Don Simmons and Gabriel Mora

00:06 Hi, my name is Gabe Mora. I am 36 years old. Today's date is Monday, February 24th, 2020. Where in Fresno California and I am interviewing Don Simmons and he is my life partner.

00:21 Xscape My name is Don Simmons. I'm 63 years old. Today is Monday, February 24th 2024 in Fresno, California. My interview partner is Gabriel Mora. He's my partner.

00:37 And today I done I think we really didn't come in here with a plan. But we just wanted to talk about where we are who we are in the place that we are and you know, I think for me personally I want to highlight and you know your relationship with Fresno and your your growth here, you know, I have a history. When did you move here?

01:06 I moved here in 2001 and we talked about this place a lot because so many people really dislike living here and can think of a lot of things that are right about this place, but I know both you and I share a love for this place and we met each other here and we could build a life here plan to stay here. So this place matters a lot to us moving here in 2001. And I moved to August of 2001 and I remember how cool it was in Mill Valley where I left I think was going to hit without 62u00b0 that day rolling into Fresno and I think was already a hundred and six without and so it was August because I'm a month later. I was 9/11 and which set of fusion fact on my life and everything in my life seemed to change will that take

02:01 And what do you defrost now?

02:04 I was happy teaching in San Francisco and had a great job and loved the place that I lived in the view of the water that I had. That's some people with an organization here in Fresno cold one by one leadership and they talked about neighborhood change one person at a time when neighborhood at a time. They had heard me speak at the workshop and it come to events where I was the speaker and they actually came to Fresno to San Francisco several times to recruit me. They would send people up to sit in classes and ask questions and then afterwards try to say why don't you think about coming to Fresno and doing your work there and I was so reluctant and I was very very hesitant thought. Well I can give it a year or so. I thought of just taking a year and coming here in 2001. See what happens still here.

03:03 Yeah, it seems like obviously so long ago, but you know, I think now off to hear you talk about where you are and you know your girl's here and shouldn't like such a 180. Will you started can you cut a walk me through the past 20 years I should imagine living somewhere else now actually because there was a phrase going around when I first moved here that Fresno was ripe than I thought but a horrible phrase that something this town would be right but it really was something is a whole lot of change that was about to happen and after having lived in towns like Dallas and in Los Angeles and San Francisco to come here where you could actually be a part of the things that were changing in the community and you realized it's it's a fairly large city of a half a million people at that point, but still one person could go

04:03 Involved in one person could do some things and start to make change and slowly but surely and actually started fall in love with the place.

04:12 And job not long after that in 2002 and I've talked a lot about I was getting ready to go on vacation back east and I had a massive brain hemorrhage and a brain bleed technically and it was found on the floor of my living room by a neighborhood look through the window. And that's the kind of town. This place is and saw me and they called 911 and I was in the hospital for almost 4 months in a coma for most of that time here in this town where I hardly knew anybody and only the people that I work with they said that people came constantly and took care of me and

04:58 Did everything from paying the rent to my house and keeping it clean and doing my yard work feeding my cat and this place took care of me. And after that. I thought this seems like a really good place to to get well into live, but I've been here ever since it had such a huge impact on me. I don't know if I would be alive today if something like that. It happened in any other place but here.

05:27 Wow.

05:29 What do you think it is about the people here that is different that they did that.

05:37 Sometimes people talk about Fresno in the Central Valley is being a place with concentrated poverty. But the wealth that is here or in people who do things like climb up and look in a neighbor's window because they thought you were leaving but the lights were still on something must be wrong. There's a sense that if you don't have much you've really got to learn to take care of each other. If you don't have much you have your neighbors and your relationships and that gives you a great wealth you're here and that richness gets to cross over lots of borders and lots of languages and then lots of iterations and I found that that richness and how well I was taking care of and the way that people came and literally walked with me so I can learn to walk again in and talk again.

06:36 And do work again, but that richness is is ingrained here. Definitely not perfect, but I see that in my work and I see that in our neighborhood and I see that and how we take care of each other and our land and our people.

06:56 So I want to back up a little bit and you mentioned work. What do you do for a living?

07:03 I'm a college professor a teacher is going on my 44th year of being a teacher and I've talked to him every level starting out when I was a kindergarten teacher and early literacy teacher to a head start teacher up to 6th grade and then I'm just started as a college student and Professor once asked me if I would be able to fill in for him while he was going to be out for a week. Can I get filled in in one of my own classes and then in grad school teacher to medical leave and asked if I would finish out the semester for

07:50 And that was 44 years ago, and and I still doing it. I'm still

07:58 No walking in classrooms full of students and still doing it.

08:05 And what do you think the the anchor was the keeps you in teaching? What was

08:12 That thing that kept you wanting to be a teacher.

08:17 In many ways. It's it's different every day and the lives of the students who are in the classes are different every day and they're changing in their curiosity and their challenges and problems that they bring from home. They bring them in a percent than they are and sometimes they get in the way of what we need to learn and other times. They're exactly what we need in order to learn together and just privileged to be able to teach the things I can I get to teach in the sociology department, but I also get to teach about philanthropy in about his word preservation in about fundraising grant writing Grant making Community Development. So it's new all the time and I may get tired of of the the process of its own.

09:17 But I don't get tired of the teaching his boy have I learned an awful lot coming to Fresno just opened up a whole new universe of learning for me.

09:29 Now I've had the privilege of meeting a lot of your current Dunes. Can you talk about a little bit of what you do to program a key teaching and you know how that serves both the students and the community.

09:45 That's a good question a teaching program at Fresno State of humanics. And the the name itself was started by a college professor in Springfield, Massachusetts about 75 years ago and it means the training for leadership for service to humanity in Body Mind and Spirit and people think of it. Sometimes it's just basic nonprofit management red. We're not in in a management program. We were social science or it will get better the community issues that need to be addressed and how do we create people who have solutions to those issues who look at it from a Body Mind and Spirit angle in your house is going to affect neighbors and communities and so our students to real Hands-On service-learning and instead of just talking about how do we help this organization? We don't talk about it. We actually go and

10:45 With your organization and do things with them. So everything from help them raise money to restructure their Boards of directors to organizing and developing a communication plan things like telling the story of a an animal rescue out enough Farm area of Riverdale, California where people just dumping dogs and cats and in The Orchards and these two women decided that they had had enough of it. So they set up an animal shelter in their garages and their students will be out of my class will drive an hour and a half to go and listen to their stories and and listen to what they do and hear their passion and try to fit that into a way that that tells her story to other people to get on some resources.

11:36 Is dog sitting in cats and pets like that in rural areas deserve to live as much as dogs and cats in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We do things like that that job that matter and make a difference. And so I I get to see the generations of my students suit working organizations and become a horrible cliche of change agents in communities from Fresno up and down the valley and Sacramento and in Washington, DC.

12:14 Thought like I said, I've had the privilege of meeting many of your students and I know you invite them to your house or to our house every summer and every Christmas and have a bit of a celebration at their end of year are in a semester assignment but a lot of them but that I've talked to you have never experienced anything like that conduit professor's house. Why why did you decide to start that tradition with your student?

12:50 I learned that from my professors in college and went to a small private liberal arts school in Charleston South Carolina. And one of the things that I remember most likely for the only things I remember about college was spending time with my professors in their homes because I learned so much more about life from them than I did about whatever the subject matter wise and it's hard to see how they contributed to their neighborhood saying how they took care of their kids and their their dogs and Saturday to see these people and that's what I wanted to do. And it's what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be afraid worthy and I wanted to the Carol Matthews. I knew I wanted to be a dojo Bardwell.

13:42 And then I got to do that. I used to hear people talk to you about whether you had a gift of teaching. I don't think I have a gift of teaching. I think the gift is teaching and I am giving and giving these great gifts every day.

14:04 And here in Fresno with most of our students are first-generation college students and they will say I'm the first person in my family to look ever finished high school or two of every been gone to high school in some cases.

14:23 These students are

14:27 Are the hopes and dreams of their whole family and they bring that and there's an expectation that I will be able to help fulfill a dream and help fulfill. I hope that their family has and coming to our house. It's just part of that because you know, if I'm just a person in a classroom that dumps information. I'm not a teacher you can do that and a whole lot of other ways, but when we opened up her house and say let's eat together and drink together and we have a phrase in her program that effective teams eat drink play pray and serve together. And when we do those things together, we start to say wait, you're a whole person and all of these parts if you matter

15:23 And here in our house, I want you to see that I'm whole person to that. I've got a partner that I love and dog and cats that I love and house that I've restored and then love and I want you to see my story but then be able to tell your story to be as proud of of your house and is proud of your family as I am of mine.

15:52 So I know because you've been in Fresno for such a long time. You've you've definitely seeing growth and change over the years. How do you think that you contributed to that?

16:09 After

16:12 Our house in in 2005 that house was a mess. You know, it was kind of Beyond condemned because a whole wall with burned-out people would walk in at and can I couldn't stay long because it smelled so bad and it it had everything from lots of dogs living into lots of pigeons and lots of prostitutes. It was a pretty popular house apparently on her street for truck drivers and prostitutes.

16:46 And I was barely a year out of a brain hemorrhage and walked in with a friend and she said I bet you could do something with this house.

16:57 And I thought of an old story I'd heard where there's a phrase in it that my house is my life. And I thought maybe I could work on restoring this place two at the same time. Maybe I could get restored at the same time.

17:15 And started working on restoring this old 1904 piece of work.

17:24 And realize that yeah, I did have good bones, but it also had some really crappy bones.

17:31 And

17:33 A woman came by from the city and said if you're doing historic preservation and lights it looks that way. Have you ever thought of being on a historic preservation Commission?

17:46 I said, not really I just want to fix up my house. So if you wanted to come to this meeting.

17:54 And I went and the meeting was all about other people trying to restore and preserve their houses and their property and I was hooked having lived in a town like Charleston, South Carolina. I need what it look like, but I didn't know how it got there and started going and becoming involved in one of the first buildings that I was a part of and Minnie Mouse fighting for to keep it standing and to keep it from being demolished in or turned into a parking garage was an old hotel in downtown Tulsa that the hotel Virginian

18:37 And I learned about the brick work on the building Flemish brick and I learned about The Artisans who it did the rooftop and I know you learned about the architect the stories of Travelers who stayed there in the late teens and twenties.

18:56 And I was hooked and a lot of things have changed in Fresno since then but they Hotel Virginian is mine and I'm proud that I got a pardon in making sure it's still stands and when you and I go to eat dinner in the little restaurant that's on the corner there or stop across the street and get coffee and they look at that building in. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of people got a part of that. But I remember I got the cast of vote and say keep it and I can point to buildings all over Fresno now that

19:37 I went before the city council and fought for and I stood up for and even River City now recording this. I wanted the building that was standing here to stay because it told a story of a great writers and a history of Journalism in the history of art that they call it progress and developers sometimes when those battles and I lost this one, but I haven't lost all over town and I'll be damned if I lose some of the most important buildings that we have in our city because every building tells a story

20:19 And it's our lives and we can see our life stories in in the architecture in in in the buildings.

20:31 A little further with what you just said. Can you talk a little more? Like why is it so important to preserve these faces if your house or these public spaces?

20:44 Well felt for start with a very practical reason that we go that late the greenest building possible environmentally. It's the one that's already built just because carrying a building down and what that does to the environment from the desk to the lead of the Arsenic that's in there and then the truck trips it takes to haul it away and then to build a new win the damage to our environment. We can't keep tearing buildings down and we can't possibly put up a super green building but also because think about embedded energy in buildings that the carpenter who learned to trade for maybe his father or his grandfather and brought it to your house and build a staircase with those skills in those trades that energy is is embedded in your house that plaster work. They even that plumbing.

21:42 That kind of work goes into the old buildings and significant life events happened from weddings and funerals and deaths and dates and forced kisses happened in buildings. And so

21:58 It's not so much see eyewear. The best open environment that tells her stories. It's the built environment and then our lives happened in these buildings in these places. And when we close our eyes and have memories there of of the places where we were and those shapes in those images, whether it's the beautiful ceiling of the hotel Fresno that has these frescos and sculptures on a tour the the Dome at the Warner's Theater downtown remember that rock and roll acts in the 60s and the 70s that perform there or

22:42 Really simple red wood framing of our house who it's tells the story of when we didn't care so much about our Redwood forest and Weaver cutting them down for Timber and that's what surrounds us. This is beautiful Redwood that's going to outlive all of us and also some of the bugs are going to get to it because it's it's Redwood. So our houses are buildings tell our life stories and if we demolish them and tear them down and we lose our memory.

23:19 And we can afford to do that.

23:25 Yeah, I think Don is under similar track. Kind of want to draw the parallel to what you mentioned about the the energy of Carpenters and Builders of a building. You know, I think I find a parallel in what you do when you teach your students and give you give them skills and you give them tools to work with and to the give back to the community to build organizations and kind of build that.

23:53 Southern Legacy, can you talk a little bit more about what you've done with semantics and soda Legacy that you feel that you created?

24:11 Hard to respond to

24:14 A mentor I had in college talked about the need to leave a seamless life where you don't have these big bumps and seems between your work life and your personal life. And where you volunteer and where you go to worship with all those things that it is. It's a seamless life and

24:33 How is think I I try to move toward that over and over. So there's not a seam between is Tori preservation and teaching about philanthropy that it really is all the same that it's about helping people tell their stories and telling the stories in a way that honor the memory but then remind people for generations to come that people matter and places matter and things matter. And so what I try to do is introduce the concepts of why why you want to preserve an idea to students just like you why you want to preserve a building because Society has a hold this embedded energy of your past that went to

25:26 Woman like Mary and carrying your locally had this idea to start an organization for parents of babies with special needs. You know, she had this idea that came from her own face in that came out of her own experience at the nurse that came out of her experience of seeing parents are hurting and she brought those ideas and put them all in one place. Now in the end of a building if you will and those ideas together are the things that make that organization worth fighting for and worth and I wanted to raise funds for it and make sure they've got a good organizational structure and make sure that that organization is going to be around for the next 20-30 years. That's as long as it's needed as as long as the parents who have needs with with their kids that are gas stations going to be

26:26 Going to be needed and that's the same idea to seamless idea from save the hotel Virginia to let's say farty America's and make sure that it's standing for generations to tell the story of Latino arts in the Central Valley for me is seamless it feels scene.

26:51 I get to teach a course called contemporary social issues and I sent her the whole course around housing in affordable housing and it's almost every issue. We've got here in the Central Valley. That's a major has a connection to housing in the lack of housing here. So whether it's food insecurity, it connects to housing for domestic violence in housing even historic preservation and housing because frankly, we've got enough buildings built to house every person that needs housing in the Central Valley is just that some of them it in neglected and abused and messed up for so long that we can't do it. But those things are connected and those those ideas were together and I hope my students walk out seeing that there's a connection there and that they can do something about it themselves.

27:52 Oh, what a student last week told me he's talking to a local newspaper about having this letter to the editor published about adapter for use of of an old Costco as affordable housing.

28:09 Can I heard his voice and I started to hear that the student who didn't know much about for a live now says things like I'm willing to fight for it. I'm willing to make sure that that happens. What will it take? How many times do I need to go to City Council to do that?

28:29 Then I kind of smile and feel like the old Professor. Sometimes I learned again from that same entry at a Frazee said my fruit grows on other people's trees.

28:47 I think about that every day.

28:50 That I won't see a lot of what I've done but my fruit will grow the Trees of my students and and I and I get to see it. Can I get to get to feel it and get to experience it?

29:09 So if we can maybe shift track a little bit and talk a little bit about us and our relationship and you know, how easily is we both introduced ourselves in the beginning. There is an egg age gap between us.

29:28 What are your what are your thoughts on that? I think I think I'll preface done and I have been together for going on 13 years.

29:43 I am a lost person that I left the most still on the hill haven't on flight 93 and I was absolutely convinced that I would never feel that way again that some one reason or another that I could pour myself into work and that the idea that I would find someone that I cared about cared about me ever again that that is passed.

30:11 And then there's this young guy who online caught my attention and then of all things he worked for for TSA and in my mind TSA had a connection to 9/11 that didn't even know, you know, all this connection. See you were so young at that time, and I was skeptical and when we met for the first time and in had lunch

30:45 I had no idea how old either of us were at that lunch and the things we talked about in the things that we share hurt in the values in the cafe our love of dogs and cats all of those things seemed to be ageless and seem to be timeless and that's what started what I never expected in my life.

31:11 I also a grown up thinking that are kind of relationship was wrong and the same way that you did that we weren't supposed to be in this relationship that night part. Keep telling me. Otherwise the longer we spent with each other in the more. We got to know each other the more I realize that I bought some lies and I had kept believing some things and in my own head that just weren't true anymore for me.

31:43 And stop for 13 years seems to have gone by pretty fast. If you ask him where our friends they would be pretty darn sure that you're the older one in the relationship. You're the the man with the maturity that I I don't think about it that much until I start to think about things like retirement. I'm going to be retired and you're going to be still working for a while and I might have a little more time to do some things that you might not have.

32:17 But in our 13 years together, you've been the person who's been by a hospital bed with me and when nobody else was so I think whatever the next 13 33-year Springs and we've already enjoyed an awful lot in the last 13 then I think I can make it and now that my students even look at our relationship and they do ask the questions about his role as they just asked at. How do you make it work? And how can I have a relationship that looks like what yours is?

32:53 That's a pretty cool thing.

33:01 Quote my mother which seems odd that marries is not given take Mary just giving give that we are strong personalities. I may be loud but your verbal in your own way.

33:20 Can we have a great respect for each other?

33:25 And the respect and in the GIF make this work.

33:33 Yeah, I think you're from my perspective. It's definitely something you know that I've had question from people on the age difference and you know how that works and it really isn't for me something that

33:49 I've put a lot of thought into.

33:52 As to the logistics and how all that works. I think it's just really been driven by.

34:01 How we

34:03 Are around each other, you know, we get each other's humor. And we was kind of crack show said each other with laughing quite a lot we care about the same things and I think that definitely are you definitely been an influence on on me as far as you know what he's shown with your relationship with you to students with your community. And I think I'm definitely privileged to kind of be be around that cuz I'm not the typical person that I've begun Halo and approach social situation. Can I get involved in politics or local organizations? But who you I can see the difference between maid and Ashley you conversations with a lot of your students nail cutter for them to have a professor.

34:59 And to come to our house and have you know somebody to talk to you that closer to their own age, you know, if they have a lot of questions and very entertaining can I get it perspective of somebody use first generation and no graduating college and being part of this amazing program and kind of meeting their profession you as a younger partner. It just seems like such a shift for them in their worldview and it's pretty cool to be a part of that. Yeah, and I have respect for the work that you do and your involvement with water and water policy here in the west. I've learned so much about that from you when I didn't pay attention to it very much until I met you and you started working in the policy area with water now I pay attention to it and I probably know

35:59 More about Canales than I ever thought was possible to know and can identify water sources in in strange ways. But you also introduced me to chile rellenos and your mother's beans and our cultural differences are one of the best parts of us.

36:24 And I think you can identify really good macaroni and cheese now and we're as I know the difference in and tortillas in the preview Quay tell those those things make any age difference since he really insignificant as far as I think of it matter. What else our relationship is as as a partnership.

36:53 Do a whole lot of things together now and we get to serve the community together and do cool things like this together.

37:05 Yeah, I think for me specially, you know serving the community and in doing things like this like this and attending our monthly art Hops and that didn't shows and meeting up with didn't say that I do Civic engagement. I remember when we first met you took me out to believe it was like a community beautification project and we all planted trees and painted buildings and just kind of thought that I didn't typically do but it was just amazing to see how it all came together in a way which is something that you were so at ease and doing but now after 13 years ago there it makes sense that it makes perfect sense actually.

37:52 On way it needs to be done in the time of impact that you can have on people. Yeah, I'm pretty thrilled that we've got our name on a few places together. We've got a break here in the air and a tree planted on a mural nearby, you know that has our our name on it to where we got to do that together.

38:16 And forgot you thought that would never happen in his life than it would just be one name. I kind of like having two names there. That's

38:26 Make makes makes my heart Happy and glad that we have the kind of partnership that we have here in the city.

38:37 Well, I want to thank you for reassuring your story with with me. I think you know, I've heard a lot of this before but honestly for me never gets old, I think it's kind of a revelation or continuing Revelation on the type of person that I ended up with and I think you know that something that should be celebrated. I'm sure a lot of people that you've mentioned before I let you know a lot of students of March to you as their favorite professor and made a big difference in their lives and I can see why definitely made a big difference in my life personally. And now I think a lot of people would act like that. I'm only as good as the home I get to live in then you are my home.

39:27 Mileiq. Thanks.