Episode 175 with Beth Butram, who’s positively on the ball when it comes to taking control of her own loneliness and sharing what she’s learned with others.
We discuss relationships and community, being comfortable with who you are, and talk a little bit about the “suck it up” mentality and much much more.
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Other Links
Did Rick Rubin just become my spirit guide?
How Attractive is Your Toaster?
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:11 – 00:00:21:51
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer. Did Rick Rubin just become my spirit guide? How attractive is your toaster? And I still haven’t figured out what physical media I’m going to dig into, because I’m still working through all of my physical books. This is The Palmer Files episode 175 with Beth Butram, who’s positively on the ball when it comes to taking control of her own loneliness and sharing what she’s learned with others.
00:00:21:53 – 00:00:32:55
Agent Palmer
We discuss relationships and community, being comfortable with who you are, and talk a little bit about the suck it up mentality and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show!
00:00:33:00 – 00:00:39:40
Beth Butram
I think the most important thing is just opening yourself to that possibility.
00:00:39:45 – 00:00:52:42
Beth Butram
Every single time we talk, it’s like a three hour conversation and it’s wonderful and fulfilling. And I always feel so much lighter after having talked with her.
00:00:52:47 – 00:01:04:20
Beth Butram
You’re allowed to be who you are and there should be no judgment. I got to know my mom on a whole different level.
00:01:04:24 – 00:01:12:26
Beth Butram
Well, I am a social animal. So, you know, when the loneliness started really hitting hard, I had to get creative.
00:01:12:31 – 00:01:41:46
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 175th episode is Beth Butram. We met through one of the many online podcasting communities, and I must say that this is one of the more rare occurrences of two podcasters recording and not talking all about podcasting. We do discuss loneliness, community relationships, and how much her search for those led to a friendship and a podcast to share the lessons along the way.
00:01:41:49 – 00:02:03:35
Agent Palmer
Plus, how friendships aren’t always as easy to maintain as you’re older. Are digital friendships enough communication with our parents, and much, much more. But before we get there, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all related ways to contact Beth and myself in the show notes. You can see Beth’s Substack at Substack.
00:02:03:40 – 00:02:28:41
Agent Palmer
That’s. But you can also listen to her stories, meditations, and affirmations on YouTube.com by Beth. Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Palmer. And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:28:46 – 00:02:29:55
Agent Palmer
You are.
00:02:30:00 – 00:02:55:27
Agent Palmer
In and around podcasting, but all of and you have a blog. So you do writing and talking and discussion and it all seems to be around either social. Is it sociology? Because it feels like sociology much more than psychology, but I guess it could be a little bit of both. There’s it social psych or whatever the difference is like, is that am I close?
00:02:55:30 – 00:02:56:35
Agent Palmer
Is that your wheelhouse?
00:02:56:37 – 00:03:27:42
Beth Butram
I kind of have been. I am kind of between just adulting and mental wellness. I think those are the two kind of categories that it kind of falls into. Okay. It’s empowerment, resilience, encouragement. I just like the power of positivity without being toxic. Positivity. I talk about difficult subjects, challenges of adulthood. It started out all about loneliness. And then it kind of took on a life of its own after.
00:03:27:45 – 00:03:30:06
Agent Palmer
That, did it? Did it start during the pandemic?
00:03:30:08 – 00:03:56:01
Beth Butram
No, it’s that’s probably story worth worth recording. But it started with a friend of mine and we went for the first three seasons, and then I kept going after that. And it started out because we were talking about how hard it is as an adult to find connection and make friends. Okay. What is it that makes it so hard?
00:03:56:02 – 00:04:22:41
Beth Butram
And so we kind of started looking into that, and that’s kind of where we headed and, and started with just the kind of whole thing about loneliness. And sometimes it’s sometimes it’s you’re just socially isolated. Sometimes it’s that you’re just introverted and it’s hard for you to get out there and make friends. So and then that just kept all the different reasons why people feel lonely.
00:04:22:44 – 00:04:25:15
Beth Butram
I guess have trouble making connection.
00:04:25:17 – 00:05:01:20
Agent Palmer
So so this is going to overlap with something that I, I usually come back to. But we’ll start here. I have I’m lucky in that I have a lot of what I would consider healthy friendships. Some are close, some are not, but they’re all what I would consider healthy. The thing about it is, outside of my one really close friend from high school and a few acquaintances from high school, and my one friend from college, and a few acquaintances from college.
00:05:01:25 – 00:05:31:16
Agent Palmer
And even in those circles, everybody’s scattered to the wind like we’re talking about. We’re just we’ll just say North America, or at least hours away. Nobody’s up the street anymore, right? And there’s no I we we’ve reached out and we kind of know our neighbors, which we didn’t before the pandemic. That’s a direct result of like, oh, we should probably meet, like become friendly instead of just hi.
00:05:31:20 – 00:06:00:50
Agent Palmer
And, like, we’re always friendly, but, like, let’s get to know some of our actual factual neighbors. But there’s no community anymore. There’s nowhere you’re going to go and collect. And we’re not a religious household. So that’s out, right? And I know that even if we were, that’s a dwindling community. All separate conversation as well. So it’s not like the church or the synagogue is going to be your haven for connection again.
00:06:00:50 – 00:06:19:06
Agent Palmer
So we are kind of stuck with our own communities or thrive in our own communities, but they’re scattered and so healthy or not. You know, my wife and my son are the people I see daily, and my friends are people I talk to on the phone.
00:06:19:18 – 00:06:20:01
Beth Butram
Right.
00:06:20:03 – 00:06:42:04
Agent Palmer
Just because you have explored this for a while, I find that that is enough. But I’m aware that there are people that I’m friends with where that is not enough, and balancing that particular instance of friendship and community, I think I find to be the hardest of all of them.
00:06:42:07 – 00:07:10:02
Beth Butram
Agree it is difficult and it depends on what your end goal is really an especially since the pandemic and beyond has relied on digital friendships. So many more people are even working remotely and are becoming more self-contained. I like to say self-contained, more so than isolated. But but there is an element of isolation there, and you get used to it.
00:07:10:02 – 00:07:35:15
Beth Butram
And over time that becomes your new normal. And then one day you might wake up and you might think, kind of like I did a little bit towards the end of the pandemic, I woke up one day and there was a lot of other stuff we could get into. That kind of caused me to do a deeper dive into my own psyche, but I was like, I miss getting together with people and doing things.
00:07:35:25 – 00:07:55:41
Beth Butram
I like to be able to go grab a cup of coffee with a friend. I’d like to go to dinner. I’d like to. And I love my husband. I love my family, and it’s great that we spend a lot of quality time together. But every so often you want to just go hang out with your own little tribe.
00:07:55:41 – 00:08:19:58
Beth Butram
And I realized I no longer had one. And so I had to start looking for other things. And I tried a lot. I tried volunteering, and it’s always like a recommendation because it does work for some people. I tried doing the church thing and getting involved at church, but nothing was happening beyond the activity. Like I wasn’t establishing French SIPs.
00:08:19:58 – 00:08:41:16
Beth Butram
I have a really sad story about like actively saying to someone like, I invited her to my house and told her I was, you know, trying to foster friendships. And I got an excuse in response. And I was like, okay, I just like, put my heart on the table and got kind of rejected. So I was like, okay, that’s not working.
00:08:41:16 – 00:09:08:29
Beth Butram
And then finally I found just by happenstance, this meetup.com for women of a certain age. And I had at the time just turned 50, and they were actually going to dinner once a month, even though because, you know, things were starting to open up post-pandemic and it felt a little risky, but I was like starting to get really lonely.
00:09:08:29 – 00:09:36:25
Beth Butram
And so I went to dinner and I met B, who became one of my best friends, and we co-hosted a podcast for about two years together. And through that venue and just going back and back, I just realized how much I liked silly laughter and making jokes and a little bit of gossip and, you know, things that just make life interesting and hearing funny stories.
00:09:36:25 – 00:10:07:57
Beth Butram
And I have another really close friend. Her name is J, and she always has a good story to tell, and she tells it in Technicolor detail and never runs out of stories to tell. So just entertainment. Value galore. And another friend. Her name is PJ and she’s also just lovely. And I just started gathering this group of wonderful women who were in my age category and wanted to socialize every once in a while, so that was really lucky for me.
00:10:07:57 – 00:10:34:45
Beth Butram
I know if you live in a smaller, not a major city and in some places these kinds of groups, there’s Facebook groups out there, there’s sometimes there’s community things at libraries. It just kind of depends, and it’s hard to know where you’ll find it. But if you open yourself to it. I know another friend of mine got involved with a trivia group on Facebook and met some really good friends that way, so you never know where they’re going to be.
00:10:34:45 – 00:10:39:33
Beth Butram
I think the most important thing is just opening yourself to that possibility.
00:10:39:38 – 00:11:10:26
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I mean, that’s it. That’s how I met my wife. I mean, I met my wife through podcasting on Twitter. I wasn’t I mean, I had just gotten out of a relationship. I wasn’t looking for one. And then it just the we started talking on the phone and then, you know, we we met like it. I we weren’t looking, but I think, you know, we’re we, we were open to even if it was just a friendship, we were open to it.
00:11:10:26 – 00:11:16:40
Agent Palmer
And I think that, yeah, a lot of people are.
00:11:16:45 – 00:11:39:49
Agent Palmer
It’s a lot of work is what I’ll say. And it depends on who you want to be friends with. A frequent guest of this podcast, Bill Sweeney, I love him. He’s like a brother. If I don’t call him, I don’t talk to him. And and we know that I think on this show, at some point we talked about it being like, that’s just the way it is.
00:11:39:51 – 00:12:05:21
Agent Palmer
And I don’t begrudge him for that. That’s who he is. That, and I understand that. And I because I’m a phone guy, I guess we would say, especially with all these, you know, relationships of people scattered at the father end of driving distance. I talk to people and I’m the I’m, I’m the guy who calls. That’s like.
00:12:05:23 – 00:12:24:53
Agent Palmer
But I understand my role. Like, that’s I get that that’s that’s fine. But I know a lot of people that are like, that seems like a lot of work. I’m like, yeah, but I get to maintain a friendship, like, I don’t. I don’t talk to Bill for six weeks. And then it’s like we talked yesterday. Oh, no.
00:12:24:56 – 00:12:48:45
Agent Palmer
Like, so he I just kept missing him or whatever. And that’s just the way it works. But you there’s an amount of work. It’s kind of like every, like I, I guess the thing is, we the cliche that movies and romantic comedies kind of always put out is that you should have to. Sometimes you have to work at a relationship, especially a romantic relationship.
00:12:48:45 – 00:13:06:15
Agent Palmer
But why should a friendship be any like, any different? Like, you can work very hard to keep your wife or your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, whatever, but why should your best friend be like, yeah, I don’t like I love you like your brother, but I don’t want to work at it.
00:13:06:20 – 00:13:35:44
Beth Butram
Well, I think sometimes. And I was actually on threads earlier today and somebody had posted something that kind of resonated with me about friendships and, and how they can be just as dramatic as a, as a romantic relationship and how much work it was exactly what you just said. And I kind of maintain that a platonic friendship, a true, you know, BF type of thing, does require just as much work, if not more.
00:13:35:49 – 00:14:05:28
Beth Butram
And you want it to be reciprocal, but you can’t control or hold expectations for the other party. You have to just be willing to accept what you have. I have another friend who we talk once or twice a year, and I have known her since high school. Okay, so that’s many, many years. And every single time we talk, it’s like a three hour conversation and it’s wonderful and fulfilling.
00:14:05:28 – 00:14:26:48
Beth Butram
And I always feel so much lighter after having talked with her. And she’s the first to admit that she’s not good at being the initiator. And I know that about her. And because I accept it, it’s cool. And I don’t get around to it either, because she’s not always top of mind. But every time I get the itch and I call her.
00:14:26:51 – 00:14:38:55
Beth Butram
I mean, it’s like we’ve we talked yesterday just by the way the conversation goes and there’s no judgment. It’s just what it is. And that’s our relationship in a nutshell.
00:14:39:00 – 00:15:15:33
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I and I’m doing it. I tried to a while I guess it’s a bi annual to every couple of years I try to make email a thing again because not everybody likes to get a letter. And that’s a lot of effort, whether you’re going to handwrite it or type it. But I try and reconnect as one of my as one of my friends says, it’s Project Rekindle and I just go through this like, oh, I haven’t talked to so-and-so in a while and I’m going to send them an email, like, as it was meant to be, I’m not selling you anything.
00:15:15:33 – 00:15:40:01
Agent Palmer
I’m not trying to get you to click on anything. I’m not promoting anything. It’s just, hey, hey, Beth, it’s been a few years since we’ve talked or had any communication. How you doing? What’s going on? Hey, I remember you were working on that book. What happened to that? Like, just a genuine. Like when we think about what email was supposed to be, you know, letters, but digital and instant, it’s like like that.
00:15:40:05 – 00:16:05:30
Agent Palmer
And I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m curating a list of people that I want to get back to, and then I’ll start drafting stuff and sending it off. That’ll that’ll probably be my spring, I guess. But you know, again, it’s work. I have to, you know, I if I wasn’t going through, I might remember one of their names if I wasn’t going through my emails and, like, cleaning out old stuff, I’d be.
00:16:05:35 – 00:16:17:10
Agent Palmer
Oh, what happened to Matt? Oh, my God, what happened to Tim? Like, just, you know, like, you do need it. There’s always a lot going on. We need a little refresher.
00:16:17:15 – 00:16:37:24
Beth Butram
Yeah. Even within my ladies group, I’ll attend something that gets scheduled, and all of a sudden, somebody will show up that I totally forgot about because they disappeared off the face of the earth for months. And, I mean, people get busy there. Things happen. Sometimes there’s a medical issue, sometimes there’s a family thing that’s been going on sometimes.
00:16:37:24 – 00:17:03:15
Beth Butram
And we also have people who just don’t do anything in the winter. So you only see them during fair weather, things like that. Yes. It’s just really interesting. And if there wasn’t just this core group of, I don’t know, for maybe five people that put things out on the calendar, we’d never get together. And so it’s just always the few that kind of keep the majority of the group going.
00:17:03:17 – 00:17:27:09
Agent Palmer
I think that’s true of most groups. I mean, because occasionally, like, I guess it doesn’t really matter who I call. And I’m not going to say I’m the center of almost I’m probably just off center of almost every like, circle I’m in. But because I’m the guy who reaches out, like most of the time. Yeah, I’m on for an hour, but a lot of it’s like, hey, Beth, how’s it going?
00:17:27:11 – 00:17:49:51
Agent Palmer
Things are going well. Yes, yes, I did talk to Matt the other day. No, no, I haven’t talked to Bill in a while, but since I talked to him more recently than you did, here’s his update. And so, like, just being part of that hub and spoke and I guess part of it is and this is generational, but I remember my grandparents being the hub of the entire family.
00:17:49:53 – 00:18:15:01
Agent Palmer
And I know my parents are trying, but ignoring ignoring the generational part of it. Life’s different than it was. Life’s different for me than it’s different from my parents than it was for my grandparents. Everybody’s busy. No one has time for anything. I mean, you have to make the time so it can be there, but it’s not as easy as it used to be.
00:18:15:13 – 00:18:37:48
Agent Palmer
And my parents are retired, and I don’t think they sit around just calling family like I imagine my grandmother did. I don’t know that she did that, but it just felt like because she was so in the know, that’s what she did. Even when I become a grandfather, if I become, I don’t think that’s going to be, I don’t I think things have changed too much.
00:18:37:52 – 00:18:40:33
Agent Palmer
Fair enough. But you you got to do something.
00:18:40:35 – 00:18:51:23
Beth Butram
I used to call my dad every Sunday. Okay? And that was. That was our thing. We talked on Sunday afternoons. My mom probably a little bit more often now.
00:18:51:23 – 00:18:56:15
Agent Palmer
When did you start that, though? Like, was that the moment you left the home? Was that.
00:18:56:20 – 00:19:23:30
Beth Butram
It was. I was in my late 20s and he moved. We were living in Illinois at the time and he moved to Vermont. Okay. After my parents divorced and they didn’t have divorce. And, I mean, I had two kids by the time they split. But yeah, he moved to Vermont. And so I just started calling him or he would call me.
00:19:23:30 – 00:19:27:59
Beth Butram
I don’t even remember who started it, and it just became a routine, I guess.
00:19:28:01 – 00:19:28:35
Agent Palmer
I gotcha.
00:19:28:37 – 00:19:43:56
Beth Butram
And then he remarried, and I continued that all way until his dementia got to the point where you couldn’t talk to him on the phone. And then I had to go down to Florida. He was in Florida by that time. So then I was going down to Florida and checking on him and stuff like that.
00:19:43:56 – 00:20:10:25
Agent Palmer
So yeah, I, I still live close ish to my, my parents have always been within an hour of me, but I and I and I had the pleasure of working for my dad for seven years, much to the dismay of my mother, because I just assumed he would tell her stuff. Like I would have lunch with my dad a couple times a week and like, we’d talk not necessarily business related.
00:20:10:28 – 00:20:36:50
Agent Palmer
And so I just never talked. My mother would call me once a month like, hey, I, I exist. And I was like, well, I’m talking to like, I just imagine my parents as a unit. So like, I talked to dad, I’m fine. Like, I’m, I’m covered. And now maybe, maybe it was a little pandemic stuff, but maybe it was, you know, my wife moved in then girlfriend before, right before the pandemic.
00:20:36:50 – 00:20:57:51
Agent Palmer
And maybe it was a little bit of that where, just her relationship with her mother is a little bit closer. And I was like, yeah, I haven’t talked, you know, dad retired and I moved on to another job and it’s like, I haven’t I don’t talk to them as much, so maybe I should. And you know, it’s it’s been it’s been good.
00:20:57:54 – 00:21:24:45
Agent Palmer
But I, I know that that’s a phone thing and not everybody likes the phone. And so I, I don’t know what that would be if like if I was. I’ve got friends who are just not phone people. I don’t know what my relationship with my parents would be if I, if I didn’t talk on the phone, may I guess maybe it would be text ish.
00:21:24:50 – 00:21:33:13
Agent Palmer
But I don’t like text. It’s a it’s it’s a bad form of communication. People like it’s not good.
00:21:33:18 – 00:21:44:44
Beth Butram
Well, I started a habit of calling my mom. I had this crazy, chaotic, terrible one hour commute for nine long years.
00:21:44:48 – 00:21:45:36
Agent Palmer
Both ways.
00:21:45:36 – 00:21:46:10
Beth Butram
Each way.
00:21:46:12 – 00:21:46:51
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:21:47:05 – 00:22:12:06
Beth Butram
So an hour in the morning. I left at 630 so that I could get there before that 8:00 rush. So I was at work at 730, and I started calling my mom because I knew she was up early. And, you know, I didn’t know it at the time, but she was beginning to develop a couple of chronic illnesses, and I would just call her because I would get so bored.
00:22:12:11 – 00:22:30:10
Beth Butram
And then I think the first time was there was a an accident on the freeway. So everything was backed up. And so I called her and I said, you won’t believe it, I’m going to be late to work again because there’s another wreck on the highway. And so it just I started. So then the next day she calls me, she goes, well, how’s the traffic today?
00:22:30:17 – 00:22:52:20
Beth Butram
And we just started talking. I got to know my mom on a whole different level. Through those phone conversations. We were living about 4.5 hours away from one another at the time. And I think, you know, it gave her a little routine that we just didn’t even intend to start. And then so I would call her and then on the way home, I would always listen to an audiobook.
00:22:52:20 – 00:23:13:24
Beth Butram
So it became like this routine, and it was kind of cool because we ended up talking about things. She worked in a hospital doing distribution through, you know, she’d take medical supplies to all the different units, and she had a story to tell about, you know, her coworkers and how she got stuck training this kid who’s always late.
00:23:13:24 – 00:23:32:08
Beth Butram
And I mean, you know, you just learned about her just daily life. And it was really, really cool in retrospect. You know, I don’t think I appreciated it to a great extent at first. But now that she’s gone, I look back on that time and I was like, man, I really got to know her on a different level.
00:23:32:08 – 00:23:41:56
Beth Butram
And I don’t think if I, you know, if that silliness of a couple of accidents on the freeway wouldn’t have happened, I probably would have never started that. So you never know.
00:23:42:01 – 00:24:16:18
Agent Palmer
Yeah. So speaking of you never know, we’ve established that we both kind of are willing to work for it. But you’ve taken it a step further to tell people and help people further. You know, whether it’s the social leopards or whether it’s the blog you’re going out of your way because, look, you don’t have to podcast, so you’re going out of your way to tell people like, it’s okay, you can work at it, or sometimes you’re going to be alone or whatever it is.
00:24:16:18 – 00:24:30:29
Agent Palmer
Sometimes friendships end like you’re going out of your way to explain this to people. Why? I mean, you know what I mean. Like, you have your social stuff, you’ve you’ve got it figured out for you. You didn’t need to do anymore.
00:24:30:31 – 00:25:00:13
Beth Butram
I think what when B and I were doing the podcast together, I think what it was about was twofold. Some of the younger generations are so digital and everything is and I mean, they’re having, quote, relationships with people they have never met. Yep. And they think that if they FaceTime or whatever, you know, other.
00:25:00:27 – 00:25:02:05
Agent Palmer
Whatever platform it is. Yeah.
00:25:02:08 – 00:25:41:15
Beth Butram
If you do that on a daily basis, you’re what’s happening that that constitutes a relationship. And that boggles my mind that you would consider that you were in a, quote, romantic, intimate relationship with someone that you had never actually met in person. That was crazy to me. And I also, the other thing that kind of made me realize this is I was volunteering on a site called Seven Cups, and it is a site where for free, you can go there and you can talk to a listener.
00:25:41:20 – 00:26:04:50
Beth Butram
And I was one of the listeners and I started that during the pandemic just out of boredom, because, you know, you were at home and you couldn’t do anything, and people would come on the site and they would start telling me about their relationship problems, and what should I do? And, and all these people that just didn’t know the first thing about real relationships and how many of these kids that I would be interacting with.
00:26:04:50 – 00:26:26:17
Beth Butram
And I became very popular very quick because they would realize that I was older, and I think they kind of saw me as a mom figure. And I had to stop. I had to turn my green light off when I went on there. Otherwise I would get like 15, 20 chat requests and it was all just texted. You never got to talk to them.
00:26:26:20 – 00:26:53:37
Beth Butram
It was totally anonymous, but they just didn’t know how to even pursue an in-person relationship with pretty much anybody. Their friends were on gaming platforms. Their relationships were all digital, everything about their lives was digital. And that just was crazy to me. And so I started having conversations with some of them and I thought, and they’re like, well, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to meet somebody in real life.
00:26:53:42 – 00:27:21:09
Beth Butram
And that was kind of and I had that conversation with my friend B, and we started just talking about it. And then she was a psychology or is a psychologist. And so she had a different perspective, just about all the other aspects of why it’s difficult for people to feel vulnerable or to, you know, there’s social anxiety, there’s depression, there’s all these other things just being introverted in general, but still wanting a connection.
00:27:21:09 – 00:27:38:15
Beth Butram
And so we started kind of going down all of those pathways, one episode at a time and exploring those reasons and trying to figure it out and talking to other people who had either seen their way through or were still trying to figure it out.
00:27:38:18 – 00:28:05:06
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I, I guess I there’s a part of me I always wonder about my parents, my grandparents, I, I kind of treated all a little bit like autism in that autism is not on the rise. We just know more about it so we can identify it better. I don’t believe that the generations, your generation, you know, you and I are close but not close enough.
00:28:05:09 – 00:28:32:50
Agent Palmer
Your generation and above. I’m going to assume there’s as much social anxiety in your generation as there was in mind, except accepting, given the culture of the time. Beth. Suck it up. Like. And that was, you know, my generation kind of pushed a my generation pushed back on the suck it up response. And I think every generation under me pushed back a lot harder on the suck it up.
00:28:32:55 – 00:28:59:01
Agent Palmer
I do have to wonder though, like, did I don’t like how quote unquote barbaric, the suck it up response is. But it must have worked in some level, because while it must have existed before me and before you, it never seemed like it stopped people to the same level that it stops. Maybe me and some of my cohort.
00:28:59:06 – 00:29:00:37
Agent Palmer
Right. Like it’s there’s something.
00:29:00:37 – 00:29:02:51
Beth Butram
Different shame anymore.
00:29:02:56 – 00:29:03:22
Agent Palmer
Okay?
00:29:03:24 – 00:29:16:36
Beth Butram
You’re allowed to be who you are and there should be no judgment. And I think that that’s a delicate line to walk because that does the opposite of what suck it up does. Right.
00:29:16:38 – 00:29:20:21
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Yeah, it kind of does. It’s almost it’s almost the exact opposite. Yeah.
00:29:20:23 – 00:29:37:46
Beth Butram
Right. And completely politically incorrect. Right. To even suggest that you fight against what you feel your authentic self is all about. Yeah. So that’s really rough. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen all of the Julian himself videos.
00:29:37:49 – 00:29:38:18
Agent Palmer
No.
00:29:38:20 – 00:30:03:02
Beth Butram
Yeah. They’re kind of fun. And you know, just talking about not going with your gut. And I don’t even know how to explain it, but just bringing things out of people in really interesting ways. You should look at some of his videos. He’s pretty easy to find out on YouTube, but it’s a different world and psychology and, you know, people are more open to it, to therapy these days.
00:30:03:04 – 00:30:14:06
Beth Butram
In my generation, you know, there was something wrong with you if you saw therapy beyond maybe some marriage counseling. And now it’s it’s much more acceptable.
00:30:14:15 – 00:30:14:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:30:14:37 – 00:30:17:08
Beth Butram
And I don’t know what that means to society.
00:30:17:13 – 00:30:44:11
Agent Palmer
I mean, I guess it’s weird because there’s a, you know, just from here. And look, I, I have social anxiety and I’ve worked through it without therapy or drugs. I’m not better, but I can live, you know, and I can go out, I can do things. But I also feel like therapy is somewhere closer to the I am who I am than the suck it up.
00:30:44:16 – 00:31:04:56
Agent Palmer
So you know what I mean. Like, either there’s going to be a breakthrough, or you’re just going to feel more comfortable being who you are, right? And being more comfortable who you are doesn’t necessarily mean that if you’re afraid of flying, you’re going to get on a plane like so. There’s this vastly different. And yeah, I know social norms change, and I understand that that’s kind of the way things are.
00:31:05:08 – 00:31:29:23
Agent Palmer
I do worry that like, if we’re not in a cycle right now and people are going to come back to the social end of the spectrum that like, could, could be kind of lonely for a lot of people for a long time, I hope not. I mean, that’s kind of what you are putting out there is try some things, do some new things for someone else’s experience.
00:31:29:33 – 00:31:53:29
Beth Butram
Right, right. And you know, there there’s a lot out there trending about letting go of so much digitalization and and getting out there and, you know, putting your phone down and taking a walk for no particular reason. And I mean, there’s some definite health impacts that are very good about just getting outside and getting some sunshine. Right. You can’t.
00:31:53:33 – 00:31:55:48
Beth Butram
Vitamin D is science.
00:31:55:50 – 00:31:57:50
Agent Palmer
Yeah. There’s nowhere else you can get that right.
00:31:57:52 – 00:32:19:27
Beth Butram
And you know, the whole effects of I mean, I think in this day and age, I don’t remember growing up and hearing anything about serotonin or cortisol or any of that. And now it’s all over the internet, and you can Google all your symptoms and try to figure out what’s wrong with you on the internet. And you know, that didn’t exist when I was growing up.
00:32:19:27 – 00:32:25:44
Beth Butram
So, I mean, it’s just everything is so different these days. It’s hard to not try to evolve with it.
00:32:25:46 – 00:32:57:56
Agent Palmer
Well, so that’s a good question because I, I am the last generation because I’m in my mid 40s right now, but I’m the last generation that had the same childhood you did. And I know that because I, I’m an only child, but I have friends with younger siblings and because the internet kind of cracked when we were in high school, our elementary and middle school was maybe TV was different for us, but everything else was go outside, don’t, don’t don’t be in front of the TV.
00:32:58:01 – 00:33:20:55
Agent Palmer
Come home when the the the lights come on. You could, you know, tell me when you’re at so-and-so’s house, you could eat dinner at anybody’s house as long as you were like, you know, like it should. I know I’m the last. I know everybody after me grows up a little bit more connected, and everybody after them a little bit more connected and a little bit more connected.
00:33:20:57 – 00:33:25:47
Beth Butram
Right? My kids all had cell phones by early high school.
00:33:25:50 – 00:33:44:32
Agent Palmer
Okay, I believe I don’t think I had one in high school because I remember band cross country track. I remember having a quarter to call from the payphone. Hey, mom. I’m done. Please. Or hate somebody, come pick me up. I’m done. And I remember it was a payphone.
00:33:44:34 – 00:33:45:10
Beth Butram
Oh, wow.
00:33:45:12 – 00:33:56:50
Agent Palmer
Maybe. Maybe we had, like, upgraded to, like, a calling card at that point, so I didn’t need to carry the change, but I remember it. I don’t think it was until college that I got the cell phone.
00:33:56:52 – 00:34:19:01
Beth Butram
Oh, I bought my little one. He was in marching band and his all his stuff. It was the middle of the night. Sometimes when they came home and I didn’t, I volunteered for his marching band, but I wasn’t going to all those away games. And I would be like, yeah, you just, you know, call me and wake me up and I’ll come get you whenever you get home.
00:34:19:03 – 00:34:23:56
Beth Butram
Yeah. That was that was his reason for getting one was for my convenience.
00:34:24:00 – 00:34:47:40
Agent Palmer
I mean, that’s that’s a pretty good reason. It’s it’s better than, you know, any of the other reasons, I mean, but you. But so here’s the thing, though. We don’t have, like, decades between us, but we have enough where we’ve both kind of seen all the changes. How have you adapted like, I mean, it like, whether you like it or not.
00:34:47:42 – 00:34:59:06
Agent Palmer
Like, have you adapted at all, like, or are you still doing things you used to? I mean, obviously nobody’s using a typewriter anymore, but like, have you have you been able to adapt the whole way?
00:34:59:15 – 00:35:11:43
Beth Butram
Oh, I think so for the most part. Although, you know, I think Covid about broke me because I did experience some pretty significant loneliness in that.
00:35:11:46 – 00:35:13:50
Agent Palmer
Now, were you social before then?
00:35:13:53 – 00:35:35:39
Beth Butram
Yes, much more so. Right. Okay. I was feeling a little well, there’s a whole back story where, you know, I got married, I moved 60 miles north of where I was, and that transition to a slightly smaller college town was pretty difficult. I was having trouble connecting with people. So.
00:35:35:49 – 00:35:38:51
Agent Palmer
And your whole circle was 60 miles down the road.
00:35:38:54 – 00:36:02:31
Beth Butram
Right. And then. So then that circle, you know how it is when you’re not around, it starts to kind of decline. And then all of a sudden I kind of woke up one day thinking, oh, man. And then my dad got sick. And so then my focus kind of went that direction. And then after he passed and I was through all of that grief process, we could have a whole nother show just talking about that.
00:36:02:33 – 00:36:23:36
Beth Butram
Then I decided I needed to get some kind of connection. So what I ended up doing was going back to my younger roots. I just kind of was like, well, what did I used to do that really made, like fulfilled my passion and the things that I like are singing in theater and, you know, just kind of that kind of stuff.
00:36:23:36 – 00:36:41:40
Beth Butram
So I joined a local community theater, and I did a little bit of everything there. I did everything from bartending to stage managing to run in the lights to acting and everything in between. So met a whole lot of people that way. And then Covid.
00:36:41:40 – 00:36:42:33
Agent Palmer
Hit, okay.
00:36:42:35 – 00:36:46:18
Beth Butram
But that was kind of like my outlet for that period of time.
00:36:46:23 – 00:37:22:35
Agent Palmer
I need to, I mean, so sadly, before the pandemic, my thing was podcasting. And at the time, podcasting was very closely related to Twitter. And so I met all these people, but I met all these people all over the place, like, I’m, I’m on the East Coast. So while it’s cool to have friends in, say, Oregon and California like that, I we’re not hanging out like that was just not happening.
00:37:22:40 – 00:37:42:46
Agent Palmer
And so yeah, I mean, I always had those friends. But again, if you if they’re not down the street kind of the way we started this conversation, if they’re not down the street, you need to make an effort. Because if they’re not down the street, then it’s are you free for me to drive 90 minutes, two hours, three hours to get together?
00:37:42:51 – 00:38:03:23
Agent Palmer
At what point for either you or me, is it too far to do in a day? And so now I have to worry about an overnight and where can I stay? And how does all like and the logistics of. And you have a family, or you have a wife, or you have kids or you don’t, or like, you have a job that’s not 9 to 5 and you don’t have weekends and you do.
00:38:03:23 – 00:38:33:57
Agent Palmer
And what it just gets like, I understand it, I like I get it and I like, I have to say, hearing just the brief ist of your story, the fact that you found you went back to theater and found community there. Like, I know Covid kind of put a wrench in it, but the fact that you even went out there at all should be applauded, because I don’t know how many I don’t I don’t know that I would have thought of that as an example.
00:38:34:02 – 00:38:55:39
Beth Butram
Well, I am a social animal. So, you know, when the loneliness started really hitting hard, I had to get creative. And that was just I mean, that’s not for everybody. But that was like I had to dig deep to like, come up with ideas. And God bless my husband. He is such a good man. And he’s talk about an intentional friend.
00:38:55:42 – 00:39:24:02
Beth Butram
That man has friends like you all over, but he has managed to turn that into reasons to travel. Okay, so like right after he. No, it was before he retired. He wanted to go on a road trip. He had his the whole thing. You know, when I first met him, the day I met him was the day after he had picked up this souped up 2005 convertible Mustang.
00:39:24:06 – 00:39:45:22
Beth Butram
Okay. And it was a complete red flag for me. I wasn’t going to have anything to do with this man because he bought the chick magnet car. He was going to be, you know, out carousing and probably going to have six girlfriends by next Tuesday. And, and we met at a singles event in the big city of Indianapolis.
00:39:45:24 – 00:40:15:15
Beth Butram
And I couldn’t figure out why, because he lived like a whole hour away. And I’m like, why would you come down here? Are you that desperate? I mean, I couldn’t figure them out, but he got in that car like six months after I met him and he drove the route 66 or route 66, and he had friends in several places along that, you know, or close to that had retired that he still kind of stayed in touch with on Facebook or whatever.
00:40:15:15 – 00:40:37:43
Beth Butram
And he made plans to go visit, and he met up with 2 or 3 of those friends along that road trip and really cool. And then after we got married, he wanted to go down to Florida because some friends that I had met and we’d gone out to dinner a bunch of times, they retired down to Florida, and we took a trip down there just to go see them.
00:40:37:45 – 00:40:56:54
Beth Butram
Okay. And so it was very intentional. But I mean, he’ll do that at the drop of a hat. And that friend, the one friend that I talked to you about earlier, who I only talked to a couple times a year. Yeah. He knew that she lived in Tennessee. Well, we went down to deliver my mom’s ashes to my brother down in Atlanta, Georgia area.
00:40:56:54 – 00:41:29:06
Beth Butram
And on the way back, we made plans to meet her as we were coming through Tennessee Kentucky border and had lunch with her and her partner. And so, I mean, he’s just very thoughtful that way. And he has created all of these opportunities to connect with people that he wouldn’t actually do. I have a friend who was a was somebody who reported to me and lives out in Arizona, and she’s like, anytime you’re in the area, you come visit me.
00:41:29:06 – 00:41:49:22
Beth Butram
And I always think, oh, yeah, they don’t really mean it, but I think she really does. And so I’ve started talking to him about maybe we should plan that and go on out there. And I have another podcasting buddy who lives in Oklahoma, and she’s like, if you’re ever out this way, let’s meet up. So I mean, sometimes I think that’s empty words, but other times I think, you know what?
00:41:49:24 – 00:42:00:19
Beth Butram
It would be cool to meet up in person with these people. And so that’s kind of like one of my retirement goals as I start to kind of get ready to close down my career, hopefully.
00:42:00:21 – 00:42:30:46
Agent Palmer
So I will tell you, my wife and I are not too far removed from that. When my wife decided to move in, she was living in Arizona. I’m in Pennsylvania. She stopped twice on her journey here, and one of them was just because it’s a long journey. But the second time her stop before she actually made it to my house was to meet a friend who we knew from podcasting along the way.
00:42:30:46 – 00:42:53:25
Agent Palmer
And since then I’m just like, oh, you know what? Like a road trip would be cool because we know enough people on the edge of that 12 hour drive range where, like, you could go from friend to friend to friend. Now, I’m not saying we’d be able to stay with everybody, but we’d be able to see them from friend to friend, from East Coast to West Coast.
00:42:53:25 – 00:43:28:37
Agent Palmer
And like, it’s it’s if if you have the, the network of this and you know, it doesn’t have to be the US, it could be Canada, could be Europe. Like if, if you have this digital footprint that allows you to meet people from all over and they’re within driving range, like you can set up really cool, you know, road trips to, to meet people for the first time, to connect, reconnect with people, as the case may be.
00:43:28:40 – 00:43:34:20
Agent Palmer
I mean, it’s it’s definitely something we’ve thought about, challenge.
00:43:34:20 – 00:43:38:06
Beth Butram
It’s a challenge. Now we need to plan that.
00:43:38:10 – 00:43:38:37
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:43:38:39 – 00:43:40:27
Beth Butram
I double dare you.
00:43:40:29 – 00:43:57:07
Agent Palmer
It’s the you know what it is? It’s the time, I think if because because, you know, we could do it with a month off. But I feel like I would be shortchanging everybody along that trip, like. All right. Hey, it’s great. We could have a meal and then we have to be so-and-so in ten more hours, like I would.
00:43:57:09 – 00:44:01:04
Agent Palmer
I would almost want it to be like two full months of like, can we get.
00:44:01:09 – 00:44:14:18
Beth Butram
No, I think there’s some fun in that, too. It’s like a game show that you’re on this reality trip. Road trip. Massive. How many people can I see in a three week period? I don’t know.
00:44:14:23 – 00:44:15:25
Beth Butram
All right. You can make anything.
00:44:15:25 – 00:44:16:13
Beth Butram
You want to be.
00:44:16:15 – 00:44:18:20
Agent Palmer
I’ll, I’ll. I’ll consider it.
00:44:18:22 – 00:44:26:43
Agent Palmer
I’ll consider it.
00:44:26:48 – 00:44:44:18
Agent Palmer
There’s plenty to say about loneliness that Beth and I barely scratched the surface on. And I’ve implored you before, especially if you’re a long time listener, to reach out to someone. If you think of them, I wonder what Grant is up to. I’ll just call him or email him or text him and find out. These things are not easy.
00:44:44:18 – 00:45:08:51
Agent Palmer
Friendships, meaningful relationships, platonic as well as romantic, are two way streets. They take a lot of work and sometimes even hard work. But as I say this, I know people seem to love and intermediary when it comes to advice. You must have encountered this before you tell someone something, and you tell someone something, and you tell someone something, and they don’t do it until they hear the same thing from someone else.
00:45:08:55 – 00:45:37:53
Agent Palmer
So since this episode is coming out, as I’m reading Michael Caine’s fourth autobiography, Don’t Look Back, you’ll trip over, I’ll quote him, and perhaps that will resonate more. And as a third party for passing on knowledge, he’s legendarily overqualified, but nonetheless, quote, friendship, like everything valuable in life, is something you have to work at, not in the sense of a chore, but taking active steps to keep in touch with people who matter to you and quote.
00:45:38:03 – 00:45:56:50
Agent Palmer
So reach out. Do the things you have to do, the things that must be done. Don’t go quietly. Call people. Reach out to them. Let them know you care. No matter how long it has been, you’ll feel better and you’ll probably make their day. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 175. And now for the official business.
00:45:56:52 – 00:46:25:56
Agent Palmer
The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact Beth or myself in the show notes. You can see Beth’s Substack at Substack. That’s Butram. You can also listen to her stories, meditations, and affirmations on YouTube.com by Beth. The music for this episode was provided by email, and comments can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com.
00:46:25:56 – 00:47:14:48
Agent Palmer
And remember your home for all things Agent Palmer is Agent Palmer.
00:47:14:53 – 00:47:15:31
Agent Palmer
All right, Beth.
00:47:15:33 – 00:47:17:06
Agent Palmer
You have one final question for me.
00:47:17:07 – 00:47:40:17
Beth Butram
So tell me one thing that I would never, even if I had known you for ten years. What’s the one thing that I wouldn’t know or wouldn’t believe you had done in your lifetime? Like something you haven’t told hardly anyone, or it was so long ago that you kind of forgot about it.
00:47:40:20 – 00:47:46:05
Agent Palmer
So this is where the podcast ruins a little bit of this question a little bit.
00:47:46:10 – 00:47:47:22
Agent Palmer
No, no.
00:47:47:27 – 00:48:08:01
Agent Palmer
I mean, I have talked about a lot of it. So like within the last. So let’s assume you don’t you’re a friend. But you for the for the last decade you’ve been a friend, but you don’t listen to the podcast. I don’t know that it would have come up that I spent a semester abroad in Jerusalem. I did a whole episode about it, but I don’t know that.
00:48:08:04 – 00:48:28:07
Agent Palmer
Like so before the podcast I was in, I had a job where I was in an office of 13 people for about nine years. There was very little turnover, I would say, for like at least six and a half years. There was the same 11 people. I don’t know that any of them knew that. I spent a semester abroad in Jerusalem.
00:48:28:10 – 00:48:46:30
Agent Palmer
Right. Like so. That one is one where if you didn’t listen to the podcast and that whole episode I did about you wouldn’t have known. And again, because it was so long ago, it was a high school semester. Why would I like why why would I bring that up? Like that’s unless unless we’re legitimately at like one of those weird corporate icebreakers.
00:48:46:30 – 00:49:20:14
Agent Palmer
Like, have you spent any time abroad or overseas? Like it’s never coming up. I think on our daily ish basis, like I play guitar, I think that would have come up. Like some of that stuff is just hobby stuff that would come up again if you didn’t listen to the podcast, would, you know, I had social anxiety. I hid it really well when I had to do something that made me uncomfortable, I, I just put on a mask basically.
00:49:20:19 – 00:49:41:49
Agent Palmer
And there are people who I worked with that didn’t know I had it. So that might be maybe a surprisingly, I guess that’s that comes down to, how close we were during those ten years, because even friends were surprised for a while, I guess I, I hid it from everybody but my closest inner circle. So those are two.
00:49:42:01 – 00:50:05:35
Agent Palmer
But other than that, yeah, it would just come down to like, what question hadn’t you asked in the last ten years as we were talking? Because I’m not as as 1st May have guessed, but you didn’t have to be like, I don’t have to have this podcast for it. Like, I’m a talker and I I’ll, I’ll call you up and we’ll trade stories.
00:50:05:35 – 00:50:32:55
Agent Palmer
And that’s kind of been my way of communicating with friends, even the ones that were just scattered hours away. And you’re just not going to see them. That’s been the way since college, since college broke up, the high school crew and since graduation broke up the college crew. I’ve been talking to people on the phone because it was the most convenient form of connection.
00:50:33:00 – 00:50:39:50
Beth Butram
And that’s one of the things that makes you a good podcaster, because you can just, you know, converse with anybody for any reason.
00:50:39:52 – 00:51:04:41
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I mean, I’ve had a lot of practice and, and but again, I think some of it is I’m I guess the other thing is I was maybe the angst, maybe the anxiety I was truly hiding or trying to keep close to the vest, the, the, the, the, the semester overseas. It just has to come up. And I’ll be honest about I’m not, you know, again, it’s not anything I’m hiding.
00:51:04:46 – 00:51:21:59
Agent Palmer
But once you hit 30, who asks you about high school? Nobody like. You know what I mean? Like it’s just no one. So, like. I mean, I was in every kind of band, pep, symphonic, jazz, marching. That’s never going to come up.
00:51:22:02 – 00:51:22:57
Beth Butram
What did you play?
00:51:22:59 – 00:51:23:57
Agent Palmer
Tenor saxophone.
00:51:23:59 – 00:51:26:14
Beth Butram
Oh, my son did that. My eldest son.
00:51:26:14 – 00:51:27:57
Beth Butram
Was a bonus.
00:51:28:01 – 00:51:46:05
Agent Palmer
So I guess that might be a surprise because again, unless it comes up in conversation in some boy, that would be weird to just have that come out. Just like out of nowhere, like. Oh yeah. So I know we’ve known each other for a few years now. What instruments do you play like? That’s the the like, it just doesn’t come up.
00:51:46:05 – 00:52:35:48
Agent Palmer
So, you know, obviously there are things, but it’s very weird when when you put it that way because, But I’ll go a step further. Okay. I did a series as of this recording, which is undone, called the Proust series, where I had friends on Ask me questions from the Proust Questionnaire. And one of my friends who this is, we’re going on at least two decades now as a friend from college asked me what my favorite color was and prefaced the rest before I answered by saying, I think I know, but I don’t actually know because we’re not in third grade anymore, right?
00:52:35:50 – 00:52:51:42
Agent Palmer
Like when you’re in third grade. Hey, Beth, do you want to be my friend? My favorite color is blue or whatever, but he didn’t know. He guessed it was orange. And I would have to say, begrudgingly, I don’t really have a favorite color, but I guess orange would have been. But it’s kind of like in that frame of reference.
00:52:51:49 – 00:53:22:04
Agent Palmer
There are things we just don’t talk about. What’s your favorite food? I don’t like I, I these are you know what I mean? But these are things that when we talk about friendship on a younger basis. Favorite color, favorite food, favorite cartoon. These are foundational to your friendship and what you know about your friend. And here you could have known me for ten years, and I could surprise you by saying, you know, my favorite color was orange.
00:53:22:04 – 00:53:54:45
Agent Palmer
I guess now it’s blue because it’s my wife’s favorite color. So I wear a lot of it for her. You know, I, I guess right now my favorite food is ramen, and I, I don’t know what my favorite TV would be, I guess. Sports Night by Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing. Sorkin. Right. Like I. And there’s three things that probably never would have come up in ten years, because.
00:53:54:50 – 00:54:13:44
Agent Palmer
How was your day? What are you doing for lunch? What are you doing this weekend? Like, I know, I remember what the standard conversation used to be, but you would have been shocked to know this, that or the other thing because we just we don’t talk about it. So I will ask Beth, what’s your favorite color.
00:54:13:49 – 00:54:15:54
Beth Butram
Oh my goodness purple okay.
00:54:15:56 – 00:54:16:39
Agent Palmer
All right.
00:54:16:42 – 00:54:19:25
Beth Butram
I it’s just always been that way.
00:54:19:27 – 00:54:20:03
Agent Palmer
All right.
00:54:20:03 – 00:54:24:10
Agent Palmer
And when was the last time anyone asked you what your favorite color was?
00:54:24:15 – 00:54:25:44
Beth Butram
My granddaughter I think.
00:54:25:46 – 00:54:26:22
Beth Butram
Okay, probably.
00:54:26:22 – 00:54:35:14
Beth Butram
Was a person to ask me, but that’s because, you know, she was trying to figure it out herself. And and her favorite color change is like the wind right.
00:54:35:14 – 00:54:37:21
Beth Butram
Now, so.
00:54:37:26 – 00:54:56:56
Agent Palmer
Well, I have I have a young in myself. So I’m I’m just waiting for the talking to start. That’s what I’m waiting for. And as a podcaster, you know that that’s I you know, everybody’s like walking and no, I want the talking. I want the talk. I want to know what’s going on inside that little head. When’s the talking start?
00:54:56:58 – 00:55:06:15
Beth Butram
There is nothing better than that. Well, and then, you know, don’t don’t give in to the what’s your favorite color? Because as soon as you color their bedroom, like, paint it.
00:55:06:20 – 00:55:06:51
Beth Butram
It’s.
00:55:06:51 – 00:55:07:22
Agent Palmer
It’s going to.
00:55:07:22 – 00:55:07:39
Agent Palmer
Change.
00:55:07:43 – 00:55:11:58
Beth Butram
On a different color. Yes. We’ve been through that several times.
00:55:12:00 – 00:55:16:07
Agent Palmer
All right. That’ll be I’ll write that in my parenting notebook.
00:55:16:12 – 00:55:20:45
Beth Butram
Gotta wait if it’s still their favorite color. Six months later okay.
00:55:20:50 – 00:55:23:26
Agent Palmer
Six months. That’s the okay.
00:55:23:28 – 00:55:41:27
Beth Butram
I think. So if it sticks around, it’s like you pay all that money for all those toys. I mean, we went through so much, we bought every poor patrol, everything there was for that girl when she was a toddler. But the good news is that there were other kids that.
00:55:41:29 – 00:55:41:56
Beth Butram
Like.
00:55:41:58 – 00:55:49:15
Beth Butram
Okay, got them. And then when they were finished, it went to. And I mean, we got our money’s worth out of that Paw patrol investment.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).