Home » “As Good As I Once Was:” Toby Keith’s Anthem for Middle-Aged Dads

Country Music, Masculinity, Raising Boys, Song Analysis

“As Good As I Once Was:” Toby Keith’s Anthem for Middle-Aged Dads

The Dads talk about Toby Keith’s longest running #1 song, “As Good As I Once Was.” Ultimately they need to decide if the lyrics in the song title are true OR ask themselves if they were ever any good in the first place?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Show Notes:

  • 7:05 – Dad Life Sound Check; The Dad’s talk about the songs “Chess” by ⁠Dani Rose⁠ and “Cuckoo” by ⁠Stephen Wilson Jr.⁠ 
  • 12:00 –  HARDY Report: The Quit ⁠Album⁠ comes out soon and Dave is full of nervous excitement 
  • 14:42 – Farm Boy Update: Mick discovered that they have a follower in Australia and are kinda excited that they have gone international
  • 17:05 The Dads talk about Toby Keith’s longest running #1 song, “As Good As I Once Was.” Ultimately they need to decide if the lyrics in the song title are true OR ask themselves if they were ever any good in the first place?

You can find the playlist on ⁠Spotify⁠ and via our ⁠⁠⁠⁠webpage⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can find all of our back episodes on our website ⁠countrymusicdads.com⁠. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠ @countrymusicdads. And most importantly, please give us a 5-star review and share the show with all of your friends.

References:

Transcript

There was a couple of different times where I kept telling myself, I wasn’t gonna dive for it, I wasn’t gonna dive for one.

But when you’re playing three on four, sometimes that old, I can still do this, I can get it.

Yeah, I dove.

I dove.

Good for you.

And I missed.

But you lived to tell about it, and that’s the important part.

Yes, I dove, I missed, and as I’m crawling up, I said to myself, I should have got that.

This is Country Music Dads, the parenting podcast with a twang.

We’re bringing you highly subjective, sometimes questionable, but always 100% authentic country music analysis, as only two dads in the trenches of modern parenting could do it.

My name is Dave, and I’m a country music dad.

My name is Mick, and I’m also a country music dad, and thank you for joining us.

Today, Dave and I are gonna break down the Toby Keith classic, As Good As I Once Was.

So we’re gonna find out, is this true, or is this just an excuse that we all use?

But before we get into that, Dave, you have anything that you wanna share to start the show off?

So, I’m right in the middle of Daddy’s summer camp, and I got some early feedback on how it’s going from my clients.

Did they submit their TPS reports?

Yeah, yeah, this is the midsummer feedback.

Are we already at midsummer?

It seems like it’s going fast.

I feel that the 4th of July is midsummer.

I know that that might not match up calendar-wise, but that’s just kind of how I do it.

And that’s the thing, we’re recording it right after 4th of July weekend, so I guess that fits.

I should do a mid-year check-in.

And so, most of the feedback that I’m getting right now is, I wish it was mommy summer camp, actually.

To me, that seems like negative feedback.

They wish mom was here instead of me.

And, you know, it hurts a little bit.

I know they don’t mean it though.

We were at the park today, the local park right around in our neighborhood, and my oldest saw some of his friends from baseball at the summer camp that they run at the park, the summer day camp.

And so he saw his friends out there, and he’s like, oh yeah, I think they’re in camp.

And so I used that as an opportunity to ask him, like, do you want to do camp sometime, like for a week here or there, or do you like being at home during the summer?

And no hesitation, he said, no, I like being home.

So I’m taking that as a good sign.

He’s at least enjoying himself.

Maybe he wishes it wasn’t me.

Sometimes, I think we’re just maybe we’re wearing on each other because we see each other so much.

But he is appreciating the fact that he’s not in summer day camp.

So I took that as a victory.

And you should.

You should.

I mean, you’ve been doing this for a while now.

You know that the only reason that you’re not the favorite parent is because you are the parent who is there most often.

Yeah.

I had a friend of mine and reminded me at one point when I was complaining about this same thing, same topic.

I’m naturally going to be the one that takes the abuse because that’s when they get back from school or from whatever, this is where they’re comfortable.

You should take it as a compliment that your kids are comfortable enough with you, with their relationship with you, that they can be 100% honest and not try to beat around the bush or guard their thoughts because we don’t want to make dad mad or anything like that.

That is very true.

I have to take their feedback with a grain of salt.

They were gone with my parents for a whole week and they got back and I said, I missed you guys and my oldest was like, I did not miss you.

But you’re right.

Well, of course.

He’s so comfortable.

He’s comfortable just to say things like that straight to my face.

Because grandma probably let him eat all the cookies in Otter Pops that he wanted.

That’s right.

So, yeah, that is the blessing.

It’s like the whole, your kid’s driving nuts at home and then you go to school or a club activity there in anything.

There’s tell you, oh, your child is so nice and they’re so this and they’re so that.

What do oftentimes a lot of us say, we default to, well, I’m glad they were good for you or oh, my goodness, you should see them at home and some variation of that.

Then as your kids get older, you still kind of do that, but then you start saying to yourself in all seriousness, and even tell the kids, I even told my oldest ones, I am glad that you are only a jerk face towards me.

That’s a good point too.

I don’t want you to be a jerk face towards me.

But if you have to be one, I am glad that you are not acting up with other people.

So I think to me, it sounds like Dad Camp is going well.

Maybe what I thought was negative feedback is actually just evidence that I’m killing it right now.

Sounds like it to me, man.

So what’s new with you?

Well, we mentioned 4th of July, so we had the quintessential summer thing over the 4th of July, kind of fell on a weird time this year, but right after 4th of July, we had the Feral Family Reunion.

So this is on Kelly’s side.

Every two years, her dad’s family gets together.

It used to be a state park in Nebraska, because that’s kind of the most central place.

Then they moved it.

This year was at a new location.

It was this church camp complex type place, because it was bigger and they actually did the cooking for us.

They actually had like legit hotel rooms and not just little cabins.

The pool was nice and they had volleyball courts.

I’ll get to volleyball when we start talking about our song later, because there’s a perfect tie in.

But it was just nice to see the cousins that you don’t see very often.

Long story short, the quintessential American family reunion on a holiday weekend where you’re still seeing firework remnants in the sky.

I can picture it right now.

I know exactly what it looks like.

Yep.

And that’s what it was.

Yeah.

What a paradise.

You should have posted more of it on Instagram.

It would fit in just really nicely over the weekend.

Picture perfect Americana, red, white and blue on a big lawn with a lake.

So what’s the soundtrack to 4th of July?

Well, actually, so I mentioned social media.

And that’s where I’m going to kind of go with the old dad life, the dad life soundcheck.

When we did the Parenting Day From Hell episode, we got a comment from a person by the name of Dani Rose.

And it was like, good job dads.

Well, come to find out that she’s a singer, started off in LA and now she’s kind of in Nashville.

And so I was like, well, you know what?

If she’d like this, I’m going to take it upon myself to learn some more about Dani Rose and see what some of her songs are.

So started kind of went to her site and we’ll put her site in the show notes and everything so everyone else can find it.

The first song that she has listed when you go to her music section is a song called Chess.

And this was probably my favorite song.

Now, she’s got a couple of others that were her latest one is called Good Morning.

And then there is another one that she has something about mama, that if we ever do a Mother’s Day episode like we did the Father’s Day episode, this one would be the perfect addition to that.

It was something about I got it from my mama.

But Chess was my favorite.

And this song was actually featured in one of your and my both favorite shows, Yellowstone.

It was in season four, episode nine.

Okay.

So check out Dani Rose.

So Taylor Sheridan liked the same song you did.

Yeah.

That’s great.

Yeah.

Check out the song Chess.

And I hope you enjoy it as well as I did.

And Dani, thank you for commenting on our best songs for Father’s Day playlist.

Dave, what’s your dad life song?

So for my dad life sound check, this has kind of become the song of Daddy Summer Camp because my sons have latched on to the song.

It’s another Stephen Wilson Jr song.

It’s called Cuckoo.

And it fits because Daddy Summer Camp is a little bit crazy.

And I’m going a little bit crazy.

You might say I’m going a little cuckoo.

And there’s a part of the chorus where he says, that’s just one more thing in a long line of things I can’t control.

A couple episodes ago, I mentioned that Summer Camp started off with me getting sick on the second day and having to re-plan and accept that my agenda for the summer isn’t going to be perfect.

Things aren’t going to be perfect and just appreciating the little things and the simple things.

So I think this song kind of fits in that respect that it’s a little bit crazy.

And I just have to kind of accept that there are a lot of things that are out of my control when it comes to hanging out with my kids all summer long.

And I mean, one of those things is my kids in general.

Like I cannot control them.

And it’s something I think that I’ve learned as I’ve matured as a parent that you want to guide your kids, but they’re human beings.

You’re not going to control their every action and reaction to things.

Your job is to kind of put some boundaries in place and guide them.

You could get into trouble if you start to feel like you have to control every single thing that they do, because they’re going to be their own individuals.

So that’s a lesson that I think I am constantly reminding myself of.

I don’t want to be controlled as an individual, and my kids probably don’t either, especially not by me, because they want mommy summer camp.

So, there’s also this, there’s this one section of the song where there’s the sound of shushing.

My two oldest boys, they just think it’s the funniest thing ever.

It’s this inside joke that I have no idea why they think it’s funny.

But I love it, because they are just dying laughing during that part of the song.

And it’s cool to see them become friends at their age six and four, where they can have an inside joke that I just have no idea what they’re talking about.

So it’s cool.

It’s a deep song, but the way that we’re hearing it here in the summer is it’s just a fun one, really upbeat and high energy.

It’ll be a good one live, I think.

So yeah.

Speaking of people who are good live, I have much to report on the Hardy Report.

Don’t share it all at one time.

I’ve never had a loss for content when it comes to Hardy.

This week especially, I do need to take things slow because the week that we’re recording, this is Hardy’s new album release week.

His album comes out this Thursday night, July 11th.

This is the Quit Album.

I know that’s one of your favorite songs.

It’s a rock album.

Quit, I think, is the intro song, and he designed it to be an intro song, get you psyched for the album.

So at midnight Eastern on Thursday, July 11th, I will be holding a vigil in my backyard, waiting.

And thankfully, it’s a benefit of being on the West Coast.

That’s only 9 p.m.

So I have plenty of time to run through the album this Thursday night.

I’ll probably have a fire and a beverage or three, and it’s going to be a good time.

But I’m actually a little bit nervous.

I kind of have butterflies because I’m excited because this is new music and everything, his new album.

I’ve been very happy to follow him as he’s progressed as an artist in his career, from a country songwriter to now whatever he’s doing now.

It’s exciting.

But I’m nervous because I really want to like it.

And if I don’t, I’ll be so devastated.

Especially with the fact that our listeners kind of know you like his rock and roll side best.

I do.

I do.

So I think I’m expecting to like it, but I also want to tell our listeners, I’m not a total hearty homer.

If there’s songs that I don’t like, I will say so.

I’m not going to like everything.

Like Gin and Juice.

Yeah, exactly.

There’s things that just don’t hit.

Like Quit, I didn’t even really like it at first and it grew on me.

But yeah, I’m a little bit nervous.

I want it to be good.

I want to be able to defend it.

You know, I am the preeminent West Coast hearty apologist.

I want to keep doing that, but only if it puts out good stuff.

So I’m excited.

It’s nervous excitement.

Thursday night’s going to be a time.

Well, I hope it works for you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m looking forward to it.

Yeah.

So anything to look forward to out on the Urban Homestead.

Well, this week, I’m going to go a little different direction.

Okay.

Not going to necessarily talk about the Urban Homestead.

I’m just going to talk about farming and ranching in general.

So remember a few episodes back when it just came up in conversation that Brantley Gilbert’s song, Country’s Countrywide talked about how it doesn’t really matter where you are, you can find a country similarity.

Well, that’s the theme of this week’s Farm Boy update.

So I know some of our listeners remember that hay bale reel that we put out that went by our standards crazy and it’s still very popular.

Well, when it started going crazy, we were able to dial in and see, okay, this person’s following us now and this person liked it and just see where they’re from.

Well, one of the names caught my eye and the name was Western QLD Trapping.

As an old rugby player, I know that QLD is an abbreviation for Queensland.

Western Queensland Trapping is a guy essentially out in Western Queensland, who takes care of predators on ranches, either crop predators, pigs, or animal predators, dingoes.

It just made me realize that country is country ride.

Farming, ranching, it’s the same, whether you’re in the United States or Australia.

Yeah, worldwide, worldwide.

You’re dealing with predators.

You’re dealing with things that impact your livelihood.

So that, combined with the fact that I can say that we’ve now gone international, it was just this surreal aha moment that kind of gave me some, I don’t want to say warm fuzzies.

The international thing gave me warm fuzzies, but the understanding and the realization that it doesn’t matter where you are, you’re dealing with the same stuff.

It just kind of brought me home.

So Western Queensland Trapping, thanks for following us and we appreciate you, man, and good luck out there doing what you do.

Nice.

I like the change up.

Taking the Farm Boy update down to the Southern Hemisphere.

So, all right, well, let’s transition to the meat and potatoes of what we’re going to talk about today.

Toby Keith, As Good As I Once Was.

I did not know, and I don’t know if our listeners know, but this song was actually Toby’s longest running number one song.

I think it was a number one for six weeks on the Billboard Hot Country.

When you think about all the good songs he’s had over the years, the fact this was his longest number one, I thought that was impressive.

That’s a really good fact, because since he recently passed away, he had been playing a lot of his stuff, and you sometimes forget how many big hits that he had.

The fact that this was his biggest one from a charting perspective is interesting.

How many he had out there.

The one that I’ve been hearing the most is the, I love this bar.

That’s the one I hear the most with the exception of, we talked about 4th of July was just recently, the courtesy of the red, white, and blue gets played a lot.

Yeah, that’s true.

Just because.

I’ve been hearing lots of Should Have Been a Cowboy.

That is actually my, it was his first big hit, but it’s my favorite.

Nice.

It was the first song I ever sang karaoke to actually, Should Have Been a Cowboy.

Fun fact.

Yeah.

I was in college when that song came out, and I remember being at the old International Order of Oddfellows bar in town, because that’s who had the cheapest beer, and they didn’t care if the college kids came in.

They had a jukebox, and we would play this song on the jukebox a couple of times a night.

Somebody would play it.

I didn’t play it.

I’m a cheap college kid.

I let somebody else play their money on the jukebox, but it was popular.

I remember when it came out.

Every time I think of Miss Kitty and Marshall Dillon, it just brings a smile to my face.

But we’re not talking about what should have been a cowboy.

You know, Memory Lane, Toby Keith, Gus’s soul.

Mick just traveled back to his college years before my eyes.

I just watched it happen.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile that big.

Well, another fun fact about this song.

The idea for this song came from a line that Burt Reynolds used in some TV show or movie in the 80s, that Toby’s dad kind of adopted.

That seems to fit with Burt Reynolds.

I don’t know.

There’s something about his image.

Even more so.

Burt Reynolds, yes.

But if you really think about it, it fits more with Toby Keith and Toby Keith’s dad, because we’ve all heard the story about his dad was a lot of the inspiration for Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, and how his dad was just a, I don’t like using the word a man’s man, but his dad was old school and I can just completely see his dad being just as much inspiration.

I can see his dad using that phrase and I can completely see him being a lot of the inspiration for this song.

Now, Toby, I think took it in a completely different way than probably everything that I’ve ever heard about his dad and his relationship would probably go with the being in the bar and trying to pick up the girls and get into the bar fight.

But the premise is still the same.

But those are just a couple fun facts about this song.

His biggest one and Burt Reynolds was the inspiration.

Yeah, I don’t like that term man’s man either, but there is a lot of machismo that comes out of the Toby Keiths.

Sometimes you just don’t know how other way to phrase it, unfortunately.

I think that was one of those.

I couldn’t come up with another way of saying it.

As I was looking into the song, I noticed that Toby was 44 when he released the song.

To me, the song has become the anthem for middle age, I guess, for guys.

It’s just a funny and true take, as we as men go into middle age.

I remember just a couple of years ago, there was a bunch of articles that came out about how middle age for men was actually 37, was actually the median of age.

I think I read it when I was 38 and I was like, oh no, I’m already over the hill.

I can’t believe it.

I missed it.

I think it is mostly because the life expectancy for men came down.

So I think life expectancy came down to 74, the average life expectancy in the US.

I think it was men’s health when I first read about that.

It’s a little bit jarring that, wow, that seems young to consider a 37-year-old middle-aged.

I just turned 40 last year and so that number hit pretty hard mentally.

And I’m starting to feel it more physically this year for whatever reason, and I don’t really know why.

But maybe it’s the mind-body connection.

But I always hear, when I’m talking to you, Mick, you’ve got about a decade on me and guys like you or some of our friends in the dad community, will look at me like, you don’t even know what you’re talking about, Dave.

You’re so young, such a young dad, even though I don’t really feel like it.

So I identify with the song, but I’m curious to hear how you feel about it.

So the Toby was 44 when he released it.

I’m not quite there yet, but I can imagine what kind of headspace he was in when he was writing this music.

He’s a party guy and maybe coming out of that and thinking, well, I guess I got to slow it down a little bit, but I’ve still got it somewhere.

I definitely identify with that.

I too at 40 thought that looking at the average life expectancy, I was like, okay, this is it.

This is middle age because nobody lives to be 100.

Most people only live to be about 80.

So, all right, buckle up because you’re halfway there and let’s go take the rest of it by its horns if we can, which leads into the purpose of this song.

I’ll be honest, it’s a little harder to take things head on like I have been accustomed to over the years.

One of Kelly’s absolute joys in life is to play backyard volleyball.

She just loves it.

She just loves the idea.

So much so that we have a volleyball court out by the garden, permanent steel posts sunk in concrete.

I wish I would have known that when she was at here in LA, because I played volleyball in college.

We could have talked about volleyball a lot.

I’m not sure that she wants to talk about it.

She just wants to play it in a backyard setting and have fun.

So this big church camp that we’re at, at one point they have an indoor gymnasium, had the volleyball court set up, but then we were like, no, that’s not volleyball.

That’s not fun outdoor 4th of July weekend volleyball.

Do you have an outdoor court?

The guy said, yeah, it’s over by, and he gave us directions.

So we rounded up a few of us and went out to play.

I was the second oldest that was playing.

There was only seven of us playing, and it was hot, and a couple of my cousins are on the competitive side.

There was a couple of different times where I kept telling myself, I wasn’t going to die for it.

I wasn’t going to die for one.

But when you’re playing three on four, sometimes that old, I can still do this, I can get it.

Yeah, I dove.

I dove.

Good for you.

I missed.

But you live to tell about it, and that’s the important part.

Yes.

I dove, I missed, and as I’m crawling up, I said to myself, I should have got that.

Which is the point of the song, right?

I always think sports are the first thing I think about with this one too.

Like I mentioned, I played some volleyball in college, and one of the reasons this song has been on my mind recently, it’s not about volleyball, it’s actually because I was inspired this year to play in an adult baseball league.

It was a league that I played in with a bunch of my buddies when I was in my 20s.

It was just so fun because I never thought that I’d be playing baseball after high school years.

It had been eight years since we played in this league.

I really wanted to play it mostly because I was coaching my kids and I was jealous of them.

I wanted to get out there and just swing a bat again.

So I convinced a couple of my buddies to go and play again.

We’re all in our early 40s now and hadn’t played in eight years.

We go out there and man, I am just having the time of my life playing again.

But like you said, the instincts and the competitiveness is still there, but I’m not in any shape for it.

I’m just pretty banged up after playing in these baseball games.

So my example, I still have the instincts that if I’m on third base and there’s a pass ball, I should score.

And so I had that instinct.

I got a good secondary lead from third base.

The ball skipped away from the catcher.

I broke for home.

And then halfway there, I was like, what am I doing?

What am I going to do when I get there?

Do I know how to slide anymore?

And I doubted myself and I just turned around and went back.

And the bases were loaded.

I got all these, there was a big pile up at third base because I decided halfway down the line to rethink everything.

But yeah, the instincts and the desire is still there.

And then when you start to realize that maybe your body isn’t keeping up with it, it’s a little bit shocking.

So I think that line that I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.

That’s what you should have focused on.

You should have focused on the I’m as good once scoring the run as I ever was.

That’s right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just just the other day, the last game we played in, a friend of mine, one of those guys I was talking about, he had the chance to take an extra base like that, and he stumbled, and he looked like he was going down, and somebody yelled at him, don’t think about it, just go.

It’s true, you just got to go for it, and if you’re embarrassed and out by a mile, who cares?

Because here’s the thing, the guy in the outfield, he’s probably struggling with past glory versus current limitations as well.

His arm may not be as strong, his accuracy might not be anywhere near, oh, let’s see.

The guy that comes to mind for me living in Kansas City is a gentleman by the name of Alex Gordon, who just was lethal in left field in terms of outfield assists.

But as you’re thinking back to your point of, there’s a pass ball, I should be able to score from third.

Should you?

Could you?

Did you ever?

Even when you were younger, could you, what your coaches have always said, I mean, is that what was drilled into you, that you could always score from third?

I guess what I’m trying to say is, does this song allow us to maybe cover up the fact that maybe we weren’t as good as we thought we were?

The first part of your question, I absolutely would score on a passball for sure.

Because if I didn’t, the whole team would have to run.

I was coached well.

So we were always about taking extra bases.

I was playing the right way, Mick.

All right.

So, but no, I was not that fast.

And you’re totally right.

I think I read this article a while back and I’ll have to find it in like the show notes also.

It was about nostalgia and how just the way the brain works, we tend to remember the best parts of our past, or we tend to remember more of the best parts of our past, and kind of suppress the bad parts or the negative parts.

So when it comes to our glory days in sports or whatever, you know, Toby is talking about the bars or his fights, we’re always going to remember the highlights.

We’re not going to remember the lowlights.

I’m not going to remember getting thrown out at the plate.

I’m going to remember when I scored.

So that’s what’s kind of in mind.

Now it becomes like almost like your own personal legend.

And I always think of Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite.

We used to call our baseball league the Uncle Rico Baseball League, or maybe my wife used to call it the Uncle Rico Baseball League.

There’s all of us showing up once a week and talking about how awesome we used to be at baseball and how we can still do it.

And every once in a while, you just run into a fastball and it feels awesome.

And you’re like, yep, just like old times.

That’s why we’re out there.

We’re just chasing that one moment that was just like old times.

But you’re right, it wasn’t always like that.

I struck out a lot when I was younger.

And when I strike out now, it’s also just like old times, but it’s not as fun.

So I can suppress those, the K’s.

Do you find it interesting that when we started waxing poetically about this song, we both brought up sports references, athletic ability, things of that nature, reliving those glory days.

But the song does not mention anything about athletic ability.

It mentions hooking up with ladies and then being able to hold drone in a bar fight.

And then if any of you have ever seen the video for this song, you will know that the hooking up with the ladies part doesn’t quite work out.

I’m not going to spoil it.

You know, we’ll put a link to the video in the show notes.

And the bar fight aspect, helping out Dave hustling the game of pool, that didn’t quite work out as well.

Why do you think he didn’t go the sports route?

Why do you think he went the bar route?

The video definitely gives the song a whole new character, because the lyrics of the song just by itself, it’s a lot about machismo and traditional masculine things that you’re going to be good at, you know, like picking up on ladies and getting in fights and being tough and everything.

I almost think that sports kind of fills that same kind of category that, traditionally, if you’re a man’s man, to use our least favorite phrase that we keep on using for some reason.

I think sports kind of fills that category of maybe in the more civilized world or more polite society, or we’re not going to be, especially as we’re getting older, we’re not going to be bragging about our exploits at the bars, we’re not going to be getting in fights, maybe leave that to the knuckle-draggers.

But we like sports, we care about sports, and that’s what we can hang our hat on as true men, using my air quotes.

I want to get to the end of the song.

The last verse kind of just goes into the fact that he realizes that there is a cold hard truth there.

And I think that’s kind of where I know I am.

You, I hope, are not there yet because you are a little bit younger than me.

But I know I’m at the cold hard truth part of it’s not gonna happen.

I think it can.

I might think it can even happen once, but I’ll go back to the volleyball game.

We played two games.

They won the first one.

We won the second one.

And they’re like, we gotta have a rubber match.

Gotta have a rubber match.

And I just looked at Kelly, and I said, I’m done.

I’m done.

That was my cold hard truth.

As much as I think I’m as good as I once was.

Yep, I only got one.

Only good once.

That’s why I’m so glad that he made the music video the way he did, where it’s very tongue in cheek.

He’s being met with the cold hard truth every step of the way.

And he kind of has to live with it and laugh about it, I think is the best part of it.

Because I think that’s what I’m trying to settle in with, with my friends in the baseball league, for example.

Our last game, we just totally got blown out.

It was a disaster of a game competitively.

We had our moments of ineptitude and shortcomings.

And like you, taking yourself out of the volleyball game, the last inning, I was like, you know what?

I don’t want to play defense this inning because my legs hurt.

So I’m going to sit on the bench on purpose.

I don’t even want to be out there because I don’t want to hurt myself.

And so, you know, we went and had some drinks after the game and just celebrated maybe the best 16-run loss we’ve ever been a part of because, for one, I came out of it uninjured and most importantly, we were hanging out together and having a good time.

As we get older, it’s not a priority to just get out and have kind of open play to play a game or play a sport.

And even if you’re not having the success that you expect from yourself or that you used to have, there’s still a lot of value in just having fun, getting out there, playing something.

So I think that’s my takeaway.

We can kind of think about our glory days and laugh about how we don’t live up to them anymore.

But when you have sort of like a community of other people that are kind of going through that at the same time, it’s another good connection point to make.

Absolutely.

I don’t think I have anything else.

Any other thing that you want to share with our audience, Mick, that you were good at once?

I will just touch on this briefly.

I played rugby for years.

I was never great.

I was good.

I was what you call a smart player.

I was a player that learned the game.

I was a student of the game.

I was very fundamentally sound.

But I was not the kind of player that was going to win you the game with extraordinary athletic prowess.

I was the kind of player who would not lose you the game because I would have made all the right decisions.

The way the rugby world works is, depending on your level of competitiveness, some guys just get burned out and quit, some guys just play socially.

But then once you hit the age of 40, you’re eligible to start playing in what they call the old boys games and that’s a lot more lax.

And so I played old boys for quite a few years.

And the old boy games are just, they’re the same as the song, they’re the same as what we’ve talked about.

The guys just, they maybe miss a tackle or they get juked out of their shorts and their opponent runs around them.

And you’re just like, oh man, I should have had that.

I could have had that back in, oh, that would have not happened to me 10 years ago or five years ago or whatever.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is baseball, rugby, doesn’t matter to sport.

If you have a competitive nature to you, you’re always going to think that you’re as good once as you ever were.

Good way to end it, man.

I want to give a shout out to my daughter.

We’re doing this one at night and she’s in their other room just reading the book and watching television.

Halfway through the show, I got a message from her and she goes, I didn’t know you were talking about Toby Keith.

He’s one of my favorites.

I agree.

This song is awesome.

Awesome.

Even the young people can appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Rory, for being my country music muse.

As always, we want to thank you, our listeners, for joining us on our bi-weekly rundown of parenting and country music analysis, not necessarily in that order.

We would love your feedback.

CountryMusicDads, gmail.com, throw the at sign at the beginning.

That’s how you find us on the socials and everything else.

Don’t forget the website, countrymusicdads.com, where you can catch up on any of the episodes that you have missed.

Check out our playlist.

All the songs that we mentioned in the podcast are on our Spotify playlist.

You can search for Country Music Dads to find the full list, along with the aforementioned Fathers Day playlist and Parenting Day From Hell playlist.

So until next time, we’ll see you soon.

Thanks for joining us.

We appreciate you.

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