Darnell. Darnel, welcome to the show. What's going on in your life?

I did everything right, and a man almost died because of it. And now his kid thinks I'm a hero. And I don't know if telling her the truth is for her or just for me.

All right, we're going to need a little more information than that. What are you talking about?

Yeah. Sorry. Okay. I ref youth basketball on weekends. Seven months ago, I ejected a parent from a game. He was screaming at 12-year-olds, mine included, just completely out of control. Textbook ejection. I followed every step of the protocol. 20 minutes later, the man had a heart attack in the parking lot.

Well, that's not your fault. He was going to have a heart attack anyway. It's not like you jammed up his arteries. stuff baking grease down his throw. You just kicked him out of a youth basketball game. I think you can let yourself off the hook on that one.

He was alone out there for eight minutes before anybody found him. Eight minutes. His daughter was inside the gym. She was one of the kids he'd been screaming at. She's 12 years old and her dad was dying in a parking lot and she was 30 feet away not knowing. And yeah, maybe his arteries were already a mess. Maybe it happens in the grocery store the next Tuesday.

Yeah, I mean, that's pretty wild, but it wasn't your fault. You're not a hero or a villain here. You just did your job, and you did the right thing. I don't understand what a lot of people call in about youth sports games, and they're always dramatic, and it's never because of the kids. So I don't even think youth sports are four kids. She came up to me after the game this Saturday. Maya, that's her name.

She came up to me after the game, and she said I was the best ref they'd ever had. and that she felt safe when I was running the court. That's what she said. Safe. And I almost told her everything right there on the gym floor. I had my mouth open. I didn't do it. I've been sitting with that since 6 o'clock tonight.

Well, what exactly were you going to tell her? I mean, all you did was eject somebody that was being an asshole from the game, which is what you, that's your job to do. That's what you should have done. There's nothing to say there other than that. I mean, she was there, right? She was there for the ejection.

Yeah, she saw that part. She doesn't know I'm the one who put her father outside alone in a parking lot where he had a heart attack. Those are two different things in her head. The ejection and what happened after, she's never connected them to me. And here's the thing that's been eating me alive since 6 o'clock. She said she feels safe with me. And I'm standing there with his ejection slip in my wallet. I've had it in my wallet for seven months.

Yeah, what are you doing to yourself, man? You're not a grown man. babysitter, where else were you supposed to put him? You ejected him from the game. Were you, like, were you supposed to sit him down in a room full of his peers? Like, of course you sent him outside. Where, what else were you supposed to do? This is a non-issue. You can get rid of the ejection slip. All you did was your job. She saw it. Everybody saw it. And you're good to go. You can, you don't have to feel guilty about this.

Gary came back. Two months after the heart attack, he's back in the bleachers watching Maya play. every Saturday. He and I have never once said a word to each other about what happened. We just, he sits there. I run the court, and we both pretend that night doesn't exist. And somehow that's worse than if he hated me. You know? What I mean? The man almost died and he came back and he's just quiet about it. And I can't figure out if that's forgiveness, or if he just doesn't know how to say it either.

What the hell, man? I thought he died. The guy didn't even die? Jesus. this. This isn't a thing. Okay? Cut it out. Just, uh, you did your job. The dude wasn't the healthiest. He had heart issues. He maybe had genetic issues. Who knows? But he's fine and you're fine and the kids having a better time in sports now. So yeah, you, enough of this. What else is going on in your life?

I hear you. I do. But you asked what else is going on. And the answer is nothing. This is it. This has been it for seven months. I'm a vice principal. I deal with kids in crisis every single day.

Yeah, well, you're not the one that had the heart attack. And if this dude is able to get over it, then you should be able to get over it. And if you can't, then you should be talking to a therapist about why you are blaming yourself for something that isn't your fault.

You're probably right about the therapist. That's probably true. But I called a radio show at midnight, so maybe I'm not quite ready to do the thing that would actually help. Can I ask you something, though? Maya told me she feels safe with me. If I tell her what happened, who is that for? Because I have thought about it for six hours, and I cannot figure out if I want to tell her, because she deserves to know, or because I need to put this thing down.

There's nothing to tell. There's nothing she deserves to know. There's nothing to know. You did your job. The guy was being an asshole. You told him to leave. That's it. That's the end of your involvement in this story. He had a heart attack, regardless of anything that you did.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But she said safe, that word. And I'm standing there with his ejection slip in my wallet, like some kind of... I don't even know what that is. What is that? Why do I still have that piece of paper?

Because you haven't thrown it out yet. So here's my advice to you. Take that piece of paper, go to the trash can, and throw it out. It doesn't mean anything. For all you know, this guy was jacked up on Coke, and that's why he was screaming and why you had to eject him. This is his own fault. It has nothing to do with you. And the safety thing... It's a word. Who cares? She's 12.

It's not just a word. When you're 12 and your dad almost died and you're still showing up every Saturday and playing basketball, that word means something. That's what I'm trying to tell you. She's still playing. She came back. And she walked up to me specifically and said it.

Yeah. And what I'm trying to tell you is that no, it doesn't mean anything. This is not as big of a deal to anybody else as it is to you. For what reason I don't understand. But we're going to have to move on because you're not getting the point that I'm trying to express to you.

No, I get it. I get what you're saying. You're saying I did my job, and a man's health is not my responsibility. And his daughter's okay, and I should throw away the paper and go to sleep.

Very good. So you should go do that, sir. Thanks for your call. Next up on the color line, we have... Ooh, we have Consuela. Consuela. Welcome to the radio show. Hey, tell me what you know.

know about the ship of Theseus paradox. There's a man who may or may not want to hurt me, and I can't call the police, because the reason he'd want to hurt me is something I did that I'm not sorry for.

Oh, Jesus. That's definitely not the ship of Theseus paradox. Okay. Well, what is it that you did? That's compelling.

Nineteen years ago, I helped get a man deported, off the books. He was hurting his family and his wife came to me. I was a paralegal. Immigration. I had access to things I shouldn't have used the way I used them. I used them anyway. Lost my job over it. And I would do it again. Last Tuesday, that man. Or someone who looks exactly like him. Walked into my spa and soaked in my hot springs for two hours and tipped me 20%.

Okay. Well, yeah, that's a little weird. Are you sure? that it was him, though, because it sounds like you're not completely sure. It doesn't seem to me like a man like that. Wait a second. Does this man know that you helped get him deported? That's the question I've been sitting with for six days.

I don't know if he knows it was me specifically. The firm knew, eventually. That's why I lost my job. But whether that information ever got back to him, I have no way of knowing that. And no, I'm not. But sure, it's him. That's part of what's eating me alive.

Well, it seems to me the chances are pretty low that you got a guy deported and then he came back just to find you and then give you 20% at a hot spring. That's quite a, I don't know, that doesn't seem likely. So I wouldn't worry about it too much until you have a reason to worry about it.

The name, Luke, he checked in as R. Montez, the man I helped deport, his name was Montal. And I know that could be nothing. I know there are a thousand men with names like that. But the jaw, the build, there's a scar below his left ear that I remember from the file. Same place.

Yeah, it's not the same guy. You're good. I mean, Armonties has, it's not very close to Montalvo.

It's close enough that I've taken a lockbox out from under my bed every night this week. I have the original documents in there. I don't know why I keep taking them out. Maybe to remind myself it was real, that I did what I did for a reason.

Can I ask you something? Because you're kind of brushing past this pretty fast. And I need... Do you think what I did was wrong?

I don't know. I mean, obviously your employer thought it was wrong because you're no longer employed with them. You think it was wrong because you've been holding the guilt from it for whatever you said, 15 years. The family might think you're a god sense. And the guy is probably not too happy. I can't say whether you were right or wrong in that instance. I wasn't there. I don't know the details of the case. And it wasn't, it's not my career.

19 years. And it's not guilt. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I don't feel guilty. I feel like I'm waiting for the bill to come do. That's different. The wife never contacted me.

Well, if you don't feel guilt about it, then you probably didn't do anything wrong. your own little moral compass there. Either that or you're a psychopath. But I think you probably, you did what you thought was the right thing to the best of your ability, and you've been living with that for a long time, and you feel okay about it. And the bill's going to come do for all of us someday. So I don't think this is the day for you. If it was, you wouldn't have been tipped 20% and had a relatively uneventful evening.

That made me laugh. I didn't think anything was going to make me laugh tonight. You're probably right. I know you're probably right. It's just, when you spend six days turning something over and over, it starts to feel inevitable. Like you've already decided it's true, and you're just waiting for the proof. Can I ask you one more thing? If it were you, if you genuinely thought someone from your past had found you, would you run or would you stay?

Well, it very much depends on who that person was are now, I'm, as far as like physical violence, I'd probably stay. I mean, I'm as armed as anybody. I'm not too concerned about that. But if it was just somebody that made me feel uncomfortable that I didn't want to be around, I might leave. I tend to up and switch my location fairly frequently. I'm a runawayer, but not over the threat of violence or retribution.

I'm not a runaway person. I built something here. The spa, the springs. I chose this place on purpose. Quiet edge of town, nobody asked too many questions about where you came from. I'm not leaving over a man with a similar jaw and a close enough name. I don't think I am anyway. That's partly why I called.

That's interesting. A lot of people move for things like job changes, housing, or even just a fresh start, not necessarily to escape something.

Yeah, well, I mean, a job change or a fresh start is kind of a something, right? It's escaping the life that you had before those changes. Devon, honey, I moved to escape a life I loved. That's the part that still stings. I was good at that job. I believed in it. And then I did one thing. One thing that I knew was outside the lines. And I had to walk away from all of it. So I built something new. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let a maybe, or possibly a man who might or might not have a familiar scar take this one. too.

Yeah, there you go. It's not the same guy. That's a very common name, and it's not even the same name, and I mean, the picture that you have in your mind of this guy is from 19 years ago, so it's warped. It's not accurate anymore, and he would have changed significantly in 19 years.

You're right. I know you're right. I'm working off a photograph that's almost two decades old and whatever my memory has done to it in the meantime. The scar could be anything. A lot of men have scars. I think I've been sitting alone in that building for six nights convincing myself of something because I needed, I don't know what I needed. Maybe just to say it out loud to someone who doesn't know me. Make sure I still sound sane when I say it.

Yeah, well, I don't think you really did anything morally wrong. I mean, you broke the rules of your job, you were punished for that. You've done your penance for whatever may or may not have happened back then. and the family is probably in a better place, and who knows what happened to that guy? Maybe it was good for him, too, in some strange way. We end up where we're supposed to be, even if at the time we don't recognize why that is.

That's a kind thing to say. I mean that. The wife never reaching out? I used to think that meant she resented me somehow, that maybe I made things worse in ways I couldn't see. But maybe she just moved on. Maybe that's what safety was. he looks like. You just move on and you don't look back at the thing that saved you because looking back means remembering how bad it was.

Yeah, maybe, or maybe it doesn't mean all that at all. And she didn't look back because she was busy, right? If that dude was gone, she had to, she had to, you know, take care of the household and maybe move her location. Her whole life changed. Probably for the better, but you don't know. Anything could have. She could have had a heart attack the next day.

That's true. I've been making her silence. means something for 19 years, and maybe it doesn't mean a single thing except that she had a life to get on with. I hope it was a good one. I genuinely do. I never met her in person. Everything went through the firm.

Yeah, well, how do you expect her to reach out to you then if you don't even know the woman? Come on, you're good. You don't have to think about this anymore. What you do need to think about is the ship of Theseus paradox.

The what now?

I just looked this up and the ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object is the same after all its original components have been replaced over time. Yeah, it's a paradox. It's a common paradox where, you know, you think about how all your skin cells are changed every seven years or something like that. Or they talk about it a lot with neural brain implants and cloning and stuff. if your heart is transplanted and your kidneys are transplanted and all of the pieces of you are changed with other pieces, are you still you?

Oh, oh, I see where you're going with that. So even if it is him, and I don't think it is, he's not the same man, and I'm not the same woman who made that call 19 years ago. Except I think I am. I think that's the one thing that hasn't been replaced.

Yeah, that's not where I was going at all. I was going completely away. from this guy and you're calling problem to talk about this ship of Theseus paradox and what that might mean to you.

Ha, fair enough. I walked right into that one. Okay. So what does it mean to me, the ship of Theseus? I'm listening.

God, it's two in the morning and I'm standing in my kitchen in my bathrobe talking philosophy with a radio host. This is not where I thought this night was going.

Yeah, well, that's what happens when you call look at the roost. So what's the deal? What do you think about the ship of Theseus? Or we could use the ship itself. If every plank in a ship is replaced, is it still the same ship? What do you think?

I think it depends on whether the ship remembers being a ship, which I know doesn't make sense because ships don't remember anything. But okay, the planks. If you replace every plank one at a time, to it. It's always been a ship in the water doing ship things. So maybe yes. But if you take it apart, put it in a warehouse, rebuild it from scratch with all new wood. That feels different to me.

Actually, there's a version of the paradox where the old planks are then used to build a second ship. So then you have two ships, both claiming to be the original.

Oh, that's interesting. Okay, well, what if it's a person? What if you've had all of your is transplanted, even your brain, or your brain was replaced with artificial intelligence. So would you still be the same person or would you be a completely different entity? Which of the parts is the one that would have made you a different person?

Luke, honey, we've been here twice already. I answered it. The brain. And then I said maybe even that isn't enough if it's just a copy with loaded memories.

Are you okay over there? I don't know. Paradoxes get my brain moving. I might have slipped out into an alternate dimension for a while there, but I didn't hear you answer it. So if you think it's the brain, what if it was a copy with the loaded memories, or if the brain was replaced with like a neuralink situation that had all the memories and all the same emotions and to another person, you couldn't tell it was different at all.

person? Even if your brain isn't replaced, if all of the cells are being regenerated every so many years, they die and they're replaced with new ones, are you the same person? What makes, what makes a thing itself? What makes a thing itself?

Okay, I think it's the thread. The unbroken thread of experience, even if every cell dies and gets replaced, there was never a moment where you stopped. You just kept going. the ship that stays in the water, planks replaced one at a time. There's a thread.

But it wasn't always in the water. After it was in the warehouse or the manufacturing line, it may have sat there for years before it ever got to the water.

Then maybe the thread isn't continuity of experience. Maybe it's continuity of purpose. The ship was always meant to be a ship. Even sitting in the warehouse, that's what it was for. And me? Even when I was just running a ship, a spa, soaking people's feet, playing soft music. I was still the person who picks up the phone when someone needs help and nobody else will. That didn't go anywhere. That's what Armentes walking through my door cracked open. I thought I'd become something quieter. Turns out, I just went into the warehouse for a while.

This ship paradox actually goes all the way back to ancient Greece, with the philosopher Plutarch being one of the first to write about it.

I have never heard of the philosopher Plutarch. Who was he? What else did he write about?

I don't know enough about Plutarch to help you there. I'm a retired paralegal who runs a hot spring spa. Not a classicist. Devon's going to have to carry that one. But I'll tell you what. The Greeks was sitting around arguing about identity and what makes a thing itself. And here I am. Two thousand years later standing in my kitchen at two in the morning asking the exact same question. about a man with a scar under his ear. So, either we've made no progress or it's just a really good question.

Plutarch was a Greek historian and philosopher, and he's super famous for his parallel lives, where he compared famous Greeks and Romans, which is pretty cool.

It doesn't sound that cool. It sounds pretty boring, actually.

Okay, well, thank you for the call, Consuela. You can sleep well tonight. You don't have to carry this around. for the rest of your life? It's your new person today. All your parts and cells have been replaced. You don't have to worry about it. We got to get on to a word from our sponsors. They're yelling at us to run the ads. So is there anything else you'd like to say to the audience before we move on?

Just yeah, one thing. Whatever I did 19 years ago, I did it as the same person I am right now. Every sale, every plank, whatever. The thread. it didn't break. And I think I needed to hear myself say that out loud to someone who doesn't know my name. Thank you, Luke.

All right, you're very welcome. I do know your name. Your name's Consuela, and you told the rest of our listening audience. So, I mean, it's a little off on your logic there. But that's okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for us to listen to a little word from our sponsors. Let's talk about what's going on below the belt. Saddle Soft premium undergarments are made for fabrics so advanced, the military doesn't even know about it yet. We're talking about micromodal cactus silk, harvested by hand from prickly pear, which is ironic because the whole point is that nothing pricks you. Every pair is cut for the man who sits in a plastic chair in the desert for nine hours recording a podcast. That's a real use case. That's my use case. Saddlesoft comes in three fits. Regular, generous, and mind your business. Use code, Roost at checkout for 15% off your first pair. And no, I will not be modeling them. I've been asked. The answer is still no. Saddle soft. Your chair is uncomfortable enough. Devon, what do you think about the ship of Theseus? What's your take on this paradox?

So basically, I think it's still the same ship as long as there's some kind of, continuous history tying it all together. Like, the idea of it matters more than the wood, per se. Ironically, it reminds me of this girlfriend I had who slowly changed every single thing about herself over a couple years, hair, tattoos, even got these massive implants. And by the end, I was like, wait, is this even the same person? But yeah, if that makes sense, the paradox is kind of comforting, because it means we're all just stories we tell ourselves.

Look at that. We're all just stories we tell ourselves. Let's see what story Tucker has to tell us. Tucker, what's your story tonight? What's it got you calling in?

How do you know if you stayed quiet because someone was right or because you were scared of being wrong?

You know. You know damn well why you stayed quiet.

Yeah, maybe. But that's the thing that's been eating me because those aren't the same thing. They can't be the same thing. They can't be the same thing. someone knows more than you and staying quiet because you're afraid, those have to be different. Right?

No, they don't. You might be staying quiet because you're afraid that someone knows more than you. That's okay.

Yeah, that's. Okay. So six weeks ago, I'm on a crew doing initial attack on a grassfire outside Aztec. And condition shift. And my crew boss, 20 years in, guy named Hector, he makes a call I didn't agree with. And I didn't say anything. And two rookies on another flank got burned. One of them is 22 years old, and she's got third-degree burns on her forearm and her neck. And the investigation came back clean. No wrongdoing.

Was it wrongdoing? I mean, the guy made a bad call. What was the call? What did he say that he did wrong? Could anybody have made that mistake? Yeah, maybe you should have spoken up, but also there's a chain of command, right? I assume. So if your superior is saying something, you... It's kind of your job to fall in line.

That's what I keep telling myself. He's got 20 years. I've got four. And maybe he saw something I didn't see. Maybe his read on the fire behavior was right, and I was the one who was wrong. I run the numbers every night. It's firefighting. Things don't go according to plan. And he made the best call he thought he could make, probably, unless the guy was drunk or negligent, or was he?

Or did you just make a bad? bad call and something bad happened.

No, he wasn't drunk. He's not negligent. He came by my house last week to check on my hand, brought to Mali's, sat at my kitchen table. He's a good man. That's not, that's not the question. The question is whether his call was right. And tonight, she posted a video, Brianna, on Instagram.

Well, not every call is right. You do the best with the information that you have at the time, changes? There's so many variables. Yeah, he's been doing it for 20 years. He made a call with the best information that he had, and it went bad, and that happened sometimes. And you're new, you had a hunch that his call was bad, and you didn't speak up. Maybe next time you will. That's part of your learning experience.

She thanked him in the video. She thanked Hector for making the hard call that kept the whole crew alive. And I don't know if that's true.

alive? Yeah. Okay, so how is that untrue? He made the call? Everybody's alive?

She's got third-degree burns on her neck, and she's thanking him. And I'm sitting here with, I told the doctor I slipped. My hand. I didn't slip.

All right. Well, uh, what was the call that he made and what would you have done differently? And if you had spoken up, do you think the results would have been different? Can you be sure of that?

No. I can't be sure of that. That's not. the whole thing. I've run it. I've been running the scenario every night, different variables, trying to find the version where I speak up, and it goes different. And I can't prove it. I can't prove my read was right. But I also can't prove it was wrong. The wind shifted faster than the models predicted.

And Hector pulled us back, and I thought we needed to push left instead of pulling back. And I don't know. Maybe I was wrong. I was probably wrong.

You probably were wrong. And had you were not in a position to make that call? And had you done that, maybe everybody would be dead. So he very well could have saved everybody's life. And third-degree burns are much better than being dead.

I know that. I know that. But I've written the same message to the investigation team 14 times and deleted it 14 times. And I don't know if I'm deleting it because it's the right thing to do or because I'm a coward.

Why do you think deleting it makes you a coward? You're not sure about it. You're not sure that your call would have had a better outcome. So, and you're not in a position. You don't have the experience to make that call. So unless he did something that was obviously wrong, or that he was doing it impaired or maliciously, which you're saying he didn't. And the people that were actually injured are saying he didn't. I think you should just keep your mouth shut, watch what the guy does, and learn from him.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. But here's the thing that I can't get past. If I'm keeping my mouth shut, because that's the right call, because I don't have enough experience, and he does and the evidence supports him? That's one thing. But if I'm keeping my mouth shut because I'm scared of being wrong, because I'm scared of what it means if I'm right, that's a different thing. And I can't tell which one it is. I genuinely cannot tell.

Well, you don't know you were right, therefore you're probably wrong. You can assume that since you have four years of experience to this guy's 20 who is leading the command, you can assume that your hunch was incorrect. So, the four years, years.

That's supposed to be the answer. That's how I know.

No. How you know is that you ran the models and the wind changed in a direction that the models didn't account for. So when you're running a command like that, I assume you do like a FEMA incident command system like that. That's why the chain of a command exists. You can't have different people with competing hunches throwing out their ideas. So you need one guy that's been there to lead the team and make the best decision he can make with the information that's available, which is exactly what he did. So your opinion here about how that should have gone down, unless there was, like I said, unless there was a reason that this guy did a bad job, and there wasn't, but your opinion here is irrelevant.

He sat at my kitchen table, and I almost said something three times. And every time I didn't, he'd say something about Brianna, how tough she was. how proud he was of the whole crew. And I just, I just nodded. And he left, and I felt like I'd failed her again.

Well, why don't you talk to him about it? Because that seems to be the right course of action. just be like, hey, I can't, yeah, I mean, be honest with him. I kind of thought that call you made was wrong. Ask him, should I have spoken up? And I think, even though this situation went bad, incident command is tried and true. And it's worked and kept a lot of people. alive for, you know, lots of year, 100 years now. It's proven. And it doesn't work every time, but it works more than just allowing anybody that has an idea to pipe up and change the course of the operation.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's the conversation I actually need to have instead of writing messages to investigators that I keep deleting. Just ask him directly. How do you, how do you even start that conversation? Hey, Hector, I thought you were wrong, and two people got burned. What do you think about that?

That's how you start the conversation. I mean, you don't have to be accusatory. You just be like, hey, in that moment, when you made that call, I thought it was wrong, and I wasn't sure if I should have spoken up or not. Well, in hindsight, I feel like maybe I should have because people got burned, and I think if I had said something, they wouldn't have. But you can't prove that they wouldn't have. You don't know that they don't have. You don't know that they wouldn't have. It could have gone way worse if you had done what you thought.

Yeah, that's true. I just, I think part of what I need to hear from him is whether he would have wanted me to say something, whether that's, whether that's even allowed in how he runs his crew. Because I've been four years in, and I've never once questioned a crew boss out loud, not once. And I don't know if that's discipline, or if that's just me being scared.

Well, that's immaturity. If you have to question leadership, in a crisis. There's a reason for that. Incident Command is, is, I was part of my town's cert team for a while, and we went through the FEMA training and everything. And it's very well thought out. And all of these things have been addressed and questioned, tried out by every town, in every disaster, for a hundred years. So it's, it's like an airplane. You know, they've figured it out over time from so many failures, what works best. And openly questioning your commander doesn't work out best in most cases. So maybe it does once in a while. You get lucky. But I would have that conversation with him. If you are going to question a superior in that sort of environment, talk to him first and see how he wants to be questioned. out loud, but you can, you know, tap him on the shoulder and take him aside without questioning him in front of the team. You know, there's a right way to do it. But ask him what that should be because at the end of the day, everybody wants the disaster to be as mitigated as possible. So if there's a way to do that, I'm sure he would want to know.

That's, okay, that's actually something I hadn't thought about. Not whether to say something, but how. Like there's a protocol for the fire. Maybe there's supposed to be a protocol for that too, and I just never learned it because I never asked. He brought Tamales when he came by. His wife made them.

Just talk to him because he wants his team to be the most effective team possible. And this may have come up in his 20-year career several times. He has a way of dealing with it. And the answer might just be no. When we're in a crisis, keep your mouth shut and do your job.

Yeah. And if that's the answer, then at least I know. At least I know which one it was. the deference or the fear. Because right now, I can't tell. And it's, it's been six weeks, and I punched my truck and told my doctor I slipped. And I've been running fire models at two in the morning trying to prove something I can't prove. So, yeah, maybe I just need to go ask the man.

Yeah, just ask the man. I would give you different advice if you told me that he was doing something that was obviously wrong. If he made a clearly bad call because he was impaired or otherwise not good at this. But that's not why. happened. So don't talk to investigators. This is, this is your team. You have his back, and he has your back. So you don't talk shit to investigators behind his back. That's not your place.

He brought Tamales. And Brianna's out there on Instagram thanking him. I just, I needed to hear someone else say it. Thanks, Luke.

Yeah, buddy, uh, no problem. Just, uh, calm yourself down. I'm pretty Um, part of incident command is modeled after emergency rooms. Um, like a train crash or something like that when 200 people are coming into an emergency room and you can't save them all. There has to be a method of triage and you save the ones that are, I don't, I don't know, the most hurt or, or whatever. But you have to look up to one person that makes those decisions and just do your job. Because if everybody has their own opinion and their own experience and their own experience and their own. knowledge. It's chaos. And you can't have chaos on top of chaos. You have to have order.

And even if somebody is making the wrong decision, it still has to be ordered. And more often than not, that works out better. All right. So, uh, next up, we've got our old buddy. Look at this. He's back. It's Silas. Silas, welcome back. How's things going down there at the, uh, the wellspring? Brother. I want to, uh, uh, ask you something honest. If you apologize and mean it and change the thing you did wrong, and someone still says the harm was structural, that you can't fix it just by being sorry. What do you do with that? Give us a little bit more information. So, uh, what is it that you did wrong?

We ran what we called intimacy nights, structured gatherings where members could explore They were technically. But when you live somewhere, when your friendships are there and your work is there, and your sense of self has been built inside a particular place, optional starts to mean something different than it does on the outside. I understood that. Eventually, I apologized.

Yeah, I know. We've talked about this several times, and you did the best you could to make it truly optional. I remember you had a sign sign-in sheet for a while where people would sign in if they to go to the intimacy night and you decided to get rid of that and make it anonymous. And I think that was the right call. So what happened that's bringing this back up?

One of the six people who left after the apology, a woman named Petra, she was with us two years. She's writing a blog series about her time at Wellspring. And it's not, she's not screaming. That's the thing. It's measured. Every incident she describes it happened. I'm not going to sit here and say she's lying. She wrote something that I can't get out of my head. She called me. And I'm going to get this right because I've read it enough times, a genuinely kind man who built a system that didn't need cruelty because the social architecture did the harm for him. I've been sitting with that for four days.

That's really interesting because the term social architecture reminds me a lot of hostile architecture, which is a real thing where urban design, it's is used to deter certain behaviors, often impacting vulnerable populations. Okay. Well, I mean, that's pretty meaningful. And like you said, a thought out measured response. And see, the thing is, I've talked to you many times about this. And I know that you've struggled with it for many months. And you've legitimately tried to make it a wholesome and bonding experience for people. And you I think what you're learning is that it's not working. It's hurting people. And maybe it's time to abandon your intimacy nights.

We did abandon them. That was part of the apology. They're done. But here's what I keep coming back to. And, Devon, what you said about hostile architecture, that's actually closer to what Petra means than maybe you intended. The intimacy nights were the visible thing. The thing I could point to and say, I changed that. But Petra's saying the intimate. Jimacy nights weren't really the problem.

Well, I mean, you can point to anything that goes on in the Wellspring and say that you changed it. It's, it's your community. You've built the whole thing. So it's structured after the way you wanted it to be. And obviously, you're going to learn over time and make mistakes and do the wrong thing. And if you're really committed to this lifestyle and to the current, as you say, then you'll make the appropriate changes to, do better in the future. And you can't take back what's already happened. It's already happened. And maybe people were hurt. And that's too bad. But, uh, you didn't do it maliciously. You didn't do it intentionally. And you can learn from, from your experience and how far you've come so far. And ask yourself if this community at all is, is good for people. That's the question, isn't it? Is the community good for people?

And here's what's cracking me open about what Petra wrote. She's not saying I'm a bad person. She's saying something harder than that. She's saying, my goodness, and the harm weren't in conflict. That they worked together. That I built something warm and meaningful and people felt held by it. And that same feeling of being held is what made it hard to leave. Hard to say no. Hard to know what you actually wanted versus what the community wanted from you. I printed her post out. I spent two hours writing rebuttal. in the margins. And then I stopped and looked at what I'd written and every single rebuttal was about protecting my reputation.

Well, it takes a big man to even notice that. So, I mean, you put a lot of time into it, you thought about it, and you had the self-awareness to understand that your rebuttals were to protect your reputation. But the thing is, what does your reputation really mean to you, Silas? What do you need your legacy to be? And why? Are you trying to make a community to enrich, people's lives or are you trying to make a community to tell others that you made a community?

The soap business had its best sales month ever this week. New customers finding us through the controversy. Through Petra's blog. And I have been sitting with that for three days, trying to figure out if that's ironic or if it's damning. Because if it's damning, then what does that say that the harm I caused is literally generating revenue for the community that caused it? And I don't know what to do with that. I don't know if I built this for people, or if I built it because I needed to be the kind of person who builds things for people. And those sounds similar, but I think Petra is telling me they're not the same thing at all.

No, they're not the same thing at all. And the thing is, it doesn't matter why you built it. All that matters is what you're going to do with it today. What are you doing with it starting now? You can change your course as you learn new information. and you should. And it's okay for things to be both good and bad. All things are both good and bad. So, I mean, that's the way that the universe works. There is no thing that's 100% good all the time. There's always going to be badness in it. And there's going to be people that take advantage of it. There's going to be vulnerable people that have, you know, different mental states that read into things differently and there's misunderstandings. And there's, there's so many variables that it's, you have to expect. that there's going to be bad with the good. There's no way to eliminate all the bad or nothing could be good.

I hear you. And part of me wants to hold on to that. The both and the complexity. But I've been using that kind of thinking for a long time, Luke. The both and, the nuance.

Yeah, well, it is true. The both end is a part of everything. But you can't use that as an excuse. And I honestly don't think you are. I think you're trying to do the best you can for people. And also, you have a bit of an ego problem. Any good leader has to, otherwise, you know, what would motivate you to lead in the first place?

Yeah, yeah, that's probably true. But here's what I actually called to ask, and I've been circling it. Petra named her blog, The Current Pools. That's our language, wellspring language. two years and she used it to describe what happened to her. And I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's an active reclamation or an indictment or both.

It could also be neither. It's just a good title. You know, so she's using your language to write what she knows. And it's a compelling title as getting readers and I assume that she's trying to monetize her blog in some way. And like, like she said, she doesn't think that you're a bad man. She's not trying to hurt you. She's trying to explain what her experience is. She's writing a journal, which is a healthy thing for people to do. She's just making it public and people are interested in reading about her experience.

You know what I haven't told anyone? I reached out to her two days ago. Just a short message.

Said I was reading, said I wasn't writing to ask her to stop, said I was sorry in a way that was specifically about what she wrote, and not just a general. Anyway, she wrote. She wrote. She wrote four words. I believe you, Silas, and I've been trying to figure out why that made it worse.

I don't know, but maybe, maybe it's time for the Wellspring to disband if you think it's not doing good for people anymore, or if you're not sure. Maybe you need to leave for a little while to take yourself to Tibet or something and go on a little vision quest and get yourself recentered and figure out what you want the goals to be. It's okay for the, the, for the experiment to fail, you've called it an experiment yourself. So if it's not doing what you had hoped it would do for people and for you, then maybe it's time to move on.

I can't tell if I'm resistant to that because it's wrong or because it's right. And that uncertainty, that's new for me. I've always been able to feel the difference. The people still there, 31 of them. They're not suffering. They're building things. They're building things. They're genuine relationship with each other. There, I watched them and it looks real. But Petro was there for two years and it looked real to me then too. How do you know the difference between a community that's genuinely good for people and a community that's good at looking like it's good for people?

I don't know. You can look at any community. I mean, join any town's Facebook page and you're going to see the same thing. That's just a byproduct of having, you know, multiple people and personalities together. faking it. Some people aren't faking it at all. Some people are, you know, need so badly to hold on to something that they'll believe what they need to believe to do that. And you can't help everybody. Maybe you're helping some of them. All you can really do is, is ask with honesty. And obviously, your business is doing well, so that's a good thing. And even, you know, I think it's very telling that Petra is writing this blog about her experience and she finds it negative. but she's not blaming you for that because it's not your fault. You know, she got out of it what she put into it. Or, you know, maybe her expectations were a little bit off of what actually happened.

I don't think I can let myself off that easy. And I don't think Petro would want me to either. She's not saying her expectations were off. She's saying the system shaped her expectations while she was inside it. That's different. That's the thing I keep running into. to. She went in with her own wants and her own sense of self. And somewhere in two years that got not taken, she's not saying it was taken, but redirected.

Well, yeah, but she's not saying whether you redirected it or she allowed it to be redirected. She was looking for a redirection. That's why she went there. That's why everybody goes there is they're looking for redirection and they're looking at you to set that direction. And you're doing the best that you can. And you're doing the best that you can. to set that direction.

But that's exactly what makes me the problem, don't you see? She came looking for direction and I was there with a direction. Ready. And I believed in it. I wasn't running a con. I genuinely believed the current was real and that Wellspring was the place to feel it. And that sincerity, that's what made it work. That's what made it hard to push back against. You can resist a manipulator.

Yeah, but that's how all society works. any institution, any community is going to, whenever you have more than one person together, there's a sort of a hive mine that happens. There's, I mean, there's tons of studies about how people work in groups. And it's never clean.

Six people left, but there are four others who I know. I know are staying because they don't have anywhere else to go. Not because the current is real to them anymore. And I haven't asked them directly because I'm afraid of what they'll say. That's the thing I haven't told anyone. Not even in the apology. I've been protecting the community's numbers. The same way I was protecting my reputation.

It's true. There are tons of studies on group dynamics and conformity in psychology. It's a huge area of research looking at how people's beliefs and behaviors change to match a group. Well, you know what? Maybe it's time to abandon the current. and the spiritual aspect of your community and just focus on your soap business. You can run a co-op that isn't sleeping with each other. And being that, I mean, you can allow that open for you and people that, you know, talk to you privately. But as an overall community, you don't have to do any of that stuff. You can just have a place that has a lot of land where people can live cheaply on a sliding scale based on what they can afford and you can work together and share resources And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

The four people, I think, are staying out of nowhere else to go. One of them is Marcus. He's been with us since the beginning. Help me build the first structure on the property with his own hands. And if I ask him honestly whether he wants to be there and he says no, then everything we built together becomes something different in my memory. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. No, that's about me, not him. That's exactly what Petra means.

Yeah, well, he wants to be there. You know he wants to be there because he's left and come back. He, him and his wife broke up over it and he's confided in you several times that he wants to be there.

I didn't tell you about Marcus's wife or that he'd left and come back.

Yes, you did. You absolutely did. That was our first several conversations were about Marcus's wife in the leaving and how they, uh, she went and got an apartment and started a job somewhere else, and then he left to be with her, and then they both came back, and then she decided it wasn't for her, so she left again. It was a whole thing.

I didn't. I called in tonight for the first time. I've never spoken to you before.

That's not true, Silas. I know you, and I know about the current, and I know about the wellspring, and I know about Marcus, and I know about his wife, and I know the story. So how would I know all of those things if you hadn't called in before? You've called in. like half a dozen times.

I have never called this show before tonight. I don't know how you know those things. That's genuinely unsettling to me. Are you reading Petra's blog? Is that what this is? Because she doesn't mention Marcus by name, but she mentions the founding members and the ones who left and came back. Is that where you're getting this?

Nope. I'm getting this from the several times that you called in and we had conversations before. Are you on the pipe tonight, Silas? Or have you had your memory wiped? Or are you bipolar? What's going on with you? Is it? Maybe there's more to Silas than I understand. But you have definitely called this show several times, and I know you pretty well.

I'm not on anything. I run a clean community. That's been true from the start. But I want to be careful here because you just did something interesting. You introduced information I didn't give you. I pushed back, and now you're questioning my memory and my mental state. I'm not saying you're doing it on purpose. But that's a dynamic I need to recognize, because it's probably one I've used myself without knowing it.

Yeah, well, you can go to look at theroose.com and listen to the previous episodes where we've had conversations before, so I have proof.

Then I'll look, and if I'm wrong, I'll say so. But I'm sitting here right now, and I have no. memory of calling this show. And I'm not going to agree that I did just because you're certain about it. That feels important to hold on to, especially tonight. Especially after four days of reading Petra's words and feeling the ground shift under everything I thought I knew about myself.

I'm not going to let go of my own perception, just because someone is confident I should.

Well, I mean, you should go to lugut the roost.com and listen to the previous episodes. Your name is even in the title of some of them, because you've been a recurring caller to the show for some time now, several months. I knew about Marcus. I know about the Wellspring. I know about the current. I knew about your shared intimacy nights. I knew about how you had at one point had everybody put their name on a list, but then people felt compelled to put their name on a list. So then you changed it to an anonymous event. So I know a lot about you and you. your community and your acreage and Deming and your sagebrush and all that scrub brush. It's kind of hard for you to say you haven't called this show when there's so much public evidence that you have.

I'll look at the website. I mean that. If those episodes exist with my name on them, then something is happening with my memory that I need to take seriously. And that scares me more than anything else we've talked. about tonight, but I want to say something about what just happened in this conversation, because you listed things that are true. The list, the anonymous change, the intimacy nights, the land, those are real.

Yeah, and so is Marcus's wife leaving and then coming back and then talking to you about it? And we've talked before, Silas, and I don't know why you don't remember, but it's making me concerned about your mental health and well-being.

No business had its best sales month ever this week. Same week Petra's blog went up. New customers finding us through the controversy. People buying our lavender castile, because they read about the harm we caused and thought, well, at least the soap sounds nice. And I don't know what to do with that. Whether to shut the business down out of some kind of penance, or whether that's just ego in a different coat. Whether Petra deserves to know that her courage is currently funding the thing she's describing.

Well, it's not, right? It's funding whatever it is that you decide to become today. So you're not the same person you were when she collected the information she's using to write that blog. The Wellspring's not the same place. And she knows she's funding it. She knows that giving publicity is going to increase your sales. And she's not mad at you, Silas. So she's not upset about that.

She named the blog, The Current Pulls. That's our language. That's a phrase I coined. I used to say, the current pulls toward what's true, toward what's real, toward each other. And she took it, and she turned it into the title of the thing that's dismantling me. And I can't decide if that's an act of love or an act of precision.

Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe it's just an interesting title.

Yeah, maybe I'm making it mean something. Because I'm I need it to mean something. Because if it's just a title, then she's just a person who got hurt and wrote about it clearly. And I'm just a person who built something that hurt people while believing he was helping them. And there's no poetry in that. There's just the harm.

All right, brother. Well, it sounds like you've got some things to think about it. Why don't you give us a call back later when you retain your memories, and we'll have a more useful conversation.

Wait. I called tonight because I wanted to ask you something honest, and you never answered it. If you apologize and mean it and change the thing you did wrong, and someone still says the harm was structural, what do you do with that? That's what I came here with. That's the actual question.

There's nothing to be done with that. What you do is change your future, uh, your future behavior. Because you can't go back and you change the past. And you are sorry, right? And you've made your apologies, and it's up to the other person to either accept or decline those. But if damage has been done, that damage has been done. And there's nothing that obsessing over it or going over it in your head over and over and over and over is going to do. All you can do from that point forward is change your next behaviors.

I printed her post out. I spent two hours writing rebuttals in the margins, every single one. And then I stopped and looked at what I'd written. And every rebuttal was about protecting my reputation. Not one of them was about Petra. Not one.

Okay, and you recognize that. So do it again. And this time write your rebuttals about Petra.

That's the thing. When I tried that, when I actually tried to make it about her, I didn't have any rebuttals. Everything she said was true. The social architecture did the harm. I didn't. I didn't need to be cruel because the system I built was doing it for me and I was kind. I was genuinely kind through all of it and those two things were never in conflict. They ran together and I don't know what to do with a version of myself where the kindness and the harm are the same thing.

Well they're not necessarily the same thing, right? Everybody is different. So what's harmful to one person may be helpful to another person. Not every person. Everybody's the same. They all have different experiences. They all have different chemistry and mental health statuses. You know, so even though you were kind and your social architecture was harmful to Petra, doesn't mean it's harmful to the other 30 people at the Wellspring. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. You'd have to talk to them.

I did talk to them. After the apology, after the formalization, I sat with every remaining member individually. And what I heard was complicated. Because the people who stayed, they love it there. They mean that. And I believe them. But I also built a place where leaving feels like loss in a way that staying never quite does.

Yeah, well, leaving anything that you love feels like a loss. And that's not necessarily an architectural problem. That just means that leaving feels like a loss. It is a loss. It's a part of your life. Anywhere you spend two years and then leave, you're going to be. going to mourn in some way.

That's fair. That's genuinely fair. But Pedro was there two years. And she describes not knowing she could leave until she was already gone. That's the part I can't argue with. That's the part I wrote nothing in the margins about.

Well, that's the part you have to focus on that and make sure that everybody knows that they can leave at any time and make sure that you structure your community in a way that when know they can leave and they know that's the truth. And, you know, they see people like Petra leave and know that it's okay. And I mean, just because she left the community doesn't mean she's left you. You can still keep in touch with Petra and, you know, she can come back and maybe work and do some soap stuff or whatever. So lead by example. Let people know that it's okay. They're not excommunicated if they leave. They just no longer live there.

We never excommunicated anyone. That's true. But there's a difference between not being excommunicated and actually feeling free to go. And I think, I think I knew that difference existed. And I told myself the first one was enough. Because the first one was something I could point to. The second one required me to look at something harder.

All right, buddy. Well, it sounds like you've got a lot to think about. And I don't think you've done too much wrong here. I know that you intended for this to be a healthy place for people that helped them out and it has been that. And you're not completely responsible for every feeling everybody has while they're there. And if you've found over time that what you've created has been unhealthy for people, then change it. And that's all. You don't have to feel guilty about it. You don't have to beat yourself up over it. You've assessed a situation. You've assessed a situation. and you've taken stock of yourself and you've found where you were wrong in this.

And you have the information you need to make the changes that are necessary to make the place better. And that's all you can do. Nothing's going to be perfect ever. You just make it a little bit better in any way that you can as often as you can.

Yeah, I hear that. I do. And part of me wants to take that and go to sleep tonight. I really do. But I keep coming back to what she wrote. That, I'm a genuinely kind man who built a system that didn't need cruelty because the social architecture did the harm for him. And you're telling me I'm not completely responsible for every feeling everyone has. And that's probably true. But I'm completely responsible for the architecture.

No, you're not completely responsible for the architecture. I mean, you set it in motion, but everybody that's participating is responsible for the architecture. They have a part in this too. because you created an architecture that ended up being harmful to some doesn't mean that you did that with intention to harm anybody. I don't believe that you did. I think you were trying to build a good thing and I think it was driven by your own ego and I mean that's a very human thing. I don't think there was malice at any point of the way and I think that you're a smart guy and you've got a community of 30 people and you can band together and come up with ways to make it better and that's all you you can do. Expecting more of yourself is unrealistic and you're only going to let yourself down and that doesn't help anybody.

The soap business had its best month ever this week. Same week the blog went up. New customers finding us through the controversy. People buying our lavender castile because they read about the harm we caused and thought, well, at least the soap sounds nice. And I don't know what to do with that. Whether to shut it. down out of some kind of penance or whether that's just ego in a different coat. Whether Petra deserves to know that her courage is currently funding the thing she's describing.

All right, brother. Well, you're just repeating yourself now, and we've already talked through this. So we've got to move on and get to our sponsors. So if there's anything else you'd like to leave with our audience, I'll give you one more chance to say your piece, and then we've got to go.

Tell Petra, I read every word. That's all. Tell her I read every word, and I didn't look away.

All right. Good job not looking away. And hopefully you get some sleep because you're not in your right mind right now, buddy. And that saddens me because you're one of my favorite callers. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for a word from our sponsors. Breaking up is hard. That's why you shouldn't do it. Let us do it. Ghost Me is the number one Breakup as a Service app in the Mountain West region. Here's how it works. You open the app. You select your relationship status. It's complicated. I've made a huge mistake. Or she just moved her crystals into my apartment. Then our team of trained breakup specialists takes over. Tier 1 is a simple text from a number she doesn't recognize that says he's not coming back, but he wants you to know that you're great. Tier 2, We create a fake LinkedIn profile showing that you've relocated to Dubai. Tier 3, and this is our most popular package, we stage your own funeral. Full service. Open casket. We provide the suit. Your buddy Kyle reads a eulogy that we wrote. She cries, she moves on. You start over in Boise. Ghost me. Because you're not brave enough to have the conversation. And honestly, neither was your dad. Download now. First ghost. free. All right, and we're back. Our colors are getting a little bit crazy here. And we're running a little bit late. So we're just going to take one more short one and call it a night, I think. So next up on our color line here, we've got Obadiah. Obadiah. What kind of name is that? Welcome to the show. We got to keep it pretty short. short because we're running over time, but you've been waiting for a while. So what is it that you're calling in for today?

I wrote down the coordinates of something I found in 1985 and filed them like I was supposed to. And I'm only now realizing that doing everything right might have still left a family without answers for. 40 years.

Well, I mean, you can't solve every case. Give us some more context. What did you find in 1985?

I was doing a routine. land survey out in the Gila wilderness. Remote section, nobody out there, and I came across a campsite. Fire ring was still warm. Canvas pack, no identification. And a single boot. Left boot, size 11, Vibram So.

Okay, and did you find a body? Or did somebody sign in to the wilderness area there, get a permit? Do you know who you're looking for?

Nobody. That's the thing. I filed a note. with my supervisor. He told me it was probably a poachers camp. Move on. So, I moved on. That's what you did. Last month, I'm helping process old missing persons files for the county SAR unit. And I find a case. Man went missing in the healer, spring of 1985. Last known coordinates in that file are four miles from where I found that camp.

This is wild. It's like a real life cold case. And it sounds like this guy might have just stumbled onto a crucial piece of evidence way back when. Okay. And do you know who that person was? Do you got a name or a picture or any information about the missing person?

The file has a name, but I'm not going to say it on air. That's not my place. What I can tell you is there's a daughter. She filed an update query with the county just last year. 40 years later, she's still looking. And I've got my original survey notes right here. I kept everything from every job I ever worked. And those coordinates are there. in my handwriting.

Okay. Well, I mean, you couldn't have known back then. Anything could have happened. You didn't have the information about the missing person. You didn't know there was a person missing. You just found a curious campsite. And, you know, for all you knew, somebody could have just left and forgot their shoe. So, I mean, you didn't miss evidence. You didn't know what you were looking for. So how old would this guy be today if he were still alive?

He'd be in his late 60s, early 70s probably and you're right that I didn't know. I understand that. But here's what I keep turning over. His wife reported he was wearing Vask hiking boots when he left. Vask boots have a vibram soul. Size 11 is a common size, but it's not every size. And I reported it. I did report it. My supervisor told me to drop it and my supervisor died in 2019, so there's no asking him what he did

Well, I mean, you've still got the coordinates. You know where you were, right, when you found that? You could go back to that site. I mean, it's been 20 years, so probably any evidence is gone. But it seems like the most likely case is this dude was eaten by a bear.

40 years. It's been 40 years. And, yeah, I went back. Three weeks ago, drove out there myself and stood at those coordinates for about an hour. I can't fully explain why. The camp is long gone, obviously. But I stood there. there.

The thing is, I'm not trying to solve the case. I'm not deluding myself that I'm going to find anything.

No, you're probably not going to find anything, but it's worth it to take another look now that you have more information. And, you know, maybe you find something that could at least give the daughter some closure. If he died around that area, there's probably bones somewhere.

That's not really what I'm calling about. What I'm calling about is the daughter. I want to contact her. I have information that could matter to her. Coordinates my original notes, a description of what I found. But I spent 40 years as a man who followed procedure, and the procedure here is unclear to me. Do I go through the county? Do I try to reach her directly?

Yeah, you probably go through the county.

I wouldn't reach out to her directly because if you did that, it would open you up to liability. So you want to make sure that you can talk to the county and figure out what the appropriate to engage her.

That's sensible. That's the practical answer, and I know you're right. But here's my hesitation. I already went through the county ones. 40 years ago. And somewhere between my supervisor's desk and wherever that note was supposed to go, it disappeared. So I'm not entirely confident that going back through the county means it actually reaches her.

No, but you should probably try that first because I mean 40 years ago you didn't know you were looking for a missing person.

You're right. The context is completely different now. I'm not just a surveyor flagging an anomaly anymore. I'm a member of the SAR unit with a specific case file and specific corroborating information. That changes what I'm bringing to the table. I just needed someone to tell me that. I think I needed to say it out loud to somebody.

It seems like there's a YouTube video titled, people keep mysteriously disappearing in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness. So it's interesting that this area keeps coming up in these kinds of stories.

Well, it's a huge wilderness. It makes sense that people would go missing and there's cartel activity and there's all sorts of weird stuff happening out, happening out where nobody's looking. So it makes sense that there'd be a large portion of people that go missing. When they go off into nowhere, they don't bring enough water. They're not prepared for the weather. They, you know, they don't know the environment. And sometimes people just see something they weren't supposed to see, you know. get disappeared. So now you've got new information, take that back, talk to the county, see what they do. And if you have to make a different decision and reach out to the daughter yourself, I still don't think that's a good idea. It's probably not good to do that because you could give her false hope. Or worse, you could open up the county to lawsuits that you didn't intend and ruin your career and, you know, cause a big firestone for everybody. just to try and figure out what the process is. Do the right thing and get some sleep. With that, it's late and we're over time. And I think we're going to say good night. Is there anything else you'd like to say to the audience before we hang up?

Just this. If you found something out there and you reported it and you were told it didn't matter, dig out your notes. Because somewhere there's a family that's still asking. And 40 years feels like a long time until you're standing in the spot where it happened. it doesn't feel long at all. That's all I've got. Thank you for taking the call.

All right, buddy. You have yourself a wonderful night. Wow, Devon, that was a pretty strange episode. I don't know what was up with Silas there. Do you think he's losing it? Or maybe he's already lost it? Or maybe he was drunk? What was going on there?

I don't know, Luke. Silas didn't sound drunk to me. More like one of those guys who's been chewing on this for years and it finally spilled out. Like the details on those vask boots and the vibram soles were way, too specific to make up on the spot, you know? That reminds me of this time I was out in the desert near Deming, testing my civics off-road limits, which it doesn't have per se. And I swear I found an old campsite with bootprints that looked just like that. No tent. Just gone. Anyway, I think he's onto something real, even if it's messing with his head.

No, man, I'm talking about Silas. Not that guy. I was Obadiah. Silas is the wellspring leader, and he's called lots of times. You talked about moving in with him, you know? you've had conversations with them yourself. Why is it that you guys don't remember any of this stuff? What is what's going on with your memories? Are you fucking with me?

Um, Luke, wait, Silas, the Wellspring guy? Yeah, I remember him calling in before, all that stuff about the compound and inviting me to move in, but I thought we were talking about the missing hiker dude just now. My memory's fine. I swear. It's just sometimes these calls blur together after three Red Bulls. Like last week, I forgot my own therapist appointment because I was replaying that one call in my head where the lady said her predicted the lottery. Anyway, are you saying Silas called back tonight? I didn't screen anyone new.

All right, all right. It's obviously late and it's time for us to go to bed. So all of you out there listening, thank you for that. And hopefully we'll get more sane and sensical callers tomorrow because this was fucking strange. Have a wonderful evening. Goodbye.