Against All Odds: A Father's Determination to be at His Daughter's Wedding

In this inspiring episode of the Daddy Dad's Podcast, Robert interviews David Jones, who became a national sensation for hiking 17 miles through the destruction of Hurricane Helene to attend his daughter's wedding. David shares his incredible journey, the challenges he faced, and the determination that drove him to battle through treacherous conditions to fulfill his promise to his daughter. The conversation delves into themes of love, grit, and the lengths a father will go to for his family, offering valuable lessons for all dads.

Takeaways

• David hiked through hurricane destruction to attend his daughter's wedding.
• He faced numerous obstacles but remained determined to reach his goal.
• The journey was not just physical but also a testament to a father's love.
• David's mantra was to walk his daughter down the aisle, which kept him motivated.
• He emphasizes the importance of having a vision and mission in life.
• David's experience highlights that we are capable of more than we think.
• He encourages dads to push their limits and not be afraid of challenges.
• The story illustrates the power of faith, community and support during tough times.
• David's journey serves as an inspiration for fathers everywhere.
• He believes love drives grit and determination. 

How to find David Jones 
www.theexcellenceadvisory.com

Dad to Dads Podcast on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dadtodads/

Transcript

Robert (00:00)
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the daddy dad's podcast. So one of the goals of the podcast is to inspire fathers to become better dads. Well, inside edition has referred to my next guest as a hero dad, while numerous others have given him the title of dad of the year. His story you're probably familiar with because it made national news as he hiked 17 miles through the destruction of hurricane Helene

as he was determined to make sure that he would be there in person to give his daughter away at her wedding. David Jones, welcome to the podcast.

David M. Jones (00:39)
Thank you, Robert. So happy

to be here. When we booked this, I said, I can't wait to do this.

Robert (00:43)
Man, I appreciate you coming on and you know, we talked about your story. I appreciate you reaching out and talked about your story. I had seen it on the news and you know, it seemed like every clip was like two, three, five minutes, something like that. I'm like, I want to hear more about this. Like I want to hear more about this guy. Like what drove him? I want to hear about the whole story. Um, and just like, was there something in his mind that kept him going?

You know, that determination and also what in the world was he thinking? Like, I could like to set out and do this. Like that's, uh, it's quite, uh, quite a feat there. But, my first question, cause I've seen everywhere from he hiked 17 miles, he hiked 30 miles, you know, I was telling you before I was on a plane the other day and I was reading about you and watching videos and some were saying 30 miles and 18 miles, 17 miles.

David M. Jones (01:16)
You

Robert (01:41)
The journey, what was it?

David M. Jones (01:44)
Yeah. So the total journey is like 120 some miles from Boiling Springs, South Carolina to Johnson City, Tennessee. And the total distance on foot was 17 miles.

in the middle of the night.

Robert (02:05)
Okay. And we're going to get to that, but that's not 17 miles walking along a paved highway or walking along a sidewalk that you had to abandon your car. Can you just go into it? You drove, start off, you drove as far as you could. And then what did you, what's next? Yeah. Yeah.

David M. Jones (02:29)
Yeah. So if I may back up just a little bit,

my wife and I lived in Johnson City, Tennessee. I had lived there for gosh, 40 plus years. And we bought a house over last summer in Boiling Springs, South Carolina to be near her two grandchildren. Perfect location to be with them. And we kept our house in Johnson City.

So when the wedding weekend was coming, the plan was, we'll drive up on Friday. There's festivities on Saturday and Sunday, and then we'll drive back. It's a two hour drive right up Interstate 26. Easy, beautiful drive through the mountains, up over the state line. So we go through South Carolina, North Carolina, and down into Tennessee. And so that week, you know, there were all the forecasts of hurricane.

the hurricane coming this way and you know they draw those maps and you never know is it going to hit here or over there what's going to happen. So we kept a close eye on it and that morning then. Sure.

Robert (03:32)
But let me stop you for a minute. Usually

by the time a hurricane comes from the south and comes up that way, it's kind of died out a little bit. Like you'll get some rain, you'll get thunderstorms and it just whoosh, fast. Yeah. Right.

David M. Jones (03:41)
yeah, yeah.

Low clouds, yeah. Yeah, that's been my experience,

especially in East Tennessee and the mountains there. you know, the hurricanes usually push one side or the other. They don't go right on through. And so that's what I was expecting. And that's what everybody else was expecting too. We're going to have low clouds and rain for a couple of days. Now, in all fairness, the weather people all warned us this is going to be a little worse than before, but you know, we hear that all the time. So.

we rode out the storm here in boiling spring, South Carolina. We had moved my wife's mother in with us, by this point as well. And so we got through the storm. No real damage to speak of here. was a lot of wind and rain. you know, the yard was a mess with just leaves and branches and things, but there's no damage or anything to our property. Some downed trees in the neighborhood. And so.

We changed our plans and that I would go on ahead and then Debbie, my wife, if the roads were clear, I would just call back to her and say, hey, you can come on up on Saturday, just come up for the day. Because we lost power, we lost internet, we lost cell phone service. So we didn't know what was up ahead. We didn't have any way of checking. We're so tied to our devices these days.

Robert (05:04)
Right, right. yeah.

David M. Jones (05:08)
would just look and see and I couldn't get through, I couldn't get any information. And I had a generator here. So I set the generator up, got them situated. And then in the early evening I headed on up, normally a two hour drive. About 20 or 30 minutes into it. So to that point, 20 or 30 minutes in, everything was fine. I was like, well, this is brief, I'm gonna be there before dark.

We're good. And then traffic came to screeching halt and it was just a long straight parking lot for the next several hours. In fact, I clocked it at one point. It took me three hours to go 10 miles. They were up ahead and the crews were up ahead, you know, clearing the road, getting the trees out of the way. And then they would open up a section and the cars would move.

Robert (05:55)
Ugh.

Mm-hmm.

David M. Jones (06:06)
There were detours. had to get off the interstate in a couple of places. And, you know, I'm trying to figure out how do I keep going north? How do I keep going north? I'm just, you know, athletes have this, you know, what's next, you know, next up, next up, next up kind of thing. And that's where I was. I was just thinking, what's next. What's next. I just got to get past this next thing and then we'll see what's after that. We just keep going, keep going. Make a long story short after multiple detours and delays.

Robert (06:20)
Right, right.

David M. Jones (06:35)
I made it to exit 43. It's a Temple Hill Road exit on Interstate 26. For anybody keeping track, know if you want to pull up your Google Maps. And that literally was the end of the road. It took about seven hours to get there. It was two in the morning. And so the state troopers have it blocked and they actually were meeting. There was a group of them meeting at the base of the off ramp. And so I just parked my car and I went over and

sort of injected myself into the meeting and they're like, sir, can we help you? Well, yeah, I need to get to Johnson City. I'm sorry, you can't, the roads are closed. You can't get through. And I said, well, you know, I've been through quite a bit up until now. In my mind, I'm thinking, I just got to drive around the trees and over the down power lines. Like I've been doing for seven hours. You know, can't we just kind of just move the barrier a little bit and let me go on.

Robert (07:23)
Right. Right. Right.

Let

us know.

David M. Jones (07:34)
And he says, sir, the bridges are gone. And I'm like, okay. They're literally gone. But in my mind, I'm thinking, where do bridges go? Right? These are big, huge concrete structures. They just don't go away. He says, nothing can get through. And I said, okay. What about the back roads? And he said, no, back roads are washed out. And we really don't know the full extent of the damage.

Robert (07:39)
Like literally gone.

David M. Jones (08:03)
We can't let anybody out. Nobody's getting through. And I said, all right, what about on foot? And at this point, I think I had reached his limit. He says, sir, we're not letting anybody out. The best thing you can do is go back to your car and wait it out. Maybe we'll have more news and an open road in the morning and you can get on through. And I said, sir, my daughter's getting married at 11 o'clock in Johnson city, and I need to be there to walk her down the aisle. He said, I fully appreciate your position.

Robert (08:11)
you

David M. Jones (08:33)
best you can do is go back to your car. So went back to my car and I thought, all right, I'm going to go back all the way back to boiling Springs and then up to Charlotte and then up to with Ville and then down to Johnson city from there. And so I started driving. I got in the interstate was clear and I looked down at my gas gauge and I realized I don't have enough gas. I didn't see a single light on the entire

way from Bowling Springs. There's no power anywhere for hundreds of miles. I have no idea what the road conditions are over towards Charlotte and up that way, if they're any better or worse. So I turned around, got on the back roads again, worked my way back to the interstate and then back up to this exit. And by then the state troopers had dispersed. They had all gone off. And there was a volunteer there, very helpful guy. And he said,

Robert (09:03)
Right, yeah.

David M. Jones (09:30)
You want some water?" And I said, yeah, I would, thanks. And I said, how do I get to Johnson City? And he said, well, there's only three bridges you can take between here and there, and they're all washed out. There's one bridge remaining, but they're not letting anybody on it because they don't know how structurally sound it is. I said, well, can we, is there a way to call ahead and, know,

find out anything. So there was one state trooper there. He was a volunteer from another state. His radio didn't talk to their radios up ahead, you know, one of those things. So I said, all right, that's it. I'm going to go. So this volunteer had a map on his phone. He showed me. said, if you can follow this road, you can get to Irwin. You know, I knew how to get from Irwin to Johnson City. So I pictured, I had that picture cemented in my brain. Here's the road I'm going to follow.

Robert (10:03)
To the other. Yep.

David M. Jones (10:26)
get there and off I went. I'm a runner. I like to run and so I had my Garmin watch and I thought well I might as well time this and keep up with my pace and and see how I'm doing so I started my watch. It was 2 18 in the morning and off I went pitch black. so yeah that's a good question thank you. I went to the back of my car.

Robert (10:48)
What did you carry with you? Like did you take water?

David M. Jones (10:54)
driving SUV, it's a Ford Explorer. I love that car, has all the belts and whistles I want. And I grabbed my backpack, which had my laptop in it, and I stuffed in some changes of underwear and socks and my shaving kit. And I grabbed the windbreaker and just strapped it on and off I went. The only light I had was on my cell phone. So no flashlight, no...

Robert (11:20)
no flashlight. 2

18 in the morning. No street no streetlights.

David M. Jones (11:24)
Yeah, not

No streetlights, nothing, no lights. There were houses in places, but there's no lights on there. There's no HVAC units running.

Robert (11:40)
No thoughts of

no thoughts of what am I doing? Like am I? Okay.

David M. Jones (11:44)
I did have one.

I did have one. When I first started, I got, I don't know, maybe a half mile in, and I thought, can I really do this? I've run marathons before. I knew I was about 20 or 30 miles from my destination. And I thought, well, I can do the distance and I've got enough time. If I keep my pace up, I can make it. But I don't know what I'm going to run into as I go forward. I'm just going to keep going forward.

I turned the light off on the camera, the phone, thinking I need this battery to last the whole way. And I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't even see the ground in front of me. And so.

Robert (12:27)
Okay. I

want to, I want to stop you for a minute. When you had this idea that, Hey, I'm going on foot. Did you call anybody? Did you let anybody know that you had this brilliant idea that you were going to start tracking through destruction on washed out through washed out roads and over down trees or

David M. Jones (12:48)
No, I couldn't. I had no cell phone coverage. I had tried, I actually went back and counted up. I had tried to call my wife 10 times and she had tried to call me 15 times through the night trying to figure out what's going on. She was...

Robert (13:03)
So nobody

knew, your wife didn't know, your daughter didn't know.

David M. Jones (13:06)
No, my daughter didn't know. had no way of knowing. In fact, after the storm went through, the skies cleared. It was beautiful. It was like the air was scrubbed clean. She was showing his family around the area. They're from Texas. They had already come in. So after the storm, they were sightseeing. They're having a good time. She had no idea that.

Robert (13:14)
Yeah. Right.

She's just enjoying her day, enjoying her time. Yeah, yeah.

David M. Jones (13:31)
and join her day. Yeah, yeah,

they didn't have cell phone coverage either. So there was no way for her to know what was going on. And she didn't have any worries about her dad. She knew her dad was going to be there. So everything's going on just just normally. And I'm heading out now in my mind. I'm thinking there's three ways I could win here. One is I get all the way and make it to the wedding on time. Two is if I can't

make it all the way. Maybe I can get to somewhere where there's cell phone coverage and I can at least let somebody know what's going on. And heaven forbid worse comes to worst. She can FaceTime me into the wedding and she can walk down the aisle. Yeah. Yeah. And then the third win would have been, you know, I got as far as I could and I found out some information. I could come back and report to the state troopers and all the other people that were stopped there.

Robert (14:13)
Right, right, right. You can watch it.

David M. Jones (14:30)
at that, at that off ramp and let them know, give them a firsthand report. So I had sort of these stacked goals. I teach this. I'm a performance excellence, business excellence coach and consultant. And this is kind of stuff that I teach. I also had this vision in my mind, you know, in business, we talk about vision, mission and values, and they're typically overlooked by most people. They're foundational to high performance.

Robert (14:38)
Right.

David M. Jones (14:58)
So my vision was to walk my daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. And I had had that in mind for many, many years. My mission that night was to get to the church on time. I'm going to put one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, I'm going to get to the church on time. And so I had this mantra going in my head. And if you're a John Acuff fan, he calls them soundtracks.

And that was just what I told that first state trooper. I my daughter's getting married at 11 and I'm going to be there to walk her down the aisle. And I kept repeating that in my head and I repeated that. State troopers stopped me three more times as they were out on their parole, patrol. I said, you know, my daughter's getting married at 11. The third one.

Robert (15:41)
Right, right.

Were they encouraging

when they saw you or were they?

David M. Jones (15:50)
There was, it was a little of both. They professionally, yeah, I think they did. Professionally, you know, they're instructed to ask me to turn around and go back to my car. That was the right thing to do in their mind. But.

Robert (15:53)
Yeah. They think you were nuts. Yeah.

David M. Jones (16:07)
So the first one I came across was the sort of the mission commander, the first guy that I talked to. And he came driving up and he said, so you decided to go anyway? Yeah. You know, not knowing if he's going to make me get in the car and drive back or arrest me for disobeying orders. He said, well, you realize you're on your own. I said, yeah, I do. I hold no one else responsible other than myself. You don't have to worry about a thing. He said, okay, good luck.

And he drove off. A little while later, another car came by, there were two in there, and they rolled down their window. The passenger side guy rolled this window down and he said, it's like a right back. And I said, no, no. He said, all right. And then he sort of leaned out and he said, if you can get to the bottom of the hill, you can get up on the on-ramp to the interstate and I think you can make it from there. He the interstate's closed, so it'd be.

clear sailing all the way. So great, thanks. Appreciate that. Well, I went on and...

about an hour later, came up walking. Yeah. With that backpack on, I couldn't run. It was just too much. And so I'm walking. I'm trying to keep up a pretty good pace. was running, I was going at around a 16 minute mile pace, which is just about four miles an hour. And I kind of in my head, all right, I'm going to make it by eight or nine and that should do it. And

Robert (17:14)
Are you running, walking, what do you, walking, okay.

Okay.

David M. Jones (17:41)
I came across a bulldozer and a backhoe clearing the road. And up until now, the road was clear. It was just like...

Robert (17:51)
No trees down or anything like that across it. Okay. You just have open interstate to yourself or open highway to yourself. Okay. Okay. Okay.

David M. Jones (17:53)
Nothing. Yeah, it was nice.

Well, I was on the back road at this point.

I'm on the back road and it parallels the interstate, but it's just a little narrow back road. There's no lines painted on it or anything like that. And I'm listening for any wild animals that might be coming. I got a sharp pine branch here with a lot of sharp, I'm gonna defend myself if need be, because who knows what habitats have been destroyed or who's just looking for their next meal.

Robert (18:17)
haha

Yeah.

David M. Jones (18:29)
and, so, it's three 30 ish in the morning and this bulldozer in this backhoe are doing their thing and they're just, you know, going back and forth across the road. They're not expecting pedestrians at this hour at this location. And all I got is my little light and I'm kind of waving it, trying to get their attention in. And the bulldozer driver stopped and he was really quite startled. He wasn't expecting anybody.

Robert (18:47)
Ha ha.

I'm sure. Yeah.

David M. Jones (18:58)
I went through the whole thing. trying to get to Johnson City. And he said, I don't think you can get through. The road's completely blocked. I said, well, I got to try. My daughter's getting married at 11 and I'm going to be there to walk her down the aisle. He said, well, let me radio to the other guy and see if I can get him to stop and let you through. Because there was the way they were going, there was no way I could scoot through there. And off the sides of the road was just a mess. So he did, he stopped, he tucked his bucket.

down and he let me pass on by and about I'm going to say 20 maybe 30 yards past him was this wall of debris. They completely blocked the road. The storm had the presence of mind to put the debris across the road not on the side or along it and

Robert (19:50)
Right. Because, because,

because let's, you know, just to educate or to explain, I mean, there was a, there was a lot of washout. was a lot of, erosion, a lot of heels that just literally parts of the hill came down with mud, with trees, with all that debris and just landed into the flat space, which that flat space would be the road.

David M. Jones (20:15)
It's exactly right. Yeah. And so this, this section where I'm walking through had a lot of that on the ground, but it was, it was maybe ankle deep. It wasn't too bad, but this pile completely blocked the road side to side. And it was just like you said, it was, it was trees. It was branches. was fence posts. was, you know, all kinds of just debris.

Robert (20:22)
Mm-hmm.

David M. Jones (20:44)
And I thought, well, I'm going to try and climb this. And I couldn't find any part that was stable. It was just, it was collapsing. was, it was wobbling. It was like, I can't do that. So I'll try and go around it. And I went around to the left and there was just mud there. I thought, well, I'm walking in mud. This is not bad. And I tested it and it sort of went to the top of my shoe. The next step went to my ankle.

The next step, just sunk straight down like quicksand right down to my knees and it kind of pulled me back. was sitting on this mud, stuck one leg up to my knee, the other leg up to my calf. And this backhoe has started working again. And he's whirling around and every time his light kind of swung my way, would flinch because sooner or later he's going to finish.

that bit that he's working on, he's gonna come for this pile. And I don't think he can see me. I'm up against the back of this pile of debris. There's tree roots right here.

Robert (21:43)
Right.

David M. Jones (21:55)
I got to do something. And I had been obviously on the hotline to God the whole way praying. And at this point I stopped asking. Forgive me Lord, but I just said, I need your help. And I struggled and struggle it finally got my right leg out. The one that was

in the deepest, but the mud pulled my shoe off.

Robert (22:27)
Right,

yeah.

David M. Jones (22:28)
And I know I'm not gonna be able to make this in socks or bare feet. And so I have to sort of balance on my other leg, keeping my right leg. I didn't want to get my right leg stuck again. I finally got the shoe out and I was able to inch my way back up to the road, but this backhoe is still whirling around doing his thing. And I think, man, I am not gonna win a fight with that thing if it swings around. And so I gotta get.

over and I spotted an area in this debris pile where I could actually crawl under this big tree trunk that was laying down. And so I didn't want to take the time even there because of the backhoe to put my shoe on. I just heaved it over the pile to the other side and I got down and I crawled under this tree branch and into this pile of debris.

Robert (23:05)
Okay.

Right.

David M. Jones (23:24)
And I crawled along it until at one point I got up and it sort of in a a koala or a bear hug kind of way on another tree trunk. And I let myself down and I kind of weaved through kind of like a piece of paper in a copy machine, know, just kind of doing all that. And I made it out the other side. Breathe inside, I relieved, found my shoe, put it on, kept on going.

Robert (23:30)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

David M. Jones (23:50)
two more piles like this. But at least those I could climb on. They were a little rickety. I had to be real careful. There was a lot of farm debris and...

Robert (23:52)
my gosh.

Yeah, and what I'm thinking about too is snakes.

David M. Jones (24:06)
I was worried about snakes and I was worried about...

Robert (24:07)
Yes, because I know from

growing up in the South and growing up and experiencing hurricanes and floods.

snakes are very common in debris fields and after, you know, washouts and everything else.

David M. Jones (24:21)
I was kind of hoping snakes were like daytime animals, that they wouldn't be out.

I was worried about skunks. I know they're nocturnal and they can really knock you on your butt. And I was worried about bears.

Robert (24:30)
yeah.

Yeah, because that's a bear that's bear country.

David M. Jones (24:35)
Yes. So, I had my radar on, you know, my little stick. And so, so I made it over those two piles and I got to the point where I thought I was where the trooper said, you can find the on ramp and get up on the interstate, which I did. And so I went on up there and I got, maybe a quarter mile on the interstate. the

the onramp and about a quarter mile and I reached one of the washed out bridges. So either I misunderstood the trooper or he had, you know, misinformation. and it was pure devastation. And the whole interstate was covered with trees and, and, personal effects from homes and there was a hospital nearby and, just a mess that I'm trying to climb over and around and,

Robert (25:22)
yeah.

David M. Jones (25:32)
and the mud and when I got to this washed out bridge there was just piles of concrete down in the bottom there as best I could see with my cell phone light rushing water down there.

Robert (25:45)
Yeah, because the water's up.

David M. Jones (25:47)
Yeah. Um, although it had receded enough that I could get through here now at this point. Um, there was still rushing water down there and the gap had to be, I don't know, 60 or more feet. And there's no way I'm, I mean, it's a straight drop off. It's not like side of a bridge where you can climb down the bank or anything like that. It is a straight drop off mess down there. So now I got to turn around and walk back and

It was at that point that I got that sort of that lost night of the soul kind of feeling like, man, there's only one option left and they're not letting people across that bridge. What am I going to do? I'm running out of options here. I don't want to have to go back over those debris piles, past the bulldozer and back, you know, all that. So let's see if we can find that bridge. So I went back.

found the road to the bridge and there were two state troopers, cars there and they were empty. They were out on foot, they were out on patrol. And so I didn't ask, I just scooted across that bridge. It turns out it was solid that they didn't have to do anything to it, but I didn't know that at the time. So cross I went and from that point on there was no more

mass destruction. It was pretty clear sailing. About a mile up the road, another state trooper pulls up and he says, this is to answer your earlier question, sir, are you the one that's trying to get to his daughter's wedding?

Robert (27:34)
So they've been talking about that crazy man who's tracking through destruction.

David M. Jones (27:38)
Exactly. Exactly. And I said, Well, yes, sir. How did

you know? He said, Well, we're all talking about you. I said, Oh, I hope it was good. He said,

Robert (27:47)
haha

And I can only imagine what you look like at this time. I'm sure you're filthy. Yeah.

David M. Jones (27:57)
Yeah, I'm covered in mud.

And he says, yeah, he says, they all said you're determined. I said, well, my daughter's getting married at 11 and I'm going to be there to walk her down the aisle. He said, well, I'm going into town. Would you like a ride? And I said, oh, would I? If you weren't so ugly, I would kiss you right now. Thank you. He said, just getting it back. So.

And so I got to cross off my bucket list without getting into any trouble. I got to ride in a state trooper car. I'd never done that before. So yeah, get ride in the back. He was real nice, very pleasant guy. He had been on duty 23 and a half hours up until that point and no sign of when he would get off. So these guys were, I can't say enough nice things about the troopers. They were all professional and

Robert (28:22)
Right in the back.

David M. Jones (28:46)
Like you said, they're kind of rooting for me in the background. I'm sure some of them had kids of their own. So he took me on into Irwin, dropped me off. He had a, I don't know, there was like a command station there at the Irwin Town Hall and Irwin was lit up. The town of Irwin was lit up. The Irwin utilities people had gotten the power back on there and it was beautiful site. And so he dropped me off. There was a

convenience store. stopped in there and I got a caffeine drink and a protein bar and I headed back on out and I had a decision then. I could go find the interstate or I could go the old back road. And so I, for whatever reason, the urge sent me to the back road. And so off I went and

now probably 20 miles from home. And if I can keep my pace up, I can get there by nine or nine 30. And that'll be enough time to clean up. And I had an old car in the drive, old SUV, know, the kind of haul trash to the dump and haul the mulch in and all that. And so I knew I could make it if there were no more trouble. So kept going, kept going.

At one point a car comes zooming past me. Now this is again, this is a narrow two lane back country road, no sidewalks, no shoulders. So this car comes by and he came by a little fast and I'm thinking he doesn't see me. So I step off into the side of the road, into the ditch there and I'm thinking, I don't need another.

Robert (30:24)
Right.

David M. Jones (30:38)
incident, you know, this is where the snakes would be and that sort of thing. So how am going to do this? And then a little ways up, I saw a one of those reflectors that's on a stake that people put out at end of their drive. I thought.

Robert (30:53)
Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. You see that a lot

in the country where people do that. So, yep, they know where their driveway is and such. Yeah.

David M. Jones (31:00)
Exactly. And so again, forgive me father, but I'm stealing this steak. And so I'm walking along with my cell phone light in my right hand and this steak leaning out over the road, this reflector in my left hand. And sure enough, you know, there wasn't a lot of traffic at this hour after a hurricane, but about every 45 minutes or so a car would go by and

Robert (31:06)
Hahaha

David M. Jones (31:30)
They saw me. They would slow down. They would kind of move over. And I said, all right, this thing's working. So I got to the pool. No, and I didn't expect that. In this day and age, you know, there's some goofball walking in the middle of the night after a hurricane. know, they're probably thinking serial killer. I'm filthy. And I'm thinking, you know, Lord, if anybody does stop, please make it.

Robert (31:38)
Nobody stopped ass.

Yeah. And you're filthy. Yeah. Yeah.

David M. Jones (32:00)
somebody safe that I can ride with, you know, and so I keep going and keep going and keep going. And I get to the point where I know I'm about eight to 10 miles from home. And I'm if I keep up my pace, I can barely make it on time. So I'm starting to slow down, starting to get tired, starting to feel blister come up on one of my feet. And I'm thinking,

I just got to keep pushing forward one foot in front of the other. Let's do this. And a car pulls out, actually a truck, it was a white pickup truck, pulls out from a side road and he stops and he lets me walk in front of him. And then he rolls his window down. He says, hey, you want to ride? And I thought, okay, Lord, here we go. And I said, yeah, I would actually, if you don't mind. He said, hop in.

So I hopped in and he said, where are going? Johnson says, all right. He said, yeah, that's where I'm going. He said, my wife and I just bought this house down here and we haven't moved in yet. We're still doing the painting and the remodeling and something woke me up at four this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep. So I thought I would come down here and check on this house. Well, you and I know what woke him up and kept him up. And the more he talked,

Robert (33:17)
Hmm. Wow. Yeah.

David M. Jones (33:25)
The more I thought, I know this guy. I recognize that voice. I didn't recognize him in the dim of the morning. It's about seven in the morning by this point that there's, you know, a little bit of sunlight coming up. And I said, are you Steve Parfit? And he says, yeah. I said, I'm David Jones. We used to work together at Texas Instruments back in the day.

Robert (33:40)
Yeah.

No way.

David M. Jones (33:53)
He said, really? said, yeah, I worked for Jim Bender. And he said, well, I worked with Jim. I said, yeah. So we had a little like a work reunion there. Yeah. So crazy, absolutely crazy. He drops me off in my driveway at 730. I have cell phone coverage. I call my wife, say, made it. 730 in the morning. And told my wife I made it.

Robert (34:00)
my gosh.

Wait, he drops you off at what time? Okay, okay.

David M. Jones (34:22)
told her a little bit of the story and she's just boo-hooing. Just the tension of the night and...

Robert (34:27)
sure.

David M. Jones (34:27)
So I...

Robert (34:31)
Did,

did she ever say you're crazy? she, but she probably knows that you're very determined, very, you know, strong willed, strong headed and you're going to go. Yeah. I was about to say she probably wasn't surprised. Yeah.

David M. Jones (34:34)
Yeah, yeah, to this day.

Yeah, she wasn't surprised. She was disappointed because

in her mind, what if the opposite had happened? What if you had died on your daughter's wedding day? And my best friend, I told him the story. said, you're an idiot. know, well, maybe. But, you know, I wouldn't recommend somebody to to take on something like this that wasn't in shape, you know, that didn't know. mean, I'm 64 years old.

Robert (34:51)
Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?

David M. Jones (35:12)
My Garmin watch says my fitness age is 22. So I knew I had the ability, physical ability and stamina to get there. I teach this stuff. This is, know, and I have my own personal values. I could not with all integrity, look my daughter Elizabeth and her new husband, Daniel in the eye and say, I did everything I could to be here if I hadn't actually done it. And so.

Robert (35:18)
you had the physical ability to do it.

David M. Jones (35:39)
I had to keep pushing, I had to keep going. So Steve drops me off. He has no idea what a huge favor he's done for me or how much press coverage he's gonna get coming out of this. I go in the house, no power, water was cold, I wash up, I have an old suit there, I have some old shoes that are just fine for the wedding. And I don't lay down, I purposely don't lay down,

Robert (35:50)
Right.

David M. Jones (36:08)
afraid I would fall asleep and not wake up. So I get washed up, drive to the church.

Robert (36:10)
Sure.

David M. Jones (36:17)
daughter when she arrives she sees the old car blue we call this car blue she sees blue and she's thinking wonder why dad drove blue but well whatever you know back to wedding mode it's her it's her day I told my brother I told my other two daughters the story and they were bowled over by it of course but I also asked them not to tell Elizabeth we'll have plenty of time afterwards

Robert (36:30)
Right.

So your daughter doesn't know you didn't, you didn't tell your daughter what you had just gone through to be there.

David M. Jones (36:46)
this is her special day, let's not ruin it. Because I know she would be devastated by this. I know it would cause great anxiety for her. let's save this until afterwards. So we did. And the wedding was fine. It was beautiful. In fact, was candlelight. Again, no power. But her sisters came through and got candles and got it all set up, looking real nice. Great wedding.

We go to the reception. There was power at the restaurant where we had the reception. And as I was leaving the house, I turned around and I went back in and grabbed that reflector and I brought it with me. They had asked me to say the blessing over the food and say a few words before, you know, during the ceremony before we ate or during the reception. And so when it came that time,

I stood up and I had the reflector and people are looking at me kind of funny like, what's he doing? And I said, you know, it's not a magic wand. There's nothing special about it, but there is a story behind this and let me tell it. So I told them the story.

I got there that night and of course, everybody's boo-hooing, including me, including other people in the restaurant. We had one part of the restaurant, but it was open. there were other, everybody else was hearing the story. And then when I got to the end, I said, I want to present you with this reflector. And when you see it, I want it to be a reminder for each of you to...

Robert (38:09)
Right. Good here.

David M. Jones (38:26)
Be a protector for each other, especially in your darkest hours, just like it was for me. And to always reflect God's goodness and continue to reflect God's goodness.

Well, that brought closure to me because now I'm done. Here's my souvenir, right? I'm handing it off. I've made it. I'm thrilled. We had a great ceremony. It was a lot of love. Just everybody's happy and They have that reflector now mounted above their their front entrance door. It's up on the wall. So yeah, so Yes

Robert (38:59)
wow.

You're a spiritual person, obviously. Do you mind sharing or do you remember any of the conversation? You had a lot of alone time in the dark. I'm sure you could reflect on a lot of things during that time, but

Like some of the talks you have with God, do you mind sharing if you can think of any of those or what you were asking for maybe?

David M. Jones (39:25)
Well, the first...

Yeah, so the first one was just when I started out. All right, Lord, you and me, let's go. Let's do this. And I never really felt alone. I didn't feel like anybody was gonna do this for me. I had to do the work, but I felt like he was there the whole time. Even when I was stuck in the mud I'm just telling him, I need your help. I am...

Robert (39:42)
Right? Right.

David M. Jones (39:54)
at my max here, you know, I've been up since five in the morning, right, to weather the storm in South Carolina. And now it's was three something by then, I'm sure. And and so the rest of the way, was just more of a conversation. There was there was a point at which there was a pack of dogs barking. I couldn't see them, but I could hear them.

Robert (40:20)
Hmm

David M. Jones (40:23)
And they were just, were on the other side of the road. there was a lot of brush and trees and things, and there must've been a fence. Cause there was no way, you know, I might be able to fend off one dog. You know, I had tossed the stick. Now I'm carrying this reflector. I might be able to fend off one. I am not going to fend off a pack. And so as these things happened, you know, Lord, you know, help me out here. And I.

Robert (40:39)
Hahaha!

David M. Jones (40:52)
I know I was a half a mile away. I could still hear those dogs barking. Had they gotten out, it'd have been all over. So, yeah.

Robert (41:01)
You were

definitely being watched over. I love that you never felt alone. I love that.

David M. Jones (41:06)
I didn't feel alone. But

like I said, I didn't feel like anybody was going to do it for me either.

Robert (41:12)
David, I'll tell you what, like, so you're talking about this and I'm you know, a dad gives away his daughter at the wedding, right? And he gives her away to someone that, that the father feels will love his daughter. That is going to provide for his daughter. That is going to protect his daughter. That's the part of giving away.

I wonder like you've set, you've, you've set such a high bar for your son in law. I wonder like, is he a little bit resentful? Like, look, I know your dad did all this, but it's a little extreme.

David M. Jones (41:49)
Yeah,

Daniel's a great man. If I could go out in the world and pick somebody for her, I would pick Daniel. He is that good. And yeah, he has been told more than once by his buddies, you got a lot to live up to. At work, he showed up to a meeting shortly after this happened and he spoke up in the meeting and they said, whoa, stop right there, Daniel.

Robert (42:07)
Yeah, yeah.

David M. Jones (42:18)
Unless you walked 30 miles to get here, we're not, we're not painted. So yeah, he's had that burden placed on him, but I have no doubt that he's going to live up to and exceed it. He is that good.

Robert (42:23)
You

That is wonderful. So when you tell your daughter this, like, is she just bawling? Like she has no idea. Like I can't imagine her emotions.

David M. Jones (42:41)
Yeah, she was bawling in the thoughts. What she has said since then, the thoughts that were going through her mind were, wow, if my earthly dad would do this for me. What what is our heavenly dad, you know, to what extent does he go?

Yeah, I was talking to John Gordon on his podcast, if you're familiar with John Gordon, and he said, you know, love drives grit. And the more I thought about that, said, yeah, that's true. I mean, if you really love somebody, obstacles, barriers, they don't get in the way. You you hear the stories of moms lifting up cars that their kids are trapped under, right? Love drives grit. And that really stuck with me.

Robert (43:08)
yeah, yeah.

us.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

David M. Jones (43:29)
In a business context, then I thought about this quite a bit. And it's more about passion and purpose. And if you add with that preparation, then you can persevere. So you have passion for what you're doing. You have purpose. It's not a meaningless thing. You have purpose. And you've been taught or trained or you're skilled.

Robert (43:43)
There you go.

David M. Jones (43:54)
you have that preparation, then you can persevere. So that's become part of my teaching now.

Robert (44:01)
That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it is. And what a story to go along with it. What would you like or what do you hope that other dads might get out of this? What would you like? What kind of message would you like to give dads about your story or just in general?

David M. Jones (44:19)
The first would be, know, don't do anything crazy or foolish. To me, this wasn't a rash decision to go out. The decision was easy. This is my daughter. She's getting married. I'm going to go. I know the distance. All right. So, you you don't want to get in too deep. So I wouldn't recommend this to everybody, but I would also say we are all capable of much more than we think.

And so much of what we could do never happens because we, in our mind, talk ourselves out of it before we even get started. So don't be afraid to stretch or push yourself. You have that in you.

So those two things.

Robert (45:03)
Why do you think we talk ourselves out of it?

Shame, fear, embarrassment.

David M. Jones (45:05)
That's really good question. Yeah, think

fear, yeah, embarrassment is big. You know, in this day and age, we are consumers. You know, we're consuming content constantly. We're sitting, stuff is coming to us. We're not out creating, we're not out doing, so we don't have that pattern built in. But I think fear...

is probably the biggest one. you know, what could be out there? Well, I don't know what could be out there. The only way I can find out is if I actually go. So.

Robert (45:43)
Yeah, that's great. You know, it's kind of like what we were talking about before before. You know, even with this podcast, there was a lot of fear, a lot of potential embarrassment. Now, finally, just like, all right, what the heck, let's just do it. You know, let's take that first step. And I think I love that because there is a lot of I see with with men and people in general.

A lot of, if you want to say dreams, aspirations that are never achieved because of fear of what others will think. Potential embarrassment, potential shame.

David M. Jones (46:27)
Yeah.

And I think now that you mentioned it, there's probably another that people want to wait for the perfect time. Like now's not the right time to do this or I need a little bit more information or I need a little more preparation. And there's never going to be a perfect time. And if we keep putting things off and putting things off, waiting for that to occur at some point,

We're gonna age up and we're not gonna be able to do it.

If you have enough to get started and you have that vision, so you have that direction where you want to head, whether it's with the way you want to raise your children or what you want them to achieve in life or what you want to do with your career or the group that you lead at work or whatever it is. If you have that direction and you know the first step or two, you can, you're smart enough to figure out the next step and the next step and the next step after that.

doesn't mean it's gonna be easy. It doesn't mean there won't be obstacles along the way. No path is obstacle free. It just means you gotta figure some things out as you go. And you won't know what those things are until you get there.

Robert (47:40)
great. David, book, movie, anything like that? Have you been approached? Okay. I know. I know. Yeah, I could I could tell when I asked that question that yeah, there's something going on back there. Something else going on.

David M. Jones (47:46)
Yeah, I can't say much about.

Yeah, there's serious interest from Hollywood. script has already been written. We'll see where it goes. It's maybe step 10 of a 200 step process, but.

Robert (48:02)
Okay.

Well,

you know you're going to be fighting off bears with that reflector when it goes to Hollywood. Bears and mountain lions and everything else with that little reflector. You know that's going to happen. Okay, so let's say it goes to Hollywood. Let's just say perhaps it does in a movie's made. Who do you want to play you? Have you thought about that?

David M. Jones (48:20)
Yeah, yeah, there's gonna be some.

gosh, yeah, I thought about that. And there have been many suggestions.

I don't know if I want to say too much about it, but there are some guys about my age that have played good dad roles.

I don't know, there's a lot of options there.

Robert (48:50)
I'm so happy to hear that. hope it happens because as you're telling me the story, I'm actually thinking about that. Like this would make such a great movie. Like in Hollywood could do so much with this. Now they're going to change it a little bit, right? But you know, it's a beautiful story. It's a beautiful story of perseverance, of determination, of a father's love. And I am so happy that hopefully it's going to be captured in

You know, maybe there's maybe there's a book in your future as well. Very nice.

David M. Jones (49:26)
Yeah,

I have started working on that as well. We'll see where that goes. I had already been working on a business book. There's obvious ties, as I mentioned, to business principles throughout this. So we'll see if it's ended up being one book or two. We'll see.

Robert (49:43)
Anything else you want to

David M. Jones (49:45)
Now, I want to encourage you and your listeners. This is a great podcast. You obviously have a great mission to help dads. And clearly, you know, this story went around the world really fast. It got a lot of traction, a lot of attention. Clearly, there is a need for strong dads and strong dad relationships in the world today. And you're helping that happen.

Robert (49:53)
Thank you.

Amen.

Well, I appreciate it. I so much appreciate it. How can people find you?

David M. Jones (50:14)
Thank you.

My website is theexcellenceadvisory.com. You can find me on LinkedIn at David Jones. And that's all, no punctuation in there, just David Jones on LinkedIn. Facebook, you can find me out there, if there's a bazillion David Joneses in the world, you'll have a hard time finding me there. You're better off trying the LinkedIn path.

Robert (50:44)
What about Instagram?

David M. Jones (50:45)
Instagram too.

It's like David Jones or David Jones 328 or something like that.

Robert (50:52)
You

know what? will find you on there and I'll follow you, of course, but I will also tag you so people can find you on Instagram and I'll include that in the description as well. So if anybody's looking for you, they can certainly find you there and everybody can be on the lookout for the movie and whenever it comes out. Man, that's exciting. David, thank you so much. Really, appreciate you reaching out.

David M. Jones (50:59)
Okay, yeah.

Well, thank you.

Robert (51:21)
And I appreciate you just taking time out and just share the story. mean, this is, you know, the news and all that just gives such quick little blurbs and like, so much more of a story there. And I really appreciate you taking time out to come on and share it with everybody.

David M. Jones (51:38)
It's been my pleasure.

Robert (51:40)
Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Hey, and thank you all for listening to the dad to dad's podcast. You can find us on apple or Spotify and pretty much most, most podcasts formats as well as on, YouTube and Instagram. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button and leave a comment. read every single comment. I appreciate those and, also love the, topic suggestions as well.

And thank you all again for listening, and we will talk to you next time.