Our Dead Dads
The concept of Our Dead Dads was born through the daily discussions of seven men who share bonds of blood, friendship and all having lost their fathers. Nick Gaylord, the show’s host, shares his life experiences with his deceased father while exploring the complications and realities of that relationship. Life is intense, grief and loss come in many forms, and no parent-child relationship is black and white, which is why this show touches on all shades of grey.
Join Nick for candid conversations with his three brothers and three of his lifelong friends, along with other special guests who discuss their experiences with loss, grief, laughter, and moving forward. Nothing is off-limits here. Nick learned after his father's passing that he couldn't process what he was going through alone and sought the help of a therapist, who helped him to let go of his anger toward his father. Looking back, he realized just how many people are being crushed under the weight of grief, loss, and in some cases, anger.
Nick's mission through Our Dead Dads is to offer a platform for anyone who needs or wants to tell their story, to have that opportunity. He also hopes to reach many more who need to talk but don't know how to start the conversation, hopeful that by listening to these stories, they will be able to start talking with someone.
Nick has always sought to help others and to make everyone around him laugh. Along with his brothers and friends, he has frequently used humor to get through the hardest times in their lives, and hopefully, you will permit yourself to do the same. Get ready for an emotional deep dive. Nick has a lot to say and so do his guests. He's here for you and ready to help. Everyone has been through trauma, grief, and loss. Now, along with Nick and his guests, everyone will get through it together.
Nick is changing the world one damaged soul at a time. Welcome to Our Dead Dads.
Our Dead Dads
021.1 - Moving Past Hurricane Milton
Hurricane Milton might have blown through Tampa with a vengeance, but it also gifted my family and me the chance to hit pause and reconnect during a chaotic time. I'm taking a short break from new episodes of Our Dead Dads to share these personal updates. We were fortunate to come away from the storm mostly unscathed, though it temporarily zapped our connectivity. The silver lining? We got to unplug, tackle a thousand-piece puzzle, and make the most of some rare downtime. While the storm kept me from working on the podcast, it also gave me moments of reflection and gratitude, particularly as I gear up for some exciting personal milestones like my birthday and Halloween.
I'm thrilled to announce that my youngest sister, Helene, will join me for Episode 22 on October 29th, marking both my birthday and our return to regular programming. Before then, I want to extend heartfelt thanks to some key players who made the storm's aftermath a little easier to bear. A big shout-out goes to Denis Phillips, the ever-reliable chief meteorologist at ABC Action News in Tampa, whose calm demeanor and thorough coverage were a beacon amidst the chaos. And a massive thank you to Tampa's local radio stations for their invaluable updates on shelters, sandbags, and power restorations. Tampa's Emergency Personnel, the linemen and linewomen who are still working around the clock to get everyone's lights back on, we take so many things for granted and we have all of you to thank for keeping us safe, and literally keeping the lights on.
Check out Denis Phillips' Etsy Shop link below, where the proceeds from your purchases for the remainder of October will go toward the victims of Hurricne Milton. Your patience during this hiatus means the world to me, and I can't wait to be back with fresh episodes and more poignant conversations around grief and healing. Thank you to everyone for the love and support you have shown Our Dead Dads and all those affected by the recent storms. Get ready because 2024 will finish strong and 2025 will start even stronger!
DENIS PHILLIPS' LINKS:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/denisphillipsweatherman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denisphillipsabcweather/
Denis's Hurricane Rules and Hurricane Preparedness List: https://tidings.town.news/g/tampa-fl/n/211939/denis-philips-hurricane-storm-rules-and-prep-list
Rule #7 Etsy Shop: https://rule-7-stuff-2.creator-spring.com/
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Hello and welcome to Our Dead Dads, the podcast where we normalize talking about all forms of grief, trauma, loss and moving forward. I'm your host. My name is Nick Gaylord, and if this is the first time you're joining me, then you picked a great time to start. You won't be receiving a new episode this week, but we always have plenty to offer and this won't be a long episode, so please hang in there with me for the next several minutes. If you're a longtime listener, then welcome back, and I hope that you won't be too disappointed today because of the fact that you will not be receiving a new episode this week or next week. Unfortunately, I've decided to take a two-week hiatus from dropping new episodes, and you mainly have Hurricane Milton to thank for that.
Speaker 0:As you probably know, we live in Tampa, florida, and we were in the crosshairs of Milton last week. Luckily, we escaped the worst of the storm, mainly because we live about 20 minutes north of downtown Tampa and the eye of the storm made landfill just south of Tampa Bay. There was a hell of a mess to clean up, though we had no major damage other than a few trees down on our street, which we were all outside cutting and clearing. First thing Thursday morning, we only lost power in brief intervals, anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or so, and that happened over the course of a few hours on Wednesday night. We didn't have Wi-Fi until sometime early Monday morning, and we were thrilled about that. If you follow my personal page on Facebook, you probably saw that we did make the best of the technology absence over the weekend as we worked on a thousand-piece puzzle and then watched the Mets and the Giants both lose Sunday night thanks to connecting the laptops to the hotspots on our cell phones. I would hardly call the last several days roughing it, and it actually was nice to have some downtime and disconnect for a bit. Days roughing it, and it actually was nice to have some downtime and disconnect for a bit. Of course, the absence of Wi-Fi prevented me from doing any podcast work, and then this week is a bit packed. Next week we will be traveling, and the week after that we're also packed between work, podcast interviews that are already set up, my birthday and Halloween coming up. As much as I didn't want to do it, the best decision was to put things on the back burner for the next two weeks. But episode 22, featuring my youngest sister, helene, will be dropping on Tuesday, october 29th, and that day also happens to be my birthday, so for my birthday I will be giving you an interview with the youngest of my dad's seven children that I know of.
Speaker 0:I would like to give some public shout outs and thank yous to some very well-deserved folks. First, dennis Phillips, who is the chief meteorologist for ABC Action News in Tampa. If you're not already following Dennis, check the links in the show notes to this episode, because I've included all the social media links as well as his list of seven rules for hurricane season and a hurricane preparedness checklist. Even if you don't live in Tampa, he's incredibly entertaining, intelligent and very thorough in his forecasts. His hurricane preparedness checklist is something that everybody who is anywhere close to being in the potential path of a hurricane should download, keep and use.
Speaker 0:We discovered Dennis when we first moved here two and a half years ago, and we're obsessed with him. His list of rules ends with rule number seven, which is stop freaking out until I tell you to we're fine. He didn't freak out, but he was brutally honest when he said that the Tampa Bay area was going to have its first direct hit hurricane in 103 years. He was direct in telling listeners how to prepare, when to evacuate, but he also did it in a way that presented calm, even as we were staring down the barrel of a major hurricane. I highly recommend that you follow Dennis on Facebook and that you listen to his forecasts live on Facebook if you're not in the Tampa Bay area and can't watch him on TV.
Speaker 0:I also want to call out all of the local Tampa area radio stations for keeping their listeners well-informed with storm updates where and when shelters were opening, where to get sandbags, giving updates on power restorations as they were happening after the storm had passed, and so much more. A huge shout out to the emergency personnel who responded to calls before, during and after the storm, especially close to the coast, and even when it meant potentially putting their own lives at risk to save the lives of others. An unbelievably huge thank you to all of the linemen and linwomen who have been working nonstop since the storm passed to restore power to the three and a half million people in central Florida who lost power and continue to work to get the lights back on for everybody. And while I'm at it, let's give some huge shout outs to everybody working in Northern Florida, georgia, south Carolina, north Carolina, tennessee and all of the areas affected by Hurricane Helene a few weeks ago to rescue people, to bring much needed supplies to everyone who has been impacted. The men and women performing these jobs have barely slept in the last few weeks and are doing everything that they can to help restore the services that we all take for granted the schools, the colleges, all the facilities that have opened recently to shelter anyone who was forced to evacuate, the cleanup crews for removing all of the debris along the coast from the colleges, all the facilities that have opened recently to shelter anyone who was forced to evacuate, the cleanup crews for removing all of the debris along the coast from Hurricane Helene and didn't even have time to get everything out before Hurricane Milton came in, even after working around the clock to do so. So many of these folks have been criticized for not working fast enough, and if you're one of the ones criticizing them, I say that you should shut up and try doing the job that they're doing before you open your mouth and criticize anybody. These folks aren't spending time with their families. They're working to clean up two huge areas that have impacted tens of millions of residents in the Southeast in the last few weeks and they deserve all the praise in the world and none of the criticism. When it comes to getting the lights and the wi-fi back on, somebody has to be first and somebody has to be last. They don't pick and choose whose power to reconnect, in what order. They're told to go to a job site and they go without hesitation, without question, and they don't get enough praise. They deserve every single bit of it.
Speaker 0:Now that I've covered that, you might be asking Well, what's next? There's no podcast episode to listen to this week, so what should I do? Well, I can help you with that too. The first thing is, if you haven't had a chance to catch up on past episodes of Our Dead Dads, now's your chance. You have two weeks before the next new episode will drop, so take this time to go back and listen to an episode that you may have skipped, not finished or even not started.
Speaker 0:Tell your friends about the show, post about the show and post it everywhere Facebook, twitter, tiktok, instagram, reddit. Wherever you are online. Start talking about the podcast If you're already talking about it. Thank you so much, and keep talking about it, because there are people who don't know about this show. This is a show that deals with grief, trauma, loss, processing it and moving forward, and it is something that far too many people hold inside and don't deal with appropriately. So please spread the word, because by doing so you're not just helping me in the podcast, you're helping someone who may be holding in grief with no clear idea of how to begin to process it. You can go to the links to Dennis Phillips' pages that I've included in the show notes and you can start following him on social media. He has an Etsy shop called the Rule no 7 Shop where he sells all kinds of merch with the Rule no 7 logo and, for the rest of October, proceeds from the sales of his merch are going to the ongoing recovery effort for those impacted by Hurricane Milton.
Speaker 0:He's an incredible man and, as someone who not only has a lifelong love for weather myself and wanted to be a meteorologist when I was a kid, I'm telling you Dennis Phillips is the real deal. He cares about this community. He lives here in Tampa, he's active in the community. He decorates his house every single year with a bazillion Christmas lights and then encourages everyone to drive through the neighborhood to see all of the lights, not just on his house, but everywhere throughout the neighborhood. He's not a high and mighty, untouchable. He loves Tampa, he loves the community and he does so much for so many. So, seriously, please start following him today. I hope that we get to meet him one day, not just because of my love and passion for weather, but because he's a hell of a human, a family man, and we're so honored to have him as the meteorologist to trust and to guide this area through every heat wave, pop-up, thunderstorm and tropical threat that summer brings our way Again.
Speaker 0:The link to Dennis's Etsy store is also in the show notes. So please support the rule number seven shop, because by doing so, you're going to be helping to support the relief for those affected by the last two major hurricanes. That's about it for this week, but please stay tuned because in two weeks, tuesday, october 29th, for my birthday I will be sharing my interview with my baby sister with all of you. And get ready, because there are so many incredible interviews coming up for the rest of 2024 and an even bigger start to 2025. Thank you all for listening. Please continue to stay safe and please don't forget that you do not have to grieve alone here at Our Dead Dads, you always have someone who will talk to you and listen to you. Please check OurDeadDadscom for past episodes and stay up to date on all upcoming new episodes and, as I mentioned last week, be on the lookout for our merch shop, which will be coming very soon. This is Our Dead Dads, where we are changing the world one damaged soul at a time. See you next time.