Life’s Short, Get Ducks Part III: Put To The Fiery Test

Rocky Leflore: Welcome to the End of the line podcast. I’m Rocky Leflore and sitting in Ducks South studios with me today, Jake Latendresse, Ramsey Russell. Guys, how are you?

Ramsey Russell: Good. Man, I’m good. I’m in the air condition.

Jake Latendresse: Is it hot down there?

“In this fall living up in Colorado, Jake, I’m telling you right now you have got it made, what people call hot up there is a nice spring day down here in the Deep South. [cite_start]It’s just, and I’m not complaining too much, I live, I’ve crafted a life where I spent a lot of my time living in Duck Season Somewhere, so, I get to escape this heat just a little bit, but man, it’s a frog choker out there. [cite: 253, 254]”,

Ramsey Russell: Oh boy, is it hot? Man is it hot? Yes, hot. In this fall living up in Colorado, Jake, I’m telling you right now you have got it made, what people call hot up there is a nice spring day down here in the Deep South. It’s just, and I’m not complaining too much, I live, I’ve crafted a life where I spent a lot of my time living in Duck Season Somewhere, so, I get to escape this heat just a little bit, but man, it’s a frog choker out there.

“I was telling somebody today said, man, if I had enough money and enough resources, three months out of the year, I would be in Montana every year.”

Rocky Leflore: I was telling somebody today said, man, if I had enough money and enough resources, three months out of the year, I would be in Montana every year. That’s the summer months in Mississippi.

Jake Latendresse: It’s 84° here today, so, and no humidity. Sorry but –

Ramsey Russell: I think it was 84° here this morning, about 05:30 AM you know.

Jake Latendresse: With lots of 100% humidity or at least 80% humidity.

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah, and we haven’t even got there yet, Jake, come July it’ll be just, it’ll be ruthless, right now, it’s just hot. You just break a little bit of sweat walking to the mailbox.

Rocky Leflore: And Ramsey, you know something that we’ve been talking about, is these nostalgic things that bring backs a memory. Man, do you hear those cicadas? The locust in January and August. I mean July and August. You’re talking about striking up a memory.

Ramsey Russell: Oh sure does.

Rocky Leflore: Takes me back to being a barefooted kid. I didn’t need shoes because my feet were as hard as a rock bottom, of the rubber on shoes. I stayed there for my whole life.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, exactly. No, I agree. Here in cicadas in the summertime is well that just harkens the wonder years here in the Deep South. Well, I mean in this time of year, you don’t see as many as I did growing up, but you know, the fireflies are out this time of year, that’s always nice to see.

Jake Latendresse: When I go back to the south, which I don’t do that often, particularly in the heat of the summer. I can relate to what you’re talking about with the cicadas because when I go back home, I go out to our farm, man, as soon as I pull up and open the door, all these sounds and sights and smells and all the things that reminded me, that remind me of being a kid, come back, it comes back strong, it’s interesting how deep that can go, you know what I mean? It just takes me right back to my childhood.

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah. Yeah, we do that a lot. It’s funny how they, you never really get away from it. You just love it. It’s like, there’s a lot of time in my life, later going up through college and stuff like that, I thought I wanted to leave the Deep South, you know, go out west or do something like that and it just wasn’t in the cards, I mean, and once I started having, my family and I, started having children, I was just stuck, I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to raise them anywhere outside of where I had been raised, you know, and but there for a spell, I did want to move somewhere else, Rocky and I was talking about this, we’re eating crawfish a couple of weekends ago and I told him, I said man, it’s hot out here and everything else, wouldn’t it be nice to live somewhere else? And so we posed the question, where else would you live? We sat there and kept eating crawfish and finally just change the subject, there wasn’t anywhere else we wanted to live than right here.

“I can. I mean, again, I can relate to that too because you know, my kids, we live, we used to live out in the country here in Fort Collins, we had five acres in a really small little ranch house me and my wife did, then we started having kids, my wife started lobbying with me to sell the property and move you know, closer to the city into this school district, there would be much better for our kids and that was like a no brainer for me. I mean what are you going to say?”

Jake Latendresse: I can. I mean, again, I can relate to that too because you know, my kids, we live, we used to live out in the country here in Fort Collins, we had five acres in a really small little ranch house me and my wife did, then we started having kids, my wife started lobbying with me to sell the property and move you know, closer to the city into this school district, there would be much better for our kids and that was like a no brainer for me. I mean what are you going to say? No, we’re not going to do that. But you know, I look at it sometimes and go I live in a subdivision, I’m sure which I’ve never done in my life and I look at what my kids do on a daily basis for their afternoon activities or whatever, I go, man, it would have been so cool to grow up like I did, you know, out in the country where I could literally get on my bike and grab a fishing rod and head down to the river or a creek or whatever it was, and my kids are kind of, you know, they’re kind of stucked into the concrete here and I missed that and I hope I don’t regret that with my life.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I don’t think you will. You know, it’s all good. I mean, the flip side of that is, I’ve lived in subdivisions that’s being married and the flip side is know your kids have friends to play with and a lot of stuff like that do to, you know.

Rocky Leflore: Well, speaking of being a kid, Ramsey last week as we left life’s short Get duck episode, spend a lot of time in your younger preteen years and we had started working our way up into the teenager years. It was a great episode to really explain to people where you came from, how you were raised, what you were like then?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, well, you know, it’s been a jaunt through memory lane, that’s for sure, and you know to everybody listening all three of you, because I know my mom’s listening, hey mom, you know, I’d say I had a great childhood grew up and I see where, you know, it’s talking it through it did lay some foundation for later in life, but after 3 podcasts, we’re up to about age 15 and I can sum it all up if you all didn’t hear the other ones, you know, basically I was a precocious child with had hopefully too little adult supervision in my life. I was ADD, I loved the outdoors and I really didn’t have a whole lot of adult supervision in my life. And I did tend to get into a little bit of trouble, not criminal trouble, just trouble, trouble, you know, regular boy trouble and all that kind of stuff. You know, I did academically because of my attention span and everything. I did so poorly between 9^th and 10^th grade that I went to summer school. I mean, I just bombed everything as best I can remember. I don’t think I passed a single subject and I know that broke my old granddaddy’s heart. Now remember he was valedictorian of his classroom started from dirt and built up a nice American dream life, believed in education and being smart and everything else. And I’m sure it broke his heart to his first grandson ended up not doing well in school, but my mother sent me to spend the summer with my grandmother, her mother who lived in Greenwood, Mississippi. I went to summer school that summer during the Greenwood High School. It was interesting because it was kind of around in curb, you know, because looking back now, it put me right back in the Delta, I was home, I always spent the summer living in the biggest constant of my entire life is my grandmother’s home, the home she was born in fact, it was just, it felt like home more than any other building I’ve ever walked in, but I spent the summer there, I went to summer school, excuse me I just got a text, had to read, but we went to, I went to summer school and I don’t remember exactly what I took, I do remember taking Biology, it was interesting because half of that class in summer school was underachievers like myself, let’s say, and half of them were smart kids, you know, that were there to get ahead in life. And when you know it’s a lot of those kids on that side were people I played little league, P.E, football with or little league baseball, you know, they’re in the Delta, we hit it right off and it was just a wonderful summer. You know, boy, 15 or 16 years old, that age is such a great time in a guy’s life because you know, you finally kind of getting out what your own personal biology is all about. You know, you’re starting to notice girls, they’re noticing you, you’re at that stage of life, you don’t have any real worries in life, you know, except getting through school and playing by the rules and things of that nature and I just, I was back home. You know, I was, man, we were going out fishing in the afternoons in different places and my grades, heck man, I passed both classes in two or three credits and everything was going great. It was a real wonderful summer in my life and by the time I guess I’d gotten back after summer school, I was kind of a little bit more of a conformist than I had been. You know, maybe did a little bit better in school, you know, it was just a real special year.

Rocky Leflore: Well, Ramsey is talking during our pre-production time, you know, you had a couple of different jobs and one of them was working at a local staple, right?

“I never forget and had that owner of those stable caught me, had he seen or known what happened, I promise you, he’d buried me in the back pasture in an unmarked grave. [cite_start]I know, he didn’t coming in early one Saturday morning I get in it, you know, around the crack of dawn to start, real unusual that he was there, he rounded me up, told me, overcome here Russell, let me show you something. [cite: 311, 312]”,

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, back that year, I buss tables and I had, you know, spent 9^th grade working at some stables, doing cleaning all the stable boy man, I cleaned about 40 stalls every Saturday and Sunday for little or nothing, but it was great work. I enjoyed it, being around the horses and to this day now I’m going to tell you, I can’t stand the horse, I hate a horse ever since those days. And I think it all goes back, I’ve been stepped on and kicked and everything else from those hard headed horse. I know all these folks love their horses, I get it, but I don’t share that right there. I never forget and had that owner of those stable caught me, had he seen or known what happened, I promise you, he’d buried me in the back pasture in an unmarked grave. I know, he didn’t coming in early one Saturday morning I get in it, you know, around the crack of dawn to start, real unusual that he was there, he rounded me up, told me, overcome here Russell, let me show you something. We went down into the end of the barn in the last all the big old palomino stud horse and he had bought for roping. He’s a big head inhaling type guy, you know expensive horse. And he told, he said look boy, watch out for this one, okay. I said yes, he said no, watch out for this horse. I said yes sir. Well, you know I let those horses out, I closed the barns or closed the doors and sliding doors and lead us out to the barn is pretty long barn had probably 30 stalls in it and then you let the horse out and he walked up and down and do his stuff sometimes you know I might take the horse out across the little drive right there and turn him loose in the pin, while I was doing their stuff and filling up their water things and that palomino stud horse was the last one of the day. And I had flat forgotten everything, he told me about looking out for that horse. Well, that horse hasn’t forgotten. It’s like when I opened that stall doors, it’s like he was back as far away from the doors he could get with his head down, his ear back had been waiting on my little butt the whole day. The minute I opened up that door he hit me square in the chest and threw me clear across the barn and took down at a gallop and all I knew was boss man, expensive horses on the loose and on a tear and I need to get a tad bit subdued, so I walked up to get his halter and he jumped up, man, just hi ho, silver bucking his hooves, that and everything else, and his feet hit the ground and try to round him up by his halter again. He did it again, boy, just a mean horse. Let me tell you this, the third time he come up trying to hook me and his feet hit the ground, I had that big old shovel in my hand and I hit a home run, I knock his head clean off. At that moment in time a two year old little girl could have grabbed him by the halter and led him to the stall. It damn near, knocked him off his feet, I hit him inside head so hard with a shovel and from about that moment on I just decided I didn’t really like horses no more. But I had a job to do so I got him cleaned up, put back in there and I damn sure never said a word to the boss about how I got his horse subdued.

Jake Latendresse: You change that horse’s life it sounds like.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I sure did. Man, you know I just, I get people like in the ride, I used to like ride horses and things that nature too and there aren’t one but I rode plenty. You know horses are just a big strong powerful beast and if you’re not expecting it, I mean they let you be on their back because they don’t mind if they want you off their back they’ll get you off. It may take longer than 8 seconds but they’ll get you off from their back. They can hurt you without even trying you know, but that was it, I just had a little odd unskilled jobs all high schooler do you know, that’s kind of how I spend that summer up in Greenwood was in summer school, I did plenty of painting and little patch jobs and long work and I mean my grandmother kept me busy you know around her house and friends’ houses, I had a summer full of stuff to do and besides just bear down on the book.

Rocky Leflore: Ramsey, one thing that both of you, you know that another thing that you and I have talked about and we both fully agree on, that every teenager should at least once in their lives work at a restaurant.

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah buddy man, do we, and that’s a miserable job and those little young waitresses up in there, you know, just getting to know that part of people, you know, it was an eye fall and learning experience, you know, just to work with people like that, but at the same time it was just out there just on understanding humanity, you know what, you know, when they go into restaurants and cleaning it up washing dishes and things are going back in the kitchen, it’s just something else. I couldn’t talk any of my kids into doing it, my wife wouldn’t let me threaten them, but I think every child in America should have to buss tables or serve people in a restaurant environment at least once in your life. You know, you see these family restaurants that have existed forever having worked just at a high school at that level, it just gives me a real newfound sense of appreciation for the word service, you know, those people don’t exist forever by not turning out good service and taking care of customers and cooking good food, you know but yeah that was a –

Rocky Leflore: It played a large part into who you came later on in life right?

Ramsey Russell: It may have, you know, I guess everything, we’ll talk about, you know, kind of played a role in it, but yeah, you know, Yeah, I think it was. I think it really was and it’s, I worked that job throughout my whole, I’ve bussing tables just about my entire sophomore year in high school, I think that’s what I did, you know and the more we got into it, I mean, I think those guys wouldn’t let me, they’d work me 80 hours a week, if my mother let them, you know what I’m saying? I had to be in school sometimes and I didn’t mind if, hey man was working 3.85 an hour or whatever minimum wage was then I was making money, big deal, you know, I don’t have nothing else to do.

Rocky Leflore: I’m going to throw you a curveball Ramsey, at 15 or 16, it kind of goes back to what you were saying that, I’ve used those same terms for too. Start noticing girls, girls start noticing you, I mean, I’m going to bet that you were pretty successful with the ladies.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, I spared a million, I had girlfriends, I did. I had girlfriends and I had a friend girls, you know, I was friend zoned by a couple of them but I had girlfriends, I sure did and that was one of the friends benefits of working at those stable that time were the girls. I mean, all those girls were there because they had a horse, you know, I’m saying, that was a nice friends benefit and I, since them days, I have never wished my daughter be a cowgirl. Let me say that. I just, that’s one part of her life, I’m glad we avoided.

Jake Latendresse: You mean because you know what cowboys are like?

Ramsey Russell: Because I know what cowgirls were like. Yeah, that’s a fact.

Rocky Leflore: Well, hey, one more thing. During that summer, you’re working at the stables, I seem to remember in some of these preproduction meetings that you met a friend that became a dear friend the rest of your life. His first name was old and his last name was charter. Is that right?

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. Oh yeah, that’s right, yeah. Can you imagine a 15 year old kid, you know, taking bourbon shots, you know, at rodeo night or something like that. It’s not like we were just drinking like adults, but we were drinking. Of course and you all got to remember now, before you judge people by listening that don’t remember those days back in the early 80s, late 70s up in that time frame, you’ve got to remember that, that’s back in the days that the legal drinking age is 18 anyway, and from the time I was 15 years old on back in those days, back before a lot of the politics and lobbies and everything else for good reason as a daddy and a family man, I do not want drunks on the road, I can tell you that right now. I think they ought to be all thrown into jail. But nonetheless, back in those days, 15 year old, it looked like he was 12 and I did, I had a baby face, 15 years old. I could go into a quick stop and buy six pack of beer, you know, anywhere down south Jackson and they didn’t check your Id, they just looked on the countertop of what you put on there, you know, 1, 2, 3, that’s $5 son. You can have it. I mean that’s all we did back in those days, like we were riding around just, you know, but back in those days you could drink cold beer or hot beer and boy, once we found out that old charter, you know that made going to fair and back in those days going to those horse shows, rodeo that sure made it, make something look forward to.

Jake Latendresse: Well, it sounds like you had, a lot of people, I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of people laughing or at least giggling at themselves right now because, you know, that sounds like a pretty normal upbringing and in a normal Southern, a Southern upbringing and a fun existence in life, but something happened, was it that year when you were 15 or 16, something happened that drastically changed your life.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s what we kind of been building up to Jake, you know, you and I and Rocky and I was kind of talked about that with some projects we’re working on everything else. But that really was a very monumental year in my life. It was 36 years ago, I had come back from summer school, my grandmother had really found some rounded a curve, found some new bearings, my grades weren’t perfect, they were better. And that summer, just two weeks really before school let out on May 17^th, 1982, the whole world changed. My whole world changed. It was one of the most defining moments. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I spent the last 36 years not talking about it, ignoring it, you know and, not ignoring it, but just burying it. You know, and there’s really a lot of things in life that are just the best forgotten, but I hadn’t forgot that day, you know, in fact, every time I’ve looked in a mirror, every time I wash my hands and every single footstep I’ve taken in the past 36 years, I’m cognizant of that day, it’s just inescapable. No matter how far I travel or anything else in this world, you know, there’s just no escaping the events of that afternoon, it was pivotal. I had, the time I had a springer spaniel, I think, I talked about that earlier, we raise springers and I had a little old springer spaniel. She won’t work to flip but she was a good pet. She howled in the covers at night on the bed, but she was a good little pet and when she wanted them boy, she scratched those doors and my mother been on me about getting the doors painted and cleaned up and I came home one afternoon from school, it was just, boy, what a beautiful day and it’s just that day, middle of May its warm but not hot, everybody is coming home from work mowing the grass and getting their we’d eat and sit down on the patio back in the days, you talk to your neighbors at the mailbox and you know, everybody knew everybody just that time of year, just a beautiful pre-summer day, summer was coming around, so before she got home from work, I had gone out and started painting the doors and doing stuff. She came in, in between jobs she went inside and do something and so I’ve gone out in the store room, you know, just a little old conventional neighborhood home, you know, where you got the garage, but then you got that little storeroom at the end of the garage, little narrow 10 ft. wide or so storeroom, I had to paint those paintbrushes, couldn’t find any mineral spirits, it wouldn’t have mattered whether there was mineral spirits, what it was but I use gases, no big deal I was cleaning my paintbrushes. And then it happened, you know, it’s and I’ll tell you all to anybody still listening that the next 3 months, 4 months of my life is a real dark memory. In fact, it’s like, you know, I’m 52 years old and if each year of my life was a chapter of a book right there, 15, 16 and 17, it’s like those three chapters were just ripped out. You buy this book, 52 chapter long and right in the center on 15, 16, 17 up in that time period we’re fixing to start talking about, it’s just those chapters are gone, they’re absolutely gone. And everything I remember, let’s say chapter 16 is, it’s just real like a surreal dream and then we can talk about that. But it’s just real dark, real clip and then it’s just big voids. I think a lot of it, I was telling Rocky one, but I think a lot of it what I remember, and don’t it may have been just buried in the past, you know, you put things behind you forget about it and some of it, I think was just a place I end up getting myself into because of the situation. But long story short as I was cleaning those paintbrushes, pilot light cut on in the storage room and basically –

Jake Latendresse: The door was closed? Let me back you up for a second –

Ramsey Russell: I don’t know, nobody knows. I don’t know, it wasn’t wide open obviously because there was enough ventilation, but you know, had it, was it shut? Was it not cracked open enough? You know, that kind of stuff, my shop teacher talked about fumes and everything else, come on your 15 year old kid, you’re just clean up a few paintbrush, you don’t really think about that, you don’t think about a little pilot light on a hot water heater, doing that kind of stuff, everybody knows you go throw a flame around gas, it blows up, but you don’t think about, you don’t think about having just a little bit of open container with the gas and stirring paintbrushes for a few minutes as inducing something like what happened. But the event was the explosion was, I mean, it’s just like when that little arc hits the gas vapor in the carburetors it’s just that combustion and it happened and you know, later when I saw pictures years later, when I saw pictures, you know, it literally blew the entire storage room wall to face. It just literally blew all that sheet back out into the, it was significant. It blew it out into the garage.

“Did you feel pressure? Like what that, I was going to say it reminds me like I think it’s the hurt locker.”

Jake Latendresse: Did you feel pressure? Like what that, I was going to say it reminds me like I think it’s the hurt locker. You know where you talked about these, talk or read about these guys that diffuse IEDs and bombs and whatnot and you talk about when the explosion occurs, there’s so much pressure and compression that you know that they say that your, you know, your lungs explode, especially if you have your mouth closed. That’s what happens to people when they die in explosions and in that kind of a situation for it to have enough power and pressure and compression to blow the drywall off of a wall. You must have been, I mean it was fortunate, yet it was really fortunate because you didn’t lose your life. And I know that’s going to bring up a whole another topic, but I’m looking at like what did you, do you remember what you felt and what you saw when it like at the moment it happened?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You know, the instant that it happened, I don’t remember anything of course. I know that the heat was enough inside that, you know, all the plastic fishing rods and tennis shoes, plastic bait, you know all that Styrofoam any of that kind of stuff you keep the store room was gone. I mean, it was just toast. But what I remember is as I emerged let’s say from that door, what I remember is two things kind of my peripheral vision, my mother having to come apart and I remember the garage door opening to let the smoke out and coming under the garage as quick as it was opening was my neighbor across the street, young man newly married started home, he’s in pharmaceutical sales, became good friends throughout my teenage years he just one of them good neighbors and but he was on the scene now what she later described that, she was inside vacuuming or doing something and she heard something and to her it sounded like something had fallen in the attic and she heard me screaming and so she came out to see what was going on and what he later described having heard was me screaming, my mother screaming and just assuming all them dang Russell boys tied into it again, because you know my brothers, I love my brother’s to death. We were close brothers but you know brothers, brother fight and so he come over initially to break us apart because he could hear my mother and I know he must have come over and seen the smoke something going on because when I saw him, I remember seeing him coming under the, as the garage door was raising him coming under it, his eyes just as big, just absolutely holy cow and he had a fire extinguisher in his hand. I don’t know, I’ve heard it described. I can’t imagine what he and my mother must have seen, but I do remember and just little bits and pieces. I do remember walking outside the garage. I do remember Rusty’s wife was a RN a registered nurse. I remember her coming around and she wasn’t panic.

Jake Latendresse: Were you still on fire? Like when they came over there, when your mom saw you there –

Ramsey Russell: No, it wasn’t there.

Jake Latendresse: Okay. So, it was an explosion.

Ramsey Russell: It was just, I was engulfed in a relatively closed area. I was engulfed in flames. Like just you know, I engulfed in that and then the heat, that subsequent heat. And I remember pacing up and down my sidewalk, hurting, you know, where’s the ambulance, I remember, just God knows what I was saying, just talking.

Jake Latendresse: You could see? Could you see? Could you see everything?

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah, I remember, I saw bits and pieces. I don’t remember seeing myself, I was wearing cut off jeans and a pocket t-shirt when this was going on and I just remember, you know, and then I remember the ambulance finally getting there and by the time I walked down to the end of the driveway. I know and I was later told that practically the entire neighborhood were sitting at the end of my driveway. I mean, you know neighbors for 5 or 6 houses seeing smoke coming out here in the commotion. You know, they’ve been sitting there, just mind their own beer after work, mind their own business, drinking cold beer, mowing grass and doing what they were doing, like neighbors do that time and seeing the commotion walked down and then more and more people, some of my best friends from 10 houses down had come and running up. And you know, I know what they later described seeing with skin and flesh and things just in shock. But they didn’t have to tell me that. I didn’t have to even know what it looks like because I can see it. I can remember seeing the looks in their eyes. That’s what I remember, is that you’re looking around you, I can remember seeing, the look of helpless neighbors. The look at their eyes, I can remember seeing the look of helplessness in my neighbors, in my friend’s eyes. And when the ambulance came up, course they didn’t, you know some reading, they were out of some of the little water you pour over that little sialin whatever you put over somebody they found just put some water on me to get whatever cool it off or whatever you do get some of the debris off and they, I remember laying down the stretcher and them beginning to cover me with a wet sheet and as I was, could be picked up and put into the ambulance. I remember them trying to cover my face with that wet sheet and me yelling. No, I mean it was serious stuff but let me tell you what, that wet sheet won’t coming over my face and I, so I remember –

Jake Latendresse: Because why? What were you trying, scared off?

Ramsey Russell: I didn’t want that wet sheet on my face. I didn’t want to, I wanted to be able to see my mother, understand my mother was 18 years older than I am, so that would have made her 32 years old, its 32 year old mom. You know, it’s a typical 32 year old mom. And as a daddy now, I can’t imagine what she was going through. I can’t, you can’t imagine what my mother was going through. You know, so she gets on the ambulance with me –

Jake Latendresse: Want to trade places with you. Guarantee you she wanted to trade places with you immediately.

Ramsey Russell: Her crying. You know, I can remember her eye shadow running down her, the black lines running down her face with –

Jake Latendresse: Mascara.

“I was bussing tables and showing these back in those days. [cite_start]I was scheduled to go to work that afternoon and I remember telling her on the way to the hospital, you know, call Andy and tell him I’m not going to make it this afternoon, call him. [cite: 425, 426]”

Ramsey Russell: You know, and it’s just and I just remember, you know, and here’s the funny thing. I was bussing tables and showing these back in those days. I was scheduled to go to work that afternoon and I remember telling her on the way to the hospital, you know, call Andy and tell him I’m not going to make it this afternoon, call him. And she’s like, okay. You know, I mean, she was like, yeah, yeah. You know, I’m sitting there telling her and I can remember where we were. I knew from the curve and the bumps the road we right there by waterworks curve in downtown Jackson when I had that conversation, you know the whole big arc on the freeway to get around the Mississippi highway patrol. I knew where I was just from the curves in the road even so I’m inside an ambulance and I remember telling her, you know, I’m not going to be at work, you know, and what am I going to do about school? I’ve got test coming up, you know, and I really need to pass this class of time. I don’t want to go back to summer school. And I remember break, I remember being in the emergency room, just a flurry of white coats and nurses and serious voices coming around. I can remember them cutting off my clothes, cutting off my shirt, cutting off my short cutting off my, you know, just cutting and of course –

Jake Latendresse: Ramsey, was anything melted, was anything melted to you or burned into your skin or anything like that?

Ramsey Russell: I don’t remember. It could have been. And I know it seems like somebody said that there were some things hanging off my clothes when I came out. So you know, it must have the concussion must have knocked me down inside there, inside that room. It must have knocked me down because somebody seemed to say, I don’t recall what, but I do seem to recall somebody later saying that there were items stuck to me.

Jake Latendresse: Did they have to, was there a fire in the room like was the house on fire at that point, they have to put that out or was just an explosion?

Ramsey Russell: No, you know they called an ambulance and I don’t know. You know what that’s a good question. I know the house didn’t burn down. I think it was just that heat inside that building melted a lot of stuff damage, whatever was in there and blew the sheet rock out into the garage, but it didn’t catch the house on fire. You know, I end up living that house too high school. My mother lived in it for another 10 or 15 years, you know, right there where it was, but I remember them cutting those shorts off and me asking I was hurting, but I want, you know what I mean? And I remember asking for a drink of water, and I just, you know, I remember a nurse walking up to me and placing a piece of ice in my mouth and she said, just, you know, said something, in fact, just let that melt and I just, that piece of ice in my mouth and it just gave me something to kind of focus and hold on to and at that point it’s just like cut to the next scene because that’s the last truly failent [**00:34:48] thought that I had a long time and for the rest of the story, wherever we go with it, you know, you just got to understand, you know, so much and stuff. I never did remember a lot of it had been buried with 36 years of time and you know, want to forget and the rest of it is just like kind of a nightmare now, let me say this a year later let’s say, fast forward a year, I’m sitting at the kitchen table. I’m back home. I’m a wreck and we’ll talk all about that later, but I’m sitting at home again with my mother, my parents have since divorced, we’re going through the throes of a divorce right there and it’s just she and I were sitting there and you know, there was so much in the next 6-8 months after that have been after that nurse placed that ice in my mouth there’s so much missing, there’s so much that was real. It’s real difficult to discern whether it was reality or like you dream, you know, and now here’s the deal, when you might hear some of these stories or hear some of these thoughts, it would be natural to say or to assume. Well, of course he was thinking that, you know, he was man, they had him medicated high as a kite. No, boy, let me tell you what they don’t do on big trauma like that right there, they do not put the man up to high but so he can just drift away. That is not what they do, that is not it at all. I later learned there was no pain killer for the next six months. They needed stuff to heal. Now first we’ll talk about the first two weeks and I’ll get into some other stuff, but –

Jake Latendresse: I was going to say something, Ramsey, that you know when someone gets injured, okay, like even if it’s bad as a car wreck and you break your legs or you break your arm or you break your jaw and you have surgery and the your surgeon or your nurses tell you know, you’re going to be in this cast for 8 weeks or even 8 months or a year and a half, whatever it is, that’s one thing but then what happened to you, I’m sure at some point when that all happened where you realized this is the rest of my life, this isn’t, there’s no, I’m not going to be in a body cast for 18 months and I’m going to get up and then I’m going to rehab and everything’s going to be just fine. You looking at things like this is the rest of my life because I’m burned and I’m scarred right?

Ramsey Russell: Well yeah, but you know, really and true that part of reality really didn’t hit probably until about five and a half, six months after, three months anyway after the event, because it was so trauma, it was so critical. For example, I learned a year later, when I was home and I was talking my mother one night, you know, just trying to sift through memories and just make sense of what I thought I remembered and I told her, I had a dream and we’re along these horrible dreams I had, I had a dream and there were bright lights, you know, real bright in this room and I was looking down the length of my body and very noisy and everybody tried to come through the door at one time and they were putting paddles on my body and I could see my body bucking and you know it was just this commotion and she was quiet. I was sitting there drinking a cup of coffee and stare at the table, tell her this memory, this dream and she was so quiet. I looked up at her and tears were just streaming off her face onto the table and she said honey, I don’t know how you remember that because that’s the night that brought you in, you died and that is exactly what happened to you and I think you know I’m not a doctor, I’m not an expert but you know you’re technically dead when your heart stops and that little line on the counter starts beeping then flat lining. But you know, maybe your body has to cool off, maybe your brain which is just a recording device has to cool off to a certain point. But I know I remembered it and I described exactly what happened to where it hit her so real later and she said I just don’t know how you remember that. But that is the night we brought you in I died and so I’m stuck for the next two weeks. It was two weeks for my 16^th birthday it was just right there in the school year I’m stuck in intensive care unit in Jackson Mississippi Methodist hospital I believe, excuse me downtown Baptist hospital. And that’s where I was. And you know, it’s very, very critical that the doctors told my parents, they said he’s got an 8% chance of living, 96% mortality rate. He’s going to die. We’re sorry your son is going to die. If he does manage to live, he will lose his right arm and both his legs, it’s that bad. And then where the big, you know, trust me, nobody at the time in Jackson Mississippi ER intensive care unit was prepared for that level of trauma for an extended period. Then like you said, this was going to be major, this wasn’t just okay, you know, you’re in ICU for a few weeks we’ll move into a hotel room, I need a specialized treatment apparently. And that was a big struggle is where do we go? Where does he go? What does he do? You know, if he lives, you know, 8% chance of survival at age 15, almost 16 years old. I think my parents had talked to a funeral home, I think they had started thinking about a casket, you know, and making arrangements because that’s what the medical science says was going to happened. There was a, at that time in my life, maybe a lot of people listening today, most of you all, you know, there’s an organization called Shriners and all I really knew about Shriners was, you know, they rode this little mini bikes, wore these red hat with a tassel on it at parade you know, let me tell you what’s Shriners is, they raised a million plus dollars per day that goes into their charity, which is burned and crippled children. And they’ve got the foremost burn units in the world right here, three of them at the time, right here in United States of America and their cutoff date was age 16 and I was right there at it and it just so happens that Rusty, the first guy on the scene, his stepdaddy was Shriner with the head of Shriners here at in Jackson Mississippi reached out through the network and on my birthday, May 28^th, 1982 I was airlifted down to Galveston, Texas and at that point I couldn’t tell you anything going on. I couldn’t tell you anything except that I knew, I just knew I was being moved to Texas and that’s kind of what, that’s really kind of what I recall.

Rocky Leflore: I’m just sitting here in disbelief. And I’ve heard the majority of story, I hadn’t heard the detailed moments of it Ramsey and I’m sorry that I didn’t jump in and ask questions. I’m just sitting here in disbelief reliving because you told it well enough that, and I relive that story while you were telling it and that’s what we try to accomplish with this podcast, man, it is just absolutely amazing. Next week we’re going to get more into, you know, what happened as you struggled through those scars, what next year Ramsey? Over the next year.

Ramsey Russell: I’d say more than that Rocky, I mean we’ll talk about that, but it was a, I spent 6 months down in Galveston, Texas. That was 6 months down in Galveston, Texas. You know, three of them were in the bowels of hell, as I remember it and I would say at least a year to the point that I had a new start in place and I think we’ll go to that. I think we can go there and talk about some of that next week.

Rocky Leflore: It’s great story, Ramsey. Look, I appreciate you. I know this is weird to say to a 52 year old man being courageous enough to re-tell it because you have to relive it. I appreciate it.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, I appreciate it too.

Jake Latendresse: It’s an amazing story and you know, I’ve been looking forward to some of these details because just as a human, you know, it’s interesting to hear the perspective of the person as they went through something and this is just really I mean, I hope this isn’t the wrong word or if it offends you, I’m really sorry, but it’s just fascinating, you know, that you survived that and that you can retail it, because I mean, it’s just extraordinary Ramsey, thank you very much for sharing that with us.

Ramsey Russell: Yes sir, I appreciate you all listening.

Rocky Leflore: All right guys, well until next time thank you all, Ramsey thank you again for telling this unbelievable story. Jake, thank you for being here. And I want to thank all of you guys that listened to this edition of The End of the Line podcast, power by DuckSouth.com.

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