Chris Krieger and Karen Price

[00:00] KAREN PRICE: Where is it?

[00:03] CHRIS KRIEGER: Go up above the stop recording button and it should have my profile up there.

[00:08] KAREN PRICE: Gotcha. Okay, so reading suspense fiction, socioeconomic, historical, environmental, nonfiction and woodworking, woodworking and cooking, quirky, well read, World's traveling divorced father of one daughter. Comfortable in the wood shop, woods, library, kitchen. Familiar with SPSS, Excel, Word, ArcGIS, but just got for a smartphone about a year ago. Sometimes profanity is still involved. Read a lot. TV only linked to DVD player for 10 plus years. Convinced grandchildren will rightly curse us for their Mad Max-like world if we don't change soon.

[00:57] CHRIS KRIEGER: Okay, that's me. Okay, Karen, you're in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Typical voting preference is Democrat, 65 plus. You trend more towards liberal than conservative. Your interests are hiking, cooking, building prototypes with microprocessors. You are a classically trained musician who eventually went into academics. You're now a retired professor. The most important education you've had has been in raising a black son, now 31. He is the grandson of your deceased same-sex partner with whom you've shared your life with for 23 years. You lived abroad for 10 years, many years ago, and have had the good fortune to have been able to travel abroad extensively for pleasure and work. You love the outdoors and being active skiing, hiking, kayaking. Okay. Wow. Sounds like pretty diverse interest band there.

[02:03] KAREN PRICE: I really admire your woodworking. Oh, if I could come back, I'd either be a librarian or a woodworker. I just think I would love to learn about woodworking. I just think that is so cool because like cooking, it takes all of your skills, you know?

[02:22] CHRIS KRIEGER: Sure.

[02:23] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[02:24] KAREN PRICE: That's just so cool. What do you, what do you make with your woodworking stuff?

[02:29] CHRIS KRIEGER: I restore sometimes, but I make furniture. I do that mostly for myself. I find I live in fly over America in Oklahoma and I live just outside of a small college town. It's the second biggest university in the state, but I'm not sure what that really says. Oklahoma's got five million people, maybe, on a good day.

[02:53] KAREN PRICE: On a good day.

[02:59] CHRIS KRIEGER: We just don't have the market for that sort of thing. It takes a lot of work to go to jury woodworking shows and show elsewhere. I don't have the contacts for that or the cash flow. So I do a lot of remodeling and for a long time I did directional tree falling in urban areas. I ran a small tree service and I filled the niche because I didn't have a... I did not have a chipper truck and an urban tree service disposal is more than half of the job. And if you don't have a chipper, you're not as marketable and I don't have the bucket truck. But I can sit on the ground and hit a, you know, a stake with a tree. And sometimes that's very useful in an urban setting. But now back where you are, I understand they actually climb the trees and take the trees down from inside the tree with a harnessing system where they use mechanical advantages and one person in reasonably good physical shape can lower huge several hundred pound limbs at a time.

[04:05] SPEAKER C: So.

[04:07] CHRIS KRIEGER: I would, I wish I knew more about doing that, but my rock climbing days are over.

[04:13] KAREN PRICE: Right, right.

[04:16] CHRIS KRIEGER: Now, Cambridge is right outside of Boston, isn't that right?

[04:19] KAREN PRICE: It is.

[04:20] CHRIS KRIEGER: Okay, all right.

[04:22] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[04:24] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, what made you want to do the, oh, before we, what is, you're making micro, you're building prototypes with microprocessors. What does that mean?

[04:35] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[04:35] KAREN PRICE: What does anything mean ever, right? I mean, you know, it's all BS. No, I I'm kind of interested in where technology and art cross, you know? And so, like, right now, I've been working on. I have a wooden, a very, a very nice wooden staircase in my house.

[04:58] SPEAKER C: And.

[05:00] KAREN PRICE: I wanted to make a musical. a staircase, but that that was invisible, you know, because it's easy to make, you know, ugly sensors and like really but technology is only wonderful when it's invisible, when it's magic. Okay. Do you know what I mean aesthetically? You know, it's I couldn't agree more with you. I agree so strongly about, you know, all of the technology and kids lives and not being any way I whole, wholeheartedly. Yeah, I get that. So anyway, I think technology is cool, but only when it's magic. Only when you can't see it and you don't know how it's happening, you know?

[05:47] SPEAKER C: And.

[05:49] KAREN PRICE: So anyway, so I've been these tiny, tiny, tiny microprocessors that I've mounted underneath the lip of the. The molding of the banister. So they're invisible, you know, so they're kind. kind of invisible. And then I've, oh, my God, I've developed, I've, I've done, let's see, eight circuit boards already, you know, because each time you do one, you know, or, or learn, each time you do one, then you, you figure out how the next time it's going to be better and, and more, you know, anyway, so anyway, so that each, you know, going up the staircase. there anyway. Yeah, but it's cool. It's just.

[06:35] CHRIS KRIEGER: Does that mean you're. It sounds fascinating. Does that mean your degree is in electrical engineering?

[06:41] SPEAKER C: No. No.

[06:46] KAREN PRICE: No, no. I'm just self. I'm self-taught and what about you? How did you learn woodworking?

[06:54] CHRIS KRIEGER: Oh, well, for one, my dad was a shop teacher back in Ohio where I grew up.

[06:58] KAREN PRICE: Oh, you lucky. Lucky. I was not allowed. I wanted. to take shop, but they wouldn't let me take shop because I was a girl. They wouldn't let me take physics either because I was a girl.

[07:13] CHRIS KRIEGER: Sure.

[07:14] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[07:14] KAREN PRICE: And it's like, come on, guys, you know, like, and cooking, I love to cook. It's not that I'm, you know, a. No, it's just if, if I knew anything about shop, my life would be a lot more manageable.

[07:29] CHRIS KRIEGER: Sure. That's. Well, you know, there, there are some great women Woodworkers out there. If you read the, the magazines. And there's also one lady who does wood carving classes. And she's actually fascinating to watch. My mother, she lost her mother when she was 10. So she grew up with her father, my grandfather, who owned a hardware store and a small farm that he, the people he bought it from ran the farm for him. And he had a house in town as well. So, you know, he did quite well for himself. And, but he was a big believer. that just because Mom was a girl, you know, she, she learned how to, how to change the innards of a toilet tank.

[08:10] KAREN PRICE: See, this is so useful. It is so useful. You know, it's like how to fix your doorknob, how to fix the, you know.

[08:20] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, you know what's so disconcerting to me and disappointing is I, I did everything but finish my Masters. I did everything but finish writing and defending my thesis in a Masters in geography, and I. I focused a lot on social socioeconomic and environmental research and how you could, you know, form a measurable, a question you could measure the answer to.

[08:44] KAREN PRICE: And.

[08:46] CHRIS KRIEGER: I'm really intrigued with, you know, as women, especially after World War II, but even before, as we started to come into the social sciences, they introduced so many of the concepts we use to turn a qualitative observation into something that's actionable. And what, you know, like it's not just how many miles do people commute or whatever, it's how much time do they spend away from home in addition to the work time with the commute.

[09:18] SPEAKER C: Or.

[09:21] CHRIS KRIEGER: There'S all kinds of ways to measure human experience that are really important that just because in so many scientific things, you know, the men got all the credit for.

[09:34] KAREN PRICE: Yeah.

[09:34] CHRIS KRIEGER: And, and, I mean, you could, they could just put documentary after documentary about wronged women scientists. But I was told by a, a, a woman PhD, I was taking this class. It was on geography. geographical research and we explored every discipline or not every, every but but the major disciplines and right current writings in them and I was really impressed with this gender stuff and so but I she told me she said you cannot you do not want to specialize on gender studies in the social sciences as a male and fly over America. It will she said she told me everyone would assume that I was I was gay and would not want to hire me and fly over America.

[10:24] KAREN PRICE: No, no, I understand.

[10:25] SPEAKER C: Right.

[10:26] KAREN PRICE: But how sad, because it's so important. That's a. That's really good.

[10:31] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[10:32] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, even when I was a kid, I did a paper on the everyday life of the Civil War Soldier because I thought it. Knowing. Knowing more about their daily life was very important to understanding the battles better.

[10:46] SPEAKER C: Right.

[10:47] KAREN PRICE: You know what? I agree with you.

[10:50] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[10:54] CHRIS KRIEGER: So now living in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is a staunch Democrat state, I believe, isn't it?

[11:00] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[11:01] KAREN PRICE: Okay. It's crazy Progressive. Yes.

[11:05] CHRIS KRIEGER: So have you guys had lots of marches against the. The current president?

[11:09] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[11:11] CHRIS KRIEGER: Okay.

[11:12] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, yeah, well, I, I, not, well, you know, I, I would say, yes, against the president, but also for due process, you know, but, but, yeah, not, not just because I think it's important to be for things is, is my point, no matter what your perspective, not just against things, Right? But to be able to just like it, you know, they teach in negotiation, you know, say what you want, not what you hate. You know, if you get into a negotiation in business, you start saying, well, this really sucks and I hate you. And like, you know, you don't get anywhere. You know, you have to articulate what find common ground, find what you want and see how that other person reacts, you know? I'm so glad that we're doing this. This is my first time. I think everybody in the country needs to be matched up with people who have totally different, maybe world views or experiences. Because if we don't, where are we headed? What's gonna happen? We need to believe in everybody's humanity and their goodness, you know?

[12:37] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[12:39] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, no, I agree completely. That's, I used to live in North Idaho for years and I, I work.

[12:47] KAREN PRICE: For the forest service.

[12:50] CHRIS KRIEGER: I used to run trail crews and.

[12:51] KAREN PRICE: I used to, oh, that would be my dream job.

[12:56] CHRIS KRIEGER: It was, I had a lot of fun. I also ran pack mule strings in, Glacier National Park. And I worked for an outfitter in the biggest Wilderness area in the lower 48 states. That was a lot of fun.

[13:08] KAREN PRICE: Oh, my God. That's just. See, that's just. Yeah, my. My. That's so great.

[13:15] CHRIS KRIEGER: You know, I never got rich, but I. I had several months off, and I could travel, and a friend of mine's family let me live on their mountain, and I. I had this 1959 Airstream with a wood stove in it, and that's. That was my home for years. I was never there most of the year, but. But, but you know, the one thing I've noticed is the survivalists, you know, I've been to some of their conventions or they have these little, like three day, they call them conventions, but it's also a chance for everybody to sell each other stuff. Oh, like buckets of food and firearms and, you know, night vision. And that's the thing is I call it the three B's. They always focus on the three B's. You know, beans, bullets and band-aids. But they don't focus on how to build a resilient community that can accommodate difference. And that's the real survival tool.

[14:12] KAREN PRICE: And I think so, too. I think for all of us, you know, well, speaking of that, it makes me think after my longtime partner of 23 years died, you know, the universe felt really unsafe to me. I mean, because she was really strong and it was such a shock and horrifying thing to happen. It was unimaginable. Anyway, to make a long story short, I got to try and think, like, what would help, you know? And so I found this guy out in Arizona, who had a background as an anthropologist, And he took out small groups of for eight to 10 days at a time with nothing. And but the perspective was not that of the survivor kind of mentality, what you don't have. His whole focus was on if you know what you're doing, you have everything you need. And so it was more the perspective of being outdoors and experiencing the universe as bountiful. as a safe place, as it doesn't matter. You don't have the REI or the little bean, what's the magic? You know, like, this is how the Indians used to do it, you know, the indigenous people. And you've got everything you need. You just need a little information, you know, and we made our water bottles out of gourds and, you know, I mean, just. And it was crazy for 10 days. I mean, that was.

[15:51] CHRIS KRIEGER: I'm back.

[15:52] KAREN PRICE: But it was really relaxed and relaxing. I felt very confident in his knowledge and. Yeah, I mean, I think. I think being Outdoors, like, I. I admire your having been a forest, you know, working in Forestry. Being Outdoors to me is just key to being able to. To be in the universe. It's just so wonderful and.

[16:22] CHRIS KRIEGER: You know, I used to, I've been snowed on every month of the year because, you know, if you're, if you're up high enough, whatever is raining down below is snow up above. And I just, I discovered which I grew up in Southeastern, no, Southwestern Ohio. And I was in the South Central and Southeastern Ohio, close to the foot. You're in the foothills of the Appalachians, and it's beautiful and hilly and it's not, Northern Ohio is fairly boring, flat. country, not my favorite at all. But years, years later, you know, I got out of the Army, I was going to college. I drove a grain truck, and we, we started in Texas and cut wheat through Oklahoma and Kansas into eastern Colorado. And so I, I went to Denver and, you know, I partied for a week to celebrate not being in nowhere.

[17:11] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[17:13] CHRIS KRIEGER: And then I, I took a, I turned in the rental car and I had rented some equipment. I went to Steamboat Springs and I.

[17:19] KAREN PRICE: Went on this oh, wow.

[17:20] CHRIS KRIEGER: If I realized how epic it was, I might not have done it. But I did a nine-day backpacking trip in the Mountain Circle Wilderness Area by myself, and I just fell in love with mountains. And that's what got me into the forest service summer job the year after that. And then as I kept doing that, I really just fell more and more in love with being in the mountains. And then I started to pack and. you know, the packing that evolved in, in Idaho and Western Montana, I, I think I'm biased, but it's the most technically Advanced packing system that has ever been. We haven't really progressed much after that. And, and I just, I find mules and my Border Collie are much easier to get along with than most people I know. So I, that's, you know, I got paid to ride, ride a horse and, or a mule and lead. wonderful, wonderful mules, you know, for years. I got paid to do that.

[18:22] SPEAKER C: So.

[18:23] KAREN PRICE: Wow.

[18:24] CHRIS KRIEGER: I enjoyed that.

[18:27] KAREN PRICE: That is very, very cool.

[18:29] CHRIS KRIEGER: But, you know, all that and a dollar 99 will buy me a cup of coffee.

[18:36] SPEAKER C: So.

[18:38] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, so is that what made you want to do this? Was seeing just all the. division in the country or what did make you want to do a one simple step?

[18:48] KAREN PRICE: Well, I'm kind of scared at the vitriol, at the hatred at the how each side or, you know, some people are demonizing other people. I find it really scary. I find it frightening. And especially just to be truthful as a gay person, it kind of scares me, you know, because I'm not dangerous. I mean, you know, no, like, really? Like, you know, I mean, I'm a regular person. I like to cook. I like to make music. I like to be outdoors. I like to volunteer and help people. I'm. I'm not a weirdo. I mean, I. My life. I've. I've never done anything. I don't know how to explain. I have a very banal. Sure. I mean, you know, I'm a regular person, and yet, you know, a lot of people might not have that. opportunity to meet a gay person who hasn't ever gone out to bars, you know what I mean? Who hasn't, who has always been monogamous, I mean, and had a long-term relationship and just as a regular, regular, okay, kind of. Do you know what I'm. I mean, I'm just boring. I mean, you know, like, I'm just your neighbor, you know? And, like, yeah, yeah, that scares me. It scares me.

[20:13] CHRIS KRIEGER: And that's what I don't under. stand as this conservative, just fear and vilification of whatever it doesn't like or understand. And, and this Comfort now, it's increasing Comfort with, and even a Readiness to impose their codification of spirituality on everyone. And I, I live in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, and I have my own beliefs. You know, I've been in recovery for almost 25 years, and.

[20:41] KAREN PRICE: Good for you.

[20:43] CHRIS KRIEGER: I'm just very lucky. And I. But I've worked really, really hard to come up with a spirituality that I can use. And I am so tired of just being preached down to and converted and judged and, or, you know, over and over and over since I was a kid, you know, in Catholic school, and I knew I didn't want to go to. I didn't want not to be a Catholic by third or fourth grade, and I. we moved out here to Oklahoma.

[21:10] KAREN PRICE: And that must have been upsetting and scary for you, though.

[21:14] CHRIS KRIEGER: Oh, it, you know, it's, you come out here, and if you don't go along with, you know, the invitation for the third or fourth time to go to Fellowship of Christian athletes or this church or this Minister, this weekend, young people's Gathering or then, then there's no more room for you on the bus. You know, there's no more room for you at the cafeteria. It's very obvious.

[21:36] KAREN PRICE: And that's very scary. And I think the way that the liberals denigrate, you know, people who are not liberal or progressive as stupid and ignorant, and they just don't know, you know? No, people have differences. Do you know what I think? That's not right. That's, that's, that's not gonna help anybody.

[21:59] CHRIS KRIEGER: And that's one thing I do want to say. I don't know if I said it earlier when we were chatting, but. I, I, where I put myself on the Likert scale, I'm not all liberal or all conservative on anything. You know, I basically, I sum up my politics to my conservative redneck co-workers and friends. I say, listen, you're never going to get my gun, but I don't think it's any business who freely consenting adults want to, want to kiss, love and marry. It's none of my business. Unless I'm invited to the wedding, you.

[22:34] KAREN PRICE: Know, that's, and and, yeah, where there's.

[22:37] SPEAKER C: Good food and good. Yeah.

[22:41] CHRIS KRIEGER: And, and so I, I don't, where I put myself, I would have put myself in the middle or to the liberal just going by today's classifications.

[22:51] SPEAKER C: Right.

[22:51] CHRIS KRIEGER: But for some reason, I didn't. And now OSS will not let me change it. I have asked them and asked them and asked them, and they say their software doesn't allow that. Or so I said, well, can I drop out and then set up a whole new account? And they said, well, then you'll lose the ability to reconnect with your old partners. And I just.

[23:10] KAREN PRICE: Oh, that's interesting.

[23:12] CHRIS KRIEGER: So I am really conservative on, on some things, and. But, you know, like, I'm actually, I think being a good environmentalist is conservative as hell. I'm not interested in giving away our future wealth to be CEOs to get rich. And then we're all serious.

[23:29] KAREN PRICE: I would agree with you totally. I think that's a totally.

[23:33] CHRIS KRIEGER: Okay.

[23:33] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[23:34] KAREN PRICE: Absolutely.

[23:35] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[23:36] CHRIS KRIEGER: And that's another thing too. I embrace is this, you know, this neoliberal laissez-faire capitalism, you know, no rules does not work in a kindergarten. Who ever thought it wouldn't work in an international economy? I think Millie Friedman should have to wear a dunce cap and sit in the corner, you know, for two or three hours on YouTube. I don't even know if he's still alive, but if he was, I think he should have to do that because his ideas are, you know, he was the, the spokesperson for that kind of.

[24:11] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[24:12] CHRIS KRIEGER: Moronic nonsense that simply is not backed up by empirical evidence. You know, every time we ease up on, on regulation, we have an environmental nightmare. We have a banking Global recession. We have something terrible.

[24:27] SPEAKER C: Right.

[24:28] CHRIS KRIEGER: And I, so I believe that We need the right-sized relevant regulation to keep honest people honest type things. And we need a system so we can always police ourselves. So we can regularly inventory ourselves or critique ourselves to see if we're really being true to our alleged purpose, our alleged goals.

[24:59] SPEAKER C: Right.

[25:00] CHRIS KRIEGER: Because it's so human for us to get really focused on the form of what we do and forget the goal of what we were doing it for. I think it was just his history, especially in religion. You know, we see it all the time. And, you know, you, you did, you ate fish on Friday. You're going to hell. Well, you know, probably not, but, you know, just, so, so I believe in, I want a little bit of regulation because you know, when I was a kid and we drove around Ohio, you know, in the cities, your arm that was outside the window would be a different color by the end of the day. And it wasn't, it wasn't all just because it was sunlight.

[25:39] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[25:39] CHRIS KRIEGER: Some of it was pollution, you know?

[25:41] KAREN PRICE: Yeah.

[25:42] CHRIS KRIEGER: Rivers do catch on fire, you know?

[25:45] KAREN PRICE: No, I know.

[25:46] SPEAKER C: Yeah. So.

[25:49] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, yeah. So this idea, I'm, I'm totally with you on that.

[25:55] CHRIS KRIEGER: Okay.

[25:56] KAREN PRICE: And I, I think we, we need to be. evidence-based fact-based evidence-based.

[26:02] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[26:03] KAREN PRICE: I think that.

[26:04] SPEAKER C: That.

[26:04] KAREN PRICE: Because I am always totally willing to be wrong. You know, I I I mean, you know, when you cook, you learn things every time you, you know, you try something new, right? I mean, it's like, oh, I didn't know it would do that. Yeah, right. And so it just seems like, you know.

[26:25] SPEAKER C: There. There. We.

[26:26] KAREN PRICE: We all need to. I. I really believe in evidence and in. And in an ability to admit or. Or rethink or to be open to a different way, to a different idea. I. I love to be challenged. It's what I always loved about traveling was, you know, being blown away at somebody doing something, you know, which seems so incredibly shocking, you know, and I love that. I mean, why not? you know, but it's refreshing to, you know, I mean, to, to.

[27:02] CHRIS KRIEGER: And where do we get so down on, on experts and expert knowledge?

[27:09] KAREN PRICE: Well, I, I think that that skill, just like your woodworking, it takes knowledge and skill and expertise and practice and expertise is real, you know?

[27:20] CHRIS KRIEGER: Yeah, yeah, I, I agree.

[27:22] KAREN PRICE: I mean, like, I, I. I agree with you. I don't know what's. I mean, at the same time, I I'm probably one of my only one among my colleagues who doesn't feel that, you know, colleges for everybody. I I don't understand why it is that the trades are not more highly valued than a college education. because when you do, when you know a trade, then you actually know something. You have an actual skill and you get gratification and you always have work. And, you know, I tried to persuade my kid, you know, to think hard about going into a trade, right? I mean, I don't understand, like, why agriculture isn't the most prestigious job we all eat, right? I mean, why wouldn't agriculture be highly valued? I don't get it. It's, it's an upside down world. It's, I don't understand what's, I, I don't get it.

[28:32] CHRIS KRIEGER: You know, I had this conversation in a, in a more, in a less tactful way with a professor. And, you know, keep in mind, my chainsaws are, the two chainsaws I use the most for my directional falling are, you know, 12 to 1400 saws. They're, they're, they're tuned up a little bit, special carburetors, handlebars, that sort of thing. special chains and bars and, you know, a chain now is $50 for one of my saws. And he asked me, now this was several years, this is four or five years ago, but he asked me if he could, he said, well, can you bring one of your chainsaws in and let me borrow it and I'll just bring it back in a couple of days? And I was self-funded. I still worked in the evenings. And so, but he didn't so I asked him, I said, well, how about if you, if you, you know, since I won't be able to use my saw, how about if you bring your laptop and I'll just use that for a couple of days until you're done? And he got really offended by that because he had a special, you know, two, back then it was probably a 1600, two thousand dollar laptop even then. And, and he had all this special software on it because he was really into statistics and. But, you know, and my mom, you know, she went back to school. She got her doctorate. That's why we moved out here to Oklahoma. I'm not dismissive of that at all.

[29:58] SPEAKER C: And.

[29:58] CHRIS KRIEGER: And I tried to get a master's myself. And, you know, you know, I timed out over some families. I just had a huge personal crises that affect me, and I. I timed out and never got my act together, so that's where I'm at, but.

[30:12] KAREN PRICE: But that's what's wrong with school and school interferes with education and life. I mean, that's wrong to have that happen. Well, you know, that's excuse. I mean, I feel really strongly about this. Having been in academia for decades is like it is so. Excuse my language. It's really messed up. Really messed up. and it seems that sometimes some professors feel that their job is to prevent anyone from getting a higher degree. And like there's so many ridiculous hooks to jump through that are meaningless and wrong, wrong minded.

[30:54] SPEAKER C: And.

[30:57] KAREN PRICE: I mean, I'm sorry, I just, but I think school interferes with education.

[31:06] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, maybe it's, I mean, I like school. I see where you're, where you're going on and what you mean. And the whole publisher parish thing seems a bit, my mom, you know, she resented that. She found that she really liked teaching and she was, she was really good at it. And, and she had, due to her being a mom and having two kids and a husband, she got sidetracked from her real interest. and something that was going to pay her the rest of her assistantship to finish her degree. And that's what she got hired to work with. And, and she just found it was easier to fall into the teaching and she was getting better and better at that than it was to try and steer her, her professional interest back. And so, but the promotions and raises came slower. But what I was getting at is I was agreeing with you on the whole you know, recognizing thing of the time it takes. You know, it takes to be a really good professor and get, you know, tenure or whatever. It's more than just your time in school, your extra research on your dissertation. It's a 10 or 12 year gig. I get that. But, you know, to become a full on master carpenter, you can do forms, home, custom cut a roof, put dormers in, do the cabinets, run the crown, and you know how to work with other media that's gonna be used in your home, like how to do stairs. And what's happened is very few people can actually do all that. They'll usually specialize on stairs. Or maybe, there'll be a guy who can build cabinets all day long, but if he had to hang crown, forget about it, not gonna work. And usually someone who's building forms for the highway he may be able to build forms for, or she may be able to build forms for a building, but they're not, you do not want them building your cabinets.

[33:00] SPEAKER C: Right.

[33:00] CHRIS KRIEGER: And so to be a full-blown Master, Master Carpenter, you're talking at least 12 years. At least. You know, I would say I'm a good, I'm a reasonably good journeyman. I would never say I'm a master because it's hard to find the venue where that'll pay for you to get that.

[33:20] SPEAKER C: Right.

[33:20] CHRIS KRIEGER: You know, and so, you know, I've always been able to work my way or learn as on the job enough. You know, I could fake it enough to actually learn what I said I could do, but.

[33:32] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, right, right, right. Exactly.

[33:35] CHRIS KRIEGER: But that's. I've always found that, you know, a little disappointing because I. I love to work in the library. I love to evaluate my sources. I love to put the linkages in between, you know, different things that seem like they're not related, but maybe they are and we should know it. But I also really like to, you know, chisel out the dados, the grooves I put in the side of a bookcase for the shelves, you know, or.

[34:05] SPEAKER C: Right.

[34:06] CHRIS KRIEGER: You know, yeah, it's just people don't seem to appreciate that, like we were saying earlier. And, you know, these kids are going to suffer for it. You know, I don't, you know, my daughter moved in with her, her mom for the last several years of her pre-adulthood life, and she moved back to this town. But, you know, I said, you know, you don't, you don't drive. a Krieger car unless you know how to change a tire. And you just, you need to know how to change the oil. Even if you don't do it, you need to know how to read the dipstick and you need to know enough not to do it 10 seconds after you shut off the motor, but four or five minutes. And, you know, don't check the coolant when it's really, really hot. Just, but check it and, yeah. and there's just, it's called being responsible, I think. You know, you're talking about a five or six thousand dollar pound thing moving, you know, 70 miles an hour down the road. It's crazy.

[35:11] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, it is. It's also a question of being curious and open, you know, to learning about the world you live in. you know, I think so.

[35:27] CHRIS KRIEGER: I mean, yeah, you know, my. My. We were the poorest family on the street when I. Where I grew up, and I never knew it as a kid. I didn't even start to realize it until I was 14-15 right before we moved, because my parents were very self-sufficient you know, Grandpa would only give my mom the same money he would use to buy a boy clothes. So mom could either buy one or two dresses and that was it, or she could buy fabric and she learned how to make clothes. And so she actually made my suits as my sister's dress went dresses as we were kids. And they were better than store bought.

[36:08] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[36:08] CHRIS KRIEGER: You know, my dad as a shop teacher, he could run a metal lathe or a wood lathe. He could do auto mechanics. He could do electronics. He could fix your tube TV.

[36:20] SPEAKER C: Wow.

[36:21] KAREN PRICE: That's really cool. That is, I, I, I, yeah, that is cool.

[36:28] CHRIS KRIEGER: So, I mean, but also in our family, we believe that, and I thought everybody thought this, but if you can read a book about it, you can probably teach yourself to do it enough to get by.

[36:42] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[36:42] CHRIS KRIEGER: And so, you know, we, mom started gardening and you know, dad learned how to dad build our garage. You know, he read up on some of the construction that wasn't covered in his industrial arts classes. And he built a really nice two and a half car garage. Wow. You know, 20 years later, my sister was visiting and they, she stopped at the house and was showing her kids. And the people wanted, they came out once to know what in the heck she was doing, parked in front of their house, pointing at this and that. And, and after they explained, they said, Do you know who built the garage? And that was my dad who would build it. So that made him feel really good. But so I don't know. And also they're very evidence-based, you know, like I've listened to NPR since I was probably 11 or 12 years old, and I used it for white noise so I could do homework and not be disturbed. And then I started listening to the news. and so I would say things, and they wasn't anywhere on local media, but my mom would say, well, cite your source. So I learned along, even as a kid, you better, if you're going to use empirical evidence, you better know it comes from a. A reasonably credible Source.

[38:00] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[38:05] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, now, you said you lived 10 years overseas. Where did you live?

[38:11] KAREN PRICE: I lived in France for 10 years because I couldn't afford to go to graduate school here in the States.

[38:21] CHRIS KRIEGER: Oh, okay.

[38:23] KAREN PRICE: And also, at that time, I had a music scholarship. And so I went to, I was able to go and study music, and then I drifted into linguistics, but I stayed for graduate school there because it was essentially free, you know, so for, for twenty dollars a year, this is back in the 70s, though, twenty dollars a year, I got a free train and Subway, free health care and free graduate school.

[39:01] SPEAKER C: Wow.

[39:02] KAREN PRICE: So, so you bet I stayed and did all my studies. Plus I was having a good time and it was interesting and besides, there was more cheese. I hadn't gotten a chance to try all the cheeses yet, so, you know.

[39:19] SPEAKER C: So.

[39:21] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, I mean, because school here is just ridiculously expensive. I don't know. It's. It's. It's crazy.

[39:30] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, is that where you met your.

[39:31] SPEAKER C: Your.

[39:32] CHRIS KRIEGER: Your spouse or did.

[39:34] KAREN PRICE: No, I I I I met her when I. came back to the states because I was in the final steps of naturalizing in France when I got a call from the American consulate saying that if I completed my French naturalization, I would lose my US citizenship and I would never get a tourist visa to come back to the states. because I was considered an undesirable person. And they, which kind of blew my mind because, you know, as a as a job, I was teaching kindergarten in first grade. I mean, you know, I'm not a dangerous person. And I mean, and, you know, it blew my mind. But to make a long story short, I had been an elected delegate to a union. and had been politically active and quite visible on the political scene, but never anything dangerous, never anything violent, never anything. Honestly, I'm a kindergarten. And, you know, I mean, you know where I'm coming from? I mean, it's like I was appalled. Like, I am not a dangerous.

[40:58] SPEAKER C: Person.

[41:00] KAREN PRICE: You know, like, I'm really harmless.

[41:04] CHRIS KRIEGER: And was this. Was this back in the 70s?

[41:07] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[41:08] KAREN PRICE: And so I decided that I would come back to the states for one summer to Make sure that I felt okay about never, ever coming back to America, which was really an unpleasant thought for me. because I, you know, and I didn't even think of myself as radical, you know, honestly, it's just, you know, actually, I was helping people, you know, long story, but honestly, anyway, and so then I was just a summer teaching job, and, and then I met her. in Cambridge.

[41:51] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[41:52] CHRIS KRIEGER: But now. And did you lose her in the past year or two, or has it been a couple?

[41:57] KAREN PRICE: No, I I lost her 20, 23 years ago, actually. Oh, we were together for 23 years and then. Sure.

[42:08] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[42:08] KAREN PRICE: I'm. I'm an older person here.

[42:11] CHRIS KRIEGER: You never forget, though, you know? I mean.

[42:14] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[42:15] KAREN PRICE: Well, and I found happiness again without looking, you know, so I. Yeah, and re. I am married again now.

[42:28] CHRIS KRIEGER: Sure. Now, but you still have a. A 31 year old son, you said.

[42:34] KAREN PRICE: Well, now he's. He's 34. He's turning 34 in six weeks, so he's almost 34, so.

[42:42] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[42:42] KAREN PRICE: That was just like you on your profile. Yeah, that was right.

[42:48] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[42:49] KAREN PRICE: Our profiles never change, right?

[42:51] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[42:52] KAREN PRICE: It's like when we were kids, right? It's on your record. It's. I don't know if you grew up with that. You know, it'll be on your record. It'll be on your record.

[43:02] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[43:02] CHRIS KRIEGER: That's very, very true.

[43:05] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[43:06] CHRIS KRIEGER: Now, are you very close to him? Does he.

[43:09] KAREN PRICE: Yes. Yes. Very close. Yes.

[43:15] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[43:15] KAREN PRICE: He's a seventh and eighth grade history teacher.

[43:18] CHRIS KRIEGER: Oh, neat. Okay.

[43:21] KAREN PRICE: I'd shoot myself if I had to face seven and eighth grade Raiders every day. I would just. That's an age. He just loves that age group. Good. Somebody. It's good. Really? Nice. Likes that age group.

[43:32] SPEAKER C: No.

[43:35] CHRIS KRIEGER: You know, see, my dad taught high school in Cincinnati, very rough high schools, and since he was lower in the seniority, but then we moved out here to Oklahoma. They started closing shops after he was here a year. And so he, he had his choice between junior high or, or middle school or elementary. He went to middle school. He was not going to take over Junior. He said, it's, they're all just, it's not just hormones. just hormones for two years. I know, but it doesn't bother him at all. He gets. He likes it.

[44:10] KAREN PRICE: That's great. Well, in your profile or. Or in our messaging, aren't. You're a caregiver now, right?

[44:18] CHRIS KRIEGER: I have an elderly father. He's an octogenarian, and I'm a practical caregiver, but recently, in the past several months, a couple other relatives have stood up more, you know, participate more. So that's been.

[44:34] SPEAKER C: Oh, good.

[44:35] CHRIS KRIEGER: He needs more care than he needed before.

[44:38] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[44:39] CHRIS KRIEGER: So, you know, he's an older male. He doesn't have, which I. I don't have it as much as I like to think I have it as an emotional vocabulary, but he really doesn't, and so. you know, we always, frankly, we always thought he would go first because men in his family die, you know, early.

[45:01] SPEAKER C: Right.

[45:01] CHRIS KRIEGER: And he'd already had a quintuple bypass, but Mom died first. And so we were very surprised. And I would just go and hang out. Just an aside, we can go longer than the 55-59 minutes. It's not going to shut us off.

[45:21] KAREN PRICE: Okay. No, I've. I've got a. I had promised my son I would connect with him, so I can't talk longer tonight.

[45:31] CHRIS KRIEGER: Sure.

[45:32] SPEAKER C: But.

[45:32] CHRIS KRIEGER: But you.

[45:33] KAREN PRICE: But, you know, it's funny. You were saying you don't have an emotional vocabulary or an emotional. But seems like you have a lot of self-awareness and that you're.

[45:43] SPEAKER C: You.

[45:46] KAREN PRICE: I would disagree.

[45:48] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, I met my father. You know, mine could be a lot better. You know, I'm learning to try and. Yeah, trying to get a better relationship with my daughter. But, you know, we missed out on a lot of stuff, and so. But my dad is even more so of that. And so he's not. He's a really good person, but he's not very user friendly by modern. kids standards, so.

[46:14] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[46:15] CHRIS KRIEGER: And I can, you know, when he gets grumpy, I, it doesn't put me off like it does other people.

[46:22] KAREN PRICE: So good for you. That's really great.

[46:28] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, usually it doesn't. We have our moments, but, you know, neither one of us hold grudges. You know, that's, we can get mad and then, you know, two hours later or 15 minutes later, we can say, I'm sorry. Or, or not even say, I'm sorry. Maybe say, hey, you want me to get you something on my way into town or whatever? You know, it's, it's that kind of a deal.

[46:51] KAREN PRICE: Well, I just wish that, you know, in terms of, you know, kind of situating this conversation in a larger world, I wish that the acrimonious, the, the. I mean, there's more than two sides, but if you want to oversimplify and said, you know, the, the, the red and the blue, I just wish that we could all do that. You know what I mean? And say, I mean, or just have the, the ability to say, you know, I disagree, but, like, it doesn't mean I hate you or want you dead or want you in jail or. And, you know what I mean? It's like we, we could still.

[47:30] SPEAKER C: Find.

[47:33] CHRIS KRIEGER: I was. I used to get so frustrated in the past because I would try and engage people on the basis of evidence, and I would provide facts, and I would even say, where my facts came from. And like you, if I was wrong, I wanted to know so I could make better decisions. You know, the best man from my wedding did not. He's. I've known him. He was my oldest friend in Oklahoma. he's blocked me on Facebook. We have not, we have not had an exchange for since 2016. I've talked to him once for about 45 seconds in a Walmart. That's it.

[48:09] KAREN PRICE: Why?

[48:11] CHRIS KRIEGER: And I've lost it because he loves Trump and I loathe him.

[48:15] SPEAKER C: So, and.

[48:20] CHRIS KRIEGER: In this state, you know, every county has carried the conservative presidential candidate. for past four elections. And so, you know, that's problematic if you disagree. And, you know, for me, I want equal response. I want equal opportunity, equal responsibility and sustainability. And if it's a purple one eye flying purple people leader from Mars in the lime green tutu, you know, singing I feel pretty that's got the best reasonable idea to actually that might work.

[48:55] KAREN PRICE: I agree. I agree, too. I I'm in total agreement in that we all need to be more than just, you know, one issue.

[49:06] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[49:07] KAREN PRICE: Or defined as. As in. In two-dimensional ways, you know, like. Like you.

[49:15] SPEAKER C: You.

[49:15] KAREN PRICE: You can't be. And shouldn't be defined. in a simplistic kind of way, and neither should I. You know, I mean, we were complex people, and I just wish that we could, you know, that the two sides could find more common ground and more common curiosity and change minds and opinions and. you know, or, or, or, or, or say, no, you know, I don't happen to agree, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person.

[49:56] CHRIS KRIEGER: I agree. And that's why I started wanting to do these one, these OSS conversations again, because there'd been a gap. I've done some before, but, but I found myself this past six months, seven months, which, which I'm a volunteer. You know, I volunteer with Habitat, with. I'm a election inspector, and so I'm very apolitical on election days. I rigorously enforce the law for our, we have one of the worst turnouts and one of the best voting systems mechanically against cheating there is in the entire country. But, and so I'm proud to participate in that, and I have since 2016. My dad tricked me into it, so. and now I actually help give the training to new volunteers every two years. But, you know, I volunteer with people in recovery. I volunteer as an international liaison to a lot of the graduate students coming to Oklahoma State, and they bring their spouses and their male spouses are just, you know, caught adrift in a town with no language, no vehicle. Flying over America, you've got to have a vehicle. It's not like Boston. There's no subway here. But I find the past six months, I'm starting to get angry. And these marches and sending the ice and sending the troops and to continue to support the genocide and to deny that racism is still very systemic and to cut NPR funding and to... Oh, I know. It's insane. you know, if he would, his golfing for one year would fund PBS and NPR both, you know, and have change left over.

[51:39] KAREN PRICE: You know, it, do you think that a lot of conservatives in Oklahoma feel the same as you? Yeah, that's what I'm curious about, is.

[51:54] CHRIS KRIEGER: I think more people are starting To question him, I think fewer adults now have the ability, not the ability, they do not have the knowledge and how to critique, how to think critically about politics. You know, we are one of the worst educated states in the nation. We've been in the bottom three for 40 years. And we just slipped one notch because our current education secretary wants us to you know, put the Ten Commandments up. He wants to have a Bible in every teachers, even substitute teachers, have to take a loyalty oath that they won't try and teach Dei. And so, you know, Heaven forbid we actually teach math, you know, or, or how to read. And so I think we have less people that are able to think critically combined with people who have an overarching cause, like, for many people, it's probably abortion here in the state or maybe gun control. But I think people will justify putting up with some bad things with the idea that everybody's doing it, you know, versus, you know, thinking about in a more well-rounded yeah, right. and, and the corruption we're seeing is just through the roof in the past six, seven months. It's, it's mind-boggling and I think so.

[53:24] KAREN PRICE: But then I wonder, like, am I, have I got it wrong? I mean, it's mind-blowing you know, you.

[53:34] CHRIS KRIEGER: Know, when I was in India, you can't just do anything in India. you know, if you want to work on your house, like, say you want to replace your kitchen faucet or repair one, one valve stem like the hot water stem, you know, that's a whole day, probably, if you can even get it that day. And, and so we are so lucky here. You know, I'm so tired of this self-made man, self-made business. It's crap. It's total crap. You know, they're in a, they're in a community where they have roads that are, that are paved to standards that people are driving in cars that have to pass crash testing. You know, people are, you know, you know, if you buy an outlet to have your neighbor replace it for you and he says, get you a 15 watt or, I mean, a 15 amp or 20 amp. If, if you, if it says 15a, you're 99.9% positive. It's actually going to carry that amperage. And, you know, in other countries, it's not like that. You know, China had a huge scandal where they're putting, what, melamine and baby formulas. And so I just get so tired of this. I'm this self-made, you know, white male in Build America.

[54:45] KAREN PRICE: And I know, I know. And we didn't, not only that, but we need each other, you know?

[54:55] SPEAKER C: We do.

[54:56] KAREN PRICE: And, you know, I just, so I want to really thank you. for this opportunity.

[55:02] CHRIS KRIEGER: Oh, me too.

[55:04] KAREN PRICE: I really, really enjoyed this a lot.

[55:08] CHRIS KRIEGER: Me too.

[55:09] KAREN PRICE: Thank you. Is there a way that we can ever reconnect in the future?

[55:13] CHRIS KRIEGER: Well, I think the chat box will be open for 20 minutes after we sign off. So I can leave my, I have been leaving my email vocally, but I prefer to write it down in the message box.

[55:30] KAREN PRICE: Oh, and you can do that.

[55:32] CHRIS KRIEGER: Oh, hang on. That's not supposed to be here. I've done something. Sorry about that. I accidentally opened my DVD drive and when I closed it, it like, better.

[55:45] KAREN PRICE: That than something else.

[55:50] CHRIS KRIEGER: So that's, so I think if we go back to where we were conversing, like about meetings, times and stuff, we can put it in there. Okay, well, yeah, because they can edit this out. I'm in all small letters. Do you have a pen and paper?

[56:09] KAREN PRICE: I do.

[56:11] CHRIS KRIEGER: And I'm.

[56:13] KAREN PRICE: I'm ready.

[56:15] CHRIS KRIEGER: It's #-#-#-#-# yes, #-#-#-#.

[56:23] KAREN PRICE: #-#-#-# #-#-# yes.

[56:28] CHRIS KRIEGER: #### #### ## #####.

[56:34] KAREN PRICE: Okay, great. Okay, doak.

[56:40] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[56:40] CHRIS KRIEGER: I I mean, would you like to email once in a while back and forth about this or that? Would you.

[56:45] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, sure. Okay, cool.

[56:47] CHRIS KRIEGER: All right. Have a great night.

[56:49] KAREN PRICE: Thank you. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. Thank you.

[56:55] CHRIS KRIEGER: It's nice to see there's some well-rounded normal people out there.

[56:59] KAREN PRICE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[57:03] CHRIS KRIEGER: Have a great evening.

[57:04] KAREN PRICE: I will. Thank you. Thank you.