Lisa Jevack and Vickie Gottlob

00:01 My name is Lisa Jevack and I am 52 years old. Today's date is August 25, 2022, and we are recording a one small step conversation with the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the WTJU studio in Charlottesville, Virginia. My partner's name is Vickie All right, great.

00:23 So, Vickie we'll have you start off.

00:25 Why did you decide to be part.

00:27 Of a one small step conversation? I think I mentioned in my bio that I had done this course through my church called sacred ground that was all about the history of. The history of racism in the US, and just taught me a lot about myself and just sharing with other people and kind of ended up at the end where it was kind of an inspiration to reach out to people that I didn't know much about before or to reach. I just felt. It just made me feel how much I was in my own little bubble with all the goodwill in the world. I just kind of felt isolated in my bubble of people like me. So I think that's why. What about you, Lisa?

01:12 When I heard about it, I thought it was such a really interesting concept and experiment. And the reason that I felt drawn to get involved was because of the extreme division we have in our country and really the world right now. And it seems to only be growing and becoming more and more bitter, and people are just more and more angry all the time. And I was feeling just so much resentment towards people who had completely different views than I did because I felt, well, they're wrong. And I decided that harboring that much resentment, anger, was not healthy, and it wasn't helping the problem. It was only creating more division. And I thought that this and the name, one small step, it truly is. It's one step that we can try to take to even understand one other person who comes from a different place than we do and learn about their experiences. I think once you learn where someone's coming from, then it, even if you don't agree with them, you can understand why they have the views that they do. Absolutely. That's great.

02:40 So now I'm going to ask you to read each other's bios, and whoever wants to start, feel free. You can just read it exactly as it's written. Okay. This is Vickie reading Lisa's bio. I'm fortunate to work in the arts, something I'm passionate about. I grew up in northern Ohio. I was adopted as an infant and met my birth mother when I was 19. While I'm lucky to have a relationship with her, it has also complicated my life. I've become more interested in talking to people with similar experiences. The birth of my two daughters changed my life for the better. Yet, for the past 21 years of motherhood, I've struggled to not let this one aspect define all of me.

03:31 All right, and this is Lisa reading about Vickie I'm a retired college and high school teacher, born in Washington, DC. Married for 52 years. I have one married daughter and one grandchild who live in northeast DC. I've been shaped by my involvement in the Episcopal Church in Charlottesville for the last 37 years. I have twice been the facilitator for a ten week group study of the history of systemic racism in the US, entitled Sacred Ground. I am very concerned by the issues of the injustice and misinformation that some separate Americans.

04:10 Great. So just to get started, is there something about your partner's bio that interests you or intrigues you or that you might want to discuss? Well, I just felt a real connection with Lisa when she talked about the importance of motherhood in her life. Both with your own mother and being a mother yourself, that really struck me. Could you say more about having two daughters, how that changed your life or how that's affected your life?

04:45 Well, as a mother yourself, you know, it completely changes everything about your life. And you can't even remember what life was like before children. And it. It made me, I had to force myself to be less selfish and put others needs before mine. That's just, you know, basic keeping your child alive sort of parenthood 101. But, you know, as I said in my bio, I think the one thing that I. I've been coming back to, probably more so in the last ten years, was trying to remember that I'm not only a mother, and that is. And I know that's a universal struggle for mothers and women, especially working women, who are juggling both. We have our own identities that are completely outside of motherhood, that existed long before we were mothers. But so much of the responsibility ends up falling on us, and it's. Yeah, it's just, I feel like it's an ongoing conflict within myself.

06:19 Yeah.

06:25 And I'll just start off by asking a question that is very tricky.

06:34 Who has been the most influential person in your life, and what did they teach you?

06:45 You know, when I was reading these questions last night, that was one that I knew I had to give a lot of thought to. And I think it's, at least for me, it wasn't an obvious answer. I really had to give it some thought. I couldn't think of who is immediately the one person that jumps out of my mind that, oh, yes, I. They've been this huge influence on my life, which. And then I also had to think, well, it could be positive or negative influence, but as I thought about it more, I do actually think it was my birth mother and still is. And again, not always necessarily positive, but I think. I think the way that she has been such a strong influence is she has helped me see things in myself that either were unknown or hadn't been discovered before I met her. You know, the unique thing about being adopted is you can look at the people around you who are your family, but always in the back of your mind, knowing that you still don't have that. That DNA connection to them and always wondering who you do have that connection to. So by, you know, meeting her and I have two brothers as well, being able to finally make that connection and then actually start to understand more about myself and also see how she has approached her life and how she approaches the world. And it's very, very different from my upbringing. So it's allowed me to sort of open up to a whole new way of looking at things and questioning things, which I was an experience I did not have growing up.

08:58 Yeah, it's really enriched your life to be able to see those points of view and where you came from in two different senses. Yeah. Yeah. I think with me, I'd have to say my father, for good or ill, but I think my father always. He kind of treated me like his eldest son. Like, I mean, I just had this identity that I was kind of the privilege. I was the oldest person in the family, and he always encouraged me to read. And he was not a college graduate. He and my mom were raised in an orphanage. But just he encouraged me to succeed academically and bought me all the books that he could afford to buy me, and that kind of sent me in an academic, in an academic direction. But I also think he and my mom both, they weren't very good at reaching outside the family. They really valued privacy, I think, because of having been raised in an orphanage. I mean, they knew their parents, one parent each. So I think that's kind of made me a sort of private person, and it's made it difficult for me to. Or not difficult, but not natural for me to reach out and make friends. Like, I'm more enclosed in my little nuclear family. But I think just in terms of how I envisioned myself, that I never really identified as a woman who might need feminism, although, I mean, I've come to realize that the older I get. But just, I always felt that I could do anything. I guess that was the message I got, that even though I was growing up in the fifties, maybe I was naive, but I thought, I can do anything, and I have the power to do anything, and I'm a valuable person. So I think that was, although later I came to real, really disagree with my dad politically or even as a child to argue with him. But I think he really shaped me. Yeah.

10:54 Do you have siblings?

10:56 I do. Well, I have one that's deceased, and I have a sister who's almost my age, 17 months younger.

11:03 Okay.

11:03 Yeah.

11:04 But he. You were really sort of who he focused on wanting to provide a.

11:10 And there's that underlying guilt, too, with. My sister has won awards for her community service, and her, she has a zillion friends, and when she goes to Europe, she has people to stay with that she's had as guests in her home in Orlando. This would never happen to me. So it's just interesting to.

11:29 That is interesting. Yeah.

11:30 Yeah. How we've turned out. Yeah. It's sort of a different question. What is your first memory of politics? And that can mean a lot of different things, but just to you personally.

11:54 I honestly don't know. It wasn't something that we really talked a lot about in my house growing up. I mean, my parents were, you know, we would watch the news, and if, you know, if there were something that came up that we would discuss at the dinner table, you know, like, it would happen. But I don't know. My. Yeah, I guess now that I think of it, I think my first memory is I was in the first grade, and it was when Gerald Ford was running against Jimmy Carter, and my first grade teacher let the class have an election. And I even back then, I was like Jimmy Carter all the way. And my parents at that time, they had always been Republicans. And so I don't know why, but I was drawn to Jimmy Carter.

13:00 Yeah. My memory is I'm 20 years older than you. Exactly. So in my memory, it must have been 1956 when. No, it was whenever Nixon's first victory, I think that was 56. Was that. I can't remember.

13:17 But it could have been in the sixties.

13:19 Maybe it was Eisenhower being reelected in 56. Yes, it was. It was. Yeah. I remember coming downstairs and talking to my dad and saying, who won the election last night? And like, yeah, it was Eisenhower. So that's my first. But I think the first thing that really affected me was, and it was when I first met my husband when we were in high school, we were in these high school kids, and it was during the really lively part of the civil rights movement. This would have been about 64, 65. And just both of us, I remember at some kind of picnic, both of us going and sitting under a tree. And just today we would call it virtue signaling, but just talking to each other about how much in favor of civil rights we were and how not racist we were. And we were so self righteous, when I think about it. But I remember having this very serious political talk with my future husband. Little did I know at the time. Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And I know, Vickie you mentioned you have tried to do some work, and could you talk a little bit more about your role as a facilitator? And what was your organization called? Yeah, it's a curriculum that was created by the Episcopal Church, but they're opening it up now to almost any kind of groups. They got the licensing. Somebody gave them a lot of money, so they can license it for anyone, because it's a series of meetings that take place over ten weeks, where you meet weekly for ten weeks. And it's a series of lessons about different aspects of american history. And they use a lot of PBS videos. That's why you need the licensing. And it's a curriculum that's really prepared. And I didn't have to. I had to facilitate the discussion. But the curriculum is there for people. The readings, there's articles and videos to watch. But there'd be like, one week would be about the history of chinese immigration in California. There was another whole thing about Texas, the history of Texas, and then about Native Americans and, of course, about African Americans, but just kind of episodes of american history. And these were some high powered people in my group. I've done it twice. I mean, people with, you know, attorneys, PhDs. But there was. We all learned something. None of us knew everything. We were all surprised. And it also encouraged us to dig deeper of our own memories of things we'd seen. Like I had. There were a couple in the group who had lived in a sundown town, I think in Michigan, you know, one of those towns where all black people had to leave at darken, and they had lived there. And then I had my memory of going to college in Tallahassee in 1965 and still seeing colored labels on the water fountain in the department store. And I'm like, I'm not ancient. That wasn't that long ago. So it's sacred ground. It's a really good series.

16:28 And it's through the episcopal church.

16:31 Yeah, it's on their website. But like I say, they just got a grant so that they can license it to. I think it doesn't even have to be churches. I think it could be almost any group that can use this curriculum, because, as I said, they got a grant so they could pay for the licensing being open to more people. Yeah. Yeah. So that was an eye opener for me, and it felt like a lot of responsibility, but I was just a facilitator.

16:58 So what made you want to get involved with that?

17:08 Oh, I guess I'm a retired teacher, and I felt like it's something I could do. It's something that I could do to. And there was such an interest in my church on this topic, like, what can we do? What can we learn? And it kind of left us at the end with, well, what do we do now? How do we reach out? But at least we know more and we know ourselves better than we did before. So. Yeah, and you mentioned the episcopal church in your life, and I know from just getting to know you both that religion might play a different role in both of your lives. So if you could each touch on.

17:46 That, that'd be great. Well, and that was actually a question I was thinking about for you because you've been so involved in your church, I think you said, for the past 37 years. So I guess my first question was, did you grow up with religion? And then my second question is, what is it that? Why do you feel like it has been such a strong influence still in your life?

18:13 Yeah. And I would say that was, again, from my parents. They never set foot in a church, but they dropped me off. They had me baptized, and they dropped me off at church to go to Sunday school. And it had such a. And I just went in that direction that all my life I've just belonged to a mainline church, either lutheran or episcopal. And just, you know, I remember reading the Bible as a child, just kind of reading it on my own. And then when it came time for confirmation classes, being really excited about Martin Luther, like, this was the closest thing I'd gotten to philosophy, was trying. Wow, I can understand this. This is so cool. You know, so. But I think really, like, I'd had these arguments with my dad that he would. From a man of his class and background and age, typical racism. Just the n word or just the way he. His origin in rural Pennsylvania. I don't know what it was, but from an early age, I would argue with him. And I think I got that from Sunday school, that that was wrong. You know, that I. So I think my basic values about the value of each person and trying to support people in need, and my political values really derive from this biblical teaching that I've had my whole life without going in a real conservative way. You know, that just kind of, when people hear Christian nowadays, that's what they think. A judgmental.

19:43 Right, right.

19:44 So. And then when I moved to Charlottesville, that was my chance to switch a little bit. So join Episcopal Church.

19:55 So do you feel that it's also become a part of your social life as well, then?

19:59 Definitely. Definitely. I'm your stereotypical church lady just at a church picnic last night. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's a place to meet people. And for the first time in my life, I have female friends. I've never been really good at that, so it's really been a place for me to develop a social life. Yeah. A community. How about you, Lisa?

20:22 Well, I did grow up with religion and going to church religiously and grew up Lutheran. My mother is a very devout woman. Still, to this day, my dad, not so much. He grew up sort of, you know, going. Going when you had to, but not nearly as devout as my mom. And I think as he got older, he distanced himself from it. He was a science guy and just, I think, more of a pragmatic thinker than a spiritual thinker, so. But, you know, that never was a problem for he and my mom. That was my mom's thing and not his, but, yeah, so I grew up with it, but I think I can't remember at what point. But there. You know, there was a certain time in early adolescence when I started to kind of question things and experience some questionable things that I. Things that I saw or heard that I felt were wrong, that were being either taught or beliefs that I just didn't feel were right. And not all of it was happening within the church that we were involved in, but things I heard from other people I know who were part of different denominations, who maybe had more extreme views then if you grew up Lutheran, you know that there's nothing extreme about it. And. But. And then, yeah, the older I got, I started. I remember even having a conversation with my mom one time when I was an angsty teenager about, you know, like, well, if God is everywhere, then why do I have to go to church? Because, you know, why can't I just stay home and talk to God? And I think she wasn't really prepared to answer that, but, yeah, and I got to college. I actually became really fascinated with Catholicism through friends, and I think that was all the sort of the traditional elements of Catholicism and the ceremonial aspects. And I would sneak into this beautiful catholic church where I went to college and sit in the back and just watch because I was fascinated by it. And then, you know, I started dating this guy who ended up marrying, who was Catholic, and he was just like, you know, like, what are you doing? Like, you know, he was brought up with, like, if you're not Catholic, you shouldn't be participating in any of this. And. But then, like, as he and I got married, and he completely turned his back on the Catholic Church. And for a variety of reasons, and we just kind of not consciously but unconsciously, made the decision that it wasn't going to be a part of our lives and we weren't going to raise our children with it. And as I've gotten older, I think the reason that I have not ever gone back to it or re embraced it is because of the. And this is with organized religion in particular, the division that I see it perpetuate in so many ways and the people that use it against others and the taking things out of context from the Bible and using it for their own selfish purposes. I just. And how wars are fought over religion and how just any time anything is taken with an extreme view and how it can be weaponized. And I just, I have not wanted any part of that. And I don't want to label myself. I've never called myself an atheist or agnostic or anything like that because I don't want to put myself in a box. I feel like in some ways, I still feel like I'm somewhat spiritual, but, yeah, I have not felt a need to get back involved into any sort of organized religion.

25:21 Yeah. You know, I think it gives me an insight into myself, and I wonder if my parents had, had gone to church, if I would have rebelled, too. You know, this was my thing. My sister went, too, but it was kind of my thing that my parents weren't part of. And I remember when I was really little wishing they would go to church because they would just pick me up when Sunday school was over and I was dying to go to church. I would love, because we had a beautiful lutheran churches can be, you know.

25:49 Right.

25:49 Yeah. So, so maybe, you know, the fact that this was, I, it was my thing to me that they weren't a part of, even though they would willing, you know, they gave me a bible and they dropped me off at church. But interesting to. Because I can really see what you're saying.

26:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were thinking, oh, it's a babysitter for Sundays, probably.

26:11 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lisa, when you talked about being attracted by, like, the beauty, I don't remember the words you used, but, like, you love to sit in the back of the catholic church. And then you mentioned in your bio about the arts. Are the arts very. Are the arts important to you personally, apart from your work?

26:31 Yes, I've always been artistic since I was young. I studied design in college and then got my masters in art education and fine arts. I now work at the art museum here at UVA. And, yeah, have always been involved in some sort of creative field, and that is something that definitely comes from my DNA. Neither one of my parents were involved in the arts at all. My mom was a nurse, my dad was a pharmacist. I had zero interest in science or medicine, but my biological mother is like, she was an art teacher. Oh, interesting work. Has always been involved in the arts herself and studied art history in college. So, yeah, so that was, that was really shocking, I guess, when I first met her and talked to her. And so, yeah, it's definitely something that I need to always have, that creative outlet.

27:50 Yeah, yeah. That's great.

27:53 Yeah.

27:54 Art's important to me, too, although I have no, well, maybe it's not been developed. I don't have any artistic talent. But, I mean, that's the number one thing I look at when I'm going somewhere as a tourist. Is there an art museum? Yeah.

28:09 Yes.

28:11 And just the, I was thinking just, it's important to me to have a. That my house is decorated the way the colors are. Right. You know, that the things on the wall are right. The aesthetic part is important to me.

28:24 Right. That I think it just, it makes, it makes you happy or just to even look at things that you find beautiful. Yeah. Just bring a sense of calm.

28:37 Yeah. And I've gotten so, I know abstract expressionism is like the fifties, but that's one of my favorites.

28:45 Now that is my favorite. Yes. That is my favorite art movement. Yes.

28:49 Yeah. Like that thing of Barnett Newman. That's just these. I forget what it's called, but it's stations of the cross, and all it is is white surfaces with black vertical lines. For some, they had that at the National Gallery of Art in the east building up in their little tower room. For some reason, that thing brought tears to my eyes. Maybe because he called it stations of the cross, I don't know. But all it was was black. It was like the crack. Like Leonard Cohen, you know, the crack where the light gets in, it was like cracks in this white surface, and then each one was a little different.

29:23 It was moving to you.

29:24 Yeah.

29:25 Yeah.

29:25 Yeah. Well, it's cool to meet another lover of abstract.

29:28 Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Hands down my favorite art movement.

29:33 Yeah. There's some good stuff over in Richmond in that, you know, in the.

29:37 There is. Yes. Yeah. In their. Their american modern art.

29:41 Yeah.

29:42 Era. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you each had to explain.

29:48 To the best of your ability, your political or, you know, moral, kind of social, economic, all those things, your values, what would you say? How would you explain them and what influences them? You know, that thing that, that supposedly Ronald Reagan said, you know, the most dangerous words in the world or the most scary words in the world? I'm the government, and I'm here to help. Well, I'm the opposite of that. A book I read a few years ago. It's called Dominion of Memories, and it's a book by Susan Dunn about what happened to the state of Virginia between 1800 and the Civil War. Why did the state of Virginia, which was one of the leading colonies, and I just had to read this thing about Virginia, why did it go downhill? It's because the people that were running the state of Virginia, the founding fathers, and they weren't interested in building schools for people. They weren't interested in infrastructure. They just wanted to preserve. They had this myth of their ancient plantation way of life, and they didn't want to benefit poor white people, let alone their slaves. And it just took the whole state downhill. And so I guess that really reflects my. That's probably why I enjoyed the book so much, because it kind of reinforced my ideas that I think the role of government is to help people and maybe to counterbalance our dog eat dog world.

31:30 Yeah, I would definitely agree with you on that. Yes, I happen to believe that paying taxes is my patriotic duty. And, yes, and I might even go so far as to say I probably lean, at least in some cases, more in a socialist democracy, because I, too, feel that it's in order for us to have a thriving society, we should be willing to help out our neighbors who need it. And I've never been able to really understand those who think the opposite, who think that, well, one, it's not the government's responsibility, or two, it's not my responsibility. It's, you know, I don't want my tax dollars to go to, you know, like, pay so this person can, you know, sit at home and not go to work and, like, well, you know, and just the messaging for, like, what it is that social services do, it just, it gets so muddled right in politics and, you know, and that's not at all what's happening. And, you know, I want to say to people who have those views, well, then you're really lucky that you've never been in that situation where you need government assistance, because it's anyone who has needed it. I can guarantee you 99.9% of them don't want it. They don't want to have to go seek that assistance. They want to be able to sustain themselves.

33:26 Absolutely.

33:27 Yeah. And, yeah, I just. I feel like we would be, our society would be so much different if everyone was given an equal opportunity from the get go, if the playing field were leveled, if just opportunities for education and skills and jobs and all that were given to everyone, it would. Crime would go down. It would just. So many things. All the things that I think those who have differing views complain about, like, well, you know, if we had better access to mental health care and, you know, just all these things that keep. So many people keep resisting or refusing to, you know, provide the funding to whatever, but if we had those things, you know, all those other problems would not be eliminated, but they would be so much smaller than they are now.

34:44 Absolutely. And even for selfish reasons, even if. Even if you don't care particularly about the others, don't you want to live in a society where people are educated and the person that's going to nurse you in your old age knows where you're coming from?

35:03 Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Or, you know, and, you know, the people who complain that, oh, well, immigrants coming to this country are taking away the jobs and, well, no, that's not true. But, you know, if everyone has jobs, like, that's good for the economy, that's good for, you know, like, the crime rates will go down. Like it's. Yeah, these things aren't going to create more problems. They're going to lessen the problems that we have.

35:31 Yeah. Sounds like you and I are both very community oriented, you can see.

35:35 Yeah. Yeah.

35:36 We're all in this together. Right?

35:37 Right.

35:38 Yeah. I was a french teacher and I used to tell my students stories about, well, the social benefits they would get if they lived in France. Like, every mother, whether she's a billionaire or impoverished, gets a certain allowance for a layette, for her child. It's just not needs based. Even so, no one's humiliated by it. That was just the beginning. And they'd say, really? I'd say, well, the taxes are high, too, but you get what you pay for.

36:10 Right, exactly. Exactly. I remember I had a professor in college who was from Finland, and she was living in the states because she was married to an american. But when she had her first child, even though she was now a us citizen from the finnish government, they sent her a stroller, a year's supply of diapers. And, like, she got what she would have. She said she would have gotten more had she lived in Finland, but they gave her. Yeah. And sent her all these things because that's what you do. And she said the same thing. She's like, yes, our taxes are really high, but you get so much. You're so well taken care of.

36:56 Yeah. The social benefits of just having good public transportation and.

37:00 Right.

37:01 Yeah, yeah. Let alone childcare and healthcare.

37:05 Yeah, yeah.

37:06 So I guess we don't have much.

37:08 To bring to talk about here. No argument, no arguments on this. Do you ever have trouble communicating, either one of you, with people who have.

37:21 Different beliefs in this realm or different ideas?

37:24 And if so, how do you act in those situations?

37:28 Do you seek out those situations? Yeah, just that in general, it's been so long since I had a real conversation with someone who differs from me.

37:40 Yeah, I have to. And I think that's partly because, like I said at the beginning, like, the divisions that we have right now are so strong that I have tried to only surround myself with people who think the same way I do because I feel like it's not. It's. It would just. Yeah, like, shoot my anxiety and blood pressure through the roof.

38:10 Right. It's like dealing with COVID is enough to stress us out for the last two and a half years or whatever it's been. Yeah.

38:17 But I also realizing that that is perpetuating the problem because I'm nothing, you know, stepping outside and having conversations with people, you know, I. The one person that I can't get away from who has differing views is my mother in law. And, you know, when you mentioned in your bio about misinformation being such a huge problem right now, you know, and she gets her news from one source, and I'll let you guess which one that is. And she has it, the tv on all day long on that one channel, and it has just, you know, gotten into her brain and, you know, it's. I don't even necessarily have a problem with. If you want to watch, you know, that news source, fine, but balance it with some other news sources as well. You know, watch, you know, get news from different sources because, you know, even if I'm only watching one thing, you know, that's still not, I don't think that's wise. I think it's important to get your news from as many different sources as possible because it's, you know, there's always, you know, potentially going to be a spin if you don't hear differing, differing views. But it's, you know, when it's family, especially when it's, you know, your in laws, you have to kind of tread lightly. You know, I don't want to offend her and I don't want to hurt her. And it's easier for my husband to sit down and have conversations with his mother about it. But it makes me sad, you know, when I think about how her views have been shaped that really just, you know, like we were saying, you know, like these things would actually make the world a better place. And she lives in such fear. Yeah, I think, you know, it's, and I, and I think a lot of these news sources like that is actually their goal is, and it's same with a lot of politicians. Like, their goal is to create fear because then if you have someone who lives in fear, it's easier to control them. And so to see that happening with someone you know and your family, it's really sad.

40:55 Yeah. We really are shaped by, I mean, for good or bad, we're shaped by these things we spend time with. I mean, it's obviously, yeah. It just kind of redoes your brain, even, I think. Yeah. And what about people who might identify more closely to your own beliefs? Do you feel any division among them or any concerns you have with people who may be more on the same.

41:25 Side of the aisle?

41:26 As you.

41:30 Know, I was thinking about this question, and the first person that came to mind is my older daughter, my 21 year old daughter. She, while we, I guess you would say we're on the same side of the aisle, but she's definitely even further to the left than I am. And I've gotten into some heated discussions with her in debates over things. That part of it is me being the mother and her being much younger and not having the life experience and saying, you say these things, but until you've got a lived experience, it's not all black and white.

42:26 Right.

42:28 You know, and the one thing that I've gotten into it with her quite a bit is the messaging of a lot of things that have come up in the last couple of years. I said, you know, if your generation wants to get your point across and get people to understand and even, you know, like, embrace your views, you've got to do a better job at getting the message across because right now you're coming across as these angry, entitled young people who don't know what you're talking about. You know, when you say things like, you know, defund the police, you know, like that, you need to put that into context because you're immediately alienating so many people just with those three words. And, you know, and the same is true, I think, with black lives matter, I mean, something that I wholeheartedly support. But I said when, again, with just those words, those three words, you've immediately alienated a lot of people. And we've seen, because now this whole movement has started with, like, well, you know, blue lives matter and all lives matter. And I said, you know, it's, and she, her argument was, well, we shouldn't have to explain ourselves. And I'm like, I know you feel that way, but it doesn't work like that. You know, and there are a lot of people in this country, and, you know, when you take all 300 some million people, each one of them with an individual point of view, you can't put everything neatly into one box. You need to be able to sit down with someone and explain, this is what this actually means.

44:31 Right.

44:33 And we're not saying that you don't matter. We're trying to explain why these people have been treated in a certain way for all these years that they truly do not feel that they matter.

44:52 Right.

44:53 And, you know, so it, I said, you know, maybe you need better marketing or something, but the messaging just needs to come across in a different way so that you can reach more people.

45:07 Not just writing people off because, I mean, we're all guilty of that, or I am, you know, this sort of, well, I'm never going to listen to that person, but, yeah, you can't do that. You have to take that step to reach out to that other person, that other group. Yeah. And I think some of it does come with age because if you've lived long enough to have seen the rust belt appear to remember vibrant small towns and american industry and, you know, the cities that are like buffalo that are just changed for the worse by loss of american jobs, and if you haven't lived long enough to have seen that and probably their history classes run out of time before they, you know, at the end of the year, then, you know, it's hard to, it may be harder to understand than it is for people that are older that have seen the arc of, seen what's happened to the american working class.

46:03 Right, right.

46:03 Like you're talking about coal miner's daughter.

46:05 Mm hmm.

46:06 Yeah. That's kind of what worries me about this book censorship thing, you know, that I'm reading about, you know, people's school boards interfering with what's in the library.

46:17 Right, right.

46:18 Because that's how, that's how we, that's one easy way we can step out of our bubbles is to read about people from different social classes, different environments, different periods of history and movies, too. It's so powerful. But if that's limited, you're really fencing your kids in.

46:37 Absolutely.

46:38 Absolutely.

46:40 Yeah. That is a really, truly frightening movement that is taking place right now, this attack on our education system. And as a retired teacher, I'm sure that that is really troubling to you.

46:58 Yeah, I see, you know, the sense of a liberal education in the old, not in the political sense of liberal, but a liberal education, liberal arts. And when I, you know, I don't know. I haven't really studied it, but I have the impression that colleges and universities, and who can blame them, are going in the direction of we're going to provide you an education, and then you'll be able to get a job. And of course, that's important, but it's also important to give people an education in history and science and the arts just to make them into human beings, something beyond someone who's employable. And there's room to do both. I think, I really think that's. And of course, not everyone's going to go to college, but it needs to be present at all levels of education, just this education of a wider world. A field trip to a museum or, you know, I used to, I taught at a private school, and I used to worry 8th grade was when they took him to the Holocaust museum and they read Ailey Wiesel's night, you know, 8th grade. Yeah, I guess they're old enough, you know, they've seen enough violence and unfortunately, in the media. But anyway. But at some point, they need to know about that and about the american history and the facts.

48:16 Right, right.

48:17 Yeah.

48:17 Right.

48:18 Yeah. And this is just a question that popped into my mind, but I'm curious.

48:23 To hear what you might think of.

48:26 Is there any issue or just current.

48:29 Political, social, economic occurrence that you feel like you have opinions on that might.

48:35 Stray a little from your traditional way of thinking politically that, you know, might be shared with someone across the aisle or someone from perhaps a different political.

48:44 Party, any issue that you just seem.

48:47 To have a unique perspective on?

48:58 Tricky question.

48:59 I know. Maybe, maybe trans people on athletic teams like that. I might not go with the party line on people that, you know, seem to have an unfair advantage from their birth gender or their birth. I'm not using the word gender correctly, probably, but that I can. I can definitely understand. I mean, the restrooms thing, that I don't. That doesn't bother me at all. I mean, I think that trans people should be allowed to identify with the gender they now are. But as far as athletic competition, I can see where that. That might be something that. Where the rights might be limited, I guess. I'm talking about trans women. Yeah.

49:55 Yeah. I hadn't thought of that. But when you brought it up. Yeah. For me, that is also not really a black and white issue. Another conversation I've had with my daughter who feels very differently, but, yeah, you know, because I also have a daughter who plays sports and feel like, okay, well, if there were a trans girl on her team or if she were playing against a trans girl who physically has an advantage. And I guess, you know, I. Because I had thought, you know, oh, yeah, trans athletes should be able to play on, you know, for the team that they are.

50:45 Yeah.

50:46 And. But then when, you know, it. It was in the news and. And the athletes were speaking up, and then that kind of got me thinking, like, well, so, yeah, this really is. This is a really. It's a complicated issue. Yeah. And I don't know what the answer is. I really just think it almost. I guess I feel like it's kind of a case by case thing, because then, I mean, a trans boy is competing with boys who were assigned male gender at birth, so that, you know, like, that trans boy is going to be at a disadvantage potentially. Right. So, you know, it's. Yeah, I.

51:38 It's tough.

51:39 That's a really. That's a hard one.

51:42 Yeah.

51:44 Because then I know people who have trans children, so, you know, I also try to think, as coming from a parent's point of view, if this is your child and this is what they're really passionate about doing, like, they should be allowed to do that, you know?

51:59 Yeah.

51:59 So it's. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is really tough. Yeah.

52:05 I know that. That question sometimes I think, like, are you just following the party line of your left wing group, or have you really thought through all these issues on your own?

52:17 Yeah. And I think that that is another issue or it's another problem that, you know, people. They say what they think others want to hear. Want to hear what they are expected to say to fit in with that group naturally. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure in our own minds we have views that we know our current company might not agree with, but, you know, like, maybe with conversations like this, we might realize. Oh, actually, I do agree with you on that. Yeah.

52:59 Or just trust the other person, too. I mean, I know I've had friends that I've been trained in listening with other friends that I know have also been trained in listening, and I should be able to trust them enough to say what I really think. Maybe this conversation will encourage me to do that.

53:19 Right. Right.

53:20 Because I certainly hope would be open to hearing what they think. And maybe we need a preliminary agreement that we're not going to judge each other or write each other off, but.

53:31 Yeah. And which actually brings up something that I feel many people on, maybe more so with younger people on. You know, my side of the political spectrum is cancel culture. You know, it's, I just, I do not understand how the power that it, I mean, I understand the power that it has, but I don't. I just think it's so dangerous.

54:02 It's so quick.

54:03 It is.

54:04 And it's like a mob mentality, as far as I understand it.

54:07 Absolutely. And, you know, and then suddenly you have, you know, millions of people with an opinion about you who don't even know you. You know, if you're someone who's in the public eye.

54:17 Right.

54:18 And it just, it, I think it has created this resistance now that we have to be open and share and to engage with others because you're so worried that you're going to say the wrong thing, and then suddenly you're judged and you've now been labeled as this way when that's not at all who that person is. But just they said something maybe inappropriate in the moment. And I've again had this conversation with my daughter. I said, these are opportunities to teach. These are learning opportunities. If someone says something that, you know, would be considered offensive to someone or that is completely misguided, that's an opportunity to have a conversation with them, not immediately vilify them.

55:21 Yeah.

55:23 And I feel like cancel culture. It just comes from, it's almost like apathy to, you know, it's just easier to post something online about what a horrible person this guy is or this woman is who said this? Rather than take the time to, you know, engage with them. Yeah.

55:55 Yeah. And it's scary because, you know, and people in education, it can, well, in any field, I guess, it can endanger your career.

56:03 Oh, right.

56:03 And your life, because, as you say, millions of people and among those millions. It just takes one or two people that are open to violence, as we see. Absolutely. To cause something really bad to happen. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. The whole question of the Internet and the relative goodness and badness, like the benefits and the, the dangers. Oh, it's a huge thing that worries me.

56:33 I know. Yeah. And I don't, you know, it's, I don't see where it's, I don't see where it's getting better.

56:48 Yeah.

56:50 It's, it's definitely out of control.

56:53 Yeah. I remember laughing when I first heard of Twitter. And wasn't there like a 46 character limit or there was some kind of limit on how many? And I think it's gone now. That shows you how much I know.

57:07 But I think I don't even laughing.

57:10 At myself about, you know, how could you say anything worthwhile? I mean, what is this 46 worth?

57:16 Yeah. 46 characters.

57:18 Whatever it was. I don't remember the number of characters.

57:20 Yeah. Well, we are nearing the end of.

57:26 Our time, so I just kind of want to ask a last question. Is there anything from this conversation that surprised you? Is it what you expected and were your partner? Was your partner who you expected them to be, and what have you taken away from this experience? Well, I'm not really, I'm not really surprised that Lisa and I have a lot in common, just from reading her bio and the word art and the word motherhood and the willingness to be in this conversation.

58:03 Yeah. I'm also not surprised that based on your involvement with sacred grounds, as soon as I read that, I thought, oh, I think we're definitely going to have some things in common. But was definitely interested to hear about your relationship with the church because I knew that was something that we did. We're coming to this differently. But, yeah, I don't know if I. There was nothing that completely blew me away. Surprised. I also came into this with trying to not have a lot of expectations because, yeah, I didn't know what to expect.

58:45 Right, right. It's been great to have this opportunity. Yeah. All right.