Latest / Doug Has Questions / Episode 34: Michael George; What If Listening Is The Real Medicine

Transcript

Episode 34: Michael George; What If Listening Is The Real Medicine · Doug Has Questions

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this episode of Doug Has Questions.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: Today my guest is Michael George, CNA, home health provider and personal assistant.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: What welcome to the show, Michael?
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me, Doug.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: So glad you do all this.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: You know capturing the history of so many people.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: It's fun for me getting to know people better and then also being able to share that so other people can learn more about some really cool people as well.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, no, you've I've known you for a number of years, and I I know a little bit about your backstory, but not a lot.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: And what I do know is really interesting, and so I want to dive into it and and get more of the Michael George story.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Are you are you ready for that?
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Sure, for sure.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: So what where did you grow up?
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Um I grew up in um Montana and uh and Germany.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Like simultaneously.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: So I was born in Billings, Montana, and kind of raised in Calispel near Glacier National Park, which is which is a beautiful spot.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's kind of that's the reason I came to Alaska, I guess, because I have the memory of of that beautiful place, you know.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And during that time, you know, we just you know, our family kind of broke up and um my mom took me to Germany and and I went back and forth.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: So your mom was German and your dad was US?
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh how did they meet?
1:27
SPEAKER_00: They they met in the army in uh in Germany, you know.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: So your dad was stationed in Germany?
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Yep, he's stationed in Germany, and then my mom came over, uh became a US citizen and uh and had us, my sister and my brother and and me.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm the youngest.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, and that was uh, you know, was that was different.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: He he's a farmer, my dad's a farmer, and uh he's done everything since he was fifteen.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: He ran his own farm, so he was he was good at everything.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: He was a you know, a farmer, uh carpenter, electrician, knew how to like raise cattle and and and slaughter them and and sell them and all that, you know.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: So he was in everything and my I was new from my mom.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: She likes she was you know, I was hard for her.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: So where where was she from in Germany?
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh like they met in Munich, you know, so it's she was she was she used to more of the city life than the city.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a little bit more, yeah, a little bit more and more order and more like you know, like less wild, you know.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Like she's definitely not used to this this farming life, you know, like slaughtering animals and and that kind of stuff, you know.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: She and having no health insurance, yeah, that was a big thing, and and the schooling system that scared her a little bit and so when we were a little bit older, like when I was eight or so, she took my sister and me to Germany.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: She was scared, you know, she was to get you into the German school system?
2:56
SPEAKER_00: She thought the German school system would be better.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, so and you know, she's probably right, but I don't know.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I didn't, you know.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: She that was her decision, so did you go through all of school in Germany then?
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, well I went to first grade in US and then Calispell, but uh you know, I had to repeat first first grade in in Germany because I guess my my German wasn't proficient or something like that.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, so I had to like I was still dreaming in English and then you know, like and then I was dreaming in German, you know, after a while.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And so from then on I just spent time with my grandparents in the Black Forest in Germany, and and my sister was adopted to another family uh because she had anorexia, you know, and she stopped eating, so she needed to be sh raised somewhere else, away from our family, and so she was in a different family.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: And then my brother stayed in with my dad in the US.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: How much older than you was your brother?
3:53
SPEAKER_00: My brother was about six, five five and a half years older.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and my sister's like two and a half years older than him.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: So your brother said he helped dad with the farm?
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Was that his is a was that his choice that he wanted to do that?
4:06
SPEAKER_00: No.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh my brother, no, he was just left there.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, just left, you know.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: That's you know, he was adopted to start with.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: So he was a you know, and he was I don't know, he you know, he'd stayed there and that he he he didn't like that too much, you know, he'd be like pushed all over, you know, first adopted from a different uh family into that family, then left alone and stuff, you know, and he rebelled a lot and he became a wild character.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And and now he's it's changed, he's all quiet, he's he's he has a job as a m in the mining industry industry, you know, in the coal mining industry in Montana and all that kind of stuff.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And he's he's pretty amazing, amazing guy, you know.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: I love my brother, he's so honest and yeah, yeah, I love him, he's great.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And he's just doing such a good job.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: He drives these big machines, you know, a coal strip coal mine.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, he's a great guy, and and my my dad's still there.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: So he he was a farmer, and then they moved to Utah.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: That's where my brother went to school in Utah, Delta, Utah.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, grew up there, and he was pretty wild.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: So what what was life like for you in Germany?
5:22
SPEAKER_01: You said you spent a lot of time with your grandparents in the Black Forest.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: Are you out just hiking?
5:29
SPEAKER_00: What kind of things were you doing?
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Besides going to school, I played tennis a lot, you know, became really good at tennis and then uh soccer, and then I just uh went fossil hunting with my grandpa and mushroom hunting, and he always wanted to get out and get away, you know.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Get away from grandma, you know.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: So he was quite happy to have me, you know, who wanted to do that too.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: So both of us used to spend a lot of time in in the forest together.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: So, you know.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: In in quarries, my mainly in mine shafts and all that stuff, you know.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: Do you s do you still have some of the fossils you found?
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they burnt up in the fire, but I still I gave some to my sister and she has 'em.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: She's still in Germany and and she still has a lot of my fossils.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: So she she stayed in Germany.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Basically, she did.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: She came over here quite often, you know.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, she she liked she became a Waldorf school teacher.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, she was raised in a different family.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: They were Rudolf Steiner Waldorf School and her anorexia went away.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: And uh she went to a Waldorf school and what's a Walder School?
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh Waldorf school?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: It's an o they don't grade people, you know, like they they don't give grades to kids.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: They don't they take the pressure off the kids from like they they don't want them to compete.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: They just want to be what they they are good at.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: So it's a different idea behind the school system.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: You you're not competing for grades or you know, here it's you know, like what I grew up in is all competitive, right?
6:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, push yourself, be better, and if you don't you fail.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Get get a grade.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, they don't have that.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: They just don't have that.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: So they they're trying to not be competitive.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And so that's a different school system she went through.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had gone through one of those, but you know, I was like, I got I went to the regular one, but she she did really well now.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: She's a teacher in an older school for arts.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and she's an amazing artist.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: She's like she's been doing that for like twenty-six years now in the same, you know, same school in Luxembourg and teaching kids uh art and beautiful art, just just amazing.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: She's a do you get to see her very often?
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh she me yeah, I saw her in Costa Rica not too long ago.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: She came over.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: She's pretty spontaneous.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: She comes to visit me more than I I haven't been to Germany in like twenty-eight years, thirty years almost.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I had a no desire to go there, but I I feel I should because she asked me always, you know, to come and visit, you know.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: But I went to see my brother in Montana, that was cool.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Reunited and admired his uh his job and his work and what he had built, you know, like he has a nice house and all that.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm trying to connect with family members a little bit and honor them and but yeah, they make the effort to come see me, but yeah.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned the the soccer and tennis.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: Tennis, yeah.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: Was that like through s uh the school program?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Was that club program?
8:27
SPEAKER_00: It was like club, you know, and I yeah, I just like that's what I did after school.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: I went straight to the tennis court and played for four hours every day.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: And then I became a teacher.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, first I yeah, competitive then with with a team.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Then at 16 I think it was number one in the team, and then I kept, you know, like competing, like, you know, on the weekends and different drive to different towns and stuff, and yeah, and then became a coach.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, oh that that'd be a good job, you know, later in life.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: I'd just, you know, be a coach and make forty dollars an hour.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I just you know, teach tennis.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: I thought that was pretty cool.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, I did all that I strung the rackets for people.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: I had like a little setup and uh put strings on them and so did you did you get to a point where you felt you'd kind of plateaued with your own skill level as a tennis player?
9:20
SPEAKER_01: For sure, yeah.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: You knew you weren't gonna be competing, so it's like let's find another way to stay involved with tennis.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it happens after a while.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: It's such a dream, you know, like it was such a dream.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: I was just dreaming tennis, you know, I was playing tennis each each uh thing in my mind, you know, at night when I'm sleeping, laying in bed, you know.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: It was so full on, you know.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, this it was a good time.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I liked it because it gave me just vent I could vent my energy from school and stuff, and I thought I'd be good.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And and then of course I hurt my knee and that, you know.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: What would you do to your knee?
9:53
SPEAKER_00: I tore my meniscus.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: So I limped around for a a a year and I never got it fixed or anything.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: I just left it the way it was, and you know, it just kind of like it's still broken, so you can hear it.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: It's it's in pieces.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: So it just makes these weird sounds, you know.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: So that's my lasting memory of that.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, yeah.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe it's not so good to just like, you know.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that when you start having knee problems and the movement you have to do in tennis.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: You start having issues with that, it it pretty much ends the career there.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like it's the end because you can't run that fast anymore, you know.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: It's like you can't turn as fast, you know, it doesn't work.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: So and I was trying to like trying to get away from this competitiveness too, you know?
10:37
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of in the end, the whole reason I left Germany or something like that, you know.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: The the whole memory of just competing and wh when did you did you go to college in Germany?
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, did you go to school first?
10:50
SPEAKER_00: School and then college and then university.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean the school is part of college and then six years university and so what did what did you out of out of doing what we would call high school in the States, yeah.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Going on to the next step, what was that like for you in Germany?
11:04
SPEAKER_01: What were you studying?
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh well, they have three different schools.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: They're high school, they have middle school, and they have uh um it's just uh like a regular school that would be high school where you learn all kinds of professions like fixing a car or welding or something.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: So you can have to choose between those after you get out of uh at fourth grade, you know, you have to choose which one you want.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: One of them is like the the I went to is part of it is college, so you have 13 years instead of 12.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: And one year's college is like two college years here.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: I did that one anyways, so that you can go to university.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: So I did that.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: So it's just academic, it's an academic school.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: So you basically you're choosing at fourth grade whether you want to go into a trade or university.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: That's really early, you know.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: You do like a test or something, you know.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And however you do on a test, it's like one, two, three, one of these schools.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: The middle school is sort of like if you want to do a like a trade, you know, great.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: You get a little bit of uh insight into academics of college and stuff.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And if you just want to do like if you just want to be a carpenter, you do the you do the high school, you know.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise you do middle school, or the other one is the the crazy academic, you know, college, high school.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: And until you went onto the college, yeah, you took the academic route.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, did that one.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: It's do you remember when you were fourth grade what you wanted to be on why you chose that path?
12:24
SPEAKER_01: No, I have no idea.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Was pressure from mom or no, it was pressure from society, I guess.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: They just just told you maybe it was mom, I have no idea.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Just told you it's better to get the best.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: The best money, make the most money, go go to college, go to university.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: That's the best.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, then you can do whatever you want.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you can't do that, you know.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: I just, yeah, who knows.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: So what when you when you got to you so I after what we term high school, you said there's that 13th year that's college.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: What is that you're not choosing a profession or anything?
13:02
SPEAKER_01: What what kind of what kind of subjects are you studying there?
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Is that just your history and stuff?
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the same thing, just like elevated.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Elevated from the high school level.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: I did like English because I knew English.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: I always had A's in English.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: My teacher had to learn from me, you know.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: That was that was easy for me.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: And then the other other one you had to choose was was like something else, you know, like math.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I chose math of all things, you know.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: So that so I had like college level math.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: So the all all these abstract formulas to like integrate and all these things that you never ever use, you know.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Did that I just like wrestled around with that one and yeah.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: And so from there you go to university.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, then went to geology because I, you know, was always in the mines with my my my grandpa uh-huh looking for fossils and quarries and stuff, and I was like, geology is it.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's it.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: Got right into that, you know, right six years of that.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Did you enjoy it?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: That was cool, yeah, because we climbed all the volcanoes, you know.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Like I kind of uh my subject, major subject there was uh volcanoes.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: So I did my thesis in uh in Ballantre, which is on the west coast of Scotland, and so uh I was there, you know, living there, and I analyzed the the ash layers of an ophiolite that got abducted onto a onto the continent.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, ophiolite is like I was just gonna ask you what the heck is.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: It's part of the ocean crust that was moving, you know, that moves under a continental crust.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: You have that all over the world in different places, you know, like here, for example.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um some of that on the top got sheared off because it was volcanoes.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of like like if you were trying to like subduct uh, you know, Japan or something like that with all the volcanoes and land m and that's sheared off.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: It didn't go under the continental plate, but it went up on top of it and got sheared onto it.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And so there's ash layers in there.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: So me and my other five friends, we were there, each one had a different subject, and I I was supposed to figure out what these ash layers were, what kind of volcanism, you know.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: So island arc.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: How how long were you there for?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh that was a year.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Just living in the world.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: So you spent a year studying that.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just yep.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: I was living in Glasgow and in Gervin, you know, on Bellantry on the coast there.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was really early on, I did it all, you know.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: My my my my fellow students, they were we always doing things together, but they were definitely they were following the the academic path.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: They were going to the university professors and asking them for questions, and I did too, you know, I did all of it, but I was more interested in the people, you know, like so I hung out with the the blue-collar people, the working class people in Glasgow and Iybrooks, and I I realized early on, you know, that that all this studying just put me in a box and stuff, and like I in the box, and you you just get more and more into the box, and you and almost thought I'm learning less going to college and university, you know, than other people are.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: Because it was so refined on one subject.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's one subject.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't leave you any and then that subject itself is defined by other people.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: So every every time you open a book and you read something about what you're doing, and you know somebody else was thinking about it and they put it out, and that's it.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Every time you see something from a book, you think that's you know, that's the nature of books, it seems like, you know.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: That's how it is.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: This is how it is, this is how it is, and you go around around like, oh, that's how it is, that's how it is.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And then you get a degree, you get a certificate, you get a something, you know, a title, and I got all I always like excelled in in all the things, you know, and I realized I didn't know anything.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can't go on like this, you know.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: I was like, so I just I wrote my thesis, I handed it in, and as soon as I was done, like I'm like, I got a ticket to Vancouver.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was like, damn, I'm I need to get out of here.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: This is like, you know, like this is oppressive to me, you know.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I want to start learning.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: So it's I was like in Glasgow too, I was just hanging out with uh people like in the the working class people, you know, and I started like I started learning all these things about life and human nature, you know, and and and I was like, damn, this is interesting, this is where it's at, you know.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And I was always the kind of person that trying to seek the trying to find what what the spirit realm has to say.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Because I was, you know, as a as a school kid in high school, I used to go on walks at night, you know, to to to get really exhausted, and then I would connect with the spirit world of the trees and stuff and the animals.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: And I was always like, I always knew there's like a spirit world out there, you know.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And Germany was all about like this, rules, regulations, books, this, that, and this.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And it was like, damn, I don't fit in here, you know.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I really don't, you know, and people were just like always, why are you always daydreaming and stuff like that?
18:06
SPEAKER_00: It was like, and here I'm like, you know, I was like, there's gotta be something else.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Man, there's gotta this can't be it.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: This is like this is like I haven't learned anything.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: I've been now I'm uh I'm a geologist, paleontologist, and I haven't learned nothing.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I felt like it, you know.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: It's like I'd get it, I gotta get out of here.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: So to back up a little bit, while while you're going to school and you're living in Germany, what through through your grade school, high school, university, are are you coming back to the states to visit your dad and your brother at all?
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Once in a while, yeah.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: Just a few times, but you were pretty much full-time there, yeah.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: German resident.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: And then so what was the difference for you?
18:42
SPEAKER_01: You had that you had that idea of what it was like to live in the states, you you know what it's like living in Germany, and then you spend a year in Glasgow.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: What was there was it just kind of spending the time with the working man, the blue-collar people, or how did how did that change your perspective?
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a strong connection to the native Native Americans, you know, because my great grandma was native, and so as I something there was something there, my dad's grandma.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: But what Cherokee Yeah, probably it's a southern, yeah.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Someone yeah, somewhere in Oklahoma.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, she's from Oklahoma, yeah.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, my sister too, she she's the same way, sort of this connection, and I always for some reason I always had, you know, one big thing in my my growing up was like astro traveling, so I'd astro travel all the time.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: So my spirit would leave my body all the time.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: What?
19:35
SPEAKER_01: Aster travel?
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's I haven't heard of that before.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's just you know, I'd I'd go, I'd be sitting here with you like that, and my my spirit would go out of my body, and I'd be watching myself and you from above, from somewhere else, just sitting there, and I could see my body just sitting there, and it would do that all the time.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Did that freak you out the first time it happened?
19:53
SPEAKER_00: It'd freak you out because it would just my spirit would go away, literally away, would just go through uh planets, universes, and and and just like leave, and I'd have to like I'd have to yank my body to get it back, and it was so bad that uh they even took me to a doctor, you know.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: What what age was it when this when you first remember this happened?
20:13
SPEAKER_01: Probably 15 or so, 4 14, 15.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: And did that when they took you to the doctor, were they able to say this is what it is, or or were they like, yeah, we don't know what's wrong with this boy?
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Basically, like you know, that he was like just saying, you know, feel grounded.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine visualize a tree.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: You're a tree, and your roots are you're you're grounded, you know, like you you need basically learn to be on this planet physically, right?
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Be imagine you're a tree with the roots deep in the ground and stuff, you know.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: That's all there was no medication or anything.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like when when did you have somebody describe what that actually is?
20:48
SPEAKER_01: Was it the first doctor that said it was astro travel, or did you did that come later?
20:52
SPEAKER_00: No, I had no no idea the term uh astro travel at all.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, I just I just told him, you know, my spirit doesn't just leaves and it frightens the hell out of me.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: I was so frightened, you know.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: So you know, I I just I think anybody would be frightened with that.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Because it it it doesn't want to come back, you right?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: You have to force your spirit to come back.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: I almost think that's like dying, you know, like but in a way you don't die, it's just your body just stays behind, you know.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: You I realized early on that the spirit doesn't die, it just keeps going.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: It just like it just goes out there and you're always attached to your body, so you will always want to go to a body, you know.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: I feel like no matter what you do, if you if you die afterwards, you will want to go to a body.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what your your main objective is, is like is cling to a body.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: There's this clinging, right?
21:41
SPEAKER_00: This is like and that's what I was doing this all the time, every day.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: I was like and the worst thing was when I was lying down, you know, it's like like horizontal.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: That was like that was terrible.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: I was afraid to even go to bed, you know.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Just lay laying down was just awful.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: How so this starts when you're fifteen.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: How long was it before you had a good understanding of what actually was happening?
22:11
SPEAKER_01: But you sound very comfortable with it now.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Now I just I wish I could do it a little bit more.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: I I you know I sometimes it tapered off?
22:18
SPEAKER_00: It tapered off less slowly but surely.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: When was when did it start tapering off?
22:22
SPEAKER_00: I bet it was when I was like 17 or just like yeah.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Around 17, I think it was it was gone.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Well not quite gone.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I can still I can still do it.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I I can feel it coming on and I I encourage it.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: But you know, I back then it would there was no holding it back.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: My spirit was just like going away and it was like it was going through like there was like boulders flying at me and and planets and like other earth or like I have no idea what that even was.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: This was strange, you know.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: It's just like this and the you know, all the did you meet any other spirits or was it just more just this travel aspect of it?
23:04
SPEAKER_00: It was like traveling through through space, and you know, that's kind of what it is, you know, what it was to me because it didn't go on for very long because every time it went away, it went really fast.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you know, and then I I'd have to move my body to get back in.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: I'd have to do something, and then I'd be laying again and it'll go away again, and I'll I'll just turn around to the next and it so I didn't have really time to explore anything, you know.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And I bet if I did, I wouldn't come back at all.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: So when it when it when you say now when you can feel it coming on and you're trying to give into it, do you want it to go longer?
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Now I do.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Now I wish I was.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: I feel like too much attached.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: I feel way too much attached to this earth or this everything, you know.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm just uh I got too many attachments.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Now I feel like I just want to I guess as a kid you want to be attached.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And now I feel like I got too many attachments.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Have you have you met anybody else that has that's that that the same thing going on?
24:09
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean I have people that kind of have an idea.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: I've never not really met anybody at, no.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: That that actually had the same I same thing.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: There's maybe some people say had something like it, you know, it's just the you know, can watch themselves sitting there maybe, but that's as I never heard anybody where the spirit went that far away.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, like into like to a point where you're just absolutely horrified.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I can't damn I I I don't want to like you're like I I want to get back into this body, you know.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: It's like oh yeah, just like and it just wants to go away.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: It just wants to just like not stay there at all.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm trying to imagine what that would be like at 15 to have that experience and not have anybody really that can oh, this is what's going on, right?
24:57
SPEAKER_01: And to explain it to you, you gotta figure it out on your own.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: There's nobody because not nobody else is nobody in my family even had it any any idea I was going through it.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: I know my mom didn't talk to anybody, I don't think, you know.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: Was she a little freaked out when you started telling it would the first couple of times?
25:14
SPEAKER_01: How long was it before you you told somebody else, Michael?
25:17
SPEAKER_00: It was a long time, you know.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: I would think they'd probably like, what the heck's wrong with him?
25:21
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna put him in the the white coat with the long sleeves on it or something.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: He's crazy, yeah.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: He's insane, yeah.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: What was her response when you told her that this had been going on?
25:35
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't much there, but she helped me get to a doctor, a naturopathic doctor, you know.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: That was that was interesting, you know.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: She was like, you know, I have no not much interaction with I know no not much memory.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: That maybe there wasn't much, you know, of that we talked about.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't know.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: My my mother was only there maybe on the weekends, you know, she was always working somewhere else.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: So and my grandparents, I don't think they ever knew about it.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: I live I was living with my grandparents, but I didn't really tell them.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: You didn't tell them about it.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: No.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was freaky, you know.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought I think anybody would think that was freaky.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: But I sometimes I had to have, you know, somebody sleep sleep in the same room with me.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, something like that.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: I was like too scared.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that's just whatever.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: I just early I just realized, hey, there's this this whole there's a spirit world out there, you're right, where the spirit goes and stuff.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And all this stuff I'm learning about in books and stuff that had like what is all this?
26:37
SPEAKER_00: This is like complete nonsense compared to all this stuff, you know, that I can have like I I've you know, I've had spirit guides tell me things while I was like, you know, while I was somewhere else, you know, and astro travel and I was like, damn, this is way cool way the world is way bigger than I thought it was, you know.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: And so you kind of felt that what you were learning in your university was narrowing your view of the world instead of broadening it.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all it did was put pressure on you to excel, which I did, and I uh like for some reason, but I never liked it.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: But and and then it was it was not teaching me to open my horizon to like to to see the essential things in life, right?
27:21
SPEAKER_00: It's like always narrowing everything down, you know, as opposed to what my mom thinks.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: She thinks like going to college will widen your horizon.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: But that's a generally helped belief, is that going to college you're exposed to people from different backgrounds, you kind of have your foundational, your liberal arts classes you're taking and kind of gives you this broader view of the world.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: But for you, it was the opposite.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: It's the opposite, yeah.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, and all the people I ran into it after I abandoned this whole thing of schooling, they knew more about it than anybody else, but they didn't go to college or anything.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: They were like, you know, my friend in and Whitehorse, uh, she's uh a native lady.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: She's almost 15, 20 years old, but I lived with her anyway.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: She was like a shaman, you know, she could actually communicate with them.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: I've never had anybody actually communicate with them, you know, with the spirit realm and stuff.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: And so after I after I was done with university, I just like, you know, I got a one- So you flew to Vancouver, yeah.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Vancouver, Canada.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: And I threw my return ticket away because I didn't want to go back.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: What what were what was your idea when you're buying a ticket to Vancouver?
28:29
SPEAKER_01: What was your did you have a game plan or did yeah.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Was it just like I need the the spirit world selling you to go to Vancouver?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: I was just basically I was trying to um I was trying to get to Alaska, Southeast Alaska, because that's where I felt like I I could see it in the in the books.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: It reminded me of like Kalispell, you know, the Glacier National Park, but I could see the how the the misty fjords and the yeah, the salmon, and that would just be exactly the right place for, you know.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: That my spirit wanted to go, really.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: You'd you'd never been to Southeast Alaska.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: This is all based on books and pictures.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes, like yeah, I spent a long time in the library b libraries looking through books and stuff.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Going to Vancouver and going up north where spirits tell me I need to make it to Southeast Alaska.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was you know that was basically it, yeah.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: And then but I you know, I there are little little detours and stuff.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: I went to like Whitehorse, you know, and drove drove up the with the with a bus to Whitehorse and then stayed with a cocaine addict in the in trailer trailer park there in Whitehorse.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Lived there for a while.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: He was uh he was making uh he's making um bowls out of uh birch bear uh burls and with a lathe and stuff.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: That's what he made his living, and we went out and just and harvested the the the burls off the trees, you know.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: And so So you're helping him with that?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: And then he drove me around the Yukon, you know, in Canada.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: He showed me all the places, you know, and he drove me up to Pharaoh, the the dead mining town up there.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: There was like you know, about two hundred people left after the mine had closed.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: And there was a family there that I had contacted earlier, you know, like there was a a white guy, a German guy that married a German woman who had uh kids with a Turkish man, and he threatened to kill her, or something like that.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: And so she just took a a plane ride to Yukon and married Hartwick.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: He didn't even know him.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: She just told nobody where she was going.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: She went to Yukon, married him, and stayed there in the bush.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, I had contacted them because they needed help.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: I was like, so of course, and then I told Doug, my friend, the cocaine guy, that super nice guy, and he's like a like a bear, you know.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, can you just drop me off here?
30:55
SPEAKER_00: She took me up to uh up to Pharaoh, and so I stayed with with that family for, you know, and there were like dark-haired Turkish kids, they were eight or ten or something like that, and they looked really like you know, Middle Eastern and stuff, you know, and they were so cute.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, damn, this is fun.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: So I was I was I was playing with them all day.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to just help um the guy who had you know, he was a l build a log cabin.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So it's I was doing the trees with him, okay.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Skinning the trees and inscribing them and making a log cabin out of it, you know, for the kids to, you know.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: But he was he slept a lot because he had hepatitis, you know, I don't know, ABC, whatever, C maybe.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: And um, so he was he was sleeping a lot, you know, so he had a little bit of liver problem.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: So so he they were glad that I was just entertaining the kids all day.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: I was just playing with the kids, you know.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: And every once in a while I'd I'd I'd peel a log, lay it on there, scribe it, you know, and cut it.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: And so the the log cabin just like slowly, super slowly grew, you know, while I was playing in the woods and stuff with in Pharaoh.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is for me.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: It's really cool that you don't really you don't know anybody in the Yukon.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: No.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: But you you f you fly to Vancouver, you take a bus up to Whitehorse.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: How did you meet the guy that's turning bowls out of the boroughs?
32:24
SPEAKER_01: How did you meet him at the first time and end up staying in this trailer helping him?
32:28
SPEAKER_00: He was how did that come about?
32:30
SPEAKER_00: I think he was on the bus, you know.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: He was on the same bus?
32:32
SPEAKER_00: At some point, he was on the bus.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: He got on the bus, I think, at some point.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: And so you just stuck up a conversation with the bus.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: It was like and he said, Come on over, you know.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: So I just went to the trailer court that's kind of above there.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: It's where the college is and Whitehorse, they're up there, trailer court, and stayed with him in one of the trailers.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he he he showed me around, you know.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: And then how did you you said you'd talked to the people or written letters to the people in Pharaoh?
32:58
SPEAKER_01: How did you find them?
33:00
SPEAKER_01: How did that introduction go?
33:01
SPEAKER_00: That was like a German newspaper that had it advertised, oh, you know, because the people were German, I think, yeah, mostly.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, the kids were Turkish, but so they had advertised for some help.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: In Germany.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in Germany.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: My sister was so cool, and she gave me the gave me that little advertisement in Germany.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Somebody wants help in in Faroe, Yukon, you know, because she she she's always my sister's always helped me, you know.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: She's always like, you know, always wanted me to go where I wanted and stuff.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, hey, there's people that need all this work, it is just phenomenal, Michael.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: This is cool as heck.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty crazy, you know.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: It's like so it's just crazy that your your sister in Germany sees an advantage newspaper or whatever.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, here's somebody you might want to go see.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my brother wants to go there.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: You should go there.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: She just like sends me that like the the address, you know.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: I write to them or call them up.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And then, yeah, you can come by.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And so I made my way there, sort of like, you know, I tell them I'll be there at some point.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: So I made my way through like how long did you spend up there then?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, I spent most of the winter I spend up there.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: I got there in the fall.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: In the winter I stayed in the wall tent, you know, with three sleeping bags.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: It was like 40 below, six, I don't know.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: Wall tent at 40 below.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like everything was frozen.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: I had three sleeping bags I was in.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: And they were in the in the house in the in a log cabin.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: And I was build helping them build another cabin for the kids.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: And so I was in the wall tent.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I lived next to them.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: They were nice people though.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: They they broke up now.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: He's by himself.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: He's back back to his old self.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: How he started out, you know, he's him and his dogs in the woods.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: And his wife went to Vancouver Island, I think.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: So so did the kids.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, but yeah.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: It was it was pretty fun there.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: It was uh so different because I, you know, from Germany where everything is like in order and regulated and all that stuff, to like moose hanging there from the last hunt and like wolves coming up to you, and that was pretty cool for me.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh dang, this is cool, but it's super cold.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: 40 below is cold.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: It was really cold.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: First time, you know, I've I've come across that.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean uh Kalispell was pretty cold too, but I remember.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we couldn't go to school, but but yeah, that was really cold.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: And so this so the next spring it warms up, then what well it was like during the winter I went to Whitehorse, you know, just to visit and I met my friend Lindia.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: She's a native from there, adopted by the tribe.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: She's native from a different tribe, but adopted to the White Horse tribe.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I met her downtown Whitehorse.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Actually, when I was staying with Doug, you know, the guy with the in the uh burls, I was staying with him.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: He's a burly guy.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: He likes burls.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, met her.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: And she was able to communicate with a spirit with a spirit world.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, exactly.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Like I was like so dr I I've always been drawn to that, you know.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, and then I started living with her and then going back to Pharaoh, sometimes, you know, living in Pharaoh, and then some visiting her and that told me all these stories.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: She'll she introduced me to all the um the native elders in in Whitehorse.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: And last time I went around and saw the places, you know, and the people, the old people that were still there, they're gone now.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: They just lived in like uh one of them lived in a couple lived in a little cabin by the Yukon River right on the side.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: And I went in there and it was like going back like a hundred years, like all in there, it was all smoky and smelled so good from like ancient times, you know.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: And then we had like during that whole time we had strange visitors, you know.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: There was runners coming from like Alaska, native runners and white runners, and one of them one of them wanted wanted his his feather um steamed.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: So me and Lindia, that was my friend, my native friend there.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: We went and steamed his feather.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: Then he took a big Bowie knife and carved, carved something on her wall, and you know, and we had this What's this what's the reason for steaming the feather?
37:15
SPEAKER_00: What's I think his reason was to connect with somebody, you know.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: He he just saw us walking down the street and connected, you know.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Like in Whitehorse had all these connections, people were coming up to me, and when one native guy was like just came across the street and went like that on my chest.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: You gotta you gotta be strong in your heart, right?
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Just some random guy, you know, some native guy.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's I I hung out with these people all the time there and I could relate to them all so well, you know.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: It's like and and then he too, he wanted connection, he wanted to uh do a uh a ceremony, sweat ceremony with us, and and he was a scary guy though, he was he had dark energy, you know, and so I I got introduced to all kinds of uh spirits, and the native people when we showed up at their houses, they would be scared, they would they'd just show up and then hide.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: They look out the window and hide when he saw when they saw him, you know.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay, because he's from Eagle, Alaska.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and his dark energy, they would notice it right away.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of that, and there was a murder that the you know, that one lady that represented the native people there.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: She got murdered by the Yukon River by the by the campground.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the natives that were sitting in the park there, I asked them, you know, and they they kind of they knew who it was.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: And then I was trying to find the name of the person who did it.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: And I remember in my dream it came to me, it spelled it out in my dream, you know, the name of the guy who and she was yeah, she because she was a friend of mine, my friend that was there, but she was a rep political representative for the native tribe, you know, up there and stuff.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: So I got like overwhelmed by the spirit work by by all this, you know, by I got so much of it there.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: I was it was like like living in a different reality.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Coming from there's all this university stuff in college, you know.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: I realized, you know, this this is totally different.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: And uh my friend uh Lindia, she's like, you know, she said she took me you know we went up for on a trip to Vancouver with my pickup truck eventually to get her daughter out of jail because her daughter was in jail, she had hooked up with a bunch of um uh biker with a biker gang that was hit her friend, boyfriend that was uh was uh in a biker gang and they they dealt drugs.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And so we went down to Vancouver and and picked up uh her daughter, you know, it was successful and brought her up.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: But the whole trip was just about the spirit world, you know, connecting with the animals and the spirit and doing like ceremonies for for lot for spirits that are lost, you know.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: A lot of a lot of these spirits that are around us are stuck here, and so she was able able to open make uh openings in the spirit world for the spirits to go out.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, and the last one I remember the last one she did was in Skagway in Dai.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: We went to um that's where she dropped me off, you know, when I when I finally left the Yukon and she dropped she went to uh Dai with me, and she's like, There's a lot of spirits here that are trapped.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yeah, from what from the avalanches from from the struggle back then, shootings and stuff.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: A lot of spirits that are they're just hanging out here and they have nowhere to go.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: And so she middle of day, like at noon it was, she went to Dai, she went to uh that little bridge there by the by the salmon creek there and she did a ceremony for them, you know, like she always does.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: She makes an opening in the spirit world for them to be able to go out.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: And it was so cool.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: I was just sitting there in the grass and then just watching her, and and then an owl came out of nowhere when she was like finished.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: An owl came like about that high and just went like this around her head, right?
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Just like that.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: And then flew off and was like she's like, just yeah, and he's like, it's done.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: She said, It's done, you know.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yeah, I was like, Oh, thank you.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Finally, it's like, you know, I'm not thanks for showing me all that, you know.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: It's like this is pretty cool.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: But then we departed and then I stayed here, you know.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: I stayed in So how how long were you in the Yukon?
41:48
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that long, it was only like a year, two years?
41:52
SPEAKER_00: A year, it was just a year, yeah.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: Just a year, yeah, like half the winter in Faroe, and then uh the spring in Whitehorse and summer in Whitehorse.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Yep, there How's that work with visas and everything?
42:08
SPEAKER_01: Did you have are you on a German passport at that time?
42:12
SPEAKER_01: I just had my US passport.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: You had a US passport and so it's yeah, I was like I was actually kicked out of Canada because it was like I was overstaying, apparently, which was just not true, but because I had gone back and forth to uh to Skagwi and you and Haynes uh just to visit.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: So I was technically not overstaying, but it wasn't showing in my passport.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: So when that one border lady called, hey, you're supposed to be out of Canada, you gotta go tomorrow.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: I was like, it didn't matter if I said yeah, I had already gone to to the US and come back, but I didn't get a stamp from the border guard.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: So I like it wasn't anywhere to be seen that I did not overstay, but anyway, they made me leave.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: So they when she drops you off in Dai then, what's what's the plan?
43:00
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna stay in Skagway or Haynes?
43:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was going to go to Haynes because people in Skagway said Haynes is really cool.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: There's less tourists and there's you said you'd been to Haynes before.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: Coming down.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was visiting.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, so you you thought Haynes was a cool place to Yeah, I thought it was really cool, really beautiful and stuff.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: What what year was that?
43:17
SPEAKER_00: 2000?
43:17
SPEAKER_00: And they had like yeah, 2000.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: 2000.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: Fall of 2000.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you made your way from that from Skagway over to Haynes, fall of 2000.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had to stay in Skagway for a little bit because my truck was uh can Canadian and I needed all the the paperwork to take it.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: And so they let me stay in Skagway but not leave Skagway until I had my paperwork.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: So I was just living in my truck in Dai for a for a while.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: And then you got paperwork for your truck.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then I got to Haynes.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: Brings the fairy come across on the ferry.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: And then Haynes and I stayed in my truck in the Well what was the plan when you got to Haynes?
43:53
SPEAKER_00: Didn't have a plan.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to like be there.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: I had no plan anymore other than be there.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Because it's so beautiful.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: I thought this is a cool place to just be.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: And like without a plan, but you know, it changed really quick because I ran into Hazel Nelson and she was at the Peter Pan where Joey Jacobson was a little guy.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: He was playing the main role there.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: And I sat on the on the on the steps at the Chilkat Center by myself, and then Hazel joined.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: Hazel Nelson, Paul Nelson's mom.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: And she was all dressed like a gypsy and in all different colors.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, she came, she came and sat next to me, and then we talked, and she said, Yeah, my husband needs help out at that seven-mile mud bay road.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: He's by himself.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I'm like, Yeah, I'll help him.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I'll live with him, you know.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: It's like so I was just like, she was like, cool, because she wasn't living with him.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: She was uh he was by himself.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: Louis Nelson was by himself.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: And so then uh yeah, you know I went straight over to Louis Nelson and helped and lived with him in in next to him in the trailer on his homestead.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: It was one of the last homesteads in Alaska, I think.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: That uh Mud Bay homestead.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: So how long had you been in Haynes before you go to see Peter Pan and then up Days.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: Just days.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, days like you're like, hey, this might as well go see Peter Pan.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just yeah, with one of the lost boys, and then you end up getting getting a hook up to stay out at Louie's place.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was so cool, yeah, because it's sitting there with Hazel, and Hazel is such a wonderful person.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: She was one of my favorite people ever.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: She was just such a sweetheart, you know.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: She's like just talking about all kinds of things, and then two little kids came up with a cat, like a baby cat, you know, a kitten, and they're like, Here, do you want it?
45:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, uh, give me a cat.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: So I had a sitting there with Hazel and a cat.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, okay.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Watching Peter Pan.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, watching Peter Pan, you know.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: And then I went over the next day and to Louis, and Louis was all like how Louie was, you know.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: He was all a little bit skeptical and all that stuff, you know.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: And you know, he's like, okay, you can do that, you know.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: You want to work?
46:10
SPEAKER_00: It was all kinds of stuff, you know, we did, you know, with him, and I stayed in his trailer and I kind of liked it, but it was also uh he was also an odd character, you know, just walking around with his gun and stuff.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, he showed me a lot of practical things because I wasn't very practical back then, but uh I learned how to fix cars and stuff, and and well actually the cars, fixing cars came later, but you know, chainsaw.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, chainsawing trees for him and stuff, and hel helping him cook and then start doing things, home health care stuff for him, you know.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: Is that when I was just gonna ask, is that where the home health care part started coming in?
46:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's where it first started, you know, like with the toes and feet and stuff, and then helping him get up sometimes or whatever, you know.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: It's just and then I saw Cornerstone home health care, you know, Beverly McLaughlin, she lives out up the highway.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: She's not there anymore, but lives somewhere else.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: But she put up a note at the post office saying um home health care workers needed.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I signed up right away, personal care attendant, right away, you know, like and they got a job right away look working for the next ten years just with dying people, like the last stages of their life.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: So for ten years, like just every time it was usually like two weeks before they died or something, four four weeks maybe.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: Go in there and turn the people and bathe them and uh s swab their teeth, their their their mouth with water and um and do all this things, you know, do you know, so that there's no skin breakdown, all this kind of stuff, you know.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: For basically ten years straight, yeah.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh huh.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: Just dying people after dying, you know, like how hard was that?
48:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at first it was it was so different because you know, it people when they die, they just all of a sudden everything falls away, you know.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: All their their you know, humans are they're so attached to their things and it's so important, you know.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: And when people die, all of a sudden nothing's important anymore.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: That the only thing is important is to have somebody there that you can connect with heart to heart, just a person.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: Just somebody to talk to.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember I was sitting with your dad, and he just nonstop.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: He was just story after story.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's kind of what they want to do.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like what what ends up in your memory or what you like are the are the memories of interactions you've had with people and and the activity activities you've done in life, you know.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: What your house, you know, all these what you own is not so important anymore, the the material things.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: And some people would see the spirits, you know, they see their family members, they'd see spirits, and they would grab my arm and you know, and can you lead me to there's my sister, can you lead me over there?
49:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like she's right there, and she has this beautiful dress, you know, and I'm like, okay, you know, I was there's inter everybody is so different, you know.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: And some people went completely silent.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing happening anymore, just silence, you know.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Like, and other people would talk.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: What and did that do you think your connection with the spirit world helped you during that for sure connect with people and stuff?
49:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't like, you know, I just saw I saw their spirits just leave, you know.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: But not dying.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: Just move on.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: It's just a moving on.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: It's not a dying, it's actually going in going on an adventure into a new place.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: And so I I thought it was kind of uh exciting.
50:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, instead of it it is sad, you know, because you you're you you're a member, especially when you're a family member, but especially when your kids pass or something like that, you know.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: That's that's different.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: You're so attached, you know, like people are attached, but but when you're not exact the exactly the family member, you just see for them like an that's an adventure.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: Have fun in your next, you know, whatever you're gonna be next, you're gonna you're gonna have you know, it's be something new because you like adventures.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: You know?
50:36
SPEAKER_01: You got a big one coming.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you got something coming, yeah.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: So I af what else has been going on in those ten years?
50:45
SPEAKER_01: Is that when you started building your cabin?
50:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was they gave me uh I took care of uh Hazel and and uh Louis Nelson till they died, till uh you know, and they were so nice enough, especially Paul and his sister.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: They were so generous to me.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: They sort of adopted me as their as their own, you know, and they gave me that piece of land out, Mud Bay, four acres, that's cut off the homestead.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: On the right hand side.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I had a piece of land and I was staying there in a wall tent and stuff, you know, living in a wall tent with uh my wife Shalomar.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: She um how did you guys meet?
51:26
SPEAKER_00: She was there too.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: She was already in Haynes.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: And so she was staying in a tent across Mud Bay, and I was with Louie, and I just kept walking over there, and that's how we how we kind of met and stuff, you know.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: She brought me fish, salmon, because I was like malnourished, I think.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: I I was craving like meat, you know.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: And so she always gave me brought some coho because she's working on the fishing boats as a deck hand.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: And she'd eat my like oranges because Louie Nelson was always into like oranges and grapefruit and stuff, you know.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: And and so we're going to be.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: So you're providing the citrus, and she's providing the salmon.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: She's bringing salmon over, yeah.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: So that was pretty cool.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: And then finally I had some piece of land, and they built like uh some platforms there for tents on it, and we had like a sleep tent and uh kitchen tent and stuff, and and yeah, and then went yeah, and then just lived there for a while, and then son was born.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: Sayel was born in 2002, and yeah, it was uh let's see, that wasn't Gustavus.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to remember, yeah.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: Gustavus for a brief time and then came back and and then gr he was just lived in a wall tent until that day that the tree fell, you know, pretty pretty much that was set it off.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, there was a giant old growth tree not far away from the wall tent.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: And I told Cornerstone, I need time off to uh resettle my family, and I couldn't get any time off because there was no workers.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: There's like like now, there's no healthcare workers that really want to do it.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: So I couldn't get time off.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: And so one day I came back and I like drove up to the parking lot and I looked out onto the forest, and that big tree, you know, the massive tree was gone.
53:15
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Ah, that's when my heart I just almost collapsed when I saw that.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: I I kind of like stumbled down the hill, and all I could see was that old growth had just broken off at its base and covered our entire scene, crushed everything, like like demolished it.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: Like the sleep tent that we slept in was not even visible anymore.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: It was like buried and and and the deck that our the other tent was on was like cut in half like by this giant, and all I could I just like fell to the ground, um like because I knew Shalomar and Sahel were there.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I just couldn't, and then I saw them, I saw both of them like shaking on the tree.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: They were like sitting on the tree and I'm like, and I couldn't, and then I could just I just gave up.
54:06
SPEAKER_00: I just I just fell on the ground.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: I just I couldn't I was like, this is like I I want this to be.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: I want this to be real, right?
54:15
SPEAKER_00: This is this is not a dream, they're really alive, right?
54:18
SPEAKER_00: And it and it was, you know, whatever reality we're living in, this is a reality that that won out, anyways.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: And I don't even want to think about it anymore because I am afraid that the other reality will, you know.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many realities there are that around us that we don't see, but you know, that's that was that was a life changer.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh, without a doubt.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: How did that it was like how do you think that affected you just coming that close to losing your wife and your son?
54:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we at night.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: If it had been at night, we'd all been dead, you know, and then but we wouldn't have known, I guess.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: But it you know, but that would have been yeah, because my son was just there.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: He saw the tree come at him, you know, like Sael was like he looked he's looking up, he's he's making something out of sand on the on the deck, uh-huh, and he saw the tree break off and come right at him.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: Um like last second he just jumped aside like to Shalomar, who happened to be in the other tent doing something in the kitchen.
55:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh jumped in there and the whole tree like a like an earthquake came that like it was like a that's a lot of force coming down.
55:30
SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, like it was a waterlogged old growth.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: It was not even it was so heavy you couldn't even use the utilize the the you couldn't the wood for burning anymore.
55:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
55:39
SPEAKER_00: It was each round was so heavy you couldn't lift it.
55:42
SPEAKER_00: When I cut the round, I was gonna like make firewood out of it.
55:45
SPEAKER_00: No, we couldn't.
55:46
SPEAKER_00: It was all waterlogged.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: It was just the unbelievably heavy tree, you know?
55:52
SPEAKER_00: And it's like and after that I thought, oh well, I gotta build a house.
55:56
SPEAKER_00: You can't make that mistake ever again have a a live in a tent in a forest with big trees, right?
56:02
SPEAKER_00: There's no protection.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: And so did you have somebody come and pick up the tree and mill it into lumber to build your house with?
56:10
SPEAKER_00: The tree was not can't do anything with it.
56:11
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't even do anything with it.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: It's just like a rotten waterlogg tree that was just huge.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: And so is it still there or just still there, yeah.
56:19
SPEAKER_00: And never did anything with a camp.
56:21
SPEAKER_00: The camp is still destroyed and the wall tent's still there.
56:24
SPEAKER_00: I just never like g went back there anymore, really.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
56:29
SPEAKER_00: So then we Nick Anderson let us stay in his house.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: Remember Nick Anderson?
56:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I built I built a house in like it was December and January.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I was like, I was so determined to build a house.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: So I just like in the blizzard, snow blizzard, I had a Subaru, and then it was busters, wood, ordered wood, like beams, and put them on my little Subaru hatchback.
56:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I got like buried in the in the you know, in the ditches.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: I like slid off the ditches and all like the wood would go under like in the winter.
57:03
SPEAKER_00: It was like full-on winter, you know, with like December.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: It was so dark, I always had a headlamp on, and I was like, I was like a maniac, just building, you know, like and then at five o'clock, instead of going home and eating, I just drink half a bottle of red wine for the rest till about midnight or so, and I just keep pounding and hammering and and you know, and Terry Jacobson he had showed me how for three days he helped me the first time and just showed me how like how to build a house basically, right?
57:35
SPEAKER_00: And so you know, and yeah, and then I did it, you know, it was like and then the roof and then carry the metal off, you know, up the up the ladder and stuff, and by myself in the in the blizzard and the dark and stuff, and and then finally we had just a house in the end of January.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: We had like a two-story house, just a simple one, you know, uh-huh.
57:59
SPEAKER_00: With a wood stove in it, and and moved into it like that fast.
58:06
SPEAKER_01: Took pretty much two months.
58:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like yeah, like just insane.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: I was just listening to music and just just so fired up that I just I couldn't stop anymore.
58:16
SPEAKER_00: I was just like uh, you know, crawling around in the mud.
58:18
SPEAKER_00: I had like all my walls tied to like come-alongs on trees and winched them up by myself and and blocked them off, and the walls came up, just came up, and then the rafter, you know, and then Mikey at Buster's Mill, he he got he got me the trees.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: He got he dug out the trees out of the snow and cut them up into my beams for the roof and stuff.
58:41
SPEAKER_00: And all I had was like a Subaru to put it on.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: On the roof of a Subaru, you know, it's like all those building materials up there.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: It was like it's yeah, it was insane.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: I was like, what the heck?
58:52
SPEAKER_00: And it was like December and January, but that's how like how much that impacted me, that tree that fell, right?
58:59
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted a house that was safe.
59:01
SPEAKER_01: You wanted to have a safe place for your family?
59:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
59:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
59:05
SPEAKER_01: You made it happen and two years.
59:07
SPEAKER_01: Or two months, I mean.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: Two months, yeah.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: It was like there was a house, you know.
59:12
SPEAKER_00: All the other stuff wasn't in there, but it was just a house with a wood stove, you know.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: And a bed, you know.
59:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's yeah, that's where they all grew up.
59:21
SPEAKER_00: That's where both my kids grew up in.
59:23
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: And then I came upon George Edwards, you know.
59:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: George, you know, I worked for him for 10 years for Reach.
59:32
SPEAKER_00: I went Cornerstone and Reach and worked for both agencies and centered for community.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: And during this time, did you go out and get any training, or is this all stuff you were self taught or taught from the people with Cornerstone and Reach?
59:46
SPEAKER_00: No, I just went to Juno and did my CNA.
59:48
SPEAKER_00: I went to the wildf wildflower court and did my um CNA certificate.
59:55
SPEAKER_00: Went to school there for a little while, and then I practiced there in the Wildflower Court with people.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: That's where I got my my CNA certificate.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: That's you know.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: And then so then there was a nurse.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: Lisa Schwartz was a nurse.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: She was my boss for a while.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_00: So Cornerstone did nursing, now they don't do it anymore.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so I was their their nurse's aide for for Haynes with Lisa.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: And so I was doing dealing with dying people the whole time, you know.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_00: And then on the side I was doing Reach, you know.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_01: For So you're you're doing both of those kind of depending on where the need was.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: There was always a need, yeah.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: There was always a shortage, seemed like it.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: So I was doing Cornerstone End, Reach.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: So that had to be cool spending all that time with George.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was the yeah, that was really good because you know his favorite thing was just fixing cars for others, right?
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: So he would, you know, for poor people, he would haul other people's cars and and to his place.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_00: And since he had a crippled right right arm, you know, he used me as his right arm.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: Right arm, yeah.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: And so we fixed their cars and then brought them back where they picked them up for a six-pack.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: It's all he wanted was a six-pack.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: Six pack.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: And it'd be all things from changing engines to brakes to like, you know, everything.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: So like I take cars apart all the time for while getting paid.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, like, you know, uh-huh.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: I was working that was his reach activity.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: That's he, and it was part of his plan, you know.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_00: It's for his care plan.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: He needed to do that, you know.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: Do that for ten years, just all kinds of vehicles.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: Just like towed him back.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_00: And and George was an amazing guy, you know.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_00: He was just he was a real Alaskan, you know.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: Never had no um extra tough zone or anything, just had holes in his sneakers where they're always wet, his feet, and he was so tough, you know.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_00: It's and he had all these stories of survival.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many times he survived, you know.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: He had an amazing life.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: George was George was a cool person.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like and he had all these interactions with these people.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: That's what I like too.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_00: He he knew every person, and mostly the you know, yeah, the whole town.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: He knew the backstories of all the people.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't write or read, you know.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: That stuff he couldn't, but he remembered all the stories, all the people and the characters, and and you know, if a person's good or bad, or bad intentions are good, you know, and this is cool to just listen to him and and same time, you know, fix everybody that didn't have money to fix their cars and bring them back.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: Until that one day when the when the manager, borough manager decided to uh to not want him anymore.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: Basically, they they they were gave they gave him notice that he had to had to get rid of all his vehicles, right?
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: All of you know, there were too many vehicles, and so we all we came in, we went to the borough many times and g wrote letters and saying that's what George needs is like that's his thing.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_00: He fixes people's cars and that's what he needs to live, you know.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: And the manager, you probably remember him, he was like an army guy.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_00: He they resigned, he had and his assistant was like a Chinese lady.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_00: Could have been that he was like a military guy.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_00: He moved yeah, anyways, he he he didn't budge whatsoever, and so George put a rope around his head and his neck and hung himself in the living room on one of those beams, you know.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, that was his answer to that.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_01: Were you the one that found him?
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: No, he didn't want to do it while I was there.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_00: He Terry.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_01: Terry found him?
1:03:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Terry found him, yeah.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_00: But he had tried a few times before.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_00: He tried it on the bathroom door, and then the bathroom door broke off.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_00: I stayed a night with him.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: He did it, he tried killing himself with pills.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_00: That's how how it affected him, you know.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_00: Somebody telling him he can't do he can't fix cars anymore.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_00: And the cars are still there, right?
1:03:52
SPEAKER_00: There's more cars now than there were.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: There were more cars there than there was before.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a that that's one of those hard things.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_01: I think that's in so many ways in society that there's people that we might look at them and feel like they're not contributing, but they're contributing in their own way.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they are.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_01: And just because it doesn't conform with what society thinks is contributing, yeah, we we make them we like you were saying about school, everybody's gotta conform, you've got to conform, you conform.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_01: Instead of it's like, okay, how is this person doing their thing?
1:04:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that they're taking care of the friends around them, they're helping other people.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_01: Um that's definitely something that we can do better.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's something that for sure.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's he's just yeah, that was a lasting memory for sure.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: And there's this just a lot of people, yeah.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's different in their own ways, you know.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty cool that you got that time with George though.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was that was really fun.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_01: I bet you learned a lot, didn't you?
1:04:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, from like mechanical to everything, you know, from he was just such a you know, he had the ability to react so fast, you know, like to emergencies.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_00: Whereas our minds might be tied up in with too much other stuff, you know.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't read or write, but he was able to just spot, I be so good at observing something and knowing what to do in what what situation and you know, and like how to fix something too, you know.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_00: He'd be go out there and you know, I need an alternator, George.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got one, bring the shovel, you know, and you go out there in the in the snow and start digging in the snow.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_00: And eventually you come to like some metal parts, you know, and then there's an alternator from some other truck and that he remembered from I don't know from when.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_00: Maybe his when his stepdad was still there, you know.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_00: And and that it would fit too, you know.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_00: You just make do with whatever you got, you know.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_00: It was just like, you know, whatever works.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_00: And it was such a different way, you know.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_00: You can just you can hold a car together with two by fours and stuff.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: And you can do that, just a different way thinking outside of the box, you know.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was that was that was pretty cool, George.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_01: And the thing always impressed me is with his limitations and challenges and stuff, he I don't remember having many interactions with him where he wasn't smiling and just with a really positive outlook.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: He was right, yeah.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_01: That he just he was just always smiling, joking, always had a positive outlook.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_01: Didn't matter what was going on.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_01: He's like, well, we can do this.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_00: It's all possible, you know.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: We need more people with that kind of attitude.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's like, you know, he's born without a hip, then he got a motorcycle crash hip put in when he was like 15 or something like that.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_00: And then um, you know, lived with it.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_00: And his body got healed, he was in a body cast for a while, and his brothers teased him and threw him overboard.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_01: Wait, what?
1:06:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's like he was he could walk, but he was in a cast too, you know.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_00: So he was like, you know, his brothers swung him around and tossed him out, he said, into the water on the beach of Glacier Point where they were living.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_00: Over Glacier Point.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: Glacier Point, yeah.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, his stepdad would just drive back and forth sometimes to town, right?
1:07:15
SPEAKER_00: He'd get groceries and halfway to Glacier Point, he would inspect their bags and all that stuff, you know, and throw all the sugar, all the sweets overboard.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_00: So there was there was no bad food on Glacier Point, you know?
1:07:27
SPEAKER_00: Really?
1:07:28
SPEAKER_00: No candy, no sugar, nothing, you know, no alcohol, nothing.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_00: And so he did like Glacier Point, George did, you know, with a lot.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_00: He didn't like his stepdad.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: He used to hang him up on a nail in the room and stuff, you know, just hang him up and and you know, and his brothers teased him a lot too, you know.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_00: I remember he he was so determined to get his shotgun to shoot his brother because he flung him out into the water with his cast on, you know.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_00: So he was like stumbling to the cabin and aiming for the shotgun, and the situation had dissolved before he could do anything.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_00: Then he had his his alcohol stash in the in the attic because his stepdad wouldn't let him have any alcohol, you know.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: And so he had it up above where nobody could see it.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_00: He just put all the fruits in it and let it ferment, and then he had a little hose that went down through the walls to his bed with a fossil with a valve on it, and he'd be like laying instead he'd be laying in bed, you know, and just sipping on it, you know, just enjoying the little bit of alcohol he'd get out of it.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_00: Because his stepdad wouldn't let him have anything, right?
1:08:38
SPEAKER_01: That's ingenious.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can picture George, right?
1:08:44
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, yeah.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_00: One time they caught a shark, you know, and they buried the whole shark in the garden, and he said it was like a trampoline.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_00: He could jump on it.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_00: The garden was so bouncy.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_00: He was just like a trampoline, and his brother shot a sea line right through the head.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_00: George said he could see the other side of Lynn Canal through the head.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_00: Through the head, and then all the planes would just just circle around.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: There's planes coming from Juneau, and they wouldn't they would just circle around.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_00: They're wondering why all this blood, the entire ocean was filled with blood.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, glacier point, you know.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_00: It's like crazy stories, you know, George.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: And when the ship sank with his brother on it, you know, George woke up and said, His ship is sinking.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_00: So they went full board, full steam towards the other side of Lynn Canal, I think, and then they went down, ship went down, and George floating in the water and stuff, and he said, That big buoy.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_00: We always looked for that big giant buoy that was attached to the boat.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_00: He said it was like a bullet that came out in front of him out of, you know, the depth of the ocean.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_00: It had the boat was down and uh the the the buoy filled with air was uh detached itself and shot up in front of him like a way up in the air, right?
1:09:59
SPEAKER_00: It's like until uh Bill Thomas and the Raven Walk fished him out of the water.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_00: Ever since he liked he loved Bill Thomas and the Raven, the boat, the Raven Walk.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_00: So that was his favorite thing.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: And we always looked for the buoy.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: Every time we went out on a boat, and we like he asked me if I could see the buoy anywhere, you know.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_00: That was like a lasting memory for him, too.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, looking for that booy.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_00: There's some interesting people though, you know.
1:10:29
SPEAKER_00: All this this that's the reward is like it's almost like you get so uh everybody in the community seems to like you because you're taking care of their relatives, right?
1:10:39
SPEAKER_00: So like and all that.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_00: So you just get make no enemies, right?
1:10:43
SPEAKER_00: That's a job where like the employer is nice, and everywhere you go, and the people just they appreciate it, and you get to uh know all these people and their experiences and all that stuff, you know.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the native in Klekwan, you know, this George and Margaret Stevens, too, and those guys telling me stories of a long time ago of how Kleckwan was founded.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_01: It's funny that so you you've had through that, you probably know Haynes and the people in Haynes better than people that have been here twice as long as you.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_00: I I know some like a lot of these inside stories that like you know, like like intimate stories, because I mean it's pretty intimate when you brush somebody's teeth, or you have them in the shower and you wash them and stuff, and then they tell you like just stories they would not tell you anybody else, you know, it's just not even their own family members.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like yeah.
1:11:39
SPEAKER_00: George and Margaret Stevens were funny, you know.
1:11:41
SPEAKER_00: They're in there like a reporter came from from from Haynes up and they asked him, they went to do as I introduced, you know.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to, can you tell me something about the the story of like how Klukwan was founded, you know, how it was, how it came to be, you know what?
1:11:56
SPEAKER_00: And George, uh, he was like, I don't know.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_00: And Margaret too, they're like, hmm, I have no idea.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, kind of like that, you know.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_00: So he left without them telling them anything.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_00: And so the next week I went up there, if I was lucky, because you know, they don't cling to schedules or anything, you know, so I'd have the schedule to go up and give George Stevens a bath.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_00: So I'd go up there and they'd be coming to town because they they don't they don't worry about schedules or anything, you know.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_00: So I'd be by the river waiting for two hours, fishing or whatever, till they come back up.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_00: And then I go to Klekwan, you know, and say and then hang out with them.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_00: And uh and George was like, sit down, I want to tell you how Kleckwan was found.
1:12:40
SPEAKER_00: And he told me this long story of how they came up the river and saw the water was good, right?
1:12:46
SPEAKER_00: The fish and stuff, and you know, and there's mountain goats to eat and the not so windy, and you know, and like ah, this is a good place, you know.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_00: It's so funny, you know, how they you know.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's I've I've noticed that with um growing up here, it wasn't until I started going up to Klukwan with John Katzick and smoking fish and started that even though I had a lot of friends that were from Klukwan, they were clicking from Haynes, it wasn't until I started doing more of their cultural things.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I noticed and so there's two things happened at the same time.
1:13:35
SPEAKER_01: I was um working with John, doing a lot of hunting with John, do it smoking fish with him, and then I also started getting involved in gold medal tournament down in Juneau.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_01: That's it, helping take teams down there, and there's a lot of relationships that grew tremendously closer and got to know people a lot better, started getting invited to John would invite me and family to potlucks and stuff, and starting going there and and participating.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I I noticed my my relationship that I thought I had good friendships, but you just saw them grow much closer and and much more inclusive after that.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:14:13
SPEAKER_01: And and I I think that's probably the same with with most cultures when you when you have somebody that is just kind of on the periphery and just is like, hey, how's it going, compared to somebody stepping in and letting me learn about your culture or what you do and and or actually participating in it, I I think that what across all cultures makes a big difference.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_00: I think it does, yeah.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_01: And I think with your position, helping people in the way in the intimate way you were and listening and letting them tell their stories and stuff in that same regard, that that draws you closer to a lot of families and a lot of people in town because of that.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_00: For sure, yeah.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_00: I was I got so much out of it, you know.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_00: Like they, you know, Nelsons were so generous and you know, gave me that piece of land.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_00: That's just just unbelievable.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_00: I never thought, you know.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_01: But you you didn't like did you did did you blame them that they gave you a land with a tree that was gonna fall over on your head?
1:15:11
SPEAKER_00: I should have told them that.
1:15:13
SPEAKER_00: You should have given me a better piece of land or did not this big tree on it.
1:15:20
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Paul just gave me a well, like uh, you know, paid for a Paul Nelson.
1:15:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:15:26
SPEAKER_00: He just let them uh paid for it for a well.
1:15:30
SPEAKER_01: So what year was it when the tree fell on the oh it was like five years old.
1:15:35
SPEAKER_00: The cell was five years old.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_00: That was like oh, that was 19 years ago.
1:15:42
SPEAKER_00: That was like 18 years ago?
1:15:43
SPEAKER_00: No, 19.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_00: 19 years ago.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_00: 19 years ago.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_00: So 2007.
1:15:50
SPEAKER_01: 2007?
1:15:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's for the help on the math, Marty.
1:15:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
1:15:54
SPEAKER_00: 2007, yeah, then we're in a tree fell.
1:15:57
SPEAKER_01: And then you got the house got the house built.
1:16:00
SPEAKER_01: And then it was what a year and a half ago that year ago almost.
1:16:04
SPEAKER_01: A year ago that you had to fire at the house.
1:16:07
SPEAKER_01: And so you you lose two places on the same same property, same property, and starting over again.
1:16:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're still living there, yep.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_01: What what was that like when you get the because you're you're at Gabe's house, right?
1:16:22
SPEAKER_01: You and Sael were at Gabe's talking to him when you're seeing the fire trucks going by and you're like, I gotta get home and see if that's my place.
1:16:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was playing soccer in town.
1:16:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:16:34
SPEAKER_00: Like I just I always get soccer people going on Sundays, and yeah.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_00: And then somebody came and Paul's Paul came and uh different Paul forgot his last name.
1:16:45
SPEAKER_00: He told me that your fi your house is on fire.
1:16:47
SPEAKER_00: Because I saw the smoke too.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Sile and and Ezra were somewhere else.
1:16:54
SPEAKER_00: I think they were driving my mom around something that they yeah.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_00: They just left the smoker on.
1:17:01
SPEAKER_00: It's an electric smoker, anyways.
1:17:03
SPEAKER_00: They didn't unplug it or anything, so I was outside.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't use it the right way either, but that's that's alright.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's like, you know, doing too many things.
1:17:14
SPEAKER_00: It's it's okay.
1:17:15
SPEAKER_00: I or I had already told them it's too dangerous, but to to use, but but that's that's another thing, you know.
1:17:22
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't there, and so so like oh I guess I can't do anything about it anymore.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_00: It's just the way it goes, you know.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_01: It's like well that that's a great way to look at it, but was there any part of you that was like, what do I have to do to keep a a house, a place to live here?
1:17:42
SPEAKER_01: Everything I start to build at some point just goes away.
1:17:46
SPEAKER_00: It was just like a lesson, anyways.
1:17:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, I it's just this community like give me so much too, you know.
1:17:52
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh man, everybody in this community, including you and everybody.
1:17:56
SPEAKER_00: It's like, of course I want to live here.
1:17:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going anywhere.
1:17:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just now I live in a cabin, you know, which is also cozy.
1:18:04
SPEAKER_00: And I look out the window at the sky and it's easier to heat, it's smaller.
1:18:08
SPEAKER_00: Of course, all the all the beautiful beautiful things from childhood burnt up, you know.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_00: They're raising the kids and stuff, and and the kittens and the snake, my pet snake and stuff.
1:18:19
SPEAKER_00: So there's a little bit of sadness.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_00: And all the spiders in the walls, which I do like spiders, and all the animals that lived in the house, in the walls.
1:18:29
SPEAKER_00: I feel bad for them, you know.
1:18:31
SPEAKER_00: So you you've rebuilt, did you build on the same place your house was, or did you Yeah, there's like three houses now.
1:18:36
SPEAKER_00: Like the platform that Syel is gonna build his house.
1:18:39
SPEAKER_00: He Joey sort of gave him like uh for a little bit of money, gave him his house that he built first that was his timber frame house, Joey Jacobson.
1:18:48
SPEAKER_00: And they wanted to just get rid of it too, you know, because it was they have a nice house now, so and Sayel and Joey took it apart and we helped a little bit and he's gonna put that there where the old house was and probably use it as a community house to invite guests and have friends, because we always want community.
1:19:09
SPEAKER_00: We like to have like people living with us on the property, and that'd be a cool place for people just to come and stay and live for free.
1:19:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, like I know down there the laws or you can't rent stuff, but you can let them stay for free.
1:19:24
SPEAKER_00: So it'd be like a nice place with a stove and nice view, and you know, and everybody like the whole town can donated like you know, Craig from the from the dump.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: He took all my all the bad stuff away from the land and shh Sean Bryant, you know, he worked like a crazy man.
1:19:42
SPEAKER_00: He just cleaned everything up like insanely.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing guy, you know, and Craig, you know, just to take all that and um just and then all this donations of the cement and then uh all the other money and you and everybody, it's like hey, this is gonna be fun, you know, having a little timber frame house there to invite people to.
1:20:07
SPEAKER_00: And then I had built another house down below in case of a fire.
1:20:11
SPEAKER_00: Learned that from George, you know.
1:20:14
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I said George, do you have a what do you do when there's a fire?
1:20:18
SPEAKER_00: I got this other house, his garage down the road, right?
1:20:21
SPEAKER_00: They're a little apartment.
1:20:23
SPEAKER_00: That's my fire insurance.
1:20:24
SPEAKER_00: Fire insurance.
1:20:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then I built, you know, another burst of energy, built another house.
1:20:30
SPEAKER_00: It's just the frame there.
1:20:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:20:32
SPEAKER_00: But it's uh, you know, I got the roofing and everything, and the and the wood stove is already in it, and I just have to put the roofing on it, and and then yeah, it'd be warm in there already.
1:20:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:20:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh Sean Bryant dug the lines to it and all the power and the water, and Paul Nelson gave me a well, and I was like, I got all the fixings for a new place, you know.
1:20:55
SPEAKER_00: Just have to have to be patient, and like, you know, since we don't have inheritance or anything, you know, we just have like our own money, we just have to build slowly, but the roofing's already there, and all I have to do is cut it and and just slowly build.
1:21:10
SPEAKER_00: You just keep building, you know.
1:21:11
SPEAKER_01: Right now, you know, it it keeps coming back to me is we're talking, Michael, and this is something that when this has happened with you, and just the way the positive attitude that you have about shortly shortly after your cabin burnt, you're in the store and you're just yep, we're gonna move on, we're doing this and this, and it's like holy crap, how does he how does he keep doing that?
1:21:37
SPEAKER_01: But I I think like you're talking about with the way that the community is towards you.
1:21:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
1:21:41
SPEAKER_01: I well, I I think that's a reflection of how much you've given to the community, with the people you've taken care of, it's with the even even though it's your job, the way that you do it and the care that you've given to so many people, I think I think it's that karma that comes back that when when you're in need, that that that good stuff is coming back to you.
1:22:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when you do things with like when you do things with your heart, right?
1:22:09
SPEAKER_00: If you if you do it, you know, you don't do it for money, you just do it like because you love doing it.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_00: That's that's a difference, yeah.
1:22:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's why this community is amazing, you know.
1:22:17
SPEAKER_00: It's like just like I don't ever want to leave here.
1:22:20
SPEAKER_01: Do you do you think some of that is because of your spirit?
1:22:24
SPEAKER_01: The way that your spirit is you have a different relationship with your spirit than a lot of people that I know.
1:22:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've I've not had that same conversation with anybody else, and it's it's extremely fascinating to me, and I want to learn more about it.
1:22:41
SPEAKER_01: But do you think that aspect is what leads you to be so giving, or is that just fam was that something that was your mom taught you is that you're giving to others, you're giving to others.
1:22:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just came that way.
1:22:55
SPEAKER_00: I just like I think yeah, I've always connected with uh old people because I was raised by my grandparents, kind of.
1:23:04
SPEAKER_00: So I like I have an affinity for old people and like patience too.
1:23:09
SPEAKER_00: And then um the the the spirits, you know, the spirits.
1:23:13
SPEAKER_00: I like I like those spirits of all animals and stuff, you know, just just seeing them, you know, just the spirit world is so fascinating to me.
1:23:23
SPEAKER_00: Those spirits guide spirit guides, you know, that that tell me stuff and it's probably part of it.
1:23:29
SPEAKER_00: Well I just you know, while I I I feel I'm sad for spirits that are either stressed out or they're angry or they're sad or something like that, you know.
1:23:39
SPEAKER_00: I always believe that there's a spirit, you can work with a spirit more.
1:23:44
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the person I'm working for is not a physical entity.
1:23:49
SPEAKER_00: It's a spiritual being that's really vulnerable and like and also will not die.
1:23:55
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm I'm halfway more worried or more concerned about what the spirit will do after it leaves the body, you know?
1:24:03
SPEAKER_00: Like what kind of a you know, it's you don't get no relief.
1:24:07
SPEAKER_00: The spirit has to it doesn't get away from what it did here, right?
1:24:10
SPEAKER_00: It just it doesn't.
1:24:12
SPEAKER_00: And so you you just have to really care for the spirit and and and just what basically they all want is love.
1:24:20
SPEAKER_00: And so once you f you know a person wants love, wants to be listened to and just and somebody who doesn't judge, you know, you can like just judge just walk in their shoes is what you do when you help somebody which you know some caretakers don't do and they get and the c the people say they don't like the the person working for them.
1:24:43
SPEAKER_00: They just don't because they can't walk in their shoes.
1:24:48
SPEAKER_00: And you can only connect with the spirit if you walk in their shoes, you know.
1:24:53
SPEAKER_00: If you just be with them and just be one with them in their life.
1:24:57
SPEAKER_00: If you just dump your stuff on them, you know, you gotta do this and this and that, and you don't get anywhere, they'll never tell you the story of how Klaquon was founded or anything.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_00: They never do that.
1:25:10
SPEAKER_00: People never open up.
1:25:11
SPEAKER_00: But once you connect with a spirit of a person, then you're you're part of you're part of them, and then you can help them too.
1:25:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, the spirits help each other.
1:25:21
SPEAKER_00: It's like spirits that are here that we don't see, but they help you too.
1:25:25
SPEAKER_00: Or they guide you, you know.
1:25:28
SPEAKER_00: Because there's always spirits around us, you know.
1:25:32
SPEAKER_00: I like that um that that that movie uh Kusahaquan, you know, some of the some of the people were part of it, or the you know, that live here, or Kusahaquan is a cool, cool movie that talks about the spirits, you know.
1:25:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's kind of how it is.
1:25:51
SPEAKER_00: It's it's all about spirits.
1:25:54
SPEAKER_00: And and we try to, like in our world, we try to just go from like fixing motors to catching fish to outboards.
1:26:00
SPEAKER_00: And I know there's a physical realm here we have to deal with, right?
1:26:04
SPEAKER_00: If we do, it's inevitable.
1:26:06
SPEAKER_00: But every society had shamans to balance it out.
1:26:10
SPEAKER_00: They would tell you, like, hold on a second, there's something else that's more important.
1:26:15
SPEAKER_00: It's the spirits, we're all connected, we're all one.
1:26:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh and don't forget that.
1:26:21
SPEAKER_00: You you can't like that's because that's when you start not um respecting the river or the air or the is when you lose that connection to the spirit world.
1:26:32
SPEAKER_00: That's when you start polluting everything.
1:26:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, like you have to be careful, you tread lightly and make sure you have respect, otherwise that spirit world is upset and you can't escape it because you will always be spirit.
1:26:48
SPEAKER_00: You can never get away from it.
1:26:51
SPEAKER_00: And your death can't get you can't you can't get away from it.
1:26:56
SPEAKER_00: You you will always be connected to the spirit world, and you will and if you're haunted now, you will be haunted after your death, and then you'll be reborn again, and and it goes on.
1:27:07
SPEAKER_00: The spirit world is you have to give them love so that they yeah, and once that's why I just I I like this work, you know, it's just like I can just connect with the spirits of people.
1:27:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's it always it's always hard, you know, on a daily basis, you know, because it's like, oh the car's broken down and all that stuff.
1:27:28
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna but you know, in the moments you space out with somebody and the spacing out is like uh is connecting with the spirit realm.
1:27:37
SPEAKER_00: That's why they they they used used to board up the windows for the native people so they couldn't space out.
1:27:43
SPEAKER_00: They look out the windows and space out. 'Cause they have a natural way of connecting with the spirit world, you know.
1:27:49
SPEAKER_00: The spacing out is most important thing, you know.
1:27:54
SPEAKER_00: It's just this this nothingness, just your mind just drifting into the other world.
1:28:00
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like lifting out of your body, you know.
1:28:02
SPEAKER_00: And that the white man was always afraid of the spacing out.
1:28:09
SPEAKER_00: I used to do that a lot in Germany too.
1:28:11
SPEAKER_00: And my my my students in in university would always go, I can't stand it.
1:28:15
SPEAKER_00: You're spacing out all the time.
1:28:18
SPEAKER_00: It's like, what's your problem?
1:28:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know.
1:28:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's like, you know, it always has to be like, you know, you just gotta do like some you have to do something, you know, some you know.
1:28:31
SPEAKER_00: Spacing out is not allowed.
1:28:33
SPEAKER_00: That's not allowed, that's not productive, that doesn't bring you any money, that doesn't do nothing.
1:28:39
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, it does something you don't even understand.
1:28:48
SPEAKER_01: Your your mom kind of followed you to Alaska to some extent.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she did, yeah.
1:28:52
SPEAKER_00: She's that's like the worst places for her.
1:28:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, she she always hated the cold.
1:28:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
1:28:57
SPEAKER_00: So she's always been following me around for some reason, not my sister, but me.
1:29:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:29:02
SPEAKER_00: So you went, I went, I lived in Scotland, Ireland, a couple of years in Ireland.
1:29:06
SPEAKER_00: She followed me there.
1:29:07
SPEAKER_00: Then I went to Yukon, Pharaoh.
1:29:09
SPEAKER_00: She followed me to Yukon, lived in Whitehorse, and for me to Haynes.
1:29:13
SPEAKER_00: And to Haynes.
1:29:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:29:14
SPEAKER_00: It's like somebody who just hates the cold in the winters.
1:29:19
SPEAKER_01: She kind of Are you gonna do her a favor at some point?
1:29:23
SPEAKER_01: Go someplace warm.
1:29:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know my Nazi's following you everywhere you go.
1:29:29
SPEAKER_01: You keep going to all these cold places to get a good one.
1:29:32
SPEAKER_01: Come on, Mike, Mark.
1:29:34
SPEAKER_00: It's like I don't know.
1:29:36
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
1:29:37
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I I might go to some warm place, but you know, since I like Haynes so much as a community, they'll always uh it's always it seems like she's found a place here as well.
1:29:46
SPEAKER_00: She has the the cool part is like it's so small, you can just get a bus, you know, and the bus, the senior citizens' van drives her to all the places and and it works great.
1:29:57
SPEAKER_00: There's like the grocery store, there's the library, and there's the mountain market.
1:30:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:30:01
SPEAKER_00: And so between those three places, yeah, in a big city, it's anonymous and everything's far apart, and then you know, and then there's no grandkids, and so you know, it's it's kind of it's hard when somebody really wants to be somewhere else.
1:30:18
SPEAKER_00: Living you know being around somebody who wants to be somewhere else.
1:30:23
SPEAKER_00: Like I like being here immersing myself in all these activities and stuff.
1:30:28
SPEAKER_00: I just love it.
1:30:29
SPEAKER_00: I just want to smell all the flowers and plants and go fishing, subfishing, put my boat in the water, even though it doesn't bring in any money, it's just uh it's just quality of life and food, fish.
1:30:39
SPEAKER_01: It brings food and time out on the water here is a pretty blessed thing.
1:30:42
SPEAKER_01: And it's just absolutely there's people pay a lot of money to go on the water out here.
1:30:46
SPEAKER_00: Imagine being on a boat here.
1:30:47
SPEAKER_00: It's just like, you know, so I have a bunch of boats and outboards and stuff, all everything I have to fix all the time.
1:30:53
SPEAKER_00: And I spend a lot of time fixing everything like all the time.
1:30:56
SPEAKER_00: I get like I'm like George, I get a whole yard full of trucks and cars.
1:31:01
SPEAKER_01: But just came about, you know, that people either give George's spirit is following you, he's like he's hanging out with you.
1:31:06
SPEAKER_00: Every time I fix something, it's like George help me, okay.
1:31:09
SPEAKER_00: And he'll say, like, well, Michael, it doesn't work until you bleed.
1:31:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, then okay, I'm bleeding, it's working.
1:31:18
SPEAKER_00: Finally.
1:31:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's how it was, you know, and it's like following in the footsteps.
1:31:26
SPEAKER_00: It's great though.
1:31:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, like because of memory, yeah.
1:31:29
SPEAKER_00: And then my mother is like, you know, once in a while she goes to somewhere else, I guess to Germany.
1:31:34
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this year she'll go visit my sister or something like that, you know?
1:31:38
SPEAKER_00: See some warmer place.
1:31:39
SPEAKER_00: But I invited her, well, yeah.
1:31:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, yeah.
1:31:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, so maybe she should go to California, but then she has no relatives, and so it's like, what do you exchange of warmth for loneliness?
1:31:53
SPEAKER_00: Or loneliness is like the worst.
1:31:57
SPEAKER_00: Loneliness is like no good.
1:31:59
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
1:31:59
SPEAKER_00: It's just like it's just so many old people that are lonely.
1:32:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's like the worst.
1:32:05
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's fun to hang out with them and just sh shh just talk to them all like as much as you can.
1:32:11
SPEAKER_00: Because we'll all be like that eventually.
1:32:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we will.
1:32:15
SPEAKER_01: It's inevitable.
1:32:16
SPEAKER_00: We won't get away from that, you know.
1:32:17
SPEAKER_00: No, some people are some people think they will, but we all and all we do is we love looking back at memories and wish we had done more, right?
1:32:26
SPEAKER_00: Like so, like I wish we had I'd been brave enough to do this or that.
1:32:30
SPEAKER_00: I should have done this, man, I should have just hooked up with this person and I I should have played more soccer with my kid.
1:32:38
SPEAKER_00: Or something like that, you know.
1:32:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like the interaction, like, you know, with people that makes it all worthwhile.
1:32:47
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's interesting to hear that from you because you seem from what I know about you, it seems like you'd you've spent more time with family than a lot of people would.
1:32:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:33:00
SPEAKER_01: But there's still that nagging, I wish I'd spent more.
1:33:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
1:33:05
SPEAKER_00: There was a stressful time for sure when you know when my my Sayal was growing up.
1:33:12
SPEAKER_00: I didn't see him that much because I was working for Cornerstone a lot and uh home health care, and they don't it doesn't pay very much, but it's a lot of time invested.
1:33:21
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I'd go to Kluckwon and the people from Klukon would come down.
1:33:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
1:33:26
SPEAKER_00: Like Mark George and Margaret Stevens, and I'd have to wait by the river to fish for them, and then I could start working.
1:33:31
SPEAKER_00: So I'd spend like so many hours.
1:33:34
SPEAKER_00: And I I love my friend Chun Williamson.
1:33:37
SPEAKER_00: She was up there.
1:33:38
SPEAKER_00: I worked for her too.
1:33:39
SPEAKER_00: But then I love to hang out with her.
1:33:41
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
1:33:41
SPEAKER_00: I just like to hang out with her and just visit, and and so much I spent so much time away from my home, you know, like just visiting, hanging out extra time and but George would understand.
1:33:52
SPEAKER_01: So that connec that connection, the thing that made you so good with your clients and the people you're caring for is taking is also taking you away from the connection with your family.
1:34:03
SPEAKER_00: That too, yeah.
1:34:04
SPEAKER_00: Miss missed out a lot on but then you know, since Shalomar, my wife, she she homeschooled, Sahel.
1:34:11
SPEAKER_00: She got to spend all the time, you know, because a lot of families they they don't do that.
1:34:16
SPEAKER_00: There's both of them working.
1:34:17
SPEAKER_00: Both of them were working, yeah.
1:34:18
SPEAKER_00: And we had it like figured out that I just have to work.
1:34:21
SPEAKER_00: And she can just be with the kids.
1:34:23
SPEAKER_00: And that is just perfect for the kids.
1:34:25
SPEAKER_00: They just want like they want family, they don't want some stranger to raise them, you know.
1:34:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's just like and she loved being a mother, right?
1:34:34
SPEAKER_00: And loved being pregnant and being a mother, and it's just I think they got the best out of it, you know.
1:34:40
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I was a little bit like too gone too far, and like like always just always working, and I didn't make much money though, but I worked a lot.
1:34:49
SPEAKER_00: But it's like I was always gone, and then they go home and fix and build and this and that, and I'm like, oh but then they have this other part, this is it's the mother, and she's like fully there for the kids, like fully, and that's it.
1:35:05
SPEAKER_00: That's all that's all that matters, you know.
1:35:07
SPEAKER_00: Being fully with your kid and being present when they're growing up.
1:35:11
SPEAKER_00: The the first years are very forming, just love, you know, give your kids love and stuff, and just don't give them to somebody else.
1:35:18
SPEAKER_00: Don't try not to put them in daycare, you know, that kind of stuff.
1:35:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people they want their career, and this it's our world is like that.
1:35:27
SPEAKER_00: They just want to follow their own.
1:35:30
SPEAKER_00: But the important thing is to think of the spirit of the kid growing up, because that spirit will last forever, outlive you, and continue on.
1:35:38
SPEAKER_00: And so if you want to have a career, be it the kid that you're that you're investing your time in.
1:35:45
SPEAKER_00: Because you give birth to them, you know, you just raise them, don't give them to the daycare, you know.
1:35:52
SPEAKER_00: Just have less money and just like just be there, fully there with your kid, you know.
1:35:58
SPEAKER_00: That's like that's the lucky part, you know.
1:36:02
SPEAKER_00: That's how I was lucky meeting Shalomar.
1:36:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
1:36:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, because my wife, she's she just loves being a mother.
1:36:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fully there, like, fully there.
1:36:14
SPEAKER_00: Not just somewhere else, on your own, like career, right?
1:36:17
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
1:36:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's I lucked out in so many ways here, you know.
1:36:22
SPEAKER_00: It's just a lucky it's like sh it's like Lindia said, my native friend, you know, my shaman friend from Whitehorse, he's like, Goodbye, you will have a great time here.
1:36:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like yeah.
1:36:36
SPEAKER_00: She called it, yeah.
1:36:37
SPEAKER_00: She knew it.
1:36:37
SPEAKER_00: She totally knew it.
1:36:38
SPEAKER_00: She knew what was happening.
1:36:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah.
1:36:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:36:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, people who can read the spirit real spirit world, they know.
1:36:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
1:36:47
SPEAKER_01: So what what's what's next on the agenda?
1:36:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh let's see.
1:36:51
SPEAKER_01: Next.
1:36:51
SPEAKER_00: What do you what do you can uh this moose hunting moose hunting in the hall?
1:36:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:36:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know, just building, you know.
1:36:58
SPEAKER_00: Just keep doing the same thing, just cleaning up and building, yeah.
1:37:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:37:02
SPEAKER_00: I still got lots to clean, you know.
1:37:04
SPEAKER_00: I just have to grow regrow trees, and Shalmer does that.
1:37:08
SPEAKER_00: And regrow more trees and make it look pretty, could bring the energy back to the land and and stuff, and then raise the building with uh community house with uh Sael when he comes back here.
1:37:22
SPEAKER_01: Where's Sael now?
1:37:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh he was working with Tim Shields in the desert tortoise by the room.
1:37:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and the tortoise.
1:37:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool.
1:37:28
SPEAKER_00: He'll be back, you know, and together we can raise the walls and make that put that frame back up.
1:37:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like a puzzle, you know.
1:37:37
SPEAKER_00: And then put the stove in it, and and then I can build on my other house, the the one I want to live in, and then the one we're in right now, it'd be perfect for Yahwa, my youngest.
1:37:49
SPEAKER_00: That he it would be a cool place for him.
1:37:51
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know, it's just we'll have three houses in a row, right?
1:37:54
SPEAKER_00: So that'll be a long time.
1:37:57
SPEAKER_00: You got a lot of work.
1:37:58
SPEAKER_00: That would take a long time for us.
1:38:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not something that happens very fast.
1:38:04
SPEAKER_00: But then again, I love being here, so you just you know, I just keep doing the same thing I'm I'm doing, you know, hanging out with people and uh fishing and hunting and uh you know some more of that and playing trying to play soccer.
1:38:19
SPEAKER_00: Still love soccer.
1:38:20
SPEAKER_00: Yep, we have a sop soccer game planned for tonight.
1:38:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:38:23
SPEAKER_01: Did I take you away from soccer tonight?
1:38:25
SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's good.
1:38:26
SPEAKER_00: My son he's got his shoes, and it's just for my son, really.
1:38:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh, for Yowa.
1:38:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
1:38:29
SPEAKER_00: Because he plays with the Juno team.
1:38:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:38:32
SPEAKER_00: He signed up and he plays but for State, you know, and and Fairbanks with Juno team.
1:38:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:38:38
SPEAKER_00: So I want him to have a challenge.
1:38:41
SPEAKER_00: I want people there, you know.
1:38:42
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm missing, it doesn't matter because he enjoys soccer.
1:38:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he loves, yeah.
1:38:49
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I always try to set something up.
1:38:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
1:38:52
SPEAKER_00: Soccer is not so big in Haynes, right?
1:38:54
SPEAKER_00: So I all the things I was good at are not not happening.
1:38:58
SPEAKER_00: I can't teach tennis here and I can't like play soccer anymore.
1:39:04
SPEAKER_00: I should have learned, you know.
1:39:05
SPEAKER_01: I I would I would say that I would say the thing you're really good at is connecting with people in their time of need.
1:39:12
SPEAKER_00: That's the fun thing for me.
1:39:14
SPEAKER_01: So I I love that.
1:39:15
SPEAKER_01: I've you that carries anywhere.
1:39:17
SPEAKER_00: I love that part.
1:39:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:39:19
SPEAKER_01: And so I've I I appreciate you sacrificing soccer and tennis to provide the the loving care that you do to so many of our residents over the years.
1:39:29
SPEAKER_00: That's the fun part.
1:39:29
SPEAKER_00: I love that part.
1:39:30
SPEAKER_01: I think that's gonna have a more lasting impression than uh yeah.
1:39:34
SPEAKER_01: But it is nice to have those outlets and to get over out on the field and play some soccer.
1:39:38
SPEAKER_00: Just do some soccer, yeah.
1:39:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah.
1:39:41
SPEAKER_01: So what what have we left what have we left out?
1:39:43
SPEAKER_01: This has been a this has been I knew it was gonna be a fascinating conversation, but it's but it's been it's exceeded my expectations already.
1:39:51
SPEAKER_01: But is there any is there anything big that we've left out on this on your journey to where we are today?
1:39:57
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
1:39:59
SPEAKER_00: This is biggest, you know.
1:40:05
SPEAKER_00: No, I I I think you know, there's so many, there's a bunch of little things, like a lot of stories with people that I have, you know, but there are a lot of stories, but many, many.
1:40:16
SPEAKER_00: But you know, you got George, George's story a little bit, and and stuff, and my story's not that you know that big, you know, everybody's got but it's just it's that it's like you know hang on a second, because everybody I've had on here is like, oh my story is really not that good.
1:40:34
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, but everybody that's because you've lived it.
1:40:37
SPEAKER_01: Right, it's the same thing.
1:40:38
SPEAKER_01: You've lived the story, so it's like, well, the story's the same as everybody else's story.
1:40:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've at least got a story, yeah.
1:40:43
SPEAKER_01: But everybody's more interested in other people's stories than our own.
1:40:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so you're the only person that thinks your story isn't that impressive.
1:40:52
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else is gonna think, dang, that guy's that guy's led a really, really cool life.
1:40:58
SPEAKER_01: I want to know more about him.
1:41:00
SPEAKER_00: It's it it's funny.
1:41:01
SPEAKER_00: I think of like yeah, like other people, you know.
1:41:03
SPEAKER_00: I want to I like especially like your life, you know.
1:41:06
SPEAKER_00: I I I haven't touched on it yet, you know.
1:41:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:41:08
SPEAKER_00: At some point I I will.
1:41:10
SPEAKER_00: I just met another person today that I've for years wanted to touch on their lives and and just start it, you know, just just now, like after 25 years, you know, finally I connected, you know.
1:41:22
SPEAKER_00: That's good, that's it's gonna happen.
1:41:24
SPEAKER_01: And and I've noticed with you, I've known you since I've known of you at least since you pretty much came to town and seen you around.
1:41:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think our relationship has grown over the years.
1:41:36
SPEAKER_01: I've gotten to know you more.
1:41:37
SPEAKER_01: We we talk more at the store, depending on different people you're in here with, the clients you're helping and stuff.
1:41:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, we've gotten to know each other much better over the last several years than we did before.
1:41:47
SPEAKER_01: And it and I consider I'm hoping that continues to evolve.
1:41:52
SPEAKER_01: And we learn more about each other.
1:41:54
SPEAKER_01: I think that's one of the cool things of being in retail.
1:41:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, is those relationships usually do grow over time and you and you understand people better.
1:42:02
SPEAKER_01: And that it's it's a blessing to be able to be in a into a business or a profession that allows you to do that.
1:42:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to have those those relationships that grow continually.
1:42:13
SPEAKER_00: So thankful for you to bring out these, you know, these people's stories, you know.
1:42:17
SPEAKER_00: That you know, that's that's that's a treasure.
1:42:19
SPEAKER_00: What you're doing is like a providing a big service, you know.
1:42:22
SPEAKER_00: I get to I get to hear other people's stories and everybody does each other's, right?
1:42:27
SPEAKER_01: And we can't it was actually the um I think the impetus with it is more of a it was a trauma-based thing because you you don't know what somebody else is going through.
1:42:42
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
1:42:43
SPEAKER_01: We we all have battles that we don't understand.
1:42:46
SPEAKER_01: Yep, we knowing somebody's backstory helps us understand where they're at now much better than if we don't know the backstory.
1:42:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:42:55
SPEAKER_01: And I thought it'd be really cool to know more people's backstories.
1:42:59
SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
1:43:00
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, then I thought it's like, well, heck, why don't we why don't we do this in a way that we share this with other people too?
1:43:07
SPEAKER_01: That if they're not interested, okay, don't listen.
1:43:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:43:10
SPEAKER_00: You can always turn it off.
1:43:12
SPEAKER_00: You can always turn it off.
1:43:13
SPEAKER_01: If it goes too long, oh well, maybe you're gonna miss the next part.
1:43:16
SPEAKER_01: It's really, really cool.
1:43:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you never know.
1:43:18
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
1:43:19
SPEAKER_01: But I I've I've really enjoyed getting to know people at a much deeper level through these conversations.
1:43:27
SPEAKER_00: So cool.
1:43:27
SPEAKER_00: You doing that it's like wow.
1:43:29
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm really glad that you agreed to join me on here.
1:43:32
SPEAKER_00: That is so cool, you know.
1:43:33
SPEAKER_01: Because you're you're one that I kept you're you're on my list, and I'd have people like, you should have Michael George.
1:43:38
SPEAKER_01: Another week, you should have you should have Michael George.
1:43:41
SPEAKER_01: You should have Michael George, and I was like, Well, I have him on the list.
1:43:44
SPEAKER_01: It's like apparently I need to move him up the list and have to talk to Michael George.
1:43:49
SPEAKER_00: That's funny, yeah.
1:43:50
SPEAKER_01: So you got a lot of fans and names, Michael.
1:43:52
SPEAKER_00: You got a lot of people that could have like more fans than enemies, you know.
1:43:55
SPEAKER_00: That is true.
1:43:56
SPEAKER_00: That is true.
1:43:57
SPEAKER_00: I just like it's really fun, you know, it's a fun place to live.
1:44:00
SPEAKER_01: And you you might still have enemies, but I never had anybody said do not have Michael George on the show.
1:44:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:44:06
SPEAKER_01: It was all positive.
1:44:07
SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
1:44:08
SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
1:44:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was like, no, we don't we don't need enemies, we just need friends, you know.
1:44:14
SPEAKER_00: Like we need to be able to walk in each other's shoes and stuff, you know.
1:44:17
SPEAKER_00: Understand everybody.
1:44:18
SPEAKER_01: And I think what you're talking about was understanding the spirit, and yeah, that's it.
1:44:22
SPEAKER_01: That if if you I think it's kind of the same thing that if you understand where a person's been, yeah, that is kind of understanding their spirit and and that aspect of it.
1:44:32
SPEAKER_01: And if if we can understand that better, be more cognizant of that, then I think you hopefully some of those enemies become more friends when you have more understanding.
1:44:45
SPEAKER_00: The spirit, right, exactly.
1:44:46
SPEAKER_00: It's it's like you know, you have empathy for the spirit, you know, because that spirit will stay and and you want the spirit to heal.
1:44:54
SPEAKER_00: So in the future, so so the anger comes from like not caring about the actually is a not caring thing.
1:45:02
SPEAKER_00: Is being angry at somebody is is more like a selfish thing, you know.
1:45:05
SPEAKER_00: It's like you're angry, but you don't understand that that spirit is suffering.
1:45:08
SPEAKER_00: What that spirit went through, what kind of abuse, you have no idea, but you wanted to heal.
1:45:14
SPEAKER_00: Because that spirit will not go away, even if he's dead, the spirit will will continue on.
1:45:19
SPEAKER_00: You wanted to help it now.
1:45:20
SPEAKER_00: So you're just like if you can if you can't if you can.
1:45:24
SPEAKER_01: How do we help heal a spirit?
1:45:27
SPEAKER_00: It is by just I think it's just by the presence you spend with them.
1:45:31
SPEAKER_00: The time you the time you spend listening to somebody else like you do, you have that gift.
1:45:37
SPEAKER_00: Um listening to people that that alone helps.
1:45:41
SPEAKER_00: When people have and express themselves, their spirit heals because they can talk about their, you know, stuff comes out that doesn't otherwise, you know, and they end up sitting on a bench and just wondering whether they should take my life or not, you know.
1:45:55
SPEAKER_00: It's like if somebody listens to them, actually listens, that's the biggest gift you can give to somebody.
1:46:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, listening, putting yourself in somebody's shoes and listening, just like you do.
1:46:06
SPEAKER_01: How many times have I I it's hit me over the years that you you hear, or at least I've heard, first-person accounts of people that were going to take their life, yeah, and they had somebody said hi to them on the street.
1:46:26
SPEAKER_01: Somebody smiled at them.
1:46:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that was there was it was this click.
1:46:31
SPEAKER_01: It was this click that's like, okay, wait a second, maybe I need to and so how how do you do that?
1:46:39
SPEAKER_01: Because you're always it's I've always seen you with a smile on your face.
1:46:43
SPEAKER_01: Whenever, whenever you greet people, you open up with that smile that you just had.
1:46:48
SPEAKER_01: It's just that yeah, that how how how do we help people?
1:46:52
SPEAKER_01: Because I I think the ones that don't greet people with the smile or don't lead that, there's trauma in their background.
1:47:00
SPEAKER_01: There's been things that have happened, and so trying to figure out how do we break through that barrier, because like when I was talking to Cesare and she was talking about a lot of trauma generational, it'll carry for seven generations.
1:47:14
SPEAKER_01: That it's it's not even some trauma that might have happened to you, but your grandfather, your great grand, great-great grandfather, or grandmother or whatever, that trauma that until it's dealt with, and I think this is what you're talking about too, is healing the spirit.
1:47:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it.
1:47:29
SPEAKER_01: Is figuring out ways that we can help the people that aren't going to try to help themselves that don't understand that.
1:47:37
SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, that that's that's the big challenge.
1:47:41
SPEAKER_00: That is it, it takes it takes people that would take their time.
1:47:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping more conversations like this help people with that.
1:47:47
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
1:47:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I I know the work you're doing helps with that because even if it's at that even if it's at the end of life stage, yeah, that they're having that love and companionship at the end, and maybe that's a healing part for them before their spirit goes to the next stage.
1:48:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:48:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that that's it.
1:48:09
SPEAKER_00: That's when we um hospice is great, you know.
1:48:12
SPEAKER_00: People in hospice.
1:48:13
SPEAKER_01: We just talked to Shannon.
1:48:14
SPEAKER_01: We just they just had it, we had a great volunteer.
1:48:16
SPEAKER_01: We had a great conversation with Shannon about what the the great work that hospice is.
1:48:20
SPEAKER_01: Hospice is amazing, right?
1:48:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're a volunteer with hospice.
1:48:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:48:26
SPEAKER_00: You just hang out with a person and just listen to them.
1:48:29
SPEAKER_00: That's like that's what a lot of people want, is somebody to hang out with.
1:48:33
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who doesn't judge them, somebody who doesn't like push their agenda on them.
1:48:39
SPEAKER_00: Just somebody who just like I have a lot of clients that just love hanging out.
1:48:45
SPEAKER_00: And I just walk in their shoes.
1:48:48
SPEAKER_00: They live in a different reality, you know, which you know what people I'm talking about.
1:48:52
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
1:48:53
SPEAKER_00: But that makes them happy, makes their spirit happy and stuff.
1:48:56
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, what you do is is is perfect.
1:48:58
SPEAKER_00: Hospice is great, just hanging out with people.
1:49:00
SPEAKER_00: Or when just when you're in your even in the grocery store, sometimes, you know, you just like take your take a minute, and sometimes it ends up being ten minutes just talking to somebody, you know, about like all kinds of things and I wish that was more like a get together.
1:49:13
SPEAKER_00: You m remember George Mark?
1:49:15
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:49:16
SPEAKER_00: He used to have a a circle where people would get together at the Aimby Hall and they talk about a person in the community that they noticed that was having trouble maybe, and they sit together and discuss that person.
1:49:31
SPEAKER_00: Right?
1:49:31
SPEAKER_00: They just like discuss what what can be done to help this person.
1:49:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's like a it's like an old time thing.
1:49:38
SPEAKER_00: It's like a council or something.
1:49:40
SPEAKER_00: I love that idea.
1:49:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:49:41
SPEAKER_00: And we I did I participated once, I think, or twice when he was still alive.
1:49:47
SPEAKER_00: And we sat at and we all talked about somebody and what we could do to help that person, maybe.
1:49:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, or what we noticed, 'cause a lot of actions go noticed, but nobody gets together to talk about them.
1:50:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:50:00
SPEAKER_01: Well we we we talk about them and judge them.
1:50:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we judge them, yeah.
1:50:04
SPEAKER_01: But we don't most people don't talk about them in a way that how can we how can we help that person?
1:50:10
SPEAKER_01: And I sometimes there is and I'm I'm guilty of that as well.
1:50:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's a human thing that we do.
1:50:15
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
1:50:15
SPEAKER_00: Judgment comes really fast.
1:50:17
SPEAKER_00: To me too.
1:50:18
SPEAKER_00: Judge fast.
1:50:20
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the important thing is that you know that the important thing is knowing that you judge.
1:50:27
SPEAKER_00: And once you know you judge, you you're already halfway there of undoing it and stuff, and so your case is you interview people, right?
1:50:37
SPEAKER_00: And you hang out with them and you talk to them.
1:50:40
SPEAKER_00: So you that's about all you can do and talk to a third person.
1:50:47
SPEAKER_00: Talk about that person with somebody else and and trying to keep them in their home, trying to have home care providers.
1:50:56
SPEAKER_00: Like it's so hard to find them, you know, because they pay such little.
1:51:00
SPEAKER_00: It's like it'd be paid more, but then you don't want just everybody to do it either, just for the money, because then have the wrong people in there, I guess.
1:51:10
SPEAKER_00: But it's you know, it would be it's a it's a catch-22, but it just it it look looking at it from the outside, not understanding the dynamics behind it.
1:51:24
SPEAKER_01: But I I you look at somebody that you go to see a doctor and it's X amount for 15 minutes for them to tell you something, yeah.
1:51:34
SPEAKER_01: But somebody that's there for hours at a time, providing that closer nurture.
1:51:43
SPEAKER_01: Now, some doctors probably gonna get mad at me for saying this or whatever.
1:51:46
SPEAKER_01: I I don't I don't really care, but you've got somebody that's there either in that end-of-life situation that's giving them that comfort at the end, or people that need somebody to help them throughout the day, even when they're younger, you know, the right hand for George, and being there to let them be able to do things on their own, live their life with the circumstances that they've been given.
1:52:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:52:12
SPEAKER_01: How is that not equal as it's I I would place a higher value on it than the wage scale currently dictates?
1:52:21
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
1:52:22
SPEAKER_00: I I think that's why that's kind of why I did it.
1:52:24
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to I didn't want to be a nurse because then I just can't spend so much time with people.
1:52:30
SPEAKER_00: I definitely didn't want to be a doctor because then I don't get you know, then it's even less.
1:52:36
SPEAKER_00: But I thought the nurses aid and the home health care aid spends a lot of time with showers and bed and just reading stories, listening to stories.
1:52:46
SPEAKER_00: I thought that's perfect time.
1:52:47
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of people.
1:52:50
SPEAKER_00: Then I have my have a lot of respect for doctors who can put people together after an accident.
1:52:55
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:52:55
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:52:56
SPEAKER_00: And they you know they just I couldn't do that because I'll probably pass out or something, or scrape them up off the road after a car accident, you know.
1:53:04
SPEAKER_00: I can't do that.
1:53:05
SPEAKER_01: I I look at our f our the first responders, the firemen and the EMTs and stuff.
1:53:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:53:10
SPEAKER_01: And police I they all have their I'm so impressed about their ability to to keep answering the call.
1:53:16
SPEAKER_00: I think they all have their place.
1:53:18
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has their strength, and some people have their strength is just fixing people like almost mechanically and you know, and other people have the ability to put themselves in the shoes of others and be with them.
1:53:31
SPEAKER_00: Even if if some of them are crazy talk or whatever, suicidal or angry or whatever.
1:53:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everybody has their has their strength.
1:53:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:53:43
SPEAKER_00: And then I guess money doesn't really matter that much.
1:53:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, just like it's just all it just doesn't make you happy, really.
1:53:51
SPEAKER_00: It allows you to have a boat, maybe or a new car or something like that.
1:53:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
1:53:57
SPEAKER_00: It really doesn't really, you know, an engine you don't have to work on nearly as much.
1:54:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:54:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's just like in the end, it's just let me ask you this.
1:54:09
SPEAKER_01: With the boat and motors that you have, yeah, have you ever not caught enough fish for your family?
1:54:16
SPEAKER_00: Man, it's so easy in this place.
1:54:18
SPEAKER_00: You're so that's so easy.
1:54:21
SPEAKER_01: I think that just gets to your your point that you're making.
1:54:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like with the money, you're able to still get out and provide f fish and everything for your family with the with the equipment that you're able to afford.
1:54:34
SPEAKER_00: Totally, like a uh like a 150-foot gill net with a canoe, with kneeling on on the on the floor of the canoe so not to tip over.
1:54:44
SPEAKER_00: I did that, caught more fish than the the motorboats around me had.
1:54:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, that was it was doing was a lot of work.
1:54:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:54:52
SPEAKER_00: And then just taking your bicycle with your river net up to four mile, putting it in there, catch all the fish you want.
1:55:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't even need a car, you just need a bicycle and some old gild net that you can mend or something like that, you know, to catch enough fish here.
1:55:09
SPEAKER_00: It's just so easy.
1:55:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is you don't need any money that much, you know.
1:55:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just like it's so easy here to live, really.
1:55:17
SPEAKER_01: Because you you look at the what a lot of people will pay for that salmon.
1:55:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:55:22
SPEAKER_01: And all it takes is a little effort.
1:55:23
SPEAKER_00: It's just a little effort, yeah.
1:55:25
SPEAKER_00: It's just like, or my son Sael, he's just a fishing.
1:55:29
SPEAKER_00: One after the next, you know.
1:55:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm standing in the river and like But you can just stay at home and just let Sael bring the fish to you now.
1:55:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean after ten minutes, he's like, I'm going up fishing, and after he comes back down the highway and it's like, what?
1:55:42
SPEAKER_00: I caught my limit, he said, after ten minutes.
1:55:46
SPEAKER_00: It's like you gotta be kidding me, man.
1:55:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm just filling he's like just filling up other people's freezers.
1:55:52
SPEAKER_01: His spirit is part fish.
1:55:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's definitely he sees them, you're like, Yeah, he's completely he he is he's fish for sure.
1:55:59
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:56:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't even see the fish that he sees, you know.
1:56:02
SPEAKER_00: He's like, there's a fish in there, sure.
1:56:04
SPEAKER_00: And he catches it right away.
1:56:05
SPEAKER_00: It's like wow, yeah, it's amazing.
1:56:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's cool.
1:56:14
SPEAKER_01: Anything else?
1:56:16
SPEAKER_00: No, that's it.
1:56:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, that's it.
1:56:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:56:19
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:56:20
SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
1:56:20
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for thank you for joining us for interviewing.
1:56:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome.
1:56:24
SPEAKER_01: I think people are gonna be fascinated with this conversation.
1:56:27
SPEAKER_01: I know I was.
1:56:28
SPEAKER_01: I I enjoyed it immensely, Michael.
1:56:30
SPEAKER_01: That's cool, yeah.
1:56:31
SPEAKER_00: It's just I thank thank you for I always enjoy your presence.
1:56:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've always I always enjoyed it, so it's it's cool you're doing that.
1:56:37
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
1:56:39
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:56:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, love it.
1:56:41
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Doug, yeah, for doing all this.
1:56:43
SPEAKER_00: For the community, for me, for being such a good friend and all that stuff, you know.
1:56:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:56:48
SPEAKER_01: I I I appreciate everything you've done for the community and I appreciate your friendship as well.
1:56:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
1:56:54
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
1:56:55
SPEAKER_01: Need more people like you move into town.
1:56:56
SPEAKER_00: Yep, I love your parents and it's great it's great.
1:56:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:57:00
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Doug.
1:57:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:57:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.