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Let's create smarter business. IDM Okay. This is Rob Gronkowski from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. For the second season in a row, I partnered with T-Mobile's Friday Night 5G Lights, powering up hometown football across America. This year, T-Mobile invested over $4 million in prizes to help schools take their Friday nights to the next level.
Now it's time to crown our $1 million grand prize winner. A huge congrats to Derricks High School in Derricks, Arkansas, home of the Outlaws and your 2025 T-Mobile Friday Night 5G Lights Champion. They scored a home field upgrade, Gronk Fitness Weight Room, a 2026 tailgate party, and an all-expense paid trip to the SEC Championship game. to every school that competed, posted, and rallied your communities. Thank you.
And a big thanks to T-Mobile for making it all possible and helping communities shine under the Friday night lights. This season may be over, but the story isn't. Stay tuned for season three in 2026. Ever wish you could try the Washington Post and see what all the talk is about? Right now, you can, with a one-week pass for just $7.
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They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com. This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.
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And we continue with Our American Stories. Up next, a eulogy from Roland BitCon. On Saturday, may fifteenth, twenty twenty one, Roland's father, Russell Bitcon, went to be with his lord after eighty seven years of a life well lived. You're about to hear the eulogy Roland delivered or his father honoring his father. at a church in Jacksonville, Florida.
Here's Roland. I remember coming home From a football game where I had scored a touchdown, and my mom kept saying, You should have seen your father, you should have seen your father. Who was jumping up and down and saying, That's my boy, that's my boy. I found that a little odd because my dad was usually more reserved and he uh wasn't a proud or boastful man and he let such things speak for themselves. But such is the nature of life.
We're used to cheering on our children, but rarely do we get a chance to cheer on our parents.
So, if you don't mind, I'd like to take a few moments here to tell you about my dad. And maybe, just maybe, I'll just stand up and say a cheer for my dad. My dad, Russell Lee Bitcom, was born on a farm to parents who were sharecroppers. The Rock Island Railroad line ran right through the farm. This started my dad's lifelong love of trains.
My dad rode to run along beside the train, and hop on one of the cars. and got rides into town. And here's the summer. They would chase cows out of the ponds so they go swimming.
So as you can see, a childhood of safe, clean, healthy living can lead to a long life of 87 years. That's my dad, that's my dad. He worked hard on the farm and would also work the hay fields of surrounding farms. He said it was very hard work, but it paid several times what the kids were making in town. As my dad graduated high school, he said he was done with farming and wanted to get as far away from the farm as he could, so he joined the U.S.
Navy. He took a train from Iowa to San Diego for Nevot Camp. Dad got a top score of all the enlisted men. on a test the Navy gave to new recruits, which gave him first choice of what he wanted to do. It was 1952, Dawn of the Jet Age.
The airplane was the latest technology and the fastest machine on the planet. My dad wanted to learn how to work on them. Join the Navy C of the World, it's the advertising slogan, right?
Well, some of the places my dad were stationed: San Diego, California, Norman, Oklahoma, Corpus Christi, Texas, Kingsville, Texas, back to San Diego, Hawaii. Fall in Nevada, Memphis, Tennessee, Puerto Rico, Norfolk, Virginia, Jacksonville, Florida. He also did several deployments on aircraft carriers to the North Atlantic off the coast of Finland, to the Mediterranean Sea, and Corpus Christi, Texas. He worked on the twin engine trainer. Little did he know that sixty years later, His grandson.
My son. Order on his wings, flying the Navy to an undertrainer Corpus Christi, Texas. who would take leave from time to time and go back to Iowa. to visit family. That's where he met and fell in love with Ruby Moats.
He finally married her. and it was off to Puerto Rico. And that's where Myself and my sister were born. From there, Norfolk, Virginia, then in Cecil Field in Jacksonville. There are so many experiences and cool stories my dad would tell over the years about his time in the Navy and growing on the farm.
And just when we thought we heard them all, it seemed like you'd tell us a new one. Here are just a few. There had been some crashes of the A-4 Skyhawk. This was the midst of the Cold War, and these aircraft were part of the West deterrent against the Soviet aggression. All the highly educated engineers at McDonnell Douglas and Pratt Newton determined the problem with the A4 was the engine mounting bolts.
They devised a way to fix the program. The process would take ten point five man hours per plane. When Dad heard this, he thought, no way, they're going to have us working around the clock nonstop. Within minutes, my dad thought through the situation. With my dad's intimate knowledge of detail of the aircraft, typical of my dad.
He had the ability to understand. every detail about anything. He went to the commanding officer and said, there's a better way to fix this problem. Who is told to assemble a team and get to the hangar deck and demonstrate his procedure?
Well, because of that, he's received this letter of commendation. In December 1964, this squadron received airframe bulletin 293, which required replacing of the engine and main mounting bolts on all squadron aircraft. Procedures outlined stipulated removal of the tail section and supporting the engine with the engine stand while affecting replacement of the bolts. Program time was 10.5 man hours per aircraft. After careful analysis of the situation, you devised a method whereby the necessity for removing the tail section was eliminated and the overhead crane was used to support the engine while replacing the bolts.
Your method reduced the required time to Thirty minutes. per aircraft. All VA seventy two aircraft were fixed in one night. Your method was soon made known to Commander Naval Air Forces Atlantic, who disseminated it to all other A Force squadrons. You are hereby commended for your initiative, professional ability and your performance of duty.
That's my dad. That's my dad. Here's another one of my favorite stories. In nineteen seventy, Dad was tasked with making sure all the Jets from his squadron made it out of Cecil Field because they were getting ready to be deployed on the USS John F. Kennedy, which was a station just off the coast of Cuba at the time.
There was a problem with a few planes and dad had to stay behind to get them up and going. Then dad was flown to Guantanamo Bay, where he was put on a landing craft and taken out to the Kennedy. Once he was on the Kennedy, the skipper announced they were going to radio silence until further notice. They went full throttle from the Caribbean all the way to the Mediterranean. As they approached Spain, they repainted one of their planes a solid color with no markings.
The pilot was to fly to the NATO base in Rota, Spain, to receive orders for the carrier group, which was still under radio silence. The pilot was told to return to the Kennedy in the middle of the night. He was to be at a certain place at a certain time to meet up with Kennedy. The landing lights would be on for one minute. When the time came, they turned on their landing lights.
The plane landed three seconds later. They needed to enter the Mediterranean Sea in secrecy.
So before they went to the Straits of Gibraltar, They put all the planes in the hangar deck. They put the forklifts on the flight deck, ran them up as high as they would go, wrapped them in foil, as to disguise the aircraft carrier as a freighter to radar signals as they entered the straits. They ended up off the coast of Syria. Their Jordanian forces and the Palestinian forces were battling, and Syria was getting ready to move intervene on behalf of the Palestinians. They went to general quarters.
And loaded bombs and missiles all day. Dad said at the time he didn't know what was going on or where exactly they were at. but the planes were taken off fully loaded and coming back empty. During that time, my dad was tasked with loading one of the A7s with an atomic bomb to be on standby. My dad's responsibility is to make sure that plane was ready to go at a moment's notice.
A group of Marines guarded the plane 24-7. The Marines were under strict orders to let no one near the plane except my dad and those who he approved. That's my dad, that's my dad. He retired from the Navy after 20 years of service. In 1971, he eventually was hired by Sears Robot Company as repairman.
He quickly learned how to repair just about everything Sears sold. During this time, in 1980, While Dad was driving his truck, listening to Pastor Lindsay on the radio, he then pulled his truck over to the side of the road, surrendered his life to Christ. Since that day, my dad has been faithful to Jesus Christ and his church, and has also served as a deacon. My dad's always been a voracious reader. When we were growing up, there would be some evenings where we were told, there'd be no TV tonight.
Everyone has to pick a book and read it. See, my dad had this incredible gift from God of being able to understand how things work and how to build things and repair them. If he could fix, repair, anything. Wood, metal, steel, concrete. It didn't matter.
He could just build something with it. When it came time to repairing, it didn't matter if it was gas or electric, he could fix that too. When I bought my first car, my dad told me the very first thing you need to do after you buy a car is go buy a repair manual so you know how to work on it. He said, son, you bought a four. Do you know what that means?
Fix a repair daily. My dad was always a General Motors guy. Don't get me wrong, my dad had a library full of repair manuals, but I never saw him read them. But every once in a while he'd go to check on something and immediately turn it to the exact page he needed. I remember a story I told when he was in the Navy.
working on jet engines, a discussion came up on how to repair a particular problem.
So I told them exactly what to do, but they didn't believe me.
So into the service manual.
Now these manuals are several thousand pages long, held together by big metal binders. And he'll go right to say like page 1178 and point right to the middle of the page. Right there, it says. It says you don't have to do that very often before they finally figure out you know what you're talking about. My dad was also involved in my Boy Scout troop.
We built model airplanes together and flew some of them. When I got into model rocketry, my dad got into model rocketry. When I started surfing at the age of 14, my dad took up surf fishing just so he could drive me to the beach. My dad also loved gardening, growing tomato plants, peppers, squash, begonias, and even water lilies in his fish pond, where he raised koi and goldfish. My dad was a fun guy to be around.
He loved to laugh, even at himself. He loved to tell a good story, and he loved a good joke. It's only because of my dad that I have the courage and the ability to accomplish what I have in his life. He always had my back, and he always. he would always be able to figure out whatever obstacles we encountered.
I owe him greatly for this. And even though he came from humble beginnings, he set the stage not only for himself to succeed, but also for his children and his grandchildren. There's so much more to tell about this great man, but I hope I've honored him here today. That's my dad, that's my dad. That's my dad.
That's my dad. In the end, there are two kind of fathers: a father who gets a eulogy written about him like that. and the father who doesn't. And so if you're a father listening, Be that, Father. A special thanks to Roland BitCon.
and a special thanks to all of our contributors. Here on Our American Stories. Mm. This is Eva Longoria from Hungry for History with Eva Longoria and Maite Gómez Rejon. Like the song says, it's the most wonderful time of the year and also a wonderfully busy one.
All that merriment can weigh down even Santa Slay.
So keep it wonderful by keeping yourself wonderful with a crisp, cold Coca-Cola. Ugh. Pause for fizzy joy. Look out for yourself and then look out for everyone else. And together, we'll make this season as wonderful as it's meant to be.
Enjoy a Coca-Cola. Refresh your holidays. A new year is on the horizon, and your 2026 savings start here. Right now, you can access the Washington Post for just $2 every four weeks. Head into the new year with six months of savings at the special intro rate.
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Now's the perfect time to subscribe because great habits and great savings start together. Go to WashingtonPost.com/slash iHeart. That's WashingtonPost.com/slash iHeart and start your year informed with the post. This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?
They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don't sleep on OSA dot com. This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.
Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you. will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com. Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal.
Paige Beckers, Neviza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled Basketball, season 2 sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
Mm-hmm.
