January 11, 2026 • 55 mins
From growing up without modern technology to teaching English, raising children, exploring archaeology, flying planes, riding motorcycles, and living alone on the land she loves for over three decades, my 87-year-old Grandma Bernie reflects on the choices that shaped her life and the lessons she’s still learning.
I sit down with her on the Kansas farm she’s called home for decades. What unfolds is an honest, curious, and adventurous conversation about independence, love, regret, science, nature, and what it really means to live a full life. This episode is all about resilience, questioning what we think we know and some of the most powerful advice you may hear today "don't hate. grab life and go!"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Personally the old man.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I can't believe I made this episode happen. My eighty
seven year old Grandma Bernie is joining the episode this week.
She is such a spitfire in somebody that I spent
so much time with growing up. And she's also somebody
that I look up to. She has wisdom and knowledge
and so many stories to share. I cannot wait for
you guys to hear this entire episode, So I'm not
gonna talk anymore. Let's just get into it. I'm excited
(00:42):
because my Grandma Bernie is joining me for this week's episode. Grandma,
how you feeling?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I'm just a little nervous.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, but you're an expert in all these things. You're,
once upon a time a teacher.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And that makes you used to admire your phone?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Now may she used to talking in front of people.
You taught things all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I do. I talk a lot, and you're.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
A good talker.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm I talk plenty. Yes, I don't know. There may
be some good in it. Sometimes just jabbering, I think.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And your credentials here are going to be your age.
Can you share with everybody how old you are? I'm
eighty seven, you're eighty seven, and my Grandma Barney has
lived out here on this farm that we're at for
how long?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, right close to forty years now.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And you've been out here by yourself for how long?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Thirty three? Maybe like that a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And you're really a very big expert at the independent world.
You have been independent for as long as I can remember.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I've always thought of myself as independent. However, I have
never lived totally lived by myself before, especially not long
term like this, And it was hard at first. Yeah,
so I used to having somebody around you do just
(02:08):
for me here, for you to that and to share that. Anyway,
I am glad. One of the things I'm really glad
about it's learning that I can be by myself. And
I like being by myself. I think it's a scept
in my head. I just hadn't done before.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Before this period of your life, you had lived at home,
I would imagine as a kid. Oh yeah, and then befo,
when you left home, were you married immediately?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Pretty soon? Graduated in June fifty six, nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Six, from high school.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
From high school, and then I was we were married
with my first husband in September of that year.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Wow, it was different back then, right.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
We're expected to be because the housewife, and because it
was expected and done so much, you just really didn't
question it very much. It is just a way alive.
But I thought about Gordon College. I was in love,
so let's get married.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And that you said that was your first marriage? How
long were you married to him? For?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Twelve years?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay? And is that where my mom and my aunt
came from? Yes, so there was that picture. And then
you did end up teaching at some point, so where
was that?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And the star was in my next marriage? Okay?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Later on? Did you end up going back to college
after you guys got divorced?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I worked at a was an insurance mortgage company in Newton, Kansas,
which was about, I don't know, twenty five thirty miles
from Peabody, which is where I actually I lived in
Marion at that time. I moved there after my first
husband and I divorced, and because my parents lived there
(04:03):
and I had two girls.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Being back around the community. And I remember great Grandma
firm Oh, yes, which was your mom.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yes, this is true.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And she was a wild spit like she got everything.
I remember. Ever, she would dangle because she always wears
bangles up into her elbows. And she had birds. She
had birds. There were a lot of birds.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
What do you call the time she had, wasn't it?
They weren't parent keets.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Were they parents? No? I thought they talked. I remember
one of them talking.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
They can't parent keyt parent keets. I don't remember. Yeah,
she had a lot of them, had two, okay, and
they created a lot. Maybe that's what I remember.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I was never fond of birds because of that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Really, because you grew up around them, did you have
them like when you were a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No, it was just when she lived. She and my
dad lived there. My dad was still a live at
that time, and I don't think he liked.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
She really ruined the birds for everybody.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Anyway. She had a green thumb. She could put a
stick in water and it would grow into something pretty.
She just was very good at it and just came
natural to her. I never inherited that.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I didn't either, you guys, that did not get passed
down to the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I wish I don't have any plants I've killed.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Same. My now fiance brought all of his plants when
he moved in and I have killed all but one.
I'm not good at that.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Never lived there in Marion before. Okay, we moved in
like grade school, maybe fifth grade, fifth or sixth grade.
We moved from first and that's where I grew up,
and we moved to the farm. While we were there,
we lived on the farm, but anyway, we moved from
(06:07):
there to Peabody on another farm, and there were I
was the oldest. I had a brother about a year
a little more than a year older or younger than
I am. I am the oldest chep younger than I am,
and that I had about My dad went to the
(06:31):
service when I was probably in kindergarten, and he was drafted.
Never war going on, and so he was. He went
in the navy, and during that time, my mom and
my brother and I moved back to my mother's mother
(06:54):
and lives in Atwood, Kansas, which is clear across the
state company.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, you've lived were wearing Kansas, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I have even after even when Dad got back, and
he had a lot of different jobs and we moved
around a lot, and bostly they were on farms. He
had been injured in the war, his back. He had
been on a ship and it got bombed ever by Okinawa.
(07:26):
He was thrown up in the air several feet I
don't know how many, and landed back there his back.
So yeah, he had back injuries and problems most of
his life after that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
But anyway, Wow, we he was in He served in
World War two? Is that correct? Wow? Was it? What
was that like for you to remember being a kid
when your dad was gone?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Just that he was gone. It was about all it
really meant to me at that time. I remember taking
pictures of him and his sailor outfit, and mom dressed up,
and my brother and I dressed up, and I remember
looking at that just to see one dad still look like.
(08:17):
I really don't remember thinking about it that much. I
probably did at the time, but I don't remember. And
I was really into going to kindergarten.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You're young, really young.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, And I loved school, of course, it was something
to do. I don't know, playing with your brother is
not the most cool thing.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Not as fun then?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Was that?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
For where your love of what you think like teaching
came from? No?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
No, no, Actually that came from the fact that I
majored in English, and what else do you do with a.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
An English degree. You did always correct my English, so
there was that loved English.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I remember that my eighth grade English teacher was the
most influential, and I loved her because you taught us
all these neat things, these phrases, themes for everything, and
how it all went together. And I never got over that.
I always just really loved English, and that turned into literature.
(09:28):
I also took all literature classes, so we did a
lot of writing. And as you, of course you did.
You go to college. That's what you do, is you write.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So you had went to college after your first marriage,
you went back to school.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yes, I was my second marriage. Then we moved back
to Marion, and I can't remember if I don't think
we I don't think we moved. We didn't move until
we found house to rent because I didn't want to
live with my folks.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Isn't fair. I don't think anybody typically wants to it
at that point in their life.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And but I moved there because they were there too, so.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You needed the help, but you also needed space, all fair?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And yeah, I'm sure I was thinking to myself, not
of them. If I needed to, I would have moved
in with them and they would have let me. Anyway,
we rented this house. My future husband owned the house
and so he helped when we moved in. There were
(10:38):
some electrical stuff. I don't remember sure right now what
it was. I'd do with the ceiling light, I know
one of them, but anyway, I asked him if you
could fix that or have it fixed, and he did.
And of course I met him when I rented the property,
(10:59):
and so I saw him occasionally in town. I was
at the time working part time and at the same
place in Eldaredo. The kids stayed over my mom's dads.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So you were a mom, you were working, and you
were going to school all at the same time, is
all right.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They were going to school there at Miriam, but I
wasn't going to school yet.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You had her and it started going to college own, okay.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And I eventually quit working over at Eldaredo. There were
lots of reasons, but the drive was most of it.
And my new husband preferred that I would stay home.
You stay and not have to drive out of town.
So I did that. And we had friends that we
(11:54):
played cards with and mostly that or went places with
real close friends. In one time we were out on
a ponchoon boat out in the Lake Marion Lake. We
had brought stuff along to fix a little barbecue that
(12:14):
had a little party.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, it was fun and we swam there. I don't
know if I would do that again, because as you
get older, you get a little more careful. Yeah, I've
never been real careful.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Have you ever traveled? Was there ever traveling as part
of your life?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Besides Kansas, because I know you've lived in multiple counties in.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
The Kansas exactly. The only other place I've ever lived
is in Oklahoma. When my dad got out of the service,
he was injured and he would he had to go
down there for at a veterans hospital for his back,
and I do you remember just a I remember waiting
(12:56):
in some flood water out in front of where we lived.
We were only there for about less than a year.
I don't remember for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So Oklahoma is the only other place you've been lived lived?
Where all have you traveled to? Did you get a
travel about New Mexico? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And to Canada most all from about the middle of
Canada straight up, Okay, over the west coast.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
That's cool. Was Canada pretty?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Oh? Yeah, it's a very different kinds of mountains, never
like you could reach out and touch them instead of
ours are so big and they're far away, or at
least in Vancouver. Actually, I don't remember much of Vancouver
as a big house or big, big city on the
(13:47):
west coast of Canada. Yeah, but we went on to island.
What's it called? Victoria is the capital of.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about BC, British Columbia,
Is that right, Yeah, it's I don't know a lot
of my Canadian niography.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I'm not I can't remember off hand. I can't call
it what the name of the island is. But Victoria
is the capital of it and of the British Columbia
and has the beautiful harbor and beautiful lighting at night
and stuff, and you can ride ride horse and carriage stuff.
(14:27):
When we did all that.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You you've always read so many books. That's always been
a big part of who you are. You're a big
reader to read, so it was always cool when you
would read things and then you would go visit places
and it would come to life of what you read. Yes,
what was your coolest memory of that Where you'd read
something and then you got to experience it in.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Real life, probably because I've always liked archaeology too. I
like watching them, that's all. I don't have to experience
at it, but I just like what they're doing. But
they find and all of that, and so I've read
a lot of about it, watched it on TV. And
(15:07):
so when we went to Mexico, we went to some
old ruins that were close to little villages and you
still had a little villages stuff, and it brought that
really alive where you were walking around this room, we
crawl through part of it and come out somewhere else,
(15:30):
and they'd explained what this was supposed to have been
and we were actually doing that. That's so fun.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, when you're you've always been really big at that
on this property that you've lived in for so many years.
When I was a kid, we'd come out here and
we'd search for arrowheads.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh yeah, I had been doing that recently because they
keep falling down. And yes, it takes some time off
the heel.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, and we have to keep you safe, so you
falling is not part of that plan. But were you
still doing it for a while? Do you still find
them on the property? You still have the like a
major collection of all the ones we found, and they're
all different kinds.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
About twenty twenty to thirty. They call them boxes where
they have foam in them and you.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Put kind of like a shadow box.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, it may call that, but they're just tiny as
far as height, but they're about like a nine by
twelve or maybe a ten by twelve, so, and most
of them are in those kinds of boxes for protection
and stuff because they're easy to.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Break and they're so cool. They have so many different
designs in different textures.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They're like different tribes, different ages. You think about that
people left, these people that are handling something that's ten
thousand or twelve thousand years old, made by a person
who was here. Just the same way with astronomy. I
(17:08):
love things about astronomy and the black holes and the
stars and the planets and all the other weird stuff
that's in between it that they can't explain.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The things that will never probably understand in our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And it's hard for me to go outside at night.
And it's not hard for me to do that, but
it's hard not to think about how cuny I am
staying in this place at this time, and I don't
know whether there's anybody else out there. When there's an
(17:46):
somebody who invented us. But if there's somebody in an
alternative universe or a place beside me who is knows
what I'm doing, but I don't even know they exist.
There is nothing that's impossible because we don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, And that's the funnest part about it, right, is
it's getting to be somewhere where we don't have all
the answers.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, And so I think that's what what I like
about hierarchyology too, is just explaining some of the things
that we found and why it happened, especially like in
the Middle East, the pyramids and tombs and stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Did you hear about the story where they found a
whole structure underneath the pyramids, which one the Great Pyramids
and Giza that like the ones that all that's the
tourist spot that everybody goes and visits. Yes, there's like
a whole structure underneath of proof that people lived there,
like they created this whole community underneath these pyramids. And
(18:52):
you think about that, and it's wild that we've just
been visiting and nobody ever knew that this was actually
a place of history.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Years they have been there through I don't know how
many years, thousands, Yeah, and everybody just took it that
somebody lived here, that right up here by the pyramids
or something that was a special place. They don't really
know all about it yet, but.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
People were probably living in them too, And that will
never digs.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
They'll have digs of a site that there looked either unearthed,
a tomb or maybe a palace area, and then they
go below that, another age to go below that, and
that's older. Yeah, they just keep going.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah, it's fascinating. That was a big part of my
childhood and whenever we're coming out to visit, you was
you were so fascinated with the world and it shaped
a lot of who I became as a person. Very curious,
very inquisitive, and I always had questions. I wanted to
know things, and it was just true that was very
(20:08):
much who I was. And I do think a lot
of that was shaped from coming out here. And we'd
find arrowheads and I had so many questions about the
stories of the arrowhead, not that we knew them, but yeah,
and fossils, Yeah, we'd find a lot of fossils. It
was just a huge and I wasn't a huge history
person per se. Like in school, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Really care for history, but I am now.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, it's fun to learn the things that you want
to learn about versus the things you were forced to
learn about.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, and I'm real curious about the things that were
written in our old history books. Back in my age,
we didn't have or we not in where I lived
in Peabody kidsas you didn't have dope. Yeah you didn't.
Every single person and his best friend had a ultra
(20:56):
modern rich car to drive round. We all piled into
whoever could get your folks car that night. Yeah, none
of us smoked for real, but we sure smoked up
the inside of those cars we got them. Somebody would
get it back and cigarette about.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Somebody found something somewhere.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
It was just really it was fun. It sounds real
corny now, but it was a ficture for us. We
just didn't have all the technology that you have now.
That's something that's yeah, getting out of hend for me.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
There's a lot of technology now.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
The AI stuff scares me just because people don't they
don't have a handle on it.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, there's a lot of things we don't know. I'm
messing with technology that we're very unfamiliar.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
With, and they keep pushing the head without knowing they
can stop it.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
What are the consequences? We don't know yet, So why
are we moving in that direction?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
That's that's pretty iffy, pretty to say. Not just you
have to be cautious. Probably not very many cautious people
are tech technological experts. They're the kind of woman, oh,
both speed ahead, yes, and look, we got this and
(22:22):
we did this, and what if we do this. I
understand that, I can understand that feeling, but being older
makes you a little bit cautious, and you just think,
what if they did take over?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What's going to happen? What am I leaving behind one day?
What is this all going to look like? Yeah, it's
a weird it's a weird feeling too to just sitting here.
And that's why I love having these conversations. Is hearing
about the life that you had that I didn't get
to experience. We very much. Technology has been around for
a significant portion of my life. Yes, I've known at
(22:59):
least form of electronics pretty much my entire life.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And it's cool to start on computers.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I remember we had a computer room which was like
our first computer that we all shared and fought over
when we were probably in middle school at least. My
childhood wasn't really there wasn't a whole lot of technology,
but we had TVs and there was VHS and we
would watch stuff that way. We still had variations. I
don't think there was ever a point in my entire
life that I've been here for thirty two years where
(23:28):
there wasn't already some form of technology. But talking about
your childhood, there was no technology. There was seeing like that,
and that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Phone was the house phone. We had one for a
house and it was wired in. I still remember when
we had operators as probably junior higher maybe grade school,
I don't know when, but I do remember getting the
operator and now, god, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, we have smartphones that's like a computer in your hand,
which you don't have. You've never had one of those.
You still have a foot phone, which is my favorite thing. Yeah,
because you're just Morgan. There's no extras, just like Morgan's
calling and you answer, and I love it. I love
that that's what you've gotten to have in your life
(24:19):
and you haven't had the technology and all that side.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Just probably if I hadn't. I've worked all my life
actually with people, mostly with clients or customers or whatever.
The phone was a big thing in my later working life.
I had to do a lot of talking on the phone,
which I did dislike sensely.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
As I get older, it was hard for me to
get after I retired, which I was at seventy five
when I retired, So that's why years ago.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
And then you're making yourself ninety five. You're notving ninety
five yet you're eighty six, So I was what, so
if you retired when you were seventy five, that was
like nine years ago or eleven years ago. Eleven years ago, No,
you're eighty six, Oh yeah, okay, or eighty seven you're
eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, twenty years ago in sixteen yeah. Eight. Math is hard, God,
I thought technology was.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Clearly math didn't get passed down either. That was not
when I was gonna. You're good at math, high trich
trigonometry and all of those yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Heck.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
When I would come here, you would educate me on
me so many things, and I was just I was
definitely more of the creative kid you were. I was
really good at that stuff not so good at the
school stuff. And Grandma always would she'd spell check me
and I'd have errors. And my mom still it does
it too.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, that comes from being an English teacher. You can't.
And my last husband, and he was at the part
of our life he was going to school for his
master's degree and it was biology science, and so I
was an editor. You do a lot of writing in
(26:21):
college and didn't really matter. Maybe not in technology, I
don't know, but I know in your average classes science.
Maybe not math as much either, but English and history
and sociology all those you do a lot of writing.
And in his class classes he had all those taken
(26:44):
care of, so it was more upper level classes, but
he had to do a lot of writing. And so
I became an editor, which I mean in school anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, so I guess I didn't realize that period of
your life. You were staying home.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
At first. Let's see. Yeah, first I was home. But
when he started going to school, he worked odd jobs.
He worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service for a
year or two, and I worked for them to doing
survey kind of thing. And so we were very poor,
(27:25):
and we worked for whatever we could get at because
we wanted to live out here in the country, and
it took all our money to do that. We were
just living, trying to get by and stuff out here,
and we had bought this place that had only it
was just fifty acres in it at that time, and
(27:47):
so we were trying to figure out what we were
going to do. And we had to cut wood because
we had just a wood fire, and so most of
we had most at a time, and we built a
shed and there's just a lot of stuff you just
did and took up your time, and that he decided
(28:08):
he wanted to finish his his bachelor's degree. He had
about three years and something. So when he did that,
I got a job in town and so that's from then.
I've been working ever since then.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So when you're looking at your life and you're talking
about this and all these kind of different stories, what
were your favorite parts from your life when you look
back and they're really fond memories for you.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh, my having my grandchildren was always fun. I know Brian,
who's my last husband. We would go to especially to
Jedema at this time. Michelle, my other daughter, lived in Seattle,
but we would go to Jeanette's home Jeanette.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Cherry, which is my parents.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We had come back from Mexico. Brian and I had
gone out there and beknownst to it, but he of course,
and when we came back it was a matter of
what we were going. Can't live without the one kind
(29:25):
of thing. And he was a lot younger than I
was twenty years We saw this place advertised in paper
one time. We were staying out it Grandpa the place
who he had died, but his brother lived out there,
so we also lived out there and we were looking
(29:48):
for a place, and that was part of us going
to Carolina too, is we were together at that time and.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
M so buying this place is one of those special memories.
And then the grandchildren and.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Being with Brian. It was the best part of any
marriage I've ever had. We did lots of fun things.
We learned together, the grasses, trees and everything surrounds us.
(30:25):
And the part of that was because he was a
biologist and I'm reading stuff that he's going to school
about because I don't know all that stuff, and it's
interesting and we're living in it. So we got involved
in when he was doing like his masters, he had
(30:46):
been studying, and we had been doing surveys of muscles
that are in rivers, and we got a contract from
state to survey verse did you do in the water? Yeah? Hey,
And so several summers we've been in Arkansas and Missouri
(31:13):
and all of Kansas, everywhere in Kansas, not the west,
just mostly the east and all up and down the East.
And we spend summers in a Volkswagen camper which we
had gone to Montana and.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Also traveled some of the country in that.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
We had gone to. I don't know how long we
were gone, a couple of weeks. Maybe we're up to Canada.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And what was that like for you? You said he
was twenty years younger than you when you got married.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
What was your wonderful had been treated like that? Ever?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You're having a heyday? Huh?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yes? And I'd love doing all this stuff. It was
just it had been a pretty humdrum kind of life
for me. I had my likes and dislikes, and those
haven't changed so much, but they've deepened and added on
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Some new adventures, doing new things, trying new stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Got a motorcycle at a guard shale for five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
It was that sounds safe.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Oh god, it was fun. I loved Friday.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Did you drive it or were you just riding? It?
Was a what's all those Harley's? W Oh the BMW motorcycle?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
But a BMW is a high gravity and my legs
weren't long enough to reach both on both sides of
the Yeah, so I couldn't drive it because they couldn't
hold it. I wanted it and loud one what do
you call them.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
The ones with loud mufflers and stuff? Harley? Was it
a Harley?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, because you're low in the middle and I could
easily touch those.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, my dad had a I think it was Harley
growing up.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It was a Harley. I could remember. I knew he had.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah. I think I rode on it. I total maybe
two or three times before Mom said, okay, motorcycles gotta go.
I got young girls in the house. This is not good.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And that is so true.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But you loved it. You're right on the back of it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
But I wouldn't have it. I didn't have It was
just broad and I didn't have anybody depending on me.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, and you were living free, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It was awesome, going whatever you wanted to do, and
we were doing this great stuff out in the streams.
You're in the water all as the coolest summers I
ever planted or planted live because you were in water
all day. But it don't look like a squeegee or something.
(34:06):
It sponge. There's some water they water moccasin.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, water mocasins.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
We went in some streams that had does. I never
saw one.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
They feel like a fairy tale to me because everybody
always talks about them, but I've never seen one.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I never want to see one.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
I don't either. I don't think. I don't think that's
the goal when you're out in the water.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We're actually speaking of that. We were in Brian and
I did a contract for Oklahoma University. The science department
there wanted someone to down on the west Southwest corner.
But it had a lot of property around it, and
(34:49):
they wanted that. Checked wanted bustles and bugs and all
kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Account you were always out in nature. There's one thing
I knew about you. You would come to the property
and you'd have horses, and you'd have chickens, and you'd
be out in the river.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And especially since I've been married to Brian, I love
being outside and it's not something I did a lot
of other than horses. I did always like to do horses.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, and you still have a horse to this day,
you have one. What is the horse that you have currently?
Gh And how old is thch.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
He was thirty four on Taylor's birthday.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Thirty four years old. He's been with you for a
significant portion of your life.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
I got him when he was eleven.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, it's wild. And you don't ride him. You guys
just hang out together.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah. I don't ride you any more since I've been
breaking stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yeah. Yeah, and you did break your hip and you've
been living out here, and what has that experience been
like for you?
Speaker 1 (35:49):
It's it just really sucks.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
But having a broken leg is what sucks. So you
can't get around like you used to do the things
you used to when you broke your hit. Yeah, but
living out here doesn't suck. If I had to use
a wheelchair, Aura, I could get a little car, something,
a little what do they call them, some kind of
(36:15):
scooters or something that you can drive out so I
can go around all around. I do not want to
go anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, too, You're gonna stay here forever. You make that
very clear times the thing so.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
It fell to Michelle. Yeah, it didn't always when I
was in the hospital in which talk fell to Jeanette
and you guys said you did a fine.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Job too, Yeah, because otherwise I.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Was gonna hurt somebody because that there was horrible.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Hospital. FO it's never fun and it's hard you being
out here, and we love you and we miss you.
But also you've created a life out here. Much of
what you were just talking about is this whole life
you've created here, and I want to leave it. It's
what you've always known for this whole second part of
your life.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah. So actually most of the years of my life
more doing this than anything else. And I love being
out here.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
What was it like when you would have us come
out to the property? What it was funny. I remember
a story and you were talking about the chickens at
one point, and you traumatized me because it was about
chopping off their heads and it was not a great
experience as a vegetarian.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Property not but I've never been a vegetarian. I had
to get used to that when I was growing up
because I was the oldest child. And who do you
think mom got to do step for her. That was you.
It wasn't a voluntary thing either.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
You were required to do things.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yes, I never got used to chopping chicken tit off.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And that was real. You're telling me that was real
stories and you weren't just messing with me.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
We had when we first moved out there, all of
us moved firsten to Peabody, his first time I've known
anything about greenmund County or southern Kansas. I want to say.
We had an outdoor toilet when we moved there. We
had no running water in the kitchen. Wow, had a pump.
(38:21):
There was a kitchen sink and there was a hand
pump there for water into the That was water in
the house. Wow.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
So you were doing a lot of chores just to
have things that were functioning.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Garden canny, separating milk to milk and cream and you
sold the cream for no need to get groceries on
child eggs.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Wow. And then you had the chickens. But then so
you had your own meat essentially, But that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And a guy that owned the farm where we were
where my dad worked, he always gave I can't remember
how much it was, but a lot of beef. So
we always had beef. They butchered pigs, we had fork.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
You went from that, and then obviously at different purces
of your life you had running water and now you
have electricity and stuff. But you almost went back a
little bit. You went back to that childhood. Yeah, because
not canned stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Now, I know that like natural stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I like science too, though, and I like advances, and
I like to watch what they find out with the
telescope and the base landings and all that. I always
watched that and are ology. I like what happened a
long time ago. I think the Earth, that's a fantastic
(39:48):
whatever it is. Thank god, I've got to be here.
What if this is just a figment of.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
My it's sure. Say you're real. You're real. I can
touch you, I feel you. You're a real human being.
But it is cool. It's cool.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And when you live by yourself and you're out in
the country, don't even when you have to talk to
you a lot of the time. Is your dog. My
dog is very well educated. I've talked to him about
a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Cisco has the whole memory that you have. He's learned everything.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
I don't think so he's just said you're waiting for
me to.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Pick up the ball, pretending to listen just so he
can get a little piece of food or his toy,
one of the two.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I do think a lot about that kind of stuff
now because I can, I have time, and when I've
been working before and married. Somehow it got started with
Brian and I get together and exploits. If we went
(41:01):
to museums, We went to anything that would had to
do with both of those things, and we both like that.
They have a really good museum, small museum in Oklahoma.
We'd go down to a lot because you never can
see all of it at one time, it seems.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Are you mad at the microphone?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Now? Oh?
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I want to know from you because you've painted out
pictures of your life. But when you look at your life,
is there any parts of it that you regret they
look back on?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Oh yeah, Oh. People lie when they say there's nothing
they regret. Their liars are fooling themselves. I believe in
what we have here in nature, and I believe there's
I don't know, civilization to humans state we're crawling around
(41:59):
on regret. I believe that's much easier for me to believe,
to believe that there's a god up here that puts
somebody on Earth and we've all expanded from that, and
he's the one that he still should ask I get.
I can't bring myself to believe it. It's just like
a fairy tale or a something the ancient person has
(42:23):
written down that everybody bought. Now we're still believing everybody's
believing that. But anyway, that's my own personal thing. I
don't care what anybody else does. That's just mine. And
so that may be why part of why it fulfills
my need for some reason for this. So that's why
(42:48):
maybe astronomy fascinates me, because you know, how did some
star or what was this little thing at one specific
moment explode and become all these stars and galaxies and
(43:14):
black holes and planets. If they did, are they really
I want somebody to show me what was there before
this little black thing that exploded? What was over here?
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Like, I have a lot more questions than I do answers,
So I'm going to need somebody to start answering something
before the end of it. And you were referencing your regrets.
I think in this part of that.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Probably that I didn't take work when I had the chance.
When I was going to college, why didn't I take
these science classes and all that, because that's seems to
be the way I'm going Teaching is okay. It was
(44:03):
all right. I like students, and everything got along. It's
just a bureaucracy. You got to answer to this person
who interested this person, who answers to this person.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
And I know you don't like answering to anybody.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
That's not a thing that you like to do.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
And I don't like to be told what to do.
But I'm in charge of something. I've had my clashes.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You've passed that down as well. Very independent women. We
like what we like.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
But I think I've changed someone. Yes I am that
way and stubborn about being that way, But as I
get older and I think, and being in a hospital
and all that time makes you think about stuff like
that and how you could handle it, maybe in your
mind better than you've been doing. And I just think
(44:57):
there's no way to people having opposite inspirations or desires.
There's no way that either of these two people know everything.
It always it's good to talk. I regret that I
was always one minded or could not listen to other
(45:22):
people and actually listen to them instead of just hearing
what they're saying and not ever trying to understand or
think about it. I'm sure I've done that a lot
in my whole life. I think that's why better off
being out here in the country, don't have anybody.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
To argue, is just yourself and your dog. I like
to end things on in it, particularly with you as
a piece of advice. Is there any advice you have
as people move through this life and they try to
understand thinking the.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Last person to want to give advice to someone.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
No, you're great at giving advice. You gave it to
me for a lot of my childhood.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
I know I'm great at giving it, but I'm not
sure it's the right advice for It.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Doesn't have to be the right say it was the
right advice for you at one point or another.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sorry for all of my mistakes.
I really I don't regret marrying Brian because he's a
really nice person, not as nice as I had hoped
he was. Because nobody likes to be betrayed or left
(46:35):
or amand and that's how I feel about that. But nevertheless,
he is not or was not that's Mary to me.
It's very kind to everybody and very nice. And I
regret that we parted on such a bad note. I
(46:55):
do regret that I regret leaving Jay the way I did,
because he didn't deserve that either. And so those are
times when I recognize that I wasn't always a really
nice person, and I fully I agree, And so I
(47:19):
think that part of living by myself and thinking over
those things I do regret, I think is just a
way of coming to grips with who I've become up
till now. And I'm not sure what I'm going to
(47:43):
work on.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Next, And hindsight's always twenty twenty, right, you can look
at a situation after you've left.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
And love's always been a little tough for me. If
I'm in love, I'm in love.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
We're deep feelers in this family.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
M h.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's very true. Yeah, Yeah, And they brought beautiful experiences
and memories and stories.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
And I don't regret those. I really don't. I've had
some great experiences. Oh, should anybody else enjoy those? I
would wish that on anybody.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
They're great to live life and go after the adventures.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, and I'd always I would say that I was
more adventurous than I was a couch potato. I've always
not looked back very often or questioned myself very often.
If it looks like it's going to be fun, let's
do it, it's going to be a good experience, Let's
do it. And so I haven't pulled back away from that.
(48:50):
Maybe a little would have been.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Better, maybe now, yes, but that's what I don't regret it.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I don't wish it had happened.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
And what about advice as you look on your life,
if there's something you could tell somebody, maybe it's you
from way back when that you're telling advice too. If
you could go back and you could give advice to
your ten year old self about the life that she's
about to live up until this moment, what would you
say to her?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Go out and grab it, grab life, live, don't be
afraid to do stuff. Life would have been different if
I'd have gone to college right out of high school
instead of getting married. I can't help but think what
would that have been like. It would have been different
(49:39):
path for sure, And so I guess you really can't
do much else besides what you want to do. Something's
gonna send you down a certain path of you to
your parents want you to go to college, or maybe
they want you to get get married, they want grandchildren,
(50:02):
or I don't know. There are a big influence on
a lot of people, not all. There are a lot
of people that don't have real parents anymore, and I
haven't given enough lot to them.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Mm hmm. And it sounds like more than anything I
think you were you wanted to trust your instincts more
and go out and do things that you exactly wanted
to do. And there were moments of your life where
you pulled back.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
A little and some not very many times.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
So and that's the best part, right You started to
figure it out pretty quickly, if.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
It tells you anything. I don't know even how many
jobs I've had in my life. I have never worked
for anybody or any institution anything more than three years
until I worked for Butler County here when I was
married to Brian and I worked with it.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
You're just living all kinds of odd jobs and doing everything.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, I've worked for radio stations out here when it
first got started. Oh so much. Ben?
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Is that weird now for me that you realize one
of your grandchildren is in radio and that's one of
your jobs.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
It's like a special This is my throwback.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
I'm the throwback.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
I love that. I'm glad I could be and just.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Learned to fly an airplane, had an airplane that I
flew wherever I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
You had a motorcycle and an airplane. He worked on
a radio station. You were also digging on muscles. And
what didn't you do at some personal.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
I haven't seen near enough countries and other cultures. That's
I missed that the most.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
I think that's something any way you would have done.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah, because we see all these wars and all these
factions that person from there or whatever, and it's if
you stand back and look at it's just like a
bunch of kids that can't agree around the sandbox or something,
(52:10):
so they're gonna punch them out or take them out.
It just seems so stupid. I have to say that
I think we would not have It's my opinion anyway.
And I think women are very smart. I think they
have gotten that's short end of the stick a lot
of times, especially earlier. But I think if we had
(52:38):
more women rulers. We've had some like an Egypt and
some of those places and Queen Vicoria. But if we'd
have had more women leaders of men, women are like
at armies and services and stuff, I think we would
have had a lotier wars. Hot take Grandma, you know what, mother,
(53:05):
want your son to get killed in a war.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
There's a little bit more empathy and compassion inside of
that then.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
And men are always okay, I say always, not all
Petter like that. Not all women are like what I
just said. Until this time, did.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
You ever have a moment where being a woman was
something that you really experienced, Because what I really see
is see you, and I see my great grandmother, and
you guys paved pass and you did things so that
way women today are set up to be able to
succeed and have leadership roles and stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Was just still working on it.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah, oh yeah, it's still a work in progress. But
you guys paved a lot of pass that didn't exist before. Yeah,
and well, Grandma, I've kept you for so long in
doing this, But I do want to still end on
a piece of advice because I think you gave one.
But it could be motivation or set of advice, it
could be inspiration whatever.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Don't hate people that's the most destructive hate. It doesn't
just destroy somebody else, it destroys you. Would you hate people,
Oh my god, you're not open to what there is
and the world. You see it differently because maybe some
(54:25):
other denomination there or runs this store whatever. It's so petty.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
There's a great way for us to stand on because
it's words of advice from my eighty seven year old grandma.
Don't hate. It's not that hard. Yeah, thank you, Grandma,
I love you. Thank you for doing this with me.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Thank you. I hope I don't feel like complete idiot.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Thank you guys so much for letting me share my
grandma Bernie with you. Guys. She's such an incredible human
and somebody that I deeply adore and admire. So I
really appreciate this experience, one that I'm going to remember forever,
getting to record a podcast episode in her living room
of the house that she talked about. So if you
do want to check out the video of this, you
can watch it on the YouTube page at web Girl
(55:10):
Morgan and all the interviews are up there if you
want to go check those out and subscribe. If you
like listening to audio only, then make sure you also
subscribe to the podcast, and you can also follow the
Instagram page at take This Personally. All that stuff is
so helpful and really beneficial As we head into the
new year and doing this podcast, I know you guys
have so many options to choose from, so as always,
(55:32):
I'm so happy that you're here. And even more exciting
news next week, my fiance is going to join the episode.
We're going to talk all about our engagement story and
all of the details and things surrounding the big moment
that happened over our Christmas break
Personally the old man.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I can't believe I made this episode happen. My eighty
seven year old Grandma Bernie is joining the episode this week.
She is such a spitfire in somebody that I spent
so much time with growing up. And she's also somebody
that I look up to. She has wisdom and knowledge
and so many stories to share. I cannot wait for
you guys to hear this entire episode, So I'm not
gonna talk anymore. Let's just get into it. I'm excited
(00:42):
because my Grandma Bernie is joining me for this week's episode. Grandma,
how you feeling?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I'm just a little nervous.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, but you're an expert in all these things. You're,
once upon a time a teacher.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And that makes you used to admire your phone?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Now may she used to talking in front of people.
You taught things all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I do. I talk a lot, and you're.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
A good talker.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm I talk plenty. Yes, I don't know. There may
be some good in it. Sometimes just jabbering, I think.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And your credentials here are going to be your age.
Can you share with everybody how old you are? I'm
eighty seven, you're eighty seven, and my Grandma Barney has
lived out here on this farm that we're at for
how long?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, right close to forty years now.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And you've been out here by yourself for how long?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Thirty three? Maybe like that a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And you're really a very big expert at the independent world.
You have been independent for as long as I can remember.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I've always thought of myself as independent. However, I have
never lived totally lived by myself before, especially not long
term like this, And it was hard at first. Yeah,
so I used to having somebody around you do just
(02:08):
for me here, for you to that and to share that. Anyway,
I am glad. One of the things I'm really glad
about it's learning that I can be by myself. And
I like being by myself. I think it's a scept
in my head. I just hadn't done before.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Before this period of your life, you had lived at home,
I would imagine as a kid. Oh yeah, and then befo,
when you left home, were you married immediately?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Pretty soon? Graduated in June fifty six, nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Six, from high school.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
From high school, and then I was we were married
with my first husband in September of that year.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Wow, it was different back then, right.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
We're expected to be because the housewife, and because it
was expected and done so much, you just really didn't
question it very much. It is just a way alive.
But I thought about Gordon College. I was in love,
so let's get married.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And that you said that was your first marriage? How
long were you married to him? For?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Twelve years?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay? And is that where my mom and my aunt
came from? Yes, so there was that picture. And then
you did end up teaching at some point, so where
was that?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And the star was in my next marriage? Okay?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Later on? Did you end up going back to college
after you guys got divorced?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I worked at a was an insurance mortgage company in Newton, Kansas,
which was about, I don't know, twenty five thirty miles
from Peabody, which is where I actually I lived in
Marion at that time. I moved there after my first
husband and I divorced, and because my parents lived there
(04:03):
and I had two girls.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Being back around the community. And I remember great Grandma
firm Oh, yes, which was your mom.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yes, this is true.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And she was a wild spit like she got everything.
I remember. Ever, she would dangle because she always wears
bangles up into her elbows. And she had birds. She
had birds. There were a lot of birds.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
What do you call the time she had, wasn't it?
They weren't parent keets.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Were they parents? No? I thought they talked. I remember
one of them talking.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
They can't parent keyt parent keets. I don't remember. Yeah,
she had a lot of them, had two, okay, and
they created a lot. Maybe that's what I remember.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I was never fond of birds because of that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Really, because you grew up around them, did you have
them like when you were a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No, it was just when she lived. She and my
dad lived there. My dad was still a live at
that time, and I don't think he liked.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
She really ruined the birds for everybody.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Anyway. She had a green thumb. She could put a
stick in water and it would grow into something pretty.
She just was very good at it and just came
natural to her. I never inherited that.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I didn't either, you guys, that did not get passed
down to the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I wish I don't have any plants I've killed.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Same. My now fiance brought all of his plants when
he moved in and I have killed all but one.
I'm not good at that.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Never lived there in Marion before. Okay, we moved in
like grade school, maybe fifth grade, fifth or sixth grade.
We moved from first and that's where I grew up,
and we moved to the farm. While we were there,
we lived on the farm, but anyway, we moved from
(06:07):
there to Peabody on another farm, and there were I
was the oldest. I had a brother about a year
a little more than a year older or younger than
I am. I am the oldest chep younger than I am,
and that I had about My dad went to the
(06:31):
service when I was probably in kindergarten, and he was drafted.
Never war going on, and so he was. He went
in the navy, and during that time, my mom and
my brother and I moved back to my mother's mother
(06:54):
and lives in Atwood, Kansas, which is clear across the
state company.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, you've lived were wearing Kansas, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I have even after even when Dad got back, and
he had a lot of different jobs and we moved
around a lot, and bostly they were on farms. He
had been injured in the war, his back. He had
been on a ship and it got bombed ever by Okinawa.
(07:26):
He was thrown up in the air several feet I
don't know how many, and landed back there his back.
So yeah, he had back injuries and problems most of
his life after that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
But anyway, Wow, we he was in He served in
World War two? Is that correct? Wow? Was it? What
was that like for you to remember being a kid
when your dad was gone?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Just that he was gone. It was about all it
really meant to me at that time. I remember taking
pictures of him and his sailor outfit, and mom dressed up,
and my brother and I dressed up, and I remember
looking at that just to see one dad still look like.
(08:17):
I really don't remember thinking about it that much. I
probably did at the time, but I don't remember. And
I was really into going to kindergarten.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You're young, really young.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, And I loved school, of course, it was something
to do. I don't know, playing with your brother is
not the most cool thing.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Not as fun then?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Was that?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
For where your love of what you think like teaching
came from? No?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
No, no, Actually that came from the fact that I
majored in English, and what else do you do with a.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
An English degree. You did always correct my English, so
there was that loved English.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I remember that my eighth grade English teacher was the
most influential, and I loved her because you taught us
all these neat things, these phrases, themes for everything, and
how it all went together. And I never got over that.
I always just really loved English, and that turned into literature.
(09:28):
I also took all literature classes, so we did a
lot of writing. And as you, of course you did.
You go to college. That's what you do, is you write.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So you had went to college after your first marriage,
you went back to school.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yes, I was my second marriage. Then we moved back
to Marion, and I can't remember if I don't think
we I don't think we moved. We didn't move until
we found house to rent because I didn't want to
live with my folks.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Isn't fair. I don't think anybody typically wants to it
at that point in their life.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And but I moved there because they were there too, so.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You needed the help, but you also needed space, all fair?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And yeah, I'm sure I was thinking to myself, not
of them. If I needed to, I would have moved
in with them and they would have let me. Anyway,
we rented this house. My future husband owned the house
and so he helped when we moved in. There were
(10:38):
some electrical stuff. I don't remember sure right now what
it was. I'd do with the ceiling light, I know
one of them, but anyway, I asked him if you
could fix that or have it fixed, and he did.
And of course I met him when I rented the property,
(10:59):
and so I saw him occasionally in town. I was
at the time working part time and at the same
place in Eldaredo. The kids stayed over my mom's dads.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So you were a mom, you were working, and you
were going to school all at the same time, is
all right.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They were going to school there at Miriam, but I
wasn't going to school yet.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You had her and it started going to college own, okay.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And I eventually quit working over at Eldaredo. There were
lots of reasons, but the drive was most of it.
And my new husband preferred that I would stay home.
You stay and not have to drive out of town.
So I did that. And we had friends that we
(11:54):
played cards with and mostly that or went places with
real close friends. In one time we were out on
a ponchoon boat out in the Lake Marion Lake. We
had brought stuff along to fix a little barbecue that
(12:14):
had a little party.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, it was fun and we swam there. I don't
know if I would do that again, because as you
get older, you get a little more careful. Yeah, I've
never been real careful.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Have you ever traveled? Was there ever traveling as part
of your life?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Besides Kansas, because I know you've lived in multiple counties in.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
The Kansas exactly. The only other place I've ever lived
is in Oklahoma. When my dad got out of the service,
he was injured and he would he had to go
down there for at a veterans hospital for his back,
and I do you remember just a I remember waiting
(12:56):
in some flood water out in front of where we lived.
We were only there for about less than a year.
I don't remember for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So Oklahoma is the only other place you've been lived lived?
Where all have you traveled to? Did you get a
travel about New Mexico? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And to Canada most all from about the middle of
Canada straight up, Okay, over the west coast.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
That's cool. Was Canada pretty?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Oh? Yeah, it's a very different kinds of mountains, never
like you could reach out and touch them instead of
ours are so big and they're far away, or at
least in Vancouver. Actually, I don't remember much of Vancouver
as a big house or big, big city on the
(13:47):
west coast of Canada. Yeah, but we went on to island.
What's it called? Victoria is the capital of.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about BC, British Columbia,
Is that right, Yeah, it's I don't know a lot
of my Canadian niography.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I'm not I can't remember off hand. I can't call
it what the name of the island is. But Victoria
is the capital of it and of the British Columbia
and has the beautiful harbor and beautiful lighting at night
and stuff, and you can ride ride horse and carriage stuff.
(14:27):
When we did all that.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You you've always read so many books. That's always been
a big part of who you are. You're a big
reader to read, so it was always cool when you
would read things and then you would go visit places
and it would come to life of what you read. Yes,
what was your coolest memory of that Where you'd read
something and then you got to experience it in.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Real life, probably because I've always liked archaeology too. I
like watching them, that's all. I don't have to experience
at it, but I just like what they're doing. But
they find and all of that, and so I've read
a lot of about it, watched it on TV. And
(15:07):
so when we went to Mexico, we went to some
old ruins that were close to little villages and you
still had a little villages stuff, and it brought that
really alive where you were walking around this room, we
crawl through part of it and come out somewhere else,
(15:30):
and they'd explained what this was supposed to have been
and we were actually doing that. That's so fun.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, when you're you've always been really big at that
on this property that you've lived in for so many years.
When I was a kid, we'd come out here and
we'd search for arrowheads.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh yeah, I had been doing that recently because they
keep falling down. And yes, it takes some time off
the heel.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, and we have to keep you safe, so you
falling is not part of that plan. But were you
still doing it for a while? Do you still find
them on the property? You still have the like a
major collection of all the ones we found, and they're
all different kinds.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
About twenty twenty to thirty. They call them boxes where
they have foam in them and you.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Put kind of like a shadow box.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, it may call that, but they're just tiny as
far as height, but they're about like a nine by
twelve or maybe a ten by twelve, so, and most
of them are in those kinds of boxes for protection
and stuff because they're easy to.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Break and they're so cool. They have so many different
designs in different textures.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They're like different tribes, different ages. You think about that
people left, these people that are handling something that's ten
thousand or twelve thousand years old, made by a person
who was here. Just the same way with astronomy. I
(17:08):
love things about astronomy and the black holes and the
stars and the planets and all the other weird stuff
that's in between it that they can't explain.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The things that will never probably understand in our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And it's hard for me to go outside at night.
And it's not hard for me to do that, but
it's hard not to think about how cuny I am
staying in this place at this time, and I don't
know whether there's anybody else out there. When there's an
(17:46):
somebody who invented us. But if there's somebody in an
alternative universe or a place beside me who is knows
what I'm doing, but I don't even know they exist.
There is nothing that's impossible because we don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, And that's the funnest part about it, right, is
it's getting to be somewhere where we don't have all
the answers.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, And so I think that's what what I like
about hierarchyology too, is just explaining some of the things
that we found and why it happened, especially like in
the Middle East, the pyramids and tombs and stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Did you hear about the story where they found a
whole structure underneath the pyramids, which one the Great Pyramids
and Giza that like the ones that all that's the
tourist spot that everybody goes and visits. Yes, there's like
a whole structure underneath of proof that people lived there,
like they created this whole community underneath these pyramids. And
(18:52):
you think about that, and it's wild that we've just
been visiting and nobody ever knew that this was actually
a place of history.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Years they have been there through I don't know how
many years, thousands, Yeah, and everybody just took it that
somebody lived here, that right up here by the pyramids
or something that was a special place. They don't really
know all about it yet, but.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
People were probably living in them too, And that will
never digs.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
They'll have digs of a site that there looked either unearthed,
a tomb or maybe a palace area, and then they
go below that, another age to go below that, and
that's older. Yeah, they just keep going.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah, it's fascinating. That was a big part of my
childhood and whenever we're coming out to visit, you was
you were so fascinated with the world and it shaped
a lot of who I became as a person. Very curious,
very inquisitive, and I always had questions. I wanted to
know things, and it was just true that was very
(20:08):
much who I was. And I do think a lot
of that was shaped from coming out here. And we'd
find arrowheads and I had so many questions about the
stories of the arrowhead, not that we knew them, but yeah,
and fossils, Yeah, we'd find a lot of fossils. It
was just a huge and I wasn't a huge history
person per se. Like in school, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Really care for history, but I am now.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, it's fun to learn the things that you want
to learn about versus the things you were forced to
learn about.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, and I'm real curious about the things that were
written in our old history books. Back in my age,
we didn't have or we not in where I lived
in Peabody kidsas you didn't have dope. Yeah you didn't.
Every single person and his best friend had a ultra
(20:56):
modern rich car to drive round. We all piled into
whoever could get your folks car that night. Yeah, none
of us smoked for real, but we sure smoked up
the inside of those cars we got them. Somebody would
get it back and cigarette about.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Somebody found something somewhere.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
It was just really it was fun. It sounds real
corny now, but it was a ficture for us. We
just didn't have all the technology that you have now.
That's something that's yeah, getting out of hend for me.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
There's a lot of technology now.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
The AI stuff scares me just because people don't they
don't have a handle on it.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, there's a lot of things we don't know. I'm
messing with technology that we're very unfamiliar.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
With, and they keep pushing the head without knowing they
can stop it.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
What are the consequences? We don't know yet, So why
are we moving in that direction?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
That's that's pretty iffy, pretty to say. Not just you
have to be cautious. Probably not very many cautious people
are tech technological experts. They're the kind of woman, oh,
both speed ahead, yes, and look, we got this and
(22:22):
we did this, and what if we do this. I
understand that, I can understand that feeling, but being older
makes you a little bit cautious, and you just think,
what if they did take over?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What's going to happen? What am I leaving behind one day?
What is this all going to look like? Yeah, it's
a weird it's a weird feeling too to just sitting here.
And that's why I love having these conversations. Is hearing
about the life that you had that I didn't get
to experience. We very much. Technology has been around for
a significant portion of my life. Yes, I've known at
(22:59):
least form of electronics pretty much my entire life.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And it's cool to start on computers.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I remember we had a computer room which was like
our first computer that we all shared and fought over
when we were probably in middle school at least. My
childhood wasn't really there wasn't a whole lot of technology,
but we had TVs and there was VHS and we
would watch stuff that way. We still had variations. I
don't think there was ever a point in my entire
life that I've been here for thirty two years where
(23:28):
there wasn't already some form of technology. But talking about
your childhood, there was no technology. There was seeing like that,
and that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Phone was the house phone. We had one for a
house and it was wired in. I still remember when
we had operators as probably junior higher maybe grade school,
I don't know when, but I do remember getting the
operator and now, god, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, we have smartphones that's like a computer in your hand,
which you don't have. You've never had one of those.
You still have a foot phone, which is my favorite thing. Yeah,
because you're just Morgan. There's no extras, just like Morgan's
calling and you answer, and I love it. I love
that that's what you've gotten to have in your life
(24:19):
and you haven't had the technology and all that side.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Just probably if I hadn't. I've worked all my life
actually with people, mostly with clients or customers or whatever.
The phone was a big thing in my later working life.
I had to do a lot of talking on the phone,
which I did dislike sensely.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
As I get older, it was hard for me to
get after I retired, which I was at seventy five
when I retired, So that's why years ago.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
And then you're making yourself ninety five. You're notving ninety
five yet you're eighty six, So I was what, so
if you retired when you were seventy five, that was
like nine years ago or eleven years ago. Eleven years ago, No,
you're eighty six, Oh yeah, okay, or eighty seven you're
eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, twenty years ago in sixteen yeah. Eight. Math is hard, God,
I thought technology was.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Clearly math didn't get passed down either. That was not
when I was gonna. You're good at math, high trich
trigonometry and all of those yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Heck.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
When I would come here, you would educate me on
me so many things, and I was just I was
definitely more of the creative kid you were. I was
really good at that stuff not so good at the
school stuff. And Grandma always would she'd spell check me
and I'd have errors. And my mom still it does
it too.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, that comes from being an English teacher. You can't.
And my last husband, and he was at the part
of our life he was going to school for his
master's degree and it was biology science, and so I
was an editor. You do a lot of writing in
(26:21):
college and didn't really matter. Maybe not in technology, I
don't know, but I know in your average classes science.
Maybe not math as much either, but English and history
and sociology all those you do a lot of writing.
And in his class classes he had all those taken
(26:44):
care of, so it was more upper level classes, but
he had to do a lot of writing. And so
I became an editor, which I mean in school anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, so I guess I didn't realize that period of
your life. You were staying home.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
At first. Let's see. Yeah, first I was home. But
when he started going to school, he worked odd jobs.
He worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service for a
year or two, and I worked for them to doing
survey kind of thing. And so we were very poor,
(27:25):
and we worked for whatever we could get at because
we wanted to live out here in the country, and
it took all our money to do that. We were
just living, trying to get by and stuff out here,
and we had bought this place that had only it
was just fifty acres in it at that time, and
(27:47):
so we were trying to figure out what we were
going to do. And we had to cut wood because
we had just a wood fire, and so most of
we had most at a time, and we built a
shed and there's just a lot of stuff you just
did and took up your time, and that he decided
(28:08):
he wanted to finish his his bachelor's degree. He had
about three years and something. So when he did that,
I got a job in town and so that's from then.
I've been working ever since then.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So when you're looking at your life and you're talking
about this and all these kind of different stories, what
were your favorite parts from your life when you look
back and they're really fond memories for you.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh, my having my grandchildren was always fun. I know Brian,
who's my last husband. We would go to especially to
Jedema at this time. Michelle, my other daughter, lived in Seattle,
but we would go to Jeanette's home Jeanette.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Cherry, which is my parents.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We had come back from Mexico. Brian and I had
gone out there and beknownst to it, but he of course,
and when we came back it was a matter of
what we were going. Can't live without the one kind
(29:25):
of thing. And he was a lot younger than I
was twenty years We saw this place advertised in paper
one time. We were staying out it Grandpa the place
who he had died, but his brother lived out there,
so we also lived out there and we were looking
(29:48):
for a place, and that was part of us going
to Carolina too, is we were together at that time and.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
M so buying this place is one of those special memories.
And then the grandchildren and.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Being with Brian. It was the best part of any
marriage I've ever had. We did lots of fun things.
We learned together, the grasses, trees and everything surrounds us.
(30:25):
And the part of that was because he was a
biologist and I'm reading stuff that he's going to school
about because I don't know all that stuff, and it's
interesting and we're living in it. So we got involved
in when he was doing like his masters, he had
(30:46):
been studying, and we had been doing surveys of muscles
that are in rivers, and we got a contract from
state to survey verse did you do in the water? Yeah? Hey,
And so several summers we've been in Arkansas and Missouri
(31:13):
and all of Kansas, everywhere in Kansas, not the west,
just mostly the east and all up and down the East.
And we spend summers in a Volkswagen camper which we
had gone to Montana and.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Also traveled some of the country in that.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
We had gone to. I don't know how long we
were gone, a couple of weeks. Maybe we're up to Canada.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And what was that like for you? You said he
was twenty years younger than you when you got married.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
What was your wonderful had been treated like that? Ever?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You're having a heyday? Huh?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yes? And I'd love doing all this stuff. It was
just it had been a pretty humdrum kind of life
for me. I had my likes and dislikes, and those
haven't changed so much, but they've deepened and added on
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Some new adventures, doing new things, trying new stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Got a motorcycle at a guard shale for five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
It was that sounds safe.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Oh god, it was fun. I loved Friday.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Did you drive it or were you just riding? It?
Was a what's all those Harley's? W Oh the BMW motorcycle?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
But a BMW is a high gravity and my legs
weren't long enough to reach both on both sides of
the Yeah, so I couldn't drive it because they couldn't
hold it. I wanted it and loud one what do
you call them.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
The ones with loud mufflers and stuff? Harley? Was it
a Harley?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, because you're low in the middle and I could
easily touch those.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, my dad had a I think it was Harley
growing up.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It was a Harley. I could remember. I knew he had.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah. I think I rode on it. I total maybe
two or three times before Mom said, okay, motorcycles gotta go.
I got young girls in the house. This is not good.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And that is so true.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But you loved it. You're right on the back of it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
But I wouldn't have it. I didn't have It was
just broad and I didn't have anybody depending on me.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, and you were living free, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It was awesome, going whatever you wanted to do, and
we were doing this great stuff out in the streams.
You're in the water all as the coolest summers I
ever planted or planted live because you were in water
all day. But it don't look like a squeegee or something.
(34:06):
It sponge. There's some water they water moccasin.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, water mocasins.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
We went in some streams that had does. I never
saw one.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
They feel like a fairy tale to me because everybody
always talks about them, but I've never seen one.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I never want to see one.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
I don't either. I don't think. I don't think that's
the goal when you're out in the water.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We're actually speaking of that. We were in Brian and
I did a contract for Oklahoma University. The science department
there wanted someone to down on the west Southwest corner.
But it had a lot of property around it, and
(34:49):
they wanted that. Checked wanted bustles and bugs and all
kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Account you were always out in nature. There's one thing
I knew about you. You would come to the property
and you'd have horses, and you'd have chickens, and you'd
be out in the river.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And especially since I've been married to Brian, I love
being outside and it's not something I did a lot
of other than horses. I did always like to do horses.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, and you still have a horse to this day,
you have one. What is the horse that you have currently?
Gh And how old is thch.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
He was thirty four on Taylor's birthday.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Thirty four years old. He's been with you for a
significant portion of your life.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
I got him when he was eleven.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, it's wild. And you don't ride him. You guys
just hang out together.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah. I don't ride you any more since I've been
breaking stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yeah. Yeah, and you did break your hip and you've
been living out here, and what has that experience been
like for you?
Speaker 1 (35:49):
It's it just really sucks.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
But having a broken leg is what sucks. So you
can't get around like you used to do the things
you used to when you broke your hit. Yeah, but
living out here doesn't suck. If I had to use
a wheelchair, Aura, I could get a little car, something,
a little what do they call them, some kind of
(36:15):
scooters or something that you can drive out so I
can go around all around. I do not want to
go anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, too, You're gonna stay here forever. You make that
very clear times the thing so.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
It fell to Michelle. Yeah, it didn't always when I
was in the hospital in which talk fell to Jeanette
and you guys said you did a fine.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Job too, Yeah, because otherwise I.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Was gonna hurt somebody because that there was horrible.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Hospital. FO it's never fun and it's hard you being
out here, and we love you and we miss you.
But also you've created a life out here. Much of
what you were just talking about is this whole life
you've created here, and I want to leave it. It's
what you've always known for this whole second part of
your life.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah. So actually most of the years of my life
more doing this than anything else. And I love being
out here.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
What was it like when you would have us come
out to the property? What it was funny. I remember
a story and you were talking about the chickens at
one point, and you traumatized me because it was about
chopping off their heads and it was not a great
experience as a vegetarian.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Property not but I've never been a vegetarian. I had
to get used to that when I was growing up
because I was the oldest child. And who do you
think mom got to do step for her. That was you.
It wasn't a voluntary thing either.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
You were required to do things.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yes, I never got used to chopping chicken tit off.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And that was real. You're telling me that was real
stories and you weren't just messing with me.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
We had when we first moved out there, all of
us moved firsten to Peabody, his first time I've known
anything about greenmund County or southern Kansas. I want to say.
We had an outdoor toilet when we moved there. We
had no running water in the kitchen. Wow, had a pump.
(38:21):
There was a kitchen sink and there was a hand
pump there for water into the That was water in
the house. Wow.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
So you were doing a lot of chores just to
have things that were functioning.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Garden canny, separating milk to milk and cream and you
sold the cream for no need to get groceries on
child eggs.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Wow. And then you had the chickens. But then so
you had your own meat essentially, But that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And a guy that owned the farm where we were
where my dad worked, he always gave I can't remember
how much it was, but a lot of beef. So
we always had beef. They butchered pigs, we had fork.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
You went from that, and then obviously at different purces
of your life you had running water and now you
have electricity and stuff. But you almost went back a
little bit. You went back to that childhood. Yeah, because
not canned stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Now, I know that like natural stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I like science too, though, and I like advances, and
I like to watch what they find out with the
telescope and the base landings and all that. I always
watched that and are ology. I like what happened a
long time ago. I think the Earth, that's a fantastic
(39:48):
whatever it is. Thank god, I've got to be here.
What if this is just a figment of.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
My it's sure. Say you're real. You're real. I can
touch you, I feel you. You're a real human being.
But it is cool. It's cool.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And when you live by yourself and you're out in
the country, don't even when you have to talk to
you a lot of the time. Is your dog. My
dog is very well educated. I've talked to him about
a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Cisco has the whole memory that you have. He's learned everything.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
I don't think so he's just said you're waiting for
me to.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Pick up the ball, pretending to listen just so he
can get a little piece of food or his toy,
one of the two.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I do think a lot about that kind of stuff
now because I can, I have time, and when I've
been working before and married. Somehow it got started with
Brian and I get together and exploits. If we went
(41:01):
to museums, We went to anything that would had to
do with both of those things, and we both like that.
They have a really good museum, small museum in Oklahoma.
We'd go down to a lot because you never can
see all of it at one time, it seems.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Are you mad at the microphone?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Now? Oh?
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I want to know from you because you've painted out
pictures of your life. But when you look at your life,
is there any parts of it that you regret they
look back on?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Oh yeah, Oh. People lie when they say there's nothing
they regret. Their liars are fooling themselves. I believe in
what we have here in nature, and I believe there's
I don't know, civilization to humans state we're crawling around
(41:59):
on regret. I believe that's much easier for me to believe,
to believe that there's a god up here that puts
somebody on Earth and we've all expanded from that, and
he's the one that he still should ask I get.
I can't bring myself to believe it. It's just like
a fairy tale or a something the ancient person has
(42:23):
written down that everybody bought. Now we're still believing everybody's
believing that. But anyway, that's my own personal thing. I
don't care what anybody else does. That's just mine. And
so that may be why part of why it fulfills
my need for some reason for this. So that's why
(42:48):
maybe astronomy fascinates me, because you know, how did some
star or what was this little thing at one specific
moment explode and become all these stars and galaxies and
(43:14):
black holes and planets. If they did, are they really
I want somebody to show me what was there before
this little black thing that exploded? What was over here?
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Like, I have a lot more questions than I do answers,
So I'm going to need somebody to start answering something
before the end of it. And you were referencing your regrets.
I think in this part of that.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Probably that I didn't take work when I had the chance.
When I was going to college, why didn't I take
these science classes and all that, because that's seems to
be the way I'm going Teaching is okay. It was
(44:03):
all right. I like students, and everything got along. It's
just a bureaucracy. You got to answer to this person
who interested this person, who answers to this person.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
And I know you don't like answering to anybody.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
That's not a thing that you like to do.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
And I don't like to be told what to do.
But I'm in charge of something. I've had my clashes.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You've passed that down as well. Very independent women. We
like what we like.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
But I think I've changed someone. Yes I am that
way and stubborn about being that way, But as I
get older and I think, and being in a hospital
and all that time makes you think about stuff like
that and how you could handle it, maybe in your
mind better than you've been doing. And I just think
(44:57):
there's no way to people having opposite inspirations or desires.
There's no way that either of these two people know everything.
It always it's good to talk. I regret that I
was always one minded or could not listen to other
(45:22):
people and actually listen to them instead of just hearing
what they're saying and not ever trying to understand or
think about it. I'm sure I've done that a lot
in my whole life. I think that's why better off
being out here in the country, don't have anybody.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
To argue, is just yourself and your dog. I like
to end things on in it, particularly with you as
a piece of advice. Is there any advice you have
as people move through this life and they try to
understand thinking the.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Last person to want to give advice to someone.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
No, you're great at giving advice. You gave it to
me for a lot of my childhood.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
I know I'm great at giving it, but I'm not
sure it's the right advice for It.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Doesn't have to be the right say it was the
right advice for you at one point or another.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sorry for all of my mistakes.
I really I don't regret marrying Brian because he's a
really nice person, not as nice as I had hoped
he was. Because nobody likes to be betrayed or left
(46:35):
or amand and that's how I feel about that. But nevertheless,
he is not or was not that's Mary to me.
It's very kind to everybody and very nice. And I
regret that we parted on such a bad note. I
(46:55):
do regret that I regret leaving Jay the way I did,
because he didn't deserve that either. And so those are
times when I recognize that I wasn't always a really
nice person, and I fully I agree, And so I
(47:19):
think that part of living by myself and thinking over
those things I do regret, I think is just a
way of coming to grips with who I've become up
till now. And I'm not sure what I'm going to
(47:43):
work on.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Next, And hindsight's always twenty twenty, right, you can look
at a situation after you've left.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
And love's always been a little tough for me. If
I'm in love, I'm in love.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
We're deep feelers in this family.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
M h.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's very true. Yeah, Yeah, And they brought beautiful experiences
and memories and stories.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
And I don't regret those. I really don't. I've had
some great experiences. Oh, should anybody else enjoy those? I
would wish that on anybody.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
They're great to live life and go after the adventures.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, and I'd always I would say that I was
more adventurous than I was a couch potato. I've always
not looked back very often or questioned myself very often.
If it looks like it's going to be fun, let's
do it, it's going to be a good experience, Let's
do it. And so I haven't pulled back away from that.
(48:50):
Maybe a little would have been.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Better, maybe now, yes, but that's what I don't regret it.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I don't wish it had happened.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
And what about advice as you look on your life,
if there's something you could tell somebody, maybe it's you
from way back when that you're telling advice too. If
you could go back and you could give advice to
your ten year old self about the life that she's
about to live up until this moment, what would you
say to her?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Go out and grab it, grab life, live, don't be
afraid to do stuff. Life would have been different if
I'd have gone to college right out of high school
instead of getting married. I can't help but think what
would that have been like. It would have been different
(49:39):
path for sure, And so I guess you really can't
do much else besides what you want to do. Something's
gonna send you down a certain path of you to
your parents want you to go to college, or maybe
they want you to get get married, they want grandchildren,
(50:02):
or I don't know. There are a big influence on
a lot of people, not all. There are a lot
of people that don't have real parents anymore, and I
haven't given enough lot to them.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Mm hmm. And it sounds like more than anything I
think you were you wanted to trust your instincts more
and go out and do things that you exactly wanted
to do. And there were moments of your life where
you pulled back.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
A little and some not very many times.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
So and that's the best part, right You started to
figure it out pretty quickly, if.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
It tells you anything. I don't know even how many
jobs I've had in my life. I have never worked
for anybody or any institution anything more than three years
until I worked for Butler County here when I was
married to Brian and I worked with it.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
You're just living all kinds of odd jobs and doing everything.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, I've worked for radio stations out here when it
first got started. Oh so much. Ben?
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Is that weird now for me that you realize one
of your grandchildren is in radio and that's one of
your jobs.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
It's like a special This is my throwback.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
I'm the throwback.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
I love that. I'm glad I could be and just.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Learned to fly an airplane, had an airplane that I
flew wherever I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
You had a motorcycle and an airplane. He worked on
a radio station. You were also digging on muscles. And
what didn't you do at some personal.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
I haven't seen near enough countries and other cultures. That's
I missed that the most.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
I think that's something any way you would have done.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah, because we see all these wars and all these
factions that person from there or whatever, and it's if
you stand back and look at it's just like a
bunch of kids that can't agree around the sandbox or something,
(52:10):
so they're gonna punch them out or take them out.
It just seems so stupid. I have to say that
I think we would not have It's my opinion anyway.
And I think women are very smart. I think they
have gotten that's short end of the stick a lot
of times, especially earlier. But I think if we had
(52:38):
more women rulers. We've had some like an Egypt and
some of those places and Queen Vicoria. But if we'd
have had more women leaders of men, women are like
at armies and services and stuff, I think we would
have had a lotier wars. Hot take Grandma, you know what, mother,
(53:05):
want your son to get killed in a war.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
There's a little bit more empathy and compassion inside of
that then.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
And men are always okay, I say always, not all
Petter like that. Not all women are like what I
just said. Until this time, did.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
You ever have a moment where being a woman was
something that you really experienced, Because what I really see
is see you, and I see my great grandmother, and
you guys paved pass and you did things so that
way women today are set up to be able to
succeed and have leadership roles and stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Was just still working on it.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah, oh yeah, it's still a work in progress. But
you guys paved a lot of pass that didn't exist before. Yeah,
and well, Grandma, I've kept you for so long in
doing this, But I do want to still end on
a piece of advice because I think you gave one.
But it could be motivation or set of advice, it
could be inspiration whatever.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Don't hate people that's the most destructive hate. It doesn't
just destroy somebody else, it destroys you. Would you hate people,
Oh my god, you're not open to what there is
and the world. You see it differently because maybe some
(54:25):
other denomination there or runs this store whatever. It's so petty.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
There's a great way for us to stand on because
it's words of advice from my eighty seven year old grandma.
Don't hate. It's not that hard. Yeah, thank you, Grandma,
I love you. Thank you for doing this with me.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Thank you. I hope I don't feel like complete idiot.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Thank you guys so much for letting me share my
grandma Bernie with you. Guys. She's such an incredible human
and somebody that I deeply adore and admire. So I
really appreciate this experience, one that I'm going to remember forever,
getting to record a podcast episode in her living room
of the house that she talked about. So if you
do want to check out the video of this, you
can watch it on the YouTube page at web Girl
(55:10):
Morgan and all the interviews are up there if you
want to go check those out and subscribe. If you
like listening to audio only, then make sure you also
subscribe to the podcast, and you can also follow the
Instagram page at take This Personally. All that stuff is
so helpful and really beneficial As we head into the
new year and doing this podcast, I know you guys
have so many options to choose from, so as always,
(55:32):
I'm so happy that you're here. And even more exciting
news next week, my fiance is going to join the episode.
We're going to talk all about our engagement story and
all of the details and things surrounding the big moment
that happened over our Christmas break
Hosts And Creators
Bobby Bones
Amy Brown
Lunchbox
Eddie Garcia
Morgan Huelsman
Raymundo
Mike D
Abby Anderson
Scuba Steve
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