Tyler Marion and Brenda Martin

00:06 I'm Brenda Marion.

00:08 39 years old today is February 21st 2009 in Savannah Georgia with my husband Tyler Marion.

00:19 And I'm Tyler marrying. I'm 40 years old. Today is February 21st and like my spouse my wife Brenda. I'm in Savannah. We've been married for six years.

00:31 So tell her I'm interested to talk about your California experience when you were 18, and I love that story start the show me good good areas, maybe the graduating high school on the plane the next day.

00:49 1987 I think was a really tough year for me because being landlocked for social long and Cancers and and having lived abroad prior to moving to Kansas. The one thing I couldn't wait to do was get away from big chimney Lane. And for those listening btooom Elaine is is my parents Big Jim is just kind of the authoritarian. I figure the family in Elaine is a quintessential Midwestern mom, but I was dying to be independent and get out. So at 8:18 2 days after graduation. I had purchased a one-way plane ticket and bananas to your parrot to my parents and I threw a keg party the night before and in actually collected money from the keg party so I can have money when I flew to California and that next morning hung over 18.

01:44 I wake up my tell my mom Elaine. Hey, I need a ride to the airport. I've got a plane to catch and that point I think my father was very happy possibly. My mom got a little weepy eye. Couldn't believe what I was doing and my dad pretty much said don't let the door hit you in the butt and what's funny is I can remember this show well, too.

02:08 I will show redneck E. I had a pair of cowboy boots 501 Levi's who is 1987. I had a denim jacket with a fleece collar. I wore cowboy hat and I had one teeny tiny little suitcase. I had managed to save $80 from the night before so I knew when the time came right get on the plane fly to San Diego being a Midwestern or I could stay at the YMCA because it was such a great place. I always had heard about an $80 with a lot of money to an eighteen-year-old. Oh my gosh, that's back in the day when you get 20 bucks from the ATM at it last you all week then and we talked about this a lot music music was a very big thing for me and I had especially back then created a tape with Led Zeppelin on it. And in the song I played on light show near Walkman, which I had on the plane was going to California on a jet airplane her big jet plane, and I thought I was unbelievable and the reality of it all.

03:08 Truly set in the minute. I stepped off the plane at San Diego and realized I had taken the initiative to totally disconnect and become an independent person away from big. Chimney Lane in the rest of what was Ottawa, Kansas and you chose California cuz your brother was there. He wasn't technically there at that point of being a sailor in the Navy he knew his duty station would be San Diego. So we knew at one point sooner or later. We would have the opportunity to overlap. And when I say that being a soldier or sailor, I would like I can go to San Diego live with him on the base with him on the ship at but we found creative ways once I've gotten there to get out of the YMCA which by the way

03:50 I can remember getting off the plane getting a cab and it going downtown Broadway Street in San Diego not knowing this all going from a farm with a family 7 miles outside of any town in Kansas to San Diego this

04:09 Million mega millions tropolis of millions of people with an international city of its border Tijuana and I had no clue can speak Spanish didn't know where the hell I was going. And when I got out of the cab in front of the YMCA on Broadway Street, I can remember thinking. Oh my God, what did I do? At least I know I need to get up to that step and get it to the YMCA in and get a room because within a second. While within a second. I was held up by a guy that wanted to tell me some heroin and as I decline him moving forward, I got hit up by prostitute that was just like you got to be Kiddin. This place is crazy. And as I went in it was like a bad movie. There was a plexiglass window and I had to pay for my room by The Day news is old guy with a wife beater on that. Let me literally was like, yeah, you got a room

05:03 Pair of each day. You pay me x amount. I went up to the room. I can never wanted to break down and cries and eight year old guys just like my world had been so upside down the room consisted of a cot in a Navy Foot Locker and the door had a slide lock on the inside, but it's not believe it's from looking in this gigantic hole right there was there was in the door and what did I do? I was so fearful. I sit on the bed was just like, oh my God what I do. I don't know anybody. I have a phone. I didn't do nothing.

05:33 Tell your in your cowboy boots looking very Midwestern.

05:40 What is GD next? Did you get a job? Did you find your brother? I ended up changing head and pulled into poor yet, but I knew she was going to be coming in within the week.

05:51 I had to The Chew Tobacco managed to have my Copenhagen with me right got a cope and then I knew I had enough money that back then pay phones were still very commonplace. I could call mom and dad say at least I I made it to shave the bottom line. I called him. It was like, oh my God, I made the biggest mistake. I got to come back home. You guys buy me a ticket so I can fly back home. They actually told me that you made your bed. So now sleep in it. And that was that was it and it was on the phone with them. I can distinctly remember how horrifying was to be there. So every Homeless looking Afro American gentleman, probably about 6 to 63, very intimidating to me smoking a cigarette literally just

06:31 Watching music spoke on the phone and it was like it was like the closest thing to prison. I've never been to prison but it felt like oh my God, I'm incarcerated in this place. And now I can't get out show The Next Step was to figure out what to do, you know.

06:44 And what did you do? Well.

06:47 2 days later and I'm contemplating what to do. I finally got a message from the front desk Yeoman Townsend had called from 32nd Street Pier the USS Vincennes in just pulled into port and there was a number for me to call and I called it and this guy says listen, I'm yulman Townsend. I'm friends with your brother at lion to Marion and he's actually sending me to come get you I didn't even say where am I going to go? I just said thanks. I'll be on the street corner like 10 minutes any any showed up and my brother. How did he know who you were? I guess you had to go because you're saying we need to get him somewhere. So here I am the sheets funeral kid, and now

07:40 I'm being shaved innocence by the Navy and my brother being a brother that he is got me an opportunity to live in Poway California with another ship made of his John coefield and John Cole Field was I would say probably a machinist mate on the boat at which made for real interesting mix of conversations. I'm sure he was a very intelligent man, but but there was a whole lot of dialogue when you would converse with them and he was in the partying and here are you at 18 right imperative for the Shaler after this point? My life is very Hellfire and brimstone. You don't party you're drinking is a sin keg parties or sinful and I can remember my next-door business once transfer transitioning from the YMCA to this apartment in Poway. Lowe's find a job.

08:33 So I did I found a job at the Gap making the Gap at Horton Plaza Downtown San Diego making like 325 an hour. For me. That was just wonderful. All right, I was always going there because I had to work I had to make money to pay rent, but I would come home at the end of the day.

08:51 To these big huge blown out parties that were over like there were bodies all over cuz people are passed out and they be wearing my cowboy hat by cowboy boots anything. That was very Midwestern. The only thing that would shoot through my mind was what a fun time they had at my expense. So I paid him back one night and it was really interesting because again, these are all Sailors now in Port living off base. They still have duty active-duty everyday to go to shut I came home from work one night and realized that they had been in the swimming pool with my clothes. They had a good old time with Tyler show with all them passed out. What I did is their girlfriends. I took their purses I empty them out.

09:34 And I spent probably the better half the next 5 hours painting all these guys up and lipstick and eyeshadow blush. I don't really cruel things on their thighs and their arms and across their forehead because I knew from talking to Shane that they had inspection at 5 a.m. The next morning and any guy in in his own right when it comes to makeup doesn't know probably the first thing about it how to get it off how to clean themselves up show when they called calls for the inspection. All these guys got was called their chit Strokes, which is a reprimand, right? But once they all failed inspection, they pretty much lined up at my brother's office and said we're going to kill your brother and at that time I had started to because I had so little money for food. I could sneak onto the USS Vincennes and I would eat in the chow hall.

10:33 We made a fake name fake credentials. It was really just terrible but I loved it because here I am this Midwestern kid and I'm on this warship hang out with the shares in the galley eating because I had no money and I would do this. It reminds me of that To Catch a Thief where the character just becomes these different people. You're just pretending to be so I wouldn't lose it got me fed. As long as I got me some kind of security. I was willing to be flexible with anybody. So you just got to get food. Yeah. So with these guys being so angry I managed to somehow avoid them. I mean literally I wish that good and then one day I was exiting the boat.

11:16 I need my brother had warned me. Like these guys are really angry with you. Just do me a favor. Don't come to the boat. But I had yeah, I did anyways, and one of these guys caught me in the birthing of the ship and didn't do anything to me, but he said listen he was your Shane's brother right wait till you step outside on that deck. We're going to take care of you and it scared the hell out of me. I never went back to the boat after sun believable.

11:42 I'm sure they take care of their own think about a military reprimand to use to close to probably he gets I like being a written up for a third time. It is a professional in the job. In other words. You're not doing real good when it comes to that show. I'm sure it wasn't real Pleasant time for them.

12:02 Didn't he also have a job somewhere in there is like the perfume spritzer Gayo. That was the first two Days Inn in really trying to hit the ground running and realizing any boxes are going to go far 1987.

12:20 First thing I did was open up the paper in the first ad I saw was get rich quick sell perfume. So I actually had this horrible job standing on the street on Broadway Street. Is it is it past the front of Horton Plaza 1987 trying to coach people into letting me spray them down with cologne or perfume and then try to fast talk me into buying it and then that last literally 48 Hours. It was just a terrible people hated me any perfume. Not at all. I did that day. We spend more money of the money that I didn't have because I was hungry and it was just so bad at that point in even a day to Midwest right? I'm dreaming about the the beach the ocean Mexico money. I've got to do these things to get these things that I came here for the spring of the perfume was just it was a bad memory for Tyler. Do you know it just said get roped into it now. I just I just keep walking. I don't even talk to him because it's like

13:20 More degrading to them to be spoken to him because who buys had stuff, you know, if you smelled that particular perfume. I actually actually actually back then in your car nor was the big the big cologne and I had the cheap crappy knock off that everybody would have had to have Drakkar Noir and I think Daffy dinosaur. I don't know how it what it was called The Cool Water by Nephi does Davidoff remember that well, but it was it was shown at age 18 concerned about meeting new friends going to the beach and by all means seeing Tijuana and the beach

14:10 Outside of Horton Plaza, which is where that Poway California John Cole Field apartment at that point. Those are the two focal points of my existence is San Diego. So I needed to change that and then I had to get across the border. I wanted to see that I wanted to see Mission Beach I even had heard about Black's Beach which is an eighteen-year-old. It's the new to speech. Did you make it to Black's Beach I stumbled on to Black's Beach one day then I say this people did Shores in the sun was shot at a point in the sky where if you were on the beach looking out to the west or even kind of to the north a little bit was very bright. I can remember not necessarily knowing that the entire geography of where I was at but I knew I was on the beach you can or that speech you go south of speech.

15:04 And I feel very strange and very long day at at La Jolla Shores. I got at least take a walk. I mean too many freaks.

15:12 And I did I walked in and walked into the time low tide was was happening. So I don't want to call it a bin but there was an outcropping of a cliff and some rock you to go around and I can never looking out seeing people swimming now. There's no sign that says welcome to Black speech, right? And what is going like an 18 year old guy? I'm like staring and it is is she came out of the sunlight. It was very apparent. She was about 80 years old and completely naked and it was probably just a most terrific visual experience. I think I had up to that point. My life is like a slow-motion Bo Derek perfect. Perfect Kati Roll. Derek, but but to me, I wish I could God this is scary. So what I did

16:12 I mean I tell between legs and got the heck out. I was like, this is crazy. I'm like I heard about it never thought I'd see it but it's such a public setting that I did not handle it. Show me back to La Jolla Shores. See your one chance is an 18 year old to go to a nude beach and you just got to feed a 2 year old lady I choked so I'll when did Nye. Yeah, I probably spent in 1987 in my short time in San Diego 34920 week in Tijuana and a half the fun of that was simply I would take the trolley down to San andresito is really fascinating to to kind of illustrate a good picture. It's a sad thing but it is a landmark that that people would pay homage to there was an event 1987 right before I got to California where it's andresito a gunman had walked into I think it was a Burger King or Wendy's or something anyways.

17:12 And it shot up the the place in and kill a few people. That's for the trolley. Stop was that that's right at the point of entry across in the Mexico shows kind of intimidating thing not to mention the fact that when you got there, it was a very Forum Place either selling you a soil but that that was kind of

17:30 Kind of an eerie spooky thing, but that only attitude and it sounds kind of odd but the excitement of going to this foreign places. It's so violent show a show of Interest show this show that because if you're there you can see the Tijuana River you can see the crossing you can see the lines of people to tourist but my main focal point was that walk from that point on the trolley stop down to Revolution Boulevard because it was so entertaining.

17:58 Everyday the entire time I was there I can remember this gentleman that is soon as I got through the the crossing point that he was Hispanic very poor, but he always sold cigarettes and he had one hand that would probably deformed at Birth but he had the other good hand that he had noodle the box with any cigarettes cigarettes and I never bought any but I just it was one thing that always will stick out my mind and right right where he stood literally you would take this right you would walk across the Tijuana River and and I don't know if you remember very much with the Culver took like in California that Rivers like the LA River and all that. It's just a ditch write a big cement ditch.

18:42 Me and my buddies friends. I finally made friends with one. We could go to TV captain. Please pretty much pretty much the entire time. He's from Chicago. He was just as excited about Mexico as I was at we always go down but we stopped at the bridge crossing the river and we would take pesos and we will throw them in what little bit of water there was to watch the kids dive in and get it. No, we were cruel but it was part of the entertainment and that was something that was very big for us because we were the Americans in at that point in 1987. The Mexican Government hadn't demonetized their currency, which is so written with inflation that we would get literally 3200 pesos to one American dollar show. We could live literally 5 miles away like we were millionaires in and we did we did we went to

19:41 The best clubs we went to the word clubs. We ate at actual restaurants that had a an a rating and then we really bad places. We got to see all the street life. You can never imagine anything from the Indians who would commented setting back on the street to knock off Polo stores that we would shop at that bar Polo clothes but Revolution Boulevard me of one of the things that really sticks out in my mind is at that point back then in 87, they still had the quintessential zebra painted donkey with a car that you can take a picture of while wearing a sombrero or if you didn't want that you go to Margarita Village walk down to the basement and get it tequila shooter where they shake your head for the booze in you shake your head some more poor this Friday near Bop you on the head blow their whistles and it was just one of those one things in Herbalife to do you say that as if my people know what that is. I've never heard of that. It was an eye-opening, but it also helped Define the person I don't didn't want to become.

20:41 I want Jack to become I just spent too much time and in a very bad area. I don't want to say participating bad things but bearing witness to things that I do work something of it, but now as an adult just realized the value of knowing right from wrong. It was it was a place for good and bad things happen.

21:03 So, how did she get from Mexico and California back to Kansas in all my all my days and nights of going to Tijuana Otay Tijuana Weslaco free time. It really was if you take Tijuana and you take an 18 year old boy and you know, all the things to parents tell that young boy don't do this. Don't do that. When you're Tijuana you go. I'm in a foreign country. My parents can't control me. I'm 18. I'm on my own. I know everything there is to know and I'm going to have a good time while what I did was after a very long long night and I can move this very distinctly of eating and drinking and drinking and eating. I've been at Mike's Bar and all of us there probably for a stumbled out of the bar in the sun was up and we were hungry and we knew we needed to start making our way back up revolution Villard to get home.

22:00 But we stopped off to eat at a street-side vendor that keep in mind. This is Tijuana and it's like in 87 and it's a Streetside vendor that has this piece of meat that they want to sell.

22:11 That's how they live in and I ate as much as I could because I was so hungry and we will go into the absolute detail to what that meat was a long story shorts.

22:23 I got sick and I got very sick and this sickness was simply from food poisoning, but at age 18 working at the Gap and medical insurance not being a very big thing. You need to know things about I got more sick and I dropped from

22:41 Within a two-week time. Of doing this a guy who couldn't work because I was so ill to a guy who lost a vast amount of weight a hundred and I think I would 189 pounds and I dropped down to 168 within 14 days. I'll let you tell you how bad this wreaked havoc on my body. So I shut down one day and I called my brother and I said listen, I'm sick. I've got to go home to her mom and dad are they have insurance? And I just things are going really good for me. I don't know. What's the matter with me? I don't have money to go to a doctor here, but I've got to get home and at the time I own my own Beach car and my brother was actually at a point where you get another Navy show.

23:23 Am I calling says great. I'll come with you and what we did is we packed everything that I had managed to acquire that Shimmer and his few belongings for the Navy into my tiny little car and they give you an idea was a Honda Civic and back in 1987 Honda Civic sport very spacious. And this wasn't a 1987 Honda Civic was probably like a 1978 Honda Civic and now is bound and determined to drive that car from San Diego, California all the way to Auto a Kansas.

23:53 And now that go well the day we decided to leave about a mile from the apartment. I had a tire blow out. So all this money that I pay for this trip home. I had to spend on getting new tires and that's what we had no money other than the few dollars that that we managed to calculate that if nothing bad happened. We'd make it show what we did is we went too and we got tires. We headed out now we left San Diego.

24:24 Seriously, probably 8 maybe 9 in the morning and then pointed the car East right and if we drove it was very much like a Clint Eastwood movie and when I said we drove and we made it to the Imperial sand dunes and the Imperial sand dunes are huge. I'll call it a natural wonder of California effective Gene field movies there and it's very very desert sand dunes 150 ft tall and it just so happened that right at that moment. We were passing through being the only people back then the car blew a head gasket.

24:57 A head gasket in the middle of desert and there was nobody around and with a car that had no AC and we had no cell phones because that wasn't popular back then. We didn't know what the hell to do, you know money you had no money. We didn't know necessarily particularly where we were and we thought we would take our chances set on the Shady Side of the car in the middle of the day rapper heads in towns because it was so hot and wait for somebody to drive by and it never happened and it never happened and literally literally seemed like probably a good to Charlotte hours are gone by where we actually saw no traffic and and I say this may be a car to a past but it's not like that Budweiser at nowadays, you know, the serial killer with an accent but he's got Bud Light right friendly if people would just keep going and finally we saw a plane fly over us and it's the plane flew over I can member Shannon. I actually looking and we had a very short dialogue about it, but we go GIF I hope

25:57 Where are they are they see us in in radio down and sure enough out of our sight and out of our distance down. The road was an illegal alien or illegals or any Agriculture and the plane did the plane dispatch to call out and says I thought you were illegal aliens to know what we were so they came out to find out but they sent immigration to come out and once they figure out if we were to see ya Gunz Knuckleheads that broke down the desert they gave us a ride back to the air-conditioned station and got us water and it turned out we had made it far enough that we were probably about 23 25 miles west of Yuma, Arizona. So we made it that far in a day, but the fact still remain the same that we didn't have a car seems like what we do and something my brother probably to this day will tell you over and over my little brother's a natural salesman when he wants to be and at that minute that survival technique in that.

26:57 Instinct kicked in because we got a tow truck to come out and we knew if anything we were going to go to use the car but we had to get off the highway cuz the California folks wanted us to get rid of it and the tow truck driver having to be this guy who is so down and out on this lock. He actually said man because I'll buy your car from you but better yet the content you have inside. I'm really Anita because my old lady just left me.

27:23 And before Shane could even get involved in the conversation. I had sold everything for roughly about $200 which is exactly what we needed right here for this to have one hotel room stay for one night that's in Yuma eat out of a vending machine for dinner and then get a bus ticket afford a long bus to get back on. Of a cancers and that's where I would venture truly truly took a turn for the more interesting week. We did stay in Yuma we did get that bus ticket and it was 4 days with me being more sick than I ever was my brother freaking out about it. I mean just oh my God. You were looking to go you look terrible. Look at you use your eyes are red. You got a rash all over you cuz of this time my food poisoning being stolen checks Hospital bound and I was still fighting it but I broke out in this horrible rash all over my body look like the plague writing on the bus and I can't come on. I'm hungry. I'm hungry and he's like, well, we'll figure out something and

28:20 And as we're talking about this, we pull up at Dateland Arizona and it Dateland. The only thing I shot the window was a diner and I can remember we both talked about how good a hot anything would be oatmeal a toast. Shall we get there? We get off the bus and in Dateland Arizona the primary will the only supported agriculture industry. There is is date state for me. And this one horse town that had probably a population of 5 in 1 Diner the diner specialized and everything dates date Burgers date shakes State Fred's Bait pancakes date t-jay pie and I hate date it was stinking bad. We actually got off. I just remember we went to the whole menu. We went through the hole Diner and we didn't eat we didn't eat. It was just so horrifying. We got back on the bus and left and we probably seriously didn't eat until I think a day and a half later.

29:20 We had been to Greyhound bus terminal I can remember this is in Albuquerque and we were headed ultimately the employee was before we started heading migrating back Southeast was Albuquerque.

29:37 Inn on the bus step to this very naive very humble, but somebody we could take advantage of this kid that very much was like me when I went to San Diego and it was just using this whole country mouse going to meet the rest of his new family in this somewhat cause I arranged marriage because she was a Caucasian kid, but he met Hispanic girl and the dad had all these things he had to go through before he'd give it a blessing and and he was very country. So when he gets on the bus, he's got a suitcase and he's a very little money and that's only like 6 months after you had been that same country. No, absolutely. Not your the heart season yet. You got it and his name was Ken and I know Shane and I'll never forget them because you was so pleasant so nice and he told us his life story that even asking any set last on the bus.

30:30 That you were a leper leper and we look like those those old cartoons where we looked at his suitcase like a steak or giant cooked turkey because we kept smelling food and he said I'm going to go meet my my new fiance's parents to get a blessing really a true blessing for the marriage and my mom and my sister is all made these wonderful burritos and they packed my entire suitcase with him and they were like, hey buddy. Listen, you can handle this entire time and I feel bad now in retrospect cuz we working pretty hard. But what what I'm about to tell you is even worse and in again, this is what Define did the person I've become today, but we talked to him we learned his life story We befriended him and he shared his burritos with us and that the poor guy when we look at the Albuquerque. This is Charlie was in his final stopping point, but he he got off in the bus stop much like all of us were doing because at that time all of us were just

31:28 Poor folks trying to get a tabby and he washed up in the bathroom literally recycling those bus stops. You see people showering shaving washing. It's their only Avenue when was shaken do that to maintain cleanliness and Shane and I kind of finished up before him and got back on the bus.

31:46 And he didn't he was still busy shaving and getting cleaned up and it's the bus pull that I didn't say anything Shane didn't say anything and we'll let that bus driver go and we saw the poor fella run it behind the bus and the bus didn't stop and it was all said and done. We got far enough where I look at my brother. I said, let's eat. I am so hungry and we did that was our food for the next couple days, but New Mexico pretty be a pretty in lightning bus rides. I swore and to this day. I'll never write a bus because of this one particular trip, but going through the loop and heading back North after we've been going out these for so long with nothing Gallup New Mexico where an ex-military guy just got out of the military nurse at 3 in the morning is on the bus and

32:31 It was very long me for me because I'm sick. I'm awake. I can't eat. I can't sleep anything. I did eat. I got rid of earlier that day repeatedly. So here I am with these 47 on people and there's a military guy in the back hooking up with this chick and it's like in full View and I'm mortified again anything about my black speech experience that I just I'm from the Midwest. I've never been exposed to this kind of public behavior. And so I turn around and I look and of course the guy makes eye contact with me and screamed at the top of his lungs with the blank you looking at and I can remember my brother Shane sleeping coming out of his sleep and he grabs me so don't look at them. Just just turn around. I'm just saying I'm the little brother shock. Well after they finish their physical encounter the bus driver finally clued in in this is Gallup, New Mexico the bus driver pulled over and it was a very intimidating large man.

33:27 And started getting in a fight with this military guy. Now the military guy and his woman of the night had been partying this one the best drinking and a few other things as your first day of my life ever saw a bus driver or anybody get in an altercation. They eject somebody from the vehicle there in and leave them out in the desert literally a hundred fifty miles from nowhere and I was just a shock since you spell believable and by that point in my trip, I've become so sick that I couldn't get out of my chair. I just sat there the entire time but I just watch people and my brother will look at me ever ever done anything dude. You are messed up. Oh my God, look at you and it was one of those deals website. Listen to We already clarified that fact, let's just get home and our last final leg of our journey with stopped off in Amarillo, Texas on this Greyhound bus Nikki from Miami. This bus is at exact all over the place and very nice very wonderful and lightning people going on the bus, but they were from jury.

34:27 Me and then they had not not had any deodorant on for sometime.

34:34 Excuse me, in a managed to get get seats in front of me. So all I had was just smell of body odor permeating the area around me much like pigpen from Charlie Brown and I am sitting on this bus which I'm stuck again and you could smell the Kim toilet now after 4 days starting to become an aromatic mixing and commingling with the smell of these folks from Germany and I'm saying we're standing on a Greyhound bus on the bus go round. You couldn't open the window to get fresh air. I just I thought it was going to die. It was just unbelievable.

35:05 So what happened when you finally got home when I got home last night when I got home, it's funny. I have thought about this long when I got home my parents for 2 days after I'm heading out to Europe. I can remember this very distinctly said I'm home. I'm not well and of course they said well stay as long as you need to write. We're glad you're back which was really surprising to me and I can remember two days later. It's about 4 in the morning. They were getting up to drive to Kansas City from Ottawa to kiss their plane and I gave him a kiss. Goodbye. Give my mom a kiss and my dad have probably gave him a hug or something so I can remember looking down at that point my toes all my toes look like little jelly rolls. They were so swollen and I'm so painful to walk and I I said listen I get back to sleep. I don't feel well and probably 4 hours later, right? They're gone. They're on their way to Europe I wake up and my niece had ballooned up to the size of basketballs. My arms had locked up. My jaw had locked it. I couldn't walk I can do anything. It was horrifying and

36:05 Because of the food poisoning that have gone on check the other words that that the bacteria had so much havoc on my body now, my body was responding to it and bought online ended up in the hospital.

36:17 There you have to call an ambulance. Well, I called my brother right who would come back with me. He had migrated up to somebody's in Lawrence Kansas and back them had the old dial phones and well we did have a party life. We live in the country. I can remember the pain in which I had was so bad that on the couch which I was laying on when this inflammation started crying in the joints from this prolong food poisoning. In other words that the attack on my body. I was just stiff as a two-by-four and others. I couldn't bend my neck. My body was horrifying so I had to literally roll out the cash and I can never almost passing out from the pain and then I had to do this kind of mimic this GI Joe Cross to get to the kitchen to get a Camaro is either a flyswatter a yardstick. I can't remember was one of the two should I could get the phone but then use it to dial and I got I got I got my brother on the phone and I told him I said

37:17 Like a very typical making all the time. I'm kind of I'm kind of f hear something is not going well with my body. I got to go to ER.

37:26 He said I'll be there in an hour and I can remember I laid in the kitchen to on the floor because at the time my parents had a linoleum floor and for some reason it just seemed so cool to my body. If you can imagine all this information going on now. I've gone would probably a week this whole bus or deal. I'm at home and I can hear my brother walking in which they got there. And he was just his jaw dropped open and he just kept over and over until my gosh. You're dressed up your messed up and I had to tell him to shut up unlike get me in the car. Just give me to the doctor and it was probably the first of my life experience so much physical pain that outside of briefly passing out for a minute. It was it was so horrific that I was like it was like kind of half laugh like, oh my God, I can't believe that then wake back up.

38:20 Do we got in the car and took me to Ransom Memorial Hospital in Franklin County, Kansas? And here I was right this guy that had this food poisoning, but in in the Des progress in which it had gotten to that point with something so foreign and exotic for these rule country doctors that they didn't know what to think. They had thought I'd been tromping around all of California and Mexico and picked up a just a horrific nasty social disease and keep in mind that mean I'm in the Bible about pretty much I was guilty before proven innocent. They said you have you you've got you got some serious issues here and we've got to treat them and I can't tell him listen. Here's what happened. I got food poisoning didn't have insurance. I come home right to live with my parents. I'm sick and they just they wouldn't listen to me. So I was on Parade in the ER for some time because they're all trying to figure everything out show is just a wish

39:20 Terrible and 22 years later 22 years later that episode of bad judgment in Tijuana and eating food. Give me the wonderful gift of Ankylosing Spondylitis and reiter's syndrome which in a way it's kind of a blessing. It has slowed me down in and then help me refocus my life and channel my all my energy into things that are more positive.

39:47 And I have a question over here. I should do before we finish what do you think this whole thing taught you about life? And do you have any regrets going to come up many a times and I asked you this and I don't understand so cliche as you're so typical but if somebody said, can you go back and change it today and will leave it over and do things differently. I wouldn't because it's brought me so many wonderful things Jack Brenda. My dream was coming back to the South and living in Tybee. Which come to for the first time in my life in 1979. So what a change anyting know, who is it taught me wonderful valued life lessons. Absolutely. It's it's taught me that yeah it with all the life energy that one would have and the opposing if someone could could act on everyday. We got opportunities thrown at us day in and day out and be wise and then really look at what what true blessings and gifts are being given to you and understand why they're there, you know.