Kima Mora and Sally [No Name Given]

[00:06] KIM MORA: My name is Kim Mora I am 63 years old. The date is June 11, 2022. I am in the story corps virtual recording booth. I am here with Sally, my one step conversation partner.

[00:24] SALLY: My name is Sally. I am 54 years old. The date is June 11, 2022. I am in the StoryCorps Virtual Virtual Recording booth. And I'm here with Kima my one small step conversation partner.

[00:48] KIM MORA: Why did you want to do this interview today? I wanted to do this interview today to get the other side to see a different perspective, to be educated.

[01:02] SALLY: And that's pretty much the same reason that I wanted to do this interview and just to have a chance to connect with someone with a different opinion, different background, and to do it in a safe place with a positive, positive connection.

[01:26] KIM MORA: Sally's bio. I was born and raised in a small town and went to a small college. I taught school for a few years and now working in musical retail. I was raised in a Methodist church but have converted to Judaism. The event that is most special to my life was becoming a bat mitzvah. My father died in November and I still miss him dearly right now. The issues that are important to me are the division of our country and the effects Covid has had on all of us. I have a question. You changed your religion. Was it for a marriage, a spouse, or for yourself?

[02:12] SALLY: For myself.

[02:15] KIM MORA: And do you enjoy it?

[02:18] SALLY: I very much enjoy it. I'm very active and happy in the Jewish community here.

[02:28] KIM MORA: Did you have to ask permission?

[02:31] SALLY: Did I have to ask permission to change your religion? From who?

[02:38] KIM MORA: From met to become a Methodist to a. To a Jew. Did you have to ask permission?

[02:44] SALLY: I had to go through a conversion class, if that's what you mean. I. I had to do a conversion class and work with the rabbi and, and then converted. The reason, it was about a two year or so class.

[03:01] KIM MORA: Oh, my goodness. The reason I ask is I was born and raised Catholic and I come from the Mexican family. The patriarch had passed, but the matriarch of our family, we had to go to her and ask her permission to change our religion. I am now Catholic light. I'm Episcopalian. It's, you know, lessons, guilt, you know, so. And I got. And nobody would ask my grandmother and they were all astounded and I said, yay. So I'm Episcopalian and I enjoy it. So I understand that. You know, I did it for two reasons. I didn't like. I didn't like the church. I didn't like what I saw and heard about the church. It wasn't who I was. And I was becoming more empowered as I got older in years, and I wanted to find something that I was close to, that I could still do some of the things that I liked in the Catholic Church, but I didn't want to remain a Catholic. And the joke in my family is Kima is a recovering Catholic, so I still have a little bit of it. So when I read that, I was like, that's amazing. Somebody else did it, too. I wondered if they had asked their grandma, too.

[04:18] SALLY: No. In fact, my parents were very supportive. I. I struggled with Christianity for quite a long time. And my father was. He. He was pretty much an agnostic, but very, very interested in religion and studied it avidly, but he really always questioned, you know, whether there really was a God and questioned everything that, you know, all of the standard beliefs in Christianity. And so I grew up with that kind of thinking, and I just didn't connect with Christianity. And. And I had some kind of negative experiences with growing up with some kids that were, you know, proclaimed. Proclaimed very religious Christians. And although that really probably had less to do with Christianity and more to do with them, it kind of left a bad taste. And so I was looking for a. A church that had a more open belief and just a different kind of thinking. And I had visited a lot of churches, and my dad gave me a book to read called Finding your religion or something like that. And when I came to Judaism, I thought these ideas and these thoughts that were expressed are exactly what I believe. And so then I read a book. Book. They. They just had little small explanations of several different religions. And then they recommended books to read. And so I read a book by Harold Kushner, and I became very interested, and I had some friends that were Jewish, and they invited me to come visit, and it was. I was all in. So now I'm very. I'm very active. I go to services all the time. And I never was like that with Christianity. Judaism has just been something that's been very special to me and very, very, very helpful to my life, actually.

[06:23] KIM MORA: So here's a question I've often wondered, and now that I have someone that has experienced Judaism and temporary. Do the Jewish people believe in God and in Jesus?

[06:38] SALLY: We believe in God. We believe that. We don't believe that Jesus was the son of God. Whether Jesus existed or not, you know, that's kind of a. Maybe he did, but. And was a very good man, but not a God, not a son of God. We don't believe. We believe that the Savior or whatever is yet to come.

[07:09] KIM MORA: Okay?

[07:10] SALLY: The Messiah. The Messiah is yet to come.

[07:13] KIM MORA: Okay? And so it's very hard for me to wrap my head around different religions because like I said, I was brought up Catholic. And of course I had a man standing up there giving me a one hour book report out of the Bible. And I never cracked a Bible until I got older. And then I was like, hey, wait a minute, this is a great story from COVID to cover, all these different things that happen. And it was like, I want to know more, and I want to know more about different religions because I had a friend of mine who was a Jehovah's Witness. And then I had a friend that I worked with, and she was Jewish, but she was very particular in what she told me. She was very selective, so I couldn't get information. And of course I grew up with a bunch of Catholics around me, so that was a no brainer. And then my mother had converted. She was a Protestant and she converted to Catholicism. So I understand the changing everything. And of course she had to get permission from my grandmother to join the religion. And she did it because she was marrying my father and for us children to repeat as a Catholic household. So do you think in the world, the way it is so chaotic and topsy turvy right now, do you think that God is missing out of our lives? That we've just kind of put him on a back burner and we're just doing our own thing? Is that why this is so, so topsy turvy? I hear in passing different people having conversations and they're saying, oh, it's Armageddon and the apocalypse is coming. The. The world is coming to an end. Well, I thought to myself, I've heard this since I was a kid. The guy standing on the corner with the sign, the end is near. I don't feel like it is, but I'm trying to get a grounding. It's like, am I. Am I praying for things that are never going to happen? Is this why our world is this way? Is because we're being punished? Or am I waiting for something that will never come? Why is this happening to us? We've been hit with a plague. We've been hit with COVID And we shut down for two years. And then all of a sudden, everybody changed. We weren't a country that was united. We started to divide one by one. And then things were interjected. How do you feel about that? What do you think? Am I on the wrong track?

[09:50] SALLY: Well, I actually think I Think less on the. You know, I don't look at it as God is missing. I think the teachings of God is missing. I think the teachings of religion are missing in our lives. The morals and the back. The things that religion focus on. That's just, you know, it's just my opinion, but I know our congregation is very small, and I know that especially since COVID people aren't coming back to services like they were. And I've heard that about other Christian religions as well, that they're the. The congreg. The attendance is way down. And I think that's where we hear about. I mean, that's where we learn these things is when we attend. At least that's where I learn these things, you know, like how to treat one another, how to accept each other. And, you know, a lot of the things that I'm involved in at the temple aren't even necessarily in the weekly service, but just working together and being together and creating things together.

[11:26] KIM MORA: You have to learn to cooperate and you have to learn how to behave.

[11:29] SALLY: To one another and how to treat each other with respect.

[11:32] KIM MORA: And that's all kind of stopped, you.

[11:36] SALLY: Know, especially with COVID we stopped being around one another.

[11:41] KIM MORA: Everything is Facebook and we don't communicate with one another.

[11:46] SALLY: We don't talk face to face. I think cell phones have been really bad for our society. I think that definitely all this stuff has a place in our society, but I think we've become totally electronic and very little face to face in person connection. I mean, even this kind of connection is to me, more. It's like a face to face because we're actually talking to one another, but when you're typing something, it's just completely different. And texting is, you know, people don't want to be called. They just want to text. They don't want to. It. I find it very kind of scary. I think that's had a huge effect, you know, at the danger of getting into my own personal politics too. I think Donald Trump had a bad effect on our society. Just. And I say this with the caveat that my mother is a staunch Trump. She would champion him. She's a very supportive of Trump. So it's not that I'm, you know, I'm very centralist in my views, but I just think the man himself had an. Had some bad. What I don't think he didn't. Let me. Let me say it this way. He didn't demonstrate positive morals and positive values the way I would like a president to do.

[13:33] KIM MORA: I would tend to agree with you, I absolutely.

[13:36] SALLY: As far as his polit, you know, as far as what he did to our country, as far as, you know, leadership, that kind of thing, I think that's a bigger question. You know, who's to say what's right and what's wrong with how things, with the decisions he made. But just with the way he acted.

[14:00] KIM MORA: And presented himself, he wasn't very presidential. He wasn't like any president I can recall in all the years I've ever voted. And I could not believe that he won it. At 2:30 in the morning, I get a call from my sister and she's crying and she's living on the phone. I have no idea what's going on. I'm thinking we've lost a family member. And she goes, she goes, he did it, he did it. And I'm like, okay, he did it. Your husband, what's wrong? Because that, that guy, he won. Trump won. What's going to happen to our world? Even before we had any idea, and because we had the discussion of what if, that was the big thing, what if? And it was like, I think that was like the beginning of the tipping point for our society. And like you said, and I agree, cell phones and technology have totally changed us. And then when Covet hit, we went to Zoom and we weren't in offices and we weren't having that interaction. And I'm looking at this computer screen and I see three women and I can look at your facial expression so I can read you. But if I'm texting, you may misunderstand what I'm saying, unless I use a little emoji to give you an idea. And I've sat in restaurants even before COVID hit, and I would see a couple dating, a teenage couple, no less, and what are they doing? They're not having a conversation. They are heads down on their phone and they're laughing and they're texting one another. I can't imagine having a date with my husband and not talk to him to find out what he's like. And I'm texting it. They may have, you know, quick thumb skills or whatever, but that's not communication. And I think that it's only going to get worse. And that's just the way I perceive it, is that it's only going to get worse. I have a son that is autistic. And communication in our house is a big thing. I make him use his words, I make him talk, I make him ask questions. I have to constantly remind him that you have to speak to people. You have to look at them. You have to learn to read their face. You know, it's like reading a room. You know, what is the. You know, how does the room feel about this? And I find it, even though we're in the same city, we are pretty much on the same track. We are, like, parallel. We're just chugging right along. I am saddened. And I have to tell you this. When you mentioned Trump, my heart leaped. When I watched the first hearing, I got physically sick, and I was crying because all I could see was, like, somebody burning our flag. That glory was being burned.

[17:01] SALLY: Are you talking about the January 6th hearing?

[17:04] KIM MORA: Yes. Yes, I am.

[17:05] SALLY: You haven't watched any of that, and.

[17:07] KIM MORA: A lot of people chose not to. So, spoiler alert, you may not.

[17:12] SALLY: Well, I don't have television so that.

[17:14] KIM MORA: I can't watch it, but we. We watched it. And again, it's for an educational purpose because I know my son will see it and he will ask me, and I don't like to be blindsided. And. But I. I cried. I cried for my country. I cried for my land. I cried for all the Americans in the United States. We are the greatest country in the world. We have freedoms.

[17:39] SALLY: And.

[17:40] KIM MORA: And I think as Americans, sometimes we forget those freedoms that men and women have fought for. And my father was one. He fought in Korea, and he was a Marine. And we were brought up. You know, education was very important. My father paid my grandfather to get an education. He came from a family of 10. He was the first one to graduate, and he had daughters. My dad had me and my sister. So he stressed education, and he loved history. And so as I'm watching history change in front of me and hearing you talk about it, it's like, I'm not the only one. There are others that feel this way, and we're kind of walking hand in hand, trying to find some kind of common ground and be grounded. And I'm thankful we're in the town that we're in. It's not a metropolis like New York or Los Angeles. I can only imagine that this is such a culture shock. And we are here in the Midwest, and we have those values. And I agree with you about God. And the teachings need to be more. If you go into a courtroom, it says, in God we trust behind the judge. If you look on our money, it says the same thing. You know, And I remember growing up, and that was one of the things. You have to have kindness and compassion and do unto others as you would like. Them to onto you. And these were instilled in us. And so we don't know what the other person's going through. I may take a look at someone and think, oh, they're not dressed very well. Well, I don't know what they're going through. I don't know what life or tragedy has happened. Who am I to be judged during an angle? I'm not. And I have to remember that. I have to have a compassionate heart, and I do that a lot, especially now. I listen to many people. I come in contact, they'll tell me their woes or they're sick or whatever. And I remember my heart. I have to. And people have told me, kim, you're generous to a fault, you know? You know, but I try to do something to be uplifting. And I think we're getting away from that. And with the chaos it is, it's getting more difficult because people are suspicious, well, why are we doing this? What is your motive? What do you want from me? And it's like, I don't want anything. I'm. I'm trying to lift you up. This is what God wants us to be. He wants us to be good people. That's what we got to get back to. We have to be a country united, not a country divided. And I'm hoping one day maybe you and I will be the bridge that bridges everyone together. Maybe there'll be thousands behind us. We just link hands and go, you know, we're bringing it around, we're bringing it back. We have to, for our children and our grandchildren. I don't want to leave this world like it is now for my grandchildren. I'm very grateful as a grandmother. Well.

[20:43] SALLY: I agree with what you're saying completely. The thing that really kind of scares me is to look around at the people like I look at my. My mother, for example. She's a wonderful woman. She is a wonderful, caring, generous woman. But she fell completely into the Trump rhetoric, and everything that he said was okay and everything, you know. Well, he didn't really mean it that way, or. I mean, it was almost like a brainwashing. And that's. That's what I immediately went to, you know, when actually, I was one of the few people, I think, who, when Trump won, was not totally shocked, and I. Very disappointed, but not totally shocked. I. I was shocked more when he won the Republican nomination than I was when he won the presidency, because.

[21:53] KIM MORA: I.

[21:54] SALLY: Don'T think our country is at a point where we would elect a woman yet, which is disappointing. But I think that's why he won is because he was running against Hillary, and she's a woman. And we still have a lot of male dominance in our country, a lot of it more than we realize. My father was pretty much a male chauvinist. And I'm saying these things. I love my parents. They're wonderful people. And. But that's where. That's how they were raised. You know, that's the background he came from, and I can understand that, and I can forgive him that. But going forward, the generations going forward, we have to correct that. We have to find a way to open that more up. And we have somewhat. But I see that going backwards now. And of course, my own opinion is that the abortion situation is going backwards, not forwards. And I know. I know there are a lot of religious beliefs around abortion, but that's part of why I feel like it should be legal, because we aren't all the same religion. And I might choose a certain. My personal choice would be probably very different than what I. My personal choice would probably be not to have an abortion, but that doesn't mean that everyone's personal choice would be to have to not have one. And I think we need to be allowed to have our own beliefs that way and still be able to accept one another. That's the. That's the part that I see so scary is that we have so many different ideas and beliefs, but we aren't giving space for them. We aren't allowing one another to have a different belief. And I don't have to agree with it. My mom and I don't agree about Trump. We argue avidly about it, but at the end, we still love one another, we still respect one another, we still have space for each other. To have our own opinions. Doesn't mean we have to agree. It just means we have to be respectful and honor those ideas and say, okay, you believe something different than what I believe, but I still love you, and you're still my mother and I, you know, and I have friends on Facebook that I see they have completely cut off their friends who. Who agree with Trump. They won't even talk to him anymore. And that's ridiculous. What kind of loss you've had in your life because you've lost a good person out of your life. Just because they have a different belief doesn't make them a bad person. It just makes them a person with a different belief. And we need to learn to be understanding of that, especially if you want to have any kind of persuasion to persuade them to your belief. They aren't going to persuade if you completely cut them off and completely turn them off and don't even listen to what they have to say. If you really want to change the world, we have to learn to persuade one another. And we also have to learn to allow ourselves to be persuaded because sometimes we're wrong. So we have to be able to be open to hearing other people's ideas and saying, oh, you know, that's a perspective I haven't heard before. And that's something for me to take on board and consider. And we have to get away from the fear of changing our minds. We have this fear that once I have my mind set up, I am not changing it. If I do, I'm wishy washy. And that's not true. If you do, you're wise. You know, it used to be a wise man could change their opinion if they felt like they got an opinion that was more accurate. Go ahead.

[26:33] KIM MORA: It's not like we, you have to agree to disagree. That's what we should be, agree to disagree regarding the abortion. Because like I said, I was on recovering Catholic and I just never believed this because there were situations in my life that that situation came up and it was the health, it was health related and I had to have them and I didn't want to, but I had to because it, the child would be severely deformed. And they told me and I just, I took care of it, but that was my choice because Roe vs. Wade was enacted. I believe this, this is my belief and no one instilled it in me but me. This is my body. God made this, made this whole thing. It's me. I have free will. He gave me free free will. No man in Congress, no president, no Senate, no one can tell me what I can and can't do with my own body. That's my feeling. If that was the case, then we should tell every man and they probably jump with joy. You have to get out of the sector. You can't have children, you can't carry on your life. How would you like that? Every child you have automatically 10% of your income goes to cover this or cover that. For health care, mental health, you men make decision on women's bodies. It's not theirs to do. And that's, that's my belief. And I've always felt so strongly about it. And I'm like, I have all these sisters across the world and there are women in countries that they have, are being sexually mutilated. And that's part of their upbringing and stuff. And I'm thinking, why? And it's by men, it's by the government, by the country. And if. And I've heard this, and I was like, okay, I don't want to listen to this because I need to focus on what we have here. But I'm thinking it gave someone an idea here in the United States. Well, we can just tell women, you can't do this. It's a law. It's been debated, it's been protested, it's been marched, it's in the books. Leave it alone. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Don't try to tell me what I can and can't do.

[29:02] SALLY: Well, and I have a different perspective too, from the standpoint of, in Judaism, they don't believe that it's a child until it's a life, until it comes out of the body. So for you to tell me it's a life before it comes out of the body is denying my religious beliefs. And that's not allowed in our constitution. So how is it constitutional to ban abortion? That's another perspective that I have. But it's interesting that you say the thing about men. I get a little bit concerned about that because there are plenty of women who are wanting to restrict my right to choose what I do with my body. I mean, there are, There are women who are in favor of. Of outlying abortion, and it's not their right either. It's no one's right to tell me what to do with my body, whether they be male or female.

[30:03] KIM MORA: Exactly. And that's a very good point. And the reason I have this belief, abortion, being raised Catholic, is because they do believe that at conception, that is. That's a child. I mean, when that little heart ticks off, that's. That's your baby. And you're just, you know, you're the incubator. You're growing it. That's. That's going to be another Catholic in the parish. And I just, I just, I. I never believe that. I believe, as, I guess as the. In Judaism, that, that once that child is born and I am holding that child in my arms, then that's a child. That is a life. It is here. You cannot, you know, dispel that. It's not. But during the time it's inside of me growing, it's not a child yet. It's an embryo that is being formed and muscles and tissue and brain and heart. That's all it is. Because there are many embryos that don't make it. And you have miscarriages or they're still born babies. You know, that's, it's, it, it's funny because everything kind of locks together. And when I say that. Let me clarify. Men are trying to tell us, women, and some women are trying to tell us as well, that Roe vs. Wade needs to be abolished. I love that word, abolished, because it's, it's not right, you know, that that child needs to live. But at the same time, we're not going to allow you to kill this child that you're carrying. But we will give you, at 18 years of age, until recently, will give you a semi automatic gun to go out and kill people. Now that to me is disconcerting. It's like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. And it frightens me because I'm wondering, why do these lawmakers listen to this? Why are they not listening to their constituents and how they feel? They make laws, they pass them. Like I said, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Well, the gun laws are broken and we need to fix it. And there is a clear path. And recently they are making headway. And of course, everybody thinks the president can just snap his fingers and it's done. It's not, it doesn't work that way. It's the House and the Senate that do. And I worry, I worry terribly. We've had mass shootings every day. I mean, you turn around, you hear about another shooting, and especially the children that have passed and the teachers that have passed. And my grandson is just getting into junior high. And I fear, I mean, it can happen anywhere. It can happen in a big community, in a small town. It could happen to my grandson. And I don't. And I can imagine what it would feel like. I heard a mother talk about that. You don't want to feel what. I'm going through this and we need to stop this. But why? Why do we not address this? Why are they not listening to us? We vote. Women vote. We got the vote. Let's use it. We have been trying for years to crack that glass ceiling to get better pay to be equal to men, yet we have men stifling us. They're trying to tell us that we can't have children and, and we can't do this and we can't do that. But yet when they want us to do what at their will? At their will, then you know it. I'm not making myself clear, but do you. The point I'm making is that it is A old boys network. And you and I are women and we can change it and we just have to do like you said. We have to get people to agree to disagree. We can't persuade each other or at least give you food for thought. Even if I don't change your mind or you don't change my mind, you've given me food for thought. You've nourished my brain with some knowledge. And I would like to do that with everyone I come in contact with. Even if it's just a morsel and it's my opinion it doesn't mean much, but it means a lot to me. But if it gives you food for thought, then we can go on and maybe that little morsel will spread to the next woman and the next man and the next child. And then, you know, we've turned it around and we are back as a country and we are America, the melting pot. And that's what I hope.

[35:00] SALLY: Well, I think the other side of the women's issues is that we as women have to stop feeding into the male chauvinist attitudes. I have to be careful. I work for a woman boss and, and I see her treat men differently than she treats women. And it's. I don't think she even realizes it. You know, I don't. I think there's a lot of this kind of thing that goes on that it's gone on for so long, we don't even realize it. And that's something that had opened my eyes when it comes to African American and black. Well, any race, racial issues is. I mean, I've always been aware of racial issues and sympathetic to that. But the, at the idea of. There are so. There's so much racism that is so heavily. We have, we've been living it for so long, we don't even realize that we're living it. We don't even realize what we're doing. And I've become aware of that just because of my own experience as a woman. And the other side of that is the understanding of there, you know, religion. There are, there are aspects of religion that get, you know, like anti Semitism and that kind of thing. But you can't look at someone and know that they're Jewish and be reminded of that every moment. But you do when someone is, has a certain race or when they're a woman, you can't hide from that fact. You can't hide that. You can't say, you just not tell them that you're black or not tell them that you're a woman or not, tell them that you're a certain race, they can see that you wear that. And it's something that we've got to address that as a society. We've got to under, we've got to start recognizing where these things are just built in, they're just a part of who we are and start changing that. I don't know how you do that, but there, there has to be a way. I mean, and I recognize that we have made huge strides as far as racism and sexism. We have made, I mean, we can look back into history and see how far we've come. But recently there's been very small amount of change. And I think we need to evaluate what to do about that, how to address it.

[38:18] KIM MORA: I am from a mixed marriage. My mother was Anglo and my father was Mexican. And I grew up, up in a Mexican community. My cousins, I'm a light, I'm white. And I would get teased and I would just say as a coping mechanism. I use joking as a coping method. Well, I'm light because I grew up in the shade. You know, I wasn't as dark as my sister who was a dark haired raven girl with really pretty brown skin. And I'm like complected. And I have, it's great now, but it was brown hair and I, I dealt with that a lot. And my father, his generation, he didn't want to speak in Spanish in the house. I'd go to my grandmother in her home and she'd ask me questions in Spanish and I'd have to look at my aunt and like, you want to interpret? And I started learning a little bit as I got older. My sister refused to because she wasn't going to go against my dad and his wishes. But I wanted to learn again. I want that knowledge. I want you to be that knowledge. And I was embarrassed. I had ran for a Mexican veteran Mexican pageant and one of the questions was vanishing your house? And sadly I had to say no. I was so embarrassed, I felt mortified. After I was done with the question panel for this contest, I went back to my room and I cried because I didn't know my language. I was here. I was second generation, second generation Mexican American. And I knew English, read and write, speak it, but I didn't know Spanish. I could not communicate with my grandmother at all. It was difficult and I would have to count on my aunt to help me. So when you talk about racism, I've dealt with it and I've been one of the lucky ones because I Walked that fine line because I look Anglo, I look American. Unless, you know, you know, that I'm Mexican. Just looking at me, you can't tell. And you're right, you can't tell with me. You couldn't. But if you heard my name, you'd wonder, And I've had that in interviews. Is it a he? Is it a she? Is. Are they Mexican? Are they Greek, Are they Spanish, Are they Italian? You know, so there's always racism. And then when I've had interviews, especially men who interview me. Oh, you're not what I expected. You know, I thought you were going to be, you know, Japanese or something. Or something. I don't know. Yeah, but I get it. Yeah. You can't tell. And that's a good point anyway, that I just wanted to say something on that matter because I lived it, and I still live it every day. When people see me, they don't realize it.

[41:18] SALLY: Yeah.

[41:28] KIM MORA: Oh.

[41:28] SALLY: Sort of your earliest memories of politics and sort of your evolution from your first memory of politics to now. My first memory of politics, that stands out in my mind. I just have this vivid memory of being in grade school and we voted for. And it was between Ford and. Was it Carter? Ford and Carter, and we voted. And I. I just have this vivid memory of that. I don't know why. And, you know, I was raised in a family that was very Republican, and until I was in college, I pretty much just followed the Republican line because that's what I knew and that's what my parents did, and so they knew best. And. And it wasn't really. Until I got out on my own, I sort of branched out to. I'm still a registered Republican, but mostly because I just don't change my registration. It's too much hassle, and it really doesn't matter. I can vote for whoever I want to, and that's what I do. You know, sometimes I vote Republican, sometimes I vote Democrat. It depends on the person and what they believe and what they stand for and whether my beliefs line up with them or not. And so that's kind of where my politics began.

[43:18] KIM MORA: From the moment I was 18, I was able to vote. The first time I voted was when Reagan had ran, and I voted for him because at the time I was. I had no idea. And I asked my father, and he says, well, this is Kansas for a Republican state. And that's all he said. He didn't tell me who to vote for. And I thought, okay. When I went to the. Went to the booth, I saw R. Okay, well, We're Republican. I'll vote for this guy with an R. Then as I got older and started living through Reaganomics, I saw different things that I liked that I didn't like, and I became middle of the road. Then my father decided he was going to run for state Senate to oust out Norma Daniels in the Republican ticket. And so I would go and canvas for him, and only because he was my father did I canvassed for a Republican. I found myself to be a Democrat. And if people ask me, you know, who would you vote for? And I say, I'd vote for the other guy. And they go, but your father. And I go, well, yeah, I'm not loyal to the party. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm looking at, you know, who's going to do the better job. And I knew my father and so I knew what his thinking was and it was on the, what the Republican Party used to be like. It's nothing now. And so that is my earliest recollection. And that's why I'm kind of not that my father was back, but I'm kind of soured on the Republican Party because I remember what it was like and I see what it is now and it is nothing more than a circus. And I tell myself, not my monkeys, not my circus. I'm so glad I am a Democrat that I'm walking middle of the road. You know, I'm not left, I'm not right. I'm just in the middle. And I, and I agree. I will vote for whoever does the best in the, you know, when we go to the general election, that's when I pick the person I think will do the best job. And we'll will listen to the constituents and knows the Constitution. They've got to know that and they've got to do that because our world is so chaotic and the United States needs better than that. We made a mistake, but we can correct a mistake. There's no mistake that cannot be corrected. So let's learn from this, all of us, let's learn from this. That's how I look at it. And I know there's people that will his, you know, that's fine. I'm going to stand up next to you because you have that right to freedom of speech. And I'm going to fight with you and say, yes, you can boo and hiss me. That's my right. You know, you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe. And that's part of the Constitution. Free speech. Yeah, there's my little Wig. Thank you very much. Yes, that question was excellent today. I was pleasantly surprised that Sally and I are on a parallel track and that we believe in so many things. In this town of ours that has grown hundreds of thousands of people, there's this lady that is in Judaism, and she believes like I do, and she wants the best for our country. And she thinks that takeaway was to think that the teachings of God should be back. That's the morals and the values. I was so pleasantly surprised. It was like, wow, that's great. Who knew? So that was. I learned that today. And so I want to thank you for that food for thought and that. That nourishment you just gave my brain, it really needed a boost. And I am so. I am so happy to have met you, and I wish you the very best, and no matter what your road leads you to. And I'm glad we can agree to disagree on some things, but more likely, we agree on a lot. And that is joyous. So thank you. And thank you, Julia.

[47:45] SALLY: And for me to answer that question, is there something that surprised me about you today? What surprised me most was the first question you asked was about religion. And. And that was a pleasant surprise to me because religion is a big, huge interest of mine and a huge part of my life. And so I really was more focused on thinking we would be talking more about politics, unless, you know, I hadn't really even thought down the religious side of things. And I was very pleasantly surprised and also surprised that you are Episcopalian, because my. The woman who officiated my father's funeral was Episcopalian. She was a friend of his, and she was Episcopalian, and he wanted her to do the service. And so that was a pleasant surprise. And just the whole conversation has been very pleasant. I've learned a lot and enjoyed talking with you.

[48:54] KIM MORA: Same here. I agree.