Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
From Rifles to River Journeys: Don Roach's War Stories Part 6 of 6
Resilience takes many forms, but few embody it quite like Don. His journey from being a top car salesman to navigating life after a stroke reveals profound wisdom about adapting to life's unexpected turns with grace and positivity.
Don's friendship with Mark forms a compelling through-line in his story. Despite Mark's wild streak and eventual tragic passing, their bond demonstrates how meaningful connections shape our lives. Through Mark's legal battles over property, his relocation struggles, and his personal challenges, Don remained a steady, trusted confidant—the voice of reason in chaotic times.
When describing his stroke, Don's matter-of-fact demeanor is striking. There's no fear in his retelling, just practical problem-solving and dry humor about being stuck on his bathroom floor. This unflappable attitude extends to his rehabilitation journey, from his frustrations at a senior facility where he "couldn't gear down to their speed" to finding his place among fellow veterans where he now thrives with independence and support perfectly balanced.
Aviation emerges as Don's lifelong passion—from his first words and toys to his eventual heartbreak when medical issues grounded him permanently. Yet even this profound loss becomes just another chapter in his story of adaptation and finding new ways forward.
"I've always tried to be kind to people because you never know who you're going to meet again," Don shares, revealing the simple philosophy that has guided his approach to life. His perspective that the world grows smaller with age speaks to the interconnectedness of all our experiences. Perhaps most powerful is his ability to find the positive in every situation: "I always look for the positive things whenever something happens and I say, well, I may have lost this, but at least I can do that."
Ready to gain more wisdom from remarkable veterans like Don? Subscribe now and join us in celebrating their stories of courage, resilience, and unwavering spirit.
So why don't we just pick it up from there? You retire from consulting, and what happens next?
Speaker 2:Well, I had been visiting a buddy out at Cass Lake. He was not a vet, but we had been car salesmen together. For let's see first for a bunch of car sales in Wayne and then later at Wood. Motors on Gratiot and we were always the top two salesmen. It didn't matter what was going on, we just ended up there, yeah, and I could never beat him, but I came close.
Speaker 1:If I recall, you were consistently the number two guy. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I might have been known as Mr Number Two from then on. I don't know, but I could never get to that number one position. It just didn't work no matter what I did.
Speaker 2:And so, anyway, his name was Mark. And so, anyway, his name was Mark, and Mark came from a family of very gifted people. I'm talking intelligence-wise. Their IQs were high, higher than mine, and I recognize that that didn't mean they had better common sense, right, in fact, they had no common sense Because intelligence and common sense don't necessarily go hand in hand, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but his dad had been an accountant and later a teacher to federal agencies. His mom was a teacher. Both of them had advanced degrees and you'd be hard-pressed to find a difference between them. They just coalesced perfectly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Anyway, mark had this intelligence but he had a wild streak in him and through high school he led a rather unusual life. He had a live-in girlfriend. They lived in a room in the basement that had been finished. He had one brother and two sisters, one older sister, one younger. The brother was younger, and all of them were extremely independent. They were kind of entrepreneurial and generally they're pretty good people. I mean I liked them, I got to be social with them and that sort of thing. And I mean I liked him, I got to be social with him and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, and Mark bought a house in Oak Park that had been renovated from being on the condemned list to a modern three-bedroom house, and a buddy of his did the work on the house and he told Mark you better buy this place. It's going to, you know, you can get it cheap now and it's going to be worth money in the future. So Mark did. Then he moved in and Mark was not the kind of guy that could just live alone. It would drive him nuts and we were working together and so he offered me a room and I was living in an apartment I wasn't too thrilled with in Wayne and I said, okay, we'll do it.
Speaker 2:So I moved in and you know we were going to work at the same time, coming home at the same time. You know it was. It was pretty easy life Right. And Saturdays we'd go to the market, stock up on things we needed for the refrigerator, come back home and barbecue all weekend. You know, yeah, we just, we just had a ball. Any any friends came over, we just included them in the party, you know.
Speaker 1:Now, was he retired at the time as well? No, okay.
Speaker 2:Alright, and so this is back when we were actively working together. Oh, okay okay. And, um, one day, Mark let me know that I was going to have to look for another place because he was getting married. Oh, okay, and I met the girl. Her name was Kay. Uh-huh. And she was an IT person. She was setting up wireless systems for local governments. Okay, so she moved around, you know wherever the company's center, she would go into the town, set up their system and then come back home. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And she was an Indiana girl had a wild streak, so she paired up with Mark pretty good. Yeah, I was going to say her and Mark probably were made for each other. Of course, I had my questions about this, because Mark drank and he smoked and he occasionally used medicinal purposes to accelerate his experience. You know, yes, which I would have no part of and the so they got married. So they got married. And I was there a short time.
Speaker 2:then I moved out and Mark and Kay decided to move down to Indiana to be close to her parents. She wanted to go back to the home area. Mark thought well, I can sell cars anywhere. If you can sell cars in Detroit, you can sell cars anywhere. He had that attitude. Unfortunately, he didn't really check it out. Turns out, car sales in Indiana were at a much lower pace than what he was used to. He was working with much lower incomes people, so he wasn't selling the high-lying, expensive products he was used to. He was selling like Fords and Sheffys all mixed together and for him it was like nickel and dime compared to dollars. He was. He kept the job. He was doing the job, but he was not happy. Right.
Speaker 2:And then the woman who was buying the house or renting the house wanted to know about getting her name on the deed. Well, that raised some eyebrows. So he said no, I'm not, I didn't sell you the house, I'm renting you the house. So she took him to court. Well, I had been there when she signed the rental agreement.
Speaker 2:I helped, I wrote the ad and I helped write the agreement, so I knew everything that was in it and what wasn't in it. So we go to court and the turns out this woman is working for an attorney, a lady attorney, and that's how she got the case filed for a lawsuit and of course she expected to settle. Well, that didn't happen. We went to court and I'm listening to the testimony and I'm thinking the judge sees something here we haven't and he's not happy. And I tried to let Mark know the judge is on your side. So don't screw it up, Don't talk too much, Don't try to run the operation. I mean, it was Mark's forte to want to control everything. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that doesn't go in a courtroom. No.
Speaker 2:So anyway, as time went on in this trial, a document was introduced into evidence by the plaintiff introduced into evidence by the plaintiff and it was. There had been some addendums added on in handwriting and she had signed it. And it said there that a portion of her monthly rent would go towards payments for a mortgage, and it stated that the house was on a land contract. I knew that wasn't so, so we objected, claimed the house was not on a land contract, it had never been on a land contract. It was on a mortgage. Mark bought the house fair and square on a mortgage, right. So that came as a shock to the other attorney. And then we started questioning these addendums to the contract. Turns out they were only on her side of the contract. They weren't on our side of the contract. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We had not agreed to. Mark had not agreed to any of these things. He'd never even heard of them before. So the judge declared the contract null and void. Mm-hmm, and the lady was in arrears on a rent and the judge gave her a certain number of days to pay up or get out. Then he berated the attorney for bringing the case to his court in the first place without proper due diligence, and the attorney could just stand there and stutter. She really screwed up and she knew it, and the judge called her on it. So he dismissed the case with prejudice. Mark asked me later what that meant. He said well, that means they can't come back. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's over. So he was relieved, kay was relieved they were going to get their house back at the end of the month anyway, whether or not the lady ever paid her rent at all. But she didn't, and the house was still in reasonably good condition so they didn't have to do much to clean it up. And afterwards come to find out this lady had done this sort of thing several times in the courts. Sometimes she was successful, sometimes she wasn't. She was like the Death Star to any attorney she got in touch with. If they got tangled up with her it imploded badly. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So anyway, mark and Kay bought a house like a three-level ranch-type house with a two-car attached garage on a nice piece of property in Indiana. A two-car attached garage on a nice piece of property in Indiana, backed up to some kind of a federal forest reserve, so no one's going to build around him, right.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, he had neighbors down the street but they didn't interfere much, yeah. And we ended up shooting Clay's pigeons with shotguns in his backyard, you know, had a handheld launcher. One guy would throw the thing and the other guy would shoot and it was all legal down there. I wouldn't let Mark anywhere near a fire when we were drinking yeah, that could be dangerous.
Speaker 2:Didn't want any accidents no, uh, uh and anyway. Mark got home from work one day and he's watching TV. There had been an accident on an overcast pass. Anyway, mark got home from work one day and he's watching TV. There had been an accident on an overcast pass in Cincinnati. They were just south of that, in Aurora, indiana. And he's looking at it and he says, wow, that looks like my wife's car. It was her car, oh no. So she ended up in the hospital. She was pretty banged up, healed up from that, got back to working again, but she was never the same person. Emotionally she was a scatterbrain. Emotionally she was a scatterbrain and I had never heard her even get angry at Mark. She always thought he was like a big kid and she liked him Right. Well, she didn't like that so much anymore. Wanted him to be responsible. Well, that wasn't going to happen. I mean, he had spent 30 years being irresponsible. Why should he change now?
Speaker 1:Right, Mark was going to be Mark right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were going to see a firecracker going off somewhere or who knows what. Yeah, they ended up getting divorced. She got the house, so he came back to Michigan for a short time and I had a spare room. He stayed with me for a little while I was in Waterford at that time and he moved down to Florida. Well, it turned out the car business was pretty good again down there. He could make money. So he started doing that. His mother, I think she had a real estate license. She had a condo down there Put him in a condo. They were there for the big hurricane that came through and there was a water shortage. He used to drive 50 miles to the next town to get bottled water. Take it down for all the retiree residents that lived in his community. They were all retirees. How he got in there I don't know, but they loved him. The local sheriff made him an honorary deputy, gave him a badge. I'm just shuddering, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:They didn't know what they were doing there huh, I warned him about pulling it out, right? I said, if you try to do anything official with that badge, you're going right to jail, so don't do it. I mean, if you want to get a table for lunch or something, flash your badge, I don't care, they don't care, they don't care. But you're not to talk to somebody or make any kind of official connotation of anything. Right? And Mark used to listen to me for advice. He'd come to me for advice about situations and kept him pure yeah.
Speaker 2:He'd come to me for advice about situations Uh-huh and you know, kept him pure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he could trust you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I wasn't his dad. He could tell me anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Things. There were things he didn't want to admit to his dad.
Speaker 1:Right, so did he end up back in Michigan then?
Speaker 2:No, he stayed in Florida, okay, and I knew he was still drinking I don't think he was drinking as much but he started playing with those party favors again, yeah, and they eventually killed him. So I got a call from his mom telling me that he had passed and there was a funeral for him months later up here in Michigan. I went to that and his oldest sister, whom I knew, I'd met her at family things and whatnot, and she knew her parents had respected me a lot. So she questioned me about living with him as far as playing with the party favors, and I said nope, it didn't have anything to do with that, didn't know if it was going on, never saw anything, and he knew better than to expose me to anything. Right, because I would have said, yeah, that's him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to draw a line somewhere, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly somewhere right, yeah, yeah, exactly, and.
Speaker 1:So how old was he when he passed away?
Speaker 2:He was probably about 36.
Speaker 1:Oh, so he was really young.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was a shame because he had the intelligence to do really good things. He just didn't have the right motivation. I don't know why. Yeah. He and his dad were both on Xanax for some kind of inherited mental thing, but I don't think that would really shape the character that way. And his dad was very responsible, gave Mark a lot of leeway and things, but personally he was a real straight shooter. My dad met him and liked him, mhm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you. After he passed away, they just life goes on right, I mean at some point. And so let's talk a little bit about after retirement.
Speaker 2:So all my friends were still working Uh-huh and I had a few friends at Cass Lake where I lived Uh-huh, and I lived in what they called the Shore Club, which was a series of apartments that had been built. A lot of the guys I knew lived in apartments facing the water or around the water and they had pontoon boats and they'd invite me out sometimes to drive the boat while they were drinking, so I'd be at the helm having a ball driving the boat all over the place. They'd be drinking and fishing. I'd get them back to the dock safe and sound. No tickets. Designated driver on the water yeah, tickets you know, Designated driver on the water right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was never a drinker. I never had impulses to get a drink. You know what I mean. I never had to do that I would have a drink with people late in the day or something. You know just one. People late in the day or something. You know just one. Um but um, I never went to excess, yeah.
Speaker 1:How long? How long were you at Cass Lake? How long did you live there?
Speaker 2:12 years. Okay, all right, and I ended up here.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were there for 12 years and so that's where you had your stroke. Yeah, Was there. Now were you at home when this happened. I was Okay.
Speaker 2:I was sitting on the couch and watching TV or something. I remember what I was watching and I dropped something on the floor and I leaned down to get it and the minute my head went beyond the vertical, I just tumbled right off the chair. I thought, well, that was funny. And then I couldn't get up. Oh boy, nothing would move. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't get the energy, the strength to push myself in a sitting position or like that. My cell phone was nearby and that's all I had. I didn't have a wired phone, I had one that ran through a computer. If I needed it, it was, but it was in the other room. So I got my cell phone. I called my brother I mean he had a spare key and I said you know, come on over here and get me up off the floor. So he had a house, I has a house in Royal Oak so he drove over, got me off the floor. I seemed normal after that. So he left.
Speaker 2:A few hours later I decided to fix dinner, no problem. So I thought, well, I need a shower, I'll take a shower. So I got in, took a shower, had a hard time getting out of the bathtub, couldn't get my leg over the edge of the bathtub and I'm standing there laughing at myself. Well, this is a fine, dumb thing, I mean. Here I am, take a shower standing up, and I can't get out of the bathtub. What the heck is this? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I realized if I sat on the edge I could slowly get my legs over and get out, and I had a big padded shower mat. So I got onto the edge of the tub, got my legs over and I fell onto the floor. And now I was down on the floor again. So I deliberately kept my cell phone on the edge of the counter so I had something and I batted that off the counter and got it. I called my brother I'm on the bathroom floor, come and get me. So he came over, got me up and I could do things with help. Right.
Speaker 2:So I said, just sit me down on my bed. I put on some night shirt or something you know and said I'm too tired to go anywhere now, but if I feel up to it, take me to the hospital in the morning, the VA hospital. So the next morning he came over. I was up, I had breakfast, I was dressed, we went to the hospital, Went into emergency. They berated for me, berated at me for not coming the night before.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But they couldn't do anything for me anyway. Yeah, so they sent me to Henry Ford in Detroit on West Grand Uh-huh, right down the street from where I my first house I lived in, and so I was in. I was in the ER there for five days. They got me a room, started giving me physical therapy and things like that, and in the meantime my brother and sister were looking for a place to get me into.
Speaker 1:Right. So they had figured out that you had a stroke at the hospital.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was coming back, I was on the mend, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to point something out too. At no point in this story did you say you were afraid or anything. You just sort of just ah, this is just what's happening. I mean, was there any fear in the back of your mind as all this was going?
Speaker 2:on None. Wow, okay, I've been through too much already. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've talked about a lot of things, so I was just curious. So you're just. This is what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all those months of the Navy dumping off in the Army, right, right, exactly, the Army didn't know what to do with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, finally gave me back to the navy, yeah, so here you are. So you go to Henry Ford and they determine you probably, at least for some period of time, shouldn't be on your own they would not release me to go back home.
Speaker 2:I had to go to a facility, so they found a place called my Doctor's Inn, which was really for older people. I mean it was designed for, it wasn't designed for somebody that was young and active.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to point out when we're talking young and active, we're not really talking about age, we're talking about you. So anybody who's watching this knows that your physical age is way different from your actual age. It's way different from your physical age and your mental age because you're 100% here. Oh yeah yeah, and that's got gotta be a little depressing and they didn't have therapy equipment.
Speaker 2:They had ladies come in with rubber bands yeah and I worked with those and I was walking with a cane and I would do. I was on the second floor of the facility and I could do laps on the second floor from my apartment down the hall around all the way around the building back to my apartment. So I was doing that for exercise and meals were downstairs at a dining table and I got with a couple of guys that were more mentally coherent than the other crowd so I could talk to them and I mean it was it was a place they had activities for the old people. Yeah, I mean they played old, old music, they played old games, right, a lot of it was memory stuff, yeah, and I mean I was going to sleep. I couldn't gear down to their speed at all, so I would mostly read yeah, spent more time in my room, had a TV, watched that occasionally and I was never big on politics but I always paid attention to elections. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there was a lot of campaigning going on at that time. Some of it was outrageous.
Speaker 1:Nothing like election season.
Speaker 2:And to think that they were spending millions of dollars to do this just boggled my mind In some cases a billion dollars, I mean that's a lot of money if you think about it. Yep, I thought well, it's not a bad time to be in the TV business.
Speaker 1:Or the consulting business. Either one right. So how long were you there, Seemed like years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably three or four months.
Speaker 1:All right. At some point did you like call your brother and say hey, we've got to find something else? I mean, what happened that you ended up here at the veterans' home?
Speaker 2:Well, my car was there but I couldn't use it. I mean, I wasn't really allowed to drive yet and I had promised my family I wouldn't drive until the doctors gave me an okay. So after about four months I got my brothers to take me back to Henry Ford to meet with my doctor and he gave me a test. I mean, he sat me in the room, question and answers, had me stand up. We walked down the hall together in the back, you know for mobility, that kind of thing and he signed me off. He said yeah, I don't see any reason why you couldn't drive. You've been driving for a long time you know Right.
Speaker 2:And then I had to see my eye doctor. Tom was there both times. They signed me off. Yeah, your vision's good, you know. And I knew I had cataracts in the beginnings of glaucoma, so that was going to have to be addressed sometime in the future, right, anyway, tom McCarroll got me into here, so that was going to have to be addressed sometime in the future. Anyway.
Speaker 2:Tom McCarroll got me into here and I've been pretty much happy ever since. I do miss the apartment occasionally, but I know what I can't do for myself down there anymore. I mean, the washer and dryer were two stories down in the basement and there's no way I could carry bundles of clothes up and down, plus the number of trips I'd have to make to them. Yeah. And I had a cooking experience. I was heating up oil to fry some pierogies.
Speaker 1:Oh, love pierogies.
Speaker 2:Wednesday is pierogie day at Sugarbush Inn.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got to come here on a Wednesday then, for sure.
Speaker 2:Any Wednesday, I'll be glad to take over.
Speaker 1:All right, it's a date.
Speaker 2:And anyway, I heated the oil and I was wearing sandals instead of regular shoes or even slippers. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And somehow I spilled the oil. It splashed down and it burned my foot. Oh, in a pattern of the sandals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I turned the heat off, put everything away and tended to my foot. I knew what to do. I even had all this proper stuff in my cupboard just in case and I used like a silver iodide on it. After I washed it, taped it up. I said, well, it'll be that for a while. And then I think it was later in the day I decided to go down to emergency at the VA hospital and they looked at it, did the same thing I did exactly Right, said you should be good, uh-huh, and they gave me extra stuff to take care of it with. So I was doctoring myself and I healed up from that. I still have the discoloration on the skin but the foot is all healed up. But that scared my sister pretty bad. She was afraid of me cooking again. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:So after the stroke happened she thought well, that's it, we can't let him go back there anymore. Right.
Speaker 2:My mom was in her 90s living in an apartment in a senior complex right over here in Macomb County and at an apartment in a senior complex right over here in Macomb County and it was the same building that her sister and brother-in-law lived in when they were getting older. They had passed, she had gone to a nursing home and had passed away, and I used to drive my mom over to visit them all the time. So we were back in the same building. Mom had her own apartment, nice furniture, had a view, with a little tiny balcony that nobody would step on. Yeah, just didn't look that secure, but she was comfortable. She was doing things downstairs in the group room. You know she even got an award from Macomb County as the Senior of the Year for packing bags for the group that gives lunches away.
Speaker 1:Oh, like Meals on Wheels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, meals on Wheels exactly.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's very nice.
Speaker 2:So she'd go down in the morning and pack 100 bags. Yeah, and it turns out they were looking for somebody to be the senior of the month and they ran an ad on TV that said we need applications. So my sister sent one in. Turned out it was the only one they got. So mom got the title by default.
Speaker 1:But in your mom's defense she was doing good stuff. Oh yeah, so that's good. She was thrilled yeah.
Speaker 2:That's pretty amazing. Thrilled, yeah, that's pretty amazing. And I mean a city official came out and they made a big deal of it at the home to order the certificate and everything. So that went all right. I was there for that, yeah. But one day the firearms went off in her apartment so they were evacuating the whole floor. The apartment was full of smoke. Turned out she'd left one of those. I think it was like a silver-toned pan. It has the covering on it so you don't have to use anything in it. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, she fried the hell out of that one. She had gone to do laundry and forgot it was on the stove. Yeah, that's all it took. So I spent the whole day cleaning the stuff out of the apartment. I mean, that soot was on everything In the cabinets, on the cabinets.
Speaker 1:It gets everywhere.
Speaker 2:And I must have used a half a dozen bottles of Lysol and you could still smell the smoke. Fortunately, the worst of it was contained in the kitchen area, right. It didn't really get that bad in the living room. It didn't enter the bedroom at all that bad in the living room and didn't enter the bedroom at all. We couldn't leave Mom living on her own after that.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So your sister's seen a couple of cooking issues. Yeah, yeah, so I can see that. So, being here at the Veterans Home as opposed to like a retirement center, do you find you? There's a lot of people here that are similar to you in age and in ability, and all of that I mean, have you made friends here, or how's that going?
Speaker 2:I've got friends, mm-hmm. The staff are wonderful. I know most of the staff from the general manager on down Never had a bad word with anybody. Don't expect to no, it's against the rules here, anyway, you know. That's what I understand. Yeah, don't expect to, no, it's against the rules here, anyway, you know.
Speaker 1:That's what I understand, yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you have a problem, take it outside. You don't need it here.
Speaker 1:Right, well, I mean, you're mobile, you've got a vehicle and you can go places, and so it's got to be a nice situation then for you, and so it's got to be a nice situation then for you and you don't have to cook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I still do my own laundry, but it's right down the hall, it's on one level Right, so that's easy.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, that's the nice thing about the new facility is they're all like one single level, right? You're not having to go up and down stairs.
Speaker 2:The one thing that's different. Everything here is pretty level. When I go outside of here, every parking lot I've been in has been like the surface of the moon to me. It's harder to get around than I would have thought.
Speaker 1:Now I remember that when we went to lunch the last time you made a comment about and for me, I'm walking on uneven surfaces all the time, so I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're not used to it, it's really strange. Yeah, yeah. And you wonder what's wrong with this place.
Speaker 1:I'll bet I'll bet. Well, don, we have covered a lot. We've talked a lot about your life and the things that you've done and you know I've shared a lot of your stories with other folks and people love to listen to your life. But you know, as we sort of kind of wrap up our discussion today, I always ask the same question of everyone before we, before we're done, and that is you know, years from now, when somebody is listening to this, you know and they're listening all about your life and all about the things you've done. What message would you like to give to people you know in the future?
Speaker 2:Well, I've always tried to be kind to people because you never know who you're going to meet again, and every experience I've had has shown me that the world is getting smaller and smaller by the day. I guess it's maybe me aging. I don't really think the world has shrunk any is getting smaller and smaller by the day. I guess it's maybe me aging. Yeah, I don't really think the word has shrunk any, but I do come in contact with people that have shared experiences been in the same part of the world or the same city or whatever and it's always interesting to hear their perspective of whatever happened. It's always interesting to hear their perspective of whatever happened. I'm a flyer. I've been an aviator my whole life. My mom said my first words were you know which probably meant airplane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my first toy was a rubber airplane with a Mickey Mouse head in the pilot seat. Uh-huh, and I remember the head swolled. Yeah. And I had so many great experiences flying and being involved in the flying community. I still watch a lot of stuff on YouTube right now about well accident investigations. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or new airplanes or flying old airplanes, and I think I like flying the old airplanes the best. The older the better. I went to Oshkosh one year. That's a big fly-in they have, and if that was an actual Air Force it would be the third largest Air Force in the world. That's how many airplanes show up.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's big.
Speaker 2:And way in the corner in the back of the place I found a Curtis Pusher. This goes back to around 1906 or 19, 8, somewhere in there, and the guy flying it was a guy named Dale Kreitz and he had more time flying Curtis pushers than anybody else in the world and he was very proud of it. He loved flying that airplane and it was not like your conventional airplanes. It had differences. One of them, for example you had a big wheel in front of you to steer. Well, the wheel turned the rudder. The wings, the aero arms were controlled by leaning the seat, so the seat would actually do this. So somehow you've got to keep your balance, stay strapped in hold on to this wheel to turn the rudder while you're leaning the seat to turn the plane, Because planes turn by banking. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They don't turn by the rudder A whole different kind of flying. They'll fly sideways all day. You've got to bank the wings to turn the airplane.
Speaker 1:A whole different kind of flying.
Speaker 2:And you don't have any instruments to help. Yeah, there's no flight instruments. Maybe you got a little glass tube that shows you how many gallons you got left, possibly, but those things you only fly in like no wind days and from airports that have plenty of grass around them, and from airports that have plenty of grass around them, because you might end up coming down anywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But he's a fascinating man to talk to and I used to go see him every time I went to Oshkosh. He was there and years later I looked him up on Google and found out he had a brother and it was the two of them that had restored the airplane. So if you look up Dale Kreitz on Google, you get the story. I'll have to check it out. C-r-i-t-e-s.
Speaker 1:A couple of farm boys you know, yeah, it almost feels like your world was small, kind of all along, Like you've always had these groups of people or these you know your interests, where you would go. I mean the world's big right, but wherever you went you seemed to make it seem like home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never felt out of place anywhere really. Yeah, that's kind of the sense that I get Is that yeah, I mean, I'm a Christian, I know God sees everything, so he's with me all the time. Right, remember that book. God is my Co-Pilot.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do by.
Speaker 2:Robert Johnson. Yep.
Speaker 1:And what an appropriate book for you.
Speaker 2:I adopted it as my own. You know, I always felt he was looking right over my shoulder, no matter what I was doing, so I had to act accordingly.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, if you reflect on your life too, you've always had that guardian angel, because even when bad things have happened, good things have come out of it. I think a lot of that's just your attitude, though you determine. What was it? That's been said that life is 1% of what happens to you and 99% of how you react to it.
Speaker 2:It could be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that you're kind of an example of it. Really depends on your attitude and how you react to things.
Speaker 2:Well, I kind of feel my attitude is, from wherever it came, has given me like a second chance every time. Yeah, I always look for the positive things whenever something happens and I say, well, I may have lost this, but at least I can do that. Right, you know yeah. The hardest thing was when the FAA decided my medical didn't qualify me to fly anymore. And uh, I mean, I went to a doctor for a flight physical and he said nope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that must've been a tough day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. That's when I learned out for sure I was diabetic and I should start looking into that. And I did and learned that I got it from Agent Orange, amongst other things, some of which have not bothered me yet. I've got a heart problem that is benign. I do have neuropathy in my hands and feet, but I'm on medication for that. I never was a smoker, so I don't have to deal with all that issue.
Speaker 1:Right, never got into drugs or heavy use of alcohol or anything like that. I think it's close to good, clean living as you can get Really. I mean you've really taken care of yourself and you have your faith and your health and your family.
Speaker 2:And my faith really has led me into a position where I'm always looking out to try to help somebody else, maybe somebody not as fortunate. I've always come to bat for the young, you know, the less fortunate. Yeah, it started with bullies. I responded badly to bullies.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think I remember a story about that too.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think I remember a story about that too, and I realized the best way to deal with bullies is to go up to the biggest guy in the bunch and take him down, uh-huh, or scare him so bad. He didn't want anything to do with me and for the most part it worked yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I think bullies are just insecure people. Oh yeah, they pick on people weaker than them, right? And the minute you challenge that, they aren't so tough anymore. Yeah Well, I appreciate you spending all this time with me talking, and we definitely have to make sure that we go to lunch when I'm out here for other stories. But, don, thanks again for spending time with me. This has been amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh, you've been a good interviewer, Bill. Thank you.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that.
