The Reckon Yard Podcast

Some lines get people killed. Some just keep us small. From the Driftless region of Minnesota to a joint that’s legal on one bank of the Mississippi and a criminal act on the other, JW walks through the imaginary lines men drew with rulers, and the smaller ones we draw inside ourselves. Plus a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas. Sixteen hours out of a flooded Houston, Tony and Dusty roll up on Duwali Bottoms in the dark, and the homecoming Tony spent a decade trying to aviod is waiting for him on a farm road.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The five labors of growth are complete. But before we close the series out JW has one more thing to tell you — the part he hasn’t said yet. These tools won’t fix everything. The world is full of people stomping around in their meat suits leaving wreckage behind them and a subscription to dogmatic belief doesn’t insure their humanity. What the toolbox does is give you a foundation that doesn’t move when those people show up. And they will show up. A man on a plane between Wisconsin and Houston trying to use what he’s been building. Plus a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas.Hurricane Ike has had its say. The Heights is flooded, the generator is pinned under an oak tree, and the power won’t be back for weeks. Tony packs the Martin. He packs the napkin too. Duwali Bottoms is calling.

I charged into trust thinking I had it figured out. Confucius stopped me in my tracks. From Jesus to Hemingway to Epictetus a deep dive into what trust actually is, what distrust actually costs, and why the wall you build to protect yourself might be the most expensive thing you own. Plus a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas.Hurricane Ike is hours from landfall. Tony rides out the storm in the Heights with Dusty and Tinker, a joint, a Weber grill, and the Martin. Eighteen floors above the city, Amber sends her friends home and listens to Blue October alone. Neither one knows the other is out there. The storm doesn’t care.

Humility was supposed to be the easy episode. It wasn’t. JW traces the concept from Aristotle to Augustine to a back porch in East Texas, then takes his own road to Damascus in the middle of writing it. Two sides of the humble coin, some stories about getting knocked off the horse, and a hard look at the difference between real humility and the fear that’s been wearing its clothes. Plus a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas Season Two: as the storm draws closer, two displaced souls find themselves in the same Houston bar on the same restless night.

Mercy is a word we think we understand until life puts us in a room where we have to actually practice it. JW explores what Jesus, the Stoics, Dostoevsky, Schopenhauer, and Twain had to say about mercy, then tells the story of a hospital room, a dying woman, and what happens when mercy gets corrupted into self-protection and called something else. The second labor of growth starts here.In Duwali Bottoms, a bloody nosed Tony Haines finds his way back to his papaw and an old man who knows that sometimes the most merciful thing you can do is let the big ones go.

I was handed a broken blueprint for love early on. Spent a lot of years building damaged things with it. This episode is about the people and moments that handed me a better plan and why love isn’t a feeling you fall into, it’s a labor you pick up. Season Four starts here. We return to Duwali Bottoms just in time for season two, Hurricane Ike is still just a disturbance in the Atlantic, but the storm is already building closer to home.

There’s a woman from Laird Hill you haven’t met yet. Her husband spends his evenings covered in grease keeping their Cavalier running. She’s quiet. A preacher’s wife. The kind of person you pass in a hardware store and don’t think twice about.She knows exactly where she’s going this morning.Danny Ware has been carrying something since Korea that most men never have to carry. He’s made his peace with most of it. An old soldier knows what he knows.Tom Levins is running out of road.And somewhere in Duwali Bottoms a lawyer named Dave Tilton has a briefcase full of things that are going to change everything for everyone still standing.Episode 13. An Old Soldier Knows.The season finale of Duwali Bottoms Texas. Thirteen episodes. One complete story.Some debts get paid in ways nobody sees coming.

With the Reckon Yard Podcast on hiatus for a couple of weeks, Duwali Bottoms must go on,1977. A stolen Pontiac. A state trooper on Sexton Road. A jail cell in Rusk County where two former best friends finally tell each other the truth. 1987. A phone call Tiffany wasn’t supposed to hear. A confession Danny was never supposed to get.

JW closes out the season with stories about every time technology made his skills obsolete,the print shop, NDT, foundation repair, what he did about it. Plus a trip to Fredericksburg, the S10 Lot Legends video, a 4L60E update, a new episode of Duwali Bottoms Texas.

Why JW makes fun of brands, the truth behind Dawn soap and the Exxon Valdez, and why you don’t need the right boots to be worthy. Plus a road trip, the Austin show, Avalanche updates, and a new Duwali Bottoms. All are welcome in the house of internal combustion.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

JW talks friendships and the complexity of favors, the fear that pervades us all regardless of station or occupation.This week in Duwali Bottoms, healing does not always mean mending.As Carl Jr recovers and the Haines family tries to steady themselves after tragedy, old friendships strain under the weight of silence and distance. Around town, life carries on in the summer heat but something restless is beginning to move beneath the surface.

JW revisits a brief fling with a ’92 Toyota pickup and the chaos that surrounded it in the early 2000’s. Late nights and a hard look in the mirror at a version of himself he didn’t much like.This week in Duwali Bottoms, TX:After two boys end up dead and a case gets filed away, Red can’t shake the feeling something doesn’t add up. Danny refuses to sit still, Tom learns the noise is spreading, and the line between justice and vengeance starts to blur. In Duwali Bottoms, nobody waits forever.

This week on The Reckon Yard, JW remembers his first Valentine’s Day with Rachael, then reflects on his paternal grandfather’s life and the weight of expectations and how a man learns to carry them.Then we return to Duwali Bottoms, Texas. In the long heat of an East Texas summer, a single afternoon drifts along slow and easy… right up until it doesn’t, and the roads and pastures fill with the restless energy of youth, old grudges, and choices made a little too fast for good sense to keep up.

There’s a beauty in knowing we’re all mostly trying to get home.Blaze Foley helped me stumble across a truth so deep it could only have been hiding in plain sight the whole time.Episode Six of Duwali Bottoms, Texas finds Carl Jr. trying to outrun a summer that’s already slipping away. Sometimes the people you thought you understood best are the ones you don’t recognize anymore.

The Mazda has left the building while JW falls into a rabbit hole of Americana through the grace and talent of Hoyt Axton. In Duwali Bottoms episode five leans into atmosphere and character, living in the long pauses between decisions and the weight carried by men shaped by place, memory, and unfinished business. The story narrows, the silence grows louder, and Duwali Bottoms keeps moving forward.

What do Epictetus and Helge Meyer have in common? Who knows, but let's try to make the connection anyway. Also episode four of Duwali Bottoms Texas is a humdinger.

This week is about the things we hold onto long after they stop serving us. From a stalled truck restoration to fallen empires and failed institutions, this episode asks when consistency turns into stubbornness. If you’ve ever stayed put just to avoid admitting the season ended, this one’s for you.

How much advice do you give on subjects you’re not knowledgeable about?I try like hell to avoid it.Trouble is, the waters are full of ignorant sharks.We return to Duwali Bottoms to learn a little more about the land, and what it asks of the people standing on it.

This week on TRYP, JW talks about the revenge mindset, and how living on borrowed anger can drain you dry. Plus, the debut episode of a new fictional series “Duwali Bottoms, Texas.”

JW recounts a quiet Christmas at home and getting the opportunity to spend some time in the service of others.

A road weary JW tells a few tales behind his recent exploits on the Christmas tour before delving off into deep analysis of the precipice in his life.

JW explores the difference in niceness and kindness while recounting a recent trip to East Texas.

An overdue visit with a childhood friend from Alief helps JW reframe his parameters for success.

This week on The Reckon Yard, JW digs into chaos, change, and the strange comfort of looking back. A sharp, heartfelt ride you don’t want to miss.

Some goodbyes don’t blow up.They just whisper.An inch of distance here, a missed call there, a silence that grows until the friendship you loved becomes a ghost.

JW gives a short primer on how to launch a wall stud over your neighbor's house using a 68 Ford Bronco before recalling the rise and fall of the greatest fictional Cover band you've never heard.

How important are the little things? The longer I'm here, the more their value seems to climb. There's even historical precedent.

How much wood could a Woodchuck chuck if a Woodchuck could chuck wood? A whole mess of it with the right pills. The devil don't come in an angry man, he's charismatic, gregarious, helpful even.

JW takes us back to 2011 when he was called upon to deal with a beast of truly mythic proportions.

Sometimes the best fishing trips don’t end with a stringer full of anything but stories. This week on The Reckon Yard, JW drags three lines in the water and hauls up three of his favorite misadventures

He worked himself right to death trying to please someone who couldn’t be pleased. But in the dust and noise he left behind, he planted something none of us saw coming, a legacy built from the wreckage, the stubbornness of a man who never quit. This week on The Reckon Yard, we talk about how the hardest lessons don’t always come from saints or teachers, but from the broken ones who showed us how to keep walking anyway.

JW takes us back to the cheap seats side of Lake Tyler in the 1980s, where summers were long, lessons were everywhere, and the shoreline was full of stories. From the awkward rites of teenage romance to the quiet wisdom of turtles and fishing lines, it was a place where memories got made on a budget and lasted a lifetime.

In “The Phoenix” we return to the pine shadowed Reckon Yard where rust, memory, and family collide. I take you with me as my cousins and I unearth my mother’s long lost Volkswagen, a broken shell that still burns with meaning. Along the way we wrestle with fathers, ghosts, and the strange grace of letting go, finding out what rises when you finally set old weight down. This episode is about resurrection.

Some folks flash hot, some smolder until they burn through an engine block. My Uncle Terry? He just let it pass. Do you fight fire with fire, or are you learning to stay unbothered?

A viral video about my Cadillac turned into a sermon on planned obsolescence. Then a story from the Comal River reminded me just how dumb luck and good friends shape a life.

don’t sign your name next to a crook’s, or you’ll see it stained in the same ink. The Reckon Yard is about what you rebuild, not what burned you down.

Back in ’97, I was just a heartbroken Texan shivering my way through Milwaukee, chasing work and bad decisions. Now it’s 2025, and I’m chasing stories that make the sadness sit lighter. This one’s about the past, a surprise trip for my friend Adam, and what it means to leave new echoes. It’s “Less Hell”.

JW starts season 3 with a bang. Enjoy a deep dive into his father-in-law. A real-life Rodeo Cowboy. He worked on the Goodyear blimp as flight crew and ran around Houston with a classmate Billy Gibbons.

JW breaks down the design history of the second gen Mazda 3, before diving off into a recent roadtrip, a moment of unparalleled kindness from a stranger named Russell and a in person testimonial from a Day One’r named Forrest that changed his whole perspective on the show. Let’s wrap up season two with a bang!

JW breaks down a brief history of the events that led to the development of the Ford RS200 for Group B Rally. Afterwards, he tells some stories about someone important in his life who shares his affection for the RS200.

JW breaks down the history of Americas favorite rolling brick before delving off into some stories about his childhood church community and the little van that served them.

Swing your leg over a Suzuki GS1100 and hang on tight as we tear through the history of Suzuki’s legendary street series before veering into the Rio Grande Valley, where oilfield days, wild nights, and a pocketful of peyote set the stage for a psychedelic detour in Longview, Texas. Motorcycles, memory, and maybe a message from beyond—this ride’s got it all.

JW pontificates on the happenings that led to the development of the Dodge Dakota before telling a few stories about one he picked up for a little bit of nothing and worked like a mule.

JW breaks down the history of the Toyota Matrix and then tells a few stories about the adventures him and his family had in theirs.

Jerry Wayne dives into the wild history of the Cadillac Escalade and shares a hilarious story about crossing paths with comedian Ralphie May during his early days in stand-up.

JW gets into the Dodge Ram redesign of 2009 before Ram becomes its own brand. JW recalls a good neighbor and friend whose heart's desire was a brand-new 2009 Ram, and how his life circumstances changed quickly after acquiring it.

JW delves into the details surrounding the 2009 redesign of the Dodge Ram, just before the Ram brand is split off. He recalls a friendship with a neighbor who's heart desire was a brand new 2009 Ram and the changes that come about in his life after acquiring it.   https://linktr.ee/JerryWayneLongmireJr

JW waxes poetic about the history and life of the Volkswagen Type 2 Bus, Kombi before telling a story about a type 2 he spent a great deal of time in as a young man. Find JW here : https://linktr.ee/JerryWayneLongmireJr

JW breaks down a brief history of the Taskmaster pickup series before telling a story about Papaw Clark and the winningest Apache race truck in history.   Find JW here https://linktr.ee/JerryWayneLongmireJr

JW breaks down the history of the Brougham name plate before sharing some stories about the origin of the studio and it's keepers. Find JW here https://linktr.ee/JerryWayneLongmireJr