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Kerry interviews Judge Vic Fleming, State District Court Judge

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 82

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:09] TB: Welcome to you Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Stay tuned to hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents. Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.

[0:00:27] KM: Thank you, Tim. Like Tim said, I'm Kerry McCoy and it's time for me to get up in your business. Before we start, I want to introduce the people at the table. We have who you just heard from, Tim Bowen, our technician who will be managing the board and taking your calls. Say hello, Tim.

[0:00:40] TB: Hello, Tim.

[0:00:41] KM: Recording our show today to make a podcast available next week is our technician, Jesse. Thank you, Jesse.

[0:00:46] J: No problem.

[0:00:47] KM: If right now you're sitting at your computer, you might want to watch us live on flagandbanner.com's Facebook page. Unlike many reality shows, this is really unfiltered reality radio. You're getting a real deal. This show, Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy began with entrepreneurs in mind, a platform for me, a small business owner and a guest to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way. As with all new endeavors, it has some unexpected outcomes, like the show's wide appeal is to everyone. We're all inspired by everyday people's American-made stories.

Another is that business is creative. I resist using the words art form. But if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it's a duck. I think business is creative. Last, behind each of my successful guests, is the heart of a teacher.

Joining me today is a fellow eccentric, defined by Webster as a person, or their behavior that is unconventional and slightly strange. The honorable Judge Vic Fleming is that. Sure, he is a judge who writes, teaches and plays golf. That’s mainstream. But he's also a judge that writes songs, plays the guitar and constructs crossword puzzles for the New York Times and other publications. All the aforementioned descriptives sum up the man we're going to talk to today. If you're just tuning in for the first time, you may be asking yourself, what's this lady's story and why does she have a radio show? Well, Tim is here to tell you.

[0:02:16] TB: Thank you, Kerry. Over 40 years ago, with only $400, Kerry McCoy founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. During the last four decades, the business has grown and changed dramatically from door-to-door sales, to telemarketing, to mail order and catalog sales, and now Flag and Banner relies heavily on the internet, including our newest feature, Live Chatting. Each decade required a change in sales strategy and procedures. Her business and leadership knowledge grew with time and experience, as well as the confidence to branch out into multimedia marketing that began with our nonprofit Dreamland Ballroom, as well as our in-house publication, Brave Magazine, and now this very radio show that you're listening to.

Each week on the show, you'll hear candid conversations between her and our guests about real-world experiences on a variety of businesses and topics that we hope you'll find interesting. Kerry says that many business rules, like treat your employees well, know your profit margin, and have a succession plan can be applied across most industry. What I find encouraging is her example that hard work pays off. Did you know that for nine years while starting Flag and Banner, she supplemented her income with many part-time jobs, and that just shows that her persistence, perseverance, and patience prevailed.

Today, Flag and Banner has 10 departments and I have 25 co-workers. It reminds us all that small businesses are the fuel of our country's economic engine and they empower people's lives. If you would like to ask Kerry a question, or share your experience or story, you can send an email to questions@upyourbusiness.org.

[EPISODE]

[0:03:55] KM: Thank you, Tim. My guest today is the honorable Vic Fleming and Judge of Little Rock Arkansas's Municipal Court Second Division. He began his college career as an English literature snob and holds a BA from Davidson College in North Carolina. He ended his degree accumulation with a JD from the University of Arkansas's Business School of Law, where he has been an adjunct professor since 2003.

Throw out any preconceived ideas you may have about judges being stoic and cold. He's not really a snob. This judge writes humorous articles, books, and original poetry. Vic Fleming fervently pursues a wide expanse of interest. His hobbies include golf, playing the guitar, writing songs, and my favorite, he's a crossword puzzle junkie. About 20 years ago, Judge Vic decided to take one of his hobbies to a new level. He began to create and submit crossword puzzles for publication in the New York Times. He is now one of the two, or 300-person elite group of crossword puzzle constructors in the United States. That's something. That’s really something, Vic.

It's such a small group. Yes, those word aficionados have an annual convention and competition. The American crossword puzzle tournament held just last week in Stanford, Connecticut. In 2006, this same convention had an unusual outcome for our eccentric Judge Vic. Some young cinematographers were there filming a documentary that would come to be called Wordplay. During the convention's friendly competition, American crossword idol, the film makers heard Vic play and perform his original song titled If You Don't Come Across. They liked it so much, they licensed the song and used it for the end of the movie's credit role.

It is an honor to welcome to the table the well-read, well-rounded, and funny, honorable Judge Vic Fleming of Little Rock, Arkansas, who brought me iced tea today. Thank you very much, Vic.

[0:06:00] VF: Thank you for inviting me. I've enjoyed reading about and hearing about your story, and I think it's marvelous. Somewhere along the line, you decided you wanted a radio show, and you got it.

[0:06:11] KM: 2016, September.

[0:06:13] VF: You have seven people in here having fun on a Friday afternoon. That's just amazing.

[0:06:16] KM: It's fun, isn't it?

[0:06:16] VF: Yeah.

[0:06:17] KM: It's shocking, isn't it?

[0:06:18] VF: It really is.

[0:06:18] KM: I know everybody comes over here and they're like, “Wow, this is really together.”

[0:06:21] VF: You really did your homework on me, boy.

[0:06:23] KM: Oh, I did. Let's see.

[0:06:25] VF: I need to have you on my team. I wouldn't want you on the other side, for sure.

[0:06:29] KM: I think that's almost a compliment.

[0:06:30] VF: It is.

[0:06:32] KM:  I loved reading about you. There's so much written about you. I couldn't stop, actually. You grew up in Mississippi, went to college in North Carolina, and married a Lake Village girl, which, through the persuasion of your father-in-law, is how you ended up moving to Arkansas. Can you tell us about that?

[0:06:51] VF: My wife, Susan Burnside, and I grew up 20 miles from each other. I was in Greenville, Mississippi. She was right across the river in Lake Village, Arkansas. We grew up 20 miles apart and didn't meet until we were 21-years-old, and I had moved away from Greenville. My sister had married a guy from Lake Village, and I was back visiting my sister in the summer of 1972, right before our senior years in college. My sister got me a blind date with Susan. Then later, the same summer, a mutual friend of Susan's and mine was having engagement parties, and she and I got together and went to some of those parties. Then we didn't see each other again until the following winter holiday over Christmas.

We started dating seriously in December of 1972, and in December of 1973, we got married. She had graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis and had started graduate school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

[0:07:56] KM: You went to North Carolina, but not Chapel Hill?

[0:07:59] VF: No, I had been at Davidson. When I finished at Davidson, I moved on over to Chapel Hill, and we lived together in Chapel Hill after we were married. Susan, well, had a choice of law schools, either going back to Mississippi, to Ole Miss, or coming to Little Rock.

[0:08:14] KM: But you didn't originally want to do law. You wanted to do English Lit.

[0:08:17] VF: Right.

[0:08:17] KM: I was kidding when I said English Lit now, but you are so well read.

[0:08:20] VF: Well, that's true. I was admitted to an English graduate program at the University of North Carolina. But I was playing golf on a regular basis with a guy who was finishing up his PhD in English, and he was brilliant, and he couldn't find a job. My due diligence told me that people were getting PhDs in English at that time weren't getting jobs. I had to call my mother and say, “You were right after all.” Because my mother would always tell me as I was growing up, “You need to be a lawyer, because you love to argue so much.”

[0:08:49] KM: What would you say?

[0:08:50] VF: I would reply, “I do not love to argue. There's no evidence to support that.”

[0:08:55] KM: Sounds like a lawyer to me.

[0:08:57] VF: I withdrew from that English program before I even went to the first class and worked for another year in Chapel Hill, while Susan was finishing up her graduate program. Then she got a job in Little Rock, and I got into UALR Law School.

[0:09:11] KM: You need to be a great reader to be a lawyer.

[0:09:16] VF: If you say so.

[0:09:16] KM: Don't you?

[0:09:18] VF: Well, there's a lot of reading.

[0:09:18] KM: An avid reader.

[0:09:19] VF: There's certainly a lot of reading. The first year of law school, you do a lot of reading of old cases, as well as new cases. You really have to master a lot of old stuff, written and antiquated language.

[0:09:34] KM: You moved your wife and yourself to Little Rock, Arkansas. You enrolled at the University of Arkansas School of Law here in Little Rock.

[0:09:45] VF: Right. It was UALR's first law school class. The year before the school had been the University of Arkansas Fayetteville Night Division. UALR had acquired the law school. It was the first-day program at the school. It was downtown Little Rock. The classes met in the building that is adjacent now to the Double Tree Hotel.

[0:10:09] KM: That's now those expensive apartments?

[0:10:10] VF: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was the Pulaski County and Arkansas Law Center.

[0:10:15] KM: What a beautiful view you had.

[0:10:17] VF: Yeah. That's where all the law school classes took place at that time.

[0:10:23] KM: In school, I read that a professor said to you, in your third year of law school, at the end of class, he said, he wanted everyone to jot down what they thought an ideal legal career would look like.

[0:10:36] VF: Right. That was Professor Ken Gould, who just retired from the law school about five years ago, and still can be found up there on the third or fourth floor in his office just about every day.

[0:10:47] KM: They're like, “You're a retired. Go home.”

[0:10:49] VF: Right. We had this one class, and he said, “Everybody, pull out a sheet of paper, take 15 minutes, and jot down as formally or informally, however you want to do it, what you believe would be an ideal legal career.” 14 and a half minutes later, my sheet of paper was still blank, when he said you got 30 seconds left. I scratched down, one-third trial practice, one-third judge, one-third legal education. We turned them in, I think, and then got them back the next class, divided into small groups, and maybe had a discussion. I kept that sheet of paper with me for 15 years. I looked at it every year in December and said, “Am I going to be true to this? How am I going to divide it up? Is it 10, 10, and 10?” I was thinking very linearly about it.

In around year 18, there was an opening for a judgeship. It wasn't anything near what my law practice had been. I did some discernment and believed that I was supposed to run for that judgeship. I got elected. Ironically, five years later, I signed up to audit the course called Law and Literature at the Law School. The course was going to meet from 7 to 9 on Thursday nights. That was fine with me. I got a call from the academic dean of the law school on Monday saying that the professor who was to teach the course wasn't going to be able to teach it and he was going to have to cancel the class, unless I would agree to teach it.

I said, “Wait a minute. I'm not supposed to teach it. I haven't taken it yet.” I agreed to teach it from the other professor’s syllabus for a year, and we'll get the other professor back. Well, the other professor took early retirement, and I've taught it every year since then.

[0:12:29] KM: That was in what year?

[0:12:30] VF: That was in 2003. I became a judge in 1997.

[0:12:36] KM: You actually, at 15 years or 18 years, you said, a private practice lawyer, then you ran for office. When we come back, I want you to tell everybody that story, because you told me the story. Then somewhere along the line, you got asked to substitute teach and just been there ever since.

[0:12:52] VF: Right. That's when I stopped thinking linearly about this one-third, one-third, one-third.

[0:12:57] KM: Yeah. Do it all at the same time.

[0:12:59] VF: Right.

[0:13:00] KM: You didn't put crossword aficionado. What is it?

[0:13:05] TB: Aficionado.

[0:13:07] KM: Aficionado on there.

[0:13:07] VF: I didn't put cruciverbalist on there.

[0:13:10] KM: What does that mean?

[0:13:11] VF: Cruciverbalism is the art of making crossword puzzles, and it also includes the aficionados, the people who are really seriously into crosswords. The word is cruciverbalism. In fact, the book, the first book that I read about making crossword puzzles was called The Compleat Cruciverbalist with complete being spelled C-O-M-P-L-E-A-T.

[0:13:36] KM: Why?

[0:13:36] VF: I don't know. I don't remember. But I remember the author – the two authors of the book were Stan Kurzban and Mel Rosen. Mel Rosen, which is an icon in the crossword community, Mel contacted me shortly after my first few puzzles had been published, and he said – he was the editor at that time of an annual book that Random House put out. He said, “I want you to submit some puzzles to me, and it's a selfish reason.” I said, “Well, why is that?” He said, “Because I want to be the first person to have bought crossword puzzles from two Arkansas judges.” He told me that he had bought crossword puzzles from Justice George Rose Smith of the Arkansas Supreme Court, who was well-known to have had several Sunday, New York Times crossword puzzles published back in the 70s and 80s. He said, he knew George Rose Smith and had bought puzzles from him in the 70s and 80s.

[0:14:32] KM: I had no idea that was a judge pastime thing. Wow.

[0:14:36] VF: Well, it's not. I mean, as far as I know, Judge Smith and I are the only two judges who have ever done it. Oddly enough, I interviewed with Judge Smith in 1997 for a clerkship in his – with the Supreme Court, with his office. I did not get the job. But we did talk about crossword puzzles in the interview.

[0:14:59] KM: Yeah. We've got so much to talk about. Let's take a quick break, so I can sign off with my Facebook people. We're going to stay live on YouTube, I think, aren't we the whole show? But we're going to sign off with Facebook. We've got some songs that our guest wrote today. Do we want to do that at the break, do you think?

[0:15:14] TB: Yes. We have one called Uncharted Waters and we'll play a sample of during the break.

[0:15:18] KM: Okay, hold on. When we come back, we'll continue our diverse conversation with author, teacher, speaker, musician, and crossword constructor, Judge Vic Fleming of the municipal court in Little Rock, Arkansas. At the bottom of the hour, we'll take calls. Get ready. We'll give you the number then.

[0:15:36] TB: You're listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you miss any part of the show and want to learn more about Up in Your Business, go to flagandbanner.com and click radio show. Or you can subscribe through YouTube, SoundCloud, or iTunes, or whatever favorite podcast app you use, simply by searching for flagandbanner.com. Lots of listening options. We'll be right back.

[BREAK]

[0:16:02] VF: Sent me to. Turns out, we both were lying, wishing we were older, and we both had plans to act much bolder from a distance. Our mothers and fathers watched us navigate uncharted waters. Uncharted waters. On the boardwalk, holding hands. Uncharted waters. Drawing crosswords in the sand, talked about school, how to be cool, the places we'd like to go. My heart pushed off into uncharted waters.

For one short week, we shared an ocean. Bottles and bottles, suntan lotion. Jukebox music, and the party move. Slow dancing to her favorite tunes. Uncharted waters, promising that we'd ride uncharted waters. Making out on Friday night. Talk about school, breaking the rules and places we'd like to go. My heart raced on through uncharted waters.

Saturday morning, Rachel's car was gone. Up full day early, she was headed home. I just stood there, torn apart, nursing my first broken heart. For one short week we had shared an ocean, overdosing on all emotion. I got Rachel's letter in a week and then, never heard from her again. Uncharted waters, promises we don't keep. Uncharted waters, waiting in when it's way too deep. I talk about school, being a fool, the places I want to go, but my heart said I'm –

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:18:54] KM: You're listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with author, teacher and district judge, Vic Fleming in Little Rock, Arkansas. That was great, Vic. That song of yours was great. That was you singing, you playing the guitar.

[0:19:09] VF: Thank you. Thank you.

[0:19:10] KM: At the bottom of the hour, everybody, in about 15 minutes, Vic's got his guitar here and he's going to sing us a song on the radio. They never sound as good on the radio as they do when they’re in the studio, but we're still going to do it. It's going to be fun. Don't leave us. Hang on. He's going to play a song for us at the bottom of the hour. All right, where we left off? You were a lawyer for 15 years, then you ran for office. Sometime in 2003, you became a professor at the School of Law at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. Before we jump into your run for office, which you told me that story, which I really like, what was your favorite part of private practice? Why should anybody go into law?

[0:19:51] VF: Well, I think law is all about doing two things, really. Number one is problem-solving. Number two is trying to restore to someone something that they lost, or to maintain for someone something that they are not supposed to lose.

[0:20:15] KM: That someone's trying to take away from them.

[0:20:18] VF: Yeah, something like that.

[0:20:18] KM: Not always.

[0:20:19] VF: But more often, but it all starts with problem-solving.

[0:20:23] KM: That probably goes with your hobby of crossword puzzles. That's problem-solving.

[0:20:28] VF: Life is a puzzle. Let's fill in the blanks.

[0:20:30] KM: I watched Wordplay this morning, the movie that you're in.

[0:20:33] VF: Oh, you did. Wow, okay.

[0:20:34] KM: I did. I've seen it before. I re-watched it this morning. There was a guy in there that said that – what did he say? He said that people innately – He thinks people like to work. I can't remember exactly. I'm paraphrasing. He said something about, he thinks people like to work crossword puzzles, because it satisfies this innate desire to solve problems.

[0:20:57] VF: Right. Then John Delphin in there says, “Give me blank spaces and I want to fill them in.”

[0:21:03] KM: All right. You made the decision to run for office. You told me the story, because I have to tell everybody, you're such a prepared guy. You called me earlier in the week and said, “What are we talking about?” I said, “We're talking about you.” You said, “Oh, that's easy.” Then you told about 20 minutes’ worth of stories. They were all great. The one that you didn’t tell me was one about running for the office and I said, “You got to tell it on the radio.” You decided to run for office. Why?

[0:21:26] VF: Well, when I was running for office for a municipal judge, which was fondly known as the traffic judge's position, the position was open because the incumbent had resigned in June. There were six months of an interim judge, and four people were running and we were all running, essentially, on the same platform. The law at that time provided that the winner of a plurality of the votes would win the office.

[0:21:50] KM: What's plurality mean?

[0:21:51] VF: Plurality is getting the most of however many it is, when it's more than two.

[0:21:57] KM: When it's more than two. Okay.

[0:21:59] VF: It's less than a majority. There was not a provision in the law for a runoff between the top two vote getters. Everybody was running pretty much on the same platform. One of the other candidates had gotten a major endorsement from various groups. Another had gotten the endorsement of the big newspaper, and another who was a traffic court prosecutor had gotten the endorsement of the police department and the fraternal order of police, and I had gotten no endorsements. I had pledged to work harder than anybody else and to demonstrate that I said, I would work until the polls closed on election day.

On election day, I was working my way across town from polling place to polling place, spending 15 to 30 minutes in each place, shaking hands, giving out literature, 100 feet from the door. I got caught on a traffic jam at 5.00. It was bumper to bumper traffic.

[0:22:52] KM: You're trying to go out to west of Little Rock.

[0:22:55] VF: I was headed out to southwest Little Rock and I got on western Hills Boulevard, bumper to bumper traffic, and found that I was right next to the Western Hills United Methodist Church, which was a polling place. It was not on my list of places to be. I pulled in there. The parking lot was cold and dark and it was starting to miss rain. I went inside and checked with the people who were running the place and they told me how many people had voted and how many people they expected. They only expected 10 or 15 more voters in the next two hours, so I went out to leave. But there was a car coming in the lot, a couple of cars coming in the lot. 

Both of the people, both of the couples in these cars, I gave them my literature and asked for their votes and they both commented. “You're all alone in this cold, dark, lonely parking lot, two hours before the polls close. We're going to give you our votes.” I thought I'll just stay here until 10 or 15 minutes goes by without anybody, because there’s still bumper to bumper traffic on the street. Well, I was able to count and I spoke to the last 99 people who voted there. There was a steady stream of cars for the next two hours.

[0:24:01] KM: You list 99 people.

[0:24:04] VF: I gave my literature and asked for the votes. The last 99 people at a place where I didn't intend to be. At midnight, the election commission told me that I was ahead by 81 votes.

[0:24:16] KM: Now, tell me hard work doesn't pay off.

[0:24:18] VF: They still had a thousand votes to count that were in the absentee pool, but they wouldn't get to those votes until much later. When the absentee ballots were counted, my lead went from 81 votes up to 253, or something like that. Which got me the nickname, landslide. It also got me the position. Knock on wood, I haven't had any opposition for re-election in five runs for re-elections.

[0:24:43] KM: That's unbelievable.

[0:24:45] VF: I'm in my 22nd year now.

[0:24:47] KM: That's wonderful. You used the word landslide in any of your crossword puzzles?

[0:24:52] VF: I don't remember. Probably though.

[0:24:55] KM: That's a great story, isn't it? That's just everybody that's successful works hard. That's just the key to everything.

[0:25:01] VF: I should say, also, I did get one endorsement though. The Sunday before the Tuesday of the election, John Brummett endorsed me. John Brummett was always a major political columnist. The fact that he endorsed me at the very end could have been crucial. I'll just say, when you win by only 250 votes with 59,000 votes cast, every group in town takes credit for your victory. For four years, I had people tell me, “We got you elected now.”

[0:25:31] KM: Oh, I bet. Let me off on that speeding ticket, please. We got you elected. You said, and I quote, “I do love my work as judge. In an average week, I'll have one-on-one dialogue with 300 people about the cases that have brought them to court. I try to treat each as an opportunity to help that person make better life choices.”

[0:25:56] VF: Okay, I remember saying that, or writing that.

[0:25:59] KM: That is a big job. I do that at my job. I work with people and try to help them make better life choices. It frustrates me. How do you do that every week, day after day? Do you not find it frustrating?

[0:26:14] VF: I try not to.

[0:26:15] KM: Because I know some repeat offenders. You're like, “Joe, what are you doing back in here? I told you what to do. You didn't follow my –”

[0:26:22] VF: I would say that I experienced frustration, or any other negative emotion on such a minuscule percentage of cases that it's really not worth even worrying about.

[0:26:31] KM: Lovely.

[0:26:33] VF: Yeah. There are going to be times when things don't go right, but very slim.

[0:26:40] KM: Lovely.

[0:26:41] VF: Very small percentage.

[0:26:43] KM: I wish everybody could see you, because you look that way, actually. You look like a person that doesn't sweat the small stuff. Little Rock has 25,000 traffic tickets a year. Some of the charges are driving while intoxicated, driving without a license, driving without liability insurance, fleeing the scene of an accident, racing and reckless driving. I think I've hit every one of those. No, I’m just kidding.

[0:27:08] VF: Well, the offense that we have probably more than any other in terms of plurality and wouldn't be a majority of the cases, but the thing that we – the two things that we see most often is driving without a license, or with a suspended license. The second thing we see is, and this is true nationwide of judges at this level, we see failure to appear.

[0:27:26] KM: Oh, really?

[0:27:27] VF: Yeah.

[0:27:27] KM: What happens then? You get a warrant for your arrest?

[0:27:30] VF: Well, failure to appear, failure to pay, failure to comply with court orders is the –

[0:27:36] KM: Warrant for your arrest.

[0:27:37] VF: Well, sometimes it's a warrant for the arrest. Most often it is. If all of the paperwork indicates that the person had every reason to know that they were supposed to be there and they are not there, that's what they're charged with. Very few, ultimately, get convicted of fail to appear though, simply because if we had to have a trial on every charge of failure to appear, we'd be there till midnight. Generally, the prosecutor will bargain, plea bargain, to dismiss a failure to appear in return for a plea of guilty to whatever the underlying charge is.

[0:28:11] KM: I've actually done that. A policeman knocked on my door and said, “There's a warrant for your arrest. You failed to appear for a traffic ticket, or something.”

[0:28:17] VF: Oh, come on. A policeman came to your house? We’re in Little Rock.

[0:28:19] KM: Swear to God. I swear to God. 19. I went in front of Judge Watt. 1975. 1976.

[0:28:29] VF: Well, he must have sent the police officer, because the practice now, they don't ever go out and serve warrants now. They just will serve the warrants if the person gets another ticket.

[0:28:38] KM: Yeah, that was 40 years ago. That's a long time ago. I rode in the back of the police car and he apologized to me when he put me in the back. He’s, “I'm sorry, I have to put you in the back seat.” I said, “That's okay.”

[0:28:47] VF: Wow. Okay.

[0:28:49] KM: I know. I don't even remember what it was for. I think it was for not paying a ticket, a speeding ticket. Yeah, it was a lot different, I guess, back then. But you were already in the law practice in 1976. You were already practicing law in Little Rock, right?

[0:29:02] VF: Yeah. You said a minute ago that I was practicing law for 15 years. When people ask me, I've always told them, I practiced law for 20 years. 18 with a license. Because my second year of law school, I was lucky enough to get employed by a law firm and worked for law firms, or lawyers my entire second and third year of law school. Was thrown right into the fire, or the frying pan. It's hot in both places. But whatever I was doing, it was close enough to practicing law that I was –

[0:29:34] KM: I thought you were going to say, because people keep asking you for advice all the time and you're having to give free advice. You actually had a job working for Judge Watt. You critiqued Judge Woods. Was that part of what you're talking about?

[0:29:48] VF: No, that was still when I was in law school. That was a law review story. But my last year and a half of law school, I was working for Jim Hamilton, who at the time was City Attorney of North Little Rock, and the entire third year of law school, actually spent prosecuting traffic cases under his supervision. Normally, that supervision would be in person, but the judge of the North Little Rock traffic court, after my first four or five times of prosecuting cases in that court, told Mr. Hamilton, he said, “You can just stay in your office. If I have any trouble with him, I'll call you. Consider him to be under your supervision even though you're not on site.” That was a great experience.

[0:30:34] KM: I'm going to ask you one last question, then we're going to go to a break and your go, and the break is going to be, you playing us a song on the radio. So, everybody don't leave. One last question. Describe what your day looks like as a judge.

[0:30:45] VF: What it looks like? Well, I get to the office between 8 and 8.30. Sometimes a little earlier than that. We start court at 8.30 and we go until the last case is finished. We usually start with a jail docket. We see people on closed circuit television, people who have been served with warrants in the last 24 hours or so. We see those people first. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are days that we have trials. Wednesday is what we call plea and arraignment, or first appearances. On Wednesdays, we'll do somewhere between a 150 and 200 cases. The other days, we'll do an average of about 50 a day. Sometimes we have more, like a 100 set. A lot of the cases that we have set are these failures, the orders to show cause, or warrants for arrest, appearance agreements on warrants. We have a huge percentage who do not show up for those.

[0:31:46] KM: How do you keep all that power from going to your head? You just don't. I mean, you just don't.

[0:31:51] VF: I try not to think of it as power. But since you asked this question, I'll tell you. Come visit me in my office, in my chamber sometime, and I'll show you. The last thing I see before I walk into the courtroom every day is a portrait of a child dressed as a clown, and it was painted by my mother's younger sister, Lucille, my aunt Lucille, who was a crossword puzzle fan. It was for her that I wrote the crossword puzzle song for her 85th birthday.

[0:32:17] KM: That’s in Wordplay?

[0:32:18] VF: That I ultimately did in Wordplay. I saw this picture of this clown, I thought it was a clown, I ultimately concluded it's a child dressed as a clown. Saw it in her home in about 1997, or 8. I'd been in office for a couple of years. She had it in the back part of her house, where nobody could see it, and I said, “How much do you want for that clown on the wall in that back bathroom?” She said, “$500.” I pulled out my checkbook and started writing a check. She said, “Oh, I'm kidding. You can have it. I've never liked it.” I said, “Well, I want to have it to be the last thing I look at before I go into the courtroom, so that I never am tempted to take myself too seriously.”

[0:32:55] KM: Oh, wow. What a good reminder. That's nice.

[0:33:00] VF: Of course, I always think about my Aunt Lucille. When I think about her, I think about my mother, because they were two years apart. They shared a hospital room in December of 1951, gave birth 12 hours apart to myself at 6 in the afternoon, and my twin cousin at 6 in the morning.

[0:33:20] KM: Your twin cousin.

[0:33:21] VF: My twin cousin, Shelly Matthews, who lives in Vicksburg, Mississippi. My wife and I visited her on the way to our vacation in Florida just about three or four weeks ago.

[0:33:32] KM: Is your mother and aunt still alive?

[0:33:34] VF: No.

[0:33:35] KM: They remind you to be –

[0:33:37] VF: They’ve been gone a while. But Shelly and I rushed to call each other each year to wish each other a happy birthday, whichever one of us calls the other first. But she's always older. She's always 12 hours older.

[0:33:49] KM: Your twin cousin.

[0:33:50] VF: That's right.

[0:33:51] KM: All right, it's time to take a break. At this break, Vic’s going to play us a song. If you're just tuning in –

[0:33:57] VF: After the break, right?

[0:33:58] KM: Well, I'm going to do this –

[0:33:59] VF: We’ll play during the break?

[0:34:01] KM: Is he going to be our breaker?

[0:34:03] TB: Yeah, yeah. Let's have him be the break.

[0:34:05] KM: He's going to be the break.

[0:34:06] TB: Yeah.

[0:34:06] KM: Here you go. We'll continue our conversation with author, teacher, musician, speaker, Judge Vic Fleming of the District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas. We're going to talk about crossword puzzles when we come back. There's a lot more to making one than you think. And we will hear Judge Vic's President Clinton crossword puzzle story, because he made a crossword puzzle with our president, our Arkansas president. When we come back – He's going to play for a little bit. When we come back, if you have any questions for me, or my guest, Tim will give you the phone and number right after the break.

[0:34:44] TB: You're listening to up in your business with Kerry McCoy. If you miss any part of the show, or want to learn more about Up in Your Business, go to flagandbander.com and click radio show. Or you can subscribe through YouTube, iTunes, SoundCloud, or your favorite podcast app simply by searching for flagandbander.com. Lots of listening options. We’ll be right back with the phone number for calling in.

[0:35:06] KM: Now you'll hear Vic Fleming. What's the name of the song?

[0:35:09] VF: If you don't come across, I'm going to be down.

[0:35:12] KM: I love it.

[BREAK]

[0:35:17] VF: The pay or play extender is Ola, not Olay. It's auntie that you want, not anti, when the clue is pay to play. But Lou is a John on the British Isle. Ryan and Cole both ran the mile. And if you don't come across, I'm going to be down. If you don't come across, I'm going to be down. If you don't come across, I'm going to be down. Your love to me is a mystery and the clues are all around. If you don't come across, I'm going to be down.

You're an easy fill on Mondays, but when the weekends come, your themeless open spaces make me feel so dumb. Triple stacks absurdity, pop culture and obscurity. If you don't come across, I'm going to be down. Now, everybody's sing. If you don't come across, I'm going to be down. If you don't come across, I'm going to be down. Your love to me is a mystery and the clues are all around. If you don't come across, I'm going to be down.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:36:47] KM: That was so fun. Good voice, Liz, too.

[0:36:51] VF: Now, I got to tell you the story, you mentioned it earlier. Are we off break now?

[0:36:55] KM: Yeah, we’re back on.

[0:36:56] TB: Yeah, absolutely.

[0:36:58] VF: Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley, the Producer and Director of Wordplay, told me that they had had a professional musician record the song, a guy named Sean O'Malley, who was Christine's brother. They wanted to use it in the closing credits of the film, Wordplay, which did really well. It went to the Sundance Film Festival in 2006 and had a theatrical run during, which it grossed over 3 million dollars at the box office.

[0:37:24] KM: Wow, nice.

[0:37:27] VF: But the credits of the film began to roll in a wonderful song by Gary Louris, an old-time folk-rock country musician, called Every Word. Gary Louris' song, Every Word, runs for two and a half minutes. Then 60 seconds of my song as recorded by Sean O'Malley. Now, at the very end of the credits, so my song played to empty theaters everywhere. A really good version.

[0:37:55] KM: Why did they do two songs? Because it was just long, I guess, because the credits were just so long, it just took up two songs?

[0:38:02] VF: Patrick and Christine became great friends as a result of that whole experience. In fact, they wanted me to help them get an interview with President Clinton, so that he could be in the movie, and he agreed to do that. They gave me a little credit for that. I never asked them about the decision to have two songs. I assume that it had to do with the length of the credits.

[0:38:28] KM: Yeah. I guess, they paid you for the license, for the rights to that song, right? You're a lawyer. You did draw up contracts and get some money, didn’t you?

[0:38:35] VF: Well, actually they sent me a contract and we talked about it. I quoted them a number. I won't tell you what it is, but I told them, “You don't have to pay me, unless and until your movie grosses at least 3 million dollars at the box office.”

[0:38:48] KM: Bingo.

[0:38:49] VF: Now, when it grossed 3.1 million, that made it the 24th highest grossing documentary of all time at that moment. I didn't think it would ever get there. But it did get there. When they paid me what they paid me, it wound up being within about $60, or $70 of what I had spent helping them promote the song, also, by going to the Sundance Film Festival and going to New York for the movie’s world premiere there. I actually went to Chicago and did a Q&A for the American Bar Foundation. They had a special showing of the film there. I went to Jackson, Mississippi where I was born and did a Q&A there when the movie opened there. I went up to Fayetteville and did a showing. I don't remember what that was all about. If somebody in Fayetteville asked me if I would come up there and do a Q&A when the movie was up there. Kept up with all my expenses. It wound up being about $75 less than what they paid me for the songs.

[0:39:46] KM: Well, I don't know what to say about that. Let me tell everybody. You're listening Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with author, teacher, crossword puzzle constructor, and district judge, Vic Fleming in Little Rock, Arkansas. Vic, your mother got you interested in crossword puzzles. This is the part of the show I’ve been waiting for. Your mother got you interested in crossword puzzles when you were in junior high. How hard were the first ones you began with?

[0:40:08] VF: I don't remember.

[0:40:09] KM: You didn't start with ones in the newspaper, did you?

[0:40:13] VF: No. Well, I will tell you what I do remember. I remember that from the earliest days of my memory, I was drawing mazes and doing trivia questions, quiz questions. I was imitating anything that you could see on a game show.

[0:40:30] KM: Jeopardy.

[0:40:31] VF: Yeah. I was arranging things, questions and answers and things like that. I'm sure that in the weekly readers, they probably had little simple crosswords.

[0:40:41] KM: They did.

[0:40:42] VF: I must have shown an interest in that, because my mother encouraged me to start working the one in the paper by the time I was in about the ninth grade. In Greenville, Mississippi, we got the Memphis commercial appeal. They had, I didn't realize, I didn't count the number of boxes at the time, but they had a thing called the Thomas Joseph Crossword. It was 11 by 11, as opposed to 15 by 15, which is what a New York Times is. I did try to work those puzzles to almost every day through junior high, or through maybe ninth grade in high school. Ninth grade was junior high at the time.

I've always wondered, who is this guy Thomas Joseph that writes these crossword puzzles? Well, the Thomas Joseph crossword puzzle, I don't think there ever was a person named Thomas Joseph. Thomas Joseph Crossword Puzzle is now done by friends of mine that I've made in the last 15 years, who were in the crossword puzzle community. That same puzzle still appears in the Memphis commercial.

[0:41:35] KM: If you want your kids to start working crossword puzzles, I have my grandkids working Sudoku with me. They're fascinated that I work crossword puzzles. How would you start? When I was a kid, it was that magazine highlight. You remember that magazine highlight, the doctor's office? What do you think kids should do today? I guess, they got the internet?

[0:41:55] VF: The internet, you can find just about anything. You just Google for juvenile crossword puzzles, I suppose.

[0:42:01] KM: There you go.

[0:42:02] VF: A friend of mine in Chicago named Jan Buckner Walker has two books out called Parents Across Kids Down. They are vocabulary crossword puzzles, where the clues for the across are for adults and the clues for the down ones are for kids. The idea is that parents and kids will work them together.

[0:42:23] KM: I love that.

[0:42:25] VF: The idea is to get people, get parents and children working them together.

[0:42:28] KM: Yeah. That's great. That'd be fun.

[0:42:30] VF: She was here promoting those books at the Arkansas Literary Festival about 10 years ago.

[0:42:37] KM: What was her name again?

[0:42:38] VF: It's Jan Walker.

[0:42:39] KM: Parents Across, Kids Down. I like that. We'll put a link on the website also, for people at flagandbanner.com. You laid down your crossword puzzle pencil for a while, because it is an obsession. It's like a video game. I know. You can lose hours working those crossword puzzles. I read where you laid down your pencil, because you want to spend time on your career. Is that true?

[0:42:59] VF: Well, I started making some crossword puzzles. I learned the rules and was making some crossword puzzles in law school. The joke that I like to tell is that I decided it was so time consuming, I was going to put it aside until they invented the Internet and computers, so that I could come back and it wouldn't take quite as long.

[0:43:19] KM: But you didn't. Is that true?

[0:43:20] VF: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not true that I'm going to put it down until. But I did put it –

[0:43:25] KM: I was going to say, do you have ESP, or something?

[0:43:26] VF: No, I did quit –

[0:43:27] KM: A crystal ball?

[0:43:28] VF: I did quit doing it. I always intended to come back to it.

[0:43:33] KM: How long does it take to reprieve?

[0:43:35] VF: Well, about 25 years.

[0:43:36] KM: Now, for somebody who has a love and a hobby for words, that's a big commitment. For 25, you quit playing what you would call video.

[0:43:42] VF: No, I didn't quit playing. I continued to solve them. I just quit trying to make them.

[0:43:47] KM: Oh, I got you. I misunderstood that. You decided to start making them again. Tell our listeners about the business of crossword puzzle writing. It is a lot harder to get published. It's hard to make one. You tried for years and eventually, you had to hire a mentor.

[0:44:02] VF: Well, I didn't hire a mentor. I decided in 2003 that I would start making them again. It took me about eight hours to make a puzzle and I made one a week for 13 weeks in the latter part of 2003. I got 13 rejection notes from the New York Times and Will Shorts. The last one said, “You're real close, but you're never going to get there, unless you get a mentor.” I said, I recommend you go on cruciverb.com. Cruciverb.com is a site for crossword puzzle constructors. They have a listserv. I posted on the listserv, “Would someone be willing to mentor me in constructing crossword puzzles?”

The first person to respond was a guy named Peter Abide, who noticed that my user name had the word judge in it. Peter Abide said, “What is your jurisdiction?” Which I took to be a clue that he was a lawyer. I responded to him. “My jurisdiction is District Court Little Rock Arkansas. By any chance, are you related to the Abides, A-B-I-D-E his last name, in Greenville, Mississippi, or Lake Village, Arkansas?”

[0:45:14] KM: No. No.

[0:45:15] VF: Then I thought, the chances that he would be are slim and none. He's probably a sophisticated lawyer in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, so I deleted that. I just set up my jurisdiction as Little Rock, Arkansas. He then replies a couple hours later and says, “Little Rock. I've been there many times. I was born in Lake Village, Arkansas. Graduated from high school in Greenville, Mississippi.” Turns out that people I grew up playing golf with were his cousins, and that his mother was one of my sister's best friends in Lake Village. He wasn't practicing law in Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago, but rather, in Biloxi, Mississippi.

[0:45:53] KM: You are destined to meet each other.

[0:45:54] VF: We've been good friends ever since.

[0:45:56] KM: I bet. Did your wife know him? Didn't she grow up in Lake Village?

[0:46:00] VF: She knew the family, but he was much younger.

[0:46:04] KM: What a great story. There's rules for writing. You’re full of great stories. You'll have to come back. Because we're really just tipping we’re just touching the tip of the iceberg with this guy. He's got some great stories. What are some rules? There's a lot of rules for writing a crossword puzzle. For instance, there's a Sunday morning crossword test. No bodily functions can be in a crossword puzzle.

[0:46:25] VF: Well, that’s all –

[0:46:27] KM: That's not true?

[0:46:28] VF: That's entertainment stuff. As the crossword puzzle grew from its infancy, it was created in 1913 by a guy named Arthur Wynne, who was a writer for the entertainment page of the New York World newspaper. He first set it up in the shape of a diamond and called it a Word Cross. It became immediately popular. People immediately started submitting their – became a freelance activity from the get-go. Several weeks in, the typesetters made an error and reversed the words from word cross to crossword. Somehow, later, they got some reader feedback and said, “Well, that works better.” It caught on as a crossword and that was in 1913.

The New York Times at the time wouldn't have anything to do with crossword puzzles. The New York World actually started syndicating them to papers around the country. During that period of time, sometime in the late 1910s, early 1920s, Arkansas had its first crossword puzzle constructor. A woman from Greenwood, Arkansas named Helen Pettigrew had several puzzles published in the New York World and they were syndicated. I have a copy of one that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. She continued to write puzzles into the 1960s, and finally had one or two published in the New York Times. Arkansas has a pretty long history.

As far as I know, Helen Pettigrew, George Rose Smith and I, although there's one other person, a Mrs. Dalton, who I think lives in Hot Springs, who has recently had a puzzle published in the New York Times.

[0:48:10] KM: They have fea –

[0:48:12] VF: I know, you're talking about Margaret Farrer was the crossword editor for Simon & Schuster. I was going to tell you that in the roaring 20s, in 1924, a guy named Max Schuster and his friend, Richard Simon, who was Carly Simon's father –

[0:48:31] KM: I never knew that.

[0:48:32] VF: - decided to form a publishing company. Carly, Mr. Simon's aunt, Wixie, had become addicted to crossword puzzles during the 10 years that they've been in existence. She said, “Well, if you're going to form a publishing company, you've got to publish a book of crossword puzzles,” which they didn't want to do. But to satisfy her, they did. Had a little pencil attached to it with a piece of string. They put it out and they wouldn't put Simon & Schuster on the put. They created a fictitious publishing named Garden Publishing. They put the first copy of the first edition of the book out, 1,500 copies, and it's sold in three days. Then they put out some more and then did put Simon & Schuster. The book sold over 700,000 copies in less than a year.

[0:49:18] KM: Back in 1920?

[0:49:19] VF: In 1924. Simon & Schuster has put out at least one crossword puzzle book every year since.

[0:49:26] KM: The gentleman that you first talked about, who started making the diamond-shaped ones, he didn't keep the copyright to it.

[0:49:32] VF: Well, no. It wasn't so much that. The form itself, I don't think, would be protectable under copyright.

[0:49:39] KM: His granddaughter was on 60 Minutes one day, and I watched her interview.

[0:49:43] VF: Really?

[0:49:44] KM: I know. I'm surprised you didn't watch that. It's been a long time ago.

[0:49:46] VF: Well, I must have missed it. Margaret Farrer, who was hired by Simon & Schuster to be their editor, was hired away by the New York Times. It was she who made most of the early rules. One of the rules is we don't want any unsavory language in crosswords. Merle Regal came along and called that the Sunday Morning Breakfast Test, when he was interviewed in Wordplay. That caught on.

[0:50:10] KM: Yeah. They have themes. There's the theme, which is probably my hardest part.

[0:50:15] VF: Most puzzles have themes.

[0:50:16] KM: Yeah, which is probably my hardest part is figuring out what the theme is. They have square uniformity. You can't just randomly put them together.

[0:50:24] VF: One of the general rules that Margaret Farrer declared would be that puzzles needed to be symmetrical.

[0:50:29] KM: So you can turn it any direction.

[0:50:30] VF: Well, if you turn it upside down, if it's rotational symmetry, it's going to look the same upside down as it does right side out.

[0:50:36] KM: Which I've never noticed.

[0:50:37] VF: there are other types of symmetry as well. Then there are some people who insist on breaking the rules of symmetry. Some editors will allow that. Some won't.

[0:50:45] KM: Which one do you do?

[0:50:46] VF: Oh, I always do mine are symmetrical. I mean, I've occasionally done asymmetrical. Just like any rule, if you're going to break it, there needs to be a reason. Just breaking it willy-nilly is not a good thing.

[0:50:59] KM: Wordplay, repetitive lettering. I want to be in a puzzle someday. Every time –

[0:51:06] VF: I wish I'd known that. I could have made that happen before today.

[0:51:08] KM: Oh, well, we'll have to think of an Arkansas Flag and Banner. I'll think of one and have you make us one for some – for maybe the Dreamland Ballroom when we do our elevator.

[0:51:17] VF: One of the most fun things I do is make tribute puzzles for people.

[0:51:20] KM: Like Bill Clinton. Didn't you do one Bill Clinton?

[0:51:23] VF: Well, that's one that he and I did together as a part of a New York Times program to celebrate its 75th birthday of the New York Times puzzle.

[0:51:31] KM: How'd that come about?

[0:51:33] VF: Well, the New York Times started publishing crossword puzzles in 1942. 2017 was their 75th birthday. Will Shorts decided that to celebrate the 75th birthday, he would do something unusual. He would get celebrity crossword, people who are known to like to solve the New York Times crossword puzzle and match them up with regular contributors to do a series of co-writes, one a month for 12 months. Well, it has continued. But he asked me if I would get in touch with Bill Clinton and see if we could collaborate on one. We collaborated on one in May of last year.

[0:52:13] KM: Oh, again?

[0:52:14] VF: No, no. In May of last year is when we collaborated on that.

[0:52:16] KM: Oh, I thought it was a long time ago. That was recent.

[0:52:19] VF: Yeah, it was just last year.

[0:52:20] KM: Oh, I didn't realize that.

[0:52:21] VF: I was going to show you, as recently as three days ago.

[0:52:26] KM: What?

[0:52:27] VF: In the New York Times, you can see that byline?

[0:52:30] KM: What's it say?

[0:52:31] VF: Weird Al Yankovic and Eric Berlin. Eric Berlin is a regular contributor, and he's a friend of mine, so we were –

[0:52:36] KM: And weird out.

[0:52:37] VF: They're still doing it. I mean, here it is April. They started it in February last year, and the idea was to do 12. I know they've done at least 16.

[0:52:46] KM: What day? Is there a specific day those come out? Or are they just scattered?

[0:52:49] VF: Different days of the week. Will asked me to coordinate with Mr. Clinton to do a themeless puzzle, a puzzle that would be themeless.

[0:52:59] KM: Oh.

[0:53:00] VF: But would have a political edge.

[0:53:02] KM: Well, that seems like it has a theme.

[0:53:05] VF: Bill and I talked on the phone a couple of times, and we emailed back and forth. We decided to, because something just happened to fit, we decided to make it a themed puzzle, but not tell anybody that was a theme. Now, that's tricky, because you have to be able to give an independent clue to each line of something that would otherwise be very clearly a theme. What we were able to do is we were able to do, in the upper left, the phrase ‘don't stop.’ Eight letters.

[0:53:43] KM: That's it. That was his song.

[0:53:45] VF: Well, but don't stop. It was a song by Fleetwood Mac, but –

[0:53:48] KM: That he had at his. Okay.

[0:53:48] VF: - but don’t stop, he just clued it as keep on going. Then in the middle, thinking about, clued as chewing on. Then tomorrow, which has eight letters, is in the lower part, just another day. We had don't stop thinking about tomorrow, but didn't tell anybody that it was a theme. Lots of people missed the fact that it was a theme. I forget. I stumbled on to the fact that that would fit symmetrically. 

Then as I've made the grid for it, I saw that if it was done right, a downward letter in the very middle, going through thinking about, that O, it could be the word economy. We were able to clue that as it's the blank, stupid. It's the economy stupid, which is Bill Clinton's early campaign slogan. We had a campaign song and a campaign slogan, without telling anybody that that's what it was. That wound up being a very popular puzzle. We got a lot of worldwide press on that, mostly because everybody from New York Times test solvers to the average people missed the theme, the first go through.

Then when they realized it was there, for some reason, it's a great moment. It's a great moment in crossword is when you miss something and you realize, “Now I got it.” That's the quintessential aha moment.

[0:55:09] KM: Yeah, that's the one I never get. Yeah, we're getting close to the end. Last week was the tournament for the American crossword puzzle tournament, hosted in New York.

[0:55:18] VF: Right. The 41st.

[0:55:19] KM: 41st. It was by Will Short, who puts it on from –

[0:55:22] VF: Will Shorts.

[0:55:23] KM: - New York Times. He's the New York Times.

[0:55:24] VF: He’s the host. He's hosted it every year it started.

[0:55:28] KM: You said Eric Agard won.

[0:55:30] VF: A guy named Eric Agard, who's 24-years-old, and he's been coming to that tournament for seven or eight years since he was a teenager. I feel like I've watched him grow up. He just blew away the seven-time champion, a guy named Dan Fair, who's a musician from San Francisco.

[0:55:44] KM: There's a common theme. They're all musicians. They're all writers. Then of course, you're all crossword puzzlers.

[0:55:50] VF: Well, actually, if you watched Wordplay, you probably heard this one guy say that in his observation, the people who do crosswords the best, who solve the best, tend to be mathematicians and musicians, because they're constantly interpreting something from one discipline to another. Musical notes to actual –

[0:56:14] KM: They say that music and math are close together. I wouldn't know. All right. I guess, we've got to go. I don't want to go. Y'all, we've been listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy, and I've been speaking with the teacher, crossword puzzles constructor, Judge Vic Fleming of the District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas. We've got to go. We've got three minutes. I've just enjoyed you so much.

[0:56:38] TB: You'll come back, right?

[0:56:40] VF: Well, sure.

[0:56:41] KM: You like to get him on that. You like to get them while they're –

[0:56:44] TB: Get them on air saying yes, they'll come back.

[0:56:45] KM: Get them on air, saying it.

[0:56:46] TB: That's legally binding, right?

[0:56:49] KM: Tell everybody what he held up. What are those?

[0:56:50] VF: Four sets of crossed fingers.

[0:56:53] KM: That's for crossword puzzles. Who's our guest next week, Tim?

[0:56:56] TB: Next week is going to be Mr. Greg Hatcher from the Hatcher Insurance Agency.

[0:57:01] KM: Greg Hatcher is pretty awesome. I mean, he's really done well. I don't know how small his insurance company was. I don't know he really began it. But I know he's got a great insurance company now. He's written books. I know some personal stories about him, because I've gone and seen him speak. One of the interesting things about him is he brought wrestling to Arkansas.

[0:57:23] VF: Ooh.

[0:57:24] KM: He loves wrestling. That's one of the reasons you're starting to see a surge of wrestling at schools. It's because he likes it. I guess, that's it. Is that all we got to say?

[0:57:37] TB: Oh, we got a gift.

[0:57:38] KM: Oh, we’ve got a gift. Sorry, sorry. I almost forgot to give you your gift, Vic. Let's see what it is. I don't even know. Tim picked it out for you.

[0:57:44] VF: It's a paper bag. That's enough.

[0:57:46] KM: There's a US flag desk set. Every judge needs a desk set with a US flag on it. Ooh, he has a nice one, too.

[0:57:51] TB: We got him one of the French ones.

[0:57:53] KM: He got a, oh, a gold base with a French US flag. That is nice.

[0:57:56] VF: That's great. Thank you so much.

[0:57:57] KM: You're welcome. That'll look great on a shelf. To our listeners, if you have a great entrepreneurial story that you would like to share, I'd love to hear from you. Send a brief bio and your contact info to –

[0:58:07] TB: Questions@upyourbusiness.org.

[0:58:11] KM: Finally, thank you for spending time with me. If you think this program's been about you, you're right, but it's also been for me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you've heard, or learned something that's been inspiring, or enlightening and that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. I'm Kerry McCoy, and I'll see you next time on Up in Your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.

[END OF EPISODE]

[0:58:43] TB: You've been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you'd like to hear this program again, next week, a podcast will be made available online with links to resources you've heard discussed today on today's show. Kerry's goal, to help you live the American Dream.

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