Mark - Beyond the Costumes

SYK Episode 121: Mark – Behind the Costumes

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Mark [00:00:04] Because you’re an alcoholic, you taught me I don't want to be one. Because you suck for every ounce of air you can get into your lungs because you chose to smoke and you have emphysema, you taught me not to smoke. I saw the danger. The way you treated Mom when you were drinking made me a better husband because I didn't want to put my wife through that. And I said, basically, you know, your bad habits were good habits as far as teaching me a lesson, girls. And, you know, I said, I just want you to know that I love you and I forgive you. 

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Brian [00:00:38] Every week we pass by hundreds of people we don't know. Complete strangers. Some of them we barely notice. Like the guy driving the semi-truck. Some we may see on a more regular basis. Like that one umpire that works every Little League game. Some people really catch our attention, like the guy dressed up as Santa Claus. In this episode, you will meet Mark, a wonderful human that fits all three of the above roles. Our conversation talks about help slowing down to enjoy life. The Upside and downside of sports. Our inner critic and prank calling Hall of Fame greats. Even Santa enjoys a good joke. So join us for another honest, vulnerable and bold conversation. By the way, does it bother anyone else that the guy calling strikes is also the guy keeping the naughty list? 

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Brian [00:01:23] So. Yeah. What's on your mind lately?

Mark [00:01:26] Well, I'm worried always. I think that's the dad's job is to worry. You know, you're not meeting the expectations of your kids, you where you don't meet the expectations of your wife. So, you know, professionally, it's going well for me. I got laid off from a nearly 30 year career ten years ago and never thought I would ever bounce back or be where I was with that career. And that was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I've been on years with my new company, well surpassed where I used to be, and I work for a private company that's not corporately held. So I'm not having to hit all these merits or not having 4 a.m. conference calls, root cause analysis reports to do. If I make a mistake, we address it, we forgive each other and we figure out how you don't do that again. So, you know, professionally things are going well. But I think what's been on my mind a lot lately is just how fragile life is, just experienced, a really traumatic thing in our neighborhood with a young man that I knew really well, graduated from high school, I think maybe three or four years ago, just returned from a mormon mission. And in December and it was just being a 21 year old kid, having a good time fell in love like you want to see all your kids do it. Found a girl that made him be a better, better young man. And he made her be a better young woman and tragically about to you. Two weeks ago, he was killed in a bike wreck in Park City. And just to see that pain and suffering that fed that, that family goes through spiritually, a lot of momentum they had. Now they're really being challenged to believe what they've always told people. And that's been kind of sad and makes me want to slow down. And I tell myself, have been involved with youth sports. I've coached hockey myself. It's been many, many years, coach baseball. But I have a really close relationship with the youth and I've mentored them through their high school years, their junior high school years, and now I see them as adults as well. And, and just to see this core group of young men that we're best friends with, Hunter, and how they've handled everything, it's been quite touching and it's been quite inspirational that the way they built each other up. So I just really realize, you know, stop and slow down time. You can't stop time, but you can certainly slow down time. 

Brian [00:04:03] And how do you do that? How do you slow down time? 

Mark [00:04:06] Well, you know, I learned that off of a Kenny Chesney song. I can't remember the title of it, but it was basically about his dad that had Alzheimer's. And there was a line in there about, you can't stop time, but you can slow it down. I think it just slow it down by enjoying the moment that you're with that person you love and know. Right now, in this moment, this very second, we're healthy, we're happy, we love each other. And you take that in and savor that because, you know, 30 minutes later, something can change drastically. 

Brian [00:04:37] So when you find yourself being pulled out of that moment, what is it that usually pulls you out? 

Mark [00:04:43] Just the daily grind, the comings and goings, the I've got to be here. I got to be there. You know, I work full time. I'm a baseball umpire. I have grandkids, play sports. And, you know, my days can get pretty overwhelming from about five in the morning till ten, 11:00 at night and, you know, just rushing around, losing focus. And, you know, those kinds of things can take me right out of the things that matter most. And I do have to stop. And sadly, it's I'll come across to an accident on the freeway or situation on the street with an accident or simply see an ambulance going by with the lights and siren on and it stops and makes me want to, you know, ponder again that while somebody pray for that ambulance, for that person in that ambulance, you don't know what they're dealing with or somebody's life just changed. I had a son in law diagnosed with leukemia three, three or four years ago. And, you know, we took him in to the emergency room. He's just out of energy, not feeling well. Farthest thing from our mind was, look, he managed to take him into an emergency room and a few hours later you got a cancer diagnosis and that changes your life forever. He didn't think of the word cancer. It's never touched your family. And here you are, some guy that's going to school. He knows more than any of us is telling us. He's got cancer and it's a rare one and it's going to be quite a battle. So there's a lot of slaps in the face that bring you back to realizing that you're just a weak person. You're not in control of anything. And I have to stop and think of those things. And that brings me back into the fold of trying to slow time down. 

Brian [00:06:23] I just kind of realize where you are in the great expanse of things and in this particular moment is all we have. You mentioned some of the things that you're involved with. Those are good things you've got to provide for your family. You enjoy sports. You enjoy youth so you can umpire and you can give back to the sport, which that third team is always the hardest one to grow. Right. All the players and the coaches, you know, it's hard to get good players, but even harder to get better at good coaches and even harder to get good officials. And it's always the last part of the trail. So to be there for as long as you have and be giving that back and understanding the game and how to kind of manage the game a little bit without putting your big handprint all over it. Right. It’s admirable that the people that can do that and that do that for so long, I think there's a big sacrifice. And, you know, no one ever cheers for the officials or even the last ones that get an award. And that's ones I think you're a nice job. But they're. And I've refereed hockey for a little bit, but I appreciate the game more having had that perspective on it. And I appreciate the individuals that are willing to put the time. Year in and year out. And, and unfortunately, so many of the fans and the parents and even sometimes the players get on the officiating so bad that a year or two is really most of all, most them will handle their like, this isn't fun, this is ridiculous. I'm going to quit. So every year you're starting over with new officials and instead of trying to work with the ones that you have and helping them get better and making them feel comfortable and it's okay, you made a mistake. Let's move on from that. Right. 

Mark [00:07:50] You know, I started umpiring when I got laid off from my profession. It was a stressful time in my life trying to find a job, trying to find a new career. I mean, I could find a job anywhere. Finding a career was the trick. Yeah. And I just was so sick of every day waking up and having to get on the computer and start searching. I needed something. Something to do. And so I actually couldn't justify golfing. But I got a job as a marshal at a golf course, and I worked 6 hours a week and that gave me a free round of golf with a car at 18 holes. So that was nice. And then I come across an ad that was looking for umpires. I thought, Well, I can umpire that. That'd bring in a little bit of money. I was on unemployment at the time, and certainly that's not enough to do anything. And so I picked up an umpiring gig and I did it for the first year, was very grateful, got a job, got my career back in line, decided they didn't want to do it. The next year they called and asked me to come back and I said, Nah, I don't think I want to do that. In probably less than 5 minutes later, I called them back, said, You know what, I do want to do that because I realize I wasn't doing it for the money I was at the time. Yeah, but now that I didn't need the money, I was doing it because I enjoyed it. Yeah. I used to tell my wife I went deaf literally, unexpectedly, maybe ten years ago, and I told my wife I got a cochlear implant about six years ago, completely saved my career. But I told my wife, I said, you know, I always thought I was a really good umpire until I got my cochlear implants. Then I started hearing the parents that know more than I do. 

Brian [00:09:28] Right. 

Mark [00:09:28] You know, and you start hearing the chippers and the crickets and all that stuff. But I want to say that's probably been one of the greatest joys I've found is is a sports official and a baseball umpire. And I'm not I don't think I'm your typical umpire because I have stood behind the plate more times than you can count with tears in my eyes as I'm watching a young man completely blow up on the pitcher's mound. And as hard as I want to be able to call the strike form, I just can't do it. And he's missing. Not by much. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt. He's having a complete meltdown. And I'm just feeling so terrible for this kid. I've seen many kids that I've watched grow up through baseball programs, strike out to end a game and a playoff game that ends their season. You know, and my tear type, my eyes water up for that. And on the opposite side of those have had to have tears of joy, watching a parent watch their child hit a home run for the first time. Right. Or they're their son out there blowing it up, just doing a great job on the pitcher's mound. There's some fantastic girl pitchers out there, too, that are playing boy's hard ball. Man, it just thrills me to death to see a girl get up there and strike out a stud dress. I mean, you get a little misty eyed when you see that. So yeah, I've loved it. It’s been great there, sheer. I wasn't able to do it. I've been out with a knee injury and had some surgery and I've really missed it. But the upside is I've been able to catch all my grandson's baseball games. That's awesome. So it's been a nice trade off. Now I'm in a dilemma of Do I do it or do I spend the time with my grandkids because you can't get those young years back, right? And I always go umpire Right. Yeah. 

Brian [00:11:13] It sounds like you're doing a pretty good job of maintaining a good balance. And I think all of our lives we fall out of balance sometime when we have to work really hard because it's a new job or a new position or something. Also we need a little extra money. Other times we get to spend more time with the family, other times a week. But it's almost always out of balance. But we're kind of always struggling to bring it close to balance, but still be uncomfortable with those balance sometimes. I mean, you'd like to continue umpiring, but like you said, this is the time you get to spend with grandkids. Right? And they're only going to be two for a year. And then they're not. And pretty soon they're not even teenagers. And pretty soon you don't even know what they're doing anymore because you don't get to go to their games because maybe they're not even playing anymore. So yeah, that's an interesting aspect of life, is just trying to keep everything in balance and it's nice to be able to kind of stay in the moment and say, What is my right balance here? And those emergencies that we deal with, either whether we're passing them on the street or someone in the neighborhood, kind of remind us a little bit that, yeah, this is it's a we're here for a short time. 

Mark [00:12:06] Exactly. And, you know, and I'm very fortunate because my wife is the perfect person to handle the balance beam. And she's very, very supportive. She says she has sat out in those hot bleachers and listened to people scream about how dumb their husband is. And she's been out to more ballgames than I can count just to be out is to be around it. And then now she's was not a sports fan, but now she's loves baseball loves the Dodgers. That's because that's by. No, she doesn't have a choice. I know you're a Dodger fan if you're a Woodmansee and so grandson just loves it and she loves watching it through him and gets enjoyment of watching them play also. And so it's that from that aspect, it's very nice. It's a good balance. But she will ring man. And when she feels like things are a little lopsided. 

Brian [00:12:56] Yeah, yeah, that's awesome and awesome. We've talked about some of the great benefits of sports and the teamwork and the sportsmanship and just seeing people play greater than they thought they could and supporting one another. Well, let's talk just for a minute about some of the negatives, about some of the awful coaching or pushing the kids or awful parenting or whatever. How do you come to terms with that and what could be done there to kind of improve that? 

Mark [00:13:21] Well, you know, I've seen my fair share of that. And you hear a lot about that now in the news excuse me. But fortunately, I still believe there's more positive than the negative people out there, for sure. It's always kind of funny when you have a parent you know, absolutely knows more than what you do. And they try to correct you on the field and usually you don't listen to them. And if they start getting under your nerves, you just basically have to tell them to stop or go warn the coach. And sometimes, look, the coach is just as clueless is as the parents are. Yeah. And that trickles down to the kids. It is really last year, out of all my years officiating, it was probably the worst situation I ever ran into. And I was a base umpire. I mean, come on, a base umpire, you're basically looking for outs safe and if a pitcher box it's very simple. And there was a play at second base that was very, very close. I made the right call according to one team, and I blew it according to the other team. Well, the team that I blew it also now was struggling with the plate umpire. And admittedly the plate umpire had some issues and he was young and new. But we tried to work with him. But at the end of the game, it was about this time last year was hotter than fish grease outside. It was a tournament, it was an all day tournament, was like my fifth game of the day. I'm just parch them hard, I'm chafed, I'm everything. And this Coach Standard game consultant was this year the worst umpire I've ever seen? You should you should get it. You should quit. You should get fired. And I just said, you know what? You guys lost by over 15 runs, right? You had over ten errors. I says, don't pin this on an umpire. You need to work on your coaching skills. Why are your kids making these mistakes? Well, he went ballistic and one of his assistant coaches come out after me and actually shoved me and my hockey instincts kicked in. Brian Yeah. 

Brian [00:15:19] They don't appreciate that on the baseball diamond. 

Mark [00:15:21] Yeah, yeah. They don't know that I was a former hockey player and could have pulled that t shirt over his head, gave him the what for real quick. But luckily I was able to regain my emotions. A lot of a lot of parents had that on their cell phone cameras. And and, you know, it got to be an ugly situation. But luckily I had the backing of parents and in the league on that one. But there just there’s coaches, there's parents, there's even kids that think they know more and they don't there's some are very teachable. Most and most of them are there's a few that aren't. And I would imagine they're not teachable on the ball field who are properly in the classroom or anywhere, because I don't know if they're entitled or what it really is, but that there's those few and they can ruin the game for you. But luckily there's, there's enough that will let you know you're doing the right thing. Yeah. 

Brian [00:16:15] Yeah, I agree. I think there are the good definitely outweighs the bad, but the bad can get. So bad, it draws like the worst people, the most competitive people, the most closed minded, the most self-righteous or whatever. And they're always the loudest. And usually when you look over in the stands and you see someone like that, everybody on their team has kind of turned on their head and they're like, Oh my gosh, would you please shut him up, you know? Even their own team, they know who it is, too. But unfortunately, that's what's on display for all of the players and all the other parents, not the parent whose son may have gotten a little bit of a rough end and the other player got away with it. And there's like, well, as part of the game, right? It's just you kind of try to keep them safe and the officials are trying to do their best they can. And you can't see everything. But that example doesn't scream as loud as the other one who's literally screaming and. 

Mark [00:17:06] Exactly. 

Brian [00:17:07] Come on, Rush, storming the field or leaning over the boards or whatever. 

Mark [00:17:10] So I've never left my full time job to go to the ballpark in traveling from my job to the ballpark, thinking in my head, I'm going to go out there today and just ruin somebody's day. 

Brian [00:17:20] Right? 

Mark [00:17:21] I'm coming out here today to upset a kid. I'm coming out here to make a parent mad at me. And I want to piss off a coach that's never crossed my mind, but yet that's almost like they think that's what you're out there to do. Yeah. 

Brian [00:17:35] That's unfortunate. Although I have met a lot of really great people coaching and reffing as well. One of my favorite things that I learn as an official to things I guess is one, I had an official say, What are you doing to keep the players in the game? And I thought, That's brilliant, you know, and I've looked at now the best officiating is the ones you never even knew were on the field, right? If you just watched the whole game, it was a great game and you're out talking about it and you're like, Oh, what about the officiating? I didn't even think about it. Great. That’s exactly what you want. Right? And people don't pick up on what they don't notice. And if they don't notice the official for the whole game, that means they did their job well. Right. But to have that, someone once said, yeah, what are you doing to keep them in the game? So as a hockey ref, you get people that get in little scrums into corners and they want to retaliate and they get a stick up and it might have been a little extra hard hit and it's the same. Two players have been finding each other all over the ice because they're kind of paired up on the same lines, on opposite teams, in the same corners, chasing the same puck. And one of them will get up after taking a hit and kind of look around and see that there's no arm up because there wasn't a penalty, at least in our view. And get mad, go right after. And I and I just love standing right there. I'm right here. I see you. I'm watching that now. Don't do it. And I know too many officials that are like watch and watching for it, but they're not saying anything. And they're seeing the kid get up. They're seeing him get upset. They're seeing him realize there's no call. They're seeing him skate straight. And this other kid and they're thinking, I'm going to call it the second he touches him. Instead of just saying, hey, I'm watching, I'm right here. Give the kid just a second to think about it again. Get back to the bench, take a little break, and then get back in the game and finish the game instead of looking for a reason to throw him out. And I love that approach. 

Mark [00:19:04] A great, great philosophy. 

Brian [00:19:06] Yeah. And people say, well, isn't that kind of tilting the ice, isn't it? No, I'm just trying to keep the kids in the game. 

Mark [00:19:11] They came. 

Brian [00:19:12] Here to play. 

Mark [00:19:12] To one side. 

Brian [00:19:13] Right? I'm not saying you're offside. You need to go back a little better. Hey, look at the gate on the back door. That's where you need to make the pass. I mean, that's you don't do that. But the other thing that I really liked is I started to learn how to officiate and where you are and what the different officials are looking for. And from that point on, I never talked to another official about what they missed or what they didn't see. The only time I would talk to it as an official is you were out of position on that last call. You know, if you were where you were supposed to be, you would have noticed that they were off or you would have noticed it was a goal. But you're 60 feet trailing the play for whatever reason, and you just weren't hustling. And I know some of them do. I mean, hockey, we never do five games in a row, but we do maybe two or three. That's a lot. That's a lot of movement. Yeah. Same with lacrosse. That’s a big field and you're running all the time. And as long as I know where they are, you can be in the right place looking for the right thing and totally miss it. Right. And it's like, you can't blame that on anybody. That's just part of the sport. Right. You know, so. All right, let's move back to your cochlear implants, okay. If you if you want to move on. 

Mark [00:20:10] Absolutely. 

Brian [00:20:11] You mentioned that you lost your what, your career nine years ago and you became permanently deaf ten years ago. So kind of at the same time, tell me a little bit about what that was like losing your hearing. 

Mark [00:20:23] Well, I you know, I and actually it probably even would go back maybe 20 years ago when I started dating my wife. She just you know, were starting to get serious and happy, been together a couple of months. And she said, Do you have a hard time hearing? I said, No, I don't think so. Why will you keep asking me to repeat myself? I thought, you know, I don't know. I guess I do always say hon. And that kind of started to go on and then it just gradually started getting worse. I noticed when I had to be on conference calls that I always had to have a speaker on. I had to have it on full blast. And, you know, things started start it started just decreasing little by little. And then when I really realized they had an issue, as is in my, my church I belong to, I was extended a calling in with that calling. I had to go to a lot of meetings. I remember sitting in my first meeting with all these soft spoken guys. It's like, Don't we have any booming voice? And I didn't hear, you know, everybody was. Some whisper, you know, and I thought, boy, I had no idea that guy was addicted to corn. What's wrong with eating corn? You know, and then I realized that I'd better go get my hearing tested. Yeah, I went and I sat in a booth, and sure enough, the audiologist at a Costco told me, you're a good candidate for hearing aids. So I got these hearing aids and I wore hearing aids for probably five years and thought, well, these are getting old and they seem to not be working as well as they used to. I probably should upgrade and get the new models and went back and bought another pair and had another test and they said, oh, your, your hearing's really dropped and it's the first time you got these. And so they, they set me up with a different pair of hearing aids and got them all set. And I wore those for about six months and I thought, these things just are terrible. They're either too loud, they're too soft, or I could not find a sweet spot on. So I took them back and said, These are garbage. I need you to fix them, program them or give me a new pair. He said, Well, let's put you in the booth and put me in the booth. And I think at that time when I tested, I had maybe a 9% word recognition. And he said, there's not a hearing aid out there that's going to help you. He said, you need to go talk to somebody about a cochlear implant. So I made an appointment and went through all the testing and was told that I am legally deaf as the question. I can't remember what they how they determined that no known reason why I went deaf. And so I got a cochlear implant in my left ear six years ago. And I think the day of my surgery I was 4% word recognition armed with cochlear implants. I don't know if you know anybody who wears them, but you have to teach your brain how to tattoo here again, where I'm lucky, as I had hearing at one time and lost it. So that's a lot easier. But when I when they turned them on, it was just heart wrenching. What I was hearing is these armed voices, these weird sounds. It was robotic. Men's voices kind of sounded Darth Vaderish, if you would. And women sounded like Minnie Mouse. And I went in. I have a great ideologist. His name's Joe Danzy. I always like to give him credit. Has become one of my best friends. And just through his knowing what he's doing, he remapped tweaked them here, tweaked them there. And that was in April and the end of May that next month I had to fly to Phenix and do a presentation at a mine site and I had 12 purchasing department heads in a meeting. I had to present our company in both those. I think there were seven that were female thrown questions at me and I heard every one of them and I understood every one of them. And I was able to present I was able to save my career. It was the best thing I ever did. And I was going on the right side with still a hearing aid because it had a little more hearing than what my left ear did. And then just over time, I lost that. So I went bilateral, it's called, and had another one implanted in January this year. But you know, where I'd like to maybe go with this is, as you know, I have a is it an alter ego or. 

Brian [00:24:31] A Sage or a side. 

Mark [00:24:33] Hustle for some reason, yeah. For the last 40 plus years, I've played Santa Claus. And for so many years I played Santa Claus and couldn't hear a word that the kids were saying or understand a word they were saying. You know, to me, everybody wanted the same thing. And it was basically, you know, everybody did well. 

Brian [00:24:52] And kids mumble and they're quiet anyway. 

Mark [00:24:54] So they do it. They get their fingers in their mouth or whatever. But, you know, after that, it's it was great. You want to watch your favorite color for that car or you want a blue car. Okay, what? What's your favorite? This. And you could hear it and repeat it to them. And a lot of times I'd have parents go, what does he ask for? Because we don't. Yeah, we've. 

Brian [00:25:14] Been asking him and I. 

Mark [00:25:15] Have no idea. No. Yeah. You know, so that, that, that made it good. I was able to do that. I was able to COVID years were tough because everybody's wearing a mask and you know, I can hear but I read lips. That's how I really understand is by reading lips and hearing the words that go with it, but without being able to read the lips and the mask, that was a struggle. But there's been so many blessings with the cochlear implants. I got them right before my son in law was diagnosed with cancer. We had some pretty good man to man heartfelt conversations that had I not had them, I would have never, never know, never heard or never been able to understand what he was asking me to look after and take care of after he was gone. And so he's been a huge blessing in our homes. And I honestly, I don't consider myself a deaf person until I peel them off at night. And I always tell my audiologist, you've done. I always know you've done a good job. When I jump in the shower and I go to wash my hair and I knock them off in the shower, and you're not supposed to get them wet because it's just natural. I just don't even think about them. 

Brian [00:26:17] That's fantastic. And to have that the technology where we can fix that now instead of well, let's just. It's going to be now. You live in the quiet. 

Mark [00:26:24] Yeah, that's. And there is an advantage, because if I don't want to hear it, I take them off. 

Brian [00:26:29] I was going to ask if you ever worked any games on the baseball diamond. You just kind of dialed them back a little bit. 

Mark [00:26:34] I've not done that yet. But, you know, I've told my wife, don't make me take these calculators off. But no, we'll go grocery shopping and I'll hear it. I'll hear some kids screaming. And the thing with the kokila is some of the can hear normally can filter things out. And you have a sense of direction where the noise is coming from. Kokila is everything comes at you at the same time, okay? And your brain really has to be able to focus on brain saying this. But this table over here saying this, in this table, a restaurant is just terrible, noisy environments. Could you get it all? Yeah. And you know, when we're cruising around the aisles of the grocery store doing our Saturday morning shopping and there's a kid screaming, I pull it off. I don't want to hear it. You know, if I go get my grandson, that's acting like a baby sometimes and throwing a fit, I just pull those things off and cry all you want. I can't hear anything. Yeah. So it has some advantages in. Trust me, I would rather gone deaf than lost my sight or lost a limb or something. Yeah, you know. Yeah. 

Brian [00:27:36] You mentioned a couple of times you had to learn to hear again. I know. With the eyes, we have these blind spots like you never. You don't see your own nose, right? And it's not because you can't see it. It's just your brain has just chosen to not see it. I've known people that have got their nose pierced and they said all sudden there's this big shiny thing right in their line of vision that they can't not see. 

Mark [00:27:55] And I didn't think. 

Brian [00:27:55] About after a while that went away. Oh, yeah. And after a while, that shiny thing just goes away because they your brain just adjusts. You don't have to train it. It just learned how to adjust. Right. But it sounded like hearing was a little different. It sounds like you don't just learn to adjust those differences and what you can avoid and what you have to pay attention to. It sounds like you really have to retrain it yourself. It's an active process. 

Mark [00:28:19] You do you hear noises like I forgot that I love Coke Zero. 

Brian [00:28:24] Okay. 

Mark [00:28:24] I forgot that soda pop sizzles, you know, visit. Yeah. I popped up in a can of Coke Zero imported into a glass one time and. And heard the fizz, the bubbles, craziness. And I laughed. I thought that was great at that. I haven't heard bubbles fizzing since I was. Who knows what age when you just start hearing these noises that I've not heard? I'm an old man. I'm a young old man. I've got a bunch of hummingbird feeders in my backyard. And, you know, I had no idea the noises that hummingbirds made. Oh, I sit at that in the backyard with my cochlear implants. 

Brian [00:28:56] Oh, they're called hummingbirds, right? 

Mark [00:28:57] Yeah, exactly. I mean, crickets chirping at night and in birds chirping in the morning. And when rustling leaves and these are all things that I had to learn down to, to listen and learn again. And now I can be in any room and hear a voice. And I know whose voice it is. Voices sound exactly how I remember them from the past. 

Brian [00:29:19] Now, that's wonderful. Yeah. Okay. So let me ask one more thing before we move on. What was actually I've got a couple of questions here. What were your biggest your key moments or your key relationships growing up that kind of led you to become who you are? What do you think have some of the biggest influential moments? 

Mark [00:29:36] Boy, you know, here, I think here's where the emotional scabs get torn off. Yeah, but I grew up in a home and my dad was an alcoholic and he was on welfare, and I did. But everybody shopped with food stamps, and it was what I thought was a normal fine childhood. Until I got older, I realized that's pretty, pretty screwy. So I had a lot of opportunities missed as far as learning from my dad later in life. There was a wonderful moment of forgiveness in his later years. And, you know, thank goodness I always get teased about this, but Ronald Reagan kicked him off of welfare. And had he not done that, I don't know what it become, but my dad died with dignity. He was buried in his work uniform. He loved his job. He went to work every day. He had a job with Make Him Good Money benefits, supported my mom. And had that not happened, I just don't know what it became. But he redeemed himself and my adult ear. He missed the ball in my youth when I was being molded. I was pretty much raised by a great uncle of mine, spent a lot of time with him when we lived in California, we moved to Utah on his in fifth grade. And you know that was very traumatic because he was my security, because he was the guy that I trusted. 

Brian [00:30:51] And you left him behind in California. 

Mark [00:30:53] And he was my great uncle. And to me at the time, he was 117 years old when he was actually probably only 70 or 80. You know, it's not too old now that I'm 60. Right. But we moved up here in 72. He died in 75. And he was he was my solid rock. I make sure every time I go back to Southern California, I drive by his house to think of the safety I felt in that house. So I had coaches and I had teachers kind of took me under my wing. Graduate of Cottonwood High School, 1980. Go Colts, go colts. Where you can't wonder. Taylor Vanderbilt had a wonderful relationship with my driver's ed teacher. The name was Roland Shirley, and we became very good friends. And I think what piqued my interest in him is, is he worked in a mortuary on the side. He'd come slam a bottle of embalming fluid on your desk if you fell asleep, you know? And he just had a great personality. I remember the first day in class with him, I said, I'm transferring out of this class. This guy's a jerk, and he's going to be way too hard. I mean, he laid the law down and I couldn't get out. They said, Well, if you want to drive, that's the only option you have. So I had to make it work. And he wound up being just a soft teddy bear. And we just became the greatest friends throughout my entire life. I hadn't seen him for years in years, but we spoke through email and on the telephone. And the day of my dad's funeral, it was the middle of December. Bitter, cold, foggy, damp, snowy. We had a late afternoon funeral, and so we got to the cemetery around 3:00 in the afternoon, pulled up there. And, you know, here you are. You can put your dad in the frozen ground and on a less than perfect day right before Christmas, a white old man with white hair and a little fedora hat was sitting just on a chair by himself there at the gravesite. And we get out and start heading to the gravesite. And this old guy comes over to me, it's Mr. Shirley. And he kind of knew my relationship that I had with my dad and had remembered that I wanted to come and just offer his condolences. I'll never forget that, that was just so special to me. That is and that's awesome. GASH 35 years or so after I'd left the high school, he still, you know, he made that effort that mattered to me. To hockey coaches, Curtis Hale was a hockey coach at Columbine High School. You know, he was great. And we still speak today. And it's just the friends they had and their parents. You know, I, I didn't grow up in the faith, but all of my friends grew up in the faith. And I've always heard you always hear, Oh, your kid can't come over here. He doesn't believe like we do. I never experienced that. I experienced the complete opposite. I was always invited people's homes and, you know, Sunday dinners. And I was always offered extensive invitations to friends to go over there. So, you know, I was blessed with the ability with sport that I'm telling you that so many friendships that you'll have throughout the rest of your life come from teammates and coaches. And you know that's what it was. I don't know. I just was blessed that I discovered hockey, I discovered baseball and gained all these friends and these parents became mentors to me. And that's those examples are really what I looked up to. 

Brian [00:34:07] So what would you say that what are your attributes of your personality that you think were shaped by some of these experiences? What do you think that's done to shape your when you were younger? What do you think that's done to shape who you are? What are those attributes? And how did that how do you tie those back? 

Mark [00:34:21] Well, I told my dad in this little one forgiveness meeting that we had, I said, you know, Dad, you probably don't think you're a good example to me, but I want you to know I am who I am today because of you, because of your examples, because you were an alcoholic. You taught me I don't want to be one because you suck for every ounce of air you can get into your lungs because you chose to smoke and you have emphysema. You taught me not to smoke. I saw the danger. The way you treated Mom when you were drinking made me a better husband because I didn't want to put my wife through that. And I said, basically, you know, your bad habits were good habits as far as teaching me a lesson, girls. And, you know, I said, I just want you to know that I love you. And I you, you. He drop his head for what seemed like an eternity and lifted his head up and his face was just red and soaking wet tears and mumbled, I love you back and in truly what I am today. I, you know, I could have easily fallen into the same traps I could have taken up with the drinking problem, could have had a smoking issue. I could have not had patience with my kids and with my wife. And I would say a lot of those lessons it taught me when I didn't want to be honest and kind of made me who I am today. There was there was a lot of people that just did random acts of kindness and service, and they didn't realize in the moment why it was happening. I remember I was probably five years old, six years old, scared of the dark, sleeping in my bedroom, and the light switch was broken. And so I couldn't have light my room. So I had the whole light left, left open. And this one night I had gone to bed. It must have been wintertime when it gets dark early. But all of a sudden I remember waking up and the light was like an on and off. And I looked and there's these two old guys in suit in my house that change a light switch. And these two old guys used to come around and bring us groceries. I didn't think a thing about this. And then all of a sudden this memory popped into my head maybe 15 years ago, and I asked my mom, What? She's alive. Who are those guys? Yeah, she said those were two people that belong to our church that came over and looked after us because they knew your dad was an alcoholic and wasn't around. And, you know, I learned what they were when were home teachers, if you will. And, you know, I remember that. And they just taught me to surf and look for those opportunities all the time to serve. 

Brian [00:36:43] What a great example and a great legacy they left on. And I probably didn't even know it. 

Mark [00:36:47] They don't. I remember in my head what they look like this day. I remember them being in suits. One had a dark blue suit on with a red tie and who goes out and visits families in suits and ties and now, you know, tears into their electrical. So there's just been so many people that have served me and my family along the way. Served my wife before we met. She her adult years weren't worked great in her previous life before we met by people that looked after her until I was able to catch up to her. And I just for those opportunities to try to help somewhere. 

Brian [00:37:23] So this kind of goes along your alter ego again and we'll get to that. I'm not putting it off intentionally, but you seem like have a very kind soul. You've always been very warm and giving and generous and grateful, as I've been the case for you the whole time. Or was there ever a part where you felt like you grew into that? 

Mark [00:37:39] I think I mean, I think I matured into it. I think I was probably an arrogant, selfish, you know, young man in high school and probably in my early twenties. I mean, you know, where I screwed up in life, where I should have been going to school and getting an education and getting it degree. I spent working in a hockey locker room with the Salt Lake Golden Eagles. When it was in hockey, I was working in a baseball clubhouse and I did this for years. I went from hockey to baseball. I had the best job in the world. I was inside seeing every single game I wanted, knowing hockey players that made it to the NHL that I could call on the phone and get tickets to go see games. Baseball players. The same creative. Probably some of my best memories and funniest stories that I could still share today, but it was the biggest waste of time and mistake. I should have been in school really getting a degree. 

Brian [00:38:31] You don't look back on that and say, I was being a kid, I was enjoying my time, I was seizing the day when I had that opportunity and I took it. 

Mark [00:38:39] I did. And while all my friends were off serving missions or whatever else, I was down there doing this. And then when that raid ended, I found myself behind a steering wheel delivering air freight as a driver. Now, luckily for me, I. I don't know why, but I was promoted throughout the years in this air freight industry. And when I finally got laid off, I mean, I was in a position that most people would have to have a degree to do. And I was lucky I got there on my merit in my work. But when you're 50 and you're laid off and, you know, 1984, when I was finally done with baseball and hockey, you went in and you fill out an application. You sat across the table from Somebody Needs Chachi a few questions and said, Well, can you be here on time, 7:00 in the morning? Sure. All right. Well, come on in. Monday, you got the job. Now I'm 50 a 30 some odd years later. Everything's done electronically. Nobody's really everybody's out there to disqualify you. Nobody's out there to qualify you and attach your resumé, attach your transcripts. I didn't have any of that. Had a resumé. I couldn't attach transcripts. I did go to trade. Tech is what it was called back then for about a year, gave up on that because I just wasn't disciplined. And, you know, so now I'm out there looking for this job and really no credentials other than I've got a lot of experience and it just came through networking and to catch a bounce. But I realized in that period of unemployment, those funny stories and great memories are awesome to have. But what a degree hanging on my wall. Yeah, you know, I probably would have landed on my feet a lot sooner. 

Brian [00:40:17] So I kind of have mixed feelings about this because two of my hockey players, I, we instilled a huge love of hockey. They love hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey. And they didn't have the skills that they weren't going to play at a higher level necessarily. It was it was a lifelong goal. They're all going to be men's leagues, right? They're going to do that forever. And I had a lot of my players. I got them involved in officiating when they could, so we'd go get them certified and they'd referee and they'd get some money from that. And some of them took that for a little bit, and some of them start coaching in their own Little League team. But these two, they both moved to Arizona and they got a job doing trainer for ASU. Okay. One of them went to the coyotes a little bit after and has since been with the San Jose Sharks for I don't know. I think he's been there four or five years. And the other one went to the San Diego team. Is that Ryan? Yeah, you know Ryan Tall and you know Ryan tall man. 

Mark [00:41:07] I'm an old equipment guy. Okay. We we keep. 

Brian [00:41:09] So you've you know, he's got a promotion. 

Mark [00:41:11] Well, you know, last day and I just honestly, I know him through social media, introduced to him through another friend of mine that work for the Stockton Heat on game days. I thought he was in real estate or mortgages or something like that. 

Brian [00:41:26] He was looking at that, but now he works for the Ducks. 

Mark [00:41:28] Is that right? Yeah. 

Brian [00:41:29] He just started this summer and he's actually going to be up here in a week. 

Mark [00:41:32] What's he doing? 

Brian [00:41:33] Trainer equipment. 

Mark [00:41:34] Wow. Good job, Ryan. 

Brian [00:41:36] Yeah. So he's really excited about it. Looking forward to us. I'm thinking hearing your story and thinking of the two of them and just kind of wonder. And actually, he and I are going to go to lunch. He just reached out to me the other day and says, hey, I'm going to be in town for this short period of time. When can we get together? So we're kind of figuring that out. I don't know what to offer them because the current swing in a lot of the world is you do you write colleges and for everybody. And I think society's made a little bit of a what best way to say it? They made a little bit of an allowance for that, that if you come in and you're hard workers and you work on your merits, that's okay. And I also still know that there's still this glass ceiling that you get certain permission promotions. You get to a point where you're going to have a degree of something to move on beyond here. It's going to be difficult, not impossible, but difficult. And so those two thoughts are conflicting in my head now. And I'm just kind of wondering what your thoughts would be, what your recommendations would be for someone like that's in that situation to say how much of that how far do you chase that? And at the NHL level, I mean, they both say they're not leaving the rink before two, three in the morning on any given morning. And if they're on the road, it's even later than that. I'm like, that's a lot of work. And you know how much work that is even at the minor league. And yes, with that in the NHL, I just can't imagine the requirements that are placed on them. 

Mark [00:42:50] In their off season isn't like a player's off season. 

Brian [00:42:53] They're no they're doing camp. 

Mark [00:42:55] They've got to order things. 

Brian [00:42:56] He got caught up in coming in. Yeah. He thought he'd be out here a month ago and he's still not out here. 

Mark [00:43:01] They got all kinds of things. You know, I think back at when I finally left, I'd gotten married to my first wife in 1984, and she said this. This life isn't for me, this ball team. And at the time, our triple-A team, the Salt Lake Gulls, were leaving Salt Lake at a disastrous ownership that ran the team into the ground and lost the franchise as a franchise was moving to Edmonton. The triple-A franchise for the Seattle Mariners was moving to Calgary, I believe it was. And of course what I did wasn't considered a specialty, so I couldn't get a working visa to go up there. Canada can't fill that job with somebody up there. I was out, so I was also offered a job with the Mariners as an assistant to their clubhouse manager. But, you know, she didn't want to go. And I thought, well, maybe it's time to grow up, start a family. And so I turned it down. And I regret it still to this day because the guy that got the job that replaced me, I knew him and he's still there and making good money. And, you know, I just think in hindsight, you know, 13 years later, I'm booted to the curb. I mean, I have three wonderful bit of kids from that. But, you know, the what ifs and the what could have been. Yeah, come back and haunt me. But my advice I'm old school I think and education shows dedication. I mean I wasn't even a scout. I mean, you know, a lot of times when I've hired people, I look for you, an Eagle Scout, something that shows me, man, this guy has some discipline. He's got some folks. He writes in, get these. I had none of that. So I am a big proponent. You go to school. I do understand now that there's this it's not as is important you know hard work you can catch a break and there's a lot of good hustlers out there that can make it can happen. But I look at everybody's degrees that hang on their wall and I'm a little nervous and I'm a little disappointed in myself that I like that discipline because I was chasing this Major League Baseball, National Hockey League dream. You know, a lot of people say you're washing uniforms, but it goes way beyond that. You know, you're in charge of, you know, Edgar Martinez, his bad order, who's in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. You know, you got you're the guy ordering that stuff and making sure that you're on top of that if you're ordering sticks for Fleury or some of these guys. Yeah. 

Brian [00:45:20] So and these people that will stand in line for a long time to just get an autograph with some of these people, you've got their home number, you can call them and say, hey, we're going to be in town. You might. Yeah, stop by. We love to see and catch up. Right. That's there's something to that. Right. 

Mark [00:45:33] Speaking of phone numbers there, there was a list in the clubhouse, in the manager's office of the Salt Lake Gulls that had all of the Major League Baseball organizational personnel on it and their phone numbers. This goes back to I was just an idiot, immature kid. That's probably 20, 21. And I find this list under the Atlanta Braves is Hank Aaron's name with his phone number 1:00 in the morning and the Utah Times 3:00. And Lamar, me and my brother and a couple other people dial this number and hold the phone out because we just wanted to hear Erica, Aaron, no caller ID or anything back then. You got this groggy. Hello? Yeah. Is Bruce there? You got the wrong number and the phone slams down and we just laugh because we woke Hank Aaron. Up at his home in heard his voice. 

Brian [00:46:25] Brush with greatness right there. 

Mark [00:46:27] Yeah, exactly. You know, and that's why I did it, you know? Hey, I had access to all these guys home phone numbers, right? You couldn't do it now with caller I.D., that's for sure. 

Brian [00:46:36] Now. So now and their assistant and pick up and it's awesome. You know I don't know if I'm saying this to I guess I'm saying this to kind of further the conversation as well. Because so I when I was growing up, I was always trying to do the right thing and checking the boxes and what was next. And I went to college. I'm glad I went to college. I went to college right out of high school. And I'm glad I went to college right out of high school. But the reason I went was because I was supposed to and that was next on my list. I didn't stop for a second, I think, What do you want to do? Why are you going to college? What do you want to study? And so I went to college, I graduated. The next thing was next thing on my list is grad school. So I go to grad school, graduated. What I studied was next thing on my list, it was business. Everybody gets an MBA, that's great. Go do that. So I did that and I'm glad I did. I don't get me wrong. I think it was fantastic. I loved it. All of the stuff that's qualified me for up until now, I don't want to do it anymore. I never did want to do that. Did that provide for me? Yeah. What did it help me do? It helped me understand things. Was it interesting? Do I enjoy my time? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But I never took the time to say what do I want to do? And so now I'm considering Ryan and saying he wants to do this. Is are there downsides? Sure there are. Does he have long days? Absolutely, everybody does. But at what point do you say you're doing what you want to do at this time in your life? You're not going to be able to do it later when you're married and you have kids and a mortgage and you're not going to be able to do that. But right now. So you're at the rink till 3 a.m.. Okay, but I get to hang out these with these professional athletes and get to know them and they get to know me and we become friends and I get to see some fantastic hockey and have these stories about a week. And Hank Aaron and up at 3 a.m.. 

Mark [00:48:07] Right. 

Brian [00:48:08] You're not going to get a chance to do that at our age now. So yeah, you've got a diploma on the wall, but is that the direction you wanted to go? Is that just what you did? So I'm kind of wondering how you. 

Mark [00:48:16] Mix that or that that's a good point because like I say, some of my best memories and greatest stories came from when I was doing something I probably shouldn't have been doing. I don't I regret it. Yes, I do regret it. But I'm grateful for those opportunities, for those stories. I'm grateful for those friendships that are still I have today with former players and athletes and in front office people and ushers and right. 

Brian [00:48:42] In an era that's not even there anymore. You can't even go back to that. You know. 

Mark [00:48:45] You can't and you know, for Ryan sake, you know, enjoy it, enjoy every moment of it. And, you know, because you don't get that back. And, you know, before you know it, you're 60 years old and you're looking back on a lot of things. And, you know, I guess the difference between what you had said about the degree and moving along all those steps and, you know, you didn't know if you wanted to do it at the time, right? You just did it because you said, yeah, that's what. 

Brian [00:49:11] You that was the next thing you got a degree because that's what you do. 

Mark [00:49:14] Right? I didn't have those examples. I didn't have the examples of an educated dad that went to school that you need to go to college. I basically picked and shoveled my way through everything to figure it out. And, you know, I had good intentions. They just didn't they just didn't pan out. But, you know, knock on wood, I had a long career and I've had two careers in my life. But, you know, I went to work when I was I've been working since I was probably 16 years old and only had about a year and a half that I was out of work. So I've been very blessed with the longevity. And but, you know, when it's all done and over with, I work for somebody else. Yeah. I didn't work for myself. I like the men were the guys sitting on his Lamborghini and he says, Boy, that's a nice car. And yeah, and if you work hard every day at your job next year, I'll have another one. One of his employees telling them what a nice car you had. You know, you're just going in and making it work for somebody else that you're doing. 

Brian [00:50:07] All right? You want to take a break? 

Mark [00:50:08] No, we're good. Okay. 

Brian [00:50:09] We'll talk about the North Pole. Sure. All right. Tell me. Yeah. So, yeah, now I get to interview Santa Claus now. 

Mark [00:50:15] Okay. All right. I don't. I don't. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Got not the baritone. 

Brian [00:50:20] Got some time off without the. So I have to tell you an interesting side story. You turn on the AC rocket, okay? I'm get more. So when I was working at Disney, they opened up the animal kingdom and I got to be there for the grand opening of the new theme park, which hasn't happened since. They haven't open another theme park since then. So it was kind of a good time to be there. And I was in the park opening day and I was showing around a group of these Japanese film crew. They were they were basically the Japanese version of Good Morning America as a mushy neon wake up Japan. And so I'm showing them around and they have tables. I don't know if you've been to the been to Disney World or seen the animal kingdom, but imagine like it's five, six times bigger than the magic kingdom, than Disneyland itself. Okay. Imagine the entire street from Main Street all the way through Adventureland to the castle, to Tomorrowland to all of it. Table, table, table, table, table. And behind each table is and they're like four foot tables are tiny tables. It's a radio station or a TV station from anywhere. On the planet. Wow. And they would get all of the VIPs to go around and do these interviews and live presentations. And I was sitting at a table doing one with my group. And at the table next to me was interviewing Mickey and Minnie Mouse. And they were the voices of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. And she if you stood behind her in line at a grocery store and heard her ordering cabbage, you'd say, that is Minnie Mouse. I mean, it is. Exactly. That's good to hear, to watch Mickey's voice come out of his face. It was just like that does not you can't connect that the right way. It just sounds such words in there. 

Mark [00:51:55] They weren't there. 

Brian [00:51:56] Well, they never did wear the costume. They were always just the voice. 

Mark [00:52:00] Right. 

Brian [00:52:00] But we had the radio announcer say, I can't even look at you while you're talking. I mean, they would look away because it was so odd just to hear this person. And strangely enough, at the time, I don't know if they're still doing it or not, but the two were married and that was their full time job. They were the voice of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. And so anyway. So it's weird. Yeah. When you're in and when you're at Disney, the terminology is on stage or backstage. And when you're on stage, you wear your costume. And for me, my costume was a suit and tie and my name tag. But if I'm offstage, I can't take off my suit and my tie, but I have to take off my nametag. And theoretically I'm not on stage anymore. So yeah, to have your stage character and off stage character is kind of a little bit of a transition. But tell me from the North Pole, we got some time off in July. You've caught up on your nap and you've worked off some of your milk and cookies. And what got you started in this ad? How did you come across this idea in the first place? 

Mark [00:52:49] Well, my dad was a Santa. He had a Santa suit, and he would go up to camp custom pillows. And I don't know how he came about doing it, but he would go up to camp to stop us and play Santa Claus. No idea how it happened. But he had this suit. One of his friends was wanting him to come do Santa Claus for his family party. And this probably would have been back. And gosh, 1977, I think I was 16, just started driving that year. Well, my dad couldn't do it for whatever reason. And he says, Let me ask my son. Maybe he'll want to do it for you. And I'm like. 

Brian [00:53:24] 16, are. 

Mark [00:53:25] You kidding me? I'm not doing that. Get out of here. There. How embarrassing is that? And I just refused to do it. Well, his friend started on me. Come on, we really need somebody to do this. And so I said, Well, all right, I guess I'll do it. So cheesy. Terrible Santa suit, like cigarette smoke. Yeah, just gravy stains all over the front of it. The beard was all knotted and I put this thing on and I go to this party, and it was a riot. I mean, all these kids are just they're not looking at the stinky suit and the knotted up beard and the stains on the coat. They're saying Santa Claus. And they were just pumped, you know, and I was 16 and I was kind of giggling about and that was kind of fun. No idea what I was going to do, what I was going to say, you know, just ho, ho, ho, ho, what do you want? And here's a candy cane. And so I came home and thought that was kind of fun. And then I don't remember what happened after that, but either somebody from his family or another group said, Hey, could you come to my farm do this? Yeah, I could do that. And when I left, they handed me a $10 bill and a $10 bill in 1977 to a 16 year old at Christmas time. It's like golden egg. Yeah. I was like. 

Brian [00:54:37] Wow, I got paid for that. 

Mark [00:54:38] I got paid to do that. And so I started kind of put a feeler out there that I could do that. And, you know, I did that maybe four or five times a year, didn't really think much about it. And then when I got out of high school was I think it was when I was married. I can't remember exactly how, but I started doing it a little more often. I put an ad in the Salt Lake Tribune, you know, to hire Santa Claus. And I invested about 100 bucks and got a new beard and a new suit, had someone make this for me. And I started getting calls to the people, answering the ad, asking me to come and do it, you know, idea of, again, how to even do it. I didn't even have G.P.S. on a cell phone or anything. I'm having to look at a map and try to figure out where this street is. And I just started doing it and it just became a little more fun every year. And then with each year, you know, at the end of Christmas, they're looking at four or 500 bucks. And, you know, that's I've paid for Christmas and I've got 500 bucks in my hand, you know, and it was I wasn't now doing it for the money. I was doing it because it was fun. Yeah. And I had a good time doing it. The money people handed me was, was a little just a bonus to it. Yeah. You know how much do owe you? I don't. I don't know. Nothing, right. You know, and then they just would hand me something and, and it just kind of took off. And the more and more I enjoyed it, the more and more I'm shopping for New Santa accessories. And I've probably gone through 20 different beards and suits over the years. And I'll tell you, as much fun as it's been, there's been some very touching, touching moment. I did a sub for Santa for a company one time. And went to this home. It was underneath the viaduct on North Temple, right underneath. Right, right before you go into the viaduct to the I-15 freeway that the house has been knocked down now. But I went there and didn't know what I was getting into. And he and his family were sitting there in this little precious little girl, four or five years old, and her little sweet voice, as, you know, Santa Claus. Do you visit prisons? And I'm like, sure, I visit everybody and my dad to his no. Are you going to see them? Are you going to get in something? And sure, I'll visit with your dad. Would you give him this? And she had a note written to her dad how much she loved it. And, you know, I had to slam my thumbs in the table a few times to get back in the right frame of mind, to not be choked up with that. And then I you know, another one was a young boy named Travis. Travis, I don't know what he had, but he couldn't walk. His dad would lift him on my lap every year. The last seat Santa and I went to this family. I couldn't tell you how many years in a row. And then one year. Travis, I think, is close to ten. I got a Christmas Eve Santa. He got up and walked up to me and sat on my lap while he just melted and he wound up passing away a couple of months after that. But that's a Christmas I will never, ever forget. I've been able to many, many families year after year where there's been a couple that could have killed the family party and all the nieces and nephews are having fun and they show up. The next year, they finally were able to have a kid who they adopted. And the joy that I saw with them doing that was wonderful. So it's had some very touching, touching times. Well. 

Brian [00:58:02] It's pretty intimate. The the access that you have to a lot of these families. And if you do them repeatedly I can imagine watching grow up and I know in our family everyone I mean you do a fantastic job. 

Mark [00:58:14] Well, thank. 

Brian [00:58:15] You. I mean, honestly, I have to tell my the people that are listening to this when you first started tell that story you like transfigured. I mean honestly you're like cheeks got rosy in your eyes had a little twinkle when you're talking about Santa and these opportunities and you can just feel that Christmas magic, right? And to be able to express that not only one day a year or one family, but through so many families and for so many days throughout the holiday season, I can imagine that, especially with the repeat visits that you get, I can't imagine that there aren't many families that don't have you one time that don't want you to come back every year or many opportunities because you do such a fantastic job. 

Mark [00:58:53] Well, they've had. 

Brian [00:58:55] An adjust this just a little bit. 

Mark [00:58:56] There you go. I've had a lot of blessings from doing it. You know, one family I had just finished with their last kid that believed in that kid was going into high school. And this was right after my son in law had passed away. And he passed away the first or second week of December about three years ago. So I had to in and I lost my dad a few years before that at Christmas time. So I had a lot of things that day. I, we buried my son and I had to go do some Santa Claus parties. Oh, my gosh. But this family, as I was leaving Santa, we got something. You know, I'm always called Santa. We got something for you. Gave me this little sack. They said, oh, open this up, you know, later, don't open it up now. So I got my card and I left and I was curious and I opened up the sack and it was just a beautiful statue of Santa holding a lamp, looking at a list. And then there was a card. Each kid had wrote down their memories for me, but them and the mom and dad who did that, just thanking me for all the years of doing. Man, that's worth more than anything to me. Yeah. Another one, believe it or not, was doing your family. And you have a nephew named Thayne the first time Thayne name I read, I thought of that wonderful man. Thayne Acord. Yeah. And remember very, very well the tragedy that your family went through. And when I read that name, knew where that name came from. Yeah, it took me up a little bit. You know, I worked for your dad. I've known your family for four years. Hunter, the young man that I just told you that passed away in the beginning of this interview when he was about ten, he was on the borderline of believing. His dad was telling me, I just don't think he's going to make it this year. He's just not leaving. I said, leave it. Leave it to me. I'll take care of this. And I showed up at his house about 530 in the morning, Christmas morning. Santa got underneath, loaded my bag with their toys, got underneath the tree, and started handing out, putting presents underneath and giggling and laughing about them. Well, Dan went woke as kids up and they all stood at a balcony above the kid looked down to the Christmas tree. Don't, don't let him catch a quiet and they're up there. Just watch me put this. And then I, I go to the chair and sit in the chair and I took a big jug of milk and sturdy and some cookies and I nod off to sleep, and I kind of had a few snores. Well, Dan sends them down to Santa, and they're just jumping on me, and. And I'm caught and I'm trying to run and get. I've never been caught, you know. And Hunter said that was one of his best Christmas memories. 

Brian [01:01:28] Why wouldn't it be? 

Mark [01:01:29] I mean, you know. Dan, Dan, tell me you got him. You got him for another year at least. And, you know, we always shared that story with the Hunter. And I would share that story with each other. So. So it's I want to. I want to hang it up. Yeah, but I just. Well. 

Brian [01:01:46] You put a lot into it, you. 

Mark [01:01:48] Know, and I'm. Now I'm having kids. Of the kids. Yeah. Generations. The next generations. And you did this for my family. You need to. Can you come do this for. Yeah. And, you know, I it's a very busy two weeks in December. That's really it's about two weeks you. 

Brian [01:02:05] Limited to the two weeks. I guess you can really start doing it in November. 

Mark [01:02:08] Sweet spot you know usually starts right after Thanksgiving. I do some you know, public appearances with cities and towns that have flights on with Santa and, you know, cookies with Santa and stuff like that. And those are a little sporadic. But you get to about the second weekend in December, right up to Christmas Eve, and it's busy. I've been to everybody's Christmas parties but my own. And I finally about three years ago decided that I'm not working the Sunday after Thanksgiving. And that's our Christmas party. Invite my grandkids over. Santa comes. Okay, not Santa. Okay, we get Santa to come. And I'm just one of those goofy dads sitting on the couch that's taken it all in. But I'm taking notes. Oh, I liked what he said there, that it's so good. And this guy's. He stinks, you know? And so it's as much as I want to hang it up and as much as I kind of mumble about it. And it's provided me a lot of memories, a lot of love, and it's provided my family some nice Christmases that not in a materialistic way, but in a loving way where they can share some stories of sacrifice and things like that. 

Brian [01:03:24] Yeah. And then keep that Christmas spirit alive a lot longer and be able to share with your family from what you've learned from others. Right. 

Mark [01:03:30] And I get invitations to graduations, weddings, and like, I see these guys for 45 minutes to an hour once a year. 

Brian [01:03:39] Yeah. 

Mark [01:03:39] For the last however many years. And they invited me to the wedding and you show up to a wedding as Mark Woodmansee and they're like, Hey, you must know the groom or you know the bride. And well. 

Brian [01:03:50] They're both on the naughty list right now. So I'm just checking up when I. 

Mark [01:03:56] You know, happen on to somebody in a grocery store or something that I know they have no clue. I you know, sometimes I'll start to strike up a conversation and throw things at them that I remember. And they're like, Who is this guy? Yeah, I like to you know, a lot of them have me on Facebook and I'll start going on their pictures of their kids throughout the year. 

Brian [01:04:14] Yeah, I know you've done that for our family a lot. You show up and mention something to some of the kids and they're like, How does he know that? 

Mark [01:04:19] I remember one of your nephews think got their appendix out when they left any map. I said, Wow, you're not as heavy as you were last year. I kept Mom. I said, You must had your appendix out or something cause you're a lot lighter. Yeah, I did. 

Brian [01:04:33] He knows. He really knows, you know? 

Mark [01:04:35] So, you know, my grandson, you know, it's always a joke with my grandsons because they're on to it. They think that Grandpa Santa Clause and I just tell them they're crazy to I have a white beard or I have this. Well, my nine year old grandson, Bennett, was learning how to use a computer in school this year on Google. And the teacher said, I want you guys to Google a famous person's name. Why? He said, Googled Mark Woodmansee o famous person's name. 

Brian [01:05:05] Oh, not Santa. I said. 

Mark [01:05:06] Yeah, why did you? It's a famous because, grandpa, everywhere we go, you know people, everybody knows you. We stop and talk to people all the time. So I just thought you got to be famous. And I want to tell you something. He called me the second he got in the car after school because I know something was up. You are Santa, I said. What do you mean you are? Stop, don't. You can't trick me. Well, how do you know this? Because I googled your name and the first thing that came up was an article about you being deaf and Santa Claus. They did a news article in a story on me a few years ago. I knew it all the time. I'm just like now, man. So just to play the part, I think that's misinformation. You can't believe what you read on the Internet, you know. Now it had pictures of you. It was you and it was. And so now you know, he's he'll whispered me. I won't tell anybody. I won't tell my brothers. I won't tell my sister, you know. And I thought, they're that dang internet now. These kids are. 

Brian [01:06:10] Yeah, right. 

Mark [01:06:11] Google and me. 

Brian [01:06:11] But we had in second grade, one of my daughter's teachers told them, told the whole class because she thought that was her job to tell them about Santa Claus. 

Mark [01:06:18] Well, second grade told them that he didn't exist. Yeah, that's crazy. 

Brian [01:06:23] I'm like, Why would you think about overstepping your boundaries? I mean. So what do you think of her? What goes through your mind when somebody asks you, do you believe in Santa Claus? 

Mark [01:06:33] Absolutely, I do. I'm Santa. I'm his number one helper. I believe in them every Christmas. I try to have a balance there. You know, I'm I am a religious man and I try to not bring Santa Claus into an environment that probably shouldn't be there. I'll never forget doing a church Christmas party, you know, and at the end of the program, you know, and they'll usually close with the prayer then while they're cleaning up that they'll have Santa. This program ended and I'm sitting in a chair standing behind the thing and then they're going to have the closing prayer and somebody raises the curtain. 

Brian [01:07:12] A little early. 

Mark [01:07:13] And there I'm sitting there while they're having to, you know, getting ready for the closing prayer. And all the kids are screaming and they're and, you know, it's but it's you know, it's a sweet thing. It’s a good balance to really know what Christmas should be about, from my perspective, versus, you know, the joy I bring from the other perspective. But It’s a month I dread. But when it's over with, it's like, yeah, I'm glad I did that again. Yeah, yeah. 

Brian [01:07:40] And it doesn't have to be an either or thing either, right? You can dial it back and put it down to one week or just one visit for, you know, three days or whatever. And just kind of. 

Mark [01:07:48] Well, I went through my list, if you will. It's not a naughty list, but it's my list of families. And I decided, you know, who can eliminate I've got over 45 families that I can just eliminate. I just can't do it. Yeah. You know, I just. 

Brian [01:08:02] We thought of bringing in some helpers. 

Mark [01:08:04] I tried, of course. 

Brian [01:08:05] Then you're not. There they are. 

Mark [01:08:06] I'm right. Give the business to my son. And he goes back to when I was 16. What, are you, crazy? There's no way I'd do that. But no, I'll probably do it until I can't. Can't walk this. This last Christmas, a lot of people didn't know this, but I fell in November. The first part of November, I fell from a roof, drop down. 

Brian [01:08:25] A roof, and now we're putting up the lights. 

Mark [01:08:27] Santa fell from the roof, believe it or not. So here's what I was doing. I was. I have a sweet little neighbor lady that's a widow. And I was cleaning the leaves from the fall, and she kind of has a low pitch to her roof line. And she has that I think it's called trick deck, huh? Uh huh. And it's looks like wood, but it's actually plastic. 

Brian [01:08:46] And when it gets wet. 

Mark [01:08:47] We'd had a lot of rain. Leaves were wet and heavy. I set the ladder up and I saw those a little bit, felt a little slippery, but I thought, I'm heavy enough. I'm going to keep enough weight on the ladder. So I got up a couple rungs and was blowing the leaves and couple more rungs. And the whole time I'm, you know, I've got this little voice and don't go up there, you're up far enough. Well, then this feels secure. I got to the top, to the roof line, put my left foot up on the roof and my right foot was still on the ladder and the ladder. 

Brian [01:09:16] When. 

Mark [01:09:16] I came down face first and this last Christmas, I did it with a torn meniscus, a torn MCO separated shoulder. And I was just. 

Brian [01:09:29] Sitting and picking on kids. 

Mark [01:09:31] And, you know, I'm walking up to the homes on the ice. And I just a lot of Advil, a lot of Tylenol, take out material. It was a rough, rough go. But, you know, I just I couldn't cancel. I didn't cancel when I lost my dad or my son in law. I just work through it, you know, play injured. 

Brian [01:09:50] Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Because everybody's injured. Right. What attribute do you think you have most in common with Santa? 

Mark [01:09:58] Her big belly. Okay. At work. You know, your brother in law, Brian, is has tried to help me. 

Brian [01:10:04] Yeah. He said to say hi, by the way, I had lunch with him yesterday. 

Mark [01:10:07] Good, good. Yeah, he's. He's been really well working with me. I know. I know a lot of the steps he tells me to do. You know, doing them is, is a separate thing. But, boy, some of the attributes I really do like well behaved kids, and I've seen a lot of well-behaved kids and I've seen a lot of kids. I've felt like just tearing the beard off and saying, I'm out of here. You're not getting anything. 

Brian [01:10:30] Yeah, that's how you made the naughty list right there. 

Mark [01:10:32] Right. But I you know, I really enjoy young kids in the youth, and I see so much potential. I travel a lot professionally. I'm all over the country, not as much and covered. I've seen a ton of riffraff out there in the youth, but when I come back home, I know we're in good hands because I see a lot of these kids that are growing up in good families, going to good schools. And, you know, when I think about that, I think, you know, when I get older, I'm in good hands with the youth. But yeah. So, you know, I like that, you know, who doesn't like cookies, right? You know who doesn't like that? That the thought of it's such a wonderful thought of Santa Claus really to get home on Christmas Eve and climb in bed and just sleep for hours and days and weeks. And, you know, but I that he has a lot to have to. You said it. I have. And a lot that I don't have. 

Brian [01:11:24] Well, so that was my next question is, does your inner critic ever say you're not like Santa? Because. 

Mark [01:11:28] Yeah, you're not like Santa because you're judgmental. You know, you're not like Santa because you see the naughty and sometimes think that you don't know that there could be something better, that there could be change, which everybody can. Yeah, but, you know, while you're, while you're in it and, and you're trying to keep the attention and you got a kid over here that's just, you know, I. I don't lose patience on stage, if you will. But, yeah, there's a lot of things going through my head, like, you're not going to get all that kid out of the room. I got to do it. And, yeah, you know, I, I so. 

Brian [01:12:05] So what is. 

Mark [01:12:05] Weaknesses? And I, you know, I have tons of faults, you know that we all do. I have, you know, things that I really don't like about myself that I wish they could change. 

Brian [01:12:16] And do you have a pretty loud inner critic? 

Mark [01:12:18] Yeah, I think so. I, I think it goes back to self esteem. I don't know if I had the best self-esteem growing up. I don't think I was taught proper self esteem. And so I'm always worried that I'm not matching up to what my expectations are, even at Christmas time, even though I hear now you do a great job, this, that. And a lot of times I just think, man, I was only in there for 40 minutes and I should have been in there for an hour. I should have come up with something different. And, you know, I, I do just struggle sometimes with the self-esteem and that if you listen to it, it can be pretty, pretty dangerous. Yeah. Even though I try to teach proper self esteem and, and positive to people. Yeah, I struggle with myself too sometimes, you know, believing what you're saying. 

Brian [01:13:05] Yeah, I think everybody does. I think it's helpful to hear other people say, oh, yeah, I'm not the only one that's like, oh, everybody is. And that's kind of a thing. I think that's a little helpful part of these conversations. So I'm going to circle back to some of the comment that I mentioned earlier. What does Santa do to keep the naughty kids in the game? Just to keep them off of the naughty list with the Santa? Look in Santa do. 

Mark [01:13:26] Well, you can I can give him the worst tasting candy cane in the batch. Usually have a mixed bag. Yes, I'm through the broken candy canes. 

Brian [01:13:34] You get the black licorice skin. 

Mark [01:13:35] Yeah. You know, I've had some kids. Think it's funny to pull my beard. 

Brian [01:13:40] Oh, okay. 

Mark [01:13:41] You know, I'll watch this and I'll let out a bloodcurdling scream like that really hurt me just to shame them a little bit, you know? And why would you pull my beard and I'll get pull the book out of my bag, you know, and I'll make a note or something like that. But, you know, the kids of ten, 15, 20 years ago versus you do that to the kids nowadays and is so a lot of them are just so protected and so coddled. And you just got to be careful that, you know, the mom's not going to I can't believe you did that to my son. You know, I've got a grandson. His name's Apollo, and he always gets a bad rap. He's nine years old and he's aggressive, okay? And he doesn't communicate well and he loses his temper pretty quick. One of our family Christmas parties a couple of years ago, we had Santa visit in Santa is telling this story about he's coming over these mountains in a sleigh and he gets over Salt Lake City and he gets right over sugar house and somebody packs a big snowball and throws it and hits me. Right. And it was you and he pointed, right? It was not me. I get blamed for everything but that hook, line and sinker. And he was so upset that he was being accused by Santa Claus race, something he did when he gets that all the time from everybody else. So but usually you just have to deal with the misbehaved ones and there's not a lot you can do except for just you're. 

Brian [01:15:08] With him for an hour. Right. And there are 50 other kids there as well. Right. 

Mark [01:15:11] And I remember the I don't remember the naughty ones. I remember coming back and saying, yeah, the good one. 

Brian [01:15:17] So now. Okay, so who makes the best cookies? 

Mark [01:15:19] Well, I'd have to say probably your sister, you know, who would I not dare say that? 

Brian [01:15:27] I was going to say, you can be honest. I don't even think she listens to these. 

Mark [01:15:29] Quite honestly, I don't eat any of them. Yeah. And I'll tell you why. I don't know what the kitchens look like. Oh, you know, I know what the front room looks like where I'm at. Right. And you usually where the party's going on. It's a disaster. But you don't know. Maybe this is shallow of me, but I don't know if they have cats that walk across their counter or. 

Brian [01:15:48] Who deliver it. And in here, Cindy Lou, who dragging it in there, picking her nose all the way and right. 

Mark [01:15:52] And to me, it's just it's not worth it. And oddly enough, and I don't know why this is, but it seems like every December I'm on some sort of a bizarre diet, no carbs or protein or a weightwatchers thing or something like that. And I usually don't you know, if I get a wrapped loaf of bread from like a great harvest or something that I know is packaged and wrapped, and then I take that home and throw it on the. And it gets gobbled up by the family. Yeah. Yeah. But just the. The homemade baked goods can be a little bit risky. 

Brian [01:16:27] Yeah, for sure. The good call. Lots of houses, lots of people. And I got one more question, but. Okay. Have you ever do you think you've ever been the villain in someone else's story? Is there someone out there saying, man, that guy when were kids, he would always or. Yeah. 

Mark [01:16:42] I'm sure there's a lot of that. Yeah. You know, I my younger I mean. 

Brian [01:16:47] You're an umpire. So there's the whole story of that, right? You've ruined everybody's professional baseball careers. Let's start with that. 

Mark [01:16:53] I mean, my little brother has a lot of villain stories of how are you? Why were you always such a jerk to my friends? You know, I would give them a ride and drop them off two blocks from where they needed to be and for some reason, tell them to walk. You know, my nephews, my nephews, when they were younger, I had them in the car who's middle of summer. And, of course, they're, you know, 13, 14 years old. And I've got an old marble CD that's just old country horses galloping over Jersey Empire Country. And I turn up the heater in my car, locked the windows. We're driving down the freeway and it's a hundred something degrees outside and the heaters on full blast in my car and I'm just playing this thing and I'm just telling them, go to the prairie, man. Just fill the sweat, fill the heat for ten. You're in the prairie. Listen to this music. And they were like, I swear, if you don't roll down the window, I'm going to bust this with, you know, I'm a kind soul, but I have tormented and been tormented. I, I am the first one to fall for a practical joke. Oh, yeah. Betis who. 

Brian [01:18:02] Teases Santa. Come on. What kind of person do you have to be? 

Mark [01:18:05] Well, okay. This guy wants to give to me, you know. And I'm Mark Woodmansee, and I usually fall for it, but I've. I've been the villain a lot of times, just by my teasing personality, I think, and the ability to kind of torment. Sometimes I don't have a a stump gasket, too. Now that's probably too far stop. You know, I started rumors before, you know, just to see how far they would go. And they were building a ballpark with Lindquist ballpark up in Ogden, who used to be a guy up there by the name of Reverend Harris. And he was an icon to Idaho or to Ogden. You'd call in to talk radio shows. He was the all of the old Reverend Harris. They called him and just is radical and different than anybody, you know, from that town. Well, me and a friend started the rumor that they were actually going to name the ballpark, the Reverend Robert Harris ball field. And it took off. Oh, wow. It went it made it in the newspapers that there's this rumor that we went out and purchased a banner that said The Future Home of the Robert Hurst Ball Field and pinned to the fence at night and you know, just and we just laughed because it was just me and this other guy that started this rumor. And we used it as said, you know, where do rumors start? Yeah. How does a rumor start? Where does it. We should try to start a rumor and then we just kind of put our minds again and thought, why don't we say this? New ballparks are going to be named after this radical member of the acting community. And it worked so well. And that's a Woodmansee trait. There's just a lot of jokesters and tormenting that goes on in the family. 

Brian [01:19:46] And yet you fall for it more often than not. 

Mark [01:19:47] I fall for it every single time. Yes, they do. It's crazy. 

Brian [01:19:53] All right. What else you want to talk about? I've been asking all the questions. You tell me. Is there something on your mind, another story that has come across that you would need to share? 

Mark [01:19:59] And no, I you know, I. I'm a blessed man. I couldn't think of anything more that I could be blessed with. I'm content. I am very fortunate. I've had good, long, long lasting friends. I grew up with your little sister, Cindy, when they moved here from California in the fifth grade. I think her and I were in Taylorsville Elementary School together. I think she went to Taylor, you know, and went fifth and sixth grade with her through junior high school. You know, we're all hockey fanatics. It's a great time. When I worked with your dad and your uncle when they owned the Golden Eagles, I thought that was kind of cool. And no, I really can't. Nothing jumps out. Okay, you know, earth shattering. All right. Well, I hope I've been. 

Brian [01:20:44] Know you've been fantastic. I've actually really enjoyed this. This has been a great conversation. And it's strange because sometimes ahead of time, I have no idea what we're going to talk about. 

Mark [01:20:53] Strangers, you know, strangers. 

Brian [01:20:54] You know, it's and it's just fantastic. You can just sit down with anybody. And if you can have an open, vulnerable conversation about topics that are personally meaningful, it's just you never know where it goes. And I love this connectivity and I love getting to know you a little bit better. I mean, I've known you forever, but I didn't know 95% of this show. So I know our listeners are going to appreciate it and get to know another stranger. And thank you so much for sharing your time. 

Mark [01:21:18] You better than my pleasure. Yeah. 

Brian [01:21:20] We'll see you soon. 

Mark [01:21:21] You bet. December. 

MUSIC 

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