Anne Marie Raynor and Mike Favo

00:01 A nurse. I am 30 years old. Today is July 23rd 2020. I currently live in Jacksonville, Florida and the name of my partner today is Mike. We are each other's one small step partner.

00:18 My name is Mike fewo. I am 59 years old today is July 23rd 2020. I'm located in Jacksonville and my partner in this discussion. Is there any rain here so I get the right? Thank you. Sorry.

00:40 All right, and I will go ahead and throw on the first question.

00:45 If one of you guys could read that off for me.

00:50 How would you sum up your life story in 5 minutes or less?

00:59 Okay. So yeah, maybe we'll just rotate asking and then the other personal answer first. How's that sound one of nine children grew up in Pennsylvania have spent much of the my career traveling all over the country. I married my wonderful wife in 1987 and that's how my life story took your shoes tick upward or she's two rooms away. So she may hear me say that to Children we've lived in every corner of the United States, Iowa for starters Chicago Detroit Northern, California, Greenville, Mississippi, Jacksonville, Florida spent that knife so far as an engineer working in manufacturing.

01:59 And I have two wonderful children. They're big part of our Lives as well. My wife and I have a fondness for the Arts and outside of my work life. I've dedicated a lot of opportunity in interest in supporting her Arts work and or her work in the Arts and my own interested in writing.

02:23 Like I beat five minutes by at least two minutes are pretty simple life story. Can I ask your wife works in and it she meets the music Ministry in our Parish. She was College trained and singing and dancing and has done most of all that Trout the course of our lives together, so

02:51 Amazing for me. I was born into a military family. Both of my parents were active duty service members for all of my life up until about 15 years ago. And my mom was a lieutenant colonel in the Army and my dad was a colonel in the Air Force and that took us all around the country and all around the world because they were in two different branches. We often got to go to unique and interesting places because they would have to be at a Joint Forces base. So I spend a lot of action figures my childhood living in Turkey. My parents actually met in Korea and we had the opportunity to go back and spend time they are so I spent most of my childhood kind of being I say drags, but I say it finally around the country and around the world with my parents and I think that those early experiences are what has shaped and impacted my world view. My parents are tired.

03:51 In Alabama, and I attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham to become a teacher and for the last 10 years. I have taught third fourth and fifth grade and the public education system in Northeast, Florida. I started in Duval County and now I teach in St. Johns County and in my spare time, I do enjoy the Arts as well. I'm on one of four children and my brother is a professional musician in New Orleans and we're really proud of him has been was actually nominated for a Grammy this year. They didn't win but it's still an honor to be nominated. So we're very very into The Eclectic art scenes and things like that and we enjoyed my husband and I enjoy going to the Broadway musicals in Jacksonville. And that kind of thing. I don't have any children I have for pets though. So I as a teacher I kind of say I have like 700 children. So sometimes I like to come home to a very quiet place.

04:52 I didn't want to ask really quick. I mean both of you guys. It seems like you've done a lot of traveling weather be for work or just traveling in general and you kind of touched on it at any how do you think that has shaped your world you for both of you guys?

05:15 I would say living in a third world country for the first three years of my life just had a dramatic impact on me because I was the blonde haired blue-eyed child in a foreign country. I was often the subject of intense interest and my parents soaked up every minute of that culture. They wanted us to be a true part of it. So we did some things that other families just absolutely would not do we would go snorkeling off of the Aegean or we would travel deep into the country, you know, just to see some of the more rural areas of turkey and then as far as traveling mug and my parents just thought it was really important for us to experience all sorts of different cultures. So anytime they had a chance to travel usually it was with the military. They would bring us along and my dad has a degree in history as well as my mom so they would often on our travels we would see

06:15 Stop at War battlefields. That was my dad's like big thing. And I would be taught and told the history of all of these obscure battles in random countries are random places in America. So not only got like context of what was currently happening in the area, but I was also given the context of how that area got to where it was in that time. For example in Turkey. They had the Turkish Revolution with Ataturk, which turned it into a very secular nation and that in history was very important in turkey and my parents made sure that I was aware of it.

06:54 For me, ironically the farthest. I made it from growing up in Pittsburgh is a child was to SeaWorld in Ohio less than a few hours away. My first airplane flight was to go to school at Purdue and heading out to the Midwest and just kept moving further around. So I I I really am grateful for my experiences because Pittsburgh is very Midwestern oriented town with a dose of the East Coast mentality, but then when you get out in the real Midwest, there are just so many things to learn from that culture and then we lived in Detroit and there was more culture there. I I learned more about the south probably living in Detroit then then I ever had prior to that because half the people in Detroit and it moved there for the jobs over the many decades before and then we head out.

07:54 Northern California that that was a real education cuz that California I tell everybody you have to visit California in your life if you have to it's it's such an incredible place and it has so many things to offer and unique in so many ways, especially that the beauty of nature but I was running a factory there and at one point one of my managers after hiring somebody he came by my office and he said well, we've got six continents cover. We got to find somebody from Antarctica and I did a double-take and said what do you mean when he said while we have employees in our plant now who were born on six of the seven continents? We just don't have anybody working here that was born in Antarctica and it was a great observation. And so one of the things in today's world that are always surprises me is that I've lived all this diversity as his my

08:54 Family in and I admire my children because they they are so open and like Annie near blonde haired blue-eyed to and in some of those locations. They were a a huge minority in that regard and but at the same time they grow up in a world different than where I started out in that they got to experience. Everybody else is family life and their family culture in an antenna very American setting and so I tried to I try to look at things for their eyes, sometimes when I find myself falling back in just stubborn way switch the facility get more prone you if you are to do so is definitely giving me a lot of perspectives that I wouldn't trade anything in the world for I'm I'm so glad and blessed that I got to do that.

09:50 Can I ask where you were in California doesn't turn in our Factory was in Fremont. That's so my mom was born in Lansing Michigan, but her family moved to Southern California. And so we have a couple of connections there as well. We I spent my summers in Southern California, but I wouldn't live there for the world. I really really enjoyed it. But but I don't think I could do the the people and the traffic and the just all the crowds and all that. I love San Diego, but you'd have to pay me double to visit La. Yes. It's just wonderful, but it's just not for me. I'm a fish out of water in La my aunt moved up to Northern California in Cotati and built a house up there and that's just a gorgeous area.

10:53 Never wants to read that one.

10:58 All right in your own words describe your personal political values. What are the most important issues for? You? Personally any question on the Little Packet and I kind of just skipped over it because I feel like it's such a difficult question to summarize concise trustee. So now I feel like I'm on the spot. I would just say that my I I identify as a progressive or as a liberal, but I just my personal political values I think would really be focused on equality and aspiring

11:34 My aspirations for America are what we declared in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. And so I really think that

11:45 Equality amongst all of our citizens whether that's men or women or people of different races or people have different sexual orientations equality in the workplace and just didn't Society in general is probably the most important issue to me. I have friends who are gay who living in St. Augustine don't want to get married because they're worried about the stigma that that carries in our community and how that would possibly affect them professionally and to me that that just really makes me sad because I want the people that I love and care about to feel valued in our society.

12:27 Great, that's that's interesting interesting objectives and thoughts. They're pricey and very similar to you in many regards. You know, I grew up in a household small town real small town in Pennsylvania and my father held public office for decades and this will type of community Republic off should get Alexa, but this was out of love for the community. This was not political. This is not ambition and politics. It was before community service by position that those were unpaid jobs and he ran on the Republican ticket. So I grew up, you know.

13:07 Thinking along the Republican lies just because that's what I was most exposed to and you know over the years. I have probably evolved into my own personal attacks. I don't I have frustrations with with both parties and then I get even more frustration sometimes with those who won't pick a party and I guess by my own what's important for me firstly is kind of

13:38 What I what I tried to instill in our children as we raise them, you know that the nice thing with kids is they both parents and still different things and that's what part of what makes you beautiful one of my objectives with some both was always loved the world is what it is and and we always seek to improve it but we start with ourselves and then we have to work on ourselves and work hard about ourselves so that we have choices later and of course of children grow up and takes a while for that to Jalen. My son is in his mid-20s now couple years back if he he and I were talking and he he said he now understood that and and I kind of think of that sometimes as my pot Texas. What are you doing yourself to make change and yeah, I train managers for years and I had one manager who was

14:38 Struggling with this job and I asked myself. How are you leading? And he said by example and a nice it's oh, well, that's great. But what if nobody's watching this is sooner or later. You have to put yourself in The Fray and you don't make your case and that goes back to what I said earlier about life in the Midwest and on things that I really learned living there is another part of my personal politics. And if you're going to say it you need to be comfortable saying it to the person who might disagree and not not strictly about, you know, it's not limited to talk about people behind their backs. I mean that was the Genesis of the Midwest as you know, you're talk about somebody but you have to be willing to talk and you know, sometimes my wife is right, it comes out as righteousness and you know, but the

15:38 She has helped me learn how to scale that back over the years but I still feel strongly about things.

15:49 I was trying to think about something that you said about your the boss that you said. He said he was leading by example and I think it's a good point. What if nobody is watching what would you say is like, what would you have preferred to have seen him do what would have been a better example of leadership?

16:05 Myona I think we're people struggle with leadership is they they don't they're not willing to do the work to Define their objective know people want to people want to lead the X on the things that they're competent to leave with and they want to follow those who are more competent did the things were there not at the same time and then died that always seems to fail when the person who is in the position of leadership will not Define clearly what their goals are and sometimes it's because they don't know they don't want to come in and other times you just don't want to do the work the most frustrating managers for the ones who would say, well I'm the boss they have to do what I say and then I would look just when I'd say, does that work in your household and maybe with for 4 year olds and younger, but after that kind of

17:05 Where you're going if you really want people to follow and learn and let that skin and that's what I that's how I coach that individual and how old he struggled with it. And we eventually talked about you're so good at so many other things. Why are you trying to be the leadership job go get one of those jobs where you were really good and he jumped and he's extremely successful. That's so that was another affirmation to me that you know, if you got to be if we got to lead you have to be willing to take the take the arrows and he wasn't it also sounds like you're saying putting the right people in the right positions to leadership wasn't necessarily the right position for him, even though he had a missed talent and other various. I agree with what you said earlier about. It's a frustrates me as well with people who

18:04 Like don't want to identify where the party because and basically they throw their hands up sometimes and just say well we should just get rid of the two party system, which is okay to me that since I know that's a valid idea if you want to have it in Converse about it, but the reality that we live in kind of like what you were saying the world is what it is right now. We have a 2-party system. So you kind of got to figure out which one works best for you at this time. And then what you said, what are you doing tonight? Then change it from within or or for seared in a different direction or whatever that is where I could throw in the next question for you guys.

18:52 Describe your earliest political memory.

18:57 Okay, so I it's not it's not an obvious Street mine, but my earliest political memories were when I was 7 I started delivery morning newspapers.

19:10 And the Vietnam War was going on at the time and so it should delivered newspapers. You tended to read them as you walk from house to house and and you tended to have a radio on your bicycle to listen to at the same time and I have five two political memories from that era and M1. Was your reading the headlines about Vietnam and being 7 8 9 years old. I had no concept of politics of it at all. But you would you would see these headlines and you know, it was elsewhere but it was affecting our country. And so like I can't say I have any great takeaways from that accept the experience and then the other aspect really clearly. I was just playing about six grade of that point I was

20:03 Little red papers one morning and again on the radio. They talked about bombings in Ireland and the death point. I was now old enough to want to know.

20:14 Why you know, I I didn't understand that at all and still don't but those were my those are my early political memories this morning that your people would actually yes set off bombs to to exercise their opinion. And of course here we are in 2020 and we're seeing the same thing in our country.

20:40 Yeah, I kind of feel the same way about my earliest political memory. I am not sure what impact it's really has on me. It's not anyting revolutionary or anything like that. I just my first memory is the election of 2000 the bush-gore election, you know with the hanging Chads in Florida. We weren't living in Florida at the time when I move to Florida kind of actually learn more about the intricacies of the election because in 2000, I was only 10 years old, so I wasn't really understanding what was going on. The reason I think it's so poignant for me is because my school had decided to do a student council election along with the

21:23 The presidential election. I attended a DOD schools on military bases. And so they just that kind of had a lot of leniency and freedom to do what they wanted to do. And so we did this student council election and I ran for student council president because I was in the fifth or sixth grade and we had election day on the same day that election day was in 2000 and then I was elected president and then we went home and we watch the results come in and then of course there was an indecisive night. And again, I'm 10 years old. I don't really understand what that means. But I just have a very vivid memory of that day. And I don't remember whenever it was, you know, when Bush declared Victory or when Gore conceded after I don't remember any of that, I just remember the actual election night.

22:11 Wow, that's interesting. That's that's kind of cool.

22:15 So and you said your Dad held political office like local political office. My dad was a district director for a congressman in Alabama for a couple of years. And that was after he retired from the military and had been a long-standing member of our community and the mayor of Montgomery Alabama decided to run for for Congressional off Congressional office. And my dad was his district director. So that was when I started getting really involved in campaigns and that was 2007.

22:47 I about that same time. I got a little education on campaigns myself. I was living well with shortly before that. I was in Greenville, Mississippi from 2003 to 2006 and somebody on our staff was married to somebody who was working in politics. He was a state representative at that point and and she was she was frustrated one day and you know not focused and well at home just juggling things. I said, I regret everything. All right. She said well, my husband's got to go do this this this and this and they were Ludacris thinks he had to go drive through this town pick this up to drive to that town and drop it off and then call so and so and get this done and he was supposed to be committed to some family events at the same time.

23:42 And I I said bump mean on family first. It's rolled her eyes at me and she said you don't get it and I said, why don't she says he's doing this for Congressman. So one cell in this is how it works. If he doesn't do this his career is over and I was like, wow she looked at me. She said where you been living? Well as I do not know this is how it works and that's if you want to make it in politics, I think and I think the difference with my dad is he had already had this long career in the military. He wasn't looking to make a name for himself. You really just wanted to like you were saying your father did be involved in his community and how to make it defrost he had no desire to this was not a career for him. That's why the opposition that he just wanted to help his community in and so he felt very comfortable speaking his mind and he was very much an outsider because the car

24:42 He was working for was born and raised and you know little old right outside Montgomery, Alabama, which is a very very sheltered Community for a lack of a better word.

24:53 And at the same time when when you live in those types of communities like we did that's what makes this country run and time. It's those guys those men and women in those little Community Care just make this country run and my dad favorites. My dad's favorite quote is that it said Tip O'Neill coat that all politics is local. I can't tell you how often I heard that phrase growing up that politics is local. You want to have an impact. It's your city council. It's your Sheriff. It's your you know, it's it's those people that your community leaders what you're saying that really make our country function wanted to ask Mike about your she brought up her father and and what his goals were while running and and serving in office. How about your father?

25:44 So my my father passed away about a month-and-a-half ago. So this is all kind of resonating at home with me alot. Yes. I know. I've been cleaning stuff out and in reliving some of his past a 10-year finding things, or maybe I wasn't aware of as well. Just a little Nuance things.

26:07 And you might take away especially from last month and a half to bring through some of these things. If it is this he loved his hometown and it's just a little town one square mile 8000 people. It's a wonderful community and that just really seem to always walk. I'll tell you this. Here's a better answer my biggest takeaway from him.

26:32 Is what she was regarding that question. My my own personal philosophy is always if we can make it simple to do but let's make it simple to do. You know why we don't have to set out make things harder for ourselves. And when I reflect on his goals in the community and they're always very fiscally and a static reminded often times. He would say, well it's so much easier to make this look beautiful. If we do it now instead of coming back 5 years from now and trying to do it that that that was his driver and a lot of things just his love for the community and how do you make it a prettier place to live more solid community that lived in and it is for the people who lived in that Community would flourish through their whole lives. And and I think there's a lot a lot of evidence of that. But if it is core, he just he loves this community as much as he loves his family.

27:33 I wish all politicians are like that you're doing it for love because the critics come out and words it. Yeah, it's a real Pierre and dedicated love that if to put yourself in that spot like yeah, yeah.

28:05 Yeah, I want to throw in a question. I really like.

28:11 Who did. What did you think when you first read my bio?

28:20 I just wanted more details. I am the most verbose person on the planet. And so writing that little bio for myself was incredibly hard to keep it like short and sweet. So I just read it and I said, I want to know more I was I think I ate the word that you mentioned Midwestern kind of stood out to me because then I was thinking well, is he in the midwest or is he in Jacksonville? Cuz I thought we were all in Jacksonville. So I bet a lot of Jacksonville people are transplants. I am so I kind of thought what brought you here.

28:56 And then I was interested in your you said your first paying job in the second grade and that was the mail paper delivery. I can't remember my bio but I've got yours here since we were on the fast track today, you know, it's funny cuz for me on this process that I was schedule somebody else and then they had to cancel and then and then you stepped in. So I've actually read to bios in both cases. We're all striving to be very neutral it in in that you know, I didn't know if I was going to be talking to a male or female, but when I read your bio and I saw a retard in Alabama tend to God I was very anxious to hear which school you went to because I spent three years living in the Delta and learning all about Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi. So like when you mentioned earlier that you were in Birmingham first my mind,

29:56 Stop back at Weis. We took our kids to the the science museum there cuz I just love it and the kids really want to sit you probably sucks that we were at the same exhibit. That's the one where you put your hand in the Big Wall of ice right see how cold the water was that was so I will say

30:24 The orders to Alabama were pretty hard on my family my initially obviously they ended up retiring there and they have built a life they are and they loved it. But the artist Alabama were really they came as a shock to my family because we had just moved 7 months prior and then we were told we were going to be stationed somewhere for 3 years. And then they said okay nevermind. You're actually going to Montgomery, Alabama and my mom actually cried on our trip there because she was very worried about what her children would be exposed to she said I don't I don't want my children to become racist. Like she actually said that she was very worried about what we were going to be exposed to an Alabama obviously over 15 years 20 years. There's been a huge shift in perspective of the people of Alabama. We went in with I I was young so I don't think I went in with too much of a bias and I attended these DOD military schools which are very different than traditional Public Schools.

31:24 So I didn't really experience what she was talking about until high school when I attended a public high school, but we like I said our whole person perspective on the state of Alabama and the people of Alabama is completely different having lived there for so long and they make a choice to live there now. So it's it's the Pittsburgh of the South. Is it still sitting?

32:01 We weren't necessarily worried about the racism cuz we don't we don't need travel enough, but we were still rather surprised when we experienced set up. So, you know.

32:17 Full retrospective I did not see a lot of it and then the reality is what we what we experienced what we thought going in was so we are going to experience more of it than we ever did. So I was surprised and pleased because the meeting that wonderful people we had a great relationship my wife cried when we left, Mississippi and but at the same time we did experience it was so ugly wasn't violent. It wasn't it wasn't any of those days. It was just was just mean and it's like I wouldn't do that to anybody and but you would run into the occasional soul and and it was true. Some of the things we witnessed today in the the one thing that happened on her front porch was because we had hired a fella

33:15 To do some yard work was African-American because he had the best reputation in town and the guys who were doing it when we bought the house. We kind of kept the guys were there they were awful and they were Caucasian and and they were just very ugly when we dismissed them from our contract and but at the tennis court really didn't have anything to do with anything except money. He lost his job and he would rather than look at himself and say I need to be better at my job. He looked at the other guy and used racism is a good excuse to cover up his own incompetence and at this kind of universal, but I was in Mississippi. That's when we did see somebody out in the open.

34:06 Not often I didn't want to ask because you know any talks about how her family moving to a different place that you don't know a lot about such as Montgomery, Alabama you can have these you have these worries about how is this going to affect your kids and how your kids are raised for you Mike. I mean moving across the country to multiple locations and seeing all these different perspectives. Were you ever concerned for your kids when you know, they were growing up in these different areas. Well, you know parenting has some responsibilities so you have to

34:49 You have to set out to make your own sacrifices to give them the best situation. So for example, we literally live paycheck-to-paycheck in Northern California on an income. That was over $100,000 years to get to that level and turn. Okay, I won't have Financial worries. But will you live paycheck-to-paycheck? Because we sought out the best school district we can get our kids in and and we bought a house in that school district. And so but that's it. That's the sacrifice parents should make and and then ironically when we moved to Mississippi, I visited all the schools in an interview leaders there in order to figure out where was fast to send our kids and the principal of the school year end up sending them to she was very straightforward and you're an educator.

35:49 So I think you'll probably appreciate this. She looked at me and she said your company is spending lots of money to bring you here to meet our local plant. She said so I'm going to assume that you are bright and that your children are intelligent too. And you know, I wash them and said, thank you and she said the reason I'm telling you this is

36:14 I am not going to take an intelligent child and make them wait for the other kids to catch up if your kids are bright and she's I don't know that yet. I'll find out when they come but if they're bright, we're going to push them to go as hard and as fast as they can because we think that maybe the other kids will work harder to keep up. She said, you know, the gaps going to be there is it is everywhere know some kids are better at math than other kids knew. My my daughter is studying to be a math teacher like you and but sorry I was very impressed that she just said it is all about taking the communities far forward as we can and you don't do that by holding people selling people down and so course she was she was singing my song there and and then and they had a great experience. It was it was a very good school, very good teacher is very diverse and

37:11 Marcus really had a great experience everywhere they live.

37:15 Do they have positive memories that they share with you? I've liked the different places that you lived and I will part of it was he he wanted to be removed his career-long and he said there are better opportunities where he's headed, but then he said that it's really your fault. He said you moved me. So many times growing up is today. I just figured out that I've been in one place too long and I wanted to challenge myself to move somewhere else. And so he his take away is very positive that way are our daughter. She had a different experience cuz she spent her entire school years in this one in the Jacksonville community and

38:01 But she she loved it spoke to her. And and now she's very happy while she's very upset cuz Clemson's going to start a month later than I planned. But yeah, but I think they both have very fond memories of all of it. But my son a little more social than my daughter would both of them really like that.

38:27 I just remembered this will be recorded for them to hear some day in regards to what you are mentioning about. You had a salary of $100,000, but you're still living paycheck-to-paycheck in the community that you are in that brings back question number to about a political values. Like I do think that it is the government's job to provide for the common welfare of its citizens, which is what it says in our Declaration of Independence and personally right now, I don't feel like we're doing that good of a job of making sure that our most vulnerable protected. I feel like anybody like what you're saying hard work is important of course, but you obviously we're doing everything you possibly could and you're still living paycheck-to-paycheck because of the way those neighborhoods priced other people out and so that those neighborhoods in those areas and that is a big concern of mine because all of my professional experience has been working in Title 1 schools, which is low

39:27 Low income families and I see these families working two and three jobs and literally doing everything they can and still living paycheck-to-paycheck and not being able to dig themselves out of these holes or one car crash or medical disaster away from just completely losing everything and so I'm just kind of trying to tie it back into that second question that I want to see our communities and our government do a better job of supporting some of our vulnerable citizens. I don't think you making that much money and still not being able to like really live without you know, without going paycheck-to-paycheck is just not not what I want to see in at my country.

40:13 Yeah, I think there's a lot to what you say and

40:19 I I I don't have any solutions, you know, the only thing I would add to it that that hurts me or makes me feel really bad is that your the the level of volunteerism is dissipated so much over the years that any of these Title One communities are even more challenged because some of the Gap was off of made up with volunteers and

40:47 And now that is being the Gated let's at that point public service and general. I mean, even you know, like volunteerism. I feel like in the 60s and 70s there were a lot more volunteer programs and young people were engaging in those and getting involved and I do see that in our community, but with to what you're saying just not the level of what what it used to be. I would love to see some sort of a big push, you know Across America to and I know I don't know what it would look like policy-wise but you know some sort of a expanding of America or America Scores or something like that just to really you know, and still service values in people as well.

41:29 Yeah, it's interesting cuz you're of the age that I'm sure you had to meet service hours to graduate as soon as our kids did and

41:41 The carryover though is for some it becomes a lifelong thing. But for many it's tops of graduation. And I think that's because it's borst not it's not a cultural expectation anymore. And I you know you have you know, ask not what you can do for your country or not. I ask not what your country can do for you. But what can you do for your country is just not a common refrain in people's head anymore. I feel like I'm not for forcing volunteer hours is the way to build lifelong volunteers. Right? Right, right. I agree wholeheartedly and I hope that all the current

42:25 Political debates in arguments begins evolved to that again. I don't know what the Catalyst for being just

42:35 I just hope it's not an ugly one, you know, too often something really ugly happens and then it changes.

42:43 Yes.

42:45 Went that. I forgot to give you guys signals entirely, but she's done 43 minutes so we can go ahead and wrap it up there.