Don Hamlin and Win Harper

[00:07] ROBERT HARPER: Hi, my name is Robert Harper. I go by the name win. I'm 76 years old. Today is Friday, January 8, 2021. I'm in upstate New York and my conversation partner is Don Hamlin. We've known each other since 1983, 1984, and the friendship has grown over all those years.

[00:34] DON HAMLIN: Hi, I'm don Hamlin. I'm 72 years old. Today's date is Friday, January 8, 2021. I am currently talking from Playa del Carmen, Mexico. But my home is in Nashua, New Hampshire. And you know, Win and I, as he said, have known each other for a long time. And we're going to have some great conversations on some of those times throughout that 37 years or so. So, Win, I'll start with the first question, if you don't mind. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your family and your upbringing and where you grew up and how did Robert Hartner Harper start in this world? Tell me a little bit about your family life.

[01:23] ROBERT HARPER: I was born in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, which is in western Pennsylvania, about 50 miles, a little bit west of north and west of Pittsburgh. I was born in a very cold day in 1944. My dad joined the Marine Corps the next month and went off to the war for two years. I have an older sister who's three and a half to four years older, depending on what time of year it is. Very blue car type girl. My dad was a, I guess blue car. My dad was a car salesman. My mother worked at the courthouse. I played high school sports. I won a scholarship to go play football at Rutgers University. And I discovered that £155, 5 foot 9 and slow was not competitive at that level. And after trying to stop a 220 pound freshman fullback with 155 pound body did not work. And so I retired from football, graduated from College. It was 1966 and it was the Vietnam War. So instead of being drafted, I went out and enlisted or joined the Oster Kennedy School for the Marine Corps and retired 26 years later. That's the start of me anyways. Okay, Don is from Troy, Pennsylvania.

[02:54] DON HAMLIN: Yes. I'll tell you, I'm a small town boy from northeastern Pennsylvania. It's Troy, Pennsylvania. And when people talk about small towns, I found that mostly people are talking about a town of 10,000 people that to me is very large. My town had 1700 people. My father was a shop teacher, industrial arts teacher. He built our first home out of a magazine layout. You know, he I wish I still had it but there was a two or three page layout that laid out the house and he built it from that. So he was pretty talented with woodworking and all kinds of construction. My mother was a homemaker. She kept everything running in our home and there was lots going on. I have two brothers and a sister. There was 10 years difference between my sister, who was the oldest, to my brother who was the youngest. And so my younger brother, I was the third in line. The fourth in line was five years younger than I am. So I was a youngest child for five years and then I became what I call the middle child. So I don't know how that affected my life, but it's true. So I had wonderful years in a small town, have lots of high school friends, still enjoy going back there. But once I went in the army, unlike when I was drafted and I was totally fine with that, I looked at the reserves and I looked at the Air Force and I said no, I wanted in and out. So I went to Vietnam, spent a year in Vietnam. The bulk of my time was spent there. And I was lucky enough that even though My obligation was 24 months of active duty, when I came back from Vietnam, I had a little over 18 months. So I got out of the army early. So it all worked out for me. So that's, that's kind of my life. And it was, it was, it was a good one. I have really fond memories from small town living.

[05:32] ROBERT HARPER: Well, you talk about perspective about small towns. I always tell everybody I'm from a small town in western Pennsylvania. My small town had 40,000 people in it. And now I live in a town that has 1500 people in it.

[05:47] DON HAMLIN: Yeah.

[05:48] ROBERT HARPER: And my high schools had, was 10th, 11th and 12th grade. We had 1500 kids in that and I had 600 kids in my graduating class. So the idea of a small school is your small town is kind of. I know what a small town is now, but I didn't just thought of my town as being small when I grew up.

[06:08] DON HAMLIN: Yeah, yeah. It's funny how people's relativity. But it's all about your family life, regardless of what town it is and your brothers and sisters and how you grew up. And I had a fantastic grow up. I want to ask you, when about you in the Marines. Tell me a little bit about why you joined the Marines. You were an athlete. So you said it was Vietnam, it was the Vietnam years. Why did you choose that path?

[06:46] ROBERT HARPER: My dad was a marine during World War II. I grew up watching Sanzi Iwo Jima with Sergeant Stryker, Guadalcanal Diary, all the World War II movies and some Korean War movies. And during the Berlin, the Cuban missile crisis in 1963, I think we're 60s, 2 63. Myself and George Barce went down to the Dina men and we were going to drop out of Rutgers and go join the Marine Corps at that time. And we march up to his desk, I can't remember the guy's name. And George and I both say, sir, we're going to quit college and join the Marine Corps. And he had some papers on his desk and he looked up to us, he said, no, you're not. And so we said okay. And so we went back and finished college. And ironically George joined the Marine Corps also and served two years a year at Caisson during the siege there. And I got going to graduate in June of 66. I went to the placement place at Rutgers. I said, here I am, economics major, healthy. And they said have you ever been in the military? I said no. And they said well, you're going to be drafted. And because I've always been wanting to be in charge of my life rather than be drafted, I went down and joined the Marine Corps. That way I felt like I was in charge of my life. And so. And I had a year in Vietnam also. 67, 68. And I lost some friends there. But the 26 years I spent in the Marine Corps, probably the best whole segment of my life at one time. When I retired at 48, I'd spent all my adult life, all of my adult life in the Marine Corps and over half of my life in the Marine Corps. And so that was kind of influential in my life. Now I know you went to college, Susquehanna. Did your parents encourage you to go to college?

[08:50] DON HAMLIN: Yes, it was kind of expected. Both my father and mother had college degrees. My mother was a phys ed teacher, you know, prior to getting married and having to coordinate all the family activities. And my father was had B.A. and he had a master's as well. It was kind of expected, you know, in the small town where I grew up, you were kind of in. Hopefully they don't do this now, but you were kind of in college group or the non college group. It was a. So all my studies were aimed toward college and I clearly had an interest in college. I only applied to a few schools but amazingly I had the best fit for me ever. I mean I given that I came from a small town, a small town and a small school, my graduating class was 165, so a little bit different than yours. I ended up in Susquehanna University, which is a small university. I guess it had like 1200 students for four years. And it was about two and a half hours away. It was in Pennsylvania. My admissions director in high school was a graduate of Susquehanna, so he was kind of pushing Susquehanna. And it was a great fit for me. And I have. I owe a lot to Susquehanna. I met my wife through Susquehanna. I was on the alumni board for four years. I'm now on the board of trustees, just started this year at Susquehanna. So I have deep, deep roots to the college, and it's certainly set me on a good path of leadership and prosperity. And it was a liberal arts degree which fit me quite well. So that worked out very well.

[11:13] ROBERT HARPER: Your parents went to college? I went to Rutgers in my freshman year. I ran into kids whose both parents had gone to college, or at least their dad. And sometimes I knew nobody in my town whose parents had gone to college. And My dad had 11th grade education. My mother had a high school education. For that era, for people to have college degrees in my hometown, I guess the teachers did, probably, but most of the people I knew worked in factories or sold cars or something like that.

[11:45] DON HAMLIN: Yeah, I don't think it was that uncommon. Yeah, particularly for the women. You know, sadly, I think that's changed. But, you know, the old thing, they even people that went to college during that time frame, the 60s, and they used to joke that the women were going for the Mrs. Degree.

[12:11] ROBERT HARPER: I went overseas in 72, 73, and I was married, and Diane went back to college to finish her degree. And I was telling my mother that, and I said, you know, she's going back to school in a while overseas. And my mom said, why is she doing that? She's married, right? Yeah, yeah, that's the mentality. My mother was born in 1913, so that was small town. She's married, she should be a housekeeper. And, yeah, that was a pretty prevailing attitude back then.

[12:40] DON HAMLIN: So, you know, it's interesting. We'll go into how you and I met. It kind of relates to the story. So my roommate from Susquehanna lived across the street from Bob at the time in New Jersey. So you were still in the military, I believe.

[13:02] ROBERT HARPER: Yes.

[13:04] DON HAMLIN: And it was a very chance encounter. Jerry, my roommate, had a basketball and. But he didn't have a net. And Bob across the street had the basketball net. Go ahead, tell some more about that.

[13:24] ROBERT HARPER: I moved across the street from Jerry Nanos and his wife at the time. And I was. Haddonfield, New Jersey is a very fluent area. And I was A Marine lieutenant colonel, very rarely considered to be affluent. And I know there was some comment about a military person moved next door. I think the Realtor even told or the homeowners told. Jerry says, I'm so sorry we sold this house to a Marine.

[13:48] DON HAMLIN: Oh, really?

[13:50] ROBERT HARPER: Yeah. Wow. And actually, when I was put in for a security clearance one time, so the people came around and talked to our neighbors and stuff. Like they're talking to Laura and they said. They said to her, you know, they did standard questions. And he said, anything surprised you about Bob? And she said, he was smarter than I thought. Again, there's reputation. But, you know, Jerry and I used to play a lot of basketball together. I guess we were in our late 30s at the time. He's probably middle 30s, has late 30s. And we played a lot of basketball. And. And I do believe that, you know, and we don't know when this date was that you were at Jerry's house. And my daughter babysitted for your daughter. And. Yeah.

[14:42] DON HAMLIN: Yeah.

[14:43] ROBERT HARPER: I don't think we can tell when that was, but there's some period that happened. And. And now my daughter's 50, and your daughter's got to be 40.

[14:54] DON HAMLIN: She's 41.

[14:55] ROBERT HARPER: 41, yeah.

[14:56] DON HAMLIN: 41, I believe. Yeah. So that's. It's not true that my wife Darcy, said, you're leaving our daughter with a daughter of a Marine. That's not true. That's not true. That's not true. That's not true.

[15:12] ROBERT HARPER: That's the first time I heard that. So I assume that wouldn't be true the next time. I think I was back from overseas and continued the basketball theme. We went up to the regional, NCAA regional championships in probably 1988, we're thinking. And we drove back and forth that weekend. I think I was in the process of getting divorced at a time. I'm not sure why I was there, but I think that's what was going on because I got divorced the next year, so I assume that was going on. And then, you know, I was moved down to Alabama. And our friend Jerry, he went to the Phil Jackson's beyond basketball weekend in 1990, I think. 1990.

[16:04] DON HAMLIN: Okay.

[16:05] ROBERT HARPER: And he came back and emailed both us immediately or called us. Do we have emails in 1990?

[16:12] DON HAMLIN: I doubt it. Somebody did. I questioned one that we did.

[16:20] ROBERT HARPER: However, he contacted us and we both committed to going 1991. And that's. Then we went for. We could forget how many years we went for five or six years, probably then went to Bill Walton's basketball camp, too. For one or two seasons, one or two years. I think I remember about you there. And you've done a lot of profound things for me over my life. I want to make sure we know that. But we were going to Bard college and we got lost. And my idea is you keep driving straight ahead. That might be my Marine Corps training. Or I actually do trust that the person in front of me knows where I'm going. If I follow them, I'll get where I want to be. Maybe not where I should be, but where I want to be. But you stopped the car and said, let's go back to the last place we knew where we were. And I thought that was. I thought that was brilliant. I mean, I was like, I would have never thought of that. I would have really. I just kept going on until I ran into something I knew which may or may not have happened.

[17:28] DON HAMLIN: So both my wife and I still use that expression, the person in front of us knows where we're going. You know, it's spanned all these years and it still has applicability because even with gps, you can get lost. How about that?

[17:45] ROBERT HARPER: That's from Burke Gently, from Douglas Adams. Dirk Gently was his holistic detective. So anyway, that's aside. Yeah. And also good.

[17:59] DON HAMLIN: I was going to ask about the basketball camp. When you hear the word basketball camp, you think about, you know, someone that has, you know, 12 sessions through the summer of basketball players. But I don't think you would categorize Omega as a basketball camp. I think you could explain that better than I.

[18:21] ROBERT HARPER: Well, I have a hard time explaining, which we'll probably talk about later. The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York. Phil Jackson is known to be a Zen Buddhist type kind of guy. And the camp was. People came from all over the United States. And when you and I joined, they've been meeting for four or five years, I think. And you and I were like outsiders.

[18:45] DON HAMLIN: Yep.

[18:46] ROBERT HARPER: And everybody knew each other. And, you know, it basically was, you know, I think one of his phrases was, does basketball. Does life imitate basketball or does basketball imitate life? Reminded that backwards. And so he just was philosophically talked about basketball and life and all that. The thing that always struck me, he tried to teach us the triangle offense, which it took the Chicago Bulls four years to learn. And he was trying to teach it to us in an hour to guys who didn't know the difference between a screen and knocking somebody down. I left there playing a little bit of basketball, I think. The Bill Walton Basketball Camp a few years later. Because he ran like a camp. He started out shooting foul shots and people who missed the foul, people came in last, had to do push ups or sit ups. Then he had ran a lot of fast break drills. But it was fun to be around Phil, who was very open and honest about what goes on in the NBA and told some great stories. I do have to mention one thing. I probably didn't tell you a story before, but the first year I was at the basketball camp with Bill Walton. Bill had his fiance at that time. Now his wife was there and I was up to dining hall, checking people into for lunch and she said, I introduced myself and he says, oh, Bill says, you're a good basketball player. And so I went, I left there after lunch and home, went to the phone booth and called my sister and told her that Bill Walton says I was a good basketball player.

[20:34] DON HAMLIN: I mean a little bit about Phil. I mean, I've read a number of his books, which I know you have as well. And actually my son in law is reading the books. He says he's my new inspiration or something. But the guy was amazing. I mean, when you, when you read about a sports personality like that, I mean it's. He had success with the Chicago Bulls. You really don't know him as a person. We got to know him as a person. We got to know his wife at the time, he has twin boys. He had a daughter that played with us one year. I mean, it was really just a fun. It was just a long weekend. And I think I went for seven years and it was actually on my anniversary weekend.

[21:23] ROBERT HARPER: Yes, it was.

[21:24] DON HAMLIN: Every year I'd say, happy anniversary, hon. See ya.

[21:29] ROBERT HARPER: This always made you a legend because you actually left your wife for the anniversary. Much like remember Kevin Heath? When he showed up at one year, his wife had bought him as a gift for their wedding anniversary, I believe the weekend. And the next next year he came back. He was divorced.

[21:49] DON HAMLIN: Yeah, you know, we would always start the camp the same way. We, you know, have a circle, you know, in one of the huts there. And you know, people would just talk, you know, introduce themselves, saying a little bit about themselves. And it got, I mean, everybody was familiar. We would see them over the five, six, seven years you were there. And I remember Phil just saying one time, can we keep this to an hour? I mean, it was really fun hearing about people that, you know, you only saw once a year. And you know, they had a little snippet about themselves and it was a great time, it was a great camaraderie and Basketball. And it was beyond basketball, of course.

[22:35] ROBERT HARPER: In 1991, I was 47, I think. And I remember after playing basketball for four or five hours, anyway, the walk back to the cabins at the top of the hill was a. Not a fun event for people our age.

[22:55] DON HAMLIN: You know, originally you introduced yourself as Bob and now you call yourself Win.

[23:03] ROBERT HARPER: Right.

[23:04] DON HAMLIN: How did you get the name Win? I mean, when did you take that up? Why did you take it up? Tell us a little bit about that.

[23:10] ROBERT HARPER: Well, I get it all goes back to you, of course. It was a September day in 1993. I was single at the time. And I was talking to you and Jerry after lunch by the dining hall at the Omega institute for holistic studies. And I was lamenting the fact that the last five women I dated seemed to have some issues and were a problem. And. And I think you said the profound words at the time that you said five women and you. What's the common thread? And that was September. 93. I was in therapy in January. 94, went to a 12 step program. And that same day or same timeframe, I kept telling you and Jerry how much I enjoyed being at omega and I wasn't working, I was retired. And you suggested I should work at omega. So I went down, got myself a application and luckily got hired the next year to work. So now it's 94. I've been doing some ancestry.com study and I found out there's a couple times in my family's history where a Sutton married a Harper and they named their first male child Sutton Harper. And then a Shirock married a Harper, named their first child Shirock, which is cruel shy Rock Harper.

[24:33] DON HAMLIN: Okay.

[24:34] ROBERT HARPER: My mother's maiden name was Winter and I always thought Winter seemed a little pretentious. And so one July afternoon in the parking lot at the mega institute for holistic studies where I was delivering luggage, very high pressure job, and talking to some little 20 year olds telling my story. They, one of them said, well, we can call you Win And so since July, July, late July 1994, I've been called Win, which has caused great confusion among my friends because next.

[25:09] DON HAMLIN: Well, a little bit of follow up to that story. So, you know, we didn't know you had changed your name to Win. And Jerry and I are in a van to go up to our cabin and we were talking to the driver and we said that we're going to the basketball camp. And so he says, oh yeah, we have a, you know, a counselor that's going to the basketball camp. I said, oh, who is he? Because we thought we'd know. He said, well, his name is Win He's an ex Marine. And we just exploded, I mean, exploded in laughter. And there were like 10 people in this van. And the other eight people says, what's so funny about that? We didn't explain it, but it was, it was a perfect introduction to the name change. Well done. Set that up.

[26:05] ROBERT HARPER: You know, it took me about 10 years, but my sister now calls me Win finally. And she's, oh, still had a tendency to call me Bobby up till about five years ago, 10 years ago. And when she's mad at me, she calls me Bobby. So besides the basketball, you know, I've always been impressed by the fact that you do such great volunteer work. You were something in Philadelphia called financial help people. You keep kids in school down in Mexico. Even I know you don't have a tattoo, humanity, because you and I did that together. Where do you think that came from in your life? Is that from your family or just this desire to contribute? Where did that come from?

[26:52] DON HAMLIN: Good question. I think it partly came from my family. My father certainly was a volunteer. He was a treasurer for the fire department for, I don't know, 25 years or something. Ridiculous. The, it really, most of my volunteering came after I retired. You know, nobody thinks about this, nobody tells you about it, but when you're, you're looking to this retirement date, you're looking forward to it, you're worried about finances, you finally get to the retirement date and then you realize, wow, I got a lot of time.

[27:32] ROBERT HARPER: Yeah, how am I going to fill it?

[27:36] DON HAMLIN: So the first thing I did was. So it's partly selfish. It's partly. You get involved in things because you have the time and you hope you enjoy it. And it's kind of self centered. The first one I got involved in was, it was called Musicians on Call. It was from a local Philadelphia radio station, wxpn. I thoroughly enjoyed, you know, the station, you know, everything they did. And they did a lot of service things. So they started this program for the first time in Philadelphia. It originated in New York, New York City, and it was basically to go to hospital beds with musicians to play one on one. So I was a program guide. The Penn Hospital is, you know, four buildings interconnected. So we'd go to four or five different floors. And so I was aware of how to navigate the hospital and go into the individual rooms that are cancer patients, long term cancer patients, serious cancer patients, rather than outpatient. They were often from outside the Philadelphia area. So I go in the room and just introduce myself, talk a little bit about the program and just say, we would love to play for you. And then, you know, they would say yes or no. So the very first time, I'll never forget. So, I mean, this. The program is supposed to take people away from their everyday, you know, struggle against this, the big C cancer, and play some music. So we went into an epileptic area of the hospital. So this person had cancer, but she was an epileptic. So came into the room, and there's two people there. They. Lori. I still remember her name. And I don't know if it was a brother or a husband or family member or whatever. And so we talked to the family member and said, would you mind if we play some music? And he said, fine. He left the room. So Lori is frantically going through a fit, and she's, like, thrashing. And so we started playing, and it seemed to actually get worse. And so the magician kind of looked at me and said, should we continue? I shrugged my shoulders and said, yeah, I guess. And so he continued playing. And the amazing thing was she went from erratically thrashing to perfectly in time with the music.

[30:25] ROBERT HARPER: Oh, wow.

[30:27] DON HAMLIN: And the program talks about, you know, you know, music to your soul. And if that wasn't a demonstration of the program, I mean, I. I was literally almost in tears. I said, this is amazing. And now I think that was, if not the first night or the first patient I saw. So, I mean, you really become committed, and you see a lot of different people. I'll just tell one other story. So sometimes you come into the room and they say, I don't want you to play. And we came in this woman's room, and so I always like to kind of sit around, talk to them. And so I saw a Phillies. I'm sorry, an Eagles picture or memorabilia. So I said, oh, you're an Eagles fan? She said, oh, well, my husband was an Eagles fan, and he actually died during the 2004 Super bowl when the Eagles were playing the Patriots, so. Right. And she. She said, you know, he survived prostate cancer, heart conditions, but he couldn't survive the Eagles. There was always. There was always a story. You know, tell me about the habitat. You know, we have a few minutes left. Why don't you tell me about your habitat?

[31:58] ROBERT HARPER: First of all, I want to go with your other volunteer experience, taking pictures of dogs.

[32:07] DON HAMLIN: Well, I volunteered for this. It was a animal shelter. And so my job was to take pictures of dogs, put them on petfinder.com and to hopefully get a new owner. My first day there was the only day my wife came with me. I was taking. It was raining outside. You normally take them outside. So I was inside, and I was taking a picture of the dog, and I was actually behind the dog, and I had a couple more pictures to take. And the dog abruptly ended the photo shoot by biting into my arm and not letting go. I picked up my arm, and the dog was still hanging on my arm. So I learned to be a little more observant of, you know, the little signals that, you know, he. The dog is irritated with you. But it was all good. I got a couple shots back doing the same thing.

[33:13] ROBERT HARPER: You've always made things such an adventure. I remember when you and Darcy went to New Zealand. You sent us the pictures, which I, you know, I opened up the email, and the pictures are there. I gasp because you two were bungee jumping off a bridge somewhere in New Zealand. Right.

[33:31] DON HAMLIN: You know, Tiger woods did it. You know, we figured we'd do it as well. We were the group that was sort of egging us on. And the group actually said, we've never had anybody actually do it. We usually just watch other people.

[33:49] ROBERT HARPER: Well, again, those are just. Both your bodies are launched from the bridge. Just remember. I just. I literally gasped when I saw the picture. I was like, oh, my God. I mean, like, anyway, Habitat.

[34:03] DON HAMLIN: Tell me a little bit about Habitat. How'd you get involved?

[34:07] ROBERT HARPER: Well, like, you. After I retired, and I retired at 48, and it's always interesting. When I was in the Marine Corps, and you're getting older, you know, 46, 47. The Marine Corps is pretty old, and you think, you know, at the end of you retire, then, you know, a few years later you die or something. I don't know what my concept was, but that was 38, 28 years ago now, or 29 years ago since I retired. But I always like doing. Helping people. So because I was in the Marine Corps serving, and I got involved in Habitat down in Huntsville, Alabama. And then somewhere along that was in 95, probably 94, 90, 92, 93, and some other.

[35:00] DON HAMLIN: I was.

[35:00] ROBERT HARPER: I was up in New York State or somewhere, and I saw something for Habitat 1. Do volunteers get down and work down in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. And so I joined the team down there. It was like 10 of us went down there. I think it was 2,000 went down there, and I really enjoyed it. And I think the next couple years, I formed my own team. And then after that, I stopped forming teams. I just contacted you, Jim Herbert. We had fourth go with us most of the time. Didn't four of us used to go down.

[35:41] DON HAMLIN: John Sonheiser was a different year. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[35:46] ROBERT HARPER: But we had. Who was the fourth person with this? Because we remembered. I remember we'd get. We'd work all day and of course, we're kind of guys who weren't working that hard at that time. And you're down there in Jacksonville beach carrying lumber, lifting OSB and saw and stuff and moving around. I remember usually on. By Wednesday, we're pretty tired. And I remember one year, the condo we were staying in, we all went back there and we're sitting around, we all got a beer and I think it was time to get another beer. And I think I offered anybody $5 who would go to the refrigerator and get me a beer. Too tired to walk. Get my own beer. Yeah.

[36:27] DON HAMLIN: Which was five feet away, I believe. Yeah. Five feet away from you. Five feet away from me. I don't think I took. I don't think that was enough money to do it.

[36:38] ROBERT HARPER: But, you know, that's another experience where spending time with you and Jim and was precious because it was being with people who are successful in life and who are contributing. And I especially liked working with the homeowners down there and just watching them. Most of them were single moms, a couple kids, usually working two jobs, three jobs and building her house. And you see, look in her face. They're getting something which they earned. It wasn't given to them. It's not a hand out, it's a hand up type. That's what the Habitat says. And to contribute like that to somebody's life is very gratifying to me. I know it is to you too. And that we talked about that a lot down there and we met some amazing people. I met a guy down there who made a lot of money in computers and he worked for volunteer for Habitat. And he basically said any child who lives in a Habitat house who graduates from high school, he'll pay for their four years of college at the University of North Florida.

[37:51] DON HAMLIN: Yeah, yeah.

[37:52] ROBERT HARPER: To meet people like that again. Talk about getting teary eyed. There's a lot of generous people out there. And you know, I truly believe that you that Philadelphia finance keep kids in school. You really do make a lot of contributions. So knowing that and we just got some kind of signal. What do you think? Either your legacy, what do you want to be known for? Like your daughter. You did a great job raising your daughter, who's very successful. What would you like to have her know about you that she may not know.

[38:35] DON HAMLIN: Hard work. I mean, my father taught me this. Hard work and a good attitude will take you a long ways. Don't get depressed with the bumps that you go through in life. We all do it. Stay positive. Don't be a complainer. You know, I mean, we all complain. That's natural. But I don't. I mean, I think that it's better to focus on the positive. And there's always positive there. I mean, environment we're in now, there's so much negative every day. Sometimes you just have to turn it off, turn off the news and. But habitat taught me volunteering, taught me good friendships, taught me those are the strengths of who I think I am. And hopefully my daughter and grandkids will see me that way and see themselves that way. One of the things I want to say about you Win is that I've always admired you said early on retired with lieutenant colonel Marines, that creates a certain image to most people. But you change your name. What you didn't mention is you wrote a book about the common thread.

[40:00] ROBERT HARPER: Right.

[40:01] DON HAMLIN: You are currently cultivating a singing career. You've constantly reinventing yourself, and I've always admired that about you. And it's totally against any person's image of a lieutenant colonel in the Marines and a life coach. You know, you didn't talk about being a life coach as well. You did that for many years, starting at Omega and then proceeding even in your current home. And you've affected a lot of people's lives. And I'm very appreciative of that. And I know you're proud of that.

[40:37] ROBERT HARPER: I know I am very proud of that and Omega and you. And it really changed my life. I saw someone on Facebook today, a friend of mine, a young lady I coached at Omega. And sometimes people, you know, forget names. And she said. And she's right and says, whenever I forget Wynn's name, I always think of the Teddy bear Marine. I thought the Teddy bear Marine. I kind of like that image.

[41:02] DON HAMLIN: Yeah. Yeah.

[41:05] ROBERT HARPER: But it's been fun.

[41:08] DON HAMLIN: It has been fun. And I, you know, I value our friendship. And certainly Darcy and I are great friends for you and Elizabeth and wish we'd had more time to talk about how you met Elizabeth.

[41:21] ROBERT HARPER: But again, the domino effect. You got me to Omega. I met Elizabeth and spent 15 years there. And as I told him, I left omega after 15 years. It says, I've had a great time. I've become a life coach. I've done a lot of things. I'm leaving Here with a wife, and still people don't believe she's married to me. I know that.

[41:44] DON HAMLIN: I get that's not true, but. Well, I just want to finish and say, I love you, man. Thanks for the time we spent together and hopefully many, many more years.

[42:00] ROBERT HARPER: I won't be down this year for, but we'll be down next year, because next year is our 20th wedding anniversary, too. So we'll be honored to see you guys. And I didn't go into how Darcy influenced my life either, but I've got a few phrases I use, and I always ended by saying, as Darcy says. Okay, but it's been a great, great time, my friend. I love you, and I hope we have many, many, many more years together.

[42:27] DON HAMLIN: The one famous phrase I'll just leave with this, that you didn't mention. It's in your book. I just reread portions of your book. Ask for what you want.

[42:37] ROBERT HARPER: Yeah.

[42:38] DON HAMLIN: That is very powerful. And Darcy uses it all the time.

[42:44] ROBERT HARPER: Does she learn it in Spanish?

[42:47] DON HAMLIN: I bet she could say it in Spanish.

[42:50] ROBERT HARPER: Like you said, you know, things I like people to know would be hard work. And everybody I know who's been whatever success is defined as at least happy, have worked hard. And I always. You know, I got a little thing here. I think it came from Wayne Dyer. I don't know. I have. Right up my window here, it says, be kind, you know, And I. And I remind myself of that almost every day because I think as you talk about what's going on in the world. Oh, for God's sake, just be kind. I mean.

[43:21] DON HAMLIN: Yeah. Right. It's just straightforward.

[43:24] ROBERT HARPER: We can disagree.

[43:25] DON HAMLIN: Everybody can do it.

[43:26] ROBERT HARPER: Yeah. It's like. It's not that being kind is very easy, but that's our mission.

[43:34] DON HAMLIN: Okay. All right.

[43:35] ROBERT HARPER: Thank you, my friend.

[43:37] DON HAMLIN: Thank you, Ben.