Flintstones: Whats in a Nickname?

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT OF PODCAST ESSAY AND INTERVIEWS

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00:00:00 Arthur A. Busch

Hello, you are listening to Radio Free Flint. Thank you for joining us. I'm Arthur Busch, your host.

Today's topic is what is a Flintstone? Why do people refer to themselves as Flintstones? Where does it come from?

All this and more in our episode today.

The first person I talked to is Cindy Johns of Carriage Town Ministries.

Cindy is a lifelong resident, and I asked her if she was a Flintstone, and if she was, what does it mean?

You know there's a lot of people in Flint that that refer to themselves that.

00:00:26 Cindy Johns

I have

00:00:27 Arthur A. Busch

What's that?

00:00:28 Cindy Johns

I don't know.

00:00:30 Arthur A. Busch

Are you a Flintstone?

00:00:30 Cindy Johns

I don't know.

00:00:31 Arthur A. Busch

Are you a Flintstone?

00:00:33 Cindy Johns

I assumed it just meant you were from Flint, but that's all I know.

00:00:37 Arthur A. Busch

No, I asked you a question, are you a Flintstone?

00:00:40 Cindy Johns

Uhm, so what's the term mean? Is it just moved here from Flint?

00:00:44 Arthur A. Busch

It derived from this group of boys that played young men that played at Michigan State University in 2001, the national championship, and the national media started this narrative about them and their town as being tough, brilliant, hardworking, and they were well.

There's that's where the term started. Now the town has taken that as an identity, something you're the only one I've asked out of about 115 people who didn't say they were a Flintstone convoluted wolf.

00:01:12 Cindy Johns

Oh, I just didn't know the term.

00:01:15 Arthur A. Busch

OK, so let me ask it again. Are you a Flintstone?

00:01:18 Cindy Johns

I would say yes. I would say yes.

I'm cut from that same resilient, hardworking stock of Flint

00:01:25 Arthur A. Busch

Is that how you would describe the city, or would you use another word?

00:01:28 Cindy Johns

Uhm, in addition to that, I would probably grit. Flint has struggled, but it's home.

It is turning around. Is being successful innovative? I see innovation coming in downtown Flint, so Flint will be prosperous again.

00:01:43 Arthur A. Busch

Are you confident,

Cindy Johns

I think so.

00:01:45 Arthur A. Busch

The next person I talked to was Genesee County Circuit Judge Duncan Beagle.

Duncan Beagle discussed what a Flintstone was and where it might have started from and, surprisingly, even talks about helping these young Flint basketball players at the very start of their careers.

Duncan Beagle gave his opinion about a Flintstone and discussed whether he is a Flintstone.

Duncan, you've helped many kids and mentored many kids along the way, especially athletes.

Some of the more memorable ones for our entire community.

00:02:22 Arthur A. Busch

We have all our favorites, and we had, you know, some great moments watching the high school athletics, but we had a crew in 2000 that played. Well, I think it's one of the greatest coaches in the history of the college game. Tom Izzo and we had four young men that went down to Michigan State.

00:02:39 Arthur A. Busch

And played for his own those people.

00:02:42 Judge Duncan Beagle

You know, it's funny I when I was practicing law, I sponsored some youth date.

00:02:47 Judge Duncan Beagle

We called him the legal beagles.

00:02:48 Judge Duncan Beagle

We had a Beagle dog in the front of their shirts, but one of the sponsored teams just happened to have an 11-year-old kid by the teen cleaves and one of his friends by the name of Robert Smith, who ended up in the national.

00:02:59 Judge Duncan Beagle

Football, and because of that, I got to know those folks there was Robert's brother Antonio.

00:03:04 Judge Duncan Beagle

Smith, there was Charlie Bell, and Morris Peterson, whose father was in education, and I think one of the best memories I have is not only following those guys all that year.

00:03:14 Judge Duncan Beagle

Tremendous pride that gave the community, but at.

00:03:17 Judge Duncan Beagle

The spur of.

00:03:18 Judge Duncan Beagle

The moment I got two guys, we went down to Indianapolis with the national championship game, not knowing whether we would get any.

00:03:25 Judge Duncan Beagle

Tickets or not, we were able to get tickets.

00:03:27 Judge Duncan Beagle

We went to the game, and I couldn't sleep.

00:03:30 Judge Duncan Beagle

The next morning, I went down to the hotel lobby where somebody had given the first person I ran into was Tom Izzo, about 6:00 o'clock in the morning, because he was going to do all the morning talk show that I had a chance to talk to him for about 10 minutes, and.

00:03:43 Judge Duncan Beagle

Which is 1.

00:03:43 Judge Duncan Beagle

Of those great memories where Flint was just being highlighted, you were very proud of those four young men from Flint, MI.

00:03:51 Arthur A. Busch

Those guys became known as The Flintstones.

00:03:54 Arthur A. Busch

Where did that come from?

00:03:55 Arthur A. Busch

People called themselves Flintoids, I remember.

00:03:59 Arthur A. Busch

And Flintstones, I don't know, I don't.

00:04:02 Arthur A. Busch

Remember it before then, do you?

00:04:04 Judge Duncan Beagle

I it may have come from the cartoon character, and I can still remember somebody around town that sketched The Flintstones and incorporated our four basketball players.

00:04:15 Judge Duncan Beagle

Into it, I don't know if that's exactly where it came from, but as you well know, there are stories that go around the community, but what a great nickname.

00:04:22 Judge Duncan Beagle

People still talk about that when they talk about the history of basketball, especially college basketball, I'll go back to 2000. Those four young men from Flint, MI.

00:04:31 Arthur A. Busch

Those guys represented something to the people of Michigan.

00:04:35 Arthur A. Busch

And especially the Flint.

00:04:37 Arthur A. Busch

What was that?

00:04:37 Speaker 3

They represent.

00:04:38 Judge Duncan Beagle

You know, the interesting thing was four high schools in the community at that time.

00:04:42 Judge Duncan Beagle

As I recall, I think they attended 3 out of the four high schools, so the entire community from each of those schools took a lot of pride.

00:04:51 Judge Duncan Beagle

I recall that two of them had educators in their families.

00:04:55 Judge Duncan Beagle

Like Charlie Bell and Morris Peterson, Mateen Cleaves had a father and mother.

00:05:00 Judge Duncan Beagle

They were well known around town.

00:05:02 Judge Duncan Beagle

So, I just.

00:05:03 Judge Duncan Beagle

It was one of those things, I think.

00:05:04 Judge Duncan Beagle

We latched onto the other.

00:05:06 Judge Duncan Beagle

The thing you know when you think about playing.

00:05:08 Judge Duncan Beagle

Historically it was a work hard, play hard type community a lot of blue-collar people, and that's where those guys played the game.

00:05:14 Judge Duncan Beagle

You knew anything at all about it.

00:05:15 Judge Duncan Beagle

The teen cleaned the boy.

00:05:16 Judge Duncan Beagle

I'll tell you what he was, a born natural leader.

00:05:19 Judge Duncan Beagle

He didn't become successful in the NBA but in terms.

00:05:22 Judge Duncan Beagle

Of the leader.

00:05:23 Judge Duncan Beagle

You wouldn't have found a better.

00:05:24 Judge Duncan Beagle

Once then, the team cleaves.

00:05:26 Arthur A. Busch

Yeah, well, he was the number one draft pick.

00:05:28 Arthur A. Busch

Yeah, and that's that.

00:05:29 Arthur A. Busch

So bad.

00:05:30 Arthur A. Busch

Toughness, the strength they represented, and the determination came to represent to Flint exactly what it means to be a Flintstone, not just on a basketball court but in life.

00:05:43 Judge Duncan Beagle

I'll tell you one other thing I'm talking to.

00:05:45 Judge Duncan Beagle

Some of the coaches and athletic directors.

00:05:47 Judge Duncan Beagle

We're going to try and create a Flintstone classic for the beginning of a high school basketball and see if there's any interest in one of the reasons for it is to keep that.

00:05:56 Judge Duncan Beagle

That history was alive.

00:05:57 Judge Duncan Beagle

So a lot of young people.

00:05:58 Judge Duncan Beagle

Realize what these gentlemen.

00:06:00 Judge Duncan Beagle

Were all about.

00:06:01 Arthur A. Busch

I've also experienced doing this podcast and talking to as many people as I have that there are people now that refer to themselves as Flintstone.

00:06:09 Judge Duncan Beagle

I think that's true.

00:06:10 Arthur A. Busch

It's transcended sports.

00:06:13 Judge Duncan Beagle

I think.

00:06:13 Judge Duncan Beagle

It has.

00:06:14 Arthur A. Busch

What does it mean to be a Flintstone in a person in a bigger sense?

00:06:15 Speaker 6

It's a good question.

00:06:18 Arthur A. Busch

What is it that a Flintstone means?

00:06:21 Arthur A. Busch

Let me start out by asking, are you a Flintstone?

00:06:25 Judge Duncan Beagle

I think it's a pride in your community.

00:06:27 Judge Duncan Beagle

Hard work because every one of those guys worked at a trade, and they all became successful.

00:06:33 Judge Duncan Beagle

But I think it was their style of play.

00:06:35 Judge Duncan Beagle

They were dedicated to their family and community and represented a community they just knew how to.

00:06:41 Judge Duncan Beagle

If you remember the Pistons, I think they had that image with Ben Wallace Lambir, and some of those guys about that bring your lunch bucket, and it's time to go to work, and I think all of them came from working families and.

00:06:52 Judge Duncan Beagle

I think a lot of. People in Flint, you know, certainly recognized.

00:06:56 Arthur A. Busch

I agree with Duncan Beagle that the Flintstones. Original Flintstones were the young men from Flint who joined the Michigan State University basketball.

In the late 1990s, in 2000, their Michigan State University team won the NCA National Championship for men's basketball.

These Spartan basketball players had Flint tattooed on their upper arms with a basketball above it as they became known. Several of the MSU Flintstones attended the same. Elementary school in Flint

Judge Beagle, uh, reference they played AAU basketball together.

Flintstone basketball players believed their brand of basketball embodied the values of their hometown Flint values and their minds were hard work, toughness, resilience, and determination.

Basketball coach Tom Izzo at Michigan State is quoted in national publications about the quote UN quote culture, The Flintstones brought to the locker room in East Lansing is alights the toughness that the kids from Flint brought to his basketball teams.

These young men were champions, the Flintstones were winners.

It had been a long time in Flint since it was a winner in much of anything except high school sports. The other Flintstones not on the basketball team drew from the Basketball Flintstones.

The notion that they could be winning in their own walks of life.

That is what Flintstones do. The other Flintstones believe that Flint was once a great city where winners were born. The former residents want to return Flint to its former glory. In essence, they want to go back home to that place in time and their memories of a golden age, seemingly in the view of many Flint expatriates.

The Flint of old in their heads still exists.

My next guest is Jeffrey Valley, a Gospel Grammy winner, Flint.

00:08:50 Arthur A. Busch

He shares with us what it means to him.

00:08:52 Arthur A. Busch

Jeffrey Valley, let me ask you one last question.

00:08:54 Arthur A. Busch

Are you a Flintstone?

00:08:56 Arthur A. Busch

Yeah, what does that mean to you?

00:08:58 Arthur A. Busch

What does it mean to be a Flintstone?

00:09:00 Jeffrey LeValley

It's a resilient substance. When you talk about a Flint. you can start a fire with Flint.

It's hard stuff, just with a heart. It can stand up and gets on its own and flat to me.

With all that Flint has been through with the loss of General Motors and the water crisis, we're still standing. We've been through a lot, but we're still here; no, I was not born here.

I was born in Milwaukee but spent most of my life in the city.

And I love, I repeat, love this city.

I think it's a wonderful place to live.

00:09:43 Jeffrey LeValley

It's a wonderful place to raise a family.

00:09:46 Jeffrey LeValley

It's a wonderful place to make friends.

00:09:48 Jeffrey LeValley

It's a wonderful place to become involved in the arts and do whatever you want.

00:09:55 Jeffrey LeValley

You don't have to leave.

00:09:56 Jeffrey LeValley

But right here.

00:09:58 Jeffrey LeValley

It's wonderful.

00:09:59 Arthur A. Busch

What seems to have followed over 20 years after the Michigan State University Spartan basketball team won the national championship is a regional identity tied to Flint's real or imagined blue-collar culture. By the end of 2021, I had interviewed well over 125 people for the Radio Free Flint podcast the audience for this podcast includes many people who have long since moved away from the Flint area while talking with many expatriates, I sensed an unusual affinity with their Homeland in the Flint area.

Their responses were baffling, even as someone who spent nearly all my life in Flint.

I expected to hear the anger, bitterness, and self-pity the town experienced over the last five decades when asking the guests if they were Flintstones. 99.5% answered yes.

It mattered not if they were young, old, wealthy, poor Republicans, or Democrats.

One gentleman raised in South Texas even said he was a Texas Flintstone.

The Flintstone identity was enthusiastic and close to Universal.

They believe that the Flintstones of today are optimistic and highly confident about the future of Flint.

The residents have endured many economic downturns. Flint's history shows. The city will survive.

This common identity takes on a life of its own because of the people. I interviewed former or current residents who are resilient and have what it takes to survive.

Flintstones also believe they can fix the troubled town's problems by themselves if necessary.

00:11:39 Arthur A. Busch

The only question is, are these Flintstones helping to fix the town that exists in their heads?

00:11:45 Arthur A. Busch

Or the one that everybody can see today shows Flint.

00:11:48 Arthur A. Busch

Expatriates developed an extraordinarily strong self-concept associated with so-called Flint values.

00:11:56 Arthur A. Busch

The values of the former and current Flint residents centered around loyalty, hard work, toughness, and resilience these Flintstones.

00:12:05 Arthur A. Busch

Believed their values were part of the fabric of Flint.

00:12:08 Arthur A. Busch

During the interviews, they often said they developed their Flintstone character because they are from.

00:12:13 Arthur A. Busch

The best analogy perhaps comes from the world of athletics, something for which Flint is well known nationally.

00:12:21 Arthur A. Busch

Vacation with Flint appears to be akin to that of sports fans.

00:12:25 Arthur A. Busch

Many sports fans stay profoundly true to their teams at times wildly so, even though they live far away in towns and cities across the nation, The Flintstones proudly display Flintstone T-shirts and hats, and some even go as far.

00:12:41 Arthur A. Busch

As to put tattoos with Flint blazoned on their bodies.

00:12:45 Arthur A. Busch

It all seems so complicated to understand.

00:12:48 Arthur A. Busch

Why do?

00:12:49 Arthur A. Busch

People so strongly identified with a declining Rust Belt city they left behind when ago.

00:12:55 Arthur A. Busch

What is followed in all these years, despite all of the problems that Flint has experienced through its many economic downturns, is a history that shows the Flintstones have affirmed.

00:13:08 Arthur A. Busch

They can fix the problems troubling Flint themselves.

00:13:13 Arthur A. Busch

My next guest is Rico Phillips, a former Flint Fire department fireman who works for the Ontario hockey, and he shares his views about what is allowed.

00:13:23 Arthur A. Busch

Of people in the Flint area necessarily in the boundary with a lot of plant area, they identify as Flintstone.

00:13:29 Arthur A. Busch

Do you identify as a Flintstone?

00:13:31 Rico Phillips

I identify as a Flintstone.

00:13:34 Rico Phillips

In the acceptance speech of my award in Las Vegas, I said Adaway flinch from translating Flintstones to My Flintstones, and all kinds of words came up.

00:13:43 Rico Phillips

But that's what I.

00:13:44 Rico Phillips

I the reason I say Flintstones like when I think of a Flintstone, it's harder.

00:13:49 Rico Phillips

It's resilient, it stands the test of time, and I think when I think of not just folks that I've worked alongside, but the mentality of a lot of the people here like you're gonna keep kicking at it.

00:14:01 Rico Phillips

Anybody from the flat nose?

00:14:03 Rico Phillips

We can talk.

00:14:03 Rico Phillips

Crap about our city if we want, but if you say one bad word about fun and we're ready to go down with you.

00:14:09 Rico Phillips

Right?

00:14:09 Rico Phillips

Because that's that Flintstone mentality.

00:14:12 Arthur A. Busch

According to The Flintstones, part of the Flint character is marked primarily by its resilience.

00:14:19 Arthur A. Busch

There have been several books written that explore the culture of the American Rust Belt communities.

00:14:24 Arthur A. Busch

Several of these allied.

00:14:25 Arthur A. Busch

She's like, eulogies are usually backward-looking allergies sentimentally look back at people and places as if they were dead or dying.

00:14:35 Arthur A. Busch

Let me assure you that the Flintstone see Flint is very much alive.

00:14:40 Arthur A. Busch

The podcast interviews I conducted reveal a distinct culture in Flint that has as its.

00:14:46 Arthur A. Busch

Baseline values, extraordinary resilience, and commitment to purpose.

00:14:50 Arthur A. Busch

Flintstones has a history of overcoming hard times and challenges when it looks like all is lost more.

00:14:57 Arthur A. Busch

Certainly, they're not giving up anytime soon and reclaiming their place as significant contributors to the American economy, culture, and national life.

00:15:07 Arthur A. Busch

What is it in Flint, MI air that gives people the audacity to hope?

00:15:12 Arthur A. Busch

What is it that makes Flintstones so confident their town will not meet the fate of so many others?

00:15:18 Arthur A. Busch

Ghost towns.

00:15:18 Arthur A. Busch

Is this just part of unrealistic thinking in Flint?

00:15:22 Arthur A. Busch

In the past, it took the disappearance of entire auto factories for some of these hard workers could understand that the factories would be no more.

00:15:30 Arthur A. Busch

Does Flint, MI, have something embedded in its culture that?

00:15:33 Arthur A. Busch

There are the people, an extra gear of adaptability, The Flintstones have some magical ability to roll with the punches of their roller-coaster economy.

00:15:42 Arthur A. Busch

This much is clear.

00:15:43 Arthur A. Busch

Failure is not an option for the people who call themselves Flintstones.

00:15:48 Arthur A. Busch

I will leave you to your own conclusions about the Flintstones.

00:15:50 Arthur A. Busch

The inferences I reached were based on the evidence and a more hopeful side to the people of America, feels the research and facts show.

00:15:59 Arthur A. Busch

A high probability of more sunrises and sunsets in Flint.

00:16:03 Arthur A. Busch

Despite all the grim news of vanishing General Motors and poisoned water, there is resilience in Flint, MI.

00:16:11 Arthur A. Busch

The toughness of the Flintstones is epic.

00:16:13 Arthur A. Busch

Like its name Flint, it has a strength of spirit that is part and parcel of the culture of the people in this working class.

00:16:21 Arthur A. Busch

Enclave Flint.

00:16:22 Arthur A. Busch

As the heart stone is called is from which to spark a fire in the history of all we can see and imagine the devastating loss of manufacturing jobs has perhaps made no more profound impact on any city than it has inland Michigan. More than 80% of its modern-day high-paying General Motors jobs have vanished.

00:16:43 Arthur A. Busch

The region lives in good measure on its auto's handsome pensions and medical benefits, where that gravy train is rolled on without fail since Buick Chevy. Delay and General Motors were all found in Flint about 100 and five years ago.

00:16:56 Arthur A. Busch

The Flint area gets poorer one day at a time as these workers die, and their General Motors pensions and benefits aren't the money that once circulated with great velocity. He no longer feeds many of Flint's children.

It is a town whose child poverty rates rival some third-world countries. GM money no longer feathers the nests as it. Once did for the local auto repair facility. The Doctor, dentist, auto dealers, or any of hundreds of. As you look at Flint, it's cultural.

Some people describe it and describe themselves with a strong identity in the place. I mean, it's remarkable.

Next is John Daley, the transportation director for the city of Flint, a longtime public works administrator, and Genesee County was the head of the Genesee County Road Commission for his thoughts.

00:17:43 John Daly

My wife is a Viking, yes.

00:17:45 Arthur A. Busch

Well, my question to you is, are you?

00:17:46 Arthur A. Busch

A Flintstone.

00:17:47 John Daly

I'm a Flintstone by marriage and by choice.

00:17:50 Arthur A. Busch

If you're a Flintstone, what does that mean?

00:17:53 John Daly

It means first that I put them especially concerned about the needs of the community and the residents there.

So, and then the second thing is that I recognize that there's kind of a gestalt. If you would, in the community, that makes it different. This community is different.

That doesn't mean it's easy, it just means it's different in some respects, it's significantly harder, and it's resilient. I mean, most communities today have been through what we've been through.

I think would have collapsed. There is an inner resilience in the residents of Flint that they want to see this community move forward, which will require leadership. It won't be easy. The path needs to be realistic, and it needs to be shared.

There was a Flint before it was the birthplace of General Motors, and there'll be a Flint. General Motors will always have a presence in Flint. The number and its impact will change just as the automobile industries change.

If we learn one lesson that has come out of the situation we've been in, I think is don't be. Too dependent on any one thing.

00:18:54 Arthur A. Busch

I want to take you to Sandra Branch, the Vice President of the Flint public art project for some common.

00:19:00 Sandra Branch

Flint is very resilient. It's in our name Flint.

You take 2 Flintstones, and we call ourselves Flintstones, and you hit them together. What do you get a spark, and I think that's what we're all about? We're about that spark.

00:19:16 Sandra Branch

That's in humanity that creativity succeeds. Above all, Art.

00:19:23 Sandra Branch

Like a surfer, we ride the wave, whether it crashes or what happens.

00:19:28 Sandra Branch

We get right back or run to the ocean, jump in again, and ride that next wave.

00:19:34 Sandra Branch

We're a city that can't be kept down.

00:19:38 Sandra Branch

You know we keep coming back can't kill foot we're resilient.

00:19:43 Sandra Branch

We have many people from many different places who have struggled and encountered all odds.

00:19:50 Sandra Branch

We had the migration from the South where people came here from sharecropping and made their fortunes in their families.

00:19:58 Sandra Branch

Prospered, we've had people that came here migrant workers to go to Traverse City and pick food, leave.

00:20:07 Sandra Branch

I settled back here because Flint has a lot to offer.

00:20:11 Sandra Branch

We look at our people that have come out of their industry auto industry and they started new businesses.

00:20:18 Sandra Branch

But they're all it's changing. We're no longer $1.00 town, I believe that we have to have hope we have to have the audacity to think beyond print.

00:20:29 Sandra Branch

Fiction and think like Clarissa Shields.

00:20:32 Sandra Branch

Beyond all odds from Flint when Flint was not doing well, she was proud to put on her vision board where she was from and what her goals were.

00:20:45 Sandra Branch

And as a community, we must do the same we have to.

00:20:49 Sandra Branch

Take our vision and put it on a board; we must live for it.

00:20:55 Sandra Branch

And we must make it happen.

00:20:57 Sandra Branch

I don't know about the government.

00:20:59 Sandra Branch

The government has a long way to go on a national and a local level.

00:21:04 Sandra Branch

I'm not putting my faith in government.

00:21:07 Sandra Branch

I put my faith in the people in the communities.

00:21:11 Sandra Branch

I put my faith in the citizens of Flint.

00:21:14 Sandra Branch

I put my faith in the fact that we are resilient, and Flintstones has the will to make it.

00:21:21 Sandra Branch

And I put our future in the hands of the parents and the children.

00:21:27 Sandra Branch

Grit that is coming had that dream of making this a place to be proud of.

00:21:33 Sandra Branch

I don't think we can look at the predictions from the prognosticators.

00:21:38 Sandra Branch

I don't think we should listen to the media.

00:21:41 Sandra Branch

I think that we should look at our hearts and our spirits and our souls and our history.

00:21:47 Sandra Branch

And make it that what we wanted.

00:21:50 Arthur A. Busch

You have done a magnificent job of explaining what it means to be a Flintstone.

Flintstones: Whats in a Nickname?

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