Super Familiar with The Wilsons
Familiar Wilsons Media produces content to bring people together. We are curious, hopeful, and try not to take ourselves too seriously - admittedly, with varying degrees of success.
Super Familiar with The Wilsons
Mailbag: Ghost Stories and Naked Hockey Players
Mailbag Episode!
• Winthrop begins a new soccer season with the Mighty Eagles
• Exploring the delicate balance between giving kids autonomy and making parental decisions
• Nighttime reminiscences of creepy household encounters and ghost stories
• Letter from Refined Gay Jeff prompts discussion about the importance of knowing your neighbors
• Jeff shares memories of his childhood community where everyone knew each other and looked out for one another
• Amanda and Josh question if it's too late to build relationships with neighbors after four years
• The practical benefits of neighborhood connections from emergency repairs to shared meals
• Unexpected encounters with people from your hometown while traveling
• The Wilsons announce upcoming podcast projects including Josh's business podcast and Tom's "In-Law and Out-Law" show
• Exciting news about the Wilsons' interview with Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors
Super Familiar with The Wilsons
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Familiar Wilson's Media Relationships are the story. You are made of meat, my friend, all the way down. The following podcast uses words like and and also. If you're not into any of that shit, then now's your chance.
Josh:Three, two, one run. I'm super familiar with you. Wilson Run. I'm super familiar with the Wilsons. Get it.
Amanda :Welcome to Super Familiar with the Wilsons. I'm Amanda.
Josh:And I'm Josh.
Amanda :Why are you laughing?
Josh:Because I had my finger pointed at you that you should start, but you were looking away. I was looking at the dog Sitting there pointing at you. It's another mailbag episode. So we have a nice letter from refined gay jeff. But first some updates about members of the wilson family.
Amanda :Winthrop has some news so winthrop is starting a new soccer season after last season ended. He was a little meh about doing it again but we decided. The mother and the father of Winthrop decided it was good for him. It's good exercise, he needs to get out. So we registered him yesterday, presented a unified front last night to tell him that this was happening and his response was fine.
Josh:Here's the thing. It's so funny because when I was a kid, my dad would be like, oh, you're doing something, and then I would have to go do it. I feel like sometimes we struggle as parents telling him you're going to do this or that. I think sometimes it's possible that we give him too much choice.
Amanda :Yes, I mean, I am sensitive to making sure that everybody in this family feels like they have choice. It is very it's not unusual for the youngest child to feel like they don't have choice. But you're right, I think that we have, at least I have gone too far the other way and give him way too much choice.
Josh:Wait, what did you just say?
Amanda :Were you not listening to me?
Josh:No, I'm what you said. You're what you said. Do you think I'm what?
Amanda :You said. You're what you said. Do you think I'm what I said? That I've gone too far the other way and given him too much choice Right, but then that would make me what? Oh, I'm sorry, that would make you not wrong, it's such a struggle for you.
Josh:We're kind of doing a bit here, but it's still such a struggle for you to say that I'm right. So, anyway, winthrop is starting soccer is the point of all this. Yes, and Amanda, we got the email today. What is his new mascot?
Amanda :Yeah, so he's going to be on the Mighty Eagles? Yeah, so my question for you is when he was a mighty wolf, you would, oh yes. So what are you going to do for the eagles? Oh my God, oh my God, I hate you so much. Oh my God, if you wake up this child, I'm going to be so angry at you. I cannot believe you just did that.
Josh:The machine, the computer. It actually popped up a warning that I've never seen before.
Amanda :I think you need. The dog is under my feet. The dog has gotten out of his bed and is under the chair, under my feet the thing is is that I don't know what that's gonna sound like. I'm gonna you need to warn people because you're not gonna be responsible. Jeff listens to this when he drives to work. You cannot be responsible for Jeff running off the road.
Josh:It's funny because I guess a year ago or so, our friend Antonio, I think it was was listening and I'd put a sound effect in a little bit too loudly and he definitely had a start, had a fright. It's funny. It reminds me of the time where the guy who I used to work for was like this crusty guy I almost said crusty old guy, but he's only 10 years older than me but he presented as just like Clint Eastwood and Gran Torino, get off my lawn type of attitude.
Josh:So he definitely carried himself as older than he actually was. But he was telling this story cracked me up because I pictured it. He would go running every morning and he'd be running in his like much shorter shorts and t-shirt, listening to music. And he said that he was list running listening to um, dire straits, money for nothing. Now, if you're familiar with this song, you know that it starts real chill with some synthesizers and then Sting going. I want my.
Josh:MTV, and it goes on that for what feels like hours, and then all of a sudden there's this drum break. That's just all of a sudden ba-da-dun. He said that, he heard that and he jumped almost off of a cliff because he thought that someone was behind him or something shooting at him. Oh, no yeah so I definitely don't want to cause anyone to jump off a cliff.
Amanda :No, yes, please don't. We should also say that we so. We typically record on a Sunday morning and it's lovely, and I have my coffee and I look at the birds. Well, no, it's after nine o'clock on a Tuesday night. I have already had my sleepy time tea and Josh comes in here and says, okay, get up, where we're going, we're gonna record.
Amanda :So, all right, fine, I'm, I'm doing this all for you all, but nobody signed up for that noise yeah, and if you just undid all of my sleepy time tea, and I'm gonna be wired for the rest of the night because my adrenaline spiked. You're staying up with me.
Josh:Well, I'm gonna stay up anyway. The only reason I have the energy to record this late is because I had a large coffee and I didn't have decaf, like I usually have. I had calf, yes. So I'm just giving myself to the fact that I probably won't fall asleep until 12 30, that's just a thing oh god, that means I'm not gonna sleep either.
Amanda :Do you remember the night that um, somebody was standing next to our bed and then I could not? I couldn't sleep and made you stay up with me for the rest of the night yes, we've told this story and it was a balloon yeah, but we both woke up screaming yeah. Yeah and so. But I mean, we legit like-.
Josh:The story is that there was one of those Mylar balloons that maybe I'd given you for Valentine's Day or whatever.
Amanda :It was a Valentine's balloon.
Josh:But it was flying above the bed on her side. But we both woke up in the middle of the night screaming, and both of us thought that someone was in the room, and so I didn't sleep for the rest of that night. Because it's not the fact that I imagined there was someone in the room because I have nightmares all the time. I wake up, it takes me a few seconds to calm myself down, I go to sleep but the fact that you pictured the same thing, folks I am here to tell you that that freaked me the hell out, and so I was up and we turned the lights on too yeah, yeah, we had the lights on brave 40 plus year old people scared of the dark.
Amanda :And then the next day is when we realized that oh, it's that balloon and we both became aware of that balloon yeah kind of at the same time I don't know, because this house, though we were renting this house and the people that we were renting it from their like elderly aunts lived in it. I'm very sure that somebody died in this house, so it just kind of, I think, already had like some sort of feeling to it. And then Winthrop, when he was, we moved out of that house when he was about to turn four, so I don't know, maybe he was like two or three. He was sitting on my lap in the living room and I was we had a that club chair then and I it would swivel and I was sitting there and he, he just looked up and stared behind me and he said mommy, who's that man? And I said what man?
Josh:he said the one with the umbrella I'm here to tell you that so many people, so many generations of people, have lived and died on this earth. I'll bet you there's very few places that we can go that's occupied right now by human beings. Hadn't had a person die there, like I'm certain there's people who died here on this property before this house was developed.
Amanda :No, I agree with that, but I do have a question why are there no modern ghosts, like when you see, when you hear the ghost stories and you see the ghost things.
Josh:They're all like when you see these shows on tv nobody's rolling up in.
Amanda :Like a deaf leopard t-shirt with some jelly bracelets and like their wayfarers on, like they all have the pinafores and they're all like in the civil war uniform I want to know why it is you're complaining why there's no modern ghost, but the picture you just painted is a ghost from the 80s. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Some people died in the 80s, so where are those ghosts?
Josh:Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. So let's get to our letter. I don't know where the hell this all came from. Let hell this all came from. Let's get to our letter from refined gay jeff. He wishes us a happy spring break. For us, because he sent it last week and we did have spring break last week, but it wasn't really much of a break for me because I worked right through, and it wasn't really a break for you because you were you were working as well, just from home, because winthrop was off.
Amanda :I had some real COVID quarantine flashbacks because I was trying to work with him wanting the attention and it was a little bit triggering, a little bit triggering. I did take the day off on Friday and took the kids to a farm not too far from here and we did some strawberry picking and then he got to go to Dave and Buster's so they both had a good end to the spring spring break yeah, no, it was.
Josh:It was good, but I could definitely tell that you were a little on edge by the end of the week. Yep, I was ready for us to have other people in our lives during the daytime so last week we talked about neighbors, and so Jeff has some thoughts on on neighbors which I thought that he would. He says personally, personally, and this makes me sad, but I think that people are not as invested in their neighbors as they need to be.
Josh:Well, that really was what we were talking about last week and on that front, I am finding myself now that I had that thought in my mind. I am finding myself in positions to talk to like today we went walking and we talked to people in our neighborhood. I really do feel like with anything, the more we talk to ourselves about it and tell ourselves it's important, the more we're presented with opportunities or we notice opportunities so more to come on that because the Wilsons are going to break through and make our neighbors like us.
Amanda :You will like me, damn it.
Josh:Jeff continues. He says it has become common for households to just stay within their own parameters and eschew getting to know their neighbors like we used to. I don't know if people are just scared or really just want to keep to themselves for fear of getting involved in others' lives. I'm gonna tell you that the third option that Jeff has not spelled out is this Everyone's so damn tired.
Amanda :It's true.
Josh:You know work will wring you out. So you come home and you just want to lay down and blob out.
Amanda :Now do.
Josh:I think that's a great use of our time Not necessarily, but it's easy to do, and so people can fall into that habit. Personally, Jeff says I feel that you can involve yourself in others while not getting all up in their business. Well, where's the fun in that?
Amanda :I was gonna say I like being up in people's business from afar, Like if you wanna have an argument outside in your front yard, I'll listen to it.
Josh:What were we doing the other day where we were outside. We're sitting on our postage stamp of a patio in the postage stamp back garden and we have a fence. We can hear everything going on and we were just trying really hard to hear the different conversations that were happening.
Amanda :There were children screaming out there like screaming, and she was screaming. Stop talking. She was screaming at her sister, and then the dad came out and screamed at them to stop yelling, or yelled at them to stop screaming, whatever. So clearly we know where they got it from.
Josh:Yeah there you go. So he goes on, jeff does, he says. When I was a small child, my neighbors included my great aunt and uncle next door, along with my great grandmother that lived with them until she passed. So again, he's from a little old town in South Carolina where families are probably a little bit more likely to live in proximity.
Amanda :We don't have that, no Well, I've never lived next door to family, though my ex-wife lives in the neighborhood over and my ex-in-laws live three houses down. We do live near your family.
Josh:Jeff and Jill across the street, who are the same age as my brother and me, mr Leroy, who lived directly next door, my Uncle Lloyd we called him Uncle Lord for years who lived diagonally across the street, mr Roy and Miss Lucille, two houses down. Can you tell it's a southern town here? Did you used to do that Because your family's southern? Was it like Miss Lucille and Mr?
Amanda :Oh yeah, everybody got a Miss and a Mister to their first name.
Josh:yes, he says, one of my fave childhood memories was sitting on Mr Leroy's porch with my brother, craig, and Jeff and Jill from across the street listening to him tell stories, asking him questions and just talking for the hell of it. And that's another thing that we don't really do anymore is.
Amanda :Just visit.
Josh:we call that visiting yeah but visiting with the older generation.
Amanda :That's true too.
Josh:Which I guess are we, the older generation. We are now yes, geez, awesome neighbors there as well Randy, a South Carolina Highway Patrolman, and his wife Amanda oh hey, blackie, a game warden obviously a nickname, and I never learned his given name my entire life and his wife Holly, whose family owned textile mills and was worth 500 million the family, not Holly. It never went to her head that she was so wealthy. Oh, maybe she is worth that much, or she was. And there's also Elliot and Elaine diagonally across the street, a lot of alliterative couples here, and mr parks diagonally across to the left, bill and brenda behind us again with the alliterations and sam and janice behind us.
Josh:I could also name every other person in the neighborhood, just because that's how we were. The neighborhood kids all treat each other like their mom and dad, and the mom and dads all treat us like their kids. So does that mean that the and this is a question for you, Jeff did the neighborhood moms and dads have permission to discipline the children? That's a good question. When you were growing up, did you have that kind of neighborhood where everyone was like, no, you didn't.
Amanda :No, I mean we knew our neighbors, but it wasn't. Shelby and Helen lived across the street and they had Stingray Corvettes that they showed at car shows.
Josh:Oh, very nice.
Amanda :And they were older and they had a pool that we could swim in. That's what I remember, oh that's cool. I don't know the name of anybody else in our neighborhood, oh, okay, except the girl that wanted me to wait on her while we were being chased by a retired canine yes yes yes.
Josh:So then he talks about his neighbors today, and I think this is really interesting. Right next door to my left are Jaime and his wife, Gregoria. Jaime's a contractor, so he's the one who did my new roof.
Amanda :Oh, yes, nice.
Josh:And fence and has done so many other things for me as well. See again, this is the beauty of knowing your neighbors. Yes, that definitely benefited him. He was in Houston. All of those crazy storms have gone up and down through Houston for the last few years, right yeah. And he's had roof problems more than once and Jaime was able to help him because he knew his neighbor, that's really great and his neighbor was helpful.
Josh:He also says he throws killer parties and hires his own DJ for the backyard. Also brings me all kinds of barbecue or fresh fish. If he's having a fish fry, well, that is awesome.
Amanda :Josh would like to live next to Jaime.
Josh:I really would. Angela and Levi are across the street. Santos and Monica are diagonally across the street, kick-ass lesbians. Jenny and Lauren are diagonally across the street, john beside me and John behind me, surrounded by John. John to the left of me, john to the right of me. I am supremely blessed with incredible neighbors and everyone actually likes everyone.
Amanda :That's great.
Josh:I do think, however, it's incumbent upon us to seek our neighbors out at first and make these introductions and establish those pre-relationships.
Amanda :Okay, but can I interrupt here? Because, Jeff, this is the question. We've lived here for four years. Is it too late?
Josh:I would say well, clearly it's not. Clearly, it's not because I want us to do it and you're supposed to be the social one.
Amanda :Yeah, but I get. I mean, I get social anxiety too.
Josh:No, it's not what I signed up for.
Amanda :Oh, thanks.
Josh:You're supposed to counter my social anxiety with your outgoing nature.
Amanda :Well, I also. You're an extroverted introvert, so I thought I was getting an extrovert and I got an introvert, so somehow we wound up not at all. I don't like where this conversation is going. I think my sleepy time tea is. I love you. My sleepy time tea is kicking in, I love you. Get back to Jeff, please.
Josh:Okay, he said he's sorry that I had that experience of seeing your neighbor as she was exiting the shower. Yes, the first naked woman I saw.
Amanda :I was like six, seven or eight. It's not traumatizing, confusing probably.
Josh:He says I cannot remember the first time I saw a nod, a nod woman, a naughty woman, no, a nude woman. I guess that's a good thing, different strokes. You never said. But was the woman aware you saw her? Oh, yes, I mean, we're talking about me going into the bathroom from the outside door, from the patio, and she was right there, like she was just getting out.
Amanda :If I close my eyes, you can see it all still.
Josh:I can see it all still, he says. The closest I came was years ago when I was in my apartment here in Houston and my next door balcony neighbor was in various stages of undress while on the balcony. This was not unfortunate, because he was actually a member of the now defunct professional hockey team, the Houston Arrows. That's A-E-R-O-S.
Amanda :Oh, like aerospace. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Josh:Which would make sense for. Houston. To say that he was incredibly fit and muscular would be a supreme understatement that man could have had a career in any fitness fashion magazine in existence. Let's say I still think of him every time I see a hockey stick.
Amanda :Good memories, jeff good.
Josh:My question for you, jeff does he tape his stick? Anyway, I do have a monk story that kind of corresponds with your Benedictine monk in last week's Game.
Amanda :Time. I was like do we know, monks? Okay, it was Game Time.
Josh:yes, I don't think I've ever met a monk. Have you ever met a?
Amanda :monk, I have.
Josh:Have you met a monk? I have. Where did you?
Amanda :meet a monk I have in Japan.
Josh:Where does one go to meet monks In Japan? Oh, okay, you had to go to another country. Go ahead.
Amanda :Well, it was really interesting because my sister-in-law at the time so they were living on the Navy base in Yokosuka. My brother was stationed there and and she was tutoring. I don't think it was a Buddhist monk, I think it might have been a Shinto monk I can't remember A monk in English and what he wanted to do was read from the Bible Like he wanted to. Like he wanted his English lessons to be out of the Bible because he wanted to try to understand, like Christianity.
Josh:Oh.
Amanda :Anyway, I met him while I was there. I was going to. Did that work out for him? Did he come to try to understand?
Josh:like christianity. Oh, anyway, I met him while I was there. I was gonna did it? Did that work out for him? Did he come to understand it?
Amanda :no, I don't think that he was trying to convert. I think he just wanted to be able to talk to people. Um, anyway, I don't know, I don't know what happened so this is jeff's um story here.
Josh:Back in the late 90s my family went to italy, which I've talked about before. We took a side trip to Assisi to tour the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. It's one of the most beautiful, well-preserved medieval towns in all of Europe. Walking the streets was just as it was in the 1100s, when St'm sorry, 11,000 is quite some time from now.
Josh:Yeah no, when St Francis was born, on our tour of the Basilica we had a Franciscan monk that went into great detail about life in the monastery and it was fascinating. But imagine our utter surprise and delight when we found out that the monk talking was from Snellville, georgia. Oh, wow Just right outside of Atlanta. I did not see that coming in this story.
Josh:He was delightful and he still had his Southern accent even though he had been there for quite some time, since we were from upstate South Carolina. He of course knew our hometowns and the area. I think he got a big kick out of seeing us.
Amanda :That's really fun. It's always nice when you you know a little bit of home right, a little bit of home when you're traveling.
Josh:Yeah, it's so interesting to me. When I moved up here to Gainesville, first of all, I came across a lot of people who are from Miami.
Amanda :Yeah, that happens.
Josh:Which surprised me, and then I saw this girl in the grocery store.
Amanda :Was she naked?
Josh:No, she was most definitely clothed. If she was naked, you would have heard the story before now. And I kind of saw we made eye contact.
Amanda :I'm like I know you.
Josh:She had gone to my church in.
Amanda :Miami when I was growing up?
Josh:Yeah, and she's old like me and there she was. Isn't that crazy? That is weird. Would not expect that. I would expect to find people, I guess, in Miami from other places, because Miami is a big place and you're more likely to meet people, but little old Gainesville, I was shocked.
Amanda :Well, I don't know if I told you and I don't want to deviate too much from Jeff's letter, but when we were coming back from Atlanta speaking of Atlanta, and we stopped at Bucky's and I was in line to go to the bathroom and it was really long and this is when Winthrop was having his car sickness. So I don't know if I told you the story or not, but I was in line and I heard this woman talking in front of me and she said something about being from Lakeland. Well, that's where I'm from, lakeland, florida. And I said, oh, I'm from Lakeland. And she turned around and we just happened to be in line, right, and she's in front of me. So we started talking. We went to the same high school she's about 10 years older than me, lived on the same side of town, and I said something and then the woman behind me goes wait, are you from Lakeland? And we said, yeah, she was from Lakeland, but none of us were together. We just happened to be three people in a row from the same town.
Josh:And then you came to find out you were related.
Amanda :No, we weren't related. Well, I mean, possibly we could be, but I mean, but yeah, it's just like I mean we weren't.
Josh:And that was in Warner Robins. Georgia, that's right that we were in. Okay, so, although I guess you're more likely to meet someone that you know in Buc-ee's- because there's five million people in. Buc-ee's. Buc-ee's is like a city state. Yes, Buc-ee's doesn't have a manager, it has a mayor.
Amanda :Bucky's managers make so much money because they have to manage the town.
Josh:Jeff ends his letter by saying Josh, do you ever stand at your privacy fence and talk to your neighbors, showing only half your face and become a real-life Wilson character from the TV show Home Improvement. If not, you're missing out on an experience that could right the world of all of its strife right now.
Amanda :Wilson, if I remember correctly, was a very cool dude.
Josh:But yeah, no, he says. I hope the rest of the week brings joy and we'll talk later. Peace and cookies, Jeff. Good night, Jeff. If you would like to get in touch with us, email us at familiarwilsons at gmailcom. We will answer questions about ourselves. We will solve your problems. We'll give you lottery numbers.
Amanda :You know we'll do all the things. I mean, we have never won the lottery, so I don't know that it will be productive for you.
Josh:No, my luck, my luck, my luck is to pick six numbers for someone.
Amanda :I know, and they win.
Josh:And they win, and then they just, and I'll be like, oh well, first of all, they won't tell me right, you won't get a commission. I won't get a commission, but if I find out they'll be like Wilson, who Right. Absolutely. Yes, not gonna do it All right, folks.
Josh:That's the end of this mailbag episode. We did have a really long and interesting to us conversation with Chris Barron, lead singer of the Spin Doctors, earlier in the week, so I'm going to edit that to something that's usable and let you all hear that. Maybe I'll break it into parts. We talked about all sorts of different things.
Amanda :Well, it's fun because this is what like the fourth time that we've had a conversation, fifth time, I think like well, you and he are kind of texting buddies every once in a while, but I think we're developing sort of just like this, like a little bit of a weird friendship, and so it was just kind of like hanging out for an hour and catching up with somebody.
Josh:I don't think there's anything weird about it.
Amanda :No, I mean weird in the like we met this person off of Twitter and now we like know things about each other that probably we don't talk about, Meaning like grief. That sounded a little weird, but like grief and other things, like, we talk about pretty heavy things and it's pretty cool just how connected the world can be and how isolating at the same time.
Josh:Very good and this is a comedy podcast. What else cool has happened? Oh, I've started another podcast with this gentleman called Brent Ransom and nothing like this. It's a business podcast. I met him at a training like a management training and started talking to him and yeah, so be looking for that If you're in any sort of situation where you're a supervisor or a manager or something like that. He's really smart and he has really good advice to give on being a leader.
Josh:Set up for Chicken Tom, his very own podcast hosting, podcast hosting platform, and his first episode is ready to go and that's called In-Law and the Out-Law, with him and his country ass son-in-law. So that'll be fun, so be looking for that. All sorts of cool things.
Amanda :So until next week, you all take it easy and be nice to each other no, that's my line no, your line is go, be kind, you always forget no, I know my line, but basically it's a synonym, simile, synonym. I don't know.
Josh:I'm tired, go be kind uh, goodbye, know, I'm tired Go be kind, goodbye, bye, thank you.
