November 5, 2025 • 27 mins
We share how a six-hour first date led to a late-in-life partnership rooted in honesty, faith, and humor. Along the way, we map career pivots, health upgrades, and the courage to talk about trauma, hormones, and hope.
• who we are and why we care about midlife reinvention
• Heather’s path from Beverly Hills to lending and speaking
• Joe’s exit from academia and move to Oklahoma
• meeting on JDate and the six-hour first date
• building trust after divorce and long gaps in dating
• right sizing home and life during relocation
• healthy aging with strength, yoga, and supplements
• naming trauma, ACEs and PACEs, and practical hope
• future guests on hope, finances, and wellness
• navigating tech and social media as a couple
• preview of next episode on sharing hard stories
Join us here each week, my friend, where you're sure to get a smile.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
The Professor (00:00):
But you message me that you're going to be late
because you had businessquestions to have to have to
consult with a client.
Heather Anne (00:08):
No, it was a lie.
I eventually told you.
unknown (00:12):
Your next favorite podcast pick starts now.
Here's the Professor andHeather Anne.
Heather Anne (00:17):
Welcome to the Professor and Heather Anne.
I'm Heather Anne.
The Professor (00:22):
And I'm the Professor.
Heather Anne (00:24):
Although we don't have all the answers, we hope we
can encourage and excite you.
We're here sharing our lives toinspire you to make the most of
the second half of your life.
So I guess we're just going todive right in.
The Professor (00:39):
Dive right in.
Heather Anne (00:41):
It's our first episode.
The Professor (00:42):
That's very exciting.
We're going to start byintroducing ourselves.
Heather Anne (00:46):
I'm Heather Simon, and a little bit about myself
is I grew up in Bakersfield,California, graduated from high
school.
When I graduated from highschool, I moved to Los Angeles
(01:07):
to go to school and work.
I wound up getting a job inBeverly, my first adult job in
Beverly Hills and working for afamous actor's brother, which
was a lot of fun.
Being 19 years old and livingthat Hollywood Beverly Hills
(01:27):
lifestyle was very nice, notgoing to lie about that.
Then moved back to Bakersfield,met my husband, and we moved
here to Oklahoma where he isoriginally from.
It was a big culture shock forme.
But by this time I had landedin the mortgage business and
(01:51):
became a mortgage lender.
I've been a mortgage lender forjust about 30 years.
Being able to help people maketheir dreams come true through
homeownership is something I'vereally enjoyed through my
career.
Besides being a mortgagelender, I am a national speaker.
(02:16):
I became a national speaker afew years ago.
I speak at women's conferences.
I speak at universities.
I speak at nonprofitconferences.
At the university, I speak atconferences for nursing
(02:38):
students, medical students,psychology students.
I am also the mother of twogrown boys.
I'm very proud.
Sometimes even when I talkabout them, I get a little tears
that come to my eyes.
I grew up in trauma.
(03:00):
I had a very uh I had achildhood full of trauma.
There was abuse.
My senior year of high school,um, we became front page news,
and it was not for anythinggood.
So when I look at my boys now,I am just amazed on how well
(03:22):
they turned out.
Um growing up, they did learnabout my trauma.
It's not something I kept fromthem.
I was very open and honest withthem about it, mainly because I
wanted them to understand me alittle bit and um to understand
where they came from, to makesure that we changed our
(03:44):
families' story.
And uh they are outliving theirlives, doing a great job.
My youngest one, my oldest onejoined the army right out of
high school, and he became umhis job in the army was EOD,
(04:05):
which is handling explosives, sohe became a bomb specialist.
And uh a lot, there's a littlestory behind that.
When he was about uh four andfive, he became obsessed with
the show MacGyver from the 80s.
And he would always pick upthings and put things in his
pockets, and when I'd ask himwhat why do you have these
(04:28):
things?
and he'd be like, Because I incase I need to build something
to escape or build a bomb.
And here he grew up to be myreal life uh MacGyver.
My youngest son is um he'sliving in Denver right now,
living his best life, tryinglots of different things, um,
travels a lot.
(04:50):
Um he is very proud of him.
There is not anything that hecannot do.
He would come to me when he wasyounger and say, I'm gonna do
this, and he would do it, andthat's what he's doing now.
One of the things that him andI do is um uh baseball.
(05:11):
So our goal is to go to all ofthe baseball stadiums in the
country.
We have been to about 13 now.
One of our greatest ball gameswas last year.
Um we were able to go and seeour favorite team, the Yankees,
at Yankee Stadium at the WorldSeries.
(05:33):
And uh so we're alwaysconstantly trying to figure out
where we can see the Yankees,what ball ballpark we can go to
next.
But uh one of the things I didpass down to my boys is the love
of the Yankees, even though Igrew up in California.
I um was a huge Yankee fansince I was five years old, and
(05:58):
my boys are huge Yankee fans aswell.
And uh the reason why the WorldSeries when we got there, I
literally did start crying.
One of the things was um I wasat the Dodgers Yankees World
Series in Dodgers Stadium in thelate 70s, and then to be there
(06:21):
to experience the Dodgers andYankees in the World Series in
Yankees Stadium with my youngerson was just a dream come true.
And um, but that's a little bitabout me.
Let's hear about the professor.
The Professor (06:36):
I'm Joe Manson.
I was born in 1960, grew up inSan Diego.
I went to UC Berkeley as anundergraduate, grew my hair
long, went to a lot of GratefulDead concerts, I went to grad
school at the University ofMichigan, earned it a PhD,
returned to Southern California,and from 1994 to 2022 I was a
(06:58):
professor of biologicalanthropology at UCLA.
I did research on primatebehavior with my first wife.
So I've spent it totals up toabout six years in Costa Rica in
tropical forest, followingmonkeys around, recording
everything that they did.
(07:18):
Around 2007, I switched tostudying human behavior,
basically psychologicalresearch, even though I was
still uh in an anthropologydepartment.
I've studied personalitydifferences, mostly with survey
questionnaires, but also someresearch that used various
methods that uh observe people'snaturally occurring behavior.
(07:38):
And I still do this research.
So that's the work part of mylife.
My major hobby is music.
I play recorder, something Ijust took up in my mid-50s.
Uh, and so, of course, takingup an instrument as an adult,
you never you never get to be asgood as if you take it up as a
child, but I've I've become ableto enjoy it anyway, and that
(08:02):
that's the important thing.
So as a professor, I graduallybecame disenchanted with
academia, both its prevailingphilosophies, worldviews, and
the way its institutions work orfail to work or work in
perverse ways.
I also gradually rediscoveredfaith and the importance of
ancient heritage, both of whichI had abandoned as a teenager.
(08:26):
Uh I got divorced in 2021, soone of the many divorces
prompted by the stresses of thepandemic, although my wife and I
had been drifting apart for along time before then.
We have one uh adult daughter.
In the summer of 2022, so I wasonly 62 years old, I retired,
wrote a blog post about why Iwas leaving a tenured faculty
(08:48):
position, so all of mycomplaints about academia.
I left Los Angeles.
I'd become just as disenchantedwith LA as I had with academia,
piled my belongings into myHonda, and set off for Oklahoma,
a place that I'd never beenbefore except a drive-thru, and
where I knew exactly threepeople, two professors and one
(09:08):
grad student at Oklahoma State.
So it was kind of a reversegrapes of wrath journey.
It was a major culture shock.
So things like seeing a sign atthe door of a coffee shop that
says, please, no open carry.
Uh in California, no one has agun.
(09:30):
So even to myself, andcertainly to almost everyone who
knew me at the time, thisseemed like a very odd thing to
do, to move from LA to Oklahoma.
But it was the right thing todo because within a month of
arriving, I met Heather, andeight months later, we were
engaged to be married.
Heather Anne (09:52):
So the main question we get a lot is how did
we meet?
And we met on a dating appcalled uh J Date.
It's a Jewish dating app.
Um it was my first time.
I had been um separated, umbroken up, separated from my ex
(10:18):
for two years.
And this was my first dive intoum the dating world.
I I actually didn't want tonecessarily do it.
I had a friend that was kind ofpushing me to it, just saying,
just go ahead and do it, goahead and do it.
The Professor (10:37):
And uh yeah, it was I I had uh so I had been
enrolled in this app uh in LosAngeles, and then when I moved
to Oklahoma and changed on theuh on the app changed my
address, uh I saw that thenumber of women within, I think
it was 50 miles, uh that was thesetting I used.
(10:58):
Within 50 miles of me, thenumber of women who met my
criteria was less than 10.
There just aren't very manyJews in Oklahoma.
And um most of those, uh, therewas something about their
criteria that I didn't meet.
So I was about to unsubscribe.
This this J date seemed like acomplete waste of time and
money.
And it was just at that time uhthat Heather joined and I saw
(11:20):
her profile.
Heather Anne (11:22):
And my profile was um because I still wasn't sure
I wanted to do this.
I just grabbed whatever files Ihad uh pictures I had on my
phone.
The Professor (11:31):
So in none of her pictures was she smiling.
Heather Anne (11:35):
Which I smile a lot more now.
I do smile in my pictures now,so that says something.
Um but I also it was just ashort little blurb about myself,
and I don't even quite rememberexactly what it was.
The Professor (11:52):
You had a very smart ass lie.
Heather Anne (11:55):
Which was what my point was.
It's like, you know, I justkind of had the attitude, reach
out, don't reach out, I don'treally care.
So but you did reach out.
The Professor (12:04):
I I thought this this is a very interesting
moment.
I I can tell.
Heather Anne (12:09):
So then you did reach out.
And we we exchanged messagesfor it was only about a week,
and uh uh and then had our firstdate, which was uh afternoon
coffee, but then it turned intodinner, and then somehow we
wound up shopping at TraderJoe's.
The Professor (12:31):
At Trader Joe's.
Uh I was living in inStillwater, Oklahoma, uh, and uh
uh the the the nearest TraderJoe's is in is in Tulsa uh where
where where Heather lived, andwe had the date, and so I said,
well, I I'm as long as I'm herein town, I I I need to pick up
some things so I can't get inStillwater.
Heather Anne (12:50):
So our first date actually wound up being like six
hours.
The Professor (12:54):
Yes.
And uh I felt like I could tellHeather things about myself that
I hadn't told anyone.
That that this was someone whowho understood me and that uh I
I could I could disclose uh Icould open myself in a way that
I I I hadn't.
(13:15):
Um and so so this was one ofthe cues.
This was this is someone I wasfascinated with.
Heather Anne (13:23):
I was um nervous and intrigued.
Neither one of us had gone on adate for 30 plus years, so that
uh was nerve-wracking initself, but within a half hour I
felt very comfortable with him,and we were just there was no
(13:45):
breaks in our conversation.
It just really flowed, and wewent from one topic to another
topic, and and it wasn't justsharing about what we're doing
now, it was really we hadalready known we had the
connection of both being bornand raised in California, so we
were able to talk aboutCalifornia and the beaches and
(14:06):
all of that.
Um, but it I I feel like itreally just obviously it flowed
together that we it lasted forsix hours.
The Professor (14:18):
One of my impressions is that this is a
very strong person, someonewho's faced a lot of challenges,
in fact, is battered, batteredbut not broken.
And this was one of the mostimpressive things to me.
We'll talk about this more.
Heather Anne (14:37):
Um I was very impressed that you were, I'm
gonna say it, Mr.
Smarty Pants.
I loved our conversations andjust your knowledge, and we had
things in common, the music andthings that we read, and so that
was um very appealing to me aswell.
The Professor (14:58):
I was I was nervous before the date, having
not been on a date in 30 years,and and there were things I
worried about that I uh wouldwithout meaning to launch into
lectures to sort of anoccupational hazard being a
professor.
Lots of lots of lectures likeon the tips of our tongue.
Uh, and so uh I I wasmonitoring myself to make sure I
(15:21):
was I was doing a lot of askingquestions, listening, not just
talking.
Heather Anne (15:26):
And you did very well.
You asked a lot of questions,and I really appreciated that.
And the same thing, I hadn'tbeen on a date in 30 years, so
you know, it's all the typicalgirl stuff.
Am I wearing the right outfit?
Um, truth be told, I probablychanged my outfit like eight out
eight times before I was at thedoor.
The Professor (15:48):
So but she messaged me that she was going
to be late because she hadbusiness.
And this was not true.
Heather Anne (15:57):
No, no, it was a lie.
I eventually told you thetruth.
It was a lie.
I um couldn't decide what Iwanted to wear, and I probably
did my hair two or three times,and I had short hair at the
time, so that says a lot.
I was very nervous calling mygirlfriends.
What am I doing?
What in the world?
Um, but we'll get more intothat as the episodes um, as we
(16:21):
get into more episodes.
One of the reasons we decidedto do this podcast is after
doing some research and stuff,we found that there's not a lot
of podcasts necessarily gearedtowards uh midlife, people that
are in their uh oldergenerations, the Gen Xers and
(16:44):
the baby boomers.
But truly what kickedeverything off was um I had
signed us up to be in a contest,uh contest, um, America's uh
favorite couple.
Um I did this without tellinghim first.
As soon as we got thenotification that we had been
accepted into the contest, I umthen had to confess and let him
(17:09):
know that we were doing this.
And one of the things you hadto do was pick like a name for
your guy for yourselves.
And you have always been knownto my family and friends, even
on social media, as theprofessor.
And um so when I was youngerand dating, um, I dated a lot
(17:35):
and it just became a thing forme.
I never really, the guys that Idated, I never really addressed
them by their names when Italked to my friends.
It was always like occupationor something, you know, the
pilot, the heart surgeon, thefarmer, because I did date a far
a farmer when I was younger.
Um, just things like that.
(17:57):
And it just, I never knew howlong I would be dating them, but
it you always want to talk toyour girlfriends about the guys
you're going out with.
So when we started, um, I justkind of fell back when we
started dating.
I kind of fell back into that.
And I didn't know, you know,was this going to be a long-term
thing?
Or your title was very easybecause you are the professor.
(18:19):
So um, so I knew I wanted thatto be part of our name for the
contest.
So, but it just wound up beingthe professor and Heather.
I couldn't change it becausethen I wanted to change it to
obviously the Professor andHeather, and because people our
(18:40):
age are going to understand thereference to that.
The Professor (18:42):
Understand the cultural reference, yes.
Heather Anne (18:44):
And uh so um, but one of the things that happened,
we uh were in the top five.
We moved up pretty quickly, wehad a lot of family and friends
voting for us.
But one of the things on socialmedia that I had was I had a
lot of women my age, um, womenthat have recently just been
divorced or widowed, who maybehave been divorced for years but
(19:08):
just had never wanted to getinto the dating scene, asked us,
uh sent private messages to measking what it's like being
married for a second time, howwe met, um how did I know you I
wanted to get married again.
And so um, and it just kind ofstarted and perpetuated from
(19:33):
that of people asking usquestions and different things.
And then, you know.
The Professor (19:42):
So so this is one of the one of the kinds of
topics we'll be addressing inthe podcast is this, is um
forming new relationships,dating, forming new
relationships in middle age.
But also more broadly, uhremaking one's life uh in in
middle age or older.
So um changing careers,changing the location where you
(20:06):
live.
And of course, as we get older,we get more set in our ways,
and it becomes more and more ofa of a psychological uh and some
often practical challenge ofhow you how you do this, how you
you make these big changes.
And so um, so some of ourtopics will be about things like
um like uh relocating.
Heather Anne (20:30):
We're we are in the process of relocating uh at
this time, uh things like um howuh uh blending families, um uh
retirement, finances, umbuilding your dream home, right
sizing your life and your home,um healthy aging.
(20:54):
Healthy aging, um, what it'slike to um the professor really
wasn't into working out.
He he walked a lot, he veryhe's very healthy, but um since
we've been together, he nowlifts weights and does yoga.
(21:15):
Um we I even have him doingsome sound baths.
I have him on all kinds ofvitamins.
The Professor (21:22):
Vitamins, supplements.
Heather Anne (21:23):
About be so it's about being healthy.
Um we're very fortunate thatneither one of us are on any
medication, so we'll be talkingabout even that.
Um we also have um one of thethings we'll be talking about is
childhood traumas.
(21:44):
So you grew up in a fairlytraditional home.
The Professor (21:49):
Traditional meaning there wasn't much
trauma.
Heather Anne (21:52):
There wasn't much trauma.
I grew up in a home full of allkinds of trauma, and we'll be
talking about that and even hownavigating that and bringing
that into a new relationship.
But we're really here also totalk about things that we just
(22:14):
don't talk about.
Um, our generation was youdon't talk about a lot of stuff.
If you have problems, you don'ttalk about it, you don't tell
your friends and family.
Um case in point, women andhormones and menopause.
That has been a taboo subjectfor many years.
We'll actually be talking aboutthat, not just women's
(22:37):
hormones, but men's hormones.
So just everything that justkind of affects our lives as
we're aging and we hit that 40plus mark.
The Professor (22:49):
And so, do you want to tell them about the uh
some of the guests or the kindsof people we would we're going
to have as guests?
Heather Anne (22:56):
So um we're going to have uh experts in all the
different fields that we'retalking about.
So we'll have um people that'llcome on and talk about right
sizing.
We'll have um another professorwill be coming on and talking
about hope.
And um anybody that's gonethrough trauma knows about ACEs
(23:19):
and paces, and again we'll getinto more of that.
But aces is the adverse thingsthat happen in your life.
You know, like thisquestionnaire of one to ten.
Um mine is a ten, by the way.
And then uh paces is thepositive things that happen in
your life, and they've doneextensive research on the paces,
(23:40):
and uh she will be a specialguest of ours and probably be on
a couple of times just to beable to go into those segments
of uh childhood trauma and hopeand the positive things that you
can do in your life, even as anadult, to change um your
(24:00):
outcome on life, I guess.
The Professor (24:03):
And there'll be um people who can talk uh about
the um uh supplements and uhhealth-enhancing things we've
done, uh people who uh who arein in the business of of selling
and distributing these things.
Heather Anne (24:21):
Yes like that.
And talk and even talk moreabout our health and how we've
gotten our numbers down and yournumbers that older men have to
worry about.
Um we'll be talking more aboutthat as well.
So we have a lot uh that wereally want to share with you.
We really did some research andhave just found more people of
(24:47):
our generation are coming outand talking about more of the
things that we're dealing within older life.
Um, but there really isn't likea couple that's coming out and
just sharing our lives and allthe crazy things that we've gone
through just since we've beentogether for three years and now
we've been married for gosh alittle over a year now.
The Professor (25:08):
Yes.
Heather Anne (25:09):
Almost a year and a half.
The Professor (25:10):
Almost a year and a half.
We'll talk about uh socialmedia and technology uh for the
for the middle-aged and older.
Heather Anne (25:20):
I'm on social media, he does not like it that
much.
The Professor (25:24):
Yes, uh I would I would delete my Facebook
account if it weren't for thatuh Heather uses it a lot and
some sends me videos on it andso forth.
Heather Anne (25:33):
That's my community, that's my love
language.
I sent you all these videos.
I think that's it for our firstWell that's it.
The Professor (25:41):
That's we're coming to the end of our first
episode, but we want to say alittle something about what our
second episode.
Heather Anne (25:48):
Oh, yes, our second episode.
We'll be diving more into howfirst dating.
Um feelings and things thatwent along with that.
Also, how you processed on ourfirst date, I kind of threw a
little like, oh, by the way.
The Professor (26:10):
She said, right before the start of my senior
year of high school, my familybecame front page news.
And not for anything good.
And that was it.
That was it.
Heather Anne (26:20):
We didn't talk about it that night, just threw
a little nugget out there.
The Professor (26:25):
But uh starting on the second date, uh uh she
told me uh more about about thisuh this this sort of you might
say that's like the climax of atraumatic uh upbringing.
And so what we're gonna talkabout in our second episode, in
part, is digesting these kindsof experiences and then and then
(26:46):
processing them, hearing aboutthem in another person, um, and
so so how this the effects ofthis on like on life today uh
for for the both of us.
Heather Anne (27:04):
Yes.
The Professor (27:04):
Okay.
Heather Anne (27:05):
So we hope you enjoyed our first episode in
which we've talked about who weare as a couple, um, how we met,
our relationship.
We talked about why we startedthis podcast, the meaning behind
our podcast name, futuretopics, guests we'd like to
have, and our motivation foreach episode.
(27:26):
We have so many excitingdiscussions coming up.
We can't wait to have you alongfor our new episodes.
So join us here each week, myfriend, where you're sure to get
a smile.
From lessons learned tomishaps, the adventures go on
for miles.
Here on The Professor andHeather Anne.
unknown (27:49):
Thank you for listening to The Professor and Heather
Anne.
But you message me that you're going to be late
because you had businessquestions to have to have to
consult with a client.
Heather Anne (00:08):
No, it was a lie.
I eventually told you.
unknown (00:12):
Your next favorite podcast pick starts now.
Here's the Professor andHeather Anne.
Heather Anne (00:17):
Welcome to the Professor and Heather Anne.
I'm Heather Anne.
The Professor (00:22):
And I'm the Professor.
Heather Anne (00:24):
Although we don't have all the answers, we hope we
can encourage and excite you.
We're here sharing our lives toinspire you to make the most of
the second half of your life.
So I guess we're just going todive right in.
The Professor (00:39):
Dive right in.
Heather Anne (00:41):
It's our first episode.
The Professor (00:42):
That's very exciting.
We're going to start byintroducing ourselves.
Heather Anne (00:46):
I'm Heather Simon, and a little bit about myself
is I grew up in Bakersfield,California, graduated from high
school.
When I graduated from highschool, I moved to Los Angeles
(01:07):
to go to school and work.
I wound up getting a job inBeverly, my first adult job in
Beverly Hills and working for afamous actor's brother, which
was a lot of fun.
Being 19 years old and livingthat Hollywood Beverly Hills
(01:27):
lifestyle was very nice, notgoing to lie about that.
Then moved back to Bakersfield,met my husband, and we moved
here to Oklahoma where he isoriginally from.
It was a big culture shock forme.
But by this time I had landedin the mortgage business and
(01:51):
became a mortgage lender.
I've been a mortgage lender forjust about 30 years.
Being able to help people maketheir dreams come true through
homeownership is something I'vereally enjoyed through my
career.
Besides being a mortgagelender, I am a national speaker.
(02:16):
I became a national speaker afew years ago.
I speak at women's conferences.
I speak at universities.
I speak at nonprofitconferences.
At the university, I speak atconferences for nursing
(02:38):
students, medical students,psychology students.
I am also the mother of twogrown boys.
I'm very proud.
Sometimes even when I talkabout them, I get a little tears
that come to my eyes.
I grew up in trauma.
(03:00):
I had a very uh I had achildhood full of trauma.
There was abuse.
My senior year of high school,um, we became front page news,
and it was not for anythinggood.
So when I look at my boys now,I am just amazed on how well
(03:22):
they turned out.
Um growing up, they did learnabout my trauma.
It's not something I kept fromthem.
I was very open and honest withthem about it, mainly because I
wanted them to understand me alittle bit and um to understand
where they came from, to makesure that we changed our
(03:44):
families' story.
And uh they are outliving theirlives, doing a great job.
My youngest one, my oldest onejoined the army right out of
high school, and he became umhis job in the army was EOD,
(04:05):
which is handling explosives, sohe became a bomb specialist.
And uh a lot, there's a littlestory behind that.
When he was about uh four andfive, he became obsessed with
the show MacGyver from the 80s.
And he would always pick upthings and put things in his
pockets, and when I'd ask himwhat why do you have these
(04:28):
things?
and he'd be like, Because I incase I need to build something
to escape or build a bomb.
And here he grew up to be myreal life uh MacGyver.
My youngest son is um he'sliving in Denver right now,
living his best life, tryinglots of different things, um,
travels a lot.
(04:50):
Um he is very proud of him.
There is not anything that hecannot do.
He would come to me when he wasyounger and say, I'm gonna do
this, and he would do it, andthat's what he's doing now.
One of the things that him andI do is um uh baseball.
(05:11):
So our goal is to go to all ofthe baseball stadiums in the
country.
We have been to about 13 now.
One of our greatest ball gameswas last year.
Um we were able to go and seeour favorite team, the Yankees,
at Yankee Stadium at the WorldSeries.
(05:33):
And uh so we're alwaysconstantly trying to figure out
where we can see the Yankees,what ball ballpark we can go to
next.
But uh one of the things I didpass down to my boys is the love
of the Yankees, even though Igrew up in California.
I um was a huge Yankee fansince I was five years old, and
(05:58):
my boys are huge Yankee fans aswell.
And uh the reason why the WorldSeries when we got there, I
literally did start crying.
One of the things was um I wasat the Dodgers Yankees World
Series in Dodgers Stadium in thelate 70s, and then to be there
(06:21):
to experience the Dodgers andYankees in the World Series in
Yankees Stadium with my youngerson was just a dream come true.
And um, but that's a little bitabout me.
Let's hear about the professor.
The Professor (06:36):
I'm Joe Manson.
I was born in 1960, grew up inSan Diego.
I went to UC Berkeley as anundergraduate, grew my hair
long, went to a lot of GratefulDead concerts, I went to grad
school at the University ofMichigan, earned it a PhD,
returned to Southern California,and from 1994 to 2022 I was a
(06:58):
professor of biologicalanthropology at UCLA.
I did research on primatebehavior with my first wife.
So I've spent it totals up toabout six years in Costa Rica in
tropical forest, followingmonkeys around, recording
everything that they did.
(07:18):
Around 2007, I switched tostudying human behavior,
basically psychologicalresearch, even though I was
still uh in an anthropologydepartment.
I've studied personalitydifferences, mostly with survey
questionnaires, but also someresearch that used various
methods that uh observe people'snaturally occurring behavior.
(07:38):
And I still do this research.
So that's the work part of mylife.
My major hobby is music.
I play recorder, something Ijust took up in my mid-50s.
Uh, and so, of course, takingup an instrument as an adult,
you never you never get to be asgood as if you take it up as a
child, but I've I've become ableto enjoy it anyway, and that
(08:02):
that's the important thing.
So as a professor, I graduallybecame disenchanted with
academia, both its prevailingphilosophies, worldviews, and
the way its institutions work orfail to work or work in
perverse ways.
I also gradually rediscoveredfaith and the importance of
ancient heritage, both of whichI had abandoned as a teenager.
(08:26):
Uh I got divorced in 2021, soone of the many divorces
prompted by the stresses of thepandemic, although my wife and I
had been drifting apart for along time before then.
We have one uh adult daughter.
In the summer of 2022, so I wasonly 62 years old, I retired,
wrote a blog post about why Iwas leaving a tenured faculty
(08:48):
position, so all of mycomplaints about academia.
I left Los Angeles.
I'd become just as disenchantedwith LA as I had with academia,
piled my belongings into myHonda, and set off for Oklahoma,
a place that I'd never beenbefore except a drive-thru, and
where I knew exactly threepeople, two professors and one
(09:08):
grad student at Oklahoma State.
So it was kind of a reversegrapes of wrath journey.
It was a major culture shock.
So things like seeing a sign atthe door of a coffee shop that
says, please, no open carry.
Uh in California, no one has agun.
(09:30):
So even to myself, andcertainly to almost everyone who
knew me at the time, thisseemed like a very odd thing to
do, to move from LA to Oklahoma.
But it was the right thing todo because within a month of
arriving, I met Heather, andeight months later, we were
engaged to be married.
Heather Anne (09:52):
So the main question we get a lot is how did
we meet?
And we met on a dating appcalled uh J Date.
It's a Jewish dating app.
Um it was my first time.
I had been um separated, umbroken up, separated from my ex
(10:18):
for two years.
And this was my first dive intoum the dating world.
I I actually didn't want tonecessarily do it.
I had a friend that was kind ofpushing me to it, just saying,
just go ahead and do it, goahead and do it.
The Professor (10:37):
And uh yeah, it was I I had uh so I had been
enrolled in this app uh in LosAngeles, and then when I moved
to Oklahoma and changed on theuh on the app changed my
address, uh I saw that thenumber of women within, I think
it was 50 miles, uh that was thesetting I used.
(10:58):
Within 50 miles of me, thenumber of women who met my
criteria was less than 10.
There just aren't very manyJews in Oklahoma.
And um most of those, uh, therewas something about their
criteria that I didn't meet.
So I was about to unsubscribe.
This this J date seemed like acomplete waste of time and
money.
And it was just at that time uhthat Heather joined and I saw
(11:20):
her profile.
Heather Anne (11:22):
And my profile was um because I still wasn't sure
I wanted to do this.
I just grabbed whatever files Ihad uh pictures I had on my
phone.
The Professor (11:31):
So in none of her pictures was she smiling.
Heather Anne (11:35):
Which I smile a lot more now.
I do smile in my pictures now,so that says something.
Um but I also it was just ashort little blurb about myself,
and I don't even quite rememberexactly what it was.
The Professor (11:52):
You had a very smart ass lie.
Heather Anne (11:55):
Which was what my point was.
It's like, you know, I justkind of had the attitude, reach
out, don't reach out, I don'treally care.
So but you did reach out.
The Professor (12:04):
I I thought this this is a very interesting
moment.
I I can tell.
Heather Anne (12:09):
So then you did reach out.
And we we exchanged messagesfor it was only about a week,
and uh uh and then had our firstdate, which was uh afternoon
coffee, but then it turned intodinner, and then somehow we
wound up shopping at TraderJoe's.
The Professor (12:31):
At Trader Joe's.
Uh I was living in inStillwater, Oklahoma, uh, and uh
uh the the the nearest TraderJoe's is in is in Tulsa uh where
where where Heather lived, andwe had the date, and so I said,
well, I I'm as long as I'm herein town, I I I need to pick up
some things so I can't get inStillwater.
Heather Anne (12:50):
So our first date actually wound up being like six
hours.
The Professor (12:54):
Yes.
And uh I felt like I could tellHeather things about myself that
I hadn't told anyone.
That that this was someone whowho understood me and that uh I
I could I could disclose uh Icould open myself in a way that
I I I hadn't.
(13:15):
Um and so so this was one ofthe cues.
This was this is someone I wasfascinated with.
Heather Anne (13:23):
I was um nervous and intrigued.
Neither one of us had gone on adate for 30 plus years, so that
uh was nerve-wracking initself, but within a half hour I
felt very comfortable with him,and we were just there was no
(13:45):
breaks in our conversation.
It just really flowed, and wewent from one topic to another
topic, and and it wasn't justsharing about what we're doing
now, it was really we hadalready known we had the
connection of both being bornand raised in California, so we
were able to talk aboutCalifornia and the beaches and
(14:06):
all of that.
Um, but it I I feel like itreally just obviously it flowed
together that we it lasted forsix hours.
The Professor (14:18):
One of my impressions is that this is a
very strong person, someonewho's faced a lot of challenges,
in fact, is battered, batteredbut not broken.
And this was one of the mostimpressive things to me.
We'll talk about this more.
Heather Anne (14:37):
Um I was very impressed that you were, I'm
gonna say it, Mr.
Smarty Pants.
I loved our conversations andjust your knowledge, and we had
things in common, the music andthings that we read, and so that
was um very appealing to me aswell.
The Professor (14:58):
I was I was nervous before the date, having
not been on a date in 30 years,and and there were things I
worried about that I uh wouldwithout meaning to launch into
lectures to sort of anoccupational hazard being a
professor.
Lots of lots of lectures likeon the tips of our tongue.
Uh, and so uh I I wasmonitoring myself to make sure I
(15:21):
was I was doing a lot of askingquestions, listening, not just
talking.
Heather Anne (15:26):
And you did very well.
You asked a lot of questions,and I really appreciated that.
And the same thing, I hadn'tbeen on a date in 30 years, so
you know, it's all the typicalgirl stuff.
Am I wearing the right outfit?
Um, truth be told, I probablychanged my outfit like eight out
eight times before I was at thedoor.
The Professor (15:48):
So but she messaged me that she was going
to be late because she hadbusiness.
And this was not true.
Heather Anne (15:57):
No, no, it was a lie.
I eventually told you thetruth.
It was a lie.
I um couldn't decide what Iwanted to wear, and I probably
did my hair two or three times,and I had short hair at the
time, so that says a lot.
I was very nervous calling mygirlfriends.
What am I doing?
What in the world?
Um, but we'll get more intothat as the episodes um, as we
(16:21):
get into more episodes.
One of the reasons we decidedto do this podcast is after
doing some research and stuff,we found that there's not a lot
of podcasts necessarily gearedtowards uh midlife, people that
are in their uh oldergenerations, the Gen Xers and
(16:44):
the baby boomers.
But truly what kickedeverything off was um I had
signed us up to be in a contest,uh contest, um, America's uh
favorite couple.
Um I did this without tellinghim first.
As soon as we got thenotification that we had been
accepted into the contest, I umthen had to confess and let him
(17:09):
know that we were doing this.
And one of the things you hadto do was pick like a name for
your guy for yourselves.
And you have always been knownto my family and friends, even
on social media, as theprofessor.
And um so when I was youngerand dating, um, I dated a lot
(17:35):
and it just became a thing forme.
I never really, the guys that Idated, I never really addressed
them by their names when Italked to my friends.
It was always like occupationor something, you know, the
pilot, the heart surgeon, thefarmer, because I did date a far
a farmer when I was younger.
Um, just things like that.
(17:57):
And it just, I never knew howlong I would be dating them, but
it you always want to talk toyour girlfriends about the guys
you're going out with.
So when we started, um, I justkind of fell back when we
started dating.
I kind of fell back into that.
And I didn't know, you know,was this going to be a long-term
thing?
Or your title was very easybecause you are the professor.
(18:19):
So um, so I knew I wanted thatto be part of our name for the
contest.
So, but it just wound up beingthe professor and Heather.
I couldn't change it becausethen I wanted to change it to
obviously the Professor andHeather, and because people our
(18:40):
age are going to understand thereference to that.
The Professor (18:42):
Understand the cultural reference, yes.
Heather Anne (18:44):
And uh so um, but one of the things that happened,
we uh were in the top five.
We moved up pretty quickly, wehad a lot of family and friends
voting for us.
But one of the things on socialmedia that I had was I had a
lot of women my age, um, womenthat have recently just been
divorced or widowed, who maybehave been divorced for years but
(19:08):
just had never wanted to getinto the dating scene, asked us,
uh sent private messages to measking what it's like being
married for a second time, howwe met, um how did I know you I
wanted to get married again.
And so um, and it just kind ofstarted and perpetuated from
(19:33):
that of people asking usquestions and different things.
And then, you know.
The Professor (19:42):
So so this is one of the one of the kinds of
topics we'll be addressing inthe podcast is this, is um
forming new relationships,dating, forming new
relationships in middle age.
But also more broadly, uhremaking one's life uh in in
middle age or older.
So um changing careers,changing the location where you
(20:06):
live.
And of course, as we get older,we get more set in our ways,
and it becomes more and more ofa of a psychological uh and some
often practical challenge ofhow you how you do this, how you
you make these big changes.
And so um, so some of ourtopics will be about things like
um like uh relocating.
Heather Anne (20:30):
We're we are in the process of relocating uh at
this time, uh things like um howuh uh blending families, um uh
retirement, finances, umbuilding your dream home, right
sizing your life and your home,um healthy aging.
(20:54):
Healthy aging, um, what it'slike to um the professor really
wasn't into working out.
He he walked a lot, he veryhe's very healthy, but um since
we've been together, he nowlifts weights and does yoga.
(21:15):
Um we I even have him doingsome sound baths.
I have him on all kinds ofvitamins.
The Professor (21:22):
Vitamins, supplements.
Heather Anne (21:23):
About be so it's about being healthy.
Um we're very fortunate thatneither one of us are on any
medication, so we'll be talkingabout even that.
Um we also have um one of thethings we'll be talking about is
childhood traumas.
(21:44):
So you grew up in a fairlytraditional home.
The Professor (21:49):
Traditional meaning there wasn't much
trauma.
Heather Anne (21:52):
There wasn't much trauma.
I grew up in a home full of allkinds of trauma, and we'll be
talking about that and even hownavigating that and bringing
that into a new relationship.
But we're really here also totalk about things that we just
(22:14):
don't talk about.
Um, our generation was youdon't talk about a lot of stuff.
If you have problems, you don'ttalk about it, you don't tell
your friends and family.
Um case in point, women andhormones and menopause.
That has been a taboo subjectfor many years.
We'll actually be talking aboutthat, not just women's
(22:37):
hormones, but men's hormones.
So just everything that justkind of affects our lives as
we're aging and we hit that 40plus mark.
The Professor (22:49):
And so, do you want to tell them about the uh
some of the guests or the kindsof people we would we're going
to have as guests?
Heather Anne (22:56):
So um we're going to have uh experts in all the
different fields that we'retalking about.
So we'll have um people that'llcome on and talk about right
sizing.
We'll have um another professorwill be coming on and talking
about hope.
And um anybody that's gonethrough trauma knows about ACEs
(23:19):
and paces, and again we'll getinto more of that.
But aces is the adverse thingsthat happen in your life.
You know, like thisquestionnaire of one to ten.
Um mine is a ten, by the way.
And then uh paces is thepositive things that happen in
your life, and they've doneextensive research on the paces,
(23:40):
and uh she will be a specialguest of ours and probably be on
a couple of times just to beable to go into those segments
of uh childhood trauma and hopeand the positive things that you
can do in your life, even as anadult, to change um your
(24:00):
outcome on life, I guess.
The Professor (24:03):
And there'll be um people who can talk uh about
the um uh supplements and uhhealth-enhancing things we've
done, uh people who uh who arein in the business of of selling
and distributing these things.
Heather Anne (24:21):
Yes like that.
And talk and even talk moreabout our health and how we've
gotten our numbers down and yournumbers that older men have to
worry about.
Um we'll be talking more aboutthat as well.
So we have a lot uh that wereally want to share with you.
We really did some research andhave just found more people of
(24:47):
our generation are coming outand talking about more of the
things that we're dealing within older life.
Um, but there really isn't likea couple that's coming out and
just sharing our lives and allthe crazy things that we've gone
through just since we've beentogether for three years and now
we've been married for gosh alittle over a year now.
The Professor (25:08):
Yes.
Heather Anne (25:09):
Almost a year and a half.
The Professor (25:10):
Almost a year and a half.
We'll talk about uh socialmedia and technology uh for the
for the middle-aged and older.
Heather Anne (25:20):
I'm on social media, he does not like it that
much.
The Professor (25:24):
Yes, uh I would I would delete my Facebook
account if it weren't for thatuh Heather uses it a lot and
some sends me videos on it andso forth.
Heather Anne (25:33):
That's my community, that's my love
language.
I sent you all these videos.
I think that's it for our firstWell that's it.
The Professor (25:41):
That's we're coming to the end of our first
episode, but we want to say alittle something about what our
second episode.
Heather Anne (25:48):
Oh, yes, our second episode.
We'll be diving more into howfirst dating.
Um feelings and things thatwent along with that.
Also, how you processed on ourfirst date, I kind of threw a
little like, oh, by the way.
The Professor (26:10):
She said, right before the start of my senior
year of high school, my familybecame front page news.
And not for anything good.
And that was it.
That was it.
Heather Anne (26:20):
We didn't talk about it that night, just threw
a little nugget out there.
The Professor (26:25):
But uh starting on the second date, uh uh she
told me uh more about about thisuh this this sort of you might
say that's like the climax of atraumatic uh upbringing.
And so what we're gonna talkabout in our second episode, in
part, is digesting these kindsof experiences and then and then
(26:46):
processing them, hearing aboutthem in another person, um, and
so so how this the effects ofthis on like on life today uh
for for the both of us.
Heather Anne (27:04):
Yes.
The Professor (27:04):
Okay.
Heather Anne (27:05):
So we hope you enjoyed our first episode in
which we've talked about who weare as a couple, um, how we met,
our relationship.
We talked about why we startedthis podcast, the meaning behind
our podcast name, futuretopics, guests we'd like to
have, and our motivation foreach episode.
(27:26):
We have so many excitingdiscussions coming up.
We can't wait to have you alongfor our new episodes.
So join us here each week, myfriend, where you're sure to get
a smile.
From lessons learned tomishaps, the adventures go on
for miles.
Here on The Professor andHeather Anne.
unknown (27:49):
Thank you for listening to The Professor and Heather
Anne.
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