November 20, 2024 • 37 mins
Welcome to another powerful episode of The Hot Dish. This one delves deep into the past and present of untold stories from America's heartland, from the historical injustices faced by Native communities to the contemporary heroes fighting fires without pay.
Of course, Heidi and Joel begin by reviewing the shocking results of the 2024 elections, and the failure of the Democratic Party to communicate effectively with a majority of American voters.
Then, we sit down with Donovan Archambault, a tribal leader and author whose new book offers an eye-opening account of life at a government-backed Indian school in the 1950s. Drawing from his own experiences and those of his community, Donovan reveals that approximately 90% of his fictional book is based on actual events. Listeners will learn about the harsh realities faced by Native American children, including abuse and cultural erasure. He emphasizes the importance of advocating and reclaiming Indigenous cultural values to foster societal healing.
Next, we shift our focus to an inspiring piece of documentary filmmaking with Pete Yoakum, who discusses his project "Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat." This documentary highlights the lives of volunteer firefighters in rural America, shedding light on their bravery and dedication despite minimal recognition and compensation. Pete reveals his journey, from conception to the challenges of filming during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the incredible support he received from communities. You’ll gain insights into the diverse stories of volunteer first responders and the evolving role of women in firefighting.
Tune in every other week for The Hot Dish, where we serve up hearty conversations that resonate with every corner of the country.
To learn more, visit https://onecountryproject.org
For a copy of Tatanga Hōksheen: A Failed Attempt to Kill The Indian by Donovan Archambault, Sr, you can find it in many booksellers including Praire Edge: https://prairieedge.com/all-products/katanga-hoksheen-a-failed-attempt-to-kill-the-indian-book/?srsltid=AfmBOoqyD3HW2XGQMkPB6XwJpVg0Qqm5xd8UwbudbIocHoa4F89R5kKz
or Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tatanga-h-333-ksheen-donovan-archambault-sr/1145828386
For local listings and more info on the documentary, visit the official "Odd Hours, No Pay, Cool Hat" website: https://oddhoursfilm.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Well, welcome to the Hot Dish comfort food for middle America. Although I'm
not feeling very comforted. I'm Heidi Heitkamp. And I'm Joel
Heitkamp. We're gonna talk about the election, but we don't wanna
dwell just on that. We have more for you in this episode.
Joel, you were pretty busy again, and thanks for picking up the slack. You had
two really interesting interviews. We should share that you spoke
(00:27):
with Pete Yocum, the executive producer of the documentary
Odd Hours, no Pay, Cool Hat. That's
right. The documentary is about the lives and families of volunteer
first responders across the country. So Pete and I talked
about how he made the movie and its ultimate
message. Well, I mean, you and I spent a lot of
(00:50):
time with the first responder in our life, and that was our father, who was
chief of the volunteer fire department for years. And so I hope that
you told people where they can watch this documentary, because I think a lot of
people had our experience growing up. Yeah. And I think
Pete alone is definitely worth their time. Good. You also
had a really important conversation with Donovan
(01:11):
Archambault. He also wrote a book,
Failed Attempt to Kill the Indian. It's based on
his own experience, and it's a tribute to his tribal community
and really an important examination of
not where we've been, but also where we're going. So good on you,
Joel. You know, it really was, Heidi, a true honor, especially
(01:34):
for November, which is American Indian Heritage
Month. But before we get to that, Heidi, tell me what you think of the
election of Donald Trump and the Republican gains in
Congress. Well, you know,
disappointment, I think, would be a good response.
Disappointment that Kamala Harris and her team and
(01:54):
a number of Democrats didn't do better. But, you know, Joel,
I think hope is a terrible thing sometimes to have because
it will overwhelm your rational thinking. And my
rational thinking was, you can't have right track, wrong track numbers
the way that the administration had right track, round track numbers
and expect to win. And probably the only person she had a
(02:17):
chance of defeating was Donald Trump. And so, you know, in
some sad way, it's tragic that the Republicans
didn't have, let's say, a more conventional
candidate, because now we have four years of leadership that we've
seen before. And I've been watching, and you've been watching
some of the appointments to cabinet positions,
(02:40):
people who I think will lead with not knowledge in facts,
but ideology. And so elections have consequences. But
the worst thing for the Democratic Party is to assume
that this was some kind of Good Housekeeping
seal of approval on Donald Trump. I think Democratic Party
has to look in the mirror and examine why that party, which
(03:02):
we say is the party of working people, can't seem to
get working people to vote for him. Well, I think that's a perfect example,
Heidi, of why, you know, the hot dish in one country is so
important, because I think that we always mention middle America. But
it goes deeper than that. They. They have forgotten. And I wrote a blog about
this. I. I hope people go read it. Where can they read your blog? They
(03:24):
can read it@kfgo.com but I think lost in all of
this is that the Democratic Party no longer
talks to me. And I'm gonna give you a couple examples,
Heidi. They no longer talk to an individual that
is worried when deer hunting opens up. They no
longer talk to a guy that owns shotguns and rifles and, you
(03:47):
know, grew up in an era where, you know, pickups still matter
and actually still lives in that era. They no longer talk to a
guy who's more worried about what time the football game
starts than what time commentary is on
msnbc. I really believe that they
don't care about people that
(04:08):
haven't graduated college and might be
willing to wake up with a hangover. I mean, these people, Heidi, don't matter
to the Democratic Party anymore. I mean, that's part of what I talked about in
my blog, that it's not sexy to talk about, you know,
the sewer pipe. It's not. But the truth of the matter is, on
Christmas morning, it better work when the house is full of people
(04:30):
and, you know, the sewer pipe and the sewer system is brand new
or going to be brand new because of what Joe Biden did. But nobody talked
about that. Nobody did. You know, what I heard over and
over and over again were issues that didn't connect
with those men and women that really come from the
same background that you and I grew up with, Heidi. It was just
(04:53):
such an intellectual.
I don't know how to put it. Let me put it this way.
Snobbery. Elite. How's that? Is that a word? Elitist? Yeah.
Yep, it sure is. Well, and it's elite. The message
tends to be elite. And I also think, though,
that, you know, let's give her some credibility.
(05:14):
She stepped in really late. I think, you know, we at least
believed she had a chance. But at the end of the day, there
also is it. For some reason in this country, there
may be a bigger hurdle than what we care to admit for a woman,
especially a woman of color, to get elected the chief executive.
No, there's no question. I have five granddaughters and I wrote a note
(05:37):
to them right off the elect after the election of what they're up against
in this world, being girls now and future women
that I have no doubt they're going to, going to be leaders at some
point. The fact is it's harder for them. It's going to be harder for
them. I agree with you. We have to give her credit. It was not
her fault. She got thrown into the third end of the pool without
(06:00):
much time to really convey what the strategy was going to be.
But that doesn't change the fact that the party has been here
for a long time. If you look at who won, if you look at who
won, Joe Biden won. He beat Donald Trump,
albeit narrowly, but he beat him. And why? Because he
knows how to talk to the very people that I just mentioned.
(06:23):
He does. He can walk in the VFW hall, he can walk in the Legion
hall and feel comfortable. He can walk in that union
hall and know exactly how they live and what got
them to wear all of those stickers on their helmet.
Right. I mean, I don't think that Kamala Harris can do that. I don't think
many of the people that lead the Democratic Party can do that.
(06:45):
So let's give people some bright news. You know, we have said at one
country we've done numbers basically saying that
there isn't a lot of split ticket voting and there wasn't a lot of
split ticket voting here, but there was some. And that's how Tammy
Baldwin, that's how Slotkin, that's how
Gallegos, that's how Jackie Rosen, I mean,
(07:08):
you go down the line, split ticket voting delivered at
least four additional senators. And then there were senators
who couldn't overcome that headwind. And that's Jon
Tester who actually I think of all the senators running
probably did the best in terms of overcoming the headwind.
It just was so that the gale was too strong in
(07:30):
Montana. Sherrod Brown obviously
wasn't able to overcome the headwind. And
tragically, and they're all tragic, Bob Casey wasn't able to get
it across the finish line. And so we lost three great incumbent
senators, didn't have any pickups and then lost Joe
Manchin, which means that there now is a three vote majority for
(07:52):
the Republican Party in the United States Senate.
How do people who are listening to us, how do they get their
sense across of frustration that they have with the
direction of the party? Well, I think many of
them are going to look at different ways they can get
politically active. And that isn't going to be necessarily
(08:14):
through the party. And I'm sorry to say that, but it's not going to be.
The other thing is, and what I'm hearing from people here in the middle
of this country is, I quit. You know, I'm sorry,
but that's what they're saying is I quit. I'm hearing it on my
show, I'm hearing it from a lot of people. So they're talking
about doing exactly what we need to not do,
(08:36):
but they are talking about it because in one country
territory, there were out. Heidi. Yeah, but admit it, Joel,
didn't you want to say, I'm done, I quit. I went media
blackout is what I did. Hey, by the way, I saw the
cookies. I saw the dinner rolls. You could have sent me a few. Cookies
(08:57):
for those listeners out there. I'm convalescing by taking up
baking. I'm done raising pumpkins now. And so I bake
cookies and dinner rolls in the last couple of days. But I
mean, here's the truth. If you want
to sit there as a person and say, look,
these people, the Trump people get to define me, then
(09:19):
fine, quit, then quit. But if, and I'll
use this scenario of dad again, right? Go ahead, quit.
Go home. You don't got to play anymore, but you're going to miss playing ball.
I mean, we're about to find out how vicious this all
can be. And we're going to. We are absolutely going to.
And so if you just want to sit back and watch, sit back and watch.
(09:41):
But I think in the middle of this country, what, what the leader,
whoever that future leader is, needs to call
people from the middle of this country and say, come talk to
me, I need to talk to you. I was in a cab on the way
back from New York doing television for almost 36 hours
straight. And, you know, I, I, I, I put on the happy face,
(10:03):
Joel, and you know, I was ready to not be happy face.
And, and the cab driver felt so bad for me, he got
out and gave me, he's Nigerian.
And I hadn't cried until then. And he just, he was
Nigerian and immigrant, told me how hard he works, told me that he too
(10:23):
had cried. And, and then he said, but never forget this.
This is the most wonderful, beautiful country in the history of
the world. And it really took kind of that calibration. And
I thought, okay, you could quit. You can sit on the sidelines,
but you're going to get the same result. And this
administration now has to govern. I want to take a picture
(10:46):
of the price of eggs. I want to take the picture of a price of
a loaf of bread. And then every week, say, hasn't come
down yet. Here's the picture. A lot was
promised. I don't know how he can possibly
deliver the kind of bread and butter, meat and potatoes, or
macaroni and cheese promises that were made. I don't think it's
(11:08):
going to happen. And, you know, the accountability that
we can, in fact, be responsible for, because that is the
job of the opposition party. The accountability is a huge
part of, hopefully, the strategy. Well, but I would add
this. I agree with your Nigerian friend or your new Nigerian
friend. I agree with him. This is a great
(11:30):
country. I don't dispute that. But what we also found out about this
country is we're not that different than other
countries. I mean, we're not. You know, I know that sounds
negative. I don't care. It's something we need to take a
step back and ask ourselves how we fix.
Because what we found out was we could
(11:52):
elect an individual where it doesn't
matter if eggs go up under his watch. It
only mattered if eggs went up under the previous
watch. And until the American people can get done
idolizing someone like him, we're not going to move forward.
And I've got one more point to make, Heidi. On my show,
(12:14):
when I say. Because the majority of my audience is Republican,
very, very conservative Republican, when I say to them,
look, this is the man that you want your kids
to emulate. This is the man that. That you are
proud to have as president and that you love.
My phone lines light up. They just light up. They say that's not what we.
(12:36):
That. I bet you they're all really defensive. Nope, nope, nope, nope,
nope, nope. I just like his policies. I just, like. I just.
I don't care much for him. I just. Yeah, you do care
for him, because he's going to be that Grover
Cleveland face above the blackboard. Yeah.
Now there is no blackboard anymore, I realized. But those little
(12:58):
circle pictures that were above that blackboard in Mrs.
Stack's room matter to me. And you know what?
They just elected a convicted rapist felon.
And it doesn't matter what eggs are to these
guys. It matters whether or not they get to be close to
him and whether or not they get to be as cool as
(13:21):
him. And so, Heidi, we proved
that we can be a country no different than many other
countries. And that doesn't mean I don't love this country. Yeah.
Okay. Well, listen, Joel, it's always fun. We're going
to continue to be here and we're going to continue to talk and we're going
to continue to be a voice for real America. So this isn't the last
(13:43):
conversation, but we're going to move forward from here and listen to Joel
and Donovan.
You know, this is a real honor for me, ladies and gentlemen. I get a
chance to visit with Donovan Archambault. He is a tribal
member, born in Fort Belknap, Montana. Now,
(14:03):
you can't just easily go through his resume or his
life, quite frankly. He went to Harvard, holds a master's of
education degree, served as director of the tribal health
Department, later his tribal planning department. But here's, here's one
for you folks. 16 years on the tribal council, including
two as chair. We're going to talk to him about his
(14:25):
book, Tatanga Hoksheen. A Failed Attempt
to Kill the Indian is the name of the book. It's a work
of fiction, but unfortunately there's just a lot of
truth in of it. Donovan Arshambo, thank you for joining
us, sir. It's a real honor. Thank you for having me, sir. I hope
I can add some things to what happened to us
(14:48):
in boarding schools and things that the
need to they talk about. You
bet they do. And clearly by reading some
of the excerpts of the bill or the book, I should say
they do need to talk about it. Now this, the plot of this book is
about a 10 year old that was, that was forced
(15:11):
into the pier Indian school in South Dakota, government
institution with one goal and that was to kill
the Indian, save the man. What does that mean,
Mr. Arshambeau? Well, it means that we had to make
a drastic change in our whole culture,
religion, our whole lifestyle. And
(15:33):
what it's done to us is evident today
in all these social ills and the high statistics
of Indian alcoholism, drug abuse,
suicide and things like that. And I didn't even know the
word suicide. Never even heard of it before I went
to boarding school. And not that boarding school is
(15:55):
a direct result of it, but it shows
that it possibly could BE so.
The US Department of the Interior has identified
408 government backed Indian schools in
37 states over 150 years. I grew
up right next to one of those in the
(16:16):
Sistinhwapatin Lakota tribe. The schools
forced children to have English names and work manual
labor. Did that actually happen to you as well,
Donovan? Well, that happened to us before I
went down and I had my English name, but living with
my grandfolks, my name was Totonga Hoshide. That's what
(16:38):
I answered to. So I had a home name and a school name
when I started school, but my name was
already Donovan Archamble when I went to
Pierre. So really, the name you
use in the book is your name. I realize this is a work of
fiction, but it certainly is patterned after
(16:59):
your life. I want people to understand that are
taking in this conversation what that was
like, what the book not just portrays,
but actually did happen. If you would, sir. Well,
I would say that probably 90% of the
things that I write about actually happened.
(17:22):
They happened to myself. And in some instances
I didn't remember the person's name. And
so I can insert other names or my own
name and things that happened, but the actual
events, the things that I write about
actually happened. There was some
(17:43):
things I had to kind of fill in because I didn't
remember the exact details of how it
actually happened or I was there, but I wasn't
in the immediate location where it actually happened. And
I heard some of the events that happened from my
friends and from other matrons, teachers and things like
(18:06):
that. With your background as an educator, as
someone so highly educated, as somebody who
worked within the tribe to try to make lives better,
I guess I gotta ask you this. How many people do you
think know what you're writing about here?
Well, I believe other than tribal
(18:28):
members and the students that I went to school with,
I think very little of the greater
population know these things actually happened. I know
we tried to tell other people, but we were
labeled liars or fabricators or something
that, no, this really didn't happen. And I went
(18:50):
to Carlisle in 1990 and
sat on the panel discussing things that
happened there. And on that panel there was a
priest, myself, some historian,
reporter and a teacher. Some. There was
five of us on the panel and I mentioned the fact
(19:13):
that, yeah, there was abuse, sexual abuse, and
the priest was on the other end of the table from me, stood up
and looked directly at me and said, now that can be true because
our people aren't like that. And I told him, father, are you calling
me a liar? I don't let anybody call me a liar. And if you don't
apologize, I'm coming down there. And of course
(19:36):
he apologized. The colonel sat me back down
and I came home after that. And three weeks
later, or a month later, three inch headlines in the Boston
Globe. Priests molest altar Boy and all hell broke
loose. I reported that in 1951.
But it had no consequences except me getting beat up
(19:58):
because I said something about the priest and it
didn't sit well with the administration and I was
punished for that. I want to talk to you about
the way you chose to tell this story through
fiction. Why did you choose fiction to tell this?
Basically, it's a true story. Well, basically I didn't
(20:20):
remember a lot of the names. I didn't remember the
exact times, the dates. I didn't remember exactly
from one year to the next because they all kind of ran together.
You know, there was no break, there was no going home, no listening to
your grandparents, no listening to your parents. My
parent down there was a whistle. The whistle blew at 6:00.
(20:42):
You jump up, make your bed. Whistle blew again. You lined up, you've done your
exercise. Whistle blew again. You went to dining hall at
8. Whistleblow again. He lined up, went to
school, whistleblow again. So that was my, that was
my parenting experience at Pier. And
so, you know, we really didn't have any kind of direction
(21:04):
except do what we tell you. We marched every
place two by two, to school, to the dining hall,
to church, to wherever we went. And it was a big
tongue, military practice on how we were
taken care of. How did you get into the
school? What, what was the reason that I don't know if I
(21:26):
should use the word enrolled or placed or. How did you get
into the school, Mr. Archambault? My mother and father
separated and we were more or less orphaned.
My mother still cared for us, did the best she
could. But although there was about six or seven of us still at
home. So we had a choice. We either had to go to
(21:48):
boarding school or we had to go to a foster home. And one of my
uncles wanted to keep us, keep me anyway. And the
social services here at the bureau wouldn't allow it because he
already had five or six kids of his own. So I had,
like I said, I had a choice of foster home or peer. So I
chose peer because I heard all the wild stories about
(22:10):
foster homes and how kids were training and so I chose
boating school. Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to Donovan
Archambault, a member of the Assiniboine tribe.
His new BIC is just absolutely
amazing. Basically something that is
focused on a failed attempt to kill the Indian. You
(22:32):
talked about suicides, but one of the
points, you know, as you look at it, the US Department of the Interior
identifying those 408 government backed
Indian schools in 37 states over 150
years. They talk about hundreds of children
dying in these schools, hundreds dying.
(22:54):
I actually had a couple of my family members that went to
Pier actually commit suicide. One shot herself
and the other one just Drake himself. Death, broken
artery somewhere and bled to death leaning over a toilet bowl. That's
how he died. But he stayed drunk almost his whole life.
And to me, alcoholism is suicide. You know, once
(23:16):
you start that and you don't get away from it, it's going to kill you.
And that's suicide to me. I stayed drunk for 25
years trying to wash away the shame and the anger
that we acquired going to school. I want to talk
about people recognizing and basically
respecting your life and others that you write about in this
(23:38):
book. I want to talk, if we can, a little bit about
testifying and publicly sharing, because clearly
that's what you're doing here. Is there responsibility there,
sir? Definitely. I think the responsibility is with the
federal government, is if you can teach us all
these things that have brought us to where we're at now,
(24:00):
then we can. We can unlearn those kind of things and get
back on the right track. In my class, I teach
my students. You know, we're sitting on a fence now, a fence here.
The old way and the new way. The old way, we
had respect, discipline. We respected our parents. We
never answered back. The new way, we're alcoholic,
(24:23):
drug addicts, and we know that didn't work for us. So
we have an opportunity, and I think it falls
on everybody from the parents to Congress to
wherever we have, to begin to teach the values
that made us who we are in the beginning. That's what I'm
trying to teach. I'm trying to say we need to go back to
(24:46):
when your parents tell you to go wash
dishes and go wash dishes. What is a society
do we need to do? I think the
society had an opportunity to look at what was
going on from the very beginning. But there's only one
man that I read about. He's my favorite
(25:08):
artist, and that's C.M. russell. In one of his
books, he drew a picture of an Indian sitting in the shade of his
horse. And the caption under that picture was, the
red man is the true American. He is almost gone
now. The earth was his mother, son was his God,
and all Outdoors was his Bible, and he knew
(25:30):
every page. But he's the only one that
seen us like that, and Nobody heard him. Mr. Archambault,
this has been a real honor. DONOVAN Archambault,
Senior I would say it's safe to say you Found your
purpose, sir. Thank you for joining us on One Country. Thank you for having
me.
(25:54):
I'm excited to talk to Pete Yokum about his documentary
film Odd Hours, no Pay, Cool Hat. Five
years ago, he began a project focusing on volunteer
firefighters and the risks they take for their communities,
especially rural America. And that's daily
in his movie. He dives deep into the lives
(26:16):
and families of volunteer first responders spread
across the country. And Pete began this film as a personal quest to
find the answers to the question, why would anybody do
it? Why would somebody put themselves in harm's way
while leaving their job and family to respond to a neighbor's
emergency with little or no pay? Pete,
(26:38):
thanks for joining me on the Hot Dish. Appreciate it, Joel. You know, I'm just
going to be upfront with you, Pete. All I saw was the trailer, but after
seeing the trailer, I'm going to see it. I'm going to see the work.
Because what you just showed is really the world I live
in. Well, it's worth it. You'll be able to see it on some of the
PBS stations coming up here soon. But you can also
(27:00):
download it in the full original version from
Apple, from Amazon Prime. You can even get it
on airplanes for longer flights. Something started this up.
Something got in your head. Why the project? Now, let me make
sure you know the name of it, folks. Odd Hours, no Pay,
Cool Hat. Which, by the way, in and of itself is a cool
(27:23):
name, Pete. But something made you do this. What was it?
I wanted to find a project that
would allow me to prove to myself that
Americans are a lot more similar than politicians and
social media channels would have us believe. So I
began looking for Americans that were contributing something
(27:45):
very significant to our society, but who weren't very
well known or recognized for that contribution.
Okay, well, how did you pick them? Because
you and I both know there are so many
individuals out there that fit the criteria of the
story you're trying to tell. I mean, something made you
(28:07):
decide which ones were going to be the focus. What made you pick them?
I had a hunch that I'd end up focusing on volunteer
first responders. And I did a lot of due diligence and research and
realized, unlike the career fire departments, where, you know,
Hollywood makes movies that are drama movies, there
is very little that was told about the volunteer
(28:30):
first responder sector. So first I set off sort
of driving around the country with one of my retrievers and
started looking for that project. My
wife, understandably, did not know what the hell I was doing, nor
why? And eventually I found my way to
Hoxie, Kansas, where I met Steve Hirsch, who's one of the
(28:52):
most extraordinary people that I've met in my
life. He's been a volunteer firefighter for 44 years. He serves
as the chairman of the National Volunteer Fire Council. He's a
prosecutor for several of the rural counties in northwest Kansas. He
prepares 1500 tax returns for his neighbors each year.
He's a very, very productive guy. And we hit
(29:14):
it off almost instantly. After I
told him about my project, he just essentially opened
up the book for me in terms of contacts, of
ideas, associations with the National Volunteer Fire Council.
And initially, you're right, this started out as
a personal quest to answer that question.
(29:37):
But after I started visiting
with hundreds of volunteer first responders,
I realized that this was a far bigger project than what I had
originally imagined. The public is just generally unaware of that.
And they constitute more than two thirds of all U.S. firefighters.
The economic contribution to our
(29:59):
population is enormous, and it's especially critical, as you say,
to those areas that they can't afford a full time fire service. Pete, I don't
want to say recovering because, you know, I loved it,
but I'm a former rural firefighter. I lived in a town and
I worked out of a town with 100 people in it when that whistle
went off, and that's how we knew the whistle blew in that small
(30:21):
town, everybody came running. But that's small
in comparison to my dad. My dad was real fire chief for
30 years. And one of the things that both Heidi and I cherish the
most is that that badge, that fire
chief badge, there's a lot of pride to that. And
I think in large part because of the volunteerism,
(30:43):
it isn't just fighting fire or fighting that
accident or getting the ambulance there, those type of things.
And so, you know, all of that is challenges for you
to tell that story had to be challenging.
I mean, what were you faced with while you went about being in a
rural area and telling a story that very few people know
(31:05):
in urban areas? You know, I won't call it challenging because
I found it one of the most rewarding things I've ever done in my
life. A lot of those interviews were done during COVID
so that was kind of a challenge. I purchased a sprinter
van, fully self contained, and drove around and visited
these places that were, you know, trails in
(31:27):
sort of places in many cases. But I was just so
welcomed and well received the challenges really well
in filming this, first, raising the money. But second,
I took my library of interviews and took 10
minutes of them out, turned it into what I call
like the pitch video, and went out
(31:49):
to a list of about a hundred different US
Corporations where I thought this would be received well. But I ended
up getting through to John Deere
and realized that I had found the needle in the haystack there
because John Deere himself had been a volunteer firefighter
when he started John Deere. So that
(32:12):
part sort of took care of itself. But then when we
went out and we did a casting call with the assistance of the National Volunteer
Fire council, we got 900 responses when we were
expecting 50. So originally we were going to
do three venues around the country, but when we got these
responses which were just
(32:33):
heartwarming, well, we went to John Deere and they said, well, let's just
increase the scope of the project. So we went to eight different
venues, eventually dropping one, but it did expand the
project significantly and the budget. So John Deere was
extremely generous as they helped us through this process.
When you do a piece like this, there's going to be some people that you
(32:55):
instantly think of, that you think this story
of this person has to be told. They're all, to your
point, they're big hearted and generous and so
forth. I guess I would say my favorite
is Barbara Williams. Barbara was
62 or 3, her husband retired and she went
(33:16):
into the local fire department there in Little
Fork, Virginia and wanted to be, you know, a
secretary, bookkeeper, accountant. And they said, no, no, no, no,
no. And now she's the head EMT for the fire
department and she's been there for 11 years. And she
was generous enough to allow me to pull into her home and
(33:38):
hook a power cord up so I could stay there. But we sat,
you know, for hours and hours and hours before the film crew
arrived, talking about her situation there and
what experience she had. Pete, in my
time as a real firefighter, it was all men. It was all men.
That was just the custom. And then you know what?
(34:01):
It happened. Not just because of fairness, actually, it
happened because some of the rural fire departments were running out
of people to be members and to do that. And then they
went to a place they should have gone a long time ago, which was to
recruit women to join that force. And to me, I
always thought they found out, and I'm fairly confident I'm right about this, that
(34:23):
why the hell did we have them on the force earlier? My
prediction is that half of the recruits that we
generate will be women. Yep. And
it makes for nothing but a better firefighting
department. Pete, I know I keep going back in time here, but
the one reason I do that is to emphasize, you know, what
(34:44):
you found and how that's changed, how professional it
is now. And I still have this image of my dad
running and my mom worried about what he's going to
come back like, I mean, that's. They were going to
a place that's incredibly dangerous.
Absolutely. I think that people don't realize
(35:06):
that they appreciate the fact that firefighters are out there on the front
line. But many of these individuals that are
volunteering are going through the same anxiety, for
lack of a better way of putting it. If somebody's in that house, they're going
to go in that house and get them. And so I'm
curious what that person that was involved with the
(35:27):
firefighter, whether it was the husband or the wife, did you get a
chance to visit with them? Oh, absolutely.
I interviewed a lot of spouses of firefighters
and ask them the same question. I can't
overemphasize the notion that these
volunteer fire departments, they become a family
(35:49):
for the individuals who join them. And their
support system is very strong. And so that
extends just way beyond just the firefighter. It extends to their
family and everything else. Well, Pete, I only have
182. I was sitting here counting 182
other subjects I want you to do documentaries on now
(36:11):
that I think in some of the rural areas, the stories
need to be told. But is there anything else? Is there anything else that
you want to tell the listeners of one country? Just keep the
faith. Oh, Pete, thank you for doing this. I really
look forward to it. And I can tell you this, if it does nothing
else, giving those individuals the honor that they deserve
(36:34):
and the gratitude they deserve is awesome.
We've been hearing from a number of you, and we'll be getting your
questions in the next episode of the Hot Dish. Remember, you can
email
us@podcastonecountryproject.org
that's podcastonecountryproject.org.
(36:55):
Well, Joel, thank you for not making me feel better today,
but thank all of our listeners for joining us. The Hot
Dish is brought to you by One Country Project, making sure the
voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. Learn
more@onecountryproject.org we're going to be back in
two weeks with more Hot Dish comfort food for middle America.
Well, welcome to the Hot Dish comfort food for middle America. Although I'm
not feeling very comforted. I'm Heidi Heitkamp. And I'm Joel
Heitkamp. We're gonna talk about the election, but we don't wanna
dwell just on that. We have more for you in this episode.
Joel, you were pretty busy again, and thanks for picking up the slack. You had
two really interesting interviews. We should share that you spoke
(00:27):
with Pete Yocum, the executive producer of the documentary
Odd Hours, no Pay, Cool Hat. That's
right. The documentary is about the lives and families of volunteer
first responders across the country. So Pete and I talked
about how he made the movie and its ultimate
message. Well, I mean, you and I spent a lot of
(00:50):
time with the first responder in our life, and that was our father, who was
chief of the volunteer fire department for years. And so I hope that
you told people where they can watch this documentary, because I think a lot of
people had our experience growing up. Yeah. And I think
Pete alone is definitely worth their time. Good. You also
had a really important conversation with Donovan
(01:11):
Archambault. He also wrote a book,
Failed Attempt to Kill the Indian. It's based on
his own experience, and it's a tribute to his tribal community
and really an important examination of
not where we've been, but also where we're going. So good on you,
Joel. You know, it really was, Heidi, a true honor, especially
(01:34):
for November, which is American Indian Heritage
Month. But before we get to that, Heidi, tell me what you think of the
election of Donald Trump and the Republican gains in
Congress. Well, you know,
disappointment, I think, would be a good response.
Disappointment that Kamala Harris and her team and
(01:54):
a number of Democrats didn't do better. But, you know, Joel,
I think hope is a terrible thing sometimes to have because
it will overwhelm your rational thinking. And my
rational thinking was, you can't have right track, wrong track numbers
the way that the administration had right track, round track numbers
and expect to win. And probably the only person she had a
(02:17):
chance of defeating was Donald Trump. And so, you know, in
some sad way, it's tragic that the Republicans
didn't have, let's say, a more conventional
candidate, because now we have four years of leadership that we've
seen before. And I've been watching, and you've been watching
some of the appointments to cabinet positions,
(02:40):
people who I think will lead with not knowledge in facts,
but ideology. And so elections have consequences. But
the worst thing for the Democratic Party is to assume
that this was some kind of Good Housekeeping
seal of approval on Donald Trump. I think Democratic Party
has to look in the mirror and examine why that party, which
(03:02):
we say is the party of working people, can't seem to
get working people to vote for him. Well, I think that's a perfect example,
Heidi, of why, you know, the hot dish in one country is so
important, because I think that we always mention middle America. But
it goes deeper than that. They. They have forgotten. And I wrote a blog about
this. I. I hope people go read it. Where can they read your blog? They
(03:24):
can read it@kfgo.com but I think lost in all of
this is that the Democratic Party no longer
talks to me. And I'm gonna give you a couple examples,
Heidi. They no longer talk to an individual that
is worried when deer hunting opens up. They no
longer talk to a guy that owns shotguns and rifles and, you
(03:47):
know, grew up in an era where, you know, pickups still matter
and actually still lives in that era. They no longer talk to a
guy who's more worried about what time the football game
starts than what time commentary is on
msnbc. I really believe that they
don't care about people that
(04:08):
haven't graduated college and might be
willing to wake up with a hangover. I mean, these people, Heidi, don't matter
to the Democratic Party anymore. I mean, that's part of what I talked about in
my blog, that it's not sexy to talk about, you know,
the sewer pipe. It's not. But the truth of the matter is, on
Christmas morning, it better work when the house is full of people
(04:30):
and, you know, the sewer pipe and the sewer system is brand new
or going to be brand new because of what Joe Biden did. But nobody talked
about that. Nobody did. You know, what I heard over and
over and over again were issues that didn't connect
with those men and women that really come from the
same background that you and I grew up with, Heidi. It was just
(04:53):
such an intellectual.
I don't know how to put it. Let me put it this way.
Snobbery. Elite. How's that? Is that a word? Elitist? Yeah.
Yep, it sure is. Well, and it's elite. The message
tends to be elite. And I also think, though,
that, you know, let's give her some credibility.
(05:14):
She stepped in really late. I think, you know, we at least
believed she had a chance. But at the end of the day, there
also is it. For some reason in this country, there
may be a bigger hurdle than what we care to admit for a woman,
especially a woman of color, to get elected the chief executive.
No, there's no question. I have five granddaughters and I wrote a note
(05:37):
to them right off the elect after the election of what they're up against
in this world, being girls now and future women
that I have no doubt they're going to, going to be leaders at some
point. The fact is it's harder for them. It's going to be harder for
them. I agree with you. We have to give her credit. It was not
her fault. She got thrown into the third end of the pool without
(06:00):
much time to really convey what the strategy was going to be.
But that doesn't change the fact that the party has been here
for a long time. If you look at who won, if you look at who
won, Joe Biden won. He beat Donald Trump,
albeit narrowly, but he beat him. And why? Because he
knows how to talk to the very people that I just mentioned.
(06:23):
He does. He can walk in the VFW hall, he can walk in the Legion
hall and feel comfortable. He can walk in that union
hall and know exactly how they live and what got
them to wear all of those stickers on their helmet.
Right. I mean, I don't think that Kamala Harris can do that. I don't think
many of the people that lead the Democratic Party can do that.
(06:45):
So let's give people some bright news. You know, we have said at one
country we've done numbers basically saying that
there isn't a lot of split ticket voting and there wasn't a lot of
split ticket voting here, but there was some. And that's how Tammy
Baldwin, that's how Slotkin, that's how
Gallegos, that's how Jackie Rosen, I mean,
(07:08):
you go down the line, split ticket voting delivered at
least four additional senators. And then there were senators
who couldn't overcome that headwind. And that's Jon
Tester who actually I think of all the senators running
probably did the best in terms of overcoming the headwind.
It just was so that the gale was too strong in
(07:30):
Montana. Sherrod Brown obviously
wasn't able to overcome the headwind. And
tragically, and they're all tragic, Bob Casey wasn't able to get
it across the finish line. And so we lost three great incumbent
senators, didn't have any pickups and then lost Joe
Manchin, which means that there now is a three vote majority for
(07:52):
the Republican Party in the United States Senate.
How do people who are listening to us, how do they get their
sense across of frustration that they have with the
direction of the party? Well, I think many of
them are going to look at different ways they can get
politically active. And that isn't going to be necessarily
(08:14):
through the party. And I'm sorry to say that, but it's not going to be.
The other thing is, and what I'm hearing from people here in the middle
of this country is, I quit. You know, I'm sorry,
but that's what they're saying is I quit. I'm hearing it on my
show, I'm hearing it from a lot of people. So they're talking
about doing exactly what we need to not do,
(08:36):
but they are talking about it because in one country
territory, there were out. Heidi. Yeah, but admit it, Joel,
didn't you want to say, I'm done, I quit. I went media
blackout is what I did. Hey, by the way, I saw the
cookies. I saw the dinner rolls. You could have sent me a few. Cookies
(08:57):
for those listeners out there. I'm convalescing by taking up
baking. I'm done raising pumpkins now. And so I bake
cookies and dinner rolls in the last couple of days. But I
mean, here's the truth. If you want
to sit there as a person and say, look,
these people, the Trump people get to define me, then
(09:19):
fine, quit, then quit. But if, and I'll
use this scenario of dad again, right? Go ahead, quit.
Go home. You don't got to play anymore, but you're going to miss playing ball.
I mean, we're about to find out how vicious this all
can be. And we're going to. We are absolutely going to.
And so if you just want to sit back and watch, sit back and watch.
(09:41):
But I think in the middle of this country, what, what the leader,
whoever that future leader is, needs to call
people from the middle of this country and say, come talk to
me, I need to talk to you. I was in a cab on the way
back from New York doing television for almost 36 hours
straight. And, you know, I, I, I, I put on the happy face,
(10:03):
Joel, and you know, I was ready to not be happy face.
And, and the cab driver felt so bad for me, he got
out and gave me, he's Nigerian.
And I hadn't cried until then. And he just, he was
Nigerian and immigrant, told me how hard he works, told me that he too
(10:23):
had cried. And, and then he said, but never forget this.
This is the most wonderful, beautiful country in the history of
the world. And it really took kind of that calibration. And
I thought, okay, you could quit. You can sit on the sidelines,
but you're going to get the same result. And this
administration now has to govern. I want to take a picture
(10:46):
of the price of eggs. I want to take the picture of a price of
a loaf of bread. And then every week, say, hasn't come
down yet. Here's the picture. A lot was
promised. I don't know how he can possibly
deliver the kind of bread and butter, meat and potatoes, or
macaroni and cheese promises that were made. I don't think it's
(11:08):
going to happen. And, you know, the accountability that
we can, in fact, be responsible for, because that is the
job of the opposition party. The accountability is a huge
part of, hopefully, the strategy. Well, but I would add
this. I agree with your Nigerian friend or your new Nigerian
friend. I agree with him. This is a great
(11:30):
country. I don't dispute that. But what we also found out about this
country is we're not that different than other
countries. I mean, we're not. You know, I know that sounds
negative. I don't care. It's something we need to take a
step back and ask ourselves how we fix.
Because what we found out was we could
(11:52):
elect an individual where it doesn't
matter if eggs go up under his watch. It
only mattered if eggs went up under the previous
watch. And until the American people can get done
idolizing someone like him, we're not going to move forward.
And I've got one more point to make, Heidi. On my show,
(12:14):
when I say. Because the majority of my audience is Republican,
very, very conservative Republican, when I say to them,
look, this is the man that you want your kids
to emulate. This is the man that. That you are
proud to have as president and that you love.
My phone lines light up. They just light up. They say that's not what we.
(12:36):
That. I bet you they're all really defensive. Nope, nope, nope, nope,
nope, nope. I just like his policies. I just, like. I just.
I don't care much for him. I just. Yeah, you do care
for him, because he's going to be that Grover
Cleveland face above the blackboard. Yeah.
Now there is no blackboard anymore, I realized. But those little
(12:58):
circle pictures that were above that blackboard in Mrs.
Stack's room matter to me. And you know what?
They just elected a convicted rapist felon.
And it doesn't matter what eggs are to these
guys. It matters whether or not they get to be close to
him and whether or not they get to be as cool as
(13:21):
him. And so, Heidi, we proved
that we can be a country no different than many other
countries. And that doesn't mean I don't love this country. Yeah.
Okay. Well, listen, Joel, it's always fun. We're going
to continue to be here and we're going to continue to talk and we're going
to continue to be a voice for real America. So this isn't the last
(13:43):
conversation, but we're going to move forward from here and listen to Joel
and Donovan.
You know, this is a real honor for me, ladies and gentlemen. I get a
chance to visit with Donovan Archambault. He is a tribal
member, born in Fort Belknap, Montana. Now,
(14:03):
you can't just easily go through his resume or his
life, quite frankly. He went to Harvard, holds a master's of
education degree, served as director of the tribal health
Department, later his tribal planning department. But here's, here's one
for you folks. 16 years on the tribal council, including
two as chair. We're going to talk to him about his
(14:25):
book, Tatanga Hoksheen. A Failed Attempt
to Kill the Indian is the name of the book. It's a work
of fiction, but unfortunately there's just a lot of
truth in of it. Donovan Arshambo, thank you for joining
us, sir. It's a real honor. Thank you for having me, sir. I hope
I can add some things to what happened to us
(14:48):
in boarding schools and things that the
need to they talk about. You
bet they do. And clearly by reading some
of the excerpts of the bill or the book, I should say
they do need to talk about it. Now this, the plot of this book is
about a 10 year old that was, that was forced
(15:11):
into the pier Indian school in South Dakota, government
institution with one goal and that was to kill
the Indian, save the man. What does that mean,
Mr. Arshambeau? Well, it means that we had to make
a drastic change in our whole culture,
religion, our whole lifestyle. And
(15:33):
what it's done to us is evident today
in all these social ills and the high statistics
of Indian alcoholism, drug abuse,
suicide and things like that. And I didn't even know the
word suicide. Never even heard of it before I went
to boarding school. And not that boarding school is
(15:55):
a direct result of it, but it shows
that it possibly could BE so.
The US Department of the Interior has identified
408 government backed Indian schools in
37 states over 150 years. I grew
up right next to one of those in the
(16:16):
Sistinhwapatin Lakota tribe. The schools
forced children to have English names and work manual
labor. Did that actually happen to you as well,
Donovan? Well, that happened to us before I
went down and I had my English name, but living with
my grandfolks, my name was Totonga Hoshide. That's what
(16:38):
I answered to. So I had a home name and a school name
when I started school, but my name was
already Donovan Archamble when I went to
Pierre. So really, the name you
use in the book is your name. I realize this is a work of
fiction, but it certainly is patterned after
(16:59):
your life. I want people to understand that are
taking in this conversation what that was
like, what the book not just portrays,
but actually did happen. If you would, sir. Well,
I would say that probably 90% of the
things that I write about actually happened.
(17:22):
They happened to myself. And in some instances
I didn't remember the person's name. And
so I can insert other names or my own
name and things that happened, but the actual
events, the things that I write about
actually happened. There was some
(17:43):
things I had to kind of fill in because I didn't
remember the exact details of how it
actually happened or I was there, but I wasn't
in the immediate location where it actually happened. And
I heard some of the events that happened from my
friends and from other matrons, teachers and things like
(18:06):
that. With your background as an educator, as
someone so highly educated, as somebody who
worked within the tribe to try to make lives better,
I guess I gotta ask you this. How many people do you
think know what you're writing about here?
Well, I believe other than tribal
(18:28):
members and the students that I went to school with,
I think very little of the greater
population know these things actually happened. I know
we tried to tell other people, but we were
labeled liars or fabricators or something
that, no, this really didn't happen. And I went
(18:50):
to Carlisle in 1990 and
sat on the panel discussing things that
happened there. And on that panel there was a
priest, myself, some historian,
reporter and a teacher. Some. There was
five of us on the panel and I mentioned the fact
(19:13):
that, yeah, there was abuse, sexual abuse, and
the priest was on the other end of the table from me, stood up
and looked directly at me and said, now that can be true because
our people aren't like that. And I told him, father, are you calling
me a liar? I don't let anybody call me a liar. And if you don't
apologize, I'm coming down there. And of course
(19:36):
he apologized. The colonel sat me back down
and I came home after that. And three weeks
later, or a month later, three inch headlines in the Boston
Globe. Priests molest altar Boy and all hell broke
loose. I reported that in 1951.
But it had no consequences except me getting beat up
(19:58):
because I said something about the priest and it
didn't sit well with the administration and I was
punished for that. I want to talk to you about
the way you chose to tell this story through
fiction. Why did you choose fiction to tell this?
Basically, it's a true story. Well, basically I didn't
(20:20):
remember a lot of the names. I didn't remember the
exact times, the dates. I didn't remember exactly
from one year to the next because they all kind of ran together.
You know, there was no break, there was no going home, no listening to
your grandparents, no listening to your parents. My
parent down there was a whistle. The whistle blew at 6:00.
(20:42):
You jump up, make your bed. Whistle blew again. You lined up, you've done your
exercise. Whistle blew again. You went to dining hall at
8. Whistleblow again. He lined up, went to
school, whistleblow again. So that was my, that was
my parenting experience at Pier. And
so, you know, we really didn't have any kind of direction
(21:04):
except do what we tell you. We marched every
place two by two, to school, to the dining hall,
to church, to wherever we went. And it was a big
tongue, military practice on how we were
taken care of. How did you get into the
school? What, what was the reason that I don't know if I
(21:26):
should use the word enrolled or placed or. How did you get
into the school, Mr. Archambault? My mother and father
separated and we were more or less orphaned.
My mother still cared for us, did the best she
could. But although there was about six or seven of us still at
home. So we had a choice. We either had to go to
(21:48):
boarding school or we had to go to a foster home. And one of my
uncles wanted to keep us, keep me anyway. And the
social services here at the bureau wouldn't allow it because he
already had five or six kids of his own. So I had,
like I said, I had a choice of foster home or peer. So I
chose peer because I heard all the wild stories about
(22:10):
foster homes and how kids were training and so I chose
boating school. Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to Donovan
Archambault, a member of the Assiniboine tribe.
His new BIC is just absolutely
amazing. Basically something that is
focused on a failed attempt to kill the Indian. You
(22:32):
talked about suicides, but one of the
points, you know, as you look at it, the US Department of the Interior
identifying those 408 government backed
Indian schools in 37 states over 150
years. They talk about hundreds of children
dying in these schools, hundreds dying.
(22:54):
I actually had a couple of my family members that went to
Pier actually commit suicide. One shot herself
and the other one just Drake himself. Death, broken
artery somewhere and bled to death leaning over a toilet bowl. That's
how he died. But he stayed drunk almost his whole life.
And to me, alcoholism is suicide. You know, once
(23:16):
you start that and you don't get away from it, it's going to kill you.
And that's suicide to me. I stayed drunk for 25
years trying to wash away the shame and the anger
that we acquired going to school. I want to talk
about people recognizing and basically
respecting your life and others that you write about in this
(23:38):
book. I want to talk, if we can, a little bit about
testifying and publicly sharing, because clearly
that's what you're doing here. Is there responsibility there,
sir? Definitely. I think the responsibility is with the
federal government, is if you can teach us all
these things that have brought us to where we're at now,
(24:00):
then we can. We can unlearn those kind of things and get
back on the right track. In my class, I teach
my students. You know, we're sitting on a fence now, a fence here.
The old way and the new way. The old way, we
had respect, discipline. We respected our parents. We
never answered back. The new way, we're alcoholic,
(24:23):
drug addicts, and we know that didn't work for us. So
we have an opportunity, and I think it falls
on everybody from the parents to Congress to
wherever we have, to begin to teach the values
that made us who we are in the beginning. That's what I'm
trying to teach. I'm trying to say we need to go back to
(24:46):
when your parents tell you to go wash
dishes and go wash dishes. What is a society
do we need to do? I think the
society had an opportunity to look at what was
going on from the very beginning. But there's only one
man that I read about. He's my favorite
(25:08):
artist, and that's C.M. russell. In one of his
books, he drew a picture of an Indian sitting in the shade of his
horse. And the caption under that picture was, the
red man is the true American. He is almost gone
now. The earth was his mother, son was his God,
and all Outdoors was his Bible, and he knew
(25:30):
every page. But he's the only one that
seen us like that, and Nobody heard him. Mr. Archambault,
this has been a real honor. DONOVAN Archambault,
Senior I would say it's safe to say you Found your
purpose, sir. Thank you for joining us on One Country. Thank you for having
me.
(25:54):
I'm excited to talk to Pete Yokum about his documentary
film Odd Hours, no Pay, Cool Hat. Five
years ago, he began a project focusing on volunteer
firefighters and the risks they take for their communities,
especially rural America. And that's daily
in his movie. He dives deep into the lives
(26:16):
and families of volunteer first responders spread
across the country. And Pete began this film as a personal quest to
find the answers to the question, why would anybody do
it? Why would somebody put themselves in harm's way
while leaving their job and family to respond to a neighbor's
emergency with little or no pay? Pete,
(26:38):
thanks for joining me on the Hot Dish. Appreciate it, Joel. You know, I'm just
going to be upfront with you, Pete. All I saw was the trailer, but after
seeing the trailer, I'm going to see it. I'm going to see the work.
Because what you just showed is really the world I live
in. Well, it's worth it. You'll be able to see it on some of the
PBS stations coming up here soon. But you can also
(27:00):
download it in the full original version from
Apple, from Amazon Prime. You can even get it
on airplanes for longer flights. Something started this up.
Something got in your head. Why the project? Now, let me make
sure you know the name of it, folks. Odd Hours, no Pay,
Cool Hat. Which, by the way, in and of itself is a cool
(27:23):
name, Pete. But something made you do this. What was it?
I wanted to find a project that
would allow me to prove to myself that
Americans are a lot more similar than politicians and
social media channels would have us believe. So I
began looking for Americans that were contributing something
(27:45):
very significant to our society, but who weren't very
well known or recognized for that contribution.
Okay, well, how did you pick them? Because
you and I both know there are so many
individuals out there that fit the criteria of the
story you're trying to tell. I mean, something made you
(28:07):
decide which ones were going to be the focus. What made you pick them?
I had a hunch that I'd end up focusing on volunteer
first responders. And I did a lot of due diligence and research and
realized, unlike the career fire departments, where, you know,
Hollywood makes movies that are drama movies, there
is very little that was told about the volunteer
(28:30):
first responder sector. So first I set off sort
of driving around the country with one of my retrievers and
started looking for that project. My
wife, understandably, did not know what the hell I was doing, nor
why? And eventually I found my way to
Hoxie, Kansas, where I met Steve Hirsch, who's one of the
(28:52):
most extraordinary people that I've met in my
life. He's been a volunteer firefighter for 44 years. He serves
as the chairman of the National Volunteer Fire Council. He's a
prosecutor for several of the rural counties in northwest Kansas. He
prepares 1500 tax returns for his neighbors each year.
He's a very, very productive guy. And we hit
(29:14):
it off almost instantly. After I
told him about my project, he just essentially opened
up the book for me in terms of contacts, of
ideas, associations with the National Volunteer Fire Council.
And initially, you're right, this started out as
a personal quest to answer that question.
(29:37):
But after I started visiting
with hundreds of volunteer first responders,
I realized that this was a far bigger project than what I had
originally imagined. The public is just generally unaware of that.
And they constitute more than two thirds of all U.S. firefighters.
The economic contribution to our
(29:59):
population is enormous, and it's especially critical, as you say,
to those areas that they can't afford a full time fire service. Pete, I don't
want to say recovering because, you know, I loved it,
but I'm a former rural firefighter. I lived in a town and
I worked out of a town with 100 people in it when that whistle
went off, and that's how we knew the whistle blew in that small
(30:21):
town, everybody came running. But that's small
in comparison to my dad. My dad was real fire chief for
30 years. And one of the things that both Heidi and I cherish the
most is that that badge, that fire
chief badge, there's a lot of pride to that. And
I think in large part because of the volunteerism,
(30:43):
it isn't just fighting fire or fighting that
accident or getting the ambulance there, those type of things.
And so, you know, all of that is challenges for you
to tell that story had to be challenging.
I mean, what were you faced with while you went about being in a
rural area and telling a story that very few people know
(31:05):
in urban areas? You know, I won't call it challenging because
I found it one of the most rewarding things I've ever done in my
life. A lot of those interviews were done during COVID
so that was kind of a challenge. I purchased a sprinter
van, fully self contained, and drove around and visited
these places that were, you know, trails in
(31:27):
sort of places in many cases. But I was just so
welcomed and well received the challenges really well
in filming this, first, raising the money. But second,
I took my library of interviews and took 10
minutes of them out, turned it into what I call
like the pitch video, and went out
(31:49):
to a list of about a hundred different US
Corporations where I thought this would be received well. But I ended
up getting through to John Deere
and realized that I had found the needle in the haystack there
because John Deere himself had been a volunteer firefighter
when he started John Deere. So that
(32:12):
part sort of took care of itself. But then when we
went out and we did a casting call with the assistance of the National Volunteer
Fire council, we got 900 responses when we were
expecting 50. So originally we were going to
do three venues around the country, but when we got these
responses which were just
(32:33):
heartwarming, well, we went to John Deere and they said, well, let's just
increase the scope of the project. So we went to eight different
venues, eventually dropping one, but it did expand the
project significantly and the budget. So John Deere was
extremely generous as they helped us through this process.
When you do a piece like this, there's going to be some people that you
(32:55):
instantly think of, that you think this story
of this person has to be told. They're all, to your
point, they're big hearted and generous and so
forth. I guess I would say my favorite
is Barbara Williams. Barbara was
62 or 3, her husband retired and she went
(33:16):
into the local fire department there in Little
Fork, Virginia and wanted to be, you know, a
secretary, bookkeeper, accountant. And they said, no, no, no, no,
no. And now she's the head EMT for the fire
department and she's been there for 11 years. And she
was generous enough to allow me to pull into her home and
(33:38):
hook a power cord up so I could stay there. But we sat,
you know, for hours and hours and hours before the film crew
arrived, talking about her situation there and
what experience she had. Pete, in my
time as a real firefighter, it was all men. It was all men.
That was just the custom. And then you know what?
(34:01):
It happened. Not just because of fairness, actually, it
happened because some of the rural fire departments were running out
of people to be members and to do that. And then they
went to a place they should have gone a long time ago, which was to
recruit women to join that force. And to me, I
always thought they found out, and I'm fairly confident I'm right about this, that
(34:23):
why the hell did we have them on the force earlier? My
prediction is that half of the recruits that we
generate will be women. Yep. And
it makes for nothing but a better firefighting
department. Pete, I know I keep going back in time here, but
the one reason I do that is to emphasize, you know, what
(34:44):
you found and how that's changed, how professional it
is now. And I still have this image of my dad
running and my mom worried about what he's going to
come back like, I mean, that's. They were going to
a place that's incredibly dangerous.
Absolutely. I think that people don't realize
(35:06):
that they appreciate the fact that firefighters are out there on the front
line. But many of these individuals that are
volunteering are going through the same anxiety, for
lack of a better way of putting it. If somebody's in that house, they're going
to go in that house and get them. And so I'm
curious what that person that was involved with the
(35:27):
firefighter, whether it was the husband or the wife, did you get a
chance to visit with them? Oh, absolutely.
I interviewed a lot of spouses of firefighters
and ask them the same question. I can't
overemphasize the notion that these
volunteer fire departments, they become a family
(35:49):
for the individuals who join them. And their
support system is very strong. And so that
extends just way beyond just the firefighter. It extends to their
family and everything else. Well, Pete, I only have
182. I was sitting here counting 182
other subjects I want you to do documentaries on now
(36:11):
that I think in some of the rural areas, the stories
need to be told. But is there anything else? Is there anything else that
you want to tell the listeners of one country? Just keep the
faith. Oh, Pete, thank you for doing this. I really
look forward to it. And I can tell you this, if it does nothing
else, giving those individuals the honor that they deserve
(36:34):
and the gratitude they deserve is awesome.
We've been hearing from a number of you, and we'll be getting your
questions in the next episode of the Hot Dish. Remember, you can
us@podcastonecountryproject.org
that's podcastonecountryproject.org.
(36:55):
Well, Joel, thank you for not making me feel better today,
but thank all of our listeners for joining us. The Hot
Dish is brought to you by One Country Project, making sure the
voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. Learn
more@onecountryproject.org we're going to be back in
two weeks with more Hot Dish comfort food for middle America.
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