Anthony Doyle and Judith Dierkes

00:07 My name is Judith Turkish and I am 50 years old and today's date is October 31st Halloween where Memphis Tennessee and

00:23 Tony is my lover.

00:27 My name is Tony. Well, I'm 60 years old. It's October 31st. We're located in Memphis, Tennessee, and she's my soulmate.

00:40 Okay, so I'm ready to begin.

00:46 Well, first of all.

00:51 What is your earliest memory?

00:54 My earliest memory

00:58 Probably has to do with

01:02 My mother's face more than anyone else.

01:09 At my birth

01:12 For lack of a better timing

01:14 It was a time when I realized immediately that our families gene pool have been fished out and I was faced with a

01:25 Long and suffering life

01:31 That's the end of that one. Okay.

01:35 Which of your relatives inspired you the most?

01:41 My grandfather

01:43 His name was Robert ball.

01:47 He had a hardware store in Smyrna, Georgia where we grew up.

01:53 And kept chickens in the backyard along with his garden and I trailed him around for his philosophy.

02:02 Where is long as I could?

02:05 And certainly he is my favored.

02:10 Did you ever have a nickname?

02:13 No, but by any definition that you had that you love the most.

02:25 Any time in your life?

02:29 Well, I have several dogs growing up and as an adult my favorite Ed Morse likely would be the dog that I had when I was in the service. I was a k9 Handler and his name was Lex a German Shepherd Not only was he a working dog, but he was my pit as well. So yes.

02:58 We pull security with the dogs. I was in Vietnam is a k9 Handler and we use the dogs to pull perimeter security and also Search and Destroy missions.

03:15 What would you say was a classic story or joke or a song in your family?

03:26 Or maybe there weren't any but I don't know any specifically we were very strict family. We didn't tell many stories as much as we listen to Bible stories. How did you feel when you first found out you were going to be a daddy?

03:47 A little afraid of the issue

03:53 I did not anticipate what it didn't was involved was not prepared. Probably like most people but quickly is Falls in line.

04:10 How has being a parent changed you?

04:16 It's Made Me aware of the responsibility to impart something Beyond discipline and attempt to teach

04:30 Children myth as to where they came from.

04:35 As a router to where they're going and that had not occurred to me until

04:41 My children were over older and I understood the importance of that and it changed my way of dealing with them and talking with them.

04:56 Can you describe the moment when you saw your child for the first time?

05:02 Not really yet. It was a blur and he was probably a blur so, okay. What was the scariest time in your life?

05:17 There been so many.

05:27 Let's go with the youngest what you were really really young.

05:35 I'm it's probably was when my grandfather died is he died suddenly and

05:44 There were some stories that were left Untold and some questions left unanswered and at that age which I was about 10 or 11. It just seemed like I was going to answer these things now.

05:59 UK

06:02 Until you're getting bored and I was going to start with the last question first. And so I thought what I would do is go to that one and then maybe we'll go for go the other direction boring one flat.

06:19 With the reason why I wanted to interview you like this was because when I first met you

06:27 You we were talking about being in a relationship. You said that?

06:35 You agree that it was important to you because you wanted somebody to know your stories and

06:45 That's one of my favorite things about our relationship is hearing your stories.

06:52 And I wanted to pick some things that stories that I haven't heard yet.

07:01 And cuz we've had some great talks about stories. For example, you know the one when we talked about candy, you don't remember that when we when we talked about all the different kinds of candy that we left.

07:25 And

07:28 So I wanted to because today is Halloween one of the reasons why I moved to do it today because today is Halloween and I wanted to know if you have any if you have memories of Halloween as a child what they are.

07:45 Are your Halloween story because the house we grew up in was so remote to anyone else who had children while we were probably viewed as like The Addams Family and the house that was unapproachable and we did not go out Halloween for Sunday because the houses was for the part in the word many children it was dark and we we actually did play more games among ourselves on Halloween and actually go out hoping of course that an innocent children of the neighborhood but approached us with the intent of trying to find candy and we were just scared the hell out.

08:35 Do you have you ever dressed up for Halloween not in many many years being noted that you are cuz my interviewee and a skeleton outfit which befits the day but probably never experienced it so that it. I felt like I needed to carry on the tradition for many many years.

09:00 Unlike yourself

09:04 It's my favorite favorite day of the whole year.

09:09 I can tell and I have dressed up every single Halloween of my entire life.

09:17 And that's why it was just I was just it was something we've never talked about and I was wondering if you ever dressed up as anything. Do you ever remember even like as an adult going to party again? Not really because you have to understand the structure I grew up and we were very it was a very strict family. You didn't get you but it was it was the background noise of how I grew up my kids. Yeah. My kids did Halloween in the whole neighborhood thing, but did you dress up when they went or did you go with them? You would walk down the sidewalk behind them and kind of watch but no.

10:05 Leila ghost in there, obviously the sheet with the $2 was the easiest thing to to do so.

10:18 Okay.

10:22 Let's see. What else I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you about memories of Bryan and Missy and and

10:33 Do you have like a favorite memory of Brian?

10:37 Brian is my son. He's 32 now and my daughter Missy is 27 just for clarification.

10:48 Memories of the two growing up or are somewhat dimmed by the fact that their mother and I were divorced when they were very young. So I missed a lot of their young year in terms of day-to-day experience.

11:06 But memories of them overcoming that and being as close as we are now is is good friends is is a good memory. So I have to leave it at that. Okay.

11:20 What was the most profound spiritual moment in your life?

11:30 Probably with the exploration of Eastern philosophy.

11:37 Had great difficulty understanding a lot of the western world religion issues that I found some clarity in eastern philosophy and theology which

11:53 I've studied on and off for 10 years or so, and it actually helped me understand some of my

12:03 Parents Hill and my grandparents sufferings and and sort of a sort of gave some clarity to what I considered to be a spiritual experience.

12:18 What was your

12:22 Proudest moment

12:24 What do you most what are you proudest of about your life?

12:30 I probably the second half. I spent the first half of my life and in banking and traditional business which was a profit and greed curve that I realize that I could not spend my entire life doing that and committed the second half my life to giving back and doing

12:54 Good things are supposed to concerning myself with how much you can take from someone and that that's was a problem. It's an ongoing thing a balance in your karma so to speak.

13:09 If you could do anything in the world that you can imagine right now, what would that be stored over from the very beginning?

13:20 In in many ways. I mean they're the regrets about things that you didn't do right the first time in which she has second chance to do them over. I just mentioned I was in banking for many years. But if I had to the do-over I would have spent that time and I created Pursuit probably Outdoors as opposed to a glass tower. So maybe in the next life, there's still some of this one last, you know, okay. I want to know what you have written on your hand. Actually. I did make a couple of those Mayan could you refuse to ask me what I was going to be a s and fortunately my hand has sweated most of it off which I cannot make any sense out of what so ever so it becomes irrelevant at this point.

14:09 So why were you worried about what I was going to ask you I wasn't worried about what you would ask me. I actually was more concerned on asking some questions back and how to respond and then just your normal.

14:27 Idiosyncrasies of being

14:31 Interviewed. Okay, so you didn't like the idea that you didn't know the questions.

14:38 So if you had known the questions, what would you have done?

14:42 It probably prepared some extraordinarily.

14:48 Meticulous response that would go down in the annals of History.

14:54 Now that you've heard some of the questions would you have wanted to know them beforehand? Okay.

15:02 So that whole idea is the converse of that is I I could have asked you all of those above questions of which you would have had a numerous.

15:13 Responses to being being the the German Heritage that you are. I understand the specificity of the morning.

15:25 These questions answered but I thought about really philosophical ones like which it would you rather have a philosophical question for philosophical. Okay. Let's see.

15:41 Well, you know, that one was pretty fellows life different than what you'd imagined.

15:51 Well, yes, I think we think of life is lineal when it's actually cyclical. And if you knew the new what goes around comes around you just wait for it instead of chasing it.

16:10 So yeah, it's interesting.

16:15 I Ike probably not as colorful though as you because you have a sense of color and round and pattern and you're an artist. I mean, I actually like know your answer to that.

16:34 It's everything I imagined it was going to be.

16:40 And and more

16:43 Because it's not over yet and I still have lots of things that I still think that I'm going to.

16:57 If you want to tell me what that is, you know is I want to make a sculpture that is an eyeball and I want you to be able to go inside the eyeball and look at and see correctly.

17:21 Okay, and it's always an ex and educational tool about vision and

17:30 And it's I'm still working on it. It's formulating order.

17:36 But those are the kinds of things that it did her exciting to me as future possibilities.

17:45 Any other questions you wanted to ask me progressively you okay?

17:54 If you don't have any written down they have to come off the top of your head.

17:59 I think it come out your ear, you know, I am.

18:05 When it when you said you were going to interview me for this I

18:10 Was I kept thinking about okay. Now, what do I need to tell about family history like Heritage and where we came from and

18:21 Mother being a daughters American Revolution and excetera excetera excetera which seemed to be pertinent questions, but

18:31 I I I don't know that.

18:36 They have as much relevancy as what one is thinking about and doing today is opposed to what sort of

18:45 Bricks were stacked up in your pants to make you who you are.

18:50 With that said I would ask the question to you.

19:00 What?

19:02 Are you most afraid of not being able to do?

19:08 For the rest of your life

19:13 What am I most afraid of not being able to do for the rest of my life?

19:20 No, I'm most afraid of not being able to do exactly what I'm doing right now.

19:28 Because I'm having a blast right now.

19:33 And

19:35 I don't want that to end.

19:40 And what if it does?

19:42 Well, I'll I'm sure I'll bunt and I'll figure it out but

19:51 Our God work to make sure it doesn't end

19:57 Severe answer, but I know there's a deeper answer to that which involves traveling to every place you've ever not been.

20:11 And doing everything that you have done which

20:18 Is probably at the dream of most people?

20:22 But limited by what they do now as something that could ever accomplish would you drop what you do now?

20:33 To Simply go

20:36 And do the kind of things that you really want a c and b and whatever be on

20:45 Teaching in Memphis. Oh, well, I ain't first of all that's not a fear. Okay. I don't have a fear that I won't get to travel all over the world to do all of those things, but I will admit that I do have a sense of

21:08 Obligation to earn a living before I allow myself to play but what I like to do is make sure that I get to play every year at some point for certain amount of time. I have lots of ideas of ways to play and I don't know his get to do them all you know, but like the traveling around the 50-50 thing if I don't get to do that well course, I've only got like three more months to do that with so that's not going to happen this year for sure, but that doesn't keep that from being a part of something I may formulate.

21:49 Soon, you know for the next World. The reason I asked a question and I think it applies to me as well as you because if you take

22:00 Life's experience back about 10 15 20 years ago and then I'll Express this with you responding in your way. But let's go 10 years ago where the perspective of life's choices and what you could do and where you could be seem to be so much greater than they are today simply by the limitation of economic events in the world political events in the world excetera that we did. I feel more entrapped by the options applying the what ifs

22:42 Is it supposed to seeing a blank canvas of opportunity? I'd be interested in your response to that but it was speaking more specifically. It's almost like the Reno 911 to the post 9/11 kind of view of the world because as a male When You're 15 years old 20 years old at the options for you or like

23:17 An ending for female

23:21 I think that you realize that there is this possibility that you may be a mother, you know that that sort of looms over because at this point in my life very shortly. I'm going to get to the point where that's no longer going to be in a possibility or an option and to me that's a major way off of me because having a child means that you would also have that 20 year commitment to making sure that that child is okay. So you got to keep working. You got to keep that job. You got to keep telling the line where it's I'm just about looking to the point where I'm not going to feel that need.

24:05 2

24:06 Be be in a stable kind of environment where I can just be whatever I want to be.

24:15 So I look at things logically in perceptively and you look at things emotionally and

24:22 And physically, I guess

24:28 Possibly

24:29 Interesting

24:32 Okay, you want me to go back to question? Okay, let's see.

24:40 If you have grandchildren, what would you want them to know about you?

24:46 And I know that it's a

24:48 Maybe a slim possibility.

24:51 It's real Slim for me.

24:59 Perceptively it would be and hypothetically that my

25:07 Grandchildren wood

25:11 See me no more of this is a character.

25:15 Then they would then they would just simply a lineage Mark of where they came from.

25:23 I I've tried to do some extraordinary things that the create sort of a myth for my children, even though they don't pay any attention to it maybe later they will that there are things different than you think of most people doing.

25:40 So that would be the

25:43 Blood like to see Carrie.

25:48 Okay.

25:50 Is there anything that we didn't talk about did you want to talk about was that you thought we would talk about or what? Am I supposed to ask myself a question with a question, but you know a subject matter.

26:06 Well

26:08 I would like to stay.

26:12 That

26:14 My

26:16 Family in its history

26:20 Actually go back to the beginning of this country. I mean my

26:25 Genealogy study showed that on my mother's side that they were French huguenots. They they came from England and they were here before the Declaration of Independence settling in South Carolina and Georgia. My father's family came in the late Seventeen hundreds as well Irish potato Farmers after the fan.

26:51 So historically

26:55 The lineage is there but unlike.

27:00 Today and I'm sure they had stories to their children into their children into their children, but somehow they they didn't get written down or they didn't get told or somebody's forgot the stories and I have been trying to spend a great deal of time with my mother who's now 85 and sort of the last one to remember anything to try and document what she knows both in and sound and story and you know, if time were infinite that be able to relate those in some way but it concerns me that that we don't

27:42 Tell the stories are we don't tell the myth of who we are and in so much where we came from and that it's an important process. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this is to get down on record any part of your story that maybe I hadn't heard part of it was just selfish and then I was asking questions that that I didn't know the answer to it yet. But part of it is also to give you an opportunity to say any of the things or to talk about any of the things that perhaps you and I have already talked about that. I already know but something that you would want to have

28:33 You know remembered?

28:37 Of course, you know.

28:41 Well, I get done this early have to be a public issue. I mean, I would tell my children things that I wouldn't say here in terms of experience, but I would go beyond it to say that the experiences of being in Vietnam at a time when it was a major issue and then coming back and protesting the war and going through the the corporate side of making money and then turning right around on on the side of of fairness and and and attacking the same corporations for for greed and and making them accountable which seems like two sides of the same coin but life is two sides of the same coin and it is a yin-yang process. So whatever I've done on one side, I've experienced the other side of the coin many times.

29:41 And I found that to be a young life lesson Vietnam because I really appreciate.

29:49 That you've talked about Vietnam to me.

29:53 A lot and because I think I told you that my father never would you the minute you talked about war he would cut you off and you never even he never even like the pictures of him or the metals or anything like that. And I really appreciate the fact that you shared that with me.

30:13 And yet one thing that I found really fascinating was that

30:18 You didn't want that when I brought up the fact that there was a video about the dogs that were you in a war dogs that whole thing. You kind of acted like you weren't interested in it and didn't you know, he liked seen it done it been there kind of thing two groups of people those that were actually involved in the processes of combat and many who weren't and interesting Lionel clothes that weren't 10 to tell more War Stories than those that were and why I don't know. Why what that what that issue is. I don't own a gun. I haven't on the guns since I was there I would not

31:09 I just want to be around and then I don't want to talk about what the implications of can be done with Warfare. But at the time I was there we were losing 400 in a week.

31:22 In Iraq were losing sometimes for 280 week. The numbers were so much different than they are today and yet we did not think about it in terms of that much of a loss at that time it was

31:42 We were either too doped up to talk about it or or too much involved in the process, but it it the warmest effect on everybody who was there myself included but it's just something I just don't talk about because then like because I was when Vietnam occurred I was you know doing book report doing a school research reports on it and things like that. It was very abstract to me even though and but it was going on and it was a discussion and it's at the table in between family members and things like that, but and I wanted to be a radical hippie, but I was a little too young, you know, but I remember the

32:38 The

32:40 The story but it wasn't real to me until you started talking about it to me and I really appreciate that. You shared that with me because when we started talking about the Iraq War you made it it was much easier for me to understand.

32:58 What we were talking about and to have a reaction to it.

33:02 Wars always going to be part of our process whether we want to or not in this like when you were raising so much hell about going into Iraq and I said it's going to happen. She's a way you can prevent it. I'm going to know you can't I really and truly want to believe that there will be a time when we do not have wars. I put a knife and I think that until we get that into our head and still we start to even believe that it won't happen. If you know cuz I believe that what you say in your mind is what's going to happen ourselves too much by War we're defining that is being okay and it even goes to my own relevance because I say OK free Vietnam. I was one of my post Vietnam that was another pre 9-11. I was this way post 9/11 I was that way.

33:58 Maybe we need to start stop using that as a measure of anything. Maybe we should measure things more in between like a happy moments. Maybe we Define ourselves by negative moments and maybe that's not a healthy thing to do. It did goes more to you know, if maybe it's just a question what we've got to talk about, you know people like to talk about things that are in the media things that are on the on the spur of the moment there and we we have such a small. Of time to even graphs those things before something else takes his place. So I'm moving realm of identity and in the course of doing that we somehow lose our own identity in that process.

34:56 And it kind of goes back to the issue that I again will state about mythology.

35:02 I hit it. Did. I believe it was Campbell of Deepak Chopra? Who said wee wee mithil eyes the past William Neff the ties the present and we alchemize the future and we we got to stop doing that.

35:19 Yeah, okay.

35:23 So, do you have anything else written on your hand that you can it's a blur? It's a bore absolute observations of life if you would ask me and

35:40 Did I had learned one was questioning why a bedroom isn't called a restroom and the other is that you cannot in any shape form or fashion ever lick your elbow.

35:56 Possum

35:59 Try

36:02 I can't.

36:04 So those are your two gems of philosophy that you went to share besides the fact it when you write your notes on your hand. You should remember not to sweat.

36:19 Has has been extremely painful.

36:23 Was it fun? It was fun Halloween that you remember?

36:34 This is probably the hardest thing that I've ever done on a Halloween you started this process you can summarize it. So any ending comments you'd like to make.

36:46 Okay.

36:48 Well, you know my ending comment will be.

36:53 Simply the same kind of thing that I reiterated before is that that this is a gift to you. It's a Halloween treat for you whether or not you care about Halloween treats.

37:10 It wasn't the trick. It wasn't a Halloween trick. And I think maybe you thought it was but I have to admit that. I tried to kind of make you think that

37:22 Because that's what Halloween's about Halloween's really about fun and and about the difference between Trick and Treat and what is the difference between chicken Tate is kind of like yin and yang, you know, because what the trick to one person could be a treat to another person and another person you were going to take me to lunch. That'll be the treat.

37:52 Okay, that that pretty much sums it up. So you feel like this was a trick and how to treat I didn't give you the questions. How is the traffic going to be? Okay.

38:11 Antagonistic partner

38:15 No, not at all. Right, you know this this is

38:19 We'll have to continue these conversations unrecorded.

38:33 Anything else