Ramona Akpo-Sani and Denie Reynolds

00:00 Is. It's starting. Okay. Ramona, you grew up on a dairy farm in the 1950s. And you learned to milk a cow by hand. You had no electricity until you were seven. Education was very important. I graduated from high school as salutatorian and attended UVM. I was determined to make a difference, so joined the Peace Corps, serving in Niger, West Africa. Am I pronouncing that right?

00:30 Nishir.

00:32 Nishir. Okay. My husband is from Benin working on justice issues around racism and third world issues. And being pro life in all meanings remains important, along with travel to see as much of the world as possible. I describe myself as a parent active in my community. Religious, spiritual and tech savvy.

00:59 And, Denny, what you've written. I am a mother of four and grandmother of eight. I enjoy gardening, reading and travel. I'm very involved in my grandchildren's lives. I'm more spiritual than religious. I cut straight to the point. And at 73, I have no time for ignorance or deceit. I love to laugh and have a pretty good sense of humor. I describe myself as grandparent parent, active in my community. Outgoing, religious, spiritual and creative.

01:31 Yeah.

01:32 Okay, so let's see what's next. Why did you want to participate in one small step, Denny?

01:43 Well, I saw it advertised quite a bit. And I just became curious if I could be a lady of grace and kindness. With someone that thought differently than me politically. I know I can because most of my friends are opposite of me. So I know we're going to have a great conversation. And I'm never afraid to step out of my comfort zone. So this was a little bit of me doing that. How about you?

02:16 Well, I agree there. It's a little bit out of my comfort zone. But I really wanted to do this because there is so much division. Not just in the country, but in my state and even in parts of my family. I have a very large family that live around me in Vermont. And to be able to talk to a person and not have a conflict. To be able to be respectful and to learn about the other person. Rather than trying to say what I'm thinking, that's really important to me. So I hope I'm looking forward to that.

03:00 Oh, good, Ramona. So am I. Because I feel blessed that we were matched.

03:05 I'm very glad too. I was really disappointed when it didn't work the first time.

03:11 As soon as we got off trying to connect. Last time I called them and a gentleman answered, thank God. And I told him of our situation. And he said he would fix it. But I didn't hear from him for several weeks until day before yesterday or whatever it was. And I thought, oh, Ramona's there again. I'll pick her because they gave me two. No, we need to finish that circle that we started.

03:41 Thank you. Yes, I did send in the email or the text message to know that they talked about, but I didn't call. So this is okay. Yes. Okay. What was it like growing up for you? Where did you grow up?

04:02 Well, I grew up in Kansas. My dad worked for the telephone company, and my mother was a stay at home mom until about my second grade. And then she started work at a Megan rewards in retail, where she stayed most of her life doing that. So it was like I was born November the second, 1949. So I'm 74. So I've seen a lot, as you have, in just when we were little girls with no television. When we finally got one, it was a black and white one. And of course it was because they didn't have color television and we still had the old phone on the wall that you had to do so many rings too short and long to get your person, and you talked into a black thing. I have an older sister and a younger sister. My older sister is five years older. My little sister is like 15 months younger. So we were really close, and we traveled a lot through Kansas, moving. I must have moved six times in my twelve years because every time my dad would get a promotion, they would move him to another city. So I had to learn how to either fade into the background or jump right in with both feet. And I think I chose to jump in with both feet. My dad was Republican and my mother was Democrat. So I heard the division around voting time of my parents, but they would just shut down and not talk about it because some would get mad. So it's just as an adult, through this last election or the one before that, that I found how divided people are and how angry they get before you get a sentence out. And I just don't want to be defined as a Democrat. I'm conservative financially, and I am socially liberal. I have four children and my youngest one is gay. So from the same dad, the same household, the whole thing, he was just our last one. And so I know from firsthand that it isn't a decision of his. It's like there his preference. He didn't know that until later. And I just want the same benefits that every man in this country should have. That's me.

07:11 Boy, there are a lot of things that click for me, too. I was born June 21, 1947. So I got a couple of years on you, but I was born in Nebraska. Northern Nebraska. Yes. My mother is from northern Nebraska on the prairies. She grew up in a ranch there. But my father, he was in the military in World War II at that time, and they got married in 1945. But he was from Vermont and had gone wherever the military sent him to do work. And he happened to be at a dance in the town where she lived. And they said they met on Valentine's Day in Valentine, Nebraska. Oh, wow. Yeah.

08:01 It was meant to be.

08:03 Cute story. They were married for 67 years before he passed away. But I grew up, so we moved back to Vermont because his father died and his mother needed help on the farm and always were dairy farmers. And I went to the little school in town and we had a close family, really, because I have an older brother and the youngest in the family is a brother and I have two sisters younger than I am. And my older brother passed away about twelve years ago, but the rest of us are still living. And though we moved away for times in our lives, we've all pretty much moved back to the same town. We have kind of a big group of family around us and that's really good. So I went there, went to high school, unionized high school. I went to UVM is the University of Vermont, graduated from there. I was in pre med, but I didn't want to go to med school right away. I couldn't afford it. So I got a job in computers because that's what was the going thing at that time, right? Yeah. So I got a job in New Jersey with Western Electric and I worked there a year and a half. But my ideal, I had always wanted to travel and do something, so I joined the Peace Corps, which I say I joined. They allowed me to come in really, because, wow. They did a lot of at that time. I mean, that was 1969 they were doing.

09:54 It was just new then, wasn't it?

09:56 Well, 62 or 63, yeah. So it was still fairly new, all things considered. And they really did examine they had the CIA came out to, or was it the FBI? Talked to my boyfriend, talked to my friends and whatever to see what kind of a person I was. It was interesting.

10:16 Wow.

10:17 But for that, the first place I went was Nepal, north of India. And it was so interesting. I don't regret these adventures for a minute. They wanted me to be a teacher. They hadn't told me that they wanted me to be a teacher in a grade school and to teach in the Nepali language and the Alphabet which is not English. And I just plain never wanted to teach at all. And I knew that. So I said, can you reprogram me? Put me somewhere else? So after two or three months, they found a place and they said, ok, we're going to send you to the country of Niger. It's one of the four poorest in the world. It's french speaking, and I did speak French, and it's in the Sahara desert, and it's islamic. The first one, Nepal, had been a hindu country, hindu by government, and this one was islamic by government. So I learned a lot in those places. And I did stay my full two years in Niger and finished in 1971 to 1973. And that was the time they had the great Sahara famine and drought there, and it was terrible. That's mark on me. So when I came home, I actually had met Pierre, my husband, in Niger, and we were engaged. So when I came home, I decided to get that I would come home, and I got a job in computer work at a university in upstate New York. And then he was able to come over. It was much easier to get a fiance visa at that time and come over. So he didn't speak a word of English, but anyway, he adapted, and now we've.

12:31 Did he speak French?

12:33 Yes, I did, very fluently by that time, because that was all they spoke in the country where I was stationed.

12:39 And your husband, he spoke French?

12:41 Yes, because it was a French colonized country. Yeah. So that was our language. But we will be married 49 and a half years now. We have been married half years. Yes.

12:57 Congratulations.

12:59 Thank you. We have one son who again got the wanderlust from me, and I got it from my father. My parents were very influential in my life, and he went west first out of high school and college, and he married someone there, and it didn't work out. So he traveled then he traveled to Africa with us once, and then he came home. We said, come home for a little. Know. He worked in Vermont for a couple of years and met a woman from Australia, and they married and they live in.

13:48 Couldn'T. Your only child, and he has to move to Australia.

13:53 It's a beautiful place to visit, though. We've been really, you know, to be able to move. So, I mean, to go there and visit, I have never stopped loving traveling.

14:08 That's fun, isn't it?

14:10 Yes. So are there other questions here we're supposed to answer? Ask for. Oh, says, take the conversation where you would like it to go. So could you tell me anything about your travels and what effect has that had on your life, Denny?

14:28 Oh, my. Every way. In every way difference. The first time I went abroad was to Rome, and being in Rome and walking everywhere and not in a car, not here, or, you know, walking to the plaza to get food and walking back, know, standing in the window and having the doors open. And we were right next to an embassy. So we saw a lot of parades and people coming in and out and important functions going on, but we didn't know what it was. But we were in a piazza or a little village thing where there was a monk that had been burned at the stake there. And I told my son, they had a statue of him with a big cape on around his head and stuff. And I told my son when we first walked in there, this plaza has a very ominous feeling about it. I mean, it looks like lots of wonderful things are going on, but I feel very heavy. And then we found out that that guy had been burned at the stake there as a traitor or something, but touching buildings that were there before Christ, going to the tuition museum and seeing stuff before the Romans. I mean, it was just so wonderful to see the age of things and kind of wrap your head around them when here at home, they're maybe in the 16 hundreds, and there it's just like, wow. And then we went up to Florence and spent three or four days there. Then went to Paris and the Bahamas, and that's it so far. Oh, Hawaii, but that's still in the US. But that's quite a little. So that's. That's mine. But it definitely made me realize that there's more people like us that want to find common ground, and truth is truth, and we don't want to see that bent in any way. Like, if I say, I see you with a pair of glasses on, and you say, no, I don't wear glasses, it's like, I know what I saw. So there's more people out there like me, like you, than what the media, I think, gives us the credit for. We just want to be able to have shelter and food and joy with our families, know, do the next right thing every day and become better. And I think a lot of people in France and in Italy, they're the same. They want their families food, shelter, and live a happy life without threat of.

17:53 Yeah, well, that. I agree with you. And I found that everywhere. I mean, that's what they want in Australia. That's what they wanted in Asia and Nepal. That's what they wanted in. Know, the problem there that affected me a lot is you did I changed something. Can you still see me?

18:16 Yeah, I can hear you and see you.

18:19 Okay. I can't see me anymore, but, oh, there it comes. There was such poverty in both Nepal and Africa, and though I had grown up not. Definitely not wealthy or kind of on a farm, which is a hard life, good food. Yeah, good food that. I was still taken aback by the amount of poverty, the children, the begging. But I loved the different foods. I loved the people. I loved the languages. There was nothing I didn't like. But to go through the famine and the drought, where people moved in, villages were totally wiped out. Where I was in the sahara, and there was so much death when you drove down the road, you could smell it. Yeah, that touched me. And in Nepal, the beauty. But also, if you look at the education at that point in time, of course, this was 1970, so different from now. The education and the infrastructure and whatever, and the cultures were all different. And even when I thought going to Australia would be alike for me, the same culture, it is, know the different words and the language and the different ways of doing things. Yes, more alike than the other two, but not that. So all of that influenced me when I think of politics and values and things like that. My father was really an independent, and I think my mother was pretty much, too, as far as politics were concerned. And I grew up to be independent, and he loved to travel if he could. And there's so much alike there when it comes to. He was a person of peace. He says, like World War II need never have happened. And he studied history, and he could back up his ideas for me. Then after I went to college during the Vietnam War, and that was a process of starting out, not knowing much about it. And through the four years when I was in college, learning an awful lot about it and becoming much more of, as I say, a pro life person. Life without war. Why do we need war? Life without capital punishment and then also life without abortion, if we could protect the mothers and the whole thing, I mean, there's so much to it. I've learned that there's so much nuance in how we think about things and of that nature that affect politics and everything else. The way I look at them, I.

21:44 Don'T feel like politics has any place in my personal body. I pay them enough money through my taxes that that's where the buck should stop. According to me, if my husband and I came to a decision that we had a child that was going to be born without a brain, I would not want to continue carrying it. And I don't think my physician would want me to either, because most likely it would affect my health or my ability to have another child. So I think those decisions, even though I feel like I'm pro life, I'm also pro choice. Half and half is because there's too many nuances. Like you said, that it shouldn't all be black or white. I mean, it should be maybe taken on a case by case, but I think we're going down the wrong track when we start with people's physical bodies. Especially men. Especially men. I mean, they have maybe 1 minute to do with the birth of a child. And we carry it and we usually have to raise it if the father leaves. And I just think that that should be a woman's choice.

23:17 Yeah.

23:18 Isn't that interesting? And I have four kids, so I know how precious life is.

23:24 Yes.

23:25 And I'm a big baby lover. I love the newborn babies. That's one thing that I wouldn't want to be put in a box. That because I would be called a Democrat, that I'd be for abortion. Of course I'm not for abortion, but I am for the life of a mother.

23:48 Yes, I agree with you there. It can't go totally one way. Like you say, black or white. It has to be all of the issues for which women choose abortion have to be worked out. And when I say what you said about being conservative financially and socially, more liberal, liberal, that's me too. For the idea that there's more pro life there. Pro life in programs to help people who can't take care of themselves in one way or another. And I found that out really, not only overseas, but here. I worked for a program that was working with people with the opiate addiction and problems that those people live with. And I had studied poverty. It's just amazing. There are people, I'm sure, who, whatever, run the system, whatever you want to call it, right? But not most of them. They really suffer a lot. So I'm really more pro life in all of those things. Forever. There is life. But tell me something else now about gardening. I like the things that come out of a garden. My husband's the gardener. I am not. What is it that makes you like gardening and how does that feed you?

25:36 Oh, it feeds my soul. It gets me out of the house. It gets me in the sunshine. I can use my creative juices to create gardens. And I'm more of a flower garden girl than I am vegetables. I grow tomatoes. A lot of those. More than I can give away, even sometimes. But I love the beauty of flowers and planting something that I didn't think would grow in my zone. We're zone six, kind of right in the middle, and that's kind of changing now with our climate. But I think it helps my creative juices decide what could bloom in the spring, then summer, then fall, then into the winter. What kind of greenery can I put in there? And then working with the earth, you know, because you're an educated woman, that the earth grounds us. And I think that the more you're in it, not in shoes, barefoot with your hand in the dirt, digging up stuff, it just grounds you spiritually, I think.

26:56 Yes. When you said you were more spiritual than religious, can you explain to me, because I thought, too, from what you had said about gardening, that was a spiritual experience?

27:07 Yes, very much so. I was raised in an organized religion, and I can say I don't go anymore because I stopped during the pandemic, and I've just not gotten my legs back to going back again. But that doesn't feed me spiritually more than me reading, like Jesus calling and more someone writing something that feels like he's really talking to me. Like, let things like, what does that mean, lord? What does that mean? And he goes, like, take your hands off of it, more or less do the work and then let the results up to know. Learn to sit in your seat and set on your hands and keep your mouth shut and let the things that I have for you come to you, because you and your little antsy self can block things from me. So I spend a lot of time when I'm in the garden talking to him, okay. Developing a relationship where I don't feel like I'm just saying a rote prayer or singing a rote song. It's just really a relationship. Somebody gave me a tip about, visualize what you would visualize your God as. And so all I knew was Jesus. So he's in my garden every time I go, and we either sat down at the tree and I lean my head on him and talk about stuff, or he catches me like I was a little girl and swings me around in the garden, and he's very playful with me. Then sometimes when I tell a joke, I can just see him shaking his head like, oh, girl, I gave you more in your sense of humor than you needed. And I just have a good relationship with him and can pass that on to others. That visual, like, he's my everything.

29:24 Yeah.

29:25 I don't want to be sad that I'm not married and someone doesn't care whether I live or die or whatever, that my God knows me.

29:35 Yeah.

29:36 So that gives me a lot of comfort, more so than any man ever has.

29:45 Well, I.

29:48 So how do you get your spiritual feelings filled?

29:53 Well, I grew up in an organized christian religion also, and have chosen to stay with it and to grow, to learn more and more all that I can about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit, and to let my life be guided by that trinity. And in that, it makes life so much easier, as you're saying. But it's always a growing thing for me to build that relationship and to listen to that relationship. I try to have it determine my values. And the other piece that goes along with that is that I've been in a twelve step program for over 30 years.

30:52 Oh, my gosh, Ramona. I was afraid to say anything, but.

30:56 So am I. I'm an overeaters Anonymous. I'm an overeaters anonymous. My husband is in narcotics Anonymous. What about you?

31:07 And I'm an AA.

31:08 Okay.

31:09 For 30 years. In March, he'll be 31. Praise God. He did put you and I together.

31:17 Yes. And as I watched the minutes go down, Denny, I would say, if you'd be willing to, I would love to exchange phone numbers so that we can talk more.

31:29 I would love that. I would love that. Oh, Ramona, that is just like such. I mean, that's a.

31:40 Yes.

31:41 That's wonderful.

31:43 Yeah. I haven't even gone through half of my questions.

31:49 I talk too much.

31:51 No, I'm asking questions, and I want to hear your answers.

31:56 Well, let's keep this up, because you're just a beautiful lady. And maybe we could do a Zoom call. Do you know how to do those? We could do a Zoom call where I know you would see me then.

32:07 Yeah. And that is what has been. So the one good thing I said of the pandemic is that so many meetings, all the meetings go on to Zoom or phone meetings. And being in Vermont. Vermont is a very rural and we live basically. And so it's wonderful to be able to connect with people in meetings all over the know, especially this country, and to have more people.

32:39 I was in your neck of the woods last year. My cousin and I came back to the Dickinson family reunion in Hadham, Connecticut. Okay. And so we went up through New Hampshire and Vermont and came down through Massachusetts, and we just had a blast.

33:01 Wonderful.

33:02 What's your phone number?

33:04 802-349-3553.

33:15 Okay.

33:16 And yours?

33:17 3166. 192-867-2867 tell me a little bit about Wichita.

33:29 What is Wichita like as far as, say, politics, religion, farming?

33:36 I don't know, whatever. Our whole state is Republican. That's where our electoral votes go, is Republican. We've got a lot of farmers out west who are republican. And then towards the eastern part of the state is Wichita, down and central of Kansas. And then Kansas City's up at the front. We're more city. The big cities, which I always say is more educated, tend to go the other way. We have a population of about 375,000.

34:19 Oh, boy.

34:21 You can get anywhere across town in 30 minutes, 20 minutes, sometimes ten. We have a church on every corner. They call us the Bible belt. And I always say we're the buckle in the Bible belt because we got one on every corner. We have Amish, we have every kind of religion. We have a temple for the indian religion. That's Hindi, right? Hindi, yeah. And I don't know that we have a mosque, but I'm sure we would, after all the people. We had, a lot of families from Afghan come here, Afghanistan. So they might have it in a home or something. But it's a very great place to raise a family because you're just taught good work ethic and honesty. And we're just kind of like the heartland, which I love to say, we're the heartland of the US. We have heart, we still care about. Know, even if we didn't like you, we'd stop and help you up off the ground. That kind of wonderful.

35:45 That's wonderful. Yeah. Vermont being rural, well, it's very democratic. It used to be totally republican, but it changed, but it still is that very much neighbor to neighbor, that people are very friendly, close, very helpful, et cetera, where I live.

36:09 What about the Trump thing? Did that divide everybody, the Trump.

36:14 Well, presidency? We have one county in Vermont that went fully Trump Republican and 13 others that went Democrat. For Biden, it's been Democrats since the first democratic governor was in the 60s sometime.

36:35 Oh, wow.

36:36 So it's been since.

36:37 As a woman of faith and an educated woman, can I ask you what your feelings are around Mr. Trump personally? And you can choose not to answer if you don't want?

36:51 No, I can answer. I try to respect him as a person, but I don't like his personality. I think he does not respect other people. And I think he actually has some mental disorders, possibly narcissism, and others. And I've heard psychologists say that. And I'm afraid if he gets another term, he's been straightforward with it. He wants to be a dictator.

37:30 Yeah.

37:31 He wants to have more power. And that is scary for me.

37:35 I agree with you 100%. Some of my best friends are Republicans. And they go, we're going to vote for Trump. We don't like Biden and blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, I think he's too old mean, and I would have voted for him, but he is awfully elderly and I'm not that far away from him. But still, the way he walks seems rather agile and scuffy and shuffling, and I think we need some younger blood. But Trump scares me, and the people that they call his base scare me enough that I would just vote for Biden again because I just cannot mentally handle all of the division and the anger that he spews to people. That's when I started talking about the truth, like he wants to change the truth and everything that he does, he says, orwell, it's a witch hunt. And I said, well, they found the witch, because I try to give him some kind of grace, too, because he is one of my brothers that he's hard to see in power. I think he'd just be just so happy in Mar a Lago not having that power. And I don't understand why people like Kevin McCarthy and people that were finally free of him would still support him. I don't understand.

39:20 I don't either. And that surprises me. But the other thing that scares me is his attitude toward people who are not white. My husband, he became a citizen after 35 years here, but he could be a target. It isn't that Trump would send out soldiers after him, but he would give other people the freedom or the permission almost to be that. And our, you know, much as I hate that he's that far away, I don't want him living here. It would be too dangerous.

39:58 No. If I could afford to live in another country, I would, because it's getting so scary. And I think if they build a wall, well, that might keep people out, but it also keeps people in, and I'm not ready for that kind of pre Germany, pre nazi time. That's what it scares me.

40:19 Yes, it is like a preparation for that, because Hitler didn't, as far as I understand, and he took a long time, many years, getting ready for what he did, but he only took a few months to really bring the hammer, so.

40:37 Well, Trump says that his first day in office is when he's going to do stuff. I have to question when people are for him. And he says he'd like to execute Milley. Like, who talks like that? You're going to execute someone? No, we don't do that. So I'm so happy, Ramona, that we have found a connection and that we are not. I mean, we're discussing hard things and we're not throwing things at each other yet.

41:19 I am know I want to learn how to discuss the hard things with other people, but I think probably it's just the same techniques that we're using. How about your children and your grandchildren said you're involved with your grandchildren. We don't have any.

41:40 You would just die if you had a grandbaby and you couldn't get to them in Australia. You definitely want to move.

41:49 They tried, but they weren't able to have children.

41:52 Oh, shoot. Maybe adopt a baby.

41:56 Go ahead.

41:58 I think my kids, I think my daughters and my two sons are Democrat. And then I have one son in law who says he's all about the money because he owns a business or Republican. But I used to be Republican in my younger years. We belong to the young Republicans. But it seems like the things that I find very important, like pro life, pro choice gun control, that nobody needs an Uzi to go and shoot deer.

42:39 Yes.

42:41 So you don't need an AK 47. So that's all we're asking, is those kind of military weapons not be sold to the general public.

42:54 Yes. Well, I know Vermont is very much, a lot of people have guns here because there's deer season, there's a lot of hunting and whatever. But Vermont also passed gun control laws because no one here, or very few people here, would say that you need an AK 47 or whatever, and you certainly don't need it in school or anything else.

43:19 No, these are babies. And that's what I think upsets me about the people that are not for gun control of some kind, is that, well, if you say you're pro life, then why are you letting all these little kids get killed in their schools? That's not much life.

43:37 Yeah. So have you read along with that? Do you read books about that? What genre of reading? You say you enjoy reading? And of course, it's one of my strong ones, too.

43:52 I like historical fiction. Yes, I do.

43:59 Of mine or something.

44:02 Are you, too?

44:03 Yes.

44:05 Oh, wonderful.

44:06 I like nonfiction. And if it's fiction, historical fiction, things like that.

44:13 Yes. What's your favorite author? Do you have one?

44:17 No, actually, because I will read anything that has, I'm more called to the topic, like, I read all the books about, not all the books, but a lot of the books about racism and whatever, because I was leading a group on that and I've read books about the government, like these things that are happening now. I will read about it, whatever is going on to learn, because you don't learn it all in the news. There are all kinds of news, but usually if you find a good book about it, you can read two or three books with different opinions and make your own. So I read that. But as far as nonfiction, that's nonfiction, but fiction. If I find a good historical fiction book, I will probably read it. If I can find the time for it, if I can get the.

45:19 I would say Kristen Hannah is an excellent author. She writes very well. And Lisa Wingate also, one of them, wrote the great alone, and that was about her in the, her being in Seattle, and then her dad was an alcoholic and all of that lifestyle. I thought, oh, my gosh, that was such a good book. Put you right in there into the story. So those two authors, I would highly.

46:01 Recommend, I think I've read Kristen Hannah. Did she write the Nightingale?

46:06 Yes.

46:07 I've read two or three of her. It's good. I haven't read Wingate yet, but one of the jobs that I had after I retired from the university where I worked then I had a couple of interesting, like, I did work for the addiction place, and I worked for our library here, our little library in my town, and I learned a lot about these authors and whatever. So. Yes.

46:39 Cool.

46:40 Yeah, it's really good.

46:41 We do have an awful lot in common. That's great to know.

46:45 Yes. So is there something. What were the last questions they said? Oh, is there anything you learned about me today that surprised you, that you were in recovery?

47:01 It just warms my heart because you know how to speak my language without even knowing each other. We know the twelve steps and how we're powerless over things, and we got to let it go and surrender. So someone that talks my language, knows my language, lives that language. It's like I get a tingly feeling.

47:29 Yeah. So you are still actively working your program?

47:34 Oh, yes, ma'am.

47:35 Yeah, so am I. It's precious.

47:40 Yes, it is precious to me and my family.

47:43 Yeah. Okay. What were the other questions here? Is there something about my beliefs that you don't agree with but still respect because we have so much in common? That's an interesting question to put to us.

47:59 Well, I'm sure we'd find something that we don't agree on. Well, I mean, we got around the pro life stuff where you're more pro life. I'm a very sensitive person. So when I talked about I was protesting in the 60s against Vietnam. And my girlfriend's husbands were all in the service. Well, my dad was military, but I had my own mind and thought, why are you sending our kids over to Southeast Asia? All of my high school friends, all the guys went, and I just didn't see why people have to go to war. Why can't they go to the table first?

48:47 Yes.

48:48 Sit down and be honest with each other. The honesty should be the most priceless gift we give each other.

48:58 Unfortunately, our government was not honest with us. No, for that. So, boy, we have less than a minute here. Maybe we can just say, I'm so happy to meet you. And I look forward to meeting you again, seeing.

49:14 I hope that you can see me next time, Ramona, because it helps me to look into your eyes and see when you smile and stuff. And I love that. So hopefully we'll be able to do that next time.

49:28 We'll connect like that. If you ever come to Vermont again, give me a call.

49:32 If you ever make it to Kansas, do the same. You're always welcome here.

49:38 You bet. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

49:42 Thank you, too. I am so excited.

49:45 You, too. Take care. Bye.