James Zellers and Mary Harmon-Christian

[00:07] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: My name is Kathy Harmon Christian. My age is 55 years old. I am in Decatur, Georgia. Today's date is February 10, 2021. My partner today is Jim Zellers, and they are my friend.

[00:27] JIM ZELLERS: My name is Jim zellers. I am 59 years old. I am in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. Today's date is February 10, 2021. My partner today is Kathy Harmon Christian, and they are my dear friend, colleague, and general guru, mentor.

[00:53] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Well, my goodness, Jim, you. You have flummoxed me from the first go.

[01:00] JIM ZELLERS: Oh, good.

[01:01] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Wow. I don't know what to say to that. Wonderful. Well, thank you. And it's just great to be here. And so when I think of you, I think of a renaissance man, and you are proficient in music, you read widely. You are an amazing caregiver. You. There's just you. You take care of dogs, you show dogs. You have this wonderful capacity to be in several different things that one might ordinarily not think go together. So I love that about you. Do you see that as part of your personality?

[01:43] JIM ZELLERS: Oh, absolutely. My maternal grandmother would say, I'm a jack of all trades and master of none. And there's. I say that with all honesty because I think the more that you get into different things in your life, if you're truly open to everything that each thing that you're doing has to offer to you and to show you, you realize very quickly that the more you learn about something, the more that you don't know. Right. And that for me, just kind of spurs me on to want to know more. I have always been somebody who's like to do multiple things at the same time my entire life. Even as a kid, sometimes I wonder if I had been a little more focused, if maybe my chosen professional career path would have gone in a different direction. But even at the height of my education and really kind of beginning my professional career as a. As a musician, I still had in living in New York City. I was a student at Juilliard at the time. And even that which, you know, by all standards, most people would say, oh, going to a great conservatory like that, that would be your consume all from early morning until late night. But I did volunteer work downtown with Covenant House, working with homeless runaways. Got very involved with my church in New York city, which was St. Paul the Apostle right there in Lincoln Center. Paula's fathers, they got me involved with the conventional Franciscans, really enjoyed spending a lot of time with them, and even at one point contemplated while I was my life could have gone in two different directions. It either could have. I could have gone into beginning a doctorate at Juilliard after finishing one smaller degree there when I first entered the school, or I seriously considered chucking it all and becoming conventional Franciscan. So, you know, it. I could never sit still long enough to just be focused on one thing. And I kind of like that about myself. I feel like it makes you perhaps more interesting to talk to. And also it gives you a real perspective and grounding that the world is not one thing, it is a variety of things. And perhaps entering into your particular set of varieties with your eyes open and always wanting to learn and explore more. I think it can make you more equipped, perhaps, to handle the bad times in life. And, you know, just in general, it sort of gives you a more grounded, well rounded perspective on life.

[05:09] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: I think if we're going to put in another adage here, we could say you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. Correct?

[05:16] JIM ZELLERS: Correct.

[05:17] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Well, since you brought up music, I would really love you to share the story about you playing. Was it organ or piano when you were a child going to Mass, and you were young, and I remember you sharing that with us.

[05:31] JIM ZELLERS: I mean, perhaps when I first started playing the organ, maybe in.

[05:35] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: You were like six or seven, weren't you, when you were playing? So tell us about that, because I think that's quite remarkable.

[05:41] JIM ZELLERS: Okay. Actually, in so many ways, it got me started in what would later become my entire career, you know, or the biggest part of my career, which is music. But grew up in a Catholic household and went to Catholic school and started playing the piano at age 4. And, you know, if you talk to other people in my family, you know, they say, oh, you know, prodigy, prodigy. I don't believe I was a prodigy. I believe that I was a really fairly intelligent youngster who had an affinity for a particular instrument. And when you combine that, you know, it's really. It becomes, you know, kind of a, like, rocket fuel that can just, you know. But I don't believe that I was anything exceptionally special, except for the fact that I enjoyed playing the piano. And so fast forward to second grade. So I'm like. I started school kindergarten a year early, so I think I was about six. A lot of my cohorts, you know, in the second grade were probably seven, you know, moving on to eight. But I was on the youngish side. And which made it all the more shocking that my teachers all knew that I played the piano. I had done little performances for my class and all this kind of stuff in the first Grade and we had a group of sisters that taught us. They were all teachers at various grades in our grade school that was attached to our church. And all of us, the entire school, first grade through eighth grade, went to mass every morning before we went to school and, you know, convened our school day. So there was a particular nun, I think she taught fifth grade or sixth grade or something like that, who played the organ for our morning service, morning Mass. And we get to second grade, I'm in the second grade and all of a sudden this very tall nun by my very small sixth grade, you know, six year old standards, has these stack of hymnals in her hands. And she said, well, I've been transferred and so you're on. And I was like, I'm on for what? You know. And she said, you're going to play, start playing for church at 8 o'clock in the morning. So just to give you a perspective, these were daily masses and a lot of times the hymn selections were not done until the evening before, sometimes even the morning of, right? So literally I was handed four numbers for four different hymns. Sometimes if the mass started at 8 o'clock in the morning, I'd get those numbers at like 7:45, right? And here's the beauty of being a child, because for a child, everything is possible, right? And nothing is difficult. Nothing is difficult. So, you know, I was handed these numbers and so I trot over to the, you know, organ where the music hymnals are and I open them up to the appropriate numbers and I look at it and go, okay, sure, no problem, you know, and I sit down and I play for that particular service. And this happened every day, right? So fast forward later in life. This is actually a skill that musicians build called sight reading, which many of them, when asked to sight read on their instrument, completely fall into a panic. Because it's not necessarily a skill that people, teachers propagate in their students because they have enough to do with weekly lessons just to help them learn how to play their instrument and to actually execute the stuff that they've practiced every week in order to make it, you know, perfected and to learn something from it. So here I am working on this, what's later considered a very difficult skill. And I just thought, this is what everybody did, right? So I'm reading and trust me, I'm sure in the first couple of years there was a lot of wrong notes. I like to say to people, even though I was living in the Western world, there was probably a lot of Chinese music or some, you know, Some other kind of country music. Not country music, but music from another country because of all of the non western notes that were coming out of the organ. I'm sure that that happened. But everybody smiled sweetly and just hung in there with me. And eventually it all sort of came together, right? And I have to add at the end of this story. So this was second grade, and it went swimmingly for a couple of years. And I played every day for church before we would all go to church. And long about. I think it was about the sixth grade. I remember this like it was yesterday. My mother was on the phone looking very serious. And she hangs up the phone, this is in an afternoon. And she says, the president of the parish council is coming over tonight and wants to talk with us. And of course, you had to know my mother, great mother, love her to death, but absolutely she made sure all of her kids were in line. So her next question was, what did you do? You know, And I was like, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. Why is he coming over? She said, he didn't say. He just said he wanted to talk to us. So he shows up at the appropriate time and he says, Mr. And Mrs. Zellers, you know, your son's been playing for Mass now for a couple of years. He's rather young, but so we wanted to come over and speak with you. We really have a need for him to step up and actually play on Sunday. How would you feel about that? And of course, my parents were like, are you sure that he can handle it? You know, And I'm looking at them like, of course I can handle it. What's the matter with you? And so she, you know, the. The parish council president said, oh, yes, we've sat and listened to him play for the morning mass for the kids, and he seems very competent, and we think that we can work him into the schedule. And then he follows. The last part was, oh, yes, and there's a fee involved. We would pay him. And my mother jumps in immediately and says, oh, no, you don't have to pay him. And I couldn't hold my tongue anymore after that point. And I was like, yes, I do want to get paid.

[12:37] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And I hope they did pay you. I really do.

[12:39] JIM ZELLERS: Yes, absolutely did. But, you know, again, you had to know my mother, who every good Catholic mother, had that look of death. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, which was, stop fidgeting and stop fooling around in the middle of church, right? And so I got that Absolute look of death, you know, looking away from the parish council president because she was just like, that was really impertinent. You could just keep your mouth closed, you know, And I'm like, this is money. I know what money is. I get an allowance. I want money, you know.

[13:10] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Awesome, awesome. And well, they should have paid you. But, you know, I just find that story, it just so striking to me that first of all, they would, they would entrust you with that responsibility at such a young age. Because we don't, I don't think in our day and age now, we look at children as that competent anymore. And I love that part of it. I love that part of it. And the fact that they allowed you to work, you know, to figure it out as they went and gave you this wonderful responsibility as well as helped you to really hone that talent that you had. So I think that's, you know, I just. That that story just always strikes me.

[13:51] JIM ZELLERS: And from that launch of starting to play on Sunday in about the sixth grade, now fast forward to high school. I'm now the main organist at the school. Not the music director yet, but the main organist. I stayed in my hometown for my undergraduate days to study music at a local college. And by the time I left four years later to move on to graduate work and to leave town, I am now the head organist, choir director, director of music at that church and just for posterity.

[14:33] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Where did you grow up?

[14:34] JIM ZELLERS: In Mishawaka, Indiana. And my home parish was St. Joseph parish in Mishawaka, Indiana. We were parishioners there for decades.

[14:45] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Awesome, awesome. Okay, so where did you get your love of dogs then? And you have the most gorgeous dogs. Oh, you're very sweet some about your beauties.

[14:56] JIM ZELLERS: Absolutely, absolutely. So my husband and I are the very proud owners of currently three. We had one pass away a couple years ago. But our breed is Australian Shepherds herding dogs. They are wicked smart, and I think that's what attracted me to them in the first place. They're beautiful animals. They're not too large, they're not too small. You can do a lot of sports with them. You can do agility, you can do obedience, you can do a lot of fun, organized things with them. And they're sturdy little dogs that, you know, will go swimming and hiking and all that kind of stuff. But I really appreciate dogs or animals that you give them two plus two and you can watch them in their mind add it up to four. And once they've added up two plus two, a number of times they figure out There are other ways to get to four. It might be one plus three, it might be three plus one, you know, and they will, they will give back to you the same thing that you had asked them to do, two plus two in a slightly different variation, come out with the same outcome, and then look at you like, how was that? You know, and this is what they were bred to do. They were bred to herd and to be able to think, know what the objective is of their job, but to be able to think creatively on their feet because they're dealing with trying to drive livestock and move livestock, which are very unpredictable, right. So they have to be able to come up with, well, if this didn't get that sheep to go from point A to point B, then, you know, I'll come up with another way to get him to go from point A to point B, because I was told he has to go from point A to point B. Right. So my basic love of dogs came from my father's sister, my aunt, who was a very fun loving, kind of free spirit lady. We always enjoyed visiting her. My, my parents always, with a little bit of fear and trepidation, would send me off to visit her every year for a week. She lived in a cool place, Denver, Colorado. You know, where I came from, corn field flatness of northern Indiana. I got to see these amazing things called the Rocky Mountains, you know, and they were right there out your window when you woke up. I mean, it was just incredible. And she was a professional dog groomer. She showed dogs, she raised dogs. She, you know, did. And she did this for a living. This was what, you know, this was her profession. And that was how I kind of got introduced to animals, the love of animals, what the love of an animal can do for you, you know, at any one stage in life. And just the whole connection between dogs and humans, how amazing and diverse and special that particular connection can be. So she actually put my feet on that path. And interestingly enough, it became one of those side things that I always end up doing because I can't seem to focus on one thing in my life, you know, later and later in life, I came very much back around to dogs and became a groomer myself and a breeder. And I think of her every day that I'm working with my animals because she was a real amazing force in my life for that purpose.

[18:58] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Well, in another force in your life that we haven't talked about yet and is another one of your skills is cooking. And would you like to share a little bit about Your grandmother.

[19:08] JIM ZELLERS: Sure.

[19:09] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Your Italian grandmother.

[19:11] JIM ZELLERS: Italian grandmother. This. This would be my mother's mother. And absolutely growing up in an Italian household, you had multiple parents of various generations, let's put it that way, because many times, and was definitely the case for us, we all lived on the same block. And so I had grandparents that lived. My father's parents lived across the street. My mother's parents lived two doors down from us. We shared a driveway, and the house next door to us was an aunt and uncle of my mother's. So we were always surrounded by family everywhere. And I became very close with my maternal grandmother, most especially in the interim time between the death of my grandfather and her death. So it was about seven years between his passing and then her ultimately passing. And because we had grown up with huge Italian dinners at her house that involved, you know, siblings of my mother's, and they would bring their families and, you know, so we had cousins running around and, you know, sometimes dinner, a normal dinner on a weekend at their house would, you know, at my grandmother's house would be 15. You know, nowadays people think, oh, God, I have to plan a meal for 15. I mean, this was. That was the only way I knew how to cook was to cook for no less than five. You know, so trying to cook for one when I was on my own eventually was kind of like, oh, I better have a freezer, because I don't know how to cut these recipes down. But in any case, really, it was during those seven years after the death of my grandfather. My grandmother was older and failing in health, and she was a bit afraid to stay by herself. So she asked me if I would move in with her. And so I did. And among many things that we did together, we cooked. We also prayed together. And interestingly enough, we would mostly pray the rosary, which is a, as you know, a Catholic set of prayers that are done on a set of beads that is a very beautiful bouquet of prayers that people say. And so the two things I wanted when she passed away were very innocuous things, but they still mean the world to me. The rosary that she used when we would pray the rosary together, which then became my rosary, and I still have it, you know, 40 years later. And the wooden dowel, that was the rolling pin that I learned how to make pasta with, because it was her rolling pin, and I saw her use it, and it was how I learned, you know, and in her inimitable Italian grandmother, old lady kind of way, you know, I'd say, but, Graham, we could get you one of Those like, you know, motorized pasta makers where it just shoots the pasta out, you know, and presses it. And she would wrinkle up her nose and be like, no, no, no, no, you gotta do it this way. You know, you gotta learn how to do it with your hands and a rolling pin, you know, and it was just a long. It truly, if you looked at it, you would just say, that looks like a wooden table leg. And it probably was. I mean, these are very simple people, right? But when it sanded down. Right, Sanded down. And, you know, and it was only used purpose, and it's still only used for that purpose. You know, it's kept in a hallowed place in my kitchen, and it's only used for that purpose.

[23:04] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: So, Jim, I have not had any of this homemade pasta yet. Just saying.

[23:09] JIM ZELLERS: Just saying, hint, hint.

[23:10] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Absolutely.

[23:12] JIM ZELLERS: Yeah. Yeah. My husband would probably say the same thing. Gosh, we haven't had any homemade pasta in ages. You know, someone's falling down on the job.

[23:21] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: When we come out of COVID Can we do that, please? Like, when we finally come out of it, let's do like this big feast with you making bringing out Nana's rolling table leg.

[23:33] JIM ZELLERS: Truly, what makes it be the most marvelous taste is that you have to do the journey. I mean, you have to see it from the beginning where, you know, there's the mound of flour and the eggs cracked in the middle of it, where it looks like a volcano about to erupt, Right. You know, and then you mix it in the little, you know, this is all in the middle of a table, you know, and then once it's mixed, to be able to roll it out and cut it and then throw it in the water from there and boil it. It really is a journey of which then when you finally sample it at the end, it's kind of like, wow, this has a different taste than if I had just opened up a box and dumped it into boiling water, you know, kind of thing. So.

[24:16] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And that's probably a good metaphor for many things. And as my mind spins off from there, I'll be thinking about. And so I also wanted to bring up the fact that you are a very faithful Catholic and you are a very faithful gay man to your husband. You have this wonderful 20 year relationship, and you are a very faithful Catholic. And, you know, I think I'd love to hear you talk more about how those two things are absolutely go together. You know, I think so many times those two things are seen somehow as need to be separate or they don't reconcile. But in you. They live beautifully. They live beautifully reconciled. And I'd just like you to share a little bit about that, if you're willing.

[25:06] JIM ZELLERS: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So it's interesting that you. I'm glad that you point out that on the surface, they probably shouldn't go together, as, you know.

[25:19] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Well, some would say that. I would never say that. Right.

[25:21] JIM ZELLERS: I would never say that either, obviously, and I live it every day. But, you know, it's unfortunate that our church, as much as I love it and it is such an integral part of me, and I could never be anything else than Catholic. Sometimes viewed, I guess the best way to say it is viewed through the lens of men who try to be perfect but are imperfect, because we're all created imperfectly. Perhaps certain biases come in and those then get kind of revved up into laws that somehow being, you know, it's unfortunate, but we live in a day and age where, you know, a lot of ideas at least, coming down through the church is that to be gay and to be Catholic don't always mesh well together. Right. We're not always welcomed as a full. To have a full seat at the table, let's put it that way. And maybe this comes from my upbringing in that, again, as a kid, you know, who was handed a bunch of books and said, okay, go off and play that big pipe organ up there that looks more like, you know, the Phantom of the Opera than anything. And the thing dwarfed me. I mean, it was huge, right? But yet I fearlessly just sat down and said, this is a bunch of keys like my piano at home. And it can't be all that hard. Right. That kind of fearlessness has always stuck with me, and I think it's boded me well in this particular case, because one of the things that we enjoy in the Catholic Church as adults is the right of confirmation, which is the conferring of the Holy Spirit upon a young Catholic to become adult in the Catholic community. And I can say truly that my confirmation was a moving and profound experience for me in that I really felt the Holy Spirit come into me and be my guide. Right. We think of the Holy Spirit as a. As a guide to sort of help you, perhaps help your moral compass, perhaps be a comforter to you in lonely times when you have no one. And truly, the Holy Spirit has been that for me my entire life. And it also, at times when the church would say, as a gay man, you can't live. You can't love another man and be in this church. The Holy Spirit Said that's bunk. That you can't be a faithful.

[28:16] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Exactly those words or something.

[28:20] JIM ZELLERS: Yeah, right. You have to keep this G. Right. It might be on the radio, so, you know. But, you know, at each time when I was presented with an opportunity to do what I felt in my heart was right and to say yes to who I was as a gay man, to meet somebody who had the same beliefs and ideals as I did, and to partner with them, you know, again, the church would say, that's not a holy union. Right. Holy Spirit said to me, no, I mean, you could make it be whatever you want it to be. And if this is the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with and adhere to all of those ideals of monogamy and faithfulness and supporting them in good times and bad and all of that, then absolutely, this is blessed by the God that created you. Right. So I think my being able to integrate being gay and being Catholic and then moving on to finding another gay Catholic and for us to live a spiritual life together and a human life together in all of its facets right there takes. It's a certain amount of moxie of, you know, pushing against what are considered the norms, you know, and really getting past that. And what is it really all about? It's about your relationship with God. And if you're right with that, then, you know, I say, why let any man step in the middle of that? You know, any human step in the middle of that.

[30:11] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Or church.

[30:12] JIM ZELLERS: Or church. Right.

[30:14] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: What. What attracted you to Jim?

[30:19] JIM ZELLERS: All the wrong things, let's put it that way.

[30:22] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: You know, Come on, you gotta tell.

[30:24] JIM ZELLERS: That story then, very quickly. So, you know, growing up, you know, and this is a reflection of my family, right? We were a very real family with warts and all. I mean, you know, we had problems in our family with addiction to alcohol. We had problems in our family with smoking addictions. And I saw how that really broke these favorite people of mine, you know, grandparents, great grandparents, and what that did to the family structure, Right? So I always said I was never going to get together with anybody, man or woman, that was smoke or drank. And who would I end up with? A smoker and a drinker, you know, so that's why I say, you know, but the core of it all was that, you know, we met and we started talking about life, and we started talking about what really mattered. And that was when I knew that I had found the right fit with this person. And then all the rest of it is just window dressing. I mean, you Know, you can try to come up with. It's all solvable. Right. You know, like when you're married, you know, you. You have arguments and you have disagreements. You have to decide whether this particular disagreement is going to be where you're going to point, stake your flag, and it's going to be World War 4. Or can you take 10 and count to 10 and then try to say something good about the situation and mitigate it, and you discover that 99.9% of stuff is not World War Four. Right. You know, it's all. You can figure out a way around it if you really love the person.

[32:03] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: So that's really lovely, Jim, that, you know, adds new depth and dimension to letting. What is that phrase? Letting water over a duck's back?

[32:13] JIM ZELLERS: Oh, yeah. You know, yeah. It should fall over you like water over a duck's back. It should just ride right off. Right?

[32:20] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah. No, I've always been very taken by the love that you and Jim have for each other. It's. It's a. It's a beautiful thing. And also how you can rib each other, too, which is hilarious.

[32:31] JIM ZELLERS: Oh, absolutely.

[32:32] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: I'm honored to witness this hilarity.

[32:35] JIM ZELLERS: Ribbing is what makes life worthwhile. I mean, come on.

[32:41] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Oh, so you're 59. So I was wondering, do you have any thoughts about turning 60? Is this a big year for you? Do you have thoughts about what this is? You know, sometimes turning a decade is a big deal. Or not. What is it like for you?

[32:57] JIM ZELLERS: Well, I mean, anything can happen because my birthday is in October and this is, what, February? So I have a long time to experience it. But I guess 60 won't be really any different than any other decade or any other time in my life. In that even from a young child until now, everything was always exciting and moving forward. And, you know, some people, like, say, oh, I'd love to go back to high school. Gosh, life was, you know, ugh. I mean, not that high school was awful, but at the same time, I'm with you.

[33:34] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: It was awful.

[33:35] JIM ZELLERS: You know, my high school was, you know, so. So. But the point is, is that when you have so much ahead of you, you know, however many more years, I'm blessed to be on this earth, Right. I would always want to look forward rather than look back, you know, So I see 60 coming, and I say, you know, bring it on, bring it on. I haven't joined AARP yet. I think, you know, I could have done that at 50. So I'm just one decade off. I need to get in there and start getting my, you know, I need to go to McDonald's and get my cheap coffee on Tuesdays or whatever day it is, you know, that the senior citizens get gold. So, you know, bring it on. It's all good.

[34:15] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Oh, that's hilarious. So you. And you have been. I wonder, do you have you. So you've unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, you've had a lot of people that you've cared for in your life, and several of them until they've died. Has that experience given you some specific wisdom that you rely on or that you think of as you're growing older?

[34:41] JIM ZELLERS: Absolutely, yes. I have been blessed, and I say blessed, to be able to have cared for my mother, an older brother that died of brain cancer, an uncle at the end of his life with pancreatic cancer. It's tragic and it's horrible. But at the same time, these are people that were special to you and that you loved in your life. And to be able to be there and help them is a privilege. And what it teaches you, I think, is first of all, the fragileness of life, right? I mean, whether you go in a lingering disease or something happens to take you out, you know, quickly, we don't know when we're. Our time is up, right? And so to live in the now and to make sure that you. You tell your people not only in voice, but also in your actions, you're amazing. You're special to me, and I love you. And because of that, I want to care for you. I want to bring you dignity in your last days. I want to bring you as much comfort and hope as you move through this transition, whatever it is, because we only get to see it once, right? I mean, some people, I guess, have gone off and then come back. I've never had that, you know, near death experience or, you know, been able to come back and see a light and all that sort of stuff. But so really none of us know what that transition's like. So it's got to be disturbing, frightening, you know, even if for the most faithful of people. But to have someone there holding your hand, to be able to say, it's okay, you know, and I'm with you, I'll help you in any way I can. It just really helps close the circle. I mean, someone brought me into this world, and I hope someone holds my hand when I'm going out. And so I think at the very least, we could just try to pay that forward if we were given the opportunity and hold somebody else's hand as they're on their way out, you know, so.

[37:08] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: That's beautiful, Jim. It really is. It's a wonderful gift that you have, that you offer that way.

[37:15] JIM ZELLERS: Yeah. It's not easy, but, you know, when you dive in and you say, I believe I should do this, I think you're given the strength to be able to do it.

[37:28] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Well. And so is there any last things that you'd like to. Any last story you might like to share at this point that you feel an urgency to share?

[37:43] JIM ZELLERS: No, but there is one thing I would really like to just say in conclusion. I guess we've touched on the fact that I'm married. I have a wonderful husband. We've been together 20 years. We've been married for five. And I say to people, when they ask me, some people will say, what's your greatest accomplishment? You know, my instruments. My music career has taken me all over the world, playing in various countries, living in various countries. I've been very blessed to have a great career as a teacher at various colleges and universities. And yet with all of that and all of that, that seems like that would be the pinnacle of anybody's life. I really feel like. And this is the answer I always give, my proudest thing is that I am married to somebody who I love and who loves me. And because all the rest of it is just what we do. And at least for me, that's not who I am. And so I really feel like if anything was written on my epitaph, it was, you know, he loved and was able to receive love and, you know, was hopefully a good, faithful husband.

[39:07] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Wow. What wonderful words to close by. Thank you, Jim. It's been an honor to hear you share some more about yourself in your life and to hear that, and I will carry that with me in my heart.

[39:22] JIM ZELLERS: You're very sweet to ask me to do it, and I'm honored. Thank you. Jim, would you mind just telling Kathy.

[39:32] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: How did you and Jim meet?

[39:35] JIM ZELLERS: Oh, sure. Jim and I actually met in a bar. Painting us out to be all this, you know, holy Catholic couple or whatever. We met in a bar and it was Halloween weekend, and we ventured out for the same reason. We ended up at the same bar, and we were, I think, the only two people in there without a costume on. But we wanted to come out and see all the crazy costumes and people dressed in drag on Halloween in a gay bar. Right. I was not living in Georgia at the time. I was. So I was staying in a hotel, and I saw this guy at the bar and he had the dreamiest blue eyes I'd ever seen. And suddenly everybody else, all the crazy costumes and the people in the bar all fell away. And four hours later, we closed the bar down. Just talking.

[40:31] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Oh, I just love that I can.

[40:32] JIM ZELLERS: Just talking about, you know, ourselves and our families and, you know, he's an Irish Catholic, I'm an Italian Catholic, and we just hit it off from there, and. Yep. As the rest, as they say, is history.

[40:48] KATHY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Oh, awesome.

[40:52] JIM ZELLERS: Yay.