Let Me Tell You This About That

Two Friends, One Mission: Why We Decided to Share Our Sunday Chats With You

• Delbert and Hess • Season 1 • Episode 1

Share episode

Send us a text

In this episode, longtime friends Hess and Delbert introduce their new podcast project, sharing personal stories and the motivations behind starting their weekly Sunday morning conversations. They reminisce about their shared history, talk about their beloved pets, and reflect on their deep-rooted friendship and family memories.

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools.





Hess:

Welcome to let me tell you this about that. I'm Hess.

Delbert:

And I'm Delbert

Hess:

Welcome to our little morning chat Sunday morning chat.

Delbert:

Hess and I have been friends since we were in first grade, which is about 60 years and we have a morning conversation on Sundays that really gives us our bounce back. And so Hess's wife, Cathy said, you all should do a podcast and we love listening to other people's stories and, and to other podcasts. And so we were like, let's do it.

Hess:

Yeah, these conversations are so important to us and we would just like to share them with you all and y'all give us feedback. It always helps us. We talk about our week. We talk about what's going on in the world. We talk about what's going on in our lives. And I always learn something from these Delbert and I would, I'd just like to share that. I. I'd like to expand that out so that it can help other people. Also,

Delbert:

Exactly. We love to listen to each other and we hope you something out of listening to us.

Hess:

Delbert, before we go into a little bit more about how we kind of crisscross back together. This is what's been going on with me. My week this week is last Monday. We have, several dogs. We have four dogs. Actually, we have five dogs because I'm taking care of my mom's dog right now. We have,, Cathy has a dog that's a Sheltie, and we have her mother's dog, Kitty. When Kitty passed away, we took on her mom's dog, Mary. And then I have a Labradoodle named Tyler, and then our son has a Boston Terrier named Tessa. Well, last Monday, Delbert, One of the gals let her dog out of the car here at the barn, and it's a big old, big old dog. Kind of, it's a little smaller than a Great Dane, but a hybrid dog named George. And George attacked Mary and picked her up and grabbed her. And Mary went into the clinic, into the vet, Dr. McGregor. And we asked Dr. McGregor how many stitches, and she said, uh, yeah, there's lots. And we saw her without her bandage on, Delbert, and she's got lots. There's so many stitches you can't even count them. Right, right, right, right. Anyway, we talked to Latifa, the psychic, the other day. We got Merry, we went and got Merry and brought her home to the farm yesterday. Because we want her here where we can love on her and we can nurture her and we can put this magna wave therapy thing underneath her. And she's got a little more space and we got all the medicines for, and we got all the love for, but that, that, that, that's what's been going on with my week. And we got a little schedule of when to turn her over and, and, uh, when she needs this pill, that pill, but, and all the kids from the barn are coming up and visiting her. And it's really, really sweet. So there's. There's sadness, but there's just so much sweetness how everybody's jumped in.

Delbert:

Oh. Do you know that happened to my dog Gussie? A great dame bit him on his neck. When I was a little girl, that was my first dog Gussie. I got him for my first birthday. And Gussie

Hess:

first birthday? Your very first birthday?

Delbert:

my dad bought me a little dachshund named Gussie, and um, uh, when I was about four or five, right before we moved from the south end to our house on Springcrest Drive, Great Dane jumped our fence and bit Gussie, just exactly what you're saying, what happened to Mary. so Gussie was in the hospital, and he came home with a big old cast on. And Gussie, he did pass from that, but my papa told me, I said, Papa, we were moving, I said, Papa, get Gussie in the car, and he said, Well, let me tell you something about old Gussie, he said, Gussie got married, and he's going to live with his wife and have a family, and you know, uh, that worked for me, uh, I didn'Cry about it. I just started imagining the things that my dog was gonna do and I thought well Maybe he'll, my papa and my dad built Gussie a house And it even had a roof with little shingles on it because they were builders and it had a little light bulb to keep him warm And um, I thought oh my gosh, I bet they get a bigger dog house Maybe they'll have a little table and put their dog bowls on it. So anyway, my papaw all drove me to my new house with me imagining all those things.

Hess:

You had told me that Gussie story and the Papaw story, Delbert, but I didn't know that, I didn't know it was from this dog fight. Wow, that's

Delbert:

Whoa. Yeah. Uh, another crisscross in our lives, right?

Hess:

right. Right.

Delbert:

That's pretty traumatic. Yeah.

Hess:

Well, the animal communicator that we use, Latifa, she's just so sweet, she connected with, with Mary and, and Mary said, she didn't know why she's here. She thought she was gone when that happened, and she's still not sure whether she wants to stay or go. She, she might want to go ahead and cross the bridge, it might be too much for her, she's 13 years old, and she needed permission to do what she needs to do. And even her mama, Grandma Kitty that's passed, that, that her mama needs to give her permission, so we connected immediately to Kitty, and Kitty says, yep, okay, I'm on it. Uh, uh, I got it.

Delbert:

love it. Love it.

Hess:

Well, this is, this is what happens with me and Delbert. Um, we've known each other, as she said, for 60 years and we've lived lives that have been so close together, uh, but sometimes not touching and then sometimes like crisscrossing and yeah, it's been beautiful. And these Sunday morning chats just, um, depict that. And it's beautiful.

Delbert:

Well, I was just going to say how we met was, um, when I got in that car and drove across to my new house, our new school was mother of good counsel. It's brand new school hess and all her cousins went there and on the first day of kindergarten, I was late, of course, because we had just moved. And I was going to say, you know, it was 1963, the fall of 1963. JFK was president and we were just in kindergarten in November of 1963. He was assassinated. So, uh, that's very vivid in my child mind. You know, I had a lot of colorful people in my family. And so my, my memory. started when I was very, very young. I have a lot of memories, whether they're correct or incorrect. I don't know. But, um, I do remember how and heavy it was, uh, when JFK died. Um, we're just, you know, he was the first Catholic president. We were so proud, you know, we were little Catholic girls. And, um, so anyway, let me tell you this about that. That was the saying of Hess's, Dewey, who became my very first friend on the first day of kindergarten. And she says, um, Nancy, you're late. We're on E is for elephant. And I said, Oh, I better get cracking. Okay.

Hess:

wait, wait, wait. So you, you said you like five days late of starting school.

Delbert:

Yeah, they'd already, they were already on E yeah.

Hess:

We're already on the alphabet letter E and, and, and Dewey who ended up our, my cousin, Nancy ended up with the name Dewey Dewey says, Hey, you're late. And we're on E for elephant. Come here. Sit next to me.

Delbert:

sit down next to me. I'm going to show you the ropes kid. You look a little lost. And so I just sat next to her. And of course, she was related to all these people. So I just got enveloped into this big, beautiful family. Um, how many of the Bollinger cousins were in our class at M. G. C. has.

Hess:

Okay. So this, this, let me tell you this about that is that my dad had eight brothers and sisters. And then my dad, as in my dad's work, he got into land development and he got this piece of property on Westport road in Louisville and developed plantation subdivision and plantation country club. And then. A big section of the land, like 10 acres, he donated to the Catholic church that became our mother of good counsel school. And I guess he gave a discount to a lot of aunts and uncles. So with dad's eight brothers and sisters, there was slews of them that ended up getting a house there in plantation subdivision. And so I had four, there were four first cousins. That we're all in the same grade all the way going through our mother of good counsel school and one of these is Dewey Bauer who who said sit next to me. I'll show you the ropes

Delbert:

And then in this wonderful big family already the first day that were a big deal, you know, cause they donated the land I sit next to Dewey and she starts coloring her elephant and then she colors her red. like, stop it. You Oh my God. She's got style too. Oh my gosh. So she's such a trendsetter. And, um. There was this other little boy sitting on my other side, Gregory, and there were no gray crayons left. We had this big cigar box that you just kind of reached in and got a crayon, I had to get a brown one. I thought, well, I'll just use light brown, you know, Gregory says, hey, you're coloring yours chocolate. So anyway, that was my first day of kindergarten. 1963. My elephant didn't turn out that great, but I got a new best friend and the rest is history. We became all good friends at Mother Good Council, had so many good times together. Oh my goodness.

Hess:

Right and I I was not in your kindergarten We went to Sacred Heart model school for kindergarten my sister and I and then I went to first grade at our mother of good counsel But a part of our part of our wonderful parallel that that was going side by side was we were in the water on the river. At the same time, but separately with different boats, uh, Delbert's, Delbert's dad, Stan in the man, he had a boat and my dad had a boat and we were always on the river on, on the whole weekend and we, we experienced that together, but separately, and we were both river rats,

Delbert:

Right. And of the ways that we've crossed back together is our love of the water. All the, all the knowledge that we gained as kids and all the confidence that we gained as kids growing up on that water and the responsibility of helping dock the boat and, uh, you know, just clean it and take care of it. It really taught us so much about life and gave us so much confidence. Now, Hess and I are kind of reconnecting on her boat, the relationship, and we're taking it to different lakes and rivers in Kentucky, and that's one of our goals to to all of them, because one other thing that my Papaw Charlie used to say all the time is, ain't no place prettier than Louisville, Kentucky, and he just thought Kentucky was so beautiful, and I, I kind of feel like I'm honoring that whenever Louisville, We go and explore a new lake.

Hess:

right? Right. And, and, uh, Delbert's dad was also in real estate. Say more about that.

Delbert:

My dad was in real estate, as you said, and he and my pepal Charlie worked together. They, um, developed in a different part of Louisville than, uh, has his dad. Uh, they developed a lot in the South end when I was really little. And then, um, Developed a piece of property, um, in the East end on Breckenridge lane, uh, called Breckenridge estates. And my dad built a lot of apartment buildings and houses over there. And my papaw famously worked for him and. He would take things home from the construction site and put them in his basement and he redid the whole basement because that's where all the men played poker on Sunday. And, uh, and my dad on the drive there. So every Sunday we went to Mass and then we went to my mom's mother's house, my mamaw Dorothy and papaw Charlie's house. when I was little, I was telling Hess this, I thought that women ruled the world. You know, because my grandmother was in charge of the house. She made all our clothes. She cooked all the food the women were all on the first floor of the house and the men were all in the basement. Playing poker and, um, Papaw would take like a piece of vinyl from the construction site, and then he'd put it in the basement and make it nice for the poker table right under the poker table. He'd take some paint and paint them all, you know, so he really fixed up that basement to the men's hangout, but it was little by little. One construction site at a time. You take a little something. And so on the drive there, my dad would say, Damn it, Dodie, if Charlie, If I see one more thing from my construction site in Charlie's basement, I'm gonna kill him. And my

Hess:

Whoa.

Delbert:

Stanley, we just left Mass. You know. That was the drive there. And then of course they were all friends. They'd get around the poker table and laugh. And, uh, so I had, my mom five siblings. She was the second oldest of six and I'm the oldest grandchild of 29 on my mom's side and the oldest of nine on my dad's side. So I'm Irish, German, little bit of Welsh and, uh, My, you know, we always gravitated to my mom's family because it was bigger and started having children more quickly, you know So it was just and I do think that it was very matriarchal my the way that I grew up So and then my great grandmother Susie she ran the poker table downstairs with all the men So I always say from growing up on the river My family made me fearless because I was the oldest. I was in charge. I could navigate those basement stairs with my great grandmother's boiler maker. And I'd say, and the steps were treacherous. Okay. It was this

Hess:

Tresurous. Tresurous.

Delbert:

treacherous steps. And, um, they live right next to Churchill Downs it was this old house, old bungalow, like, and the basement steps, you, you had to really navigate them cause they, they had no back, you know, right. It was kind

Hess:

Right. Right.

Delbert:

color.

Hess:

Right.

Delbert:

I'd have her boiler maker, which was old Forrester on the rocks and a fall city beer back. And I could walk down those steps with that. And I'd say, Hey. Latched the door behind me because there were like a million toddlers that could have tumbled down those stairs, right? But it never happened. We

Hess:

Mm hmm.

Delbert:

the door. And I'd walk down there and they'd all be laughing and smoking. There'd be smoke swirling. Their faces would be kind of ruddy from drinking. And they loved to laugh at their own jokes and pound on the table. So they'd make the poker chips rattle. And, um, I thought, wow. is, I mean, this might be a little bit what hell's like.

Hess:

Tell me, tell me how, how you run a poker table. So you got your grandmother running the poker table. What was the responsibility to run the poker table?

Delbert:

Oh, she just determined. What game they were going to play, you

Hess:

Yeah. Yeah. What the stakes were and all that. Shut

Delbert:

it kind of orderly, you know, it would get kind of rowdy and she'd say, damn it, deal the card, shut up and deal is what

Hess:

up and deal.

Delbert:

And,

Hess:

huh.

Delbert:

that was her saying. And, uh, and she said it about cards and life. Because he was just a shut up and deal kind of person. And I, I gravitated towards her cause she was so strong.

Hess:

Cool. Well, I had a sister 18 months older and with my dad having the eight brothers and sisters that he had, I ended up having 32 first cousins, but my mom, she was an only child. I have zero cousins on that side. The 32 first cousins and they, like I say, they all kind of lived right there in Louisville, except Uncle Jim. He was a brother of my dad, the oldest, and he lived in Cincinnati. And my last name is Bollinger. And, uh, Jim would say Bollinger. So, we'd always, we would never just say Uncle Jim, we'd say Jim Bollinger. Cause he, Cause he, cause he, cause he said his name that way and I ended up, uh, lucking out and getting two more brothers. My dad remarried and I had, uh, two, two, two bonus brothers, which is, which was great. Um, later when I was in high school. So, um, our life ended up coming back together, Delbert. Um, through my cousin Dewey, cause you stayed, you stayed friends with her on, through your life. And kind of worked with her in and out a little bit.

Delbert:

Right. We were, you know, young moms together and, um, you know, our life kind of crisscrossed, and then, uh, when my Carol, my Carol, my sister Carol passed,

Hess:

She is your Carol Delbert.

Delbert:

She really is my Carol. Um, Mary Louis Reed, a gal we went to Sacred Heart with called me and said, what can I do for you? And I, I hadn't heard from Dewey for a really long time. I said, will you bring Dewey to the celebration of life? And then we connected then and stayed friends until she passed away in 2016. And I say this about that. She was my very first friend. And I spent the last night of her life with her. And, um, it was very hard, but it was very, um, wonderful and peaceful. Just like what you're going through with Mary. I mean, um, we're all on this earth for just a specific point in time. And none of us know what it is. You just got to make the best of every day and, be there for each other as much as we can.

Hess:

I get, I get a call back in July, 2016 at 6 a. m. And it's Delbert. And she says, Hess, Dewey doesn't have long. You need to get up here ASAP. And so I canceled my appointments, jumped in the car and was up there within an hour and a half. And it was her last day.

Delbert:

Whoa. And I remember the that I had when I saw you. I was so relieved to see you walking in. It was like, Oh, we've, you know, we got the band back together, you know, we're, we're here. And had this really wonderful priest growing up, Father Flynn, and he came that day too. Y'all are going to think we're making this up because it sounds like it's out of a movie, but we all stood around her bed and held hands and prayed. And then we sang blowing in the wind. Um, and, um, father Flynn prayed with us. And let me tell you this about that one more funny thing about Dewey. I mean, she was a character and so artistic and loved her makeup, you know, just like that first day of school painting those little toenails red. Um, she had been unconscious for I'm going to say at least eight hours I just was standing next to her bed talking to her. And I said, Dewey, you know, I don't know how much longer to be here. Might be a couple minutes, might be years. I don't know. But I called father Flynn just to pray with us and her eyes opened up. She said, father Flynn. And we always had kind of a crush on him because he was really handsome and wonderful and taught us so much about the world and working for peace and being united. I mean, when I was in eighth grade, I wanted to be in the Peace Corps because of him. And said, get my makeup bag.

Hess:

So she'd been unconscious for a while and you didn't want to say, Hey, um, Dewey, I'm bringing father Flynn in for last rites. You said,

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

honey, you might be a few minutes. You might be a few years. I don't know, but we're going to get father Flynn in here to just, to just pray with us and her eyes pop open and say, father Flynn, grab a makeup bag.

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

my gosh.

Delbert:

So funny and wonderful. And of course we did. And, um, her girls helped her get her makeup together the way she wanted it.

Hess:

Mm hmm.

Delbert:

um, yeah, she,

Hess:

She loved an eyeliner. She loved it.

Delbert:

girlfriend looked like Cleopatra. You

Hess:

Yes.

Delbert:

do that smoky eye and that eyeliner and, uh, and as she, one of her other sayings was, it was a heave hut ho. She'd say, Delbert, give me some time to get ready. You know, my makeup is a heave hut ho. That means it's a big deal. That's a big deal. Heave hut ho. So she did, she did not have just a few minutes, but she also didn't have years. She died that morning. After we all got there to see her, and I remember Aunt Helen got there, her godmother,

Hess:

Mm-Hmm,

Delbert:

um, one of the Bollingers, or Bollingers, depending on who's telling the story, if it's Uncle Jim or um, and, um, it was just one of those moments in your life that you're like, you know, we, hey, we did this the right way. And,

Hess:

And another, another friend from, from the, from our high school together, Leslie, she's a nurse and she's there. Uh, being able to administer the morphine as needed and so forth like that. It was just a blessing. All of these people there and, uh, Dewey's kids and the little grandchildren being on the bed with her. As, as her, just her chest, she's having trouble breathing. You know, I think it was lung cancer, right, Delbert?

Delbert:

right,

Hess:

And she's just, her just breath is going up and down, up and down. But you could tell she just loved having those, those grandchildren. And I think like she reached for their hand at one point. So, so beautiful, so beautiful.

Delbert:

really was.

Hess:

Anyway, it's, this connected us back, uh, and Delbert and I, and we planned, we did, we planned the, her, her funeral mass and did the guitars and Father Flynn said the mass and stuff, right? And at the cemetery, we had our guitars and sang. Then I said, okay, let's go back out to the river. And I brought the relationship up and put her in the water on the Ohio. And we had a special cruise celebration for Dewey and ate some old bay shrimp on the Ohio river. Yeah.

Delbert:

it the Dew cruise and then that connected us back again, um, and we're like, we need to keep doing this. We

Hess:

I said, Delbert, Delbert, let's go down to come join me at Laurel lake for the weekend. And you did

Delbert:

the most beautiful lakes I've ever been to. I've got to take my darling society there as my grandkids call me darling. And I try to introduce them to all the lakes and rivers in Kentucky to.

Hess:

yeah, yeah. So there on the back of the relationship, uh, swinging at the anchor, just reflecting about our lives. And you're writing, you're writing your stories down and I love to write. And we began after that, these, uh, Well, we had our first Sunday morning conversation there on the back of the relationship. And then it just felt, feels so good. Then we just started calling each other up. You call me or I'd call you every Sunday morning. And, uh, it's just as good stuff.

Delbert:

It is. had a wonderful life filled with a lot of history, a lot of events, and just a lot of beautiful, colorful stories, and we want to take you all along for the ride.

Hess:

Right, right. So join us, get a cup of coffee. Um, we'll be releasing these. Please follow and tell your friends and we'd love for you to join us every week.

Delbert:

So peace and love, everybody.

Hess:

Yes. Peace and love and we'll talk to you next week. Love you all.

Delbert:

Love yHesguys.

Hess:

Love you Delbert.