Home » Small Towns, Hard Work, and Giant Hay Bales With Officer Isaiah Lemasters

Country Music, Dad Life, Interviews, Masculinity, Raising Boys, Small Town Life

Small Towns, Hard Work, and Giant Hay Bales With Officer Isaiah Lemasters

Small town living, hard work, and hay are common themes in country music. We learn how all of these things came together to give the ⁠⁠Country Music Dads⁠⁠ their biggest social media post to date. Our guest is the star of that social media post: Officer Isaiah Lemasters from the Missouri Highway Patrol. Perhaps better known (on the internet) as the hay bale-lifting cop, Officer Lemasters joins us to talk about his viral video, small town life, and a little country music.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Show Notes:

  • 10:48 –  HARDY Report: Dave got tickets through one of our favorite friends of the show ⁠Country Cutler⁠ to see ⁠ERNEST⁠ and he is hoping that ⁠HARDY⁠ shows up for a collaboration.
  • 14:15 – Farm Boy Update: One of Mick’s chickens had a near death experience.  
  • 16:39 – The Dads’ guest on this episode is Officer Isaiah Lemasters from the Missouri Highway Patrol. Small town living, hard work and hay are common themes in country music. We learn how all of these things came together to give the ⁠Country Music Dads⁠ their biggest social media post to date. 

You can find back episodes and our playlist on ⁠Spotify⁠ and via our ⁠⁠⁠⁠webpage⁠⁠⁠⁠. Please follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠ @countrymusicdads. Correspondence can be sent to ⁠countrymusicdads@gmail.com⁠ Most importantly, please give us a 5-star review and share the show with all of your friends.

References:

Transcript

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.

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

My name is Mick, and I am also a country music dad.

And thank you for joining us.

Today, we’re talking about some common themes that come up in country music.

Benefits of growing up in a small town, value of hard work, going above and beyond the call of duty.

The inspiration for the discussion today comes from our guest, Officer Isaiah Lemasters of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Perhaps better known on the Internet as the cop who lifted the round bail off of the side of a road in a video that went somewhat viral.

Officer Lemasters is an excellent ambassador for these themes.

And we can’t wait for you to hear our conversation with the small town man behind the video.

But before we jump into that, we’re going to start the show off like we always do with me asking Dave, what the heck has been going on with him?

Well, thanks for asking.

I am always glad that you are so polite.

Yes, it’s good to talk to you.

I feel like we haven’t talked as much lately, so it’s good to catch up.

You’re absolutely right.

I think we’ve been chasing some tales.

I chased my family up to Sequoia National Park, actually.

We did a last minute Labor Day weekend trip right outside of Sequoia National Park.

It was a small town.

Speaking of our theme of small town life, a small town called Three Rivers that’s right at one of the entrances to Sequoia.

I was thinking about your family because I know Kelly and Luke.

Is that where you sent them?

I don’t know where they ended up.

Yeah, it’s possible though because it’s the southernmost entrance to the park.

Okay.

It’s this little small town and there’s a ranger station there.

So it’s possible that we were around the same area.

Going on a trip with my family always takes a toll on me, but this one, we purposely just wanted to hang out by one of the rivers that comes out of Sequoia.

It’s called the Coya River.

We rented a house right on the riverfront, so we actually spent a whole day just letting the kids play on the river.

We even toured a property there just to imagine, what would life actually be like for us if we were to pull up roots here in LA and move out to a small town somewhere?

So we spent some time fantasizing about that.

What would it be like to live in this town?

Do you do what I do oftentimes whenever you go someplace, either while you’re there or when you get home, look at real estate listings more often than not, if you’re having a good time?

Oh yeah, for sure.

I do all the time, all the time.

This is both before, during, and after the trip.

We had Redfin and Zillow up and looking around.

Our Labor Day weekend was pretty chill.

Luke came home and got to spend some time with him, so that was fantastic.

He took his sisters out to the Renaissance Fair, and they just had a nice little sibling day walking around.

So it was good for the kids to get out of the house a little bit.

I love to see siblings bonding like that.

Starting to see a little of that, but mine are just so little, but they’re.

Well, like I told you before, with your boys being two years apart, they’re going to end up probably closer than you think.

I just, Luke and Rory two years apart, they’re pretty close.

It may not happen right away.

As soon as they rolled in up, start playing together, they were playing together.

But I think it will happen.

Yeah, so Labor Day was pretty chill around here.

And then I kind of started, as a lot of our listeners know, I work part-time as needed a substitute teacher at Kate’s school.

The school administrator called me in the other other day and she’s like, hey, we need your help with something.

I was like, all right, what’s going on?

One of the facilities maintenance type guys messed his shoulder up and had to get surgery.

She’s like, I know you’re pretty handy and I know you love doing the sub teaching thing, but do you think you could sub in the facilities and maintenance department as well?

I was like, okay, we’ll figure this out.

That’s the jack of all trades.

Pretty much.

Yeah, I think I’m the first person there that both subs in the classroom and then subs for maintaining the classroom all at the same time.

But it’s good.

It’s good.

That’s just a couple of days a week, and then that leaves me free to sub on an as-needed basis the other days of the week.

So far, it’s been all right.

So that’s the update around here.

What you’ve been listening to, what you got on your dad life soundcheck radar.

I’ll give credit to my kids for this one, and specifically my middle son.

His favorite song right now is I Had Some Help by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen.

This song is getting lots of play on the radio.

It seems to be everywhere.

Let’s be honest, right now, anything Post Malone is everywhere.

Yeah, it’s not my favorite song off of that album, and it feels manufactured like they decided, the label decided, this is gonna be the song of the summer.

Put Morgan Wallen on it, super popular, and everyone’s gonna love it.

And I heard it, I’m like, it’s all right.

But it is catchy.

It’s a catchy radio jingle.

Yeah.

I think it’s up for song of the year on the CMAs.

The CMA nominations just came out.

And song of the year goes to the songwriter.

They put something up on Instagram to announce the nominees.

Most of them were like, one songwriter, here’s their headshot.

Maybe two or three songwriters, here’s their headshots.

For I Had Some Help, it looks like the Brady Bunch.

There’s six of them, aren’t there?

There’s tons, at least six.

I thought I counted eight.

I lost track.

Who are all these people?

Right.

But it’s funny.

But my kids love it and my middle son especially, that’s the song he keeps asking for.

The other day, he helped Kim wash the minivan, which is awesome because the other kids were off doing other stuff.

My oldest didn’t want to help, but my middle son really wanted to help and he worked super hard vacuuming and cleaning the interior, doing the outside and he was all over it.

Kim asked him, what do you want as a reward for doing that?

She was ready to give him a treat, give him that Otter Pop or whatever.

He said he just wanted to sit in the front seat, in the driver’s seat and listen to music when he was all done.

That just my heart grows out to him, a little introvert just like his old man.

So I could identify with that.

Yeah, man, can everyone just leave me alone?

Let me sit in the car, listen to my songs.

So he did and we snuck up behind him and watched him.

He didn’t know we were watching him and he was trying to sing along, trying to learn the words and he’s four and a half is, it was awesome.

I might throw a little haterated at the song when it comes on because it’s already starting to get overplayed in my opinion.

But now I can’t because I’m going to think about my son.

He’s got this deep connection to it now.

And I can’t get that image out of my head.

So now I have a new appreciation for the song now too.

That’s awesome.

So what’s on your list of tunes these days?

I’m going to follow that up with appreciation for the song.

You know how we get on this theme every once in a while where I bemoan the fact that I’m getting older and everything?

Really?

Do we talk about getting older?

Sometimes it slips out.

The other day, I heard the real George of Country Music on the radio singing Troubadour.

As I’m listening to it, he starts off with mentioning being the first line talks about being 25 and how he feels 25 most of the time.

I’ve always said that I’m feeling a little bit older, but I still feel as if I’m a young man at heart.

I want to still do young man things and everything.

That opening hook I always identify with.

It’s really when you get into verse 2 of Troubadour, when he talks about how the mirror just doesn’t show the truth, that it doesn’t show what’s deep inside you.

It’s just not a true reflection of where you were or where you are, just because it all blends together.

That’s it.

George Strait, Troubadour.

Yeah, that’s a great song.

I love that one.

Yeah, that song’s got some history to it too.

I didn’t really realize.

So that song came out in 2008.

I was just looking it up to find out when it came out, because I think it came out when I turned 25, actually.

Right.

So that line stood out to me.

I actually am 25 and there’s going to come a time when people are thinking back on this phase of life.

That was a good time.

The reason they did this song is that wrote it, there’s back then, George was slowing down.

2008, he’d been on the charts, do the math since 1983.

He was starting to slow down a little bit, not tour as much and everything.

So people are like, oh, he’s retiring, he’s retiring.

So they wrote this song as his way of saying, no, I’m not retiring.

I’m just trying to be a little more reflective, just trying to pace myself, so to speak, because I still feel 25.

I don’t know, this song always gets me.

The other George released this song, I Don’t Need This Rockin Chair.

Yeah, I remember that one.

He was a little more defiant than George Strait’s a little more reflective.

George Jones was a little more middle finger to Country Music Establishment.

Yeah, to everyone.

That’s where we are on the songs of life.

Hardy’s always got some interesting takes on life.

He does.

What’s Hardy taken on now?

Hardy is always interesting.

This week on the Hardy Report where I try to educate our listeners, since I am the premier West Coast Hardy apologist.

Fanboy.

I am seeing one of Hardy’s good friends live.

This week, I’m going to go see Ernest.

Our dear friend of the show, Country Cutler, actually got these two tickets to see Ernest here in LA.

It was almost like an Instagram sweepstakes, one of those things like, hey, tag your friend.

He tagged me and said, I wonder if they’ll send these two old dads to the show.

Sure enough, we got the tickets, so Country Cutler and I are going to go see Ernest.

Ernest and Hardy and Morgan Wallen, they’re almost like the three amigos of modern day bro country.

Hardy and Ernest, they’re on lots of Morgan’s tracks as writers.

Ernest is also a songwriter.

They do a lot of collaborations with each other.

They’re like Nashville buddies.

I’m excited to see Ernest.

I’ll feel that connection to Hardy through his friendship.

On Ernest’s last album, the collaboration song he did with Hardy was a cover of Creep by Radiohead, which I thought was awesome.

I really liked that Radiohead song.

My old roommates back when I was actually 25, feeling 25 when I was actually 25, my roommates and I were always playing rock band.

Do you remember rock band?

It’s this video game where you’re pretending to play instruments and keeping the beat.

If it wasn’t on the Atari 2600, I don’t remember it.

But we were obsessed with this because you’re imagining that you’re in a rock band.

There’s a singer, the drummer, a bass player and everything.

I had this one roommate, this was his song, the Radiohead version of Creep.

He would really get into it and probably piss off all of our neighbors because he’d be screaming this song.

Hardy and Ernest did an awesome job with Creep, because they kind of country-fied it, so it sounds like a country song, but it’s true to the original message.

It’s a sad and a self-loathing song.

I thought Hardy was a perfect collaborator for this, because a lot of his stuff right now, it’s emo-ish rock songs.

Oh, Creep was perfect, and it’s a good listen, especially if you’re a fan of Radiohead’s original.

I can also put out hope that Ernest is in town.

Hardy seems to be jetting all over the place.

Maybe he shows up.

Fingers crossed.

I can always wish, but it’s gonna be a good time.

And maybe he’ll play Creep.

It’s a good tune.

So, on the farm, Mick, how are things in between cleaning the toilets at the school and chasing kids around the yard?

I haven’t had to clean any toilets yet.

But we had an incident this past weekend on the homestead.

And it could have been catastrophic, devastating.

Luckily, it was not.

So, we got our house.

And then we got the chicken coop.

And then as I’m working our way towards the neighbors, we got the garden and lots of green space.

And then neighbors have a little bit of a meadow and then their house.

They’re out in the meadow area planting some trees.

They have a new dog.

I don’t know how, because there’s quite a bit of space.

So we’re talking at least 75 yards between where the neighbors were and the chicken coop.

And it’s blocked by trees and the gardens.

So you really can’t see the chicken coop.

Somehow this dog knew to them, she’s a year old, German Shepherd Lab, knew to them by about two weeks.

So they’re trying to get her trained.

And I think she just either smelled the chickens or heard the chickens or whatever.

But she took off, chased the chickens up by like into our garage and essentially caught one, and then took it back to show it to her mama.

So the neighbor essentially gets the chicken out of, I can’t remember what the dog’s name is, gets the chicken out of the dog’s mouth and comes back, rings the front door and she goes to Kelly.

She’s, I have your chicken.

It’s not dead, but there’s feathers everywhere.

Long story short, it was Yellowstone.

That was the chicken.

We do say that Yellowstone is not our smartest chicken.

But Yellowstone got caught.

Luckily, the dog didn’t kill it, took it home as a trophy.

She got a little bit of a limp, but she’s been laying eggs in the last few days.

So hopefully, she’s not traumatized too much, but she was in a little bit of a shock for a couple of days.

She didn’t really move around very much.

But yeah, that was the potentially catastrophic action on the homestead.

Glad she survived the violence.

True to her name, a lot of violence on that show.

Her namesakes.

Yes.

On to our main segment.

Yeah, let’s get rolling on that.

Our guest this week is Officer Isaiah Lemasters of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Interviewing Officer Lemasters is really important for us because if you follow us on Instagram, we had from our standard, a viral remix of an already viral reel that featured Officer Lemasters.

So in the reel, Officer Lemasters pulls over on the side of the road, and there’s a very large round hay bale blocking a lane of traffic.

He lifts it up himself and moves it off the road.

So this incredible feat of strength turned into a ridiculous video and got a lot of play around the Internet.

I had added some dad tropes to the video, remix it with a country song, and it went viral on our page.

We found out that Officer Lemasters, the subject of the video, he actually watched that video.

And so Mick reached out to him, and he was willing to come on the show and share some of his thoughts on the day, which I thought was really cool, just to put an actual face to who this person was.

You get an impression looking at him.

He’s in the uniform, he’s got the mustache, and the dude is obviously really strong as he lifts the bale off the road and kicks it over.

We had lots of comments on our reel, and so we were able to ask him some questions about some of the comments that came through and get a little bit of his background and find out straight from the source what that day was like.

So without further ado, we’ll move into a portion of that interview where we ask him for a little behind the scenes look at what that day was like, what happened, and get some of his insights into some of the more common comments he was getting on his own viral video.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us on this episode as we introduce our guest.

We have this evening, Officer Isaiah Lemasters.

Thank you, I appreciate you having me on.

So maybe you could tell us what was that day like, and when did it actually happen?

It was a couple months ago.

That day, I had actually just came on duty, and they had gotten a call on the interstate for a couple of round bales that had fallen off of a trailer there.

And I was a little late to the party on that one, but most of those had fell off and broke apart and scattered.

I think there was some volunteer firefighters showed up with some rakes and brooms and got that cleared off for us.

They were calling out for some other equipment to try and get everything removed.

I showed up and helped with some traffic control, got people moved over, made sure that nobody was running in that lane where that was at, and they told me on the radio that there was another side county road where these bales had come from, that one was off into the roadway there.

We had cleared the interstate, which was obviously the bigger problem.

I went to the county road to see what was going on there, and at that point, they had called off all of their help.

So, everybody else had either been disregarded or left, and when I showed up, I came across this round bale that was partially in the roadway there on a curve.

So, I mean, going to the gym and stuff for the past couple years, I mean, I had to at least get out of the car.

I kind of blocked traffic in that lane.

I think you see in the video that the car goes by, I let them go around the curve and everything.

So, that’s some of the comments that we get.

People are just like, I love how he just waves at people driving by.

Yeah, the wave that kicked off the dash camera footage.

Since I’ve watched it so many times, so I’m so happy that we’re talking to each other because I feel like I know you.

I feel like the wave is just personal.

Yeah, right to you.

So, I definitely had to wait until that car was around the corner before I went over to it to push on a little bit to see.

But I can’t help myself, but at least try and see if I can’t move it.

Aside from calling out somebody else that might take longer.

I have learned since I’ve been with this agency that you get pretty resourceful on getting things clear pretty quick.

Because we’re not trying to take up too much time on each and everything that we get called to.

But right, you might have a real emergency.

Sure.

Yeah.

And I don’t know if they want me to just hang out with a hay bale for the entire night.

So I ended up just pushing on it, nudging it a little bit, and got it to come up just a little bit off the ground.

I think you see in the video that I start rocking it a little bit to try and get my knee underneath it.

As heavy as it was, I was surprised that I was able to get my knee underneath it from there.

It made it a lot easier and was just able to flip it off the road there.

And thankfully, it was well off the road in the ditch and didn’t cause any more problems.

In the comments, some people say that weighs like 600 pounds.

A couple of guys commented that it could have weighed up to 1200 pounds, depending on how wet it was and how tight it was packed.

You go to the gym a lot, as evidenced by your Instagram page.

So I think you probably have a pretty good judge of heavy weight.

What’s your best guess?

Like I said, it was heavy for sure.

Leaning into it, getting your whole body into it and everything.

That’s a different aspect than what you get to do in the gym, just a straight up deadlift or squatting or anything.

But you’re not picking up the entire weight, you’re just picking up an edge of it and getting that leverage.

But I would say that anywhere from six to eight, possibly.

I’m not the strongest guy in the gym or anything like that.

I can move some decent numbers sometimes.

When I’m lucky and it was heavier than some of the stuff that I’ve done.

But like I said, just being at that angle and getting your whole body into it, I felt like I could move a lot more.

And then the biggest thing was getting that rock into it, getting my knee underneath of it.

And at that point, there was no turning back.

I couldn’t just let it down because I don’t think, I don’t know if I could have got it a second time up at that point.

Yeah.

Can you confirm there were no injuries during the lift?

Okay.

Yeah.

There’s no weight lifting belts or anything.

If you wore one of those when you’re doing some of the bigger lifts, but you look like you had great form.

And I’m glad you walked away unharmed from the feet.

Yeah.

Going back to the different comments that we had on the post, there was this rabbit hole that a few people went down talking about, because it’s referred to as round bail.

People got rather petered at times discussing whether it was a circle or a cylinder.

Do you have any thoughts?

I think looking at it, it would be a cylinder.

That’s what I was thinking.

I think that is accurate because a circle is a two-dimensional shape.

Yeah.

And that’s the way it was sitting is obviously the round part would be a lot easier to roll off a road.

But when it’s sitting on the flat part, it makes it a little bit more difficult.

So that’s where I say it’s a cylinder at that point.

That’s what I thought as well.

But it’s just so interesting how some people go down rabbit holes and get off on tangents.

As you were driving from the interstate to the county road, what country songs were you listening to on the radio?

I don’t know if there was anything on the radio that day, but I know listening to your podcast sparked listening to more country music and stuff now.

So I think my going back to a couple years ago when I had a friend who got me into some country music because I wasn’t always a big country person.

In fact, I was that was on the back burner of genres of music that I liked.

The first real country artist that I had seen is I think I’d be considered a bro country guy, but it would be Cole Swindell and Luke Bryan and then obviously Lee Brice that I’ve seen him in concert to that you all made the meme from.

What a great coincidence that you’ve actually seen him in concert.

If I was to pick somebody, I would probably go back to the go-to of Cole Swindell that I’ve always liked.

On that day, I don’t really know if there was anything playing in the background, except for the anticipation of if we were going to find more hay bales, or what was going to be around the corner with all these bales that were already lost on the interstate.

Good stuff.

Yeah, I got my start in country music with Bro Country, too, because it’s catchy.

You can’t resist sometimes, and there’s definitely a time and place for this bro party anthem.

Since then, I’ve expanded a little bit.

I’ll still throw some of those on every once in a while, and enjoy myself.

Actually, my wife really wants to see Luke Bryan in concert someday.

I agree with her because I think that would be.

I think that was the first concert that, like I said, a friend, one of the factories that I worked at, he drug me to a country concert.

I thought for sure I wasn’t going to like it.

It was Luke Bryan, Cole Swindell, and Lee Brice, and all three of those.

I began to like and just, he showed me more and more different country songs from that, kind of expanded a little bit.

That’s awesome.

That’s awesome.

We hear a lot of Luke Bryan in this house because my teenage daughter really enjoys his music.

I have another question.

When the video started taking off, what were some of the more interesting or crazier comments that you saw rolling in, or what was some of the reception like?

There was a bunch of different ones.

A lot of them was, why not just use the car to push it off the road.

Having a car that they so graciously give me to do my job, the last thing I want to do is put a dent or a scratch on that, and then have to do the paperwork to say, hey, while I was trying to push this hay bale off the road, I caused a dent or smashed in the front or something like that.

I don’t specifically have a grill guard or anything like that on mine or a brush guard or anything.

So I can’t really use that to push it off, but that was my hopes is when it did take off, maybe in the future they would invest in getting a brush guard on the front of my car just in case this comes up again, I can maybe try and push it.

No doubt about that.

Yeah, there was a lot of good comments.

I enjoyed, there was a lot of them that made me laugh, just different things that people said.

I think we should send this to Jeff City along with a budget increase request, that this will be the reason why.

We don’t want our highway patrolmen denting up the cars and hurting themselves.

It’s worth a shot for you guys.

Worth a shot.

Because you guys deserve it, I tell you what.

So the next question that I have, how did the video get out there then from your dash cam?

Was the Highway Patrol going to use it as a promotional video?

Well, so obviously, when it came down to it later in the day, I met up some of the other troopers, the guys there.

And so my sergeant was working and I had let him know we got that moved or whatever.

And I pulled it up and showed him and said, Hey, take a look at this.

Just jokingly, just that, hey, I got it moved and everything.

And when he saw it, he just smiled and smirked.

And he got ahold of our social media public information guy who deals with all the pictures and photography and pushed it on to him.

Once he saw it, he messaged back to the sergeant and asked, Do I have your permission to post this?

I think the community would like to see it.

I’m newer to this agency.

I worked in law enforcement for a while.

This is the second agency I’ve been with, so I’m still one of the newer guys getting to know everybody.

To have them post something like that and put it up there to where everybody in my agency can see it, I was like, this would be fun to see.

And it just blew up from there.

I never would have expected it to take off the way it did.

I think part of the reason that it took off is with so much going on in the world today, especially that we see, the same amount of things went on in the world 30 years ago, but we didn’t have Facebook and Instagram and X to broadcast them.

And now we get to see more of what’s going on.

Unfortunately, oftentimes, what we see is not positive.

But this was a positive occurrence.

This was someone who didn’t have to do what he did the way he did it.

I can only imagine that the Public Relations Department for the Highway Patrol was like, all right, let’s use this to show how our officers are still human, still doing the right thing when no one’s watching.

At least that’s how I look at it.

Yeah, no, it was definitely reading the comments and things and what the positive things that people had to say was definitely uplifting and encouraging and everything and a lot of good funny comments on there.

So I definitely enjoyed seeing all that.

And like I said, becoming resourceful and not using extra resources in situations where I know what I’m able to do and what kind of my limitations are and maybe testing my limitations a little bit.

But instead of calling other people out or wasting time of somebody else, just trying to get it done real fast and get on with the day.

What did you think, Mick?

Did anything surprise you after hearing his take on what happened now that we’ve watched the video?

I probably watched the video like a hundred times.

I’m not gonna say that anything surprised me because nothing that he talked about surprised me.

Remember in the beginning of the video when he waves?

Yeah, it’s my favorite part.

I just got the vibe of this kind of guy who is gonna wave.

He’s a small town guy because that’s what you do in small towns.

And he wave.

And everything that just followed that theme just really made sense to me.

No, I can’t really say that I was surprised.

That’s such a coincidence that he’s from your home state also, that he’s doing work.

Yeah, so he and I talked a little bit before about where specifically in the state he’s from.

And he is located between Columbia and St.

Louis on the north side of Highway 70.

I’m not going to give out his specific town, but he patrols that area between Columbia and St.

Louis, the outskirts of St.

Louis.

Yeah, speaking of coincidences, I loved how he mentioned that the limited country music that he listens to, Lee Brice was one of the artists he has actually seen live.

That was one of his introductions to country music.

And I just happened to put a Lee Brice song as the background music.

Drinking class.

Right.

Because I thought that it fit with that and because that-

Going above and beyond and working hard.

The universe just aligned with our most popular Instagram post that maybe we will ever make.

The perfect song is From the State or Mick Resides.

Yeah.

It’s not anything that surprised me, but I chuckled because we were going through and we were talking about why didn’t you just use the squad car to push it off the road?

And his response was, one, I didn’t want to mess it up because then I would have to fill the paperwork out.

How often have you watched a police-themed TV show or movie where they lament the paperwork?

That is just one of their tropes.

And one of their things that they constantly hammered for him to be like, no, I just wanted to lift it so I didn’t have to do any paperwork.

I just thought that was hilarious.

For sure.

But that goes into the little small town thing.

You take care of your stuff.

He said he didn’t want to scratch the car up.

Car doesn’t belong to him.

I think the terminology he used is that he was entrusted with this vehicle from his department and he didn’t want to mess it up.

That was a takeaway from when Kim and the kids and I were up in Three Rivers imagining what it would be like to have a homestead in a small town.

We were asking the realtor what it was like to live there.

She said just in general, when you live somewhere rural, you have to be ready to do things yourself.

If you see a need, you have to just fill it yourself.

You’ve got to know your neighbors well because you guys are on your own.

No one’s going to do it for you.

That matches with what we saw him doing on the side of the road and how he described it, that I’m just going to give it a try.

Definite parallels.

In this next segment of the interview, we’re going to ask him a little bit more about his own family background and that small town upbringing that we’ve already started to talk about a little bit.

So I grew up here in a small town in Missouri.

I grew up around some farms and everything, but a little bit of a farm boy, not necessarily too much.

All I knew basically was the small town life, and as I got older, my parents ended up, so we moved overseas and did some mission work.

We moved over to Thailand, and they did some mission work there for three years basically.

So I was 14 to 17 when that happened, and basically my growing up years, I got to spend over there and see a lot of different parts of the world that you wouldn’t see here in a small town like Missouri.

But when I did end up coming back to Missouri, I got my feet in the door, started working in some factory work and stuff, and after a couple of years of doing that, kind of branched out a little bit, I ended up joining the military.

That’s how I got out of some of the factory work and joined the National Guard.

I went through basic training, then came back, because the National Guard, we just drill on weekends.

But that was how I got my foot into law enforcement originally.

Paid my way through my first police academy and started getting on the role to where I am now.

So I’ve been through two academies now, and now I’m in the role that I’m in, where I’m at with my agency.

Do you think that being resourceful goes back to a small town upbringing or how much of being resourceful would come from living in a country for three years?

It does not have maybe as such as high standard of living as we do here in the United States, where people have to be a little bit more resourceful as well.

Sure, yeah.

I think I had great parents growing up and learned a lot from them, seeing how hard they worked at things.

And then obviously when we did move overseas, I got to see how hard they worked to make all that happen.

A lot of moving parts there and everything.

And that’s how I’ve always been with work.

When I started working my first jobs and everything was just to work as hard as I could and try and just show the bosses that, hey, I’m here to work.

I’m not just here to pick up a paycheck or whatever.

I want to actually put in my time and show that, hey, I’m doing as much as I can possible.

And I just, I kind of attribute that to seeing how hard my parents have worked over the years, how I was raised and continue to do that through each job I’ve had.

When I started working, Mick and I are stay-at-home dads, so our work looks a little different.

We’re asked to fill in the gaps around the house and with our families.

Every job that I had when I was starting, I ran into these barriers.

I worked at a big corporation for a long time.

A lot of people, it’s natural for them to say, well, that’s not part of my job, push off responsibility to someone else.

The few people that did go beyond their job responsibilities and just fill in those gaps, they were just built a little bit differently.

They were the glue that kept the organization going forward, even a big corporation like that.

I can definitely appreciate that.

It was cool to see comments like that coming through for what you were doing also.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I think my first job that I ever had starting off helped me build up on that, because I was a janitor in a hospital, so cleaning up some of the dirty stuff in there.

Everything from there was just a stepping stone up, a little bit better.

Yeah, so one of the angle that we took with, we started adding little text bubbles to your video.

We took more of a humorous look at how a dad would treat a similar situation and how a dad would take on a ridiculous feat of strength more from a foolish perspective out of pride or a misguided sense of one’s own dad strength.

Why do you think that the dad angle was able to take off as well?

I think the favorite one that I saw that you put on there was about the groceries, just like seeing this, something that I can just picture, having to get all the groceries in one trip.

As a kid watching your dad do some of those things, dad’s like grabbing the groceries or whatever and showing off.

I always looked up to my dad and saw the things that he would do.

I know there was times that he was doing it jokingly, showing off for us, and you just take that on as, I want to be just like that, just do what I can.

In the future, you can be the same way to kids or anybody else that’s around, that, hey, you’re having fun, enjoying life and doing what you can.

Just today, I had a piece of furniture that needed to get moved.

My father-in-law was here, and I could have asked him for help.

But instead, I let him watch the baby, and I carried it myself in front of my one-year-old son.

On the back of my mind, I did think that I really hope I don’t throw my back out on the day I’m going to talk to Mr.

Lemasters, and I didn’t, I don’t think, unless I wake up stiff tomorrow morning.

But yeah, Mick and I talk about a lot on the podcast.

It’s how our kids are always watching us, no matter what we’re doing.

And especially someone who’s a visible authority figure in the community like yourself, like you never know what who’s watching or what kid’s going to see the video or who’s going to see you doing what you do around town.

No, it’s fun to see the rules reverse now.

So now dad, whenever he needs something moved, he’ll call me and say, hey, I need something moved.

Can you come down and help me move it?

It’s about time.

So there you have it, there’s a little bit more on the background of the person behind the feat of strength.

I know for me, hearing about the story about how his dad would show off for the kids growing up, I’m already starting to do that.

My boys are starting to challenge me to arm wrestling competitions, that I sometimes let them win, sometimes.

It’s just the other day, I was coaching my oldest basketball team, and I hit a jumper, and one of the kids on the team saw that and they’re like, wow, your dad’s really good.

I was like, that’s right, son.

Did you hear what they said?

That I didn’t take any more shots.

Not as good as you have once was.

I’m sorry, I had to.

Okay.

Anyway.

I got so fired up, I just almost knocked my microphone over.

Just thinking about that shot, so pure.

All net, nothing but net.

That’s the thing that we as dads do.

We want to be the hero.

We want to be the one that’s looked up to.

We want to give them something to admire.

Little kids are just such sponges when it comes to that stuff.

I still can remember back in the play group days with the old Kansas City groups, hearing the kids talk about how big and strong their daddies were, because he could do this or he could do that.

One little girl was saying, yeah, my dad knows magic, because when we’re driving in the car and we go under a bridge, he snaps his fingers and the rain stops.

Amazing.

That dad was just on this pedestal for that little girl because of his magic.

Did any of the benefits of growing up a small town, did you identify with any of that since you also grew up in a smaller town?

Because those are the themes in Country Music I hear about.

I think that you’re asking me a trick question, because that’s what the whole last episode was, where I talk about how I strongly identify with that stuff.

I really do to this day.

None of his comments surprised me.

Yes, I identify with most of them.

That’s the life I grew up with.

It was a pleasure talking with Officer Lemasters, just a really genuine person and a joy to hear him talk about himself and shine a light on the little things that he’s doing in his community.

We finished off with a lightning round like we do for all of our guests.

Officer Lemasters mentioned that he wasn’t that into Country Music, that he was starting to get into it.

But we still put him on the spot with our same Country Music theme questions.

So here are some of his responses to our lightning round.

So, you ready for the lightning round?

We can try, yeah, we’ll see.

All right, all right.

I have full faith that you’ve got this.

So, lightning round is three questions.

There are no wrong or right answers.

Which George?

George Strait or George Jones?

I think it’s been a long time since I’ve heard either of their music, but I’ve heard more of George Strait.

I think for that reason, I’ll have to go with George Strait.

See, you got it right.

I don’t know what you were all worried about.

That’s the correct answer.

Well done.

Well done.

Dave, you can ask question number two.

You make one of your constituents in the state of Missouri happy.

So, great answer.

Still not a wrong answer, although I prefer George Jones.

Not a wrong answer.

George Strait.

You also like Dan and Shay.

At times.

In spots, yes.

Which is a perfect segue into question number two.

Do you have a Country Music guilty pleasure?

So, you’re saying like somebody that I play when nobody’s around?

Yeah, that’s right.

And even if it’s not Country Music, that’s fine, too.

But what’s your musical guilty pleasure?

Well, if we go back a couple years, it’s the songs that people play at weddings, and then you look around at your guy friends and realize that everybody knows the lyrics.

There’s been times where there’s a couple older Taylor Swift songs that were a little catchy.

Recently, I was at a wedding and somebody turned on one of the old songs, look around at some of your friends and everything, and I didn’t realize that some of the guys I know just know all the lyrics to a couple of her songs.

With a ten-year-old Swiftie in my house, I know the lyrics to a lot of Taylor Swift songs.

Sure, yeah.

We all know the lyrics.

Let’s be honest.

You just need the vibe to be right.

All right, question number three.

If you were in a bar or a honky tonk and could have a beer or a cocktail or iced tea, whatever your beverage of choice is, with anyone, whom would you choose?

Dead or alive?

I think the most interesting person to sit down and talk to would be the legend, Johnny Cash.

There’s so much out there and see what he has to say.

Excellent choice.

Officer Lemasters, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule between the dogs and the gym and the hay bales to join us.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

I appreciate you having me on.

So that’s all we had for this week.

Thank you for joining us.

You can check in to our back catalog by visiting us on our website, countrymusictads.com.

We’d love to hear feedback, countrymusictads.gmail.com, or you can send us a direct message on Instagram at countrymusictads or on Facebook at countrymusictads.

We’d love to hear what you thought about this interview or about our podcast in general.

Until next time, thanks for joining us.

We’ll see you soon.

Thank you, everybody.

It wasn’t as viral as yours.

I see it as of today, the original has 17.8 million views.

So, I’m sure it’s been pretty interesting from your perspective and excited to hear about that.

Ours is about 1.8 million views, which way more than anything we’ve put up.

We were at like a thousand or something then, and amateur hour for an Instagram influencer.

But we’re not influencers, we’re digital creators.

That’s right.

Yeah, we’ve got to get the terminology right.

Probably got that part.

You know how I feel.

I know, on the spot for the call to action.

No.

Sign off is tough, man.

I was on a roll and then I just hit a wall.

You did good though.

You did good, man.

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