Michael Wehrle and David Shanks

[00:06] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Hi, my name is Mike Wehrle I'm 70 years old. I live in Ocala, Florida. It's Thursday, February 24, 2022. My partner's name is Dave. I have no relationship to him. We're just doing his thing for one small step, and hopefully we can enjoy it.

[00:26] DAVID SHANKS: My name is Dave Shanks. I'm 64 years old. Today's date is Thursday, February 24, 2022. I'm in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. My partner's name is Mike Wehrle and he is my partner for one small step.

[00:51] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Reading. Reading your bio. Dave, born in Evanston. How long did you live in Evanston?

[00:57] DAVID SHANKS: Um, probably the first 20 years of my life.

[01:02] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Okay, so you've been in Colorado for most of your life, then?

[01:05] DAVID SHANKS: I have.

[01:06] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Okay. I spent the last 23 years in Chicago.

[01:11] DAVID SHANKS: Oh, we'll talk about that.

[01:13] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Okay. How do you, uh. Let's see. You're infatuated with outdoor life. Well, I am, too, but not cold stuff anymore. Sports. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan. I've been married for 50 years. I see you've been married for 36. You got two sons. I got two sons and two daughters. You say you were a former Republican? I guess I could say the same thing. Up until this last clown we had. Pardon that he kind of. I won't say any more about him.

[02:04] DAVID SHANKS: Dave's bio, like, in one go out loud.

[02:07] MICHAEL WEHRLE: So that way, like future listeners. Okay, I misunderstood. I thought we was gonna read it and ask questions as we go. All right. Born in Evanston. My partners was born in Evanston, Illinois. My family was very close to one another. My parents believed in social justice for all. I moved to Denver early in my career. I was infatuated with the outdoors and wildlife in their natural habitat. Sports were also a big part of my life. I'm married for 36 years with two terrific sons. A former Republican, I left the party in 19 after the first impeachment. Today, media and politics divide instead of unifying. This must be. This must change if we're going to save our nation, and dialogue must thrive to do so. I totally agree.

[03:02] DAVID SHANKS: And reading Mike's bio, I am 70 years young. Good for you. Married for 50 years. Four adult children, seven grandchildren. The oldest 16, the youngest five. I am retired, living in a 55 plus community. Served in the US Navy from 1969 to 1973. Proud of my service and take my oath very seriously. I am a Christian and take my faith very seriously. Believe in this country's principles, especially that all of us are created equal, but unfortunately, we are not treated that way. So both of you can feel free to ask more about the bio now if you can. Okay.

[03:52] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Okay. You want to go first?

[03:55] DAVID SHANKS: Sure. I'll pose a few questions. So you were in the navy from 69 to 73, did you? That was during the Vietnam era, right?

[04:04] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I didn't see combat.

[04:05] DAVID SHANKS: You did not see combat?

[04:07] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I was stationed on two different ships and they were both. One was in the Mediterranean, one was in the Atlantic.

[04:13] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[04:13] MICHAEL WEHRLE: The first one was a cargo ship, so I spent a lot of time at sea on that. I did three med cruises where we would go over and supply the fleet that was over there.

[04:26] DAVID SHANKS: Sure.

[04:27] MICHAEL WEHRLE: With everything from ammunition to hamburgers. The second ship was an LST. We carried about 2000 marines and tanks and everything else. And we, most of the time we would just do amphibious landing exercises. We never.

[04:45] DAVID SHANKS: What's an LST? I don't know what that is.

[04:47] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Landing ship? Tank.

[04:49] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[04:50] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I don't know if you remember World War two movies. You see the, the ship on the beach so the doors open up and the tanks come rolling out. Yep, that's an LSD.

[04:59] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[05:02] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I enjoyed myself in the Navy. Really, really good time. If I hadn't joined the Navy, I wouldn't have met my wife. I met her when I was going to school up in Chicago and she lives in Milwaukee.

[05:14] DAVID SHANKS: So where did you go to school for the Navy?

[05:17] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I went to school at Great Lakes.

[05:19] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[05:20] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Naval Academy and. But I was originally from New York and went to school in Queens and Brooklyn.

[05:28] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[05:29] MICHAEL WEHRLE: When I turned 18 and got my draft notice, I thought about college, but I really didn't have the money. I was not, we weren't wealthy, just, you know, regular working family.

[05:39] DAVID SHANKS: Yeah.

[05:40] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And I would have to pay for it. I had managed to get a partial scholarship, but it's still too much for me to, to do it. So I said, well, let me go on the service, get the GI Bill and try to get them to pay for it.

[05:54] DAVID SHANKS: Good for you.

[05:55] MICHAEL WEHRLE: But that never worked out. Like I said, I got married and started having kids and this life got in the way of getting educated, so. But I think I had a good childhood, good relationship with my family.

[06:11] DAVID SHANKS: And how many siblings do you have?

[06:15] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I got six brothers and sisters.

[06:17] DAVID SHANKS: Oh, wow.

[06:19] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Four sisters and two brothers.

[06:22] DAVID SHANKS: Big family?

[06:23] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Oh, yeah.

[06:25] DAVID SHANKS: I have cousins. They, they lived in Evanston, but then they moved to Wisconsin in the Milwaukee area. And they had six in their family too. So.

[06:41] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Growing up in New York City was interesting. I'm sure it had its ups and downs. I guess like any place you live, you know, but little crowded, you know. I lived in Queens I took the subway to Brooklyn to go to high school. And back in the sixties, it wasn't the most pleasant place in the country, so it was. It was a challenge. But anyway, it was a good experience, and I don't regret anything.

[07:10] DAVID SHANKS: Right. So what did you do? I know you served in the Navy till 73. What career wise did you do after that?

[07:20] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Well, I was an electrician in the navy. That gave me my skills.

[07:24] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[07:25] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And then when I got out of the navy, at first I went to work in the shipyard that my ship was in. As an electrician, we built two small destroyer escorts. I was involved with the electrical systems on it. They made me a lead electrician. So I was, I had, yeah, here I am, 22 years old, and I've got men anywhere from 30 to 50. I'm supervising, you know, but because I knew Navy ships, they put me in charge. And I think we finished off, our team finished off building the electrical side of the ship.

[08:01] DAVID SHANKS: Right.

[08:02] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And I really enjoyed that job. But when the work dried up, they started laying everybody off. And me being young, I was one of the first ones to get laid off. But then I moved on. I got into packaging machinery, and it was a service engineer for packaging machinery. Then I moved from packaging to injection molding machinery. Did that for the remainder of my career. I first worked on them, and then I graduated, became assistant manager. Then I became manager. Then I became general manager of a division of Mitsubishi that build injection molding machines.

[08:43] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[08:46] MICHAEL WEHRLE: That was kind of like the end of my career. Last 23 years of my career was with Mitsubishi.

[08:52] DAVID SHANKS: And you've been retired for how long?

[08:54] MICHAEL WEHRLE: About four years.

[08:56] DAVID SHANKS: You enjoying it?

[08:58] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I'm loving it. Although I'm one thing I gotta say, it's quite a shift from being at work and busy as heck and a lot of stress to doing absolutely nothing. I got bored real quick.

[09:16] DAVID SHANKS: You gotta find things. What I've discovered is you have to find things to keep yourself occupied and keep your brain active. Keep you physically active.

[09:25] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Exactly. Exactly. I've joined several organizations and groups, you know, voluntary groups. One of them is the Masons.

[09:33] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[09:34] MICHAEL WEHRLE: We. We help kids and people that need food and all that. I also, in this community, there's a group called neighbors helping neighbors, because there's a lot of really old people here, right? Like in their nineties that. That can't take care of their property properly and can't afford to hire anybody. So we volunteer. We go around and clean up the yards, basically.

[10:01] DAVID SHANKS: My grandparents on my mother's side, they lived in Morton Grove, Illinois. But they had a second home down in St. Petersburg, Florida, and we would fly down on, usually around spring break time when I was a youngster, you know, 910, 1112 years old, and. And spend a week or two with the grand folks down there.

[10:26] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And, yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at right now. Come down and see me occasionally, you know.

[10:32] DAVID SHANKS: I see you got the grandkids, too, which is awesome. And we. We are not yet there. Youngest son is getting married, actually, this August.

[10:42] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Congratulations.

[10:43] DAVID SHANKS: Thank you. We're looking. We're very much looking forward to it.

[10:46] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Part of life is being a grandparent beyond anything else.

[10:51] DAVID SHANKS: As anxious as I am for that, my wife is over the moon anxious for it, so we are very much looking forward to that. You made a statement that you believe in this country's principles, especially that all of us are created equal, but unfortunately, we're not treated that way. What. What exactly do you mean by that?

[11:16] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I don't know. I'm basically Republican, but I'm kind of leaning, don't get me wrong, because I've been conservative all my life, but I'm kind of leaning. Leaning toward what's going on in society today. Most of my life. I could care less what the other nationalities were doing or anything like that. You know, once I got into business, I saw the problems, especially when I got into the point where I was hiring people, I really saw the problems of, lack of a better word, racial injustice. I tried to hire a couple of African Americans. They didn't work out. The industry that I had primarily serviced the south, and it didn't. It didn't work out. Let's just leave it at that. Yeah, I'm a northern boy living in the south, you know, so there's a lot of. We have a lot of interesting conversations, but like I said, I'm still basically conservative, but I'm more concerned about. I have a t shirt that I wear. I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. I'm an Americana. And that's kind of how I feel now. Right. This country has changed dramatically since we were kids. I basically grew up in an italian neighborhood.

[12:42] DAVID SHANKS: Okay?

[12:43] MICHAEL WEHRLE: So there wasn't a whole lot of African Americans or anybody else there, any other nationality. So it was kind of isolated a lot. When I got to high school and had to go to school in Brooklyn, that changed. And I saw what was going on there. I wasn't, like I said, I believe everybody is created equal and should be treated equally. I'm a devout Christian, and I feel the same way. That Jesus Christ preached that. Right. I'm not trying to preach or anything, but, you know, I believe it, and. But I have conservative values when it comes to spending. I think this country spends too much money, more money than we have and that kind of thing. And I am 100% with the constitution. You know, we, the people, United States, you know, or form a more perfect union. I took an oath to defend it.

[13:40] DAVID SHANKS: Yes, you did.

[13:41] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And I believe in that. Anybody, you know, January 6, domestic terrorism.

[13:51] DAVID SHANKS: It was a dark day.

[13:53] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Yeah. And, you know, it pissed me off.

[13:56] DAVID SHANKS: Yes.

[13:57] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And I think the Republican Party has just kowtowed to the, you know, whose side of things, and, you know, who was the biggest flim flame man I ever seen. So what's Bernie Madoff to say? Yep. Well, makes, you know, makes burning Madoff look good, you know? But anyway, that's. That's my feeling towards things, and I get the feeling, reading your bio, you're kind of the same way.

[14:32] DAVID SHANKS: We're very similar in that regard in that I still, foundationally, the majority of my beliefs are more right leaning, but I'm certainly a centrist for the most part. I would say I'm a fiscal conservative and feel both the Republicans and the Democrats have abandoned any sense of fiscal responsibility, so. And it's why we are where we are from a. From a debt standpoint, probably center left leaning on the social issues. And I think, for me, one of the. One of the seminal moments that occurred in recent history was seeing George Floyd die at the hands of Derek Chauvin. That that was.

[15:31] MICHAEL WEHRLE: It should have been executed.

[15:32] DAVID SHANKS: That was a very powerful moment for me. And I grew up just to give a little history, you know? Evanston, while it's a northern suburb of Chicago, it was still very racially integrated. And I would say 30% of my high school was black. Probably 20% to 25% was jewish. We had a lot of kids from Skokie that were in our high school, and then we had other people of color, too, in our high school. But I think my point is, I grew up in a very integrated neighborhood, and my parents were colorblind. They didn't judge anyone based on the color of their skin. But as you know, Martin Luther King would say, they judged by the content of their character. And, you know, I feel very fortunate to have grown up in that kind of household. And it's. I think. I think one of the things that troubles me the most is hatred in our society. I just do not understand it. I just don't understand it. And, you know, whether you're a white supremacist or, you know, whether you're an anti semite, I just do not understand that. And I don't know how, how our society has grown so divisive and so hateful and, and maybe it's contribution of social media because anyone can say anything and you have a wide audience more available. But I think that has been, I think that's been very destructive to our society. And again, one of the things that I will profess to the day I die is we need to seek to understand before being understood first more than anything else. And the only way we do that is by doing this, having conversations, talking, being willing to learn another person's point of view without condemnation, but with, with regard and respect for one another.

[18:00] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And so, yeah, don't, don't disagree with you on any of that. I think, like I said, the more I talk to you, the more I feel we're very similar in nature.

[18:15] DAVID SHANKS: Well, and to that end, I left, I left the republican party right after the Republicans failed to call out Trump for what he did in Ukraine and trying to strong arm the president Ukraine to find dirt on his political rival. And I just, you know, one, that was not unexpected behavior as I saw it from Trump, but it was an abomination that his colleagues didn't call him out. Just like, you know, Richard Nixon. Who were the people that called out Richard Nixon? They were his own party members. It wasn't the Democrats. And yes, they did, but it was his own party members that confronted him and finally said, you either resign, we're going to impeach you. And that's what should have happened with a strong political party. And it just, it just didn't happen.

[19:25] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Well, I don't think the Republican Party is what we grew up.

[19:28] DAVID SHANKS: It's not. And I refuse to be part and parcel to that until there's no longer that influence.

[19:38] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Yep. I'm a history buff, and I've, you know, as far as the, the whole racial situation, I think the reconstruction period, Lincoln being assassinated and the way the link, Lincoln's views were just totally abandoned. Grant tried to do it, but couldn't. And that whole period after the civil war festered for 100 years and we saw it raise its ugly head in the sixties, you know, when we were growing up. But again, I think I was a little bit too young to really absorb everything that was going on then or, you know, I, my focus was more on the doing something else, you know, and sports and stuff like that.

[20:27] DAVID SHANKS: Sure.

[20:28] MICHAEL WEHRLE: It wasn't really on, on politics. I didn't get politically active until Nixon. Right. I, my first vote, I voted for Nixon, registered as a Republican. I was in the Navy, and it was a very, the Navy is a very, well, most military branches are very conservative, I mean, especially when it comes to going to war, because it's you that's going to have to go do it. But, yeah, I think that the whole racial thing just started there big time as far as what is going on now still and the discrimination and all that. But it really started, I think, back when slavery first began in this country, that set the mindset, you know, and just hasn't changed.

[21:34] DAVID SHANKS: And it's, again, I think my awareness has been sharpened, I'll say, over the last few years just by some of the incidents like the George Floyd murder, you know, Breonna Taylor. I mean, you go, Arbery.

[21:55] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Right?

[21:56] DAVID SHANKS: I mean, you can kind of go down the list. But I think, and I, I've got a couple of black friends. I've got, actually, one of my old high school classmates is a former us marshal. And so I had a conversation with him not that long ago about, you know, what he encountered as far as discrimination then I've got a friend here in the Denver area that I've also chatted with. He and I used to work together 30 plus years ago. And I recently had lunch with him and I asked him, you know, did you have to have the talk with your children about what to do when confronted with police? And he said, absolutely. I had to have that conversation and had it multiple times. And I even have it to this day with my grandkids. I've got it. He said, he told me that he has a 17 year old grandson, and he's had to, as now a grandfather, have to underscore the importance of being obedient to what the police are asking you to do for fear of being killed. And that's not something that I could ever fully understand because I'm not black and I don't know what it's like to be driving through a neighborhood and pulled over arbitrarily for no other reason than the color of my skin.

[23:31] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Right.

[23:32] DAVID SHANKS: And that goes on every single day in this country.

[23:37] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I think what we're doing now, I wish, I wish we had been matched up with polar opposites because I, well, while I do enjoy this conversation, I think it'd be more important to have it with someone less understanding.

[23:55] DAVID SHANKS: I agree. I thought, I thought it was going to be that they would match us up with with people that have very different worldviews.

[24:04] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Yeah, that's okay, though.

[24:07] DAVID SHANKS: Absolutely.

[24:08] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I have this conversation quite often in this community here because there's a lot of rednecks down here.

[24:16] DAVID SHANKS: Well, and when you identified that you were living in Ocala, Florida, and I'm not saying I prejudged, but I thought the probability might be that you were further right leaning than you are.

[24:37] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I'm a transplant. I've lived all over this country and finally settled here only because of this community. This community is a fantastic microcosm of our country and the way it could be. Right.

[24:55] DAVID SHANKS: That's great.

[24:56] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And we have a good, strong christian community, very level headed, thinking people. We have a lot of Trumpsters in Florida, and we do have them here, too. And when I confront them on it and ask them, you know, why, I get the impression that the party was looking for another Ronald Reagan and thought he was it, and he definitely is. No, Ronald Reagan.

[25:35] DAVID SHANKS: Agreed. And I also believe that he struck a chord, especially for those in rural communities. It felt like they were disenfranchised or weren't being heard or weren't being fairly.

[25:47] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Represented, but he was flim flaming them.

[25:51] DAVID SHANKS: For those of us that have eyes. Yes. There are still a lot of people and don't see that, just don't see it and don't understand that this is, this is who he is to his core. He will never change.

[26:06] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And I think he's kind of fostered a lot of the animosity that's going on right now by virtue of being himself. You know, his nature is heating the flames of fear and hatred. Exactly.

[26:24] DAVID SHANKS: And so that's where I feel like we have an obligation to try and counter that and be fair and fair minded and kind and considerate and respectful of others, because if we don't, if we turn into that same human being that he is on the other side, we're not going to be hurt either.

[26:49] MICHAEL WEHRLE: But the problem I see is our age. Are we really going to be heard in the younger, by the younger generation? They're still going through what we went through in our growing up years and haven't got the experience of what we've got, so they don't see it.

[27:10] DAVID SHANKS: Agreed. Excuse me, my cat is chewing on my briefcase.

[27:19] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I agree.

[27:21] DAVID SHANKS: But I always start with my kids, and I have the very, I have very open and honest political conversations with my children just so they understand my perspective. And not that I'm trying to, you know, jam it down their throat, but I want them to understand. I've seen a lot of political divisiveness in our country. And I flash back to the civil rights era. You know, my folks. My folks took me and my sister at civil rights protests, candlelight vigils. I mean, we. You know, we protested against the Vietnam War. So, you know, and my folks, on an even deeper level, demonstrated their compassion and kindness by one. Mom was a. Mom sang professionally for a while. Dad played the piano professionally. So they were both really good musicians, but they would go to the state penitentiary and play for the prisoners. Really they did. And just. Just to entertain them, just to give them some real live music. And they befriended several black prisoners. And when their terms expired, they helped them to find work. And, you know, so. And I mean, I. I remember one gentleman that they. They brought to dinner at our house. His name was John Barton. John had served a sentence for cocaine possession and heroin possession. That was it. And it was. It was a small quantity, but he served, I want to say, five to seven years. And he got out, and he actually gave my folks a painting that he did while he was in prison, and it was St. Paul in prison. And he copied that and painted a miraculous painting, how he replicated the original from a three by five postcard. And, in fact, that's hanging in my son's home right now. John, though, less than three months after he got out of prison, and I remember playing ping pong with him, he died because of an overdose. And he was an immensely talented young man. But. But these were things that my folks did to demonstrate their humanity, to help others that were less fortunate. And again, that's. I know we'll never return to that time, but I do think it's incumbent upon us, older generation in particular, to make sure that those stories are told, to make sure that our kids and our neighbors kids understand the importance of kindness and respect and giving to others, even those that they may not feel deserve it. And I think that's the only way we're going to turn this country around. So who in your life experiences who has had the greatest influence on your life and kind of the direction you've gone?

[31:16] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Probably my mother. My dad was an alcoholic. When he was home, he was sleeping. That's about it. Or hitting me upside the head when somebody else did something wrong kind of thing.

[31:36] DAVID SHANKS: Sorry to hear that.

[31:39] MICHAEL WEHRLE: She planted the seeds of Christianity into me. I walked away from it when I joined the navy. And to be perfectly frank, I became an alcoholic myself. And I went through the rehab period. When you talk about friends dying from overdoses and stuff like that there was a lot of, really, when you get to know them and they're sober, decent people that just had the monkey on their back and couldn't shake it.

[32:08] DAVID SHANKS: And.

[32:11] MICHAEL WEHRLE: There was one guy that I kind of piled up with. He was a crack addict. He said it was the 7th time in there and he didn't expect to live when he got out. And I totally lost touch with him, so I don't know if he did or nothing, but it was awakening up for me and saved my marriage, saved my life, reassociated with my children. They were little when all this went on. Two of them were teenagers, but the other two were still in the grammar school. It was a tough period, but I found God again. He laid dormant for so many years, just was, you know, didn't think I was worthy of even going back to church, but picked up the pieces and started over. And luckily my wife hang out with me. She was kind of weary about whether she was going to stay with me not, but she decided to. She's staring over, over my laptop, looking at me. So that's about as honest as I can get, you know? But it taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about, you know, human beings, especially those that are, you know, you see the drunks laying out on the street in Florida all over the place. These guys come down here because it's warmer and they're just laying in the grass and holding up signs and begging for money. There's not enough rehabilitation things going on down here to care for all the people that are here. So the churches try to pick up the slack when they can, but they're limited on what they can do. They don't have the funds, they don't have the programs. I put it. I put my name in the. About going back to work. I'm trying to find something meaningful. I put my name into Salvation army to see if I can become part of that without having to change religion to them. But I'm at that stage of my life. I've been trying to give back wherever I can.

[34:38] DAVID SHANKS: Good for you.

[34:42] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And it was a couple of people in our lives that saved our lives.

[34:52] DAVID SHANKS: So tell me about that.

[34:54] MICHAEL WEHRLE: What do you mean the persons? Yeah. Well, there was a friend of Barbara's, my wife. She worked with her. She had raised nine kids. She was a twin and their husbands were twins. House that was like a castle, but all of their kids would, with the exception. I thought like three or four had moved on, you know, and they didn't no longer live in this house. And the straw that broke the camel's back. When I left New York, Washington, we were burned out of our house. I lived in an apartment above an italian restaurant and the mob was into the guy that owned the restaurant. He owed him money or something and they decided to torch his restaurant. But they started the fire as far away from the apartment as they could to gave us time to get out. And this lady that, and I had no place to go. This lady that worked with Barbara, she took his in, no questions asked. Salvage what I could salvage from the apartment. Stuck it in her garage and we stayed there. This happened in May and we stayed there till September until I could find a job outside of New York. Walked away from New York, never looked back. But yeah, she was another influential person in my life. And then there's a gentleman here that kind of made, majorly influenced my religious convictions and kind of brought it back to life. And he with another preacher founded our church here and I've been going to that ever since I've been here. So, you know, I'm just grateful that, you know, I have got what I got. My kids turned out great. My one son's an electrician, my other son's a computer programmer. My oldest daughter runs a printing company and my youngest daughter runs a fire systems company.

[37:23] DAVID SHANKS: Okay.

[37:26] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And done a good life. Good life. Once I kind of got out of the fog.

[37:36] DAVID SHANKS: Yes. Sometimes we have to reach a low to pursue a high.

[37:43] MICHAEL WEHRLE: When you reach the bottom, there's no place put up. Yeah. And it took a while, but I think I made it. And if I wanted to share anything like that with anybody. I went to AA for quite a few years, tried to share my story with them. But as I moved around I slowly drifted away from that. I try to do it in the church and I do a lot of things with that church. I run their music and video systems and work with the pastor to put up on the screen whatever sermon he's preaching about, whatever chapter, whatever verse in the Bible he's going to talk about. I found peace here. Real, real peace. And it's good feeling.

[38:46] DAVID SHANKS: I appreciate your transparency, Mike.

[38:49] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Well that's, I think until you are transparent and can, can openly talk about things like this. No, you're never really honest with yourself.

[39:06] DAVID SHANKS: That's true. And if you can't be honest with yourself, then it's impossible to be honest with others.

[39:13] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Exactly. Exactly. And I, and I see it in people. You know, I, I can tell an alcoholic when I see one so I don't have to push it. I just tell my story, because that's how I got into the program. All right. Somebody, a friend of mine was an addict, and he had cleaned himself up. And you would never believe looking at that guy that he was, by the way he was living his life. And he just told me a story, and I said, he's my story. You know, only I was alcohol and he was cocaine, but the addiction is still the addiction. And that stayed in my head till I finally woke up and did something about it. So I try to do that. Just tell my story.

[40:07] DAVID SHANKS: Amen.

[40:12] MICHAEL WEHRLE: All right. He says, we got ten minutes left. What else you want to talk about?

[40:20] DAVID SHANKS: So, let's see. So what do you want your life's legacy to be?

[40:28] MICHAEL WEHRLE: That was a good man and tried to do good. Tried to do good for my country and my family, not necessarily in that order, because I get on my son in law. He's. He's in army reserves, okay? And he's got 23 years in, and he's just. It's now become part of his. Totally part of his life. Right. And he thinks more about that sometimes than he does his family. And I try to influence him by, number one, praying for him, and, number two, having conversations about getting your priorities right. But he's a good man. He's a good man, and I think he understands. And these are the kind of conversations we can have with our younger generation. I think, that maybe some of them can relate to. I know while drugs are still a big problem, I don't think alcohol is that big a problem anymore. At least I don't see it. Maybe because I've insulated myself.

[41:37] DAVID SHANKS: It still is. And I think the pandemic helped to exacerbate that.

[41:42] MICHAEL WEHRLE: You may be right. You may be right. I'm a little isolated in this community now, so it's kind of. I've got to go outside it to see what's going on.

[41:50] DAVID SHANKS: Yeah.

[41:51] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Which is why I'm trying to find a job with the Salvation army you're advertising. And I put an application in, and hopefully I'll get it and I can do some good with them.

[42:03] DAVID SHANKS: Well, you had mentioned earlier that. That you're trying to do things, more things now to. I got the time now serve your community. And. And I'm the same way. I. You know, this. This newfound freedom that I realized in retirement afforded me the time now to do things that I couldn't do before now. I volunteer, actually, through a christian ministry called Wizkids here in the Denver metro area, and tutor an elementary school student for the duration of the school year, it's one on one for an hour each week. And then there's what's called club time. And there's a Bible lesson taught for those 30 minutes where all the kids in that church with their tutors gather together and go through a Bible lesson.

[43:03] MICHAEL WEHRLE: How do you feel when you do that?

[43:07] DAVID SHANKS: I've been doing it for 13 years now, Mike. And I look forward to those evenings each week because I'm having a real impact and to the point where my very first student that I had lost touch with, and I tutored him for three years, three, three and a half years. This was back like 2008, 2000, 920, ten. And he and his family moved down to Colorado Springs and we just kind of lost touch. And about a year ago he reached out to me as a young adult and we have since reconnected and. And he told me, Dave, you had an incredible impact in my life. And.

[44:03] MICHAEL WEHRLE: That'S a good feeling, huh?

[44:05] DAVID SHANKS: It is. It is. And so what.

[44:10] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Here's the big question. What do you think we could do with this? Could we help with them with this? He's 25 years old and he's a dedicated himself to doing this. I'm talking about Kevin.

[44:24] DAVID SHANKS: Yeah.

[44:26] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I feel that this could be a really, really good vehicle if we could pair the right people together. I agree.

[44:35] DAVID SHANKS: And it just.

[44:36] MICHAEL WEHRLE: What we're doing with people that are not doing it, you know?

[44:43] DAVID SHANKS: Right. Yeah, no, I'm going to be. I'm certainly going to spreading the word about one small step and encouraging others to take part and participate.

[44:52] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I'm involved in this community from an audio visual perspective and I was telling the manager about this. That's why I was asking if you were going to give us the video. They want to see this. I could probably start a club with these old people and get something going.

[45:11] DAVID SHANKS: Right.

[45:12] MICHAEL WEHRLE: But there's a lot of people that.

[45:14] DAVID SHANKS: Think like us here, you know. Again, my joining this and becoming an interviewer or interviewee was to do no more than to hear. I wanted to listen and learn and. But I think it's through understanding and the trust that you gain in taking time to listen is where then your ability to persuade and influence grows. And not until then, you know, bark barking out your dislike or disagreement to one another does nothing to influence that. You're never going to influence that way. The only way you're going to influence is when you have developed a certain level of that relationship and built that trust in that other person. That's when you're going to start to have influence. And hopefully others will take advantage of vehicles, like one small step, but also take the time to go out into their local communities and have conversations with diverse people. You know, buy somebody a lunch or a breakfast that you don't know. Don't know anything about, but you can see just by who they are that they're very different from you. I don't know, but it's prompting me to want to, if you will, spread the gospel on the importance of reducing some of the hate and divisiveness in this nation.

[47:04] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Listening.

[47:05] DAVID SHANKS: Listening that.

[47:07] MICHAEL WEHRLE: I'm in a. I'm in a place right now where it's very easy for me to do. I mean, there's a community center down the road, and we only got four minutes left, but that basically, I can go into that community center, sit down, and somebody will sit down next to me, start a conversation, or I can go in and sit down next to somebody and start a conversation that I don't even know.

[47:31] DAVID SHANKS: Yeah, that's really cool.

[47:32] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And it can turn into hours, like, we're just. We're just rambling on here, you know? Yeah. And you learn a lot about people and the thinking and all of that just by talking.

[47:43] DAVID SHANKS: Agree.

[47:45] MICHAEL WEHRLE: We need to. We need to support this thing, and at least I do. I feel the need to support this.

[47:53] DAVID SHANKS: Agreed.

[47:55] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And if. If you don't mind, I'd like to keep in touch with you.

[47:59] DAVID SHANKS: I would love to. Mike, I'm going to say. I'm going to jump in and ask that you wait until we end the recording. We do have a couple more minutes left, and I just wanted to ask, I mean, obviously, yeah, we'll still be speaking after the recording is done, but do you have any last words, any last messages that you want to share, be it to your own children or grandchildren or to more broader community?

[48:26] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Yeah.

[48:26] DAVID SHANKS: Like, if you could get in touch with your community, you have, like, a megaphone. Like, to just be like, okay, this is what we need to do to help support one another. What would both of you say?

[48:40] MICHAEL WEHRLE: You want to go first?

[48:41] DAVID SHANKS: Sure. I would say kindness and respect for all is an imperative in our society. And I feel like my boys, my sons, my young men are doing that in their lives. But I just want to emphasize that is so mission critical to understanding one another and being able to listen and learn and nothing, not voice your opinion first, but listen to theirs. And that's the way we're going to find solutions. That's the way we're going to find understanding and caring and compassion for one another. And you know as. And that has to be done to build trust. One of the expressions my father used to share with me, that I will forever hold my heart, is the only thing a man can give as well as keep is his word. And I think that's what we need to do with each other. We need to keep our word in being honest, transparent, trusting, but wanting to understand. It doesn't mean we're always going to agree. We'll never all agree, but we need to be willing to understand one another. How about you, Mike?

[50:21] MICHAEL WEHRLE: Well, you know, pretty much everything Dave.

[50:26] DAVID SHANKS: Said.

[50:28] MICHAEL WEHRLE: And I think about when I was young, would I listen to an older person and take their advice? And most of the time I wouldn't. I just didn't have the time to sit around. I did enjoy talking history with my grandfather because he was in world War two, and there was a lot you could glean from an older generation just talking to them. The problem that we have here in this community is we only got each other to talk to, and we're kind of isolated from the remainder, from the rest of this community. And the only time we see it is when we go outside, go to the supermarket or wherever we're going. Some of us still work here and part time, and they encounter the outside world that way. Other than that, it's just being with my kids on this kind of a format, just to talking with my kids about, you know, what's going on in my life, what's going on in your life. But like you say with your son, my sons and daughters are pretty, pretty level headed kids. Well, they're not kids anymore. My oldest is 50, so it makes me real. Feel real old. But they're all good people, and I can't take credit for that. I guess they saw what happened to me and learn from it, and unfortunately, that's the way I could influence by surviving. But, yeah, I think somehow we've got to find a way to have the conversation with younger people.

[52:17] DAVID SHANKS: Agreed.

[52:22] MICHAEL WEHRLE: The first thing that came to my mind is, I'm a mason. We supply a little league team, but we only support them financially. We don't really get involved with them. And I'm thinking that could be a good vehicle to work with the kids. It's just get involved in their games and you get to know them that way. I think that could be a vehicle to start with. This could work, too, if we. We could get kids involved, pair a kid with an old guy and we might have some influence on them. You know, I. You know, I did enjoy talking with my grandfather, but that was about the only older person I really knew growing up.

[53:12] DAVID SHANKS: Right.

[53:14] MICHAEL WEHRLE: My dad was never around, so I had a find somebody to, you know, mentor me or whatever, and he was it. And I said I named my son after him.

[53:28] DAVID SHANKS: Did you?

[53:29] MICHAEL WEHRLE: That's how influential he was in my life. I probably should have brought that up earlier, too. Yep, I guess that's about it. Got four minutes already?

[53:43] DAVID SHANKS: Yeah, we're past the limit now, but I just want to say thank you both for participating. I'm going to go ahead and end the recording, and then we can continue this conversation in just a bit, okay?