William Craft and Kathy Purnell

[00:04] KATHY PURNELL: Hi, my name is Kathy Purnell. I am 54 years of age. Today's date is July 7, 2023. And I am speaking from Kalamazoo, Michigan. My interview partner today is my spouse, William Craft.

[00:25] WILLIAM CRAFT: And hello, my name is William Craft. I am 56 years old. Today is July 7, 2023. Ad I am talking from Kalamazoo, Michigan, the most beautiful city in Michigan. I am being interviewed by my partner, spouse, Kathy Purnell, and that's my introduction.

[00:50] KATHY PURNELL: Okay, so why don't you share with us, William, when and where were you born?

[00:57] WILLIAM CRAFT: I was. Well, start with. My father was in the military, and I was born in upstate New York when he was serving in the air force near Hancock Field.

[01:10] KATHY PURNELL: And where did you grow up?

[01:14] WILLIAM CRAFT: Well, to start with, in upstate New York, but then my parents moved to Maryland, and that's where I get a lot of my identity is from that time growing up in Maryland. In southern Maryland, specifically, why?

[01:27] KATHY PURNELL: What was it like in southern Maryland?

[01:30] WILLIAM CRAFT: It was. Living in Maryland is something, especially out here in the midwest, that is really worth explaining to people because it's a very diverse community, because southern Maryland has more of a DC identity than a Baltimore identity. So you have people from all over the world living in the community. So one of the greatest things, greatest experience I had was having the opportunity and the benefit of growing up in a very diverse area.

[02:02] KATHY PURNELL: What's the benefit of living in a diverse area? And how is it diverse?

[02:07] WILLIAM CRAFT: Well, the first diversity, the one probably that people notice the most is the racial diversity of the area. Um, it's about the area I grew up in. St. Mary's county is about 60% white, about 30% african american. And the. The rest is broken down from there, but they're not as. But it's just there's a lot of racial diversity. There's a lot of religious diversity too, since you do have people from all over the world. So you had to deal with people who happen to be jewish, people who are Muslim, people who are Hindu, and all different flavors of Christianity as well.

[02:52] KATHY PURNELL: Your school must have been diverse. Did you enjoy school in particular? High school?

[02:56] WILLIAM CRAFT: I very much enjoyed high school. I look forward to going every day. In fact, my senior year I became. I had a injury while playing sports. And one of the hardest thing was being in the hospital. I know this sounds might make seem like, you know, I'm trying to be cool or something, but I didn't like not being in school. I really wanted to get back to going to school so I could be in that environment.

[03:31] KATHY PURNELL: So you mentioned that you were in the hospital. I know that, that you have a knee injury that you've been, that you've had to negotiate and address for most of your life. How did that happen? Can you tell me about your knee injury?

[03:44] WILLIAM CRAFT: Yeah, actually, this leads me into one of the creative projects I'm working on right now, which is a film called Phoenix Reborn, which is a story about a high school athlete who becomes injured while playing football and has to fight his way back from injury. His major calling is being a baseball player, and he just plays football because his school doesn't have enough players to field the team. And they ask him to play, and then he becomes injured in a game, and then he has to work himself back through all the turmoil. And it's based on what happened to me in 1985.

[04:29] KATHY PURNELL: So what did happen?

[04:31] WILLIAM CRAFT: It was, we were playing a football game I never played. The coach came to me in the lunchroom and said I just had to come out and stand on the sidelines so they'd have enough players. But then there was a game and our team was up by 40 points. So he said, oh, I'm going to let all the other players go in. And so I went into the game, I played three plays. I got hit by two people in the right knee. And the hospital, then I became. There was a horrible injury, and I was taken off the field in an ambulance and had my knee replaced.

[05:09] KATHY PURNELL: How long were you in the hospital?

[05:11] WILLIAM CRAFT: About six weeks.

[05:13] KATHY PURNELL: So were you. How did you heal? What was the healing process like?

[05:18] WILLIAM CRAFT: The healing process was a lot longer than the six weeks. Weeks. And one of the things I always tell people, the thing when you have an injury like that isn't just the physical healing, it's the emotional healing as well. Like in the hospital, they initially tried to get you to go to classes, which were group therapy, so you could learn to live with the injury you had. And it was really trying to find a good way to put it. It was sobering to go into this class with people who were this group therapy session, not class with these people who were missing limbs and all these other physical ailments. And for me, who always believed that I could find a way to get. To get to heal myself and get better, and for them to be conditioning us to try to learn to live with the put physical limitations that they.

[06:16] KATHY PURNELL: Set forward, that must. I mean, was that difficult for you? Yeah. Why in particular, though? I mean, was it your age? Was it, was it your life goals? I mean, what?

[06:28] WILLIAM CRAFT: It was my life goals because up to that point, I was convinced that I was going to be like this world class baseball player. Baseball America 1985 ratings I was ranked the third highest player in the whole country. So then to have this injury come out of nowhere and sideline me and them tell me I'd never run again, I would never play again and I had to learn to live with it was life altering at that young age.

[07:03] KATHY PURNELL: So how did your, I mean what are some of the memories that you have during that time in terms of support lessons that you learned?

[07:13] WILLIAM CRAFT: Well, while I was in the hospital it was, you know, the people start with the game was played 45 minutes from where my family lived. So I was in a hospital that wasn't local so it was very difficult for my friends and people I knew to get to the hospital. So the only people who would visit me in the hospital were basically my parents and my girlfriend at the time. So that was really the only people that I saw. A couple times friends came up but for a 1718 year old it's really hard to travel 50 minutes to see somebody. So it was a lot of time with them but it was a lot of time thinking and being by myself and trying to think of how I'm gonna get past this.

[08:01] KATHY PURNELL: So why don't we talk a little bit more about your parents and other people that were in your life both at the time and when you, throughout your life where, who are your parents?

[08:20] WILLIAM CRAFT: My father, William Craft Sr. Came from Pennsylvania. He was in the military for 20 plus years, in the Navy and then the air Force. He was like this classic american figure that we see in the media. He was like a John Wayne Gary Cooper, very much that type of character where he tried to embody all the things of being in american male. And my mom. My mom is one of the most caring and thoughtful people that I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. She was always there, always there to be supportive to help me through whatever I needed and always somebody that I knew I could always talk to.

[09:19] KATHY PURNELL: Describe a little bit for me. What was your relationship to your father like?

[09:24] WILLIAM CRAFT: It was, you know I hear a lot about a lot of people who have problems like with their parents but I never really had that. I always had supportive parents. Like when I told my parents that I wanted to be a writer at a young age even with all the sports and everything they were very supportive of the writing and it wasn't like it is today where everybody has a computer and all this stuff. So my parents would actually go out and rent typewriters and have them house so I could do some writing and try to write some stuff and so I could submit it to magazines and that kind of stuff.

[10:03] KATHY PURNELL: What's your first memory of your father?

[10:07] WILLIAM CRAFT: My first memory of my father was, well, a lot of, like, a lot of things I think back to, like, I don't know why. Maybe it's just me and my obsession with film that exists to this day, but it was like watching movies with my dad. Like, my dad was a huge John Wayne fan just because he's in that age group. So that was, there was a lot of that. And, and then me and my two brothers would go out and play, like, cowboys or whatever. And my dad always said I used to go around and talk about how I was going to move to California because, you know, I was being the cowboy and that's what I always said in those old movies.

[10:54] KATHY PURNELL: Oh, interesting. Okay. All right. Okay. So that's a vivid memory. What about your mom? What's your best memory of your mother?

[11:05] WILLIAM CRAFT: I always remember, and I think this leads a little bit into influence, a little bit about what happened later. But I remember coming home from school and my mom watching the afternoon game shows that they used to have in the seventies, like match game and password and all that kind of stuff. And then when I was in the hospital, when my mom would visit me in the afternoon, they'd have reruns on Channel 20 in DC of those old game shows, and we were watching them again. And maybe that memory influences the other memory.

[11:41] KATHY PURNELL: What are some of the most important lessons you've learned in life? This doesn't have to be connected to your parents, but just generally, I think.

[11:49] WILLIAM CRAFT: One of the most important things that I would share with people is something that was told to me, it was actually told to me after my injury when I reached out to Earl Weaver, the manager of the Baltimore Orioles at the time, when he said, the most important person in this world that needs to believe in you is you. I think a lot of younger people really need to know that. Your advocate needs to be you, and you need to go out there and know what's important and really go for that. And an important lesson for me always, and I think sometimes it's because I did play sports, but it's staying in the moment, because when you play sports, you can never worry about what happened last time. Like, say you're at bat and you struck out last time. Well, you have to go up and you have to bat again, and you can't let those thoughts get in your mind. You just have to stay in the moment and try to look at that moment and try to excel in that moment. So it's be in the moment and always believe in yourself, I think, are two of the most important.

[13:05] KATHY PURNELL: Can you tell me about a moment when a person's kindness made a difference in your life?

[13:14] WILLIAM CRAFT: I don't mean to have everything here. There's been so many from so many different people throughout my life, and I don't mean to keep going back to that same time, but I think it's because we're making that movie right now, and it's, like, in the center of my mind. But it's also in regards because I had a series of surgeries after that first surgery. After the first surgery, they said the most movement I would have in my knee was 60%. And then Tubby Smith, the basketball coach who went to my high school, had dinner with my family and told my family about this experimental surgery. But he knew the chance of me getting it was unlikely. And because of how healthcare works in the US, it was considered an elective surgery. And there's no way my working class family was going to be able to pay for that surgery. So I called Earl Weaver, the person I mentioned, and then he arranged an appointment with a doctor that they had. Then I had the surgery. But we never know who paid for that surgery.

[14:26] KATHY PURNELL: Oh, wow.

[14:28] WILLIAM CRAFT: I've always assumed that it was coach Weaver had talked to the doctors for the Orioles, and they did it. But I have no proof who actually paid for it.

[14:41] KATHY PURNELL: Wow. Yeah. So, no, that is. And I do remember when you mentioned when you were developing the film that you're currently working on some of the pieces of that story. But it always blows my mind when you mention that about the surgery and how you never found out who did it. Can I ask if you're curious or.

[15:02] WILLIAM CRAFT: If it's something you've just been very. Cause I asked my mom just a couple years ago who paid for it. She goes, we don't really know, but your father and I had always assumed that it was Mister Weaver, but we have no proof of that.

[15:26] KATHY PURNELL: So since you have been talking, I know this has been on your mind. Let's talk a little bit about work. So I know that you are a writer, poet, filmmaker. Let's talk, though, about the filmmaking process. Sure. Describe the filmmaking process for you. Like, what is it essentially for you? I know it's a labor of love for you, but maybe share with the audience what that means.

[15:52] WILLIAM CRAFT: It all starts with writing a script. Developing a script. And I currently work with a writers group where I try to help four or five different writers who have ideas and want to see those ideas come to life. And I try to identify people who don't normally get the support for various reasons. There's no real, like, one reason why I pick different people, but they're people who just have ideas that I think are good ideas and they just need to develop them and understand how a script has to work, like the three act structure and all that, and explain that to them. And these are generally people who haven't had the privilege or the opportunity necessarily for the education where they could learn a lot of these things. So we try to identify them, then we invite them into our group and then we work with them. But for me personally, it's finding a story that really stands out. Like, for instance, there's a local writer here in Kalamazoo, buddy Hannah. And one of the next films we're working on is going to be a short film of his. And Buddy's done plays for years. He had a radio show for years.

[17:17] KATHY PURNELL: He's a major local producer.

[17:19] WILLIAM CRAFT: Yeah, he's a major personality, but he's never had a film done of any of his work. So he jumped at the opportunity. And we're very excited to bring his work to life. And it's finding those stories, I think, is the biggest thing with filmmaking, because in terms of how you're gonna do the filming, we have all the equipment, all the audio gear, all the cameras. It's getting a location, like, for buddies, the biggest thing is to find a diner and, like, we'll find a local diner here in Kalamazoo and we'll talk to them and we'll arrange the time to film in that location.

[17:58] KATHY PURNELL: How did you get into filmmaking?

[18:01] WILLIAM CRAFT: Well, that's a very unique story. Years ago, when I was going to St. Mary's College, me and three friends of mine decided to take an introduction to filmmaking course. And that was really where it all started. And I took it and I didn't really think about it for about 20 years. We made a very, very bad film, a 15 minutes film when we made that course. But I didn't think about it for a long time. And then when. When you and I were living in Ithaca, New York, years later, we did a tv talk show, the Poets Cafe. And that, more or less is what got me back into it because it was creating things like, we did poetry videos, we did interviews with poets like David Lehman, Nikki Giovanni, and all these poets who are quite well known ar am and many, many more. But it was just trying to bring their vision to life. And then, you know, you fast forward and we're living here in Michigan and I don't really know why, but I just decided, I think I'm going to try to make another movie. And that's what led to the past eleven years or so and four feature films, all of the shorts that we've made, and now into this film, which is the most ambitious and frustrating project ever that I've ever undertaken.

[19:46] KATHY PURNELL: So what lessons that could be frustrating or otherwise has filmmaking taught you?

[19:52] WILLIAM CRAFT: If you really believe in something, you just have to see it through and make sure that you do your best job to execute and try to find the right people who share that vision and share that passion, and to also have a very supportive partner in life, because that's critical.

[20:12] KATHY PURNELL: Do you think Michigan is a good environment for filmmaking? Why or why not?

[20:17] WILLIAM CRAFT: I think, yes, it can be in many ways. I think there's some people here, when you say movie, you're making a movie. Assume that you're bringing in semis and huge camera rigs and all this other stuff, but they don't really realize that modern filmmaking is actually something that doesn't require all that big equipment. And you can do it with basically the things you can fit in the back of a car, basically, with the cameras and the audio gear and all of that.

[20:59] KATHY PURNELL: So you mentioned a lot of things. I'm trying to see where I want to go now. Oh, okay. If this were to be our very last conversation, is there anything you'd want to say to me?

[21:15] WILLIAM CRAFT: Well, that's a heartbreaking thing to even think about. But the thing that I would always want to say to you is have, you know how much I value you and how much I love you, and how much you've given me, and how much. See, the person who's your partner in life is just about as critical as anything else. Cause the person who's your partner in life teaches you and allows you to grow. And you need someone who allows you to grow. And you've allowed me to grow more than anyone else in my life. And I would want you to know that just being in a relationship, being in life with you, has taught me so many things. And it's not just watching reruns of law and order, but I do love that show. But it's so much more experiencing the things that they knew, that their family, their experiences, and all these things combined allows you to grow as a person.

[22:21] KATHY PURNELL: Yeah, there's a lot of really interesting stuff about us that I would love to ask you like, for example, what lessons do you think have you learned? You shared a little bit about this, but what lessons do you think you've learned from your relationships? It could be me and others in the past.

[22:40] WILLIAM CRAFT: The biggest lesson I've learned from my relationship is one thing I was just talking about, about the ability to have partners that are someone who not just has different experiences, but someone who allows you to grow. Each person has to be their own person, and they have to be able to support that person so that person can grow and can become more. You know, a person has to become something greater than themselves.

[23:10] KATHY PURNELL: It's a line from one of your films, but we won't reference that.

[23:15] WILLIAM CRAFT: I don't mean it in that way. I mean it sort of as a nod to that. But you really have to be in a relationship with someone who allows you to grow and someone that you can enable to grow. It's not just about the individual. It's about being in a partnership and being there to help each other grow.

[23:38] KATHY PURNELL: What are you the proudest of?

[23:42] WILLIAM CRAFT: Wow. My personal thing that I'm most proud of is the fact that I was able to find someone and grow to allow me to be the person that I am and do the things that I do. My life was so much different when I tell people, like, when you and I met, I was working as a contractor at NASA and you were going to Cornell, but I really. Life was so much different. And then when I met you, it was like a whole new world opened. And that's one of the things I'm most proud of, is being able to have that whole world open. And of course, there were hard times, but I wouldn't change any of it for anything, because those hard times allowed both of us to grow, to be the people that we are today.

[24:51] KATHY PURNELL: All thanks to the Internet. Do you want to share how we met?

[24:55] WILLIAM CRAFT: Sure. As I said, when I was working rotating shifts at Goddard Space Flight center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and you were a student at Cornell. And back then, there was a text based, very important for it to be known. It was a text based thing on computers. It was a chat room. It was a poetry chat room where people just go in and show poetry. You'd never see anyone's face.

[25:23] KATHY PURNELL: There was no. There were no exchange of pictures.

[25:25] WILLIAM CRAFT: No exchange of pictures.

[25:26] KATHY PURNELL: Internet relay chat.

[25:29] WILLIAM CRAFT: And that's where we met. We did. We did. We decided to meet. And you came down to DC to meet me from upstate New York. And it just grew from there.

[25:46] KATHY PURNELL: Yeah. Did you guys not see pictures of each other before you met? No. No, not at all. So how did you imagine me before you met me? Did you have an image of me before you met me?

[25:58] WILLIAM CRAFT: No, but I really. It didn't matter.

[26:03] KATHY PURNELL: Why did you decide to meet me at that train station?

[26:06] WILLIAM CRAFT: Because I loved your personality. Because we would joke online about stupid things. I knew someone who could laugh about the same stupid things that I could. I was definitely. I definitely wanted to meet.

[26:20] KATHY PURNELL: Can you guys describe that first encounter and just remember to tell each other? That's funny. Yeah. So the first encounter, I mean, when we actually literally met, I was so nervous. And because we hadn't seen photos of each other, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't have a clear image in my head of who you were. Just your words, just how beautifully you wrote. And I really loved your poetry. And I wanted something. I think I tried to describe how I would appear, that I would wear a long black coat, but I also.

[26:57] WILLIAM CRAFT: Roses.

[26:58] KATHY PURNELL: But there was a rose. I brought a rose. I told him that I would bring a rose and I'd have a single one with me.

[27:05] WILLIAM CRAFT: And you said, you bring one, I believe, white rose. And I brought one red rose. And that's how we really could identify each other in the new Carrollton metro station just outside of DC. But, yeah, no, it was. I was very nervous. But also at the same point, I was also. There was a certain level of confidence that I had because I felt like. Well, not that I felt like I did know you so well beforehand.

[27:38] KATHY PURNELL: Yeah, it was weird. It was strange how much of a connection we were able to make, even without any ability to see each other. We had phone conversations and had connected over Internet relay chat, but that was really it.

[27:54] WILLIAM CRAFT: Yeah. My father had passed away about six months before that, and Kathy helped me through a lot of that. And that connection really was greater than anything.

[28:10] KATHY PURNELL: It was amazing that it turned out to be real, because so much is just an illusion over the Internet, especially now that connection was real.

[28:21] WILLIAM CRAFT: Yep.

[28:30] KATHY PURNELL: All right. Most people would probably. Well, actually, maybe not, because both of our families are military families. I mean, my father was in the army. You mentioned that your father was in both the navy and the air force. Were you also in the military?

[28:46] WILLIAM CRAFT: Yeah, I was in air force ROTC for a little bit in college, and then that went over to a commission after I got out of college.

[28:58] KATHY PURNELL: And how did you imagine military life before you joined.

[29:05] WILLIAM CRAFT: Being an ROTC? You don't really. Your imagination really doesn't get to play too many tricks on you, so you get sort of indoctrinated to. To the life. But the one thing I'd want people to know, excuse me, is that the military people make a lot of assumptions, I think, about people in the military, but it's really a microcosm of America. Inside of the military. You have all different types of people from all different walks of life who are just trying. The one thing they have in common might be that they have a censors, no draft now that they want to serve, but it's people from all over the country, all different ethnicities, all different areas, and they just are there with one common goal. Because I think. Well, not that they think that they want to serve. I really didn't have cause. I know a lot of people get ideas about military life, maybe from media and stuff, like watching movies and tv, but my dad was in the military. My mom was in the military.

[30:27] KATHY PURNELL: That's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I always forget to mention that.

[30:30] WILLIAM CRAFT: Yeah. But I never really had those ideas. And I don't really like talking about my experiences while I was in, not just for any other reason than some I just don't like to think about. But I have pride about the time I was in. I just was not in for very long. And I feel that people I was only in for a couple years, and I think people who were in for a lot longer should be the people that really pay those. Those ultimately respects to, rather than someone who was jolting in for a little while, like myself.

[31:06] KATHY PURNELL: How did your perceptions change after serving, or how did service impact you?

[31:14] WILLIAM CRAFT: I think the biggest thing how it impacted me was just the way that I think about my career afterwards, because I've always worked in the public sector, whether it be education or universities or wherever, I've never really worked in the private sector. I always think it's important to understand the people who do those sorts of things.

[31:43] KATHY PURNELL: Did it impact your artistic pursuits at all?

[31:47] WILLIAM CRAFT: I think so, because I wrote, as you know, a four book series on military life, the chronicles of honor. And that's more or less to get that message across about how people in the military are just like the rest of us, are just as selfish, noble, and have all the same fears that we all do. People are people. In fact, that's a line from one of my books, because, you know, it goes into Sci-Fi. You know, people are people, even if they're not from Earth. So, yeah.

[32:29] KATHY PURNELL: How has your life been different than what you'd imagined? If it's different from what you imagined?

[32:34] WILLIAM CRAFT: Well, if you go back to when I was this youth, this kid playing baseball, I thought I was gonna be, like a world famous baseball player. And as it turns out, I'm a struggling writer, and I'm glad that I am. It's a different, but it's also beautiful because I get to create. I get to help other people create. And that's more the thing. Like, I have this thing that I tell people here in Kalamazoo about the fable of the ten apples. And it's a lot of times people in a smaller town think that all the creativity is broken up into ten apples, and we all have to share those ten apples. But I don't believe that. I think we can plant some apple trees and everybody can have an apple, and we can all create, and we can all support other people to create. And just because you're in Kalamazoo, or even a smaller town in Kalamazoo, doesn't mean that there's a limit to what you can create. And. And the best thing we can do is to support one another so everybody can create, because there's a lot of voices out there. And until everybody has a chance to express themselves, we have to work harder to make sure that people have avenues for those expressions, for that expression.

[34:00] KATHY PURNELL: How would you like to be remembered?

[34:02] WILLIAM CRAFT: I'd like to be remembered as a creative, caring, and kind person who tried to help people as much as he could. That's pretty much it.

[34:19] KATHY PURNELL: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about?

[34:25] WILLIAM CRAFT: I just want to encourage anyone who can hear our voices and who is predisposed to want to create something. Write something, write a poem, draw a picture, do whatever to go ahead and do that. There's so many things in this world that can get us down. But try to be positive. Try to create and know that your voice is important, no matter who you are and where you are. If you're in La or Chicago or New York, you have an important message. But also if you're in California, Maryland, or a small town in Central South America, or anywhere in the world, you have an important message. And please try to find a way to express that message and have people know what you're thinking, because what you're thinking is important, and what you have to do is very important. And also find someone who can help you express that creativity, whoever that person is, and find that partner in life, because that's just as critical as anything else.

[35:52] KATHY PURNELL: Thank you so much for doing this. And I also want to thank StoryCorps for creating this kind of space for people to reflect on their lives.

[36:03] WILLIAM CRAFT: Thank you very much for talking to me. And I'd also like to thank StoryCorps for giving us the opportunity to talk. And thank you so much to everybody out there. It's.