Mary Shafer and David Branch

00:03 My name is Kathleen Schaefer. I am 41 years old. It is Thursday December 17th, 2020. I am in Marfa, Texas and I am speaking with my husband David and I wanted to do this with you David because I've always loved storycorps since the beginning and I've always listened to a little stories on NPR and I just thought it would be a fun way to kind of connect with you over some things just for the fun of it.

00:40 Gymnastics

00:43 Is it supposed to start starting? Well, I want to talk to you about your coming to, Texas.

00:55 Okay, so now I'm supposed to start. My name is David Branch. I'm 43 years old believe that's correct. Today is December 17th is a track 20/20. I'm in Marfa, Texas speaking with my wife Kathleen Schaefer.

01:19 And yes, I from being aware of this project was Kathleen suggestions. So here we are and I've been in Texas now since 2005. So 15 years going on 16 this year. I rejoin moved to Texas to study architecture and graduate school at the University of Texas in Austin Kathleen and I both grew up in Virginia.

01:51 And we met out here and Martha. Where should I start with coming to Texas? What do you want to ask me about it or are we starting this whole thing coming to Market since that's where we are now and that's where we met.

02:10 Kathleen and I both met here we have different.

02:16 Memories that stand out when I don't think either of us disagree, but I think I'm Different Emery to stand about when and how we came to meet one. Another are a go on the bar.

02:32 Kathleen was delivering a you should say you Rises were talking to you. You were delivering a presentation about photographs you taken of airfields, I guess for your MFA and you've been out here looking at the abandoned Airfield and Martha and you had spoken at Marfa Book Company then when it was its own Standalone place.

03:03 I'm kind of a lot more fun and

03:07 I remember really enjoying the photography and being kind of photo geek myself as a kid it seemed.

03:17 Intriguing to me that that's what you were doing wandering around and shooting photos read a lot in graduate school and a lot of the things that were most meaningful to me were things that you were also speaking about specifically JB Jackson's essays on landscape and space and

03:38 Always liked his writing in the he didn't seem overly academic. He seemed just really enjoy being out in the world and it seemed like

03:50 Renown your Pursuits of Photography and videography and under no had more to do with understanding people time places and less about you know, getting at some pieces or trying to and I'll write up the paper. It just seemed like you were engaged and intrigued in a way that really struck me and I just remember thinking just girls really cool.

04:19 I'd like to get to know her more that's not wearing that you ask I know where we met. But that's what sticks out to me if I had to think about where I first started thinking about you, correct?

04:37 Do you want me to keep talking or do you want to explain your version of things? How do you want to do this back and forth? I mean I can tell I remember that that I gave you and I remember talking about JD Jackson. I think we both admire his work still and in a lot of ways you remind me of him? Although I didn't know him personally if he died while ago but in your writing certainly reminds me of his writing in that you're just kind of always curious and out there in the world and you want to see things that I admire that about you but we met at Valerie's Studio.

05:24 I was instantly smitten.

05:27 Who is not to be for a few more years good thing you stuck it out. I think we both grew a little spheres probably a lot of a lot of life in the way. I can do more for knowing. I have a job there, right? But why did you say I mean you could have just said at the end of the project this place I'm leaving. It was it that I'd come tomorrow full of several times under different.

06:11 Pretenses suck ass because my friend Tim like here and we had been closed earlier in our early twenties and then I crossed paths in Austin just as I came to school. We were actually actually roomed with his ex-girlfriend and then when he thinks playing that with him he moved in with me and so when he left move to Juarez and other Martha, you know, we've had a pretty tight connection. So I came camping out here a couple times to visit Tim and just hang out and then we had a couple school projects here repeatedly actually over the years that I was in graduate school, and I was just struck when I came

06:55 Spada expensiveness of the place that

07:00 Remember the things that actually struck me most was it was in the days where the Oakton Ave open house would still closed off downtown main drag and have a big barbecue in the middle of Highland Avenue. And it was awesome. I mean it was totally awesome. It was like having a crab boil or a clambake or something mixed with like a block party mixed with black some kind of cocktail party or a wedding or something. It was a crazy in a people kind of wondering in and out of all the businesses there weren't as many stores that are open along the main drag then but my eyes open and people were coming in and out and told them we're not sharing drinks in their hand and people are getting my food and the sun went down lights are all in the street and it just was I just thought you know, this is a bizarre version of a lot of the things that I've liked most about many places. I've been in my life summer summer camps and you know,

07:57 Family place down on the river and all those cottages and everybody going to knowing everybody and coming and going to be grandparents back porch and uncles and cousins coming and going and I just thought this felt welcoming an open and fun and intriguing in a way that had a lot to do with things that felt familiar to me. But also we're really knew what that was like 11 years ago and I'm curious as well. Now. But you moving to Martha was it 11 years ago, but I'm curious because we both I mean, I've only been here full time for three years, but I've been coming out and obviously researching it and

08:44 And it's changed a lot and I I wonder about like the wonder that people in Taurus Taurus especially speak of about Martha. I mean, I've worried that we're losing that because it is, you know, when you live in the place of Tourism it just changes for you. Well, I guess mr. Jackson as a lever here if you know if his writing an interest was

09:14 Expensive and curious cuz I guess he would probably say that they were places that were more fascinating to him or more beautiful. If that's a thing that he would have claimed to think understanding of place for all its ups and downs and ins and outs is intriguing and

09:34 And it when I left Virginia, I don't always enjoy being in the wide-open. I like being in the mountains. I like driving. I like traveling camping and canoeing and wandering around on one way or another.

09:49 Coming to Texas. You know, when I first arrived in Austin, I was so struck having driven there and 100 across the country before and was eager to see you know, that kind of space again, but I was so struck by

10:02 The color light through the canopy in the trees in Austin or so different than Richmond and Virginia and the mountains and Tidewater. You know, it's leafy. It's green and it's it's Pleasant. It's not like the desert here. It doesn't take as much getting used to felt familiar enough to feel like a familiar place, but it was so different to me than the sun felt the weather landscape in Austin, which is a very different place, you know, it's busy and it wasn't as busy as it is now but was a busy City and you know Collegetown legislative town and growing into itself and enthusiasm. I think that I I had when I arrived in Texas stay with me and you know as well as I began coming out west further

10:51 I just thought I wanted to I wanted to keep that enthusiasm up. I'm glad you know, it spent time in the East working with my friend John on arm house out in the mountains in a rigid weird little cabins and things from friends and was interested in adventure. I was interested in being somewhere somewhere remote. I wanted to be somewhere new and so my sister being in Marfa had as much to do with exploring all of that stuff as being in Marfa for say and I didn't think Marco was the answer or was I too terribly worried about whether it would change in some way that would let me down America speak more about that cuz it might have actually but

11:36 You know what? I wanted to build something here because I wanted to try to see if

11:47 A good part of some of that enthusiasm and at the same time use some of the skills that I had developed over the years, you know, I started my own little business and I've gone to graduate school and I was very eager to get to work. I thought you know, maybe this would be an ideal spot small enough to meet a lot of people and be able to afford to buy a place or buy some land and build something on it by big enough and kind of cool enough interesting enough that it had contact with different kinds of people that might be interested in you no more.

12:22 Design oriented work rather than just building a bathroom addition or fixing up your kitchen or something like that. So

12:33 Have you seen a change?

12:37 I mean especially as a builder, it's a man. I'm on the sides here, but it's extremely frustrating to be here when you're trying to accomplish something like that. I think can you sing the the energy and enthusiasm that you bring to a project and I guess some people are really good at turning on into fast-paced Quick production. But for me, you know what I thought I could accomplish him three years took eight or ten and I'm in the time it took to build something up and save enough money and you know, do what I was hoping to do took a long time and it didn't help that the economy was in the can when I moved out here and work was a little slow on the uptake and you know trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do and who I wanted to do it with and how that was supposed to work to pick up some space in my life as well on and I said things took longer. So for me that this appointment has

13:34 Yeah, you know me we can talk about how my life has changed and I'd be interested to do so but disappointment has probably less to do with the loss of whatever that Arrow was and more just another difficulty of realizing that it's hard work to see your dreams into real life. I mean the news to be hard work. I've always work hard but it was ponderous and slow and back facing half the time and that's my own fault, you know, like concentrating on a relationship for making that up a business opportunity was going to play out and it didn't or and I'm just getting distracted and trying to enjoy my time and then not putting in you know that y'all are focused weeks that I did when I was you know, my running my own business in Richmond, you know, so all that stuff.

14:34 Harder, and yeah, Marvel's changed a great deal. I mean, I'm sure I mean maybe your impressions are different or not. I feel like maybe your frustrations with Mark are different than mine. Although I'm sure they overlap. I think they overlap but I also and way less patient than you are and I think you're impatient. So I don't know what that says about me. But yeah, it's really frustrating to try and accomplish like what in Austin or another city would be a really minor thing goes for me.

15:07 I mean we talked about this enough that I think I know what you're getting at what you said, you know, just the nuts and bolts of doing things getting a plumber on the phone or even having access to materials or other businesses or supply chain stuff or just turn on turning things over more quickly going to print shop or even a Kinkos, you know, or even a grocery store for that matter is harder here and that's certain. Always was kind of a challenge to me and even though it's hard and their times where I wish those things were easier.

15:43 I kind of expected in an otherwise even set myself up for the

15:49 Idea that

15:51 I was just going to have to take a lot of things on myself and figure out how to adjust either adapt or learn more skills or slow myself down to meet case of something else and you think it's made you less reliant on people in a in a sad way in like a way that you don't like like me you you'd want you by necessity. You have to learn how to for example tile a bathroom because it's hard to get someone out here to do it. So you have to do that. But also just, you know calling someone to come fix a thing or help you out and you know, maybe they come maybe they don't and like I know what I'm saying is those kind of things are less stressful to me and I'm

16:46 Do you think that your community supports you in that way like in terms of helping each other as I have I was going to answer your question this way by saying it isn't the things like access to be no a lumber yard or your machine shop or something that lets me down so much or even really reliable contractors or something more work a day, but I really had hoped when I was.

17:24 Running my own business and you know after having been in school for four years that the kinds of interactions I was building in both the hands on carpentry Craftsman ladyworld, if you know finish work and Furniture work and that kind of thing in Virginia and you know, the Hands-On nature of design degree in architecture, I had really wanted to take that energy in and find people like that and there were a great many like-minded people that I knew prior to moving here and I had hoped that moving here. I would need more of them in a way I did there a lot of you know talented capable people of all Stripes out here and I enjoyed those relationships in some ways.

18:16 Albert's enjoy the knowing that those people existed more than being able to utilize them in and get real tanning changing away. I mean like Starburst and tastic Eugene even for all his kind of comings and goings to really characters know and now there's so many talented people here that are almost every single one of them is a lone wolf and almost a crack. Well, yeah, I think that's totally accurate and I think that makes it more fun taco party but it makes for a hard way to build up, you know group of folks common projects and I had really hoped for that. I had hoped, you know, those enabler guys have brought their own construction crew out here for a project and I think they had enough momentum behind their cohesive group that you know time will tell whether they retain that but they had it and they have it now and I wish that that is at me. I wish that I had had, you know, three more people like

19:16 Robert or in the old days, even Joe and Ross or come out there were people who just thought we want to do this how we going to do this and that was an open-ended question. You know, I didn't have an agenda about starting a new job or you know doing Adobe Restorations or anything in particular. I just thought I would find the kind of talented people that I had stumbled upon in the past either in school or in my own life prior try to build something off of their everybody sort of mutual energy and I think the biggest disappointment for me here was the

19:49 That didn't seem possible. I'd rather that was failing of Mine by not, you know recognizing Kyle best to Corral those people or or encourage them or bring them in on something or share and some larger thing. I don't that might be right. Maybe I'm just too different idea of what that would be and I missed an opportunity or maybe you know, everybody was so busy themselves that they were they were available or has more than happy to exchange up a lack of you know, we're rather disappointment in and not having the business model that I thought I would have and instead of being surprised by the relationship that I

20:39 I can hear you know, if anything is said to me now almost less sad the business thing anymore that makes just life, you know where an early forties now.

20:52 Are there different there still good people in Taiwan?

21:00 Busy with their relationships or other work and your paths cross and different or if you were ways have children and other things that they need to attend to or you know, just those nights of distraction crazy ambitious ideas that come to us when we were younger start to Wayne and you know, I don't want to lose that and it was my hope that would have to have with you and we could we could be that business or that.

21:29 Friendship, and I know that we know it's not about kind of standing alone and being alone wolf. It's about building.

21:41 On which other strengths whether that's with co-workers or friends or partner in your life. What are my strengths?

21:50 To be hard

22:01 Letter that you gave someone deeply to be around someone who thinks on their toes who's sharp pain quick and curious and broadly intelligent rather than are really intelligent and out of someone who's interested in life. However, that comes

22:31 I think there's lots of small strengths that I could enumerate. I think you probably know them.

22:41 I'm just thinking something else. You know, I think you're you showed me once a letter that your mom had written about you or to you. I can't, I think about you and your best friend said that you are her Rock and you know, I saw it clear to me, you know, you're

23:06 Slow-moving solid creature you have a rootedness Sinai thoughtfulness and a maturity to you. That is

23:16 20 button sound and

23:20 You know as a builder right like solid footing as a good place to start and kind of doesn't matter what other problems come your way. If you got that you're you're right and that's what I saw in you and above any other number crunching diligence. That's your strengths for me. How do we complement each other?

23:45 Can you tell her you have a nice ass or something that I think you are very good at living in the moment.

24:03 And

24:05 I said this before I think you slow me down in a good way for most of the time sometimes that I put a little bit of a fire under your butt just to keep moving forward, especially given the the challenges of doing things out here in West so I think I think those are our kind of Yin and Yang

24:37 But I think you're a very thoughtful person and I think you

24:44 Do you think about every little detail and I think I really like that. Although it's as your wife. It's frustrating that you accrue so many things that you do crew that you hold onto but I will say you do end up using it. So I

25:11 We just need to pick one project to use everything of that everything in its right place. But I do like that you used to be like an old door and you're like that's a good door. I'm going to put that to use and we're as I'm like, I want to get rid of all this stuff cuz I'm sick of moving it and I'll just buy a new door when it's time.

25:35 Well digging in which we need to buy a new well drilled ourselves with.

25:52 Personal introspection I guess.

25:59 I don't know. Do you think that your time in Texas or in West Texas specifically has changed you have you seen?

26:11 Things in yourself that feel all different than then you would have expected or went or didn't go the way that you thought that go. I think I've always thought of myself as a very hardcore introvert which I think has not changed but I do given that most of my family is back in DC Virginia Maryland like you I was surprised at how much I miss my kind of people my family and friends that are back East. So that's I think that's hard because we are so remote it takes a while to get there. But I do I do like that.

26:55 You know where as in another city or place that we lived, you know people stop by here and people you see people in this casual frequent way, that's really that's really lovely and charming and you don't get that in a big city. So I do, you know us again as much of an introvert as I am. I do appreciate like that more frequent personal connection that we have with our friends here.

27:26 Do you feel like a different person or do you feel any way different in The Last 5 Years of your life?

27:40 Made me regret all my life choices took too long. It's probably true.

27:48 No, I like.

27:51 I thought way too nice weather. We're was our wedding.

27:58 Well two parts in their clean the lawn in front of the courthouse and then in the road in front of her house, that was a fun party.

28:05 I think we stayed up too late.

28:12 I guess what next you know, I mean, I think if I'm going to just be expensive for a second.

28:23 You know the kind of excitement I felt about the adventure of the West and open space and

28:32 Why are small towns and different experiences is?

28:40 How long is that ever goes away on those things are strong in me yet. But you never feeling very claustrophobic in Virginia. Not like a Manhattan kind of claustrophobia and not like I'm stuck behind my desk, claustrophobic just

29:00 You know realizing how much of a prospect on space and Horizon you can have when you leave as a wooded mountainous place.

29:14 You know, I really wanted to be out in that open space and having been in the open space now for 15 years. It's beating me up and away, you know the signs and cook me and the wind is drying me out and I still find it appealing and

29:34 Probably always will want to be in in some contact with her.

29:40 Vista when I Prospect but you know little bit like just being in the snow so long in your boots are wet in your pants are cold and it's time to come in in a part of me wonders what next in the same way that you know how to do the asking for the desert. I'm curious. How do you know not a Desert Rat to my co-worker and I'm curious what other places and experience is coming my temper that exposure

30:12 What do you want to accomplish in the next year or big picture?

30:20 I feel like we have a lot of ideas on a couple projects already. I'd very much like to see the project through and I'd like diligent about doing it stuck in my approach to things in the sense that save a little money here and set aside some material there and then when you know slowly Shirley and I build something from it, it's been more than a desire. I think I've learned a lot about working that way and I I like some of the things I've learned about working that way. I don't think I ever really lose it or something more.

31:00 Direct gas as in you know, step back and Liberty else do it, but that's sad like, yeah. I prefer to be quicker and faster and less reliant on the making.

31:16 It's me. You didn't even scratch and got her a couple thousand dollars for this thing or that.

31:24 Tow truck charm. Yeah, I'd like to finish the projects that we've begun. I'd like to be, you know Courage by then. I'd like to thank you know what they could be rather than just get rid of them or be done with them to move on. I would want to do right by then.

31:42 But I'm eager to see what else is out there in the world like going somewhere else or what do you mean by that?

31:50 I'm moving around. Yeah, I mean, you know you and I both had enough.

31:58 Difficult childhoods, but I think we both had lovely childhoods enveloped by terrible divorces your cases for a side of different but like, you know when your mom passed away and they bulldoze the house like that's a strange thing to feel and you know, we moved so often all the time that I never had a lot of homes and I had pushed it felt like Holmes grandparents houses and cousins and uncles and friends house has always felt at home in a lot of places, but I love having the home. I love having built that home. That was a huge challenge for me even as a young kid in the mountains and learning out on Millwood call Timberland.

32:49 Working as a carpenter in a builder in a construction worker like these skills started piling up and I thought I'm be damned if I'm not going to do something with this. So I feel deeply rewarded having done something with that and I it doesn't I guess it sentimentality. It feels more.

33:09 Solid thing that you know, the places that were meaningful to me as a child my grandmother's house or you know, our place down on the river. They were my grandmother's house was big but their house if the river is a tiny little cottage Sears Roebuck thing from the 20th and snot Revival or even really all that well built but it was so meaningful to me as a place not all the people that have come and gone from it and all the

33:38 You just feel it when you can feel it. We could hear it in the way the door slammed remind you of the way the door always slammed and who came through it and who left out of it and might be coming who might be going to be staying there and Tamia house home was always about coming and going not about just being there and having a place of our own here now is something I don't never want to lose you. It may not stay here, but I I don't

34:05 I want to lose that so when I think about going somewhere else, I think about being expensive in our travel. You know, what else is out there with possible. What can we what can you do? You know, how can we keep something that feels meaningful to us? That's ours and at the same time expand on that not trade it in for a different model, but you learn about what it took.

34:32 A bus to get there and I would it take to be the people we are now would it take to end up here and

34:41 Save money and

34:45 Build a home. I never saw that is as a commodity. I saw that is essential to your self.

34:56 So leaving is leaving with the strength that that gives you you know as a kid when I left home. I didn't leave home because I was like hell this place. I'm tired of Virginia and I don't like my family and I just got to get out of here. I was so excited by the upbringing that I've had for better for worse. It was full of juice. You know, it was the strength of my own self that my family gave me that let me leave home for 15 years, you know, I didn't leave home cuz I didn't like it there were things I didn't like about it. There were things I wanted to learn about what else was out there, but you know,

35:34 I want whatever we do together to be.

35:38 Building and

35:43 Catalyzing encouraging to us. I don't want to just change my mind all the time. I want to move forward feeling good about what we're trying to do.

35:54 I also would you ever move back to Richmond? I was spoiled thinking that that's what a city was a physical presence of that city is something maybe not entirely unique but rare to find and I miss it, but I never did quite know how to be myself in that town and

36:25 Maybe I'm close to feeling like I'm there, but maybe not quite yet, but I do miss the southeast I would love to be.

36:33 Yeah, I miss the water is me missing the sound now in the winter snows good. Yeah.

36:42 What time do you?

36:47 Didn't want to go back to the east coast. What do you think similar to you? I think we are in the same page about

36:57 Enjoying being home and wanting to spend more time there, but not necessarily wanting to leave Martha. Just wanting to be a little more.

37:08 Fluid with our location but not like in a van LifeWay.

37:16 And I told you I mean, yes, you know your brothers in Maryland in your dad's there and we are in Richmond and certainly if we were in Striking Distance of either of those places, we be able to see them more but you know, one of your brothers doesn't know where he wants to be in the other brothers talked about moving to Texas and Dad spends half his time in Florida and my grandmother is getting pretty old and how much are generation cousins are, you know, a little looser and their affiliations and I don't know if 15 years from now living there would feel like it did 20 years prior, you know.

38:01 So

38:04 I think for me being in proximity to that familiarity and and you know, I'm going to touch base with smells and sounds and places a different kind of history of people.

38:19 Different kind of way of looking at the world is something that I would like to do. I don't really know how to do that. It may be a fantasy writing. You never go back. I can't really you can't go home again what they say.

38:32 The question is kind of a little bit but early on in the conversation Kathleen you had mentioned that when you met David you're instantly smitten and I don't feel that we really heard about that experience to do you mind kind of explaining the first time that you all met at Valerie's Studio party and I was talking to you and you were talking about being the Richmond where my dad is from and you were talking about being a builder and having gone to UT for architecture and I think I was instantly taken with your blue eyes with your loved ones.

39:25 And you have these like perfectly crooked teeth, which maybe sounds weird but they are perfectly crooked and I just I like there was something about being out here in West Texas and having that like Richmond connection, which kind of seems silly to say that but I don't know. I mean it's funny because now that have a merry do I feel like sometimes I married my father you both have a lot of cars. It's a compliment I think but it's also kind of a surprise for you when you think like they always say you're going to marry your father and mother and I don't like those car doesn't mean that we're the same kind of guy. But yeah, I was I was taken with you instantly, but I was going back to Austin.

40:25 To finish coursework for my PhD and think you had just started dating someone here. I knew that would last but I figured let that play out. I'll be here when will not over so it took a couple more few more relationships. You want to get to that point.

40:44 But then we got here is

40:52 That's all I got to say about that.

40:59 Well, well then we started we were acquaintances while I was doing research back and forth between Austin and Martha and I would run into you sometimes but not off not all the time. And it was always a pleasant conversation. I remember we drove around in your old truck one day. I was interested in architecture and Martha and you were kind of explaining all the stuff that I didn't know and about building here. And then I think you reached out just to say hey.

41:31 In the beginning of 2017 or the end of 2016 and I was going to be out here on a trip and we kind of connected actually that's funny. We remember when I propose that we do the the New York Times questions the New York Times had relatively recently a year or two before I had come out with their wasn't there but they wrote a story about the likes 31 questions to fall in love. I think maybe 32 and it's hokey and silly that I just want to acknowledge that but I thought it would be and I think I told you this is just going to be a really quick not quick because it took us awhile to get some questions but this would be a very thorough way to get to know each other like at a deeper level.

42:22 You know, basically, I feel like it was like 10 days in a 2 hour. But I remember I remember all the questions we would take turns going back and forth asking each other questions and almost every time you answered. I was just thinking well, that's like what I was thinking and we just kind of we're on the same page about somebody thinks that's true.

42:49 And then I moved out here a few months later.

42:53 When you were both then I guess I had to stay.

43:04 Moving and idea of the whole and so if you all were to create a home in the future, where would it be? What would it look like? And what would you fill it up with?

43:18 That's a good question.

43:23 Well, I mean, I think that's what I've been doing for a while. I mean in some ways my nesting Instinct almost predated.

43:41 My relationship with Kathleen which I think is vexing to her sometimes.

43:47 But you know, I spent three years renovating the house that is now ours and last spring we built.

44:00 Is the help of a friend of mine adopt and which were now all sitting so we've been office and we've got work space 1500 square foot building full of tools and Kilns and art supplies and darkroom equipment and we have a lot. I mean, I don't know. What are we missing? We need to finish the picture and from our families and

44:40 I think yeah, I think we're both probably more nostalgic than you would think.

44:46 And I probably have to fight that urge till I collect and hang on stuff.

44:54 Hank books and records for me or kind of the one thing I carry around with me no matter where I go and you have a lot of storage for your records. But I like your records. You've gotten me on to like three things. Will you're a DJ at the radio at what kind of show do you have a little over 10 years until the pandemic put internet the show called The Honky Tonk happy hour, which was a pretty Loosely defined.

45:32 Show about

45:34 Classic country music but it it veered pretty widely into country rock 70s Cosmic cowboy stuff and beard into Norteno couldn't do the Border music and it in the more recent years. It veered into East Texas, Louisiana swamp pop and Zydeco list Cosmic Asian stuff one's a cone mostly from the post-war as in World War II post-war forties through the early mid-1970s rockabilly hillbilly Bluegrass going to find some space in there. And for me, I was a learning about that music while I was doing the show rather than coming to it as some expert I had enough interest in at the house made a small collection, but you know for years and years and years that I did that show I was constantly kind of finding new things and playing them.

46:33 I miss that you're not doing that right now. That's hard to I feel like other DJs are doing.

46:41 Pre-recorded shows but so much of what I love about your show. And I think what you enjoy about doing your show and I think what all of your listeners enjoy about listening to the show is at you you're doing it live. Are you saying records and 45 and you're you're playing off of the music and what people are saying when they call in the or not you didn't go in there with you know, what 30 said playlist and hit play, you know, and I think that's what makes it really successful. I'm going to think it's kind of an interesting analogy for

47:16 But I think a good approach to anyting is which is learn as much as you can be enthusiastic and let that Curiosity and enthusiasm push. You can't just be you know, completely unfettered or at least for me. It doesn't seem to work. Well nothing but Ron Suzy azzam ends up kind of a hot mess. But if you can if you can actually substantiv and learn at the same time be free enough to to balance that things are grounding force with a enthusiastic willingness to just trying to jump off the next Legend and for me, I think talking about building a home or family or places to feel right like all of those things apply to that logic, which is it needs to be to be considered and then solid but now you need to be quick on your feet and you need to think about what works and you need to be able to make that decision and change your mind.

48:16 If it's not working, and I'm just play through it.

48:21 No sew for me building a home is as I was saying before an expensive thing, you know, maybe we move away from here and maybe we saw the house. I'm not opposed to it, but I can let you know when I was DJing I would always try.

48:37 In my own head and whether I think it translates are hard to say but I would try to kind of follow one thing with the next song reminded me of something or another thing in me or there was a rhythm or beat or a Tempo that needed speeding up or slowing down or a circuitous path back to this other idea was always a weird sort of intangible challenge next stops. The only really suggest themselves as they presented themselves. It wasn't something I thought about but I was trying to get better at reaction to those things and I think with your whenever you're creating whether it's our writing more architecture or just plain how you're going to spend your day figuring out how to do that. Well as it is a meaningful challenge,

49:27 How long are laugh to feel good?

49:36 Limit sell

49:43 New York Times questions and I guess maybe the last question that I have for you. All is If This Were the last time that you all would have a conversation with one another what would you want your recording partner to know?

49:57 Then one of us is dead and we never get to talk to him again.

50:03 Last chance that you'll have I made it to have meaningful conversation. What is one thing that you would want your recording partner to know?

50:12 Well

50:14 You can start I would want you to know how much I love you and how much I admire you and

50:26 How much I believe in you I think you're very talented and very thoughtful and I'm excited to be with you for the rest of our lives.

50:44 Well, I should preface it by saying I would hope that this isn't the only and last time to have a meaningful conversation, but

51:01 I would hope that you know how

51:06 Capable you are how fine you are.

51:14 Panda

51:17 God

51:19 In you

51:21 All you need for the world in front of you.

51:28 Strengthen the wisdom to make

51:35 Yourself happy and

51:38 And whether you see that

51:42 Personal quite right but

51:47 I think

51:51 I think you should know your own strength.

51:54 And how

51:57 Commanding beautiful that is

52:03 Thank you.

52:12 We're running out of time on this thing.