Besty Randolph and Mary Driebe

[00:03] BETSY RANDOLPH: My name is Betsy. I am 69 years old. The day is April 28, 2023. I'm in the StoryCorps virtual recording booth, joining from Oracle, Arizona. And I'm here with my one small step conversation partner, Maryland.

[00:27] MARY DREEBY: Okay. My name is Mary Dreeby. I am 56 years old. The date is April 28, 2023. I am in the story core virtual recording booth, joining from Richmond, Virginia. And I'm here with my one small step conversation partner, Betsy. Betsy, if I can get you to read Mary's bio.

[01:07] BETSY RANDOLPH: All right. My name is Mary Dreeby. I live in Richmond, Virginia, and I am the mother of three children in their twenties. My husband and I own a restaurant, and I am an educator. We live in an old home in the city and make time for our community, friends, and most importantly, family. We have had many bumps along the way, which is true for most people. We think it is important to remain vulnerable and open both to shine light on our problems and to feel solidarity with others.

[01:47] MARY DREEBY: Okay, and Betsy's bio is. I grew up in a medical science family, some very famous. I have a PhD in science with years in research and teaching. I got married and had twin boys in my forties with someone who called me a flaming liberal feminist. I voted Democrat, was a strong abortion advocate, and a dogmatic evolution thumper. After ten to 20 years of searching and challenging, I had an experience with a special friend that opened my heart to Jesus and mine to science. Evidence against evolution. My current passions. I love physical activity. Okay. And so I guess now we start in with our questions. And one of the questions, I guess, that I saw, actually, on the paper that I was really interested in is, Betsy, why did you want to do this interview today?

[03:02] BETSY RANDOLPH: With one small step I have always, I shouldn't say always, but for most of my life, loved meeting people who are different from. Than me. And when I was in college, I had the opportunity to meet people from all around the world and loved doing that. I'm frustrated with all that's going on, with the friction between disenfranchised groups of people. And I heard an interview and information about this program on a radio show driving home from work one night, and I was just so taken with how wonderful it was and immediately responded to get involved.

[03:47] MARY DREEBY: Okay.

[03:51] BETSY RANDOLPH: Now, should I ask Mary the same question? Read it?

[03:57] MARY DREEBY: Sure. Well, so I like you. I definitely have. We're very familiar with Storycorps and really loved all the stories that I heard. And often they would leave me speechless for the rest of the day. I just. They would kind of, you know, stew around in my head, and I would think about them. And then I also heard about the one small step. And that, I think, was around the time that everything happened with George Floyd, and we were, you know, we were shut down with COVID And it was a very big time in the city of Richmond, Virginia, because we have a large avenue with monuments that date back from to the 18 hundreds, and they are all monuments that memorialize many of the confederate soldiers, as well as leaders. And so the entire city was out in one way or the other. And we even. We also had some. Some very difficult nights as well. But it was very life changing. And I think it was around that time that I saw something about one small step. And I feel like I started to fill out the paperwork that long ago and then just recently got the call to join for a conversation. And so I just, I think that I was, have been always kind of looking for an opportunity to hear other perspectives. But definitely since that moment and what occurred in our city and how powerful that period of time was in Richmond, I've really been much more, you know, just very eager in searching for these opportunities.

[06:18] BETSY RANDOLPH: So. So how did you know about Storycorps?

[06:22] MARY DREEBY: Just listening to NPR, I would hear the stories and. And, you know, always loved them and, you know, loved these little moments inside people's lives that they shared with us.

[06:38] BETSY RANDOLPH: Cool.

[06:43] MARY DREEBY: So I also just would love to know a little bit more about your medical trajectory. And you said that you have a PhD in science and have been researching for years as well. And I just would love to know some more about your background.

[07:06] BETSY RANDOLPH: I always had an interest in science and math. I was good at. So when I got to college, that was sort of a natural to go into. Hello. Let's see.

[07:23] MARY DREEBY: Well, so what did you study?

[07:25] BETSY RANDOLPH: Yes, so, an undergraduate. I have a degree in anatomy and physiology. I loved exercising, and I loved how the body worked. So eventually, after a while, I decided, I'll just go get a master's in that. I thought about medical school. My father, my grandfather, my mother's side and great grandfather were all doctors, but it wasn't the right path for me, so I stayed in research. I eventually got a degree in biochemistry and then went in neurobiology, studying how and where certain events happen in the brain. And it was all very interesting, but I didn't have any ultimate goal. I was just following the path, and I don't know if it was kind of expected. I'm the only sibling who went that way, but it seemed like that was the right way to go. With uncles and cousins and grandfathers and whatnot in that field. And it's still very interesting to me and I love it.

[08:24] MARY DREEBY: Were you living in Arizona at that time?

[08:27] BETSY RANDOLPH: No, I was born and raised about 20 miles south of San Francisco and went to school across the bay, we call it in Berkeley. I went to Reno, Nevada and then Boston. And then where to go? Then I guess I went to Montana and then Boston and then Reno, Nevada and then down to UCLA, Los Angeles. I didn't go to UCLA and did a postdoc in Arizona for only a year. By then I was in my, I was 39 when I finished my PhD and went to do postdoc in Arizona in 19. 83 93. But I ended up dating someone in Los Angeles and he wasn't willing to move. So I went back to get a job in southern California, in La Jolla, right next to the ocean. It was wonderful and gorgeous. And then I had my children in my forties so that I always thought I'd be miss career when I had my kids. But getting pregnant and all the emotional hormonal changes, there's no way I was going to work and not be home with them. Right home full time. And then after, oh, not too long after that, we moved to Colorado and lived there for 20 years raising our kids. And just three years ago, at the height of all the COVID craziness, moved to a small town in Arizona.

[09:56] MARY DREEBY: Okay, very good. I just left Arizona. I was in Sedona.

[10:00] BETSY RANDOLPH: That's a very beautiful area.

[10:04] MARY DREEBY: I met up with some of my college friends. Yeah. And we did some hiking. It was awesome. I couldn't believe how gorgeous that was.

[10:12] BETSY RANDOLPH: How recent was that?

[10:14] MARY DREEBY: I just am just home.

[10:17] BETSY RANDOLPH: Oh my gosh.

[10:18] MARY DREEBY: Yeah, yeah, we had great weather and it was just, it blew all of us away and, and, you know, we've all traveled some but we just all agreed it was one of the most beautiful places we've ever been, so. And that was my first time in Arizona. But it sounds like you've been to many different corners of the country.

[10:42] BETSY RANDOLPH: Both my husband and I want to be somewhere it's a little more forested and mountainy, but we like the warmth here.

[10:49] MARY DREEBY: Yeah.

[10:49] BETSY RANDOLPH: Which is why we moved. So you've always lived in Richmond?

[10:53] MARY DREEBY: No, I grew up in upstate New York and went to school in Philadelphia and at St. Joe's University. And then I moved down, well, actually moved to Oregon for a year and then got married and, well, actually I moved to Oregon for a year and then two years back in DC and then got married and came to Richmond, Virginia.

[11:19] BETSY RANDOLPH: So why Richmond, Virginia?

[11:22] MARY DREEBY: Well. Cause that was where my husband lived. Oh, he was from, yeah. So when I got married, I came down and I was telling Justin before you came on that it was a very, when I first came, very southern city, and it took a little while for me to adjust, and. But now I just find it very invigorating and lots of things going on all the time and, you know, many opportunities for social justice. And so it's, you know, it's just changed so much. It's unbelievable since I came.

[12:04] BETSY RANDOLPH: So how long ago was that?

[12:07] MARY DREEBY: 30 years ago.

[12:08] BETSY RANDOLPH: Oh, that's a long time.

[12:10] MARY DREEBY: Yeah. Yeah, so, so, yeah, so it's really my home now. Even though my mom and dad stayed, you know, always stayed in the house. We grew up in an upstate New York, so. So I was wondering, I was really intrigued with your bio because it said after ten to 20 years of searching and challenging, you had an experience that opened your heart to Jesus. And I was wondering if you would share that with us.

[12:49] BETSY RANDOLPH: Well, there was lots to learn. I was very non faith based in all my prior life and didn't think very highly of people who did believe. So there's lots to learn and try reading the Bible and talking to people. And God brought lots of, when I had my kids, young christian moms, into my life at the parks, but I just couldn't accept it. It was just too out of my realm of what I was familiar with. But I had one year, I got a masters in education at Stanford and taught at a local high school, a couple of chemistry classes. And there was one young girl named Katie who I got to know, and she bonded with me. And we stayed in touch a bit off and on, but she was 16, I was 30. 216 years later, she's 32 and I'm 48. And we both are young mothers of two children. And I fly out to go visit her. And she was a strong Christian and witnessing to me. And I, for some reason, over the years, had come to trust her more than I had ever trusted anyone emotionally. And I could share frustrations or fears or conflicts or doubts, and she was someone I could hug and cry with. And she always had very well based answers that were rational and made sense. And we went to a play one night. I was supposed to have flown home because I had left my two little children, which I had never done before. But there was a big snowstorm, and it was the night that her church was having a passion play. And I went, and it was very moving. And the women, men just radiated a beauty I never really experienced before. And I just said, okay, this has to be real and believed. But it was kind of like up. And then I'd peek over and I kept going back and forth and back and forth, well, what about this? And doubt it and what about that? But then I would read answers and I did a lot of apologetics reading and faith, but slowly, over the years, just I read and fax and research and dig, and there isn't any other answer, really, to meaning of life and even evolution. She also was raised in a family of being exposed to the science evidence for supporting creation and challenging evolution. And she put a little cassette in the back. Then they had, what do they call them? And I was just blown away. I'd been in science and research for 20 plus years and had never heard any of this evidence. It was about geology and the layering and the Grand Canyon, and it was all very factual and it was all very clear evidence of a young earth that was quite eye opening. So I just non stop reading about that all the time with more and more evidence and everything that's known about DNA, and it's clear cut. The problem is that people don't want to either admit it or accept it or open their eyes to it, or they just don't know about this evidence.

[16:23] MARY DREEBY: So the evidence is that. Tell me more about the evidence.

[16:32] BETSY RANDOLPH: Well, one, my biochemistry, I know a lot about molecules and what's required for molecules to come together and stay together, and you have them in water and they go apart. If you want to synthesize them in a lab where I worked, you have to remove water, snap molecules together. So you're not going to have them in an ocean or a water environment anywhere, a little pond, you're not going to have complex molecules form. And if they've done experiments to get some small, simple, but unimportant, toxic molecules come together, but that's what's touted is, oh, there's proof that life could form from nothing. It's too complicated. The cell is a single individual cell. The number of molecules and the complexity, you have to have an intact language. You need the DNA, you need the proteins, the mechanism to make proteins from the DNA, it's just too circular, too complicated, and none of you need information, intelligent information, language system. And it's well known that, yes, mutations happen, but they don't improve on what's already there. It degrades, it ruins, it breaks what's already there. So over millions of years, through breaks. And I once had a professor say that people can't comprehend the power of millions of years. And if you don't have a mechanism that will work, millions or billions of years isn't going to get you there. There's no mechanism for improving on what we have. Natural selection can take what's already there, but what you have is already there. And mutations don't improve anything. They break it down, they ruin it. We accumulate mutations every generation, so we're accumulating mutations. We're not improving on anything. People look at now in DNA. There hasn't been enough time for humans to evolve from monkeys, which is chimps, or supposed to have evolved from the amount of DNA that's reported that's different is not true. The amount of DNA differences are very large, and there's not enough time for mutations. And mutations still don't improve on anything. They break what's there. They degrade it. And so we're accumulating 100 mutations, each of us, every generation. And that's more and more and more. That doesn't mean you're getting better. You're devolving, not evolving. So just a few of some of my interesting, favorite topics.

[19:06] MARY DREEBY: So I think what you're saying, Betsy, if I'm hearing you right, is that because of your background in science and your understanding of science, that the more you dug into evolution and the more you considered it, the more you realized that it couldn't happen just scientifically. There had to be some intelligence behind, like an energy or an intelligence or Jesus or God or, you know, behind the creation.

[19:40] BETSY RANDOLPH: Well, it certainly didn't happen randomly out of nothing. You can't have an entire universe out of nothing. And so people who still want to hold on to evolution will say aliens came down. That's sort of one of the leading theories by a guy named Crick who discovered structured DNA, but that somebody had to evolve, the aliens. And so, yeah, there's no mechanism that's known for how it could have happened. And so I don't, I think the purpose of life is where if everything did happen randomly, out of nothing, slowly, over millions of years, out of just natural selection, not for any guided reason, there really isn't any special value in being a human being, and there's no real purpose. It's all just random without purpose. And I think that, as well as I think a lot of the passages, well, for me, all of the passages in the Bible are verifiable, and so there's really no other alternative to the purpose. I think God is what gives us purpose in life. So you have a difference of opinion.

[21:00] MARY DREEBY: You know, actually, I don't have too much of a difference of opinion. To me, I do. I mean, I guess, you know, as we start to whittle away at it, I suppose we'll find that we have differences. But I actually do agree that that in my mind, and I don't, you know, I'm probably more humanities than I am science, and so I'm going off of very little information that way. But I guess my thinking is that there is certainly a lot that has to do with science through the years and from the beginning to where we are now. But I also think, as you do, that there had to be, you know, some intelligence behind all of it. And I also have a deep spirituality that I, you know, is a part of my life every day. And so I think that the difference or not the difference, but I think where, where I've changed. And my thinking is that I grew up in a catholic home, and my mom, my dad is deceased, but my mom is still very much, very engaged and practicing every day. She goes to church, and when I visit her, which is quite often, we're saying the rosary together. But I, myself and my brothers are not practicing Catholics anymore. And I think some of that is because all of us actually see the church as created by primarily men but humans. And so it's very flawed, as any type of an organization is. That's when it's created by humans. But there are some parts of it that are difficult for me to look past. And it took a long time for me to get there and really not for any other reason other than the fact that it was something that I did every week without giving it a lot of thought and pulled my family into it. And it was actually my children that started questioning a lot of things, including why are there not women on the altar? And just asking questions of things that I don't think I really ever thought about because I was just so deep into it. And, I mean, I hate to use just because my mom and dad are incredible and as was the education they gave us, but to some extent, I guess it's a little bit indoctrination just in the fact that I, you know, I never thought about it. I just did it every, you know, I just kept doing everything that everybody was doing. And so then once I started thinking about it, I started to go in a different direction. But I was also raised. My mom and dad were very into social justice, and I've always loved that part of it. And I, you know, I do love some of the traditions that are part of it, but the part that, you know, when we start bringing some of the ways in which the church exists, I find that to be where it begins to break down. For me. One of the things we. I loved about Sedona is we went to. In our group of women, there's one that's still practicing Catholic, and because we all went to St. Joe's, but the other five are not. And so I went with the one that's still practicing to the Church of the holy cross, I think. But there's also lots of conversations with vortex. And so it's interesting because all of the. Lots of different ways of thinking about, um, about God or energy all exists, um, on this one, in this one area in Sedona. And so we had. We had some good conversations there, just about all the different, um, things that we've been reading about. About the area. Um, so we. I enjoyed that. That we, you know, kind of like what we're doing now, people. Lots of different thoughts from places that we all have evolved into with our thinking.

[25:54] BETSY RANDOLPH: So she's the only one who stayed with the original thinking, huh?

[25:59] MARY DREEBY: No, my friend. Not me.

[26:02] BETSY RANDOLPH: Right.

[26:03] MARY DREEBY: Yeah, my friend Colleen is the. Is the only one. Yeah.

[26:08] BETSY RANDOLPH: I certainly have some challenges for the catholic church, as I've been studying and learning, but they were. Say that again, as I read and study about the origin of the faith and what a lot of beliefs are, I have challenges for the Catholic.

[26:26] MARY DREEBY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a. It's a hard time in. In the catholic church at the moment. I'm sure it, you know, has had other very difficult times throughout history, too, but right now, it's exceedingly so. So. So, I mean, anyway, I'm glad my mom and dad won't be around to. To see it as it gets harder, so. Because, you know, they definitely had a very strong faith, so.

[26:58] BETSY RANDOLPH: So where are your three? You have boys or girls or. They're the same minor. 26. I have 226. And you have.

[27:08] MARY DREEBY: Yeah, so I have. I have a 29 year old and a 25 year old and a 21 year old, and my oldest is on the autism spectrum, and so he's in Richmond with us, but he does great. He has a job in his own apartment, and he drives, which is all just such gratitude for. We didn't really think that was going to happen. And then my second son lives in La Paz, Mexico, and he is very interested in the ocean and fishing, but right now he works online for a startup company out of California, which is allowing him to be in the ocean every day. And then my youngest is at the University of Virginia.

[28:09] BETSY RANDOLPH: Where are they in their faith walk?

[28:16] MARY DREEBY: You know, I think that they, I think actually, my, well, I feel like my oldest actually was loved our church and loved the catholic church and loved everything that, you know, the rituals and the traditions and the holidays and, you know, and he's very close to his, his grandparents. But one thing that was very difficult for him was they, right around the time we left, we lost a bishop who was very known for his social justice and very, like, historically. So he's very well thought of throughout the country. His name was Bishop Sullivan, and we instead got somebody who is very conservative, and they let go of our, the director of our choir, and it was a result of he is gay. And that was part of the reason was his lifestyle. And so that was very difficult for Joseph. And I think that that also made, that seemed to make more sense to him than even the women being up on the altar because he loved the director of the choir. And then my middle son is actually in recovery. He was actually in recovery from substance abuse disorder at 22, and that happened. Both, everything went from zero to 100, and then he went right into recovery and has done well. And so he actually is, has, he's not in AA, but he has a very strong faith, and it's more just spirituality, and it's the ocean and it's, you know, nature and it's, you know, he, he spearfishes, which he likens to meditation, which is my practice right now. He, he is, you know, just finds great. I mean, really, I think that's, that's part of the reason for his sobriety is that he just, if he's in the ocean, then everything's good. And, and then I don't know where my youngest will end up with. She's definitely very, very committed to social justice, but I'm not sure where she is with her spirituality yet. How about yours, Betsy?

[31:06] BETSY RANDOLPH: I was learning along with them, or they were learning right along with me. I didn't have all my beliefs and positions sat or established when they were young, but the more I researched about the evolution creation evidence, I exposed them to that, and I think they're staying pretty grounded on that. I had them go to Sunday school and vacation bible school events and something called Awana, where you learn Bible verses and play games. So I think there's something in there, but they're not practicing their faith in any particular way. But I think they have beliefs, Scott. One of them is the first to have a girlfriend. And I say she's from the San Francisco Bay area. Probably a little more liberal than he was or is, but. And getting influenced that way. Alexander prays and believes in God, but they don't want to share about it too much and they're at that stage of life where they want to be the leaders of their life and their fate feel like they're in control.

[32:23] MARY DREEBY: Right? Absolutely.

[32:24] BETSY RANDOLPH: We'll see where it goes. But I'm hopeful. So we should jump into social justice. Were you about to ask something else different?

[32:35] MARY DREEBY: No. Sure, let's. I was curious as to what church. If you are affiliated with the church and what church.

[32:42] BETSY RANDOLPH: A denomination. I have one that's called living word chapel here and I live in a town that's 4500ft, about an hour north of Tucson, unincorporated. It's relatively small. A real variety of types of people and incomes and whatnot. So we enjoy it. There's. We have a home with a nice view of all the surrounding area and so far it's pretty good. I drive about 20 miles or 30 minutes to go to work at the town that's in between us and I enjoy it. It's nice. Although I still don't like winter. I don't know how cold it gets in Virginia, but.

[33:29] MARY DREEBY: Does it? It gets cold for you? It gets cold.

[33:33] BETSY RANDOLPH: I mean we'll get some freezes. I lost some plants. I keep wanting to try growing things here. Okay. Nothing grows in the plant in the ground. I have to use a pickaxe or a jackhammer to get hole dug deep enough to plant them. So it's not a lot of. It's not lush here at all. But what was the question? Oh yeah, it still will get cold and we'll get some little bit of snow a few times. But I like being in my sleeveless shirt year round.

[34:06] MARY DREEBY: Right.

[34:07] BETSY RANDOLPH: I probably like it where your son is.

[34:10] MARY DREEBY: Yeah, yeah. No, it's definitely tropical all year by.

[34:18] BETSY RANDOLPH: The end of it.

[34:19] MARY DREEBY: Did you want to start with a question about social justice?

[34:23] BETSY RANDOLPH: Well, so one you referred. Well, you're in the center of the city or so you're in a city, not out in the suburbia or rural like I am. And so there's lots going on there. You mentioned that it has a lot of southern conservative or history that people are probably revolting against and that you like being involved with your community and so that might be the social justice activities. And it's been a. It sounds like it's a big part of your life.

[34:57] MARY DREEBY: Yeah, it's. It is a it is. It's. It's interesting in that, um, you know, I feel like as an educator for a long time, I worked at a school, which was. It actually was not a public school. And I always thought I would just remain a public school educator. But with, we stayed in the city so Joseph could go to a public school that was in the city that we thought actually would be really good for him. But it turned out to be too much with the sensory. His sensory disorders. So we ended up moving him to a private school. And then in order to make money for that to happen and then have all my other kids taken care of, because my husband was working long hours at our restaurant, I had to take them to a private school. Otherwise, we'd be at three different schools. One that I worked at, one that my younger kids were at, and then one Joseph would be at. And that just seemed too crazy. So I ended up at a school that it's called Reggio Emilia is the approach, and it's arts based. And the approach is very different from the way I grew up in, that we spend a lot of time, you know, really working in collaboration with the children on things that they are interested in, and they spend a lot of time theorizing. So instead of maybe telling them how a tree grows, we're, you know, we're investigating it and kind of following a lot of their theories and what they think. And so for a long time in my. In my life, that was probably a lot of what I felt like was my social justice was just advocating for. For that way of teaching, because once I started to teach that way, I started realizing how influential it was for young children. But I think also because there is a very large population of large black population in Richmond, as opposed to where I grew up in Binghamton, which that's kind of shifted now from when I was growing up. When I was growing up, it was eastern american. There was a lot of immigration from eastern America, and. But now it's probably very similar to what it's like here in Richmond. But I think that that has been a place where I just try to listen and understand more and have spent a lot of time, especially the last couple of years, really trying to find out how to be an ally, and which I, you know, I think really involves just not talking and listening. And so I think that's really been the main way that I have shown up for social justice. And then also, you know, I definitely had to spend a lot of time with the autism community and trying to really understand, because Joseph was at the very beginning of that curve that's, you know, now exploded. And so when he was young, there really weren't many resources. And then. And then Benjamin, that was another huge growth experience for me because I didn't understand it at all. And even though it's in both of my husband's family and my family, I didn't really understand what was happening at all because he didn't appear to be suffering the way he was underneath. And again, with Joseph as our oldest, I think he was always trying to hold it together so that, you know, we could focus on Joseph. And then my youngest has dyslexia.

[39:28] BETSY RANDOLPH: Oh, my gosh.

[39:29] MARY DREEBY: Yeah. So I also, you know, have, have been advocating for that as well in the schools. So I think, you know, really my family is what kind of led me in the direction of how I was, my choices for what I was going to be spending my time advocating for.

[39:51] BETSY RANDOLPH: A lot of challenges. You had a lot of bumps in.

[39:56] MARY DREEBY: The road, so that we've had a lot of bumps. And that's really also been what has made such a huge impact on me is just all these bumps and the vulnerability that I had to show, especially with, with Benjamin, because I blamed myself so much and just really trying to open myself up to what other people, any support that anybody could give me and any help in really trying to break down my ego and just exist in a place of just vulnerability, I guess, is really the best way to say it. And.

[40:43] BETSY RANDOLPH: Really. Wow.

[40:44] MARY DREEBY: Yes. So I think that is, you know, that's been the biggest impact on me. Betsy really is just these bumps in the road and just, I guess, like yourself, you know, and just kind of resisting it at first and then kind of realizing that I just need to go in that direction because I was suffering so much.

[41:14] BETSY RANDOLPH: Oh, that's tough. I don't know when, because I was 42 when I got pregnant, I had to right away have a Down syndrome test for Scott and Alexander. There wasn't anything I was going to do about it, so I didn't do the amniocentesis, but the blood syndrome test said that they were high likelihood, that they were fine. But I can't imagine the challenges of having to deal with all those differences and issues that kids were adjusting with. So I admire your hanging through there, and it sounds like they're all doing well.

[41:52] MARY DREEBY: Yeah, they're doing great. Yeah, they're doing awesome. But, yeah, it was. It was very painful. And, and, you know, that type of pain influences your choices.

[42:08] BETSY RANDOLPH: So I wanted to look at the demographics of Richmond, and it seems pretty close. Black and white numbers, the population. I don't know if that's true. Do you. Do you feel animosity, feel racism? I'm finding that any and everybody I meet, they don't have any big issues, and they're fine, and we get along great. So I don't know where all of these diametric pulling hostilities are coming from. So I don't know what it's like when you're walking around. I went to Myrtle beach last year just for a conference, and everybody was very friendly and polite and seemed to get along well. But you don't know what goes on behind that front veneer of social interactions. So how do you. What's the climate like in Richmond?

[42:59] MARY DREEBY: Well, I think. I think if you were to, you know, just experience it, you know, if you were to come and experience it, or even through my own experience, it. It's. It feels as if it's the same. But it's interesting when I get into conversations or I attend events and people feel very strongly, the black culture feels very strongly that the things are not fair and that it's systemic and that it's very difficult for their race to move forward as a result of a lot of the systemic racism that exists. And, you know, I think that the, the more. The more I sit in it and the more likely, the more I'm starting to see what. Exactly what they're referring to. I mean, there we have a governor's school that my children went to. Well, Joseph didn't, but my Benjamin and Kate went to it. And it's, you know, there's a high asian population, but nothing and many caucasian but not many black students. And again, I think it's because those schools are the elementary schools and the middle schools that feed into it are just, they're not given the funding and probably don't have the support that some of the other schools have. And certainly, you know, my kids were in the private school that I described that I brought them to. So, you know, to some extent, their, their teacher ratio was much smaller, too. So I think that's what I see, Betsy, primarily in, in Richmond. And, and it's. It's interesting. It's not necessarily anger that you would feel day in and day out, but, boy, was there. There was a lot that went on, you know, during. During the year of the last year of COVID with all the monuments coming down. So it looks like we have to choose one to ask. Betsy, do you have a preference as to which question you'd like to end on.

[45:41] BETSY RANDOLPH: Oh, is it posted here? Well, was I who expected. Oh, is there anything you learn about me today? What? Something that you will take? So was I who you expected to be?

[46:02] MARY DREEBY: I don't. Yeah, I feel like when I was. When I was looking at your bio, I do think that I thought that there might be some room for you to still have science involved in your perspective of the world. And it sounds like you do. I don't think. We didn't probably dig in as much into the political climate and perhaps that's my favorite topic, is spiritualism. So I suppose maybe I kept us in that realm for too long. But I really enjoyed listening to you describe your evolution yourself as a person. I always find that to be really interesting. And I guess what I'd love to hear from you is what's something that you might take from this experience today?

[47:20] BETSY RANDOLPH: We didn't have any opposing views yet, although we are on, even though we're on the spectrum, we're not on the same wavelength really, for, I think, faith. But I've always been aware of people choosing other directions or branching off of mainstream Christianity. What was the question again?

[47:49] MARY DREEBY: Is there something that you would take from today's conversation?

[47:55] BETSY RANDOLPH: Well, certainly admiration for all of the issues that we all have to deal with and having support and then the school system. How do you manage all of those different tugs in different directions? Having more compassion for that and not wanting to focus on just one group of people in the education system? There's lots who need attention. It takes time and effort and money, right?

[48:38] MARY DREEBY: No, it definitely does. In fact, I'm not teaching at the moment because my husband is. Is trying to make an effort to retire. So we're doing some traveling. But I have to say, I don't even know. My last two years were the years of during COVID and I was an administrator. And I just had to say goodbye because of pure exhaustion. It's a tough career at the moment.

[49:11] BETSY RANDOLPH: Yeah. I was going to ask. So you're in the. On the administration end of education just.

[49:16] MARY DREEBY: For two years that the last. My last two years and I would go back as a teacher. Yeah. I actually probably am more of a teacher than I am an administrator, so.

[49:28] BETSY RANDOLPH: That would be tough. I love being in the classroom and miss it.

[49:31] MARY DREEBY: I do too. I do too.

[49:34] BETSY RANDOLPH: So in my bio, I realized I said what I was. I guess I assumed that it would be understood I was no longer a flaming liberal feminist, but I had flipped the switch and come to the other side. So I assume that we were on different political sides of the.

[49:52] MARY DREEBY: Yes, I think we probably were. Yeah.

[49:56] BETSY RANDOLPH: But I think people don't have as big a differences as the media is putting out there, and that's what's making me so frustrated.

[50:05] MARY DREEBY: Okay. And Justin, are we wrapping it up? Wrapped up? Okay. Yeah.

[50:11] BETSY RANDOLPH: Did you cut us off or we still go?

[50:14] MARY DREEBY: You're still going right now? I'm cutting it off now.

[50:16] BETSY RANDOLPH: Well.