the black licorice. Oh, yeah. That's my fan favorite and hate the black licorice. I don't even know why it is even an option except to say this is the worst thing thing. You're everything else is going to be great in comparison. That's right. You use you use black licorice to cleanse the palate. And that's that's the that's got to be either one of these Kamala Harris or Trump wants to win. Just bring up. We all hate this. Bill United States like they'll be 34 people who don't agree. Hi, it's a me from the Welcome to Wonderland podcast. Are you looking for the perfect blend of nostalgia and patriotism in your wardrobe? Look no further than ZJZ Designs available now at zjzdesigns.com. Their exclusive t-shirt collection features stunning designs like the iconic Plymouth Barracuda print taking you back to the golden era of muscle cars. Show your love for your country with their bold patriotic heart designs that stand out and make a statement. From car enthusiasts to proud patriot, ZJZ Designs has something special just for you. Head to ZJZ Designs and elevate your style. Visit zjzdesigns.com or check the show notes. Bear it again from what the pod was that and the all about nothing podcast for ever play sports and social league. Fall registration is open now for a bunch of leagues including Wednesday and Thursday kickball at B and M avenues in West Columbia, Tuesday Super Recreational kickball at B Avenue in West Columbia, indoor volleyball on Mondays and Tuesdays at Tri-City Leisure Center in West Columbia, softball on Sundays and Mondays at Pacific Park in Columbia, Tuesday 10 week bowling at Balero in Casey, Wednesday's soccer in West Columbia, pickleball on Mondays at the Casey Tennison Fitness Center. Registration for all fall leagues is open through August 21st, except Tuesday bowling at Balero. Registration is open through August 5th. Also, registration is now open for three to four person teams for the 8th Masters of Putt Putt at Frankie's Fun Park on Friday, August 23rd. Sign up now as this event will sell out. Register by August 22nd. It's a lot of fun and if you're in the Columbia area, you should definitely sign up now. So check out EverPlaySocial.com for details and registration. EverPlay Sports and Social League. Play. Socialize and have fun. The All About Nothing podcast may have language and content. That isn't appropriate for some listener discretion is advised. Welcome nothingers to another episode of the All About Nothing podcast. This is episode number 217. I am Bear Gruber. I am Zach King. Welcome Zach. Please subscribe and share the show. That's how we get new listeners. Also, if you could please consider supporting the show financially by visiting our website and clicking on the support link. And if you can't do that, please drop us a view. Hit the five stars. Give us a thumbs up or leave a comment. All of that helps drive us higher in the ratings on all of these podcast platforms. Do we need your help? Yeah, please. Why not thank John Kosis Jr., Course Broadcast and Media Relations Manager, Columbia Fireflies. Nothing or update every single week. It's exclusive here. I think we're the only podcast in town that does it. So thank you, John, and the fireflies. Also, the 2024 Soda City Comic-Con is coming up August 24th and 25th. There'll be tons of people there, both in costume. I say costume. It should be cosplay. Lots of voice talents have already been announced. They just had a recent one, Zach. Same way. Yeah. That's a huge get. Oh, man. Yeah, dude. He's been a part of every Star Wars thing that's been not a movie. Yeah. Well, I take it back. He was Darth Maul and Solo as well. Right. Yeah. So that's huge. So check out the website SodaCity Comic-Con.com. It's going to be the Columbia Metropolitan Convention. There are details, tickets all available there. Again, Soda City Comic-Con. Let me say this too. Sam Whitworth was the main character in the video game, Days Gone. And it's down the best zombie video game ever. You ride a motorcycle around and shoot zombies. All right. That's a win. Let's do it. Also, I want to thank John Zabel, Democratic nominee for South Carolina House District 46. You can check out johnzabel.com to volunteer, also looking for donations because campaigns cost a lot of money. I actually had a conversation with Heather Bauer, who is a... She is a house representative down in the, I guess, the Shandon area of Columbia. And she was telling me how much money she's raised and how much money she still has to raise for the rest of her campaign. And I was taken back because if we had to start with all and end with of it. Yeah. If we had a tenth of what she's already collected, we'd be set on Mads campaign. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely check out John Zabel's website. If you have the means, he's a good local candidate, definitely wants to bring some change. He's going against a guy that is an incumbent, but he's only been in his seat for like one year. I think you can thank redistricting for a lot of that. So that is it. As far as the business, we're going to jump right into this episode. I want to welcome to the show, Eric Barnes, who is the host of the History Man podcast. Welcome, Eric. Hey, welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. No, we're very excited. Zach and I have, in the last few days, have definitely gone through and listened to several of your episodes. Extremely interesting interviews that you do with a lot of the people, or several of the people that you talk to about, you know, the history here in the South, South Carolina, mostly, from the ones that I listened to. But it's a really interesting show. I really enjoy what you do. I don't want to say force, but I want to start having my kids listen to it. Because it's a lot of stuff that you're not getting in depth in the school system. Well, that's right. The school system with all the testing and the requirements that they have for the teachers and teachers oftentimes are doing nothing but controlling behavior in the classrooms and then teaching the standards. They don't have time to get into some of the real meat of who we are as South Carolinians, what our history history is in the United States of Constitution, all those things that are foundations of who we are as Americans. They don't even get into in the classroom anymore and it's sad. Yeah, right. It goes way past Wade Hampton and Francis Marion. There's so many more. Oh, yeah, it's terrible figures out there. When you talk about every county has something that happened in the Revolutionary War, of course, we didn't have all the counties back then. It was about half a dozen to 10 counties depending on the years progressed. But it's crazy the amount of people that were involved in the Revolutionary War. And what I enjoy doing is trying to figure out what exactly caused them to decide to become independent. What were their thoughts? What were the thought processes? And what I have found is that if you go back to the associational documents, you will find what they were thinking and how they viewed taxation. They viewed taxation as slavery. How they viewed the role of government and people's lives, how they view the rights and what they were willing to fight for and what they were willing to do. This is a year and a half prior to the Declaration of Independence. We were having these conversations in Camden, for instance. I'm going to talk just a little bit, but in Camden they had what was called the Camden Resolves. And just as Henry Drayton came up and he approached the grand jury and he charged the grand jury and he said, "Listen, we have set up these laws. We have given these laws as authority over us and set this government up. And so by having given your constitutional consent that they become laws or operate as laws, by you not executing those laws as required, you would weaken the laws and number one, you would weaken the government." And he said, "I may almost say a treasonable contempt of those constitutional rights out of which your laws arise, and so those constitutional rights were very important." And the Camden grand jury came back in November 5th of 1774 and said, "Yes, we're going to fight for those constitutional rights and put up our lives and fortunes for those." And that's a year and a half prior to the Declaration of Independence. And that was everyday people out of Camden, South Carolina in 1774. Cheryl South Carolina did the same thing. And then they came back with similar papers that people signed over the next year or so. And there was real impetus for what they were doing and they really, really thought those things out. I thought those the reasons out. They weren't a mob by any stretch of the imagination. No, these were individuals, farmers and people that were running the town and owned stores. Also, Cheryl South Carolina, people that don't know, I was a trumpet player in high school. That was where Dizzy Gillespie was born. That's exactly right. The biggest cheeks ever. Have you ever seen him play? I didn't get to see him play. He passed away back in '93. I actually didn't start high school until 1992. I've seen videos of Dizzy Gillespie play. He was something else, I tell you what. And that type of cultural stuff coming out of South Carolina and all of the colonies is not unusual. That's part of the fabric of America. That's fabric of America that we call America that came out of this time. And I've enjoyed just delving into this. Part of that is because I got into this because I'm a retired cop, retired detective sergeant. There's not a whole lot out there for a retired homicide robbery investigator. You can only do so much with those skill sets in the private sector. I needed to do something to get out of my wife's hair and do a bunch of different projects, and this is one that's taken hold. I've done the History Man Podcast, and I go around and label it as the, or pitch it as the platform for historians, curators and authors to tell their stories of the American Revolution. And that is for the adults. That's a podcast for the adults and I set it up to where they can get it on their commute to work and commute home and listen to an episode of South Carolina History or the Southern Campaigns for the most part. And then for the children, we've reconstituted the comic book series and the comic book genre, and instead of the Marvel and DC, and I like Marvel and DC, but these are fictional heroes fighting for fictional worlds and fictional conflicts. You've got fictional villains, and you know one of my favorite is Star Wars, right? That's not Marvel or DC, but we're talking fictional worlds here. Well, we had real heroes fighting for a real country in a real conflict and over real issues here in South Carolina. Over 580 battles, skirmishes, engagements, murders coming out of that revolutionary conflict here in South Carolina, which is more than any other colony, any other state. That's what I was going to ask was in respect to all of the colonies, how did South Carolina rank when it came to those, I guess, that's sort of part of the revolution. Yeah, yeah, as a South Carolina, you can't help but be proud that perhaps the Revolutionary War started in Boston, but it was won here in South Carolina on the backs of South Carolinians. And it's not just South Carolinians, we had Marylanders, Delaware, fighters, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, they were all fighting here in South Carolina, but it was won here in South Carolina and Cornwallis took tail and ran. Yeah, you know, after Calpins, he started chasing Nathaniel Green, Nathaniel Green pulled him out of South Carolina, and then Cornwallis went, "I'm not going back." And then he got caught in Yorktown, but the Revolutionary War continued on after that, which is you don't hear in the history books, Utah Springs, and then some of the other battles that happened in South Carolina, because the British still were trying to set this up and to claim as much territory as possible, because they wanted to put in a puppet government here in South Carolina, because South Carolina was so important. And so if they had had their way, we would probably be much like Ireland, right, where you have like the British government just kind of overseas or our points of government or something. Right, right. Important issues back now. With respect to South Carolina's role in the revolution, I assume you've seen Mel Gibson's "The Patriot." Right. Not that it's going to be accurate, because it's a fictional, it's based on some of the things, but it was... Well, I think Mel Gibson's character is an amalgam of Francis Marion and one other person, if I believe. Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter, both of them were huge heroes. The big three are Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, and Andrew Pickens. But they say that Andrew Pickens, I mean that Mel Gibson portrayed a combination of Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion. So, and Gabriel that was in the movie in Mel Gibson, his nephew or his son in there, Francis Marion actually had a nephew who he was very close to named Gabriel. So, there's a lot of comparisons there, a lot of comparisons. Well, just to give some of your, because we're going to talk some more about this, but just some of your resume, your website has you listed as an American historiographer. That was a word that I didn't know existed historiographer, and I mispronounced it probably nine out of ten times. That's okay, that's okay. So, we hit upon this, and so you have these historians that take one niche of history, like the Nathaniel Papers, and they spend their whole lifetime transcribing the Nathaniel Green Papers, right? Well, I don't want, I spent my lifetime in law enforcement, and I'm coming into this a little late, so what is it that I bring to the table? Well, I can take little snippets of history, much like pictures of history, and I can put them out to everybody and tell little stories about that. So, it's, I'm not a, I kind of look at myself, not as a historian, but a historiographer, giving people a little snippets, little pictures of this history, this particular battle, this particular person, helping people get into the history of the founding of our nation to identify themselves with these characters that are with these heroes from our past. So, yeah, also says you graduate of Gardner Webb University. Home of the running Bulldogs, not the fighting Bulldogs, not the, not the ferocious Bulldogs, the running Bulldogs. They play some good baseballs. Yeah, they do. They've got, they've had some good teams over the years. We had a good football team and a decent basketball team when I was there. As a fan of Georgia Tech, the, it, it's not, to me, it would have done, it would have been a disservice to call the yellow jackets, the fighting yellow jackets, because the running yellow jackets would have been more appropriate. Hey, they had, you know, they, in their heyday, they had, they had some good teams, man, and they're smart people in Georgia Tech. So, yeah. Yeah, they're always somebody's boss. Yeah, that's right. Retired detective sergeant. Where, where did you serve? I served in Richland County. Okay. I was, I was promoted to detective by the previous sheriff, and then the current sheriff, Leon Lot, was kind enough to promote me again, and, and was very good to my career. And, and he, you know, he's done a fine job as a sheriff. So that's where I, that's where I finished my career. Yeah, we, we actually had Sheriff Lot on just a few weeks ago, way back and what episode, Zach, do you remember, Zach? I don't know, episode. No, no, 200s. Yeah, yeah, a two or two or something like that. But yeah, Sheriff, Sheriff Lot's absolute one of my favorites. Zach and I used to play softball against him up until a few years ago. When he retired from just standing on first base to, to, to standing in the dugout. So, but also a local columnist for the news topic, newspaper in Lenore, North Carolina, as well as the standard here in Lexington. Right. So, you know, this just comes from that time when I was trying to figure out what exactly I needed to do to get out from underneath my wife's gaze. Because I knew she was getting ready to retire and I was like, I've got to find something. So I, I just kind of did a shotgun blast of different things and was like, what's going to catch hold. And, and I did do that and they were kind enough to, to publish some of my articles and the standard was, was really good about staying in touch with me. And so very, very happy or fortunate to be able to, to write for them on several times or several articles. I wanted to ask you real quick too. Again, we see some of your comics there. I was on your website and saw those comic book nerd. I will definitely be picking some up. I love the art on it. Who's the artist who draws those? So my artist is Rick Emman from Ocean. Well, let's see. Man from Connecticut. He's, and he has kind of worked with people who work with Marvel. So he kind of knew the business. He was looking for, he was looking for somebody he could work with and, and I'm very fortunate to be able to, to work with him. We are, we are very proud of these comic books that we can bring them to the public for the, for a, a very reasonable cost. And we have, we've made them for the teacher in mind, or with the teacher in mind to kind of give them, to let them hit their teaching guides and their, and the guidelines that they needed to make in the classroom. So the fourth grade teachers in South Carolina, if they pick up one of these books, they can actually teach the Revolutionary War history in a, you know, from, from that standpoint. Absolutely. I can only imagine, you know, I don't know, 25, 30 years ago when I was in middle school, having that dimension added to the textbook, not just here's what happened this, but seeing it unfold in front of you with the context in it. That would have been amazing. I think that's such a fantastic idea. It is, it is, it's a pretty good, pretty good series that we have set up our rise of Thomas Sumter, and all of them have a timeline, which, which is big, because you'll hear a snippet of history and go, okay, where, where was that, how does that play in anything. Well, then you look at the timeline and you go, Oh, this particular battle happened right before Yorktown or right after Yorktown. And that's, you know, I didn't realize that we said that many battles, you know, and it's really, and this is what I'm able to include on the timeline is just really a snippet of what occurred here in South Carolina. So it's pretty cool. And then we get into, we delve into deeper dives in, or we have deeper dives into the stories with our footsteps of hero section, like Ishmael Titus is a gentleman who happens to be black African American scent that was part of Cleveland's Devils out of North Carolina that came down and fought here in Camden and fault. And we think based on, based on his records that we were able to trace, we think that he actually fought with Thomas Sumter, and then we have him again up at Kings Mountain. And then later on, he fights at Guilford Courthouse. So here we have a gentleman who was overlooked by history. And we have put him in these books. And just so people can look at him and go, I identify with that guy. And he was a real fighter. He's not somebody who was just holding the horses. This guy was a real fighter. Yeah, that's cool stuff. Absolutely. Yeah, children, you have girls who were throwing keys out in the yard to hide them from the British. You've got the Cataba Indian Nation. Do you all know anything about them? I know where that is. The Cataba Indians, the Cataba Indian Nation were with us from the beginning all the way to the end. They actually fought more than some of the Native American. Interesting. I mean, the Patriots. The Patriots would come in if the militia would fight two weeks at a time, three months at a time. These Cataba Indians, the Cataba Indian Nation, started in 1776 and finished all the way to '82. I mean, they were there from the beginning of the end. They were shooting the British. They were getting off the boat in 1776, and they were shooting the British up at the Hall River in North Carolina, following along with Andrew Pickens up there. That wasn't the same participation as far as for some of the other Indian or Native American tribes around the southeast because I know that in some cases, especially in some of the battles in Georgia from what I remember from AP US history, there were Native American tribes that actually sided with the British because the belief was that the British would at least control the Americans and prevent them from any more pushing westward into the area of North America. That's exactly right. The Cherokee, the Proclamation line that went along the ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, they set that up. And so you're exactly right. The British tried to, in 1776, they tried to get the Indians to attack up in the northern part of the state while they came in to Charleston and attack down there, and it just didn't work for them. But they were inciting the Cherokee against this, which is one of the reasons why the Kataba came out to our side because the Kataba and the Cherokee were bitter enemies. But it's a sad story for the Kataba and for the other Indian tribes. If you've read Diamond and his Guns, Germs, and Steelbook, you realize that the germs that were brought over by the European settlers wiped out whole swaths of Native Americans. And then you had the war, and then by the time the Revolutionary War ended, there was just a handful of Kataba left, and they were a fierce tribe and very big warriors. They were almost like the Spartans of America in many respects. How did the weaponization of smallpox blankets and things like that? Yeah, we saw that especially out west, but that certainly happened here. And smallpox wiped out a lot of the soldiers. In fact, Cornwallis and Washington, their biggest enemy in many respects was malaria and smallpox. And the inoculation process was new, and they were trying to inoculate all the troops. But when Cornwallis took over Camden, and he got all those prisoners and had to take care of all those prisoners, all of a sudden smallpox swept through the camp. And he couldn't field an army and couldn't get into North Carolina. That actually worked in our favor in many respects. But what a terrible disease. We are very fortunate nowadays that we don't have some of those diseases. Oh, yeah. Those vaccines for sure. So tell me what the process is for how you come up with the episodes, how you come up with the idea of what an episode of the History Man podcast is going to be about. Well, for instance, I had Cornell Press call me, email me the other day and they want me to interview an author who has written a book and they're getting ready to bring it out. So I have those guys, the authors and their publishing companies, they want to reach out and get their authors some play. I have historians, the 250th Commission here in South Carolina is huge. South Carolina is so far ahead of the rest of the country as far as celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War. So each museum director and curator in each county has a chance to come up on my podcast and tell a little bit to the world about the Revolutionary War from their particular part of the state, their particular part of the country. And tell those stories that for the most part remain untold. And that's awesome. And so quite a number of them have come on board and done that. And then the historians, I've got quite a number of historians that have graciously come on and told me snippets of the different battles. And some of those, quite frankly, historians are passing away so I am very fortunate to be able to memorialize their stories on these on this podcast. Charles, back to you as a big one. And he was over the 250th Commission just died here recently. Doug Bostick over the South Carolina preservation battlefield preservation trust. He just died here in the last year or so. So we're memorializing their stories as best we can and working against the clock in many respects. That's how I get them on. And then whatever story they want to tell, I give them about 15, 20 minutes to tell the story and engage the audience and then tell a little bit about whatever project they're working on. Good. And good questions that you ask. So we have to say the same thing. Because we know what it's like to have a guest on that you're constantly having to pull them along. But your questions keep them engaged and they always seem to be right there along with you for the ride. Well, you know, you know, as well as I do, you try to surround yourself with good people that make you better, right? So I'm very fortunate tonight that I was able to find some people who were better than me. And it makes the podcast look better. So, you know, a History Man podcast has turned out to be a pretty good deal and has gotten a lot of momentum. And we expect it over the next couple years as the emphasis is placed on the 250th, we expect it to grow even further. Yeah, that's how Zach found me was he needed somebody to make him look better. And sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's nice to have friends like that who got your back, you know, friends like that who needs enemies, right? Right here, the ugliest man in a listening medium. It's for radio and now it makes us be on camera. I tell people that I don't have a video podcast. Mine is actually an audio podcast because I am trying to reach the the commuters. But I tell people listen, I have a face for video, a face for audio is what I have. So, I have plenty of runways waiting for you. I promise. Y'all doing a great job. Great job. I was going to ask you to just real quick. I mean, you have the comic book line. Get with the name. You should be a comic con. So, just sitting on you now. Yeah. So, that's all we have gotten to a point I've gotten. We finished our seventh. We start just finished our eighth comic book. I've got the ninth one at the illustrator right now. You know, we're pretty excited about that. Now I got to get out and market it. And so, we are looking for avenues to market these. We have enough out there. We feel like we have a proof of concept going on. And, you know, it's expensive. Comic books are expensive to make. Okay. You know, I'm not just talking about the printing process, the illustrator. If you get a quality illustrator, you want to keep them. You know, you don't want him getting off on somebody else's checkbook. You want to keep him around. So, you have to factor in those costs. And, you know, if we start getting some momentum off of this, then we're going to be doing well. And I have a whole list of battles that I want to get into and to teach the kids about. But we'll just see what happens. But Comic Con is, I went to Comic Con last year, not as a vendor, but I just wanted to see what it was about. It's a blast. And, and there are passionate people there. And we think we can get into those, those arenas. This is, this is my tryout for illustration. It's a, this is a colonist on a horse. I don't know. I urge to one-up bear it, or in this case, do you know what up there? It's kill me because I do have a lot of talent. Yeah. Yeah. It's limited. Ultimately, it's limited. Zach, Zach's the artist. Zach does some amazing, amazing drawings. Yeah. I know the, I know the struggles of being the artist in trying to have that get to your head. My buddy and I, we've done comics together and just, it is a process as an illustrator knowing you have to get the artist's idea out on the paper as well. And make sure it comes across as they saw it and, or better, half the time. So it's just like you said, having somebody there, having an illustrator there who's understanding what you're trying to convey. It's priceless. When you go and you talk to people like Dark Horse Comics and you try to do a proposal with Dark Horse Comics, they want to know not only your comic book that you created. They want to know that you're a team, that you have a collaboration between the writer and the illustrator, and that team is going to follow that series all the way through. If they decide to take it all. I think that's, that's very important. It certainly is important for the writing and certainly in how to get the stories across. We've got a good team. We're excited about that team. We've worked very hard the last few years to make that a robust project for us. So we're excited. Hopefully some, hopefully other people will see that and gravitate to it. You're absolutely right. Because we, me and my buddy, we spoke to Image and they, just like you said, Image was, who's your team? I was like, that's because there's so much more to a team. That's right. All right. They want to know, they want to know your marketing team. They want to know who does your, you know, all the social media. They want to know how you're going to put these out. I mean, it's just a wide array of different things that they want to have. It's a tough market to get into. It really is. So hopefully, you know, this place is marketing like this particular podcast that y'all have and others will help us out here. Oh, I would be awesome. I would encourage Zach to, just for the podcast alone to, Zach, if you came up with some designs, we'll put it on some t-shirts and we'll sell those t-shirts. I'll tell you, this is a funny story. I went to school for game design and development and I could draw. I thought very well, my mom and dad thought, look at the boy. I went there and I met a dude who was, I was 19, 20 years old. This guy was like 44. I was like, where are you here? He goes, I can draw. And he opened up his portfolio and it was looking like Jim Lee was drawing these things. And I was like, dude, he goes, I used to work for Marvel. I was like, what comics did you draw? He goes, no. He goes, I can draw this well. Everyone else that works at Marvel draws better. He goes, I was the mistake eraser. So if someone had like an armpit that looked weird, he raced it and redid the armpit. If you're that good, but there's no hope for any of us, you understand the guy's feet. And he worked at Marvel for like 15 years, 20 years. Like he was like, I was just the, yeah, exactly. That person has one extra toe. His job was to fix the toes. That's like a hanging toe. He's got a, yeah, I was like, what a job. And I can tell you from my perspective, not being an artist in a physical format, I guess. My mother is the artist and she does amazing drawings. She's, she moved into computer graphic arts. One of the, one of the things that I, I thought would have been really cool was if I write greeting cards and she illustrates the greeting cards. Cause you're greeting cards would be very Mr. Deeds. Oh, yeah. They're, they're, they're unnecessary. You're congratulating people for like, congratulations on the removal of your ingrown toe. You know, don't stop it. But, you know, it's. So hallmark, hallmark is not calling. I'll tell you that right now. How one of the things, one of the things that I saw is that your, your podcast now is in 50 countries, or maybe I, maybe I got it wrong. But multiple countries across all 50 states. Do you get feedback from, from listeners that, that good, bad, you know. Yeah, we had a, we had an episode about the, the Freeman of Harlow, the Patriots of Harlow, which is a free black community that can trace their heritage all the way back to the Mayflower. Okay. And so, and are, are, you know, the first people that came over into North Carolina and to New Bern, I just wasn't the Mayflower. It was, it was, it was others. But they, it was one of the original communities and it was a free black community. And they said percentage wise, these were, they put percentage wise, the most patriots of any community in North Carolina into the continental ranks. Of the, of the Patriot Army. Now, these were all free blacks out of a rural area in, in eastern part of North Carolina. They were very proud of that. Well, that is, that is history that no one ever hears about, right? They hear about free black patriots in the American Revolution fighting for your freedom and my freedom. They don't hear about that. So when I put that out there, you know, I got feedback from people who were like, I never knew this. And they were identifying themselves and their, their internal love of freedom with these guys and, and how, and it just resonates with people. And that kind of stuff I hear all the time. Some of my favorite episodes are when I asked my, my guest, what does freedom or what does liberty mean to you? Right? And so they have to, they have to think about that. What, what exactly does that mean? And those questions in their mind, and those, those thought processes that they're going through, the same thought processes that, you know, our forefathers thought about in 1774, 1775, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. We talked about Thomas Payne, we're talking about Edmund Burke. Thomas Payne would say, you're just free to do whatever you want to, right? And Edmund Burke would say, you got freedom with responsibility, and that those two polar opposites in many respects are the same questions that we deal with today. How far does my freedom go? You know, freedom of speech. How far does that go? You know, where does government, what, what does government's role in the individual? How far can government go, you know, to enforce these things? And so, it's something we struggle with right now today. Those are the same questions that we struggle with when you turn on the news just about every day. One side thinks this way, the other side thinks this way. And it's something that we, as Americans are responsible for, and just like Henry Drayton said, if we don't stand up and do something, then in, in, in, you know, abide by the laws or see where the laws go, or, you know, then are we not being subversive to the very government or the very laws that we set up, are we not, are we not minimizing their role in our lives, are we not minimizing how the government is set up? If we say that we are a government of the people, by the people, for the people, but yet we turn over the lawmaking to a bureaucracy, who's through, who's wrong here? And the responsibility is the individual American, right? So that's important. And those are the, like you said, those are the same questions that we're wrestling with today. Yeah, I think, and even today, I think one of the problems is that our, and not to call out any specific group, or, but our voting block, almost, our, our electorate are so ignorant to the actual issues and the ramifications of what their votes actually can do, you know, not to get too political, but South Carolina is, you know, it's finding itself to being at the bottom of so many different statistics when it comes to violent crimes and domestic violence and drug arrests and things like that, you know, South Carolina, and it's just, we have continued to drop further and further down, but we keep voting in the same people over and over and over. And it's... Yeah, you can get, when you start going into, especially like freedom and things, people get philosophical, you can throw in, like, John Rawls' veil of ignorance when it comes to what's the, what's the freedom and morality aspect of choosing this kind of freedom? I think that's an excellent question to ask people, and you almost need to keep like a statistical graph chart to see where these answers go. It's all over the chart, you know. I had one lady in Alaska said, "Listen, I think of freedom as my ability to go anywhere I want to go in this country. I can go anywhere I want to go. I don't have to show any papers. I can go to Alaska. I can go to California. I can go to Utah." And that was her version of freedom, what it meant on a real basis to her. Unless her starting point is in Alaska, and then she has to have a passport to travel out of Alaska. That's true, man. That's true. That's all right. I know individuals that don't know where Mexico is compared to the United States, you know. When you see those Jimmy Kimmel on the street interviews, you're like, "Oh, Lord." Those are bound to disappoint you on an intelligence level. They cancel out your boot. That's not pressing it like how many representatives from North Dakota? Please don't get me started. This right here is the guy that doesn't think that North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Idaho should be in Wyoming. Those five or six states right there, those should just be one state. There's no reason that between them should have 10 senators and 15 different representatives. That's too much amount of power for such a small group of people as far as I'm concerned. That's how they were long states to try to get a cross. I drove across those a couple years ago, and I was like, "Man, this is beautiful country, but there's no one out here." Oh, the upper, the northern tier of the United States is one of the most incredible players. I mean, there's a lot of it that's just barren. Except for Indiana, corn and corn. The North's drive I ever did. But even as barren as Montana, North Dakota, there's such an immense beauty. That's one of the things that I love about South Carolina is the fact that there are so many different zones. There are so many different zones to the state. An hour from Columbia, you're at the beach. An hour from Columbia, you're in the mountains. It's a beautiful state. We take it for granted. We get kind of lost in the minutiae and the drama of life. We fail to see the beauty that's around us in the history that we have in the state. It's a wonderful state to live in. I only recently, a couple of years ago, found out Lake Jkassy exists in the state. Jkassy. It's a beautiful lake too. Have you ever been up to the rivers up there at the Georgia line? No, it's too close to Clemson. I had to run away. No, that's the one lake where I showed my wife. She was like, "That's here?" I was like, "Yeah, I had no idea." I think it's the Okoey that's got some seriously complicated rapids. I think it's the Okoey. We did a rapid tubes, a rapid ride down there. I was a Boy Scout for years and didn't ever have to wear helmets on a lot of the stuff we did. This one. You better wear one on that one. That's a tough one. You bump your head a couple of times. You learn. [laughter] What is a unique historical fact about South Carolina from the Revolutionary War? I would go even further, Barry. Hold on. Columbia. Just because that's where we're from, I'd like to hear a Columbia revolutionary story if you have one. So, Casey. Casey was actually called the Congarees. The Congarees were an Indian tribe. Casey was a crossroads of the Indian fur trade, the Indian trade in general. When the British came in to Charleston and they wanted to extend their power, the British power, into the upstate, their meeting point was the Congarees. They built a couple of forts there. I didn't know if you knew that. I had no idea. Actually, did you know that Charleston was a walled city? It had embadlements. It had huge walls and trenches. They had a draw bridge. Did you know that? No. It's still not landing. It's called 526. No, that's amazing. I had no idea. I always hear about the battles and stuff. So, the British came into Charleston and then they appointed a governor to oversee all the trade that came out of the Carolinas. The fur trade was big with the Indians. They about decimated the deer in South Carolina, the deer and, I think, even the beaver. But when they had to fight with the French, the French and Indian War and the Indians, they actually extended the British power into Gatlinburg and put up a fort. So, you had British troops come into Charleston and the governor appoints South Carolina troops. Now, these are South Carolina troops. This is the precursor to the state guard that we have today. Part of the South Carolina military department. Okay. They came up to the Congeries and then they went into what is present-day Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and they built a fort. And then some of them went on up to Pittsburgh and fought up in Pittsburgh at Fort Pitt, where they lost with George Washington up there, Daniel Morgan and George Washington as the French and Indian War. So, when we talk about America and we talk about South Carolina, South Carolina played a huge role in the founding of this country, not only for the British, but for America in general and for the world. And, you know, you said it earlier, this is unique. We are the great experiment, in many respects, as far as democracy and the Democratic Republic is concerned. And we have been a shining light for the rest of the world. And that's partial to what we've done here in South Carolina. At the time of the Revolutionary War, how difficult or easy was travel between Charleston and Columbia and take Greenville or Spartanburg? I mean, I know we have, you know, the Congeries River through Columbia and, of course, the Broad River goes on up towards, I guess, more towards the Charlotte or between Charlotte and Greenville. I'm sure you don't. Highly admit and stuff, too. That's right. And they would set aside certain sections of the road for particular citizens to keep track of. But in South Carolina, they were trying to settle different parts of the state. You had the Saxx-Gotha region here in the Columbia area. Sure. That was German settlers, right? It was up to '96, '96, and due west were kind of like the end of South Carolina. Anything beyond that was Cherokee Country. And in fact, there was parts of South Carolina that weren't even South Carolina after the Revolutionary War. They were still Cherokee Country. So, the Cherokee were big. You found you found forts or places where forts were, like Lindley's fort, that had a huge battle against the Cherokee. It came down and raided and killed those people that were there. You had those kind of forts up in Lawrence County in Union County. And those were there for the settlers to come when the Indians started raiding. So, you see that. But to your point, what were the great travel ways? You had the Cherokee footpath that came all the way down from that area, from the Greenville area and went all the way down to Charleston on the Casey side of the river, right? On the west of the Saluda. So, you could see that foot trail and you could actually trace some of those -- some of that same trail, the roads have kind of gone over. '96, for instance, was part of that trail. And it was nothing more than a footpath through the woods that was like eight feet wide, six feet, eight feet wide. It wasn't very long, but it was traveled quite a bit. And they would use '96 as a campground in many respects. Yeah, I think one of the things I read when I moved here from Atlanta was that Old State Highway was a road that went from Charleston all the way up to the upstate. And up until 2015, it was a road that was still traversable after the great -- after the thousand-year flood that we had, either Casey Police Department or Lexington County Police Department or the State Troopers Department of Transportation. The decision was ultimately made that this was not a section road that they wanted responsibility for anymore, and now is a trail. It's a patch of -- it's a green patch that you can walk on. Yeah. You know, go ahead. Sorry. That's one of those things that historians love to go back to. What were the original -- what were the original maps? What roads were on the original maps? Right. And you see places like Highway 97 that comes up through Camden and goes all the way across up to York County and stuff. And you see those on those original maps. But the map from 1825 is probably the one that they refer to the most. It's called the Mills map. And it's pretty interesting to see, you know, the Cherokee Highway. Highway 11 up in the upstate. That was an old Cherokee trail. The Great Wagon Road that went from Augusta all the way to Pennsylvania was the one that the Scotch Irish used to come from Philadelphia and infiltrate the mountains of North Carolina and even down here into South Carolina. So the Great Wagon Road was huge. Yeah. That's -- and we always -- it's growing up in the shape of Newberry area, white rock. But you'd always find graves, like, there's one grave that's on the side of the road. But the side of the road is almost like six, seven feet up. And you would look at the dates on it and it's early 1700s, like 1706 and things like that. And I'm just going, where did this -- was there a road here? What was here before all of this? Like, even where my mom lives in -- off same ken down in Newberry, there's just three gravestones. Like, I think those -- those ones are late 1600s. So thinking of the roadways, it just always blows my mind like, how did all this look before? Yeah. We are how we are now. I had two questions to ask you. I had always heard that George Washington was a big fan of Charleston. Is that true? Yeah, I don't know. I think Charleston was one of the economic hubs of the new colonies. Right. That's why Great Britain wanted to hold on to it. You know, despite the fact that they lost New York and lost Boston, they were like, well, we need to keep Charleston because that's where all the money is coming from, right? Yeah. You know, and this was before cotton, right? This was the rice trade. This was even Indigo, was a big cash crop down here. All on the -- you know, you got to remember, South Carolina was set up as a merchant colony, right? We're talking about the Lord proprietors set it up to make money, both the backs of people, right? Our first settlers in the South Carolina came from Barbados, right? Blacks and whites coming from Barbados, and they set up plantations or farmlands and harvested crops to send back to Great Britain. Yep, somebody got into an argument with me one time about, well, what about slavery? What about slavery? You know, this is nothing but slaveholders. Well, slavery is bad. Slavery is bad. But that's the way this state was set up. And by the British, do you think the British, if we had not kicked them out, do you think the British would have turned their backs on slavery or done away with slavery? No. No, I don't think they could have. No. No, they wouldn't have. They would have been the status quo if they would have been able to hold on to South Carolina. That was the first step of a series of wars and conflicts that ended that terrible trade. Yeah, especially when you take all 13 colonies, what they were producing was slave labor. That was -- they had to. Well, and from a psychological standpoint, the British were never going to abandon slavery in the United States in the colonies or any of the colonies anywhere else because the slavery in the United States set the example for how the citizens or the whites of the descendants of the Europeans, that it was basically always stood as the example of how the British were controlling the tiered system. And so, slavery was the example at which the British could go see how that works. We just make it work at this level to this level. You all make it work from this level to this level. And it worked as long as they treated the American citizen as a second-class citizen in the British Empire. And then when the Americans went, wait a minute, we're second-class citizens? We're British subjects. And they finally realized that, then that was the beginning of the end in a lot of respects. I always heard the British basically had spent even back then millions of dollars to get the colonies established for what they were and the taxes were the -- well, we need that money back. Right. And eventually when the tab came due, the colonists were like, well, you're not getting that from us. Is that the correct way that it was? We were certainly the grassroots of the manufacturing process, right? So they didn't want the finished product coming out of America. They wanted to take the raw goods from America, give the jobs of manufacturing those things over in Great Britain, and then sell it back to the colonies for this unreasonable price, right? By doing, they're making money hand over fist at the expense of the colonies. Now, there were some very rich people in America that realized that. Now, that wasn't always the -- that's not the case for everybody in America. For instance, South Carolina, you had the planners down in the lower -- you talk about a caste system. You talk about a tiered system of economic and citizenry. The planners down in the lower part of the state, they looked at the backwater guys, the Scotch Irish up here in the upstate, they looked at them as beggars and thieves, you know? And they all -- and they all said that. Even the Governor Rutledge said that. So there was a caste system here in -- here in South Carolina, and it wasn't until they -- those planters down in the -- in the lower part of the country realized that they were being second-classed citizens in comparison to the English over in England, right? So they were -- and when they realized that they were also second-class citizens, then they changed the tune. >> Yeah. Yeah. I want to remind everybody that the -- the website is historymanpodcast.com. That's where you can find the comic books. You can find all the podcast episodes. Before we started recording the episode, one of the -- one of the things that I wanted to see if I could get some sort of reflection on, what is -- what do you think history is going to look at, or how is -- how is future South Carolinians going to look at the segment of time that we are experiencing now with the political party differences and the fighting between these two political systems, what -- how do you -- you know, what is your thoughts on -- on what -- what this is going to look like in a textbook potentially, or a history man comic book lately in -- in 200 years. >> The paradigm shift of society is -- is many -- in many respects reflects the advances of technology, right? So we're talking about AI. I would think AI just throws everything into -- and up people there. Do I as an individual find myself in an AI world that's -- that's run -- decisions are made by AI. I listen to Musk -- Elon Musk the other day, and he said they are programming AI to lie to you. >> I wouldn't surprise me. >> Right. You know, and he said -- he said the irony is I was -- I was one of the first investors into AI, and I pulled out, but the irony is that I have -- I have birthed this -- this thing called AI, and it may be our downfall. >> It wouldn't be Elon Musk if he didn't take credit for it. That's for sure. >> Well, he literally is -- he's an administrator of a Terminator coming to you. I think Hollywood in that Terminator series that may in many ways, it may be a fight for mankind in general, 100 years from now, if we're still around, I don't know. >> It's -- the AI is wild, because if you think about 10, 15, 20 years ago, people were like, well, they're going to replace, let's say, fast food workers with robots who can make a big Mac for you. No one ever was going, what if his brain was doing it? The only thing out there was literally like Skynet, like you're just going, oh, hey, what if it controls your weapons? What if it takes your job? What -- like, AI can be an awesome tool, but if it starts to learn to self-replicate, or you give it permission to even start doing it, so it's a pretty wild kind of curveball I didn't see coming, right? Maybe it's the naivety that I have, but AI is pretty limitless. It pops up now when I'm writing emails being like, you write like a five-year-old, would you like me to help this sound intelligent, right? Right? I'm like, really? And it does. I'm like, that's pretty impressive. Thank you, AI. >> Well, we are very focused on fighting each other over these decisions or over these ideals, right? >> Right. >> You know, the welfare state, taxes, you know, freedom of speech, how does the military complex play into a free society? We're all about all of that, you know, fighting each other, but you throw a paradigm shift of technology in there, or what if we're also fighting AI? What if we're fighting the technology? It's going to be a gut check for humankind. >> Yeah. >> And some of those same ideals of freedom, we're going to have to reevaluate. And we're going to have to say, what am I willing to go to the mattresses for to use a Godfather expression? You know, what am I willing to fight for? How far does that do those freedoms and those rights that I have, what am I willing to fight for? >> Yeah. I mean, if you think about it in the last 50 years, we've moved from the atomic age into the technology age into the information age, and now we're moving ourselves into the AI age, and that progression has happened so quickly, that my concern is, is what did we forget to do in that evolution? What rule, you know, were there rules that we should have followed, because we went from the iron age to the bronze age to the iron age, and then, you know, so on. >> Couldn't tweet about your new fancy iron sword. You know, the best case scenario, we're just going to be those fatzos from Wally in the spaceship, robots rub our backs and flip the silver. >> I don't know that I need a revolution from that. That sounds okay. >> No. >> No, listen, if the question is, am I afraid, I try not to be afraid of things. >> Sure. >> I try not to say, okay, I have it within me to stand up. What are my core beliefs and what am I, you know, and I come to an understanding of what my core beliefs are, and what the line in the sand is for me, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with where I am, if I were to die, if I were to be killed right now. I'm okay with that, from a spiritual standpoint, and I don't know where y'all stand with that, but I'm okay with that. I'm happy to talk to you a bit later about it if you want to, but, you know, we're all going to have to make those decisions, whether or not it's against AI or, you know, other parts of our life, and I am not afraid. I am wary though, and I am, I am, you know, I have an honest respect for those things that I can't control, and so it's up to me to do everything I can to keep my family safe and to move my family one step forward, and that's where I put all my eggs in, moving my family one step forward. I think that's a great, you know, standpoint to always have whether you're spiritual, religious, atheist, agnostic, there's things that are bigger than you moving in a way you don't understand. You're respectful of that, and understand that you're not going to have control over everything. That's right. That's exactly right, and you see all the guys who are in the, to, you know, giving those gurus of business, they'll say the same thing. Control what you can control, you know, concentrate on what you control. Do what you do best the most, you know. Apropos of that, I just want to tell you a bit, my TED talk is coming up next, I don't think. It's going to be held in 2011 off of a two-night road. That's right. In the parking lot. So before we do this, I want to, again, I want to remind everybody, the podcast is the History Man podcast. You can find all the details links to the historymanpodcast.com. This is, of course, is Eric Barnes. Eric, one of the things we do with new guests when we have them on is we ask them all about nothing podcast, seven questions. So the first question, what was the last thing you Googled? And I'll just say, purely, if you want to show us some respect, you can say you Googled the podcast. That's all about nothing. The last thing I Googled was Francis Marion's age at the time of the revolution. He was 48 years old. 48. That is. I say at the time of the revolution, at the time that Charleston fell in 17, May of 1780, he was 48 years old. So that's that's a young and buried here is an old my years. He's here all week. 48, 48 was not a young age at that time because life span now, we saw it. Yeah. That's right. Mel Gibson, I think was in his early 50s when he did the Patriot and hated just as many people as he does now. He was basically Briggs from the weapon, right? He was the colonial version of Briggs. All right, second question is, what was that one thing that your parents did that embarrassed you as a child? This isn't always the easiest question because Erica, of course, is a few years younger than I am. So, you know, it's harder, you know, then embarrassed me as a child. I had a girl, I had a girl that I liked in, in, in high school and she, she lived right down the street from me and she would not date me because my mom was too clean. She was my, my mom was a clean Nazi. She was, and, and that, and, and Rhonda would not, I mean, she made it a point to tell her mom and her mom and my mom were best friends and, and they got the word he got back to my mom. So, but Rhonda would never, would never date me because of that. That's, that's good. Yeah, it made with the girl down the street and mom was done coming and messed it up. Yeah, she, she blocked me, man. She blocked. All right. Uh, number three, if you could have one superpower, what would it be? Ah, um, discernment, I think, I think if I had one superpower, it would be able to walk into a situation no matter where I'm at, discern whether or not people are telling me the truth or a lie, like right off, so you almost have like that, like homes kind of clairvoyant. Yeah. Be clairvoyant on that. Yeah. And instead of going through the dance, the emotional dance, the cerebral dance going back and forth and where I just like, would like to know upfront, are these guys being honest with me or are they trying to play me? That's sort of thing. You'd be called the truth teller. That's, that's honestly, that's one of, that's one of my talents is just, uh, I like to think of it as extreme observation where I can pick up on people's behavior or, you know, uh, what was, uh, what was the, uh, the, the guy in, in Meet the Faukers or, uh, Meet the parents. Uh, it was, um, what's his name? Take the milk me correct. Yeah. But it was, uh, but that was, that was that he was a human lie detector, you know, uh, working for the, uh, the CIA. Just, all right. The milking the cat thing. Yeah. I have, I have, I have nipples. Greg. That was a great answer. Barrett, when we asked Barrett that question, he said it was, it was stretchy like Mr. Garrett. Talking about, uh, all right. Next question, uh, what is your least favorite candy and why the, uh, the, the black licorice. Oh yeah. That's my. That is a fan favorite. Great. Hate the black licorice. I don't even know why it is even an option except to say this is the moral hate thing. Everything else is going to be great in comparison. That's right. You use, you use black licorice to cleanse the palate and that's, that's the, that's gotta be. Yeah. If either one of these, if Kamala Harris or Trump wants to win, just bring up, we all hate this bill United States like there'll be 34 people who don't agree. You know what though? And not to defend Trump, but I feel like that would not go well for him. I kind of like it. Yeah, we do it. Next, uh, next question. What is your most, uh, what is your most embarrassing favorite song? Like what, uh, assuming, you know, people, if, if you're at a party or something and the song comes on, you start, you start singing along and then you have the, you have the, you have the phone music choice at the party. Everyone's having a good time. You're playing this. Okay. So one, I am showing my age because I'm not into parties anymore, uh, that's just the way it is. Ain't either. And, and I grew up on funky favorites, which was an LP, uh, big album that you put on and it had like a one-eyed, one-horn, fine purple people leader and, uh, and, and, Bear, it seems on all of those, all of those songs, uh, you know, from back then, there's a, there's a song called the telephone man from the 70s and, uh, it was, it was a very risque show, risque song that grandmother sang to me all the time. It was better than the milkman song. It was probably much like that, but you know, you could, you know, I can get it in the, I'm the telephone man. You can put it in anywhere you can. That sort of thing. It was just like crazy, crazy stuff. If you go back and, if you go back and listen to it, it's just like, Oh my goodness. And then, uh, Elvis, go to your room. You are crowded. And, uh, you know, the song, My Dingling, have you heard that song? Oh my gosh. My grandmother sang that to me all the time too. You know, yeah, Christmas, one minute you're talking about the nativity scene, the next minute she's singing Dingling, you know, you're like, and, and I didn't know any better. You know, I'm just a kid. I have no idea. I'm trying to do, you know, so thinking about that, I'm like, Oh my gosh. You're singing it to your kid. You're like, wait a minute. Oh, look, I was a child of the 80s and 90s. I go back and I can sing the lyrics of some of the songs that I remember growing up to, but then I go back and I read the lyrics and I'm like, Holy crap. This is awful. No, I'll give you one that, that, that, that scarred me is my dad was the biggest AC DC fan. And shook me all night long. My parents growing up would always be like, that's our song. And then, you know, like 15 year old Zach starts paying attention to the words. And I'm like, you two need to stop. That is not your song. I don't want to, I can't even listen to that song anymore. Like, no. And then it's, and then it's offspring. You got to keep them separated. Yeah. Exactly. Alright, next one, what is the one question that we wished you, we had asked you? The one question, well, I was born at an early age in a hospital so I could be near my mom. That would be, you know, my background there. But I think you got around to asking it, you know, why did I get into the Revolutionary War, what exactly is, you know, that really just gets me excited about that kind of stuff. And I really go, kind of go back to the, you know, why did they fight? And you know, I kind of went around that a little bit. Why did they fight? Why did they decide to become independent? What motivated the everyday man to take up arms against Great Britain? And that's kind of been a quest of mine. Because I needed, you know, from a cop standpoint, we enforced the constitution or worked through the constitution on a day-to-day basis. We had to get search warrants. We had to get statements from people. We had to get evidence in order to prosecute people. All of that came out of, you know, some of those lessons from the Revolutionary War and that's in the establishment of our country. But why did the everyday man, prior to the constitution being established, because this constitution didn't come around to 1786 to 88 somewhere in there, well after the Revolutionary War ended, why did the everyday man like me take up arms against England? And that's, that's, that's been one of my quest. Would you have in a South Carolina, we call that what got their red up? That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Would you have been, and I'll use this as the seventh question, but if you had been a farmer or a business owner in 1780, South Carolina, would you have been someone that would have taken up arms against the British? Well, I would have been in the Catabra River Valley, number one, or if that's where my people are from. And I have one that came from Lawrence, or that moved down to Lawrence around that time. I'd like to, and they were patriots. So I'd like to think, and I think that, you know, when they get into DNA 10, 15, 20 years from now, they might find that we have some little chromosome in there, some little, some little part of our DNA that, that matches to our personalities that it's passed down from generation to generation, they might find that. And if so, that would, that would, that would certainly give me a definition as to why I'm, I'm, or give me a reason as to why I think the way I think I would, I think I would be a patriot. I think I would, because I, I am a staunch freedom God, you know, you tell me to do something, you better have a reason to tell me to do something, you know, I just like, I'm, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to go down fighting this to me, you know, it's got to be something that, if you tell me something that goes against what I'm, what I'm, you know, my, my values and stuff, you, it's got to be a good reason, and you're going to have to be able to articulate that. And I think that was the problem with the British, they weren't able to articulate that. They, they certainly showed themselves, the Mac deck proclamation, the people of Charlotte said, we secede from Great Britain, right? You know, we are no longer a part of Great Britain. That's probably the people I would be with. And, you know. No doubt. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. How's the, how far have you traced your lineage? I've got my grandmother who did a lot of that and she can trace it back, trace one line and you start, start going back. You can find, I've got people who come on my podcast that can trace their heritage back to both sides. And then, you know, loyalist and, and patriot, I've got one of my relatives that we can trace them back. He called himself a carnal, I, I don't, he wasn't a self-proclaimed, I'm a king. My dad always said someone sat on the throne when the king was gone. So I can trace it back to that, we found some sort of receipt where he gave supplies to the continental army and, and, and that sort of thing. I can trace it, trace it back to that. But quite frankly, my family is American. We are fricking mutts. Okay. Yeah. We, you know, a great deal of my history or my lineage is traced back to the Cherokee nation. And one of my great, great, great, great grandmothers was a white woman that was taken, kidnapped by the Cherokee and raised by the Cherokee for years. And so we are just a conglomeration of everything that's American. So dad, I'm, I'm kind of like the Hans 57, right? That's right. The, the dog out here on the street, I'm not a pure blood. I'm a fricking American. Okay. And I, I'm, I'm, I'm okay with that. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm okay with that. Hey, every dog I've had outside of my great Danes who were amazing, the, the next breeds, the mutts were the ones. It gives you character and perspective. It does. And I'm, I'm in agreement with you, Zach. The best dogs I ever had were the mutts, you know, so. Yeah. So our, our family lineage traces, the furthest we go back, uh, and able to document is like the 1200s in Scotland. Jesus. Wow. I mean, like, but we, we go back to, uh, Agnes Campbell's, uh, Agnes Campbell, uh, you know, we Robert the Bruce, uh, William Wallace, uh, you know, so we, we have some of that in our lineage, but like we also, we also go back to Austria and, uh, some of the, some of the potential in there is that, uh, yeah, who we want to ignore some of the 1940s, uh, uh, my mom, uh, so on my mom's side, they were pea bodies and, uh, affluent in Northern area. Yeah. Uh, they always said the, the thing that I think everybody, like a lot of people had their family like we could trace it back to the Mayflower never really saw that. My dad's side, the Tucker's, uh, farthest, I was able to go back was a check this name out. Zebulon Tucker. All right. It's a 1763 then, uh, later, like his great grandson was John Ruffin Tucker. So North Carolina was not good at naming names. I was just like, all right, so the Tucker's are there. The Kings, they came late like 1812, and then the rest of it's all Scottish history after that. Hey, listen, don't underestimate the Scotch Irish, the Scottish and what they, what they gave to American gave to the world. Oh, yeah. The Scottish enlightenment was a big deal. It was a huge deal as far as the rights of man and how that plays out and how the Jack Bison plays in the government, all of that came out of that Scottish enlightenment, Scottish. They were bringing the Irish over and signing them up for the Civil War right when they got off the boat. You want some shit? I did. I did the same thing in the Revolutionary War, too. I mean, they're really using everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Eric, this has been fantastic. We're really glad that you came on. Please, uh, anything we missed about the podcast or the comic books or the website that, uh, that you just want to, you want to make sure that our listeners know, yeah, uh, if you go to our website, historymanpodcast.com, you'll find a way for to, to get ahold of the comic books, uh, that are, that are written for the fourth grader, uh, for the, for the high school or for the elementary school student, middle school student in, in, uh, and their standards that they have to go through in, in, in school. So, uh, you know, those are great resources to learn a little bit more about the Revolutionary Wars and the heroes, the real life heroes in this state. Historyman podcast, um, is on our heart radio, pod beans, Spotify, uh, Amazon, uh, Audible, uh, and, and all the major ones, uh, you can go on there and listen to historians, curators and authors to tell their stories of the American Revolution. And as we, um, you know, go forward, uh, if teachers are listening, teachers are listening to your podcast and they want to go to my, my website, they have teacher bundle. They have teacher bundles there so they could bring to, you know, to the classroom, uh, it's cool stuff. But, uh, tell us real quick about the award your comic books got? Well, we got a, uh, we got a Daughters of the American Revolution, uh, award here this past year for our comic book series, The Rise of Thomas Sumter. That's a, that's a pretty cool deal. One of those in that series, uh, the, a Rocky Response got a serious writer award, uh, from a couple of years ago, so, uh, you know, technically you can say they're award winning comic books, uh, and, uh, you know, we're, we're pretty proud of them. Uh, and I think they, they, they're, they're chopped full or chocked full of, uh, information for the young historian and the old historian. And, uh, we think, uh, they're pretty cool, pretty cool things to have. And we're, I think we got another one at the illustrator now and we're putting one out about every two or three months. That's awesome. Yeah. That is, that is really awesome. Again, this 36 year old is going to enjoy it. I'm telling you I'm buying. We'll send you over some. How about that? Oh, that'd be awesome. All right. All right. Uh, it's a history man podcast.com. Uh, you can find him on all social media media, also history man seven, at 1781, uh, you can find links to, uh, to everything about, uh, Eric and his podcast and website and comic books and, uh, merchandise and just a wealth of information. I, I, I highly implore everyone to subscribe to the history podcast, uh, across any of the social media or any of the podcast, uh, verse that's out there, uh, because it's, uh, it's, it is extremely informative and it, it, it keeps you, uh, engaged, uh, through every, every one of the episodes that I've listened to so far, uh, and I will be going through, uh, as many as I can, you, you, you've been, you've been doing this for a little while. Uh, a little bit, but I, you know, I'm, I'm excited about every time somebody decides to come on the, on the podcast. I had a lady who was into dancing of all things and, uh, she was talking about revolutionary war dance and how there was no other forms of entertainment back then. And so if you were a gentleman or someone of means, you were involved in the dancing, you were involved and that was how you, you had a certain way of receiving the, the dance card or in, uh, in what dances were going on. She was very excited about telling me all about now I learned something new about that. So that's, that's amazing. It's cool stuff. And you learn, learn about, uh, I had a chef on there that talked about the, uh, how, how he made the, the different, uh, menus for his business and how he researched all of those from historical perspective. I've got a, I've got a lot of different types of people that come on that podcast and we're excited to hear all of it. So, you know, I have learned probably more from just listening to them much like y'all. I've probably learned more from listening to your people. So 100% kudos to y'all for giving a platform for everybody to come on board. And, uh, I'm sure you know, a firm just about every time y'all talk to someone that, uh, it's just the cool thing to do to every, we've got some amazing guests, including yourself. We did have, we did have a guy come on and talk about the paranormal. Zach was not, Zach was not into it. It was a, we're like, which one are you, oh, oh, I think aliens, I have a Bigfoot sticker on my car, but I don't think Bigfoot exists. I think he's hysterical. Are aliens extraterrestrial, interterrestrial. Oh, I think inter probably more than anything. I think dimensionally speaking, that would probably be it. Okay. I think it's, it's a staggering existence to believe that this is one when there's billions of stars and trillion, trillion upon like, dude, come on, somebody, somebody else has got it. Whether you got probes visiting you, that AI pilot, maybe I don't subscribe to it. You're not going to see me put on my 10 foil hat, but, you know, fun. I want to be the guy that the aliens come to and be like, all right, you're going to represent. You're going to be the representative for all the people. Yeah, as long as they don't go to the White House, they can go to anybody else really, so at least stay out of politics. That's what we need. We don't need aliens to get into politics. I was going to ask you to, Eric, are we going to get a Dan Carlin style three hour jaunt historically from yet some point? Yeah. I don't know if you ever watched our listen to hardcore history, Dan Carlin puts about every two years and it's like four hours, three hours. I can't do it. I can't do it. I have to do the 30 minute episode and move on to something else. And I got people who are long-winded and I get two or three episodes out of them. And that's cool. It really is. But for me to stay on there and stay engaged, it's tough. I have a hard time. I talked to a guy from the upstate who was very informative and I had to get up real early in the morning to go talk to him. I was falling asleep, unfortunately. Sometimes it'd be like, he was just looking at me and I'm like, oh, well, you know, it's not. No, no, please continue. Three hours. Three hours. I'm like, Oh my gosh. This is rough. I can't do it. I can't do it. Well, Eric, it's been fantastic. We really appreciate you coming on. And you're welcome back anytime, you know, this, I, I, I, that's one of the things about history is I think there's almost always something new to learn about. Uh, what has happened that maybe hasn't been, someone hasn't known about it. And I think that's, that's, that's easily one of the most interesting parts. So thank you again, Eric. You're, you're welcome. And I try to tell people, listen, I try to be balanced in my life. I enjoy the history, but I want to concentrate on the future for the most term, right? And so I'm excited about the future and excited about where we're going and I'm, I'm trusting that people will, will, uh, you know, learn about history and learn from history and apply that to the future. So we don't make the same mistake. So thank you so much. Absolutely. Appreciate y'all's time. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Eric. That's going to do it for episode number two hundred and seventeen, the all about nothing podcast. Thank you again, Eric Barnes for being on history, man, history, man podcast.com. You can find all the details there as well as, uh, merchandise. The comic books are available, uh, so go check that out. Also links to past episodes, podcast platforms, merchandise and social media available on our webpage, the all about nothing.com. And if you think our financial model of giving away free content and entertainment is silly and you're in the giving mood, why not becoming an official nothinger. Support the show monthly members get early access to this episode as well as exclusive content or you can make a one time donation through the same link. If you'd like to be a part of the show, you can call and leave us a message, 803-672-0533. You can email the show at theallaboutnothing.com or you can join our discord server. Thanks for available all at theallaboutnothing.com. Everybody thank you very much for listening. You all stay safe and keep your hands to yourself. The All About Nothing podcast is produced and engineered by me, Barrett Gruber. Thanks to Cake for our intro music, sick of you. You can follow everything Cake the Band at CakeMusic.com. Thanks to Muff the producer for our outro music. You can follow Muff on Instagram @Mufftheproducer. I am Barrett Gruber. You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter @baricruber or visit my link tree/baricruber. Want to support the show? Visit our webpage. Visit theallaboutnothing.com to become a member. There are several tiers available including memberships that give you early access to episodes as well as exclusive content. Visit theallaboutnothing.com to find links to our social media, merchandise, and past episodes. Visit theallaboutnothing.com. If you'd like to be heard on the show, you can call and leave us a message. Child 803-672-0533. If the time between these episodes is more than you can handle, check out our partner podcasts. Zach and I host What The Pod Was That with Carrie Simmons. Visit WhatThePod Was That.com for links and details. That me takes a deep dive down the rabbit hole in episodes of Welcome to Wonderland. Available on all the podcast platforms, visit wtwlpod.com for details. As well, you can listen to the political and social conversation between Dr. Jamila Brooks and Bill Kimler on Black, White, and Blue in the South, available wherever you listen to podcasts. Please subscribe and share this show. If you're on YouTube, please like and hit the notification bell. Thank you for listening.
