Alisa Wilson and Mike Wilson

00:07 My name is Eliza Jenkins Wilson. I'm 55 years old. It's Sunday, October 27th. I'm in Dallas, Texas with Mike Wilson who is half of me and my spouse the best person. I know.

00:23 And Mike Wilson, I'm 58 years old. It's Sunday, October 27th. We're in Dallas, Texas and I am with my wife Alicia Jenkins.

00:35 So early so a lot of our friends know about how we met in the year 2000 on a street corner in New York City and how we struck up a conversation at the corner of 59th and 5th, and we often told that story to people but we haven't spent much time just reflecting on what we actually remember about that day before and after we met and the early days of our relationship, so I'm wondering if there's something in all the times we told the story that you haven't mentioned to her that strikes you as a

01:08 Interesting memory from that day

01:11 One of my strongest memories from that day was watching you get up and walk back towards the Plaza Hotel and I know I've mentioned that before but it's you know, very significant that you were standing probably 10 feet in front of me with a stoplight on one side and those little things that held the newspapers on the other and I looked at your back and I thought I wonder if I'm going to remember this moment because at that point you and I didn't even know each others names and we had just spent 45 minutes talking to each other and you were leaving to go back to Florida and I was going to go and leave my life in New York, which is where I was living and I didn't think I'd ever see you again. Do you remember if you thought about me or thought about our conversation the rest of that afternoon?

01:54 Yes, I did. I did. I think I was walking the streets of New York.

02:01 Thinking about that. How about you? Well, I went and got on the plane back to Florida. And as I sat on the plane started to devise a plan to get in touch with you, even though I didn't know your name I thought about how I could use the internet and the little detail you he'd given me to find out who you were and find you and of course the next day I was able to track back or things you told me to find the person you work for and then send this crazy email to the place you worked to ask if there had been this woman at 59th and 5th the day before

02:35 And you know who got that email you sent it to info at and it came right into my inbox and this was a time before. I mean we're so used to email and Technology now but back then that was a Herculean feet.

02:52 And I have struggled to remember the first time we ever actually spoke after that because we sent a lot of e-mails back and forth. But at some point we got on the phone, I think that the excuse that we used was that we figured out that I had lived on A Street next to Tufts and you had gone to Tufts and this would have been you know, 15 years before we met probably and then I think we use that as an excuse to get off the phone. Finally. I think we both wanted to

03:23 Your is our relationship very quickly got got extremely fun. And I'm very serious. What concerns did you have about moving forward with this relationship with a man who had been divorced and had three children and lives in another state.

03:48 I think there were I don't think there were any concerns that were insurmountable in my mind. I think when you sent me that delightful email where you buried in the center of it that you had three children that I probably made me suck in my breath a little bit, but it was very important to me.

04:07 That you know that that was not a game-changer for me that I thought that was, you know a part of you and I was excited about that.

04:16 I was perceived you as being more cautious about moving forward in a relationship and I was I have this sense that I had found exactly what I was looking for and I had and I often wondered if you felt the same way.

04:30 That's a great question. I'm thinking back to that time. And I was I knew this was something special from the moment. I met you I think if if I was more hesitant, it's probably because overall in my life. I was more hesitant. I was I mean about about marriage and children and everything. I was 30s. I just turned 36 when I met you and I had five had pretty proudly not allowed myself to walk down the aisle and I think that was just my upbringing a fear of marriage and I was afraid I was very afraid when we got married that it was kind of change was going to change our relationship and I remember you saying to me it probably is going to change it but it's probably going to make it better and that really that really helped me that gave me you you helped me your confidence helps me a lot.

05:17 I was confident, but I was afraid of things to

05:23 I was afraid of messing it up.

05:27 I had been I had been married to a good person and hadn't been a good husband and had been a disappointment and I wanted to know that I'd learned from that and would be a better partner the second time and I was afraid that there were things fundamental things about me that wouldn't let me be successful or happy in a marriage. That's that's what I was worried about. But I I wasn't so worried that my love for you and me for you in my life to overcome.

06:07 You're good at

06:10 You're good at courage.

06:14 What when I when I came to Florida to live at that time, I had a job where I was going to be going back and forth to New York. I was going to be with the same person and they were going to the same company. They were going to let me work down there and then you know 10 days after I arrived September 11th happens and a few months after that. I was out of a job and I was in Florida. What what was that like for you and how are you feeling about having this person dropped into your life in a very different way than you expected and maybe that you haven't told me about before.

06:50 I don't think there's going to be any news for you and my answer or not. I am I was blithely on worried about your being unemployed, even though you had your own apartment and if we didn't live together, you had your own bills and stuff. I just felt like I had enough income not a lot but enough income to help you out. If I needed to it seemed to me automatic that I do that if necessary. I was so sure that we were in the right place in our lives and that we belong together that I don't think I spend any time worrying about your being unemployed would probably you know, what's a little lack of empathy on my part because you I'm sure you were quite worried about it. But in terms of what are what we meant to each other and whether we'd be together I didn't I don't think I struggled with it.

07:38 I also saw you was very it's highly competent and and not able to to put it and you know find find some opportunities for yourself, which you quickly did.

07:56 Can I move to a different topic? Is there anything else we want to talk about regarding our our meeting story?

08:10 Yeah, I remember. Well, I think a lot of things that were said but one of the very the thing that allowed you to find me was that I learned that you were a features editor at the Saint Petersburg times now the Tampa Bay times and I was working at a consulting firm where I was ghost riding a column about working at home and you because of the industry you were in

08:38 New which service that was its indicated that column. I should probably be letting you tell him apart. But but I remember talking about journalism and Mike my going to graduate school for journalism. What else should we talk about? Remember so much of it. I mean that you had a graduate degree from Syracuse that I've never taken a journalism course, but was a lifelong journalist that I think you told me a little bit about

09:07 Having lived in New York for a few years by then. You told me about your boss cuz I I mean this this was these were the building blocks of how I found you later. And I remember you asked me about how the life of a reporter or editor and I told you about some of the lessons that I learned as a journalist and one of them is get in the car.

09:27 Like if you're if you're covering a story and the source of your story, it decides to get up and go and get in the car and go somewhere. Don't worry about where your car is or how are you going to get back to the office? Just get in the car and it's a good thing. I wanted full detail because I went over we have this wonderful conversation and I went and got in a cab and you did not get him again. He let me go to the airport by myself that you were staying at the Plaza New York City and you you went left me got your bags got in the cab and drove right by me and we and I remember holding your eyes when you were driving by I didn't get in the car and wait for you out the window and you and I just seen her at the Cabaret right away. And that was the last I saw you free for a month.

10:11 And and you know, we went back to 59th and 5th many times and and it's changed over the years, but we go back to that corner and visit.

10:24 Something you just said about that conversation methods of Escape me.

10:31 So at what point in your career as a journalist, do you think you first realized the responsibility that comes with that roll?

10:44 On the first day. I tried to write a news article. I think I had.

10:51 Been an intern at the Boston Globe in the summer after my junior year in college, but I wrote strictly feature story. So I wasn't in a news capacity. I didn't have to write today for tomorrow's paper. So when I started work at the Miami Herald as an intern on the news desk, there was a fire at the Everglades called in Palm Beach, which is a storied private club in Palm Beach and they sent me over there to cover the fire and I went over and I watch the fire burn and I talked to a couple of people and I came back to the office and I was frozen I was unable to to write an effective story and there was a much more senior reporter there that they kind of put next to me and he helped me.

11:35 Meaning he kind of wrote kind of wrote the thing and I added a few details and I just it just struck me that while if I don't have my act together and you know get my wits about me so I can tell people what the details are. Then the community won't know what happened here. So yeah, I'm on day one. I realize the responsibility and found it pretty daunting journalism, but I didn't have the courage and me to go knock on Strangers doors and you know walk into fires. Maybe I can do that today, but I couldn't back then.

12:10 Why Whitehead you drifted towards journalism to begin with it was magazine journalism your studying right undergraduate college experience was very much. Even though I went to the University of Texas. I felt like a commuter. I I worked two jobs while I took classes. I never really had a traditional college experience and I cry actuator from that program which was in advertising without ever really understanding what opportunities there were there for me to be a writer in a communicator and and that was enough largely my own fault but also because it was a large University and

12:56 You know, I wandered around for a few years and different jobs and entered a couple of stories and short story contests and got a few things published and thought well, I want to I want to write and I I love magazines and I decided I found out about the program at Syracuse and decided I would go into 1 of those programs to finally learn what ways there were to use my ability to communicate out there in the world. Are you work as a marketing consultant now and you do a lot of writing a lot of research. Do you think that are you glad that you did the journalism program to prepare you for what you ended up doing in your career that I described that as one of the happiest years of my life and it was

13:46 Hit it, right for the first time. I think I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do in like I was starting to build an understanding of what a career was. And before I done that I'd I didn't have that was a great program. Are you satisfied with where your working life is taking you?

14:03 Not really. I think that you know if I had any regrets that's probably one of them, but I'm not unhappy doing it and I'm happy with the the relationships. It's brought me in the things I've had a chance to do but it wasn't what I was it's not my life's work. You know that you don't Define yourself.

14:26 As much by your work as I do. Yes, and would you agree that that's probably a good thing for you. It's probably a good thing for both of us. I think it's one reason that you know, we have a successful relationship is I admire greatly what you do and I I want to support it and it feels good to be your partner in it and I get I still get excited when I know I can read a story that you've had your hands on as an editor and I can see a sentence or two and say that's my cost. I just know what you the value you bringing, you know, since this is going to be archived. I think we need to talk about, you know, just the that I'm I'm sitting here with one of the best editors in the country and you have had Pulitzer Prize winners under your your hand your editing hand. You're an incredible writer and you know, and I think I also need to say you're the editor of the Dallas Morning News right now. I'm just super proud of you.

15:26 I just I just think you're awesome that makes it easier for me to do what I do and support to me. I think sometimes about how

15:39 Of the two of us. You are the one that I think of it snowing.

15:44 I've been so sure of who she is aside from whatever your professional life might be. And I wonder if it if it bothers you whatever worries you that I that you know course, I love being a dad and I love being your husband, but that the part of me that's a journalist is so important to me that even I wonder sometimes if I know what I would I be if I weren't that I never thought I never thought about that for you it it seems like you're just who you're meant to be. You know, you you

16:16 Show up for all of us in so many ways, you know, you've even though you're you know, first marriage didn't work out you.

16:25 Being a father has been something that incredibly defines you, you know an end then you you've been there for those kids. We all have all three of us and

16:37 Yeah, I just I don't know how you do it all but your balance it beautifully.

16:44 I think I do it because I have your example to follow on how to be kind and how to beat just be decent to others and how to be patient. I really do think that I've grown enormously just from from knowing you and then so much better for knowing you then than I was before.

17:04 Kind of funny in a way that you know up until the time I met you I've said this before that I feel like I don't know why but I needed to have professional success before I could ever allow somebody to come into my life and to be to to make them more important than my work and I was doing very well in New York before September 11th and things were great and I felt successful and you know, you showed up and what's kind of funny is I had no problem not defining Myself by my job. I it turned out it wasn't important at all, even though up until that time it is it important for your professional success in your confidence about and what you did and who you were were a big part of what made you so attractive to me and you were really good at it and your boss's whom I met soon after we met obviously trusted you and and loved you and I just

18:00 I was around you very quickly around you enough to see sort of the way you operated in the way you treated people and I still really really admire that so that you know, I think you have a good plan on your part to like a fully established who you were and decided what your professional success would be which actually continues NPR my view continues to this day, you know before you decided to link up with some other clown who met on a street corner.

18:32 I have a couple of things I'd like to ask you.

18:35 I'd like to know a little bit more about your dad. He's so your dad passed away years before you and I met and he's naturally always been something of a mystery to me though. I've learned things about him over the years from you and your sister, but I was thinking that

18:56 In our daughter, Lena is about the age you were when your dad died and I'm about to hate your dad. Your dad was when he died a little bit older and so I think about

19:10 What would you want if if if I were to be gone tomorrow? What do you think Lena would?

19:20 Say and how do you think she would get along? And what advice would you give her?

19:33 I don't let you know I'd really have to think about that.

19:40 Cuz I I think that that first year it's really impossible to help anybody navigate that they've got to do it in their own way and my sister had children. That was I think she was worried about me because I didn't have a spouse or children and I think when you're you know, you're young like that it changes how you let people leave the room after that time and and you probably noticed that you never leave our house without my saying I love you. Be safe and that's

20:24 In that way, I'm grateful that I suffered a loss early because it made me realize you know was a sudden loss. It wasn't it wasn't an illness. It made me realize that anything can change at any moment, you know it and you and you become you prepare yourself for that somehow in small ways and not visible ways. But in your mind you your eye thing.

20:49 I'm always.

20:51 Somebody who when something bad happens is kind of like oh darn then. Oh well, and I think I could trace that back to

21:00 That recognition that things change without her without any ability of

21:05 Our own to change it to influence them. What parts of you do you think of is coming from your dad so if I'm searching for your dad in you, where is he?

21:31 I don't know. Can we come back to that one? I need I need to think about that because as you know, I'm you know, the primary caregiver of my mother right now who's completely independent but does require some hand-holding and I think it's hard for me to know what characteristics are my father versus what are the characteristics I've learned to help my mother just to help her cope. So and then also if you know I have he hasn't been here for 30 years. So it's hard for me to remember and when you're that young you kind of are so self-centered that you don't always notice your parents and then learn about them.

22:13 Can you kind of when we talked about your dad many times over the years and fragmented ways, but could you kind of reintroduce me to him and tell me what you want me to know about him. He had his own firm in Rochester New York where they did a lot of schools and fire houses and and things where the function and flow were very important and he was also an artist in his heart. I think from what my his brother. My Uncle Bill tells me he was the responsible one much as I've always thought of my sister is being the responsible one and

22:56 You know, he didn't have as much fun as my uncle didn't.

23:02 I think that's true as the younger sister for me. I think I was a little more fun had more fun than my my sister did.

23:10 And

23:12 He was a drinker. He wasn't super healthy. He had diabetes and some other things but he loved to laugh and maybe that's the answer to what do what's in me from him as he had a very good sense of humor and liked to laugh and make people laugh. He could be inappropriate ways than embarrass my mother, but then I got everything.

23:50 He had he always use the word broads and she hated him and he had some oven mitt to use for grilling. It said hot damn on the men. You know, these little people of things that weren't weren't Emily post in my mother's eyes. So,

24:10 And and she I remember.

24:14 Her buying a button for him. He was a golfer as well and buying a button when he lost a golf tournament that said oh shit, and I didn't know what the word shipment so I followed her around. I was probably 7 followed around the mall saying we should be worse if she could be inappropriate to she could laugh as well, but just in private so

24:35 So let me ask you a question.

24:44 I want to give you an opportunity since there may be future Generations listening to this if we have journalists in our family, I want you to tell me what you appreciate most about Lena Kirby and nobody eat one of them individually.

25:00 High Point

25:05 I guess I just know the fact that that they exist is it starts with that and then they are?

25:14 I know everything to me and I know to us I think I think fordiani it's is just as wonderful humor. Just how much he he he he loves absurd things and he laughs from the very core of themselves at the things that are funny and he says things that make me laugh from the core of myself in a person's system his gift and his musical gift is is Magic to me cuz I've always and I always thought it would be wonderful to have that and it's just so much a part of him.

25:48 I'm for Lena. I think it's her teeth hurt her intellect her heart. She's so fiercely smart and so loving sister. She's just really really amazing. And then I love that. He's part of a twin package that includes Kirby. I mean, so I think of linen Kirby is individuals, but also has one wonderful thing that happened one day and with curb its neck hurts always at then it's always been a special relationship cuz he's always enjoyed adult conversation and it's been fascinated by The Adult World from the time he was a child. So it was almost always like having a peer even when he was nine or ten years old didn't so much raising this watch him grow up.

26:36 American remember telling him when he was about 13 or 14 and I know I've pretty much told you everything you need to know. I mean at this point you go to HighSchool. It's kind of up to you what decisions you make as you've got the tools now, so I hope you do the right things and what she did.

26:53 I want to weigh in a little bit on each of them to look to know what you think because you came into their lives when?

27:00 I guess the enemy was around.

27:03 8 years old and the twins were five or six. I think that that was happening right as we met because we met October 1st and their birthdays were the 12th and then it was a number of months before I met them. But so the thing I mean there's so many things I love about each other but one of the best things about the Army is that he just like he sees a situation and he reads it like he's he has a an ability to cut through

27:35 Any kind of false miss this out there in NC when somebody's being genuine to see the core of what you know is is Injustice or Justice and also his Incredible strength. I mean we know he has some challenges in those teen years and older and I mean he I know that he probably doesn't think about this himself but he has more courage than any of the kids and he's worked harder than any of the kids. He's just end and the twins, you know, I remember first meeting all three kids and you know, Lena was just like instantly. I love you Elisa sit in the backseat with me like there was no there was no filter around her love at all and she she is so courageous and so committed to being the person she is and I and I'm great.

28:35 That we gave her a life where she felt comfortable and confident being who she was and and knowing how much we love her. She has a lot of courage to and she they all do but but the funny thing that I was going to say about meeting the twins is that

28:56 Kirby was absolutely loving but as is Kirby style, he also kind of just watched me to figure out who I was, you know, he was going to pick up the cues and just you know, if not, he wasn't.

29:08 Giving no judge. I mean he wasn't judging me all but he was just too just going to gather some info and then decide how I felt.

29:19 Enter your mind the first time that'll be some at your children.

29:24 Play when you when you met the kids. I just remember thinking how high the stakes were.

29:32 It wasn't as if the kids response to you was going to determine do you know the course of our relationship or how I felt about you, but it was really important to me that everyone be comfortable because I saw the potential for a lifetime together and I just had no idea these Waters that I was in and it with little kids. You know what they resent you not only haven't they feel about you the Howard Carroll feel about you. I'm so yes so that I may just incredibly high stakes but then I think they sort of realize that they had a child on their hands when they met you can pretty authentically get down with, you know, 8 9 year olds and 6-year olds and see what they're interested in and really care about it.

30:18 One of the things that you know early in our relationship I was learning all kinds of things about you and two things stand out to me that I don't think I'll ever forget and one was very early on when you you said how we communicate to each other now is going to set the course of our Communications for the rest of our relationship. So let's make sure we have some good habits. I was just repeating what a therapist to take make a good therapist. And the other was that you it was very important to that. I meet Carol before I ever meet the kids and I thought that is such a good call. And so so I'm respectful of her role as their mom and you know, I know the first couple of years that we were married were probably pretty tough for her. She said that before but the fact that the three of us were able to

31:12 Largely cooperate and raising three kids and make them the the center of of our universe instead of ourselves in our our personal feelings. I'm really proud of that. Almost doesn't feel right to have this part of the conversation without her here and now because she was so important to tell all of that working out if anybody had, you know, probably the hardest role what was the single mom of three kids navigating the entry into her life of the ex-husband's new person on person that she remain single and so she was just dealing with my decisions with the you know, in hindsight. I lost a lot of patience and Grace with her you two did a great job.

32:04 Nope.

32:05 So we have limited time today Mystic you work 10 minutes. Is there more that you want to say about your career in journalism that we haven't talked about.

32:20 I'm sure do you have to have questions different things.

32:28 You know, so I don't I kind of I guess I want to find out what's important to you to talk about.

32:36 I got familiar. I was going to ask you what you were most proud of in that role.

32:41 What work you're most proud of what again? I don't know how much you want to share but knowing that this is your chance.

32:50 Hi boy.

32:54 American probably most proud of the the cultures that I've been a part of the working cultures have been a part of and hopefully contributed to I have 5 work with people who who cared about each other and supported each other and end as a leader of tried to Foster that same sense and into to make myself vulnerable to the people that I work with so they could know me and they can and I think they need me to be honest about the the struggles of our industry because you know, we know that the number of journalists employed in the US has plummeted through the years and that's bad for you know, it's bad for local communities. It's bad for democracy when that happens and people lose jobs and you know what that there's a lot of painful things going on and I just have always felt like if you can't acknowledge what's happening.

33:54 You can't deal with it. So I feel good about having just been open to that conversation about what people are going through but then just the work itself. I mean no edits at its best local journalism organization just us such a great service for the community at Saint when the shooting of police officers in Downtown Dallas in 2016. The community was just desperate to know how this could have happened and why and the work that my colleagues did to to tell them that over. Of days and weeks is messed up in the stands out in my memory. Is it worth it really mattered?

34:34 Sometimes in the few times that this has happened it's been difficult to know that my husband needs to an Essence run into the building. Now that you that you're when something happens you worry about the safety of your people and and you you are somebody who wants to be there and there are a number of things. I've seen you doing this role that has made me realize what a natural-born leader you are one is when you went down and talk to the to the Trump protesters outside of The Newsroom and just you know, I don't know that a lot of editors would have said will let me just go down and put myself in the middle of that crowd and see what kind of conversation we can have and you know it another one is when you wrote the column about enemies of the people and that was for everybody who worked for you. I remember you saying to me they can't write this column. They they can't do it. I'm the only one that can do it and you did it.

35:29 And then you're you know that incredible conversation you had about race relations on Martin Luther King day. And when you talked about the denial that white people are in about racism and you were so eloquent and so I'm just such a such a great voice that needed to come from a white man, you know, you needed to say the things you were saying.

35:51 I always feel like when you talk about me that no person could possibly live up to you think I am and it's such a treasure to be thought of that way if there's a lot about about it, you know that I have a lot of questions about what I do too and you know the way I've spent my life, I mean, it's been 36 years of mostly now daily Community journalism, and I look at you know,

36:21 The people like our friend Billy is a singer-songwriter and you know poets and biographers and I think have they

36:28 Dedicated their ability to something more meaningful and Lasting maybe then then I have you know, what what we do and daily journalism is incremental by definition and you know, we can do some incredible investigative work and and storytelling that people remember for a long time and I treasure those things but I sometimes wonder if I'm you know, did I?

36:56 Did I go deep enough? Should I have been willing to be even more poor in order to right now to try to do novels or to try to do biographies and so forth, but I'm not sad because I love the the people in the in the environment of a newsroom so much and I also hold out this idea that when I'm done now being a daily newspaper editor her editor of a website that maybe I will turn to some passion project of mine and me to spend my last working years doing that. I hope you get the chance to do that. That's what you want to do.

37:36 And you know, we haven't yet talked about one of the most important things in our lives.

37:41 We have to mention our little dog story.

37:46 So just tell me a little bit about your relationship with story.

37:54 I think that she I will go on record as the one that didn't want to get a dog and the campaign that you started that ultimately led to this little delightful being in our life. And you know, she's there been many people that have written about the power of dogs and their lives and the and what they do, but you know, she's been my companion working at home for 10 years and

38:22 Is

38:24 Something to love and care about and I was the third parent.

38:31 In our family and with her I was the first parent and that was a that was kind of a fun thing Your Capacity to love until you got that dog. And I saw what happened if it's embarrassing in a way to to admit that it gave me a whole new understanding of children know what it's like to have to give birth to a child which is very embarrassing but it's true are you actually aware that you're not biological parent if this dachshund Chihuahua mix if you lost all sense of where the dog ends and You Begin I think that's fair to say.

39:21 Well, she's lucky and so are you and Daddy Lucky between you the kids my mother the dog God what a freaking fulfilling life.

39:33 Very fortunate