March 15, 2025 • 70 mins
Alvin and German conduct a great conversation with Obstetrician and Gynecologist at Salinas Valley Health Medical Center, Dr. Kenneth A. Jones, '82. He is dedicated to helping women understand their best options and make informed decisions. Throughout all stages of life, from birth onwards, he provides prevention education, diagnosis, and treatment to improve and sustain women's quality of life. Upon graduation, he earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1989 and completed his residency at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He is board certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In addition to his medical expertise, Dr. Jones is a wine connoisseur who enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with friends. He is also known for his great sense of humor and love for a good joke. HE graduated from Colgate with a Bachelor's degree in Biology,
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following podcast is being brought to you by the
Defile Life podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to Aftergate Powered by the Defile Life Network.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Are You Ready?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Aftergate is a podcast series highlighting Colgate alumni of color
in their professional endeavors.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Aftergate. Are you all Ready?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Aftergate is hosted by Alvin Glimp aka al and Herman
Dubois aka A Jerry A Ready.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
We are doing.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Aftergate because Colgate University has produced innovators who have changed
the world every day, Yet many alumni of color and
the mainstream Colgate community are unaware of the amazing accomplishments
of alums of color.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Are you ready? Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Aftergate.
We are well over ninety episodes. Shout out the ninety
(01:05):
episodes and looking forward to continuing his journey this podcast
where we are focused on interviewing solely alumni of color
from Koge University, just trying to highlight their life, their journey,
their compliments, their accomplishments after graduation. Looking forward to doing
(01:27):
our thing, and of course as always I am Alvin
glenf co hosting with my man me hed Amano mister
Hedman Duboi. What's going on my brother and milam.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
It's all beautiful and paradise, you know. So we just
keep on keeping on, right, don't. We were just talking
a little earlier about just we've been in that you've
been in that sprint and yeah, and putting it on
perspective has been it's been a blessed year, a year
of growth, you know, a year of pivots. You know,
(02:04):
I've learned as I've gotten older, there's a difference between
how you get into how you get with conflict on
whether it be a setback or a pivot. And pivot
allows you to sort of you know, I usually want
to say flow like water, you know, like water, you
don't stop moving, you just adjust.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So well, we've known each other now thirty five thirty
seven years, so we know how we have both had
to pivot in life at times and flow like water.
But at the end of the day, we are continuing,
to your point, grind, put one foot in front of
(02:43):
the other because we got work to do, and so
it's not going to stop. And you know, we like
to do something what's been happening, and so I definitely
got to share a dude. I did a keynote address
for a global summit.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Oh I remember.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
You know I'm not gonna you know self proclaim my
words prophecy, but I remember, I do recall conversation when
you was recent, you know, when you were afforded the opportunity,
got the official uh green light with the gig, and
I say, yo, wow, this is this is just like
the our Love Show. All right, you just took it
(03:23):
to the professional level. You achieved an expertise in a
niche that is needed. And congratulations because that this didn't
happen overnight.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
You know that you've been.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
In the game. You've been in the game for a
minute and you and you built your credentials and so
mad frops because you ain't gonna tooot your horn. So
I'm gonna too it for you. But Cass needs are
recognize we doing things, brother doing things in a major
city of the country.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
The best part of my day was later in the afternoon,
I get to address three hundred high fool students in
an auditorialm Oh, that was the best part of.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
My day was the subject matter, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
But inspiring them. They were focused on food scarcity.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Okay, that's okay.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
We getting about for them, learning, bringing people in telling
them about it, and I got the opportunity, oh.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
If I made before before we before we jump in.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
You know, I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I'm chomping at the bit. Now.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. You know,
you've always been my batman. I have never had a
problem being a robin. You know, when we roll, we roll.
But in an effort to compliment the achievements that you've
so right for, let's go, I happened. I happened to
have it right here and I haven't put up.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yet, but without saying the guests that I'm not inviting
you into the room yet, but I sure appreciate your
patience because it's been caught up. So I just want
to ignore.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
That respect respect. I was recently honored this past Sunday
by the Mayor Lavigne Capa of Miami Dade County that
as an unsung hero recognized in by the Mayor, she
(05:22):
issued a proclamation on behalf of the work I do
in the community to hope murals and officially our.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Sponsor by the way, hold on, let's let let's let's
do our sponsor knowledge Murals.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Thank you for sure, thank you, and so November seventeenth
is officially headman Dubois in Miami Dade County.
Speaker 7 (05:47):
Congratulations, yeah, manratulation, you know, thank you, brother, and the
fact that we're celebrating on five year anniversary.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
Uh and two of those fives COVID. But as it
feels good to feel that we're in a space where
all that sweat equity for those first two years when
uh to then be able to be here, Uh is
just the fact that we're doing we're doing the right thing.
We're doing the right thing.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, definitely doing the right thing and also upstanding. Uh.
Thank you out for the city of Miami for for recognizing.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The work that they do Miami Dade County.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Miami Dade County recognized.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
That's real. There's major distinctions in this city.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Disrespect of disrespect again, shout out and acknowledge a brother
doing good work in a major city slash county in
this country. Sure so, now can I get your blessing
to bring this week's guests into the studio, my brother, and.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Of course, as always the Kogate family and congregation says amen,
let's let's let's welcome the brother.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
To the public. Therefore, AOC after Gate listeners, I ask
your permission, blessing, as we are inviting into the Aftergate studio.
Good brother, Kenneth Jones, officially class of eighty two. Welcome
to the show after Gate, my brother.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
Thank you very much, my man.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So the tradition that we always try to share some
context of how do we know this guest? Is this
some history to my recollection? We're just meeting right now,
right like I don't can't remember a time where we've
crossed paths. So this is an instant listeners where y'all
(07:55):
are going to be learning about his journey as we
are learning about his journey else. So looking forward to that.
So let's start with first, Kenneth, where are you from?
Speaker 6 (08:09):
I was born in Brooklyn, New Yorker's home.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Okay, I'm from Brooklyn. Shout out to Brooklyn. Bok always
is nice, very nice, very nice, very nice.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
So you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Before the show you shared that your official class of
eighty two, but you actually would have graduated high school
in nineteen seventy seven, that's.
Speaker 7 (08:33):
Correct, and that's when I started COVID and started with
the what did they call the scholars program?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The scholars program? Okay, okay, So before we get there
give us a sense of what's life like in the seventies, like,
so that people can understand the context of your life
before you actually get to COVID. What was that world like,
any political or social things you remember, all that be helpful.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
Now.
Speaker 6 (09:01):
My birthday is in December.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
So I was a young seventeen year old and we
had moved to Long Island and Colgate was I've always
wanted to challenge with myself.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
It's something academically.
Speaker 7 (09:13):
I went to a public high school, Colled, you know
High School, Long Island, and I remember my dad and
my stepmom driving up there and it was.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
A much different world then.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
It was just East Hall, West Hall and k Ed
and there were nothing but yellow station wagons with that
brown wood on the side, and everyone had to speakers
out and all they heard was Boston.
Speaker 6 (09:34):
I got a feeling it maybe just looked at me
like I was insane. It was so you.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So you heard about Colgate through your parents.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
No, I heard through the guidance counselor. And there were
a few and so the guidance counselors said in New York,
my dad min didn't wanted to go too far away,
but far away enough and they said I'd done pretty
good in high school. They said, why don't you? And
Kolgate did a good idea with the scholars program. They
brought us all up there there for a free summit,
and we all became friends before you even got there,
(10:05):
and that's what sold me on it.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
So what part of Long Island were you living it then?
Speaker 7 (10:12):
I was in the It was right next to Baldwin
and rock Fell. It's in the place called Hempstead, Long Island,
well from the Free Board Roosevelt.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Yeah that was sure.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh so uh like you born in Brooklyn,
but my father and mother moved us out to Rosedale
right so right near Valley Stream, so.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
Very exactly where that is.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Actually my wife and I got married in Baldwin.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Actually, well right next door. We used to go to Memories,
the Coral House, Oh my goodness, the Sunrise theaters I was. Yeah,
I used to be a theatersher there for many years
of my business.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Brother as well, and we shout out to all the
ushers because that's how so many A movie for free.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
Definitely was the one.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
To hook us up. So yeah, Sunrise, yeah, yeah, I
remember when I was a drive in Actually we are
going back, like I can remember green Acre's Mall. That
movie actually became a multiplex, was a drive in people.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
That's right, that's got all about that and Roosevelt Field
mall memories back in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
So was Baldwin similar to Roseale when you get out there,
it was Roselle was very white, so.
Speaker 7 (11:30):
Yeah, Paul was pretty much white, Hempster was pretty much black,
and you and that was kind of mixed.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Okay, gotcha, gotcha? Gotcha? So what then is the transition
like from what Well first described a scholars program in
the seventies, Like what do you remember about it? Where
y'all staying at? What do y'all get to do? Program wise?
Do you remember any of that?
Speaker 6 (11:50):
Oh? Yeah, I remember like the detail.
Speaker 7 (11:52):
I unfortunately, I thought I'd done well and I thought
that was ahead of the game my real life.
Speaker 6 (11:58):
I guess I was behind they Well, I think.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
Because we have said, damn, we must be pretty damn
good until it wasn't that at all, and they put
us all in. I think it was goodness. It must
have been one of the like West Hall, and there
must have been thirty or thirty five of us. Oh
and we all just bonded in that summer beforehand they
(12:23):
gave us english and math.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
Courses before the regular curriculum of the fourth.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
Semester, and so we all got to know each other
personally during that summer.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Very nice, very nice. Was Nacy O Giles?
Speaker 7 (12:39):
Was he He was saying he had a baby with
his wife. Then okay she was pregnant, Yeah she was.
He had just joined.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
We get a lot of love for Natio from people
from your era that they definitely.
Speaker 7 (12:53):
He was a very young man and he just had
a baby, and it was I fund fastic because he
was very help with all everything we did was in
I wonder to still let us students what is it
called the Students Center? No Central, that's what it was,
and that's where it all went down.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Okay, we're gonna talk about that.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
What do you remember about the Culture Center because it's
really new at that point.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Right, Yeah, it was brand new and it hadn't really
had an identity, and we made an identity. It was
mostly a girls on one side, guys on the other side,
and dance.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
We got us fine, exactly.
Speaker 7 (13:37):
And so then during the day it was for education
and it was a different era then because we were
truly minors, and they you got to remember, there were
very few women. They'd only been about three years, so
many of the women's facilities still had urinals. So it
was we can go into There's so much I could
share with you. It was just a different world. They've
been around for one hundred something years and they just
(13:59):
accepted women. So they were like there wasn't even a sorority,
and so women were new. They had their own identity.
They did that African American push a scholars program that
was own identity and so Koge was going through a
major change that then.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So when you like describe that change, is it like
from are you seeing it with the professors? Are you
seeing it with the students?
Speaker 6 (14:24):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (14:25):
People who live in the town. I mean there's a.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Whole lot of and no gown gown glows.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
I think one of the things I remember most is,
and I don't know if they still had it, they
had a February. January February is dopture for the all
the fraternity. And there was one fraternity called Fiji that
made a Native American African looking black sculture.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
We called it the Uga Booga man, and.
Speaker 7 (14:55):
Booga Man was called two stories high, and it led
to the Kogate Maroon.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
That led to contention, and we had a meeting in
all the hall.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
Wow, there were so many people there, streamed out onto
the courtyard there because that big building wasn't even there
then that one that's a science building. It was all
an open yard and the bottom line was they had
to burn it down and they created even greater division
and discussion. It was a real powerful You pull up
(15:25):
the Kogate Maroon, I think it probably been nineteen seventy eight,
it'll be all over there.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Wow. Wow, that's I don't think that's that's the first
time that story has been.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
Yeah, I've ever really bugger man in that that woman family,
she was so good at o rating why it was
offensive and all the other people from prints wide. It's
a national there was a national symbol, the Fiji guy
in a native suit, and they had to burn it
down there but over there, and it just led to
(15:57):
more contention. As I said, they were very few minorities.
Women were just coming on board. I'm sure the professors
didn't know what to make of us. I'm sure the
students didn't know what to make of us, and I'm
sure that that ice cometure was going on for probably
one hundred and fifty years and never contested.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
They were like not no more, not no, that stops
now exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
So as you think about what era you're also in
there before HRC has created the Black Dorm.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
Right right, What do you remember the Black Dorm?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, now there is one was created. Let let's get
something down on the record. Have you been back to
Colgate at all since you graduated.
Speaker 7 (16:44):
I've only been there once and that was ten years
ago from what you're going to express your thirty fifth.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Okay, okay, so yes, there's a in eighty three ish
eighty four, I remember dates, there is a dorm that's
called Harlem Renaissance Center that is established for the affirmation
(17:12):
of African American culture, and so it becomes a dorm
where a lot of at least those early decade or so,
where a lot of us looked at as a place
of refuge safety. This is where you you know, a
lot of us stayed and actually was our dorm, but
(17:33):
it was definitely the spot to kind of remove yourself
from some of the stress you were dealing with on campus.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
It was very similar to how you expressed your excitement
when you first got the Cultural Center. How although it
was educational in the day, by night, that was your allounge,
that was your spot. HRC was that in a residential way.
So yeah, the Culture centers still allowed for academics and
parties and social stuff and s. But your dorm, I
(18:02):
mean that was that was home base. Like that was
you have four floors of suites and singles that were
part of a larger building entity called Brian Complex, which
has four different buildings. One of those four buildings is
the Harlem Renaissance Center and a lot of those students
were in the summer of their summer scholars program. Oh,
(18:26):
so that it just continues into kind of HRC as
that that residential what they call special interest housing. And
there's also one for Latino students he fan, which I
think just moved off campus, but they used to be
on campus. Alvin lived there. We were at Cochin and
so that's where students cook. Half the time, they cook
(18:48):
dinner because they want to cook, you know, some food
and when they want they don't want that dining hall food.
And you got a couple of singles and a couple
of doubles, and uh.
Speaker 8 (18:59):
Yeah, you know, special interest houses currently since you graduated,
and they all the Cultural Center La Casa and HRC
still exists.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
Really, it's interesting to see that the motive you come
a long way from the other booger man. I'm wondering
how he was able to pull that one off, because
there was great pushback when I was there.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
But that kind of pity Eric Bowen did.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Do you remember him from your time so he would
have been a little younger, but yeah, he he was
one of the students who founded COVID. I mean he
founded HRC.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
Wow, and that's good high Mark. I don't think COVID
had that, but I guess.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
But you called it earlier. You said there was a
lot of pushback, but as we do, we don't stop pushing,
so it just the baton. And that's an interesting element
because that's one of the things that's come up often
in a lot of our previous interviews, depending on the
decade in which the guests graduated, is there's a sense of,
(20:05):
you know, what pushback was then and what that meant
in terms of student engagement and student activism, and what
that looks like now, and you know how it is
the different trends over the years from even the demographics
of where students of color come from. It's all good.
Well that's guy Gert from where we're going. I want
to get back to you.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
Brother, I knew that one question though.
Speaker 7 (20:28):
Back then there was a big, big push to be
more inclusive, and that was the main thing they said.
By separating yourself, you were not going to be part
of the Coldgate fabric and you are not going to
be part of the Kogate experience. How are you able
to navigate both worlds and not get criticism both from
(20:50):
the student body and from the teachers.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
Not separate but equal.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
Kind of inner life versus because that was a big
topic of munch of black students here doing the fraternities
and well there were no sororities, and how we spend
our social time.
Speaker 6 (21:06):
We only had the cultural center.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
But would you want to be included and not included?
And how the white people perceived you as exclusive? I mean,
how did you navigate that? It was huge when I
was there.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
It was a strain like that. I think you know,
it wasn't easy because seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one
year olds figuring this out by ourselves, right, and because
we say that, because we were not getting a lot
of advice guidance, because we often got questions of why
(21:42):
does the HRC exist? Why do y'all sit by yourselves?
Speaker 6 (21:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So that that tension still exist. I think, to Jerry's point,
how some of the younger students are dealing with that
is a little different from how we dealt with it.
We were being not included, and just like see, we
used to say this all the time, this campus ain't
(22:06):
for us, this school wasn't built for us. We're gonna
get our degree, We're gonna celebrate each other, We're gonna
have a good time and bounce. I think a little
bit more of guidance might have helped us then, But
it was tough.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
It's so real that we've coined a diagnosis called pt
CD post traumatic Cogate disorder, which comes from the trauma
you go through for four years trying to navigate exactly
what we're discussing, whether it be in the classroom, in
the dorm, on the sporting field in town, commuting between
(22:48):
New York City and Central News. Do you know how
many troopers stopped me in four years? I mean record,
I got record breaking stops. Okay, it's all type of nonsense.
And so my point is that we here now celebrating
that as part of our journey versus looking at it
as the trauma that we talked about. Yeah, it was real,
(23:09):
But we've also heard tremendous stories about how that need
for grit and resiliency that Kogate mandated because if you
wanted to survive, you had to figure it out right,
And I think that has served many of us in
our professional adult life, in other levels, in other arenas,
without knowing that it was going to prep us for that.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
How many people of color in your class would you say?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I would say they were about forty in our class, and.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
I think that's being generous.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
But so it was two thousand push.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
The other students about being the Harlem Center or.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Anything all the time, all the time, and it continues
to get pushed back to the point that there have
been periods over the last forty years where there's been
question of whether or not it's going to continue. And
to be honest, most of the advocacy for it to
stay as is and stay on campus and stay relevant
(24:12):
comes from alums, particularly those who value what it did
to contribute to their Colgate experience.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
That's Problic's a whole nother world. I'm trying to imagine
about full circle.
Speaker 7 (24:26):
It really is unbelieved we just had that one of
those spaces we went back to what we went back to.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Oh man, it is I mean compared to when you
were there, especially, the amount of opportunities for individuals of
color to express themselves has multiplied tremendously.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Several student organizations that represent everything and everything for the
community of color, and.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
That Cultural Center is you know you've been the Hall.
It's a newer building and it actually, to your point,
is a hub of programming fully representing the spectrum of
students of color on campus.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
Or they have come real far.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
I also continue to acknowledge that the progress. Give shout
out to Kogate for being part of it, but a
big catalyst of that progress these students of color. Like
that's the storyline is that as they're making as they're
being nudged, it's through students of color saying, you know what,
(25:35):
we need a culture center. You know what we need
a holler Reuners Center. You know what, we need more
faculty of color. Like it's been students.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Wow, it's more about the orientation of how upper classmen
schooled us on, you know, understanding the baton is going
to be passed at some point. You need to be
ready to grab the baton and then roll with it
and then be grooming simultaneous preparing who you passing it
(26:06):
on to. Because it was the continuation of those efforts
that could not go down in Vain. And that's where
I think there's been some you know loss in the
sauce where to album's point earlier, they they a lot
of the current students don't know the history. No one's storytelling,
no one's giving them the breakdown about why these places
(26:30):
exist on campus because of what how conditions were. And
it's a place of celebration, it's a place of refuge,
it's a place of education, like it's part of your
care It's not just a house a dorm room like
a you know, this is your brothers and sisters who
you're going to lean on. We're going to lean on
you to get through this place.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So that's what makes this podcast so important, so that
they win students or young alums are able to hear
the journeys so love to now come back to your
story and so I love to hear. What are any
extracurricular activities you were involved on campus? What was your
(27:16):
student life like?
Speaker 7 (27:18):
Well, it was much DIFFICU because all of the restimen
aided the student union, all of us, and there was
extracurricula was basically bill hockey and watching football the team
and tailgating. It was yeah, man, we were just sevente
(27:40):
and eighteen. We were just discovering ourselves and we were
so afraid of academia that we just hugged down. Back then,
there wasn't a computer. Everything was typewritten, handwritten. There was
number two pencils. It was just a different world. I mean,
they didn't even allow calculators in the in the room.
(28:01):
You got to do everything by hand. So it was
it was just a different vessel of going through what
did you mean biology, o Ham, Houston, Nick and all
that and Olden Hall was was where we went. Then
mcgregul added the chemistry and Marion Steve uh I think
(28:22):
it was slaughtering religion. It was just a lot of
a lot of Oh, there's a lot of reading and stuff.
So the bottom line is we just on the weekend
we were like to go to the Culture Center, just
go downtown with but it's going to be I don't
even if those places still exist. Sure they don't loose
Goose and all that other stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
So that was.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
Goose. I can't remember Pizza Pub.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
Pizza Pulp, Pizza Pub with the Boss Wings and Tatus.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
It was a different world.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I have to ask you said you were a biology major.
You know, I'm curious. You know what was your thoughts
behind becoming a bio major. What was the vision then
as a youngster?
Speaker 7 (29:14):
Oh, basically I was interested in biology, and this sort
of segues into well, I became a physician. I went
into Rochester after Colgate. It goes into my that future part.
It was just a stepping stone onto going that way.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Like to tap in in terms of your experience as
a biology major on Colgate, because that is a feat
that so many of us get deterred from, right, Some
of many of us come in wanting to be a
science major but don't make it so school in the seventies.
What was that journey like for you in.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
Terms One thing I realized is that it was much
of what you got speak to. It was a lot
of volume you and your high school didn't prepare us
because most of these students came from Exeter and Chilled
and different academy. So these guys, even my roommate Mark Schweitz,
and all the these ads were on it. So like
(30:15):
you said, you had to work crisis hard, and you
had had to learn the language. What was important was
not important, and you had and everything you did you
had to do with hand. Like he was signing up
for the courses was all done manually. So even navigating
and then we didn't have a computer, so everything was
books and touchbooks and so backpacks and it was just
(30:37):
an arduous course.
Speaker 6 (30:40):
Of hands on.
Speaker 7 (30:42):
I love the fact even I'm just I'm still amazing
at this iPad.
Speaker 6 (30:45):
I just love it. Said, but we were. It was
just unbelievable.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
I mean, we had to slide rules, We're going to
bring in a calculator into a hall.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
It was it was just it could deter anybody.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
But you now, most of my people who were around
me didn't go to biology. Almost everyone went into some
political science and economics and they all wanted to go
to war.
Speaker 6 (31:14):
And all of them did well going to that board.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
And it must be something University of Pennsylvania, I think
schools for masters, and that was what they and they
must have been set up by that father as thoughts
because they just excelled. And that was the other thing
I went coming. I'm gonna my dad was a cop,
so you had no reference, and these guys had a guidepath.
(31:36):
I just remember they had a check book, and I
think boys have a checkbook. As a child, it was
just a whole nother world. I'm up here in dealing
with castl and Dad's even more up to get the textbooks,
to get the notebooks, to get I really didn't know
what you know it would cost to go to get
the chemistry books in organic chemistry, get psyche.
Speaker 6 (31:56):
It was just a different experience.
Speaker 7 (31:58):
So to be honest with you, ninety percent of what
I learned is learning how they navigated, how they were
the world, because that wasn't that part of unto high
school with my dad didn't speak to it.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
And I knew that they had.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
They were the benchmark for which I was gonna have
to rise to, because that's what was a fabric even then.
I mean, the guy in Ato, his father was Zuba
and maid, and he took me out to dinner and
to the friends time. The country club at Ozil. It
was unbelievable, Mead. It was just a different experience. I mean,
here with the New York Philharmonic conductor and I'm thinking, well,
(32:39):
so this is a rust. This is what it's like
to be in the rest of the world. And even
going to Debtson and one of my other buddies, Jason Chapin,
was a famous Chapin singer, and it was just I
could go on another It was a different world. But
I had to learn to negotiate and navigate. My dad
didn't know, my family did know. You just you had
(33:02):
to just figure it out. And like you said, you
did it in the Holland Center, I had to. We had,
every one of us had to find out our direction
in different ways. We had a few espanits I wish
I got my I got my solomagon that could pull
up the names of all the people and so many
we were like a bond, but we couldn't bond because
we only had the Culture Center, and we went back
(33:23):
to our own private hives and just bombed out a
little a little tense to get through it. And it
was but culturally I needed to understand the rest of
the world. That I was not exposed to. Does that
makes sense?
Speaker 5 (33:39):
Great? Great perspective, great perspective.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So I'd be curious when you look at your four years,
what do you reflect on as personal highlights accomplishments.
Speaker 7 (33:54):
I think that I can navigate both worlds and become
a balloon both and my buddies of color and people
not of color. And it was negotiating, and the hardest
thing is deciding which party to go to which ten
but each understood the obligations of the other one, and
(34:16):
so they brought some semblance of understanding for the needs
of growth. And even though the harassments from the white
guys were talking about this and leaving stuff on the back,
the balls and stuff, I just.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Let it batter.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
Even when I had freaking water balloon fights and the
Canadian guys ice hockey players used to bombers.
Speaker 6 (34:37):
On the way up the health. You just had to
let all of that go.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
It was something else, like I said, it was there's
a lot more latitude than than there is now.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
I mean a lot. I mean, there was.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
These you could do whatever you want on that hill,
and they were, like I said, there and the biggest
contention at that time was whether you could have women
either the same dormitory and they were on different floors,
and they were urinals still on them. They complained about
that they weren't end up regular bathrooms with toilets because
(35:09):
it would have been all mental over one hundred years.
So it was just so you had to deal with
all that and the women coming. So it bom line
is I think navigating both. And I needed that that education.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
To see the other world to move forward.
Speaker 7 (35:28):
And unfortunately, when you get back home, I'm sure you've
heard the names. You become gentrified, you become what was
that word, to come the oreo, you come to sell out,
you come this, you come that. And I said, yep,
well now you call me doctor. So I guess I
didn't do it. I didn't do too many things bad,
(35:48):
and so it was it's even leaving Kobe, going back home,
they could see the transformation.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
And I don't think they liked it. And they were
suspected that because my dad was.
Speaker 7 (35:58):
A big Moorhouse guy was out and I said, you
know that's your path. I'm going to try something different.
I'm going to raise the bar and I just don't
want to live in your awaken. I think it's kind
of offended my little tone. Oh, I could go on it.
It had good, but that was it. That was the
biggest pointment. Then going home and then gone to respect
from the family. I plan on taking this to the
(36:18):
next level. And that has served me so well now
because my niece and nephews now look at me as
the focal point of change. And so that broke old,
old assumptions and old things and they said, oh, they're
gonna not so fast. And I became more of a
beacon of you can do this. It's not an impossible past.
(36:43):
And it had a good effect at a cost to me,
but not anymore. I don't I don't mind anymore. It's
one thing about getting over. You just don't care.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
But you kicked the door wide open and congratulations, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Are you aware of the Kogie Morehouse connection?
Speaker 6 (37:02):
No, you're the same circles.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Tell my dad, Yeah, that's what I want to. I
want you to. I want to share this story so
you can tell this story. So the reason Morehouse has
the colors of maroon and white is because there was
one of their presidents, doctor Samuel Archer, is revered at Morehouse,
(37:28):
like the dorms named after him. There's elementary schools here
in Atlanta named after him, so he was that guy.
He was also a graduate of a graduate of Koge University.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
I did not know that. Yeah, and there's more.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
There's more.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Samuel Archer, graduate of Kogate, was the first black football
player at Kogate University. He then graduates, goes down to
Atlanta becomes the president of Morehouse during the time of
country's depression. So he's acknowledged as that president who steered
(38:05):
them through these tough times. In their student orientation at Morehouse,
they teach this story. They teach this lesson of doctor
Samuel Archer. He went to Kogate. So when I'm on
their campus, I'll rock Colgate something and a student who's
about there who paid attention and orientation inevitably comes up
(38:27):
to me and be like, Kogate, that's what doctor Archer went. Yeah,
I know that's where I went to. So please share
that story with your pops.
Speaker 6 (38:36):
I'm him.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Well, orientation, we're going to take a break for uh
in the mission so that we can show something love
to our sponsor, but we will be back to the
second half of this conversation so that we can finish
it up with doctor Kenneth Jones, classificating to officially.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
So this episod's to sponsored by Hope Murals. Hope Murals
is a nonprofit that provides adolescent youth with an interactive
experience of creative expression via an urban arts platform that
stimulates both mental and physical development. Please visit that website
at www dot murals dot org to learn more and
(39:21):
find ways you can support the work they do.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Welcome back. We are here in the second half of
this conversation looking forward to hearing about what has life
been like aftergate with Kenneth. But before we do that,
before we get into the conversation, let's make sure we
take a moment to show some love to that organization
that we mentioned in the beginning of the show, our sponsor,
(39:49):
Hope Murals, cause not only do we truly appreciate the
incredible work, apparently the good people of Miami Dade County
appreciate the w work you're doing with youth as will,
so keep doing what you're doing, exposure them to the
power of urban arts and fostering their personal and creative development.
We got nothing but love for whole Murals. Get on
(40:11):
their website Hopemurals dot org or their social media is
at Hope Murals, So show them to love and learn
more about what they're doing to help our next generation
of leaders. Also want to give some love to our network,
the the FILELFE Network, but also want to remind you
that you can find our show and all of your
major podcast streaming services. We do all of them, so Apple,
(40:35):
apple Pods, break us, Spotify, our Heart. You can find
Aftergate and make sure you like or subscribe so that
when we post the next show, you're getting alert. Let's
get back to the second half of this conversation. So, Kenneth,
before we jump into what life is like at Aftergate
after you graduated, I'd love to get your perspective. You
(40:58):
are living on the West, you are living near the
Napa Valley, right, and so I am a wine novice.
So I love to just learn things that people on
this show need to be paying attention to or become
interested in in regards to wine. Bring it down, my brother,
(41:21):
what you got?
Speaker 7 (41:23):
That's funny actually, And it all started in Vegas and
a a few of my buddies were becoming Selma Gave
and they introduced me to a book called Wine for dummies,
and I learned what the label was, what the different
regions were, how.
Speaker 6 (41:41):
To actually look at what the bottle represents.
Speaker 7 (41:44):
And there was a place called Las Vegas Wine Company
that we've had sellers. Make a long story short, different
wine makers would come in, share about their wine, share
exactly how they.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
Make it, where they make it. And then we just
started taking tips going up.
Speaker 7 (41:58):
And Namecula and it just grew and grew and grew,
and I the thing about wine is that it's ever changing.
Hear from here, and it's got so complicated, and we
mostly stayed stayed focused on the California wine, and then
we started getting into the Bordeaux regions in the North
Throne and all the different village the vintages there, and
(42:20):
then the Italian wines, and it became really really I
was trying to come a.
Speaker 6 (42:26):
Summer game, but I couldn't because of my other studies,
but it.
Speaker 7 (42:29):
Was It just became a really good hobby and friends
all participating.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
So now segue to California.
Speaker 7 (42:43):
There's a burgeoning region called Passo Roblis, which is probably
about twenty five minutes south and east to me, that
are producing great wine and they're competing with NAPA and
Sonoma who had been the benchmark. And there's a place
called the green Field and Solar that which you're on
River Road here, that are producing great wines. And so
(43:05):
it's getting a lot more competitive market. And I go
to NAPPA probably two or three times a year, pick
up my allocation from the wine members and we sit
down and talk about so it's become a.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
I need a glossary of terms, right right, I'm sorry,
please clarify for all good people. Is the allocation, sir?
Speaker 7 (43:31):
The allocation is basically a release put by the particular
vidiot that you become a member of, and they allocate
so many bottles of the different break that you want.
Like I just got my vea to one and they'll
give me six lens of Cabernet. They'll give me two
Merlow's a z Infidel and and that would be my allocation.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
For the four of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 7 (43:59):
The spring in twenty twenty five, I'll get another allocation.
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You get to select which ones you want and they'll
ship it to you. Talking about it. I like that.
Speaker 7 (44:10):
In fact, I just got one and I can wait,
and it's called Martinelli Jackass Infidel off. This one for
twenty twenty two got ninety four points. And the Jackass
Hill is so.
Speaker 6 (44:22):
Hard to maintain.
Speaker 7 (44:25):
Only a donkey can get the grape, and so when
you you can't go up there and see it.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
So these grapes are so stressful.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
So that makes the wine so strong and so different
that it's so hard to get the wine and see
how it's done and brought down like this is in
eighteen hundreds. And that's just Martinelli Vineyard, and oh, anyway,
I could go on and on.
Speaker 6 (44:47):
Basically that's that one.
Speaker 7 (44:49):
I'm gonna get three bottles of It happened some Thanksgiving,
and I'm gonna have the great thanks but I'm gonna
I'm gonna dass a couple of people because I know
it's gonna be one of those we like to put
a paper bag of with a bottle and if they
can get the great hobby happy and they can tell
whether it's a z infidel.
Speaker 6 (45:05):
And it was an interesting thing.
Speaker 7 (45:07):
They did a a not really a steady, but they
put bags over the wines from Silvery A's And it
is true what happened to them happened to me. If
you close your eyes and drank it. You can't tell
a white wife from a red one. And I thought,
there's no way you couldn't tell the cabinate from a
(45:28):
strong shot.
Speaker 6 (45:29):
That you can't. I couldn't. I failed and they failed
it too.
Speaker 7 (45:34):
And so I'm going to bring this infandel up to
the peoples to have a dinner with for Thanksgiving.
Speaker 6 (45:40):
And that's going to knock the socks off.
Speaker 7 (45:42):
And there's another one that's a pena, the wed from Sonoma.
Oh I'm getting too specific, but that is and uh
pean no from Sonoma. And that one is so low
allocation that it took me twenty years and yet to
get on the list.
Speaker 6 (46:03):
Wow, twenty years to get on the list.
Speaker 5 (46:08):
This has been a lifelong cobby. This is not some
you that just you know a couple of years ago.
Speaker 7 (46:16):
Believe me, that allocation was very necessary.
Speaker 6 (46:22):
The allocation, Oh the wine cellar got hit hard. Everyone
brought They said, look, you know, watch some snowball.
Speaker 7 (46:29):
Bring it all out, open up all his first fal Bordeaux,
because that may not be another one.
Speaker 6 (46:35):
It wasn't. It was.
Speaker 7 (46:37):
It was a good time to bond. I tell you that,
you know Uson's positions. We were the first getting picks
for the vaccine. I have never been so happy in
my entire life because I'm the one that was going
to die the black man over sixty in the middle
of that, I had to take care of these people
in the middle and there's anti vaccinators in California, and
they would and that happens on.
Speaker 6 (46:58):
I said, you know what, I ain't gonna survived this.
Speaker 7 (47:00):
I survived, thank god, the metsical I survived the age epidemic,
but this was going to take me out because this respiratory.
The other one was serious, SANGUI was blood boring. I said,
this one is going to go because people are lying
about whether they anyway, I survived and I got every
vaccine and my wine cell got really hurt. But I'm
building that allocation back up as we speak.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
My man, I love it.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
Wow, that's awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
So that's a great story.
Speaker 6 (47:29):
That's a great story. I have to say.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
I'm anxious to go to the supermarket and go to
the wind Sexton right now. I want to las I
want to look at labels in a whole different way.
I want to wait a minute. So anything so no
more that is going to catch my attention in a way.
Speaker 6 (47:47):
I tell you what.
Speaker 7 (47:47):
The way you get the vintage, the region, you get
to see the cell fights, how much alcohol percentage, and
you get the year. And if you get the one
spectry of your boom boom, okay, that's a good one.
And don't go by the The most excellent lines have
the plainest label.
Speaker 6 (48:06):
I mean.
Speaker 7 (48:08):
Like they they don't need to sell themselves. They you
know it just by studying. And when I see it and
I go, oh my god, that's ad dollars, that's an
a dollar's most people just go blindly by, don't even
give it, don't twice about it. But the one do
all the colors like that Martinelli, Jack assidim it's a
(48:29):
completely black label. But just the Martinelli and the little
time they said Jack asid you would walk right by
it in the supermarket news and twice about it.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Not no more.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
I won't.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
Bring us back.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
So now we're back at Hamilton, New York, where we're
eighty two. Were you that student that knew had that
visited career planning? Had it I had the clear plan?
Was needed to transition out? Or was it? Let me
just get through klogate and then I'll try to figure
out what my next steps were.
Speaker 7 (49:07):
I think it was more of that, because then I
went to Queen's College. I thought it was going to
be a biology teacher, and so I taught a little bit,
and I should say taught, I forgot. I think there
was a there was a program there called I'll start
basically helping young students out signed upper bound, and that's
(49:29):
what it was. And that was years ago, and so
I did that for two three years and then the
I was gonna get my master's in biology and then start.
But then the teachers they said, you know what, you
got a real teen and we need positions of your
fabric to represent them. Why don't you become a physician
(49:53):
And I said, well, you know I didn't do that
well at Coulgated and you're fired.
Speaker 6 (49:57):
And well here and so Ellen.
Speaker 7 (50:00):
Hendricks and the people of the Somes people at Queen's
College said yeah we can, and we have dinner with
the UNC the Chapel Hill they had a program so
I could really decide whether medicine was a place for me.
Speaker 6 (50:15):
And that was a summer long course and that was
at Charlotte.
Speaker 7 (50:19):
What a beautiful camp it's got at Chapel Hill and
I did well there and then I got into several
mens because Rochester gave me the best package. And my dad,
I don't think he thought that I could do it.
I mean he probably thought I hadn't we had done.
I think it's managed to had the som graets because
I didn't go to Morehouse. And you should have saw
(50:40):
him that dave of graduation though, Oh my goodness, deeming.
He took pictures of me leaving their daggun the hall
where we got out that sash before the next day
we got our degree. He was it was if he
had just given birth. He was just as proud as
it can be. And when I went across the stage,
oh proud moment. Yeah, the first physician in the family,
(51:04):
so he was very proud.
Speaker 6 (51:06):
But it was a it was a work in private.
Speaker 7 (51:08):
To answer your question, in sort of fine tuning and
finding my place in medicine, because you know, Rochester was
a pretty art med school and everyone in there was
an age student, so I felt like first like coming
out of zones all over again.
Speaker 6 (51:25):
I mean, everyone.
Speaker 7 (51:26):
There is top notch, and now you're talking about doctorate
level and you thought Kode was accelerated. This one took
it to the next level, but many next levels, and
the same dynamics of the black and white and study groups,
the same dynamics occurred to Rochester.
Speaker 6 (51:44):
Unbelievable. It is a.
Speaker 7 (51:48):
Truly American phenomenon because it's it's a default. Even now
it's attending of thirty years, it's and it's just the
way things are.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
It is as you say that, was there anything about
the Colgate experience that helped you with that?
Speaker 7 (52:03):
Or then it became so I was so used to
it then that it would become irrelevant. So I guess
it did help me. And by that time you're not
eighteen nineteen anymore, and now you're in your mid twenty,
so you can navigate with a little more security, and
you have a little bit more long of twos and
(52:24):
a little more get up and go a little more hutspa, yeah.
Speaker 5 (52:30):
Fill in the blank. So you you graduate Rochester. What
happens between Rochester and now that you're in Cali? Was
it a straight jump? Well, there's some pivots along the way.
Did you do it for of the country and oh.
Speaker 6 (52:46):
That's thirty years? Let me see, I can encapsulate.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
This every city.
Speaker 7 (52:53):
This is going to be a big SUITEP, there's going
to be an so segue that four years University of
Rochester thru the medicine and dentistry, graduated I think eighty nine,
and then I stayed at Rochester at Stormoryal Hospital and
I was integrated hospital with RGH and the other four
(53:14):
and I stayed there for residency.
Speaker 6 (53:15):
So that brings me to the early nineties.
Speaker 7 (53:18):
After I left there, I didn't know where in the
country I wanted to go. I knew I didn't want
to go home to Hempstead. I said, well, I'll keep
the growth going. I knew my family would just say
they were to Nicola and dine me for every medical
question from here to the end of time, every porn
and everything would betide.
Speaker 6 (53:34):
I said, let me do something different. So there were.
Speaker 7 (53:38):
Four guys and six women in my graduating Stormary Hospital
regidue program.
Speaker 6 (53:46):
Derek Ricky and I was Derek, Ricky.
Speaker 7 (53:51):
And Greg and there were like six women and we
all said, all we're going to hang out together. The
attendings at Strong wanted us to form our own group
there and stay in Rochester, but the other ones didn't.
Ricky ended up staying there. Greg and I were good
friends and I started interviewing in Pennsylvania. He lived in Pittsburgh,
(54:16):
and he and I started interviewing there for an attending
ship after graduation, but it didn't have quite the fit.
Speaker 6 (54:25):
Although I do regret and I do it taking that
silicktly job that was free Dorfer.
Speaker 7 (54:29):
But you're gonna remember I've been in the cold for
twelve fifteen years and I was tired of it.
Speaker 6 (54:36):
It was great overcats.
Speaker 7 (54:38):
And so my other buddy said, well, why don't you
come out to Las Vegas. So I'm in my last
year of residency and I'm trying to decide where I'm
going to go to be an attendant. So they're recruiters
who brought you to join hospitals all levels, and you
(55:01):
have fresh out. So they said, come to the Southwest
because that's where the growth of America is coming in
and that's.
Speaker 6 (55:08):
Where the greatest need for a physicians.
Speaker 7 (55:10):
So they fly me out to Vegas and they put
me in the place called Green Valley, and for the
first time, and I don't know how long, I smelled
cut grass and I said, oh my god, and I
saw a fly.
Speaker 6 (55:23):
And this is in February.
Speaker 7 (55:25):
And then they took me to the Mayor's office, and
they said, this was gonna happen. This is gonna be similar,
this is going to be Green Valley rash, this is
gonna be ampt, and we're gonna put you right here,
say Rod to Meerican Hospital. We're gonna no no, no,
no no. And I said, I am, so they're getting
ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars, I was, you can
talk to me for at least two weeks and two
(55:47):
maybe three weeks, I don't know. I came back with
a ten thousand of the pocket and so funny because
I remember a graduation from residency. Well, I'm going to
hear the US run rested. I said, I'm going to
Las Vegas. And everyone looked at me.
Speaker 6 (56:01):
If I had lost my right mind. Where you're not
going ahead of da da da da da? And I
didn't go a heavy set now in Vegas. So I
go to Vegas.
Speaker 7 (56:12):
I joined a wonderful African woman's practice.
Speaker 6 (56:15):
Her name is Shoel Edwards, and she was over. She went,
she didn't, but we can talk all day about that.
Speaker 7 (56:21):
And I started practice there in Vegas and I was
there for almost twenty years.
Speaker 6 (56:27):
Is you might remember they had a big problem with
the malpractice.
Speaker 7 (56:32):
There was a huge corporation that undersold all of us
were about practice premium, and Saint Paul is what it
was called, and so they gave us the best malpractice premium.
They decided because it cost too much to defend the case,
to pull out of the market. So when they pulled
out Doubts of Duty and all the other ones with
(56:55):
this with Picks Wisconsin, all the other medical ability insurance
pulled out and created a tail spin where there was
no insurance for the medical to come a medical malpractice
and so Vegas myself included, we had a big decision
to make. First of all, I was with but then
(57:17):
Charah would moved on. I was with another practical desert womens.
It was all Mormon, and I can speak to you
a whole day about joining it.
Speaker 6 (57:24):
All Mormon. I didn't know what a Mormon.
Speaker 7 (57:25):
Was, but they were the most successful and there were
four guys and a woman.
Speaker 6 (57:30):
They we had to decide to do. You know what
a tale is.
Speaker 7 (57:34):
A tale is a if you have a lawsuit and
it will not present itself into the future, you have
to pay the insurance company money to cover that practice.
Speaker 6 (57:47):
And that claim after the termination of.
Speaker 7 (57:50):
The policy, and that had a cost of hundreds of
thousands of dollars been on for the previous eighteen years
and just because the claim hadn't been said it so
bottom line, as we had dederal women had to had
to dissolve the practice. They use our accounts receivable to
(58:11):
pay for the tail to get coverage and started new it.
Speaker 6 (58:14):
So that's when everything started to fall apart.
Speaker 7 (58:18):
The medical liability industry only had to practice insurance that
would run by the state because none of the private
insurers would come into the state of Nevada until the
medical liability market was more stable, which meant that it
(58:42):
had to go through fighting the trial attorneys, which we'd
had to go to cross the city and so that
took about four or five years, and so it became
a contentious fight for people that have actually care.
Speaker 6 (58:57):
We had to fight to get.
Speaker 7 (58:58):
A special selection session on Congress and in the Nevada
to call for this special ah VOTH to get them
to bring in term limits on these awards for paint
and suffering and keep it down to two hundred thousand,
to start inviting these certain point fans to stabilize the
market then the housing market hit and then that went under,
(59:23):
and that's when I left the California hmm.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
If you're a business looking to get your brand in
front of a loyal, supportive, successful market, you need to
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Speaker 9 (59:46):
Reach out to the Defile.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
Life podcast network and we will work with you throughout
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(01:00:09):
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Speaker 7 (01:00:18):
It's been a tumultuous ride, I'm telling you. So you
look back at Kolgate, you look back, it toughens you
because this was not an easy soldier. There was some
really dark decisions, both on the patient level. I mean,
these people couldn't even get even for themselves. They didn't
even have jobs because of what happened to the housing market.
They were trying to pay me with food and pigs
(01:00:40):
and chickens.
Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
So what kind of physician are you? He said, you
are practicing an obg y n.
Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
So I'm a yeah, that's what I am. An oxtriten
goun of colors.
Speaker 7 (01:00:54):
And that was the problem I went through in Rochester
and and I was just on call last night. I
delivered four babies. I've got three hys. Director meets tomorrow
to the VECES director me and his directorm. I got
Adventure Robot his direct me, and then I got a
couple of people in the office, so I got to
basically schedule tomorrow and I can talk to you all
(01:01:16):
about California, how different it was in Nevada's medicine and
what it took the stable sets, and Nevada's still having
trouble with them because the travel attorneys are trying to
outthrow the what the Congress did and keeping the paramount
life limits, so nobody wants to practice there instance, So
there's creating maternity deserts and not mentioning rights for abortion.
(01:01:41):
So we're getting other people of the states flying in
who have different we have sy. We have a few
people who children are who the mothers are carrying a
try so many twenty one down central baby and they
can't get a termination and they they said, they can't
be destroy that life. So I got to send them
to either University of Helpfulate in San Francisco because the
(01:02:04):
too far lungs of plant prenit or doubt to Stanford
and the other one we can I mean admastphals who
don't have a brain. We've had people who with missing
limbs and their children all these other problems that just
and they just I'm here to get care.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
I love it, bro, But I appreciate all that you do, man.
I mean that's serious. That's serious you talk about I
got a full day to Margaret. So looking back now,
you know, if you had to get in the ear
of your eighteen year old self as you graduate high
school and enter Kogate, what might be the words of
(01:02:45):
wisdom you would tell yourself at that age as well
as now you're graduating Kogiate twenty one twenty two and
you're going into the world, what might be the words
of wisdom that you would give yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Your life?
Speaker 6 (01:03:03):
I would probably say to myself.
Speaker 7 (01:03:06):
If you don't have the support of family and friends,
you're gonna have to believe in yourself and surround yourself
with people of goodwill and support. Because that's what I
did Helen Hendrickson, them bathed me and gave me the
strength to move forward because many times I didn't think
I could do it.
Speaker 6 (01:03:25):
I don't think I was smart enough.
Speaker 7 (01:03:26):
I think fortitude and my parents everything else, they've never
done it, so they can be a reference. So if
I was nineteen twenty, I'd say there are people around
you just don't know who they are. You just talk
to people who can find you the support you need
because you're not the only one in the world. And
I thought I was the only one in the world,
(01:03:47):
but there are so many others. You just don't know
who they are, and they will make sure that if
they're good people, that you succeed.
Speaker 6 (01:03:55):
Good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
So this last question is really just an opportunity for
you to promote something that you want our listeners to
become more aware of or maybe even support. So it
could be a cause, website, an initiative, just something that
(01:04:19):
because we have listeners who we always encourage to support
the things that are important to our guest. We always
give this platform.
Speaker 7 (01:04:31):
Given all that I shared with you, there was a
last made that cold game a woman named Carol Malich
for over four or five years, sort of chron a
little sort of put together a book and I think
(01:04:53):
we're going to publish it pretty soon. Well she's still
pulling like that sort of summarized everything. But that being
set in the side, I think the biggest thing I
would like to share with people is politically over the
next four years, and some stuff I'm seeing from the
(01:05:15):
medical standpoint, and some of the dance because I am
really near the Mexican population and DACA people and many
of them my patients and the people from Ohaka Pecans,
and they are scared to death. Many of them have
(01:05:35):
started to say goodbye because I think they think they're
gonna get rounded up. I think they're right, and so
this has been the next This is gonna get really real.
And people on the other side, and a lot of
my patients are migrant workers who work in the field
and pick our lettuce and our auto children, and they're
(01:05:57):
gonna have to figure that out, and many of them
out trying now. I think too. I'm not run but
have an exit strategy. And many of the dock up
people are brought here as young people and have never
really had a chance to become a citizen. And they
say they're going to be the second wave the depot
(01:06:18):
and they're all in their mid twenties and early thirties.
Speaker 6 (01:06:21):
And so they've all been for the last twelve years
people I would have never thought twice about it. I'm
coming from you.
Speaker 7 (01:06:27):
I had never met a Mexican, but hearing that start
of talking over the last decade having them it's patients,
and they have raised me up to the point my
based on the bus and it's it's been a big
welcoming into that community. I never thought it'd be part
of It's weird how life changes out things with the
Mormons to the Mexicans.
Speaker 6 (01:06:47):
Anyway, I'm kind of stranged. Bottom line is just buckle.
Speaker 7 (01:06:50):
Up because I think we're going to be in We're
going to be exposed to some very strong conditions over
the next year or so. And I said, there's gonna
be a lot of things we're not gonna be proud of.
Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
Did you slip in and you say your face is
on the bus? Slipped his face on the side of.
Speaker 5 (01:07:14):
A bus with friends.
Speaker 7 (01:07:17):
Well, I got an award for d and the slips
out the hospital I'm in now they did they're doing
this promotion and so apparently they used some of the images.
Speaker 6 (01:07:28):
On the side in the back of the bus. And
so I'm sitting there and I'm some of my papers
were telling me in the back of the bus. I say, yeah,
I try to make some racial jumping on it.
Speaker 7 (01:07:37):
And then they saw me a picture and I couldn't
believe it. There I was strapped on the side of
the bus and that was wondering why team kept smiling
at me and looking at me. And this goes from
monter Ray to Salinas to the Santa Cruz to San
Jose and people.
Speaker 6 (01:07:53):
So my buddies, they're like, yes, famous, can we get
your autographed?
Speaker 7 (01:07:59):
Why don't we stop the les say and listen to
yourself to the bus and so big harassment. So anyway, yeah,
I've been in the bus, I've been in the magazine,
just entered the promotional too. But I haven't seen the
bus myself, but I believe that it's But I have
people I've seen in the streets who don't know me
just sort of plant at me and I said, you
(01:08:19):
know what, I think they've seen the bus.
Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Any last words, my brother, nah, no last words.
Speaker 6 (01:08:29):
Thank you so much. It's been wonderful venting boy.
Speaker 7 (01:08:32):
You brought cis haven't talked about long time, a lot
of memories, a lot of good experiences.
Speaker 6 (01:08:36):
Thank you for your time and.
Speaker 7 (01:08:38):
Having me as a as a.
Speaker 6 (01:08:41):
Guest on your wonderful podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Well, thank you and let's just take it out officially
with This has been another episode of after Gate season four.
Thank you to our guests, thanks to our listeners. As always,
after Gate is powered by the Defile Life Network, so
make sure you check us out in the future on
all of your favorite podcast streaming platforms. Know we have
(01:09:06):
many more dope episodes to follow, and remember that the
Coldgate of your day is not the Cogate of today,
and it's certainly not the cold Gate of the future.
Peace family.
Speaker 9 (01:09:19):
You hear that, listen closer that my friend is the
definitely side of focus. It drowns out all the useless
noise that can clutter the only nay sayers don't exist, haters, smaters,
the peanut gallery.
Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Who's that when you're in your zone, all that noise
and all that buzz is just elevator music.
Speaker 9 (01:09:40):
So enjoy your journey, focus on your goal in basque,
in the quiet role that it is progressed.
Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Because when it's your time to shoot that shot, spit
that verse, or close that deal, the only voice that matters,
it's yours.
Speaker 6 (01:09:55):
The fire life
Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
H
The following podcast is being brought to you by the
Defile Life podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to Aftergate Powered by the Defile Life Network.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Are You Ready?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Aftergate is a podcast series highlighting Colgate alumni of color
in their professional endeavors.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Aftergate. Are you all Ready?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Aftergate is hosted by Alvin Glimp aka al and Herman
Dubois aka A Jerry A Ready.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
We are doing.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Aftergate because Colgate University has produced innovators who have changed
the world every day, Yet many alumni of color and
the mainstream Colgate community are unaware of the amazing accomplishments
of alums of color.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Are you ready? Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Aftergate.
We are well over ninety episodes. Shout out the ninety
(01:05):
episodes and looking forward to continuing his journey this podcast
where we are focused on interviewing solely alumni of color
from Koge University, just trying to highlight their life, their journey,
their compliments, their accomplishments after graduation. Looking forward to doing
(01:27):
our thing, and of course as always I am Alvin
glenf co hosting with my man me hed Amano mister
Hedman Duboi. What's going on my brother and milam.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
It's all beautiful and paradise, you know. So we just
keep on keeping on, right, don't. We were just talking
a little earlier about just we've been in that you've
been in that sprint and yeah, and putting it on
perspective has been it's been a blessed year, a year
of growth, you know, a year of pivots. You know,
(02:04):
I've learned as I've gotten older, there's a difference between
how you get into how you get with conflict on
whether it be a setback or a pivot. And pivot
allows you to sort of you know, I usually want
to say flow like water, you know, like water, you
don't stop moving, you just adjust.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So well, we've known each other now thirty five thirty
seven years, so we know how we have both had
to pivot in life at times and flow like water.
But at the end of the day, we are continuing,
to your point, grind, put one foot in front of
(02:43):
the other because we got work to do, and so
it's not going to stop. And you know, we like
to do something what's been happening, and so I definitely
got to share a dude. I did a keynote address
for a global summit.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Oh I remember.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
You know I'm not gonna you know self proclaim my
words prophecy, but I remember, I do recall conversation when
you was recent, you know, when you were afforded the opportunity,
got the official uh green light with the gig, and
I say, yo, wow, this is this is just like
the our Love Show. All right, you just took it
(03:23):
to the professional level. You achieved an expertise in a
niche that is needed. And congratulations because that this didn't
happen overnight.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
You know that you've been.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
In the game. You've been in the game for a
minute and you and you built your credentials and so
mad frops because you ain't gonna tooot your horn. So
I'm gonna too it for you. But Cass needs are
recognize we doing things, brother doing things in a major
city of the country.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
The best part of my day was later in the afternoon,
I get to address three hundred high fool students in
an auditorialm Oh, that was the best part of.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
My day was the subject matter, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
But inspiring them. They were focused on food scarcity.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Okay, that's okay.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
We getting about for them, learning, bringing people in telling
them about it, and I got the opportunity, oh.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
If I made before before we before we jump in.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
You know, I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I'm chomping at the bit. Now.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. You know,
you've always been my batman. I have never had a
problem being a robin. You know, when we roll, we roll.
But in an effort to compliment the achievements that you've
so right for, let's go, I happened. I happened to
have it right here and I haven't put up.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yet, but without saying the guests that I'm not inviting
you into the room yet, but I sure appreciate your
patience because it's been caught up. So I just want
to ignore.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
That respect respect. I was recently honored this past Sunday
by the Mayor Lavigne Capa of Miami Dade County that
as an unsung hero recognized in by the Mayor, she
(05:22):
issued a proclamation on behalf of the work I do
in the community to hope murals and officially our.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Sponsor by the way, hold on, let's let let's let's
do our sponsor knowledge Murals.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Thank you for sure, thank you, and so November seventeenth
is officially headman Dubois in Miami Dade County.
Speaker 7 (05:47):
Congratulations, yeah, manratulation, you know, thank you, brother, and the
fact that we're celebrating on five year anniversary.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
Uh and two of those fives COVID. But as it
feels good to feel that we're in a space where
all that sweat equity for those first two years when
uh to then be able to be here, Uh is
just the fact that we're doing we're doing the right thing.
We're doing the right thing.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, definitely doing the right thing and also upstanding. Uh.
Thank you out for the city of Miami for for recognizing.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The work that they do Miami Dade County.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Miami Dade County recognized.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
That's real. There's major distinctions in this city.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Disrespect of disrespect again, shout out and acknowledge a brother
doing good work in a major city slash county in
this country. Sure so, now can I get your blessing
to bring this week's guests into the studio, my brother, and.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Of course, as always the Kogate family and congregation says amen,
let's let's let's welcome the brother.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
To the public. Therefore, AOC after Gate listeners, I ask
your permission, blessing, as we are inviting into the Aftergate studio.
Good brother, Kenneth Jones, officially class of eighty two. Welcome
to the show after Gate, my brother.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
Thank you very much, my man.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So the tradition that we always try to share some
context of how do we know this guest? Is this
some history to my recollection? We're just meeting right now,
right like I don't can't remember a time where we've
crossed paths. So this is an instant listeners where y'all
(07:55):
are going to be learning about his journey as we
are learning about his journey else. So looking forward to that.
So let's start with first, Kenneth, where are you from?
Speaker 6 (08:09):
I was born in Brooklyn, New Yorker's home.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Okay, I'm from Brooklyn. Shout out to Brooklyn. Bok always
is nice, very nice, very nice, very nice.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
So you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Before the show you shared that your official class of
eighty two, but you actually would have graduated high school
in nineteen seventy seven, that's.
Speaker 7 (08:33):
Correct, and that's when I started COVID and started with
the what did they call the scholars program?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The scholars program? Okay, okay, So before we get there
give us a sense of what's life like in the seventies, like,
so that people can understand the context of your life
before you actually get to COVID. What was that world like,
any political or social things you remember, all that be helpful.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
Now.
Speaker 6 (09:01):
My birthday is in December.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
So I was a young seventeen year old and we
had moved to Long Island and Colgate was I've always
wanted to challenge with myself.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
It's something academically.
Speaker 7 (09:13):
I went to a public high school, Colled, you know
High School, Long Island, and I remember my dad and
my stepmom driving up there and it was.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
A much different world then.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
It was just East Hall, West Hall and k Ed
and there were nothing but yellow station wagons with that
brown wood on the side, and everyone had to speakers
out and all they heard was Boston.
Speaker 6 (09:34):
I got a feeling it maybe just looked at me
like I was insane. It was so you.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So you heard about Colgate through your parents.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
No, I heard through the guidance counselor. And there were
a few and so the guidance counselors said in New York,
my dad min didn't wanted to go too far away,
but far away enough and they said I'd done pretty
good in high school. They said, why don't you? And
Kolgate did a good idea with the scholars program. They
brought us all up there there for a free summit,
and we all became friends before you even got there,
(10:05):
and that's what sold me on it.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
So what part of Long Island were you living it then?
Speaker 7 (10:12):
I was in the It was right next to Baldwin
and rock Fell. It's in the place called Hempstead, Long Island,
well from the Free Board Roosevelt.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Yeah that was sure.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh so uh like you born in Brooklyn,
but my father and mother moved us out to Rosedale
right so right near Valley Stream, so.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
Very exactly where that is.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Actually my wife and I got married in Baldwin.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Actually, well right next door. We used to go to Memories,
the Coral House, Oh my goodness, the Sunrise theaters I was. Yeah,
I used to be a theatersher there for many years
of my business.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Brother as well, and we shout out to all the
ushers because that's how so many A movie for free.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
Definitely was the one.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
To hook us up. So yeah, Sunrise, yeah, yeah, I
remember when I was a drive in Actually we are
going back, like I can remember green Acre's Mall. That
movie actually became a multiplex, was a drive in people.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
That's right, that's got all about that and Roosevelt Field
mall memories back in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
So was Baldwin similar to Roseale when you get out there,
it was Roselle was very white, so.
Speaker 7 (11:30):
Yeah, Paul was pretty much white, Hempster was pretty much black,
and you and that was kind of mixed.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Okay, gotcha, gotcha? Gotcha? So what then is the transition
like from what Well first described a scholars program in
the seventies, Like what do you remember about it? Where
y'all staying at? What do y'all get to do? Program wise?
Do you remember any of that?
Speaker 6 (11:50):
Oh? Yeah, I remember like the detail.
Speaker 7 (11:52):
I unfortunately, I thought I'd done well and I thought
that was ahead of the game my real life.
Speaker 6 (11:58):
I guess I was behind they Well, I think.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
Because we have said, damn, we must be pretty damn
good until it wasn't that at all, and they put
us all in. I think it was goodness. It must
have been one of the like West Hall, and there
must have been thirty or thirty five of us. Oh
and we all just bonded in that summer beforehand they
(12:23):
gave us english and math.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
Courses before the regular curriculum of the fourth.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
Semester, and so we all got to know each other
personally during that summer.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Very nice, very nice. Was Nacy O Giles?
Speaker 7 (12:39):
Was he He was saying he had a baby with
his wife. Then okay she was pregnant, Yeah she was.
He had just joined.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
We get a lot of love for Natio from people
from your era that they definitely.
Speaker 7 (12:53):
He was a very young man and he just had
a baby, and it was I fund fastic because he
was very help with all everything we did was in
I wonder to still let us students what is it
called the Students Center? No Central, that's what it was,
and that's where it all went down.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Okay, we're gonna talk about that.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
What do you remember about the Culture Center because it's
really new at that point.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Right, Yeah, it was brand new and it hadn't really
had an identity, and we made an identity. It was
mostly a girls on one side, guys on the other side,
and dance.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
We got us fine, exactly.
Speaker 7 (13:37):
And so then during the day it was for education
and it was a different era then because we were
truly minors, and they you got to remember, there were
very few women. They'd only been about three years, so
many of the women's facilities still had urinals. So it
was we can go into There's so much I could
share with you. It was just a different world. They've
been around for one hundred something years and they just
(13:59):
accepted women. So they were like there wasn't even a sorority,
and so women were new. They had their own identity.
They did that African American push a scholars program that
was own identity and so Koge was going through a
major change that then.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So when you like describe that change, is it like
from are you seeing it with the professors? Are you
seeing it with the students?
Speaker 6 (14:24):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (14:25):
People who live in the town. I mean there's a.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Whole lot of and no gown gown glows.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
I think one of the things I remember most is,
and I don't know if they still had it, they
had a February. January February is dopture for the all
the fraternity. And there was one fraternity called Fiji that
made a Native American African looking black sculture.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
We called it the Uga Booga man, and.
Speaker 7 (14:55):
Booga Man was called two stories high, and it led
to the Kogate Maroon.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
That led to contention, and we had a meeting in
all the hall.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
Wow, there were so many people there, streamed out onto
the courtyard there because that big building wasn't even there
then that one that's a science building. It was all
an open yard and the bottom line was they had
to burn it down and they created even greater division
and discussion. It was a real powerful You pull up
(15:25):
the Kogate Maroon, I think it probably been nineteen seventy eight,
it'll be all over there.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Wow. Wow, that's I don't think that's that's the first
time that story has been.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
Yeah, I've ever really bugger man in that that woman family,
she was so good at o rating why it was
offensive and all the other people from prints wide. It's
a national there was a national symbol, the Fiji guy
in a native suit, and they had to burn it
down there but over there, and it just led to
(15:57):
more contention. As I said, they were very few minorities.
Women were just coming on board. I'm sure the professors
didn't know what to make of us. I'm sure the
students didn't know what to make of us, and I'm
sure that that ice cometure was going on for probably
one hundred and fifty years and never contested.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
They were like not no more, not no, that stops
now exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
So as you think about what era you're also in
there before HRC has created the Black Dorm.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
Right right, What do you remember the Black Dorm?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, now there is one was created. Let let's get
something down on the record. Have you been back to
Colgate at all since you graduated.
Speaker 7 (16:44):
I've only been there once and that was ten years
ago from what you're going to express your thirty fifth.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Okay, okay, so yes, there's a in eighty three ish
eighty four, I remember dates, there is a dorm that's
called Harlem Renaissance Center that is established for the affirmation
(17:12):
of African American culture, and so it becomes a dorm
where a lot of at least those early decade or so,
where a lot of us looked at as a place
of refuge safety. This is where you you know, a
lot of us stayed and actually was our dorm, but
(17:33):
it was definitely the spot to kind of remove yourself
from some of the stress you were dealing with on campus.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
It was very similar to how you expressed your excitement
when you first got the Cultural Center. How although it
was educational in the day, by night, that was your allounge,
that was your spot. HRC was that in a residential way.
So yeah, the Culture centers still allowed for academics and
parties and social stuff and s. But your dorm, I
(18:02):
mean that was that was home base. Like that was
you have four floors of suites and singles that were
part of a larger building entity called Brian Complex, which
has four different buildings. One of those four buildings is
the Harlem Renaissance Center and a lot of those students
were in the summer of their summer scholars program. Oh,
(18:26):
so that it just continues into kind of HRC as
that that residential what they call special interest housing. And
there's also one for Latino students he fan, which I
think just moved off campus, but they used to be
on campus. Alvin lived there. We were at Cochin and
so that's where students cook. Half the time, they cook
(18:48):
dinner because they want to cook, you know, some food
and when they want they don't want that dining hall food.
And you got a couple of singles and a couple
of doubles, and uh.
Speaker 8 (18:59):
Yeah, you know, special interest houses currently since you graduated,
and they all the Cultural Center La Casa and HRC
still exists.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
Really, it's interesting to see that the motive you come
a long way from the other booger man. I'm wondering
how he was able to pull that one off, because
there was great pushback when I was there.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
But that kind of pity Eric Bowen did.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Do you remember him from your time so he would
have been a little younger, but yeah, he he was
one of the students who founded COVID. I mean he
founded HRC.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
Wow, and that's good high Mark. I don't think COVID
had that, but I guess.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
But you called it earlier. You said there was a
lot of pushback, but as we do, we don't stop pushing,
so it just the baton. And that's an interesting element
because that's one of the things that's come up often
in a lot of our previous interviews, depending on the
decade in which the guests graduated, is there's a sense of,
(20:05):
you know, what pushback was then and what that meant
in terms of student engagement and student activism, and what
that looks like now, and you know how it is
the different trends over the years from even the demographics
of where students of color come from. It's all good.
Well that's guy Gert from where we're going. I want
to get back to you.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
Brother, I knew that one question though.
Speaker 7 (20:28):
Back then there was a big, big push to be
more inclusive, and that was the main thing they said.
By separating yourself, you were not going to be part
of the Coldgate fabric and you are not going to
be part of the Kogate experience. How are you able
to navigate both worlds and not get criticism both from
(20:50):
the student body and from the teachers.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
Not separate but equal.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
Kind of inner life versus because that was a big
topic of munch of black students here doing the fraternities
and well there were no sororities, and how we spend
our social time.
Speaker 6 (21:06):
We only had the cultural center.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
But would you want to be included and not included?
And how the white people perceived you as exclusive? I mean,
how did you navigate that? It was huge when I
was there.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
It was a strain like that. I think you know,
it wasn't easy because seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one
year olds figuring this out by ourselves, right, and because
we say that, because we were not getting a lot
of advice guidance, because we often got questions of why
(21:42):
does the HRC exist? Why do y'all sit by yourselves?
Speaker 6 (21:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So that that tension still exist. I think, to Jerry's point,
how some of the younger students are dealing with that
is a little different from how we dealt with it.
We were being not included, and just like see, we
used to say this all the time, this campus ain't
(22:06):
for us, this school wasn't built for us. We're gonna
get our degree, We're gonna celebrate each other, We're gonna
have a good time and bounce. I think a little
bit more of guidance might have helped us then, But
it was tough.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
It's so real that we've coined a diagnosis called pt
CD post traumatic Cogate disorder, which comes from the trauma
you go through for four years trying to navigate exactly
what we're discussing, whether it be in the classroom, in
the dorm, on the sporting field in town, commuting between
(22:48):
New York City and Central News. Do you know how
many troopers stopped me in four years? I mean record,
I got record breaking stops. Okay, it's all type of nonsense.
And so my point is that we here now celebrating
that as part of our journey versus looking at it
as the trauma that we talked about. Yeah, it was real,
(23:09):
But we've also heard tremendous stories about how that need
for grit and resiliency that Kogate mandated because if you
wanted to survive, you had to figure it out right,
And I think that has served many of us in
our professional adult life, in other levels, in other arenas,
without knowing that it was going to prep us for that.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
How many people of color in your class would you say?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I would say they were about forty in our class, and.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
I think that's being generous.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
But so it was two thousand push.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
The other students about being the Harlem Center or.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Anything all the time, all the time, and it continues
to get pushed back to the point that there have
been periods over the last forty years where there's been
question of whether or not it's going to continue. And
to be honest, most of the advocacy for it to
stay as is and stay on campus and stay relevant
(24:12):
comes from alums, particularly those who value what it did
to contribute to their Colgate experience.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
That's Problic's a whole nother world. I'm trying to imagine
about full circle.
Speaker 7 (24:26):
It really is unbelieved we just had that one of
those spaces we went back to what we went back to.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Oh man, it is I mean compared to when you
were there, especially, the amount of opportunities for individuals of
color to express themselves has multiplied tremendously.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Several student organizations that represent everything and everything for the
community of color, and.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
That Cultural Center is you know you've been the Hall.
It's a newer building and it actually, to your point,
is a hub of programming fully representing the spectrum of
students of color on campus.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
Or they have come real far.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
I also continue to acknowledge that the progress. Give shout
out to Kogate for being part of it, but a
big catalyst of that progress these students of color. Like
that's the storyline is that as they're making as they're
being nudged, it's through students of color saying, you know what,
(25:35):
we need a culture center. You know what we need
a holler Reuners Center. You know what, we need more
faculty of color. Like it's been students.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Wow, it's more about the orientation of how upper classmen
schooled us on, you know, understanding the baton is going
to be passed at some point. You need to be
ready to grab the baton and then roll with it
and then be grooming simultaneous preparing who you passing it
(26:06):
on to. Because it was the continuation of those efforts
that could not go down in Vain. And that's where
I think there's been some you know loss in the
sauce where to album's point earlier, they they a lot
of the current students don't know the history. No one's storytelling,
no one's giving them the breakdown about why these places
(26:30):
exist on campus because of what how conditions were. And
it's a place of celebration, it's a place of refuge,
it's a place of education, like it's part of your
care It's not just a house a dorm room like
a you know, this is your brothers and sisters who
you're going to lean on. We're going to lean on
you to get through this place.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So that's what makes this podcast so important, so that
they win students or young alums are able to hear
the journeys so love to now come back to your
story and so I love to hear. What are any
extracurricular activities you were involved on campus? What was your
(27:16):
student life like?
Speaker 7 (27:18):
Well, it was much DIFFICU because all of the restimen
aided the student union, all of us, and there was
extracurricula was basically bill hockey and watching football the team
and tailgating. It was yeah, man, we were just sevente
(27:40):
and eighteen. We were just discovering ourselves and we were
so afraid of academia that we just hugged down. Back then,
there wasn't a computer. Everything was typewritten, handwritten. There was
number two pencils. It was just a different world. I mean,
they didn't even allow calculators in the in the room.
(28:01):
You got to do everything by hand. So it was
it was just a different vessel of going through what
did you mean biology, o Ham, Houston, Nick and all
that and Olden Hall was was where we went. Then
mcgregul added the chemistry and Marion Steve uh I think
(28:22):
it was slaughtering religion. It was just a lot of
a lot of Oh, there's a lot of reading and stuff.
So the bottom line is we just on the weekend
we were like to go to the Culture Center, just
go downtown with but it's going to be I don't
even if those places still exist. Sure they don't loose
Goose and all that other stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
So that was.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
Goose. I can't remember Pizza Pub.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
Pizza Pulp, Pizza Pub with the Boss Wings and Tatus.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
It was a different world.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I have to ask you said you were a biology major.
You know, I'm curious. You know what was your thoughts
behind becoming a bio major. What was the vision then
as a youngster?
Speaker 7 (29:14):
Oh, basically I was interested in biology, and this sort
of segues into well, I became a physician. I went
into Rochester after Colgate. It goes into my that future part.
It was just a stepping stone onto going that way.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Like to tap in in terms of your experience as
a biology major on Colgate, because that is a feat
that so many of us get deterred from, right, Some
of many of us come in wanting to be a
science major but don't make it so school in the seventies.
What was that journey like for you in.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
Terms One thing I realized is that it was much
of what you got speak to. It was a lot
of volume you and your high school didn't prepare us
because most of these students came from Exeter and Chilled
and different academy. So these guys, even my roommate Mark Schweitz,
and all the these ads were on it. So like
(30:15):
you said, you had to work crisis hard, and you
had had to learn the language. What was important was
not important, and you had and everything you did you
had to do with hand. Like he was signing up
for the courses was all done manually. So even navigating
and then we didn't have a computer, so everything was
books and touchbooks and so backpacks and it was just
(30:37):
an arduous course.
Speaker 6 (30:40):
Of hands on.
Speaker 7 (30:42):
I love the fact even I'm just I'm still amazing
at this iPad.
Speaker 6 (30:45):
I just love it. Said, but we were. It was
just unbelievable.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
I mean, we had to slide rules, We're going to
bring in a calculator into a hall.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
It was it was just it could deter anybody.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
But you now, most of my people who were around
me didn't go to biology. Almost everyone went into some
political science and economics and they all wanted to go
to war.
Speaker 6 (31:14):
And all of them did well going to that board.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
And it must be something University of Pennsylvania, I think
schools for masters, and that was what they and they
must have been set up by that father as thoughts
because they just excelled. And that was the other thing
I went coming. I'm gonna my dad was a cop,
so you had no reference, and these guys had a guidepath.
(31:36):
I just remember they had a check book, and I
think boys have a checkbook. As a child, it was
just a whole nother world. I'm up here in dealing
with castl and Dad's even more up to get the textbooks,
to get the notebooks, to get I really didn't know
what you know it would cost to go to get
the chemistry books in organic chemistry, get psyche.
Speaker 6 (31:56):
It was just a different experience.
Speaker 7 (31:58):
So to be honest with you, ninety percent of what
I learned is learning how they navigated, how they were
the world, because that wasn't that part of unto high
school with my dad didn't speak to it.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
And I knew that they had.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
They were the benchmark for which I was gonna have
to rise to, because that's what was a fabric even then.
I mean, the guy in Ato, his father was Zuba
and maid, and he took me out to dinner and
to the friends time. The country club at Ozil. It
was unbelievable, Mead. It was just a different experience. I mean,
here with the New York Philharmonic conductor and I'm thinking, well,
(32:39):
so this is a rust. This is what it's like
to be in the rest of the world. And even
going to Debtson and one of my other buddies, Jason Chapin,
was a famous Chapin singer, and it was just I
could go on another It was a different world. But
I had to learn to negotiate and navigate. My dad
didn't know, my family did know. You just you had
(33:02):
to just figure it out. And like you said, you
did it in the Holland Center, I had to. We had,
every one of us had to find out our direction
in different ways. We had a few espanits I wish
I got my I got my solomagon that could pull
up the names of all the people and so many
we were like a bond, but we couldn't bond because
we only had the Culture Center, and we went back
(33:23):
to our own private hives and just bombed out a
little a little tense to get through it. And it
was but culturally I needed to understand the rest of
the world. That I was not exposed to. Does that
makes sense?
Speaker 5 (33:39):
Great? Great perspective, great perspective.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So I'd be curious when you look at your four years,
what do you reflect on as personal highlights accomplishments.
Speaker 7 (33:54):
I think that I can navigate both worlds and become
a balloon both and my buddies of color and people
not of color. And it was negotiating, and the hardest
thing is deciding which party to go to which ten
but each understood the obligations of the other one, and
(34:16):
so they brought some semblance of understanding for the needs
of growth. And even though the harassments from the white
guys were talking about this and leaving stuff on the back,
the balls and stuff, I just.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Let it batter.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
Even when I had freaking water balloon fights and the
Canadian guys ice hockey players used to bombers.
Speaker 6 (34:37):
On the way up the health. You just had to
let all of that go.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
It was something else, like I said, it was there's
a lot more latitude than than there is now.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
I mean a lot. I mean, there was.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
These you could do whatever you want on that hill,
and they were, like I said, there and the biggest
contention at that time was whether you could have women
either the same dormitory and they were on different floors,
and they were urinals still on them. They complained about
that they weren't end up regular bathrooms with toilets because
(35:09):
it would have been all mental over one hundred years.
So it was just so you had to deal with
all that and the women coming. So it bom line
is I think navigating both. And I needed that that education.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
To see the other world to move forward.
Speaker 7 (35:28):
And unfortunately, when you get back home, I'm sure you've
heard the names. You become gentrified, you become what was
that word, to come the oreo, you come to sell out,
you come this, you come that. And I said, yep,
well now you call me doctor. So I guess I
didn't do it. I didn't do too many things bad,
(35:48):
and so it was it's even leaving Kobe, going back home,
they could see the transformation.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
And I don't think they liked it. And they were
suspected that because my dad was.
Speaker 7 (35:58):
A big Moorhouse guy was out and I said, you
know that's your path. I'm going to try something different.
I'm going to raise the bar and I just don't
want to live in your awaken. I think it's kind
of offended my little tone. Oh, I could go on it.
It had good, but that was it. That was the
biggest pointment. Then going home and then gone to respect
from the family. I plan on taking this to the
(36:18):
next level. And that has served me so well now
because my niece and nephews now look at me as
the focal point of change. And so that broke old,
old assumptions and old things and they said, oh, they're
gonna not so fast. And I became more of a
beacon of you can do this. It's not an impossible past.
(36:43):
And it had a good effect at a cost to me,
but not anymore. I don't I don't mind anymore. It's
one thing about getting over. You just don't care.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
But you kicked the door wide open and congratulations, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Are you aware of the Kogie Morehouse connection?
Speaker 6 (37:02):
No, you're the same circles.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Tell my dad, Yeah, that's what I want to. I
want you to. I want to share this story so
you can tell this story. So the reason Morehouse has
the colors of maroon and white is because there was
one of their presidents, doctor Samuel Archer, is revered at Morehouse,
(37:28):
like the dorms named after him. There's elementary schools here
in Atlanta named after him, so he was that guy.
He was also a graduate of a graduate of Koge University.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
I did not know that. Yeah, and there's more.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
There's more.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Samuel Archer, graduate of Kogate, was the first black football
player at Kogate University. He then graduates, goes down to
Atlanta becomes the president of Morehouse during the time of
country's depression. So he's acknowledged as that president who steered
(38:05):
them through these tough times. In their student orientation at Morehouse,
they teach this story. They teach this lesson of doctor
Samuel Archer. He went to Kogate. So when I'm on
their campus, I'll rock Colgate something and a student who's
about there who paid attention and orientation inevitably comes up
(38:27):
to me and be like, Kogate, that's what doctor Archer went. Yeah,
I know that's where I went to. So please share
that story with your pops.
Speaker 6 (38:36):
I'm him.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Well, orientation, we're going to take a break for uh
in the mission so that we can show something love
to our sponsor, but we will be back to the
second half of this conversation so that we can finish
it up with doctor Kenneth Jones, classificating to officially.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
So this episod's to sponsored by Hope Murals. Hope Murals
is a nonprofit that provides adolescent youth with an interactive
experience of creative expression via an urban arts platform that
stimulates both mental and physical development. Please visit that website
at www dot murals dot org to learn more and
(39:21):
find ways you can support the work they do.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Welcome back. We are here in the second half of
this conversation looking forward to hearing about what has life
been like aftergate with Kenneth. But before we do that,
before we get into the conversation, let's make sure we
take a moment to show some love to that organization
that we mentioned in the beginning of the show, our sponsor,
(39:49):
Hope Murals, cause not only do we truly appreciate the
incredible work, apparently the good people of Miami Dade County
appreciate the w work you're doing with youth as will,
so keep doing what you're doing, exposure them to the
power of urban arts and fostering their personal and creative development.
We got nothing but love for whole Murals. Get on
(40:11):
their website Hopemurals dot org or their social media is
at Hope Murals, So show them to love and learn
more about what they're doing to help our next generation
of leaders. Also want to give some love to our network,
the the FILELFE Network, but also want to remind you
that you can find our show and all of your
major podcast streaming services. We do all of them, so Apple,
(40:35):
apple Pods, break us, Spotify, our Heart. You can find
Aftergate and make sure you like or subscribe so that
when we post the next show, you're getting alert. Let's
get back to the second half of this conversation. So, Kenneth,
before we jump into what life is like at Aftergate
after you graduated, I'd love to get your perspective. You
(40:58):
are living on the West, you are living near the
Napa Valley, right, and so I am a wine novice.
So I love to just learn things that people on
this show need to be paying attention to or become
interested in in regards to wine. Bring it down, my brother,
(41:21):
what you got?
Speaker 7 (41:23):
That's funny actually, And it all started in Vegas and
a a few of my buddies were becoming Selma Gave
and they introduced me to a book called Wine for dummies,
and I learned what the label was, what the different
regions were, how.
Speaker 6 (41:41):
To actually look at what the bottle represents.
Speaker 7 (41:44):
And there was a place called Las Vegas Wine Company
that we've had sellers. Make a long story short, different
wine makers would come in, share about their wine, share
exactly how they.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
Make it, where they make it. And then we just
started taking tips going up.
Speaker 7 (41:58):
And Namecula and it just grew and grew and grew,
and I the thing about wine is that it's ever changing.
Hear from here, and it's got so complicated, and we
mostly stayed stayed focused on the California wine, and then
we started getting into the Bordeaux regions in the North
Throne and all the different village the vintages there, and
(42:20):
then the Italian wines, and it became really really I
was trying to come a.
Speaker 6 (42:26):
Summer game, but I couldn't because of my other studies,
but it.
Speaker 7 (42:29):
Was It just became a really good hobby and friends
all participating.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
So now segue to California.
Speaker 7 (42:43):
There's a burgeoning region called Passo Roblis, which is probably
about twenty five minutes south and east to me, that
are producing great wine and they're competing with NAPA and
Sonoma who had been the benchmark. And there's a place
called the green Field and Solar that which you're on
River Road here, that are producing great wines. And so
(43:05):
it's getting a lot more competitive market. And I go
to NAPPA probably two or three times a year, pick
up my allocation from the wine members and we sit
down and talk about so it's become a.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
I need a glossary of terms, right right, I'm sorry,
please clarify for all good people. Is the allocation, sir?
Speaker 7 (43:31):
The allocation is basically a release put by the particular
vidiot that you become a member of, and they allocate
so many bottles of the different break that you want.
Like I just got my vea to one and they'll
give me six lens of Cabernet. They'll give me two
Merlow's a z Infidel and and that would be my allocation.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
For the four of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 7 (43:59):
The spring in twenty twenty five, I'll get another allocation.
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You get to select which ones you want and they'll
ship it to you. Talking about it. I like that.
Speaker 7 (44:10):
In fact, I just got one and I can wait,
and it's called Martinelli Jackass Infidel off. This one for
twenty twenty two got ninety four points. And the Jackass
Hill is so.
Speaker 6 (44:22):
Hard to maintain.
Speaker 7 (44:25):
Only a donkey can get the grape, and so when
you you can't go up there and see it.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
So these grapes are so stressful.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
So that makes the wine so strong and so different
that it's so hard to get the wine and see
how it's done and brought down like this is in
eighteen hundreds. And that's just Martinelli Vineyard, and oh, anyway,
I could go on and on.
Speaker 6 (44:47):
Basically that's that one.
Speaker 7 (44:49):
I'm gonna get three bottles of It happened some Thanksgiving,
and I'm gonna have the great thanks but I'm gonna
I'm gonna dass a couple of people because I know
it's gonna be one of those we like to put
a paper bag of with a bottle and if they
can get the great hobby happy and they can tell
whether it's a z infidel.
Speaker 6 (45:05):
And it was an interesting thing.
Speaker 7 (45:07):
They did a a not really a steady, but they
put bags over the wines from Silvery A's And it
is true what happened to them happened to me. If
you close your eyes and drank it. You can't tell
a white wife from a red one. And I thought,
there's no way you couldn't tell the cabinate from a
(45:28):
strong shot.
Speaker 6 (45:29):
That you can't. I couldn't. I failed and they failed
it too.
Speaker 7 (45:34):
And so I'm going to bring this infandel up to
the peoples to have a dinner with for Thanksgiving.
Speaker 6 (45:40):
And that's going to knock the socks off.
Speaker 7 (45:42):
And there's another one that's a pena, the wed from Sonoma.
Oh I'm getting too specific, but that is and uh
pean no from Sonoma. And that one is so low
allocation that it took me twenty years and yet to
get on the list.
Speaker 6 (46:03):
Wow, twenty years to get on the list.
Speaker 5 (46:08):
This has been a lifelong cobby. This is not some
you that just you know a couple of years ago.
Speaker 7 (46:16):
Believe me, that allocation was very necessary.
Speaker 6 (46:22):
The allocation, Oh the wine cellar got hit hard. Everyone
brought They said, look, you know, watch some snowball.
Speaker 7 (46:29):
Bring it all out, open up all his first fal Bordeaux,
because that may not be another one.
Speaker 6 (46:35):
It wasn't. It was.
Speaker 7 (46:37):
It was a good time to bond. I tell you that,
you know Uson's positions. We were the first getting picks
for the vaccine. I have never been so happy in
my entire life because I'm the one that was going
to die the black man over sixty in the middle
of that, I had to take care of these people
in the middle and there's anti vaccinators in California, and
they would and that happens on.
Speaker 6 (46:58):
I said, you know what, I ain't gonna survived this.
Speaker 7 (47:00):
I survived, thank god, the metsical I survived the age epidemic,
but this was going to take me out because this respiratory.
The other one was serious, SANGUI was blood boring. I said,
this one is going to go because people are lying
about whether they anyway, I survived and I got every
vaccine and my wine cell got really hurt. But I'm
building that allocation back up as we speak.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
My man, I love it.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
Wow, that's awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
So that's a great story.
Speaker 6 (47:29):
That's a great story. I have to say.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
I'm anxious to go to the supermarket and go to
the wind Sexton right now. I want to las I
want to look at labels in a whole different way.
I want to wait a minute. So anything so no
more that is going to catch my attention in a way.
Speaker 6 (47:47):
I tell you what.
Speaker 7 (47:47):
The way you get the vintage, the region, you get
to see the cell fights, how much alcohol percentage, and
you get the year. And if you get the one
spectry of your boom boom, okay, that's a good one.
And don't go by the The most excellent lines have
the plainest label.
Speaker 6 (48:06):
I mean.
Speaker 7 (48:08):
Like they they don't need to sell themselves. They you
know it just by studying. And when I see it and
I go, oh my god, that's ad dollars, that's an
a dollar's most people just go blindly by, don't even
give it, don't twice about it. But the one do
all the colors like that Martinelli, Jack assidim it's a
(48:29):
completely black label. But just the Martinelli and the little
time they said Jack asid you would walk right by
it in the supermarket news and twice about it.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Not no more.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
I won't.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
Bring us back.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
So now we're back at Hamilton, New York, where we're
eighty two. Were you that student that knew had that
visited career planning? Had it I had the clear plan?
Was needed to transition out? Or was it? Let me
just get through klogate and then I'll try to figure
out what my next steps were.
Speaker 7 (49:07):
I think it was more of that, because then I
went to Queen's College. I thought it was going to
be a biology teacher, and so I taught a little bit,
and I should say taught, I forgot. I think there
was a there was a program there called I'll start
basically helping young students out signed upper bound, and that's
(49:29):
what it was. And that was years ago, and so
I did that for two three years and then the
I was gonna get my master's in biology and then start.
But then the teachers they said, you know what, you
got a real teen and we need positions of your
fabric to represent them. Why don't you become a physician
(49:53):
And I said, well, you know I didn't do that
well at Coulgated and you're fired.
Speaker 6 (49:57):
And well here and so Ellen.
Speaker 7 (50:00):
Hendricks and the people of the Somes people at Queen's
College said yeah we can, and we have dinner with
the UNC the Chapel Hill they had a program so
I could really decide whether medicine was a place for me.
Speaker 6 (50:15):
And that was a summer long course and that was
at Charlotte.
Speaker 7 (50:19):
What a beautiful camp it's got at Chapel Hill and
I did well there and then I got into several
mens because Rochester gave me the best package. And my dad,
I don't think he thought that I could do it.
I mean he probably thought I hadn't we had done.
I think it's managed to had the som graets because
I didn't go to Morehouse. And you should have saw
(50:40):
him that dave of graduation though, Oh my goodness, deeming.
He took pictures of me leaving their daggun the hall
where we got out that sash before the next day
we got our degree. He was it was if he
had just given birth. He was just as proud as
it can be. And when I went across the stage,
oh proud moment. Yeah, the first physician in the family,
(51:04):
so he was very proud.
Speaker 6 (51:06):
But it was a it was a work in private.
Speaker 7 (51:08):
To answer your question, in sort of fine tuning and
finding my place in medicine, because you know, Rochester was
a pretty art med school and everyone in there was
an age student, so I felt like first like coming
out of zones all over again.
Speaker 6 (51:25):
I mean, everyone.
Speaker 7 (51:26):
There is top notch, and now you're talking about doctorate
level and you thought Kode was accelerated. This one took
it to the next level, but many next levels, and
the same dynamics of the black and white and study groups,
the same dynamics occurred to Rochester.
Speaker 6 (51:44):
Unbelievable. It is a.
Speaker 7 (51:48):
Truly American phenomenon because it's it's a default. Even now
it's attending of thirty years, it's and it's just the
way things are.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
It is as you say that, was there anything about
the Colgate experience that helped you with that?
Speaker 7 (52:03):
Or then it became so I was so used to
it then that it would become irrelevant. So I guess
it did help me. And by that time you're not
eighteen nineteen anymore, and now you're in your mid twenty,
so you can navigate with a little more security, and
you have a little bit more long of twos and
(52:24):
a little more get up and go a little more hutspa, yeah.
Speaker 5 (52:30):
Fill in the blank. So you you graduate Rochester. What
happens between Rochester and now that you're in Cali? Was
it a straight jump? Well, there's some pivots along the way.
Did you do it for of the country and oh.
Speaker 6 (52:46):
That's thirty years? Let me see, I can encapsulate.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
This every city.
Speaker 7 (52:53):
This is going to be a big SUITEP, there's going
to be an so segue that four years University of
Rochester thru the medicine and dentistry, graduated I think eighty nine,
and then I stayed at Rochester at Stormoryal Hospital and
I was integrated hospital with RGH and the other four
(53:14):
and I stayed there for residency.
Speaker 6 (53:15):
So that brings me to the early nineties.
Speaker 7 (53:18):
After I left there, I didn't know where in the
country I wanted to go. I knew I didn't want
to go home to Hempstead. I said, well, I'll keep
the growth going. I knew my family would just say
they were to Nicola and dine me for every medical
question from here to the end of time, every porn
and everything would betide.
Speaker 6 (53:34):
I said, let me do something different. So there were.
Speaker 7 (53:38):
Four guys and six women in my graduating Stormary Hospital
regidue program.
Speaker 6 (53:46):
Derek Ricky and I was Derek, Ricky.
Speaker 7 (53:51):
And Greg and there were like six women and we
all said, all we're going to hang out together. The
attendings at Strong wanted us to form our own group
there and stay in Rochester, but the other ones didn't.
Ricky ended up staying there. Greg and I were good
friends and I started interviewing in Pennsylvania. He lived in Pittsburgh,
(54:16):
and he and I started interviewing there for an attending
ship after graduation, but it didn't have quite the fit.
Speaker 6 (54:25):
Although I do regret and I do it taking that
silicktly job that was free Dorfer.
Speaker 7 (54:29):
But you're gonna remember I've been in the cold for
twelve fifteen years and I was tired of it.
Speaker 6 (54:36):
It was great overcats.
Speaker 7 (54:38):
And so my other buddy said, well, why don't you
come out to Las Vegas. So I'm in my last
year of residency and I'm trying to decide where I'm
going to go to be an attendant. So they're recruiters
who brought you to join hospitals all levels, and you
(55:01):
have fresh out. So they said, come to the Southwest
because that's where the growth of America is coming in
and that's.
Speaker 6 (55:08):
Where the greatest need for a physicians.
Speaker 7 (55:10):
So they fly me out to Vegas and they put
me in the place called Green Valley, and for the
first time, and I don't know how long, I smelled
cut grass and I said, oh my god, and I
saw a fly.
Speaker 6 (55:23):
And this is in February.
Speaker 7 (55:25):
And then they took me to the Mayor's office, and
they said, this was gonna happen. This is gonna be similar,
this is going to be Green Valley rash, this is
gonna be ampt, and we're gonna put you right here,
say Rod to Meerican Hospital. We're gonna no no, no,
no no. And I said, I am, so they're getting
ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars, I was, you can
talk to me for at least two weeks and two
(55:47):
maybe three weeks, I don't know. I came back with
a ten thousand of the pocket and so funny because
I remember a graduation from residency. Well, I'm going to
hear the US run rested. I said, I'm going to
Las Vegas. And everyone looked at me.
Speaker 6 (56:01):
If I had lost my right mind. Where you're not
going ahead of da da da da da? And I
didn't go a heavy set now in Vegas. So I
go to Vegas.
Speaker 7 (56:12):
I joined a wonderful African woman's practice.
Speaker 6 (56:15):
Her name is Shoel Edwards, and she was over. She went,
she didn't, but we can talk all day about that.
Speaker 7 (56:21):
And I started practice there in Vegas and I was
there for almost twenty years.
Speaker 6 (56:27):
Is you might remember they had a big problem with
the malpractice.
Speaker 7 (56:32):
There was a huge corporation that undersold all of us
were about practice premium, and Saint Paul is what it
was called, and so they gave us the best malpractice premium.
They decided because it cost too much to defend the case,
to pull out of the market. So when they pulled
out Doubts of Duty and all the other ones with
(56:55):
this with Picks Wisconsin, all the other medical ability insurance
pulled out and created a tail spin where there was
no insurance for the medical to come a medical malpractice
and so Vegas myself included, we had a big decision
to make. First of all, I was with but then
(57:17):
Charah would moved on. I was with another practical desert womens.
It was all Mormon, and I can speak to you
a whole day about joining it.
Speaker 6 (57:24):
All Mormon. I didn't know what a Mormon.
Speaker 7 (57:25):
Was, but they were the most successful and there were
four guys and a woman.
Speaker 6 (57:30):
They we had to decide to do. You know what
a tale is.
Speaker 7 (57:34):
A tale is a if you have a lawsuit and
it will not present itself into the future, you have
to pay the insurance company money to cover that practice.
Speaker 6 (57:47):
And that claim after the termination of.
Speaker 7 (57:50):
The policy, and that had a cost of hundreds of
thousands of dollars been on for the previous eighteen years
and just because the claim hadn't been said it so
bottom line, as we had dederal women had to had
to dissolve the practice. They use our accounts receivable to
(58:11):
pay for the tail to get coverage and started new it.
Speaker 6 (58:14):
So that's when everything started to fall apart.
Speaker 7 (58:18):
The medical liability industry only had to practice insurance that
would run by the state because none of the private
insurers would come into the state of Nevada until the
medical liability market was more stable, which meant that it
(58:42):
had to go through fighting the trial attorneys, which we'd
had to go to cross the city and so that
took about four or five years, and so it became
a contentious fight for people that have actually care.
Speaker 6 (58:57):
We had to fight to get.
Speaker 7 (58:58):
A special selection session on Congress and in the Nevada
to call for this special ah VOTH to get them
to bring in term limits on these awards for paint
and suffering and keep it down to two hundred thousand,
to start inviting these certain point fans to stabilize the
market then the housing market hit and then that went under,
(59:23):
and that's when I left the California hmm.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
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Speaker 9 (59:46):
Reach out to the Defile.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
Life podcast network and we will work with you throughout
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Contact us at info at go to firelife dot com.
Every week profession of color ranging from politicians to educators,
to judges, to entrepreneurs to lawyers, corporate leaders, and even retirees.
(01:00:09):
Aftergate reaches in a rate of successful bipod listeners. Contact
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Speaker 7 (01:00:18):
It's been a tumultuous ride, I'm telling you. So you
look back at Kolgate, you look back, it toughens you
because this was not an easy soldier. There was some
really dark decisions, both on the patient level. I mean,
these people couldn't even get even for themselves. They didn't
even have jobs because of what happened to the housing market.
They were trying to pay me with food and pigs
(01:00:40):
and chickens.
Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
So what kind of physician are you? He said, you
are practicing an obg y n.
Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
So I'm a yeah, that's what I am. An oxtriten
goun of colors.
Speaker 7 (01:00:54):
And that was the problem I went through in Rochester
and and I was just on call last night. I
delivered four babies. I've got three hys. Director meets tomorrow
to the VECES director me and his directorm. I got
Adventure Robot his direct me, and then I got a
couple of people in the office, so I got to
basically schedule tomorrow and I can talk to you all
(01:01:16):
about California, how different it was in Nevada's medicine and
what it took the stable sets, and Nevada's still having
trouble with them because the travel attorneys are trying to
outthrow the what the Congress did and keeping the paramount
life limits, so nobody wants to practice there instance, So
there's creating maternity deserts and not mentioning rights for abortion.
(01:01:41):
So we're getting other people of the states flying in
who have different we have sy. We have a few
people who children are who the mothers are carrying a
try so many twenty one down central baby and they
can't get a termination and they they said, they can't
be destroy that life. So I got to send them
to either University of Helpfulate in San Francisco because the
(01:02:04):
too far lungs of plant prenit or doubt to Stanford
and the other one we can I mean admastphals who
don't have a brain. We've had people who with missing
limbs and their children all these other problems that just
and they just I'm here to get care.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
I love it, bro, But I appreciate all that you do, man.
I mean that's serious. That's serious you talk about I
got a full day to Margaret. So looking back now,
you know, if you had to get in the ear
of your eighteen year old self as you graduate high
school and enter Kogate, what might be the words of
(01:02:45):
wisdom you would tell yourself at that age as well
as now you're graduating Kogiate twenty one twenty two and
you're going into the world, what might be the words
of wisdom that you would give yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Your life?
Speaker 6 (01:03:03):
I would probably say to myself.
Speaker 7 (01:03:06):
If you don't have the support of family and friends,
you're gonna have to believe in yourself and surround yourself
with people of goodwill and support. Because that's what I
did Helen Hendrickson, them bathed me and gave me the
strength to move forward because many times I didn't think
I could do it.
Speaker 6 (01:03:25):
I don't think I was smart enough.
Speaker 7 (01:03:26):
I think fortitude and my parents everything else, they've never
done it, so they can be a reference. So if
I was nineteen twenty, I'd say there are people around
you just don't know who they are. You just talk
to people who can find you the support you need
because you're not the only one in the world. And
I thought I was the only one in the world,
(01:03:47):
but there are so many others. You just don't know
who they are, and they will make sure that if
they're good people, that you succeed.
Speaker 6 (01:03:55):
Good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
So this last question is really just an opportunity for
you to promote something that you want our listeners to
become more aware of or maybe even support. So it
could be a cause, website, an initiative, just something that
(01:04:19):
because we have listeners who we always encourage to support
the things that are important to our guest. We always
give this platform.
Speaker 7 (01:04:31):
Given all that I shared with you, there was a
last made that cold game a woman named Carol Malich
for over four or five years, sort of chron a
little sort of put together a book and I think
(01:04:53):
we're going to publish it pretty soon. Well she's still
pulling like that sort of summarized everything. But that being
set in the side, I think the biggest thing I
would like to share with people is politically over the
next four years, and some stuff I'm seeing from the
(01:05:15):
medical standpoint, and some of the dance because I am
really near the Mexican population and DACA people and many
of them my patients and the people from Ohaka Pecans,
and they are scared to death. Many of them have
(01:05:35):
started to say goodbye because I think they think they're
gonna get rounded up. I think they're right, and so
this has been the next This is gonna get really real.
And people on the other side, and a lot of
my patients are migrant workers who work in the field
and pick our lettuce and our auto children, and they're
(01:05:57):
gonna have to figure that out, and many of them
out trying now. I think too. I'm not run but
have an exit strategy. And many of the dock up
people are brought here as young people and have never
really had a chance to become a citizen. And they
say they're going to be the second wave the depot
(01:06:18):
and they're all in their mid twenties and early thirties.
Speaker 6 (01:06:21):
And so they've all been for the last twelve years
people I would have never thought twice about it. I'm
coming from you.
Speaker 7 (01:06:27):
I had never met a Mexican, but hearing that start
of talking over the last decade having them it's patients,
and they have raised me up to the point my
based on the bus and it's it's been a big
welcoming into that community. I never thought it'd be part
of It's weird how life changes out things with the
Mormons to the Mexicans.
Speaker 6 (01:06:47):
Anyway, I'm kind of stranged. Bottom line is just buckle.
Speaker 7 (01:06:50):
Up because I think we're going to be in We're
going to be exposed to some very strong conditions over
the next year or so. And I said, there's gonna
be a lot of things we're not gonna be proud of.
Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
Did you slip in and you say your face is
on the bus? Slipped his face on the side of.
Speaker 5 (01:07:14):
A bus with friends.
Speaker 7 (01:07:17):
Well, I got an award for d and the slips
out the hospital I'm in now they did they're doing
this promotion and so apparently they used some of the images.
Speaker 6 (01:07:28):
On the side in the back of the bus. And
so I'm sitting there and I'm some of my papers
were telling me in the back of the bus. I say, yeah,
I try to make some racial jumping on it.
Speaker 7 (01:07:37):
And then they saw me a picture and I couldn't
believe it. There I was strapped on the side of
the bus and that was wondering why team kept smiling
at me and looking at me. And this goes from
monter Ray to Salinas to the Santa Cruz to San
Jose and people.
Speaker 6 (01:07:53):
So my buddies, they're like, yes, famous, can we get
your autographed?
Speaker 7 (01:07:59):
Why don't we stop the les say and listen to
yourself to the bus and so big harassment. So anyway, yeah,
I've been in the bus, I've been in the magazine,
just entered the promotional too. But I haven't seen the
bus myself, but I believe that it's But I have
people I've seen in the streets who don't know me
just sort of plant at me and I said, you
(01:08:19):
know what, I think they've seen the bus.
Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Any last words, my brother, nah, no last words.
Speaker 6 (01:08:29):
Thank you so much. It's been wonderful venting boy.
Speaker 7 (01:08:32):
You brought cis haven't talked about long time, a lot
of memories, a lot of good experiences.
Speaker 6 (01:08:36):
Thank you for your time and.
Speaker 7 (01:08:38):
Having me as a as a.
Speaker 6 (01:08:41):
Guest on your wonderful podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Well, thank you and let's just take it out officially
with This has been another episode of after Gate season four.
Thank you to our guests, thanks to our listeners. As always,
after Gate is powered by the Defile Life Network, so
make sure you check us out in the future on
all of your favorite podcast streaming platforms. Know we have
(01:09:06):
many more dope episodes to follow, and remember that the
Coldgate of your day is not the Cogate of today,
and it's certainly not the cold Gate of the future.
Peace family.
Speaker 9 (01:09:19):
You hear that, listen closer that my friend is the
definitely side of focus. It drowns out all the useless
noise that can clutter the only nay sayers don't exist, haters, smaters,
the peanut gallery.
Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Who's that when you're in your zone, all that noise
and all that buzz is just elevator music.
Speaker 9 (01:09:40):
So enjoy your journey, focus on your goal in basque,
in the quiet role that it is progressed.
Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Because when it's your time to shoot that shot, spit
that verse, or close that deal, the only voice that matters,
it's yours.
Speaker 6 (01:09:55):
The fire life
Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
H
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