Leida Javier-Ferrell and Jean-Paul Vivoni

[00:03] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: My name is Leida Javier Ferrell. Family calls me Leida but in mobile they try to avoid my Javier last name. And they call me Doctor Leida sometimes. I'm 71 years old and nothing is stopping me right now. Today is November 11, 2023. We are in Mobile, Alabama, and my partner is the love of my life, my son, John Paul Vivoni. And he's here with me, and I'm so proud of him.

[00:40] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: My name is John Paul Vivoni. I am 50 years old. Today is November 11, 2023. We are in Mobile, Alabama. I'm here with my mother, Leida, Javier, and here we go.

[00:56] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: There we go. So do you want to ask me something, my son?

[01:00] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Dear son, I've been kind of wondering for a while about life situation. Your details of the time of the Vietnam war, when you were in Puerto Rico, and I guess you were engaged with my dad and what was going on.

[01:27] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yeah, the Vietnam war was going on while we were in college. And your dad was in the ROTC. So he was directly going to be what we call Carne de Caon to Vietnam, which is cannon meat. Let me make an apart, because it's important to note that more Puerto Ricans have enlisted and died in the armed forces of the United States per capita than in any other state in the nation. Not only that, Puerto Ricans were given the us citizenship to fight, to be able to recruit men, recruit them to fight in the first world War. Your great grandfather was in the navy and he was a spy for the american navy. And he was infiltrated. Yeah, Papitoaco, he was Carlos Montalvo Kohlberg. He was white, he spoke English. And they were able to infiltrate him with the anarchists, the Reds. And he was pulled before they. They killed him. So let me go back to your question. So, yes, we were in the. We were in the middle of the Vietnam War.

[02:52] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And Papi, my grandfather also served, right?

[02:54] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yes, my father served and he has a commentator. And it's nice that we're talking about this because yesterday was Veterans Day. See, my father also served and he got the commendatory that was during the second World War Commendation Medal for his service and maintaining the troops morale. He was shows and all kinds of things. So what happened was very incredible. We, your father asked for one year of delay after we finished college. He asked the armed forces, the army, to do a one year delay after his ROTC. He was a lieutenant. They granted the one year delay to study the master's degree. We went in May to Iowa to study a master's degree. And in December, we came down to New Orleans in our time off. And while we were in New Orleans in January. I'm sorry, in January, Nixon came on the tv. We were in the hotel room, came on tv to say that he was ending the Vietnam war. I cried for two days. I started running up and down the hotel screaming and crying because that meant that your father was not going to Vietnam. So that's how he got out of going to Vietnam. Not because.

[04:17] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Why were you in New Orleans?

[04:19] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: It was vacation time in between classes. And for some reason they had the Christmas break. And then we came back for.

[04:28] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And you were married by then?

[04:29] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: We were married.

[04:30] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Wow.

[04:30] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yeah. We got married very young in college. I was 20. I was 21 when I had you.

[04:36] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[04:37] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And, yeah, as a matter of fact, I was pregnant with you. And I got sick in New Orleans, and I knew that I was pregnant with you. All those things happen at the same time. Thank you for that question.

[04:48] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I just like to. I've heard bits and pieces. Never heard, like, the whole story. The whole story.

[04:55] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: It's good that you do.

[04:56] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[04:59] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: How about you tell me something about you that I don't know?

[05:04] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Oh, no.

[05:05] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Oh, yes.

[05:06] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: We gotta keep this decent. I have no idea. What are you.

[05:16] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Well, one of the things that amazes me about you was that we came to the States to study. You were born that year. And then we went back to Puerto Rico and stayed some years there. And we came back to the United States and you picked up the English to study our doctorate. And you picked up the English in a few months again.

[05:38] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: It might have flashed. Well, you know, I forgot all my English. I guess the English was my first language.

[05:45] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I remember you singing. We were in Massachusetts, in Boston, so.

[05:51] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I knew English by then.

[05:52] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You knew English. You would sing my bunny lies off of the auction because it was in Boston and we had a tape of that. I don't know where it is.

[05:59] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I don't know.

[06:01] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: But we spoke Spanish in the house with the tv. So, like, taught you the English and.

[06:06] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: The friends and I forgot it.

[06:08] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And then you taught a lot of Spanish to the kids in the neighborhood while we were in the armed forces. The mothers would call me, my child is wanting a bezel. And I don't know what that is, you know. So I kept talking to all those mothers. Because you were teaching Spanish to the kids around. Yeah.

[06:25] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Then I went to Puerto Rico and forgot English.

[06:28] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You didn't want to speak it.

[06:30] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Well, I forgot.

[06:30] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You put your hands in your. I don't want it because you wanted to talk to me.

[06:33] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I was getting bad grades in English class, so I didn't know anything. But, yeah, I do remember it like in the movies where you're just saying, I don't understand English. I don't understand. Then all of a sudden, wait a second, I know what they're saying. And it was like in a school bus one day. It was just instant. So we came back, I guess it just came back.

[06:55] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: It came back. Being bilingual is. You have. It's like bicycle. Once you have a language, it will.

[07:02] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Come back if you really, really. Suppressed, I guess. Suppressed.

[07:07] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: So life went on, and we were in Puerto Rico for some years. And then this crazy thing happened that I was in the process of a divorce with your father after 25 years, came to a party to mobile and met Sam. And it took a year for us to get together. And then eventually, after we got married, we invited you to come in.

[07:29] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And, well, I just came to visit a couple of summers. And then that one summer, you said, go and see if there's any jobs available. Remember that?

[07:38] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yeah.

[07:39] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And I just. I was working at a tv station in Puerto Rico. So I said, let's go to the tv stations here. You remember that?

[07:47] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You got the job the same day.

[07:49] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: No. Yeah. No, I said, do you have a job for, you know, any jobs? They said, well, we need a news editor tonight. I'm like, okay. So I did that news tonight, the video editing and the cameras and all that stuff. And I went back to the house and I was staying with you that during the summer. Said, I did the news tonight and they gave me the job.

[08:14] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: So you started working with NBC?

[08:16] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Well, I went back to Puerto Rico and gave them the two week notice. And then I came back. Yeah, channel 15.

[08:21] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Fantastic. What is the main difference between living in Puerto Rico and living here? Do you.

[08:27] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Well, you know, that question. You know, remember misses Reeves? The woman tutored me when I was, what, five?

[08:34] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yes, I remember her.

[08:36] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: She would tutor me to learn English because I didn't know English. When I came back to Illinois, she asked me, where do you feel that freedom. Freedom, you know, because we're very proud here in the states of freedom. I said, back home, she said, why? I said, because it's just open fields. I can do whatever I want. Nobody cares. I mean, it's just like, you know, I felt more free in Puerto Rico. And I said, there's a lot of rules here. There's a lot of, you know. And she was surprised.

[09:11] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: It's a more contractual society.

[09:14] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah. And it was basically, I was little. So I don't know. I was comparing city life with country life. That's basically what it was, you know?

[09:22] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yeah. Normal Illinois.

[09:25] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: This is very city normal stuff. But, yeah, that was. But what was your question?

[09:31] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: How about mobile?

[09:33] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Here in mobile?

[09:33] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yeah.

[09:36] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: It was different for me because back home, a semi professional band, and everybody knew me. I don't know anybody. I don't know, you know, people would come and say hi to me, and I didn't know who they were. So it was a little intrusive. I felt a little like everybody was watching me. So when I came here, I actually felt like, it doesn't matter. I can do whatever I want. I mean, you know, within law. But I. But I don't have to pay attention to how I looked or where I am or societal rules. I know you like very social situations. I was looking to be away from all that, just to just be who I am and not worry too much. And it's gradually become less that because, you know, you get more and more into the society here, then you start knowing a lot of people again.

[10:37] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: It took me some time to get my footings here because.

[10:40] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah, you like it? I wasn't even looking for it.

[10:44] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Well, but still, when I came, when I was in Puerto Rico, I was the vice president of university. I have been at dean and everything, and I come here, and there's nothing for me. Nothing. And I was living in the river in a cabin, and I was going crazy.

[10:58] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: That's what I wanted.

[10:59] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You live in the river, every man with a pickup truck and whatever.

[11:02] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: No. Yeah.

[11:03] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: But, uh. So it took some time to force my redneck husband to move to town so that at least I would start meeting people. But once I met them, Mobile has offered a lot of opportunities. I'm sorry.

[11:21] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: He's not gonna like that.

[11:22] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I always tell him it's my redmaker.

[11:23] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: They don't like it.

[11:24] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I know I say other things about him, but it's okay. We love each other as we are, and that's the important thing of a marriage. But Mobile has offered so many opportunities for me to develop in different ways and to do things that I would not have been able to do because I would have been in the little city in Puerto Rico doing the same thing. You go back and the people are doing the same thing that they were doing 50 years ago. And even if mobile is not a big city, or it's not a cranberry city, but it's a city that I have been able to be significant to the lives of. So many other people. By doing so, you got a niche.

[12:06] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: You got a place to, you know, you got the cultures that are different.

[12:10] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And the important thing to know for many people that have to move, either obligatory or by choice, is if you have transferable skills. I stopped looking for jobs at universities because I knew it was even with a doctorate, I was not going to get a job at a university. I taught part time in three universities in town. So I said, I have transferable skills. Let me remake myself into something else. And that's when I became a workforce development specialist and then got integrated to the community through. As a matter of fact, Beverly Cooper was the one that put me on the, on the board of historic bill. And that's how I started getting my footing in and getting jobs downtown, like in the mobile chamber of Commerce and Wia, things like that. That actually helped me. I started with the AIDS Society. I've never done anything medical nor anything like that. But in one year, one year and a half, I turned that organization around, fix a lot of problems because I had that 40. And then I told the board, you don't need me anymore. You don't need to pay my. There's a person here that can't run it now because things were fixed. I mean, as many straighter things were fixed. So let's do something that somebody that has the heart. Yeah, I remember that into this, and then I move along. So. And now, you know, I really, my main regret in life has been that by being so active, doing so many things with my life, that I didn't give you all that I should have done, it was fine. Fortunately, in Puerto Rico, you had your grandmother and you had other support system cousins, and that you don't have here. And that's another regret. Your son doesn't have that family.

[14:08] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I know. Maybe we should send them over there.

[14:11] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: We have to send him over there so he can meet all that gang of people.

[14:14] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Just let them live over there.

[14:16] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yeah.

[14:18] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Um, how about. How was, um, I mean, your childhood with mommy and Poppy?

[14:25] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And it's interesting because I once somebody asked me that in a, we were in a seminar of past lives and things like that, and somebody asked me, and you were supposed to write something about your childhood. And in several occasions somebody has asked me and I said, I had such a happy childhood. Happy, happy.

[14:51] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Oh, happy. That's different.

[14:53] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Very happy. We did not have the money. We did not. But it was like we didn't know any better. We just had four children in the house. We said, my father was the youngest of all the children, too. And my mother was always such an incredible woman that put up with all our craziness. And we had so many opportunities as children because of my father working at the university. We had presidents of universities going to our house. We had a chimpanzee coming to our house all summer because, well, I can.

[15:29] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I kind of remember that with you being the dino student, because I met a lot of famous musicians. I made a lot of. Because you would bring them in, and then I would be with you, like, backstage or, you know, it was. I have pictures of me little, with a young. Who was Luna.

[15:50] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Uh huh.

[15:50] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And then me a little bigger with a little older Luna. And then you had all the artists. And year by year, you know, it was like me growing. And then it was kind of interesting.

[16:01] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Leonidas Lipowski you remember Leonidas Lipowtsky's piano Concerto. And you were a little kid, and that man is just a master. And he was playing.

[16:13] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And I told him, I called him Lipowski

[16:16] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I gave you a piece of paper, and I said, draw something as you listen to the music. When you finish that, you gave it to him. And he was so impressive because you actually drew the piano. And his hair going like that. And then all kinds of stuff. Things going all over, you know, that you saw that the music inspired you. You were always a weird kid, you know? But anyway, one of the things, weirdest things that you asked me when you were little, and I still remember, she was such endearing, is that you were probably four, and you said, ma, why? I can hear the music and I cannot see the music. How am I supposed to answer this? You know? And actually, my brother Pedro, that had a PhD in physics. Oh, yeah, I told him about that. And he said, come over here, John Paul. And he says, touch. And at that time was a record playing thing. He just touched the sound system. He says, you cannot see it, but you can feel it. And all of a sudden, you saw it. You saw the music. And that's where you have been a musical person all your life.

[17:31] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I owe a lot to pilo. He taught me electricity. He taught me physics. I mean, you know, he would go to the house and. Yeah, he would bring out prisms and springs and gyroscopes and lasers. I mean, he. And he saw me. He would see me trying to rig up my little motors and stuff. So he said, I'm gonna teach you how to solder. So he taught me how to solder the wires.

[18:03] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And that's Pedro. Javier. Pedro. Pedro was a special person. He died so young. He had a PhD from Penn State. You know that when he was sorting his PhD, his. His research was on. On liquid nitrogen and some kind of semiconductors. Semiconductors.

[18:23] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Superconductors. I tried to read his desertation. I just. Yeah, it was like.

[18:29] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Well, the Navy and the. They wanted him to be an astronaut.

[18:34] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Oh, wow.

[18:35] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And they were recruiting him hard to be an astronaut. And he decided to go back to Puerto Rico and teach at the university.

[18:42] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Oh, no. Why?

[18:44] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Why? I have more of an adventurous spirit than he did. But that's why I've done so many crazy things in my life. What is this craziest thing you think I've done in my life?

[18:55] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Huh?

[18:56] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: What is the craziest thing.

[18:58] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: The craziest thing you've done in your life? Moved to mobile, I guess. I don't know.

[19:07] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I knew you were gonna.

[19:08] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah. I mean, that's, like, the only thing I can think of.

[19:10] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Out of the blue, it just came without a. Yeah.

[19:14] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And then here I am again. Probably the craziest thing I did was drive to California and work.

[19:20] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Oh, I don't know how you.

[19:22] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I loved it.

[19:23] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You loved it?

[19:24] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I loved it over there.

[19:26] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Where in California were you?

[19:28] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: San Mateo.

[19:29] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Mm hmm.

[19:31] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Temperature 72 degrees all summer long. They paying me a lot of money. They liked my type of work, you know, they liked what I did is that they don't have. They don't have the type of work there that we do here, but they need it. So when I did my work, they're like, oh, my God. Is there any more people from mobile that you can bring over? Because, you know, we're doing big industrial jobs, and all they have is commercial people.

[20:01] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: What they don't know is that you're a MacGyver. You've always been a MacGyver since you.

[20:05] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Was a kid, so. Yeah. And, I mean, it was just really nice. I just enjoyed it a lot. I remember Rebecca had to go get me.

[20:18] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I remember that she showed up over there. Come on home, boy. Don't.

[20:24] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: She calls me. She calls me on the phone and she says, well, you need help. Somebody driving you help you drive back to mobile. And I said, why? She said, I'm right outside. She was outside the job site.

[20:45] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Oh, my goodness.

[20:46] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: So I walk out and I said, well, we gotta finish today's job. So here's the keys. Go shopping. So she took my car. She got there with an Uber, and she. Then we drove back.

[20:59] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Jamaica was the love of your life.

[21:01] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: We drove back, and we just went south to Hollywood. And we did, like, national lampoons. We looked at Hollywood, shook our heads, and then kept on running.

[21:13] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You had. I'm glad that you had so many.

[21:16] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Years, drove years with her. What was it? Route 66.

[21:20] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yep.

[21:21] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: We took route 66, which was very interesting. Very. Exactly like the cars movie. Yeah, it was amazing.

[21:30] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Exactly.

[21:30] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah, that's where they got it from.

[21:32] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Jumbo with Rebecca. You just have to be sure to always remember that she was an incredible woman, and you loved each other so much, and.

[21:43] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[21:44] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And we're still gonna be hurting forever because she died so young, but happiness will come back to you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. All right.

[21:56] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[21:57] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: So how do you see yourself in the future? What do you. Where do you see yourself going? Doing.

[22:06] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Hopefully retiring.

[22:09] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I enjoy so much for the things that I do that when I retire.

[22:12] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I went, like, when I retire, I'll do the things I like when I'm doing this.

[22:16] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I've always done the things that I like. I know that's important.

[22:19] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: They're lucky. Some people are lucky.

[22:21] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Well, I just do what they have to do well, I pursue things that I like.

[22:28] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I like what I do. And you're good at it. Yeah. The thing is the repetitiveness. I would like to. Things to change, and I guess companies and jobs will put you in a small spot that you can do something correctly, instead of letting you do a lot of things. They would just want you to do the same thing that you're good at, but keep on doing it.

[22:53] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: There's options for you, because I know you have a lot of skills that you can move around.

[23:00] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: So, you know, whenever there's, like, they offer something, they say, like, we need somebody to do this. I'm always volunteering. We need to do. We need to work overnight or whatever, I'll do it.

[23:12] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: But in my case, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up at 71, I've done so many crazy things, you know, with this commissary kitchen that I'm putting together. Once I can pass down that project to somebody, you won't go around that. Well, I have other ideas of things I want to do. I still have, you know, we, in the last few years, we did that. We've done this humongous latin fest for three years. That has been the largest activity outside of Mardi Gras, and then getting that grant for the commissary kitchen and training all these women that we're training. But it gets to the point, you know, being six months in that kitchen and doing all kinds of things with project management and that I. Yesterday I was about to give up because it was too much. But I have other projects, and that's what you need to think in the future. What do I want to do? Even if you're working, you can still volunteer and do projects and be significant to others. You know, my stan keeps saying, leila, when are you gonna take it easy? And says, I have a live long. When I die, I'm gonna take it easy for the rest of my eternity. So as long as I can, we're gonna go for it. That's the important thing.

[24:30] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[24:33] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: How about your baby son? What were you gonna do with that boy?

[24:37] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: We don't know. I can't read him. He's really difficult to 17.

[24:41] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: He's deciphered.

[24:43] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Hopefully he wants to do anything after high school. I mean, college or technical is fine with me, too. I mean, that's where everybody should be going right now, technical schools.

[24:59] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Well, let me tell you something. My PhD is in higher education administration, and I can tell you that colleges and universities are a hoax. I know you get all this money that you have put into a college degree, and then you are in debt, and they're teaching you. Oh, yeah, sociology.

[25:17] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Study sociology.

[25:18] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You can be this, you can be that. You cannot be any of those things. With a bachelor's in sociology and you have $60,000 in debt. So we're actually fooling people into study areas. Universities. At one point, when it was just an elite thing, it was to educate you.

[25:36] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: This is the thing that I've always said. If you go to college, you have to end up with a title, not a degree. It's got to be, you're an engineer, you're a radiologist. You have to end up with a title, not with a degree. That's kind of where I see the difference.

[25:52] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You know, I remember when you finished your college degree that you wanted to do a. You know, you took 180 credits instead of 120. That is what you need for graduation. You wanted to take, I'm going to.

[26:06] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I changed. I did my mind a bunch of times.

[26:10] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Fifth year, fourth year. You said, I want to study. I love biology. No, biology.

[26:15] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: The biology teacher was telling me I needed to go to biology.

[26:18] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Yeah, but that's something you started first year.

[26:20] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I know because. Because I was the only one that would argue with him and stuff.

[26:26] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: And when you finish your degree in business administration, is a mom, here's my degree, my diploma. I just learned to be an employee.

[26:33] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[26:34] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: There's nothing in business administration that. That taught me to be a business administrator. But those are things that you learn with time. But what's happening is that, yes, in 1950s, 20% of the jobs required a bachelor's degree. In 2023, 20% of the jobs require a bachelor's degree. The difference is in the middle. In the middle skills and in the low skills, the low skills are disappearing and the middle skills are booming. That's where computers and all kinds of things don't need it. You can take a bachelor's degree, but when you go to a computer, big companies just forget everything you're learning. College, that's 20 years behind. We're gonna teach you. So that's something that we need to understand, that those middle skills do need technical education after high school. Definitely those high level skills.

[27:35] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: As a matter of fact, you can make a good living with it.

[27:39] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Well, I think we are.

[27:42] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Get a good one.

[27:42] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: If I get into that, that's my next project. I'm gonna get in the next project. Just telling people, don't study political science, don't study sociology, they're fooling you. It's like when Sterling came to see me and says, oh, they're telling me that I can make $80,000 if I study this and says, they're lying to you. They just need to get somebody to study that because it's their profession. They've never done it. That college professor has never done it.

[28:09] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: He's as a professor. Yeah.

[28:11] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: You just have to sustain his own job. They're going, I'm going to be killed by this comment. But it's true.

[28:16] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah, yeah.

[28:19] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Okay, we have ten minutes.

[28:20] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: You were part of the system, mama.

[28:22] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I was part of the system, but what I was teaching. Listen, when we organized the first. I remember when I organized the first big humongous Halloween activity in our university. Oh, yeah, haunted house. All the 60 organizations participated. And faculty. I was in the faculty senate and faculty. Why are you doing all this money? I said, you know, because they're learning there what they don't learn in your classroom. Go to the union. To go to the student union and see them in the mail, in the, in the tables doing logistics, they're doing scheduling, they're doing teamwork, they're doing all these things that should go into the resume that you're not teaching them in the classroom. This is what's going to get them a job. I told them, all of the students, I said, do verbs, those verbs, action. I'm going to join and I'm going to the president. I'm going to organize all these verbs are the ones that are going to get you a job. So I was teaching what I was teaching from a different, from a different angle. Even when I taught here in the United States, especially to adult educations, I taught them completely different. I said, take the test, answer it at home. And they got together and answered it together and says, we spent all Saturday answering the test. Fabulous teamwork, discussion. All kinds of things happen. That's what the employers are looking for. Of course, they didn't want me to teach in that place anymore because I was not following the rules of memorizing. So that's what we need to do. That's what I think I was. I always thought I was a leader, but I was. I'm not a leader. I'm a disruptor. I've come to the conclusion that I like to disrupt what's happening, whether it's better or worse is.

[30:23] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[30:24] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I try to look in the future, I disrupt what's happening.

[30:27] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah, that's true.

[30:28] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: To change behaviors. That is true. Except with you. I've always been very good to you, I think. Do you love your mama?

[30:36] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah.

[30:37] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: That was not very convincing. I know. You're the best son in the world when you.

[30:44] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I'm your only son.

[30:46] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I know. It's funny. So any other question you have for me or that I should have for me, what is next?

[30:56] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Oh, I don't know.

[30:59] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Let me tell you what I would like for you to be next. I would like you to volunteer more. Do things with different kinds of people, not necessarily with what you like to do, but outside of your comfort zone, because then you meet different kinds of people, and that's, there's not a person that I met that I don't. I might not like them, but I never give up on anybody. So don't give up on people. Always look for the positive. It's the only thing that I can, and I hope that when I'm gone.

[31:37] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: I told this almost exactly like that to John Reese.

[31:40] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Really?

[31:41] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: Yeah. When he goes to this new school, you know, don't reject people. Don't, you know, I told him that. I said, look. Look at my friends. Look at, you know, I have completely opposite friends.

[31:53] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: That's right.

[31:54] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And I could have been, like, making fun of one of them, and he's a doctor now, and I could have, you know, I told him, look, my friends are weird and I never rejected them.

[32:05] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: That's why they were so close friends.

[32:06] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: And they were my friends, but they weren't friends together to each other. Yeah, it was just weird. But that's the way it worked. And I told him, look, accept everybody. And you just don't.

[32:16] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: Well, I don't know if you remember, but every night when you went to bed when you were a little kid, I always said, I've never been a very religious person. I know I'm a good person. But we always, the only prayer we had was, I was praying to God that you were a good man. That was all that. I prayed. I prayed that you become a good man. Yes, it did. You are a very good man, a good father, a fabulous. You were fabulous husbands, but better of everything. You have been an incredible son, and I love you so much.

[32:53] JOHN PAUL VIVONI: You've done great, Mama.

[32:54] LEIDA JAVIER-FERRELL: I've done right. Thank you.