Madeline Vanderpool and Ken Soleyn

[00:06] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Okay.

[00:07] KEN SOLEYN: Okay, great.

[00:09] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: So I'm Maddie.

[00:11] KEN SOLEYN: Okay.

[00:12] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: And let's see, let me pull up your bio. It's right here. So today I'm talking to Ken from Londonderry, New Hampshire.

[00:24] KEN SOLEYN: Yes.

[00:24] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[00:25] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: You said your interests were hiking and snowshoeing, live music, and basketball. Your bio reads, I was born in St. Vincent, a small island in the Caribbean. My mom belonged to a farming family and my dad was a carpenter. We immigrated to the USA when I was two years old. I went to school from K through 12 in Brooklyn, New York. I'm so sorry. There we go. I think I fixed it. Attributes in recent events that you've listed are parenthood, immigrant or immigrant families living in a rural area, music lover, storyteller. and you have stories related to the Second Amendment slash gun control, free speech and censorship, healthcare, immigration, mental health, and social justice.

[01:29] KEN SOLEYN: Okay, you're Madeline and you live in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Female woman, 18 to 29, and voting preference Democratic. and you're interested in dancing, singing, writing scripts, short stories, etc. I'm an 18 year old queer person who comes from a pastoral family in small town Kentucky. I have two nieces, both are Hispanic mix who mean the world to me. My mother is a disabled, chronically ill person. All of these are definitely heavy factors in my liberal leaning politics. My passions in life are any sort of creativity. I love deep. I have deep love for dancing, singing and creating stories. I am non-religious but I grew up in a very religious environment. And you have stories. Well, attributes. Consume liberal, live in suburban area, movie lover, music lover, animal lover, story teller.

[02:42] SPEAKER C: Education.

[02:43] KEN SOLEYN: You have stories related to education, healthcare, mental health and social justice.

[02:50] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Awesome.

[02:50] KEN SOLEYN: Well, very good. Why did you want the conversation guidance? Why did you want to do this interview today?

[02:59] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Well, I'm not gonna lie. I was applying for a position in PBS, and I filled out the wrong form initially, and then I found out what this was, and I was like, look, this is. This is really cool, because. I know I personally believe that we've become really divided and that's not gonna help anyone. And I read your bio and you seemed really, really cool. So when you reached out, I was really excited to talk to you. What about you? What'd you want to do this interview today?

[03:28] KEN SOLEYN: Well, I'm a conversationalist. I did it for work. I worked for GE for 22 years of my position was a global product manager for instruments that measure humidity, temperature and pressure.

[03:51] SPEAKER C: Oh my gosh.

[03:51] KEN SOLEYN: So it's sort of a technical feel, but I came from pretty humble beginnings.

[03:57] SPEAKER C: And.

[04:01] KEN SOLEYN: In my travels with GE, I got to go to Asia, and I went to China, Australia, Japan, India, and all of the European countries, as well as all over the US. I've traveled all over the US for business, but on occasion, I've had the opportunity to, my wife and I to go on, you know, just a pleasure vacation. Let's go to tours. Or, you know, these days, we like to go hiking, and I like to take nature photographs and kind of just photographs in general. I would say, you know, in a way, if I think about it, I'm living the American dream. And it always was. You kind of grew up with your neighbors. and want, you know, had conversations and discussions. I think we can get, let that get away from us through media. You know, I, I use media, of course, and we're using media now, you know, to have a conversation.

[05:16] SPEAKER C: So.

[05:17] KEN SOLEYN: But that, I think, is, is helpful in the learning process. success and in just getting along in life. You know, I do hiking and snowshoeing when I pass another hiker on the way, or they pass me a lot of times because they're at a faster pace. Hey, we always greet each other. We say hello, you know, good morning, whatever. And I carry a little first aid kit if someone's in distress. And then I come to their aid and I'm sure they do the same. same for me. That's the kind of America I think we should be living in. I mean, and this is a kid who grew up in the ghetto in Brooklyn, New York, you know, where I saw a lot of crime and just, you know, desolation and, you know, I mean, women who had to prostitute themselves, you'd see them on the street. you know, landlords who burned down buildings just to collect the insurance money. I don't want to have anything to do with this. I just want to, you know, you could hire some criminal or you could hire a criminal to kill someone, probably with enough money. But, you know, I found solace in books and at the library in those days and, you know, in movies and literature and. I mean, just yesterday, my wife and I went to a museum. Now, of course, life's not always been better than roses, but that's the kind of thing that I think America is great. And I think we're in a sort of reversing of a lot of the sort of advances that we made in both social and, and in technology and things like that. So anyway, I can get off my soapbox.

[07:17] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: It's okay. Hey, I love listening to it. If you, hey, if you want to take up this whole interview, I'm done.

[07:23] KEN SOLEYN: No, no, no, that's, that's my, that's my Spiel. You know, that's my kind of story. No, no, I think it's great. I think a young person, you like yourself, you know, my Viewpoint is that I. you're the owner of the future, right? You have a lot to look forward to in what kind of life do you want? There's a lot of odds against you to succeed if you're just sort of an average person.

[08:01] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: There definitely is nowadays.

[08:03] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[08:05] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Especially in college. You know, I mean, my family, obviously it was nothing compared to what you grew up with.

[08:13] KEN SOLEYN: But my family, you know, there are other challenges just to you have to think that I think a family that nurtures their kids and sends them to school and puts emphasis on them studying. to provide the, let's call it the infrastructure, you know, home, you know.

[08:38] SPEAKER C: A.

[08:38] KEN SOLEYN: Little vacation now and then, like a car trip, you know, I don't know if, you know, maybe in your family, did they love just like putting the kids in the car and like driving someplace, you know?

[08:52] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: They did for as long as they could. I mean, we always take, you know, long car trips to make sure we go see our family once a year. It was really, it was, it is really important to my grandmother on my mother's side that we stay in contact with everyone, even distant relatives and my cousins. But when my brother and my sister were younger, it was very important to them to get us out, get us into the world. And when we weren't able to afford it as much through money and time reasons, they still had a serious emphasis on education. Inside and outside of school, I remember when my dad would drop me off in the middle school, you know, drop off line for the morning. It was always a super long line and he'd turn on NPR radio for maybe like 30 seconds and he'd get all huffy and puffy about what they were reporting and he'd turn it off and he's like, see, this is what America, like, this is America's problem today. This is what you need to know. Do you know about the Holocaust? You need to know about the Holocaust. And he was right. And it wasn't something they were teaching in schools. So it was always very important to them that I had an understanding of what was going on and what had come before me.

[10:10] SPEAKER C: So.

[10:12] KEN SOLEYN: I guess the same question, why did you want to do the interview?

[10:17] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I don't know. I guess I figured I needed to branch out. I suppose. And I couldn't really keep thinking to myself in my head, you know, the problem today is we're so divided. Like there's only so much thinking to myself and knowing what the problem is before you have to just you have to go out and you have to do something about it. And I figured this was a great first step as any one small step, one small connection.

[10:46] SPEAKER C: Right. Okay.

[10:47] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Is this your first interview for StoryCorps?

[10:50] KEN SOLEYN: I did about, I think this is my fifth one, because I guess I'm retired now. I do a bit of activism. I belong to the Sierra Club. So I live in New Hampshire. We'll go up to the state capitol. and lobby on environmental issues because that's sort of my passion. And I've also done some, like in middle school, some tutoring, just as a volunteer, you know, this is in science and technology, you know, so it, like some of the, like minority kids who, you know, they just need like a little extra boost. provide tutoring and, you know, math and science, just as a, and it was a group formed by parents called Helping Hands. So, you know, it's like if you want a community, you have to, I believe you have to give a little back. Now, believe me, I've been just free and clear in, like, living my life like I was the star of my own movie kind of, you know, thing where like with all of the travels I've had, you know, so like going to, for example, France, you know, there's all these cultural things. And what I learned is that you have to try to speak a bit of French. And if they see that you're making an effort, they'll say, oh, no, no, no, I speak a little English. But if you just go up to them and immediately start speaking English and assume they know, they get very sort of salted by that. And, you know, so we've had some, like, adventures in just learning culture or. And I can say from that experience, and this is also negotiating for contracts and goods and services, you know, on an international basis. So, you know, it's a money element. so with that, you know, you, you, you, you find that people are people, you know, I think science has now said that, like, human beings share, like, 99.9% of the same DNA. What makes the difference is, is like the 0.1% that's left over. That's kind of another thing that kind of, I wouldn't say upset, but what gets me is the kind of lack of belief in science. The current administration seems to be my own science. that I think is very upsetting if you have a society that does that because I think that's what really makes us great is the fact that we have these institutes and you know you're a person I think who just started college or back to college.

[14:21] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Yeah, it's my it's I'm in my second week of my freshman year here.

[14:25] KEN SOLEYN: Right, okay, so you just started, okay.

[14:27] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I just started.

[14:30] KEN SOLEYN: And we used to call that like drinking from the fire hose, you know, trying to drink water from the fire hose.

[14:39] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, yeah.

[14:40] KEN SOLEYN: It's not just all of the academic, you know, changes, but all the cultural changes, because I guess you're just kind of on your own, you know, like, you know, maybe your love ones drop you off.

[14:55] SPEAKER C: And.

[14:57] KEN SOLEYN: Okay, classes start up, and I. I remember one of my classes, like, you know, you had to have the books already back in those things. Yeah, but it was a fun time. It was like a, you know, because, like, you kind of felt like the world was in front of us, you know, we had, like, energy and. a lot of energy.

[15:25] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I feel like that's very different nowadays. The general consensus, I'm not supposed to, I, I read the review. I'm not supposed to talk for other people. So I'll rephrase that, at least in my experience and for my own feelings. A lot of us are very despondent and unhopeful now because A lot of us can recognize and we feel that we don't really have much of a future in front of us. You know, we see everything that's going on with the current administration and the economy and politically. And we a lot of us have a feeling of, well, what's the point? Why are we here if this college degree is not going to be able to make me a living? Why am I here in college when I should be out protesting when I should be out do something?

[16:13] KEN SOLEYN: It was a lot of that in my time too. A lot of people found like, I would say like solace or escape in drugs or different things like that, alcohol. There, you know, it wasn't, you know, we were called the me generation. So, you know, it I'm not saying it's the same, but I think that you as an individual has to kind of say, well, how can I control things? Well, I kind of know this might be more of a philosophical thing, but I am a consciousness, so I'm driving my own ship. In other words, I'm the star in my own movie. So you're the star in your own movie. how much can you control the narrative? Or is it predestined?

[17:13] SPEAKER C: Oh, well.

[17:16] KEN SOLEYN: Things are bad because there's no hope because we have this oppressive regime. But I would say you're probably in a good place if you're in a university because you can really expand your knowledge base and not just your knowledge base, but your social connections. There's like a lot of clubs and things like that.

[17:42] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I am in a lot of clubs. I'm a film major here, actually. And a huge part of film is networking and you have to meet other people and you have to make connections with them. And I'm usually a very more reserved person. I don't like going out. I don't like talking to people. I'm scared they're not gonna like me.

[18:03] SPEAKER C: Right.

[18:03] KEN SOLEYN: Well, you can't spread yourself too thin. but you've got to maybe kind of just find what's your passion. So if it's film and, you know, acting and things like that, that takes a lot of discipline as well, really, you know, to really pursue it. Like, it's like, say, you know, music. If you want to learn an instrument, it takes some discipline and practice.

[18:30] SPEAKER C: So.

[18:31] KEN SOLEYN: Time, I guess, is its thing, man. You know, it takes time and you'll be looking back and saying, wow, those college years went by really quick. And that's probably every adult tells you or everyone older.

[18:48] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: It feels so slow when you're in it. I finished week two and it felt like I was ready for fall break. I was like, oh, it's the end of the semester now. Awesome. Perfect. we're all done now.

[18:59] KEN SOLEYN: The orientation. Well, you know, yeah, but there's always some, like, social stuff, even like, you know, little, like, music party, especially if you're in, like, I would think if you're in the film area, like, yesterday, my wife and I, we went up to Salem, Massachusetts. And of course, Salem is known to be, like, the witch capital.

[19:21] SPEAKER C: Right.

[19:21] KEN SOLEYN: So it's always, like, a bunch of, like, people walking around in, in.

[19:25] SPEAKER C: You know.

[19:28] KEN SOLEYN: Well, I guess they must be. I don't judge anyone at all, you know, but I think it's really cool to see all the different outfits and costumes. And I'm a photographer and sometimes, you know, but I'll always ask, you know, because I just. I'm more into, like, a composition of a mood as a photographer, so I'll just ask them, you know, like.

[19:50] SPEAKER C: Like, you know.

[19:51] KEN SOLEYN: Can I take your picture? No, what is it for? I'll just throw it up on my Facebook page, you know? Because you look cool, you know, or it'll just be a lot of times they're just taking nature photographs because it's kind of my way of expressing, like I captured that, but photographs only like.

[20:14] SPEAKER C: A.

[20:16] KEN SOLEYN: Fact simile of the real.

[20:19] SPEAKER C: Thing.

[20:20] KEN SOLEYN: You know, like, so, so. But film and, and what you're maybe pursuing a lot is, is really creative and it's really, I, I really love that kind of stuff to me.

[20:35] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[20:36] KEN SOLEYN: I love going to, like, plays or shows when I can, and sometimes it's just like, you know, a dinner theater kind of. you know, where the waiters and waitresses are the actors in the dinner theater.

[20:52] SPEAKER C: Yes.

[20:53] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: The dinner experience, the dinner theater experience, it's one of my greatest, I want to go to like medieval times one of these days where they have the jousting tournament in the middle of the dining room.

[21:04] KEN SOLEYN: Right, well, I think like if you get that on your resume, like that's I've done all kind of odd jobs. I mean, like, I pumped gas, things like that to work my way up through. It's just, hey, you need money, money makes the engine go.

[21:27] SPEAKER C: All right.

[21:34] KEN SOLEYN: So I guess just on the conversation guidance, could you Briefly describe in your words, your personal political values.

[21:45] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I, oh gosh. I think my personal political values are, I'm a very people oriented person. I was raised in a Christian household and that very much impressed upon me, not just a love thy neighbor mentality, but a help thy neighbor. I'm a firm believer in if you have the ability to help someone, even if you don't necessarily don't, you have an obligation to help that person. I strongly believe in, how do I put more political terms in this? I believe in welfare and well care. I believe in government aid. I believe that I believe in non privatized health insurance. And I'm pretty much I oppose everything about this current administration. Oh, everything about this current administration goes against everything I believe. And it has hurt so many people in my life. And it's awful to see because at the end of the day, just this hate and this prejudice and this separation is doing nothing but tearing us down. It's yeah, it just yeah.

[23:01] KEN SOLEYN: Are you?

[23:01] SPEAKER C: What about you?

[23:02] KEN SOLEYN: You're certainly old enough to vote, right?

[23:05] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I yes, I'm freshly 18. There is no greater regret that I have than I turned 18 just after the election of 2020. I missed the cutoff by like less than a week.

[23:21] SPEAKER C: Right.

[23:22] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, no, go ahead.

[23:25] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, I was sorry, I was done. That, that, that really irks me, but I'm definitely, I got registered as soon as I turned 18 and I'm trying to vote in more local elections. I'm away from my hometown right now, so it's a little harder, but I find, especially in smaller towns, you don't have a lot of options when you're running because everyone who's running is just, and on a slow, on a smaller political scale, are just awful, especially when you're in a more, how to put.

[23:59] KEN SOLEYN: This, I've been in, I've been in negotiations with Japanese businessmen that was more of a pleasure than my local town council meeting.

[24:12] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Yes.

[24:15] KEN SOLEYN: It seems like it's like the Hatfields and McCoy's because there's sort of these personalities, but what you find is, you know, sometimes it goes back to they were rivals in high school or, you know, like real, like Archie and Jughead kind of stuff, you know?

[24:34] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, yeah. In my experience, at least.

[24:37] KEN SOLEYN: You know who Archie and Jughead is, by the way?

[24:39] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, I know. I know who Archie and Jughead is. I don't know if you know this, but they did a horrific reboot of it as a modern, modernized TV show. I don't recommend you watch it. I truly don't. But at least in my experience, small town politics or smaller scale politics is always like that. It's the people who should run never do because usually they're smart enough to know it's only going to give them a lot of pain in the butt and a lot of trouble. And the people who do run are usually people who have something to prove, but not in a good way. The most recent local election we had, Just in my town, it was horrible. Like they all, they were just the same people in different fonts. And whenever you met them, ignoring their politics, they just had this, this crazy look in their eyes. Like, I don't trust these, I don't trust these people, especially because they're the same people who in my town, we have a Confederate statue in front of our courthouse. which I don't know how you stand on that. Personally, I don't think that's okay at all.

[25:50] KEN SOLEYN: I've been to Lexington.

[25:53] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Yep.

[25:53] KEN SOLEYN: It's a pretty, pretty drive from the airport or wherever I came from. But it's like I flew into somewhere. I had to see a customer rented a car and went to, like a, it was a, a gas, a natural gas conference in Lexington, and it was like, you know, the drive was really pretty across, like those, you know, as you would imagine, like the rolling hills. And I saw some horse farms and, you know, just horses out there. It was like, I thought it was, like, the greatest thing. You know, I wanted to have a mint julep, you know, when I.

[26:34] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Kentucky is beautiful. It is. But we I think I did have.

[26:39] KEN SOLEYN: A minute to work as a matter of fact. A little too sweet for me.

[26:47] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: So everything's sweet down here. We're trying to kill everybody before they're 16.

[26:52] KEN SOLEYN: No, but I mean, that's that's what America should be like. I've never, you know, coached on business. It's different, but living in the one of the poorest sections, you know, where they were like rats and cockroaches and crime and, you know, you can see that like public works like, you know, to have like sanitation and rebuild and these big projects like to put in like, there was a program called Head Start for kids, you know, for young kids, you'd start them at like four because they're in these troubled households and at a young age. And one of my things is I worked a little bit with kindergarten kids and I noticed that, hey, they all get along, they all play with each other, there's no, seems to be no.

[27:53] SPEAKER C: Problem.

[27:55] KEN SOLEYN: As a little mini society, right? If you just let them interface and play with one another. So one of my theories is that people learn these prejudices and greediness and all these things as life goes on. And I think I personally think can be unlearned. But you need stuff like this. You need discussions, you need people who, you know, take and go out and get data on this stuff. And we also have to look at where our money is being spent in this country. And it seems like taxpayer money is, is being ferreted up to the really Ultra Rich, you know, and the working class people. And that's who I come from because, you know, I pump gas and gasational, you know, my job is just People would pull in and it'd be like, you know, you put gas in their car for them, you know, wash your windows and stuff like that, you know, just to get book money for myself, you know. So, you know, and my dad was a carpenter who worked with his hands, you know, when you work among the working class, if those people do well, they're gonna save up and buy things. They're gonna buy things for their kids. They're gonna want, you know, send their kids to school that they can kind of raise up through the economic ladder there, you know, and, and, and, and, you know, they're going to be like the engineers and the nurses. and the electricians of the future or whatever, you know, the actors, the people who work in film production, you know, artistic people like, like, you know, just like to have a thing like a museum, a public museum that you can go to. I mean, you may, you may not make a lot of money, but For a student or a senior citizen, it doesn't cost a lot to go to a museum.

[30:17] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: We have a free museum actually just on campus, I believe, that you can attend. Have you ever been to the Yorktown settlement in Virginia?

[30:28] SPEAKER C: No.

[30:29] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, it's not the Yorktown, it's the Jamestown settlement. It's Jamestown. It's incredible. You'd love it so much. They have this amazing recreation of, you know, the original Jamestown settlement. It's completely authentic from like the hides, the pelts, the metalwork. They have, they've recreated the boats that they came in on. But the most important part of that trip, at least for me, was they recreated a nearby Native American tribe set up as well. And they had hired people of Native American descent to work there as the informants who will, you know, walk around, show you how things worked, explain how things are done. What was really heartbreaking about that was the giant parking spaces that we had there. They had, like, they have an overflow lot. And I asked my dad, I was like, why is this parking lot so big? Why are these tickets so expensive? This place is incredible. And he mentioned that they used to be really popular. Like, people would take their kids there on trips. all the time. Schools would bring buses of kids to tour the place, but now, I mean, no one even knows it exists anymore. They can, I mean, they can barely keep themselves open because no one places this value on history or education anymore.

[31:52] KEN SOLEYN: Or just culture, because, like, I've been to a few Native American powwows, just as, you know, my background is the other Indian from.

[32:05] SPEAKER C: So.

[32:08] KEN SOLEYN: A lot of times I would tell people when I was growing up, they'd say, what are you? Indian. And, you know, they would call me like coochies and, you know, so I was always the kind of kid who rooted for the Indians in the cowboy and Indian movies, you know? And I really had always had an affinity. In fact, my nickname used to to be the chief. They used to call me the chief when I played basketball because they would go, you know, yo, yo, yo, you better check him because Chief's got a J.

[32:42] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: And you know, did you enjoy that nickname or was it one of those things?

[32:46] KEN SOLEYN: Well, after a while, yeah, because it was like, because I had a good jump shot.

[32:50] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[32:51] KEN SOLEYN: And I also was a good rebounder, but, you know, I mean, I wasn't anything near, you know, kind of level, but it was just growing up. That was a fun sport because growing up sort of like in the ghetto, right? All you needed was a basketball and a playground. We used to wear, we used to play on concrete, so we used to wear out our sneakers really quickly. I still love basketball. I still love basketball, you know, watching a, watching basketball in the New England area. So it's like the Celtics. And that's all part of America, you know? If you travel aboard abroad, you'll find, like, anywhere you go, they know American culture. Like, you'll hear Michael Jackson or you'll hear Elvis or, you know, like, in, in France, like, they pay, like, 200 and 400 bucks for a pair of, like, Levi's that you could. Well, back then you could get them for, like, 15 bucks at the Gap or whatever.

[34:04] SPEAKER C: So.

[34:05] KEN SOLEYN: So, like, American culture is revered and, like, rock and roll, man. It's like, American. you know, and it's. It's amazing how, like, we're. We're like, we have this great potential, and it seems like we're letting it slip, I think.

[34:27] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[34:28] KEN SOLEYN: So that's my political views.

[34:31] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I mean, you're absolutely right. But the. The magic that America was able to Make always came from the fact that we were such a Melting Pot. 'Cause you know, back then you had influence. You were at least.

[34:47] KEN SOLEYN: What's more American than pizza?

[34:50] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Yeah, what's more American than having immigrants come into the country the same way it was started and coming together and mixing all their ideas and saying, Hey, let's make this work.

[35:03] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, like, yeah, it, it, and, and also, like, they bring in, art and different, you know, like cuisine, for example, like, you know, all of these things like, you know, Mexican food or.

[35:22] SPEAKER C: The.

[35:22] KEN SOLEYN: Other day we had Vietnamese food and, you know, just to try these things. That's one way to learn a little bit about a culture, to eat their food. Everybody's got to eat. And, you know, the other thing is like, the arts again, you know, to see like and performances and again a live performance to me, just I guess it's just the way my brain works but it just registers. Now you could watch that same performance in high definition with stereo surround sound but it's not the same as live. There's a show of this feeling and, and I guess it's like, you know, the circus, you know, when the most thrilling thing is the guy on the tightrope or the trapeze thing, you know, because it's live, right? There's always that tension. Can, what if they Make a mistake, you know? And that's what kind of life kind of is, you know, a lot of times it's like, hey, did you ever try driving through, like, New York during rush hour, like I did, like an idiot. But it's like pure tension, you know, it's like, or anywhere around New York or Boston.

[36:39] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Just being in a taxi in New York was a make to, like, I was like crying in that backseat. I was terrible.

[36:45] KEN SOLEYN: Right, right, right. But, but, you know, it's like people do it every day. There's that assurance that, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, the cab driver is like, he's doing that for a living. He's like an expert. that he knows all the ins and outs. You're kind of wary because you're a traveler, so obviously you have to have your defenses up because there are a lot of people that will try to take advantage or just, well, they're real thieves and freaking murderers out there. Believe me, they are. But, you know, obviously, like, you know, you have, that's part of navigating through life. But my point is, like, whenever there is that kind of thing, there's that sort of, there's sort of tension, but you're in control still, you know, you're controlling it.

[37:47] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: See, we got 12 minutes. I think we could squeeze in another question. Okay, do you want to do the who has been the most influential person or have political arguments or discussions strain it of your relationships?

[38:04] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, I think I guess if we go to political discussions, strain, I would say so because I've come out of an industry that you know, big oil and gas, big corporation. And at the same time, I can see from my perspective is you need a structure to get these big projects done, to deliver a jet engine. You have to have the factory, the infrastructure, skilled people. accounting people, marketing people, you know, and you run commercials on TV to prove that you're that way. You've seen the GE commercials. So I've been on sort of that side of the fence. But having said that, I believe there is a way to do it where, you know, the The working class people can have a decent life, you know, can progress. Like you said, there should be health care for everyone, education for everyone, good education. An education that includes art, science, you know, music, you know, well-rounded education. and where it's preparing like us for the future, you know, because that's, you know, things change pretty rapidly. Like, I can get information about a particular subject where nowadays, you know, Google it or whatever, whereas in the past you had to maybe go to a library and look it up or something like that. So we're in an information age, you know, full with data and sometimes discerning between reality and fantasy is really tough. You know, with respect to I think a lot of this angst and aggression has been artificially, you know, sort of put out by amplifying it through social media.

[40:29] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, it absolutely has. Like, I don't know. Have you seen the Jubilee videos on YouTube?

[40:35] SPEAKER C: No.

[40:36] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: So Jubilee, it started out as a good idea, maybe. I, I mean, I can't guess their intentions, but what it does is they produce videos like doing a sort of, like, Democratic Circle with three Republicans and three Democrats and having them. have an open conversation like this or putting one Democrat in a room of 20 Republicans or one Republican in a room of 20 Democrats. And originally, I think it started as trying to find common ground, but what it turned into was like just a mental boxing match of, oh, who's gonna win, you know, root for your political party. And it definitely helped, like, seriously contribute to how polarized things have become. And I think posting debates and arguments like that just between everyday people who really just want to talk and win and not find a common ground, not reach a point of unity has caused people to just dig their heels in deeper and deeper to what they believe. Because, you know, you see a Democrat and a Republican, you know, talking on a soapbox and they're arguing the whole time, you're not going to think, Oh, well, you know, that Democrat had some good points. You think, oh, well, you know, crap, I'm losing. This Republican is right. No, screw him. He's wrong. I'm right. And you sink back more into what you believe, even if it's right or wrong.

[42:06] KEN SOLEYN: Hey, here's an idea. I want to run this by you.

[42:10] SPEAKER C: Okay.

[42:13] KEN SOLEYN: So I was with a group called the New Hampshire Peace Initiative.

[42:18] SPEAKER C: And.

[42:20] KEN SOLEYN: One of the younger guy who is also into drama, he said what he was thinking about doing was trying to put together and video in a mock trial so you could put anybody on trial. I mean, right, you could put, let's say Trump on trial. So you'd get an actor to play Trump, sitting on the witness, you know, sitting on the stand, and there'd be a judge and, you know, a lawyer for and a lawyer against and debating this. But you could even have court reporters and adding color, you'd make up a script, you know, like a story. so the idea is to tell a story, but not in, you know, in kind of a fun way to not, not as far as, like, South Park or anything, you know, you know, kind of like a dramatic way, you know, like, if you, you know, think of any of these popular movies, you know, sort of court case movies, you know, like a drama like that, you know? so that's just, you know, what do you think about something like that? Like, do you think that that could affect, like, you being in drama and, and, you know, maybe production like that? Is that something that you think folks your age would, you know, would be interested in doing or.

[43:54] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: We actually had one on campus recently. I wasn't able to attend because I was at a provocation thing. Not many people went. I think it's a good idea.

[44:08] KEN SOLEYN: If you made a YouTube video, you could probably get some mileage out of it.

[44:15] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I think one of the best things for my generation would definitely be as repeated and just annoying as it is to hear and say, I think Getting off our phones is definitely what'll help. But mainly having conversations without an audience, without a camera, because a lot of.

[44:39] SPEAKER C: Us.

[44:42] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Having that audience and having that camera, it just forces us to stand firmer and dig our heels in to where we are because we feel pressure. We feel like, oh, well, if I concede to this point, if I say this thing, if I start changing my mind, Oh.

[44:59] KEN SOLEYN: Five minutes.

[45:01] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: If I change my mind, then this group that I've associated with all these people who are watching me, they're going to turn against me and I'm going to lose this community or I'm going to suffer for it, I'm going to pay for it. Just sort of like that social peer pressure thing, even though it's almost completely imaginary.

[45:24] KEN SOLEYN: I, I like that. I like that idea of having, like, you can even, even make that a little fun in this, in a sense, like, one of the things we did at the Sierra Club is we will get, like, a solar charger and have, like, we call it the phone Corral. So it's like, you know, when you Corral the horses and, you know, the old Westerns. so everybody puts their phone in the Corral so there's no phones. And then you go into the meeting and have a discussion.

[45:58] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: And I think that was a lot.

[46:00] KEN SOLEYN: Of times, it's like brainstorming and, you know, using pen and paper sometimes just to write things down.

[46:08] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I think that would be really beneficial. I think getting people my age of differing political views. into small groups alone away from like any sort of perceived audience. I think that'd be very beneficial because the moment they think I'm on a team, I have people watching me is when any chance for any sort of outreach or connection is just immediately shut down. Like, you know, I mean, I get it. High school guys.

[46:41] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[46:41] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: They suck a lot of the time because usually they, at least in my.

[46:45] KEN SOLEYN: Experience, because they travel in business, you know, there's no negotiation. There's like no high level negotiation that's done with cameras and all that around, you know, it has to just be done, you know, personal basis.

[47:04] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: And it's definitely just a mirror of what's happening in Congress right now. like, yeah, it's, you know, you have politicians who, you have a lot of Republicans in Congress who have admitted, I, I don't believe in this. I don't believe in what's happening. I don't think what's happening is good. But I can't, they, I can't say that. I can't go against it or I'll lose my position in office because you have all these people and you have all these cameras and suddenly it's not a per, it's not. pressure to serve, pressure to do what's right for the people. It's more a pressure to perform. And I still think that we should have access and knowledge of what our Congress is doing and what our representatives are doing in our name. But it's gotten to a point where any sort of communication and compromise, which is the only way our government will ever function is through compromise, is just it's gone. It's absent because the moment you're seeing talking and communicating, compromising with someone from the other side, you're a traitor.

[48:08] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, I think what, you know, obviously, you know, I'm a Democrat on the liberal end of the spectrum, and we're trying to focus on the midterms, at least if you can get a majority there, but. you know, all of the gerrymandering going on and all that.

[48:29] SPEAKER C: It's.

[48:30] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, my God.

[48:31] KEN SOLEYN: Yes. It's just a. It's an out now, like, fever, you know, and we have the courts packed, so. But still, you got to keep the fight. Like, I'm committed to not doing any, you know, I'm. It's all peaceful, non-violent the moment I see any. trouble. I'm out of there, you know, that kind of thing. Because, like, for example, you know, just to even meet some of the politicians, my, you know, one of the, one of the guys running for Congress, this guy, Heath Howard, you know, he's a, he's a 25 year old, but he served two terms in the state.

[49:20] SPEAKER C: Government.

[49:21] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Oh, my gosh.

[49:22] KEN SOLEYN: And he's got a really good, you know, record of bills that he introduced and the young guy. But, you know, like, I'm like, I'm an old geezer, but it's like, that's what I want to see. I mean, he's not taking any big money. The, these career politicians around here, you know, they just take money from anyone, you know? to get their legislation through. It's just incredible. So it's a fight and I think we need people who are just open-minded and wanting to pursue education. I think that that's something that any young person really needs that. That it's important in not just getting you credentials for a good paying job, but it's just.

[50:22] SPEAKER C: It just.

[50:23] KEN SOLEYN: Just. Just the. The level of thinking that you get on. I. I think it's well worth it, you know? So I know you're a freshman, and it's like I said, drinking. drinking water from the fire.

[50:40] SPEAKER C: Yep. All right.

[50:41] KEN SOLEYN: Looks like time has gotten to zero. And I guess, like, to sum it up, did you enjoy the, our discussion?

[50:54] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I very much enjoyed our discussion. I very much enjoyed listening to what you have to say. I think you're a very good speaker. And, you know, if we were allowed contact outside of this, I would definitely be reaching out to do a better on you in your life.

[51:08] KEN SOLEYN: Well, my name is Ken Sollen, if you S-O-L-E-Y-N, if you Google me.

[51:16] SPEAKER C: You.

[51:17] KEN SOLEYN: Might find that I wrote a few papers on instruments for humidity measurement and stuff like that. I will be looking you up.

[51:29] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: Don't tell StoryCorps.

[51:30] KEN SOLEYN: No, that's fine. I mean, I have nothing to There's nothing said here that I wouldn't say to my next door neighbor, you know.

[51:39] SPEAKER C: Any.

[51:42] KEN SOLEYN: Young person I would encounter in my, you know, I've done a lot of training for younger folks as well. You know, I used to be a young person.

[51:56] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: I believe you.

[51:57] SPEAKER C: I believe you.

[51:58] KEN SOLEYN: All right.

[52:00] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: All right.

[52:03] SPEAKER C: All right.

[52:05] KEN SOLEYN: We'll sign off then and you have a good one.

[52:07] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: All right. You too.

[52:08] KEN SOLEYN: All right.

[52:09] MADELINE VANDERPOOL: It's nice meeting you. Bye.